Justice and policing

Medieval justice formed part of administrative government rather than an independent judicial power. Under the influence of late Roman official procedure and older local traditions, officeholders settled disputes connected with their military, fiscal, and other responsibilities and imposed penalties for offences affecting those fields. Judicial districts generally followed the administrative-territorial divisions, while provincial governors exercised both governmental and judicial authority. Disputes that would now be classified as civil cases were normally heard by local authorities at a level corresponding to the standing of the parties. The Church possessed extensive jurisdiction of its own, especially over personal status and marriage; matrimonial cases fell entirely within its competence.

At the same time, surviving documents explicitly mention judges as specialized magistrates. Their presence does not imply the existence of a separate judicial system: judges remained within the administration and could be assigned fiscal or other non-judicial duties. A comparable model is known from Byzantium, where under the thematic organization the “κριτής” — krites, meaning judge — could head the civil administration of a theme, a military-administrative province. This Byzantine practice helps explain the combination of judicial and governmental responsibilities, but the limited Bulgarian evidence does not permit the reconstruction of a precise hierarchy or a fully autonomous judicial office.

Nor did a police force exist in the modern sense. The maintenance of order was divided among various administrative, fiscal, and security authorities. Towns could have guards and officials associated with them, but fortresses and prisons were also guarded by the local population as an angaria obligation—that is, compulsory public service. Security functions were therefore not concentrated in a unified professional institution.

The offices that may have performed such duties included the topshikala and the vatak. The evidence for them is extremely sparse and reveals neither their place in the official hierarchy nor the full range of their responsibilities. They may also have carried out tasks unrelated to public order, but their policing role is the only securely identifiable aspect of their service. Judges, the topshikala, and the vatak can consequently be treated together only as a convenient category, not as members of a unified judicial and police system.