Narentines

The Narentines were a South Slavic tribe noted as pirates on the Adriatic Sea in the 9th and 10th centuries. They occupied an area of southern Dalmatia centered at the river Neretva (). Named Narentani in Venetian sources, they were called Paganoi, "pagans", by the Greeks, as they were still pagan after the Christianization of the neighbouring tribes. They were fierce enemies of the Republic of Venice, attacking Venetian merchants and clergy traveling through the Adriatic, and even raiding close to Venice itself and defeating the doge several times. Venetian–Narentine peace treaties did not last long, as the Narentines quickly returned to piracy. They were finally defeated in a Venetian crackdown at the turn of the 10th century and disappeared from sources by the 11th century.

==Terminology== The word Narentine is a demonym derived from the local Neretva River (). The terms "Narentines", "Pagania" or "Pagans" are found in two contemporary sources: De Administrando Imperio (), a mid-10th century Greek work, and Chronicon Venetum et Gradense, a Venetian chronicle by John the Deacon from the early 11th century. In De Administrando Imperio of Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (r. 913–959), the tribe is called Paganoi (), and their polity Pagania (Παγανὶα, Παγανἰα), in Greek, while also noting that in Latin they are called Arentanoi (Αρεντανοἰ) and their polity Arenta (Αρεντα). Chronicler John the Deacon used the geographical term Narentani (as in princeps Narentanorum, Narrentanos Sclavos). In Serbo-Croatian, the tribal name is rendered as Neretljani (Неретљани), Neretvani and Pagani (Пагани), while the polity mostly as Paganija (Паганија).