Any neighbour of the dazzling empire found its wealth an attraction difficult to resist. King Simeon was no exception. Around the end of the 9th century he engaged in endless wars with Byzantium. He was led by the misguided ambition not only to annex the maximum of Byzantine territory but also, if possible, to sit on the throne of the emperors in Constantinople. The Bulgarian ruler’s military and diplomatic genius could not be doubted. They allowed him to turn the power of his extensive realm into a fist of iron and to make the very existence of the empire questionable on several occasions. From the walls of the imperial city the officials of Byzantium could repeatedly enjoy the picture of nimble Bulgarian companies engaged in plunder. Simeon was also helped by the international situation. The Arabs persistently attacked from the east, compelling the empire to fight on two fronts. Cornered as they were, the Byzantines were forced to make an extreme sacrifice: Simeon was recognised as Tsar, i.e. almost equal to the emperor, the head of the Bulgarian Church - as Patriarch, while Byzantium committed itself to pay the Bulgarians annual due. In those days that was equal to being declared a Great Power. (Some historians, by the way, question the official character of this recognition and insist that it was his son Peter who became Tsar.)

Tsar Simeon in battle with the Byzantines - 14th century miniature. Simeon was forced to realize he could not hope to conquer Constantinople without a mighty fleet, an item lacking from the Bulgarian armory. That was why he sent envoys to the Arabs and called upon the Caliphate of the Fatimids in Northern Africa to set up an alliance. Luckily for the Byzantines, they intercepted the Arab envoys and, concerned with the looming alliance, endowed them with generous gifts and sent them back to their master unharmed. Besides, Simeon himself had begun to doubt the correctness of his policy. A familiar enemy was preferable to the unfamiliar one and moreover, one couldn’t know whether the Arabs would leave once they had come.The edifice of Simeon’s state remained standing until his death but a careful observer could see the telltale cracks in it. Two years before his death the great ruler became involved in a military conflict with the Croats who had recently established their own state. Sent far to the west the Bulgarian army was defeated and peace was restored without any important gains for either party. After Simeon’s death, however, it turned out that too much effort and funds were needed to maintain the status of a great state. Riots cautiously instigated by Byzantium broke out in various parts of Bulgaria’s vast territory, which spread from the Carpathian Mountains to the Aegean, and from the Black Sea to the Adriatic. Simeon’s heir - Tsar Peter (927-969) - was not skilled as a warrior but he did his best to retain his hold on his heritage. Simeon is, with the exception of the writers of the time, generally not remembered positively by his subjects; quite the opposite is to be said of his son, however.The years of Simeon’s reign also witnessed the inception of an intellectual phenomenon that was to leave its imprint far beyond the borders of Bulgaria. Echoes of it were even to reach Western Europe.

It was at some time during Peter’s reign that a new type of preacher appeared in the land. He proclaimed that the visible world was the work of Satan and the invisible world - that of God. In other words, the entire social order was the work of the devil and those who did not abide by its rules were not actually sinners. Bogomil preached of carnal self-restraint and non-violence. His followers were called Bogomils and gradually created their own religious hierarchy not subordinate to the rules of official ecclesiastic hierarchy. The seemingly innocent preaching of the Bogomils undermined the very foundations of public order. They were persecuted, tortured, anathematized, became subjects to ecclesiastics and lay punishment and even, in some cases, found a martyred death by fire.

It is difficult to say that Bogomilism was an absolutely new trend born of the Bulgarian genius for it echoed the dualistic leanings of Manicheans and Paulicians so popular in the East. Developing their ideas further, the Bogomils transferred them to the West, their followers in Bosnia even establishing their own independent church, which became official. Western followers of a kind of Bogomilism included the Patarenes, Albigensians, and Cathars. In France the word Bulgarian or bougre became synonymous to heretic. English knights helped their French peers in the merciless crushing of the Albigensians and the word bugger remained in the English language as a memory of those years, colloquially designating those sexual practices of which the heretics were blamed by their enemies.

The Bogomils disappeared with the advent of the Ottoman Turks on the Balkans in the 14th century. A century earlier, their followers in Western Europe also disappeared almost without a trace, mercilessly destroyed in a series of marches organized by the papacy. Nevertheless, the memory of their teaching remains and without a doubt they had a certain role in the formation of Protestantism.

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