Chronicle of The Priest of Duklja - Impact and Assessment

Impact and Assessment

Mavro Orbini, the author of Il Regno dei Slavi or Regnum Sclavorum (1601) borrowed the title of the Presbyter's "The Kingdom of Slavs" and based his account on the information contained in that book.

Various inaccurate or simply wrong claims in the text make it an unreliable source. Modern historians have serious doubts about the majority of this work as being mainly fictional, or wishful thinking. Some go as far as to say that it can be dismissed in its entirety, but that is not a majority opinion, rather, it is thought to have given us a unique insight into the whole era from the point of view of the indigenous Slavic population and it is still a topic of discussion.

The work describes the Slavs as a peaceful people imported by the rulers of the Sorab, who invaded the area in the 5th century, but it doesn't attempt to elaborate on how and when this happened. This information contradicts the information found in the Byzantine text De Administrando Imperio.

The Chronicle also mentions one Svetopeleg or Svetopelek, the eighth descendant of the original Serbian invaders, as the main ruler of the lands that cover Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro (Duklja) and Serbia. He is also credited with the Christianization of the people who are Goths or Slavs — a purely fictitious attribution. These claims about a unified kingdom are probably a reflection of the earlier glory of the Moravian kingdom. He may also have been talking about Avars.

The priest's parish was located at the seat of the archbishopric of Duklja. According to Bishop Gregory's late 12th century additions to this document, this Archbishopric covered much of the western Balkans including the bishoprics of Bar, Budva, Kotor, Ulcinj, Svač, Skadar, Drivast, Pulat, Travunia, Zahumlje.

Further, it mentions Bosnia (Bosnam) and Rascia (Rassa) as the two Serbian lands, while describing the southern Dalmatian Hum/Zahumlje, Travunia and Dioclea (most of today's Herzegovina, Montenegro, as well as parts of Croatia and Albania) as Croatian lands ("Red Croatia"), which is a description considered inconsistent with other historical works from the same period.

The region of Bosnia is described to span the area west of the river Drina, "up to the Pine mountain" (Latin: ad montem Pini, Croatian: do gore Borave). The location of this Pine mountain is unknown. In 1881, Croatian historian Franjo Rački wrote that this refers to the mountain of "Borova glava" near the Livno field. Croatian historian Luka Jelić wrote the mountain was located either between Maglaj and Skender Vakuf, northwest of Žepče, or it was the mountain Borovina located between Vranica and Radovan, according to Ferdo Šišić's 1908 work. In 1935, Serbian historian Vladimir Ćorović wrote that the toponym refers to the mountain of Borova glava, because of etymology and because it's located on the watershed (drainage divide). In 1936, Slovene ethnologist Niko Županič had also interpreted that to mean that the western border of Bosnia was at some drainage divide mountains, but placed it to the southeast of Dinara. Croatian historian Anto Babić, based on the work of Dominik Mandić in 1978, inferred that the term refers roughly to a place of the drainage divide between the Sava and Adriatic Sea watersheds. In her discussion of Ćorović, Serbian historian Jelena Mrgić-Radojčić also points to the existence of a mountain of "Borja" in today's northern Bosnia with the same etymology.

The 9th chapter of the Chronicle names Methodus or Liber Methodios, a text from the year 753, as its source.

The archbishop of Bar was later named Primas Serbiae. Ragusa had some claims to be considered the natural ecclesiastical centre of South Dalmatia but those of Dioclea (Bar) to this new metropolitan status were now vigorously pushed especially as the Pope intended Serbia to be attached to Dioclea.

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