Mraka Charter of Ivan Alexander
1347
Also known as: Oryahovo Charter
A donation to the monastery of St Nicholas in Mraka, listing its villages, boundaries and exemptions in detail.
The object
Text and translation
No passage has been transcribed and translated for this entry yet.
Why it matters
The most detailed surviving statement of what a Bulgarian monastic estate actually consisted of: which villages, which fields, which dues the peasants owed and which the crown gave up. It is the closest thing the period has to an economic document.
Further information
It is one of the four charters — with the Vatopedi, Virgino and Rila acts — in which the rank of sevast appears, and one of the two which group those named as "all the boyars" as well as "servants of my empire". That double wording is the basis for the argument that sevasts were landholding magnates rather than officials.
Description
- Date
- 1347
- Language
- Middle Bulgarian
- Held at
- SS Cyril and Methodius National Library
- Place
- Sofia