ineral wealth especially,
which included gold and silver mines, began to be exploited. He extended
the boundaries of his kingdom in the north, making the Danube and the Save
the frontier. The usual revolt against paternal authority was made by his
son Stephen, but was unsuccessful, and the rebel was banished to
Constantinople.

It was the custom of the Serbian kings to give appanages to their sons,
and the inevitable consequence of this system was the series of provincial
rebellions which occurred in almost every reign. When the revolt
succeeded, the father (or brother) was granted in his turn a small
appanage. In this case it was the son who was exiled, but he was recalled
in 1319 and a reconciliation took place. Milutin died in 1321 and was
succeeded by his son, Stephen Uro[)s] III, who reigned till 1331. He is
known as Stephen De[)c]anski, after the memorial church which he built at
De[)c]ani in western Serbia. His reign was signalized by a great defeat of
the combined Bulgarians and Greeks at Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330. The
following year his son, Stephen Du[)s]an, rebelled against him and deposed
him. Stephen Du[)s]an, who reigned from 1331 till 1355, was Serbia's
greatest ruler, and under him the country reached its utmost limits.
Provincial and family revolts and petty local disputes with such places as
Ragusa became a thing of the past, and he undertook conquest on a grand
scale. Between 1331 and 1344 he subjected all Macedonia, Albania,
Thessaly, and Epirus. He was careful to keep on good terms with Ragusa and
with Hungary, then under Charles Robert. He married the sister of the
Bulgarian ruler, and during his reign Bulgaria was completely under
Serbian supremacy. The anarchy and civil war which had become perennial at
Constantinople, and the weakening of the Greek Empire in face of the
growing power of the Turks, no doubt to some extent explain the facility
and rapidity of his conquests; nevertheless his power was very formidable,
and his success inspired considerable alarm in western Europe. This was
increased when, in 1345, he proclaimed his country an empire. He first
called together a special Church council, at which the Serbian Church, an
archbishopric, whose centre was then at Pe['c] (in Montenegro, Ipek in
Turkish), was proclaimed a Patriarchate, with Archbishop Joannice as
Patriarch; then this prelate, together with the Bulgarian Patriarch,
Simeon, and Nicholas, Archbishop of Okhrida, crowned Stephe