1166-1346 CE
From 1166 to 1346 CE, the Serbs forged a kingdom in the mountains where Rome and Byzantium had once met — Stefan Nemanja gathering the župas under one crown, his heirs building white monasteries in remote valleys, their frescoed walls glowing with saints. Under Stefan Dušan, they seized Macedonia and Albania, and the grand župan crowned himself Emperor of Serbs and Greeks — the last Orthodox empire before the Ottoman storm.