Empires and Barbarians (117 page)

Authors: Peter Heather

BOOK: Empires and Barbarians

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33
For fuller discussions, see the literature cited in notes 2–4 above. On the Germanic world, see pp. 64ff above.

34
For post-Avar leaders, see the literature cited in note 23 above. Wiztrach and his son ruled their own
civitas
in Bohemia: see
Annals of Fulda
(857
AD
). On Moravia, see the studies cited in note 2 above. For excellent introductions to the changing patterns of hillforts, see Godja (1991),
chapter 3
; Kurnatowska (1997a), with full references. Nothing similar has been found in the early Slavic world to the Runder Berg and other
Herrenhöfe
of the leaders of the fourth-century Alamanni: see
Chapter 2
.

35
See, in particular, Roesdahl (1982); Hedeager (1992); Sawyer and Sawyer (1993).

36
For pollen, see Donat (1983); cf. Barford (2001), 153–9, both with full references.

37
In addition to the literature cited in note 2 above, see most recently, on agricultural expansion, Henning (2005); Barford (2005). These studies show that full manorialization followed rather than preceded state formation (as Marxist orthodoxy required). Agricultural expansion did, however, take other forms between the sixth and tenth centuries.

38
For the reasons we have previously encountered, the availability of food is one of the most basic limiting factors on possible population sizes.

39
For similar processes among the Germani, see
Chapter 2
.

40
Hedeby:
Royal Frankish Annals
(808
AD
), with Roesdahl (1982), 70–6. Prague: Ibn Rusteh. Kiev:
De Administrando Imperio
,
chapter 9
; cf. Thietmar,
Chronicle
8.2. Poland’s participation in these networks is clear from the silver dirham distribution map: see
Map 16
.

41
Russian Primary Chronicle
(911 and 945
AD
). As far back as 808, Godfrid had moved the merchants to Hedeby because he wanted the toll revenue: see previous note.

42
For literature on the destruction of tribal castles, see note 24 above. On Vladimir’s transfers, see
Russian Primary Chronicle
(1000
AD
). On service villages and the organization of the heartlands of Bohemia and Poland, see respectively Godja (1991),
chapters 3
–
4
; Kurnatowska (1997a).

43
Oleg’s army:
Russian Primary Chronicle
(880–2
AD
). Sviatoslav:
Russian Primary Chronicle
(971–2
AD
). For Vladimir, see previous note, with general commentary in Franklin and Shepard (1996),
chapter 4
.

44
For an introduction, see Bartlett (1993),
chapter 5
. A top estimate is that some 200,000 German peasants were eventually attracted east of the Elbe by the excellent terms on offer.

45
On Carolingian expansion and its structural importance, see Reuter (1985), (1990).

46
On the feuds, see Leyser (1989). On the burgwards, see Reuter (1991).

47
For an introduction to the Elbe Slavs, and a convenient collection of the relevant materials, see Lübke (1984–88), with Lübke (1994), (1997) for further analysis.

48
Dvornik (1949) provides a useful narrative. For the Northern Crusades, see e.g. Christiansen (1980).

49
Gero: Widukind of Corvey 2.20, with Heather (1997) more generally on the Abodrites. Zwentibald:
Annals of Fulda
(870–2
AD
).

50
On the Christianization of Moravia, see the references in note 2. Werinhar’s mutilation:
Annals of Fulda
(882
AD
). Violence and plunder are regular features in all the warfare of this period, as recorded in Thietmar’s
Chronicle
, the
Russian Primary Chronicle
, Adam of Bremen’s
History of the Bishops of Hamburg
and Helmold’s
Chronicle of the Slavs
, the two latter both having much to report on the plunderings and wars between the Empire and the Elbe Slavs.

51
On Saxon military evolution, see Leyser (1982), essays 1 and 2. For the Capitulary of Thionville, see Boretius (1883), 44.7.

52
Miracles of St Demetrius
II.5; cf. the swift appearance of powerful leaders such as Liudewit: for references, see note 23 above.

53
For further discussion, and references, see
Chapter 9
.

54
On the slave raids of the Rus and Western Slavs: Ibn Jaqub; cf. McCormick (2001), on the general importance of these new connections.

55
Ibn Fadlan,
Relation
; cf.
Russian Primary Chronicle
(993
AD
), on Vladimir. If the trade was essentially in women, the Rus presumably had to carry their own boats round the Dnieper rapids, but this may just be the literature of shock. Certainly the western slave trades – overland and by sea – involved males as well as females; cf. Verlinden (1955), the source of the map in question.

56
For introductory references, see note 7 above. The same tendency of trying to avoid taking your Christianity from a near imperial neighbour is also visible in the case of the Bulgarians, who did the same, trying to avoid a Byzantine connection: see e.g. Browning (1975), for an introduction. The Bulgarians equally failed to avoid the imperial connection, but, like the Poles, were eventually granted their own archbishop.

57
The availability of Bede’s extraordinary narrative and a host of other sources from the early conversion period in England means that the Anglo-Saxon case study has often been a vehicle for exploring these ideas. For an excellent introduction, see Mayr Harting (1972); cf. Mayr-Harting (1994) for a comparison with Bulgaria.

58
There is little sign that conversion to Christianity changed the nature of immediate political competition in the Slavic context, any more than it did in the Anglo-Saxon, on which see the wonderful paper of Wormald (1978). On the administrative front, the last of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was brought to Christianity in 681, when Wessex conquered the Isle of Wight, but the beginnings of an administrative system that was working convincingly via literacy are, to my mind, visible only two or three generations later, and it is really only in the ninth and tenth centuries that the evidence multiplies.

59
Carolingian imperial rule had established tithing as a norm from the later eighth century: see McKitterick (1977). This made the later Slavic conversions different examples, like that of the Anglo-Saxons, where religious taxation was not yet so firmly established.

60
For the Tervingi, see
Chapter 2
. For the 983 revolt, see Reuter (1991); Lübke (1994), commenting particularly on the narrative of Thietmar,
Chronicle
3.17ff. The
Russian Primary Chronicle
is the basic source of information on the Russian case, upon which Shepard (2005), with full references to the earlier literature, provides an excellent recent treatment.

61
Vladimir:
Russian Primary Chronicle
(978–80
AD
); with Shepard (2005) for commentary. For the Elbe Slavs, see the references in note 47 above.

62
For an introduction to the concept of ‘peer polity interaction’, and some case studies, see Renfrew and Cherry (1986).

63
For a detailed discussion of coin flows, see Noonan (1997), (1998).

64
For comparative case studies, both ancient and modern, see Gottmann (1980); Rowlands et al. (1987); Bilde et al. (1993); Champion (1995). It is extremely important, however, to factor in a generalized concept of agency: cf. Wilson (2008).

11. THE END OF MIGRATION AND THE BIRTH OF EUROPE

1
Annals of Fulda
(900
AD
).

2
See Faith (1997) on the extent to which the Normans rewrote the rules by which peasant life was governed.

3
See in particular
Chapters 6
and
9
.

4
As we saw in
Chapter 6
, the 50–75 per cent spread of possibly ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Y chromosomes recorded in samples of the modern English population can be accounted for by an invading group that was anywhere between 50–75 per cent of the fifth-/sixth-century population, or only 10 per cent if you give them even a marginal breeding advantage.

5
These key cases reported by Ammianus and Procopius are explored in detail in
Chapters 4
and
5
.

6
In these cases, the evidence is currently not good that the groups actually crossed the frontier, but reliable contemporaries describe at least their subsequent moves, to Spain and North Africa respectively, and to join Alaric, in precisely such terms.

7
The Gothic and Lombard migration flows are discussed in
Chapters 3
and
5
.

8
The ideas set out here, and through earlier chapters, are discussed in more detail in Heather (2008a).

9
For Anglo-Saxon return migration, see
Chapter 6
above.

10
Autumn 376, although this has been challenged, is also the likeliest time for the move of the Gothic Tervingi: see Heather (2005), 153.

11
This presumably limited the amount of fundamental social (as opposed to political) change that was generated by the flows of new wealth into Scandinavia, since the wealth was bound initially to fall largely into the hands of those who where already reasonably wealthy.

12
And possibly also by non-militarized slaves: see
Chapter 4
above.

13
Of course, Jordanes’ migration topos gave more than an excuse to do so: see
Chapter 3
.

14
The one successor state not founded by a new coalition created on the march was that of the Burgundians, but there is a crucial lack of narrative evidence to help us understand fifth-century Burgundian history, which was certainly traumatic.

15
Hunnic imperial history confirms the point, since the huge supraregional power created by Attila and his predecessors was entirely dependent upon large-scale flows of Mediterranean wealth for its continued existence: see
Chapter 5
.

16
Just one surviving vignette illustrates Gotho-Slav interaction: Jordanes,
Getica
48.247, with p. 234 above.

17
The sources suggest, however, that some Slavic groups had already developed a considerable degree of political and military organization on the back of the new wealth flows of the sixth century: see
Chapter 8
.

18
Bartlett (1993), especially
chapters 2
and
5
, provides an excellent introduction to these new patterns.

19
Tacitus,
Germania
46.4.

P
RIMARY
S
OURCES

Following normal conventions, specific editions and translations of standard classical works are not listed in the bibliography, though all those works cited in this book appear below, and most are translated in either or both of the Loeb and Penguin Classics series. All Christian authors are available, if sometimes in outdated form, in
Patrologia Latina
or
Patrologia Graeca
editions. More recent (sometimes competing) editions of most of the texts cited in the introductions and notes can be found in
GCS
(
Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte
),
CSEL
(
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
),
CC
(
Corpus Christianorum
), and
SC
(
Sources Chrétiennes
). Many are translated in the
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
, and
Library of the Fathers
collections. Otherwise, the following editions and translations of late Roman and early medieval sources have been used.