[1] He led a second Serbian contingent sent by Milutin to aid the Byzantines, the first having participated in the Battle of Gallipoli (1312).

[2] Novak's army had the task of liberating the Byzantine counties around Prussa, Nicaea and Nicomedia from the Turks.

Historian Svetomir Nikolajević concluded this on the basis after Alexander Hilferding, who recorded folk traditions traveling Serbia before 1859.

[6][7] Novak and veliki župan Dragoš are the only nobility mentioned in Danilo II's Život kraljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih.

[1] He is enumerated in Serbian epic poetry, and poems (or dramas) of Dragoljub J. Filipović (1884–1933),[10] Dragutin Subotić (1887–1952), Rastko Tadić[11] and Milutin Bojić (1892–1917).