sentences:  The ethnonym "Croat" is first attested during the 9th century CE, in the charter of Duke Trpimir; and indeed begins to be widely attested throughout central and eastern Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries.Much uncertainty revolves around the exact circumstances of their appearance given the scarcity of literary sources during the 7th and 8th century "Dark Ages".Traditionally, scholarship has placed the arrival of the Croats in the 7th century, primarily on the basis of the later Byzantine document "De Administrando Imperio".