Battle of Kosovo (1369)

The Battle of Kosovo (Serbian: Косовска битка, Kosovska bitka) was a battle fought in 1369 between the New Nobility who ruled the newly conquered territories of the Serbian Empire, and the Old Serbian Nobility. The New Nobility became powerful during the reign of Emperor Dushan, and during the reign of Emperor Urosh (Dushan's son), the Mrnjavcevic brothers became the most powerful family in the Serbian Empire, even more powerful than the Emperor himself.

The Mrnjavcevic brothers, Vukashin and Uglesha, managed to capture the Emperor who, being childless, had to declare Vukashin Mrnjavcevic as his successor.

Background
Emperor Dushan was succeeded by his son Emperor Urosh whose reign was characterized by decline of central power and rise of numerous virtually independent principalities. Stefan Uroš V was not able to sustain the great empire created by his father neither to limit the independence of the nobles.

Preparations
Since the Mrnjavcevic family desired to succeed the House of Nemanjic as the new rulers of Serbia, Emperor Urosh started supporting a coalition of Serbian Nobles loyal to him. One of them was Lazar Hrebeljanovic, who was married to Milica from the Nemanjic family. Lazar and the Emperor managed to persuade the young Nikola Altomanovic to join their coalition. But, since Nikola was at war with Bosnia, he was only able to bring a small part of his army, because he had to keep most of his army on his lands, to protect them from the possible Bosnian attack.

Battle
The armies met near Zvecan, in Kosovo. During the battle, the much larger New Nobility army defeated the Old Nobility, and even managed to capture the Emperor. After seeing that the battle could not be won, Lazar Hrebeljanovic retreated from the battlefield, and it is also possible that his army did not even take part in the combat. Nikola Altomanovic fought till the very end and was carried off the field heavily wounded by his men. At that time it was even speculated that he did not survive the battle.

Aftermath
The Mrnjavcevic family did not manage to make the most of the battle because of the threat even more serious than the local Serbian rulers - the Ottoman Turks. On September 26, 1371, they met the Turks at the Battle of Maritsa, but were heavily defeated. Both Vukashin and Uglesha lost their lives in that battle. Two months later, on 4 December 1371, Urosh, the last Serbian Emperor died at the age of 35.

The battle was the place where the hatred between Nikola Altomanovic and Lazar Hrebeljanovic was born. Nikola felt that Lazar had betrayed him, and in the future he would even try to kill him face to face. That would trigger a coalition of Nikola's enemies: Lazar Hrebeljanovic, Tvrtko of Bosnia, Djuradj I Balsic, Nicholas Garay and the Hungarian King Louis I of Hungary.