Boril of Bulgaria

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Boril (Bulgarian: Борил) reigned as emperor (tsar) of Bulgaria from 1207 to 1218. He was the son of an unnamed sister of his predecessor Kaloyan.

It is unclear whether Boril was party to the murder of Kaloyan before the walls of Thessalonica in 1207, but Kaloyan's intended heirs, his nephews Ivan Asen and Alexander fled the country on Boril's accession to the throne. Boril married Kaloyan's widow, a Cuman princess, whose name is not recorded, unless she is the Anna (nun Anisija) mentioned in the Synodik of the Bulgarian Church.

Boril's attempt to pursue Kaloyan's foreign policy failed. From the beginning of his reign, he was opposed by members of his family, including his brother Strez and his cousin Aleksii Slav, who carved out their semi-autonomous principalities in Macedonia and the Pirin region. Boril was defeated by the Latin emperor Henry of Flanders in 1208 but continued to campaign against the Latin Empire until 1210. Although Boril's brother Strez was placated with the court title of sebastokratōr, Boril encountered new internal resistance in the rebellion of four Cuman noblemen along the Danube in 1211. This revolt was put down only with Hungarian help, and Boril had to cede the area of Belgrade to the Kingdom of Hungary as the price for Hungarian support.

In 1211 Boril convened a church synod at the capital Tărnovo, which commemorated the synod held in 1111 by Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, and likewise condemened the Bogomils. At about the same time, Boril arranged for the marriage of his stepdaughter (Kaloyan's daughter) Marija (the name is dubious) to Henry of Flanders, and dispatched the bride to Constantinople with numerous gifts. Soon after this, Boril may have married a daughter of Andrew II of Hungary, but there is little evidence for this union. Another marriage was projected between Boril's daughter and Andrew II's son, the future Béla IV of Hungary in 1214, but it was never carried out.

The alliance with the Latin Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Despotate of Epirus, involved Boril in a war against Serbia, in which Boril made little headway, especially after the murder of his brother Strez in 1215. With the death of Henry in 1216 and the departure of Andrew II on the Fifth Crusade, Boril was left essentially without strong supporters. In 1217 or 1218 Ivan Asen, Boril's cousin, returned from exile and defeated Boril, who locked himself up in Tărnovo. After a siege of perhaps seven months (rather than the "seven years" of the Byzantine sources), Boril fled the capital, which surrendered to Ivan Asen. Boril was captured during his escape, and was blinded and relegated to a monastery.

[edit] Family

By his first (?) wife, Kaloyan's Cuman widow, Boril had one unnamed daughter, who was engaged to be married to the future Béla IV of Hungary. Boril may have married as his second (?) wife an unnamed daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary.