[3] Since the middle of the 13th century, the area of Vidin had been autonomous under ineffective Bulgarian overlordship, and was ruled successively by Yakov Svetoslav (died 1276), Shishman (died between 1308 and 1313), and then his son Michael Shishman, who received the high courtly title of despotēs from his cousin, Theodore Svetoslav, and was referred to in a contemporary Venetian source as a Despot of Bulgaria and Lord of Vidin.

[7] The death of Stephen V in 1272 meant that he was succeeded by his infant son Ladislaus IV, with the widowed consort and mother of the boy, Elizabeth, as his regent.

Possibly in 1273, Hungarian rule in Braničevo, west of Jacob's domain, was put to an end by two Cuman–Bulgarian nobles, Darman and Kudelin.

He arrived in the capital Tarnovo to negotiate his submission with Constantine's consort Maria Palaiologina Kantakouzene, who was the dominant figure in the empire at the time due to the Tsar's paralysis.

This adoption solidified Jacob's ties to the court and meant that he could safely retain his autonomous domain as a Bulgarian vassal.

[8] Suspicious of these disloyal intentions of Jacob's, Constantine's consort Maria is thought to have poisoned him,[9] and he died in 1275 or 1276/1777, shortly before the Uprising of Ivaylo.

[6] While the fate of the city of Vidin itself is unclear, at least part of Jacob's possessions were certainly restored to direct Bulgarian rule in the wake of his death.

[10] Shishman of Vidin, Bulgarian nobleman (boyar), ruled the semi-independent despotate based out of the Danubian fortress in the late 13th and early 14th century (1270s/1280s - before 1308/1313).

He soon became a leading noble in the internal affairs of the country and, on the childless death of young George Terter II in 1323, Michael Shishman was elected emperor of Bulgaria by the nobility.