THE CAROLINGIAN LAND DONATIONS TO THE BAVARIAN CHURCH AS A MEANS OF COLONIZATION AND MISSIONARY DEVELOPMENT OF “YOUNGER EUROPE” (THE FIRST HALF – THE MIDDLE OF THE 9TH CENTURY). Part 2

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of colonization and missionary development of the post-Avar space of the “Younger Europe” by the Bavarian clergy, in particular the territories within the Eastern Mark, Pannonia and Moravia, in the first decades after the collapse of the Avar Khaganate. Based on the analysis of a large number of beneficent diplomas from the Chancellery of Emperor Charlemagne, his descendants – Louis I the Pious and Louis II the German, as well as the local governing elites, the dynamics, specifics and geographical boundaries of land expansion and spreading of church tradition of a range of the Bavarian dioceses and the separate monastic communities in the mentioned areas are outlined in the article.

Considerable attention is paid to the formation of missionary territories and landholdings of the dioceses of Salzburg and Passau (in the Part 1), the episcopacies of Freising and Regensburg, as well as the monastic community of Altaich (in the Part 2) within the post-Avar Danubian region against the wide background of colonization and missionary development of the outlined area, which was sanctioned by official diplomas of the above-mentioned Carolingian rulers and local margraves. In addition, the actual article represents the author’s attempt to reconstruct and delineate the geographical boundaries and partly the iternal frontiers of the mentioned landholdings and missionary fields of the Bavarian ecclesiastical dioceses and separate monasteries, in particular, within the Eastern Mark, Pannonia and the southwestern Moravian lands during the first half – the middle of the 9^th century; to reconstruct the process and dynamics of formation and further development of the transport-ecclesiastical systems and missionary routes within the diocesan and monastic possessions of the Bavarian Church; to investigate the influence of the mentioned transport-ecclesiastical systems and local monastic and evangelistic centres on the missionary practice of the Bavarian clergy in their own newly acquired territories.

The author concludes that the Bavarian clergy of all ecclesiastical provinces and monasteries were united by a common goal – to evangelize and integrate the local population within their own possessions and to spread the Carolingian political influence together with the Latin ecclesiastical tradition to the eastern Slavic lands bordering the Carolingian possessions.

Keywords: The Episcopacy of Passau, the Archbishopric of Salzburg, the Episcopacy of Freising, the Episcopacy of Regensburg, the Monastery of Altaich, diocese, beneficent diploma.