Medieval Slavic Navy & the 626 Avar Siege of Constantinople

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Extra Information & Sometimes Corrections if Needed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 0:05 As always there's exceptions to the rules. As I said Early Slavs where landlocked and no one has ever thought of the early Slavs as very maritime oriented, as almost all the sources we have talk of them as a ground fighting force. However, as already stated there are exceptions, the Siege of Constantinople is one, the later Rus sieges of the city and raids around the Black and Caspian sea are another. These Rus sieges were mostly conducted by Norseman but they without a doubt had some Slavs with them as well. Another is the aforementioned siege of Thessaloniki and lastly would be the 9th century Dalmatian pirates. Also the Dalmatians on top of the Slavic element still had a sizeable Latin presence. These again, however, where exceptions to the rule, early Slavs in general where never considered as a big naval force they where always primarily a ground fighting force which can be seen through the fact that unless combined with other people like Latin or Norse they always used simple dugout canoes. 0:34 I know this map isn't completely representative if you want more accurate history when it comes to the expansion/early history of the Slavs and etc. watch my Slavic Venetic connection video. https://youtu.be/eLrMjNtAy8M 1:04 more, (sea), is maybe old Germanic although disputed since both words could be from the same word of Indo-European origin, hence it wouldn't be a borrowed word in Slavic. čln, челн, (boat) - Slavic, from the old slavic word meaning “single stump” i.e. dugout canoe. This is is one of the few words in Slavic that seems to be original giving credence to the idea that Slavs had mostly just dugout canoes in early middle ages. Also another borrowed sea related word is the Eastern Slavic word for seashell (раковина), "rakoviny", it came into Slavic through German which in turn got it from Latin. "rakoviny, rakva" means coffin or cancer in other Slavic languages. This points to the duality of the word which means it was definitely borrowed. There's also Slavic 'anchovy', 'ancovi' (a type of sea fish), the word origins are unknown, maybe Greek or Latin? But not Slavic so also a borrowed word. We could spend ages dissecting all the borrowed sea related words in Slavic, basically there's a lot of them. 1:10 The mentions come from the Miracle of St. Demetrius where he writes that after the unsuccessful siege of Thessaloniki in 617, slavs combined multiple of their dug out canoes into one and sailed raiding the local Greek islands for 2 years. 2:33 Nicephorus. Short History . Edited and translated by Cyril Mango. Washington, DC, 1990. 5:16 There were also other minor people groups involved in the Avar army but these where the main ones. 6:10 Some sources say that Heraclius send some cavalry to bolster the defense of the city but this is attested only by two sources while others never mention it so it is disputed if it ever happened. 7:13 "Gog" along with "Magog" are words taken from the bible which have been used variously by medieval historians but in this case "Gog" was used in the way I describe it. 7:30 Syncellus, who wrote about the siege, made this connection with the biblical gog as to argue that Byzantium was the new holy land defending from the gog (who where the Avars) just like the holy land of old was defending from the gog and magog. 7:51 I gave multiple colors to the Avar army to symbolize the multicultural nature of the army. Blue are Slavs, Grey are Germanic tribes, Green are Bulgars, and Pale Origin are Avars. The Pale White are Persians. 9:30 There's a debate about whether the Slavs actually brought the canoes over land but if the sources are consulted carefully I think it is obvious they did bring them not sale them. Specially since Chronicon Paschale strictly mentions the slavs "brought the minoxyls with them", they did not sale them there they "brought" them there. 13:55 We don’t know if the Byzantines were waiting for them and planned the whole thing, we don’t know if everyone from the Persian army died. We don’t know much about this particular part of the story as the main sources we do have seem to be missing some pages. There's a whole religious subplot to the siege that I didn't talk about. The Byzantines where convinced they won the siege only thanks to an intervention from the Virgin Merry, this created or at least reinforced a cult of the "Holy Mother" in the city and the orthodox church as the protector of the pious. After this siege the Virgin Merry also became to be viewed by the cities inhabitants as the protector of Constantinople. Merry replaced the long standing Greek tradition of the goddess Athena (or her Roman counterpart) as being the protector of the city in ancient times. The siege was also the origin for the creation of the important Christian Orthodox hymn (at least according to legend) of Akathistos about the Virgin Merry and so was instrumental to the feast that goes with it 'Intercession of the Theotokos'. How exactly the siege connects to this hymn, the feast and the celebration of the 'Dormition of Mother of God' is still debated. Video scripts with all my sources are available for free on my Patreon.

As someone who studied ancient and medieval navies, there's much more to the Slavic dugout than meets the eye. These were large trees cut down during the winter and the men would start construction during the spring. After they were hollowed and expanded, water strakes were added tied to the original log (given uneven expansion would expose the opening the water line), making the dugout more of a planked boat with a log as its keel and base. We know this from archeological sites in northern Poland and Czech Republic. Additionally the Slavs did tie dugouts together to haul and reconstructions show they can move 1.5 tones of cargo. My thanks to Waldemar Ossowski of Gdansk University and Sean McGrail for Early European Watercraft.

Guess I have to go play CK2 again...

Bulgarian land army: badass cavalry Bulgarian navy: literally logs

Slavic Fun Fact: The Czechs and Slovaks while having a land locked country use AHOJ (AHOY) as their main friendly greeting.

The Byzantines (or Romans if you prefer) apparently opted for a rather harsh style of diplomacy. Starting from a sick burn at 12:55 and preceding to chopping off limbs and heads. Great video BTW!

People were so witty and poetic back then.

Thanks for your hard work bringing this history forward for average people to learn about

Bro I found your channel like 5 hours ago and am schocked how seriously underrated it is

It is relevant to mention that the Sasanians were much more proficient at siege warfare than the Avars were. So their inability to get to the other side of the Bosporus probably doomed the siege.

We are finally talking about the Last War of Antiquity! Based!

I always found funny how in modern Serbian language the word 'gusar' is translated as 'pirate' but the origin of the word 'gusar' is more akin to highwayman (a bandit or a soldier on a horse). This interesting term was adopted by some Europeans and transformed into 'hussar' to represent a light cavalry. I don't know why in Serbian, 'gusar' became a synonim for a pirate though.

Great vydeo. Keep going whit these obskure topiks, its great and interesting.

Woah, so much information. You have delivered!

Referring to something in the bible as something of biblical proportion... love it!

This video was fantastic to watch! Please more

Ah finally some Eastern Roman History or more fitting Eastern European Histroy in general and underrated too

In Romanian 'AVAR' is a term used to describe frugal cheap selfish and avid for wealth individuals

three layered wall of attack on titan: no three layered wall of Constantinopole: yes

Thanks Mr. M. Laser!