The epithet "Bavarian Geographer" is the conventional name for the anonymous author of a Latinmedieval text containing a list of the tribes in central-eastern Europe, headed Descriptio civitatum et regionum ad septentrionalem plagam Danubii. The name "Bavarian Geographer" was first bestowed in 1796 by Polish count and scholar Jan Potocki. The term is now also used at times to refer to the document itself.
Origin
The short document, written in Latin, was discovered in 1772 in the Bavarian State Library, Munich by Louis XV's ambassador to the Saxon court, Comte Louis-Gabriel Du Buat-Nançay. It had been acquired by the Wittelsbachs with the collection of the antiquarian Hermann Schädel in 1571. The document was much discussed in the early 19th-century historiography, notably by Nikolai Karamzin and Joachim Lelewel. The document contains a list of the tribes in Central-Eastern Europe east of the Elbe and north of the Danube to the Volga rivers to the Black and Caspian Sea. Absent on the list are Polans, Pomeranians and Masovians, tribes first of whom are believed to have settled along the shores of the Warta river during the 8th century, as well Dulebes, Volhynians and White Croats, but instead mentioning several unknown tribes hard to identify. There is also some information about the number of strongholds possessed by some of the tribes. The provenance of the document is disputed. Although early commentators suggested that it could have been compiled in Regensburg, the list seems to have been taken from Codex Reginbertinus II, recorded in the 9th century in the library of the Reichenau Abbey and named after a local librarian. Based on these findings, Bernhard Bischoff attributes it to a monk active at Reichenau from the 830s to 850s. Aleksandr Nazarenko finds it more probable that the list was composed in the 870s, when Saint Methodius is believed to have resided at Reichenau. The document may have been connected with his missions in the Slavic lands. Henryk Łowmiański demonstrated that the list consists of two parts, which may be datable to different periods and attributed to distinct authors.
