KAROLINŠKO KOPLJE IZ VARAŽDINA - PRINOS POZNAVANJU NAJRANIJE PROŠLOSTI GRADA
CAROLINGIAN SPEAR FROM VARAŽDIN: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE EARLIEST PAST OF THE TOWN

Summary/Abstract: Exploring urban genesis has certainly always been an issue of interest to numerous researchers applying various approaches. Their approach has sometimes been based on facts gathered within the framework of the natural and social sciences or the humanities. More rarely have researchers applied an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the phenomenon of the formation of urban agglomerations and issues concerning the building of towns. Academician Andre Mohorovičić belonged to this extraordinarily gifted category of polyhistors and enriched Varaždin and all of us with his extraordinary life and work. Those generations who were lucky enough to have belonged to the period in which Mohorovičić was active and left the mark of his wide knowledge grew up amidst numerous sources of his broad interests. The discovery of a Carolingian spear in the urban nucleus of the Old Town of Varaždin (1942) has been set within the context of the Frankish-Avar wars near the end of the 8th and the beginning of the 9th century in an attempt to establish it as an important link in the genesis of the early mediaeval agglomeration which in the 12th century was to become Guarestin. In this contribution, the author discusses the material finds of synchronous winged spears on the eastern margins of the Frankish Empire as clear evidence of the conflict between the Franks and Avars. Carolingian miniatures with illustrations of this type of naval weapon in liturgical books (psalters, bibles, etc.) are of great importance in the evaluation of the winged spear from Varaždin. These illustrations, combined with additional historical data on Peppin’s military operations in the Drava and Sava interfluve up to the borders of the Avar Khaganate along the Danube, suggest the period around AD 800 or the beginning of the first half of the 9th century as the time frame for the Varaždin spear.The author highlights the Carolingian spear as an important and unavoidable link in the genesis of the town of Varaždin, which in the 12th century was known as Guarestin.

• Details
• Contents