Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja

[6][7] Dmine Papalić, a nobleman from Split, found the text which he transcribed in 1509–10, which was translated by Marko Marulić into Latin in 1510, with the title Regnum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta.

[12] On the basis of its content, Rudger's composition is believed to have been heavily influenced by his knowledge of medieval Latin sources, from Isidore of Seville and Jordanes to Peter Abelard and Geoffrey of Monmouth and Bohemian and Polish historical works.

[13] The themes and scope of Rudger's work are supposed to have been shaped by the political interests and priorities of his patron, Paul I Šubić of Bribir, Ban of Croatia and Lord of Bosnia.

[17][18] Despite its hagiographic nature, Chapter 36 (on Saint Jovan Vladimir), a summary of an older hagiography dating between 1075 and 1089 (when the Vojislavljević dynasty endeavored to obtain the royal insignia from the Pope, and to elevate the Bar Bishopric to an archbishopric), contains considerable historical data that has been found to be reliable.

The work is actually a number of separate but similar manuscripts, stemming from an original source that does not survive but assumed to have been written by the Priest of Duklja himself (or other monk-scribes giving a helping hand).

Some go as far as to say that it can be dismissed in its entirety, but that is not a majority opinion, rather, it is thought to have given us a unique insight into the whole era from the point of view of the indigenous Slavic population and it is still a topic of discussion.

[25] The work describes the local Slavs as a peaceful people imported by the Goth rulers, who invaded the area in the 5th century, but it doesn't attempt to elaborate on how and when this happened.

The Chronicle also mentions one Svetopeleg or Svetopelek, the eighth descendant of the original Goth invaders, as the main ruler of the lands that cover Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro (Duklja) and Serbia.

According to Bishop Gregory's late 12th-century additions to this document, this Archbishopric covered much of the western Balkans including the bishoprics of Bar, Budva, Kotor, Ulcinj, Svač, Skadar, Drivast, Pulat, Travunia, Zahumlje.

In his 1967 reprint of the work, Yugoslav historian Slavko Mijušković stated that the chronicle is a purely fictional literary product, belonging to the late 14th or early 15th century.

[21] The region of Bosnia is described to span the area west of the river Drina, "up to the Pine mountain" (Latin: ad montem Pini, Croatian: do gore Borave).

[28] In 1935, Serbian historian Vladimir Ćorović wrote that the toponym refers to the mountain of Borova glava, because of etymology and because it is located on the watershed (drainage divide).

[31] Croatian historian Anto Babić, based on the work of Dominik Mandić in 1978, inferred that the term refers roughly to a place of the drainage divide between the Sava and Adriatic Sea watersheds.