Daily Life

Daily life in medieval Bulgaria followed the demands of food production, household work and religious observance. The First Bulgarian Empire lasted from 681 to 1018; after Byzantine rule, the restored empire began in 1185 and lost its principal centres to Ottoman conquest in the late fourteenth century. Its changing Balkan territories contained farming villages, fortified towns, workshops, courts and monasteries.

Most people lived from agriculture and animal husbandry, while towns concentrated administration, trade, and specialized production. Churches and monasteries shaped religious and intellectual life, but they were part of a society that also included older religious traditions, local customs, and differences in legal status. The changing borders of the Bulgarian states affected who governed communities and how goods and people moved.

On this page11 sections

Homes

At Pliska, many modest dwellings had floors sunk below ground and corner ovens or hearths. Their interiors brought heating, cooking and storage into a compact space. Larger houses and elite complexes used more substantial masonry, and some urban buildings placed work below living rooms.

Second Empire towns such as Tarnovo spread across slopes and fortified hills. A house could combine a stone lower level with timber above. Building materials, available space and access to water shaped the practical work of keeping a dwelling warm, supplied and usable.

Family life

Family ties joined marriage and religious obligations with property and work. Boris I’s questions to Pope Nicholas in 866 addressed ceremonies, consent and spiritual kinship. Baptism connected sponsors with the baptised person, adding a religious relationship to the household’s existing family connections.

Second Empire estate grants describe dependent cultivators and the land they held. Terms including paritsi and otrotsi appear in these arrangements, alongside rights to collect dues and restrictions on transferring property. A household’s continuing use of fields therefore depended on the claims of its landholder as well as its own inheritance arrangements.

Village life

Farming sustained the majority of the population. Wheat, rye, and millet were among the main cereals of the First Empire; barley was also grown in the Second. The productive lands of Moesia, Thrace, and parts of Macedonia supported crops, while forests and pastures helped sustain livestock. Cattle and oxen were useful for farm work and transport as well as food; sheep, pigs, and horses also formed part of the region’s herds.

Households drew on cultivated fields, grazing and other local resources. Royal and monastic grants enumerate land, vineyards, mills and dependent people. Dues in produce or money and demands for service connected the village’s annual work with institutions beyond it.

Cultivation required preparing the ground, sowing, harvesting and separating usable grain. Supplies had to last between harvests and leave seed for the next sowing. At tenth-century Odartsi, charred wheat survived in ceramic vessels inside a house, giving a direct example of crops stored close to domestic work.

Artisans

Craft production took place in towns and in some villages. Metalworkers, potters, carpenters, weavers, leatherworkers, and shoemakers made goods for households and markets, as well as for courts, churches, and monasteries. Mining took place in parts of the Balkan and Rhodope mountains and in areas of Macedonia. Salt extraction, including from the area near Anchialus in the Second Empire, supported trade and food production.

Potters shaped vessels on a wheel, dried them and fired a batch in a kiln. Smiths worked iron into tools and fittings; bloomery furnaces first produced a spongy iron mass that needed hammering to consolidate it. Spinning and weaving supplied cloth, while leatherworkers and carpenters transformed hides and timber into everyday equipment.

Food

Cereals supplied bread and boiled grain foods. Specialist research suggests porridge was especially important in early medieval meals: grain could be processed and simmered rather than always ground finely and baked. Pulses, garden produce and fruit added other ingredients, with crops and meals changing through the seasons.

Livestock supplied meat and dairy products, including cheese and butter, and wine was made in several regions. What people ate depended in part on local production and access to markets. The contrast between everyday subsistence and the goods available to wealthier households is visible in trade: the Byzantine Empire supplied imports such as wine and fruit to the First Empire, while silk and other costly materials circulated through long-distance commerce.

Clothing and personal care

Flax supplied linen and sheep supplied wool. Spinning, weaving, cutting and sewing turned fibres into garments, which could be worn in layers with cloaks, belts and leather footwear. Silk, fur and precious ornament added expense and visible distinction to elite dress.

The Preslav treasure includes necklaces, earrings and garment fittings decorated with enamel and fine goldwork. Such pieces show how clothing and jewellery could be combined in a display of status. Palace baths and water systems at Pliska and Preslav required another kind of investment in bodily care: built facilities, fuel, water and maintenance.

Everyday religion

The adoption of Christianity under Boris I in the mid-ninth century expanded the role of churches and trained clergy. Slavic books and worship developed through royal support for teachers and translation. Religious practice reached into the household: Boris’s questions included the use of a cross at a meal without a priest present.

Church services brought readings, prayers, hymns and the Eucharist, the central rite using consecrated bread and wine. Feasts commemorated saints and sacred events; fasting altered meals before important celebrations. These repeated observances gave the year a religious rhythm alongside the agricultural cycle.

Monastic devotion also shaped ideas about holy people and sacred places. John of Rila, a hermit associated with the First Empire, attracted followers whose community became linked to the Rila Monastery. His cult and the movement of his relics between centres of worship show how religious devotion could connect rural places, cities, rulers, and monasteries.

Childhood and education

Church centres at Preslav and Ohrid trained readers, teachers and clergy. Pupils practised letters and learned religious texts. A wax-covered tablet could be marked with a stylus and smoothed for reuse, while a Psalter supplied biblical Psalms for reading and prayer.

Advanced instruction supported copying, translation and public speaking. Fourteenth-century Tarnovo became a major centre for correcting books and preparing learned clergy. Children also encountered practical skills in households and workshops, while clay balls, discs and other objects interpreted as toys preserve traces of play.

Health and healing

John the Exarch’s Shestodnev, a commentary on Creation, discussed the body through Greek learning. Medical vocabulary and remedies circulated in copied texts, and individual physicians appear in Balkan records. Religious institutions could provide practical help too: the Bachkovo foundation of 1083, during Byzantine rule, made provision for sick travellers as well as other guests.

Entertainment

Scratched boards and counters made games possible with inexpensive materials. Morris-type games involved forming rows; alquerque used movement and capture along a marked grid. A contemporary description in Alfonso X’s Castilian Book of Games explains twelve pieces for each player and capture by jumping over an opponent.

Instrument finds and paintings include pipes, stringed instruments and drums. A pipe player changed notes with finger holes; a lute player plucked strings and altered their vibrating length. Church singing used trained voices and, in some manuscripts, notation. Hrelja’s Tower at Rila preserves fourteenth-century paintings of musicians and linked dancers.

Travel

Travel linked villages and towns to markets, administrative centres, religious institutions, and neighbouring states. Trade could cross long distances, but political arrangements shaped where merchants could go and under what terms. In 1230, Tsar Ivan Asen II issued a charter granting merchants from Dubrovnik the right to buy, sell, and carry goods through a number of provinces, including Vidin, Tarnovo, Preslav, Adrianople, and Skopje. The charter specifically protected their trade at markets and passes, showing how rulers used formal privileges to encourage commerce and assert authority.

Animals needed fodder, water and rest, while people needed food and stopping places. Weather, a steep approach or an obstructed pass could delay a party. Religious communities, markets and defended towns offered different points of contact along routes shaped by both the landscape and changing political authority.