Vukan of Serbia

Vukan
Grand Prince of Serbia
Grand Prince of Serbia
Reign	1091–1112
Predecessor	Constantine Bodin
Successor	Uroš I
Prince of Rascia
Reign	1083–1091
Predecessor	Petrislav
Successor	Uroš I
Born	c. 1050
Died	1112
Dynasty	Vukanović
Father	Petrislav
Religion	Eastern Orthodox

Vukan (Serbian: Вукан, Greek: Βολκάνος; c. 1050 – 1115) was the Grand Prince of Serbia (Rascia) from 1083 until his death in 1112. He ruled together with his brother, Marko. With the death of his uncle Constantine Bodin in 1101, he becomes the most powerful ruler of the Serbian principalities. He defeated the Byzantines several times, conquering parts of north Macedonia. He is the eponymous founder of the Vukanović dynasty.

Vukan was the first-born of Petrislav, the son of King Mihailo I and his second Greek wife. He and his brother Marko swore an oath of loyalty to Constantine Bodin and took power as his vassals in Rascia in 1083 or 1084. Marko later disappears from sources. Neither Bosnia, Zachlumia nor Rascia were ever integrated into Duklja. Each Županate had its own nobility and institutions and acquired a Vojislavljević to head as Župan.

In 1089, Bodin managed to raise the bishopric of Bar to an Archbishopric, by supporting the pope against an antipope. The suffragan bishops were to be: Kotor, Ulcinj, Svac, Skadar, Drivast, Pula, Ras, Bosnia and Trebinje. In obtaining its promotion, it acquired a much larger diocese, including territory that earlier had not been under the pope – territories of the metropolitan of Durazzo and Archbishop of Ochrid, two sees that recognized the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Bar Archbishopric's new territory were merely theoretical – the pope's edict could only affect the churches that recognized Rome. Making Rascia a suffragan to Bar had little meaning, as most of its churches were under Constantinople, and there is none evidence of Vukan changing adherence to Rome. Durazzo and Ochrid may have suffered minimal territorial losses along the coast, Duklja was briefly a subject to Rome, however inland Duklja was not affected, and along with much of Duklja's coast (like most of Kotor) was to retain its loyalty to Orthodoxy.

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