Vistulans

The Vistulans, or Vistulanians[1][2][3] (Polish: Wiślanie), were an early medieval Lechitic tribe inhabiting the western part of modern Lesser Poland.

The syntagma ymb Wistlawudu has seen different translations by the scholars depending on the consideration whether Wistla is a borrowing from a German, Latin, or Slavic language.

[11] Based on Lubor Niederle's thesis that the Vistulans are remnants of the once strong alliance of Croatian tribes which fell apart after the migration of the Croats to the Western Balkans in the 7th century, Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński additionally noted that the name Vistulans was only known among Western Slavs and Germans, while in the East, in Byzantine and Arabian sources, the older name of Croats was retained for the same territory.

[12] Such an interpretation of the reference to ymb Wistlawudu ("in the Vistula woods") in the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith argues that instead of 5th century events, the poem instead intended to refer to 6th century events contemporaneous with the Lombard king Alboin , when the Pannonian Avars led by Bayan I (Attila's people) expanded between 568 and 595 into the Pannonian Basin and extended their influence northward on the Slavs (Vistulans, Croats) in the Upper Vistula valley, seen in Avarian archaeological remains up to Gniezno in central-western Poland.

In the 950s, the land of the Vistulans was probably conquered by Czech Duke Boleslaus I, which is confirmed by Abraham ben Jacob, whose work was used by Muslim geographer al-Bakri in his Book of Roads and Kingdoms.

So far historians have not been able to name any Vistulan dukes, but Vita Methodii does mention a "very powerful pagan prince settled on the Vistula" who "began mocking the Christians and doing evil" because of which was contacted by Saint Methodius who said it would be better to be baptized of one's own free will than as a prisoner in foreign land.

[13] The area inhabited by the Vistulans probably ranged from the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in the south, to the sources of the Pilica and Warta in the north.