CARNIOLA, PATRIA SCLAVORUM Carniola Occupied a Central
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CHAPTER EIGHT CARNIOLA, PATRIA SCLAVORUM Carniola occupied a central place among the Länder settled by a Slovene-speaking population that were part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy from the Middle Ages until its disintegration in 1918; at least that is how the Slovenes conceived Carniola from their national rise onwards. Its central place within the Slovene-settled area was refl ected by both its geographical location and ethnical/linguistic structure. Accordingly, the Slovene language was also referred to as the “Carniolan language,” the Land’s capital Ljubljana gained the importance of the national centre of the Slovenes, and the white-blue-red Carniolan fl ag was adopted as the Slovene national fl ag in 1848. Triglav, the highest mountain of Carniola, became one of the principal Slovene national symbols and, fi nally, Carniola was the only historical Land inhabited by Slovenes that was annexed in its entirety to the new Yugoslav com- munity aft er 1918; the integration into the new state however also meant the abolition of its constitutional order as a Land whose roots extended back to the Middle Ages. It is therefore all the more interest- ing that the beginnings of the period in the history of Carniola, where, based on a suffi cient number of historical sources, its development can be traced consistently and continuously, is marked by two charters of Emperor Otto II that date from as late as 973: the fi rst mentions Carniola /…/ quod vulgo Creina marcha appellatur, and the second in regione vulgari vocabulo Chreine.1 We should add, though, that the number of written sources on the entire Early Middle Ages, from the settlement of the Slavs in the Eastern Alps and pre-Alpine area to the end of the Carolingian age, is so scarce for this particular region that we can count them on the fi ngers of one hand. Th is extremely unhelpful lack of sources is undoubtedly one of the principal reasons why in Slovene historiography Slovene history is almost exclusively focused on the history of Carantania in this period,2 while early medieval Carniola was considered a “nebulous, enigmatic 1 DD. O. II, nos. 47, 66. 2 See e.g. Kos M. 1955, 77 ff .; Grafenauer 1978, 347 ff .; Sluga 1979, 111 . ff 124 chapter eight formation.”3 Carantania was unquestionably the most important politi- cal community in the Eastern Alps, because this polyethnic, but pre- dominantly Slavic, principality of the Carantanians represented the oldest medieval tribal polity that had formed in the region.4 Th e early medieval borders of Carantania however never extended across the Karavanke Mountains into the Upper Sava basin.5 It was only under Ottonian rule during the second half of the 10th century, at a time we can no longer speak of Carantania, but rather of Carinthia as a duchy of the German Empire,6 that this geographical barrier between Carinthia and Carniola ceased to be an administrative border. Th is new condition is fi rst registered by the earlier of the two above- mentioned charters from 973, which states that the donated estate lies in the county of Carniola in the Bavarian (from 976 onwards the Carinthian) duchy.7 For this reason, the occasional claim in historical and archaeological literature that the inhabitants of the area south of the Karavanke in the Early Middle Ages (i.e. the inhabitants of the “Avar-Frankish Carniola” to use Hauptmann’s terminology)8 are identi- cal with the Carantanian Slavs, or even with the Carantanians proper, seems to be unsubstantiated. Th is article aims at least partly to illuminate the virtually unknown early medieval history of the Carniola in the Upper Sava basin. In the context of the present theme and related to the above-mentioned char- ters from 973, which are of fundamental signifi cance to the history of Carniola, and before fully concentrating on the Early Middle Ages, I consider it worth drawing attention to the following: the wording Carniola /…/ quod vulgo Creina marcha appelantur in the fi rst charter from June 973 perfectly illustrates the double origin of the name. Th e name Carniola is of Romano-Celtic origin and an anonymous geogra- pher from Ravenna refers to it as patria quae dicitur Carneola, patria Carnech, patria Carnium.9 Th e name Carniola has the same root (car) 3 Šašel 1992, 386. 4 Wolfram 1987, 341; Wolfram 1997, 279 ff . 5 On the issue of Carantania’s extent, see most recently Štih 2006b, 119 ff . 6 Klebel 1960, 676 ff .; Grafenauer 1977, 149 ff . 7 D. O. II, no. 47: /…/quasdam partes nostre proprietatis sitas in ducatu prefati ducis [Heinrici] et in comitatu Poppinis comitis quod Carniola vocatur et quod vulgo Creina marcha appelatur/…/donavimus. 8 Hauptman 1929, 337–344. 9 Ravennatis anonymi Cosmographia et Gvidonis Geographica IV 21 (221 ff .), IV 22 (223) and IV 37 (293)..