spirit of Bulgaria and the majesty of the Cæsars. The remote and rapid operations of the same campaign appear to magnify the power and numbers of the Turks; but their courage is most deserving of praise, since a light troop of three or four hundred horse would often attempt and execute the most daring inroads to the gates of Thessalonica and Constantinople. At this disastrous æra of the ninth and tenth centuries, Europe was afflicted by a triple scourge from the North, the East, and the South: the Norman, the Hungarian, and the Saracen sometimes trod the same ground of desolation; and these savage foes might have been compared by Homer to the two liong growling over the carcase of a mangled stag.35

Henry the

The deliverance of Germany and Christendom was achieved by the Saxon princes Henry the Fowler and Otho the Great, Victory of who, in two memorable battles, for ever broke the of power Fowler, the Hungarians.36 The valiant Henry was roused from A.D. 934: a bed of sickness by the invasion of his country, but his mind was vigorous and his prudence successful. "My companions," said he, on the morning of the combat, "maintain your ranks, receive on your "bucklers the first arrows of the pagans, and prevent their second "discharge by the equal and rapid career of your lances." They obeyed and conquered; and the historical picture of the castle of Merseburgh expressed the features, or at least the character, of Henry, who, in an age of ignorance, intrusted to the finer arts the perpetuity of his name.37 At the end of twenty years the children

34 Both the Hungarian and Russian annals suppose that they besieged, or attacked, or insulted Constantinople (Pray, dissertat. x. p. 239; Katona, Hist. Ducum, p. 354360); and the fact is almost confessed by the Byzantine historians (Leo Grammaticus, p. 506 [ed. Par.; p. 322, ed. Bonn]; Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 629 [tom. ii. p. 316, ed. Bonn]); yet, however glorious to the nation, it is denied or doubted by the critical historian, and even by the notary of Bela. Their scepticism is meritorious; they could not safely transcribe or believe the rusticorum fabulas; but Katona might have given due attention to the evidence of Liutprand, Bulgarorum gentem atque Græcorum tributariam fecerant (Hist. 1. ii. c. 4, p. 435).

25

λέονθ' ως, δηρινθήτην,

Ωτ ̓ ὄρεος κορυφῇσι περὶ κταμένης ἐλάφοιο,

*Αμφω πεινάοντε, μέγα φρονέοντι μάχεσθον.—Iliad. xvi. 756.

They are amply and critically discussed by Katona (Hist. Ducum, p. 360-368, 427-470). Liutprand (1. ii. c. 8, 9) is the best evidence for the former, and Witichind (Annal. Saxon. 1. iii.) of the latter; but the critical historian will not even overlook the horn of a warrior, which is said to be preserved at Jaz-berin.

Hunc vero triumphum, tam laude quam memoriâ dignum, ad Meresburgum rex in superiori cœnaculo domûs per (wygapiar, id est, picturam, notari præcepit, adeo ut rem veram potius quanı verisimilem videas: an high encomium (Liutprand, 1. ii. c. 9). Another palace in Germany had been painted with holy subjects by the order of Charlemagne; and Muratori may justly affirm, nulla sæcula fuere in quibus pictores desiderati fuerint (Antiquitat. Ital. medii Ævi, tom. ii. dissert. xxiv. p. 360, 361). Our domestic claims to antiquity of ignorance and original imperfection (Mr. Wal. pole's lively words) are of a inuch more recent date (Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i p. 2, &c.).

of Otho the Great, A.D. 955.

of the Turks who had fallen by his sword invaded the empire of his son, and their force is defined, in the lowest estimate, at one hundred thousand horse. They were invited by domestic faction; the gates of Germany were treacherously unlocked, and they spread, far beyond the Rhine and the Meuse, into the heart of Flanders. But the vigour and prudence of Otho dispelled the conspiracy; the princes were made sensible that, unless they were true to each other, their religion and country were irrecoverably lost, and the national powers were reviewed in the plains of Augsburg. They marched and fought in eight legions, according to the division of provinces and tribes: the first, second, and third were composed of Bavarians, the fourth of Franconians, the fifth of Saxons under the immediate command of the monarch, the sixth and seventh consisted of Swabians, and the eighth legion, of a thousand Bohemians, closed the rear of the host. The resources of discipline and valour were fortified by the arts of superstition, which, on this occasion, may deserve the epithets of generous and salutary. The soldiers were purified with a fast, the camp was blessed with the relics of saints and martyrs, and the Christian hero girded on his side the sword of Constantine, grasped the invincible spear of Charlemagne, and waved the banner of St. Maurice, the præfect of the Thebaan legion. But his firmest confidence was placed in the holy lance, 38 whose point was fashioned of the nails of the cross, and which his father had extorted from the king of Burgundy by the threats of war and the gift of a province. The Hungarians were expected in the front; they secretly passed the Lech, a river of Bavaria that falls into the Danube, turned the rear of the Christian army, plundered the baggage, and disordered the legions of Bohemia and Swabia. The battle was restored by the Franconians, whose duke, the valiant Conrad, was pierced with an arrow as he rested from his fatigues; the Saxons fought under the eyes of their king, and his victory surpassed, in merit and importance, the triumphs of the last two hundred years. The loss of the Hungarians was still greater in the flight than in the action; they were encompassed by the rivers of Bavaria, and their past cruelties excluded them from the hope of mercy. Three captive princes were hanged at Ratisbon, the multitude of prisoners was slain or mutilated, and the fugitives who presumed to appear in the face of their country were condemned to everlasting poverty and disgrace.39 Yet the spirit of the nation was humbled,

30 See Baronius, Annal. Eccles., A.D. 929, No. 2-5. The lance of Christ is taken from the best evidence-Liutprand (1. iv. c. 12), Sigebert, and the Acts of St. Gerard; but the other military relics depend on the faith of the Gesta Anglorum post Bedem

ii. c. 8.

Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungariæ, p. 500, &c

A.D. 972.

and the most accessible passes of Hungary were fortified with a ditch and rampart. Adversity suggested the counsels of moderation and peace: the robbers of the West acquiesced in a sedentary life; and the next generation was taught, by a discerning prince, that far more might be gained by multiplying and exchanging the produce of a fruitful soil. The native race, the Turkish or Fennic blood, was mingled with new colonies of Scythian or Sclavonian origin:40 many thousands of robust and industrious captives had been imported from all the countries of Europe; and after the marriage of Geisa with a Bavarian princess, he bestowed honours and estates on the nobles of Germany." The son of Geisa was invested

a

42

40 Among these colonies we may distinguish 1. The Chazars, or Cabari, who joined the Hungarians on their march (Constant. de Admin. Imp. c. 39, 40, p. 108, 109 [tom. iii. p. 171, seqq., ed. Bonn]). 2. The Jazyges, Moravians, and Siculi, whom they found in the land; the last were perhaps a remnant of the Huns of Attila, and were intrusted with the guard of the borders. 3. The Russians, who, like the Świes in France, imparted a general name to the royal porters. 4. The Bulgarians, whose chiefs (A.D. 956) were invited, cum magnâ multitudine Hismahelitarum. Had any of these Sclavonians embraced the Mahometan religion? 5. The Bisseni and Cumans, a mixed multitude of Patzinacites, Uzi, Chazars, &c., who had spread to the lower Danube. The last colony of 40,000 Cumans, A.D. 1239, was received and converted by the kings of Hungary, who derived from that tribe a new regal appellation (Pray, dissert. vi. vii. p. 109-173; Katona, Hist. Ducum, p. 95-99, 259-264, 476, 479-483, &c.).

"Christiani autem, quorum pars major populi est, qui ex omni parte mundi illuc tracti sunt captivi, &c. Such was the language of Piligrinus, the first missionary who entered Hungary, A.D. 973. Pars major is strong. Hist. Ducum, p. 517.

42 The fideles Teutonici of Geisa are authenticated in old charters; and Katona, with his usual industry, has made a fair estimate of these colonies, which had been so loosely magnified by the Italian Ranzanus (Hist. Critic. Ducum, p. 667-681).

• Respecting the Chazars, a Turkish tribe, see Editor's note, vol. v. p. 406, 407. We learn from Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Admin. Imp. c. 39, 40) that the Chazars, who united with the Hungarians, spoke the language of the latter as well as their own.-S.

These Jazyges must not be confounded with the earlier Sarmatian people of this name. They were a division of the Cumanians, called by the Hungarians Jászok (from singular jász). archers, whence their name Jazyges: they dwelt on the right bank of the Theiss. The Siculi (Hungarian Székelyek, from sing. Szekely) are said by the Hungarian chroniclers to have been a remnant of the Huns of Attila, as Gibbon states. They were stationed on the eastern frontier of the kingdom, and their name signifies watchers or guardians. They were perhaps Chazars. Zeuss, Die Deutschen, &c., p. 755, 756. -S.

These Hismahelita must have been Mahometans, as Gibbon conjectures. They were probably Baschkirs, who had settled

in Bulgaria. An Arabic writer in the thirteenth century conversed at Aleppo with one of the Mahometan Baschkirs, who related that his countrymen were subject to the Hungarians. Frähn, De Baschkiris Exc. p. 7, 8; Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 755.-S.

d Bisseni is the name given by the Hungarian chroniclers to the Turkish tribe of the Petcheneges, called Пargıvaxira by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and Peczenjezi by the Slavonians. The Cumani, afterwards called Kiptschahs, were the people named Uzi by Constantine Porph. They are called Gusses, or Goss, by the Arabic writers. (See below, ch. lvii. note 31.) The Uzi or Cumani were also Turks, and spoke the same language as the Petcheneges, and are mentioned together by the Byzan tine writers. (Anna Comnena, Alex. viii. p. 231, ed. Paris; p. 402, ed. Bonn.) At a later period these two peoples were found in possession of the whole country to the northward of the Euxine. Zeuss, Die Deutschen, &c., p. 742, seq.— S.

with the regal title, and the house of Arpad reigned three hundred years in the kingdom of Hungary. But the freeborn barbarians were not dazzled by the lustre of the diadem, and the people asserted their indefeasible right of choosing, deposing, and punishing the hereditary servant of the state.

III. The name of RUSSIANS 3 was first divulged, in the ninth

43 Among the Greeks, this national appellation has a singular form, 'P, as an undeclinable word, of which many fanciful etymologies have been suggested. I have perused, with pleasure and profit, a dissertation de Origine Russorum (Comment. Academ. Petropolitanæ, tom. viii. p. 388-436) by Theophilus Sigefrid Bayer, a learned German, who spent his life and labours in the service of Russia. A geographical tract of D'Anville, de l'Empire de Russie, son Origine, et ses Accroissemens (Paris, 1772, in 12mo.), has likewise been of use."

Origin of

monarchy.

A.D. 239.

century, by an embassy from Theophilus, emperor of the East, to the emperor of the West, Lewis, the son of Charlemagne. The Greeks were accompanied by the envoys of the great duke, the Russian or chagan, or czar, of the Russians. In their journey to Constantinople they had traversed many hostile nations, and they hoped to escape the dangers of their return by requesting the French monarch to transport them by sea to their native country. A closer examination detected their origin: they were the brethren of the Swedes and Normans, whose name was already odious and formidable in France; and it might justly be apprehended that these Russian strangers were not the messengers of peace, but the emissaries of war. They were detained, while the Greeks were dismissed; and Lewis expected a more satisfactory account, that he might obey the laws of hospitality or prudence according to the interest of both empires." This Scandinavian origin of the people, or at least the princes, of Russia, may be confirmed and illustrated by the national annals 5 and the general history of the North. The Normans, who had so long been concealed by a veil of impenetrable darkness, suddenly burst forth in the spirit of naval and military enterprise. The vast, and, as it is said, the popu.ous, regions of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were crowded with independent chief tains and desperate adventurers, who sighed in the laziness of peace, and smiled in the agonies of death. Piracy was the exercise, the trade, the glory, and the virtue of the Scandinavian youth. Impa

"See the entire passage (dignum, says Bayer, ut aureis in tabulis figatur) in the Annales Bertiniani Francorum (in Script. Ital. Muratori, tom. ii. pars i. p. 525), A.D. 839, twenty-two years before the æra of Ruric. In the xth century Liutprand (Hist. 1. v. c. 6) speaks of the Russians and Normans as the same Aquilonares homines of red complexion.

45 My knowledge of these annals is drawn from M. Levêque, Histoire de Russie. Nestor, the first and best of these ancient annalists, was a monk of Kiow, who died in the beginning of the xiith century; but his Chronicle was obscure till it was published at Petersburgh, 1767, in 4to.; Levêque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. xvi.; Coxe's Travels, vol. ii. p. 184.

Oskold; and others. Moreover, at the present day the Finns and Esthonians call Sweden Ruotzi Rootsimaa, and a Swede Ruotzalainen and Rootslane. We have already seen that the Slavonians gave the name of Varangians to the Russian conquerors; and we know that this name was in like manner given by the Greeks at Constantinople to the Scandinavian bodyguard of the emperor. Some Byzantine writers say that they spoke English (see Gibbon's note 48); others call them Germans; but these statements may have arisen from the confusion of the northern nations made by the Byzantines: and, even if interpreted literally, indicate at

VOL. VII.

least the Teutonic origin of the Varangians.

5. The Scandinavian origin of the Russians is also confirmed by the Arabic writers, who are quoted at length by Zeuss. See Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme, p. 547, seq.; Prichard, Physical History, vol. iii. p. 408, seq.; Karamsin, Histoire de la Russie; Strahl, Geschichte des Russichen Staates, vol. i. p. 55, seq.-S.

a The late M. Schlözer has translated and added a commentary to the 'Annals of Nestor;' and his work is the mine from which henceforth the history of the North must be drawn.-G.