Macedonia (Byzantine theme)
The Byzantine theme of Macedonia was a military-administrative district that was formed around 800 in the geographical region of Thrace . The main town was Adrianople (today Edirne , Eastern Thrace ). As elsewhere, the name of the military-administrative district was later carried over to the geographical area, so that throughout the Middle Ages this region was called Macedonia . In the Middle Ages, their geographical location did not match either ancient Macedonia or today's region of Macedonia .
Compared to the other border themes, this was protected from raids because it was close to the imperial capital Constantinople .
After 813, rule over the subject changed several times between the Bulgarian and Byzantine empires . After the successful subjugation of the first Bulgarian empire, the region was again integrated into the Byzantine administrative system. Macedonia bordered on the 1018 created themes Bulgaria in the west and Paristrion in the north. It bordered the Thrace theme to the east and Strymon to the south . In 1204 Adrianople was conquered by the Crusaders , but shortly afterwards fell again into Bulgarian hands. After the restoration of the Bulgarian Empire in 1187 until the appearance of the Ottoman Turks, rule over the area changed frequently between Bulgarians and Byzantines.
The family of the Byzantine emperors of the Macedonian dynasty came from this region , but whose family name was a geographical and not an ethnic name. In 1371 the advancing Ottomans defeated a Bulgarian-Serbian army near Tschernomen in Macedonia, on the Marica (see Battle of the Maritza ). After the conquest of Bulgaria by the Ottomans in 1393, the Bulgarian patriarch Euthymios of Tarnowo was banished to the Macedonia region, possibly to the Batschkowo monastery .
literature
- Warren Treadgold: A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford University Press, Stanford 1997, ISBN 0-8047-2421-0 , pp. 421, 478 ff.
Individual evidence
- ^ J. Fine: The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century. University of Michigan Press, 1991, ISBN 0-472-08149-7 , p. 79.
- ^ Gerhard Podskalsky : Theological literature of the Middle Ages in Bulgaria and Serbia 815-1459. Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-45024-5 , p. 84.