BULGAR IA

MEDIAEVALIS
Volume 2/2011

Studies in honour of
Professor Vassil Gjuzelev

bulgarian historical heritage foundation

Sofia
 CONTAINING THE BULGAR THREAT:
BYZANTIUM’S SEARCH FOR AN ALLY IN THE FORMER AVAR
TERRITORIES IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

panos sophoulis/athens
From the time of the Hunnic invasions onwards, the security of Byzantium’s Balkan
provinces, which had been important both as a zone of ‘defence-in-depth’, protect-
ing Constantinople from northern raiders and invaders, and as a region crossed by
military highways linking eastern and western centers of the Empire, was achieved
through a combination of military force, diplomacy and cultural influence. Where
possible, the Byzantines would march and meet the enemy in battle, but more often
than not, faced with the ever-present need to concentrate their resources in the East-
ern front, they resorted to means that did not drain the Empire’s dwindling finances
and manpower. By offering economic and political incentives to its most aggressive
neighbours, the government at Constantinople sought to deflect potential threats to
imperial territory, while the spread of Christianity was expected to extract a civilizing
effect on ‘barbarian’ societies north of the frontier. Another aspect of this policy was
the attempt to forge alliances with various tribal groups which could be persuaded
into acting in Byzantium’s interest.1 Asparuch’s migration to the Lower Danube re-
gion and the subsequent creation of a Bulgar polity, which came to represent a se-
rious and continuous menace to the Empire’s core lands in the Balkans, made the
search for reliable allies a priority. It is against this background that already from the
eighth century Byzantium developed close ties with ‘barbarian elites’ in the southern
region of the Avar Qaghanate.
The Byzantine search for allies in the northern Balkans began well before the
arrival of Asparuch’s warriors in the last quarter of the seventh century. Following
the disintegration of Attila’s confederation, the Byzantines created bonds of politi-
cal allegiance with various peoples – most of them former Hunnic subjects – who
in exchange of tribute payments or largesse served as a deterrent to nomad or sed-
entary attacks from the north. The Pannonian (Amal-led) Goths in the 460’s,2
the Bulgars in the 480’s,3 the Antes from the 540’s onwards,4 the Kutrigurs in the
1
D. Obolensky, The principles and methods of Byzantine diplomacy, in Actes du XIIe Congrès
International d’Etudes Byzantines I, Belgrade 1963, 45–61.
2
Priscus, fragment 37, in R. C. Blockley (ed and trans), The Fragmentary Classicising Histo-
rians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus, and Malchus I, Liverpool
1981; P. Heather, The Goths, Oxford 1996, 151–152; idem, Goths in the Roman Balkans,
in A. Poulter (ed), The Transition to Late Antiquity, on the Danube and Beyond, Oxford
2007, 181.
3
Ioannis Antiocheni fragmenta ex Historia chronica, ed. U. Roberto (Texte und Untersuchungen
zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur), Berlin–New York 2005, 211.4–5; V. Beševliev,
Die protobulgarischen Periode der bulgarischen Geschichte, Amsterdam 1981, 76–77; В. Беше-
влиев, Първобългарите. История, бит и култура, Пловдив 22008, 11; D. Ziemann, Vom
Wandervolk zur Großmacht. Die Entstehung Bulgariens im frühen Mittelalter (7. bis 9. Jh.),
Cologne–Weimar–Vienna 2007, 44–45.
4
Procopius, History of the Wars, ed. and trans. H. B. Dewing, Cambridge, MA–London
400 Panos Sophoulis

550’s,5 all provided military support to the Empire (as ἔνσπονδοι or foederati) against
other barbarian groups. At about the same time in the middle Danube region two
Germanic peoples, the Gepids and the Lombards, competed for imperial patronage,
until the lands they occupied, east and west of the Tisza River respectively, came un-
der Avar sway in the late 560’s.6 For the next 60 years the Avars became the dominant
force in southeastern Europe and at the same time the most dangerous adversary
Byzantium had to face, but their failure to capture Constantinople in 626 seriously
damaged their prestige. Conflicts between the ruling class and various subject peo-
ples seem to have followed the siege, and the Qaghan’s supremacy was challenged
both at the centre and the fringes of his hegemony. Apart from Samo, who set up an
ephemeral polity centred probably on present-day Austria,7 in Dalmatia the Croats
established their own socio-political organization, and, if one is to believe the De
Administrando Imperio, maintained regular diplomatic contacts with Byzantium.8
Further east, in the Pontic steppes, the “Onogundur” Bulgars rose against the Avars
– a revolt that may have been incited by the emperor Heraclius – under the leader-
ship of Kubrat, who then proceeded to create his own independent polity known in
the sources as ‘Old Great Bulgaria’. Kubrat benefited from this relationship with the
Empire by the receipt of the dignitary of patrikios, with associated stipends and pres-
tige, and quite possibly tribute payments.9 The archaeological record is quite explicit
in this regard: the burial assemblages found in the Lower and Middle Dnieper (Malo
Pereshchepine, Novye Senžary-Začepilovka, Kelegei, Makuhivka etc.) included a

1914–28, VII, 14.21, 32–33; F. Curta, The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of
the Lower Danube Region, c. 500–700 AD, Cambridge–New York 2001, 81–82, 339.
5
Procopius, Wars, VIII, 19.5; D. Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth. Eastern Europe,
500–1453, New York 1971, 47; Ziemann, Vom Wandervolk, 98.
6
Procopius, Wars, VII, 33.12, 34.10. See the discussion in F. Curta, Southeastern Europe in
the Middle Ages, 500–1250, Cambridge 2006, 54–55; idem, Making of the Slavs, 82, 87; W.
Pohl, The Empire and the Lombards: treaties and negotiations in the sixth century, in W.
Pohl (ed), Kingdoms of the Empire. The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity, Leiden –
New York–Cologne 1997, 75–133.
7
The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar, ed. and trans. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, London
1960, 39–40, 56–88; W. Pohl, Die Awaren. Ein Steppenvolk in Mitteleuropa, 567–822 n.
Chr., München 1988, 256–268; P. M. Barford, The Early Slavs, London 2001, 79–80.
8
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administando Imperio, ed. and trans. G. Moravcsik–R. J.
H. Jenkins (CFHB 1), I, Washington D.C. 1967, c. 31, 146–148; J. Fine, The Early Medieval
Balkans. A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century, Ann Arbor 1983, 49–
59; F. Curta, Emperor Heraclius and the conversion of the Croats and the Serbs, in Ts.
Stepanov–G. Kazakov (eds), Medieval Christianitas. Different Regions, „Faces,“ Approaches,
Sofia 2010, 121–138.
9
Nikephoros Patriarch of Constantinople, Short History, ed. and trans. C. Mango (CFHB 13),
Washington D.C. 1990, c. 22, 70; Theophanis Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor, I, Leipzig
1883, 357.8–11. Various scholars, most notably С. А. Плетнева, Хазары, Москва 1976,
21, and W. Pohl, Die Awaren, 273 with n. 43, maintain that Kubrat’s Onogundurs separated
themselves from the Türks rather than the Avars.
 Containing the Bulgar threat: Byzantium’s search for an ally 401

large number of Byzantine solidi minted for late sixth- and seventh-century emper-
ors. These, along with numerous other objects of Byzantine provenance associated
with the burial assemblages of the Malo Pereshchepine group, clearly served as gifts
or bribes sent from Constantinople to Kubrat’s ‘court’.10
The rise of new, independent political centres – and elites – in the periphery of
the Avar confederation could not have been better timed to serve the political and
military interests of Byzantium, and it is certainly no mere chance that the flow of
Byzantine money or luxury goods in these areas coincided in time with the inter-
ruption, after the 626 debacle, of tribute payments to the Avars.11 Nevertheless, the
arrival of Asparuch’s warriors in the Lower Danube region, following the breakup of
Kubrat’s ‘Great Bulgaria’, became a fundamental factor affecting Byzantine strategic
thinking. Indeed, Bulgar depredations are said to have caused havoc in the region,
and are likely to have forced the imperial government, confronted at the time with an
Arab blockade of the capital, to reconsider its relations with the Avars. The sudden
re-appearance in the qaghanate, especially in its southeastern areas, of solidi struck in
the second half of the seventh century has been interpreted as indicating an anti-Bul-
gar alliance offered by the emperors in Constantinople to the Avars.12 To the same
direction points the discovery in Oltenia and eastern Romania of artefacts associated
with power and prestige such as bow fibulae, Byzantine belt buckles, earrings with
star-shaped pendants, as well as coins (both stray finds and hoards, including those of
10
See now P. Somogyi, New remarks on the flow of Byzantine coins in Avaria and Walachia
during the second half of the seventh century, in F. Curta (ed), The Other Europe in the Mid-
dle Ages. Avars, Bulgars, Khazars and Cumans, Leiden–Boston–New York 2008, 127–128; I.
Gavrituhin, La date du «trésor» de Pereščepina et la chronologie des antiquités de l’époque
de formation du khaganat Khazar, in C. Zuckerman (ed), La Crimée entre Byzance et le
Khaganat khazar, Paris 2006, 14–15. For the burial at Malo Pereshchepine (13 km southwest
of Poltava), which produced a hoard of gold and silver finds of some 21 kg. including three
golden rings with monograms mentioning Kubrat, as well as Sassanian, Türk and Avar arte-
facts (especially horse gear and weapons), see among others J. Werner, Der Grabfund von
Malaia Pereščepina und Kuvrat, Kagan der Bulgaren, München 1984, 31–36, 35–44, fig. 32,
1,2; А. Львова, Варварская группа вещей из Перещепинского комплекса, Материалы
по археологии, истории и этнографии Таврии 4 (1995) 257–270; A. Róna-Tas, Where was
Khuvrat’s Bulgaria?, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 53 (2000) 1–22. On
the other hand А. В. Комар, Перещепинский комплекс в контексте основных проблем
истории и культуры кочевников Восточной Европы VII–нач. VIII в., Степи Европы в
эпоху средневековья 5 (2006) 158–166, 230–239 rejects any connection with the Bulgars (he
locates Kubrat’s state to the east of the Taman peninsula, in the Kuban steppes), and attributes
instead the aforementioned assemblages to early Khazar elites.
11
Somogyi, New remarks, 87–103; F. Daim, Avars and Avar archaeology. An introduction, in
H.-W. Goetz–J. Jarnut–W. Pohl (eds), Regna and Gentes. The Relationship between Late
Antique and Early Medieval Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World,
Leiden–Boston 2003, 481.
12
Somogyi, New remarks, 128, 132. For the Avar embassy that arrived in Constantinople in
678 to congratulate the emperor Constantine VI on the occasion of his victory over the Arabs,
see Theophanes, 356.2–8.
402 Panos Sophoulis

Priseaca, Drăgăşani and Vărtop) minted for Heraclius, Constans II and Constantine
IV.13 These seem to have served as tribute payments to ‘barbarian’ chieftains estab-
lished in those regions after ca. 630. In the light of this evidence, there is reason to
suppose that in the second half of the seventh century the imperial government tried
to recruit these chieftains as allies against the Bulgars. However, with the arrival of
Asparuch’s band in the Balkans, some elements of these political organizations may
have been incorporated into the more powerful Bulgar union.14
Although immediately after the creation of the Bulgar state in Lower Moesia in
680/1 Constantine IV began paying tribute to Asparuch’s warriors, the Byzantines
never reconciled themselves fully to the presence of an independent polity on what
had previously been imperial soil, and made repeated attempts, at intervals of Arab
pressure, to the expel the newcomers from the Balkans. After Constantine IV unsuc-
cessful expedition in 680/1,15 Justinian II campaigned against the Bulgars in 688,
689 and 708, but the most important attempt came under Constantine V, who in
the middle of the eighth century launched a series of attacks, winning a number of
major victories which threw the Bulgar state into a prolonged period of instability.16
Constantine’s strategic objective during these wars was to strike at the heart of the
khanate in the hope that this would lead rapidly to its break-up. On numerous oc-
casions, the Byzantines delivered simultaneous attacks by land and sea, overstretch-
ing Bulgar military resources; while one part of the army (usually the imperial guard
regiments) moved directly across the Haimos Mountains, another, carried by the
imperial navy, landed on the Black Sea coast or on the south bank of the Danube,
attacking the Bulgars on their rear.17 Around 761 Constantine’s forces broke for the
13
A. Madgearu, Recent discussions about Onglos, in M. Iacob–E. Oberländer-Târ-
noveanu–F. Topoleanu (eds), Istro-Pontica. Muzeul tulcean la a 50-a. aniversare 1950–
2000, Tulcea 2000, 346 and n. 32; idem, The Avars and Dobrudja, ППИК 4/2 (2007) 271–
272; Somogyi, New remarks, 134–135. For the silver dress accessories found in Coşovenii de
Jos (Dolj district), see F. Curta, Invasion or inflation? Sixth- to seventh-century Byzantine
coin hoards in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Annali dell’Istituto Italiano di Numismatica
43 (1996) 116, who, however, associates them with the Bulgars. For a different opinion, see
Somogyi o.c., 117. For the Priseaca hoard, see also E. Oberländer-Târnoveanu, La mon-
naie byzantine des VIe–VIIIe siècles au-delà de la frontière du Bas-Danube. Entre politique,
économie et diffusion culturelle, Histoire & Measure 17/3–4 (2002) 176–177.
14
A hypothesis that seems to be corroborated by the Armenian Geography, which reports that
before establishing himself at Onglos, Asparuch had to chase the “Avars” from that region; see
Madgearu, Avars, 271–272.
15
Theophanes, 358.11–359.21; Nikephoros, c. 36.1–29; Beševliev, Periode, 176–180; И. Бо-
жилов–В. Гюзелев, История на България в 3 тома, 1: История на средновековна Бълга-
рия VII–XIV век, София 1999, 88–93.
16
For the campaigns of Justinian II, see Theophanes, 364.5–9, 364.11–18, 376.13–29; Nikep-
horos, c. 38.5–9.
17
Theophanes, 432.29–433.14, 436.21–24, 446.27–447.5, 447.10–26, 447.29–448.4, 448.12–
19; Nikephoros, c. 73.9–11, c. 76.8–16. c. 79.1–12, c. 82.1–20. On the internal turmoil in the
khanate, see Theophanes, 432.25–27, 433.14–22; Nikephoros, c. 76.1–5, c. 77.1–9; Nicephori
 Containing the Bulgar threat: Byzantium’s search for an ally 403

very first time into the “inner lands”.18 This came as a major shock to the Bulgars and,
naturally, exacerbated the pre-existing political turmoil.
It is against this backdrop that the Bulgars may have begun courting potential
allies to the Carpathian Basin. While the Avar qaghanate was already restricted in
political significance to the Hungarian Plain, between the Middle Danube and Tisza
Rivers, small centres of power had developed on the fringes of the Carpathian Basin,
as shown by the accumulation of equestrian graves and rich finds of gold – a rather
unusual phenomenon in the Late Avar Period – along the Middle Danube between
Vienna and Komárno, in the area around Keszthely west of Lake Balaton, in the Up-
per Tisza region, as well as in present-day northern Serbia and western Romania
(Vojvodina and Banat).19 The horseman burials discovered in cemeteries in northern
Serbia (Sremska Mitrovitsa, Pančevo, Vojka and Dudeştii Vechi – the latter on the
Serbo-Romanian border) are an indication that these frontier societies had retained
some of the aggressive nomad militarism which had been the true basis of Avar pow-
er in the sixth and early seventh centuries.20 At the same time, the great number of
sites that could be dated to this period seems to suggest a substantial growth of pop-

archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani Refutatio et eversio, ed. A. Mai, PG 100, col. 508C. For an
overview, Бешевлиев, Първобългарите, 107–128; Божилов–Гюзелев, История, 114–
120; Ziemann, Vom Wandervolk, 213–234.
18
Nikephoros, c. 73.11–20 and 219.
19
F. Daim, Byzantine belts and Avar birds. Diplomacy, trade and cultural transfer in the eighth
century, in W. Pohl–I. Wood–H. Reimitz (eds), The Transformation of Frontiers from Late
Antiquity to the Carolingians, Leiden–Boston–Cologne 2001, 163–164; idem, Byzantinische
Gürtel des 8. Jahrhunderts, in F. Daim (ed), Die Awaren am Rand der byzantinischen Welt.
Studien zu Diplomatie, Handel und Technologietransfer im Frühmittelalter, Innsbruck. G. Kiss,
A késői avar aranyozott övdísek, Somogyi múzeumok közlemémyei 11 (1995) 120 fig. 5. For
the treasure of Sânnicolaul Mare in Romanian Banat (Timiş county), see now Cs. Bálint, A
short essay on the Nagyszentmiklós Treasure, in T. Kovács (ed), The Gold of the Avars. The
Nagyszentmiklós Treasure, Budapest 2003, 57–69; see also N. Mavrodinov, La trésor Protob-
ulgare de Nagyszentmiklos (Archaeologia Hungarica 29), Budapest 1943; G. László–I. Rácz,
Der Goldschatz von Nagyszentmiklós, Budapest 1983. The treasure included 23 gold vessels of
alleged Byzantine, Inner-Asian, Sassanian and Avar provenance, with a chronology stretching
back over a period of 120 years (the latest finds date from the mid or late eighth century).
These objects may have in fact been “left-overs” from the Avar royal hoard, which remained in
the Carpathian Basin when most of the treasure was sent into the Frankish empire by Charle-
magne’s armies; Daim, Avar archaeology, 516. For other gold finds, signalling the existence of
regional centres of power in the southern borders of the Avar state, see I. Bóna, From Dacia
to Erdöelve: Transylvania in the period of the Great Migrations (271–896), in L. Makkai–A.
Mócsy (eds), History of Transylvania I, New York 2001, 239 (for the finds at Bačko Novo
Selo), and Н. Станојевић, Насеља VIII–IX века у Војводини, Рад војвoђанских музеја 30
(1987) 143.
20
Bóna, From Dacia, 238; L. Trbuhović, Avar finds from Sirmium and the surrounding
region, in N. Duval–E. L. Ochsenschlager–V. Popović (eds), Sirmium. Recherches
archéologiques en Syrmie IV, Belgrade 1982, 61–75.
404 Panos Sophoulis

ulation in that same area.21 Undoubtedly for the Bulgars, whose defence had been
overstretched by Constantine V’s successive campaigns, these peripheral centres rep-
resented an important reservoir of manpower to draw upon. The common nomadic
consciousness and culture would have facilitated the Bulgar approach to the local
elites, whose military resources the khan may have hoped to deploy against the Em-
pire, just as Krum reinforced his forces with Avars and Slavs from the “surrounding
Sklaviniai” in the early ninth century.22
This potentially dangerous development demanded an immediate Byzantine re-
sponse. It has been rightly noted that the occurrence of rich burial assemblages con-
taining gilded belt sets (many of them decorated with motifs of obvious Byzantine
origin) and other imports from the Adriatic and Italy in these peripheral regions of
the qaghanate point to the existence of regular diplomatic contacts between the lo-
cal elites and the Byzantine Empire.23 Indeed, a very large number of belt parts and
strap ends found in eighth-century graves are decorated with motifs of Byzantine/
Mediterranean origin (circus scenes, griffins, imperial portraits etc.). The vast major-
ity of these finds were produced in local workshops, although recent metallographic
and technological examinations have also identified a small number of Byzantine
originals that served as prototypes for Late Avar representation and craftsmanship.24
Luxury goods such as cast belt buckles, strap ends and mounts made of gold or silver
are very likely to have served as gifts to the leaders of these virtually independent
power centres, with which Byzantium evidently wanted to maintain good relations.25

21
M. Takács, Einige Aspekte der Siedlungsgeschichte des südlichen Drittels des Donau-The-
iss-Zwischenstromlandes von der awarischen Landnahme bis zum Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts,
Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 51 (1999–2000) 463; A. Kiss, Avar
Cemeteries in County Baranya (Cemeteries of the Avar Period, 567–829, in Hungary) II, Buda-
pest 1977, 154.
22
I. Dujčev, La Chronique Byzantine de l’an 811, TM 1 (1965) 212.43–44; Historia de Le-
one Bardae Armenii filio, in Leonis Grammatici Chronographia, ed. I. Bekker (CSHB), Bonn
1842, 347.2–8. These were doubtless former members of the Avar confederation who still
dwelt in the Carpathian Basin.
23
Daim, Byzantine belts, 161ff.
24
See now O. Heinrich-Tamaska, Avar-age metalworking technologies in the Carpathian
basin (sixth to eighth century), in F. Curta (ed), The Other Europe in the Middle Ages. Av-
ars, Bulgars, Khazars and Cumans, Leiden–Boston–New York 2008, 257. For the pieces of
Byzantine jewellery discovered in Avar cemeteries from the eighth century, see A. Distel-
berger, Das awarische Gräberfeld von Mistelbach, Innsbruck 1996, 77ff.; J. Callmer, The
Influx of oriental beads into Europe during the eighth century AD, in M. Rasmussen–U.
Lund Hansen–U. Nädman (eds), Glass Beads. Cultural History, Technology, Experiment
and Analogy, Lejre 1995, 49–54.
25
Quite the same way, although most of the belt components found in Bulgaria (at Preslav, Ka-
menovo, Velino, Varna, Divdjadovo, Kabiyuk, Zlatare, Gledačevo) are thought to have been
manufactured in Byzantine workshops for the eighth-century Bulgar elite, it is not unreason-
able to suppose that some may have been actually brought into the khanate in the course of
diplomatic missions from Byzantium; for these finds see Daim, Gürtel, 94–106; U. Fiedler,
 Containing the Bulgar threat: Byzantium’s search for an ally 405

The regular diplomatic contacts with the local elites – and of course the gifts brought
to them from Constantinople or Byzantine Italy – were doubtless aimed at weaning
them away from the political orbit of the Bulgars, and ensuring that they preferred
peaceful relations with the Empire.
Links between the two sides may have remained strong during the last quarter of
the eighth century, when Byzantium was itself under pressure from the Bulgars and in
need of allies to distract them. Nevertheless, it seems that Charlemagne’s campaigns
against the Avars in the 790’s and the intense power struggles between rival elites
that broke out thereafter initiated a period of more aggressive Bulgar involvement in
the southern and eastern regions of the former qaghanate, which eventually became
a major recruitment ground for Krum’s armies.26 As is well known, the tenth-century
compilation known as Suidas credits Krum with the destruction of the Avar state,
but this story has rightly been discounted as unreliable.27 However, the archaeologi-
cal evidence that we possess at present seems to suggest that a number of artefacts
comparable to those found on Late Avar sites (belt parts, jewellery, ceramic finds)
began to appear in the Lower Danube region in the beginning of the ninth century.28
It is conceivable that at least some of them had been collected in the former Avar ter-
ritory where the Bulgars, taking advantage of the collapse of the qaghanate, appear to
have been raiding, primarily for booty and slaves.29
Die spätenawarenzeitlichen Gürtelbestandteile von Typ Vrap-Erseke aus Velino (Bez. Varna,
Bulgarien), Germania 74 (1996) 248–264; С. Станилов, Художественият метал на
българското ханство на Дунав (VII–IX в), София 2006, 142.
26
For Charlemagne’s campaigns against the qaghanate and the civil war among rival Avar fac-
tions that followed, see Pohl, Awaren, 288–323. For Krum’s recruitment of Avar and Slav
contingents from that region in 811 and 814, see Chronicle of 811, 212.43–44 and Scriptor
incertus, 347.2–8. Among them may well have been the Slavic tribe of the Timociani, which
after 816 Omurtag attempted to incorporate into the Bulgar state.
27
Suidae lexikon, ed. A. Adler (Lexicographi Graeci recogniti et apparatu critico instructi 1),
I, Leipzig 1928, 483.29–484.12; T. Olajos, Le Lexique „Souda“ à propos du Khan bulga-
re Kroum et des Avars, in Ил. Илиев (ред), Polychronia. Сборник в чест на проф. Иван
Божилов, София 2002, 230–235; Божилов–Гюзелев, История, 126; A. Schwarcz,
Pannonien im 9. Jahrhundert und die Anfänge der directen Beziehungen zwischen dem ost-
fränkischen Reich und den Bulgaren, in W. Pohl–H. Reimitz (eds), Grenze und Differenz
im frühen Mittelalter, Vienna 2000, 101.
28
Ж. Въжарова, Славяни и номади на територията на днешнитебългарски земи, ПП 3
(1981) 53–55; U. Fiedler, Studien zu Gräberfeldern des 6. bis 9. Jahrhunderts an der unteren
Donau, Bonn 1992, 155–156, 173–174, 205, 224; V. Petrova, The early medieval yellow
pottery from Pliska, Bulgaria: The question of its provenance and the problem of its origin,
in J. Henning (ed), Post-Roman Towns, Trade and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium
II: Byzantium, Pliska, and the Balkans, Berlin 2007, 316–318; Д. Овчаров, Преславски
паралели в крепостта Крумово кале при Търговище, Известия на народния музей Шумен
6 (1973) 225–236; Р. Рашев, Ранносредновековна бронзова тока от Караманите, Арх 2
(1990) 45–50.
29
Krum is very likely to have imposed tribute on certain groups settled north or northwest of the
khanate, but in general, Bulgar expansion in this direction was limited.
406 Panos Sophoulis

In order to maintain the northern margins of the Empire secure, the government
at Constantinople resorted once again to a combination of military and diplomatic
action. There is some evidence to suggest that Byzantium’s search for a regional ally
now focused on the Avars’ vanquishers – the Franks. Indeed, the Annales Regni Fran-
corum report that right after the customary general assembly was held at Aachen in
spring of 811, Charlemagne sent his armies into three provinces of the Frankish realm;
one of them went into Pannonia to bring to an end the quarrels between “Huns”
(i.e. Avars) and Slavs, a move which could have made possible the encirclement of
the Bulgar khanate. The timing of the Frankish campaign in Pannonia – the first in
the region since 803 – was evidently not accidental.30 The autumn of 810 marked
the beginning of Byzantium’s rapprochement with Charlemagne (the two sides had
been locked in a bitter struggle for control over Venice and the Dalmatian coast since
806). The emperor Nikephoros I made an urgent request for peace and he is likely
to have proclaimed his intention of recognizing Charlemagne as basileus, while the
latter in return renounced his claims to Venice and Dalmatia.31 Military co-operation
was certainly not outside the framework of conciliatory developments. One may ven-
ture to suppose that Nikephoros, who was already planning to deliver a decisive blow
to Krum, may have requested Frankish assistance in doing so. To be sure, the Franks
themselves had every reason to be apprehensive of Krum’s growing adventurism in
the southern regions of the Carpathian Basin, and must have therefore been willing
to consider, at least, the idea of military co-operation with Byzantium.
Franco-Byzantine negotiations for a joint plan of action in the Balkans were re-
peated three years later. According to a number of western sources, early in spring
of 814, and as word had come that Krum was mobilizing his troops (including al-
lies from the periphery of the Bulgar state) for a major assault on Constantinople, a
Byzantine embassy set out for the Frankish court.32 It reached Aachen in the summer,
and when Louis the Pious, Charlemagne’s successor, finally received it in August the
Byzantines requested an alliance against the Bulgars and “other barbarian peoples”.33
Leo V may have hoped that Frankish pressure on the northwest would compel the
Bulgar ruler to abandon his preparations, but his diplomatic initiative proved un-
necessary, for in April 814 Krum suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died. The plan
30
Annales Regni Francorum inde ab. a. 741 usque ad a. 829, qui dicuntur Annales Laurissenses
maiores et Einhardi, ed. F. Kurze, in MGH (SGUS VI). Hannover 21950, 118, 134–135.
31
ARF, 132, 133–34; Einhardi Vita Karoli Magni, ed. G. Pertz, in MGH (SGUS XXV), Han-
nover 21965, 18.
32
They certainly left the capital before Krum’s death on April 13, and arrived in Nonantola (in
northern Italy) after May 8; see M. McCormick, Origins of the European Economy. Commu-
nications and Commerce, AD 300–900, New York 2002, 139–142, and App. 4, nos. 316, 330.
33
Eo anno placitum suum cum Franciis imperator Hludowihus habuit Kalendis Augusti mensis,
et legati Graecorum auxilium petebant ab eo contra Bulgares et caeteras barbaras gentes; Annales
Laurissenses minores, ed. G. H. Pertz, in MGH (SS I), Stuttgart–New York 21963, 122; Ama-
larii Versus Marini, ed. E. Dümmler, in MGH, Poetae latini aevi Carolini, I, Hannover 1881,
428; ARF, 141.
 Containing the Bulgar threat: Byzantium’s search for an ally 407

for an expedition against Constantinople was subsequently abandoned.34 Neverthe-

less, the gradual Bulgar expansion into the southern region of the Carpathian Basin
and the establishment – around 832 – of a lasting peace with the Franks inevitably
curtailed Byzantium’s capacity for diplomatic manoeuvring in the former Avar terri-
tories.35 It was only after the arrival of the Magyars in southeastern Europe in the end
of the ninth century that the government at Constantinople was once again in the
position to incite an attack on Bulgaria’s northern border.

In the course of this paper I have sought to focus, if only briefly, on a crucial aspect of
Byzantine foreign policy in the Balkans – the attempt to forge alliances with various
groupings and peoples who could be persuaded into acting in Byzantium’s interest,
as a deterrent to nomad or sedentary attacks from the north. While the evidence for
this policy at work dates back at least to the fifth century, Byzantium’s search for reli-
able allies in that region became something of a strategic priority following the crea-
tion of the Bulgar state in the Lower Danube in the 680’s. In exchange of material re-
wards, the imperial authorities tried to cultivate friendly relations with various local
potentates – mainly in the southern periphery of the disintegrating Avar qaghanate
– and either divert them away from the political orbit of the Bulgars, or recruit them
as allies against Byzantium’s neighbour. The close contacts between the Empire and
these elites are best illustrated by the discovery of eighth-century burial assemblages
containing belt parts and strap ends with motifs of Byzantine origin in present-day
Hungary, Serbia and Romania. However, in the early 800’s the Bulgar khans were
finally able to extend their influence into the southern and eastern regions of the
Carpathian Basin, which according to several written sources became a recruitment
ground for the Bulgar armies. In order to maintain the northern margins of the Em-
pire secure, the Byzantines may have subsequently transferred their allegiance to the
Franks who controlled most of the former terra Avarrorum. Indeed, there is some
evidence to suggest that in at least two occasions, in 811 and again in 814, the gov-
ernment at Constantinople invited the Franks into a coalition against the Bulgars – a
coalition that, nevertheless, proved to be ephemeral.

34
Scriptor incertus, 348.11–16; Symeonis magistri ac logothetae annales, in Theophanes contin-
uatus, Ioannes Caminiata, Symeon Magister, Georgius Monachus continuatus, ed. I. Bekker
(CSHB), Bonn 1825, 618.8–12.
35
Annalista Saxo, ed. G. H. Pertz, in MGH (SS VI), Hannover 1844, 574; Curta, Southeast-
ern Europe, 159; Schwarcz, Pannonien, 103. The large embankment at Bačka, in southwest-
ern Vojvodina, which runs across the angle between the Danube and Tisza Rivers (some 25 km
in all) and is dated to this period, may well have served as a frontier line; U. Fiedler, Zur da-
tierung der Langwälle an der Mittleren Donau, Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 16 (1986)
461–462; P. Squatriti, Moving earth and making difference: Dikes and frontiers in early
medieval Bulgaria, in F. Curta (ed), Borders, Barriers, and Ethnogenesis. Forntiers in Late An-
tiquity and the Middle Ages, Turnhout 2005, 81–86.