The Pechenegs: Nomads in the Political and Cultural Landscape of Medieval Europe East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450 General Editors Florin Curta and Dušan Zupka volume 74 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ecee The Pechenegs: Nomads in the Political and Cultural Landscape of Medieval Europe By Aleksander Paroń Translated by Thomas Anessi LEIDEN | BOSTON This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided no alterations are made and the original author(s) and source are credited. Further information and the complete license text can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ The terms of the CC license apply only to the original material. The use of material from other sources (indicated by a reference) such as diagrams, illustrations, photos and text samples may require further permission from the respective copyright holder. Publication of the presented monograph has been subsidized by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education within the National Programme for the Development of Humanities, Modul Universalia 2.1. Research grant no. 0046/NPRH/H21/84/2017. National Programme for the Development of Humanities Cover illustration: Pechenegs slaughter prince Sviatoslav Igorevich and his “Scythians”. The Madrid manuscript of the Synopsis of Histories by John Skylitzes. Miniature 445, 175r, top. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. Proofreading by Philip E. Steele The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at http://catalog.loc.gov/2021015848 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1872-8103 ISBN 978-90-04-43489-9 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-44109-5 (e-book) Copyright 2021 by Aleksander Paroń and Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. Τοῖσι γὰρ μήτε ἄστεα μήτε τείχεα ᾖ ἐκτισμένα, ἀλλὰ φερέοικοι ἐόντες πάντες ἒωσι ἱπποτοξόται, ζῶντες μὴ ἀπ’ ἀρότου ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ κτηνέων, οἰκήματά τε σφι ᾖ ἐπὶ ζευγέων, κῶς οὐκ ἂν εἴησαν οὕτοι ἄμαχοι τε καὶ ἄποροι προσμίσγειν; For when men have no established cities and fortresses, but all are house-bearers and mounted archers, living not by tilling the soil but by cattle-rearing and carrying their dwellings on waggons, how should these not be invincible and unapproachable? Herodotus, History, IV 46. … Pogibosha aki obre; ikh zhe nest’ plemeni ni nesled’ka. ‘They perished like the Avars.’ Neither race nor heir of them remains.1 Tale of Bygone Years, an old Rus’ proverb. … Considering the natural environment in which they [nomads] lived, and the related peculiarities of culture, they occupied an extremely important place on the ethnographic map of the European barbaricum. Lech Leciejewicz 2000, 175. ⸪ 1 Cross, Scherbowitz-Wetzor 1953, 56. Contents Russian/Bulgarian/Ukrainian Transliteration ix List of Maps x Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1 Written Sources 2 2 Archaeological Sources 16 3 The State of Research. Proposed Research Procedure 17 1 Black Sea-Caspian Steppe: Natural Conditions 20 1.1 The Great Steppe. General Comments 21 1.2 Black Sea-Caspian Steppe. Physical Geography 23 1.3 The Landscape of the Black Sea-Caspian Steppe in the Accounts of Travellers and Geographers. From Herodotus to Jan Potocki 28 2 Black Sea-Caspian Steppe: Outline of Ethnic and Political Relations to the End of the Ninth Century 47 2.1 Era of the Dominance of Iranian Nomads 47 2.2 Gothic Episode 59 2.3 Period of Dominance of Turkic Nomads 66 3 The Earliest History of the Pechenegs 85 3.1 The Problem of Ethnogenesis 85 3.2 Pechenegs on the Transvolgan Steppe 94 3.3 The Pechenegs’ Wars with Magyars. Migration to the Black Sea Steppe 104 4 Structures and Forms of Existence 127 4.1 Introduction 127 4.2 Political and Social Organization 132 4.3 Economy 160 4.4 Military 184 4.5 The Pechenegs’ Ethnic Identity and Value System 207 viii Contents 5 The Apex of the Pechenegs’ Political Importance 240 5.1 Borders and Internal Territorial Divisions of the Newly-Created Patzinacia 240 5.2 Political Relations between the Pechenegs and Their Neighbours 251 5.3 The History of the Pechenegs before 945. At a Political Crossroads 255 5.4 The Pechenegs as Allies of the Byzantine Empire 277 6 Decline of the Pechenegs’ Power on the Black Sea Steppe 293 6.1 The Rus’, Pechenegs and Uzes (972–1036) 293 6.2 The Byzantine Empire and the Pechenegs on the Eve of Their Migration to the Balkans 317 6.3 Pecheneg Migration to the Balkans 321 7 The Pechenegs on the Territories of the States Neighbouring the Steppe 331 7.1 The Pechenegs in Byzantium: 1047–1091 332 7.2 The Pechenegs in the Arpadian Kingdom 372 7.3 The Pechenegs in Rus’ 383 7.4 The Pechenegs under Piast Dynasty Rule (?) 387 Conclusion 391 Bibliography 395 Index 445 Russian/Bulgarian/Ukrainian Transliteration Vernacular Romanization Vernacular Romanization Upper case letters Lower case letters А A а a Б B б b В V в v Г G г g Д D д d Е E е e Ё E ё e Ж Zh ж zh З Z з z И I (Rus., Bulg.)/Y (Ukr.) и i (Rus., Bulg.)/y (Ukr.) Й I й i І I і i Ї Ї ї ї К K к k Л L л l М M м m Н N н n О O о o П P п p Р R р r С S с s Т T т t У U у u Ф F ф f Х Kh х kh Ц Ts ц ts Ч Ch ч ch Ш Sh ш sh Щ Shch (Rus., Ukr.)/Sht (Bulg.) щ shch (Rus., Ukr.)/sht (Bulg.) Ъ (Bulg.) U ъ u Ы Y ы y Ь ‘(soft sign) ь ‘(soft sign) Э E э e Ю Iu ю iu Я Ia я ia Maps 1 The Eurasian Steppe 82 2 The Transvolga Region in the 9th century 103 3 The Black Sea steppe in the Pecheneg Period 251 4 The Balkan Peninsula after the Pecheneg Migration 328 Abbreviations BGA Bibliothaeca Geographorum Arabicorum CET Central European Texts CFHB Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae CHBE The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire. Ed. J. Shepard. Cambridge 2008. CHEIA The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Ed. D.Sinor. Cambridge 1990. DAI-Com. Dvornik, F., Jenkins, R.J.H., Lewis, B., Moravcsik, Gy., Obolensky, D., Runciman, S. (1962) De administrando imperio. Vol. 2: Commentary. London. DOML Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library EI2 Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition.1–13. Leiden, London 1960–2004. EMC The Encyclopedia of Medieval Chronicle. Ed. G. Dunphy et al. Vol. 1–2. Leiden, Boston 2010. LCL Loeb Classical Library MGH AA Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Autores Antiquissimi MGH Epist. Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Epistulae MGH SS Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores (in Folio) MGH SS, Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores rerum Germanicarum rer. Germ. in usum scholarum separatim editi MGH SS Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores rerum rer. Ger. N.S. Germanicarum Nova Series. MPH SN Monumenta Poloniae Historica. Series Nova ODB Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Ed. in chief A.P. Kazhdan. Vol. 1–3. Oxford 1991. PSRL Polnoe Sobranie Russkikh Letopisei RE Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Vol. 1–24, 1A–10A, SI-S15. Stuttgart 1893–1980. SRH Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum. Vol. 1–2. Ed. I. Szentpétery. Budapest 1937–38. SSS Słownik Starożytności Słowiańskich. Encyklopedyczny zarys kultury Słowian od czasów najdawniejszych do schyłku wieku XII. Eds. W. Kowalenko, G. Labuda, T. Lehr-Spławiński, Z. Stieber. Vol. 1–8. Wrocław, Warszawa, Kraków 1961–1996. TIB Tabula Imperii Byzantini. Eds. H. Hunger, J. Koder. Wien 1976–. Introduction At the beginning of his now classic monograph on the Avars, first published in German in 1988, Walter Pohl asked if these people were ‘marginal Europeans’ (schlechte Europäer).1 This same question could be posed in relation to every nomadic ethnos that has ever migrated to the European continent. It is also possible to broaden the question and ask whether nomadic peoples, which are migratory by definition, can be considered Europeans at all? This problem is not a new one. Herodotus, who described the Scythians without biases and at times even wrote sympathetically about them, seems to have had his doubts about their Europeanness. The author of Histories believed the Scythians belonged to Europe geographically, because this is where they ultimately based themselves. He said their roots, however, were in Asia, over which they once briefly ruled. As enemies of the Persian Empire, they have also been historically placed on the side of Europe. The definitional problems faced by Herodotus remind us of an extremely important fact – namely, that the nomadic groups he describes arriving on the European continent were all essentially products of the so-called Great Steppe, whose landforms and ecosystems defined the basic elements of their cultures. Their nomadic lifestyle and the values associ- ated with it clearly distinguished these nomads from the agricultural commu- nities whose settlements neighboured the plains of the European steppe. This made it easy for nomads to be seen as ‘Others’ and, ultimately, to be erased from the continent’s cultural landscape.