Mojmir I

Mojmir I, Moimir I or Moymir I (Latin: Moimarus, Moymarus; Czech and Slovak: Mojmír I.) was the first known ruler of the Moravian Slavs (820s/830s–846) He was deposed in 846 by Louis the German, king of East Francia. The fate of Mojmir I after his deposal in 846 remains unclear.

Background

From the 570s the Avars dominated the large area stretching from the Eastern Carpathians to the Eastern Alps in Central Europe. The local Slavic tribes were obliged to pay tribute to their overlords, but they began to resist in the early 7th century. First those who inhabited the region of today's Vienna (Austria) threw off the yoke of the Avars in 623–624. They were led by a Frankish merchant named Samo whose reign would last for at least 35 years.

Another century and a half passed before the Avars were finally defeated between 792 and 796 by Charlemagne, ruler of the Frankish Empire. In short time a series of Slavic principalities emerged in the regions on the Middle Danube. Among these polities, the Moravian principality showed up for the first time in 822 when the Moravians, according to the Royal Frankish Annals, brought tribute to Charlemagne's son, Emperor Louis the Pious.

Reign

Mojmir I arose in Moravia in the 820s. Whether he was the first ruler to unite the local Slavic tribes into a larger political unit or merely came into prominence as a result of the rapidly changing political situation, is uncertain.

The idea that Mojmir I was baptized between 818 and 824 is based on indirect evidence, namely on the dating of a Christian church in Mikulčice (Czech Republic) to the first quarter of the 9th century. Although this idea is still a matter of scholarly debate, the History of the Bishops of Passau recorded a mass baptism of the Moravians in 831 by Bishop Reginhar of Passau. Even so, the pagan sanctuary in Mikulčice continued in uninterrupted use until the middle of the 9th century. It is, however, certain that the Moravians were expanding in the 830s. Similarly, the Conversion of the Bavarians and the Carantanians, an historical work written in 870, relates that around 833 a local Slavic ruler, Pribina, was "driven across the Danube by Mojmir, duke of the Moravians". Pribina was either the head of another Slavic principality or one of Mojmir I's rebellious subordinates.

Last years

Mojmir I used the civil war within the Carolingian Empire as an opportunity to plot a rebellion and try to throw off the yoke of Frankish overlordship in the 840s. He seems to have fled or been killed during the invasion.