ABSTRACT
There is no recognized English term for the peoples with which this paper deals. The Hungarians themselves call them the "keleti segédnépek", the Germans, the "östlíche Hilfsvölker". The adjective "eastern" excludes the German or Serb "auxiliaries" who sometimes figure in Hungarian history; but the Magyars did not apply the term just to any people who happened to have entered Hungary via its eastern frontier. They never ranked a Russian, nor, indeed, any Slav immigrant as an auxiliary, nor a Vlach, nor a Jew. They reserved the term for peoples of the same sort of mores and social structure, military organization, and at least apparently kindred ethnic origin as the Magyars themselves, what may be called, roughly, nomadic or quasi-nomadic steppe peoples. They drew a fairly clear distinction between such peoples and others, treating the former at least as near-equals and easily admitting them to full equality. After this had happened, the auxiliaries usually assimilated very easily with the Magyars, so that their later history is often difficult to trace. They played, however, a considerable part—larger than is often recognized—in the national history, and indeed formed a larger component than is usually recognized of the so-called Magyar people themselves; even of the invaders who crossed the Carpathians, under Magyar leadership, at the end of the 9th century a.d.
