Re: Actual Medieval Content

On May 16, 10:48 am, "Michael Kuettner" <Michael.Kuett...@xxxxxx>
wrote:
<a...@xxxxxxxxxxx> schrieb:
On May 12, 9:41 am, "Michael Kuettner" wrote:

<a...@xxxxxxxxxxx> schrieb :

<snip>
The Carolingians couldn't very well allow Franks trading in Slavish
slaves. Mainly two reasons :
(a) Geo-politics : The Slavs blocked the former land-route between
Byzantinum and Europe. The one who could convert them to
their flavour of Christendom would win them over; at least as allies.
Missionaries would lose credibility if one his faith enslaved parts
of the tribe he wants to convert ...
Few problems with these considerations:
1. Charlie directly dealt (as in "kicked the shit out and made his
allies/vassals/whatever") mainly with 2 groups of the Slavs: (a) in
the Elba region and (b) somewhere to the south of Avar Khanate.

No vassals. Carolus had to kick the Avars to stabilize his Grenzmarken.

The Slavic tribes in the "group 'b'" were not Avars and they were not
incorporated into the Frankish Kingdom. However, both them and the
Baltic Slavs had been acting as C's allies afterwards.



He destroyed them, but the Frankia wasn't expanded.
Reason : The necessary infrastructure wasn't there.
Neither administration nor roads or or or ...

Unlike Saxony.... :-)


AFAIK, none of the above blocked Byzantian route to anywhere.

They did. Bulgarians, Magyars,

The Magyars were not Slavs and, strictly speaking, neither were the
Bulgars (the name was eventually adopted by the conquered Slavs). When
the Bulgars attacked Constantinople in 813, their ruler, Khrum, had
title "khan".

etc. effectively sealed of the land-route.

Land route to where? And when?


Those in the
Dnieper area could get into the Frankish state mostly as a transit
merchandise captured by various non-Frankish raiders (nomades, other
Slavs, etc.) so this would be just an ordinary business.

Err, yes, that's what I've said.
They taxed the transit cargo, but they didn't trade in slaves.

"They" whom? I was talking about 'non-Frankish' people. Quite a few of
them surely traded slaves.


2.Christianization of the Slavic lands within Frankish sphere of

influence did not happen on a serious scale until the Wendish Crusade,

Of course it happened on a serious scale. Not spectacular, but there
was a steady process going on; carried by monasteries.
You're thinking conquest; that came later, yes. But before further conquest
was possible, the Eastern Frankia had to be Christianized, too.


I'm talking about the Slavs of Baltic.


well after Charlie's death. OTOH, the subdued Oborites (or whoever)
were quite happy to help Charles against the Saxons so conversion was
not as important component of a good will and cooperation as
possibility of a good looting.

That's realpolitik ;-)

Exactly. :-)


(b) Internal / church politics : The church wanted to safe souls.
See above. Not applicable outside Baltic Slavic areas and even in
these areas religion did not kick in until much later.

But that wasn't the goal of the Franks.

I'm just listing the options.


Since the Franks depended heavily on the church for
(I) legitimization of their rule
(II) administration
(III) economics
they couldn't piss off the clergy.
They would not because there was no noticeable Catholic activities in
the Eastern Slavic areas at this time.

Of course not. I only mentioned the Dnjepr area because of the
description of typical slave-trade.
The Franks didn't have the ressources to reach into Eastern Slavic
areas.

Of course.




The biggest slave markets had been on trhe Middle
East but probably anybody with a sizeable galley fleet needed them as
well.

Since the Franks had no galleys, they were content to just collect
the taxes and tarrifs.
Indeed. But the people on the Mediterranian coast did have galleys and
they were either direct subjects or vassals or, in the case of
Byzantians, more or less allies so supply and demand were there, at
least potentially.

Of course. Nevertheless, we have sources stating that the Franks taxed
the slave-trade (and only few sources at that), but none that stated that
Franks ever were active in the slave-trade.

This does not contradict to what I'm saying: I'm talking about a
transit trade through the Frankish territories.

.

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