page_title: Medieval Serbian army
section_title: 15th century
hierarchical_section_title: Medieval Serbian army / History / 15th century
caption_attribution_description: A view to the water trench and the northern wall from the corner small town tower in Smederevo Fortress.
context_page_description: The medieval Serbian army was well known for its strength and was among the strongest in the Balkans before the Ottoman expansion. Prior to the 14th century the army consisted of European-style noble cavalry armed with bows and lances and infantry armed with spears, javelins and bows. With the economic growth from mining, mercenary knights from Western Europe were recruited to finalize and increase the effectiveness of the army, especially throughout 14th century.
context_section_description: Stefan Lazarević was granted the title of Despot by the Byzantine Emperor, and he ceased to be an Ottoman vassal in 1402. He introduced modern western style knight warfare and knight tournaments. And there were fireweapons already in use, especially in armored cavalry. 
  He ruled Serbia as Despot from 1402 to 1427. He was fighting against the Ottomans, and later he supported Mehmet I rise to power in the Battle of Çamurlu.
  After him the Branković dynasty came to power. They continued developing modern military battle tactics. Despot Đurađ Branković who ruled Serbia from 1427 to 1456, constructed the Smederevo Fortress, which was the largest medieval lowland type of fortress in Europe. This fortress had 24 towers and a citadel with 50m tall towers. Most of the fortress remains intact until nowadays.
caption: Smederevo Fortress constructed in 1429
exif: {"Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "90", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "263", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "52873", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1359", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1658"}