Travels in the Slavonic provinces of Turkey-in-Europe, / By Sebright, Georgina Mary Muir (Mackenzie),

CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE STORY OF SERBIA.

PART I.—HER GROWTH AND HER GLORY.

"The occupancy of the Servians Proper is, as we expect, Servia. But many countries are more or less Servian. Bosnia, Turkish Croatia, and Herzegovina are Servian. Dalmatia is, in its essentials of blood and language, Servian. Carinthia, Carniola, and Croatia, the language of which is sometimes called Vend, and sometimes Illyrian, are Servian. Montenegro is Servian. The Uskoks and Morlakians are closely akin to the Servians."

Ethnology

"La Serbie, débris d'un état jadis puissant, contient le germe d'un royaume futur."

Les Serbes de Turquie

We call the following sketch the "story" rather than the history of Serbia, partly because it is impossible to crowd anything deserving the name of history into a few pages, but chiefly because what we would try to bring before our readers is the popular "story" of Serbia, with its salient phases and characters, as it is known to every child and sung on every hearth. It has often been remarked that Serbians, even to the poorest and least lettered, are well versed in their history, and feel and speak about kings and heroes who lived centuries ago as if they were personages of the present day. A similar disposition among the Russians in the form of connecting religion with their national history is commented on by the author of "Lectures on the Eastern Church." In Serbia the popular view of history has an immense influence on the people, and it is necessary to be up with them on this point, if one would understand them at all. A list of native sources on Serbian history prior to 1830 is given in Shafarik's "Geschichte des Serbischen Schriftthums," and the Dictionary of Danichitch explains ancient terms and names. We may mention that we were particularly requested to conform to the practice of French and German authors, and write Serbia instead of Servia, the Greek form of the name. Many authors are of opinion that the modern word Slave, as used among European nations, takes its origin from the number of Slavonic captives of war taken and sold by the Franks and Saxons, at a time when a great part of what is now Germany had to be reconquered from the Slavs. But some persons have gone further, and would connect the name Servian with the Latin servus, a mistake which the Serbians are by no means anxious to encourage by the substitution of v for b in the pronunciation of their name.

THE story of Serbia consists of four parts—growth, glory, fall, and rising again. Here we may recognise in her fortunes something in common with those of Russia and of Spain; nations that, like her, were once bowed low before the blast of Mussulman conquest, and when that blast had spent its strength, gradually but steadily raised their heads.

The four epochs of Serbian history have each its representative man. The first of these is Stephen Némania,

who, in the middle of the twelfth century, welded several detached and vassal governments into an independent monarchy. The second is Czar Stephen Dūshan, who, in the middle of the fourteenth century, raised the monarchy into an empire, and aimed to defend the whole peninsula against the attacks of Turkish Mussulmans, by uniting its peoples in one strong realm. The third epoch is marked by the fall of Czar Lāzar, who, in 1389, lost the decisive battle of Kóssovo; after which Serbia became tributary to the Turks. The fourth epoch dates from the opening of the present century, and is identified with the name of Milosh Obrenovic. An insurrection of Serbian rayalis had ended in disaster, and its heroic leader, Kara George, worn out and dis-heartened, fled into Austria. Then Milosh took up the lost game, tore from under the Turk a fragment of Serbian land on the south bank of the Danube, and made that fragment the germ of a European state.

But to begin at the beginning: who the Serbians are, and whence they come. Shafarik is of opinion that the name Serb denotes "nation, gens," and that it must have been one of the earliest by which Slavonic tribes were known amongst themselves. Slovieni, or those who speak, is another generic designation; marking those who spoke one language as distinguished from the Niemtzi or dumb foreigners.

It seems that the Slavonic tribes which first filled the countries between Trieste and Thessalonica called themselves Slovieni, or Slaviani. Of their descendants remain to the present day the Slavonic Bulgarians, and the Slovenes inhabiting Carinthia, Carniola, and part of Styria. Both these peoples regard themselves as older tenants of the south Danubian regions than the Croato-Serbs, whose settlement intervenes between them; and their dialects, though now differing from each other, show more resemblance to the most ancient written form of Slavonic speech than is presented by the Serbian tongue.Shafarik, "Slavische Alterthmer," vol. i. p. 180. At the time when Cyril and Methodios began their translation of the Scriptures, Shafarik believes that the language of the Slavonic peoples in Thrace, Macedonia, and Moesia, was still called Slovene; even as that of the Slavonic inhabitants of Carinthia and Carniola is to this day. Supposing (as it is generally supposed), that the name Bulgaria is of Tartar origin, it may be said that in Bulgaria as in Russia, a Slavonic nation has absorbed the foreign race which gave it its first dynasty, while that dynasty has given its name to the land.

The immigration of the Serbo-Croats is said to have happened on this wise. In the beginning of the seventh century, the northern provinces of the East Roman Empire were overrun by the Avars, a Tartar horde which, true to its origin, not only conquered but depopulated and destroyed. To root out this swarm and repeople the land, the Emperor Heraclius invited into his dominions certain Slavonic tribes who, having left their original seats, were hovering on the north bank of the Danube.

The land whence these tribes came lay beyond the Carpathian mountains, and extended thence far into Russia. Its general name, Serbia, would seem merely to have denoted a country peopled by Slavonic tribes, but it was specially known as White Serbia, to distinguish it from Black Serbia, a district labouring under foreign yoke. The western and mountainous portion

was called Chrobatia (from chrb, hill, height), and moreover "red and white," or the beautiful and free. The Chrobatians were the first to move, and to them the invitation of the Emperor is said to have been directed; some of their Serbian kinsmen followed them, some remain in their ancient seats unto this day. On arriving south of the Danube the Croato-Serb immigrants called their new colonies after their old homes.In Croatia we were shown a ruined castle on the site where "used to stand the three castles belonging to Czech, Lech, and Russ or Moch, who colonized Bohemia, Poland, and Muscovy, or Russia." This legend, which reverses the direction of the stream of emigration, is very confused, and may, in its present form, be an attempt to connect a local legend with the old famous one about the three brothers who, in Bohemia and Poland, are said to have come from the Carpathian Chrobatia.

The tribes which settled nearest the Bulgarians gave the name of Serbia to their land, of which the south-eastern boundary extended from the river Timok to the Adriatic at Antivari. The Croats, who had the first choice, established themselves on the north and west. Hence came it that on their adoption of Christianity, the Serbs fell under the jurisdiction of Byzance, the Croats under that of Rome; an accident fraught with dissension and disaster after the separation of the Western from the Eastern Church.

The Croats upheld a separate monarchy till the beginning of the twelfth century, when they placed the crown on the head of a prince who was already King of Hungary. It is now worn by the Emperor of Austria; but in all his dealings with the so-called triune-kingdom of Dalmatia, Slavonia, and Croatia, he is bound to use the title not of kaiser, but of king. Throughout the middle ages, alliance with powerful neighbours saved Croatia from the Turks; with whom, however, she has been constantly at war almost to the present day. A still more savage enemy was repulsed by her in that

horde of Mongols which, during the thirteenth century, overran the whole of Hungary; but was totally defeated and brought to a stand by the Croats on the field of Graves (Slāv. Grobnik), near Fiume (1241).

The present capital of Croatia, Agram, forms the focus of such South Slavonic patriotism and literature as are to be found in the Latin Church. When we visited it, the Croats were trying to get back that self-government for which they stipulated when their crown was placed on the head of a Hapsburg. In moments of embarrassment the emperor has hitherto made concessions, only to be retracted or neutralised so soon as he finds himself relieved. Hence, perhaps, in the long run less practical result is to be looked for from the political negotiations of the Croats, whether carried on at Vienna or at Pesth, than from their determination to reinstate Slavonic instead of Latin services throughout their churches, and from their recognition of national kinship with Serbia by adopting her literary dialect as their own.

We have thus far digressed on the subject of the Croatians, lest it might be wondered what had become of them; we now go back to tlieir brother-immigrants, the Serbs. The fact principally to be remarked of this people for the first five centuries after their settlement south of the Danube, is that communal organisation which, having survived all after superstructure, remains among them at the present day.Mr. Maine, who finds traces of this kind of organisation among at least all races of the Indo-European stock, remarks on its continuance to the present day in various stages of development among the Hindoos, the Russians, and tho Slavonians in Turkey and Austria.—MAINE's Ancient Law.

According to some records, that special district of White Serbia from which the colonists came was called Boiki, or the land of the warlike; and it certainly would appear that the men of the first immigration were warriors, and, unlike the Slavonic settlers of Bulgaria,

crossed the Danube as an organized community, comilanded by princes. Afterwards they acknowledged sometimes the Byzantine emperor, sometimes the Bulgarian czar, but they were never governed except by their own chiefs.

The earliest form of Serbian government is that of the zupa or zupania, which was common to all Slavonic populations in the same part of the world.Joopaan—pronounce z as j in the French word jour. To this day in Croatia, zupan denotes a municipal officer of high rank; while, in Hungary (where the constitution has a Slāvic substratum), this name may be traced through various forms from the title of a county sheriff to that of the palatine. The original meaning of zupa is a "sunny land," and herein we at once recognise those sunlit valley plains, surrounded by amphitheatres of hills, which form the most frequent geographical configuration in the countries peopled by Serbs. At the time of the first immigration many of the mountainous regions were, as they still are, tenanted by Albanians, or by half Latinised aborigines called by the Slāvs, Vlachi, or shepherds.Because these shepherds spoke a Latin dialect, all peoples speaking Latin dialects, whether Roumans or Italians, came to be called by the Serbians, Vlachi; while the name " Latins " was applied, without regard to race, to all nations belonging to the Romish Church. Strangely enough, the Serbians themselves, in Herzegovina and elsewhere, were afterwards called Vlachi by the Mahommedans, who applied the name to all Christians of the Eastern Church. Even those Serbians who settled among hills long maintained an independent clannish life. But the " sunny lands " became the seats of villages; the villagers, combining for government and defence, chose one judge and leader for their whole zupa; and from this magistrate's title of zupan, his government in time became known as a zupania. In each zupa there was a fortress, or " grad," which, together with the office of governor, soon became the inheritance of a family. Among the zupans one was distinguished by the prefix

of " grand" (veliki); but he appears to have stood to the rest rather in the position of primus inter pares, than as the wielder of any central powers. Some writers call the earliest residence of a Serbian grand zupan, the town of Destinika, or Desnitza, and place its situation between the rivers Bosna and Drina.

Long did the Serbian zupanias carry on their uncentralised democratic régime; each obscure commune exercising free choice in the regulation of its obscure concerns—unheeding, and unheeded by, the world. This sort of passive socialism seems natural to many nations of Slavonie race. It is only with effort that they rouse themselves into caring what goes on beyond their commune; or cease disputing amongst themselves about trifles, in order to speak with authority out of doors. When they do at last wake up, it is generally because forced to rid themselves of foreign domination ; or because they are headed by one of those great men born to be the champions and arbiters of mankind. Especially at a time when brute force ruled the world—as it did in the middle ages—a Slavonic state could only become powerful by thus concentrating its strength in the hands of an individual able to lead.

Thus, the epoch of Serbian growth began when, from among the zupans, there arose a race capable of uniting and heading the rest in an hereditary monarchy. This race took birth on the mountain shores of the Adriatic sea, in a district which still nurses the hardiest specimens of the Southern Slāvs, and where independence, early asserted, is upheld unto this day.

Not far from the eastern coast of the Adriatic lies the only large lake within the heritage of Serbian tribes; behind this lake a knot of mountains rises to between eight and nine thousand feet. From the mountains to the lake, from the lake to the sea, run navigable rivers

over fertile plains; one of these rivers, the Zenta, or Zeta, early gave its name to the country around.

Near the northern shore of the lake the Romans founded a city, called Dioclea, said to be the birthplace of the Emperor Diocletian. Afterwards, that city, like many others in the same part of the world, set up as a small republic, and was taken possession of by the Serbs, who made it the capital of Zupania. Latin civilisation told on its new citizens, and the 'annals of ancient Zeta were recorded by the "chronicler of Dioclea."

The Serbians of Zeta could not persevere in the passive existence of their inland kindred, for their position brought them into constant friction with divers neighbours; at Ochrida with the subjects of the Bulgarian czardom; at Antivari with those of the Byzantine empire; afterwards with the peoples of the West. Thir lake, and the rich plains beyond, invited visitors, and together with the vicinity of the sea, engendered the spirit of commerce. In its train came the spirit of acquisition: the Zetans extended their rule inland, in one direction to Trebinje, and in another to Elbassan and Croya, while along the coast they stretched their arms to Durazzo. To maintain this position it was necessary to preserve the compact order of a warlike front, which was further needed in order to exact respect from their neighbours in the hills—those plundering Albanians who, so long as they feared the Serb, remained his fellow-subjects and very good friends. Hence was it that at Zeta a Serbian zupania brought forth captains by sea and by land, and that a Serbian zupan developed into a king.The title Rex is indifferently given to most of them, even prior to Michael, who, Shafarik says, actually received a crown from Rome, 1078.

One of the early Zetan kings we have already mentioned, namely, the St. Vladimir who wedded the daughter of Bulgarian Samuel, and whose tomb lies at

Elbassan.Hilferding's "History of Serbians and Bulgarians," chap. iii. part 2. Another, called Bodin, appears at the siege of Durazzo, assisting the Normans against the Eastern Empire. At home, this king extended the power of Zeta, and forced Bosnia and Rascia to take zupans of his choice. His cousin and successor is called by Byzantine historians Bachin, and is noticed by them on account of the single combat wherein he engaged their emperor Manuel Comnenus. Serbian writers call him variously, but all know him as the father of their great Némania.

By this time most of the Serb lands had zupans belonging to the Zetan family, and when Bachin died he left territories to all his sons, to his youngest son Némania the territory of Rascia. After the father's death, certain brothers and cousins disputed Némania's inheritance; he succeeded in vanquishing these opponents, made Zeta and Bosnia recognise his supremacy, and was acknowledged grand zupan of the Serbs (1162).

In his hands the title brought with it almost monarchical authority at home, and the power to extend it abroad. Némania took from Byzantine governors all such fortified towns as they still held in territories peopled by Serbs; and in this manner possessed himself of Nish, Skopia, and Prizren. The last-named city, lying on the northern slope of the Scardus Mountains, offered a convenient position whence to rule territories situated between Bulgaria, the Danube, and the Adriatic. Thus in due time Prizren became the Serbian Czarigrad, or city of the ruler.The name " czar," while especially used to express "emperor," is given to all supreme rulers; thus, although a Serbian sovereign was not regularly entitled emperor till the middle of the fourteenth century, all the Némanides are popularly called czar. At the present day, while the Emperor of Russia is known as the Czar Russki, the Turkish Sultan is the Czar Turski, and so on, our own sovereign however being named, as the Turks name her, merely kralitza. This title is the feminine of kral, or king, a name applied to the kinglets before Némania, or to rulers subject to an emperor; it was, like many other Slāvic words, borrowed by the Turks, and by them bestowed on all Christian rulers, until most of these formally insisted on being addressed as the equals of the Ottoman sovereign. Czarivati means, in Serbian, to rule as an emperor.

At length Némania no longer chose to remain even nominally subordinate to the Byzantine emperor, and

[figure]

PORTAL OF WHITE MARBLE CHURCH OF STUDENITZA, BUILT BY NÉMANIA.

aimed to secure for himself a crown, and for Serbia a European position. To this end he met the Western Kaiser, Frederick Barbarossa, on his way to the Holy War, and offered to do him homage for Nish and certain other cities, on condition of being recognised as King of the Serbs. But Frederick could not then engage in negotiations that might involve a quarrel with the Greek Emperor, and passed on to his crusade and grave. Némania died a grand zupan, with no status except that ho owed to the election of his own people. But his son Stephen, called the "first crowned king," obtained a recognition of his title, both from the Pope and from the Greek Emperor of Nicæa.

Hereafter we shall have occasion to refer to the founder of the Némanyitch dynasty, as to him who established the Eastern Church in Serbia; at present we know him only as the uniter of the zupanias into a monarchical state. His death occurred in 1195, and from that date till 1367 the rulers of Serbia were all Némanides; a list of them and of their queens is subjoined at the end of this volume. Of most of them we will say nothing now, but give our attention to the change that came over the Serbian nation during its existence as a medival kingdom.

Serbia was more accessible to foreign intercourse throughout this period of her history than at any other, before or since. Her kings, intermarrying with the daughters of Byzantium, France, and Venice, brought the influence of the most civilised nations in Europe to bear upon their peoples; and such churches, frescoes,

and MSS. as have escaped destruction, witness to the progress then made in the fine arts. There was moreover a native channel through which Western influence filtered into the wilds of Serbia; namely, the free cities on the eastern shore of the Adriatic, which, Slavonie by lineage, occupied the site of Roman colonies, and combined the civilisation of Italy with allegiance to a Serbian king. Of this number we might cite several small republics, which maintained their status almost to our own day; but among the most noted cities were Antivari, Cattaro, and Ragusa, whose merchants were once to be found in every Serbian mart, while the names of their artists still remain, graven on Serbian church portals or handed down in song. Various laws were introduced, with especial referene to Latin commercial travellers, and special regulations were made for their benefit. For example, for a certain toll paid to the king he engaged to protect them from highwaymen, or, should they be robbed, to make good their loss; the local authorities were obliged to convoy them from point to point, and in case they came into court with a native, half the jury were to consist of their own people. It was even considered a work of religious merit to smooth the path of travellers by making "good roads, building good bridges, and providing good quarters." The memory of the great hostelry of Prizren has been preserved, together with that of her yearly fair.

But the Serbian kingdom had also direct relations with the great Slavonic-named Latin city, Venice;See Appendix A. and perhaps no foreign influence is so clearly to be traced among Serbian remains as hers. The coinage, for which material came from mines at Novo Berdo and Rudnik, was probably struck at Venice, and certainly from Venetian models. Specimens of it are to be now found in the

museum of Belgrade, which exhibits a collection dating from 1195 to 1457.

Some of these coins bear a Latin inscription, all of them bear an inscription in Slavonic; and this circumstance illustrates a principle'which seems to have regulated the intercourse of Serbia with foreigners. Foreign fashions might, modify her own, but might not oust them; the stranger was welcome to her as a merchant or a craftsman, but did not become her lawgiver, or ruler, or priest. As for the Serbian language—though its next neighbours were Latin and Greek—it held its own as the medium both of legislation and religious teaching. The Holy Scriptures and the Civil Code were written in a serbiani sed dialect of ancient Slavonic; so were the chronicles, poetry, and inscriptions; while the native tongue was used for social intercourse among all classes, courtly as well as rural, clerical as well as lay. Even a person unacquainted with the history might gather from these facts, lst, that the native language must have been early cultivated; 2ndly, that the chief offices in the state cannot have been entrusted to foreigners, nor even to a caste which had so far outgrown the common people as to affect a foreign form of civilisation. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the possession of a dynasty and aristocracy of genuine native growth distinguishes Serbia from many contemporary states; the use of her own language characterizes her as compared with Croatia, Hungary, and Poland, where the cultivation of 'the native tongue was all but smothered by a Latin overgrowth.

The "Book of Serbian Nobility exhibits Slavonic names, and as aristocracy was not introduced by conquest one is inclined to ask how it came to arise among the patriarchal and democratic Serbs. We were told by one of the few remaining representatives of a genuine

South Slavonic noblesse, that the Serbian aristocracy drew its titles originally, not from territorial possession but from office, and hence derived its name of vlastela, literally, holders of vlast, authority; the greater office-bearers being termed velika vlastela, and the smaller vlastelitchitchi.Some interesting articles on Serbian titles, official dignities, and first and second orders of nobility, are to be found in the Dictionary of Danichic. Among the great vlastela appear various titles, more or less hereditary; first zupans, then kneses and bans, with their governments, called after them knesovina, banovina, &c. A rank of military origin was that of voivode, leader in war, a name which has found its way through German into English under the meaningless cacophony of "waywode." Under the monarchy, the voivodes appear as companions in arms of the sovereign; and the office was bestowed on a talented general, whatever might be his descent or social rank. Afterwards it denoted the possession of a duchy; but to this day in Montenegro the voivode bears his original position, which is hereditary only in so far as warlike talent is often hereditary in the best blood of the land.

The "lords of Serbia," whether with or without office, had a voice in the administration, and we find them, under the name of góspoda, attending the sābor or parliament. The assembling of a sābor is identified with the principal historical acts of the Serbian kings, such as ascending or abdicating the throne, assuming a new title, creating an office, or publishing a decree. Thus, for instance, we hear of the abdication of Némania at the sābor of Rascia, and the coronation of his son at that of Zicha. Stephen Dūshan took the title of emperor under the auspices of the sābor of Skopia, and on its authority was issued the code of laws that bears his name. The Serbian Patriarch was appointed at the sābor of Seres; and on the extinction of the line of Némania a new ruler was

elected at the sābor of Prizren. Besides these historical parliaments, popular songs speak of the assembled serbski góspoda exercising control over most monarchical acts; and one meeting, to which we shall further allude, is mentioned as demanding and receiving, after the death of Némania, an account of the manner in which his treasures had been employed.

Besides the góspoda, or great lords, we find frequently Serbian sābors, the little lords, or gospodichic, and the promulgation of new decrees receives their sanction, as well as that of the higher nobles, the metropolitan, and the sovereign. Under the mediæval monarchy the first and second orders of nobility probably stood to one another somewhat as the untitled nobles of Hungary stood to the titled or magnates. But in earlier days, the Serbian gospodichie may have had much in common with the Bohemian vladyka, or head of a family, who as such attended the national assembly, and had as good a right to give his voice as the richer and more powerful lords. On certain great occasions, the Serbian sovereign is said to have called together " all men of note throughout his lands." The skoopshina of the modern principality of Serbia gives no idea of the ancient sābor, inasmuch as its members are elected. But in Montenegro, where Serbian tribes fell back on primitive forms, the old name is still in use, together with the assembly in its most rudimentary stage. A portion of the plain of Cetinje is known as " the meeting-place of the s'bor." And the s'bor is attended, not by elected delegates or representatives, but by heads of families and persons of influence; while in times of danger it is considered as much the right and duty of a free man to attend the assembly as to carry arms.The mali s'bor, or little parliament, used to gather together principal persons and heads of districts, in contradistinction to the great s'bor or general assembly. Its debates, which were sufficiently tumultuous, could only be quieted by the metropolitan ordering the church bell to be tolled; now most of its functions are more regularly performed by the so-called senate or council of the prince, wherein, however, there is still loud talking enough.

Under the kings of the house of Némania, Serbia increased in warlike strength, and in old documents and inscriptions her monarchy is described as extending over all " Serbian lands and the Primorïé," or sea-coast. For a moment it aspired to do more—to sway and absorb divers nations, assimilate a foreign civilisation, and take the lead in south-eastern Europe. But this was not the idea of Serbia; her people never rose to the height of it; it lived and died with one man.

The name of this man was Stephen Dūshan, and he was surnamed Silni. Stephen, or "the crowned," is a designation common to most kings of Serbia and seems to have been assumed on coronation; Dushan is a Serbian name, derived from dusha, "soul"; silni means "mighty." If there exist an authentic portrait of Dūshan it may be one of those taken from life, and still preserved on the walls of some old church enriched by his gifts. That which we saw represents him as a very Saul in height and strength of frame; chestnut-haired, and fair-complexioned. His large, full, grey eye is expressive at once of speculation and command—faculties perhaps more common in Serbians of the fourteenth century than they are now in the descendants of a race long shut out alike from intellectual cultivation and from government on a large scale. Both form and head, standing out as they do in a row of pinched and elongated saints depicted in the Byzantine style of art, give to the beholder a singular impression of power both in body and spirit—such power as earned the name of Dūshan Silni.Dūshan is said to have had a younger brother called Dūshitza, or "little soul." We are told that similarly resembling names among members of a family are sometimes a jeu d'esprit of the god-parents, who in Serbia decide the child' name. In the ballad called "The Building of Scadar" this custom is alluded to. Another peculiarity connected with the names of noted personages has given occasion to not a little confusion; that is to say, a king or queen will have three names: one bestowed on birth, which is of Slavonic origin, and with a signification, such as Militza, which means "darling," Dūshan, &c. Added to this there is the name bestowed at baptism, usually that of a saint. Then, if in old age the royal personage assumes the monastic habit, he or she adopts another name, by which after death they are themselves known as saints. When in addition we have sur noms, and names assumed on coronation, the difficulties of identification are multiplied without end.

The idea of Stephen Dūshan was this: While the Serbian nation grows the Greek Empire is dwindling away; and while numerous candidates squabble for the imperial name the Ottoman draws daily nearer to Europe. Why should not Dūshan anticipate the Turk, take Constantinople, wear the crown of empire, and wield the united strength of Slavon and Greek? Thus he might turn the tide of Moslem conquest, and pour the vigour of his young northern peoples into the exhausted frame of a long-civilised realm." It was a grand dream, and had it come true perhaps this portion of the old Roman Empire would, like the West, have seen a revival of national energy and classic culture, and the south-eastern peninsula might have become a second Italy. To defeat Dūshan's scheme a Greek Emperor called in the host of the Ottoman, and we have the result in Turkey in Europe.

Part of Dūshan's youth was spent at Constantinople, and there, doubtless, he imbibed ideas that regulated his future policy; indeed one account makes a Greek Empress suggest that he should marry her daughter and assume the purple. After he was king of Serbia, John Cantacuzene, candidate for the imperial crown, came to his court and besought aid; which Dūshan willingly granted, on condition that every city taken from the enemy should declare as it pleased for the Greek or for him. Many towns and districts of the empire, having Slavonic populations, preferred the rule of the Serb.

Cantacuzene became jealous, and having triumphed over his original rivals, quarrelled with his old protector, and souglit a new one in the Turk. It is said that prior to this quarrel the allies had exchanged the oath of brotherhood; hence, even after their rupture, the Serbian would not personally meet his "bond-brother" in battle, and none of his paladins would have dared to hurt so much as a hair of his head. But the time had come for Dūshan to act in his own name, and he now assumed the title of " Emperor of all Serbs and Greeks."

A mighty army was gathered to give effect to his claims; but before starting on his decisive campaign he called his notables together, and made such arrangements as should preserve order in his absence and ensure the welfare of the Serbian realm. His idea was, to come among the Greeks, not as a foreign conqueror, but as a powerful candidate for the crown of the Eastern Empire; even as kings of France and Spain offered themselves as candidates for the Western imperial throne. Henceforth, therefore, his residence was to be Constantinople, and his task the combat with the Turk; Serbia could no longer be his sole care, and his intention was to prepare her for this change in her destinies. To this end it would appear that the sabor of Skopia was called upon to digest and sanction what is called " Czar Dūshan's Code." The form of this code, and the illusions wherewith it abounds, testify that it contains neither the only nor the earliest laws of Serbia, but merely those revised or promulgated in one particular parliament. We have already alluded to some of the older laws therein mentioned or improved. To the institutions of Serbia as a separate kingdom Dūshan added imperial ordinances; he added also imperial offices; most of these offices and ordinances

being of foreign origin, may be detected by their Greek names.

At this time, not only Macedonia but Thessaly received governors from the Serbian ruler; his dominion extended from the Ægean to the Ionian Sea—from the walls of Arta to those of Thessalonica. Over these extensive dominions Dūshan appointed under himself as Czar, divers responsible deputies, entitled, according to their rank, king or kral, despot, csar, sevastocrator. All were intended as imperial officials to act as a check on the unruly or separatist tendencies of local lords.

For this reason the new dignities appear to have been mostly committed to the hands' of individuals personally devoted to the Czar. For instance, Vukashīne, to whom we have alluded in the story of Marko, became one of the krals, his next brother a despot, and the youngest a voivode. Popular tradition calls them the three brothers Merliávchevic, and says that they were men of naught, but companions of Dūshan's youth and owing everything to his favour. Then too the sturdy old Bogdan, despot of the southern territories, was induced to give his only daughter to a favourite page of Dūshan's, and that page was made Count of Sirmium, a northern frontier-land between the Danube and the Save. So much has been said about the subordinate position assigned to women in Serbia, that we may here mention that one province was committed to the rule of the Empress—that the Czar even associated her in the imperial government, and caused the coinage to bear her image with his own.

These arrangements completed, Czar Dūshan placed himself at the head of his troops, his standards displaying the double eagle of empire. His march was directed towards Constantinople, but it reached no farther than

the village of Devoli,The situation of Devoli is uncertain. Some suppose it to have been a village in Thrace, twelve leagues from Constantinople; others a village near Ochrida. for there fever attacked him and he died, aged about fifty years (1355).

Around the couch of the dying sovereign the great office-bearers eyed each other, muttering, "Who shall rule the empire now?" Who indeed? Dūshan could bequeath his realm, he could not bequeath his power to rule; and recognising this, he mourned as a

[figure]

ARMS OF CZAR DŪSHAN.

Herein are to be seen the arms of Danubian Serbia andof Zeta,where Serbians have at this day native rulers, together with the arms of those Sbuth Slavonic countries at present ruled by Austria or Turkey. This engraving is taken from an old Serbian "Book of Nobility." great man must who knows his work unfinished yet feels that he must die. His last sorrowing thought for his land has found expression in a pathetie legend, which is preserved among the Serbian people as part

of the history of their mighty-souled Czar. We give it in the simple traditionary words: " When Stephen Dūshan felt the hand of death upon him he bade them carry him to the top of a hill, from whence he could look, on the one hand towards Constantinople and on the other towards the Serbian lands; and behold, when he had looked this way and that, bitter tears gathered in the eyes of the Czar. Then said his secretary, the King's Son Marko, 'Wherefore weepest thou, O Czar?' The Czar answered him, 'Therefor weep I, not because I am about to leave the countries where I have made good roads, and builded good bridges, and appointed good governors; but because I must leave them without taking the City of Empire, and I see the gate standing open by which the enemy of the land will enter in.' Then the secretary Marko made haste and wrote down the words of the Czar, that they might be remembered by his son, the boy Urosh; that they might be remembered by the Serbian nation; that they miglit be remembered by all peoples among the Slāvs."