Download PDF | Aleksander Paroń - The Pechenegs_ Nomads in the Political and Cultural Landscape of Medieval Europe-Brill (2021).
480 Pages
Introduction
At the beginning of his now classic monograph on the Avars, first published in German in 1988, Walter Pohl asked if these people were ‘marginal Europeans’ (schlechte Européer).! This same question could be posed in relation to every nomadic ethnos that has ever migrated to the European continent. It is also possible to broaden the question and ask whether nomadic peoples, which are migratory by definition, can be considered Europeans at all? This problem is not a new one. Herodotus, who described the Scythians without biases and at times even wrote sympathetically about them, seems to have had his doubts about their Europeanness. The author of Histories believed the Scythians belonged to Europe geographically, because this is where they ultimately based themselves. He said their roots, however, were in Asia, over which they once briefly ruled. As enemies of the Persian Empire, they have also been historically placed on the side of Europe.
The definitional problems faced by Herodotus remind us of an extremely important fact — namely, that the nomadic groups he describes arriving on the European continent were all essentially products of the so-called Great Steppe, whose landforms and ecosystems defined the basic elements of their cultures. Their nomadic lifestyle and the values associated with it clearly distinguished these nomads from the agricultural communities whose settlements neighboured the plains of the European steppe. This made it easy for nomads to be seen as ‘Others’ and, ultimately, to be erased from the continent’s cultural landscape.
Despite the insights provided by new studies, this tendency continues to appear in contemporary research, and is reinforced by the total absence of nomadic communities in modern-day Europe. The continent’s last independent nomadic groups, located in Russia, had ceased to exist by the end of the eighteenth century. Not long afterwards, as a result of Russian economic expansion and the anthropogenic changes this brought, the steppe plains — the natural habitat of nomadic populations — vanished from the European continent. A researcher studying the history and culture of European nomads today must therefore try to recreate a world that not only disappeared long ago, but, above all, is also acknowledged by few in modern-day Europe. One symptom of this situation is that in historical studies of the Old Continent, nomadic communities generally appear only at moments of great drama, or even crisis. We all know of the Huns, whose arrival marked the beginning of the Migration Period, which is still portrayed today as one of the main causes of the fall of the Ancient World.
Another nomadic group in public awareness is the Mongols, whose expansion in the mid-thirteenth century significantly altered the political map of Eastern Europe and brought the ‘Mongol Terror’ (Timor Tartarorum) to much of the continent. Both of these events initiated by steppe dwellers were undeniably of great significance to Europe, as they gave shape to anew political and, more broadly, cultural order on the continent. Yet, reducing the presence of nomads in Europe to their roles in these events casts them as inherent enemies of European civilization who appeared suddenly and unexpectedly, like a natural disaster, wreaking death and destruction, only to disappear just as suddenly. Such a perception of these communities, ones which have been present in Europe since the Eneolithic Period (3rd and 4th millennia BCE) is clearly based on misconceptions. It is not easy, of course, to incorporate these migratory steppe peoples into the continent’s cultural landscape, because these groups continued to undergo constant change as successive waves of nomadic peoples arrived in Europe from Central Asia. However, ignoring their presence or reducing it to a single dimension — the violence associated with it — limits our understanding of the political and socio-cultural processes taking place in medieval south and eastern Europe.
Nomadic communities were an important part of these processes. In the early Middle Ages (more precisely, the 10th and uth centuries), Europe’s attention was drawn to the Pechenegs, a nomadic people with roots in Inner Asia. Unlike the Huns, Khazars, or Mongols, they were not the founders of great empires, but during the period under discussion they made their mark on the history of the countries and ethnicities neighbouring them. A lack of particularly spectacular political successes should not obscure the fact that the Pechenegs were an extremely interesting ethnic organism that existed for roughly 300 years, if we trace their origins back to Asia. They therefore existed as an independent group longer than many steppe empires, upon which the scholarly community has focused so much attention. I am convinced that a detailed analysis of the Pechenegs’ history, the main elements of their culture, and their relationship with the outside world will provide us with a better understanding of the place of nomadic communities in the political and cultural landscape of medieval Europe.
1 Written Sources
There exists a very diverse collection of written sources on the history and culture of the Pechenegs, including a corpus of some 60 texts produced by a number of sometimes quite different cultural traditions. The Pechenegs were written about or mentioned by Byzantine, Latin, Muslim, Rus’, Syrian, Armenian, Hebrew, and even Tibetan authors.” In most cases, these are merely brief mentions that allow us to establish no more than basic facts about these people.
Like the vast majority of nomads, the Pechenegs did not produce their own written sources. We learn about their past through the accounts of foreign authors, many of whom were negatively disposed towards nomads, and few of whom understood the specifics of the culture of the people they were describing. These ethnographic digressions were often written on the basis of descriptive motifs borrowed from previous authors. A related tendency is found in the works of Byzantine writers who used ancient ethnonyms (e.g. Scythians, Cimmerians, Getae, Myrmidons, Mysians, Dacians and others) in place of the ethnic names of present-day ‘barbarians’? It should also be noted that extensive ethnographic descriptions are rarely found in these written sources.
They are usually limited to reporting key political events, such as wars or alliances with nomads, or to recording information that is useful for diplomatic purposes. Texts from this last category are common among works of Byzantine historiography, the most numerous group of sources available to us. These ancient authors considered war to be the main subject of history.4 To some extent, the information contained in Byzantine sources on the culture of the Pechenegs is complemented by other authors, most of whom are Muslim, who are less interested in political issues.
In spite of these weaknesses, without this data from works by authors belonging to the Byzantine literary tradition, our knowledge of steppe peoples would be extremely limited. We will thus begin our survey of written sources with materials produced by this group. The author of what is probably the most important of these sources is Emperor Constantine v1I Porphyrogenitus, who is considered to have played a major role in the intellectual renaissance that took place in the Empire during the rule of the Macedonian Dynasty (8671056).° His political legacy, however, was not worthy of acclaim. Having been crowned as a young child, he had no real influence on the course of events in the state during the first 31 years of his reign. He did not begin to rule autonomously until early in 945, after the deposition of first Romanos 1 Lekapenos and then his sons, Stephen and Constantine.® Constantine vi1’s long absence from politics provided him with ample free time to pursue his scholarly passions. His activity in this area was two-fold, as he not only promoted and organized scientific work, but also wrote his own scientific treaties.”
Among the works that appeared under the name of Constantine v1, of particular importance was one known by its Latin title, De administrando imperio,® written in 948—952.° The work was most likely originally untitled in Greek, but the manuscript begins with the dedication ITpo¢ tov idtov uiov ‘Pwmavov tev Seootepy xai moppupoyevyytov BaotAéa. This indicates that the work’s addressee was Constantine’s son Roman, to whom he wished to leave a set of instructions on how to conduct the affairs of the state. The work’s structure leads us to assume it was written in two stages and not subjected to particularly careful editing. This is indicated by the repetitions and conflicting dates provided for the same events in different parts of the text.
Constantine VII writes extensively about the Pechenegs, mentioning them in seventeen chapters and providing information about their history, political order, and relations with neighbouring groups. He writes about them in a matter-of-fact manner, though his writing is not devoid of the biases typical of Byzantine elites. He sees the Pechenegs as a potential political partner, a point he returns to repeatedly. The language Porphyrogenitus used in writing this work is free of archaisms, and he deliberately refrains from using a high style in an effort to make his message more clear. However, he does not hesitate to use foreign ethnonyms and toponyms, thanks to which his work has preserved individual words from the Pecheneg’s language, albeit in a corrupted form.The learned emperor is also credited with writing a handbook on Byzantine court ceremony. The addressee of the work, whose Latin title was De cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae, was again his son Roman, the chosen successor to the throne.!3 We find some extremely interesting and important information about the Pechenegs in the sections where he details the legal and political relations between the imperial court and this nomadic folk.
Constantine vi1 also commissioned and oversaw the writing of a chronicle that a modern publisher gave the title Theophanes Continuatus. In the original version, the work’s authors, men gathered around the Emperor, described themselves as Of ueta Oeopdvyy or ‘Those after Theophanes’, which indicates that this work was a continuation of the Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor. The chronicle’s six books contain a description of events that took place between 813 to 963. The work is known from a version that ends in the year 961, with the final section, covering the end of Romanos 11’s reign, having been lost.!4 This chronicle is valuable in relation to the Pechenegs because it confirms information contained in De administrando imperio. Moreover, the relative faithfulness to chronology typical of the chronicle genre helps in dating events.
Valuable information about the relationship between the Pechenegs and Byzantium in the first half of the tenth century is also contained in the chronicle of Simeon the Logothete. All we know about this author is that he was associated with the court in Constantinople during the times of Romanos 1 Lekapenos and Constantine vii and received the above-mentioned title from the latter. His work has been preserved in two editions. The first (A) was written before 948. Entries from it also appear in the chronicle of Leo Grammaticus. The second edition (B) dates back to the year 963. A close relationship has been demonstrated between it and the chronicle known as the Chronicle of George the Monk. In contrast to the followers of Theophanes and John Skylitzes, Symeon writes critically about the Macedonian dynasty, while the chronicler’s treatment of Romanos I Lekapenos is a great deal more sympathetic.!5
A short reference to the Pechenegs can be also found in the writings of Leo the Deacon, an author born in the mid-tenth century, and who described events spanning the years 959-975 in ten volumes. Leo mentions the Pechenegs in a description of the death of the Rus’ prince Sviatoslav 1 Igorevich, where he provides a brief characterization of them.!®
Much more information about the Pechenegs was provided by John Skylitzes, a Byzantine chronicler who wrote in the latter half of the eleventh century. He held both the high court office of curopalate (xovpomaA&tys) and one of the highest-ranking judicial positions in the Empire (Spovvydptos ths BtyAac). This last fact indicates that he was also a lawyer. He wrote a legal treatise at the behest of Alexios 1 Komnenos in 1092, and probably died in the early twelfth century. His Synopsis of Histories (Xdvopic ictopidv), conceived as a continuation of the Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, covers the years 811-1057 and represents a special case of chronicle writing.
While the work retains many features typical of the chronicle genre (especially in terms of its structure), it stands out from standard chronographic writing in its style and insightful criticism of its sources. The chronicle begins with a review of works devoted to the history of the Byzantine Empire, the vast majority of which Skylitzes felt treated their subject matter in a superficial and cursory manner. He then set for himself the ambitious goal of writing a textbook of history that would be error-free,!’ a lofty aim he seems not to have realized.!8 Nevertheless, Skylitzes’ chronicle possesses tremendous value, especially as a source on the history of the Pechenegs in the mid-eleventh century. Manuscripts of his work have survived in a version that extends to 1079. Entries from after 1057 have traditionally been considered to be the work of an anonymous author and are collectively known as the Scylitzes Continuatus. However, there is growing acceptance today of the idea that this last part of the chronicle may have been written by John Skylitzes as well. It too contains information about the Pechenegs during their turbulent presence in the Byzantine Empire.!9
Michael Psellos (1018—c.1080), an eminent Byzantine statesman, provides a number of interesting facts in his most well-known work, usually titled by publishers as Chronographia.”° In its content and style it bears little resemblance to most chronicles, nor does it fit the definition of other genres typical of ancient historiography. It is rather more a kind of diary in which special emphasis is placed on descriptions of the achievements of the author and other chosen individuals, especially the Emperors, who Psellos knew personally. He pays little attention to the traditional themes of historiography, such as wars or foreign policy. In spite of this, he does report on the course of an expedition by Isaac 1 Komnenos against the Pechenegs during the summer of 1059. In the course of his account, he provides a characterization of these nomads which, in spite of its biases, is nonetheless extremely interesting.
Valuable information on the Pechenegs is also contained in The History of Michael Attaleiates (c.1028-1085), an imperial judge close to court circles, who held the offices of both Judge of the Hippodrome and Senator. This work, which describes events from 1034 to 1079/80, is written with a strong emphasis on the achievements of Emperor Nikephoros 111 Botaneiates (1078-1081), but it also contains much information about the nomads who had been migrating to the Byzantine Balkans since the mid-eleventh century.”!
Also worthy of note is Material for a History ("Yn totopias), whose author, Nikephoros Bryennios (c.1062—1136/7), was an educated soldier who had an excellent family lineage. His father was the duke of Dyrrachion who revolted in 1077 and was proclaimed Emperor by the army of the West. He ultimately lost his struggle for the throne at Constantinople and was subsequently blinded as punishment. The Bryennios family later returned to favour under the rule of Alexios 1 Komnenos, as evidenced by the marriage between Anna Komnena and the young Nikephoros in 1097. Bryennios’s historical work was conceived as a sort of chronicle of the Komnenos family, with a particular emphasis on Alexios. Its title was intended to convey the exceptional modesty of the author and emphasize that his primary aim was to provide source materials for future historians. Bryennios never finished his history, though he managed to complete four books covering the period from 1070 to 1079. He based his work on a number of oral and written sources, ranging from the works of Michael Psellos and Michael Attaleiates, to accounts from those within the Komnenos court, which had a strong oral tradition.?? For our purposes, Bryennios’ accounts of the Pechenegs’ invasions of the Balkans and their involvement in conflicts within the Byzantine Empire in 1077 and 1078 are of particular relevance.
The work of Nikephoros Bryennios was continued by his wife, Anna Komnena (1083-c.1155), the oldest child of Emperor Alexios 1. After the death of her father (118), she attempted with the support of her mother, Empress Irene Dukaina, to take the throne. She ultimately lost this struggle to her main rival, her brother John, and was forced to leave the court and take residence in the Convent of Mary Full of Grace in northwestern Constantinople. She devoted her time there mainly to literary activity, and most likely some time around 136 began to write The Alexiad, a historical work covering the years 1069-1118.23
The Alexiad was based on a solid foundation of written sources. Anna Komnena had access to state documents, was familiar with her father’s official correspondence, and had read all the golden bulls and numerous treaties. She was also familiar with the accounts of various eye-witnesses to events. All the historical materials she obtained by these various means were used to achieve a single goal: praising the achievements of Emperor Alexios 1. For this reason, The Alexiad reads more like an epic poem written in prose than a history written in the same form and spirit as the works of Thucydides or Procopius of Caesarea. It is nevertheless of great value for studying the last period in the history of the Pechenegs, because it is the only source that describes in detail the war of 1087-1091, which immediately preceded their destruction.
Data from eleventh- and twelfth-century authors about the Pechenegs is confirmed and in some cases supplemented by John Zonaras’ Epitome of Histories (Enttouy totopiav), which chronicled history from the creation of the world to the death of Alexios 1 Komnenos in 118. The exact dates of the author’s birth and death are unknown. We know that he died as a monk in the mid-twelfth century. He had previously held important court functions, including that of protoasecretis (newtoacynxpytis), head of the imperial chancery. Unlike Anna Komnena, he did not write an encomium in praise of Alexios I, which thereby allows us to obtain from it a more nuanced picture of Alexios’ reign.*4 Information about the Pechenegs is also contained in another twelfthcentury world chronicle (BiBAos ypovixn) of Michael Glykas (died c.1200), who like Zonaras was a court official. In his work, Glykas writes extensively about the steppe, though he tends to repeat information from earlier authors.*5
The last mentions of the Pechenegs come from John Kinnamos (c.143c.1200) and Niketas Choniates (1155/57—-1217). The first was imperial secretary to Emperor Manuel 1 Komnenos (1143-1180) and the author of a book devoted to the history of Byzantium from 1118 to 1:76. The main protagonist in this work is Manuel 1.26 Niketas Choniates held a number of high state offices, and at the height of his career, held the position of Grand Logothete and sat in the Senate. His political legacy, however, was less than impressive, and he seems not to have been a particularly influential person. The case is different with his historical writing. He is considered, alongside Anna Komnena, one of the greatest names in Byzantine historiography of the Komnenian era. He mentions the Pechenegs at the beginning of his Chronological Narrative (Xpovixy Supyyorc).?7
Some very interesting data is also provided to us by Byzantine authors who were not concerned with historiography. A testimonial to the state of mind of the Byzantine elite during their conflict with Simeon 1 (889-927), ruler of Bulgaria, is found in the epistolary writings of Nicholas Mystikos, Patriarch of Constantinople from go1 to 907 and from 912 to 925.28 In three letters, he provides interesting details on the significance of the Pechenegs to Bulgarian-Byzantine relations and the perception of nomads by imperial elites.29 We can also supplement our knowledge on this last topic by reading the statements of the eleventh-century rhetoricians John Mauropous (c.1000-c.1080),3° Metropolitan of Euchaita, and Theophylact (c.1050—after 126),3! archbishop of Ohrid. In a speech usually dated to April 1047, the first of these religious figures referred extensively to events that coincided with the migration of the Pechenegs (winter of 1046/47).
Theophylact of Ohrid praises a short-lived peace concluded with the nomads by Alexios 1 in late 1087. A few, mostly harsh remarks about the Pechenegs are found in Kekaumenos’ Strategikon (c.1020/24-c.1080).32 In it the former Byzantine military commander left practical instructions for his sons, including how to wage war against nomadic groups. To illustrate his recommendations, Kekaumenos uses campaigns carried out against the Pechenegs in the mid-eleventh century, that is, shortly after their arrival onto the territory of the Byzantine Empire. Finally, Gregorios Pakourianos, another high-ranking commander active early in the reign of Alexios Komnenos, wrote a typikon (a book of rules and rubrics) for a monastery he founded, in which he mentions his victory over the Pechenegs. This event is usually dated to the end of 1083.34
A great deal of extremely important information about the Pechenegs comes from sources in the Muslim world. The sphere of interest of these authors differs from that of the Byzantines described above. While the latter focused mainly on political events, Muslim writers devoted more attention to ssues that today we would describe as geographical and ethnographic. This state of affairs is beneficial for us, because it allows us to see the Pechenegs from a broader perspective. It also provides use with sources that come out of a completely unrelated literary tradition, making it possible to verify the Byzantine historiographic data.
The most important source of information we have on the Pechenegs is the so-called Anonymous Account of the Countries and Peoples of Inner Asia and Eastern and Central Europe. Described by Josef Marquart as the oldest known description of these regions of the world, the work exists but in fragmentary form today.34 The information it contains comes from the latter half of the ninth century,?> to a work considered to have been lost, The Book of Routes and Kingdoms, attributed to Abu Abdallah Jayhani (al-Jayhan1), a vizier of the Samanid dynasty. The latest research indicates that the first edition of this work dates back to somewhere between 903 and 913. It is assumed, however, that the text was reworked between 922 and 943.76 Scattered fragments of Jayhani’s work have survived to our times in scientific treatises written by Persian, Turkic, and Arab authors between the tenth and seventeenth centuries.?”
One of these is The Book of Precious Gems, written by Abu Ali Ahmad ibn Umar ibn Rusta. We know little about him except that he was of Persian origin and lived in Isfahan. The work was written no earlier than in 903, but no later than in 913. Only one volume of The Book has survived to our times. Apart from information taken from merchants and travellers, the author also made use of the writings of al-Jayhani. This treatise was to be the basis for the section of Ibn Rusta’s book concerning the Magyars, Khazars, Burtas, Volga-Kama Bulgars, and, most importantly, the Pechenegs. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the information from the Anonymous Account contained in the above-mentioned work is among the most reliable, the book’s author omits a great deal of key information about Turkic peoples, including the Pechenegs.?° Also belonging to the Jayhani tradition is an anonymous work of geography written in 982 entitled Regions of the World (Hudid al-‘Alam).
Unfortunately, the information it contains poses serious interpretive challenges because the author attempted to update its contents by adding new information to old, often making use of more recent sources in the process. As a result, the information he compiled is often confusing.3° Almost as valuable as the information provided by Ibn Rusta is that contained in the chronicle of al-Gardizi, complied between 1050 and 1052. In the ethnographic chapter of his The Ornament of Histories, based on the work of al-Jayhani, we find a whole new set of details omitted by Ibn Rusta concerning Turkic peoples (including the Pechenegs).*° In 1086, The Book of Routes and Kingdoms was completed by Abu Ubayd al-Bakri (al-Bak1), a native of Andalusia and one of the most famous geographers of the Muslim West. It contained information on the peoples of Eastern Europe, including the Pechenegs, based in part on the Jayhani tradition, but also on accounts taken from other, later works which have been lost.*! Finally, a great deal of interesting information, also taken from the work of the Samanid vizier, is provided by Sharaf al-Zaman Tahir al-Marwazi (Marwaz1i) in his book The Natural Properties of Living Beings, written some time after 120.4”
The five sources presented above provide information mainly about the early history of the Pechenegs, i.e., before their migration to the Black Sea steppes. However, accounts exist by Muslim authors from which information about the Pechenegs’ later history can be extrapolated. One such work, entitled simply Kitab (Book), was written in 922 by Ahmed ibn Fadlan. Some researchers regard him as an Islamicized foreigner, perhaps a Greek. At the turn of 921/922, he was commissioned by al-Muqtadir, the Caliph of Baghdad, to undertake a diplomatic mission to the Volga-Kama Bulgars. His path took him through the Volga region, where he encountered many different Turkic peoples, among them some impoverished Pechenegs. Based on his observations, he produced a thorough description of the customs of the peoples of the steppe, including their lifestyle, beliefs and many other elements of nomadic culture.*? The value of Ibn Fadlan’s account is enhanced by the fact it was based on his personal experiences. Another tenth-century writer was Abu Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Masudi (al-Mas’tdi1) (c.893-956), who was born in Baghdad and died in Egypt.
Around 947 he wrote Meadows of Gold, which he continued to revise until his death. It is a historical work containing a great deal of information of importance to researchers of the peoples of southern and eastern Europe, including the Pechenegs.** The value of al-Masudi’s accounts, however, is limited by his tendency to often uncritically relate sensationalized information. Moreover, he is rather inexact in his chronology, at times providing different dates for the same event or simply stating that he cannot remember exactly when an event took place. There is also reason to suspect that al-Masudi sometimes combines several events into one. Ibrahim ibn Yaqub also makes a small but valuable mention of the Pechenegs, dating back to the year 965/6, when the author made a journey through Europe.** Information on the culture and language of the Pechenegs is also provided in Compendium of the Turkic Dialects, written by Mahmud al-Kashgari, an eleventh-century Islamicized Turk who was an outstanding lexicographer and encyclopaedist.*®
Ali ibn alAthir (al-Athir, 1160-1232/3) mentions the Pechenegs several times in his The Complete History, a world history that dates back to 1230. The book contains original information on the Pechenegs in the section covering events in the eleventh century.*’ A brief mention of the Pechenegs can be found in an extensive geography compiled during the High Middle Ages by Ibn Sa’id al-Maghribi (1213-1275 or 1286), a poet, scholar, and traveller born near Grenada.*® Al-Fida (1273-1331), a Syrian emir from the Ayyubid dynasty, repeats almost exactly the same information. His work, opinions on the value of which vary, is a typical compilation combining older accounts with more recent ones. The credibility of the information about the Pechenegs provided by these last two authors is doubtful.*9
Latin sources comprise quite a large corpus of texts containing references to the Pechenegs. These are mostly chronicles and gesta written by authors belonging to the western, Latin, part of Christianitas. In the vast majority of cases, these works contain only snippets. Mentions of the Pechenegs are also found in the Chronicle of Regino (d. 915), the abbot of the monastery in Priim. The work provides an account of events spanning from creation to the year 906;5° however, its chronology was largely produced ex-post, leading some researchers to question it. Regino dates the arrival of the Pechenegs to the Black Sea steppes to the year 889, which evokes legitimate scepticism.*! Thietmar (975-1018), Bishop of Merseburg, a well-educated representative of the Saxon aristocracy, began writing a chronicle in the early uth century. This work provides very valuable information on the history of Central Europe at the turn of the 10th and uth centuries. Thietmar writes about the Pechenegs twice, both times while relating events associated with Bolestaw Chrobry’s expeditions to Rus’ (1013, 1018).52 An extremely original and valuable account was left to us by St. Bruno from Querfurt, a schoolmate of Thietmar.
In 1008, Bruno spent time with the Pechenegs as a missionary. He made a brief account of his pastoral work among the steppe-dwellers in his Letter to King Henry 11.53 Another interesting reference work containing valuable information on the perception of nomadic people by those in the Latin world is found in the 17. scholion contained in the Gesta Hamburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, written by the canon Adam of Bremen (c.1052-after 1081).54 Interesting information about the Pechenegs is also contained in The Life of Lietbertus, Bishop of Cambrai, written c.1099/1100, though there are doubts about the credibility of this source.® Its author, Raoul (Rodulphus), was a monk in the abbey of the Holy Sepulcher in Cambrai. In 1054 he accompanied Lietbertus on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, during which the bishop and his companions were attacked in the Balkans by ‘Scythian robbers’ (atrunculi Sciticae gentis), who can be identified as Pechenegs. Single mentions of the Pechenegs are also found in the writings of Otto of Freising (c.1114—1158). They are mentioned both in his Chronicle and in a work completed by his pupil Rahewin, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa.°® A short reference to the Pechenegs is also made by Gallus Anonymus in his description of Bolestaw Chrobry’s second expedition to Rus’.5”
Among Latin sources, those written by Hungarians comprise a distinct group. Most of these are chronicles and gesta written during the High and Late Middle Ages. It is assumed, however, that despite their late date of origin, they contain information taken from earlier, lost chronicle monuments.5® Understandably, in these sources the Pechenegs are mentioned mainly in the context of relations between the steppe peoples and the Arpadian kingdom. Interesting mentions of the history of the Pechenegs in the tenth century are also provided in what is considered the oldest known Hungarian chronicle, the Gesta Hungarorum, produced in the first half of the thirteenth century. Its author is anonymous, although he describes himself as ‘P who is called magister, and former notary of King Béla.5° In the 1280s, Simon of Kéza, chaplain to King Ladislaus rv the Cuman (1272-1290), compiled his own gesta. There are doubts however as to the value of the information it contains about the Pechenegs.®° Very valuable data, in turn, is found in the Hungarian Fourteenth-century Chronicle Composition. It was produced, as the name suggests, quite late, but the information it contains was taken from earlier chronicles.*!
Two chronicles were also prepared in the fourteenth century by Heinrich von Miigeln, an influential figure from Meissen, whose activities included not only chronicle writing, but also the composition of poetry, which he wrote in Middle High German. Both of the above chronicles provide information on the history of the Pechenegs in the uth century, although these are usually things already known from other sources.®? An abundance of information regarding the Pechenegs is contained in the chronicle of Johannes de Thurocz (Janos Thuréczy, c.1435—c.1489).°? The author, however, generally repeats information found in earlier sources, especially the Chronicle Composition. Individual mentions of the Pechenegs are also contained in Hungarian works of hagiography, with valuable information being found in both versions of The Legend of King Saint Stephen.6*
It is hard to overestimate the value of the information found in Rus’ chronicles for the study of the history and culture of the peoples of the steppe. The earliest information about the Pechenegs is contained in The Primary Chronicle (also known as Tale of Bygone Years), generally considered the oldest chronicle of ancient Rus’. The original manuscript has not been preserved, but its contents are known from later codices, the oldest of which dates back to the 1370s. The authorship of The Tale is usually attributed to Nestor, a monk of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra who is said to have written the initial part of the chronical compilation between 113 and 1116. Some scholars, however, assume that the oldest entries in the work were made as early as the 1070s. Nestor probably also had continuators who complemented and revised parts of the work. Entries in the Primary Chronicle date back to 1117, with the Pechenegs appearing regularly throughout the book (the last entry dedicated to them is found under the year 1116).65 The Hypatian Chronicle comprises a form of continuation of the Primary Chronicle. Its second part, known to researchers as the Kiev Chronicle, covers the years 118-1199. In it, we find information about the late history of the Pechenegs, primarily their presence in Rus’ as part of the Cherni Klobuci union.®® Another important source is the Novgorodian First Chronicle,®’ whose data sometimes supplements information from the Primary Chronicle. It is based on the annual records from Veliki Novgorod (Novgorod the Great) compiled between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Significantly less important for our purposes are statements contained in the Nikon Chronicle. It was compiled later (in the sixteenth century) and the credibility of the information it contains has been questioned by contemporary scholars.
Important information about the Pechenegs is also contained in two chronicles written within the milieu of Middle Eastern Christians. The first of these is a work by Matthew of Edessa (Urha) (c.1070-c.1137), an Armenian who lived in northern Syria. The chronicle covers the years 952-1129. After the author’s death, additional entries up to 162/63 were added by an otherwise unknown monk named George. Also worthy of note is information provided by Matthew from Edessa regarding the history of the Pechenegs in the eleventh century.® Other interesting information is found in a historical work by Michael the Syrian (1126-1199), patriarch of the Jacobite Church. He produced a comprehensive chronicle of the world dating down to 1195, written in the Syriac language. The data of interested to us in this work concerns the late period of the Pechenegs’ history.”°
Their turbulent history also left traces in extant copies of some very exotic ancient writings. Of the greatest relevance is a short mention in a Tibetan manuscript addressed to the ruler of the Uyghurs. This text is a kind of report whose five authors provide information about the peoples and kingdoms of the north. They briefly mention the Be-ca-nag people, who are in conflict with the ‘Hor state’, meaning the Uyghurs. This information, dated to the latter half of the eighth century, is the oldest known reference to the Pechenegs.”! Quite laconic, but valuable information on them is also contained in Khazar documents written in Hebrew. These were discovered at the end of the nineteenth century in the Genizah of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo. We have Norman Golb and Omeljan Pritsak to thank for the detailed analyses they carried out on these texts.’4
Archaeological Sources
Archaeological sources are of particular importance for learning more about the material culture of nomads. They provide data on a mass scale, which theoretically allows for more a precise picture of the processes that took place within a given steppe community, e.g. the cultural and social changes affecting it and its migration patterns. Several key factors, however, provide cause for researchers to dampen their enthusiasm. First, what we know about the vast majority of Eurasian nomadic cultures comes from analyses of burial sites. The specific nature of such material compels scholars to ask themselves how it reflects on the nomads’ cultural universe as a whole and the changes that took place within it. It is known that some elements of a funeral ritual typical for a given community could persist even after it had adopted a semi-settled or settled lifestyle.73
In recent decades there has been a significant increase in the amount of archaeological material attributed to the Pechenegs. In the area of the Black Sea-Caspian steppes, from the Emba River to the lower Danube, several hundred locations have been discovered containing nomadic burial sites that are believed to belong to the Pechenegs.” It is impossible to provide an exact number not only because of the dispersed nature of the research (conducted by researchers from several countries, ranging from Kazakhstan to the Republic of Moldova and Romania), but also due to serious challenges faced by researchers trying to accurately date a given find and determine its ethnic origin. In this archaeological material, it is particularly difficult to distinguish those items belonging to the Pechenegs from those close belonging to the culturally similar Oghuz (Uz) people.”* Another problematic phenomenon is the archaeological invisibility of the Pechenegs in the Balkans. There is no doubt that a very large group of Pechenegs, most likely the core of the ethnos, moved into this region in the mid-1th century. Yet there are only faint archaeological traces of the former presence of these steppe dwellers in today’s Dobrudja and north-eastern Bulgaria.”
Despite these reservations, it is impossible to recreate a picture of the Pechenegs’ culture and to define their place on the cultural and political landscape of Europe without taking into account archaeology.
The State of Research. Proposed Research Procedure
Both a great deal and very little has been written about the Pechenegs. This paradox is due in part to the nature of steppe dwellers themselves. An ethnos which in its history travelled from today’s eastern Kazakhstan, through the Volga region and the Black Sea steppes to the Balkans and Pannonia by necessity must have come into contact with many communities and written itself into their histories. This means that the author of every major study devoted to the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe in the tenth and eleventh centuries had to mention the Pechenegs. Every study dealing with the Khazar Khaganate Byzantium, Rus’, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and even Poland in the above-mentioned period had to contain more or less extensive mentions of them.
A similar state of affairs makes it nearly impossible to carry out a detailed overview of studies made on the Pechenegs by modern and ancient scholars. Such an endeavour would require writing a thick monograph dedicated solely to this topic. Such an enterprise would be pointless, as well, since n the vast majority of such studies, the Pechenegs feature as a subject of minor importance in comparison to the primary topic of discussion. Far fewer works deal with them extensively. If we put aside a few short encyclopaedias and few book chapters, we can say that in modern-day research, just three (sic!) studies have been written in which the authors attempted to present a comprehensive profile of the Pechenegs’ history and culture.
Nearly 80 years ago, a monograph titled History of the Pechenegs was published by the Turkish scholar Akdes Nimet Kurat.’” The contents of the study corresponded to the title. In ten chapters, the scholar described the history of the Pechenegs, starting from their presence in the Volga region to their defeat in the Battle of Lebounion, which ended their existence as an independent people. The researcher made use of almost no archaeological materials, basing his considerations mainly on written sources. For understandable reasons, Kurat’s study is no longer of much relevance to scholars. Moreover, having been written in Turkish, it was never readily available to a wider public.
Forty years later, a monograph devoted to the Pechenegs was published by Professor Edward Tryjarski, a long-time employee of the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Polish Academy of Sciences (now the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences).’® Although this eminent Polish Turkologist did not completely ignore the history of the steppe dwellers, his primary focus was on presenting particular aspects of their culture. He did so against the broad comparative canvas of the cultures of other Turkic Eurasian peoples. He also devoted a separate chapter to the relations between the Pechenegs and Poland. Though written in a language not commonly used in academia, Edward Tryjarski’s study remains a basic reference work widely cited in studies devoted to nomadic peoples.
In the last years of the twentieth century, Victor Spinei wrote an extensive chapter on the Pechenegs that was included in a book devoted to the migration of nomadic peoples in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.”? The eminent Romanian historian and archaeologist used a method of presentation similar to Tryjarski’s, with the main difference being that he described elements of both the culture and history of the Pechenegs to an equal degree.
In addition to the work of the three researchers mentioned above, there are quite a few studies by historians, archaeologists, and oriental philologists that have focused on a selected part of the history of the Pechenegs or a specific aspect of their culture.®°
Of all the research methods presented above, I consider those used by Edward Tryjarski and Victor Spinei to be the closest to my own. Like both of these scholars, I intend to make a full characterization of the history of the Pechenegs, while at the same time reproducing an image of their culture, and especially those elements that most strongly determined the relationship of these nomads with the outside world. The nomadic lifestyle and the cultural patterns that grew out of it, on one hand, shaped the perception of steppe dwellers by their settled neighbours, while, on the other, they also defined the true needs and behaviours of nomads in their dealings with outsiders. It is within the very specific cultural universe of steppe dwellers, one that arose out of a need to adapt to very specific natural conditions, that one finds the guiding forces which shaped their attitudes towards neighbouring communities.
This book consists of three parts. Chapters one to three are introductory. They show the natural conditions in which nomads lived, the history of the Black Sea and Caspian steppes before the arrival of the Pechenegs, and the earliest history of this ethnos. The second part is an extensive chapter four, devoted to the main elements of steppe culture. This break in my historical discourse to reflect upon the structures and forms of Pecheneg life is justified by the previously mentioned fact that these structures to a large extent determined the relations between these nomads and the outside world. The third part, which also includes three chapters, contains reflections on the political history of the Pechenegs and their place in the political balance of power that prevailed in Eastern Europe. The material in chapter seven describes the Pechenegs’ situation after they started living on the territories of the states neighbouring the steppe. It shows how the survival strategies adopted by particular nomadic groups differed in fundamental ways, although these strategies generally led them towards acculturation and ultimately resulted in the disappearance of their former nomadic values and means of existence.
Link
Press Here
0 التعليقات :
إرسال تعليق