Lazar of Serbia - Life

Life

Lazar was born in around 1329 in the fortress of Prilepac, 13 kilometres southeast of the town of Novo Brdo, which was an important mining centre of the medieval Serbian state. Lazar's family hereditarily held Prilepac, which together with the nearby fortress of Prizrenac protected the mines and settlements around Novo Brdo. Lazar's father, Pribac, was a logothete (chancellor) at the court of Stefan Uroš Dušan, a member of the Nemanjić dynasty who was the Serbian king from 1331 to 1346, and the Serbian tsar from 1346 to 1355. The rank of logothete was relatively modest in the hierarchy of the Serbian court. Dušan became the ruler of Serbia by dethroning his father, King Stefan Uroš III. Dušan then awarded petty nobles who supported him in his rebellion, by elevating them to higher positions in the feudal hierarchy. In this way Pribac became a logothete. According to Mavro Orbin, 16th-century Ragusan historian, the family name of Pribac and Lazar was Hrebeljanović. Though Orbin's source for this claim is unknown, it has been widely accepted in historiography.