Battle of Wogastisburg

Siege of Wogastisburg
Date631 or 632
Location
Wogastisburg
Result

Decisive Slavic victory

  • Enlargement of Samo’s Empire
Belligerents
Slavic tribes Francia
Commanders and leaders

Samo

Dervan		 Dagobert I
Casualties and losses
Unknown Unknown, most likely larger than Slavic casualties

According to the contemporary Chronicle of Fredegar, the Battle of Wogastisburg (also called the siege of Wogastisburg) took place between Slavs (Sclav, cognomento Winidi[1]) under King Samo and Franks under King Dagobert I in 631 or 632. The Frankish armies advanced into the area of the Slavic tribal union in three groups - Alamanni, Lombards, and Austrasian Franks. The first two were quite successful, but the main fighting force was defeated in a three-day siege near a place referred to as Wogastisburg.

The site of the siege cannot be successfully located because the source, Fredegar's chronicle, gives no geographical specifications. Thus a lot of places claim to be connected with the battle (usually based on linguistic parallels and some excavations), such as Rubín hill near Podbořany (Bohemia), Úhošť hill near Kadaň (Bohemia), Bratislava (Slovakia), Trenčín (Slovakia), Beckov (Slovakia), Váh river = Voga (Slovakia), Staffelberg near Bad Staffelstein (Upper Franconia), Burk near Forchheim (Upper Franconia), Vienna, Augustianis[2][Note 1] and other places along the middle Danube etc.

In fact, there is no conclusive evidence for any of these locations and it is even possible that the term Wogastisburg referred only to a kind of temporary encampment rather than a permanent settlement, in which case establishing a definite location would be impossible.[3]

  1. ^ "Fredegarii scholastici chronicum cum suis continuatoribus, sive appendix ad sancti gregorii episcopi turonensis historiam francorum". Archived from the original on 2008-05-21. Retrieved 2009-04-23.
  2. ^ Cinert, Jan. "Místo Samova Wogastisburgu nalezeno | Bylo to jinak - Jan Cinert". www.bylotojinak.cz (in Czech). Archived from the original on 2018-08-06. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  3. ^ (in Polish)Gerard Labuda, Słowiańszczyzna starożytna i wczesnośredniowieczna, 2003


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