The arms and Armour. Evidence. Serbia.

Ras Castle in Serbia c.12th-13th cen.
A small mace head, European socket arrow heads, tanged steepe nomadic heads and characteristic local daggers and knives. The mace head is most likley of Hungarian origin, the Magyars fighting in much the same way as the Sassanids whom made great use of such weapons. Mail piercing tanged and socketed arrow heads were also found dating to the early 13th century.

Reliefs.
late 12th cen. church of the virgin.
Reflects most closely the style, arms and armour of the Italian Normans.

Guards tomb, wall painting Serbian 1230-7. Milesevo.

This contains depictions of outdated Byzantine splinted arms defences and skirts, they carry large round shileds and wear helmets with aventails or seperate mail coifs. These helmets are of two piece construction joined along the crown, a development of the late Roman style popular in the mditeranean of the early medieval era.

Sopocani Monestery c.1265.
Large flat topped shields and tall pointed chpel-de-fer helmets with prominent brims now appear in large quantity. This shows an even stronger culrural influence from the Hungarians than before. Whereas Byzantium, Bulgaria and Russia were developing in their own ways.

Church Arilje, c.1296.
Here by the ne dof the 13th century, we see a basic takeover of western millitary culture. The parralels between Italian artistic depiction of their own arms is striking. In weaponry, costume, horse harness and saddles. The Swords are also wholly of European model.

Church of the apostles c.1300.

Here we see brimmed chapel-delfer war-hats. Some decorated with feathers, a unique Serbian and Bosnian feature which survived well into Otttoman occupation. Mail collars/tippets also appear, stiffened or padded. The shield is a large, flat topped kite style shield. There is also a figure wearing a mail coif and close fitting roun helmet. He is almost identical to figures seen in contemporary western sources.
A Demonic like figure wield a winged mace, indicating it was perhaps still associated with the Turks. However the dagger portrayed in the Betrayal reflects perhaps Turkic influence.
From this date Serbian millitary forms stick closley to that of the Western Christians, especially Italy, until we see in the mid 14th cen, the first wide use if Middle Eastern sabres and Composite bows.However, painting of the raised visors of European helms can still be found, thus indicating that Serbia was still influenced by the western Europeans.