--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "andelkod <andelkod@...>"
<andelkod@...> wrote:
> There is evident some confusion about who and when used the title
> of ban. First documented use of that title in Balkan area was by
> Croats in X. century. Some parts of Croatia had been ruled by ban
> which was person second to king. Later the title was introduced to
> Bosnia probably when it was incorporated in Croatia. Serbs never
> used it.
I had to ask at another internet forum for more information about the
use of the title 'ban' in Bulgaria. Here is roughly what I was told
there:
The title 'ban' has been attested with certainty since the XIV c. -
ban Januka was one of the last governors of Sofia before the
Ottomans, there was a ban Veljo in the Rhodopes. There is also the
town of Bansko. I don't know how this ties with your statemenent that
the Serbians have never used 'ban', if we assume that the title
spread from Croatia.
For an earlier period there is one partially preserved (two lines)
cyrillic incription from the Large Basilica of Pliska, the Bulgarian
capital until the end of the IX c. It reads ...DELAN BAN' and have
been studied by the Hungarian scholar Geza Feher in 1925. According
to him 'ban' was derived from the Mongolo-Turkic 'baian' - rich
(person), and he connects it with the name Bajan of several persons
from the VI-VIII c.: the first Avar khagan in Pannonia (~560-580 AD),
the older son of the Bulgar ruler Kubrat (end of VI c.), the brother
of another Bulgar ruler, Tokt (766 AD). But Feher dismisses a
Croatian participation in the initial evolution of 'baian'
into 'ban', regardless of the fact that the first recorded use (in
DAI) of 'ban' is of the Croatian 'boanos Pribuna', because "Croatian
does not allow the contraction of baian into ban". According to
Feher, 'ban' is of Hungarian origin, either from 'baga/a/n' or from
the earlier Avar 'Baian'.
So, the Pliska inscription probably refered to a ban called Delan and
Feher connects it with the Bulgarian prince Petar Deljan (XI c.), the
leader of an anti-Byzantine rebelion in Macedonia and a son of
Gavrail-Radomir. As his mother was a sister of Istvan I, then Deljan
would have had the title of 'ban' (prince) from the royal Hungarian
house of the Arpads.
There are, however, problems with Feher's identification of the ban
called DELAN from Pliska with the historical Deljan and, thus, the
Hungarian etymology of ban. Firstly, of historical nature. In the XI
c. Pliska was under the Byzantines and they would just not allow
Deljan, a Bulgarian prince striving for independence, to leave
inscriptions in a former capital. Secondly, the name of Petar Deljan
has been always recorded with 'ja' - Odeljan, Delianos, Dolianos, as
opposed to DELAN.
Regards,
Vassil