Duke of Croatia Although Tomislav's ancestry is unknown, he might have been a member of the
Trpimirović dynasty. There is a nearly twenty-year difference between the first documentation of Tomislav and the last mention of
Muncimir, his predecessor as Duke of Croatia. Historical records of Tomislav are scarce, but it is assumed that he was a son of Muncimir. Tomislav succeeded Muncimir, son of
Trpimir I, as duke in (the most widely accepted view) or after others ruled following Muncimir's death. In any case, Tomislav came to the Croatian throne some time between 910 and 914. In
Historia Salonitana (
History of Salona), a 13th-century chronicle by
Thomas the Archdeacon of
Split, Tomislav was mentioned as duke of Croatia in 914. After the
Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in the late 9th and early 10th centuries, the Hungarians immediately began raiding and expanding their territory. They threatened
Lower Pannonia (still nominally under Frankish suzerainty) and killed
Braslav, the last Pannonian duke. The Hungarians also fought Croatia, although it was not a primary target of their raids. The
Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja mentions that a Tomislav, the length of whose rule was specified as 13 years, successfully fought the
Battle of Drava River with the Hungarians. Since the Venetian chronicler
Andrea Dandolo and a notary of King
Béla III mention Hungarian victories against Croatia in the same period, however, both sides had gains. Croatia maintained its northern borders and expanded into part of the collapsed Pannonian Duchy, including its former capital
Sisak. The plains north of Sisak were difficult to defend against Hungarian cavalry, but Sisak had been well-fortified since the reign of Duke
Ljudevit. The sparsely populated area between the Sava and Drava rivers was on the outskirts of Hungary and the Duchy of Croatia (centered on the coast), so neither country could strengthen its rule there after the Duchy of Pannonia dissolved. East of Croatia, the First Bulgarian Empire's power increased significantly. After a war between the Bulgarian
knyaz Boris I and Croatian Duke
Trpimir I, Croatian-Bulgarian relations were fairly good.
Papal legates regularly crossed Croatian territory (where they received protection) to Bulgaria. The situation changed in the 10th century during the reign of
Simeon I, who decided to subordinate the Byzantine Empire to himself. in 910 Tomislav's realm covered most of southern and central Croatia and the Dalmatian coast, excluding the Theme of Dalmatia, parts of present-day western
Herzegovina and northern and western Bosnia. During the early 10th century, Croatia was divided into 11 counties: Livno, Cetina, Imotski, Pliva, Pset, Primorje, Bribir, Nona, Knin, Sidraga, and Nin. Three counties (Lika, Krbava, and Gacka) were ruled by a
ban. After its expansion, Tomislav's state presumably contained more than eleven counties. Byzantine emperor and chronicler
Constantine VII writes in
De Administrando Imperio that at its peak, Croatia could have raised a military force composed of 100,000
infantry, 60,000
horsemen, and a naval fleet of 80 large ships and 100 smaller
vessels. However, these figures are viewed as a considerable exaggeration of the size of the Croatian army. According to
palaeographic analysis of the manuscript of
De Administrando Imperio, the population of medieval Croatia was estimated at 440,000 to 880,000; its military force probably consisted of 20,000–100,000 infantrymen and 3,000–24,000 horsemen organized into 60
allagia.
Coronation and Croatian kingdom , 1905) Tomislav had become
King of Croatia by 925, and was the first Croatian ruler whom the
papal chancellery called "king". It is generally said that Tomislav was crowned in 924 or 925, but it is not known exactly when, where, or by whom. Letters in which Tomislav was called king were preserved in a version of Thomas the Archdeacon's 13th-century
History of Salona. A note preceding the proceedings of the 925
Council of Split calls Tomislav king "in the province of the Croats and in the Dalmatian regions" (
in prouintia Croatorum et Dalmatiarum finibus Tamisclao rege). In the council's 12th
canon, the ruler of the Croats is called "king" (
rex et proceres Croatorum); in a letter from
Pope John X, Tomislav is called "King of the Croats" (
filio Tamisclao, regi Crouatorum). Other theories suggested that the pope (or a representative) had Tomislav crowned before the 925 Council of Split, or Tomislav crowned himself.
Councils of Split In 925, Pope John X convened a
church council in Split to decide which bishops in the former
Roman province of Dalmatia would have ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The jurisdiction was contested by
Gregory (the Croatian bishop of Nin) and John, the archbishop of Split. Before the council, Bishop Gregory was responsible for a significantly larger territory than Archbishop John; however, his reputation and finances could not compete with that of the
Archbishopric of Split. Split also claimed continuity with the ancient
Archbishopric of Salona and, due to this tradition, the council confirmed Split as the arch
episcopal see. The territory from the river
Raša in
Istria to
Kotor, including Nin, was subject to Split. The use of the
Croatian language and
Glagolitic script in ecclesiastical services was also discussed. The Pope sought to condemn it but the council allowed its use for local priests and monks, who were prevented from advancing to higher positions. Thomas the Archdeacon did not mention the council in his
Historia Salonitana. He wrote that Split had had ecclesiastical rights over former Roman Dalmatia since the 7th century (contradicting the council proceedings which bestowed the rights to Split in 925), apparently to maintain his narrative's consistency. The council was attended by Tomislav (referred to as a king in related documents) and
Michael of Zahumlje. According to some historians, Michael recognized Tomislav's rule (making
Zachlumia a
vassal state of Croatia). Tomislav did not protest the council's decision. Bishop Gregory appealed to the pope, and a second council (also in Split) was convened in 928 to resolve the controversy and enforce the first council's conclusions. The supremacy of the
metropolitan archbishopric of Split was confirmed, and the
Diocese of Nin was abolished.
War with Bulgaria During Tomislav's rule, the Bulgarian and Byzantine Empires were at war. The Bulgarians under
Emperor Simeon I destroyed the
Principality of Serbia (a Byzantine ally) in 924, forcing Serbian Prince
Zaharija and part of the
Serbian population to flee to Croatia. Croatia (also a Byzantine ally) was now located between Bulgaria and the weakly defended Byzantine
Theme of Dalmatia. Tomislav may have received some control of the Theme of Dalmatia's coastal cities or a share of collected taxes for his assistance to the Byzantine Empire. Although
Byzantium gave Tomislav the honorary title of
proconsul, there is no evidence that it recognized the loss of its rights in the Theme of Dalmatia to Tomislav. Since Croatia was harboring Bulgarian enemies and was allied with the Byzantine Empire, Simeon attacked with an army led by Duke
Alogobotur. Tomislav cut off Alogobotur's advance into Croatia and destroyed his army at the
Croatian–Bulgarian battle of 926, which probably took place in eastern part
Bosnia. After Simeon's death in 927, Pope John X sent
legates with Bishop Madalbert to mediate between Croatia and Bulgaria and restored peace. It is unknown how Tomislav died, but he disappeared from the political scene after 928 and was succeeded by
Trpimir II.
Geographic extent c. 925, during Tomislav's reign The geographic extent of Tomislav's kingdom is not fully known.
John the Deacon, whose chronicle is a primary source of the history of the 9th-and 10th-century Slavic peoples in Dalmatia, wrote that in 912 a Venetian ambassador returning from Bulgaria passed through Croatian territory before reaching the land of
Zahumlje under Duke Michael; this suggests that Tomislav's Croatia bordered Bulgaria, then under the rule of Simeon I. British writer Marcus Tanner suggested that it covered most of modern Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the coastline of
Montenegro. According to Roger Lampe, the state did not extend as far south as
Dubrovnik and
Istria was not included. Many Croatian scholars said that the kingdom covered the region south of the
Drava river, to the
Drina and
Neretva rivers north of Dubrovnik. Croatian historian
Nada Klaić disputed the eastward (Bosnian) extension of Tomislav's kingdom in her 1972 book. Josip Lučić and Franjo Šanjek's 1993
Hrvatski povijesni zemljovid (
Croatian Historical Map) depicted the extent of Tomislav's kingdom. Lučić, an
historical geographer at the
Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, authored a number of maps in Croatian history books. In his 1995 book,
Hrvatski rani srednji vijek,
Ivo Goldstein wrote that Tomislav did not expand deep into inner Bosnia and incorporated only parts of Pannonia (not the region between the Drava and Sava, which Goldstein said was
terra nullius. Neven Budak agreed with Goldstein about the Drava-Sava region, saying that the northern Croatian border probably passed through the Sisak area. Modern university history textbooks in Croatia, such as Tomislav Raukar's
Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje (1997), say that Tomislav's kingdom covered 60 to 80 percent of present-day
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Franjo Šanjek edited a 16-author work on the medieval Croatian state which is also used as a university textbook and includes this view. According to
John Van Antwerp Fine Tomislav's northern border was the Drava River. South of it, the king held "modern Croatia, Slavonia, northern and western Bosnia, and the territory along the Dalmatian coast from what is now Rijeka to at least the mouth of the Cetina River (excluding the scattered Byzantine towns)". Fine criticized the relationship between Tomislav's territory and modern Croatian nationalist sentiment in his 2006 book, calling 10th-century sources unreliable and "roughly a third" of Croatia's perceived eastern land "entirely speculation". Fine wrote, "It is possible that Croatia really did have some of it, but
Bulgaria may have had some of it; early Serb entities may have had some of it, not to speak of various
župans and other local Slavic lords who in any serious way answered to no one. If the last supposition is true (to any degree), then parts of this territory would not have been held by any 'state. Acknowledging the possibility that Croatia held all the depicted territory and more, Fine said that whoever controlled the eastern land depicted in Tomislav's kingdom is unknown and should be marked as
terra incognita on maps. He criticised Lučić and Šanjek's delineation of Tomislav's eastern border as "nationalist map-making" and "distorting the perceptions of children on their nation's history in a way that promotes interpreting later events as territorial loss and fragmentation." ==Legacy==