ooing is not a Slav custom, but is specially noticed by classic
authors as a characteristic of the ancient Balkan tribes. Neither
have the Bosnians, as a whole, ever been attached to the Orthodox
Church as have the remainder of the Balkan Slavs.

The early history of the Slavs in the Peninsula is obscure. They
were a tribal people, and were for some time dominated by the
Bulgars. Not till the end of the twelfth century did they unite
under their very able line of Nemanja princes and rise to be a
power. Even under the Nemanjas the local chieftains were
semi-independent, and their inability to cohere proved the undoing
of the realm.

Bosnia at an early date--it is said A.D. 940--was ruled by elective
Bans. Stefan Nemanja the First Crowned of Serbia, called himself
King of Serbia, Dalmatia and Bosnia, but the title seems to have
been but nominal. The Bans did as they pleased and intrigued
constantly with the Hungarians against the Serbs. The Bosniaks, too,
became sharply divided from the Serbs by religion. Already in
Justinian's time many of the Slavs near the Dalmatian coast had been
converted to Christianity by priests from Rome, and much of the
Herzegovina has ever since been Catholic. The mass of the Slavs,
however, were pagan till the ninth century, when they were converted
by the great mission led by Cyril and Methodius from Salonika.

Manicheism had already, in Justinian's time, taken a strong hold in
the Balkan Peninsula. It now became amalgamated with a form of
Christianity. A sect known as the Paulicians arose in Samosata in
Asia Minor, which combined Manicheism with a peculiar reverence for
the teaching of St. Paul. Fiercely persecuted by the Christians,
they revolted, joined with the Mahommedans, and wasted much of Asia
Minor. The Emperor Constantino Copronymus (A.D. 741), in order to
weaken them, transported a great number to Thrace to serve as
frontier guards. John I. Zimisces (A.D. 969) settled another large
body in the Balkan valleys. Thence their doctrines spread fast. It
would be of interest to know how much of their physical qualities
were transmitted also. The new faith was known as Bogumil (dear to
God) from its reputed Slav leader.

The rapidity with which it spread shows the very slight hold
Christianity had as yet taken. The sun and the moon, which figured
prominently in it, probably appealed to the old pre-Christian
nature-worship of the Slavs. Alexius Comnenus vainly tried to
extirpate the h