Vlachs
Vlachs Wallachians, is a historical term from the Middle Ages that designates an exonym—a name that foreigners use—mostly for the Romanians who lived north and south of the Danube. As a contemporary term, in the English language, the Vlachs are the Eastern Romance-speaking peoples who live south of the Danube in what are now eastern Serbia, southern Albania, northern Greece, the Republic of North Macedonia, southwestern Bulgaria, as indigenous ethnic groups, such as the Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Macedo-Vlachs. In Polish and Hungarian, derivations of the term were applied to Italians; the term became a synonym in the Balkans for the social category of shepherds, was used for non-Romance-speaking peoples, in recent times in the western Balkans derogatively. There is a Vlach diaspora in other European countries Romania, as well as in North America and Australia."Vlachs" were identified and described during the 11th century by George Kedrenos. According to one origin theory, modern Romanians and Aromanians originated from Dacians.
According to some linguists and scholars, the Eastern Romance languages prove the survival of the Thraco-Romans in the lower Danube basin during the Migration Period and western Balkan populations known as "Vlachs" have had Romanized Illyrian origins. Nowadays, Eastern Romance-speaking communities are estimated at 26–30 million people worldwide. All Balkan countries have indigenous Romance-speaking minorities; the word Vlach/Wallachian is etymologically derived from the ethnonym of a Celtic tribe, adopted into Proto-Germanic *Walhaz, which meant "stranger", from *Wolkā-. Via Latin, in Gothic, as *walhs, the ethnonym took on the meaning "foreigner" or "Romance-speaker", was adopted into Greek Vláhi, Slavic Vlah, Hungarian oláh and olasz, etc; the root word was notably adopted in Germanic for Wales and Walloon, in Switzerland for Romansh-speakers, in Poland Włochy or in Hungary olasz became an exonym for Italians. The term was used for the Romanians. Testimonies from the 13th-14th centuries show that, although in the European space they were called Vlachs or Wallachians, the Romanians used for themselves the endonym "Rumân/Român", from the Latin "Romanus".
Via both Germanic and Latin, the term started to signify "stranger, foreigner" in the Balkans, where it in its early form was used for Romance-speakers, but the term took on the meaning of "shepherd, nomad". The Romance-speaking communities themselves however used the endonym "Romans". During the early history of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, there was a social class of Vlachs in Serbia and Ottoman Macedonia, made up of Christians who served as auxiliary forces and had the same rights as Muslims. In Croatia, the term became derogatory, Vlasi was used for the ethnic Serb community who, despite being Slavic, were given the term due to the Orthodox faith which they shared with the Vlachs. Romanian scholars have suggested that the term Vlach appeared for the first time in the Eastern Roman Empire and was subsequently spread to the Germanic- and Slavic-speaking worlds through the Norsemen, who were in trade and military contact with Byzantium during the early Middle Ages. Nowadays, the term Vlachs is used in scholarship for the Romance-speaking communities in the Balkans those in Greece and North Macedonia.
In Serbia the term Vlach is used to refer to Romanian speakers those living in eastern Serbia. Aromanians themselves use the endonym "Armãn" or "Rãmãn", etymologically from "Romanus", meaning "Roman". Megleno-Romanians designate themselves with the Macedonian form Vla in their own language. Byzantine historians used the term Vlachs for Latin speakers; the 7th century Byzantine historiographer Theophylact Simocatta wrote about “Blachernae” in connection with some historical data of the 6th century, during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Maurice. First precise data about Vlachs are in connection with the Vlachs of the Rynchos river. During the late 9th century the Hungarians invaded the Carpathian Basin, where the province of Pannonia was inhabited by the "Slavs and Vlachs, the shepherds of the Romans " (sclauij, Bulgarij et Blachij, ac pastores romanorum —according to the Gesta Hungarorum, written around 1200 by the anonymous chancellor of King Béla III of Hungary. George Kedrenos mentioned about Vlachs in 976.
The Vlachs were guards of Roman caravans in Balkans. Between Prespa and Kastoria they fought with a Bulgarian rebel named David; the Vlachs killed David in their first documented battle. Mutahhar al-Maqdisi, "They say that in the Turkic neighbourhood there are the Khazars, Slavs, Alans and many other peoples."Ibn al-Nadīm published in 938 the work “Kitāb al-Fihrist” mentioning “Turks and Vlahs” Byzantine writer Kekaumenos, author of the Strategikon
Dynasty
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family in the context of a feudal or monarchical system, but sometimes appearing in elective republics. Alternative terms for "dynasty" may include "family" and "clan", among others; the longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, otherwise known as the Yamato dynasty, whose reign is traditionally dated to 660 BC. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a "noble house", which may be styled as "royal", "princely", "ducal", "comital" etc. depending upon the chief or present title borne by its members. Historians periodize the histories of numerous nations and civilizations, such as Ancient Egypt and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties; as such, the term "dynasty" may be used to delimit the era during which a family reigned, to describe events and artifacts of that period. The word "dynasty" itself is dropped from such adjectival references; until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty: that is, to expand the wealth and power of his family members.
Prior to the 20th century, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. In nations where it was permitted, succession through a daughter established a new dynasty in her husband's ruling house; this has changed in some places in Europe, where succession law and convention have maintained dynasties de jure through a female. For instance, the House of Windsor will be maintained through the children of Queen Elizabeth II, as it did with the monarchy of the Netherlands, whose dynasty remained the House of Orange-Nassau through three successive queens regnant; the earliest such example among major European monarchies was in the Russian Empire in the 18th century, where the name of the House of Romanov was maintained through Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna. In Limpopo Province of South Africa, Balobedu determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mother's dynasty when coming into her inheritance.
Less a monarchy has alternated or been rotated, in a multi-dynastic system – that is, the most senior living members of parallel dynasties, at any point in time, constitute the line of succession. Not all feudal states or monarchies were/are ruled by dynasties. Throughout history, there were monarchs. Dynasties ruling subnational monarchies do not possess sovereign rights; the word "dynasty" is sometimes used informally for people who are not rulers but are, for example, members of a family with influence and power in other areas, such as a series of successive owners of a major company. It is extended to unrelated people, such as major poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team; the word "dynasty" derives from Latin dynastia, which comes from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to "power", "dominion", "rule" itself. It was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, "power" or "ability", from dýnamai, "to be able". A ruler from a dynasty is sometimes referred to as a "dynast", but this term is used to describe any member of a reigning family who retains a right to succeed to a throne.
For example, King Edward VIII ceased to be a dynast of the House of Windsor following his abdication. In historical and monarchist references to reigning families, a "dynast" is a family member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchy's rules still in force. For example, after the 1914 assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his morganatic wife Duchess Sophie von Hohenberg, their son Duke Maximilian was bypassed for the Austro-Hungarian throne because he was not a Habsburg dynast. Since the abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Duke Maximilian and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position; the term "dynast" is sometimes used only to refer to agnatic descendants of a realm's monarchs, sometimes to include those who hold succession rights through cognatic royal descent. The term can therefore describe distinct sets of people. For example, David Armstrong-Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowdon, a nephew of Queen Elizabeth II through her sister Princess Margaret, is in the line of succession to the British crown.
On the other hand, the German aristocrat Prince Ernst August of Hanover, a male-line descendant of King George III of the United Kingdom, possesses no legal British name, titles or styles. He was born in the line of succession to the British throne and was bound by Britain's Royal Marriages Act 1772 until it was repealed when the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 took effect on 26 March 2015. Thus, he requested and obtained formal permission from Queen Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco in 1999. Yet, a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time, stipulating that dynasts who
Pope John XXII
Pope John XXII, born Jacques Duèze, was Pope from 7 August 1316 to his death in 1334. He was the second and longest-reigning Avignon Pope, elected by the Conclave of Cardinals, assembled in Lyon through the work of King Louis X's brother Philip, the Count of Poitiers King Philip V of France. Like his predecessor, Clement V, Pope John centralized power and income in the Papacy and lived a princely life in Avignon, he opposed the political policies of Louis IV of Bavaria as Holy Roman Emperor, which prompted Louis to invade Italy and set up an antipope, Nicholas V. Pope John XXII faced controversy in theology involving his views on the Beatific Vision, he opposed the Franciscan understanding of the poverty of Christ and his apostles, famously leading William of Ockham to write against unlimited papal power, he canonized St. Thomas Aquinas; the son of a shoemaker in Cahors, Jacques Duèze studied medicine in Montpellier and law in Paris, yet could not read a regal letter written to him in French.
Duèze taught civil law at Toulouse and Cahors. On the recommendation of Charles II of Naples he was made Bishop of Fréjus in 1300. In 1309 he was appointed chancellor of Charles II, in 1310 he was transferred to Avignon, he delivered legal opinions favorable to the suppression of the Templars, but he defended Boniface VIII and the Bull Unam Sanctam. On 23 December 1312, Clement V made him Cardinal-Bishop of Porto-Santa Rufina; the death of Pope Clement V in 1314 was followed by an interregnum of two years due to disagreements between the cardinals, who were split into two factions. After two years, Philip, in 1316 managed to arrange a papal conclave of twenty-three cardinals in Lyon; this conclave elected Duèze, crowned in Lyon. He set up his residence in Avignon rather than Rome, continuing the Avignon Papacy of his predecessor. John XXII involved himself in the politics and religious movements of many European countries in order to advance the interests of the Church, his close links with the French crown created widespread distrust of the papacy.
Pope John XXII was an excellent administrator and efficient at reorganizing the Church. He had sent a letter of thanks to the Muslim ruler Uzbeg Khan, tolerant of Christians and treated Christians kindly. John XXII has traditionally been credited with having composed the prayer "Anima Christi", which has become the English "Soul of Christ, sanctify me..." and the basis for the hymn Soul of Christ, Sanctify My Breast". On 27 March 1329, John XXII condemned many writings of Meister Eckhart as heretical in his papal bull In Agro Dominico. Prior to John XXII's election, a contest had begun for the Holy Roman Empire's crown between Louis IV of Bavaria and Frederick I of Austria. John XXII was neutral at first, but in 1323, when Louis IV became Holy Roman Emperor, the Guelph party and the Ghibelline party quarreled, provoked by John XXII's extreme claims of authority over the empire and by Louis IV's support of the spiritual Franciscans, whom John XXII condemned in the Papal bull Quorumdam exigit.
Louis IV was assisted in his doctrinal dispute with the papacy by Marsilius of Padua and by the English Franciscan friar and scholar William of Ockham. Louis IV invaded Italy, entered Rome and set up Pietro Rainalducci as Antipope Nicholas V in 1328; the project was a fiasco. Guelphic predominance at Rome was restored, Pope John excommunicated William of Ockham. However, Louis IV had silenced the papal claims and John XXII stayed the rest of his life in Avignon. Pope John XXII was determined to suppress what he considered to be the excesses of the Spirituals, who contended eagerly for the view that Christ and his apostles had possessed nothing, citing Exiit qui seminat in support of their view. In 1317, John XXII formally condemned the group of them known as the Fraticelli. On 26 March 1322, with Quia nonnunquam, he removed the ban on discussion of Pope Nicholas III's bull and commissioned experts to examine the idea of poverty based on belief that Christ and the apostles owned nothing; the experts disagreed among themselves, but the majority condemned the idea on the grounds that it would condemn the Church's right to have possessions.
The Franciscan chapter held in Perugia in May 1322 declared on the contrary: "To say or assert that Christ, in showing the way of perfection, the Apostles, in following that way and setting an example to others who wished to lead the perfect life, possessed nothing either severally or in common, either by right of ownership and dominium or by personal right, we corporately and unanimously declare to be not heretical, but true and catholic." By the bull Ad conditorem canonum of 8 December 1322, John XXII declared it ridiculous to pretend that every scrap of food given to the friars and eaten by them belonged to the pope, refused to accept ownership over the goods of the Franciscans in future and granted them exemption from the rule that forbade ownership of anything in common, thus forcing them to accept ownership. On 12 November 1323, he issued the bull Quum inter nonnullos, which declared "erroneous and heretical" the doctrine that Christ and his apostles had no possessions whatever. Influential members of the order protested, such as the minister general Michael of Cesena, the English provincial William of Ockham, Bonagratia of Bergamo.
In 1324, Louis the Bavarian accused the Pope of heresy. In reply to the argument of his opponents that Nicholas III's bull Exiit qui seminat was fixed and irrevocable, John XXII issued the bull Quia quorundam on 10 November 1324, in which he declared that it cannot be inferred from the words of the 1279 bull that Christ a
Foundation of Wallachia
The foundation of Wallachia, the establishment of the first independent Romanian principality, was achieved at the beginning of the 14th century, through the unification of smaller political units that had existed between the Carpathian Mountains, the Rivers Danube and Milcov. Prior to the consolidation of Wallachia, waves of nomadic peoples – the last of them being the Cumans and the Mongols – rode across the territory; the territory became a frontier area between the Golden Horde and the Kingdom of Hungary after 1242. The Romanians in Muntenia, east of the Olt River, had to pay tribute to the Mongols; the Golden Horde's domination decreased in the region at the end of the 13th century, at that time the Kingdom of Hungary underwent a strong political crisis. These events enabled the incipient states of the territory to consolidate their autonomy. One Romanian tradition records that Wallachia was founded when a certain Radu Negru arrived from the Făgăraș region in the 1290s after crossing the Transylvanian Alps with "a great many following him".
Jean W. Sedlar wrote that "more credible" is the report that some Romanian lords in the Olt and Argeș valleys chose as leader one of their number, a certain Basarab, it was Voivode Basarab I who broke off with the Kingdom of Hungary and refused to accept the king's suzerainty. Basarab I received international support and the recognition of the autonomy of Wallachia due to his great military victory over King Charles I of Hungary at Posada on November 12, 1330; the Metropolitan See of Wallachia, directly subordinated to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, was set up during the reign of Basarab I's son, Nicolae Alexandru. The first silver and bronze coins were minted in Wallachia in 1365. Among the oldest attestations of the countries of the Vlachs on the left side of the Danube, there is a quotation of a passage from an Armenian book of geography; the passage represents an interpolation from the first centuries of the second millennium, which refers to an "unknown country called Balak", situated in the neighborhood of the "Sarmatians’ country" and of "Zagura".
Another 11th-century reference to the Vlachs’ country appears to be the section of the ancient Turkic chronicle Oghuzname, preserved in a 17th-century text, which narrates the battles of the Cumans against several peoples, including the Vlachs. The Cumans, a Turkic tribe approached the Danube Delta shortly after 1064–1065, from 1068 the entire territory between the Aral Sea and the lower Danube were controlled by them, but this vast territory was never politically united by a strong central power. The different Cuman groups were under independent rulers or khans who meddled in the political life of the surrounding areas, such as the Rus’ principalities and the Byzantine Empire. In attacking the Byzantine Empire, the Cumans were assisted by the Vlachs living in the Balkan Mountains who showed them the mountain paths where no imperial guard was set up. In 1185, the Balkan Vlachs, together with the Bulgarians, rose up in arms against the Byzantine Empire, they created, with the help of the Cumans and the Vlachs living on the left bank of the Danube, a new state, the Second Bulgarian Empire between the Balkan Mountains and the Danube.
The new state was called' "Vlachia" in Western sources. For example, in 1204 the pope elevated the head of the Bulgarian church to the rank of "primas" "of all Bulgaria and Vlachia". "Vlachia" as an exonym for northern Bulgaria only disappeared from the sources after the middle of the 13th century. In 1211, King Andrew II of Hungary settled the Teutonic Knights in the region of Brașov in order to put an end to the frequent incursions of the Cumans into Transylvania; the knights were given all the territory they could conquer beyond the Carpathian Mountains as a fief to be held from the king of Hungary. According to a royal charter of 1222, the knights’ military power stretched across the Carpathians all the way to the Danube; that the Teutonic Knights won several victories "beyond the snowy mountains", to the south and to the east of the Carpathians, is confirmed by papal letters. However, the Teutonic Knights were forced out of the territory in 1225 by King Andrew II, who claimed that they had ignored his authority.
The Mongols entered Europe in 1223. Some Cuman groups, after their defeat of the Mongols, become willing to adopt Christianity; as early as 1227, one of the Cuman chieftains, Boricius subjected himself and his people to the future King Béla IV of Hungary, converted to Christianity and agreed to pay an annual tax and the tithe. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Cumania, located in northeastern Wallachia and southwestern Moldavia, was established in 1228. A significant presence of the Vlachs within the newly established bishopric is documented in the correspondence between the Hungarian crown prince and Pope Gregory IX, as the pope complained about Orthodox prelates active among the local Vlachs; the Diocese of Cumania was de jure a part of the Kingdom of Hungary, King Andrew II adopted the title of "king of Cumania" in 1233. There can be no doubt that the king placed garrisons at key points on the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains in northeastern Wallachia, but the military outposts in the region of the bishopric are only first mentioned in relation to the Mongol i
Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)
In the Late Middle Ages, the Kingdom of Hungary, a country in Central Europe, experienced a period of interregnum in the early 14th century. Royal power was restored under a scion of the Capetian House of Anjou. Gold and silver mines opened in his reign produced about one third of the world's total production up until the 1490s; the kingdom reached the peak of its power under Louis the Great who led military campaigns against Lithuania, southern Italy and other faraway territories. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire reached the kingdom under Sigismund of Luxemburg. In the next decades, a talented military commander, John Hunyadi directed the fight against the Ottomans, his victory at Nándorfehérvár in 1456 stabilized the southern frontiers for more than half a century. The first king of Hungary without dynastic ancestry was Matthias Corvinus, who led several successful military campaigns and became the King of Bohemia and the Duke of Austria. With his patronage Hungary became the first country.
The Kingdom of Hungary came into being when Stephen I, grand prince of the Hungarians, was crowned king in 1000 or 1001. He forced his subjects to accept Christianity. Although written sources emphasize the role played by German and Italian knights and clerics in the process, a significant part of the Hungarian vocabulary for agriculture and state was taken from Slavic languages. Civil wars, pagan uprisings and the Holy Roman Emperors' unsuccessful attempts to expand their authority over Hungary jeopardized the new monarchy, its position stabilized under Ladislaus Coloman. Following the succession crisis in Croatia as a result of their campaign the Kingdom of Croatia entered a personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary in 1102. Both them were regarded as a successor by hereditary rights Coloman was crowned in Biograd in 1102 and the title now claimed by Coloman was "King of Hungary and Croatia". Rich in uncultivated lands and in silver and salt deposits, the kingdom became a preferred target of the continuous immigration of German and French colonists.
The colonists were peasants who settled in villages, but large number of townsfolk arrived as craftsmen and merchants. Their arrival contributed to the development of Esztergom, Székesfehérvár and many other cities and large number of villages in various parts of the Kingdom. Situated at the crossroads of international trade routes, Hungary was affected by several cultural trends. Romanesque and Renaissance buildings, literary works written in Latin prove the predominantly Roman Catholic character of the culture of the Kingdom, but Orthodox, non-Christian ethnic minority communities existed. Latin was the language of legislation and judiciary, but "linguistic pluralism" contributed to the survival of a number of tongues, including a great variety of Slavic dialects; the predominance of royal estates ensured the sovereign's preeminent position, but the alienation of royal lands gave rise to the emergence of a self-conscious group of lesser landholders. They forced Andrew II to issue his Golden Bull of 1222, "one of first examples of constitutional limits being placed on the powers of a European monarch".
The kingdom received a major blow from the Mongol invasion of 1241–1242. Thereafter Cuman and Jassic groups were settled in the central lowlands and colonists arrived from Moravia and other nearby countries. Andrew III died on January 14, 1301, his death created an opportunity for about a dozen lords, or "oligarchs", who had by that time achieved de facto independence of the monarch to strengthen their autonomy. They acquired all royal castles in a number of counties where everybody was obliged either to accept their supremacy or to leave. For instance, Matthew III Csák ruled over fourteen counties in the lands now forming Slovakia, Ladislaus Kán administered Transylvania, Ugrin Csák controlled large territories between the rivers Száva and Dráva. At the news of Andrew III's death, Charles of Anjou, the late Charles Martel's son hurried to Esztergom where he was crowned king. However, most secular lords opposed his rule and proposed the throne to King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia's namesake son; the young Wenceslaus could not strengthen his position and renounced in favor of Otto III, Duke of Bavaria in 1305.
The latter was forced to leave the kingdom in 1307 by Ladislaus Kán. A papal legate persuaded all the lords to accept Charles of Anjou's rule in 1310, but most territories remained out of royal control. Assisted by the prelates and a growing number of lesser nobles, Charles I launched a series of expeditions against the great lords. Taking advantage of the lack of unity among them, he defeated them one by one, he won his first victory in the battle of Rozgony in 1312. However, the most powerful lord, Matthew Csák preserved his autonomy up until his death in 1321, while the Babonić and Šubić families were only subjugated in 1323. Charles I introduced a centralized power structure in the 1320s. Stating that "his words has the force of law", he never again convoked the Diet, his most faithful partisans depended on revenues from their temporary honours, because the king made land grants. This practice ensured the loyalty of the Drugeths, Lackfis, Szécsényis and other families who emerged in his reign.
The king afforded to grant privileges which contradicted customary law. For instance, he authorized daughters of noblemen to inherit their fathers' estates, although local customs required that a deceased nobleman's inherited lands were to be trans
Kingdom of Serbia (medieval)
The Kingdom of Serbia, or Serbian Kingdom, was a medieval Serbian state that existed from 1217 to 1346, ruled by the Nemanjić dynasty. The Grand Principality of Serbia was elevated with the coronation of Stefan Nemanjić as king by his brother, archbishop Sava, after inheriting all territories unified by their father, grand prince Stefan Nemanja; the kingdom was proclaimed an empire on 16 April 1346. The coronation of Stefan Nemanjić in 1217 was not unheard of in Serbian history, since there had been a long tradition of kingship among previous Serbian rulers centered in Duklja. During the Nemanjić era, the previous Serbian kingdom in Duklja was referred to as the "Old Kingdom of our forefathers" and such views were reflected in the royal titles of Stefan Nemanjić and his successors, who styled themselves as kings of all Serbian Lands, including Duklja. Realizing the importance of royal heritage, grand prince Stefan Nemanja, father of Stefan Nemanjić, granted his elder son Vukan Nemanjić rule in Duklja, with the title of king.
By that time, the "Old Kingdom" of Duklja and its former rulers from the Vojislavljević dynasty were regarded as royal predecessors to the Nemanjić dynasty, that branched from the previous Vukanović dynasty in Raška. Older relations between the two dynasties and the two regions were close. In 1083, king Constantine Bodin of Duklja appointed his nephews Vukan and Marko vassals in Raška, one of the inner provinces of his realm; each province had its own nobility and institutions, each acquired a member or relative of the Vojislavljević dynasty to govern as župan. Between 1089 and 1091, the Byzantine Empire launched a campaign on Duklja. An internal war broke out in the realm among Bodin's relatives weakening Duklja. Vukan of Raška took the opportunity to assert himself and broke away, claiming the title of Grand Prince of Serbia. Up to the end of 11th century, Duklja had been the center of the Serbian realm, as well as the main state resisting Byzantium. From that time, Raška became the most powerful of the Serbian states, under the rule of the Vukanović dynasty, it remained so throughout the entire 12th century.
Raška replaced Duklja as the main opponent of the Byzantine Empire. Bodin's heirs were forced to recognize Byzantine overlordship, now held only the small territories of Duklja and Travunia. During the reign of Vukan's successors, the Byzantines sought to conquer Raška on several occasions, but through resistance, diplomatic ties with Hungary, that Serbian principality kept its independence. By the time when Stefan Nemanja became the grand župan of Raška, old Duklja was half conquered by the Byzantines reduced to a small principality. Soon after 1180, Stefan Nemanja liberated Duklja thus reuniting Serbian lands, invested his son Vukan with rule over Duklja with the traditional title of the king. Since Nemanja's second son Stefan became grand župan in 1196, rivalry occurred among brothers, culminating in 1202 when Stefan was overthrown. In 1204, Stefan Nemanjić regained his rule in Raška and made peace with his brother Vukan of Duklja, who died in 1208; the actual peacemaker was their youngest brother Rastko, former prince of Zahumlje who renounced his rule to became a monk, took the name Sava, turning all his efforts to spreading Eastern Orthodoxy among his people.
Since the Roman Catholic Church had ambitions to spread its influence to the Southeaster Europe as well, Stefan used these circumstances to obtain the recognition of kingship from the Pope, thereby becoming Serbian king in 1217. In Byzantium, Sava managed to secure autocephaly for the Serbian Church and became the first Serbian archbishop in 1219. In the same year Sava published the first constitution in Serbia — St. Sava's Nomocanon; the Nomocanon was a compilation of Civil law, based on Roman Law, Canon law, based on Ecumenical Councils. Its basic purpose was to organize the functions of the Serbian church, thus the Serbs acquired both religious independence. In 1220, grand assembly of the realm was held in Žiča, were Stefan was crowned by the Orthodox ritual and coronation was performed by archbishop Sava; that act served as a precedent for all their successors: all Serbian kings of the Nemanjić dynasty were crowned in Žiča, by Serbian archbishops. The next generation of Serbian rulers — the sons of Stefan Prvovenčani, Radoslav and Uroš I — marked a period of stagnation of the state structure.
All three kings were more or less dependent on some of the neighbouring states — Byzantium, Bulgaria, or Hungary. The ties with the Hungarians played a decisive role as Uroš I was succeeded by his son Dragutin, whose wife was a Hungarian princess; when Dragutin abdicated in favour of his younger brother Milutin, in 1282, the Hungarian king Ladislaus IV gave him lands in northeastern Bosnia, the region of Mačva, the city of Belgrade, whilst he managed to conquer and annex lands in northeastern Serbia. Thus, some of these territories became part of the Serbian state for the first time, his new state was named Kingdom of Srem. In that time the name Srem was a designation for two territories: Lower Srem; the Kingdom of Srem under the rule of Stefan Dragutin was Lower Srem, but some historical sources mention that Stefan Dragutin ruled over Upper Srem and Slavonia. After Dragutin died in 1316, his son, king Vladislav II, became king and ruled until 1325. Under Dragutin's younger brother, King Milutin, Serbia grew stronger despite having to fight
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Eastern Orthodox Church the Orthodox Catholic Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with 200–260 million members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops in local synods, although half of Eastern Orthodox Christians live in Russia; the church has no central doctrinal or governmental authority analogous to the Bishop of Rome, but the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognised by all as primus inter pares of the bishops. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, the Near East. Eastern Orthodox theology is based on the Nicene Creed; the church teaches that it is the One, Holy and Apostolic church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles. It maintains, its patriarchates, reminiscent of the pentarchy, autocephalous and autonomous churches reflect a variety of hierarchical organisation.
Of its innumerable sacred mysteries, it recognises seven major sacraments, of which the Eucharist is the principal one, celebrated liturgically in synaxis. The church teaches that through consecration invoked by a priest, the sacrificial bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ; the Virgin Mary is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the God-bearer, honoured in devotions. The Eastern Orthodox Church shared communion with the Roman Catholic Church until the East–West Schism in 1054, triggered by disputes over doctrine the authority of the Pope. Before the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, the Oriental Orthodox churches shared in this communion, separating over differences in Christology; the majority of Eastern Orthodox Christians live in Southeast and Eastern Europe, Cyprus and other communities in the Caucasus region, communities in Siberia reaching the Russian Far East. There are smaller communities in the former Byzantine regions of the Eastern Mediterranean, in the Middle East where it is decreasing due to persecution.
There are many in other parts of the world, formed through diaspora and missionary activity. In keeping with the church's teaching on universality and with the Nicene Creed, Orthodox authorities such as Saint Raphael of Brooklyn have insisted that the full name of the church has always included the term "Catholic", as in "Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church"; the official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the "Orthodox Catholic Church". It is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the church as Catholic; this name and longer variants containing "Catholic" are recognised and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the church, "Eastern Orthodox Church", is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use. From ancient times through the first millennium, Greek was the most prevalent shared language in the demographic regions where the Byzantine Empire flourished, Greek, being the language in which the New Testament was written, was the primary liturgical language of the church.
For this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as "Greek" before the Great Schism of 1054. After 1054, "Greek Orthodox" or "Greek Catholic" marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople, much as "Catholic" did for communion with Rome; this identification with Greek, became confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. In addition, struggles between Rome and Constantinople to control parts of Southeastern Europe resulted in the conversion of some churches to Rome, which also used "Greek Catholic" to indicate their continued use of the Byzantine rites. Today, many of those same churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin, do not use Greek as the language of worship. "Eastern" indicates the geographical element in the Church's origin and development, while "Orthodox" indicates the faith, as well as communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
There are additional Christian churches in the east that are in communion with neither Rome nor Constantinople, who tend to be distinguished by the category named "Oriental Orthodox". While the church continues to call itself "Catholic", for reasons of universality, the common title of "Eastern Orthodox Church" avoids casual confusion with the Roman Catholic Church; the first known use of the phrase "the catholic Church" occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. The letter states: "Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be as where Jesus may be, there is the universal Church." Thus from the beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the "One, Holy and Apostolic Church". The Eastern Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same early Church. A number of other Christian churches make a similar claim: the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox.
In the Eastern Orthodox v
listen)), also known as Basarab the Founder (Romanian: Basarab Întemeietorul), was a voivode, and later the first independent ruler of Wallachia who lived in the first half of the 14th century. Many details of his life are uncertain. Although his name is of Turkic origin, 14th-century sources unanimously state that he was a Vlach. Basarab came into power before 1324, but the circumstances of his ascension are unknown. According to two popular theories, he succeeded either his father, Thocomerius, or the legendary founder of Wallachia, Radu Negru.
Media related to Basarab I at Wikimedia Commons
