As new states formed during the Migration Period, Eastern Europe coalesced into four major spheres.[210] They were controlled by the Byzantines, the Franks, the Khazars, and the Bulgarians. Most people who lived in Eastern Europe were either under the direct control of these empires or at least under their influence. The Girl in Kherson They spread their concept of religion, government, economy, and social hierarchies throughout their territories. The influence of Rome was strong, and it permeated through its former lands, influencing the new states of Europe.[211] Stronger, more sophisticated states started appearing in this period, leading to over four hundred years of relative peace.[212] However, there would be one polarizing event that took place during this period: the spread of Christianity.[213]
The Pope and the King of the Franks: The Beginnings of the Holy Roman Empire
The Franks were one of the many Germanic tribes that made their way into Europe during the Roman period.[214] The Franks moved through Eastern Europe, heading toward modern-day Western Europe. In 11 BCE, they occupied Roman Gaul (today’s France and western Germany).
The Frankish tribes organized into confederations under a strong leader. The Romans allowed them to stay in Gaul, hiring them as foederati—allies who would fight for the Romans when their territories were under attack. As the Roman Empire was waning, the Franks helped defend Roman borders. When the Huns came storming through Europe, the Franks helped push them back. They were instrumental in defeating the Huns at the decisive Battle of Châlons in 453 CE.
A map of the Frankish tribes in Roman Gaul, c. 3rd century CE.
Odejea, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carte_des_peuples_francs_(IIIe_si%C3%A8cle).svg
After the fall of Rome, the Franks settled in their territories in former Roman Gaul. Their confederations sectioned off, forming their own states. In 481, Clovis became the king of the Franks. His father had founded the Merovingian line of kings, and Clovis united the Frankish tribes under their rule.[215] He conquered parts of modern-day France and Germany, expanding the Frankish lands and making the Merovingians a major force in Western Europe.[216] His descendants would wield even more power.
Clovis set a precedent without even knowing it. He had been raised pagan, but his wife, Clotilde, was a Christian. She believed it would be a good idea for him to convert. In time, the Franks became a Christian people, and they allied with the Church of Rome. The Franks and their descendants, the French, would remain close allies with Rome for the next several centuries.
While consolidating his rule, Clovis also understood the importance of building strong alliances. The Ostrogothic leader Theodoric the Great, who lived in today’s limits of the Balkans, understood that too, although he was affiliated with a different church. Since Theodoric was a close ally of Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno, he did the emperor’s bidding. Zeno wanted Italy back, and he sent Theodoric to get it. How could he achieve that, though? Allegedly, Theodoric murdered Odoacer at a dinner in 493.
Theodoric also found allies on the other side of Europe, such as Clovis and the Franks. After Theodoric conquered Italy, Clovis and Theodoric formed an alliance as neighbors. Clovis gave Theodoric his sister in marriage, and their children would later marry into the royal families of other Germanic tribes. These allies, who are considered the “founding fathers of medieval Europe,” died fifteen years apart; their efforts set the stage for state-building in the Middle Ages.[217]
Meanwhile, the Avars moved into the Carpathian Basin, forcing the Lombards to leave by the end of the 6th century CE.[218] The Lombards relocated to northern Italy; here, they found a place where they could really dig in their roots. Five years after reaching the shores of Italy, the Lombards were inching dangerously close to Rome in 572.[219]
Rome was in a bad state after its fall. Plague, political instability, and now the threat of invasion drove the city’s prefect, Gregorius Anicius, to leave public service and establish a monastery. In 579, the pope persuaded him to go east and ask the Byzantines for help. It didn’t work, and Gregorius returned empty-handed. Within ten years, Gregorius would become the pope himself. He was elected to the office in 590.
The Lombards still occupied the region. Gregorius, taking the name Pope Gregory I, now had to deal with the Lombards himself. His experience as a prefect and a man of God helped him out. He paid the Lombards off, keeping Rome safe for the moment. Known as Gregory the Great, he eliminated pagan temples and started sending missionaries from Rome to convert others to Christianity.
Over the next two centuries, the Lombards stood their ground, constantly threatening Rome’s security.[220] As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Umayyad Arabs led surprise raid attacks on the Italian coastline. The Umayyad threat was very real for Christian nations, even though they were religiously tolerant and weren’t interested in forced conversion. The Umayyads just wanted land, obeisance, and tribute.[221]
Rome was the center of the Catholic Church, which had stepped into the power vacuum left open by the fall of the Roman Empire.[222] Technically, the Church of Rome was secondary to the Eastern Orthodox Church in Byzantium.[223] However, the Byzantines refused to assist Rome with its invasion.[224] They were dealing with their own Arab invasions in Byzantium.
If either the Lombards or the Umayyads reached Rome, they could control the church—or destroy it. The Roman Church didn’t need that; it was already fractured enough as it was.[225] The monastic movement, where the faithful retreated to live an ascetic life in monasteries in a peaceful protest to church policies, had spread to the West from the East. Monasteries were popping up all over Western Europe, with monks removing themselves from the purview of the church. With monasteries accommodating more and more monks, they further fractured the power that the church was struggling to build.
Pope Stephen II (in off. 752–757) was desperate for protection, so he went north to visit the new king of the Franks.[226] The Merovingians had led the Franks for about three hundred years, but their power waxed and waned in the last century of their rule. Pepin the Short deposed them for good in 751.[227] Pepin had already managed to hold on to power for three years when he received a visit from Pope Stephen II in 754.[228] As it stood, the two men needed each other. The church needed powerful friends, and allying with it added legitimacy to anyone’s reign. Thus, Pepin saw the potential in an alliance with the church.[229]
Pepin and Stephen came to an agreement. If the Franks helped Stephen defeat his and the church’s enemies, namely the Arabs and the Lombards, then he would support Pepin’s rule. Despite how ill-gotten Pepin’s position was, the pope would overlook the usurpation. That year, the pope crowned Pepin as “King of the Franks” and “Patrician of the Romans,” which were titles that he craved.
This agreement allowed the Franks to become the spokespeople of the church. They became the worldly champions of the Roman Catholic Church, invading and conquering lands and sending missionaries into areas that had not converted yet. As a result of this meeting between the king of the Franks and the pope of Rome, the Franks brought Christianity to Western and Eastern Europe.
To their credit, the Franks upheld their end of the deal. They used their military might to push the Lombards away from Rome, and they eventually ended Rome’s reliance and subordination to Byzantium and the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Lombards abandoned their landholdings surrounding Rome, evacuating the lands that would become known as the Papal States. Pepin granted control of these lands to Pope Stephen, but that was a big no-no for Constantinople. The Byzantines claimed the lands as the supreme power of Christianity, and they said the lands weren’t Pepin’s to give. That led to the Donation of Constantine, which is probably the most infamous forged document in history. This dubious document, supposedly signed by Constantine, states that he gifted the same lands that Pepin just drove the Lombards out of as a donation to the Roman Church.
The Franks had felt closely allied to Rome, but they grew closer due to their success against the Lombards. Of course, the Franks used their relationship with the Church of Rome to spread Christianity throughout their lands and conquer new territories.
In 768, Pepin the Short died, and his sons, Carloman and Charles, inherited his lands. Of course, as brothers do, they fought over who had more land and who was more powerful. Three years later, Carloman died, and Charles confiscated his brother’s lands from his sons. The lands of Pepin the Short were joined together again.
Pepin’s son Charles continued the Frankish alliance with the church. Although he carried himself like a king, he was a hardened soldier.[230] He spent the last years of the 8th century conquering land after land as he headed toward the east, using the support of the church to do it.[231] He did what Rome could not: he brought the Germanic tribes past the Elbe River under his rule.[232] Charles particularly targeted the Slavs, forcing them to relocate to the eastern side of the Elbe River.[233]
Charles is most familiar by the Anglicized version of his French name: Charlemagne. In 800, Pope Leo III bestowed a new title on Charlemagne: Holy Roman Emperor.[234] The new title was just as political as it was symbolic. It gave the Franks the religious authority they needed to spread Christianity throughout the lands they controlled, but it also served as a symbol that Charles and the Franks were the inheritors of the Western Roman Empire that fell over three hundred years prior. Thanks to both the Church of Rome and the Franks’ imperialistic efforts, the Eastern Orthodox Church had no choice but to recognize the growing power of the West.
The Christianization of Eastern Europe
The new title also served the pope well.[235] He needed a closer ally than Byzantium, and the Franks had a history of doing what they said they would do. The Holy Roman Empire would last until 1806, although its territories would shift throughout the years. In fact, historians debate over whether the Holy Roman Empire truly began at this stage, as Charlemagne’s empire didn’t even last until the end of the century. Other scholars attribute the start of the Holy Roman Empire to Otto I; he revived Charlemagne’s empire in 962, and the empire would survive for over eight centuries.
In either case, the Holy Roman Empire was a collection of German-speaking lands under the emperor’s control. However, the real power was in the title. The church proved its power over secular matters by granting or withholding the honor, which means the popes basically used the title to get emperors to do what they wanted.
In turn, the Holy Roman Emperor became the hand of the church in the secular world. The power of the East had dwindled, and Charlemagne and his empire were the real power behind Christianity now.
Charlemagne’s efforts were just the beginning.[236] He considered it his mission to Christianize the whole of Europe. He pushed past the Elbe River, settling the southern border of modern-day Austria. He cleared the Slavs out of today’s Croatia and Slovenia on the northeastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. Even farther east, he formed an alliance with the Bulgarians, and they fought and defeated the Avars by 810 CE.
The first Holy Roman emperor’s influence expanded past his border, and it was carried even farther east by missionaries and diplomats. The Byzantines had a problem with this threat against Orthodox Christianity, but Charlemagne’s empire didn’t last long enough for them to make any serious moves against the Franks.
The Carolingian dynasty would realize that one’s rule was only as strong as one’s successor.[237] Just as Pepin’s sons had fought over lands, Charlemagne’s heirs would do the same. In 814, after Charlemagne died, his only surviving son Louis the Pious inherited the entirety of the Carolingian Empire. The 830s were defined by a civil war between Louis’s sons that would spill over after Louis’s death. After their father died, they spent three years entrenched in a civil war against each other, which resulted in the Treaty of Verdun in 843. It officially divided the Carolingian lands, creating the modern-day boundaries of France and Germany. The treaty created three separate states that were divided among Louis the Pious’s surviving sons: Charles the Bald, Louis the German, and Lothar I.[238] Charles the Bald inherited lands in modern-day France, while Louis the German assumed leadership over modern-day Germany. Lothar I took the lands in the middle, from the Loire and Rhone Rivers in the west and the Rhine River in the east. This territory was named after him. The middle Frankish state of Lotharingia was the only one of the three kingdoms to come with the title of Holy Roman emperor.
Lotharingia never did consolidate itself. The Frankish tradition of splitting inheritances equally further broke it into smaller territories. Although it wasn’t an impressive state, trade made Lotharingia a hot commodity. It boasted the burgeoning trade cities of Antwerp, Ghent, Genoa, and Milan.
Europe in 814
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_814.svg
The spread of Charlemagne’s empire brought with it the spread of Latin Christianity.[239] This put the Franks in direct conflict with the Byzantines and Orthodox Christianity. As both the Frankish Empire and the Byzantine Empire fought each other for supremacy, which equated to how many countries and peoples they could convert, they drew a line in the sand between which Christianity was the “right” one. These conflicts between Latin and Orthodox Christians continued for hundreds of years until the Great Schism of 1077. Rome and Byzantium each excommunicated the other, formally separating the Christian churches.
As Latin Christianity spread from the west and Orthodox Christianity spread from the east during the medieval period, the two spheres of influence crashed in the middle—in the heart of Eastern Europe. Christian missionaries from France to Poland traveled east and west (respectively), Christianizing any pagan tribes they could find.[240]
The defining era of the medieval period was the Crusades.[241] While this time period of religious wars is generally lumped together and classified as a series of holy wars against the Muslim rulers of the Holy Land, the Crusades were actually a mission to Christianize all of Europe. The Northern Crusades of the 12th century wanted to convert the Slavic populations of the Baltic states to Christian nations.[242]
The People’s Crusade, which saw the faithful stomp across Eastern Europe to get to the Holy Land. It took place during the First Crusade.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Europe_mediterranean_1097.jpg
This French map shows the paths of the Second Crusade (1147–1150). The expeditions of Conrad III of Germany and Louis VII of France marched across Eastern Europe to reach the Holy Land. On this map, Conrad’s path is marked in yellow arrows, and Louis’s path is marked in blue arrows.
Guilhem06, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deuxi%C3%A8me_croisade.JPG
In 1147, the Kingdom of Denmark led a crusade against Estonia. At the same time, the Germanic Teutonic Knights invaded Lithuania. The Lithuanian campaign was a resounding defeat for the Crusaders, but they had more success against the ancient Prussians, who occupied modern-day Poland and Kaliningrad. Just like in the Holy Land, victorious Crusader knights remained in the lands they Christianized to make sure the population didn’t revert back to their old religions in their absence. While most Baltic and Slavic tribes assimilated with the Christian power that conquered them, some survived and resisted this external pressure.
While the medieval period saw the mass conversion of states and territories, there was also a political element to Christianization, as there was a direct link between church and state. The church offered legitimacy to a Christian ruler, so these rulers pushed conversion in their lands. Newly converted states associated themselves with the representatives of the church who had converted them, namely either the Frankish Empire or the Byzantine Empire. The spread of Christianity also created a mass of satellite states for the Franks and the Byzantines, adding to the religious tensions throughout Europe.
Greater Moravia, Bohemia, the Hungarians, and a Holy Roman Emperor
Just beyond the reaches of Charlemagne’s empire, another great power was growing to challenge the West’s spread into Eastern Europe.[243] By the end of the 8th century, Nitra, a city pressed between the expanding Carolingian Empire from the west and the Avars from the east, became an important political and cultural center for the Slavs who settled in modern-day western Slovakia. To the northeast, in the modern-day Czech Republic, the leader of the Moravian Slavs, Mojmir, conquered Nitra and incorporated western Slovakia into his own lands. Mojmir’s new empire was called Greater Moravia.[244]
The Moravians would become major political players in 9th-century Eastern Europe. According to scholar Tomek Jankowski, “Moravia established institutions and traditions of government, church and diplomacy—and resistance to German control—that served as a model for successive Eastern European states over the next two centuries.”[245]
Mojmir’s successor, Rastislav, who took power in the 840s CE, was more of a diplomat. Even though he wanted to form a good relationship with the Franks, he saw the powerful Frankish Empire as a danger, even though they were the official spokespeople of Western Christianity. Rastislav didn’t have a problem with conversion; he just did not want to be converted by the Franks, as he saw that as a one-way ticket to Moravia becoming a satellite state of the Frankish Empire. So, Rastislav did the next best thing. He imported Byzantine missionaries to Moravia in 862.[246]
These missionaries were two Greek brothers named Cyril and Methodius.[247] They spoke Slavic, so they could communicate with the Slavic population in Moravia. Cyril and Methodius set to translating religious texts into Slavic languages, using them in their conversion work. First, though, they needed an alphabet. They created one of their own, which would become Old Church Slavonic. These Slavonic texts spread throughout Eastern Europe, and missionaries successfully used them in Slavic states to convert residents to Christianity.[248] Eventually, Old Church Slavonic would become the Eastern Orthodox Church’s official language.[249]
Five years after they arrived, the brothers were successfully converting Moravian Slavs to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which conflicted with Roman Catholic missionaries’ aspirations in the area.[250] The Franks threw their weight around, forcing the pope to call Cyril and Methodius to Rome. The brothers arrived in 867, where they found the new pope, Adrian II, more flexible. Adrian allowed them to return to their work and use their translated religious texts. Unfortunately, Cyril died, leaving his brother to return to Moravia to pick up their missionary work alone. Methodius remained in Moravia until the Franks finally forced him out in 885. Methodius and his followers went to Bulgaria, founding churches and training missionaries there. These new schools were instrumental in converting Kievan Rus to Christianity.
In the meantime, the Franks had had enough of Rastislav’s machinations and removed him from the throne. His nephew, Svatopluk, kept Moravia independent of Frankish influence while building positive relations with them. However, there was a more threatening enemy—one that he didn’t even consider.
During his reign, Svatopluk expanded Moravian landholdings. This earned him many enemies, and warfare plagued his reign.[251] He used Magyar auxiliary soldiers to defeat his enemies. The Magyars, the peoples from whom the Hungarians are descended, came from the Ural Mountains in modern-day Russia.[252] Around 4000 BC, the Magyars moved south, reaching the Volga River. In the 700s CE, the Khazar Empire conquered the Magyars, who would remain under Khazar rule for about one hundred years.
By 830 CE, rebellion and instability drove the Magyars away from the Volga, and they settled in present-day Ukraine. Despite the struggle to find a stable home, the Magyars had a gift that was well known throughout the medieval period. They were the best steppe warriors of the age, and others wanted to exploit that.
The Magyars found their most enthusiastic client in Svatopluk. With Magyar help, he grew Greater Moravia’s landholdings to include modern-day southern Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, as well as parts of Hungary, Slovenia, and Austria.[253] In the late 9th century, Svatopluk conquered Bohemia in the present-day western Czech Republic.[254] Bohemia would become the farthest western reaches of Greater Moravia, but the Moravians would only control it during Svatopluk’s lifetime.
During their war missions, the Magyars learned the geography of the region.[255] In the last years of the 9th century, the Magyars were pushed out of modern-day Ukraine by their rivals, the Pechenegs and the Bulgarians. In the meantime, Svatopluk had died, and the local elite in Bohemia rebelled and declared independence.[256] The Bohemians chose their own rulers, the Přemysl clan, which controlled Bohemia until the early 14th century.
The loss of Bohemia further weakened Greater Moravia, giving the Magyars the perfect opportunity to strike.[257] The Magyars knew the geography of Eastern Europe, and they knew which lands would be the easiest to take. The Magyars descended on the Pannonian Plain, the stretch of land just inside the arc of the Carpathian Mountains.[258] Using this land as a center of operations, the Magyars spread out, attacking settlements all across Eastern Europe. The locals were so terrified of the Magyars that they gave them a name, one that was inspired by the fear of a previous invading tribe. The Magyars were called “Hungarians,” a phrase that quickly brought the Huns to mind.
The Magyar chief Árpád founded a new state, Hungary, around the year 895. The Magyar occupation separated the Slavic inhabitants. They separated the South Slavs from their neighbors, the East Slavs and West Slavs. By 907, Árpád and the Magyars, now the Hungarians, crushed Greater Moravia. Hungary wasn’t enough for the Magyars, and they still raided the surrounding areas for supplies and food, as well as for fun.[259]
Let’s not forget about Bohemia. Like Greater Moravia, the first Přemyslid rulers of Bohemia had to worry about outside influences.[260] The nearby Germanic states of powerful Eastern Francia (the eastern lands of Charlemagne’s Carolingian Empire) put pressure on the Bohemians. Under Vaclav I (r. 925–929), Bohemia became a vassal state of the Franks.[261] It had to make tribute payments, but it was allowed to keep its own autonomy.
Many members of the Bohemian nobility didn’t like this subordination, but Vaclav was more worried about ending the religious warfare in his country. He was a Christian, and he encouraged the spread of Christianity throughout Bohemia. In 929, Vaclav was murdered while he was on his way to mass; he was ambushed by his enemies, who were led by his brother, Boleslav the Cruel. Vaclav is reportedly the inspiration for the Christmas carol “Good King Wenceslas.”
Boleslav (also spelled as Boleslaus) resisted German control throughout his reign. Otto I, the new king of East Francia, had had enough and declared war on Bohemia. The two powers fought for nearly fifteen years before Bohemia sued for peace and submitted to German authority.[262] Bohemia became part of the Ottonian Empire for about a century and a half until it was acknowledged as an independent kingdom.[263]
By the mid-10th century, East Francia Empire had transitioned into the Kingdom of Germany.[264] In 955, King Otto I took on the Magyars in a bitter showdown in modern-day Augsburg. Otto didn’t expect to win the battle, but his forces decimated the Magyar defenses. His victorious army immediately saluted him as “Emperor” Otto—a raise in rank from a mere king.
Otto’s new title was renewed eight years later in an official ceremony in Rome. For his role in defending Christian lands against pagan invasions and continuing the legacy of the Franks, the pope crowned Otto as the Holy Roman emperor.
Although the Magyars were defeated, they were not annihilated. They retreated back to their lands in modern-day Hungary, their shattered confidence in tow. The Magyar leaders soon realized that the Christian states of Europe were winning. The only way that Hungary would succeed was by becoming a Christian state. The Hungarians stopped raiding and opened up their lands to Christian missionaries. Hungary officially became Christianized when its king, Saint Stephen, was baptized in 1001.[265] The Hungarians eventually built an extensive empire that included modern-day Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, and Transylvania.[266]
The Bulgarian Empire
In 810 CE, Bulgaria was a client state of the Byzantine Empire.[267] Its ruler, Krum, fought Byzantine control throughout his reign. That year, the Franks needed help defeating the Avar Empire. The Bulgarians went to war and helped the Franks defeat the Avars. Krum believed he was owed a gift of gratitude, as he had conquered the corner of the Carpathian Basin where Hungary, Serbia, and Romania meet today.
Krum was tired of Byzantine control, and he made the risky move of invading Byzantine territory. For years, he seized cities and territories, adding them to his empire. With every victory, Krum and his successors shored up Bulgarian power, eventually forming the First Bulgarian Empire. About a century after Krum seized the Carpathian Basin, one of his successors, Simeon I, stormed into Constantinople and strong-armed the emperor into granting him a title: “Caesar of all Bulgarians and Romans.” The symbolism was clear—Byzantine control over Bulgaria was over, at least for now.
During the 10th century, Bulgaria controlled the Balkans, becoming a significant political player in Europe equal to the Franks and Byzantines. After sustaining a devastating attack from Kievan Rus in 969, the First Bulgarian Empire fell in 1018.
The Byzantines got their revenge for their previous humiliation. Emperor Basil II defeated the Bulgarians in battle, taking over fifteen thousand prisoners of war.[268] He spitefully had all the prisoners’ eyes cut out. The Bulgarians then returned to Byzantine rule for two hundred years.
Two brothers led a rebellion, overthrowing Byzantine control and founding the Second Bulgarian Empire, which would rule itself for many centuries.[269] Byzantium had its own problems, like the disastrous Fourth Crusade, so it never attacked or tried to regain control of Bulgaria. At its most extensive point, the Second Bulgarian Empire moved past Bulgaria’s modern-day borders, extending to Albania and including parts of Serbia to the north.
Kievan Rus
Unlike how Western European history portrays them, the Vikings were not all about raids and razing towns. They were also quite business savvy! While the Vikings focused on pillaging in Western Europe, they were keen on controlling the lucrative trade routes that filtered through Eastern Europe.
The middle of the 7th century saw Vikings from Sweden moving south of Scandinavia.[270] These Vikings called themselves the Varangians, but the Finnic peoples they encountered referred to them as the “Ruotsi.” The lucrative potential of the Baltic region was too good of an opportunity to pass up, and the raiding Vikings conquered the area, taking the trade routes for themselves.[271]
As the Varangians continued trekking south, they occupied the river basins of the Dnieper, Don, and Volga Rivers from eastern Ukraine to western Russia.[272] Building upon their own networks, the Vikings established trading relationships that stretched from the Baltic to Asia.[273] For hundreds of years, Eastern Europe was a thoroughfare for goods, spices, and luxuries from Eastern lands. The Varangians controlled the trade in modern-day Eastern Europe and founded states that would unite as Kievan Rus.[274]
While luxury items like furs and precious metals were exchanged along the Varangian trade routes, they mostly dealt with slaves. There was a huge market for Slavic slaves; according to Tomek Jankowski, “before the Atlantic slave trade that plundered Africa in the 15th -19th centuries, by far the largest slave network in the world centered on the trade of Slavic peoples as slaves.”[275] The trade in Slavic peoples was so widespread that the word “Slav” is the root of the word “slave” in most European languages.
The years between the 700s and 1100s were the height of the Slavic slave trade.[276] While the trade included Varangians, merchants from Italy, Byzantium, and the Frankish Empire also traded in slaves. In most cases, these Slavs, who were, for the most part, prisoners of war, were sent east to the Arab world, where they were sold again. However, as more Slavic states converted to Christianity, Slavs stopped becoming targets of the slave trade.
The Varangians established many city-states along their trade routes over the centuries. They encountered Finns and Slavs, and the three groups all fought over the area. To end the warfare, Varangians combined the states around modern-day Novgorod, Russia, electing the Viking Rurik to be its first ruler.
By the 880s, the federation spread out; it now included modern-day Kyiv (also known as Kiev). This union of states became known as Kievan Rus. This would be the ancestor of present-day Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.[277] Even though the leadership of Kievan Rus was initially Varangian, the Vikings completely assimilated into the population by the 950s.[278] Kievan Rus became a powerful Eastern Slavic state.
In the 10th century, the Rus fought with the Khazars over access to the Volga River.[279] The Rus defeated the Khazars around the year 965; the loss crippled the Khazars, and they never recovered. The Khazars disappeared soon after that, most likely by the end of the century.
After the Rus defeated the Khazars, the rulers of Kievan Rus created a viable culture that lasted until the 12th century.[280] The Byzantines sent priests from Bulgaria into Rus to convert the area to Christianity, although it should be noted that the Western Church also sent its delegates to the area.[281] Missionaries were allowed to spread Byzantine Christianity within the realm, and scholars applied the Cyrillic alphabet, which had been adopted from their neighbor Bulgaria, to write religious texts and law codes.[282] Even with improvements in law, religion, and education, Kievan Rus was so dependent on trade that its fate intertwined with its trade neighbors, the Abbasids and the Byzantines. When these powers declined, Kievan Rus declined. By the 1220s, Kievan Rus lost the power it had commanded less than two centuries before.[283]
Kievan Rus at its height in the 12th century.
Original version (russian): Koryakov Yuri English translation: Hellerick, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kievan-rus-1015-1113-(en).png
In the early 800s, the Franks dominated the Dalmatian coast, which lies on the northeast Adriatic Sea in modern-day Croatia.[284] Under Duke Ljudevit, the Slavs resisted the Franks in 818. This rebellion failed, and the area would be controlled by the Eastern Franks (later the Germans) for the next millennium. Present-day Slovenia descends from these rebellious Slavs under Ljudevit. However, Slovenia wouldn’t organize into a territory for more than one thousand years. In 1918, Slovenia was finally organized into a country as part of Yugoslavia.
Even though the Slavic rebellion of 818 failed, the Franks were having a hard time maintaining control over the Dalmatian coast. And as the Franks lost control throughout the 9th century, small Slavic states along the coast of the Adriatic rose in their place. Although they were Slavic states, they were Christianized—a legacy from their time under Frankish control. In 845, this collection of Christian Slavic states joined together under one leader, Trpimir, to form modern-day Croatia.
Understanding the limits of their defeat, the Franks officially recognized Croatia rather than fight for it. Less than one hundred years later, in 925, the Croatian state was recognized as a full Christian kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia was established, and it included the lands the Croatians had added to their state in the meantime. To the west, it reached the Istrian Peninsula in the northern Adriatic, where the borders of modern-day Slovenia and Croatia meet. To the east, it reached the Drava River, a tributary of the Danube River in modern-day eastern Croatia.
Unfortunately, this united Croatia only lasted three years.[285] In 928, Croatia became a weak centralized state, and it was easily picked off by its ambitious neighbors. Croatia weakened further until it was torn apart by civil war in 1089. Croatia was absorbed into Hungary in 1102, but it was allowed to rule itself relatively intact. However, Croatia’s history and politics were very much aligned with Hungary for hundreds of years.
Serbia
Although it started as a smattering of small states, Serbia would go through an ebb and flow throughout the medieval period to become the most powerful state in the Balkans.[286] The first tribes arrived by the mid-600s. They settled in the Balkans, where they stayed for about two hundred years. Serbia organized into an official state in the mid-9th century through the machinations of the Byzantines. The Byzantines convinced a prominent Serbian prince named Vlastimir that a united Serbian state would check the growth of the First Bulgarian Empire. Vlastimir established the first dynasty of Serbia, but the state would grow under his great-grandson, Časlav.
During Časlav’s reign, he pulled Serbia away from Bulgarian influence, allowing the spread of Byzantine culture. Časlav brought in Byzantine artists, architects, and authors, and he introduced Christianity. He also expanded Serbia’s borders, but it is unknown to what extent. Unfortunately, Časlav was the last of his dynasty. When he died around 960, all of his hard work fell apart.
A map of the suggested extent of Serbian lands under Časlav. As you can see, the Bulgarian Empire stretched from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, dominating the region. However, there is little reliable source material on how much the Serbians expanded past their original borders.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Central_and_Eastern_Europe_around_950_AD.png
Serbia disintegrated into three main principalities: Duklja, Raška, and Zahumlje. Of these three states, Duklja took the lead, dominating the other two states until the late 11th century. Later instability in Duklja allowed the rise of Raška as the dominant state. Raška started reuniting the rest of the Serbian states until Stefan Nemanja founded the Nemanjić dynasty in 1166. Throughout the rest of his reign, he finished bringing Serbia back together. When Stefan Nemanja abdicated in 1196, he had expanded Serbia south toward Macedonia and north toward present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina.[287]
Under Stefan Nemanja’s son, Saint Sava, Serbia was officially converted to Orthodox Christianity.[288] The Nemanjić dynasty continued to secure its power, and Serbia reached its height in the 13th century. In 1217, it became the Kingdom of Serbia.
The Piast Dynasty Unites Poland
In the medieval period, the present-day borders of Poland were divided in two. The southern edge was controlled by Bohemia. The Western Slavic Lechitic tribes known as the Polanie occupied the flatlands between the tribes on the Baltic Sea and Bohemian-controlled lands.
In the 940s, the Polanie loosely organized into the first state of Poland. This is a loose definition of the word “state,” as it was really just an organization of tribes that united under one leader. Under the first ruling family, the Piast dynasty, Poland transformed from an organization of tribes into a centralized duchy. The Piast family would lead Poland more or less for the next four hundred years until the late 14th century.[289]
Mieszko I, who ruled in the late 10th century, was largely responsible for this transition by introducing Christianity to his territory. He married a Bohemian princess who was a Christian—a fact that may or may not have played a role in his conversion. After their marriage, Mieszko converted to Christianity himself. He officially declared Christianity as the state religion and appealed to the pope in Rome to recognize Poland as a Christian state. The more likely reason for Mieszko’s conversion may have been political; by joining Christian Europe, Mieszko ensured that the German Holy Roman emperor, Otto I, would leave his lands alone.
Poland grew even larger and more powerful under Mieszko’s son, Boleslaw the Brave.[290] Boleslaw conquered territory in all directions, expanding Polish borders into neighboring lands for most of his reign. In 1025, Poland was recognized as a kingdom, and Boleslaw became the first king of Poland. By then, he had extended his borders west into modern-day Germany and the Czech Republic.
A map showing the political borders of Europe in the year 1000.
Mandramunjak, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_in_1000.png
Under the Piast dynasty, Poland continued to spread out, taking territories from neighboring lands like Bohemia and spending decade after decade building its own power. However, the unity of Poland under Piast rule didn’t last. One of Boleslaw the Brave’s descendants, Boleslaw III, reigned from 1107 to 1138.[291] Comparatively, he wielded more power than any of the early Piast kings, as he ruled over the Kingdom of Poland at its height. Unfortunately, he made a fateful decision that would affect Poland for hundreds of years.[292] He had five sons, and he gave them each an equal part of the kingdom as their inheritance. When Boleslaw died in 1138, Poland descended into civil war.
Polish expansion during the reign of Boleslaw.
The German Crusaders: The Livonian Brotherhood and the Teutonic Knights Poznaniak, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polska_992_-_1025.svg
While the larger empires of Croatia, Serbia, and Poland were forming in Eastern Europe, the Crusades were tearing apart the Holy Land. Crusader armies from Christian nations across Europe flocked to Jerusalem, determined to win back this holy city from Muslim occupation. By the 13th century, it was clear the Crusades were not going well for the Christian knights. They turned their attention to the pagan Baltic states, intent on enforcing Christianity there instead. In particular, German crusaders flooded into Poland in two main groups.
German missionaries founded the Livonian Brotherhood in 1202 to enforce conversion to Christianity among the Finnic and Baltic tribes living in present-day Estonia and Latvia.[293] Local tribes successfully resisted the missionaries, so the priests founded the Livonian Brotherhood to enforce their will. The “Brothers of the Sword,” another name for the Livonian Brotherhood, arrived in Poland, crossing into the northern Baltic states. They terrorized the local Baltic and Finnic tribes into submission. Tired of the brutality that came with the occupation of German missionaries and knights, several Baltic tribes formed a coalition and defeated the Livonian Brotherhood at the Battle of Saule in 1236. The Livonian Brotherhood scattered and joined another group of German crusader knights known as the Teutonic Knights. The newly-named Livonian Order still had its own organization, but it remained under the purview of the Teutonic Order.[294]
Like the Livonian Brotherhood, the Teutonic Knights soon found themselves on the losing side of the Crusades.[295] They returned to Europe in 1211, looking for work. The king of Hungary hired the Teutonic Knights to protect his lands in Transylvania from attack by the Cumans. The Cumans, a Turkic confederation of steppe tribes, founded their own state that included territories from present-day Romania and Bulgaria to Kazakhstan. They had been settled in Eastern Europe since the 11th century, and they were plunderers who terrorized Byzantine, Rus, Bulgarian, and Hungarian cities. In the early 1200s, the Cumans set their sights on Transylvania.
The German Crusader states of the Teutonic Order, 1260.
S. Bollmann, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Teutonic_Order_1260.png
The Teutonic Knights worked for the Hungarians for nearly fifteen years before they got greedy and attempted to turn Transylvania into their own Crusader state. The Hungarians pushed out the knights, but they weren’t unemployed for long.
In 1225, Konrad, the duke of Mazovia—a region in central-northeastern Poland—called on the Teutonic Knights.[296] He hired the knights to protect the northern border of Poland from invading Baltic tribes. These tribes, the Brusi, occupied parts of the northern border and the province of Kaliningrad.[297]
The Brusi were unequipped to battle the Teutonic Knights, and they were quickly pushed back and defeated. However, they did lend their name to a new state. The knights started founding states on the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea, and Germans emigrated there.[298] These immigrants soon started calling themselves Preußen—the German form of Brusi or English for Prussians.
The Turkic Tribes of Medieval Eastern Europe: The Pechenegs and the Cumans
There were two main Turkic empires that rose during the medieval period: the Pechenegs and the Cumans.[299] The Pechenegs were only a temporary arrival to Eastern Europe. They came from the Eurasian Steppe in the late 800s, fully intent on continuing their way of life. They terrorized the great states of the medieval period, such as the Byzantine Empire, Kievan Rus, and Bulgaria.
While the Pechenegs made enemies of most of the large empires of Eastern Europe, they fought lengthy wars against the Rus. In 972, the Pechenegs murdered the prince of Rus, Sviatoslav I. The khan of the Pechenegs made an example of the prince by cutting his head off and using his skull as a cup. Over the centuries, the Rus and the Pechenegs continued to fight, but the Rus never forgot this insult.
Kievan Rus grew in power and influence throughout the 11th century, and it was finally able to defeat the Pechenegs in battle. However, the strengthening of Kievan Rus was not the reason for the downfall of the Pechenegs. While engrossed in war, an outside power moving west, another Turkic tribe named the Cumans, ousted the Pechenegs from their territory on the steppe.
The Cumans, who were from the Eurasian Steppe themselves, were actually a collection of tribes that decided that there was strength in numbers.[300] They assimilated many of the Pechenegs into their confederation. The ones who didn’t join the Cumans wandered, relocating to Bulgaria and Hungary—two empires that were their former targets. The Pechenegs assimilated into the Hungarian and Bulgarian populations, ending their two-century reign.
The Cumans managed to achieve more power than the Pechenegs ever did. They lorded over an empire from today’s border between Romania and Bulgaria, across the Eurasian Steppe, past the Black and Caspian Seas, and into Kazakhstan. Just like the Pechenegs, the Cumans were raiders. They picked up where the Pechenegs left off, pillaging Byzantine, Rus, and Romania. Cuman raids took place as far west as Hungary.
Interestingly enough, the Cumans understood diplomacy and strategic alliances.[301] The nobility showcased their power and diplomatic standing by intermarrying with the Bulgarian, Rus, and Hungarian royal families. After two centuries as a dynamic power player in Eastern Europe, the Cuman Empire fell, but for what reason is anyone’s guess. Over time, the Cumans migrated to the neighboring territories. The Hungarians and Bulgarians offered them protection and hired the Cumans for military service. Over hundreds of years, the Cumans naturally assimilated into Hungarian and Bulgarian culture.
The Lithuanians
In northern Eastern Europe, the Lithuanians began to organize into their own state at the end of the 12th century. This date is significant. The Lithuanians lived along the Baltic Sea as Orthodox Slavic tribes that were surrounded by enemies.[302] They were sandwiched between Kievan Rus, Poland, and German Crusader states. Around the 11th century, the Lithuanian tribes consolidated into a fighting force strong enough to protect their lands from invasion on all sides.
A century later, Lithuania had formed into a proper state. Defending its borders from the Rus and the German crusaders makes up most of its early history. Beginning in the 1230s, Lithuania started to become one of the dominant states of Europe with the help of its ruler, Mindaugas.[303] He led the Lithuanians against the Livonian Brotherhood in the Battle of Saule in 1236. This was the battle that destroyed the “Brothers of the Sword,” forcing them to assimilate into the Teutonic Knights.[304] Mindaugas also successfully commanded raids against the Rus, taking some of their lands in the process.