If we were to believe the Emperor Constantine, the growing power of Serbia towards the middle of the ninth century was coupled with a massive reversion to paganism, to prevent which the Serbian rulers appealed to Constantinople in the time of the Emperors Michael III and   Basil I. But it seems improbable that there was a previous state of grace from which the Serbs had relapsed. It is more important to observe that at least during Kotsel's reign in Pannonia (c.861-74) communication must have been possible between Serbia and Great Moravia - a fact of which the Pope was presumably aware in planning Methodios's diocese - as well as with the Dalmatian coast, in Byzantine hands as far north as Split. We must therefore not exclude the possibility of some Cyrillomethodian pupils reaching Serbia - perhaps even sent by Methodios himself - precisely in the 870s when the Byzantine thrust into these parts was developing from other directions. But if there were any such participation it cannot now be detected in such general indications as names: there is for example no sign of the early use of Clement in Serbia as baptismal name or church patron. No more can be said than that the Serbian state must be accounted Christian from about 870.

Vlastimir was probably a pagan. His sons only appear in the record with the Slav names Mutimir, Strojimir and Gojnik. In the next generation we find Stephen and Peter. This change agrees with the imprecise notices of strong Byzantine missions to Serbia, as well as to other Slavs   nearer the Adriatic coast, in the 870s. Peter Gojnikovic (c.892-917) was certainly a Christian prince, adroit enough to tack between client of Constantinople and ally of Tsar Symeon. He had spent long years as a hostage in Bulgaria, whence came the backing to evict his brothers. The first Serbian bishopric had already been founded at Ras (or Rashka), near modern Novi Pazar on the River Ibar, the then political centre. Its affiliation is uncertain. Subordination to Split or Durazzo has been suggested, both then Byzantine. The ruins of a very early church of SS Peter and Paul exist at Ras but cannot be dated with any precision; the building follows the rotunda plan of early Christian baptisteries so often adopted of necessity in the ninth-tenth centuries for the first court chapels. We cannot be far wide of the mark in supposing that the Serbian bishopric came into being shortly after 871 in the reign of Mutimir and was part of the general plan, confirmed by the Council of Constantinople in 879-80, which envisaged the creation of a number of bishoprics for the Slav-populated parts of the Empire, notably in Greece and for the Slavs on the River Morava, lying just to the east of Serbia proper.

The annexation of Serbia by Bulgaria in 924, perhaps as early as 917 on the fall of Peter Gojnikovic, was important for the future direction of the Serbian church. By now at latest Serbia must have received the Cyrillic alphabet and Slav religious texts, already familiar but perhaps not yet preferred to Greek.

Serbia regained some measure of independence on the death of Tsar Symeon (927). Chaslav, who returned to rule Serbia about 931 under Byzantine auspices, was of the line of the exiles brought up at the courts of Preslav in its great days. Chaslav also enlarged the state, incorporating parts of Bosnia and Travunia. In Travunia he took over or made closer contact with territories lately ruled by Michael of Hum, whe controlled much of the southern half of the coast from about 910, except  Ragusa (Dubrovnik) which paid him 'tribute'. Michael was a sufficiently prominent Christian prince to be addressed by the Pope as excellentissimus dux Chulmorum. As an ally of Bulgaria he was much concerned in Serbian affairs but disappears from the record after 925.

The conquest of Bulgaria begun by John Tzimiskes in 969 and completed by Basil the Bulgar-slayer in 1018 ushered in a long period of uncertainty for the Serbian interior, a period of over two centuries during which, although Serbia was mainly a preserve of the Eastern church, she was not wholly committed to it and for political reasons often looked West rather than East. From about the year 1000 the more southerly Dalmatian towns, especially Ragusa and Kotor, became gradually more Slav in population (though the process was scarcely complete before the end of the thirteenth century) and the trade-routes into the interior increasingly active. From these ports the influence of the Latin church and the culture of the Adriatic coasts seeped into the hinterland. But the long alternation of Byzantine and Bulgarian domination over Serbia continued. After a short period of Byzantine suzerainty (c. 972-90) Serbia reverted until 1018 to a Bulgarian province under Samuel.(a)

(a) It is possible that during the period of Byzantine control Res was attached to the metropolis of Durazzo. (b) No previous radiation from Macedonia can be detected, that is, dating from the ministry of St Clement after 885. It cannot of course be excluded though it cannot have been considerable. Glagolitic continued to be known and used sparingly in Serbia down to 1200, perhaps even later.  (c) N/a (d) Italian Antivari from Greek. The town was probably founded in the seventh century during the Slav inroads and became a bishopric at an unknown date.

The Serbian church consequently came under the Patriarchate of Ohrid, which introduced, we must suppose, Macedonian elements into its life. From this time at latest must date the knowledge and use - restricted, it is true - of the Glagolitic alphabet in Serbia.(b)  Finally the full Byzantine conquest of Samuel's state did not change the attachment of Ras to the reconstituted archbishopric of Ohrid, through which Greek intluences again made themselves actively felt. But the Byzantine Empire reincorporated thereby not only the South Dalmatian provinces but also Bosnia and thus contributed to those closer contacts of Serbia with the Adriatic and Latin Croatia which Samuel's expansion had already initiated.

Indeed before the medieval Serbian state was truly born in the second half of the twelfth century, the several attempts to create such a state all started from the coastal provinces. In the 1040s the weakness of the Empire enabled Stephen Vojislav, semi-independent ruler of Zeta from about 1018 and brought up in Ragusa, to unite Zeta (approximately later Montenegro) with Travunia and Hum (approximately later Hercegovina). The Serbs of the interior were drawn into this enlarged state under his successor Michael (1051-81). By now, though nominally Byzantine, the coastlands were becoming rapidly more Latin in culture, a process which had become noticeable in the tenth century and was only temporarily checked by transitory reimposition of Byzantine rule, especially after 1018. We may draw a conventional dividing-line at the year 1000. The towns felt themselves Byzantine only as long as the Byzantine navy controlled the Adriatic and could treat Venice, the heir of Ravenna, as a colonial market. After 1000 Venetian and other Italian cultural influences tend to outweigh the Byzantine. Stephen and his son Michael were both in a difficult position in that, instead of a single ecclesiastical authority in their realm, there were portions of three archdioceses - Split, Durazzo, Ohrid - but not the metropolis of any. The creation of the Latin metropolitan diocese of Dioclea (Duklja) in 1066/7, with its ecclesiastical centre at Bar,(d) was thus an improvement from the point of view of the ruler of Zeta and of the ambitious Bishop Peter of Bar. It was to embrace all the coast south from the River Cetina, but the bishopric of Ragusa was in practice excepted.(a)

(a) The status of archbishopric was accorded in 1022 (perhaps as early as 1000, according to a possible interpretation of Benedict VIII's Bull of 27 September 1022) but apparently lost again about 1050. During these years Ragusa claimed ecclesiastical jurisdiction over all the coastal sees from Ston (Stagno) in Hum to Ulcinj (Dulcigno), and possibly also over Serbia proper. (b) A fresco in the new Cathedral of St Michael at Ston, founded by Michael, show him so crowned.

Michael indeed preferred Ragusa's independence as a buffer against the encroachments of Split to which the see of Ragusa had been originally subordinate. The new metropolis was, according to the Pope, to include, besides sees formerly subordinate to Byzantine Durazzo and Latin Split, Travunia (Trebinje), Bosnia and Serbia.

All this amounted to an attachment of Zeta to Rome, though much of the earlier evangelical work in Dioclea must have been done by Byzantine Durazzo. Indeed Michael's relations with Gregory VII were so good that the Pope sent him a crown in 1077.(b) By this act he hoped to block Norman pretensions to rule any part of the East Adriatic coast; for the Normans had made themselves protectors of the Papacy in 1059 and from 1071 became a naval power to be reckoned with. Zeta was now a mature state with king and archbishop.

But two things must be borne in mind. The Roman attachment did not imply the sweeping away of all Byzantine clergy and practices on the coast, a fortiori further inland. The overlapping of the Roman and Byzantine ecclesiastical organisations is characteristic of South Dalmatia and their relative weight at any moment difficult to assess. Thus Bar, like Dioclea, had formerly been a suffragan see of Durazzo but with Samuel of Bulgaria's conquest of that town, the terminal of the vital Via Egnatia, in 989, Bar preferred to throw in its fortunes with its northern neighbours. Its rise to importance in the middle of the eleventh century increased the Latin component without suppressing the Byzantine. Even after the 1050s the Papacy did not press a thoroughgoing policy of extirpation of Byzantine practice in these parts: recognition of her jurisdiction, and its extension inland, was the first priority.

Secondly, the precise status of the interior provinces is obscure. Serbia (Ras) and Bosnia were to be included in the archdiocese of Dioclea (Bar) in 1067. This was the Papal intention but scarcely the reality. There is nothing to show that Ras did not maintain its dependence on Ohrid. It is not to be supposed that Michael made any violent changes which would weaken his authority. In any case inland Serbia was lost again before 1077. Moreover, Split was never wholly reconciled to the decisions of 1066/7 and Ragusa's ambitions were gaining substance and strength.

(a) Bodin had proclaimed himself 'Emperor' at Prizren in 1072 as leader of the Balkan Slavs against the Greeks but this had no lasting significance. (b) Clement III was made Pope in 1080 by the Emperor Henry IV after the humiliation which Gregory VII had imposed on him at Canossa in 1077. He was recognised as Pope in Rome in 1084 (Urban II being the new rival Pope), when he crowned Henry as Emperor. Both Hungary and Croatia belonged to the party of Clement. (c) Principally Skadar (italice Scutari) itself, Ulcinj (Dulcigno), Svach, Polat (Pilot), Drivast. (d) The part of Bosnia concerned was then known as Rama, of uncertain extent. From 1138 the Hungarian rulers used the title Hungarie, Dalmacie, Chroacie, Rameque rex.

Michael's son, Constantine Bodin, second King of Zeta (1081-c. 1106) and still ruler of Serbia and parts of Bosnia,(a) attempted to regulate the situation with more precision: Bar must have a position in the church consonant with the political scene. In 1088/9 Bodin persuaded the Antipope Clement III (1084-1100)(b) to reaffirm the disputed metropolitan status of Bar and redefine the archdiocese. The list of sees virtually repeats that of 1066/7: those of Zeta, all those about Lake Scutari(c), - which Durazzo probably still claimed - and the sees of Travunia, Bosnia and Serbia (Rascia). The title of church and prelate thenceforward usually appears in the form dioclensis atque antibarensis. Once again all this proved partly a paper scheme.

Bodin's death saw the end of Zeta as the nucleus of a Serbian state. The Emperor Alexios Komnenos still held the upper hand in the Balkans and annexed this so-called Kingdom of Dioclea. Bosnia drew closer to Croatia in the course of the eleventh century and became part of the Hungarian state shortly after Croatia itself.(d) It seems unlikely that the religious complexion of the Serbian bishopric of Ras had been much changed by all these manoeuvres; it had continued to look towards Ohrid. However, it was now clear that any future Serbian ruler would attempt to re-establish the vital link between Raska and the Coast and, conversely, that the culture and religion of the interior would remain to a greater or less degree under the influence of Bar, Kotor and Ragusa through their role as terminals of the trade-routes debouching on the Adriatic.

For the moment Ragusa was satisfied with having defeated the claims of Split and achieved full ecclesiastical independence. Though Pope Innocent II might still write to the Archbishop of Split in 1139 as 'sole metropolitan of all Dalmatia', this was merely to repeat his official title.

But Ragusa's ambitions continued to grow in the south. As a high proportion of her trade was with Albania and Epirus she was determined to get rid of the archbishopric of Bar which might in the future be the metropolis of an unfriendly state or too firmly under Byzantine administration. This policy was pressed vigorously in the twelfth century. Bar itself was in a weak position after the collapse of the Kingdom of Dioclea. Rome came down on the side of Ragusa from about 1120, when Calixtus II called on all the clergy of the Southern sees to submit to Girardus of Ragusa, to whom at the same time he sent a pallium. From then on the Pope generally tended to support Ragusa against Bar. At the same time Ragusa gave more colour to her pretensions to the 'Serbian lands' (ranging far into the interior) by a liberal falsification of alleged Papal rulings in her favour.

Late in 1154, after several bishops in the archdiocese of Bar had shown themselves once again recalcitrant to overtures from Ragusa, Pope Innocent II formally transferred the sees of Kotor, Ulcinj and perhaps others to the obedience of Ragusa. Not long after Ragusa reached the high tide of her success. On 29 December 1167 Pope Alexander III extinguished the metropolis of Bar and placed all its sees under Ragusa. The whole Adriatic seaboard became, at least theoretically, fully Roman. But neither Bar nor Split accepted this change passively.

(b) The origins of the Nemanja family are obscure. The first two known to have used the family name Urosh (believed to be Hungarian and derived from ur=lord, prince) and perhaps also the name Stephen, were local zupans of Rashka from c.1113 to c.1163. The original Hungarian connection (not now discernable) presumably date from Hungarian ascendancy in Croatia and Bosnia and was maintained by intermarriage. Nemanja himself was born at Ribnica (near modern Podgorica). It has not been satisfactorily proved whether he was the son of Urosh II or of his brother Desa. At any rate the family had no roots in Zeta, of which they were merely regaining contre in the first half of the twelfth century.

From this date the political fortunes of inland Serbia again became a decisive factor in the fortunes of the coast. Byzantine ascendancy over Serbia and the latter's ecclesiastical dependence on Ohrid continued throughout the twelfth century. But both Bulgaria and Serbia were constantly on the watch for signs of Byzantine weakness of which they might take advantage. These were evident enough by 1167 when the Emperor Manuel was in such straits that he was obliged to offer the Pope ecclesiastical union in return for military aid. As the century drew to an end this weakness became more and more manifest. The Bulgarians achieved independence (the second Bulgarian Empire) in 1186. Serbia had been under the thumb of Manuel since 1150 but on his death (1180) Stephen Nemanja (Grand Zupan c.1168-95) rapidly brought about a new independence of the Serbian state and inaugurated the two centuries of its greatness.

Nemanja(b) once more faced the problem of reconciling Rome-facing Zeta with the Orthodox regions of the interior. He followed in the main the policy of the kings of Dioclea by keeping the see of Bar clear of politically disadvantageous subordination to Ragusa or Split, whose ecclesiastical rivalry again became acute in the 1180s. Nevertheless Gregory of Bar had to make some concessions to Split for his owl security. The deeds and opinions of the bishops of Ras during all this long period are quite unknown to us. Nemanja is supposed to have been baptised a Catholic in infancy; Serbian annals preserve the tradition of his baptism in the Church of SS Peter and Paul by Leontios, Bishop of Ras, at the age of thirty. If these later annals - kept, it is true, by Orthodox Serbs - are to be trusted, they would appear to confirm the strongly Orthodox temper of Rashka and Nemanja's recognition of the wisdom of conversion to Orthodoxy in the 1160s, that is, at the moment when he finally established himself as Grand Zupan.

(b) The trade-route from the coast into the interior was known in Italy as the via di Zenta since it followed the course of the River Zeta - nowadays an oasis in the dry plain - upstream and penetrated the difficult country of the Tara and Lim gorges to arrive at Ras in Serbia. (c) Ragusa then held only the coastal strip from the base of the Peljeshac (Sabbioncello) peninsula in the north to the north point of the Bocche di Cattaro in the south. The expansion of its territory came mainly in the fourteenth- fifteenth centuries.

Nemanja remained an ally of Venice against Hungary and the Empire until the Emperor Manuel defeated and took him prisoner about 1172 and forced him to recognise his suzerainty; Manuel's successful campaigns since 1165 had given him temporary control of Croatia, Bosnia and most of the Adriatic coast. Hungary resumed her possession of Croatia and North Dalmatia.

Nemanja was soon released from Byzantine captivity. By 1186 he had regained a firm grip on Zeta. Its ports, particularly Bar, Budva and Kotor, were as always one of Serbia's main economic and cultural life lines.(b) Indeed Zeta with its earlier kings and more precocious literature could not but be an object of envy to the wilder interior. Nemanja' youngest brother Miroslav had for long been ruler of the province of Hum in his name. Together they attempted to reduce Ragusa. The attempt failed but the essential was gained by a treaty with this city-state(c) (September 1186) which gave the Ragusans commercial...

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