Avars arrived in the Carpathian Basin around 560 as the latest wave of steppe warriors pushing into Europe. Unlike the Huns before them, Avars didn't just raid - they established themselves as a permanent ruling elite over agricultural populations, primarily Slavic groups expanding south and west. The Avar Khaganate functioned as a protection racket on a civilizational scale. Avar heavy cavalry provided military power while subject peoples farmed, built, and produced goods. This arrangement generated wealth far beyond what pure nomadic raiding could achieve - each Slavic settlement with Avar overseers extracted double the normal resources, with the surplus flowing to fortified Avar centers. The khagan and his nobles lived in massive ring fortifications called hringi, circular earthwork complexes that required no stone but could withstand serious sieges. These weren't mere camps but permanent military-administrative centers, each essentially a castle in function if not form, each with its own forge producing weapons and armor for the cavalry elite.
The Avar system worked because it didn't attempt to govern details. Local Slavic communities managed their own agriculture and settlement patterns. Avars simply extracted tribute, conscripted labor for fortification building, and recruited auxiliary troops for campaigns. This light touch allowed rapid expansion - by the 590s, Avar power extended from the Alps to the Black Sea. They raided the Byzantine Empire repeatedly, sometimes besieging Constantinople itself, always returning laden with gold and captives. The tribute they extracted funded more cavalry, which enabled more raids, which produced more tribute. Avar nobles lived extraordinarily well for nomads, with access to Byzantine luxuries, Slavic craftwork, and tribute from dozens of subject peoples. Their hringi multiplied across the landscape, each one dominating its region without need for cities or complex administration.
This system's strength was also its fatal limitation. Avars remained forever a military aristocracy, never numerous enough to occupy the entire territory they claimed. They couldn't expand their elite because Avar identity depended on being the warrior class above laboring Slavs. When Charlemagne's Franks destroyed Avar power in the 790s through systematic campaigns that reduced the hringi one by one, the khaganate collapsed completely within a decade. There was nothing beneath the military elite - no cities to defend, no national consciousness to rally around, no administrative structure to preserve. The Slavic populations who had lived under Avar rule simply continued farming under new masters. Avar fortifications, built without stone but formidable in their day, gradually eroded into the landscape. The name survived in chronicles and place names, but the people vanished as though they had never existed, leaving behind only mysterious earthwork rings and the memory of heavy cavalry that once terrified emperors.
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