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The unknown archont (Serbian nepoznati knez) is the designation of the leader of Serbs who led them to the Balkans from the north in the early 7th century.
The main record of this person is in the De Administrando Imperio, a book written in the 950s by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos. He is described as having led the Serbs from the "White Serbia" (area of modern-day Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine) during the reign of Byzantine emperor Heraclius, somewhere between 610 - 641. After the southward migration, the Serbs are described as having defeated the Avars somewhere in the Dinaric Alps and settling the land after negotiating it with Heraclius as payment for having defeated the Avars.
The Unknown Archont was displaced early after the settlement of the Serbs, as other tribal chiefs vied for power. The Unknown Archont died in 680.
The first Serb ruling dynasty, the House of Vlastimirović, is named after the knez Vlastimir who was the great-great-grandson of the Unknown Archont.
Quotes
From Chapter 32 of De Administrando Imperio:
- But when two brothers succeeded their father in the rule of Serbia, one of them, taking a moiety of the folk, claimed the protection of Heraclius, the emperor of the Romans, and the same emperor Heraclius received him and gave him a place in the province of Thessalonica to settle in, namely Serbia, which from that time has acquired this denomination.
- Now, after some time these same Serbs decided to depart to their own homes, and the emperor sent them off. But when they had crossed the river Danube, they changed their minds and sent a request to the emperor Heraclius, through the military governor then governing Belgrade, that he would grant them other land to settle in.
- And since what is now Serbia and Pagania and the so-called country of the Zachlumi and Terbounia and the country of the Kanalites were under the dominion of the emperor of the Romans, and since these countries had been made desolate by the Avars (for they had expelled from those parts the Romani who now live in Dalmatia and Dyrrachium), therefore the emperor settled these same Serbs in these countries, and they were subject to the emperor of the Romans; and the emperor brought elders from Rome and baptized them and taught them fairly to perform the works of piety and expounded to them the faith of the Christians.
- And since Bulgaria was beneath the dominion of the Romans * * * when, therefore, that same Serbian prince died who had claimed the emperor's protection, his son ruled in succession, and thereafter his grandson, and in like manner the succeeding princes from his family.
See also
"Unknown Archont"