Hungary

The Árpáds

In 892 the Carolingian emperor, Arnulf, attempting to assert his authority over the Moravian duke Svatopluk, called in the help of the Magyars, whose early homes had been on the upper waters of the Volga and Kama rivers. They were driven, at an uncertain date and by unrecorded causes, southward onto the steppes, where they adopted the life of peripatetic herders. In the 9th century they were based on the lower Don, ranging over the steppes to the west of that river. They then comprised a federation of hordes, or tribes, each under a hereditary chieftain and each composed of a varying number of clans, the members of which shared a real or imagined blood kinship. All clan members were free, but the community included slaves taken in battle or in raids. There were seven Magyar tribes, but other elements were part of the federation, including three tribes of Turkic Khazars (the Kavars). Either because of this fact or perhaps because of a memory of earlier conditions, this federation was known to its neighbours as the On-Ogur (literally “Ten Arrows” or “Ten Tribes”). From the Slavic pronunciation of this ... (200 of 38,272 words)