Nor need it surprise us that it was to Foinica that Roman and aristocratic Bosnia turned in the hour of need. The local history of the district is bound up with that of the old kings and nobles. Foinica was originally a royal domain, and this monastery of the ‘Holy Spirit’ (Svéta Duša) in all probability owes its origin to the piety of the kings, whose usual residence, Sutiska, was not far off. From the royal race of the Tvartkos it passed to one of the noblest of the noble families whose shields we have been surveying; to that, namely, of Mergnjavić, they of the _Vila_ crest. The hereditary possessions of this house lay at Naissus (Nissa) in Serbia; and coming from the birthplace of Constantine they modestly traced their descent from the fourth king of Rome! After the Turkish conquest of Bosnia, some members of the family fled, or, as they doubtless put it to themselves, _returned_, to the Eternal City. Here one of its scions, a certain John Tomko, published in 1632 the family archives—‘The Proofs of the Antiquity and Nobility of the _Marcian_ Family, vulgarly known as Marnavić.’[222] Thus we possess, in Latin translations, some of the original deeds by which Foinica was given and confirmed to this _Marcia gens_; and as they are, I suppose, the only documents of the kind relating to Bosnia which have been preserved, I may be permitted to allude to them. The first grant is by King Stephen Dabiscia, otherwise known as Tvartko II., to Goiko Mergnjavić. ‘Seeing that when Bajazet with the Turks came and stood in Naglasinci,’[223] and destroyed Bosnia, then came Goiko Mergnjavić and helped us to slay the Turks. And I, King Dabiscia, was with all the province of Bosnia, and with the Bosnians; and I acted in full council with all the province of the Bosnian realm, and gave and presented and confirmed to Goiko Mergnjavić, Foinica, and the plain of Godalie in the territory of Imoteschi, both to him and his heirs, and his latest posterity for ever. Amen.’[224] The original of this was in the old Cyrillian or Illyrian characters and in the Bosnian tongue.[225] This grant appears to have been renewed or confirmed to another Mergnjavić, in consideration of services equally distinguished, by King Tvartko III. The second grant, like the other, originally written in the native language, runs as follows:—