History of Medieval Serbia
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The Serbs entered their present territory early in the 7th century AD, settling in six distinct tribal delimitations:
- Rascia/Raška (present-day southern Serbia and northern Montenegro),
- Bosnia/Bosna (present-day south-central and southeastern Bosnia),
- Zachumlie/Zahumlje (western Herzegovina),
- Trebounia/Travunija (eastern Herzegovina),
- Pagania/Paganija (middle Dalmatia) and finally
- Duklja/Zeta (predecessor to Montenegro).
The first recorded Serb princes were Vlastimir, Višeslav, Radoslav and Prosigoj. By that time, the country had entirely accepted Christianity. In Zeta, today's Montenegro, Mihailo was crowned by the Pope, and his son Bodin reclaimed the throne. The rulers kept changing and the country accepted supreme protection from the Byzantine Empire rather than from hostile Bulgaria. Serbia was freed from the Byzantine Empire a century later.
The first unified Serb state emerged under Caslav Klonimirovic in the mid-10th century in Rascia. However, the first half of the 11th century saw the rise of the Vojislavljevic family in Zeta. Finally, the middle of the 12th century saw once more the rise of Rascia with the Nemanjic dynasty. The Nemanjic led Serbia to a golden age which lasted for over three centuries and produced a powerful Balkan state which had its apogee under the reign of Emperor Stefan Dusan in the mid-14th century, before finally succumbing to Ottoman Turkish subjugation (with Zeta, the last bastion, finally falling in 1499).
Stefan Nemanja was succeeded by his middle son Stefan, whilst his first-born son Vukan was given the rule of the Zeta region (present-day Montenegro). Stefan Nemanja’s youngest son Rastko became a monk and took the name of Sava, turning all his efforts to spreading religion among his people. Since the Curia already had ambitions to spread its influence to the Balkans as well, Stefan used these propitious circumstances to obtain his crown from the Pope, thereby becoming the first Serbian king, in 1217. In Byzantium, his brother Sava managed to secure the autocephalous status for the Serbian Church and became the first Serbian archbishop in 1219. Thus the Serbs acquired both forms of independence: temporal and religious.
The next generation of Serbian rulers — the sons of Stefan Prvovencani — Radoslav, Vladislav and Uroš I, marked a period of stagnation of the state structure. All three kings were more or less dependent on some of the neighboring states — Byzantium, Bulgaria or Hungary. The ties with the Hungarians had a decisive role in the fact that Uroš I was succeeded by his son Dragutin whose wife was a Hungarian princess. Later on, when Dragutin abdicated in favour of his younger brother Milutin (in 1282), the Hungarian king Ladislaus IV gave him lands in northeastern Bosnia, the region of Mačva, and the city of Belgrade, whilst he managed to conquer and annex lands in northeastern Serbia. Thus, some of these territories became part of the Serbian state for the first time. His new state was named Kingdom of Srem. In that time the name Srem was a designation for two territories: Upper Srem (present day Srem) and Lower Srem (present day Mačva). Kingdom of Srem under the rule of Stefan Dragutin was actually Lower Srem, but some historical sources mention that Stefan Dragutin also ruled over Upper Srem and Slavonia. After Dragutin died (in 1316), the new ruler of the Kingdom of Srem became his son, king Vladislav II, which ruled this state until 1325.
~ 1350 AD
Under the rule of Dragutin’s younger brother—King Milutin, Serbia grew stronger despite having to occasionally fight wars on three different fronts. King Milutin was an apt diplomat much inclined to the use of a customary medieval diplomatic expedients — dynastic marriages. He was married five times, with Hungarian, Bulgarian and Byzantine princesses. He is also famous for building churches, some of which are the brightest examples of Medieval Serbian architecture: the Gračanica monastery in Kosovo, the Cathedral in Hilandar Monastery on Mt. Athos, the St. Archangel Church in Jerusalem etc. Because of his endowments, King Milutin has been proclaimed a saint, in spite of his tumultuous life. He was succeeded on the throne by his son Stefan, later dubbed Stefan Decanski. Spreading the kingdom to the east by winning the town of Nis and the surrounding counties, and to the south by acquiring territories on Macedonia, Stefan Decanski was worthy of his father and built the Visoki Decani Monastery in Metohija—the most monumental example of Serbian Medieval architecture—that earned him his byname. Stefan Decanski defeated the Bulgarians in Battle of Velbužd in 1330.
Medieval Serbia enjoyed a high political, economic, and cultural reputation in Europe. It was one of the few states that did not practice the feudal order. Medieval Serbia reached its apex in the mid-14th century, during the rule of Emperor Stefan Dusan. This is the period of the Dusanov Zakonik (Dusan’s Code, 1349), a juridical achievement unique among the European states of the time. Emperor Dusan opened up new trade routes and strengthened the state’s economy. Serbia flourished, featuring one of the most evolved countries and cultures in Europe. Some of Serbia’s greatest Medieval arts were created during this period, most notably St. Sava’s Nomocanon. Emperor Stefan Dusan doubled the size of his kingdom, seizing territories to the south, southeast and east at the expense of Byzantium. He was succeeded by his son Uroš, called the Weak, a term that might also apply to the state of the kingdom, as it slowly slid into feudal anarchy. This is a period marked by the rise of a new threat: the Ottoman Turk sultanate gradually spreading from Asia to Europe and conquering Byzantium first, and then the other Balkans states. Serbian military tactics consisted of wedge shaped heavy cavalry attack, supported by horse archers and mercenary reserves, mostly Germans and Spaniards.
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