"The Bessi and Vlachs were at this time the easternmost members of Western, Latin Christianity. However, in the 7th century, ties with Byzantium became even more significant. A peripheral region of that Western world, where Latin culture held sway, transformed into a peripheral zone of Eastern Christianity. This shift must have left its marks.
To test the validity of our reasoning, we must again rely on the evidence of borrowed words. Their reservoir, which always provides important clues, does not make the analysis easier this time. This is because the Greek words, which we need as evidence of Byzantine influences in this branch of Christianity in the interior of the Balkan Peninsula, entered Albanian at very different times. We already know that the massive influx of Latin words was preceded by an earlier influx from Greek. This layer would have been adopted by Proto-Albanian before the Romans, around the birth of Christ, established their rule in central Southeastern Europe. The second wave, which we will now focus on, was quickly followed by a third wave that swept over those Bessi who made present-day northern Albania their new homeland. It is self-evident that our material provides strong evidence only in fortunate cases when a single word belongs to all three layers. However, the difficulty here is somewhat alleviated if we consider that Albanian borrowings from Ancient Greek before Roman times, as seen earlier, are limited to two areas of civilization: the expansion of the list of foods and the refinement of types of weapons and tools. It is almost unthinkable that Greek influences in these two spheres of material culture continued during these turbulent times, which were followed by the Slavic incursion at the end of the 6th century and the beginning of the 7th. It is a fact that there are no borrowed words that contradict these considerations. And, in the ecclesiastical terminology of Albanians, as we have seen, there are few ancient borrowings from Greek that developed through multiple irregular sound changes.
From these considerations, it follows that the issue at hand poses serious difficulties only if we seek to determine which words entered Albanian among its predecessor speakers in the 7th to 9th centuries and which after their migration. Consequently, this task—and the reader should keep this in mind—can only be resolved very superficially. It remains to be hoped that continued discussion will make the picture more acceptable and detailed.
An important aid for our path forward comes from the now well-known fact that during the period we are discussing, Proto-Albanians and Proto-Romanians lived in close symbiosis. Among the shared characteristics of these two peoples of the foothill regions—if what we have said so far holds—is the circumstance that both depended on the support of the Byzantine Empire and its church. This can be turned into a working hypothesis: two languages that, regarding borrowed layers before the 7th century and after the 9th, show no noteworthy correspondences, would have, during the period of Bessi-Vlach symbiosis, frequently borrowed the same words from Byzantine Greek because the cultural conditions for borrowing were similar for both peoples at that time. Thus, we now have a sieve in hand, and with its help, we can sift out the first set of almost certain borrowings from the 7th to 9th centuries.
Some borrowings, which we attribute to that period, are closely tied to the civilization of that border zone where the Bessi and Vlachs encountered Byzantine conditions. Military service was key to this encounter, which, due to the Slavic incursion, must have involved many young Bessi (and Romanized pastoralists). At the beginning of the 6th century, in the army of Emperor Anastasius, alongside Scythians and Goths, there were also Bessi troops. Two Bessi, as recorded on a papyrus, performed their service in an Egyptian garrison in 561. The military involvement of this Christian people likely continued after the catastrophe of the 6th century. One must imagine a mercenary from this people rising through the ranks, perhaps a descendant who, in 8th-century Byzantium, made a career.
Another force, without which the empire could not defend itself, was road construction. It is no surprise, therefore, that the standard Greek term for “road,” dromos, entered Albanian as drom, alongside the later variant dhrom, which adapted to the newer Greek pronunciation. In Romanian, this appears as drum, based on the Old Bulgarian drum. For the protection of roads and defense against external enemies, mountain passes played a decisive role. Their Latin name, clausura, was replaced in Greek with klisura, which in Albanian became këshyra and in Aromanian clisura.
An important word in military life, Latin tenta (“tent, shelter”), appears with the same meaning in Albanian as tendë (Gheg tandë, in Shkodër tan), while in Romanian, tinda shifted to mean “entrance, vestibule.” It is clear that this word, from Greek tenda, must have entered at least Romanian, as the shift from -nt- to -nd- occurred only in Greek, while Latin -nt- was preserved in Romanian: intendere < întinde (“stretch, extend”), cantare < cînta (“sing”). In Albanian, where all tenues following nasals soften into mediae, this does not necessarily indicate a borrowing from Greek. Determining the source language is more difficult here due to the fact that early Romance, besides tenta—attested in Italian and Spanish—also used tenda < tendita (pellis).
Through men serving in the Byzantine Empire, Albanian likely adopted traista, trajstë, strajcë, and Aromanian tastru, tastir, trastu, tratu (“saddlebag for horse gear”) from a ta(g)istron, traston, attested since the 10th century.
The same applies to Albanian flamur, Aromanian flambura, Romanian flamura (“flag”), a word that can only be derived from Latin flammula through Greek phlammouron, attested since the 6th century.
The most significant part of this group of words, worthy of consideration, which pertains to the military-characterized civilization of Byzantium’s border territories, is the Albanian word fshat, alongside its variant pshat. Its Romanian counterpart is sat. Gustav Meyer saw the divergent forms fsh- and psh- as stemming from a common Latin root massatum, meaning “complex of lands, estate.” Modern scholarship prefers the alternative that this word derives from Latin fossatum. It seems to me that this word entered Albanian through Greek phossaton. This is a well-known Greek-Byzantine term for “military camp,” associated with fortification through a ditch before a rampart. This word lives on, for example, in the name Al-Fustat, still used today for the center of old Cairo. If Albanian fshat truly derives from phossaton, this moment would open important perspectives regarding the relations of the central Balkan mountains, which we should take into account. There is no doubt that Albanians had their own native word for the type of village inhabited year-round by a settled population primarily engaged in agriculture. The same naturally applies to Romance, which undoubtedly had a Latin word for “farmers’ village,” likely a derivative of villa. If the Bessi and Vlachs replaced their term for village with one that actually means “military camp,” this sheds light on harsh times when, in lowland areas, one could only feel secure in settlements surrounded by ramparts and ditches.
It is clear, furthermore, that we cannot assume Proto-Albanians and Proto-Romanians both borrowed this word simultaneously from the Greeks. Romanian sat can only be derived from Greek phossátum through Proto-Albanian fsat. Aromanian fusat, fusatea (“ditch”) shows that an unstressed Greek o would have needed to be preserved. This finding clarifies that the Bessi inhabited lower regions than the Proto-Romanians, who found their ecological niche much higher up. This resulted in Proto-Albanians—viewed solely from the perspective of military service—cultivating more direct and intensive relations with the Byzantines than the Proto-Romanians, thus passing on some cultural values to the Proto-Romanians, who lived a level higher, without direct access to the road.
Çabej rightly judged that even Albanian kurt and Romanian curte (“courtyard”), through a Greek intermediary kurti, derive from Latin curte. Both the meaning and the connection between Albanian and Romanian would fit very well with the “second wave.” However, this case is not certain.
How do the fields of religion and folk beliefs help us here? Gheg konë, Tosk korë (“painting, church icon”) have their roots in Greek ikóna. That this word was borrowed in the centuries we are dealing with is not yet firmly supported by Romanian icoana, as this word could have come from Greek but through the intermediary of Church Slavonic. A reliable point of support for this is the fact that in konë < ikónë, an unstressed initial vowel is devoiced. This regular change in Albanian would have occurred when the Slavs, perhaps before 800 CE, fixed the name of the city on the banks of the Bregalnica, known in antiquity as Astibos, as a borrowing Štip. Supporting the same indication are fli, flij, which stem from Greek evlogía. We will examine this word further below.
The third word in our series, dreq, provides yet another correspondence in Romanian, confirming it was borrowed during the time of the Albanian-Romance-pastoral symbiosis. Romanians use drac as their familiar term for “devil,” while in Albanian, the pluralized singular dreq competes with djall. The singular drak, on the other hand, has taken on the meaning “block of stone.” We will address the Albanian dreq in singular later. Proto-Albanians and Proto-Romanians adopted the Greek word drákos, explained as a later variant of drákon (“dragon”). As a worm-like monster, people imagined the devil, and this was also marked in Old High German as draccho, while modern Provençal retained drac for “devil, sprite, goblin.”
The new borrowing dreq, I would believe, did not enrich the ecclesiastical language of the Bessi, in which “devils” continued to be referred to with a phonetically evolved word from Latin daemones. Our third word represents an innovation that was preserved in Albanian folk expressions.
What can we make of this frail prey? With the icon, we find a piece of ecclesiastical culture that holds essential significance for the services of the Eastern Church. If someone—say, a wandering monk or a discharged mercenary—returned from the Byzantine Empire to their Bessi homeland, they would have been expected, at the very least, to bring an icon with them. Among the large number of Byzantine monks who, during the years 726–787 in the first phase of triumphant iconoclasm, greatly valued the veneration of painted images and sought protection in outer regions due to persecution, it is possible that some found their way to the Bessi mountains. It was neither these monks nor the cunning vendors selling drawings, which were banned even in Byzantium itself, who spread the icons, as by the 8th century, the word korë had already taken root.
The Albanian word fli is found with two meanings: 1. sacrifice and 2. a three-day dish prepared in a special sauce. This duality has its roots in ecclesiastical Greek, in evlogía: 1. sacrifice in the specific sense of the offering for the Mass, but also in a general sense, and 2. it denoted a sacrifice consisting of bread or other contents, blessed during a festive service. This borrowing likely stems from the profound impression of the Byzantine service and its celebratory culture. However, without other borrowings from this context, we should be cautious with speculations.
If we attempt, after reviewing the situation, to reconstruct which words from the 7th to 9th centuries found their way from the Greeks to the Bessi, a completely different picture emerges for spiritual life compared to secular civilization. While contact with the Byzantine border regions and their strong military character clearly took root in important borrowed words, borrowings in the ecclesiastical sphere are noticeably rarer. Indeed, they appear—starting with a word for “icon”—directed somewhat blindly, without apparent logic. This does not mean in any way that the connection between Bessi Christianity and Greek Christianity during these centuries was weak or perhaps even insignificant. Rather, we are dealing with the circumstance that the Bessi, with considerable self-satisfaction, continued to cultivate their own distinct church according to their own standards: safeguarded in their language, intertwined with the customs of a pastoral people, and especially sustained by local monasteries, where the continuation of a rich spiritual and cultural heritage was in good hands. No strong influence from the far more solemn and cultivated Byzantine Church during the 7th to 9th centuries stands out. "
The Beginnings of Albanian Christianity
The Early Conversion of the Bessi and Its Long-Term Consequences
Gottfried Schramm
