page_title: Stefan Lazarević
section_title: Battles of Rovine and of Nicopolis
hierarchical_section_title: Stefan Lazarević / Battles of Rovine and of Nicopolis
context_page_description: Stefan Lazarević, also known as Stefan the Tall, was the ruler of Serbia as prince and despot. The son of Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović, he was regarded as one of the finest knights and military leaders at that time. After the death of his father at Kosovo, he became ruler of Moravian Serbia and ruled with his mother Milica, until he reached adulthood in 1393. Stefan led troops in several battles as an Ottoman vassal, until asserting independence after receiving the title of despot from the Byzantines in 1402.
  Becoming an Hungarian ally in 1403–04, he received large possessions, including the important Belgrade and Golubac Fortress. He also held the superior rank in the chivalric Order of the Dragon. During his reign there was a long conflict with his nephew Đurađ Branković, which ended in 1412. Stefan also inherited Zeta, and waged war against Venice. Since he was childless, he designated his nephew Đurađ as heir in 1426, a year before his death.
  On the domestic front, he broke the resistance of the Serbian nobles, and used the periods of peace to strengthen Serbia politically, economically, culturally and militarily.
context_section_description: In 1393, Stefan became an adult and took over the throne, and his mother became a nun and withdrew to her endowment, monastery Ljubostinja. That same year, Bayezid I dealt with his Bulgarian vassals for their alleged links with the Hungarian King Sigismund. Veliko Tarnovo was besieged and Bulgaria devastated; Stefan's brother-in-law was Bulgarian ruler Ivan Shishman. After this, many Bulgarian scholars sought refuge in neighboring Christian countries, among which were Serbia.
  At the end of 1393 and early 1394, Bayezid I began gathering his Christian vassals at Serres. Byzantine sources tell that among the vassals were Stefan, Emperor Manuel II (1391–1425), his nephew John VII (1390) and his brother Theodore I of Morea (r. 1383–1407), and the Serbian lord Constantine Dragaš. It is believed that Bayezid I planned to kill the vassals at the meeting and take their lands. He gave the order to kill them, but it was not done immediately, then he changed his mind, after which some of them went home, while the rest of them completed the conquest of Thessaly and Thessaloniki (12 April).
  During the autumn of 1394, Bayezid started gathering forces for a campaign against the Wallachian voievode Mircea I (1386–1418). In this campaign, Stefan personally led the Serbian heavy cavalry, while Serbian nobles Marko (1371–1395), Constantine Dragaš and Konstantin Balšić led their forces. Beyazid's forces crossed the Danube and the battle of Rovine took place on 17 May 1395, near present-day Pitești, with a Wallachian victory. In the battle Marko and Dragaš were killed, and Bayezid annexed their lands. According to Constantine the Philosopher in his Life of Stefan Lazarević before the battle Marko said to Dragaš: "I pray God to help the Christians and that I will be among the first dead in this war."
  The Ottoman forces then took over Vidin, and reinforced by Serbian detachments during the summer of 1396 marched into Banat, after attacking the lands of Vuk Branković and conquering a large part of it with Priština.
  However, the victory at Rovine sparked a great crusade in which forces from England, France, Germany, and other European countries joined Hungarian king Sigismund and Mircea I with the Venetian fleet which was to enter the Danube from the Black Sea and support the army on the mainland. Crusader forces gathered in Hungary, after which they crossed the Danube and took Vidin. After that, the march continued down the Danube. Nicopolis, which had a large Ottoman garrison was besieged. The siege broke the blockade of Constantinople, forcing Bayezid to send troops towards the Danube, joining forces with Stefan Lazarević's heavy cavalary near Plovdiv. A great battle took place on 25 September 1396 in which the Crusader forces were completely destroyed. Although numerically very large, the Crusader army lacked a joint command and thus poorly coordinated on the battlefield, and an important factor was the complete ignorance of the Ottoman army's war methods. After initial Crusader success, the Ottomans went on a counterattack that stopped with the entry of Hungarian knights in battle, which began to suppress them. In this turning point of battle the Serbian heavy cavalry led by Stefan Lazarević himself broke through Hungarian lines and surrounded the King Sigmund and attacked the Hungarian banner troops of Nicholas II Garay. Garay's troops were dispersed, which had a decisive influence on the course of the battle, because some of the Crusaders thought that Sigismund had died and that the battle was lost, while the Hungarian commanders convinced Sigismund that the battle was practically lost and that it was better to withdraw. After that Crusader orders fell apart and was followed by carnage. One of the participants in the battle, Johann Schiltberger, described the Serbian attack
  
   
  When all of (Turkish) warriors were killed, King was attacked by another unit consisting of cavalry. When the Turkish sultan saw king's attack, he was about to flee the battlefield, but the Duke of Rascia (Serbia), known as the despot, seeing this, rushed to help the
caption: Battle of Nikopolis (pictured by Jean Froissart by 1398)
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