45
of course, much later too. In 568, the Lombards migrated
from Pannonia into Italy, and
founded their first, and initially most important, duchy in Friuli. The Lombard Friulian dukes
often led a very independent policy, revolting against the central authority of the kingdom in
Pavia; some of them also occupied the Lombard throne themselves. Despite the political
border separating the Friulian Lombards from Slavs and Avars, their interest in the east did
not fade. It is this interest we have to thank for a great deal of information of inestimable
value to Slovene history, recorded by Paul the Deacon (of Cividale) in his History of the
Lombards. Yet it was more than just an interest that remained; there were also tangible
contacts connecting the two areas. In 611, the Avars sacked Cividale, taking many women and
children with them. One of these was an ancestor of Paul the Deacon, who later managed to
escape Avar captivity and, coming exhausted into Slavic territory on his way home, was
helped by an old woman. In 664, Arnefrit – son of Lupus, the rebel duke of Friuli, who was
probably killed near Ajdovščina – found political refuge among the Slavs of Carantania. With
their assistance, he even hoped to return to power in Friuli. Around 737, the deposed Friulian
duke, Pemmo, wanted to flee to the Slavs to the east. Lombards who participated in the
quashed Friulian uprising against Charlemagne’s new Frankish authority of 776 also found
political exile with neighbouring Avars and Slavs. One of the most prominent of these
fugitives was Aio, who was later present at the Diet of Rižana (804) as Charlemagne’s count
emissary (missus). Pippin ‘found’ Aio on his campaign in Avaria in 796, and succeeded in
winning him to the Frankish cause. The political unification of the two areas under Frankish
rule, the expansion of the Friulian prefect’s authority far to the east and the start of the
Aquileian mission were all to further link connections between Friuli and its Slavic
neighbours.
However, while soldiers and missionaries were travelling east, pilgrims were
travelling to Friuli. The aim of the pilgrimage, according to recent researches, was the
monastery in San Canziano d’Isonzo, east of Aquileia, where, in Frankish times, a gospel was
kept that was thought to contain an autograph of St Mark the Evangelist. In the margins of
pages of this codex, known today as the Gospel of Cividale, after the place it is now kept, are
written the names of numerous pilgrims from the second half of the ninth and the first half of
the tenth century, “who came to this monastery” from all over the Alpine-Adriatic-Danube
region. Among the many distinguished names of pilgrims so clearly illustrating Friuli’s
connecting role in the Early Middle Ages, we find, for example, Witigowo, a count in
Carantania around 860, Pribina from Lower Pannonia, and Pabo, Richeri and Engilschalk,
who were significant leaders in the Eastern Prefecture at the same time. The codex includes
46
names from Bulgaria, including Michael – the Bulgarian Khan Boris – who
assumed the
name of his godfather, the Byzantine Emperor Michael III, when baptised in Constantinople
in 864. We also find the names of the emperors Louis II (850–875) and Charles III (the Fat).
In 884, Charles the Fat, after reaching a peace treaty with the Moravian king Svatopluk at
Tulln (on the Danube in modern day Austria), travelled via Carantania and Friuli to Pavia,
which may well be the occasion on which he entered his name. The same applies to Braslav,
who was a Slavic prince between the Drava and Sava at the end of the ninth century; his name
was also written in the gospel book, and he too had been at Tulln in 884. From the Dalmatian
area, the name of Trpimir (from the middle of the ninth century), the first attested prince of
the Croats, was also written on a page of the gospel.
PANNONIA
Following the reform of 828, the permanent conquests the Franks had gained in their
wars with the Avars became part of the Bavarian Eastern Prefecture, and hence also part of the
Bavarian kingdom (regnum) of Louis the German, grandson of Charlemagne and son of Louis
the Pious. The basis of this kingdom, within which Louis was constantly working and
politicking to increase his dominions, was the law dividing the Frankish state between the
emperor’s three sons (the Ordinatio Imperii) in 817. The law gave Bavaria to Louis the
German, along with the territories, with predominantly Slavic tribes, to the southeast of
Bavaria. Along with Bavaria itself, it was Carantania that provided the power base within the
Eastern Prefecture that enabled first Louis’ son Carloman (in 876), and then his grandson,
Arnulf (in 887) to claim the title of Eastern Frankish king.
It was into this Eastern Prefecture, which had been vastly expanded in 828, that
Pribina, a Slavic prince from Nitra, fled in 833 from north of the Danube with his son Kocel
and a large military entourage. His flight should be understood as part of the tribal
consolidation of the Moravians – first mentioned as an ethno-political community as late as
822 – connected firstly with the establishment of a new dynasty of princes, embodied by
Mojmir I, secondly by the incorporation of periphery centres of power, such as Nitra, and
thirdly by conflicts between powerful claimants for authority. The fleeing Pribina was allowed
to enter the Frankish state by the prefect of the Bavarian Eastern March, Ratbod, who
presented him to the Eastern Frankish ruler, Louis the German, in Regensburg. On his orders,
the Slavic prince was baptised in Traismauer, which came under the Salzburg archdiocese.
Pribina’s excellent relations with Bavaria’s Frankish aristocracy, and his contacts with the
Salzburg church went back to his time as (pagan) ruler of Nitra. Many details – such as the