The medieval Bulgarian royal charters are some of the few surviving secular documents of the Second Bulgarian Empire, and were issued by five tsars roughly between 1230 and 1380. The charters are written in Middle Bulgarian using the Early Cyrillic alphabet.
The two earliest Bulgarian royal charters, the Vatopedi Charter given to the Vatopedi monastery on Mount Athos, and the Dubrovnik Charter which permitted Ragusan merchants to trade all over the Bulgarian lands, were issued by Tsar Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria after 1230, and are both undated. The Vatopedi Charter was discovered on Mount Athos in 1929 and the Dubrovnik Charter was found in the archives of Dubrovnik in 1817. [1]
The Virgino Charter, also from the 13th century, was awarded by Tsar Constantine Tikh of Bulgaria to the Monastery of Saint George near Skopje between 1257 and 1777, and was discovered in the Hilandar Monastery. Some researchers consider it a forged document from the late 14th or early 15th century based on the Serbian 14th century Milutin Charter, while others regard it as an original work and believe that it was actually the base for the Milutin Charter. [1]
The royal chancellery of Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria awarded two known charters. These are the Zograf Charter of March 1342, confirming the Zograf Monastery's rights over the village of Hantak, and the Oryahov Charter of 1 December 1348 intended for the Saint Nicholas Monastery in Oryahov near Radomir. The Zograf Charter was found in the Zograf Monastery and the Oryahov Charter, written by the clerk Dobromir, is in the Hilandar Monastery. [1]
Tsar Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria's chancellery also issued two charters. The Rila Charter dates to 21 September 1378 and was given to the Rila Monastery; it was first published in 1845. Its authenticity is also disputed by some scholars due to its forged seal. The Vitosha Charter was awarded to the Holy Mother of God of Vitosha Monastery in Dragalevtsi in the Vitosha mountains near Sofia, and was discovered in the Zograf Monastery, where it is preserved today. It was issued between 1371 and 1385. [1]
The chancellery of Tsar Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria awarded the Braşov Charter to the city of Kronstadt (modern Braşov) in Transylvania, permitting merchants from the city to trade freely within Ivan Sratsimir's realm centred in Vidin. It has been dated between 1369 and 1380 and is today located in the State Archives in Braşov, Romania. [1]
Although no other charters have been discovered in the original, there is direct evidence of the existence of other charters as well. For example, a charter of Ivan Alexander given to the Venetian doge Andrea Dandolo in Nikopol on 4 October 1352 is kept in a Venetian translation in the archives of Venice. Ivan Alexander's signature has been preserved in its original form in Cyrillic. [2]
The charters of the medieval Bulgarian rulers are of great importance to several academic disciplines. From a linguistic point of view, they illustrate the changes in the Bulgarian language in the 13th–14th century, such as the gradual disintegration of the case system, and the number and type of loanwords. Being some of the few secular sources on the Bulgarian history in the Middle Ages, the charters are of great interest to the researchers of medieval Bulgarian law, as they list contemporary terms for different forms of taxes, agreements, penalties, etc. Most of the charters also enumerate personal names and toponyms, hinting at the development of the name system among the Bulgarians and confirming the medieval existence of many villages and towns, mostly in modern Bulgaria (largely in and near Rila) and North Macedonia (predominantly around Skopje). [1]
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The Hilandar Monastery is one of the twenty Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Mount Athos in Greece and the only Serbian monastery there. It was founded in 1198 by Stefan Nemanja and his son Saint Sava. St. Symeon was the former Grand Prince of Serbia (1166–1196) who upon relinquishing his throne took monastic vows and became an ordinary monk. He joined his son Saint Sava who was already in Mount Athos and who later became the first Archbishop of Serbia. Upon its foundation, the monastery became a focal point of the Serbian religious and cultural life, as well as assumed the role of "the first Serbian university". It is ranked fourth in the Athonite hierarchy of 20 sovereign monasteries. The Mother of God through her Icon of the Three Hands (Trojeručica) is considered the monastery's abbess.
The Monastery of Saint John of Rila, also known as Rila Monastery "Sveti Ivan Rilski", is the largest and most famous Eastern Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria. It is situated in the southwestern Rila Mountains, 117 km (73 mi) south of the capital Sofia in the deep valley of the Rilska River at an elevation of 1,147 m (3,763 ft) above sea level, inside of Rila Monastery Nature Park. The monastery is named after its founder, the hermit Ivan of Rila, and houses around 60 monks.
Ivan Sratsimir, or Ivan Stratsimir, was emperor (tsar) of Bulgaria in Vidin from 1356 to 1396. He was born in 1324 or 1325, and he died in or after 1397. Despite being the eldest surviving son of Ivan Alexander, Ivan Sratsimir was disinherited in favour of his half-brother Ivan Shishman and proclaimed himself emperor in Vidin. When the Hungarians attacked and occupied his domains, he received assistance from his father and the invaders were driven away.
Ivan Shishman ruled as emperor (tsar) of Bulgaria in Tarnovo from 1371 to 3 June 1395. The authority of Ivan Shishman was limited to the central parts of the Bulgarian Empire.
Ivan Alexander, also sometimes Anglicized as John Alexander, ruled as Emperor (Tsar) of Bulgaria from 1331 to 1371, during the Second Bulgarian Empire. The date of his birth is unknown. He died on 17 February 1371. The long reign of Ivan Alexander is considered a transitional period in Bulgarian medieval history. Ivan Alexander began his rule by dealing with internal problems and external threats from Bulgaria's neighbours, the Byzantine Empire and Serbia, as well as leading his empire into a period of economic recovery and cultural and religious renaissance.
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state that existed between 1185 and 1396. A successor to the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Tsars Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th century.
Saint Paisius of Hilendar or Paìsiy Hilendàrski (1722–1773) was a Bulgarian clergyman and a key Bulgarian National Revival figure. He is most famous for being the author of Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya (1762), the first significant modern Bulgarian history that became famous and has been copied and distributed everywhere in the Bulgarian lands. The book is overall third modern Bulgarian history after the works titled "History of Bulgaria" by Petar Bogdan Bakshev in 1667 and by Blasius Kleiner in 1761. He is considered the forefather of the Bulgarian National Revival.
The Saint George the Zograf Monastery or Zograf Monastery is one of the twenty Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Mount Athos in Greece. It was founded in the late 9th or early 10th century by three Bulgarians from Ohrid and is regarded as the historical Bulgarian monastery on Mount Athos, and is traditionally inhabited by Bulgarian Orthodox monks.
Fruzhin was a 15th-century Bulgarian noble who fought actively against the Ottoman conquest of the Second Bulgarian Empire. A son of one of the last Bulgarian tsars, Ivan Shishman of the Tarnovo Tsardom, Fruzhin co-organized the so-called Uprising of Konstantin and Fruzhin along with Constantine II of Vidin, the last Bulgarian monarchs. Fruzhin was mainly based in the Kingdom of Hungary, where he was the ruler of Temes County.
The Tsardom of Vidin was a medieval Bulgarian state centred in the city of Vidin from 1356 to 1396.
Dorothea of Bulgaria, also called Doroslava, was the first Queen of Bosnia. Daughter of the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Sratsimir, Dorothea was held hostage by King Louis I of Hungary, who married her off to Ban Tvrtko I of Bosnia in 1374. She became queen in 1377 and may have been the mother of King Tvrtko II.
Dragalevtsi Monastery of the Holy Mother of God of Vitosha is a Bulgarian Orthodox monastery on the lower slopes of Vitosha mountain on the outskirts of the capital Sofia in western Bulgaria. Founded in the mid-14th century by Bulgarian tsar Ivan Alexander, the monastery was abandoned after the Ottoman conquest of Sofia and reestablished in the late 15th century, when it became an important literary centre. The monastery church and some of its frescoes date from this period.
The Peshtera Monastery of Saint Nicholas of Myra, also known as the Mraka Monastery or Oryahov Monastery is a medieval Eastern Orthodox monastery in western Bulgaria, located in the Mraka area at the village of Peshtera, near Zemen, Pernik Province. As of 2008, the monastery is not operative.
Hrelja also known as Protosebastos Hrelija, also known as Stefan Dragovol or Hrelja Ohmućević was a 14th-century semi-independent feudal lord in the region of northeastern Macedonia and the Rila mountains who served medieval Serbian kings Stefan Milutin, Stefan Dečanski and Stefan Dušan. He became independent autocrat with vast political autonomy and capital at Strumica, formally recognizing Byzantine authority.
Doleni is a village in the municipality of Sandanski, in Blagoevgrad Province, south-western Bulgaria and as of 2013 has only 3 inhabitants. It is situated at the south-western foothills of the Pirin mountains a few kilometres north of the Melnik Earth Pyramids. Further north is located Pirin National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Doleni lies some 124 km south of the national capital Sofia.
John Komnenos Asen was the ruler of the Principality of Valona from c. 1345 to 1363, initially as a vassal of the Serbian Empire, and after 1355 as a largely independent lord. Descended from high-ranking Bulgarian nobility, John was a brother of both Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and Helena of Bulgaria, the wife of Tsar Stephen Dušan of Serbia. Perhaps in search of better opportunities, he emigrated to Serbia, where his sister was married. There, he was granted the title of despot by Stephen Dušan, who placed him in charge of his territories in modern south Albania.
This is a list of people, places, and events related to the medieval Bulgarian Empires — the First Bulgarian Empire (681–1018), and the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396).
Spiridon Gabrovski, also known as Spiridon Rilski, was a Bulgarian clergyman and activist of the Bulgarian National Awakening in the Ottoman Empire.
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