Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/65

 SLAVS

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SLAVS

svoba (freedom). The most probable explanation is that deriving the name from slovo (word); this is sup- ported by the Slavonic name for the Germans Ncmci (tlic dumb). The .Slav.s called themselves Slovani, that is, "the speaking ones", those who know words, while they called their neighbours the Germans, "the dumb", that is, those who do not know words.

During the long period of war between the Germans and Slavs, which lasted until the tenth century, the

only a single tribe. Ptolemy called the Slavs as a whole the Venedai and says they are "the great- est nation" (iieyicroi' eSmt). The "Byzantines of the sixth centurj' thought only of the southern Slavs and incidentally also of the Russians, who lived on the boundaries of the Eastern Empire. With them the ex- pression Slavs meant only the southern Slavs; they called the Russians .4 (iio-, and distinguished sharply between the two groups of tribes. In one place (Get.,

Slavonic territories in the north and south-cast fur- nished the Germans large numbers of slaves. The Venetian and other Italian cities on the coast took numerous Slavonic captives from the opposite side of the Adriat ic whom they resold to other places. The Slavs frequently shared in the seizure and export of their countrj-men as slaves. The Xaretani, a pirati- cal Slavonic tribe living in the present district of Southern Dalmatia, were especially notorious for their slave-trade. Russian princes exported large numbers of slaves from their country. The result is that the name Slav has given the word slave to the peoples of Western Europe.

The question si ill remains to be answered whether the expression Slurs indicated originally all Slavonic tribes or only one or a few of them. The reference to them in Ptolemy shows that the word then meant

34, .35) Jordanis divides all Slavs into three groups: Veneii, Slavs, and Antce; this would correspond to the present division of western, southern, and eastern Slavs. However, this mention appears to be an ar- bitrary combination. In another i)!issage he desig- nates the eastern Slavs by the name Vtrwli. Prob- ably he had found the expression \'rri(ti in old writers and had learned personally the names Slav/: and Antcc; in this way arose his triple division. All the seventh- century authorities call .all Slavonic tribes, both southern Slavs and western Slavs, that belonged to the kingdom of Prince Samo, simply Slavs; Samo ia called the "ruler of the Slavs", but his peoi)les arc called "the Slavs named Vindi" {Sclavi cognomento Wina/li). In the eighth and ninth centuries the Czechs and Slavs of the Elbe were generally called Slavs, but also at times Wends, by the German and