South Slavs
Aloysius III would spend much of his reign invested in the Balkans. The defense of Italy was a primary concern of his, with the Khirichan Khagans resurgent under Shiqar Kulujogul[1] he took it upon himself to raise a series of major fortifications along the Isonzo River and the Julian Alps, leaving them in the control of the newly-invested “Count of the Casari Frontier” – a title which came with an incredibly generous royal stipend and an honor guard of five hundred Anglo-Danish mercenaries.
However, the Frankish policy would not be entirely defensive, largely because of a miscalculation on the part of Aloysius II, who had authorized the successful campaigns of Valenian, the Duke of Napoli. The Duke had in 905 mounted a major campaign to wrest the region from the local cities and princes who made up its constantly shifting patchwork boundaries. Against all odds, Valenian seized the Peloponnese and the Heptanese, but his campaign, conducted on the shoestring budget of a single Duchy, had stalled after that. Despite later contributions from the Duke of Apulia, a disastrous battle near Athens had spelled the end of offensive campaigning. Fortification and entrenchment became the order of the day. Fortunately, the Sklavenians were not unified, and Valenian faced only a few piecemeal attempts to retake his new-won territories.
However, fearing future Frankish campaigns and the rise of Khagan Shiqar Kulujogul to the north, the Sklavenians unified in 921 under Kniaz Simeon Dravan, the Prince of Moesia, a famous warlord with years of experience fighting the Xasar on the frontiers. According to his contemporaries, despite being little more than first-among-equals in Sklavenia, Simeon through sheer force of will commanded the Sklavenians with absolute authority. He ordered the construction of a massive navy and in 924 he besieged Corinth, a town whose fortifications had been massively expanded by Duke Valenian’s son Constani. Despite plenty of engineers and resources, Simeon made slow progress in the siege.
Aloysius III, hearing of the attack, took a novel approach. Sending an embassy to the Khagan Shiqar, he brokered an alliance of convenience. Shiqar would be given free rein to assert his dominion over the Danube basin and Dalmatia if he wished, without Frankish interference. Aloysius pledged a truce of twenty years, and even offered to seal the pact with a betrothal alliance between his son and the Khagan’s daughter. The latter offer was rejected, but the former was accepted. Shiqar struck hard into Moesia, destroying Simeon’s base of support, while a Franco-Italian fleet landed a large army north of Simeon’s and, wiping away the Sklavenian rearguard, the Palatine Ebroin blocked Simeon’s route up the isthmus while the Sklavenian fleet was bottled up at Thessaloniki by the Khirichan navy.
Simeon quickly came to terms, seeking to avoid an even greater disaster. However, this sign of weakness ensured his final demise. He was murdered by his fellow Princes shortly after signing a treaty which ceded Attica to the Frankish Empire. A new Prince was placed in overall control, Petar of Eprios.
Khirichan control in Thrace expanded significantly, and they rampaged up and down the Danube basin, wresting it fully from the Slavic settlers there. And yet ultimately their victories were somewhat hollow. Sklavenia was a warlike country, with countless fortified hill-settlements and, after the disaster at Corinth, had no unified army to defeat in the field. Warfare in the hills of the Balkans was a battle of raid and counter raid, and ultimately the Khirichan tired of the indecisive fighting and began to make peace with the local Slavic despots. After finding certain tribes were very much willing to concede and accept Khirichan overlordship, a domino effect began where other princes were either compelled to join Petar totally or surrender alone.
Sensing the way the tide was turning, the Franks joined in the peacemaking process. Aloysius III left Italy for Aachen, and the Imperial Legate, Julian, did not share his enthusiasm for the campaign. He saw Petar’s kingdom as a potential buffer between the newly acquired Frankish territories and the far greater threat of the Khirichan, whom Aloysius had done nothing but empower.
Many of the Illyrian Slavs, particularly the prominent tribe of the Croats, became vassals of the Khirichan. The remainder, under Petar, formed the Kingdom of Sklavenia, notionally under the protection of the Franks. To their south, Attica, Euboea, and the Peloponnese were now Frankish territories under the newly-minted Duchy of Great Achaea. In practice, the “Duchy” was primarily run by Greek and Mauri merchant families.
Under Duke Constani, himself of Italio-Greek heritage, Great Achaea became effectively a Frankish appendage of the Asian city-states. Cities such as Athens, Nauplia, and Corinth were rebuilt and became home to resettled Greco-Mauri populations who themselves would adopt the Hypatoi system of governance under the Duchy’s overall authority. Constanti would engage in something of an independent foreign policy, despite being subject to the Frankish Empire. His alliance with the city of Samos, for example, as a counterbalance to the growing power of Nikaia, was not in alignment with Frankish policy (such as it was) in the Aegean.
West Slavs
Poland and Moravia in the tenth century would come under substantial stresses from the west. For Poland, these stresses were ultimately greater, primarily due to its relative isolation. Christendom was rapidly growing. Where once it had been besieged, Christianity and Europe alike seemed to find new vitality, artistically, culturally, and politically. The unified Frankish Empire was a sort of hydra – its many heads pushed outwards in a wide variety of directions, and ultimately when it did suffer a defeat (such as in Spain) it was overshadowed by the numerous victories it enjoyed.
The era was one of expansion. The German people moved eastward into the Elbe basin, displacing Slavic tribes there in many cases, and over the course of the century largely assimilating those who remained. Those who fled were welcomed by the Polonians, who under King Czresimir had positioned themselves as the last defenders of the old gods and the old ways. However, at the same time, Czresimir actively welcomed Buddhist missionaries from far afield, promoting the foreign religion and co-opting the sacred sites and deities of the Slavic faith. It is a testament to the desperation of the Slavs that he managed to simultaneously take on the dual roles of a missionary king and a defender of traditional society. There was simply nowhere else to turn for those who opposed the spread of German Christianity. [2]
Czresimir was diplomatically isolated. By 920 he had alienated the Franco-German nobility by his attacks on German settlers on the Elbe, and although the Baltic and Belarusian tribes to his east were relatively peaceful, they lacked the resources or inclination to support him. For them, the Frankish menace was a far-off story. The conversion of the Danish King to Christianity in 934 meant that his proposed marriage alliance with Sewyn Stone-eyes collapsed almost overnight and Sewyn’s subsequent murder ensured that there would be no hope of a return to the old ways. Denmark slid into the Frankish sphere much as Moravia had.
Moravia, for its part, was similarly awash in German settlers, who made significant expansions from their traditional homesteads along the Danube and pressed towards the interior. However in Moravia, compromises could be made. Local Bishops played a large role in directing German settlement towards less-populated areas and away from the major centers of Moravian settlement. Settlers were made to swear oaths of loyalty to the local nobility or the Moravian King.[3] These oaths were generally communal, not individual. While German settlement into Polonian territory was frequently a matter of individuals motivated by a common goal, the German expansion in the Moravian hinterlands was much better organized. Moravian Bishops, in conjunction with royal writs, were allowed to settle the Germans in certain plots of land, the “Free Burghs” and by settling in these communities the Germans agreed to obey the ordinances of the town, which included a mayoral oath of loyalty to the monarchy or a prominent landholder in the region. Through this system, the Moravian kingdom was actually strengthened – but also Germanized.
For the Polish, the Khirichan represented a possible hope of security. Khagan Shiqar Kulujogul was a powerful neighbor, and the Turks were old enemies of the Franks. Sebouk Arslan was still a name that the old men of Francia recollected with terror, after all. An alliance with the Khaganate would fundamentally shift the balance of power. However under Shiqar Kulujogul the Khaganate had entered into a sort of detente with the Franks. The envoys which had negotiated the division of Sklavenia continued to travel back and forth between Pianjiqand and Aachen, and a regular correspondence between the two leaders culminated in a meeting on the neutral ground of the Isonzo in 937. Aloysius III and Shiqar Kulujogul enjoyed a sort of mutual respect, and much to the anger of those who might have dreamed of a new Votive war and the destruction of the Boddo worshippers, the two men were content to renew their informal arrangement.
In exchange for a free hand in the Hypatate of Nikaia, where Sahu trading interests were being threatened, the Khirichan agreed not to align with Poland, so long as Czresimir was not directly overthrown. When word of these arrangements became common knowledge, many among the nobility and clergy were deeply troubled. The Khirichan were the ancient enemy, after all, and any notion of cooperation with them incensed the devout. They should be the target of a new Votive War, not the allies of the Frankish Emperor himself! The Imperial Legate in Rome was particularly angered, travelling to Aachen personally to resign from his position before retiring to his estate. His replacement, chosen with input from the Papacy, was no less hostile to the notion.
Between 940 and 960, the German dukes fought several wars against the Polonians, often with the help of Moravia. Czresimir’s successor, Czresimir II, fought well. The Polish cavalry proved their quality time and again against the German shieldwalls – however when the last war came to an end in 962, the Elbe was well and truly lost to the Polonians. In the end peace broke out by mutual exhaustion, and the Polonians were still standing. Six decades of pressure by German settlers had finally ended, and their culture and religion would survive.[4] The Franco-Germans agreed to stop sending missionaries across the border and the depopulation of the borderlands ensured that the demographic pressures brought on by the German migration would abate to a large degree.
[1] Born as a third son of the previous Khagan, Shiqar’s path to rulership was based in the support of the settled Sahu mercantile nobility rather than the warlike clans. Despite, or perhaps because of this, he became an aggressive and martial monarch who spent almost none of his reign in the palaces at Pianjiqand. His elders brothers meanwhile, were virtual prisoners within the palace, something which would become customary. In fact, “leaving the palace” became an idiom among the Turks, used to describe someone who breaks with tradition or offends their elders.
[2] Like how Sogdian Buddhism co-opted numerous Hindu deities, or the Khirichan Buddhists found a place for Tangra and other Iranian deities in their pantheons, Polish Buddhism incorporated the local deities as well. Jarilo in particular became an imperfect metaphor for reincarnation and the cyclical nature of the world. Polish Buddhism, however, is particularly noteworthy for its regionalist tendencies. Where ultimately Iranian and Turkish Buddhism had strong movements seeking greater orthodoxy (most notably the Nowbahar), the isolation of Polish Buddhism lead it to essentially be a form of indigenous polytheism which had taken on Buddhist characteristics.
[3] Mojmir the Golden, named for his beard rather than any particular extravagance of his reign.
[4] Or so would go the narrative of a Polonian nationalist, probably. In truth, the heavily Buddhist flavored paganism of Poland was pretty distinct from what had come before. Also the survival of “Slavic” paganism through the tenth century has a lot to do with the fact that Christianity became associated with the religion of Germanic invaders.
[Next post: the Khirichan, the Rus, the Wheel-Ruler of Gardaveldi, and the Balts]
