Trade

Trade in medieval Bulgaria took place across territories whose borders changed over time. The First Bulgarian Empire conventionally dates from 681 to 1018. Byzantine rule followed from 1018 to 1185, before the Second Bulgarian Empire emerged and was conquered by the Ottomans in the late fourteenth century. The clearest evidence for commercial privileges, long-distance routes and an expanding royal coinage belongs to the Second Empire. Its trading networks connected the Danube and Black Sea with markets and routes through the Balkans, rather than conforming to the borders of modern Bulgaria.

On this page4 sections

Markets and the goods exchanged

Agriculture and livestock raising supported the Second Empire’s economy, while growing towns fostered craft production and exchange. Grain was harvested in regions including Moesia, Zagore and Dobrudzha; wheat, barley and millet were also grown in much of Thrace. Wine came from Thrace, the Black Sea coast and the valleys of the Struma and Vardar rivers. Honey and beeswax from Zagore were valued in Byzantine markets, and salt was extracted from the lagoon near Anchialus.

Farm products were processed into food and drink, while urban and regional crafts supplied goods such as leatherwork, shoes, woven cloth, carpentry and metalwork. Towns also became places where merchants could buy and sell these products. This trade joined areas with different resources: grain-producing plains, pastoral and forested uplands, coastal settlements and craft centres. During the relatively peaceful reign of Theodore Svetoslav (1300–1321), Bulgaria became a major exporter of agricultural goods, especially wheat.

Trade with Byzantium was already a subject of First Empire diplomacy. Theophanes, writing about negotiations in 812, describes an earlier treaty of 716 requiring merchants to carry official seals; unauthorised goods could be confiscated. A seal made the ruler’s protection and permission visible at the point where a merchant crossed into another jurisdiction.

Danube, Black Sea and Balkan connections

The Danube and the Balkan routes connected settlements across a large and changing political territory. A royal grant from 1230 names places including Vidin, Belgrade and Braničevo in the north and west, as well as Tarnovo, Preslav, Karvuna, Adrianople, Skopje, Prilep and Devol. It also refers to Thessaloniki. These place names show the geographical reach claimed for the grant.

Movement through the interior depended in part on access to passes and markets. The charter specifically refers to both, suggesting that merchants travelled between towns and commercial stopping places across the realm. On the Black Sea coast, ports such as Varna and Nessebar connected inland trade with maritime exchange. Ragusan merchants, from the Adriatic city also known as Dubrovnik, helped link Balkan commerce with Italian seaports. The Second Bulgarian Empire traded through Ragusa with Venice and Genoa, while Ragusan merchants settled in larger Bulgarian towns, including Sofia, Melnik and Nessebar.

Merchant privileges and the Dubrovnik charter

Rulers could encourage commerce by granting foreign merchants rights to travel and trade. A charter was a formal ruler’s document setting out such a grant. Issued in 1230 by Ivan Asen II, the Dubrovnik charter gave Ragusan merchants permission to carry goods into and out of his lands and to buy and sell freely across the territories it named. It also warned against obstructing their trade at passes, marketplaces or elsewhere, and threatened offenders with the ruler’s anger.

The document is a concrete example of how a commercial privilege worked: it identified the merchants entitled to protection, the places where they could trade and the conduct expected of local authorities and others. The charter also records commercial connections across an extensive territory after Ivan Asen II’s victory at Klokotnitsa. Preserved in a collection in St Petersburg, it is written in Middle Bulgarian, the form of Bulgarian used in the period.

Other documents show that the grant was part of wider relationships with foreign merchants. A charter from 1253 is associated with Michael Asen IV, and Ivan Alexander later guaranteed Venetian merchants free passage through Bulgaria. In 1387, the ruler Ivancko made an agreement with Genoese merchants. These arrangements show that commercial access was negotiated with particular rulers and trading communities, not governed by one unchanging system throughout the empire.

Coins, circulation and minting

Securely attributed Bulgarian royal coinage belongs to the Second Empire, with issues of Ivan Asen II in the thirteenth century. Earlier Byzantine coins circulated in Bulgarian lands. Later rulers issued gold, silver, billon and copper money. Billon was a copper-silver alloy, and some coins were cup-shaped, a form inherited from Byzantine monetary practice.

Coins carried royal and sacred images. Issues of Ivan Asen II show the ruler with Saint Demetrius and Christ, joining religious protection with the presentation of imperial authority. Ivan Alexander’s silver coins also pair the emperor with his son Michael Asen. The repeated types made the dynasty visible on small objects passing through many hands.

Royal minting became more organised in the thirteenth century. A monetary reform begun under Constantine Tikh Asen (1257–1277) helped stabilise the market, while the upheavals and Mongol raids of the later thirteenth century sharply reduced minting. After political stability returned around 1300, rulers issued more coins. Theodore Svetoslav was the first Bulgarian ruler known to mint silver coins called aspri; examples from his reign weigh about 1.53 grams. Coin production reached a high point under Ivan Alexander (1331–1371), whose coins include copper issues in both flat and hollow forms.

Bulgarian royal issues circulated alongside Byzantine, Venetian, Serbian and other money. Finds of coins in hoards show this mixed monetary world. Regional rulers also produced their own issues, connecting control of minting with the fragmentation of political authority in the later fourteenth century.