Zalai Múzeum 14. Müller Róbert 60 éves (Zalaegerszeg, 2005)

Szőke Béla Miklós: Az avar–frank háború kezdete

244 Szőke Béla Miklós The writer of the annals of the Frank empire gave accounts of military incidents in 788 in Italy and at the Bavarian border. The annalist noted that the incidents were insidiously planned by Tassilo and his evil wife Liutberga {Ann. Regni Francorum a. 788). Many researchers consider that in 788 an extensive antiCarolingian coalition was formed, although the only concrete accusation against Tassilo in the diet was that he sent ambassadors to the Avars (Ann. Regni Francorum a. 788). It seems to be an overstatement to assume that there was an organised Avar campaign against Charles the Great from two directions (Walter Pohl). There is no substantial evidence that the Avars launched two simultaneous campaigns along the Danube to Bavaria and towards Friaul, which was an outpost of the Langobards. Moreover, the aim of one of these campaigns does not correlate with "Bavarian affairs" and the other campaign was not initiated by the Avars. The Italian campaign (Friaul) had no connection with the Bavarian internal affairs, and the Bavarian rulers did not profit directly from this campaign. The Avars traditionally had a good relationship with the Langobards, to the extent that they may have been involved in Langobard internal affairs. There is a possibility that the appearance of the Avars in Italy was connected with regaining of the throne for the Langobards. For this reason, the Avars seemingly supported the Byzantines. This further complicates the situation when one considers that amongst the rebels against Charles the Great there were Langobard nobles, one of whom was Aio who actually fled to the Avars. The direction of the Avar campaigns intriguingly coincided with Aio's lands which were situated within the area of Friaul, Vicenza and Verona. There is more doubt about the assumed "northern campaign" of the Avars. Firstly, the Avars did not initiate this campaign. The aggressors were troops led by Charles' messengers (missi). The Frankish attack against the Avar guards took place where the Ybbs flows into the Danube, several tens of kilometres east from the border at Enns. This attack was followed by a victorious campaign within Avar territory, led by Grahammanus and Audaccrus against the Avars who wanted to retaliate. For this reason the Avar campaigns in 788 cannot be considered as "weak intervention" (Walter Pohl), resulting from a weakening of the Avar khaganate and their reduced appetite for further attacks. The alliance between the Avars and Tassilo was fundamentally made for self-defence against the Franks. This postulation would seem to be proven by their passivity towards events within the allied Bavarian kingdom. It seems that the Avars did not plan campaigns against the Bavarian, to be more precise Carolingian, borders. Frankish politics made the Avars send ambassadors, reinforce their borders and establish alliances. These steps are not indicative of aggressive politics, but rather are traditional manifestations of self-defence. It seems that it was a futile effort from the Franks to provoke the Avar leaders against the Frankish empire and the Avars did not want to anger Charles the Great. The assumption that the source of the war of Charles the Great against the Huns (Avars) was originated in rivalry and contest between them (Ann. Qui dicuntur Einhardi, a. 790) is speculative. This explanation was an a posteriori argument to camouflage the aggression of the Franks; other annalists do not mention this reason for the outbreak of war. Instead, the Annales Regni Francorum was speculating about the outbreak of war and unexpectedly, particular attention was given to actions that could have happened in the distant past such as the big and unbearable villain actions that the Avars committed against the Holy Church and the Christians. According to József Deér, aggression, justified by religion in terms of Augustin's bellum iustum, is a secondary, retrospective historical tradition. Such justification was brought to the fore by Frank annals between 814-817 and by Einhard's Vita Karoli that was written between 830 and 836. The original versions of the annals wrote that the reason for the war was the alliance between Tassilo III and the Avars as well as disagreements about borders. The religious aspects of aggression were present from the beginning of the campaigns, which may have been motivated by fear of possible ambiguous results of the war. For this reason the religious aspects of the war were emphasised more strongly, than in the case of war against the mostly pagan Saxons, which was actually longer than that with the Avars. The role of the king was, especially against pagans, to act as defensor ecclesiae. This formula was prescribed by a liturgy of Christian antiquity and medieval ethics. Popes were especially expectant of such ethics from the Carolingian rulers. The religious aspect of the war also seems to be justified by Charles the Great's gesture towards the pope and his own empire's church in 796, when some of the Avar treasures were given to them. Such gesture was clearly propagandistic, because towards the Christians he firstly emphasised the antipaganistic nature of war, and secondly, in order to justify the war, he purposefully exaggerated the power and threat of the Avars. Translated by Eszter Kreiter