Before the arrival of the Slavonic peoples in the Balkans during the sixth century AD, the area now known as Montenegro was inhabited principally by the Illyrians.


Along the seaboard of the Adriatic, the movement of peoples that was typical of the ancient Mediterranean world ensured the settlement of a mixture of colonists, traders, and those in search of territorial conquest. Substantial Greek colonies were established on the coast during the sixth and seventh centuries BC and Celts are known to have settled there in the fourth century BC. During the 3rd century BC, an indigenous Illyrian kingdom emerged with its capital at Skadar. The Romans mounted several punitive expeditions against local pirates and finally conquered this Illyrian kingdom in AD 9, annexing it to the province of Illyricum.

The division of the Roman Empire between Roman and Byzantine rule – and subsequently between the Latin and Greek churches – was marked by a line that ran northward from Skadar through modern Montenegro, symbolizing the status of this region as a perpetual marginal zone between the economic, cultural, and political worlds of the Mediterranean peoples and the Slavs. As Roman power declined, this part of the Dalmatian coast suffered from intermittent ravages by various semi-nomadic invaders, especially the Goths in the late 5th century and the Avars during the 6th century. These soon were supplanted by the Slavs, who became widely established in Dalmatia by the middle of the 7th century. Because the terrain was extremely rugged and lacked any major sources of wealth such as mineral riches, the area that is now Montenegro became a haven for residual groups of earlier settlers, including some tribes who had escaped Romanisation.


In the first half of the seventh century, Serbs migrated from the Bay of Kotor to the River of Bojana, an area of land given to them by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius. They formed the Principality of Doclea. Under the following missions of Cyril and Methodus, the population was Christianised. The Serbian tribes organised into a semi-independent dukedom of Duklja(Doclea) by the tenth century. After facing subsequent Bulgarian domination, the people were split as the Doclean brother-archonts split the lands among each other after 900. Prince Časlav Klonimirović of the Serbian House of Vlastimirović extended his influence over Doclea in the tenth century. After the fall of the Serbian Realm in 960, the Docleans faced a renewed Byzantine occupation through to the 11th century. The local ruler, Jovan Vladimir, whose cult still remains in the Orthodox Christian tradition, was at the time struggling to ensure independence.

Stefan Vojislav started an uprising against the Byzantine domination and gained a huge victory against the army of several Byzantine strategs in Tudjemili (Bar) in 1042, which put to an end the Byzantine influence over the Doclea.In the 1054 Great Schism, the Doclea fell on the side of the Catholic Church. Bar became a Bishopric in 1067. In 1077, Pope Gregory VII recognised Duklja as an independent state, acknowledging its King Mihailo (Michael, of the House of Vojisavljević founded by nobleman Stefan Vojislav) as rex Doclea (King of Duklja). Later on Mihailo sent his troops, led by his son Bodin, in 1072 to assist the uprising of Slavs in Macedonia. In 1082, after numerous pleas the Bar Bishopric of Bar was upgraded to an Archbishopric.

The expansions of the Kings of the House of Vojislavljević led to the control over all Serbian lands, including Zahumlje, Bosnia and Rascia. The might of the Doclea declined and they generally became subjected to the Grand Princes of Rascia in the 12th century. Stefan Nemanja was born in 1117 in Ribnica (today Podgorica). In 1168, as the Serbian Grand Zhupan, Stefan Nemanja took Doclea.

Wikipedia