Kaloyan's Bulgaria (the realm of the Bulgarians and Vlachs)

Who rules

Name

Kaloyan (Ivan, Ioannitsa)

Title

Tsar (car); in his letters to Rome 'emperor of the Bulgarians and Vlachs'. The Greeks call him Ioannitsa (Little John); Innocent III addresses him as a noble man, not yet as king.

Since

1197, sole ruler after the murder of his brother Theodore-Peter; co-ruler with Peter from 1196, after the boyar Ivanko murdered their brother Ivan Asen I at Tarnovo.

Born

About 1170 (Madgearu, reasoning that he was still a teenager in 1188). About 30 on 1 January 1200.

Family

Youngest of the three brothers who led the rising of 1185: Theodore, who took the name Peter and was proclaimed tsar in 1186 (murdered 1197, FMG: 'allegedly by a relative'), and Ivan Asen I (murdered 1196). Sent to Constantinople as a hostage in spring 1188 in exchange for Asen's captured wife; released or escaped about 1189. Wife: a Cuman princess, daughter of an unnamed khan; her name is not in the sources (FMG); after his death she married his successor Boril. Children: a daughter (called Maria in later genealogies) who married the Latin emperor Henry (1209, 1211 or 1213 by different authors), birth not pinned, so it is not certain she is born by 1 January 1200; FMG also lists a son 'Bithleem', sent to Rome in 1204, without a source (not pinned). Nephews and kin: see kin_and_heirs.

Confidence

high

English Wikipedia (Kaloyan of Bulgaria, with Madgearu 2016, Fine 1994, Curta 2006, Stephenson 2000, Dimnik 2004); FMG Medieval Lands, Bulgaria; German Wikipedia (Kalojan (Zar)).

Overlord

None. Kaloyan recognises no overlord. Constantinople treats the Asen state as rebels against the emperor. His approach to Innocent III, opened by late 1199, will bring him a crown from Rome in November 1204 (later), not an overlord.

What the realm holds

• Moesia between the Danube and the Balkan range: Tarnovo (Tsarevets and Trapezitsa), Preslav, Shumen, Lovech, the old capital Pliska in ruins, and the Balkan passes (Tryavna, Shipka, the Kotel and Sliven passes): the tsar's heartland (Kaloyan).
• The Danube line: Vidin (Bdin) in the north-west, Svishtov and the river crossings, Dristra (Silistra) in the east, held through unnamed commanders (Danube forts), and Dobruja as far as the delta as a thin claim; the port of Vicina is written by the Danube researcher (dnb).
• South of the mountains: Sredets (Sofia) and Pernik, held since the early 1190s; Velbužd (Kyustendil) and the upper Struma, taken probably in 1199 (Western lands).
• The western conquests of 1199 (most probably; Madgearu): Braničevo on the Danube at the Mlava mouth, Velbužd, Skopje, and Prizren (Prizren is written by the Serbia researcher, ser).
• Not his on 1 January 1200: Varna and the Black Sea towns (Byzantine; con), Constantia (Simeonovgrad) on the Maritsa (Byzantine until March 1201), the Thracian towns of the plain (Byzantine), Philippopolis and the Rhodopes (Ivanko, his ally: Ivanko), Strumica and Prosek (Dobromir Chrysos, at peace with the emperor: mac). Belgrade and Niš: not pinned (contested in this file).
• No mint is known; see coinage.

How it was acquired

The brothers Theodore-Peter and Asen raised the Vlachs and Bulgarians of the Haemus against Isaac II in autumn 1185 at Tarnovo, proclaiming the rising at the new church of St Demetrius there. Driven over the Danube by Isaac's campaign of 1186, they came back with Cuman allies and held the country north of the mountains; Peter was proclaimed tsar in 1186. Isaac II failed before Lovech in 1187 (truce, with the young Kaloyan as hostage in 1188) and was routed in a pass near Tryavna in 1190.

The Bulgarians beat the imperial army at Arkadiopolis in 1194, took Sredets in the early 1190s (Asen had the relics of St John of Rila moved from Sredets to Tarnovo in 1194), and in 1196 Asen defeated and captured the sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos, Alexios III's son-in-law, near Serres. Asen was murdered in 1196 by Ivanko, who seized Tarnovo for a time; Peter drove him out and made Kaloyan his colleague. After Peter's murder in 1197 Kaloyan ruled alone and raided Thrace repeatedly; in 1199, most probably, he took Braničevo, Velbužd, Skopje and Prizren from the Byzantines (Madgearu 2016, pp.

118-119).

Allies and rivals

Cumans: his allies and kin by marriage; they raid on their own account too (spring and autumn 1199). Ivanko: ally since 1198, although he had earlier seized two Rhodope fortresses from Kaloyan (Madgearu 2016, p. 114). Alexios III: the enemy. Dobromir Chrysos of Strumica and Prosek: at peace with the emperor since autumn 1197 and a rival of Ivanko; no dealings with Kaloyan are recorded for 1199, though Kaloyan backs his revolt in 1201.

Serbia: no war with Stefan or Vukan is recorded that winter; if Madgearu is right, Kaloyan's Prizren and Skopje now border Serbian land. Hungary: King Emeric's castles of Keve and Zimony face Braničevo and Belgrade across the Danube; no war is recorded in 1199-1200, but Emeric will seize Belgrade, Braničevo and Niš in 1202 (later). Rome: newly in correspondence.

The realm that morning

Kaloyan controls Moesia between the Danube and the Balkan range (Varna excepted), Sredets and the upper Struma, and, probably since 1199, Braničevo, Velbužd, Skopje and Prizren. The Balkan passes are his. North Thrace below the passes is a raided zone where neither side farms in safety (see The north Thracian raiding belt below the Balkan passes (winter 1199-1200)). The emperor's war with Bulgaria has no truce; the last raids were the Cuman and Vlach incursions of autumn 1199. Across the Danube the Cuman hordes are his allies (written by dnb).

His ally Ivanko holds Philippopolis and the Rhodopes against Alexios III.

Wealth

Livestock, pasture and grain of the Danube plain and the Balkan valleys; the Danube crossings at Vidin, Svishtov and Dristra; the passes; plunder, captives and ransoms from Thrace. No foreign merchant colony is recorded in his towns for 1200. Wine and salt are named as staples of the later Asen state (Second Bulgarian Empire article). No figures.

Military

The host of the Bulgarians and Vlachs: the boyars' retinues, the mountain men of the Haemus, and Cuman horse archers from beyond the Danube. The Balkan passes are the ramparts of the realm: Isaac II's army was ambushed in the Tryavna pass in 1190. Recent record: victories at Arkadiopolis (1194) and near Serres (1196), raids into Thrace after 1197. No figures are given for 1199-1200; the only number in the record is the offer of 40,000 men to Frederick Barbarossa in 1189 reported by the German crusade history (as cited in the Second Bulgarian Empire article), an offer rather than a count.

Threats

• Alexios III's coming campaign against Ivanko (spring 1200): if Ivanko falls, the Rhodopes and Philippopolis return to the emperor and the Thracian frontier closes up.
• Dependence on the Cumans, who come and go on their own timetable and can be drawn off by a Rus' attack on their pastures (Roman of Galicia, 1201).
• His own boyars: both his brothers were murdered by men of their court in 1196-1197.
• Hungary across the Danube, which wants Belgrade and Braničevo (it seizes them in 1202).
• The thin hold on the newly taken western towns (Braničevo, Velbužd, Skopje, Prizren), if they are his.

Kin and heirs

No heir is designated that winter, and no son of Kaloyan is securely attested. Boril, son of Kaloyan's sister (Akropolites: 'sororis illius filius Borilas'; FMG names his father as Strez, a voivode), is the nephew who will succeed in 1207 and marry Kaloyan's widow; his age and any office in 1200 are not pinned. Ivan Asen, son of the murdered Ivan Asen I and Elena, was born between 1192 and 1196 (Madgearu; Fine), so he is a small child on 1 January 1200, with a younger brother Alexander; where they live that winter is not pinned.

The English article (after Ephrem) has their tutor take them to the Cumans and then to the Rus' only after Kaloyan's death in 1207; the German article says they fled to the Cumans already in 1196, during Ivanko's coup. Their mother Elena (remembered in the Synodikon of Tsar Boril as 'the new and pious tsaritsa') is not placed in 1200. Alexius Slav, called by Henri de Valenciennes a first cousin ('cousin germain') of Boril, appears only after 1207; nothing is recorded of him in 1199-1200.

Strez, later (1207-1214) lord of Prosek and a kinsman of Boril, is likewise not recorded in 1200.

Court and officers

No officer of Kaloyan's court, and no governor of any Bulgarian town, is named in a source of 1199-1200: the boyars of this record are anonymous. The titles known from the later Asen state (the great logothete, the protovestiarios over the treasury, the sebastokrator and despot given to the tsar's kin, provinces under a 'duke' or kefalia, a council of the great boyars) are attested in later reigns; how far they were in use in 1200 is not pinned. Two of Kaloyan's brothers were murdered by men of their own court (Asen in 1196, Peter in 1197): the boyars are a danger as well as a support.

Church

The Bulgarian church is headed at Tarnovo by Basil (Vasilij), whom Rome calls archbishop and Kaloyan calls patriarch; he will be consecrated primate by the legate Leo on 7 November 1204 (later). When he took office is not pinned. The archbishopric of Tarnovo was set up in 1186 (Bulgarian Orthodox Church article), outside the obedience of Constantinople and of the archbishop of Ohrid. The bishoprics of the lands taken in 1199 (Braničevo, Velbužd, Skopje, Prizren) belonged to Ohrid under Byzantine rule; whether they have been put under Tarnovo by January 1200 is not pinned.

Tarnovo holds the relics of St John of Rila, moved from Sredets by Asen's order in 1194 (John of Rila article; 1195 in some accounts). Rome: Kaloyan wrote to Innocent III soon after he became sole ruler, asking for an envoy (Dimnik, as cited in the English Kaloyan article); the pope's first letter, written in late 1199 and carried, in the standard account, by Dominic, archpriest of the Greeks of Brindisi, reached Bulgaria in late December 1199 according to Curta (2006, p. 379); other accounts put its arrival later.

Kaloyan's answer, in Slavonic and now lost, styled him emperor of the Bulgarians and Vlachs and asked for an imperial crown; its date is not pinned. The Orthodox church is not on the Church map; the archbishop is written here only.

Coinage

No coin in Kaloyan's name is known before the union with Rome; the Second Bulgarian Empire article says he acquired the right to mint with papal recognition (1204). Byzantine coin circulates; attribution of imitative billon coins of the period to the Asen state is debated (not pinned).

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. Spring 1200 (Treadgold); 1200 (Madgearu)Alexios III lures Ivanko to a parley under safe conduct, seizes him, and recovers his fortresses; Kaloyan loses his ally in the Rhodopes.Depends on: Ivanko accepting the emperor's invitation; the imperial army (under the emperor's sons-in-law Alexios Palaiologos and Theodore Laskaris, Cheynet) taking the field. Stopped by: Ivanko refusing to treat, Kaloyan sending Cuman and Bulgarian help into the Rhodopes, or a mutiny in the imperial army.
2. About a year after his capture, so 1199 or 1200Dobromir Chrysos ransoms the protostrator Manuel Kamytzes, held since Ivanko's ambush (Choniates gives the sum; no figure here); Kamytzes joins Chrysos, and their revolt (Pelagonia, Prilep, Thessaly) runs through 1200-1201 with Kaloyan's support (Stephenson).Depends on: Alexios III refusing the ransom, as he did; Chrysos paying. Stopped by: The emperor paying the ransom and restoring Kamytzes's property.
3. 1201 (Fine); placed in 1200 by someRoman Mstislavich of Galicia attacks the Cuman pastures, forcing the Cumans in Thrace to go home.Depends on: Rus' politics on the steppe. Stopped by: Peace between Roman and the Cumans.

Later, on the likely course

1. March 1201; Varna on 24 March 1201 after a three-day siege (German Wikipedia)Kaloyan and his Cumans destroy Constantia (Simeonovgrad) and take Varna, the last Byzantine stronghold north of the Balkan range.Depends on: The war continuing without a truce and the Cumans coming south. Stopped by: A peace with Alexios III before spring 1201, or the Cumans held at home.
2. Late 1201 or 1202Peace with Alexios III; Byzantium accepts Kaloyan's conquests but not his imperial title nor a Bulgarian patriarch.Depends on: Both sides exhausted after the 1201 campaign. Stopped by: A decisive victory by either side.
3. 1202 (later)King Emeric of Hungary, backing Vukan in Serbia, seizes Belgrade, Braničevo and Niš; Kaloyan complains to Rome (1203) of five districts taken and retakes Niš (summer 1203), Belgrade and Braničevo.Depends on: Emeric's Serbian war and Hungarian ambitions south of the Danube. Stopped by: Papal mediation or a Bulgarian garrison strong enough to deter Hungary.
4. 7-8 November 1204 (later)The legate Leo consecrates Basil primate and crowns Kaloyan king of the Bulgarians and Vlachs at Tarnovo.Depends on: The correspondence with Innocent III that begins in late 1199. Stopped by: A breakdown of the talks, or Hungary's detention of the legate (it holds him at Keve in 1204).

Places of note

• Tsarevets, the walled hill and palace of Tarnovo: The tsar's fortress and palace, with the church of the Ascension (later the patriarchal church; its date is not pinned).
• Trapezitsa hill: The second fortified hill of Tarnovo, with churches and residences.
• Church of St Demetrius, Tarnovo: Where the rising of 1185 was proclaimed.
• The Tryavna pass: Isaac II's army was ambushed in a pass near here in 1190.
• Braničevo fortress (Kostolac): Danube fortress on the Mlava mouth, taken most probably in 1199 (Braničevo).

Where the sources disagree

• Western conquests: Madgearu (2016, pp. 118-119, as reported in the English Kaloyan article) dates the capture of Braničevo, Velbužd, Skopje and Prizren 'most probably' to 1199; the English Skopje article and older accounts date Skopje (and the western advance) to 1203, and Fine dates Kaloyan's capture of Niš to summer 1203. This file follows Madgearu for Braničevo, Velbužd and Skopje with low confidence, and marks Belgrade and Niš contested.
• Kamytzes's capture by Ivanko: 'later in 1199' (Varzos, in the English Kamytzes article) or 1198 at 'Batkun' (German Ivanko article). Either way Ivanko's revolt is in force on 1 January 1200.
• The papal envoy: Curta (2006, p. 379) has Innocent's envoy reach Bulgaria in late December 1199; the letter itself is usually dated late 1199, and its arrival may be later.
• Ivan Asen's childhood: the German Ivanko article sends Asen's sons to the Cumans in 1196; the English Ivan Asen II article, after Ephrem and Akropolites, places their flight to the Cumans and the Rus' after 1207.
• Kaloyan's daughter's marriage to Emperor Henry: 1209 (German Wikipedia), 1211 (Madgearu) or 1213 (FMG).
• campaign notes: they say nothing of Bulgaria; no conflict. The crusade (Part 8, 4) and Rome's eastern policy are the background to Innocent's letter to Kaloyan.

Evidence: The rulers, the wars with Byzantium and the papal letters are well documented (Choniates, the papal registers, Akropolites, as used by Madgearu, Fine, Curta and Stephenson). The internal government is thin: no boyar, governor or bishop is named for 1199-1200. The dating of the western conquests is disputed.

On the map: The Danube and the Balkan crest are firm frontiers; the western frontier (Braničevo, Velbužd, Skopje) follows Madgearu's dating and may be four years too early; Belgrade and Niš are left contested; Dobruja is drawn as a claim; Varna's district is cut out for the Byzantine record.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Chronicle of Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines (about 1227 to 1241, at the Cistercian abbey of Trois-Fontaines in Champagne). The widest net of any Latin chronicle for 1200, compiled from dozens of sources, many now lost. Read online
• History of Niketas Choniates, Niketas Choniates (about 1185 to 1217, in stages, with a final revision in exile at Nicaea after 1204). The central narrative for the Byzantine Empire under Alexios III Angelos: the Bulgarian and Vlach war under Kaloyan, the breakaway of Ivanko in the Rhodopes and his capture by treachery in 1200, Dobromir Chrysos at Prosek and Strumica and the emperor's campaign and settlement with him, the Cuman raids into Thrace, John Komnenos the Fat's one-day revolt at Constantinople on 31 July 1200, the loosening of imperial control in the provinces and the rise of Leo Sgouros, and the court's fiscal abuses. Read online
• The Conquest of Constantinople (Villehardouin), Geoffrey of Villehardouin (about 1207 to 1213). Opens with the preaching of Fulk of Neuilly and the tournament at Ecry (28 November 1199) where Theobald III of Champagne and Louis of Blois took the cross, then the taking of the cross by Baldwin of Flanders, Hugh of Saint-Pol, Geoffrey of Perche and others through early 1200, the assemblies at Soissons and Compiegne in 1200, and the six envoys sent to Venice in the winter of 1200 to 1201. Read online
• The Deeds of the Hungarians, by the Anonymous Notary of King Béla, Anonymus (P. magister) (about 1200 to 1210, the date disputed). Not a record of events but a picture of the kingdom's nobility and geography as a courtier of about 1200 wished to see it: the clans and their lands, the castles and counties, the Vlachs, Cumans and other peoples of the Carpathian basin, all projected back onto the conquest. Read online
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III (pontifical years 1 to 3, 1198 to 1201), Innocent III (Lotario dei Conti di Segni) and the papal chancery (1198 onwards, year by year). The register for the second and third pontifical years (February 1199 to February 1201) holds the letters that set the eastern stage for 1200: the exchange with Kaloyan of Bulgaria opened in December 1199 and continued through 1200 over union with Rome and a crown, letters to Vukan of Zeta and to Stefan of Serbia, letters to Alexios III and the patriarch John Kamateros pressing for church union and help for the crusade, the preaching commissions and the legation of Peter Capuano, the Antioch succession quarrel between Bohemond and Leo of Armenia, letters to Aimery of Cyprus and Jerusalem, and the French interdict over Ingeborg. Read online
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III for 1199 to 1201, Innocent III and the papal chancery (22 February 1199 to 21 February 1201). The pope's outgoing letters for the year, in his chancery's own copy, touching nearly every realm in the atlas. Read online