Lazar Hrebeljanović

Lazar Hrebeljanović (c. 1329–15 June 1389) began as a stavilac, a court cupbearer, to Tsar Stefan Dušan, and married Princess Milica around 1353. After Dušan died in 1355 the Serbian Empire broke into magnates' domains, and by 1371 Lazar held Rudnik as knez, or prince.

That year the Ottomans destroyed the Mrnjavčević brothers at the Maritsa and the Nemanjić dynasty ended with Tsar Uroš. Lazar took Priština and Novo Brdo, and in 1373, with Tvrtko of Bosnia, defeated Nikola Altomanović. His Moravian Serbia became the largest Serbian state, and with the Church's backing he sought to restore the empire, though the nobility never accepted him as supreme ruler.

On 15 June 1389 he led the Christian army against Sultan Murad I on Kosovo Polje. Both rulers died in a battle tactically a draw but ruinous for the Serbs, and the Church later venerated Lazar as a martyr and saint.