EARLY
THE EARLY SLAVS
Culture and Society in I arly Medieval I astern lurope
RM.Bnrford
1 i M mil I Imvcr siiy Press Ithaca, New York
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Contents
List of Maps I-Xll
chronological Summary
Introduction 9
i  the Formation of a Slav Identity i Expansion and Assimilation: the Sixth Cent 3 Consolul limn and Social Change: the Scvci ( Decisive Decides, the Eighth and Ninth cer
5 Daily Life
h The Order of Things: Social Structure
7 Warfare
X Production, Consumption and Exchange
9 Pagan Ideologies io Towards a Christian Europe i i State-formation: the South and East SUvi n State-formation: the West Slavs i 3 The Early Slavs and the Modern World
Notes
Select Bibliography Figures and Maps Index
of
MaPs
10"
fp-»A
influence
The rf"
od"1
......................
■ .eniury
ihth-«
III H»«*
trn-c
194 595 396
J97 }98
399
400
401 401
403
404
405
Preface
I In. book is conceived a* .111 introduction to the earl incut ■>( the cultures and societies ot the Slav* as may tin archaeological, written and other source*.
In .1 hook dealing with 1 subject perhaps rvotic t . idi 1 <'>r pedantically questioned by others), there art should be explained it the outset All dates quoted a noted The term "early medieval is dilhctilt to define I 11 rope as - while mosi igrcc that the period begin* s 1 ill-, sivth century - scholars from individual count period differently I he tenth to eleventh century cut-off this book was for some countries the end of their early I otlu-r couiitius historians consider that it Listed a few n the term "Early Slavs' is .1 shorthand for the earlv medic speaking peoples and docs not imply that they formed I 1 liaptcr 1 I. the conventional division between Soul maintained here is a somewhat artificial one which is n grounds. In the case of East and West Slavs the divu groups however occurred relatively late (probably nir it is ilins somewhat inconsistent to talk of East SUw nevertheless there doe* seem to be a detectable di culture (and the way 111 which it is studied) running rot western border of the former Soviet Union throughou
Another concept which has been retained, despite and apparent political connotations (sec Chapter It] This is d term which came into more common use and is used here simply as shorthand for saying people who we think in the main spoke a Ungual language group'. There 1» however some historical | which corresponds to the term 'Sclavinia.', appearin written sources reflecting the knowledge 0! the tunc themselves 1* dealt with below in l hapier 1.
The 'eastern Europe- of the title is a shorthar eastern Europe". One also has to be careful how Europe', which for the post-1945 generation of tb
lted with the whole area !■-( -"-silled (. oIn ,J to be «4W   iM [fon ( lirf.„„ Many inhabitants ol ,,,„ i„m«) ^hmJ tb.C ' Sovie. heptnony was an unwelcome imposi ' ffrnd^J by the ««PM   fc  book the term •eastern' (with a small •
~« » rc/er T.....hich -he       of the former Soviet Union
'A a maior linooij*
et Union I" thac me geograpius im umu„ p.,,
'Jed'torcler i the areJ „t the forme. Soviet Umon is
tU'1' nnran content l^h,,,,IKk|,s r„ughb wul, . m.„or h„Ku.w.c '** nitl The J^,J,ns       thc Slav and related languages and tnc
a di,,!mt :„ effect that betw ^ [hi p( |rj|
f'o0n     ft he Germanic and*   '       (>f ,his area has been avoided here A hv some to refer i ^ us[J f() rt.,cr [n (h _
*hich " tirv the -em. 'centra^&Da||||hc ,nJ l|u. ^ ^ Where "e^t;ltj|tu,, Ik u,ur^H
i this text was begun in i 1 urope which had "5^"* * ** rr'mwLch the boo. v,as published   „H. h^ Iflfrnt        ,rom j here had lor nc.ul> hall a century been
nd archaccloR) «»|      ^ p„|1IIL-.,| on:am/ations uh,J, ,„ SO|ne ev'm>.   J within <he J?"" ,')h iItemp» have been made lure „, transcend
,!aL..n> «hape ,r0"
a different sn 'I ercJ here        .... - -.....7
"""I ^ S boundary ... ^n,«,,.,„« which „, Som
co0s,dered w tbrn g[] uicinpts ,      ,,ee„ madc hcrc tQ fr
Oo longer exist        ^ ^ bounJjril., ,,,„„, prc.        ^ ^
ho" much still has to be done XX hen I use the tern, ^ 'former DDR' (or 't;ast ("'rm,m '■ 1 J"      "<>t out 0f ^   nt to old Pol,riL''' lil*iM<.ns. but because thev tit th ,| «tuc me ^      ^ |][cr jn thc liook Sii||m uitJ *" Tf ne the areas of hts influence, and to «„„c extent it„r „Ur HfhZl well The ancient term Polabia (adieciive I'olabuini ls USC(, hechJ*f       art,und the middle Elbe (in some Slav tongues 'h.,^. ,cr"J.      tller *ay of saying 'the former area ot the DliR 0th^ ' 'C    h ~h may need explanation to some readers an Creat Poland Cfmi " 'd little Poland |Malopolsk.ii: the former refers to rh '"     I'olmd around Poznaii which was the core of the ea I "    d'the latter thc area in the south east around iracosv wh,ch 'h medieval capital. The term 'Bohemia' has been used instead m ' h lone word 'Czech' as a noun. The term 'Pannonia' refr ' I tea occupied in turn by a succession of Roman provinc $ hift but the area concerned is a roughly rettanaula' " |  d in the'great bend of the middle Danube (bounded by tJ, V nna and Budapest on the north, and between Budan« (he cast the wuth boundary somewhere between Vukov
ii which the English
lany-uapc has used some "t thc lcrm\ concerning central and
to refer to a wide range of socio-political and ethnic phenol pnini is the term 'Russiain)', Soviet propaganda tried to cl state as its predecessor. In fact the Soviet state dcrivcJ from th« l-mpire, which in turn had its origin in thc Duchy of MoJ medieval period. There is onl\ thc most tenuous of links betW Kievan state of the tenth centur\ In the following text the used rarely, and when it is it should be understood to reJx ,i ue ior occasionally thc modern country of that name). The I ion refers to tin situation before the division into Russians,
Souk ol the archaeological groupings referred to here ha are derived from the places where the importance, reptt general applicability of a particular phenomenon (usually a to thc study of thc subicct was first understood. This inevita which are difficult tor thc English reader to pronounce wit! native speaker. Another problem is that, as archaeologica alter, they are prone to change, to be amalgamated, superset general, thc terms most generally agreed and supported by
in those used here, with one important exception. Thc pn not accept that there is a 'Prague I ulture which occurs all. pari ot eastern I urope There are historical reasons why th be used, but its continuation has led to anomalies, and in tline to redefine it lor rather return to the original meaning), from the identification by Ivan Borkovsky in 1940 in th capital ot Bohemia of .1 scries of (ceramic) traits in materia identified as belonging to thc earliest Slavs in Bohemia. Alll he seen thai he included material of different dates and typ in his group, it still seems legitimate to write of "ceramics ol
assemblages of Prague type'. In recent decades however t linked by archaeologists with broadly similar material ovt wider area of Europe. Since thc work of Ircna Rusanova. gists have grouped the ceramic vessels from eastern Pol Ukraine into a single Prague-Korchak group (of which thc a now obsolete sub-group). Within this zone however tl geographical and chronological differentiation, and the n Prague area refers to a specific developed (and arguably I culture complex. I propose restricting the use of thc term 'I this material and using other local terms tor the earlier a more distant material from the Ukraine (returning to the 01 of thc lone Korchak Culture) and the south of Poland (whii to as the Mogita group, a term first used bv Michal Pateai
t(, reduce multiplication of exotitums hv uUka or Scrbo-CrH.it) familiar frcni the , ,0r BXwnpte 'Kiev' appear, as ,uch UnJ , , ul ,,i Cnernihiv. where however j| form has often been used. The wntlnR ved making a number of choices between only p'acc but a'so m,r"r,l-Jl personal s,on mo%t commonly known in the Int;i,s|,
not too far from rhc original i cited written in Cyrillic nnph irc quoted, adopted- There are several different opt„)ns' vcr-a! application- I have tried to use one I best gives the pronunciation or the w,,ri]s hat in certain eastern Europe.in l.mn„.,Kc.s , uu| ui some languages ch is read .is „, r(l(, HRrn European languages |,.,vc ducrm, (| ord is pronounced: these tend to be ign,)r<.d unoo names (probably because, as e\(•,■,„.,k|. llt|v used western word-processing sotiw,rc 'squarely With them), but their use here has |Hc„
hstoncal sources are frequently mention, J I,,,. „1Vr '      hu> |Kcn abbreviated here The first    t|lt. St.( '    . ■ jn the twelfth century which arc known (M,mc. "' . m*nv names (T*« X/ev Chronicles. The Chronicle \ Primary Chronicle, The Tale of Bygone Years etc.). h re as the PVU ttu" abbreviation coming from t|u. "',     brnu i/',,k'<; Vremennykh let). The ,)t|u.r Um tineernperorConsrantinc vn Porphyrogemtus vsr()tc "'"     M CJ||cd the De admtnistrando impcna ('How ' thus extremely interesting document will |,c
one of the first general syntheses to make use ,,t the , ttdhacologjcal data. The problems involved m |[cr, ,| .ire bricflf fummanzed in the Introduction rj|[VJ| archaeology was in its infancy in central jmptions were made on which the typologiLJ| I Now that absolute dating methods (such ns
dendrochronology and radiocarbon) are being applied on a greater scale. It is being discovered that there were tome fundamental errors in some of the old schemes. These are corrected here. This should always be borne in mind
when consulting much of the supporting literature cited here.
Another problem is the citation of dates where they are derived from ancient written sources The problems with rendering dates from the ancient written
sources according to our calendar derive from the fact that they were originally computed according to a number of calendars. Some documents cue
the year of reign of a monarch (which seems to have been the main option available to pre < linstian societies when they considered precise chronology of events at all), others use .1 linear calendar based on Christian notion of time. Even here there were differences, the Russian chronicles for example use the Creation as ve.ir  o . while in the Western Church the starting point was the Incarnation   There arc additional problems such as variations In definition when a year began and ended (so for example the Kyzantine year began in September, while the Russian one began in March). These and several other factors conspire to create situations where - unless we know the month a particular event occurred - we can onlv say that in terms of our own calendar a single event happened in one of two years, and thus in the text the reader will meet compound dates (e.g., '«99/900') for single events. In other cases even less precise compound dates arc given where the written sources do not mention a date, hut we can define the timespan within which the event must have occurred (for example the upper limit being defined by the year of death of otic of the protagonists). There are also sometimes quite substantial differences in the chronological options offered for the same occurrences by different ancient authors (often writing long alter the events and having themselves to arrive at the date by deduction), thus for example there are several different chronologies available for the early members of the Pfcmyslid dynasty to choose from (Chapter 11). -1
The structure of the book needs some explanation, as It has been attempted, to merge historical with thematic sections. It begins with a long introductory section (this preface, the introduction and Chapter t) explaining some basic concepts as required by a book presenting such material to a readership TO whom some of it may be somewhat exotic. Much of this nu\ be skipped by those familiar with the questions discussed. Chapters 1, j and 4 follow the history of Slav culture in the seventh to ninth centuries, a period of the crystallization <>t in idcntits toi ilu Slavs and .1 period of increasing social and cultural change. Chapters 5 to to attempt to deal with several themes concerning these cultures in the period covered by this hook - daily life, social structure, warfare, production anil trade - and ending with the less material aspects such as belief systems and the change from pagan to Christian societies. The next two chapters (11  and  u) deal with statc-formabOB
■A,"n< "   «ACC <<" ■' ,l,lk'r u,ldc",and,"« "I the
'',''^,i"'"-*rown,cof,he '"T ",d m"M
iJad i» InoM* |h*m throughout the test
o-4> '* p  .   w„ri, done in eastern lur.,p,- MIUr
H 'ruture m western languages „r which j (o find       ejgn.|»nguagc arm.li-. cut-J lure .in-lost °f ' C |anm'3H^s hove siiinm.incs in wi-stcril lL»»e ta sl,l>      prench. A selection ol the latter (<i il»h. CernU" ',,, m, readers ol central lumpe.,,, ** thJ' S"   xts. 'Vn additional fac,"r K ,h" "nc the*"-     .     (||)  within the next few ycar, ^""Jrteirion of computer translation programs ,f50pnl4tlL     |,hlc than the) are at the rm.nicru ' 9*    iL'on of references to the excellent i.„|,sh s,hC."""-v/,-.- Shu^'iskich (Wr.nl.nv, u|,k|, '      ,„■„. "ly "' ,h' ■"'titlej
vork m < K_;Mi>h. ,.,i,,me5 arc master,-,, . ,
„1 t|u jr. history and culture
with lull referencing and M,mc nttch cbe        n, hook would pi il r<**e      A |H.,. me to moM ol itu 1,..„|
''^^unobtainable in western hbnn, , 1    ,     the volume (pp. 1*5-3911 also r,M,„r, , 1 It on ancient societies would he complex
1 N° b<K' terial culture being described, and th,, 0f the ma from ,h„ more familiar t<, t|)c
a< t,"e' "tons ha> been very difficult, and onccn-Ll, , 11 u    r 11    ^ ^ d:fferenlutc cultures, and [crial « "■        jrc archacoUiBical, this includes ., ,r niJ'" u     red that in accord svith local conven 11 the left according to western 1 British,
the*"*™* aatamt while archaeologists ot cc-rtairi |g40<0gK i|brajnc Russia I arc adamant that u JO* '''     j    ,s,,ns, it was decided not to reverse
here those drawings created to comply with a preferred convention. The number of other figures of archaeological find* could have been comfortably
doubled or trebled without even coming close to being representative ol the lull range of cultural phenomena I van only send the interested reader to the illustrations in the works mentioned in the Select Bibliography.
An integral part of this text is a series of maps showing the geographical
and chronologic il interrelationships between the various cultural phenomena
discussed The srrics of twelve roman-numbered map* which follow the figures at the end of this hook I pp. W4-40S) have been specially drawn, taking into account hiikIi ..i the new work on the chronology and cUsslfke-
rion of the cultural groups discussed, and this is the first nine some of this new information has been presented in this way The apparent simplicity of the 'blobs' depicted therefore hides a considerable amount of work, weighing up different possible versions and verifying the extent of each individual arc* with reference to the original published material. Nevertheless, as in the case of all historical mips, tlu reader should not be led astray bv the apparent 'objectivity' of the graphical form of the presentation of these data: even here the drawing ot each map involved a number ol subiectivc decisions based on the best evidence available to me. '*4|^fl
In general, after finishing the manuscript, I am inclined to agree with the pessimism .>t those colleagues specializing in some of the fields summarized here who predicted that this book would never be quite what I wanted it to be. 1 suspect that many of them will he disappointed by the way that 1 have dismissed some of their important detailed discussions 111 i few paragraphs or even words, but hope they will recounizc that this is inevitable in a work of this nature. Nobody is more conscious of these problems than the author. In writing this text, I found that 1 have been forced to miss out more than I included, and have had to pass over aspects which passionately interest me but detailed descriptions ol which have no place here  Although I have tried to cover (even it only in passing remarks) all aspects which seemed to me to be of importance tor the general reader and western medievalist wanting an introduction to the history and archaeology of the area, and have tried to provide a useful selection of references to the rich literature, I am sure each and every specialist would have selected material differently, and (as is the nature of our discipline) placed perhaps differing interpretations on some ot that which is included. I can only encourage them not |ust to express their criticism in eventual reviews bur to produce a parallel text I hope this book will nevertheless help to widen knowledge (and inspite curiosity) about those issues touched upon here and thus aid in sonic way the widening of the debates which surround them. J
The research which led to this hook was carried out during a lengthy period of stay in Poland b'.vcn without such an admission, the observant reader would
tttstta most aspects uf thc Slav archac-i,iit also of neighbouring states Thi\ ■      j 0{ the development of casern , * which thi* research was done Wjs h j work. The mass of work dune in ihc flnd di«cu-^cd (at least as much Js ,t u,u flnvv of informanon coming fro,,, ,„ncr ,„ which there was a relatively mnr,,,,,, previous political circumstances) Thc to 19*9-9° ied to " reass"s»icnt „, cd the way for nrw """Pretations. Now, jjjj are g<vnK way to a more s<-ttlcj
. work is 'he result of a lengths stay ,,, . ,f Poland, the government .» u huh w ls ."research, which then enabled nie to t,i|<t. ,| Warsaw to continue my work  | n tlhs
ie text presented here owes much to |()riR •raiment, with a number of colleagues | ie following, who provided me infcirm.lt,«,n '   ,,lLh tif.    '''     •'• '     u'd hcrc,n 1 should. *or and Promotor Jerzy Ciassowski i,u| other tor many stimulating discussions  At the hould like to thank Dr Zbignicw Kobvl.nsk,, Aadnei Buko, Stanislaw Tahaczy„skl" > |, 's/vni.inski and Di M.irek Dulinu/ other T','i gratitude include Professors Ka,-lrnicrj, ns'ski (Cracow University), Olga Shchcglova o ritukhin and Elena Mclnikov.i [,\|,huilv|' bntova (Prague! Pe,et Hcathcr "-oiidum and | have especially benefited from numerous on various topic* concerning the revision of Svcr4Jty 0f Florida) which have been extremely thank Pe«r Hc->tncr -,nd two othcr •"'""vinous drafts of rhe text, some of whose stringent ions. All of these people (and niJny present here, but of course thc author
Tb'
provided.
Akademic-Vcrlag of Berlin gave their permission to reproduce Figures 39. 40, 45 and J5, and Izdatclisrvo Naukova Dutnka of Kiev gave permission
to reproduce Figures 9, 60 and 67. I would like tu thank them for their generosity The publishers Wvdawnictwa Artystyczne 1 Filmowc and Ossolineum in Poland and I itera in Prague ami |. Sl.ima arc also thanked for the reproduction of Figures \S, 4<, and ; < respectively Thc photographs in Figure s
were supplied bv Natalia Shishlina and taken by Michail Cionyany.
I would like to e\pnss nn especial gratitude to Hritish Museum Press for taking this daunting work mm their publication programme and all those in that organization whose patience and help has aided its publication. In particular 1 would like to thank tin production editor Nina Sh.Mtdloff for her encouragement and espciallv forbearance throughout this protect and copy editor John Banks for his care in puking up .1 number of infelicities of expression and inconsistencies of terminology which remained in m\ original text. Dorota ( vngot 1U0 checked part of the manuscript I would like to thank Martin I uhikowski and his colleagues at Ml Design for redrawing the maps for publication and |amcs Shurmcr for designing the book.
The original research for this book would not have been possible were it not for all of those in thc Mmistr\ ol I dtic.ition «>i thc People's Republic of Poland (but especially Mr Edward (.ontar/l tor their interest in and funding of my initial research (much of the administrative work involved was dealt with bv Or /higmevt Szatranski, to whom 1 am also grateful). A special debt of gratitude is also due to thc librarians of Thc State Archaeological Museum and the Institute ot W.h.uologi and Ethnography of thc Polish Academy 0! Sciences, and Warsaw University's Institute of Archaeology tor their hospitality, forbearance and gcnerositv M\ wife Anna and daughter Marta have also suffered the disorganization of d.nlv lite which the production of this text has created not only by my hours in thc libraries and other trips, or engrossed by the computer screen or reams ot barely legible notes, hut also (relatively) silently endured the presence in our Warsaw flat of thc shelves and 1 numerous piles of books and papers, thc scattered empty coffee mugs and other paraphernalia of research, for which I thank them.
Finally 1 would like to acknowledge my indebtedness to all thc scholars who have devoted time and encrgs to work on the problems presented here. Without their hard work known to me from their published work, my own would have been quite impossible. J
Chrono10*
SukowDj.cJmc Prusur
Sukuw-Golanu
lUclbon-Chocllik Dr»imki
RUM I Shi
to nurtrtr"1
Sukow-Oolanci Dcvintka
Sukow-Golanc/ K...-Lon-Chndlik DcviniU
Sul.iw i.. Una lUciborc-C h.Hll.k
1>C. iri'.t. i
, R«lko«nk*
„neu.
hevo
fc, tfltul """""
„i.ajii.i» ol
ibe* under
((Dt
X (»fr*-731
lOljl __
K.uil'iirt-Chodhk prvintka Fcldbcnt Tornow
gS.t-KS; Crnl and Mcthodiu, Sv.atopluk (869-94) ^P»"*'0** "(.N,,>r.»i»n "att
Kfcitrt. rT"'.'! tl'*tm» Conmlidiiion 7*
V° laT" ',,,,C lSp"lhniT »nd Stronghold conttmeuon nh», Pohl» 4i,d Poland      PlU* »
90t: Detiniction ol Mo^ITi ' Pohb« t'rrm'"> """'""""of
?^Vo^n7ng,0f0fR0hcm'« coiwiIkIjimhi ni i',,|„h mbo
9*0v Micukn i
9Ms Pohbian rtvnli W2-I025- fr.lctlaw Chrobry of Poland
Introduction
A large arc.i nt Europe is today inhabited hv people speaking Slav languages, .mil m central Europe the area colimi/.ed by them in the past was even greater
than today. In total, well over halt of Europe is, in terms of territorial extent (if not dcmographtcally), inhabited by communities speaking one of the many Slav languages anil dialects. Despite this, their origin and early development .ire still poorly understood In the period covered here the Slavs expanded from what scent to have been relatively small and obscure beginnings to cover a large area of the continent. Today about iiiX million people in Europe speak a language belonging to the Slav language group (and one estimate puts the number of people of Slav extraction in the USA at 10 million). >M
This hook will consider the developments accompanying the phase of expansion and the consohdattvc processes which led to state-formation. We will consider aspects of the development of Slav societies and their interactions with other peoples up to the period of the formation of nation states which form the framework of modern eastern Europe  In general therefore the book coven the period from ilu early fifth century mi to the end of the tenth century, from the period when the Slavs first appear as an entity in the historical records to the time when most ..t the area which they occupied was divided into stable states. The subictt is a fascinating though complex one. made more difficult by the dearth of historical records and the relatively poor surviv a I nl the material culture used by the Slavs throughout most oi the period covered here. Although this contrasts starkly with tor example the written sources tor other societies or the richer Merovingian and i arolmgian material from grave assemblages and settlement finds, it is sufficient to create a vivid picture of daily life in early medieval eastern Europe.
The Slavs and their problems are little known in western (and in particular Anglophone) scholarship. They often seem to have been seen as "too far awttjr^ t..r many western historians and archaeologists to consider in detail, am authors of general textbooks of European history (with a few notable excep tions) often satisfy themselves with a lew generalizations on the subfect. Thi Slavs have fallen victim it seems to a general tendency going back at least tt the beginning of the nineteenth century to see Europe divided into twi opposite halves, eastern and western, with the latter being seen as takitt the leading role la view fostered bv the nineteenth-century development C
publications ire cited. vshere possible I have restricted the list to items w
should be more readily accessible and understandable in western Europe.
its ft* **" * , " on
ive dearth of recent hooks ln English, both lu io the general punlii., nn the Slavs and t entral Europe. As in the histonr i i,as been written in the past has been based ^rfercd to the hgnt o urces and new
oierill >"r*ťl m En«lish " thc hook bx w seriously outdated in >n eral resrsccs; tnc pvornik i^-»9: >9i6; '959), which havc a The excellent little book k Martin Gojda 54: this has however restricted the scope of ^ The text by Pavel Dolukhanov ,99(S|
„cent work. The literature in German con-,-pnjlly literature produced in the sr>ecihc mocranc Republic), and a number or reccnt
Ogisphy- Somc oi *" Worlt '* Iumnwriied ion of the hook on German archaeology by gfcrjons oi eastern European authors haVf un. but arc in general not very accessible in
m set to (Oto the European Union in the riear e of attempting to understand the historv ot
which collectively occups well over half 0f -it poorly served bv western historiography, ring of this book. The author aimed to vs r„c ^yroductory text for students «,t historv-while writing in such a waj that it does not jjrand. In the process of selection inevitable rjed as far as 1 can to select examples Irom
llfefcrfr be«cr known in the west, and | o cite a lot of exotic-sounding platC names jet Nevertheless there have been in recent osenes which should be mentioned Where
The sources
The studs or the past is one of the most fascinating and frustrating of human
endeavours. VC'e can never know the answer to all the questions we may care to ask. and the nature of the questions is constantly changing; furthermore, if we think we have land some are convinced they havci an answer, we can never be
sure that the answer correctly reflects what actually happened. Later scholars, building on the foundations wc lay, may place a completely different interpretation on the evidence we possess and for their purposes mav requite data which we at present habiruallv ignore or even destroy in our search for other types of
evidence.
Everything we know about the past comes from what has chanced to survive. I In the case of the Early Slavs, the scholar more familiar with the richer material from western Europe at this period may feel that this is not vcrv much. Vfe have a few written sources, and the material remains left by long-dead Individuals and communities and the cultural traditions, folk talcs or customs and social institutions may survive in an altered form for centuries and enable us to reach back to the past. Finally there is the evidence from the study of languages, which form the links between individual members of a community and which have been passed down through the ages. All of these types of evidence can be and are used to try to make sense of the past. -vi^^^l
We should note that the period covered by this book bridges the gap between prehistory and history. The reader will note land it is clearly visualued on the maps below> that at the beginning of the period we utilize the grouping of the material culture to define the ob|ect of our study. At various times throughout the area the written evidence takes over and gives us names and political organisms (and even the names of individual leaders) to replace the culture zones of earlier rimes. The bias in the quality and amount ot information is visible in the case of areas for which written evidence is visible (for example the South Slavs) compared with those for which we are more reliant on the archaeological evidence. All sources havc to be treated together, and the results obtained in one discipline must be critically checked in an informed manner against those obtained by the others, an ideal which is not always achieved (or perhaps achievable), although post-1945 central and eastern European archaeology bat tended to be more multidtsciplinary than some western traditions.
Over the past few decades there has been sharp disagreement in centra Europe over the relationships between the various disciplines the common taal of which is the interpretation of the human past. Archaeology ha* sometime
■
J dec
This question cannot be discussed ,c nt h'*    L0„|d be reversed if we arc to accept
^ j*af *e Past by use thc surviv,nS ihc >'ll^v ' -.inerior, to thc unwritten ones . c.(1ii.il. *n" . rorn brings the problem of the (f manner. >' wrll[cn and archaeological cvi-ftmn«"1 ° areas of Europe in the early
goldgy 0 tC |r,vcii". in tnat ,nc cx,,,(mg 'ext5 rri/^1 •* ,iS n(.r disciplines studying the past. cliJH"l,,(l t . |ot of written documentation, i which me j written history. The el ion to ,s u'lih a Pa nave an inordinate effect on
l«TPe$Vandcentral European arch..eol,w ,s ^rtSWrc "eologUts and historians..! method. Di 'I" af Tne enormous influence of thc work ' M',rN'^h,loSOPhers Karl Mar, and h.s Wnd rjcrman P»       ch |h(, pas, has been studied m
do was due t(' -1 numb" '" Adl recent deca an£j [9JOS in Stalin's s,   .  i m,,n
In thc ,9l°.SlosC[,w and I eningr id obstructed jMorlai»s,n . ,| ,cjCnces based on historical rthesoviet w of En&c|s „,j M lrN (huf
^ it0T \ This 'Progress "logy and
:',lly\S's!!l'u-t State by various means to become
^7        f Soviet influence expand d uiccntral
«sphl were more visible m
plants ,h" "hese tcndcneies hav. I, It their m-
llt ,n gr"^-1        s0Cicties in these regions, even
:rp'e,anon° Jsome years ago. Onls now ls ,wctt reieci ^ ^ ^.^ from Uu n) >i|K ^
r, attempt'"* neW ones, giving rise to „cw , .«> and flpp'>'"*
í
A here is "n the threshold of history: we !lc period eoiwi*1* namcs of partlcular social or ethnic ^ttíceí menrion'JJ concretc personalities I hese are ,| and 0«»1W'''(ii appe"lc for m0rC iniormatu,n' Most ,ough n0f sat,Sr> "compiled for the churches and courts 0f ^ we have werCse<.uli,r hterature. Many of the surviving
documents thus reflect the interests of thc elites (both secular and ecclesiastical) for whom they were written, but they arc not always of much use in compiling our picture of thc daily life of thc Early Slavs. At thc end of the period considered here thc elite in various Slav states was becoming literate, and some older traditions may have been preserved in writing, although a desire to find a 'respectable' past to legitimize present conditions may also have resulted in the invention of a past, or thc rewriting of history \s a result we have a few accounts of \ .triable length and value, which sometimes go some way CO filling thc gap between w h.u we want to know and what we arc able to determine. The full story of the Early Slavs cannot be told from thc written evidence alone; it must be supplemented by other forms of data.
There is a maior dilftcultv with the written sources which is not always appreciated by the nun historian. We tend n> place too much faith in thc truth of the written word If a chronicle says that a particular event occurred in a particular year or in a particular way, then nine times out of ten that 'historical' date or event is repeated uncritically in most of the subsequent historical syntheses. We tend to prefer to forget that the writers of rhc sources we use often had to arrive at their information and chronology by various indirect means, which can seriously undermine the reliability ol the data they give us. These svritcrs we« intending to transmit information to their contemporaries or those who came after, and their accounts, like any report, can only reflect their own opinion and interpretation of the event from what they knew, and what they cared to tell US Modern newspaper reports of thc same event sometimes reflect thc political b< of their writers tor example; a historian functioning in thc reign of a t? rarely tells us bluntly that his ruler is a had one, in fact in the case of totalitarian regimes quite the opposite In the same way during much of thc period we are covering thc Slavs themselves were illiterate, and the written sources about them were produced bv their neighbours, who often had preconceptions of their own concerning thc tribes about which they were writing. -jk
Since parchment, papvrus and paper arc perishable, most of the written material we have has survived because it was rccopicd in thc past. Sometimes document was edited (shortened or modernized) by thc scribes copying it the original lost. Sometimes they misunderstood the text and made mistakes copying words or misplaced whole sentences Thus source criticism is requil to reconstruct a plausible version of the original text and the later alteratio Onlv then can the original text and these alterations be thc subject of analy Another problem is that the written sources which we can now read rcprcsei tiny proportion of thc material that may have once been written down, and interpretation ol that which now survives is rendered dilficult by the n survival of material which might have been available to thc original readers.' surviving texts in general were recopied only because they had some pract use to later societies, or (or their literary value. Histories which reflected
4
i smmují.rioN
I xisting regime* and social conditions i ici;iiini'1,c" e .     |i1VVs and charters) survive for '   Jocund0" ,sl""   .lH.lirnents of instruction, hut also
(i rfn»* l,,ul Vjll'C "nod when lh,:>'werC cornPoscu -md m.iii ab"ul 4 lv irt(. growing Church in the area. nfJ''1"" ds to he approached individually
i ach V]ece 0Í inalyse what the writer was trying
■ nurcecrit1Ci*m   i from what sources he ciuld have
e ireful "ot 10 iay vc have of the manuscript came to 'and l»oW thC C°P> -,nft errors may have crepi into ,|u.
'ltcra'""1* 'lm his t'<,r example Gerard l.ahud.i trn Bur*0*"" 'adept at this type ol work, and c,ln ,j) have ,ol1|! i n,blc though unvenftahlc inrorm.u,„n (e«ntfUntofp ("'process can be taken too tar. and, as J!, Sopietin"3recor£J (sec below), some ot these .,, the •1,J,R'U ,s very unlikely that new written ^cheiM l8Shas-|ts preferred interpretation, o| ,hc andeachaBc |,terory sources, bnelh discussed ^giitrriain groups o
Imostallh"toncsofthcF",rK Ml"^llu' happear*ma""     coinpiled in Latin ahum ,n
QgUr** l'Gt L name of Jordancs who had ,,pp,r.
bscurc writer by jcr on th. Danu
MtrV 0(   P"1 Ll cl,vs in that region) I lis aco,,,,,, ls king elf
useff
J^°n admits) Littl- ■ [proudly jln cc,urtici   mj scholar
,f title ,en tunes longer than thai ol lordanes, loal^^T'the paraphrase in three dass' work' \V, ' us that he made v ^nes wrote about the Goths and [|utC:as«oJorUSa inJ third-hand sources and refers ' thcred from "^"^ndred kilometres to the north a„d HnKiriain' .urpose in the compilation ol ,|,m
tj , dear P0'1"!*., objectivity. II wc had Cassiodorus's v have affe«ed c e ab|e to assess the information content , ,v, would be js however a useful source „|
'•text, used with caution,
ro settle near and raid across the vvcak-cnturv Slav* b'8anRoman Empire, and Roman and (,rcek oncer* of the Eas1       contact with various Slav group,.
,m" jlTun5urPr.Singly hostile) but also g,c sonlc .neraliied land u r th<.se SQUTCC5 „ Justinian the ieofthem^'mPort<,D
Great's chronicler, I'rocopius of Caesarca, who in his three books History of the Wars, The Buildings and the St-cref Htstory tells of the Slav invasions of the 3 30*
to y.sos. Other historians such as Zosimus also tell us a little about these invasions. Another author whom we know as 'Pseudo-Maurice' (writing about
591/610) probably took part in the campaigns against the Slavs in the reign of Maurice Tiberius and was primarily concerned with the military abilities of the
Slavs. Wc have the biographies of saints recounting how the Slavs were turned away by miracles connected with the saint's prayers, wc have Papal letters to
Dalmatian bishops concerning the Slav threats and so on.
3. The West Slavs were a potential military threat to the Merovingian and ( arolingian empires, and several I r.mkish and Carolingian chronicles mention political events in, and military missions into. Slav territory. One of these, Frcdcgar's Chmwde written m the seventh century, contains quite a lot about the Slavs and is the only information wc have about the mysterious Samo and hi* kingdom existing between (.ii and 633 (Chapter 3). The Royal Frankish Annals contain a lot of information about Carolingian attempts to deal with the Slavs. Another source, the so-called Bavarian Geographer (Fig. 1) written somewhere in the eastern part of the ( arolingian empire about 840, is .1 list ot tribes beyond the imperial frontiers with the numbers ol defended centres each possessed. It is suspected that it was the result ol some form of Carolingian intelllgence-gathenng tor military or economic purposes. Other written sources concerning the western Slavs m the ninth to eleventh century come from the eastern expansion of the sphere ol interest of the Germans under the C arolingians and Ottomans and attempts to convert the Slavs (Chapter to). One of the most important later sources was the work ot Thietmar of Merseherg (written. C. 1020) in the imperial court and dealing with the tunc of Otto III. Several later accounts written In clerics contain information on the history and customs of the northwestern Slavs (Adam of firemen, c. 1071, Hclnmld of Bosau.cndof the twelfth century and Saxo Gramtnaticiis at the end of the century). Hcrborďi account of the life ot Bishop ()tio ot Hamburg includes an account ol his mission to Pomcr.un.i .   1 1 io Some ot the information about Slav customs may be applicable to earlier times. We have .1 number ot accounts ot diplomatic missions and political affairs, which contain information about social conditions in this area, and also about the pagan religion, Later documents include charter) concerning annexed territories. *
4. For information abom the Last ind South Slavs after the ninth century W turn to By/antine documents. One of the most important of these sources wast book in which the Byzantine Emperor Constanttm \ 11 f'orphyrogenitus (rcignec 01 set out lot tin hcntln ol his son Ronianus guidelines for running thi Byzantine state and its diplomatic service. Lhis De admmistrando imperil 1 DM) was apparent lv compiled about 9 50 from reports of diplomatic missions
Š
, trader* n,°* j irIey visited. These arc all the more tAtS of,h,r      ^ thcv Wcre made by people foreign to
I, „1 in«rrrit! '''   |ate,0ninth-ccnfur> visits. huu|u.
• '"' ° t^Khurradadhbih was Director of |'11S„ nth century- ^ jjjj jboiit movements ol t|„ rus
|dbutk»e*q" ^ RM/ms written m t|K.
in hi* Br"' ' " f jji^p took part in a diplomatic and (merchant W fl| Muqradir j„ 91,-z to the khanate \hhisiJ < -•' P he me,0n his |OUrne\ has been pn-. jiJCcountolw . of ihe monumental works of cd in laU-r m'"\U]^,</oM'S of c. 947 h:ls survived ,r I only his (•"iiU c ()(considcrable value is the account slaVS'A 40U, Ibrahim ibn Vamili 'veiled t0
,yn, Mini'"" Spa' 'reserved in the work of the geographer . -rfci, account UP   ^ hj( o|h , ...
scholar Ibn sfVcntn c|,aprer on gcographv has
,190). ^^jprion of the lands of the Slavs ■
if""-" .    Kicsan state undei IU/.nitine
re compiled "™l«Jeki which I label here ,hi f>V| taut °he twelfth century. This chronicle preserves
led in l^lcV.|uding Byzantine records and annals, bttol sources, 1      jnvcntcd material. The carl) par, 0f al«>       1",,!1Li,[Cd and conflates several earlier trad,. a5 hem much c 1 < (sc(. chaptcr , ,, \mongthe
(Oine*0"" „. lt) ,or rather trade) agreements, which transcribed are t ^ ^ ^ unclear reason copied u,t„ ,[K. ffebUtwe«»,e preserve an interesting series of
van HBP"*** "-gnt perhaps also draws on Bw,iiUlllf ^ > Thi* docun
dealued form in a number of the Vikmg .ntiniied m an ' vson thc south and east coasts of the jcttU-d jm<'n6'ICh'.lt the mouth of the Oder. 1 he Viking ,f the Sagas 1*  0 ^danke, the land of the strongholds.
' th su^cred distort."" in *« retcllin*
w c|av states isolated individuals wrote Mryolccrt-»n Cathedral, finished writing |m
■ » cleric 01 rr b
and in 1111-16 an anonymous author, probably a French Benedictine monk from Hungary, known conventionally us G.tllus Anonymous, gives us a version
of thc early story of the Polish state and its kings.
Archaeological evidence
Thc archaeologisi studies the material remains and traces of thc people living in thc past, including their effects on their environment.* These traces can seldom be assigned to specific personalities, or related to closely datable events; the
events studied arc general and gradual processes made up of hundreds of individual actions which constitute the archaeological record This is usually composed of material w hi Ji over the centuries has been huricd in the earth. Not all important human activities leave any direct archaeological traces, and these processes can onlv be indirectly inferred Other activities leave an abundance of repetitive material, such as bones from butchers of domestic animals, and sherds of pottery from shattered cooking vessels. This material is left as rubbish littering a settlement area, and remains old rubbish' until an archaeologist attempts to interpret 11  I Iil animal bones can tell us about the annua Is kept and eaten, the size and health of the herds, thc way thc meat was butchered, cooked and eaten, the wav that the w aste was disposed of and many more aspects of life of the community. I he pottery vessels can be used to diss uss handicraft production and tell us about trade networks and artistic tastes, but the primary use of changing styles and manufacturing methods of pottery is for determining chronology. .jf^H
The archaeologist studies thc material traces of human activ itics in a number of ways. The distribution of certain types ot artefacts and structures (such as brooches, house types, strongholds' can be used to gain significant information of several types. Ot more importance however arc the associations of artefacts, and their stratigraphic.il context within archacologiL.il sites: this ,s mote significant, telling us about tin dating of the ob|ccts and about their cultural associations.
Thearchacologic.il sources however give a very imperfect picture of past life. With few exceptions isikIi is at I'ompcii and in shipwrecks) thc archaeologist luuls .1 biased sample of thc material culture of thc people being studied. Even graves contain onlv those things thc relatives wanted to put with the body; several forms ot socially controlled selection were operating. In the case of settlement sites we usually find what was broken, discarded or lost on site, and not items whiJi were prone to deposition, loss or damage outside the settlement (siieli as agricultural 100U1, nor were all materials useless after breakage. Broken glass could be (and was) collected and reused tor making beads; copper alloy and iron could be reworked and were both relatively scarce raw materials. C
°f organic
and
I
.   hlir s„....... ,0°n)
textl!c. ""\ j sc waterlogged town sites which ^r/e kn«>u' ,ron'|v        materials that thc Earls Slavs
,i seas Ol P***j j^jjj Hie total evidence available to item* ,nC*'U' ,|e Impression ot cultural pnverts and ,n unfuvf,urJ      |)(_ )n ,||Usion, since the Early Slavs
,|dseemi,ov,'e' _ .kab)e organic materials Ehus i|u.v ,rc latg8') i basketry, it was from wooil that ilu . tools, vess* s' worc c|othes of wool, of linen and I*■*«lr,*,*\ imported silk. Emm a later period Wl. P^OIWU) on bi«h bark (from damp deposits ,„ 0 e** J*^, jorts ol evidence are missing »,..,„ ,h,
"**    , ki for excavation.'
be mentioned here In much ,,t arK ings flls" m, H0n ol sunken-floored buildings used
. ,hcre is -i 1      kJ created by vertical posts set „„,, ^th'*P^'h0|cScreated by thc sunken-floored huts ,„ thcundisturbed ... ! them), hut
ingdiffers «>      ^ ^ Roman period. Where a build-
destruction n can be see,, ,he evidence^ ^ ^ buj|( (|s||u, [h(
*k° 'KLl' in nineteenth-century rural eastern and i^a^^;,^ American Wild \Vcs, uh ere it is ie" films). This consists ol horizontal logs |or We*jT riiontally one on top of each other to form rllaiJ'' ed w.thm.issorcljy
P"'" pj,tea technique is ...id was cxtrcmcU u,,,,,,,,,,, W*T a L,ern Europe - some ol these structures llcarw of cm-"1 ^ , . and vet the archaeology d   ,d, nee " ''"flilHtffldal      "'''''^r'tunbers at the bottom ot the wall «,r, l.„d uM "'...„s is vers '•light-   ^ ,rlQt somctimcs oilstone pads which are
»rs .it nit ..... —
r sometimes on stone 'pads' which are '  ' dished). If there was minimal build-up „t
uildingisll<:n1° ^ ()n n)any sltcSi somt. Inwils during 1« U'|u.rt. js very little trace left (even alter a cn fjemoll* > ^ existence of such a budding. |„ .nairies)oftn fhc missmg Imilduigs were
Jence does not
ned with exploring change through time, the tisCOncecn ls establishing ., chronology
coper*!""1' ^ changcd little in form over millennia 'an °h]eCtS blacksmiths- tongs and axes of unspecial-
ued form). Trie best form for thc required job was discovered long ago and even in thc nuclear age we arc using some tool forms which an Early Iron Age farmer would be quite at home with. Other arrefact tvpes changed form and decoration
rapidly. Rather like cars and dress styles today, progressive stvlistic changes took place in thc cultural material of our ancestors and were transmitted across a group Thus the style of female ornament i brooches, headdress ornaments, buckles) changed quite rapidly, both from region to region (sec below) and
chronologically. Some of these items can be dated fairly accurately I which in eastern European early medieval archaeological terms means give-or-take hall a century). In thc same way pottery styles also change spatially and chronologically, and indeed, owing to its ubiquitous occurrence, fragments of broken pottery are the most useful material tor establishing thc date of archaeological deposits. Early medieval Slav potters however is very conservative when compared with the contemporary changes in western European material and can be used for dating only in broad terms. "i J
Archaeological contexts v, hich can be dated to particular years arc relatively rare, especially in the absence ot written sources, or closely datable artefacts such as coins with dates stamped on them  The results ol radiocarbon dating are too imprecise (unless large numbers ol dates arc available! tor our purposes. Ear more promising and exact arc methods of dating by dendrochronology. In many Slav sites inhabited over long periods of time, cool damp conditions reduce the rate of decay and result in the preservation ol enormous quantities ot waterlogged wood. Dendrochronology relics on matching sequences of tree growth rings (their width attested h\ localized climatic fluctuations! ol wood samples of different ages to build sequences which can be linked to thc ring sequences oli ancient but still growing trees. In this way a sample from an archaeological layer of unknown age can be marched against the master sequence, and the exact date of felling of the tree can be determined, or. it there is no bark represented, the agp of thc latest growth ring present can be determined.
Archaeology is not fust about things, bur about the people who once used the things we find and left the traces we interpret It is not surprising that tor a long time attempts have been made to identify 'whose ancestors' one was digging up. The ethnic identification of archaeological material is by no means as easy as wot once assumed, and has been much discussed in recent years. Nevertheless there is evidence that dress styles may be ethnic indicators, and some dress st\ les have distinctive metal components, so. although thc textiles and thc bodies they adorned have long since decayed, ethnic indicators mav still be detectable. A classic example arc the 'temple-rings' and zausznice (behind rhc car-rings) which are a feature t\piv-.il ot lemale Slav dress |Chapter >). These were wornCHJ linen or leather headbands, as a decorative and |ingly element of thc headdress They occur only very occasional outside Slavdom (in which case they may haw come i m a Slav bride i u sl.n es! A t\ pological study ol these items has identitiet
I
ith loC»l«*d  ,.   territory in Pomerania, and other tVpcs |v hi west 9,B        pl4t i,\iXV tribes (Fig. 36).
vct istna r   ^c'ount, and srutiy tor example whole
nbet °f l*ctotS ', ■   ,nostic' artefact tvpes. These complex-
jnd DOi llW* c ■ traces of the material culture of
av not be UK ldcl thc concept of 'archaeoloRic.il cul-,ple. Archaeo og ^ rathcr their material traces, which oup"1 ll' P necific timespan - as a basic t.iv»>nt>mit
finable i°nt 10 4,-onological and geographical terms of u cl«*sifica"oU _ nce ,js formation, this concept has jj4e0|0gfealdfltJ. n„|v debated of all archaeological svidrM^ i'1''('ne thorny question of the relationships gritf espect*1) modern scholars on the basis of
^'culture* 'cl    .| evidence to the past realities ot eth-
lheSUrvlv,n8 ms the precise way in which archacolog. ici r1'1'''1,1:1' ,' ~ [tures, which accounts for some of the icd i" 1 '•""'" n, on maps by different authors We will
iflillUie'"*' fhTbasis of the tradition of Continental j culture lies *l £u ls predominantly pi ictised in the ology 1» ien" " .    ' ,|.;.. ,;,■■ tby 1 'culture-
jjjtory of atchaeo ^ ^        ^        archaeology ,,,,,s
,y''TV '"•1!;;;i;;;i;,j„„cal material into cultures and then Vl!l-. mg cne ^ groups, their rise and demise, stylistic , 0f those taxon ^ ^ without trying to ascertain
B*Bltby °^uid those changes. Since this book must to a which be bar^ai evldcncc gathered and interpreted In ,he archaeo og ^ ^ other approaches more
[leagues, the 1 Qf othcr parts Df Europe makes ,IS
schools of ate a q means a disadvantage when such irCsenttext. xonomic assignation of the investigated
date and P&T* ( morc sophisticated superstructure on I revision   <>        ^ premature and is a matter for fur-
trast to the quantity of written material) is il record (in i- 40Mly expansive accumulation: new sites going a Pha"" (|n(js constantly being made and ng. examined. arrunation of old material and its 1 turn requir j^,^ material is published, it will 1al.uHePr0P°b^tcr unt),;rstanding of the past - and will
suggest new questions which in turn only fresh examination of new or existing
material can answer.
Ethnographic comparanda
Slav communities in some rural areas are even today surprisingly conservative, and these communities have until recently preserved the character of living ethnographic museums. Ways of life in the countryside of parts of the former
Soviet bloc have hardly changed in many aspects since the late Middle Ages, despite several efforts ot Communist governments to bring these rural communities into the twentieth century Here were not only logistic and financial problems to be overcome, but also the innate resistance of many of these communities to attempts to alter their age-old traditional lifestyles. Thus agricultural regimes, tools and techniques, house styles, furnishing, dress styles and social attitudes could until quite recently be studied as functioning parts of a community, and may be used as interpretative tools in understanding the archaeological evidence. This evidence has long been utilized in central Europe in interpreting the archaeological material by such scholars such as l.ubor Niedcrle, Stefan Czarnecki and Kazimierz Moszyriski, followed by Boris Rybakov and Witold Hcnsel. In several central European states the advent of research techniques based on historical matcralism on a Soviet model led to the formation of institutes for the study of the history of material culture, which attempted to unite the study of archaeology with ethnology.
The use ol ethnographic material is not restricted to material culture. In one instance ninctccnth-ccnturv travellers in far northern Russia were surprised to find that previously unknown folk traditions there preserved memories ol early medieval rulers of the Kievan state tar to the southwest who ruled in a mythical Golden Age Other folk traditions seem to preserve details derived from the pte-Christian pagan traditions of the Slavs. Of course all this material must be used with caution, and subsequent layers of tradition of later centuries have to be identified and stripped away.
Linguistic evidence
The Slavic languages belong to the Indo-European group of languages, and it in the context of the >>ngm and spread ot these languages that the devclopmei of the Early Slavs is seen This is the context of Gimbutas's book for exampl Volumes have been written on the original 'Ptoto-Slavic' language and where originated and how it split as the Slav peoples began appearing over a wid area 111 the earls medieval period I lere we will accept as a working model ll probability that the lnclo European languages themselves dispersed and beg) to differentiate 111 the I .iris Neolithic period this is the main thesis of the reee
.z
I in be its ncighf"1"
n/c A>!f Slavs in the arc t. . cnai is, hovv-„ „ hcrclJtiVfh ccri.iin that mere was indeed a I'r„,u. , noted th-it. despite this, the language itself is a .rex.stingbutrcconstn.ucd by linguistic effort), („„,
| .,.„ (he speakers of this language were present petal Europe by the end of the Neolithic, we have „„ . ■ lived, in what numbers and in what relationship ,,, h ruroups. We cannot date any changes m t|u.n. | ln European languages the Slavic group is most closl.|y both groups are irrongl) inflected and share s„„ ifutary I ',IS b*» IlJ somet0 suw*csr the original CVls
|ra l.ni. " liouii.icic*.), from which the S|.lv,c
i   > nfhers now vanished) later differentiated eto identify the area of origin of the Pro,s| IMl , U) lie/Baltic) by Studying the names of peoples (cth-krdronynw), place names (toponymsl and the nam. s uni itlie nanus of plants and animals ol risitiUl.(j ■ntitving where supposed 'primitive' river and p|,Ul, ivc, it has been suggested that one sin identity where prd This type of approach has many draw b.u ks, „,„ ie> are Slavic rather than |ust general Indo I urop, ln more 'primitive' than others (and indeed idem,,, ln>, lv •Slavic' were later replaced by others ut., ditter,-,,,' d irv between rivernamcs of'Slavic'tvpe ,,H| n,,itll-|rjrand forms at least one clear pointer to « |„ ri, |( ^ •k the homeland of the Proto-Slavic- languages , (], plants and animals of restricted range, ,|u Ui;i] iviclanguages would not have names tor p| ims ,uu| , Allthese arguments however assume that names do thai there was no mechanism by which nanus \Vcrt. DUlaUOW previously (or changed In  those s,,i, rca. One ''s0 has to be sure that the range of those altered over tune with environmental change. So„u. ,n toponyms. especially the names of topographiCa| r they are relatively stable and passed between cth-J to reconstruct the extent of Slav or Bait settlement
jdto date these settlement episodes tahly the Cracow linguist Wituld Manc/.ik, li.1Vc ni lexical similarity between modern Slav languages the past, and on the 'statistics' based
on such assessments attempted to define the geographical nearness of tl
homeland to the areas of origin of the latter. The method is however onlv able as the underlying assumptions concerning the stability of langua
mechanisms of change, which in this case seem mistaken.
The former existence of a 'Proto-Slavic language' (or languages) is accept; what is less clear is where and when this language group aro
under what circumstances, lew subjects have such exercised mult i disci scholarly ingenuity and raised so many tempers as this problem, which also has a modern political significance (see t liapicr 13). Already by the nineteenthcen-turv linguists had proposed a numbet of areas where the Slavic language (and
thus 'the Slavs') originated. Oiu ..t the most popular concerned an origin in the unprepossessing wetlands and reedbeds of the great Pripct Marsh. To many Slavs, to have their origin in a swamp seemed almost as repugnant to common sense as to national pride, and tor this reason subsequent scholars have made repeated attempts to slum a largei and more interesting territory for their ancestors. Most of these efforts have concentr itcd on various parts of the zone between the Danube delta and the I'npet and stretching from the Oder rivet in the west to the Dniestr in the east, and, although there are alternative theories, current thought seems to point to this general area is the nearest we can get fot a 'homeland' of rhe Proto-Slavic languages. Jfl
Some writers have made attempts to identify the speakers of Slavic languages among the ethnonv ins listed by the titth-ccillui v m (.reek writer Herodotus (the Neuri being a tavounte candidatel or Ptolemy and other classical sources. Thi* relied on the 'Slav-sounding' etymology of the form ol the name as it was transmitted at second or third hand m an alien tongue Here I propose rejecting all of these surmises, interesting though they are 1 Attempts have also been made to use early medieval tribal names to reconstruct processes of migration and creation of ethnic units. Thus there arc two tribes which hear the name Croats, ai scholars have tried to derive the one from the other; not so understand other doubled tribal names such as the Polane which occur in Poland and of Kiev. We will sec several other instances of this phenomenon, which may be dost to convergence arising from similar rules tor creation of ethnonyms.
The Slav group of languages at present is considered to contain thirteen! guages (within which of course there ate several dialects):
• East Slav; Ukrainian, Belarussian, Russian
• South Slav: [vulgarian, Serbian, Macedonian, and the southwestern grou Croatian, Slovenian (modem nationalist movements now claim that Bosni and Montenegrin arc also separate languages)
• West Slav: Polish, kashubian. Snrhi.in (Sorbo-Lusatian), Czech, Slov A fourteenth language is the Old l liurch Slav language, an archaic southern Slav used originally ,11 the Moravian, Bulgarian and other a
trie**in' 5l»i language and is a useful ,„S!0
« ,n O0C region .it .1 fixed point in time. These early niece* of evidence which can be used to trace the
obahlerM>""^or0therSlav languages which rnav f the period covered by thus book. In the same way jwSorbianand Kashubtan had almost died ..lJ( h> •ih century Sorbian dialects were still being sp(,kcn 11U. as in the eighteenth century. One region u, originally a greater variety of language w is the Balkans. Many of these disappeared during |.Ucr lavic linguistic reforms of 186?. about the Slav languages is that speaker. ,,| p,,||sll y understood in their native tongue in for cx.imp|t. , or Ukraine: the similarities in structure, phonology se languages is notable. Although the Romance la„. •riMics. those in the Germanic group for example d,, vide ccographtcal occurrence - the similarity , ,1 ,|u be due to convergence, this suggests that at ,,, e irh if each of these languages there was dos, K. t .irmtnal Proto-Slav arose rhe variety ot Slav | ,„. ijuiKicevidence suggests that these languages an.se V restricted core area from which, already tn tru. later spread. In addition, the relative similarity ,,t it the time lapse between their original different,.,, have been as great as some authors assume, tor 4 „r be expected if these languages developed m t()I
ir if the way the Slav languages spread from the original oro-Slav languages were spoken. It is clear that the trad,, sianation cannot account for the diffusion of the language pact area to cover half of Europe, whatever extended ledieval period one wishes to adopt. Demographic e\p.m.
itcd to be biologically impossible. One possihil. rc already in use over a wide area of central ic early medieval period (Renfrew's Neolithic at they replaced existing tongues by a process variety of processes, people adopt the language men partly replaced Anglo-Saxon in England, ncans were in the process of dying out, being 1 related model would see the Slav languages
nstrati
being a lingua franca within a community, such as within and outside the Avar khanate. None of these models is without its problems. It is difficult to tec how the Slav languages maintained any coherence over millennia, while spoken by-small isolated communities 111 other linguistic environments over a wide area, there was no real elite <ir social organization capable of creating a language shirt in the sixth to ninth centuries and the influence of the Avars was limited with respect to the area in which we know Slav languages were spoken.
The similarities and the regularities in the differentiation of the various branches of the language group allow scholars to reconstruct the way in which the various linguistic changes occurred, and thus allow the reconstruction of the original root language, its vocabulary and us grammar.1' One feature is shared by the Slavs of the Oder-Vistula area and the South Slavs (hut not by the East Slavs), and 11 seems to have been one of the earliest changes to hase taken place in the Proto-Slav language. This was the so-called 'metathesis of liquid consonants' (which some linguists suppose took place in the second half of the eighth century) (see Table t). i|^H
Tabic ■
	Proto-Slav	Polish	Czech	Serbo-Croat	Ku.sun
itronghnld	'gardh	grád	hrad	grid	K<>rod
edge	'btrgh	brzeg	břeh	hrneg	bereg
Uraw	'talma	tloma	sláma	iXdma	i'jfomtf
milk	'melko	mleko	mtéka	mliféko	moloka
Note- The Proto-Slav language 11 a reconttmction. which 1» signified here by ihe use of the linguistic convention of an aitemk fl
From these examples it can be seen that in Proto-Slav we have vowels before r and /, in the Fast Slav languages both before and alter, while in the South Slav languages and Czech and Slovak the vowel follows r and /.
The Czech and Slovak languages have many features in common with the South Slav languages, from which it can be deduced that the Rudavy, Sudeten and Carpathian mountains initially formed an important linguistic barrier, and the dialects of these two languages should be considered as originally belonging., to the South Slav grouping Ihe tirst C hnstinn preachers in Moravia were Slav-land Greek-) speaking missionaries from the Balkans who seem to have had no difficulty making themse-Kes understood. It was in Moravia that the Old I hurch Slavonic language - svith its strong links with South Slav languages — had its roots.
In another aspect however the Czech and Slovak languages las well as the Sorbian/Lusatian languages) share a feature with the East Slav group, the
replacement of the Proto-Slavic g with h (Table 1).
r«k,   Serbo-Croat Ruatian,
foul
Ain't*
and ( i" "°
noga
'lnjc'J
4e distribution of the nasal vowels (such as, ^t the nasal vowels are lost (fable ,|
tech
Serbo-Croat Rausian
ruka pilu
ruka
P/al.1
Boh«t Roma
Slav dialec
[ori of Germanic tribes in the area between rheeonso,ldatl rlSe to the Bavarians titer the end ot irJEKrava (1,rJU, ;"mljdi,- Danube and Tis/a was settled hv ,rca between t ^ ^ togcthcr with the existence of g Mat*?*"' ™ j wejge 0f different ethnicities and I ,„. alactans. create      northcrn ne,ghbo„rs , M.,P mi, 1n,
Sl'" "'these areas died out. The division between y existing in hundfed kilometres to the south. I ,,„„ thus shittc ^ ^h anJ Slovak dialects developed
ttllf i« «»erc Modern Slovak for example ii is t|ia.c
VC'' S''? Takst is under strong Czech influence, in the west theOJ        ^ (Serbian, Croatianl can cull [lc ,cnce ot Sou ^     influence of the Polish ol the Cracow
d eree of linguistic differentiation within the }ut was t k ^ joca| d,alccts and languages were Mle**''?. p( n,Cv.in dialects in the formation of the 'd P° In the case of Poland for example the htera-ussian s"tCS'have ||tl)c evidence of the vernacular -\ rare atm. WW *C ^„„,6«(the Book of Henrykuw) which ™>l«h where a man says to his wife, 'day ,« u KnCe h "ud ivs Polish would be rendered \ia/. ac h, ;Jlg,vcTt (quernl to mc, I'll turn it and you rest). Rare
survivals of statements made in law courts written in the vernacular show that
considerable regional differences in the spoken language existed in the fifteenth century (for example between Poznari and Cracow), and we may expect that
similar differences existed at an earlier date.
The Russian languages divided into two main groups in the early medieval period (by the eleventh century), the northern languages were probably influenced by the Finnic and Baltic substrate and the dual political centres of the later
Kievan state. Novgorod in the north and Kiev in the south. The northern languages arc characterized by the retention of the consonant g and the unaccented
o, while in the south y becomes h and the unaccented o becomes an j." The further development of Ukrainian and Bclarussian languages is due to Lithuanian and Polish expansion into these areas in the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries.
We cannot leave this sub|cct without a brief comment on the effect of the theories of N. 1. Marr (1864-1934) on the development not only of linguistics, but also the study ot the elhnogcnesis of peoples. Marr tried to apply Marxist theory to linguistics and argued that language is an ideology and thus a 'superstructure' with a class character whu h would change only with changing social formations. Marr's mistaken reasoning became obligatory in Lenin's Soviet Union This led to a number ot curious explanations of the origins of the peoples of the Soviet Union which had an cttcct on the interpretation of the historical and archaeological data (and in the period of the Stalinist purges political Correctness was more a matter ot necessity than nicety). In the 1930s few would criticise Marr: a rare exception was I. V. Got'e, the head of the history department at the University of Moscow who openly accused Marnst linguists of being incapable ol tackling the problem ol how the Slavs developed from the proto-Slavs. It was only in June 1950 that the most influential greatest theorist ot Marxism ot tlu period. St 11111 himself Cat the request ot a number Off comrades') investigated the question and wrote a scries of articles in Pravda (later published as a separate brochure. On Linguistics) which opened the way for the rcicction ot Marrism, to the initial relief of many Soviet historians and archaeologists.
We have seen that the sources for reconstructing the development of the Ei Slavs arc relatively abundant, but that their interpretation requires care especially a scholarly and ob|ecti\ e treatment of the sources. While intuition even emotion mav be inspirational in the proposition of hypotheses, they r no part to play in their testing and proving L'nfortunately Slav archacolojl one scientific discipline where this general rule has not always been obser On the one hand this is due to the intractability ol some of the data, on thco to the modern political conditions (Chapter 13). We are perhaps still a long from understanding the processes outlined 111 this book, but this does not n that we should not try to interpret and synthesize this evidence.
■
raohical background Tit-
background to thc events discussed here ■   , ,,f the gcograpn ^        worthwhilc touching on a
tit undcrit-,"^'"!!' i .u ,s not often appreciated in western ient point*- ^ ,c'iW' which may best be appreciated on a
vastnfss "t eastern i ' |1->u|a_the contrast between the sizc or(,5 the long thin M Krcater. This huge area contains a great deastern Eur0!* c ^ c|jmattc zones. The maps presented in .sof teftJ,n,S°' r^rnpared with a large-scale physical map of u|d ideally each be ci       ^ Figures in this book all the relevant
he map for our period is the chain ol tnoiin „porrant Icaturc °n t^ na|fand a southern one. North of
eastern Europe int ^        )lu p, uns (trie North European
n,andea«Alps.«w Mnges of mountjins hi„s
. south or wn,L 'H()|v Cross mountains, Lublin Uplands, Rudavy, Sudeten, | Czech, Moravia and Cracow-
e in turn enclose three ^ ^ ^ dratned by several maior rivers flow-^ Norfh Eur,'P""t)defj Vistula, (Western) Bug. Nicncn, I>v,na. ihe Baltic S«a <tlDt' ^ the B|ac|c Sea (Seret, Prut. Dnicstr, Boh those draining sow Dnclpr system has tributaries PnPet, Corvn I),Doi«P«iDo"',h js an extensive area of marshland with
lie area around 01 ■J'j jVSKm (with tributaries such as the ere«St is the ma r ,an $ea. To the south ol this mountain „| draining into ^ ^ factors m tl]rn
ore broken terra unification and fragmentation ot t|K.SL.
,  r ,n*thiaiU is the Danube, with tributaries Moras.,, ulh of the Wrp* » (Drau) and Sava on [lu. s(uuh ,vh()ve
imthenorth..an mounf3)ns The middlc Danube valks is .,
inubc flows net non (the Carpathian basin) winch has
i with semi-steppe passed through the so-called Iron
i nomads from iachja. South of the Danube are more moun-
e broad plain'' 0 untry. The landscape of the Balkans is gen-
irmmg very bro -e mountains and hills with deep fertile
11   v veectation zones is important in the undcr-Hioii of the C ^e expansion of the Slavs. These arc
,c process I -r),cre j5 much evidence (especially (mm fos-ihfied form in / ^ deposits) that the North European Plain erved in arc a ]ater prerijStory, where there were
afforested througn mu^
isolated clearances in the fotcst, separated by wide tracts of virgin forest. When the settlement structure of the German groups in this area began to collapse in the fifth century, many areas reverted to forest as clearances began to become
overgrown. This was the sort of environment into which came the Early Slav settlers in most of central Europe. In thc Balkans however there may have been
extensive tracts of cleared land available for settlement - some of it tecently abandoned owing to political factors There are several types of forest which predominate in the lowlands of thc northern part of central and eastern Europe
(not forgetting the bands ot wetland forest occurring in thc bottoms of thc main river valleys which were an important environment exploited by thc Early Slassi I he proportu >n ot deciduous and coniferous trees in the forest (as well as thc precise species and varieties present) vanes across this zone; in general though these forests were mixed soniferous and deciduous, with a predominance ot pine, birch and oak. with beech wood in parts of thc north. The lowland forests were dense, with thick undergrowth, and were difficult to penetrate. Thc valley sides may have contained clearings, ow-mg to the grazing of wild herbivores and human activity concentrating near the water.
The nature of the vegetation affected the animals present in the forest. In general m most areas the same species were then present as today though in greater numbers, with the exception that wolt and hear had a wider distribution. In some areas elk, aurochs and (rarely) bison were to be found, and beavers were also relatively common. The Early Slavs clearly felt most at home in the vicinity ot torest, which was an important resource tor them. Apart from the wood for structural purposes and luel, it held fodder lor livestock, wild bees (for honey and wax) and fur-bearing animals (marten, squirrel, ermine and so on). Lakes and rivers had abundant tish and fowl, and their shores were favourite locations tor settlement. In the upland areas there was a different vegetation, the nature of which also varies slightly with longitude and of course altitude. In general however the Slavs settled thc valleys first, penetrating the uplands only at a much later date.
Thc landscape of the southern regions penetrated by thc Slavs in the Balkans differed from that of the North European Plain The earliest Slav settlements are found in thc band ot torest steppe down the west edge of and south ot the Carpathians, they also settled on the Danube plain but later crossed the Danube into thc Balkans. The natural vegetation of this area was the warm south European oak forests with beechwood in the highlands (pinewoods in Dalmatia). Along the coasts in I hessalonia the natural vegetation was of Mediterranean type with coniferous forests in the mountains.
To thc southeast of thc central European forests is the broad irregular band of the forest-steppe zone stretching along the northern edge of the steppes and merging into both vegetation zones at its edges. The drier climate of the forest steppe zone produce a characteristic open landscape on ihe relatively fertile sods
I
I
ct with oak. alder and oak-hornbeam w„h lU, fof* l>prliv    l^i^csi in the valleys - though even here Th* torest   ' ^ hilltops where grassland prc.
_j _ and tl"n"ci „ m,portant, for it was prohahlv
'''"'""i      first crystallized, and it was along the it 1 j11s Si*' • , jhe penetration of the central
l t, it spteau I-*—-   ,rl i
it was a pheno steppe are thc broad flat pastures of
lOUtbeaS1    ' | :onrjiiions favoured a nomadic cms
;re thf envir°n" L j,cval period this vegetation /.one w.is
(,c whole car * pastoralist farmers. These broad flat
• of (noO-Slav' n [jfestyle of the inhabitants of the area
inththebigW> '       novementS from deepest Asia to pei)r.
jplne »nd cu tu • ^ (ikcn ^y tnc ||,ms the V. it s and i: i !l"s we|| „ the Mongols. Earlv medieval S|,c dng group*. JS jouth jnt0 ,|1IS /0ne; the initiation oi largely penetrate* • ■ tnc landscape of this area is a result rtrilTn8 Although the Slavs never extensively colonic! '° influenced through peaceful and h.....le contacts
' ,K",,ul" ,ue far north of Russia were not settled h» ,|„ „g.i are is in oCcasional hunting expedition, - tor
J'CVJ'       seem to havc penetrated the are., c-.i.lic, cproducts     ^ 8encral has today what is lermed ., :crn Buf°P' summers and cold winters. There is however *, with want s ^ north to south and east to west
iation across I*. ^ Napoleon and Hitler con-
he Balkans. A similar tcmpera-fctediterrtneanj.^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Qf |hc grwU|n(, u.lM)n |)(
from cast tojv through Poland i l,g. .,)
perature abo  reflectcd in the density of known settlement hcT"sl.iv'settlement seems to have been less dense and shortc '        jvc|y |ate period.
mrilacomp .imaticchange, which we know occurred in 1,111 IU,t S has been relatively poorly studied ,n eastern r"°" h il the mechanisms of climatic change to know OO little atK'U whflt we k„ow of climatic change in west-XCK"L over eastern Europe." As a working model we may ld'n'lU'' f llowed a broadly similar pattern to that in the Europe o wetter over much of western
• ration pern c centuries represent some kind of cli-Urhe ninth and tentn cemuii
h blv vilid for much of northwestern centra
Europe, but perhaps less reliable for the areas to thc south and further cast. This
is one of the pressing problems for future research
Human activities too had a far-reaching effect on shaping the environment, and there has been much pioneer work done on this topic in eastern Europe in past decades There is now very good evidence from thc North European Plain
that the cumulative effects of the deforestation of the slopes of river valleys, especially where thc soil was poor, led to drastic changes in thc micro-cnvironment. Similar evidence has been noted in the early medieval Balkans. In
thc forest, thc tree cover breaks the fall of raindrops, not all of which reach the forest floor. A oui of thc topsoil relatively soon
after a rainstorm by thc root systems of thousands oi trees and transpired into thc atmosphere again. When those irees were removed, part of thc rainwarcr soaked deep into the ground, raising underground water levels and leaching nutrients from thc topsoil, while the rest caused erosion of the ground surface and formed small streamlets  Hie net result of these processes was that Stable forest soil systems that had taken tens of thousands of years to create were suddenly exposed to degradation and erosion. In a slow hut unstoppable process the soil cover ot the valley slopes was reduced in thickness and extent  This was only half of thc catastrophe however, as this topsoil was washed into thc maul river valleys, which became choked with silt This in turn caused a rise in water levels in thc valley bottoms, which was at its greatest intensity on the North European Plain in the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries and resulted in floods and changes in the river course. Removal ot tree cover was then a double human tragedy, because it was precisely m the river valley bottoms that many of the main settlements were sited. Ihis process of forest destruction and SOU' degradation was not confined to the earlv medieval period - it had been going on since the Neolithic - but each phase of forest destruction was followed by a period of regeneration. I lowcvcr, the earlv medieval clearances were permanent; forest cut down in the period from the ninth century onwards in general rarely re-established itself, the human pressure on the landscape being too great.
The background to the expansion of the Slavs
A summary of the ethnic background is ot importance to thc understanding of the process of thc Slav expansion of thc sixth century. Two main /.ones need to be differentiated, thc former area of thc Roman Empi re separated by the frontier [limes) trom thc area beyond, lor the Romans, this political boundary separated civilization from the barbarian world and it is to the latter that the Slavs belong.
The province of Dacia had been given up in the third century. The new frontier was established on the Danube A number ot barbarians moved closer to the //(urs, and settled alongside the remaining indigenous but Romanized
I
r  manic tribes- South of the frontier the Hutu a"1' vlflOU       i cthnicivy (Greeks and Macedonians, the empire ***        and lllvnans and probably others), most nans. L.Vi"'l)-1cun ' .1 mountainous zones - by the end ot
■ ntmg "' "1KlR manizcd- The population of the northern 't^orne fhor<,ug^ Y Panrl'oni.>, Dalmafta and Mocsia) to Luge
nvince* (Nor"-'0"1' ' n«|kan mountains and especially on thc I jtiii. 1,111 ,0U ' wn5 of Thrace and Macedonia there were i|ackS^and,nma,,V/slpCCI.,|lv in the urban centres) The Danube ^ of OK** alltur*   n7vFest Roman Empire was bceommg pm.
■ iringcof the foU' ' * mcluding attacks by barbarian raiding keficti. and vanow ■ »• ,i|v of the northern provin, i s alone, mriiii^'lU Jep0p i*"°forc settled at the end of Antiquity hv har-•hese areas were t C. ■ which dominated thc rural population; „, of various t^0^"roma„itas These included the Ostrogoth,
"i| o tor a time thc Vandals and Hcruli and ir)„onia {bMJMi iandscape that the Sla> -as obards). h was "l ^ |hem_ ,.ltcr ,„ settlers. |crj but, like inosc ^ ^ ^ ^ S)iorth Europcp|„n wmcn om.m Pl'rlod m ° seen to have been occupied by a number pi,j by the Slavs can ^ German tribes on the Elbe, to the
lhi weft were several j^worsk arid Wiclbark Cultures, and fcrezones occupa'< .g a |arge lr, , (KXllplcj bj. (he
at on the steppe an ^ ^ scholarly argumt elatton-, Culture. To cut s o^r ^ |f st,cms f,ur|v plausible to see
^logical cultures tot Jiaeologic.il refleetton ot among
material c^'"" pskn0
vdbark and Cherniakhovo). On the steppes and m ,hs 0| ,he Carpathian basin wen in is settled by eppe zon „cop|es i such as the Alans), irui"**"' . Agjg i ate Roman groups - especially those il culture of man) dcve|0pCd, with a wide range ot products man frontiers --is we nj| ornaments, buckles, pendants,
kincludes. wide-rang^ ^ ^ fine|y ^ ^
teningclothing- I ^ importcd Roman goods such as pottery id gtjves often p ^ pottery is wide, ranging from cookmg-cls. and the range o f,agons and cups, some ot them dearly :r kitchen vesse I ^ ^ pottery was wheel-made and
the imported W     • (J 0£tcn elaborate, including highly
iurface fa™ ° * There is evidence for specialist crafts
ccJ with incised g00js (fig. 6). The general impression
asive exchange o p w ntive materialistic consumer culture n,l creates is *
concerned with thc acquisition of status and its exhibition through the use ot showy prestige goods. Thc Germanic world and its imitators reflected the strong influence from thc Roman Empire and were probably propagated by specific
forms of social organization of thc 'chiefdom' type.
In the forest /one to the north of these (jermanic groups further from thc imperial frontiers were other barbarians with considerably less developed material culture. Among these forest groups were thc various culrural groups representing thc Baits. In the vast forests to the north and cast of these were various Finno-Ugrian groups (the Einno-L'grian languages arc not Indo-European). These relatively conservative forest societies were to play little part in the events of thc Migration period; |udging from thc evidence, the pan-European historical processes ot tin period seems to have bypassed them lor a while. Among the groups of this forest zone in the middle and upper Dnicpr region is the kievan Culture, which will be discussed in the next chapter.
Some tune around the end ot the fourth century thc power structure of the whole area beyond thc frontiers of the Roman Empire altered substantially This process resulted I mm changes in the Empire itself which affected thc whole power balance ot the /one outside it The frontiers became increasingly unstable and unable to resist thc southern and westward movements of thc Germanic tribes. The mirage of thc good life to be found to thc south was eventually to draw thc barbarians - who included Germans and thc Slavs- towards the crumbling frontiers of thc Empire. Thc period also saw the movement of thc nomad Turkic I luns into the area of the Black Sea steppe in the period between 375 and 400, and the consequent collapse of the Cherniakhovo t ulturc there (the Goths moved into the Empire in this period, while the related Gepids moved west into what had been the former province of Dacia). Bv about azo the Huns had moved to the middle Danube, where they established a hegemony over ttjjr Germanic groups there, and in a ; 1 -s; under Attila the influence of the Hunnic Empire expanded further to the north and west Under I lun rule on thc steppes certain aspects of the Cherniakhovo culture survived in modified form amalgamated with Hun metalwork styles, which in and alter thc period of Attila had a tangible effect too on thc elite metalwork styles in central Europe. It was in the changed situation alter the collapse 11I the classic form of thc <. herniakhow culture that the Slavs become visible in thc archaeological record.
Similar changes are visibly in central Europe too As the fifth century goes on, we begin to lose sight ot the material culture typical ot the Germanic groups not only 111 Ukraine but also in eastern and southern Poland, parts of eastern Germany and Slovakia. Pollen spectra from the peat bogs, such as for example at Biskupin 111 Poland and .1 number ot sites in the Elbe region show that areas of cleared land were abandoned to forest at this tunc. At about the same time we hear from Roman written sources ot the increasing Germanic presence within the Roman Empire It is very tempting to see these two tacts as linked and to sec
aba the I*1
iuViici'
pathia
ion movement westward towards the of barbar13" p ', Romaui*cd areas of Europe. This process llcsslly Jew^r" European torest with seriously dcplct-large areaso living in this zone was no longer
tainly whoeve    • ^ ^ recognizably Germanictype
i«ble m**i «■ ^ Germanic settlement networks in
may >-"c ,h<; L° .PrCSented by the sudden and widespread estcrn Poland' fT jnj beginning ol the filth century of all I end of th< lour hjch h;1d been in use tor sever
s of the PrrcworskUiltur
netalwork are lound in this zone generally (,l l"ct'a"1JinlL|ri:t( jreas still inhabited by I ate Urin.uiic (e West were 1 ^ Bohemia and the Elbe valley, as well te»l in ^'Tviap i\' To the south, other movements were . ()t- (he B',Ult ' moyedfjown from the upper Elbe and settled ,e Longobar     jmpcria| tn)ntiers after the collapse of Hun
The Formation of a Slav Identity
Who were the Early Slavs?
Before we begin to discuss the culture and history of the Early Slavs, we must first clarify the sub|ect of ihis study. What do we mean when we talk of the Early Slavs? The Slavs today are a number of ethnic groups, most of them living today in various nation slates in central and eastern Europe, and the main characteristic they have in common is that they all speak languages assignable to the Slav group of Indo European languages. The term 'Slavs* is therefore primarily a linguistic one. When referring to the 'Farly Slavs' here therefore, 1 intend to mean the people vs ho we have good reason to believe speak spoke early versions of the Slav languages, and it should be stressed that I do not mean the term to refer to a single ethnic group. Nevertheless as we have seen, the linguistic evidence suggests that at some stage of the distant past the Slav language group may have had an origin among a relatively restricted population. This population spoke the same language, or dialects of it, and, to judge from similarities in ihe material culture ol the Migration period, had similar lifestyles.To this extent the descendants of the 'I'roto-Slavs' can be regarded as a series of related peoples. In earlier discussions of ethnicity the term 'race' tended to be very loosely used, certainly there is no question that the Early Slavs constituted a separate race of people. In physical terms the modern speakers of the Slav languages arc members ol the general I auc.isian race, and show the variability typical of that group.'
In t.ici the term 'Early Slavs' could refer to at least four types of phenomena
relating to our main types of sources:
• historical, the people referred to by early medieval (usually external) wri sources as 'Slavs' (not all of course might have been, they mav merely have inhabited the territory regarded by outsiders as belonging to the Slavs)
• archaeologic.il. the people using the spccilw assemblages of material culttt which the archaeologist associates with the Slavs
• ethnographic the people whom historical and living tradition regards as the direct ancestors of the population now inhabiting Slav countries
• linguistic: the speakers of the early forms ot the Slav languages. These four phenomena have dimensions in different kinds of space and tim-and do not always comfortably overlap.
To some extent therefore we have to consider that the concept of 'th»
I
: is one with a long number ot separate peoples ot i/.ed in tne mcaics'ai period-nd dearly saw these states as a kinship between particular
i   "K....."     .   Rvzantine influence) and legendary
developed (po*»' ? example in the form of the tale ot the arcs were P****" wno gave rise to the three people of ech. Crech *nd medieval Christian chronicler, there was and Russia. For related, as they were all ccen as
500 to see the Noah. Medieval scholars also found
,phct. one °i the « {Jut jhf uci now inhabited bv
ient writers w viouslv occupied bv peoples with other
inguaP* . nd so on), and tried to make these into irrMrians. Vjn th5/t|Xtecnth and seventeenth centuries cm-Sje literature o Polish nobility mistakenly saw them-
jocies (for cxamp ^ ,),cin apart from the Slav ancestors d from Sarmatian . Jjo shows an awareness of the
• ^ tTo'f <he vanS Slav Peoples; this was to be desel-nd   '    ^ Romantic pen^-
av«m 011"1 written sources of the medieval period
' app**" * F Roman and Byzantine) authors write of (century Cree t ^ troubiesomc people who had made their KM etc- to re er ^ Greek authors write of Skbbmiot,
jjrnortbwest ^iallwo,tsthlabenot%Eskliibmoi).\n ltS,hUhoi. purees however - presumably wnt.ng
,d medieva ^. C)L;Jirm. Sclavtnt, Sclari, Schlavt,
Vest Sla»* - Arabs adopted one of these expressions
J"onac ^|th {hc|r phonetics, changed it into Js-,uld not harmwu« cmp|ovec| by outsiders who however had jjecnve lane s ^ ^ descriptions of earlier literature but her writers Confronted by a confusing variety of
indent geogr        models and spoke of broad groupings,
j 'm.larities in their language, pea sum narticular group of barbarians in the area
ppearstore    .  r4rlv to middle sixth century By extension - A    est to refer to other groups lying beyond their lue^ ji in the West was in Frcdcgar's Chronicle of
Jr'e; aDPears, and Boniface in one of his letters of he term <■ ^ Carohngtan sources (Einhard. Amuls
SclJii-      . luting the tribes conquered by the
s while speaking almost the same
TUl   I HHUATION
that 'Sclavinia is ten times bigger than our Saxony, especially if one treats as part of it Bohemia or the Polan beyond the Oder, since they do not differ, either in customs or language' It is dear tr.un this that the main area he thought of as
Sclavinia was Polabia.
Alongside "Sclav i' and related terms, western sources also use another name fo
their eastern neighbours Some medieval western scholars applied I variants of) the name "Wends' (German Wenden\ mainly for the Polabian Slavs. The concept
had appeared bv the time of I redegar, who uses it (IV.68) in C. 66o. and IS also used by Boniface tin a letter of 746/7). It also appears in the Annates Bertmiamaf the 8*>os and several other ninth-ccnturv sources This generic term derived from bookish traditions when writing in Latin. Antique sources 1 including Tacitus 1 his Germania) referred to the people living to the cast of the Germans ttttic Vertedi. and this term was obviously reused by monkish chroniclers to dest the peoples beyond the expanding frontiers of the Frankish kingdom.
The original term Sclaveni would seem to be a real tribal name (with a ty] ■em plural ending). In all probability in the original tongue the name was cl to 'Slavene. Other closely similar tribal names appear at a later period (par larlv where the Slavs came into contact with substantial populations of pcopli from unrelated linguistic groups) and thus we have tribal names such as the Slovenes. Slovianc and so on. The individual Slavs groups themselves seem ong mally to have used the name to refer only to their own community and not 1 sl.ns as a whole. (But the latter use also appeared by the twelfth century, probably as a result of the spread of the liturgy in Slavic which led to an awareness Of its similarity to the vernacular of several groups, and the efforts of ml as well as the development of long-distance trade networks.)
Many suggestions have been advanced down through the ages as to what root or roots of these terms might mean. Opinions have been divided whi the shorter or longer forms should be taken and whether the root word would have originally been written with an o or an a. From the thirteenth century the short form 'Slav' was taken as the original root (and derived from the word 'Slava- honour, glorv or tame I, but as early as the fourteenth century the longer form 'Slovenia' was used to propose the origin with the word "S/osH speech). It is interesting to compare this with the Slavs' term for their neighbours, 'Kwify (ihe dumb or mute). According to this model t would have called themselves the Nforuni- that is the speaking ones ft} know the words) while they called some of their neighbours the do (those who do not know the words). In this way we can suggest thai saw themselves as a 'communication community' (see below, p. }t)*
Linguistic affinity alone is not enough however to create ethnic id the period we arc discussing, some Slavs for example spoke more
nded ol ftOCPpft"* «ory (Wfcrs Xl.l.14-xrv      ,„ ,h
i _       false idcntiry of a Roman ,|C to claim ine raises    / « general,
he ^oke fluent Latin. Many people living ln ,hc
B *rv*i and Methodius). People living in frontier ;on ' ties habitually speak two or more languages. Wc Cln.
rcognirion of pasi ethnic groups is one of extreme «,m. '■ eat social organizations and thc way we 'label' people Jon the historic stage has always been a subject of Ultcr.
a and historians.' Ever since the Siedlunxsarchj,,lnf,l( haeoloosc such as Gustaf Kossmna before the First
.pecifK n pes or assemblages of archaeological material be subject has raised high emotions. Interest m the study giajorganization has renewed in recent years and nianv dine models derived from social anthropology and into the discussion, allowing consideration of the tion which might underlie the cthnonyms we read of ln
rtflecnons of thc ways in which communities diftCrcn 'OthersC"' h°m 'th<m 1 A feature of human rclation-Jd 10 establish identity with reference to a group, and Dtlty not only within itself but primarily with reference up* (many examples may be cited ranging from urban football supporters to various forms of national, rc|,. o|.Sochiaenriries arc thus prone to appear primarily ,n .onflicT between adjacenr interest groups. ()n a larger rf definable as 'ethnic' examples might be tribal identi-America or modern nations. The key selt-idcntitving i distinction are often more complex than the ,imp|,. •in which they arc usually expressed. There may also tesof 'us/them' relationships (thc differences between fc groups I and the nature of the frontier /ones irarclv tractions berween them.
s Pole and Russian, Slovak and Slovene arc primarily mes: they and other Slav peoples belong to nation states >mccases well after! the tenth century. The very notion xver relatively lare, a product of nationalism which tously) swept CononenraJ Europe after thc eighteenth t all temptations to transpose modern ideas to early
rm the
medieval situations." We need therefore to apply a more general definition of ethnicity and ethnic groups, and in particular thc relationship berween
language, culture and ethnic affinity.
One general concept which is proving useful is that ot communication communities (Verkebrs^emeinfchaften), a concept borrowed from linguistics, which was first applied to the interpretation of archaeological material in the 1960s to studv thc cultural groupings in Germanic and Scandinavian material. It has recently been applied to the study of thc Earls Slavs." The term refers to a form of network of individuals connected h\ torms of communication, and, while this primarily concerns .1 language, recent studies of thc theory of translation emphasize that this also implies a common ideology within which ideas can be exchanged. This in turn implies shared culfin M il n il culture it also a fo of communication, and one of thc messages it can be used to transmit is 'belonging' to a certain group or having a certain starus or attitude Althoi language is one feature ot a communication community and material culture another, this does not necessarily implv that the culture and language are equivalents, and this tells us nothing about ethnic identity. i 4
Anthony Smith provides a convenient and useful definition of ethnicity in hi» consideration of the ethnic origins of nations; for him ethnicity is a matter of: myths and symbols, memories and values, and is earned by forms and genres of artefacts and activities." These create what he calls an 'ethnic- which is a human group, a concrete reality generated by thc meaning conferred by the members of that group on certain cultural, spatial and temporal properties of their interaction and shared experiences. Ethnic groups and ethnicities are not inherent, they are created. Smith identifies six components of any ethnic group: a collective name, a common m> th of descent, a shared history, a distinctive shared culture* an association with a specific territory, and a sense of solidarity. It IS obvious that given such a definition we arc at a disadvantage trying to study ethnicity in past societies.
In the period for which we have records there is less ot a problem recognizing local socio-political groupings; chronicles talk ol wars between tribes and stares and raids of one people on another, we can sketch frontier zones, name leaders and identify what sort of social and political links unite those within an ethnic boundary zone or differentiate them from those thc other side. We may have texts from which we can determine thc vernacular language, and divine some! thing of the traditions and culture of thc people we arc dealing with.
Before, however, the abundance of written records wc arc dealing with a 'people without a history' lor 'with a paucity of history') and from these we ma) have onlv a lew scraps of written information and the anonymous archaeological evidence I though sometimes of specific type I. Thc temptation to amalgamate them is strong; tor totally human reasons we prefer to use ethnonvms in di* cussing the past rather than use abstract archaeological units such as 'cultures'
but it
I
jus over-interpretations h.ivc been ffortsot scholars (especially Polish l the nuances of the archaeological ful thinking than on scientific fact ling of the sherds of a pot by exca-w  can know in what language the user .innot know what language was spoken by voch any more than wc can assume today that ular ty|*       smencan English. Some types of material cul-/i leansispea^ ^ ^ ajsumet|, Terms such as I ,,rlv
,.speci ic.     j.bu(ac- U>CJ by archaeologists are shorthand
L|>ng<ind totally uncertain situations, nplexa belief that .1 certain complex of arcliarolog
egroun ^ literature as Prague-type assembl igesi ln
°      dJarchaeological indicators of the Slavs needs,,, h, ma>a uuttes were first formally identified, as the name l       /yc and there it was recognized that this was the a 111 iTbi'ting the area in the early medieval period. Since the A Ad not show any breaks in continuity or dewlopmcnt ,,, before the rise of a written language I tor it wjs ,„ ''"'hat Church Slavonic was written down in some ot t|K. Moravia and Bohemia t language (torn the region), it seemed a fair con-
earlicsldocunieiitsintK cu|turc of the population ancestral o, those
elusion that this was die Dyhemians. Very similar material was to lurri lln Slav-spe-^"^ Moravians sltUi„,ons supporting such an idea  li Incline
in Bulgaria and the ,,f archaeologic.illy visible phenomena which
a, there is a . ^ reasonable grounds for accepting ,, Ul|
They form a horizon of assemblages of very "Trt Involving a variet) of cultural phenomena go,„K ri(,ht K I Furopc. m regions where we know lor strongly sus.
ind centra _eejW|,jjJhedat that time. Although it is mipos-(vlanguages^ uke|y (hit ||](. slmi|.iri,K.s ,„ ^
Id reflect a similar convergence of ideology and probably -e, the material culture being )ust part of a broadly m „t which the archaeologist is capable of directly e durable material elements. That is not to say that no I A of cot or lived in any other kind of house, nor that all « and lived in those huts were necessarily Slav-speakers [,, ir wledee (and in the absence of a better alternative! there the light of present ml ^ |IKC|,hood of the current view of many scholars, ,anis norcalreaso ^ users of this culture or group of cultures
tuaee.
HIT KlUMAIION
The recognition that certain cultural phenomena could be the reflection of a
particular group of people has led to attempts to tr\ to find out how these people came into existence in the past." Some scholars began to talk of the notion
of studying the 'ethnogencsis' of individual groups. This is a held oi Study typical of some areas of central and eastern European historiography where
attempts arc made to combine the archaeological, historical and linguistic evidence to trv to define when a people' came into existence. It is obvious that the difficulties of such an endeavour are great and the uncertainties many, which
accounts lor the many dilterctii ..pinions which have been voiced. This concept is difficult to apply in some eases (such as the 'ethnogencsis ol the Slavs') since it is dear thai ih. re cannot be am question that the origin of a single ethnic
group is meant.
The existence todav ol nation states in which one is assigned an ethnicity automatically at birih and by the way one is brought up (a process called socialization by anthropologists and sociologists) perhaps hinders an understanding of the potential fluidity of ethnicity, especially seen across a few generations. I he early medics al 'tribe' or 'people' was apparently not * homogenous nor stable unit entry into which was determined solely by birth and genetics; the evidence suggests that individuals could often move between groups. Warriors with their families could apparently choose to belong to a group the leader ol which was politically successful (which 111 the present context would primarily me in successful in yy.ir or raiding), Belonging to such a group would me.in increased prestige for the individual or community. Being under the protection of such a leader would also give a sense of security. The core of such groups, whether large or small, was usually a dynasty of leaders which acted as a carrier and focus of traditions tor the group self-identity." 'jH
Ihus tor example the armies of I luns' who attacked the Goths in 375-4« probably comprised a leys thousand "nil   Turkic speaking Huns who had ridden their stocky steppe pomes all the way from the Mongolian steppe, probably accompanied by a lew thousand more Iranian-speaking Sarmatians who had joined the group on its way across to the Black Sea steppes, where they were loined by the Alans, iroui another Iranian-speaking group from the foothills of the Caucasus When thev reached the Black Sea steppe undoubtedly many people ssho had previously considered themselves as belonging among the Goths' saw new opportunities in becoming part of the Hun horde in its move west. To |udge from an account by one writer there were at least some people 111 that horde using words which sound suspiciously like Slav ones (Jordanes, section isN, informs us that the funeral feast of Attila was called a strava by some ol us participants!. It was this ethnically mixed multitude which the Roman writers and diplomats and modern compilers ot historical atlases Slim up 111 the one shot! word 'Huns'.'-' The Germanic 'tribes' which invaded the
mí i<mu
iar mixed composition, as did the nomad
h u certain standards of behaviour ,1ncj p rn.»y "irinR „ ;n order to be accepted would otrtu h,ivc rnbersoi J £ BonnJ of the group. Other traits may have proaches to the        ^ thc Avjf f|jtc worc , snccifi(.
j.f within ,nc*[V it>(.|T with ornate metal fittings. The , wa* fastened r ,purshave been s\ mbolically KlVcn ijeBnT*y,lk*aJab|yajtaius*yrnbol.butit j. cs Ilu, „„,„
itecrnl «'JS Prt found belonged to an Avar horseman h these lining* ^    arc found with arc rarely of
loOgoha (the s craves probably contained Slavs.
j|l see that *° .tcj (,n the same way as modern so.
ornament an I    ^ nin(otcc group iden 11 n
, acoaiiminm "i -..urse concern* .J h ,,, ,o learn bow to communicate in the ,u,\tu studies show how groups of differ-diip Soao-lu>* cjltc determine the mores and
II determine what I inj pokenas
. it is the* « 1" ^ (j ^ moJc| ol elite dominance di».
nion with,n''d ivjdualtwoorthrct .cumulate
,may and vocabulary to hivtn
, 0f grammar^ ^ ^ jmc mam |a„gV,agCs whi|e
"r *' ''I more languages at home amongst tnern. my we one ^ languages adoptine loan from the
'^^h'lre foreign to the original language. The «P" * !'" knvcd from the pure use ol an already exist-|hcrctorel>e ^ •pidgin' language using elements
fevelop ** jevclopmcnt of thc Slav languages m a
guagc*     jC/.  enI backgrounds is betrayed In the cms. «0>Bfroro     c^,. 0f languages, including those from from a "u      5Ubstrate of elements derived from the These over        emsvcry likely that the Slav language U*°*8e " ken as a /rancva in at least part of the
the Avar khanate (which may go sorni-wav thaHy south of the Carpathians)
ueu
The crystallization of a Slav identity
We have a few cthnonyms in written sources previous to the beginning of thc sixth century which some scholars, with varying degree* of credibility, have attempted to see as Slav in etymology. A number have been collected by Gimbutas in her book. It wc accept that thc Slavs and Baits (or Slavo-Balts) were
already in thc area of central and eastern Europe by the Early Neolithic, we may assume that part of the material culture of thc cntinty of prehistory was indeed used by people speaking Proto Slavic (or I'roto-Balto-Slavic) languages, and
that thc cthnonyms of these groups may well he accidentally preserved in a few written sources. To go beyond that to identify which part of the archaeological
material represents Proto-Slavs and which not, to identity where the Proto»Sla«* were living, alongside whom and in what relationship and numbers, is pure speculation This book will therefore begin with the first identifiable and specific evidence for the presence of Slavs. ä^^M
The first written evidence of the appearance of thc Slavs comes from southern European sources from thc East Roman-Ostrogothic culture circle. It refers to raids almost from the first years of thc reign of Justinian (that is, from about 5t8|, which is the period when (according to the ScLret History of Procopius) thc Sclavenoi started to become visible in the southwestern fringes of the forest steppe zone in the Danube frontier region. ^^^H
One of thc most important of these early records, a statement of Jordanes, has had a key rule in studies ol the origin ol thc Slavs and should be examined here. Jordanes is our mam source of information on man i pects of central Kuropcan history in the late Roman period. "I his is unfortunate, because it is here that he is clearly unreliable' Jordanes begins his account with a description of Europe (sections 4-37I which it is quite clearly compiled trom the works of earlier classical writers such as Strabo, Tacitus and Ptolemy and probably partly based on a lost work of Cassiodorus. In section 34 occurs a much-quoted passage referring to the mountains in Scvthia which surround Dacia:
Along their left side, which turn to the north, beginning /'■•"> 'he source of the river Vittuta over a boundless area are settled the populous people of the Veneti |Venedi]t which, although they took on different names from their dans and territories, in general are called Sclavem and Antes. The Sclavem occupy the area from the town of Noviedimum .inj the lake called Mursian to the river Danaster |l)nicstr|. dud to IM north up to the Vistula, where they have forest and swamp instead of towns. The Antes, who are the bravest of these people, dwell in the curve of the Pontian Sea spread from the Danaster to the Danaper. _^f^H
I his account has often been taken at face value and ever since the days of tnl nineteenth-century W Surowiccki and I' Safarik much discussed in thecomas) of the discussions on thc origin of the Slavs land thus the search for the 'home land' of thc Slavs lias become equated with thc search tor the ancient territory o
,,.»imt in context wc can sec th.it part of „i ol i p«««« referring to the Vcncd. In Tacitus s fjrst J (section 4« of the standard text) which ( ..ssl()j„rus
l„s hai been »dded [" 'M,orm-Ulon rr"m another M)llrtc
. ' (0i Jnc| many scholars have made much ot ,h, P,,S|C ae twopeoP1*1 ('he Antes being placed hv „,.„u S()V|(,t OTPpel; the geographical extent ot these groups Sll„„
maos.'Attempts at drawing a view ot tin- described ,t Olntof the classical geography which would have |V(.n d his contemporaries produce a nonsense picture '« on
■ account has little value in discussions ot r|u- orig,,, (
bout the same tune in an excursus in his Wars (viii4 irerestJng -mcl believable ethnographic detail .,|„,U, th'j e East Roman frontiers Among this is the information ggjjjsv, .speak one language, complete!) baii.lri.,„ name, they were called Sporoi'. The etymology of this hated. It seems most likclyth.it it comes from ,|u. |Vot() ,dt' Although these wriftcti sources are our earlu st t,r,„ ixjitence of Slavs in central and eastern Europe-, the Slavs leaking Slav k languages) however did not appear ,„, tllc lowherc, and they had an earlier origin clsew here | |lls ■ijtcd by tassiodorus and Procopius - heiue their desire ixing earlier hter.irv sources. We \sill however further genesis of this people in the next chapter. The important stand the parallel accounts of Procopius is that thev m, of the Slavs and tell us what they called themselves. We ni ni s below.
OOitratedquite clearly by the written sources however is nod the East Roman Empire was totallv oblivious t„ t|u. 1 people called the Slavs on their northern border | |K. dor adopted b> East Roman writers as descriptions „f ,.,ns only m the cjos (though Procopius's assignation ot n the 5ios to the same people may have been hindsight i
preserved very few of their own traditions c«incernini> ment. the Bavarian Geographer, reports that the Slavs >rv of the Zeriuani (which may have been a report of j
rather than t bookish invention). Unfortunately, t|1IS le to locate on the map (attempts to link ir with the later ■rune on the east bank of the Dniepr seem a false lead) the Slavs originated in the south on the Danube. This .cepted bv m.inv medieval chroniclers such as Winccnty
Kadlubek (no6) and Jan Dlugosz (writing 14SS-80) in Poland and a whole scries of Czech chroniclers beginning with Cosmas of Prague in the twelfth century, and was maintained by later Russian writers. The South Slavs held the theory in high regard tor the prestige it bestowed, but also supported the use of the
Slav liturgy in their churches. In some discussions of the origin of the Slavs some credence is given to this tradition (tor example in the work of the linguist O. N. Trubachev). It does not seem to be very well supported by the archaeological
evidence however and we know that this account was originally ottered as a consequence ol deriving the early history of the Rus from Scripture.
From the beginning ot the modern study ol the history .it the Slavs, u seemed that, of all the disciplines, linguistics was the one which held out the most hope in the search for the original location of the area where the Proto-Slavic language(sl were spoken. The primary data have been the linguistic and philological data, the use ot river names (hydronv ins), the analysis of place names, the appearance of supposed Slavic cthnnnyms in old written sources, the terminology for climatic, topographical, tloral and fauna! phenomena, and on the basis of modem divisions between the Slav languages, Despite the considerable effort and countless hours of erudite thought and iIisl ussion and conflict expended on this problem, the linguistic search lor a 'Slav homeland' seems so far to have proved abortive, inasmuch .is .1 variety ot mutually exclusive theories have been proposed, contested, modified and dropped (some to be revived again decades later). None of them has been able to withstand criticism There seems to hutvir been a lack ol agreement on the methods to be used anil what phenomena were or were not suitable tor use as evidence in the investigations  These problems incline one to serious doubts about the viability ot the methods used and indeed about the knowability of the location of the area where the Slav languages devel? oped A Warsaw linguist, llann.i I'opowska-Taborska, has reccntlv conducted a study of the various theories which have been presented and discussed over the past century or so \s tin result ot her survey, she lound all of these suggestions wanting, and decided that we are not able to determine the origin of the Slav languages. She concluded her survey ol the search tor the location of this territory in which tlu v ommon Slavic language functioned ill J very despairing tone:
after many decades of investigations and debate on the prehistory of the Slavs modem linguists hare eame almost 11 the same time to three extremely different theories which derive the ancestors of the Slavs: ■ I^^^U
a from the region to the west of the middle Dniepr,
• from the area between the Oder and Vistula nirrs,
• from the territory to the south of the Carpathians, in the Danube valley Can the matter <if the stnd\ •>/ ethnogenesis really be so hopelessi"
The matter is not completely hopeless: at least earlier suggestions based on tlu linguistic evidence, hi uiging the Slavs from the Near East or further afield,havi
now been
,,,„ ihe mam pi
.J. At least the area of search has been narrowed doWn t() ea where thc Slavs are present today.
ted fn the light of thc concept ment.oncd earher that somc v have reached their present location in the \c,,|lt(
,  f Spread of the Slav languages to cover the v,1St arc' •ad the Hniepr may have taken place several thousand vca" between the Oder     ^ ^problem of explaining thc expansion ,,t t|u. M^ ago. Thi* would     kim( groups m thc early medieval period i but would m,,kv
""' jrjans). There arc however considerable Prob|,„u n'i
1.The primary one is the present close similarn\ „r ,|H, Kb other, which, although we do not know much about the nge, is not what one would expect after several thousand „ communities scattered over such a wide area ,\noth :--,.—„, is that we know that within this wade arc, ,,r|,
^cj,Other, which, although we do not know much about the
■hangc, is not what one would expect after several rho,,s lnj .nt w communities scattered over such a wide area. Another 'this argument is that we know that within this wide .r •., other ,nd went without having a perceptible localized  ffcci on the eas affected. These two factors sugg, ^ in their preseni torm is a relative!) recent phenomenon |'t rhfehoccurred in the more recent past it may be suggested rh „ Bctraceinthearchaeological and historical record ot t|u. proce^ wecanlinus^ ^ linguistic changes were related and which ,„,,.
T^rhe ebnguages may have spread iron, an original .„„ ,. . eXP  I?    ,, tart with the evidence from areas and times when we know that Iready in a territory. The search would start on the Danube at , the written sources tell us that the Sklnrmm settled m t|,ls
I ,.,i,T
language Slav long" the Slavic this
we s.i
>iav9------ .   vrjttCn sources icu ^ ------- ........
Ut thc time when tne        ^ Emplrc. Sjmi|ar material culture was
tea and began to raid t        ^ ^ n a |aKr tiak. Wc may also look
u5ed by «"«etS,av* * ,;;..dence suggests that Slav languages were spoken at an in the area where ^tm^, the Ukraine and other arc as w here Wc
early date ™<h *s M°J  ,*'S|av settlement. By examining the archacolog,, 1 fh"C if*, these areas the Early Slavs arc represented ., rchaeol
looktnc material.
•g-
----tacal
se areas u« ■...... represented archaeolo
f very unpromising-looking material. ical|ybyalimlteara.iB^^ mBteria| cujtUrc found in excavations are ur.h-Most of the remains^ ^ unprepossessing in character. Unlike the urun, small "f"^ „, ,his area, they used very few metal ornaments m.„„nty of earlier p ^ ^ ^ ^ of s|av culrurc conilsls ()t handmade and Most ot nW materia ^ t restricted range of forms. This material, wh
bonfire-fired gn«y P^J* ^ ()f the ^^y Q( the Przcworsk, Wielbark a.
..... „etv 0{ a restricted range or tortus. . ms material, when
? fine fabrics of the po«ery of the Przcworsk, Wielbark and -I has an extremely •home-made' look. The dominant :ultu   '  . t.-„,ic- Sl.iv culture comprises medium-si?^
has an extremely nomc-mauc iuuis. mc uominant
S' hase of Early Slav culrurc comprises medium-sized
ifffLntiated profile the assemblages of so-called 'Prague
u»rv stronely with the various shapes and pre-these contrast very suoiibij r Fic-
fh      h °f pottery °ftnc Prcvlous Pcnod- °n tne maioritv
of thc sites excavated, this pottery and animal bones are thc main material found. It is unsurprising therefore that thc study of thc Early Slavs (like that of somc other prehistoric peoples) has by default to be a study in pottery typology. We should not however forget that the pottery was primarily a functional item
in a functioning household; thus its typology has significance in thc context of thc function and symbolism ot the vessel form and decoration (ortack of cither).
Slav settlement sites contain one other element which is characteristic: small square sunken-floored huts with internal ovens (Fig. 9). These are especially characteristic of the earliest phases of Slav culture and disappear .is a characteristic building lorui in about the eighth 01 ninth century. These huts are sunken into the ground about halt a metre to a metre lor sometimes morel and had wooden walls supporting a pitched roof. Thc stone-built ovens are especially characteristic and were situated 111 the corner furthest from thc door - often this meant that thev were on the noith (cold) side of the hut. These huts probably did not have a long life; thc building material was usually pine which has a relatively short lite in thc damp soil, and many of these huts were probably abandoned after about ten to lifteen years of use (few show signs of major repairs). I he tamiU may then have built another hut nearby, or moved to a new settlement site. Only a few people could live in any one hut, and probably extended families had several huts situated close to another. Settlements contain few other features. 1
Burials are rare the ratio 111 the Ukraine in thc sixth to eighth centuries would seem to be about six burial sites to every hundred known settlements; in Poland at thc same time the figures are similar. They are usually simple urned cremations in small flat cemeteries or (rarely) under mounds, though in some areas (for example thc west) other burial rites prevailed (see Chapter 9). None of thc earliest Slav settlements is defended by an earthen rampart. Communally built earth and timber strongholds become increasingly common and characteristic among the Slavs only after thc seventh century and are a prime source of informal ton on settlement and social structure (sec Chapter 5).
Where had these people and the material culture they used come from? Many of the types found in Early Slav assemblages base affinities with earlier materia); thus the typical potterv m.iv be degenerate continuation ot a range of relatively formless handmade vessels found across central Europe and in the Ukraine (Przcworsk, c hertuakhovo and Kievan Cultures). Thc sunken-floored huts are also found in .1 more restricted area i mamly in the Cherniakhuvo Culture zone). They take on a more specific character and occur consistently together only in the fifth century in a few restricted zones of eastern Europe.
There have been a great number of theories based on an amalgamation of the archaeological, historical and linguistic evidence accounting for the origins of the Slav languages uid the peoples who spoke them. It is not the aim ot this chapter to recount all of these theories, their archaeological and linguistic
jtoric.il condition* under which some were created and >jtOtyi»*nwdnBtm8 complex one, .is various stmi|. h each other to find the ear test ay assemblages to priHf niory („^0 their own country) that one should seek SlaM Unfortunately there is space here only for ,|,c utiinc containing basic information about the m„N
heorJes « hich has had an important effect on t he u ,lv Wt
lavs was I. Borkovsky's suggestion that certain features „| •ry he identified suggested that they had an oriK,„ .ir,,,,,,' ,c Bohemian basin. This theory angered the \ ,„,!„,/
• of Bohemia and Moravia aiid his book yy.is ,,„,„ W|(L] fact that his theory was seen as anti-German was ,„u.
culture attained an early popularity.1* Soviet ar.haei.lc ikhovo Culture itself \Vas
■al reflection of the Proto-Slavs. This « ,s the prop,lsltU)n published a short article in which he linked it to the series ,< 'Antiquities of the Antes and attributed both to t(u. he archaeological distribution oi both coincided with >f the territory inhabited by the Antes. The association he t.herniakhovo Culture was enthusiastically ulvocat ,   Ru$Sian archaeologists P. N. Tretiakoi and M | mberof Ukrainian archaeologists. This required thecxten-jnonov.an a       r^^^e t0 the seventh century \i> o(the      77lic'origin  >t 'he Slavs in this area was revived by |rcna ' (he Slavs a respectable fifth-century cthnogenesis in the Polcsie ( SSR. To serve that purpose she renamed Borkovsky's fn her the 'Prague-Korchak' type) and used sues exca-
• i to establish an archaeological basis for a 'true' Early nee of early sites in the Polcsie region is also supported h.uologisrs on the evidence of the site at Ostrov near ootterr of Korchak type (though with ceramic traits
i more bicomcal form and stabbed /.ones below
ini.in
r to northern sues such as a
square huts metal obtect!
with corner hearths and Late
s - proposed lirst by Tretiakov - identified popular UOpcr Dniepr region in the northern forest
the mi ^ ^ archaeological manifestation of
Belarussian ^ immediarely before their expansion.-' ations in onccption that the Iron Age Zarubincts
" el ■   The Kiev Culture was recognized only at
tnu^Sgm"'^ of the 1960s mainly by the work of V. N.
Danilenko. It seems to have been derived from the Zarubineti Culture of the Iron Age. Kiev assemblages arc characterized by a series of handmade pottery
vessels tending towards a baggy form, but yvith a predominance of vessels wirh a weak but sharp shoulder well below the rim. l-'l.n round clay plates were presumably used to hake on. Metal obiects include a variety representing influences from the C.hermakhoy o l ulturi as well as the forest /.one. The most interesting feature is however the use ol square sunken tloored huts with internal hearths in the corner, reminiscent ot those which appear in Early Slav settlements a century or so later t.r.ms consist oi l.ugi pus in which pottery and burnt bones are mixed with ashes and earth     The culture arose in the third century and lasted probabK into [In huh In the ntth centurv, in the place of the Kiev Culture, the Kolochin Culture develops: some scholars (for example Michal Part zewski), on the grounds ol similarity ot the archaeological material with E irly Slav cultures, identify both as Proto-Slav. Although the Kiev Culture is situated in an area of old Baltic hydronvms, its possible role in the formation of the Slavs cannot be ruled out. f^^H
Another proposition saw the material culture of the Slavs as deriving in a wider /.one. linking it yviih developments in the latest phase of the Przeworsk Culture (occupying roughly the area of modern Poland). This was the proposition of the Polish archaeologist |o/ef Kostrzcwskl, as mush based on archaeological considerations as on patriotic lor rather anti-Nazi) ones, but it was also taken up by several Simei scientists such as Valentin Scdov and Irena Rusanova.;'' This had the consequence of identifying the Bronze and Iron Age Lusatian Culture of the area between the Oder and Vistula rivers as the ProtO-Slavs, a position yehementb defended by the great Polish archaeologists of the Poznah school. kiostr/cssski. Konr.ul ja/.dzewski and Witold Hcnsel. We will examine this idea further in the next chapter yvhen discussing the so-called northern tradition'.
Another interesting idea was proposed in the 1950s, when Yugoslavian historians and linguists proposed a concept of a Slav homeland in Pannonia. They says Prague type pottery as developing there trom 'Dacian1 pottery. The Slovenian archaeologist Josip Korosec criticized the Soviet attempts to find a Slav homeland in the Soviet Union (and the inability in the 1950s to find there material of Slav type which could be dated as earlier than the Prague-type pottery).-' Tins, interpretation ot course yvas closely related to the tenor of Soviet-Yugoslav relations of the late 1950s. There were other Yugoslav archaeologists however who could find nothing 111 the material culture of the awi which should date earlier than the sixth century.
New ideas were introduced in the late ty-osand early 1980s in Ukraine, with Volodymyr IV B.uan switching the emphasis from Polcsie to the CarpataSiai foothills ol the upper Dniestr and upper Prut region, where it has been claimet that the Early Slav material culture crystallized in the fifth century amonj
I
Irimatc Cherntakhovo Culture material.1' H3I with "M l|strs i i, ..„ adopted by the Cracow sclml.irs ,, Sit* hi'""'1-"1 Jr ■ u Michul Pure/cwski "' It was m this Jlowski and h's suecific cultural zone had developed,
at in thc Roman pi u|,Jcr earthen mounds, though these ,y ■ princip-11 0 ' |^aW (lfrh century) contain potters ,,u| rhans (mid ,h,ri rhertUakhovoCulture(Mapn I xc.iv.iin,n,, Othose m use IIIit e w prodiice evidence from tin- tills
Kodynanil Kaslv"^ |n(,t|utthc earliest Slav potters in
, sunke"'1"""' ^ " * wnce|.made pottery but also with the use ^contemporary ^      (|)is pottcr,, some of the catlicsi ,!,.„
JCOOVO tibul.it,    • ^ seems to be tilth lemurs
v JinJ' ,ni'   .   (jink (,| the eastern (. arpatlnans done th, U   Bur (Boh) with similar Inn itterv ret.in J Southern    ^^^^^ element ot these assemblages ,s
pl" ?.r»i«u'o,ij pr"hlt',rhc p,,,t.ry aTmblLaBcs
y, vessels 01 |iu) mct|iunl-si/.ecl vessels vsith,,,,,
,i-nttheT m0"0,°' fjre.fired at relatively loss temperatures dm.ide an v occur round ceramic plates, prob.ibIs used csscls (Kcasiona ' ^ Another characteristic trait ot tins """"l^fliTred huts with corner ovens o. stone 1l„ „( , ,„ re*" I the sites on the Carpathian flanks has produced fl i Vurv metalwork. some of it associated with l-.arls i fifth-"" . in the forest-steppe ziiik m in irea
these a>s<M    • ^      |)n t,u. ,,,,, the rn fringe ot
,| 0( ultimate ^ ^ occup,ed by the I Inns,
akhovoarc.        ^  ^ c|aimcj ,,,„„ Moldavia
•mlar early Dnicstr This has been named tin ( ostis,,
downtD ^ handmade wares which can be found
group, CO ^ ^ ^ of vcr>. beginning ot tin sixth
""Un' "■! tV 1 Tinsel, near Kishinev in Moldosa, a hron/e these sites ^ Hunnic contexts and dated to the
it-Brigeno typ
,it
«,« associated with similar pottery.
redout that further to the southeast there arc a number ..tirta ms I 1     .    nniry sj(es along the north bank ot the Danube (in itt   ■     in Ii are chronologically comparable svith and ot a sinn-m "h     tcrial from the western Ukraine. These include a late m Í', H   ciituřv settlement at C.ircsanu (Prahová district). A late ťJr/    h   ith bent stem was found at Dragoslovcni, in a sunken -    k       these artefacts were associated with handmade pottery .        Some of the graves in the famous Sdr.ua Monteoru '    fits I   and bell buckles ol late fourth- and early fifth-century
ast before soo after a period of .if there is a total break in settlement pattern in the area,
The archaeological evidence from several ol these areas seems to suggest a relationship between the rise ot this tvpc of material culture and changes which occurred in the Chcrniakhovo Culture as a result of the Hun invasions of c. 375-400, thc rise ol I luu prestige uul power, and then thc collapse ol \tulas hegemony in the 4 tos I hesc siormv events set thc scene tor the rise of a recognizable Slav material culture and the- crystallization of an identifiable Slav cultural identity. It would seem that these changes also were responsible tor initiating its spread, and likely that later westward expansion of the victorious Huns was accompanied bs arrival of the first Slav-speaking settlers in thc Danube region. This 1. pi mi inlv suggested bs the spread of material culture of the types discussed (which is at a later date relatively firmly associated with the Slavs). We have seen that there is one slmht piece of unexpected literary evidence in support of this hypothesis: some of thc participants at Attila's funeral are reported to have used thc word sfr.jr.j tor the funeral least, and this has been claimed at ft Slavic term (is indeed it may well have been). The crystallization of a Slav identity is clearly a process occurring on thc eastern and southeastern fringes of the Hun hegemony, and Slav warriors may have partaken ot the Huns ol Hun victories and taken opportunities created by their collapse It may have been as part of 1 Inn hordes that the methods ol lighting ol the Slavs underwent transformation, they mav well have placed more emphasis on fighting on horseback than hitherto, making them a more mobile and faster-moving fighting force." Tn» influence of the nomadic hegemonies < >| eastern Europe in thc formation of Slav speaking groups should perhaps not be underestimated."
Thc apparently fairly sudden appearance of a relatively uniform material culture in thc fifth century after the collapse of the classic.il 1 herutakhovo C ultiire (together with its subsequent spread into areas of centi il 1 uropc where we know from written sources that Slavs were penetrating) suggests that we cap sec here a material reflection of thc appearance of Slav lelf-idcntificacion, The Slavs had presumably pn s imisls inhabited at least some ot these areas alongside communities of other linguistic and ethnic affinities, and they were to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the old order. H Two processes seem to have been involved in this initial phase ol the crystallization ol Slav identity and expansion of their culture. It is not clear to whai extern the rapid spread ot tins culture icross the area was due to migration; certainly there is Utth evidence ot rapid depopulation in the areas suggested ai Slav homelands' bearing in mind the demographic problems caused by a-simplistic migrationist tin ors, .1 second mechanism would seem to have operated This would be a process of accretion, thc initial small groups oi Slav-speaker being augmented tor various reasons by newcomers from other local popula tions who then adopted thc identities and mores of the new group (a 'created
,   .   - identity). Whether or not at the moment of rial culture these people were all Sl.iv-spi-.ik,„K ,s hi rhe end of the period under consideration dialects been adopted by most of those professing these
were simpler than those of the fourth and c.irK fifth .-ontrast to those of many of the Late Roman prr,„j ilicjty of the more spartan and egalitarian culture „f ,pes however clearly had something attiacnw- tl,r ilation over considerable areas of central |-iirope tstgerniA'ien and rhe users of the culture of the Early .elusive rones. For most of the fifth to eighth ccn-j of contact between these two completely dut, r,,H outright hostility between for example Upidy anJ
2
Expansion and Assimilation: the Sixth Century
The first stages ot the development ol the Early Slavs in central and eastern Europe arc among the most important in the process of the historical and cultural development ol this area, and yet the written sources arc unevenly spread both geographically and chronologically, while the archaeological evidence t» even more difficult to interpret. In particular, the dating of the Early Slav settlements in this area is a most dillicult problem, as there arc few chronological 'fixed points' Some previous attempts at producing a chronology have it seems involved a certain degree of assumption and wishful thinking. Recent changes in the way that the dating of the early material has been seen (particularly as a result of a more critical approach to the soutces and a more widespread use of dendrochronology I allow us to attempt to examine the development of the situation following the crystallization ot the Early Slavs in three main chronological stages. Two main types ot evidence may be used here. The evidence from written sources gives us a lot of information on the events and phenomena affecting the area along the Danube (both inside and outside ot the Roman and Byzantine frontier), a picture which the archaeological evidence neatly supports. Further from the frontier we arc much more reliant on the archaeological evidence to construct a picture of the societies we are studying (and we should result the temptation to extrapolate the data irom the written sources beyond the area to which they arc applicable).
We have seen that the linguistic csidencc strongly suggests that the Slav languages and a Slav identity formed in a restricted area from where they seem to have spread over wide areas of Europe. The process of this expansion is still poorly understood It is difficult to explain how it is possible that a relatively small number ot Sl.n speaking settlers from the east were able in a comparatively short time itwo centuries) not only to take over a very large area of central Europe but also apparently effectively to vsipe out most preexisting cultural, linguistic and ethnic divisions in the area and overlay it with their own ma ten-ally unimpressive pan-Slavic culture.
In the past, migration ol populations yvas the preferred explanation ot man) changes in the archaeological material; now the scholar would be more incline* to demand an explanation of migration. The movement of families and all thel; goods, livestock, seed for the next year and food for the tourney was not a dcci sum which would hay e been taken lightly and wc are ignorant of the reasons foi
mtoi this process This explanation of the sprc.nl,,, ,h , ^considerable demographic problems. Thl r.„C(^'"'»...
,nil .he new ttmtonc, with descendants of , ,„,,„ „ ^"c uatterhow the figures are calculated, is biologic,||» ,,„ ] 'P"p-
Jtate(( ,h.it there il no evidence that there was «li„|, v |^"""h|'" 'l .rfAe territories claimed as the homeland o/ the Slav s „| tn D°Pu-
•Creole folk movements. The settlement of new |.„uk ,n "* Pcf|"d crfWfM he thought of" thc rcsulr "' '1 P°wcrhil ' S,,,v»
into new rerntor.es It was probably a long-term pr(>c Pcop,e uny decides. The concept of mass migration should 1,"* talt'n* („„„,s of sin.ill-se.ili: movements of rhe 'wave ,,f Uh (|| ' M'Pplc-,r,,wth of the veins m blue cheese), the cumulanv e clfeet" "">'''', doftnne-1" 'ne absence of restricting (actors |t..,js ^ ° Wn'ch the ..tea inhabited by thc group as a u hoi, a 8cncra|
ifc solution IS to hypothcsi/c that there may imc |Utn . ^ ^ f this area which was e$| rone to accepting. ,„ l'1'|P",J"n
Iturc and was thus assimilated into rhe new ,„', C
trope, it may even have ahead) been in r.,rt SI.,.   ,,' 3r<*5 Ic.irlv able to lh-orh individuals from other pop,,!,,,,,'^ ' T|,e nn, rs* /- speclfic.illv noted in tin East Roman written sources Nv,trl ir''o the DaiHil'iiii Slavs   The analysis of Slav material culture   S(H w ZS|V" South Sla*^. and .esult> of some anthropological investigations   ,s' <>f r»fcoi«hfoaJesserexfentlthelo.inwl>rd.s in philological studies. jt|[KS ]Vc'" •"■
'   '......"id cultural contribution of the nr,-', ' 'tni"""
^ v,OUsPoPl,.
(thougntoalesserex-ent t ,(>ntnbut,ori of thc pr ,,nus popy
orate******1"" rhe make-up of some of the Slav population,
lations of the« »«ritori"'nwhLat ex,cni ,he archacologiv til) visible decline of I clear precisely to -DSCofthcGcriTtanic-t\pc mate rial cu
neof ire
.... ,„sortnc»'"-       EoWhatexteni me .....
it ,s not clear pnxisei) to|i;,psc ofthe Germamc-t) pe materia!, ultU|
.dentifilblematerta" ra"K'"^hern areas ol central Europe represents near-tot, ,n,he fifth century in t»e k [|vmg jn ,he central European lore
depopulation. Perhaps-here^^^ ^ ^ ucniU.(,lnm,aM>> „      who ^
zone who are extremely of depopulation could lead to social
rest were
I difficult to detect aic».is.....h-............ ,,u v
-one who are cremen Jcgrec of ^population could lead tos„,,aland
they? ItiS P05*^ iJ,,anCnturn disrupts social organi/atioti. and lunns the pr(). economicColUp« whic 1" . sucn as craftsman-niadc potters. t,„e mctal-jucnon and acquisition o to I Germ.inic halls.' The disappearance of
work and thc use of I for examp of ,hc „riRIIM| population from
traits need not mea ..,...„ u ,,t ,-hanßed and was no loncer k......
■   ■ ---Ml
Work ai.u -     ' the J.snppe.ir.mce ot tnc original population from
these traits need tlOl h ,j ,h.inged and was no longer being
this area, simply th.it tne n»   ^ |S equally possible that a Germanic elite left the "^"""j""    'or another, the population left behind preferred l '"'"iters of Germanic t) pe. Perhaps we arc seeing an expres-look on the collapse of thc old social order, in which With its extensive use of prestige goods and compcti-
not to use cul
^Gennanic'style zone with
"<tvle zone with us extensive- use „. ,......*- o compcti-
*2JSSJK by a styleless and more egalitarian material culture/
Phase
i: c. 500-550
It, western European archaeology the Migration period of the fifth and early sixth centime s is the time of thc migration of barbarian tribes into the decaying
Roman Empire. In the c ise of central Europe however it would be more appropriate to talk ot two migration periods. The first lasts from thc last decades of the fourth ccnturv and first half of the fifth, and is represented by a general thinning and disappearance of evidence for occupation of vast temiOtte*'bj Germanic tribes li sonic areas there is a phase connected with the presena of the Huns. I he second migration period in central Europe is thc appearand ot material culture which seems to represent the Early Slavs. The preci* chronological relationship between thc two phenomena in different region; (and in particular the length ol a hiatus between them) has not yet bee established. '''Ji^^^^^l The first stage of the process of thc lateral extension of Slav culture may h considered as shown by the extent of the earliest Korchak-tspe pottery an small square sunken Moored buildings The extent ot Slav settlement in thc carl sixth century is shown in Map 11, from which it can be seen that thc spread of thi culture went in four directions: J^^^^^^l
• along the cast flank of thc Carpathians (through Moldavia and cast Romanii towards the Danube plain and llalkans -^^^H
• along the north flank of the western Carpathians (through southern Poland
• along thc south flank of the western Carpathians - w est Slovakia and Morav to Bohemia and through to Polabia . towards the middle Danube and Elbe
• eastwards into the Ukraine. ^d^^^^^l We shall consider each ot tlu si areas in turn below. I fa
There arc two alternative models ot the appearance of the Slavs OH t Danube plain opposite the northern frontiers [limes] of the Balkan provinces thc East Roman Empire. The tirst is that this is one of thc primary areas of cr tallizationofthcSlavcultur.il identity marked b\ the presence of late fifth-a early sixth-century settlements, sugge ; by rhe middle of the su
century th re already settled in this ter 1 I.' The sc.
native is to postulate that thc appearai ibis area
form ol migration or penetration of this arc. •• beginn
ccnturv perhaps 111 part to till the gaps left by depopulation left movements ot other groups which had moved into the Empire. 1 :u most Id direction tor such a movement would be people moving south from the alle core area in western Ukraine and Mol mg the Prut river and nan
plains at the foot of the eastern arc of the Carpathians (through Moldavia east Romania 1 before reaching the plains alongside the lower Danube and I extending along the north bank of the Danube  These population movem
«rtracf the a"
one to occupy the Danubian PU,n. t he fofe***'*PP?, tCi of Costisa-Botosana type. fofl<SS.m»y   thCa*SfThe Danubian Plana at the beginning of thc
l,e,,^nir>th,:',r,;'11      lex. with several strung nroups of
5ln,itl° lXtremely comp ^^(. amonp trH.iri) along the fro„ r> ^"^nobarcls, Gep   ."-u the Slavs arrived here, thc reaction of
, I ■"■!^ imsn1 by wh'c ^ ^ pcrcelvcd some kmd of threat ln C' 'e' !„„e m« sUf,' 'n'mube. The Slavs however did not „
[C bank ol >hl their warlike stance, fro,,
nP1 '„ „1 vvf't<;rS     u folk movements of Slav s took place at th,v clU' '.,tlu"lany        ore as a rclativels i cfulcxpansi ' ', tsisagc ir perhAps m        iQVfiris inc Roman frontiers 1„ ^d ''^j ~,.,5ant f""*" . (nWalachia, Moldav ia and souths el., materia'"11       .mcentrated < lermanic settlement
isuggest that relative stability and peace tasted w-
irJi
ncnt. w the
Slav terrim "an Sc'avenl3,| '""^ the, Ro™" -«"d 1 ast »
i the Danube through several decades oř the sixth ccntun ^
ř-řnl mode of the consolidation of Slav settlement cnumr, C,l'P,r' catly peace' ______i„. .^,1,.        „rm„i......... ,   ,     " Kcd clo^
frontier* on
_plo ,nd the local population winch hastened ,ht |>etwten „,e new pe f    ^ irrlvals, as well as the assimilation .„,d BU of .Kculturatio»0        s popu|.„ion 1 h, ms to have becn
vision of P»rt ot ,hC f^ochthonous populations m.xmg with f„rcign habited b> a mixtur' ° |_rohably its most dynamic element) were thc Slav*, uuoiig vvhichj.il' P'    contributlon of people brought from tlu [h(  llJs «arted tote* ^ d cuhura| make-up of this trea H M ,u„
l,,,c *archaeological evidence of the sixth and "bh considerable, iw qj (h(. ,owcr Danube, m Walachia and
nine* <>l :m ''° r oathtansand the Prut, is thus of particular inr-vHdav.a between the east carp. _
This was thc zone of direst contact between thc South Slavs anj'th,"""' Roman Empire As befits such a situation, thc material culture i„J,
est
mixture of different elements: local archaeologists have identified e| ' which they associate with Slavs, Romanized indigenous populations i Wfn l",s ■stored »as'Dacians'l, and the Greeks of the Hast Roman I-.mpire
The slavs.ire indicated m the jrchaeological record primarily |1V t|u,Ir iincluding vessels reminiscent of Korchak type) and cremation burial ru also by typical buildings of a type previously known from the Ukraine'j*' ^ wnken-floored buildings with corner ovens). It is interesting that u, W'^l" equipped not with stone ovens (as in Uk
tfiese vtructurcs ais i,'j"s
Moldavia) but with a spt for maintaining the beat
sriiic form of clay ovens (with clay trays and d'"6 in the hearth area)."* The indigenous onnuU..** r°"s
indigenous populate
other building types (such as sunk
»s are
"floored
VXO AM,*,
Romanian archaeologists have provisionally identified a number of regit) potters- groups, such as the lpote^ti-(.'andesri-( mrcl Culture." The pod groups ol tin in i tvpicallv contain an intermixture regarded as represent
Slav. 'Romanized indigenous' and last Roman elements '•■ The handmade p tery which represents these Early Slavs on the Danube plain differs from thai Moldavia and is somewhat more variable in style than thc normal Korchak t) of the Ukraine  The 'Romanized indigenous' elements arc represented in fft pottery assemblages In a continuation of some types ol handmade cerar vessels related to thc former Romanized Dacian Culture An especially mtcre mg feature ol these sixth-century pottcrv assemblages is the frequent occurret alongside these handmade wares of wheel-made vessels, thc form of which thought to he related to pros mcial Roman ones ln thc opinion of some schok however this concept requires re-examination, since for example the domim' form on sixth centurv military sites on thc limes was a so-called 'grey gri ware", which is verv rare on sites n..nh of the Danube There arc also morpll logical ditt. rciues, such as the paucity ol handled potv in thc quantity of ecrirt material excav ated on Romanian sites.   1 ast Roman influences are also visit in the form of some ornaments i fibulae, star-shaped earrings) and the preset) of coins, and even amphorae. -t*^^^^^^^^^H This transdanubian /one is of extreme importance to our understanding the Slav phenomenon as a whole 1 he area to thc north of the lower Danube at the Danube delta was an area i it crv stalluation of a Slav identity as much as ti areas turther to the northeast." Here the adoption of a 'Slav' identity by grou ol originally mixed ethnic origin in the face of an us/them' relationship in tl frontier /one Iwith respect both to thc 'Romans' tm one side of thc politic frontier, and to other pre-existing and competing barbarians') was probably kev lactor in the cultural unification of these groups.
Another reason tor thc importance ol this area was that it was here th the Scl.ivcncs tirst come to thc notice of the East Roman and East Rom; chroniclers isuch as Procopiusl which are our mam source of evidence for the activities At this period, the Slav s vv ere hardly noticed by western authors, ar thus the East Roman and Hv / mime sources are our main written source. The
owi v ei by the verv i. i he (.
had about the barbarians with whom they wen confronted. IT becn appreciated bv modern hist. icologisis the icniedby these accounts very much for granted Reccni
these texts has concentrated more on he I a si
thought world and the consequent limitations of thc Greek accounts of tfc Slavs It seems that as elsewhere the last Roman authors had used classic, models to describe these 'others'. An example might be their use of the ten democracy' in this context which is quoted approvingly by some historian1 unaware that it was probably used in a pejorative sense to condemn •'-.
world. I" contra*! to the rigid order i/.UMJof tnc ier\ ol the barbarian „^„„mevw)." Such a situation prompt,
'   4, hicrarchicsl «-i*'l"ca        s ,,„t dnes not negaw their v.il,„. rot.,||v
sine i»r"""   .     .eexclusively egalitarian societies, the v.1r. Ljuti»     ^ ^)r> j,r fro"' tnei   • ^ ^ ^ ^ ( flS| Roman territory niusi have htcn
1 ,    J incursion* »t'11   acr,hip Iscc below ! i°*^ti!dumfer*rjrr,e'onn we may find in llu'st' tcv,s s""u' "'forma.
0^rmith5tand'n8fhKie ^ '«„' discuss.l.g  Hie written sources tell us f,',r whlch*^*u       h   he middle "' l!u s""h centm) "' " Klsl twn ''"i-oled !l" r''';'lCec, Antes Procopius writing in thc early š s-.s i «.;,„ ,t C'       rhrScl." the Sclavenoi and Ann
include* the tnlnni.an*" farfrom 1|S.„.rther.. bank' IV nfo on thc River Istr.i ^ frontier are hovvest .
'' thť arCfl n°t.in< extended round thc Ma* I Sea into rhrace ' In dial tl'- '     ' '", ""7" -en that lordanes, writing about the same time i, tl.W'ehavealrea > *^ ^ sk|avcni inhabited the territory lr..m,ht
TV- Mi'irsian I 'stc' 11'""      "k1 "»rth-
; wn [hc Antes occupied tlu area 'in the curve of «he
m Mr a*1"1' VlS'   ,   n.Mlste. tolheDanapcr|[)nicpr|. rise,, ,h.„ ,r(. ,.''„ '". (Wc'h-ivc discussed, me aspect of this reference in the
)in, javs'journey apart ^ inclined to go turthci m th. location of
' c, inus chapter.) Some sen      • ^ (|u.„. c|jimS( m.I[lu f |he ^
",| materials allow us to define any boundaries to the (» or *e archaw^cti groups.
,reas occupied by tnest t« pcrsistcd, probably owing roth, u role u,,he
' Wl„ 0rlhf h B Ikans that ->t the Antes disapi .....,
^„tual **^Z£* the company o, the As ars m tin......:.,,„
mentioned mostlyrltcrs in their 'ethnographic descriptions mostly 1-astJ |IL. Sclavem i" Jl'iiost all respects is
treat the Antes as equals ot ^   originally shared the name S,.......       ,„llv m
ProCOplUS even tells US t a ltťd ,„ (,u.
jonciousnes! centur). there were frequent raids he both
From the beginning o ^ ByMnIllllll nril(.„,„IIS „. his v(r„
Sclavcni and r\n«es SCtOS (a).s (XV|||.io) that 'the Huns. Scl.nenes.md
History SI a critic'" " I .Jtinjan came to power over the Romans' had Ames almost every yeaf ^ ^ ^ (vm.40, 5) however he s.,vs ,h,„ lne been mounting their arta ••• ^ ^ | whc|) (|u.v wm. K. m.n b;uk |n ^ Aims att.ulscd in the reign* , member of the imperial tanuly and
j.cisivc and bloody lK"'^ |n Thrace The Slav raids intensified in
(he comtnandei "' ■' ' . | iU|tinian from the 5 ?os. lustmian's reign was ireiiurinyaiid scale'"^J ^lur/ expeditions to restore the frontiers of lne
former West Roman F.mpirc, and it would seem that this meviiablv It the northern frontiers poorly manned. Hardly a year went bs in t without a major raid of thc Slavs sometimes together with other pcoj
raids were to reach far into imperial territory, In jji a new cr C.hilbudius. was appointed on thc Thracian section ot thc frontier, thrcc-ycar term of office he not onlv halted the raids ol the 'Finns. Scl. Antes' but carried out attacks on their homelands. It was in one of that he met .1 larger Sclavenc army rhan expected and was killed. At Procopius. ilus ss i-. tin beginning of the failure to prevent massed raj peoples (W«ir.< vu.14 1-36)." In 540 there was also a devastating Kutrigtirs, a Hunnic tribe.
Procopius gives us iVi'./r., VII.40, i-X) an interesting account ot th( the Sclavcncs in c so when |uMinian\ cousin (Icrmanus was scrting the Ostrogoths Thc Sclavcncs crossed the Danube and were h Ibessalonic .1, bin ss hen the I niperoi he ird this he called oil the attac troops to eh lend the threatened .irea W hen the Sclavcncs heard that [who was well known to them as thc commander who had decimate three decades earlier) was at Serdika Sophia), they decided tocroit mountains to raid 1 i.ilni.itia (icrmanus therefore decided that til were not such a great threat to t onstantinople's interests in the Balk; about to recommence Ins march to Italv but died. These events hos interest 111 that there is a strong suspicion thai the Sclavcne attack Wl by lotila, king ol the Ostrogoths. 111 order to delay the Roman attac would he clear evidence ot contact between a western leader and th and this was the context o| |ordanes's text, written on thc eve of the defeat by Justinian's general, Narscs ^f^ffl
While East Roman writers paint the Sclavcncs and Antes with oni also tell us ol inter group conflicts We hear ot one of these events (Procopius, W'jrs Vll.i;, i4-s.iv 36) when the Antes were at « Sclavenes. Soon after this we learn that lustinian offered the Ann Turns, an abandoned fort w hu h had been founded In 1 rajan on thi the Danube, and the lands around it with thc payment of a large would be imperial allies 1 he site concerned is perhaps today's tov Magureli at the coiilliienci of the Oh and Danube. I he Antes were a base to protect tins portion of the frontier against 'Flun' attacks It cannot be ruled out that the 11111 ol t onstanlinople was to teviv between the Sdavents and Antes which had |ust previously been t is the context of thc 'phoney LhilhudiuV story reported by Procop man Ironi the Antes whom they wished to have appointed as a Ro cunm.indi 1 to le.ul them ami thes tried to trick thc Romans into I this was thc real Chilhudius." Flu Antes appear to have mai alliance ssith (. onstanlinople tor several decades until i-oi. Inde'
i Ostrogoths in L
""ma (War*
c-ral barbarian incursions: before the th and Ostrogoth hordes By now the most visible in the impoverishment 0f Hirn»-' <lMC '"Tlflced natural disasters: in sai according
werC hit by a plague spreading frorn fc^datCorinth would seem to be a trace o, lrm .,rtlu|uakcs levelled Corinth and other aJ,a. ^   'dence shows that in Athens and (.'ormth .IgeOioR'-41       , jisrnantled and houses and flour and rc »bandonet 'in^i(Ulsl>. ,|H. towns were becoming more t in their rums- ^ monumental buildings cease tu
... B^hT»w,th,°    to have escaped these processes K,,,,,^,.
-i seem> ^ „ungthe depositions „f an
' i rouble n^1"*!! Balkans in the sixth ind    ,-cnth ccntm , ..thoards«n'"J unJcrtook tl
^ the Slav threat. ' s    j.^ „un) 0I the Danuhian torts and
,icrs of the empire- ^ m JJ0S_ Vcr) ,1>VA |(,ns„nthc
',nc, This «°°k P'aC o| vvork done m lustuuan's reign ,-\ ,tlkK tfdonotexhibtt'^6 iri(iJ irou|K, ,he <<os coincide* with ao itaDOOStrateS that ^ons{ratcd |,y the complete disappearance urc' ol the frontier,11 , ,hc Danube river in contrast to the
„reachingb*r0» ^ii>lno ,he reigns of Anastasius and |ustin t|0f
xpcnsive defence system -
the two banks. nn> <--m-....... vwm
Buildings - was however onh partis successful ,„ P,USr    and the standing imperial arms  was relatively
----"-ÍLsmall mobile Slav fighting forces. |ust„„.m\ C(lun.
oajlngwiwtne    ^ ^ ^ ttu r i)( m.lk„u. lht. sllv ruú^
awevcr were <ii „111f„|v to the task w huh now fj
,„|y to have the ettect oi ma mm,; me si.lv raiuin-
nore adequately to the task w Inch mm faced them yisting and building new forts in the interior of the . ar important passes through the Balkan nioUntaini irge number of small to medium fortified sues all over cem to have been occupied for a brief period during thv ind lir>t two decades of the seventh century. Procnpm, 1 Greece who had been turned into 'makeshift soldiers' Justinian had made the defences so continuous in thc ither has been converted into a stronghold or ||ts ,1u|
.  .1----«»• »f»ic nr„b ihlv r_f„___
uns. Hrom
or lies ad|a-
though this probably refers more into the Balkans, xpansion by thc Slavs was along one of earliest sites in Moldavia,
thc cluster of carlv sites ot 1 irb Slav material extends westwards
north flank ot the ( lrpathians, through southern Poland.:' 1 he e.\ (thc Mogila group - or 'phase'), probably early sixth century, are situ
southeast part ol the country, in the region of I r.icow. The sires mclu (Nowa Huta - Mogila i. •' Bachore and several others At thc momer relatively few sues ol the Mogila (iroup known. It is characterized hi iar square sunken tloored huts with corner ovens, but, unlike th Culture further east, no certain cemeteries are known. The pottery tall and slim in shape, though in later phases tending towards a squ This Mogila group seems closely related to the Korchak ( ulture (am blc that in future it may be amalgamated with it). The dale of the fc thc Mogila group is unclear. It would seem to date to after the •Germanic cultures in southeast Poland (end of thc fourth century O of thc fifth century).-'1 but betöre the date of thc metalwork hoard foi in pit as at the Mogila site: this is an important find because it alä beginning of the later phase of the Mogila group lit) which thc vessel mem ! to the end ot the sixth and beginning of the seventh century (I
An important \\ ritten sour, e referring to this period reports thOil the I Kruh m sn (Procopius, Wars vi i s. 1-4). This German trii defeated 111 battle by the I ongobaids and split into two groups, onet tied 111 IIIvr 1.1. the second under the leadership ot manv men of passed through the territory of all of the Sclavenes", and after passu large area described as being completely deserted reached thc ten Varnians (probably somewhere in thc middle Elbe valley) befc Denmark en route to Thüle (Scandinavian This reference has been vide evidence of thc rate of Slav expansion along the Oder route, at area is though! to be Silesia 1 his reference is however difficult and it would seem unworthy ot thc reliance that some scholar* on 'É^^^^M
A particularly interesting phenomenon 1 k c uring at ihis time in \ ritory beyond thc frontiers ot Germanic and Slav settlement is tr Olsztyn Culture (German XUzurgernunische. kultur). This is repi series ot cemeteries in the Ols/tyn region of northern Poland app second halt ot the tilth century but undergoing substantial changl the middle of the sistli century and lasting to thc mid seventh a later graves contain metal ohiccts with allinities in southern ce including types related to so-called slav fibulae from thc lower I 1 see below I. and it has been suggested thai thev represent a gK ethnicity but retaining close contacts with German u but ilso Slave south One site has produced pottery which its excavator feels is S Another interesting phenomenon concerning north-south 1 r>ta of East Roman gold solidi to thc southci 11 iltic. wher
> movement amu«s nr*'Xemunrit lism 'nv0 Vc't.ourtn century and increased m the pefloj
iin** '*,C lv rcrmmaJed.'" Some investigators have P"*1 l,    terveningarea by the Slavs cuttitiKtift
j/ZOB WO fl^ting fact is that the se gold coins Jitj 1*"*% Trhc jrchaeological evidi      .veins to »ugReM
,',VC** k North European Plain and forest /.one) had a»» (Jt''•"^ Roman gold.lt is inter,    ng that the East
,nt'or> ft the Avars with tribute (from the 560,
',. .., 1,1 ,or tt'em m
.casured their'wealth'hv
.an Mo(t,U group « unknown. It seems not unrea-
teroextentofih^^'l;   ^ w>uth o( ,hc ( arpath.ans ,„ the with th« cluster we3t Slovakia I. Some scholar*
„j Hron valleys e^^ ,r,,nl fl northwestw.ud movement
an) have seen this a     ^ ^ ^ ()j t(u. ,r,,n ls rc|aIlve|y
putabe pla,n' hU' f sliv settlement in the area after the 66o» ettlement. and "*r~ery 0( the Moravian sites consists ofU|| ffaW»»'ThcCJ 1 -roup and having analogies in the Korchak ,those of the ^°8' * h|ujjng squat vessels characteristic of the jtramc (but also in ^ ^ ^ pottery is also associated with ncMo&bP0^ ' t> wl,h corner ovens and flat cremation ken-fli>orcd bui '"^h somc h.,vc claimed that these sites may ^^bunals- p Jelinkova dates the earliest pottery in
,hc laic BfUl ctnT^[y rnc m,ddle to second half."' The eariiest sixth century. Pf" ^ km w tnc northwest .from which ^ Bohemian^        CuIn|(e, secms on the whole to be typo-
,anthe Moravian "M"f"^ni;ltlon concerning the expansion east-^Wt^wy V.C|jkra,ne from the area where the Korchak fceastw*"1* in 1 eTelcfCV near Zhitomirl first appears perhaps Ijiterasitcon 1 e      ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Mx[h LCntury tnc tfm
century   » jcj over large areas ot western Ukraine to
y these groups ex an(1 the somewhat later Ripmevi :
ceast. The vi^"   ^ ^ above the floodpl.ims of risers, and
1 the elongated te • t OI shitting units ot five to ten huts
>f short duratn •    -        building type was a small square
■y occopanon.     e {he corner Small flat cremation
hut with a sl°nc" ,      ,1^, the rule. The pottery formi
a tnA unurncd puriai urncd ano u»u elsewhere in central Europe at this
period (though, the Korchak type is .,1 slightly different form fi from further west, tending to be proportionally taller in respes diameter, and the shoulders of the vessels are perhaps slightly
than in the western poisi
It is in this irea  sec p Ml that some Soviet scholar-, woulc
I'thc bravest ..i these people"), mainly on rhe strength ol |i>rd concerning their 'dwelling in the curve of the Pontian Sea Danaster to the Danapcr, rivers that arc many days' journey a|
|y referring here to the Dnicstr and Dnicpr, but what does "dwt of the Pontian Sea' imply? Do we imagine them as settled aloof, steppes)? This information should be treated with some circun
It is possible that in somc parts of the Ukraine there was set northern forest /ones by descendants of the Kic\ t ulturc p< upper and middle Dmcpr taking advantage of the changed K settlement networks arisiui; from the political changes fallows the Gothic state and Elun Empire. These people may have Dnicpr to the south and southeast, and in interaction with ot have in some way been involved in the formation of the groo the Korchak and the subsequent Pcnkovka Cultures ithe Kolochin Gulture is discussed below).
The precise length ot this tirst phas. of expansion of Slavcu determine: the effects visible on Map II could have been the rt .1 century ot expansion, or as little • irs. Although th modest, the areas of Slav settlement shown cover several thoi metres and with a population density of several per square It a considerable increase of population. We may suspect how this was due in the first instance to the movement of Slav fan tcr life (perhaps on the principle that 'the other man's grass I rather than military expansion. It would seem however that tant phenomenon was also the assimilation of populations rot a process is hinted at by the written sources .see above, p. $ Slavs' eventual acceptance into theit ranks ol prisoner*. One ever w he the r some successful w arrior bands formed in these; been gatheringfollowers.lt this period \-f
Phase 2: c. 550-600
The expansion of the area of Slav set by the end of which we see signs of?: stabilization of social organization. 1 ningof the process ot the shaping of 1
is former concentration )n (|u. U) ,cr into the forest /one ot central m.t S'CPpC
cut.
,h.,se, the main source ot information is ,h 1°0eK 40 Here, «« *' hover most of the area retained the broad eharac-^"f ' 0| the potters. whlC 1 | ^par, tr(,m this, the other material c
^    of the K°rcnfl,t'type jrlcabl) consistent across the whole an., tr.
■rtd   further consolidation of sl.n settlement in ,hc P°!v „b '^"l orthofthe Danube has be.
'CCn -died 'second wave' ol s       ttl. in, nt formed by , m\3 ,< evulciis. l,f'1'0"ta.entra| Ukraine isvbich some has, linked with Jhe
1    i„cn sources). In the mid sixth century the e.,r|lcr ,.:i        t,u' Wr,d,-nstl>a Botosana groups are replaced In material | , |t,jcsti, (-"lurela'io       idl.imncd on the basis ol the excavation oi,,
l p.peh.n
"' ',11 d .stct oi houses in a        y w(th ex,rcmch close ,ti lth ,hf
"   - "   '      (iknine found together with m t ''work of ultimate
I ''. |Cding radiate fibulae, see below) C omparcd w.th ,hc
V    .khuvo type l,nt'U ",„,,1 vulture has a dittcm.t
, , .,„v.ps. most ot the cu,turc w.th fewer tra...... intermixing
l',..M'..,„s are ImkeJ to . ^ as«mblagcs woe initially tak, n to mean that with other popuUnon*.^ caI, b, clearly distinguished from tho«
of the native populat"*" Danube valleys a discrete clustct ol 5)tes
In the lower Morava Slovakia and northeastern Austria) pcrhap,
l,vetoP»(>n what Is now so ltu, the area had been abandoned hv
i ii,. ol the sixtn ceuiu i i ,   i       , ,
from about the t"'JJI- •<Th,s area was avoided by I ougobards in the
the Germans in thch'thtCbilh|v [rom here in about US thai according ,fl sixth century, but » was P (he cJ(j|cJ Longobard Prince lld.gis (Hildigis) "-ocopius iW'jm v" ,S,,c," and Gepid warriors moved southwards,crossing ,cther with i 8rouP »f "J 0, |ustima,.s Gothic Wars. After about „, the Danube during tin t fc  t|m (S Jue ,„ thl. n.lturc llt thc wrin(n
1 'lttJrfodJor maybe there was really a lull ... Luge scale May fJuls
nl thc pO*- jsi    in on Byzantium at the same time as Persian
rhe Slavs were still pr a„en,K,n and resources from the north-
jreiiionmtheeastwit ^ cConomic troubles of the last Roman Empire frontier* The pol,,Y|uStjnian's successors (s^s-^" vsere marked b\ raids Ingthe ihOfl relgJ"0 i ^ Danub>an frontiers deep into the Balkans, urlunanstrom beyon kjng Am nornads in thc lower Danubian area he arrival of the Tur.c-sPJ ^ SJtuatlon.» The original Avars had been he s6os further      l       hegemony in the area of Mongolia, and after
IXIMSSIC1N JSSO  ASMMIIAIIUN:  »11  » IS III
a spell on the Pontic steppes, with their numbers swollen with otitct (including m all probability some Slavs), m cco-tn they settled 00 t hank ol the Danube, where ihcy absorbed thc Slavs already settled if I ast Romans attempted to enlist the aid ot the nomad Avars to subdue
and other peoples north of the limes in return for payments from Romans to desist from raiding Bvzantium   \s a result, large quar imperial gold ot the period were directed into rhe middle Danube va Carpathian b.ism as tribute (some ot it being redistributed furthe north)." Avar attacks on their neighbours reached .is tar west as Tliur <6i-tl on thc eastern edge ot the Franks' lands. The Avars then involved in a I otigohard-( tepid Conflict and destroyed thc <tcpids: thl peared from history and the Avars occupied their lands. I hey then displ Longobards I who moved into the Roman Empire a tryy decades later take over Italy). The Avars themselves settled m the Carpathian basin I permitted them to settle in Pannoma by treaty in s~ofi),'"The struggles the Slavs and the Avar newcomers oyer the strip of land along th Danubian frontier were blood) and were additionally tuellcd by time-hi East Roman policies ot setting the one side against the other.
In 1-X the Ay.irs were asked by Justin It to attack thc Slav< Danube frontier who were looting thc Fast Roman territories. 1 allowed to pass through Fast Roman lands and were terncd acre but it was in alleged furthering ol thes< aims that thc Avars also Roman territory and in sKi look Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovtc Gepid hands!. This was the beginning of a series of Avar attacks reach rich towns on the coasts ot the Adriatic, Aegean and Bla. attacks were especially serious in the S'ios. It was in the wake of the East Roman Empire throughout the later sixth and early scv that Slav i udcrs and later settlers penetrated these territories.
Soon after their settlement in Pannoma, and on the basis of tjl accumulating wealth and prestige in battle and as cash pavim Empire, the Ay.irs were soon able to establish a powerful heg Carpathian basin and on the middle Danube, dominating a large t Europe from the eastern Carpathians to thc eastern Alps. As in t Huns in a similar situation earlier, their warrior bands and sen peopled by men and women ol diverse origins, including Slavs ( Uulgarsl In thc areas controlled by thc Avars in the Danube inhabitants were obliged to pay tribute and ptovtdc services forth In return they sverc able to partake of thc fruits of the political Avars. In thc early seventh century in a wide area south of the i Moravia and Slovakia! the archaeological evidence demonstra gence ot a mixed Slav-Avar material culture, suggesting symhioru In particular it seems that elite tashions amonothflrt"
racy." It has been suggested that the Slav l.mKUi, (
In this ethnically mixed zone. This, coupled with', ' *' 1 ,r wide extent, may prove to be one (lfthe t. ^ Of the Slav d.alcc« south        h, Carpal to understand the southern Slav, at least with„u, rpf
,   „„ the Danubtan frontiers and tin Balkan., v\ ,s „d hallol 'the Sixth century It would seem th.„ |n. Slavs (particularly the Sclavenesl had become orgs '
m of military leadership capable of holding large WJr" he names of these leaders were to become wc|| kn,)Vv ' i of the East Roman empire. We ,re told abo "j -scale raids in great detail In l'rou.piUi< ^
these larger
m/ed warrior bands up to three thousand str,>,iB (M)|nc
'^dSe" East Roman Empire). In t47/8 (Procopu.s. \v;(ri,„ c
"M" i t .narmy IttrMeuma) of Viavents which raided Hit, -' Í the raid ol an a    ; _______ ...... ..... n.ri.i
----,111
' > imperial arms could not i>t would n,„ d1 fi^'^f "heronl Wjrs vn.iS.i-i; I'r. puis, descnh.ng h them-A l««le ,ur hi,rr,|v,ng account ol the Sclavene invasions of „f 54'*-5°' he fortified town ol I'opir on the Aegean const
Ihrasc Atuclt",p ' ^rcd the garrison away from the walls where mum. the Slavs firs   ^ ^ ^ (h(. f()Wn proo,pul, %tJJ^ ^
ied in an ainbu>ri- thcy mct. Thc> rcputcdlv murdered t.ttccn ttw»y> slew the en ^ ^ on,y |hc wunKn ,,ul children into ,v,l,ans, men ol W « covercd in corpses which lav unburied on the c whole territory wa.      ^ ^ sworJs nr spc )rs hm by ^
^iJ that thc men w ^ buttocks and erected vertically, or by (j,sokes drive" >e   c   ^ ^ stretched out and tied between
,ut thc head wilh 411 '0tnef!> VVL.ri- burnt alive, shut into their huts fovea into the groun ^ numer()US ,o take hack to the Slav home-and sheep which wen ^ ^ ^ ^ 1|Itrin t(ipuSi s<)mc of
,oftheDanul*- " somc gr0Unding in fact. I he Slav raids were varions probably iauRhter but also the capture oi huge numbers td not onlv bv H»« " • ^ w work or ransomed. 1 here are also ho were either reset^ ^ rAnieo   iuU. , )u.
t),e Slavs making 0 oncr5 takcI, tfon, the Balkan areas after 9 mention that some of th(. r)aml|lc, were accepted into Slav
„ayed.ntlHMerr,ton >^^Mauntc> e^,,^,,,,, xl 4, 4_c). did not return n ^ ^ ^ S(.|avcncs who were preparing for
PCQpiUStelU J»*<> new5 of ,hc proximity ot the imperial
,,n tO Thess3'001 • tnjSaim, and instead crossing all the moun-Gcrmanus thcy gave up (procopiUs, Wars vu.ao. 7). The
Slavs were no! always \ ictorious. we also have letters from Pope ( $99 and 6oo to thc exarchate ol Italy and the Dalmatian Bishop gratulating them on their victories over thc Slavs [Gregoriipj/uc i
tolarům IX.i ya. X.i j)-
|n a couple of digressions iti his book devoted to thc t.othic \X gives us a lot of detail about thc Slavs, those beyond thc impcr
well as those insul. One passage in particular [Wars VII. 14, 11-; |y cited.'" I Ure the author stresses that in contrast to thc East Reno centralized rule but were governed In 'democratic- decisions, graphic excursus' Procopius tells us that all the different groups language 1 lies worshipped pagan gods and spirits (sec Chapter « scattered huts [kalybai, a word which expresses flimsiness) and their place of abode. He describes their attire and weapons, ai 'thev are all tall and especially strong, their skin is not very white is neither blond nor black, but all have reddish hait. They lead 1 rough was of life . and are always covered 111 dirt. Thcy arc ourablc nor spitet'ul, but simple in their ways, like thc Huni account paints a picture ot the Slav'otherness' from thc Bv/an uses wording (such as the kalybat, which could also mean mill gesting a military context tor this information, j
Another account written in 6iK-,H but referring to an eattil been much used and abused in modern historiography. This is the author Theophilactus Simokattcs {Histona VI. 1, 10-16) of were brought to thc Emperor Maurice Tiberius 111 I Icraclia <pr«> Thcophilacrus says:
they were not equipped tilth .m\ weapons or military equipment, tl were ciMr> | musical instruments! jh.í they hjj nothing else with tbim they were frum the trtht of the Sklavtnt. and they had then homes oil Western Ocean, and the | Avar| khan had sent embassies to them with
leaders in order to attract armed men to hit army, j
This reference would explain why Byzantine gold is found in t the Avar territories. I he three men claimed that they had bet north to the Avar court with a refusal of help from their tribe) khan had not allowed them to return home through his tcrnto emperor that thev carried musical instruments because thcy w« nation, and their land had no iron This is indeed a talk story -that the Emperor seems to have believed - and many model billowed him in Ins credulity, some even using it to pmvc the ancestors countering the rather bloody accounts of other East Theophilactus however seems to be reporting something whic died with standardized idyllic images of barbarian life, and pri tactual basis.'  Quite apart trom this, the account cannot he
i) have attempted to
; Baltic coast. For cm
Atlantic. Tte mtK       "J ^ ^ cftirun that we observe clear,
[i u jhour toe ^.t-ment on the Danube. This is also the ptajtj strengthen11*0^ ^ expansion of the Slavs to the south of
t ^Tnow not only to rani but also to settle ,„ rherf their sun ho«erer w» nrpes of evidence suggest very J
of die East Roman mef most ot the Balkans had already be
Urge area* or the w      . tcnturv." Yen tew example* of fifth
^ J*P«Pub y^*'^ been «cavaied. the clav-bonded stone fo, century rural Nu^ ^y,^ which have been tound at Novgrad / °* ^iTuu""1 DohrudlJ ' Romania I are exceptional. There are mat
barbarian
^ SUva      in ^structure in the Balkan pr
forthis^llar^^"      disastrous effects of repcatc. ^waajs*—
apart rro01 1 •  legislation and fortihcation programme
°"ms w t< tnJr '^T^ SwaTkft of peasant life in the tespoau ^ da^^J*^'        of Ae BJkans seems to break down, thn,
and ««-^Mffl ^Upves in Macedonia in the 560s and s 'os ,ba,B ^arv rconomthis ,s a reflecne* of the s^ * Pelop-n- ^bo..the.. to,     the towns of the are,^
B^W^]"^^*\i»<™*d**«x* were mainlv on thecoa, ^intodeclu..a^th^no^ j^^H
where trade seems to^a     ^ ^ ,„ ^ galk ■ n mtenso, „ ^
The process ot ibout .J* middle ot the seventh cenrurx. when co*.
^ of the ^^Z^ were alread. relat.veo densely settled by the Sb^ aderabkareas.tne^g^ ^ ^ ^ ,„ thc Ufe ,,xlh century „ ,„„ ■TV drt^ee ot Sla> sen ^ mJin Jrca ot settlement was ,„
ahfelnti^r^t',wJ4,hf^ner zone m the area of Durosturum too* Stoesu along the Danu^ ^ whcre ^eral rural sites have been fouaj Sdisxrat'. and Bonon.a       ^ ^ now ^ to be Later, and the art,
forrswerear/r^^^^^^ a ^n„us weakening ot Fast Roman hold
also fell, •-'lud,7mC;" loltcn accompanying Avar hordes, from taV J^dse East Roman toptre^       , .   —^s«l«
nd 00 Efa
fcjir kvxrnf ro condbcx iwr better either sources (including the EvagriUS) tell us that the Avar and wc may assume that there '
rarmiand in the interior. Ma rhessaloruca. which became k
reached the reloponnesc. annex ,ula. and settled there on the la local Greek-speaking populatio s as and Avar attacks had pro some regions to Sicily and oco CJymntcle is often cited here . th< reporting merely hearsay).** Thi replaced by Stars and Albanian ever since Jakob Failmcrayer's place names in the Pelopoonese Nazi occupation by the public; Vasmcrl arsume tor an earls ant
is snll also extremely slight. MChi
arot
tawti éamtt dm t«y Sfav-syieafaag r "f "hiiutu vat/jpi
Teď* cjoootK as rraca
erajencr a* trridroor of* jhtcncc.
•""^Aeahy-nQ.
ask. Mtofh a Jew ssrs « oorrhero Btdrstna ha^ fe^
sat* cxatanr. Ob thesesites ifaeexímpicdutvPopma}
rw^t&mxsw^eMttSUrgrctapsframtitl . vři— -     MB I Don the norrfi
t+ttcéřcr&trpcB^VKicwt^oicoaaca jim Irtnrirnst r"r'-^~ r"^*1— *rrn h»fj* dra« these sacs iutr bera dased too earfy.* ffapjg rV Slav twiJriavnfs ri>ere wtre sail/ krye
■ East /*nfin toads. The
' - ne«
j-*-*-" ' —^aWobes. to the irch*^-. jgj
siaaiii aiso ocxr toe prr-sericr of cenám groups
empet as oieixxairxs
lAtscopaB ■iocs for exaraale
Tie =r^»xs»er« fringes of Soar* Slav remrory aad paáacsJ Mtcn TV area ithe focsster pronacr
laawnna* rraemeat of the West Roman Empve, and
Omtwxfrk.'
KB Ban
aaii iSr rAe middle of the
sixth
řecarar parr ot the Lrsi gaoun Eiaptre i which a hcid kxtga
whajirismtáxtbeLaafobatáibamcta fétimd ber t* the angnul Roauaaed population aiso
fang Brr»pTCOrs»c*'syaAtosts g; this
perhaps rhaa
sorvived ^hadaorjairndi-,
thei
wood p&asr ™e Xorchai as
Dafefij
•• — last
eora*
'^Drur,
""^ -rncci and n i>mcP«- vafler. 1» reanaredkstiaBg^
•h« Cufn
■ocaa
iftea
litest
• CS*
and
la the
Moravia and Bohemia. The earliest material here jppcjrt ho**.
kvW half of the sixth century The material culture ls ln"WCVer,|Odai
similar ro rhar ol Poland, though whether this w/,mrnr rf man)r rejp^
afmoyeaeni wuth irom Polind nr nest from the l'tr.llr)e. QCl a. _
the Carpathians (via northern Transylvania j or by north"'^0*
Eirfr Mar srrtJemem .n rhe Dinube valley is as ret unclear ^ of development of the Czech tod Slovak languages nji m' 'T*^
■—i--- -------'      much m "
rho^o/the5>«JthSlarj(seer i-. ««( scholars havefclrrJia feT**' „ the more likely. To the west in Bohemia is an area * hlch '*0 .
of «r« with E*rfr «»r P°""v 'aMwuRn in thc early tlxth ****** item* to ha.e had some Restgtmunen settlement,. I, Wj% .Cen"iry ^ ^r—TWjWirirJi.'fercnrureJjndforrnj/yv described h.ir . tn»td^^B - ■ n; now ^nSI
earliest Prague-nr* r*>rrerr in rJi»* area appears to date to the ^«fcatii
„srh century   In this area « find rhe other c/cments feCr to be'"!''''J ^'f o/tf
nV so-called Prague Culture, among them souarc sunken-,1 ^'"tic wirh c.mer <>» en Mrrn/ar ro rhose of the Ik raine (see .\fJp ^ °°rcJ "ruc,^ naif fbf cremation cemeteries vc,rh Praguerypc vcj *?* '** cOr^
contrasts »irh rhe urnanon in rhc areas around ir. fr j, tha»fr^s "*—' chrono/ogicaf relanonships which provokes opposition to tfc term -Prigue Culture' to ill baggy formless vessels of Early gU— range of cultural conrexo. Here we ha ve a clearly defined to * " type •« «t«j derrund j »frh.rer approach to thc rcrminology.u nc wh'ch teejT**!
The cipj'i*'-1" !" tnc tnc Ejr,v S'J»' culrural zone w sLaafl
appearance of material ol Prague type in the southern arcs ofj^'^ iq ,c Kem rhar well be/ore rhis rhe tribal sterns of the Kejixerm       u*" fr»vJ7 c-ottipsed j process perhapi rclared ro disruptions caused b won of the power of rhc franks m the hos inro Thuringu/ Earlv Slav serrlrroenrj containing portcry of Prague type occ same areas on rhe Elbe where there had been Restgernt^n^ "* teems rery Ziicfr rhar ro a large c.wcnr this is because these ^
were area
v f»_-       "' ffj-
',Jt)lcJ
P«ect
rhj,
3rinB
___.i ues
■   rc easier ro settle than thc denser forest bee" cleared    . c settlement. Nevertheless in some of the
'>0ffl ^^eTevldete showed that the forest had been regent. WntUI^   The Prague-type assemblages spread along the upg St,« moved in- ^ nQ ftjrfh(.f n()nh cfcun
forked afoot uV>" , jeveloped under rhe influence of thai
— * Probab V mis material     ' tne rqpon. row ' 0^ ,hc arM urnej crcmarioiia IU
-roup to the sotitbeasr. and m p ^j."*'™ Sua 4to occur .Among the materia bought ro be tbe earne* 1. ^1 rromtbe area, there r, s.
Boh
its ha
about U\_ D*'cd.oce typ
'fteCennansI
indtecnoiic ,.l snow mn
va/lcv i< h~..___
•<k) early, and former news a contemporary in the same rt heen based on false premtse*
h>r some years speoahs ring oser most of wh F'olabia among the gei Only in the past few y torms a single unit. ' ( ulturc, named after t« stronghold near Tetcro Myshbotv. in Pomerania tains material of sh ditions. The Sukow _««, and Prague traditions pn structures with corner ov Ja/ow in lower Silesia: M area, probably involving
Cerent,
l—) m i
area is also charat
with deposits of a i pits suspiciously lik
nd
letrfemenr in rhe ar
erui or
any orher tin
mí MM v MÁVS
ear/v seventh ccnrun. while in Si/csia it m.n have .ippe lrc,i      "C '3'Cr
'r-1ri|a
of the
sixth century
The origin of thc S.iknw-Dzicdzicc material is debatable, /r • r.poW-v in./rang. ■ »1 form f»t/u rsnrcfi.ik an./ ,IMtJrj o'V'0' "njflgjd
simplistic ro sec ir as their norr/mcstern variant, or even as dcri , " ^''u/cjk!! One reea/K here the materia/ which was used ro supp()rt (hc h'Ved fr°m chJ*
juttxhrhomiiis origin <)/ r/ic S/avs ,n Poland /<,)mi|)    ;'""'ncsij of •
Migration period vessels very similar m concept and sry/e ,„'7"' Car/' vessels of Sukow-/)/ie.//..e rMu- /r certain/v seems vers nrn( handiiia/ Sufcow-rype materia/ is I loci/ development.   I Ins materia/" '''>'t' th' represent Slav settlement but ../ a different cultural rr,,dlt,on iv-'1''"' J,t° to observing here r/ie rracev of some process of assinii/at,on   ' ,. SCcm r0 fc°
/ i      I______l„»...«r ^rrtH      I. i.l.    ... .  ......I.  _r   i      _ 'el   'CI*.-. TI^IH
.....t>....... ■ • "'"""lariori -|„ i
of /oca/ populations across a wide area north of the Carp   i S'',v'Airi to some as vet poorly understood stimulus." Unfortunate/.'"/'! r*>cti^
ir  tint iM»ř trfirtU'fl    It, . ,-nr   UMfL   I____ ť P«"CCÍf- "
,  ,       "l'n ,ht" i-se.se rate "i
„,.r vet known. Recent work has cast some doufu f tH"C i.  sTrs pTpo** by Professor W. Szymariskt) that the W,h,£*
......luc-ae......-the northern ,ores, -ncofwhar.^
" T  . ulence lor tins now seems very tenuous An intercom* rr« , *
fc,Jn,r■'    , ukovv-U,ed,ve materia. ,s o, loc.,1 ohr,^?**
■   the Mogi.a group in the southeast are TPT'V
th;"'h'       ev    n «hs luroeluhonous sc......I of Slav origins pro^W
(SCC P" ' hoW n.a.ed m the middle of the Sukow-DZ,cdzicc ieS *
'Vmr oftheSukow-Dzied/i.e sites at the western , vi„ me of the Early cu JS re "f^is date. - would seem .hat, in these f.rst two phases, the ^
enston of the Slavs vva.....nethmg „, the region o, 9JO fcrn ,     £ ,
,1 sites ,n Mold...., I here was also considerable cxpans.on ,„ the ?e a"! own amount to the east 1 he scattered settlement over thiTv£
zone wa",o become consolidated in the next century, as we »|,,n Va« following chapter.
3
Consolidation and Social Change: the Seventh Century
I he third phase of the expansion of thc Slavs falls in the period c. 600-700. The period following thc last decades of the sixth century is one ol relative stability, and one where new features start to appear in the Earlj Slav assemblages throughout central and eastern Europe. We also see thc appearance ol ■ few types of metalwork, and there are changes in thc pottery assemblages. I he period also sees thc beginning of a phenomenon which was to become t\ pic.il of the settlement pattern of the Slavs m the northern regions: the building of the first strongholds. Thc fifth and sixth centuries saw thc Early Slavs rciccting the cul-rural traditions of other groups in favour ol their egalitarian and simplistic cultural traditions, which spread rapidly as an interregional cultural foundation. The seventh century marks the beginning of the slow but eclectic acceptance of foreign cultural models, especially from the world of Ryzantium and Longobard Italy as well as from and through thc medium of thc nomads 1 Avars). From the mid seventh century thc whole of western Slavdom undergoes significant change, with thc appearance of southern (Danubianl mtluciicex, including new pottery types and a new burial rite Despite these changes, thc other material culture of the Early Slavs is remarkably consistent across thc whole area from Polabia to the Ukraine.
Thc changes in the material culture of thc I arlv Slavs arc manifested most noticeably in the pottery typology. Over most ot the area in thc first half of thc seventh century however the preceding cultural divisions continue to persist. The Prague zone in the southwest continues to exist. To thc northwest (Map iv) the Sukow-Dziedzicc material enters a new phase, but without changing its basic character. To the cast is a zone occupied by a series of assemblages which may be named the Szeligi-Zimno group, while the south is occupied by thc Succava-Sjpor group and material of the Popina type. Thc seventh century sees however the general adoption of a new canon across western Slavdom. Vessels arc not simple rough baggy shapes but an attempt is made to make their form more regular by use of some kind of turntable (but not thc potter's wheel). The upper part of the vessel is thus smoothed-off and made more symmetrical. These vessels may be known as 'top-turned'. It is interesting that these changes appear at about thc same time as thc decline in thc percentage of wheel-made pottery in Early Slav assemblages in the Danubian region, whence it may be suggested wc may seek the inspiration of the technical improvements.
DU l mil <i «i *
The starting place for our deliberations on these dcvcl0 several reasons again be the O.inubian frontier and Balkan-. \"'"""rs n1(J,t t9o With the Persians (in return for Roman military aid to ,    PCace 'rcatv
Maurice Tiberius (fSt-toi) to transfer a large r.,rt „/ r/u. Kf) J Us"rPcr) 1 east to the northern frontier and thus restore it. .,„j (/u,;] ^'''"amiy fr0oj e
Slavs (both within and outstde thv Umpire). For a decade the T" a on ,t allies the Antes with varying fortunes continued to he ^_____ KorrMns
Sclav curs /nrhc ftfos nchc.irof macks h, ,/h, Aiucm,^*"''Ava,,***
Ihr wars culminated m a ni.iv.iu- Kornau invasion n(,r|/] (jf' *cnc- *ettlcnje tf they lie/cati'd fin-Ai.irs. rcpiilcd/i killing sonic rhlm tl„1(Isl  '  ' °,,n"bc wf?'*'
; f.iur s.jiin . and ohr.imtinj .urcit aim ninrs „, ,'. "  ofth»«.rf '
jog che Khan« »>........---------......»s.c... u.nuunts of act. (inc/u
it is rough/v to r/.is period that another « rmcri source cv/,        "Ued /o0t shou/J be dated. This is the document known as thc Stn,     '* °',cn "Uo mi/if.iri m.i/iu.i/ supposed/* »Tirn-n hi thc f mperor .Maun 'f'r'''' 10 ctfe<* author is known as /Scudo-Mauricc   /"he rexr probah/i JL<    n,s*-'Jf; iu Ct * herwwn tvaandmo. fit- describes the Sc/avencs and Antes •'° /and*'.their character and wa\ ot hie inJuJ,,^. ,/, tlr .(<       111 'heirc tureand the womenfolk, who arc noted is, chaste beyond m 3 t'le
that, after their husband* die. some willingly kill themsciv™***1"'*' ^'
lfhccJ,
'ler
"iter.
esring details, wtucn tnere is no space here to gn t., but it is ' copied irom earlier works and how in.m\ derive from obs • ^ Ca'"',"w«Hi,i thecanipjiK'isof the v»os It should be rem,inhered thou'^'T'1 ^edta*"* can be applied only to .S/avs living m the area north of r/u-1> '       tn's accg °* Another writer ol the period, \tenander know,,  ls    a',Un'-'n frontjJ"11 function in thc imperial bodyguard), wrote about s.y.J     r"rect«r (f"ronj ' containing m.ltena/ kmmn from eve-vwmess accounts /-j'"' '"''""Milt hKf " rums hetween the Sins and Avars, tiieiiiioning the names1 f rile rcT*
andrhc attacks of the Sc/avefies and Avars,,,, ,/u /(<„„ ,„ ? '      ,t-v>" Person with mam details Some of the details contained in his\vorfc$7*and J" other information formed the Kims of the account of Th     |M"lp'cd "ithn written about 6a»-,«. /his contains a „m,|.lr rj      (),^P'",Jctus Slmo^*** our chief sources o/m/orniation ,,„ ,/,c \,,rs „, the per,,, /T^' '"'J « "n/^ /cam a htt/e of their relationship with the Sclavencs „id A        6°i: t>om u After a mi/itary revo/r in 6oa caused by the hardships oUh'
*c
vars however Maurice was deposed and killed along vv.rb'l""'" "«"«1st th His death was Mowed by., period of anarchy lstru^tesZLS Who'c <*/, political and religious disputes) which were tot ever r    l     CC" ci*> 'icr
r» change the tar. °ns-
6H
empire. They cca,^,    , '   °*Al"n '
:;;-arch„?A(;;;: ;;^rththc a
1 ^'d as markj a^ the reorr.anlza *n r°Lfn^ throne o ■,""wcd ">c Avars f bt'K,nn,"« of the u **** h- "ndc" Sm.okattcs, ,,;>Inrt'",v"-. and tfley^!'? K"»P'te. Tl
"'"       "tack «" Amcs '« the wr ' "■,r),« ««cJc,
-^''-tartc^n^r'^^-nr'^ ""■vis i6oz-,„i c .    ''""ace. Tb~ (nat tri
n rim b ■ CO'' ''actus
..':::;-£x^.....
^""'•cs and „„!niaK,nd»ned are,K , / ?*' hl"f °'the Lent. th« •S'-'-
"   ha- CSS** o    he » a'SO -
most of th. Ihcre b strong cv,dl.n    , Ba,kans «>y 5/3 v
-t/cmenr "fl » ?     wJdRS l""* c"e s,x,
fanned m the .sevenr,     many o/'^ river 'h,ck '«)*r of ,  , ,Ear'y S,av
r«"'t of a h"2tU CCnn«y ow.no t'      a"Cys in Creece '' kn°w" "
Economic prob/l V°asr WcWveTaJ?' ",d tea ^ m°St of the 6sos.* PM °' ">e co,n-Using ^h">« withi„ the By4nt    1 CO"tinu«'.
r,er had been p|acinc tht nji"me„ance , KC ,n ahour the
2™'? ^^££^ 5SS*X       °" ^e northern fe '?? ^''ed hea vi/y on"      ™*d the tro„" ^ ""^l Teasury"j,th«™f<on.
nf(^ 1^^222»! *5BESp* *^^S2S
Pr«umab|y t0 a        ",ns 'that is, statc-run d
Stee support-j ft '""tions
Till CARI.V vl »'
rich eastern provinces rather than lump supplied In ., loci agricultural hintcr-.J  In .he recogi-t,..., thai rhe tr,nt,er had been ineffective „, keep,„g ^ barbarians out of .he Balkans (large areas „| which were In now settled by, "Ljcnhle number ..t mm-tributary barbarian groups). „ was deeded ,„ L
Si vearso. the reign ot I Icr.ic bus. apparently some time in the 6iOS. ,0 und
SeVreorgan.zat.on of the system ..tde.encesol tins part oi theemp,rc, ,t Sed to abandon a pari o. the northern frontier and to withdraw all lmperu|
....... ,ro„, the balkans   I here are relatively tew forts or towns on the
Danubian frontier which .an he shown to have lasted through the Mrs, decades otdic seventh century. The Balkans seem thus to have become , pcriphe fc L dmos, direct!) ad| Ken. to the core ol the IU /amine state. Defence was c„n-cenirated ..carer the capital in the lor... ol localized and mobile militia forces-1 |, rsed in the towns. Some time in thc seventh centiirv m Asia Minor and Thrace soldiers seem to Ir.iu In en settl, d on small (arms which they held on condition issinu on the land and ohlin.irin- •
s°'". Tbit,
.....—• »"vjr iicia or
tfSrv'siV'uc. pissing on the land and obligation to their eldest sot "cm | ltcr spread to other areas leading to the militarization of the empire, and not onlv providing for the upkeep ol the soldiery but ..Is,, increasing the numbers of smallholders working the land. SM
In „•„ the Avars mined I Persian attack against t oustantinoplc u, which %| an was unsuccessful besieged hv land and sea We learn from the sources of the period that .hue were a large number ot Slavs present in the Avar forces, „nlim ,„ the capacity ot intantrv. but also manning the dug-out boats' [monoxyle] which were used to ferry Persian troops across the Bosporus to the European side. Thc Byzantines sank thc boats and mam Slavs were killed; seeing the military disaster it turned out to be. the res. left the battle |„ the end the Avars withdrew. It seems ihat thc fiasco in front of the walls ol Bv/.annum scri-oush d imaged Avar prestige; this was to It ad to a decline in their influence in the Balkans in thc period 6z»>-?o. and then supremacy was challenged else- J whereon the fringes ol their hegemony (see belowl. The Av irs became restricted id political significance to the central area of the l arpathian basin. j|
Early scvcnth-ceniurv Slav settlement in Macedonia and near Thessalonica was strengthened not only by new arrivals but also by a process ot internal col-om/aliiin'. In addition new areas new regions ol the Balkan peninsula were settled i tor example D.ilnial.a and northern Ihracc). By the end of the seventh century large areas of thc Balkans were covered in areas ol settlement of the sl.ns. During thc period ol stabilization so caused, we see the appearance of a number ot tribal nanus. The written data w. have on the tribes themselves are very fragmentary, and allows only an uik \ en picture of thc cultural pattern ho be reconstructed |Fig. 16; Maps IV to VI). On thc Danube in thc area of former Lower Moes.a, probably the area which had been colonized earliest, was an area sometimes known in Byzantine sources as 'Sclavenu'. This was inhabited by a number of tribes, including one known as the seven clans'; another was known
r'y large nu
v    — •. • "i 11 ,jrc iCW SI i v
interior: perhaps this was an
as the Sievcrzanc (see below] A part
arc known from Macedonia - especially tlv
town itself remained Byzantine). This area too w as Sclavcnia", and thc Slav languages were in d ninth-century missionary brothers ( onscantinc were born near I hessalonica. Several of the in links with the I ast Slav tribal names (Smolcn, y,
names known from thc mountainous region of th ips tins was an
area of very sparse Slav settlement.
The Slavs known from these written records are vcrv difficult to locate archaeological!)  I he manifestations of Slav culture from thc Balkan peninsula w Inch can be linked with thc early phases of colonization are still poorly known. One reason might be that in Greece and to some extent in other areas archaeologists have for several reasons tended to concentrate on thc more spectacular traces ol the ancient classical civilization ot the region.The little evidence which exists is often poorl) published and difficult to date Rural sites ot any kind are tare and in most cases these settlements are small, containing one or txvo houses, with very few large villages. Excavated sues Include Popina, and Garvan near Sdistra in Bulgaria. At Popina in northern Bulgaria a long-lived settlement was , xc ivated which comprised over sixty sunken-floored buildings scattered over y hectares A nearby urncd cremation cemetery was explored. The houses were 1-4 m across and had a stone or clay oven in onr r*sw-«
nfrh-— I-----
.    unini cremation cemetery was explored , 4 111 acioss and had a stone or clav min in one corner. The «3 ol the e 11 her settlement phase has similarities to the I uka Raikov (sec below) ol thc Ukraine. The site is dated from thc scvcnth/cighi nil.ones (though the excavator originally dated its beginning to 1 tury). At thc site ol Garvan, also in northern Bulgaria, similar I found in another large settlement which began in th nig pottery similar to Prague-type material) and l.iste huts were excavated and two inhumation cemeteries In thc areas settled by thc Slavs, town life seems tt it would seem thai man; towns had been in decline At any rate thc Slavs settled here had no need forenci slavs, unlike those further north, did not build any lively little material from the ruins of Byzantine t exceptions such as Cartcin Grad in Serbia). There Byzantine com and silverware hoard finds dating to tl
and several »*»•**----'
d pottery
»Pottery eleventh ixth cen-res were century (contam-eventh. Some iio
and sevcralapt_.
' -o US
sc.itter ot r .uhate ftbulac aer (tor cxamplc Sparta and I Vclestino in Thessaly com M.irtvnovka ho.ird (sec bclo<
> have virtually ceased, but before the Slav settlement.
J!.c_.s!tt!c.nic'"s(tncSouth
here is rcl.i-(with rare horizon of
,1,1,
't,atCu to the same 1
'«urc appl
and Macedonia ind (hoard?) at e those of the onstruction of a
found a dozen
in (jjnjniadc pots. These vessels, audi ^ w,th. ba«e been given dates from the sixth to eai , .^^ Titule inhumation burials with weapons in stone or brick ost s Jt Cor«l jtrci    American archaeologists in the 1930s, were iniriallv annbtrredt Jj^Arars because thes had belt hrtings like some found in Hungary lsia^ bonah hase been round in Athens andkruie in rtwama. hut also en assooatioj nuns of churches at Athens. Phil.pp. and Tigaru». The beh finings vne -« a date of about the mid seventh century: the association with churches ^
u « merest thai these burials are neither Slavs nor A\an. A
l^dfVwaslWndmrecrraexcaTanoo^   lsmmia near Cor nth ,n a serderneot
"'tl^Zrl pUhng hnd .s the massive hoard of silver belt nttmgs otAtar rypeand Bvzannne siher from Vrap m Albania which probabh dates to about Too.* The sdver ressels had been for liturgical use (including o— mwnpoon shown* it had originally come from Salamis on Cypru, -grammes had lost in the nud seventh ceanryl      | I^^^H Despite the apparent intensity 0» Slav settlement m some areas, some coastal regions remained in Bvzannne hands, and it is here that the Byzantine ecooatgj became focused The town, of the Adrunc coast | Trogjr, Zadar and SpbtaS bu„v Daimaruo islands i for example remained in Greek hands free or siav tksnent and maintained their contact with the Byzantine Empire. Some areasof the srjotheastern Balkans also remained under Bszantine control. ancj ^ grzanone theme iadnurusrranve region) of Hellas was established b> rhe end of the teventhcemun (it included Attica. Boetu and several islands, but not those areas of Greece which had been settled by Slavs 1. Athens remained a centre of culture, edacanon and scholarship, and the organization of the Church, ued m certain areas.'! Much of the area of Thrace around Constat the shores of rhe Aegean around Thessalnnica (and the to tra remained free of Slav settlers.
The late seventh century is also characterized by a nnat^H Byzaaose economy. Study of Byzantine coastal hoards seems to | tnirjiipinr of ecooomic changes and collapse which seems to ha1 about í jo-70 m the resgns of Constans ■ it*»—£t   - - ' —
1 conm
ie East Roman tnbtne
After the bcxuiniRg at the seventh uc w pre* cur jut settlement in tne tv by the new agrwufiunst populations could futr been turned to adv antage I ade these no* populaoons their rax-
They were tuhf uga 680/7 represented t
'srmian
nous Slav tribes. The tribes which cai
met in Byzantine sources, and seems to
Bvzantine power was more nominal, a
retain their srrucrure but we see the f organizations within the empire quite e
Considerable changes were taking pia such as Paul Diaconus, History of the L
settlers are difficult to rind: there are vc
Rat
coastal towns of Dalmaria." The text contains some duplicanon and irnerpofc non, which complicates its interprerati   .   pa L    £lns ^odiffciei
versions of the migration of the Croa at the Serbs a*
rw, arrived in the area during the reign of Emperor Hcracl.us. who ctkobi
i.    .„ „~ Dilmatu from the Avars and settle there themselves after r^ aced them to tree L»aunai""*~ «««r eot»
s „,„,.,. one of the accounts of the settlement of the Cnui. *_
a to Cnnstianuv
that of the vrhs seem to be based on mythical accounts originating among rJbos, peoples, thev have the typical features of at. ongo gsntts legend (including «the Hic^f Croats the tale of five brothers The second version of the Croat naira, Dre betravs a Bvzantine source, and this seems to have a political morivataon. ft
was presumably created to bolster Byzantine claims to suzerainty over then, (especulb with respect to the Bulgarians and Franks!, since according to that accountthe Croats were settled at the will of, and with the Permission of, the Bvzantine emperor. ^H^^^^H
The picture from the written sources appears to be contradicted by the archicv.lcnt.cal evidence. It would seem that the earliest Slav settlement >n the interior of the western Balkans, whether Croat" or otherwise, cannot antedate the second half of the seventh century. A small settlement site excavated at Musici near Saraievo was formerly considered to be evidence of the first Slat settlement in Yugo! "' thc potten bv Flonn Curt*
. that its spcvitic vers peculiar, combed dec rati, >n cannot be earher tbaa c. 6,0. Further discussion about the beginnings of thc so-called 'Old Croai culture', and its relationship with the Late Avar horizon in Hungary, iS based pnnunly on the evidence of burial assemblages excavated in K isic. Ntn.Zdritac and ranous other places. " Recent studs of these cemctcncs however has shown that the settlement of the Croats is unlikelv to have taken place as early as Consrannnc Porphyrogcnirus suggests. Thc earliest reliably datable phase of burials in these cemeteries should be assigned to about 700." 4^^H
Constannncs text chapters 30 and 51) contains a mythical account of the alleged homeland of the Balkan Croats, a -White Croatia' located sorocw herein central Europe near Bavana, beyond Hung a ry and next to thc Frankish Empire, an area where the White Croats' snll lived. It would seem likely that what Constantine had in mind is a large tnbal group, the Chorvan on the northeast side of the Bohemian basin. This homeland however is p although other documents refer to it (Alfred the Great's transit
P\U and a charter of the Bishopnc of Prague) noned
thc ninth century, and there are no sources ,v bach refer to the pn____^ u, ,,„,
group called the Croats in central Europe .or indeed the Balkans) before thai date. I be proWeui is compounucu oy otner c\ iiicncc w men places a group of Croats iChonati! unknown to Constantine somewhere in the bounds of Kicran Rus (see pp. 99-100). Scholars debate whether to place them in the reasoa
n dates
•• since
■ I ' %IU S s
1 ry, the ■r than
between sc the Rus sta
The;
^onceming the Croats. Again a mythical homeland.
placed in much thc same area 1 with the additional 1 known by them as Boiki* — perhaps Bohemi c onstantine had ui mind the Sorbs of Polabia 1 then m this area and » hire scrota may past be a literary is at pains to show that these lands were settled by the Roman population of thc area had been driven b Pvrrachium, and the Bulgars had no authority thei ccttlement is not known; the archaeological endeoo to date the first settlements or to show where thev m thev settled thc historic heartland of the later Serhu and its tributaries (riva. tara Lim and Uvac, the 1 Iran By thc time of Constantine there were a numb* related to the Serbs ,including the coastal Zachlumi; r-c'mnd thc hills'I. The Belgrade scholar Diurdte Janl earliest finds from tne area arc tnc so-called grotfttuU
Discussions are still continuing about the ability 1
Roman Culture, which occurs in the
■ame meant
en i
id
Adri turn
Ihe material »
metal objects 1 including hbul
archaic term meaning
ntity the users of thc i.s-laccdonia and the
still have seen it as linked with Rom
Thc further tare of the Sooth Slavs m wrt  the story of another people, the B
thc beginning of thc seventh r«.nr..
steppe. This apparei
the eastern
the Don and Caucasiar
_1_ _     , ......w II1C
rntoncsi and formed a
Till UIIV »I*V»
powerful khanate from rhc- much ro twelfth cenruncs which was
important role in the relationships between the superpowers of Central Aal
the northern sea-routes (Chapter 11 I  The other significant develop,/
f° P'ay an
'and
y the
however the numerous groups ol Bulgar horsemen who began to    ?'Wat
traJitional route ol the steppe nomads westwards into 'Little SrsrU ?. ti[t
Thc Danubian Bulgars led bs khan Isperich (Aspcruch) began*"^
Danube delta. From here they started roaming rhc pastures on the north b
the lower Danube on the eastern fringes ot Avar-controlled territory J* thev established a hegemoni over thc Slav s settled in thc Danube rronrt,
to u&c rhcir
w,r base to attack flu- frontiers of Bwannum itself I lies strengthened theft T Id .n the Danube valley and then began to threaten Byzantine possessions ,„ Thrae Bv 680 they had become so powerful that thev rook over pan of LQwer Moesia in the north of Bvzant.ne tcrntorv which was already settled by a |d„e copulation of Slav communities, some ot which has! been established the*!
v,r ,| generations before. I he written sources tell us that Isperich subdued the Slav croups known as the Seven Clans and the Siever/.ane  In n8o-r the, Bv/intine emperor Cnnstant.ne n Pogonatus was forced to cede this tcrritorr .ml its inhabitants in return tor a tribute to be paid to thc Byzantines, ' Other changes were taking place north of the Danubian frontier. In Moldavia ,he eirlier vultures are replaced in rhe seventh century bv the so-called Hhnca Culture which seems to bea local variant of the I uka Raikovetska Culture of the 1 krainc (sec below*. On thc Danubian plain, the Suceava-S.pot material seems to J.sappear. though the date at which this occurs ,s uncertain (it ,s usually accepted thai it ends at thc nme of rhe Bulgar invasion of c. 68o, but there is no rcaJ archaeological basis for this  There is a large number ol Early Slav s.tes now known in southeastern Transylvania.-'' Among them an interesting complex of sttes has been investigated in the region of Dulccanca (Muntcnia)." There was one other imponant enclave ot sites in thc region ot Clui .the Slav name for the Roman town of Napocal forming a /one ol Slav settlement in the upper reaches of thc Mures and its tributaries which apparently came into existence some time after thc middle of the seventh century. These ar> mainly, settlement sites and flat cremation cemeteries, some containing also inhumation burials. On the fringes of the area (and adjacent to thc zone of I ate Avar burials in thc Some!} valley (are the Someseni and Nusfalau barrow cemeteries, which arc unusual in that they seem to reflect eastern Slav traditions   construction .** ~9^^^^^|
Further to the north there were important developments in thc post-Prague phase in northern areas ot central Europe The typology of the relatively intractable post-Prague pottery of Polabia has been carefully studied.-'" The early post-Prague pottery traditions in rhe northwest of thc area are a continuation of the Sukow tradition, now entering I from about thc middle of the seventh century) a new phase of development, rhc Sukow-Golaricz phase (the latter being a stronghold in Pomcrania).-"' This is marked by thc appearance of vessels
r
"rushed on a slow wheel Ctop-tun
to last into thc eighth century in much of the region.
Northeast of thc ( arpathlanSi most of Poland tails into three cul (Map IV). In the northwest we sec the eastward extension ot thc Suk
zone, to thc south of which is a group ot niaicri.il for which 1 prop Raciborz-Chodlik latter a cemetery near Katowice and an open ninth-century stronghold at Chodlik near Lublin, both in souther This material probably begins some time in the mid seventh century much of thc area through thc ninth century ipossihly even as late tenth century). Thc pottery styles seem strongly influenced by styles of the Carpathians. The vessels are of a variety of forms and sizes: co i.irs and tar-bowls which have wide rounded shoulders and everted ri an S-profilc. These vessels arc frequently decorated with (wooden) i i usually) four to six teeth. These were used to form horizontal hand uig or wavy lines of various types (Fig. 18). Occasionally vessels we horizontally over most of the profile. Abour 90 per cent of decorat from this rone is decorated with these three motifs used in comb.--the Sukow and Szehgi traditions thc pottery was ham made on a turntable or slow wheel: this is especially v the vessel, which was often evencd-up on a slow wheel wheel-thrown. It occurs across most of southeastern P north in thc west. The settlements of this phase have thc familiar 1 floored huts, but now thc burial rite is characterized mainly by f. mated remains under earthen barrows in small (clan or family'| cemeteries North of this between the Sukow-Golancz and Raciborz-Chodlik zones is a region with somewhat simitar ceramics, but mixed with other poorly defined elements. This zone itor which I propose thc term Central Polish group) is char acterized by a lack of barrow-cemeteries, and its further definition would see" to be a task for future work.
\t the beginning of thc seventh century and possibly at thc end of thc sixt century towards the eastern side of modern Polanc" represented by the strongholds at Zimno, Szeligi am thc Slavs and (broadly understood) the Bairn- rs..~. is represented not only by a korJiak type, but also squatter opci type of relatively weakly defended hil
-umoination Ac m bur some of it was n thc upper part of
may contain fi.._ (combining Byzanrine-L^" h"^"10 Avar and Marrynovka t ( unknown " a"fypc finds).
PPears the cultural group Macki in the zone between ft, r-Hciations."' This culti
nns) but also by a specific with internal layers These
on
Ml meralwork of mixed cultur.
"he dar    f 1   *       45 a relationship to the end of this group is a$ yCt
«* -sore coa»p*« id rhe snath of these three aones-C
^BTT (jad ptrhafS ■ 10"e ***"* 10 rf ** "*■«
, >(oUc jrcHB ro ck-reiop m th« pbase- lr ha* a specific character
.fedenW-fi* and I propose to call a the Stale group b, raV.
coop a ra?'!-"'    ' ' ' ' ^i1"0"""" ITftacsw type. The banal rax «5» to condone into the next o_ odsrr^rasha^soocowrobu^ someone
d»c stsrierars* sue of Raom m w^fcwesr PoJabtai. Tfcas last* mraadiofa.
ana rhroagh » the morn century fpoassbfr crest as late as the early Btfri The poocrr nvsrk arr sandjr to Raoftorz-Chodhfc atacerial, with
||M.-' ^jnrtT of forms and sacs- coofaag-rjots, tars and iar-bowls. These «k. with their wide rossoded sisoolders aod everted rims fewrnia, Jn <___„'
arc also often decorated sridl bassos of cuuihcd decor a non like Cbodhk ssaads id» decoranve schcaae seems to basse .^^s^ f«»« the Daassto a« <icrm wbetL wtuch was atsed to eren-ap the upper parr oi rhe resnetffl
father to tie soatheasr ■ Bohexnu rbrrr seems to ha<j>e been a rriiMh>aIUi c* rherra«^C*sVrssfe-as^
nur be rr»rded as charavcsrrBnc of the penod berwt^n the Prayne Culture aad ^io<aiMpre-Mora^aoriZDn.:} j^^^^l hi the area snath of the Carpathians aiid eaa of Bohemia s»sehii>d a an^n^ of the Danube aad eateudwg acrocs to the Trsza valley dMraornzed by reia-nverr unaaiin pottery vessels os post-rYagsse tradition. This cuhusai n,, appeanssg aroaad the end oi the scream century aoad lasting rhroaa^ the c«bb* 3 known as the DtTimsa-Nova Ves trpe, after a cemetery 00 rhe Morava ■ear Bransbva srhere there were Avar and So graves tofsaher ^ The r--— began m the seventh cenrarr. bot went onmosc until the end ot die new Host of the graves in das large ceuwHit • a rhonsand excavated grav ■■■111 r 11 nr bat among them were nearly thirrr cremaooas The an soase graves were at Avar npe. rJ^xaeh rhe naatoric trpicalySlsT sari as S-shaped mopse-nags!. hit
Sen Vies was of saadir type: squat rc-anded yea
Jeunaaai wan cnastVs^Mggles aad nrr motiiiy %
was wiod-saadc. The Stars settled here issvder the*
atnefy hgh state of thulnainf, a part oajutgaj
tare, fighnng by rhe side ot the Avars dacy ants*
Brunei*. F ra--jLrsh. Cj-^*rnejn.
1
re of aoodesn
influence of 1
fr
si
Ai
foreign 1
Jopcalsd phase ot intruders a mens
a .;-nicies .    - —2 .:<
-.jvc been Frankish tan It was somewhere 01
was
Till M*!* f"*1
r „vkinedo... was in the Morava valley .,r sloven,.,. h,„ tJlMc hypo «
L'n, ,o he wishful .li.nk.nK inspired less by concr. „ ,, „1, „cc than ,,, „„
„„ ,,lt ,>,« ..i .(.«■ .....,h«".«WW( wctl
^„!,l!rram,.l.. ' Uk """""""'H. On the ,ypc of
' h, „k,„„c. hu, -n the centre ,.t the I kr,.„. we nuv assume char the Mk,„k,, , ultu, had aired, accomplish.d much n its expansion before ^
:,,„,,.,„-.....rs.-ei..sl.krl) , at the Pen - k, ( ulture s,nunues alon^
........Korchak trad,.......biriher west  I he precise nature ... the boUllJ
l)ftw,,„,luse,w.-traditions ,s unknown. -j|
A„imP„rt.....p..ht.c..lU.or,...l---------- ''••h;'-|ViMs,o,,„.theKh«]UlrilB
mo they had dominated the steppe from the Dagestan steppe north of the
, ,;,......„lml,o(l.HK..s,.,..,ul.lu Hl.uk Sea Sup,,, between the l^n.cstr »„d
,,;,„' [|u,lllll|1,e,,ce extended far .mo ih, forcsl iicpp. '"Me to the north (up,1^ Don' Volga and Kama rivers). On the sieppes. their hegemony absorbed the Buljiars.i.id Alans, and it was under Kha/.i, 111tlue.Keth.it in the forest lQnt „„ ,„ arCa known by thc legendary name r.iclk../t .h. Magyar (I lungarianj identity hee'.nu- crystallized. I he Klia/ars developed w.el. networks ,,t exchange flng trlburecollcc.ion, and. as we shall see ... ., late, chapter, some ot the southern |,es ol the last Slavs were to come under their inHucnce. By virtue of ,|1c|r
. ,„, ,p.....|p,,sitio.i.imhievclopiiu-.....I extensive trade networks the Khaitar,
(who |.v flic cghih temur* had ceased to be hands „| ,r,„ed ra.ders and ,j„m,l ,|„ ...mis ,.i i st.iie) had close polu.cil and cultural contacts wjrj, Itv/ iiitiiiin, l'<' s«-' "lJ l,u' Arlh w"rM ,s WL'" ,,s w"h 'l" k,rh'>™n tribe, of the
in in
The reflux
llu period .wound the middle ol ih, sew nth century sees a number of changes
taking plate "< 'he«."ls "' rl" 1 "K Sl,,vs: ,I""'L' wem llc *u88cstivc0f some south -north movement ol ideas, it not people I his movement „Ccuri across the I arp.nhian mouniams, until now apparently separating thc material ,„ the north and south ( oni.ict across the mountains may have of course
occurred at an earlier date. Inn m-vs ». s.. ,,......,c signs thai these contacts
,ull responsible h>r far reaching cultural changes. We seem to detect sonic
mlliicikis which tluwid .....ih hom ih, Danuht.in area tt) the .ire.i along the
north side of the Carpathians, llu process is poorly understood and requires further research It is visible in two main phenomena, first, we sic Itaiiiihian' influences appe iring in the ceramics o| the seventh
century onwards in Poland and Polal.i.i This gives rise ro i iiumbc with characteristic wavy hue and horizontally rilled decoration over J I hesc changes were discussed by Aleksander Cmrdawski m his oonii
the pottery from Chodlik, and. although much ol this discussion ,■ some of thc general ideas he pi 1 rem worth) i li timber delibcri
mam reorientation ol < ..ird.iwski's view* may be toil t thesa LnnovarJi nig not so much from thc Danublan fronfjet tone alone but from the
of the Avar khanate, which seems to have been the aiea ol production pottery similar to thai which appeals north and northeasi of the ( basin.'"These changes ire visible hrsi m upper Silesia and Western Malopol.k.i. iii thc area formerly occupied by the Mogila group assemblages I he same area
,s characterized by a number of imports ol Middle and I ue Avar meralworlc, and some hoards ol Byzantine coins. These seem to have Come through the wide passage through the mountain! known as the Moravian dale trom llu scatter ot Avar material to thc north ol the an a ol the Avar hegemony."
I he second phenomenon is an apparent change in burial rite (and thus perhaps ideology) which ll evidenced by the (possibly sudden) adoption ol the rite of barrow burials in the tone both sides of the Carpathians In the period around 6«o I ntil then, most burials in thc area were made cither in tl.it cremation cemeteries or by a rite which leaves absolutely no recoverable remains, Tin (I best harrows appear in Moravia and Bohemia (I'rovhovske Skale, N.ulsl.,\. (,hely and Burovcc)," that is south ot ihe t arpathians (with perhaps some- early outliers in the Dnicstl valley). These barrows have a specific form iwith horl /oiital wooden revetting at the base raj the mound, enclosing a rectangular .iron and with the cremated remains being deposited on top ol the mound The bar rows of the laic Avar period ,n northeastern Transylvania such as those at Soineseni near ( liq arc chamber burials in harrows of a dilterent type (as we have seen, the Avars themselves practised inhumation -sometimes with horse* -m flat cemeteries) It is unclear why barrows should have been raised over this wide zone, but slight evidence seems to suggest that the impetus came trom thc south and only later penetrated (he Carpathians. In one of thc early barrows (at Izbicko near Opolc) a gold earring of Middle Avar type was found.4' The question of thc initiation of thc harrow burial rite needs further study.
Some have seen these changes as m some way connected with the changes occurring in the Avar khanate, especially in its northern fringes, but there is little real evidence tor the strong inlliiciKc of the Avars here, aside from a handful of items from this broad area. One of thc possible causes may have been thc systemic changes and collapse of thc Byzantine economy of thc period 650-70 and the sharp decline in thc Avar tribute in the 670s. Perhaps this meant that groups of Slavs on the northern ftinges of Avar territory were no longer focusing their attention on thc wealth of thc south: perhaps they looked further afield !oi opportunities for self-betterment." The Slav and Bulgar invasions and
Tin l \«n II IVS
...... see cultural
ting in the opposite direction towards the north It „ difficult
T\Zli phenomenon, detectable from the archaeological ev.dence „„cl(1J
I- or- I ol |).iniibi.m and Bv/.intmc styles), but it seems to be connects
An end to austerity
Over the whole ol Slavdom, the seventh centurv also sees the bcgmn.ngof aneJ] , „, „r„,mental me.alwork Apart Iron, a lew rare items, often of fon%| 1 ""ration items of personal adornment and decorative metalwork gcnerT la 'king in the earliest Slav assemblages I his general austcrin ,s not howey^ em,reh dispersed by the new types which appear ,n the seventh century, 51ncc Ihc metalwork tvpes are relative!) simple and restricted in range. 4 J
Ih, most notable features ot the period are a range c.l cast plate fibulae witfa hMdplnes decorated with proiectmg -lingers which served to fasten clothing IIhs, so-called Slav hhulae' are found across a wide area of southeaster | uropc though rarelv north ot the I arpath.ans or in Wesi Slav tcrr.tor.es> The t     developed from fibulae of the late ( herniakhovo group w,th wide flat plates which often have semicircular radiate' heads and elongated rhombo.dal footplates tcr.nin.itcJ with human o. animal masks (they arc broadly similar to ■Ostrogoth.c  fibulae ot the Italian peninsula and Cep.d finds from the Ca'rpathi in basinl hut cxhibmng a mixture ot motifs and heavier, more massive ornament and lorm.f.g       Ihwanen ot torm and ornament probably had, .ymbolic significance, and may even have served to show atfin.ty to a particular group. These fibulae are scattered across a wide area from the Mazuriao lake district to the lower Danube and Crimea in the decides around 6oo (though some examples mav he as earlv as the first half or middle ot the sixth century) There arc regional variations: they occur in south Slav lands, but rarely in the West Slav territories, and are more common in Pcnkovka assemblages than those on the west bank of the Dmcpr. *4ttk^L^L^I
A second group of fibulae (the Dmcpr group dates to about the same period as the Marrynovka horizon iindeed that hoard contained three of them) and the finds from the site at Pastyrskoc iPastyr'skcl This is a more massive series of wiJc equal-armed fibulae derived from the prototypes. They have the k—
nearer the centre of the ohicct, with the head and footplate rx with anthropomorphic and /ooniorphic decoration, fir in the it rounded or triangular plates. These appear in the lirst halt ccnniry. This group of fibulae develops further throughout t century (perhaps to the very beginning ot the eighth). They are ft (. aucasus and Crimea.
In the Balkans a series of simple fibulae with upturned foot and flattened (decorated! bow derived from 1 ate Roman types was in use in several cultural contexts, including apparently Earlv Slav and Roman culture issemhiages.
Another metalwork type which is characteristic of the period comprises armlets or bracelets ol round-sectioned rod with expanded ends Tig. to). These were probably worn by men as well as women, and are an interregional type, found in Germanic contexts as well as across Slavdom.
A typical form of female ornament is the simple wire-loop temple-rings of bronze and occasionally silver, rings of wire 1-4 cm in diameter which appear sporadically in West Slav contexts 1 mostly towards the Baltic) perhaps by the seventh century, but more certainly in the eighth century. These were worn as a headband round the brow and temples. Some star-shaped silver temple-rings in the Danubian area may also begin in the seventh century, but examples arc more certainly dated to the eighth centurv, when these ornaments were inspired hv Byzantine |cwellcry fashions  Similar temple-rings are tound in Ukrainian hoards, suggesting along with other phenomena dose cultural links between the Danubian area and the Pcnkovka Culture. More frequently however the Martynovka-rype hoards contain more showy icwellerv ot wire, larger rings some 6-9 cm m diameter and several types of spirals ol bronze wire.
Another "luxury' type connected with the toilet comprises the single-sided bone and antler comhs with sub-triangular sideplates appearing on some West Slav sites (especially in the Cracow region) from about the middle of the sixth centurv and in use in the seventh and perhaps eighth centuries. Like the tihulae. these have prototypes in the Danube vallcv *
Amber from the shines of the Baltic was a central European commodity which was widely traded through the ancient world. With the collapse ot the Roman world wc lose track of the amber trade through central Europe by the early sixth century, though Ciepid graves still contain fairly large quantities. Little of this reached the Slavs however (exceptions arc items from the Pastyrskoe assemblage and from Khatski. Ukraine, and an amulet from the Polupin stronghold in western Poland). In the seventh century however wc have a few amber beads reaching settlements outside the West Bait territory. This exchange too was to increase in later centuries. An unpublished ornament from Polupin has an amethyst inlay.
Men were not averse to showy metalwork costume accessories. The main form these took was the finings of leather belts of Avar type which are found in
manv mile gr.no south ot the Carpathians. A number of these items are found beyond the /one in the Carpathian basin dominated by the Avars. Be!f.n,OUnu ,1 War tvpe presumably served to enhance the status ,., their wearers andftf
emphasize their association, with the ruling elite, with whose agreement
perhaps these objects may have been worn .n the Avar realms.
•\ more specifically male met.ilwork tvpe comprises the internally hoolced ours fFlg ' - Mound in western Slavdom in a broad /one from the F.lbc to ,ne hue ind is tar south as the Danube " Originally their genesis was dared to the
sixth century, but this earls dating (based on a model of settlement cont.nu.ty in the area of modern Poland) has now been questioned. The earliest examples date more prohablv to the mid seventh century These spurs arc of copper alloy ,,r iron ind have a short curved how with a stout Pr,ck. and were fastened toa hoot In straps through the hooked ends of the how. I he spurs arc diltercnt.ated from contemporary lr.ink.sh spurs in that the hooks turn inwards The earliest examples arc found north of the Carpathians, in the area ol central Poland, but rvpol.igicallv perhaps slightly later tortus are found at Mikulcice in Moravia m the earliest (pre-Moravian) fortified settlement under the later princely stronghold. This iscurrcntly datable to the vcrv end of the seventh century ()n|y ln the eighth century do these types occur more commonly in the area south of the ( irp.irhi.ins in pre-Moravian deposits. None is known from Moravian-period graves. These items were relatively rare: as in many early societies, it seems likely that the majority of these ornaments were prestige goods, enhancing or stating a social position  Thus it is notable that hooked spurs arc found in several Strongholds and the settlements associated closely with them, and rarely found on 'normal' open settlements. ^fl^^^^H
A particularly problematic group of finds comprises a series of hoards of precious metal objects found over a wide area of the Ukraine. Many of these were accidental finds nude in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and being suitably showy antiquities tor the ancestors of the Russian nation the* were soon being hailed as the Treasures of the Antes'.4' Thev arc found in a cluster between Kancv and Cherkasv on the middle I Iniepr, but also a number along the Desna and Seym, in the upper Donets and Oskol area, and in the upper reaches of the left-bank tributaries of the middle Dniepr 'Sula, Psol, V'orskla) Beyond this are sporadic finds of fibulae and a few hoards which were presumably hoards of loot or tribute lost to neighbouring tribes. tifl^^l
About 1907 at Martynovka Usance district) near Penkovka a hoard of silver ornaments was found which was scattered among several collections. Part 15 now in Kiev and part in the British Museum, and the entire hoard (what remains ot it) has recently been published.'0 These items have given their name to a scries of hoards and loose finds of similar type which may be dated to the seventh century Items ol this type are sometimes found in assemblages of Pj»«i.~..i.
sctticmei
the silver is hinted at by the East Roman a; hoards: those at Martynovka had control Another important hoard is the Capon Kolochin Culture (see p. 101J site near K series of women's headband ornaments, t and many glass, amber and coral beads. T and other finds such as ingots. The find Balkan zone of provincial East Romai Azov/northern Caucasian cultural zone, fi dated to the second and third quarters of
There are in fact two groups of these ho. mainly female ornament) dates to the seco century. The authors of the Gaponovo rep group coincides with the appearance of B; perhaps deriving from some kind of pohtu coincides with the interruption of earlier ti
eighth centuries, and coincides with thr M»i
the middle Dniepr river."
Despite the attribution of ,„« noards r Slavs, especially to the Antes, they betray a 1 of these items have closer affinities with th
tribes of the steppes, and their appearance result of cultural contacts between the sou nomads such as the Alans or Avars on the t one may point to the expansion of rh* —
kind of mei
next chapter). The
' tnc 1 enk
1 Culturel. A second
■ Luka Raikovetska
d consequent effects arnonc rh hL 1 e hoards by Soviet ar-h I
imad be a
1 and
' In partic
«1 of this
THI M«tV SLAVS
The first strongholds
At about the same time, a series of strongholds appears over wide /one ol western Slavdom. These sites will he discussed fu ? tive'y later chapter, hut a few aspects of the earliest examples need to be" 3 here There lias been a teiiilcncj in the past tor archacolo....,, . mC.nt,'0ned
ircnacologists to date &
5tronsho,ds rather too early, tor revision of the dating has shown ,    .here are vers few of these sites anywhere ,n Slavdom for which a date
More the seventh century can be proved.
|„s ,sPt o, cnslosedsc.tlen.cn. is known ,n most Slav languages by a word Jt.r w, ,,„„ , common root I'.^ll which seems to have meant 'enclosedy
Is in.nndert, Polish.,-../, m Slovak /,,;</.... Russian ,,„/«, At a later d«J see C hinter «) .he sem.-urh.im/ation of these sites led to tins term acquiring^ Ln.nu of '.own' in addition to i.s pr.mars meaning, the interesting fact j, however that .1 was only .n the seventh century (a. the earliest) rj„t (l„s settlement type developed, and the fact that this word preserves a slmi|ar , ,rl„ m most ol the Slav languages suggests that their differentiation d.d not occur un.,1 after this date These sues were not bu.lt in the Migrat.on penod-f|u., iH-gm onl> with the new social conditions formed during the process 0f consolidation. -^^^^H
I |K- distribution ol early medieval strongholds is uneven across the area, and ,|K. s „ne differentiation is seen in the distribution of the earliest examples. There m. „ le.st two main /ones, an eastern one with very few strongholds, a„d-..ester,, area where there are perhaps rather more It is however difficult at thjj ,„ produce .111 accurate map, owing to the problems of chronology caused by recent redattng."
The torn, of these sites ,s somewhat v ..liable. On thc whole they consist of a„ ,re, ol land which is in a rel.it.scb   defensible' or commanding poslti(w (in the middle of a hog. peninsula on a lakeside, high peninsula overlooking, valley, and soon), which has been mad. .nor. d, l< ns.ble by adding an earthen or earthen and timber rampart or ramparts  I heir function was not however ennrelv Jet.nsihle. as some have open sides which could not withstand a concerted attack This is no. to s.iy that flies arc not an indicator of intertnbal warfare, orth.it they had no military (unction I heir relative weakness suggest however that any armed conflict between groups was more like thc raids of weaklv organi/ed societies and not the arracks ol a large disciplined army of
probab/e elite meralwork found associated with
suggested In some scholars, on the analogy of superficially^^'     ^ becn
'^ported by rhe
hcm- " h« been s'milar s.tes fCQfn
16
in the
the forest zone of Bclarussta and Russia, t cult.c function. This may be thc explanati which may be some kind of votive or nrus
enclosure.
There is also a group of sites which has a relatively consistent character o
material culture These sites include Szeligi and Hacki in Poland and Zimno 11 the upper Bug valley. They are on sleep hilltops and have relatively simple defences. Szeligi is a settlement complex of the beginning of thc seventh century (though originally dated to the mid to late sixth century), investigated in t9s"«j-ii8 by Professor Wojciech Szymahski and fully published. Thc promontory stronghold here produced much pottery and some metalwork. Although the metalwork is datable, carbon 14 dating of charcoal from burnt timbers produced calibrated results at the beginning of the sixth century, presumably this dates thc trees used in the constructions as much as thc site itself.1* Thc case of Hacki near Bialystok in Poland is interesting: the assemblage contains many scattered cremated human bones, but also a large quantity of metal-working waste, so it could equally be a production sue associated with thc elite. Several items of metalwork from thc site have affinities with seventh-century material from thc Danubian area (the attempt to date this site too by radiocarbon has produced problemsi. The stronghold at Zimno is also overdue for reconsideration: among thc rich assemblage of finds we note metal-working waste and a bronze com of Justinian 01 [listin 1 ts 18-65) together with metalwork belonging to the same general horr/on as the material from Hacki and Martynovka. Further to the cast is thc stronghold at P.istyrskoc near Cherkasy in the middle Dmepr valley   1 his is a circular enclosure 60 m in diameter with a series of internal subdivisions. Thc site was excavated by Vladimir Chvoika in 1898-1901 by trenching (but also by deep-ploughing to bring buried ob|ccts to the surface) and the sue was re-ex. av.ncd 111 1949-It produced an ornament hoard and also scattered metalwork of Martynovka-horizon type. It is possible however that the stronghold is an ancient one - it resembles Scythian ones and thc relationship between the metalwork and ramparts is  unclear. The unparalleled quantities and  type of metalwork from this site suggest that it was of great importance in the settlement network of the middle Dmepr region in the latter half of thc seventh century.17 Equally unclear is thc dating of thc defences around the hilltop at Kiev. Some investigators (such as Rybakov) have claimed a date of the sixth century for their construction on the evidence of early pottery and a Justinian coin found here, but thc evidence for such an early date is far from clear.
It has becn suggested that the earliest strongholds have an origin in the strongholds of the northern forest zone, especially the Tushcmla-Bancherovska group." This is seen as the prime evidence for an eastern origin for the 'northern
, ,,,,, ,PI i which wc discussed on pp. 65-6. As can be
,radinon' ol IN.I.md ■»ni ^ Ml(1|,v juste, in the west ot the area, which seen from ' V      in        jn „ „„, explicable by this simplistic migration!*
niild suggr"thilt tnC
seen
model.
Decisive Decades: the Eighth and Ninth Centurie:
In the previous two chapters we have explored the tentative emergence ot .1 scries of new cultural traditions and followed their spread across much of central and eastern Europe. We have seen that, for most of the period we have been considering, Slav culture was rclativelv consistent over wide areas. The ninth and early tenth centuries saw the splitting of the previously relatively culturally uniform area inhabited by Slavs into a series of more discrete zones. The most obvious are the developing differences between the three main blocks, the South, West and East Slavs. Within these major blocks there were smaller broad cultural units, some of which had influence on the later historical development of central and eastern Europe, influencing its present form and character.
In this chapter these two crucial centuries will be discussed at some length. The framework presented here is rather new. fresh thoughts on the dating of the archaeological material have had a massive effect on our conceptions of the rate of change. In the Ukraine for example the Volyntsevo material (see pp. 96-7) is now dated later than formerly, but it is in Polabia and Poland that new thinking (together with the application of absolute dating techniques such as dendrochronology) has led to a completely new picture. Wc have already discussed changes in the dating of the hooked spurs which has shifted the dating of some pottery assemblages and sites forward almost two centuries. In the same way Tornow and Kcldberg pottery in the DDR was formerly dated two or three centuries too early. Now changes which in previous syntheses were spread over several centuries have as a result of this revision been telescoped into a completely new and dynamic picture.
The eighth and ninth centuries were a period apparently marked in many areas by an increase in growth of the Slav populations. These processes are difficult to measure and there is a lack of evidence from some regions of Europe. Thus wc have few sources of information for the sizeable territories inhabited by the South Slavs, except for rough and incidental estimates by Byzantine writers of the numbers of people forming tribes; since we have difficulty locating their settlements in the held and the evidence from cemeteries is poor, the archaeological evidence cannot be brought into the discussion. The situanon is equally bad for the territories of the East Slavs (but here at least we see a denser scatter of archaeological sites dated to this period than to earlier ones, hinting at .1 denser occupation of the landscape). In the territories of the West Slavs wc have
88
H9
Tilt tAHLV UAV*
' »fnth s quart
data Here we experience the same problems in the interpretation of the
„Zi evidence (the ...id mn.h-ccntury ,».;,..;r,.i« for example:
hides information on the number „1 a.UMcs of each of the peopfc
„turned, h... the significance of this information ,s unknown). The area has Wvcr been well covered by archaeological surveys which give a very clear " I   „,on of the nuinhcr. distribution and dating ol arehaeologic.il sites. Thi*ji l.rtuulirh true »1 I'"'-""1' wlurc J |ir°|CCt      government-sponsored Sysw. 1 ,„„,. ,nd detailed heldwalking of the entire country and inventorying the covered sins h.,s been earned out sii.ee nr«  I he d itabase this pro.ee, na| produced ,s a very valuable research tool. One ol the (enures which can be tudied on the has^ of numbers and dimensions ol sites is the popU|arion 1M „, ,|,e earls medicsal period. In western \\ lelkopolska it can be estnnitcd th't at the hcguming ol the sixth cenrurv population densities were lowerthan one person per squar. kilometre, at the < nd of the ninth century the neure ssas at least three times greater, population growth increased in the century, and hy noo there were population densities of seven per Kilometre i.od.n tin population figures to, the same are i are between twenty ,„J hm I 1 Although these futures are only approximations, they give an idea of ,he scale of population growth, but also the degree ol settlement of the land-Sl ,,u   With population growth came a necessity and possibility of a scries of cultural and organizational changes not encouraged by lesser population densities. laannnnnfl
| |lt. eighth and ninth centuries were also a period when Slav culture became strongly influenced bv more 'advanced neighbouring cultures, leading to cultural change  These processes of cultural transmission and assimilation were obviously complex, and mam factors .illected which features of neighbouring cultures were re|Cc(ecl and which were accepted In Slav communities. In many cses though we h ive dear examples ol interactions between core and periphery where the cultural patterns ol a more ■advanced' society were adopted by (or forced on I i neighbouring society being in souk measure less developed. Not all of these changes were to the ultimate bene tit ol the new host (and they led to some degree to i loss or reorientation ol local cultural identity I. Neither should ,t be assumed that these processes ol cultural change due to external influence were necessarily unidirectional. , J^^^^^U
The South Slavs (Bulgars, Serbs and initially the ( ro.its) came early on under the strong influence of Byzantine culture. The Slavs had settled in the agrarian landscape and social system created by the hast Roman I mpire and were affected by the territorial ambitions of Constantinople. These factors
were to affect
the way in which these societies wete lo develop in subsequent Centtn i» culture of the List Slavs absorbed elements deriving from several central Asia' andsuppi ciiliuiesiKli.i/ais. (Vchenegs and the Islamic states of central v""" this ,s especially usibl, ,„ flu art visits, particularly of the metalworfcB,
ye>
the ninth century several tribes had tall Khazar state. The influence of ninth-cem ilie Kiev an st ue is the sub|cct of recent d came under the strong influence of Byz away from the Byzantine frontiers to hav were not totally isolated from their polit seen in Byzantine fashions the eirigms women. The strongest influence on the ccssor state to the Roman world, dut t arolmgian and Ottoman empires.
aru expansion of the
The South Slavs and Byzantium
---••.Mill
Realignment of Slav culture first took place in the territories south of the Danube, and it was here that they had the strongest effects. As we have seen, various Slav groups had penetrated the Balkans down to the south ol Greece m the sixth and seventh centuries, and settled there. Their settlements are as hard to find as those of the contemporary 'Byzantine' populations, and it would seem that both groups had a "Dark Age' material culture which was equally atchaeo logically imperceptible. We have seen that settlements of the Popma type in the notthern areas of the Balkans should now be dated to the later seventh and eighth centuries (rather than the earlier dating formerly assigned them). These are villages consisting of a few scattered sunken-floored buildings which were periodically replaced.' The fact that the same site was used for several centuries suggests that the settlement network was becoming stabilized in these areas. A further symptom of this stabilization is the formation of tribes, which are known from the written sources. These emerged as the main form of sociopolitical organization among the South Slavs during the period of settlement stabilization of the seventh century. Relatively quickly however the specific conditions ol the area led to the formation of larger socio-political units, including tribal unions, such as the Seven Tribes (or Seven Clans) of the south bank of the lower Danube. In the eighth century the Pcloponnese was known in Creek sources as 'Sclavonia terra', a name perhaps representing the organization of tribes there into a form able to resist Byzantine pressure Only at the end of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century did the Byzantines attempt to regain control over some of these lands (which was fully achieved only in the mid tenth century).4 At the end of the seventh century however the Byzantine state was forced to give way to the rising power of the Bulgars and officially recognize the lirst independent state in the Balkan peninsula. This was the beginning of the formation of a new socio-political and cultural unit in the Balkans, one with considerable influence on Byzantium itself.
THE EA«l* *LAV'
The settlement of the Bulgars in Little Scythia and then tns.dc the Byzantine I .„,1 of the seventh century (Chapter >) was to have serious effect,
^Tol, cal balance of the area. Dunn, the re.gns of the Amorian and
00    i P      i ne- ors nl Bv/.a„t...m the Bulgar khans expanded their territory,
Macedonian cmpcr^ ^       ^ ^ p        ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ »
,, the «PCI w|||ťh was ,0 |.1st nearly three centur.es. The distinc-
rmens iand possibly other elements such as remnants of earlier Romanu*, ?hZan populations) over a penod of several centuries I he precise mech,-f this complex process ol cultural assimilation have been a much. "l .heme in Bulgarian historiography tor several decades. It would seem ;;^;sp,e.:,ngP«..."C3l., dominated hv a Turkicel.cc. the Slavs were able to r'L their ethnic identity, language and own tribal leaders. Indeed it is the 'v,, ,1 of the language and the gradual acuuismon of elements of the Slav L • In the Turkic ruling elite winch ,s one of the most interesting features of this relationship. Here the 'elite dominance" factor seems to have been over-den bv the usefulness of the lingua franca of the Slav dialects of the area as a communication medium within a much more numerous substrate within the
'Tir'lUilgiriJns made pol.tic.il gams Iron, becoming involved ,n the power tniggles winch split the reign of Justinian II In-jc-oc). The political problems following the fall of the house of Heracl.us did not at Hrst allow Byzantium to resist the Bulgars. but in 7Í" under the Is.iunan emperor Constantine V ropronvmoiis (-4—SI the Byzantines concentrated their forces on trying to sm.sh the Bulgars Alter several dozen years ot bloody battles they faded. The Biil'iiirs emerged Irom the conflici with the boundaries of their territory relabel* intact Bulgarian forces were involved in the Carol.ng.an attack on the power of the Avars rot-fil. and lor a brief period the Bulgars seem to have Clined control ot extensive areas ol Transylvania and part ot the Carpathian iusin in the power vacuum created In the collapse of the Avar khanate (the Carolingians presumably being unable to extend their frontiers further to the east than the gre.u bend of the Danube). I his period was marked by increasing political centralization under Khan Krum (803-14). who began a senes of wars against what was left ol the ninth-century Byzantine tmpirc. This began in 807 with .m .itt.uk on Thrace and northern Macedonia, occupied to a large extent by Slavs. The Bv/amine emperor Nicephorus fell fighting against the Bulgarians (811) and Michael 1 was also defeated by them (8131. . iaH
The gams of Krum were continued bv khan Omurtag (814-31). He divided the enormous territory into eleven areas, each governed by an official appointed by the state accompanied bv a retinue. Bv these means the original compact group ot Bulgars settled 111 1 restricted area of the Lower Danube scattered in various enclaves all over the country. Similar resettlement of the Slav sub|cctS
9»
'ich were still bs
language contains
broke down existing tribal bounoancs,; of a new ethnic identity. The khanate so modelled on the structure of the By/an., cultural patterns. The remaining elemcn ever tirmly Slav in character, with very influence. The process of the 'Slavizarion1 of rii plctcd in the ninth century, with the cstabl Bulgarian) as the state language (and today only a few thousand Turkic words 1.
The first centre of power of the Bulgar khanate was the delta and lower reaches of the Danube, and there is some archaeological evidence that several abandoned Roman forts on the limes may have been reoccupied in the early ninth century, probably in the reigns of Krum and Omurtag. The centre of the state was soon shifted (probably by the reign of Omurtag) to I'liska, an enormous urban site modelled on Byzantine cities and surrounded by an earthen rampart in the centre of which was a large walled compound containing the palace and sacral buildings. The area around was divided by paved streets, and w as served by waterpipes and a sewerage system.
In the second half of the ninth century the Bulgar realms expanded southwards into the Balkans and at the end of the ninth century the Bulgar khanate was at its maximum extent, covering large areas of the Balkans and Carpathian basin (Fig. is; Map v).
One stumbling block to unity in the Bulgar state was the religious plurality. The Slavs had their own polytheistic pantheon (Chapter 9). there were probably ( hnstian inhabitants in the state, but the Bulgar elite apparentlv believed in Tangra, rhe God-Heaven. It would seem from some accounts of western writers that Christian missionaries had made some converts among the noble families in the ninth century, and Jewish and Muslim missionaries were apparently also conducting religious propaganda in the area. These religious differences created problems for a ruler trying to create a centralized state: not only did they iicoui ige dissent, they also meant that dittvrcnt religious communities had different moral values and laws. The accession of Khan Boris (851-89) was followed by an alliance with Charles the Bald ot Francia, and his forces took part 111 an attack on the Fast Prankish kingdom and the Croats. In 861 Boris was able to wage war on Moravia and the Byzantines again in alliance with the East Fankish kingdom. These contacts with Christian powers no doubt convinced him ot the need to do something about the religious disunity of his own state. It was in this context that we should sec the acccprance of Christianity, first accepting the Greek liturgy from the hands of Byzantine missionaries, but then switching to the Roman Church in pursuit of political gains, before switching back to the Byzantine rite (but in the Slav language not Greek). The Slav Church in Bulgaria was strengthened by the acceptance of clergy who left Moravia in
7;
TMI liAHIV JlAVI
88s (sec below). Boris enforced me cons.of l,,s pagan s,ih,ccw (carticd ' ' h , cat.... m........ <>' blo.uUh.di. ...ul some rv, o decades |.„„ ,Ul|K.lrM
, |HIS„ „, vt ,tc Ho,„ resigned the throne and retired ..... monastery, hur, wh|3,
I       , mule m.me ni.m- favourable to paganism, lions deposed and blinded
hlmld.nsia^^
Svtneon |«M-9*7> had been des.med to he the head ot the Bulgarian Church „, , ,„ th,s ,„„ had been sen. to .he Magna... a sc hool ... I ons.antinople, Wqere
I ,„d Kv.m... Kshma.i/ed to By/aminc culture. Unfortunately ,u„ fcw .....„er coming.......«er In already came ml.....n.l.c. with the emperor
I ,„ vlniti (.-e.cn .r.ule. and th.s was to h. the beginning o( a series ,,( ainflict»
Keruven Hulgana ...id hv/ammm. |„ Sc i tin capital was igam moved, trom 1 l.ska to the smaller site at Pres|av, h,d stone walls and the central palace complex was larger and had uMim,|Ul tr,d,ng ....ut.ons  As .,. IM.sk... the outer enclosure had urban ■h,r icter.st.es with mam impress" e churches I he By/antmestyle architect!^ w .s embellished with decorat.se glazes! brickwork and arc littc-ctur.il stonework,. ' I,    „ from here that Symeon ruled most ot the Balkan peninsula and w*g' ] , ,ow ned is... ot llie llulgars I his w.ls the gold, n age ot B.llg.ir culture when art, literature and architecture flourished. -jf^l
\ltei . few years, Symeon dcdaicd war on Ihz.intitim and invaded Thrace; ,„, „ us sver. to I ist until the end ot his reign. I In Bv/antmcs encouraged (hl Mu;, ,,, ,o ins.idi the Bulgarian coastal regions, and Svmcon's army was tlgh„„g on two ir.mts \tte. defeating ihc Mags »>. Symcns troops invaded ,|,e lls/inmu I mpire and took the western regions ot the Balkans, forcing the Bv/antmcs 10 sign a treats in moj acknowledging all his territorial gams,
reatc a united Slovr>
Svtneon seems then to have developed the ambition to 6
lis .■inline empire with him as the rule. After having tailed to achieve this Of marriage, he..gun ..naded Byzantium in 917. JflH
I lirther south in I.recce the Bv/antmes had reconquered their lost lands from the Slavs In -S: ; <. onsraniine \i had sent an a. ins into Thcssalonia and the Hellas, where the Slavs were vanquished and forced to pay a tribute to the emperor He dun mosed his attention to the IVloponncse and took many captives I he Slass revolted against Bv/antine administration in 8ot/6 but wet* J
defeated, onlv to rise again in Sjcw. Some tunc afterwards i n«„ ,k„
, „....... i.   ii , "u'"ie was
incliu •me Si Crus
lb the west o| the Huig.ir klt.iii.ite. the northwest areas of the Balk
..........c ,\ .nenič w
created on th. ľ. lopoiiuese, and building was begun in the cities irtcl rJI Athens nhiirch ol St |nhn the Kiptisr. S — t1 Despite (his activity som Sl"^ I > Earned their autonomy and culture, even until the time of the Knn»u n
""hCrusode
•11 s
from the end ol the eighth century the scenes of a struggle I,., pow er liaw"e»Briift Frank, ind Bi mum - I In uca entered the sphere ot influence ol Bavarj " the I r.ink.sli and I arolingian empire, at times tortning an eastern 'march*f"l!^
»4
BJ settlements ot rhc
and subordinate territories ruled semi autonomous
subject to German colonli tttoa) At ml of the Drava (Drau) and Mui risers and Klagcnfutt) retained its independence. T early ninth century. The name Sliwcne:
century); earliet 1 atln documeiUI used t ,lso Vinadet, Vinadt and Vine.in
The coastal towns of Dalmat.a, tlnu Croats, were still lis/amine in culture ai
enormous effect on the culture ol the Sla
tore ol the West, though the survival ot the Bvzantinc liturgy, which arrived here from Pannonia in the ninth century, is a curiosity. The Croats became a state only in the first decades of the tenth eentttr] under Tomislav (910-iH). The Serbs to the north and east acknowledged Byzantine lupremac] In the ninth century, but at the turn ol the ninth and tenth centuries, as a result ot fJyiMftlC conflicts, the area passed into the hands of the Bulgarians under Svmeon. thev treed themselves in the carls tenth century only to come shorth attcrw.uds under Byzantine rule.
Mention should also be made here of the Albanians surrounded In these other groups. These were apparent!) the remnants .it pre-H.ini.in lllvnan inhabitants ot the peninsula (belonging to their own linguistic group), scattered bv and sur vivillg successive annexations, though rarcls achieving aiitouoim In the earlv modem period their distribution was quite wide in the Balkan peninsula (in part though owing to later resettlement under the Oitoni.insl.*
I he area to the north of the S.isa was ot mixed cthnicits. With the final destruction of the Avars in the -90s, wc sec groups ot Slavs settled or settling in lower Pannonia .11 the great bend ot the Danube (among them the P.innotu.in t mats and Abodntil. While Upper Pannonia (the area around Vienna) became a march of the Frankish F.mpire, the Slavs ot I ower I'annonia had In the second half of the century been organized into some kind ot independent political entitv In Prince Prihma." From the initial core ot bis estates in the area on the- haver /ara which he had received as a bcnrftauiit from Louis the Cierman (with his mam centre at /alav.ir), by encouraging the growth ot the economy and in par-11cul.tr by colonization ol the forested and swamps mas of his territory, he was with the agreement ol loins able to increase his power and develop the Church in his kingdom (subservient to the Salzburg diocese 1 I'rihina was killed m 860 in lights with the Moravians (sec below). I lis son kocd| continued his father's work, but under the influence of Constantine and Methodius in the Mtsos iccepted the Slav rite. In 869 he had the Sirminm bishopric formed for Methodius, but later Pannonia was linked to the Moravian diocese.' In the Sues however the area was devastated by the Magyars and the area later became the
The East Slavs
One „• the J.v......- '» sl-,vJ<"n M hA) MZ,bc ^P"^'"" by archaeologists of central Europe ,s thai between East and West Slav. This feature, o„e 0i fhc most .rcuucntlv and stronglv drawn hnes on the cultural map of early medieval central Europe, .s perhaps to some extent a b..ck-pro,cction into the „,s, of the present situation, as the divide tends to be drawn on the frontier between Poland and the former Sov.et Union (see Chapter , ,). It ls thus of con, s.derable .merest to examine the origin and nature ol this cultural division.' By the end ol the ninth century the mater.nl culture ,s relatively uniform on both s,des ot this |„,e, and ii is onh w.th the expansion of Kiev an power after the la* decides of the ninth century that we see the establishment ot differing cultural.
Uterus alone this line. At this nine, the area ot the later K.evan state could be spin mm at leas, three /ones (E.g. 19; Map VI  1 he area of the forest steppe ,n ,he west was the region in which the Slav identify seems to have crystallized , few centuries earlier. Over the other side ot the Dn.epr also in the forest steppe ,(,„e is the Volvntsevocultur.il area with a ditterent settlement pattern. To the north in .he forest /one was an area penetrated In the Slavs, but even well after the ninth century Slavs were probably in the ethnic minority over much of this I ,rea. hut with concentrations of settlement (tor instance in the upper Niernen |)vll,a and Volkhov 1 These concentrations increased with the resettlements which seem to haw taken place in the period of operation of the Kievan —
state.
In the Ukraine in the eighth and ninth centuries we arc still reliant archacoiogic.il evidence for our studies of cultural processes \'cw cultural |
mciits appear 111 place of the Pcnkovka Culture, and several featu
res disappear,
such as merahvork of Martynovka type. Ehe developments in western Ukraine in this period led to the creation of the so-called Luka Raikovetska culture (Fig. l6, developing from the earlier post Prague-- elements. The precise date of the begin-n.ng of this material is uncertain but it seems to have begun in some parts of the Ukraine by the eighth century lor perhaps as ( irh as the third quarter of the seventh centurv 1 and continued into the ninth and tenth centuries.10 This culture shares mam tenures with its predecessors, such is * illage and house form, and burial rite, hut again archaeologists have concentrated their attention on the
pottery. The general form of these vessels is similar in that they have relativ
e Luka made,
comb-lines or horizontal hands of combing (though Combed dec""
ided shoulders relatively high up on the vessel. The vessels of th*!! culture after the end of the eighth century cJn be wheel' "d" although handmade pottery continues in use. The potterv is ornamented b
Raikovetska cull
sporadicalh occurred on vessels of Korchak type). Some vessels have"0" rims or a row of holes made on the neck ot the vessel. The vessel ado S-shaped profile with an out-turned run. This ceramic tradition ^.J." J "'."^
-.......„ n.- .        Cems another
case of influence from ihc Danubian region. The difference betv
vecn this and the
96
o the west u dif,
n rcccn, years the wide Luka ons. To the west of the rin Culture which dcvcloD
RaciWrz-Chodlik mate
archaeologists tend to tl....is o
ally exclusive in their distribut
be the Bug - which was DO CO
between the two states. The l.i of pottery, and the fact that ma found west of the Bug in Biala rather cast doubt on the clearness ot the div Raikovetska zone has been seen as having sul are assemblages of the classic Luka Raikov from pre-existing traditions (as on the site o
while to the northeast an earlier Sakhanov ka-l uka Raikovetska g.,. recently defined. Sakhanovka-type material is found on a number of sites on the right bank of the Dmepr, as well as in the Desna and adjacent valleys including
the sites of Pcnkovka and Volyntscvo a
The type-site at Luka Raikovetska itself is an open settlement under a much later srronghold, but this period sees the increase from the eighth centurv in numbers of strongholds being constructed. In the Ukraine at least twentv-fivc have been identified, interestingly enough mainly from the fringes of the area, along the Pripct (Khotomcl, Babkal. a cluster of eight sites in the Kiev area, probably including the first enclosure at Kiev itself since the pottery found there m associated deposits is dated to the eighth and ninth centuries,11 and along the edges of the Carpathians.14 The settlements of this culture arc notable for the increased number of iron objects found in them - presumably increased production meant that this was no longer an especially rare material. Some iron however occurs in hoards, such as the material from Makarov Ostrov.
To the east on the left bank of the Dmepr between the upper Oka and Don in the eastern Ukraine is the Volyntscvo group." This represents a later develop ment of the eastern periphery of the Pcnkovka zone (the relationship of this pottery style zone to the Luka Raikovetska material has yet to be established) This group, prcv iousIv assigned a slightly earlier dating, is now seen as having developed in the eighth century." The type-site is an open settlement and cemetery" near PutivT (Sumy district i in the Sevm valley, situated in a valley and surrounded by bogs. The open villages contained sunken-floored huts of typical form, though some were quite large. Burial was by cremation and urned or unurncd remains, often covered by barrows, though some ccmetcties contained only flat graves. Some of these cemeteries were large, and contain relatively rich grave goods such as glass beads and metal ornaments and iron objects. A particular feature of the material culture of the Volyntscvo Culture is the amount of Islamic silver which is found, cither occasionally as loose finds or more often as hoards. Settlements and graves in the area also produce silver jewellery (rings, bracelets) more frequently than other areas of the East Slav lands at this time.
Till IM«LV SIAVS
Thcsr a,,ns .lowed int.. tin- ..re. Iron. Uu.zar,.. or Irom the lands of rhc Bulg,,,
' thc Volga .md K...n.. hec ( h.iptcr SI. I he Volvntscvo (.ulturc is now |,„kcd w„h thc 'Romny' type of sires.These arc , series ,.| eighth- ,„ tc.,th-centurv settlements situated on steep promontories or in boggy places and surround^
h, e.rthen tampans and ditches and li.und along thc Desna. Seym, Ps„|, Su|a ,„J Vorskla overs. I he tvpr Mte is the Monastvrishchc' stronghold near the t0Wn of Romnv in the Sula valley, wins I, » as ex. as ated m , 9e« (but published
„n|v .n .9*5). Although in rhc south ol the region ot their occurrence these s.tcs fall in the area dominated by the Penkovka I ulturc (w hid. had very fcw, jf a„
MrongholJsi.the iio,.lH-.np.ut..tdu-/one ot\oh,,tsev,,-|<„mny sues develops: I „, , r,,,on where dure had bee,, sites containing Moloch.n material (see below) The mmn .1 culture iwh.cl. seems to represent a clean break with the P.mcrr|J' of the past) seems to suggest some torn, ol Slavi/ation ot indigenous groups
Ic.dmg to the formation ot new social arrangements and material culture. The Horshcvo group is formed bv a compact c luster of sites to the cast of the dvntsevo-Romny group on thc upper Don around Voronezh and Lipetsk ,n
"own arc
Russia md also in the upper Oka. The mam type of settlements |c..w.„ cghth- to tenth-century strongholds very similar to the Komny sites, and some scholars link them into a single group. I luv are named after the stronghold'agjl cemetery at Bolshoe Borshevo.1" This sue contained rectangular sunken-floored structures ss .th crner ovens   I he  ramparts were bu.lt of limestone. The Borshevo group of sites develops on the edges of the Moshchino Culture (sec Mow. hut extends into the Finno-Ugrian area to the northeast (Ftg. i9). Th*. involvement ol the Slavs in the process leading to the formation of this cultural group is less clear. id/K^M
I in strongholds in the forest-steppe zone on the left bank of the Dniepr are Jeiiseb built-up settlements having the appearance ot fortified villages com-
,    f I fl    _      II------------- * *
posed of sunken-floored huts with ovens in the corner. Unlike those in thc earlier Penkovka houses, these ovens are ol a different construction: they are built of clav. The pottery is mainl) handmade, and some of th. s, sues also produce Islamic dirhetns (hie ol the strongholds is a hilltop sue at Novotroitskoe near Lebicdm in thc Psol valley I Ukraine I, where the steep sides, ,1 the hill form a natural defence.'' The site contained about nttv sunken-floored huts from the eighth and ninth centuries and produced man) agricultural, craft and other tools Mure was also a hoard containing silv er items, including Islamic dirhems, Thc sue was apparently destroyed In a raid, possihl* of the nomad Pechcnegt. The occupation layers of the Borshevo sues produce finds suggesting that the inhabitants were tanners (growing millet among other crops), and quern fragment were quite common   I he main types of livestock were herded, but they also supplemented their diet with hunting and fishing. Since many of the animala hunted were also fur-bearing species, the pelts were presumably used for exchange.
To the southeast of thc Vols ntsevo-Romny sites and south of thc Borshevo sites is an extensive zone in the middle Don and upper Donets vallevs stretching across to the lower Volga. This is characterized Irom the middle ot the eighth century bv the occurrence of assemblages ot the Saltovo-Matatskn (.ulturc, which is the archaeological retlection of the hegemony dominated by the Khazars,10 These assemblages contain wheel-made pottery and high-quality tnctalwork, including tvpes of weapons and harness ornament which are spec 11 idlly nomadic. The burial rituals include inhumations in underground 'caia combs'. I'hc area contains a variety ol settlement sites, ranging from the ephemeral traces of encampments of yurts to large stone-walled 'urban' sites. At the edge of thc Khazar land at thc interface with the Slav groups discussed above is a line of so-called 'white-stone fortresses built in the late eighth or early ninth century (Maiatskoc is one of these, while SaltDVO is a nearby settlement and cemetery).
It would seem that the origin of the Volyntsevo-Romny and Borshevo sites can be linked in some way to thc consolidation of Khazar power on the adjacent Don steppe. The flow of Islamic silver coins into thc area would mostly have come through Khazar hands. Thc construction ot strongholds may reflect the need for defence against either nomad raiders or would-be tribute collectors, or may reflect sonic form ol display of prestige generated bv increased wealth. 1 bese sites have been equated bv Soviet archaeologists with two cultural areas which thc later written sources name Irom thc PVT. (which incorporates information on thc ethnic makeup ol the area of the later state) we learn of a tribe which moved into the area (reputedly from the Danube) and 'settled on thc banks of thc Desna, Seym anil Sula and were called thc Scvcrianc'. Thc tribal territory of the Scvcrianc given by the PVI. seems to match quite closely the distribution of the archaeological assemblages ol the Volyntsevo Culture. The name means 'the northern people', which suggests that iwhichever individual local groups coalesced into this larger tribal union) they had at some time established an identity by opposing themselves with some group in the south. This 1 uses the question whether the name reflects a real or invented migration from some southern region, or whether it referred to the Khazar-dominatcd zone to the south. The PVf. tells us that the Sevenaue and Viatichi paid a tribute to the khazars m 'silver com and squirrel furs', and we have already noted thc strong influence of thc Khazars on thc forest steppe zone from the late seventh and through thc eighth century.
The tribal identification of thc Borshevo sues has been thc subject of some discussion, but a new possibility has arisen from the study of the written sources of the eleventh century. One of the puzzles has been thc locarion of the tribe of thc Chorvati (Croats) who appear several times in thc PVL (s.a. 907, 991 and in the PVL's list of peoples of Rush These are not the same as thc 'White Croats' mentioned in thc DAI (see pp. 74-si. but seem to be a separate group which
Till EARLY SLAVS
^appears from the records after an attack by the Kicvan prince Vladimir ln lx and was presumably amalgamated into the Rus state. Several histor** hive tried to locate them on the basts of the scan, sources Two locat.ons are n.svihlc  the lust somewhere between the Vorskla and the upper Don, thc Lo„d     ^e upper Dn.cstr somewhere ... .he region ot the present Polish h .rdcr \ Close stu.lv ot the evidence has suggested that we may discard the western variant and locate .he (faster.,) Croats somewhere on the southeastern lrllu!l. o. the earls Russian state "ear .he upper Don.' Perhaps „ ,s to th.s group ,,,„■      should assign the Don strongholds. The relationship between these C horv ... and those ot southern and western Slavdom rema.ns unclear.
The archaeological evidence suggests that the tribe or tribes in this area had ,,|m.ved some lorn, ol wealth and perhaps organization bv the end of the ninth enturv presumably involving some means ot gene, iting we ,1th and prestige by controlling some form of long-distance exchange through their terr.tory. The relative importance of this area was presumably based on its proximity to the Kh i/.ir state and was onli to b. eclipsed bv Kiev in the last decades of the ninth .enturv It ,s worth noting howeverthai there were no traditions that the rise of the K.evan state was accompanied bv the taking of some overall centre in this reg.on tat least there is no mention of this in the I'VL, which seems to have incorporated at least some oral traditions)." |H
I |K terntorv which was later to become the domain of the Poliane with the central stronghold ol Kiev seems to have had only limited importance in the nmth ce.uurv. despite the large enclosure on tin hills above the Dn.epr and ,he eltorts ol the I'VI chronicler to give the prehistory of the area some sub-st.ince He evokes the mvthi.al Ktv. a ferryman, and the legendary rulers Askold .md |)ir vvlio.n in Ins .lav tradition linked w ith the rise of the tribe We have seen however thai there w. re.. number of strongholds in the area, and a limited flow of Islamic silver into it from the Khazars Some Kh.uar influence here seems suggested bv the evidence of the written sources.-'' The two-hectare stronghold on St.irokievsk.iv . Hill was probabb built some tune in the eighth or first half of the ninth century. Another enclosure was bu.lt on the adjacent Zamkovayg Hill in the later eighth century. ' franklin and Sficpard have suggested that this enclosure might have been  raised to provide a secure compound for SCrni-nomadic collectors ol tribute on In hall ol the Kha/ars and storage of their takings'.-' The huge town-like enclosure (I'odol) below the strongholds was added at the end ot the ninth century There was a cemetery on Starokicvskaya Hill which contains com dated graves and other finds dating from the thc ninth and tenth centuries.
turn of
Oth sr.ro
fthcr sites in what was later to hecorue .he termor) of rl.e I'ol.ane include h-nghold ai ('hermgov on the Desna/Seym which arose in the middle the ninth century in an area already containing other strongholds. Sonic t  k I metres down-river is the Nhcsroi itsy cemetery which closely parallels the K "
Starokicvskaya cemetery in both date and richness (including! wooden chambers in both cemeteries).2* Obviously these rw centres of elite power and thc graves represent the retinues attac The early stages of the formanon of two other probable sinula thc areas later inhabited by the Drcgov.chi and Radtmichi tribe, thc middle Dniepr), arc still poorly known. There are slight indica of the area were to some extent penetrated by the Luka Raikoveo
The northeastern fringes
Thc area to the north and east of the sites we have |ust been discussing, in modern Bclarussia and southwestern parts of the modern Russian Republic, was occupied bv a series of archaeological groups which do not (by virtue of their position) occur in any early written sources. Their ethnic identification is hotly debated by eastern European archaeologists. The groups concerned are the kolochm Culture and thc northern groups, the Tushemla-Bancherovska and Moshchino Cultures.r !vtany archaeologists (such as V. V. Sedov) feel that these groups should be considered as Slavs Although this was apparently an area of expansion of the Kiev.in state in the late ninth and tenth centuries,such claims need to be treated with some circumspection.1* These cultures arc well within the area of Baltic hydronyms, and it seems more likely that this area was not originally inhabited by Slavs. We have seen that there is considerable evidence for some form of overlap between thc cultures ot thc I'roto-Slavs and Proto-(East-) Halts in thc period preceding the Slav migrations, and .his in some wav may be sufficient to account for the similarities in the material culture of thc second half of thc first millennium AD which have prompted some to claim these northern forest tribes as Slavs
The Kolochin pottery tradition of the forest zone develops from the Kiev Culture which itself is derived from thc Zarubincts Culture (at one time thought by Soviet scholars to represent thc Slavs in thc Iron Age). The earliest assemblages have handmade vessels simitar in idea and form to the Prague and Penkovka types. The pottery is tall and slim, with the shoulder either rounded or fairly sharp at about half thc height or two-thirds up the vessel. Rims are simple in profile and only slightly cverrcd (Fig. z.8). The assemblages contain small ceramic plates used for baking, like Korchak assemblages. Kolochin assemblages contain a number of grotesque metal ob|ects somewhat related >n style to thc Marrynovka-rype material. The houses arc small square sunken-floored huts with central clay hearths (but there are no square huts with ovens of the type typical of thc Korchak and Prague Cultures). Unlike Zarubincts and thc forest cultures to the north, the Kolochin Culture has few defended sites or strongholds (except thc eponymous site itself). Burials arc flat urned cremations, though some pit-graves with bones scattered in thc till are known. Thc Kolochin
nil »iav»
cul
Culture occurs on the southern edge of the forest zone, and a few sites occur w rhe m.ddle Dn.epr ,u>r above Kiev, but most of the sites are in ,he foreatznq,
along .he Desna and Seym nversand their tributaries. Deeper into the fores, zone further to the north are two other zones of forcj, Itures the Tuvhemla-Bancherovska and Moshth.no Cultures. The pottery of these cultures :s however vers d.fferent in style to the Korchak type, and •n-ludes a much vs.der vanery of ressel form. Apan trom open senlerwm,,^ ma.n settlement form is a ser.es of refugial strongholds which seem to have bad ' a culnc significance, such as Tushemla itself. The square huts do not occur ,„ these sites but they have simple irregular shallow dug-out pits which may baVe been the underfloor cavities of ground-level structures. F.nds assemblage, .nclude J number of mass.ve and grotesque metal forms, some of them wrrh
enamelled decoration.2' __ -4^^H
Some archaeologists have gone further and detected Slav elements in the Long Barrows Culture and Sopki Culture even further north. These cultures-enuring from the s.xth or seventh century - are however in areas of F.nno-Ugrian hydronyrny and their identification as Proto-Slavs is highly unconvincing."
The ends of the Kolochin and Tushcmla-Banchcrovska Cultures hare been variously dared: some Belarussian archaeologists place them as early as the end of the seventh century, others see them both as lasting throughout the eighth centurv. Since however the Romny zone overlaps the Kolochin Culture and rhe Borshevo group, the Moshchino Culture, tt would seem that their formation marks the end of these two groups in these areas at least. The nature of the archaeological material occurring in the area between the end of these cultures and the nse of the Russian state is not yet determined.
What is .icar i» that by the ninth century there was already some form of Slav penetration into these areas The mechanisms and precise timing of this process are will completely unclear.'' It seems possible that Slav expansion at some stage before the ninth century had led to the establishment of Slav enclaves in the upper reaches of the Dniepr and its tributaries the Bcrezyna and Soz, from where it branches out into the upper Siemen, the upper Dvina. the upper Velikaia and the Lovat- Another route would run up the Desna to the Oka. The first areas to be Slanazed were those north of the Pnpet and Desna, parts of the territory of the Dregosichi, the Radimichi and further to the cast the Viatichi (partly formed on a substrate of the Borshevo Culture). Eventually the Slavs took over the zone of the former Long Barrows Culture and this became the territory of a tnbe later known as the Pskov Krmchi. centred on the stronghold at Pskov (dating perhaps from the mid ninth century)- The northernmost group, finding themselves in the areas of Finno-Lgrian and Baltic peoples   n the area of the Sopki mounds) called themselves ihe Slovicnie (date uncertain I. . --^mmssS'lILIH
The existence in the north of some kind of polity ruled by Varangian adventurers, known to the local tribesmen as the 'Rus and in fact of Scandinavian
origin, has recently been discusMd
were prim.
is thought to bethel
mrory and
position of Moscowi deep into Menan term long-distance trade networks which was res pi outposts at the edges of the areas of activity oi
from Holmgard that in 860 a huge crowd of other adventurers launched an attack on C J'hotius tells us that a Christian mission with people, but this seems to have come to nothing
Hetwern the East. South and West Slavs Before we pass to a discussion of the West Slavs, border area between the East. South and West
had good reason to obscure the earlier history t sion of K icvan power here well after the bcginnir these border territories do not attract the attei
West* Slav) and also reminds us that we know t
groups which may have been wiped fr
venturers in the area of
sources care to tell us
se to consider the here that several 'written out' of ry may well nave •etore the expan-enrury; similarly chromders and "roups, but their "be type 'East' or only of
ild be mentioned is t
added to the I
MB
cbi
the tribe is accordingly I place the F VI. reports
grnd coneenii ug ihr domination <»t .1 tribe called the Dulcbi by the ft ,ri - giants') This is a strange record, and is more likely to refer to an ^
a lc;
(Obn-'gia
(Ubn - giants 1 111»    ■ ".....^ ....................' i" rerer to another
iribe. peril ips the Balkan tribe or that name. By the middle of the ninth Ccntu^
this tribe (if ir ever realh existed) seems to have broken up and is rtplaccd bv
other groups which had territorial names (such as the Buzane, mentioned h the B.11 :irwt Geographer). I hese in turn seem to have been subsumed into th Volynians (mentioned in the middle ol the tenth century In al-Mas'udl "
the 'Valinyana ).
Adiacent 10 these people were the 'I achs-, a term which appears in later w
ten sources such as the /'17... Another name for what appears to be th-
I ,      c       I      « t I .
„r„up is rendered Lcdz.anc {DM: Lendzancnoi or Lcndzeninoi) or Lendfe)
(Bavarian Geographer). This reters to a group ol Slavs who ,n the ninth century |„cd 11' the /one bevond the later edge ol Derevlane territory somewhere in the region ot the upper Bug vallev In the DM they appear as tributaries of RUs, huf by the end ol the tenth cc.1t.1rv have disappeared with Polish expansion intOtOB 1 ,re., I he I .11 lis seem to have developed a specific cultural identity which is o„h now heme realized I for example they mas have been among the builders0f the large circular multivallate lowland strongholds of the Chodlik type).* '1
The West Slavs
In some respects cultural development among the West Slavs was in the eighth and ninth centuries .1 continuation ot previous traits There were however a number ol new features, some of which were of a more gen, ral nature. Here, as in the Ukraine, for some unknown reason, stone ovens were replaced by clay ones lor huts without ovens) over most of the area probably by the eighth or ninth ccnturv Over most ot the area (Poland, eastern Germany, Bohemia and Slovakia I. the eighth and ninth centuries see an intensification of the construction of strongholds (see below), which seems to be connected with increasing social organization, but also social unrest. In the ninth century there is a growth in material wealth apparent in an increase 111 numbers ot irtetact types, and in the development ot trading centres on the Baltic coast. Changes are of course also v isihle m the pottcrv, and - traditionally - we will begin with this. .
In I'olabia'" and in central Poland is .1 /one ot sites with biconical thin-walled pottery vessels (Fig. 30) decorated on the shoulder by horizontal incised lines or cordons. Ihis so-called lornow type (named alter a type-site on the Spree) is now dated by dendruchronologv to the ninth century, more probably to the first halt ot the century though it may have eighth-century prototypes and probably continued in use until the tenth century." I Ins pottery is associated with a series of open settlements in the southern pan ot 1'olabl.l, and a series of compact circular strongholds (also said to be of lornow type) which began to be built in
104
the last decades of the ninth and early dcc.u occur in Great Poland (Map v). In c Wielkopolska), within theSukow-Gola-ccntury sites featuring biconical vessels. ft Tornow group (the so-called Tornow-Klcni stronghold)."
In the same way another pottery type assoc
ment has been rcdated. The pottery occurnn crn Pomerania is known as Feldberg type (F rounded in form, and characteristically dei incised lines, cordons and stamps on the uppe to the period from the mid eighth century to t...
Of somewhat uncertain date too are the biconical vessels with combed latticing or panels on the upper part of the vessel occasionally interspersed with stamp impressions. This Menkcndorf pottery (Fig. i 1) occurs on the Baltic coast in the northwestern periphery ol Slav settlement in the territory later occupied by the Obodrite tribe, but also further south in the Spree valley and in Wielkopolska across to eastern Pomerania. It seems to date to the ninth and tenth centuries. Menkcndorf-type pottery also occurs further west, for example in the lowest layers at Miedzyrzecz and Poznan (ninth century), and also on some sites in western Silesia. Similar pottery occurs in Szczecin and Gdansk in Pomerania where it may have lasted to the beginning of the tenth century.
This angularity and decorative schemes of the Tornow. Fcldberg and Menkcndorf portcry is thought very probably to have been influenced by the torm and decoration of contemporary Frankish and Carolingian pottery.
To the south of this pottery zone is the Rüssen pottery zone, which is a continuation of earlier patterns. This material is now known as the Leipzig group. This area is notable for cemeteries containing inhumation burials, some of them with silver ornaments of uncertain date. Heinrich Rcmpel dates these graves as early as the eighth century, but this has been questioned and there is no reason to date this material so early. These cemeteries arc mostly probably tenth century.4'
To the east, the Racibörz-Chodlik and Central Poland pottery zones last in much of the area through the ninth century (possibly even as late as the early tenth century). In the eighth and ninth centuries the quality of this ceramic steadily improves, and more of it is made on a slow wheel. The general rounded forms of these vessels contrasts with the angular form of the Tornow and Menkendorf pottery further west. As yet there arc no clear indicators as to how this material should be split chronologically or geographically; almost certainly regional differences will become clear with increasing knowledge.
South of the Carpathians the general forms arc also rounded, and are a continuation of the Danubian ceramics of Devinskn-Nova Ves type. The vessels
105
1M» IA*l> si yvs
arc perhaps taller than Raciborz-Chodlik vessels, with a tendency tor the rims to
be more vertical. This southern tradition merges westwards into Bohemia
ceramics and eastwards into the I.uka K.ukovetska tradition, ["his wh I wide zone is characterized hv .1 seemingly monotonous scries of vessels of
S-profilc and egg-shaped bodies decorated mainly with combed » ay j |Plles _,nj horizontal rilling Similar tonus occur also in the Balkans m this period. This rvpologic.il unity suggests that some torm ol contact still existed between
widely scattered Slav communities.
An area of spesi.il interest is the coastal strip of Pomcrania. where there are changes in the torm and structure of the strongholds and the patterns of deposition of silver hoards: these suggest some torm of centralization ot power wh h ito judge from changes in the patterns or the flow of silver bullion in the arc seems to have arisen here in the 830s." Before this period the area was divided into 1 number ol smaller regions which dittered markedly, tor example in the settlement pattern. Some areas were dominated by large strongholds (perha defended villages), while other regions had no strongholds at all. At the end f the ninth century and continuing into the tenth century, the part of Pomera now in Poland became covered bv a series of small regular circular strongholds, and the regional differences within the area are levelled out. Further to the w 111 northern Polahia. however, strongholds of a different form began to be buil these were large densely occupied multi-enclosure hilltop sites. I hese sites, associated with Fcldbcrg-type pottery, have become known as the 'leldbcrg type'of stronghold (once envisaged as retuges or fortified villages 1, though this h ■itlv been challenged.' This ninth-centurv transition is reflected also b increasing density of settlement across Pomcrania, by the settlement of n areas and hv changes in the spatial patterning of settlement. These changes zceat to relate to the formation of some torm ot centralized socio-political structure which was well on the way to state formation. The period is also marked bv th » accumulation ol silver bullion 111 the form of Islamic, and later western silv ' coins Although some relatively strong tribal unions were to form in the area this did nor result in the formation ot 1 state. Wulfstan, .1 ninth-centurv visitor to the area, refers onlv to 1 mntry of the Slav s divided from Wirland
(the Flhlag uplands where Truso lay 1 hv the mouth of the Vfatula.'^s—
In the later ninth century on the Baltic coast there were several large dense! built-up trade and production centres, sometimes surrounded by ram Dart/ which took pair in long-distance exchange. There are several early ninth century hoards of Islamic silver around the Vistula mouth around the site Truso which was in Prussian territory near the frontier with the Slavs on the \ istula. The prosperity ot this area continued throughout the ninth and tenth centuries. Other carlv cmporia Midi as Rene and Ralswiek) were founded the south coast ol the Baltic at this time. I atcr in the ninth century ecouoafc growth definitively shifted to the west to tin sites around the Oder mouth-
dendrochronological results indicate th
SSo-oo.
Funher south in central and ««.,1
- —..VI,
Gostyn near Legnica, was bum century and produced many fin axe) and domestic items (knives The ninth century saw centra pied bv the West Slavs and und« neighbours, the Carolingian Eat the Merovingians had ban the Elbe and upper Danube. 111 this period is the acceptance found in the Oder near Frie<Wl
I
tne .Slavs thcr
H of I!ank1
■ annalists. In 789 CI hil,crossing the Elbe, their leader Dra
sword looked Saxon srest in ** The mount ecially
ish Annals are full of
spurs mentioned above, it was only with the involve
wars of Charlemagne (771-804) that thetc was faes
the Slavs who were allied either to the Saxons or 1
Ki >v.i' Frankisb Annals of these years after 780 com,
of information: the Nordhudi, Sorbs, Wilzi, Smeldir
the Obodrites are of continued interest tor th
led a maior expedition against the Wtlzi (Wclta
wooden bridges and attacking the stronghold laving waste to vast areas of territory. The R01 details about how Charlemagne formed alliances with certain SI set them against others. This was linked with the conversion groups to Christianity, though other events presented by the annalists suggest that these conversions were somewhat insincere. Carolingian interest in the Slavs did not decrease after the death of Charlemagne in 814. During the reign of one of his successors iprobably Louis the Pious or Louis the German ■. somewhere in the eastern part of the Carolingian empire in about 840, someone compiled a document (Fig. t) known as the Baranan Geographer entitled Descrtptto avttatum et regionum ad septeninoruilem plagam Danubiae (L>escription of the 'towns' and regions to the north of the Danube). It accompanies the list of tribes beyond the impenal frontiers with the numbers of defended
This list is of considerable interest for the historian, though the reliability of the numrter ot strongnoios given is cieariy not great; neither is it easy to locate unequivocally many of these tribes on modern mapsoi carlv medieval settlement.
Recent dendrochronological work, especially by Joachim Henning, shows that srronghold construction in this area has two mam phases: 11) last quarter of
" "' rhr
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,!„,„ iimuIio "' Vis.'..* .nul IruiniiK".! '»■>» havc becn.. vi.ihlr opMon. II,, cul..!.!.' ríglilh.ei.ii.n .ui.l the nimb ..•niiin ilso se, lii.wcvrr ronriJ
l,„,„„, .„ul IvIJherg poltěn ibovr,       1 1 »'k"tl ^ords. harnes, l.lting,,^'
.....„ ,|.....mln.ii.-dr.........ds.nio.cn.i illiiiopi ' 1 l'.t,l,ni.l(;nCfVcni ;
,„ ,jul i,„|.,.!,liiie llu- x..ppb     11 ",k'vl, sW,,rJh* SLwmm-c v |,,lptn „ , ,m,„|,,., ol ar.hacologlcal lnul, ol such „,.,„, Oiow rluit thii '*
IlUltlMIVl-
,,.,.,„„ «,„ x|,„ »Mir. lhal »1 M"' « lM'0'"' '»;'" 'lu cjucitionol lh|. dtlin.l.o.. ... i .mu "id d.scuxxious on llu- n.orr   nr.al aspcvts „I pr.KW|>
,,,K,l J„„„* ... tlu- M'" " 1 1,1 '"f '....in contim cCcm ,„ ^
„.mr,| in Jnr.i.ihlc .rRiťiwl d.l.emurx   1 :l" i"""" i«cniblajjB».*
vi„iumi., \i.....i.i "i''' •''- ••• 1 "•iiioiiicm ......pi„a mtbe
Plomo.u rrnion. .lu-.......1 arc.s ol ih.- v.illo. ...ul... llu lowrr rcKiont oí ,hř
,      ... ..v mhu.....i »»»'lv,ml1"',lh' K'"-1 " 1 region|. I„ ,|u- Wc„ w„ř
iKeniMtíon»ol leetlřmenl... rhe 1*..»' region in.l .lu- v.illo    t|,e oy|r ' Inilu-n.nil. ..■■'...'> '" v..-.lu ,.-..tt..l./.it.oiiol r-.w.i »"n4|or »troiiK|,„|d,
mílu-- '"•llu \i" " 1'      i'"ng j n........u-r routě linking nonh
„,,| „„ulH.n 1 ...op. il.ro.iKh ilu- Moiavi.it. i.ai  .i. il.r i arpaihian mouma,,, .h.i.n Moli'... >'J' nonn "t il.< IViiuihan ;..iu- ol \vjro-Slni lettUrnettl thóugh o »i" «'»"Kb .nilu.-.i..d ni o, «.uihern ueighbourn, but ii w.ts R|M
ioS
UtlKlcIKCJ IfOMl llu- »fM   .\|, ■ li
i Ii4flcin*gnc togelhei wilh ilu Bul|Mn in -»sn-is devřlopmeni >» Momrl > ..i khi rh i. ealtvM whivl ,„u. .1" .-.ul oi tbe xcventh century. Iliutltewii tlíc emergenci Ol ■' new »ivle ,<l mculwork ap|>c,i
„nu-ii-ťiiil. ..■»iu.v> Mu- m-.i tu-c.inu of COatitk Iron, >lu- Moi.o.an lea.lerv wvre nu-t In ih, ( u ,Sui. Padcrbom (Rij) and ht.inktiirt \Xm \ M,>ravi.in ph.ue to the Mot.ivun m,,u- „ ,„.,,k,,i matctial eulture, lor exnmplé a devclopmcnt ol let \ ,,,,„,■ ullou; i-.pe.-i i> howevei thi ccntrahutio
whili .cveral nortfl si,., tkllvn Itrongboldi ipptkl | sp,,k.i lomáioweJ \. .lu NniiinuiRol tlu linuli, ii,m ol ni.uo otlur tri bal liillloitv I ul, ol tl,e ml, Nl-di-» ol Miong lllb.il lottilu.ilionv mu I, || u, t|lc sin s it Staro Mest.,. MikulCice, Pohtntko), .nul ni i io .i     lunction with ih^ Dtnubc (Devln, ttito
VJ Wv xer il
c valley tlu- .,,|
,ul,uina. St...s wiu.v, k.uIh.uIi, the .,illo oi tlu Dyie(Zno|mo] o, ii„ nortb olouuiu. « >s probabl) rounaed in >>t beton the Mtly nlnrti century, >,n , hill
overlookun; ih. Morava v.ille. li WM ta bjGOBH tlu- s.ipu.tl ol tlu- tma "> >lu
tcuth century.
llu- stí oiuilioIds ,,l tlu  o. i lm, ., disinm,.,- r.irnparl Muutuu .„ul toni, llu- rampám bavě au outrr di.stone w.ill vsul, ,in mteinil tu„l<.i itftKtUll lilled \vlthearth(F4g. M) ' In pian tbexe síto   uxuallv nuiated on a hlfhtttt|) sulci bili - rend to be tcvetul bundted mettet rctom and lorm.-d >>t severní .ontiguoui eiulosuies lunouuding a vnui.il irea wlnch ulicn conadni ittn
siru.tu.ev- The evte.n ,1 eiulosuus s.ne inli.ibited nul .\l»ibil ,-M.leiue ot , i Ul
ulivlty.
In lbe Siov, iiiulei Princt Molmta the Marharn las tlu-v app.-.u in tUe Prince lvostisl.iv voiiiuuu-d .lu poluv ot exp.viision Ibis »,ts ihe bťgiiunngv ol
ii,c proceň ot tbe crtntlon o) a st.,u- whb i. w u know n to i otutvittiM vn vndi
nu; bis ÍVW a sem,iiv laici as 'šiieať M.m.ui.i Hne ol ti,,- soiubtions ol being u.epte.l into tbe b.uropcan t onununitv ul ilie tunes vv.is to l»e seen to be a t brisli.ii, le.ulei ol a k liristi.iu n.ltion   Vhmous, luns.vei. lu prevent lieing „i.inipillated b) lbe ir.itiks. Kosiisl.n sem h, ilu- mou- dislaul inipi n.il us.ils „i Byuntium. In Hh^ i vnl „ul l„s btothtf Methodius isla.s irom llu-ssalonua)
nu i m' i i »LAVt
came to Moravia to found a Slav church. Cyril had studied in Con ,md wenr as a missionary to 'he fxh.i/.irs He seems also to have com mission to Bulgaria, which is probably why he devised rhc prccu P alphabet which soil bears his name to translate the Gospels inroa Slav j"""
The Moravian Church was bitterly opposed hv German churchm Kovtislav lived. Methodius nvhn alter ( vol's death in 86., had ukc'"
in
.rchhivhopricl could count on the rulers support, but tn Hf,9 Rosris,^™*,**
the hands of Louis rhc German, who promptly blinded i„j denno-1
,. .     .i i_ id/. _ . i -......___ i.i       . ' 'Seu
me iirtiiui «■     —- --------r . - uuu ucposed h
Rost.sl.iVs nephew Sviatopiuk (869-94) continued the policy „f extending
Moravian realm to the cast and west, but appeased rhc clergy of the G * emperor and after the death of Methodius in 88? (previous to which h^krf spent three sears in a Bavarian prison before being reinstated by the PorJ) |J Slav lirurgy was banned from the Moravian ( him h, and the Slav clergy fljj country to Bulgaria and Dalmati.i. tBbbB
The Moravian state underwent considerable expansion . specially (n th der Sviatopiuk Mm. 151 In ilu S'-os or 88os the Morasa.ins made a wl* extend their power northwards .n ross the Carpathians to the broad fertile l' i° in Silesia and Malopolska. Ihr / iff »f Methodius ,XI.»—3) tclfs, „s „< ,l ViI
It I 1 I . i _ I Dl .III'.)
mcnt of a prophecy urrcrcd by the bishop, 'there was a very powt-rfuf ' prince on the Vistula "who persecuted m.inv ( hnstian folk and did th Pa**B harm The Bishop sent a messenger to warn him "it would he good (a*™ ******
son to be baptized ill sour own lands In your own will orhcrwjja ^ ^
b.ipti/cd 111 slavery in .1 foreign land", and this came to pass.' Th
archaeological or written Moravian centralization
you will he ťrt|*''«Je eleu
en evidence however of a permanent extension"!
of power in Malopolska or to the West .n Si|Cyi3
is has been claimed by some historians - into f'annoni.i. Indeed modern hi* -graphs has tended ro question the former claims of huge neighbouring
ograpny nas renticu to question rne rormcr claims or huge ncighlmurin     J ^ nes permanently annexed In the Moravian state The Moravians howev able to annex Bohemia and umrc the area to Moravia in the 880s. Th ■tf^ implications of the so-called I'raeuc Document arc dealt with bc|P°^'^
Chapter 11)
'"w (jJ
• ..... ..........."u"-represented m th
leolngical record hy a remarkable assemblage of material traces Th sc in the fortified centres thev are now sited in lower-lvm-      ■ Crc'*a
arthaeo
change in the fortified centres: they river crossings (such as Mikulcicel and several take the form of el
an
I he brief period of the flourishing of the Moravian stare is rcnresi.ni.-lt ,
J m the
Wly.ng position, , 'heform of clusters of „„„.
contiguous enclosures. These massive strongholds take on the form of k centres, with stone churches - usually rotundas or of basilican form (Fig and other traces of ( hnstian religion (pectoral crosses) and inhum cemeteries adiaccnr to churches Another nonceablc feature is the rich culture - rhe standard of the pottery increases markedly. Production of \t probably increased, as shown In the quantities discarded or deposited""" hoards Most impressive however is rhe range of tine silver icwell *%
form'' of female headdrc rings, and hollow glob„|; this is decorated with hu
the north of the Carpathians, for some reason which is not quite clear, no silvci coin hoards occur in the whole of the ninth century.14 Most scholars assume thai the appearance of these ornaments accompanied a general increase in wealth (at
least in some sections of society) with the rise of the state."
In the final decade of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth, significant political and ethnic changes were taking place in the Carpathian basin (in the area of modern Hungary and western Romania). The area was gradually infiltrated (894-6) by the Magyar horsemen who were already familiar with central F.uropc - they had been used for example by Rostislav of the Moravians m 8ni in his wars against the Franks." As a result of these raids some Magyar Jans (including that led by a leader called Arpad) had gained considerable influence. In the face of expansion of the PechencgTurks into their steppe homeland, Arpad led a large number of Magyars wesr and they finally settled in Pannonia.' The arrival of this new entity was utilized to political advantage by its neighbours. In 894 the Magyars aided Sviatopiuk of Moravia against the Bulgars and Franks. The Magyar presence was also advantageous (at hrsti to the eastward ambitions of the German rulers who set them against both the Bulgars and the Moravians. The opportunities lor this were created by the death of Sviatopiuk in 894. and by the quarrels between his three sons which rent the state. These differences were encouraged by Arnulf, the king of the East Franks, who was interested Ú1 bringing about the fall of a dangerous and insubordinate power on his eastern border At Arnulf's instigation the Magyars turned their attention to the Moravian state and together thev succeeded in destroying it hy 906. The archaeological evidence for the destruction and abandonment Hasting for a century or so in many eases) of the Moravian strongholds at tins tune ii eloquent. From Pannonu, however, tlu Magyars attracted attention to themselves by launching a series of destructive raids into central Europe."
The story of the Moravian state has tended to overshadow that of the rise of the Bohemian (Czech) state. By the early ninth century in this area there were a number of strong but independent tribes (C/cchs. l.ueanc, Lemuzi, Zličanic, Croats, Dulcbi) concentrated especially in the Moldau valley in the centre of the Bohemian basin on another important transcontinental route. We sec here also the rise of large tribal strongholds (for example Stará Kouřim, Budce and Dolanskí) ranging in size from about 10 to 40 ha; the outer enclosures were inhabited and the inhabitants engaged in craft activities. Rulers of these tribes appear in the written sources, such as I echo (or Becho) who in 805 was fighting
n n' „f the un.hc.non ot thee tribes under the leadership of chiefs of^
n      ilk. ,stv (at first under rhc patronage ot Sviatopluk of the Mora*. Pf;:r,d .nnexe- !hc ,rr„orv in rhe late This Moravian influ^
lihlem the culture ot Bohemia at this time, tor example at the stronghold,*
Stira Kouriin ' "ie suhseque.it histon of the Bohemian state ,s considered further below (pp. ifl-*)- 191
Daily Life
Despite what some (including certain archacologl not iust the study of things - nor history [tut both study people. For the people who have been. previous chapters, their lite had nothing in con issues concerning pottery typology, socio-econoi issues. These arc modem constructs which we use social complexities. Whar we are reallv mtere-studying, what thes were like, what they though daily lives
Unfortunately the written sources say very lit or about daily life ot their inhabitants, which ca ihe archaeological evidence We can find and cxcj how the space was used, we van studs their cooki rubbish-dumps and - ultimately - examine the rcn by excavating their graveyards. This chaptct ai overview of this evidence: there is no space here and chronological differences. In the case of ti material culture is surprisingly similar ov
vide area.1
Unfortunately for the burial In-cremation wj turies land lasted unic This rite with the at
The people
archaeok
„-----„ ,.„7311,11 antiuopol.igist, the rite of
-------,-ammg, distortion and fragmentation of the skeletal
remains has robbed us of much useful anthropological material for most of the area and period covered in this book. Although one or two diagnostic fragments may tell us about the age or sex of the individual (at least to a certain dettrec of likelihood), since not all bones found their way into the burial, such evidence is scant. The fact that over most of Slavdom the cremation rite was practised is bad enou(,.i, uui .lias/ i« uiasuinvu in v-iupicr in manv areas there is a singular lack of burials: clearly some rite was in use which leaves absolutely no arrh
, lllin,K provide mo.. m.orm.H...„ and in add.t.on Ls .ml ornament |..nd so.nc.imcs other oh,cers) whtch can tell
, ,.,Hhi. U..T.-..U ol tin- lucr period (becoming more common ,„T
„,„"„ ,„d tenth centuries m most areas,, although inhumation grave,
.m.thi.ms -.1 an e-irl.er dale. I lie anthropological character!*?
i t[l, cubed, and we will have to use this evidence as characerisric ofj- '
II ,re. nul period   'he absence ..I any alternative.» " , J,; n,, 1U, heigh.... adults c in K determined Iron, longhone -"easurc
......,,'pol.sh ceme.er, men were ,6- cm on averag, tall ,, *
e„d to he rather broad Meed ind short (,ha. ,s. round and no, long h^?
,......gh prelunin-.n rescue.....-m.....ow .hat this ,s a leature develop,„.
„UH, markedh i-.er the .svel.il, sc.turv I imhs tend to be strong and muscu£
We I, ive liltle reliable data on Other aspects ol the appearance - -   ■ ^"
""'Pared to
brnivn sortie
rwent
..rcrance ot | lfl) s|
geological or historical data. In modern populanons blond.r-
, wk |uir .,re present, the darkci col......       perhaps predominating!
;"e„ Darker skin coloration is also relatively common c" Inrthwestcrn European populations.
Phvs,c.,l anthro,......gists can b, examining the bones ,b, a var.ety 0f ^
|o detemm the age o. de ith ol .he ..id., .duals lound ,n the cxc.n.lted w   i , „o. line lull intor.nat.oii on ...Mm mortality, as g, 1Ves ol one-ye.,r.0u ,,;;„',,h„r„ hah.es are seldom found I... p.... .his n...) be due to thed.s$0|un
, .,„.„.....us." shallow g. i h 'I- thev were no. buried m thecoma
„,.. ,.metcn before a certain age   Nevertheless it seems ,ha, ,„ those cemeter-
|0 „here this aspect has been ere.......tudied. for ex imple m Bohemia and
Mor.ua ..round ;o pe. cent of the grav es were of children who died before the, „ -re sis  nul up «o I a per cent of children aged six ,„ twelve The statistical |Vi.f,,, ,„ ages ot death of the populations represented ... many cemeteries ,, aboutrwenrv-seven years, but the ..u rage age of adult death however w44 abo ■ ,rt, u,,rs tor men and .hir.v-threc tor women About 40 per cent ot men d.cd before .hc> were 4o. and 60 per c<... of w omen Very tew „u n , fewer than 4 per en.i lived to he more than six.v   I he different. ... ages o| death of men ^ women is... 1 serum extent a result ot trccp.cn. deaths ot young womendurtng and |ust.liter childbirth It seems likely that most families had numerous children hill information on childbirth lrei|ii. ikics ulete. ..unable from examin* i,on of the female pelvis' has vet ,0 be collated In man. Slav cemeteries where,, can be determined, we hnd lot some reason mon bodies ..r men th.,n women
Unfortunately, we cannot determine rhc prcc ,se causes ..t death of most of the mdmduals we mid the remains of h seems likely however that many death*
us about certain disca slavs suffered from the cers. Some bones have I had healed some time I relatively common, and position without disloc There is little evidence fi Early Slavs apparent 1« 1. tons examined fron. .. The health of the teeth varies w \ .duals had perfectly healthy tt men, probably owing to dec ale
• V'an CCm„rj..:-
"1 prcDn,,ncjcs
"»f the older md,-
Dr*« and hygienc
Mos. of the information about Slav dress .onus Iron, the ccmeter.es and .com. graphic sources I he latter however show mostly rel.g.ous themes where .her .1 noticeable influence of I ate Antique dress stvles, and w\ mav also expe th areas in close contact with Byzantium would accept cultural models from that source. Thus we find Byzantine fashions being copied among the south Slavs ,nd in the K.cvan court: thus need not reflect the evervdav dress of their sub ,ccts. Wc have also written accounts such as those of Jewish or Arabian travellers, whose reports are more valuable because lunhkc their Slav contcm-
porat.es) thev treated the different dress Kyle, as , am.....v Compared ,0 thatoi
their own people, and thus sometimes recorded more details. Dress was howevet often one ot the more visible attributes of otherness* and it is possible that some details have been exaggerated in the written accounts created bv outsiders
The typical dress which can be reconstructed Iron, these sources ,s summarized below. Unfortunate!) the details do not allow as lull a reconstruction as we would like: wc have no information about underwear for example. Wc should also remember that we should expect some chronological and regional variation across this wide area in the half millennium studied here. It is obv ioui that there were also seasonal differences in clothing, and also social differences. Poorer peasants for example may have worn leather boots only on special occasions: wc have some ethnographic evidence that tor everyday use some wore wickcrwork shoes and presumably m summer went barefoot. There is some evidence that increasing differentiation in quality and stvlc of dress of the elite appears with the rise of more complex social organizations. Again most ot the cv Idence comes trom the end of our period, with the appearance ot towns and the accompany mg increase of organically rich waterlogged deposits in which material such as textiles and leather survives
eencral men wore long-sleeved tunics of linen or wool which extended te
Vp th, knee. The lower pan mas have been pleated. The rank w,
found m some graves). Under this runic: were some form of ,ighr Sending down ro the ankles. Procop.us describes ihe dress of Slav warr^
hToanubian region and .ells us .ha. 'some of them      wear only a kltuJ J Krtrches Unlaw*'] pulled up .o the gro.n   Shoe,, half-boot, or calf-boc? „ ,uld be worn on «he fee.. The lower legs were sometime, cro.s-ganered. Over h tumc may be worn coloured woollen cloaks (sometimes with a lining of ' 'renal or furl fastened at the right shoulder, leaving thc right arm free (th-fr Lr from the iconograph.c sources, but the nature of the fasrenmR leave, „„ cs ,n ,he graves in Slavcemeter.es). Sometimes,. seems thc cloaks could ha* been made of leather Hats were also w.irn. as were mittens in w.nter. Son* of the overclothes and hats were trimmed with fur. Leather shoes and hoots , both men and women (or rather their fragments) arc found in waterlogged deposits m some towns, where rhcy seem to be cobblers' waste.
li appear* that women's dress was more variable. Probably these Afferent were due to geographical and chronological differences of the sources, but the dress may also have varied according to season. Ethnographic parallels that other differences may be due to the marital status of the woman. Som-women wore long patterned l.nen run.es. while thc legs were covers s_ ,wo full wraparound aprons tied around rhc waist.
representations show long single-piece dresses of linen
Othe- Cf,r
•con
<>r wool which
"graphs
.....'"i extended
from .he neck to thc ankles. Thc sleeves of these drcs-. s were usually |ong( ^ ould be loose or tight fining. The skirt could be full and pleated or rdativelv tight Some .sonographic sources show knee-length dresses, occasionally off the shoulder Some dress styles required the woman ... wear an apron over the dress tied at thc waist. In we. weather thev wore a squarish shawl throwno*** ' both shoulders later in the period it seems that cloaks became more fashionable worn in thc same manner as men wore them, but fastened in some region, more often with a fibula, fastening at the front on thc breast was rarer. |nco|d weather both sexes probably wore fur cloaks or maybe coat*. *j SB
The most distinctive item of Slav women's dress was however the headdress. Young girls wore their hair loose, or in plaits, with a linen headdress Ethnographic evidence suggests that young girls had one type of head covering (or went without one) until the das of the wedding, when a d.ffcrent type of head-covering was substituted.4 The Arab writer al-Qazvin says of the Ea« Slavs that 'their unmarried daughters go out with uncovered heads, so tha, even-body can sec them. If anyone fancies any of them, he throws over their head a piece of material.' I his would appear ... be i distorted reference to the ceremonial donning of this item ot clothing which was pan of the wedding the oczepiny). Married women wore their hair gathered up under a
tti
'as in i
---y, ana these from at least the ninth cct
bv metal rings and plates-often of silver. These were prt of status, and were perhaps not an clement ol everyday on special occasions (and to the grave). The headdress n leather or textile over the temples arc characteristic of SI the ornaments worn on the naps of other types Iso-callc characteristic of thc East Slavs. There was clearly an elab the wearing of the various types of headdress, which we read. There is however a regional diifcrcncc in types: tl common in Pomerania. while at a slightly later date in Ea certain types are specific for particular areas Itnbesl. The* thc metal ornaments of the headbands sometimes preserve sm and hair in female graves 'fig.
Women's dress also included various types of ornament, such wealthier families silver earrings, hollow silver beads, solid I bracelets and occasionally ncckrings. These objects are also found in the silver hoards (Chapter 8) and it seems that, aside from their decorative value, these items were treasured tor their intrinsic worth. Probably these items were in pan wedding gifts to the bride from thc bridegroom's family. Other items include multicoloured glass beads,and in thc East Slav tcnitory glass bangles (mainly at thc end of our period). Also a relatively late phenomenon over most of Slavdom are rare beads of amber and of imported crystal, carnchan. fluornc. bloodstone and chalcedony further afield
On thc belt was often hung a knife, which served for cutting and eating food and was carried by men, women and children. Sometimes a small perforated whetstone was worn alongside thc knife for keeping it sharp. Pouches at the waist sometimes contained firesteeis and flint, and presumably tindec Women sometimes carried keys to rhc home or to chests.
The Slavs were especially prone to assimilating styles of their neighbours. Thus in the East Slav areas wc find traces of influence of the nomad dress styles
also affected by Byzantine and Khazar stylistic influences. Thc costume of Slavs
with thc Magyars had the same effect. Large hollow globular decorated buttons modelled perhaps on Byzantine originals were worn by Moravian and South
i itj  M«IV IUV>
assimilated and on the north coast Scandinavian brooches and mils «iine graves, presumably ot Slavs  Proh.ihh some ot these ,tctns 1,^7 oneins in cross-ethnic marriage unions resulting u,, ultural mi.xine „, ln',    , Clr household*. ti,V,dua'
Clothing WHS also sometimes u-e.l to ditterentlate ethnicity. We k
lave djj.
............v ciotning could
b^uTed'roexpress group Identity. Callus Anonymous „       scribes the meclj
„0|0|,„ the bold ol Poland and I niperor Otto lit o| <-ermany (looo): W i thc k,ng had Ins men stand like choirs on a wide P| iteau. and in ,he sep^ rmks distinguished the various colours ot the,, dress'. suggesting that the dif. tcrc„, patte,.....I snipes had .1 icgional significant as well as perhaps s,Bmfv.
inii social r.u'k
Personal hygiene of thc Fairly Slavs cannot h, measured In modern standard, n,lt|ur was it comparable to the level ot lor example the contemrwrajy " Ii, .,.„.„es and Islam I hus wc find negative opinions of th, dirtiness of t|lcS,a;
ermips raiding ihr Fnipire  I Ins was another lace, of thc 'otherness' that
|H ,„e stressed Nevertheless the written and archaeological sourcesdcrr
that the Fast Slavs took saunas, how regularly \vt do nor know (though thip""8
mi,:,;, m- 1I1.11 111 k lev the iiih.ibit.lills took .1 sauna every day, t|m |tj     , ' Vl-exaggeration 1 I In sauna seems to have bet 11 .1 eiisttun adopted from th ^ ol the northern fringes of the Kus state and took the torm ol a shallow '.V* .1 wooden siriaiure 111 which a lire was built, ,,n which large bouloj ^
*crc
heated. Then water was poured on to the stones making vapour jn wn l
w.is sweated out of the pores. The process u.is aided by beating with J
pouring cold water on the h.ulv. Ilies.iun.i w .is an important r>lrf   ( .l8,a^ t ai '    1 ot trie rifn
1 ting a guest and ib.. ccrcuiom.il cleansing before certain ntu i|
lullet t.icilities wen however priinuiM |>, modern standards (but'thf
conimoii among .llniosl all medieval cultures of Europe). In 1
s was
some later house-
holds null 1 seats (consisting ol a stout plank vv ith .1 hole about x% cm in d ten wen erected over pits and were enclosed 111 wooden sheds (such found recuitli 111 Wrodawi' Such structures an not vcrv often re- 1°"' arch.itoli.gK a lb. but .ire meniioned in the written sources, such as when i the ( /cell I'riiki larouiir is found murdered while sitting on the toilet In cases 111 rural ire.is 111 the absence ol arch.ieolo     ,| evidence lor s facilities it seems however lli.it these needs wen me! by going into the fi M lorcst Dm- in.iv imagine th. 11 this I.k dilated the spread of disease* '0I
Clothes were washed bv wells, Likes i,,d streams, using wooden paddtes beat thc dirt out. The Slavs also knew ol the making of so.ip |,v at | 5° eleventh ceiiturv i.ind prnbablv 1 ombs ol amler and bone off)
decorated, are ul.ili velv common ihg   5-1 and seem to have been tr • l_ used Most ol ilieni were produced 111 local ateliers, but items produced shops on the Baltu oust were traded l.u (and are Useful ,is chre "V*'"'''
11*
indicators, as well combs ol similar f,
Many Slavs shown m later period (when we hai Recognizable razors are r occur in Bohemia and Mo high stains artefacts. Bef. or perhaps Slav men did in hair and thorns, shears »,
[(•rills of c, 'sine tics, but th,
2
The family home
a* been much
to clans. The concept of ed m this context on the
9 southern Slnv n>
«. - that this highly polm-tcenth century protected back on to use this model as more than a rough av groups in different
Wc may assume that the basic social unit was literature oil this topic, generated by Inedricl i >mc','/ of the Family. Private Property and tin the written sources suggest that the basic unit *a ,|y, which carried with u the linking of several o the extended lainiK or XfldtUgtk in the form oftc basis ol ethnographic evidence is applicable ma principally the mountain zones.' Recent itttdic cued notion was an invention ol earl, Slav society 1 It would be incorr.vt to use this 1 guide to possible settlement sirmlures among oth environments.
Marriage rites included thc symbolic exchange ol goods in return for thc bride: this suggests monogamous m.im.ige in most circumstances. Polygamy was practised however by the elite 111 soim societies; thus wc hear of thc twe Kc wives ol King Samo, while Mies/ko ot the Pul.inc had belore his baptism seven wives ("according to custom). I he PV] tells us 1h.1t men of thc Radimichi, Viatichi and Scveriane had two »r three wives. Pagan Polabian Slav leaders were also polygamous according to the l hristiau sources. We have little direct inlor-mation about pagan courtship and marriage rituals, but the ninth-century Arab author of thc Anonymous Relatm,, dotes the sexual treedoni of the East Slav girl betore marriage. Some written sources however, such as Pseudo-Maurice, note the chastity of Slav women alter marriage.
There are a number of references in a lew ninth- and ten sources to thc practice in East Slav lands that, when
iry Arab writ-
Till t»t"-V
m cheir vc.lu.Har.ly. regarding their own hves as over when their huiba^ . , |0W wldcSpread this practice was we cannot sav ., ,s ev.denced only ,„ „ ' stniri,.s ,m„,ř to the eastern areas o. the Kievan realms and may
•       ,|V t(, ,|,c .....i slav element ot Kus soae.v. I hese accounts includerjii
lu'oiis and Ir^ientls „uoteJ re.ereuce hv ,ht, Rusteh, describing hurnanS
, vmini! female slave »... a Kus tuner., on the Volga M here is evident,
tice |.i you"!. ____.„    c     „.rr,rnr.. k,,„,,„.. .i ...
ii vniim; icm.iie si.i.s,.......... ----■■^sMl.c,
I udv of cremated bone from Wes. Slav ternrorv however that graves
,„„ more tl.... one individual, hinting rh.it this practice may have been
contain more m.m ..... ..„„„„ trr,r,i ion.. . ,
rom can more
widespread ..hough perhaps only in certain social strata     The references ,0
rrnsnn .. I........-<'"""• ■-'«» ■''*»" ,hc sU,l,x'" ^    Sl',v WC"*V- Althou^
,|uri ls |lt,le ev,dense tor them archaeologic.il>. they are ev.denced ,n the
written sources (see Chapter «).
The status of women is difficult to determine from these sources It Wuu,d seem that although societies may well have been patriarchal (as ,n many Jcrj jtural communities) the woman in th< role ,,t mother and keeper of the dome*, hearth had considerable authority in the home We have only a littleevidenc how children were treated in these societies and on the rites of pattl_ avompaiiving their becoming adults  An interesting reference is th» " r,,,ortcJ bv Callus Anonymous ll.il of the ritual known as    .>7r<yjv«V, prac. i     i---1 ...L .... ., knir'c hair was rut for rhi. (im ■____
I
on hll
c 11
tic on
on how children were treareo in »"<.■............... „lc rites of passag
,,„,,,,„. ,|,eir becoming adults   \.i interesting reference is the reported bv Callus Anonymous (l.i) of the ritual known as fmslrzyzyn „sed in central Poland, where a boy's hair was cut for the first time and he received ., name from the context of the srorv. .his may have happened
seventh birthday." .....      t        , .  ., , ^I^bM
Family homesteads often consisted of clusters of several buildings, presimi. ,|,h oi differentiated function. The mam building ivpi  found consist* of sunken floored huts, often with stone ..r J.i* ovens in the corner. Some nf thc sunken floored buildings were living accommodation; others lack ovens and n,a> have been storerooms Some of the settlements are well enough preserved to demonstrate that .he sunk, n floored structures were accompanied by ground-level buildings (which do not always however leave archaeological traces) ,: These, like the walls of many of the sunken-floored buddings, Wcre constructed ol log chin rhlockhot.se') construction; horizontal logs |„lntf<J at the comers and packed with clay or moss to form a w.ndprool wall (Fig, y, | Ite within such structures was probably rather crimped, and indeed we suspect that .nam ot the d.ulv activities were earned on outside the buildings. Probably these huts were used pr.mar.lv for sleeping, in and storing one's few possessions. Thc superstructure »1 these huts is ran Iv possible to reconstruct. Some arch«e> ologists envisage them is primitive windowless and smoky structures with pitched roofs resting on the ground surface, w bile others see the sunken floor as only a small portion ol a much more complex and sometimes multistorey structure rather like a modern two up-iwci down." I here is often little archaeologl-c.il evidence to allow us to choose between these alternatives in particular instances.
no
We know little about thc internal tittings of such huts: there are few traces of
bedding or storage chests, despite careful study of the carbonized remains
of several of these huts which had been burnt down The internal ovens built of stone or clay which arc found in most ot these huts probably served as a source ot heai. and also to dry the contents of thc hut sunken into the damp earth. They were presumably also used tor cooking. Cooking was done in pottery vessels
(tew metal vessels are known). The Slav kitchen ptobably included also ■ number of storage vessels of pottery and wood. Some Slav pottcrv assemblages contain flat clay disks about a centimetre thick and jo cm diameter: these probably served for baking flatcakes over a hearth. In other areas (except South Slav-territory') badly made fired clav rectangular trays with upturned edges ,m Polish prazmce) were probably used tor parching gram \\c know little about eating utensils; probably most adults carried a knife which served lor eating, together with wooden spoons of a variety of shapes which are rclativclv common finds. Pottery assemblages lack bowls or cups, presumably such vessels were made of other materials. The Slavs have been referred to as having bad a material culture of wood, and indeed in many waterlogged layers ot towns a wide variety of turned, carved and stave-built vessels arc known.1*
Thc Life of St Otto of Bamburg written about 1160 by the Benedictine Herbord tells us a little about daily life in western Pomerania at the time of Otto's mission there in 1114-8. He tells us (11.41) that "each householder had a house to himselt. dean and comfortable' and that thc walls were whitewashed and herbs were used on floors to keep insects at bay and sweeten the air. He further notes (11.4 1) that 'the table is always full of everything to drink and eat, and after finishing one thing, another is laid. Mice are kept awav, not bv mousetraps, but by placing a clean white cloth over the food so that it awaits thc (cast ' Herbord, like other early medieval writers, notes thc hospitality of thc Slavs towards guests, a tradition which thc various Slav nations preserve today. (It is also the main motif of the story of Piast, the founder of thc Polish royal dynasty, in which Gallus Anonymous tells us how he attained power after he had offered hosptrality to two mysterious wanderers who had been turned away by the prince, whose dynasty was eventually replaced by Piast's sons.)
We know regrettably little about Early Slav cu.smc. One suspects that mam of thc vegetables and fruits known from the waterlogged levels in later towns were known also to the Early Slavs (including onion, pea, broad bean, lentils, cucumber, parsnip, parsley, walnut, peach, plum, cherries, apple, pear, hops). The end of our period was a climatic optimum, and so even grapes may have been grown north of the Carpathians in the ninth and tenth centuries. Slav farmers cultivated many types of gram: millet was especially popular, as wcre wheat (various types), rye and barley. This was used not only as flour for baking but in the form of groats as a vegetable. Beer was brewed and drunk, and in some areas wine may have been consumed. Meat from domestic and hunted animals was
ml,J, appreciated In in..nv centra I Furor*™ bone assemblages domestic C*rfi
bones are most frequent: tins vv as dearly the ma,nr meat source, w „,, pjg a ^ seond There are of course regional and chronological differences ,n prcci nercentages (Fig. 38)-" Sheep was never popular as a meat dish: many ^ assemblagescont..... lew .ha., .0 per sen. though m the mountainous rcg10llSof Slovakia sheep and goat bones torn, a mush higher percentage. Of the hunterf ul|MuKlU|,kh torn, a few percent ol mans excavated bone assemblages) defc of various types and boar were clearly enjoyed. Bird bones are less co,nmon|v found; among them the most common are domestic chickens and wild duck and ,„ose Fish hones are t.uind on some sites, though shcllhsh seem not to have been c.tcti. We mas assume that milk products were consumed, and they/ sbli ,,„,„    ,n,por,..m par. ol the rural diet... some Slav countries What we cannot tell ,s the proponmn ol meat t,. vegetables in the she,, nor en we do more than ,„,Ss how meals were cooked. The utensils tor wins I, we have evidence (most of ,,,,,„ potterv I suggest thai food was cooked by boding, simmering and baking There is an apparent lack of utensils for frying. ■**
Food was grown in l.elds near the home, beyond which there was pasture for the livestock. Beyond this was the forest: the zone nearer the homestead was heavily exploited, tor wood and forest products lor the home, hut beyond this wis , /one winch was prob.lbls more rarely visited lllg ,9). The size .rrangement of the fields are unknown. We do not know whether land was farmed bveach famil) separately or to w 1,11. xteut ,1 at all, there sverecommon Helds Mmdarlv. we do 1.01 know anything about the spatial d.v.sion of ^ settlement area There are generally no fence lines found; perhaps the area was div ided 1" hedges, or perhaps ir was completely undivided. 1
The rural settlement of the period was generally undefended and usually la-close to water, such as a lake or stream, presumably to meet domestic needs ,wells were dug only occasionally in such settlements, and those of livestock Flu plan of most such settlements [where the size of excavation allows it tl) be interpreted! consists ot one or more discrete homesteads, often rebuilt over scy. eral generations (Fig. 301. When a building tell into disrepair, it was not rebuilt ,n the same place, but a new one was built nearby; thus the settlement as a whole spread laterally and its nucleus shifted with time. I u h homestead consisted of a
K| lateralis and its nucleus slutted witn lime 1 is 11 Homestead consisted of a cluster ot buildings ot d.tiering (miction (some of these may have been for
inimals - though no dear evidence h......nu from Slavdom ot internal
iccommodation ot livestock on rural sites] I spiel examples arc Dessau-Mos.gau m Fast Germany, Hre/no „, Bohemia, Zukow.cc in Silesia and Korchak or Pcnkovka 111 the Ukraine." Som« times the number of homesteads is greater and creates the impression ot a village, sometimes up to several hectares in extent Where there is ev idence ol relatively small communities (as for example phase I at Tornovv. which perhaps contained about three hundred people), ,t Fj possible to think m terms ot communities of several related extended families. It
is more difficult to accept that th as Fcldbcrg, which perhaps held These settlements were usualb due to limitations on the si/e oj hunt was reached and there was mty would leave the settlement a .1 time the whole settlement was settlements. This pattern of shil n sponsible for the phenomenon u
in the same micro-region i; in others it mav have hem mr.r-1,     1     c 1
' ""^ DCCI1 more ot the order of a few
kilometres into adjacent areas. The factors limiting the size of the
en only be guessed. It has been suggesred that the limit is due to iVm'teTsoH
lertihtv arising from a slash-and-hiirn ecoiioinv Others sec it is i sequence of concentrating cultivated lands as close to th  h 11 With the expansion of the settlement new plots would thus ha ve tobe" created on the most suitable (and easily cleared) land at greater and greater distan f the dwelling. When a certain limit was reached and the new plots were t f from the nucleus of the settlement. ,t would seem that ,t was felt more cconom' ical to move the homestead nearer the fields.
The picture presented above, based on the archaeological evidence of the tendency to live together where possible, but also of the movement of (young) families away from the family homestead into virgin forest to liter illy carve out from it a new life for themselves, implies one additional clement. It is probable that the scattered settlements created by this mechanism felt some form of community with each other, and it is this which creates the clan. A el .„ ,„ ,h,s context is a sent soft xtended families which are though, by their members to be „, some way linked with one another, for example by belong,,,!, to the same descent lineage, that is. having the same ancestors   ,\l.„,ers concerning ideology are discussed in Chapter 9.) The cult of the ancestors was probably of considerable importance. It had a unifying role in the society of the living linking it to the land, legitimizing group territory and linking the clan with rh, • tsoiial cycle of life and death
6
The Order of Things: Social Structure
complex pr.K-esvesm.ri.«ed b* the Slav exp.insi.rn ...id subsequent dentr> .., ,.,„,. „ul e.h.i.v consolidation culminated in the t..rm.ir.,m ot tribal groups „|„J, I ,,er coalesced to create Mates which tor,,, the lr.inicwi.rlc ot the ethnic make-upol modern Eastern Europe, the long process ol .nternal political and .,,,„„ development which preceded tins ,s therefore ol fundamental importance ,or „nderst.ind.nt! the one... ot the peoples making up a. least half of ,he I uropean contineni today.
II,, nulable evidence suggests i slow process ..i consolidation of social ,r„„r iHtween the severuh and ninth untunes   I here is much evidence that ceil structure ot the I .lib Mass was based around clans, linked by hlood u I n.onslups ot us members In the period bclore the scv < nth century these were relatively egalitarian, while from the seventh cc.mm wesci increasing evidence o, diltercntiat.ons ol status within these organizations, leading eventually t0 class divisions and the development ol centralized sociopolitical organizations ,i,cl states. Ibis process gradually Incomes more visible in the archaeological j„j written sources (although the beginning ot the process is as difficult to dis-cern ... the arcliaeologK.il record as .1 probably would have been to a conten* nor.us obse.verl  w. have seen in a previous chapter the beginning of these chinges within the structure ol I arlv Slav society hinted at for example by the appearance ot prestige goods and tin first strongholds. Other changes occur also in the material culture ol these groups, and these ,rc related to the effect of ■IU„ social conditions' as one write, expresses it. It is dear however that some changes were occurring, apparently accelerating as tune went OBVj
I he (s id. nee tor these social organization 01 p. tics is difficult to come
by, and even more difficult to interpret. I he written sources of course occasion-all) mention something which can be used 111 such an investigation, hut with the appearance ot social structures large enough to interest literate neighbours  1'he interpretation ot these sources is difficult. The use of terms such as \im.\ . '/>N'f.v/>*'. -prtmon's or even V, v' 111 I atin documents created ouiside Slavdom In strangers does not necessarily mipK thai these institutions existed there in the s.uiu form .is 111 the area where the documents were compiled, simply that these were the words which most closely approached the wrirer's conception »1 what he observed or heard of We may learn of a f-u, tribal names, but only rarely are we told where those tribes lay, still
more
arc we in a position to say where .tory bC)
such as a large area and 'a populous nation' appearing hardly help us in this 11 sped Wr cannot know either how t which our authors arc ignorant or do nor wish to inform u I he organization ol ancient societies ha-, been Studied t eastern and central European historiography.' In the deca much of this work in the area w as prompted and coloured and concepts. This has tended to 1. «ni irtenti. in .m such Utt and class conthcr, but alsei been prone to simplistic cvolun about 'feudal' relations developing from pre-existing form nig into capitalism' along the lines suggested hs Marxist d. social organization also became p«>pul.ir among 1 ma American archaeologists who developed evolutionary rheo npmcnt based on the work ol so, 1.1I anthropologists which ejucstions as power. Discussion around these themes has 1 important questions concerning social organization in the 1 attempt to steer clear ot overtlv cvoliiiiorust schemes, we mai concepts arising from this discussion here.' One mav look social organization cither from the top looking down, and start with a discus sum of power, or Iron, the base looking at the Way in wh.ch the settlement pattern reveals social relationships ot a different kind.
used on such a number of 'hile wc may e some of the
Bi§ men and chiefs
In social anthropology several categories ol power have been recognized. These may include military tone, control over the economy and control over ideology sou.nes in.is be classified on the basis ot the was that these various kinds ol power operate within it. This classification mas take the form of a hierarchy At the lowest level is the egalitarian socieiv where no individual has any permanent power or influence over his or her fellows Only in times of military conflict do individuals or group ot individuals become leaders ot raids or defence, but their powers are restricted to this realm. The archaeological evidence seems t.. suggest that I art) Mas society fitted best this model in the Migration period.
Other societies arc based around communities which have so-called'big men". \ big man' is a dominant personage in .1 society with weakly developed social stratification, and is distinguished by virtue of prestige, but has little authority I his person may maintain his position by means of manipulation ot wealth the most frequent manifestation of this is to host communal gatherings which usually take the form ot feasts at which wealth is not only displayed but also conspicuously consumed.1' Several members of the same community may compete with each other in this field. Wealth and agricultural surplus
the r.SHIV  II »»«
are redistributed throughout society by these means, the gathering of the community around thc 'big nun' acting as channels for the redistribufion.
""v.,". higher degree ot social stratification, the society rends to take on the huactenstics ol what is .ailed a Yh.eldoin   In contias, ,o h,g men' thc chief |, ,'s consumable authority and ,s able to maintain ,t permanently: his pOSItIon ls .scribed often hereditary. In order to produce the resources to maintain the system a duel generally exercises power ov er a larger scale society , a popu|ation counted m thousands rather than hundreds). \ chietdom is characterised by » system of central accumulation of surplus (rendered to the leader as a regular tribute) and us redistribution to his followers or ,n any other way alloying him tl) „,„„ certain economic, social and political amis   Ihis type of 'tribute economy- is thc basis of the functioning of thc economy ot a chiefdom.' The ,IKrc isc in social and socio politic il complexity ot chiefdoms' compared w.rh ,he c I in structure ot simpler inb .1 soc.etl. s involves institutional changes In the structure of the polity, including the formation of inherited inequality in personal status and centralization of power. A chietdom may support a certain decree of craft specialization and is often characterized by the construction of large-scale monuments. I^^^H
An important element of the duel is the ability to back up his authority by force. The landscape ol chiefdoms thus often contain a number of fortified centres Iron, which that torcc ,s cNcr. ised. and the power structure is maintained by the existence of a retinue (which in the central and eastern European literature is often called a druzhm.n I his is a group of high-status warriors who owe their allegiance and social position to the person of thc chief. The members ot tin retinue exercised power in the name ol the leader; one of their principal functions was the collection of tribute and presumably the punishment of those who attempted to oppose his will. The retinue was often composed of warriors drawn not only trom the region controlled by the chief but also sometimes from other areas. Thc written sources tell us for example that the retinues of tenth-century Kie.au princes com mud main Scandinavians, and the archaeological evidence trom Russia and Poland suggests that bcsidt s Scandinavians there were steppe elements in the so-called 'retainer culture'which developed.'The logic m employing foreigners was not only the expertise in different military techniques they brought with them, but also their greater loyalty due to a lesser tendency to get involved in lot il squabbles. The rich graves of the retinue (for example in the Kicvan state) not only allow us to see the wealth and social position which'could be attained by belonging to a retinue, but also allow us to identity the positions ol the mini centres ot power In most areas ot Slavdom they occur near major fortified centres or other strategic locations.*
The written sources make it dear that thc leader was responsible for the upkeep ol his retinue, and thus we hear of Igor of Rus being prompted to takes
116
ircatcr tribute to distributer
.............- -< •- —"■•"».
He has three thousand arm
Jred i)/ other |warnors| / need  \    when a child is I birth whether it is a boy or u iff Jiul poyt the bridt-pfic
girl's father.
Although this tl vt reters idea ot the type of rclatn
lonshtp possible between a leader and the men of his
retinue.
The organization of the polity would be affected by thc size of the area which might be effectively administered and defende.l from I centre. This would usually lie an area about 1500 square kilometres (i.e. .1 circular area about 44 km radius), and has a central place which is nowhere more than 40-100 km from thc boundary of the territory 1.1 elistanec ot     km representing a typical day's lourncy on horseback at normal pace). In order to deal with the increased si/e and geographical range of their polity, chieldoms land statesl are thus forced to create a hierarchy of subsidiary centres (thus ranked below the chiefly elite mav be a hierarchy ol leaders of smaller and simpler types o| organi/ationl. There is .1 range of chiefdoms from the small-scale local chief to, at the upper end „1 thc continuum, 'developed chiefdoms' which merge into states It is difficult to draw a line between the 'princes' who ruled the latter and thc powerful duets ol tribal unions (one of thc principal differentiating features of chiefs in the Middle Ages was the way in which their authority was recognized by thc leaders of adjacent more powerful states - such as the Cierman and Byzantine emperors - or by thc Pope).
Although there is some evidence that the change from an egalitarian type of community to chiefdoms may well explain thc rise of social and tcrruorial organizations north of the Carpathians, this model is not thc only one which mas be applied to the Early Slavs. A somewhat different situation is yvhat anthropologists might call 'panmh.il sodalities'. These arc links hetween communities created by factors unconnected with kinship and where such an association is advantageous. They tend to occur in arM> ...u—
larger numbers. A good example of such a situation is the creation and development of panmbal sodalities among thc Plains Indians of North America in thc eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This was made possible by the introduction of the horse, the change from foraging to bison hunting and other changes. In
„„-:_ ,        "        UM association is
or -n areas where two cultures are in regul lr ^e ,s conflict between then, TK. „,
Tlir tA»tV II 11%
particular the period is notable for rhc number of rribes which ad riding and moved to the Plains to lake part in this new lifestyle Th i">n^ between these tribes lor a share in the resources ,,( ,|u, ,rL.;1 V'"n,P«itlf)n between indigenous populations and the white settlers |CJ t(l ^    ,he cOnfllc,
^rn
" umu' st'rtk'rs ,cd    'he need trTS,
"    '     dership emerged to lead ra.ds ...d the summer bison hunt, though 1*
,r       s iloi autonomous and was re ant on the aPI.....al of the ^
triors I He ra„d spread of the C.hos, I >ancc rchg.......as an important J*
"  " U ...ul intensifying tr.1,.1 spirit, and common partiapar.on ,„ ^
run, rmuls became an .mportant forge, of new rnb.,1 ,crh,,,c, identities...' ,,„ld see,.- that -lure are several similarities between th.s kind «>f situ, (|u. , ,rU S|.n s. particularly in the Danub.an area where they can* „.,ct with rhc Romans. It is here th.,. we see rhc assimilation of dlfferJ Lents,., the so ...on of an expanding group of people w.th .. smnlar and new ■ | culture li is here that we observe the emergence of some kind of ethnic ,llfK ,„„„ (including the adoption of the name Sclavenes), and „ „ h * inCei the names of the firs, ch.ctuins. the leaders ol warrior bands ,nd „ (hes..se of Gcron.mo - which was no, Ins Indian name) wc||.kn0Wn „ the readers of tin (.reek accounts We are told by Mcnander 0f lIljl|renri|W, who defied Ava. threats „, the ■ fnos  We hear frr)f |lu,,p)ll|,a„s Sinu-kattes o, other Slav leaders ,„ the ,8os and c9os, SUch A,d, is-.-s. IV.r.g..sr,.s.„Hl Mousokms \X< .now lntle about the other fit,* ;,„„„„ rhesc leaders „, tr-bal socetv; we hear of then,. inly -, a military con*-
,l|s «„, „s „, Ins •ethnographic excursus {Wars v,l.,4, lz_iQ) ^ uin(rIs| „, [|u. , as, Humans -he Slavs had no centralized rule hut the dccisi^
oMluclu......•rctcnipc.cdln den.ocai.c decs-ons.    File Ronuas well hJJ
„, ,|,e potenn.il of external military threat or othei pressures ro create leaden Pseudo M iur.ee i.Sfr.iff.i."*"" M-4- >°» wlrns about r'^'ng the Slav, ,0o' h.rd lor tins could lead to units among then, and the establishment of., „ng|e IcultV It would seem that not onl> the large organized forces of Slavs which the I ,c Roman and Bvz.int.ne writers tell us crossed rhe Umes but also their unifj. c „„.,, is ...i ethnic group were pri.nar.lv .. result of tin interaction of the Slaw with the Roman world. Once however the.....u.....- -
m
sclf-iden thar we meet (just as in hv name ro
"»ces or Sl.ivc wl
I asr Roman and Bvv.intuic writers tell us crossed rhe Imu-i bur ilc .u
, li, meir
carinii .is an ethnic group were primarily .. result ol the interaction i
with rhe Roman world Once however the warrior bands gave war,*
the creation of smaller tubes based on mori local hierarchies began to d
The creation of p.iutnb.il warrior associations is closely related to °P'
phenomenon which Ins appeared in some previous accounts of rhc social"0
tine of Paris Sl.n society, .ind that is the concept of 'military democra   ■ '''^
concept (wherein soci il organization w is based on the executive powe"
weapon-bearing men with an elected leider) derives from Engels wh
derived it from Morgans observation ol the Iroquois and ahistoric ||''m
information from (actus ind other classical wrircrs. The -ippl.cat.o
u.iidel ro fhe (Danubian) sins sc.is aided by the Easr Roman wr'
described their 'demc academic construct f describing the process 'primirivc' society to analytical value.
it
Settlement patterns and social organization
One of the most visible archaeological correlates of social organization is the spatial relationship of settlements in the landscape. These patterns have been
well studied in certain areas of Slavdom, especially in the west (Pol b    P I I Bohemia. Moravia and to a lesser extent Ukraine) Settlement in east tii E r ,n the early medieval period was much less dense than .., some areas of western Europe (and indeed this is still true today). The pattern of s.tcs in well studied areas docs not form a continuous spread of equally spaced settlement of equal density in each period, but rather tonus clusters resembling .» leopard's soots [he rural settlements are grouped into a scries of settlement cells a few kilometres across, often Situated along river or stream valleys. These are separated by areas where the settlement density falls oft dig. The settlement cells
developed as a result of natural expansion from tangle centres and probably torm communities linked by family or clan relationships, to walk from one side „t the settlement cell to the other was a matter of a few hours. They seem to have formed the basis of the simplest torm of territorial organization outside the community, and we have some information about them from written sources. In Poland they were known as opo/e, and in the Sourh Slav zone as zu,,a. ( onstantine Porphyrugcnitus (DA/chapter 19) notes that these were governed by 'elders' and that this was the case in other Slav countries. The PY7. notes that the men of the Polianc lived each with his own clan in his own place', mdicating the two most important factors m determining communal affinity! genetic links and communality of inhabited and exploited territory.
An important question which should be addressed is that of laud ownership, since this is fundamental to the question of whether a society was 'feudal' or not (see below). In the absence of the legal tracts and ch.irrcrs and other such documentary proof of land ownership in western Europe (especially from the Merovingian and Caroling.an realms as well as from the later Anglo-Saxon kingdoms) the relationships of land ownership in early medieval central lurope are however impossible to demonstrate before the twelfth century." We know little about the size of individual land holdings or indeed anything about how land use was organized (for example whether in some communities land was farmed in common). It is uncertain whether Slav strongholds served as the centres of private estates. One key matter is to determine whether the tribute
tíh mír u«i
paid to leaders wis payment for the rights to use a particular area of land < the feudal system) or whether ,t had some other function. The available ,-l I
l_j__ '"en
it served .is some form ol acknowledgement of heir ' under the prole, lion ol .1 particular leader r.uher"ľ'1"''*
ticulflí patch ot land
seems to suggest that i to a particular group
nght to inhabit a paniei ^
the settlement cells.end toe luster mto larger groups wh.ch are relatively dj,. re.e ind ire separated from each other by areas containing few settlement*, f, l.crnsMirh reasonable to link these groups of sites with the territories of elm,
and with what may conveniently be referred to as t,,l„ , made „P 0f ,ms Ihese units start to crystallize with increasing population density by ,he eighth centurs .11 maus areas (though in some the process had begun in the
, .',,,,|, „„„in or even ,.. the case ol certain South Slay groups ,„ ,|H. |,„c ^ centursl These tribes form the basic territorial division »I Slavdom, and some ,hui In no means not all) appear in the late, written sources The existence of ,„,„,. mf„s was based on biological (actors - such as intermarriage between Ims .ml real or imagim-l el. seent (mm common ancestors - and exploitation common territory It follows that bonds within these groups were strength, ened by other common features ol public lite and tradition and, although we lack more concrete data, probably "I religious cult and world-view. Typ,ca||y petty tribal territories „1 West Slavdom in about the ninth century occupied between iso sq km and z<oo sq km. Good examples can be traced by correla-,„,„ „, the written and archaeological sources in  Hohe,,.,.,, Silesia and W.clkopolska (Fig. 44).M Ai a slightly late- date, tribes united into even larger tribal unions which mas have controlled rerritor.es ol about 7000 to 10.000 sq km, and w.n ..lien the ere (torn which early states developed." The hierarchical arrangement ol society is visible in the settlement structure, There is often a visibly ditl.-renti.ited Ventral place' surrounded by a hierarchy of
I he tribes and tribal unions had distinctive nanus  I hey usually end m the lur.il /.- ot        I he root ol many of these names is territorial (as w |tu/.ine inhabiting th, area around the River Bug, the Wislanc on the
■    , . . . ........") end m
plural if ui .inr Ihr rool of many of these names ,s territorial (as
Hu/.inc inhabiting the area around the River Bug, the Wisla Vistula i Wisla i. Slc/.nic under rhe mountain "sleza). Other
the "Pper names secrn tn
differentiate their hearers from .1 clearly defined 'other' group- we mentioned the Slovenes, the Slovienie (which may be related to the root 'tl^' -the ones knowing the weirds'  md Scvcri.inc . tin northern folk') | |H., of other nanus are less easy to mulct stand, sue h as the Polane, Poliane (( fiula, hcldl, Den via,le I from Jrcru, tree    i.hl so 0,1   Others arc c'vei" dillictilt to understand: some sources suggest that there was a Sil °vl called |G|ltipu-g|oyyy 1'stupid |in thc| heads') wind, ,s hard to accept atl .1 people svould choose for themselves. ^^^^H
The role of the strongholds
led not
111( progress of this process of it
in the written records but also 1 ----».wiukkii evidence, in the traces this
has left in the landscape. In West Slav areas and most of the Past Slav territories, many of the settlement cells have at their centre Imorc rarely at their peripheryl a major settlement unit distinguished by being enclosed by an earth and timber rampart (more properly a vertical wall made of an unhewn timber framework filled with earth or rarely ruhblcl with an external ditch. These ,ucs, still visible n, the landscape today (and some still tunetioning as ma|nr population centres), were surrounded by a number ol open settlements, and thus often form the focus of the local settlement pattern. These strongholds arc thus important for understanding many aspects of Slav archaeology, especially social structure, and this explains why they have been accorded so much attention m the literature and research programmes.1" At a later period many of the major sites appear in the written records as the chiefly scats (estate centres?) of the tribal 'princes'. It seems that this network of sites and the settlement hierarchy of which they formed a part had an important role to play in the process of state formation among the Slavs It seems reasonable to see the strongholds as a reflection ol ihe existence of some form of social stratilic.ition. They probably represent the scats of persons of some importance locally able to command the help of others to rais, such labour-intensive earthworks.
As in the case of the rural settlements around them, the strongholds are seldom situated far away from water, often by lakes or small rivers, ,>r on high scarps on the edge of major river valleys, sometimes in swamps, but rarely on hilltops which arc remote from water. They vary in size from jo m in diameter to several hectares, though most sites of the pre-sratc period are about 0,5-1.0 ha in area. There is some considerable sanation m density and also the layout of internal occupation Some have no sign of permanent occupation, and may be regional meeting-places or refuges. Some contain single homesteads in tin centre, many contain ranges ol buildings round the interior of the rampart, while others, especially in ihe north and west (for example Feldherg 111 northeast Germany) and among the Volvntsevo group ot sues, resemble fortified villages with scattered buildings (which may he roughly arranged In rows). In many cases there is external occupation in the close vicinity, often outside the gate (e.g. Tornow, Polabia; Klucov in Bohemia, Fig. 45). Construction of these sites began only with the new social conditions formed during rhe process of social consolidation, a process which began in many areas by the end ot the seventh century, with an increasing frequency in the ninth to tenth century. They are charactens tic ol the Early Middle Ages of East and West Slavs, and similar sites were being constructed hv Slavs until the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. Strongholds like this were not constructed by Slavs south of the Danube, though in Bulgar
'Ji
most cases
tern.ory small forts were constructed at strategic points - these I
more on Bvwntinc patterns, c  > 'holds dcarlv required communal labour to raise them. In
^the cise ot smaller strongholds, thc number of people needed^ LO„
m.ct «ich . structure would be greater than the number that could l.ve w.thtn „ though thev mav all have been able to take refuge in its defences in time of dancer  It is most reasonable to see rh,s labour as hav.ng been drawn from d» adiacent settlements/' This imphcs e.ther that people were coerced ,„tq bu.hj. me the earthwork perhaps bv some torm ot social obligation to the peopfc whose home u was to he) or that thev d.d so willingly because thev felt a need r example as a svmbol of prestige for thc commun.rv. rather Iik« a ninerccnth-ccnturv town hall). The evidence does not allow us to chno* between these two alternates; perhaps thc answer lies between the nj^ extremes In thc western zone ol i irly sites there are a number of relatively fan** enclosures (in Polabia, Bohemia and southwest Poland with little sign of per. m.nent dense occupation. These have been interpreted as corrals and refuges' where people and livestock could be gathered in times of danger ot attack by neighbouring groups. Perhaps thev served also as regional meeting place*
Occasionally, as in thc case of the ninth century stronghold at Pohansko near Bfeclav in Bohemia, the dwelling of the lord can be recognized. Thc house and ■utbu.idmgs were surrounded bv palisades and fences which produce the ,mpre>sion that the complex was modelled on the courts of Prankish nobles. The compound also produced the remains otan early ninth-century masonry church decorated with frescos and surrounded bv a cemetery of r.chlv furnished
From thc eighth and ninth centurv there is a change in the pattern of coo-ttrucrjou and an increase in the number ol strongholds being constructed." Now fewer of them are differentiated by finds richer in quality (though they do still rend to produce more finds than open sitesi. and thc evidence suggests that thev were permanently occupied by one or more family units In much of western Slavdom, the sites of this phase icnd ot eighth and ninth centuries) rend to take thc form ot a small and medium nngwork some 30-100 m across. In the west of the area thev tend to be associated with Tornow-rype pottcrv and, since thev are s.m.lar in form to thc type site, thev are known as strongholds of the Tornow iv pc Similar sites occur in Pomerania. The distribution of these lata strongholds forms a similar pattern to that seen earlier, w ith thc densest scatter in the western Poland. Pomerania and Polabia In central and eastern Poland and Bclarussia and much of the Ukraine such sites are less thicklv distributed. \s we saw m Q hapter 4. on the eastern trine,rs <>t thc East Slav territories (left ink of the Dniepr to the upper Oka and Duni most ot thc known settlements arc almost soleiv ot settlements ot enclosed, or defensible, type. These arc often high up on scarps overlooking river valleys or in swamps (for example
the Romny
ninth century. Although there an similar, we should be wary of assi( do seem however to be the reflccti construcnon. I he rampart dilterc outside it from other unenclosed < seem to have acted as some form place w here certain activities and 1
inhabited by the South Slavs. He unenclosed rural settlements and si Graeco-Roman origin. Thc Slavs absorbed into pre-existing social a extent had not been able to (or fell in this way as much as in thc Slav « instead adopted the social model alongside^1
°f the Romanized population thev I »
States and nations
As mentioned above, thc end product of the pr the state, and we have suggested that th ■ emergence of many of the states and
. — ccciupmcnt was :ovcred bv this book sees the habiting central and eastern the Moravian state and also thc creation of the Rulgar state. In these discussions though we have so fur tended to avoid the basic question: what is a state and what is a nation? There is a multitude of definitions, m.inv revolving around thc same themes. The dictionary definition of 'a self-governing political community occupying its own territory would not satisfy many anthropologists or sociologists. Robert Cartuero defines the state as an autonomous political unit encompassing many communities within its territory, having a centralised government with the power to collect taxes, draft men for work or war and to decree and enforce laws'. Some modern sociologists defines the state as 'an institution in which autonomous power over a geographical area is concentrated . .. |with)
Zander is blunter: 'The state is a social organization that exercises wirhin a given territory an effective monopoly in the use of physical coercion. In thc final
THI IXULY \IAV\
. n.       on force, power whose basis is the threat or application
analysis the stare rcsn
0fThrS.^rpM.I a nation is however a more complex question. In general ,n it, „„,Jern form the concept developed relatively late, at the end of the eighteenth enturv md the heg.nn.ng of the nineteenth. A nation is a permanent commu-
n.tv o. People regarding themselves as having a common history, culture, |an. Lace termors- political and economic institutions, which rinds expression ai Lion.I awareness among its members'. The term i deriving from the Latin) also inc|udes . notion of common descent; the Slav term namd has a similar root: it now meins nation', hut had a primary meaning of people, crowd'. The different, ition ol an ethn.e isee p. J11 and a nation is thus primarily one of scale.
We may define two types of state a nation state, which forms from the polit-,e ,| or. mi/ation of a people who consider themselves to be related ,n some way, and a power state, which incorporates peoples of different ethnic affinities under . common banner and ..uthontv  Most postwar European states are nation states (though in Stalin's eastern Europe the creation of these states was ,,ded In massive ethnic deportations, and it. the modern world improved means of communication and the media have been breaking down barriers between regional cultures within and between different states). Before the First World War the major states Isuch as those of the I laKburgs or the tsars) were multiethnic and multicultural, which in the end was to lead to their demise. It seem, that m the earlv medieval period most of the states which are referred to in the written sources were power states, formed by the subsuming of various local and regional groupings. Most early medieval rulers however seemed to have recognized (as did almost all later oncsl the importance of imposing some form of unity and promoting a -national feeling- among the people of their realms in order to discourage moves towards decentralization. In other words, like a giant roller the state was to level out .inv local irregularities. These dev elopmcnts may have been imposed bv torce, encouraged bv imposing a common ideology of some form (and propaganda), or may hive developed naturally. These factors mav hive involved a common religion, linguistic unity, the invention of shared id.als and traditions, a common enemy or the establishment of a unified material culture M.inv examples ol similar phenomena can be found in ancient
modern JMatisssssssssssssssssssI
The boundary between the earlv state and a tribal organization is very fluid: many early states are organized in a manner reminiscent of that of chiefdorns (the differentiating factor being that of scale . and the state in its formative period incorporates manv elements of pre-existing (tribal) structures. For this reason, some anthropologists prefer to define .1 .lisfinct stage, "the Early State'. I he disappearance ol the elements of tribal structures and the stabilization of social differentiation h\ a slow cumulation of political and socioeconomic changes mark the transition from an early state to a mature one.
Ltllect res'eni
Unlike tribal societies, form of linking structure mcnt. The populace pays
essential services were very complex one of the principal functions of whi
distribute it to the government, the ...my anu all in the employment of the state and ruler. These central places arc characterized by public buddings (often on a large scale), which include religious structures and workplaces for the adm
trativc bureaucracy-States are characterized by a more diversified economy with greater productivity, and increased specialization in many spheres of life. State societies ate generally stratified into different social classes (peasant farmers or serfs and poorer urban populations forming the lower ranks, with specialist craltsmen, merchants and priests and ruling classes above them), though in early states the boundaries between social groups ('emergent classes') are relatively poorly defined. Power was usually based on kinship links which open the way to holding positions of power (the place of individuals in the elite was often determined by their relationship with the ruling family and other privileged lineages). The elite is however not stable and is ultimately reliant on the goodwill of the tuler: it lives mainly off tribute from dependants and from loot from raids on neighbours. States have a large populations with a higher population density than tribal societies and territorial boundaries arc clearly defined, though there is potential for territorial expansion, with a reduction in internal stnie.
Although it is not proposed to discuss this problem in detail here, since in the eastern European literature the word state is often linked with the word tcudal' (or 'early feudal') wc must deal briefly with the thorny question of feudalism in early medieval central Europe. 1 have my doubts regarding the universal usefulness of this 'mental pigeonhole' concept (gaining currency of course in central European archaeology from the writings of Engcls and also stahn).;' The term is often used in central European archaeology without attempts to define it properly, and yet in many works it forms the basis of the interpretation. The authoritative dictionary of the Polish language for example defines feudalizm as a 'socio-political system widespread in Medieval Europe in
personal obligations and in return for allowing the tilling of land assigned to them by their lord'. Feudalism in western Europe is a term referring to a quite specific legal situation and is strongly connected with land ownership, that
' M
„ , ---------"■">.■• iuiici eivsricrsiiip that
theme about which of course Engels was especially
>3f
in'' SIAV*
conccrned). Sinic wc havc liitlr cvidcncc ut land nwncrshin Kcc ik..„ , no clc.ir rvidcnu rh.ii «li.it is icrmrd frudalisiu' by centrál I uropcan irch logisis u.mlil bc iindi-rsiiiod as šuch In wcstcrn liirope.in Imtorians i* f" wiih tlie well dociimcnied nulciui trom t arnhiigia |„r cxamplc, TTi »**
perhaps bcrtcr avnidcd m .111 y discussions ol ioci.il rrlatmns u, SI ivdurt whulr. thniigh n m.ii br applic.ihli in cenám .irras ol i|u West S|,lv te     JV ' attcr lln (sseltili ■ < in m % svhcrc h.nvi-v.i l.u.t.i lisin dcvelopcd undri""'^'"
[nfluenct trom tlu- Germ in I mpín
Ih.-r. Ii.m Ivni m.iin mio.IlK ot ili. loíMi.nioii ,,i m.itcs Somc vvorlce ŕui altcmptcd m follow a model ol rcl.itnclv slove soeio econouiu. growth ^ ***
ihe rr.insilioii trom tlie eg.ilit.iri.in to luer.irvliu.il sirmriirc as .1 v|ow provevs ol cli.iiigc' withiii .1 soviety. ' In order (or tlie e.irlv state ,,, ^^^^ thcre h.is to bc .1 continuoiis snpplv ol ccoiinmu surplus m siipp„rt lnc S''ln'c 011c 1111port.ini ŕactormight be tlie eonrrol ol tlie rcsnurccs ol hn:h %7^,crn:
ntc of s,,rp|UI
"tereatcs sucha
rec ma v h. " nc
cnvironinciiis (such .is agriculturally ndi areas).The mere existe does nor however automatically cause the creation of a state, b possibility. In other cases competition for .1 scarce but desirable rcsourc
,l„ .....1 gicatci sosi.il voinpl.\"\ 111 other vases historians have been prone
r,, sc. the lorination ol a si m as due to the charisma and qualities of a single exceptional p.-son is founder." An oft quoted .sample is the rise <>t the king, dom ol t h ak a Zulu m lustorie.il times, but the rise ol such a polity does not occur 111 .1 vacuum: il is also the result of certain pre existing conditions.
In the period ot colonial expansion before the World Wars, rhe role of military force nu seen b\ in.no ss liters as an important factor 111 the creation of more complex -"st-il itructurcs I he state sv is seen as an instrument ol oppression, designed to confirm social insipidus. 1 Oppenheimer saw these inequalities arising Ironi tin conquest and viib|cction ol one people In mother Ibis had as a purpose the economic exploitation ol the defeated, conquest thus lay at the root ol the town itioil «>l the stat.  Similar theories base been Drunn..a I-----
writers 111 more ment of some
been proposed by other
c rccc.ll sears Ihcre seems no doubl ih.i, the historical deve|00 ar, as and peoples was strongly affected In conques, of one soc,,,.
political organism In another, and the gem ral accumulation of territorial gains
and the subpig......11 ot conquered regions In various means (sec ( haptcr 7) Ax
a general mei danism tor state lorination, 11 is however r ither an unsatisfactory model when isolated from other sou,, economic processes. Conquest ot „nc tribe by another did not ibsass lead to state-formation, and clearly rhe
conquering and conquered peoples in these models must themselves already have had some lorm of politic.11 organization land stratification). Territorial conquest can be achieved .nils nth. conquerors have a ready-made political and military power system ss In. h c.iu he introduced to follow up the initial victory In studying the process ol si it, form in,,n. we should consider the difference between .1 stare which forms .„, the basis ,.l its own internal growth Jlld
a more inc
>m a
material
lg Hi, 11
lers and
Lorisolldotlon, anil those ( secondary states'! which tion by the existence of an adjacent 'primary' siaie 1 is a periphery.   In the period and area see are diss
which seems to have been ui.ue common (m othe
,,iiu 1 pohiiv.il tonus existed ilongsidc each other ft
I I nor develop into states). In the case ol th S, 11 th
muv states, uid accepted cultural models from ih Poland) sve observe a development which is more sp,
, misidc influence (Chapters 1 t-i 1 below).
Secondary stales mas .11 is. as a result ot inlluence main mechanisms acting together or separately. Th, Icrcncc from u neighbouring group (conquest) I fait rici manner. A local Icadei gaming a monopoly o1 resources - especially prestige goods - coming fro organization will have gamed a means tor exercising power ovt ordinatcs, but the adjacent sure has also gained .1 method of ex. 1. Il among the outsiders beyond its borders. By cutting oil the supply 0 goods and goodwill essential lor the functioning ol a system, or switel pons to a polilic.il rival, it can threaten the power base ot adjacent affect internal politics We know from the svrittcn sources that the ( .irolmgians ,nd By/antines for example wete adept .u such manipulations.
Ihe formation ol stales may leave archaeological traces In mans cases [Information of a centralised itatc came about by the destruction of previously existing power structures; local centres were olteu more or less violently destroyed and replaced with new power bases. The introduction of new land ownership systems may lead 10 visible changes in rural settlement patterns too, Recent work 111 Poland has drawn attention to horiioneol .lesti notion ol strongholds, especially visible across Wiclkopolska. These arc sometimes .ucompa-nicd by new strongholds constructed nearby. Similar evidence is seen in Bohemia.-"" This is interpreted as evidence of the ptoses-. o( destruction0Í the old tribal centres and replacement In stronghold, forming part of the repressive and administrative system of the new state (the relocation «.t the sites showing ■ I, an to maintain control over an area but at the same time to emphasize the permanence of the break with the past tribal system). In other cases, changes in potuiv typology seem to represent the [perhaps torccd) resettlement of entire populations as a result ot conquest, or the movement ol populations to take advantage of new opportunities provided by new lands opened up for settlement by military annexation. Recently in Poland. Andr/cj Buko has shown that in the late tenth century vessels of biconual form similar to those of Wiclkopolska appear in pottery assemblages (such as in the in.i|or stronghold at Sandomierz) ol rounded eggform southern type. He interprets this as a possible tr.ne of the
;„1 «*»ir »«.*>*
«netration of this area by populations from Great Poland as this report wa, 23 to the Polish state.' Similar effects are visible m Morlvla, ^ Ma,, un and W.elkopolskan potters' appears at the ttrne of the Polish cemq^.
at the beginning of the eleventh century.
irf are
The written evidence suggests that life in th Europe was often punctuated by episodes of vi of one type or another was endemic to almost:
blood-tcud, or the sort of ritual warfare where over blood-lcmngl to wars of domination or new territories or annex new resources (lai armies of more centralized political orgamzati
The written sources contain quite a lot of Most textbooks contain information concern :he Danube frunner area and the Balkans |ch pteudo-Maurice). Here we read about their u tare and the size of bands of raiders, though I
k       r#»rmrtrd mav in narr fv- m nr       i i
mind that these sources are also trying to cxp the Slavs. The information in the PVL about I Byzantium would seem largely to be interpola reflects rather the techniques of Varangian r. themselves (and the extent of techniques adc clear i. These techniques were also affected I main sources ol information arc the Frankis general however, in comparison to the Byzai Carolingian records do not tell us mui
An Ph] ext ran Th,
ks on
out Slav fighting methods: they main-
nce may also give us information, line strongholds) is the most obvious.
mcnon ol buildings and stronghold
often to the prevalence of the cremation burial rite over much of the area in the
TH» Ml* lt«v1
MK period. When kittle- were 'ought iw.» In.m rhe settlement, wc may
issum'c th.it the dead m..v not always have been buried ... their 'home" cemetery but in graves „11 the hattlet.eld. Weapons are not often present in Early Slaved, ,ssen,bl iges Isvvords. spears, spurs, as. s ol Moray .an type and soon), they were
rarely subject to casual Joss, and were infrequently placed in graves ,n the pu state period Weapons however need not reflect actual warfare hut maybe
prestige display items.1 jM
Inter-group skirmishes
We learn trom lU/aiiii.k sources ol intertribal skirmishes, such as between Sslavenes and Antes on the Danube The presence ot strongholds in n " h Slavdom Iron, the seventh century onwards and the general improvements" "h"
effectiveness of the weaponry of thc period seem to hint at similar inter gr
a time
"v-opcof
rivalry throughout the period considered here over most of this area. At when social organization wis relatively poorly developed, thc scale and
warfare was limited: for most of thc period considered in this book, the most that manv Slav groups could attain was small-scale raids. | Since most ot the tribal groupings considered here were relatively small, Until ,hc- rise of states the number ol invaders was limited A typical barbarian warrior bind ol the earlv medieval period mav have contained only two hundred warriors. Since smaller armies cannot c.irrv much excess baggage in thc form of supplies, the invaders were usually able to survive only trom what they could obtain on loreign territory Penetration of enemy territory would be limited in time and distance 1.1 small armv cannot afford to be cut off from its homeland), Thc invading group cannot however afford to stay in one area of enemy territory too long, as this might allow tune tor the natives to raise larger forces against it.
Motives lor war mav van: raids may be intended to acquire loot to be shared out among followers ot i particular leader, to avenge a wrong, to subdue a neighbouring leader; or they mav be conducted so thai thc young warriors can gam prestige and win their wav into the ranks ot warriors Warriors might go off m relatively small groups on raids for a lew days to prove their manhood and to gam booty. Thc motivation for many of these actions would have been prestige, which, measured in non-material rerms, has always been an important factor m social structure in many socat.es Battle-honours and material generosity were common status enhancers, and vvarl.ire may have been something more like a somewhat dangerous community prestige game rather than a tight to annihilation In primitive warlarc, thc function of leadership is very weak. Social pressure trom thc community and loss of personal prestige are thc only pressures on the warrior to tight Me tights lor himself or to protect his family and village. It however a leader can link warriors ro him personally, by an Oath - and if he
140
*einiar in German . conventional Avai
umber
on ,'hc cr wear
reinforces rnc e > rin^
_ warriors will light first and fnrernj tint feature in promoting socn.-pol, I he formation of warrior bands v of communities  we have seen how
presumably bringing their families political maps of Europe. This mixi essay concerning thc Avars and B process is thc grave at Mcllingcn 11c, a man with a horse (and thus a buria. cunventior with two spurs of a type fouml only in West Slav co spur were outside the normal range of distribution of these types o is easy to imagine this as thc burial ol a wide-ranging 'Avaro Slav' The equipment and tactics of thc Danuhian Slavs arc mentioned of Byzantine written sources. Procopius in several passages described Slav armaments. For example from thc 'ethnographic ii ccrmng the Sclavenes and Antes in their homeland inserted in th story (Wars VII. 1 4, is) wc learn that thc Slavs 'fight on foot, adv.) encmv, in their hands they carry small shields and spears, but the. , body armour. Some of them do not have cither a tunic [chiton] or cloak but wear ,in|y a kind of breeches \.i>uiksyr,dcs\ pulled up to thc groin.- Although this passage says thc Slavs and Antes north of thc Danube fought on loot, elsewhere Procopius uses wording which suggests that his description might refer to horse borne warriors. While we have a considerable number of spearheads, wc have little archaeological evidence of thc shields mentioned by Procopius, which were probably circular wooden constructions covered with leather without a metal umbo. There is no evidence of thc Slavs using helmets until quite a late period. The sword is rarely mentioned in Byzantine sources and it would seem was used mainly by the elite. Other written sources describe the equipment of Sclavcnc raiders: thus we have a mention of their use of the bow. slmg and axes in the life of St Demetrius. John of Ephcsus informs us that the Slavs and Avars learnt how to use siege machines from the Byzantine army (the use of 'wolf-pit' traps around their settlements mentioned in some Byzantine written sources should perhaps also be counted as thc influence of Byzantine tactics).
As we have seen, one of the best-known literary sources referring to thc early Slavs is thc Slrategikon at Pseudo-Maurice, written about AD 600 and describing how best to attack thc Slavs in their Danubian homelands. This document was probably compiled by someone who had actually taken part in thc raids on Sclavcnc territory in Maurice s reign. In the relevant passage (XI.4, 1 —45) we are told that in their homelands north of thc Danube they lived in 'forests, by rivers,
s lmns and wetlands difficult of access- because of the freemen, dancers I r en.ng inem, tncy dui.u several entrances to tncir settlements   Nothing however
'41
rat «»*
We are t
BMJdahowtthettassrnsrtinao^ bade sway then- rxodncr. having tsorhmg ■ a vwible
Byantme -met. They k=ad » pn^ocal-ay of life, at farewrd terrain, or in cnofiocd or tttep place*. They onalf
widen attacks and tricks. aitaTiarii*^T<»««%^*TiWyiBwS „ organized fashion, oar <hd they blur to right in the open. Lam*
bow they lav ffl wait for a retreaoog invader to attack io an? bush------.*«rsr*,
retrieve ri>c kxx and Pse»do-Maance advises rhe nrrading arrrrr to lifl the fc,.. «t oc rfae rarmded root* home*. i«i aho how rhe Sar, by ambwhe, aro^d farnfied camp*, and drew sokhers i*» fro™ the defences and attacked the* from the flanks. The dense setriemenr structure m river valleys allowed eats* iw—11 Minn of an arrack, and the inhabitants of settksnenrs farther aw» wereainemprepareanibashesfor^
dung to fir of" Slav arms: They are armed with short spew each nun carries
ewo.of then with a laree shieid, t^
wooden bow» and small poisoned arrows." We are also raid that there were uUanrryand cavalry (JO-x. = 5-* fa the secoon on how toorganize attackson rhe Slaw 'XK-S. 20I leaders are advised nor ro rake wagons or too moch hear* equipment with them, as it will slow liwsn down m the terrain where the Slav, arc hkefr to attack. lit^Lm^Lm^Lm^Lm^mm
These sources of course reflect the specific sanation in the Danubtan region and we are not able to know whether these references auv be applied to the evi-dence froni other areas of Slavdom, ^■wmmmmmm
Oreanizcd force
The Star invaders of the East Roman and Byzantine Empire in the suxh and tcTcnrh cemmks formed reiameiy well organized armies of «~rr consadesmk soe under a stronger kadeaship crating a sohsrannal thrcar to the mt provinces of the weakened empire. In part the degree of organization of the Slavs was a response to rhe nature of the forces they were op -"gp-Tr (espesaj'
mrnrrtm attacks by a "throng" omdos\ of Slavs and «"~*-ivn foresonm^l
of their numbers m thousands. Vimrrawri we also have the who led these hogr war hands on their raids. We hare sera above I Chapter 6 that the nerd ro compca
" ~il * air
sodaiincs which can m some cases lead to the creation of around dus group of hghnng men. The case of the rise of n American Flams Indians has been erred as a rccuu canal
seem very likefr that
fthi
mfd
■ur-Lied forces of Sfam which the East
tefls «s that in the Dam
rtmndialiii mi Sir^"ti ait rt ffjL, ■ HIwit liming a battle- The noa
Aronebont rhxcarJfr snedkial nermd trti- Ht~w k—ir-. ^T-.~' It wonW be«mTi«smgdthe swrromwJ^ rrom this tact- A* 6rw probalify an ehsr prerosarrre. increased
wdl have increased the mobdsry of the aoiemtnt of the Slav hordes mvadha i x to the use of horses; indeed Prom
that rhe Slavs busied n * fjpoorr. and they have lear as 5:6-7 fVccopms ndhsss I Innicmcn as mercenaries in d By the end of the sixth can
<er.z: zr.t- tie Kama
1 III I •
brought the stirrup to I uropc this w.is .,n important clement of the harness. for „ ,„ ,blcd the horsem in to sit mure Hrniiv in Ins se.it and allowed a spear to be used ,s ■ I nice It is possible that this pattern was adopted by the Slavs ln rhc seventh cen.urs. tor the hooked spurs w Inch appear over central Europe (though i)[lU ,„ ,h, ,,orth ot Avar territory) may be linked with the use of heavy cavalry m i ch ir.ee I he horse w as also probable important to the arm.es of the Bulgarj Icnctrit.ng the Danubian tront.er from the steppe (Fig. 47).
The horse was in use among the Slavs at a later period too. Constantinc Porphvrogenirus was probably exaggerating when he informs us of the sixty thousand horsemen of the Croatian King lom.slav, but tins gives an indication „, rhe probable importance of cavalry in rhc Slav warfare of the period.* In the pre-State period these were steppe horses, but the bone evidence from Poland suggests that large strong warl.orses were being bred there on princely and nobles' estates probably, by the end of the tenth century. We arc informed by Ibrahim ibn Vaqub staving in Prague in that in the kingdom of Mcslco
\lieszko) to the north the princes retinue was a horsebornc troop, and that Prague was notable tor the production of saddles, bridles and the flimsy shields which arc used in those countries-. It iii.iv be that .be ramparts of stronghold* were developed as much against cavalry charges as for am other reason.
With the formation of regular armies In the developed chicfdoms and early states, the power and scope ot w irt.irc increased markedly." The most common disputes will have been of a political nature, though raids seeking loot or to disable a potential cnetnv may have been carried out too. The main aim of the attacks will now be to subordinate the attacked communities to the will of the leader of the arms i that is. the mv ading state) and to extend the area of territory under permanent and direct control of a leader .mending to extend his power. I'he territorial extent and intensify of the attack is considerably increased in the case ol .1 large and well-organized army. A larger army can carry many of its own supplies, the invaders can be supported In well-organized supply-|,ncs an<j ire not reliant lor supplies only on what they can obtain on foreign territory (a scorched earth' policy by the retreating natives could end ingcr a large army). Also .1 the. iff.uk is carried out tor territorial gam. as soon .is an area is subdued, a new state apparatus is set up, a pr.marv aim ot which will be to keep the supply-lines to the front open. i ^fllllllllllllllllllM
Military role of strongholds
The strongholds which appear over most of nort century arc usually seen as structures of noted that undefended settlements are much more common
rrhern Slavdom from the seventh
century are usuallv seen as structures ot primarily military function. It should be
«n most areas of more defensible positions
Slavdom, and settlements are not always situated
in
■ arc rh^r.l...
such as hilltops). The •specialist' lunction. It i sites, but we may examine their p<> An obvious function of rtronghc I he archaeological evidence for rb Irom which there is little evidence i prcted as fortified areas built to prt to shelter in times of external thrca Another lunction is as a military from these sites sallying out to meei her of accounts of sieges. The succc, only on its military strength, but also on its ibihtv
messengers and warriors o, the attacked community before they could tai* force to counter-attack   The potential military role of stron mold, scenario in theory is dear they would have contained and n"*"- - I * '". lorce whose function was either to destroy ,,n tavadina fore* c^to^BO the invader occupied while reinforcements could come from oth       ° TlT" mvader would have to destroy the stronghold and its contained tor" feu " advance further, otherwise the stronehold would t c     or er to
• •I        i ... 1 as a 'ocus lor forces which
would be reach- to pursue or ambush the- mui.l.r     .u .
r invaacron the way home.
Many of the earliest stronghods have rclat.v^lt, i c
rel«ivcly weak defences, and we may
»the field, but there arc a num-rh*t
nd
imagine that in the early part of the early medieval period ti feature in the tactics ol warfare. Their ramparts may „ sudden raids hv relatively weak forces. On the whole however the defen - -s s to have the value of demarcating an elite settlement from th ■        I • endowing it with prestige. One may also infer that they were not me; stand a siege, but that any fighting was done outside the stronghold
By the eighth and particularly the ninth centuries In the northern parti of Slavdom, a number of rather better-defended strongholds were being constructed, and it is with these sites that one can sec that they were bceinninu to be used in a tactical sense. Some of them seem to form networks of territorial defence Some consist of several con,o.ncd enclosures: the inner one was the stronghold proper, while the outlying ones were probably for the horses of the fighting force and used to protect the local people in times „i threat
The defence of a stronghold has two main aspects- the f invader, and the second is physically surviving a sicitc P ' aticc of larger armies, strongholds could have been be periods. The Russian chroni
Olga besieged Iskorosten the whole summer afr<>r u.g., k i» t_
" summer, alter which its inhabitants were
starving. Much of the resistance of the defenders must have been passive, and restricted to guarding the wallwalk and firing on the attackers Her • h and slingmen will have been on constant service on the battlement Th
irn the appear-relatively long J4) mention that the army of Princess
us
thk M«tV MAVS
would hive been hand-to-hand fighting it staling ladders were used, or if the
wall wis breached, and surprise sallies on the enemv vamped outs.de the wa|| or to attack small groups who succeeded in getting close to the wall. Idca||v] ins.de the stronghold will have been everything necessary lor surviving the s.cge. Ihis includes a large quantitv ot food, a source of fresh water and materials fot
repairs to structures and equipment. i I
It would obviously be of advantage to site open settlements near to strong-holds in mder to have the opportunity to make use of its protection should the need .rise Vers often we find one or more open settlements directly outside the rimpartso!.. stronghold, olten mainly agricultural, but also the focus for craft production servic ing the inhabitants of the stronghold I he proximity of such a settlement was additionally advantageous tor those ins.de the stronghold who on hearing of an impending attack would be able to rapidly gather additional supplies from the adiacent settlement. Those settlements closer to the strong, hold could however expect to suffer at the hands of besieging forces.
We h.ne seen that I'.irU Slav settlements tend to form clusters, and we find ' that the areas between settlement complexes often have the form of empty butter /ones of v irgm forest This may suggest sonu form of inter-group hostil. ,tv. there is some evidence that these empty /ones were deliberately left free of settlement not only to form clear boundarv /ones but primarily to make their penetration difficult. Since there was little hope ot gaining supplies from communities met on the way, the conducting of raids across such territories by an enemv would require the consumption of substantial supplies.
An example m.n be the Silesian PrzcsirL: \uhlesische Grertzwald) which is known from the early medieval written records as an extent of thick forest which formed an impenetrable barrier on the frontier of a given territory and. which the local inhabitants were forbidden to weaken in any way.
Another feature which seems to hav ( appeared at about the same time is linear earthworks Iheseearlv medieval ramparts, from a few hundredm ' kilometres in length, lend now to be poorly preserved and difficult
metres to a few to trace, and
seem to have run between natural obstacles such as forest and marsh. There arc three mam groups. In Ukraine pist to the south ot Kiev are the so-called Zmitvy Valy (dragon walls) defending that town against attack from the south. The Silesian ramparts{mcdcr$chlc$iscbcn Dragnbcn) were probably constructed in the eighth or ninth century at the latest the middle of the tenth) to block movements trom the west. A similar defence is seen in Kuiavia between the Warta and Vistula rivers, again probably built between the ninth and eleventh century to prevent Pomeranian incursions in the south. To the west there is a whole series of similar ramparts in Saxony and Thuringia." ■
z
• to
Imposition of will
most effective in situations where there had already been some form al ,/ed control. A simple coup d'etat, ■ switching of leaders, was all required. A people already paying tribute to a central power would, in I est of leading a peaceful life, presumably be relatively easily 'persu transfer its demonstration of subservience to a new leader able to bat demands by the threat of force. Two options were open to the victorious invader. The old tribal aristocracy could be retained and by a variety of subtle or more brutal methods made subservient to the needs of a new master. The other option was to destroy them utterly, and take over the Icadcrless people, using loyal men (usually from the retinue or the new leader's own family) appointed as overseers The early part of the PVL contains an instructive range of anecdotes reflecting these various approaches. According to this source (s.a. 6370 and 6390). Rurik rcputcdlv settled 'his men' in the strongholds of northern Russia, as did his kinsman Oleg. The chronicler notes that in the 880s Oleg took over the tribute which had been paid by several tribes to the Khazars (s.a. 6yvt-«). It would seem that the first option was chosen: the local leaders retained their positions and directed tributes and allegiance to the new ruler. We later read that in 914 Igor extorted a higher tribute from the native Derevlane nobility which had been subiugatcd three decades earlier. In 945 however 111 another attempt (at his retinue's request) to raise the tribute Igor was captured and killed. He was buried outside the chief stronghold of the Derevlane at Iskorostcn. Prince Mai of the Derevlane was obviously making a bid tor the Kievan throne (as is shown by his proposal of marriage to Olga, Igor's widow). He wished to replace the Kievan line with his own native dynasty. The siting of Igor's grave outside his personal stronghold was presumably intended to legitimate his taking of power (by conquest). Olga took terrible revenge for the treachery of the Derevlane. her husband's death and the attempt to create a new ruling dynasty, she besieged and then burnt the stronghold at Iskorostcn, and captured the Derevlane elite; the rest of the inhabitants of the stronghold were either killed or given as slaves to her men. We arc not told what happened to Mah to |udgc by what had happened to his emissaries, his fate would not have been a pleasant one. After that Olga went through the land of the Derevlane establishing a new-tribute.
In Bohemia and Wiclkopolska it seems from the archaeological evidence that a different option was chosen. The rise of the first states in these areas is represented in the archaeological record by the slighting (demolition) of the tribal strongholds and their replacement on the same site or nearby with totally new constructions. This presents a picture of a more brutal manner of
«47
operinon. It seems th.u the tnh.il power w.is totally obliterated and replaced
In- „ew men. and no .lttcmpt whatsoever was made to pretend a continuity of
power."
Prisoners of war
The tate of prisoners of war was cither to become slaves or to be resettled far from home: slaves were a valuable (and mobile) source of revenue for the vi tono.is mm. IU/amine written sources tell us that prisoners captured by sin   invaders of the  Balkans were treated variously. Pseudo-Maurice '[Straw*"" V 4-«-451, s'-'tcs that the Slavs are a hospitable people and do not keep prisoners indefinitely, but lav dow n a certain period alter which they can decide tor themselves if they want to return to their former homelands after pay. ,ng a ransom, or to stav among the Slavs as free men and friends'. Procopms [Wars vii. 14-T-ii) hints at a similar process, at least in the case of slaves from other Slav tribes. Elsewhere however in the same book [Wars Vll.38, r-jj) Procopius describes an earlier invasion in sayi-so of Thracia and lllyria. He states that these Slavs always slew the enemies thev met. On capturing Toplr, they reputedly murdered fifteen thousand civilians, men of all ages, and took only the women and children into slavery. Some of the men were shut into their huts with cattle and sheep which were too numerous to take back to the Slav homelands north of the Danube and the houses set on lire. In 550 however the Slavs for the first time took large numbers of prisoners and drove them north of the Danube. In s V1 thev repeated tin action 111 lllyria, killing and destroying everything that thev could not take and taking prisoners. The taking only of women and children sccnis to have been dictated by the difficulties of preventing possible escape and rebellion by male prisoners C hildren would be particularly defenceless removed from their homes, and would he reliant on their captors for survival; growing up 111 1 barbarian environment thev would be prone to assimilation m then foster communities. Women with children in their care would be less likely to escape or fight their captors. They could not only work for but also be sexually exploited by their male captors.
In 1 later period there is considerable evidence tor the large-scale forcible resettlement of defeated populations. This process seems likely to have began with the nsc of the state, but was particularly prevalent in the Kievan state in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The resettlement of entire populations had four main functions: to I
• to break down old social ties based on kinship, ind territorial bonds, thus-preventing effective opposition to new social conditions (this was the logic of Stalin's ethnic mixing in the Soviet Union)
This
zation of defence, creatine
1 to settle potentially rich but underdeveloped lands in one's mcrease revenue. The use of enforced settlement from outs rapidly increasing production. Recent archaeological Wielkopolska shows this process in operation in the tenth ci
, the controlled depopulation of areas in selet could have for example a significance in the oi6U wide zones of unpopulated no man's lands between one's ov
neighbours.
the settling by new populations which were loyal to a new leader of conquered areas which had previously been weakened by ethnic deportation. The coin m/ation of the northern lands of Kievan Rus by groups drawn from the south (such as Volynlans) was a means not only of weakening resistance in troublesome areas but also of creating new ethnic identities in the resettled areas. The substrate of what is now Belarussia was originally Bait (or Balto-Slav), but resettlement by the tenth century created ethnic mixing and reformation Although the Bait hydronyms remain, the area is now ethnically Slav.1" Recently evidence from ceramics at Sandomicrz in Poland has been inter prelcd as a possible trace of the penetration of this area bv populations from Wielkopolska when Malopolska was joined to the Polish state (see pp. 137-8).
1+8
Production, Consumption and Exchange
The study of product..". ■> pol,,,...!!. correct' research top,, undcr Commun.st regimes. According to the tenets »1 historical materialism, the material goods created by the labour ot the working man w, re linked with the socio economic forces which created them. ... the former Soviet bloc therefore cotiu considerable attention was paid to earls technologies and production in pne.al Regardless ot ideologv. it is cle.ll thai .he scale and organisation of production tells us something about society itsell We mas attempt to determine to what extent a society was composed of sclf-sufficieni communities with ,|| ,c ih lo.al economies, and to what ext. ... there was production, storage and exchange ol an agricultural surplus and the ways in which this was used, \griciiliural surplus may be directed tor example towards clues and used by
,h..,. in .a, i, his .... ins to uphold tl.....sr.siige. or to support a standing army or
to patroiii/e expert craftsmen Small seal, local economies have only limited possibilities m these areas Oncol the most noticeablcarchaeologic.il indicators ni tin se relationships is thus tin phenomenon of craft specialization. In a small-seal. ..ononis there an lew special, zed roles, each hand is needed at the plough, to teed the pigs, ,u the harvest and in mans other domestic chores, The manufacture of material goods (leather, textile, pottery I is therefore by necessity a small scale cottage industry' conducted by members of the community when other tasks allow   I his means that levels of production are low, usually ()n|y related to immediate needs ot the community; the turn spent on the manufacture of iiid.si.lual items is limited, and there is little opportunity for developing sophisticated catt skills  I his is visible m tor cx.unplt ill. poor quality and sometimes even pruiut.sencss of some ol the items which the archaeologist finds   Ibis reflects rclativ. Is  poorls  developed .raft specialization. By the
seventh century we see the beginning ol the appearance of more and more specialist cr.iltsui... creating ob|tcts ot a sup. nor tju.ilitv. These people Were dearly freed from some ol the agricultural obligations of their neighbours and were supported in some way from surplus production.
It has been suggested that these craftsmen were patronized by elites, who nc.oed surplus agricultural produce is some form of tribute, and redistributed it to those whom they saw lit ( raftsmen - particularly metalworkers - who wandered from community to community, from the household ol one elite to another, are relatively well attested ill the .... hacological and historical material
from the whole of early medicvnl Europe, and the interregional styles of Slav nictalwork suggest that styles may here have been transmitted by lirnihu mechanisms. We have seen (Chapter t.| that many of the nictalwork items could have served as prestige goods, worn by the elites, i.nl distributed to supporters - who by displaying their access to such goods emphasized their social status. These were the beginnings of a consumer society in the former relatively cgalitariansoci.il structure.
With increasing centralization of power, we see a 'tribute economy' developing, where the elite drew a tribute in the form ol agricultural surplus' and other products (for example lurs, wax, hones i. the elm- then disposed ot this resource
within a restricted social context. The goods obtained and redistributed by leaders as tribute would be used to support retainers and others not directly engaged in agricultural production. In addition to necessary supplies, preside goods, or perhaps scarce raw materials or bullion, may have been involved. Another sphere where the cbi.t could use bis revenue was In lateral exchange or gilt-giving with the leaders of other politics, There were probably a variety of systems by which such tribute was collected, stored and used I bit tributt was perhaps not payment for land-holding rights as in the feudal system but rather an expression of loyalty to a particular polity and paid for the protection ol a particular leader (or perhaps in more pragmatic terms to avoid being classed as an 'other' liable to attack by ih.it leader). In the same way the payment ol •protection money' by the fast Roman an.l Byzantine Empires .<> barbarians to prevent their attacks was seen not as an c.xpiession ol political dominance but rather simply as an element in foreign policy, and for the barbarian leaders as an essential clement ot the tribal economy.
This brings us to the question of the medium ol exchange. It is difficult te>r us today to imagine a society which functioned without the use of money, but tor most ol the period studied in this book there were few coins in circulation. Silver and gold coins were imported fiom neighbouring states with monetary economies (Byzantium, Western I urope and most surprisingly from the Islamic \, ii 1 ast and central Asia), but these coins often served as bullion and special purpose money (it seems that from the ninth century silver was to some extent used m large transactions!. In several cases, it would seem that these coins vs. re produced with the specific aim of using them to trade with the Slavs. The coins are discussed in more detail below (pp. i - y-N |), Silver bullion (icwellcry, scrap and ingots) were also used as a medium of exchange. The fact that silver ohievts which reached the area functioned primarily as bullion is shown by the brutal way many very fine pieces of icwcllery, coins and other items have been cut up into smaller pieces (so called hacksilvcr) lor purposes of exchange: its value was expressed by weight and not artistic quality. Scales and their weights arc found at a number of sites on trade routes.2 It is not clear to what extent coinage was used by Slavs inhabiting the Byzantine 1 mpire m the Balkans; it seems howcvci
from the decline in the number of finds that they had little use of Byzantine .oniwr coinage, iml proh.ibh used moncv mainly as., means to paj taxes to the
emperor where appropriate or in large transactions.
For everyday needs the Early Slavs seem to have practised , natural economy th,i is sell-sufficiency supported by exchange m material goods by barter or e,lt exehtiH'e in a manner observable in the resent past by ethnographers in numerous native -"sieiies We can only imagine h.nv this process operated ln early medieval It. rope, and how exchange was regulated and controlled. One household may have had for example an cxecxs of pots , I, wcr may have been lost in accidents in lirmgl. but the chickens were off laving, ., neighbour with more eggs than expected but accident-prone in the kitchen might be grateful for a few more cooking-pots bur had little time to make them. Another household would receive surplus from a neighbour and would remember to repay thesocia| debt H a Liter date tor example In helping in the gathering of the harvest. The possibilities arc endless. Probably material gilts between neighbours in an egalitarian socict) were the basis of a complex network of shifting social ..legations. ,11 based on common goodwill and memory of past good deeds, supported bv tacit o, declared public disapproval ,,| greed or miserliness. The concentration of goods in the hands ol a smaller group ol people would endow such a mechanism ol exchange with overtones of patronage, , beginning of
social differentiation.
In certain cases u would seem that high v due special-purpose money-issued by certain duets as part of the tribute redistribution ecnnnmc -n. ^'1S
presumably
neighbouring polities Only much later in most regions docs It
pan oi tne trinuie redistribution economy rhis waS a status enhancing policy in imitation ol the monetary economieso| lolitics. Only much later in most regions does it seem that an extensive 'regional' economy developed, one m which exchange took place in a varietv of social contexts within a more or less wide region For this type of exchange the use ol a commonly accepted medium ol exchange is required. In most cases this implies a large-volume 'small change' coinage.
||n development of the economy was often closely linked with military aggression. An effective means ol gaining access to desired resources was to take them by force Irom neighbouring groups I out from raids and resulting tribute payments were used 10 iinaiicc individual and group ambitions, while attacks were carried out bv tcmporars raiding parties (the maintenance ol which wag relatively cheap since thev would have prov ided their own weapons and lived off the land in the invaded te tnfo, y and then disbanded when the action was over), With the appearance ol larger standing armies, the conducting of warfare became a greater burden on the economy ol the elites who headed them. One of the methods ol gaining more supplies tor these troops and other purposes was to invade a neighbouring territory and impose a tribute on a subject community.
Long-distance trade can be followed troni the written and archaeological evidence (recognition ol imports, and numismatic material).9 While so-called
151
•down-thc-lmc gift exchange' (and other types known from ethnographic studies) may have been a mechanism lor the movement ol goods across large territories, there is also evidence for the movements of merchants [his is ce.n sidered below. The establishment of long-distance trade networks 111.1 period of political fragmentation and transport dilticulties is one of the more notable features of the period. Scholars note the close connection between long-distance trade and the creation of states, but it would seem that the establishment ol trade is not the (actor that precipitates tin formation of a state: rather that control over such trade is one of the features characterizing centralized rule.
Agricultural production
The basis of the economies of the Early Slavs was clearly agricultural pro duction. Pseudo-Maurice (xi.4, 5) for example, writing of the Danubian Slavs, tells his readers that even they were far from being |ust a band of marauders, thev were also effective tanners and they had 'an abundance of all kinds o| animals and agricultural produce'; the missionaries among the I'ol.ibian Slavs at a Utter period tell us a similar story. The archaeological evidence adds to this picture.* The farming of the Slavs, even allowing for some regional dffretenci %, seems in general to follow much the same pattern over most ot the area which ,hcv settled and may be discussed here as a whole.' ln m.inv areas there seems to have been a development of farming techniques in the period between the initial expansion and the tenth century, and we see .1 gradual improvement in (and new types of) agricultural tools To some extent the improvement of crop yields which these changes brought allowed the accumulation of surplus, which is one of the preconditions of the rise of more complex social organizations. The importance ol agricultural production is demonstrated by the number of iron hoards buried in the Carpathian basin and in Bohemia and Moravi.i, ,1 third ot the contents of which are often composed of agricultural ironwork.*
It is therefore somewhat unfortunate that we do not know more about the way in which agriculture svas organized. We know little about the sue pi fields, and the size of individual holdings (or whether in some communities land was tanned in common). The three-field fallow system seems not to have been in use by the Early Slavs (coming into general use only in the thirteenth and fourteenth
nnJ ,1,,, nuicl rumi-eil miimi, uunilil •« i,   .L.I. I n
centuries), and tne most typical regime would seem to be the alternating-fallow method. This involved the exploitation ot a piece 61 land as atablc. until the soil showed signs of exhaustion; then it would be left fallow and the adjacent plot would be cultivated. The fallow land was used as pasture, and then after a time when its soil had recovered (a period of a few to a dozen or so years depending on the location and soil conditions) it was returned to arable, and the former ploughlands turned over to pasture. The process would be repeated until the soil
■5»
1111  r AKI V U.SVI
became almost completely exhausted, and (as we saw ,n Chapter 5) the settlement woulel then shut to a new location and tin fukls would become overgrown with forest  I'lu sparse population, and the ease of gaining new farmlands did
not encourage the develop,,,;... ..I im>u munsive .arming methods |>„||cn ,„.,!>sis 10I which (here are ...am examples from I'olahia and increasingly£«,„, Pol null Ins shown the cvde ol temporary clearances, as well as demonstrating the importaiueot cereal cultivation and the weeds which affected them, but also the changes ,u the lores, .round due to human activity We can only guess about th, h\els ol production, and the balance between plant and animal products i„ the farming regime." JM
The move to new lands involved the clearance ol the forest, and the easiest way 10 achieve this was to bum down part ol the lorest. (This was easier in the case of a coniferous forest, deciduous forest would need slash-and-burn tech-niciues to be applied I I his would remove main of the trees and kill off the undergrowth, but would still leave stumps and roots to he removed. The ash from burning would act as .1 fertilizer lor the newly cleared land It is thought that manuring with midden material (where practised at all) was carried out only in the plots nearer the settlement (this is detectable mainly m the scatter of artefacts Iron, the settlement which got into the midden material spread on the lieldsl Beyond the infield area would he a series of pastures in clearings or on valley slopes 111 which the livestock were kept. jj
j ,,,,,, the location ol then settlements, we can see that the Slav farmers preferr. d more fertile soils. They often chose to settle on fertile valley bottom soils iwell watered and enriched In earlier soil erosion from valley slopes and upnver caused by over-exploitation by previous tanners from the Neolithic}, and thev chose areas near water for their livestock herds. They moved to poorer soils only under pressure from growing populations In some areas north of the Carpathians, pollen analysis has shown that the areas the Slavs were moving into were heav.lv forested; the same presumably applies in the northern zone of I ast Slav lands. In other areas however the landscape had been abandoned only some ve.ns ... dec ides previously, and it would seem that clearance was less arduous. An example may be many areas ol the Balkans, where the Slavs seem to have settled former agricultural land. ^JttKj^M
I he Slavs had .1 light plough, which 111 its simplest form could be a wooden ard. though numerous tmels of iron ploughshares and coulters show that from the sixth century onwards more sophisticated ploughs were in use too. These tools cui into and broke up the earth, the mouldboard plough was not to be introduced 111 main legions until alter the twelfth century. Several types of ploughs and their components have been recognized, the greatest number coming from the ironwork hoards of the Carpathian basin region (see below). The form of the other agricultural tools employed by the early Slavs did not differ much from those earlier in use in the Roman world.' Various types of iron he
i wooden spade was fitted with.
.iron,
; of
the
lowing
noes
were also in use, 1 increase its cfficie..-
Other idoIs connected with agriculture were of wood. We have tmds of the harrows which wc know were used to break up the lum These were of wood; indeed ethnographic parallels suggest that coniferous tree trunk with projecting slumps of branches dragg field served the purpose very well.
When ripe the corn was cut with sickles, of which several differ sizes arc known. In the Carpathian basin the sickles of the rarh p be only slightly curved (type A), with the blade at right angles ti 1 .iter - by the beginning of the ninth century-a new type (B) appci a backward curve from the handle before the blade sharply curves other direction (like the modern gardener's 'hook' for cutting wee. was much better balanced and served tor cutting the crop lower do the straw to be used. Threshing was done with a wooden frail.
The principal cereal crops grown were millet, barley and several varieties ol wheat: these are mostly hardy varieties which thrive even in poor soil conditions. The quantities 01 grain found on site (having become carbonized during the processing) show that variable proportions ol gram were brought into the settlements lor processing from the neighbouring fields. Although this tells us something of the crops, it does not tell us about the proportions of different types of cereals being cultivated. At Mikulčice wheat was dominant in excavated assemblages (96%), and next rye and barley 1%. At Pobedim in Slovakia however barley accounted for 69%, rye 18%, wheat ti% and oats 11 „. Ibrahim ibn Yaqub tells us of two sowings e)t crops a year (the sowing of 1 winter cereal). At Tornow, near Calau in Polahia, evidence was found suggesting that rye and barley were sown in the autumn and wheat and millet in the spring Millet w as grown in the northern regions among the West Slavs.
To |udge from the excavated remains (mostly preserved seeds), vegetables raised, probably in spade-dug garden plots, included onion, carrot, radish, turnip, parsnip, cucumber, pumpkins and cabbage. Pea, broad bean, lentils and vetch d'/cw satiua) were also cultivated. Herbs included parsley and gatlic. Hops were grown, probably for making hecr. Fruit trees cultivated in orchards include cherry, apple, pear, several varieties of plums, and peaches. Vines were also grown in the southern regions, but in the conditions of the climatic optimum by the tenth century they were apparently also being grown (or at least grapes consumed) in the West Slav lands. Walnuts were also appreciated. Oil-producing plants include flax and hemp: flax was used also for producing textiles, and hemp could be used to produce oil and rope. Oil would be made in wooden presses, of which parts have been found on some sites.
In order to use cereals the grains had to be milled, and some sites produce fragments of stone querns. These were apparently used at first in an oscillating
"55
„„„„„, ,,.,a „„i forth, hu. bv "he Minih tenth century fully rotary UUc,n, were.., use These stones were often imported from specialist quarries I such as the one. on the slopes of Me/a mountain in Silesia) and were probably valuable ,nd well looked .Iter these substantial ind robust objects were rarely abam.
doncd as settlement rubbish. This cannot be the whole explanation of the rarity of broken fragments, and one is forced to conclude that in many settlements flour and groats were made by other means (for example in a wooden mortar as
was used for crushing other plant marrerj.* ««kV
Agricultural surplus was valuable onls if it could be kept in usable condition oser .1 period ot time. ' .rain could be kept fresh in dry conditions free of vermin, such is sacks ,n l.-tis or specially erected granar.es. There is little evidence of storage in pus I he storage of vegetable products created greater problem*. Some foods, such as mushrooms and certain fruits, could be dried.
We have seen lh.it rearing of livestock was practised in many homesteads alongside the arable (arming. The animals not only produced meat but in the alternating tallow" system they had an important role ,„ the fertilization of , sh.u.sud soil Some animals produced milk from which a number of different
products were made, and were a source of skins lor leather. Others
were used for
draught, pulling the plough or wagons. On most Early Slav sites, the dominttj domestic animals are pig and cattle  I he Slavs reared several types of cattle, and these could serve as draught animals, and be a good source of meat; females could supply milk. Pigs were prized for their flesh, bur also relatively easy to rear land in many cultures were traditionally left to forage in forests around medieval settlements, and could be ted on domestic scraps). An Islamic source (the Anonymous Relation) of the tenth century say  that the Slavs arc 'a people which drives pigs out to pasture like sheep*. Sheep and goal rarely account for more than 10-15 percent of any bone assemblage, though in some mountain districts (such as Moras 11 and Slovakia) these proportions may be higher. The situation is dilterciit of course 111 the regions ti -wards the steppes and in Certain regions of the Hungarian steppe (the Alfoldj where large herds of cattle and sheep belonging t» •> nomad .mstocr.i, Ifulgar or Magyar) probably
dominated I lorse was rarely eaten, to |udge from the bone remains found in settlements; its primary use was as a mouni lit was also used as a draught animal and for light work on the (arm, though it could not pull heavy loads owing to the ol .1 proper harness). Besides these animals, the Slavs reared a number of domestic fowl. I he remains ot chickens are relatively common on many sites, while those of ducks and geese arc also found, though in (Ins case a is less easy to distinguish domestic species from hunted fowl    We know from the Written sources (among other things mentioned as a tribute) that the Slavs obtained honey and wax from bees, but it is difficult to tell whether these were wild ot farmed; archaeological finds regarding medieval apiary are rare. Selective breeding especially in recent times has led to considerable changes in
the appearance, proportions animals. Hie several breeds ot
breeds of sheep l.iveraging some 0.6 m height 1 with dilterciit fleece other characteristics. The horses were in general similar 111 si/e I'r/ewalski horse 11.? (-1.40 m at the shoulder), though from the sve see an increase 111 height owing to the introduction of ncsv brec
from the west).
The quantitative proportions of post-consumption domestic an louiid in settlement debris has been studied in the case ol nuns 1111 l,|,|c ,)." The synthesized results show that the pattern varied type of settlement and time.1' Thus rural settlements may cont.n
hone debris pattern from an elite site (stronghold) in the .....
he due to the consumption of different kinds 0I meat by the inhabit thecaseofi th. structure of tribute rather than overall pro,
some sites we sec different
consumption pattern* represented by
■
fjblc 11 Main »pccic» rcj			
different regions and per			
Site			
Kipn.rv |Ukr.(			
klumUj 1m0i.I s/chgid'nl 1 I'opuu I1..1 |	VIII		
J'npnu (Bul.l MyrnirillBul.l DridulRnm | DesMu (Polabla) hihlinknlBoh.) Stare Meim 1 Boh. 1			
\.trjn»ky Hradok 'M.,s.i			
			
			
IHI H»tT SLAV!
from different areas of the complex (lor example pig bones may be more pre**, lent m i stronghold than .1 settlement immediately outside its rampart when; cattle bones might be found). On some sites we see temporal vanatiom thus on some Polabian sites discussed bv Herrmann (Tornow tor example), we see a rise in cattle bones with respect to pig with time, while on others, such as Dessau-Mosigkau we see a reverse situation It has also been noted that in Poland, for example, the composition of animal bone assemblages is sen different from that of the same region in the Roman period.
There are also regional differences: in the pre-statc period in Poland, for example, bone assemblages in Pomcrania seem on present evidence to be domi. nated bv pig remains while contemporary sites in the cast of the area are dominated bv cattle remains. A similar situation is seen in Polabia, where p.g-dom.nated assemblages cluster in the north. This if it is nor due to site status .is m the case of the proportion of hunted animals m post-consumption remains* is probably an index of the degree of afforestation of a parnoibu territory. I J^^^^^l
The herds seem mainly to have been kept in the open: there is little evidence of special housing for them, though large ditched compounds attached to some strongholds (particularly in southern Poland. Bohemia. Moravia and Slovakia extending into the western Ukraine), would seem to have served as kraals for pcriodicallv containing livestock (or horses). The age structure of many bone nblages shows that the herds were managed by selective culling, probably it the onset of winter. Some iron hoards contain the blades ot sevthes 30-5 on in length which were used for curting grass to make winter fodder for livestock The grass was probably collected from natural riverside meadows, where the summer p - lush. It would be cut and left to dry in the sun, periodically
turned and then gathered with wooden rakes. Special whetstones were used for sharpening the nd sickles). The hay was then gathered into stacks and
in the ^^^^^^^^^^^H The storage of animal products presented problems Meat could be smoked or salted. Salt was an important commodity in the early medieval period; apart from its culinary use. it was a potential preserv arise tor foodstuffs, such as salted pork and fish It was obtained in early medieval Europe from two main soun.es: the evaporation of sea water, and the evaporation of brine from salt-springs. Climatic conditions tor solar evaporation existed on the south coast of the Baltic 1 in the early medieval climatic optimum at leastl and the Mediterranean coast; the use of saline springs in south-eastern Poland and Transylvania" is attested by the archaeological and documentary evidence though mostly in the period after the mid ninth century. Alt! evidence is lacking, one may assume that salt manufactured at b sites was probably widely traded by the Slavs in n Indeed documents suggest that in an attempt to curb
ct
-J per ceni
requested the Bulgar khan to prevent salt coming down 01 Pannonia (thus blocking Moravian access to this eeon
resource I.
The animals Irom the forest also provided food, and bt mammals are generally round in post-consumption remaim though usually m low percentages. In Dre-srar.. P„u_.i -1
mammal bones usually forms sor
more than 10 per cent. In the pcr.^s. a..n me rise of the state rails on rural sites, though it remains constant and even rises on si perhaps reflecting a status difference in the practice of huntu Polabia in Havel-Spree land, the proportion of wild animal bt higher than elsewhere." In most assemblages of wild mammal h trom settlements, boar usually dor
remains, hare and occasionally aun . . ;c... „...... ,.
and occasionally bear, though it is not clear whether the latter wi Reavers were hunted for their fur, as were a number of smaller animals (ma^ns, ,ox and so onl, rhe bones of which are occasionally found in settlements. We should not forget the importance of fishing, even though seldom survive on archaeological sues.
1 fmd red and fal
sm
Craft products
visible in the
The process of the developmer
material sruuteu by tnc arcnac —,        ucnm arc visible in
the pottery. We have already seen that the typology of pottery has been one of the key factors in the archaeological study of Early Slav culture, of the chronology of the settlement of various territories and of regional differences between them. Technological studies and ethno-archaeological work were cred bv Polish archaeologists in the 1940s and have been used to reve-il details about the organization of production.'* Changes in the organization of potters manufacture have been linked with changes in social structure and oreanization of craft production.
imzation of production, it is clear that pottery vessels of the related types were produced by craftsmen lor women),
ng qualities. In some cases this 'temper' was sand; more
In terms ot the Prague tradition possibly even in to improve its w often it was mad -nts. Occasional!
119
Till £AKI.y um-*
honfirc-tvpc kilns The colours ot the finished vessels were pleasingly VatJaok
iron. black to brown ...ul orange brown patches It would seem that at thjl period the production ot pots was something which could be done by almost ul>„ne Some of the earliest Prague-type vessels are ol execrably bad quality, which shows that the manufacturer was not very practised, and probably did not make pots for a living. hH|
Wheel-made pots, presumably specialist products, occur in some early Slav isscinblagcs ot the Migration period on the Danubian frontier and in the western Ukrainian assemblages of early date isuch as at Kodyn). There is some discussion wluthei this material is residual rubbish from earlier occupation, or whether wheel lunied potters was used land made) by the Slavs in these areas. ( outlet with indigenous populations and proximity to the products of the East Komai. empire mav suggest that the latter is not as impossible as some scholars would have seen, to have assumed The traditions ot wheel-thrown pottery continued in the Avar khanate. J2B
some time alter this in Poland and Polabia, probably by the end of the seventh .cntury, pottery vessels began to be made on a slow wheel, which was used to lorm the loppart ot the pot and give it a more regular shape. The speed of rot*, noii of the wheel was not sufficient to Throw the pot. The surface of these vessels is more finely finished than earlier types or those produced by hand in domestic workshops, and may have a horizontal /one ol decoration. This consisted either ol lionzont.il bands ot incised hues, or ot wavy lines made either, w ith a stick or with a four- or five-tooth comb (Pig. . S) Firing was still in relatively simple bonfire kilns .hough now at higher temperatures, and the colour produced In I.ring was more carefully controlled. Now relatively dark colour* predominated. Variations on these themes gave rise to most ot the types of potters which we have been discussing m this book. The quality of these vessels is suggestive ot the beginning of some form of cratt organization and the establishment    workshops. nM^lgggggggi
The same types ot change take place in the Ukraine somewhat later. The earliest wheel-made pottery of the I uka Raikovetska horizon seems to date to the end ot the eighth century, tor example at Monastyrek, where an assemblage of handmade and wheel made pottery is associated with a dirhcm of 761/a."
In the ninth and tenth century we sei 1 di imatii change in the quality of pottery production over .1 wide area of Slavdom hi southern Polabia and the middle Oder valley the Tornow-tradition potters appears. Further north we see the
appearance ot I eldberg potter-..  Ihese carefully made biconical and rounded
decorated vessel tonus seem to be imitating pottery of the Carolingian Empire, although very little of the latter actually seems to have made its way eastwards.
It is in the tenth century m Wielkopolska that we see the development of thin-walled pottery made on the last potter's wheel (Fig 30), These vessels with their sharp shoulders and decoration on the upper part of the body are a continuation
160
of the Tornovs tradition Similar changes take place elsewhere ,n Slav pottery assemblages about the same time. The vessels arc fired in closed kilns, which allowed a higher firing temperature (over tooo'C) and closer control of the colour of tiring. Again dark colours were preferred, tun also tending toward* 1 medium dark grey for cooking-pots. The higher speed of the wheel allowed a more regular and closer-spaced horizontal line decoration, and more Imaginative zoned decorative schemes. There is little doubt that these vessels were made |,v skilled and specialized craftsmen. It is possible that these craftsmen were to some extent itinerant, until the development of fixed markets allowed them to settle in one place.
Although as we have seen, pottery could have been produced in a domestic setting, other products were not so simple in their technology and probablv imply some level of knowledge and skill. These crafts could thus be practised only by people with specialist knowledge and skills. Among the most important of these was the production ot iron, and its smithing to produce tools. Iron was needed by all communities, but seems to have been manufactured in the early medieval period by (possibly itinerant) specialists who worked using local ores and fuel sources. Much literature on the sub|cct at iron production and utilization was written in the former Soviet bloc countries. One may suggest that a special interest in this topic was engendered in part by the economic programmes of quick industrialization of these countries promoted by the new elites."
In the Roman period iron was produced in central Europe in a number of very large industrial-scale plants in the forest. The technology of these ironworks was however lost, and Migration-period iron production was at a much lower scale of organization. The source of the metal was bog ore (natural iron oxides recovered from the edges of swampy areas). This had to be roasted in an open charcoal fire before it could be used. It was then loaded into a surface-built shaft furnace of clay with charcoal. After it had been reduced at a temperature of over 1 too,C the metal was separated from the waste material (slag and ashl. The spongy metal then had to be heated again and hammered to drive out the rest of the slag. It was then shaped into bars ready for transport away from the product ion site and ready for smithing. Some of these bars were heated in charcoal tires to make steel, some of which was of a high quality.
Ironsmiths made a vast range of objects, ranging from simple knives (not all of which when examined metalographically turn out to have been so simple in structure) to tools and decorative items. Weapons tequircd similar technology and need not always have been made by separate craftsmen.
Although iron ores were relatively common over much of the area, regional and chronological differences are visible in the scale of production. Iron is a rare material in Migration-period contexts; although in common use, it seems to have been valued as a raw material. When a tool wore out or broke, it was not thrown away but rc-forged into something else. Iron tools were rarely discarded
rut mi* »uv»
or lost on settlements, especially in small rural communities (except in Buigar ternrorv where such losses were apparently more common than elsewhere)." Outside Avar territory, metal objects were onh occasionally put in graves. Iron was too expensive for common use in woodwork; except for specialist joinery, nails were uncommon over most ot Slavdom unnl the eleventh century* hi the Ukraine at the beginning ot the Luka Raikovetska period, and also in Moravia ,n the ninth and possibly tenth cenruries, collections of iron tools and scrap axe found which demonstrate the range of tools produced. These hoards form , horizon right across cenrral and eastern Europe.- though their
interpretation is
controversial. Some have seen them as the scrap stock-in-trade of itinerant specialist craftsmen i buned for safety and never recovered . « hile others have seen them as communal wealth hidden in a time of arrack. Flonn l.urta has recently suggested that such burials might represent some ritualized destruction of wealth. The interpretation of individual cases is however difficult and should be linked with the frcquencv of broken objects and whether the metal parts were buned with or without their wooden handles and so on. What seems to be the oldest of these hoards at Moravsky Jan in Moravia i now Slovakia I is dated by rhe inclusion of a set of late Avar bronze harness mounts of the eighth century and illustrates the range of items likely to be met in these hoards.- This hoard buried in an iron cauldron, covered by fragments of a second one and included fragments of a pot-chain tor suspending the cauldron, a ploughshare, a hoe, three nnver's knives (evidence of rhe cultivation of vines), two iron 'spuds' • r cleaning the ploughshare during ploughing, axes, two spade shoes, an auger, two anvils, two stirrups i not a pair . a lance head, three harness bits and a key. The fact that all of these items were fined in a single iron vessel suggests that in this case fust the metal parts of composite objects had been commuted to the ground. g^^^^^^^^^H
The production of items from non-ferrous metal svas also relatively advanced. Copper alloy and »iber fibulae and items of the Martvnovka r> pc. hooked spurs and fibulae were cast. Some were finished bv tiling or other forms of cold working, and by the use of mam decoranve techniques such as gilding and engraving. We hare already discussed the belt finings found in Avar-controlled tcrntory. These appear in the late sixth century, and the earliest examples are of relatively simple form, made of sheet metal with punched and Later examples after the mid seventh century w ere cast i complex ornament of scrolled vegetable and zoomor Objects of copper alloy were probably very costly: there the explonanon of copper ares id the Carpathians and
■■■(»■'»» ^cs.oration, ipenwork fittings with
i Clear evidence of
thi
In
at
mam raw matenal used. The mixed compositions of some of these itetm that this wis the case.- Copper alloy may have been derived from the
and continued circulation and re
from Byzantine coil
area north of the Danube, sud
\ rbovok in Slovakia datu vessels are also present in the second and third quar
1 to the cn<
Islamic dirhems from centr; ,ion of silver jewellery - mainl; the ninth but especially the tent items from Moravia have been < markedly mterregional, but proh though some central Asian infrt been found in the hoards of K« extent similar metalwork in Scan Scandinavian* The production required a high degree of craft sn
Carpathians. The metalwork of the Bl period -90—8 jo following the col bps types ot metalwork were also impo Carolingian Empire.*7
What little evidence we have sugge which made extensive use of wood.3 rare iron carpentry tools, we have tin
to some parts,
ally, there was also exchange of metalwork is found as imports north of the
into West Slav territories from the that the Slavs had a material culture
and turned b
and carved
ive in
g ec niqucs. Despite the elaborate-
ril» early slavi
are not as permanent in the archaeological record as portcry or meralwoffc,
„|„cl. piese.its the iu h icologist with a bused picture of the 'poverty- of Slav
material culture.
[either and textiles likewise do not survive well he fore the appearance of rovvns  leather was produced In tanning hides, using a series of techniques
probably known onlv to specialist craftsmen. It was used in the production of shoes and other items of clothing and horse harness. Closely related to leather iri. t„rs winch were collected Irom forest animals (fox. heaver, lynx, Sab|c ermine marten, weasel and squirrel 1. and after tanning served as a useful merJ. .umot exchange The fur trade was of considerable importance for the economy „, some northern peoples able to trade ihc.n with southern European conv mumties ' The PVL records that certain tribes paid tribute first to the Khazars and then to the Polianc m squirrel lurs trom each family. The control of the fur ir.ide was obviously of some importance: indeed it would seem that it was the value in the southern markets of fur produced m northern lorcsts which was largely responsible for rhe considerable quantities of Islamic silver which at times flooded into the area around the Baltic Sea.
both linen ind woollen textiles were used bv the Slavs. Sptndlewhorls are common finds, which suggest tint thread production was carried out at home. Mure are tew loo.nvveights (this is ptobabls due to the fact that the beam looms ,n use were of types not requiring weights). It is thus not possible to know to what extent textile production was a homecraft loo Some of the vv eaves found in archaeological materials are however complex, which suggests that they were the product of specialist craftsmen. Decisional finds of silk come from imported fabrics which arrived in Slav territories along the Silk Routes or from Syria via Dvzaiiiium Silk itself has been found in earlv ninth-century contexts at Wolm oru puce was a silk ribbon of 'samitum' weave and thought to be of Syrian origin. Ninth-century layers at Violin also produced fragments of fluffy
woollen textiles. These were probably used as warm blankets
or overcoats.
similar textiles occui m Birka and Lund in lent h-century layers and seem to be influenced by the technique of knotting oriental carpets. Tenth-century levels trom Wolm produced three fragments of knotted pile rugs. These were probably local products using techniques derived from eastern carpet-milking. Similar knotted rugs were found at Opolc (tenth century) and at a cemetery at Schirmemrz near Osch.it/. I his suggests that such carpets were imported to 1'omcrania, at least by the tenth century.'" _ sdjflBI
Another natural raw material which was used relative!) extensively was bone (and antler). This was used tor a variety of simple tools which were probably produced in the home One tvpe of object ol these materials however, combs, required considerable skill they were probably the prodUCtJOl crattsmcn working in specialized workshops. These combs were made of thin plates of antler sandwiched between side plates of bone or antler and held with metal rivets, the
f extensive changes takin; ■iftheBalticreL.inn.fi,
1 1 1,11111. llU* i'ťirii
!
mticr w.is usually collected in the forest alter deer in the autumn. The tirst combs used in \ imports from the south in the sixth to cighi production of these items tended to conccntr.it the shores of the Baltic in the ninth and cspc seem that the crafr was organized craftsmen who frequented major beginning of the ninth century the organization of the comb workshops or tnc Baltic r ma| variation visible in rhe eighth century is gradually re
standardized rypes. Comb manufacture changes its character, becomes much more standardized and soon embarks on a regular mass-production which is characteristic of the Viking period Most ol the forms which were produced in the ninth century are nor found earlier, but one form of comb made from the seventh cenrury (Fig. 57) has a simpler form and is similar to contemporary combs in Prankish contexts.
In the same coastal craft centres, items were also made of amber which was probably collected on the shores of the Baltic after svintcr storms and brought to the craft centres and exchanged for other goods. The evidence ol amber production in the sixth and seventh centuries is less certain than formerly thought (sec p. but at the site of Truso amber objects were being made in the ninth century. In this century there is evidence that some ol this production shifted to the west, into coastal pons such as Wolm. Here the primary products were beads.
Class bead types across north Europe are very similar they seem to have been a common item of exchange The production of glass beads was also carried out ,n the ninth century at the coastal trade centres all around the Baltic " I Ins was a highly specialized and relatively conservative craft practised bv .1 small number of individuals, at first operating from migratory workshops operated by semi-specialist craftsmen, associated with places of exchange along the coasts of the Baltic. Before the ninth century, the acnvity occurred at a number of small sites, and was associated with the practice of other crafts. In the last quarter of the ninth century (or perhaps a little earlier) this picture changes with the emergence of a new mode of production with a large output, concentrated in fewer but larger workshops accompanied by a marked difference m style, technique and raw materials. The raw material was imported glass scrap from western (Carohngian) Europe. Before the ninth century, imported glass is very rare indeed in Early Slav contexts north of the Danube. At the beginning of the ninth
.....,, |,,,ccvv,-r there is n rinid inflow of ImmmJ L„,ac ,„ c___j,__ .
century nowevcr mere is a rapiu inriow ot imported heads to Scandinavia and the Baltic region; the beads include milletiori examples probably of eastern origin (similar beads were reaching both eastern and western Europe at this timcl. This massive importation of beads had a disastrous cflect on the local
mo
.       , ,->n|v cCrv ic« types ol local northern r uropcan heads occur by the
middle of the ninth century. The influx ol foreign products reduced local pro-ducnon and forced it into a mode of lurther standardization and re-organizati0n
of the production.
In both bast and West Slavdom attcr the ninth century appear a number of
obviouslv imported head* ot chalcedony, rock crystal and other *cmi-precious Stones. These are most Itkeh imports from the Near East or By/annum. The pre-cisc date of the appearance ot the first of these heads is not yet known; while cabochons and even late antique cameos of semiprecious stones arc tound in Moravian metalwork. semi-precious stone heads arc rare-in Moravian graves, ft seems hkclv that the dare ot the introduction ot these beads in the lands of the ,s should be dared to the tenth century though Callmcr would see their imp> - mporars with the wave ol imported glass beads at the beginning
of the ninth century'-" ^i^^B
The slave trade
In our earlier vs in ot the social structure ot the Early Slavs we have mentioned the existence In the period of the invasion ot the Balkans,
antine sources tell us that the Slavs captured local people in huge numbers and took them north of the Danube where thev were put to work or ransomed tor economic advantage. We find slaves mentioned in the later written sources concerning th< S his phenomenon is thus ot considerable importance in
anv discussion ot the conorm ot the Early Slavs.1' -'hI^I
The phenomenon ot si.; a number of reasons somewhat difficult for
us to comprehend. In panicular it is too t isv to contuse early medieval slavery with the npes ot chattel slavers practised in the recent past. Recent studies suggest that this is an inadequate analogy. We have seen that the Sclavencs welcomed their former slaves into the? »c have seen in the case of
Malushka that a slave could be the mother ot a great ruler. Slavery was at times an important element ot the economic structure ol several social systems (though its importance vv.i> ovcrstrcsscd hv some scholars in Communist countries, as a result ot the famous scheme ot Morgan and Engels - the latter also made this problem difficult to discuss in obiecnve terms in certain scholarly environments |. l^^^^^^^^l Sl-ivr* ccrrr ciptur, nilitan action. In a world without mans or
social sen ices, once he or home lomn
: force w as probably needed to keep a person
prohablv totally dependent
m si
reh
paver otthe is
This gavt
bly was well dcvcU income for the Ki were called bv the .
of the Umavyad caliphs i
states, became a flourishing centre of this trade tarm
century).
« uhin Slavdom irsdf it seems that slaves were also I east Slavs'. I he scale and significance of this rdvn m
Trading places and production centres
and ninth centuries a specific settlement tvi*-
nil »*»( v »i *v»
L-cnir.ili/cd administrative »iiiuti.ni. .mil little evidence thai they had an ideological (religious) significance. Tiny were perhaps meant only to generate revenue Mr the leader's .olleis, and to attract the prestige goods on which the
system thrived.
Emporia began to appear also in the eighth ind ninth centuries on the south chore of tin Halm I and . < 'iiimuc in the ti nth . eiitui y when new settlements such as (Idansk and kaniien I'o.norsk. an louilded). I hat the rise ol these sites WOJ relnied to the establishment "I long distauci trade networks is suggested by thc Islamic silvet (set below) which readied the Pomeranian Slavs at thc beginning of the ninth, eiiiuis I which was not iimdi later than us initial arrival in eastern I nropel. It is not dear however tO what extent the arrival of Islamic silver in the as is a cause and to what cxicnt an effect of this process. I he distribution ol ,,tcv connected with tins first wave of silver (lag. 14) shows that western I'omci.inia has the deiisrst concentration ol silver boards in Europe m the period  Ihe socio economic situation in ih.s. areas seems to have caused them to he especially receptive' to Islamic silver m the eighth and ninth centuries.1'It is lieu thai ilu re have been a iiuinbei ol finds of Islamic coins in the occupation, layers of settlements (strongholds at Hards, kvdr/y no, and I tihics/ewo all near Kolohr/eg in Poland) and graves |<5wicliihic in the same area).
All the .side lie points to these sites being multi-ethnic contact /ones. The einpoiu were probahlv inhabit..! b> visiting merchants, resident craftsmen, ,,...„!. -11 . nuo ol vatioiis ivp.s. and In agents ol the ruling authority. The .,s,line, me,chants ..line in groups, without their families, bringing merchandise, Storage facilities lor their goods, animals and slaves would have to I., ,,r,,vidccl, is w,ll as u.ouimodatioii lor the merchants. Resident craftsmen probably lived with their families, as did thos. pros idiug set vices. Prom all three
ejionps ilu 111111 tc: autl.......        could extract some toiin ol 'payment' (possibly 'in
kmd'l for the use of the Utilities the emporium alien.led, which would be extracted In his agents who would also (vviih .1 team of armed supporters) be responsible lor law and order in the settlement. Some of these sites had planned street layouts, otlu is vveo mor. randomly built up. Some have defences Of are situated near defended enclosures. iHtffl
Ihe iinpoii.uiM of tins, trading .entrcs to the atllhi.....is ol leaders is illus-
(rated by the late ol tin Slav emporium ol Kent, a trading centre in the territory of thc Obodritcs (probahlv somewhere near I uluck). In 808 as thc Prankish into,in iis. flu li.imsh king itt.icked and destroyed ,t and deported the craltsnieii and merchants to Ins own kingdom where he built a new trading . eiuie ji Hedeby near Schlcswig lor them. The tributi s paid by those using the new centre were to strengthen the royal treasury.
The site at fmso (now |anow I'omorski, near Elblag in northeast Poland) actually lies on the West Halt side ol the fronticl /one between Slav and West Halt territory on I ake Diu/no I now dried up), It was visited at the end of thc
igx
ninth century by thc travcllet Wulfsi.m, whose account of lm seven day sea inurncy from Hedeby to I rus,, is copied imo a translation ol Orosfus'a Historia .iilrerfits fMganas done by King Alfred ol England. T his sue was long sought loi
tnd was at last located in t«8x and a ponlcth excavated b) March |agodziiuki ' Ilu- excavations produced both Bait and Slav but also Imported I arollnglan pottery and glass ol the ninth century, Islamic corns (the last dating to Boo), I Hed. bv hr.utcatc of Sis;, evidence of amber working and the remain! ot several large timbci building! and a number ol ships I here ait also nearby v .milmavian burials mi the Ncustattcrlcld sue ai I Ibid g,' [lie area contains a number of early dirhrm hoards which contain coins up to the N |0i and then
stop.
Wolin (Fig. 69) i» ■' particularly interesting example of an emporium, line , „ ,,es ol settlements appears along the shores ol the mouth ol ihe l)/wina ,,ve, is it flows into the Baltic Part ol the settlement was enclosed with a rampart, while timber revetting on the shore formed a harbour, which dendroc hronoloU K,il results indicate was buill between 8Ho and 8>»o. The settlement levels of the site are rub in finds ol vinous ivp. ,. both manufacturing waste and finished (loods, all contained in layers typical ol earlv Slav proto towns' consisting ot wood waste and masses ol animal manut. ' I >n thc lulls around the sue were I number ol cemeteries! some ol the gravel were marked by barrow., i.rh.i . were flat cremation and inhumation graves. Ihe grave goods found with some of the burials are of Scandinavian type. Wolin is known as |oinshorg m the Iceland!) sagas and famed for being the selling lor some of thc events deputed '
Another typical example o» a Pomeranian emporium is Menzlin, where alongside the Slavs lived Scandinavians (perhaps merchants) who buried their dead in .dice < nt temeteries in typit a I 'ship-setting*.' ol standing stones " In the secoinl half of thc eighth century a similar scttlcmctu functioned at Ralswu-k on \uw,x, where there were there were various craltsmen and merchants, among them Se aiului.iv,.ins. In I'omcrania in the vicinity of Kolobrxeg at the end of thc eighth century and beginning >>i the ninth several local centres of trade and production ,,o„. which preceded the formation of the settlement complex at the mouth of the Parscta river in thc second half of the ninth century. The fact that Fragments of Islamic coins appear here in settlement layers ol strongholds suggesis ihat these coins played some part m monetary exchange at these centres. It is notable that so far such coin liuds an absent from thc occupation layers of the cluster ol sites around tht mouth ol the Oder (Wolin, Szczecin etc.). The barrow cemetery r the Kolnbr/cg site contained Scandinavian grave goods, igs at Men/lin and the ports of Wolin and Ralswick are not the seagoing vessels. We have their actual remains as wrecks number of sites mi the shoreline ot thc Baltic, such as Ralswick nturv sailing boat 14 111 long was louiul sunken in the harbour: u-n oars. A similar vessel ol similar dale was lound at Szc/ccin,
The ship-! only traces recovered fr where a mill it had places
1 i,.i
under tin- deposits of the l.irc-r town which h.nl encroached on the ihorcllne, Drndrochronnlogiial work showed th.it the ship contained timber* of 834^
but that repairs were made in H96 and 901 "
The Islamic silver ot sciitr il Asian origin which was flowing into the Baltic in huge quantities same through northern Russia via the Kh.17.ar* and Vu|M Hulgars. In northern Russia there arc .1 scries .,1 settlements which have heen identified as involved 111 this trade, probably as collecting points for the goods which were to be taken south. On the River Volkhov just by its mouth into lake Ladoga with access to the sea is the famous »ltc at Star.ua Ladoga (near St Petersburg!   I he oldest Livers here date lo the -<os or TtSos, together with the hrst w.iv, ot Islainu silver in this area ' Although there has been much debate on the topic i( seems from the house types that among the first settlers there wen mostly Scandinavians and Slavs land not Hist linns as has formerly been claimed!  I he site, covering .111 area of ibout 10-11 ha (which in its first phase was undefended), has produced a rich array of finds, glass beads, antler comb fragments and Islamic coins At St.1r.11a Ladoga are barrow cemeteries contain-i„g S1.11ulm.1v1.1n type finds among others, the site thus shares many of the char, actenstics of the cmporia of the Pomeranian coast
Inland in Russia there were also a number ol craft and trade places' which loruied at the end ol the eighth centurv and he ginning of the ninth century in the northern areas ol I .1.1 Slav territories, especially in the tribal territory of the Slovicnte tribe" such as Novyh Dubovik, Knay.i/.h.i c.or.i on the Pola river and Zolntoc Kol.no ..n the Msia. both on the watershed ol i ike llmen. Finds of dirhcms in occupation layers hint at other likely sites lot .sample an early ninth-century one from the stronghold at Kamno near Pskov). It is not unrea-.on.ihl. to see these as nodes 111 the long distance trad, routes connecting the Baltic with the black and Caspian Seas.47 ^—w—
Similar settlements 111 the linno I lgri.111 and Baltic territories in the upper Volga can also be dated 10 about the beginning ol the ninth cciuury.4' These sites seem to suggest .1 relatively well developed com using economy in the northern forest zone by the early ninth century. Probably the setting-up of trading posts . in some w.iv instrumental in indiicingciiltur.il.. hange among the native*. These northern cmporia seem to have been trade centres in which there was a ci 11 mi amount of production (as in those centres .111 the Baltic coast), ("here is little evidence that they fulfilled any administrative function, they arc rather reminiscent ol the outposts of the Hudson , Bay Company: multi-ethnic communities occupied by traders, entrepreneurs and warriors who were to guard the wealth of the settlers against hostile parties. It is unlikely that these Russian sitci
h.1i1
nd reported by out-
the early medieval perir Balkan coast and the evi
beached on a si
Inland it was a different matter. One may imagine that the ore-am/ it ., trading expedition across hundreds ol kilometres of unchirted an 1  ru I in ha lined territory was a risky business. A traveller was en posed dangers, unsure of the reception of the peoples whose lands he nasscd rhr .1 and he presumably met with many linguistic problems alone the wav Th lit
11 vanou.....d.il points along these routes profited by the taking of tolls and
protection money as a condition of passage through their territory
Road systems as such were probably large!) oof] existent; each road network served only local needs and travellers made their way forward onlv bv ml their way from one settlement to another " I his would still leave expanse, of trackless forests and wastes to be crossed. We imagine that rivers were th
routes used because of case of navigation (and we note thai ...........
are among the few geographical fa
sidcrs concerning the lands of the ......
venting of each major tributary watercourse would have in process. The establishment of fords and bridges would has, and funnelled traffic through particular areas, and 11 is .11 >u, may expect strongholds (to defend the route or to enforce payment of tolls for using it) and other settlements to be placed.
In other cases, such as the Dniepr route, river transport wa* used. Conttantinc Porphyrogen.tus in chapter 9 oi DAI tells us of how the Rus princes would loiirncy round their lands with their retinue, collecting tribute from th Si
,,! hollowcd-out tree trunks [niunnxyla) which had been made in the winter and is soon as the ice had melted floated down the Dniepr to Kiev, where the boats were sold to the Ru», who equipped them with oar*. In lime the flotilla set off down the Dniepr. Constantmc describes the diifunities „f the route, and givt 1 the names ol the seven Dniepr rapid* (the sites since 1917-3* submerged ill one of Stalin's grand hydroelectric schemes 1 in both Slav and Rus (that is Scandinavian) languages. Lhc first three rapids were negotiated with the help of shallow-draught boats, lightened by putting most of the passengers ashore. The fourth rapid however was not attempted by boat. The boats were unloaded and carried overland. At this stage the expedition was threatened by the nomad Pechencgs. who would take advantage of the vulnerab.bty of the merchants on this stage of the journey and plunder ihem. The remaining three rapids were
.utcs
negotiated by boat again. Four days later they left the river and sailed alonn th
Black Sea coast in the same boats nurd with m w> .md sails to Constanr 7
'"Mantinoplc. trdniti(,n
The journey lasted about six weeks.
The overland routes can be hypothetically defined by plorti ot imported goods which travelled along them which were picsumanlv used on the lourtiev to obtain supplies or goodwill. A good example is the distribution of Isl.imu dirhems m Fast Slav territory: in some .ire.is thee form linear clusters separated by areas where such finds are scarce. Further pointers arc important sues set up at what stem to have Ken nodal points ot these routes: these seldom shitted their location, and indeed in some areas of Poland, for example, parrs of the road svstcm running between these centres (now tow nsi are probably on the line of the routes used in the carlv medieval period. In a few cases considerable hollow -ways have been eroded where these age old tracks cross the brows of valley slopes. -^iBBae™
The merchants
Merchants would he people who were able to cross ethnic, political and cultural harriers  I hev not onlv had to negotiate the lourncy itself, but had the added problem ot transporting a bulky or valuable cargo, and also supplies necessary fot the lournev For this reason it seems likelv that they travelled in groups. It is not certain how frequcntlv J merchant would travel from one end of the trade route to the other and then back, perhaps the traded goods passed through the hands of many middlemen on the way across the continent rather than being carried bv vine trading parts Merchants would probably travel in groups and need guides and perhaps translators. They themselves were probablv armed-or were accompanied bv armed men to protect them from ambush. Vt'e recall here the military prowess ot the Frankish merchant Mmo vv hich won him an tnfluen-tiaJ position among the Slavs (pp. -"-So).
One other group ot enterprising commercial travellers, and one which is recognizable to some extent in the archaeological record, is the group known variously in the written sources as Varangians or Rus. who penetrated the south and east coasts ot the Baltic, founding trade posts there, and opening up routes along the great cistern I uropcan rivers 'from the \ irangians to the Greeks'.*' The term Rus' (the origin of the ad.cctive Russian! has aroused great conrro-vcrss. It appears m the written source- applied to several groups of people coming irom the forest zone, some cv idently Scandinavian, others apparently Slavs. Sometimes they ate merchants and sometimes warriors and sometimes the elite ot the Rus state. This is the crux of the so-called Varangian problem (see Chapter in It would seem that some enterprising Vikings ot the early ninth century, prompted bv the flow ot Islamic silver into the Baltic area, vvcrcaroons
those vv ho shitted their operatic floss ot this bullion through the the Khazars and Bulgars (the
with the central Asian siat. | steppe zone and central As Khurradadhbih in his treatise 7/
the Rut mrr. '-jit/» jte J >ori ufSUx
Ibn Fadlan on his journey to the Bulga ot the Rus which may have contained 1
\,. ,. hjt e I teen j people of such perfect t,h .
yuord and *»>/*.. They armv/rOM •■>
jshare ijrrying brt post utfh a face Ukt
Ibn Fadlan also gives details of other Rus customs
Movements need not have been one-way. it seems that some Islamic mer-chants and craftsmen penetrated the north in th context it is interesting to note metalworkers inscriptions and a bone stylus from the Pomeran inscribed with Arabic or Aramaic characters sites in the torest steppe which have produced caravan which wandered far to the north ot the
ttcanes (s.a. 907, 911 and «>a 11 v
■11 uic early medieval period. In this •rkers' tools from Kiev with Arabic meranun emporium of Ralswiek also ::ers Franklin and Shepard mention
iuerd t-amrl hnnrs nhvuiuslv from J
amples of the few surviving early medieval trade 14;. which stipulate the conditions under which (in conditions) Rus merchants were to be received in
1-1
Till'  I AK 11 SLAW
I la- s.i Ic ill sills .mil -Lives "is n gul.it« .1. .is were punishments for infringement
of the laws of both parties by the other I he Russian merchants have to carry snme document issued by their prince confirming their sratus. It is not clear, however, whether this text may be treated as typical of the sort of arrangements'
whuh governed tin movements .mil stay of merchants in foreign territories.
In the west there is a little document iry evidenc. concerning the movement of merchants from the ( arol.ng.an empire into Polahian territory. This penetra-„on was limited bv the C.arolingians themselves I In < apitulary of D.edenhofen (8oj) issued bv Charlemagne11 sets this down very clearly. The document docs not set down the frontier, but the limit of penetration:
As for how far merchants heading for the Slav* and la at i may procede with their goads. Samely m Saxony a> faras Hard, ,i<tk where llredl is in charge, and to Schezla |near CclleJ uherr Wadagaudas is in charge, and to Magdeburg |wherc| Aito n in charge, and to I ,t„,i Iwhcrel Madagaudas is in charge, to Hallstadt lunkm.wn - near Bamburgrj |« Iwr. | Madagaudas is also in charge. In / or, ham and to llreemburg |probably Pfreum] and to Regensherg where Audulf is in charge, and m I or. /, where V.arnar « in charge. I el them not take arms or armour for sale If any of them are found tarrying these, let ail thor property be taken /'■■•„ them, and let half of this go to the palace treasury, ,,nd /«( the second half be divided between the mentioned leaders and the finders.
It looks as it these merchants were logo to these places and seek out the named ottici.ils, who would make arrangements for the further transit of the goods.
Media of exchange
The degree to which a monetary economy flourished in thi northern parts of Barbariciim in the Roman period is debatable, but what is certain is that from the Migration period the economy of most areas of central and eastern Europe was a natural one based on barter < lutsidc the By/.inrinc economic zone, there were apparently no fixed monetary measures of value in central and eastern Europi until the d< velopment oi long distance trade in the ninth century. Value . prohablv measured in terms ol items such as cows, slaves or products of various kinds; as in the case of more local exchange, this system probably also functioned through a complex series of mutual social obligations.
There is also some evidence that there were a number of items which functioned as'non-monetary units of exchange' The first are the so-called grzywtty, spatulatc bars of iron about io cm long ol a tl.it axe-hke shape with a loop at one end (Fig. 51). These begin in the ninth century and have a distribution south uf the Carpathians, though thev are found in Malopolska - including a massive hoard in a wooden chesr found in Cracow. The chest contained l grzywny of total weight imo kg Similar currcnev bars were in use m contemporary Sweden. The other items are the so-called Silcsian bowls, flat slightly concave
174
disks of thick sheet iron 15
the Carpathians in Silesia I
century I Fig. J t). The preen
c.mce of the shape is not full
Ibrahim ibn Yaqub tells us that in Prague rhr» KUu. ....a
'"r,«e me siavs used
is a means of payment: 'light handkerchiefs of very finr netting which have no use whatsoever'. The best nnuiM reference is suggested by several Polish silver hoards 1-. In crnturyl in which the small fragments of hacksilver w knotted linen cloth in groups of fragments of Idenri il ,(,.„ tins was the means of clrcubrlon of the e«remelv\mall f, mud in some of the early hacksilver hoards.
We also know from the last Slav sourcm il,„ .Li-
c   il .      j -~   "*""••«■» 01.11 sKins were used as a means of
payment of tribute and so on. This is undcrsr md ihU ,„ ,u 1 c , 01 17   , 1     f    1 noerslanaaD|e in the light of the vilue
placed on northern furs hv societies further south.
In addition to this type ol material, the Slav, used c '
v, ith a monetary economy. This eft! hands as complet appear In the arch
int. There is a pattern to tZ JJT °'*T'
—I—I____a "C WaV 10 Whl
Silver hoards
Ihc main source of information about the economics ol long-distance trade is the silver coins and other objects contained in a large series of silver hoards which arc a notable feature of the archaeology of East and West Slav lands from the late ninth to the talc eleventh or early twelfth century (and continuing in Russia until the mid thirteenth century). These hoards clearly represent the Kcumulation of great wealth but their intemretatmn -*».—_____
I he character of these hoards chant
(though fragments may occu The ninth-century hoards (111 contain other objects of silve perishable cot
with time, and their distribution is nth and catly decades of the tenth
broken to provide 'small change'), t the tenth and later centuries) seldom
hundred thousand coins are known to have come from rs of coins were orobablv found in the oast which were
the (axit 1i
t
en I
,IKj prohabh some hoards Mill remain to he round.) These hoards .ire found all 'irouiid Ihe Baltic the Mine l% lHS "' finds do not appear however West of the. Hhc, or south ol the Carpathians, and are rare m southern Poland (and most date Iron, altci the beginning of the tenth ccnturv 1." It is notable that the flow ,,, Islan.K silver into eastern and ventral Europe is concentrated around the Baltic and the rive, routes between the Baltic and Islamic world. The occurrence of obiccts made ot this metal shows thai Moravia was dearly silpp|IC(| Wlth silver from somewhere (perhaps Bv/ant.um or Havana), but it did not (at least is tar as the surviving evidence shows) take p irt in the circulation (or at least hoarding) of Islamic silver. fi|
Tenth-century hoards still consist mainlv ot coins from ( entral Asia, but with variable amounts of hacksilver. The latter consists ot whole and cut coins, whol and broken ornaments and ingots (both ol bar form and flat •spills* of rnoltei mi tali Attention is drawn especially bv the manner in w hu h masterpieces of th» silversmith's art .silver ornaments) are treated as hacksilver. These hacksiWet hoards are commonest in northwest Poland and Polabia but scarcer in Other B.iliu countries    Ornaments in hoards date trom the tenth century onwards .about iso hoards from West Slav lands.. I hese boards demonstrate quite dearlv that, m comparison with western Ptirope. in the tenth century the exchange systems of eastern Europe were still at a relatively primitive level.
I he (requeues- ol hoards rises in the tenth and first half of the eleventh centime Alter about «»so the hoards take on a different structure: they contain increasing quantities of coins ot western European origin. During the early eleventh ccnturv the am..inn ol hacksilver decreases and we find more whole coins ol western European origin. In the second half of the eleventh century the number ol hoards drops sharply over the entire area. In central Europe the appearance ol ornaments in hoards ends about the end of the eleventh century, but they continue in Scandinavia longer. I hioiighout most ot the period, there was little dittereiic between northern and southern Russian hoards. The flow of western coins into Kiissi i icspcciallv ill the south I was slighter than to West Slav lands. North Russian hoards have more in common with those of the rest of the Baltic /one until the late tenth century. After the eleventh century, south Russian hoards contain tew or no coins but mainly silver ornaments (together with ingots and a lew b.on/e and gold objects), and the deposition of ornament hoards continues here to the mid thirteenth century, long after they disappear elsewhere in Slavdom, that is, in the twelfth century.
Byzantine coins
In the late fifth century central Europe became parr of a large system f circul uion oi llv /.inline gold solidi  [hese coins passed through the Carpath basin igained as tribute by rhc Huns and Germanic tribes settled there) 4 J
lie
gravitated towards the Baltic Sea."1 The precise mc< unl the reason for their deposition in hoard-, aro the western part of Polish I'omer.inia are not dca ,n some way connected with the movements of Ou.. uul cultural influences trom Scandinavia on the Pomeranian coast in century. What is especially ditticiilt to conceive is how these coins through the apparently empty terrain of the Vistula valley in the early pa period  Ihe llovs of these coins shifted to the east about 518-10: this I interpreted by K.i/inuer/ Godlowski as being due to the movements oft ,nio the eastern parts ol Poland cutting off the routes of travel oi thel I be (low of these coins into northern Europe was reduced atter this, bi until about stss, when it seems to have been terminated bv the movcmei \v irs into the Carpathian basin.**
In the area south ol the Danube, Byzantine coins continued to lunction lor 1 while after the Slav invasions, foi example several hoards from Athens and t onnrh of the 580s. In Macedonia the youngest coins found arc those of [ustin 11 (si-s-rS). while in Greece there is a hiatus: the youngest coins in the IVleponnese arc from the reign of Constans 11 (641-68). This would seem to „,.,rk the end ol the com economy in the area. In Serbia and ( roatia then decrease in coin hoarding in the seventh century which reflects lessening economic contacts with the Byzantine-held Dalmatian coast. Byzantine coinage reappears on a large scale in the Balkans only with the conquest under Ntcephorus 1 (8oz-i 1).
After the 560s, By/amine coins continued to How north of the Danube, probably in part to pay tributes to the Avars and Bulgars.They were probably consumed in these areas, but a relatively small number reached the areas north ol the Carpathians. Most ot these were silver siliquae and mihareiise. Byzantine gold coins of the seventh century are found infrequently across wide areas of central and eastern Europe, but after the eighth century are relatively rare (they arc found only occasionally in eighth- and ninth-century hoards and as single finds in settlements and graves; they rarely penetrated the north ol the Russian plain). Hoards are mainly grouped along the Dnicpr and its tributaries. Byzantine milarcnsia of the ninth century are also rare 111 eastern Europe and occur only very occasionally in Russia and the Baltic zone alongside Islamic and western European coins. There seems to have been little exchange involving .oiuage between Byzantium and the Kicvan state between the ninth and twelfth centuries (though this is apparently in conflict with the trade treaties preserved in the PVL). Byzantine copper and silver coinage flows into the area only in the tenth century, when there is an increase in the number of Byzantine coins m hoards in the Kicvan state. Byzantine silver coins appear in the north Russian ind Polish hoards of the tare tenth and early eleventh centuries alongside Islamic
Till KAIL* >l *V>
/s/,iot/c silver coinage
One of the striking features of ihe archaeological evidence of the Early Slav ccononiv is die huge numlier of extremely exotis cms which flowed into the ,rea of northern Europe at this period In the eighth and ninth eentur.es ihi, manual cities aim. .si exclusively lioin the Islamic empire. It was in the cloning years ot th. eighth century that the Ins. silver coins of Islamic origin started to flow into Slav territory in large quantity, In the first wave of coinage we find mi,sth examples struck m tin ventral parts ol the Umavvad caliphate (this wave contains coins from Baghdad, has,... Kufa, W.isit, Isfahan and al-Muhammadiya in Iran and Iraq) < oins iiom North African and Spanish
minis.u, i sir. inch i.ire m cistern Europe lion, the did of the ninth century, tl.Mll.,l \s,aii mints also |omed in iprcsent .lav Turk.stan, Kazakhstan and nii,,l„ ,„ l,,mi. and ...ins minted in the Sauianid slates. It is coinage of the central Asian Samanid states which is commonesi in the hoards of the early tenth veiiiure I hese cms were produced from the output of the largest silver mines m this pan ot the world, servicing the mints u Samarkand, Bukhara and al-Sas (Tashkent). alj^^^l
I |„ si,,.K ..t this m it. nal raises a iiuinhei ol complex issues, winch can only |H touched upon hcrc.w Although in Islam there were a number of denominations m circulation ot t hie-, main metals, copper, gold and silver, it is only the latter (known as dirhemsl which are at all common in the north. They bear legends ol ideologie.il character in Kulic script, and also contain the information about the ruler and place of minting and the dale, w hie h give the possibility of analysis ol the chronology and direction ol llow ol these ob|cctS. One of the gateways to I mope Irom the caliphate was t liorezm, and merchants from here penetrated to the north, to tin Volga Bulgars and to the south, into the caliphate. It seems like b tli.it ílu Khazars on the Don were the middlemen through whose hands these coins passed on their way to the north. j .
The trcqwencv ol Islamic coins m the hoards shows thai the lloyy.it silver from the eastern caliphate varied considerably Irom decade to decade and must have had an effect on (01 have been an effect oil the socio economic system ot those peoples importing I he silvci A nuinhi r ot periods ol inert ascd or decreased flow of Islamic coins travelling northwards can be identified Irom the analysis of the r, peating patterns ot dulu ms eleposiied in the ninth- and tenth-century hoards Iiom eastern and cenlial I uropi (similar patterns can also be found in Scandinavia):
• The earliest group ol hoards in the area have been elated to the period Soc-ic, though some scholar, see its beginning in the 780s (or even 770s). This first wave lasts up to 830-3 (the end ol the reign ol the Abb.isid caliph Ahd Allah alMa'inuii) when new coins were occurring regularly 111 some numbers in the
17«
> minted coins were Were in circulation
sn much discussed: estimates
. In the mid Stos until the 840s or 8sos virtual concealed 111 hoards: lpparently only prc-831
among the Slavs.
. The dating of the second wain ot coinage has I range from 840-50 to 870-9 (though some |
ninth century and beginning of the tenth). During this time a small number of newly minted coins were deposited with larger quantities ot late eighth- and
l arlv ninth century dirhenis,
. There follows a period beginning perhaps 870-9 to the 890s when again very
few coins seem to be passing northwards, . In the third wave of the 890s a new flood of freshly minted dirhems entered the area; tenth- and eleventh-century hoards contain mostly coini of the
period 890-950.
. After an early tenth-century peak, tin- Mow ol Islamic coinage into the area in the tenth century was irregular, and there were regional fluctuations in the supply- M"st tenth-century hoards contain few ninth-ccnturv coins, as the wave of the early decades of the century drowned out earlier issues Alter about 930-50 however the number of new coins (lowing into eastern Europe declines. By the end of the second decade of the eleventh century the flow had almost ceased.
In an extremely important and careful study ol these coins, the I'o/nan scholar Wladyslaw I osinski adduces evidence that in many cases that the capacity of the northern market was se. great that only ten and twenty years elapsed between ,|,e date ot minting and their deposition in hoards. It this is correct, then coins of this period in fresh condition may be considered in this area as lelaiis elv good chronological indicators, tosinski proposes that the evidence of the differential flow of coins suggests that it is controlled by economic forces and adduces trom this that the Islamic silver coins functioned as cuiagc within most of the sod etics between which they passed. In support of his thesis that they were used in East Slav territories as a medium ..f exchange he cites the occurrence of these objects in the occupation layers of settlements of the late eighth and early ninth centuries, especially along the Volkhov river and at Staraia Ladoga in the lowest levels.
The hoards formed in the eighth or at the turn of the eighth and ninth centuries occur in northwest Slav territory (from the south shore of the Baltic to middle Silesia and Malopolska) in north Russia and neighbouring Baltic countries, Jutland, southeast Finland, Bornholm, Gotland, Otand and Aland islands. There arc tony noaros uutco 10 tnis pernio. Most ot ttie oldest hoards are concentrated on the south coast of the Baltic m Pomerama and around the Vistula mouth (around Truso?). They are rarer north of the Baltic (excepting on Gotland). There is an interesting correlation between the distribution of hoards
1-.1
Tlir tAHI.V SLAVS
ind iIn- presumed areas ol penetration of Sl.iv settlers by the early ninth century M1 ,he northern lo.esi /one I lure is .. consistent cluster in the tribal areas of the
Viatichi, Krivichi and Slovienic (but also in tlu tribal areas of the Radimichi and Scvcriane). They also appear in the luum-l Ignan areas, a few m the territories of the Halts, though mostly again in areas which seem to have been penetrated Ivy Slav soloni/ation Kel.it.s els leu arc lound along the Volga and in Khazaria, The structure of the hoards suggests ih it contacts between the East Slavs and Kh.i/.ina were begun in the -Sos. broken off in about Kio and renewed about
The second wave of Islamic silver into Europe is represented in forty-two hoards deposited alter . . Sao and lasting until after 879 which have a quite dif-ferent distribution to that "t the first wave material. There is an expansion north of the Baltic and .1 clearer concentration in Fast Slav lands (Fig. 56). Oh ,!„■ couth coast ol the Baltic then is a clear movement towards the west away Iron, tlu lormer concentration around Iruso due ol these hoards is that from Kalswiek (buried after 841) which is one ol tlu largest trom tbc ,,rť,i (l.7J ^j. unfortunate In n bas s et to b< fully published. (>nce again Gotland is well repre-„,„,, d  In eastern I uropi the concenti.it,on ol hoards in the territory of the Viatuh, m tin Oka basin (thirteen lio.ir.ls> is notable  I he nu|onty of the rest cine from lite territory ol the Slovienic and KiimcIii. I loards ol rh,s period arc however rare m the southern parts of Kussia and the Ukraine, tor example .m.d ku v We see it this pi nod increased evidence ol interest in routes to the Baltic other thai, through I adoga  I Ins seems to be suggested by the concentnt-notis ol hoards along tin I>s ma suggesting the 1 ise in importance of Polotsk and \ itcbsk dosvn to the 1'iiiepr where 111 the tenth century arose the settlement complex at (ono/slovo. I here seems little doubt that the silver was used intheEujt. Slav teintories as a mediuni ot exchange In t lie time ol the second wave. Again a certain iiumbi 1 ol these coins have been lound ill occupation layers.
I'hesc hoards show ih.it .Iter the failure ol silver (low at the end of the first ss is. then ss is -.light contact throughout tin following period, followed hv renewed contact on a grand sc.ile.wheiiconis.il rheSftosand 870s flowed into (hi irea in rel.u quantities, together with earlier issues still in circuits
lion 111 the source an ,. W'h itesei the explanation of the structure of these hoards, the flow of silse. int.. tin area stops abruptly with issues of the late S-os. and u ,s also to ih,s period that the m.i|oritv of eastern European hoards date 1 perhaps another sign of social and or economic crisis) I lure was another breakdown 111 contacts between tlu I ast Slavs and the Kha/.ir khanate and indirectly with the caliphate. With the first appearance of the first signs of economis crisis at the end ol the ttrst decade of the ninth century the centres ot northern Russia reduced the flow ol sib ei outwards to Scandinavia,affecting the quantity of siKci reaching the northern shores of the Baltic. I an wc in some way link this fall 111 silver with the processes leading to the rise of the early
itfo
kievan state which the 1'Vl dates to precisely this period/ Was the silver ciims [he cause of social tensions which wen resolved In th. increase ot inter tribal warfare and conquest of new territories and tribute:- Was it perhaps ibe result ot rcdivcrsion to princely hands of tribute which was Inrmcrb distributed by tribal leaders to the Khazarsc
I.xlamic issues of the 880s and 890s seem to have reached eastern Europe only in the third wave of the flow ol silver at the end ol thai century. I In- hoards ol ,his third wave contain, alongside these older dirhems, coins representing the expansion of the flow of Samanid coins beginning m the last seats 01 the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth. The products of the Samanid minis don, mate tenth-century assemblages.
The exchange of Islamic silver finished in the last years of the tenth century when the Samanids were beaten by the Scliuks: this coincides with the exhaus-,1011 of the Transoxanian silver mines. The flow dries upon the peripherics first. ,in the Baltic, in Russia 980-90, but 111 the caliphate itself later still.
U, s/vni l-uTopam silver coinage
\ lew ninth-century (arolingian coins are found m West Slay contexts, reflecting trade with the (arolingian empire. An 'obol' minted in Troves between S41 and 875 under Charles the Bald was found at Kanucn Pomorski in western I'omerania and seems to be one of the earliest coins in the region. Other I arolingian coins ol early date, or even earlier, have been found in hoards of the tenth and eleventh centuries. Br.icteates minted In Dorestad of the end of the ninth century and tenth century, bearing the legend '( arolvs' (imitations of (. arolingian types) arc known, but again from later hoards, as ire Flcdeby br.icteates - minted c. 830 to 970-80. Hcdeby bractcatcs have been found at Truso, but also at Gniozdovo.*' The regular flow of western European coins into Russia begins however only about the 960s and 9705.
By the second half of the tenth century over most of Slavdom, Islamic coins arc totally replaced as a source of bullion and medium of exchange in central uid eastern Europe by western European coins. Fhesc were now flowing into the Baltic /.one in large numbers, some of them as tributes from western man-archs paid to ward off Viking attacks- such as the Dancgeld paid until 1010 by the English (hence many hoards in Polabia and Poland contain large numbers of coins of Ethclred 11, 978-1016, and Canute, 1016-35). It was only with the discovery and exploitation of the silver of the Flant mountains about 950 that the mintage of silver coins in huge numbers was able to take place in Saxony. In the late tenth and eleventh centuries the maiority of coins in use in central Europe were Bavarian (mostly flowing through Bohemia) and Saxon issues, especially of the Otto-Adeleidc
types depicting a church or crown with a cross on the
ttn*aje
'"Srtiijl
In the Utr rem* to the end oi the clcrenrJi cenmrr innrhet wc saber corns <Sxhs*^rr*mg*\ were struck id Saxonv from silver hi mountain* for use in trade with the east. Manx- nWwrssndk of i seventy chewsand of an oneiaal cssue of perhaps some fire mdbo. Poll bun and Pohsb hoards, hut the; were apparent!? not in area place of issue. TacseiriuaivcJy plainsaaail omnscribedcans arcaor< there are sereral nam rrpes. mow oi them basing an equal-armed i ictrsc. The mam characteristic oi these coins however is that the tlan was beaten to thicken a. prvinjt the coin a "ran' around iRanJpftmjBge > which had rbe ertect ot inalring the com appca r more but also protectmg the design Horn wear. A iter about 1090 these c emir m Stlcaa and Polahu. and in the next decides rbexr dtstnbuta rc Poiabia. ■ 1
It was m the taiddk of the tenth cenenrv howrver tJiat rbe mintage ot .ocnage m the emergent Slav states. These were usually sahrr deurs r^nrnes) struck ro rise tame modale as western coins and otrrn modelled on their design. The corns oi the earfv rulers had a specific runcnon: they were strnci in reb-nveiy smafl numbers far the maun purpose of rnhinring the status or the rider rather rjstan as a regular currcnor- Hoards of this period sotnrTuars copramafew :hese local issues akmgsadc many more toraen (wesrern Eurorcari1 ivsoes. b the Moravian stare there was no coinage issued, hot in Pnhfnsii the rS?emysbd rulers of rbe Czech stare and Urer tbexr nvak the SlaTntkovxe began nvnrase, probaWT some tunc >e resgn 01 rkslesiav a. There were a nek
variety of types and legends. inosrJy mwkUed on western imosrjy Bavarian) corns, bsn also som* types eclated ro Bvxantaae <L sjgm 1 here were two aunts a carry Bohemia, that oi the Preaayshds a: Malm tar Kurna Hora and the SlavnikosTce a:. »ho began
■stating salver coinage aaudtBrd on Bavarian issues. In Poland mraragr seems ro begin ta the rcapa ot Bolesiaw the Brave si-iois . and hrs coua again were nxsdcJted on western rtsoes. There is a series of denars related to the Ono-Adcfcsdc types with the legends ssbcq, but these probably date to the reaps of Micsxko . " There is a steak aadex subsequent rukrs in the assddk
i       under r.-.u-4---1
..d-audtbe
own at about the same
The origin of towns
The Slavs oa the whale sesakd n*t»,   .   . ■
■
cosisai uctm^s of tow us. la rbe former Ronun n,,,. - most of the towns had fallen mtorutn m nV c,
Jooed by the time rbe Stars «il.,. ^ j.. - „
ta Russa acmevrr a .
W J5 f^jtl^Tlbcsi- TL.
THt FAULY »I.AV»
north ol flic Danube in the ninth century however Joes not sCcrn |<} ^
accompanied by the establishment of towns in the area. "VC
The question ol the origin of towns among the Weil Slavs has attract • I literature. Before the Second World War the main model applied j .:,VM, Europe was that proposed by historians who supposed that towns in j**""*'
were defined only In their 'location', that is the issuing of a charter which C that towns as such arrived in West Slav territories only with the German TOCW't
.ifre r the thirteenth ccntiirv fan interpretation which seemed to support" claims of their innate superiority over their eastern neighbours). Arch f^"1 r.es after the War by Slav archaeologists, particularly i^r.0?**1
and Boh ' 1 • -
the slron
....."una
leinia, were used to question this model.  I his work showed (hat .-holds of the area were large and densely built-up areas (some of them: will) .1 planned layout) which had some kind of elite and administrative func
,„„,.,  ,,„,„• had structures connected with dill   Debris from craft activity showed that many of these sites functioned as production centres, and finds of scales and weights and various imported items suggested they functioned in long-distance (and perhaps local) trade This matched the bundle of criteria usually used to identify urban settlements, and it was therefore assumed that these were towns'' Recent more detailed examination of the problem has shown great variety in these settlement complexes, and n seems clear rhat the development of urb.inisui in Slavdom was a complex pn iccss with several stages, and wirh very clear regional differences One ol the principal problems has remained the definition ol .. town, and the cultural relative nature of such definitions.
In 1'ol.ibia and Poland, many previous consul, rations of the topic of the origin of towns have concentrated on the co.ist.il emporia (sec above), which tended to be large undefended areas to which merchants seem to have come, though some were permanently settled there It is difficult for us to decide whether these sites were indeed towns m the narrow sense of the definition, or were perhaps •proto-towns' (whatever we understand by that term). m|H
Such sites are however absent inland in West Slav territories Over most of Poland, Polabia and Bohemia were strongholds which have produced evidence ol imports and craft production, somctimi   from the enclosed areas themselves, and sometimes from the dense extramural settlement which often accompanied them. Some of these strongholds were undoubtedly command posts of the early state manned by the retinue of the ruler and thus had an elite, military and administrative function (even it only to collect tribute). The long distance trade, accumulation of surplus and craft production were mainly geared towards satisfying the internal needs ol the inhabitants ol the srronghold complex itself (the restricted economy ol the retainer culture i I hesc sites have some characteristics of towns, but were these strongholds with their clear military, administrative and elite functions necessarily towns |ust because there is evtnW— ...
r»4
■"cow, Lul
l,„ r.on and exch in lie in and -
prouucruui aim c *
C hanges seem to occur with the rise of a rcg marked in Poland for example by the appea 1070s. With this came changes in the strongh extramural settlements) which seem to have more rccogni2able as urban sites functioning a c.,rly state economic system. It seems likels ths ,,i the state and affected the peripherics of dec .ides later. In the course of this process some into towns (Poznaň, (•niezno, Wroclaw, Ope formerly large and important centres were re»
the areas of southern Polabia which were left in the German Empire after 1 c»? revolt, urban development was similar to that further west (that is. it saxony and Thunngia), while in the areas independent of German rule the development of urban centres was considerably retarded, and many sites had to be 1 re (founded in the twelfth century.
Die status of the central places of the Moravian state is also uncertain. The vcry extensive strongholds of the period have a superficial urban appearance, hut again a closer examination of the evidence from sites such as Stare Město and Mikulčice suggests that thrv consisted of a central princely enclosures sur-rounded by enclosed and unenclosed suburbia with nobles' dv churches and craftsmen's quarters. Again it seems that tin towns, elite vcttlcmcnts reflecting a restricted economy, and after th Moravia many of these sites were abandoned.
Bohemia on the other hand seems to have supported a flourish economy already by the 970s. Here there arc several tenth-century seem to be urban (Levy Hradec, Prague, Libice, Pilzno). With the expansion of Czech power north of the Carpathians, several new town* came within the ( /ec h orbit, including Wroclaw and Cracow (sec the account of Ibn Yaqub cited above).
The development of urbanism among the East Slavs has recently been considered by several scholars."' In southern (inner) Russia the rise of stronghold-towns as tribal political and administrative centres was a result of the consolidation of settlement, and the development of production and exchange; they developed in the centres or densely settled areas. These sites seem to have developed around administrative centres in the middle of settlement concentrations. A prime example it Kiev, which originated as a stronghold complex on a
latter was at some stage surrounded by a rampart. The interior was densely built up and contained a religious sanctuary and evidence of production (pottery.
ind >ld-
nal
ich
mctalwork i. I In- expansion ot tin tow u to adi.iecnr areas and the creation of tag Podol suburb took plan- .it tin- end of tin- ninth century. Excavations hv Wshogrod. Chernigov, Pcrciaslavl. I itihech. Belgorod and other Ukramtaifc
towns show the same pattern. Ihesc towns were permanent agglomerations usually of comparatively large area surrounded by wooden and earthen defences which divided the area into two or more enclosures. The smaller 'inner'one ulctincts) contained the more impressive buildings, a magnates dwelling^ * m ,,onn church and so on. The outer enclosures usually were in part agrarian centres (presumably with a considerable agricultural hinterland) bur also earned out the secondary processing md redistribution of products. The finds from these sites belong almost c xclusivelv to what has been termed "Old Russian culture- together with a number of items which are obs lousls imports. Most of these tovs ns were in existence by the earl) eleventh century and show economic growth in the twelfth century. In a later period the Russian towns were founded b> the local bovars but their functioning depended on merchants and craftsmen; thev acted as nodes tor long-distance trade. 1 hese stronghold-towns emerged as local centres ot political and military power or as regional administrative
In northern (outer) Russia the pattern is different. Here stronghold-town*, were founded in areas without dense settlement and without a hinterland. Settlement and economic growth seem to have been initiated only by the construction ot the strongholds. In several places however the large sprawling (and undefended I pre-existing trade euiporia are replaced In stronghold-towns, often sited in a different place. This suggests that the control of the trade routes was one ol the principal functions of the latter, but also the re-siting may have been i reflection ol a change in organization of rhis trade. We thus sec the replacement ot t.mozdoso In the stronghold town of Smolensk, of Ryurikovo Corodishche by Novgorod, of the Sarskoe Gorodishche In Rostov, the replacement ol tin euiporia at I ititerevo (and adjacent sites at Mikhailovskoe and Petrovskoe' In laroslavl and so mi. Northern stronghold-towns were situated primarily on important river crossings and often on the peripherics of territorial zones, where it was possible to control the trade routes into and out of these zones and collect and distribute tribute. These towns were, E. N. Nosov claims, 'mihrary-administrative, trade and cralt centres which were not connected directlv with tribal structures': he notes that the finds assemblages from these centres are more polycthnic' than those from southern Russia. We see also a surprising amount of evidence for agricultural activity connected with these stronghold-towns There are thick lasers of animal dung around the buildings, some ot which seem to be housing tor animals, there are finds ot agricultural tools, and later written sources tell us ol the cattle and field plots of town dwellers.
The most extensively excavated of these sites is Novgorod, Here the
n,nth- and early tenth-century site at 'Rank's stronghold' (Ryurikovo
Corodishche) - was replaced bv Novgorod ('NewTown*. ,„ ,k......s. „ují c
°       i    sv, eeiwii i m anout tne middle ot
the tenth century (the earliest dendrochronological dates from the
Irom the v sos, but it is not clear how much earlier the site had been in
This large site with its fifteen thousand inhabitants became'one of the main ce*
lrcs of the northern parts ot the Russian state, and excavations In several areas
o| the town have produced much evidence of the life of its inhabitants ' The
cold and damp conditions of the build-up of layers which formed in th to
had produced anaerobic conditions in which perishable materials had survived
I Icre were found the remains of wooden buildings of 'blockhouse' technique
resting on horizontal sill-beams laid directly on the ground surface. It was also
tound that the streets had been paved with thousands of transverse wooden
beams side-by-sidc, and these had been periodically replaced as the ground level
rose owing to continual dumping of waste. In the build-up of layers were found
organic finds such as textiles, wooden ob)ects and even documents written on
birch bark. Excavations on a smaller scale in other towns ,n north Russia (such
as Grodno and Polotsk) have produced similar evidence.
1X6
I »7
Pagan Ideologies
li is especially difficult tn discover anything about the spiritual life of
•>n ancient
population. Nevertheless attempts at reconstruction of Early Slav religious beliefs .ire an import mi aspect of our ettorts to bring the past lives of these people closer to us.1 *fa
For most of the area of Slavdom we have very little written information, and the existing material is rather enigmatic   We h iv. a little evidence from East Kom.ni writers ias in the famous ethnographic excursus- of I'rocopius). Wchavfc ,„het nitorm moi. from a series ot eleventh  and twelfth-century sources concerning missionary work among the I'olahians   I here is also a certain amount ,„ ,„,,„-„,.mou in the l'\ I and the Arab authors Most ot this material however .onus from a relatively late period and need not necessarily reflect practices of the earlier period I he 'pagan' he lie t s\ stems ot the people in whom wc arc inter ested differed from that which was acceptable to the rest of the contemporary literate world, since most ot the written sources were compiled by Christians land in the east. Muslims) who exhibit a dear distaste for writing about paganism 1.1s a work or invention of Satan). Indeed, many of those who were -
in
the position to observe pagan practices at close hand were those missionaries who were determined to sweep all tracts of the old beliefs away. This partisanship ot tlu sources has meant that the existing descriptions of events and Opinions are presented almost entirely from the C hnstian point of view. The illiterate other side (living entirely in the sphere of oral culture) was unable to express itsell in writing and tlms unable to inform usot its own point of view and its version ot events. Some ol its traditions were forgotten or suppressed, although some isolated tacts still tound their way into the later Christian literature.
The other mam source ot evidence is provided In archaeology, but, while the archaeologist is able to recover many of the material aspects of daily life, to discover anything about the spiritual lite ot an illiterate people is especially difficult. Our most easily accessible evidence tor ideologies ol the Slavs comes from the excavation ot burials, the manner ol disposal ot the dead is often a good indicator ot the beliefs ol the spiritual world. I he other archaeological evidence is rather scarce, and. as always when dealing with ritual and cult, very difficult to interpret.
Another important source is however ethnographic material In rural areas even into relatively recent times the villagers still kept some old cn«f«n„r
iHft
despite the opposition of the Church On the basis ot the interpretation ot the recorded rural folk beliefs, together with philological research and tltOCOmpa ,s„n with other lndo-1-uropcan beliefs, several attempts have been made i reconstruct ancient Slav religion. The ethnographic material collected in nir districts in the nineteenth century is difiicult to interpret however, since wedo ,,()t know how many of these customs derive Irmn practices arising after the introduction of Christianity.
The evidence we have is enough to demonstrate that the religious beliefs and practices ot the Early Slavs had much in common with the religious beliefs of other Indo-European peoples, .,nd on this basis some of our fragmentary evidence can be tentatively fitted into a reconstructed model. The picture is how Lver still incomplete and full ol doubtful points.' There is no reason to think that there was one consistent religion across the whole area of Slavdom, or that it remained unchanged through the centuries; indeed one would expect the ideology to be remodelled to suit changing social contexts. There was almost certainly regional and temporal differentiation, and there seems to have been especially marked change at the period preceding the introduction of Christianity and/or state-formation. We should be aware also that 'old' (pagan i traditions arc not fossils but probably continued to develop even after the introduction of Christianity.
Demons and the spirit world
1 ,kc any religion, that of the Early Slav peoples developed in part from the traditions of an earlier period. As in many early religions, a belief in spirits and demons of various types seems to have played a large role in Early Slav religion (and it is this facet of Early Slav spiritual beliefs which has best survived in the folk traditions of later centuries). Some of them came from the spirits of dead people; others were entities which had an independent existence. Apparently demons were everywhere, in the home and in nature - in rivers, springs and trees. Certain types of inanimate ob|ects such as holy springs, trees, copses and stones were particularly prone to being inhabited by demons and were thus worshipped, though these cults were aimed not at the ob|ect itself but at the supernatural power which inhabited them. Various had spirits hved on the edges of bogs and waters as well as in forests. It is not however clear to what extent these demons were individualized and named. Two terms, Czxrt and Bies, are old Proto-Slav names (later applied to Satan himself), but most of the demonic names known from later sources arc ctymologically later constructions. Demons and spirits had influence on human lives, but were also to some-extent dependent for their continued existence on the offerings people made to
.89
ľHÍ l\HL\ 1LAVS
An
ancestors
important role seems also to havo been fulfilled by the cult of d» -s.ors, and spirits of the dead winch could evert some form of influence on thc living Indeed it was from the world of the dead that various familiar spirita „, ,be home and hearth were derived. These friendly spirits helped with task, .round the homestead (Uber spirits of the dead were less friendly, and it was uecessars m applv magical practices to present them from returning to disturb the living. These malevolent spirits were envisaged in later folk tradition as in many other rural communities as small, naked, hairy, dark-coloured (or rcd-sk.nncdl, with the ability to hum or spark, often with extra fingers or toes, , Innp. with a large head with thick eyebrows, odd teeth, thick lips. longnipp|cs wul .1 lack of sex organs, they could also make themselves invisible. They could cause all sorts of trouble, from scaring with strange cries and shrieks to causing death and illness. Vl^H
The vampire, a male blood-sucking demon {stryg) deriving in,,,, thc unqmc, dead and connected in popular consciousness with eastern Kurope, seems to |UU. k-en of Balkan origin iprolublv ultimately deriving iron, Roman tradi-,,'onsi, but i- later found in West and last Slav contexts In Russia however offerings were made to vampires as for other spirits. Vampires were cruel demons which fed from the blood and souls of people, usually from thc vara, p.res own family In folk tradition, thev were drawn from drowning victims, sine ides victims of hanging, women who died in labour, couples who died on
the da*' n( 'k"" ""•ddini. *nA in fn ..... 11 '-—
......—tsi on
v of their wedding and in Christian tunes children dying unbaptiied interestingly enough 'normal' violent deaths seemingly did not lead to these problems-. \ series ot unexplained deaths in the same family or village would give rise to tears that a vampire was ar loose in the community.
Water had a significance in terms of its properties in purification, as well as in fertility In mythology it also divided the land of the living from that of the dead, and it was Irom the world of the dead that many of the water spirits which wc know ot were thought to derive. The flow ot water in streams led to thoughts about strong water demons who had to be placated. In Russia there were thought to be demons, themselves the victims of drownings, w ho waited ford* opportunity to drag down other victims into some waters In Bohemia and Slovakia these v»dmki took the form of v ouths who appeared by thc shore in the light of thc moon. The placation of such spirits might involve rituals of'feeding the waters, offerings of salt, bread or animals such as fowls in periods of drought, or during lournevs by water, or in building causeways or bridges.
In Ukraine and Belarus the spirits of young girls who had died unnaturally become rusdkt prettv, naked girls with loose hair dressed with wreaths and garlands ot Mowers I hese were water spirits in winter and forest and meadow spirits from the spring They danced on the meadows by the new moon, accord-ing to some versions, tempting passers-by to join them and setting them riddles, and tickling people until thev laughed themselves to death (an interesting
190
addition to Indo-European demonologyt). 1 hey were apparently especially
dangerous in May (the w.ek around Whit Sunday vcre related to a crouii
ot similar female demons known from the South Stav* [Croats Serbs, Bulgarians. Slovaks). These vila were very strong beautiful naked girls, armed with bows and arrows, who lived in springs, in caves, under trees and stone*. There were two varieties, mountain spirits and water spirits Men left ottcrinus for them even as late as the thirteenth century. They could transform into swans or snakes, horses. laLons, wolves and whirlwinds. When these batrlc-m.udcns i like the Germanic Valkyries) were dancing on the mountam-rops or meadows they would shoot at anyone who came close, or draw them into their ring and dance them to death. There are some accounts however of uila who married mortal men.
The forest spirits in general did not derive from the world of the dead. In Slav tolklorc the secrets of thc forest world seem to have come to existence by themselves, deriving from the opposition between the home and the wilderness, that which was familiar and inhabited opposed to that which was empty and strange I he forest remained thc preserv c of untamed powers oi nature Even mdav to be aloin in a dark forest can be felt by some to he an unnerving experience, suggesting that these primeval instincts may not have been killed off by modern civ titration; for the Earlv Slavs thc powers hidden in the shadows were real enough The torest was the home of thc demon of thc forest llcši/), ruler of thc animals, with many personifications (such as wolf-shepherd). In general hostile to humans, he took on thc form of a wolf, owl or whirlwind. He is accompanied bv Baba Yaga, mistress of the forest (mountain-mother). Thc written sources frequently mention holy copses or woods, inhabited by forest spirits of various kinds. As late as 1156 (after a pagan revival), thc monk Helmold visiting thc area of Liibeck in the northwestern fringes of Obodrite territory found a cult-place of Proven (perhaps Perun) within which was a sacred oak fenced with stakes, but with no idol. In the nineteenth century in thc Voronezh province on thc way to the wedding a young couple would walk round a certain oak ttee three times and place an offering bv it. Other trees such as lime and birch could also be holy according to recent folklore.
Demons of vegetation were especially venerated, and thc year's main holy festivals seem to have been associated with m.i|or changes in vegetation. These festivals were celebrated by singing and dancing, often with thc consumption of much alcoholic drink. The spirit world was involved in a number of rituals which were rr>n*!tt*A each year. The rites involved have a dualistic nature: some is with a cult of water and its purifying role, while others ire symbolism. The two however interconnect in several they may originally have formed part of a more elaborate - survived the conversion to Christianity in relict form lis were taken into thc Christian
have clear conn have an clcmcn ways to suBBBSt
tradition. Some pagan ft
oil
ihi M»n SI «vI
calendar and given new meanings; many of these have connections with sortie aspectot fertility cults. Other rites which survived in folk practice, often again,, tin-express wishes ol the Church, are more insidious relicts „» folk belief, from some part ol the pagan religion. It is easv todav. raced with the.r relict form, to underestimate the power ol these rituals, which have been repeated cvclicaU-over it least a millennium. In the beginning thev were connected in the eyesof the people as being a necessary condition ol the continued ex.stenc e ,„ ,hc WorW and society. J^^^^H
\ spring custom tound in several Slav countries involves a straw mannekin dressed in women\ clothing, which is earned through the village and thrown. ,n,o i nver or pond In Poland this occurs on the t.rst day of spring, and ,he etticv is called Mar/anna (other versions: Mananna. Moreme or Hiiewanna.or Dudula-Dodol i   II n possible that the straw effigy is in some was a substitute i s K ntice to the water spirits, or perhaps it is a sv mbol ot the overcoming0f dclth at the end of winter The I u.er ,s suggested by the existence ol a nmilat rue in Russia, where the cftigv is male and called Kostroma. A more sinister element is hinted at bv the clcarlv aged nature of the cltigics once drawn bvox-.art through certain villages in former Yugoslavia before being -drowned', which suggests the sort of rites discussed in the famous work by Frazer/ |„ J ,vmboh«d form the rite was practised at the beginning ot the new (farming) vear and at midsummer, l'hc burninc or drowning of ctt.gics, branches, straw decorated with garlands ol flowers, and ribbons, would svmbo|„e their passmj into another world The spring equinox was probahlv m irked bv some form of purification cercmonv. involving ritual bathing, ot which a relict is a popular tolk ritual ot possible similar origin- the throwing ot water over y oung g,^ Dy village hovs ,n Poland ot. Faste: Mondav. I he Yvhitsun fixed in the Christian calendar on the fiftieth dav alter Faster Sunday usuallv rails m May antJ w„ another important festival in rural Poland hnacked bv the Christian calendar.Its celebration in southern Poland had some features in common with the mid.
summer _J^^^^^^^^^^^
This festival which was especially difficult for both the eastern and Wi
Church to eradicate w is that ot what was thought to be the short
estent cst night in the
calendar. St |ohn\ Night i;a June), the festival known as Kupale in a Russia. Huge tires were lit on hilltops, around which young people gathered S "' danced and sang and gave honour and pr.ivers to the Devil. I he voum. *
ii       ii     , . nil. '     " women
will not allow mis pagan custom to die out in Poland . as one Polish writer wrot
m mi-:. I he seventeenth-century Hustyn Chronicle describes the Scene thus- '
WCtbt
|„ llkraine. Belarus and Russia the ritual involved ettigv  .\l.ir|j| - death?) which sometimes had a head horse or ox. In other places a blazing wheel (solar symbc dope. The events oi the night often ended in orgi.istu ,oung participants, oi which excesses the C hurch tfaup) \t harvest various rituals involved the last stook old Often garlands were made ot corn; sometimes these with names such as 'Cirandpa', 'Old Woman' or simp equinox, in several countries, the Slavs still celebrate occasion to visit the graves ot their ancestors, dean t sometimes share a meal by the graveside.
1 he Soviet researcher Natalia Vielccka deter summarized above relicts ot an archaic belief, a dialectic between life and death, which woul of moving from one world to another (rathei ..... Ihc relationship of the one world to the other is unders between the living and the ancestors and the influence t on the world of the living. The ancestor cult was an
She believes be eeprescntc 'fee a shatna
candles"™!!
due the ensuring ot tl important dead - took their place after d trolled such matters. Various rites, not on of sending people to the other world to n earth. She sees the various rites involving signs, substitutes for human tacrifices
station. The dead - especially the I  l  i ff>ds who con-
■ ■> ne important tunc tion •in the proper course of events on gics and fire-iumping as symbolic
The gods
It seems that the concept of god was relatively weak,v deVe| .
c iris Slavs; much of the evidence nn,r„ . .   *"->c,"Pcu amomj the
, ti__ l points to a much-widersnrpid Ki i
demons There is a short mention in the 'eth u -spread Belief in
which is our main source for the early period Ff     d \r CUrSUi °'
itcs
ius, hat
It is difficult to know how reliable this intormati
nehf b,-
is possible that the
r»n of gods comes vis developed ontv
mi uitr ilitvi
.it a relatively late date There is a lirrlc evidence to show however th demons may already have been promoted to the status ..f cods at the    " I°mC crvsr.tlli/.ifion of Slav identify and the migrations. Probably beea' t'mCo*e''*
vvhar seems r.i be the older hori/on of gods fPerun. Ss iri,K, Volos) • widely scarrcrcd In general ancicnr Slav religion, like many others "'' have been concerned with narurc. and especially fertility. |t seems to h**"" '° aniconic, without representations of the deities for most of the pre fT,6
fCTI
period There are few finds of cull sculptures or temples until the cr^ period; rhcrc arc also no words to relcr to these phenomena in the Proto Sla
language.
One poinr of interest is the syncretism of Early Slav religion. Some f which can he reconstructed have aspects in common with those recorded^''!!?
Icelandic sagas-themselves rcflccringearlier iGermamc) tradition. It j, 'he
that some of these traits mav have been inrroduced to the area of the ci-yj0^" tion of Slav idennty during the period when the forest steppes were occun'eJssLr
the Chcrmakhovo culture. Other influence from the steppes is rcflccred i of Iranian irhar is. s.irmatianl etymology such as rhc names of some gods tinned in East Slav sources Svarog, Strihog, Ichors) and the Slav word for"""
{bog). In East Slav lands there may have been some indirect infl f
religion from the belief systems of Scandinavian settlers (possibly the" applies to regions of Pomcrania). Some writers have suggested that th sT"* were aware of classical mythology and. bs a curious inversion of the I **
new gods
pretatio romana, adopted elemenrs of it for their own use, adding
where needed.
The sources do not perní 1 r us to sa) much about Slav concepts of theog eonnogeriesis or anthropogenesis. Hclmold tells us rhat the Slavs thouah He!!*" all gods came from one and thar the degree of blood relationship with !u '
.... ^ ...... ' " rrtC ITUln
god dercrmmed the relative importance of cadi We also has c inform
pvl that Dazhbog was seen as the son of Svarog.
main •'tion m the
mg
Two main gods. Perun and Svarog. seem to have had cspci lal importanc t_ cult of Perun is the most widely represented in the written evidence It 1 appear thar it is Perun who is mentioned in the account of Procopm °" above. He is similar in name and attributes to the Lithuanian Perkun.is 11 V"*^ jibly the Nordic Ejorgyn). Perun was a weather god connected with h h (piorun in Polish), storms and rain, and thus fertility. Thunderbolts fin fossils, Neolithic polished axeheads and fused glass from thunder strike important and powerful amulets, frees struck by lightning were regai holy Perun was especially associated with oak trees. As guardian of ferril ram. Perun was probably the main god in the Slav pantheon. He was th tic god of fhe k/evan princes; he is mentioned in rhc PVL in 945 3n<j „_ oaths were sworn in his name. In 9S0 a large statue of this god was among others by the royal court 111 Kiev, and a few years later we hea
toppling of the statue (and a similar one at Novgorod Russian prince was convened to Christianity Th   I       '   c r the PVL la silver head with a mouth of gold'i ts colouTcd^T hi'
and need not be accepted as authentic. "The idei of t be a late innovation, under foreign influence' rb   r» *' originally aniconic and celebrated in open-air 1 lr -tain tops-It is not clear how the cult of Perun wa  - 1 l involved lire, and some writers even suggest thar b      * ' human sacrifices cannot be ruled out Perun w    I 3<,l"n-w h.te-bearded St El.as who travelled the heavens in h.s"e^" h^
ern Poland, Bclarussia and Ukraine preserve prayers U the nsT ,un The god Svarog is evidenced in sources from R * rhietmar. Adam of Bremen), which suggests that h wide area of Slavdom He was a sun god, a god of fire"pVobThTv ! hearth. His cult was linked with features connected     h h activities of the Slavs: the sun was needed for nncnin important clement in clcaru l;! fatlu. m:i-c »
I Pomcrania Pped over a he domestic agricultural nre was an 'disposing of the dead.
nlXZ ^ ritMUy c moved into a
cz in ing a irple
,.i.
— o—-Hiisiin
'me sources is Iii,i,k l.
* L "nr>os» bur
.....- w« was nccdei
imponant clement in clearing land, makin The family heanh was ideally kept burning p extinguished for rekindling on the summer so new house in some areas she took embers froi tire in her new home). There was a ma|or temple of Svarog ai R Polabia in fhe twelfth century, which contained a statue of the go helmet and cuirass It is said to have been covered in gold anc hangings around it. In several late sources he is linked with another
Another powerful god known mainly from the Russian sources is Volos (Veles, Vlas). god of the herds. A Czech demon also bears the same name which may suggest that his cult was initially widespread. According to some authors he may be linked in some way (or as well) with wealth. The Slav name of the Pomeranian seaport Wolin may come from the god's nam   A     f h know very little about the external form of his cult. Some writers however, on the basis of the importance anached to him in the Russian sources, think that he a more important role in the Early Slav pantheon. Bruckner links the oneinal significance of Volos with the cult of the dead ancestors, with the underworld tseen perhaps as across the sea). Volos thus seems to have linked some form of element concerning nature (the bull-cult t with those concerning the structure of iocicry (ancestor-cult). After the conversion to Chnstianitv he was linked with
TIM «*»LT SLAVS
Simargj r'e- ThJ '■'d and
nor,
Other Russian gods known from thc later sources IKhors, Srr.l Mokosh. S.em. Rgiel. janlo) are simply names about which we kn< third name however .« that of an Iranian descrr demon w.th ad* bird's body, which seem* to have been accepted into the panthco
before thc twelfth century. Mokosh was perhaps, like Simargl. m. thanaaod. She was a water spirir, also associated ssnrh fen •  -the home
such as spinning and weaving as well as the laundry and ch.ldbirth. ja„|0 too may have been a demon, who was honoured hv ., festival lasting several da»
after Vs-h.tsunt.de criticized by St Tikhon Zadonsk.j in the eighteenth century.
As we have noted, the cult of these gods was generally an.con.c. but then; were exceptions. One particularly interesting find is thc stone statue found ,n the Rocr Zbrun near Licrkow.ec in southwestern Ukraine ,n , 848 and now iq t ncnu Museum (fig 58). This square-sectioned limestone post 1 ,m hlgh ^ four faces and is divided into three /ones   According to the Soviet Kr,nbr B A Rvbakov. these possibly represent a scheme of thc world. The lower rone represents a kneeling three-headed chthomc god (perhaps Volos holding Up the earth, thc middle /one the world of men and women, who are represented with |0,ned hands as if dancing around the statue. This contains rwo male and two female figures. Above them in thc upper /one. representing the heavens and gods, are four divine figures, each having a long tunic and similar hand rxMJtJOB, m the front of the post is a female who holds a horn ,n her left hand ifertihty goddess' - female counterpart of Perun?); on the left side a simile figure holds a ring. The male figure on thc right vide of thc post has a horse and
word
nth asvmmetnc grip and represents 1 warrior figure - posubl p he figure on the back of ihe post has no arrributcs \ 11____■    . f"*
himself Thc figure on thc back of the post has no arrributcs. All four h  A V"* conical hat which gives the whole post a phallic form, link     * ***
'Og It SVlth
a common
fertility cults. The statue ssas probably made at thc end of the ninth perhaps under mixed Slav and nomad influence. In 1984 excavarn stronghold tust above thc findspot of this the most famous Early < revealed what was interpreted as the socket from which this statue 1» in the tenth-century conversion of the country.' ^■fl
century,
ms in a lav idol inppled
In Kievan Rus wc have no evidence of the - instruction of roofed I there have been several cult places excavated.' The PVL tells us of o    ^ ^ut
illed in modern tinJ , rev
places in the tenth centurs on high river banks which co the gods to whom oaths were sworn A hilltop cult place Pcryn overlooking 1 loop in the River Volkhov near Now 1948-51. It was a ring ditch formed from eight scoops
on which ntual fires had been kindle huts 1 twelfth to fourteenth centun ploughed flat.'' A number of similar 1
been found in northern and eastern Ruvsi.
Rokachevi. Other northern cult sites in the < hanked or ditched enclosures, low-lying «
about 10-40 m in diameter. Others in sou elevated places used as cult places, with or w In Poland there are a few small statues, h
series of cult places on hign steep-sided hilli c,lc,a mounta.n near Wroclaw. These too s. ,nd of our period although the datingevid( h,gh places may have been connected with s« ,c .1, due to high places being those which th« j he three peaks of the mountain at Slcza ar< there are also several large stone cult statues German troops invading the area in thc eai this stronghold lies in the country of S.les.a. and very high mountain . . that mountain 1 -ants becauseof itsenormitv and b«-»
stone rampart a Benedictine moru
lagan nr-iad been
Wawcl rock adiaccnt to Cracow, which when the rock was covered by a cotnpk there were legends of a dragon which in by thc legendary (prc-Piast-dynasry) ruli Bohemia associated with foundation lege west ot Prague: it loo has an earlv medic
in Pomerama.
— ~r hmi me renrn cennary, x of churches and thc cathedral. Here labttcd a cave at its base and was slam r Krak. There is a similar mountain in
al church on its summit. There are few northern Poland, though possible cult examples have been claimed from
that wc have thc most
result of
Till SAHir viavs
,njan Empire until it was again annexed ,„ the pCrlod aft^
- In the course of these events 1 hr.s.un unlets had good cause to take
Lee of.hecollapscand renewal ...the Pol.b.an sanctuaries I here |, cvide
suggest thai, in .he cen.un and a l.al ol independence, the rcorgani^ 1U| s£ng«hc...ng of .he Polahian local cults (utilizing patterns denved fromd*
hnstian Clmrclil played an important part ... tin establishment of a stronR
tr,bal power structure in opposition to the Ottomans, i •
Among the Pomeranians a key place - apart from Sv arog (Svarozhyts) - Wat held bv Sw.ctovit (Svantev.tl. a god ol fertility as well as war The latter c|emcn,
,v however have been a later addition to the attributes o, this dnty - unde* ' sl „,d ,|,K. „ . lime o. tin t.gh. ot the Pomeranians to retain their independence s„,,,ov,t «as imagined as nding by night »n a dark horse against the enemies of hls believers, and the horse seems to have been a cult ammal On etymologic,, linds „ has been suggested that the names of other Pomeranian g„ds ,hrow... Kiigevvit and Inglovv - the three headed) are possible later creation,
to replace older names which probablv ...I......Prevented being said. Their
it.r.butessuggest that they too had some connection with nature and especially tertility Several other names are distorted in the transmission and we know httlc about their cults I Prove. Poiewit. lurupit. Pnpegala. Podaga) By the tune is, conn to learn of the Pomeranian religion it was relatively elahoratc With a developed priesthood, temples and cult statues. Possibly these features were ulopteel quite late under influence ol I hnstianity and in conditions of stress from pressure fro.,, the .vest   \ specific feature of some ol these gods ls their polyccphal.sm: several of them have three or four faces on one head. This ,s an especially characteristic feature of the Pol.ibi.in idols described in the written sources and some of which still survive, like the double-headed wooden figu irom I isc heru.se I in the folk usee, or a miniature figure found in Wolin.
gure
—.„ woun.
We possess a relatively large amount of evidence tor temples and the organization ot cult from the period after the pagan revolt ,n Polabia." Several temples with will-developed priesthoods are mentioned in the Written sources, such as that at the end ot the peninsula inside a suonghold at Arkona on Rugia described in i-oS bv s.ixo (■ram.n.itisi.s (Oof.* Danurum Xtv.39) aS desttayc| by the Danish king W.ildc.nar in 1 iA.S as one ot the last reserves of West Slav paganism in a Christian I mope  This site was excavated 111 i9i, by Carl Schuchardt, who found a number of postholes probably belonging to the temple- Saxo tells us that the building contained many 01,laments and animal, horns, and was hung with purple hangings and .he wooden walls painted vith various designs. In the centre was a huge wooden statue of Svantcvit with:* drinking horn in his right hand, into which wine was poured at harvest festivals and the level ot liquid in its howl used to predict next year's crops. A nearby temple of similar form destroyed by .he Danes was dedicated to Rugewit, who had seven heads and carried eight swords. Porevvit and Porenut also had temples
m the area. Thietmar tells us of the destru ihe god's statue was surrounded by others cuirasses' and surrounded b\ war bontv R u
Szczecin twice, in rlu 1 1 ios: here there were scveril . ,
,,i which was a hilltop she dedicated to Triel ■ it   1 "
sculpted and painted inside and Out, and had 1 ■i 1 Wolin he found a temple with a sacred sn       i 1
sa,d to be that of Julius ( atn, i^b^^^Z^ became the site of the churchof St Adalbert
Her out
Burial rites
Mthough the evidence for the gods is somewhat sparse, the archaeological evidence of death is in some areas relatively profuse. Death laces the livinn w th ,,H- question of the proper disposal of the corpse, and the manner chosen to do ,]us is .1 way of expressing more than fust the loss ol ., loved one. The archaeological examination ol burials can provide useful inlormat,on „„ a number
,,1 aspects of Slav culture. This is derived not onlv from thp m ,.,,„.,• ■„ ,,____
/ ""■ "'ju.icr or iriatnie nt
ot the coi pse and form of the grave, but a so from the nhim-n u.1,, a, ..
■ . ...in 01c wuiccis wnicn were cnm»-
____» „1 ,   .   I • - »1--------
• ------- i,i.i\e, out alsi
nines placed in the grave. The tub of the do
.....-v«.vi me aeaa apparently had an imp.
the community, providing a continuity, between past and present particular groups, a means of determining identity. The funeral was thus accompanied by ceremonies involving speeches, pr.ivers and offerings, in funeral wakes of various types. At intervals after the death the grave (it there was one. see below) would be visited. (In some ateas it would appear that feasts were oltcn also held forty days after, or on the atinivcrsarv of (he death, or on a special day of the dead.) Graves may be reused by several members of the group, further strengthening the link between individual members in life as m death.
Despite the important role fulfilled by the cult of the ancestors. 11 seems that the picture of life beyond the grave was rather foggy. In later Russia the land of trie dead was known as the nevedomaia strana (the unknown side (direction/ wayll- The presence of grave goods in some burials (including weapons and food) may suggest that it was imagined that life continued after death and it was conceived as similar to life on earth. It seems to have been believed however thai the dead who had left the world by natural means were still present in some form among the living. At recent rural Belaruss.an funerals for example a place was left at the table for the shades of the ancestors, who were summoned at the beginning of the (east. It was from among the shades of dead clan members that the triendly demons were drawn which aided the clan, multiplying the family's fortunes, helping with spinning, caring for horses. Some of these home spirits gained personal names.
.9«
Tilt EAKLY JLAVl
In the filth to ninth centuries, most groups of Early Slavs practised and rhis hunal rite dominated until the beginning ol ( hristi.inity wT"" evidence ol a solar and hc.ivenlv cult: the p. re was probably. sccrj    * '1Vc*een
of the light and heat of the sun. and it was combined u irh a purifVi * '
ate
•      •"^process |,
seems that the funeral pyre was - among other things - a means of free, 1 , from rlu bods u, a rapid.......Ic and public manner allowing parlicj^
.* the funeral to take part... the process and. by turning the mortal remain, J si enforcing the soul's passage into the underworld As ., |<„s merchant 2
ihnVa...... -he early .end, centurv. you Arabs are really stupid  . , VoiJ ^
u| Ui%c uu| rcs|Hxt ,,U| ,|,„,w h.-n mo the ear.l, for the worms to<«
■    •   ihi. i)t|u, ,MnJ ,nlrn Inn, and in a twinkling of an eve he „ ,„ W hoc s c r this merchant actually was. the sentiments he expressed would ptolJ ,,,, |, lu. been common to all those cremating societ.es ,., which lie moved "TIM |nirI„ng mas base Ken .iccompamed In various other rituals, such as fBawi celf-niuttlation of some of tlu mourners and also some form ot games Ury.J M ,r, mentioned in the written sources from Knss, , and Bohemia. lts * ,hlt these practices were still current there as la.s   ,s the eleventh century. Voiding to ( osmas till t I. when Brctvslav cine to the ( /cell throne ln the
^^^^^^^
funerals. uhul> look place in the forests and fields, and dances. wh,.h were condHcttd ■ Ung u, pavan . ustorns. and setting-up shelters at the ,unct„m between two orthrt, '„, llh „ • '/»•""■ rh"s       "'"       «"'"••» wwi winch they
used above the,, dead, dancing with masks on their faces andcallmg up thespirtUaf the ^^^^^^^^^^H Phc small houses which were set up it crossroads were lor the benefit of the spirits who were passing Iron, their place ot res. to the abodes of the |,v,n. (Even today in mans rural areas m eastern Furopc wayside crosses and shrines
The communis „1 living and dead was divided also by a 'one of spirits which were hostile to humans, various types ol ghouls, witches and in particular sunpircs   I'hcse spirits seem to have been conceived above all as ha.,.-
and m
belonged to people in whose death then had been somethme ul where the corose had nor been found and „.,,..,.....„... i.     ,   U ."""atural
---------- .o.iiciiuiig unnatural or
where the crpse had not been lound and given proper burial, and it was Sometimes necessary apply magical practices to prevent the souls of the unnatural dead returning to disturb the living. It thus seems that the destruction of the corpse In burning was an important partot the burial rite and if this was denied (by the body being buried unhur.it. such as the v ictims of violence, or lost. js in the case of drowning) the spirit vs as destined not to reach the spirit world and thus had to stav on earth.1' There arc few traces of special rites known for protection against vampires in the cremation graves; the mam problem secnis to have arisen with the introduction of the inhumation burial rite. Clearly in the
pagan rites the emphasis would have been more on the spiritual side of the matter of death, whereas the Christian rite - while recognizing the spiritual aspect of death - also laid emphasis on the corporal aspects. Baity Christianity also emphasized the integrity of the material remains after death and the importance „t their proper disposal in accordance With the dictates of the Church (in so fat is these could be enforced - sec below).
The change to inhumation burial was thus an especially signilieant change in the attitude towards the dead. The practice was not imtamiliar to the Slavs [ft had been practised by several cultures in the Roman period, and was the dominant burial rite of the Avars on the middle Danube I, but, apart from a few isolated early examples which have been found In Moravia and a few doubtful examples from southern Poland, in general seems not to have been acceptable to the Slavs before the arrival of Christianity. The Christian insistence on the living of intact bodies into the ground was a shocking innovation which was seen as likely to upset the balance ot the spirit world. When cremation was replaced by inhumation, western Slavdom seems to have experienced a vampire panic The collective disquiet led to magical acts involving the freshly dead intended as protection against the spreading of vampirism. These included placing rocks over the burial, putting flour in the coffin, defacing the corpse, and occasionally beating a wooden peg or nail through the head or chest. It is possible that the placing of offerings in inhumation graves may have been an anti-vampire measure."
Cremation was carried out on a pyre of wood built somewhere outside the settlement. The body was placed on it fully dressed, and possibly accompanied by selected obiccts. ln the few cases where we can examine the layout of the body from the fragments remaining in situ on pyre sites (because for some reason they were not fully collected), it seems that the head of the corpse was orientated towards the western side of the pyre (so that the raised head would face the rising sun). The burnt remains were then collected and disposed of in several forms of graves.
The most common form of 'grave' over most of the area seems however to have been a method of disposing of the mortal remains (which one assumes had been cremated first) by a method which is ditiicult to detect archaeologically. This absence of graves is not due to our poor knowledge of this area and is one of the enduring mysteries of Slav archaeology. Whatever was done with them, in many cases these remains arc lost to archaeological sight. The ashes may have been scattered in water, or on the land, perhaps in some special holy place (such as a holy grovei, iney may nave occn put in some a novc-ground wooden structures (perhaps 'houses of the dead') and naturally scattered when this collapsed. What seems certain is that this disposal took place at some distance from the settlement, as few scattered pieces of cremated bone arc ever found in the fills of features. This question needs further research to resolve.
Tilt lAKLY SIAVJ
^ howt.w.r rl„ ,,„,,, were buried in various of earthy
gravc (returned ... mother earth ?». In the Korchak Pcnkovka bur espS The Prague Culture graves from Moras... ,., Polab... ,hc remains weregatheJ
lfM| put into holes ,n the ground, sometimes ,n a container, most often „ Sometimes apart from the ashes, huskies, occasionally fibulae and other obiee* ir, found m the cinerary urn with the bones. W, do not know whether ,hC5c Braves were marked by posts: we may assume that tins w as often the CaSc. Mot,
If thcse cemeteries arc relateely small, containing from a lew to ., fcv, , ' ,vcs These are probably family or clan burial grounds.
A somewhat exceptional si.e tor ,.s s„e and richness ,s the large cemetery north of the Danube at Sara... Mon.eoru ,n the Buzau region of southeast
Rom........vs.om.1 «■ before the Second World War by reams f
Bucharest led hy Ion Nestor and latterly In I Igia B.ir/u I. \p.,r, »rom a „ ,„ .men... reports.- the medieval cemetery .which overlies a rich Bro„M W 11K.,,n | has not vet been properly published I he cremation bur.als arc either ,n urns |ot .he Praguc-fslorchak type  but with wheel-made portcry) or pfc, Rraves w.thoul urns  I he site has produced mainly graves ol the sixth an«|/0r seventh century, hut also a few artefacts which pom. to a date in th
pte
Another variant of this idea is the so-called Alt-Kabclich type of
in the Sukow /one (named alter a sit. .it Alt kabelích in the N'eubra d regioni Her. the hones were scattered in the upper tills oflaree oval "
..........."i tne second h if
ot the tilth century, much earlier than that traditionally accepted for Si Monleoni and the arrival of the Slavs in this area. ' ,1r,ltJ
B«vc foUnQ
""andenburv rgc oval pits (rem
inscent ol the hath shaped domestic features ol the Sukow-Dziedlice These are relatively large but shallow pits containing fragments of c /0 bone and ell irco.il and broken potierv in the earth fill. Their interpreti"13'"1 more difficult I he low quantity ot ash audcharco.il with respect to rhctíUKm ** ot earth in these features would suggest that these were not simple hoi"11!!"" beside the pyre into w Inch the latter was shovelled Possibly the hole wasf I only alter a lapse ot time (.1 year/), alter which the remains of the    ^ l become overgrow ii with grass, hindering its collection. The creation of ^ " en grave In the burial .if the pin remains would have here the charaa'^'"^ symbolic .anon I his emphasizes that the cremation and the creation of " ' were seen .is rwo separate actions. ^_^^^H
Above-ground burials also took place. The I'VL tells us that the V Severiaite Radiimclii and hnvichi put cremated remains in urns which then placed on the top ol posts set in the ground by roads (recall Cosmas wrote-see above) I lie chronicler hints that this form ,,| burialsv l' being practised among the Yi.iticlu in his own day > ,
Another common type of grave was the barrow burial, usually relative) and about i-a in in diameter. These were often grouped into small cemc ' presumably belonging to one family, clan or community. They oc _
des of
tcntral zone ol West Slav territory and much ot the area inhabited S|.,vs. Although sporadic barrow cemeteries are known from be ,|u. c arpaihians. they became common in the West Slav area n l ..rpathians only about the middle of the seventh Century. The . rl,h.,bly intended to represent a sacral hill (the so-called cosmic moi this seems likely to be a reflection ot the significance of the peak sai . Early Slav culture which we have discussed above. The barrow was perhaps a peak sanctuary in miniarure. though some harrows (such as two large mounds Iic.,r Cracow and several in Kicvan Rus. tot example at Gniozdovo and C hernigov) reached considerable si/cs. The harrows were heaped from earth tr(,m quarry scoops from around the outside ol the mound, and were probably hmlt by the whole communit) gathered for the funeral They often had wooden „, stone constructions inside. There are several types of these barrows.
I he evidence available suggests that most frequent type of disposal of the human remains was not under the mound but in a container (such as a pot or h,.xl holding the ashes placed on the top of the mound, perhaps in some form of wooden shrine or house of the dead. As the mound settled, the pot and bone tumbled down the sides ol the mound into the quarry scoop around it Ihis explains why earlier excavators searching for a central burial under the mound lin fhc expectation that these mounds were like prehistoric burial mounds) interpreted many of them as cenotaphs. This type of mound burial occurs over much ol West Slav territory (southern Poland, southeast Polab,.,. rvokima and Slovakia, although to the north and east there were /ones tree ot barrows). Chambers arc rare in West Slav areas, but these barrows sometimes have a revetment consisting of a square wooden framework | - m square made of horizontal (corner-notched) beams resting on the ground surface and supporting .he body of the mound. Sometimes this covers the remains of the (or a) pyre These horizontal constructions arc most common between the Elbe and the Bur bu. also occur further cast in the upper Dnicpr and even in the upper Oka irca _ which would make any attempt to sec them as 'typically West Slav' premature.
The rite of burial involving barrows was more varied in East Slav lands. In the eighth to tenth centuries in the Desna and Seym valleys, and the Oka, the only type of burial was the barrow, but in the territory of the Scvenanc the remains were generally placed on the top of the mound, while in the mounds of the Viatichi burials were made in wooden chambers under the mound.1" The wooden constructions within barrows also exhibit variation across the area. In several areas there arc internal constructions (chambers) which contained the remains and an external revetment or fence. Chambers are found in the barrows ol the upper Don and upper Oka where they seem to be related to the Borshcvo group and the Viatichi. In the latter cases they are rectangular chambers set near the edge of the round mounds which are revetted by a ring 6-11 m in diameter
,| p(,stsl .ind ..po -n the outer s.de. Tin v containthe bones (1f ndiv.d.ials Chambers are also .. ch.arac.er.snc feature of the re,.„ner g,^}
L,evm R..s. An m.ercst.ng enclave of sue.....urs also ,„ northern R
,s   , ed examples of barrosvs with chambers containing collects huria|j J
„dsrevettedbyr,ngsofvert,calposts ^
The chanimm patterns „. bur.al rue can he followed ,„ maps of the northern
h,|f of Slavdom," In the Mrs. phase (to the m.d seventh century, there are „„,, ii.nu.uno knossn from the whole area of Slavdom (Map ix). Across .northwest side of the map in the Slikow-Dztedz.ee area there ,s a broad zone me M "here there are vers lew burials known, clearly the rue of dispo*,^ inun ren,l|MS 1S „„, eas.lv archaeologicallv detectable and dep„sitio„ fe fhc ground was the except,.... rather than the rule   I he dashed zone runnin* •ross eastern Poland on Map is represents a mysterious 'buffer zone' where there are several cemeter.es (Siemon.a. Jozefowl where r.,ts reminiscent of M.kois-D/.cd/.cc tonus occur in cemeteries reminiscent ol those further south
''Vol , Lirw. area where I arls Slav potters occurs, bur.als were made ,n smillcemeter.es, where the cremated remains were placed in p„s ,„ the ground iift;n |n handmade potso. Korchak or Prague type, (here were seldom any other objects placed in the grave." There are several zones where such cemetcr.es are relit.velv common These include the S.iale are... Bohemia. Moravia (all ,hree ,reis with Prague-type pottery) and in the I'enkovka zone, and two areas „n the nght bank in the middle Dmcpr vallev near Dnepropetrovsk In eastern Slavdom there ire vers few burials ol the period from the fifth to seventh centUr.cs though .here is relatively dense Korchak ind I'enkovka settlement in region, where there are no cemeteries known  Only a few percent of the known Penkovka sues are cemeteries.'' Some burials in the Korchak zo„c in the reg,on of Zhitomir | zone I • were however made moron mounds. On both sides of the Carpathians in southeast Poland. Bohemia and Moravia and in the upper Dnicsrr valley we sec the appearance ol several early barrow cemeteries.
South of the I jrpathians is a zone where there were early Avar inhumation, bur.als with horse harnesses and sometimes with the horses themselves (f„r example at Alatryan in Hungan :    lh.se traditions seem to have had l,tt|c effect on Slav bur.al c ustouis „. the area In the zone occupied by the Avars, and especially on us fringes ,n Moravia and Slovakia (Dolni Duna|ovice, Holiare), there are however cremation graves known, sometimes occurring in the same' ■ cemeteries with inhumations. Some writers have seen these as the graves of Slavs living under Avar rule, but not giving up their traditional beliefs. The lie,, known ol these cemeteries is Devinska Nova Ves (near Bratislava},* Tl^p.are very few earls graves known from the lower Danubian plain and the Balkans (Map ix. /one A/Bi). The available evidence suggests that in the Balkans cremation was also the rule in the sixrh and seventh centuries, but one has to
,,ccpt that Slavs assimilated into posH Issstca] communities „, the Balkan area
evil I have also been buried in inhumation cemeteries
fhc picture changes dramatically in the period from the mid seventh ccnturv ,o the mid ninth ccnturv (Map XI: there is considerably more burial evidence, ind the patterns become .nor. complex. Along the north part of western Slav I ,,u|s there is still a zone (zone Ai with very few detectable cremation burl its put of the explanation of this may lie in a specific rite (reflected in the less cis.lv detectable graves ot Alt Kabclich type) which seems to have been practised from ,hc eighth century until the tenth in western l-o.ncrani.i and northern Polab... (>l lii the region of the mouth of the Oder perhaps about the middle of the ninth century appears a zone ill) with a few large cremation cemeteries, con.ainmg ,n.,ns graves, some of which contain atypical!) rich burial goods including Scandinavian imports. Some of these burials were probably of Scandinavians !' , hese large cemeteries probably reflect the rise of large stable social structures ,„ ,|R- Oder mouth at this period. In Pomcran.a there arc also several barrows Wlth burials taking the form of a cremation layer under the mound.
|n several areas where the flat urn cemeteries ol Prague type had been common before the seventh century, it seems that they continued into at least the eighth century. This seems to be the case in the Saale area, along the left tribu-|jrie, of the middle Elbe, the area around Prague itself, on the right bank of the Morava and southwest Slovak.a and southeastern Bohemia along the Danube sallev above Bratislava (Map x b zone B,.,). Here Rat cemeteries continue the older tradition, while in the same general area arc new barrow cemeteries alongside the older rite.
In the Ukraine the flat cemeteries of the Dnicpr region seem to have been replaced by cremation burial rites involving the construction of., burial mound. In a wide zone extending from the Ukraine to Pnlabia there is a zone of harrow cemeteries (zone C). The earlier barrows of the Ukraine (zone Q) have an unccr-tarn extent to the north, and the relationship with those between the Bug, Narcw and Niemcn is unclear. Most of the Ukrainian and Belarussian sites were excavated long ago, and the rite is unknown, but many of the sites in Podlasic were barrows constructed over a cremation layer.
To the west is another area of barrow burial (zone C. | in southern Poland but also (and more densely) south of the Carpathians (zones Ci and C,). These sites arc characterized by having the burials placed on the outside and not under the mound (though a group in Moravia and Slovakia has inhumations in barrows). The extent of barrow burial in central Poland (zone AVB/C) is not yet clear since many of the barrows were destroyed by post-medieval agricultural activity, a process continuing in the early twentieth century. Even in areas where the original distribution of these sites is reasonably well known, it would seem that the original number of barrows is too small to account for the entire population
105
Till RAXLY SIAVS
ains [h „ [iu, l„„ulI1,d ,hc rem mix ..f only par, „1 the community. the
res, sell presumably being buried using a rite winch has lelt fewer traces, ~ havc seen that the spread of barrows north of the Carpathians ,„ the mid seventh cenrurv is accompanied by new pottcrv styles and seems to relate t„ 5orne L of increased contact between communities from both sides of the Carpathian,
Whether or not the general acceptance of barrows themselves or,g,n;ltcd ' .„ nottli ... .he . arpa.hians can he resolved only In further work |„ M this /one initiallv overlaps with a /one ol mixed inhumation cemcterie lew stem itioiis la noriheni outlier ol the Avar cemeteries to the south; w,ulit tins ol Iransvls una is a discrete group ol sites having mixed tradi West Slav potterv but l-as. Slas types ol barrow construction (including tfetftf harrow at Snmcsem-t lui with Late Avar type metalwork with pottery 0f S|av
" with a
Within the arc of the Carpathians there is the /one ol Avar inhumation ceta^ tenes noted above. Around its fringes we see a few flat cremation cemeteries^! ,|so inhumation cemeteries which contain cremations (such as Devmski-Novj Ve> i Co the south ol the zone of barrows and the Avar cemeteries ,s a broad area zone I i extending into the Balkans where there is very little evidence of gravefcj suggesting that, alongside other practices, a type ol burial rite not leaver*, irchaeologic.il traces may have been in use here In the lower Danube valley,^ spread ol inhumation sires also containing cremations probably in some way connected with Vvar settlement in this region, and to the southeast a zone of flat crcmarion cemeteries. J^^^^^H
In the eighth and especially ninth centuries in the East Slav territory, wescean eastwards and northwards spread of the /one of burial mounds from the central uea of the Ukraine. These become relatively dense in the period of the functioning »1 the I uka Raikovctska Culture. Most ol these cemeteries are small groups of barrows, scattered all over the area ol western Ukraine, from the headwaters of the Pripet and us tributaries to the middle Dnicpr and Dniestr. There are also a number of graves not covered by barrows. In the Volyntjevo area are a number of barrows with the burials generally contained under the barrows (eirher as layers under the mound or in wooden chambers). 1 he relative frequency of this rite seems to have distinguished the Volyntsevo burials from other East Slav areas I he known distribution til these barrows does not however correspond to that of the culture itself. I bey arc restricted to the lower Desna and Seym river valleys, while apparently being absent from the Su|a, Khorol, Psol and Vorskla valleys.' ' In the period following the mid ninth century (c. 8 50-950/1000) the pattern becomes somewhat more simple. By now the custom ol burial in flat cremation cemeteries had disappeared from most regions, still perhaps surviving in Pomcrania- I he /one of large cemeteries at the Oder mouth (zone H) continues to develop (with the addition of boat shaped stone-settings in some cemctcrirti
106
the upper Elbe valley d is the appear.in. of
In the tenth century the number ol burials m this tone tendencies increases. The burial-free zone A north of t extent even further, while in the west across the centre c barrow cemeteries thinned out somewhat. Relicts rem area north of the Carpathians, with a few scattered site IM Bohemia and in Moravia. The mam feature of the period is tl the first inhumation cemeteries in Moravia and on the midd between Budapest and Vienna, and also in Bohemia near Prague.
In the eastern parts of Slavdom, the burial rite under barrows established its hold over a wide area where it became the dominant type W ,th increasing denote, the cemeteries can now be seen tO form clusters which to some extent seem ,,, relate to the tribes recorded in the PVl . ' I he construction of these barrows has not yet been as well studied as in the else ol the West Slav mounds, but It „ecnis that bo.h the rites of burial, on the top of the mound as well as within „ ,s layers under the mound or in wooden chambers), were practised. (In the territory of the Viatichi, burials were made in wooden chambers under the mound, but to the south in the mounds of the Severiane the remains were generally placed on the top of the mound.)
|t is to this period that the mam written sources relate. We have manv talcs trom ninth- and tenth-century Islamic traders who came into contact with Rus merchants along the routes from the Varangians to the Greeks. These accounts bs foreign and biased observers of various ethnicity moving through multicultural /ones should be used cautiously. The \r.ibs were particularly interested in the burial rites of the people they met in the lands of the Slavs, which thev likened to the Hindu ritual which was known to them. Ibn Rusteh has this to say of a Rus funeral: 'when one of rhem dies they burn him up m fire, while when they die their women cut themselves on the hands and face with knives. When the body is burnt, they go to the place the next day and take ash from that place, put it in an urn and put it on a mound.' This sounds more like a Slav rite than any of those assigned to the Varangian Rus. Several Arab sources also tell us that, when a man in this community died, his wife also accompanied him to the grave, but how widespread this custom was is not known. It is interesting to note that it also appears in one Byzantine source. Pseudo-Maurice writes of the Slavs that 'their women are very honourable, even to the extent that to the death ol their husband they add their own, willingly suffocating |?| themselves, since they do not regard widowhood as life". The account of .1 Rus funeral on the Volga includes the death of a slave girl who accompanies her master.
gory of burial found In the East Slav territories comprises the
ials' or "retainer burials' arc characterized by rich grave goods con-s from a variety of different areas and traditions. These graves arc ; the burials of Scandinavians (or those wanting to be buried like
A particular
interpreted
107
r»ir »a»iv »tAv»
the Varangian.) who would seem ro be powerful memo..,,,. , printdv f
,h, s ,,re found at a number of burial sues I uncrcvo, Sr.ira.a Ladoga, p,k '
( ni.'„'dovo. . hcrmgov. Shrs.uv.tsv Jnd Kiev, bin similar grave* have als„ l* found al Birka in Sweden). These wooden chambers were i , ■„ „r more t
, ,Mi,i|, ,,, ,,, ini , ,,r horns the dead man could be accompanied by horse, female (perhaps either wife or slave), and a large number of other „crn, ^
we iponry bridle fittings and the ornaments of the woman bespeak the wr.,1.1.->
the buried man Many of these items arc not of specifically S. .., I CVVCa',hof
.        • . _•
ern •1ne 'erru0r>
A typu.ll example is the mid tenth-century Chcrnaya Mogila in ( h ""' 'yP*' important centre of the early state on the northern periphery oi |',,|,       *OV' *n
11 to km up the Desna from Kiev). This huge mound wai
excavated by
I, | si.nnkv.isov m iH-i-4   ' The mound is . . Ill tall and 40 m ,„ dlarn«J ,, „„.d ,„ two stagtsl and contained the remains ,,r a wooden funeral house COR. , ,mim. ,he bur... bodies of an adult man. a woman and a young warrior.OmH ,,, ,|„ „rst phase of the mound land thus covered w.th the second) were p|aceq burn, remains from the funeral pyre with two sets ,., arms (swords, helmets ss.le irmourf.a saddle, seven spc-irs and many arrowh, ids. live knives, remains ,,, , sh.cld. and many other items, including dr.r.k.ng horns w.th mountsdecorl rated w.th mythical ornament .probably deriving from a steppe - per hap, Kha/ar - null. >' ■ > «« of glass gaming piece, an iron cauldron with a burnt ram 1IU| birds' bones and a horned ram's head. The grav. also contained a bronze id„| of a sitting god holding his beard   most probably Ihor). The rich furnts|» ints of this burial recall the luxury goods coveted by the princely
rerinuei Isiirk
ls ,K,„ ,. which prompted him to increase the tribute demanded of the
Pcrcvlanc).
Concepts of time
One feature ol interest is to try to reconstruct how the Karl) Slavs saw particular their place between past and future. We have seen that the seau cyclical festival! and the ancestor cult suggest that they saw themselves of a continuum of which the living and th< ancestors were part, hut there I evidence that they had a wholly linear concept. it time and that the past w more for the Early Slavs than a misty anachnmous entity. In ilhtcntc in I literate societies there is usually a period which may be counted livinem land so events gome, hack sornr eight) years) separated from rhc so-c ill. I i tani past, which tends to In i mv tlucal account.   I bat such a distant past did tact exist for the Slavs is indicated by local traditions such as the artachm " some sites such as barrows and str..ugholds of the names of famous „■»■ ■ of the mythical past land the stories of characters such as Askold and I> l!
ippreca.ion of how the Early Slaw saw their past is h.n.t... a.'" !?
any
fKt that much of the pagan ancestor lore seems not tt
worth recalling by those first Christian writers, whl
h sti in legends recorded (in contrast fnr i kingnsls (it     » si. ir would secrn rh.n ,,r |
sion to Christianity local dynasties sought other means
\, ,|,e beginning of the twelfth century, the chrr,,,, , Anonymous, ending his brief sketch of the story of the i version, wrote 'But let us not dwell on the history of a muis are losi in the (org. itiilne-.s of the centuries and w
|Us condemned, and pass briefly over it to the recor i uthful memory has preserved | |,(: pagan past had I not worthy of dwelling on. Eor the chronicler, history fx version It seems that the hostility of the Christian sclm levelling tendencies of the early state had caused the lo». ,,vcr much of this area. When u. the fullnc Slavdom wished to extend the scope ol their wr>;. , ihe conversion, they bad to make do wuh stnnizin ,,,gether with a lot of invented material.
prncopius in the 'ethnographic excursus' quoted Sclav cues and Antes'do not accept predestination, but etied by death - in illness or war - swear if they in mm in return tor their lives ... at the same time as rhn, iiiturc'. This may be a literary topo) rcfcmrij several written sources tell us of the Slavs' bem told. Mentions of the role ot priests in predicting the futur (in particular the quantity of harvests, „, I'olah,,, .„ tains an excursus on soothsayers (attached to tin caused by his horse had been predicted). It seemed t t„ a belief in predestination as to communication decisions belonged. It was also believed that the g. •need from earth; the worshipper had the hooe f
me the early cl
ins
— ......     ,„.,, th(.
'«"•• .when they are threar pared •"c.nrcat-
•    ■'entice to the god
•y sacrifice they predict the
Ran religions in general, but
also known. The PVL con-story of how OU.-c A. l v-"cgs oeain
h Z" dUefU"somuen the gods to whom all
ecisiom could be mflu-
"taining the favours of the
IO
Towards a Christian Europe
CIJÍTK
Slav paganism collapsed as .1 result ol an onslaught Irom both the eastern and w;stfrII , hurehes mostl) 111 the nm.h and tenth eentur.es.' Modern history ,r,pln trea.s tins event with hindsight as ol great significance, formami , hol.rs the conversion ot tlu Slavs marks rhe.r entry into the -medieval communitv of Europe" with a united ideologv and cultural norms This process
nill „niv represents the destructu.....f the ideological basis of the existence 0Í
main of the pagan societies existing at this time, but it represents also a deci p|, ise ... the growth of the influence of the Church in Europe.2
lis the tune ol the conversion ol the Slavs, large areas ol tin- rest of Europe „..j been C hristian for more than halt a millennium and with a few exceptions, up to the end ol the sixth century, Christianity had been restricted to the area of the; former Koman Empire. As a result, the ( hristian stares of Europe |in effect' tlu- Germanic kingdoms ot western Europe and the lUvantine Empire) svere economically well developed and often organized into strong .„,d militarily effective political entities well aware of their unity and power. In the seventh and eighth centuries the evang.hc .1 call "./«.     „mnes geittcs was again heeded, and the process was begun of extending Christendom first to areas which had reverted to pagandom (such as I nglandl and then beyond the former Roma» limes At the end of the eighth century Christianity began to reach Slavic peoples, initially the South Slavs Hie conquest of the I'olabian Slavs in th to .,hos led to the forced conversion of the Slavs here and the creation 1 bishoprics I his was followed by the next and decisive phase of the later tenth centurv. and its result was the Chrixtiamzatioii ol nearly the whole of Slavdom (with Poland and Russia), Hungary and Scandinavia About the year 1000, sub-stantial areas of the European continent were already Christian (and much of the rest would be converted in the next and final phase beginning in the twelfth
The period was however not om ot uninterrupted growth of the Church. The rise 111 sratus ot the Patriarchate of Constantinople (following loss of those of lerusalem. Anrioch and Alexandria to the Muslims, and that of Rome lowing to irs involvement in secular politics) had led to rivalry, both claiming to be the legitimate contmuers ot the imperial traditions of the Church of Rome. This rivalry, fuelled by the increasing liturgical differences between these two Churches, gave rise to a scries of disputes and splits (one of the most important
e 9 i os new
M» that, and this was 1
was the Photian schism of 867-9 in whicl were also involved |. These disagreements recognition in 10 «4 of the separateness 0
1 luirch and the western (Roman Catholic) [hough had been well under way . „,„„ ,,nd form ol the areas 1
prestige and power of the Chun... , 1K .....
area of their influence by the conversion of the pagan peoples beyond the pale of
contemporary civilization.
The conversion of the Slavs was not only the result ol ecclesiastical policy, but was also encouraged by secular rulers. The more advanced Christian nations apart from their conception of duty to bring enlightenment to their brethren had very real political aims in attempting the alteration ol the ideologies of their pagan neighbours. Cultural imperialism of this sorr was to be an important tutor in establishing closer control, exploitarioo and domination land even annexation) ot adjacent territories. The sponsoring of missionary work can thus hardly be separated from politics. In general, since the politically fragmented societies of the pagan world were often at an ineffective prc-statc or early state-stage of development, this ideological confrontation took place in situations where the Christian side had the advantage.
Very often, conversion was achieved by the baptism of a native ruler who then encouraged his subjects to follow, since the ruler had a decisive influence on the political form of society and controlled the ideological sphere within which it functioned. In many of these polities religious and cultural life Crystallized around the courts ol rulers and their nobles. The sacral was a very important area of community life; and religion was not determined by individual conscience alone.
The routes to Christianity in different states were various, but in few cases does it seem that the transition was a smooth linear one. Modern historiography, looking at these processes with hindsight as progress, has rarely consid ercd the conversion of pagan early medieval societies to Christianity as a
mvolvinii ideologic d and ethic il rnnfli<-f On. .K....U___.__' c
process involving icjcoiol,ic.ii u«u cuucai coniuct. unc '.tumid not ignore however the fact that the introduction of Christianity attacked the very ideological roots of tribal societies, usually characterized by stubbornly looking back towards their ancestral past. The Christian missionaries were dealing not with 'secular' peoples but with peoples with clearly defined religious and ideoloeical structures: paganism was a necessary clement of the integration of whole com-11111nt1.es and the determination of group identity. In the decades following the conversions the pagan religion had enough force to return when various conditions encouraged large-scale apostasy. I hese pagan revivals took on the guise of open poltncal opposition to the ruling elite, which suggests that the antagonism of the population to the new ideology was in many cases more thnn «.kr.w-r—~
i 11
nu i tun .1 .v>
move*
[Waring >" n'""1 «hť ,'V,"'"U' ,,Mcr"jl MK'''1 """'^ WCh caeM „, ,voke Whv Jul II.1iivi-tillers......« ai.dcv...c,uo,„ag, ,|U.M „„,„,„,,„, ^
,„,K ,1 Jung.......U P'-'"'' " "        ,h " ,|U'"' ",,,M lMVf ''«•» 'mP.,r,am
lone-term K-'nu to If nude ba doing s" " ,s Jl'u ,h" ,lu M"-ul,t pn,||)cj| situation with which m .in' l-oiKerned.Chriiti.iiim ennobled- the state andlq, rll|ei nul allowed (hem.i-----10 ihc ...K .iik . ,1 i n ih/..t .> ms „I the conimiuntv of
i h.istnn stiits .inil peoples I In imposition ol i new unliving ideology
llM.tul tountf. to I......k.iI l.agmc.....t.o„ ..I .. new ..<m i ..l,/.d pohry. Another
extremcl) desirable consequence ol < hristi.un/.mon lor rov.il power was the sK, ,| ,„h.„H,-.iu.....I the person ol the nilt,   I he I hristi.m ruler. whcthcTi
in.. or.. kmc. was also and above ■>'' i hi' assignee ol the power of God. I |„s piotessol emersion lo i hiisli.uuit thus mirks ,i vit.ll stage in tilt
ion
sohd.iri.iu ol i common ideology shand with other more adv in.,..! B
" i "ropeart
suns   I hioniji. -in tin Middle Ages the I liri-.ti.ni states in gencr.il tend I despise then p.ig.in neighhoiiis, ,tml mils in certain situ.itioiis did th themselves .ihlv to entei illi.inecs with ilu-in In the seventh century (or ^ when S.iiiio. leader ot the Slavs, proposed .in iilliancc to the ambit    " ' mp
to
Mss.nlor o| Iru.
r.inkish Kin,: P noh.it l the latter is s.nd to h ite replied haughtily that it Wis not possible toi ( hi ist,ans and sen mis of l.od to enter an alliance With dogs' ,(■;„„„„/,■ ..//..'./.:<■>' Iv.aX). ■< remark which was to cosi the I tanks dearly. Uccpnng ,li, i hiistian ideology opened loi tin emugiiig slate the way to iiccptaiuc into the endued world, and also la.iluate.l ih. cementing of ,ntcr. Jvn.isiu iii.irn.iges .an niipoitant I.Ktoi in llu potvei politu v of the period).
It issignilis mi ih.il tin thing, to a new religion appeals m most areas at the .am, period is the transition Irom tribal nrg.iui, moils m centralized state. The two ptoii-ssi s seem to ban been uitimatelv t oiuiectcd in mam eases, The idee*, logical munition in central and eastern I mope irom a system incorporating i annus types ol paganism to one based on the (. hiistian religion seems to have been d.hhe.ai.lt sii.ntilated. it appears to has, been found thai existing religious stst. ins iet ode,I development ot th. son ol social relations which the
iiiluig elite regaided as d, suable   Ihe |.....ess of uniting previously separate
tubes and scattered communities each with its own communal ideology under « uiitiah/cd rule wis an ixtninch dilticiill process, otleii attained by conflict ami shedding ol blood I sen when this stib|iigalion was accomplished, the degne ol coherence ol the In shit united state was still not great: it Wat rather ft
glomerate ot extremely \ .in. ,1 le......nes and peoples, often connected with
rachothei only by theautocratii will ot the uilei opposing any resistance and by tone removing any irregularities in the social fabric of the new polity he was ainiing to cie.lte Paganism, with itschat.ni. usiic particularism, was absolutely impossible to use as a means of mult mg the scattered elements ot these societies in this way (although as we have seen attempts were made), but tune and riffle again it was found that the impoi ti .1 and monotheistic t hiisti nuts was ■ uteJnl
tool in promoting social unit) ami aiding the mih ( u
then siruggles svitli decentralizing tendencies i eoiild have done. In this w at the C lirisn.tti religion is t. l
l urope was a strong and effective (importer of a cm l i and thus was in adv.ini I genua ill) fot i |( idei tt Ishittfl to cor ' |„s hands. It is in this context thai these new changes should mm, u (II some ImportanCl tOO was the hlO that the ( hiiich Could turn
with educated people, able to read and cxpn ss ihcmxclv
iinovs and prepan document*, Ilns was necessary bureaucracy on which the existence ot th, sun was m r-|
Missionaries md bish
ops
11,, process ol the creation ol i hiistian. omiminuics ol the various Sin peoples
mvnlved two phas. s   i missionary phase and then the slow pio.ess ot con solidatiou ot ib. i hurch (which we will sec was olten in itselt connected With , „ntiiiucd mission.u t action in rural areas). I here were liti mam tt pis ,,| ríMCh aiiisins by which thc varioui pagan slat peoples were coineried to I'hrisiiaum. I hen acted in various combinations in various situations.
first, they could lute absorbed a new idea thiough dails .oiu.ict will, 1 hnsti.m populations. The (mlh* ot the black Sea area, together with the i „puls and 1 imgobaitls as well as thc remnants ol ihe Romani/cd li.ici.in pop illation along the Danube lira, s. h ul been convened (though probably ,.„K nomilKlll)  l" t bnsli.imiy in the tourth centuit    and ihns the o tři) slats mat have come into contact with this belief even helore their invasions ot the lidkans. Ihe incursions ol pagan Slavs into the Balkans led lo some extent to the breakdown ol the episcopal system m the lornier Roman piovmces ni the 11,,nil-i in region and miuli ol the Balkans, but this does not mean that euliet (Lithiums including (hose denting Irom i hiistianuv (or rather ideas deriving t,, .ill ill totally ths.ippe ired from these anas; some Slats n,.,s have b,, ame con verted to Byzantine i liristi.initv in their settlement ot tin ana as a result ol settling alongside t hiistian |oinmuintuI,
Second, In some cases missionaries chose (or were scnrl to work in foreign territory where thc local leaders were not Inclined to support, or at best not interested in (and at worst hostile ml ( hnsiianuv. In ihe absence ol authority lr,.m A secular power directly supporting th. mission.mes, argument and persuasion were thc <>nl\ means available, and in such situations adherents of both the old and new belie! systems wen- In an equal or similar position. In general however attempted l hi■istiani/.ition carried out in such conditions was
been achieved by missionary ..cnm .....„soud
in
ini   i.vk1y ItAVJ
by external polities Missionary activity yyas undertaken by the Franks a the seventh and eighth eentunes some isolated Slav groups „„ the eastern
fringes of the Frankish Ftiipirr west of the Elbe were converted to Chr
.......V1 •" ^-"ristianity
!„'X'middle o. the seventh eenturv. I'ope Martin , seems to have mtnt£
missionary acnv ,tv among the Slav groups settled m I )alm ,t,a and „, the seventh ,nd eighth centuries there was bavarian missionary activity „, Slovenia, where pnlKes Gor.izd and ( hotunir were baptized about -o0. In the eighth ce„,ury Pni.ce Prih.n.i was settled in the Balaton area alter conversion to Christianity Throughout the next two centuries the IU/amines were to contmue these mlss,o„ irv activities among the Bulgars and the Ids. and the western Church
concentrated its activities on the Slavs nearest to them. The ccsh siastic organ,.
/ltion established bv these missionary activities often reflected their political w ,ih huge ur.i.oncs siibse, v u til to external bishopries m the neighbouring
core state.
Fourth the imposition of Christianity could be a result of military action rroifc outside as ,., the else of the l'..lab.aii Slavs alter the Ottoman conquests. ( hr.sti.mitv was seen bv the ma,or,tv ot the people as something foreign and hostile as an agent ot a loreign power. This often created resistance and this encouraged pass.v.tv concerning the new ideology, expressed in a superficial and illusory conversion. In the event of the temporary or permanent removal of ,|,e external pressure, the new religion was rc|ceted as a foreign imposition priests were expelled or murdered, churches were destroyed, and the old cult was resumed in a pagan reaction. JHbhH
Fifth, m cases where Slav states apparently came to t hristianity 'independently' which bv no means excludes organizational help and the employment of personnel trom the outside), the new ideology was imposed (by example, per-suasion, or force) as a result of a deliberate decision by the native ruling elite. This also created social conflict, hut active opposition to the new ideology was the equivalent to opposition to the ruler. In these societies various factors encouraged the rest ot the community to adopt the god of the ruler and it is cleat that among those who belonged or aspired to belong to the new social elite of the new order there were probably many who lor carious reasons quickly came to terms with the new ideology. In all probability dike Marxism in postwar central Etiropel this new ideology was adopted to mark 'belongi
ng to certain social
groups, which could have aspired to considerably greater status and greater opportunities As with Marxism, the evidence currently available from Poland shows that Christianity was probably a movement particularly popular in new social conditions amongst the young. This is suggested by the fact that the earliest cemeteries which can be relatively reliably dated were founded not at the date of conversion hut several decades later. It would seem from this that many of those converted still had before them several decades of life before their deaths created the first phase of graves in the new cemeteries. The older
i«4
generation whose social position and chances for advancement nuv have been ^dependent of their beliefs mav have been more resistant to the new influences 1 ven if supported bv the local rulers, the initial missionaries came up against
a number of difficulties in their task. The first was of course the linguistic problems encountered in preaching to a people ul a totally different language group. Some missionaries had the required linguistic abilities, others had to rely „n translators In addition to this was the completely different conceptual apparatus ot I hristiamtv. w Inch was incompatible with that of the pagan beliefs and made accurate communication of the new creed more difficult.
Rural societies were understandably wary of strangers who arrived and started denigrating the gods which they and their ancestors had revered tor generations and the worship ot which was at the same time at the centre ol their ,,ssn self-identity. Although pagan pantheons were recognized to be less exclusive than the C hnstian one, tear ot the revenge of the old gods, angered by the appearance of ( hristian missionaries, was a fairly general phenomenon.' Missionaries often made an especial point of provocatively belittling the pagan gods, depicting their images as the completely useless products ot human hands w Inch were not in any position cither to harm or help. (This is the context of the considerable zeal with which these missionaries carried out the destruction or clelihng of the idols and desecration of holy places; such actions provided an easier and quicker was to convince the pagans ot the ithcacv and the power ot the new religion together with an immediate demonstration ot the impateacy „t the old gods.) The 'mission ot action' paved the way for the teaching of the catechism. Although however the pagan images and sanctuaries themselves were regarded as the lifeless and useless products of human handicraft, pagan cult was regarded by the missionaries as the work of the Devil himselt Since there was no possibility of discussion svith the work of Satan, it had to be rooted out and suppressed, and with all available means   Ihc arrival of Christianity in many areas was to create a complete break with not only the beliefs but also the customs and traditions of the past.
An effect of the missions among the Slavs (among whom, unlike some of the population of the barbarian kingdoms of the west, knowledge of Latin or Greek was likely to be extremely meagre) was the establishment of a need to translate the gospels and liturgy into Slav languages, and for the first time in Moravia and Bulgaria (ninth century) and in Kicvan Rus (from the late tenth century) the Bible was read in a non-classical language, which caused some opposition in the mote conservative western Church. The establishment of a literary language with its own scripts (Glagolitic, Cyrillic) was an important step, potentially allowing the new beliefs to reach all members of the congregation, and not iust those versed in the classical languages. It is also one which provides us with important evidence of the early form of some dialects of the Slav languages. Where the liturgy was in Latin or Greek, most of the congregation in rural
IMF MM* il»>
districts especially could probably get verv little idea of what was bein the ritual; the introduction of'a Slav liturgv in Moravu w.,s .,„ m, porta* r>Jtd'n through, and shows thar the Bv/antinc mission had as its aim not just th ^ m.irs conversion ol an educated elite but the evangelization of the C <1,ni' seems that the Roman bishops in Moravia, in opposing the use otTP'- 'f hrurgv, were more interested in the political role of a more elitist Chr '
\ hv product of the introduction oi writing was the establishment of '""í*"* al literary language (which, where this was not Latin or Greek but th"'1***' one, would in turn lead to imposition ol certain central linguistic modi"'***' outlying areas). The use ol existing texts would lead to the accept tiraeco-Roman and Bv/antinc literary models. At first the texts wh I^ wrirren were mainly liturgical in nature, but the lives of local s eventually dynastic histories and chronicles began to be produced Th ""^
hange to 1 new approach to time, and a new notion of history ^ before this happened. Slav paganism had had no chance to establish a 1 °WevtT and hv the time interest was expressed in the distant past the old oral It^*** had been forgotten hv a society to whom they were no longer relevantní"00* most interesting and uncharacteristic was that it seems that in most applies even to the pagan -origin' legends land dynastic gcncalogicsi whi"^ ^ .nu tent communities treasured: these had later to be re-invented by sch nWl*
In addition to the introduciion of litcrac y, the Church also gave nc *^ to the development or arr, and entry into the orbit of pan-European a 'mpetUt Much or this ecclesiastical art drew its inspiration from western and B . circles  Besides this, the Church introduced new architectural yzaiK"te
s were the first mas, ° 'he South Slaw it c~
that the technology had not been forgotten    The earliest church founded exclusively in central places, towns and strongholds, which*   * W"° contained both impressive episcopal basilicas and smaller private"'3),
.xnkirchcn). These private churches founded by and for rhe use^f families or clanv were especially numerous ,n towns: about .1 hundred" /'k^ existed in Pliska, and in the eleventh and twelfth centuries there       ° m hundred private churches. The Moravian stronghold at Mikulčic ' twelve churches. "tained These churches arc the most spectacular traces ot the new ideolottv I
the snlc of buildings was based on tharot 1 tttoman realms and perha V Í"
is known as 'prc-Romanesciue' architecture." Manv of these huiW * *
rvvo forms. ITie first is the typical western European carly-rnedir • 1 .c ere°»
small rectangular stone structures with apses ur rectangular presbvt ""^
of these are ot basihcan form. Simple basdican churches were a ^ 1 the West Slavs and the western areas of the territory of th  S    he! imoa*
second type was the "rotunda . a small circular building with a di JVi-^be
churches built as .1 result of the conversion of the Slavs wi structures in many of these areas (though in the case of the South Slavs '
6-10 m and eastern apses. These 1
1 for example the church of St Don
■ i.,      1    . •
ihe form was spread to Moravia and further afield. The rotundo ., particularly popular form of church in central Europe from cleventn (or rwci >,      g ount in many ot the mam ccn
[especially), nut also 1 oianci and Hungary. It is among the S01 halkans and the East Slavs that wc see the construcnon o structures with multiple domes on the Byzantine model. The dis ■ pc ot church (ceritoi  is ...incident with that of the eastern Cht t„r this kind of church was Hagia Sophia and the Church of Iv.uchus in Constantinople built in the 530s, but developed centuries to give the typical form of the Easrern Orthodox churc Once the missionary phase was over, the organization of the was established, and the bishops were to play key political r. ■,  \s part of the establishment of the Church, it was gran large number of estates from which it drew revenue. The mane not a new diocese was established for the newly converted tern importance: the establishment of a diocese within the territory r converted leader (usually based in his chief strongholdl was an his independence. Ir is significant that by no means did all the newly converted territories have their own Church organization from the b run trom external archbishoprics, this being the case pa West Slavs converted in the Ottoman period. The Polabians. the Obodrites and
,    „.._c,.rrl Wl.Ti i--imr under Himkiim D„-„  ...c.i   .u   C    L I _i
the nortnem vcicu came unucr namnurg-oremen. while the Sorbs and central
tor the purpose of governing the Church of the Slavs (giving it equal rank with Cologne Salzburg, Mainz and Tncr and chosen for his bim.il nti. -v -ri~ c__
were active in Moravia and Hungary. \.„, umu important .
of the Slavs and estab-
1 Brindenhi      11 II org was the mam centre tor
ment of supplementary diocr
rut MRiV ItAVI
in Poland (Gmczno, Wroclaw, Kolobrzeg and Cracow) m the year , the Kicvan state in the eleventh and twelfth centuries i|\ r,-la'slavl °p Smolensk. Novgorod, Belgorod and Bryansk, the extensive northeaster "''""J* nes receiving dioceses only much later) The boundaries ol the early d/" ""^S often known from written sources 1 such as that lor Pragm discussed '0^?e,,i8 ii) and are ustiallv thought to correspond 10 the boundaries.»| politiva| **** ol the siate .11 the tune ol defining these frontiers.
From pagan leaders to Christian princes
W, ,„ ■• ■■■ :■■ p..son and aliunde ..I the ruler was a key feature in the success ol the <. hnsti.in missions It was these lew individuals who took decisions which were to allect luiid.iincnt.ill> the socio-political and cultunt| development ol whoh societies, not |ust „1 their own times but down through the centuries Some of the reasons win these decisions may have been made have already been touched on above. <.<j|^H
We have seen a number of high motives for these anions- the need to rcac, to .sternal pressure, a need for a unifying ideology. I01 a 111 » polity. We should not forget however more personal motivations   In some cases we hear of the marriage between a .usually powerful) pagan ruler and a Christian princess trom a neighbouring state Isi.cli is Mies/ko I ol Poland and the t z.ech Princess Dobr.tv.il. I'siialb the I hrisiian party imposed, as a condition lor allowing such a marriage to like place, it not the prior come, sum of the ruler (as in the Polish easel .11 least the assurance <>| the freedom of worship of the Wife in the husband's court I for whom it was necessary to organize a centre of the Christian cull in the residence of the ruler asa ( hnsti.in enclave in the very heart of a pagan country 1.1 In such cases the conversion of the husband under the influence of a pious wife and those around her was expected (and sometimes
these hopes were rewarded, sometimes not).
In many other cases though, rulers succumbed to external r Throughout the ninth century there were many attempts by the Caroli ^ convert their pagan eastern neighbours The Ininkish Artltals K^tt^^l episodes when Slav leaders came to I rankish towns to receive baotiim "
...C.._ 1 .1__r-_______________n___,
...........--«-■•« o.iposni.as in 845
when l.ouis the Ccrnian was attending lo his eastern frontiers, and forced fourteen Bohemian princes 10 undergo baptism at Regensburg in 845 and thus become his allies I he Obodriri s who w ere allies of Charlemagne also accepted Christianity m the early ninth century, as a result of centralizing tendencies. Another Slav leader converted to Christianity was Pribina, who was a prince of Nitra driven out of Ins homeland 111 H ; 1 by Mojmir, prince of the Moravians; he tied 10 the East Prankish kingdom, where he was baptized. In 840 he was settled with land in Pannoniain the east and with the approval ol the German ruler was
1 m a
bur
,1,1, to increase his power and develop the Church in his kingdom
remained subservient to the Sal/burg dioccsci.
I he Moravian Prince Mojmir was baptlw rj h came under the influence of the German Ch
Passau. In 8?i, at a synod at Mam/. Moravian < hnstianitv is described as prim-mvf with many pagan elements. In 846 Prince Rostislav became ruler ol the Moravians, achieved independence ol the German Empire and expelled the derman missionaries. Louis the German was angered by this behaviour and uteiiipted an invasion in 8^ t, but this failed. Rostislav realized that his internal and external power in the state depended 011 an independent Church organization closely linked with the state and upholding us political and cultural interests Pope Nicholas I (858-67] however refused to send .1 bishop who would oppose German interests in the region. In Hfii Rostislav therefore sent an cmiv slrv to Byzantium, and on the advice of the Patriarch Phorius the Tmpcror Michael ill entrusted a philosopher-monk called Constantmc and his brother Abbot Methodius who had |u*1 returned from a br„f miss,,,,, among the Khazars to establish a mission iHr,i,.' Constantinc, a Slav-speaking native of iTicssalonia, prepared himself by inventing the Glagolitic alphabet based o„ Creek uncial letters for writing selected parts of the Scriptures in the Slavic dialect ot Thi ssalonica, and introduced the Slav rite into Moravia (though it is possible that it had been created with a mission to the Bulgars in mindl."1 This was a new departure, for the Church had until then held that the onlv proper languages of the liturgy were the three written above the Cross (Hebrew, Creek and Latin). The introduction ot a Slav liturgy further threatened German attempts at cultural imperialism as a means of domination; the Germans again attacked Moravia 111 864, and Rostislav had to allow German missionaries into his state. This led to tension between the German clergy and those using the Slav rue. The brothers sought support in Rome, where Constantinc died in 869 (after entering a monastery under the name of Cyril)." In the meantime in Pannoma to the south, Pribina's son Kocelj accepted the Slav rite under the influence of Constantinc and Methodius. He had the new Pope (rc-)crect the Sirmium bishopric for Methodius, but the bishop was soon abducted and imprisoned in Bavaria. In 873 the Moravian bishopric was recreated by Pope John vm («71-81) and Methodius was appointed archbishop (with a sec at Stare Mcsto), though he was often in conflict with the ruler Svtatopluk. Alter the death of Methodius (885) however the Slav rite was forbidden in Moravia by Pope Stephen VI (885-91) and at the instigation of the German bishops Sviatopluk expelled the monks trained in the Slav rite, who sought safety in Slovenia and Bulgaria where they continued their activity.
The conversion of Bohemia was a complex process. The forced conversion ot the fourteen Czech princes at Rcgcnsburg had had no lasting effect. In 88 1-4 the Czech rrince norivoi 1 was naptizcu, app.
lan
»19
archbishop and not the Gei.ii.u. one; rh.s was pan ..) ih, Prince', p„|ltl„ f ;,,„„„ .......I.T....I..M < /ed. stale............so. Spuvgnicv rejected it, the
worjs„, , <   m. ... sou., e tlu' c11. si ol ulol.im ' .nul was h.,P../ed mto the, ^
, „„rcl, IP......iNs before »r in Sw si' hie ol his mu c essors, Weiu, slas | Vaclav I
,.,  „, was remembered in l.uci legend ,s especially pions (ihough th.i rrf
hm been m pan pro.npird as .. reaction in Ins I. nru uhil murder)." It w.„ (,c Seho I, ,d churches hiull in all thr strongholds scattered throughout the l.,nd,0f ||u |.,l|llls|,ds \l tin- mu. bohcuiu was p.ul ol the Keg, usburg dioceses ife h.shop was rep.esented by the archprcshv tcr of Prague I In diocese of pttm was founded only in SJ73- ^fcnfl 11„ conversion ol the Western Slavs to Christianity was not „i course aeon-
..n.ious siicc........v  \'" ' ,lu"        1 '"'I m its pr.igres, which
s,........ b, related to the lack ol internal cohesion and prest.ge of ,he poi>>
, ......,,,.,.11. pen........•..lahi.i.ih. '......... lutuicni ''nsn.inityandpaganlim.
had been driven, istw irds, cspccioll) uml. i Hum I. but in oK \ there wa»a tnajy so, uprising against German rule in the I lb. area during a period of weakness „, ,|„. i M toman state. Oncol the ways in which this mnnlf«#-i •
............n " t'ciioa ot1
of the Ottoman si.it.  I hi. ol the was s in which this manifested itself wa».|n.,,
|,a,,.„,...........he , hurcl.es ecu. destroyed and ll.e . letgy chased out nftheb*?
,„„',»   ||„ I'olil.i.n paft i" "' "S; l,ul    U|J" '"'^ ls " cut off other
parts ol west Slavdom Iron, direct Christian influence. jl
|„ ......        M.es/k.. piiiu. ol ll.e l*"lan.   is I... w.ir hegmning their cxponiioB
which was lo I. ad f" the lorniation ol the state ol Poland), was bapt,/cd in order ,„,„.,„ s a I l.i.sli.i.i.ih. I /..h Princess Dohráva  I In , one, rsi,,„ was thus clue
nu.i, to direct influence I......southern n. mjiboius, the Bohemians, from whom
thev accepted the I aim rite. I he lust bishops at l'o/.n..i. were subject to Magdeburg, but il" creation ol the irdidioccsc in (,,,,, /no (iooo) asserted the increasing role ol Poland Poland was ilsell tin n tin mov mg force in theconvtf S„)M „f tin Poiliu mi ins logelhel with ihen pol.lic.ll domination (tenth and eleventh cenlunesi in.l iltin.pis to convert the Hihic Prussians (iymbolllcd .lullingother things by the ill-laied mission ol \d.ilbcri/\Vojcicch in 997).
,),„ ol the main Ir.inkish successes was ihe conversion III 97i by (,crman missionaries sent In Ottolol Prim. • ,. ..or the Icr.n ions Yl.1gy.11 s. whose raids had been a scourge ol central I mope 1 < .e/.i's conversion was however not .u, entire success, lo, he still continued to s.ictilice 10 the pagan idols (and Cowir ten d 1 e pi 1111 ..ids lonn the v hiisti.in priests: "why not, I .1111 rich enough to do it . ') I lting.trv's coin ersum compl. ted .1 chain of Christian states to the easi ol the ľrnnkish tc.ilnis.
I,, ,|„i, il„ „ , 1 tons, paganism survived in .1 large zone between the gain* of the l.ist and Vies. ( lunches Ihe pagan religion survived in independent Slav •a.„, v m Polahia (until the baptism ol (.otschnlk »1 the Obodrltea In 104 s, and m ilia of w'arcisl.iw, prince ol western Ponier.inta), but only hn.illv cxtui-guished In the capture ol the pagan temple 41 Arkon.i on Rugia by the Danes 11.
r.H " The ea si. in extent o I the mil, . >| 11,, 1', >|,<,h bishons in I th#- wnMrttn , vle„t ol Kievan I hriStianit) are noi clear, hui there yy ..old seen, 10 have been ., luigc territory only weakly influenced bv ether through the l.ittei halt ol the
tenth century and being Incorporated Into flrsi one .,,ul then the other nan onto
,„ ,|U , .,.lv dc< ides ol ihe eleventh c,■i„,,r. In l'o|,,nd a hieakdown ill central
i/eil povver m the 101 n also led to a ihon lived pagan revival Christianity, waa s|,,w to take root in Russia Ihe sauu applies to I'oiiuraiua. the Prussians were
olnverted only lute. In the medieval period with the activities ol the reutonh Knights (aftci ills), and I ithuania only m the i is
Ihe IH/antinc I hurch was also active m the missionary held. It took adv.,,, tagc, as we havi seen, ol iln situation m Moravia In the Ht.os, instilling the By/anttn. rite in Sla\ form, It w.,s no h-ss luccesaful mare, home, In Bulgaria.
Khan Hons (851-84) was promised missionaries bv I ouis the t.erm.m which would h.iv. brought him under the -.w.n ot the Roman ( hutch, but the prospect ,,t ., powerful state allied to R..me |ust by the IH/antmc troimcrs was not ,1 wilc.mi one tor the emperor Michael ill the Drunkard («41/1-^-1. who promptly declared war on Bulgaria ihe chronicles record 863 at one ol din worst droughts in living memory and the land had been visited bv lorn daysol earthquakes, feeling unable to conduct war with bv /annum, Hon , sent envms 10 the hv/1,nines promising lo Observe die eastern in. Hons was baptized (taking the Christian .1 line Michael I I he enforced conversion ol pagan lUbfCCfj v,.is begun, n numb. 1 ol nobles who would not submit wen killed, and Hons's own sou was one ol the casualties People objected not so mud, to ihe u I,gum as 10 the tact that it was brought In foreign p.., sts and was the instrument o| an external foreign policy. Hons was laced with an uprising ot so,,,, ol the nobles ... the peripheral areas, anxioul to preserve the status quo
In H.S6 sve find Pope Nicholas i writing to Hons with the responses to tot, questions which he and his advisers had sem him lo check against what thc |ly/.inline clergy had said. I his document is ., most interesting source ot inlor ,110,1 not only on Uulgar concerns and thus lite at the court, but also on the attitudes of tlu ninth century C hurch." The Bulgarians asked about religious matters (baptism, prayer, l.istingi and daily hie 1 fai .sample whether ses uj permitted on Sundays, how many times ., week one mav bathe) as well as local cusionu (whether it is permuted to wear trouscts. and whether the 11.uht10n.il battle standard of .1 ponv's tail w as to he usedl. An analysis ol this text otters a means to assess the proces* of conversion and the preservation or absorption of
ed the llu
an < hurch to the Roman line military power!. Tins seemed Independence ot the ecclesiastical r control by the state. The western nosus) gradually drove off the
flit IMIUY SLAVS
Creek priests and attempted to take over the organization of the C"h ».is the incision of the issuing of an encyclical In Phiuius rhe n Constantinople denouncing the presence of rhe I ami missi.,,,,,,., atr'arch of ■ . /.i   ...j..............u..r-____i ..... ,       . in Bull.....
tin more ..................... - ...................sc ,.,,u ior all determined
future political and cultural destiny of the state. A massive basilica and other churches were added to the area around the palace at I'liska  Hi C l.ini:ii.ir.e became once again used for puhlk worship and secular h "'"^ u/ikl. would hast endangered the local culture, had 11 „,„ |1t.,M ((|r ti<lntM' decisive move, which came two decades later (88j/<S) when the Bo/ Church ottered sanctuary lor the followers of Cyril and Methodius ^V"" from Moravia. Hie introduction ol the use of the Slav language and s ■ works created for the Moravian church I to replace th< (.reek of the By-rit, lure vv is important in deciding the cultural orientations of the 1*»^?"""° ,1,111,.11 1.\. 1 the nest centuries and was of no little importance for the dcvT*" memo! Slav literature and culture I he miction of the current trilingual d (according to which t hristiamt) could he preached only m Greek Lati ^ Hebrew') was a daring break with By/antium. as was a decade later the b " ^ ol the use of Creek in the religious service In N«>5 at an ecumenic i| c, ' I'reslav 11 w is decided to adopt 1 script valid for state and Church based spoken veriiaciil.il ol the inaioritv ol the state s population, the langua ^ Bulgarian Slavs (Old Bulgarian: In the period ol the floruit of Bulgar°°i under Tsars S. meini arid I'eter, a Bulgarian llargi Iv ecclesiastical) literatu created and an ac.ldeinv founded by the disciple of Methodius Clem Ochnd I subsequently metropolitan of Bulgaria 1. which made Greek th ^l' ivailablc to the young SHv ( hurch. The clergy was initially mostly of C" IIW/.inline) origin.
By/anriuin sent .1 bishop and clergy to the far north to the Rus k returned there after a raid out onstantmople in 860. This mission seem h come to nothing 1   I lie Bv/autinc missionary activity m Russia had *VC false start in the .1,0s when Olga was baptized 111 ( onstantmople bu""| ' accepted a mission from the western empire I ler son and successor Svi |°" was however a confirmed pagan It w is some thirty years later, in (aim ' | f*' that her grandson Vladimir rhe Great of Russia became a Christian afte fc Kiev fr..111 Ins hrorhei At first Vladimir unsuccessful!) tried to raise Peru * of his pagan gods, to the role of the highest god (the "uniting-god') of taW T of the Rus. When this tailed, thegreat prince began ((.look around forotbi I gions, and accepted Christianity from among rhe leading world nd time (Judaism, Islam and the two branches of ( hristtanitv) " He f a ( hristtaniry most acceptable to his purpose and thus chose the Bvzani......... /"
his people Again .1 woman seems to have played a key role in this process. Vladimir had helped Basil 11 ol By/antium to quell a revolt and in c. 9S- married Anna, the emperor's sister The PVT. records that he threw down the pagan idols |u. himself had not so long before erected and proclaimed in Kiev that the people should assemble by the river on an appointed day lor baptism. He added. ■\\ hoever does not turn up at the nvcr tomorrow, be he rich, poor lowly or slave, he shall be my enemy!'1" The new religion was imposed by force
Christianity and the people
1 he C hurch aimed to make its influence universal, not only throughout society land thus affecting all individuals of every status) but also as the institution which was present at and even controlled all stages of the development of the each individual (birth, choosing a mate, death and a whole host of other rites marking the passage of time). The Church was by these means to make itselt indispensable to the social order of medieval European society.
Vie have seen however that, in the early decades of the conversion. Christianity was mainly restricted W the social elites, and we should be aware that the decisions and preferences of the socio-political elite were nor automatically transmitted to the bulk of the population The degree of acceptance of Christianity by all the Subjects 61 a state was dependent on a number ol factors, not least the methods used to transmit the outward torms and inner content of the new ideology throughout society. We arc not very well informed about the reaction to missionary activity in rural districts, away from the centres of elite power. It would seem however that the new ideology made slow headway in these agricultural communities in conditions ol relative mutual isolation and characterized by their conservativism, with the rhythm of their lives so closely intertwined (especially in the sphere of belief) with the natural rhythm of nature. In the framework of the existing concepts of such communities the acceptance of t hristianity would have automatically implied a break of the all important links with the customs and ways of the ancestors which were at the very basis of the group identity. In central and eastern Europe the archaeological evidence (especially from cemeteries) and ethnographic evidence show that pagan customs long survived the formal baptism of the leaders: for several decades after the formal conversion, only a relatively small number of members of society had accepted the new religion, while many still clung to pagan practices and
pagan beliefs had nor lost their hold on the populace is further y the mass apostasy which is relatively frequently mentioned with : written sources, This resulted when certain situations provoked a oyalty and orientation. Among these wetc natural disasters and
sym
ho
boh
TMi LUIT «LAV1
military failures arreting the people and the ruler who had decided to new belief and raising questions about the wisdom of rciccrmg the old god*, who. rt could be argued, were now seen to be taking their revenee. These saua-tions created ideal conditions for the activation of forces aiming to restore the old and snll tamihar pagan order of things. ''L^L^H
Even when the process of the gradual increase of Christian influence sum more advanced, it seems that some pagan customs were absorbed by the Churches of central and eastern Europe. From the point of the pagan rehpoas. rhis sTTK-nrtism was acceptable because these belief systems often had no pretension to exclusiseness with reference to other religious systems, and had the to absorb other gods into the pantheon in a manner incomprehension, to the Christian clergy. In the process of conversion, there must have been rnany carnations of conflict which could not be resolved according to the Irishes of one the sides, and situations requiring radical and unconventional resolutions, especialb from the point ot hnstian orthodoxy As a result mam
people were christened, married and buried according to ntes which incur', poratcd greater or lesser degrees of pagan folk customs alongside Chnsuaa ntes. The c hurch in East Slav regions retained an especially large number of pagan customs and syncretic behets. and in Russia the characteristic fusion of Christian and pagan features was known as dwvic: ttrre i double belief) "The Jcc:. ■digciK    of the Church prelates in allowing such practices
reflects the fluidity of the Church itself in the period of these conversions*
This syncretism affects folk customs more than actual religious beliefs. The initial activities of the Christian missionaries were aimed at destroying the cans of die maior gods, and this seems to have taken place in many cases relativcJv rapidb. perhaps suggesting that belief in these gods las opposed to demons) was in fact rclativ ( rooted among the common folk. The place of these
major gods was taken by cither the Christian God or »nnts lElias. Nicholas, Blasiusi. As we haic seen in the previous chapter, ancient pagan festivals, gods and heroes were accepted into the Christian pantheon. Despite this, belief in the demons and in the cfncaciri ot various magical practices continued for mam centuries. The clergy itself did not doubt the ex.-srcr.ee ot the demons, but tried to forbid their cults. We have many examples ot sermons preserved in which ■■.gir-jl and pagan eulbe practices are condemned: these are a maior source of uiformabon. The dergy accepted however some pagan practices into the Christian liturgy, such as the sancnficaoon of water, fire, food and seed con.
and
pn.p,
of Chnstiaru:
In other cases the i around the early chu still in use todas. Q cemeteries exclusive! rule in mem areas by
contrast to .
perhaps by families!. Burials were madi -,s i:h planks or stones. The body was bud i west, and generally clothed. In some case grave goods seldom occurred) in the first i were accompanied by objects such as p> weapons placed in the graves. Tins custom least the rwclfrb century in northeastern -.ot ciear why this should appear in the provision of grave goods in inhumation
i hurch was even more tolerant of tor pos
w,ih head
The
yard
arm Jean
deeply room
T1IF BAKIV SLAVS
in the process, which seems to be .1 stirviv.il of pagan customs accepted I eafl) ( Lurch ' Yth*
The cistern ( liurch was equally tolerant towards (or powerless again pagan rites sndi as dances and festivals,  flic Roman ( .uholu. (|,   ' "fncr
slightly moo success in fighting these practices (though the process .
process was n 1
completed onb in the nineteenth editors by progressive industrialiaarjo
dispossession of the peasantry caused the breakdown of village com " which effectively ended many o f these local customs). "'"mnllles
"'on, and
In some cases the early laws of rulers forbade these practices. The dec
the Bohemian Prince Bferyslav 1 issued berween 1035 and
reus of
>°55 (and preserved
n the relation of Cosmas) are an example of the oldest Slav |aWs, ,n this ^ based on Canon Law. There arc eight articles, forbidding polygamy, introducing , s,le for those breaking their marriage vows or leading an immoral lifer (orincit-,ng ihonion). introducing punishments tor murder, forbidding trading and working on hols class and (nulls forbidding the burial of the dead outside of 1otficiail cemeteries. Boleslaw 1 ol Poland also enforced C hristiantty using rather drastic n,e.sur.s; to, exainple the (.ermaiiBisluipThictm.irlviii.i) reports that, in his state, the punishment for adultery was to put the woman to death, but to take the man. nail his gt mills to .1 wooden beam ol .1 bridge and leave him there with onls .1 sharp kuile to tree hnnsell with Pot breaking the Lenten fast, a transgressor had his teeth knocked out. The fact that it was necessary to introduce such measures indicates that, despite officii sanction, Christianity was making little headway against established social mores such as those concerning polygamy and burial rites. iHL^Ll
v dillerent form ol nonconformance to the mores ol the < hurch is expressed in the adoption of heretical belief systems. One of the most influential to appear in the period and .10,1 discussed here was Bogomilism, which was based on a Manichaean philosophy li arose - perhaps as a result of social conflict - in the period of the decline of the Bulgarian stale bv the middle of the tenth century, and was relatively widely accepted, especially by the peasantry. This system proposed (among other things! 1 world view in which that which was material and visible was the creation oi evil, while that which was spiritual was created by Cod. These rwo were seen as 111 active opposition, 111 which Good would triumph   I he main problem was that the Bogomils regarded the organized Church and the slate as creations of rhc negative forces.2*
116
State-formation: the South and East Slavs
The ninth and tenth centuries saw the beginnings of the final stages of the process of the formation of the early states which created the basts tor the nations which still appear on the map of modem central Europe. Although there have been many events in the intervening thousand years which have dramati tally altered this picture (some of which are summarized in 1 hapter tj), the ethnic units established in the tenth century proved surprisingly enduring. In this respect, this period is tor much of the area 1 formative period of modern Europe, and this seems a fitting place to close the account of the development of early societies of central and cistern Europe. It will be nor iced that with the rise of states (and the appearance of writing which accompanied this event) we are able to give a much more detailed account of the societies we arc writing about than was the case when we often had little more to build on than the ceramic evidence. Our discussion moves from a concentration on the material culture to a discussion of political events: we have more information on concrete personalities (usually belonging only to the elite! and information about ideological change and other features poorly visible through the material remains with which the archaeologist deals.
The Buigar khanate and its neighbours
Ihc formation of the Bulgarian state is a relatively straightforward case of the indirect influence of a primary state (Byzantium) on a newly arisen social organization and subsequent direct acceptation of foreign cultural models in an ambitious social and political policy of the elite. By a process of assimilation of existing populations and social Institutions the Bulgars gave rise in the seventh century to a new society (we discussed this process in Chapter 4).1 The Byzantine influences on the organization and material culture of the Buigar state become very clear to rhc ninth and tenth centuries. We saw that Symcon, educated in Constantinople, even apparently had grandiose ambitions to take the imperial throne 111 Constantinople. Although he did not achieve this, after his defeat of the Byzantine forces at Anchialos in 917 he did style himself 'emperor and autocrat of all the Bulgarians and Greeks'. The new capital at Preslav abounded 111 palaces and churches, filled with paintings, marble, gold
I1U| silver lh« kli.iri .».i his tlirone. robed in pearl■cinbrnidered purple. vv„ surrounded In .1 dazzling «"» "' |,,n',rs ,lu' 1 x"J' *""«■" '" •< «rangcr
returning from Prcslav were asked wli.lt he h.ul seen there lie could only reply ihil lu knew not how to describe it .ill. .mil only seeing it vv itli one's own eyes could goc .m idea of such splendour' An .u.idcim was created in which trans, htions were m.idc ot Greek classics into the Bulgarian language |, is notab,e, however thai tin mam works copied wer. ecclesiastical histories, rhetoric and legal works. This was a literature ol translations and not the setting |„r the creation ot a Bulgarian national literature, still less history. ' Svnieon's eldest son Peter began Ins reign l<;i--..7) with a ma.or invasion ol the Bv/antine ..dmmistralive district ol Macedonia, probably ,,s ,, „now of striiii:th to gam support lor his rule. I he raid was so,,,, oyer and the Bulg.lr troops were ,11 retreat. This was followed In the conclusion ot peace with IH/.i.it.uin land Peter married Maria I ccipena. granddaughter ot the Emperor Koiiiamis 1 I ec.ipeiiusl Inu.|,iln Bv/.mtin, empiroi tecogni/.cd the right of IV,, , to use the title I mperor' and granti d tin Bulgarian church the status of 3 patriarchate it lenient of Ochrid was appointed metropolitan),
In tht oldei literatim. Peter's comparatively long reign is usually represented ,,s a period marked by the dramatic decline ot Bulgaria, when it lost power, uputedlv becoming a harmless Bv/.inline protectorate- „1 the throes of economic exhaustion caused bv the ambitions ot Svmeon. Certainly there are signs ol decline. At the beginning ol his reign hull, Peter lost the territory of the Serbs. I In Bulgars lost the chance ol creating a South Slav empire and turned their attention once more towards Byzantium. Invasions of the northern territories bv Magyars led niotherterntori.il losses, such is I ransv Ivania. Again the n.inuhi lonne.l the northerii troiitier ol the stale, and I'echeneg raids troubled this ana too  I here were also internal problems 111 the Bulgar state. Bulgarian historians have noted the 1ppe.1r.1nce ol deepening social nits (caused, some havi suggested, by the fact that Bulgar culture had been undermined by the Creek influences altecting the elite), and also increasing unrest among the boyars I some ol whom supported the alliance with Byzantium, while others were against if I'wo plots wen organized In Peter's own In others. Internal dis-suit was encouraged by the pressure of deepening class divisions and hardships to, the peasants  I Ins is used to explain why so many embraced the BogOmil heresy, since Bogomilisni repudiated the stale and the Church I believing them to be a creation of Satan). It is now recognized that some of these factors may have been overemphasized In scholars 111 the past to explain the demise of Bulgaria, which bad seemed so powerful only decides before.
Although a comparison of Svnieon's and Peter's reigns from the point of view of military achievement (especially from the viewpoint of Byzantine narrative sources) may be unfavourable to the latter, if we examine the material evidence the picture is entirely ditlerent, suggesting .1 period of political con
nil
sohdation and economic expansion. Intellectual and cultural llfe-se
b,cn a continuation ot tin trends set in the golden age of Svmeon Th
sihlc in a period when the statv enioyed good relations With ( o |.
(vvbich clearly still considered the Bulgarians a potential Dobtj  I    1 1
threat).
I hesc crises coincided with a period when Byzantium was gaming strength Bv the end of Peter's reign, Bulgarian-Byronta'tit relations were on the verge of collapse, and the Tsars two sons, Hons ,„d Roman, were taken hostages 1.1 Constantinople I he Emperor Niccphorus Phocas incited Sviatoslav ol Kiev W
.mack Bulgaria. The Bulgarian army suffered .1 defeat In „6-, eighty lortresses till and Dobrudia cauu under the rule of the Rui Sviatoslav in lilian ■ • th By/annum had extended his rule over the western steppes and down rah • Bla k Sea cast to the Danube mouth He took the important centre at Preslavteta on the lower Danube (an important trading centre the location „| which has not yel been conclusively Identified - but perhaps PrillaVl (Nul irttl) on a branch ol the ll.uiube or possibly K.ldakioi near I'utrak.in to km southeast ot Buch irest) It was here thai, according .0 the PVLi goods gather Iron, all parts: gold.clothes wine, fruits from the Creeks |By/ant,nes|, s.iver and hotSei from the ( /echs and Hungarians, furs, wax, honey Ironi the Slavs and slaves I,on, tin Ids' Sviatoslav apparently intended to create a join! R.ussian-Bulg.11 slate centred on Preslav.ets and allied with the Magyars and Bulgars [Unfbttun itclv lor h,n, he l.„led to subdue the Pcihcncgs On the steppes between tin Serel ind Dnicstr rivers, who split his new coiu|uests from the ere ot ihe Russian state 1 Alter Peter's d< ath In 9«7, hia son Boris 11 ruled as Bulgar khan tor a short while hut under the Bv/inline |ohn 1 Tz.m.sccs (who replaced Nicephorus in 9*9] the Bulgarian state continued to sutler milnarv setbacks. |„ .,-1 |,,hn dethroned Boris and made him captive in Constantinople and made a treats with Sviatoslav. The Byzantines took over most of the southwest territories ot the Bulgar state, and as a result of this Byzantine expansh was destroyed (s»7i| ' the same year howe
the Bovar Nikol.ios (<i.Soi of the multi-et was a brief revival of Bulgar fortune! from Byzantine hands large tcrritori
leaving only remnants in the N if Sviatoslav was killed by the 1
st Bulgar Khanate an mountains. (In » and the Danube
11.1111CU muependent ot Byzantium under the sons of
is able to regain Serbia and take back ■ success was temporary: the Bulgars ...ines under Basil it the Bulgar-slayer iwho at the end of a cruel war resorted to blinding fifteen thousand Bulgarian nnsoncrs leaving only one in each hundred men with one eye to lead the others
tcing this sight   Four years later the
ied of a heart attack
net   ind Iimum
rut rA»LV »Mvs
were subject to Byzantine rule. I'he Bulgarians vanish from the political map until the thirteenth century. -21 Thcearlv ninth century saw rhe consolidation of the Serbs, who sccmarchae-olog.cillv represented In  I number of ninth- to elevcnth-cc.mirv cemeteries itecin near Vucitrn. Matic.ine. Badovac and Grac.imca near Pristina). The serin had been incorporated into the Bulgar empire at the turn of the ninth and ,enth centuries under Ssmeon, but alter his death the Serbian leader {Zupan) ( estas united the Serbian tribes against his successor Peter, and managed to tchievc a short-lived independence l c 151- But the collapse of Bulgar power and the victory of Basil II brought their territory under Byzantine rule. This brought the Serbs under the influence of Bv/.antine culture and the eastern Church (reflected among other things in their use of the C ynllic alphabet). The state achieved autonomy only in the twelfth century under the SVmayich dynasty.. 1 | he coastal territory known as /eta (roughly today s Montenegro) was the central area of the state of Dukliame, which formed at the turn of the tenth and eleventh centuries and also included much of south Bosnia and Hcrccgovina, This had developed Irom the iimfic inon of the tribal territories of the Dukliane tnhe which settled around the abandoned Roman town ot Dioclea) and the Travumanic to the west. The area was conquered by Ccstav and brought into the Serb kingdom; it regained independence in the second half of the tenth century, but came under Bv/antine rule. It passed under Bulgar rule again in the period of the Western Bulgar Empire, hut passed to Byzantium in 1018 (gaining inde, pendence under Stefan Dohroslav i 10; i-S I) when an expansion further to the west into the territory ot the /.lchlumiame followed in the eleventh century),
Croatia further to the west became absorbed into the western. Latin cultural circle and Church. In the eighth century it had been organized in seven provinces. The area bordered with the Ostmark and was threatened by Charlemagne, but managed to remain independent. In 876-9 several of these provinces united to form I roatia on the Adriatic coast with an adjacent province of Slavoma inland iPannonia). About 910-14 Tomislav became the ruler of Croatia and united it with Slavoma. I le was crowned by a papal legate is the first king in yi4/C The state owed its allegiance to the Roman Church from the beginning. If initially celebrated the Mass in the local language, but. after .1 period ot use ot the Glagohtie alphabet, began to use the Latin alphabet. After the death of Tomislav there v. as civil unrest and central authority was weakened and peripheral provinces 1 such as Bosnia) fell away. Native rule lasted until the area was conquered by Hungary in 1 ioz.
In the ninth and tenth centuries the Cannthians are represented by the development m Austria and Slovenia of the Kottlach Culture, named after a site in Austria and typified by its rich enamelled jewellery. The area of western Carinthia had been overrun bv the Franks in the late eighth century during Chirlem nine's renin and with P.iniionia became part of the Ostmark A rrvolr
under Duke L|udovit was put down in 818-11 and the Duke fled fro . si,ak to the Serbs. Otto 1 incorporated those lands into the D   h    fC  l> *",IX 95a. land this was later sphr into the Duchies of Carinrh    r       1      i- ^ The final decade of the ninth centurs and the beginning of rh    tirfi ' ^ saw the settlement ot the Carpathian basin he fh^ si, c   , tentur>
iched their suzerainty over the Slavs a readwrrUl... .1. >  ,, .
. „ ■ s.urcaciy settled in the area (and allied to the
Germans and Byzantines,, attacked both the Bulgars and the Moravians The consolidation ot Magyar settlement in the Carpathian basin br h cign element into the complex ethnic situation of the area In the tenth °* „, ,he area north of the Sava we see the rise of the cultural [or rath^rTtvleTgToup known tatter a site in Croana) as Bialobrdo, a mixture of sl,v-\ylr Mi t Old Croat'. Kottlach and Moravian influences. This type ot material cultuT' w ith its characteristic jewellery of plaited wire rxc„ „;--   u        , ,
1 » ,',"eu w,re< two-piece sheetwork pendants,
snake head bracelets and S shaped remnle-nnud ^vr.nrl. .c      c ■
temple rings) extends through the area occupied bv the Magyars m Hungary. Slovakia, and part of Transylvania (where elements survived into the late Middle Ages and even form a motif ,n recent lolk costume).
The encouragement of the aggressiveness of the Magv at, for short-term anus by neighbouring states was to prove dangerous. After the destruction of the Moray i.m state in 906 and the occupation of Pannonia, by the mounting, of a ccnes of destructive raids into western Europe the Magyars became a potential threat to the west itself.' At the battle on the Lech near Augsburg in 9^ the Germans defeated the main force of Magyars, and raids on Germany. Italy
Burgundy and France ceased. The Hungarian starr wnc.-rMi.-j..„j   .u ' 1' \ -     ■ o  ' " "u,t "jscrcaicu under the rule ot
the Arpad dynasty, and in 9^1 Prince Geza was converted to Christianity It w s ,n his reign that the state took on from its western neighbours some ot the trap' pings of civilized lite, with elaborate public buildings and other features His son. Stephen (1000-38), received his crown from the Pope and united the country under his sole rule - abolishing the older pagan rights of dynastic succession. It was in this period that the linking structures of the new state not only abolished existing tribal divisions among the Magyars but also effectively eliminated rhr rhm differences Kerwi-<-n rh#> VI j inaiio
a 1. l ^ lN em mc .Magyars and indigenous populations of Slavs and others, thus producing the Hungarian people (in contrast to the Bulgars
«4j subsumed by the Magyar, a feature which poken there m the Middle Ages), was that in taking Transylvania, aras, he drove a wedge between
19 iiiiiiicui.iiciy ueiectanic in the lanmiac Another important result of Stephen's re
geography of central Europe.
Another central European neonU wh, h Romance-socakinB oon I       .     k not 50 far bcen ""'*cussed is the
c   1 £ 1   .      •a,,ons 01 the Balkans, which arc the last renin mis nf
the fringes of the Latin-speaking zone. Many of the enclaves of Romance
Mi
language (Ismail and Meglano-Romanian. the Macedonian groups, rhc VTacfc communities south of the Danube were disappearing by the eighteenth centar*. Of these peoples only the Vlachs south ot the Danube (appearing tn the baton}, cal records from the tenth century I became a mator force fn the region when the Asco brothers led a revolt against the Byzantines in 11S6 which led to the ior-
__ni ,l- Mw-alled Second Bulgarian Empire (crushed bv the Or:,,man. -
the fourteenth century . The mam remnant of these Romance speaker, u..
__i _     ru- Rnminuns and Moldavians, formed from the taw
area rodav arc tne nununum *• _j
kingdom of the walacruan*. sj
ttetal
The Kievan state and its neighbours
TV ninth and tenth centuries saw the formation of the East Slav state, that of Kiev an Rus. The Kievan state vsas. in its eleventh century form, a pobocal organization proportions, covering some 9*0.000 sq km. The writ-
ten and archaeological evidence dearly suggests that this had been formed over a period of rime from the subiugatioo of a number of separate tribal groupings I which had themselves formed earlier by centralizing teridcnciesi. This central.
-obabfy achieved by military might, forcing the arracked tribe to nit to the rule ot the central leader and to render him tribute and other services (such as participation in military levies) in return for being allowed to continue to inhabit their former territory unmolested and even protected by the powerful state. Despite this, such a large state remained a confederation] of regional arenas of power and. when central power weakened, strong separatist tendencies became visible. W^^^^^^^^l
it would seem that the cultural and linguistic amalgamation or the • anons communities was encouraged by the consolidation of administrative ideological power. Centralized rale by a social elite contributed greatly ti spread of common cultural and aesthetic values as well as to the creation common Old Russian speech; these levelling influences first operated at higher ranks of the society but gradually fdtered down. A key part m process ot bringing elite values to die ordinary person may have been playe orssuuxed religion, especially the Cnnsnan v.nurcn. A srae-ernser ■
at ■
still interpolated or made up by the ch common manner or wrumg history in the e; peobkms is that, even in cases where one caould have Lam behind the record | tor exarr. the dates, where they can be cross-chedcetL, . -oeber cases we simply do not know bow dates were assigned to events.' Anotl key for Kirvan history is a whole chapter in DAI, written down m the 95! which contains information on the organixanoo of Slav trade on t
Dniepc |*NbC HLaaMaaaaaaaaaaaai
The origin of the Russian state is one of the most rhsriiiil t •nodern historiography of eastern Europe, and reveals the intetcsuia. rclatro snip between the written record and other iiwn 1. but ihn the social come modelling historical interpretations (see Chapter 15).' According to the cm
ti nal asainuit, presented r tne p\ /. 1 R»«'  ^ — • —
Rank was ca
. vesn them.
Olcg and Igor. Kiev was suppose* emerging state. Scholars have po was being spirt into minor princes innalist was attempting to creai
meant as an appea and prevent the ru
The Scandinavians and the Kievan sta:-.
The issue of the nature of the role of the Standi
earl
sad
THE IARLY SLAVS
h,-us „, Ingclheim in 839 from By/annum: Lotus found that they were in fact Swedes. A third element comprises the trcaries ..I mi .ind .)4J drawn up between the 'Kus" .i.ul By/annum which are preserved in the PVL (presumably copied in the 1090s from the Byzantine archives): these give us the names Qf many ot the main warriors who had sailed down from the land of the Rus' to llw.inn.im m those vears. and it can be seen that the majority of these names given in these documents arc Scandinavian. I he fourth element in this pattern is the archaeological evidence for the presence of Scandinavians in several parts of last Slav territory. jH
; i„ ..... Kus has aroused much emotion. Some scholars see the term as
apply nig only to Scandinavians, others to people from the 'land of the Rus' (whatever that means). Both in the Bertmian Annals and in the
treaties contained in the PVL the 'land of the Rus' 1 or Rhus) could be interpreted as the Kiev region, where the tribal territory of the Polianc incorporates in the south the valley of the Kiver Ros I s J km south ot Kiev I. Some Soviet scholars attempted m derive tin nam.  Kus' Iroin this, but this explanation is etymologically difficult to accept Recent work by Melnikova and I'etrukhm has shown fairly conclusively that lis main have suspected all along) there is httlc doubt that the term 'Rus', known to the Arabs as 'jr-Rus' and the Finns as 'Ruotsi*, was applied to Scandinavians." The term could have been ipplied by extension to a wider range of people but there is little doubt that its intended meaning was to refer to Scandinavians (and indeed people from the area of Sweden) settled in the north ot what later became the Kicvan sine. These Varangians probably formed only a relatively small minority, despite the evidence of Scandinavian settlement, there are very lew place names of Scandinavian origin in Russia.and there is very little influence ot Scandinavian languages on the language of the I asi Slavs The Se.indinav i.ins fulfilled several roles in the last Slav territories: some were clearly adventurers living in the wilderness of eastern Europe or traders plvmg along the route from the Varangians to the Greeks' (Byzantium), and at a later date some were warriors who entered the service of certain chiefs as part of their retinue. ' 'JJbbssssssssI
A relatively large number ot sites in the area of the Kiev.in slate have produced finds ot Scandinavian type, tins material comes from settlements, strongholds, trading sites and cemeteries.* Usually individual sites produce considerable quantities ot this material, suggesting thai Scandinavians settled in communities. Of course the mere presence eil an ob)cct made in Scandinavia or of a style used in Scandinavia does not mean that the last person who used it before it was deposited in the ground was .1 Scandinavian, Graves arc an important pointer ,1 number of these ob|ects arc found in graves which have other objects (ot the burial was made by a rite) of non-Scandinavian eh imports were prestige goods for several local communities
tracter. Obi
H4
ot
that they represent burials made in accordance with the cus grant people. According to A. Stalsbcrg, Scandinavian object 140 sites (413 assemblages), but in only 88 cases out of 10, burials could the > he classified as specifically Scandinavian '" Even at Ladoga out oi seven hundred excavated mounds (excepting the Plakun cemetery), only thirty can be considered purely Scandinavian.
Scandinavian settlement on the southeast shores of Lake Ladoga is evidenced „, particular by the extensive harrow cemeteries perhaps of the ninth to eleventh centuries on the plains around Tikhvin (some too km cast of St Petersburg)." This initial core area of Scandinavian settlement was concentrated in the river valleys between the Syas and Ort rivers on the trinue of the territory ot the Slovieme tribal area among the Finno-Ugrian Vesh (an area of about 170 by too km) I hese settlements and cemeteries (including the famous cemetery of Scandinavian burials, some of them in boats, at Plakun) were created by colonists who mostly probably came from middle Sweden. It is probably here, if anywhere, that we should seek the origin ot the Rurik mvth, and indeed his name is associated with an early stronghold (Ryurikovo Gorodishche) built according to dendrochronology about 889-948 on the site of an earlier (eighth-to ninth-century I trading settlement 100 km south of the emporium of Ladoga. Other early Scandinavian finds come from the Krutmk settlement on the shores ot Lake Bcloozero, and from the Sarskti fort and Timcrevo (on the Kotore.sl near later Rostov). These latter sites seem to be exchange centres on the trade routes which were to continue to function into the tenth and later centuries. No unequivocally ninth-century artefacts have been found along the Dmcpr (the creation of the emporium at Gmozdovo should be dated at the earliest to the turn of the ninth and tenth centuries).
It seems likely from the archaeological evidence that there was indeed extensive Scandinavian penetration of parts of the forest zone in the northern pan of the Kievan state, and on this basis it is probable that some credence may be given to the talc of the PVL that some form of Scandinavian control may even have been established in the northern lands (PVL s.a. 859. 861). The Scandinavians, apart perhaps from seeking Lebensraum, were intent on tapping into the flow of trade between the Baltic and the forest interior of the country, an exchange in which, as we have seen. Islamic silver played an important role. We have also seen (p. 103) that a Varangian leader began styling himself as 'khagan' of the Rus, an imitation of the title of the Khazar ruler with whose subjects they came into contact several hundred kilometres to the southeast. There seems no doubt that Scandinavians played a major role in the economic life (and later the military actions) of the Kievan rulers; whether they actually played the role in the
mntl
Tilt EARLY SLAVS
1-n.m about the middle    the tenth century wc find .111 expansion of this type,,, material into four regions of Russia The densest spr. ad is in the Ladoga rcgi0„ with outliers at Novgorod and Pskov   I he next densest scatter is a scries of cemeteries in the region of the upper Volga (111 the area where |aroslavl was later tounded in 101 si. m .1 southeastern extension ol the territory of the Slovierde ,,,„ ,|„ trontiet with the territory of the Mcn.i and Vcshj, and extending Up the tributary valley to Rostov  I his was an area previously sparsely inhabited. The third region of Scandinavian settlement l.nds is in a similar eastern expansion „1 the territory of the Krivichi 111 the Kliazma valley 111 the region of Suzdal 1 the stronghold here perhaps dates to the ninth century, but the first historical refercucecon.es from 1014). A nun,her of mound burials here on the Kliazma have tenth-century Scandinavian ornaments   A fourth region where rich cemeteries with Scandinavian artefacts and burials occur is on the upper Dnicpr „, the Cnio/dovo-Sinolcnsk region.,J We know from archaeological evidence rhat, in the huge cemetery ot harrows at (..uo/dovo which predates the founda-non ol the stronghold at Smolensk, the earliest graves ot Scandinavian tvpedate ,,, ,hc mid tenth century, and it is not improbable that these graves arc those of settlers who came here in the 94°s. There ar< also a number of finds in the and Kiev ^^^^H All of these were important centres in the Kievan state, and it seems vi
cry
•es (many of the
myl ti
116
likely that these Scandinavians were settled here with their famil graves are ol women with Scandinavian brooches which were worn as part if specific costume] as part ol the prince's retinue. It should be noted that mos° 't these finds occur in frontier areas of the Kievan state. |ust where onr    * i'i
kc WOUlcJ forces ol mercenaries. jM^m^m
The origins of the Kievan taa^L^L^LH
It seems that the core of the early medieval Russian state was the tribal union known as the I'oliane ... the centre ol rhe forest steppe zone in the Dnicpr valley and having its seat of power in the massive stronghold at Kiev." Although there is earlier settlement on the hilltops here, and despite earlier dates proposed for it, the earthen rampart seems to d ite to the eighth or ninth century. The PVL tells us ol two legendary rulers of Kiev who were killed by the founder of the dv nasty. In the chronicler's day the sites of the graves of both of these rulers were known, though in both cases churches had been built over them. Dir's grave was under the church ol St Irena near St Sophia's m the centre of the old town (Dir's name also appears in an Arab soured. Askold is known only from rhc I'll and he is said to be buried on the 'Hungarian' Hill. It is difficult to disentangle the origin ot these traditions. Iii the PVL Askold and Dir function alongside the mythical founder of the town, Kiy (typically one of three brothers), in creating .1 tivc pedigree tor the tow 11 and people ol Kiev before the events reported under
inkier with the arrack on
the year 881. Askold and Dir are linked by the t onstantinople of 860 (which the PVL misdates
The Kievan state developed in a zone of contact between various other political organizations and ethnic groups. The tribal territory ol the Polfane was , Lrossroads between different cultures The earliest contacts seem to have been with the Turkic Khazars settled on the steppe between the Don and Dnicpr By the end of the eighth century their influence stretched from the (. lucasui to the middle Volga and Don valley, where they established a multiethnic tedcration across ma|or transcontinental trade routes.'' They seem to have been .111 important obstacle in the process of ccnir.ih/ation ot power by the Kievan p,i,Kls Wc have .1 lot ot information about contacts with Byzantium from the end of the ninth century. Apart from tmds such as coins, the written sources depict the Kievan rulers as raiders (though eager to establish regular trade contacts!, further to the east on the middle Volga was a second state, that of the Volga Bulgars. which also placed a similar role to the Khazars, but emerged however as a significant entity only .11 the iirst hall ,,1 the ninth century. Wc have already seen that there were also attempts by the Kievan rulers to establish in the .jtsos some form of control over the Danube Bulgars.
It is of norc that the majoi tenth-century stronghold-towns of the central core of the later state are very close together. One of them, Vyshogtod, onlv .1 lew dozen kilometres from Kiev, was a royal centre (the PVL telis us that it was Olga's stronghold). Several others - Chernigov. Liubcch. Pereiaslavl - were also very important." Is it possible that these were the centres of the smaller individual tribes which amalgamated to form the Polianc tribal union? It is unclear when the other tribal unions which lay behind the formation of the Kievan state were formed. Various puces ot evidence seem to coalesce however to suggest the increasing centralization of power in the populations inhabiting the territory in the vicinity of the Dniepr valley by the late ninth century. The lack of evidence of these tribal unions in the Bavarian Geographer despite its mention of the Khazars might (though one cannot place too much reliance on this negative evidence) give us a terminus post quern of the middle of the ninth century for the formation of these tribal unions. The names reported as chosen bs these tribal unions is interesting: we have already noted the Scvcrianc. and the names of the I'oliane and Derevlanc translate respectively as 'people of the clearing/field' and 'people of the forest'.
The next stage in strengthening rhat position would be the extension and consolidation of that power by one of these rulers over a wider territory. The results of these conquests seem not at this stage to have been the total annihilation of the previously existing tribe, but its subordination to the victorious leader: this seems to have mainly consisted of supplying tribute for the ruler's upkeep (and that of his retinue) and also the supply of warriors for military expeditions against neighbouring polities.
117
THE (AtllY SLAVS
The PVl. is unusual in th.it it does not present the history of the Kievan state ,v ., continuum Iro.n us legendary founders hut introduces a new dvnasrv of ■rightful1 rulers descended from Rurik. \s the legend goes. Rurik was invited in by the peoples ot the north (in the same way as the people of Israel request
someone to rule over and nidge them as reported m the Book ot Samuel). Uj, (lieg, whom the chronicler makes a kinsman ol Rurik. who arrives in 881 and with the aid ot warriors from the north (apparently Varangians, Chuds,
Slovieme. Merta. Vesh, but also Krivichi) by means of stealth idisjcuising theros .elves as merchants) thev take the town and kill Askold and Dir. This taue uns traditional elements and is part of a cycle of talcs associated wtth Oleg inserted into the PVl between S-m and o 1 ; with a lot ot inserted -padding' and
containing much material of similar nature, though it is not ruled out that this oral tradition might contain a kernel of reality." One has no way of knowing how the PVl chronicler assigned these events a date; the talcs themselves contain no slues and one has the impression that the chronicler had trouble filling Cne sp.wc in this parr of the text, which accounts tor a number ot extraneous tales."
One 01 the details the chronicler otters is the motif of a tribute imposed by the kha/ars on some ot the last Slav tribes before their conquest by Oleg, which, suggests that the memory ot the kha/ar domination ot the area was still fresh in the chronicler's time. According to the PVl. the kha/ars extracted tribute from several ot the fast Slav tribes; in Sso they ire said to have taken one silver coin and .1 squirrel skin Irom each hearth from the Poliane, Severiane and Vtatichi.
The Oleg talcs in the PVL also contain the story of how the Kievan state wis formed around the core-tribe ot the I'ohane as .1 series ot annexations by military force. Beginning in Kiev ('the mother of Russian stronghold-towns'I, ad|.Kcnt territories were annexed by the Poliane under Oleg.
(this is the jssoiint ot Oleg taking control of the Poliane centre at
sS:|')lVv < ^'^ lane and. defeating them, took from tbtm
the tribute   a jj^^^^^^^^^^H
year 619.1 I884) (ileg ; igatnstthe V: .rune and defeated them, andapplitda
b\iht tribute on them, and did mit allou them to pay the Khazars tribute, saying: 'lam against them, and there is no need for you to /M£fjfl ^Jj^^^^^^^ Year 6391 l»8sl Oleg sent« tribute tot' They replied: 'To "ay me'. And they gafe Olei bazars. And Oleg ruled the Poliane unth the Vlube and Tyterey he made war.
h -   ■ ni     ia 1      L <b you pay
s r M them. Do not pay the Khazars but ■"   I from each hearth| as they bad given it, and Deretlane. andSeverianeand Radimtch, and
We are not told anythmg about the Vtatichi. This triple arrangement with ,r« repetition looks very much like an oral account: again the dawn ir, „. origin." Whatever the truth behind the Oleg ul^Z^^tiZ * "7*"'"" some time before the end ot the ninth century in the forest-stepD t, c at
Slav tribes were already organized into large tribal unions. These socio-ooliti d ,i naiurations were in addition already relatively centralized, as the account su • uests that they were conquered in a relatively short time. We have here in a nutshell the essence of the mechanisms creating an earlv state milnarv dctcatof a neighbouring group which had already become centralized and characterized bv an economy which could be exploited, the imposition of a tribute and the promise of protection against rival claimants. Olcg's conquest redirected the Kh.uar tribute We also note the implication that the Poliane tribute was lighter tor the Severiane than the kha/ar one.
That the events of this period were geared towards concentrating economic power in the hands ot a small group is . I be ,VSo Byzantine documents
„Korporated in the /' \ / narranv e concerning Oleg. These are treaties, or rather trade agreements, purportedly tor the vears «,0- and 9 iz. The status of the tirst document is disputed: the attack which teputedly preceded it looks like a table and is not reported in Byzantine sources); it would have been drawn up in the reign of Leo I the Wise. The second includes the name of Constantinc vn. We have already noted the number of Scandinavian names in the Rus who are named m these documents.10
The Uliche mentioned in the fragment of the PVl. quoted above arc noted as the Unlizi, a 'pnpulus multus', in the Bavarian Geographer. Their state of wartare with the Kievan state was maintained in the next tew decades: their main stronghold Percsechcnia tell to the boyar Svcnald about 940 only after a three-year siege. The location ot this tribe and their main stronghold has been much debated. Some would place them on the margins of the torest-steppc somewhere to the south of the Poliane on the west bank of the Dniepr and on the Boh. Thev were tributary to Rus in the 940s and 950s, but later seem to have moved to the Boh and Dniestr next to the Tyvcrcv (which is where thev arc said to be in the PVl list of the peoples of Rus). The Tyvercy were a tribe settled somewhere on the Dniestr and Prut (the icient name for the Dniestr was Tyras). Oleg seems to have defeated them in
They are said to have taken part in the 944 raid on Constantinople with the Rus. After the middle of the tenth century the Tyvercy and Uliche disappear from history. They may have been amalgamated into the Kievan state, or may have
I area of the early Russian state . dius about 350-400 km around m the forest zone This had an area of some 318.000 sq ' ~'tl politics. U was this area which
ultural influences from the south were t. To the east the Viatichi tribe were at first beyond this zone hat several rulers of the tenth century had troubles keeping
a
tht
The evidence seem (inner Russia) was in Kiev on the three side km, an area as large as most other early mc
more strong!
THB «Altl.V SLAVS
control over this tribe). To the west the Drego, ichi ..re not mentioned a, being par. ot the state m this lust stage ot its development 1 he area of steppe to fhe south was l,.r most ot the period outside the state, and maintaining the statu,
quo would have depended on alliances with the nomads there.
Olcg died, .wording to the .'17 . in •) 11: and there was great gr 'ef, and they took him and buried him on the bill, which tod iv is known as Shchckovica. His tomb van be seen there tod. v. called Oleg's tomb. And the vears of lus reign were thirty .,nd three. We are not told anything of Oleg's wife: was she Scandinavian or Slav?
The northeastern fringes
\„ importan. leatur. ot the . uls Russian state, and one which «as to last into later centuries, was the division into two main puts   lo the south wa, inner Russia, the area around Kiev, but to the north and east were the northern i. rritories ol what would later he known as outci Russia (Z.ilesskdya zemlya) hevoiid tin too sis to the north ol the river crossings of Smolensk and I'olotskby the l ik.oskv torest and to the cast beyond tin I >csna and Seym. I he population ot these areas had originally been non-Slav imainly Finno Ugri.in and Bait), hut the. had been gradually settled In Slavs from the ninth century.-1 These periph* eral territories retained their tribal divisions longer than the rest ot the state, and remained cultural backwoods in which the Russian princes bad a complacent colonial' attitude in mam senses until a. least the twelfth century. Much of the land w as not governed as such, but mainly served as a catchment area for tribute -tor which the establishment ol a rigid state ideological structure in these thinly popul.it..I Hid poorlv developed territories was not necessary. It was here that the pagan religion survived in rural districts longest. Within this area were however a number ol central places (stronghold towns, within which cultural life reilecied tli.it ot tin .ore stat. lo a greater extent than their hinterlands.
Hie nature ol Kiev.in influence in the northern lands in the late ninth century is unclear." The area to the north of the area ol the early Kicvan state was the hinterland ol the most important centre in the area. Gorodiscfiche near the shores ol I ake llmen Despite the interpolations and comments ol the PVI . it would seem tint the mam contribution ot the northern tribes from this area in the history ol the Kievan state was to take part as vassals or adventurers in the Varangian raids on ( onstantinople which from tun. ro tune passed Dniepr. It seems likely that this /.one formed a single and separate tern which was only much later loincd to the Kievan state.
This northern hinterland was also limited in si/e The territories of the Balt-sp.-aking tribes along fhe cast shore of the Baltic Sea (approximately the present areas ol the Kaliningrad Oblasi nl Russia. 1 ithuania, Latvia) and the Finno-grian tribes (the area of modern 1 stoma), despite their desirability from the
vn the ■ilunit
mo
point »f view of long-distance trade, were never pan of the northern heuemonv nor of the later Kievan state" This would seem to be because thev were too distant from the core of the territory to be held. In the northern territories, the boundary is about loo km from Novgorod, and here at the margins we find several major centres (Pskov, Ladoga). This loo-km radius contains the western half of the later Novgorod land and Pskov territory. The territory however trails ioo km into the backwoods to the cast towards the Volga trade route, where the centres at Rostov, Suzdal, Jaroslavl and Vladimir were later founded (again on the edges of the territory | lo the south were several major early centres such as Smolensk, Vitebsk. Polotsk and Briansk, some of which were founded as towns ,t a later date. They lie roughly on the (unction between the later inner and outer Russia.
The shape and position ot the territory of four of the later Slav tribal units ol the area (Fig. 66) seem to support the picture that they resulted from some form ot expansion from the south  In the centre, just outside the zone of Luka Kaikovctska Culture (but in the Kiev Culture zone) were the Radunichi on the upper Dniepr and So/ lo the west were the Drcgov.chi. looking like a result of expansion along the north side of the Pripet and its Ictt-bank tributaries To north of both these groups was a huge area occupied by several groups which in a later period were collectively known as the Krivichi I Pskov Krivichi, Smolensk Kriviehi etc.), mostly in the valley of the Western Dvina. Further to the cast in the valley of the upper Oka were the V.atichi. It is not yet clear Irom any archaeological evidence whether the fifth unit, the Slovienie around Novgorod (who the f'VL tells us 'called themselves by their own name", perhaps meaning the common name of all Slavs) were also settled here before the ninth centurv ' I he distribution of Islamic silver of the first wave (770-83 3) suggests that there was relatively extensive contact between the area of the Volvntsevo culture and the areas to the northwest, towards the Baltic Sea between the Dvina and Volkhov, and it was probably partly along these routes that the Slavs themselves were expanding. The formation of these groups is still a process which is not clearly understood. Archaeological evidence suggests that Slav settlement was scattered in the dense northern forests where the soils and agricultural conditions were unfavourable. Present evidence suggests that the settlement structure focused around strongholds (often In lowland and marshy positions). The material culture from the settlements is extremely poor, which is an even greater contrast with the finds of hoards and single finds of Islamic coinage from the area (see Chapter 8). The stronghold at Pskov, on the edge of Krivichi territory, is an especial puzzle. There is a settlement under the stronghold which contains pottery looking suspiciously like Korchak material, and the rich finds assemblage contains pottery apparently of Tushemla type as well as local forms. The stronghold itself was apparently built in the eighth 01 ninth century. It seems difficult to explain this assemblage in the light of present knowledge.11
141
.\, the tune ol the writing oltl.cn/ scvcr.il i r.uhrions were current about t origin ot these northern tribes and then , h.lt ictcr.stics before the advent of the
K.cvan state. The PI I m ikes .1 distinction hctsveen two groups of hast Slav*. ,he Poll me and Perevlane - and the other group, the Radimichi .uul ViatichL who come iron, the Lachs'. It goes on to tell the story ot tsvo brothers who with their people settle in specific areas I .iter on in the sam. passage, the chronicle, punts a not too flattering picture of the neighbours of the Pol.anc before thev were annexed In the Kiev an 1Pohanianl state, and treats the Radimichi, Vlatichi ,nd Scvcr.anc as one group of similar customs.   Although it is unwise to build „,„ much on the writing down in eleventh-century Kiev of what may or may not he older oral traditions fin addition one .in.-King a clear element of lod Juuvimsml. thev might be . distorted reflection ot real but distan, event! Whether or not the Rad.m.c. and V.at.ch. reallv were resettled Lachs (see below) ,s uncertain Sedov suggests that there .s lmgu.stic evidence and evidence from hmldmg ivpv-that the Pskov and Novgorod Slavs came from the upper V,stu|, region, though tins evidence is not particularly convincing." 3B
We have seen that, apart from Slav settlers. Scandinavians - mostly from, rral Sweden - were initially particularly active in the economic the northern forest zone.
cen-
"Ploitarion of
kievan state was consolidated under the rule of Olcg's successor I ' 141 i-4 s' The change of ruler may not have been a smooth one.1" w
.1......I..n,nnm., nl l„.,r'. r>„m >k„ 11...... I___I____ . ' «811
The consolidation of the Kievan state The
Old" (c,i i-4 sI I lie cn.wgc ot ruler may not nave been a smooth one. told that at the beginning ol Igoi s reign the Perevlane dropped out of the t* federation. Igor defeati d tin m and imposed a greater tribute..
It was apparently in Igor's reign that the so-called 'retainer culture' formed, with its eclectic (especially Scandinavian! cultural influences Thr" representee! by male burials with weapons of Scandinavian and soin ri *" nomad tvpe. main of them rich chamber burials. These graves would a core of foreigners who were settled on the fringes of regions of Slav settl [such as in the upper Volga valley! orar important nodal points on trade mCt" (such as (.nio/dovol," and these would seem r., represent members   f"iST princely retinue iJntzhnu) and their families. The power some of rh ■     ' ' ..i. ____iii   _ l   ■ t aese men
amassed is also implied by the large size of some of the mounds that thrown up over their tombs (tor example some of the big mounds at Gn a and the investment of wealth that the grave goods represent. Tb k,°
mix ot different elements and ti
turns, were being used to express social status, above and outside the form ** tribal system, and reflect the differences between the new social strata a Jl* old tribal aristocracy. This 'retainer culture' would seem to have been O.
u'd be entrusted the er. The treaties
M,me time in the vtos," and would mark the cstal men from outside existing tribal arrangements to who
carious tasks involved in the controlling ..t inch a wide ..
In this early period, the retinue was to have considerable pow with the Byzantines include mentions of a number of nobles and princes, each of whom we may presume had his own retinue of warriors < mc of these was the bnvar with a Scandinavian name Svenald whose retinue rivalled in iplcndoui that of Prince Igor himself. It was Svenald who was to lead the reprisals against the Perevlane and also attacked the Cliche in (and later fulfilled an important role m the reign ol t >lga and her son).
It seems hkelv to have been under Igor's rule that the northern tcrr.tor.es yvcre added to the area controlled from the Kievan core. Probably in yot" in a dynastic marriage, Igor married Olga, a princess from Pskov, chid stronghold ot , senn-mdependant Slav tribe to the north (the Pskov Krivichi). Pskov mis an
important (late?! ninth-cenrury centre on the Velik.i|.i river at its mouth......g
large lake on the boundary between the Slavs and Prussian tribes, and as such it controlled one ol the major trade routes into the Baltic. It was also ,„ the 940s or usos that the dendrochronologic.il dates from Novgorod show that this town was founded to replace the old Gorodishchc. It is tempting to see this as a move by Igor or his son to consolidate his power in the north it .(Histamine Porphyrogcnitus in his DAI tells us that Nogorod was the stronghold-town of Sviatoslav, son of Igor). The break with the old tradition was not however complete: we see in the PV] that there was a story that the founder of Novgorod might have claimed dirccr descent from Rurik. whom the northern Slav tribes had explicitly asked to rule them. This mav have been the context for the creation of the Rurik legend in something like the form in which it has comedown to us.
Igor unsuccessfully attacked Byzantium in 941 with a massive army, and in ■>4 1 lie received tribute from both Byzantium and the Danubian Bulgars. In 944 he again attacked the Pcchenegs and then Byzantium (with an army which the FVL asserts was of 'Varangians, Rus, Pohane. sluv icmc, Knvtchi and Tyvercv' 1 The resultant treaty (apparently preserved in Byzantine court archives) contains the names of the main warriors in Ins retinue: among them fifty are clearly Scandinavian and only three Slavic The treaty 1 somewhat less adv antageous for the Rus than Olcg's of 911) was ratified by the Byzantines m the Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinople and Igor swore an oath by the idol of Pcrun on a hill outside Kiev."
In the following year, the PVL (s.a. 745) has the story that the retinue of Prince Igor compared their dress and wealth with that of the retinue of Svenald (sec above) and they urged Igor to go to the Derevlane to collect additional tribute. In the course of this (as the talc goes) Igor was captured and killed. The death of Igor left his kingdom in the hands of his wife, the Duchess Olga, acting
mj
tiiii IA«tV SlAVi
ls regent I'Ms-'M1 !«'■ h.s voungsnn Ss.aroslav. .. circumstance leading to the
formulation ol several legends in later historiography about this ul|0Urfn| ,.ss  Ilu dramatic storv ol Olga's violent and cruel revenge against the Dercvlane for the killing of her husband looks like another piece of oral lore ,„„ nmm. tradition il motits. Mai. ilu v ictonous leader ol the Dercvlane, had ottered to marrv the widowed Olga (thus intending to replace the Varangian d,,, istv with a local one), hut Olga first had the envoy s killed, then the elite who , ln,e to .Kcompanv her to the Dercvlane capital, and then those who gathered to tike part in Igor's funeral She then engaged on a campaign against all the Dercvlane strongholds (in which Svenald played a ma|or role, culminating it, the reduction of the tribal centre at Iskoroslen and putting tin tribal nobility to the sword or enslaving them. Iskorostcn was burnt to the ground, and only then were the Dercvlane subsumed into the Kiev.in state and a new. one presumes higher, tribute was established. Although this storv probably contains element! ol tabic, ir demonstrates the cruelty with which the achievement of political
accomplished. tH^L^I |„       (or perhaps   5 s > Olga fourneved to Constantinople as guest of the 1-mpcror l oiistaniine mi Porphyrogcnitus   Ilu storv goes that I onstantinc united to marrv her, but she agreed to be baptized (taking the Christian name Helena i with ( onst.intiiu as her godfather, after which she argued she was not able to marrv bun as one could not marrv one's lather. Relationships wj,h IU/annum became rather strained, and by 959 Olga had sent an envoy to Otto i with a request tor bishops. Adalbert i monk Irom Trier, set out in 961 as ami* sionarv bishop for Russia, but the following vear he was driven back 10 Umunv 1 he later Incline bishop ol the new sec of Magdeburg, where he died
4^ltsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssi
Hie effective administration of a state with an .irea considerably greater than
any othercontemporary polity was dearly a m.qor problem. This was achieved
each
probably in the reign of Igor (and Olga) that the system of pogosty was institution.! Ii/cd. Ihe term refers m this period to a group of villages arranged a central place occupied In .1 state official who was responsible for col tribute or taxes (later this term is applied to a unit ol political and fiscaluir.u, istration, especially in the northern territories around Novgorod). The existence ol the polyudye (the tribute-gathering rounds of the Kievan prince and his entourage) is of particular importance. The concept, typical ol th medieval period, is thai ol .1 wandering monarch who went periodically rou his re dm with his retinue and followers, setting up court at various centra! places on the way. Muse central places gathered tribute or taxes and administered his stale. 1 'he earliest written evidence for the existence ot the pulyudye is Irom the nud tenth century, and that ol 948 was described by Constaniinc
1        1......'......«1»« conicm. 1 his was achie
by the settling ol trusted men 111 strongholds scattered across the countr ot them 11. charge of .1 territory and owing absolute allegiance to the ml 7i '
___l.l.i.. ._ .1____.___o___/___l/-cl__,.L       ■ '■WJMMH
i around
irly
hen
Porphyrogcnitus: it lasted from Novemln through the fringes of tribal territories, .mci not
the travelling rime. The route passes through mapir strongholds on rh irom Kiev (Vyshogrod, I iubech, Smolensk and Chernigov 1 I hes< were 1 hold-towns where the tribute was collected and stored, and then in spring, the rivers were clear of ice, the goods were floated down to Kiev In boats
Olga had died 111 9<>'i but Sviatoslav had begun his brie I lone rule in 964 He ssas a pagan, rciccring his mother's Christianity, and he spent most ot his hectic reign in glorious military exploits. He completed the conquest ot the w lid conn trv of the \ mucin hitherto under Khazar suzerainty and forced them to pay him tribute (f'VL s.a. 964 and 966). in the mid of.os he destroyed the Khazar khanate and even fought in the Caucasus. As a result of Ss-utoslav's activities. Russia briefly controlled the whole steppe from the Don to the Dmestr A lis /.inline desenprion of the Prince's appearance- and dress" shows that he had adopted the styles ol the nomads in whose territory he had been fighting and been victorious I Its rule over the steppes suggests thai his armies probably adopted the nomadic methods of fighting from horseback and the appropriate types of weapons. In 96---1 Sviatoslav extended his rule down the Black Sea coast to the Danube mouth. In alliance with Byzantium he attacked the Oanubian Bulgars and took the town of Presbtviets (sec above). It appears that Sviatoslav had intended to create a toint Russian-Bulgar state, but had failed to subdue fully the Pechcncgs on the steppes between the Scret and Dmestr rivers which split his new conquests (rom the core of the Russian state. He was forced to return to Kiev in the face of renewed attacks bv the Pechenegs (<if.8l, hut 111 971 he returned with Svenald and some ten thousand men (or so the t'Yt. tells usi to the Danube to attack Byzantium together with the Magyars and Bulgars. After initial successes in 971 he had to agree to a treaty with Byzantium, swearing that 'he who broke the oath would be cursed by Perun and Volos the god of flocks, and he should become as yellow as the gold of his ornaments and destroyed by his own weapons'. On his return to Kiev however in 971 he was besieged over the winter in a stronghold-town on the way (Bialoberezh) and then in 973 he was ambushed by the Dmepr rapids by the Pechenegs (who made a drinking-cup from his skull). His southern conquests did not long survive him.
It is in this period (950s to 970s) that the flow of Islamic silver from Central Asia dwindles. After 980-90 it ceases to flow into the northern forests and Baltic. Possibly this was due DO economic difficulties in the caliphate itself, and rhi« mnv havi« !■ -n j contributory effect to the destruction of the Khazars In missing silver was only slightly compensated for by a slight silver north. There seems to have been a shift in the routes c silver reached the area before this, through the termors ot
Hi
Till: IMKLY SlAVi
li would m.in ch.it throughout thc Liter part of the tenth ccntu was increased Sl.iv settlement in the northern territories The tvDi<-,l ^
floored structures have heen found .u a number ol sites, though ma|Sl,nkfn
in the vicinity of the m.i|or trade routes. To judge by the combm" • grave goods and burial rituals at cemeteries such as (inio/dovo and thn"""* north, there was much intermingling and intermarriage  between "* mam populations ot the area, between Baits. Slavs and Scandinavians I C '
probable that the lingua jr.itn\i used tor much of the exchange in t'hi '
Slavic Bv the mid tenth century. Rus on the middle Dniepr were    *°nc Wa»
teims and members ol the ruling l.inulv were known bv Slav names ^
Despite the decrease in foreign bullion flowing mm the area trie Deri
Kiev.ltl greatness was reached in the reign of Vladimir the Crear w"!'' °* , ___t-_:f:-j ._ .i___i_______i_____i____,       . ■ vladitnir
ilesl,'
^atoslav
whose reign is glorified in the chronicles and certain of the bylniy [fan. ■ ^ ruled from y Koto 101 í He was the youngest (and illegimnte) son of Sm '* |
ic of Olga's servants and had heen installed in Novgorod (c n!** gained the Kievan throne after the death ot Ins lather and the civil war97°'i.-
w-lr m which
sviatoslav s rightful siicccssoi [his son and Vladimir's half-brother JfcApelk] w is slam I ike his lather, Vladimir spent milch time on military exploits. |fc consolidated and enlarged the state further, resisting breakaway attempts by thc Radimichi and Vi.ii.cht lie undertook further military expeditions against the Volga Bulgars. and also in I riuiea, which lor several decades had been the scene ot conflict between Kus and Byzantium (in thc- treaty ol ..44, Rus had given up Vladimir's claim to Crimea, but in 988 he took Cherson). In 988 Vladimt.
imir
strengthened the southern frontier ol his territory against the Pcchcncgs, con. Strutting a network of strongholds according to the I'VL, 'along ,nc Ostcr rivers, ilong the Trubczh and along the Sula and the Stugna. And they chose the best warriors from among the Slovicnie, the Knvichi, the Chud and the Viatichi Hie warriors from these lands made up the garrisons of thc newly built strongholds.' These garrisons were thus made up by resettling men drawn from all over Russia in the manner described in Chapter 7,,. ^
The strongholds which Vladimir constructed were of two types. There were smallish torts, similar to those of an earlier period, but also at about this time in the Russian lamb appears a new type of stronghold. These were large, sometimes several hundred metres across, and tending to an overall rectangular form. The interior ot these strongholds was divided into two or more enclosures*often ol a more irregular form I lie inner enclosure sometimes contains stone Struc-lines, usually one or more churches, typical examples of the tenth century arc Haltcz, Vladimir Volvnski. Turov, Smolensk, Star.tia Riazan, Belgorod, Vyshogrod, Pcreiaslavl, Liubcch. Thc ramparts of these 'Riaz.in-Belgorod type' forts have varied internal construction, often with a timber box-frame at the base (the rampart at Pcreiaslavl had unfired clay block construction in the timber framework).14 A typical feature of tenth- and eleventh-century Rus,.
146
strongholds is their open-backed construction ol the uppct wooden elements (Fig. 67). This type of wooden wall appears in Russian wooden forts built in
Siberia in early modern times.
The 'dragon walls' [zmitvy valy) on thc middle Dniepr south of Kiev (sec p. 146) were enlarged in thc tenth century. Radiocarbon dates Irom one of thc inner walls arc around the 960s for thc timbers used in thc construction of one of its segments (perhaps related to Sviatoslav's defences against thc Pechencgs). It was probably in thc tenth ccnturv that a second major alignment, 145 km long, was added to thc system 50 km outside thc earlier ramparts on thc right bank of the Dniepr, running in part along thc north bank of the Ros river This is related to a series of strongholds of the tenth and eleventh centuries arranged in a line and spaced fairly regularly (between 11 and 15 km apart)." It has been
suggested
that this defence system was constructed bv Vladimir and laroslav the Wise.
One of the results of Vladimir's campaign was a drive west. In 981 Vladimir took Przemysl, 'and other strongholds' ham the bach' people in thc Bug valley ,sce p. 162), establishing a new and lasting boundary of Ban Slav territory and commanding an important node of trans-European trade routes The Russian state seems however to have been little interested in this area before Micszko of Poland took it in the 970s. Vladimir also attacked thc Jatviagians (a Prussian tribe) There is also a dense cluster of strongholds in the upper Niemen valley to the northwest of thc Drcgovichi dated broadly to thc tenth and early eleventh centuries: these seem likely to have been a result of thc drive of Vladimir to the northwest (perhaps to tap into another trade route to thc Baltic).* Thc finds from these sues seem to be a mixture of Drcgovichi and Volhvman tvpe. and it seems likely that we sec here another example of ethnic mixing bv internal colonization. The consolidation of these two new areas of settlement in the eleventh century' allowed the Ktcvan state to extend its frontiers to thc west by 50-100 km with thc establishment of several new centres such as Vladimir Volvnski, Drohiczyn and Sutie|sk.
It is clear that, even by the 980s, the state which Vladimir ruled consisted of a collection of peoples who, while owing allegiance and tribute to him, to some extent retained their tribal identity and customs (indeed wc see that, even at the time of the writing of the PVL, memory of tribal identities, laws and customs was still intact). In the 980s, in his attempt to unite the Russian tribes, Vladimir attempted to establish a central pagan cult to replace regional traditions. In 980 he had an idol of Perun erected on a hill outside Novgorod (where thc temple was excavated in 1951). In Kiev he set up idols on a hill outside thc palace court, •wooden figures of Perun (with a head of silver and his mouth of gold). Khors and Dazhbog, Stribog and Simargl, Mokosh. and he and his people made sacrifice to these idols'. Later on Vladimir rethought his policy concerning a state religion, and after consultation with several missionaries of different religions land rejecting Islam) he made Christianity the state religion, marrying in 988/9
«43
no r.\*ir ilavs
Aniu.ii Byzantine princess of the Macedonian dynasty. Kiev became a close II
„1 lU/.intui.u ..ml .1 m..|o, * hrist.au state   I Tie /'\7 tells i„ „f tht. j
,1k people of Kiev when their idol was thrown int., the river (we recall he "1?.
ft 11J1 nc. ot the Zbrucv idol 111 the river below the hilltop sanctuary), c
I he baptism ot Vladimir 111 'W is usually seen as one of the turnine-nr
. 1 1 r. . 1______        ti , t    . " P°mts in
Mont
ideologies and artistii values which were to haw in , Ilea „„ the cultural dev
,ln dew-lopme.lt ol I )ld Russian culture Russia was Hooded with misstauj. , |e,,;v men. si iltsnieii and artists who transmuted. 11 first to the elite Bv,," j i 1    ..1...1.______... 1....... n ' "yrantine
„pme.it of (be nation as a whole in subs. que... centuries. It was under Vladimir ,hll lh, s.al, developed several ol tin cxl.rt.al tonus ind internal structures „huh would determine the course ol its further development. Monasteries were touilded which were to become the centres ot culture and literacy. It Washercthe
,,rs, chronicles were to be c.....piled  Willi tin help ol By/antine architect,,
VT.idiniu built m stone the Tithe church 111 Kiev (a copy of the Pharos church of st Mary in the imperial palace in Constantinople). TjB
\ ladu.in iehu.lt the walled circuit of Kiev and also founded a number of stronghold towns in Russia (Belgorod in u., 1. Pi. 1 i.islavl 11, oui). I)csp,tc ,hc evisteiice ol these and other sues, kies.ui Rus was an essentially rural sodete with 1 relatively low I. vel ol urbanization Although functioning asadminlstra. live and trading places and centres of production, they took on more and more the r.-le ot local marketplaces It was in the reign ol Vladimir that the firstcoini were struck in silvei and gold  I lies usually bear the image of the prince on hi, throne .01 the head ol ( host or saints), and on the reverse the trident mark of the Rurik civ nasi v    I hese cms wer, partly modelled on Byzantine issues, but with inscriptions in t yrillic  I lie weight ot these coins indicates that these Wen) high-value pristigi issues, hut thev were ot: ephemeral nature.
\ttcr Vladimir's reign, the throne was disputed between his sons, leading again to civil war (loit-tyl I he Russian state was divided into three territories Kiev, Novgorod and Polotsk together with Chernigov. Poland took advan-tage ot this srnte to invade Russia, getting as far as Kiev (1018). When Jaroslav defeated his brother Sviatopelk he reunited the state, wrote the first version of its laws and strengthened us economy. I he walled circuit of the town of Kiev was enlarged oik. more Hie town was by now extensive, covering an area ol some -o ha. It was a centre ol trade and production (including jewellery and other metalwork, glasswork, ivory cars mg and religious paintings), and a ma|or centre ol artistic c scellei.ee and culture   I he complex included the fortlllcd cure Ulctmrts) with the princely court and several churches.
Jaroslav the Wise (1019-54) was a pat,0,1 ot Byzantine-style culture (the gigantu Sofia sobor in Kiev, later to become the principal church of Old Russia, was founded in 10,7)."The Russian Church was directly subiect to the patriarchate of Constantinople and for two centuries nearly all the metropolitans and bishops were Greeks. Jaroslav also cultivated links with western Pnmu..
monarchies, including English and Norwegian princes; he married the daughter of King Olaf of Sweden. J.uoslav minted ephemeral spa 1 ll purpose coins like those ol his father, but probably onlv m the earlv part ol his reign. After about ioio, minting of Russian coins ceases (and begins again onlv In the second halt of the fourteenth century). For a while foreign cms seem to circulate in Russia, but about the end of the eleventh century com linds almost cease Russia seem . to have entered a phase ot virtually no use ol coinage, although in the northern zone hacks.Ivei circulated about as long as in other parts ol the Baltic tone
In Jaroslav's rctgn we sec the final development ol the process known as feudal fragmentation, a process which many eastern and central European states underwent in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. I he sprawling areas ol the carls states, linked by some overall coercive force, split into more compact self-reliant units ruled by a strong local leader. New forces had led to the crystallization of power on a more local level: these new units changed from a loose confederation of regions to rival territories with strong separatist tendencies. Possibly the decline of a central monopoly over the luxury markets and the development of local markets tnaj be a contributory t.ictor in this process. The history ol these states becomes a contusing kalcidoscop. ol changing rulers and interregional conflict! leading to fusions and fissions ol these statelets under personal rule (a pattern familiar troth later medieval history). Despite these changes it seems that an overall feeling of ethnic unity was maintained, and the I'Yl expresses this and reminisces ol the advantages ol a united state.
In summary we sec that the process of formation ot the Russian state had at least a triple genesis. The first was the annexation of already centralized adjacent territories by a centralizing power and the establishment of mechanisms for exploiting, controlling and consolidating the new territories. The second stage involved the imposition of a common cultural idiom, at first local but later the acceptance of cultural influences from a neighbouring primnry state. The third stage consisted of the growth of a local economy with the changes in the economic infrastructure this involves. The many and different influences which gave rise to the Russian state and culture (East Slav, Byzantine, steppe nomad, Scandinavian, Khazar) made the Kievan state a phenomenon unique in contemporary Europe. Although the early medieval state itself was shattered in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by Tatar and Mongol invasions, its culture has left a lasting legacy in modern Europe.
141
I 2
State-formation: the West Slavs
The process ,.t (..mi in.'ii •" "t"1" 111 ,,u' "•,rmwiH «»ciiP«ed by the West Slavs wis m many ways due to similar pliciicmitn.i .is that of the early Russian ' but m this case the prime movers, were the C arolmgian and Ottoman state,1 which led to them bcmc.dr.iwn into the 1 aim |( Jthnlic) sphere. Here though tin influence of more advanced primary states was much more marked. The story of the political organization ol the West Slavs is in mils connected with the expjn. con ol ( arolmgian influence to the east. This expansion was not „n|y necessary lor the keeping of peace on the eastern frontier, but was also dictated by economic reasons (it was one of the mam means of expanding the economy). After tin conquest of the Saxons and Havana in the 770s and 7Sos. Charlemagne org.u.i/cd Marks along the east frontier ot Ins realms From these region, expansionist and punitive invasions ol the territories further east were launched, such as that which destroyed the Avars in -91-80,  I he necessity of providing, strong bnttel between the I ranks and the barb... .an Slavs lObodntcs), Wllz,, Sorbs) caused the Prankish officials stationed on the border (Counts of the Marks, Mirkf-rjfffi) to become persons ot especial importance. They were entrusted with large standing armies, and the prospect ot almost continuous military action chew to their service all the restless fighting men who looked to warfare .is a means ..I advancing themselves Since it was advisable for the safety ol the borders to retain there men with experience and vested interests in the areas, this w as the occasion ol the creation ol a series .it povv ertul families which produced the new nobility of these regions.
I here are manv incidents recorded 111 1 i.inkish annals which illustrate that the Franks were interested 111 controlling the neighbouring peoples by means ot mil-it.irv action and diplomacy \t Frankfurt in Sii, tor example, Charlemagne received embassies and presents trom all the Slavs on his eastern border*, the 'Obodntcs, Sorbs. W1I/1, Bohemians, Moravians and I'raedenecetiti, and also trom the Avars living 1111'.itin. >n 1.1'. A year later he wasiudging dynastic quarrels among the W1I/1 and repi imanding a leader of the Obodntcs at the same palace.
I he C arolmgian Marks were extended in later years. I lenry 1 (919-3«), him-sell trom one ol those powerful eastern families, invaded the Polabian terrihiries and created the Meissen Mark Otto I (9U.-~U created further Marks in the region east ot the F.I he and Saalc and restored the southeastern Frontier regions damaged by Magyar raids While German bishoprics in the south competed ta
control the territories beyond the frontier, in the northeast new bishoprics were erected in the new Marks. German colonization of the cistern fringes of the Empire began in the early tenth century.1 In Bohemia Otto m (98,-1001! continued the policy of trying to effect a domination of the cast. Blocked by ipostate and independent Polabian Slavs, he applied diplomacy and other pressures to bring 'Sclav una' under his influence as part of the renovated West Empire along with Koine, Caul and Germany (Fig. 7 1)
The Bohemian (Czech) state
HO
Although in the rest of Slavdom the period after the middle of the ninth century was to sec the rise ot new states, in the area south of the Carpathians it saw first the collapse of the polities which had formed here earlier. As has been discussed above (p. 11 0, »her .1 period of several decades ol growth hut weakened bv internal divisions, the Moravian state had been dismembered by 906 by the interference of Arnull, king ol the Eastern Franks, in league with other outside powers (the Magyars).
The origin ol the Bohemian state has tended to be overshadowed by the story ot Great Moravia.-' To some extent however the Bohemian state owes us exis tence to several other factors, and not pist us proximity to the .Moravian hegemony. Bohemia as a territorial unit has rather good natural borders. It is formed by a river basin around the tributaries of the upper Elbe (including the Moldau), and is surrounded by mountains, on the north the Erzgebirge and Sudeten svhich divide it from Polabia and Silesia respectively, the Czech (Bohcmi.in-M.iravian) uplands which form a less well-defined boundary between Bohemia and the Moravian valley to the cast, beyond which to the southeast is the Hungarian plain. On the southwest and west are the mountain ranges of the Bohemian forest (Böhmerwaldj Bayerischer Wald and Oberpfälzer Wald), beyond which were Bavaria and East Frankia.'Thc whole area ot the fertile Bohemian basin was by the early ninth century densely occupied by several large tribes. There-were the Lucane and I.emuzi in the northwest, in the middle there were the Czechs in the area where Prague was to be founded on the Moldau, in the northeast were a group called the Chorvati (Croats) on the Dubrava (this is probably the group mentioned as the 'White Croats' in the DAI), and the Psovians had a territory on the Elbe around modern Mclnik between the Czechs and Chorvati. To the south on the upper Moldau basin were the Dulebi (Doudlebi). Other tribes in the area included the Litomierzycy, Zlicanic and Sicdlicanic.
because this was a fertile and well-defined geographical region, it is not surprising that there were centralizing tendencies visible, In the former and now somewhat obsolete archaeological terminology for Bohemia, the 'Old Hillfort period' (originally dated 650-800) was envisaged as succeeded by the 'Middle
Mi
lillfort period' (dated Soo-950).       lhc ,,rst hal» °<rhc "'nth ccnturv ^ Jr ,mjti£ increase .n the number of hillforts being bu.lt (such as those ar Budee LevV Hradcc. Stard Kouhm. Pohansko and Dolansk.i These were large tribj strongholds, massive multi-enclosure earthworks, ranging in size fromaboor.^
to ic ha.' . ...
The wealth of the area also prompted bids to take it over bv the mote powerful states. Throughout most of the ninth centurs. the tribes of Bobemj,. had as their neighbour the strong state ot Mora*, .a. Another threat came from the west, from the eastern parts of the Carolingian and German empires. Pushes to the cast are evidenced in the Royjl f ranktsh Annals under the vear 805 when K irl Charlemagne's son (d. S111. led an expedition into the area and ravaged the land from one end to the other and killed their chief Lccho' |n Soi ^ another invasion troops from Bav ana. Alcmannia and Burgundy were sent into the country of Bohemia .. . after laying waste much of the land, the army returned without serious losses'. With the strengthening of the position of Lout, the German after rhc Treaty of Verdun 1S4,), the Bohemians understood that thev were threaten.          ternal circumstances As a reaction ,and perhaps under the influence of Sviatopluk ot Moravia', fourteen nobles and local rulers accepted Christianity from east German bishops at Regensburg in 845, though; thev abandoned the faith a vear later when thev found that it offered them no protection against German aggression. Throughout the 840s and 850s there was \_____lt~_____:j-__d..c—-        «----- ' ^
""alsoa period
a series of German raids on Bohemia and Moravia (but this which saw the rise of Moravian power). ^.^^^^^^A The unification of the tribes or the Moldau basin was achieved probably under the patronage ot Sviatopluk of the Moravians in the second half of the ninth centurs- bv Bofivoi 1 (d about 889/90) of the strongest tribal dynasty of the period, the Pfemyslid rulers ot the Czech tribal group. The Pfemys|IQ5 were able by conquest to extend their rule over the territories of neight^urimj weaker tribes. The core of Pfemyslid termors was a zone of fertile farmlands about fso km in diameter in the confluence of the Moldau. Elbe, Ohfc, Berounka and Sazava rivers, from this centre was to begin the territorial expansion leading to the formation of the Czech state under this dynasty.' The central position of ihis territory at a ma|or crossroads of trans-European trade routes and the productivity ot the land itself must have been important factors in this
increasing power. Bofivoi, married Ludmila, a princess of th_ 1 later a marrvr and saintl: he and his wife were baptized by Method S84 at the Moravian court. They took a priest back home and built a Clement's) at their principal seat at Levy Hradcc. Theacceptance nft by the ruling family prompted a pagan revolt soon afrerv
rotunda
with Moravian help (leading
to an
:mian basin. The wed Bohemia to
hat
Hradcc to Prague (where he built the church of St M. where Prague castle now stands above the loon .n .k. i
Bohemian history is evidenced by n
the settlements and cemeteries o  . ,; Bořivoi was able to continue the uniting of the tribes in the Bo! death of Sviatopluk in S44 and subsequent internal strife all shake off the Moravian yoke, but in      all the Bohemian pi
Prague became part of the Regensburg diocese (Bohemia had formerly belonged
to Passau).
In the period of the Magvar invasions, Bohemia was relatively safe behind a wall of mountains. The destruction of the Moravian state however at the beetn-tung of the tenth century and the consequent power vacuum led to new opportunities. Under Spytihncv (895-9 1 5), son of Borivoi, the Czech state MU internally consolidated." It was Spytihncv who built the first defences around Prague castle, and it was he who commanded the construction of an ingenious system of strongholds allowing complete control over the whole area of Přemv slid territory. These strongholds (including Mčlnik. Stará Boleslav. Libušin, Tetin. Litem) built in the first half of the tenth century together with pre-existing torts at Budec and Levy Hradec formed a circle around Prague at a radius ot about 10-14 km, forming what historians call 'stronghold organization' which was the basic form of socio-political organization of carlv states not onlv m Bohemia but also throughout western Slavdom. Prague became the centre ot the religious life of the state, the bishop of Regensburg was represented bv an arch-: based in Prague, and most of the priests were Bavarian (though Slav ho had fled from Moravia practising the Slav rite were also tolerated 1. In the tenth century, Bohemia was (alongside Bavana and Saxony) one of the most highly developed areas of central Europe, but it was an area which was particularly strongly influenced by Bavana. This is visible in the cultural and political development ot the new state. The primacy of the Prenvyshds was acknowledged by the other Bohemian chicts, but outstde the relatively compact Premysltd realms other areas of Bohemia were still pagan and had a less well organized socio-political system.
After the death of Spytihncv and the shon rule of his brother Vratislav (915-11). there was conflict in the Pfemyslid tanuly reflecting the two factions,
j f'Knttian  Th*» .Irjma tint m t*» r»l* -   I  . ,, u ,_____
the dead Vratislav, and Ludmila, his mother. Ludmila was guatdian of Vratislav's son Vaclav. Legend asserts that Drahomír iealous of her influence
In the end however the Christian party succeeded and Vaclav became acknowledged leader (911-,5),
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oigu met.h,mís, .in.l produci oi niiiny en
lllilliy shiees   h. .ihoiu ■„,, ,||(. |rw„| .'% 00 ,,,'ľ 'hen, hwludlng
deuriptionol Bohemia whieh ll Wr^quotlngtaS     *" B'VM *
|t,i/n-»ii.ľ (In o the landttf Ring Boyttttulli il i
„t C.tiitiiw ii ihrte itotkť laurntyand Utft í' *   ""    '"v   '''•'jí'iľ in tlmt
|m.iL>v.ir« are iiu.i...|        • m ..//v ,.,„, , /   ,   *   rnK'"«<iyr with lh,itf),,, f,/,l
/,,!,/,•.././/. r//*w /W*, //,r Kio.,,,,,, ,,„,./ Zsl!'' ** Mm ,„
Mudimi, Imv, .md Turiu /r„„, ,i„ ,.„'„,,' 0f th» Zrkl^l fiSÍ /r""' í>""'"'*'i iiriglilt |iiiin»|; iindlhry earryawa\  /.m   |/n     y '    ""X y.'n'il-. ,uul imirkel
i, ibe hot '</.ill thait o/ />■. northtm utopia and th"'e«w»l» ,iimiiíh fltim u >.,/,/ //,rfl. (o        , ( "'        /"",■<■«-/,•.. /■
......*•/•        i«i foddf   ,„i„w .„„„,„/ /,'„'/„„'ý'',,,',•'/.," "
t>ľim\ 1» tbe ť.lty nf Pragut thty tnakt mddlt  i *" Uř*'"'^'
tlt.ilareut*dinihattparu,andtnth§lanéof&U     "ími
,„     rmbrotdataé With . UKtMt WHleJi ,,re „/mfl!??*'        /""'1
«'"•'»,j•»/""'iv wír/i ,/„., ,/vi „L;'"v'
■     '"-      "•<•'«   //•, V rev,,,,/ ,/„.,„ J( „„j   ' '"V,/ ''''''''''
/...ji^íf «•<//' iVm. wiVm/ >/.jir,, //oricí ..„/,/ ,./ ,'    , ■•"■•x- m
the propit../ H,d,emta are d.„k a,id H,', k /, ,,r •/'//"" "" ™*M>U thttt
'«r,,i, i)i„„,is     rareamung iln-m
In .>m .nul gr.t Hni. .,l..v g|]|ed hlmaell wtih .1.
P-,,,.,.....he Polane ,„ WlXpS  ,     ,   „"'! T*'' "« M"«*» «"e
,l.,..«luer DoIh.iv,, In ,„,„,,,, ,„ „'„V,",,, J*'« H '' "« B«V* hl, Polane would accept ( hrlítianlty KC' °"   r l"lullM"1' *«l íhí
Hoheun.iii ieriitori.il ,sľ,,n-.i,„| t„lllM i Boleslav ii („^ In .,, ri.1(;n ,   'I'  J'" í,*ttBd«
.....-n.-„Luh. „„,,,„,,.......^1^1^^^^ *
S......the Wholl I, „,,h .,1 ,l......j,,,,. ,1IU)       '7      ' """•-'■•on of
Itllies.llliell.lielhe ľol,'. look M ,|o„,,|. k ,    ,1, »■ vHH-.,o ľossihh
.................■........i,-,,.....S„„.,i">h"..........-......
■...............................„„„„    , ' .......
.............................................lÄSKäňr
o............ľ..,..,,.,,..........    Boi.,1., „.....i,'";
■ III
-IV
THf tAKLV SLAVS
wis nnpnpul.ir kv.ll.sr of Ins attempts to return, ihc clergy of h.S dioce*, |* PriKiic md went first to preach in Hungary In 996 he was invited to Poland V Boleshvs Chrohry. whence he set out to evangelize the Prussians, at whose hands he met a martyr's death in 997 (see below). fljH ' || „ is in the tenth and eleventh centuries that mam ol the old tribal centres*.' Iloluini 1 were destroyed and replaced by others nearby   paired stronghold,^ I he interpretation of this would seem to be thai the old tribal nobility sv^ destroyed and their scats slighted and they were replaced ,n the settlement hicrirchv bv new sites which served as the central places in the new Slate organization (Fig. <•«) A        "■'"'P11' " S,a' ' Km,r,m' "«    Prague: ,he original tribal ventre ot the ninth and tenth centuries was replaced by a second ,,ronghnld (St |iril in the eleventh century, and then 111 the thirteenth century, town was founded nearby. ^^^^H
ll„ ir, ml Moravia in the east remained independent ol Bohemian rule f0r, while In the 940s al Masi.di mentioned a separate people, the Marabm (Moravians) under the rule ol a leader called Ratb.r. With the organization of the < huich in 9-i under H0lcsl.1v 11 there seems to have been ., separate Moravian diocese, centred on I flommic which is also mentioned as a scpar,,, territory in the document known as Dagoine Index of <. 990 isce below),
||K. nsmg pow,r of Poland in fhe late tenth and early eleventh century «,4 political struggles within Bohemia at the end of the reign of Boleilav bj , ,0O,| allowed Boleslaw I the Bravi ol Poland to take large tcrr.ioriei to rhe south of the ( arpathians He look Moravia (ostensibly in order to gain fee, access to the route to Rome), and part ot today's Slovakia, but found it largely empty The presence ot pottery verysimilar toth.it in Wiclkopolska and theust ol .1 type of rampart construction also characteristic ot that area suggests that he had to bring Ins own artisans with him. In 1003-4 Boleslaw also took much of
Bohemia, replacing his deposed cousin Boleslav 111 on the throne, before d mg him himself, blinding and imprisoning him After Polish rule over collapsed, [lure were two more weak ruler■   I iromii and Oldřich),and was reclaimed Irom Poland only in lyiy. Aftei the murder of Jaromír BohcaVl1 was temporarily r, united under Prince llřctyslav I (1034-55) and 111 the f ol his reign after the death of Micszko ti he attacked Poland and car AI « much loot imcludmg the body ot Si Wo|ciech/Adalbcrt). After his death ho ever under his sons the country split into feudal fragments which were re "mH b> the Přcmvslids only in the thirteenth century
ÍJ6
Polabia and Pomcrania
around e Balric
nc con
'nt par-
The Polabian Slavs occupying the flat hinds ot the North fun the middle Elbe and its tributaries between the Sudeten mount coast seem to have taken a surprisingly long tunc to break       ( I tvnc of system to form anvthine annroachino ■>..... 1   1 1
»jk      1 ■      * 11   "ciung a state, particularly wI
ciders their proximity to the Carolingians and Ottomans.10 The set tern of the area shows very clearlv the disrn)„,.,,s„ ..< ...u 1
7     '"' lnc uistrmution ot tribes known from the
written sources: there is especially dense smlcmrm ... ____.u c
u",v: senicment in the north or the region nearer the Baltic cast, south of which is a less densely settled area. In the valley of the Havel is the territory ol the Stodoranie (Havelaniel around their m centre at Brenna. Further up the Spree were the Sprcvanen. the Vcleti or I ut'i/c (with the neighbouring group i.ebuser near Lehus), In the upper Spree were the M.lzi. occupying a dense zone around their centre at Budziazyn surrounded by a clear settlement vacuum. In the west of the region, south of the Elbe in the valleys of the Saale We.ssc lister and Mulde. ,s the very dense settlement of the sorbs (Fig. 121 All of these tribes are mentioned in the bavarian i.engrapher and they played a key role in the processes of state formation
Some scholars have suggested that the tribe, of the upper Elbe may have been influenced by Mr.rav.a in the 88os, but ,t seems more likely that at a later date the Bohemians interacted in some way with fhe Sorbs and M1I/1." The mam influence in the area came, however, Irom the west, Irom the ( arolmgian and ( utoman realms. Apart from the rvidtiicc ol this in the written sources | mainly of the ninth century onwards - of which ot curse tin compilation of the bavarian Geographer would be a prime example), there is tmat mitertal evidence of the effects of contacts with ihc Germans. While trade goods seem rare, we have seen that some ceramic styles were copied. If one looks at the evidence supplied by the distribution of strongholds, one may observe are is near the frontier where there arc several settlement enclaves characterized by denser settlement and larger strongholds 1 Possibly these were built by leaders who had considerably more power than their neighbours to the east, and a possible source of this power (if it was not loot) could be diplomatic payments to friendly rulers by the Germans.
Pomcrania, the strip of land along the south coast ol the Baltic, is a region which has often been overlooked in general histories of the Slavs, primarily because authors nave been concerned to show the area as being an integral part of the history of the Polish or Polabian Slavs, and yet this obscures the fact that ! period they had a separate development. To
tnc soutn or tnc coast on the eastern (now P high morramic hills of clay to the south of
it is backed by
, - ----isioicc vaiicv
1 the centre of the later state in Wtelkopolska In the off from the central area of Polabia by dens
THE rAPlY I LAY»
tmtst in wh.ch there- were few settlements    I he Pomeranian coast was thcnv
,orc isolated fro... the terr.tor.es to the south, and there was much lessdinWZ h.fw,en these two parts of Pomeran.a.n the earlv medieval per.od than the E
nd the present political situation would suggest.
\\   hive >een thai m the ninth century Pomcrania was already bee,
,|K orum./ed and benefiting from long-distance trade This is esnedal h n.ed'.t In the empor.a which were being established here In the fma| dec,dZ ,»the moth centurs: Rene. Mcn/lin, Ralsw.ek on Rugia, Szczecin and wS !he Oder mouth. Bards in the P.uscta valley near Kolobrzeg These vv~ encaged in long-distance exchange with German Scandinavian, Bait and n»nh .rn Russian centres around the Baltic, were regularly and densely hud, up "a h,d iJ.sr.ncrl» ■prorn-urban' character, rhe prosper,.) ot this area m ,he £J ni'nfh ,nd tenth century ,s demonstrated In i concentration ,,l s,lVcr hoanh'» ,,u. ,r,, (Chapter 8). and the political consolidation which allowed theJ northern I'olabian tribes to challenge even the German Empire, \ The northwestern fringes ot Pol.lhi.i (the hinterland of Hambu
......oUrg) vvfr.
quered bv Charlemagne as a result of h.s Saxon wars of ---804. h ' „,str..cted the so-called limts Saw'tae - '«ne running through uninhabited ' mans I .nd between the Savons settled north ol the lower Kibe ,nnd ,hc j. The /,me> was established .. few kilometres east ot Hamburg. Somewhere sch.n this line was the emporium at Rene which was attacked by Godfredrh. k„,g of Denmark in So8. The establishment of a Prankish port on the sou* (lls, ot the Baltic to tap into the How ot trade iespecially Islamic silver** w ,s ptobahb one ot the aims of the Carolmgian campaigns here. Beyond '
king of Denmark in 808. The csrabhshmcnt of a Prankish doi* «.
,    /*       j- on the t
Glim.tnc and Varnioviel. who were allied with Charlemagne tor 'm "' ^
reign. Because of Carolingian support, a strong political organizati
existin the territory ot the Obodrites. La,T,f to
Despite conflicts with the Germans, many of which arc menti
frankish Annals, tribes such as rhe I >bodntes continued to flourish ink m
and tenth centuries. The beginning of the tenth century saw the Cnin,h
what has been christened rhe Drang nath On, , t(, thc ea™^>PU"n °'
with the consequent clash of cultures - would dominate the history of
Germany until the end of the twelfth c< nttirv. I he most notable feat n°rt,1C:lu
process m Polabia was us violence (unlike the histors of the German "'^
into Austria. Bohemia and Hungary). Each bloody military actum I,CX^'1nSlon
of atrocities and the subsequent revenge raids. Whole tribes   ' '
exterminated. The process began in 928 when Henry 1 of the Sa* "'""^ Ac . 1.:.. i._j. ti___. , . un dyn.i..-
11 If oeio ss.is coiicjucicu hi .1 j'usu en cut cast DCgUn in 920 an(j "'"
Otto 1 alter ?a-S As a result of these campaigns, the frontiers of^Q^^
and
annexed the Ohodritc lands. The rest of the area between the Elbe and S rhe Oder was conquered in a push to the cast begun in 929 and c _!
:ns, the frontiers of the Gc
1 km to the east, and Cermi   " 1 nan civil
Empire were relatively rapidly pushed t;
ij8
and ecclesiastical administranon was established east of the Saale and Elbe. The eastern frontier of the new Mark was established on the middle and losvcr Oder, and then ran southwards bcrwecn the Ncissc and Bohr rivers near the present Polish frontier. The territorial organization (fargitttni, of the new Marks (Meissen in the south, Lusatian in the east, and Mcrseberg and 2ytyce in the west) was based on the territories of the previously existing tribal strone-hold system. The conquest was accompanied by an attempt to convert the Slavs between the Elbc-Saale and Oder to Christianity compulsorily. New bishoprics were founded to serve these new lands, at Havclburg and Brcnna (Brandenburg), centres of the Brzezanc and Stodoranc, in 948, at Magdeburg, Oldenburg. Mcrseburg, Zeirz near the line of the old frontier and Meissen ithe centre of the Milz. tribal union) in 968. A new system of strongholds was constructed in the tenth century in the southern part of the newly conquered Territory, especially along the Elster river. Germans settled in and around these strongholds, but there was little effective colonization of outlying areas.
There was an uprising of the Obodrites 111 y5< when their Prince Nakon together with his brother Stojgniev fought and lost a battle with Otto 1 at Rcknicc (despite this he is mentioned in 965 by Ibrahim ibn Yaqub as having equal importance as the Polish Mieszko I and Bolcslav 1 of Bohcmial.Thc next uprising of the Polabian Slavs in the reign of the weak Otto it in 982-t again mainly affected the tribes in the north, in the hinterland of the Baltic coast. This time the Germans suffered a decisive reversal of fortunes, and the tribes of the northeast of the Polabian region formed a tribal confederation called the Lutize ta name which appears towards the end of the tenth century for a tribal union formerly known as the Vcletil. This rose up against German rule, destroyed a number of srrongholds and drove the German ruling elite out of its territory. There is no doubt from the written sources that the main instigators of this uprising were the pagan priesthood Ithe main centre was the cult-centre at Radgoszcz somewhere in the territory of the Redari). The rebellion was |oined in 990 by the Obodrites in an uprising also instigated by a pagan revival. The diocese of Oldenburg and the Christian mission among the Obodrites was terminated and the German ruling elite wuhdresv from the territory, which -despite attempts by Conrad 11 (1024-39) to reconquer it - developed into an independent Slav state on the edge of the Empire. The Lurizc and Obodrites were joined by the Stodorane and the Brzczan tribes, centred on Brcnna and Havclburg respectively, who also gained independence."
The pagan uprising gave rise to political organizations which retained (though probably in somewhat modified form) the old pagan tribal structures and customs, a very interesting survival into a penod where there is an abundance of written sources.
The coastal towns of western Pomcrania retained their tribal character until
thc twelfth and thirteenth centuries when written sources such as O,,0 ,„„,,,„, allow us to see some o, the institutions. They were lnh.lbltfd , „;embers of the elite, supported by the priesthood, and they engaKed in ^ „d piracy .here were also merchants tree craftsmen ftshermen (who.fe,* malLldtngs... the area and fought when needed). These centres also attT^ „,rclg„ers. ciich as the Scandinavian settlers m Wohn (jomsborg) who^ mentioned in the V.king sagas. .
,,„. [rl|,es s,.uth ot the watershed between the Havel and middle (Meissen Mark and part o. I «*.,«..... Mark I had been unable ,„ break out0f*c Ottoman Empire. The Germans however seemed unable to drive further noX ,nd west ,n the tenth century and concentrated mainly on strengthening tfj hold m the south. South of the front.cr the Sorbs „, the German Emplrc Werc |b$orbed ,,,,„ the social and political system ol that poht.cal orga , lnfor,unatclv unt.l recently thc political atmosphere in thc former DDR d,d noi encourage the close study ol .he processes ot the transformation of Slay tribe, into pan of the German nation. '       . jllHH
,■„,„,. northeast in the third quarter ol the tenth century, the Polish state w,, trvmu to gain control ol Pomerama in orde, to take par. in long-distance trade networks through the Baku Micsako , invaded the area-    Pomerama around
uanzane
are
Elbe
the mouth of the Oder and to the east in the late 900s. attacking the Vel .Wolmiinsi ami the Yelcti, who were helping them res.st Polish pressure. Since" ,he territory ot the Velet. had been annexed by the Germans ,n the penod ,his expansion required the tact issent of thc German emperor.In971 however the German Margrave llodon invaded territory east of ,he fronticri ec tbl.shed in I lenry I, hut was beaten back at thc battle of Cedynia on the Oder, further east, the Polane were also ...tempting to take control of the area around ,he Vistula mouth, and it would seem that the port ol Gdansk was founded about this time (though it is not c lear whether in the period ol Pomeranian intfc. pendence or as a result of the conquest).'1
The Polish ruler Boleslaw I thc Brave took advantage ol the crisis of the 980, „,d invaded the newly independent terr.tories of thc l.ut.zc and Lubus land. This Polish expansion towards the west took thc frontier between Polish territory and the German I mpire some ,0 km west of thc lower Oder (almost,,, modern Berlin). In 1001 however wolin and Szczecin Pomerama broke away from the Polish state, followed in 1038 by the eastern regions around Gdansk."
In thc 1040s Prince Gotschalk ol the Obodntcs (1010-66). who was allied to the Saxons and Danes, was able to unite the territory and attempt to convert hi, people to Christianity and introduce bishops at Stargard, Menzhn and Racibor/. He was killed in a pagan reaction in 1066. In thc course of these events christian writers had good cause to take notice of the collapse and renewal of the Polabian sanctuaries I here is evidence to suggest that, in the period ol independence, the reorganization and strengthening of thc Polahian
£tSO
*&2JS?±Wa*an
8 fnbal P°*« structure in
local cults (utilizing patterns d
.mportatu part in the establ; : _
opposition to the Ottomans,
The end of the Lutize union came w.th the weakening effects of internal struggles in the 1050s, followed by a German invasion in 1068-9, when thc temple at Radgoszcz was looted. Nevertheless it seems that even after German conquest, these people retained a certain amount of independence until the twelfth century. The territory around Brenna and Havclburg was retaken only in the mid twelfth century by the Germans after years of fighting. Only then did German colonization of these territories begin.
Poland
The development of thc early state of Poland In thc valleys of the Oder and Vistula in the centre of the North European Plain between the Carpathian mountains and Baltic coast represents a classic example of the formation ot an early state.17 The historical and archaeological evidence combine to create a picture of the expansion of an original core tribe (the Polane of Wiclkopolska). The soils of the area are fertile and summer climate is good; possibly the inhab-.tants of thc area were able to produce and mobilize a surplus. By thc period of state-formation, palaeodcmographic evidence seems to show that there had been a threefold population increase in four centuries, and population growth was still on thc increase (discussed in Chapter 4). Thc Polane established longdistance trade links with Pomerama, and as a result, in the 940s or thereabouts, organizational changes were taking place in Wiclkopolska: the hoards show) that relatively large quantities of silver were flowing south from the Baltic coast. At about the same time a few other northern products start to move into the area and ad|acent regions (antler combs, occasional amber beads).
At this time, it seems that for one reason or another the Wielkopolskan Polane had begun to form themselves into what seems to be a polity or polities with some characteristics of a chiefdom. In the settlement pattern this is clearly visible in thc reorganization of the system of strongholds. Before the mid tenth century there werc relatively few strongholds in this area, but now a dense network of new sites was constructed. These were both small well-defended sites and major central places. The dating of the beginning of this phase is fixed by thc increased wealth now becoming available in the form of hoarded silver from Pomerama, and it is very tempting to connect this with thc new dendrochronological dates (940) from thc rampart at Gniezno and other strongholds of the area."
About 960 Prince Mieszko of the Piast dynasty of the Polane began his reign. Micszko, clearly a capable warrior and a skilful politician, was very active in
Tlie iAtítY SLAVS
expanding lus realms í his is evident Írom the written sources, but also detected in the archaeologicil record, which show the process of ter T" aggrandizement .ind institutionalization of power leading to the ŕormatio tMr'a' ..r ue I his was centred at first oil the old tribal centres of Gniezno and Po " • Wiclkopolska In man) areas ot Poland, former tribal centres seen, to hav"hÍ!" destroud and replaced In neu ones la further example of'paired ••trongh'ld?" It seems thai the rise ot the 1'i.isi state in the >;fios was a notable factor " L international scene tor several ad|.icenl rulers We have seen that Meilcsl°n II,,hernia soon made him Ins .ills. and Ibrahim ibn V.iepib during his   * ' °^ Prague learnt much about this new 'king of the north' lie writes: "Aj f^k* .ouiitn ol Mesko it is one of the most extensive ot til, ir |Sla\| countr' ' plentiful in provisions, meat, hone), and fish |-|  lo the king belong all trifi collected in Ins country. I he taxi s Mcsko collects in metal coin [? text   ' ľ'" herci1' are used to pay the allowances of Ins warriors.' The rest ot this    "*" *** concerning the number and inner organization of Micszko's retinue ľaS!''1'5C, above in ( hapter 6). suggests that someiini in Prague with whom fbrihin,UO,C'1 versed was indeed verv interested in the rising might ol this prince: this was ^ thing which dul not escape the attention of the (icrnian emperor Otto I nth""1'"
In V60-7 Mus/ko was liglinng the Pomeranians and Wolmians fore Ponieiaiii.i. and also I ubus land I le w as thus concerned to create a sr/""^"' °' em bordi r on the cenrr.il and lower Oder. This brought bun into confli C* the V'eleli and Uolini.lllt land, because of their links with a Germ <^.W"n Wichmanii, brought linn to the attention of the Ottoman elite) The   i. "UMt with tin southern neighbour. Hnli sl.u ,,i Bohemia, and a dynastic mi  ' inCC to seam tin southern border during these struggles Mus/kn Was accŕľ*^ In the Bohemian army on his expedition against the Wolmjane wh crowned with success in 967. It seems that peace was made with'the G ^ emperor, whose Northern Mark bordered on the lands of the Wo| Jtrn,an was achieved In Mies/ko agreeing to pav tribute for the land 'between tl mouth and the Warta river' As .1 result of the alliance with Bohemia M had been bapti/ed: he probably saw the t hurch as a poliin.il tool for lint t*E^° state with civilized European states, and giving support for centrolizina '"J cies. but also perhaps as a way ot securing himself from possible future G " intervention under the guise of missionary activity. A {missionarvl hUh Crm'1n established in Poznaň (968] ' '"^P^Wm
í omp.iMtively little attention seems to have been paid by Mieszk question of the eastern frontier, the exact extent of Mieszkos state toV' Ithat is 111 Mazovia and Malopolska) is 1101 known. It seems that ail   „ **" Malopolska was initially outside the stare. In the 960s it seems thatth* were relatively sparsely inhabited fores, zones w„h   poi,rly developed ^nľ my. It is possible however that in the 970s there was wim «-ono-areas with the founding in Malopolska ol ,mn sueh as Sanelom      is e
and the Czerwicrl strongholds, wludi were constructed as ., buffer zone. In M ,/ovia at the same tunc there seems to have been expansion up the Narew and B.cbr* rivers. The kievai. state under Sviatoslav and Vladimir . was more mterested at this time in expanding its influence to the south (Bulgaria and Hwaiitium) than m what was happening beyond the forests and mountains ,,, ,he north and west. When however the new ruler Vladimir noticed the Polish expansion, he seems to have taken a fresh interest in the area and started to expand into the same areas (see p. 147). Despite this, as we have seen, there was still a broad zone of no-man's land between the two states.
Wars with Germany after about 972. (about which we know little) resulted „,„,, a change of the German emperors eastern policies, but ended in the jlhaiice with the Empire of 979. When the Polabi.m revolt broke out after 98 , *inj German control of these areas collapsed, Mieszko expanded into the areas ,,f the former Marks, and, in alliance with the Saxons, he attacked the Obodritcs ,„d I ut./C extending his lands further to the west. Dobrava, after having borne a son (Bolcslaw. named after her Czech father) and a daughter. Swietoilawg, d,cd about 979- Soon afterwards, in 980 Mieszko married Ode, the daughter of Dietrich the margrave ol the Northern Mark, thus straining Polish-Bohemian relations By his second wife Mieszko had other children (which would have g,ven rise to dynastic conflict had Boleslaw 1 of Poland not dealt swiftly with them on his father's death).30
Mieszko utilized the new situation after the Polabi.m revolt to advantage to add (988-90) Silesia and perhaps (about oyo) Malopolska to his kingdom to try to bring within his rule territory based on the natural borders of the mountains to the south but also to gam control over the routes running along the Oder alley and through the Moravian Gate (thus controlling the route from western through Prague and C.r.icnw. to Kiev and Byzantium). This expansion - brought htm into conflict with his former allies in Bohemia. In order to safeguard his conquests at the end ot Ins life about 990, Mieszko employed diplomacy. In a document which is known as Dagome Judex (after the ,ir,t two words of a twelfth-century copy in the Vatican archives) he entrusted Ins lands to the Pope. The document is important for the definition of the boundaries of his realm (called Schi-gtiesne, presumably a reference to the Polan capital at Gnieznoi. These were defined as 'beginning from the side along the sea, then the frontier of Prussia to the place which is called Rus, and the Russian frontier as far as Cracow, and from Cracow to the Oder straight to the place called Alciiiure, and from there to the lands of Milsko, and from the (ro.uie'is ol Milsko along the Oder to the town of Schinesche'. There arc many IM> stem his tenures about this document which cannot be fully discussed here. Itleems though that it delimits boundaries which are relatively close to those of todays state. In the 990s therefore Micszko's realms reached the sea, and bordered on the lands of the Baltic Prussians in the northeast, and the Rus slate in
val Ei
161
1*3
the east. Tier reached Ac itvm rrrneoer ot Cracow (tmi .
NUAjcv&Jlj was not then part of has state and Olomouc ta Moran-i ~ Stín to the svwthwesa. Tbe fnal place nunc rnenraooed rs inn tu.*Zi Sioko. then* wsether the town was part ot Mxsxko* reaiaTcc^lj-jS a act known. ^^^^^^P™""""1
Miesxko dkd * 99- leanae the ringJnan n> has one soe* firon ■Batrnar. «*» **» expend by bis natf4nx>rJaerBo4Vs7aw rneBk Docrava. who sueaashcacd royal control o«er die area, "ill ifctf roar --; ,mnia< Cracow Later to be rise nie\i^r»lcai>«ai
he 1|,^ig«fc»«ňft 0 ilitnpr in (be north and south rVmerama and ana. attempted to expand west and east. It abo seems than in kit rescn the troooer as Mavma and \lai>jp*ka »as srabsfaest He also arrtsnpted IS the uenjishuniaw, • coo-Sits) mbo- to rne nornV ts_ a** bobof est Prague. Vc^Tech Adaftert - who tad been drřrcn 01» r» g^i nrndiaasncfidnan:- was sent as amenenatr to tbe Prussians, wfaerr ht a axtvrťi death Bofcssaw baught the řxxh Sadk and piacrxi una nSmOi ptnorJy capaolatCwinn Wr^oethrAdhJpesT was eaooaangj rj
laoV co fcVsJesxaw hosted a nimoiii rneenng at Geueano wan -v
Toteaf German Emperor Ono ax, who had cosae arena pand Irate m   - !s
ro^of * To^jexh- BoJe-siaw wenrcwot bts was to Lrnr?rev> vV »__•
nfftai injlkn ia mo aiiihhi miii in hni 1 [1Í111.J. Atthe^ new btshepnes - Garaoisott rstahbshed as the rVdtsh archdkx Wrwdtiw and Kofoorx* - were cstaMtshcd m order to smnethea
the Genua Empire, h wornd seen that a: tbe sane one Oreo had ^ni 1 ftohsuw «rah b» own dbdem, and called km -brother and portacrtfti. eaapnv* and "trsend and aflr ot the Itanun people'. The *-~-^r  * . grsrnrrs has been dctwrd. Thtrrmar boccs dnrr: nay God torgne the tmr^H tBtttaaakngknaadmtary.he rased bn^ hngV. Geiroan n Bended toesnpWsnr the dtsi aspect. foUad as mbnary. while rVnAsZlZ* cxrapox aas preferred to i recvgsmoe of fo&aoďtemi . as a sin or nts
'Hohr Lance', put 01the In. aad troxB the Hory Cross).-St Wv^eck eotdm ressek deaa • nTrmn n v; over wtde areas or Siai eer enprroc ftoasda
■viag. a trae coxonab
with a crowm s ■ - . .vr-.erpce
* j rff ■ ir^,w>
l Oil
■astae J
w NUrszho ad Bniethw tl
ion at the s>nte4c«matiae stasje. The nanst \rmth of the new social system and snanr aateRal cakure. n the an In oWiii . .   *~* —»kid sckmI stTanftrarioi
t place aj 'car.re
^**       Ardneciogical esn-
tinemrulwiniTaete • * *** pan of the popňanoa. «nh state broadh- resenioi»
it ot Mfti
Dp nt ■ nt
e wejMiiwMÍmud. h denseh-
LI-.,, _ , .
aa no, exxexO 14 Sea. rJscsseh seensthsarthxoaeb thearned arfy Pust Poiand the n> the centres where mad stare were rnhiriiid br
nnR onytzadV
and adaHaustratiTe cm.rcs as wed ikiiluswen of the late ■■!»
i? i
nit aASvtt IB^P^^P^^fi^pH
entutv st.mc.ii then, had been surrounded In earthen and timber rampart*Ufa
the strongholds themselves, .hough the settlements and strongholds each per-formed a d.tterent Junction These settlements svere relatively small built-up m.,s , which mav sometimes have had a regular plan and wooden paved streets) and housed a nmtles population: members ot the elite, members of the military g.rnson. merchants, innkeepers, artisans and servants, as svcll as peasant!. Although we know little about the social conditions ol life and work of the* ,s0,p|c it seen l.kels ihat thev "ere settled In the will of the lords of lbt strongholds, or settled there ot their own accord, part ot their output vva, presumably rendered to the lords ot the strongholds Written sources rnenq0B markets adiacent to nia.iv strongholds. It was not however until the formation i,, local exchange networks that these centres took on most of thecharaaertsrics
The state tried to control trade routes Gdansk was founded in the but: decades of the tenth century to try to capture some ot the Baltic trade from other centres on the Baltic coast I. is in this contest that sve should see the firs,
ittcmpts at minting a coinage In Polish rulers (ai fust mainly for prestige) at about the time that the flow of Arab silver into the Baltic dries up. These coins were modelled on the issues ot Bavaria and Saxon) Material from about 3j0 com hoards and over 130 single tinds of coins from settlements and graves serves as evidence of the two pecuniary functions ol silver money (forthesaur-„ation hoarding, and as currency) and as reliable evidence of the changing structure 01 monetary circulation Silver hoards ot the period after 950 contain manv western I uroptan coins I nglish, Danish and German - including some especially minted tor trade with the Slavs 1 as well as fragmented silver jewellery, which was clcarlv used as a medium of payment (by weight). Silver hoards become much rarct trom the second halt of the eleventh century, and from this period we have more numerous mentions 111 the written sources ol markets, both and attached to strongholds. ~*4^b^L^b^b^bv
Boleslaw is son. Micszk. 1 weak ruler. He repulsed a
German invasion in 1014, and in 10 to attacked (Old) Saxony,but in ion lost the throne m civil w brothers supported bv the nobles (and
a combined German and Russian attack'. He regained power at the cost of h Hiding his lather's conquests ol Lusatia, Slovakia and Moravia over to the Germans (1034). Aitcr his death Poland was devastated by a Czech attack by Bfctyslav t. who, among vast quantities of loot, rook St Wojcicch s body back to Prague. The prestige ot the country was returned under Ka/imierz the Restorer (io)4-yS>. though at the expense ol further compromises with the German emperor. It was under his son Boleslaw u the Bold (1058-79) that we sec tunda mental changes taking place in the economy oi the state,
The extent to which the sub|cct peoples felt themselves ro be ethnically related
split up. Pomcrania was held only briefly a number of times before the fifteenth ,im,ry; Maiov.a split trom the Polish state under Duke M.cclaw in 1059-47 Even the central part ot the state dissolved into feudal statelets ruled by minor pnnces of the Piast dynasty between 1138 and rji3, Tins allowed Silesia to be separated from Poland, though parts ol it were still ruled by princes of the Pi dr Jvna$fv until the sixteenth century. I his suggests that the populations in these jteas tch .1 kind of separateness from the central power of the state. We do not even know to what extent the populations of Pomcrania or Silesia spoke a form 0, the Polish language.^ In the period of weakness of the state certain nobles earned power, such as the Count Palatine Siecicch. who several time rebelled igainst the crown until he was exiled in 1099.
167
13
The Early Slavs and the Modern World
By vvavota conclusion to this hook, it seems worth considering the relevan the Early Slavs to the modem shape ol Europe. The ethnic situation crcatedh the end ot the tenth editors w.is .1 persistent, but at the same time pecuJj / unstable, situation, both features having considerable effect on the developm" ' ot modern Europe. I he cultural boundaries established at this period affected the shape of European culture as .1 w hole, shaping identities and d ft* mg the values which people live land sometimes have died) for. It is debatabl precisely what degree the average Russian, Pole, Serb or Croat is like heorsh ' as ,1 result ol decisions taken by le id. r- and poluic.il events in the ninth a tenth centuries, but 11 is undeniable that each one ot us absorbs from sod tv menial template, 1 world outlook which is characteristic of the communiry intn which we were horn, and that the world out look ol a community owes much shared traditions, and a common conception nf the past. The past is importa " to all of us, it is on this that we collectively and individually build ■ sell identits, and the ma|orit) ol us have a strong desire to find out ho"' our ancestors really lived, thought and reacted ("what they were like') Th why historians write books like this and the general public read them
As we Jiv the introduction, no matter how 'objective' he or sh
trying to he, the historian is capablt onlj of presenting an interpretation of events. It is inherent til our nature that, in general, wc behove mainly that which firms our sisiou of the world around us Even a scholar - th it ,.
«1*1115*] person
professionally engaged 111 shapmg society's world outlook - can only with extreme dillicultv escape this trap The way a historian or archaeologist sees t| past is basically conditioned by the way he or she sees the present and I conditioning is so deep that rarely is this easily detectable to contcmporaric I With hindsight and the delayed identification of a Zeitgeist is it possible to s the way 111 which former interpretations of the past were led in certain directions by various social and pohtic.il trends. We should bear this in mind when we fry 10 reconstruct history in a period when Europe itself and European society are undergoing enormous transformations, as they are at present.
In the year 1000, the German Emperor Otto m held his crown over the head
of Bolcslaw I, ruler of neighbouring Poland, apnarentlv sinnifvin,, l%l
,       , "'".••pparcniiy signifying his approva
of the proposal of that ruler to be crowned king. Polish historians treat th symbol of the might of Poland at this time (arguing that Otto would not have
Jgrecd to such a gesture otherwise) and Poland's 'entry into Europe'. German historians have regarded it as being symptomatic of the subordinate role of Poland as an eastern march of the Empire, Boleslaw's position being approved h, the emperor.1 In the Evangeha of Otto 111 written in 1000 for the Benedictine monastery of Reichcnau on Bodcnscc (Fig. 71), the Emperor is shown as sitting m majesty between representatives of the lay and sacral powers, while four •ultrs with strange headdresses representing, as the legend informs us, 'Scau.nia. Germania, Gallia and Roma' arc represented as bearing him tribute. This repress the universalis! tendencies of Otto, to create an united Europe under his authority. This seems to be the aim behind a series of raids from the Ottoman tmpne int0 Pol30'11 an° Poland throughout the tenth century. These were the lessors ol a scries ol events of military and political intervention CO the east and the formation of friendly client kingdoms which had begun under the Carolmginns, the creation of Marks and ultimately their absorption into ,hc German state. In this manner Bavaria and Cannthia became part of the German state by the ninth century. Ottoman and later German rulers were only continuing the policy of their forerunners. It is notable that at the time of Otto there was still a notion of Sclavinia (Slavdom), the concept that all the Slav nations in the sphere of influence of the Ottomans could be treated alike.
The German drive towards the east continued throughout the next centuries. Apart from their military activity, the Germans were politically - and economically - active in the cast. We have seen that they probably were the motors behind the formation of complex socio-political organizations m the areas bordering on their territories (Polabia and Pomcrania). They were instrumental in the forming of the Bohemian state in the first decades of the tenth century. The creation of the Magyar state in the tenth century (again prompted by the Germans) also led to an eastern expansion of German influence which continued throughout the twelfth and especially the thirteenth century (including German colonization of parts of Transylvania in this period). Similar colonization was taking place in Polabia and Silesia, Pomcrania and Prussia). A high point in this process was the eastern expansion of the German Empire by the end of the fouriecnth century deep into what had originally formed part of the Piast state of Poland; Silesia was to be under German and Habsburg rule for almost six hundred years until 194 J. At the same time many of the Slav states were adopting cultural forms and institutions which were to bring them fully into the orbit of western European culture, and a place of their own in the growing international economy. This is especially true of Poland under Casimir the Great (uu-70), and of the teigns of Louis the Great of Hungary (134Z.-H1) and Charles the Great of Bohemia (1333-78).
In the south the Serbs became for a while the dominant power in the Balkans under the Nemanyich rulers culminating in the considerable territorial expansion of the reign of Stefan Dushan (1331-55). The Second Bulgarian
Till EARLY SIAVS
wis also a m.i|«ir force in the Middle Ages Both the*
P'rC '   '„n.-1 to some extent their Byzantine heritage, whereas Bvzantium "«unh C rusade. which was followed by the creation £
r7Tl^ZsX^ - other parts of Slavdom the Slavs were being ,    hi mto other states I he various peoples (including Slavs) inhabiting the were ibsorbed mto the Ottoman state ,n the fourteenth and fifteen,,, The short-lived Serb..,,, empire was annexed bv Seljuk Turks, who TUr,hanlcsof Kosovo-Pol,e (M89) and \ una , ,444) expanded across the « l„rus and into the Balkans. The Serbian principalit.es and Bosnia came I   Ottoman rule while Croatia and Dalmat.a came under Hungarian and I ■ These es ents were to establish the ethnic and religious make-up0f r;re!,s.rwh.eh was ,0 endure to, several century ,
I - .3st the K.evan state split into .1 number ot semi-independent pnnc-"    in the course ot the eleventh ccntun (a process occurring in several T „. the larger European states - such as Poland - at the same penod). 1   h . • aos the Mongols expanded into the steppes and invaded the smitbern Russ,an"pr,..c.pal...es. establishing the khanate ol the Golden Horde Only thc northern Russian pr.nctpal.t.cs remained relatively independent of Mongol ovetlordsh.p (though adopt.ng certain cultural features from the steppe h rdes) In the course of the fourteenth century the Mongol power waned, and unrein icy w is gamed bv the principality ow, from which the Russian
,rn under Ivan III 1461-1505)- The state expanded southwards ,nto the torest-steppe and steppe zone in the sixteenth century.' In the west of Russia however the expansion of the Lithuanian state into theDnic shed in the late thirteenth and carls tour nth centuries had annexed thc core jreas ol thc Kicvan stare, and it ssas in this area under Lithuanian Lithuanian-Polish rule in the thirteenth to s.xteenth centuries that the Bclarusstan and Ukrainian lane entities were established.
There was considerable competition for the Baltic coast. In the tenth century thc ire. ol the present Ball d in the sOUth h>'a sertesoftj
speikmg the Bait languages (Prussians. Jatvings, Lithuanians, Kuronians. hvomans and Letgaliansi. while the northern parts were occupied by Rime-Ugnan-speaking Estonian tribes: these peoples had all successfully resitted K.evan expansion. In the first two decades of the thirteenth century much of their territories were annexed by thc Teutonic Kn.ghts, a crusading order composed mostly ot German knights, which established a state here which lasted until thc fifteenth century. They added much of Pomerania to their annexations by thc thirteenth ccnturv I by which time eastern Pomerania had separated itself from Polish rule! The German state or East Prussia which arose from the western part ol this territory was to last until the end o    c second world Wat Pomerania was annexed by the I olisn and tie
,he twelfth century Denmark was a contender), but managed brief periods i)f mdependencc. In thc mid seventeenth century thc area was occupied for
several decades by Sweden.
[n this manner Slavdom was nibbled away from all sides, and areas at the mngcs became parts of non-Slav political organisms. As a result of the vanous political events of the late Middle Ages and post-medieval periods the ethnic ,nd political lavout of early medieval Europe was thus to a large extent rearranged Hs the beginning of the nineteenth century, much of Europe was partitioned hetween the Prussians and Ausmans in thc west and the Ottoman and Russian empires in thc south and east (Fig. 71).
The neat coloured areas of historical atlases however hide a more complex nation. The concept of states consisting of a single nation is a relatively modern notion: most states on the map of fourteenth- to nineteenth-century antral and eastern Europe were mult,-ethnic, multi linguistic, multi-religious ,jnd thus multicultural) political units. Thus thc Polish and Lithuanian Republic before thc partitions consisted of a western zone which was mamlv Polish-speaking, but there were large numbers of Germans and Jews in thc towns and to a lesser extent in the country; there were Dutch and German settlers in the northwest rural districts and in some areas in the south. Thc CJStern zone was Ukraman- and Bdarussian-speaking, with some Lithuanian 3nd Polish settlement - primarily of thc petty nobles. Jews were less prominent, hut their place was taken by other minorities, such as Armenians. There were also Tatars and Cossacks in the southeast. The northwestern parts were purely
Lithuanian. As far as one can tell, there seem tn b^«- 1-----
,ng movem tensi
------...w«a,. 1 nc northwestern parts were purely
s one can tell, there seem to have been very few decentraliz-until thc nineteenth century, and, despite inevitable social ensiun>, in iii-my of these areas the evidence seems to suggest that these various ethnic groups and cultures co-existed relatively peacefully. We have seen that some of the early medieval political units may have had similar multicultural structures, and that a single language used for official purposes did not exclude the existence of other ethnic and linguistic divisions within society.
In most of thc post-medieval political units there seems to have been little or no cultural pressure on the Slavs to change their way of life and culture. Such a process is seen however in the west, where the Lusatian languages were extinguished by the German dialects. The process was a lengthy one, and lasted long liter thc German conquest of the area in the ninth and tenth centuries: thc last remnants ol Slav languages in the region of Hamburg disappeared in the eighteenth ccntun. and a few isolated traces of other dialects existed in rural areas of Lusat.a until the middle of the twentieth. In thc eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Prussian authorities attempted to stamp out Slav culture - and almost succeeded. Slav languages existed as national languages in some states isuch as Poland before the partitions) or as a series of dialects spoken amongst communities of other nationalities (such as in Silesia and Lusatia which had
171
THE 't^^^^^^^^^l
lone been parts ot German ami Habsburg states, and Slovakia, long |jnU, | |„MKirs and Austria I. Hie Czech, Russian and Polish languages have   I ^ htcrarv tradition, but others became literary languages only in the n|C ' 8 (Slovak. Serbian and Croatian) and even twentieth century (MacedonianT^L'1 nineteenth centurv was to see the beginning or"a close study of these Ian" a pioneer was the Czech scholar Jo/et Dohrovsky  i75v-i8i9), wh.0 w^*8* German I a studv on the Old Slavic language, but also a history of theCz "h!''" guage and literature In some ot these areas the national language and^l tradition was l.irgcls restricted mainly to the rural populations. Rom ""^ encouraged the study of these disappearing cultural traits in local folk!n,?Ci,m ethnography. Some Slav patriots were greatly influenced by the ideas0^""1 German philosopher |ohann C.otttried von Herder 11744-1803), who S ' wrote an influential work on the origin of language | 1-72) but also s °t°n''V the inalienable rights ol each nation and emphasized the importance^T^ national language, traditions and folk culture. Herders work achieved lantv m central Europe for he also emphasized the role of the Slavs in E P°PU history    \nothcr German philosopher,  Gcorg  VY'ilhclm  Eriedrich 'fT*'" i --0-1831), had a differing view of the role ol the Slavs. He wrote of th ot Europe' being the house of the 'great Sclavonic nation', a body of ° which 'has not appeared as an independent element in the series of pha th» Reason has assumed in the world' - in other words quite separate f *** development of western Europe. *^8|^^^^^^^^H
The latter view was to prevail around the beginning of the nineteenth which sau the emergenci isi    est division of Europe vVt^
European historians, inhabitants ot countries which were lor the StCrn engaged in the colonization ot undeveloped countries, saw their part of f ^ as in some way special and predestined to take .1 leading role in the world".")!* attitude is reflected 111 many tests written at the time in which cistern E and in particular the dized. This is a tendency which lf0p*'
well into the twentieth centui ding to many textbooks .ind^r'"11?1
produced 111 the West and the United States even today, the history of £ " a the Middle Ages concentrates on the story of the Franks and Carolingians0^ successors and western allies.4 The Slavs and all eastern peoples arc excl Vlt from playing any significant role in the history of Europe and are red" Ih merelv to the role of passive spectators. It was thus m central Europe tha^ flict developed between .1 self-centred western historiography, which pon^A the Teutonic and Latin West as the defenders of the post-classical h ' against the threat of the barbarian Slav world of the cast, and the itT**! histories of the Czech and Polish peoples, who were forced in their Dado I versions ol history to denounce the German Drang nach Osten The ' was more complex in the Balkans, where other issues were also involved"30011 discussion of the perception of the past of individual nations VC m
™E MMY «D TIU ..OMw wo„
n WOMI.D
The Enlightenment and rise of movements for the restoration of the small Furopean states (the National Revival) of the second half of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century began to affect most of central and eastern Europe. It concerned the nations then forming parts of the superpowers of the time - the united Habsburg monarchy and Hungarian state, the Russian Empire- and incorporated in the Prussian state. There was a revival of mtcrest ,n national .dentines, and this was reflected in a rise of interest in national histories and ant.quar.an.sm.' I his was m.t.ally due to western influence and was especially strongly felt in Bohemia and Poland, where the loss of political sovereignty also turned attention to the cultural heritage of the past."
Russia experienced something similar at the beginning of the nineteenth Lentury under the influence of Romanticism; a tendency developed to turn from the study ol the cI.issk.iI heritage to that of the Russian Slavs. This was to develop into pan-Slavism (a political movement aiming to unite all the Slav-peoples under Russian hegemony). The Russian historian Nikolaj Karamzin was an initiator of this movement. The Poles however in the nineteenth century fought the ideals of pan-Slavism, perceiving it as an ideological weapon in the attempt to 'Russify' Polish lands which had been taken in the partitions of the end of the previous century. The Czechs, Lusatians, Bulgars, Serbs, Croats and Slovenians however welcomed it as a weapon in their fight against German, Habsburg and Turkish political and cultural domination.
The Balkans, in the struggle against the effects of centuries of Ottoman dom-uiation, were particularly prone to such processes. One of the most notorious cases involves the theories of the German journalist Jakob Fallmcrayer, whose History of the Morean Peninsula7 was published as a response to Russia's involvement in the struggle for Greek independence against the Ottomans (Germany's allies) and the philhellcmsm and popular support in Europe and America which accompanied it. Fallmcrayer used the written sources and the place names to suggest that the ancient Greeks had been annihilated in the early Middle Ages and the ancestors of the modern inhabitants of Greece were in fact Slavs and Albanians who had settled there in the Middle Ages and adopted the Creek language from the Byzantines. He claimed that the modern Greeks were an interior, mongrel people undeserving of their ancient past. As may be expected, this view of the cthnogencsis of the Greeks enraged (and still enrages) Greek nationalists and is probably one of the factors which contributes to our Door understanding of the archaeological evidence for the settlement of the
Perceptions of early Russian history were also to be affected by a similar challenge to their national identity in the 'Normamst' controversy which was prompted by the legend of the *Calling-in of the Varangians' in the PVT.. This Intend was treated as a literal report of history by nineteenth-century German and Scandinavian historians: the Germanic northmen were seen as having
brought civilization to thc 'backward' I .ist Slavs. This view was com Russian historians and philologists, to whom such a suggestion w,» -c.^*"^
insult to their national prestige. These anci-Normanisi view..
^•>s above 4|:
■in
trongb voiced in the mid 1950s in Stalin s .sol ition.st Sov.ct Union. The Pv[ , .nion ot the nse ol the Russian state was not only unacceptable to national nndc but it variance with Marxist theory (wh.ch saw the rise or the state,, Line a result of inner forces and not ot outs.de influences). Several Soviet schol-ars (Boris A Rvbakov, Boris p Grckos 1 were to trv vers hard to disproved*
Norm in.st theor.e s I.....unter this arose a neo-Norn,an,st school in the we„
,HolgarArbman,A.Stender-Pcterscn) "fi^lnH
n ol the same idea, the predominant civil.zmg role of ^ Germanic peoples, was to develop irom another national chauvinism, and was ,„ have .1 more widespread effect In 1895 the young philologist Gustaf presented .1 paper. 'Uber die vorgesch.chtl.chc Ausbreitung dec Germanen in Oeutschland'. at a con,:; - ol the German Anthroriolo^, Societj at Kassel 1 In this paper he first put forward his views, which wen> I-..
w«te later ........■iiuiiic peoples in
historv. and 111 particular the view that ethnic groups could be identified h ^
definition 01 specific groups in material culture. These views we>-» - -original, but it was the wav that they were expounded by Kosj
'mentof
\rvan' Germans had brought civilization to other culturally less well
peoples and nations It is obvious that this school of prehistory wa.„^repaftd
- "as Offene,,.. ...
followers which - mportance for thc direction of development of* ^
ot central European archaeology throughout the w hole of the twentieth ""^ In particular Kossinna and his : heved that throughout i
U-pi
irs ol the nations the Germans claimed to have civilized. It was m this period that we see the tirst steps taken in the constructio modern knowledge ot the ancient cultures of thc Slavs. An extremely st^ffe^* event was thc publication (1902-24) of the eleven volumes of th '^*lt ■itquities of the SLtvs) by the Czech scholar I 1!? Niederlc (1 S6;-.9441. with its amalgamation of thc historical, archa I and ethnographic evidence. (^j^^^B^^M The outbreak of the First world War was precipitated by "Iliiicciiiaixe^^
Austro Hungarian LmP,re and nsalr.es arising aher the break-ap <rf Ottoman Empire. Russia once again perceived interests in thc lt.IV. entered thc War on the side of Serb,.., and Germanv nWI ^  ■"'s ^
>i J and 1916) and
19 t? Bolshevik Revolution |ca
pans of the Russian Empire in
to be one of the kev features »•    i     m     , .
■ « "» "ie map or turope. art,
rougnout most ol rhe rest of thc nsenticth century. At the 1 Jf 1919, several new nations reappeared on the political map
new 1
— ..onus *'s>niii
nuinra.ned thc.r cultural .denrity now emerged from the larger units, ,n particular thc disman o- ungar.an empire. The German empire lost
not only 'rs Kaiser, prestige and arms, but also eastern areas to Poland. Soviet Russia gave up areas ot thc western fnnges of thc former tsarist empire ith.s
1,1 fed parts of Poland. Ukraine and Belarus, as well as the Bi In sr.,   I 1 c inciuuvu y || 0.00c siaiesi. in the
a nations the past was again invoked to aid the rebuilding of a new feeling of IU«mhood. In many of thc central European states emerging from the First World war there was an intense development of historiographs and archaeology The search for a national past to provide an identity in thc ncsv world order was perhaps not a priority, but w as certainly pursued with vigour.
The peace esrablishcd by the League of Nations was shon-livcd. In 193) Adolt Hitler same ro power and the German people found a voice and recovered the strength to oppose whar rhev felt were the wrongs „f Versailles (which Hitler had m 1 rambling manner desenbed in Mesa Kjntpf, sctring out his view that some races were superior to others; the Slavs were seen as an inferior' peoplei. Less than rwenty years after the end of thc First World War, German eastward expansion into Bohemia and Poland (which Germans saw as their former •homelands' in rhe east) was to begin the Second World War and the Germans vscte set to resolve the Slav problem in former 'Ostgcrmama'. In the Nazi penod. thc historical and archaeological es.dencc and Kossmna's model were ujedm an uncritical and politically biased manner to support policies of eastern „pans.on. The original territorial demands against Bohemia were based on the argument of the existence there of a German cultural minority; similar arguments were advanced in thc case of thc Polish corridor. The presence of material culture of German.c rype was used to suggest that certain area, of central Europe were ancient German homelands', thus justifying their 'rcconquest' by Panzer divisions, and rhe displacement and destruction of inferior' peoples (Jews. Slavs, Gypsies and so on) inhabiting those lands, who were claimed to be later intruders.
rhcre was a reaction by Polish and Bohemian archaeologists, who showed by eto thc archaeological ata that there had been Slavs in those territories ny uermans naa set to > in mem 1 nc I oznau school of thc ethnogenc-associated with thc person of J6zcf Kostrzcwski has its ongm in lemics. This was one of the theses of Borkovskv's 1940 study of the spc tand the reason why 11 was withdrawn from thc bookshops by the aimed to succeed where Charlemagne and the Ottomans had failed- he 3 reshape Europe, to unite it under a German rule in order to fulfil the stoncal mission of that nation. A romanticized and biased archaeology rai history were to add ideological support to the New Europe formed htzkneg, concentration camps and the SS firing squads. Thc local as to be stamped out in thc conquered territories and replaced by a
rele
THE j^^^^^H
( rrmin world view. It w.is Hitler wl... sod tli.it .1 nation docs not live longer than its vulture. ..rid .Ins policy was expressed with most v.olcncc in the case of p.,", lIU| p„|,sh archaeologists such as Kostrzcwsk, spent the War in h.dingfron, the Gestapo. Rudolf Jamka, the prewar ex. ivatnr of Krak's mound near Cruow had been twice interrogated by the German authorities to make quite sure thai he bad nor hidden evidence ot a Viking buri.il which the Germ,,,, expected that the mound covered .and would prove1 the role of the GerrnantIn
thi founding of the Polish itan I
I ike Hitler in the Sudeten, Stalin too had polices of ethnic unification. On the hisis ol .1 secret protocol to the Molotov-R.bbentr,,P treaty of thc Soviet
Union regained -Ukrainian" and 'Hel.11 uss.an' lands 111 the west which had been |„s, 10 Poland in 1 ■>-•-■ ami also annexed again the Baltic states. Germany how-ever made the mistake ol invading thc Soviet Union in i.,.,i (and again late Roman period Gothic occupation ot the Ukraine proved a useful political
" I'heendol the War, with victors going to Allied forces and Stalin's Red Army, was to create.1 somewhat more enduring New Europe than the agreements clos-ingtlu li.s. World War. \t the leliran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences of i944 and i'U< boundaries were drawn which were a logical conclusion to the rathe, halt hearted compromise measures of Versailles. 'I'd some cxrent, it seems that the tact thai the present state ol 1 uiopean national boundaries is a mirror 01 the earls medieval situation is due to at least two ol the participants in the
Yalta ( .....ereiice in i'M-1, < hurchill and Stalin, pi inning 11 that way - the first
perhaps 101 r< .tsonsol the logic of history, the second because he needed thc put to pisiitv the present It ,eeins thai Stalin's advisers were guided by pan-Slavi« when drawing the new Iromiei   !"> new frontiers of Poland were drawn J,,s. to their tcnth-ccntim hue., and the boundaries of thc Comecon countries [the Iron < urtainl match quite closely the furthest 1 stent of Early SI meiit (lor examph the western frontier of the Democratic Republic of Gi rmanyl It seems that this was deliberate. Milovan Djilas writes'of Stalin's rliet and disappointment when lit li irnt trom him that the Albanianj (included in the Soviet bloc) were not .1 S    11 people and ol the role that pan-slavism plavedm the carl) discussions in the Kremlin with [hi ,1 the new members of thc Soviet hegemony.
Stalin learnt well the lessons ol pit l lOUS rulers who resettled populations t„ enhance the unity of a state and dilute ethnic populations. Ethnic mixing in the Soviet Union was a state policy, intended to create a single 'nation of thc Soviet nations'. The cultural heritage of these groups was also to be a common one, and thus the regime demanded that thc history books and archaeology textbooks should emphasize the links between these peoples. In the lands claimed from Germany and Poland thc German populations were loaded on trains and sent to defeated Germany, Poles were resettled from the former Polish territories
176
>A*tV SLAVS AND THI MODERN WORLD
„f what was now 'Western Ukraine' and 'Western Belarus' and sent to the areas (Silesia, Pomeranta etc.) taken from Germany. These moves were |ustified by ethnic and historical arguments which were ranged alongside modern con-tmgicncics."1 In Poland it was stressed for several decades that at Yalta and Pntsdam the country had regained her historical frontiers. The territories in the north and west annexed from the German Reich were often officially referred to as the Recovered Territories' [Ziemie Odzyskam-). Another feature of thc period was the attempted imposition of Russian as the new lingua franca of ,he Soviet hegemony, enabling scholars of different countries to communis rtt their work. The fact that it was imposed sometimes meant that central European scholars were unwilling to make as much use of this opportunity as they might have done.
In the Soviet bloc, archaeology was to play a significant ideological role hnked with pan-Slav.st attitudes and thus legitimating the new order (and redrawn frontiers). In thc late 1940s in almost all member states of Comecon, there was encouragement for archaeologists to undertaken new kind of research protect. One of thc favoured topics of study was the rise of thc early medieval states which gave rise to the nations now under Soviet hegemony. Historical materialism was to be the paradigm which was to govern the way in which that past was to be investigated. Another factor was thc inevitable portrayal of Fascist Germany as simply a continuation of the permanently hostile attitude to the Slav nations reflecting thc Ostpolittk adopted by thc Ottomans and their successors.
In Poland preparations for the thousandth anniversary in 1963-6 of thc first appearance of thc nation in history, in association with which the majority of th central places of thc Piast state were excavated, were begun with state suppor hy 1948- In Czechoslovakia study of the Mnr»vi-«
ie >rt
----, .»c.c ocgun with state support
by 194H• In Czechoslovakia study of thc Moravian state was begun also in 1948 (excavations at Staré Město and Mikulčice in msa). In the late 1940s and 1950s East German archaeologists also began a study of the early medieval Slavic past of their territory which clearly differentiated it from thc western occupied zone lexcavations at Tornow). Bulgaria began to study thc rise of the Bulgarian state jto m 194B (excavations at Pliska and Prcslav). Russian archaeologists had Inns been studying the origins of the Kievan state and linking its expansion with the later Muscovite state, but also made considerable advances in the study of the tarty Slavs in the same period (1945-50). Now their experience and work using historical materialism were used as examples by a gen-uitig central European archaeologists eager to work with thc new s that these studies (and the new paradigms) created. In 1965 the s of thc International Union of Slav Archaeologists was held in second (1970) was held 111 (East) Berlin, and subsequent meetings other central European capitals such as Bratislava. Thc political se research protects was emphasized by the low-key study of the
metm
THE BARLY
t.ir|v „H-d.cv.il origins o( no., Sl.ivic PcoPks (such as in the Baltic states),^ ,h, im,H,on winch was P"'l     disproving the myths and conclusion, 0f
German-especially Nazi-science. J| ,„ |>„|.„hI. tor example, excavations were carried out to show that Silejfan towns now inhabited by Poles had Slav and no. German beginnings, that 'early Polish'culture was higl.lv developed and (in oppos.t.on to what had been wri,' ,cn in the Nazi propaganda literature) developed independently of German 0r Scandinavian influence." In Czechoslovakia the glor.es ol Moravian culture of ,he ninth cc.m.n were exposed and extolled. . similar pattern was established „, ,|U | )| )R. vv here the long political independence Iron, the German Empire in the tenth and eleventh centuries and the development of an indigenous Slay culture were emphasized. I or a long time in all three areas this was achieved at the est ol playing down the clear Ottoman influences in the material culture In the DDK this was carried to the . stent ol the Ottoman conquest and recon^ quest being extremely neglected in archaeology and history textbooks; inclusion ,„ research programmes ol the studv ol these phenomena seems even to have been .letivelv discouraged In Polish textbooks ol the Communist period, the early medieval Germans are presented in an almost totally negative light, a, interested onlv in brutal conquest and inu i fering .11 internal affairs of the Polish state In contrast archaeological works stressed the peaceful coexistence'of the inhabitants ol the Polish and Kiev.111 states in the area of contact in Podlasicfor example     I lie re is so,,,, evidence however that not many Polish or Soviet archaeologists wetc particiilarlv interested 111 examining the real nature of on this troublesome frontier. a^^^^^^^H Much greater problems were to he caused bv another facet ol this p| ni„, ears between the  World Wars Polish archaeologists -
.„ iron. I'o/nan. led bv kostrzcwski - began to express the hypothesis that the area between the Oder and Vistula rivers was the original homeland of the Slavs. I here 1 il grounds lor this view, but the most
important was perhaps not scientific n was an emotional issue in a state which had recently gamed independence, but lelt threatened by powerful in German scholars had insisted thai the area had been inhabited first by Germans at least by the Roman period, and thai the Slavs had moved into the Oder-Vistula area Irom the east only later when the Germans migrated into the Roman Empire. Kostrzewski's views gamed the tacit approval of the Soviet-sponsored ruling elite of the post-1945 state and more importantly of the Polish public tor whom it gave a comfortable' past. After the War, Kostrzcwski and his former students - among whom Witold Henscl and Konrad Jazdzewski took an early lead - began to propagate their autocthonous model of Slav origins m Polish territory. All sorts of ingenious arguments were used to prove cultural continuity between the third millennium in and the present, and any attempts to discuss the opposite view were for a time treated as revisionism of the worst
kind, and a challenge to the authority of the doyen of n a t „is pupi.s. Polish archaeology was dominated by t s ,   ' l „„til Kostrzewski's death in tufio (rhn..„i.____ , .     autocnthonous model
"chaco|0gy and
17S
ic»uu iiciiucoiugy was dominated by this autoi '„„1 Kostrzewski's death in 1969 (though some of the effects of this model kc s,ill being felt). In .979 a Cracow professor, K. Godlowski, published his 'little vellow book" which began to spell the end for the simplistic views of a Sin ethnogenesis between the Oder and Vistula At the same time however some scholars outs.de Poland w ere beginning to turn away from the interpretations of German science to the Polish autochthonous views, paradoxically at a time when some of the Poles themselves were abandoning it. As we have seen the ethnogcncsis of the Slavs is a complex problem, and matters have not been helped by the tangling of the problem in modern social and political needs
One aspect of this problem needs turthcr consideration: whether the Polish autochthonous model was preferred by some scholars - perhaps only subconsciously - paradoxically as an antidote to Soviet pan Slavism. Poles could hold their heads high among all the Slav nations as inhabitants of the true homeland „, ,he Slavs. Thus, far from being a tool of the Soviet ideology, the autochthonous model perhaps also fuelled more local ambitions.14
If we accept a greater participation of local indigenous populations in the formation of the Sukow-Dzicdzicc assemblages than in the case of the Mogila group, this sheds a somewhat different light on the autochthonous or autochthonous arguments on the origin ol the Slavs in Polish archaeology. Rather than being a purely political struggle, it was a contrast between two different schools 0f archaeology, centred on I'oznan (J. Kostrzcwski, W. Hcnsel, K. Jazdzewski) and Cracow (K. Godlowski, M. Parczewskt) in two ancient cultural zones. If our interpretation of these cultural phenomena is correct, it is not surprising that the observed evidence led to the construction of opposing models. The mistake was made when it was attempted to apply the same model to the whole of modern Poland (this subconscious model 111.1s itself derive from an awareness that Poland had supposedly returned to its historical borders) without allowing the possibility of different processes in operation in different areas."
Another interesting and telling case is the role of the Moravian state in the formation of a Czechoslovak national identity. The ancient Moravian state lay in the middle of the long state which was defined after the end of the First World War in order to be the common homeland of the Czech and Slovak peoples. These two ethnic groups had been for most of the period (at least from the seventeenth century) relatively strongly culturally differentiated. It was in the Moravian state (most often - following Constantino Porphyrogcnitus - referred to in the literature as 'Great Moravia') straddling the area of cultural division that the origin of the modern people was sought.1* This however was done to the detriment of a balanced picture of the development of the Bohemian state, ihe origins of which tended to be overshadowed in the textbooks by the Moravian state (Chapter tz).
J-79
THE MULY SLAVS
lt ls ,mercst.ng to note- that the specific tvpes of overall model accepted in the uku „i earlv medieval antral Europe have affected the way that the detail i| interpreted Hie principal surprise tor central European archaeologists studying this period in the past few years has been a complete revis.on of the chronology The hooked spurs discussed in Chapter 4 were for a long time dated as begin. mn, „1 the tilth or sixth ccnturv, since - it was argued - they must have been derived from the spurs ot the Pr/eworsk culture of the Roman period This was , consequence ot the Polish autochthonous model of Slav origins, and totally ignored the existence of much more similar hooked spurs (though with the hooks turning outwards) in the Frankish kingdom in the seventh century. The problems did not stop there: the spurs were one ot the tew 'datable' ob|ects found in Earlv Slav contexts, and potterv was dateel In association with these spurs the earlv strongholds too. In effect as a result of this, many sites and events of the early phase of Slav settlement were for some th.rtv years (i9JOS t0 1980s) dated a ccnturv or two too earlv. By a series ot related but also tenuous ugumcnts concerning the relationship between earlv medieval and Roman period populations, potterv ot the lornovv and Ecldberg types was a|So dated two centimes too earlv In last Herman scholars; this meant that pottery 0f Prague- and Sukow tvpes was fitted into a much shorter timcspan than it had rcallv occupied This 111 turn gave a false picture of the density of settlement in Polahia in the first phases ot Slav settlement. Again, the rcdating of Tornowand Ecldberg potterv has allowed them to he seen as an expression of another form of influence from rhe areas beyond the Elbe; the development of several phenomena in Polabia can now he seen as due to Carolingian influence.
Here a tew words need to be s.nd on the topic of the use of Marxism In the study of the past in central Europe, In general in the period of Communist hegemony .after about 1948) there were tour mam reactions to the use of Marxism ,le 111 the published literature. Some scholars did not use historical nalism at all in their works, and produced texts which w "aloguej ot material or simple presentations of events and phenomena. The----
ere was a e paradigms of
second group who attempted to utilize fully (or appear to use) th , Marxism m their historical research and considered the social and economi interpretation ot the pi a described - the material conditions ot
existence, internal social relationships; their works may or may not contain an extensive range of quotes Irom the Marxist classics. A third group of workers produced works predominantly ot the first type, but made them more politically proper by the addition of a sprinkling of carefully selected quotes from the Marxist classics. A fourth group unconsciously used Marxist concepts in their works because they unthinkingly repeated modes of reasoning and working taught them at university without being totally aware of their Marxist roots and being in ignorance of alternative models. A variety of socio-political and individual factors were responsible for the complex picture which emerged.
180
There were regional, institutional and chn Marxism. In general in the Soviet Union, I the more important writers fell into the secor
substantial number of Marxist works written betwee       a WCre a
which the number dropped off sharply.r94« and 1956, after
A . ., ,   n.itt cm MfiW \m- Kr*f n an »L_ ___r as
«> TH! Monun WO)<LD
ferences in the use of choslovakia, many of
substantial numwr 01 rviarxist works which the number dropped off sharply.1
\ reaction can now be seen in the years following the collapse of the Communist hegemony. In general (and somewhat simplifying a more complex situation 1 one nay observe just two types of archaeology. The first applies philosophical concepts to the interpretation ot the raw data. These may or may not include Marxist-prompted models, or they may derive from western European traditions I which were somewhat ignored, perhaps as too 'cosmopolitan', ,n most central Kuropean countries in the Communist period). The effect is to produce an archaeological interpretation which investigates and tries to exnlain ~-------
. - n UUC
. ...»7 •■■ar ucnve from western European traditions somewhat ignored, perhaps as too 'cosmopolitan', in most central .juntries in the Communist period). The effect is to produce an •haeological interpretation which investigates and tries to explain processes ift   „n ancient societies. The other school studiously ignores such work, and is
acting 011 j,,v* 1,   1       i_.        ,    , 1
I rooted in the Continental culture-history school, intent only on rypologi-! Indication of 'finds' (artefacts) and ordering them into groups, the succes-Cil !of which is then merely described. Disappointingly, instead of building on the 41011 tatIve models of the former generanon in a more sophisticated manner, " h of the archaeology of the former Soviet Union (Belarus and Ukraine mU cularly) seems to have fallen into this latter mode."
^The situation in former Yugoslavia was slightly different. The break between r   and Moscow in 1948 meant that this state was not subject to the same '    as most of the others. In fact, in a state formed out of six provinces, many 0 hich could claim some kind of role in the early history of the Balkans, and j them with some form of past ethnic identity, close investigation of the edicval past could have led to problems and seems not to have been ^   I encouraged in the Tito era (the Roman past was a much more comfort-ble subject of study). It is characteristic that in the years preceding and 11    ne the break-up of the Yugoslavian state, medieval archaeology and the roreianon of the historical tccords have had a renaissance. The need to ncsv ethnic history from the past here as elsewhere has not however ed to balanced scholarship. This is especially true of the immediate ic tccent Kosovo conflict.
resting case is the situation in Romania, where Transylvania in a contested territory (forming as it did for a long period part itcl. Under the Ccauscscu regime Romanian nationalism he autochthonous origin of the Romanian people, and the pies in this area has tended to be played down. Cemeteries lav affinities have been claimed to be ot a native 'Dacian' iy important sites remain to be published. Unfortunately :d a full appreciation of the nature of Slav settlement in
always jftcrma Anotl
particUl... m Miumccu icrrit
of the Hungarian state). Under the
181
rm miiv uavs
m „n modern states have thus invested considerable et.ua into thc construe. ,|, ,, mcd.cv.il ,MM. b«« what isclc.it here is th.it wc ..rc dealing here 11« "'"! " i ,| history but with modern identity politics built on narratives of the *' Th- origin -I states, and evidence ol unbroken continuity of existence T' ,|| idvcrsc factors has been sough. Medieval history here acts rather*, Scene tor .Klionswhieb.,r, perceived, not only as c .eating a distinct origin^ h ' am,nniml, but ilso as definitive - once done they should not be ' ol inirsrs„ch significant' events are to be chosen with care andthtit
ficin e upheld with much scholarlv argument. Since one of the featUKl S"!n,II,« m ethnic .national' .dentin ,s an us/them s.u.at.on, ,t ,s not surprising T", minv ol these histories have portrayed a nation surviving various external .   j .rn ,| thri. ,,s I he notion ol conflict is therefore given prominence. for "'uuple Hulgana m conflict sv.ih In/annum. Serbia w„h the lurks. BohcmU ' '| p ,| „, I ssi.li the Germans I. is not surprising that the medieval battlefields of iv      I nnenbut, ..   .till frequently visited sites.
T.        ,.......collapse ol the Soviet hegemony in . 980 and , 990 has led to
., -ss coco political conditions which in turn base given rise to different ways 0f remit the pas. In part.c.l... we see a number ol publications treating „ s.plI,te subtests the h.storv ot specific regions which were formerly treated , p„,ol , lan'cr whole I bus we sc. • us ss archaeology of the Ukraine Utj Kehruss,., appearing to replace the thick volumes ol Arkbevlogm Soy**
Rvpublik which treated vast areas as hutnoge. neouswh. production ol particulate tests demonstrates the gaps in our
knowledge which this concealed.- I he tact though that many of these new .ccounts are written 111 1 n 1t1011.1l language rather than a congress lang
.., which they would have been written in thc Soviet era makes them more d.ft.cul. tot.se bv ou.s.de scholars „ Hi
It i„ the <. old w ir s-ears after the Second World War in mam countries there w ,s . tendency towards pan-Slavism and to claim vehemently that all civ,!,;.,, non .1 advances had been made by the Slavs independently of western influence, ,|,c pendulum has swung back the other way. Thc desire of several central I nropcan stales to ,o.n the European Union has been matched by the voices of historians who have tried to show . nous periods of the
past. What was formerly (but informally) a taboo question is now openly discussed. In the ness situation, Polish and Czech scholars are now happy n admit the positive influences which their neighbours thc Germans played in 4 number ot socio-political and economic processes.-' In Poland, the slow, painful and melficient centrally planned economic growth of the post war years was
matched by a model of early medieval state formation which emphasized the
slow cumulation Irom generation to generation of various factors which as thr
historical processes unfolded gradually gave rise to a I
.11 1 period ot rapid expansion of thc f
» state. After 1989-
:«i
„re put forward by young scholars, who saw the formation of the Polish state ,lS being an almost overnight event caused by the careful political wheel.,,," ,, jrahng of a dynamic, enterprising but ruthless and strong leader This un.Marxist model may be seen as a fresh interpretation of thc past for IT •yuppies' of the new Poland. In ., period ot increased poht.cal and ecoTotnfc co.oper..t.on around the Baltic, and new investment of foreign c,P,m inTh ^..Soviet economy, the Normanist models of the beginning of the Kla an arc at last finding new favour among Russian scholars
' These scholars apparently feel that any changes bringing eastern Europe (lmer to western post-Roman Europe are simply natural evolution toward clvi|lMtion. The precise mechanisms and motives ot both sides „,y„|u. | „,' ,, pr0Ccss are ^""^f"^^ » the destruction „» preexisting cultural models. Models of cultural inipcriaism or even core and periphery arc seldom bong explicitly applied in the studv „» these processes by central Europe,, scholars in their headlong rush to join a 'Europe1 which they feel the lr„„ Curtain has so long divided.
Another area in which there ha, been a backsw.ng from the old imposed ide-(),oglfs is in the visibly altered attitude of scholarly writings to the Church Thi ,s especially the case in Poland, where thc Catholic Church under the Polish Pope John Paul .. has experienced a new era of post-Sohdaritv ooht, ,1 ascendancy. These ideologies do not always allow an objective appreciate of the nature of Slav ideology (which is largely seen only in opposition ,0 Christianity I.- There is also a tendency to present a very onesided picture of the role of the (Catholic) Church in the formation of thc Slav states which i almost entirely as a civilizing and beneficial advance from the darlcnesTof paganism.
One wonders however if these new v.s.ons of thc past are not so much based on a balanced and obicctive consideration of the evidence as due to thc ambi nons ot a number of young central European scholars who seem particularly determined to produce an antithesis of thc Marxist interpretation ol history and who in their desire at all costs to overturn thc ('Marxist') interpretations of the senior generation find themselves entrapped in an interpretative model which ignores thc possibility of a "third way'.
The chronological revolution of the past few years ,n the study of early medieval central Europe is showing a completely different picture to that which became established by thc late .950s and which was current even five years before this book was written. This is due to the pr„«.ss ut abandonment „t older models and the slow recognition of the effects they had on forming other types „1 interpretation. It is an odd reflection that in the anaerobic deposits of many deeply stratified sites in central and eastern Europe masses of preserved wood were throw away in past excavations. Now dendrochronology is being widely applied arid showing that former assumptions on chronology were wrong. It is
181
than the hlack-and can now accept more
,«, sec why the technique was not more widely applied in the pas,. No*
„ i, j „„,« is becoming more commonplace, but the task oi accumulating the new du.i has onlv iust begun. In particular we need a scries of dendrochrono. l„UIl ,1 dues lor the construction of strongholds (especially ,n Kievan RUtti,j ,„;, ,„ ,IN ,hc date- ol ceramic tvpes. I he picture which is now emerging as result ot the new chronologies is not vet complete, but certainly will Aifa „nrkedb trom that which h is ,PPc.ired in most of the textbooks. Some of tne new d mugs appear here in English tor the first tunc; and this is only one of lhe ,,rst ot a series ol rewriting* ol the earlv history of the Slavs which mustappe,r ,n the next few years. WtM
In a period when European identities are being rethought, we arc also beco*. ng more aware ot the existence of a spectrum ot cultural phenomena rather ■-white picture ot ethnicity that was formerly accepted. We re easily tin existence of multicultural areas, populations of different •ethnicities' living alongside each other to a greater or lesser degree; Keg.ons such as I'omerania and S.lesia may well always have been areas of this ript well before the Herman presence in the area trom the thirteenth century increased the effect. Another obvious example is the Bug valley and Podlasie between the East and West Slavs. I'hesc cultural differences and affinities only later became subordinated to political factors tending towards cultural unity with the rise of strong state otgantzations. "■HUH
T|,( ..cards the potential creation ol a muted Europe in the near
luturc are havu <     how we perceive cultural identity and diversity.
PcrnJ| ih/aiion of culture and new technologies will be able to rem
the communic.ition.il. ideological and relational difficulties which have*™*.--
prevent cultural understanding between peoples. Cart of this must be the I to understand other and diverse foreign cultures, to sec them as part of 11 '' moii I iirope.in historical heritage which is an essential part of breaku >' i^"'' barriers between them. Perhaps i doser understanding of otjjcr 8 0Wa together with the abolition of frontiers and Krcarcr mobilirv unli t„a . LU tUr"
relationship between the different peoples which will one day make up then federation ol Europe. \t the time these words were wnrten, though in uncomprehending world watched on as the roads of Kosovo filled with refugees driven from their homes by former fellow inhabitants of a multi-ethnic soci tv and foreign planes were bombing targets which until recently had been bar I noticed names on maps of far-ofl lands. During rhis conflict both the Serbs and Albanians employed not only arguments on human rights but also historic I arguments of the type "we were here tirst' and "this is our histonr.il k«__i_ ..
claims which not a few scholars and other authors ei clear rhar even not even at the end of the twentieth century could
of such argum created) be eas
(or
1K4
The contrasts between the interpretative models for the past established to the countries of central and eastern Europe in the Communist period and those yvhich were proposed in the years immediately following 1989 arc an interesting lustration of the way in which modern social conditions affect the way we sce or want to sec our past. At the time of writing the contrast is too great for us to have confidence that any one view of the past is the one which w,|| unconditionally be adopted in future. I hope that some of the views presented in this book will be seen as at least a step in the right direction.
Notes
Introduction
I See the renew hy Pcicr Rogucki IJ997I in The
Slavie Review 5Í (J), s 11 -a. x Sec I.. Klein nisM. To separate a centaur: on die telariomhipbetween irchaeolng) and history in Soviet tradition'. Antiquity 67 155), 119-4!!. / TupoUkl 19?*, Methodology of History (Via rsa w' I)(ir J r cc h 1/B0 ston). . Fin ihr problems, ul the interpretation of thr Ilwantine written sources, «ee G. M.i|eska
'Ihc Hv/antinet on ihc Slav, 1111 ihc profilem nl rthnic Mticntypiitg'. Acta Byiantina Eenmca 9, 70-8*. 4 T Lewicki isio-unl it~-./rn,lla aiahshedo ihirimf tiowtjiitictyzny, vols I in J II iWioclawl, T Knwallkl 194". Ke/a./.i Ihtahima ihn lakiiha; podróty Jo kiaiow 1 loH'Utiitkieh wpntkazá at llekrtego lOacow), Í) Mishm tusK.,'Ibrahim ibn V 1 i|uli ii (iituslii's jccnuni ot the Sl.iv» from the middle >it the tcnlb century', pp. 1 84-99 In M. II. I Dans .mil M Schok ledsl, Annual of Medieval StuJirt Jt the II V 11/44-199} 1 ní il European L/nivrriity, Budapettl; P. Lhaivat and J. Protccky (cdl) 199b. Ih'alnm ihn Vjdl- Tanuii - Christianity, Islam and luJaum Meet in tait-Cenlrat Europe. r. foe-»100 At) I Prague) See alio B. Lcwu iviS:, The Modem IJiscmtry of Europe (tendon)
Hit Human I'rmtjry Chronule Laurenlian Text, edited and translated hy S. H. Crots ind O. F. Sherbowin Wcu-or i«< 1 il Lunhridge,
NfjMt.|.
lot ihc methods of tlíc jrchar.il(»gi»t vet K. Greene 199s, Introduction hi Archaeology It ondonl (or one nf ihc earlier ediiinnil Sc* iiIhi C Renfrew jnd P. Bahn 1991,
- i ,usi 11 Kusmiiii.i 1« repone.l inhnebetnot.. Ikrlin lectures ..n ihc Slaw with the pronicatiw sutcnicnt und |ct/i mochie ich uher die Kultu. n.ln chrr iilier.li.. InilculturderSbwcti cprechen" land now. I would Itkr lu speak i.) ilu culture, or raihcr ihe unculture.ol the Slavs'] Such an aliunde ouild he hactdtnu comparison between ihr survivingretruim tni those ul the contemporary Krankuhccnicufl-hut only reflects the houndjrve, of our potto. ■ ion through archaeology, s I -ihtiogi ipluc collections in rtuny European museums arc replete with items made of ontjnK in tit nils Irom various njusccuhurn collected K loir these cultures disappeared,These rjn , totalis chttcrent picture ol those tulruret.rqm ilic scraps ol pottery and Iragmcntio(tcs.,1,n. svluch ate the mattruls most likely to rcachthe iiclucologisl trom thc same culiurry these 1.1.11 done might present ihe anchaeologiu ss uh .1 biased and talse picinte nf cultural |.,.sciis I his is worth hearing in mind m Dm discussions of Slav maierul culture .J |l logger 19S9. A History of Ar,-'M,.„Jn(,, Thought (Cambridge), pp 14H-104
The Futile of birfo-l uropflnn On«mi il ondonl The theses contained in the hook have been much critic i»cd jnd a number, .1 modilic.ttium mjy be suggtiied, hut nevenht less they do seem to explain some of the tejiutn any other model. 11  For ihcdiviributioii ol Hall hydronymtiee
f.mx'riafic'"'*'' anahl gidrummuv Vttkhntp>
hn jccounll, Jmdaite« pro|ecred the kffttJlrfot) ,l)lh<.„,,h century on 10 hi, literary know! rJge ol lhcgc.h.r.M-l.» ol Ihr classical «.„Id. , i No* bruit*J bnguiit by training, I have based ihn sre en ni on the work of tever.il better qualifiedaulhni». In parrieiilar |rr/i Nalcp.i ,,*». ( harafctervsrvkj Ic'vkuwa dawne| sLmuriwc/v/nv' .1. I   I rci«|wfd Icd.l, \l.,/v .(.mm* Minn aawnyi b Stou ,.», fWinniW), pp «i(-(-.»rorn »'"> h '"> csamplei are drum
, in ,ni|Mirijnr source of evidence ii the dueu-incflii vvnrten on birehbar* from Noiguusd fhe ri'li"! Ipe'h'P* eleventh. erirurj i have jtchiicleaiurrs including word« »imihrtoihe I'ruio Slav langiuRc. but these teaiuret divap-r^ir hi ihr mid thirteenth century- see work by \ /ah/nuli. qiMiied by V. V. Sedov 1987, iVigmc cle la branche du nord de» Slaves iinentJiix'. p 11>7, In 7. in G. Labuda and s lab.1.->.,slcredvi|.,li-.S/«,/MiMii
uiinnoindnii<uiee;nei. vol. 1 (WrocUw).
ivu and iont ol the ss eitern lur.ipean literature sr.- K R.ui,l»r>nrg 1980, {l-r Vikmt Age M Denmark ll ondnn),
PP
K i„.,il.nsslci 198J, frzemutnykulturawe,
Chapter t
, TTif modem traveller may notice a slight diflcr
the ou,e, „dr merely on rdhb
miutinii. 1I1Y ik._______ ■
XOTSl
41
he ■lav,
local cornniunity and its
* on ethnicity Includet ■ anthropoid,,
were closer to each other than to Germanic language* unknuwn 10 ihem acron other Irontien ic-vcn1 L well, "or may probably lived 1 more than their immediate link'
Frederick Barth Bountfanei: The Svnal Orj CtiJrwrjf Differences (Odol E. E. Rootens 19S9, Crvatii /■roceno/Fl/MiosTiciiiISi r\.D.Smiihi9Bi.-Waranc of warfare in che lormailon cohesion of ethnic cnmmun K.i.u/.sr,../,.., 4. . \ The Ethnic Ontpns „1 the A 1 .imbridgei; and also \ Ha. in the Social Sciences: A Vi'ei
ft For thc archaeological aspect, of ihe problem see S J. Shennan led. I i«k.j. Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity (London): ihe article by Walter I'ohl 1991. 't.'(inceptions of ethnic in in early medieval studies', ArcAueo/ni-u P.dona 19. s'i-41.1»especially uselul. See aim S. Braihcr 1000, 'FihniKhc Idenuuienalslcomtniklrder truhgcschiclitliclu-n Archaologie'. 1 •rrm.inu
78. tjsy-rr.
7 M. Parcaewski 1000, 'Kuliury atchrologic<nc a icon.1 wspolnoi lonuiiiilc its wine h in S. labaczyruki Icd.l, Kulhiry archeolugiczne a rtecsywislou d/muw 1. pp i.s--n \ iWarvawl
H Smith ivHft, I llmic I logins, pp. 11- u . I am grateful to Florin C una lot drawing my attention to dm work and ditumion of some of lu contents with me
9 In addition, we should note thai only by making
such an Wllimnn«<
rafy-. Thi* 0» Angeles), v: ehr role ige» and ''to, .i„.l
1 > i-..,: ■ Ethnicity Review of
y).
n we oc able tthanthe Ins
eiiliural pi,.
\ts with r hniori
liny
logical means
10 Thr modem study ot ihe origin "I ihr Slavs had 11« beginnings with ihr .111 ill Kk.1v tMzemr ptmjiku tunsaW shwuiukuh |Seeking ihr origin ol ihr sin ii.ition»|nf W'jwraynlec Surowircki 117»s»-iHi7), read at .1 mrclmgof ihr Warsaw Sin id) <il thr I ricndsul Science in 1.: 1 His ideas wrtc given grratcr currents h\ ihr Slovak scholar Pavel Jiurl s ,| 11 ik
1 m-idisil, the author lit the inllurntial SliHWokt lUmiilttiiM | Aniiqimirs ot (he Slavi| 11II171 I In turlhcr hitinr) ol ihr study ol ilu origin ol ihr Slavs 1» hrielly touched on 111 ihjplrr 11 below
11 I hi. npr.il arrangement is discussed by It Writskui 111 hit seminal work ol ■ ■>»-1. SummtiMilun/i im.i Vtr/Mtung
1 .ilognc/tirar), svhich, although it prim.iiilv n-In. in I .rrilUMK gmiips, t.m In siinir rxtenl he jpplird 10 nuns other groups. Another utrlul Jtuctc is ihr irxl by Walter I'ohl curd ahovr.
11  Ihr nun tprtilts nunnrr in which this u-tni wai mi.11.rririlrdhi ihrway ill it Ryuniuir in.11 in 1 11 inkuli is runs icrrr tothc Avartai Hum   llirirnii V.1I11.111. ssjs iltn similarly frcc|iientli misused in thr past.
11 I  Kcnftrsv led-, 4', hartitogy JttJ I jnvMJx'r Tht t'mtle i>/InJoEuroptan Origim I London I.
II. t. I nut ojtfs. Slass, Uunmon Slavic, and
Ol.ll hlllill Sl.111.nu in I lllftjf SUlliM MeJll Am: I r.in, in 11 VffitrsUoMitmSexJitrnjno ilhbUf. rdilcd hy |iihannrs Rrillll.nl I Munich), PC 1X1-104 (esp. lo|),ot II lliinhauiii is)VI, •Von cthnoliiiguMLschrr I mhrii rur Vielfall- dir Slavm nn /ugc ilrr I ..in Jiuhinc drr Haitian-
h.lll'llluT, Su,j'ii>; In"., >':..|c', ■! , 1. 1   11 irsp. -1,
01H Ririihjum isiMi.'Onihrrthniigniesisand piiMiihoiiK ol thi sin. the liiyuisiu rvidrtitr', /,*iru.il«/SUrt. Lmpiim,. 1. m-'i trsp 1 wl See iImiJ Nichols iv»K, ITir Kuran.ui spread /.'in- -1 ml thr iud» I utopran dispersal' in H lllcnch and M. Sprint*. Arc/sir. ifagy a*/ iMKHJtrU- ..",;.,/»„. 1.,/sJr.i/o^j/W / ins-uiiii, Ihpuihem (Luiukvn/New York I,
.|vr,h .iii,l i-ihiik idrnlili . "iiihintsJ .s nil Avar
'■4
|...|„„ ilandidr
drbtrdt.'H' SctI', Hraiher Dl ihr V111 ii'. 1 Huiid,iiiiiii.iti 79. 101-»«. Jc
I. .1-11 distiissrd .it vomr length by F. Curtail.,
I h.ling behind .1 pircc ol larsrstty ; J,,,J, ' iiulllic si is 1« Vrllcthl Jjhrhuihctfa
1/'i,/Ic 1 )itrnronji 4-, m-40 11. Thrtown.il N.'viidunuiii 1 11 tliiv nanvtlsy pnit..il.lv Mln.ilr.l nr.lt ihe Danube cs1tun I utlr Ssiihi.i ihr Io..111011 ii| ihr Mttltba I iC. 111 ill's niiucxt has hem debated fnm oihrr sources we know ilut u was the irputrd sotiitr ol ihr Danube mi the boundary
I- , 1.m 1 n Ss .ilu.1 and '('rrnuni*\'rji,y|Bi.
II. , Ii hi. Mio is marking (he boundary |,, Isso-u ll'f.r Iss.l Ki'iiglaphli al area,
|„ „.im . sirnt lliis .ipplir. als,. tn ihe Alatsx ititvi.iiy.lv 1 group of that minir apprau i„ ,cr much ruber writings ol I'ompnnJm Mclunnj I'litis i> 1 "'bo "i thr V aucasus area. TKu ..1,1,1 in nun sincgmi that this rally Roman ,,...1 ■ •ilinonsni ictrrrcit 111 a giimp which should perhaps l>r counted rather as Samuiian.
,s    II   I'. p. .ss sis i   I 'I'.'lsk.l |.|.H. \l ,(;,,v
s/,,1111» ir >i< «•(/<• n'l wnkii (Warsaw), |g.
i,,..i......1. "Dies Iron) paRi 14a I'or an Cntlnli
stiiiimiiv srr II. I'oposvsk 1 l.iboiska i...,.,
11„- si is s 111 thr 1-arly Middle Aijcs ttom ,ht si, ss p.iiivi id modem linguistic*', pp s)i-*m p llrbanejyk («!.), 1 'nci'ii 0/1 mini F.ump, (W»r»aw).
,„   I Ihukussks l«40. M.i>...i,..isni.*j*r.a„1»Jl.
.(".•.y«n / 1        ttudut k p<><JI*umiluiwujj
liu/tun lI'raRue). io B. A Rybakov 1.14\,'Kanniaiakulnua
si.siiKlmykh slanan'. Ijlum /'ri«i Zlrur^jl
II- 11.7 l-HO"
x 1 The Ukrainian archaeologiita initially upheld 1 h is suss, .sen alicc Artamonos rrvtirdhu prrvious viesva and argued, in i*m v. thai ihe l lirriuakhovo culturr rrpirsrnted a eiulinon ol rlhnis gtoup* under ihr Iradenhip ol the (ic«h».
i 1 Among them thr eponymous sue at kurcluk: I. P. Rusanova isiis 1. Tmclrine u s koivhila na t. Tricrrvr'. MjleriMy 1 /safrdoisrnu pn Arlffcro/u/n S.V.SK 10h. .isr-5°-
rmskogo rna Btrsrskul ohlasli', Arel-avmUiu
1, oi-Hl.
14 M Shchukin 1 siHh-oo,'The Hallo Slant lomi
""iui i7 I.1H1WI..IHW.W
s irxi ..11 ihe Veneihl ha
alto I. P Ruuno« and 'm.isishird.l 1-y I. SUvumtttkh / /yiud'WrtW do »•*■ -ptrvoi
i'll, in
iiunei
Luw*'*•»**"• {Ku L
R V. Terpilovski 19H4. Z(,^m-y ivlKkf)i ArklmUm
i K.»ir«—.......
M.iUntiitrugktil m Jtr Ur.cv.. hi, hir Potent 1,mJcMitUu*tII. iJl'TiMsrtuii 1 it./, hi, ptM frul'tn Sliutulttr (Wroclaw); kc alio the work <>• ihr Polish linguist Tadruie I rhr-Spl.iwiniki ismis, O pochadsnm,, ftjcittyinuStowtan (Potnait). For Soviet its harology vs. Srtlov 1979, fnmkl>t>thdtMlt 1 uiimjiii oluria SUlHan iMosfowl; V. V Si.lns 1994, yhiunt t-Jrn-nmO (MoKowlt I P. RuMacfl m-,,, SUnJHik>fd'tfi,"li 1/-1/1 t'i. kulturj puihikorii tipa(Mouowl; Rusanova and swnoiii'.ith ir.bl. SbruiHt 1 ikh sutfji |.
srka v Jugoslavia, r, t-11,1 Knroiec mske I • 1 un.k. v tmk IN, ;i', rsr .itlrtatts could
1 as sonic ot
1. »1"-»4 In li.irui.ii Sln./i Vi.Parerrtsski
A. I lllliishtluik IIi.l ' ■ 1 If.' I I
v: V. I). Kit 111
i'   'j If"'
rn.il r. 1 11 in '
o/ojfs.
. It. no oi,i< ,1 popiilaiiuu can ol the 1
Mrt.'.i.ll 11 iKisliini'S ' p \ \ lift
\ 1  l tic late hllh-trniurv horizon m Romania is
'I hronnloKisclir Fragcn dee Volkrr wanitrrungs<rii 111 Kiuiuiiirn', 111. •; 14. 1 Thr 1 itcvaini stir is puhlishrd by
V. Trodorcscu IC1M4, Aniiarut \1n.*t*iWui At Ittoru f Arhro/ojtir PfaJjoirj 1, ci-too. Dragmlovcne M tonna i97a,,Directtnnsct
un rrgard special sur Ir icrntnirr dr la Rnumanic, IUIi.imi i./ji 1. j 1, hi, 4.': Ii.rthr s.u ii.i Moiitrorii Imdt see I' Hcdler 1911, StuJitn tu (ojlvrltlJet ties !• Iiu 9. Ijlithundrtisan Jrr I'merro li.m.in iRoon), pp. Us; »4: H 1 ly. lis      in.) s. 11,   1 : , I i". indebted to Horm Cuila lor inlormaiion about id.-., sues
i 1   Ihn soiyii-stiiio i.ni.iins put,- lis poihrsis Inn would |"i> s,one ss .is loss.in). rspkiiiung ilir latei successes ol thc Slavs in the Ivalkans, and alsohoss a previously cmnparativels otimirr group begin* 10 exercise such 'authority' in the area as (o attract to It new people, as seems to
14 Wt will see brloss that (he establishment otthe Avar hegemony in the same areas seems to have paved thc way tor ihe tinm.itum nl new cultural elements and also ihr expansion ol Slav settlement rvrn iiuo ihr ciuinbling I isl Roman Kmpite itself
Chapter 1
1  loi thr vs.isr 1.1 advance model see A. J. Amnirtman and I I 1 ivaii-Sforu 111H4, Thr NtoUtbit Ttantiitoit and il's'
ti 1", ,if l'/if<til.iii< >nt if tMoipr (Princeton), P (nsresltoA ) Ammrtman and
I     I     1 '- m*   ■    -   - - - -    >s.IM ...,r,n.. tkf, MM
III avallMor/a oi-i. Me.isurine. mc 1 in
TMI ttlU ^t-ttx
r.U tortcW 1—4.X*Mmmi.t»itufa      u luww.v«,,,,
I
«Iii ts*««1' *» QEwt Aáimurt .lo»A» 4       w 11 mm** i f or wfc« jcAmu icMtf»iaŕaafc—ifn
hm Ar r\ri«iirw g* «■ jk — mí 11 -i i-tinj----
ár Slina
■ f.Wrrarr.....
.4 .%lm« 4aúi «M to f*M»
.Vvrc
> r Čaro íUntď—(A. rWJaaaaj Jŕ*r SaratoK <tVtw atiE PUM* CvA l*»
■ fcw   fliwjiwt? mém ^ff taawMal
Of ta»<'fcl»ll I
Vt*rrM*É«wailK«i«r i
« Ttoaat>K*j<
t.
tmI t»«lY slavs
nx.i..WJ««ittiji w >»—mf»liPolem
M   .        '.  :  ■"::: is ri~,irr;k:
IrsrchaJtskoanj topi*. \Uunaft i InW^ Jtu
;o ArtSsrcJorn iSSJt 10J. itt-ll; V. V.SaxioT
:>k»cos». Ais>to«j>m jlok pp. io-i*c L P. RusiDcra 10-rs, SLnir*jev aWraotri rj-stj
rr. SlcBsanrkpp, li-ff. Artfarifejsa-t71is-.aa.0ig« iissttia »»<-< ■ }z I t Ra«oo> j i »frs, 'rWierue u s. Korchaka aa t Tererrrr", \lMrrsM\, lalrdos**u po
ArthtvlotaSSS* tc*. jsj-jcs V. D. Raran : sct. RaMniiTiartsiiK psstdcsic u It RjpBCTa iRjport Hi na Zipniaom Burr'.
- ,:j.i-t:fWiR M l> Nlato io»a,'Ote liawuchc N«ceUunrrn roo Sucrata .Vstsinalriia. Kamiwav'. StortKtkj AnsVcJofw to. t4t-?a. For tar soresptita-ooo sec P. Go. Teodoc. La txixuauoo da Slaves dam ies rrpom du tasd-cst dr I'Europr vfapers Its cWmsu ari hrntsptjnfs des repnai ortemaies dr ia Renin mr'. flat i■»!<■>■ I1 UHaitlttf ip,
H Fnetarafrr ia-1. Dw Tlaa i ■ a» \ieJc*oslr*Tmb Y.-etttvi O. Presak is>J I. 'The Sim aod tie Avars', pp ) n-4)imSi nTiwj at .Srsxaju aW Oaro
•   ' »*' Vl.      - VC.VCt^at
The Brtiarane jtjcmi retch traadtsDi: the scaCiV
■ ■    • rr<--. •no
abnxprri ekifrnr is sywsrrt alter rsmcs n* til hoc ■ere sol rcschaae, ease suai e areas alter dsn. Taa seem to he c-niraact oi rhr rttsss of rise ami cijsasiae oi the ftrsrjpeT^r^rw sertjegirat i Peiiod iGocSowski, Z tWn. p. a| .srooasd ?-» rise Tartu also ejrnrnded nao the Cans**, lad to canonist ishaxars. srrrt sooc to rsrjbsitB a bttjtmatj iniiijl.
rTftini raav^Ujpriasi trissrsarsiaBtWn&lldS mis rekite asp igrinr ccastij-snCLi fee lifer
Ftsa* is rhe cccrexr ot rise rricTcenxajt restarts Thn pasvapr ■ averted a the aarjale or last
40
4«
it-: —
tics of a rraaeuarju cooit i mils, uV edssj*. crapev-' at the area north ol the DsaaVrs
trorn a Imti esulirat «wi whack tMlarat itsvrnrd here and has no real n'rnm m, , PrococMus's rjirante Thrsoorcetrfcissastar nsatwas and its date art unfaserwri aadtW tboold cJaswajijr be u«d with rjeat caraaca. Thas «s onfcsarTl—tr. as rt is one o« tit ar* ,srt-atrvl rripneno ot Prtxosi.am's »~«. cotscerrunn the Slan. fSBBI oi a Wnx •roric < i ■mjm i, Uu w ..
the real OiiiNtainsS about 5sex Kottaan. Die Mrilssii nsiii. ier siawta' This process had begun nruch car jer rW tc work ol Roman ssSar nsisacawhad akxnh broken down afar tJbt nssietV ot the idak rasmtrs and none ot rhrsr ■■*— —n it tarn os* tcvicciipattoo lftcr cst^ahaasshasrd. for the cotantrrsKSc see J Heaasaag is!-. tMifcMUM'op1 "■sn'fcw iWisi tmd Matthltrr: Jrd^toiogtfch* BtKr^tt or ljnjtrrrucijft drs 1 /aWtatsrjsndi Z. Berlm). ifllB Despilr 1 vocs»detac-W msrcaae n assaasrnal iters cbrible to betwsen tisc 'l'l II11 »ah u_l Ute ninth exneun. the csxmtrs-iade was so] rxisinviT poorts poeaaistrd cm ■*aea BTontine power •» restoredatistksvaads andckmlhuigiiiM satcsragrta-lenrn Danube. There u> a rcucssi^ fatwrahaiahr cuuchj 1 sicic in thr Balkans oarji s» dlataajaa in j tbarwetah crjliaaes. See K. Hodpes aasd D. Whitrhaum ■HuIij—iiki Thiih i|| u nirttPumi 1
:r A-.rjrcJof^ajsitastBi Hypathna iLaasatsVaalsffs.;
The
*c£_e-
with the carbr naath-11 latanj os/zaMaaV
1111 iaas w ■ if
sertlesneat an Greece', Pi /SWy>afay, J. PS. FesiiauaieL. itjo, GeszaWaktrahr
TV"-*1' '**
.iJ     » Jul'"*1
-P^ssa^""
eped »0 the
mir irrsnVr L Kcstrra i«>s>:
<4
^icrrS br Z- Kariaarjowsaia
siul d!iiHi 1 tt~Wtoctawi,
rta s« D. T. Bcieixnici
datJ*rsa.S ; ArtVhrtarogiit
•.perhaps as a wftsTina soexsr critural smatt o? ^TOHML tasodern ITeraaJe <spc would ckminH -a icparate an&aeo no ntiw axsd km hard
See also ]. Zemam 1979. *K prca^ssnaoee castse lhi iilsdilumill 1 11 tiiidi»|iirhinrntmri-n
J. 1 hi 1 unit !»*>*. 'idftif. Tirt^iaft >d
;ij 1 u- srocAsn Odr^Naar rnrnd FJsw Beritn '•, Abb » mi 11 See iao L Hraaaasg losi.Tiiiioiisiii lliamm Thuriitr nrnr UuKMill>tajiipiilsmtat*a^^ Caeehifaajwciurat asrWi drr Elbe*. rVjrtttsJortjcir Tttlulxjl StsV, llar-sualao P. Drataai and R. E. Fisdatr 19s
/laVahsiriS ha JVa^aWistrrtscsVr f itanVij-stiaaSaiiicr4f. «-irj to Hgrnnaaa. Staviisiwr, Tnticisjftand
IsmBiifcifrfssBr VrrKairmijr: J.linn—issi ted.) isli. Par vlww mDifitsiliif, — f I Hifftaii ■ GrscaSscsVtr araai Issttaarr drr
.S'nttScia {iiar—i, I Brrlm 1. pp. 11-1; tf7 j.rleaannsgandts.L' Ilemsiitr lyai. Zarr ftssstttttatssjejeaVAchee an 10. jalu sn iTk ■ 11 - nctae
Dates a Aaahtajra totji Tip Tcsrnvm'. Amijj.1 arwwjtt w Mi,- -j. rserrsaasatijan axad IL^. 1 tr —rw r 1991. TVisiacrrbaxiookistje. AaxhaKitoeae sand Tiiitsau artiii-hw voo s. bo n. pa. as do GraWttCB zirsKiam Sialr Elbe und Oder'.
This retiatiTic Sias berr. d vs ;sscJ M rtashiii 1 Datcrwanu ibii.*ui11 aiaJ^dsit wyhtatifch aaornrtssV. mijiuiicssrcsl-iiiiiiisfi iittyrKS*fitM'iirirn ■77** iaKhr*dttari*. jtanayaanr     14-51. On the poinWc sssasaaascsaoi rhr pscsiemi iJnurauiofj me y Gassowskj iftav. "O ucwurci sprircaTrt>sc--k-. 1» raJj-ja^:.*. arc'-r---i.-c.--•.-
TMI IS BIS SLAVS
t9 Sukúon E- VhulJz 190s, "V»arterKhi uher die Auittra hungen im Geh« der Alten Burs von Sulcem, Ki Tetrraw", Atairihwtftn und
h.nJ* S. ico-;; E. Schaidt ISXSJ. Die AuvKrJhunem im Gcbtctder ""Alten Burg" von Suku». Kr. rerrrow , pp it--tSin BoJenJenkmjiplItgťm Sit*kUnbMrg (Sch«eruii;f_ Schuld! iget. DieSlawische Keramik tcki Sako* und das Problem der
. :n-m in Mtikltnbm^t L Pormuuki w-i. achodn iceo w v i- v 11
Feldberctr Grupc"
p, Jfnjrnimalplli
[Schwcnn'. Osedl
•ZiuevlVn* fW*
•mrku ne. w íwtetre dotTvhc"2J*o«rrc:h
wvmkow bjcLin ar\heokiex«»ch\ SXitu
tvAju ií. :«-»-. ea Thi> UM trn cumple on* ol ibe mam rvpei ol rrarurc Jttcovrrrd at Zukcmncr, j Urgr tneue e vcavaoon cjrried our to voutřiwesicrn Po Lind betore the cuoafroction ol a copper mine. though Mjttarr ttokn-lkaored hub were lito lound herc. Se* \1 Parcjrvrdu 1489, ŽmJtxMFtce pod Q'lojfo*tYiw «r» ji JrttmmiraĚ iGlogow).
r-1  Stmitar antumentv havr bcen ad% anvrd hv John Chapoun coocertung tne dnti-tacnon ot crruin prdxntueK housei in crnrral Eiaropr whteh dut prcimie votur htm ol arulugr tor rheic rrmrenotB reaturev John vliipnun wgS, Ddiberatr hotne burmng tn dar|HIliliímI uf. Central and Easrern Europe', pp. 11 i-ltt in A. GcruabJoo ud H KUrixwn ledsl. Ghtttr ,i i-if vojrutVj mm - tn titJbvi hU farl SorJbijJtt .Gothcnburijl. »1 Per» rrn tne S^ko»I).-iedrxT and Motala grutrp* m Paland ti a lone o) snes ot uacenain cuitural athnrtx-v Mou chatu iciísiíl are
imillPn umu........111 mi linmmai.
Micviiv tvora. Niepofrt. and loaefow and tcnlc-meruv 1 Wyvnrmtxtík I vnlh poctrrv haTing athrnrjev w-tth the Liter phavrt tit use .NIospÉa tnatertai.
»1 Onerruveren rak a trntatirr and soertewhat nrretxal uucutoa.- to wjut do vře owe the
a at
Itrrlr han
Chapicr 3
1  B. ZjUrěuiva ii-i.lejAjs
li D.tt^ue Jr MamricaffH i fot lbe numttrtutk evvckcn
pavments Ke M. Koaub 19
lofjot the inilo\» ol Brxan
Vv ar LhaganMe'. pp. lajn
Iv.doreol Seville. Chnjmcxm Patrndop,
laruu 8}),col. to*;. 1 a  | HennirtgisS-.Sai,fcrt»t,.rj;. „n
JjhrtjtumJs u. Z. c C. VitaFtrui I9<9 v ambndgel; KC a Buned anumpnom. mterpreunon ot
rrcent dau froen ...^c , jnaumf j. \rJ-jfoiogicjlSittmt s. t<--*4 Theatas. ciideí in luly of Mív       "bad»cxnjrnsá thu chapter vcav bemg wimcuicem poraJlel to ifae fcrmarion oi ^o^a*^ ■ Ve FV Hodges and 0. Trutebouic 19ti,
llow oi coinagr m the area bcBM asaki
Junger Rj.,^
Varrwuiu ChSserredti
TV atth ecvtrrkrnjcaJ Council oi »80-1 m - nl„.Mf>pÉ> ni xnrnded by hňhopi oi
rvartttkarucJ. Coruwn. Argen and
v.-topoJrum Epmiíi werr at theCooocd ni , m vi<-.j!i w.»i. Tile Aegtin .cuvtlands ■   Fo*» l9^."Aaxiiavrology
f rit* «wUlLoo»»»»,
síl.-w
enaury tttäcim rmpcroc
m S£ SnmuU- W»"d»t.
*,6u "Se fourrh itatton oi the Roman
iU°<cn^K*Edí»šnjreetU
.     ~ — — 'owau " ýtT"^0 ^'-»cedociu od ig*t
■trkaaT* tu**" "'"**■ P*    ncr fciet to thean as
^tou, t«., tfce Bsslgae^e.ovsle
uvsien uawtwhen "eo ■ *fu Anlufnj J*»v« anorni
maooo
S9, jantierui archeo
Kurgaonsi ilKsgilnti
TMt liAVS
truposozlizhcniem v N'uytalau'. Datsa NS }, 515-34; H. /oil Adamikowa 1979, Wczesnosredmountcznt cmtntanytka iialopalnt Slouunna lererntPoiskt(Cz. II) IWroclawVC/acowl, p 101. rye. 18). 17 Unlnnuiurrlv until recently lumt ot (his
mjterul wit wrongly dual; ihr« muraler* are now bring, corrected by dendrochronology (we abovel The dales quoted here come from the matt rrcrni indications if Seiko»- E-Schuldt 1963.'Die Autgrabungrn im Gebiet drr "Alten Burg" von Sukow. Kr Tctrrow' .1'. .1 'Die Slawische Keramik von Sukow unJ dat Problem der Frldbergrr Gruppe' in Bodtndtnkmalplltgt in MtckUnburg iSchwrnn), iiT-J* »nd 1 1« 1 1 Goland. W l.osinski 1971, PiHtatki u\ztinnsredniouiectntgo osadmctwa gntdoutga u dorzectu Joint) Parsety IVIHX/Xl mj (Wroclaw), pp 11-10*. 19 Ratibon-Ohora M. Parcicwtki 19X1, Platkouyi Ghibczytki u* ictzesnym iredmuu-itiiu (Cracow), pp. 54-41, Tib 1--9 (hodiik: A. Gardawski 1970, (h<\Jlik iL; 1) U',itsnnirtdniowuczny ztspoi osadniczy IWroclaw I )0 W. Sa-ymamki 1967, Szthgi pud Pluckiem na pottatku wcusnego sttdnkmntetm, ztspat usadmczy; Vf-vn w. 1 Wroclaw), Sec also W. Szynuruki 1987, 'Proba weryfikac'ii datow jnu rctpofu otadnit/ego it ttarsaych in wczesnego tredmowiecza w Szeligach, woj plcxkic', Archeologta Pnlski 31, 149-7* Zimno V. V Aullkh 197a, Ztmnmkt gorudnbcht - sin iambipamutnik Vf-VH to n.t. v zapadnoi Vohpu I Kiev); The Hacki «irr 1» as yet unpublished. 31  Some authors ituch js Herrmann! hare linked the Szrligi and Sukow pottery into a Sukow-Sir hp Kyle zone. Ilm venu bowcrer 10 be an inruirivc oversimplification of 1 potentially much morr complex situation, jnj the Saeligi-Zimno culrural group 11 here treated at a separate entity 31 II. Bzjchnunn 197t,SlautsJit Summe an EJbt und Saalt: zu ihrtr Geschichte und Kultur im 6 bis to. Ik. - auf Grund archäologischer
Kenntnis drr materiellen Kultur der Sorbei un fcJsirpPlrisse-Gebiel', Zeitschrift fur Archdubgtt 1,1-1 j.
piihithiili I Bratislava), E. Keller and \ Hinb.-4ucr lo*,. 'Britrage iurnawatri> iciilulirn Grabrrteld vnn Devintka NoraVfcv sloirnská Archeologu 8, 177-97, 1(  I Knvng ithx. 'Cut awarrnzciiliche i.r.ibirtrld cm Alaityán', Archeologie* Hunsirti J 40; A l.Wik 19*8, Slaunttk. .luarnchei Graberfeld in Holiarr |B>«,0.» l / (" ilinska 19*6.Stawisch swantcbit Graberfeld in Nut* Zamky (BrausUvak Z talnukj i    i I "iťmititUUtriitkm (iraberfeld in /timet I Bratlslava). ,„ P liptak 1983,Aťun and Anaeni Hungannn (Budapcid Thr metalwurk i» acccuibly illuuraie J in colour by / (. ilm»ki I9»i, K„. i .j*.-jfni jiliini wmrni iBritnUra). j7 Se* F. Curta i «w, 'Slavi in Frrdrnar rncdiml ■|trn»" or narrative Mrategy?', Acta Hutoria (.Szeged) 10), )-io. ;H  there irrvomr prohlenu withIdrnnfytngttiH, Mir .is i sirnnghold a» somr have clonr. The njmr n Germanic and noi Sljv Tfuniiftx burn' nrrd not imply a ciintrrucicd urong-hidd. bul could be a drlcmihlr hill. w A (izrdiwski 1970, Cbodlik fCV 11 U . lit nmrtdmawacvry ztipoi asadntezy 1 Wroclaw), pp. 69-101. See aba K Wachowski IMS,-. Sljtk wdobitprztjptu i„u-%kiei iWtocUwl, pp. 18-19
40 Thttiruwrul it considered byT.Vidt 1^, I )ie au/artnuulu ht Ktramik I. (6.-7. ji.J Ibcrlin/Budapeitl.
41 N. Protjntovj 1991. Awaniche Fimrlriui drm Gebictrn nordlich drr iwariKhcn Siedlungsgrenzxn', pp. 6o$-77K m Y Daim rd 1. Aujrtnfurschttngtn II Studům an 4.ri'>jo!iigM dtr Awúrtn, vol. 4 (Vitnnal
4: /oil Adamikuwa, Watsnoirtdmountant cmtnUtTftka, pp. 111-4. Tc- $6; R. Turek 19,4-h; 'Mohyly Ccdtych Charvátů* Sfjtia l'Ki.ruj 5. ioj-s"; i) Biaiekora 19*1, \ Včauno»lovan»ke nalczs-1 luhoiarudnrn,, Slos-cntka,1 Slovaukd. Arthtulógu loti),
4j S. I'j/.d* 197}. '< mrniarryskokurhanowt
VI
tht countries ol 'ihr " th<
ornrkind ol iJealur      nra ojciin(|a,j gutptti tor tnt propin 01 commumst-j,,rninjird cefltxal and rattern Europe before
|»M
, J vrcrnrri9«o.'SUwlKheBuBrllibrlnde.7. ' |,hrhundrrrt", pp- 1 fo-71 m    Behrens Jnd I Wen« lrd.1. Ranttkt Ftiticl,r,„ ,Mam„. Urrnrr. 'Nrurt lur trage der »lawiiehcn guarliibrln'. See alto L. Vagalintki 1994, <2tu hip drr rihnitchen Herkunft der »patrn vrrahlrnnbrln (Finger- oder Bucelhbrlnl aus 1 - n.,nju-Kjrpjtcn-Becken lis— 7. Jh. 1'
i,. v 11 engl l-ti SUftf let artginti ■cttfapriij-C) IParitj placet a lot ,,, rmphaai. on du. decorated metal work, prrlup» gl"Hg a falle impression ol the nature ot Slav material culture as • whole kCiKidiwy 199N. 'Grzebienie w kuhurzr •czrmotlowianskiei na Irrrnir poludniowei 1
krrni anu w. Cotintai irusj, Kraft slou-ianikic if. uvkaek trtdmch pmfanum 1 sacrum
I Poznan).
,1 J Zak and L Mass.-i,tuk-Kmkowska 1988, Shtdu nad usbrojtmtm srodkowoeuraptiikim
49 A-A-Spirsyn 1918, 'Drevnosn Anto»',
pf. 4»i-s in Sbnrnik statt) n thttt akadtmika I. SobouvsMOgo (ixningraul. u LV. Pekankaia and D. Kidd 1994, Der
j..-    1 Vartynm-ka 1 Vkramtl attt z~ t. und -. Jahrhundert (Innsbnick); Jd 1987, 'Sudrussische und s^hr Funde aus dem Bruith ondon", pp, 107-1 j m Germane*,
11 |_ 0. l.jvniukhin and .A. M. Ohlomski 1990, Gtpononki kiad, ego kuttumo-istoruhesk,
OS. Jon' Mu*
been j devrlo I» Them. Man n
lure of the cultural
hich
any
i dan.
,/ vmjntki, *Próba weryftkac|i datowanu'. I am grateful To Dr Marek Dultnicx and Waldemar Mooatyfukl for information about the carbon 14 dales
s 7 M. Braicheviki 19 j 1, 'Rabaty na Pairyrtkom gorodishchev 1949 g.', Kratkie Snobsbchema
r 5 $-64 and rrft (8 W. Szymartaki 1984, Beitrage mm Problem
pixzqikack wczesnega iredniouitcza (Wroclaw), pp 196-8.
Chapter 4
I  t LecirirwitZ 1989, SfnivuitM Zact'odm: z
Kumatnwtki 1971,'Rozwul zaludmenu Wielkopolski zachodniri wc wcinnym srrdniowiecia 1 |cgo iipekry gotpodarcxe',
S. Kunutowiki 197s. •Wczeinoired-niowieciny prrrlom gospodarezy w Wielkopolsce oraz icgo aspekty gmpodarcie', Archeológa Pouki 10.14 5-*o It should be noted that these figures were based cm ihe older field survey! and may undergo modification when (he results of recent work are synthesized.
heritage', OxfordSlntmii Papert I, 37-6J.
ouigarjaiw jrmi ot kraya na vt-xi vek |S<ifia I.
Sredmtn-ekoimogotelxthcht 1. Cjnvn, Stlutrenski okng irf-XI v. (Sofia). Slav tcnlrmcni on Crete and Aegean itlandi 11 wrll at in Ana Minor 11 probably the result ul resettlement of prisoners from these Byrannnr
1»«
THE EARLY SLAV*
\ There it a considerable literature on the Bulgarian stiir and im relation to the lis /amine Empire. Set tor example D. Obolensky ty6«. "The Empire and in northern neighbour* 5«5-1018', Cambridge Medieval History, vol. IV.i (Cambridgel, pp. 475-51«; D. Oboleniky 1914. Byzantium andtheSlavs (New Yorkl, S. Kuneinun 1950, A History of the First Bulgarian Empire I London I; R Browning 1975. Byzantium anJ Bulgaria: A Comparative Study across the Early MedievalFrontier I ..11.I..11 . J V A Fine 198.1, The Early Medieval Balkans. A CriticalSuri'ty from the 1.11, Sixth to the l-atf Tutlflh Century {Ann Arbor), J. Shepard 1995, 'Slavsand BulgarV, New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. ii (edited by Roumond McKilterick) (Cambridge), pp iid-aS. I>. Angelov 19*0, Die Enlstehung dei Bulganschen Volkes .Berlin • •  The identification ol this population with the Ko   11. kr.11' Culture has become one of the moii controversial luun uf the archar-ologv ni ihe ILilkjiic 111 recent years home ichoian wanung to link it with certain Slav groups!
7 Abo known as Pnvina. he was apparently prince hi Nun Driven out of his territory by the expansion o/Mojmir ol the Moravians in J 11. hr fled to ihc Prankish ruler, who had him christened jiuI in 840 settled him in the cut.
K The nature and precise extent of the territories ruled bv Pribina and Kneel) are uncleac
9 A tun hat been nude on this problem in an interesting hook: M Parczcwiki 1991, Foaatki ksztahowama ufpolsko-ruskiel rulnezy etniczne/ w Karpatach. u zrodel rozpadu Sloutanszczyzny nj udtam wschodni 1 zatJiodm (Cracow),
io I ant grateful to tgor G.i vr itu khm for miorma-tion on recent work on this question, some ol which u> included in the monograph on the Gaponovo hoard which contains much more than us title suggests II. O. Gavrirukhm and A M. Dhlomski 199«, Capomskikladiego knllurno-utoncJieski knntekst (MoscowJ, pp. 1 u.-i  For the Luka Raikovcuka Culture see V K Gonchamv 196* '1 uka Raikovrtska'. Materuly 1 Issltdovani* pu Arkbei 108.lfli-ii*; V. V Sedov j.,Si, V sl.u une 1 1 /- xm 111 Moscow, Art SSSR it),pp. ¥o-j,tahaj.t-7jAr, Ukramtkoi SSRtHiaS6). 174-41
" 1 .\ iwiy»
■ 1  Inlurmjuon from Miecav,!.,, -
Wotciech Wroblcwtkl »"><l
" !lmV,k!'',m:vkj-'Vt*'ru«er,a|Ul, discussed ,n the ,„„„„,,.,,,», „n l.n.ud.....,CIo).       * Pr",ntlwGar„r,u,N
' r"l"shko "f*i, DreviUKievn
< -hough see have seen above ,ha 1 * scholars have suggested for this sue). ""'« ung,n
K"rodishehe (Kiev 1. ,„ s, K .
^■■i'"--rk,uyepamutmk, Poles 'T," 1« V Kukharenko        'R4,L   [ """"•I;
Soobshchenta Iristituta /,/„,„ '
M^^sJiZS^
PP 10-87. '/ale,,,
-   I or the Vols nisevo culture we M
197«, The Slavs lLondon),pp Oft-T?^!*''
lesouepnoe Lenberezhie ,. elt,,k ,
rkheolojpi SSSR 104), D T. Berr •Nove raxkopk, v   VolmtW '"»• Mkheologicheske U>!e,l„„annu' „
\ottadntytsidt-iane.pe, , . '
^heidogiaUkr^ZssVi^
141-101,
me ,0 some of the recent literature Jft
he Gaponovo hoard If.4v,IIufchlI1 < >M..,mk, Caponvsi, klad, ego kuliL^ '>t^,chesk, kontekst, pp sio-t)** - lorRomny-rype sue, see clmbuia, TheU PP «.-a and ret,; Uupushk,,,. 0^2^ Usosiepnoe Uvober^s^^l ■''■"lane, pp ,, j.g and ^ , ^
Arkhealogia UkrainskmSSR [| <,,.,,
8 P. P. i 1 iineiiko and P. N. Tretuk
Drevnerusskie poselrnia na Oonu i'm"'
i'pel (Mo Aril, The I
iklin and o/««a; k), pp
Rath X« f,l", ""^ tt'"'A'J 'Lllr«i«)} sPletneva i<)tt.Stepi Evrazn v epokhu
„rinevekoirit iMoscow. Arkbeahgia SSSR jji, for the interrelationships between
K!uur>«ndsl*v,'e'',UoS , shepard iisr". The Emery .,^.,100 lLondon and New York), pp. 79fr., injs A Pletneva 1089, Naslavianokhat-jrtk'V* poeramJie. dmilrievski arkheo-Inuhtski kompleks |Matsrosv). See also '., .,,.vi;..n 1990, KhMgunkot
mimlantvo' rf°      "'o'" Vostocbim
1 .w„y, Kavkaza (Muscow).
G. UhuJa 1988. 'Polika, Crechy, Rus 1 kraj
IpiiuB w drugiei polowic X wicku',
pp 16--Ü 1 1,1 n" ■'>f,"^'J Poctatkamt
fnstwa Pohkiega, vol. fl (Pornari |.
The question ol the oral traditions in the PVL
" u.mrred in ihe excellent essay (1996) by £ A.Mt'i'koVi 'Ot»\ tradition in the PiunaryCTironiclc'. pp -»i-i 11 in hcrTAe fatten World of the Vikings (Gothenburg).
.  franklin and Shepard. The Emergence of Km, p «•
Vt Karger I9t8, DretmtKiev * iMostow/lrningradljt Mühle 1987,'Die Anfangt Kitvi (bis ca. 980) in archäologischer bidit: ein Fot«hungsbericht', Jahrbücher fur Gescheht* Osteuropas j 5, 80-101; 0 M. luanmsyan 1990, 'Archaeological evidence tor ihe development and urbanization of Kiev from the 8th to the 14th centuries'. PP aSf-x 11 in D. Aurtin and L Alcock (eds), fmn the Bailie to the Black Sea: Studies in tirfy Medieval Archaeology I London I. , franklin and Shepard, The Emergence of Rus, p.»6-
I D.I. Bitfeld im-', Oji'nrirHjtrpdmidfty
amtoeyWMKiev).
The material of these cultures 11 published in a number of scattered publications. For Kohxhin see t A. Simonovich 196], Corodishthe Kolochin I', Maurtaly i lisUdovaniapoArkheologiiSSSR 108, 97-117. A G nrlitrotanov 1978, Htclazny mi Sredme Belarussti (Vli-Yt Ul do n.e.-VIII v. n.ej (Münk); 1 D. lobol 1971, Slavtanshir
it
*9
Early Sta V. V. Scdi Nord des
G. Ubud nadetno) For these
E. A. s 1, „
')• PP. 167-70. »nginedcla btanehtdu "taux. pp. iM_Jln bactyridtj (eds), Siudm "fl". vol. 1 (W«rsaw). 'P-NTrerukovand
p n. Tretiakov m>ä«, tlnnu.rjt   R . Slatnane na Dneprt 1 Vol.- 1 vj ' Leningrad) pp ,,. u  1 v Slavmne Verkhne    Pa       Scd°V '970' (Vtnvnwi «   »   ' r"<t"epravia 1 Podvima IMoscow), pp. g.6li pu^, Slaviantkie
Dolukhanov TlTl   1fnRll,h '" alto Kaiantki I „ o *PP ,6H~*' *«
11 C CrS,T   UtSL,m- PP • i»-t 5 3       I.oehrke .99a, Eru),:el, d„ Osulaventum, (Darmxtadt. Ertrag, d„ FarJcJ)u ^'"^
SKA       3SS by Franklin and Shepard. The Emergence of rI,
34 T wanlewski „76, Dulebowie - Le^anie -Chorwac: 1 ugadn.eri cHadn.crwa P enuenneg« i „osenkow pollryeznych nad B g.cm, Sanem I WW, w x w,eku'. rrceX Htitory-czny 67. 1 H i-s>4 '»S«?<I
J5 ljbuda.'P(,lskj.i.why Wai'
^ mtn"onrd » "-e PVL much funher^the
SVam '/ M ori»hmann 197g,
P- Donat 1987, 'Zur^elukb^ ^A* (Bcrh"u
Cliedemng der alr,|ju.ltrl,„„ iU" res,unjlcn
_ .   '•»■•^«istncn Keramik iwischen Oder und tlbcTSaal '
t»«oa:eneri)r5tou;wn,vol |
J« M.Dulinu-/ Mc-a -P, M
,       _    rrol"cm uatowanu
S. A, Pletneva iy87, Qle rj,a
J9 Tornow J.
i9«
o-   cci j,, J|-49,
»99
uctr ftorj rrm Tormom. Kr. Ctit» (terkmK Klerucj' E. Peterten i9>~. 'Der BuJKWfJj rot*
K tri mtl. Kr Grunberj'. AhtcUrutm 7 HU
40 S. iruba 1994. FeldbtTerr iVuraaik und
truhr Slawen EltrmtTTJptutJt-Aret\aok>tuckeZettiJmfH 1 j. til-19, S. Brather 1*95. 'N^dwrtttlatntche T«ll»ll|_i' (fr—1 drr Karolinerrtrit -Fr in*, itvfar Wirm a!» Vorbild1', Comaa 7}     4o;-i« S. Bnrbcr i»jtV, hrtdberger Krrjmik md fWie viaiteir Studien atr mmmttLaruilrtn Keramik der KaroUntetuit iBowir.
41 Et Rrmpd 19«*. Ke*mnV a^iftttdhoft dea t. tru 11. Jobiimmierta jms Saeioenanhalt. Stetten "tJ Ttmrmfrn 1 Berlin  Thr proputrd rrdatinr 1» haied 00 rrarst »rock oa tte rrr<)io«jT erf che iiirrr orrumrna. 41 See W tosimki 19I2. (>iaJmcnroptrmtrnne
Pomona |1H mrk> 1 Wrociiwi. 4 1  Brj tStr. FrUberfr* Keramik und frühe
SLiu-rx. pp. 1I7—96. M Tim rri.rllrr'i aecoenf Hinrrrri in ihr ninrh-trairdanon rrf Ornuui' Hutorr dortr hr »vir ini than tite Englttc Kaog AlrVreJ ehr Grrit
41 K LjaiwjiiaiB 1937. 'Em widmirr faijMn-twher StttfiuiiftviSjtnd luu "Sciuuicdrrbrrjc" bei Giuuu Kr GJogam'. Ahicbtettem t. tf-ft} K. laltp-niVim 1919, 'Der tnihitjwi«±e tVrrwiil ron Grruau IV: GtopuT. Attl<mateM I, 104-1": F Rrrmik in |innil TTiinnhaii bauian wrkof»itikowjek tu wesranotred-mowircxsTtia ptttlaasim w Gosrrotit, gga. GitTacrrc*'. k4>iubr Ssrmrotmnm* Ardfolopcvt. 4t L Lixttjewta 19I;. 'Du Kjfoimpidic Rnca and che WcioJj«rrn: ar rjsitadttntjj eraej K u!tu.-^rnuaj)«ir oa I.-9. )UWi>aB*rxr', pp ut-jj n EL Eni myi i«d E Data(eatfL Uit Äj-irm ndiirrt htjeaStWa 1 Vnui. 4- J. HracilJx JJöd A. Rsflkj» 199t,
Eilirwrafalliihxraj J«r|<i»kj« »1 Hlttti- und Qinwofu 1 Bona). 4I Ehr i^u^jiiirjo» acrotattesdriircacnied br i- EkrrmjuK) 19«!. SatvOmtf, Wtmdtaftwti
tntüuhJttlxiy* VrrKtÜmu* der ---t~Ln
frnmni mm4» Odr*)\rtue taW EJiWr
c—-*■--f1 ■*-     -iftrrr er 1 kkiliiiiii>■>
Atnrniai^Beiiin.. Abo.u
ditf^rTriV Siofwm I Brno). (I  Tht colUp*r o* Atxr pomtT did n« 1^ to . hrrik ui the cttbunl li nlinwm gi ^ aru vouth ot the Dinube. and —m jj^ vctnetenet ot the are* cnnririiird im ml Norrh ot the Danubc ai the md ot oV Kni
.. <ntjimns mauib artrird boriaU. TWaeiarai
to rrtatc to llTlleipcillT pUced ímkia,,, itvhlbitrd by gjurnorti ot warrvan 't t Komárno tn Slováku). (1 Ser J Sliou 19**. Vřeoni Caxtrf Vfiate
déjittim a vrtná mu'. rVatanMortcai 11 ihaYfct*
po 44 <" i_ 1
jj The mbe inhabtted the ueaottkevffio Vinula, uonibbr jf-und Ctacow. kat rrx-r.nooed tn a Dinth-u.wiMf edjttiaa 01
Alrrrd the Greaťt trinalinon ot "iium „j in thr docvment ttvmn a« thr laail—
(4 ITic probieto»la-.trraorajjjtntbek(biMd* prrvenct 0« the lUrer ijrwellrx* ineK. pnniruNi made le^adTr krom mtekámmémm ,j The Moraman truienad apnuměnám njcntiy tn Encjah by Z. vana itiSt, Tke Vorijf
• tke Anaem Stan ■■ b»d<>lVI>rrro«ti. aito s Bcrhr. D. Biaditoo auvd Z. kUaauca 19ti, Crwtt A4orji ui TiVe ArrJtaetttoyt ofSmtk
t
rrnríkjtí
Miulka elohc
«•"V^befer,
on che
r frunt the not
7brtludptr*HAattf bet • j »tue* tfce] .alJrd B ar^«. Borti o< the Sej 0/ Aaoi. rvj| ctsSjtJC Hrtuttoci m the arm tratvorarnp<ex. _ Ljj|iiihnn bann waj oa tbe tVuux*oírkm m aemBiä by ihr Biii^n iwtora^.
kad potrrriird tbe area aho the :-*tpK oí the Aran I, and me ham teen rhat
tjnd ot proto-txtte ontanu-a(«w had yes Im line here aroaad Zaiavac Tnete wrlt ab» 00 doabtrcnourirt ol an 'Avar' - -..it*"ti
,, «.Wtttur i^-ii 1'atl'nejwieJteluieajeav*^ ^ Aftet-teš-Corp*. Vnttxtachm$m tu den [mfaiuníttr nach Mittel-. Wrte- and ^iJriíuiu .i»9-»5j B. Oči tntt EaiXBriiur H^x&itmoiufx Jtnwpmijiu Grabet,
ni Iii It aiiiin P.....iwiném
Zj^hímmtemmi Munt 11. a"l-( t4 ,, r^A a»d Ckrx,p<mkj. Crn,,,, iu^^ tjtámttder UiktetmúrmmémVÍm ^.rir-.:
P- VL Sjtjfir 1964. Stará Ktmhm a prufrvy tsriäo
and
Vvihunic Hetndotu. 4 EiTTi today mnonheat
luti and 1
' a hottxrrr medicrj] (nov., fc* « pohlubed m tj,,« A<itUVJ "tmtur''
«»trow
otrxunpie
MbrtuM.
4JJ
•^oiihezadnrtam,^ K^oni»t>attMOyee
rap J v,I t?,"',*r,* **.}!.-.-
.    .1""°" **um»»» Hla, Fron »o" meor>apa atid coltapte ot rlv un zjdrutta' FIií_j,_ - ,
. umMopa rotoru I,
-j^IJTuttoo 1976, Hummer oftke
J.Potda* otGnatJ Mrtlordi ■ t-Jiatu /. Drkaua 1 J.Muaj -rl.sjr,
•V Ckraag
E.ít
«««Et,,,,,.
rretB ArcAar
I -arter .
1 r.- U Hrot.
IWtTJtv
<emor
heendepovtrd ua ,he„^L. , "°i<1!urT " ''"WrwnjetJutbeirJithe
"tapiMritia) rttmnt-)í)+* hamt a
" w# . -r  • . . .
iBerlml 7-*** ' ~ Jahrtmndrrt
1 o 11 »"üü!^""" *" UU<U* L rV«tvrrt Slavic hou P*rm>™'* »«jV| bintdjBjj,
etrcheoto^í. ^._____„   • """"^
Mu
"«-der Weit de,
rr^iidtvr«
ij- HerrmaiMi wd.)
i in lun (LAVS
!■<>■. Veil Je, Slawen Geschlchte, Gesellichaft, Kultur <Uipng/Jcn a/Ber11 n I, figure on p. 4 5 fused on evidence from Krvinj
in Bulgaria
14 Slav material culture it admirably dealr with
liv Henwl, Shwiarinceyzna uxzetnaired-mourecznaand alto find) illustrated in B kolchin. V. Yanin and S. Yarmhchikov («1») 198$. Drevm NovgorodiMoicow). 1. The evidence from the Wett Slav areas is pretentedbvj Hrrrmmin (cti.I 19Í5. Die Slawen m Deutschland(Berlin), pp. 8,-94, A. 1 .ri tak and B. Kurach ism*. Kontumrtcia tnicta w ircdniowiec/u oraa w czasach noworyuiych na lerenic obecných ziem I'olski w twictlc Janvch archcologicrnych', Archeologu Polskt 41.1 59-67 Thc evidence from Moravia and Slovakia hat been summarized by K. Polek 1994, řodstauygoipoaarcze panstu j uielkomorawskiego (Cracow), pp 61-4. Thc evidence from the South Slav regmnt it ditcuurd by J Henning 198-, Sůdosteuropa luischen Annie unj Mittelalter (Bcrlinl, pp. loi-f, irom which our figure It taken.
16 Dettau: B knmn i-th-. I ><•.■11, Mosigkau em jruhtlawtschtr SieJlungsplatz im mittlertn Flbegtbirt (Berlin). Březno: I. I'lcincrova 15175. Rřetnu; vesnice prime b Slovanů v severozápadních Čechách (Prague) Zukowice: VI. Parcicwtki 1989, Zukowicepud C/u
fowem u zJrjniu sreJniowiecza (Gfogów, Chgoutkie Zeszyty Naukou*, vol a) Korchak: I. P. Ruianova 196), 'PoKlcme u 1. Korchaka na r. Teterrve'. Materiály 1 Issledovama po Arkheologu SSSR tet, JJ-ecc , K..J> ir J. P. Ruunoi-a and 8 A. Timoíhchuk 1984, Kodyn - Jjvunskteposílena v-viti w na r Prut (Moscow).
Chapter 6 1 Although the term trii
certain ichool» ol «ihm
he uied here at u u easily unfleisioou j W Hesel i960. Polska pned tysucem Ut
hat been attacked in thought, it will
I utvtehuiiK ci"d I "IM,tkluiigdnHeudil1bn
ni der Slovakei', Studia f fi<fi>nrj.Wi)WM' ,1 a 1, also I Gatsowski iv9i, 'ProbltnuJl
«i.;rtnei pamtwowoáci w twittlcdaných
archeologictnych', pp. ■>--. s ,„ \| Tymow,i, and M Ziólkowtki (edt), Cfneu 1 iunkciommame wezesnych form pjnsiu ouosci na tie poruunttwtntrt; I
(Warsaw).
,  I-.ir 111 overview nl ihe '.SUnusť archaeolors-,.(ihe Smici i'niiin vre B. Trigger 198« •I I listnry of Archac■ igical Jhnu^ht it iiuhndgcl.pp 148-10*.
(   ] he literature it satt See for example I  Service 1 4-1, Pfimirii* Social ()rjpj«ijdlio«J   In h in/iHiomirv/ppii^ S,u Viirki. M Sahlins 1968, Tribttmm I nglewiHuH liltti, 1 K Harle ivs>i, I biefdomst Power, rconomy tni Ideolog. l .mihndgrl: v  Redman 1978. The Uttttl i 11 i/uJ/Ki« iSan Francitco). F01 animrodV mm Iruin the archaeologist, point ol Hesvc« 1. Rennest .ind P Bahn 1991, Archjtoiort Theories, Methods and I'Mrrice (Unapg), pp. I J)-94-
i, F. Curia 1999. "Feasting with kings in an indent Jemocracy on thc Si.,sic society Q( ,c. Early Middle Aget (uxih to seventh centuries sdI", Essays „1 Me./irij/ \tnjiei 15, tj-ja,
7 J llildmi 199t. Tfc^ Stj/e and l/;fr„(,uun \1.     o/ Production (London/New Yoikf
s 1 ilsrst isc we hear also of Slav warriorsaiaonc ihe bodyguard! of some Islamic caliph*.
.1  I lictc grave* have been »tudied in ihe furmet Sns ict Union («et bclowl but more teccnils m t.icai Poland:tee M. Kara 1991,'Zhadaiiiud sc c/etnotredniowiecinymi grobami 1 luhrojt-niem z terénu wiclknpolskr. pp. 118-Lom I  Lecieiewica led.) 1991. Odplemkmttlo pjFUruu. Statk na tie wczesnoirtJmou,ec;nr,
10 Theexar (5 th ett) Human I
i drawn from P. Kotrack 199
„„„iTihcdul""
tiracl of a document (if ^JiaicdwithMieuko)
lUihrti,K jnU pcrtonal ownership Ol j
»(iuIJs*"1     ,„y by ihe person making
, "„ ol Si Peter. lhřfn«iif"n •Tctnioriat «tmctiirct
"°,or 10 the founding of .he
v(l. ,l„i' do n\-\s*n ,. (IriRiM of Central Europe
, ,,:..,«si. 119*5, 0 š,cdniowiecza 1 archeo-
r|firii'hj ssc/c". .       .      i 5/ui'U Antiqua
Kurn»"1
f i ihm iVj»r«a*
i piemttma
It-lit; Lcciciessica ici 7hr iisurr» quoertl refrr to West Slav units ,j.ti ji i" l'"ljnu ■",J Bohemia. In the Fj.t sji areat thc tribal unions incorporated into id* Kievan ttate ipprat to have had areai of ,h< ,„Jrroi40.o<)Olo6t.ooo»q km in the
\„|\utani. Dstrevlanc. Tyvercy, Sctcnanr. Cliche and ihe Dregovichi, and Radimich,)
Ihout 145.000 iq km m the cast of the \>jtichi and about 116,000 set km in the cant
iiri, to
;lhe
the dating
ion).
101 hosvever ntnary typt nc among It, hevsmd
19 E. Dabrosstka 1978, 'F.tapy ktualrowania itCoucimctwa groelowei^o 1 lorniuwania
the area of Slav settlement. 11 Ii should be noted though in contrast that die written sources concerning tht Slav invasion* of Grecct him that it wai part of the native Creek population which retreated to defensible hilltop and island sites.
S. Keller and C. Calhoun 1 >,*,,. Sociology (5th ed.) (New York). J. W Vanden Zander 198». The Social Experience'. An Introduction to Sociology (New York |, p. 463. i) F. Engel» 118a, Die Ursprung de, ram,he. Je,
J V. Stalin 1958. 'Dialectical and historical materialism' (reprinted in ). V Stalin 1951, ProfcW of Ummsm (Moscow), pp f 11-4 s > 14 M Ft. Fried 1967. T'»r hmlufion of Political Society: An Essay m Political Anthropology (New York I, p. 117. For the use of the ttaic set H.J. M Cbcnoni and P Skalnik (tds) 1978. The Early State (The Hagueffarn/Ntw York),
z\ It ii nimble that tuch interpttiations have become more popular in central European stales unct ihe collapse of Communism and
history wnrrtr 16 Theroltofmi
, lor the new Yuppie elan, force, of war and conquest 1 a considerable role 111 Fngcls's view of
if the German sociologist F. nheimtt has broad resemblances to
problem 01 irn communities',
j wood or
ape
)°3
101
TMI EAHIY SLAVS
of Elit-West relationships coloured more by fond wishes than by hisi.irii.il accuracy. 18 Poland: recent work by Zofia Kurnjtowska I sec tor example Z. Kurnamwska 199*. 'The organisation of the Poind «täte - possible Interpretation» of archaeological sources'. Question MediiAevtNovat 11Warsaw), 5-14; Kurnatowska, "Territorial structures'. Bohemia: J. Slima 198», Střednítechy v ranem středověku III ■ archeologie o poiilkich přemyslovského státu (Prague. Praehistorica ■4).
J9 A. Buko 199z, 'Origins oflowni in southern Poland, the example uť medieval Sandomierz', Archaeologia Polom Ji, 171-84, A Buko 1998, PoctalkiSandomierta (Warsaw).
.10 Č. Scaňa 199Í. 'Polské prvky v raní
středověké keramice na Moravě', pp. 17J-87 in H KóčkaKrcnz and W Fonriiki (rd») 1998, Kra/eslouunskie w wiekachsredntch: prnfaiium 1 sacrum Poznaň
Chapter 7
1 There doeí not seem to be much synthetic literature devoted to Slav warfare, Several of the discussions of the Eastern Roman and liwaniine sources {Strategikon, Procopius -nid rhenpfulaiius Simokauesj much on the written sources for Slav attacks on the fronuer. For Poland there Is A. Nadolski (ed. 11994, Polska technika wojtkowa do iteo wku (wanaw), while a number of synthetic works deal with weapons and strongholds. For Moravia see A. Kuttkay 1981, 'The organization of troops, warfare and arms in the period of the Great Moravian slate', Slovenska Acheologta jo, 1*5-98. 1 W Pohl 1991, 'Conceptions of ethnicity in early medieval studies', Archaeologia Polána »9.19-5° ) W I impel 19Í7, 'Zwei neue
fruhmilirlallerlKhe Sporrngrabcr aus Thüringen', Ausgrabungen und runde 11,
Í7J-7.
j There has been much discussion about the nature of these breeches. As we have seen the word used by Procopius refers tu a type of trousers known to be the dress of the eastern
f, In the rwelfth century Herbord lelU ui ih P1.mrr.1n1a the number of horses was run ihc number of warriors, suggesting thai here, by this period, fighting was prntuni
conducted from horseback -  Kuiikay, 1 he organizationaltroops' s For the I ki.imuii ramparts vet btlosy.Tk, Polish ramparts arc discussed ai length hs I fsuwaUzyk 198-., Sylienryoamn».Iva. podbt&tyrh ice ttizesnym iredniaiintttum •icnuach pulsktch I Wroclaw); therarnpun s.isoov and Thunngia are discussed by I' l.rimm 1958,Dieiwr. undfnihgadHfo ;, o,.i Hurgiralle der Beark* Hallemi Magdeburg I Berlin I, pp 17»-», and his par*. 11968), 'Zu den Landwehren des oberen Lichsfcldcs', pp 180-7 in M. Claus, ,\ 11 .urn i«el and K. Ftaddatz ItdiLStudwi ■ur euro/Mix hm Wir- und fruhgeuhuht (Neumunstcr)
,   I sl.1111.1 19H8, Slredni Cech) 1 r.i-tlrrdtiveku III Jrcheologlt opoit fiiemyslovskeho statu (Prague, P>, la). The Polish evidence his nt t. published: A Buko 1997, Pnlska ss spoliHKie narodtiw F.uropy. poo perspektywy badawcze', Zerryry Sjmdomursku IV IM, 5-8. o This is one possible explanati. n .,1 /■VI means when it says that the P and Viatichi came from ihe Uchy' It is probable that this is a trace uf 1 tli.it the population of these areas a ol writing had formed from the rela movements of populations from iht west, ihe frontier zone of Volytiu n valley.
Chapter 8
An interesting and early attempt was seminal book by Henryk towmtaruk on the economic basis of the formatlo among the Slavs. Ptvditawy gospoda*
I Trade
■nifkJnt vjilference between nv>si parts of ' ^,^Jndtheraitcr»tnmof thecontempo
^asunng haeksiber in the sixth to eighth
.rtiruors.
v t .r v cral pap*" m H. Jankuhn el al (eds| , i .i'"- >>>•■ re uagiiittt tips*
,tnJ\erkenr ae   o      4 /    g      c .tučni
il'iVnV Ih.    •    : • .1«. ...vend by
,mdoVtkr F 17 -I O. ttolctl) i Br 111..
i>h>sticated unsumpein
"emPolsk,
s. , hurisumpv,., miesa , re annum in Deutschland,
ihn,
Hu
»er Zeil
nuk and
R! and medieval
typi
CM
cspe-Hid
TUT LAgLV SLAVS
evniptke iowttiVf (Prague), published in
1461.
,.,  I Hi-mum: 1 • 1 -S-. Sujosteuropa zwischen \nlike und Mittelalttr 1 Berlin); H. Maimer 1 yg(t, Studia nad mculurgu) zelaza na lereme p.ilnm m' wti Iwdmei Rulgaru we wczesnym stednwuirctu (Wrc>clawl.
10 Though lulls have nut been accorded much ■mention in thc literature, it m.iv he suspected ihai in southern area* the> nuy have been more common at an earlier date.
11 A Bartnskosa inXft,Sloianskedeputy ieleznych piedmitu v Grtkoslneeniku iBrno/Prague), F. Curta I997i "Blacksmiths, warrior*, and tournaments of value'.
±1 |. fioter 1441, Fin llorrlund dcralteren lliugwall/rit aus dcr Slovakei', Althohmen undAltmihrtn 1,15J—7»-.1  / kohvlinski and / ilcmcl ivui,'Importsor local products1 I rive element analysis ol copper.illo> artefacts Irom llacki, llialystok province, Poland', \rchaeologu I'olnna ii, 119-40.
14 B Svoboda I'M 1, Tnkljd b>7.anitkeho
kovoicpce v Zemianskom Vrbovku', I'amatky Archeologicke 44, 11-91. 1 ( The first synthetic study of the West Slav silver hoards and one siill retaining a certain value is 1I1.11 hy Human J.ikunowici 191), '0 pochodicniu oodoh srebtnych inaidnwanych w skarhach wc/esnnhisiorycznyclV, K'l.idomosci Arc/ri'iifoviizne 11, ici-ifi) For .1 useful recent study with many dutribution maps see II Ktxka-Krcnz 144-,, Bttulerta po/rroi no-zachudmo-slowianska we wczesnym indnmirir, :n I'o/n no Ihc hoards Irom thc dinner Sonet Union have been discussed in C. F. Kunukhma 19S4, Russkie klady tx-xitt 1 ' 1 Moscow/Leningrad). The work of N. P. Kondakov tigi, Russkie klady: issltdiwanie drevnostei velikokmazhetkogo perinda iSl Petersburg), alio remains a useful source.
ar> Relationship* between the Scandinavian and si n mi i ilssork are considered hy VP Dnczko ivN<. ffnirj V: The FiligreeandGranulation Work oflht Viking Period(Stockholmi Sec alsoH K.Wka KiennuKi.//,,/-,,^,,,
in Ii. Schuldt
3-9
^'•'I^hen Stämme i^T.****
'''"'Kerl,,,. IU;,r,Ke hruhges. hulilr der He^rie fl-T.   7* *** ^•"'•'•'Idenburg u) ^»&fe*>|»
' Marlin i<iHa, Treasure
'■"Kin
heat
Darkness: The ,-,„ Iradcandu, iWrncl.iwI. ,m*'*"»"/i„,I,,
......,1,w> '•"•«.'«..«i„cniewrn(.
:.;;r^':';':^'---,,,e;2:-
srodkowej Pnlsfc,
^..... .....'«■»-msk,,,eÄlH
Wor,,,,,,,*,,.,,.,,,,^^^;
lucrum (Pomari). '■<nr"Un,m,
h-   Vmhrnsiaiu 198,  \r,Lm .
'       Makmgand Comb MaL^t
> f»«11 «irij n,f,r I* ""' i|' 1 111 Archaeology x\;f ( n'K~'[n^,
unini,,.
rzrgtad
ii K.Amb
0/ Finds
Studies... „.«.«uroiogy il. E. Cnnilrny Ut, KcemioWo ruütiiwtir» na Pomona ' ii'i-jesriosrcdmoii'iecaiiyifi (Wrrxlau. I \\ J.Callmei i.|-r, fr.ldi • lle.ii/i and Brad Traa> in v. .jrii/m.ii'i.i ..1 »00-1000a.o.ILorulk J.Calliner 14X7, Pragmatic notesnnthe«,1, „„ dieval bcadmaterlal in V andinavuandih, Haitis region ca. s.u hoo-iooo'. ms ---in Ci. La bud J and s Lilvu
1000, nn ,| a.luyiiskiled.i .
''■'^'"oge,^.,slou,an,k,,h,„dlu;^
.......-■.■'/.SOI,,«.,,, ,..
shilling trade- andcxchansr.v,"i'"" dentinSachrenftZZ, 'I'S',?'
< illme
ni,
See t.Xerhnden.o,,,/.,,,.,, //»ro/'rme./).',.,,/e/|IUuges| I or shackle, »ee J. Henning i„^ 'Ciefangenenfessel im slaw.sehen" Sicdlungsraumunddereump,,,,,,, Sklavenhandel .m<1 hi, , a. J.hrh^p.
(i'cr»i<inM7o(i
.-»01-16. Thcie „t,|ritl'
in
cluster, as I lenning * map shows I Abb I thc Lower Danubmn and Pontic region. The somewhat provncanve derivation (I word 'Slav' Irom thc word slave' ptopo some scholars has been strenuously con by a number of linguist*. Sec C. VcilmJc 1..; - • I. origine de "sciauus": esclave', 0 de Cringe 17,97-1x8. Il 11 noticeable that many of these finds conic Irom ihe territory of the Vclcti.
Kiriningan import.int polmcal groupmgon ,he nunh-caitern edge of the Carolinglan (mpire lt was here ihat a number ..| „np,"" doselv connected with ihe dtvelop mnt 11I economic Systems in the Baltic were rnrmed.
niesets, o.uion* have been published only in intrrim Inrm. with liagmentary evideiice jts,iiii some ol ihe find» I he main lourcc of Information Jl ihe nmc of ivntlng is \l |a».>drihiki 1988. Wczesnoiredniawteetna
opjantmicshitznkjndlnwn w Janimic
fomonkim rud je;i' rem Druzno -
poumkiujne Trusot PnewoAtiJkpo wysutwit
iFIblagl
\\ Soigrhaucr 19*8. 'Truso und Elbing; ,,. liriini: 'in I nihge*chichte dci ttVi.hsrlinundungsgehicte*', pp UJ-J4 jn M t.lau». W. flaamagcl and K Raddar/ ledsi, sWie« v>' europäischen Frühgeschichte ,11 Ijnkuhn feilscJinft) (Nciii.u.nst.rl. , y Filiposvials 14-4. LlicEnnsricIdungder staJt Wohn' 111 Fl. Jankuhn eul. (edi),
.      I ruh/ormen der europäischen Stadt ,m Mittelalter, vol. i. (Görringen); « filipowiakand II ländlich n,,;, «;,>/,„ \infta. die tatsächliche Legende rom iitergang und Aufstieg der Stadt (Rostock), 1.1 jnie and P V. I -liigr 1 gKH. \'mrr.i \1L1nlt1 des Nordens (Leipiig)
divided Fi
(Brrlrnl.
son thc south shore of the Baltic Hy improper concept and rarely , it had connotations with the cory af itate origins belostd of ::,tist* Lor .1 recent and some-,. t.sr review nf the evidence 11997. 'Scandinavians in thc , hervvcen the sth and toih cen-. 191-111 in P. Urbarictyk fed.), ■     Europe (Warsaw) 1977, Mcnilm, etn
■15 V.V
«oi4».
(Lcmngr.,, '996, The
' "lldl III
eastern ecu "Usui tra 'he island.
c-II * If.
titrated in Stauen m I- 14; the M Kulecs k/ Ibi x ix wicku', dales arc cited bv
jolt
NOTIS
Excavated sail stains 11 Truto have been mtctpreted as the remains of boats.
) 1985,Srrdneietoiaid ladeiga:
gence of Rus - to—i aoo :w Yotkl.pp ii-i 1. The the Baliic also had a number of ires, three in Estonia, one on reniaa.DaugmalcfUrvU), near Jclgava, Crobtn, Lep.ua. Klaipeda, near Ziclnnogradsk, Tni*o (Janow Pnmorskt near Elbta.g).Thelauetwasdesitoyedby Scandinavian raider* in the middle of the ninth century and never reoccupied 46 A. N. Kirpichnikov. G. S. Lehedev, V. A. Bulkin. I. V. DuLsov and V. \ Naurenko 1980, Russko-skandinavskie *vian cpokhi ohra/.us am.1 Kirvskogo goiudarsrwa na sovremennom etape arkhcologicheskogo i/uchcnia', Kratkie SootSshchenid Instituta A rlr/irofriKii 1 Moscow i tcVo, 14-38 (similar paper by ihc same author* in 1 lyl, Scando-
'Chronologia naplywu na|*tar*7.c| monery arabskiei na icrytnrium Etiropy', sluu Antt.iua }I,9|-iRi Set also Franklin and Shepard, The {.mergenceof Rut 7yo-iaoo, pp. 11-s 4 - Further to the uiuth another imponant complex occurs at (iniotdovo on the 1 inn pr near Smolensk at the watershed between the Dnicpr and Dvina waterways Most of thc spectacular development of this site (evidenced by it* ccmetcriesi dates to thc tenth century, but there was a settlement established here some time in thc second half of the ninth century which it would not be unreasonable to see as another emporium For the recent reassessment see W Losmski 1991,'Mlefscc diiiordow.1 w roiwniu kontaktuw Skandynawu t Rusia Kno***ki . Vrzxghtd Archeologuvis w. i i4-ci 48 One of them may be represented by ihc stronghold at S.irskoe Ciorodishchc in Menan termors', dated to the catly ninth century, around which are a series of large settlements (such as those ai Ugodichi and Timcrvo) which seem 10 have been involved in exchange, to ludge from ihe laige silver hoards found in some ot them. For these site* see Franklin and Shepard, The Emergence of Rus, pp n-|,
lh--. r,..-.>
(9 One may expect lhat each local settlement cell was served by a more or les* radial road
THE lAm-V SLAVS
5*
system connecting the centrr with the penphrrv hv tht most direct routes. The direct connection of two points several hundred kilometres distant from each other would be necessary or fraoblr only in the cisc when this would have had some strategic significance or ., inildri able trafik was expected ro pan along (hem
jo The Anglophone reader may use the translation bvR H J Jenkins 19*7. published in Washington. I used the Polish translation A. Brjnstnwska jnd W. Swoboda teds) 19Í9. Trttimonu lUidJU-metszych JtieinwSlim-tan i Wroclaw), pp sOI-J. , 1 Another group of traveller* startrd from tbc other end of the route: the Jews lor Syrians) began their trading activities in this period, but were ro become of importance in central Europe only in the twelfth century land further east only later)
The first mention in a written source is in the Annates Bertmum. where under the year Ijy is an account of a diplomatic mission from Emperor Theophilui of By/annum to Emperor Louis the Pious in Inurlhrim. with (he Greeks were apparently some men of the Rhos' whose ruler was called a 'duchanus'. Louis found out however that they were Swedes Ifr.miwrrfj (.rmunue Htstonca, Scnptotti I.4U-
11 Quoted after B A. Rybakos 19S9, Kievern Rut IMokowI. pp. 4C-7.
14 Kiev: P P Tolochko, S. A. Vysotild and V E Borovski 19H1. Not«x e arkheatogii Kiera (Kier). p. 107. Raiswiek: Herrmann. DreSLtuen m DeulsehlanJ, p 191, Abb. uog, Taf. ijb. For camels at BoUhnr Borshrvo and Tirchikha and a carving at Mayaiskoe see Franklin and Sbcpard, Tht Emergence 0/Rus, p.t\. 11 .sionumriiij vjermaniae liutnnca Leeum
17 Hoards at Sonnenw a Idc in Lusana and
ao Hall . 1:1 l. juJ Maurrver
5»
mrnry
K rsiirsni'wsli I 19(<», 'C'tlowile moBUS roiwoiu jrodkow wymiany na Fomorru
wc/csnoteuclalnvm', Wudontoici Arch? ■■: ...11 :nr :i. ui-s; 1. and Pm,,^. trusifiMCV. -uMt.i '■uggevied thaiihc4;-w ance <>t these hoards represents the (muTT .1 j monetary swirm of local exchange S Tabacivnslo 1957, 'Z tagadnirri srartoia poaia" c/.y c h ska tlxiw wciesnosrcd niowiccznych', Archeologia Potsks 1, links the Utter onlv ».ih the periodot thr Jujppcarancr of these hoards. ;.,   I Ih-nc hoards occur 10 the north of a |JBt running through the south of Polabuand Poland to ihc upper Dniestr and lower Dosn. beyond which therr are no finds of oriental silver in the mnih centurv land hardly tVfm ■he tenth).
ho There arc over i$oohacksilvefhoarosWOc H.ilnc /one Mans .ire tnund on C«>tLind, its-, ,Kciir in )uilanJ. and the Danish iilandi, through Sweden 'including Lapland), Aland Islands, r inland, thr Raluc countries and tionhcrn Russia (as 1.11 ravt as ihe Upper VoVj ir.J Dnieprl. These hoards contain ioreip ..nins and hacksilser not found so regulaib elsewhere in Europe. Hacksilser UtMatoMi , , ocularis 111 western European boardso( this dan, except in deposits oi loot „1  Ot the copious hieraturc on iheseeaitofijQ^ .c r mav select the s- nthctic article by k t.odlowski 19S1. 'Okres wfdrowxk loom, na Pomorju'. P<onrrjnu Ai.fi.iiu 10, k<-i:-, set also W. Knapke 1941.'Aura undScM-corkommeu an dcr SudkuviedcTthtyee', Arij
Poland and the arrival here of thr Slars is postulated by K Codltiwski in his 1974
rye. 1 and a.
XOTts
l,«ji»dW/' htttutf Italtanudt Numumatu
11 i (—1 —4 •
jn rvreiisive literature on this
jl-ill. '99) 'Chronolojeia, skala 1 drogi -jf.|vsm moner arabskich do krajim nt^kich a sctnIku ix. w x w.\Slat*, ^,;»jiu w. 1-41 Thr circulation of Islamic ,,-iH* m central Europe is summarized by V gartctak 1      'Finds of dirhemv in central
> 47-JiII in tcalfleds). m UnJ, nex 1111.
:iarke (cd.l, Arr*j
selsev ed
The
ins of Ethelrrd and Canutr,
■n had been thought until gn «1 Boleslaw's lather an J
•zne 4 a. t—10.
is cum is pictured on
' note together with
enth
jin- old m* hZevcfu,
70 A.
Pol pre mi and
Ti M.!
Fra
' ■ ondnn, Orefna Rstti
t of Russian íeíi/oyu
'^».-The »' urban centres nJ Chapman
1 "> Eaitrm thr rise of unos-19,6, f-lt.
"nichenko
ev);
ÍOrr»i/Xírr?|0, S°l'V™>d,k'* Junkovo)
[Lot ftraf
V.L
monograph 1 • Chapter 9
'h-ectedby m
'»«$.
anc uiu
* 191»,
rnsKi
«08
309
THř lAkUY UAVt
Wirnecke 1940, Vnlermchungtn :ur Religmn Jer Vrsltlawen (Uipngl: H Towmiantkl
«979. Krligu Slotvian 1 w úpadek (Vr-Xtl u:). /Wartawl; B. A. Ryhaknr 19ii7. Yazychetttxi Dtrtmti Run (Mokow); H A Kyhakov 19r9,
Kin m Hut (Motcow), cíp. pp. 1 jB-*4 5« alto L. P. Slupecki 1 -(v4. Slavonie Pagan Sjticiiunri IWartaw). In addition to thcw, thc 19)6 book In Alrktandcr Cneyt/tor, Mllologia Sliiuun I Wartawl and Jrr/y Stiyrlc/vk'i 149I Míry; pnJtiitia i wientnia Jawnyrh Slouian • l'i./run 1 wrrc mott uirlul in compiling thit chapter.
2 Scnuxu include Thietmar In.Imp oř Mcrtrbrrg), Adam of Bremen, Sáno drammaricut. and the Lito nř Si I lim .,f Bamberg twnrrcn by I Ho, Herhord, and M.ii.kIiii> Pmllingrmlij. 1 The p.      presented Mm 11 to a large rxrrnr a mnipmiir and prrhapi idrah/td model. Hated on ihe more detailed evidence pretetitcd in thr wurkt Clltd afwivr and rhe comidrrahle Inrralurr which ihrv draw on. Owing to ihr .omplr >ii,..(rhr vanout law «of argumrtilt utrd toinnittiicr thit modrl, II would he difli cull to providr lull nnret for each individual 1  ...i llir f. 1.I1 r who wnhct ro go into thr tuhjrvt in mnir derail it invited mtoniult the wnrktcirrdm note 1. 4 / ha/rr iiii. The (mlJrn Hough tlondnn). 1  s. s Virlcttka 197«, Yatycheiltjiaiimmlllta tlaviamkikh jrkluitheikikh rjrtulov (Mutton I
* Thr reference 10 a paramount god tuggciti again ihe >mi ol t Ileat of ihe erratum ol 1 large pantrihal allocution, hul one woridcrt whether the rcfrrrntr 10 (he god ol thunder it nor in tome way merely a t hmtian rrfrrence to thc pagan god Jupitcr/Zrui rather than a real rrfcrrme ro a Slav god Nrvrrthelcit a god ol thunder 11 perhaps what one would rxprcf from a miliurtinc society which watat the tame time an agricultural one. 7 Thr iconography of ihr/lirucr idol may owe j tomrihing ro rhe Kammennyt baity I'tronr v. '.in. 11 ol ihr itrppct, iiiilaicd ouiJicrt of which occur in the upprr Umcpr. in ihr Dni«t, and a. far north at Maru'ria la Poland. Hi-, .lair Irom rhe latin hall ill ihe flrtt millennium h. and pmtihly ihr lirtt crnturte*
,uth at tahrct. Some or them hold h„r„, lr)
ihnr handt
,   I in. important diicovery was first p,,,^. hv It A 1 mi.isbclmk and I. P. Ruurlotita
Soirrilrju Atkhtnlngia 4 (198»), 9tvi0q,,l
ditciitery it placed in wider tiintcxiby Kvhakov, Varychr 1 o limw, |tu)li pp iir.-« 1, "id hy thr autliori oltht diicovery, I P. Kuiannva and B. A, luii.ithchult 1991. i'-vclfriiirilrt^jjjjji Jtrvnikh »/.n     IMoicowl irhf^i^rKTrTfo|ji— 41, l.Kh-,01 I Recently however dmibtt hat, 1>< tn cat! even on ihr innnretltmbttsai^,^ 1 nnoin ttatoc and ihr Slaw I'lufetvor vtmantki 111 a rcirtit ihiiutdtl-protaollat. irtidr hat suggcttril that it may be Thu,u„ 9 On Slav icmpltt and cult plain in genera), 1 particularly utelul hook 1«Slup«ki,Uai,K,k f'jif.i'1 Sj"' (".in.    11" /loui/ttmpleit ditciitted here on p lit, hgt 73-4. 10 The excavations and iheir results ate diKuHj ind illuttratcd hy Shipctki, Slovonk rata, s.i/n tiuriri.pp 144-to. 1 y 1.1f-ota |hald Mountaln|. E. ('^tixnrtka
111 ;etnym in ifmou ir< :u I Wroclaw 1. <,\rlt iceSliipi-cki, Slavonic f'jgun Jjnctnaritj, ,,,, , . .,- imi ult Several luthurthart ,|iietiioned whether I yta C6n really Strug tanctuary, and. although thr rtulcncc r,„ whith the tuggeinon wa« initially nuilr 11 lo,
,tinr than originally thought, ihe hypotheu, may mil lie >< irptrd. , .   Slunecki, Slavonic PaganSancuumtt, rp 14-110.
, ,  ll.nl idlan alto givct la,tlycxtrntivedftailiol ihr hnai burial ol a Rut chief which 11 ttci|uently quulrd in vannut lontixisianeau b n itvtihlc trantlanon can be found m St Magnutton 197*. Itjmmet uftht Umk,
hiitvcvcr of a largely Vandm.
'/u den
del slawrnimi
"onhern („„.„ ha
'■■hi., and
jtr jnd tlaltiird by men who raced hnrtrt
ult tvirb grave goodj in Maeovia and line, part of a traře which had been
mwi/u i'odlatlu , Matrrury 1
I Ethnology, Politb Ai.idcniy
Jet Unlertn Oonau. j vol,
Stni
Mkheohgu
■ »J3-M. ■i'r, heute
fřoelnw) "Vf r j
•ellrring of the „ coincide with tin
mapped. 11 H Zofl.Adamiko
*3 Arkheologu U** M Avar burial ntei a
nwatenteil m Mil A. \i .1111,1111, [97
m Afkheulnitu Uk »9 Sedov, Vottoehny* I" The primary »ourt, flincířcnth- m I #-
injtLCtftt-ili* třt •• a
.(uiiir v. the phaimft >11 <i
is ti .rti here doct iidt
■ '.int,',r\(r,! in ilu: %riinnal
.1, W« ***nt) i rtdm oh neon*
,rrfelJet.
in 111 j, i, m fa
artaw). '■a 4.
I a trnes of hue
•rl
"■o in
inter 1
ech
T. k'uplet and
una much invrnred material
Chapter to
i Sec I- Dvomlk 1016, Let Slaw, Bytance et Rume au IX W«/»(P«ril)i A. P. VTasto 1970.
The t.nm "/ the Slavs into Clmstendnm (Cambridge and New Brunswick, N.J.); I |>vomik \-i~o. Byzantine Muttons among
theStavt (New Brunswick, N.J.I. Lutz E. von Padherg 1998, Die Ckmiltamsierung Europas ,m Mtttclaltei iSlungarrl, P llrbariifltyk led.) 199-, Earfy i imstiantty in i.entraland Eait I mope iwareiwl Sec also J Pnulik 1978, The origin* of Christianity in Slavonic countries north of die middle Danube hgiin WorldAnbtteolofj ioU). 158-71.The reader 9 alio lelerred to the article by Jerzy Strulczyk a 000, 'Towards .1 Christian I urope', in P. llrbaiiczvk led.l, Europe aiiuiul the Year taoo (Warsaw!, winch the present author iranslaicd while the present chapter was King compiled. In the process a number ot lasts and perhaps a lew catchier phrases taken from thai translation mar be Inund here.
a The study ol Christianity in early mcJirs.d eastern Europe is Iraught ssith problems ol interpretation, quite apart from the poienri.il effects ol a scholar's own religious beliefs (or lack of ihtml on pcicepiiun of some aspects of the problem. In several countries where in pair divides the 'official' standpoint on the Church was the result ol tins institution being frowned upon by Communist regimes, the 1 sprcssion of alternative views could he an expression of politic il opposition Such views, presented as ubicctivc urn iptit.iiiniis, have become quite common since 1989-90 One wundcrs though whether this continued dialogue with stahnist anil Church demagogy is nut perhaps obscuring some wider issues i This is also the context of the attempts ol the Bolsheviks tocu/b the activities of the Russian Church in the period after 1917; the Church acted as a focus for the revisionists Communist action against the Chinch initially ti k used mainly on attempting to nationalize Church property and then un combating the resistance to the Soviers which this engendered.
1 According to the .Verona* l.i/r of St Wojaeeb, by j Bruno of Qiierfurt (ch. a j), in an analogous situation the Prussians isles! Ballsl choused the missionaries oil their lands declaring that became of such people our Kill svill not stive a
harvest irecs will not Iwar frvilt,nesv»i,lmj|(
cs ill not he Kirn and the old ones me' ,   I he kvnrl "''■""ss.lsli,,wesertrJ|is|ltclll sl.sn bs Boxu, bishop ol Mcrsehrrgmthc
■ii.us lor the use of the Polahlan Slavs ,. 1 Oswald I  ScInciter ana H K. Sennhiiis,, . 1  l,,rn»>i.iniii/ie Kircbrnhojifr,,
is .1.1.'. h.i/, der IJritttmdfrr his turn Atagtsa
,/,., 1 irioiirn, 1 vols (Munich! K ht.iuihcimci 1 >f9. Early (hnttummj KsMiifine Archite, lure (I ondon, irdtd,). I  \ 11 .mutton un. Ils.oiroie Arihifrdi,,, jml Decoration (1 nudum S See the monogr sph of C. Nolle 1991, I omsjrjlo ii'i.f ( /'iiluniljj. rrjufninj^ 1 I ■-. ■n.mmerung 1 oni 1 hii.S M-Hjui,^, iSiuttgart. Momiirrjp/iirif zur tieschuhe fa \\,ttelalters a 11 ., 1 tic comments on language in lheproeoc«o( , iniscincs from Moravia arc interextjrsspSJo son hear thai philosopher?    takemany ptu ,11,1 sour hrolhcr Igumcna Mcthod^aj>i|g n Vou are Kith Solumans ITe«s.lwl)|na .111J .ill solumans speak fluent ty m Sin. 1 suggests that in Icasi m the undentandinioi 1 lie I rtipcror and his advisers! FarlyStiv id ílccts mas nul h is e differed much even mKi, period (the Moravian dialect had Vmih Mas iltinitiesl.
1 he Ian . I ynlhi alphatictiijedtracj.iyljyiJs, Kussians, Ukrainians. Belaiusstans. Serbs md Hiil,:aiians, though named alter C sni. KCrm not 10 have been invented by him. 1 ,   1 sill took 10 Rome ihe body ol Si i lemettt, sslncli he had nnraculousls Imuui ji I ,111 his Khazar mission This was apparently in important factor in gaining Roman approval ol the use of 1 liturgy in the Slav tonsm It :■ took a liberal view for a while and Juthniucsl the use of a Slavic s*Tmcc-book. 1 i  The story in J. M. Neale s 11S1 r»rJuUt English Christmas cart*! •Cewul hint. xVcnccslas' in H. W. Baker's Hymiu Ancwnt anď Modern (1 8ft 1) is inuginats 1 y In an atiempi to legitimize then rule in the csrs of thtit Christian neighbours, the Hungarian rulers since the 940* had been allowing western and Byzantine mistionaiicstutca.lt m their territories 1  I his ss.is the last
,nr Crusades ol the Teutonic Knights in the
thirteenth century. . rhe document ma} be compared with ihe suriilar answers ro question! sent by Augustine imin Kent as reported by Bedc g siillis.in t s>r.6. 'Khan Boris and the conver „„„ nf Bulgaria: a case study of rlic impact ,,i , hrisnanil) on 1 barbarian society', StitJu-, ,„ \UJirral and Renaissance History f, J5-1 1«, «t .1I.01- Heiser 1979. Die Retpontaad lomtlla Bulgorum des Papttet Ntkohus 1 iTricrl The text of the Responses cm be (board
III,ff rpiuWdr si (Berlin) 19a,. s6S-Aoo fhtic 1» apparently no puhhshed English translation of this document, bui sec the Internet Mcdics-al Sourcebook
'ii'dh.im.edu/halsall/basis/*hiSnK heilai-hulgat.html). ,. 5. Franklin ami I Shcpard 199ft, The I mergence of Rus -<to-tioo (London and Nevs Vmki.p u , j The Bulgarian rulers had also previously .onudrrrd Mam as a possible srate relic.1,,,1 Mnrechoosiitg (linsii.inity. At the end of the nghtb or beginning of the ninth century, alter x ilinanon with Islam and Chriiri.mirs. ih, Miirar elite had accepted Judaism ,, On Vladimir's decision see Franklin and shepardi The Emergence 0/ Kus, pp. , ,g_u} seealsoA. Poppe 198a, TAr Rise of Christian ijioatzdaandon). ,„ Ihitnan inieresiing early parallel to rhe later ahliry 10 practise such parallel performances
1 many para of central
maiiied
PJRan until
■ for example the rigid order on which was Introduced into
lanablc Some
11c areas inhumation may dependently of the intra-:y. In other cemetenn in nations occur alongside even find there r body was apparently
studied in an important paper by Maria Miskicssic iciS8, •Wczesnostedmowics u. obrzadek pogrzeKiwy na ptaskich cmentarzyskach szkieletowych w Polsce', Mufrruify W««itosredfiii.uic, zne «s, i< 1 -n 11 In Poland for example the parish svslem was
not completed until the thirteenth century, aft This heresy was mlluenccd by Byzantine
models which recognized the equality of good and evil; it involved a social programme which encompassed the monastic orders and minor clergy, opposed the differentiation of wealth and supported an antifcudal' egahtariamsm. This movement spread outside Bulgaria and became the Catharism and Albigensianism of western Europe, against which the Church was still fighting in the fourteenth century. It had important inltucnce on ihe 'paupercs Chnsti' and the Waldenses.
Chapter 11
1 The literature 1 ncludes S. Rumanian 19)0, A HutoryoflfeeFirar Bulgarian I mpir,-
F.nlifehungdea Buhfari J.V.A. Fine 198j. The
■ 966, Velikí Prt '^Jisand Bulga History u (Caml ť Stephenson it frontier: A Polit Haltjnt. n/iA___
nl Warsaw to iletrrminc social structure from
Oi
ten voltes (Berlin); rfy Medirlvlf Balkan, ■Sixth to the late
llj. Shcpard 1995. \imbrtdge Medieval ■llS—48, ■Irum j Balkan, of the Northern L Fine, The Early Medieval Balfrans 1 SecM Schul/c t984.'Da»Ungarischen
ctnfaTlcn naeh Mittcl-. VX-'est- und Sudeuropas (899-955 n. Cnr.) mit Excurs zur Monzchronologte altungarischer < itabcr',
Ze/ifraf-muirumi Main.- 11.4-1-514. The origin of the Romanians and the nature of the population of Transylvania before the
rut rARLV SLAVS
I Imi,'..11' in conquest is still hotly disputed. Some scholars have claimed thai - despite the area being penetrated by a sanely of other groups in ihr early medieval penod (including, as we have seen, Slavsl - there is evidence of a .onrimiirv of iK.tiip.iuon ol ihrsc areas by a Hiimance speaking (Daco-Romamaii) pnpula• lion, descendants ol the inhabitants of the Roman province ol Dana I roughly modern Romania) alter Its abandonment in 170-3. This was the vicsv increasingly favoured by the natiiinalisnts ol iht C ijuscvcIi pcrmsl I »iht 1 historians have suggested that these peoples moved into the area Irom Vlach communities south ol the Danube only in the thirteenth and beginning ol the fourteenth century fi.c , long ilicr I liini'.iii in occupation ol Transylvania), s These problems make one uncomfortable with ihr is.iv 111 which the Mods ol the subnet 111 the lormcr Soviet Union tended to rely more on ihe written evidence (particularly the various versions ol the I'VI. |, 10 which one has ihe impression thai to some degree the archaeological evidence has on occasion been 'fitted' llhis applies for example 10 ihe question of dating of the stronghold-towns). Certain preconceptions (coupled with an authoritarian academic structurel have also had their effect on establishing ihr ilornicrl oftici.il views of the process ol (urination of the Russian stare and nation, views which arc now coming under increasingly critical examination, ft The literature on the sub|rct is immense. Good discussions may be round in (>. V, r u.ukks 1951-1, A History of Russia, vol i.Andtrtt KusiU, vol 1, Kievan Hiwu (New I Liven); R. \lllm 1 l nili.ln.l 1 ijy-, The Rusiijlll
(Oxford). Somewhat dated is the book by A. L. Mongait 1961, A rchaeology in the V.S.S.R. 1 London, an abridgcmeiir of .1 hook under ihe same title published in Moscow u) ijltfll. For one version of the orthodox Soviet view sec H. A Rybakov 1 uts t, The Early Centuries 0/ Russian Htslory (Moscow || B A Rybakov 1989. Kievan Rut (Moscow). A hr ii-'.hs. u s-.iiin may be lound 1111', Dolukhanov 199&, Ihe Early Slavs [London), pp. 181-91, tj but the kes wnik 111 Lnglish on (his tiib|ect must at the time 01 writing he the book by S Franklin and J. Shcpar J 1 fin Tht Emergent* of Rus, 750-1100 (London and New York).
7 C, S. Lcbedis i.,S( I fuikbavikuigovv Severnos E.vrupe (Leningrad).
8 E. A Mclnikovaand V Ya Peirukhiii tygu
•s.i.-s.sn,,- "Rus- v 1 annci onokullurnoi „,„,„ Riisskog" gosudarsiva'. pp.4,1-53 ml i I'cirns (cd.l. Imnvtstitheskaia '^■•nurukiilil ,.'r,i ,1,-isfriiu istuna Vostoka I Moscow). I   \ MclmkovaandV. *• Pelrukhw tajo-, 'The origin and evolution of the name "RUI-lor it ll'pps.ila), loj-,4 ., K R Schmidt (cd.) 1970. V.irjngwn Pru/jfe,, 1 i.pi iili.igrii/Miiiiksgadrd.SediiaVKUitfM •iupplcmentum 1 1 \» extremely valuable
U bs I liosson 1 •">-.'Warlare. iradeur ..nlimis.iium? Some general remarks on the eastern expansion nl the "Scandinavians in die Viking period'. is published in The Rural \'it mi; "i Russia and Snellen, ( twfertna
'   loiter 1 cjsift in ihr Marion,/ KarMund. Orebro il>rchri>), pp. 9-4,4, rhe essays by 1 A Mclnikova 1996 foSsuM* Wmldofthe Viking  (>oihenbutg),irc iK„ in imp, .11 ml sourer oi inform llion 1 lanklm and Shcpard, Tfcc / mergence 0/ Rm, l4kc , rro Varangian' viewpoint,thoughapplsmi; die ic'nuisiie criticism 10 the historical record, 10 A. Sulsbcrg 19*». 'Scandinavian relation, ss ith iiorihvvcslern Russia during the Vikln \,.< the arcliacologic il evidence'Journal i,f Baltic studies ij, i<>7-95. I In in on evidenci comes Irom the typical Scandinavian fibulae used foi listening women's dress ol characteristic style \ V Sedov 1981. \'"it'"hnyen*vtanet,\\.xill re (Moscow,ArkhcohgiaSSSR 141,11b lit I hese seem more uselul than weapons lot delecting the presence ol people wranng Scandinavian is pe dies, (though one annul disregard other explanations) .   I his is interesting m regard to us relationship in the Inundation legend of the Russian cut, I'VI ISA g8i) tells ni ihe expansion ol Scandinavian power to Smolensk 111 Ktttlchj territory under a leader named Igor who was reputedly the son ol Kunk (though this seems an atnficial link between two inundation stonesl. It is mote difficult to accept the stors, rhai the Scandinavians also annexed Van in the same year
E. Muhlc 1987, 'Die Anlange Kiev* (bis
Osteuropas is, 80-101;O. M liunmtyin
the 8th to the 14th centuries', pp. *I)-)fl m D. Austin and L. Alcock (eds), From iht Bib.it
,„Black Sea: Studies m Earfy Medieval Arthaeatogy (London), See also Dolukhanov,
,.„1,V/.„,.pp-.9.-}. P,e Khaurs played an important role in the " polmciland economic situation in Europe '1,1 their geographical position between ,br itade routes of Europe and central Alia and iht Imks berweeri the latter and the land routes [,iihr Near and Far East, developing close relations with Us /annum in the 7 )os to 780s and good relation* with central Asian state* sucbaiLhurcnn. In the ninth century (c Sfto) ,),, KhaJar supremacy ol the Volga-Don iradr mures w is broken by a Peclicneg invasion of the stepp" I",nc Mn,ggle bar the possession of „.iilhcrri Russia between the nomad Turks and iht Kirran principality, the Khazars played an incnrasmfh unirnportani role Irom ihr middle „1 ihe tenth century the Kha/ars began to yield tu Riaand Turkish pressure. ., TTie case ol Perctailavl however prompts tau-i„iit in relying on the mformanon of the PVL looch'seK It is noted in the f VI as having Isrtn included in the -i 11 treats with Hy/dntium, while the same source tcllx ui of the circum-ajncei mrniundinj Its founding 111 •<.»• ,„ Mtlnikova, The lästern World,,/ tin- Vikings, pp. 91-1ix.
I- Olrgruled perhaps 8-1/9-901/911; there is an inconimtcncy in the correlation of the year lists ill gytantine and Russian hivtorv in the PVL. s.coiding to one version he died in 90a, and ruled duny-one year*, in another version he died in 911 and elsewhere hit reign is given as. thirty-three years , 1 Tht wurd used for ihr com which the
Radiniichi paid is tlhhiliag, which would seem ,0 he a Germanic rather than a Slav term. 14 There 11 some cireumsi.01n.tl evidence
inarm rrpooi
esc documents were
tsu.
The
notm
it I, V. Dulios 1994, 'The ethnic history uf northwest Rus in the ninth 10 thirteenth centuries', pp. 14-10 in D. H. Kältet and G. Marker (edsl. Reinterpreting Russian Hu/ory.- Readings, 86os-i S601 (New York/ Oxford).
11 According to the PVL. ihe tribal content of the Russian army involved In the attack on Byzantium in vo7 1« explicitly noted as containing 'Varangians and Slavs, C.huds, Slovienir, Krisichi. Mcna and Derevlanc, K ulimichi Pohane and Severianc, Viatichi. Croats, Dulcbi, and Tyvcrcy' It seems 10 me unlikely thai ihis passage can be used to define the extern of the Kievan state in qc It is
1 'Kiev, Chernigov, PcrciasUvt, Liubech, Polotsk, Rostov and ihe other towns') which seem unlikely to be this early. The daring of these and similar sites has until recently tended to be based in Russian archaeology on ihe firsr mentions in the PVL, but in the near future one may hope that dendrochronology may be used to supply independent dating. 13 The modern frontiers of these countries apparentls run vers close to the edge of the political, social and ethnic boundary established in the early medieval penod. These frontiers were drawn at Versailles on the basis of ethnic boundaries (established before ihe tourteenth-ccntury expansion ol Lithuania and the expansion of East Prussia and Russia in the late eighteenth century).
14 C Goehrke 1991,I ni/.vir des Oflsku'enlumJ (Darmstadt. )■ rirjiy a>r Forschung 177I; see alio S. A. Pivavatchik and G. M. Scmianchuk 1997, Aekhtologia Betarussn, II Epokha Syjredtriavtchcba (Grodno)
15 V. V. Sedov 1996, 'Die Entstehung von Pskov',
pp. 6i-6 in /. Kurnatowska (ed.), Sfou/unitrtyyw w Europit, vol. 1 iWroelaw). See also S. A. Tarakanova i950.'Novye materials' po arkhcologi! Pskosa', Kratkir Soohsbc/jenu fnslirulj litorti Malersalnoi Kultury ]\,61.
16 Though the chronicler tin Js comparable traits among the Derevlanc and Knvichi It is notable that the dittant Slovicnie are omincd Irom this criticism,
17 V. V. Sedov 1987, 'Origme dc la hranchc du NorddetSlasrs „nenraux , pp thi-s: 111 G. Labuda and S. Tahaciynski (edsl, Studu nad ctnogeneia Slciwian, vol. i (Wroclaw).
tilt HARI.V tlAVt
• s  thechronicler *t.nc% that Igor wa* the son "I Kuril. I hit it chronologically unlikely and pcrhapc ihit literary dcvicr hides .1 period when the right to succession was contested ;.j \\ lotmtki, 1994. Micisce GniotdovM tv rorwoiu knnlaktosv Skandynawu i Kutia Kiiowska'. Pneglad Archeologtcznv JJ, i 59-51 leap. pp. 14K-9) 10 D. A. Avdutm and T A I'uthkin tvHH, 'Three chamber graves at Gnioadovo', Fnmvannen ttj. io-l I. 0.1 BlileJd 19 ja, 'K isiorichetkoi oitenke dnuhinnykh pogrchcnii v truhnykh grohmtsakh Srednegn I'odiicprmia IV.-X vv.', Sovetskau Arkbeotogia 10, 148-61. 11  Tint dale dented from ihe I'VI it qurstion-able time it it clearly linked with the 'early' . hronolof) of ihr beginning of Igor'i rule. The tarnc chronicle would suggest thai their leldetil .on S\ iaiotl.iv w.u horn ahout 940. ia For a brief ditcuttion and tummary of this document tec l-r.iukliii and Shepard. The I mergenetof Hut, pp. 117-19. but again wc do not know win' 11 wa» included in ihe PVi
11 Act 1 irdmg 101 co the Deacon, in order to meet with the Uv/aniinct 111 971 he wotr a plain white limit', a bc|eit cllcd gold ring in one ear, while hit scalp wat thaved except lor a long ■ 11 in.1 ..i hair displaying ihe nohiliry of hi* kin iFranklin aiid Shepaid, I); I mergence of Rm, p tail line might reflect on whether Sviatutlat should he pictured it Viking adventurer, Slav leader or nomad warrior la  I in   site* are discussed along wuh other typei of Russian fortificationj in the monograph by P. A. Rappoporr 195ft. Deherkipo iuoru russkogo vtirnnogo zudehestva X-Xtll VU. (Moic'ow/I.cningrjdl. and P A. Rappoport 15,67. Vuenmie todcheitvu zapadmirusskikh zemel V-.v/l vv. (Moscow/Leningrad), her alto B. A. Kolchin led I 19»«. Drtvnmia Rut. gvnui, zamok, tela (Moscow, Arkheotogta SSSR if UP- A Rappoport 1969,'Russian military architecture', Gladius B, 59-64, it M P. Kuchrr 1987, Zmieiy vary tredmegn PoJn, i<r. .1 t.i 1 Kiev, At ihe end of the clevenih and thr carl) iwelnh ctnrury a new system of strongholds was constructed (J-10 km apart and behind the line of ihe ouicr earthw ink, and mending us line 110 km lo die west. | The system was again enlarged in the Iwclfth and thirteenth .emunes, ptissibly aa a reaction 10
cnongliolds built at the endol iheelesrtuh
.no! rhc beginning of the twelfth crntun ,,,  I i, /s11 ui'.o 1c189, Verkhnee Ponemjntt
ix-xlll vv. 1 Minsk). , ■   I 'hi, it 111 itself probabl) derived, as W lads diss Ihic/ko has observed, from a 1 nn,;.i sign adopted liom ihe Khaian . s I or llw.intinc architeclure in the Isicsansiai tee I' A Rappoport 1 .jS:. Ruukjujtkhaek. fi.i.l x-xm 11 <K ('.'""Jliitoi/
ilciiingradl Ihe aicliiicciuteanddecnraiiun .,1     M xnpliu church 111 Kiev UccMsldtitd 111 a number of guidebooks, tome richly illustrated with English summarlea
Chapter 11
,  t .,l,.m/.itiou or dinner Slav territory (n Jit i isiiin Alps (and especially along the upper 1111111 l>c- alter the defeat of ihe Magyar*hi9)51 a ictuallcct ilu ethnic inake-upofihearra uul U ad to the ere an.hi ol modern Ausitu II I in tingcr and B Vach.i 19*?, [*,„ \,,ler i Isli-rrrii/n Komer-t.rrfnjrtrn-XMurti ,\ruir,-n<iii»r, Vienna I. The colonization ,,1 Ki,In on 1 isshi.li tor long periods ss is h.iinerls a pan ol ihe (..crni.iii Impirelwas inaiiils Luer and restricted to the western mountain* (Sudeten, hr/gehirgel •   ITie early hitiois ol the Bohemian stair is discussed by a number.it authors. The leader is icfetrcd to l< Nosy i'ldS, AttUn^t dn )(,,/.,nisJ'.o M.ulei, vol 1 ll'tagucl.dehnittl, 10 he recommended is the richly illusiuiej doiihle-language text edited by ) Dpat lajf, Hustrovani ietUJIfliry/lllusirated 1 zech History (Prague), vol. 1 (authors | SlamaanjJ V Vasrinekl and vol. 1 (author R NoTJ
alsoH Trittlls io.SA,  honvni iiiul Svi|,,p|0k.
die F.ntstehungdes Bohmitchcn staatciuml Grossmahren', pp 111-44 in J Pmillk and B. Chropovjky (eds) 1986, Crownuhroiaid die Anfange oVr Ticbechoi/oisiknc'ien SMallichkeit ll'raguel. For recent archaeological work sec J. Fridnch led.) 1994,1 •
I Pi iiuie, P.itn.iiktj A"
cfiiund 10 'he formation of modern Bavaria a 4.u,riia Hic area had previously teen mf Slav setllcmenl too.
In Moravia the Middlr Flillfort period date*
4 ,,, nocVUao^oA, after which the sites |r
ihanJoned.
. čer I slinu ' 's ■,, Trinos .irclicoliWc k.
' umalil poc'átkú pŕcinsthis skeliojtitu-,Act* yiKin \jtwtutn Pr.if.ie 1- H9-69; I slama isjM, Medni Cechy , mém tveJM-ek" III jrihetilogieopOtlMLiiI, .,-„:,.!, 1, itrto ttatu I Prague. Prarhm,.,,..,
„ (he chronology of the ruling family ha* bean ihe suhieci of debate for scscr.il,),-, .ules
I hne piohlcms seem tu have been resolved for
. i„ ilars hv the work of D. Tí, -.n), ,, „s4
Ii -in,1 m vvkladu chronologie nc,sr.iršich Přemyslovců', Cakotlavenský Ůuaptt tíaioncky )i,ai6>xii D Třcínk i.m-,
f Miky Přemyrlovců; vstup Čechu .In ,lenn /f jff-VJI    Prague). The only prahlém 1* that inthropological inscsiigation ol »kclel.il lemairu thought to be of the first Pŕemyslich June in the 19h0s by the physical anthmpol,, „ni E. Vlček has produced conflicting data on theigcol death of some of (hem. • F_ l)abn»w»kai »973. Wtflkiegrady darzeeu
book by K.
ptZlJpMto
with Silesia, tatiiMtranhh
mplc of recent idmg the question of
1 certain l hictmar, 4 monk ho hail a good knots Irdee
. (Prague, rn&itcmca
1-77. See nperialiam
Ural Eurone
"lie in the ihu time if Uttonian Kmpi
■ arto"Křhy
11 ^l:™plc,htm''r''»'hcr«>(,k<h,
Muni •>.(.-.\,, ., und Elbe tocrhn). and Herrmann led-). Ole 5faurrrt in
1 -. Again <hl< 1* well demonstrated in the maps in Flcrrmann, Sitdluiig. and J. Herrmann led.I, Die si :i; ,•; m Drulschland.
14 Brenna in particular wa* Ideally placed as a trade centre (reflected by the concentration around it of silver hoard* of 970-1100),
15 Post* 194 5 excavation* carried out by Polish
bin the dating evidence uncovered at the time lor subsequently! doe* nol allow *uch
16 Pnmcrania wa* annexed by the Pole* again in II19-15, and reconverted to Chmtiauus h> missionaries such as Otto of Bamberg U bishopric wa* founded at Wolin in 1140).
17 The formation ol the Polish state has been considered in *.»».»—c-.
. , wanaw); W. Flen«el 1964, PoflAa f>:,..'
fV3IJie#M Lit iVX'tovl iss1, *\ (iicSAMur,
S Kieniesvicr. F. Rostwornwski, | laihir and H. W'ereszyckl (eds) 196S, Hillory of Poland (Warsaw), J.Topolski 19S6. An OuoW Huron tj PoUtnd I Wartawl; L. Le<ie|esvicj 1976, 'Medieval archaeology in Poland -current problem* and research method*', Medirixjf Arc/ideology 10, 1-15. Any list ol thtniaior wurkson the liegtnning»ofthe I'olish Mate must include H l-ossmiaňskľ» six-
grodowy w iw PP. 107-11, 111
PP-i5--t ledsl, hru Mlttel un
eteitiw
al dating of Earl.
nUA. I Um is,.,, outgenbju m nn)
JIA
IV If coins jit rue mi (hi* would be problematic, since, as we base seen above, we now know ih it all ilic coins formerly assigned by numismatists to Mics/ku I were in fact issued hs Micsrko II |S. Suchodolski t 998, "Spur o poctatki mennictwa w Occhach i w Polsce*, Wtadonmsct Sumi;maryezne a a, j-xo). 20 Intcrdvnastic marriages were an important factor in international politics of the time, well illustrated hi the connections of Mics/kos family His daughter Swictoslavsa hecamethe wife of the Swedish King Erik, and after his death (c M«S)of the Danish king Sven Forkbeard. bv whom she bore Canute, future king of Denmark, Norway and England She died in 101a and the sagas refer to her » Nygurd Storrada. at The auihitruv was received at the hands of the emperor, for the papal legate apparently played no parr in these proceedings. Attempts to obtain a crown from the Pope in 1000 came to nothing, owing to ihr changing and unfavourable political miiuii.hi hi the relations between Rome and the Empire Later tradition has ti that a crown was prepared bui it was given to Stephen nl Hungary at The original is now in the Hofburg
S hal/k lllinil i \X h ll ;mh p. 1 ri s to he ihr original Polish copy given by Otto to Bolcslaw is in the Treasury of ihe cathedral in Cracow; 3 tecond copy given to the Hungarian rulers is now lost. There are some doubts about the authenticity of the Polish spear: it has odd stylistic features and may even be .1 later copy to replace a lost original. ;.   \noihet missionary failure of this period was (he expedition of Bruno of Querfurt to the Prussians (1009I which ended in his death Bruno i BoniMcc! would have known what he vi as lacing is lie was the author of the Lift of Si UVj/i tttb and the lives of thr five Martyred Brethren. He had already worked among the IVl.1h1.1m and Rus, and in Hungary.
it
W. Hcnsel 19—» eastern Europea M. Baric > r.l I, Archaeology am This took place I eleventh century, from Polish mint
Tbs iSJai
strni and
of the
to Ik confused n being u-*ed on an in the lorniaiMin
111 the " - not and email
-«   I he tact thai , .,,,„,,cKj%hu.
«'0'vedi„parl,utp(llncrjni "0U,»M|E Vl/is  I"hes,l,u„,lniIlS|1 v, "P'wiedii,
■ ■•inplex, and wt m.ted above ,h
records ot the I istercun mn-      " ^ "> Ihe
seotmcr written in Pnluh.
Chapter 13
' BoleslaWWMB^ "5
tw„„, |,v, years laic, """""Uril
i Turkish rule m Europe was ml.
Balkan wars „|,h, ,V-« wk^**
;"Jc,vrnden,pnnclpj|„> ln '  li 'strnni ih„ prnod that ssreflrs.---
-r.rss,o,,(;uJmj,.„thr "'"wttfce
lor.,lr.„,t.erIone,svh,chclrar|v„au'B* tlieciiireol,hc ,Ule had ^J*****
which has .111 even narrower riew < LplpV
vnstiliitex western h„ror,lnh   " h"
Ir» attention to Spawand.™^
>nd rhr Mediterranean countries rh.
souiunes ol the northwet. 1  ror (be early history    sr„trj| | U(on,
ircfucologs summarited In Engl,,k K. Sklciuf 1 <|g,. Archoei,/„„ , Europe; The First too Vr..r,,| " New Vork). See also J. I Cch to"!*?*" history of'Polish archaeology' Vi n^" \rehaeological Bulletin ft
1 ''s-h ,.,9-/8, -Between ' ,„, """",d
M,      ' """Pimrytofw-a_
ishaichaeologyintheioihc • Arcbaealogia Polona 15/14 t. '
'•  1 he use ol the past in cr canon erf*'
identitics and the relationshm lyers."'''"'11
scholarship and us public pair
1 v.iriiuied in western histori       k' lfo'
especially a rchaculogv 111 recent
P Knhl and C Fawcctt (edsl
\ationalitm. Politics and ih p' ^c*weofOJev(Camhndtti.j| s Andrei! and T. Champion led 1 Nationalum and AreAatJo   1' V*' 1 B..ulder/San Franciscol. Home of h may he more difficult to arm   ° 'lM,tt1
,he I'mted 5raies accept, and in general are
,„.,.iJof the mixed ethnicity of the ,J(„>us contributions 1.. the l>.rm.lt,.,,, ol ,hrtr ,urii>nliLHxl iho » not necessarily the case uhrn such ethnic mixing or external intliieiice u fur several reasons perceived at s .iiism,; threai 10 the further existence of a culture, as BI,|,llir'.airt discussed hm lilcbFallnicrayer tSlo, Cesehichteder Hjlhnstl Alontxi w&hnmddts SUttelalten siutigart).
» later published In Zeitttbrift dti Veremsfur l-,JljUnJ/6(t»»<l. i-M M Piilas, <aiM«r*ifiofi» ,1 ill- Sulm. luted
" ihe Polish edition of 1991,
ljUitere«ing 10note (hat t.criiijn (id/om/'utgdxik on a new role soon alter rhr war and also served the needs of rciisionoi poluics. while in Poland officially sjncnorird srudy of (he so called Krtsy really
! n,e hx'k 1» Ernst Petersen 1919, Der ntlel-i.u.Ar Riium j!' germamsches Kraftfeld im
t> See aUo J Zeman
19-9. Z tWu-fl nod WV.I./nr,-. ixemema tffSfosVfot u \-vn u
Icr whether the Dacian model tigins and glorification of the iigary, when both nations did
it derive from similar
?• Oiropovsk) rt
•arsiiím w I4s-I9?f'.
„_        , V.Bad"one considers ihr
M material base on which one can 1 seems thai a decade or «„r     , . :riiicum a  I artful lexers.-.     1. ,   4|nlv'he database
Present m stales are not at
■ ■» See the lnouPh,",l,M *° JChlCVC 'h" *>m
'•'"a. 'Thechanetn' ^ F Cun'i
m the Rumanian histoiiocraohv   a ' u logical literature- a critical       * t *^ "
« STxamnleuVVo!
CM. Semu   h it P,vav«rchik«nd Belarusm i,: epokba Sta   I ,*W (Crodnni. In the RjIW rc'""a,'etbcha schubrs 11 trvin '      scncr*,'°n of
the areax split off from the h^aY^.^"' ii  One wonder, whether in snme of thr-sl
the authors have nor K oicve cases
iheir desire tod 1a°°cn,hu,ui,k'ln
*» Thus the cover o|Pa""i 1 d,>bnu
Archaeol » I vi °Kue °''he State it Early Mtdlei'-al E«T "!"b""m' Th*
Bldenn     1 o'lskiewicie lvea     kr.i      c",f,uts the Cross lit 1    , 'l'rrP'0"i"liiiniil
dedicated ,„ the ^fm^Ssf^^
led ntii pai!
Select Bibliography
The following bibliography It intended to rcinlnrcc .ind supplement that provided by the notes. First listed .ire the primary sources, Of the many thousands of hooks and articles available I have attempted to select those (rum which a general overview of the subject can be obtained, concentrating on relatively recent works which are either in western languages 01 well illustrated. One or two works not falling into either category are of interest as they reflect stages in the recent development of the subtest.
Primary Sources
Adam i't Bremen Stagntn Ailom BrementugetU I lainmabitrgcnui c^lciki ponliftcum^cd. Bernhard Schlund'« i,|i- IMnmimcnra(icrnuniar HiHurtca I Ml .111 Sciiptorrs, 1 Linns«and Icipngi; trans. F.J Techau tyty, Adamof Bremen History nfthr tr,/• /.,,/■,./.,.,/'Hamburg-Bremen |Ncw Vurkl.
Amulet Btnmiani: ed ti. H Vent 1844 1 ,\t< ,11 Senptores vol. j, I Lin,.,«1. trans. J. L. Nelson lyui. The Annals o/ St-Berlm I Manchester'.
Pulimorum, rd. K. Malccaynskl lyci i.Monumenia Polonuc Historic! (MPH) NS vol.
1, Cracow).
Bavarian Geographer Descrtptio, it 1 latum et regmnum jd trptentriimalcm plagam Daniibn, ed. A. Riclowiki I.MPH vol. 1, pp. lo-rr, Cracow).
Bertlnildi Annalei ( apitularia irjnm Francomm rd.A K.rruu. i.ss, iMtdlll ,«ciioii. Hanover),Irani F Kcutct ttvx (Medieval Sourcrssrnrs lyyi, Manchester I
DAI - Constanutte rurphyrofenilua. De admtnu-trando imperii) id. and trans. G. Mora talk and
110
Kill Icnkinv (Dumbarton Oaks T
l orpu, I nullum I listonne 8„ „„ '
ttashmgion. D (   ,.,„,, *™n™*lWft,^
' "'hj'J V"-> K-'"l> AWm.sth ed 0 ttMLi Filter 1  1 i 1 Mi,)( Scrtptorcs R[(llm C«rma.iicar,„n.ll„1.„t.ri,trjnj . " '       f mhardand ,\ ,,*„ ,hf r .J*n 'n»rr* fair. ofCJrarlenugne (London', Fredegan The /„„,,/, Bo„k , ,
1 'edegar, cd ,„J „tm , liX^ZShh i960 (London) W4»**-fladn||
/Mmold: lUtmuld,ptesbytenBnzovitntit Chr,„,uaSI,r„r,,m,Cil ,nil „m t" (Berlin I St**,,(}
""'"'"A Oulogu, Je Vitts Onv^. rpiMop.Babenhurgtwu.ci I V,^,, 1 , K laiiian        iMf'K NSvol. 7, piri sj!"''
IbnFadlan. *,',u/,. ed. and tr.m, \ k,...„ w»SlWro.l. "Min«.,«,,,
f>'m*.»l ./.« /.,.,„',. RWj.,,, Ib,al,mil,bn,,.
i.sirrn-sssoi 1, Cracow).
Ruitrh; Kitab allaq an-nafis* . i I Irwitki iM"-i/rodla.it.,bsk   I 'Jm
M,,wi 1, vs/s/u, s,,|. II . \X'riw| "cl"ss
/ bn Skylitzes:■■ Svnupui Hutorurum rA 1 n. .y7Ut:FI•m,,NesvY„rL/,4;^~7•Cl,| tow
,/or.W r.,„..,. ed IT, Mommsrn öfcfU, u Art 5 Hi runi. tr*inv C  (  \fi*>r '
•1 ork). Also trans. E Zwobki t' » 'V: V * l<<rdancs, Huturu Gucka crv/i irt*. i*'r ' (Lublin). ' '0,>''*J'"'^
A.»«--idi. —tat \\avm\ik ( 1 y 13 (MGH NS vol. x. Bei
Htttrvkaw l,/,„/i,.j
jOjuiur/jryi * dzitlou SlawtawSeru Gredta, , ntl paarzr tV-X uiekii (Wroclaw).
1   1 17riemelriul in A (toowkav. ska and
r> 1 a. piurtr z 1<-X tneiu (Wnxttw),
r,mJ»Mj",;"' Strategtcon, tnun G.T. Dennis
1 '-i in A. Hi /,,si k> us ska and
Testimiinu 1
(,(,k|lf„. •' vtjriinA. Br/osiki.svsk.i
inJ W. Swoboda (cds) lygy. TWtfmonij wJiumaizyc''dziejoui Slowian Stria «.r.v*j AKrf -. r"*"1' : ,'"X ""'*" 'Wroil.n, 1
r„^iiBttuaf(Ji-fa'ea: AnekJoUmK
,i,.,»«kj and W Swuboda Icdsl sola
vnj (1t Zeuy* a, pi «rixlav.
llwiiiit. Loco. ..»».«.4-4 A Boustknvssk, Hid w SsVO reii,mimiaiuidawnHi$Sfati Sena Crr. r J. Zejiyf a. puarz
(Wnxlaw).
,lso in
'irons, /•
Änyjf Frankilh Amah Annalet Kegm Frantorum, ,1 1. Kur« 18yS (MCI 1 SRC, Hanover); trans. B. Scholl «»71, (■i'"'™««« Chronicle)
.i.i»> SrmakttUu in A rVnttHtkuvsska and ,iKhlo cetls) ig8q Teitimoma irurjtzych dztei'iu Slim-un. Sena Grecka,
Further Reading
'"ttft01' de, bMlgtriuhtn
o/W
V 0. Rjrjnr/j
Avarenius,A. iyi74,DirAuu lAmsteidam/nraiislaval
f er im./-        '"'""''""'a'-l kana terntnrtt K,'">1 "r I Kiev).
Moral 1.1 f/;P ArchaeidiigyofUmth lent C«erAoj/oi,aiu (London, British .\.t„«...J7V IWnsesh  I  ...k Ii
fa tultura Hrvau tul vii
II
I cLk, ,r!j?""r' K.(""'""'M> M. Pmianand 1 cos 1 1 yo, Festem Jnj
Europe in ffre Mio.t'/e A»e, (London). Brachinann, H.J iy». cv, , ,
und Saale--u I    c    1     e !il'""me<"> kdbe
A fiu 10. /J/.r* u"d Kultur m
'l<'K"<her Quellen (Berlm)" Brachmann, II-| iyn, ■pc„, .l,
history öl* ihc Slav rxinu) l car'l'
Rrpubi";'-
Beirr'-      . ^"'"""'clalterluhr \lrl.r.it.       11'y]",,'n'mP'l iBrilio, Written gut (Jr. und FruhgeKhiclrte 4j).
Vt ichnuniT, H..J, (ed.| iyu, it.
Stadl zur Grffocmittclalt Fl
Xratueher Zewen m < >,tm,ir,U       fo 1, oiieietitopa (bcrljni
Conua, m iuho 'I , . .-■
tcrritoirc dr la R , sl»«dans le
„#sa. . 1.1___ "finie entrr vieme el l.veme
M'.r.iiu Magna C /A.'t"»f (BratisLiva)
u -. 1 - t-ita.
(irpatmh.
lahrhundert",
19 7-liS.
'tiuanahrtn-
I ••
"»ct.. IhetutHySlw,(London).
(Berlin 1
1 it-.laliilmndcrt
III
Donnrrl, I  ivllI, Dal Kieuer Kro././«./ Kultur unddeuleilehenvom y. ňu jiiwi BtgtrUHH .len
i i //; II.etp»ÍR). Dvomik.l 1949, The Makmg •>/ < . mr.il.md
I jiferri/iirii/irl London) lit,muk I igtr../'•, W.ir.1 Iheir larlyllistory
and Cjvilualiun iHounn/l niidiuil. FchrniK. <• Wi Hie Archaeiilngviif Medui al
fíernum An Inlu^luctinn 11 umínil). Frjiiklin. S. and J, Shrpjril 199*. 77>r / met gen, e
of Rus if o-i 100 (London/New York). Futck, ti ii.nninl.ir.inikoin
n/x/o/x (Nitra). GanoWlH |. 19*4, Dtfr/e i kultur j daum. h
Slmvxan iWarMW). Glmtniut, M ivti, TheSlavs(London), (,ndlntv,ki, K io-'». / badán njji-igadmemem
nttprtatrtmhnit <ie Sktu/knw v-vuu n i
(Oamw).
t,i>,ll,i»,ki, K |gS|. /ur FuitcdcrSlaunisit/riiii drr ii..... n Mawcnwamfrriillg im l.ihrliiindrri  n   ■'( ' .|iiiV«»Min/i(Uw del ('míro Italian, i dl Studí mil Alh i U.,/,. vr,,
10 (Spoleto).
(•o|da,M. 19111, Pit Ani irnl Sbt> Settlement and
Smety IFdlnhurgh). I Irnwl, W. i voo, The Heginmngs of lbe Voluh State
(W.truwJ.
Hrnul. W 19*i, DieSlawen tm ImhmitteUlltt
íhre matettelle Kultur (Ikrlml.
Htnwl, W. 19*". Anfingtder Stadte hei den l )«■ und Westilaiven illaut/rii).
Mrnvcl, W. 1977,'Thr urigin nf ncilcrn .111J c.tticm I iiiriprju S|j»' inwm', pp. 17,-90111 M. lljrlcy ird I, hunaiean Touru: Thetr Archaeologyand
Hrnul, W. 198--,Slowianizctyzna ivcusnoirttj-mimus;na. :.,n, kultury maltnalnr, |a.thcd.)
H : 1111 in i: / i>iéi, Kiiítw und Kumi der Slaivenm Deutschlandiiwi   U11 1,. lahihundert
(Berlin),
Hirrnuiiii. I r y» I. /uinhen lir jdu hm ua.l Vineta 1'ube Kullmen der WeslsUw^ (LeiiviayJcna^Urrliri).
I Irr r ni um. I led) I98i, / Iff S/,111, 11 ,„
Deuii. bland em Handbuch tifscbiehttuwl
Kultur,!, r ,l,iii lichen Stamme Ivestluhgem
i >./■•• mi./ N, • ........ ht. !: Mihunden
\tuhearbtitung iBcrlinl
I K umínil. I («1.1 198*, Welt der Slaweni
(,..,/•/,'•/.. i.ciellubaft. Kultur
II cip/ig/|rn i/Ucilint.
lliU/fniwn.i / i.'" .••i«"řNr/ii'rod»rtH|_
1 )/.ri .../ \ I dn pin-&Jftliui VI ir ^
(Wnxl.uv/W.irviwl
|.wd/c««ki, K ... . Li Mmeleumiu,
(Wroclaw) T'SSr
K 11.111,Li. M 19.....     I    v/.iri I , • .irjifi.ic irr-virr
.„,/, ,<prř</ I ,| Pari*).
k. .Ii Inn II \  V I  "I mi" nid % V. Yarmhthikoi-,c,M igSt.Drr-irrl \,.| enrnd. přikladu,*
i.lriinlni i arkheulogia iMovcow),
kiuger. B fK'-.DeitauSUitigkaHttm
fiii/il/./nn. ' ■ ' "i:. .//i<'i>:. 1'l.n. 111 irti///,rfn
/ Ihegebltt llWrlilll.
1 . ,1,I  !■>-". Medieval iiiluiuliigy(n
1'iil.llld - vím. nl prnl'lrill» .ind te»eir,li
1 1I1..J, . Mi .In 1 .. .        I ;u-
|i,ieic»K#,l   19M1   Medlcv.il 11.Jnj pnilileiiiv', pp i'll ill in K Schild(edL), i •!.. .11 i'iIiiimj/ ,\ri haeology, New Aptmueht .in, / <.. m/> in Villah Archaeology .Wrnchw),
I ,,ii|,-«iu,l   I9Hm, Wi'ii linie ;.J./ri„/pii ;Jnrl,^ liiiir.iiiiJ 11p iminii'ii ii'i :nri taimpy
I Wroclaw)
LcVIt'lIvMVr. I   l993,'Medn'nl 11 . Il.ir.il.iny ln
i.isterii Klimpe',pp 75-81111 II Andcntun null Wunlvcrilicds), I /.•■■ Study ,., MtJ,e,-il
\r, 1:1, ../i'X'V iSUK'klinlni).
\l.|uvmka.M I99J.D/« \ßlker*mänmm
( Um
l'trvj
ir.'ni Wurld nf r/v
:.iiir«,in andtlie Sin ■ iv
p,rc«t"
.'lvcBinning«olihc M.,.,'
URue).
pinrifrovi. I >"-<• RreiHtr. n-.m..■,,„ „,. „
fl ; ,,, /i..- In i'...- ttnSttpptmioli in \Utttleumpa t*7-<JJ ii.Cfrr. (Munich). p.Jil.ff iggi.'i iiii,i|Miiiiniiieihniiiu mr.irl, medieval itudfri', Atchaetdogia l'ohma
19-49-
|.„hl,« ivr,'I"hc n>le .il die »icppe pcoplr» m uiierii uKKcntral curepc in ihr lirvt niillcnnium a.i> ,pp r,S~"f8 in I* tlrhaticTyk ltd I. Ungint of Central Furvpe (Warsaw).
|',,ulik.l i-»-»i. 'lliriirigiiliofChruiianu» <n ,1 iiimk .»iiiiirie» ntmli ,.l the middle Dtflub« di«n', ttVinla Archaeology 10 ul, 158--1
|.,ul,lj .unlit i hrofroyaltj (cd») 198,,. Cnusmahren und die Anfange der Tichecboilawakucbtm Staatlichkeit (Pngue).
Raralinii.lt. I A Isni.Slai i.in Kuunnvj.l I' 19-*. M.n;.m.i
Rrrukix.B A 19ÍJ, U-e larly Centuries of
Human History (Mooeow),
Rjh»kov.H A 1984.11989). KietanRus
IVIOKHWI
yd,.,.V * i"*- Viittixbnrye stasiane v vr-xn/nu
t.V i'ř*r
>sti Vl-Vll
SLivusnie Yugovuuocl.no, fairapi vpredgntu-■il I. iKievl
S,Up^LLR. '»»«•sil"'»'»c Pagan Sanctuaries i si,.u Miniu í. vnUi-viu
SlONMil V.ir,,;s
Suníev, S, 19««, Vc/i/u Prttlav isni,.n Strxelciyk.j. ,.,8 8/
\mi.|iinv .nul tl
Wrrfent Affairs
Stille, M. i98i..Srjri
lame people, 1 ^|^n|•. Po/i*/,
(Warvawl
»7. Ongini 0/ Cem>,i/ £»,nnp*
Váňa, Z. 1970, F.in/M/frimi; in dir huhfiesíhuhie der Slaurn tNcurnunitcrl,
\ in.i. / 19H1, The World nfthe A/inenr ü/jii Ilaindtm/Detttiil).
WlecKirek, A. and II M Hnu tcdil ico.
Wolfram, H 1907. D» Grourr MiiirlcMropj« (Vienna)
Wolfram, VI. and l\ Danu 1980, Dir Volter .im der m,liier.-11 und unrercM D.m.111 im tuntten und
npa> unst
Hern
n,vi undSLsu .
^^ifiUvfmiA tt m emmmttOnn 1—mdliQu
t „. «JHOI*.1111 /llJ'lim » WMlflMM l»V JC |_
„,u.«. .._uj^rw,«^atrJMpiltftiwt fir ,»*f»AWlulW* ffl-^pJ«rf«»«.M». nmlu.
u,,      «««■■»f^"^*"*     — i|iim
U .« f Uixti lut..— L»» rKUn»rui1«r.i,.lwUr
t«.i» «•••>"' P«a™ljinOT»<«r»Jl««vr^w
..idfifJittiAxirmmmmmiml-5. mm ^a<
, ,,, p,r»L^-u>fi«»-r 4<>l>in»«|.|ut<urr n."n
.'.I .,, I ,1..... ., .U /•>^HtluV"ni«<LDIMUt'
jwn the
Ming ■' 11,1 "f '•>< P
ESC
■ n
''"'"'K ><• «bom the middle ol the
THř ÍAMY UAVl
Ii«, h Artrtatt types typical     the ChernijkJluvu < „Jmr, ji tlíc end iiř antiquity- hr libuljc, pers-riil ornaments ami mikt implements, buckle» (wale «bout ti*) ghm *? 11 j I, handmade and whctl-lhrowii ptiiiery t wale Indicate* 10 cm). After V Ii' lu * *
K. V. Terpdovskt. B, V. MagonWav ■ Ita™
ran,
5)1
44
nu i**tr K*ví
-rZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ7~
1ii; 14 futlcry »CMtN tri,in rhc site .11 Djicd/iLt, ťomcrania (scale indicates lo cm)
After A. Pnrcr/iuski. with additions
4716
THI lAUr SLAVS
Fir. 34- Stronghold M Rudec (topi with (A) extramural cemetery B rotunda tcaily church) and (C) liter (mid tenth ccnturyl church ol Blcwed Virjtin Miry. Reconstruction I below | nf a icunicnt of the rampart of a Bohemian stronghold. After M. Solle
'■' 'l>P"J'" pJge> Fig. 35- Moravian jilohular button* tdiamttcr about 10 mm) and ih I ornamcn, unrolled' After J Slamj and V Hruby. reproduced from lluttrovan; & t"
Dijtny, vol i, loyo, p. w "mr
J5»
159
J70
J7'
tiif raiii.v siavs
Fig. 50. The complex .11 Wolin 111 oldest settlement and defended centre with Dorti •■til. «1. in ..1 ii.lurm.-n 1 .V Ii.ml lor In.1. Inn); vessels); (i) urea of pagan temple' l4| settlement; (5i iwrlfth    ntur) liurl.il, .(.I Vjilbcrberit' craftlltien'l settlement ' 1 A. h.ird 1..1 lu-.a lung - of. i"* mi. •»>• MlynowltV cemetery,
1 .(i scillewcni, harrow cemetery anil site "t lighthouse' (Calgcnhurg)j do) settlement,' (11-11) cremation graves, 11 i) ivvclfth-cciitury Christian inhumation cemetery; (ta-15) settlements; (1 e»| field barrow grave*,
ihl creniations, (cl Hat inhumation graves, (dl settlement*. After \V. FllfpoWlilt
1    Ui t Cracow (after R. Piemen
p rigtit), lornow (after J Herrmann) finds (after K. Waclu.wjki)
i-i
THE JAKLY SLAVS
Ftg.51. Slav pur bases from tenth ami early clcventh-ccntur) level* .11 KrtiKwica
\\ . Ikopolska). The bases .<t s......■ Slav pots, espevially from West Slav territory afar
ihc rcmli icniiiry. b«r symbolic mirks ni.idc by signs incised into the centre of the potter's wheel or turntable on which ihev were formed. Their function is a matter f debate. After W. Dzitduszydci i^fKHH
r3
: a   t   c -
litem
nititl
Fi/t-«o. Eleventh to rwe/rih irmur\ bjrm» t r meter, m the Ulirjine tvoir I lerncterm nl rhe arej. After Arkhmlogu Ukruttukoi \W? 'P      "' harrt,
F.r,6<. C inj rrver I Poulil
Fib 67. Reconstruction of the earth and umbo cunitructlonii .>l the stronghold ji Ntorod showing caisson conitruuion Below iv die pla.....      the ute with the dclmeu and the Attach,
enclosures. Alter Arkheohgia Ukrauukoi SSR. fig. 76
tiled
} 11' 61, Territorial development of the Bohemian state, ind (inietl network ill ,irimt(holdi surrounding the core domain of the Pfemyslidi. Variuus nourcet
f.
Map l.\
Index
,.M<
t(h,,„on*hoWtoi»nJt Bf«
cumcnniin io, >«7 Bt> ■ Bo
Aachen 109,117 Abhasldi 8, 17I AM Allah al-Ma'rnun, Caliph 17»
Abodrilei (tee Obodmet) Adalhrrl, (itnmian bithop »17. Ma
Adalbert. St (we al»o
VoiteeK/WoKieth, S«| »5 J Adalbert uf Magdeburg 117, »44, »35
Adam of Bremen, chronicler 7.19, 195
Adriatic Sea 57. *i,7». 75. *)o
adulter) 116
Aegean Sej 17,58,7» agriculture 9,1.1, 68-70, 98, lit-*, i)*, 150-1,155-6, 186, l< t; agniufmral turpJu* III-*, 156, (51, 1 i'.. 161 agricultural I00I19, 15, 911,155. I54*1* '(8, i8A|»eealM>arable
firming
Ann, Carotin. 1. official 174 .il Heln. Mjihic author ft al-Mai'udi. Itlamic author of
GoUen Mtjdimi 8, 104,11'. 1 \|. 11' ir.in 1.1 .1 Itnwnl 178 1 M .... 1.1 ■. Ahbatid caliph 8 ■ I,' 1." •: I 1.rii.. author 116
■il Sji iTathkenrl 17I
Alan* ia, 51,75, So, 85
Albania, Albanian* 14, 61, 71,75,
95. »73. »7*. **4 akobol 111,175,19S, ijri Allrcd ihe Great, king of England
71.1*9
alphabet ■ to, 1 -.: . 115,150, 14»
Up*, mountain* 10, 57, 65,75 Alt Kafrlich cemetery 101 amber 85, 85,117,115, 169, if 1 American*, native |*ee Plain,
Imtiatu) amulcii 194
Aruiiainu, eaitern emperor
An.
i Minor) 70.71
jniin 1I1, domestic 9, 1, r8f animalt, wild 14,11, 111,158 animal produce (fur, wax) 10, 11-1,98-9.105, I if, 111, 151, 15«, 1*4,175, 175.119, MS Anna. Porphvrogenila. prlncM
111,148 Annali of Si Renin (tec Bertmian
Anthill I Anorvymoui Relaltnn I Mamie
fourcej 119, 15* Ante* 55-6, 40. 50-1, 55-*, 65,
1,8-9, 85, 140-1, 19), lt>9 \ ill- * IIr imi rrv.intiuuillei Of 40, >4
antler 8|, 1*4-5,170,161 arable tanning 11; fallow 1) Mem
1(5, I5»;fui.!   IU-3, 8533. l8g.
11}, manuring 154, 1 5*, 1 fW, 1 MA, plough 154; tlath-and burn • 13, >54 Arab*, araband Mutlim, tradert
and writer* l*cc Idam) archaeological culture' 11 Ardagatlut, Slav leader 118 Arkona Itemplel 198,111 Irmamenl 59, 61, 71, 117, 140-4,
1 M. 174,108, 134,145 V.-r.uil. king 11II altera Franki tit,
158.151 Arpad. Magyar leader 111,151 arrow*, poi*oncd 141 Sikold, Kievan ruler 100,108,
156-I Aiparuch (tee Itpcndl) jMto icliiorder)49 Athen* 94,177 Atlantic Ocean to Artda 15, u. 4 5 A.jJuII. ( jrnhngian official 174 Auirrta i*. 150,158,171,17J Awrv 17, 54, )o, 54, 57, 59-61, 67-70, 71, 74-*, 79-81, 81-5, 91. 45, 104, 108-9,117. lit, 141. 141-4. I 16, 160, 161-1, 174. I***, lot, 104,106. 150 Avar-type bell fining* 71. 79, it 1, »1-4, 117, l«l
Halu 11V.-I. female fore*t demon
191
Babka. Mronghold 97 Bachore, vettlement 11 llaghdad 8,178
baking plate* 41-1, 6j, toi. 111 Kalkatu 8, 16-7,10-4, )o, jl.47, 50-1. (*, t*, ho-i, 68-75. «,...1. 11-1,104,106.159, t4l, ,,,, 1(4, 166, 171, 183,190, 104-I, »15. 117. 151.1*9-70, 171-4,l8l Halt*, people. Baltic language* 14, i.,, it. 15,51.65,77,13,101-), 144. 16 8-70.180,110,140,
141-6, 16),168, 170
Baltic liver name* 41,101,149 Halm Sea iBalticcoaoi K, u>, it, t \ . 19-60. 85, 104-6, lit. 1 64-5. 168-71, 176-7, 179-llt.
140-1, 145, 14-, 149.157-61,
165,166,170,18} Baltic vt.ite* 1 Kaliningrad Oblact
dI Kuuia. Lithuania, Latvia,
bttoniai 1-9.140.170,175,
I7l
Barbaricum, barbarian* 6,15,16,
44. 47.49-5°. (*i*» Haul 11 (the Bulgat*layer),
Bruntine emperor til, 119-to
hi ..1.1 178
■l-.ith vhaped" featutet 65 Bavaria, Bavarian* il.74.79,94, 176. in-: 114.1>7. 119. ijo-4,1*4,1*9 flji-rffun <.«•«'•';•'•'•' 1 i'1'lingian document! 7, }6,90,104,107, 109,137*i39i1)7 beadi (gúw, none, metal) 9,7».
85,97,117, li*. »70 Belaruwia lBelaru»l 15-i. 19,40, 66.87, 101, 131, 149,190,193, 193,197, I99.105.17O-1, 175-7,181-1 Belgorod 186,118,14«, 14! Beloourro lake (Belo/etik) 135
slkukKf horlion 1051.
|ial«<«l- „ri
,m 1-1 13 3:d"K»ul »»d ^""^lel«..-.!««!»« Hug
N ti..
,0»tl,0-l.ll4.ii — — „,-|l,l37.M7. 'II. M7-8. ,«,-1, i»4-«.,,»0.,97^»«>,
161-4. »*»• 171' *7íi »79* tjrcli* i(, «7. t»,)7*M»li**j no, HJi »5      16'* z7*~'"
17IS l,J LAettiiiiita'tn »".»o.
lirtUB Foren I Böhmern» Id. i l(nv.hef VTald, Oherpfalter
u-ilJ1151
l ruler «I Bohemia 154-5.
toledav 1(9
, B, rulet of Bohemia 181.
vill.ralcrolBohemiaisó ■ i i !i" iťn - the Brave),
.king
nghuld and
191
ruler
,1(6. i*4
»48
"U m.151-5 ern Bug| j
camelii7t
150.101, u>, *A ' UnU,''^ofNnrntStj,kin»rf... '    '«**7. It, "«"ing«ior
i (Uanubianl 1,,
«ariii,
IV
•"«««ir.mptrc|iiy-,0 .u.»*„, nulgarta (Volgj) n, ,,,75i
98, 105,170,17,, 178,1,7,
bu bur
.115-4.
.97, »4»;
riali
Bui Bvr
1 gromifjji
■ 8i
l am
Caen
■*5i 1*5. i*7.174.181,118,
Carpathian Battnw* iKuihanvl,
cultural giuupai ( arpaihian Baitn 10,14,16, tit,
»{i Unit
Caipi,
1 au. j
«45
"'<-7, lit, lthe(«rj«t
"■M.S). 119,
i -* im.
Carnttal I'oluh cnltural group 77.
čecuvKlonimuinK. Serbian
Ouka Zulu 156
l hatlcmagne 18. loc-9,11», 17.
Charle» the Bald, king ol the
*07
THI tA»L* itAVS
Charies the Gnat, kmc of Bohemia
I1IJJ-7II 1*9 Cbtmiyi Mopb Oicmigo* 105.
xoJ, 142 Chemií khoro Culture xa-}.
,»-40,4l-t.jt.il. 144 ChemiKOT 100. 11*, loj. lot.
ait-7. m. !4t. 14I Cherton [Cnertones, Korsun,
k hereon I 146 Chtnrn lice Cacrtrica) cbiett, chirfdoras 15, ii*-8. 114,
141-4. 1«-. 1}4. 1*1 Chilbudm, and 'Phoney
Qutfcvidiui' to, (1,141 I hudlik. stronghold —, 11. 104
I we alia Ra.ip.-r.- t    J. • I Chimin Bohemian -4. ill.151
*ee ilw» White t Rhus Chufi Jli. I'jit Sin tribe -4. 99-I0O
Choiimir. Slovenian ruler 114
1 hmri jn;t. l8, -4. '. 1 -1. io7,
ijQ-i 10. ill— xoi, xoty-ii*.
SIX, 141. 147. Ml. 1J1. 1J4-5.
159,1*0,161, X85 (tee also the CeumJl) ■ hu J. people i) 1, i]t. 141 Church, the f. 110.189,191,19}. ' 9t-9. no-aa*. KX.lit, liti the Eastern 1*. ato-t, 11 t, 110-1,1)0; the Weston 95,
1IO-11*. ISO. lit church buildings 11.:. 1 u, if 5.
|8*, XI*. XI-. 14}--. XJ*. I4Í; erf nuhr. hex 1 16. rotundas t IO,
X14V-7
Church Slatoruc llanguagel 11,17,
}«
< hs-Mka ttht .•!.!■. V \ .
archaeoibcut I7 Clement nttvhnJ. scholar and
churchman an. ail clunacr 10,11, ill, 15I Out.   »• •-. -1 : » -■oint. coinage 11, 49, 54, *y, 99, 10*. 111, 117, ijt, »70,175-7. Ho. ilt-j. X57-8. 141-9. i}5. lai, 1** 1 tee also dirhernv and coin-using economy I raeaiw 14.     11*-9.1*4-}. iro. ail
cejtrÚHng on porrcrr tt-I. 9*,
toy-*, 1*0.164 iornmuriii itjon citmmtmjtjes
I V«WripWtV»l i t GeABeaQaism, Cornmurust 11 11a.
Conrad B. western ruler 110x4-59}
15»
Cnruuns 0(641 -all. Byzantine
emperor71-}, «*). 177 Comunttne rv Pogonaiut lítl-lf). Bs-iannriertnperor7x,
7*. 1») Constannnc v Coprunyntotu
-4t--,i.8sxinone emperor 91 Coosunitne St (7X0-9-1, Bvaannne
emperor 94 t.onitanone su 1 Porphyrogenirurs}
(915-59). By/J n 11 ne emperor 7, -)-}, 10», 119.144,171.155.
459,14»-}. í~9; D* Xdmsustrmdn tmpma (DAT) 7, -:.-t.99. »04.109, ri9.171,
155.159.141. lit Cnrntartrine missionary (see Cjnli Constantinople ft, 4!. 51-x.70.71,
90,94.105, no, 1-;- i, 110.
XXI, 1X7. "9. 1I).X}7,
1J9-40.141-4.14*; Church of Hagia Sophia 11 -, x45; Church ol Set Serxius Bacchus 41-, imperial palace church of St Mary Pharos 14I cooking9, in. 41. »5. IX! Cordoba 1 <T Corunh fx. 7X, 177 t .onus ul Prague, chronicler I, 57,
xoo,116 Cosnsi-I
Cawtsodmakia, rr^™
1S1 Cjermeci,!
rnngOvl,
Dacia. Oaesars 'If* 18
Af-5.
170 DauqB-U III
Dioube riser 4,15
57-«. to, ÍL*. 6-M »o-}.»4,l-.„.. 105. té--,, rtl. ; '««. If}. Ifc},
oas)
M* Vi U
' ,0> '77..
"a «-1.104-7.4t}\3t 1}X,145 »•**•-».
lljihhog, d, demography 115—4, xt oenaru tlx.
Cracow, tt It-XO,4 1I5. 19*
na, cultural 4*. J*
hold and town l.6*.l|, 1*5.174»
m01.1II.1I4-J.
1*5-4. 17*. 179
' ram. .raftsmen 9,14.4*, y». 109, 11), lie. 114-1*1,1*4-5. 1*1-9.170, it>. rS4-4,14i, itc, ciiri-ipcctaliaarjoa rttf. 150, 1 «9-4(1. 11,5-5. l*Ji mncrant crairsmcn 150-1, Istx. ■*} íJ crcmaiwa (sec bunaJ nreii Crimea 81-}. 85,14* Croats. Croatia 1«-t, 18.75-5.90, 9l.95.i<«,ii9. i". 191. 150-1,1*1,1-iteea'
. uJruiThiiiory archacoftacy- ix. all Crnl 1 Cnnstinrine I, nmawoary ind scholar yc, 71.95, 109-110,
119
C mine alphabet 110, ilx-J. XtJ.
150,148 C-iech (ser Bohcmtal
drnJrotJironologcal analys, ,, l«.*«-J. 19. .04. .^T I
Dea
^t.Ml.lfa.
*»-17a,
Dercan. 'd, Sorbs 75
Dere»lane,t '4-, lol,
Drsnarrrrr 105.10*
Dessau Mos.
Detinika-Ni
T
•^^011 ** ***
'poáieóí ri»«r*l% Í4-99 ^^taJerofthrWilix, 10-
lif"
1 raaaftai
^^naWuraonlsee
Dernlanel r»^'tss*ssttli7
rMcsTSO?!
'^^ireoiaenl ix*. 108,141,
''"luľ'iri'tnbe
ryoagjjraE, case asa t
■11.151
^    i—iirro i/TJaiigava nver 10,
^,t«.lK>. ^' .—aw-«a-ie. 1 19-4X.4J*.
when Dmeperrreri 5A 54-}.*
n ruler too. 40», ^hamtlserliljn
kne
Pm-iM* řnprrty and tt, Jjjj,
Etelkox 80
tlhelnd n. king ot England
'ethnogexursis' 55,5
rcldbcnj. culrurai r famclal Irisvnrnutw
if-diliim ix«. 11»
■5'. x*s fibtilac (broocEkts),
40.4X, 49. 5 5, f(
i6x, xai Yuio»m«- ciaost in t Einno-Ugoancomn
.x8o
71.-f, ll-«,
: Creed 1x1 n,r.rs.,„d »-».15.9«.
54-}. 140.
lol-}, 170,18 forestii-i. 14-5, ff.64,
lorcst-treppe :
111,
105-Mf-
Fretaegar. chronicler -. furtrade xi. is.. 9»-,
Ccrm. Gcsa
Cen
t^eruniiao 11|
^DaisctreJarjooja t/sssboeas. ,Starna. im—. arcivacniogjsl 1,1,
Xl'^'lla 1**0t''hK' M.
"»7. »17. t*,^,
,G|kf*r«W.Wr«SL..n^
<^!Ua:na »8f, 4ll 110.14,
C««ia0cnoiCŕ>acioTO' t-wčl, ~ir 'iiiadmk iTT"* tisvt.il^io,.!^ ' X41.14*
^^■^^tWarkxjl
Cwaxd. Slotrmaa nalcr xt a
^ottiseJscti r«.rii
v^-r! Coo
40«
r m F EARLY SLAV*
OrrJu 4I, to. 17*. 107, ui, 117, 119. 134. 14t, 173 Itrt ako Brzannac Ccoaiimoopk)
Greek (aiiruixe and cukurr 17. 24, i*. 30,00, 11*, 115-6.11«.111.
11M
11 rrcfc .peaking popuLlöoo» (i. £4,
<l, 171, >07, U7 Grixioo llT
/TTľmxtu, bsiruJ ruwltÔJ 75
t see jív) burul rrmi H'ímmi. unit of wrtjjhl and
I174
lit.', nuhiutni 77.1?
HiT.-jiC:».:r-.:'V:-: Hipitrurj 1!+, 1*9. 171-3 Harx, mountains 18 i-i Hard n*TT «4. **. 1 o*. 15». 1 »*,
154,1J7, 159-60 Hirtlburr. Kiimcbold H7, 159. 1C1
hea ddr esses and their ornimeno II. I . »i. lit. 11*-7. i»:. Temple nruc* J SihUfenonee; 11, n,-l.*3, it7,iji;tnopk nogs of Mir- duped design 49. -i. —4.83; 'cjmxzjucv' I behind-tar-rmfsl xi, 117 bearchi 40-1.41, «3,101 Hrdebr tkH, ill fWmold,chnxiickf 7. 191. 194 Hetirf (Hetorxfil 1 (919-3*1, Saxon tfrtuurr 101.191,150,
lji.140 Henrv {Heiiuich I n (1001-14),
Saxon dmasry ibt
f mpez. ir (610-41) «9-^0. 74; Heracuan d»tu<rt -1. »1
Herbord. b»ugi4phci 7.111,199
Hcmduiui 15
f IctuL. ejii getriutuc tracar 14, 4*,5J
blf-ioro iiee taonghnids) bppopoumat 83 Hrjrory; of MarrnaJ Culnur 13 Huler. Adolr 11.1-,-* Hiincca. mc near lap 76 hoards 51,7a, S7.9S. iotf.no, in, 11-, i*>. i7|-«, 1-9-1*0. tit,it>(;ironworks--, no, 1J 3-4. •«! Hod on. Gercun margrave 160 Hoharr, crxnuur 78,104 tloimfsrj 103 1 ice aho
horses, horte riding 33.43, «1,793, íl. ii--*. 141-4, 136. «j7-«, 19I. »043-9.119. 44}, »5 Jt hndlr. uddkl 143,1«, lol; «pon 79. *4. »9i «07. 141. 144, i Si, 1*0; lllrnjpi -9.144,161 Heed«. CaWinirjjm official 174 Hudson's Bar Company 170 Himejrr. Hortgxrian» 9.7t. 74, -*-*o,*5. in. 1t1.104.xto, 117. no. 130-1.136.15g, 170, 171-3.181 (<ce also Migrtnl Hungarian «rppc (AJfoid).
Hungarian fltm 156,151 Hum, Turkic people 11,14-«, 33, 41-3.47. jo-t. 53.J7.75.143. ■ 76
hunting 4nd fishing n. »i, 13I-9
ibo Fidltn, Muslim traveller tod
writer S. 173. toe .bo Jtaqub i Ibrahim dm Ya'qob Mt-Tirnufu 11,117.144,155, >75> 11}. 134-5.159. *#» dxt-Khiaaradadhbth. author of
Boo* of mtyt and 'tjlms I,173 1 hfl Ruitch 1.74,110,107 xiok, statues 10, 194-'. 115. na. Igor, prince (911-451 116,147.
10S.il 1.141-3.144 lUqpi. Hiidnpsl. exiled LooptbkUd
leader 5« Illsru. Illiruw 14, 51. 53, 51,95, 14*
Ilmen. take 170,140 Urnen Süo (irr Nrrrgorod) Ifldo-EiiropeaiM, lodo-Europeas lingnagrsis-i. :.<. 1-, 1*9.191
intriheira 134
Ipocxsn Clndesti-Cnirrl. cultural
;mn production 97,110.1*1
Imiuoo ill
Isidore of Senile 69.19}
Iikrarrntrr. 145, 147, 144
U!am arab or Masiim traders, trartllen, writer,) I. it), 74, lea, ♦0.9J. US-*. "I, II9.I5». 15*, 1*7,173.      17», ito-t, iSI, 100,107, no,in, 145, 147, »J5 Iiiaax. iilirr :dirhenl 9S-100,
M >4*
la per Bol
I. Danubian
Ivan BL tsar" í i      **» •*.
170
kbicko. barrow c
Isnow PatnemJu («,
;arara<a,loricraui,p Jaropelk, Karvan pr, 14«
Tra«ot
John of E
■45 John i Ta
J,.| . fu.
-""*««. Ml. i "Ttanraor
• *°. 30-t,
Jomiberg ver Jordan« 6. 33. J5-4«.
»S
JuliaiCaruf 199
Juitm I. eauem etnpemr . 11 <-i-
(o. 51
I -*t.n Ii. eattetn aDperor I545--1.
luinnian or Justin 117
J uvimian t, eastern cniBeme
l.iriiuana.eaiCTeB«}««
1*11-93 and70}-i 11 7>.»t
lutland 179
Klan
Km
Coitarei Kaioreiia (Choreitni Kfsota, dearr i»*, 14; Khoixioael, Wusajtus Sie» tf. ia.ta.SW .
Pod 140
'Ä M*C' iJ**'
thU»
L<r> VI the W ne, Bs urttntt erapernr
imtm
.St.10l.l4l Ix eadcj too.
í-lPKE I55, 1*1, 'IS
lingau franca 17, 54, jg, j.-. btrraCT ?. iS*. ici, _
jj^rrrtriJ*^ Lac«1
»** -iní i» 1    'IirT^rJ*f •* 55.
ICS*""-1     ... '
._j_i,L»ii»rit|1--1—"      Long iiaiTowi. csdtanl grniJig
.     ^i, *;-*• 77, «o, 101 ^ ';J-i, 111. »a. 104. J41        lor»-<i»cince trade 1»). 100,10,,
t^^tieehtorcÄtBl ' 5^-3.174-J. H4.1»*. 141.
1*4 11».1«
rtriansciMar      Loragobaroa, Llriipbjrds «r Lottihards: Los» iLudwii, 1 the Pi
Lot
K^i030oi.Cracow ij
red Karbstrtormr
in, western
Lok» Raakorctaka. craltoral
«, «7*. »73
raiacoociai osnitaunl peak
Madae
^Lana LBaptna. Brurmric
Pemeesiiaal Maritx.aariTaA».™._
oarken it- , |4_,( Ml_ ^
Starina..j Mai\>i 1
1*7
cultsre 14 ~ rr-rer-.r
>ea n-s, |<7i
"«a^eerYiairaa«»;! ■thttrfe,U, tu
m
Sie
■•>;:<.- SM
'^^■-".r^.,<
Thietanar or Strr>
-4 •*
140414, MaKcdorua
It, I4.*c-i. 70-1.
im uiLT itxrf
iliiaiiai '—'---*
-'«-"*___ ......... \j^aiv rate atcteOt il iE ■! zu
rr?. im. *i*»*u».x4"
ifx.s<KSSM>
Vjrra rrrcr SZŤC, 1*3
1 t*s • *. 4
1*. ross-ta, is-j. ilc. iz».i—■
U*a ic«.ir-»t»«. j»l-<j
-«. t»«
■■! 11 I- ä«.-i. ««. tOJ.
ii%it<z.if<.ui.ui^ir%
II«, lAt-fe Z4L«. Z*A. Z4V|
Mint, hiiiiljji^Mtc»^. Mow. Maoma leaarr re*.
na ijsKiaT
imn. :«-.i4VÍ
roosxjr ort>i
, V  .-jj - j : n. 14*.
Vier».i Vbrzs r™~'4.'
Ncmaapo'cttnaarjiaf
i z»*
Nxt;Vial Pane
Nkrsnrs Noxiz rrsrr tou.
Zít, z-t*
Versi EsfSfsai Hase zz-:. 1-4.
L4, zs—. tat»!
. ďrSapr
Sc-«t=rssa.i
-— T t, s3 «■I
-Orr
m
o*
a*^át j.
:i. tl-i.ssav.il».
aao^StmcrJa
s<«a,aii t=*. ajaj
- aaali ...       i*- --»-41- *«-*.
4i.4S-».i«cir?.«zJsij«. QU :4 c :-i. :**. z*c Z4.Z. Z4{. <
* zs*
C»»»vjrioi CtaocrSaa
'^caktafsl "»S z**.ad
•   t*. 4SI
TMP tAKlY SLAVÍ
Rilswiek.coaiialsite 106, t«4,
171, ISO, 138
Hjs.'iI.iv. settlement 41 Raibir. Bohemian prince if 6 Riveniu 6. xt7
redistribution of surplus list, in
1JQ-t
Regcnshurgt74, 11--10, »S»"3 Rene, coastal site io<>. 168, 158 Rcthra isee Radgoswx] rrnnue, retAincnfdriuiiinil 101, 116-7, 147. M'> 184.104. 107-8,114. *3*-7, »4»-4, 161, 165; 'retainer culture' 101,11«. 184,104,107-8,141 Rhus, people Isre alio Rus) 1) J It...-n> [Stiraia Rn/in 14* Kii.mb Heie-r...! type'ol
stronghold 146 Rip, Bohemian mountain 197 Ripniev. settlement ?4,157 mm ,lv nunc -108,171-1 Roman empire, Romans 1J-J1 Si-4. 47,49, J1.»1,91,'33. 134,101,110.151 Roman writers 33, J5—t> Romance-speaking psipulstinns iS, 75,131,151, 'Daco-Romanian' I'Romaniicd Dacians') 113; Romance languages 1**; Vlachs/walaehians it, 41,48, »3»
Romania. Romanians 41. 47,49, 111. 143.157,183,101,104, 131,181
R ununited populations, mnumui
13-4,16,49,110 Romantic period, Romanticism 18,
171-«
Romanus 1 Lctapcnus, eastern
emperor (9 13-39) 7,11* Rome no, 111,1,1.151-6.169 Romny-iype sues 98,101 ■Romny-Borshevo', cultural
grouping 78-9,101,1J J, in] Riu rit-er 134.147 Rustistav. Moravian ruler (846-69)
t09-iit, - 1 <-Rostov 186,135-6,141 Rurik, (mythical?) Varangian leader
147,187,133,138,145 Rus.rarIs medieval Russian si.ucl 8, )7.75,101-4, '10,116,139, 147,171-1, 175. «8l-J. »83-7, 196, 100,107.114,111-3,119, »33-4. »3*. Mo. 143. »45-«-148-50, 155, 16). 165-6 Riisscn. cidturaf grouping - s, 10j
Russia, Russian 15,17-9, it. 30,
37,40.87. mi, 134.176-7, 179-81. 183, 190, 191-5,197, 199-100, lto, ill, 158,168, 170,171-3,177. »81-1; Russia (inner) 159-41; Russia, northern (outer.' / i.1' ■ li'.j' i zrmtya'i S47, 186-7,140-1.143
It. ill ilsos. i . Kilnk.isi.l
(.......I Ischchc 103,186-7, 135,
140. »43
I J. 58-i.,«»_0 '43.166.,,,,^ l*>'*
Scl.i
Scla
7
Saale river 64,78,197,104-5.150,
i.,7-9 Saale, .uliui.il group -78 utbttnpfemigt (rdndpftttnigt,
cross drmcrS) 181,166 sjcriitce. slav 109; human 110, iss, sagas (Icelandic-'Vtking'l g, 103,
169.160 Sakhanovka-Luka Raikovctska
cultural grouping 97 Salon J, town near Spin 59, 61,69 sail-trade 158-9, 190 Salinvo |-Mautskii). cultural
grouping ivrr also Khaiars) 99 SaJzburg9S.ii7.il). Samanids 178, 181 Samarkand 178 Simo, ruler 7,79-80, 1 ?t, x 11 Samuel, tsar of western Bulgar
Empire (9S0-1014) 119 Sandomicn 10, 137-8,149,161 S.iq.ilib.i iSlass) 18, i«7 Santa Monteoru, cemetery near
Buzau 41,101 Sarmatians, Iranian people 14, i,S,
33.75. 194 Sarsku ion (Sarskoc Corodishche),
near Rostov 186,135 Sassiniaiu (see Persia) Sasa river 10, 61,73,95, iji s.isn (.r.irnmatliui 7, 198 Sjson.. Saxony 19.107-8, 146% 174,181-1, 185,150.160, 16,,
itftt
v. ales, lor ss-eighmg silver 151,
r84
Scandinavia, Scandinavian 8, n, 11.51. vji, 101-3.117-8,11«. lA.i, 165, 169-73.176-8. 180. 18 j. 194.101.107-8, no, »33-<. »35. »41-3. »4«. »49. 158,160,173,178 Sclasenet (Sclasmi, Sklavenoi etc.) in East Roman and Byzantine sources 18-9,35-6, }8,49-ti,
'»'nia, Slav Und,
Sel.ukTurk, W«' ^^'-^Ikininbe^^
Serbs. Serbia ,,.,t7
«■-■7. .91.11»-,;7\£*
»71-4,181.184 ^"70, Serbo Croat, lm,u.-- , Sctdika ISophuiTr8"-' Seret river 10.44,1,9,14. settlementpanern,,,,
'»«-3'.tJ7 ^«"-ne.EasiSlavtnM -t3o.,ÍOli0, ,n'on3S, »17-9.141 3,,°'.
SeverskH Donets river i^rv„ scsiial freedom,,, "etDon«»l Shestcmy cemetery loo ... Sicily 6, f"x>..ol
V.e^«gM,c*Ja/
J»»"<antnbe7, i"1"'" JS.66.1,.,0. Z''7*
'I*.'75. «79.181, ,8
ii4-i. »63-5.167^.,;,5I-
177-8,184 ^•1<, 'Silesun bowls' 174-, Sile.tanT™,ek.'lini rm-tian'shindlKA/ei^"* vjreitzttsaWi ,4Ä Silestin Ramparts, lineareanh Urt,gTj„„) 14t
•»'bsrraiDurostiinim.Dhst.li.v »k.SilkRoute.roT;^   : 60'-' •'Ivet 6.. 84. ,8-9,, "«.»7. Mt. li,, .79-81.118.1,3,^^;
Simargl, mythical be,ngl9(S Soctrivcr (sec Sem) M7
SirmlumlSimskaMitrrrrica, „
*0.«»i95. »19 •<av«, slave-trade it, 4I ,
H9.1J4-J '^'"^ SlavnikovichfamHyfsu^
181,154-, Sla«(,he)pai,1BI.EwSUtl ■7i 80, 89-90, o*, io. ,   1 J' '10, tío-i, ij4, tffjj 2'
'■'■ľ'ifliVíV1*-'
^iri,,kian.'T-,'íi'^
.^^,,^..»<.3-3.
3<ií.»7''17»
, So It, IJO,
vi,o*s",J .
•''■'''"i^nrosltnbal Jp"''    ,s|ivs 101.110.
ai.«' c-.. ^urongrKild-osst. 10],
,HH';'U)
^!l-«irts|sťeZ«»ř)'>w'''1
lysla tstan people 16-7- 7 r. n arvhaco-■^|,S,,,U-),»7.j«.íj.
!ľ,i,,li».'M-4s»í7.«J>>
;;'t<7,„o.Mi-M.sv
1,h.iíj.iM.»«>.,w.
.,..,,141,
JrdkSl^l,Wal »•"■'.„
-ĽlmiuiitB. 13-4,»~ 11 ■ -4 palacvihoiJiiic 11, \'t prrnötinlhn^tegic.l
1 mdle whorls 164
sps-iihncv. Bohemian prince
|B9S-*Ml»»o. »S3 Stalin, J. V. 4,19,1J4-5. 148. 171.
lit, 174. »76 Starala Ladoga, trading centre,
ttronghold-tosArn 10,, 170.
179-80. loB, 1,5-6,141 stan Kouřim t u, til, 151, 156 Staré Město, stronghold 109,157,
185, »77
state* i»4» i»7.130, 133-5*. '43* 144, i»7-v67í conijuest theory (Vbctanerungfihtom) of stale fortMtkin i »6; nanon states 17, 30,, J. 13 3,-4.1 JTi ptitnary and secontUry state* 136-7. "7.150
st,-i 011 lobr. .sl.iv rulu of Serbia (1031-51! »10
Stefan Dtuhan 11,31-J5L Serbian ruler 169
Sicphcn i. king of Hungary (lOOa-,8) I Si, 131
sieppo 10,11,14, 35, 55,57.7J. 77,80.8J. 90, in, "44, «73. 119,140,14J, 170
Stoigniev, bruihet of Obodnte nilcr »59
Stodornme IHavclame), Polablan
tribe »57. »59 Strabo, writer 3 5
SlrJtegikon (see Pscudn-Maurice) ttrattama (army), of Sdavrnes 58 jřrai J. funeral least 53,4, Strilsóg, deity 194,19*. »47 stronghold*9. 39.65,67,71,77. 84. 86,97—101, 104,106-11, tlaj. 119, t3i-3,iJ7, 13Í-40. 141,144-6, IJ7-*. 168-9, I'l, 1H4, 18], 186,108,116-7.1,4, 13T. 14«. »44. »46-7.1J1-3.
I57, »59. lM.lt>,. 165-6, ISO,
184; 'Great Strongholds', wictktr grody of southern Poland 154; 'pattedstronghold*1 »56, n,i, Rrtugr Smmghulds [FUuhtbrtgtn) 111-1, 141. ringwotks 104, 106-7, Til. 'stronghold organization' 155, 165,'siroiighold-town' 185-4),
Suvcava-Sipot. cultural grouping Sudeten, mountains 17,10, i6z.
INDEX
Sukow, stronghold 65,194 Sukow, tradition, 65,76-7,105,
Sukow-Dziedzlce phaie ns-7.77.
101,104,179 Sukow-Golaricz phase 76-7, 105 SuU riser 84,98-9, io6,146 sunken-floored huts to, 39-41,
47-8, JJ-4, í J-J. 71, 77.9». 97.
■is. tot. 110,146; with corner
oveni ,9,41,4'. 13-4. *t, 6,-5.
71,98, toi, 104. tao Suzdal, stronghold-town 136,141 Svirog, deity 194-5. isi8 Svenald, voivoda, boyar 139,
»43-3
Sviatopelk, son of Vladimir the
Great 14 8 Svtaiopluk, Moravian prince
(B69-94)110-1,119,151-3 Ss1.1t>uliv, Rus prince 111,119.
»43-7. i«3 Sweden,Swedes 174.18 j, t]j-a,
141,171
Swiclubte, barrow cemetery 168-9 Swieioslawa. daughter of Mictzko 16,
Swtetovit (Svantcvit), deity 198 Ssnicoii, Bulgarian ruler s.,..... -
95,111,117-30 Szczecin, coastal trading tenrrc,
strorighotd-town 105,169—70»
■ 99,138,160,16,-4 Szcllgi. stronghold 77,87, 157 Szrlls-j.Zintno, group 67
Tacitus, Roman author ol Cufrmartu 19, 35-6, 118 Tanal* (Don) river 17, Teutonic Knights 111,170 Theophilaciut Simokane* 59-60,
68- 9,118,143 Thcssatomka, town and region 11,
51,58,61, 70-1, 94, so9,119 The**aly 61,71,73 Thiermxr ol Merscberg, bishop and
chronicler 7.195.197, 119, urt,
164
Thrace. Thracians 14, 50-1. ,8,61,
69- 70.71-3.76.9». 94.148 Thule. region 53,191 Thuringia, region 10, 57,64, 108,
14«, i8j Timetevo, near Rostov t86,108, »31
Tuza rivet 18,10,78 Tollcnsee 10S, 198
4IÍ
10ns iffor
Til* lARI.f II.AVI
r..ll   riilir I , i   |67. 171, 17!
Tomitlav, Croat ruler (910-1II93
M4.»50 Tornow, cultural grouping I«,
104-5, 10*, 131-1, 1*0-1, alo Tornow,aite 104, til, 151, HI,
IS7-I, »77 Tomiiw-Klcmca' group 103 Ton la. king ol Otlrogoth» 11 lowm 14, |i. 60. «i, 69. 71-». Mi
»6.'II. 107. 110, ll|. Ill, 1)5,
i<4, l<7, 169. |I)-*, 116,14L 160,165-6,17l| 'localiun
documrnl' '!..»■> Juilrr I 1*4
trade I, 9, 60, 69, So, f 06, 111-9, 151,161,167,170-1,1 I*. 4).|-4. i|7.141-1,14*-». »5». 114. »**
translation fllnguittlc, literary) 171,
II |, 111 li.iintlvjriu 4I. 64, 76,11, 91, I (1,106, 111, 151, 1*5), ill Travunianir, Balkan irlhe 150 irranet i, 94,175, '77.134.1)9.
141. Ml-* inburo 57,69, 7J, 76, Do, 94, 99-100, 104,150,151,147,
150-1, Ifl, I67-6, 1*1, IÜ4, 157-40,141. H4.1)4.1*1 frigiöw l-i.l... ,lr.i, 19I Tfoyn i»i
rruKi, emporium 10*, 165,161-9, I7»-Il
fr/rliiarriw, hairow crmrtrry 197 Turkicrlrmrnri 73, vi-), 111, ill
I mheml, Ii hi. hero. ,1.1. cultural
grouping I7, 101-1,141 I, .rti,. East Slav tribe 145,1)1-9
Ukraine, Ukrainian! I )-6, 1» •,, 1), 51, 11-41.47-9, »4-6,61-4. 67,71,75-*, lo, »1-4, <t, 9*-l, 104,111,119,151,14*. 1)7-1. 160, 161-5, 'lO. Il6, 190, 19), 195-6,105-6,170-1.175-7, 1I1-1
1 'In In, I ...1 M.i> tnhe 15I-9,143 Um.rvid. 167,17!
Varang.ans, people 101
j.i, Bohemian ruler
' 14. al
Velegit/r. 1Velrgeilie*), tribe 7) Velfti 117,133, d9-*o. 1*1 Veltava IVhaviHter Moldaul Vrluamone < Wnlinianil 1*0,1*1
Vrnedi iVenenl. people 19, u-* Venice 167,170 Ve.fi, people 111.11), 1)6,15I Viaiicni, tribal union 99,101,119, 1i0,101-), 107. 6)1-9,141-1, «41-* Vienna 10, 79.91. »°7 Vikingi I we alto Varanglantl I, 101,165.171, ill. 1*0,17* Vila, female tpiril 191 Vmula (Wula| ntcr 17.10,13.41, jo. 10*, «19.110,146,177. 179.141.160-1,17*—9 Vitebsk, tirungholil 160,141 Vladimir 1 iihr Great), Kicvan rul«r (971-1013) 100, ill 1, ill, 111, 141,146-1,1*), 165 Vladimir Volynski, stronghold
mwn 146-7 iY./rioJj iioirtTMiJI,official 14) Volga liver 10. 7J, lo, I), »»-9, 10), 110,170,173, lie, 107, 136-7,141-1 Volkhov river 9A. 170, 179, »•*, «41
Volot, deny 194-6,14 5 Volvnia, Volyniant 103-4, '49,
147.1*1 Vols nt»evo. cultural grouping i),
».,. 9*-l, 151,106,141 Volytirsevo R.miny .ileiyl-y V'.i.kla river 14, 9i, 100,10* Vrap, Albanian hoard 71 Vrjti.lav, Bohemian prince
I915-11113) Vyshogrod ii6.1j 7,14! -*
'.til.lrnur. Djni.h king 19a U'ar.'idaw, ruler of we.rern
armio 1      141-5, 151, rnarirs 14 I, 'aiding 1*.
ine»*9. 141, 141, warrior.
Wiodi (Wenden,j We.icrn Dvina 1«. ' ^'""nOcean* ||
Wichnunn, < Wltlbjfk ( u WicllinpoUk, 110, 117-1 ■■1W, 1*1 Willi I Wrliab Wttlanr Vir, Wiogaiiihuig Wotc.ech, V«! bitbopolh
UUni ly.y, j.
*"lin|lom«ii,
13l,l*o, 1*1 women 66,110
vs,w>dcn»ice«»9), ill, H7,1I6 Wot Id Wat I 10. 114,1 )*, 174-4,
i7"-9
World War ii 1 )6,1I4,101, 170,
17)-*,17I.lit WriKlaw.town ill, lit, 1*4
',v iiii.i.ni, nliitli 1 < niiiiy .mm
II.In. 106. 1 '.9
ail
Zatiilumlamt (Zac
Zjdnigj, |,, Zi-ltn:l-tt p dead 115
ZI11 Zen /er /hi
ili.fi fr.ti»
Warna!, Caro Warta riser 1,
'•<:> ••> ullicial 174
416