The Most Noble and Royal House of Kotromanić. Constructing Dynastic Identity in Medieval Bosnia

Members of the Kotromanić family ruled Bosnia from at least the second half of the thirteenth century, perhaps even earlier, until the Ottoman conquest of the Bosnian Kingdom in 1463.1 During those two centuries of political domination they developed their authority “by divine right” and, apart from a short interruption at the beginning of the 1300s when they were forced to surrender their position to the counts of Bribir for two decades, the supreme position of the dynasty was never seriously challenged. Even though certain kings were deposed from the throne, the alternative ruler was always selected from among the Kotromanići. This allowed Bosnia and its sovereigns to establish a resilient monarchy situated between Latin and Orthodox Christianity, as well as between the Hungarian kings and the Ottoman Sultans, accepting and merging influences from all sides. The rapid territorial and economic development of the state during the reign of Ban Stjepan II (r. 1322 –1353), coupled with the growth of the ruler’s personal prestige, required the construction and promotion of a dynastic identity. This was aided by the fact that members of the Kotromanić family were allied through marriage with many distinguished noble and royal houses in the region. Stjepan II himself was a grandson of the Serbian King Dragutin Nemanjić, and he also descended from the illustrious dynasties of the Hungarian Árpáds, Byzantine Komnenos, Angelos, and Laskaris, as well as from the Venetian Dandolos. Furthermore, Ban Stjepan II married off his daughter Elizabeth to the Angevin King Louis the Great of Hungary, which was a testament that his family was almost on equal footing with the most potent European dynasties of the time. Stjepan’s dynastic enterprise was further developed and enhanced for the coronation programme of his nephew Ban Tvrtko, who ruled from 1353, and was crowned “king of the Serbs and Bosnia” in 1377. The new exalted regal position demanded a change in the way that the ruler and his lineage were perceived, and this was reflected in ruling ideology, heraldry, the emphasis which was placed on genealogy etc. In the fifteenth century,