Pribina

Pribina
Pribina's modern statue at Nitra, Slovakia
Prince of Nitra (?)
Reign	?–c. 833
Predecessor	Unknown
Successor	Mojmír I
Duke of Lower Pannonia
Reign	846–861
Predecessor	None
Successor	Koceľ
Born	c. 800
Died	861
Issue	Koceľ Unzat (?)
House	House of Mojmír (?)

Pribina (c. 800 – 861) was a Slavic prince whose adventurous career, recorded in the Conversion of the Bavarians and the Carantanians (a historical work written in 870), illustrates the political volatility of the Franco–Slavic frontiers of his time. Pribina was the first ruler of Slavic origin to build a Christian church on Slavic territory in Nitra, and also the first to accept baptism.

He was attacked and expelled from his homeland by Mojmir I, duke of Moravia. Pribina first fled to Ratpot, one of the border lords in East Francia. Thereafter he was wandering in Central and Southeastern Europe for several years. Finally, in the late 830s, Louis the German, king of East Francia granted Pribina lands near Lake Balaton (now in Hungary) where he set up his own principality under the king's suzerainty. He died fighting against the Moravians.

According to a marginal notation to the Conversion that has by now been incorporated into its main text, Pribina's allodial lands were situated in Nitrava ultra Danuvium where Archbishop Adalram of Salzburg (821–836) consecrated a church, Since Nitrava has been identified, although not unanimously, with modern Nitra in Slovakia, Pribina is considered to have ruled the large early medieval fortress excavated at that town. The consecration of the church in Nitrava took place around 827, thus it was the first church in all Eastern Europe whose existence is documented in writing. That the church was consecrated for Pribina himself (who, all the same, still remained a catechumen), or for his wife cannot be decided. She seems to have been a member of the Bavarian Wilhelminer family.