Prizren

Stefan Dušan made Prizren for a time the capital of the Serbian Empire, and he founded the Monastery of the Holy Archangels nearby and was buried there. After his death the town and the trade passing through it became a prize for regional lords: Prince Marko, the Balšići of Zeta and the Branković family held it in turn, while Ragusan merchants kept their quarter in the old town. In the late 1450s Prizren fell to the Ottomans, who made it the seat of a sanjak.

Under Ottoman rule the town grew around new bazaars and mosques, and the Archangels monastery was looted and its ruins quarried for building stone. Many townsmen turned to Islam, some to escape the tax on Christians, and in the 16th century an Italian observer found Prizren inhabited more by Albanians than by Serbs. When Austrian troops reached Kosovo in the war of the late 17th century, a Catholic priest welcomed them at Prizren with 5,000 to 6,000 Albanian soldiers, but the Ottomans soon drove the Austrians out and held the town firmly again.