I do not say that Bosnia was a heavy populated country. It was not. But to talk about 5000- 6000 people in Bobovac or Jajce. It looks a little bit too little to my opinion. I read somwhere that Bobovac had 20.000 inhabitants.
Now where are all those Bosnian churches you ask. I don't know. I have to read first more about it and then I will know. But I can tell you: they were there in medieval Bosnia. Why?
Because the Bosnian kings mention them. They mention the "Bosnian church churches." They mention those churches, money for the building of those churches and they mention lands which was given to those churches.
Further I would say that the "hiza" is not a house like it says at wikipedia but this were those small churches where the Bosnian christians came to pray.
For many remainings at Bobovac historians can not say what those things were. Because only the fundaments were left and nothing more. Can you tell me what this was in the 14. century?
It is a fact that Bosnian kings mention very often the bosnian church (almost in every document). It is a fact that all the more important historians from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and international historians agree about the place of this church inside the bosnian state.
When we look at the remainings from that time then we have:
1) A lot of destoyed stone structures and walls at high mountains and deep valeys where only ratelsnakes and wolves live. And about many of those structures nobody knows exactly what they were. For instance the town of "Vrh-bosna" was situated exactly where today the centre of Sarajevo lies. God only knows what lies under those buildings. During excavations in 2000 some mosques were found of 400 years old and nobody knew about them. Today people are excavating the "piramides" in Bosnia which are also, most likely, remaings from the old medieval town of Visoki, but nobody can tell how big this town was, which buildings there were, we know really nothing and this was one of the more important towns. There is so much under the ground and nobody knows about it.
The old church in Mile; where almost all the bosnian kings were crowned (may be even Tvrtko himself); a road was made directly parallel to this church. No money for excavations, reconstructions etc. Can you tell me for sure thas this church was not a bosnian church? How many churches from this time are left really? The old church in Jajce and the one in Bobovac are the only churches which were the in medieval Bosnia. And the church of Jajce is totally destroyed. It's a monument.
2) But we have more than those destroyed remaings from stone which are visible or non visible (under the ground). We got those "povelje" = letters from the Bosnian kings.
Those letters mention almost always the Bosnian church as something which was so importand and so central within the Bosnian state that there is no room for doubt about its position within the state. From those letters we can read very clear (even an amateur who is a little bit intelligent ) That there were 3 factors of power within the Bosnian state:
1) The crown (the kings and queens)
2)
The Bosnian church
3) The nobility
3) The thirth source which mentions the Bosnian church; its "grandfathers" , "Big guests", "guests" and "strojniks" are the grafetombs or how the old bosnians called them already in their time "stecaks". Those grafetombs even mention this form of christianity under the name "bosnian faith" (a graftomb near Foca has this inscription on it).
And we must not forget that it is not totally unlogical that the Bosnians did not make hundreds of those churches. We know that during the 12th century the Bosnians had to go to the field of Bilino polje to publically, in presence of the officials from the Roman Catholic church; declare that they are catholics. We know also that the Hungarian kings always used the "argument" about "the heretics in Bosnia" when they wanted to assimliate Bosnia within the Hungarian kingdom. This was how they justified all those wars in relation to the pope. It is not more than logical that the Bosnian kings were very carefull with what they were doing at the "international scene".
It because of this "difficult situation" that almost all the Bosnian rulers from the 1189- 1463. declred themelves as catholics or orthodox christians. But all of them recognised also the Bosnian church as one of the three fundaments of the state. According to dr. Dubravko Lovrenovic ( a respected historian and intelektual from Sarajevo) this was because the church was not only a relligion; but at the first place and more important: an instrument of the state which:
1) Tried to fight the attempts of the Hungarian crown which tried to assimilate Bosnia by installing a "pro-Hungarian"" catholic church.
2) It was an institution which had the responsibility to judge iver the nobles and the ordinary population and to regulate the relations between the nobles and the kings. This is why the bosnian church was (most likely) always present at the "Bosnian meetings".
I know more about the political function of the Bosnian church. I read a lot about it. We should not forget that there was
a cold religious war between Bosnia and Hungaria for more than 300 years. And those states were very often in real war also. Hungarian kings openly said many times that "bosnia was part of Hungaria" Ban Ninoslav fought the Hunharians around 1200 already, with succes. But the Hungarians have always tried; to assimliate Bosnia. They tried to prevent the Bosnian bans to crown themelves to king. And when Bosnia became a kingdom they many times proclaimed like:"I am going to Bobovac to crown myself with "our?" Bosnian crown."
The Bosnian church was an succesfull instrument which succesfully foyght those Hungarian attempts during more than 3 centuries. It was an institute which, at the same time, held the nobles satisfied; regulated the order inside the state and fought back the Hungarisation of Bosnia.