THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF EAST

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

IN THE MIDDLE AGES, 500–1300

The Routledge Handbook of East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1300, is the
first of its kind to provide a point of reference for the history of the whole of Eastern Europe
during the Middle Ages.
While historians have recognized the importance of integrating the eastern part of the
European continent into surveys of the Middle Ages, few have actually paid attention to the
region, its specific features, problems of chronology and historiography. This vast region rep-
resents more than two-thirds of the European continent, but its history in general—and its
medieval history in particular—is poorly known. This book covers the history of the whole
region, from the Balkans to the Carpathian Basin, and the Bohemian Forest to the Finnish
Bay. It provides an overview of the current state of research and a route map for navigating
an abundant historiography available in more than ten different languages. Chapters cover
topics as diverse as religion, architecture, art, state formation, migration, law, trade and the
experiences of women and children.
This book is an essential reference for scholars and students of medieval history, as well as
those interested in the history of Central and Eastern Europe.

Florin Curta is Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology at the University of Florida,
USA. His books include Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250 (2006); The Making
of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube, ca. 500–700 (2011), which received
the Herbert Baxter Adams Award of the American Historical Association; The Edinburgh
History of the Greeks, c. 500 to 1050: The Early Middle Ages (2011); Slavs in the Making: His-
tory, Linguistics and Archaeology in Eastern Europe (c. 500 to c. 700) (2021); and The Long Sixth
Century in Eastern Europe (2021).
 ROUTLEDGE HISTORY H A N DBOOKS

THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY HANDBOOK OF GENDER AND THE

URBAN EXPERIENCE
Edited by Deborah Simonton

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF MARITIME TRADE AROUND

EUROPE 1300-1600
Edited by Wim Blockmans, Mikhail Krom and Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF TRANSREGIONAL STUDIES

Edited by Matthias Middell

THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY HANDBOOK OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN

EUROPE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Volume 1: Challenges of Modernity
Edited by Wáodzimierz Borodziej, Stanislav Holubec and Joachim von Puttkamer

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF THE MONGOLS AND CENTRAL-

EASTERN EUROPE
Edited by Alexander V. Maiorov and Roman Hautala

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF MEDIEVAL RURAL LIFE

Edited by Miriam Müller

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF EAST CENTRAL AND EASTERN

EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES, 500–1300
Edited by Florin Curta

For more information about this series, please visit: [Link]

Routledge-History-Handbooks/book-series/RHISTHAND
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK
OF EAST CENTRAL AND
EASTERN EUROPE IN THE
MIDDLE AGES, 500–1300

Edited by Florin Curta

 First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Florin Curta; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of Florin Curta to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
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 CONTENTS

List of figures viii

Notes on contributors x
List of maps xviii

Introduction 1
Florin Curta

1 Situating medieval Eastern Europe: historiography and discontent 9

Christian Raffensperger

2 Between migrations and origo gentis: population movements 23

Danijel Džino

3 Steppe empires without emperors: Avars, Bulgars and Khazars 40

Evgenia Komatarova-Balinova

4 Medieval nomadism 62
Aleksander ParoĔ

5 Early conversion to Christianity, Judaism and Islam 83

Maddalena Betti

6 Conversion and Christianization: Bohemia, Poland, Hungary and

Rus’ (9th to 12th centuries) 101
Ivo Štefan

7 State formation in the 10th century 121

David Kalhous

v
 Contents

8 Strongholds and early medieval states 139

Hajnalka Herold

9 The rise of the early medieval aristocracy 155

Cosmin Popa-Gorjanu

10 Rulers between ideal and reality 174

Dušan Zupka

11 Royal governments 191

Adrien Quéret-Podesta

12 Rural economy 204

Marek Hladík

13 Crafts, coins and trade (900–1300) 227

Dariusz Adamczyk

14 Towns and cities 245

Lauren‫܊‬iu R ădvan

15 Lords, peasants and slaves 265

Cameron Sutt

16 Women and children 280

Sébastien Rossignol

17 Jews, Armenians and Muslims 298

Boris Stojkovski

18 Church organization 316

Dariusz Andrzej Sikorski

19 Saints and relics 338

Paweá Figurski and Grzegorz Pac

20 Heresy and popular religion 354

Kiriá Marinow, Jan Mikoáaj Wolski

21 Crusades and Eastern Europe 374

Aleksandar Uzelac

vi
 Contents

22 The Baltic Crusades (1147–1300) 393

Gregory Leighton

23 Political and practical literacy 409

Mirjana Matijeviü Sokol

24 Law 425
Ivan Alexandrov Biliarsky

25 History writing 443

Timofei V. Guimon and Aleksei S. Shchavelev

26 Hagiography 464
Stefan Rohdewald

27 Monumental architecture 484

Alice Isabella Sullivan

28 Monumental art 506

Maria Alessia Rossi

29 New powers—Serbia and Bulgaria 530

Francesco dall’Aglio

30 The Mongols in Eastern Europe 547

Roman Hautala

Index 560

vii
 FIGURES

1.1 Medieval Europe in the High Middle Ages. After Cook and Herzman,
Medieval World View, pp. 234–35. Map drawn by András Vadas 11
3.1 The Inner Town of Pliska. Aerial photograph by Andrei Aladzhov.
Courtesy of the National Archaeological Institute with Museum in Sofia 46
3.2 The Citadel of Pliska. Photograph by Andrei Aladzhov, with the author’s
additions: 1—the stone and brick wall of the Citadel, 2—the “Small
Palace,” 3—the cross-domed church, 4—the Bath, 5—the presumably
pagan sanctuary, and 6—a stone square. Courtesy of the National
Archaeological Institute with Museum in Sofia 46
3.3 Pliska, glass plates with gold inlays from the hoard discovered in the
so-called Round Square, north of the Citadel. Photograph by Krasimir
Georgiev. Courtesy of the National Archaeological Institute with
Museum in Sofia 48
3.4 Tableware with burnished ornament from catacomb inhumations in the
cemetery excavated by V. A. Babenko (1896) and Countess P. S. Uvarova
(1902) in Saltovo (now Verkhnyi Saltiv, region of Kharkiv, Ukraine).
Photograph by Evgenia Komatarova-Balinova. Courtesy of the State
Historical Museum in Moscow 52
12.1 Mikulþice-Podbrežník, general plan of the settlement with 20 silos (1),
with the remains of a 9th-century house (2, 3) and of silos, one of which
contains a horse skeleton (4). Mikulþice-Trapíkov, a stone oven in the
corner of a 9th-century house discovered in the settlement (5). Photos by
Marek Hladík and Jaroslav Škojec 211
12.2 An ideal reconstruction (1) and the plan (2) of the 9th-century, open
settlement in Mikulþice-Trapíkov, with a number of agricultural tools and
other implements from the neighboring stronghold at Mikulþice-Valy:
sickle (3), shears (4), plowshare (5), hoe (6), colter (7), wooden ladles (8–10)
and spoon (12), scythe (11) and quern stone (13). After Hladík, Mazuch
and Poláþek, Zázemí hradištČ, p. 76; Látková, Rostliny, p. 101. Drawing by
Rostislav Skopal 215

viii
 Figures

12.3 An ideal reconstruction of a Great Moravian stronghold (based on the

Mikulþice-Valy) and a graphic representation of the social and economic
relations of an early medieval center place with its agrarian hinterland.
Drawing by Jan Knýbel 216
13.1 Dirham networks in the tenth century (asterisks: hoards of at least
ten coins). Map drawn by Lech RowiĔski. After Dariusz Adamczyk,
Monetarisierungsmomente, Kommerzialisierungszonen oder fiskalische
Währungslandschaften? Edelmetalle, Silberverteilungsnetzwerke und Gesellschaften
in Ostmitteleuropa (800–1200) (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 2020), p. 46 228
27.1 Cathedral of St. Domnius, 7th century, Split, Croatia. Photograph by Bill
Higham 487
27.2 Plan of the Monastery of the Round Church, 10th century, Preslav,
Bulgaria. Drawing by Joel Kelly 489
27.3 Church of St. Panteleimon, 12th century, Gorno Nerezi, Republic of
North Macedonia 493
27.4 Cistercian Monastery, 12th century, Câr ‫ ܊‬a, Romania 494
27.5 Church of St. Nicholas, 12th century, Kuršumlija, Serbia. Photograph
courtesy Stanislav Zivkov, Stanislav Zivkov Collection, Department of Arts
and Archaeology, Princeton University 498
28.1 Church of St. Foška in Peroj, Croatia: the Ascension, wall painting in the
triumphal arch (early 12th century). Photo by Ivo Pervan. Courtesy of The
Historical and Maritime Museum of Istria and Kuüa fresaka u Draguüu 508
28.2 Church of St. Andrew in Hidegség, Hungary: Christ in Majesty
surrounded by the symbols of the Evangelists, with a row of Apostles
below, wall painting in the apse (12th century) 509
28.3 Communion of the Apostles, icon, tempera on wood (dated between 1070
and 1130) 511
28.4 Church of St. Sophia, Kiev, Ukraine: the Hippodrome narrative, detail of
the kathisma, wall painting in the southwestern turret (early 12th century) 515
28.5 Church of St. Demetrios in Thessaloniki, Greece: St. Demetrius with two
founders, mosaic on the northern panel of the southwestern pier (7th century) 516
28.6 Sainte-Face de Laon, icon, tempera on wood (first half of the 13th century).
Cathedral of Laon, France. Photo by Vassil, Public Domain, Wikimedia
Commons 519
28.7 Church of the Mother of God, Studenica Monastery, Serbia: eastern wall
and sanctuary (1190–1196). Courtesy of BLAGO Fund, USA/Serbia,
[Link] 520

ix
 CONTRIBUTORS

Dariusz Adamczyk is Assistant Professor of Eastern European History at the Leibniz

University in Hannover and researcher at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw, cur-
rently working on a project about the history of monetization and the political economy of
state building in the Middle Ages. He is the author of Silber und Macht. Fernhandel, Tribute
und die piastische Herrschaftsbildung in nordosteuropäischer Perspektive (800–1100) (Harrassow-
itz, 2014) and Monetarisierungsmomente, Kommerzialisierungszonen oder fiskalische Währungsland-
schaften? Edelmetalle, Silberverteilungsnetzwerke und Gesellschaften in Ostmitteleuropa 800–1200
(Harrassowitz, 2020). Adamczyk is the co-editor of two collections of studies entitled
Fernhändler, Dynasten, Kleriker. Die piastische Herrschaft in sozialen und kontinentalen Beziehu-
ngsgeflechten vom 10. bis zum frühen 13. Jahrhundert (Harrassowitz, 2015) and Monetisation and
Commercialisation in the Baltic Sea, 1050–1450 (Routledge, 2021).

Maddalena Betti earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Padova (2008). Her
dissertation was published as The Making of Christian Moravia (858–882). Papal Power and Po-
litical Reality (Brill, 2014). Her research focuses on the eastern borderlands of the Carolingian
Empire and on the Christianization of Central Europe in the 9th century. She also works on
the history of the papacy and the history of Rome from the 8th to the 10th century. She is
currently a research fellow at the University Ca’ Foscari in Venice.

Ivan Alexandrov Biliarsky is Professor in the Institute of Historical Studies, Bulgarian

Academy of Sciences in Sofia, as well as Professor of Law History in the School of Law at
the Free University in Varna. He graduated from the Law School of the University “Saint
Clement of Ochrid” in Sofia (1984), obtained his Ph.D. from the Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences (1989), and his habilitation from the University of Sofia (2009). His main domains
of interest are medieval institutions and law, sources, manuscript studies and political theol-
ogy. He worked in the main libraries and manuscript collections as Mount Athos, Vatican,
Jerusalem, Paris, Athens and Romania. Among his main publications are Hierarchia. L’Ordre
sacré. Etude sur l’esprit romaïque (Freiburg, 1997); Word and Power in Mediaeval Bulgaria (Brill,
2011); The Tale of the Prophet Isaiah. The Destiny and Meanings of an Apocryphal Text (Brill,
2013; Vestigia semper adora. Power, Faith and Institutions in Byzantine and Post-Byzantine World
(Bucharest/Brăila, 2020).

x
 Contributors

Florin Curta is Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology at the University of Flor-
ida. His books include Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press,
2006) and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1300 (Brill, 2019). He is also the editor of
two collections of studies entitled East Central Europe and Eastern Europe in the Early Middle
Ages (University of Michigan Press, 2005) and The Other Europe in the Middle Ages: Avars,
Bulgars, Khazars and Cumans (Brill, 2008). Curta is the editor of the Brill online Bibliography
of the History and Archaeology of Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages and co-editor of the Brill
series “East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450.” His most recent
book is an economic and social history of Eastern Europe during the “long sixth century,”
to be published in 2021 by Brill.

Francesco Dall’Aglio is research fellow in Medieval History at the Institute for Historical
Studies of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He specializes in the medieval history of
South-Eastern Europe, with a focus on Bulgaria and its relations with the Byzantine Empire,
the Western powers and the steppes world. He is the author of Innocenzo III e i Balcani: fede
e politica nei Regesta pontifici (Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,” 2003), and of
Tentative Empires: Bulgaria and the Latins of Constantinople, 1185–1261, to be published this year
by Brepols. Dall’Aglio is the supervisor and main editor of the corpus of Hungarian sources
for the history of medieval Bulgaria, a project to be completed and published in 2024.

Danijel Džino is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and Archaeology at Mac-
quarie University, Sydney. His books include Becoming Slav, Becoming Croat: Idemtity Transfor-
mation in Post-Roman and Early Medieval Dalmatia (Brill, 2010) and From Justinian to Branimir:
The Making of the Middle Ages in Dalmatia (Routledge, 2021). Džino is also co-editor of
Byzantium, its Neighbors and its Cultures (Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 2014)
and Migration, Integration and Connectivity on the Southeastern Frontier of the Carolingian Empire
(Brill, 2018).

Paweá Figurski is Assistant Professor in the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of

the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. His publications include papers on manuscript
culture, political thought and the ecclesiastical history of early and high medieval Europe.
He was the principal investigator of the project “Zaniedbane Ĩródáa. Spoáeczno-polityczna
historia Polski na podstawie rĊkopisów liturgicznych (do początku XIV wieku),” financed
by the Polish Science Center (NCN). Between 2014 and 2017, he was a Garstka Visiting
Fellow at the University of Notre Dame. He is the co-editor of Political Liturgies in the High
Middle Ages. Beyond the Legacy of Ernst H. Kantorowicz, a book that will be published this year
by Brepols.

Timofei V. Guimon is a researcher at the Institute of World History of the Russian Acad-
emy of Sciences. He is the author of Istoriopisanie rannesrednevekovoi Anglii i Drevnei Rusi. Srav-
nitel’noe issledovanie (Moscow, 2012) and Historical Writing of Early Rus (c. 1000–c. 1400) in a
Comparative Perspective, to be published this year by Brill. He also wrote many articles, most
of them dedicated to Rus’ and Anglo-Saxon historical writing, as well as to early literacy and
written culture of Rus’ in a comparative perspective. Guimon is the editor and co-editor of
several volumes of Drevneishie gosudarstva Vostochnoi Evropy.

Roman Hautala earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Siena in 2011. He is
a Docent in the Department of History at the University of Oulu (Finland) and a Senior

xi
 Contributors

Research Fellow in the “Sh. Marjani” Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences in
Tatarstan (Kazan, Russian Federation). His books include Ot “Davida, tsaria Indii” do “ne-
navistnogo plebsa satany.” Antologiia rannikh latinskikh svedenii o tataro-mongolakh (Kazan, 2015),
Crusaders, Missionaries and Eurasian Nomads in the 13th–14th Centuries: A Century of Interactions
(Bucharest/Brăila, 2017) and V zemliakh “Severnoi Tatarii.” Svedeniia latinskikh istochnikov o
Zoloti Orde v pravlenie khana Uzbeka (1313–1341) (Kazan, 2019). Hautala is the editor of both
the Golden Horde Review and the Golden Horde Legacy. His most recent book is a collection
of Latin sources (with parallel translation into Russian) on the history of the Golden Horde
from its founding to the mid-14th century.

Hajnalka Herold is Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology at the University of Exeter.

She is author of Die frühmittelalterliche Siedlung von Örménykút 54. I (Budapest, 2004), Früh-
mittelalterliche Keramik von Fundstellen in Nordost- und Südwest-Ungarn (Budapest, 2006), and
Zilingtal (Burgenland)—die awarenzeitliche Siedlung und die Keramikfunde des Gräberfeldes (Mainz,
2010). Herold is the co-editor of “Castellum, civitas, urbs.” Zentren und Eliten im frühmittelalter-
lichen Ostmitteleuropa (Rahden, 2015) and Fortified Settlements in Early Medieval Europe: De-
fended Communities of the 8th to 10th Centuries (Oxbow Books, 2016). As Principal Investigator
of the project “Glass Networks: Tracing Early Medieval Long-Distance Trade, c. 800–1000
CE,” funded by the Leverhulme Trust, her recent research focused on the long-distance
trade between Europe and the Middle East in the early Middle Ages. Herold has also led a
fieldwork-based study of the post-Roman to medieval landscape transformations in eastern
Austria. The study was funded by the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Society for
Medieval Archaeology and the County of Lower Austria.

Marek Hladík is a researcher at the Center for Slavic and Medieval Archeology of the Insti-
tute of Archeology in Brno. For more than ten years, he has been a member of the research
team at Mikulþice-Valy. In addition to theoretical archeology, he specializes in economic
archaeology, particularly the study of social and economic relations of early medieval cen-
ters with their economic hinterlands. Hladík is the author of Mikulþice and its Hinterland. An
Archaeological Model for Medieval Settlement Patterns on the Middle Course of the Morava River (7th
to Mid-13th Centuries) (Brill, 2020) and the co-author of Úpravy hrobových jam a dĜevČné kon-
strukce v hrobech na pohĜebištích Velké Moravy (sociální, duchovní a chronologický fenomén) (Brno,
2017) and Zázemí hradištČ Mikulþice-Valy v 9. století (Brno, 2020).

David Kalhous is Associate Professor of History and Auxiliary Historical Sciences at the
Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. His monographs on the medieval history of
East Central Europe include Anatomy of a Duchy: The Political and Ecclessiastical Structures of
Early PĜemyslid Bohemia (Brill, 2012) and Bohemi: Prozesse der Identitätsbildung in frühpĜemyslid-
ischen Ländern (bis 1200) (Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2018).
He currently works on an analysis of the chronicle of Cosmas of Prague based on a close
reading of later chroniclers using Cosmas and on the codicological and paleographical ex-
amination of the manuscripts. He is also looking at governmental practices of King PĜemysl
Ottokar II (1253–1278) using digital humanities for a book to be published by Böhlau.

Evgenia Komatarova-Balinova is Assistant Professor in the Medieval Department at the

National Institute of Archaeology and Museum in Sofia. She is a specialist in the archaeology
of early medieval Bulgaria, with a particular research interest in “migrations” and cultural

xii
 Contributors

changes. Komatarova-Balinova is the co-editor of Eurika. In honorem Ludmilae Donchevae-Pet-

kovae (Sofia, 2009) and a member of the editorial board of Prinosi kăm bălgarskata arkheologiia
and In sclavenia terra.

Gregory Leighton earned his Ph.D. in History from Cardiff University in 2019. His first
book, Sacred Landscape and Crusading Ideology in the Medieval Baltic Region, is currently under
contract with ARC-Humanities Press for the series “War and Conflict in Premodern Societ-
ies.” Leighton is currently co-editing a collection of studies to be published with Brill under
the title Religious Rites of War: Eastern and Northern Europe, 900–1500. He also serves on the
editorial board for Ordines Militares. Colloquia Torunensia Historica. Leighton has contributed
to the most recent project of the Malbork Castle Museum, Bilde von Prage. Czeska rzeĨba stylu
piĊknego okoáo 1400 w paĔstwie krzyĪackim w Prusach. Beginning with September of 2021, he
will be a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of History and Archival Sciences at
the Nicholas Copernicus University, in ToruĔ, Poland.

Kiriá Marinow is Associate Professor of Byzantine Studies at the University of ŁódĨ. A spe-
cialist in the medieval history of the Balkans, he is the author of Carstwo buágarskie. Polityka,
kultura, gospodarka, spoáeczeĔstwo, 866–971 (Warsaw, 2015) and co-author of Piotr IĝwiĊty car
buágarski (ok. 912–969). Maria Lekapena caryca buágarska (ok. 912–?963) (Cracow, 2018). He is
also the co-editor of several collections of studies: Varia Mediaevalia. Studia nad Ğredniowiec-
zem w 1050. rocznicĊ Chrztu Polski (ŁódĨ 2016), The Bulgarian State in 927–969. The Epoch of
Tsar Peter I (ŁódĨ, 2018), and Widno Mahometa, cieĔ Samuela. Cesarstwo bizantyĔskie w relacji z
przedstawiecielami innych religii i kultur (VII-XV w.)(ŁódĨ, 2020). Marinow’s next book is about
Tărnovo, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, during the late Middle Ages.

Mirjana Matijeviü Sokol is Professor of Auxiliary Sciences of History at the University of

Zagreb. She is the author of Studia diplomatica. Rasprave i prinosi iz hrvatske diplomatike (Zagreb,
2014), Evangeliarium Spalatense (Split, 2016) and Studia mediaevalia selecta. Rasprave i prinosi
iz hrvatske srednjovjekovne povijesti (Zagreb, 2020) and the co-editor of History of the Bishops
of Salona and Split by Archdeacon Thomas of Split (Central European University Press, 2006).
Matijeviü Sokol is the editor-in-chief of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts series
“Codex diplomaticus regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae. Supplementa.”

Adrien Quéret-Podesta is Adjunct Professor in the Department of History of the Institute

of Slavic Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He is the author of Annales
Magdeburgenses Brevissimi. The Short Annals of Magdeburg and their Significance in the Discussion
on the Genesis of Czech and Polish Annalistic Productions (Palacký University Olomouc, Faculty
of Arts, 2016). His research focuses primarily on the 11th century in East Central Europe.
He is currently a member of the research team working on the project “Testimonies of the
oldest history of Slavs. Latin Serial, v. 3: Middle Ages, 1, Hungarian Sources” funded by the
Institute of Slavic Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences. In that capacity, he works on
charters and other non-narrative sources.

Grzegorz Pac is Associated Professor of History at the University of Warsaw. He works

on the role of women and the cults of saints in the early and High Middle Ages. He is
the author of Kobiety w dynastii Piastów. Rola spoáeczna piastowskich Īon i córek do poáowy XII
wieku—stadium porównawcze (ToruĔ, 2013) and co-editor of OryginalnoĞü czy wtórnoĞü? Studia

xiii
 Contributors

poĞwiĊcone polskiej kulturze politycznej i religijnej (X-XIII wiek) (Warsaw, 2020). He is currently
the principal investigator in the Polish-Norwegian research project entitled “Symbolic Re-
sources and Political Structures on the Periphery: Legitimization of the Elites in Poland and
Norway, c. 1000–1300.”

Aleksander ParoĔ is Associate Professor in the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of

the Polish Academy of Sciences in Wrocáaw. He is the author of Pieczyngowie. Koczownicy w
krajobrazie politycznym i kulturowym s̗ redniowiecznej Europy (Wrocáaw, 2015), the English trans-
lation of which will be published by Brill this year as Pechenegs: Nomads in the Political and
Cultural Landscape of Medieval Europe. ParoĔ is also the co-editor of two collections of studies
entitled Potestas et communitas. Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zu Wesen und Darstellung von Herrschafts-
verhältnissen im Mittelalter östlich der Elbe (Warsaw/Wrocáaw, 2010) and Serica—Da Qin. Studies
in Archaeology, Philology and History on Sino-Western Relations (Wrocáaw, 2012).

Cosmin Popa-Gorjanu is Associate Professor of Medieval History at the “1 Decembrie

1918” University of Alba Iulia. He is the author of Medieval Nobility in Central Europe: the
Himfi Family (Cluj-Napoca, 2019), as well as several studies on the history of Romanian
knezes and nobles in medieval Hungary and Transylvania and on the regional identity of
Transylvanian nobility in the 13th to 15th centuries. He is also editor of Transylvania in the
Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries: Aspects of Regional Identity (Cluj-Napoca, 2012) and Corrup-
tion and Anticorruption in Historical Perspective ( from the Middle Ages to Modern Age) (Cluj-Na-
poca, 2016).

Lauren‫܊‬iu Rădvan is Professor of Medieval and Pre-Modern History at the “Alexandru

Ioan Cuza” University in Ia‫܈‬i. His books include At Europe’s Borders: Medieval Towns in the
Romanian Principalities (Brill, 2010), OraЮele din аările române în evul mediu (Ia‫܈‬i, 2011), So-
cial and Political Elites in Eastern and Central Europe (15th-18th Centuries), with Cristian Luca
(School of Slavonic and East European Studies UCL, 2015), along with many other volumes
of studies. He is also the editor of the journals “Historia Urbana” and “Analele ‫܇‬tiinĠifice ale
UniversităĠii «Alexandru Ioan Cuza» din Ia‫܈‬i,” the History series. His most recent book is on
newly discovered plans of Ia‫܈‬i, the former capital of the principality of Moldavia, published
with Mihai Anatolii Ciobanu (Planurile oraЮului IaЮi în arhive străine, Bucharest/Heidelberg,
2020).

Christian Raffensperger is Professor of History at the Wittenberg University. His books

include Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ and the Medieval World (Harvard University Press,
2012), The Kingdom of Rus’ (ARC Humanities Press, 2017) and Conflict, Bargaining, and Kin-
ship Networks in Medieval Eastern Europe (Lexington Books, 2018). The overarching focus of
his scholarship is to demonstrate the interconnectivity of medieval Europe, especially inclu-
sive of connections between Eastern Europe (broadly construed) and the rest of the medieval
European world; a key aspect of which is examining how the modern construct of medieval
Europe was made in the first place. These connections can also be seen in his digital human-
ities projects such as Russian Genealogy Project, hosted by the Harvard Ukrainian Research
Institute ([Link]/rusgen). His current project is a study of medieval political
culture in medieval Europe.

Stefan Rohdewald is Professor of East and South-East European History at the University
of Leipzig, after teaching Southeast European History for several years at the University of

xiv
 Contributors

Giessen. He is the author of Götter der Nationen. Religiöse Erinnerungsfiguren in Serbien, Bul-
garien und Makedonien bis 1944 (Böhlau, 2014) and the co-editor of Religiöse Erinnerungsorte
in Ostmitteleuropa. Konstitution und Konkurrenz im nationen- und epochenübergreifenden Zugriff
(Akademie Verlag/De Gruyter, 2013). Rohdewald chairs the priority program Transottoman-
ica: Eastern European-Ottoman-Persian Mobility Dynamics (SPP 1981), financed by the German
Research Foundation ([Link]). His next book is an expanded, English
version of his 2014 monograph and will be published by Brill under the title Gods of the Na-
tions. Remembering Medieval Religious Figures in Serbia, Bulgaria and Macedonia.

Maria Alessia Rossi, who earned her Ph.D. in Art History in 2017 from the Courtauld
Institute of Art, is an Art History Specialist for the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton Uni-
versity. Her main research interests include medieval monumental art in the Byzantine and
Slavic cultural spheres, cross-cultural contacts between the Eastern and Western Christian
world, and the role of miracles in text and image. She co-edited Late Byzantium Reconsidered:
The Arts of the Palaiologan Era in the Mediterranean (Routledge, 2019) and Byzantium in Eastern
European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages (Brill, 2020). Rossi is the cofounder of the
initiative North of Byzantium (NoB), the digital platform Mapping Eastern Europe (https://
[Link]), and the co-editor of the Trivent book series “Eastern
European Visual Culture and Byzantium (13th -17th c.).” Currently, she works on a mono-
graph exploring the role of Christ’s miracles in the monumental art of late Byzantium.

Sébastien Rossignol is Associate Professor of medieval European history at Memorial

University, Newfoundland and Labrador. His research covers various subjects including
early urbanization in Central Europe and the communication processes involved in the
use of charters in 13th-century Silesia and Pomerania. He is the co-editor of Wáadza a
struktury spoáeczne w Ğredniowieczu na wschód od Łaby. Materiaáy konferencyjne (Wrocáaw/Göt-
tingen, 2008), Mittelalterliche Eliten und Kulturtransfer östlich der Elbe. Interdisziplinäre Beiträge
zu Archäologie und Geschichte im mittelalterlichen Ostmitteleuropa (Göttingen, 2009), Potestas
et communitas. Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zu Wesen und Darstellung von Herrschaftsverhältnissen
im Mittelalter östlich der Elbe (Warsaw/Wrocáaw, 2010), Ad libros! Mélanges d'études médiévales
offerts à Denise Angers et Joseph-Claude Poulin (Montréal, 2010), and Landscapes and Societies in
Medieval Europe East of the Elbe. Interactions Between Environmental Settings and Cultural Trans-
formations (Toronto, 2013). In addition, Rossignol has written several articles examining the
contributions of women to the dissemination of literacy and written culture in medieval
Central Europe.

Aleksei S. Shchavelev is a researcher at the Institute of World History of the Russian

Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He is the author of Slavianskie legendy o pervykh kniaz’iakh:
Sravnitel’no-istoricheskoe issledovanie modelei vlasti u slovian (Moscow, 2007) and Khronotop der-
zhavy Rurikovichei (911–987) (Moscow, 2020), as well as several articles on historical writing
(especially origo gentis legends) and political thought in medieval Rus’, Bulgaria, Bohemia,
Poland, Byzantium and Iceland. His research also focuses on problems of state formation in
Rus’, its interrelations with Byzantium and other surrounding peoples, the chronology and
geography of the events taking place in Eastern Europe during the 9th to 11th centuries.

Dariusz Andrzej Sikorski is Professor of Medieval History at the Adam Mickiewicz

University in PoznaĔ. He is the author of a trilogy: KoĞcióá w Polsce za Mieszka I i Bolesáawa
Chrobrego. RozwaĪania nad granicami poznania historycznego (PoznaĔ, 2011), Początki KoĞcioáa w

xv
 Contributors

Polsce. Wybrane problemy (PoznaĔ, 2012), Wczesnopiastowska architektura sakralna (jako Ĩródáo his-
toryczne do dziejów KoĞcioáa w Polsce) (PoznaĔ, 2012). His most recent book is Religie dawynch
Sáowian. Przewodnik dla zdezorientowanych (PoznaĔ, 2018). He has also co-edited a collection
of studies entitled Cognitioni gestorum. Studia z dziejów Ğredniowiecza dedykowane Profesorowi
Jerzemu Strzelczykowi (Warsaw, 2006).

Ivo Štefan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Archeology of the Charles University
in Prague. He is the author of several dozen studies devoted mainly to the Christianization
and the rise of early medieval states in Central Europe. He is the co-editor of Kostel Panny
Marie na Pražském hradČ. Dialog nad poþátky kĜesĢanství v ýechách (Prague, 2018) and the au-
thor of Zrození hĜbitova. Poþátky farní organizace v þeských zemích, to be published this year by
the Karolinum publishing house in Prague. Štefan is the chief editor of Studia mediaevalia
Pragensia.

Boris Stojkovski earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Novi Sad (2014) and
is now Assistant Professor of Medieval History in the Faculty of Philosophy of that same
university. His research focuses on Arab and Ottoman history and its ties to Southeastern
Europe in the Middle Ages. He is the editor of Voyages and Travel Accounts in Historiography
and Literature (Budapest/Novi Sad, 2020), a book to which he contributed his own a study on
Southern Hungary and Serbia in al-Idrisi’s Geography. He has also written several articles on
al-Idrisi and Abu-Hamid al-Garnati. Currently, he is a part of an interdisciplinary research
project on synagogues and Jewish heritage in Vojvodina, for which he prepares a study on
the earliest possible mentions of Jews in Southern Hungary during the Middle Ages.

Alice Isabella Sullivan, who earned her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (2017), is
a historian of medieval art, architecture, and visual culture, specializing in the artistic and
architectural production of Eastern Europe and the Byzantine-Slavic cultural spheres. She
has written on topics related to monumental architecture with a focus on cross-cultural in-
teractions, and the coordination between architecture, decoration, ritual and other ephem-
eral facets of medieval sacred spaces. She is the author of award-winning articles in The Art
Bulletin (2017) and Speculum (2019), and the co-author of a study published in Gesta (2021).
She is co-editor of Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages (Brill,
2020) and co-founder of North of Byzantium and Mapping Eastern Europe—two initiatives that
explore the rich history, art and culture of the northern frontiers of the Byzantine Empire in
Eastern Europe during the medieval and early modern periods.

Cameron Sutt is Professor of History at Austin Peay State University. His book, Slavery in
Árpád-era Hungary in a Comparative Context (Brill, 2015), examined slavery in the Hungarian
kingdom. He has published on various aspects of medieval Hungarian society including in-
heritance practices, land-use strategies and estate management, and the property and agency
of women.

Aleksandar Uzelac is senior research associate at the Institute of History in Belgrade. He is

the author of Pod senkom psa. Tatari i južnoslovenske zemlje u drogoj polovini XIII veka (Belgrade,
2015) and Krstaši i Srbi (XI–XII vek) (Belgrade, 2018). He dealt with the impact of the early
crusades on Southeastern Europe and the history of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in
several articles published in Istorijski þasopis, the Golden Horde Review, Ogի uz-Türkmen Aras֊tır-
maları Dergisi and Revista de istorie militară.

xvi
 Contributors

Jan Mikoáaj Wolski is Assistant Professor of History at the Waldemar Ceran Research Center at the
University of ŁódĨ. He specializes in the spiritual and literary culture of the medieval Slavs. He is the
author of Kultura monastyczna w póĨnoĞredniowiecznej Buágarii (ŁódĨ, 2017) and co-editor of ĝred-
niowieczne herezje dualistyczne na Baákanach. ħródáa sáowiaĔskie (ŁódĨ, 2017). Another collection of
study co-edited by Wolski will be published in Greece this year.

Dušan Zupka is Assistant Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts of the Comenius
University in Bratislava. He is the author of Ritual and Symbolic Communication in Medieval
Hungary under the Árpád Dynasty, 1000–1301 (Brill, 2016) and Meþ a kríž. Vojna a náboženstvo
v stredovekej strednej Európe 10.-12. storoþie (Bratislava, 2020). Zupka is co-editor of Rulership
in Medieval East Central Europe (Bohemia, Hungary and Poland), to be published this year by
Brill. His research focuses on power, rulership and communication in medieval East Central
Europe. Since 2017, he is co-editor of the Brill series “East Central and Eastern Europe in
the Middle Ages, 450–1450.”

xvii
 MAPS

Map 1 The landscape and political map of Eastern Europe. Country abbreviations: AL – Albania;
BA – Bosnia-Herzegovina; BG – Bulgaria; BY – Belarus; CZ – Czech Republic; HR –
Croatia; HU – Hungary; LT – Lithuania; LV – Latvia; MD – Moldova; ME – Montenegro;
MK – Macedonia; PL – Poland; R) – Romania; RS – Serbia; RU – Russia; SI – Slovenia; SK –
Slovakia; UA – Ukraine. The numbers refer to the following detail maps

xviii
 Maps

Detail map 1 with place names mentioned in the text: 1 – Althaus; 2 – Balga; 3 – Bochnia; 4 – BĜeclav;
5 – BĜevnov; 6 – Brno; 7 – Budeþ; 8 – Chmielnik; 9 – Christburg; 10 – Cracow; 11 – CzerwiĔsk;
12 – DĊbno; 13 – DzierĪnica; 14 – Elbing; 15 – Frauenburg; 16 – Georgenburg; 17 – GdaĔsk; 18 – Giecz;
19 – Gniezno; 20 – Grzybowo; 21 – Henryków; 22 – Hodonín; 23 – Holubice; 24 – Jihlava; 25 – Jose-
fov; 26 – Kalisz; 27 – KamieĔ Pomorski; 28 – Kąpiel; 29 – Kliszów; 30 – Koáobrzeg; 31 – Königsberg;
32 – Kopþany; 33 – Kostice; 34 – Kruszwica; 35 – Kulm (Cheámno); 36 – Kulmsee; 37 – Kutná Hora;
38 – Lebus (Lubusz); 39 – ŁĊczyca; 40 – Legnica; 41 – Łekno; 42 – Levý Hradec; 43 – LitomČĜice;
44 – Löbau; 45 – Lubin; 46 – Lužice; 47 – Lwówek; 48 – Marienburg (Malbork); 49 – Marienw-
erder; 50 – MiĊdzyrzecz; 51 – Mikulþice; 52 – Mogilno; 53 – Nysa; 54 – Olomouc; 55 – Opatovice;
56 – Opava; 57 – Opole; 58 – Ostrov; 59 – Ostrów Lednicki; 60 – Páock; 61- Pohansko; 62 – Pokarwis;
63 – PoznaĔ; 64 – Prague; 65 – Prenzlau; 66 – Prušánky; 67 – Puátusk; 68 – Rajhrad; 69 – Rehden;
70 – ěíp Mountain; 71 – Roztoky; 72 – Sandomierz; 73 – Sartowitz; 74 – Sázava; 75 – Schweidintz;
76 – Sedlec; 77 – Sieciechów; 78 – Sokolniki; 79 – ĝroda; 80 – Staré MČsto (Uherské HradištČ);
81 – Stettin (Szczecin); 82 – Thorn (ToruĔ); 83 – Tišnov; 84 – Tum; 85 – Truso; 86 – Trzebnica;
87 – Tyniec; 88 -Vienna; 89 – Višši Brod; 90 – Vyšehrad; 91 – Warsaw; 92 – WĊgrzynów;
93 – WLĞlica; 94 – Wáoclawek; 95 – Wolin; 96 – Wrocáaw; 97 – Zalesie; 98 – Zawada LanckoroĔska;
99 – ZgáowLączka; 100 – Záotoryja; Znojmo

xix
 Maps

Detail map 2 with place names mentioned in the text: 1 – Alba Iulia; 2 – Baþ; 3 – Bajþ; 4 – Bakonybél;
5 – Banská Bystrica; 6 – Banská Štiavnica; 7 – Baška; 8 – Biharea (Bihar); 9 – Biskupija; 10 – Bistri‫܊‬a;
11 – Bodrog; 12 – Bojná; 13 – Brassó (Braúov); 14 – Breaza; 15 – Buda; 16 – Câr‫܊‬a; 17 – Cenad
(Csanád); 18 – Cluj; 19 – Cuvin; 20 – Dăbâca; 21 – Devín; 22 – Dvigrad (Kanfanar); 23 – Eger;
24 – Esztergom; 25 – FeldebrĘ; 26 – Fonyód; 27 – GyĘr; 28 – Hidegség; 29 – Hum; 30 – Igriú; 31 – Ják;
32 – Jarak; 33 – Kalocsa; 34 – Keszthely; 35 – Knin; 36 – Kölked; 37 – Komárno; 38 – Koprivnica;
39 – Körmend; 40 – Košice; 41 – KostoĐany pod Tribeþom; 42 – Križevci; 43 – Krk; 44 – Krupina;
45 – Kunbábony; 46 – Lepuri; 47 – Mediaú; 48 – Mosaburc (Zalavár); 49 – Muþ Gornji; 50 – Muhi;
51 – Mužla; 52 – Nagyszombat (Trnava); 53 – Nin; 54 – Nitra (Nyitra); 55 – Nova Tabla; 56 – Ócsa;
57 – Oradea; 58 – Orăútie; 59 – Osor; 60 – Pannonhalma; 61 – Pécs; 62 – Pécsvárad; 63 – Peroj;
64 – Pest; 65 – Pilis; 66 – Plomin; 67 – Pobedim; 68 – Poreþ; 69 – Pozsony (Bratislava); 70 – Prešov;
71 – Rab; 72 – Rodna; 73 – Samobor; 74 – Sárospatak; 75 – Sebeú; 76 – Sibiu; 77 – Sighiúoara;
78 – Somlóvásárhely; 79 – Somogyvár; 80 – Šopot; 81 – Sopron; 82 – Sultiüi; 83 – Sveti Lovreþ;
84 – Svetvinþenat; 85 – Szabolcs; 86 – Szalonna; 87 – Székesfehérvár; 88 – Szekszárd; 89 – Szirák;
90 – Szólád; 91 – Tekov; 92 – Trencsén (Trenþin); 93 – Trogir; 94 – Vác; 95 – Valun; 96 – Varaž-
din; 97 – Vasvár; 98 – VeĐka Lomnica; 99 – Veszprém; 100 – Vinkovci; 101 – Vrbnik; 102 – Vrsar;
103 – Vukovar; 104 – Zadar; 105 – Zagreb; 106 – Ždrapanj; 107 – Zobor; 108 – Zvolen

xx
 Maps

Detail map 3 with place names mentioned in the text: 1 – Aukaimis; 2 – Bisen; 3 – Dorpat;
4 – Dünemünde; 5 – Durben; 6 – Fellin; 7 – Junigeda; 8 – Kaunas; 9 – Kernavơ; 10 – Marienburg;
11 – Memel; 12 – Moon; 13 – Narva; 14 – Ösel; 15 – Pisten; 16 – Reval; 17 – Riga; 18 – Saule;
19 – Segewold; 20 – Treiden; 21 – Üxküll; 22 – Vilnius; 23 – Wenden

xxi
 Maps

Detail map 4 with place names mentioned in the text: 1 – Belgorod; 2 – Bezliudovka (Bezliudivka);
3 – Chernihiv (Chernigov); 4 – Halych; 5 – Hlodosy; 6 – Hrabovets’; 7 – Iziaslav; 8 – Kamenets
(Kamianets’ Podil’s’kyi); 9 – Kholm (Cheám); 10 – Kiev; 11 – Kolodiazhne; 12 – Kopiivka; 13 –
Kremenets; 14 – Krylos; 15 – Luchesk (Luts’k); 16 – Lwów (L’vigorod); 17 – Malo Pereshchepyne;
18 – Martynivka; 19 – Novi Sanzhary; 20 – Nyzhniv; 21 – Pereiaslavl’ (Pereiaslav Khmel’nyts’kyi);
22 – Raihorodok; 23 – Shestovytsia; 24 – Subbotsi; 25 – Sudova Vyshnia; 26 – Ugrovesk; 27 – Vlad-
imir-in-Volhynia (Volodymyr-Volyns’kyi); 28 – Vozensens’ke; 29 – Vydubichi; 30 – Zachepylivka;
31 – Zbruch; 32 – Zlivki

xxii
 Maps
xxiii

Detail map 5 with place names mentioned in the text: 1 – Anchialos; 2 – (Curtea de) Argeú; 3 – Bachkovo; 4 – Bar; 5 – Belgrade (Singidunum); 6 – Bilino
Polje; 7 – Blagaj; 8 – Boiana; 9 – Braþ; 10 – Braniþevo; 11 – Brskovo; 12 – Budimlja; 13 – Câmpulung; 14 – Cariþin Grad; 15 – ýelarevo; 16 – Cetă‫܊‬eni; 17 –
Chatalar (Khan Krum); 18 – Cherven; 19 – ýuþer; 20 – Dabar (Priboj); 21 – Dristra (Dorostolon); 22 – Dubrovnik (Ragusa); 23 – Ðunis; 24 – Gledachevo;
25 – Gornji Katun; 26 – Gornji Matejevac; 27 – Gradac; 28 – Humac; 29 – Istria; 30 – Ivanovo; 31 – Kabiiuk; 32 – Koloþep; 33 – Kolusha (Kiustendil);
34 – Korþula; 35 – Kotor; 36 – Krăn; 37 – Krepcha; 38 – Krupište; 39 – Kuršumlija; 40 – Lipljan; 41 – Lom; 42 – Lovech; 43 – Madara; 44 – Marcianopolis
(Devnia); 45 – Mircea Vodă; 46 – Mogorjelo; 47 – Murfatlar; 48 – Mušiüi; 49 – Nesebăr (Mesembria); 50 – Nicopolis ad Istrum; 51 – Novi Pazar; 52 – Novo
Brdo; 53 – Novgrad; 54 – Obârúia Nouă; 55 – Omiš; 56 – Peü; 57 – Philippopolis (Plovdiv); 58 – Pirdop; 59 – Pliska; 60 – Podgradina; 61 – Polaþe; 62 –
Prþanj; 63 – Preslav; 64 – Prizren; 65 – Provat (Provadiia); 66 – Ras; 67 – Ravna; 68 – Ruse; 69 – Salona (Solin); 70 – Selo; 71 – Severin; 72 – Shumen; 73
– Sirmium; 74 – Sjenica; 75 – Skopje; 76 – Sopoüani; 77 – Sozopol; 78 – Split; 79 – Srebrenica; 80 – Sredets (Serdica); 81 – Ston; 82 – Studenica (Hvostanska);
82 – Svishtov; 83 – (Veliko) Tărnovo; 84 – Varna; 85 – Velino; 86 – Vidin; 87 – Žiþa; 88 – Žitomisliþi; 89 – Zveþan
 Maps

Detail map 6 with place names mentioned in the text: 1 – Agios Germanos; 2 – Ano Boularioi;
3 – Athos; 4 – Ballsh (Glavinitsa); 5 – Bitola; 6 – Constantinople; 7 – Corinth; 8 – Daphni; 9 – De-
bar; 10 – Devol; 11 – Drembica (Velica); 12 – Grevenon; 13 – Ioannina; 14 – Kanina; 15 – Kastoria
(Kostur); 16 – Kurbinovo; 17 – Leshnice e Sipërme; 18 – Malathrea; 19 – Moglena; 20 – Monemvasia;
21 – Ohrid; 22 – Pallandion; 23 – Philippi; 24 – Qafa; 25 – Steiris; 26 – Stobi; 27 – Sthlanitza (Pella);
28 – Strumica; 29 – Thessaloniki; 30 – Veljusa; 31- Vodena; 32 – Vodoþa; Vrap

xxiv
 Maps

Detail map 7 with place names mentioned in the text: 1 – Arkhangel’sk; 2 – Balymer; 3 – Biliar;
4 – Bolgar; 5 – Bol’shoe Borshevo; 6 – Bosporos (Kerch’); 7 – Caffa (Feodosia); 8 – Cherson;
9 – Dmitriev; 10 – Dmitrov; 11 – Galich (Merskii); 12 – Gnezdovo; 13 – Gorodets (on the Volga);
14 – Iaroslavl’; 15 – Kalka; 16 – Kolomna; 17 -Kozel’sk; 18 – Krutik; 19 – Mayaki; 20 – Mayatskoe;
21 – Moscow; 22 – Murom; 23 – Nereditsa; 24 – Novgorod; 25 – Peryn’; 26 – Polotsk (Polatsk);
27 – Pskov; 28 – Riazan’; 29 – Rostov; 30 – Sarai; 31 – Sarkel; 32 – Smolensk; 33 – Solkhat;
34 – Staraia Ladoga; 35 – Sugdaia (Sudak); 36 – Suvar; 37 – Suzdal’; 38 – Tana; 39 – Tankeevka;
40 – Timerovo; 41 – Titchikha; 42 – Tmutorakan; 43 – Tol’enskoe; 44 – Torzhok; 45 – Tsimliansk;
46 – Turov (Turau); 47 – Tver; 48 – Uglich; 49 – Verkhnyi Saltiv; 50 – Ves’; 51 – Vitebsk (Vitsiebsk);
52 – Vladimir(-on-the-Kliazma); 53 – Volok Lamskii (Volokolamsk)
xxv
 INTRODUCTION
Florin Curta

Almost two decades ago, in a conference paper entitled “Location in space and time,” the
German historian Matthias Springer asked rhetorically how many people in his day were
able to distinguish between Slovenia, Slovakia and Slavonia.1 His was a tongue-in-cheek
remark about the then American President George W. Bush, who, in 1999, had told a Slovak
reporter that he had learned about his country from its foreign minister visiting Texas. It
turned out that that minister, however, was from Slovenia, not Slovakia. At the beginning
of the second millennium, this was a politician’s gaffe de jour. Aware of that, Springer’s audi-
ence may have nodded and smiled approvingly. No record exists of the reaction that either
the German historian or his audience had to the publication of a map just a few years later
in a much used and praised handbook of Byzantine Studies. The map purports to show the
Empire’s northern neighbors, and has Slovaks placed next to Avars, Pechenegs and Khazars.2
Meanwhile, prominent scholars write nonchalantly about the “Slavlands” being one of the
vast and dynamic areas of Europe “whose transformations owed and brought so much to
early medieval civilization.”3 The same scholars explain that by the time Charlemagne was
born, the “eastern reaches of the Frankish territory” were separated from Byzantium by the
“dreaded Avars” and, beyond them, by the “Protobulgarian Empire, then expanding over
a great swath [sic] of central Europe, from roughly the modern-day Republic of Moldova
down into Greece.”4 Others dread the migration of the (early) Slavs, who “broke the unity
of the continuity of the continent” or, alternately, the Mongols, who “were almost entirely
a negative force, with their tendency to mass killing and brutal exploitation.”5 At least the
Slavs receive occasional kudos: “they may have lacked circuses, togas, Latin poetry and cen-
tral heating, but the Slavs were as successful in imposing a new social order across central and
Eastern Europe as the Roman had been to the west and south.”6 By contrast, the “pony-rid-
ing Avars” had only “aggressive impulses.” 7 Like them, several other “central Asian peoples
entered Europe before the age of the barbarian invasions was over,” with the Bulgars and the
Magyars at the head of the list.8 Both groups came from “the grasslands where Europe meets
Asia.”9 The Magyars at least played “a significant role in western Europe’s eastern frontier,”
while the Bulgar(ian)s could consider themselves lucky to have such a charismatic leader as
“Boris the Bogomil.”10 Under the pressure of the Bulgars and the Moravians from the south
and from the east (!), the Poles had to embrace Catholicism.11 However, it took Emperor
Otto II [sic] to establish the archdiocese of Gniezno “on the frontiers of the known world.”12

1
 Florin Curta

Being left out of history was not the only problem of Eastern Europe. In the 860s, the first
wave of Viking invaders crossed the Baltic Sea “to what are now the Baltic states.”13 When
they got to Russia, they found there the Varangians, who are “another Slavic people.”14
Like the Bulgarians, the Rus’ got lucky, though. First, they were able to overcome, albeit
only gradually, “many of the Slavic, Lithuanian, Finnish and Magyar peoples who were
then living on the steppe.”15 Second, having tapped onto the resources of Russia, the Rus’
began to trade with their neighbors. That much results from “the presence of Iranian coins
in eastern Europe.”16 Moreover, since the Byzantines paid in cash, “Kiev had much more of
a money economy than did western Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries.”17 Third, Cyril
and Methodius knew Slavic, and the alphabet called Glagolitic “later developed into Church
Slavonic.”18 Even the Euchologion of Sinai was “composed in Glagolitic.”19 Unfortunately,
“successive Germanic and Scandinavian attacks threatened the survival of the principalities
of Vladimir and Novgorod” after 1240.20
While several historians have recognized the importance of integrating the eastern part of
the European continent into surveys of the Middle Ages, few have actually paid attention to
the region, its specific features, problems of chronology and historiography. Some claim that
studying the history of East Central (or Eastern) Europe is simply “provincializing a field of
study.”21 The definition of medieval Europe has presumably been expanded, and the eastern
part of the Continent has now been incorporated into textbooks of global medieval history.
There is no need for a special study of the region, so the argument goes, and to claim otherwise
amounts to an ill-conceived refusal to participate in the study of global history. However, at
a theoretical level, at least, an “add-Eastern-Europe-and-stir” approach to the history of the
Continent or, even more so, of the world is reductionist: a way to distill the specific history
of the region to a simple solution, one that can easily match (and confirm) models created on
the basis of West European history. In practice, the end result of such an approach is often a
caricature of East European history, as shown above on the basis of the evidence selected from
the most prominent, if not also egregious examples.22 To judge by that evidence, one needs
more, not less knowledge of the history of Eastern Europe. In fact, a careful examination of
the current situation will indicate that, although ignored by many, a chasm has been created,
and continues to grow between the production of outstanding works by talented historians of
Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, and the reception of that scholarly output, its impact on
historiography in general, and its supposed incorporation into “global history.” At this point,
in order to bridge that chasm and to correct, if only partially, one’s own misperceptions and
stereotypes, it is important to have essential guidance through the complex past of the region.
This handbook, the first of its kind on the subject, aspires to be that guidance and to make
a significant contribution to scholarship by providing a point of reference for the history of
whole of Eastern Europe. Geographic monikers for Eastern Europe include East Central Eu-
rope, Southeastern Europe, the Balkans and the Carpathian Basin. Eastern Europe, defined
here, extends from the Ore Mountains and the Bohemian Forest to the Ural Mountains,
as well as, north to south, from the Finnish Bay to the southernmost tip of Peloponnesus.
This vast region represents more than two-thirds of the European continent. This book
covers the history of the whole region in the Middle Ages, ca. 500 to 1300. The goal is to
offer an overview of the current state of research and the basic route map for navigating an
abundant historiography available in more than ten different languages. The literature pub-
lished in English on the medieval history of Eastern Europe—books, chapters and articles—
represents a little more than 11 percent of that historiography. The handbook is therefore
meant to provide an orientation into the existing literature that may not be available because
of linguistic barriers, and, in addition, a minimal bibliography in English.

2
 Introduction

To accomplish this formidable task, 33 historians and archaeologists from 15 countries

have taken on a series of major topics. None of them is concerned with political history
per se, with the exception of the last two chapters—Francesco dall’Aglio on the rise of Serbia
and the Second Bulgarian Empire and Roman Hautala on the Mongols in Eastern Europe.
Christian Raffensperger introduces the problems of the terminology used for the region,
the geographical boundaries of the book’s coverage and some of the important moments
in the history of history writing about the Middle Ages in the region. Daniel Džino ad-
dresses the vexed question of the role of migration in the ethnic make-up and the political
configuration of East Central and Eastern Europe. Special emphasis is placed in the contrast
between well-documented migrations (such as that of the Magyars) and the problems of the
historiography postulating migrations that are not attested either in the written or in the
archaeological sources (e.g., the Slavs and the Croats). Evgenia Komatarova-Balinova deals
with the earliest polities in the medieval history of East Central and Eastern Europe. Since
those polities have been established by people otherwise regarded as “nomads,” her chapter
entails a discussion of state formation among nomads but engages in debates surrounding the
interpretation of the archaeological evidence pertaining to the “steppe empires” in the lands
north of the Black and Caspian Seas (the Khazars) and the polities established in the northern
Balkans (Bulgaria) and the Carpathian Basin (the Avars). The emphasis on nomads continues
with Aleksander ParoĔ’s chapter. His goal is to take a fresh, critical look at the work done on
medieval nomads, especially in Eastern Europe, over the last three decades or so. The chapter
focuses on the relation between pastoralism and nomadism and highlights the specific fea-
tures of the history of Eastern Europe in relation to the early medieval nomads.
The next two chapters are dedicated to the question of religious conversion. Maddalena
Betti deals with the 9th-century conversion to Christianity in Moravia and Bulgaria, the
conversion of the Khazars to Judaism and of the Volga Bulgars to Islam. The chapter also
discusses the thorny issue of mission (from Byzantium and/or the Frankish Empire), as well
as the strategies employed in conversion and the political implications of that transformation.
By contrast, Ivo Štefan brings forward four cases of conversion “from the top” in the 10th
century. Two of them are linked to matrimonial alliances, and the political significance of
those alliances is discussed in detail. The establishment of the ecclesiastical structures and
the Christianization of the rural communities in Bohemia, Poland, Hungary and Rus’ are
also in the focus of this chapter. The use of violence in the conversion (Hungary, Rus’) is
also a question of significance in Štefan’s contribution to this volume. Continuing those
themes, David Kalhous deals with the rise of early medieval states in the second half of the
10th century. His chapter discusses the nature of those polities, the mechanisms responsible
for the rise of such political configurations and the impact of later sources on the assess-
ment of the social and political forces responsible for state formation. Kalhous compares five
political entities in the region—Croatia, Bohemia, Poland, Rus’ and Hungary. A perhaps
unusual chapter is that on strongholds and medieval states. The topic of hillforts has gained
enormous popularity in the last few years, particularly in relation to supposed slave trade
routes. However, of much greater significance, especially in the case of Poland, is the role of
strongholds in the building of the earliest medieval states. In her chapter, Hajnalka Herold
discusses questions of administration and military organization pertaining to that special role
of fortifications, using different areas of East Central Europe for useful comparison.
Cosmin Popa-Gorjanu adopts a similarly comparative approach in Chapter 9, which is
dedicated to the rise of the early medieval aristocracy. The question of the medieval elites
in East Central and Eastern Europe has received much attention in the last three decades
since the fall of Communism. Historians are currently debating the origin of the medieval

3
 Florin Curta

nobility and the significance of land ownership in defining the specific features of the social
structure of medieval Eastern Europe. Popa-Gorjanu examines the issue through the lens of
that already abundant historiography. Equally large is now the body of scholarly literature
on kingship in the region. Rulers and rulership have been the object of intense research,
especially in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Dušan Zupka discusses the medie-
val ideals of rulership in East Central and Eastern Europe, while at the same time focusing
on key sources (such as “mirrors of kings”) produced in the area, which could illuminate
the origin and significance of the rudiments of political theory upon which the ideals of
kingship were based. By contrast, while still working in a comparative mode (largely on the
basis of the three polities in East Central Europe—Bohemia, Hungary and Poland), Adrien
Quéret-Podesta takes a more pragmatic look at politics with an emphasis on royal govern-
ment, from taxation and tolls (especially in Hungary) to the organization of chanceries. The
emphasis is placed on the role of the written document in the organization of elaborate forms
of government control.
While most chapters in this book are based on the analysis of written sources, Marek
Hladík capitalizes on the explosion of archaeological research in the region over the last 50
years or so, which has brought an enormous amount of information pertaining to rural set-
tlements and the agrarian economy. Hladík discusses that on the basis of a case study, namely
that of 9th-century Moravia and the surrounding regions. By contrast, LaurenĠ iu Rădvan’s
chapter is a survey of towns and urban settlements within the entire region and throughout
the entire period covered in this book. By AD 1000, Kiev was one of the largest urban set-
tlements of Europe, a key trade and industrial center of the continent. Three hundred years
later, there were several large cities in existence in East Central Europe, which played an
equally significant role in European economy. Rădvan discusses the circumstances in which
the earliest urban centers developed, the role of the transformations of the 13th century and
the granting of privileges to old and new settlements.
The rise of the medieval states in East Central and Eastern Europe coincides with the
striking of the first coins as instruments of exchange on the local markets. Dariusz Adamczyk
discusses the development of continental trade across the region, from the trade routes es-
tablished by Viking merchants in the 10th century from the Baltic to the Caspian Sea, to the
east-west axis of trade that became the characteristic feature of the later centuries. Cameron
Sutt deals with the hotly debated issue of social organization in medieval East Central and
Eastern Europe, particularly with the thorny question of slavery. Much like Hladík, he
chose a case study (Hungary) to address in detail the problems created in the historiography
of the region by Marxist scholars that insisted upon the difference between serfs and slaves.
Women and, to a lesser extent, children in the Middle Ages have recently received much
attention from historians working on medieval East Central and Eastern Europe. Sébastien
Rossignol addresses questions pertaining to research on gender and age categories in medie-
val society. Of particular significance in this respect is the role of both women and children
in the process of Christianization. Although much has been written on Jews in medieval
Eastern Europe, there has been no attempt to synthesize a multitude of studies and their
conclusions pertaining to different religious minorities in the region. Boris Stojkovski deals
comparatively with three such groups ( Jews, Armenians and Muslims) in an attempt to de-
fine their role in medieval society, and the relations between the Christian majority and the
non-Christian groups.
In Chapter 18, Dariusz Andrzej Sikorski deals with the organization of the church struc-
tures in the newly converted territories. He places special emphasis not only on the organiza-
tion and size of dioceses (eparchies) in both Catholic and Orthodox countries in the region,

4
 Introduction

but also on the key aspect of when and how parishes were first established. Following the
publication of a number of influential works on the history of the saint cults in the region,
the topic has received a great deal of attention. Paweá Figurski and Grzegorz Pac deal with
the cult of pan-Christian saints, as well as with the first native saints—kings, princes and
monks. Equally significant is the question of relics and the transformation of some of the sites
on which they were kept in centers of pilgrimage. The so-called double faith in the history
of Christianization of certain areas of Eastern Europe (especially Rus’) has been the target of
much criticism in the last years. The whole notion of “popular religion,” on the other hand,
was targeted by revisionist studies. Kiriá Marinow and Jan Wolski explore those issues, with
special attention to recent work on the Bogomils of Bulgaria and Bosnia.
The first five crusades crossed (or at least tangentially affected) East Central and South-
eastern Europe. Some of them had a great significance for the political developments in the
region, particularly after the conquest of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade. In Chapter
22, Aleksandar Uzelac discusses the impact of those crusades upon the political configura-
tion and the social cleavages in the region. Unlike other crusading territories (Outremer,
the Iberian Peninsula), Eastern Europe offers a unique example of expeditions sanctioned by
the papacy that were neither for the recuperation of previously lost, Christian territory, nor
organized against Muslims. The Baltic crusades are therefore a special chapter in the history
of the crusades, and they involve directly the history of Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages.
Gregory Leighton presents the most recent results of the historical research dedicated to that
topic.
Christianization in East Central and Eastern Europe meant the adoption of several types
of scripts (some created for that occasion only, such as Glagolitic). It is only after that that
the written word began to play a significant role in the political and religious life of the
region. In her chapter, Mirjana Matijeviü-Sokol deals with the history of “useful” writing,
particularly for record-keeping, transactions and official documents. Despite the heavy in-
fluence of canon and Byzantine law, the legal history of medieval Eastern Europe includes a
number of original sources, such as the Russkaia Pravda, which have received a great deal of
scholarly attention. In both Hungary and Rus’, the history of medieval law has usually been
written as part of the history of the medieval state. In Chapter 25, Ivan Biliarsky addresses
those historiographic problems, as well as the results of more recent studies that insist upon
the contextualization of those sources. History writing has a long tradition in East Central
and Eastern Europe, which in the case of Bulgaria includes the so-called Bulgar inscriptions
meant to commemorate the ruler’s deeds or faithful servants. However, a true historiography
did not come into being in Eastern Europe before Christianization. The chapter by Timofey
V. Gimon and Aleksei Shchavelev examines the most important works of the medieval his-
toriography of the region, from the Russian Primary Chronicle to the work of Thomas, the
archdeacon of Spalato. By contrast (but also with some overlap), Stefan Rohdewald deals
with the lives of saints written especially during the later period. He pays special attention
to the first texts written in Old Church Slavonic, the lives of Constantine/Cyril and Metho-
dius, as well as to the (Latin) lives of the first royal saints, especially Stephen I, King of
Hungary. Furthermore, he discusses the question of the relation between the surviving texts
and the “canonization” of saints.
Alice Isabella Sullivan’s chapter on monumental architecture is a survey of the most im-
portant lines of research on the medieval architecture of the region, which is otherwise
known as one of very interesting blending of different artistic traditions. The chapter insists
upon the role of the so-called pre-Romanesque monuments of Croatia, Moravia and Poland,
as well as on the transfer of architectural patterns from other areas of the Byzantine Empires

5
 Florin Curta

into the Balkans. Art historians have recently paid a great deal of attention to monumental
programs of fresco painting in both Byzantine (Nerezi) and Romanesque (KostoĐany pod
Tribeþom) churches. Maria Alessia Rossi discusses those recent studies, as well as the older
conclusions of the research dedicated to the earliest frescoes and mosaics of Rus’. Finally, her
chapter focuses on the production of icons in the region and their role in liturgical practice.
The last two chapters are dedicated to major political changes taking place in Eastern
Europe during the last century considered in this book. Francesco dall’Aglio discusses the
rise and growth of two new polities in Southeastern Europe—Nemanjid Serbia and Assenid
Bulgaria. The consequences of the Fourth Crusade upon both states are also discussed in
his chapter. Roman Hautala deals with the 1238–1241 campaigns of the Mongols in East-
ern (Volga Bulgharia, Rus’) and East Central (Poland, Hungary) Europe. While dealing in
detail with the destruction and devastation brought by the military campaign, his chapter
also insists upon the economic and political transformations brought to the region by the
imposition of pax Mongolica and the establishment of the Golden Horde in the steppe lands
north of the Black Sea.
As apparent already through this brief survey of the contents, this handbook provides
considerable room for a discussion of nomads—from Avars to Mongols—who have influ-
enced developments in Eastern Europe from ca. 600 to ca. 1300. The “steppe empires”
have rarely been integrated into surveys of the medieval history of Europe, which, more
often than not treat Magyars, Pechenegs and Mongols as agents of destruction and doom.
Both Khazaria and Volga Bulgharia played a key role in the establishment of trade routes
from the Baltic to the Caspian and, later, Black Sea, which brought the Vikings to Eastern
Europe and are ultimately responsible for the rise of the polity(-ies) conventionally known
as Kievan Rus’.
Moreover, this handbook highlights the role of the archaeological evidence particularly
for the earlier segment of the chronological interval covered by the constituent chapters.
The extraordinary development of medieval archaeology over the last half of a century has
dramatically changed the picture of Eastern Europe between ca. 500 and ca. 1000. Even
after AD 1000, archaeology remains the main, if not the only source of evidence for several
parts of Eastern Europe—the Baltic region, northern Russia and the territory of present-day
Romania. Without archaeology, very little would be known about some of the most fasci-
nating aspects of the medieval history of Eastern Europe. The rise of towns in Russia, the
wealth and power of the Avar qaganate, the building in Pliska of one of the largest palatial
compounds in early medieval Europe, the earliest mosque and caravanserai built in the 10th
century in Bolgar, or the role of brick and stone castles in the Baltic crusades—those and
many other facets of the medieval history of Eastern Europe have been brought to the fore
by means of archaeological research.
This handbook is also an invitation to comparison between various parts of the region
at the same chronological level. For example, the Khazar conversion to Judaism, the Volga
Bulghar conversion to Islam and the conversion to Christianity of two other polities are
compared in Chapter 5. Similarly, the chapters on state formation and royal saints compare
different polities—Bohemia, Hungary and Poland—while that on law contrasts developments
in Bulgaria and Serbia to those in Rus’. An even greater emphasis on comparison appears
in the chapters on agriculture, strongholds, social hierarchies, law, art and historiography.
Will this handbook provide a remedy to the problems mentioned at the beginning of
this introduction? Neither the authors nor the editor wants to buoy themselves up with any
false hopes. Books rarely, if ever bring about immediate removal of stereotypes and misrep-
resentations, but they certainly can contribute to change. It will take time, perhaps several

6
 Introduction

generations of scholars, to clear the fog and to recognize medieval Eastern Europe for what it
really was. With scholarly lucidity and humility, we feel we have accomplished much, if our
handbook will serve as navigational buoy through the troubled waters of the 21st-century
research on the Middle Ages.

Notes
1 Matthias Springer, “Location in space and time,” in The Continental Saxons from the Migration Period
to the Tenth Century. An Ethnographic Perspective, edited by Dennis Howard Green and Frank Sieg-
mund (Rochester: Boydell Press, 2003), pp. 11–36, here p. 13.
2 Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, edited by Elizabeth Jeffreys with John Haldon and Robin
Cormack (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 942 map 12. To be sure, Lynette
Olson, The Early Middle Ages. The Birth of Europe (Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2007), p. 122 knows of a “Czech kingdom of Great Moravia.” Sebastian Brather, Archäologie der
westlichen Slawen. Siedlung, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im früh- und hochmittelalterlichen Ostmitteleuropa
(Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2001), p. 110 is equally convinced that the architecture of
Herrenhöfe in Great Moravia goes back to late antique villae.
3 Jennifer D. Davis and Michael McCormick, “The early Middle Ages: Europe’s long morning,” in
The Long Morning of Medieval Europe. New Directions in Early Medieval Studies, edited by Jennifer D.
Davis and Michael McCormick (Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 1–10, here p. 7. The
“Slavlands” must be the lands of the Slavs, who were the “people of Slov” (Brather, Archäologie, p.
52). Clifford R. Backman, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, 3rd edition (New York/Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2015), pp. 5 and 195, knows that geographically, those lands must have been far
away from the Mediterranean Sea, which was shielded from the Slavic peoples by the Balkans,
even though “bands of Slavic adventurers reached the Aegean Sea by 600.”
4 Michael McCormick, Origins of the European Economy. Communications and Commerce, A.D. 300–
900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 552. McCormick, “Complexity, chronol-
ogy and context in the early medieval economy,” Early Medieval Europe 12 (2003), no. 3, 307–23,
here 313 doubts that Eastern Europe was “at the centre of European history.” That may be because
the swords of the Frankish warriors were superior to those “used by the Slavs,” as Eric J. Goldberg,
Struggle for Empire. Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817–876 (Ithaca, NY/London:
Cornell University Press, 2006), p. 129 has it. According to Backman, The Worlds, p. 154, Char-
lemagne “launched attacks against the Slavs in the upper reaches of the Balkans.”
5 Chris Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome. A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 (New York: Viking,
2009), p. 157; Chris Wickham, Medieval Europe (New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press,
2016), p. 176. According to Robin W. Winks and Teofilo F. Ruiz, Medieval Europe and the World
from Late Antiquity to Modernity, 400–1500 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 221
and 224, the Mongol invasion of Poland created a vacuum for further German penetration into
western parts of the country. This was presumably because by the early 13th century, Genghis
Khan had consolidated under his command both the Huns and the Avars. Backman, The Worlds,
p. 231 explains that “the Kievan kingdom lasted until the arrival of the Mongols under Genghis
Khan in the early thirteenth century.”
6 Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians (London: Macmillan, 2009), pp. 446–47. The Slavic migra-
tion was “a response to inequalities of wealth and development and, in that respect, is very similar
to modern migrations.” The historical merits of the early Slavs are now on everybody’s mind.
According to Backman, The Worlds, p. 195, when entering the Balkans ca. 600, “the Slavs did not
displace the indigenous populations of Serbs, Croats, and Macedonians.”
7 Walter Goffart, Barbarian Tides. The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire (Philadelphia: Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), p. 93.
8 Winks and Ruiz, Medieval Europe, p. 82.
9 Olson, The Early Middle Ages, p. 121. Similarly, to both Goldberg, Struggle for Empire, p. 48 and
Backman, The Worlds, pp. 129, 193 and 194, the steppes north of the Black Sea, from which the
Bulgars, the Magyars and even the Slavs came, were “Asiatic.”
10 Winks and Ruiz, Medieval Europe, p. 6; Judith Herrin, Byzantium. The Surprising Life of a Medi-
eval Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 49. Backman, The Worlds, p.
230 explains that the “the Bulgar kingdom was established in the provinces of Transylvania and

7
 Florin Curta

Wallachia.” Mark Whittow, “Nicopolis ad Istrum: backward and Balkan?” in The Transition to
Late Antiquity on the Danube and Beyond, edited by Andrew G. Poulter (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2007), pp. 375–89, here p. 387, has Bulgars finding in Bulgaria “the heirs of the 6th-cen-
tury military aristocracy,” who lived in “backward and Balkan” centers and soon became the
“eighth-century servants of the Bulgar qagans.” The problem for Bulgarians, however, was that
they could never take advantage of their own country. According to Paul Stephenson, The Legend
of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 18, the
lands between the river Danube and the Stara Planina range of mountains were brought under
cultivation “only with the advent of widespread irrigation in the nineteenth century.”
11 Winks and Ruiz, Medieval Europe, p. 221. Lisa Ann Wolverton, “Germans and Slavs in 13th-
century Bohemia: Some preliminary remarks on immigrants and law,” in The Expansion of Central
Europe in the Middle Ages, edited by Nora Berend (Burlington: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 297–306, here
p. 305 is of a different opinion. According to her, Bohemia and Moravia were lands of oppor-
tunity, not “lawless wilderness,” like Pomerania and Livonia. A similar line of thinking may be
responsible for indicating “Moldavia” on a map of Europe at the time of the “Germanic Invasions”
(Backman, The Worlds, p. 69, map 3.1).
12 Johannes Fried, The Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2015), p 124. “Boleslav the
Brave” was meanwhile busy advancing briefly into Bohemia and Moravia, and conquering “Kra-
kow” (Winks and Ruiz, Medieval Europe, p. 107).
13 Winks and Ruiz, Medieval Europe, pp. 90 and 92. Backman, The Worlds, p. 391 (map 13.1) has the
Baltic Sea in the middle of Russia.
14 Winks and Ruiz, Medieval Europe, p. 42. Similarly, Olson, The Early Middle Ages, p. 117 explains
that the archaeological record of 10th-century Russia is “very Slavic, but with intrusive Scandina-
vian elements.” At this point, Backman, The Worlds, p. 190 disagrees: “the first king of Russia was
actually a Swedish Viking named Rurik.”
15 Winks and Ruiz, Medieval Europe, p. 55. Vladimir of Kiev took it to the next step when putting
Constantinople under siege, according to Sean Griffin, Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), p. 147. Under such military pressure, apparently,
the Byzantine emperor “Basil II, taking a break from Bulgar-slaying, negotiated a marriage alli-
ance whereby his sister married the Russian king Vladimir I” (Backman, The Worlds, p. 231).
16 Wickham, Medieval Europe, p. 94. Novgorod is marked on the map of “Eastern Europe in 850”
(emphasis added) in Wickham, Medieval Europe, p. xi.
17 Winks and Ruiz, Medieval Europe, p. 56. It remains a mystery how was it possible then for Kievan
Rus’ to “collapse in the twelfth century” (Winks and Ruiz, Medieval Europe, p. 222).
18 Herrin, Byzantium, p. 131. Scholarly opinions diverge on this matter. According to Winks and
Ruiz, Medieval Europe, p. 54, the language of the church became the native Slavonic tongue used
in preaching by the followers of Cyril and Methodius.
19 Griffin, Liturgical Past, p. 218.
20 Winks and Ruiz, Medieval Europe, p. 222. Meanwhile, the Teutonic Knights focused their energies
on expansion into Slavic lands (Winks and Ruiz, Medieval Europe, p. 145).
21 Nora Berend, “The mirage of East Central Europe. Historical regions in a comparative perspec-
tive,” in Medieval East Central Europe in a Comparative Perspective. From Frontier Zones to Lands in
Focus, edited by Gerhard Jaritz and Katalin G. Szende (London/New York: Routledge, 2016), pp.
9–23, here p. 16.
22 It is very difficult to decide whether so many factual errors are simply the result of ignorance or a
consequence of attempts to make the East European history fit on the Procustean bed of “global
history.” At any rate, as far as Eastern Europe is concerned, gauging developments in the region by
West European standards does not constitute global history. Moreover, there are shades of colonial
attitudes in the treatment of the people living in the Middle Ages in Eastern Europe, especially the
nomads.