The name "Bavarian Geographer" was first bestowed (in its French form, "Géographe de Bavière") in 1796 by Polish count and scholar Jan Potocki.
Prope illis resident, quos vocant Bethenici et Smeldingon et Morizani, qui habent civitates XI.
Iuxta illos est regio, que vocatur Surbi, in qua regione plures sunt, que habent civitates L. Iuxta illos sunt quos vocant Talaminzi, qui habent civitates XIII.
Est populus quem vocant Merehanos, ipsi habent civitates XXX.
Zeriuani, quod tantum est regnum, ut ex eo cuncte genetes Sclauorum exorte sint et originem, sicut affirmant, ducant.
Bruzi plus est undique quam de Enisa ad Rhenum Uuizunbeire Caziri civitates C. Ruzzi.
Golensizi civitates V. 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.
The document was much discussed in the early 19th-century historiography, notably by Nikolai Karamzin and Joachim Lelewel.
Although early commentators suggested that it could have been compiled in Regensburg,[5] 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.
[7] Aleksandr Nazarenko finds it more probable that the list was composed in the 870s, when Saint Methodius is believed to have resided at Reichenau.
[8] Henryk Łowmiański demonstrated that the list consists of two parts, which may be datable to different periods and attributed to distinct authors.
[10] The document has a short introductory sentence and a list of 58 tribal names in Central and Eastern Europe, east of the Elbe and north of the Danube to the Volga River to the Black Sea and Caspian Sea (most of them of Slavonic origin, with Ruzzi, and others such as Vulgarii, etc.).
[5] 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,[11] as well Dulebes, Volhynians and White Croats, but instead mentioning several unknown tribes hard to identify.
[5][9] The list consists of two parts, first describing the tribes in the Eastern neighborhood of Francia (iste sunt regiones ... nostris), while the second or near or outside the zone of the first going in different directions.