21 July 2009 | A team of archaeologists recently discovered a thirteenth-century monastery and a 30-gram silver ring from medieval France in the town of Veliko Tarnovo in central Bulgaria.

The archaeologists’ team, led by Professor Nikolay Ovcharov, unearthed parts of a wall and medieval coins within it dated between 1210 and 1240 in the yard of the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church (in the above photograph) in the town of Veliko Tarnovo, which served as the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185 -1422) and, as such, was its most important political, economic, cultural and religious centre.

The discovered remains are thought by Ovcharov to be parts of the Monastery of the Bulgarian Patriarch in the thirteenth century, which is believed to have been the centre of the Tarnovo Patriarchate at the time of the Union of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church with the Catholic Church in the Vatican that lasted from 1204, when Pope Innocent III declared the Bulgarian Tsar Kaloyan (1197-1207) “King of Bulgarians and Wallachians” ("rex Bulgarorum et Blachorum"), until 1246.

The monastery, according to the Sofia News Agency, was reconstructed after Veliko Tarnovo’s conquest by the Ottoman Empire in 1393, and later hosted the Tarnovo Bishop. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1913.

In addition to the architectural remains, the archaeologists discovered a 30-gram silver ring with the fleur-de-lis ornament in the church yard, which Ovcharov claims originated in medieval France. Its enamel decoration, according to the archaeologist, with is typical of the French goldsmiths, and the fleur-de-lis were the sign of the French rulers.

“I don’t claim that the ring belonged to a king but it certainly was worn by a notable. Whether the notable buried there was a French or a Bulgarian notable, we cannot say for sure but we are certain that at that time the Bulgarian high-life was already influenced by French fashion and style of clothing and jewellery that was brought by the Crusades,” Ovcharov told national media.

Other items recently discovered at the site included two more rings, one of which has an inscription dated back to the beginning of the fifteenth century with the name ‘Simonis’ or ‘Simeonis’, a silver gold-plated earring from the beginning of the thirteenth century and a female belt.

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