-<
andelkod@...>- wrote:
Origin is still unknown and nobody knows who was the first croatian ban.
Thank You all for your comments.
I know that BAN was for the first time mentioned by Constantine VII
Porphyrogenitus [B 905; D 9.11.959; emperor starting .09.912] in his "De
Administrando Imperio" [completed circa 954] BUT, how very well concludes
Paul Stephenson [in his "Byzantium's Balkan Frontier. A Political Study of
the Northern Balkans, 900-1204", Cambridge University Press, 2000],
"Some chapters are culled directly from earlier histories to provide
antiquarian information on peoples and places of contemporary concern to the
imperial court. However, the chapters of greatest interest are those based
on dossiers of information on the empire's neighbors compiled in the century
before the work was completed".
So, it seams that the info on the 3 croat regions possessed/ruled by the
ban: Krbana, Lika and Gacka [listed in DAI along with other 11 zupanias
which were not under the ban's influence!] are earlier then the middle of
the X Century. The question is HOW earlier? It seams that even if they are
100 years old, this will not change much the situation.
But is clear [at least for me!] that the Hungarian medieval Kingdom did not
incorporate the term "BAN" into its social system until the incorporation of
the Croatian lands into the Hungarian state [so, after 1102].
It is interesting that Geza Feher [in 1925] 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". Even I, as non specialist, see a good point here [Thank You
Vassil!].
IF the term "ban" was of Avar origin and it did not cease to exist upon
their "withdrawal" from their territory it couldn't have been introduced by
them. The evidence of this fact can be found in today Slovak territory,
where the ban-system and the duty organization can be found in areas that
never experienced the Avar occupation.
But BAN is still linked for the first time [at least in this region of
Europe] with the Croats and their ethnogenesis.
Emil Hersak, former Editor-in Chief (until no. 4/2001) of journal "Migration
Themes"/Zagreb_Croatia has a very interesting résumé on this subject [at
http://members.tripod.com/~Groznijat/fadlan/e_hersak.html ] and some
interesting conclusions:
-John Bagnell BURY [1861-1927] in "A History of the later Roman empire from
Arcadius to Irene (395-800)". Vol. II, London, 1889, Chapter III, page 276)
". attempted also to derive the Croatian title "ban" (governor, viceroy)
from Bayan, the name of the Avar khan who had led his people to Pannonia, or
even from Batbayan, the eldest son of Kubrat. This type of concluding
quickly led to the birth of the "Turkic" theory of Croatian origins".
In fact, Bury's own words are: ". non-Slavic name of the Croatian governor
BAOANOS which strongly reminds us of the Avar Baian, and of Baian or
Batbaian, who in Bulgarian legend was one of the sons of Krobat"
-Ivo Goldstein, head of the Dept. of Mediaeval History at the University of
Zagreb, . described the Iranian theory as "the least unlikely"
-"Today, however, the Iranian theory is well on its way to becoming almost
official in Croatia"
-"I am pretty certain that some of the words or titles suggested as Avaric
or Turkic, such as zupan (which has cognates in Polish and Baltic), most
probably have a different origin"
Now the next problem is that starting 788/795/803, for almost a century [up
to ~880], Croatia was under the suzerainty of the Frankish emperors. And
this influence was so powerful that Mutimir [ruled 892 - ca. 910] even
introduced into his court the officialdom of the Frankish emperors. And the
BAN-system was already widely used in the Frankish society even long prior
to 800.
So, did BAN came from a western influence and evolved, due some specific
conditions, in a Croatian institution ?
S o r i n