Stefan Nemanjić Стефан Немањић | |
|---|---|
 Fresco of Stefan the First-Crowned fromBogorodica Ljeviška | |
| Stefan the First-Crowned | |
| Born | around 1165 |
| Died | (1228-09-24)24 September 1228 |
| Venerated in | Eastern Orthodox Church |
| Feast | 24 September |
| Attributes | Church Builder |
| Grand Prince of Serbia | |
| Reign | 1196–1228 |
| Coronation | 1217 (as king) |
| Predecessor | Stefan Nemanja |
| Successor | Stefan Radoslav |
| Burial | |
| Spouse | Eudokia Angelina Anna Dandolo |
| Issue | Stefan Radoslav Stefan Vladislav Stefan Uroš I Sava II Komnena, Princess Consort of Arbanon |
| House | Nemanjić dynasty |
| Father | Stefan Nemanja |
| Mother | Anastasija |
| Religion | Serbian Orthodox Christian |
Stefan Nemanjić (Serbian Cyrillic:Стефан Немањић,pronounced[stêfaːnněmaɲitɕ]), known asStefan the First-Crowned (Serbian:Стефан Првовенчани,romanized: Stefan Prvovenčani,pronounced[stêfaːnprʋoʋěntʃaːniː];c. 1165 – 24 September 1228), was theGrand Prince of Serbia from 1196 and theKing of Serbia from 1217 until his death in 1228. He was the firstSerbian king byNemanjić dynasty;[1][2][3][4] due to his transformation of theSerbian Grand Principality into theKingdom of Serbia and the assistance he provided his brotherSaint Sava in establishing theSerbian Orthodox Church.
Stefan Nemanjić was the second-eldest son ofGrand PrinceStefan Nemanja andAnastasija. His older brother and heir apparent,Vukan, ruled overZeta and the neighbouring provinces (the highest appanage) while his younger brotherRastko (later known asSaint Sava) ruled overHum.
The Byzantines attacked Serbia in 1191, raiding the banks of theSouth Morava. Grand Prince Nemanja had a tactical advantage, and began to raid the Byzantine armies.Isaac II Angelos summoned a peace treaty, and the marriage of Nemanja's second son Stefan toEudokia Angelina, the niece of Isaac II, was confirmed. Stefan Nemanjić received the title ofsebastokrator.
Throughout the 12th century, Serbs were at the center of war events between Byzantium and Hungary for dominance. In such circumstances, Serbs had no chance of gaining independence. Their only chance was to look for an ally on third side.
In 1190, the German EmperorFriedrich Barbarossa drowned in the riverCalycadnus. At the same time, EmperorIsaac II Angelos launched a punitive expedition against the Serbs, and Nemanja was defeated in the battle ofSouth Morava. In fact, Constantinople did not want to subdue the Serbs, but to regainNiš and the main road toBelgrade, as well as to make allies of the rebellious Serbs. The peace treaty provided for Stefan Nemanjić, the middle son of the grand zoupanStefan Nemanja, to marry a Byzantine princess, i.e. niece of the Byzantine emperor.
The concluded peace envisages that the grand zoupan Nemanja will be succeeded by his middle son Stefan, who received the Byzantine title of sebastokrator and the Byzantine princessEudokia for a wife, and not the firstborn Vukan.
In 1196, at the state assembly nearChurch of Saints Peter and Paul, Stefan Nemanja abdicated the throne in favor of his middle son Stefan, who became the grand zoupan of Serbia. He left his eldest son Vukan in charge of Zeta, Travunija, Hvosno and Toplica. Nemanja became a monk in his old age and was given the name Simeon. Shortly afterwards, he went to Byzantium, toMount Athos, where his youngest son Sava had been a monk for some time. They received permission from the Byzantine emperor to rebuild the abandonedHilandar monastery.
The newPope Innocent III, who in a letter in 1198 called on the entire West to liberate theHoly Land, was not satisfied with the fact that the Serbs were subordinated to thePatriarch of Constantinople, but wanted to return them toRome through Vukan. In 1198, the Hungarian duxAndrew conqueredHum (Hercegovina) of grand zoupan Stefan andrebelled against brother kingEmeric but did not gain legitimacy from Rome. In any case, the Hungarians became dominant on the easternAdriatic coast. ButVenice, because of its business interests, did not like the eastern coast of the Adriatic to be controlled by the mighty Byzantium or Hungary. Vukan and the Hungarian king Emeric (1196–1204) make an alliance against Stefan, after which a civil war breaks out in Serbia. The action against Stefan was preceded by his letter to the Pope in which he asked for the crown. Around 1200, Stefan expelled his wife Eudokia, a daughter ofAlexios III Angelos, who found refuge with Vukan in Zeta. Emeric saw Stefan's move as an open attack on his crown, because in Hungary it was traditionally believed that only it in the region could have primacy with the Roman pope. Stefan lost the conflicts and had to flee the country in 1202 to the ruler ofBulgariaKaloyan.[5][6][7]
In the meantime, control of the newly formed crusade army was taken over by the powerful Venetian dogeEnrico Dandolo, who, to the surprise of all, including the pope himself, in theFourth Crusade first sent anattack on Hungarian Zara in 1202, and then on Byzantium, whose capitalConstantinople crusaders conquered in April 1204. Stefan uses this situation and in the counter-offensive, with the help of Prince Kaloyan, he returns to the throne in Ras in 1204, while Vukan retreats to Zeta. The fighting between the brothers was stopped in 1205 and relations were established as they were before the outbreak of the conflict. Meanwhile, in November 1204, the Hungarian king Emeric died and the Kaloyan of Bulgaria was crowned for king by the Pope.
Numerous states were created on the ruins of Byzantium, which were almost equal in strength. The Crusaders founded theKingdom of Thessalonica, theprincipality of Achaia, theduchy of Athens and Thebes, the duchy of Archipelago orNaxos. They were all under rule of Latin emperor of Constantinople. The remaining Byzantine factions also formed their own successor states on the fringes of the empire, atNiceae andTrebizond inAsia Minor, and atEpiros in west Balkan. Of the newly created Greek states, two gained some stability and survived through this period: Niceae under the Laskaris dynasty, which soon became an empire (1208), and Epiros, which took considerably to rise to same status (1224–27). The two rivals sought to present themselves as lawful successor of Empire of the Romans and to get the upper hand in the struggle for its restoration. Bulgaria was located to the north, and Serbia to the northwest. Serbia's neighbors at the time were Epirus to the south, Bulgaria to the east, and the Hungary to the north and west.
After the death of Kaloyan, there was a succession war in Bulgaria. TsarBoril, the most ambitious of the nobles, took the throne and exiledAlexius Slav,Ivan Asen II andStrez (of the Asen family). Strez, the first cousin or brother of Boril, took refuge in Serbia, and was warmly welcomed at the court of Stefan II.[8][9] Even though Boril requested the extradition of Strez to Bulgaria with gifts and bribes, Stefan II refused. Kaloyan had conqueredBelgrade,Braničevo, Niš andPrizren, all of which were claimed by Serbia.[8] At the same time, Boril was unable to take military action against Strez and his Serbian patron, as he had suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Latinsat Plovdiv.[9] Stefan went as far as to become ablood brother with Strez, in order to assure him of his continued favor.[8]
Andrija Mirosavljević was entitled to the governance of Hum, as the heir ofMiroslav of Hum, the uncle of Stefan II, but the Hum nobles chose his brotherPetar as Prince of Hum. Petar exiled Andrija and Miroslav's widow (the sister ofBan Kulin of Bosnia), and Andrija fled to Serbia, to the court of Stefan II. In the meantime, Petar fought successfully with neighbouring Bosnia and Croatia. Stefan sided with Andrija and went to war and secured Hum andPopovo field for Andrija sometime after his accession. Petar was defeated and crossed the Neretva, continuing to rule the west and north of the Neretva, which had in 1203 been briefly occupied byAndrew II of Hungary. Stefan gave the titular and supreme rule of Hum to his son Radoslav, while Andrija held the district of Popovo with the coastal lands of Hum, includingSton. By agreement, when Radoslav died, the lands were bound to Andrija.[10]
Đorđe of Zeta, in order to secure his lands from Stefan, accepted Venetian suzerainty, possibly in 1208. Đorđe may have done this due to tensions between the two, although this must not be the case. Venice, after theFourth Crusade, tried to exert control of the Dalmatian ports, and managed in 1205 to submitRagusa – Đorđe submitted to prevent that Venice claimed his ports of southern Dalmatia.[11]
Đorđe promised Venice military aid in case of a revolt by another theoretical Venetian vassal,Dhimitër Progoni, thePrince of Albania andLord ofKruja.[11] This was likely related to the Serbia-Zeta conflict.[11] Stefan II married off his daughter,[11]Komnena, to princeDhimitër Progoni in 1208.[12] The marriage resulted in close ties and an alliance between Stefan and Dimitri amidst these conflicts.[11][12] Kruja is conquered byEpirote DespotMichael I Komnenos Doukas, and Dimitri is not heard of in any surviving sources.[13][12] After Dhimitër's death, the lands are left to Komnena,[14] who soon marriedGreek-AlbanianGregorios Kamonas, who took power ofKruja,[15] strengthening relations with Serbia, which had after a Serbian assault onScutari been weakened.[15][12] Đorđe disappears from sources, and Stefan II controls Zeta by 1216, probably through military action.[11] Stefan either put Zeta under his personal rule, or assigned it to his sonStefan Radoslav. Zeta would from now on have no special status, and would be given to the heir apparent.[11]
Despot Michael I of Epirus conqueredSkadar, and tried to press beyond, but was stopped by the Serbs and his murder by one of his servants in 1214 or 1215.[13] He was succeeded by his half-brotherTheodore Komnenos Doukas.[13] Theodore took on a policy of aggressive expansion, and allied himself with Stefan II.Stefan Radoslav marriedAnna Angelina Komnene Doukaina, the daughter of Theodore.[16][17]
Having long wanted to call himself king, Stefan set about procuring a royal crown from the papacy. It is not clear what Stefan promised in regard to the status of the Catholic Church, which had numerous adherents in the western and coastal parts of his realm, but a papal legate finally arrived in 1217 and crowned Stefan. In 1217 Stefan Nemanjić declared his independence from Byzantium and was crowned as king, adopting the title:"Crowned King and Autocrat of all Serbian and coastal lands".[18] The influence of the Catholic Church in Serbia did not last long but angered Serbian clergy. Many opposed Stefan's coronation. Later Serbian churchmen were also bothered by Stefan's relations with the papacy; while Stefan and Sava's contemporaryDomentian wrote that the coronation was performed by a papal legate, a century laterTheodosius the Hilandarian claimed that Stefan was crowned by Sava. The contradiction led some Serbian historians to conclude that Stefan underwent two coronations, first by the legate and in 1219 by Sava, but modern scholars tend to agree that only the former took place.[19][20]
The disagreements surrounding Stefan's coronation were definitively resolved in 2018 by finding evidences that the papal legate never came to Serbia and that Stefan was actually crowned by his brother Sava in 1219.[21][unreliable source]
Stefan was married, around 1186, toEudokia Angelina, the youngest daughter ofAlexius Angelus andEuphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina. Eudokia was the niece of the currentByzantine EmperorIsaac II Angelus. Isaac II arranged the marriage. According to theGreek historianNicetas Choniates, Stefan and Eudocia quarreled and separated, accusing one another of adultery, after June 1198. They had three sons and two daughters:
Stefan remarried in 1207/1208, his second wife wasAnna Dandolo, granddaughter of Venetian dogeEnrico Dandolo. They had one son and one daughter:
He built many fortresses includingMaglič. At the end of his life, Stefan took the monastic vow under the name Symeon and died soon after. He was canonized as his father was.
Local tradition, related to theReževići Monastery claims that it was king Stefan who built (in 1223 or 1226) the Church of theDormition of the Mother of God (Serbian:Црква Успења Пресвете Богородице).
Media related toStefan the First-Crowned at Wikimedia CommonsStefan the First-Crowned Born: around 1165 Died: 24 September 1228 | ||
| Regnal titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Grand Prince of Serbia 1196–1202 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Vukan | Grand Prince of Serbia 1204–1217 | Succeeded by title elevated→ |
| Preceded by ←title elevated | King of Serbia 1217–1228 | Succeeded by |
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