Apokrisiarios

The name apokrisiarios covers two related but distinct groups of officials. Some were the tsar’s messengers and belonged to the central government, while others served in the provinces and participated in the local organization of communications. Neither group should be confused with special diplomatic envoys. The surviving Bulgarian evidence is sparse and does not identify any holder of the office by name.

The word derives from the Greek ἀποκρισιάριος and broadly means a messenger or representative. In Byzantium it was applied to various imperial, military, and ecclesiastical officials, including representatives who resided permanently at their destination. Imperial couriers operated within a centralized system that, in the earlier period, was directed by the logothete of the dromos—the senior official responsible for the post and road network, and later for part of the empire’s foreign relations. A comparable Bulgarian service must have been necessary, but neither its head nor its complete structure is known.

The clearest documentary evidence for provincial apokrisiarioi is the charter for Vatopedi issued by Ivan Asen II. The office appears there in the form “Апокрисиарѣ.” Its inclusion among the officials from whose actions privileged estates were protected indicates that apokrisiarioi travelled through the provinces and could use services provided by the population. A supposed reference in a translation of a Mesembria charter is too uncertain to serve as independent evidence.

The central messengers appear most clearly in Archbishop Danilo II’s account of the aftermath of the battle of Velbazhd in 1330. Following the defeat and death of Michael III Shishman, his brother Belaur and the leading Bulgarian nobles sent “поклисари” to Stefan Uroš III Dečanski and Stefan Dušan. Since the messengers represented the men who had assumed authority during the vacancy of the throne, they should be regarded as agents of the central government rather than servants of an individual provincial lord. Their names are not given, and it remains unclear whether they were permanent officials or were assigned to this particular mission.

The form poklisar, a colloquial Slavic variant of the Greek title, also occurs in the doubtful Life of Prince Stefan. It describes messengers sent by the sebastokrator Strez. The legendary and inauthentic character of the text prevents this episode from being accepted as reliable evidence for his government, but it does attest the use of the term in a depiction of a local ruler’s court. The name belonged to a shared Balkan political vocabulary: it is well attested in medieval Serbia and appears, for example, in Constantine of Kostenets’ Life of Stefan Lazarević.

During their journeys, apokrisiarioi made use of compulsory services generally known as angareiai. Terms such as mitaton, priselitsa, and padalishte denoted various obligations to provide lodging, food, supplies, or stopping places for travelling troops and officials. Messengers were probably also furnished with animals and other means of transport. They benefited from these services but did not collect or organize them, since that was the responsibility of other officials. The possibility of coercion and abuse explains why apokrisiarioi appear in the protective clauses of rulers’ charters.

The more abundant Serbian sources help clarify the general character of the office, although their evidence cannot automatically be applied to Bulgaria. A charter of Stefan Uroš II Milutin from 1300 forbids an apokrisiarios from being lodged in the monastery of St George and prescribes penalties for forced entry. Another act of the same ruler prohibits the abbot of Banjska from being sent on “апокрисиарство,” showing that the duty could be assigned temporarily. A charter of Stefan Dušan releases the population from an obligation called “прокѫда поклисарѣ,” connected with the messengers’ transport, while his Law Code punishes abuses of priselitsa.

Apokrisiarioi did not occupy a high position in the administrative hierarchy. The tsar’s messengers were primarily executants who carried orders and information, whereas provincial officials may also have participated in organizing the local forwarding of correspondence. Their precise relations with other communications personnel cannot be reconstructed. Byzantium also had ταχύδρομοι, literally “fast runners,” whose duties appear to have been more purely courier-like; apokrisiarioi may have been more permanently integrated into the administrative structure. It has also been proposed that the Bulgarian term izgonchiya was a calque of ἀποκρισιάριος, but this remains unproven.

Apokrisiarioi must be distinguished from envoys commissioned to conduct formal negotiations. In the monk Ephraim’s account of contacts between Theodore II Laskaris and Constantine Tikh Asen, the diplomats are called πρέσβεις, meaning ambassadors. They were probably magnates empowered for a particular mission rather than members of the courier service. No special insignia, seals, or coins belonging to apokrisiarioi are known. The evidence confirms the office’s existence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but reveals neither when it was introduced nor when it disappeared.