Tithe collector

The name desetkar is Slavic and derives from the word for tithe. The surviving Bulgarian charters mention the office as a category of state officials but do not identify individual holders. The Vatopedi Charter refers to tithe collectors without further qualification, whereas the Virgin, Mraka, Rila, and Vitosha charters provide evidence for specialized collectors.

The tithe was probably among the most important state levies in medieval Bulgaria. Despite its name, the assessed share was not necessarily exactly one tenth of production. The tax appears to continue the Byzantine δεκατεία, itself rooted in older Roman practice. It should be understood as revenue of the fisc, or state treasury, rather than as a private rent arising from dependence between a landowner and a producer.

Comparable taxes and offices existed throughout the region. A Serbian charter issued in 1300 by King Stefan Uroš II Milutin for the monastery of St George Gorgos near Skopje also mentions officials bearing a similar Slavic name. In Moldavia the tax was known as desetina and its collector as a desetnik; Wallachia used dijma and dijmar, while Transylvania had decima and decimator. The Bulgarian desetnik, however, was a military rank and must not be confused with the tithe collector. The Moldavian form was probably an adaptation of the title to a different linguistic environment.

Collecting taxation in kind required different procedures for different products. Livestock, grain, wine, and honey each presented distinct problems of assessment, transport, and storage, helping to explain the existence of specialized personnel. It is uncertain whether officials with general authority served alongside them. The Vatopedi Charter does not identify the taxable product, while the Mraka Charter uses the phrase “all kinds of tithe collectors” before listing collectors for pigs, sheep, and bees. It cannot be determined whether this list was exhaustive.

Collectors of the pig tithe are attested in the Mraka, Rila, and Vitosha charters. They gathered the levy imposed on pigs, although the sources do not explain how it was calculated or delivered. A pig tithe is also known from Serbian documents associated mainly with Macedonia, as well as from Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania. Its wide distribution may reflect either a common Balkan fiscal inheritance or the similar economic importance of pig raising in these regions.

Collectors of the sheep tithe occur in all four charters that name specific specializations: the Virgin, Mraka, Rila, and Vitosha charters. Their responsibility corresponded to the Byzantine sheep tithe known as the probatodekateia. A similar levy is attested in Serbian Macedonia. It was probably especially important in mountainous grazing regions and among the pastoral Vlach population, but it is not known whether sheep, lambs, dairy products, or some combination of them were surrendered.

Collectors of the bee tithe are named in the Virgin, Mraka, Rila, and Vitosha charters. They collected the levy on beekeeping products, most probably honey, and Byzantine practice offers a parallel expressed by the Greek term “μελισσοσεννόμους.” Evidence for a comparable tax survives from fourteenth-century Serbian Macedonia and from Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania. The attention devoted to honey probably reflects not its role in the everyday diet but its value as a commodity exported by Italian and Ragusan merchants.

Neighbouring states also knew other varieties of the tithe, including grain, wine, “great,” and “small” tithes. There is no firm evidence that each had its own specialized collectors in Bulgaria. Other officials, the zhitar and the vinar, dealt with grain and wine, making such additional tithe collectors less likely. The stable grouping of pig, sheep, and bee collectors suggests that the office may have been concerned chiefly with animal production, if beekeeping is provisionally included in that category. This remains unproven, however, and the identity of the officials who gathered other forms of tithe is unknown.

The position of tithe collectors in official lists suggests importance but does not reveal a precise administrative hierarchy. In the Vatopedi Charter they stand fourth in the overall enumeration and first among specifically identified tax officials; the praktor mentioned there is a general term for a fiscal agent. In the other charters, tithe collectors normally occupy the fourth or fifth position among representatives of the fisc. No direct evidence survives for their remuneration, although they may have derived income from additional payments imposed on the population. The documents provide no names of individual collectors, seals, or insignia, and they do not permit the creation or disappearance of the office to be dated precisely.