HOPELESS DISSENSIONS. 399 heretics gave him poison to drink, but on making the sign of the cross above the cup it became innocuous, which brought him many converts.* This legendary extravagance has some foundation in fact. A bull of Eugenius IV., in 1437, speaks of sixteen Franciscan churches and monasteries destroyed by the Turks within two years, and another grants to the friars who remained certain priv- ileges in hearing confessions, which show that they had been active, and had been winning their way. Giacomo's influence at Stuhlweissenburg is, moreover, indicated by his inducing Sio-is- mund to compel Stephen Tvrtko to undergo baptism, and to issue from that place, in January, 1436, an edict taking the Franciscans under his protection, and permitting them to spread Catholicism throughout Bosnia. In reward for this Sigismund aided his re- turn to his kingdom, which he found possessed partly by Servia, partly by the Turks, and wholly devastated. For what he could obtain of this ruined land he had to render allegiance to Murad II., and to pay him a yearly tribute of twenty-five thousand duc- ats. Wretched as was this simulacrum of royalty, it was incom- patible with the favor which he had been compelled to show to Catholicism. Southern Bosnia by this time was independent un- der Stephen Yukcic, nephew and successor of Sandalj ; as a Cath- aran, he was regarded throughout Bosnia as the defender of the national faith, and, in alliance with Murad II., he overthrew Stephen Tvrtko Il.f In 1444 another king was elected in the person of Stephen Thomas Ostojic, a younger natural son of Ostoja, who had carefully kept himself in obscurity with a low-born Catharan wife, to whom he had been married with the Catharan ceremony— a fact which subsequently served as an excuse for a divorce. Almost the first question which the new king had to decide was whether he would adhere to his religion or cast his fortunes with Catholicism. The Church had not relaxed its efforts to win over the fragments re-
- Wadding, ann. 1433, No. 12-13; ami. 1435, No. 1-7, 9; ann. 1476, No. 39-
40; ann. 1498. No. 2.— ^gid. Carlerii Lib. de Legationibus (Monument. ConciV. General. Saec. XV. T. I. p. 676). t Theiner Monument. Slavor. Merid. I. 375, 376. — Klaic pp 354-6 364-5 369.
