Zeta, Principality of

The Balsic family, in the power vacuum created in the southwestern Balkans with the death of Serbian monarch Stefan Dushan, has established a new power center along the Adriatic near Lake Scutari, reviving the eleventh-century kingdom of Doclea, now known as Zeta, and in 1371 declares it an independent principality.

Đurađ, the eldest of the three sons of Balša I, announces to the Republic of Ragusa that he, Vukašin Mrnjavčević and his son, Marko, along with their armies, are in Scutari, preparing an attack on Nikola Altomanović.

Ragusa assists their campaign by providing ships to transport men and supplies, since their campaign is in Ragusa's interest.

However, the campaign never takes place, as Vukašin and Marko go to aid Vukašin's brother, Jovan Uglješa, in a campaign against the Turks, which ends in total disaster, Vukašin and Uglješa and their army being wiped out in the Battle of Maritsa.

A combined army of Serbs, Albanians, and Hungarians, led by the Serb knez, or prince, Lazar Hrebeljanovic, and including a large Bosnian contingent sent by Tvrtko, meets Murad's forces in battle on St. Vitus' Day (Vidovdan), June 28 (June 15, Old Style), 1389, on the Kosovo Polje ("Field of Blackbirds") near Pristina.

Victory appears at first to be on the side of the Serbs when Murad is killed by a Serbian noble, Miloš Obilić (or Kobilic), who had made his way into the Turkish camp on the pretext of being a deserter and forced his way into Murad's tent and stabbed him with a poisoned dagger.

Murad's twenty-nine-year-old son Bayezid quickly quells the confusion, and succeeds in surrounding the Serbs and inflicting a crushing defeat on their army.

Lazar is taken prisoner and executed; the Serbs are forced to pay tribute to the Turks and promise to do military service in the Ottoman army.

The defeat of the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo seals the fate of the entire Balkan Peninsula, but will become hallowed in several great heroic ballads.

The vision of Lazar on the eve of the battle, the alleged betrayal by the Bosnian Vuk Brankovic, the killing of Murad by Serbian knight Miloš Obilić, the succor brought to the wounded on the battlefield by the Maid of Kosovo—these and other stories will be immortalized in Serbian folk literature.

The territory of Zeta, one of the Serbian medieval polities that has existed from 1360 and 1421, encompasses parts of present-day Montenegro and northern Albania.

The state is administrated by the local noble family Balšić.

Zeta had been first noted, with its name, as an administrative unit of the Principality and Kingdom of Serbia (Rascia), ruled by heirs to the Serbian throne from the Nemanjić dynasty.

When the principal heir becomes Grand Župan of Rascia or King of Serbs, the appanage is granted to the second in line.

During Emperor Stefan Dušan Uroš IV Nemanjić (r. 1331–1355) Upper and Lower Zeta had been governed by dukes, who in turn were subordinate to the wife of Dušan.

After Dušan, his son, Uroš the Weak, ruled Serbia during the fall of the Serbian Empire; the gradual disintegration of the Empire has been a result of decentralization in which provincial lords gain semiautonomy and eventually independence.

The Balšići had wrested control of the region in 1360-1362, when they defeated the two lords of Upper and Lower Zeta.

Over the past few decades, they have become an important player in Balkan politics.

Zeta (later to become known as Montenegro), settled by Slavs in the seventh century CE and a part of Serbia since the twelfth century, achieves independence in 1389 after the conquest of Serbia by the Ottoman Turks.

Djurdje II Stracimirović of the House of Balšić, a family alliance dominant in the still officially undissolved Serbian Empire, has ruled from 1385 to 1395 as an Ottoman vassal over several Serbian and Albanian lands, most notably Zeta.

Having broken his contract with the Ottomans in the previous year, and relying upon the rivalry between Turkey and Venice to keep his cities safe, Djurdje hands over the cities into Venetian administration.

When Ottoman advances obviously come to a halt, the Venetians decide to negotiate the deal, and sign a contract in April, under which Djurdje hands over to Venetian administration Skadar (Shkodër), the Skadar Lake with all its islands, and Saint Serge.

He also agrees to channel the income from tolls in Danj in exchange for one thousand ducats every year, and promises to give the cities support in case of a Turkish attack.

In return, Djurdje gains acceptance into the Venetian nobility.

Only a small territory west of the Bojana river remains under Djurdje’s direct rule, with Bar and Ulcinj as the only cities.

The defeated King Sigismund of Hungary, on his return from the Battle of Nicopolis, stays in Djurdje’s lands and, to honor him for his fights against the Ottomans, bestows upon him the title "Lord of Albania", also making him prince of his Dalmatian islands of Hvar and Kоrčula.

Radic Crnojević, a lord of the Djurasevic-Crnojević clan who maintains a domain in Upper Zeta, rebels at the end of April 1396 against the rule of the Balšićs.

Radic and his brother Dobrivoje take the Grbalj and lay siege to Kotor.

Djurdje has gained the disfavor of the Orthodox Serb commoners, who support the takeover of the excessively religious Orthodox Crnojevićs.

Gaining the support of the Pastrovic clan, they move to battle Djurdje himself in May, but he completely defeats the Crnojevićs and kills Radič, managing to acquire a part of the Crnojević domain.

Soon a new enemy arises at the west; Bosnian nobleman Sandalj Hranic Kosaka seizes large parts of land quickly and conquers Budva and Kotor, making a deal with the Pastrovics, and managing to win the protection of the Venetians, who proclaim him the legitimate ruler of Budva and Zeta itself.

The Djurasevic subgroup of the Crnojevics comes to prominence in Upper Zeta, though they make an agreement and join Djuradj, seeing a common enemy in Duke Sandalj.

They aid him in the struggle against Sandalj, taking the first fronts by retaking all the lands from Budva to Spic, as well as the Churchland of Saint Miholj in the Bay of Kotor, the Serbian Orthodox religious center in Zeta.

Djurje’s brother-in-law, the newly-crowned Despot Stefan Lazarević, returning from the Battle of Angora in the late summer of 1402, stays at his court.

Djurdje aids him in organizing an army to battle Stefan’s rival Djurdje Brankovic, son of the late Vuc, in Ottoman service at the Battle of Tripolje on June 21 1402, near Gračanica, Kosovo.

The battle ends in full victory for Stefan, but Djurdje sustains serious injuries.

The seventeen-year old son of Djuradje II, ruler of the Principality of Zeta, succeeds to the throne as Balša III after the death of his father in April 1403 in consequence of the injuries suffered in the Battle of Gracanica.

As he is young and inexperienced, his main advisor is his mother, Jelena, a sister of Serbian ruler Stefan Lazarević.

Under the influence of his mother, Balsa reverts the order of the state religion, passing a law declaring Christian Orthodoxy as the official confession of the state, while Catholicism becomes merely a tolerated confession.