It states that the Zeruiani "which is so great a realm that from it, as their tradition relates, all the tribes of the Slavs are sprung and trace their origin".
[1] Zeruiani tantum est reguum, ut ex eo cunctae gentes Sclavorum exortae sint, et originem, sicut affirmant, ducant[2]Zeruiani which is so great a realm that from it, as their tradition relates, all the tribes of the Slavs are sprung and trace their origin[3]The tribe and its territory has not been identified and localized yet.
[4] While 19th century scholars assumed to have been connected to early Serbs (although they are already mentioned in the same source as Surbi),[2][3][5][6][7][8] Czech anthropologist Lubor Niederle and Polish historian Kazimierz Tymieniecki also considered it as a corruption of either Sarmatians or Severians.
It is argued that the connections with the Serbs is impossible because the Northern Serbs lived on other part of Europe which also doesn't fit with the list,[10] and the Serbian ethnonym was never written with the Slavic suffix -jane (-eani), while the tribal name of the Severians was written in both collective Sever and plural Severjane form, etymologically implying Severian tribes.
[11] A more probable etymological derivation of both Zeriuani and Zuierani, although their mutual connection is doubtful,[10] is proposed by Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński and many others, relating them to Cherven Cities and hydronym *Czerwia.