LOUIS OF HUNGARY. 303 one of these inquisitors, Fray Juan de Aragon, made numerous converts, after a long and bitter disputation in an heretical assem- bly, by standing unhurt on a blazing pyre ; and how one of his disciples, John, repeated the experience, remaining in the flames while one might chant the Miserere. These miracles, we are told, were very effective, and the stories show that nothing else could have been so. Stephen remained true to his promises, and the Catholic Church commenced to revive. A bull of Clement YI., in 1344, recites that, deceived by the falsehoods of the Franciscan Oeneral Gherardo, he had ordered the Bosnian tithes paid over to the friars on the pretext of rebuilding the churches, but on the representation of Laurence, Bishop of Bosnia, that they belonged to him and that he had no other source of support, he is in future to receive them. At the instance of Clement, in 1345, Stephen consented to allow the return of Valentine, Bishop of Makarska, who for twenty years had been an exile from his see, and the next year a third bishopric, that of Duvno, was erected. The Catharan magnates were restless, however, and when Dusan the Great, in 1350, invaded Bosnia many of them joined him, but their prospects became worse when peace followed in 1351, and when, in 1353, shortly before his death, Stephen married his only child to Louis of Hungary, a zealous Catholic who had succeeded his father, Charles Kobert, in 1342.^ Stephen Kostromanic was succeeded by his young nephew, Stephen Tvrtko, under the regency of his mother, Helena. Under such circumstances, dissatisfied and insubordinate Catharan mag- nates had ample opportunity to produce confusion. Of this fuU ad- vantage was taken by Louis of Hungary as soon as the death of Dusan the Great, in 1355, reheved him from that formidable antag- onist. The Dominicans hastened, in 1356, to obtain from Innocent YL a confirmation of the letters of John XXIL, of 1327, authoriz- ing them to preach a crusade against the heretics with Holy Land indulgences. Louis seized Herzegovina as a dower for his wife Elisabeth, reduced Stephen Tvrtko to the position of a vassal, and forced him to swear to extirpate the Cathari. Not content with this he proceeded to stir up rebellion among the magnates, pro-
- Klaic, pp. 159-61, 181-3.— Wadding, ann. 1340, No. 6-10.— Theiner. op cit
I. 211. ^' '
