Bosnia (early medieval)

Bosnia (Βοσωνα/Bosona, Bosna), in the Early Middle Ages to early High Middle Ages, was a territorially and politically defined entity, governed at first by knez and then by a ruler with the ban title, possibly from at least 838 AD. Situated, broadly, around upper and middle course of the Bosna river, between valleys of the Drina river on the east and the Vrbas river on the west, which comprise a wider area of central and eastern modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. The very nucleus where the first Bosnian state emerged and had developed is Visoko valley, surrounding a wider area of modern-day town of Visoko. The early Bosnia, according to Vego and Mrgić, as well as Hadžijahić and Anđelić, was situated, broadly, around the Bosna river, between its upper and the middle course: in the south to north direction between the line formed by its source and the Prača river in the south, and the line formed by the Drinjača river and the Krivaja river (from Olovo, downstream to town of Maglaj), and Vlašić mountain in the north, and in the west to east direction between the Rama-Vrbas line stretching from the Neretva to Pliva in the west, and the Drina in the east, which is a wider area of central and eastern modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. Confirmation of its emergence and territorial distribution comes from historiographical interpretation of Bar's Chronicle in modern and post-modern scholarship, which situate the state around the Upper Bosna river and the Upper Vrbas river, including Uskoplje, Pliva and Luka. This also suggest that this distribution from the Bosna river valley into the Vrbas river valley is the earliest recorded. These three small parishes will later become a quintessence for emergence of Donji Kraji county, before they were reclaimed as Kotromanić's demesne, after 1416 and death of Hrvoje Vukčić. The western Balkans had been reconquered from "barbarians" by Roman Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565). Sclaveni (Slavs) raided the western Balkans, including Bosnia, in the 6th century.