The Doukai: A Contribution to Byzantine Prosography by Demetrios I. PolemisReview by: M. MacLaganThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 48, No. 111 (Apr., 1970), pp. 301-302Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4206216 .

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reviews 301

the population concerned are also discussed. Several of the articles found

in the graves had been imported from other areas, and even from distant

countries, which emphasises the wide trade connections of the population of the middle Kama region through which many important early mediaeval trade-routes passed.

The authors conclude that the cemetery was characteristic of the Lomovatovo culture proper to the country on the middle Kama, to

which a special chapter of the book has been devoted. The map at the

end of the volume shows the geographical diffusion of its sites. The ceme?

tery of Nevolino represents a late stage (the 'Nevolino stage') in the

development of the culture. The cemetery was in use for 100-130 years, and its date has been estimated as the 6th and 7th c. a.d.

The people buried in the cemetery were horsemen. They were appar? ently the ancestors of the Komi, a people of Finno-Ugrian stock, who at

present live in a small area west of Perm and in the taiga country (about 300 km north of Perm) that extends up to the Barents Sea. The differences in the orientation of the skeletons uncovered at the cemetery and other

particulars suggest that the population must have been a blend of two somewhat different ethnic elements, of the local Permians and of the Cisuralian Ugrians, who came from the south.

Almost all the objects found in the graves have been reproduced in the 101 plates. Some of the photographs, particularly those of iron objects which have been reduced by rust to small amorphic lumps of iron do not seem to serve any useful purpose. There is an error in the description of

plate XCV, and also the silver- and gold-plated strap-end reproduced on that plate (at present in the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad), was not found in western Russia; it formed part of the important early 5th- century silver hoard from Zamosc in Poland.

This publication in German (a language more accessible to western scholars than Russian) of the important early medieval cemetery in eastern Russia is a very welcome and notable contribution to the study of the history of this remote part of Europe. London T. Sulimirski

Polemis, Demetrios I. The Doukai: a Contribution to Byzantine Prosopography. University of London, Athlone Press, 1968. xv+ 228 pp. Appendices. 70s.

Recent months have seen two important and valuable contributions to

Byzantine prosopography. In dealing with the family of the Kantakuzenoi, Dr Nicol had a relatively cohesive clan; Dr Polemis has a more com?

plicated problem with the Doukai. As he makes clear, the name must derive from the title doux (itself taken from the Latin dux), which was associated more with the frontier districts than with the organised themes. Hence there are significant literary connections with the epic of Digenis Akritas, which the author discusses in his introduction. Two members of the dynasty, Constantine X and Michael VIII, occupied the imperial

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302 SLAVONIC REVIEW

throne in the second half of the eleventh century, though without clear cause or great distinction. In the male line this family seems to have died out by about 1136, but the name continued to lend a cachet to descendants in the female line, particularly those of Alexios I Comnenos and his wife Irene Doukaina. It must be remembered that there was no absolute rule

enforcing the paternal surname, as was usual in the west; it would also be as rash to assume that all bearers of the name must be related as it would be to assume kinship of all Butlers or Marshalls in Great Britain.

Dr Polemis' careful and well-annotated work falls into four parts. It

begins with an introduction which will perhaps be of most interest to the

general reader. This is followed by the names of 33 Doukai either of early context or specifically related to the imperial family. Thereafter a further 182 names are listed, mainly grouped under the paternal families, Angelos, Batatzes, Kamateros, Palaiologos and so forth. The last section covers those with no identifiable affiliations. The author suggests (p. 132) that the

Emperor Isaac of Cyprus may have been a Doukas Kamateros, a view

put forward more hesitantly in an article in Byzantion (XXXVIII, 1968) (which would not have been available to him). Almost the last of the 270 names listed is that of the late historian Doukas, who chronicled the final

days of the great city; it is perhaps symbolical that we do not know his first name.

All Byzantine historians will feel a debt to Dr Polemis for providing a meticulous and highly useful work of reference to this distinguished family. The book is fully documented and there is a useful pedigree; occasionally the relation of the footnotes to the text is less than happy. Oxford M. Maclagan

Graus, F., & Ludat, H. (eds.). Siedlung und Verfassung Bohmens in der Friihzeit. Otto Harrasowitz, Wiesbaden, 1967. 203 pp. Maps.

The first postwar conference {Tagung) of West German and Czecho? slovak scholars (historians, archaeologists and linguists) took place in a little Hessian hamlet, called Allendorf, in April 1963, and was devoted to

problems of early medieval Bohemian history. Considering the old national antagonism between the Germans and the Czechs, which had for more than a century frustrated scholarly research in this field, as well as the nazi and Stalinist past of some of the participants, one may wonder whether this conference could have had any positive success. In the introduction to this verbatim report the Czech editor writes frankly about the problems involved in this conference. His conclusion, that there was a fruitful exchange of views and opinions, can be fully endorsed by the reviewer. Scholars interested in old Bohemia and the Slavonic past will find in this book many highly stimulating contributions which will

substantially enlarge their knowledge. This is a most useful and many- sided vademecum.

Though all the papers and discussions, collected in this volume, are

outstanding examples of scholarship, one may be allowed to mention some of them, especially V. Smilauer, 'Fragen der altesten slavischen Siedlung

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