Kan Alcek

Alcek, probably Khan Asparuh's brother and Khan Kubrat's fifth son, is known as a gastald, or prince, in Samnium, living in the Molise region of central Italy. According to Theophanes the Confessor, after the disintegration of Old Great Bulgaria, some Bulgars led by Khan Kubrat's youngest son Alcek migrated to the lands of the Lombard Kingdom. In his Historia gentis Langobardorum, Paul the Deacon describes this migration of Bulgars to the Benevento area, where Khan Alcek became a gastald and settled with his people in various towns in Molise.

Khan Alcek is also associated with events in the Avar Khaganate in the Chronicle of Fredegar. In 631, a civil war between Alcek's Bulgars and the Avar leaders over the khaganate's throne forced the Bulgars to migrate to Bavaria. Following the Frankish king Dagobert I's secret order to massacre the Bulgars, only about 700 escaped and crossed the Alps, settling in Italian lands.

The Lombard king Grimoald made Alcek a gastald and sent him to his son Romuald I in Benevento. In 668, he settled in various towns in Molise, including Sepino, Bojano and Isernia. This small group of Bulgars settled in the Pentapolis and later moved south to the area between Bari and Metapontum, retaining their awareness of their ethnic origins. In the Middle Ages, their feudal domains were called 'Bulgarias', and many of their feudal lords bore and retained the name Bulgaro.