Stefan Nemanjic

Various names have been used to refer to Stefan Nemanjic, including Stefan I and the Latin Stephanus Nemanja. In the latter part of his life, he became a monk and hence was referred to as Monk Symeon. After his death, he was canonised by the Orthodox Church, and became St. Simeon the Myrrh-flowing (Greek: Elaiovrytis; English: He who flows with the Holy Oil). Nemanja's name is a Serbian version of Nehemiah. His son and successor, Stefan the First-Crowned, called him The Gatherer of the Lost Pieces of the Land of his Grandfathers, and also their Rebuilder.

Nemanja was born in 1109, in Ribnica, one of the largest continental towns of Doclea/Zeta as the son of the exiled Serb Prince Zavida of Zachlumia, of the House of Vojislavljevic. Prince Zavida ruled his demesne in Rascia peacefully, before getting into conflict with his brothers, who forced him to retreat to his personal holdings in Doclea - Ribnica. Although Zavida was an Orthodox Christian, Zeta had an overwhelming Roman Catholic influence, so Zavida, as a politically pliable person, had Nemanja baptised by a Catholic Priest.

After the defeat of Duklja's King Đorde, and the exodus of his branch of the Vojislavljevic family and their supporters to Rascia, Nemanja went with his family to their Rascian family estates. Upon his arrival in Ras, the capital of Rascia, Nemanja was re-baptised into the Eastern Orthodox Church in Ras' Church of Saint Peter and Paul. This mainly political action was conducted due to the dominating influence of the Eastern Church in Rascia.

When he reached adulthood, Nemanja became Prince of Ibar, Toplica, Rasina and Reke, ruling in the name of his grandfather, Grand Prince Uroš I, who was a first a vassal of the Byzantine Emperor, and then later of the King of Hungary. Nemanja married a Serbian noblewoman, Ana, with whom he had two sons: Vukan and Stefan, naming them in accordance with Doclean tradition. The political scene in Rascia switched rapidly. The next Grand Prince, Uroš II Prvoslav, was deposed because of his support of the Hungarian Crown. After interregnums of Princes Desa and Beloš, Desa finally became Nemanja's liege in 1162. Desa refused to accept the Byzantine Emperor's demands and Nemanja supported the dethronement of Desa by the Byzantines in 1163.

In 1166 Nemanja rebelled against his older brother, the Grand Prince of Rascia, deposed him and exiled him with his brothers, Miroslav and Stracimir. The Byzantine Emperor raised a mercenary army for Tihomir, made up of Greeks, Francs and Turks, which was defeated by Nemanja at the Battle of Pantino, south of Zvecan. Nemanja assumed the title of Grand Prince of All Rascia, and took the first name Stefan (Greek: Stephanos (crowned)) in honour of his patron saint - Saint Stephen. Tihomir drowned himself in the river of Sitnica. Stefan Nemanja built the church of Đurdevi Stupovi in Ras in 1171.

In 1171, Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja sided with the Venetian Republic in a dispute with the Byzantine Empire, with the aim of gaining full independence from Byzantine rule. The Venetians incited the Slavs of the eastern Adriatic littoral to rebel against Byzantine rule and Nemanja wished to join them, launching an offensive towards the coastal city of Kotor. A German fleet was formed to replace the Venetian navy, and it advanced eastwards in the September of 1171, capturing Ragusa. Nemanja was ready to make a full-scale rebellion.

In 1172, Nemanja joined the anti-Byzantine coalition with the Kingdom of Hungary, the Venetian Republic and the Holy Roman Empire. The alliance, however, soon collapsed as Venice faced a mutiny and an outbreak of plague that devastated her navy, while the King of Hungary died and a new, pro-Byzantine, King ascended the throne, so the Rascian Grand Prince was left alone. The same year the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos launched an expedition against Rascia and defeated Nemanja's forces, so the Grand Prince met him in Niš to surrender. He came to the Emperor with his head and feet bare, bowed before him and gave him his own personal sword as a mark of surrender. Emperor Manuel had him imprisoned and brought him to the Imperial Capital of Constantinople as a personal slave. In the Byzantine Empire's capital, Nemanja was tutored by and befriended Manuel. Nemanja vowed to never again attack Manuel, while the Emperor in return recognized Stefan Nemanja and his bloodline as the rightful Grand Princes of the Rascian lands. William, archbishop of Tyre, who visited Constantinople in 1179, described the "rebellious Serbs" as "an uneducated people, lacking discipline, living in mountains and forests, unskilled in agriculture. They are rich in herds and flocks and unusually well supplied with milk, cheese, butter, meat, honey and wax".