Europe · High and late Middle Ages
Serbian Empire
1346–1371
1346–1371. Stefan Dušan ("the Mighty") proclaimed himself tsar at Serres in 1345 and was crowned "Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks" on 16 April 1346 at Skopje by the newly elevated Serbian Patriarch Joanikije II (assisted by the Bulgarian Patriarch and the Archbishop of Ohrid).
- Existed
- 1346–1371
- Shown on the map
- 1352–1458
- Peak area
- 188k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
1346–1371. Stefan Dušan ("the Mighty") proclaimed himself tsar at Serres in 1345 and was crowned "Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks" on 16 April 1346 at Skopje by the newly elevated Serbian Patriarch Joanikije II (assisted by the Bulgarian Patriarch and the Archbishop of Ohrid). He promulgated Dušan's Code (Zakonik) at a state council in Skopje on 21 May 1349 (expanded 1353/54 at Serres), a sophisticated legal compilation drawing on Roman-Byzantine, customary, and canon law. His empire stretched from the Danube to the Gulf of Corinth, with Serbia the dominant power in the Balkans. It collapsed under his son Stefan Uroš V "the Weak" (r. 1355–1371); after the disastrous Battle of Maritsa (26 September 1371) and Uroš's death that year, Serbia fragmented into rival principalities.
Common questions
- What was the Serbian Empire?
- 1346–1371. Stefan Dušan ("the Mighty") proclaimed himself tsar at Serres in 1345 and was crowned "Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks" on 16 April 1346 at Skopje by the newly elevated Serbian Patriarch Joanikije II (assisted by the Bulgarian Patriarch and the Archbishop of Ohrid).
- When did the Serbian Empire exist?
- The Serbian Empire existed 1346–1371. On this map it is drawn 1352–1458.
- How large was the Serbian Empire?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Serbian Empire covered about 188,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each territory as the primary basis, with Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia, academic works (John Fine on the Balkans, Halperin and Martin on Muscovy, Rady and Veszprémy on Hungary) and, for a few entries, the medieval Livonian Chronicle of Henry itself. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Serbian Empire en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_Empire
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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