The Rhynchines, Richenoi or Rhynchinoi () were a South Slavic (

Sklavenoi The ' (in Latin) or ' ( various forms in Greek) were early Slavic tribes that raided, invaded and settled in the Balkans in the Early Middle Ages and eventually became one of the progenitors of modern South Slavs. They were mentioned by early By ...

) tribe in the region of southern

Macedonia Macedonia (, , , ), most commonly refers to: * North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia * Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity * Macedonia (Greece), a former administr ...

in the 7th century. According to Traian Stoianovich, they were Slavic or Avaro-Slavic. The Rhynchinoi settled along the river Rhechinos (or Rhechios) between lake Bolbe and the Strymonic Gulf. The tribe is attested in the ''

Miracles of Saint Demetrius The ''Miracles of Saint Demetrius'' () is a 7th-century collection of homilies, written in Greek, accounting the miracles performed by the patron saint of Thessalonica, Saint Demetrius. It is a unique work for the history of the city and the Balka ...

'' as having formed a '' sklavinia'' near the city of

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

, under a king named Perboundos in the third quarter of the seventh century. They were apparently a powerful tribe. After Perboundos was arrested and executed by

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

authorities, the Rhynchines rose up and allied themselves with two other nearby ''sklaviniai'', the

Sagudates The Sagudates (, ''Sagoudatai'') were a South Slavic tribe that lived in Macedonia region, in the area between Thessaloniki and Veria. History The Sagudates were first attested in a Byzantine document of 686 as allies of the Avars and besieger ...

and the Drugubites, and launched an unsuccessful siege of Thessalonica (in 676–678 AD). The general assimilation of the tribe into the local population is also indicated by the fact that one of the few records of the chieftain Perbundos is that he was fluent in

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, wore

clothes and preferred to stay in

Thessalonica Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area) and the capital city, capital of the geographic reg ...

. Scriptures from the Athonite monastery of Kastamonitou suggests that the Rhynchinoi were converted to Christianity under the Iconoclast emperors. In the 8th and 9th centuries the Rynchinoi and Sagudates moved eastwards into

Chalkidiki Chalkidiki (; , alternatively Halkidiki), also known as Chalcidice, is a peninsula and regional unit of Greece, part of the region of Central Macedonia, in the geographic region of Macedonia in Northern Greece. The autonomous Mount Athos reg ...

. Porphyrius Uspensky found a 17th-century manuscript at Kastamonitou that mentioned the Richenoi and Sagudates having come from Bulgaria across Macedonia to

Mount Athos Mount Athos (; ) is a mountain on the Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece directly on the Aegean Sea. It is an important center of Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox monasticism. The mountain and most of the Athos peninsula are governed ...

, at the time of the

Iconoclasm Iconoclasm ()From . ''Iconoclasm'' may also be considered as a back-formation from ''iconoclast'' (Greek: εἰκοκλάστης). The corresponding Greek word for iconoclasm is εἰκονοκλασία, ''eikonoklasia''. is the social belie ...

. Later 8th century records refer to the tribe as "Vlachorynchinoi" instead of Rhynchinoi, suggests mixing of

Vlach Vlach ( ), also Wallachian and many other variants, is a term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate speakers of Eastern Romance languages living in Southeast Europe—south of the Danube (the Balkan peninsula) ...

s or

Romance Romance may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings ** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...

-speakers and the tribe, in

References

Sources

* {{Slavic ethnic groups (VII-XII century) 7th century in Europe Sclaveni Medieval Macedonia Slavic tribes in Macedonia