The details of the Slavonic area to the south of Altmark are as follows.
Brandenburg, at the beginning of the historical period, was Slavonic, and one portion of it, the Circle of Cotbus, is so at the present moment. It is full of geographical names significant in the Slavonic languages. Of Germans to the East of the Elbe there are no signs until after the time of Charlemagne. But the Elbe is not even their eastern boundary. The Saale is the river which divides the Slavonians from the Thuringians—not only at the time when its drainage first comes to be known, but long afterwards. More than this, there were, in the 11th and 12th centuries, Slavonians in Thuringia, Slavonians in Franconia—facts which can be found in full in Zeuss vv. Fränkische und Thüringische Slawen—(Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme).
Saxony brings us down to the point with which the preceding paper concluded viz: the frontier of Bohemia. This was in the same category with Brandenburg. In Leipzig Slavonic was spoken A. D. 1327. In Lusatia it is spoken at the present moment. When were the hypothetical Germans of all these parts eliminated, or (if not eliminated) amalgamated with a population of intruders who displaced their language, not on one spot or on two, but every where?
If the Slavonians of the time of Charlemagne were indigenous to the western portion of their area, they were, a fortiori, indigenous to the eastern. At any rate, few who hold that the German populations of Bohemia, Mecklenburg, Luneburg, Altmark, Brandenburg, Saxony, Silesia, and Lusatia are recent, will doubt their being so in Pomerania.
In his Edition of the Germania of Tacitus the only Germans east of the Elbe, Saale and the Fichtel Gebirge, recognised by the present writer are certain intrusive Marcomanni; who (by hypothesis) derived from Thuringia, reached the Danube by way of the valley of Naab, and pressed eastward to some point unknown—but beyond the southern frontier of Moravia. Here they skirted the Slavonic populations of the north, and formed to their several areas the several Marches from which they took their name.
As far as we have gone hitherto we have gone in the direction of the doctrine that the Slavonians of Franconia, Thuringia, Saxony, Altmark, Luneburg, Mecklenburg, Holstein, and Brandenburg &c. were all old occupants of the districts in which they were found in the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries; also that the present Czekhs of Bohemia and Moravia, the present Serbs of Lusatia and Brandenburg, the present Kassubs of Pomerania, and the present Slovaks of Hungary represent aboriginal populations. We now ask how far this was the case with the frontagers of North-eastern Italy, and the Slavonians of Carinthia and Carniola. The conclusion to which we arrive in respect to these will apply to those of Bosnia, Servia, and Dalmatia.
That the Carinthians and Carniolans were the descendants of the Carni of the Alpes Carnicæ would never have been doubted but for the following statements—"The Krobati who now occupy the parts in the direction of Delmatia are derived from the Unbaptized Krobati, the Krovati Aspri so-called; who dwelt on the otherside of Turkey, and near France, conterminous with the Unbaptized Slaves—i. e. the Serbi. The word Krobati is explained by the dialect of the Slaves. It means the possessors of a large country"—Constantinus Porphyrogeneta—De Adm. Imp. 31. ed. Par. p. 97.
Again—"But the Krobati dwelt then in the direction of Bagivareia" (Bavaria) "where the Belokrobati are now. One tribe ([a]γενεὰ]) separated. Five brothers led them. Clukas, and Lobelos, and Kosentes, and Muklô, and Krobatos, and two sisters, Tuga and Buga. These with their people came to Delmatia—The other Krobati stayed about France, and are called Belokrobati, i. e. Aspri Krobati, having their own leader. They are subject to Otho the great king of France and Saxony. They continue Unbaptized, intermarrying" ([a]συμπενθερίας καὶ ἀγάπας ἔχοντες]) "with the Turks"—c. 30. p. 95.—The statement that the Kroatians of Dalmatia came from the Asprocroatians is repeated. The evidence, however, lies in the preceding passages; upon which it is scarcely necessary to remark that bel=white in Slavonic, and aspro=white in Romaic.
So much for the Croatians. The evidence that the Servians were in the same category, is also Constantine's.—"It must be understood that the Servians are from the Unbaptized Servians, called also Aspri, beyond Turkey, near a place called Boiki, near France—just like the Great Crobatia, also Unbaptized and White. Thence, originally, came the Servians"—c. 32. p. 99.
In the following passages the evidence improves—"The same Krobati came as suppliants to the Emperor Heraclius, before the Servians did the same, at the time of the inroads of the Avars—By his order these same Krobati having conquered the Avars, expelled them, occupied the country they occupied, and do so now"—c. 31. p. 97.