Varar

The term “varar” occurs only in the Vitosha Charter, where it appears in the plural. It was most probably formed from an old Slavic verbal root meaning “to guard” or “to watch,” combined with the agent suffix “-ar,” used to designate people by occupation. In earlier formations this suffix was generally attached to nouns, but terms derived from verbal roots also appeared at a later stage. Interpretations of the varars as cooks or builders are therefore less convincing than the meaning “guards.” The word’s Slavic origin does not allow it to be securely associated with a specific Byzantine office.

It is not known precisely what the varars guarded. A fortress or town is the most likely possibility, although responsibility for particular buildings or persons cannot be excluded. Their position in the Vitosha Charter’s list of officials indicates that they did not belong to the upper administrative hierarchy. They may have been able to demand services or impose other burdens on the population, which would explain their inclusion among the officials whose actions the charter restricted. Documents from the reign of Ivan Shishman also contain the similar title varnichiy. If the difference is not the result of a scribal error, the varar was probably a guard, whereas the varnichiy may have performed construction or masonry duties. This distinction remains hypothetical. The sole record of the varars names no individual officeholder and provides no information about insignia, official seals, or coins.

An indirect parallel appears in a charter of the Serbian king Stefan Uroš II Milutin from 1300, which mentions an official described as “straži gradom,” meaning a guard of the town. He too stands near the end of the list and is followed by only a few local judicial and administrative officers. If this official was comparable to the Bulgarian varar, the varars may have supervised the guard and organized compulsory security service among the population. Such an obligation was a form of corvée, meaning compulsory and normally unpaid labour or service. Serbian sources record a duty called “gradokladenie,” associated with guarding settlements and fortifications, while similar obligations also appear in the Virgino Chrysobull, a ruler’s charter authenticated by a gold seal. These parallels support the interpretation of the varar as a local supervisor of guard service, but they do not prove it conclusively. Since the term is not attested elsewhere, neither the office’s later development nor its formal abolition can be traced.