The mission of Cyril and Methodius and the Duchy of Priwina and Kocel A case study to the difficulties of the interpretation of the sources

Absztrakt

This study intends to present the aims of the Moravian mission (863), the establishing of Methodius’s Pannonian and Moravian archdiocese, and its relations with the Pannonian duchy of Priwina and Kocel. The history of Methodius’s evangelization mission is in striking contradiction with the point of view of Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum (CBC, A. D. 870), which describes the activity of the Salzburg archbishopric in Carantania and Pannonia. Salzburg’s mission territory extended on the territory of Carantania, which can be proven by contemporary sources, but, against Methodius, the author of the CBC tries to prove its Pannonian rights of Salzburg as well. It was definitely necessary, because of the canonical basis of Salzburg’s church organizing activities in the Pannonian duchy was strongly doubtful. Therefore the author, after their same Slavic name variant, Blatenski Grad, arbitrarily called also the center of Priwina and Kocel’s Pannonian duchy as Mosaburg, which name was actually the German name version of Arnulf’s important court in Carantania (now Moosburg). The settlements were placed in Pannonia by the CBC, in fact they can be found in Carniola and Carantania. After the death of Duke Kocel, the Pannonian duchy came under the control of Duke Braslav in 896, to defend the Bavarian Pannonia from the conqueror Hungarians. After that, in 907, this fortress, under its new name Brezalauspurc/Braslavespurch may have been the site of the decisive battle between the Bavarians and the Hungarians for the control of the Middle Danube Basin.