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Serbian–Byzantine War (1340s)

Type Event Region Balkan Peninsula Time 1341–1350

In the 1340s Serbian tsar Stefan Dušan exploited the Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 to conquer Macedonia, Epirus, Albania and Thessaly, and was cro…

Timeline

  1. 1341–1343Macedonian frontier · MacedoniaAfter the Byzantine civil war broke out, Dušan first allied with the regency faction against Kantakouzenos, seizing the area around Thessaloniki and western Macedonia in 1342–1343. Both Byzantine factions tried to win over Serbia, but Dušan relied on military superiority and gradually threw off Byzantine overlordship.
  2. 1344–1346Skopje · MacedoniaIn 1344–1345 Dušan conquered Epirus and Albania, and in April 1346 was crowned 'Emperor of Serbs and Greeks' at Skopje by the exiled patriarch of Constantinople, directly challenging Byzantine imperial authority. This marked the escalation of Serbian–Byzantine conflict from frontier disputes to an imperial contest over legitimacy.
  3. 1347–1350Thessaly · ThessalyAlthough Kantakouzenos ended the civil war in 1347, he lacked the strength to recover lost territories. In 1348 Dušan conquered most of Thessaly, striking at Catalan and Byzantine remnants. Before 1350 the Serbian Empire reached its peak extent, with Byzantium holding only Thrace, Constantinople and some Aegean islands, fundamentally reversing the balance of power in Southeast Europe.

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