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Danube.
Having protected his rear, Carloman began to openly resist his father. In order to
create a completely independent realm (regnum), between 857 and 861 he drove all the counts
still loyal to Louis the German out of the Eastern March and occupied the “Pannonian and
Carantanian border” with his own supporters. The first victim of this policy was Pabo, the
Carantanian count, who was forced to flee to Salzburg. His fellow counts (socii comites) did
not fare any better. Those fleeing included Count Witigowo, also from Carantania, Richeri,
count of the Szombathely region, and probably also Kocel, who is mentioned as present in the
royal city of Regensburg in spring 861. The worst fate was reserved for Louis the German’s
ever-loyal Pribina, who was killed.
As part of Louis the German’s first attempts to regain the lost territory, he undoubtedly
granted extensive holdings within the territory of his rebellious son to the Bavarian church
and to nobles. The most important of these gifts was that which the Salzburg archdiocese
received from Louis in November 860. With this ‘Magna Carta’, Salzburg gained numerous
manors (curtes) – i.e. estates organised for economic use – which extended from Melk on the
Danube via modern-day Lower Austria, Burgenland and the Hungarian lands west of Lake
Balaton, to the old Carantania lands, including Maria Saal. This document also bears witness
to the growing economic and political importance of Carantania within the Eastern March,
which was expressed by the Carantanian name becoming synonymous with the entire march.
Carloman, and then Gundachar, who held the position of prefect of the entire Eastern March,
were said to have been placed in charge of the Carantanians. Carloman’s efforts to achieve
political independence were accompanied by an (unsuccessful) attempt by Oswald, a regional
bishop of Carantania, to carve out an ecclesiastical province independent of Salzburg, or at
least this may be inferred from letters that were addressed directly to Pope Nicholas I (858–
867) in order avoid his superior, the archbishop of Salzburg. Despite the failure of Carloman’s
effort – in 865 the rebellious son was finally brought back into the fold by his father – there
remained strong emphasis on the special status of Carantania under the Carolingian lordship
of Carloman, and later his son, Arnulf. Under Arnulf, who assumed authority over Carantania
and Pannonia by 876 at the latest, Carantania was indicated in documents as a regnum – an
area subject to a particular kind of lordship.
Adalvin (the archbishop of Salzburg), and the count and prince of Pannonia, Kocel,
both of whom were loyal throughout to Louis the German, celebrated Christmas 865 together
in Kocel’s capital. This is a clear sign that the political situation in the east had calmed, but it
was not to last. Since 863, two eminent Byzantine missionaries, the brothers Constantine and
Methodius from Thessaloniki, had been working north of the Danube in Moravia. Both higly
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educated brothers had already proven themselves as missionaries in Khazaria in the Crimea,
and were familiar with the Slavic language of their Macedonian homeland. This led
Constantine to create a Slavic alphabet, the Glagolitic, which they used to write their
translations of liturgical texts. In Moravia, they instituted a Slavic liturgy, but resistance from
the Franks’ Latinate priesthood led to Constantine and Methodius withdrawing, by the
beginning of 867 at the latest, from Moravia via the Danube to Kocel, “who took great liking
to Slavic books.” From there, in the same year, they left for Venice, at the invitation of Pope
Nicholas I, probably along the old road leading through modern Slovene territory via Ptuj,
Celje, Ljubljana and the Vipava valley that connected Pannonia and Italy, before making for
Rome, where they were received by a new pope, Adrian II (867–872). The interests of the two
brothers matched the new eastern policy of the Roman Curia. Rome demanded unrestricted
ecclesiastical jurisdiction over all of the former Illyricum, which included Pannonia, and
supported the separation of a special Pannonian archdiocese directly subordinate to the pope
from the Bavarian-Carantanian-Pannonian metropolitan province, with its seat in Salzburg. In
relation to Pannonia north of the Drava, the Salzburg archbishop could only refer to the
missionary activity of its church from the end of the Avar wars onwards, but not to any
relevant papal privileges, which it did not have at its disposal. In February 869, Constantine,
who went in monastery and took the name Cyril, died in Rome. The same year, the pope sent
Methodius to the princes Rastislav, Svatopluk and Kocel as his legate “to the Slavs” and as a
bishop. The old enemies united on the question of an independent Bavarian Slavic church.
Methodius visited only Kocel, who sent him once more to Rome; the pope then made him
archbishop of Pannonia north of the Drava and Moravia, granting him the title of
Metropolitan of Sirmium. Sirmium, which was razed by the Avars in 582, and had once been
the political and ecclesiastical capital of western Illyricum, was now in Bulgar hands.
The success of Methodius’ work as archbishop and that of his followers in Kocel’s
Pannonia was so notable in such a short time (869/870), that the Salzburg church had to
withdraw despite a presence lasting over three-quarters of a century, as Methodius
“supplanted the Latin language and Roman teaching and well-known Latin letters.” This
could not have happened without Kocel’s overt political support. The prince’s decision to
support Methodius represented a complete break with his father’s pro-Frankish policy, and it
was exclusively down to Kocel that the Slavic mission remained alive despite serious threats
from 870 to 873. In 870, Methodius’ episcopal opponents in Bavaria took him captive and, at
a synod held before Louis the German at Regensburg, found him guilty of intruding into a
foreign diocese. This was probably the occasion that led to the composition of the work on the