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Early Medieval Hum and Bosnia,
ca. 450–1200

This book explores social transformations which led to the establishment of

medieval Hum (future Herzegovina) and Bosnia in the period from ca. 450 to
1200 AD using the available written and material sources. It follows social
and political developments in these historical regions from the last centuries
of Late Antiquity, through the social collapse of the seventh and eighth cen-
turies, and into their new medieval beginnings in the ninth century.
Fragmentary and problematic sources from this period were, in the past,
often used to justify modern political claims to these contested territories and
incorporate them into the ‘national biographies’ of the Croats, Serbs and
Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), or to support the ‘Yugoslavizing’ and other
ideological discourses.
The book goes beyond ideological and national mythologemes of the past
in order to provide a new historical narrative that brings more light to this
region placed on the frontiers of both the medieval West and the Byzantine
empire. It provides new views of the period between ca. 450 and 1200 for the
parts of Western Balkans and Eastern Adriatic, brings the most recent local
historical and archaeological research to the Anglophone readership and
contributes to the scholarship of the late antique and early medieval
Mediterranean study of this very poorly known area.
The book is intended for academic audiences interested in history and
archaeology of the Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages, but also to all
those interested in the general history of Herzegovina, Bosnia, Dalmatia and
the Balkans.

Danijel Džino is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and

Archaeology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. His publications
include: From Justinian to Branimir: The Making of the Middle Ages in
Dalmatia (2021), Becoming Slav, Becoming Croat: Identity Transformations
in Post-Roman Dalmatia (2010) and Illyricum in Roman Politics, 229 BC–AD
68 (2010).
Studies in Medieval History and Culture

Recent titles include

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Edited by Beata Możejko, Anna Paulina Orłowska and Leslie Carr-Riegel

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Edited by Minoru Ozawa, Thomas W. Smith, and Georg Strack

The Door of the Caliph

Concepts of the Court in the Umayyad Caliphate of al-Andalus
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Early Medieval Hum and Bosnia, ca. 450–1200

Beyond Myths
Danijel Džino

For more information about this series, please visit:

https://www.routledge.com/Studies-in-Medieval-History-and-Culture/
book-series/SMHC
Early Medieval Hum and
Bosnia, ca. 450–1200
Beyond Myths

Danijel Džino
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Danijel Džino
The right of Danijel Džino to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accord-
ance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permis-
sion in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Džino, Danijel, author.
Title: Early medieval Hum and Bosnia, c.450-1200 : beyond myths / Danijel
Džino.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Series:
Studies in medieval history and culture | Includes bibliographical
references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022060301 (print) | LCCN 2022060302 (ebook) | ISBN
9781032047928 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032047935 (pbk) | ISBN 9781003194705 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Herzegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina)--History--To 1500. |
Bosnia and Herzegovina--History--To 1463. | Herzegovina (Bosnia and
Herzegovina)--Antiquities. | Bosnia and Herzegovina--Antiquities. |
Herzegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina)--Historiography. | Bosnia and
Herzegovina--Historiography.
Classification: LCC DR1775.H47 D95 2023 (print) | LCC DR1775.H47 (ebook)
| DDC 949.742/01--dc23/eng/20221220
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022060301
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022060302
ISBN: 978-1-032-04792-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-04793-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-19470-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003194705
Typeset in Times New Roman
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
Contents

List of Figures viii

List of Maps ix
Acknowledgments x
List of Abbreviations xi

Introduction 1
Terminology 4
Overview of the chapters 4
Notes 7

1 Setting the stage 8

Geography 8
Hum 8
Bosnia 11
Hum and Bosnia as contested lands 13
Sources 17
Late Antiquity and Dark Ages 18
Early medieval sources 19
De Administrando Imperio and Historia Veneticorum 21
The Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja 23
Notes 26

2 (A long overdue) essay on historiography and archaeology

of late antique and early medieval Hum and Bosnia 29
Historiography 30
Beginnings 30
The ‘Long’ nineteenth century, until 1914 32
The ‘Short’ twentieth century, until 1991 35
Most recent scholarship 43
vi Contents
Archaeology 46
The colonial period 47
The Yugoslav period 48
Post-Yugoslav era 51
Conclusion 52
Notes 53

3 The Prelude: making of imperial society 57

Making of Roman society 58
Beginning of Late Antiquity 66
Conclusion 70
Notes 71

4 ‘Long’ sixth century (ca. 450–630) 74

Historical narrative 75
Christianity 79
Burials 82
Fortifications and settlement patterns 88
Connectivity and production 99
Conclusion 102
Notes 104

5 The Dark Age interlude (ca. 630–800) 111

The question of collapse 111
Dark Ages 116
Conclusion 120
Notes 122

6 ‘The force awakening’: the ninth century 124

Historical picture 124
Ethnography and political architecture 126
Material evidence 135
Hum 135
Bosnia 143
Conclusion 157
Notes 158

7 The lords of Hum (900–1200) 165

Duke Michael, son of Bouseboutzsis 165
Hum from Michael to the Nemanjićs 169
 Contents vii
Material evidence 180
Hum: from ethnic community to medieval polity 187
Notes 188

8 ‘Good ol’ days of ban Kulin’: the birth of

Bosnia (900–1200) 193
The mists of early medieval Bosnia 193
Between the Hungarians and Byzantines 197
Ban Kulin 203
Material evidence 210
Bosnia: making of medieval community 216
Notes 217

Conclusion 221
Note 223

Bibliography 224
Primary sources 224
Modern literature 227
Index 266
Figures

3.1 Inscription of T. Flavius Valens from Breza (photo: A. Lepić).

© Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo 59
3.2 Silvanus and Diana from Ograja-Putovići (photo: Ikbal Coga).
© Muzej grada Zenice, Zenica 65
4.1 Plan of Mogorjelo castellum with chronological phases and
graves, from Džino forthcoming, © author, after plan from
Basler 1958 and data from Dyggve and Wetters (1966).
Numeration of graves in numbers is taken from Dyggve
and Wetters, while numeration in letters is added by author 86
4.2 Bent-stem fibulae: (a, b) Debelo Brdo; (c) Mogorjelo (photo:
A. Lepić). © Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo 91
4.3 (a) Zoomorphic belt buckle from Proboj-Ljubuški;
(b) bird-shaped fibula from Grude (photo: A. Lepić).
© Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo 97
6.1 Warrior grave in Vukodol with reconstruction, from Milošević
and Peković (2022: 55), pic. 24. © Ante Milošević 132
6.2 Some finds from Grave 112 in Mihaljevići cemetery: (a) cast
grape-shaped earring; (b) glass-paste necklace (photo: A. Lepić).
© Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo 144
6.3 The tombstone of Great Kaznac Nespina (photo: A. Lepić).
© Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo 148
6.4 Early medieval inscription from Breza 1 (photo: A. Lepić).
© Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo 150
6.5 Plan of Breza 2. © Author after the data from Bojanovski,
Basler and Sergejevski’s plan of the building published
in Bojanovski and Čelić (1969: 9) 151
6.6 Breza 2 building – current, conservated state and reconstruction,
from Milošević (2011: 128, fig. 143). © Ante Milošević 153
6.7 Unpublished inscription from Breza (photo: A. Lepić).
© Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo 155
8.1 Inscription of ban Kulin from Biskupići (photo: A. Lepić).
© Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo 208
Maps

1.1 Hum and Bosnia in modern geography 10

3.1 The sites from the Roman era (future Bosnia) 60
3.2 The sites from the Roman era (future Hum) 61
4.1 The sites from the Late Antiquity (future Bosnia) 76
4.2 The sites from the Late Antiquity (future Hum) 77
5.1 The sites from the Dark Ages (future Bosnia) 114
5.2 The sites from the Dark Ages (future Hum) 115
6.1 Political situation before 950, according to
De Administrando Imperio 128
6.2 The sites from the ninth century (Bosnia) 136
6.3 The sites from the ninth century (Hum) 137
7.1 Political communities in the mid-twelfth century, with
Hum’s županijas from CPD 176
7.2 The sites in Hum (900–1200) 181
8.1 The sites in Bosnia (900–1200) 211
Acknowledgments

I am immensely grateful to Routledge editor Michael Greenwod for initiating

and supporting the idea for this book. The draft of the manuscript was read
by Florin Curta and Mladen Ančić, who both offered great ideas and con-
structive criticism. Whatever errors remain are my own. I am also grateful to
the Zemaljski Muzej u Sarajevu (Mirsad Sijarić, Ana Marić, Adisa Lepić),
Zenica City Museum (Adnadin Jašarević) and Ante Milošević for images,
and Ivan Basić and Nikola Jakšić for help with inscriptions. My gratitude
also goes to Ewan Coopey, a young scholar in Roman Dalmatia who metic-
ulously and eloquently edited the manuscript.
This work has been supported by the “Research Cooperability” Program
of the Croatian Science Foundation, funded by the European Union through
the European Social Fund under the Operational Programme Efficient
Human Resources 2014–2020, within the project PZS-2019-02-1624 –
GLOHUM – Global Humanisms: New Perspectives on the Middle Ages
(300–1600).
Finally, for everything I am grateful to my family – to my wife Irena Majić,
long-distance daughter Ariel Džino and most of all to Judita Nemira Džino,
who will very soon became aware that she carries deep inside herself parts of
both Hum and Bosnia.
This book is dedicated to my mother Ljubica Ostojić, grandmother Kosara
Ostojić and her ‘prince Vladimir’ – my grandfather Nenad Ostojić. May they
rest in peace.
Abbreviations

(Journals, Book Series, Institutions, Publishers)

ActIllyr Acta Illyrica

AE L’Année Epigraphique
AlBiH Arheološki leksikon Bosne i Hercegovine, 3 vols. ed. B.
̌
Cović (Sarajevo: ZMBiH, 1988)
AMS Arheološki muzej u Splitu
AMZg Arheološki muzej u Zagrebu
ANUBiH Akademija nauka i umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine,
Sarajevo
ArchAdr Archeologia Adriatica
AP Arheološki pregled
ArhVest Arheološki vestnik
ARR Arheološki radovi i rasprave
BAR British Archaeological Reports – International Series,
Oxford
BASD Bulletino di archaeologia e storia delmata
CEFR Collection de l’École française de Rome
CFHB Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae:
- SB (Series Berolinensis)
- SP (Series Parisiensis)
CSR Croatian Studies Review
DSA Dubrovnik State Archive
ECEE East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages,
450–1450
Fenomen “krstjani” Fenomen “krstjani” u srednjovjekovnoj Bosni i Humu:
zbornik radova (Sarajevo & Zagreb: Institut za istoriju
& Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2005)
GodCBI Godišnjak Centra za balkanološka ispitivanja
GZM Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja u Bosni i Hercegovini (series
1, 1889–1943)
GZMS Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja u Sarajevu: Archaeology
(series 2, 1946–)
xii Abbreviations
GZMS: H & E Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja u Sarajevu: History and
Ethnography (series 2, 1946–)
HAD Hrvatsko arheološko društvo
HAM Hortus artium medievalium
HAG Hrvatski arheološki godišnjak
Hercegovina published by Museum of Hercegovina in Mostar
Hercegovina (ser. 2) published by University of Mostar (1995–2011)
Hercegovina, n.s. published by University of Mostar (2015–)
HiK Hrvati i Karolinzi: Rasprave i vrela (Vol. 1); Hrvati i
Karolinzi: Katalog (Vol. 2), ed. A. Milošević (Split:
MHAS, 2000)
HistAnt Histria antiqua
HZ Historijski zbornik
JAZU/HAZU Jugoslavenska/Hrvatska akademija znanosti i
umjetnosti
JRA Journal of Roman Archaeology
LAA Late Antique Archaeology
LCL Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge MA)
MakPrim Makarsko primorje
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
MGH: AA MGH: Auctores Antiquissimi
MGH: EKA MGH: Epistolae Karolini Aevi
MGH: Epp. MGH: Epistolae
MGH: SS rer. Germ. MGH: Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum
scholarum separatim editi
MHAS Muzej hrvatskih arheoloških spomenika u Splitu
MTA Magyar Tudományos Akadémia
OpArch Opuscula archaeologica (Zagreb)
PIAZ Prilozi Instituta za arheologiju u Zagrebu
PovPril Povijesni prilozi
PPUD Prilozi povijesti umjetnosti u Dalmaciji
Radovi ZHP Radovi Zavoda za hrvatsku povijest
RFFZd Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Zadru
SHP Starohrvatska prosvjeta (series 3)
SMA Studia Mediterranea Archaeologica
VAHD/VAPD Vjesnik za arheologiju i historiju/povijest dalmatinsku
VAMZ Vjesnik Arheološkog muzeja u Zagrebu (series 3)
Vat. Lat. Vaticanus Latinus
Vat. Urb. Lat. Vaticanus Urbinas Latinus
WMBH Wissenschaftliche Mitteilungen aus Bosnien und der
Herzegowina (1893–1910)
ZRVI Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta
ZMS Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo
Introduction

This book explores the establishment and early development of two medieval
political communities, Hum and Bosnia, until 1200. These medieval ‘lands’
developed on the ruins of the ancient and late antique province of Dalmatia
around the lower stream of the river Neretva and upper stream of the river
Bosna. As we will see in the Chapter 1, the eventful history of this part of the
world was preserved in the names of several territorial and political entities
throughout the period of the Ottoman rule from the fifteenth to the later
nineteenth centuries, making them useful building blocks for developing a
new political concept of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is synonymous with
the now-independent country of the same name. However, it cannot be over-
stated that the territory of medieval Hum (and its late medieval reincarna-
tion, Herzegovina) and Bosnia are not identical to the territory of modern
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus, whilst they overlap to a certain degree, it
would be methodologically wrong to think of this book as dealing with late
antique or early medieval Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This is my third monograph related to the development of medieval society
on the eastern Adriatic coast and its hinterland. The first book (Becoming
Slav) laid down the theoretical foundations for explaining the transition and
social change from late antique to early medieval society in Dalmatia.1 It ques-
tioned whether this transformation could be better explained as an identity
shift, rather than use the prevalent notion of mass migration and settlement
of the Slavs in the seventh century. Based on these theoretical considerations,
the second book (From Justinian) examined the available archaeological,
epigraphic and written evidence in the period between the sixth and late ninth
centuries in Dalmatia in order to reconstruct the process of social transforma-
tion from late antique into medieval society and to outline its consecutive
phases.2 However, while trying to provide a picture of the transformations that
include the whole territory of late antique Dalmatia, the quantity and quality
of the available evidence inevitably drove my research focus towards the
coastal cities and their immediate hinterlands. Thus, these two previous stud-
ies were more concerned with the development of the early medieval duchy of
Dalmatia and Liburnia, later known as the duchy/kingdom of the Croats (or
kingdom of Dalmatia and Croatia). As such, other parts of late antique
Dalmatia consequentially received a more or less peripheral treatment.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003194705-1
2 Introduction
In order to gain a more complete understanding of how medieval society
in the eastern Adriatic and its hinterland developed, it is now necessary to
turn the focus towards areas for which available evidence is scarcer and where
the making of the Middle Ages was taking somewhat different directions.
The first area under consideration is most of modern Herzegovina, with the
addition of the coastal strip from the river Cetina to Dubrovnik, where
medieval sources recognize a well-defined political entity known as the Land
of Hum (terra del Chelm, Humska zemlja). Continental parts of this region
in the fifteenth century became integrated into a new political unit known as
Herzegovina (the land of the Herzog), as shown in Chapter 1. The second
region is the upper flow of the river Bosna in modern central Bosnia, which
represents the territorial and administrative core of the Bosnian banate,
which became a short-lived kingdom between 1377 and 1463.
The existing research on these medieval ‘lands’3 remains problematic
because of the lack of sources and the fact that the significance of both –
Hum and Bosnia – in the more recent national narratives of the Croats, Serbs
and Bosnian Muslims (from 1993 known as the Bosniaks) transforms them
into contested spaces used and abused as justification for modern political
claims.4 For that reason, the foundations of local historiographies, on which
inevitably rest modern scholarship, are riddled with nationalistic mythol-
ogemes. On the other hand, historiographic and archaeological research dur-
ing the times of the Federal Communist Yugoslavia (1945–1991) was affected
by ‘Yugoslavizing’ discourse that distorted the research of this period in
somewhat different ways. Bosnia and Herzegovina was a federal republic
with a particular function: to act as a buffer zone between Serbia and Croatia,
and to play the role of an integrative state-building medium within dominant
‘brotherhood-and-unity’ Communist Yugoslav ideology. Thus, as discussed
in Chapter 2, some interpretations of early medieval Hum and Bosnia in this
period projected Yugoslav ideological mythologemes into the past. As we will
see, in order to construct historical narratives for Hum and Bosnia, local
historiography5 traditionally relied on fragmentary, sometimes even partly
fictional, written sources with blatant disregard for archaeological evidence.
This provided a very blurry and unclear picture of the period under consid-
eration which slid into different ideological narratives. At the same time, the
early medieval history of these ‘lands’ is poorly known and mostly avoided in
the discussions outside the regional scholarship, with only a few notable
exceptions which will be also discussed.
However, the eastern Adriatic and its hinterland were an integral part of
the late antique and early medieval world, and both of these medieval ‘lands’
are no exception – they actively negotiated their position within the early
medieval interaction networks on the Byzantine north-western frontiers
before 1204. The ultimate aim of the book is to trace the formation and
shaping of these two medieval ‘lands’ and examine their place between early
medieval political forces in the Adriatic and the Adriatic hinterland, such as
the kingdoms and duchies of Croatia, Raška Serbia, Duklja, Hungary and
 Introduction 3
the Republic of Venice, as well as the Bulgar and Byzantine empires. The
main intention of the book is to go ‘beyond myths’ by providing a modern
assessment of the period, which utilizes archaeological and historical
sources to make a more reliable referential point for general histories of the
medieval west, east-central and south-eastern Europe, as well as the
Byzantine empire.6 It also aims to contribute to local historical narratives by
filling this blank spot with new interpretations based on more recent theo-
retical frameworks. Beyond these, rather obvious intentions, the book will
also assess whether the development of Hum and Bosnia contributed
towards the maintenance of cultural unity within post-Roman and early
medieval Dalmatia, or, instead, acted as an important step towards its
fragmentation.
In some ways, the area and period under consideration represent a ‘final
frontier’ for me, mostly on account of its frustrating lack of sources – both
written and archaeological. Only closer to the year 1200 does the number
of reliable written and epigraphic sources start to increase, and it is not
surprising that the later medieval period in both of these regions has
attracted disproportionally more attention. Thus, it is clear from the begin-
ning that this book will not be able to provide all the answers about social
transformations taking place in these six centuries in the same way as the
much-better-explored eastern Adriatic coast and the hinterland between
Split and Zadar. Still, my hope is that the present study will provide a reli-
able foundation for future research, especially in archaeology, as it is highly
unlikely that more high-quality written sources will be discovered in the
future.
The historical time span of the present study stretches from the mid-fifth
century all the way through to the end of the twelfth century. As with the two
previous books, I think that the development of medieval society within the
provincial boundaries of ancient Dalmatia, as well as in the whole of the
Balkan peninsula and central Europe, cannot be properly understood with-
out addressing the starting point of their societal transformations in Late
Antiquity. The mid-fifth century is thus taken as the convenient starting point
of this book, reviewing the (mostly archaeological) evidence from the very
end of Late Antiquity in the territories of future Hum and Bosnia. The end-
ing point of ca. 1200 is chosen for several reasons. On the one hand, at that
time, early medieval Hum appears as a fully formed medieval ‘land’ with
developed political institutions and a distinct regional and political identity,
regardless of who its present overlord was. On the other, at this period on the
Hungarian–Byzantine frontier, early medieval Bosnia also starts to shape
into a recognisable regional political force – one which will play an important
role in the later medieval period, especially after 1300. At the same time, the
turn of the thirteenth century is the period when the Byzantine empire, an
important outside player that significantly impacted early medieval politics,
permanently leaves the stage in this part of the Balkans after Crusaders sack
Constantinople in 1204.
4 Introduction
Terminology
It is necessary to provide here in very brief terms some information about the
terminology used in the book, keeping in mind those readers who might not
be too familiar with this part of the world. The local term ‘Hum’ is preferred
to the Latin Chelm for description of the early medieval Land of Hum, in the
same way the term Zahumlje is preferred to the Latin or Greek equivalent. In
the same manner, the terms ‘Humljani’ and ‘Zahumljani’ are used for the
local population as well as ‘Duklja/Dukljani’ for the Doclea/Docleans and
‘Travunjani’ for inhabitants of Travunia. The term ‘Herzegovina,’ which
overlaps in most parts with early medieval Hum, is used to depict a geopolit-
ical formation founded in the fifteenth century, and its later incarnations. The
situation with the term Bosnia is more complicated. This book uses the term
‘Bosnia and Herzegovina’ to refer to the modern political formation estab-
lished with Austro-Hungarian occupation in 1878, which was, with minor
changes, incorporated into the Yugoslav federation in 1945, and which
became an independent country in 1992. While Anglo-Saxon literature and
popular discourse often abbreviates Bosnia and Herzegovina into ‘Bosnia’
for brevity of expression, the elimination of Herzegovina in a local context
carries a very clear political message. As the majority of modern-day inhab-
itants of Herzegovina are Serbs and Croats, dropping ‘Herzegovina’ from the
name of the country in this way indicates one’s conscious or subconscious
affiliation with the political aims towards unitarization of the modern coun-
try and construction of a trans-ethnic ‘Bosnian’ identity.7 The term ‘Bosnia’
is applied here only to medieval contexts in reference to the distinct polity
(Bosnian banate, Bosnian kingdom), or in a narrower context in reference to
its central ‘land’ in the upper flow of the river Bosna, as described in Chapters
2 and 8. The only exceptions are the references to localities in ‘modern-day
Bosnia’ indicating common modern geographical understandings of Bosnia,
which is much wider than the original medieval Bosnian ‘land.’ In regard to
medieval epigraphy, the term ‘western Cyrillic’ is preferred, as it is more
inclusive than the other terms often used, such as: ‘Bosnian Cyrillic’ (bosa-
nčica), ‘Bosnian epigraphic Cyrillic’ or ‘Croatian Cyrillic’ (arvatica). Finally,
in regard to modern nations, the distinction is made between the Bosnian
Muslims and the post-1993 term ‘Bosniaks.’ While these terms depict the
same population with the same traditions, the official decision to change the
name consciously and unconsciously changed the strategies in which the dis-
course on this modern nation is self-constructed. For this reason, it would be
methodologically wrong to reflect the term ‘Bosniaks’ in the past, where it
had different meanings.

Overview of the chapters

Chapter 1 discusses the change in meanings of the terms ‘Hum-Herzegovina’
and ‘Bosnia’ throughout the medieval and modern historical contexts. It also
explains the significance of these regions in the modern national narratives of
 Introduction 5
the Croatians, Serbs and the Bosniaks, which are deeply embedded in the
existing historical interpretations on a local level. The chapter also presents
the most significant geographical features of these regions and their impact
on the availability of resources and connectivity. Finally, it outlines the most
significant written sources for the late antique and early medieval period,
with particular attention paid to the Byzantine treaty De Administrando
Imperio (DAI) from the mid-tenth century, The History of Venetians by John
the Deacon from the early eleventh century and the partly fictional Chronicle
of the Priest of Duklja (CPD) from the late twelfth century.
Chapter 2 provides a detailed overview of the existing scholarly research
on late antique and early medieval Hum and Bosnia before 1200. The first
part of the chapter outlines the historiographical development, from the first
important works of the seventeenth century. A particular emphasis is placed
upon the identification of the function scholarly works played within local
national narratives, as well as the treatment of this topic in works by scholars
outside the region. The second part of the chapter analyses archaeological
interpretations, from the most significant developmental phases of Austro-
Hungarian colonial archaeology until 1918, to the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav
periods.
Chapter 3 briefly overviews the period in which the areas around the upper
stream of the Bosna, and the areas around the lower stream of the Neretva,
transformed following the Roman conquest that ended with the closure of
the Batonian war in AD 9 and resulted in the establishment of the imperial
province of Dalmatia. The evidence highlights two different trajectories of
development: faster social change in the south; and slower, more gradual
change in the northern communities. Nevertheless, the outcome was the same
– by the fourth century, both areas were functioning as parts of the Dalmatian
provincial system and wider imperial social, political and economic systems.
The changes starting in the later fourth century and accelerating in the fifth
century are difficult to map on account of the lack of more precise dating
methods, but they do not appear so different from what was happening in the
rest of the empire, especially in its western regions.
Chapter 4 explores the evidence from the territory of future Hum and
Bosnia dating to Late Antiquity, after ca. 450. The purpose of the chapter is
to sketch social and political structures existing prior to the end of Late
Antiquity in this part of the Adriatic hinterland. As no specific narrative
written sources exist, aside from evidence concerned with existence of late
antique bishoprics in the sixth century, the chapter positions this part of
Dalmatia within a wider historical context and focuses on the available
archaeological evidence. Similarities in material culture in the period from ca.
450 to the Byzantine withdrawal in the 620s, and problems relating to precise
dating, provide grounds to methodologically define these 170 years in future
Hum and Bosnia as a separate chronological period: a ‘long’ sixth century.
The material evidence consulted in this chapter is dominated by the remains
of early Christian basilicas, burials and fortifications – which are analysed in
some detail to outline the social structure and economy of the region – along
6 Introduction
with numismatics and ceramic evidence for the importation of amphorae and
other pottery. As shown, both regions remain integrated in Dalmatian and
wider Mediterranean systems of exchange and elite social networks.
Chapter 5 will assess the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ starting with the Byzantine
withdrawal from the Dalmatian hinterland in the 620s and lasting until the
late eighth century. The period is extremely poorly documented, with no writ-
ten sources and very little material evidence that can be securely attested in
this era. As the chapter shows, the existing archaeological evidence from the
future Hum and Bosnia supports a picture of small, archaeologically invisi-
ble, local communities persisting in this period. The available archaeological
evidence for migration and settlement of outside migrant groups is almost
non-existent, especially before the end of the seventh century. This contra-
dicts the currently widely accepted notion that late antique Dalmatia was
settled by the Slavs in the seventh century, which is drawn from later written
sources such as the DAI from the mid-tenth century.
Chapter 6 maps the significant social changes, which start around 800.
These changes are detectable in the material record and evidenced by the
appearance of Carolingian-related material in parts of future Hum, as well
as contemporary renovations of central Bosnian basilicas from the late
antique era. This is followed by material evidence which indicates the appear-
ance of migrating groups, as well as interactions between the descendants of
the late antique populations in the region and these migrant groups through-
out the ninth century – interactions and movements which result in the
appearance and entrenchment of new elites by the end of the century. These
changes are viewed in a wider comparative perspective which considers the
social transformations and population movements taking place in other parts
of Dalmatia adjacent to the regions under consideration.
Chapter 7 provides an account of Hum from the times of the historically
attested duke Michael in the early tenth century to the disappearance of
Byzantium as a political actor from these areas after the death of Emperor
Manuel Comnenus. Specific attention is placed upon the integration of the
polity of the Narentani with the Zahumlje, and the position of this entity
between its neighbours: the Byzantines, Bulgars, Croats, Serbs and Dukljani.
The chapter investigates the sparse (and problematic) sources, such as De
Administrando Imperio, The Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja, the problem-
atic charters of local rulers, the rare inscriptions in Latin or western Cyrillic
script and any other mention of the area in Byzantine, Venetian or other
sources. The archaeology of the area will be also used to fill in the gaps of the
written sources, with the chapter discussing churches, cemeteries and fortifi-
cations from this period.
Chapter 8 focuses on the modern-day upper flow region of the river Bosna,
which is the core of the medieval Bosnian banate and later kingdom from the
late ninth century to the reign of ban Kulin (before 1180–ca. 1204). The
scarce and fragmentary sources about the beginnings of this polity will be
analysed (DAI, CPD, Hungarian royal charters, Byzantine sources) in order
to grasp at the course of social transformation and the impact of the region’s
 Introduction 7
neighbours (Duklja, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Byzantium). While more
complex social structures and social stratification are undoubtedly attested to
here in the material record of the ninth century, written and epigraphic
sources confirm them only in the twelfth century. Archaeological evidence
precisely dated to this period is less abundant than in Hum, but it does not
contradict the general impression that Bosnia developed as a typical medie-
val political community, not too different from the others in eastern Adriatic
hinterland.
The conclusion will overview the major findings from the preceding chap-
ters and underline commonalities and differences in social transformation
between this part of Dalmatia and neighbouring areas – especially the terri-
tory of the Dalmatian (Croat) duchy, later kingdom.

Notes
1 Dzino 2010a.
2 Džino 2021a.
3 The term ‘land’ used here is equivalent of the German terms Land and Landschaft,
depicting a medieval community capable of political action and bound by defined
territory and common legal and political structures – Brunner 1992: 194, 198;
Schenk 2001. It was successfully applied to the definition of medieval Bosnia and
Hum provided by Ančić 2001: 30–32, 147–149; 2015: 41–52. Mrgić (e.g. 2016:
169–170) defines the term in less convincing ways as economically self-sufficient
and geographically distinct territory.
4 Džaja 2005, 2012: 64–67.
5 The term ‘local historiography’ might be understood these days, by an overzeal-
ous reader, as a derogatory term. It is used here literally – to describe the study of
history in a geographically local context by (most frequently) Serbian, Croatian
and Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak historiography by an author who is proud to be
considered as part of this local historiography.
6 See Curta 2019: 5–11 on these geographical divisions.
7 See Ančić 2015a in English, and Žepić 2006 in Croatian.
1 Setting the stage

This chapter aims to position Hum and Bosnia in time and space by provid-
ing a short account of their geography, underlining their significance in later
historical narratives and giving a short outline of available sources for the
period between ca. 450 and 1200 which will be utilized in the book. These
areas constituted an important part of the Roman province of Dalmatia,
which was established in the first century AD and, with minor changes,
retained its administrative and cultural unity throughout the rest of Antiquity
and Late Antiquity. Future Hum and Bosnia also shared in their historical
experience of societal collapse in the seventh and eighth centuries, as well as
a recovery of complex social systems detectable from the late eighth and early
ninth centuries. From the ninth century, however, influenced by the wider
social networks they belonged to, both started to develop different sets of
social and political networks which led to the establishment of different but
interconnected regional and political identities that we recognize as the medi-
eval ‘lands’ of Hum and Bosnia. Due to complex historical developments
during the medieval and early modern eras, as well as a lack of reliable
sources, both regions became important elements in modern national and
ideological discourses, which became integrated into modern historical
interpretations.

Geography

Hum
The understanding of what constituted medieval Hum changed, to some
degree, throughout the medieval period, so it is not possible to come up with
some strictly defined borders that remain static throughout the centuries. For
the purpose of this book, Hum is considered to be a territory related to two
early medieval ethnonyms – the Zahumljani and Narentani – which at some
point of time grew into a distinct territorial unit enclosing a particular polit-
ical community known as Hum. The term ‘Hum’ was interchangeable in the
sources with the term ‘Zahumlje’ in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but
after the late twelfth century, Zahumlje falls out of use. This region encom-
passes the coastal strip from the modern-day Makarska riviera in Croatia, all
DOI: 10.4324/9781003194705-2
 Setting the stage 9
the way down to Dubrovnik, and outwards to the islands such as Hvar,
Korčula and Mljet. In the hinterland, Hum stretched across modern-day
Herzegovina on both sides of the river Neretva from the township of Imotski,
to the outskirts of Trebinje, then tracked northwards towards the plains
where modern Mostar is situated. This definition of Hum is not generally
accepted in scholarship, and the arguments for defining it this way are laid
out in Chapters 6 and 7. At some point, the coastal area of the Makarska
riviera below the Biokovo mountain chain developed a separate political–
territorial identity known as Krajina. The region is first mentioned in the
conclusions of the Split Council of 1185 when ‘Makarska and the whole of
Krajina’ (Mulcer et totam Crainam) are transferred to the Archbishopry of
Hvar. Krajina is first mentioned as a political entity within the Hungarian–
Croatian commonwealth (personal union) in the 1247 treaty between the
Republic of Dubrovnik and Krajina and its inhabitants: the Krajinani
( ).1
Early medieval Hum was positioned in the central part of the eastern
Adriatic coast and its deeper hinterland (Map 1.1). It spreads along two dis-
tinct geo-ecological zones – the Adriatic coast and its karst hinterland, which
are connected by alluvial plains around the lower stream of the river Neretva.
This in turn allows for an extension of the Mediterranean climate deeper
inland. The zones are sharply divided by the high-rising mountain chains of
the Dinaric Alps, making habitable areas in the coastal belt very narrow and
severely limiting their communication with the hinterland except through the
valley of Neretva. An important geographical feature is the peninsula of
Pelješac, which extends parallel with the coast for some 77 km. Pelješac is
surrounded by an archipelago of islands such as Mljet, Korčula, Hvar,
Lastovo and, further south, the Elaphite islands. It was an important strate-
gic point for controlling navigation in this part of the eastern Adriatic,
including towards the mouth of Neretva (the Neretva Channel). The river
Neretva, flowing into the Adriatic, represents the most significant geograph-
ical feature in this area. Its lower stream is characterized by alluvial plains
and a river delta covered by the wetlands. Drainage and melioration have
changed the landscape of the lower Neretva, which was, until the twentieth
century, covered with a network of interconnected small lakes and water-
ways. Today, only the Hutovo Blato marshes natural reserve remains – a
memory of this network of waterways and marshes.2 Neretva is navigable
some 20 km inland, but its valley provides a reliable land communication
route northwards towards the modern city of Mostar. North of Mostar there
is the impressive canyon of Neretva, which is the main communication route
in the area, with the upper flow of the Neretva and the Mt Ivan pass leading
into modern-day central Bosnia. Some of Neretva’s confluents, such as
Trebižat, connect this river with the limestone karst landscapes of continen-
tal Hum, which are characterized by alluvial depressions known as polje.
These plains are limited spatially by surrounding hills and mountains, while
seasonal flooding in their centres restricted habitation predominantly to the
edges of polje in pre-modern times.
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