WARS WITH AVARS AND SCLAVES.
It is a remarkable ethnological fact, and one for which there does
not seem any obvious explanation, that, almost ever since the great
barbarian migrations of the fourth century, the country between the
Danube and the Carpathian mountains has been occupied by a people
belonging to that which, for want of a better word, we call the
Turanian stock; and yet that this Turanian deposit should not have
been one and the same throughout, but was the result of three distinct
migrations. In the fourth century the great non-Aryan nation on the
Middle Danube was the Huns; from the tenth century to the present day
it has been that noble nation whom their Sclavonic neighbors have named
Hungarians, but who call themselves Magyars; between 567 and 800, it
was the savage and somewhat uninteresting people of the Avars.[51]
The power of the Avars was at its height in the reign of the emperor
Heraclius (626) when they formed the siege of Constantinople, and,
joining hands with the Persians, had well-nigh accomplished the ruin of
the eastern Empire. Soon after this came the revolt of the Bulgarians
from the Avar sway, and from that time onward, the power of the Avars
steadily declined, but though no longer formidable to Constantinople
they were still securely quartered in the vast plains of Hungary, and
were most unwelcome neighbors to their old allies the Lombards of
Italy. Twice in the course of the seventh century had they descended
upon the duchy of Friuli, and each time their invasions had been marked
by that character of destruction and purposeless brutality which has
ever been the especial note of the Tartar conqueror.
If the Avars were at all like their Hunnish kinsmen (which is not
improbable) they were small of stature, and swarthy in color. Their
long locks hanging down behind, in a kind of woven pigtails, are
specially noticed by the Frankish poets. They were essentially a
predatory nation, and (again arguing from the analogy of the Huns) we
may presume that they were a nation of horsemen, dashing hither and
thither on their nimble and hardy ponies, and vanishing ere the heavy
squadrons of the Greeks or the Lombards could come up with them. They
had one chief ruler, who was called the _chagan_ of the Avars--the same
title with which we are familiar as the Tartar khan--and under him, in
a degree of subordination which it would be hopeless now to determine,
were lieutenants or sub-kings, who bore the title of _tudun_. We hear
also of the _jugur_, apparently not a proper name, but the title of a
chief who contests the supremacy with the _chagan_. _Tarchan_ seems to
be a collective word for the Avar nobility.
The capital of the Avars consisted of a series of earthworks, which
were known (probably to their German neighbors, not to themselves)
by the collective name of the _Hring_. Of this Hring an interesting
description is given by the monk of St. Gall,[52] who wrote some ninety
years after its destruction, but who professes to tell the story as he
heard it in his boyhood from an old soldier named Adalbert, who had
served in the Avar campaigns. With a charming touch of nature, the
old monk describes how the veteran used to prose on about his warlike
experiences, and how he as a boy resisted, and often escaped from the
tedious tale, but yet was in the end forced to listen and to learn.
He says: “The land of the Huns or [Avars] as Adalbert used to tell me
was girdled with nine circles. Then said I, who had never seen any
circles [circular fences] except those made of osiers, “What sort of
marvel was that, sir?” and he answered, “It was fortified with nine
_hegin_.” I, who had never seen any hedges except those with which the
crops are guarded, asked him some more questions, and he said, “One
circle was as wide as the distance from Zurich to Constance [thirty
miles]: it was made of stems of oak, beech, or fir, twenty feet high
and twenty feet broad. All the hollow part [between the walls] was
filled either with very hard stones, or with most tenacious chalk,
and then the top of the structure was covered with strong turfs. In
between the turfs were planted shrubs which were pruned and lopped, so
as to make them shoot forth boughs and leaves. Between one mound and
another the villages and farms were placed, always within earshot of
one another; and opposite to them the walls (in themselves impregnable)
were pierced by narrow gateways, through which the inhabitants, both
those who lived in the inner circle and those who were in the outer
ring, used to sally forth for the sake of plunder. From the second
circle, which was constructed like the first, there was a distance of
twenty Teutonic or forty Italian miles to the third, and so on to the
ninth, though [of course], each successive circle was smaller than the
one before it. And from circle to circle the farms and dwellings were
so arranged on all sides, that an alarm could be given by sound of the
trumpet from each circle to its neighbor.”
It is easy to see that this description cannot be scientifically
accurate (the distance between the “rings” especially must be greatly
over-stated): but still, this sketch of the camp-city of a robber
horde, entrenched in the plains of Hungary in order to make war on the
growing civilization of the west, is surely worthy of our attention,
and helps us to understand what were the difficulties of Charles and
his subject princes in breaking the power of this barbarous race.
It will be remembered that one of the grounds of accusation against the
insubordinate Duke of Bavaria was, that he had been intriguing with the
Avars against his lord. It is probable that, sooner or later, when he
found Charles bent on his destruction, Tassilo did make overtures of
some kind for a league of mutual defence with his formidable eastern
neighbors. Certain it is that they came, though too late to help him,
with two armies against the Franks (788). One army went southward
against the duchy of Friuli, the other westward against Bavaria. Both
were defeated, the latter at Ips on the Danube (about forty miles south
of Linz), having only just touched the frontier of Bavaria. Enraged
at meeting such a hostile reception from the Bavarians whom, as they
said, they came to help, they made another invasion later in the same
year; but the two brave _missi_ of Charles, Grahamann and Audacer, who
had repelled the previous invasion now again won a signal victory.
Great was the slaughter on the field, and multitudes of the flying
Avars were whelmed in the waters of the Danube.
It is probable that Charles was already revolving in his mind plans
for the entire subjugation of the barbarous Avar nationality, but he
knew that such an enterprise would require long preparations, and
meanwhile events were again occurring on the Elbe which required his
immediate attention. The Saxons, it is true, were still apparently
submissive to the yoke--we are now in that seven years’ peace (785–792)
which followed the submission of Widukind--but there was a fierce and
warlike Sclavonic tribe called by themselves Welatabi, but by the
Franks Wiltzi, who dwelt beyond the Elbe in the country which has since
been named Pomerania, and these people, having by the subjugation
of the Saxons become next-door neighbors to the Frankish State, was
displaying those qualities which generally bring the less civilized
race into collision with the more civilized, when a narrow boundary
divides them. As the chronicler puts it: “This people was ever hostile
to the Franks, and was wont to pursue with their hatred, to oppress
and harass in war all their neighbors who were either subject to the
Franks or in league with them. Whose insolence the king thought he
ought no longer to put up with, and he therefore determined to attack
them in war, and, having collected a large army, he crossed the
Danube[53] at Cologne” (789). He marched through Saxon-land, crossed
the Elbe by two bridges, led his army (in whose ranks fought many of
the lately subdued Saxons), into the hostile territory, and, according
to the usual formula, laid everything waste with fire and sword. The
Wiltzi, though a warlike people, lost heart, and when the oldest and
most powerful of their chiefs, a man named Dragawit, came in and made
his submission to Charles, all the others followed his example. There
were the usual oaths of vassalage, surrender of hostages, perhaps a
promise of tribute: but although, from the way in which it is mentioned
by Charles’s biographer it is evident that this campaign against the
Wiltzi was an arduous one, it cannot be said to have produced any
enduring results. Speaking generally, the Elbe remained the boundary of
the Frankish kingdom. The various Sclavonic tribes on the other side
of it were, to borrow a term from modern diplomacy, “in the Frankish
sphere of influence,” but they were not obedient citizens of the
Frankish state.
We return to the affairs of the Avars. The year 790 was a quiet one, so
much so that Charles, now verging on his fiftieth year, and “fearing
to grow torpid through lack of exercise,” sailed up the Main and the
Franconian Saale to his palace of Königshofen by the banks of the
latter river, and returned in like manner to Worms. But even in this
year there were discussions and altercations concerning boundaries
with the ambassadors of the Avars. Charles was evidently making his
preparations and accumulating materials for his case against the doomed
nationality.
Next year, 791, the storm burst, and Charles made his great, his only
personally commanded expedition, into Avar-land. At a council of
Franks, Saxons, and Frisians held at Ratisbon, it was decided that “on
account of the great and intolerable malice which the Avars had shown
towards the Holy Church and the Christian people, and the impossibility
of obtaining justice at their hands by means of the royal messengers,
a hostile expedition should march against them.” The whole army
marched to the river Enns, the boundary of Avar-land, and there for
three days sang litanies and witnessed solemn masses imploring God
“for the safety of the army, the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
victory and vengeance against the Avars.” Charles then, according to
his usual custom, divided his army, marching himself along the south
bank of the Danube, and sending the Saxon and Frisian auxiliaries
with some Franks along the northern bank. The Avars had erected two
strongholds, one on each side of the river, at a little distance above
the modern city of Vienna: but they were struck with panic fear when
they saw the two columns marching on either side of the river, and the
ships (laden probably with provisions) sailing majestically between
them. They abandoned their strongholds without striking a blow, “and
so, Christ leading on his own people, both armies entered the country
without sustaining any loss.” It was, in fact, a military promenade.
Charles marched through the country, ravaging as he went, as far as the
river Raab, and then, “after traversing and laying waste a great part
of Pannonia, carried back his army safe and sound into Bavaria. This
expedition was made without inconvenience of any kind, save that in
that part of the army which the king commanded, so great a pestilence
arose among the horses that scarcely the tenth part out of so many
thousands of horses is said to have remained alive.” The king returned
to Ratisbon, which he evidently intended now to make his headquarters
till the end of the Avar war, and kept his Christmas there.
Next year, however (792), broke out the conspiracy of Pippin the
Hunchback, and this probably occupied so much of Charles’s attention
as to make it impossible to undertake an expedition into Avar-land. He
remained, however, during the whole year in Bavaria, and ordered the
construction of a bridge of boats which he might in the next campaign
throw across the Danube, and so at any moment unite the two armies
marching along the opposite banks of the river.
In 793 came the terrible tidings of the destruction of Theodoric’s
army by the banks of the Weser, and the rekindling of the Saxon war,
deadlier and fiercer than ever. The abortive attempt to canalize the
feeders of the Danube and the Rhine, and so unite those two great
arteries of his kingdom, occupied Charles all the summer of that year.
On its failure he recognized that the war against the Avars must be
suspended for a season, at any rate as far as his personal share in it
was concerned. He set his face northward and made Frankfurt, Aachen,
and the towns of Saxon-land itself, his abiding places during the six
years that followed.
But it seems that the great campaign of 791 had been even more
successful than it was thought to be at the time. There appear to have
been jealousies and rivalries in the Avar kingdom which, as soon as the
restraint of fear was removed, as soon as it was seen that the _chagan_
was not invincible, broke forth into open dissension and completed the
wreck of the barbarous state. In the summer of 795, while Charles,
keenly intent on the Saxon war, was encamped by the Elbe in a place
near to the present site of Lüneburg, there came to him messengers
from a _tudun_ of the Avars announcing his willingness to be baptized
and to hand over his people and land to the Frankish king. And in fact
next year this _tudun_ came according to his promise to Aachen, and
there made his formal submission to Charles. He and his followers were
baptized and returned home enriched by royal gifts.
But meanwhile there had been more evident tokens of the utter collapse
of the Avar kingdom. The conduct of the war after Charles’s departure
had apparently been left to the Duke of Friuli, who inherited the
hatred of two centuries of border wars between his duchy and the Avars.
The duke now ruling was a Frank named Eric, a man distinguished in
the wars, and who might truly be called a Paladin of Charles’s court,
but also a generous benefactor of the poor, a friend of the Church,
a man to whom Paulinus, Bishop of Aquileia, addressed a treatise on
practical religion (perhaps something like Jeremy Taylor’s treatise on
_Holy Living_), evidently with the assurance that it would meet with
a hearty welcome from his friend. This devout and valiant warrior, in
the late autumn of 795, invaded Avar-land, penetrated to the far-famed
_Hring_, pierced through all its seven circles, and made himself master
of the immense hoard which the _chagans_ had been piling up there for
two centuries. It was no wonder that he found an enormous accumulation
of treasure, for, besides the results of the mere robber raids which
the predatory Avars had made on all the surrounding peoples, during a
great part of the seventh century the eastern emperors had been forced
to pay 80,000 or 100,000 golden _solidi_[54] as a yearly tribute to
these terrible neighbors; nay, on one occasion the Emperor Heraclius
had to purchase peace from them at the price of 200,000 _solidi_. The
locking up of such a vast quantity of the only considerable European
currency in this barbarian stronghold must have sensibly affected
the economic condition of Europe, and it would not be surprising if
future inquirers should discover that there was a great rise of prices
as the consequence of its dispersion. Besides the hoarded _solidi_
there were gorgeous arms, silken tissues, and many other precious
things; and all these, according to one annalist, were sent piled on
fifteen great wagons, each drawn by four oxen, to Charles at Aachen.
The courtiers and nobles received generous presents from the king out
of the great hoard; the pope and his chief ecclesiastical friends were
not forgotten, but much also was laid up in the royal treasury and not
distributed till the king’s death.
In the next year (796) Charles’s son Pippin, King of Italy, followed up
Eric’s success; again visited the mysterious _Hring_ to complete the
work of spoliation, drove the Avars across the Theiss, and visited his
father at Aachen, bringing with him the plunder of the conquered people.
There were indeed some upflickerings of the apparently extinguished
fire. The baptized _tudun_ failed to keep his oath of fealty to
Charles, and had to be punished for his perfidy. In 799 Gerold,
the Frankish governor of Bavaria, brother of Charles’s late queen
Hildegard, fell in battle with the insurgent Avars. But this Turanian
people made not near so obstinate or long continued a resistance as
the Teutonic Saxons. In the year 805 we find the _capchan_, who was a
Christian, and bore the Greek name Theodore, humbly petitioning the
Emperor Charles that on account of the needs of his people a place
of habitation might be assigned to them between Sabaria and Carnuntum
(the country round the Neusiedler See). His request was granted, and
he returned to his people enriched by presents from the emperor, but
soon after died. The new _chagan_ soon after “sent one of his nobles
praying that he might have the ancient honor which the _chagan_ used
to have among the Avars. To which prayer the emperor gave his assent,
and ordered that the _chagan_ should have the supremacy over the whole
kingdom according to the old custom of the Avars.”
After this we practically hear no more of the Avars during the lifetime
of Charles. The power of the great Turanian kingdom was utterly broken,
and possibly, but for the invasion of the Hungarians, who appeared
upon the scene about seventy years after the death of Charlemagne,
there would have been a complete reconquest of the lands of the Middle
Danube by the Teutonic race. It must not be forgotten, however, that
here, as well as further north, Sclavonic tribes were hovering round
the eastern border of the Frankish kingdom, and, in fact, it was in a
war with one of these tribes, the Croatian inhabitants of Tarsatica, on
the Adriatic, that the valiant Eric of Friuli lost his life (709). The
news was brought to King Charles at Paderborn at the same time as the
tidings of the death of his brother-in-law, Gerold, and saddened him in
the midst of his Saxon victories. Bishop Paulinus wrote a Latin elegy
on the death of his friend, in which, like David in his lament over
Saul, he prayed that neither dew nor rain might fall on the Liburnian
shore, nor corn nor wine might gladden the hills on which the noble
Eric met his doom.