The Kingdom of Serbia is bounded by Bosnia, Old Serbia, Bulgaria, Roumania, the Banat, and Slavonia. The boundary rivers are the Danube, on the north separating it from Hungary and on the northeast from Roumania; the Drina, on the northwest from Bosnia; the Save, on the northwest from Croatia and Slavonia; the Timok, on the northeast from Bulgaria. Various mountain ranges on the west separate it from Bosnia, on the south and southwest from Turkey, and on the south and southeast from Bulgaria.
Until the tenth century, except Pliny and Ptolemy, the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenites is the only historian to speak of the Serbs, and he but briefly; yet their history in those three centuries after their arrival was an epitome of their history in later years in the Balkan Peninsula. The general movement was the same. First, a constant struggle on the one side to establish a union of the jupanias and on the other side a constant resistance to such centralization. A jupania may be roughly defined as a county within whose limits lived clans more or less related to one another. The ruler was a Jupan, and it was not strange that the more powerful Jupans should tend to absorb their weaker neighbors. The successful man took the title of Grand Jupan. Jealousy of the Grand Jupan would lead to assassination, dethronement, and decentralization—and then would come a repetition of the violent and bloody story.
Another element of disorder in Serbia was the ancient Slavonic rule that a Jupan might be succeeded, not by his son but by the oldest member of his family. It was hardly to be counted against a strong Jupan that he should try to arrange for his son to succeed him—yet this added to the troubles of the Serbs.
A third and later cause of Serb trouble was the Church. The Greek Emperor and the Greek Church on the one side, and the Roman Catholic Church represented by Venice and Hungary on the other, were continually warring, not only for territory but for influence in the Serb provinces. Yet in spite of apparent wavering, the Serbs from the time they adopted Christianity have been constant to the Church of their early choice.
Finally, the founding in the seventh century of the Bulgarian kingdom, on the eastern and southeastern frontiers of Serbia, added to the dangers of this tempestuous little nation. After the Frank and Bulgarian Emperors in the first quarter of the ninth century had for some time wrangled over the Serbian tribes, the Bulgarians at last succeeded in placing a garrison in Belgrade. The Bulgarians ruled Rascia for seven years, but it was like ruling an uninhabited land, as the larger part of the Serbians had run away to Croatia.
Almost two hundred years after the agreement with Heraclius the Serbs had a strong Jupan who carried out the principles of concentration. This Visheslav was probably a descendant of that Visheslav who had signed the agreement with the Greek Emperor. His descendants, of whom the greatest was Vlastimir, for three generations contributed to the unity of Serbia by defending it against Bulgar and Frank, who were constantly menacing even when not directly attacking. Towards the end of the ninth century, in 871, under Basil the Macedonian, the Serbs acknowledged again the suzerainty of the Greek Empire and accepted Christianity. This was in the reign of Mertimir, but after his death almost all of the Greek Serb provinces were lost to Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria.
Though Serbia recovered part of her lost provinces, she could not hold them. The political center of the Serbs had moved to Zeta (Montenegro) and the mystic Prince Jovan Vladimir in the latter part of the tenth century, sometimes called King of Zeta, tried in vain to stop the triumphal march of Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria through the Serb provinces. He himself was taken a prisoner to Samuel's court, where he married the Tsar's daughter, Kossara. He returned to Zeta as reigning Prince under the suzerainty of Bulgaria, but in 1015 he was murdered by Samuel's heir, and he now is venerated as a saint in Serbia. The first Serb novel, "Vladimir and Kossara," published in the thirteenth century, is founded on the life of this Prince.
Zeta was too far from the racial center of Serbia to be a good political center and soon the disintegration of the first Serb kingdom began. Although Serbia recovered the provinces Bulgaria had taken, she was unable to stand alone, and grudgingly accepted Greek suzerainty until Prince Voislav—cousin of Vladimir of Zeta—started a successful revolt against the Greeks and united under his own rule Zeta, Trebinje, and Zahumle. His son, Michel Voislavich, annexed the Jupania of Rascia. In 1072 he proclaimed himself King and received the crown from Gregory VII. This was an effort to free Serbia from the Greek overlordship, as expressed in the Greek Church. In the next reign Serbia became better known to the world when she welcomed the Crusaders under Raymond of Toulouse, passing through on their way to the Holy Land. Then came brighter days for Serbia. Stephen Nemanya, Grand Jupan of Rascia, who lived near Novi Bazar (1122-1199), planned the union of all the jupanias in one kingdom under one king. This he practically accomplished, for though unable to include Bosnia, within ten years of his accession he had almost doubled his territory.
Later, when Stephen's ambition grew, he received Frederick Barbarossa, passing through with his Crusaders, and gave him every honor due the Empire when he visited Nish in 1188, and treated him so liberally that Barbarossa—at least this is something more than rumor—was considering a marriage between his son and Stephen's daughter when death put an end to the alliance. In the next reign the Emperor Henry VI planned, with the help of the Serbs, to conquer the Byzantine Empire. But again death took the Emperor before the plans were completed.
Another notable act of Stephen's was his attack on the Greek provinces as an ally of the King of Hungary. Stephen Nemanya assumed the double-eagle as the insignia of his dignity, but though he founded the first real Kingdom of Serbia, and was called King, he was never crowned.