Avars/History

The Avars are a nomadic people who established a state in the Volga River area of Europe in the early 6th century. There are three points of origin suggested for the Avar peoples one is in the Caucasus as a branch of the Iberi, another is in the Hindu Kush around present day Kabul, and another is around lake Balkash in north-east Kazakhstan (Transiaxartea). Perhaps a suitable synthesis of these ideas may be that they were originally inhabitants of Khwarezmia and had thus influence in all three areas.

The Avars are interesting not least because of their seeming contradictions: a nomad people that soon became settled in Central Europe; ruthless warriors but always ready for negotiations and treaties; firmly rooted in Europe but looking out to the far east until the end; one of the great powers in early medieval Europe but one that thus far has received little attention from researchers, in particular in the English-speaking world.

Most histories that have been passed down regarding the Avars thus far treat mainly their activities in Europe and their interactions with the Eastern Roman Empire, with Roman sources until the emergence of archaeological science being the sole references available on their history and origins. In recent decades, however, state-of-the-art techniques have revealed more details, but also raised more questions on what is possibly one of Europe's most fascinating and mysterious cultures.

By Bow and By Stirrup: The Asian Origins of the Avars
The Avars have left almost no written record, apart from a few non-deciphered short runic texts. But there is hardly an European people from which such a rich heritage in furnished graves has remained. Quite a few of them are equipped with gold and silver, and many with weapons or female ornaments. When I wrote the book, about 30,000 Avar period graves had been excavated; now there are about 70,000. Thus, we know a lot about personal representation and ways of life. For instance, many finds of braid clasps in male graves confirm the information in written sources that the Avars wore braids. Stirrups often appear in warrior graves; the Avars were the first Europeans who consistently used this important innovation in riding technology.

For centuries, the Central Asian background of the Avars remained quite blurred, but it made the Avars stand out in a particular light.

Based upon the works of the Byzantine chronicler Theophypact Simokatta (and other sources) popular thought had the European Avars being a combination of a Uyghur people (Hund) and Mongolian people (Var) who united around Balkh in present-day Afghanistan sometime between 410-470CE because of the archaeological evidence as well as etymology on Avar khagan names like Bayan (meaining "prosperous" in Mongol). Forming a confederation in present Central Eurasia, they tried to survive in the competition with other Turkic tribes (most notably the Rouran of north and central China), by which they were eventually expelled. The survivors of this group of Turkic/Mongol people migrated toward East Europe where they established the Avars Khaganate 502-530CE, starting an era of conquest.

In previous decades, another theory arose arguing that the Avars were thought to have been related to the Rouran (also known as the Juan-Juan) in western China (if not equated to the same), yet this equation was also considered to be a gross generalisation since the Rouran continued to exist after being overthrown by the Asena until 557 while Sarosios was already well established as Khagan of the Avars in Europe by that time. There is, however, evidence that an element of the European Avars may have been, at least for a little while, a small part of the Rouran confederacy.

A genetic test of human remains excavated in 66 separate graves dating from the early Middle Ages in the Carpathian Mountains of central Europe was undertaken in 2022 by a joint team of academics drawn from Hungary, the United States and Germany. The lead researcher of the team, Guido Gnecchi-Ruscone, stated:


 * “Besides their clear affinity to Northeast Asia and their likely origin due to the fall of the Rouran Empire, we also see that the 7th-century Avar period elites show 20 to 30 percent of additional non-local ancestry, likely associated with the North Caucasus and the Western Asian Steppe, which could suggest further migration from the Steppe after their arrival in the 6th century.”

To some extent, the sixth century was a period of early globalization, in which we get surprising information about far-reaching contacts along the silk road. To find allies against Avars and Persians, Byzantine envoys travelled as far as the Tienshan mountains. Frankish annals preserve the exotic titles of late Avar notables: khagan, iugurrus, tudun, kapkhan and canizauci. And in a poem in praise of Charlemagne’s son Pippin after his victory over the Avars, the khagan appears in state with his wife, the katun: in the same way as khagan and katun act in unison in Old Turkic inscriptions in modern Mongolia. In a sense, Central Eurasian steppe culture stretched as far as the Alps.

History
The Avars arrived in Europe from the Central Asian steppes in the mid-sixth century CE and subsequently dominated much of Central and Eastern Europe for almost 250 years. They constructed a fast-expanding steppe empire in the middle of Europe, with its core in modern Hungary, and challenged Byzantium with repeated raids into the Balkan provinces. In 626, they were the first barbarian power to besiege Constantinople, in an alliance with the Persians. After the failure of the siege, their expansive phase was over, but they managed to maintain their rule for almost another two centuries. Only in the late eighth century did their empire fall, under the pressure of the Frankish armies of Charlemagne. Soon, they disappeared as a distinct political and ethnic unit.

Origins
(https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-57378-8)

After 568 AD the Avars settled in the Carpathian Basin and founded the Avar Qaganate that was an important power in Central Europe until the 9th century. Part of the Avar society was probably of Asian origin; however, the localisation of their homeland is hampered by the scarcity of historical and archaeological data. Here, we study mitogenome and Y chromosomal variability of twenty-six individuals, a number of them representing a well-characterised elite group buried at the centre of the Carpathian Basin more than a century after the Avar conquest. The studied group has maternal and paternal genetic affinities to several ancient and modern East-Central Asian populations. The majority of the mitochondrial DNA variability represents Asian haplogroups (C, D, F, M, R, Y and Z). The Y-STR variability of the analysed elite males belongs only to five lineages, three N-Tat with mostly Asian parallels and two Q haplotypes. The homogeneity of the Y chromosomes reveals paternal kinship as a cohesive force in the organisation of the Avar elite strata on both social and territorial level. Our results indicate that the Avar elite arrived in the Carpathian Basin as a group of families, and remained mostly endogamous for several generations after the conquest.

Collapse of the Khaganate
Since about 560, the Avars had ruled over large parts of the Pannonian Basin and Carantania southeast of Francia, though in the last decades, the Avar Khaganate had to deal with Bulgarian and Croat incursions. To secure the frontier of his empire and the traffic on the trade routes to the east, Charlemagne allied with Khan Krum of Bulgaria and the Croatian duke Vojnomir, and from 791 launched several campaigns against the Avars, where he, according to the Vita Karoli Magni, encountered only modest opposition. In 796 Carolingian forces under Charlemagne's son Pepin of Italy destroyed the main Avar fortress called the Ring of the Avars and made the Khagan a Frankish vassal, while the remaining Avars retreated behind the Tisza River. The victory is perpetuated by the poem De Pippini regis Victoria Avarica. Charlemagne set up the Avar March east of the Enns River. The frontier districts of Avaria and Carantania stretched along the eastern Bavarian border, from the Danube Basin down to the Drava and beyond to eastern Friuli, in order to protect the empire from any future attacks from Pannonia. The military command of the Avar March was given to the Alamannian count Gerold of Vinzgau, his son Gerold the Younger, and Eric of Friuli, who ruled as margraves with authority over the local counts and the right to call up the levy (Marchfutter). While new threats were imposed by Duke Ljudevit of Croatia and the Great Moravia rulers, the Avars disappear from the records in the 820s and so the Avar March with them. With Bavaria, its eastern march (marcha orientalis, also March of Pannonia) became part of East Francia upon the 843 Treaty of Verdun. The adjacent Pannonian Basin beyond the Leitha and Morava (March) Rivers in the east was settled by the Magyars about 900, who also conquered the former Avar March at the 907 Battle of Pressburg. It was not until 955, when the German king Otto I regained it upon his victory in the Battle of Lechfeld. When in 976 his son Emperor Otto II raised the vast Bavarian March of Carinthia to a duchy, the remaining marcha orientalis along the Danube emerged as the March of Austria (Ostarrîchi).

After the fall
(https://is.muni.cz/el/sci/podzim2004/Z0097/zajimave_texty.pdf)

The skeletons found in European Avar graves are mostly mongolian, but many items usually associated with Hebrews have been found with them. Whether they had some kind of Hebraic origin connected to the quasi-"Jewish" tribes discovered in China and were a major influence in Khazaria or were simply influenced by the alleged Khazar conversion is a question demanding further investigation.

It is interesting to note a legend mentioning their origin through descent of Heber (רבע (via Abraham's third wife Keturah (hence Heberites תירבע (whose descendants had moved to Central Eurasia. In the mid 5th C., Priskos Rhetor was the first to deal with the Avar tribe which existed in the West Siberian region supporting the theory of origin from the Balkhash region which is further supported by the Chinese records concerning them. According to his account, the Avar-Huns forced the Sabirs out of this land and over the Volga around 461-3CE because "a fog rose from the sea scaring people" and this was followed by countless "vultures descending upon the people". Then in 550, Zakharias Rhetor the church historian mentioned an "Avar" community in the west. Also in the mid 6th century, Menandros wrote about Avars.

At the same time Procopius made a distinction in his History of the Wars, Books I and II, between White Huns and European Huns which Simokattes in the early half of the 7thC. defines as the real- & pseudo- avars respectively.0

Allies of the Byzantine Empire, they fought against the Slavs and the Bulgars, controlling the area between the Volga River and the Elbe River as far as the Baltic Sea. However, the situation changed resulting in an attempt to invade Italy in 610 and they attacked Constantinople in 619 and 626. The emperor Heraclius and the Bulgars fought them and pushed them back to Illyria and in the 630'sCE Khagan Kubrat of the Onoghur became the first Khagan of the second Avar dynasty. From the late 7th century, writings begin to mention peoples using a 'K-B/V-R' root ethnonym in the same areas inhabited by Avars. The root K-B/V-R has been explained as "rebel" or "mix" as well as "rotate" and "wander". Dissident Kuber Avar-Huns are mentioned migrating southward following a rebellion against the main body of Avars not long after BatbayanBezmer succeeded his father Kubrat as Khagan. It may reasonably be deduced that those western Avars who mixed with the Bulgar-Huns and/or severed ties to the main eastern horde in the Caucasus became known by the 'K-B/V-R' variation of the name.

Little is known about Kabar/Avars from between the late 7th to late 8th centuries except that most of their neighbours still called them Avars. Excavations of their graves have yeilded evidence that they were a mongolian people who carried objects usually associated with Hebraic culture and it has been suggested that their center of control was actually in Khazaria rather than the Ukraine or Pannonia. As Kabarids (or Kavarites) they also seem to have left their ethnonym in certain towns they founded like for example the Kopyrev Konets district of Kiev in the Ukraine which has been explained from their ethnonym. In 791 they invaded Europe once again. The so-called Avar Ring was defeated by Franks led by Charlemagne in the 9th century whereupon the three major tribes invited the Magyar seven-tribe confederacy to liberate them. The three Avar tribes which Magyar sources call Kavar or Kabar (there is no other mention of Avars in original Magyar sources) were settled in Transylvania. Their Szekely descendants preserved the popular Avar Dragon Totem well into the 15th century. A connection between the European Avars and the Caucasian Avar & Kabard is severely questioned, but evidence is mounting in favour of the theory that the Avars who settled in Transylvania were only a "pseudo" (Kabar?) portion of other "true" Avars who remained in the Caucasus region under Khazar control. The faction which is supposed to have remained in the Caucasus formed a powerful khanate in the 10th century contributing to the collapse of Khazaria. One of the prominent figures in the modern Avar history is Shamil. Shamil successfully led the liberation movement of highland peoples of Caucasus against the Russian invasion in the 19th century. The movement was substantially suppressed by Russia in 1864. Today Avars live in part of Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria.

The word "Avar" in the native Avar language means messiah, prophet, angel or archangel, and is always used any time Avars mention the names of Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus or Mohammed. For example; Ibrahim-Avarkov, Isa-Avarkov or Muhammad-Avarkov. The word Avar thus means the descendants or followers of Messiah, prophet, angel or archangel. The modern Avar language is said to show some affinity with Sino-Tibetan & Ket (Yenisey Ostyak) of which there are now less than 500 speakers left in Siberia. It has been suggested that the term "Avar" used for both peoples might derive from a common Turanian etymology meaning "freeman/transcender" as did the term Hebrew. Arianism

Arianism is a viewpoint held by some in the early Christian Church about the nature of Jesus Christ, declared by the Catholic Church to be a heresy. Arians denied that Jesus Christ and God the Father were one, seeing them as different Divine entities. The conflict between Arianism and traditional trinitarianism was the first important doctrinal difficulty in the Church after the legalization of Christianity took place under Emperor Constantine I, and ended with Arianism being declared a heresy by the first Council of Nicaea. At a point in the conflict, the majority of Christianity followed the Arianistic belief system. Arius was a Christian priest in Alexandria, Egypt. In A.D. 321 he was condemned by a synod at Alexandria for teaching a heterodox view of the relationship of Jesus Christ to God the Father. Arius himself died without repudiating his doctrine. Arius and his followers agreed that Jesus was the son of God, but denied that they were one substance (Greek: homo-ousios). Instead, they viewed God and the Son as having distinct but similar substances (Greek: homoiousios). The difference in Greek was literally one iota or "letter i" of difference. Jesus is, for Arianism, inferior or subordinate to God the Father. The specific summary statement that was rejected by the councils, is that "there was a time when Jesus Christ was not"; the rejected statement meant that Jesus was a created being, rather than being coeternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. At issue was the doctrine of the Trinity. Because Arius and his followers had great influence in the schools of Alexandria - predecessors of modern universities or seminaries - their theological views spread, especially in the eastern Mediterranean. By 325 the controversy had become significant enough that Emperor Constantine I called an assembly of bishops, the first Ecumenical council at Nicaea, (modern Iznik, Turkey) (the First Council of Nicaea). The arguments that prevailed at Nicaea were formulated in the Nicene Creed, which is still recited in Catholic, Orthodox, and some Protestant services. Emperor Constantine ordered Arius exiled and the Arian books to be burned.

Despite the decision of the Council of Nicaea, Arianism not only survived but flourished for some time. The patronage of members of the imperial family allowed Arian bishops to rule in many centers. Having never converted any sizeable group of the laity, Arianism had died out inside the Empire by the 380s; it was debated and rejected again by the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 381. However, during the time of Arianism's flowering in Constantinople a missionary named Ulfilas was sent out to the Gothic barbarians across the Danube River. His initial success in converting this Germanic people to an Arian form of Christianity was strengthened by later events. When the Germanic peoples entered the Roman Empire and founded successor-kingdoms, many of them used their Arian religion to differentiate their people from the local inhabitants and maintain their group identity against the Catholic population. See: Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Lombards. By the 8th century assimilation had ended any surviving Arian churches. Only the Franks among the Germanic peoples entered the empire as pagans and converted to Catholic Christianity directly. The name, Arians, was widely applied in Poland to the Unitarian Christian sect, the Polish brethren, and it has been commonly applied since, to other Nontrinitarian groups. For example, the modern Jehovah's Witnesses have similar beliefs. However, there are closer analogies from Socinianism to the Jehovah's Witnesses, than from Arianism - because Socinians, like the Jehovah's Witnesses and unlike Arians, denied that Christ ought to be worshipped. Also like the Socinians, they deny belief in a disembodied soul after death, and eternal punishment of the unrepentantly wicked, and reject episcopacy: doctrines to which the Arians did not obviously object. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have a doctrine which defies comparison to anything else, although it is often called "Arianism" in a rather colloquial sense, because the LDS explains the unity of the Godhead in a way strongly reminiscent of the Arian explanation of the unity of the Son with the Father. Jesus is seen as subordinate to God the Father (e.g., he acts on his Father's wishes), but the primary teaching is that as they are both perfect and free from sin, there is no possibility of a disagreement between them. The LDS also believe, something like the Arians, that Christ is a separate being, "co-eternal" with God the Father, and that there is only one God: a use of terms which, if meant in the orthodox Christian sense, would reduce the statement to meaninglessness. Arianism, of course, is not to be confused with Aryanism, the belief that the European "race" is descended from the ancient Aryans who invaded India in the second millennium BCE.

Charlemagne Charlemagne (April 2, 742 - January 28, 814; or Charles the Great, in German: Karl der Große, in Latin: Carolus Magnus, and hence the adjective form 'Carolingian'), was king of the Franks from 771 to 814, nominally King of the Lombards, and Roman Emperor. Arguably the founder of a Frankish Empire in Western Europe, Charlemagne was the elder son of Pippin the Short (751-768), the first Carolingian king. Pippin the Short indulged in the monopoly of the coining of money, deciding on the opening and closure of minting shops, the weight, title and the subjects represented. European coinage began with Pippin the Short who revived the system put in place by the ancient Greeks and Romans and kept going by the Eastern Roman Empire (1 libra = 20 solidi = 240 denarii). On the death of Pippin the kingdom was divided between Charlemagne and his brother Carloman (Carloman ruled Austrasia). Carloman died on December 5, 771, leaving Charlemagne with a reunified Frankish kingdom. In 800, at Mass on Christmas day in Rome, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, a title that had been out of use in the West since the abdication of Romulus Augustulus in 476. Pursuing his father's reforms, Charlemagne did away with the monetary system based on the gold sou. Both he and king Offa of Mercia took up the system set in place by Pippin. He set up a new standard, the livre (pound -- both monetary and unit of weight) which was worth 20 sous (as per the solidus, and later the shilling) or 240 deniers (as per the denari, and eventually the penny). During this period, the livre and the sou were counting units, only the denier was a coin of the realm. Charlemagne applied the system to much of the European Continent, and Offa's standard was voluntarily adopted by much of England. When Charlemagne died in 814, he was buried in his own Cathedral at Aachen. He was succeeded by his only son to survive him, Louis the Pious, after whose reign the empire was divided between his three surviving sons according to Frankish tradition. These three kingdoms would be the foundations of later France and the Holy Roman Empire. After Charlemagne's death, continental coinage degraded and most of Europe resorted to using the continued high quality English coin until about AD 1100. It is difficult to understand Charlemagne's attitude toward his daughters. None of them contracted a sacramental marriage. This may have been an attempt to control the number of potential alliances. After his death the surviving daughters entered or were forced to enter Statue of Charlemagne in Frankfurt monasteries. At least one of them, Bertha, had a recognized relationship, if not a marriage, with Angilbert, a member of Charlemagne's court circle. Great Moravia Great Moravia (Latin: Moravia Magna) was a Slav state existing on the territory of presentday Moravia and Slovakia between 833 and the early 10th century. The first use of the designation "Great Moravia" stems from Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos in his work De Administrando Imperio (around 950 A.D.). "Moravia" did not refer (only) to present-day Moravia, but either to the country to both sides of all the Morava river, or probably to a state whose (today unknown) capital was called Morava. "Great" refers to Moravia plus the annexed territories. A kind of predecessor of Great Moravia was the Empire of Samo in around 623-658 in Moravia, Slovakia and Lower Austria (probably also Bohemia, Serbia at the Elbe, and temporarily in Carinthia), which probably has not been a true state, but only a tribal union. Fredegar's "Chronicle" tells us that Samo was a Frankish merchant. The development between 659 and late 8th century is largely unclear. In the late 8th century, the Moravian basin, situated at an important north-south trade route, began to flourish. Two important states (principalities) emerged in this territory: the Moravian principality largely in present-day Moravia (led by prince Mojmír I, probable center: Mikulčice) and the Nitrian Principality (Principality of Nitra) in present-day western, central and northern eastern Slovakia (led by prince Pribina, center: Nitra). It was during this period that Christianity came to the area. What the historians and Porfyrogenet design as "Great" Moravia arose in 833 by Mojmír's conquest of the Nitrian Principality. The empire came under the rule of the Princes Mojmír I (833-846), Rastislav (846-870), Svatopluk (871-894) and Mojmír II (894-?) who built a great empire. Rastislav asked the Byzantine Emperor to send people who could interpret the teaching of Christ in the Slavic vernacular. Two of the people sent, Cyril and Methodius, laid the foundation of the Slavonic script, and thus of Slavonic literature (see e.g. Glagolitic alphabet). The territory of Great Moravia was as follows: 833 – 896/?907: today's Slovakia + Moravia + Lower Austria (territory north of the Danube)+ Hungary (territory north to Budapest and Tisza River, except for western Hungary) 874 - ?: plus a strip of about 100km of present-day Poland above Slovak border (Vistula Basin, Krakow) 880-? : plus a strip of about 100km of present-day Poland above Czech border (Silesia) and maybe also Great Poland 880-896: plus remaining present-day Hungary east of the Danube 880/883/884 – 894: plus the remaining present- day Hungary (up to Vienna) 888/890 – 895: plus Bohemia 890 – 897: plus Lusatia After Svatopluk's death in 894, his 2 sons fall out with each other, thus weakening the empire. Invading Magyars (Hungarians), coming from Asia, destroyed the empire around 907 (However, there are historic references to Great Moravia from later years (e.g. 924/5, 942)). The western part of the core (=present-day Moravia) was annexed by Bohemia in 955 (very disputed), in 999 it was taken over by Poland under Boleslaus I of Poland and in 1019 it finally became part of Bohemia. As for the eastern part of the core (=present-day Slovakia) its southern parts were conquered by the Hungarians definitively in the 920's (western Slovakia maybe sharing the fate of Moravia from 955 to 999), in 1000 or 1001 entire Slovakia was taken over by Poland under Boleslaus I of Poland, Polish supremacy ended in 1025 or 1029, and in 1030 the southern half of Slovakia was again taken over by Hungary (remaining Slovakia was taken over by the Hungarians from the end of the 11th century till the 14th century). The state has been a state of present-day Moravians and Slovaks. The western part of Great Moravia's core (=present-day Moravia) was finally conquered by Bohemia in early 11th century and its population was czechicized in the 19th century. The eastern part of the core (=present-day Slovakia) was finally conquered by the Magyars (Hungarians) in the 11th-14th century and its population developed into present-day Slovaks in the 10th century. Great Moravia is often considered a predecessor of Slovakia. The inhabitants of the core of the state were designed as "Slovieni" (which is an old Slavic word basically meaning "Slavs" and was also used by (future) Slovenians and Slavonians at that time) or "Moravian peoples" by Slavic texts, and as "Sclavi" (i.e. Slavs), "Winidi" (i.e. Slavs), "Moravian Slavs" or "Moravians" by Latin texts. The present-day terms "Slovaks" / "Slovakia" (in Slovak: Slováci / Slovensko) and "Slovenes" / "Slovenia" (in Slovene: Slovenci / Slovenija ) arose later from the above "Slovieni". As for the history of Bohemia - annexed by Great Moravia 888/890-895—the important year is 895, when the Bohemians broke away from the empire and became Frankish vassals (vassals of Arnulf of Carinthia) and gradually an independent Bohemia, ruled by descendants of Premysl, began to emerge. Dubrawka Dubrawka of Bohemia (Polish, Dobrawa), born about 925/931 died 977. She was the daughter of duke Boleslav I of Bohemia and Adiva of England. Adiva was a daughter of King Edward I of England (Another daughter of Edward I was married to the emperor Otto I the Great). Dubrawka was first married to Guenther von Merseburg. They had a son named Ekkehard I. Margrave Ekkehard I v. Meissen, duke of Thuringia, married Suanehild Billung and their son, margrave Hermann v. Meissen, married Regelinda or Reginlindis, a daughter of Boleslaus or Boleslaw I Chrobry. After Guenther von Merseburg's death his widow Dubrawka married Mieszko I, who was granted the dukedom by pledging allegiance to the emperor Otto and accepting baptism. Stephen I of Hungary Saint-King Stephen "the Great" (Szent István király, in Hungarian) (about 975 - August 15, 1038), was the first king of Hungary. His father was the Magyar chieftain Géza: his mother was named Sarolt, and Stephen was given the name Vajk (meaning hero) at birth. Born a pagan in the village of Esztergom, Vajk was baptized, as a precondition of accepting the crown from Rome, at age 10 by Saint Adalbert of Prague, and given the baptismal name Stephen (in honor of the original early Christian Saint Stephen), protector of the church at Passau). He was married in 995 to Gisela (Giselle, Gizella in Hungarian) of Bavaria, the daughter of Henry II the Wrangler, Duke of Bavaria, and his wife Gisela of Burgundy. Stephen and Gisela had many children, we know the names of the sons Imre (Henry), Ottó (Otto) and Bernát (Bernard), and the daughters Ágota (Agatha) and Hedvig (Hedwig). Hedwig's daughter was canonized as Saint Cunigunda of Luxemburg. Saint Astricus served as Stephen's advisor, and Stephen also had Saint Gerard Sagredo as the tutor for his son Saint Emeric (Imre). After battling and defeating the pagan nobles who opposed him (including his uncle, a powerful warlord named Koppány), Stephen successfully united all the Magyar clans in the Carpathian Basin territory under his rule in the year 997. According to Hungarian tradition, Pope Silvester II sent a magnificent jeweled gold crown to Stephen along with an apostolic cross and a letter of blessing in the beginning of January, 1001 to officially recognize him as a Christian king of Europe. Stephen divided Hungary up into 50 counties, and continued the work of his father Geza by applying the decimal organizational system of his ancestors and setting up ten dioceses in Hungary, ordering every ten villages to erect one church and maintain a priest. He founded the cathedrals of Szekesfehervar and Esztergom, the Nunnery of Veszprem, the Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma, and the Monastery of Saint Peter and Paul in Obuda. Inside the abbeys and monasteries, schools were established and they became important centers of culture. Stephen discouraged pagan customs and strengthened Christianity with various laws, including ending the use of the old Hun-Magyar runic alphabet and making Latin the official language of the royal court. Stephen gave generously to the churches, personally visited them often, and supervised their construction. He often disguised himself as a peasant whenever he traveled, and freely gave money to any poor people he met (in one account, Stephen was beaten and robbed by a group of beggars he was giving alms to, but he forgave them and spared their lives). He intended to retire to a life of holy contemplation and hand the kingdom over to his only son Emeric (Imre), but in 1031 Emeric was wounded in an unfortunate hunting accident and died. In Stephen's words of mourning: "By God's secret decision death took him, so that wickedness would not change his soul and false imaginations would not deceive his mind — as the Book of Wisdom (The Bible) teaches about early death." Stephen mourned a very long time over the loss of his favorite son, which took a great toll on his health. He eventually recovered, but he never regained his original vitality. Most of Stephen's other children also died young, and he could not find anyone among his remaining relatives who was able to rule the country competently and willing to maintain the Christian faith of the nation. Unable to choose an heir, King Stephen died at Székesfehérvár (a city he built in central Hungary) on the Feast of the Assumption, and was buried there. Both his nobles and his subjects were said to have mourned for 3 straight years afterwards. Shortly after his death, healing miracles were known to have occurred at his tomb. Stephen was canonized by the Vatican as Saint Stephen of Hungary in 1083. Catholics venerate him as the patron saint of: Hungary, kings, the death of children, masons, stonecutters, and bricklayers. His feast is on September 2, but in Hungary his chief festival is observed on August 20, the day on which his sacred relics were transferred to the city of Buda. His crown is currently enshrined in the National Museum of Budapest. Excerpt from Saint Stephen's admonitions to his son Emeric: My beloved son, delight of my heart, hope of your posterity, I pray, I command, that at every time and in everything, strengthened by your devotion to me, you may show favor not only to relations and kin, or to the most eminent, be they leaders or rich men or neighbors or fellow countrymen, but also to foreigners and to all who come to you. By fulfilling your duty in this way you will reach the highest state of happiness. Be merciful to all who are suffering violence, keeping always in your heart the example of the Lord who said, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice." Be patient with everyone, not only with the powerful, but also with the weak. Finally be strong lest prosperity lift you up too much or adversity cast you down. Be humble in this life, that God may raise you up in the next. Be truly moderate and do not punish or condemn anyone immoderately. Be gentle so that you may never oppose justice. Be honorable so that you may never voluntarily bring disgrace upon anyone. Be chaste so that you may avoid all the foulness of lust like the pangs of death. All these virtues I have noted above make up the royal crown, and without them no one is fit to rule here on earth or attain to the heavenly kingdom. Boleslaus I of Poland Boleslaw I Chrobry ('Boleslaus the Brave') of the Piast family (born 966/967, died 1025), probably the son of Mieszko I and of his first wife, the Czech princess Dubrawka, ruled as duke of Poland 992 - 1025 and reigned as King of Poland in 1025. Boleslaus's Career In 984 Boleslaus married Rikdaga, the daughter of Riddag (Rikdag, Ricdag), the margrave of Meissen. Subsequently he married Judith, the daughter of Geza the Great Prince of Hungary; then Enmilda, the daughter of one Dobromir, a Lusatian prince; and Oda, daughter of the margrave of Meissen. His wives bore him sons including Bezprym, Mieszko II and Otton; and a daughter, Mathilde. In 997 Boleslaus sent St. Adalbert of Prague to Prussia on the Baltic Sea to attempt to convert the Prussians to Christianity. In 990 he incorporated Silesia. By this time he already possessed Pomerania (with its main city of Gdansk), Little Poland (with its main city of Cracow), Slovakia and Moravia. He appeared well in track to unite all West Slavic lands in one strong, country as a member of Christian Europe. In A.D. 1000, while on a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Adalbert at Gniezno, the emperor Otto III invested Boleslaus with the title Frater et Cooperator Imperii ("Brother and Partner of the Empire"). Some historians say that the emperor also pledged the king's crown to Boleslaus. On the same visit Otto III raised Gnesen/Gniezno to the rank of an archbishopric. For the consequences see the article on the Meeting at the tomb of Saint Adalbert. After the untimely death of Otto III in 1002 at the age of 22, Boleslaus conquered Meissen and Lusatia (German Lausitz), in an attempt to wrest imperial territory for himself during the disputes over the throne; he and his father had both backed Henry the Quarrelsome against Otto earlier, and he accepted the accession of Henry II of Germany, the earlier Henry's son. Boleslaus conquered and made himself duke of Bohemia and Moravia in 1003 - 1004; he defeated the Russians and stormed Kiev in 1018, annexing the Red Strongholds (Grody Czerwienskie) later called Red Ruthenia and making prince Sviatopolk his vassal there. The intermittent wars with Germany ended with the Peace of Bautzen, Budziszyn in 1018, which left Sorbian Meissen and Lausitz in Polish hands. The emperor Henry II obliged Boleslaus to give a pledge of allegiance again for the lands he held in fief. After the death of Henry in 1024, Boleslaus crowned himself king, rising Poland to the rank of kingdom (1025). The son of Boleslaus, Mieszko II crowned himself immediately after his father's death. Boleslaus send an army to aid his friend Canute in his conquest of England. Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire (German: Heiliges Römisches Reich) was a political conglomeration of lands in western and central Europe in the Middle Ages. Emerging from the eastern part of the Frankish realm after its division in the Treaty of Verdun (843), it formally lasted almost a millennium until its dissolution in 1806. Contemporary terminology for the Empire varied greatly over the centuries. The term Roman Empire was used in 1034 to denote the lands under Conrad II, and Holy Empire in 1157. The use of the term Roman Emperor to refer to Northern European rulers started earlier with Otto II (Emperor 973-983). Emperors from Charlemagne (died 814) to Otto I the Great (Emperor 962-973) had simply used the phrase Imperator Augustus ("August Emperor"). The precise term Holy Roman Empire dates from 1254; the full expression Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation\ (German Heiliges Römisches Reich deutscher Nation) appears in 1512, after several variations in the late 15th century. Bohemia Bohemia (Böhmen in German, now Čechy in Czech) is an historical region in central Europe, occupying the western and middle thirds of the Czech Republic. With an area of 52,750 sq. km. and 6.25 million of the country's 10.3 million inabitants, Bohemia is bounded by Germany to the west, Poland to the north-east, the Czech province of Moravia to the east and Austria to the south. Bohemia's borders are marked with mountain ranges such as the Bohemian Forest, the Ore Mountains or Krkonoše as part of the Sudeten mountains. Roman authors provide the first clear reference to this area as the home of the Boii, a Celtic people. As part of the territory often crossed during the major Germanic and Slavic migrations, the area was settled from the 1st century BC by Germanic (probably Suebic) peoples including the Marcomanni. After their migration to the south-west, they were replaced around the 6th century by the Slavic precursors of today's Czechs. After freeing themselves from the rule of the Avars in the 7th century, Bohemia's Slavic inhabitants came (in the 9th century) under the rule of the Premysl dynasty, which continued until 1306. With Bohemia's conversion to Christianity in the 9th century, close relations were forged with the East Frankish kingdom, then part of the so-called Carolingian empire, later the nucleus of the Holy Roman Empire of which Bohemia was an autonomous part from the 10th century. The title of "King of Bohemia", already granted to the Premyslid dukes Vratislav II (1085) and Vladislav II (1158), became hereditary (1198) under Ottokar I, whose grandson Ottokar II (king 1253-1278) founded a short-lived empire covering also modern Austria. The mid-13th century saw the beginning of substantial German immigration as the court sought to make good the losses resulting from the brief Mongol invasion of 1241. In 1347, Karl IV. became king of Bohemia. He founded 1348 in Prague the first university in central Europe. National Czech movement against foreign (mainly German) immigrants, was tunnelled through religious movement of Hussites under the leadership of Jan Hus, a precursor of Martin Luther, who was eventually burned at the stake. When crusade against heresy was declared by the Pope, it turned into turmoil in Bohemia called Hussite Wars; in fact, a Bohemia was granted freedom of religion on July 6, 1609, but only for short time. Bohemia was an independent kingdom until 1627, when it became a part of Austria-Hungary, and German became the official language. The Czech nobility were largely expelled after the battle of White Mountain in 1620, and the ruling classes came to be German-speaking. In the early 17th century opposition to Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor as King of Bohemia led to the Thirty Years War and the selection of an alternative protestant king, Frederick V, Elector Palatine.