At the beginning of the VIIth century with the mass settlement of the Slavs in Mizia and after the establishment of the Slavbulgarian country, today’s Lovech was within the borders of Asparuh’s Bulgaria.
    In 1059 the Byzantine chroniclers were the first people to mention the fortress in relation to the Pechenegs’ invasion in Bulgaria. One of their leaders, named Selte, stayed in Lovech and wanted to fortify himself within the ‘inaccessible fortress’, but he failed because he was sent away by the Byzantine emperor Isak Komnin I. The Byzantine emperor Profigenet mentioned that during the time of emperor Justinian the Great /VIth century/, Melta had been the fourth fortress by significance in the whole Mizia.
    The Byzantine chronicler Nikita Honyat described the fortress as ‘hard to be accessed’.
    The position of the fortress of Lovech reminded that of the fortresses in Provadia, Cherven, even in Turnovo.
    It was built on a steep hill in the old part of the town – Varosha neighbourhood. The hill was surrounded on three sides by the river Ossum, which made a big turn in this part.
    The fortress of Lovech was built in the IX-Xth century and occupied the higher two terraces of Hisarya hill. The residential quarters and the industrial area of the town were situated on the lower /the third/ terrace, on the slopes of the hill and near the river. Apart from the natural protection which the fortress was given by the high steep slopes of the hill and by the river, it also had an additional strong stone wall, following the configuration of the terrain. The wall was built straight upon the solid rock by crumbled stone and white mortar. The walls were double-faced and the space between them was filled with bigger crumbled stones and mortar.
    In the fortress at the highest place of the hill was the citadel which included: a castle occupying a territory of 1200 m2 /square metres/, a church with two narthexes of the type of the domed basilicas in the Eastern part of the terrace, and a town’s building.
    The road net was consistent with the defence of the fortress and the buildings in it /for free manouevering in case of need/. The streets had different width /from 2-2,8 to 4 metres/.
    From the foundations of the six churches similar to the famous Bulgarian churches from the XI-XVIth century, the big one near the castle was of particular importance. Having examined its foundations, position, ruins and mode of construction, the experts agreed that it had been built after a style seen for the first time in Bulgaria.
    Ceramics, jewels, household objects were found after excavations. Moreover, a jug containing 16 coins and a water container with 1428 coins in it were also found. The ones as well as the others are silver, bearing the images of Ivan-Alexander and his son Mihail i. e since the time when Ivan-Alexander has been an autocrat and when the town of Lovech has been the centre of his possessions. That find is the biggest one consisting of coins of that type in our country.
    During the second Bulgarian Kingdom, the town of Lovech flourished. In 1331 the ruler of the town, the autocrat Ivan-Alexander, became the tsar of Bulgaria. His 40-year-long rule had a bearing on the greatest political and cultural bloom of the country throughout the century.
    There are no exact data about the falling of the fortress of Lovech under Ottoman domination.
    Legend has it that, in 1388, before the Ottoman occupation of Tarnovo, Ivan Shishman’s wife, together with her relatives, escaped to the fortress of Lovech which was strongly-fortified during that time.
    So far there have not been found any sources of information about the year of the Ottoman occupation of the fortress of Lovech.
    According to different sources, a conclusion had been drawn that Lovech was the last town in Bulgaria to be occupied by the Ottomans. Its falling under Ottoman domination was in 1446 i.e 50 years after the conquest of Turnovo.