inglorious job of skirmish warfare—without the honor and (probably) extra pay. The
tagmata were the professionals, gradually taking over most of the fighting, especially
as the need to defend the interior of Anatolia receded. By the same token, the troops
of the themes became increasingly inactive.
CHRISTIANITY AND THE RISE OF EAST CENTRAL EUROPE
To the north of Byzantium was a huge swathe of territory stretching to the Baltic
Sea. Once states coalesced there, it would become East Central Europe. But while
states (in this case under the aegis of Germanic leaders) were forming in Europe’s
west, the east-central region remained in flux as new groups, mainly of Slavic and
Turkic origins, entered, created ephemeral political entities, and then disappeared.
The Slavs made up the majority of these immigrants. As farmers (on the whole),
however, they were normally subject to others, such as the Avars, Turkic-speaking
warrior nomads who created a great empire on the Pannonian Plain. (See Map 2.1 on
p. 40.) But the Avars were wiped out by the Franks in 796 (see below, p. 98).
Thereafter, East Central Europe took shape like a carpet unrolled from south to
north; Lithuania was the last to create a fairly permanent state (see p. 258), Bulgaria
the first. Christianization went hand-in-hand with state formation; in the ninth century
Byzantines and Franks (who preached the Roman Catholic brand of Christianity)
competed to take advantage of the new political stability in the region. For these
proselytizers, spreading the Gospel had not only spiritual but also political advantages:
it was a way to bring border regions under their respective spheres of influence. For
the fledgling East Central European states, conversion to Christianity meant new
institutions to buttress the ruling classes, recognition by one or another of the
prestigious heirs of Rome, and enhanced economic and military opportunities.
The process of Christianization began in Moravia and Bulgaria. In Moravia, Duke
Ratislav (r.846–870) made a bid for autonomy from Frankish hegemony by calling on
Byzantium for missionaries. The imperial court was ready. Two brothers,
Constantine (later called Cyril) and Methodius, set out in 863 armed with translations
of the Gospels and liturgical texts. Born in Thessalonica, they well knew about the
Slavic languages, which had been purely oral. Constantine devised an alphabet using
Greek letters to represent the sounds of one Slavic dialect (the “Glagolitic” alphabet).
He then added Greek words and grammar where the Slavic lacked Christian
vocabulary and suitable expressions. The resulting language, later called Old Church
Slavonic, was an effective tool for conversion: “What man can tell all the parables /
Denouncing nations without their own books / And who do not preach in an
