Behind and Besides the Ramparts of Ringforts
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5 Local infrastructure of governance: behind and besides the ramparts of ringforts In the following chapter, the question of local infrastructures of power and governance – mostly the fortified places and administrative entities of the lowest order (ringfort districts, parishes) will be analyzed for the whole period referred to in this book, with limitation to Eastern Upper Lusatia. The launching point of these deliberations will be the laconic mention of the two civitates of the Besunzane in the Bavarian Geographer. Further on, the questions of the existence of burgwards in the Ottonic period and transformations of the local infrastructures of power and governance in Eastern Upper Lusatia in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries will be discussed. 5.1 The two civitates of the Besunzane In the only source in which the Besunzane were mentioned as a distinct ethno- political entity, the Bavarian Geographer, only two civitates were ascribed to them. The term civitas in the Bavarian Geographer, as recently demonstrated in an erudite analysis of early medieval sources by Sébastien Rossingol (2011, 85–89, passim; see also Łowmiański 1958, 3–5), should be primarily understood not as some nearly unspecified territorial entity, but as fortified settlements. For a long time, historians and archaeologists undertook more or less successful attempts to identify the two civitates of the Besunzane (see Tyszkiewicz 1964, 16; Knebel 1987, 9; Billig 1995, 63; Jaworski 2005, 308–309; Wenzel 2014b, 397; with further ref.). The issue from the perspective of this study is, in this case, all the more important that the citation in the Bavarian Geographer is the only concrete historical information on the power structure of Eastern Upper Lusatia from the period before the annexation of this area by Ekkehard I of Meissen. It is striking that in the whole of the long list that is the Bavarian Geographer, the creator of the source assigned no other people such a small number of settlements as he did the Besunzane. This statement may be weakened by taking into account the second supposed entry on the Besunzane in the Bavarian Geographer – namely, the note on a people with a name written down as the Phesunzi, which had as many as seventy civitates (this record was first associated with *Besunzane by Anton Kraliček, 1898, 226. See also Nalepa 2003, 13–15). That the Besunzane (in the form *Běžunci) could be hidden under this name is proven by its appearance in the very beginning of the second half of the Bavarian Geographer in the sequence Miloxi–Phesnuzi–Thadesi, which was a twin to the Dadosesani–Milzane–Besunzane group located at the end of the list of the groups of peoples. The fact that both of these groups of names probably refer to the same peoples, as emphatically pointed out by Jerzy Nalepa (2003, 13–15; see also Witczak 1993, 12 and Witczak 2012, 2), are deductions based on linguistic The two civitates of the Besunzane 119 argumentations. A question thus appears here: which of the notes in the Bavarian Geographer are to be trusted in terms of the number of Besunzane civitates: the first (Phesnuzi habent civitates LXX) or the second (Besunzane civitates II)? The answer to that question is much easier than it might seem. Both notes are in two different parts of a list of peoples, perhaps having different metrics, where the occurrence of doubles may appear. The first group, opening the second part of the Bavarian Geographer (from the Ostabtrezi to the Zeriuani or Uelunzani), contains a number of civitates by nearly every name, and by some a brief description as well. This is the fragment of the Bavarian Geographer that contains most of the names not mentioned in other sources, arranged alphabetically in several successive sequences (cf. Łowmiański 1951-52, 18–22, passim; see also Billig 1995, 30). The number of settlements given next to the individual names in this part ranges from 67 to 400, but it seems that when referring to some of the peoples – at least the Thadesi (=Dziadoszanie, allegedly having more than 200 settlements) or the Glopeani (probably the *Słopianie,89 at least 400 settlements) – this could even exceed the total number of human settlements located in their territories, not to mention the number of ringforts. Furthermore, the recordings of the ethnonyms Miloxi – Phesnuzi – Thadesi themselves are more “corrupted” than the Dadosesani – Milzane – Besunzane forms that probably also refer to the same peoples, which could result from the long road these names had traveled from the time they were noted down by the person making the first record until their introduction into the notes known to us as the Bavarian Geographer. In other words, the author of the notes in the form in which we now know it, whilst compiling his own list, or making use of an already-extant register containing unreliable numbers, or putting together this part of the list from notes (a trace of which are the alphabetical sequences) added these astronomical numbers himself to the names of peoples that meant nothing to him because he knew that no one would check how many settlements these distant and poorly-known barbarians actually had. This proposal argues for the rejection of the seventy civitates for the Besunzane as being completely unbelievable and not considering the note Phesnuzi habent civitates LXX in later studies on the settlement and power structures in this part of the Western Slavdom. The number of two civitates given by the name Besunzane at the end of the Bavarian Geographer is much more realistic. As mentioned above, none of the other peoples mentioned in this source boasted a smaller number of settlements. The next peoples in this respect – the Bulgars (Uulgari) and Gołęszyce (Golensizi), who lived in what later became Upper Silesia – had five civitates each. The specific example of the Bulgars seems characteristic compared to this, as the author of the list of peoples himself saw fit to explain here that they had so few settlements due to their large 89 Cf. here the argument of Jerzy Nalepa (2003, 12–15). We are talking about a tribe mentioned in the sources as the Selpuli and often found under this name in the historical literature. 120 Local infrastructure of governance: behind and besides the ramparts of ringforts numbers and customs about this different from the other peoples described.90 From the statements presented by the mention of the Bulgars, one must conclude that in the eyes of the author of the Bavarian Geographer the population of the people in question generally was translated into a number of “towns”, and the Bulgars themselves were in this respect exceptional. In other words, in light of their number of settlements, the Besunzane were certainly noticed by this author’s informers as a people distinctly smaller than the Gołęszycy (five civitates), Linaa (seven civitates) and the mysterious Uerizane91 (ten civitates). If one takes into account the data on the scope of the settlement history and archaeology of all of these peoples, it turns out that this observation is roughly in line with the actual situation that existed in the ninth and tenth centuries. Taking this reasoning a step further, it is not difficult to notice that the disproportion in the number of settlements between, for example, the Gołęszycy (five) and the neighboring tribe of the Opolanie (twenty) or the Besunzane (two) and the nearby Milčane and Lužičane (thirty civitates each) is significantly larger than the disproportion between the ecumenae inhabited by these peoples.92 It thus seems that in the time when the Bavarian Geographer was drawn up, some of the West Slavic tribes were characterized by a significantly lower fortified settlement density than others. There are two conceivable hypothetical explanations for this situation: either those tribes with a disproportionally small number of strongholds (i.e. the Besunzane) at the time this census was written had not yet managed to build more of them or did not feel the need to do so – perhaps because they represented another model of social and/or political relations or were not experiencing many external threats. Asserting which of these explanations would best fit the situation of the Besunzane is difficult at this stage in the research for three reasons. First of all, we are not able to precisely date the creation of the second part of the Bavarian Geographer. Secondly, the exact date of the incorporation of the small country of the Besunzane to the political structure of Milsko is not known (although a hypothetical, approximate dating has been proposed above: section 2.3.2). Thirdly, the current state of the archaeological research on the settlements of Eastern Upper Lusatia is not sufficient to determine with suitable precision when individual early medieval ringforts were constructed in this area, and therefore which of these should be attributed to the Besunzane and which to the Milčane. What we actually do know is that most probably two fortified settlements existed on the territory of the Besunzane at the time the 90 Uulgarii regio est inmensa et populus multus habens civitates V, eo quod mutitudo magna ex eis sit et non sit eis opus civitates habere. 91 For a discussion on the Uerizane, cf. most recently Nalepa 2003 and Witczak 2012. 92 With regard to the Gołęszycy and Opolanie, one can generally speak of a reverse proportion of the number of settlements and the presumed tribal territories, as undoubtedly the former inhabited a more extensive (and more fertile) area than the latter (cf. here Parczewski 1982, 125–126, passim). The two civitates of the Besunzane 121 Bavarian Geographer was written in the late ninth or early tenth century.