the Servian Church, as the previous dependency of the archbishopric of Servia upon the Byzantine patriarch was not wholly compatible with the existence of a Servian empire. Hence in 1346 Stefan Dušan raised the Servian archbishop to the position of patriarch, notwithstanding the prohibition of the Byzantine Church. In 1352 the Servian Church was definitely separated from the Byzantine patriarchate. Henceforward twenty metropolitans and bishops were subordinate to the Servian patriarch. Servia was now at the zenith of her power. As Dusan was related 1 to the rulers of Bessarabia and Bulgaria, he was able to form a confederation of these three kingdoms directed against Hungary and Byzantium.

The reign of Dušan was the golden age of Servia, chiefly for the reason that he provided the country with better administration and a better judicial system, and did his best to advance the civilization and prosperity of the people. The code (sakonik or zakonik) which he left behind him, a legal monument of the greatest importance, is a permanent testimony to the fame of Dušan. His conventions with Byzantium, Ragusa, and Venice proved that he also cared for the commercial prosperity of his people. The art of mining, which had been introduced under Nemanja, became so widely extended under Dušan that there were five gold and five silver mines in working. These were chiefly worked by Saxons, whom Prince Vladimir is said to have first brought into the country. Almost the only political mistake that can be urged against Dušan is the fact that he did not use his power to secure the possession of Bosnia, which was inhabited by a purely Servian population. As the whole of Bosnia was never entirely united with Servia, a spirit of individualism flourished in that country, which resulted (shortly after Dušan's death) in the foundation of the Bosnian kingdom under the Ban Tvrtko (cf. below, p. 296).

Dušan's main object was the conquest of Byzantium, and chroniclers tell us of thirteen campaigns undertaken for this purpose. In 1355, when he was marching against the imperial city, he suddenly died. Had his son Stefan Uroš IV (see Figs. 6 and 7 of the plate facing page 299) inherited his father's capacity together with his empire, he would have been able to consolidate the great Servian state. Uroš, however, was a weak, benevolent, and pious ruler, nicknamed by the nation.

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“Nejaki,” that is to say, a man of no account. A revolt soon broke out.

Even

the first councillor of the Czar, the capable Vukašin, whom Dušan had placed at his son's side, stretched out his hand for the crown, and Uroš was murdered in 1367. With him became extinct the main branch of the Nemanja dynasty, which had ruled over Servia for nearly two hundred years.

(b) The Downfall of the Servian Empire. In the civil war that ensued, the Servian nobility raised Lazar Grbljanovič, a brave and truthful man, to the throne in 1336. The new ruler, however, assumed the simple title of Knes or Prince. Meanwhile the political situation in the Balkans had undergone a great change. The provinces formerly conquered by Dušan had revolted. Servia herself was too small and too undeveloped to become the nucleus of a great empire, and at the same time the administration of the country was in many respects deficient.

At this juncture a great danger threatened from abroad. For a long time the Bulgarians and Serbs had been attacking the Byzantine Empire, hoping to aggrandise themselves at her expense, without suspecting that they were attempting to sever the branch by which they themselves were supported. The Turks in Asia began their advance upon the Byzantine Empire, and no force could check them. In the fourteenth century their military fame was so firmly established that the Byzantine emperors called in their assistance against the Bulgarians and Serbs. Soon, however, it became apparent that the most serious danger threatened all these peoples from the side of the Osmans. In the year 1361 Murad I occupied Adrianople and made that city his capital (p. 127); Thracia became a Turkish province. The Byzantines were powerless to meet the danger. Immediately afterwards (1366) the Bulgarian Czar, Šišman, became a Turkish vassal; his sister Thamar entered the harem of Murad. In the year 1371 the Servian usurper, Vukašin, marched against the Turks, but was defeated in the night of the 25th and 26th of September, and slain, together with his brother Johannes Uglješa. The fatal field was known as Ssirb-sündighi; that is, the Servian death. Servia, however, was not yet subdued. It was not until 1386 that Lazar was forced to become a Turkish vassal, and the Turkish danger then lay heavily upon all men's minds. To save the honour of his nation, Lazar prepared for battle, made an alliance with Bulgaria, Albania, and Bosnia, and defeated the Turkish governor at Pločnik at the time when Murad was occupied in Asia. Murad, in anger, spent a whole year in preparation, both in Asia and Europe, and marched against Servia through Philippopolis in 1389. On the feast-day of St. Veit (June 15) was fought the battle of Kossovo (field of Amsel; cf. p. 129), the famous fight which decided not only the fate of Servia, but that of the races of the Balkan Peninsula, and indeed of Southeast Europe as a whole. The Servian army was supported by the Croatian Ban, Ivan Horvat, by the Bosnians under their Voivod Vladko Hranič, by auxiliary troops of the Roumanian and Bulgarian tribes, and Albanians. In the dawn, the Emir Murad was murdered in his tent, according to Servian tradition, by Miloš Obilić, who thus hoped to turn from himself the suspicion of treachery, and was cruelly murdered in consequence. The supreme command was forthwith assumed by Bajazet I, the son of Murad. The Servians were utterly beaten; Lazar himself was captured, and was beheaded with many others beside the corpse of Murad. Servia's future as a nation was destroyed upon that day.

Many songs and legends deplore the battle of Kossovo. It was not the superior

force of the Osmans, so the story goes, that resulted in that fearful overthrow, but the treachery of a Servian leader, the godless Vuk Branković. In the Osman army was also fighting the Servian despot, or "King's Son," Marko (the son of Vukašin) of Priljep, a man of giant strength. These facts were the causes of the bitter defeat, and the Serbs fought like heroes. Even at the present day these magnificent epics form one of the chief beauties both of Slav literature and of the literature of the world; they have been admired even by Grimm and Goethe. The old, the blind, and the beggar sing at the present day in the market-place and on the roads the story of the famous old heroic legends, to the accompaniment of the gusle, and receive rich rewards from the people, who find in these songs a recompense and a consolation for the loss of their past glory.

As the Tartars trampled upon the necks of the Russians, so also did the Turks upon the Southern Slavs. For centuries the Slav races have had to endure unspeakable barbarity at the hands of the Osmans. Their development was arrested, and they were forced to lag behind in the march of civilization, while at the same time they became a bulwark to the peoples of Western Europe. For this reason it is unjust to taunt them with their half civilized condition; yet the injustice has been too often committed, witness the bitter complaints of the Croatian poet Ivan Mažuranić.

Bajazet, who was still occupied in Asia, placed Stefan, the son of Lazar, as Despot on the Servian throne. Stefan was forced to pay tribute and to join in the Turkish campaigns in person at the head of his army; at Angora (1402; p. 131) Timur himself marvelled at the bravery of the Serbs. The nation never lost the hope of recovering their old independence. Stefan turned to Hungary for support and became a Hungarian vassal, following the example of other Danube states who looked to Hungary or to Poland for help. Upon his death in 1427 he was succeeded by George Branković, a son of that Brankovic to whose treachery the defeat of 1389 was ascribed. He made his residence in Semendria on the Danube. Meanwhile all the states of the Balkans had been forced to bow beneath the Turkish yoke after suffering bloody defeats. Bulgaria fell in 1393, then Zartum, Bdyn, and Moldavia; in 1453 Byzantium itself was conquered. Branković died on December 24, 1457, and was succeeded by his feeble son Lazar, who died suddenly at the end of January, 1458.

In 1459 Mohammed II took over Servia as a Turkish province and divided it into pashaliks. Many of the most distinguished families were exterminated, and two hundred thousand human beings were carried into slavery. Thus the Servian state disappeared from the map of Europe. As once before, after their immigration, so also now, the Serbs were ruled from Constantinople, and it was on the Bosphorus that the fate of the Balkan territories was decided. The wave of Turkish conquest continued to spread onward. Hungary and Poland were now forced to take up arms against it, until the turn of Austria arrived. To these states the Balkan peoples without exception now turned for help. Apart from Dalmatia on the North, which was inhabited by Croatians, alternately under Venetian and Hungarian supremacy, the Osmans subjugated the whole of the Balkan Peninsula, and ruthlessly oppressive was their rule. As, however, they were only concerned to drain the financial resources of the peoples they conquered, and troubled themselves little about questions of religion or nationality, it was possible for the Balkan Slavs to retain their national characteristics until the hour of their liberation.

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B. MONTENEGRO

THE former birthplace of the Nemanjids, Zeta, had a happier fate. This mountainous district, which took its name from the river Ceta or Cetina, once formed part of the Roman province of Dalmatia. The emperor Diocletian had formed a special province of Prævalis in Southern Dalmatia, with Dioclea as its centre, from which town the whole province became known as Dioclitia or Dioclea. However, in the period of the Slav Serbs it was known as Zeta, and was regarded as the original land and hereditary property of the Nemanjids. St. Sava (p. 289) founded a bishopric and built the monastery of St. Michael at Cattaro. Every successor to the throne first undertook the administration of Zeta. When, howerer, Dušan made his son Uroš king and intrusted him with the administration of Servia proper, another governor had to be found for Zeta, and he was taken from the house of Balš.

After the death of Dušan the house of the Balšics consequently ruled in Zeta (1360-1421) and became involved in struggles with the distinguished family of the Černojević or Jurašević in the Upper Zeta. At the outset of the fifteenth century the Venetians began to form settlements here, until eventually this Servian coast land fell into the hands of Venice, notwithstanding repeated struggles on the part of Servia. The family of Černojević, which had joined the side of Venice, now became supreme about 1455; Ivan Černojević became a vassal of Venice and received a yearly subsidy. He resided in Zabljak, and founded the monastery of Cetinje in 1478 or 1485. His son George resided in Rjeka and Obod; under him in Obod the first ecclesiastical Slav books were printed between 1493 and 1495. It is at that time (first in 1435) that this country takes the name of Crnagora or Montenegro.

After the fall of the family of Černojević (1528, really as early as 1516) the country was ruled for centuries by the bishops (Vladiks) of Cetinje. The bishop and head of the monastery of Cetinje was at the same time the lord of the country. It is not correct to say that the Turks never ruled over Montenegro and that the people were able to maintain their freedom by heroic struggles; the fact is that the Osman supremacy in this mountainous district was never more than nominal, chiefly from the fact that they could not extract much gain from the poor inhabitants. But Montenegro was subject to the sandshak of. Skodra, and was obliged to send a yearly tribute thither, a fact which we learn from the Italian description of Mariano Bolizza of the year 1511. At that time Montenegro included ten settlements and eight thousand and twenty-seven men capable of bearing

arms.

C. BOSNIA

AFTER the death of Dušan one province after another-first Thessalia, Epirus, and then Macedonia and Albania revolted from the Servian Empire. Even Servian tribes who had willingly or unwillingly gathered round the throne of the Nemanjids until 1355 now followed their individual desires. This is especially true of their relations, the Bosnians, whose country had never been entirely subject to Servia. In former times Bosnia, like Hungary and Ragusa, had been subject to the Roman archbishopric of Spalatro; later, Bosnian rulers had expressly declared

themselves Serbs and descendants of the Nemanjids. None the less they went their own way. Their first prince or ban of any reputation was Kulin (1180-1204). Naturally Hungary and Servia were rivals for the possession of Bosnia, which availed itself of these circumstances to maintain its independence.

It is only on one occasion, however, that this little district secured a greater reputation; this was when favourable political circumstances allowed the ban Tvrtko (Tvartko, Tvrdko), who regarded himself as a descendant of the Nemanjids, although his family belonged to the race of Kotromanović, to secure the throne in 1376, since which date Bosnia has been a kingdom. This separation resulted in the fact that Bosnian civilization developed upon somewhat different lines from Servian, a fact apparent not only in the adoption of Roman ecclesiastical customs, but also in literature and even in writing. Under King Tvrtko the doctrine of the Bogumiles, transplanted from Bulgaria (cf. pp. 110 and 329), extended so rapidly that it became the established religion. Thus Bosnia in this respect also displayed an individualism of its own.

The final consequence was that under the Turkish supremacy the nobles who were accustomed to religious indifferentism went over in a body to Mohammedanism, in order to secure their class privileges. The possession of the Balkan Peninsula was secured to the Osmans in 1453 in consequence of the defeat of Constantinople, but it was not until 1463 that Bosnia was incorporated with the Turkish state; many citadels of the kind numerous in Bosnia held out even till 1526 (see the map facing page 165).

8. THE TURKISH SUPREMACY

UNDER the Turkish supremacy the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula entered upon a period of death and national sorrow; only the vaguest recollection of a better past endured. Immediately after the conquest of a province, the Osman administration was introduced, the country was divided into provinces (pashaliks) and these into districts (nahias). The head of a pashalik was a pasha or vizier entitled to an ensign of three horse-tails, while the head of a nahia was called the kadi. There were pashaliks of Servia, Bosnia, Roumelia, Scutari, Widdin, etc., and the distribution of the provinces was often changed. The duties of the Turkish officials were confined to organising or maintaining military service, levying the taxes, and to some administration of justice.

Side by side with the Turkish officials the institution of the spahis (sipahi; p. 123) was of great importance. Upon Osman principles the whole country was the property of the Sultan; he divided the conquered land among individuals, who received it either as hereditary property (zian) or for life tenure (timir; cf. p. 116), and were under the obligation of giving military service in return; these individuals were known as spahis or cavalry. Thus, for example, the pashalik of Servia was divided among about nine hundred spahis, who were both masters of the soil and of its inhabitants. Many Christian noble families became hereditary spahis by accepting Mohammedanism; about the middle of the seventeenth century there were in Roumelia, not including Bosnia, twelve hundred and ninety-four spahis, who had formerly been Christian Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians, and Greeks.

Side by side with the state administration, there also existed a kind of provincial