may be said to have continued flickering until
its final extinction as a state in 1393, but during this period it never
had any voice in controlling the destinies of the Balkan peninsula. Owing
to the fact that no ruler emerged capable of keeping the distracted
country in order, there was a regular _chasse-croise_ of rival princelets,
an unceasing tale of political marriages and murders, conspiracies and
revolts of feudal nobles all over the country, and perpetual ebb and flow
of the boundaries of the warring principalities which tore the fabric of
Bulgaria to pieces amongst them. From the point of view of foreign
politics this period is characterized generally by the virtual
disappearance of Bulgarian independence to the profit of the surrounding
states, who enjoyed a sort of rotativist supremacy. It is especially
remarkable for the complete ascendancy which Serbia gained in the Balkan
peninsula.

A Serb, Constantine, grandson of Stephen Nemanja, occupied the Bulgarian
throne from 1258 to 1277, and married the granddaughter of John Asen II.
After the fall of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in 1261, the
Hungarians, already masters of Transylvania, combined with the Greeks
against Constantine; the latter called the Tartars of southern Russia, at
this time at the height of their power, to his help and was victorious,
but as a result of his diplomacy the Tartars henceforward played an
important part in the Bulgarian welter. Then Constantine married, as his
second wife, the daughter of the Greek emperor, and thus again gave
Constantinople a voice in his country's affairs. Constantine was followed
by a series of upstart rulers, whose activities were cut short by the
victories of King Uro[)s] II of Serbia (1282-1321), who conquered all
Macedonia and wrested it from the Bulgars. In 1285 the Tartars of the
Golden Horde swept over Hungary and Bulgaria, but it was from the south
that the clouds were rolling up which not much later were to burst over
the peninsula. In 1308 the Turks appeared on the Sea of Marmora, and in
1326 established themselves at Brussa. From 1295 to 1322 Bulgaria was
presided over by a nobleman of Vidin, Svetoslav, who, unmolested by the
Greeks, grown thoughtful in view of the approach of the Turks, was able to
maintain rather more order than his subjects were accustomed to. After his
death in 1322 chaos again supervened. One of his successors had married
the daughter of Uro[)s] II of Serbia, but suddenly