The early medieval Balkans: a critical survey from the sixth to the late twelfth century 9780472081493, 9780472100255

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THE EARLY MEDIEVAL BALKANS

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The Early Medieval Balkans

A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century JOHN V. A. FINE, JR.

Ann Arbor The University of Michigan Press

First paperback edition 1991] Copyright © by the University of Michigan 1983 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper

2011 2010 2009 2008 14 13 12 Ii No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fine, John Van Antwerp. The early medieval Balkans

Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Balkan Peninsula—History. I. Title.

DR39.F56 = 1983 949.6 82-8452 ISBN 0-472-08149-7 (pbk.) AACR2 ISBN 978-0-472-08149-3 (pbk.)

To Gena, Sasha, and Paul

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Preface

This book is a general survey of early medieval Balkan history. Geographically it covers the region that now is included in the states of Yugoslavia (Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia), Bulgaria, Greece, and Albania. What are now Slovenia and Rumania are treated only peripherally. The book covers the period from the arrival of the Slavs in the second half of the sixth and early seventh centuries up to the 1180s. A second volume will continue the story from this point to the Turkish conquest, a process carried out over the late fourteenth and through much of the fifteenth centuries. This book is, to the best of my knowledge, the first of its kind in any language. There are many works devoted to the history of the Byzantine Empire (which encompassed much of the Balkans). However, these works have stressed the history of Byzantium and its institutions; when the Slavic regions were not imperial provinces these works have treated the Slavic states only from the point of view of foreign relations. The various Balkan nations have produced a wide assortment of histories of their own individual states (or of regions within those states) in the Middle Ages, and foreign historians have also produced monographic surveys of specific regions (e.g., of Bulgaria, Serbia, or Croatia in the Middle Ages). However, no work has yet dealt with the various medieval Balkan peoples as a whole. Such a work seems necessary, particularly for this early period when much of

the area was in a state of flux and the protostates’ borders did not coincide with later state boundaries. Since the early medieval period was an era of both national and state formation, a study that treats the region as a whole may better trace and explain developments than a study focused on only one area. This is particularly to the point, since the regions that have usually been chosen for study by historians have been defined by what came later, namely by being included in a subsequent national state. The early medieval period is a critical one for Balkan history. Enor-

Vill Early Medieval Balkans

mous demographic changes occurred. If we exclude the Greeks, living

in Thrace and Greece, the Albanians, and the Vlachs, scattered in various mountainous regions of the Balkans, the population of the classical Balkans disappeared in the sixth and seventh centuries to be replaced (partially by assimilation) by new ethnic groups which invaded and took over the Balkans: the Turkic Bulgars and the Slavic groups which produced the Serbo-Croatians and the Bulgaro-Macedonians.

In the period that followed, these new arrivals developed into identifiable nationalities, each acquiring an ethnic awareness which has

survived to the present. Moreover, the first states created by each of these peoples (which of course greatly contributed to the development of each group’s ethnic awareness) also appeared in the early medieval period.

Finally, during this period all these peoples were officially converted to Christianity. Though many of the peasants retained so many pagan beliefs that we might consider them semipagans and only nominal Christians, nevertheless the rulers and their people considered themselves Christians, and churches and a church hierarchy were established throughout their lands. Furthermore, during this period it was determined which regions were to end up under the religious jurisdiction of Constantinople (and later under that of independent national Orthodox churches) and which were to end up under Rome. Thus when the split in the church came to affect the Balkans, a gradual process occurring over a long period of time, which peoples were to be

Eastern Orthodox and which Roman Catholic had already been settled. This differentiation, which has lasted to the present, has had a great impact on the history of the Balkans up to our own day. Only Bosnia proved to be an exception. Though in the early medi-

eval period it was nominally under Rome, it had so weak a church organization that Catholicism was not firmly established. Thus, despite its nominal Catholicism, it was more of a no-man’s-land between faiths than Catholic; hence it is not surprising that it had a unique religious history in the later Middle Ages when it was to produce its own independent and somewhat heretical church. From that period to the present Bosnia has been an area of mixed faiths.

| This work is to large extent a political history with a good dose of church history. Needless to say, this emphasis follows the emphasis of

the surviving sources. I would have liked to treat at greater length social and economic matters. However, we have so few sources on these questions that broader or more detailed treatment is impossible. When documents like The Farmer’s Law have survived, I have dealt with them at some length. However, for other matters or other peri-

Preface 1X ods—though sweeping generalizations about the activities of various social classes are often seen—I have limited myself to more narrow conclusions that can be supported by the sources. I have very little sympathy for “what must have been” or for conclusions about other lands based on what was occurring in the Byzantine Empire at the same time. I also see little value in works that fill in the blanks on the basis of the belief that societies pass through certain ordered stages. The story told here of various people, movements, and events— including some major ones—differs from that found in previous scholarship, because the sources simply do not support many statements made in existing historical works. Thus it is important for historians to take each statement of fact found in these works and seek its source. By this means many items, which turn out to have no reliable source, can be removed. At this moment historians of the medieval Balkans should concern themselves primarily with determining what did hap-

pen, and it is as important to remove myths and fictions as it is to uncover new facts. Since this has been one of my main aims, this work has fewer broad generalizations than most survey histories. Until the

facts can be established, these generalizations are not warranted, for trends based on hypotheses really are not trends. It is important to more or less forget all the myths and tales which generations of Balkan school children have been brought up on—many of which have a nationalistic origin, showing the heroic past of a people ever struggling to assert its nationality, and provide justification for preserving or changing modern borders—and turn back to the sources with a critical eye. On the sources depends all that we can know of the medieval Balkans. Yet, because many sources are tendentious or uninformed, the historian cannot simply take them at face value but must devote much of his attention to scrutinizing them closely.

It immediately becomes apparent that our sources on the whole are poor. The narrative sources were chiefly written by foreigners, often at a considerable distance from events, or by patriotic locals centuries later on the basis of oral traditions and documents of varying reliability, many of which no longer survive. Thus, frequently we do not know what a later author’s source was. And even when we can identify what it must have been, the lack of the original document often makes it difficult to determine its reliability. Although there exists a considerable number of other documents, such as letters and charters, these rarely give us the details and explanations we would like; thus we are constantly faced with a scarcity of source material. However, such a lack is no justification to fill in the blanks with fiction and then, as has so often happened in the past, to serve up this mixture

Xx Early Medieval Balkans

of fact and fiction as history. There is nothing shameful in admitting that we do not know things. Only when we admit our ignorance will it become clear which areas have the greatest need for further study. Then we can turn to these areas and problems with fresh minds and possibly uncover some new facts about them. If we cannot find further material, which will frequently be the case, then we must be satisfied that there are some things which we may never know. Though this work is primarily aimed for the general reader and college student, I hope specialists will also find much in it to interest them. But, keeping in mind my general audience, I have kept notes to a minimum and have included only a brief bibliography of the most basic works. Unfortunately many of these are in foreign languages, since the literature in English is sparse. Furthermore, because of the nature of the field—the scarcity of sources encouraging a great variety of scholarly hypotheses—it has been necessary to include a certain number of discussions about the interpretations of scholars and about the sources these interpretations

rest on. Some readers may feel that for a general book I have included an excess of scholarly names and views in the text itself, especially when, as is sometimes the case, I subsequently take con-

trary positions. In almost all cases, however, when I present the views of a scholar—this is particularly true of the views of Zlatarski on Bulgaria—only to argue against them, these views have become “facts” in almost all the literature on the subject. Thus my readers may well have already come across them as facts; and if this book, as may be the case, is a reader’s first taste of the medieval Balkans, still

if he or she reads further about the Balkans, he or she will surely come across them. It is thus necessary to call attention to the existence of differences of opinion, point out that views other than my own exist, and justify the position which I have taken. Moreover, if attention were not called to these differences in views, readers finding

one interpretation in my work and a differing interpretation presented as “fact” in a second work might well become confused. On the whole the names which I bring into the text are giants in the field (like Dujéev, Dvornik, N. Klai¢é, Ostrogorsky, Zlatarski), whose names should become known to my readers, for their work has had enormous impact on the historiography of the societies they have studied. Moreover, such excursuses have their positive side. They present the reader with unsolved riddles, showing that medieval Balkan history

is an exciting field, where much important work still remains to be done. They also show the nature of the sources upon which certain

Preface xi historical conclusions have been based and demonstrate how, at times, broad conclusions have been erected on little or no evidence. In this

way they serve to correct past errors or point out that something frequently stated as a fact is really only a theory. Such discussions, by making readers reflect on the actual evidence standing behind asser-

tions made by historians, may not only instill in readers a healthy scepticism about statements found in works on the medieval Balkans, but will serve in general to cultivate readers, who will be more critical of all the nonfiction which they read. This book is to a large extent based upon the lectures for the first half of my course on the medieval Balkans which I have been giving over the past ten years at the University of Michigan. I owe a debt to my students’ responses to these lectures; their comments and questions

have compelled me constantly to rethink and clarify my thoughts. Thankfully, this book can be spared their major criticism: that I speak too fast.

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Acknowledgments

The decision to write this work began when the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Committee on Eastern Europe asked me to produce a major regional history of southeastern Europe in the Middle

Ages, aS part of a series for which they hoped to receive outside funding. When the funding efforts proved unsuccessful, I decided to go ahead with my part anyway, because there has long been a need for a book such as this one.

The first draft was read by one year’s Medieval Balkan History class, whose students were well qualified to tell me what was clear and what was not. The glossaries at the end of this work owe their presence to student suggestion. The manuscript also was read by a variety of friends and colleagues; some were Balkan specialists and others were asked to read it to comment on manner of presentation, matters of clarity and interest for nonspecialists, and style. I am indebted to Professor Ivan Dujcev of the University of Sofija, Professor Michael B. Petrovich of the University of Wisconsin, Carol B. Stevens, and my parents, Professor John V. A. Fine and Elizabeth

B. Fine, for their comments. I owe a particular debt to John H. Forsyth, Robert J. Donia, and Duncan M. Perry, former graduate students of mine who spent hours reading, pondering, and writing out detailed and valuable criticisms which have vastly improved the work. A teacher can have no better or closer friends than his past and present graduate students. I am also grateful to Professor Sima Cirkovié of the University of Beograd for his thorough and careful responses to various questions that I put to him. Finally, I would

like to express my appreciation to the ACLS Eastern European Committee, headed by Professor Michael Petrovich, for getting me

started on the project. None of the individuals named, of course, bears any responsibility for errors of fact or interpretation that may

appear in the work. I am also grateful to the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Michigan which

Xiv Early Medieval Balkans

financed the typing of both the first draft and final version of this work. I am most grateful to my wife Gena who, while suffering all the inconveniences a spouse must when such a project is being carried out, throughout gave me the strongest encouragement and support, as did our sons Alexander (Sasha) and Paul. Since she is Yugoslav, this work treats part of her and our boys’ heritage. It is only fitting that this work be dedicated, with love and appreciation, to the three of them.

Note on Transliteration and Place Names

Serbo-Croatian is a single language (with, of course, dialectical differences) written with two alphabets, Latin for Croatian and Cyrillic for

Serbian. Thus the Croatian Latin scheme is a natural one to use for transliterating Serbian names. Furthermore, it seems to me a better system than any other now being used to transliterate Bulgarian and Russian as well. Thus, following Croatian, the following transliteration scheme is used: c = ts (except in words already accepted into English such as tsar)

€ = ch (soft) ¢ = ch (hard) h = guttural kh (though I have left the kh, since it is standard, for Turkic names such as Khazars, khagan, Isperikh)

j = y (asin yes) § = sh Z = zh The Slavic softsign is indicated by a single apostrophe (’). The Bulgarian hardsign has been rendered with a double apostrophe (’”).

Greek was undergoing evolution at this time with the b coming to be pronounced as a v. However, I have consistently stuck with the b in transliterating names, thus Bardas rather than Vardas. The same thing was happening to v, with its pronunciation shifting from u to v. I have almost always stuck to the u; thus Staurakios rather than Stavrakios. A major problem with Greek names js also the fact that their latinization has already become standard in English. Thus k tends to be rendered as c rather than k. I have reverted to the less ambiguous k in all cases (Kefalonia, Nikopolis, etc.) unless names have already become commonplace in English: e.g., Nicephorus, Lecapenus, etc. In the same way the Greek os tends to be latinized to us. In names already com-

XV1 Early Medieval Balkans

monplace in the English literature I have stuck with the us, otherwise I have used the os. Since control of particular territories in the Balkans has changed over time from Romans or Greeks to different Slavic people to Turks,

It is not surprising that there are many different names for some cities. On the whole, I have chosen the name used in the Middle Ages by the power that controlled that place most. Upon first mention (and also in the index of place names) I give the variant names for each place (e.g., Philippopolis [modern Plovdiv], or Durazzo [Dyrrachium, Durres], etc.).

Contents

Geography 1 Society 4

Introduction: Balkan Geography and Society 1

Chapter 1: Historical Background 9

The Indigenous Population 9 The Romans Acquire the Balkans 12

and Fourth Centuries 13 Creation and Importance of Constantinople 14

The Roman Empire and Its Balkan Provinces in the Third

Division of the Empire, 395 15 Characteristics of the Byzantine Empire 16

The Empire Becomes Christian 16 Imperial Administration of the Balkans 18 Land, Magnates, and Peasants 20

Notes 24

Withdrawal of the Goths 21

The Effects of Justinian’s Wars of Reconquest 22

Chapter 2: The Slavic Invasions 25 The Slavs Settle in the Balkans, ca. 550—ca. 630 25 The Avars: From Peak Strength to Decline, 614-ca. 635 41

The Establishment of the Croatians and Serbs 49

The Slavs in Greece 59 Byzantium and the Balkans in the Seventh Century to 658 64

Notes 72

Migration and Establishment of the Bulgars in Bulgaria, 670s 66

Recovery in the Balkans 69

The Theme System and the Beginning of Byzantine

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Chapter 3: The Balkans in the Eighth Century 74 | Bulgaria and Byzantium in the Eighth Century 74

Notes 93 Krum 94 Notes 131

The Byzantine Recovery of Greece 79

The Farmer’s Law 84

Chapter 4: Bulgaria in the Ninth Century 94

Bulgaria, 814 to 852 106 Christianization of Bulgaria 113 Chapter 5: Bulgaria under Symeon, 893-927 132

Symeon’s Background and Character 132

The Slavonic Rite and Hrabr’s Defense of Slavonic 134

The 894-97 War with Byzantium | 137 The 904 Bulgarian-Byzantine Treaty 140

Serbia in the Second Half of the Ninth Century 141

Notes 157 War Breaks Out between Bulgaria and Byzantium, 913 142

Symeon’s Coronation 144 War with Byzantium, 913-27 148 Chapter 6: Bulgaria after Symeon, 927-1018 159

Bulgaria and the Serb Lands, 927-65 159 Peter of Bulgaria’s Reign to 965 160 Bulgarian Society and Administration 164

The Bogomil Heresy 171 Nicephorus Phocas, 963-69 179

The Russian and Byzantine War over Bulgaria, 965-71 181

Notes 201

: Samuel’s Revived Bulgaria and Its Wars with Byzantium 188

Basil II’s Counteroffensive, 1001-18 197

Byzantium’s Position in the Balkans after 1018 200

Chapter 7: Duklja and the Central and Eastern Balkans from

the Death of Basil II, 1025, to the 1180s 202

Duklja after John Vladimir 202

Peter Deljan’s Rebellion 203

Stefan Voyislav and Duklja in the Early 1040s 206

Raiders from the North, 1046 to the 1070s 208

The Balkans, 1043-1100 211

Contents XIX

Civil War in Duklja 228 Hungary, Byzantium, and Serbia (Raska), 1100-1180 234

Serbian Lands 243

Stefan Nemanja Establishes a New Dynasty in the

Notes 247 Byzantium’s Position in the Balkans in the 1170s 244

Postscript to This section 245

Chapter 8: Croatia and Dalmatia 248 Sources on Medieval Croatia 248 Croatia from the Seventh Century to 969 251

The Church in Dalmatia in the Tenth Century 266

Croatia, 969-1075 274

The Slavonic Liturgy Becomes an Issue in the 1060s 280 Norman Balkan Activities in the Late Eleventh Century 281

Croatia, 1075-1102 283

Summary291 290 Notes

The Hungarian Annexation of Croatia, 1102, and Its Aftermath 284

Appendix: Medieval Rulers 293 Byzantine Emperors to 1204 293

Bulgarian Rulers 295 Rulers of Croatia 296 Serbian Rulers 297

Hungarian Rulers Discussed in Text 298

Glossaries 299 Terms 299 Peoples 304 Sources and Authors of Sources Referred to in the Text 309

Index 319

Selected Bibliography 315 Maps 1-5 following page xix

Map 6 338-39

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