John Assen’s empire showed many of the characteristics of the late feudal states. Its successes were frequently only illusory. Feudal anarchy was stopped but far from destroyed. The decades following the death of the great ruler were chaotic. Bulgaria lost many of its acquisitions. The much younger Serbian state rose in power to the west. To the south, the Nicaeans managed to take Constantinople, restored Byzantium, and tried to reestablish their influence in the central part of the peninsula. From the middle of the 13th century onwards, the lands of the Bulgarians were ravaged by Tartar-Mongolian hordes nearly every year.

Unprotected by the state and brought to despair, the peasants tried to take things in their own hands. In 1278 one of the leaders of the peasant self-defence bands, who was probably a peasant (although there are other versions about his origin), succeeded in deflecting several Tartar attacks. Success lent him authority and brought several thousand discontents under his banner. Tsar Constantine Tich himself fell in a battle with the rebels. The winner Ivailo donned the vacant crown, an act rendered legitimate by his marriage to the widow of Constantine Tich. This was one of the extremely rare cases in Europe (there being more in China) when the leader of a peasant revolt ascended to the throne. Ivailo’s rule was short. While he marched against a Byzantine attack from the south the boyars in the capital organised a plot and elected one of their own as tsar. Power had already gone to his head, however, and the peasant leader went to seek aid from the Tartars with whom he had until recently fought. There he found his death, murdered during a feast by order of the Tartar khan.Bulgaria seemed to reach rock bottom over the next two decades. There was even a time when a Tartar sat on the throne of the Bulgarian tsars. It is really extraordinary that one of the masterpieces of medieval art, created in the second half of the 13th century, has come down to us from those critical decades of violence, blood, and death. A small church was built in the fort of Boyana near Sredets (Sofia). There an unknown artist incorporated into the murals the boyar, who commissioned the decoration of the church, and his wife Desislava. The artist painted with exceptional skill, and his icons emanate the spirit of pre-Renaissance.

The political crisis was overcome to some extent in the beginning of the 14th century, but that was actually Bulgaria’s Indian summer. It was no longer the state from which all neighbours trembled, the rulers finding it difficult to curb the internal centrifugal trends. Local feudal lords declared themselves independent and sought the protection of nearby and distant states…..

Similar Topics from Ancient Bulgaria Archive

» Two seals from the First Bulgarian Kingdom were found at Veliki Preslav
» Western Bulgarian Outlands
» The Decline of the First Bulgarian Kingdom part I
» The Decline of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom part II
» The saint Dimiter church in Veliko Turnovo