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In 828, administration by Frankish counts replaced the Carniolan tribal constitution.
Around 838, the area, which formed part of the Bavarian Eastern Prefecture, was governed by
the (Bavarian) Count Salacho. However, it is only his successor, Ratold, in the final decade of
the ninth century, who is considered to have acted as a count with jurisdiction over the
Slovenian Sava river basin, where in 895 Waltuni also had two estates, comprising three royal
mansi (regales mansus) in the Brestanica area (Richenburch, the name of which suggests
‘strong fortress’) on the left bank of the Sava river, and the Krško estate (Gurcheuelt) on the
right bank, both of which lay in the March along the Sava (Marchia iuxta Souwam). However,
the latest researches indicates that this section of the document from King Arnulf, which
could offer the first tangible evidence of feudalisation on Slovene territory south of the Drava,
was forged, and therefore of no real value. Brestanica (Rajhenburg) Castle, which controlled
the Sava crossing and road along the river, was therefore probably only founded after the end
of the Magyar incursions, after the mid-tenth century.
In the final quarter of the ninth century, Pannonia north of the Drava, where the
feudalisation process had started during Pribina’s time, underwent a difficult and unhappy
period. A bloody war broke out for three years (882 to 884) between Arnulf – whose regnum
included the former Pannonian territories of Kocel – and Svatopluk of Moravia. In this,
Pannonia and places along the Danube suffered the most. There, Svatopluk “slayed
murderously and fiercely like a wolf, destroyed much with fire and sword.” After this, the
annalist reporting these events speaks only of “once happy Pannonia” (quondam Pannonia
felix). The peace that Arnulf reached with Svatopluk (885) assisted him in assuming power
over the Eastern Frankish Kingdom (887). Five years later, Arnulf decided to attack
Svatopluk, and, in the summer of 892, he pillaged Moravia with Frankish, Bavarian and
Alamannian contingents. He was also supported by the nomadic Magyars, who were seen in
the west as the new Avars.
Western (Frankish) sources first record the Magyars – the antecedents of modern-day
Hungarians – in 862, when they were probably involved in the turbulent events in the Danube
river basin relating to the Carloman uprising and Rastislav’s moves towards independence.
They had definitely entered the region by 881, when they battled a Bavarian army at Vienna
(Wenia) – the earliest mention of this major city. In 894, the year in which the Moravian
prince Svatopluk died, they broke over Danube and “devastated all Pannonia unto
destruction.” This changed the Magyars from Arnulf’s allies to enemies, threatening the very
existence of Frankish Pannonia. The situation became critical soon after, when the Magyars
occupied the Pannonian basin between the Tisza and the Danube. In 896, Arnulf strengthened
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the defence of the southeastern Frankish border by handing Pannonia and Blatenski Kostel to
Braslav, a Slavic prince and Frankish vassal, who held land between the Drava and Sava in
modern-day Slavonia. This brought a huge territory, reaching from Sisak in the south, to the
Danube to the north, under the command of this ardent Arnulf loyalist, who had already
participated in preparations for the war on Moravia in 892. The present-day Slovak capital
city Bratislava is probably first mentioned in 907 as Brezalauspurc (Braslav’s castle). Yet
Braslav’s activity, and Arnulf’s defence measures, did not stop the Magyar horsemen. Their
main objective was Bavaria and rich northern Italy, which they first reached in 899. The
following year, they also pillaged Bavarian territory to the west of the Enns river, and
Carinthia soon afterwards. At that time, they had probably already occupied Frankish
Pannonia, around Blatenski Kostel, while the Bavarian-Frankish administration stood firm in
the Danube area west of Mautern near Krems. This was the furthest extent of the customs
regulation inaugurated (between 904 and 906 in Raffelstetten, near Sankt Florian), on the
orders of Louis the Child, Arnulf’s son and the last Eastern Frankish Carolingian ruler.
However, the devastating Bavarian defeat at Bratislava at the beginning of July 907,
when Margrave Luitpold and Archbishop Theotmar of Salzburg fell on the battlefield along
with many of the Bavarian elite, led to the fall of Carolingian power in the southeast. The
Pannonian-Danube area up to the Enns and Carantania came under Magyar control, while
Slovene territory along the old Italo-Pannonian road became a place of transit for Magyar
raids into Italy and descended into turmoil. Magyar horsemen crossed Slovene territory over
twenty-five times, before suffering the decisive defeat at Augsburg (in 955) that signalled the
end of their pillaging and the start of their adaptation to western forms of life. The settlement
of Vogrsko, near modern-day Nova Gorica, is a reminder of the Magyars (known also as
Ogri), a Slavic version of one of the names for the Magyars. Similar toponyms, such as
Ungarina, have been retained in Friuli, which was on the Magyars’ incursion routes (in 967 it
had already been referred to as the via or strata Hungarorum) and which was also destroyed
in their attacks. In spring 1001, Emperor Otto III made a grant to the Aquileian patriarch of
“half of the castle, called Solkan and half of the village known in the Slavic tongue as Gorica
(Gorizia),” specifically mentioning the damage caused by the Magyars. The other half was
granted to Count Werihen the same year. In the second half of the tenth century and, more
particularly, in the eleventh century, a period of great renewal in Friuli, carried out under the
leadership of the Aquileian patriarchs, saw numerous Slavic colonists arriving in Friuli from
Carniola and probably from Carinthia too. The first evidence of the new immigrants is from
1031, when the settlement Mereto di Capitolo near modern-day Palmanova was referred to as