The Second Bulgarian Empire, a successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, had reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually declining.

The withdrawal of the Mongols from Europe in the early fourteenth century had stabilized the situation in the Balkans, enabling Bulgaria to resume something like its modern borders, but the country had been threatened by the rising powers of Hungary to the north and Serbia to the west.

The Bulgarian tsar, Ivan Alexander, had in 1356 isolated Vidin, or Bdin, from the Bulgarian monarchy and eventually appointed his son Ivan Stratsimir as absolute ruler of Vidin's new city-state.

The Despotate of Vidin, occupied in 1365 by Magyar crusaders, had became known as Bodony under Hungarian rule, but the occupation had been short-lived.

A united Slavic Bulgarian empire had driven out the Hungarian military in 1369, but in 1393 the whole of Bulgaria, along with the rest of the surrounding region, had fallen to the Ottoman Empire, ending Bulgaria's medieval state empire.

The Ottomans had gone on to conquer the Bulgarian despotates of Karvuna, Prilep, and Velbazhd as well.

Vidin is now the only region controlled by the indigenous Slavic population and not the invading Ottoman Turks, but the city-state’s independence lasts only until 1396, when Stratsimir contributes soldiers to assist the Slavic nations' bid to overturn the Ottoman Empire.

Following defeat at the hands of the Ottomans outside the city of Nicopolis, Vidin finally falls under the sphere of the Ottomans as a punishment for their role in the hostilities and the last remnant of Bulgarian independence disappears.

Nearly five centuries will pass before the reestablishment of the Bulgarian state, as the Principality of Bulgaria.

(However, according to modern authors, the Tsardom of Vidin may have existed until 1422, ruled by Sratsimir's son Constantine II.)

Meanwhile, the crusaders, having entered Turkish territory in August, conquer the garrisons at Vidin and …