Avar society undergoes profound changes as its warriors are forced to abandon the pursuits of war and turn inwards to govern their own realm. Meanwhile, to their west, a usurper ascends the Frankish throne and makes a pact with the bishop of Rome, leading to the rise of a new regional power.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to A history of Romania.

Season 2, Episode 14: A rising shadow

Last time, we saw emperor Konstantinos V strike the Bulgar khanate again and again hoping to destroy it. The Bulgars were initially paralyzed by infighting, but they eventually came together to face this common threat, and leaned more on their Slavic subjects for support. In so doing, they saved their khanate and inadvertently gave the Slavs more influence in it.

That story brought us to the end of the eighth century, but before we head into the next one, we also have to consider the other steppe nation of the region: the Avars of the Carpathian Basin. The last time we spoke about the Avars was in episode nine when we explored the Sermesianoi. These were a group of Roman descendants in the khaganate who had mixed with the Avars and Bulgars, had chosen a leader amongst themselves, and forced the khagan to recognize them as a distinct people who had the right to bear arms. Many of these Sermesianoi had wanted to return to the towns and villages of their forefathers in the empire, and so, sometime in the 670s, they had fought their way out of the khaganate and thereafter dispersed in the Balkans.

After those events, we have almost no written record of the Avars for the next hundred years. It’s not because they disappeared, but because they were mostly peaceful during that time, and contemporary writers tended to mainly write about wars; if the Avars weren’t involved in a conflict, they simply weren’t mentioned.

The only mention of Avars that we have before the end of the eighth century concerns events in 742. A chronicler reports that the Avars meant to march against the Carantanians, meaning the Slavs living in the eastern Alps. The ruler of these Slavs went to the Bavarians for help, and together, they defeated the invading Avars. In gratitude for the help they had received, the Carantanians accepted Bavarian missionaries in their lands. Now we don’t know why the Avars attacked the Carantanians, nor anything else about this event. It’s a brief flash in a century that is otherwise shrouded in darkness. To reconstruct what happened in the khaganate during the eighth century, the best we can do is look at sources written at the end of that century, and then work backwards with the help of archeological finds.

As we’ve already seen, the defeats which the Avars had suffered in the seventh century had forced them to alter their way of life. Since they no longer conducted regular wars and raids, they no longer received subsidies and plunder; with fewer goods to go around, the size of the Avar elite shrank, and those who were less prosperous turned to herding and even farming to sustain themselves.

As the Avars were forced to look inwards, they sought new ways to maintain their economy, and one solution was to extend their control over the salt mines of the Carpathian Mountains. The Avars technically ruled the whole of the Carpathian Basin, but in reality, their effective control over the eastern regions was negligible. They were horse riders who mainly lived on the plains along the Danube and Tisza, and they didn’t much penetrate the mountainous regions of the East. Yet they now seem to have made a concerted effort to assert their authority over their eastern borderlands.

Archeologists have found a substantial number of Avar graves in the Mureş Valley starting in the eighth century. This region of the Carpathian Mountains had several salt mines that had been in use at least since Roman times. When the empire had retreated from the region, the provincials who remained behind continued to extract salt from surface sites. The descendants of those provincials had by now become Romanians, and they knew the local salt mines by the names of Ocnișoara, Ocna Mureșului, Ocna Dejului, Sic, and Turda.

Whereas before the Avars had demanded a tribute of salt from these communities, they now rode into the Mureş Valley to assert their direct control over salt extraction and trade. These horse riders needed large quantities of the mineral to cure and preserve meat, since most of their economy relied on raising and slaughtering cattle. Salt was also an extremely valuable trade good—used in food preparation and preservation, as well as medicine—and since not every region had accessible deposits, the Avars could barter salt for goods that they needed. As such, their expansion into their eastern borderlands was key to sustaining their economy.

While the Avars strengthened their control over their realm, they also sought to better protect it. In the eighth century, they compelled their subjects to build dikes and ditches around their core area of settlement between the Danube and the Tisza. These fortifications covered nearly 1,300 kilometres, with some parts having several dikes running in parallel lines, which would’ve entailed an enormous amount of work. Other contemporaneous societies also built extensive earthworks: there’s Offa’s Dyke between Mercia and Wales, the Dannevirke on the southern boundary of the Danish kingdom, and the Bulgars’ earthworks in Dobrogea. But the point of the Avar fortifications may not have been primarily military in nature, since they couldn’t have stopped an invading army; rather, these dikes and ditches could’ve served as a symbolic extension of the khagan’s power, radiating his authority throughout the land and signaling to his enemies that he was prepared for any attack.

The workers who built these massive earthworks came from various ethnic groups; we know that Slavs lived all across the khaganate and especially in its northern and western regions; that Romance communities inhabited lands around lake Balaton and in the Carpathian Mountains; and that there were some Gepid and Lombard communities who had remained behind after their peoples had migrated out of the region. However, we can’t draw a detailed picture of any of these groups because we lack written sources and extensive archeological digs.

We can, however, draw a more detailed picture of the Avars themselves, since they left more distinct archeological finds. One element which stands out in the archeological record is that Avar burials in the eighth century are much less opulent than in the past. That’s no surprise. Since families no longer acquired luxury goods through war and raiding, they passed on their valued items to the next generation instead of using them for magnificent funerals. But the practice of furnishing graves with precious goods didn’t stop, since investing in funerary rituals was part of Avar culture; it’s just that the culture had to adapt as the material circumstances of the khaganate changed.

For instance, we find fewer reflex bows, sabers, and battle-axes in eighth-century graves. This isn’t because Avar men no longer owned weapons, but because, as more of them engaged in herding and farming, war was no longer their main occupation, and the role of weapons in funerary rituals decreased.

During this period, men were regularly buried with their belts, and about one in ten Avar men were interred with a full belt-set, which reflected their rank, descent, and kinship. Such belts were manufactured on a large scale, which was possible since workshops across the khaganate used similar bronze casts. This standardized approach created belts which were of lower quality than in the previous century, with silver and gold pieces being rare, but it also created enough luxury goods to sustain the prestige economy of the khaganate.

Plus, artisans made up for the lower quality of these belts by giving them richer decorative elements. Belt buckles and horse harnesses were embellished with lattice patterns and were regularly adorned with griffins, battling beasts, predators, and hunting scenes. In the mythology of the steppe, these images symbolized the cycle of death and rebirth, and it’s probably not a coincidence that such figures were particularly popular in the eighth century; this sort of zoomorphic art may have enabled Avar warriors to maintain their identity—and their pride—in an increasingly agrarian society. Such artwork about animals and hunting also suggests that, as they no longer went to war, the Avars displayed their martial prowess more and more through hunting.

This change in Avar self-identity was paralleled by a change in their political system. Until the late seventh century, the khagan had complete control over the Avar realm; even though he had influential advisors, he alone could declare war and negotiate treaties. Yet during the course of the eighth century, several offices appeared alongside that of the khagan; these offices had their origins in the eastern steppes—namely the Turkic peoples of Central Asia from which the Avars had fled, as well as the neighbouring Khazars and Bulgars.

The most notable new office was that of the iugurrus, who acted as a junior co-ruler to the khagan. We don’t know what the iugurrus’ responsibilities were; we can only speculate based on similar examples. The Khazars, for instance, had a khagan and a deputy. Their khagan was always chosen from the same family and embodied the ancient prestige of his dynasty; he mediated between Heaven and Earth to maintain harmony, and had a purely symbolic role. Meanwhile, his deputy was the one who led the army, directed internal affairs, and negotiated with neighbours. However, we can’t directly apply this model to the Avars, since the iugurrus never acted on his own initiative; he did have followers of his own and did send envoys to foreign courts, but he always acted in unison with his senior co-ruler.

Both men lived in the Avar capital—called hringe by the Franks, meaning “ring.” The site was probably located between the Danube and the Tisza, and consisted of tents and wooden structures surrounded by several concentric circles of palisades and ditches, similar to the Bulgar capital of Pliska. It’s here, in his hringe, that the khagan kept the immense treasures his ancestors had captured over the centuries. By controlling this vast wealth, he was able to maintain his position above everyone else in the khaganate, including the iugurrus.

We have no sources about how the office of iugurrus came about, but its emergence suggests that, at some point in the eighth century, the khagan’s position was weakened and his power was restricted. Such a shift could’ve been the result of a change in dynasties or the rise of new groups within the khaganate—like the Sermesianoi.

What’s clear is that sovereign power within the khaganate was divided between the khagan and the iugurrus. But even when these two acted together, they still didn’t have the absolute authority of the khagans of old; there were other high dignitaries in the realm who had taken their share of power as well, and who could not be fully controlled by these dual rulers.

There was, for instance, the tudun, a widespread title amongst steppe peoples which usually designated a provincial governor. In the Avar khaganate, there was only one tudun; he had his own “populus,” meaning people or nation, and ruled a specific area of the realm. Here again, the example of the Sermesianoi comes to mind as a possible analogy; perhaps as with that earlier case, a new ethnic group had emerged within the khaganate and the khagan had recognized the tudun as their leader. That’s pure speculation on my part, but what is not speculation is that the tudun was the third most powerful man in the realm.

Moving on down the hierarchy, the khaganate also held a kapkhan and several tarkhans, two titles which are also attested amongst the Bulgars at the time. We have next to no information about their roles, though; the kapkhan may have ruled a portion of the realm, while tarkhan may have been an honorific title for some select nobles, but which didn’t grant them specific powers.

One particularly interesting title is that of župan. Its etymology is still debated, but the consensus seems to be that it originated with Turkic peoples in Central Asia. Like many other titles, župan was used by the Avars as well as the Bulgars, and, in both cases, it designated a distinguished member of the nobility. Archeologists have found two bowls with inscriptions in an unknown language rendered using Greek letters. The first inscription reads “boila zoapan,” and the second, “butaul zoapan.” Zoapan is the transcription of the title župan, whereas Boila and Butaul are, respectively, a class of nobles and someone’s name.

We should pause here a second to consider the language used on these bowls. As we saw in a previous episode, scholars haven’t found a satisfactory answer to what language the Avars spoke, so the unknown language on these bowls may in fact have been the one spoken by the Avar elite. It’s also noteworthy that the artisans who transcribed that language used the Greek script, not the Latin one; Greek and Latin were the two choices available to them, one used by the Roman empire to their East, and the other used by the kingdoms to their West. The fact that these artisans chose to use Greek letters suggests that, despite the khaganate’s former antagonism with the Roman empire, Avar society was still somewhat connected to it and part of its cultural sphere.

Another interesting point is that the title of župan gradually spread from the Avars to the Slavs. The earliest use of the term amongst the Slavs was recorded in 777 just beyond the western frontier of the khaganate, and probably referred to a village elder or village head. It could be that, having lived in close proximity to the Avars for generations, the Slavs picked up the title from them and applied it to the distinguished members of their own communities, namely local chieftains.

If we consider all these titles together, from iugurrus to župan, we get a sense of the evolution of Avar society in the eighth century. It seems that, as the khagan could no longer add to his treasure, he stopped handing out prestige goods to his followers, and instead hoarded the wealth he still possessed in his hringe to protect his dominant position. But his subordinates still needed to be rewarded for their service, and so the khagan handed out privileges to his followers, which were reflected in new titles. The use of Turkic terms harkened back to their nomadic steppe roots and helped the Avars maintain a sense of cultural superiority even as they were now sedentary and more like their subjects than ever before. But most importantly, the creation of these offices was a way to maintain the social hierarchy of the Avar ruling class, with the khagan as its pinnacle; these subordinate offices did fragment the khagan’s power, but they also ensured that his nobles continued to look to him for privileges and legitimacy. And now more than ever, the khagan needed his followers to rally behind him, because a new threat was looming on his borders: the Franks.

The last time we talked about the Franks was in episode eight when their king had supported rebels in the khaganate. But we didn’t go into detail about who they were as a people, and they now deserve a fuller introduction. The Franks have a fascinating history, and although we can’t do it justice in half an episode, we can give a sketch that’ll serve the purposes of our story.

The Franks were a Germanic people originating along the Rhine in the third century who had fought alternatively against and for the Romans. As the western Roman empire was collapsing in the fifth century, the Franks subjugated a large number of Roman towns and cities in Gaul. Their king at the time, Chlodwig, sought ways to agreeably govern his new subjects, and so adopted some Roman ways to ease the transition from imperial to Frankish rule; for instance, he continued to strike coins with the image of the Roman emperor on them, he codified Frankish civil and criminal law while incorporating Roman traditions, and, most importantly, he converted to Christianity.

When Chlodwig died, his realm was partitioned equally amongst his four sons, as was the custom amongst the Franks. This inevitably led to war as each son sought to regain his father’s predominant position. Such endemic fighting continued in the next generations as well, since whenever one contender managed to unite all parts of the realm, he again had to divide it between his sons upon his death.

These various Frankish kings had no fixed capital nor central administration; instead, they travelled from town to town to enforce their authority, while their household and entourage were managed by the mayor of the palace. This official was appointed by the king from amongst his most powerful supporters to run his court. Over several generations, the mayor of the palace gained more responsibilities and influence, and by the late seventh century, he styled himself dux et princeps Francorum, meaning “duke and prince of the Franks.” The term “duke” was a reference to his military authority, while the term “prince” alluded to sovereign power. Indeed, by the late seventh century, the mayor of the palace had come to wield the actual power in the realm, whereas the king had been relegated to a ceremonial role to continue the lineage of Chlodwig.

By the middle of the eighth century, one particularly ambitious mayor of the palace, named Pippin, felt that he didn’t need a ceremonial king anymore; he wanted the title for himself. And so, in 751, Pippin deposed the king, got himself elected by his nobles, and crowned by the most influential cleric in his realm, the archbishop of Mainz.

Soon after his coronation, Pippin received a letter from the bishop of the city of Rome, also known as the pope. The word “pope” actually comes from the Greek páppas, meaning “father,” a term which was initially used for all bishops in the Roman empire. In time, communities who lived under the influence of the eastern Roman empire came to apply the term to their priests; it’s in fact where the Romanian word for “priest” comes from: páppas became popă. However, in the regions of the former western Roman empire, páppas gradually came to refer only to the bishop of the city of Rome, from which we get the term “pope.”

At this point in history, the pope was still under the protection of the Roman emperor. Though the empire had lost Italy in the fifth century, much of the peninsula had been reconquered by Justinian in the sixth. Those lands were put under the jurisdiction of the exarchate of Ravenna, an imperial province named after its main city which had in fact been the last capital of the western Roman empire. Part of the exarchate’s possessions included the city of Rome, and the emperor felt it was his responsibility to defend its inhabitants and their bishop .

What they needed to be defended from was the Lombards, a Germanic people who had invaded Italy in the sixth century and, from then on, had continuously battled the Romans for control of the peninsula. Unfortunately for imperial subjects in Italy, the emperor in the middle of the eighth century—Konstantinos V—was fully focused on the Balkans, as we saw last episode. That meant that the exarchate of Ravenna was left to fend for itself without reinforcements. Eventually, imperial forces succumbed to continued Lombard attacks and, in 750, the city of Ravenna and its dependencies fell to the king of the Lombards. Though the empire still had territories in southern Italy, its lands in the north were now gone, and the city of Rome lost its shield.

The pope at the time, Stephanus II, needed to immediately find a new protector. The only realistic option was the Franks, since they were relatively close and definitely powerful. And so, Stephanus journeyed north of the Alps to meet Pippin and convince him to intervene in Italy. It was no small request to lead an army south of the Alps, but Pippin understood that he had been given a unique opportunity to strengthen his legitimacy. He was, after all, a usurper who had deposed Chlodwig’s lineage going back centuries. It’s true, he had been anointed by the archbishop of the German lands, but he could think of no higher honour than of being anointed by the bishop of Rome, the original imperial city. And so, the two men struck a deal: Stephanus would legitimize Pippin, and Pippin would protect Stephanus.

In the summer of 754, the pope anointed the Frankish king again and forbade the Franks from ever electing anyone who was not part of his lineage. The following two campaign seasons, Pippin marched against the Lombards and defeated them in battle. He then forced their king to pay him a tribute, and gave the pope the city of Ravenna and its dependencies, as well as some Lombard lands in central Italy.

The resulting peace treaty was signed by the “Romans, Franks, and Lombards.” These “Romans” weren’t the inhabitants of the empire; rather, they were the inhabitants of the city of Rome. It’s confusing, I know, but the confusion was kind of the point, because the pope was trying to appropriate the term “Roman” for himself. The logic was twofold: first, the people of the city of Rome still called themselves Roman, and second, the pope saw himself as their leader. You see, when the western Roman empire collapsed, all of its institutions eventually crumbled as well; for instance, the Senate did continue to meet after the emperor was deposed, but after a century or so, it ceased to function as a public body. The only institution which had been present during the empire and which had survived into the present was the Church. In the city of Rome, bishops had succeeded one another in a continuous line going all the way back to Jesus’ apostle, Peter, and had shepherded its inhabitants throughout all the intervening centuries. As such, the pope could argue that he was the last remaining legitimate leader of the city of Rome and its inhabitants, the Romans.

Indeed, Stephanus used the papacy’s link with the city of Rome to its fullest extent to transform his symbolic power into tangible influence. For example, when he had crowned Pippin, he had also granted him the title of Patricius Romanorum, meaning “Patrician of the Romans.” That title had roots in the Roman Republic, was later introduced by emperor Constantine as the empire’s senior honorific title, and was still in use in the East; just last episode, we saw how emperor Konstantinos had granted the title of patrician to a Bulgar khan who had fled into exile in Constantinople. But the last time the title was used in the West—at least as far as I was able to find—was in the year 488. The emperor in Constantinople at the time had elevated the leader of the eastern Goths, Theodoric, to the rank of patrician and commanded him to march into Italy to overthrow Odoacer, the man who had deposed the last western Roman emperor. Theodoric had been the last patrician in the West.

As such, the title had always been granted by the emperor, not a religious authority, and the tradition had long been lost in the West. But now, the bishop of Rome simply gave himself the power to grant the title of patrician; and who was going to stop him? The empire couldn’t exert its direct authority over him, and the Frankish king was all too happy to accept the honour. In fact, during the same ceremony in which he crowned Pippin king and patrician, Stephanus also granted those titles to Pippin’s sons. It was the first crowning of a civil ruler by a pope.

Stephanus’ position was put to the test when envoys from the Roman emperor arrived in Italy. They congratulated him on getting back the lands the Lombards had stolen and said that it was now time to return them to their rightful owner. Those lands had belonged to the exarchate of Ravenna and Stephanus was still technically an imperial subject—plus, these envoys brought a nice bag of gold to expedite the transfer. But the pope outright refused to return the lands he’d gained, arguing that they belonged to Saint Peter and the Church of the city of Rome. So what did the envoys do? Well, nothing. The empire’s armies were engaged in the Balkans, while the pope had the backing of the Franks. Stephanus was, in effect, asserting his independence, and the envoys couldn’t push back.

When Pippin died, his realm was split between his two sons, as was the custom amongst their people. Yet one of these sons died within three years, leaving the Franks with a single king: Charlemagne. Now, long-time listeners know that, in the podcast, I strive to steer clear of anglicized historical names and to instead pronounce them as they sounded at the time—in as much as we can reconstruct the original name and to the best of my pronunciation abilities. It’s why I’ve said things like Maurikios as opposed to Maurice. But in the case of some more famous names—like Constantine, Justinian, or Charlemagne—so many people know them by that name that it would be more confusing to use their “original” name. So, although Charlemagne was known as Karlo to his entourage, I’ll still call him Charlemagne.

Now, Charlemagne was an ambitious young man—even more so than his father. At the age of six, he had been anointed king of the Franks and patrician of the Romans by the highest clerical authority in the West; at the age of twenty-three, he had become sole king; and through it all, he had grown up surrounded by power, knowing nothing else. Only a year into his sole rule, envoys from the pope arrived to ask for his support. You see, Pippin had not completely defeated the Lombards and, once he passed away, they had recanted their allegiance to the Franks and reconquered some of their former lands. What’s worse, the Lombards were sheltering Charlemagne’s nephews; these were the sons of his deceased brother and former co-king, and so they posed a threat to his legitimacy as potential contenders to the throne.

As such, Charlemagne agreed to the pope’s request for help. In 773, he personally led an army through the Alps and, within a year, captured the Lombard king and completely defeated his forces. He then returned the lands which the papacy had lost, reaffirmed his father’s donation of them, and vowed to forever protect the bishop of Rome. His nephews, on the other hand, were never heard from again.

As to the Lombards, Charlemagne could’ve chosen a new king for them from amongst their nobility—but he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t feel he could trust the loyalty of a client king, or maybe he wanted direct control of the riches of the Lombard lands. Whatever the reason, Charlemagne confined the Lombard king to a monastery and took the title of King of the Lombards for himself. This was an unprecedented move; no king in Europe had ever usurped the title of another and added it to his own. But who was going to stop him? One technical point in his favour was that the Lombard monarchy was elective rather than hereditary, with the dukes of the realm choosing the ruler. And so, Charlemagne could ostensibly claim that he had been “elected” as their king. In any case, the Frankish king returned north of the Alps with two crowns—and the Lombard royal treasury.

Following the collapse of their kingdom, some Lombard nobles fled to the Avars. Their two peoples had been allies for more than two centuries ever since they had banded together to defeat the Gepids. Now in the late 770s, Lombard nobles arrived at the khagan’s court with stories of Charlemagne’s might—and ambition. The Frankish king had shown that he would not tolerate anyone sheltering his enemies, and that he had a taste for treasure. The khagan must’ve soon asked himself the question: how long will it be until Charlemagne decides to come for me?

Next time, the Frankish king will turn his gaze eastwards, and the khagan will meet it with all the might he can muster.