Duklja (Serbian Cyrillic: Дукља; Greek: Διόκλεια, romanized: Diokleia; Latin: Dioclea) was a medieval South Slavic state which roughly encompassed the territories of modern-day southeastern Montenegro, from the Bay of Kotor in the west to the Bojana river in the east, and to the sources of the Zeta and Morača rivers in the north.

Mihailo was given the nominal title King of Slavs by the Pope after having left the Byzantine camp and supported an uprising in the Balkans, in which his son Bodin played a central part.

Duklja was then incorporated as a crown land of the Grand Principality of Serbia ruled by the Vukanović dynasty, subsequently known as Zeta, remaining so until the fall of the Serbian Empire in the 14th century.

[3] In later centuries, the Romans hypercorrected the name to Dioclea, wrongly guessing that an i had been lost due to vulgar speech patterns.

According to De Administrando Imperio (948–952), in chapter 35, Diokleia (Διόκλεια) included the "large, inhabited cities" of Gradetai, Nougrade, and Lontodokla.

[4][5] According to the later, somewhat dubious[6] source, Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja, a ruler named Hvalimir who was alleged to be an ancestor of Jovan Vladimir (ca.

990–1016), held Zeta and its towns, and the following counties: Lusca (Luška), Podlugiae (Podlužje), Gorsca (Gorska), Cupelnich (Kupelnik), Obliquus (Oblik), Prapratna, Cermeniza (Crmnica) and Budua (Budva) with Cuceva (Kučevo) and Gripuli (Grbalj).

The DAI claims that Duklja had been made desolate by the Avars and "repopulated in the time of the Emperor Heraclius, just as were Croatia and Serbia" (i.e. in the first half of the 7th century), by Slavs.

For example, Francis Dvornik and Florin Curta, among others, suggested that the DAI was a political document, rather than a strictly historical one and that it probably indicates that the coastal županijas were under the authority of the Serbian prince, Časlav Klonimirović, in the mid-10th century.

[19] According to historian Sima Ćirković, although Constantine VII does not mention tribes of whom peoples of Duklja originate, the authors of the XI century considered rulers of Zeta to be Serbs and sometimes call their land Serbia.

Ćirković also considers that this narrow scientific question has been politicized by opposing Diocleans to Serbs and ignoring historical sources from 11th and 12th century.

There is no clear evidence that peoples known as Serbs or Croats migrated en masse as coherent nations able to resettle large territories,[22][23] and that arrived as small military elites which assimilated and organized other already settled Slavs.

The main source on the history of early South Slavic states is De Administrando Imperio by Emperor Constantine VII (compiled before 952).

Archaeological evidence (a personal seal belonging to "Peter of Diokleia") suggests that local officials governed this small region in the name of the Emperor.

Slav raids on Eastern Roman territory are mentioned in 518, and by the 580s they had conquered large areas referred to as Sclavinia ("Slavdom", from Sklavenoi).

[32] According to Noel Malcolm, today's western Serbia was area where Serbs settled in 7th century and from there they expanded their rule on territory of Duklja.

768–814), the first known Serbian monarch by name, ruled the hereditary lands (Županias, "counties") of Neretva, Tara, Piva, Lim.

[38] Prince Vlastimir further united Serbian tribes against the growing threat from the Bulgarian Empire, his realm spanned over southwestern Serbia, much of Montenegro, eastern Herzegovina and southeastern Bosnia.

[39] Prince Petar Gojniković expanded along the Neretva, annexing the Narentines, where he seems to have come into conflict with Michael Višević, a Bulgarian ally and the ruler of Zahumlje (with Trebinje and most of what would later be Duklja).

A Serbian diplomatic mission, likely sent from Duklja, arrived at the Byzantine capital of Constantinople and was recorded in a charter of the Great Lavra Monastery, written in 993.

[45] In the 11th century, Jovan Vladimir ruled Duklja, with his court centered in Bar on the Adriatic coast; he held much of the Pomorje under his control including Travunija and Zachlumia.

We do not know what Vladimir's connection was to the previous Serbian dynasty as much of what is written in the Chronicles of the Priest of Duklja about the genealogy of the Doclean rulers is mythological.

[47] In the 1030s, as Skylitzes and Kekaumenos have written, Stefan Vojislav, who held the title of "archont, and toparch of the kastra of Dalmatia, Zeta and Ston",[48] led the "Serbs who renounced Byzantine rule".

A Slav rebellion centered on Belgrade, organised by Peter Delian in the late 1030s, worked in Vojislav's favour by diverting attention from Duklja.

Fine suggests that under Byzantine dominance, "Rascia" had in the 1040s emerged as yet another Serbian state (roughly centered on what is now southern Serbia and Kosovo.

He also entered diplomatic relations with the western powers by marrying one of his sons, Constantine Bodin, to the daughter of the Norman governor of Bari.

Bodin was expected to aid the Emperor at Dyrrhachium, instead he remained idle (possibly as part of a pre-conceived plan with the Normans) and watched the Byzantines get utterly defeated.

The Slavs who lived along the southern Dalmatian coast fell under the religious jurisdiction of Rome, via the Archbishops of Split, Bar and Ragusa.

Seeing a weak Duklja, the Byzantines started to meddle, sending Kočopar, one of Branislav's exiled brothers to capture the throne.

Duklja's long internecine strife was devastating for its status, as it was reduced back to a Principality dependent on Byzantine support, and was increasingly losing territory to Raska.