Ponsa

Ponsa (Serbo-Croatian: Ponza/Понза or Povša/Повша) was a Dominican friar who was appointed Bishop of Bosnia in the midst of the Bosnian Crusade. The crusade's stated objective was to purge Bosnia from heresy, in other words to exterminate the autonomous Bosnian Church.^[1] His predecessor, the German-born Dominican John of Wildeshausen, repeatedly requested to be relieved of the bishopric, and in 1238 Pope Gregory IX wrote that the crusade was a success and that he had selected Ponsa as the new bishop.^[2] Ponsa was also to be assigned jurisdiction over Zachlumia, but probably only its western part, as the rest belonged to Serbia.^[1] Gregory believed Ponsa to be very capable, and named him apostolic legate to Bosnia for a term of three years.^[3] Matej Ninoslav, Ban of Bosnia, apparently refused to accept Ponsa as bishop, which the Pope regarded as an act of defiance.^[4] The crusaders penetrated into Central Bosnia, and a cathedral called Saint Peter's was built in Brdo (Burdo) above Vrhbosna (modern Sarajevo) in 1238.^[2]

Ponsa's episcopate lasted over three decades,^[5] but he functioned as a puppet of Hungary and had no support in Bosnia, where Bosnian Church still prevailed.^[4] By 8 May 1252, he was forced to leave the country and establish a residence in the Slavonian town of Đakovo,^[4] granted to him earlier by the Hungarian prince Coloman.^[5] The relocation was meant to be temporary, but from then on Ponsa and his successors never set foot in Bosnia and had nothing to do with its affairs (except for the 14th-century Peregrin Saxon, the first Bishop of Bosnia since Ponsa to live in Bosnia, and Peregrin's successor, Peter Siklósi).^[4]

References

1. Fine 1994, p. 145.
2. Fine 2007, p. 127.
3. Barun 2003, p. 78.
4. Fine 2007, p. 133.
5. Barun 2003, p. 79.

Sources

• Barun, Anđelko (2003). Svjedoci i učitelji: povijest franjevaca Bosne Srebrene (in Serbo-Croatian). Svjetlo riječi.
• Fine, John Van Antwerp, Jr. (1994). The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-08260-4.
• Fine, John Van Antwerp, Jr. (2007). The Bosnian Church: Its Place in State and Society from the Thirteenth to the Fifteenth Century. Saqi. ISBN 0863565034.