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Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part I.
The Bulgarians.—Origin, Migrations, And Settlement Of The
Hungarians.—Their Inroads In The East And West.—The
Monarchy Of Russia.—Geography And Trade.—Wars Of The
Russians Against The Greek Empire.—Conversion Of The
Barbarians.
Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part II. Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part III. |
The Bulgarians.—Origin, Migrations, And Settlement Of The
Hungarians.—Their Inroads In The East And West.—The
Monarchy Of Russia.—Geography And Trade.—Wars Of The
Russians Against The Greek Empire.—Conversion Of The
Barbarians.
Under the reign of Constantine the grandson of Heraclius, the ancient barrier of the Danube, so often violated and so often restored, was irretrievably swept away by a new deluge of Barbarians. Their progress was favored by the caliphs, their unknown and accidental auxiliaries: the Roman legions were occupied in Asia; and after the loss of Syria, Egypt, and Africa, the Caesars were twice reduced to the danger and disgrace of defending their capital against the Saracens. If, in the account of this interesting people, I have deviated from the strict and original line of my undertaking, the merit of the subject will hide my transgression, or solicit my excuse. In the East, in the West, in war, in religion, in science, in their prosperity, and in their decay, the Arabians press themselves on our curiosity: the first overthrow of the church and empire of the Greeks may be imputed to their arms; and the disciples of Mahomet still hold the civil and religious sceptre of the Oriental world. But the same labor would be unworthily bestowed on the swarms of savages, who, between the seventh and the twelfth century, descended from the plains of Scythia, in transient inroad or perpetual emigration. 1 Their names are uncouth, their origins doubtful, their actions obscure, their superstition was blind, their valor brutal, and the uniformity of their public and private lives was neither softened by innocence nor refined by policy. The majesty of the Byzantine throne repelled and survived their disorderly attacks; the greater part of these Barbarians has disappeared without leaving any memorial of their existence, and the despicable remnant continues, and may long continue, to groan under the dominion of a foreign tyrant. From the antiquities of, I. Bulgarians, II. Hungarians, and, III. Russians, I shall content myself with selecting such facts as yet deserve to be remembered. The conquests of the, IV. Normans, and the monarchy of the, V. Turks, will naturally terminate in the memorable Crusades to the Holy Land, and the double fall of the city and empire of Constantine.
1 (return)
[ All the passages of the Byzantine history which relate to
the Barbarians are compiled, methodized, and transcribed, in a Latin
version, by the laborious John Gotthelf Stritter, in his "Memoriae
Populorum, ad Danubium, Pontum Euxinum, Paludem Maeotidem, Caucasum,
Mare Caspium, et inde Magis ad Septemtriones incolentium." Petropoli,
1771-1779; in four tomes, or six volumes, in 4to. But the fashion has
not enhanced the price of these raw materials.]
I. In his march to Italy, Theodoric 2 the Ostrogoth had trampled on the arms of the Bulgarians. After this defeat, the name and the nation are lost during a century and a half; and it may be suspected that the same or a similar appellation was revived by strange colonies from the Borysthenes, the Tanais, or the Volga. A king of the ancient Bulgaria, 3 bequeathed to his five sons a last lesson of moderation and concord. It was received as youth has ever received the counsels of age and experience: the five princes buried their father; divided his subjects and cattle; forgot his advice; separated from each other; and wandered in quest of fortune till we find the most adventurous in the heart of Italy, under the protection of the exarch of Ravenna. 4 But the stream of emigration was directed or impelled towards the capital. The modern Bulgaria, along the southern banks of the Danube, was stamped with the name and image which it has retained to the present hour: the new conquerors successively acquired, by war or treaty, the Roman provinces of Dardania, Thessaly, and the two Epirus; 5 the ecclesiastical supremacy was translated from the native city of Justinian; and, in their prosperous age, the obscure town of Lychnidus, or Achrida, was honored with the throne of a king and a patriarch. 6 The unquestionable evidence of language attests the descent of the Bulgarians from the original stock of the Sclavonian, or more properly Slavonian, race; 7 and the kindred bands of Servians, Bosnians, Rascians, Croatians, Walachians, 8 &c., followed either the standard or the example of the leading tribe. From the Euxine to the Adriatic, in the state of captives, or subjects, or allies, or enemies, of the Greek empire, they overspread the land; and the national appellation of the slaves 9 has been degraded by chance or malice from the signification of glory to that of servitude. 10 Among these colonies, the Chrobatians, 11 or Croats, who now attend the motions of an Austrian army, are the descendants of a mighty people, the conquerors and sovereigns of Dalmatia. The maritime cities, and of these the infant republic of Ragusa, implored the aid and instructions of the Byzantine court: they were advised by the magnanimous Basil to reserve a small acknowledgment of their fidelity to the Roman empire, and to appease, by an annual tribute, the wrath of these irresistible Barbarians. The kingdom of Crotia was shared by eleven Zoupans, or feudatory lords; and their united forces were numbered at sixty thousand horse and one hundred thousand foot. A long sea-coast, indented with capacious harbors, covered with a string of islands, and almost in sight of the Italian shores, disposed both the natives and strangers to the practice of navigation. The boats or brigantines of the Croats were constructed after the fashion of the old Liburnians: one hundred and eighty vessels may excite the idea of a respectable navy; but our seamen will smile at the allowance of ten, or twenty, or forty, men for each of these ships of war. They were gradually converted to the more honorable service of commerce; yet the Sclavonian pirates were still frequent and dangerous; and it was not before the close of the tenth century that the freedom and sovereignty of the Gulf were effectually vindicated by the Venetian republic. 12 The ancestors of these Dalmatian kings were equally removed from the use and abuse of navigation: they dwelt in the White Croatia, in the inland regions of Silesia and Little Poland, thirty days' journey, according to the Greek computation, from the sea of darkness.
2 (return)
[ Hist. vol. iv. p. 11.]
3 (return)
[ Theophanes, p. 296-299. Anastasius, p. 113. Nicephorus,
C. P. p. 22, 23. Theophanes places the old Bulgaria on the banks of the
Atell or Volga; but he deprives himself of all geographical credit by
discharging that river into the Euxine Sea.]
4 (return)
[ Paul. Diacon. de Gestis Langobard. l. v. c. 29, p. 881,
882. The apparent difference between the Lombard historian and the
above-mentioned Greeks, is easily reconciled by Camillo Pellegrino (de
Ducatu Beneventano, dissert. vii. in the Scriptores Rerum Ital. (tom. v.
p. 186, 187) and Beretti, (Chorograph. Italiae Medii Aevi, p. 273, &c.
This Bulgarian colony was planted in a vacant district of Samnium, and
learned the Latin, without forgetting their native language.]
5 (return)
[ These provinces of the Greek idiom and empire are assigned
to the Bulgarian kingdom in the dispute of ecclesiastical jurisdiction
between the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople, (Baronius, Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 869, No. 75.)]
6 (return)
[ The situation and royalty of Lychnidus, or Achrida, are
clearly expressed in Cedrenus, (p. 713.) The removal of an archbishop or
patriarch from Justinianea prima to Lychnidus, and at length to Ternovo,
has produced some perplexity in the ideas or language of the Greeks,
(Nicephorus Gregoras, l. ii. c. 2, p. 14, 15. Thomassin, Discipline de
l'Eglise, tom. i. l. i. c. 19, 23;) and a Frenchman (D'Anville) is more
accurately skilled in the geography of their own country, (Hist. de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxi.)]
7 (return)
[ Chalcocondyles, a competent judge, affirms the identity of
the language of the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Servians, Bulgarians, Poles,
(de Rebus Turcicis, l. x. p. 283,) and elsewhere of the Bohemians,
(l. ii. p. 38.) The same author has marked the separate idiom of the
Hungarians. * Note: The Slavonian languages are no doubt Indo-European,
though an original branch of that great family, comprehending the
various dialects named by Gibbon and others. Shafarik, t. 33.—M. 1845.]
8 (return)
[ See the work of John Christopher de Jordan, de Originibus
Sclavicis, Vindobonae, 1745, in four parts, or two volumes in folio. His
collections and researches are useful to elucidate the antiquities of
Bohemia and the adjacent countries; but his plan is narrow, his style
barbarous, his criticism shallow, and the Aulic counsellor is not free
from the prejudices of a Bohemian. * Note: We have at length a profound
and satisfactory work on the Slavonian races. Shafarik, Slawische
Alterthumer. B. 2, Leipzig, 1843.—M. 1845.]
9 (return)
[ Jordan subscribes to the well-known and probable derivation
from Slava, laus, gloria, a word of familiar use in the different
dialects and parts of speech, and which forms the termination of the
most illustrious names, (de Originibus Sclavicis, pars. i. p. 40, pars.
iv. p. 101, 102)]
10 (return)
[ This conversion of a national into an appellative name
appears to have arisen in the viiith century, in the Oriental France,
where the princes and bishops were rich in Sclavonian captives, not of
the Bohemian, (exclaims Jordan,) but of Sorabian race. From thence the
word was extended to the general use, to the modern languages, and even
to the style of the last Byzantines, (see the Greek and Latin Glossaries
and Ducange.) The confusion of the Servians with the Latin Servi, was
still more fortunate and familiar, (Constant. Porphyr. de Administrando,
Imperio, c. 32, p. 99.)]
11 (return)
[ The emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, most accurate
for his own times, most fabulous for preceding ages, describes the
Sclavonians of Dalmatia, (c. 29-36.)]
12 (return)
[ See the anonymous Chronicle of the xith century, ascribed
to John Sagorninus, (p. 94-102,) and that composed in the xivth by the
Doge Andrew Dandolo, (Script. Rerum. Ital. tom. xii. p. 227-230,) the
two oldest monuments of the history of Venice.]
The glory of the Bulgarians 13 was confined to a narrow scope both of time and place. In the ninth and tenth centuries, they reigned to the south of the Danube; but the more powerful nations that had followed their emigration repelled all return to the north and all progress to the west. Yet in the obscure catalogue of their exploits, they might boast an honor which had hitherto been appropriated to the Goths: that of slaying in battle one of the successors of Augustus and Constantine. The emperor Nicephorus had lost his fame in the Arabian, he lost his life in the Sclavonian, war. In his first operations he advanced with boldness and success into the centre of Bulgaria, and burnt the royal court, which was probably no more than an edifice and village of timber. But while he searched the spoil and refused all offers of treaty, his enemies collected their spirits and their forces: the passes of retreat were insuperably barred; and the trembling Nicephorus was heard to exclaim, "Alas, alas! unless we could assume the wings of birds, we cannot hope to escape." Two days he waited his fate in the inactivity of despair; but, on the morning of the third, the Bulgarians surprised the camp, and the Roman prince, with the great officers of the empire, were slaughtered in their tents. The body of Valens had been saved from insult; but the head of Nicephorus was exposed on a spear, and his skull, enchased with gold, was often replenished in the feasts of victory. The Greeks bewailed the dishonor of the throne; but they acknowledged the just punishment of avarice and cruelty. This savage cup was deeply tinctured with the manners of the Scythian wilderness; but they were softened before the end of the same century by a peaceful intercourse with the Greeks, the possession of a cultivated region, and the introduction of the Christian worship. The nobles of Bulgaria were educated in the schools and palace of Constantinople; and Simeon, 14 a youth of the royal line, was instructed in the rhetoric of Demosthenes and the logic of Aristotle. He relinquished the profession of a monk for that of a king and warrior; and in his reign of more than forty years, Bulgaria assumed a rank among the civilized powers of the earth. The Greeks, whom he repeatedly attacked, derived a faint consolation from indulging themselves in the reproaches of perfidy and sacrilege. They purchased the aid of the Pagan Turks; but Simeon, in a second battle, redeemed the loss of the first, at a time when it was esteemed a victory to elude the arms of that formidable nation. The Servians were overthrown, made captive and dispersed; and those who visited the country before their restoration could discover no more than fifty vagrants, without women or children, who extorted a precarious subsistence from the chase. On classic ground, on the banks of Achelous, the greeks were defeated; their horn was broken by the strength of the Barbaric Hercules. 15 He formed the siege of Constantinople; and, in a personal conference with the emperor, Simeon imposed the conditions of peace. They met with the most jealous precautions: the royal gallery was drawn close to an artificial and well-fortified platform; and the majesty of the purple was emulated by the pomp of the Bulgarian. "Are you a Christian?" said the humble Romanus: "it is your duty to abstain from the blood of your fellow-Christians. Has the thirst of riches seduced you from the blessings of peace? Sheathe your sword, open your hand, and I will satiate the utmost measure of your desires." The reconciliation was sealed by a domestic alliance; the freedom of trade was granted or restored; the first honors of the court were secured to the friends of Bulgaria, above the ambassadors of enemies or strangers; 16 and her princes were dignified with the high and invidious title of Basileus, or emperor. But this friendship was soon disturbed: after the death of Simeon, the nations were again in arms; his feeble successors were divided and extinguished; and, in the beginning of the eleventh century, the second Basil, who was born in the purple, deserved the appellation of conqueror of the Bulgarians. His avarice was in some measure gratified by a treasure of four hundred thousand pounds sterling, (ten thousand pounds' weight of gold,) which he found in the palace of Lychnidus. His cruelty inflicted a cool and exquisite vengeance on fifteen thousand captives who had been guilty of the defence of their country. They were deprived of sight; but to one of each hundred a single eye was left, that he might conduct his blind century to the presence of their king. Their king is said to have expired of grief and horror; the nation was awed by this terrible example; the Bulgarians were swept away from their settlements, and circumscribed within a narrow province; the surviving chiefs bequeathed to their children the advice of patience and the duty of revenge.
13 (return)
[ The first kingdom of the Bulgarians may be found, under
the proper dates, in the Annals of Cedrenus and Zonaras. The Byzantine
materials are collected by Stritter, (Memoriae Populorum, tom. ii. pars
ii. p. 441-647;) and the series of their kings is disposed and settled
by Ducange, (Fam. Byzant. p. 305-318.]
14 (return)
[ Simeonem semi-Graecum esse aiebant, eo quod a pueritia
Byzantii Demosthenis rhetoricam et Aristotelis syllogismos didicerat,
(Liutprand, l. iii. c. 8.) He says in another place, Simeon, fortis
bella tor, Bulgariae praeerat; Christianus, sed vicinis Graecis valde
inimicus, (l. i. c. 2.)]
15 (return)
[—Rigidum fera dextera cornu Dum tenet, infregit, truncaque
a fronte revellit. Ovid (Metamorph. ix. 1-100) has boldly painted the
combat of the river god and the hero; the native and the stranger.]
16 (return)
[ The ambassador of Otho was provoked by the Greek excuses,
cum Christophori filiam Petrus Bulgarorum Vasileus conjugem duceret,
Symphona, id est consonantia scripto juramento firmata sunt, ut omnium
gentium Apostolis, id est nunciis, penes nos Bulgarorum Apostoli
praeponantur, honorentur, diligantur, (Liutprand in Legatione, p. 482.)
See the Ceremoniale of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, tom. i. p. 82, tom.
ii. p. 429, 430, 434, 435, 443, 444, 446, 447, with the annotations of
Reiske.]
II. When the black swarm of Hungarians first hung over Europe, above nine hundred years after the Christian aera, they were mistaken by fear and superstition for the Gog and Magog of the Scriptures, the signs and forerunners of the end of the world. 17 Since the introduction of letters, they have explored their own antiquities with a strong and laudable impulse of patriotic curiosity. 18 Their rational criticism can no longer be amused with a vain pedigree of Attila and the Huns; but they complain that their primitive records have perished in the Tartar war; that the truth or fiction of their rustic songs is long since forgotten; and that the fragments of a rude chronicle 19 must be painfully reconciled with the contemporary though foreign intelligence of the imperial geographer. 20 Magiar is the national and oriental denomination of the Hungarians; but, among the tribes of Scythia, they are distinguished by the Greeks under the proper and peculiar name of Turks, as the descendants of that mighty people who had conquered and reigned from China to the Volga. The Pannonian colony preserved a correspondence of trade and amity with the eastern Turks on the confines of Persia and after a separation of three hundred and fifty years, the missionaries of the king of Hungary discovered and visited their ancient country near the banks of the Volga. They were hospitably entertained by a people of Pagans and Savages who still bore the name of Hungarians; conversed in their native tongue, recollected a tradition of their long-lost brethren, and listened with amazement to the marvellous tale of their new kingdom and religion. The zeal of conversion was animated by the interest of consanguinity; and one of the greatest of their princes had formed the generous, though fruitless, design of replenishing the solitude of Pannonia by this domestic colony from the heart of Tartary. 21 From this primitive country they were driven to the West by the tide of war and emigration, by the weight of the more distant tribes, who at the same time were fugitives and conquerors. 2111 Reason or fortune directed their course towards the frontiers of the Roman empire: they halted in the usual stations along the banks of the great rivers; and in the territories of Moscow, Kiow, and Moldavia, some vestiges have been discovered of their temporary residence. In this long and various peregrination, they could not always escape the dominion of the stronger; and the purity of their blood was improved or sullied by the mixture of a foreign race: from a motive of compulsion, or choice, several tribes of the Chazars were associated to the standard of their ancient vassals; introduced the use of a second language; and obtained by their superior renown the most honorable place in the front of battle. The military force of the Turks and their allies marched in seven equal and artificial divisions; each division was formed of thirty thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven warriors, and the proportion of women, children, and servants, supposes and requires at least a million of emigrants. Their public counsels were directed by seven vayvods, or hereditary chiefs; but the experience of discord and weakness recommended the more simple and vigorous administration of a single person. The sceptre, which had been declined by the modest Lebedias, was granted to the birth or merit of Almus and his son Arpad, and the authority of the supreme khan of the Chazars confirmed the engagement of the prince and people; of the people to obey his commands, of the prince to consult their happiness and glory.
17 (return)
[ A bishop of Wurtzburgh submitted his opinion to a
reverend abbot; but he more gravely decided, that Gog and Magog were the
spiritual persecutors of the church; since Gog signifies the root,
the pride of the Heresiarchs, and Magog what comes from the root, the
propagation of their sects. Yet these men once commanded the respect of
mankind, (Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 594, &c.)]
18 (return)
[ The two national authors, from whom I have derived the
mos assistance, are George Pray (Dissertationes and Annales veterum Hun
garorum, &c., Vindobonae, 1775, in folio) and Stephen Katona, (Hist.
Critica Ducum et Regum Hungariae Stirpis Arpadianae, Paestini,
1778-1781, 5 vols. in octavo.) The first embraces a large and
often conjectural space; the latter, by his learning, judgment, and
perspicuity, deserves the name of a critical historian. * Note: Compare
Engel Geschichte des Ungrischen Reichs und seiner Neben lander, Halle,
1797, and Mailath, Geschichte der Magyaren, Wien, 1828. In an appendix
to the latter work will be found a brief abstract of the speculations
(for it is difficult to consider them more) which have been advanced by
the learned, on the origin of the Magyar and Hungarian names. Compare
vol. vi. p. 35, note.—M.]
19 (return)
[ The author of this Chronicle is styled the notary of King
Bela. Katona has assigned him to the xiith century, and defends his
character against the hypercriticism of Pray. This rude annalist must
have transcribed some historical records, since he could affirm
with dignity, rejectis falsis fabulis rusticorum, et garrulo cantu
joculatorum. In the xvth century, these fables were collected
by Thurotzius, and embellished by the Italian Bonfinius. See the
Preliminary Discourse in the Hist. Critica Ducum, p. 7-33.]
20 (return)
[ See Constantine de Administrando Imperio, c. 3, 4, 13,
38-42, Katona has nicely fixed the composition of this work to the
years 949, 950, 951, (p. 4-7.) The critical historian (p. 34-107)
endeavors to prove the existence, and to relate the actions, of a first
duke Almus the father of Arpad, who is tacitly rejected by Constantine.]
21 (return)
[ Pray (Dissert. p. 37-39, &c.) produces and illustrates
the original passages of the Hungarian missionaries, Bonfinius and
Aeneas Sylvius.]
2111 (return)
[ In the deserts to the south-east of Astrakhan have been
found the ruins of a city named Madchar, which proves the residence of
the Hungarians or Magiar in those regions. Precis de la Geog. Univ. par
Malte Brun, vol. i. p. 353.—G.——This is contested by Klaproth in
his Travels, c. xxi. Madschar, (he states) in old Tartar, means
"stone building." This was a Tartar city mentioned by the Mahometan
writers.—M.]
With this narrative we might be reasonably content, if the penetration of modern learning had not opened a new and larger prospect of the antiquities of nations. The Hungarian language stands alone, and as it were insulated, among the Sclavonian dialects; but it bears a close and clear affinity to the idioms of the Fennic race, 22 of an obsolete and savage race, which formerly occupied the northern regions of Asia and Europe. 2211 The genuine appellation of Ugri or Igours is found on the western confines of China; 23 their migration to the banks of the Irtish is attested by Tartar evidence; 24 a similar name and language are detected in the southern parts of Siberia; 25 and the remains of the Fennic tribes are widely, though thinly scattered from the sources of the Oby to the shores of Lapland. 26 The consanguinity of the Hungarians and Laplanders would display the powerful energy of climate on the children of a common parent; the lively contrast between the bold adventurers who are intoxicated with the wines of the Danube, and the wretched fugitives who are immersed beneath the snows of the polar circle.
Arms and freedom have ever been the ruling, though too often the unsuccessful, passion of the Hungarians, who are endowed by nature with a vigorous constitution of soul and body. 27 Extreme cold has diminished the stature and congealed the faculties of the Laplanders; and the arctic tribes, alone among the sons of men, are ignorant of war, and unconscious of human blood; a happy ignorance, if reason and virtue were the guardians of their peace! 28
22 (return)
[ Fischer in the Quaestiones Petropolitanae, de Origine
Ungrorum, and Pray, Dissertat. i. ii. iii. &c., have drawn up several
comparative tables of the Hungarian with the Fennic dialects. The
affinity is indeed striking, but the lists are short; the words are
purposely chosen; and I read in the learned Bayer, (Comment. Academ.
Petropol. tom. x. p. 374,) that although the Hungarian has adopted many
Fennic words, (innumeras voces,) it essentially differs toto genio et
natura.]
2211 (return)
[ The connection between the Magyar language and that of
the Finns is now almost generally admitted. Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta,
p. 188, &c. Malte Bran, tom. vi. p. 723, &c.—M.]
23 (return)
[ In the religion of Turfan, which is clearly and minutely
described by the Chinese Geographers, (Gaubil, Hist. du Grand Gengiscan,
13; De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 31, &c.)]
24 (return)
[ Hist. Genealogique des Tartars, par Abulghazi Bahadur Khan
partie ii. p. 90-98.]
25 (return)
[ In their journey to Pekin, both Isbrand Ives (Harris's
Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. p. 920, 921) and Bell
(Travels, vol. i p. 174) found the Vogulitz in the neighborhood of
Tobolsky. By the tortures of the etymological art, Ugur and Vogul are
reduced to the same name; the circumjacent mountains really bear the
appellation of Ugrian; and of all the Fennic dialects, the Vogulian is
the nearest to the Hungarian, (Fischer, Dissert. i. p. 20-30. Pray.
Dissert. ii. p. 31-34.)]
26 (return)
[ The eight tribes of the Fennic race are described in the
curious work of M. Leveque, (Hist. des Peuples soumis a la Domination de
la Russie, tom. ii. p. 361-561.)]
27 (return)
[ This picture of the Hungarians and Bulgarians is chiefly
drawn from the Tactics of Leo, p. 796-801, and the Latin Annals, which
are alleged by Baronius, Pagi, and Muratori, A.D. 889, &c.]
28 (return)
[ Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 6, in 12mo. Gustavus
Adolphus attempted, without success, to form a regiment of Laplanders.
Grotius says of these arctic tribes, arma arcus et pharetra, sed
adversus feras, (Annal. l. iv. p. 236;) and attempts, after the manner
of Tacitus, to varnish with philosophy their brutal ignorance.]
It is the observation of the Imperial author of the Tactics, 29 that all the Scythian hordes resembled each other in their pastoral and military life, that they all practised the same means of subsistence, and employed the same instruments of destruction. But he adds, that the two nations of Bulgarians and Hungarians were superior to their brethren, and similar to each other in the improvements, however rude, of their discipline and government: their visible likeness determines Leo to confound his friends and enemies in one common description; and the picture may be heightened by some strokes from their contemporaries of the tenth century. Except the merit and fame of military prowess, all that is valued by mankind appeared vile and contemptible to these Barbarians, whose native fierceness was stimulated by the consciousness of numbers and freedom. The tents of the Hungarians were of leather, their garments of fur; they shaved their hair, and scarified their faces: in speech they were slow, in action prompt, in treaty perfidious; and they shared the common reproach of Barbarians, too ignorant to conceive the importance of truth, too proud to deny or palliate the breach of their most solemn engagements. Their simplicity has been praised; yet they abstained only from the luxury they had never known; whatever they saw they coveted; their desires were insatiate, and their sole industry was the hand of violence and rapine. By the definition of a pastoral nation, I have recalled a long description of the economy, the warfare, and the government that prevail in that state of society; I may add, that to fishing, as well as to the chase, the Hungarians were indebted for a part of their subsistence; and since they seldom cultivated the ground, they must, at least in their new settlements, have sometimes practised a slight and unskilful husbandry. In their emigrations, perhaps in their expeditions, the host was accompanied by thousands of sheep and oxen which increased the cloud of formidable dust, and afforded a constant and wholesale supply of milk and animal food. A plentiful command of forage was the first care of the general, and if the flocks and herds were secure of their pastures, the hardy warrior was alike insensible of danger and fatigue. The confusion of men and cattle that overspread the country exposed their camp to a nocturnal surprise, had not a still wider circuit been occupied by their light cavalry, perpetually in motion to discover and delay the approach of the enemy. After some experience of the Roman tactics, they adopted the use of the sword and spear, the helmet of the soldier, and the iron breastplate of his steed: but their native and deadly weapon was the Tartar bow: from the earliest infancy their children and servants were exercised in the double science of archery and horsemanship; their arm was strong; their aim was sure; and in the most rapid career, they were taught to throw themselves backwards, and to shoot a volley of arrows into the air. In open combat, in secret ambush, in flight, or pursuit, they were equally formidable; an appearance of order was maintained in the foremost ranks, but their charge was driven forwards by the impatient pressure of succeeding crowds. They pursued, headlong and rash, with loosened reins and horrific outcries; but, if they fled, with real or dissembled fear, the ardor of a pursuing foe was checked and chastised by the same habits of irregular speed and sudden evolution. In the abuse of victory, they astonished Europe, yet smarting from the wounds of the Saracen and the Dane: mercy they rarely asked, and more rarely bestowed: both sexes were accused is equally inaccessible to pity, and their appetite for raw flesh might countenance the popular tale, that they drank the blood, and feasted on the hearts of the slain. Yet the Hungarians were not devoid of those principles of justice and humanity, which nature has implanted in every bosom. The license of public and private injuries was restrained by laws and punishments; and in the security of an open camp, theft is the most tempting and most dangerous offence. Among the Barbarians there were many, whose spontaneous virtue supplied their laws and corrected their manners, who performed the duties, and sympathized with the affections, of social life.
29 (return)
[ Leo has observed, that the government of the Turks was
monarchical, and that their punishments were rigorous, (Tactic. p. 896)
Rhegino (in Chron. A.D. 889) mentions theft as a capital crime, and his
jurisprudence is confirmed by the original code of St. Stephen, (A.D.
1016.) If a slave were guilty, he was chastised, for the first time,
with the loss of his nose, or a fine of five heifers; for the second,
with the loss of his ears, or a similar fine; for the third, with death;
which the freeman did not incur till the fourth offence, as his first
penalty was the loss of liberty, (Katona, Hist. Regum Hungar tom. i. p.
231, 232.)]
After a long pilgrimage of flight or victory, the Turkish hordes approached the common limits of the French and Byzantine empires. Their first conquests and final settlements extended on either side of the Danube above Vienna, below Belgrade, and beyond the measure of the Roman province of Pannonia, or the modern kingdom of Hungary. 30 That ample and fertile land was loosely occupied by the Moravians, a Sclavonian name and tribe, which were driven by the invaders into the compass of a narrow province. Charlemagne had stretched a vague and nominal empire as far as the edge of Transylvania; but, after the failure of his legitimate line, the dukes of Moravia forgot their obedience and tribute to the monarchs of Oriental France. The bastard Arnulph was provoked to invite the arms of the Turks: they rushed through the real or figurative wall, which his indiscretion had thrown open; and the king of Germany has been justly reproached as a traitor to the civil and ecclesiastical society of the Christians. During the life of Arnulph, the Hungarians were checked by gratitude or fear; but in the infancy of his son Lewis they discovered and invaded Bavaria; and such was their Scythian speed, that in a single day a circuit of fifty miles was stripped and consumed. In the battle of Augsburgh the Christians maintained their advantage till the seventh hour of the day, they were deceived and vanquished by the flying stratagems of the Turkish cavalry. The conflagration spread over the provinces of Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia; and the Hungarians 31 promoted the reign of anarchy, by forcing the stoutest barons to discipline their vassals and fortify their castles. The origin of walled towns is ascribed to this calamitous period; nor could any distance be secure against an enemy, who, almost at the same instant, laid in ashes the Helvetian monastery of St. Gall, and the city of Bremen, on the shores of the northern ocean. Above thirty years the Germanic empire, or kingdom, was subject to the ignominy of tribute; and resistance was disarmed by the menace, the serious and effectual menace of dragging the women and children into captivity, and of slaughtering the males above the age of ten years. I have neither power nor inclination to follow the Hungarians beyond the Rhine; but I must observe with surprise, that the southern provinces of France were blasted by the tempest, and that Spain, behind her Pyrenees, was astonished at the approach of these formidable strangers. 32 The vicinity of Italy had tempted their early inroads; but from their camp on the Brenta, they beheld with some terror the apparent strength and populousness of the new discovered country. They requested leave to retire; their request was proudly rejected by the Italian king; and the lives of twenty thousand Christians paid the forfeit of his obstinacy and rashness. Among the cities of the West, the royal Pavia was conspicuous in fame and splendor; and the preeminence of Rome itself was only derived from the relics of the apostles. The Hungarians appeared; Pavia was in flames; forty-three churches were consumed; and, after the massacre of the people, they spared about two hundred wretches who had gathered some bushels of gold and silver (a vague exaggeration) from the smoking ruins of their country. In these annual excursions from the Alps to the neighborhood of Rome and Capua, the churches, that yet escaped, resounded with a fearful litany: "O, save and deliver us from the arrows of the Hungarians!" But the saints were deaf or inexorable; and the torrent rolled forwards, till it was stopped by the extreme land of Calabria. 33 A composition was offered and accepted for the head of each Italian subject; and ten bushels of silver were poured forth in the Turkish camp. But falsehood is the natural antagonist of violence; and the robbers were defrauded both in the numbers of the assessment and the standard of the metal. On the side of the East, the Hungarians were opposed in doubtful conflict by the equal arms of the Bulgarians, whose faith forbade an alliance with the Pagans, and whose situation formed the barrier of the Byzantine empire. The barrier was overturned; the emperor of Constantinople beheld the waving banners of the Turks; and one of their boldest warriors presumed to strike a battle-axe into the golden gate. The arts and treasures of the Greeks diverted the assault; but the Hungarians might boast, in their retreat, that they had imposed a tribute on the spirit of Bulgaria and the majesty of the Caesars. 34 The remote and rapid operations of the same campaign appear to magnify the power and numbers of the Turks; but their courage is most deserving of praise, since a light troop of three or four hundred horse would often attempt and execute the most daring inroads to the gates of Thessalonica and Constantinople. At this disastrous aera of the ninth and tenth centuries, Europe was afflicted by a triple scourge from the North, the East, and the South: the Norman, the Hungarian, and the Saracen, sometimes trod the same ground of desolation; and these savage foes might have been compared by Homer to the two lions growling over the carcass of a mangled stag. 35
30 (return)
[ See Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungar. p. 321-352.]
31 (return)
[ Hungarorum gens, cujus omnes fere nationes expertae
saevitium &c., is the preface of Liutprand, (l. i. c. 2,) who frequently
expatiated on the calamities of his own times. See l. i. c. 5, l. ii. c.
1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7; l. iii. c. 1, &c., l. v. c. 8, 15, in Legat. p. 485.
His colors are glaring but his chronology must be rectified by Pagi and
Muratori.]
32 (return)
[ The three bloody reigns of Arpad, Zoltan, and Toxus, are
critically illustrated by Katona, (Hist. Ducum, &c. p. 107-499.) His
diligence has searched both natives and foreigners; yet to the deeds of
mischief, or glory, I have been able to add the destruction of Bremen,
(Adam Bremensis, i. 43.)]
33 (return)
[ Muratori has considered with patriotic care the danger and
resources of Modena. The citizens besought St. Geminianus, their patron,
to avert, by his intercession, the rabies, flagellum, &c. Nunc te
rogamus, licet servi pessimi, Ab Ungerorum nos defendas jaculis.The
bishop erected walls for the public defence, not contra dominos serenos,
(Antiquitat. Ital. Med. Aevi, tom. i. dissertat. i. p. 21, 22,) and the
song of the nightly watch is not without elegance or use, (tom. iii.
dis. xl. p. 709.) The Italian annalist has accurately traced the series
of their inroads, (Annali d' Italia, tom. vii. p. 365, 367, 398, 401,
437, 440, tom. viii. p. 19, 41, 52, &c.)]
34 (return)
[ Both the Hungarian and Russian annals suppose, that they
besieged, or attacked, or insulted Constantinople, (Pray, dissertat.
x. p. 239. Katona, Hist. Ducum, p. 354-360;) and the fact is almost
confessed by the Byzantine historians, (Leo Grammaticus, p. 506.
Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 629: ) yet, however glorious to the nation, it is
denied or doubted by the critical historian, and even by the notary of
Bela. Their scepticism is meritorious; they could not safely transcribe
or believe the rusticorum fabulas: but Katona might have given due
attention to the evidence of Liutprand, Bulgarorum gentem atque daecorum
tributariam fecerant, (Hist. l. ii. c. 4, p. 435.)]
35 (return)
[—Iliad, xvi. 756.]
The deliverance of Germany and Christendom was achieved by the Saxon princes, Henry the Fowler and Otho the Great, who, in two memorable battles, forever broke the power of the Hungarians. 36 The valiant Henry was roused from a bed of sickness by the invasion of his country; but his mind was vigorous and his prudence successful. "My companions," said he, on the morning of the combat, "maintain your ranks, receive on your bucklers the first arrows of the Pagans, and prevent their second discharge by the equal and rapid career of your lances." They obeyed and conquered: and the historical picture of the castle of Merseburgh expressed the features, or at least the character, of Henry, who, in an age of ignorance, intrusted to the finer arts the perpetuity of his name. 37 At the end of twenty years, the children of the Turks who had fallen by his sword invaded the empire of his son; and their force is defined, in the lowest estimate, at one hundred thousand horse. They were invited by domestic faction; the gates of Germany were treacherously unlocked; and they spread, far beyond the Rhine and the Meuse, into the heart of Flanders. But the vigor and prudence of Otho dispelled the conspiracy; the princes were made sensible that unless they were true to each other, their religion and country were irrecoverably lost; and the national powers were reviewed in the plains of Augsburgh. They marched and fought in eight legions, according to the division of provinces and tribes; the first, second, and third, were composed of Bavarians; the fourth, of Franconians; the fifth, of Saxons, under the immediate command of the monarch; the sixth and seventh consisted of Swabians; and the eighth legion, of a thousand Bohemians, closed the rear of the host. The resources of discipline and valor were fortified by the arts of superstition, which, on this occasion, may deserve the epithets of generous and salutary. The soldiers were purified with a fast; the camp was blessed with the relics of saints and martyrs; and the Christian hero girded on his side the sword of Constantine, grasped the invincible spear of Charlemagne, and waved the banner of St. Maurice, the praefect of the Thebaean legion. But his firmest confidence was placed in the holy lance, 38 whose point was fashioned of the nails of the cross, and which his father had extorted from the king of Burgundy, by the threats of war, and the gift of a province. The Hungarians were expected in the front; they secretly passed the Lech, a river of Bavaria that falls into the Danube; turned the rear of the Christian army; plundered the baggage, and disordered the legion of Bohemia and Swabia. The battle was restored by the Franconians, whose duke, the valiant Conrad, was pierced with an arrow as he rested from his fatigues: the Saxons fought under the eyes of their king; and his victory surpassed, in merit and importance, the triumphs of the last two hundred years. The loss of the Hungarians was still greater in the flight than in the action; they were encompassed by the rivers of Bavaria; and their past cruelties excluded them from the hope of mercy. Three captive princes were hanged at Ratisbon, the multitude of prisoners was slain or mutilated, and the fugitives, who presumed to appear in the face of their country, were condemned to everlasting poverty and disgrace. 39 Yet the spirit of the nation was humbled, and the most accessible passes of Hungary were fortified with a ditch and rampart. Adversity suggested the counsels of moderation and peace: the robbers of the West acquiesced in a sedentary life; and the next generation was taught, by a discerning prince, that far more might be gained by multiplying and exchanging the produce of a fruitful soil. The native race, the Turkish or Fennic blood, was mingled with new colonies of Scythian or Sclavonian origin; 40 many thousands of robust and industrious captives had been imported from all the countries of Europe; 41 and after the marriage of Geisa with a Bavarian princess, he bestowed honors and estates on the nobles of Germany. 42 The son of Geisa was invested with the regal title, and the house of Arpad reigned three hundred years in the kingdom of Hungary. But the freeborn Barbarians were not dazzled by the lustre of the diadem, and the people asserted their indefeasible right of choosing, deposing, and punishing the hereditary servant of the state.
36 (return)
[ They are amply and critically discussed by Katona, (Hist.
Dacum, p. 360-368, 427-470.) Liutprand (l. ii. c. 8, 9) is the best
evidence for the former, and Witichind (Annal. Saxon. l. iii.) of the
latter; but the critical historian will not even overlook the horn of a
warrior, which is said to be preserved at Jaz-berid.]
37 (return)
[ Hunc vero triumphum, tam laude quam memoria dignum, ad
Meresburgum rex in superiori coenaculo domus per Zeus, id est, picturam,
notari praecepit, adeo ut rem veram potius quam verisimilem videas: a
high encomium, (Liutprand, l. ii. c. 9.) Another palace in Germany
had been painted with holy subjects by the order of Charlemagne; and
Muratori may justly affirm, nulla saecula fuere in quibus pictores
desiderati fuerint, (Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. ii. dissert.
xxiv. p. 360, 361.) Our domestic claims to antiquity of ignorance and
original imperfection (Mr. Walpole's lively words) are of a much more
recent date, (Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. p. 2, &c.)]
38 (return)
[ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 929, No. 2-5. The lance
of Christ is taken from the best evidence, Liutprand, (l. iv. c. 12,)
Sigebert, and the Acts of St. Gerard: but the other military relics
depend on the faith of the Gesta Anglorum post Bedam, l. ii. c. 8.]
39 (return)
[ Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungariae, p. 500, &c.]
40 (return)
[ Among these colonies we may distinguish, 1. The Chazars,
or Cabari, who joined the Hungarians on their march, (Constant. de
Admin. Imp. c. 39, 40, p. 108, 109.) 2. The Jazyges, Moravians, and
Siculi, whom they found in the land; the last were perhaps a remnant of
the Huns of Attila, and were intrusted with the guard of the borders. 3.
The Russians, who, like the Swiss in France, imparted a general name
to the royal porters. 4. The Bulgarians, whose chiefs (A.D. 956)
were invited, cum magna multitudine Hismahelitarum. Had any of those
Sclavonians embraced the Mahometan religion? 5. The Bisseni and Cumans,
a mixed multitude of Patzinacites, Uzi, Chazars, &c., who had spread
to the Lower Danube. The last colony of 40,000 Cumans, A.D. 1239, was
received and converted by the kings of Hungary, who derived from that
tribe a new regal appellation, (Pray, Dissert. vi. vii. p. 109-173.
Katona, Hist. Ducum, p. 95-99, 259-264, 476, 479-483, &c.)]
41 (return)
[ Christiani autem, quorum pars major populi est, qui ex
omni parte mundi illuc tracti sunt captivi, &c. Such was the language
of Piligrinus, the first missionary who entered Hungary, A.D. 973. Pars
major is strong. Hist. Ducum, p. 517.]
42 (return)
[ The fideles Teutonici of Geisa are authenticated in old
charters: and Katona, with his usual industry, has made a fair estimate
of these colonies, which had been so loosely magnified by the Italian
Ranzanus, (Hist. Critic. Ducum. p, 667-681.)]
III. The name of Russians 43 was first divulged, in the ninth century, by an embassy of Theophilus, emperor of the East, to the emperor of the West, Lewis, the son of Charlemagne. The Greeks were accompanied by the envoys of the great duke, or chagan, or czar, of the Russians. In their journey to Constantinople, they had traversed many hostile nations; and they hoped to escape the dangers of their return, by requesting the French monarch to transport them by sea to their native country. A closer examination detected their origin: they were the brethren of the Swedes and Normans, whose name was already odious and formidable in France; and it might justly be apprehended, that these Russian strangers were not the messengers of peace, but the emissaries of war. They were detained, while the Greeks were dismissed; and Lewis expected a more satisfactory account, that he might obey the laws of hospitality or prudence, according to the interest of both empires. 44 This Scandinavian origin of the people, or at least the princes, of Russia, may be confirmed and illustrated by the national annals 45 and the general history of the North. The Normans, who had so long been concealed by a veil of impenetrable darkness, suddenly burst forth in the spirit of naval and military enterprise. The vast, and, as it is said, the populous regions of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were crowded with independent chieftains and desperate adventurers, who sighed in the laziness of peace, and smiled in the agonies of death. Piracy was the exercise, the trade, the glory, and the virtue, of the Scandinavian youth. Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow limits, they started from the banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their vessels, and explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement. The Baltic was the first scene of their naval achievements they visited the eastern shores, the silent residence of Fennic and Sclavonic tribes, and the primitive Russians of the Lake Ladoga paid a tribute, the skins of white squirrels, to these strangers, whom they saluted with the title of Varangians 46 or Corsairs. Their superiority in arms, discipline, and renown, commanded the fear and reverence of the natives. In their wars against the more inland savages, the Varangians condescended to serve as friends and auxiliaries, and gradually, by choice or conquest, obtained the dominion of a people whom they were qualified to protect. Their tyranny was expelled, their valor was again recalled, till at length Ruric, a Scandinavian chief, became the father of a dynasty which reigned above seven hundred years. His brothers extended his influence: the example of service and usurpation was imitated by his companions in the southern provinces of Russia; and their establishments, by the usual methods of war and assassination, were cemented into the fabric of a powerful monarchy.
43 (return)
[ Among the Greeks, this national appellation has a singular
form, as an undeclinable word, of which many fanciful etymologies have
been suggested. I have perused, with pleasure and profit, a dissertation
de Origine Russorum (Comment. Academ. Petropolitanae, tom. viii. p.
388-436) by Theophilus Sigefrid Bayer, a learned German, who spent
his life and labors in the service of Russia. A geographical tract of
D'Anville, de l'Empire de Russie, son Origine, et ses Accroissemens,
(Paris, 1772, in 12mo.,) has likewise been of use. * Note: The later
antiquarians of Russia and Germany appear to aquiesce in the authority
of the monk Nestor, the earliest annalist of Russia, who derives the
Russians, or Vareques, from Scandinavia. The names of the first founders
of the Russian monarchy are Scandinavian or Norman. Their language
(according to Const. Porphyrog. de Administrat. Imper. c. 9) differed
essentially from the Sclavonian. The author of the Annals of St. Bertin,
who first names the Russians (Rhos) in the year 839 of his Annals,
assigns them Sweden for their country. So Liutprand calls the Russians
the same people as the Normans. The Fins, Laplanders, and Esthonians,
call the Swedes, to the present day, Roots, Rootsi, Ruotzi, Rootslaue.
See Thunman, Untersuchungen uber der Geschichte des Estlichen
Europaischen Volker, p. 374. Gatterer, Comm. Societ. Regbcient. Gotting.
xiii. p. 126. Schlozer, in his Nestor. Koch. Revolut. de 'Europe, vol.
i. p. 60. Malte-Brun, Geograph. vol. vi. p. 378.—M.]
44 (return)
[ See the entire passage (dignum, says Bayer, ut aureis in
tabulis rigatur) in the Annales Bertiniani Francorum, (in Script. Ital.
Muratori, tom. ii. pars i. p. 525,) A.D. 839, twenty-two years before
the aera of Ruric. In the xth century, Liutprand (Hist. l. v. c. 6)
speaks of the Russians and Normans as the same Aquilonares homines of a
red complexion.]
45 (return)
[ My knowledge of these annals is drawn from M. Leveque,
Histoire de Russie. Nestor, the first and best of these ancient
annalists, was a monk of Kiow, who died in the beginning of the xiith
century; but his Chronicle was obscure, till it was published at
Petersburgh, 1767, in 4to. Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. xvi.
Coxe's Travels, vol. ii. p. 184. * Note: The late M. Schlozer has
translated and added a commentary to the Annals of Nestor; and his
work is the mine from which henceforth the history of the North must be
drawn.—G.]
46 (return)
[ Theophil. Sig. Bayer de Varagis, (for the name is
differently spelt,) in Comment. Academ. Petropolitanae, tom. iv. p.
275-311.]
As long as the descendants of Ruric were considered as aliens and conquerors, they ruled by the sword of the Varangians, distributed estates and subjects to their faithful captains, and supplied their numbers with fresh streams of adventurers from the Baltic coast. 47 But when the Scandinavian chiefs had struck a deep and permanent root into the soil, they mingled with the Russians in blood, religion, and language, and the first Waladimir had the merit of delivering his country from these foreign mercenaries. They had seated him on the throne; his riches were insufficient to satisfy their demands; but they listened to his pleasing advice, that they should seek, not a more grateful, but a more wealthy, master; that they should embark for Greece, where, instead of the skins of squirrels, silk and gold would be the recompense of their service. At the same time, the Russian prince admonished his Byzantine ally to disperse and employ, to recompense and restrain, these impetuous children of the North. Contemporary writers have recorded the introduction, name, and character, of the Varangians: each day they rose in confidence and esteem; the whole body was assembled at Constantinople to perform the duty of guards; and their strength was recruited by a numerous band of their countrymen from the Island of Thule. On this occasion, the vague appellation of Thule is applied to England; and the new Varangians were a colony of English and Danes who fled from the yoke of the Norman conqueror. The habits of pilgrimage and piracy had approximated the countries of the earth; these exiles were entertained in the Byzantine court; and they preserved, till the last age of the empire, the inheritance of spotless loyalty, and the use of the Danish or English tongue. With their broad and double-edged battle-axes on their shoulders, they attended the Greek emperor to the temple, the senate, and the hippodrome; he slept and feasted under their trusty guard; and the keys of the palace, the treasury, and the capital, were held by the firm and faithful hands of the Varangians. 48
47 (return)
[ Yet, as late as the year 1018, Kiow and Russia were still
guarded ex fugitivorum servorum robore, confluentium et maxime Danorum.
Bayer, who quotes (p. 292) the Chronicle of Dithmar of Merseburgh,
observes, that it was unusual for the Germans to enlist in a foreign
service.]
48 (return)
[ Ducange has collected from the original authors the state
and history of the Varangi at Constantinople, (Glossar. Med. et Infimae
Graecitatis, sub voce. Med. et Infimae Latinitatis, sub voce Vagri. Not.
ad Alexiad. Annae Comnenae, p. 256, 257, 258. Notes sur Villehardouin,
p. 296-299.) See likewise the annotations of Reiske to the Ceremoniale
Aulae Byzant. of Constantine, tom. ii. p. 149, 150. Saxo Grammaticus
affirms that they spoke Danish; but Codinus maintains them till the
fifteenth century in the use of their native English.]
In the tenth century, the geography of Scythia was extended far beyond the limits of ancient knowledge; and the monarchy of the Russians obtains a vast and conspicuous place in the map of Constantine. 49 The sons of Ruric were masters of the spacious province of Wolodomir, or Moscow; and, if they were confined on that side by the hordes of the East, their western frontier in those early days was enlarged to the Baltic Sea and the country of the Prussians. Their northern reign ascended above the sixtieth degree of latitude over the Hyperborean regions, which fancy had peopled with monsters, or clouded with eternal darkness. To the south they followed the course of the Borysthenes, and approached with that river the neighborhood of the Euxine Sea. The tribes that dwelt, or wandered, in this ample circuit were obedient to the same conqueror, and insensibly blended into the same nation. The language of Russia is a dialect of the Sclavonian; but in the tenth century, these two modes of speech were different from each other; and, as the Sclavonian prevailed in the South, it may be presumed that the original Russians of the North, the primitive subjects of the Varangian chief, were a portion of the Fennic race. With the emigration, union, or dissolution, of the wandering tribes, the loose and indefinite picture of the Scythian desert has continually shifted. But the most ancient map of Russia affords some places which still retain their name and position; and the two capitals, Novogorod 50 and Kiow, 51 are coeval with the first age of the monarchy. Novogorod had not yet deserved the epithet of great, nor the alliance of the Hanseatic League, which diffused the streams of opulence and the principles of freedom. Kiow could not yet boast of three hundred churches, an innumerable people, and a degree of greatness and splendor which was compared with Constantinople by those who had never seen the residence of the Caesars. In their origin, the two cities were no more than camps or fairs, the most convenient stations in which the Barbarians might assemble for the occasional business of war or trade. Yet even these assemblies announce some progress in the arts of society; a new breed of cattle was imported from the southern provinces; and the spirit of commercial enterprise pervaded the sea and land, from the Baltic to the Euxine, from the mouth of the Oder to the port of Constantinople. In the days of idolatry and barbarism, the Sclavonic city of Julin was frequented and enriched by the Normans, who had prudently secured a free mart of purchase and exchange. 52 From this harbor, at the entrance of the Oder, the corsair, or merchant, sailed in forty-three days to the eastern shores of the Baltic, the most distant nations were intermingled, and the holy groves of Curland are said to have been decorated with Grecian and Spanish gold. 53 Between the sea and Novogorod an easy intercourse was discovered; in the summer, through a gulf, a lake, and a navigable river; in the winter season, over the hard and level surface of boundless snows. From the neighborhood of that city, the Russians descended the streams that fall into the Borysthenes; their canoes, of a single tree, were laden with slaves of every age, furs of every species, the spoil of their beehives, and the hides of their cattle; and the whole produce of the North was collected and discharged in the magazines of Kiow. The month of June was the ordinary season of the departure of the fleet: the timber of the canoes was framed into the oars and benches of more solid and capacious boats; and they proceeded without obstacle down the Borysthenes, as far as the seven or thirteen ridges of rocks, which traverse the bed, and precipitate the waters, of the river. At the more shallow falls it was sufficient to lighten the vessels; but the deeper cataracts were impassable; and the mariners, who dragged their vessels and their slaves six miles over land, were exposed in this toilsome journey to the robbers of the desert. 54 At the first island below the falls, the Russians celebrated the festival of their escape: at a second, near the mouth of the river, they repaired their shattered vessels for the longer and more perilous voyage of the Black Sea. If they steered along the coast, the Danube was accessible; with a fair wind they could reach in thirty-six or forty hours the opposite shores of Anatolia; and Constantinople admitted the annual visit of the strangers of the North. They returned at the stated season with a rich cargo of corn, wine, and oil, the manufactures of Greece, and the spices of India. Some of their countrymen resided in the capital and provinces; and the national treaties protected the persons, effects, and privileges, of the Russian merchant. 55
49 (return)
[ The original record of the geography and trade of Russia
is produced by the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, (de Administrat.
Imperii, c. 2, p. 55, 56, c. 9, p. 59-61, c. 13, p. 63-67, c. 37, p.
106, c. 42, p. 112, 113,) and illustrated by the diligence of Bayer, (de
Geographia Russiae vicinarumque Regionum circiter A. C. 948, in Comment.
Academ. Petropol. tom. ix. p. 367-422, tom. x. p. 371-421,) with the
aid of the chronicles and traditions of Russia, Scandinavia, &c.]
50 (return)
[ The haughty proverb, "Who can resist God and the great
Novogorod?" is applied by M. Leveque (Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 60)
even to the times that preceded the reign of Ruric. In the course of
his history he frequently celebrates this republic, which was suppressed
A.D. 1475, (tom. ii. p. 252-266.) That accurate traveller Adam Olearius
describes (in 1635) the remains of Novogorod, and the route by sea and
land of the Holstein ambassadors, tom. i. p. 123-129.]
51 (return)
[ In hac magna civitate, quae est caput regni, plus
trecentae ecclesiae habentur et nundinae octo, populi etiam ignota manus
(Eggehardus ad A.D. 1018, apud Bayer, tom. ix. p. 412.) He likewise
quotes (tom. x. p. 397) the words of the Saxon annalist, Cujus (Russioe)
metropolis est Chive, aemula sceptri Constantinopolitani, quae est
clarissimum decus Graeciae. The fame of Kiow, especially in the xith
century, had reached the German and Arabian geographers.]
52 (return)
[ In Odorae ostio qua Scythicas alluit paludes, nobilissima
civitas Julinum, celeberrimam, Barbaris et Graecis qui sunt in circuitu,
praestans stationem, est sane maxima omnium quas Europa claudit
civitatum, (Adam Bremensis, Hist. Eccles. p. 19;) a strange exaggeration
even in the xith century. The trade of the Baltic, and the Hanseatic
League, are carefully treated in Anderson's Historical Deduction of
Commerce; at least, in our language, I am not acquainted with any book
so satisfactory. * Note: The book of authority is the "Geschichte des
Hanseatischen Bundes," by George Sartorius, Gottingen, 1803, or rather
the later edition of that work by M. Lappenberg, 2 vols. 4to., Hamburgh,
1830.—M. 1845.]
53 (return)
[ According to Adam of Bremen, (de Situ Daniae, p. 58,) the
old Curland extended eight days' journey along the coast; and by Peter
Teutoburgicus, (p. 68, A.D. 1326,) Memel is defined as the common
frontier of Russia, Curland, and Prussia. Aurum ibi plurimum, (says
Adam,) divinis auguribus atque necromanticis omnes domus sunt plenae....
a toto orbe ibi responsa petuntur, maxime ab Hispanis (forsan Zupanis,
id est regulis Lettoviae) et Graecis. The name of Greeks was applied to
the Russians even before their conversion; an imperfect conversion, if
they still consulted the wizards of Curland, (Bayer, tom. x. p. 378,
402, &c. Grotius, Prolegomen. ad Hist. Goth. p. 99.)]
54 (return)
[ Constantine only reckons seven cataracts, of which he
gives the Russian and Sclavonic names; but thirteen are enumerated by
the Sieur de Beauplan, a French engineer, who had surveyed the
course and navigation of the Dnieper, or Borysthenes, (Description de
l'Ukraine, Rouen, 1660, a thin quarto;) but the map is unluckily wanting
in my copy.]
55 (return)
[ Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 78-80.
From the Dnieper, or Borysthenes, the Russians went to Black Bulgaria,
Chazaria, and Syria. To Syria, how? where? when? The alteration
is slight; the position of Suania, between Chazaria and Lazica, is
perfectly suitable; and the name was still used in the xith century,
(Cedren. tom. ii. p. 770.)]
But the same communication which had been opened for the benefit, was soon abused for the injury, of mankind. In a period of one hundred and ninety years, the Russians made four attempts to plunder the treasures of Constantinople: the event was various, but the motive, the means, and the object, were the same in these naval expeditions. 56 The Russian traders had seen the magnificence, and tasted the luxury of the city of the Caesars. A marvellous tale, and a scanty supply, excited the desires of their savage countrymen: they envied the gifts of nature which their climate denied; they coveted the works of art, which they were too lazy to imitate and too indigent to purchase; the Varangian princes unfurled the banners of piratical adventure, and their bravest soldiers were drawn from the nations that dwelt in the northern isles of the ocean. 57 The image of their naval armaments was revived in the last century, in the fleets of the Cossacks, which issued from the Borysthenes, to navigate the same seas for a similar purpose. 58 The Greek appellation of monoxyla, or single canoes, might justly be applied to the bottom of their vessels. It was scooped out of the long stem of a beech or willow, but the slight and narrow foundation was raised and continued on either side with planks, till it attained the length of sixty, and the height of about twelve, feet. These boats were built without a deck, but with two rudders and a mast; to move with sails and oars; and to contain from forty to seventy men, with their arms, and provisions of fresh water and salt fish. The first trial of the Russians was made with two hundred boats; but when the national force was exerted, they might arm against Constantinople a thousand or twelve hundred vessels. Their fleet was not much inferior to the royal navy of Agamemnon, but it was magnified in the eyes of fear to ten or fifteen times the real proportion of its strength and numbers. Had the Greek emperors been endowed with foresight to discern, and vigor to prevent, perhaps they might have sealed with a maritime force the mouth of the Borysthenes. Their indolence abandoned the coast of Anatolia to the calamities of a piratical war, which, after an interval of six hundred years, again infested the Euxine; but as long as the capital was respected, the sufferings of a distant province escaped the notice both of the prince and the historian. The storm which had swept along from the Phasis and Trebizond, at length burst on the Bosphorus of Thrace; a strait of fifteen miles, in which the rude vessels of the Russians might have been stopped and destroyed by a more skilful adversary. In their first enterprise 59 under the princes of Kiow, they passed without opposition, and occupied the port of Constantinople in the absence of the emperor Michael, the son of Theophilus. Through a crowd of perils, he landed at the palace-stairs, and immediately repaired to a church of the Virgin Mary. 60 By the advice of the patriarch, her garment, a precious relic, was drawn from the sanctuary and dipped in the sea; and a seasonable tempest, which determined the retreat of the Russians, was devoutly ascribed to the mother of God. 61 The silence of the Greeks may inspire some doubt of the truth, or at least of the importance, of the second attempt by Oleg, the guardian of the sons of Ruric. 62 A strong barrier of arms and fortifications defended the Bosphorus: they were eluded by the usual expedient of drawing the boats over the isthmus; and this simple operation is described in the national chronicles, as if the Russian fleet had sailed over dry land with a brisk and favorable gale. The leader of the third armament, Igor, the son of Ruric, had chosen a moment of weakness and decay, when the naval powers of the empire were employed against the Saracens. But if courage be not wanting, the instruments of defence are seldom deficient. Fifteen broken and decayed galleys were boldly launched against the enemy; but instead of the single tube of Greek fire usually planted on the prow, the sides and stern of each vessel were abundantly supplied with that liquid combustible. The engineers were dexterous; the weather was propitious; many thousand Russians, who chose rather to be drowned than burnt, leaped into the sea; and those who escaped to the Thracian shore were inhumanly slaughtered by the peasants and soldiers. Yet one third of the canoes escaped into shallow water; and the next spring Igor was again prepared to retrieve his disgrace and claim his revenge. 63 After a long peace, Jaroslaus, the great grandson of Igor, resumed the same project of a naval invasion. A fleet, under the command of his son, was repulsed at the entrance of the Bosphorus by the same artificial flames. But in the rashness of pursuit, the vanguard of the Greeks was encompassed by an irresistible multitude of boats and men; their provision of fire was probably exhausted; and twenty-four galleys were either taken, sunk, or destroyed. 64
56 (return)
[ The wars of the Russians and Greeks in the ixth, xth, and
xith centuries, are related in the Byzantine annals, especially those
of Zonaras and Cedrenus; and all their testimonies are collected in the
Russica of Stritter, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 939-1044.]
57 (return)
[ Cedrenus in Compend. p. 758]
58 (return)
[ See Beauplan, (Description de l'Ukraine, p. 54-61: )
his descriptions are lively, his plans accurate, and except the
circumstances of fire-arms, we may read old Russians for modern
Cosacks.]
59 (return)
[ It is to be lamented, that Bayer has only given a
Dissertation de Russorum prima Expeditione Constantinopolitana,
(Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. vi. p. 265-391.) After disentangling
some chronological intricacies, he fixes it in the years 864 or 865,
a date which might have smoothed some doubts and difficulties in the
beginning of M. Leveque's history.]
60 (return)
[ When Photius wrote his encyclic epistle on the conversion
of the Russians, the miracle was not yet sufficiently ripe.]
61 (return)
[ Leo Grammaticus, p. 463, 464. Constantini Continuator
in Script. post Theophanem, p. 121, 122. Symeon Logothet. p. 445, 446.
Georg. Monach. p. 535, 536. Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 551. Zonaras, tom. ii.
p. 162.]
62 (return)
[ See Nestor and Nicon, in Leveque's Hist. de Russie, tom.
i. p. 74-80. Katona (Hist. Ducum, p. 75-79) uses his advantage to
disprove this Russian victory, which would cloud the siege of Kiow by
the Hungarians.]
63 (return)
[ Leo Grammaticus, p. 506, 507. Incert. Contin. p. 263, 264
Symeon Logothet. p. 490, 491. Georg. Monach. p. 588, 589. Cedren tom.
ii. p. 629. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 190, 191, and Liutprand, l. v. c. 6,
who writes from the narratives of his father-in-law, then ambassador at
Constantinople, and corrects the vain exaggeration of the Greeks.]
64 (return)
[ I can only appeal to Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 758, 759) and
Zonaras, (tom. ii. p. 253, 254;) but they grow more weighty and credible
as they draw near to their own times.]
Yet the threats or calamities of a Russian war were more frequently diverted by treaty than by arms. In these naval hostilities, every disadvantage was on the side of the Greeks; their savage enemy afforded no mercy: his poverty promised no spoil; his impenetrable retreat deprived the conqueror of the hopes of revenge; and the pride or weakness of empire indulged an opinion, that no honor could be gained or lost in the intercourse with Barbarians. At first their demands were high and inadmissible, three pounds of gold for each soldier or mariner of the fleet: the Russian youth adhered to the design of conquest and glory; but the counsels of moderation were recommended by the hoary sages. "Be content," they said, "with the liberal offers of Caesar; it is not far better to obtain without a combat the possession of gold, silver, silks, and all the objects of our desires? Are we sure of victory? Can we conclude a treaty with the sea? We do not tread on the land; we float on the abyss of water, and a common death hangs over our heads." 65 The memory of these Arctic fleets that seemed to descend from the polar circle left deep impression of terror on the Imperial city. By the vulgar of every rank, it was asserted and believed, that an equestrian statue in the square of Taurus was secretly inscribed with a prophecy, how the Russians, in the last days, should become masters of Constantinople. 66 In our own time, a Russian armament, instead of sailing from the Borysthenes, has circumnavigated the continent of Europe; and the Turkish capital has been threatened by a squadron of strong and lofty ships of war, each of which, with its naval science and thundering artillery, could have sunk or scattered a hundred canoes, such as those of their ancestors. Perhaps the present generation may yet behold the accomplishment of the prediction, of a rare prediction, of which the style is unambiguous and the date unquestionable.
65 (return)
[ Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 87.]
66 (return)
[ This brazen statue, which had been brought from Antioch,
and was melted down by the Latins, was supposed to represent either
Joshua or Bellerophon, an odd dilemma. See Nicetas Choniates, (p. 413,
414,) Codinus, (de Originibus C. P. p. 24,) and the anonymous writer de
Antiquitat. C. P. (Banduri, Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 17, 18,) who lived
about the year 1100. They witness the belief of the prophecy the rest is
immaterial.]
By land the Russians were less formidable than by sea; and as they fought for the most part on foot, their irregular legions must often have been broken and overthrown by the cavalry of the Scythian hordes. Yet their growing towns, however slight and imperfect, presented a shelter to the subject, and a barrier to the enemy: the monarchy of Kiow, till a fatal partition, assumed the dominion of the North; and the nations from the Volga to the Danube were subdued or repelled by the arms of Swatoslaus, 67 the son of Igor, the son of Oleg, the son of Ruric. The vigor of his mind and body was fortified by the hardships of a military and savage life. Wrapped in a bear-skin, Swatoslaus usually slept on the ground, his head reclining on a saddle; his diet was coarse and frugal, and, like the heroes of Homer, 68 his meat (it was often horse-flesh) was broiled or roasted on the coals. The exercise of war gave stability and discipline to his army; and it may be presumed, that no soldier was permitted to transcend the luxury of his chief. By an embassy from Nicephorus, the Greek emperor, he was moved to undertake the conquest of Bulgaria; and a gift of fifteen hundred pounds of gold was laid at his feet to defray the expense, or reward the toils, of the expedition. An army of sixty thousand men was assembled and embarked; they sailed from the Borysthenes to the Danube; their landing was effected on the Maesian shore; and, after a sharp encounter, the swords of the Russians prevailed against the arrows of the Bulgarian horse. The vanquished king sunk into the grave; his children were made captive; and his dominions, as far as Mount Haemus, were subdued or ravaged by the northern invaders. But instead of relinquishing his prey, and performing his engagements, the Varangian prince was more disposed to advance than to retire; and, had his ambition been crowned with success, the seat of empire in that early period might have been transferred to a more temperate and fruitful climate. Swatoslaus enjoyed and acknowledged the advantages of his new position, in which he could unite, by exchange or rapine, the various productions of the earth. By an easy navigation he might draw from Russia the native commodities of furs, wax, and hydromed: Hungary supplied him with a breed of horses and the spoils of the West; and Greece abounded with gold, silver, and the foreign luxuries, which his poverty had affected to disdain. The bands of Patzinacites, Chozars, and Turks, repaired to the standard of victory; and the ambassador of Nicephorus betrayed his trust, assumed the purple, and promised to share with his new allies the treasures of the Eastern world. From the banks of the Danube the Russian prince pursued his march as far as Adrianople; a formal summons to evacuate the Roman province was dismissed with contempt; and Swatoslaus fiercely replied, that Constantinople might soon expect the presence of an enemy and a master.
67 (return)
[ The life of Swatoslaus, or Sviatoslaf, or Sphendosthlabus,
is extracted from the Russian Chronicles by M. Levesque, (Hist. de
Russie, tom. i. p. 94-107.)]
68 (return)
[ This resemblance may be clearly seen in the ninth book of
the Iliad, (205-221,) in the minute detail of the cookery of Achilles.
By such a picture, a modern epic poet would disgrace his work, and
disgust his reader; but the Greek verses are harmonious—a dead language
can seldom appear low or familiar; and at the distance of two thousand
seven hundred years, we are amused with the primitive manners of
antiquity.]
Nicephorus could no longer expel the mischief which he had introduced; but his throne and wife were inherited by John Zimisces, 69 who, in a diminutive body, possessed the spirit and abilities of a hero. The first victory of his lieutenants deprived the Russians of their foreign allies, twenty thousand of whom were either destroyed by the sword, or provoked to revolt, or tempted to desert. Thrace was delivered, but seventy thousand Barbarians were still in arms; and the legions that had been recalled from the new conquests of Syria, prepared, with the return of the spring, to march under the banners of a warlike prince, who declared himself the friend and avenger of the injured Bulgaria. The passes of Mount Haemus had been left unguarded; they were instantly occupied; the Roman vanguard was formed of the immortals, (a proud imitation of the Persian style;) the emperor led the main body of ten thousand five hundred foot; and the rest of his forces followed in slow and cautious array, with the baggage and military engines. The first exploit of Zimisces was the reduction of Marcianopolis, or Peristhlaba, 70 in two days; the trumpets sounded; the walls were scaled; eight thousand five hundred Russians were put to the sword; and the sons of the Bulgarian king were rescued from an ignominious prison, and invested with a nominal diadem. After these repeated losses, Swatoslaus retired to the strong post of Drista, on the banks of the Danube, and was pursued by an enemy who alternately employed the arms of celerity and delay. The Byzantine galleys ascended the river, the legions completed a line of circumvallation; and the Russian prince was encompassed, assaulted, and famished, in the fortifications of the camp and city. Many deeds of valor were performed; several desperate sallies were attempted; nor was it till after a siege of sixty-five days that Swatoslaus yielded to his adverse fortune. The liberal terms which he obtained announce the prudence of the victor, who respected the valor, and apprehended the despair, of an unconquered mind. The great duke of Russia bound himself, by solemn imprecations, to relinquish all hostile designs; a safe passage was opened for his return; the liberty of trade and navigation was restored; a measure of corn was distributed to each of his soldiers; and the allowance of twenty-two thousand measures attests the loss and the remnant of the Barbarians. After a painful voyage, they again reached the mouth of the Borysthenes; but their provisions were exhausted; the season was unfavorable; they passed the winter on the ice; and, before they could prosecute their march, Swatoslaus was surprised and oppressed by the neighboring tribes with whom the Greeks entertained a perpetual and useful correspondence. 71 Far different was the return of Zimisces, who was received in his capital like Camillus or Marius, the saviors of ancient Rome. But the merit of the victory was attributed by the pious emperor to the mother of God; and the image of the Virgin Mary, with the divine infant in her arms, was placed on a triumphal car, adorned with the spoils of war, and the ensigns of Bulgarian royalty. Zimisces made his public entry on horseback; the diadem on his head, a crown of laurel in his hand; and Constantinople was astonished to applaud the martial virtues of her sovereign. 72
69 (return)
[ This singular epithet is derived from the Armenian
language. As I profess myself equally ignorant of these words, I may
be indulged in the question in the play, "Pray, which of you is the
interpreter?" From the context, they seem to signify Adolescentulus,
(Leo Diacon l. iv. Ms. apud Ducange, Glossar. Graec. p. 1570.) * Note:
Cerbied. the learned Armenian, gives another derivation. There is a city
called Tschemisch-gaizag, which means a bright or purple sandal, such as
women wear in the East. He was called Tschemisch-ghigh, (for so his name
is written in Armenian, from this city, his native place.) Hase. Note to
Leo Diac. p. 454, in Niebuhr's Byzant. Hist.—M.]
70 (return)
[ In the Sclavonic tongue, the name of Peristhlaba implied
the great or illustrious city, says Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. vii. p.
194.) From its position between Mount Haemus and the Lower Danube, it
appears to fill the ground, or at least the station, of Marcianopolis.
The situation of Durostolus, or Dristra, is well known and conspicuous,
(Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. ix. p. 415, 416. D'Anville, Geographie
Ancienne, tom. i. p. 307, 311.)]
71 (return)
[ The political management of the Greeks, more especially
with the Patzinacites, is explained in the seven first chapters, de
Administratione Imperii.]
72 (return)
[ In the narrative of this war, Leo the Deacon (apud Pagi,
Critica, tom. iv. A.D. 968-973) is more authentic and circumstantial
than Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 660-683) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. p.
205-214.) These declaimers have multiplied to 308,000 and 330,000 men,
those Russian forces, of which the contemporary had given a moderate and
consistent account.]
Photius of Constantinople, a patriarch, whose ambition was equal to his curiosity, congratulates himself and the Greek church on the conversion of the Russians. 73 Those fierce and bloody Barbarians had been persuaded, by the voice of reason and religion, to acknowledge Jesus for their God, the Christian missionaries for their teachers, and the Romans for their friends and brethren. His triumph was transient and premature. In the various fortune of their piratical adventures, some Russian chiefs might allow themselves to be sprinkled with the waters of baptism; and a Greek bishop, with the name of metropolitan, might administer the sacraments in the church of Kiow, to a congregation of slaves and natives. But the seed of the gospel was sown on a barren soil: many were the apostates, the converts were few; and the baptism of Olga may be fixed as the aera of Russian Christianity. 74 A female, perhaps of the basest origin, who could revenge the death, and assume the sceptre, of her husband Igor, must have been endowed with those active virtues which command the fear and obedience of Barbarians. In a moment of foreign and domestic peace, she sailed from Kiow to Constantinople; and the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus has described, with minute diligence, the ceremonial of her reception in his capital and palace. The steps, the titles, the salutations, the banquet, the presents, were exquisitely adjusted to gratify the vanity of the stranger, with due reverence to the superior majesty of the purple. 75 In the sacrament of baptism, she received the venerable name of the empress Helena; and her conversion might be preceded or followed by her uncle, two interpreters, sixteen damsels of a higher, and eighteen of a lower rank, twenty-two domestics or ministers, and forty-four Russian merchants, who composed the retinue of the great princess Olga. After her return to Kiow and Novogorod, she firmly persisted in her new religion; but her labors in the propagation of the gospel were not crowned with success; and both her family and nation adhered with obstinacy or indifference to the gods of their fathers. Her son Swatoslaus was apprehensive of the scorn and ridicule of his companions; and her grandson Wolodomir devoted his youthful zeal to multiply and decorate the monuments of ancient worship. The savage deities of the North were still propitiated with human sacrifices: in the choice of the victim, a citizen was preferred to a stranger, a Christian to an idolater; and the father, who defended his son from the sacerdotal knife, was involved in the same doom by the rage of a fanatic tumult. Yet the lessons and example of the pious Olga had made a deep, though secret, impression in the minds of the prince and people: the Greek missionaries continued to preach, to dispute, and to baptize: and the ambassadors or merchants of Russia compared the idolatry of the woods with the elegant superstition of Constantinople. They had gazed with admiration on the dome of St. Sophia: the lively pictures of saints and martyrs, the riches of the altar, the number and vestments of the priests, the pomp and order of the ceremonies; they were edified by the alternate succession of devout silence and harmonious song; nor was it difficult to persuade them, that a choir of angels descended each day from heaven to join in the devotion of the Christians. 76 But the conversion of Wolodomir was determined, or hastened, by his desire of a Roman bride. At the same time, and in the city of Cherson, the rites of baptism and marriage were celebrated by the Christian pontiff: the city he restored to the emperor Basil, the brother of his spouse; but the brazen gates were transported, as it is said, to Novogorod, and erected before the first church as a trophy of his victory and faith. 77 At his despotic command, Peround, the god of thunder, whom he had so long adored, was dragged through the streets of Kiow; and twelve sturdy Barbarians battered with clubs the misshapen image, which was indignantly cast into the waters of the Borysthenes. The edict of Wolodomir had proclaimed, that all who should refuse the rites of baptism would be treated as the enemies of God and their prince; and the rivers were instantly filled with many thousands of obedient Russians, who acquiesced in the truth and excellence of a doctrine which had been embraced by the great duke and his boyars. In the next generation, the relics of Paganism were finally extirpated; but as the two brothers of Wolodomir had died without baptism, their bones were taken from the grave, and sanctified by an irregular and posthumous sacrament.
73 (return)
[ Phot. Epistol. ii. No. 35, p. 58, edit. Montacut. It was
unworthy of the learning of the editor to mistake the Russian nation,
for a war-cry of the Bulgarians, nor did it become the enlightened
patriarch to accuse the Sclavonian idolaters. They were neither Greeks
nor Atheists.]
74 (return)
[ M. Levesque has extracted, from old chronicles and modern
researches, the most satisfactory account of the religion of the Slavi,
and the conversion of Russia, (Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 35-54, 59,
92, 92, 113-121, 124-129, 148, 149, &c.)]
75 (return)
[ See the Ceremoniale Aulae Byzant. tom. ii. c. 15, p.
343-345: the style of Olga, or Elga. For the chief of Barbarians the
Greeks whimsically borrowed the title of an Athenian magistrate, with a
female termination, which would have astonished the ear of Demosthenes.]
76 (return)
[ See an anonymous fragment published by Banduri, (Imperium
Orientale, tom. ii. p. 112, 113, de Conversione Russorum.)]
77 (return)
[ Cherson, or Corsun, is mentioned by Herberstein (apud Pagi
tom. iv. p. 56) as the place of Wolodomir's baptism and marriage; and
both the tradition and the gates are still preserved at Novogorod. Yet
an observing traveller transports the brazen gates from Magdeburgh in
Germany, (Coxe's Travels into Russia, &c., vol. i. p. 452;) and quotes
an inscription, which seems to justify his opinion. The modern reader
must not confound this old Cherson of the Tauric or Crimaean peninsula,
with a new city of the same name, which has arisen near the mouth of the
Borysthenes, and was lately honored by the memorable interview of the
empress of Russia with the emperor of the West.]
In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of the Christian aera, the reign of the gospel and of the church was extended over Bulgaria, Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, and Russia. 78 The triumphs of apostolic zeal were repeated in the iron age of Christianity; and the northern and eastern regions of Europe submitted to a religion, more different in theory than in practice, from the worship of their native idols. A laudable ambition excited the monks both of Germany and Greece, to visit the tents and huts of the Barbarians: poverty, hardships, and dangers, were the lot of the first missionaries; their courage was active and patient; their motive pure and meritorious; their present reward consisted in the testimony of their conscience and the respect of a grateful people; but the fruitful harvest of their toils was inherited and enjoyed by the proud and wealthy prelates of succeeding times. The first conversions were free and spontaneous: a holy life and an eloquent tongue were the only arms of the missionaries; but the domestic fables of the Pagans were silenced by the miracles and visions of the strangers; and the favorable temper of the chiefs was accelerated by the dictates of vanity and interest. The leaders of nations, who were saluted with the titles of kings and saints, 79 held it lawful and pious to impose the Catholic faith on their subjects and neighbors; the coast of the Baltic, from Holstein to the Gulf of Finland, was invaded under the standard of the cross; and the reign of idolatry was closed by the conversion of Lithuania in the fourteenth century. Yet truth and candor must acknowledge, that the conversion of the North imparted many temporal benefits both to the old and the new Christians. The rage of war, inherent to the human species, could not be healed by the evangelic precepts of charity and peace; and the ambition of Catholic princes has renewed in every age the calamities of hostile contention. But the admission of the Barbarians into the pale of civil and ecclesiastical society delivered Europe from the depredations, by sea and land, of the Normans, the Hungarians, and the Russians, who learned to spare their brethren and cultivate their possessions. 80 The establishment of law and order was promoted by the influence of the clergy; and the rudiments of art and science were introduced into the savage countries of the globe. The liberal piety of the Russian princes engaged in their service the most skilful of the Greeks, to decorate the cities and instruct the inhabitants: the dome and the paintings of St. Sophia were rudely copied in the churches of Kiow and Novogorod: the writings of the fathers were translated into the Sclavonic idiom; and three hundred noble youths were invited or compelled to attend the lessons of the college of Jaroslaus. It should appear that Russia might have derived an early and rapid improvement from her peculiar connection with the church and state of Constantinople, which at that age so justly despised the ignorance of the Latins. But the Byzantine nation was servile, solitary, and verging to a hasty decline: after the fall of Kiow, the navigation of the Borysthenes was forgotten; the great princes of Wolodomir and Moscow were separated from the sea and Christendom; and the divided monarchy was oppressed by the ignominy and blindness of Tartar servitude. 81 The Sclavonic and Scandinavian kingdoms, which had been converted by the Latin missionaries, were exposed, it is true, to the spiritual jurisdiction and temporal claims of the popes; 82 but they were united in language and religious worship, with each other, and with Rome; they imbibed the free and generous spirit of the European republic, and gradually shared the light of knowledge which arose on the western world.
78 (return)
[ Consult the Latin text, or English version, of Mosheim's
excellent History of the Church, under the first head or section of each
of these centuries.]
79 (return)
[ In the year 1000, the ambassadors of St. Stephen received
from Pope Silvester the title of King of Hungary, with a diadem of Greek
workmanship. It had been designed for the duke of Poland: but the Poles,
by their own confession, were yet too barbarous to deserve an angelical
and apostolical crown. (Katona, Hist. Critic Regum Stirpis Arpadianae,
tom. i. p. 1-20.)]
80 (return)
[ Listen to the exultations of Adam of Bremen, (A.D. 1080,)
of which the substance is agreeable to truth: Ecce illa ferocissima
Danorum, &c., natio..... jamdudum novit in Dei laudibus Alleluia
resonare..... Ecce populus ille piraticus ..... suis nunc finibus
contentus est. Ecce patria horribilis semper inaccessa propter cultum
idolorum... praedicatores veritatis ubique certatim admittit, &c., &c.,
(de Situ Daniae, &c., p. 40, 41, edit. Elzevir; a curious and original
prospect of the north of Europe, and the introduction of Christianity.)]
81 (return)
[ The great princes removed in 1156 from Kiow, which was
ruined by the Tartars in 1240. Moscow became the seat of empire in the
xivth century. See the 1st and 2d volumes of Levesque's History, and Mr.
Coxe's Travels into the North, tom. i. p. 241, &c.]
82 (return)
[ The ambassadors of St. Stephen had used the reverential
expressions of regnum oblatum, debitam obedientiam, &c., which were most
rigorously interpreted by Gregory VII.; and the Hungarian Catholics are
distressed between the sanctity of the pope and the independence of the
crown, (Katona, Hist. Critica, tom. i. p. 20-25, tom. ii. p. 304, 346,
360, &c.)]