Merehani

The Merehani was a Slavic tribe mentioned by the Bavarian Geographer. They are often connected to the Moravians (Marhari), although some scholars believe that the tribe was separate.

The 9th-century Catalogue of Fortresses and Regions to the North of the Danube – which lists the peoples along the borders of East Francia in a north-to-south order – mentions that the Moravians or Marharii^[1][2] had 11 fortresses or civitates.^[3] The document locates the Marhari between the Bohemians and the Bulgars, and also makes mention of the Merehani and their 30 fortresses.^[2]

According to Havlík, who writes that Conversion is a consolidated version of notes made by several authors in different years, the Moravians are twice mentioned in the text: first as Marhari, and next as Merehani. He says, that the reference to the Marhari and their 11 fortresses was made between 817 and 843, and the note of the Merehani shows the actual state under Svatopluk I.^[4]

In contrast with Havlík, Steinhübel together with Třeštík and Vlasto identify the Merehani with the inhabitants of the Principality of Nitra.^[5][6][7]

A third view is presented by Püspöki-Nagy and Senga, who write that the reference to the Merehanii – who obviously inhabited the southern regions of the Great Hungarian Plains to the north of the Danube, but south of the territories dominated by the Bulgars – and their 30 fortresses shows the existence of another "Moravia" in Central Europe.^[2][8][9]

According to Komatina, they lived in the valleys of present-day Morava river basin in Serbia, and were still unconquered by the Bulgarians.^[10] However, after 845, the Bulgars added these Slavs to their societas (they are last mentioned in 853).^[11]

Est populus quem vocant Merehanos, ipsi habent civitates XXX. Iste sunt regiones, que terminant in finibus nostris.

• Barford, P. M. (2001). The Early Slavs: Culture and Society in Early Medieval Eastern Europe. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-3977-9.
• Bowlus, Charles R. (1994). Franks, Moravians and Magyars: The Struggle for the Middle Danube, 788–907. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-3276-3.
• Goldberg, Eric J. (2006). Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817–876. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-7529-0.
• Havlík, Lubomír E. (2013). Kronika o Velké Moravě [=Chronicle of Great Moravia]. Jota. ISBN 80-85617-04-8.
• Püspöki-Nagy, Péter (1978). "Nagymorávia fekvéséről [=On the location of Great Moravia]". Valóság. XXI (11). Tudományos Ismeretterjesztő Társulat: 60–82.
• Komatina, Predrag (2010). "The Slavs of the mid-Danube basin and the Bulgarian expansion in the first half of the 9th century" (PDF). Зборник радова Византолошког института. 47: 55–82.
• Komatina, Predrag (2015). "The Church in Serbia at the Time of Cyrilo-Methodian Mission in Moravia". Cyril and Methodius: Byzantium and the World of the Slavs. Thessaloniki: Dimos. pp. 711–718.
• Senga, Toru (1983). "Morávia bukása és a honfoglaló magyarok [=The fall of Moravia and the Hungarians occupying the Carpathian Basin]". Századok (2). Magyar Történelmi Társulat: 307–345.
• Steinhübel, Ján (2011). Kapitoly z najstarších dejín českých 531–1004 [=Chapters from the oldest Czech history 531–1004]. Spolok Slovákov v Poľsku – Towarzystwo Słowakow w Polsce. ISBN 978-83-7490-370-7.
• Třeštík, Dušan (2010). Vznik Velké Moravy. Moravané, Čechové a štřední Evropa v letech 791–871 [The Formation of Great Moravia. Moravians, Czechs and Central Europe in the years 791-871]. Nakladatelství lidové noviny. ISBN 978-80-7422-049-4.
• Vlasto, A. P. (1970). The Entry of the Slavs into Christendom: An Introduction to the Medieval History of the Slavs. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-10758-7.