Samo

Samo (reigned 623/624-658 CE) was a king of the Slavs who was responsible for the foundation of the first recorded political entity of the Slavic people, usually referred to as Samo's Empire. Since writing was not introduced into Slavic culture until the 9th and 10th centuries CE, there are no contemporary accounts on Samo written by the Slavs. The primary source on Samo is a Frankish document of uncertain authorship known as the Chronicle of Fredegar, originally written in the 7th century CE. Although many scholars have debated the authorship and reliability of Fredegar's account, it is generally accepted today as a reliable source written by a single author. While no historian or scholar accepts the claim that Fredegar was an eyewitness to the events he records, it is believed that he had access to documents, or witnesses, relating to those events.