"Origin of the Zerbeys : name traced to ninth century"
https://archive.org/stream/originofzerbeysn00elli/originofzerbeysn00elli_djvu.txtOrigin Of The Zerbeys
NAME TRACED TO NINTH CENTURY
HE Zerbes were originally Norsemen and natives of ancient Scandinavia, a general name given in the early centuries to the great tract of country north of German}^, comprising Denmark, Norvv^ay and Sweden and including Iceland and the Danish Archipelago.
Their tribal name, like the Gauls, Goths, Normans, Teutons and others of the early races was "Servi" and their coat of arms a knight with the heraldic device, "To Serve," emblazoned on it.
They were the retainers of the Duke of Holstein, ruler of the Princely German House of that name, which includes the royal line of Denmark and other collateral royal branches.
Holstein, on the North Sea, a duchy of North Germany, belonged to Denmark, but is now an adjunct of Prussia and known through its alliance with Schleswig as the province
of Schleswig-Holstein, its limits being circumscribed through the frequent changes of the boundaries of Northern Europe, brought about by the Roman conquerors.
From the reign of Charlemagne, in Eight Hundred A. D., who was then the most powerful monarch in all Europe and whose empire extended from the Atlantic to the Save, the
Theiss, the Oder and the lower Vistula rivers, from the Baltic Sea to the Ebro and from the North Sea and the Eider to central Italy; the power of the independent dukes, of the
small duchies was almost equal to that of the reigning sovereign.
In some instances these nobles were wealthier than their rulers. Their castles were magnificent in their fortress-like proportions, they maintained a sovereignty over large armies of vassals and retainers and if their ruler could not compel their obedience, they made war and peace upon their own terms and rendered only a nominal service to their reigning sovereign. Of such, was the Duke of Holstein.
In the ninth century a race of pirates began to inflict great suffering upon the European coasts. They sailed up the navigable rivers of the German Ocean and ravaged the
countries along their shores and the North German free-hold- ers were despoiled of their homes and their possessions by the marauders. The Norsemen became, more or less, a
nomadic race. The frequency with which they made war upon the southern countries and weaker principalities led them into frequent migratory expeditions and when Paris was
besieged, in A. D. 885, Charles, "the Fat," bribed them to withdraw their forces instead of opening a conflict with them.
In 894 A. D., when Arnulf made war upon the Norsemen and afterward entered Italy, to settle the quarrel between the rival claimants to the crown, some of the defeated Norse-
men accompanied his army ; among them were some of the Servi (pronounced Sarve, two syllables), who remained in that country and settled, and the name became "Zerbi."
Others settled in the duchy of Hanover, where it was known as "Zarva," but the greater number, after participating in the wars that led up to the crowning of the German Kings as "Roman Emperors," in 962, some of these northern feudal Servi migrated to middle Europe, uniting with the Galicians, where they became powerful and noted for their vigor of frame, valor in war and love of freedom.
About the tenth century they received a grant of land from the Emperor Leo VI, situated on the Danube River, which they proceeded to cultivate, establishing their feudal
rights as freeholders, only pausing in their career as agriculturists, to take up the sword and lay aside the plough share, to defend their little independent kingdom in the nth
century, when the Greeks invaded it and again when the Turks reduced it and in the frequent insurrections that followed until it became a free and independent State under the protection of the great Powers. The Austrian-Servian crisis, when Montenegro and Servia disagreed and when King Peter, of Servia, desired to be considered the head of all the Servians and Prince Nicholas, of Montenegro, proposed to constitute
himself "Czar" of the two little States, Austria was obliged to interfere to preserve their neutrality. Recent historical events, 1914-15, show the Servians still resenting all efforts on the part of other powers to absorb their principality into a more powerful dynasty (June i, 1915.),
(Note — There is a town in Austria-Hungary named
"Szarvas" (Szahrvas) on the Koros, 22 miles northeast of
Csongrad, population 18,917.)
Before the birth of Christ the Thracian or Illyrian races inhabited all the country south of Austria-Hungary and when the nomadic tribes of Servians came from Galicia, a province
of Spain at the extremity of the Iberian peninsula, and gave it their name, they were converted to Christianity. In 636 A. D. others came and the land was known as Galicia, part of it now (1914) being a province of Austria and known as Galicia-Lodomeria.
After the bloody wars, 1459, between Hungary and Turkey, the Servians were freed. The land given them by Emperor Leo VI in the tenth century was erected into an independent kingdom by Pope Honorius III in 1217. It was not until 1815 that the country secured its
independence under the protection of Austria and Russia.
The religion of the Servians is that of the Greek Catholic church. The population of Servia is four million.