BULGARIAN CAVALRYMEN, 13th CENTURY

An extract from Armies of Feudal Europe 1066-1300
by Ian Heath

	[Based on Carrying the Cross & shield in Life of St. Nicholas Boyana Church, Bulgaria, 1259AD]

127 & 128.      BULGARIAN CAVALRYMEN, 13th CENTURY

As has already been mentioned in the section on organisation, 13th century Bulgarian armies included Greeks, Wallachians and large numbers of Cumans, of whom the Wallachian and Cuman elements would have resembled figure 127 (from a Byzantine fresco depicting the death of Tsar Kalojan in 1207) as well as figures 129 and 130, these and Bulgarians being virtually indistinguishable. Others would have been identical to the 14th century Wallachians and Cumans depicted in Armies of the Middle Ages, volume 2. It is doubtless these elements of their armies to which Villehardouin is referring when he describes the Bulgarians as ‘lightly-armed’. Though bows and javelins were the main weapons of such light cavalry (the Bulgarians in the Nicaean Byzantine army that fought at Pelagonia, for instance, were described as horse-archers), the heavier-armed horsemen who constituted the retinues of the tsar and his boyars fought instead with lances and swords, figure 128, from a fresco in Boiana church dating to 1259, is typical of this latter troop-type, other frescoes showing long sleeves to the corselet plus, occasionally, mail coifs and some lamellar armour; note the Byzantine style of his equipment. Clothing colours appear to have been predominantly shades of red, blue and brown. Most Bulgarians were dark-haired.