Out of a large number of these Bosnian monuments which we examined here and elsewhere, there was not one on which we could detect the remotest semblance of a cross. Sir Gardner Wilkinson notices, with reference to the Dalmatian tombs, that ‘it is singular that the cross should occur so rarely,’ and supposes that those few monuments on which he found it belong to a later date, when, owing to the Turkish conquests, there was more reason to introduce the distinguishing emblem of Christianity. For my part I cannot think this account satisfactory; but it seems to me that an explanation lies at hand which will make the absence of the cross on these monuments at once intelligible, and may serve as a clue towards unravelling the mystery of their origin.
Ancient Monuments in Želesnica Valley.
The Bogomiles—that strange Manichæan sect whose history has already been touched on, and who appear to have formed the majority of the Bosnian population during the very centuries in which these monuments were erected—shrank with horror from representations of the cross. ‘They abhor the cross as the instrument of Christ’s death,’ says Euthymius,[193] who, from having been commissioned by the Emperor to extract the full tenets of the sect out of its ‘heresiarch’ Basil, is peculiarly qualified to speak on the matter. When pressed by Euthymius as to the reason why the Bogomiles, when vexed with devils, ran to the cross and cried out to it, he made answer that the evil spirits within them loved the cross, for it was their own handiwork. It appeased them, therefore, or enticed them forth. Is not, then, the absence of the cross on these monuments, coupled with the fact of its presence on all undoubtedly orthodox sepulchres throughout these regions, and some of these of considerable antiquity, strong presumptive evidence that they are the work of those old Bosnian puritans?
This reasoning will perhaps appear the more significant when it is added that the modern Bosniacs refer these hoary sepulchres to the Bogomiles.
Thus the voice of tradition, the remarkable conformity of these tombs with a salient peculiarity of the Bogomilian religion, the approximate date of their erection—all point to the same conclusion. Add to these the locality of so many of these ancient graveyards. During the course of our journey through Bosnia we came upon many spots where these interesting monuments existed. They were generally away from towns—in mountain gorges, by unfrequented paths—in the Wilderness, in short, where the Bogomiles took refuge from their Romish oppressors. The secluded position of these tombs recalls the words of Raphael of Volaterra, who speaks of the Manichæan brotherhoods as living in hidden valleys among the mountains of Bosnia.[194] It has already been noticed that the peculiar situation of these sectaries, perhaps too their iconoclastic tenets, made them ready to welcome Mahometan in place of Romish rulers, and favoured that process of renegation which has given us a Sclavonic race of believers in the Prophet. May not this account for the preservation of so many of these monuments, when nearly every other præ-Turkish memorial of Bosnia has been swept away? Is it not conceivable that these renegade Manichees may still have looked with peculiar tenderness on the tombs of their fathers, and have averted the hand of the destroyer? Alas! neither heretic nor infidel has a vates sacer to enlighten us on these sepulchral mysteries; but we at least found it pleasing to believe that the rudely hewn blocks, that we came upon amid primeval forest or solitary mountain glen, were, as the Bosniacs assert, ‘the tombs of the Bogomiles’—the sole material memorials of those staunch upholders of Puritan faith in the days of grosser superstition, whose sweet spiritual influences every reformed church in the world feels still, though it may not acknowledge!
We now crossed the river Bila, into which the Jasenica had debouched, and, ascending the hills to the south-west, presently came in sight of the lately erected Franciscan monastery of Gučiagora—a large white barrack-like pile with a bulbous church tower, situate at the hollow of the hill, at an altitude of 2,300 feet above the sea, according to our reckoning. On a hillock just outside was a curious Christian monument, of evidently considerable antiquity. On one side was a foliated cross of some merit; on the other a Latin cross, showing that it was the work of Roman Catholics, as indeed one would expect from the denomination of the present inhabitants of this neighbourhood. But it belonged to a period when the Illyrian church did not disdain to make use of the national Serbian alphabet, for it presented an inscription, the Cyrillian characters of which the present monks of Gučiagora were unable to decipher.
Making our way through the entrance arch of the monastery, much as if we were entering an Oxford College, we found ourselves in a quadrangle with cloisters below. There a monk came up to us, and bidding us follow him upstairs, conducted us to the guest-chamber, where others of the fraternity soon made their appearance, and received us with right monkish hospitality. They were not slow in perceiving, from our hungry plight, that we stood in need of something more substantial than ghostly comfort; and while some hurried off to their manciple with orders to provide us speedily with a solid refection, others revived our drooping spirits for the moment with native Bosnian wine—fresh from the goat—happily succeeded by Turkish coffee.
The monks were Minorites, of that order of St. Francis of Assisi whose services in combating Bosnian heresy of old have been already recorded.[195] They were fourteen, all told; and certainly, so far as room was concerned, they had power to add to their numbers, for their church forms only one side of their quadrangle, the other three being intended for occupation; and as there are three storeys, and each side has thirty-nine windows looking into the quadrangle, it may be gathered that the monks are not pinched for room.
The church itself, which completed the quadrangle in most appropriately collegiate fashion, was a painful jumble of paint and stucco with wooden pillars, and a few saintly gimcracks. For musical performances it possessed a harmonium, and, like that at Comušina, it was completely devoid of pews.