Research Notes:
Berend describes the oath taken by the Cumans at the marriage of Stephen and Elizabeth. [1]
The Cumans, who reached Hungary in a group organized according to their own social structure, differed greatly from both the Jews and the Muslims, who arrive in many waves from different countries, and whose communities had to be forged in Hungary. Although the Cumans were the remnants or parts of several tribes and therefore their traditional tribal structures had been disrupted, they were the most coherently organized of Hungary's non-Christian groups at the time of their entry. They possessed their own social and juridical organization under their own chieftains. The Cumans, like other steppe peoples, were able to attach themselves to empires of various kinds, whilst preserving their own internal structures. The main characteristic of political formations on the steppe was invariably the integration of groups that had different internal organizations and legal systems, spoke different languages, and professed a variety of religions. [92] These groups kept their own unity and identity intact, attaching themselves to the ruler through their own chiefs. The ties existed only at the highest level between the ruler and subordinate peoples. Steppe nomads were loosely integrated under a common military and political leadership, performing military service but not assimilated into one political and cultural unit. This, for example, is exactly how the Hungarian tribes formed a part of the Khazar Empire. When the Cumans first moved into Hungary, they relied on the pattern to which they were accustomed: keeping their internal organization and independence intact, they became members of the kingdom by coming under royal power. The inherent flexibility of their organization allowed subjection to a ruler governing a kingdom whose customs and religion were largely alien to the Cumans. The king ensured their loyalty by personal ties as well: King Béla became the godfather of a Cuman chieftain, his son István the husband of a chieftain's daughter. Already by the early thirteenth century, when missionaries were sent to Cumania, the extension of Hungarian sovereignty and baptism were linked (see chapter 6).
The cumans' own conception of the ties that were henceforth to bind them to the Hungarian king and of their own legal position in the country is reflected in a description of the wedding ceremony of István. The description survives in a unique manuscript appended to Plano Carpini's account of his voyage to the Mongols. [93] It depicts king Béla listening to the report of papal messengers about the life and habits of the Tartars in 1246 -- thus after the Mongol invasion, but still amid constant fear of a new attack. The papal messenger is called Brother John in the text; Denis Sinor identified him wth John of Plano Carpini, who, he concluded, returned from his mission via Hungary, to give intelligence to the king about what he saw during his trip to the Mongols. [94] The note goes on to say that King Béla, alarmed by the reports of both the papal messenger and his own, feared an onslaught of Mongols. As a result, he had his son (already crowned, and ruling over a part of the country as 'younger king'), marry the daughter of the Cuman king. During the wedding feast, ten Cuman lords swore over a dog 'cut into two by a sword, as is their custom, that they would hold the land of the Hungarians, as men faithful to the king, against the Tartars and barbarous nations'. [95] That swearing an oath while cutting a dog to pieces was a Cuman custom is confirmed by Jean de Joinville's account, whose source, the eyewitness Philippe de Toucy, recounted a similar ceremony. [96] The significance of the ritual is explained there as well: 'this is how they should be cut in pieces if they failed [i.e. did not keep their oath to] each other'. [97] This description thus shows that the Cumans relied on their own customs and religious tradition in defining their relationship to the Hungarian King -- a precious piece of information because ordinarily the sources are mute on the Cumans' point of view. The Cumans thus probably saw their integration into Hungary as allegiance to to the king, established by a marriage alliance and an oath. This was completely in keeping with steppe traditions of loose integration by ties to the ruler of an empire. It did not entail total submission.
92. Seaman and Marks, Ruler from the Steppe, Sinor, ed., Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Golden, Introduction, passim; Khazanov, Nomads, chapter V on a variety of nomad states. On the adaptability of the Cumans: Golden, 'Qipcaqs'
93. Luxembourg, BN cod 110, f 187r, ed. Henrik Maczah, Magyar Torténelmi Tár (1878), p. 375, and with slight differences by Géza Istványi, 'XII századi foljegyzés IV Bélának 1246-ban a tatárokhoz kuldott kovetségérol', Századok 72 (1938) pp. 270-2
94. Denis Sinor, 'John Plano Carpini's Return from the Mongols, New Light from a Luxemburg Manuscript', in Inner Asia, no. XI95 'in his autem nuptus(1) X(2) Comanorum convenerunt iurantes super canem gladio bipartitum(3) iuxta eorum consuetudinem, quod terram, Hungarorum(4) tamquam regis fideles contra Thartharos et(5) barbaras nationes obtinebunt'. Marczah, Torténelmi Tár, p. 376. The following are variations in Istványi's edition ('XIII. századi', p. 271): (1) nuptys, (2) princepes add. (3) bipertitum, (4) Hungarum, (5) et om. On these oaths and the role of dogs in Cuman religion, Denis Sinor, 'Taking an Oath over a Dog Cut in Two', in Altaic Religious Beliefs and Practices ed Geza Bethlanfalvy et al (Budapest: Research Group for ALtaic Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Department of Inner Asiatic Studies, ELTE, 1992), pp. 301-5; Peter B. Golden 'The Dogs of the Medieval Quipcaqs', in Varia Eurasiatica: Festschrift fur Professor András Rona-Tas (Szeqed: Department of Altaic Studies, 1991), pp. 44-55, Peter B. Golden, 'Wolves, Dogs and Quipcaq Religion;, AOASH 50 (1997), pp. 87-97. Similar oaths 'per canum seu lupum' among the Hungarian of the ninth-tenth centuries: Gyula Pauler and Sándor Szilágyi, eds., A Magyar Honfoglalás Kutfoi (Budapest MTA. 1900, repr. Budapest: Nap Kiado, 1995), p. 326, Csanád Bálint, 'A kutya a X-XII. századi magyar hitvilághan', Mora Forenc Muzeum Evkonyve 1971/1 (Szged. Szegedi Nyomda, 1971), pp. 295-315, see p 308.
96. Jean SIre de Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, ed. Natalis de Wailly (Paris Firman Didot, 1874), pp. 270-2.
97. 'Que ainsi fussent-il decopei se il failloient li uns à l'autre', ibid, p 272.
[1] Nora Berend, At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and 'Pagans' in Medieval Hungary, c.1000 - c.1300 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series, Cambridge University Press, 2006), 97-99.