Nemanjić

The Nemanjić were the foremost royal house of medieval Serbia, producing twelve monarchs between 1166 and 1371. Founder Stefan Nemanja, Grand Prince of Raška from 1166, expanded the state and fought Byzantium, then abdicated in 1196 to die as the monk Simeon on Mount Athos, restoring Hilandar monastery with his son Saint Sava.

Sava secured an autocephalous Serbian Church in 1219 and issued the Nomocanon, Serbia's first written law code; Nemanja's son Stefan was crowned the first king of Serbia in 1217. Stephen Dečanski, victor over Bulgaria at Velbazhd in 1330, enlarged the realm further.

Under Stephen Dušan, crowned Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks in 1346, the Serbian Church became a patriarchate and Dušan's Code appeared, making Serbia the Balkans' strongest power. Dušan died in 1355, and when his son Uroš the Weak died childless in 1371 the empire broke into rival lordships; the last prince, John Uroš of Thessaly, died around 1423, and Nemanjić blood survived only through female lines.