Merehani

The Merehani was a Slavic tribe mentioned by the Bavarian Geographer. They are often connected to the Marharii (Moravians), 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 Marharii (Moravians) had 11 fortresses or civitates, and lists the Marharii between the Bohemians and the Bulgars. The same document and also makes mention of the Merehani and their 30 fortresses, listing them after the Bulgars.

In the source, those data are recorded as:

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

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

In contrast with Havlík, Steinhübel together with Třeštík and Vlasto identify the Merehani with the inhabitants of the Principality of Nitra.

A third view is presented by Püspöki-Nagy and Senga, who write that the reference to the Merehani and their 30 fortresses designates a tribe that was inhabiting the southern regions of the Great Hungarian Plains along the Danube, neighboring the territories dominated by the Bulgars, thus showing the existence of another "Moravia" in Central Europe.

According to Komatina, Merehani were the Balkan Moravians, who lived in valleys of the Morava river basin in present-day Serbia, and were still free at the beginning of the 9th century, but later fell under the Bulgar rule, sometime around 845, when the Bulgars added Slavic Merehani to their societas, being last mentioned in 853.