Slavonian dynasty, Constantine Copronymus (741-75) advanced in his
conquest of Slavonia as far as Berea, to the S. of Thessalonica, which
is evident from an inspection of the frontiers of the empire, made by
order of the Empress Irene in 783. The Emperor Michael III. (842-67)
sent an army against the Slavonians of the Peloponnesus, which conquered
them all with the exception of the Melugi and Eseritœ, who inhabited
Lacedæmonia and Elis, and they were all finally subjugated by the
Emperor Basilicus I., or the Macedonian (867-86), after which the
Christian religion and Greek civilisation completely Hellenised them, as
their brethren on the Baltic were Germanised.[E] That the Latin faith
subsequently obtained a permanent footing in these provinces, is due to
the influence of the Kings of Hungary, who took the Bosnian Bans under
their special protection; and thus it happened that the Bosnian nobles
almost universally adopted the religion of their benefactors,--not so
much from conviction, it is surmised, as from an appreciation of the
many feudal privileges which it conferred, since they afterwards
renounced Christianity entirely, rather than relinquish the rights which
they had begun to regard as hereditary. The remote position of these
countries, however, and the antagonism of the Eastern and Western
Churches, combined to retard the development of the Papal doctrines,
while a still more important counterpoise presented itself, in the
appearance of the sect of Patarenes, towards the close of the twelfth
century. The sect was founded by an Armenian doctor, named Basil, who
was burnt for his opinions by the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, and whose
followers, being banished, retired into Bulgaria, where they made many
converts, and took the name of Bogomili--'chosen of God,' or 'implorers
of God's mercy.' They thence spread their tenets into France by means
of pilgrims and traders, who were on their return to that country, and
by degrees laid the seeds of doctrines subsequently taken up by Peter
Bruysius, and afterwards by Henry and by Peter Valdo, the founder of the