Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/438

 404 The Killing of the Khazar Kings.

which exert no authority or power. When a man has been chosen to bear this title, they install him without taking account of his former condition. None are raised to the dignity of khakan but persons who profess Judaism. The golden throne and pavilion, which are to be seen among the Khozars, are reserved for the khakan ; on the march, the tents of the khakan are placed above those of the king ; similarly in the towns, the mansion of the khakan is higher than the mansion of the king,. ..

" The language of the Bulgarians resembles that of the Khozars." ^

From a comparison of these accounts we gather that the Khazars at the height of their power were governed by two kings, a sacred and nominally supreme king, and a civil and nominally subordinate king, and that all real power centred in the hands of the civil king, while the nominal sovereign was little more than a venerable puppet, who lived in almost absolute seclusion, seldom showing himself in public, remaining virtually invisible to the eyes of his subjects, and yet treated with marks of the most profound respect, if not of adoration, both in his lifetime and after his death. In this system of a double kingship, with its assignment of the shadow of power to one person and the substance of it to another, we trace those features of rois faineants and Mayors of the Palace, which are familiar to us in Merovingian history.- The old line of hereditary monarchs had fallen into a political dotage, and were practically superseded by a succession of vigorous ministers, who were the real masters, while they professed

1 Aboulfeda, Geographic, traduite de f Arabe en Francais, par M. Keinaud <Paris, 1848), ii. Premiere Partie, pp. 301-305.

'■'Compare Klaproth, " Memoire sur les Khazars," y^«r«(z/ Asiatiqtte, iii. {Paris, 1823), p. 157 : " // est done a pn'sumer que raiitorite des Khagha7is dorigine turqtie s'^tait considh-ablement affaiblie dans les dernicrs terns de la monarchie khazare. Des espkes de maires du palais, apres avoir usurps le titre de roi, c'taient devenus les viritables souveraius du pays, et tenaient les Khaghans dans line di'petidance absolue. "