Is chapter IX of the Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclea of Moravian-Pannonian origin?

Abstract

The article offers a new interpretation of the account of the king Svetoplek (Svatopluk) from chapter IX of the Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclea. According to the author, chapter IX is based on an ancient work about king Svatopluk I of Moravia, which was written between 885 and 894 in connection with the coronation of Svatopluk as a «king of the Slavs» (rex Sclavorum). As the author of the article proves, the events described in this ancient source (the twelve-day diet and the subsequent coronation of Svatopluk) took place not on the territory of Duklja, but on the territory of Pannonia, in the places where Roman settlements were located in the Szekesfehervar region or in the Veszprem region. In the second half of the 11th century, during the reign of the Dioclean rulers Mihailo Vojislavljević and his son Constantine Bodin, the text of this ancient source was revised in the process of compiling the Vojislavljević dynastic history «Gesta regum Sclavorum». At the same time, the story about King Svatopluk was used by Benedictine monks from the circle of Roman popes to legitimize the new status of the kings of Dioclea as «kings of the Slavs». The author shows that during the period of the struggle between the papacy and the empire at the end of the 11th – beginning of the 12th century the idea of ​​reviving the «kingdom of the Slavs» (regnum Sclavorum), devoted to Rome, enjoyed great support from the Roman throne. In this context, the image of Svatopluk as the first «king of the Slavs» recognized by Rome was actualized and became the basis for the formation of the church and political ideology of the Dioclean dynasty of Vojislavljević.