The President and Fellows of Harvard College At the Dawn of Christianity in Rus': East Meets West Author(s): OMELJAN PRITSAK Source: Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Vol. 12/13, Proceedings of the International Congress Commemorating the Millennium of Christianity in Rus'-Ukraine (1988/1989), pp. 87-113 Published by: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41036307 . Accessed: 19/10/2014 07:16 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and The President and Fellows of Harvard College are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Harvard Ukrainian Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 91.105.30.38 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 07:16:39 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CHRISTIANITY IN RUS' BEFORE 988 At theDawn of Christianityin Rus': East MeetsWest OMELJANPRITSAK I. INGERAND THE "MAGIANS" 1. As CyrilMango showedin 1973,at leastone or twoOld Norse (Scandina- vian)families reached Constantinople by theend ofthe eighth century, con- vertedto Christianity,and succeededin marryinginto the Byzantine gentry. Around825 someonenamed 'lyyep was appointedthe (iconoclast)metro- politanof Nicaea; anotherInger was thefather of Eudocia Ingerina(b. ca. 837, d. 883), themistress of MichaelIII (842-867) and thereafterthe wife of hismurderer and successorBasil I (867 -88 1).1 As statedby Mango, the name Inger cannotbe explainedfrom the ByzantineGreek, or, for that matter, from the Slavic; it is, rather,a variant of theOld Norsename *Ingvarr.2 The last decade of the eighthcentury was preciselythe timewhen the firstViking (Denise I Noromen) ships appearedin the West (accordingto theAnglo-Saxon chronicles, s.a. 787 [789]).3 One maywell ask whetheror notthese events in theEast and theWest weresynchronized, and if so, how. I will discussthe background of these East-West contacts, and in doingso makeuse of some Arabicsources, of a hithertounappreciated reworked Slavonic translationof a Byzantinetext, and of somedata from the Old Norsesources. 1 CyrilMango, "Eudocia Ingerina,the Normans,and the MacedonianDynasty," Zbornik Radova VizantoloskogoInstituía, vol. 14/15(Belgrade, 1973), pp. 17-27 (=idem, Byzantium and itsImage [London:Variorum reprints, 1984], no. XV). 1 Mango,"Eudocia," pp. 18,26-27. 3 Two ofthe Saxon ChroniclesParallel, ed. CharlesPlummer and John Earle, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1892; rptd.1952), p. 54 (the ParkerMS: = Denise); p. 55 (theLaud MS: = Norömen). See PeterH. Sawyer,The Age ofthe Vikings, 2nd ed. (London,1971), pp. 14-18. This content downloaded from 91.105.30.38 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 07:16:39 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 88 OMELJANPRITSAK 2. Scholarshave stillnot properlyevaluated the informationof two reliable and well-informedArabic geographers and polymathsof theninth and tenth centuries:Abu'l-Qasim cUbayd Allãh Ibn Khurdãdhbeh(ca. 840-890), the ' caliph's chiefof intelligence(murld al-barld 'postmastergeneral"); and Abu'l-HasancAlï al-Mascûdï (d. 956), themost successful and prolificArab polymathand traveler. In his classical geographicwork, Kitãb al-masalikwaH-mamãlik, Ibn Khurdãdhbehincludes a chapterdealing withthe internationalitinerant negociatores,or tradingcompanies. The firstones were the Jewishmer- chants(at-tuggãr al-yahüd), called ar-Rãdhãniyya,and theothers were the Rãs merchants(tuggär ar-Rüs), who were a kindof Saqãliba (= Veneti).4 They tradeda greatassortment of merchandise,but theirmost lucrative commoditieswere eunuchs(al-khadam), female slaves (al-gawârï), and youngboys (al-ghilmãn).5In his basic extantwork, Murüg adh-dhahab, al-Mascûdïnames only one companyof internationalnegociatores, namely thatof theRüs. He writes:'The Rüs [is a nomenof] numerouscolluvies gentium(umani) of diversekinds (dhãt ^anwfr sattà). Amongthem there is a kindcalled *al-Lo[r]domãna[cf. Spanish Latin Lordoman- < Nordoman-]. They are the mostnumerous. They frequentwith their wares the country al-Andalus[Muslim Spain], Rome, Constantinople, and [thecountry of] the Khazars."6 MuslimSpain is mentionedfirst because al-Mascûdï'sinformation was of Spanishorigin (note the Spanishform of the name forthe Norsemen: Lordomãn-). Apparentlythe RusILordornäna were thought to be centered somewherenot far from Muslim Spain.7 Extremelyimportant is thatMascûdï uses theterm Rus notas an ethnicon 4 This is themeaning I applyin my"The Slavs and theAvars," Settimane di studiodel Cen- troitaliano di studisulV alto medioevo,voi. 30 (Spoleto,1983), pp 380-83, 389-94. 5 Kitãbal-masalik wa' l-mamalik,ed. M. J.de Goeje (Leiden,1889), pp. 153-55. 6 WcPr-Rüsumam kathïrah dhãt >anwãcsattà ; fa-min-humjins yuqãlu la-humal-Lwdhcãnh, wa-humal-aktharüna yukhtalifüna bi-t-tijãrah Hlà bilãd al-Andaluswa-Rümiyyah wa-H- Qustantïniyyahwa-H-Khazar. Les prairies d'or, ed. CharlesPellai, vol. 1 (Beirut,1966), p. 218. The wordal-Lwdhcãnh is a misspellingof *al-Lwdhminh,as is al-Kwdhfcnh(cf. variant readingal-Lwdhghfnh in Masai's Kitãbat-tanbïh, ed. M. J.de Goeje [Leiden,1894], p. 141). 7 Accordingto al-Yacqubï(d. 897) "the [maritime]al-Magus [on thisterm see below],who are called ar-Rüs,"attacked in 844 thethen Arab city of Seville via thefluvial route (Guadal- quivir);al-Yacqubï, Kitãb al-buldãn, ed. M. J.de Goeje (Leiden,1892), p. 354. This content downloaded from 91.105.30.38 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 07:16:39 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AT THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY IN RUS ' 89 butas a nomeràof a professionalcolluvies9 of negociatores(Arabic umam is a pluralof umma'people; nation;generation'), consisting of different kinds(jins, pl. ajnãs ). 3. In a paperentitled "Did theArabs call theVikings 'Magians'?,"10 I have demonstratedthat there were two homonymousforeign words in Arabic- al-magus- of completelydifferent origin. One was the Greek inayoç "Zoroastrian"(< Old Persianmagus), firstintroduced in theMuslim East (Baghdad); and the otherwas the Celtic magos-magus, correspondingto the Germanicvïk, Latin forum, Arabic quran, i.e., non-fortifiedemporta wherethe negociatores kept, displayed, and sold theirwares. The Spanish Arabs,having entered in 793 thepagus Rotinicis/Rutenorum (the modern departmentof Aveyronin France's Midi) withits magoszs (e.g., Caran- tomagus= Cranton;Cobiomagus = Bram; Condatomagus= Millau; Vin- domagus= Le Vigan), simplycalled this territory"the countryof the magoscs(bilãd al-magüs)." In thisway theyacted no differentlythan the Old Norsemen,who, arrivingamong the East-EuropeanRus of the ninth-eleventh centuries, came uponmany garõs, and thuscalled thatpol- itysimply Garõa-ríki, "the land of garõs." Here theterm garó- (Slavic grad) playsthe same role as thename magos (spelled magus) in theArabic bilãd al-magüs. To go even further:magüs can be regardedas a synec- dochefor bilãd al-magüs, just as Garoar I Garör can standfor Garõaríki.n The term magosI magus (Arabic al-magus), from the nomen loci "emporiumof the itinerantnegociatores," shifted in SpanishArabic to designatethe inhabitants of suchemporia with whom they had to deal: the guardsand shipmen.There is a coeval analogy: the shiftingof thename "inhabitantof a vïk" (vïking)into "piratae quos illi Wichingosappellant, nostriAscomannos . "n 8 On therole of thenomen/ enoyvx)'iia in ethnogenesis,see Haraldvon Petrikovits,"Fragen derEthnogenese aus derSicht der römischen Archäologie," Studien zur Ethnogenese[vol. 1] (Opladen,1985), pp. 101-122. 9 On the termcolluvies, esp. colluviesgentium, see WilhelmE. Mühlmannin Studienzur Ethnogenese1 (1985): 23 andH. von Petrikovitsin ibid.,pp. 116-18. 10 To appearin TheSeventh International Saga ConferenceICentro Italiano di studisulV alto Medioevo. XII CongressoInternationale di studi sulV alto medioevo,ed. Teresa Pároli (Spoleto). 1x Full documentationis given in mypaper quoted in fn.10. 12 Two ofthe Saxon ChroniclesParallel, ed. CharlesPlummer and JohnEarle, vol. 2, 3rded. (Oxford,1965), p. 129. This content downloaded from 91.105.30.38 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 07:16:39 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 90 OMELJANPRITSAK ElsewhereI have arguedthat the form russ- 1 rus- was theRhine German substitutionfor the High Germanruzz-lruz- etymon.13 This, in turn,was theresult of the Germanconsonant shift rut-i > ruzzi. The rutiform, the basis of theCeltic tribal name Rut-i/Rut-en-i, developed in Old Frenchinto *rud-i(cf. themodern Rodez < Rutenis).The latternameform was adapted by theRipuarian Franks and subjectedto "gutturalization."The resultwas the formRug-i, which Adalbert of Trier,active as a missionarybishop in Kiev in 961-962, used with regardto the realm of the Rus' Queen Or ga/Helga (baptizedHelena) of Kiev.14 The leadingFrench medievalist Georges Duby writes:"All thatcan be said is thateighth- and ninth-centurysources, when referring to negocia- tores,frequently allude to twoethnic groups whose colonies were dispersed along themain routes and reachedfar beyond the frontiers of theEmpire: "15 Jewsand (in theNorth Sea area) 'Frisians.' As we have seen above,the ninth-centuryauthor Ibn Khurdãdhbehmade a verysimilar statement; how- ever,he used thename "Rüs"