Apodochator

The title is known from the Vatopedi, Mrachka, Virgin, Rila, and Vitosha charters. In these documents, the apodochator occurs in the protective formula—the section listing the officials required to respect a grant and refrain from interfering with the recipient’s rights. The Vatopedi act also uses the variant “apodochnik.” No holder of the office is identified by name, and the charters provide no direct description of his duties.

The word is certainly Greek in origin, but the corresponding office has not been found in the surviving Byzantine documentary corpus or in other Byzantine sources. The term is therefore known only through its Slavonic forms. It was probably derived from the Greek “ἀποδόχιον,” meaning a granary, or from “δοχεῖον,” a storehouse or repository. This etymology points to the handling of stored produce, although the absence of a Greek attestation prevents a fully certain reconstruction of the original title.

The office was initially interpreted as one concerned with collecting taxes in kind. Such an explanation, however, would give the apodochator implausibly broad authority over other fiscal officials. It is more likely that he was a storekeeper within the fiscal administration: he received produce that had already been collected, kept it secure, and arranged for its later transfer. The official apparently supported himself from an additional levy or fee called the “apodochia,” which was assigned to his office. The sources do not reveal the precise accounting procedures or his relationship with other financial officials.

Outside Bulgaria, the title appears in a charter issued by the Serbian king Stefan Uroš II Milutin in 1300. One passage uses the form “apodochator,” while another has “apodochniar”; the context indicates that both denote the same office. The institution is otherwise only weakly represented in Serbian acts. It may have entered Serbian administration during the conquest of Macedonia and the incorporation of territories with earlier Bulgarian administrative traditions. The close textual relationship between Milutin’s charter and the Virgin Charter complicates the source-critical question, but it does not invalidate the Serbian attestation.

Its frequent appearance in Bulgarian royal acts has led to the suggestion that the apodochator was a Bulgarian institutional innovation. The Greek basis of the word nevertheless makes a connection with Byzantine administrative practice more likely, even if the relevant designation happens not to survive in Byzantine texts. Neither a purely Bulgarian origin nor an exact Byzantine counterpart can therefore be regarded as proven. The apodochator’s position in official lists does not suggest high prestige: he can occur as low as tenth place, while in the Vatopedi Charter he is seventh but also last. No distinctive insignia, seals, or coins are associated with the office. The documents indicate that it existed for much of the Second Bulgarian Empire, but they do not permit its establishment or disappearance to be dated precisely.