Slavs in Lower Pannonia

Early Slavs settled in the eastern and southern parts of the former Roman province of Pannonia. The term Lower Pannonia (Latin: Pannonia inferior, Hungarian: Alsó-pannoniai grófság, Serbo-Croatian: Donja Panonija, Доња Панонија, Slovene: Spodnja Panonija) was used to designate those areas of the Pannonian plain that lie to the east and south of the river Rába, with the division into Upper and Lower inherited from the Roman terminology.

From the middle of the 6th to the end of the 8th century, the region was under the domination of the Avars, while the Slavic inhabitants lived under Avar rule. By the beginning of the 9th century, after Avar Wars, that state was destroyed and replaced by the supreme rule of the Frankish Empire, which lasted until the Magyar conquest (c. 900).^[1][2][3]

During the Frankish period, the region of Lower Pannonia was governed by local Slavic rulers, who were under the suzerainty of Frankish kings. Within the Frankish administrative system, the March of Pannonia was created, with direct Frankish rule exercised in Upper Pannonia through Frankish counts, while Lower Pannonia was governed as a principality by local Slavic princes, under the supreme Frankish rule. During the 9th century, Frankish domination in Lower Pannonia was also contested by the Bulgarian Empire and Great Moravia.^[1][2][4]

By the 10th century, the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin effectively split the Slavic communities in the region in two, leading to the formation of the West Slavs and the South Slavs.