Empires and Barbarians (114 page)

40
For a useful outline narrative, see Wood (1994), chapters 13 and 15.

41
For more detailed discussion, especially on the nature of Charles Martel’s rule and the strategies used to cement his control, see Wood (1994), chapter 16; Fouracre (2000).

42
Famously, seizing the crown involved an appeal to the Pope, Zacharias, who replied that kingship should reside in the hands of a man wielding real power, not in a figurehead. Less famously, but probably more important at the time, the change of dynasty was also sanctioned by a major Frankish assembly. For a good account, see McKitterick (1983).

43
On all this, see most recently Collins (1998).

44
For an excellent introduction, see Dunbabin (2000).

45
For useful introductions to the Ottonian Empire, see Leyser (1989) and Reuter (1991).

46
See Reuter (1985), (1990).

47
The phenomenon of culture collapse, with its more precise chronology, was identified by Kazimierz Godlowski: see e.g. Godlowski (1970), (1980), (1983). One anomaly within the overall pattern is the so-called ‘Olsztyn group’. Established in Mazovia on the south-east shores of the Baltic east of the Vistula, and beyond the long-standing limits of Germanic domination, the material culture of this group is characterized by the presence of some of the traditional
Germanic items and also a fair quantity of Mediterranean imports, both of which date this group firmly to the sixth century. What remains unclear, of course, is whether the remains were deposited by a group of newly arrived Germanic immigrants to the area, or else represent some locals (perhaps Baltic-speakers) who adopted a new kind of material culture. Either way, the group was relatively short-lived, since no Olsztyn remains can be dated to the seventh century: see Barford (2001), 33, with references.

48
See e.g. Koch and Koch (1996); Wieczorek (1996); Hummer (1998).

49
Those Saxons who were never completely conquered by the Merovingians, although brought under Frankish hegemony, insulated the Scandinavian world from any explicit Frankish interference.

50
For primary references, see note 47 above, taken further by Parczewski (1993), 120ff., (1997).

51
Historical sources also provide a possible analogy to explain the Olsztyn group. As we have seen (above,
Chapter 5
), one fragment of the Heruli, defeated by the Lombards in 508, moved north from the Middle Danube region, eventually establishing themselves in Scandinavia. It is perfectly conceivable, therefore, that other Germanic-speakers, taking a similar option, might have ended up further east.

52
See e.g. Urbanczyk (1997b), (2005).

53
The case of Frankish migrants into northern France also deserves comment, though it is unclear whether these came from the areas that suffered from culture collapse, so I have omitted them from this thought experiment.

54
See above
Chapter 4

55
See Batty (2007), 39–42. For Greater Poland, which fell within the areas of the Przeworsk and Wielbark culture collapse, an extensive field-walking and surveying project prompts the parallel conclusion that its population density after culture collapse was still around 1 person per square kilometre: see Barford (2001), 89–91 (with references). This again suggests that the departure of half a million people might well be significant, but, representing a maximum one-third of the population, would not have generally emptied the landscape, while many of the more southern areas affected are likely to have had larger populations.

56
See pp. 64ff above.

57
See
Chapter 8
above.

58
For a good recent account, see Kennedy (2007).

59
Why the long-established habit of limited warfare between the two empires should have given way to such a mutually destructive conflict thus becomes a central question.

60
This emerges very clearly from Sartre (1982).

61
For useful introductions, see Whittow (1996); Haldon (1990).

62
The great expansion of the tenth century came when the Abbasid Caliphate had fragmented as a political entity, and itself fell apart when the Seljuks restored a measure of Islamic unity in the eleventh.

63
For an introduction, see Kennedy (2004).

64
Not at least since the second century, when formal relations between Vandals and Empire are recorded during the Marcomannic war: see
Chapter 2
above.

1
These remains were originally labelled ‘Prague’ by Borkovsky, who first identified them in what is now the Czech Republic in a study of 1940. On the change of name, see note 9.

2
Especially since much of the third zone of Europe, beyond Rome’s outer periphery, had been inhabited by people living this kind of life. Hence it is unsafe to assume the kind of exclusive, one-to-one association between ‘the’ Slavs and Korchak remains that would have been posited in the old world of culture history (see
Chapter 1
).

3
The map is after Barford (2001), 326. The collapse of the Iron Curtain has made it possible to discuss these matters with much greater candour. For good introductions in English to the politicized history of Slavic studies, see e.g. Barford (2001), especially the introduction and chapter 13; Curta (2001),
chapter 1
.

4
Kostrzewski (1969) provides a good summary of his position, drawn up at the end of his highly eventful life. Having studied with Kossinna from 1910, he spent the Second World War in hiding from the Gestapo since his visions of an early, utterly Slavic Poland were considered unacceptable.

5
Shchukin (1975), (1977). In Poland, the work of Godlowski on the Przeworsk system and early Slavic cultures was crucial; its results are most easily accessible to English-speakers through Godlowski (1970). Thanks to the work of him and his pupils, the Wielbark and Przeworsk systems have come to be understood as thoroughly dominated by Germanic-speakers, with earlier archaeological ‘proofs’ that the latter comprised just a very few migrants from southern Scandinavia being overturned. Godlowski was also responsible for demonstrating how huge an archaeological upheaval separated the Germanic-dominated Poland of the Roman period from the Slavic-dominated Poland of the early Middle Ages.

6
Procopius,
Wars
8.40.5 mentions that attacks began in the time of Justin. Slavic raids of different kinds feature regularly in Procopius’ narrative of Justinian’s reign: Curta (2001),
chapter 3
offers a good recent analysis.

7
See Barford (2001), 41f.; Curta (2001), 228–46.

8
Jordanes,
Getica
5.34–5; cf. Tacitus,
Germania
46.2 (on the Venedi) and 46.4 (on what lay beyond). For further references to the Venedi, see Pliny,
Natural History
4.97; Ptolemy,
Geography
3.5.1 and 7.

9
The ‘tree argument’ was first made by the Polish botanist Rostafinski in 1908: Curta (2001), 7–8. Rusanova published entirely in Russian; for discussion of her work with full references, see Curta (2001), 230ff.

10
See Curta (1999), (2001), especially 39–43 (Jordanes); 230ff. (Rusanova);
chapters 3
and
6
(the Slavs’ dynamic transformation via contact with eastern Rome).

11
Godlowski (1983); Parczewski (1993), (1997: an English summary); Kazanski (1999),
chapter 2
; cf. Barford (2001), 41ff. (who remains open-minded).

12
Jordanes,
Getica
48.247 (Boz and the Antae), with Heather (1989) establishing the chronology (see p. 234 above); 50.265–6 (Hunnic and other settlements on the Danube: see p. 223 above).

13
Dolukhnaov (1996) is good on the background of the long-term development of the simple farming cultures of eastern Europe.

14
For useful introductions to the linguistic evidence, see Birnbaum (1993); Nichols (1998).

15
Procopius,
Wars
7.29.1–3 (547
AD
); 7.38 (548
AD
); 7.40 (550
AD
). Procopius elsewhere reports that the raids were annual:
Secret History
18.20; cf. Curta (2001), 75–89.

16
Turris: Procopius,
Wars
7.14.32–5. On forts more generally, see Curta (2001), 150ff.

17
On the Avars, see e.g. Pohl (1988), (2003); Whitby (1988); with Daim (2003) for an introduction in English to the archaeological materials of the Avar Empire.

18
See Whitby (1988), especially 156ff.

19
On the Persian war, see
Chapter 7
above. On the disasters of the 610s: John of Nikiu,
Chronicle
109;
Miracles of St Demetrius
I.12, 13–15; II.1, 2. The siege of Constantinople is recounted in
Chronicon Paschale
AD
a. 626.

20
Miracles of St Demetrius
II.4, 5. Miracle II.4 names the Runchine, Strymon and Sagoudatae Slavs as attacking Thessalonica at this point; Miracle II.1 adds the names of the Baiounitae and Buzetae. For the transplanting, see Theophanes,
Chronicle
AM
6180 (687/8
AD
). Justinian later tried to use them to fight the Arabs, but they changed sides at the crucial moment in the battle of Sebastopol in 692: Theophanes,
Chronicle
AM
6184 (691/2
AD
), where the figure of 30,000 appears. For archaeological materials from the north and west Balkans, see Kazanski (1999), 85–6, 137; Barford (2001), 58–62, 67ff.

21
The seven Slavic tribes: Theophanes,
Chronicle
AM
6171 (678/9
AD
). For the developing archaeological picture, see Kazanski (1999), 138; Barford (2001), 62ff., with references. For an introduction to the Bulgars, see Gyuzelev (1979).

22
Miracles of St Demetrius
II.4, with
De Administrando Imperio
49–50 on Patras. For the archaeology, see Kazanski (1999), 85f., 137; Barford (2001), 67f.; and in particular the correctly critical account of Curta (2001), 233–4, responding in part to overly enthusiastic past attempts to use these materials to ‘prove’ the
Chronicle of Monemvasia
’s account of an early and massive Slavicization of the Peloponnese: see e.g. Charanis (1950).

23
De Administrando Imperio
30 and 31 (respectively Croat and Byzantine versions of the arrival of the Croats); 32 (the Serbs). Samo: Fredegar,
Chronicle
4.48; cf. 4.72 (on the Bulgars). For further comment, see Pohl (2003). Scholarly opinion divides on how much credence to give the
De Administrando
’s account.

24
For further comment, see Barford (2001), 73–5; Curta (2001), 64–6, with references. An Iranian origin to some of the names recorded of Antae leaders has also been argued for, but the etymologies continue to be contested.

25
For references, see note 21 above.

26
The Geographer’s information underlies all accounts of ninth-century Slavic central Europe, and discussion of the preceding centuries is always framed with this outcome in mind. Ninth-century Carolingian diplomatic manoeuvring concentrated on groups within this area: the Elbe Slavs, the Bohemians, and the Moravians.

27
For the tenth century, see
Chapter 10
. For the Roman era, see
Map 1
.

28
512
AD
: Procopius,
Wars
6.15.1–2. Hildegesius: Procopius,
Wars
7.35.16–22; cf. Curta (2001), 82, with full references to other secondary literature, on Slovakia as his likely recruiting ground. Samo: Fredegar,
Chronicle
4.48, 68.

29
The literature is enormous, but for recent general accounts see Brachmann (1997); Parczewski (1997); Kazanski (1999), 83–96; Barford (2001), 39–44; Brather (2001). These draw on and update such earlier accounts as Donat and Fischer (1994); Szydlowski (1980); Brachmann (1978); Herrmann (1968)

30
On the new wheel-turned potteries, see Barford (2001), 63ff., 76–9, 104–12; Brather (2001); cf. Brather (1996). For the older view of a second migration, see Brachmann (1978), with references.

31
For a general discussion, see Godlowski (1980), (1983), with pp. 371ff above. The departure of the Lombards for Italy in 568 greatly changed the complexion of archaeological patterns in the Middle Danube region.

32
Barford (2001), 53–4, 65–6, with references.

33
For the basic information, see Kobylinski (1997); Barford (2001), 65–7, 76–7. For an introduction to older views, see Herrmann (1983). Sukow-Dziedzice burial customs are not known; they must have have consisted of some archaeologically invisible rite such as surface disposal or cremation of the body without any additional, identifying objects.

34
See Kobylinski (1997).

35
For references, see note 33 above.

36
For useful introductions, see Franklin & Shepard (1996), 71ff.; Goehrke (1992), 34–43.

37
For the linguistic evidence, see note 14 above.

38
For the evidence, see Goehrke (1992), 14–19; Parczewski (1993); Kazanski (1999), 96–120; Barford (2001), 55–6, 82–5, 96–8. The term ‘Slavic-dominated’ is a carefully chosen formulation to remind the reader that the old assumptions of culture-historical interpretation may be as misleading in the Slavic era as in its Germanic predecessor: see
Chapter 1
above.

39
For an outline and further information, see Goehrke (1992), 20–33; Barford (2001), 85–9, 96–9.

40
The different possible answers are nicely defined by two recent books on early Slavic history. Kazanski (1999), especially 120–42, argues that overall similarities in lifestyle between the Prague-Korchak, Penkovka, and Kolochin cultures suggests that if the first two were Slavic, then so was the third. In his view, much of the East European Plain, the territory covered by the Kolochin culture, was already Slavic-speaking in c.500
AD
(cf.
Map 16
). Korchak/Penkovka expansion from the seventh century onwards represented a political but not a linguistic revolution. Barford (2001) would identify the generation of Prague–Korchak itself as a moment of primary Slavicization, when Balts and Slavs really came to distinguish themselves from one another. For him, therefore, the spread north and east of Prague-Korchak in the seventh century, followed by the generation of the Luka Raikovetskaia, Volyntsevo, and Romny-Borshevo traditions, represents not just a political revolution, but the moment when Slavs first came to dominate the landscape, albeit while absorbing much of the indigenous population into their new social structures.