Post by Ardavarz on Nov 28, 2010 4:38:40 GMT 3
According to Chinese chronicles the shanyu (or danhu, 單于) have ruled the Xiongnu Empire with the help of the 24 "great ministers" (da cheng, 大臣) each of who had 10000 riders (= Mongolian tümen) under his command. Of these 24 officials there was a higher rank of 4 who were called "the Four Angles (or Horns 角)" and after them another group of 6 called "the Six Angles (Horns)". So there was altogether 10 "angles/horns" (角), all of who were sons and younger borthers of the shanyu. Thus 10 of the 24 tümens (tribes?) were ruled by members of the royal family and 14 by elders of the other clans.
Now, in the XXII Adventure of the "Song of the Nibelungs" we can find an interesting quatrain which suggests a similar hierarchy of 24 "princes" (Fürsten) amongst the Western Huns. It describes the reception of Kriemhild by Etzel/Attila and his court:
Uor Etzeln dem kunige / ain ingeſinde rait
fro vnd vil reiche / hoªfiſch vnd auch gemait ·
wol vier= / und zwaintzigk Fuªrſten · tewr vnd / her̃ ·
daz ſy jr Frawen ſahen · dauoŋ / begerten ſy nicht mer.
I found out that the number of this quatrain differs in different manuscripts - it's 1342, 1343 or 1339. Here is the translation of Alice Horton from 1898 (I don't speak Old German but as far as I could judge from my superficial knowledge of modern German it seems very close to the original):
As guard before King Etzel a company there rode
Of mighty men and merry, courtly and high of mood;
Of princes four-and-twenty, all great and wealthy men.
They came to see their Lady, - naught more they ask for then.
(XXII, 1342)
Thus we have again 24 high officials or "princes" such as the 24 "great ministers" amongst Xiongnu. And what about the 10 clans (or tribes) governed by royal relatives - the Ten Angles/Horns 角? Maybe these could be compared with the Onogurs ("Ten Oghurs" alias "ten arrows" - On-oq) amongst Western Hunnic peoples called later Onogundurs. The ending "undur" according to Volga Bulgarian sources is a Hunno-Bulgarian word for "cavalry, riders" from und - "horse" (= Old Turkic jund).
The ranks of 4 and 6 "angles/horns" amongst these higher officials also seem to have analogues amongst the Bulgars. Thus Ahmad Ibn Fadlān wrote that the king of Volga Bulgars (Saqāliba) have sent 4 vassal kings, his brothers and sons to meet the Arabian embassy. Later in the official reception those four vassals sat on the right hand of the king, and his sons were before him. As for the group of the 6, they can be found in the institution of the "six great Bolyars" (hoi hex Boliades hoi megaloi) amongst Danube Bulgars mentioned immediately after the king's sons by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in his treatise "De Cerimoniis Aulae Byzantinae".
So, it seems that the Hunnic people of the West were really heirs of the Xiongnu at least as far as their political structure is concerned.
Now, in the XXII Adventure of the "Song of the Nibelungs" we can find an interesting quatrain which suggests a similar hierarchy of 24 "princes" (Fürsten) amongst the Western Huns. It describes the reception of Kriemhild by Etzel/Attila and his court:
Uor Etzeln dem kunige / ain ingeſinde rait
fro vnd vil reiche / hoªfiſch vnd auch gemait ·
wol vier= / und zwaintzigk Fuªrſten · tewr vnd / her̃ ·
daz ſy jr Frawen ſahen · dauoŋ / begerten ſy nicht mer.
I found out that the number of this quatrain differs in different manuscripts - it's 1342, 1343 or 1339. Here is the translation of Alice Horton from 1898 (I don't speak Old German but as far as I could judge from my superficial knowledge of modern German it seems very close to the original):
As guard before King Etzel a company there rode
Of mighty men and merry, courtly and high of mood;
Of princes four-and-twenty, all great and wealthy men.
They came to see their Lady, - naught more they ask for then.
(XXII, 1342)
Thus we have again 24 high officials or "princes" such as the 24 "great ministers" amongst Xiongnu. And what about the 10 clans (or tribes) governed by royal relatives - the Ten Angles/Horns 角? Maybe these could be compared with the Onogurs ("Ten Oghurs" alias "ten arrows" - On-oq) amongst Western Hunnic peoples called later Onogundurs. The ending "undur" according to Volga Bulgarian sources is a Hunno-Bulgarian word for "cavalry, riders" from und - "horse" (= Old Turkic jund).
The ranks of 4 and 6 "angles/horns" amongst these higher officials also seem to have analogues amongst the Bulgars. Thus Ahmad Ibn Fadlān wrote that the king of Volga Bulgars (Saqāliba) have sent 4 vassal kings, his brothers and sons to meet the Arabian embassy. Later in the official reception those four vassals sat on the right hand of the king, and his sons were before him. As for the group of the 6, they can be found in the institution of the "six great Bolyars" (hoi hex Boliades hoi megaloi) amongst Danube Bulgars mentioned immediately after the king's sons by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in his treatise "De Cerimoniis Aulae Byzantinae".
So, it seems that the Hunnic people of the West were really heirs of the Xiongnu at least as far as their political structure is concerned.