Home and Dwelling

The domestic environment reveals the sharply different conditions in which the various levels of Bulgarian society lived. Archaeological evidence suggests that people of middling social position generally lived more like the dependent population than the boyars. Although all medieval housing fell far short of modern expectations of comfort, there was an enormous gulf between a rural sunken dwelling and an aristocratic palace.

Much of the ordinary population lived in single-room buildings dug partly into the ground. Stone foundations are rare. Roofs were normally made of straw or reeds, and the usable floor area was usually between 10 and 20 square metres. The walls consisted of woven branches coated with clay and were about 10–14 centimetres thick, offering little protection from damp and winter cold. The floor was made of packed clay and was sometimes covered with a woven mat. The Byzantine writer Gregory Antiochos contemptuously described such homes as cramped and stifling huts, but their simplicity reflected the poverty of their occupants rather than a lack of building knowledge.

It is uncertain what the inhabitants themselves called all these structures. In literary texts, poor dwellings may lie behind the terms “khlevni,” literally barns, and “izbi,” or cellars, while “hizha” was used for a rural home as early as the ninth century. The word “kŭshta,” the modern Bulgarian term for house, is recorded in the fifteenth century but probably denoted more substantial buildings at an earlier date as well. A sunken dwelling had few furnishings: a hearth, several earthenware vessels, a low sleeping platform, mats, and woven rugs. It might also contain a small lamp or wax candle, a chest holding a bride’s trousseau, and the loom at which the women of the household worked.

Pottery finds complicate the image of the poor home as a place entirely without decoration. Urban sunken dwellings have produced sgraffito ware—multicoloured decorated pottery often classified as a luxury product. Below the Momina Krepost hill at Tarnovo, its ratio to ordinary pottery is approximately 1:10. At the eleventh-century settlement near Kovachevitsa in the Pazardzhik region, the figure is only 1:190, but in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries it reaches 1:10 at Hotnitsa and 1:4 at Krumovo Kale near Targovishte. Such vessels therefore gradually entered households beyond the narrow aristocratic circle.

Some Tarnovo sunken dwellings have yielded parts of decorated candlesticks, scales, and finely made metal fittings. These finds point to differences in wealth even among the occupants of modest housing. Water and other liquids were kept in large jars, wooden containers, and, less often, metal pails. Traces of green, yellow, or brown plaster on the interior walls show an effort to beautify the room. Western travellers from the fifteenth century onward expressed surprise at the cleanliness concealed behind shabby exteriors, although this late evidence cannot be applied to every medieval home. In the poorest buildings, people and working animals probably shared the same space, a practice that Felix Kanitz could still observe in the nineteenth century.

Poor urban neighbourhoods developed as dense clusters without any obvious overall plan. In villages, sunken dwellings and light agricultural shelters were likewise arranged without a strict pattern, though they were spread across a larger area. At the medieval settlement near Hotnitsa, the distance between individual houses varies from about 7 to 20 metres.

The urban houses excavated at Tarnovo, Cherven, Kaliakra, Lovech, and Pernik were more substantial than rural sunken dwellings, but most remained modest. A light upper storey with one or at most two rooms rose above a stone ground level; the living area ranged from approximately 14 to 75 square metres. The timber frame was coated with clay, while Cherven has produced evidence of walls built entirely of wood and packed with yellow earth. Heating came from fireplaces resembling the traditional dzhamal, a large masonry hearth or stove. Some windows contained glass. Too few roof-tile fragments survive to prove that tiles were the normal covering; many roofs were probably made of wooden boards, straw, or reeds. The lower level could serve as a byre, while similar rooms on Tsarevets probably housed craft workshops and shops known as “prodazhnitsi.”

Medieval fortified towns often occupied steep, rocky sites. Houses rose in rows along the slopes and, from a distance, formed an almost continuous surface of roofs. John Kantakouzenos described the Bulgarian fortress of Servia in Macedonia as a town with “few houses and many roofs.” The districts along the Yantra valley below Tsarevets probably presented a similar sight. Hygiene in shared spaces was limited: narrow areas beside houses often became rubbish dumps. At Tsarevets, purpose-dug refuse pits are more frequently found.

Boyar residences at Cherven, Kaliakra, Melnik, and other centres were distinguished by both their size and their architectural decoration. The castle at Cherven occupied about 2,000 square metres, yet its façade was unusually severe. Its only prominent decorative feature was a massive stone frieze below the roof. This austere appearance may have been deliberately chosen to convey strength and permanence. Other aristocratic homes, especially south of the Balkan Mountains, were described as tall, wealthy buildings with colourful façades, geometric patterns, and metal ornament.

Boyar architecture combined soft limestone, red brick, decorative ceramic bowls, and wooden panels. Arches and blind niches—recesses shaped like openings but not passing through the wall—enlivened the upper storeys. Following Byzantine models, some residences may have had roof gardens, although the evidence is indirect. Windows were sometimes made of pale green, blue, violet, yellow, or red glass. Some panes carried patterns resembling metal latticework, often based on a four-leaf design. Other windows were framed with marble slabs pierced by circular openings rather than ordinary wooden shutters.

The best-studied royal residence is the palace on Tsarevets. The original complex was constructed under the early Asen rulers and was subsequently rebuilt several times. It contained residential, ceremonial, and service rooms intended for the royal family and court. A fire destroyed the palace in the 1350s, after which Ivan Alexander reconstructed it on an even more imposing scale. Some of its residential blocks rose to two or three storeys. Architectural fragments and decorative finds attest to richly treated façades, although the exact appearance of many rooms can be reconstructed only approximately.

The dowry of Maria, Kaloyan’s daughter and Boril’s niece, provides indirect evidence for the movable wealth of the royal household. Boril arranged her marriage to the Latin emperor Henry. Robert of Clari mistakenly calls her Boril’s daughter, but describes a procession of sixty mules laden with gold, silver, silk, and jewellery. The animals were covered with long pieces of red silk that survived the muddy roads without being torn. The account does not describe the palace rooms directly, but it demonstrates the quantity and quality of possessions available to the Bulgarian ruling family.

Medieval miniatures depict palace halls with silk curtains, velvet draperies, and carefully made carpets. Tables appear laden with food and drink served in gold, silver, and decorated ceramic vessels. Although such images are conventional, archaeological discoveries support their general picture of splendour. The walls were painted with rulers and saints, and a fragment showing a human hand from the throne room was produced by an exceptionally skilled artist. Floors also received ceremonial decoration: cubes of white, yellowish, and pink marble, green serpentine, and red porphyry formed mosaics of geometric shapes and crosses. Paintings have also been found in boyar castles, but the surviving fragments are generally less accomplished than those from the royal palace.

Written accounts also attribute immeasurable wealth to the palace of Ivan Sratsimir, ruler of Vidin. The royal bedchambers are said to have contained high “golden beds,” raised above the damp floor and covered with colourful blankets and rich pillows. Numerous candlesticks were hung along the walls, while perfumes filled the rooms. Chronicle language probably exaggerates some details, but together with the archaeological and artistic evidence it presents a consistent picture: the comfort and display of the palaces bore little resemblance to the cramped, cold, and sparsely furnished homes of most villagers.