The early Slavs were a diverse group of tribal societies during the Migration period and early medieval Europe (ca. 5th to 10th centuries) whose tribal organizations indirectly created the foundations for today’s Slavic nations (via the Slavic states of the High Middle Ages).
The first mention of the name Slavs dates to the 6th century, by which time the Slavic tribes inhabited a vast area of central-eastern Europe. Over the following two centuries, the Slavs expanded further, towards the Balkans and the Alps in the south and west, and the Volga in the north and east.
From the 9th century, the Slavs were gradually Christianised, and by the 12th century, they formed the population within a number of medieval Christian states, the East Slavs in the Kievan Rus' and Lithuania, the South Slavs in Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia, and the West Slavs in Poland and the Holy Roman Empire (Pomerania, Bohemia).
Read more about Early Slavs: Development of The Medieval Slavic States, Further Development of Slavic States in High Middle Ages, See Also
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