Mihailo Vojislavljević

Mihailo I Vojislavljević , into Serb Cyrillic, МихаилоВојислављевић ( Mihajlo I , in French Michel I ) of the House of the Vojislavljević was the sovereign of the Dioclée, its Large Prince of 1050 with 1077 and its King of 1077 with 1081.

He was the first king of Dioclée, under which Dioclée was the first Serb state to achieve a widespread recognition. In the beginning, Mihailo (Michel) seemed to have a shared capacity (or was perhaps " first among égaux") with his/her four brothers. A treason by a dissenting rebellion with Trebinje was faced by the coordinated action of the brothers, and the pact which bound them by doing that, made by their mother, is perhaps the oldest known treaty of the Serb history.

As there was no imminent danger on this side, Mihailo found favorable to still strengthen the bonds with Byzance about 1052, obtaining a title patrician and a marriage with a Greek princess. This capacity implied a titular recognition of the authority of Constantinople, but not of real concessions of its share. It corresponded to the current balance of the forces, and allowed 20 years of peace and prosperity on its country.

The things started to change after 1071, the year when Byzance undergoes a failure against the Asian ones in Manzikert; and also that of the defeat of Italy of the South vis-a-vis the Norman ones. According to the rising of Slavic in Macedonia, Mihailo romput its neutrality and sent troops ordered by his/her son Constantin Bodin to help the rebels on their request. In spite of the first successes (when Bodin was crowned emperor (Tsar) of Bulgaria under the name of Pierre III), the rebellion failed towards the end of 1072, when Bodin was captured and delivered well later. After that, Mihailo started to seek support for the west at the Pope. It is that which came like result from its alienation (tender) which had to the Byzantines, but also of a desire to create an independent archbishop's palace in its kingdom, and finally to obtain a royal title. In the after-effects of the schism of the Church in 1054, the Pope Gregoire VII took part by conferring grounds to the sovereigns on the territory in dissension, and Mihailo one of was equipped, a few days before 1077. Thereafter, Dioclée (Zeta) is recognized like a kingdom, until its inversion in the next century.

Having sealed the bonds with the Norman ones thanks to the marriage of its Bodin heir, Mihailo died in 1081, after a 30 years reign. It left us the Church of Saint-Michel with Ston, in the north of Dubrovnik, a small church especially following the Byzantine style, which contains the oldest known portrait represented on fresco of a Slavic sovereign of Balkans.

References

Fine John V.A. Jr., The Early Medieval Balkans , Ann Arbor, 1983.

External bonds

Serbian Unity Congress - Rulers off the Land

See too

Duklja
List of the Serb sovereigns

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