Mesembria Charters of Ivan Alexander

mid-14th century

Also known as: The three Mesembria chrysobulls

Three Greek charters Ivan Alexander granted at Mesembria (Nesebar) — two endowing local monasteries with immunity, one restoring monasteries to the town's metropolitan — evidence of firm Bulgarian rule on the Black Sea frontier.

Why it matters

Mesembria changed hands repeatedly between Byzantium and Bulgaria, and these three charters catch it firmly in Bulgarian possession in the mid-fourteenth century. All three are in Greek — the language of the coast — yet they are acts of the Bulgarian tsar, and so they measure how far his writ ran on the frontier: he grants immunity to its monasteries, disposes of their standing, and even settles a dispute over which houses belong to the local metropolitan.

One of them, for the monastery of St Nicholas at Emona, is also a family document: the tsar records that the house was founded by his grandmother Savina, a rare thread back into the Asen genealogy that underpinned his own claim.

Further information

All three were first published by the Greek scholar A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus in 1891 from the Jerusalem Patriarchate collection; in 1943 Iv. Duychev found a further copy of the Eleousa charter on Mount Athos. Though written in Greek, they count as Bulgarian cultural and political heritage precisely because they issue from the tsar's chancery on contested ground. Their dating is uncertain — the St Nicholas charter reads year 6903 (1354?) but its indiction allows 1339, 1354 or 1369, and Duychev suspected the copyist erred; the Eleousa charter is dated only “April, ninth indiction.”

Description

Date: mid-14th century
Language: Greek
Held at: Known from copies (Jerusalem Patriarchate collection; a copy of the Eleousa charter found on Mount Athos)
Place: Mesembria (Nesebar)

Connections

Ivan Alexander

The whole document

The three charters

On this text: A synopsis in our own words of each of the three charters. The Greek texts are edited in Iv. Duychev, Из старата българска книжнина II (1944), pp. 141–147.

St Mary Eleousa (First Mesembria charter)

Prizing the monks' prayers “above gold and precious stone,” the tsar frees the monastery of St Mary Eleousa and all who live in its precincts from every due — angaria, psomozimia, wall-building — exempts its boat from toll for ever, bars the duke and the townsmen from burdening it, and orders the archbishop to stay out, his name only to be commemorated. Signed “Ivan Alexander, in Christ God faithful tsar and autocrat of Bulgarians and Greeks,” in April, ninth indiction.

St Nicholas at Emona (Second Mesembria charter)

A “liberating” golden-sealed charter for the monastery of St Nicholas the Myrrh-gusher near Cape Emine. When its abbot Makarios came on pilgrimage, the tsar learned the house had been founded by his grandmother Savina; treating it as a family memorial, he granted gold from his treasury and full immunity from every burden — imperial, ecclesiastical or lordly — under a curse binding any metropolitan who broke it to the fate of Judas. Dated 4 August, year 6903 (1354?), seventh indiction.

Restoration to the metropolitan (Third Mesembria charter)

The metropolitan of Mesembria set out before the tsar the rights of his see over local monasteries — Acropolites (of Christ), Agiosoritissa (of the Virgin), St Blaise and Eleousa — which had been taken from the metropolis and given to others after the town passed under Bulgarian rule. Accepting his plea, the tsar orders those monasteries returned to his authority.