Kocel

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Principality of Lower Pannonia under Kocel

KocelTemplate:Cref2 (Template:Floruit 861–876) was a ruler of the Principality of Lower Pannonia. He was an East Frankish vassal titled comes (count), and is believed to have ruled between 861 or 864 and 876 from Mosapurc, also known in Old-Slavonic as Blatnograd (modern Zalavár near Lake Balaton).

Life

Kocel was the second son of Pribina, a Slavic dux installed by the Franks in Lower Pannonia in ca. 838Template:Sfn or 840.Template:Sfn Bowlus believes he was born in ca. 820.Template:Sfn In 861, Kocel made a significant donation to the Freising monastery, showing that he had a solid social and political standing.Template:Sfn According to Bowlus, this document indicates that Pribina had died, and Kocel succeeded him.Template:Sfn Louis the German installed Kocel as a ruler in Lower Pannonia in 864.Template:Sfn Kocel held "Lower Pannonia" (Pannonia inferioris) in 865, when Archbishop Adalwin of Salzburg visited his lands twice.Template:Sfn In 869, Kocel had requested for Byzantine missionary Methodius to be sent into Pannonia as a papal legate.Template:Sfn In midsummer, Kocel sent Methodius to Rome with twenty men to petition for his elevation to bishop.Template:Sfn Hadrian II appointed Methodius the archbishop of Sirmium, and sent confirmations to, among others, Kocel, whose land lay within the jurisdiction.Template:Sfn Frankish Pannonia was held by Kocel and Bavarian margraves in 871; Kocel enjoyed independence, as evident from his talks with the pope.Template:Sfn In 874, following the Moravian conflict, Kocel continued to rule the Drava Valley, presumably under Carloman of the March of Pannonia.Template:Sfn Kocel disappears from sources after 874,Template:Sfn and was either dead or removed from his office c. 876,Template:Sfn certainly dead by 880.Template:Sfn

Identification with other commanders

Some historians consider that Kocel can be identified with Frankish military commander Kotzil/Kotzilis mentioned in De Administrando Imperio regarding the armed revolt by the Croats (presumably in the time of Duke Domagoj) who "managed to prevail and killed all the Franks and their archon, called Kotzil" (also identified with Cadolah of Friuli d. 819), most probably in 874 which coincides with Kocel's disappearance from the sources.Template:Sfn According to Francis Dvornik, the DAI's account is possibly "telescoping" different events related to Ljudevit, Borna, and finally in which Kocel "had perished in 876".Template:Sfn Neven Budak concluded that the DAI's account about Croatian revolt against the Franks cannot be connected to Kocel.

Titles

• "Count of Slavs" (comes de Sclavis nomine Chezul), 861 Latin gift deedTemplate:Sfn
• "Duke" (Chezil dux), posthumously between 876 and 880Template:Sfn