ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a review of early medieval strongholds built between the 5th and the 11th centuries in selected regions of East Central and Eastern Europe and considers their role in the formation of polities of the area. There are two distinct phases of strongholds within this period: late antique strongholds (5th to 6th century) and strongholds built between the late 8th and the 11th century. Late antique strongholds have a more limited occurrence both in number and geographical distribution than strongholds of the later period. In addition, these two groups of strongholds have different political articulations, as the late antique strongholds generally played no role in the emergence of longer-term political units. Conversely, there is much variation in the political articulation of the later strongholds, depending upon region and chronology. Given the sheer number of sites, it would be impossible to review all 5th- to 11th-century strongholds of East Central and Eastern Europe. In what follows, I will, therefore, concentrate on selected regions and case studies, in order to demonstrate various possible connections between strongholds and polity formation.
