In the Byzantine period, during the region of tsar Justinian (527-565) a whole system of town fortresses was built among wich the outstanding are; the town Kostur in Dabrica near Stolac, Blagaj on the Buna river, and Biograd near Konjic. The Byzantine tsar Constantin Porphyrogen described the settle-ment Bona in his book De adminstrendo Imperio. Here, he mentions Zuchlamia, a political and territorial formation, in wich many towns like Ston, Mokriskik, Oslje, Golumainik (Glumina). Dobriskik (Dabar) and Bona (Blagaj) were situated. Christianizationof Slavs started in VII century and ended in IX century. The first known tsar of Zahumlje was Mihail Visevic (9 l0-950). From the middle of the X centuiy to 1018 Zahumlje was under the macedonian rule, while during the region of Stevan Nemanja (1114-1200) it was in the domain of a Serbian State. The head of tribal state Jurko built a church of st. Kuzma and Damjan in the end of XII century. The Bosnian ban (guvernor) Stevan II Kotromanic annexed Zahumlje wich thus became a part ofa a strong Bosnian State. Ban Stevan Kotromanic ruled ”from the sea to the river Sava, from the river Cetina to the river Drina”. In 1377 the Bosnian ruler Tvrtko claimed himself to be the King of ”Serbia, Bosnia, Primorje, Zahumlje, Dahnatia,

Croatia, the Lower Region, the Western Regions” etc. Sandalj Hranic Kosaca and his hephew Stevan ruled in Hum and Blagaj. In 1448 Stevan Vakcic Kosaca became ”Herceg of st. Sava” alling himself ”We, sir Stevan Herceg of st. Sava, the ruler of Hum and Primorjc, the grand dukc of the Bosnian Kingdom, a son and grandson of honourable and well-knovm gentlemen the prince Vukac mxi Sandalj, the ex-duke of the Bosnian Kingdom”. His country was called Herzegovina after Herceg Stjepan and it occupied the territory betiveen the Cetina river to the rivers Lim and Moraca in the southeast, to the Neretva and the mouth the river Lim in the north, to the Duvno and the Livno’s field in the north-west.

The Ottomans started ruling in the Blagaj area in 1446. They put their army in the Scepan-grad (Stjepan-town). The suburbian part, wich had not been inhabited before, became a seat of the kadhi from Blagaj, According to the Islamic urbanisation Blagaj consisted of five mahala (smaller town-units): Carska Mahala or Varos, Hasanagina or Donja Dol, Bunsko and Galicici. The fortress had always been a special territorial unit. In that period there were seven mosques, hvo hans; three muafirhanas, one hamam, one medresa, two mektebs, one tekke, two stone bridges, one kiraethana, and seven mills house with twenty-eight mills. The process of islamization lasted till the second half of the XVIII century, so that the greater part of’ the inhabitants by 1835 were the Muslims. The situation greatly changed in the Austro-Hungarian period, when the number of the Christians was doubled in relation to the Muslims. In this period two churches, an orthodox and catholic one, were built.