Were the Pechenegs at some point Manicheans?
Upvote:1
I'd also like to know what the sources for that claim are (since you're the one who has seen them.).
It does pass the smell test. Manichaeism was on the decline after about 840, but there were still adherents that we know of in China as late as the 14th century, and it was known to have had adherents among Turkish-speakers, and also in other peoples in central Asia during its heyday.
The Pechenegs likely moved west from Central Asia sometime between 790 and 850. So it is certainly possible many of them were Manichaeist, and perhaps even likely at least a few of them were.
Alex is right that there are any number of possibilities other than that though. Another likely religion would have been Tengrism. That appears to have been the dominant religion of their fellow Western Turks, the Khasars and the Hungarians*, at that time. As the original religion of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples, this would be my first guess for the religion of any nomadic Turkish groups of that period, in the absence of any historical references saying otherwise.
* - Hungarians are lingusticly and geneticly not at all Turkish, but oddly their culture at the time was otherwise almost entirely Turkish.
Upvote:1
From "The Cambridge History of Inner Asia" (Cambridge, 1990), p.275
According to al-Bakri (d. 1094), the Pechenegs up to the year 400/1009-10, were followers of "the religion of the Magi." This statement may indicate some Zoroastrian or Manichaean influences. It may also refer to a shamanistic cult. After that period, according to our sources, Islam began to make some headway amongst them (f.n.)
Footnote: A. Kunik, V. Rozen, Izvestija al-Bekri i drugikh avtorov o Rusi i slavjanakh, pts. 1-2 (pt. 1, Supplement to the Zapiski Imperatorskot Akademii Nauk, xxxii, 1878), p. 43.
Islamic perspective (reference), from "The Encyclopedia of Islam", (Cambridge, 1954), p.1018:
Officially, they (referring to another Hungarian group) called themselves Christians and they disguised their Islam, in contrast to the Maghariba/Pechenegs*, who overtly professed the Muslim faith ...
*Maghariba (Arabic: المغاربة al-Maghāribah, meaning "Westerners").
They are often referred to as "Maghariba" in Islamic texts of the time, which makes it difficult for Latin (Western) scholars to know whom exactly these "Westerners" were. The problem has persisted to present-day research.
Upvote:3
There are very few sources on Pechenegs, and they do not tell us the details of their religious situation. By analogy with other tribes which inhabited this area in the Middle Age, one can guess that they had a variety of religious beliefs. Some of them could be Manichean, others Christian, Muslims or pagan. It was normal for that times and that place to have diverse religions within one "state" or tribe union. Contemporary Khazars and later Mongols and Cumans had variety of religions. But the best guess would be that most of them were pagans. (Because religious intolerance and unification is a feature of monotheistic religions. It usually begins with conversion of the rulers to Islam or Christianity. And for Pechenegs we do not read this in surviving sources. Russian sources call them pagans.)
More post
- 📝 How do we know that Louvre version of Mona Lisa painting is the original one painted by Leonardo Da Vinci?
- 📝 How was whiskey made in the 1800's?
- 📝 Has a battering ram been used to breach a gate?
- 📝 During the 1930-40s - World War 2 - were children taught English in Nazi Germany?
- 📝 Inviting rulers vs taking power
- 📝 Why was Seattle chosen for the site of Expo 62?
- 📝 Who were the first "businessmen" to rival the kings throughout the world?
- 📝 Were there any top Nazi generals who opposed the idea to invade the USSR?
- 📝 Could you help me identify this photograph that was taken shortly after World War 2?
- 📝 How do historians agree on what common evidence should be used in the writing of history?
- 📝 How did WWII change the GDPs of the great empires of the world?
- 📝 What are some symbols representing peasants/oppressed persons fighting back?
- 📝 Would an illegitimate child of a monarch have been recognized at the Russian court?
- 📝 Did Tito back the Bulgarian anti Communist Goryani resistance movement?
- 📝 Which countries banned Ferdinand the bull?
- 📝 Mexico has the right to possess firearms?
- 📝 Why were there no agricultural, city-state forming civilizations in the Ice Age?
- 📝 Was it widely known during his reign that Kaiser Wilhelm II had a deformed arm?
- 📝 Animosity between Mandarin-speaking and Cantonese-speaking Chinese?
- 📝 How did a 12 year old Sardinian slave girl factor into America's First Barbary War?
- 📝 Where is the other surviving chest from the Boston Tea Party?
- 📝 Who conducted the first "straw poll" in U.S. election politics, and when was it conducted?
- 📝 Which war games did Napoleon practice with his generals?
- 📝 Did ancient Chinese and/or Japanese scholars speculate about what lay across the Pacific?
- 📝 What is the origin of the names of planets in Arabic?
- 📝 Has Britain's 1940 invasion of Iceland been downplayed by historians?
- 📝 Where did the term "Middle Ages" come from?
- 📝 How was Munich Captured in WWII?
- 📝 What are some examples of nations that involuntarily gained independence?
- 📝 Medieval Saharan Caravan Navigation
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Were the Pechenegs at some point Manicheans?
- 📝 What were the criteria for class ranking at West Point prior to the Civil War?
- 📝 At what point were the most current and former US Presidents alive?
- 📝 What were the advantages and disadvantages to the creation of Vichy France, from the Nazi point of view?
- 📝 Who were some of the specific people in the Renaissance who wrote about their period being different from the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Why were the Marines so badly outnumbered at the critical point at Guadalcanal?
- 📝 What were some of the complications of Marshall Plan?
- 📝 Were the Huns and Mongols at one point rivals?
- 📝 Were some groups in the Soviet Union more likely to collaborate with the Germans than others?
- 📝 Were hippies in the USA "refused ambulance service" for some reason?
- 📝 Why were the some "New Deal" programs cancelled in the beginning of WWII?
- 📝 What were the casualties and ship damage on each side of the Battle of Plum Point Bend, Tennessee?
- 📝 What are some items still existing today that were involved in the most killings?
- 📝 Were there women who were against giving women the right to vote?
- 📝 What drugs were used in England during the High Middle Ages?
- 📝 What were the reasons for the Renaissance / scientific revolution in Europe?
- 📝 Why were the Romans unable to conquer Germania?
- 📝 Why were so many more Jewish men than Jewish women killed during the Holocaust?
- 📝 When did the Romans finally acknowledge that they were living in an empire?
- 📝 Why were the Allies so much better cryptanalysts?
- 📝 Were Medieval Britons aware of the existence of the Roman Empire?
- 📝 How were smallpox vaccines enforced in the US?
- 📝 Why were helmets and other body armour not commonplace in the 1800s?
- 📝 ‘Avoid sleeping on your back’ & ‘breathe in toilet smells’ were seen as precautions against the Black Death. Why did doctors think these would work?
- 📝 In the "Christmas truce" of 1914 were there any football (soccer) matches between British and German troops?
- 📝 What led some people to (correctly) believe that there was no land under the ice cap at the North Pole?
- 📝 What were the acceptance criteria in universities of medieval Europe?
- 📝 How severe were the casualties in ancient/medieval battles?
- 📝 Why were the West African islands uninhabited?
- 📝 Were defendants at the Nuremberg trial allowed to deny the holocaust?
