In Milodraza, between Fojnica and Visoko, the Turkish sultan Mehmed II The Conqueror --at a fra. Andelo Zvizdovic request, who demanded freedom of religious activities and free confession of faith for Bosnian Catholics - has issued a solemn charter-- Ahd-nama -- by which he guaranteed the freedom of activities to the Franciscans "in my empire", the free return of expelled Franciscans, and: "Neither my High Majesty, nor my viziers, nor my oficials, nor my subjects, nor any dweller of my empire should give offence to and disturb them. No one should attack them, or offend and threaten them: neither them nor their lives, nor their property, nor their churches. And moreover, if they bring on
someone from the foreign parts to my state, let them be allowed..." It was a kind of an international document by which the peace and freedom was guaranteed to the Bosnian Franciscans and Catholics "till they will be obedient to my service and faithful to my Command". Such a freedom and peace, the Franciscans and the Catholics in Bosnia will have enjoyed, relatively, till the twenties of XV century.

1463.- 1600.

Circa 300,000 Catholics converted to Islam in Bosnia and Hercegovina.

1516.

According to the first Ottoman Statute of Bosnian Sanjak/province: "We are informed that some Christian churches have been erected where there were none in the past infidels era. These churhes are to be razed; and those infidels and priests, who, dwelling in these places, spy and inform our adversaries in infidels's lands, are to be severely physically punished (siyaset). Let the crosses erected by the roadside be smashed, and none be reinstated again- ever ! And if they put the crosses up again- let them be punished bodily. And that Qadi (Islamic judge), who has condoned such an abomination- we shall dismiss and punish him, too." This is the 1st official instutute enabling legal persecution of Croats Catholics in the Bosnian Sanjak. The aforementioned Statute sanctioned intensified pogroms of Catholics in the western parts of the Ottoman Empire (vastation of monasteries and sacral objects, maltreatment and murder of priests and Catholic Christian laity). The law has been reaffirmed in 1530. , 1539., 1542.

1520.

Croatian Ban and "defendor Croatiae", bishop Petar Berislavic was killed in a Turkish ambush near the Devil's Mountain in the Bihac area (now, the northwestern Bosnia); "... and Turks murdered Croatian Ban, Peter the bishop, near Bihac in the Devil's Mount, in the Devil's Grotto. And they severed his head. And the Bihac citizen Pavao Medosic found his head and his body, and brought them in Bihac."

1523.

Krsto Frankopan delivered an impassioned plea before the Pope Hadrianus, emphasizing the importance of Croatia as the rampart against the Ottoman avalanche: " Holy Father- in Croatia, one can see, one is forced to see bestial slaughter of children before their parents's eyes and husbands before their wives's eyes. Women are being dishonoured, virgins raped, sacred places desecrated. Croatia is, Holy Father, rampart and entry of Christianity, and especially the rimlands of Carinthia, Istria, Furlania and Italy. Should Croatia-God forbid !- fall- then, all the ghastly and beastly tortures threaten these lands and the road towards them will be unhindered and free for Turks..."

1524.

The fiercest pogroms of Croat Catholics in Bosnia and Hercegovina. Franciscan monasteries in Kraljeva Sutjeska, Viskoko, Fojnica and Konjic are razed to the ground (the Mostar monastery met the same fate later.) Between 120-150,000 Catholics forcibly converted to Islam.

1525.

Krsto Frankopan, one of the most notable European soldiers of fortune of these times, has passed through the Turkish lines to relieve the besieged Bosnian Croat city of Jajce, which resisted the Ottoman siege for more than a year and half. He was prompted upon hearing the story from a refugee from Jajce, a certain Jure Mrsic, that a mother in Jajce had thrown her baby boy into the Vrbas river because she couldn't bear to see him die from starvation. After two days of breaking through Turksih positions, Frankopan entered with 6,000 soldiers into the city and brought the supplies in. Jajce managed to resist for another three and a half years.

1528.

Turks have conquered Jajce and Banja Luka, thereby completely destroying Croatian defence line on the Vrbas river. Croatia was reduced to 37,000 square kilometers.

1530.

A Slovene monk, Benedikt Kuripesic has, in a diplomatic mission, journeyed through Bosnia, leaving valuable annotations on ethnic and confessional situation in the contemporary Bosnia: " In this kingdom we have found three peoples and three faiths. First- there are indigenous Bosnians, who are of Roman-Christian denomination. Then, there are Serbs, who are called Wallachians, and we call them Chichs or Martologes. They came from the city of Smederevo and Greek Orthodox Belgrade, and belong to the Saint Paul's faith (Orthodox)....The third people are Turks. They, and soldiers and officials in particular, behave tyranically towards both aforementioned peoples, Christian subjects...". Kuripesic published his travels in Augsburg 1531.