The situation was aggravated additionally around the middle of the 12th century. On several occasions Byzantium was badly shaken by attacks from the east and from the west. The march of the Normans from South Italy, who were trying to establish a foothold on the Peninsula and who left a broad belt of plunder in their wake, was catastrophic for the southewestern Bulgarian territories.

Stardust buy

As if that was not enough, the incumbent Emperor Isaac II Angelos Nature Unleashed: Earthquake dvdrip decided to marry, and as if to ensure the joyous participation of the populace in his matrimonial plans he could not think of anything better but to impose an additional tax. He might have got away with these plans if they had not coincided with a small incident. Two Bulgarian boyars, Peter and Assen, who held the small but strategically important fort of Tarnovo in northern Bulgaria, and were probably a distant offshoot of the ruling dynasty in Preslav, visited the emperor to request additional landholdings. He sent them away with ridicule and even “regally” ordered them beaten up a bit. It turned out that his visitors were not the type to forgive easily and they raised the banner of revolt over their fort in 1185.

Veliko Tarnovo

Bulgaria’s new capital was quite different from the towns of the First Bulgarian Kingdom. Tarnovo, built on the remains of an early Byzantine settlement, had grown from a feudal castle and looked just like one. The tops of the two steep hills, Tsarevets and Trapesitsa, around which the river Yantra meanders, were fortified with strong walls up to three and a halfmetres thick. The walls followed the relief of the site and there was a drawbridge before the main gate. The aristocracy lived in Tsarevets. Archaeologists have excavated more than 400 dwellings, 23 churches, and five monasteries. The Patriarchal Church rose on the tip of the hill. The palace was complex and located in the centre. It was built to ensure individual defence, but the palace itself was smaller than those in Pliska and Preslav.

A special 100 cubic metre reservoir was built to provide water to the defenders in case of a siege.
The residential neighbourhoods lay around the foothills. It seems the dwellings of the wealthy and the aristocracy were made of stone, single or two-storey, with facades facing the street and little windows. It is regrettable that too little remains from those times to ensure a comprehensive picture, for the more valuable objects were pilfered for centuries on end. Archaeologists now find remains of hoes and axes, chisels and cotters, tongs and iron cards, combers and gills, scissors and needles, of implements for making gold jewellery – all tools indicating that crafts in Tarnovo flourished.

In the beginning this seemed a farce. Even after the first battles, the insurgents were forced to retreat and even to escape across the Danube. The emperor relaxed, which was a mistake. The brothers probably had family relations with the people living on the other side of the great river. They may also have had Cuman blood in their veins. On the next spring, the younger and more capable brother, Assen, returned at the head of a large mounted army and in a series of battles, gradually liberated all Bulgarian territories north of the Balkan range. The emperor himself tried to besiege one of the fortresses, Lovech. The siege, however, dragged out and insurgent troops began to gather in the rear of the Byzantine army. The emperor, who had been educated according to the standards of the time, was well aware what had happened to Nicephorus I, so he decided to conclude a peace with the Bulgarians. In return they had to let him go in peace.

In the next year he made an attempt to reject the peace and to regain his hold on Moesia, which proved a catastrophe. His army was overcome and defeated in one of the Balkan range passes. Thus, in 1187 Bulgaria was once again recognised as an independent state. The youngest brother Ivanitsa (Kaloyan) was sent to Constantinople as a hostage. He had to guarantee with his life that the Bulgarians would abide by the conditions of the treaty and would not crave after the achievements of Simeon.

Boogie Nights buy

The Assen brothers regarded their state as the direct descendant of the First Bulgarian Kingdom. This could be seen in both their tutelary and in the manner they conducted their diplomatic correspondence. They were capable military commanders and statesmen but the territory they held in the beginning was only a small part of Bulgarian ethnic territory. The borders of the state rarely extended beyond the ridge of the Balkan range. The Bulgarians did not stop their incursions into Thrace but they did not establish their power there permanently. The emperor had not recognised the full authority of the Bulgarian ruler. The head of the Bulgarian church was subordinate to the Patriarch in Constantinople. It required considerable audacity, military skill, and successful diplomacy to reinstate Bulgaria in the place that was its due. Besides, the primacy of the Assens ahead of the state was not sanctioned by long-standing tradition….

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