Re: RO eccles. term.

>*****GK: This is where I have a problem. The area of
>“Western” Romance eventually produced more than 1
>Western Romance population. There seems little doubt
>that something similar might well have happened (or
>was already happening) in the East prior to the
>Avar-Slavic invasion. So I can’t quite see the whole
>of the territory of “Eastern” Romance such as it was
>ca. 300AD being considered “Proto-Romanian”.******

Nobody does (I assume): around 300 AD they must have
spoken Latin, not proto-Romanian (and Dalmatian). For,
had they spoken Romanian, then Constantin the Great
could be seen as a Romanian, not only as a Roman caesar
(not to mention Iustinian).

>*****GK: I’m sure you will agree that in Roman times
>large numbers (a majority by analogy to what has
>everywhere and at all times been the case) of the
>Eastern Latin or Romance-speaking populations were
>hardly “top-notch”.

I meant top-notch as a whole, not as any individual.
Of course, the upper crust was determining (is it way
much different today, 1000-1500-2000 years later?)

>When the Avars-Slavs came what
>seems to have happened is that the “top notch”
>populations fled or migrated, some were destroyed, and
>some were assimilated.

Not only this. What was that Avar kagan's name who
ordered the dislocation of a numerous Romance
population from a region and ending it to another?

>There seems no implicit evidence of these
>“top-notchers” sticking around with
>the “hoi polloi” of the hills and villages and
>maintaining a “cultural” presence there.

This is not what I mean by top-notch population;
moreover, it was me who in several postings
underlined this idea: a populace with severed
links whatsoever to its ö(own) former... intelligentsia.

So the "hoi-polloi" belonged to the nation number
one only prior to the severance of the ties. After-
wards, they fell on to the latest places in the
hierarchy of the region; and thus they got outa
sight of the "reporters." Nobodies rarely make
headlines even today, unlike the Rumsfelds,
Franks etc. of the day. ;-)

>*****GK: I admit that it is difficult to decide the
>precise areas of concentration of the Proto-Romanians
>from the 7th c. My assumption would be that we look to
>the hills, since when they first emerge in history as
>Vlachs that’s where we find them.

Agreed. With the amendment that "hill" and
"mountains" must have meant much lower altitudes,
as compared with the rural-pastoral culture of
the region of the Alps. I gather that nor Vlakh/Romanian
shepherd environment prospered as high as Alpine
counterparts (let alone Caucasian and Pamir-Himalayan
or S-American).

>And not necessarily
>just in the area of contemporary Serbia if my
>information about Romanian toponyms being especially
>noticeable there is incorrect.*****

Do you mean that one mentioned in the PDF-article I
today put in the Files section (attested toward the
middle of the 800s)?

>******GK: How about a couple of dozen mountain/valley
>areas? With expansion therefrom beginning some time
>prior to the 10th c.?*****

Yes; and/or several such... nucleuses.

>******GK: Rest easy. It doesn’t.****

I'm not convinced by mainstream history in this respect.

>******GK: I’m sure we’re all very happy that they
>became Christian slaves in the West, with copious
>reminders of Colossians 3:22-25 and related Pauline
>epistles.******

22 servi oboedite per omnia dominis carnalibus
non ad oculum servientes quasi hominibus placentes
sed in simplicitate cordis timentes Dominum
23 quodcumque facitis ex animo operamini sicut
Domino et non hominibus
24 scientes quod a Domino accipietis retributionem
hereditatis Domino Christo servite
25 qui enim iniuriam facit recipiet id quod inique
gessit et non est personarum acceptio

(Jerome's Vulgata | BTW, I ain't able to understand
everything in this "proto-Romanian" :=)

George