The town's name in its slavic form was first mentioned in 1216 in "Stefan Nemanja's Hagiography" as the glorious town of Bar", written by his son, King Stefan the First-Crowned. Describing the conquest of his father Nemanja in 1183, he pointed out: He reclaimed Dioclitia and Dalmatia, his father's an his grandfather's lands, which were forcefully ruled over by the Greek people, as well as the towns in them, which they built themselves, so that the entire area was given the name Greek, and the towns are: Danj town, Sardoniki town, Drivost, Rosaf town called Skadar, Svac town, Ulcinj town, the glorious town of Bar.
The period under the Nemancic rule is considered to be the  period wehen the town, on the foundations of Byzantine forts and the Duklja state, lived to see ists largest economic, political and cultural bloom.
By handing overe the coastal cities to his son Vukan, who with the title of the king of "Dalmatia and Duklja" continued the rule of earlier kings, Nemanja left the town the rights to an autonomous existence. He also hekped develop the nobility which later became an important factor in the commercial and diplomatic relations of the kingdom. This period ended around 1360, when the serbian Empire slowly started to fall apart, and when the area of Zeta came uder the rule of the Balsic feudal family.
In 1199, the town managed to liberate itself after several decades of constant pressure from Dubrovnik concerning the rights to an archbishopric, but the final struffle to regain the archbishopric, was taken away in 1167 by Pope Alexander, ended in 1225.
Some of the Serbian rulers definitely spent some time in Bar - Vukan as ruler of Kotor and Bar and Vladislav (1234 -1243) who was mentioned as a former king in 1252. It is assumed that Uros I (1243-1276) died in BAr. His wife, Queen Jelena, spent spent a longer period of time in Bar, and most probably owned a court there. Stefan Decanski (1321-1331) announced that he would visit Bar in 1323, and it is rightly assumed that he did visit it, and historians  also agree that Emperor Dusan visited Bar while he was visiting Budva.
In the 12th and 14th centuries, the population of the town became economically strong, so the nobility in town, near the end of the 14th century, rose to a total of 70 families.
The activities of Queen Helen of Anjou, wife of King Uros I (1243 - 1276) influenced the reconstruction of the town and its spiritual and cultural elevation. Helen not only helped the town and its spiritual and cultural elevation. Helen not only helped the town, but also maintained good relations with the mighty feudal familiy, Zaretic, which provided prominent clergymen and business people serving for the state diplomacy, and one of them, Archdeacon Marin was the first man from Bar to become the town's archbishop.
it is probable that the first Serbian king, Stefan the First-Crowned (1196-1228) asked for the crown from Rome and received it in 1217, through the mediation of the archbishop of Bar.
In Bar the Franciscans, brought by Helen of Anjou, were mentioned for the first time in 1283. They then found their first monastery, that of St Nicholas, Mary and Francis outside the town. The Benedictine Monastery of Ratac near Bar was also given great privileges and a lot of land by the donation of her son King Milutin, and it became one of the most important monasteries in the eastern Adriatic.
Almost all the remains of today's churches in Old Bar come from the Nemanjic period (St. Catherine, St. Veneranda, St. Nicholas, St. Mark, chapels 10a,10b, chuches above the gates 6 and 29, the church inside the Citadel=. St. George's Church was reconstructed during this time, and a large bell-tower was added to it. Outside the town, two monasteries were built: one was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The Ratac Monastery was reconstructed, and the most impressive sacral architectural projectof a great basilica dedicated to the Mother of God was started there.