Serbian Empire - History

History

Stephen Uroš IV Dušan, before ascending the throne as king of all Serbs, proved himself as a very skilled military leader in the Battle of Velbazhd, in which Serbia memorably defeated the Bulgarian Empire. As his father was not an able conqueror, Dušan, with the help of Serbian nobility, removed his father from the throne, ordering his people to strangle him. The medieval Serbian state reached its apex in the mid-14th century, during the rule of Stefan Dušan, who proclaimed himself in 1345 tsar in Serres and was crowned in Skopje on 16 April 1346 as the "Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks" by the newly proclaimed Serbian Patriach Joanikie II with the help of the Bulgarian Patriarch Simeon and the Archbishop of Ohrid, Nicholas.

Tsar Dušan created a set of laws known as Dušan's Code, in 1349 and 1354. The Code was based on Roman-Byzantine law and the first Serbian constitution — St. Sava's Nomocanon (1219). It was a Civil and Canon law (based on the Ecumenical Councils) for the functioning of the state and church. The Serbian Empire flourished, becoming one of the most developed countries and cultures in Europe.

Tsar Dušan doubled the size of his former kingdom, seizing territories to the south, southeast and east at the expense of Byzantium. He did not fight a single field battle, instead winning his empire by besieging cities. He was succeeded by his son Stefan Uroš V, called the Weak, a term that might also apply to the state of the empire, as it slowly slid into feudal anarchy. The combination of sudden conquest, backwards administration, and failure to consolidate his holdings led to the fragmenting of the empire. This is a period marked by the rise of a new threat: the Ottoman Turkish sultanate gradually spreading from Asia to Europe and conquering Byzantine Thrace first, and then the other Balkans states. Too incompetent to sustain the great empire created by his father, Stefan V could neither repel attacks of foreign enemies, nor combat the independence of his nobility. The Serbian Empire of Stefan Uroš fragmented into a conglomeration of principalities, some of which did not even nominally acknowledge his rule. Stefan Uroš V died childless on 4 December 1371, after much of the Serbian nobility had been killed by the Ottoman Turks during the Battle of Maritsa.