to 1322 the country was ruled by the Croatian princes, Paul and Mladen
Subic, who, though vassals of Hungary, reunited the provinces of Upper
and Lower Bosnia, created by the Hungarians in order to prevent the
growth of a dangerous national unity. A rising of the native magnates in
1322 resulted in the election of the Bogomil, Stephen Kotromanic, last
and greatest of the Bosnian bans.

Stephen Kotromanic.

At this period the Servian empire had reached its zenith; Hungary,
governed by the feeble monarch, Charles Robert of Anjou, was striving to
crush the insurgent magnates of Croatia; Venice, whose commercial
interests were imperilled, desired to restore peace and maintain the
balance of power. Dread of Servia impelled Kotromanic to aid Hungary. In
an unsuccessful war against the Croats (1322-26), from which Venice
derived the sole advantage, the ban appears to have learned the value of
sea-power; immediately afterwards he occupied the principality of Hlum
and the Dalmatian littoral between Spalato and the river Narenta. Ragusa
furnished him with money and a fleet, in return for a guarantee of
protection; commercial treaties with Venice further strengthened his
position; and the Vatican, which had instigated the Croats to invade the
dominions of their heretical neighbour (1337-40), was conciliated by his
conversion to Roman Catholicism. Defeated by the Servian tsar Dushan,
and driven to ally himself with Servia and Venice against Louis I. of
Hungary, Kotromanic returned to his allegiance in 1344. Four years later
his influence brought about a truce between Hungary and the Venetians,
who had agreed with Bosnia for mutual support against the Croats; and in
1353, the year of his death, his daughter Elizabeth was married to King
Louis.

Establishment of the Bosnian kingdom.

Stephen Tvrtko, the nephew and successor of Kotromanic, was a minor, and
for thirteen years his mother, Helena, acted as regent. Confronted by
civil war, and deprived of Hlum by the Hungarians, she was compelled to
acknowledge the suzerainty of Stephen Dushan, and afterwards of Louis.
But in 1366 Tvrtko overcame all opposition at home, and forthwith
embarked on a career of conquest, recapturing Hlum and annexing part of
Dalmatia. The death of Stephen Dushan, in 1356, had left his empire
defenceless against the Hungarians, Turks and other enemies; and to win
help from Bosnia the Servian tsar Lazar ceded to Tvrtko a large tract of
territory, in