Srebrenica

Srebrenica lies in the wooded hills near the Drina, in a district whose silver mines made it one of medieval Bosnia's most valuable towns. Its name speaks of that wealth. Saxon miners and merchants from Ragusa came to the district, and Ragusan traders carried silver towards the Adriatic. Traces of smelting in the surrounding country attest to the extraction of both lead and silver.

The wealth beneath the hills made Srebrenica a prize for neighbouring rulers. In the early fifteenth century the Hungarian king handed it to his vassal, the Serbian despot Stefan Lazarević. Bosnian kings and Serbian despots disputed it repeatedly, and the town passed from one ruler to another before coming under Ottoman control. Its Catholic community included Saxons and Ragusans; after the conquest, the church of Saint Nicholas became the White Mosque.