Fouracre P. The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 1: c. 500-c. 700

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The Slavs 533

523 (though according to some authors as early as 518). The ethnic picture of

the Danubian territories and the Balkan peninsula at the end of antiquity was

very complicated. The indigenous peoples of these areas, apart from Greeks

and Macedonians, were Thracian tribes, Geto-Dacians, Illyrians and Celts

who had come under Roman cultural inﬂuence long before their political

conquest, leading to their gradual Romanisation. At the end of the fourth

century the population of the northern and western provinces – Noricum,

Pannonia, Dalmatia and Moesia – to a large degree spoke Latin and had

accepted many technical aspects of Roman civilisation and the Roman way of

life, including belief systems. Larger communities of unromanised Thracians

and Illyrians could survive only in the inaccessible mountainous interiors of the

Balkans. In the south-eastern parts of the peninsula to the south of the Balkan

mountains and especially on the coasts of the Black Sea and in many towns of

Thrace and Macedonia, the inﬂuences of Greek culture were very strong, and

despite losing political control to the Slavs, the urban centres retained their

Greek character.

At the end of the fourth century and in the ﬁfth century these provinces

were troubled by various barbarian tribes, especially the Huns. Destruction

in wars and the ceaseless attacks led in particular to signiﬁcant depopulation

of the northern provinces (along the Danube). Here were the most numer-

ous settlements of barbarian foederati.Here could be met different groups of

Sarmatians, Alans, Goths and Huns, which dominated the local rural popula-

tion. In this zone, only the towns were still bastions of Romanisation. In the

430s the Huns took over the Danubian area and, after conquering the people

living there, created a powerful but short-lived empire centred on the Tisza

river. After the death of Attila in 453 and the destruction of the Hun empire by

the Gepids and their allies in the battle of Nedao, political supremacy in the

Danube basin was achieved by Germanic tribes, especially the Gepids centred

on the old Roman province of Dacia and also the peoples settled in former

Pannonia, above all the Ostrogoths, but also for a time the Quadi, Heruli

and Vandals on the fringe of the weakening Western Roman Empire. In 474

the Ostrogoths migrated from Pannonia to Lower Moesia, and at the end of

489 under the leadership of Theoderic they entered Italy.

After overcoming

Odovacer they became rulers of Italy and the territories forming what was

left of the Western Empire (Noricum, Dalmatia and part of Pannonia). The

rule of the Ostrogoths lasted until the middle of the sixth century, when they

were overcome by the Byzantines and Dalmatia became part of the Byzantine

Empire. Pannonia was taken over by the Lombards and Noricum was annexed

by the Franks, who were forced out by the eastern emperors. Little Scythia

SeeMoorhead, chapter 6 above.

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(in the region of the Danube delta), occupied since the end of the fourth

century by the Huns, was settled by the related Bulgars.

The Slavic tribes were to penetrate this ethnically, socio-economically and

culturally varied area. The appearance of Slavic settlement on the Danube

seems to have had its beginnings already by the ﬁrst half of the sixth century.

After the collapse of the Hun empire in the middle of the ﬁfth century, and

after the stormy events which followed, conditions were right for the effective

expansion of the Slavs to the south. The ﬁrst stage of this expansion was into

the territory on the lower and middle Danube. About the middle of the sixth

century, Slavic settlement in this area had become established. According to

Jordanes, the ‘Sklavenoi inhabit the territory from the town of Noviedunum

and the Mursian lake to the Dnestr’.

The use of this record to determine the

territory of the Slavs comes up against a number of difﬁculties. The town of

Noviedunum is usually located at the mouth of the Danube, and the Mursian

lake identiﬁed with Lake Balaton, or with the muddy conﬂuence of the Tisza

and the Danube, or with the region lying further to the west at the mouth of

the Oltul river. Even if at the beginning of the sixth century Slavic settlement

did not extend very far to the west, in the middle of that century the Slavs

reached as far west along the Danube as the Iron Gates and the Banat. The

information from Jordanes is supplemented by Procopius, who writes: ‘the

Sclavinoi and Antes...havetheir homelands on the Danube not far from its

northern bank’.

In another place the same writer said that ‘on the other side

of the Danube . . . mainly they [Sclavinoi and Antes] live’.

Less certain are

the sources for Slav settlement on the middle Danube. Only the information

of Procopius on the contacts of the Lombard prince Hildigis with the Slavs

allows the detection of their presence shortly before 539 close to the territory

ruled by the Lombards, most probably in the Moravian-Slovak area where

their presence is archaeologically attested by the discovery of settlements and

cemeteries of the Prague Culture in the valleys of the V

ah and Morava to the

middle Danube. From this region the Slavs spread further to Bohemia, from

whence they could expand into the Elbe region.

The information, from the written sources on the subject of Slavic set-

tlement north of the Danube, is conﬁrmed by the archaeological evidence.

In the zone of direct contact between the South Slavs and the Byzantine

Empire, to the north of the lower Danube, in Wallachia and Moldavia, between

the eastern Carpathians and the Prut, archaeological remains dating to the

sixth and seventh centuries are similar to the Prague and Penkovka cultures.

These cultures are a speciﬁc mixture of different elements: Slavic, Daco-Getic,

Jordanes, Getica v.35.

Procopius, Wars vii.14.30.

Procopius, Wars v.27.2.

Procopius, Wars vii.35.13–22.

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The Slavs 535

Daco-Roman and Byzantine. The earliest of these are groups of the ﬁrst half

of the sixth century of Costis¸a-Botos¸ana type found in Moldavia. This reﬂects

the intermarriage of Slavic and autochthonous cultures, and is evidence of the

settlement of the Slavs along the eastern ﬂanks of the Carpathians. Groups of

the second half of the sixth century of the Ipotes¸ti-Ciurel-C

ındes¸tiCulture in

Romania north of the Danube contain ceramics of Slavic type of the second

half of the sixth century, which is in accord with the information from the

written sources on the presence here of the Slavs.

In these mixed cultures which penetrated the Carpathian passes into south-

east Transylvania the elements connected with the presence of the Slavs are

primarily pottery vessels, among them those of Prague type or the related

Korchak type, but we can also detect building types known previously from the

Ukraine (among them square sunken-ﬂoored buildings with corner-ovens) and

burial rites involving cremation. The Daco-Roman elements are represented by

some types of hand-made ceramic vessels related to the former Dacian culture,

certain building types (such as sunken-ﬂoored buildings with free-standing

ﬁreplaces), but especially the frequent occurrence of wheel-made vessels, the

form of which recalls provincial Roman ones. The third element in these

cultures is represented by Byzantine inﬂuences in the form of some wheel-

made ceramic vessels and the character of some ornaments (ﬁbulae, earrings)

and coins. The mixed ethnic makeup of the Ipotes¸ti-C

ındes¸ti-Ciurel-Costis¸a

Culture is generally accepted, but the most dynamic component of the sixth-

century population north of the lower Danube was formed by the Slavs. The

written sources also allow us to see another component – prisoners taken from

the Balkan areas, deported in huge numbers from the middle of the sixth

century, many of whom seem to have stayed in the territories north of the

Danube and did not return home. The relative stability and peace lasting

in the Slavic territories on the Danube through several decades of the sixth

century which is suggested by the written sources, and the peaceful mode

of their expansion into that area, encouraged close contact between the new

peoples and the local population, who either entered the area willingly or

were led there by force. This hastened the processes of acculturation of the

new arrivals, as well as the assimilation and Slavicisation of part of the foreign

population.

The Suchava-S¸ipot Culture in Moldavia, dated to the late sixth or early

seventh century, represents a second wave of Slav settlement. This has a dif-

ferent character, for most of its elements are linked to Slavic material culture.

Above all the inﬂuence of the Penkovka Culture, often connected with the

Antes, is strongly represented. The ornaments occurring in the same groups

are considered as belonging to the Martynovka type, with close North Pontic

connections. This may be evidence of contacts with Alan tribes and possibly

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536 zbigniew kobyli

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other nomad peoples of this zone. From the moment of the strengthening of

Slavic settlement on the Danube, the second stage of expansion of the Slavs to

the south began. The ﬁrst signs of this can be observed in the middle of the

sixth century. Settlement increases in intensity at the end of the century and

ends about the middle of the seventh century, when considerable areas of the

Balkans were already occupied by the Slavs. The colonisation was preceded in

the ﬁrst decades of the sixth century and maybe even at the end of the ﬁfth

century by raids by Slavs from beyond the Danube, organised either by the

Slavs themselves, or with the help of other peoples, mainly Bulgars from Little

Scythia (Scythia Minor)inthe region of the delta of the Danube.

The Slavic raids of the ﬁrst half of the sixth century had a destructive charac-

ter, being carried out mainly for the purposes of looting. They increased in the

reign of Justinian (527–565), when the Byzantine armies were involved in long

campaigns to restore the frontiers of the Roman Empire.

Justinian attempted

to strengthen the north-eastern frontiers, rebuilding many destroyed Danubian

fortresses, and also refortifying existing and building new forts in the interior

of the Balkan peninsula, for example near important passes through the Balkan

mountains. The fortresses themselves could not hold back the tide of northern

barbarians, and from the time of that emperor come frequent (annual, accord-

ing to Procopius) attacks of the Sclavenoi and Antes who spread destruction

and desertion in the whole of Thrace and Illyria, taking loot and herds of cattle,

seizing numerous prisoners, taking fortresses and being faced with only weak

resistance from the imperial armies. In the years 545–551, especially, the pres-

ence of the Sclavenoi was known even in the furthest Balkan provinces. In 550

a large group of Sclavenoi were preparing for an expedition to Thessalonica,

but with the news of the approach of a great Byzantine army they abandoned

this expedition, and moving instead from the area of Naissus (Ni

s), ‘crossing

all the mountains of Illyria’, found themselves in Dalmatia.

It is also to this

period that we should date the sporadic settlements of small groups of Slavs

in the deserted areas of Moesia Superior and Inferior. We should note too the

presence of certain groups of Slavs in the Byzantine Empire as soldiers.

The appearance of the Avars in this area of Europe additionally complicated

and hastened further developments. This nomadic people arrived about 558 on

the Black Sea steppes, ﬂeeing from central Asia before the Turks and becoming

involved in political struggles between Byzantium, the steppe peoples of the

Black and Azov Sea coasts, and Persia. In deﬁance of Byzantium they attacked

the Utrigurs and Sabiri and defeated the Antes between the Dnepr and Dnestr.

They then turned their attention to the west, to the Franks, with whom they

On the reign of Justinian, see Louth, chapter 4 above.

Procopius, Wars vii.40.7.

Procopius, Wars v.27.1–2.

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The Slavs 537

fought twice (561/2 and 566/7). They then got involved in a Lombard–Gepid

conﬂict, and after overcoming the latter occupied their territory in the Tisza

valley. The Avars next in 568 took the Lombard territories in Pannonia, the

Lombards leaving for northern Italy.

In this manner the Avars very quickly

took over a large area of central Europe from the eastern Carpathians to the

eastern Alps. They conquered all the peoples living in this area, above all the

Gepids, the remains of the autochthonous population, and the Slavs. Besides

the Avars themselves, their kingdom was inhabited by other tribes with whom

they were allied, especially the Bulgars. The written sources tell us about the

presence of Slavs in the Avar realms, including information that Slavic masses

took part in various military expeditions under Avar leadership, especially in

the Balkans.

At least to the end of the sixth century the Wallachian Slavs probably did not

come under Avar domination, but they did take part in joint military action.

The Byzantines tried to prevent this by encouraging conﬂicts between these

Slavs and Avars. For instance, in 578 Byzantium encouraged the Avars to attack

the Wallachian Slavs with the aim of preventing them attacking the Balkans.

The Avar envoys informed the emperor that the Avar khagan ‘wished to crush

the Sclavinoi, common enemies of himself and the Romans’.

Other groups of

Slavs living in the Danube valley came under Avar rule, and suffered oppression.

According to the chronicler Fredegar, writing some time between 640 and 660,

the Slavs took part in military expeditions, doing the bulk of the ﬁghting for

little reward, paid tributes, and suffered many other burdens under their rule.

The character of the relationship between Slavs and Avars may nevertheless be

interpreted somewhat differently in the light of the archaeological evidence.

In Moravia and Slovakia there appears in the seventh century a mixed Slavic–

Avar material culture, interpreted as an expression of peaceful and harmonious

relationships between Avar warriors and Slavic peasants. It is also thought

that at least some of the leaders of Slav tribes could have become part of the

Avar aristocracy. It is with this period of the Avar rule of the Danube basin

that the expansion of the areas settled by the Slavs in the middle Danubian

regions and eastern Alps is associated. The area of former Pannonia, especially

its north-western part and the north-eastern part of Noricum Ripensis, had

already been penetrated by Slavic settlers from the north or north-east by the

middle of the sixth century, and we may observe the settlement in this period

of the Danubian areas in the region of modern north-east Austria by the Slavs.

Mixed assemblages of Slavic and German ﬁnds from this area suggest the

peaceful nature of the settlement processes taking place here.

On the Lombards’ move into Italy, see Moorhead, chapter 6 above.

Menander Protector, Historia ii.30.

Fredegar, Chron. iv.48.

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The second wave of colonisation penetrated from the east by the main river

valleys and was connected with the political expansion of the Avars to the west,

enabled by the movement of the Lombards to northern Italy (568). By about

580,itseems,Slavic settlement in the northern directionhad enveloped the Mur

valley and eastern Carantania. By 587/8, penetrating up the Sava valley, they

reached the region of today’s Ljubljana. Before 591 they had reached the upper

Drava (Drau), and before 600 the valleys of the So

ca (Isonzo) and Vipava. We

have clear information on the progress of the Avar–Slavic military expeditions,

and the progress of colonisation which followed them, from the data on the

destruction of the most important towns of Noricum and Pannonia. Before

579 the towns of Poetovio (today Ptuj) and Virnum (near Klagenfurt) were

destroyed; before 588 Celeia (today Celje) and Emona (Ljubljana) in the Sava

valley both fell; and some time before 591 so too did Teurnia (St Peter im

Holz) and Aguntum (near Lienz) in the upper Drava valley. In 592 and 595 we

hear of the conﬂict between Slavs and the Bavarians on the upper Drava. The

archaeological conﬁrmation of these events lies in traces of the destruction of

certain Lombard–Roman settlements. For example, in Kranj a settlement of

this type was destroyed around 580–590, and the Lombard fort at Meclariae

located in the lower Ziller valley was destroyed shortly after 585. The east

Alpine area, especially western Carantania, was not thickly or evenly settled

because of the mountainous terrain. We should expect a signiﬁcant proportion

of the autochthonous population to have survived here, as well as perhaps the

residue of a German population. This is expressed in the character of the oldest

cultural group deﬁned in this territory, the so-called Carantanian Group dated

to the seventh and eighth centuries, in the inventory of which we can ﬁnd

material with many connections to the material culture of late antiquity and

also analogies with the contemporary Germanic culture.

The last decades of the sixth and beginning of the seventh century are a

period of increase in the military activity of the Avars against the Eastern

Empire. Many times negotiations took place, high tributes were paid, and

attempts were made to turn Avar attention to the east, but this did not sufﬁce

to defend the Balkan provinces of the Empire from destructive attacks, in

which masses of Slavs also took part – both those under Avar rule and allied

tribes. In this period more and more frequently Slavic groups settled in the

Balkans. About 581, many Slavic tribes settled in the region of Thessalonica,

creating there a ‘Macedonian Sclavinia’. As John of Ephesus (also known as

John of Amida) tells us in 581:

The accursed nation known as the Slavs wandered across the whole of Greece, the

lands of the Thessalonians and the whole of Thrace, taking many towns and forts,

which they destroyed and burnt, enslaving the people, and making themselves rulers

The Slavs 539

of the whole country. They settled by force and behaved just as if they were in their

homelands, and even today [i.e., in 584]they still live there and lead a peaceful life in

Roman territory, free of anxiety and fear. They take prisoners, murdering people and

burning houses.

It is suspected that after the great siege of Thessalonica, about 586, part of

the Slavic tribes together with the Avars reached the Peloponnese, annexing

fertile lands in the western part of the peninsula and provoking the escape of

the Greek population to Sicily and other islands. The so-called Monemvasia

Chronicle states that in the years 587–588:

The Avars and their Slav allies took all of Thessalonica and Greece, Old Epirus, Attica,

and Eubea, they attacked the Peloponnese and took it by force. They settled here,

driving out and destroying the local Hellenic peoples. Those who could escape from

their murderous hands scattered here and there, thus the inhabitants of Patras moved

to the region of Reggio in Calabria, the inhabitants of Argos on the island known as

Orobos, the Orynt inhabitants to the island of Aegina...onlytheeastpartofthe

Peloponnese, from Corinth to the Cape of Maleas, remains untouched by the Slavs

because it is mountainous and inaccessible.

The taking of Sirmium by the Slavs in 582 weakened the defences of the

northern frontier, allowing the barbarians access to the Balkans. At this time

many Danubian towns, such as Castra Martis, Ratiaria, Oescus and Acra, dis-

appear from the pages of history, and after the sixth century there is no further

mention of them. The looting expeditions of the Avars and Slavs reached the

shores of the Black Sea and the Adriatic. Many Dalmatian towns fell victim to

them. In 592 Byzantium attempted for the last time to halt the barbarians on

the line of the lower Danube. The end of the wars with the Persians allowed the

emperor Maurice (582–602)totransfer the army to the northern frontier. Wars

with the Avars and Slavs continued mainly in the Danubian area with varying

fortunes until 602 when, as a result of a military revolt, Maurice was deposed

and killed. From that time the Danubian frontier is considered to have ceased

to be defensible and the Balkans were open to barbarian settlement. Only a

few Danubian forts and towns lasted through the ﬁrst decades of the seventh

century. The beginning of the seventh century also sees the attack of the Avars

on the Antes (602), who were allied with Byzantium.

This is the last mention

of the Antes in the written sources, and some scholars believe that this attack

was the cause of the end of that tribal union. Archaeological support for such

a thesis is the disappearance of the Penkovka Culture at this time. The areas

occupied by this cultural group were not, however, depopulated, which is sug-

gested by the numerous ﬁnds of objects belonging to the Luka Rajkovetska

Culture, genetically related to the Korchak material.

Theophylact Simocatta, Historiae viii.5.13.

540 zbigniew kobyli

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In the ﬁrst decades of the seventh century Byzantium found itself in an

extremely critical position. Threatened by Persia in the east, it had no possibility

of opposing the settlement of Slavs on the frontiers of its Balkan possessions.

Both Phokas (602–610) and his successor Heraclius (610–641) attempted to

buy off the Avar attackers with high tributes.

However these did not prevent

the Avars from looting raids. In the years 612–614 Dalmatia especially suffered

on this account. Salona, the capital of the province, fell. A series of towns on

the Adriatic coast and islands escaped destruction, and in them the inhabitants

of other regions of Dalmatia defended themselves. In 626 there was a joint

Avar–Persian military expedition as a result of which Constantinople itself was

besieged by land and sea by the Persians and Avars, who brought with them

large numbers of Slavs. Constantinople was able to defend itself owing to

naval supremacy (using Greek Fire among other tactics), and the defeat which

the Avars suffered broke their power and brought an end to their military

supremacy in the Balkans.

At the same time the supremacy of the Avars was challenged on the north-

west and north-east fringes of their state. A revolt against Avar rule broke out

among the peripheral Slavic tribes, as a result of which arose the ephemeral

structure known in the literature as the ‘state of Samo’.

The existence of this

political organism is known from the chronicle of Fredegar.

According to

Fredegar, the Frankish merchant Samo came to the Slavic territories in the

reign of Chlothar II about 623–625,atatime when the Slavs were revolting

from Avar rule. He joined them in this ﬁght, and soon became their leader.

The rise of a Slavic tribal union under Samo was disturbing to the Franks,

and so in 631 King Dagobert led an expedition against Samo, but was defeated

at Wogastisburg, the Slavic stronghold at an unidentiﬁed location which we

have already mentioned.

The state of Samo, the ﬁrst state organisation of

the Slavs to be historically conﬁrmed, lasted until sometime between 658 and

669 and fell apart after Samo’s death. The slight information contained in

Fredegar’s chronicle does not allow the frontiers of the state to be deﬁned with

any certainty, but it has often been suggested that its centre lay in Moravia. It

would have had the character of a federation of many Slavic tribes, amongst

whom would be found the Czechs, Sorbs living on the Elbe river, and probably

the Carantanian Slavs. At this time Dalmatia too was probably freed from the

domination of the Avars. There were disturbances on the Black Seaand Caspian

steppes and internal troubles in the Avar state. As a result of these events the

Avar state became a political organism the inﬂuence of which did not extend

beyond the Danubian area.