Kingdom of Bosnia

Origins

Ban Tvrtko I of the Banate of Bosnia, having won lands in western Serbia, was crowned king of the Serbs and Bosnia in 1377 at Mile near Visoko, claiming descent from the Nemanjić dynasty.

Rule and society

Tvrtko expanded to the Adriatic, taking Kotor and much of Dalmatia and Croatia by his death in 1391. Royal power then weakened as great nobles such as Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić and Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, whose lands became Herzegovina, made and unmade kings. Silver from Srebrenica supported the state, and the Bosnian Church, Catholicism and Orthodoxy coexisted. Carved tombstones called stećci mark the burials of the period.

Decline and legacy

The Ottomans took parts of the kingdom from the 1430s. In 1463 Mehmed II invaded, captured Bobovac and executed the last king, Stephen Tomašević, at Jajce. Most of Bosnia became an Ottoman province, while Hungary held a northern banate around Jajce until 1527.