[190] Dalmatia and Montenegro, by Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, F.R.S., vol. ii. p. 181, &c. For some in Narenta Valley, see p. 31.
[191] The coincidence between the appearance of the moon on these monuments and on the Bosnian arms had already suggested itself to me before I was aware that it had also struck Sir Gardner Wilkinson.
[192] The moon and stars were favourite symbols on Mithraic gems and monuments, which are nowhere more plentiful than in Illyria, if I may judge from personal experience. They were also in vogue with the Gnostics. According to Manes the moon was a purgatory of good spirits; their immediate haven after death. See King’s Gnostics and their Remains. But, for a more probable explanation of the moon and stars on Bosnian arms and monuments, see [page 219].
[193] Euthymius Zygabenus, Panoplia. Presbyter Cosmas, Harmenopulus, and Anna Comnena give the same account. See my [Historical Review of Bosnia].
[194] Raph. Volat. 1-8.
[195] See the introductory [Historical Review of Bosnia].
[196] The respective numbers at the last official return were:—Greeks, 576,756; Mahometans, 442,050.
[198] In Bosnia even the parochial duties are performed by monks of this order, who discard the monastic dress and wear the ordinary civil costume, including cutlasses and pistols. Every three years the chapter of the order (the Provincial, that is, of the Minorites, with a custos and four definitors) elects a ‘mission for the cure of souls,’ and the monks who are doing service an secular priests are either confirmed in their office or exchanged for others. The head or ‘Quardian’ of every monastery is also priest for his district. Thus the parish churches are completely dependent on the Franciscan brotherhood, each monastery possessing so many churches. This at Gučiagora has nine; that at Sutiska, the largest in Bosnia, as many as twenty-two churches. As parish priests, however, the brothers find their allegiance somewhat divided between the Vicar Apostolic of Bosnia and the Provincial of their order. See Thoemmel, Beschreibung des Vilajet Bosnien, p. 96, &c.
[199] Gustav Thoemmel, op. cit. pp. 94-6, gives statistics showing the improved state of the Roman Catholic Church in Bosnia since the establishment of the Austrian Consulate-General in Serajevo. Writing in 1867, he says that in 1850 there were only forty-one parsonages in Bosnia, now sixty-nine. Up to 1860 only the three old monasteries of Sutiska, Foinica, and Kreševo existed; since then three more have been founded, namely this at Gučiagora, one at Gorica, near Livno, and one at Siroki-brieg, in the Herzegovina, six hours west of Mostar. In 1850 the Roman Catholic population was 160,000, in 1874 it had risen to 185,503.