We were now ushered into a guest-room of much the same kind as at Gučiagora, and were treated with coffee and Bosnian wine in the same hospitable way, while the Prior and several of the brothers clustered round, and we conversed in German and Latin on our own travels, and the history and prospects of the country; the monks betraying that of the present state of affairs they knew more than they chose to tell. Presently, to our no small delight, the Prior went to an antique chest, and, unlocking it, brought out the old Book of Arms. It was enclosed in a worn vellum cover, and at the beginning was a Bosnian inscription, written in old Serbian characters, which, Englished, ran as follows:— ‘The Book of Arms of the Nobility of Bosnia or Illyria, and Serbia, together set forth by Stanislaus Rubčić, priest, to the glory of Stephen Némanja, Czar of the Serbs and Bosnians. In the year 1340.’[213] Thus it was a monument of that most interesting moment in Bosnian history when, for a while, she formed part of that greater empire of the Némanjas, which seemed about to weld all the scattered Serbian populations between the Ægean, the Danube, and the Adriatic into one great State. It must not, however, be thought that this MS. itself dated back to the times of Czar Dūshan. The most cursory glance was sufficient to convince me that the book, in its present state, was a later copy. The designs were still mediæval, but the painting belonged to a period when the art of illuminating was almost dead. They were executed, not on parchment, as doubtless the original was, but on paper, which, however, was without any water-mark, and in places so polished by fingering as to look like vellum. The copyist, moreover, had left his mark in several mis-spelt and bungled words. That it was the original, as the monks asserted, cannot therefore for a moment be maintained, but I have no wish to deny that it was written previous to the Turkish conquest; and I warn any who may harbour such a wish that they have to reckon with Apostolic authority. At the beginning of the book is a short Latin note dated 1800, in which Gregorius, Episcopus Ruspensis, and Vicar Apostolic of Bosnia, certifies ‘that this codex has from time immemorial, namely, from the captivity of the kingdom of Bosnia, been zealously preserved by the reverend Franciscan brothers of the family of Foinica.’[214] Upon the first page was blazoned the Queen of Heaven with the Child on her knees, seated on a golden half-moon. St. Mary was in the middle ages the tutelary goddess of Bosnia, and the crescent is the chosen emblem of Illyria. Next followed a picture of a saint attended by a lion, and intended, if the monks informed us rightly, to represent St. Martin.[215] This was succeeded by two saints beneath a cross, one of them holding a branch; these were Saints Cosmas and Damian, the doughty patrons of the Némanjas, whose effigies are still traceable among the rich frescoes of their chosen shrines.[216]