[1] After Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović was killed in the Battle of Kosovo on June 28, 1389, his young son Stefan Lazarević succeeded him.

A wise and diplomatic woman, she managed to allay the Ottoman threat by marrying her daughter Olivera to Sultan Bayezid I.

Returning to Serbia, Stefan visited Constantinople where the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos granted him the title of despot.

Through Emperor Manuel II, Stefan confirmed his despotic rights and returned to Belgrade and annexed Vuk's lands.

[4] For the next twelve years, Stefan remained in good relations with Mehmed, which made the recovery of medieval Serbia possible.

On 28 April 1421, Stefan's nephew and ruler of Zeta, Balša III died without an heir, leaving his lands to his uncle.

Stefan wrote one of the major medieval Serbian literary works, Slovo ljubve ('The word of love'), and he amassed one of the largest libraries in the Balkans at that period.

[citation needed] Apart from political stability as a result of Stefan's ability to keep a distance from both the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary, the Serbian economy was also helped by the very rich silver mines, Srebrenica and Novo Brdo, some of the wealthiest in Europe at that time.

With Jerina's Greek nationality and the influence her brothers had with the new despot, people began to dislike her, and attributed to her many vicious and evil characteristics, including building Smederevo for capricious reasons.

[8] King Tvrtko II of Bosnia came into conflict with the Bosnian noble family of Zlatonosovići in November 1430, over alleged cooperation between Vukašin Zlatonosović and the Serbian Despotate.

In the spring of 1433, Despot Đurađ annexed parts of Usora, together with the trade outpost Zvonik (Zvornik) and fortress Teočak.

[9] Đurađ married his daughter Katarina to Ulrich II of Celje in 1433, a close cousin of the Hungarian Queen, in an effort to secure better relations with Serbia's northern neighbor.

Despot Đurađ fled to Hungary in May 1439, leaving his son Grgur Branković and Jerina's brother Thomas Kantakouzenos to defend Smederevo.

[11] After three months of siege, Smederevo fell on August 18, 1439, while Novo Brdo resisted conquest for two entire years, falling on June 27, 1441.

Its borders were the same as before 1437, with the exception of the southern part of Zeta, which remained under Venice, and fort Golubac, which was returned to Serbia even though it was lost much earlier, in 1427.

[13] The difficulty Despot Đurađ had in maintaining balance between two strong powers can be illustrated by the fact that in 1447–48 despot Đurađ provided funds to the Byzantines to repair the city walls of Constantinople, but being officially an Ottoman vassal, he had to send a thousand soldiers to help Sultan Mehmed II conquer Constantinople in May 1453.

[14] The new Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed II, who would later be called the Conqueror, returned the regions of Toplica and Dubočica to Serbia in 1451 as a token of good will.

Much of central Serbia fell, but the capital was well-prepared and the Ottomans, upon hearing that Hunyadi would cross the Danube to reinforce the Serbs, soon lifted their siege of Smederevo.

Nikola Skobaljić's resistance, which due to his army's low numbers came to be respected by the Turks themselves, was crushed by another Ottoman force on November 16 and he was executed.

Sensing that Serbia was too weak to defeat a future Ottoman incursion on the battlefield, he managed to make a deal with Sultan Mehmed II on January 15, 1457.

Seeking rights for his bastard son Vuk, blind Grgur Branković fled to the Ottoman Empire, together with Mara and Thomas Kantakouzenos.

The enraged citizens of Smederevo rose up against Anđelović on March 31, taking him prisoner and capturing or killing most of the Ottoman detachment.

His appointment as new despot was highly unpopular but pushed hard by his father, King Stjepan Tomaš of Bosnia.

Sultan Mehmed II decided to conquer Serbia completely and arrived at Smederevo; the new ruler did not even try to defend the city.

[citation needed] In 1404 Hungarian King Sigismund lend parts of Syrmia, Banat and Bačka to Serbian Despot Stefan Lazarević for governing, later succeeded by Đurađ Branković.

After the Ottoman Empire conquered Serbian Despotate in 1459, the Hungarian rulers renewed the legacy of Despots to the House of Branković in exile, later to the noble family of Berislavići Grabarski, who continued to govern most of Syrmia until the Ottoman conquest but territory has been in theory still under administration of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary.

This reform, made necessary by the increasing threat of Turkish invasion, gave those Voivodes an authority over both civilian and military matters in their respective districts.