Why Don’t the Croats Want to Fight against Other Nations? On the Interpretation of the Accounts by Constantine Porphyrogenitus on the Treaty of the Croats with the Pope (DAI, ch. 31)

The article examines the accounts about the treaty between the Croats and the Pope from ch. 31 of the mid-10th century treatise “De administrando imperio” by the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. Contrary to the traditional opinion according to which the accounts reflect some real contacts between the Croats and Rome in the 7th century or during the reign of the Croat dux Branimir (879–c. 892), the author substantiates the hypothesis according to which the idea of an oath given by the Croats to the Pope promising not to fight against other peoples, and of a prayer received from the Pope which ensured the Croats the intercession of St. Peter in case they were being attacked, arose in the context of the formation of the Croat gentile kingdom (regnum Chroatorum) in the territory of Frankish Dalmatia in the second third of the 9th century. The emergence of the idea of a special relationship between the Croats and Rome is considered by the author as a result of communication between the Franks and the Croats that ensured a mutually acceptable legitimization of a new status of the Croat elite in the political and ideological space of the Carolingian realm for which special relations with Rome and the patronage of St. Peter were of fundamental importance.