Praedenecenti

Praedenecenti was an early medieval Slavic tribe, mentioned only in the Royal Frankish Annals in 822 and 824. They lived in the buffer zone between the Carolingian and Bulgarian empires. The Royal Frankish Annals associated them with the Abodriti, while modern scholars have also connected them to other Slavic tribes, especially the Braničevci or Merehani. The Praedenecenti sought assistance from the Franks against the Bulgars, but they obviously lost their independence because they were not mentioned after 824.

The Praedenecenti was an "enigmatic" tribe living near the Middle Danube frontier of the Carolingian Empire in the 820s. The Royal Frankish Annals mentioned them twice (under the years 822 and 824), but no other written primary source referred to them. Since the Royal Frankish Annals apparently associated them with the Abodriti (a Slavic tribe near the Baltic Sea), Vasil Gyuzelev equates them with the "Ostabtrezi" (or Eastern Abodriti), whom the Bavarian Geographer listed among the tribes living along the eastern borders of the Carolingian Empire.

The origin of their ethnonym is unclear. Gyuzelev proposes, the Praedenecenti's name derived from an Old Bulgarian expression, pred'n čdi, meaning "the leading/noble family/children". Archaeologist Gábor Vékony also says, the ethnonym is of Slavic origin, but he proposes that it refers to a people on "this bank" of the river Donets.Imre Boba and Pavel Georgiev write, the name is connected the Latin word for spoil (praeda), showing that the inhabitants of the Carolingian Empire regarded the Praedenecenti as plunderers.

The Royal Frankish Annals listed the Praedenecenti among the Slavic peoples.Pavel Jozef Šafařík and Joachim Lelewel associated them with the Braničevci. Based on the similarity of the two ethnonyms, Lubor Niederle also said that the Braničevci and the Praedenecenti were identical. Other scholars have not accepted this identification. Boba identified them as "booty-taking" Moravians in accordance with his alternative theory of the location of Great Moravia. Archaeologist Silviu Oța proposes that they are the same as the Merehani.

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