THE LAZAREVICH FAMILY
	At the time of reign of the last ruler of the Nemanyich Family – Urosh the Feeble - a few powerful feudal lords tried to found their own dynasties: Balshich, Voynovich-Altomanovich, Mrnyavchevich, Deyanovich, Rastislalich, Hrebelyanovich. The most powerful among them was Prince Lazarus Hrebelyanovich, who became their supreme lord about 1375. Lazarus Hrebelyanovich managed to unite many territories in the region of the Big Morava river basin. He acted as a mediator in reconciliation of the Serbian and Greek churches, who had been in schism ever since proclamation of the Serbian Patriarchate. He was killed in the Kosovo Field battle in 1389, commanding the Serbian army against the Turkish Sultan Mourat II. Lazarus was succeeded by his son Stefan, who had a strong personality and will. Stefan was simultaneously Turkish and Hungarian vassal, and he managed to consolidate economic progress of the country, as well as to extend his property in Zeta, at the expense of the Bosnian state. After the battle of Angora, he got the despotic title from the Byzantine Emperor, and the Serbian state was a despotic state starting from that date.