Mongol invasion of Bulgaria and Serbia

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During the

Croatia, Dalmatia and Bosnia

Initially, the troops of Kadan moved south along the Adriatic Sea into Serbian territory. Then, turning east, it crossed the centre of the country—plundering as it went—and entered Bulgaria, where it was joined by the rest of the army under Batu. The campaigning in Bulgaria probably happened mainly in the north, where archaeology yields evidence of destruction from this period. The Mongols did, however, cross Bulgaria to attack the Latin Empire to its south before withdrawing completely. Bulgaria was forced to pay tribute to the Mongols, and this continued thereafter.

Background

Relations between Hungary and Serbia were poor on the eve of the Mongol invasion. The Serbian king,

Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria, in 1234 in an effort to form an anti-Hungarian alliance.^[1] By the time of the Mongol invasion, however, there were good relations between Hungary and Bulgaria. The Bulgarian tsar, the child Kaliman I, was a nephew of the Hungarian king, Béla IV, being the son of Béla's sister, Anna Maria, and Ivan Asen II. Around 1240, facing the threat of Mongol invasion, the Hungarians, Bulgarians and Cumans may have entered into an alliance, as evidenced by the presence in that year of a Bulgarian emissary at Béla IV's court.^[1]^[2]^[3]

One of the reasons for the Mongol invasion of Hungary was that Béla IV had given shelter to the Cumans when they fled the Mongol conquest of their land in 1239. After the Cuman leader,

Baibars, born in 1227 or 1228, was among those who fled to Bulgaria from the Mongols. According to Ibn Taghribirdi, the Bulgarians later turned on these Cumans. Baysari and Baibars were captured and sold into slavery in Rum. The Cumans of Köten, on the other hand, seem to have integrated themselves into the Bulgarian aristocracy.^[6]

The decision by the Mongols to attack Bulgaria with all their forces may have had the same motive as the initial attack on Hungary: to punish the Bulgarians for giving aid to the Mongols' enemies.[4]^[7]

Bulgaria in 1242 encompassed the area north of the

Slavicized in the 13th.^[8]

In dealing with the Mongol invasions, writers also had to distinguish between Bulgaria on the Danube and the distant Bulgaria on the Volga, which they called, respectively, "Little (or Lesser) Bulgaria" (Bulgaria minor) and "Great (or Greater) Bulgaria" (Bulgaria maior or magna Bulgaria).^[9]^[10]^[11]

Serbia

When the Mongol commander Kadan withdrew from the invasion of Hungary, he entered Bosnia in late March or early April 1242. Although nominally under Hungarian suzerainty, part of Bosnia had been occupied by Hungarian crusaders opposed to the Bosnian Church while the remainder was under the control of Ban Matej Ninoslav. The passing-through of the Mongols forced the Hungarians to evacuate the territory and allowed Ninoslav to resume control of the whole of Bosnia.^[12]^[13]^[14]

Lake Scutari

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Places in Zeta (modern Montenegrin borders shown) attacked by the Mongols (red) or spared (green)

Continuing south, the Mongols entered the Serbian region of

Svač and Drisht and probably also destroyed Sapë, which was only rebuilt several decades later.^[12] In Thomas's words, the Mongols left behind in Zeta "nobody to piss against a wall".^[7] The city of Ulcinj may have been spared because of an agreement reached with Dubrovnik in April. There is no record that they met any resistance, and it is possible that George, the governor of Zeta, sought to use them to detach his principality from Serbian overlordship.^[12] He began to use the title of "king" at this time.^[15]

According to Thomas of Split, a contemporary and partial eyewitness, the Mongols "overran all of Serbia and came to Bulgaria" (totam Serviam percurrentes in Bulgariam devenerunt). Another contemporary, the archdeacon

Roger of Várad from Hungarian Transylvania, notes that "Kadan destroyed Bosnia and the kingdom of Rascia and then crossed into Bulgaria" (Cadan ... destruxit Boznam, regnum Rascie et inde in Bulgariam pertransivit). This is all that is known about the invasion of Serbia proper (Rascia) from literary sources. The raiding and looting in Serbia was over by late spring, when the tumens had moved on to Bulgaria.^[12]^[16]

In the 1250s, William of Rubruck, a Flemish missionary in the Mongol Empire, reported that a French goldsmith, Guillaume Boucher, in the Mongol capital of Karakorum had been captured in Belegrave by the forces of Bujek, a son of Tolui (and not by Kadan). This location is usually identified with Belgrade. If so, then Belgrade, which been under Hungarian control since 1235, was probably occupied by the Mongols in 1241 or 1242. If the former date is correct, it is likely that the Mongols crossed the Danube at Kovin, an important crossing, where evidence of destruction from that period has been unearthed.^[17] A large coin hoard buried in 1241 has been found at the nearby fortress of Dupljaja.^[18] If the Mongols under Bujek did not take Belgrade while crossing into Croatia in 1241, it is possible that Kadan took it—the Hungarians having evacuated—in 1242 while devastating Serbia.^[17]

Although Stefan Vladislav was overthrown by his nobles in 1243, nothing suggests that this was related to his response to the Mongol invasion.

Lake Scutari in Zeta she repaired and rebuilt many towns, churches, and monasteries damaged and destroyed by the Mongols in 1242.^[19]

Bulgaria

Places in Bulgaria (modern boundary shown) with evidence of Mongol destruction.

Aftermath

By 1253, when William of Rubruck visited the Mongol capital, Bulgaria was paying tribute: "from the mouth of [the Don] as far as the Danube everything is theirs [the Mongols']; and even beyond the Danube in the direction of Constantinople [in Vlachia and Little Bulgaria] all pay them tribute; and over and above the tribute stipulated, in recent years they have further levied on each household one axe and all the unwrought iron that has been found." William also says that the Vlach and Bulgarian envoys customarily brought gifts to the court of Sartaq, Batu's son, while on the way to Batu's court.^[16] Although no source indicates when the paying of tribute began, it had clearly been in place for years prior to 1253. Modern historians usually link it to the invasion of 1242,^[25] although, as Greg Rogers notes, "an explanation for why only Bulgaria, of all the areas traversed by Batu's troops in 1241 and 1242, became enmeshed in the Mongols' tribute system is still lacking in the historical literature."^[26]

Some historians believe that Bulgaria escaped major destruction by accepting Mongol suzerainty, while others have argued that the evidence of Mongol raiding is strong enough that there can have been no escaping. In any case, the campaign of 1242 brought the frontier of the authority of the Golden Horde (Batu's command) to the Danube, where it remained for some decades.^[20]^[27] The Venetian doge and historian Andrea Dandolo, writing a century later, says that the Mongols "occupied" the kingdom of Bulgaria during the 1241–42 campaign.^[16]

A series of clashes between the Mongols and the Empire of Constantinople took place in 1242 as the invaders were passing through southern Bulgaria.^[27] Bar Hebraeus says specifically that Batu "prepared to attack Constantinople from the quarter of the Bulgarians", although he misdates the event to 1232.^[16] By the 1260s, Bulgaria had exchanged Mongol suzerainty for Hungarian. As a result, in the 1270s it was the target of "daily" raiding by the Mongols, according to the Greek historian George Pachymeres.^[28]

Bulgaria as a vassal of the Mongols, provided troops to

Chingissid prince Nogai and later the Mongol governors of the Golden Horde.^[31]

Notes

Sources

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Patsch, Carl (1993) [1927]. "Montenegro". In M. T. Houtsma; A. J. Wensinck; E. Lévi-Provençal; H. A. R. Gibb; W. Heffening (eds.). E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936. Vol. 5. Leiden: Brill. pp. 555–60.
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Rogers, Greg S. (1996). "An Examination of Historians' Explanations for the Mongol Withdrawal from East Central Europe". East European Quarterly. 30 (1): 3–26.
Sophoulis, Panos (2015). "The Mongol Invasion of Croatia and Serbia in 1242". Fragmenta Hellenoslavica. 2: 251–277.
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