Zemlja (plural: zemlje, anglicized: zemljas; ; ), was a term used in the Balkans during much of the Middle Ages as a unit in political-territorial state division, based on feudal social hierarchy, local administrative control and the feudal distribution of land. It was the largest unit of administration, which constituted a feudal state among South Slavic peoples of the Balkans at the time, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro (Zeta) and Serbia. The same term is known to be used among other Slavic nations of medieval Europe, namely Poles and Russians, who called it Zemlya, Ziemlia, or Ziemia, and although it has a similar meaning and significance it is not the same.
Background
In the case of medieval Bosnian state, the basic schemes of the territorial-political organization of the feudal state in the areas to which it had expanded were: zemlja (land), župa (parish), seoska općina (village municipality), and vlastelinstvo (manor). To some extent this division was probably influenced by earlier Byzantine administration, and additionally by specific socio-economic relations between the Slavic migrating populations and the indigenous people namely Romanized Illyrians, since the Middle Ages called Vlach. It is significant that as early as the 10th century, the chieftains in the territories neighboring to Bosnia had Byzantine official titles, and that in the zemlja-župa-village scheme, a military organization of the tithe system could be observed. This division can be defined as the transitional socio-economic system or military democracy, as well as the administrative and political organization of the borderlands of the Byzantine Empire.
Organizational history
The zemlja is a political-territorial unit composed of an average of 10 župas, usually 7 to 12. In earlier times, zemljas were tightly organized and regularly showed a degree of political independence. Over time, this independence declined, and zemlja entered the ranks of larger political communities, while at the same time, feudalism dissolved their political organization, so that only geographical name and terminology remained. In addition to the most common form of hierarchical dependencies, the other forms of interrelationships were either complete political independence, or more often a parallelism, thus, for example, zemljas, and same can be said for župas, in certain historical conditions, existed as an independent part of the wider state union, or as a generally recognized geographical term. On the other hand, village-municipalities and manors, could only show parallelism at most, but also overlap in aspect of govern-ship among each other. At the head of zemljas were hereditary rulers with the title of knyaz, duke, ban or king, and in the case of foreign titles also župan or dominus.
Historians, although cautiously, point out the parallelism between zemljas and the so-called sclavinias on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, but less cautiously to the fact that appearance of sclavinias and early feudal zemljas largely coincides with the administrative division of the late Roman Empire. Looking through historical sources historians concluded how political organization of zemljas disintegrated over time, and their strength eroded by the creation of larger state formations, and/or by the formation of new feudalna oblasts ().
Zemlja Bosna, of all other zemljas that were part of the Bosnian state, was only one clearly defined politically, geographically and temporally. It was organized as zemlja (horion) in the 10th century, and it has always preserved a certain individuality within the later larger and more developed medieval Bosnian state.
Usora have joined Bosnia as an already formed political-territorial unit of approximate zemlja rank and entered the title of Bosnian rulers, and while it has always preserved a certain individuality, it also enlarged its volume within Bosnia on the expense of other regions, namely Soli and Lower Podrinje. its representatives constantly participated in the work of the Stanak, and the unifying factor is the position of the Usora duke.
Soli was also specially organized in the early feudal period. As such, it entered the title of Bosnian rulers, but somewhere in the first half of the 14th century it completely merged with Usora. Apart from the name and only the approximate territory, we know nothing about the organization of this zemlja.