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Christian terminology began to
develop among the Carantanians, the first Slavic people to be
Christianised from the west. This also led to the development of a ‘cultural language’, which
was of global and inter-tribal character because of the widespread missionary work. A trace of
the cultural traditions from the very earliest Christianity among Slovenes was preserved in a
number of religious formulas that were transmitted orally from generation to generation and
only written down in the late Middle Ages. The Lord’s Prayer formula recorded in the second
half of the fourteenth
century in the Rateče manuscript (also known as the Klagenfurt
manuscript), and in the Stara Gora manuscript at the end of the fifteenth century, therefore
goes back to the very earliest period of the mission, perhaps as early as the end of the eighth
century, and certainly to the ninth century. The prayer adveniat regnum tuum (your kingdom
come), which is written in both the medieval manuscripts in the form pridi bogastvo tvoje
(literally: your riches come) could only have been formulated before the language of the
Alpine Slavs included the word kraljestvo (kingdom). The word kralj, meaning king, is
derived from the personal name of Charlemagne (Carolus, Karl, Karel).
Without doubt, the Freising Manuscripts are the most important evidence of the Slavic
mission. These are three preserved Slavic texts (referred to below as FM I, FM II, FMS III)
written in Carolingian minuscule in a single Latin codex, and today kept in Munich. They are
the oldest Slavic texts in the Latin alphabet and were a component part of a pontificale, the
liturgical book used by a bishop at mass. FM I was probably written over the period 972–
1022/39, while FMS II and FM III, which were produced by a different hand, have been dated
to after 977, in the time of Bishop Abraham (died 994), who acquired estates for the Freising
church in Carinthia and the large Škofja Loka seigneury in Carniola. The place in which the
manuscripts were written has not been identified, but the main candidates are upper Carinthia
and Freising itself. Modern linguists sometime refer to the language of the manuscripts as Old
Slovene, while contemporary writers referred only to the Slavic language (lingua
Sclavanisca). In terms of content, FM I and FM III are general confessional formulas, while
FM II is a rhetorically complex sermon on sin and a call to repentance and confession. The
form of the manuscripts known today is the product of dictation or copying, while the
originals of the texts go back at least to the middle of the ninth century. However, the various
theories or hypotheses on the origin and sources of these manuscripts differ significantly. This
is primarily because there exist similar texts in the Old Church Slavonic tradition of
Constantine and Methodius, and because they also link the Friesing texts to older Old High
German Bavarian confessional formulas. The perception exists that at times in the history of
these Slavic texts, the national origin of researchers has been projected onto the documents in
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deciding between Carantanian-Pannonian, Pannonian-Moravian, Moravian-Slovakian or
Croatian territory as the probable place of origin. Although it cannot be explicitly proven,
there are good reasons for assuming that the texts grew out of the Carantanian mission and the
Christian tradition of the region, which Slavic immigrants also took with them to the
Pannonian realm of Kocel. Like Carantania, this also fell under Salzburg’s ecclesiastical sway,
and the brother saints Constantine and Methodius also worked there for some time. However,
regardless of all the hypotheses about the texts, the indisputable fact remains that the
preserved version was only used among the predecessor of Slovenes, and represent their
learnéd culture at the turn of the millenium.
One cannot conceive of the ethnic identities expressed in the name of a tribe existing
without some constitutional forms and legal norms, however rudimentary those may have
been. As with other early medieval tribes, Slavs lived according to their own tribal law. In
contrast to the written and codified laws of their western, Germanic neighbours, the law of
Slavic tribes were retained unwritten in the form of customs. ‘Tribal rites’ (ritus gentis), ‘laws
and customs’ (leges et consuetudines) or ‘Slavic rites’ are terms from ninth-century sources
for the law under which the Slavic ethnic principalities lived. With a few exceptions, evidence
of this tribal law has not survived to the present day. Political changes related to Frankish
expansion led more and more to the exercising of new legal norms, in additional to tribal law.
The middle of the eighth century saw a great change in the life of the Carantanians, with the
arrival under Frankish overlordship and the start of the mission, which undoubtedly led to
reorganisation of the tribe. The administrative reform that covered the southeast of the
Frankish sphere of influence in the third decade of the ninth century was to have even more
profound consequences. At that point, tribal rule was replaced by the administration of a
count. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the eleventh century, in the notice marking the
founding of the convent St. Georgen am Längsee in Carinthia, there is still a distinction made
between witnesses dealt with according to Bavarian tribal law, who were symbolically “pulled
by their ears” (testes tracti per auers), and witnesses subject to Slavic tribal law (
Sclauenicę
institutionis testes). The Slavic tribal law mentioned here is a relic of the former tribal
constitution of Carantania.
By the very beginning of the eighth century at the latest, Carantanian society was
organised under the lordship of a prince. In terms of their position, tribal prince of this kind,
which Frankish sources generally refer to as dux gentis, was king (rex gentis). This is
supported by the Slavic word knjaz (knez in Slovene), which refers to a Slavic tribal prince of
the Early Middle Ages, and which derives from the Germanic *kuningaz, meaning a tribal