Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, episode 115, The Rise of Bulgaria.

So far in these end of the century episodes, we've focused on a tripartite division of

the Roman world, Franks in the West, Abbasids in the East and Byzantium in the middle.

In the case of the two former empires, a similar process took place across the 9th century.

Their cultural dominance was embedded in the soil of their domains, while central political

authority collapsed.

One way of looking at the Roman Empire would be to say that it bucked this trend.

Constantinople retained complete control of its lands and saw a recovery of economic,

cultural and military capital.

But looked at a different way, one could argue that the Romans actually experienced something

similar to its two neighbours, not in Anatolia, but in the Balkans.

The whole area had once been Roman and hopes remained throughout the centuries that one

day it could be re-incorporated.

Whether they knew it or not, by the end of the 9th century, this dream was over.

The people of the Balkans would never see themselves as Romans again.

Like the different pieces of the caliphate, they had absorbed the culture of the centre,

but now forged their own political path.

Let's remind ourselves of the narrative.

Back in 802 AD, our perception of the Bulgars was of a step nomad elite ruling over Slav

and X Roman peasants.

Certainly, the Romans believed the Bulgars to be backwards and uncivilised when Nysephyrus'

army reached Plyska in 801, they found a wooden palace with tents and other wooden buildings

...