Taxes and the treasury

“Fiscal offices” is a collective designation rather than the name of a single medieval department. It includes collectors of taxes and customs duties, officials who received payments in money or kind, and people who organized angariai—compulsory labour, transport, lodging, or provisioning owed to the state. Some of these officials probably belonged to military, palace, or hunting establishments. They are grouped together because they dealt with obligations imposed on the population, not because they necessarily formed one centralized service.

The fiscal administration of the Second Bulgarian Empire was based on the Byzantine system already operating in the territories taken over by the Asen dynasty after the uprising of 1185. Many names of offices and taxes are Greek or Slavic renderings of Greek terms. This influence was not due solely to the preceding two centuries of Byzantine rule: Bulgarian institutions had adopted models from Constantinople as early as the First Empire. George Akropolites and Theodore Skoutariotes report that after his victory at Klokotnitsa in 1230, Ivan Asen II installed garrisons, strategoi, and collectors of state revenue in the Byzantine fortresses that submitted to him. Fiscal organization thus stood alongside military and provincial government among the first structures introduced into newly conquered territories.

Taxes were public obligations used to finance defence, central and provincial administration, communications, and other necessary activities that did not themselves produce income. They should therefore not be equated with rent owed to a landowner. When a monastery or another privileged proprietor received the right to collect particular state dues, this was an exemption or an assignment of revenue, not a transfer of sovereignty. Estate servants could bear the same titles as imperial officials without possessing their public status.

The tithe was among the most widespread levies and is attested in the Vatopedi and Mraka charters. It applied to agricultural or pastoral production and was probably normally rendered in kind, although its actual rate need not always have been exactly one tenth. Its collection was associated with the desetkari and probably with more narrowly specialized officials such as grain and wine collectors. The accumulated produce was kept by an apodochator, an official responsible for receiving and storing it. The Bulgarian tithe has close parallels in the Byzantine dekateia, in Serbia, and in the Romanian lands. Another major levy was the dimnina in the Virgin Charter, a tax assessed by house or hearth, related to the Byzantine kapnikon and independent of the size of the harvest.

The zeugarion, also called volobershchina in Slavic, appears in the Vatopedi, Rila, and Virgin charters. It derived from the Byzantine zeugarion or zeugaratikion and is generally understood as a land tax based on the area that could be worked by a pair of oxen. A similar principle survived later in the Ottoman Çift resmi. The volobershchina has been identified with the komod, the zhitarstvo, and the Serbian soč, but the evidence is insufficient. The zhitarstvo, known from the Zograf Charter, clearly concerned grain production and was probably collected by a zhitar. It may have been related to the Byzantine sitarkia or may have represented a tithe on grain, but its precise character remains disputed.

The perper is the only known Bulgarian levy in this group whose name securely indicates payment in money. It is mentioned in the Virgin and Zograf charters, while its collectors, the perperaki, appear in the Rila and Vitosha charters. The object on which it was assessed is unknown, but the occurrence of similar names in Byzantium, Serbia, and the Romanian lands shows that it was not an isolated Bulgarian phenomenon. Its existence demonstrates the importance of monetary transactions alongside payments in kind.

The koumerkion was a state customs duty on trade. Its name ultimately came from the Latin commercium but entered Bulgarian through the Greek κουμέρκιον. It appears in the treaty of Michael II Asen with Dubrovnik, the Dubrovnik Charter of Ivan Asen II, and the Rila Charter of Ivan Shishman. Customs privileges are also addressed in Ivan Alexander’s charter for the Venetians and in the treaty of Despot John Terter, son of Dobrotitsa, with the Genoese. The disputed Virgin Charter uses the term tsarina, which may reflect Serbian intervention in the text. The Dubrovnik Charter mentions a “Законъ о коумеркиѣ”, a “law of the koumerkion.” It is uncertain whether this referred to a written enactment or merely to established practice, while customs arrangements were commonly defined by treaties and imperial privileges.

The koumerkion could be collected at fairs, mountain passes, roads, bridges, river crossings, towns, and villages. This implies a network of customs points throughout the empire, although the surviving sources do not permit a secure reconstruction of its personnel. The vamesh has sometimes been presented as a Bulgarian customs official on the evidence of a Wallachian charter. That document, however, belongs to Radu Prasnaglava and the 1420s, by which time the medieval Bulgarian state no longer existed. It therefore does not demonstrate the presence of Bulgarian officials north of the Danube, and the vamesh cannot confidently be included among the offices of the Second Empire.

The komod, attested in the Vatopedi, Virgin, and Mraka charters, appears to have been an additional payment benefiting fiscal officials, perhaps those who assessed taxable property or production. The nametak may have served a similar purpose, although the two terms were not identical, since they occur together in an authentic chrysobull—an elaborate imperial charter furnished with a gold seal. An opposing interpretation regards the komod as a land tax related to the volobershchina and the zhitarstvo. Its connection with the Byzantine oikomodion makes the explanation as an official’s due more likely, but the matter is not conclusively settled. There is no direct evidence for regular salaries paid to fiscal officials. In addition to the komod and nametak, apodochators probably received the apodochia, although the amount of these revenues is unknown.

The work associated with the fiscal apparatus also included the organization of angariai. Kastroktisia, called gradozidanie in Slavic, required the population to participate in the construction and maintenance of fortresses. It appears as “градъ ѕидати” in the Virgin Charter and as καστροκτισία in a document from Mesembria. The gradar and varnich were probably connected with this obligation. Guarding fortresses and prisons served defensive and policing purposes and may have been supervised by the varar. Psomozemia covered the provision of bread, wine, fodder, and other supplies to the army. Even haymaking had a military purpose because it supported the cavalry; the responsible senar therefore cannot easily be classified as exclusively a fiscal or a military official.

The mitaton and prishtelitsa were obligations to lodge and feed travellers on state service, apparently distinguishing between military units and civilian officials. Transport obligations supplied animals, carts, or human labour for the army, provincial government, and communications system. Similar uncertainty surrounds the kraguari and psari, who probably belonged to the organization of the imperial hunt, and the mitar and povar, who may have supplied provisions to the army. Such cases demonstrate why officials concerned with dues and angariai cannot automatically be treated as members of a single financial department.

The population also paid fees for the use of particular facilities or resources. The kosharshtina concerned sheepfolds on imperial land, the trevnina covered pastures, and the gornina applied to highland grazing. The meaning of the slonovshchina is obscure, but it was probably connected with sheltering herds. The mostnina was paid for crossing a bridge. In another context, the term dimnina has also been interpreted as a road fee or, more probably, a charge at a river ford, illustrating the uncertainty of the terminology. The detailed organization used to collect these payments is unknown. Fines also entered the treasury, but they were punitive rather than fiscal exactions. They were probably imposed by judicial, policing, or administrative authorities, including fiscal officials when an offence fell within their competence.

Imperial charters reveal increasing specialization during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In protective formulas—clauses forbidding named categories of officials from disturbing privileged estates—the Vatopedi Charter lists only three officials connected with the fisc, whereas the Rila Charter names fifteen collectors of revenue or organizers of obligations. These lists are illustrative rather than exhaustive, so the difference does not by itself prove a fivefold expansion. It nevertheless points to a more complex and differentiated administration in the late fourteenth century. The growth in officialdom may have reflected heavier taxation, but it was also connected with the wider crisis of a state that controlled less territory and a smaller population while facing intense military pressure.

The Vitosha Charter permits the hypothesis that two lines of authority existed within the provincial fisc. Some administrative and military offices are presented as belonging to the local kephale, the governor of the province. The praktor, probably responsible for local taxation, appears in this group. A second series, composed mainly of specialized fiscal officials, is textually separated from it and described as belonging “to my tsardom.” This may mean that they were appointed or directed by the central government and represented the ruler’s immediate interests. The interpretation is plausible but not certain: it remains unknown where these officials resided, whether they had permanent districts, whether they were dispatched for particular assignments, and how they related to the praktor.

The position of individual fiscal officials in documentary lists probably depended on the importance of the revenue they collected and the extent of their authority. The surviving documents do not permit the reconstruction of a complete hierarchy, nor do they record distinctive insignia, official seals, or coinage attached to these offices. Taken as a whole, the fiscal administration was among the best-attested and most specialized parts of the government of the Second Bulgarian Empire. It was established under the early Asen rulers, developed throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and ceased to exist as a Bulgarian imperial structure with the Ottoman conquest. Some fiscal forms and names have later Ottoman parallels, but this alone does not prove the direct survival of every individual office.