Samo’s realm

The only contemporary account is a few chapters in the chronicle of Fredegar, written around 660. By his account the Wends had long been subject to the Avars, who wintered among them, took their wives and daughters and exacted tribute, until the sons born of these unions rose in revolt. Samo, “a Frank by birth” from the district of Sens (or, by another reading, Soignies), came to the Wends as a merchant in the fortieth year of King Chlothar II — 623 or 624 — fought alongside them and proved so valiant that they made him king. He had twelve Wendish wives, twenty-two sons and fifteen daughters, and led the Wends to repeated victories over the Avars. Some historians doubt Fredegar’s chronology and connect the revolt with the Avar failure before Constantinople in 626; the Bavarian “Conversion of the Bavarians and Carantanians” (c. 870) makes Samo a Slav living among the Carantanians.

Around 631 the Wends killed and robbed Frankish merchants, and Samo refused the satisfaction demanded by Dagobert’s envoy Sicharius. Dagobert sent three armies: the Alamanni and the Lombards came back with victories and captives, but the main Austrasian army was routed after a three-day siege of a stronghold called Wogastisburg, whose site is unknown. The Wends then raided Frankish Thuringia, and Dervan, duke of the Sorbs, went over to Samo.

The extent of Samo’s realm is disputed. Its centre is most often sought in Moravia, Lower Austria and western Slovakia, where archaeological finds also point; Bohemia, the lands of the Sorbs and Carantania are sometimes included, and some scholars extend it to the upper Main region. Nothing is known of it after Samo’s death in 658 or 659: the union apparently broke up, and the Avars recovered their position in the Danube basin. It has often been called the first Slavic state and seen as a forerunner of Great Moravia.