Stefan Uroš II Milutin
Stefan Uroš II. Milutin (* 1253 ; † October 29, 1321 ) was the younger son of Stefan Uroš I and his wife Hélène von Anjou . He was king of Raszien , the coastal lands and all Serbs from 1282 to 1321.
Life
After his older brother Stefan Dragutin was deposed as king by the Serbian imperial assembly, Milutin was enthroned in 1282. At that time he also took the name of his father Uroš. Under his rule, Raszien became the dominant power in the Balkans . Milutin ruled almost all of today's Serbia (except Belgrade and Vojvodina ), Montenegro , Herzegovina , southern Dalmatia and northern Albania . He conquered large parts of Macedonia and Albania from Byzantium .
When the Bulgarian principality of Vidin (later the Kingdom of Vidin ) began a campaign against Milutin, Milutin defeated it and, together with his brother Dragutin, who had his own rule around Belgrade, conquered the one on today's Serbian Danube east of Belgrade and dependent on Vidin Principality of Braničevo . The Principality of Vidin had to recognize the suzerainty of Milutin. With the conquest of Braničevo, the medieval Serbian state got a fixed border on the Danube for the first time.
Milutin is known as one of the most important Serbian art patrons and church donors. He built around 40 churches and monasteries, including a hospital in Constantinople , which was later to become the patriarchal seat, as well as churches in Thessaloniki , Bari in Italy and near Jerusalem . Its most important foundations were the Gračanica Monastery in Kosovo and the renovation of Hilandar on Mount Athos .
Milutin was also known for his numerous marriages. He married five times. Third wife he was with Elizabeth of Hungary , daughter of King Stephen V . married. In his fourth marriage he married the Bulgarian princess Anna von Terter . With her he had a son, Stefan Uroš III. Dečanski , and a daughter, Anna Neda .
Milutin's last marriage was in 1299 with the then five-year-old Simonida , daughter of the Byzantine emperor Andronikos II and the Yolande von Montferrat . This marriage was based on a decision by the emperor Andronikos II, who was ailing at the time, who first offered Milutin his widowed sister Eudokia as a wife in order to prevent a future attack by the Serbs on Byzantium. This refused the emperor the entourage, because she preferred a life at the imperial court in Constantinople to the royal court of Milutin, and snubbed the emperor and his assertiveness in the imperial family. The angry Milutin was about to declare war on Byzantium , already overwhelmed by the Golden Horde , the Bulgarian raids and the territorial claims of the Italians on Thessaloniki , when Andronikos Milutin proposed his five-year-old daughter to marry. This marriage with the emperor's daughter, who was born in purple, was the basis for the later claim of Emperor Stefan Uroš IV. Dušan to the imperial crown of the Byzantine Empire.
Milutin died in 1321, he was succeeded by his son Stefan Uroš III , who was once cast out and blinded by him . Dečanski. He was buried in the Banjska monastery. When the Ottomans invaded Serbia, his body was first moved to Trepča, then in 1460 to Sofia , Bulgaria , where he was buried in today's cathedral, Sweta Nedelja . In 2007 the body was given over by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Sinod of Sofia as a sign of solidarity with the Serbian Orthodox Church . This handover can be interpreted as a more than friendly gesture, because Milutin is now also venerated as a saint in Bulgaria, and his bones have the status of a relic . Today it rests again in the Banjska Monastery, which was re-consecrated in 2004.
literature
- John VA Fine Jr .: The Late Medieval Balkans . Ann Arbor 1987, pp.
- Edgar Hösch : History of the Balkan Countries - From the early days to the present . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1995. ISBN 3-406-40014-0 , p.
- Ralph-Johannes Lilie : Byzantium - The second Rome . Siedler Verlag, Berlin 2003. ISBN 3-88680-693-6 , p.
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ Lily: Byzantium - The Second Rome , p. 480f.
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Stefan Dragutin |
King of Serbia 1282-1321 |
Stefan Uroš III. |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stefan Uroš II Milutin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Serbian king (1282-1321) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1253 |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 29, 1321 |