Western Southeast Europe (1108 – 1251 CE): Komnenian Shores, Nemanjić Serbia, and Venetian Dalmatia

Geographic and Environmental Context

Western Southeast Europe includes Greece (outside Thrace), Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, most of Bosnia, southwestern Serbia, most of Croatia, and Slovenia.

• Coastal lowlands and islands along the Adriatic (Dalmatia, the Ionian isles) met the Dinaric and Pindus mountains’ karst and upland pastures.

• Interior corridors—Morava–Vardar, Drina–Sava, and the Via Egnatia from Dyrrachium (Durres) to Thessaloniki—linked the Aegean and Adriatic to the central Balkans.

• River valleys and Mediterranean basins of Attica, Boeotia, Peloponnese, and Epiros anchored Byzantine agrarian themes.

Climate and Environmental Shifts

• Gradual variability in precipitation; coastal agriculture and transhumance remained robust; maritime transport expanded.

Societies and Political Developments

• Komnenian Byzantium (12th c.) secured Greek coasts and the Egnatian approaches; after 1204, the Despotate of Epirus and other Greek states (Achaea, Athens under Catalan Company from 1311, just beyond this age) emerged from the Latin partition.

• Serbia (Nemanjić rise): Stefan Nemanja (r. 1166–1196) unified Raška; Stefan Nemanjić (the First-Crowned) became king (1217); Saint Sava secured autocephaly for the Serbian Church (1219), anchoring authority in Raška, Kosovo, and Metohija.

• Croatia–Dalmatia: under the Hungarian Crown; after 1205, Venice dominated most Dalmatian communes; Ragusa (Dubrovnik) fell briefly to Venice, then maneuvered between overlords.

• Bosnia: Ban Kulin (r. 1180–1204) fostered a prosperous, relatively autonomous banate focused on caravan tolls; successors maintained autonomy amid Hungarian claims.

• Albania & Epirus: regional lords, then the Despotate of Epirus after 1204, controlled gateways to the Via Egnatia.

Economy and Trade

• Silver (Bosnia/Serbia) and salt (Dalmatia) funded courts and communes; Ragusan and Venetian fleets moved Balkan produce to Italy and the Levant.

• Inland caravan roads tied Novi Pazar, Prizren, and Skopje to Kotor and Ragusa.

Subsistence and Technology

• Stone castles and walled communes; manuscript culture in Serbian monasteries; Latin notarial systems in ports; improved rigging and hulls for Adriatic galleys.

Movement and Interaction Corridors

• Adriatic convoys linked Dalmatia to Venice, Apulia, Sicily.

• Via Egnatia (western reaches) remained the main east–west land trunk.

• Vardar–Morava corridor funneled Serbian expansion southward.

Belief and Symbolism

• Orthodoxy (Serbia, Greek states) and Latin Christianity (Dalmatia, Croatia) coexisted; Saint Sava institutionalized Serbian sacred kingship; coastal saints’ cults supported communal identity.

Adaptation and Resilience

• Pluri-polity landscape allowed merchants to switch flags and ports; ecclesiastical foundations stabilized rule and literacy.

Long-Term Significance

By 1251, Serbia stood as a crowned kingdom with an autocephalous church; Venice held Dalmatian seas; Epirus controlled western Greek gateways—frameworks that would lead into 14th-century zeniths and conflicts.

The zupan of Raska, Stefan I Nemanja (1159-96), throws off imperial domination and lays the foundation for medieval Serbia by conquering Zeta and part of southern Dalmatia.

His son and successor, Stefan II Nemanja (1196-1228), transforms Serbia into a stable state, friendly with Rome but with religious loyalty to Constantinople.

In 1218 Pope Honorius III recognizes Serbian political independence and crowns Stefan II.

The writings of Stefan II and his brother (later canonized as St. Sava) are the first works of Serbian literature.

Abdicating in 1196, Nemanja joins his son Rastko (later canonized as St. Sava) in a monastery at Mount Athos, Greece, and assists him in establishing the monastery of Khilandar, which will become a focal point of medieval Serbian culture and ecclesiastical leadership.

The foundations of the Second Bulgarian State, with Tarnovo as its capital, had been laid as a result of the successful uprising of the brothers Peter IV and Ivan Asen I in 1185/1186.

Following Boris I’s principle that the sovereignty of the state is inextricably linked to the autocephaly of the Church, the Asen brothers had immediately taken steps to restore the Bulgarian Patriarchate.

As a start, they established an independent archbishopric in Tarnovo in 1186.

The struggle to have the archbishopric recognized according to the canonical order and elevated to the rank of a Patriarchate will take almost fifty years.

Following the example of Boris I, Bulgarian Tsar Kaloyan, a younger brother and heir of Peter IV and Ivan Asen I, has maneuvered for years between the Patriarch of Constantinople and Pope Innocent III.

King Emeric of Hungary had invaded Bulgaria in 1202 and conquered the areas of Belgrade, Braničevo (Kostolac), and Niš (which he turned over to his protégé on the throne of Serbia, Vukan Nemanjić).

Kaloyan had retaliated in 1203, restoring Vukan's brother Stefan Nemanjić in Serbia and recovering his lands after defeating the Hungarians.

Ill feeling between Bulgaria and the Hungarians continues until the intercession of Pope Innocent III, who had written to Kaloyan, inviting him to unite his Church with the Roman Catholic Church, as early as 1199.

Wanting to bear the title of Emperor and to restore the prestige, wealth and size of the First Bulgarian Empire, Kaloyan had responded in 1202.

In this political maneuver, he had requested that Pope Innocent III bestow on him the imperial crown and scepter that had been held by Simeon I, Peter I, and Samuel and in exchange he might consider communication with Rome.

Kaloyan had also wanted the Papacy to recognize the head of the Bulgarian Church as a Patriarch.

The pope is not willing to make concessions on that scale, and when his envoy, Cardinal Leo, arrives in Bulgaria, he anoints the Archbishop Vasilij of Turnovo as Primate of Bulgarians and Vlachs.

Kaloyan only receives a Uniate crown as rex Bulgarorum et Blachorum ("King of Bulgarians and Wallachians") or rex Bulgarie et Blachie ("King of Bulgaria and Wallachia"), not emperor.

Blithely, Kaloyan writes to the pope, thanking him for an imperial coronation and for the anointing of his patriarch.

He also assures him that he too will follow the Catholic Church rites, as part of the agreement.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to foster an alliance with Kaloyan, Emperor Alexios III Angelos recognizes his imperial title and promises him patriarchal recognition.

The union with the Roman Catholic Church will continue or well over three decades.

Stefan II Nemanja transforms Serbia into a stable state; his brother Rastko (later canonized as St. Sava) organizes the Serbian church.

Stefan Nemanja's son and successor has transformed Serbia into a stable state, friendly with Rome but with religious loyalty to Constantinople.

Known as Stefan Prvovencani (the “First-Crowned”), he receives from Pope Honorius III in 1217-1218 the title of king of Raska, and is crowned by a papal legate.

Rastko (later canonized as St. Sava), the younger brother of Stefan II Nemanja, Grand Prince of Serbia, counters his brother's affinity to the Roman Catholic church by traveling in 1219 to Nicaea—refuge of the exiled patriarch of Constantinople—where he receives the title of autocephalous archbishop of Serbia.

Emperor Theodore Lascaris has meanwhile strengthened his ties to the Latin empire by taking as his third wife Maria, daughter of the empress Yolanda, and by proposing that Greek and Latin clergy meet in Nicaea to consider the reunion of the two churches.

In August 1219, Theodore makes a lucrative commercial agreement with the Venetians in Constantinople.

The southern Slavs had in 1219 acknowledged the Empire of Nicaea as the heir to the Roman Empire and the center of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Rastko organizes the Serbian church, with its seat at Zica, near modern Kraljevo, into bishoprics headed by his former monastic colleagues and students.

He now embarks on a cultural and ecclesiastical renaissance that includes the establishment of schools and the beginnings of a medieval Serbian literature; he personally contributes a chronicle of his father's reign.

The writings of Stefan II and his brother are considered as the first works of Serbian literature.

Rastko upon returning to Serbia crowns his brother again with a crown from the Nicaean Empire, which serves to reaffirm Serbia's eastern orthodox religious and cultural orientation.

This close alliance between secular and sacred power gives the Nemanjic state much of its strength and stability.

The Serbian church thus separates from ...

…the Bulgarian-influenced archbishopric of Ohrid.