Before the remains of the Huns of Attila were extinguished—probably before they were notably diminished—the closely allied Avars (Huns, perhaps, under another name) conquered Pannonia, and held it from the end of the sixth to that of the eighth century.
What with the remains of Attila’s army, and what with the Avars and the Bulgarians, I think that when the Majiars entered Hungary they found it, at least, as much Turk as aught else,—as much, but not more; for the history of Hungary between the Hun and the Majiar conquests seems to have been as follows:—
a. There was some reaction on the part of the Romans, assisted by—
b. The Goths, and perhaps by—
c. The remains of the native population of the frontiers.
The Gepidæ, too, were amongst the subjects of Attila. After his death they rebelled against his son. Between the Danube, the Theiss, and the Carpathian Mountains, their power grew steadily until the rise of the Avars and Lombards; the union of which two nations was too strong for them. By the beginning of the eighth century their national existence had ceased.
I cannot say to what stock the Gepidæ belonged. I think they were Slavonians.
Be this, however, as it may, their power seems to have been in the inverse ratio to that of the Avars, and they must be admitted as an element in the ethnology of Hungary, without being supposed to be a very important one.
We may well, then, say that no European population is more heterogeneous than that of Hungary.
a. In the countries of Saala and Eisenberg we have a simple extension of the Carinthians.