Elizabeth of Bosnia - Descent and Early Years

Descent and Early Years

Born around 1339, Elizabeth was the daughter of Ban Stephen II of Bosnia, the head of the House of Kotromanić. Her mother was Elizabeth of Kuyavia, a member of the House of Piast and grandniece of King Vladislaus the Short of Poland.

In 1349, the fourteen-year-old queen of Hungary, Margaret of Bohemia, died from the Black Death. Elizabeth of Poland, the mother of the widowed and childless King Louis I of Hungary, insisted on immediately bringing the daughter of the ban of Bosnia to the Hungarian court for fostering. Stephen was reluctant at first, but he eventually dispatched Elizabeth, whose mother had already died.

In 1350, Tsar Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia attacked Bosnia in order to regain Zachlumia. The invasion was not successful, and the tsar tried to negotiate peace, which would be sealed by Elizabeth's marriage to his son and heir apparent, King Stephen Uroš V. The tsar expected Zachlumia to be ceded as Elizabeth's dowry, but her father refused to consider the proposal. The same year, she moved to the queen mother's court in Visegrád and was formally betrothed to Louis. The two were related in the fourth degree through a common ancestor, Duke Casimir I of Kuyavia, making Pope Innocent IV's consent necessary.