Constantine Bodin
1072–1101) was a medieval king and the ruler of Duklja, the most powerful Serbian principality of the time,[2][3][4][5] from 1081 to 1101, succeeding his father, Mihailo Vojislavljević (r. 1046–1081).
[9] Energetic and ambitious, Bodin was brought up in a period when the state enjoyed rare peace for two decades, although this did not interfere with his development of warrior qualities and abilities.
[10] Mihailo was approached by Bulgarian nobles (proechontes) led by Georgi Voyteh, who asked for a son whom they could crown as their emperor and end Byzantine "oppression".
[11] In the fall of 1072, Mihailo obliged and sent Bodin with 300 troops to Prizren, where they met with Georgi Voiteh, the exarch of Skopje, and other magnates.
[10] When, in 1081, the Normans crossed from Italy and attacked the Byzantines and besieged Dyrrhachion, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos went against them and called Bodin for aid.
Constantine Bodin's relations with the west included his support for Pope Urban II in 1089, which secured him a major concession, the upgrading of his bishop of Bar to the rank of an archbishop.
Despite Bodin's submission to Rome, the Catholic Church only gained ground in coastal areas of his realm, while the inland parts remained under Constantinople.
[17] According to the Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja (14th century), Constantine Bodin attempted to maintain the enlarged realm left him by his father.
Queen Jaquinta ruthlessly persecuted possible claimants to the throne, including Bodin's cousin Branislav and his family.
After a number of these persons were killed or exiled by Bodin and his wife, the church managed to keep the impending blood feud from sparking off a full-blown civil war.
The focus of the Serbian national and state life were then transmitted in the 1090s to the mountains of Kopaonik, where his subject, župan (count) Vukan, played the most important role in the fight of the Serbs against the Byzantine Empire.
[20][better source needed] On Constantine Bodin's death in 1101 or possibly 1108, Duklja was engulfed in the conflict caused by the dynastic strife that had begun to develop during his reign.
