A little bit more about Khan Krum: He was born into a Bulgar tribe, which settled in the Avar Khaganate. He somehow managed to rise in prominence and attempted a coup, but failed, so he and several thousand of his followers fled to Bulgaria. He was elected to the Bulgarian throne in 802, after a series of weak Khans failed to stabilise their power and establish a dynasty. His first agenda was to seek payback from the Avars. While he was attacking the Avar Khaganate from the Southeast, Charlemagne was attacking it from the Northwest and effectively they destroyed, splitting it between tgemselves in the middle. There are no concrete sources to suggest that Krum and Charlemagne acted in co-ordination. After he brought down the Avar state, he turned south and annexed the area around Bulgaria's present day capital Sofia in 809. Nikephoros organised the might of the Byzantine army "to utterly lay Bulgaria to waste" in 811. From the moment they crossed the border Krum has sent several envoys, offering to pay off hansomly, but all of them were turned down. A 12 000 Bulgarian army suffered a heavy defeat, which opened the way to the capital Pliska. According to some sources Nikephoros ordered every person his army encountered to be killed, including infants, which is probably accurate, because at the footsteps of Pliska Krum assembled an army of 50 000 (everyone capable of carrying a weapon, including women and elderly men) instead of retreating, but this military force of little combat value was easily overwhelmed. Then he layed Pliska to plunder. Krum has once again sent envoys, offering him all the spoils he can take and safe passage to Byzantine territory, which he once again arrogantly declined. He replied that Bulgaria IS his territory now and that he is going to build a magnificent city in his name over the ashes of Pliska. Unfortunately for him, his short-sightedness would cost him his head, literally, because less than a third of Bulgaria's territory was on the Balkan peninsula and while Krum was sending envoys to pledge for peace, he was simultaneously preparing a counter-attack, mobilizing his fresh troops north of the Danube. The Byzantines on the other hand have totally let their guard down, falling for Nikephoros's boasting how he has destroyed Bulgaria. The troops devoted themselves to drunkenness, discipline eroded greatly and of all the looting the Byzantine train was so heavy and slow moving when they took off back to Constantinople, that they constituted much more a mob, than an actual military force. The initial plan was to play it safe and return through Serdika (present day Sofia) and Thessaloniki, but when his scouts reported that the Bulgarians were preparing to block the mountain passes, he decided to cut through the shortest path, because he did not believe his enemy could act that fast. At this time the Bulgarians were giving a lot of attention on martial skills, even for the women and Krum was going all in for the great showdown with Nikephoros, so a considerable part of his forces were actually women archers. Another considerable contingents in Krum's army were Slavic warriors and even some of the recently conquered Avars. He fortified the mountain passes, which the Byzantines could choose and when they entered the Varbitsa Pass it was already blocked by a deep trench, a dike, a palisade on top of it and archer detachments behind. As it was too late to turn back, simply because the pass was very narrow and his army was too vast and disorganised to manouver in such a tight space, Nikephoris decided to make camp for the night in the pass and decide what to do. It seems that overnight the Bulgarians were boosting psychological warfare too, maneuvering unseen in the woods around the Byzantines, making noises, loosing an occasional arrow now and then, so they were losing it and at dawn, when Krum's forces finally attacked the Emperor's camp at dawn, he was so shaken and despaired, that according to eyewitnesses Nikephoros's words were "Even if we grow wings on our backs, don't every single one of you hope, that we are going to cheat death here." The panic among the Byzantine army was so great that many of them drowned in the shallow river running through the pass, trying to escape and many others died piled on top of eachother, trying to climb over the palisades. The Byzantine sources claim that the Emperor died honourably on the battlefield, but the truth is that he was captured, brought to Krum and then beheaded. The skull was used for a cup due to the pagan beliefs that the power of the spirit of a person resides in his head. In the following 812 Krum layed the Byzantine territories as far as the outskirts of Constantinople to waste and sent the Slav Dragomir as an envoy offering peace according to the clauses of 716. Emperor Michael Rangave declined because Krum demanded that they exchange political exiles and Michael planned to use the Bulgarian dissidents in Constantinople to mount a coup in Pliska. So the negotiations fell through and in the following 813 Krum launched another campaign of waste and plunder. After the failed attempt on his life by the Byzantines, he decided to deal with them once and for all. He has spent the winter of 813/814 "gathering supplies, building siege engines, 5 000 ironclad oxe cars, 30 000-strong ironclad heavy cavalry". He even had 36 Greek fire throwers, taken as spoils of war when he captured Mesemvria (present day Nesebar). He suddenly died in the spring of 814, shortly before launching his campaign against Constantinople. There are strong suggestions that he has been ritually strangled by his closest retinue. After the Byzantine attempt on his life he probably did not recuperate fully from his wounds, which could be interpreted by his subjects that he has lost the grace of the gods and remedy for that situation was to send him to them and elect a new khan. However he succeeded in establishing a dynasty and the greatest ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire, Tsar Simeon is his great-great nephew. Krum's moniker is Krum the Terrible or Krum the Awe-Inspiring (Крум Страшни) and this is not only because of how he dealt with Nikephoros, but also because he is a legendary law maker, who has codified the common laws before him.

Great stuff.I'm a big fan of your lectures.

The circumstances around the death of Nicephorus I are unclear, since as you mentioned, they're recorded by Theophanes the Confessor, who was deeply unfavorable to the reign and person of Nicephorus. According to Theophanes, Nicephorus, after concluding a peace treaty with the Arabs, gathered an enormous army - especially by the standards of that time - of about 80.000 men, in order to conquer Bulgaria and reincorporate it into the Empire. He virtually stripped the Empire of all of its field troops for that campaign! Khan Krum realized that it was impossible to face such a humongous force in open battle, so he resorted to guerrilla warfare and harassment of the invaders. That didn't amount to much and the Byzantines kept sacking and pillaging Bulgarian cities and settlements virtually unopposed. Krum made several offers for peace, but to the dismay of his senior staff, Nicephorus haughtily rejected them all. Allegedly in his last peace offer, Krum wrote to the Emperor :'' Here you are, you have won! So take what you will and leave in peace! '' The last drop for Krum was the sacking of the Bulgarian capital of Pliska. Nicephorus, after defeating the elite garrison of the city and another Bulgarian army that came to the rescue, sacked Pliska and proceeded to commit horrible atrocities upon its populace . Krum and his troops were enraged by the conduct of the invaders and finally decided to resist. Nicephorus' generals adviced him to return into Byzantine territory via the lands of their Serbian allies,in order to avoid the treacherous narrow passes of the Balkan mountains, that were ideal for an ambush, especially against such a large, slow moving and unwieldy army as theirs was. The Serbian route was a longer but much safer one. Again Nicephorus rejected this option, probably believing that the Bulgarians had been completely demoralized and would offer no resistance. The result was probably the greatest disaster in Byzantine military history that saw almost all of the Imperial field forces annihilated in a matter of hours and Nicephorus himself captured, executed and his skull turned into Krum's drinking cup! Since this is already a lengthy comment, details about the battle can be easily found online. Wikipedia offers a reliable sum of it!

Hey nice video again. I have a question. What is it that we can speak about catholic christianity and orthodox christianity in the 7 and 8th century AD. I did not see an event that made this split clear. We have the emperor, the bishop of Rome and the Patriarch + all other bishops of the smaller/middle cities and I always thought that atleat until 7/8th century they believed in the same religion.

Hi I’m looking to cite this video, suggestions to put for a full name author?

22:31 I had to pause to laugh with you.

Please; @ 2:08, it's pronounced Nye-SEFF-Uh-Ress. I and E have very different sounds. And this is a professional production, correct? There were many mispronunciations in Part I, so I finally had it.

So now, at @6:15 or so, you changed the "c" in his name to a "k" sound in his name, with nary an explanation, and you're still using the I homophone.