Tendentious history writing has been a plague upon Central European nations.  In the West few deign to deal with Central Europe or Slavs and those who do often do so poorly.  What’s worse though is that the works of the few Western authors who do spend time on Central Europe are often praised and accepted uncritically in the East simply because the fact that such authors have shown any interest at all garners them credit in excess of the credit otherwise merited by the qualify of their writing.  In other words, the adage that beggars can’t be choosers has apparently been enthusiastically endorsed in historiography.

Take Norman Davies.  His “God’s Playground” is considered “the” English-language work on Poland.  And yet, we’ve found its constantly meandering style virtually unreadable and not just for someone casually interested in the subject.  Add to that the author’s paternalistic didacticism and you have a recipe for a – rather expensive – door stop.

The Story of Life in the Hypothetical Homeland

Of course, given the focus of this site, what concerns us the most about Davies’ book is the distortive effect of the highly politicized view of the early European state that the author brushstrokes himself to conjure.  In the section discussing early Poland, nearly every paragraph begins with an unfounded sentence whose doubtful message the author then proceeds to dutifully develop while casting derisive sneers at those whose arguments he prefers to mock rather than address.

Thus, the book is full of gems such as this paragraph:

“According to this hypothesis, the modern Polish nation is descended from a uniquely tenacious  group of Protoslavs, who, whilst their kinfolk migrated to the west, east, or south obstinately remained on their native soil.  The Poles are seen as ‘autochtones’, as ‘permanent residents’, and as ‘the native population; all other peoples of the area are relegated to the status of ‘aliens’, ‘transients’, or ‘invaders’.  It is an unusual situation to say the least.  At a period when the population was in flux in every other part of Europe, and in every other part of Slavdom, the forefathers of the Poles were planted at a stroke and with extraordinary precision in the one spot of God’s earth where they could rest indefinitely.  There may be a long prehistory of England before the English, of France before the French, of Bohemia before the Czechs, of Hungary before Hungarians, even of Russia before the Russians, but not it seems, of Poland before the Poles.”

This paragraph might fairly be read to suggest that Davies believes that history is less about truth than about what’s “good enough” for a given people – a curious approach to the subject area – one more fitting a political agitator than a serious scholar.  Moreover, his premise of a population in a state of “flux” is itself full of half-truths:

• it is not clear that there was a Bohemia before the Czechs.  Put differently, we do not know who the “mysterious” Boii were.  There is nothing to suggest that they could not have been the ancestors of the Czechs.  There is further precious little to suggest what happened to the Boii after the Marcomanni invaded their territories.  Even if one were to assume a Czech migration into Bohemia, there is nothing to suggests that this could not have been a back-migration after the Marcomanni (whoever they were) departed these lands.

• The same more or less holds true of the Russians – while the name Rus is new, similar names were in use in the Ukraine long before the Varangians appeared on the scene (take the Roxoalani as just one example).

• Even in the case of England modern DNA studies suggest that the majority of the (white obviously) population derives its roots from pre-6th century inhabitants of the same area.

• Not to mention that the “state of flux” itself has been challenged – no less than by Davies’ fellow historical travelers – who, as it’s become fashionable, have downplayed the role of the Voelkerwanderung (indeed most of the so-called “Leftist” theories of national origins if put together next to each other fail in their inconsistency – about the only thing that unites them is a visceral desire to vanquish “national myths”);

What else?  First of all, the statement that there was no Poland before the Poles is, of course, a banal truism used as a rhetorical device.  Why rhetoric has to be employed by a historian is itself curious but, be that as it may, the next question concerns Davies’ real purpose, namely, the implication that there were people in “Poland” before the ancestors of the Poles.  From the context it is clear that he believes that the Slavs had waltzed into the area at some point around the 7th-8th centuries.  Where from?  Davies implies that this was somewhere north of Carpathians around the Dnieper.  He presents this map:

Davies then argues that such a location of a “Slavic homeland” agrees with:

“linguistic evidence , which demands firstly that the Slavs did not disperse until relatively recently; and secondly that they should have passed the formative years in contact not only with Germans and Balts but also with Illyrians, Thracians and Iranians.  [Such a location] encourages the identification of these early Slavs with the ‘Scythian farmers’ of the fifth century B.C. whom Herodotus put at three days’ march from the Dnieper. Here the Slavs would have developed their characteristic social institution, the zadruga or ‘joint family’, where all the relatives of the chieftain lived together under fierce patriarchal discipline.  Here subjected first to the Scythians and then from the second century BC to the Sarmatians, they learned their common religious vocabulary, most of which… is of Sarmato-Iranian derivation… Here in the first century of our era, they would have witnessed the slow migration of the Germanic Goths and Gepids whose route from the Baltic Coast to the Black Sea is clearly marked by a trail of characteristic settlement and funeral sites.  Here they would have experienced the successive arrivals of the Huns and the Avars.  Their own main expansion, which probably began in the coat-tails of the nomads, grew into a flood with the collapse of Avar supremacy in the seventh century. ‘The barriers were down, and the Slavs poured out.’… According to this schedule, the ‘Protopoles’ would have been one of the last of the Slavs to drift away front the North Carpathian homeland, and would have settled in the valleys of the Odra and Vistula in the course of the seventh and eight centuries.  By the end of the prehistoric period, the new wave of Slavonic colonization had obliterated most of the underlying layers of previous settlement.  The main implication of this hypothesis for Polish history is that the Poles would be but the latest of many Indo-European groups who have settled on the territory of present-day Poland.  Such a conclusion… is hard to refute…”

Davies who just above was willing to mock people positing “a uniquely tenacious group of Protoslavs” living in Poland throughout the ages, then proceeds to posit a uniquely tenacious group of Protoslavs living North of the Carpathians…

They are even given a dating of 5th century B.C. (!).  From their Protoslavonic dwellings Davies’ Protoslavs witness the Scythians, the Sarmatians, the Goths, the Gepids, the Huns and the Avars passing by on their way to exploits elsewhere – all while “tenaciously” clinging to their North-Carpathian dwellings from which the same Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, Gepids, Huns and Avars are either unable or unwilling to dislodge Davies’ proto-Slavs….

Jordanes may have claimed a vast realm for the Goths – a realm where the Gothic kings have subjugated every conceivable tribe (including the Veneti) – but, in Davies’ telling, once Davies discounts the role of the Veneti (on that see below), Jordanes makes no mention of these North-Carpathian Protoslavs when discussing Gothic conquests.  Why?  Perhaps the Goths were simply so traumatized by their inability to take on the tenacious Slavs that even a few centuries later the greatest Gothic historian did not dare to broach the subject?

Thus, it seems “tenacity” is not really the issue – Davies’ Protoslavs are as tenacious (if not more) than the Proto-Slavs of Lehr-Splawinski.  The issue for Davies seems rather the location of these Protoslavs…

(and this leaves out the fact that zadruga is a Southern Slavic term – not some form of ueber-Slavic societal organization)

The Story of the Linguistic Evidence

So what of the location?  Why the North-Carpathians?  Davies trots out “linguistic evidence” which, as noted above, he claims “demands firstly that the Slavs did not disperse until relatively recently; and secondly that they should have passed the formative years in contact not only with Germans and Balts but also with Illyrians, Thracians and Iranians.”

But Czechs and Russians can still understand each other – not entirely but passably – even one and a half millennia (!) after their “separation” from the Protoslavonic mix.  And this is true notwithstanding that the spaces covered by the modern Russians and Czechs stretch literally from the heart of Europe all the way to Vladivostok.  Even if one posits a smaller recent extent of the Slavs (to the Volga, say) we are still talking about enormous distances.  The fact is that the similarity of various Slavonic languages says absolutely nothing about the rate (even assuming a constant rate!) of change away from some hypothetical Slavonic original.  And it certainly says nothing about the geographic expanse of the original Slavonic homeland.

Moreover, the reference to these other peoples likewise does not “demand” anything special.  One might first ask who were the Illyrians and Thracians?  What do we know of their language(s)?  Answer: close to nothing.  But even assuming that these existed as distinct (and non-Slavic) peoples, all of Davies’ conditions for a close Slavic neighborhood with the above tribes would be met by positing a Slavic homeland between Vindelicia and Pannonia… Or Central Germany and western Poland…

As regards the “Iranian” element, first it should properly be called the “Eastern” element for it has as much to do with India as with Iran.  Second, we have no idea what language the Scythians or Sarmatians spoke – the assumption is that it was “Iranian” but this is virtually unsubstantiated.  We simply do not know and anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or is a fool.  The fact that so many Scythians (and later Alans) are described as light-haired individuals suggests that – whatever they may have been – they did not have the look of (most of) today’s Persians.  Even if such peoples spoke an “Iranian” dialect, there is no reason to look for them on the Dnieper.  The “Sarmatian” Jaziges were firmly established in Pannonia centuries before the Huns invaded Europe.

The Story of Goths, Celts and the Argentinean Gauchos (all in Poland)

Davies then proceeds to tell us who lived in Poland before the Poles:

“From the early Bronze Age… the central and eastern areas of modern Poland were inhabited by Balts; the north-western areas fell within the fringe of Germanic settlement, which had stabilized in southern Scandinavia.  South-western areas formed part of the Central European Culture, which possessed an Illyrian-Celtic complexion.  Only  the extreme south-eastern corner of modern Poland…  would have fall within the extreme bounds of Slavonic settlement…”

As to the Balts, no problem but all that follows is questionable.  We do not know what a “fringe” of Germanic settlement means.  Does Davies think that there were Nordics on the coast but maybe other non-Nordic peoples there as well?  As regards an “Illyrian-Celtic complexion”, we can’t even begin to address as to what this means and suspect neither does the author.  (Finally, what is the basis for Davies admitting that some super-extreme Slavs may have lived in some lower extremity of modern Poland?  Why even grant that?  Is this an exercise in throwing a bone?)

Davies continues on:

“In the Roman period, a massive influx of Celts was provoked by disturbances over the mountains Bohemia.  The Celts filtered eastwards as far as the River San and beyond, building an impressive series of hill-forts… If it is unwise to put the Slavonic tag on any archaeological funds prior to AD 500, it is certainly improper to call anything at all at this juncture ‘Polish’…”

How does Davies know there was any filtering at all?  And even assuming a “filtering” how does he know that the “filterers” built the “impressive” forts?  And as to either of those groups, how is Davies able to put a Celtic “tag” on them?

Davies is on a roll here…

“Both the Goths and the Vandals lived in the Vistula Basin before migrating to the south and east on the first stage of their complicated wanderings… [F]ollowing the Avars’ failure at the gates of Constantinople in 626, the Avars lost control of their tributary lands north of the Carpathians, and their fragile realm disintegrated.  From that point onwards, the expansion of the Slavonic peoples could proceed without serious hindrance.  The nomadic life was losing its appeal…”

Maybe (?) there were Goths at the mouth of the Vistula (whatever Vistula may have been back then) but were they settlers?  Or were they more in the nature of raiders like their Viking followers?  As to the entire Vistula basin, it’s not clear what is meant here.  Does Davies means that the entire Vistula basin was covered in Goths or that he does not know exactly where these Goths lived but for sure they lived somewhere in the “basin”.

As to the Vandals, we have noted that there is close to zero evidence that they lived anywhere in Poland.  Further, the Avars may have lost some control over their empire after 626 but they were not defeated until the pathological reign of Charlemagne.  Since they first appeared in Byzantine records mid-6th century, this means that about 3/4 of the Khaganate’s history did not take place until after their defeat at Constantinople.  Their realm was not so fragile and it did not disintegrate in 626.  Moreover, the expansion of the Slavonic peoples would have had to have taken place remarkably quickly “from that point onwards” since both Slavonic Wends and Slavonic Sorbs make their appearance on the fringes of the Frankish empire in Fredegar right around this time – and, as to the Sorbs, there is no suggestion of them having been tributaries to the Avars (frankly, there is no evidence of the north-Carpathian lands being tributary to the Avars at all but why quibble).

Davies then gets to his desired conclusion:

“Inevitably, in the wake of so many human migrations, the ethnic mix of the population was extremely rich.”

The only thing rich is the above statement.  First of all, Davies has no notion because he did not do any studies of the “ethnic mix” of Poland or any of the Slav lands as of the time he is describing.  He literally pulls this one out of his ass.  Second, what does “extremely rich” really mean?  Does it mean that Poland was filled with Bantu-speakers from West Africa, fiercely independent Mauri peoples, blood-thirsty Toltecs and curious Arab travelers?  Were the Polanie a tribe of Han Chinese particularly skilled at agriculture?  That kind of a “mix” would be extremely rich (outside of present day London or New York).  But, even assuming everything else he writes elsewhere is true, Davies’ Poland was unlikely to have had at the time any peoples other than what are today’s Central Europeans – whites, with hair that is neither very blonde nor “altogether inclining towards the dark” – the Baltic or Finnic “subtype” if you will.  This is confirmed by the modern DNA studies which both place the Poles as some of the least diverse people in Europe (!) and also show them to be related to various Finnic tribes such as the Veps peoples.

The Story of Isolationist Impossibilities 

Davies doesn’t stop digging here, of course:

“As a result it is quite impossible to isolate anything resembling an ethnic core, or, at the distance of more than a thousand years, to distinguish Slavonic from non-Slavonic racial elements… People who imagine that the Poles or Polish culture are somehow ‘indigenous’ to the Polish lands are as mistaken as those who believe that Europe is the original home of the Europeans… To look for Poles in the eighth or ninth centuries, is as anachronistic, and as pointless, as looking for Englishmen in the age of Hengist and Horsa… In the last resort, all our ancestors were alien mongrel immigrants.”

We will not dwell on Hengist and Horsa as they are not our business.  However, Davies seems to be kidding when he makes that statement.  Is it really the case that he can’t tell the “ethnic core” of a Pole from any of the peoples listed above?  To call Poles “mongrels” is to deprive that word of any reasonable meaning – even assuming that such a word could be used in polite company.

Poles may or may not be indigenous to Poland.  If you believe that all humans came from Africa then obviously all humans are – under that most pedantic definition – immigrants.  But even if this were true, there is little in the historical record to suggest that today’s Ukrainians, Poles, Sorbs, Slovenes and so forth are not – at least in significant part – the direct descendants of the various earlier tribes mentioned by historians.  The names of the various polities may have changed but did the people?  Davies makes assertions but provides no evidence.

Veneti Who?

What of the Veneti?

Davies says this:

“The so-called Venedian culture of the Protoslavs must be set aside as yet another red herring… [Tacitus’] delphic reference to the ‘Venedii’ has been variously interpreted as proof of the existence of Germanic Vandals or else of Slavic Wends.”

We have never thought that the Veneti could be seen as Vandals.  Nor are we aware of anyone seriously suggesting this except perhaps on the German pre-war far right.  Tacitus mentions the word Vandal but does not suggest any link to the Veneti who he also discusses.  (His reference to the Veneti is no more or less delphic than his references to various other peoples of Germania.)  To suggest that the Veneti could equally well have been Vandals as Slavs is to engage in intellectual relativism – just because you can come up with two opposing arguments and those to champion them does not mean that each argument is equally valid.  Davies is wrong in equating (and thereby legitimizing) these two approaches to the Venetii.  That the Venetii were the ancestors of the Slavs is, to us, highly likely – what is not certain is whether they encompassed all the Slavs and whether some other peoples (e.g., Balts) were understood under the Veneti name as well.

Davies also mentions Pliny for his amber stories but fails to mention that Pliny too talks of the Veneti at the Vistula.  Nor does he mention Procopius who speaks of the Venetic Gulf (Baltic Sea?).  Nor does he discuss the Tabula Peutingeriana.  So where, did these mysterious Veneti dwell according to Davies?  And, importantly, what happened to them?  Once again, if the Nordics came from Scandinavia, who lived in Central Europe before them and what happened to them?

Looking at his book, we are forced to conclude (with more than a touch of charity) that Davies is unprepared to discuss Polish or Slavic pre-history.  His methods and sources are, to put it gently, lacking.

The question is why?  One answer would be that he is not a very good historian or not a particularly bright man.  A more likely answer based on his didactic proclivities described above would be that he simply does not see the value in dwelling on the past and is quick to dismiss anything that might smack in his view of “chauvinism.”  But what this means is that Davies prefers not to examine facts that might lead him in a direction that he does not want to go in.  That however is not the path of an honest historian but one of a determined propagandist.*

Unlike a rich tribe which, given its abundance of sagacious historians, may well survive a few mediocre ones, a poorer tribe ought to take heed before endorsing a scholar merely because the scholar is willing to give such tribe some stage time.

* And speaking of politically engaged pseudo-scholars, a mention of this crude Twitter post from Paul Barford – an archeologist (degree from?) moonlighting as a historian deserves its own footnote:

Barford, who does not seem to have any known university education appears to be a cantankerous hobbyist archeologist who managed to move to Poland in Communist days, get himself employed by Polish cultural institutions (Brueckner might just provide answers as to how) and even to publish “The Early Slavs” (a book which, notwithstanding the author’s peculiarities, is still far more readable than Davies’ or Curta’s tedious volumes). His website features this logo which appears to be a boot imprint on his host country’s flag (the fact that insulting national symbols in Poland is a criminal offense there does not seem to bother him).

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Among the interesting documents from Hebrew literature that touch upon Slavs are those of the so-called Cairo genizah (storage room – this one in the attic of the Fustat-Misr synagogue on the southern outskirts of Cairo).  Although close to 2,000 documents exist that were rescued from the genizah (and are now at Cambridge), two have been studied more than others.  Both contain references to Slavic places and other mentions of interest.

Cambridge Document

The first is the so-called Cambridge Document – a letter from the Khazarian Jewish community probably in response to Hasdai bin Shaprut detailing the rise of the Hebrew Khazars.

The letter (also known as the Schechter Letter, by reason of having been discovered among the Genizah documents in 1898 by Solomon Schechter) has a number of interesting aspects.  First, it mentions several names that are of interest:

• the Rus (RWSY), and
• their leader Oleg (HLGW – probably);

Second, the document starts with a reference to the Khazarian Jews having escaped from the yoke of Armenian idolaters.  It is difficult not to connect this event with what we know of the legend of Gisane and Demetr as related to us by Zenob Glak:

“Armenia, and [our] fathers fled before them […] for they were unable to bear the yoke of idol-worshippers, and the people of Quazaria received them.”

Third, the Schechter letter mentions rather curiously a name that may stand for the Pechenegs, PYYNYL (perhaps PSNYK) but perhaps, we think, could stand for the Polans of Kiev:

Kievan Letter

This (manuscript T-S (Glass) 12.122) is a letter from the Jewish community of Kiev describing the affair of one Mar Jacob ben R. Hannukkah who guaranteed a debt incurred by his brother “to gentiles”.  Since Jacob’s brother was then killed by brigands, Jacob was put in a debtor’s prison for a year.  The Jewish community then paid off 60 coins of the debt but 40 coins still remained.  The letter was apparently sent to some other Jewish community to seek cash to repay the remaining debt.

The Kievan Letter was discovered in 1962 by Norman Golb.  What is interesting about it is that:

• it mentions the city of Kiev by name; and
• some of the signatories might have non-Jewish, precisely, Slavic names.

The name Kiev is written as follows: קייובי (QYYWB):

The names of interest are the following:

• GWSTT bar KYBR Kohen – perhaps Gostata (or Gostyata) bar Kiabar (name similar to various “Gasts”, “Gosts” and “Hosts”):

• Judah/Yehuda, called SWRTH – perhaps Sawarta or Severyata (see Severyans):

• QWFYN bar Joseph – perhaps Kupin:

Finally, we note that the letter begins with the invocation of the name of God by the words, “He Who is adorned with the diadem ‘Final and First'”.  This is essentially the “Alpha & Omega” title of the New Testament found, interestingly, also among the Gnostics in the form IAΩ with reference to Abraxas.

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Since everyone likes Cracow west of the Rhine, we will repeat our pics here and throw in some additional ones:

We will let you find Cracows yourself in these other ones.

Here is another map of the same from the Brussels Atlas (1570-1573) by Christian S’Grooten (1525-1603/1604):

And here is another by Johannes Mercator map from 1590:

Here is another one from 1635:

Yet another one from either Arnold von Heurdt or Frederik de Witt from sometime about 1680-1690:

Here is one from the Frenchman H. Jaillot from 1696:

And one from Franz Johann Joseph von Reilly (1794-1795):

What the origin of this is we do not know but it is at least interesting.

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The trouble with showing Slavic names in antiquity is that there are virtually no Slavic names that would not also be claimed by scholars as Germanic names.  We have made this point here but it is worth reiterating because the standard approach to this matter has a predetermined result.  What do we mean by that?

Let’s assume the question is whether there were Slavs (or their ancestors) west of the Elbe prior to the 6th century.  Let’s say we find a data point – a personal name from an area west of the Elbe dated to pre-6th century.  If the name were Slavic it would show the presence of at least some Slavs in that area during that time.

So how will we know whether that name is Germanic or Slavic?  Presumably we would have to compare it to known Germanic and Slavic names…

The problem is that the standard approach to such classification must either (A) anticipate the answer (creating a tautology) or (B) fail.  Typical assumptions in performing this task anticipate the answer whereas changing these assumptions creates an answerable question.

Typical Assumptions & Why They Predetermine the Result

Assumption 1

One assumption typically made is that there is a relatively healthy number of prefixes and suffixes that appear in “Germanic” languages but not in Slavic ones.  A corresponding assumption is that there are very, very few prefixes and suffixes that are exclusive to Slavic languages (and of those even fewer that appear in all Slavic languages).

Assumption 2

A second usual assumption is however even more problematic.  There is a set of prefixes and suffixes that – once the Slavs make their “documented” entrance on the world stage appear among the Slavs.  But these same prefixes and suffixes also appear among the various Germans.

Putting aside theories that claim that Slavs were led by Germanic (or Iranian in some tellings – see the conundrum of the Antes) elites, we have a vast set of names that could be either Germanic or Slavic.

So how does a historian know whether a given person was Slavic or Germanic?  Typically, the answer is context dependent.  That is to say a historian has no idea.  But, if he finds such a name among territories and times typically associated with the Slavs, he assumes the person must have been a Slav.  If, on the other hand, the name surfaces among the territories assumed to have been held by the Germanics during a given time period, the name is further confirmation of the Germanic possession of the territory.  In effect, absent some other analytical tools, you see what you assume you should be able to see.

Results

Given the above assumptions, what are the results?  Well, what can the results be?

Assumption one tells us that, say, nine names must be exclusively Germanic.  It also tells us that – maybe – one name is exclusively Slavic.

Assumption two then says that those prefixes or suffixes that are proven to have been used both by Slavic and Germanic peoples are automatically ascribed to the Germanic basket if they appear in a name either (1) dated to a time prior to the 6th century or (2) dated at any time but appearing west of the Elbe.  So put 90 names in a Germanic basket and zero in a Slavic.

Then someone pulls out a name (pre-6th century west of the Elbe) out of a hat… What are the odds that the name out of that hat is Germanic versus Slavic?

If you answered 99-1, you would, of course, be right.  If for a given space and period we assume a priori, that 99% of  names in the set are going to have to be Germanic and 1% Slavic then it will be very difficult to find a Slav.  If every –mir, –gast, –suav is Germanic then it’s not even clear who could ever be found to be a Slav?

Assumption Questions/Problems

Assumption 1

Why is that the Germanic peoples should have had such a variety of “their own” names and name forms whereas the Slavs (a people of comparable numbers throughout history) such a poverty?

In other words, are the Germanic names “inflated” by attribution to the Germanic names of other names that may or may not have been Germanic (including names that may have been Celtic or, in fact, Slavic?)

Assumption 2

The obvious problem with this assumption, as we’ve already pointed out, is that it assumes the answer to the question being asked.

If we are trying to answer the question of  “Who was Ukromir? A Germanic or a Slav?” then we might proceed as follows:

Statement A: “Only Germanics lived in Germania prior to the 6th century”

Statement B: “Ukromir lived in Germania prior to the 6th century”

Conclusion C: “Ukromir must have been a Germanic.”

Answering the matter as above is all well and good but how does one answer that same question if Statement A falls away as an assumption?

Thoughts

The answer, of course, is that there is no answer.  The best that can be said is that some people that lived in a region described by the Romans as Germania had names that could indicate either a Nordic or a Slavic origin (the name “Germanic” becomes meaningless here as well).  The same can be said of other people of pre-6th  century Europe.

What’s more this is true even if we assume that language is the chief criterion of telling whether someone is a Nordic (aka Germanic) or a Slavic person (a criterion whose discriminatory relevance we find “lacking”).

The reason for this is that we have no idea what language or languages the people of Germania actually spoke prior to the 6th century.  Perhaps the Vandals – in the 6th century – spoke the same language as the Goths and Gepids.  But what about other inhabitants of Europe?   Outside of a few late Gothic texts we have no idea about the language of the Suevi, Batavi, Ubii, Jaziges, Nemetes, Lugii, Morini, Cotini, Veneti, etc.  Tacitus suggests that there was a “Pannonian” language and that the Aestii had their own language – similar to “Britonic” (or Bretonic?)  But what were those languages?

In the absence of texts, the only way to guess at the language of a people are the names of those people.  But how can we tell the names are Germanic, Slavic or something else?

We’ve already discussed many of these:

• Veleda
• Ariovist(us)
• Ucromir(us)    

In fact, even those that have traditionally been associated with “Germanic” speaking peoples.

• We know that Vidimir was a Goth. But must Vidimir be a Gothic name? “Vid” seems terribly close to Vit as in seer (“to see”) or the Slavic God Svantevit (on that name, see below).

• If -mir was a Germanic or Slavic suffix, it is more of a Slavic prefix, e.g., Miroslav or Mirosuav (short version Miro or Mirek).  But then what do you do with Miro the king of the Suevi?

• If Ardagastus was a Slav why was his name prefix Arda not Rada?  And if we are going to accept that Ardagast was a Slav then what about the “Frankish” Roman general Arbogastes?
  • And if we somehow weasel out of that one, and say now very definitively that it should have been Rada- instead, what do we say about the Gothic “true Scythian” Radagaisus?  After all wasn’t there a Slavic God (or, in Brueckner’s view town – but, nevertheless, a Slavic town!) named Redegast?
  • And what of the four authors of Frankish law: Wisogast, Arogast, Sidogast and Widogast – the prefixes Sido-, Wido– and Wiso– are all easily explained via Slavic.  But these were Franks…

• The same holds true for the prefix Mil– where Eberhard Graff speculated that Milgast (Milegast of the Wiltzi) was a Germanic name (Althochdeutscher Sprachschatz)

• It gets better:
  • Germanic languages apparently contained (though, oddly not anymore) words that we would think of as quintessentially Slavic.  Take the above Svantevit – “Holy Seer” if you will in Slavic.  Vit, however, may be an Indo-European name (e.g., Vitautas in Lithuanian or Saint Vitus – a third century SIcillian Christian martyr) so nothing inherently Slavic.
  • Better yet, however, take the prefix “Svante” – holy – an undoubtedly Slavic word and yet in “Germanic” we also supposedly have similar names.  Take, for example, Swentibold (aka Zwentibold) – the Lotharingian king; now, here, we know that he received his name from his godfather the Slavic Moravian king Svatopluk I (aka Sventopluk); But what do you do with Amalaswintha (aka Amalasuintha, Amalswinthe, Amalasuentha, Amalasuntha or Amalasontha), the queen of the Ostrogoths; Swinthila – the king of the Visigoths?  Are these “swint, swiþ” names really “strength” designations or do they have something to do with “holiness”? Or for that matter with “excellence” (świetność)?

Lovbagast

Take the name Laubegast.  This is the name of a part of Dresden (itself derived from Slavic) – first mentioned in 1408 as Lubegast.  In fact, we think we know exactly how the (then) town got its name.  It got it from Lubogost, the founder.  Lubogost the founder bore a Slavic name.  And so the name is Slavic in origin.  In that it differs little from other similar names in Germany such as Lübeck or in Poland such as Lubin (formerly in German Silesia) or Lublin.

This comes from Manfred Niemeyer’s Deutsches Ortsnamenbuch:

Lubomir or Lubogost – each of which is mentioned above in the description of Lubin – are Slavic names.  So, we would think too is Laubegast/Lubegast.

But the below is interpreted differently:

This Roman inscription (see Corpus Inscriptionum Rhenanarum) was found in 1858 north of Grimlinghausen around Düsseldorf.

It is typically read to mean “Louba Gastinasi F(ilia) Vbia H(ic) S(ita) Q(uintus) Cornelius Q(uinti) F(ilius) G(?)al(us) Coni(?)ugi Sva [or S(uae) Va(le)].”  That is: “Louba the daughter of Gastinas [or Gastus Nasus] of the Ubii is buried here.  Quintus Cornelius son of Quintus, a Gall for his spouse (or “his farewell”).”

So what is the explanation here?  Well, Luba may be a Slavic word but there is also the “Greek” Lubia and so it should not be surprising that there is too a Gothic liubs.  Of course, we also have lieb and Liebe as in “love”.   And a 954 Spanish document does speak of a “uitiza et leuba“.  Further, there is a claim of an Old High German lioba.  And, further down the line, we have Lob as in “praise” (which, incidentally, is Ros in most Scandinavian languages…).  Finally, in the world of science fiction  you also have the “reconstructed” (or constructed) *leubaz meaning “Proto-Germanic” “dear” or “lovely”.

Now one might ask some questions:

• What is the evidence for a Germanic luba* especially since:
  • (A) the word is not attested in that form in North Germanic languages,
  • (B) the word is attested in that form in all Slavic languages, and
  • (C) the Goths (Nordics) are known to have conquered a populous nation of the Veneti (Suevi?) with whom they in some form interacted?

* Even lioba seems to be attested in Germanic only twice and one of these is as a gloss for the Latin gratia – but then who was the glosser?

• Even assuming the word luba existed in a Germanic language and actually had Germanic roots, what is the evidence of it being used by Germanic peoples (with a “b” so no Leovigilds or Leofrics please) as a name or prefix or suffix of a name? (and no, you can’t answer by pointing to the above – no circular reasoning; further Ieuba mentioned above – even if that is a Germanic name (?) – does not equal Louba))?

• Even if one were confined that liubs (or luba) is Gothic or even East Germanic and that the Goths did not “acquire” it after coming down from Scandinavia and that they used it as parts of names, what is the reason for believing that an Eastern Germanic tongue like the Gothic should instruct us as to the nomenclature used by Western Germanic tribes such as the Ubii?

One can ask other questions too:

• why is the “I” after “Gast” so strangely large?
• same question for the “I” after “vg”?
• Is “Nasi” really a continuation of “Gasti…”?  Or is it a case of a separate name? (Nasua?)? Or is it a separate non-name word altogether?
• is the “Ubia” really “Ubia or is it a “Vbia”?

About the only thing that can be said of the above inscription is that the name Cornelius is a Latin name.

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Although Sylphs sounds like a venereal disease, it is in fact the name of ancient group of spirits. Or rather, the 16th century Swiss pseudo-scientist (but then weren’t they all back then?) Paracelsus, claimed these were such spirits (perhaps a combination of sylvan nymphs).

Although no references to sylphs are found prior to Paracelsus’ invention (?) of them, there are ancient references to Sulevae.  They appear in many places in the Roman Empire although it was a British author – John McCaul – describing Roman inscriptions at Bath that connected them with  Paracelsus’ sylphs (based on Charles Roach Smith’s Illustrations of Roman London).  McCaul notes the following:

• Sulivia Idennica Minerva
• Suleviae, Silviae, Silvana
• Sulevis et Campestribus
• Silvanabus et Quadriviis

Sul was apparently also the name of Apollo in Brittany (became Saint Sul later).

In Cirencester we have this (see The Reliquary and Illustrated Archaeologist: A Quarterly Journal and Review, v5):

SVLEIS
SVLIN vs
BRVCETI
V.S.L.M.

And in Bath we have the following inscription:

SVLEVIS
SVLINVS
SCVLTOR
BRV[C]ETI.F.
SACRVM.F.L.M

Another one cited by McCaul is this one:

DEAE
SVLIMI
NERVAE
SVLINVS
MATV
RIFIL
VSLM.

From these he infers the goddesss Sul Minerva or Sul or Sulevae – the “presiding deity of waters” (as per Scarth).

This, of course, brings to mind a few things:

• the river Saale (in German) – Solava in Slavic (sales or salud = health);
• the description of the Slavs by Procopius:

“They reverence, however, both rivers and nymphs and some other spirits, and they sacrifice to all these also, and they make their divinations in connection with these sacrifices;“

• the fact that Slavic, or at least Polish, Deity names such as Jassa or Lada have so many river name counterparts (such as here, here, here or here);

Of course, we know that Slavs had “swamps and forests for their cities” (Jordanes but also Maurice) so were Slavs just worshippers of sylphs or Sylvanians or forest people (as we suggested before)?

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Here is a “Venetic” inscription.  Well, not exactly.  While Venetic inscriptions – meaning inscriptions from Northeast Italy of the Adriatic Veneti – are well known and have been studied (whether they were translated correctly is another matter), there are other “Venetic” inscriptions.  That is inscriptions not written in Venetic but that mention the word Veneti.

So, for example, you have this inscription coming out of Dacia and dated precisely to March 17, 139.  That’s right – it’s second century Dacia (the home of Burebista (Burivist?)).  It is a contract for the acquisition of a slave written on a so-called “triptych” wooden tablet (currently in a Romanian museum).  It is well known and has been reprinted numerous times, for example in:

• Fontes iuris romani antiquiˆ;
• “Introduction to the study of Latin inscriptions” by James Chidester Egbert;
• Altitalische Forschungen (volume 3);
• Inscriptiones Daciae Romanae (volume 1);

We have discussed the story of Boz (4th century) and hinted that certain earlier Suevic names may have been Slavic (e.g., Veleda).  Now Boz was of the Antes and Veleda was, at least Batavian or Suevic.  But here below is an actual reference to a “Venetic.”  Who was this Venetic?  It is in Dacia that we find him – which Dacia we know was close to the location of Jordanes’ Veneti and the earlier mention of at least some of the Venedi on the Tabula Peutingeriana.

There is, of course, more of interest and we get to it but first the contract:

Maximus Batonis puellam nomine
Passiam, sive ea quo alio nomine est,
ancirciter [annorum circiter?] p[lus] m[inus] empta sportellaria
norum sex emit mancipioque accepit
de Dasio Verzonis Pirusta ex Kaviereti[o]
* ducentis quinque.

Iam [eam] puellam sanam esse a furtis noxisque
solutam, fugitiuam erronem non esse
praestari.  Quot si quis eam puellaam
partemve quam ex eo quis evicerit,

quominus Maximus Batonis quove
ea res pertinebit habere possidereque
recte liceat, tum quanti
ea puella empta est, tam pecuniam
et alterum tantum dari fide rogavit
Maximus Batonis, fide promisit Dasius
Verzonis Pirusta ex Kavierti.
Proque ea puella, quae s[upra] s[cripta] est, * ducentos
quinque accepisse et habere
se dixit Dasius Verzonis a Maximo Batonis.
Actum Karto XVI k[alendas) Apriles
Tito Aelio Caesare Antonino Pio II et Bruttio
Praesente II co[n]s[ulibus].

Maximi Veneti principis
Masuri Messi dec(urionis)
Anneses Andunocnetis
Plani Verzonis Sclaietis

Liccai Epicadi Marciniesi
Epicadi Plarentis qui et Mico
Dasi Verzonis ipsius venditoris

Translation 

“Maximus, Bato’s son, bought and received a slave girl of about six years old by the name of Passia, or however she may henceforth be called, she was a Sportellaria [bought in a basket? originally found in a basket, i.e., abandoned?], from Dasio son of Verzo, a Pirusta* from Kavieretum for 205 dinars.”

* Pirustae were an “Illyrian” tribe who lived in north Albania, south Bosnia and parts of Montenegro.  They are mentioned by Caesar, Strabo and Livy.  After the Roman conquest of Dacia in 106, many of the Pirustae miners were settled by the Romans in the Carpathians (including in western Dacia).

“It is confirmed that the slave girl is healthy, was not improperly obtained, is not a runaway or vagrant and that if someone should claim the slave girl (or any part of the associated property), whereby Maximus son of Bato won’t be able to properly own and possess her, then the purchase price will be returned twofold.  On his honor so has Maximus son of Bato demanded and on his honor so has Dasius son of Verzo, Pirusta from Kavieretum promised.”

“And Dasius son of Verzo has confirmed the receipt of the 205 dinars for the above-named slave girl from Maximus son of Bato.”

“This has taken place at Karto on the 16th day of calends of April under the consulship of Titus Aelius Caesar Antoninus Pius, in his second term as consul and [under] Bruttius Praesens, in his second term as consul.”

“The seal of:

Maximus Venetus, princeps
Masurius Messius decurion
Annesis, son of Andunocnes
Planius son of Verzo, Sclaietis
Liccaius Epicadus Marciniesus
Epicades, son of Plarentis, who is also called Mico
Dasius, son of Verzo, the seller.”

Noteworthy

• Is Maximus son of Bato the same as Maximus Venetus (princeps as in purchaser, princeps to the transaction)?
• Whether or not that is the case, is Maximus a Venet?
• If he is a Venet it seems more likely that he is of the Danube Veneti.
• Bato (sounding so “Turkic from the steppe”) is an Illyrian name (or at least several Illyrian, that is Dardanian, Daesitiat (or Daezitiat) and Breucian chieftains bore that name).  So are the Veneti then Illyrian (if these are the same person).
• Notice the name of the decurion (local official charged with contract administration) – Masurius or Masur.  The name Masuri seems strangely linked to Masuria and the Polish “tribe” of Masuri (settlers coming from Mazovia into south Prussia) which, supposedly, comes from Mazovia.  However, the Masuri name (other than here) also appears:
  • in Calabria, Italy (though the origin of the word may be different – Turkic? Or does it belong in the prior section ‘L’elemento slavo’?), and
  •  in a Himalayan region next to Dharmsala;
• Puella – meant a girl but, sometimes, a slave girl (a brave Palianka?);
• Passia – Slavic or not?;
• Whether names such as Licca[ius] or Mico could be Slavic we leave to you;

For more see also Hanne Sigismund-Nielsen “Introduction: A Little Girl Called Passia” in “The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World”.

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