Originally, the name Rusʹ () referred to the people, regions, and medieval states (9th to 12th centuries) of the Kievan Rusʹ. Its territories are today distributed among Belarus, Northern Ukraine, Eastern Poland, and the European section of Russia. The term Россия (Rossija), comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Rusʹ, Ρωσσία Rossía—related to both Modern , and Ρωσία (Rosía, "Russia", pronounced [roˈsia]). One of the earliest written sources mentioning the people called Rusʹ (as Rhos) dates to 839 in the Annales Bertiniani. This chronicle identifies them as a Germanic tribe called the Swedes. According to the Kievan Rusʹ Primary Chronicle, compiled in about 1113, the Rusʹ were a group of Varangians, Norsemen who had relocated somewhere from the Baltic region (literally "from beyond the sea"), first to Northeastern Europe, then to the south where they created the medieval Kievan state. In the 11th century, the dominant term in the Latin tradition was Ruscia. It was used, among others, by Thietmar of Merseburg, Adam of Bremen, Cosmas of Prague and Pope Gregory VII in his letter to Izyaslav I. Rucia, Ruzzia, Ruzsia were alternative spellings. During the 12th century, Ruscia gradually made way for two other Latin terms, "Russia" and "Ruthenia". "Russia" (also spelled Rossia and Russie) was the dominant Romance-language form, first used by Liutprand of Cremona in the 960s and then by Peter Damian in the 1030s. It became ubiquitous in English and French documents in the 12th century. Ruthenia, first documented in the early 12th century Augsburg annals, was a Latin form preferred by the Apostolic Chancery of the Latin Church. The modern name of Russia (Rossija), which came into use in the 15th century, is derived from the Greek Ρωσία, which in turn derives from Ῥῶς, the self-name of the people of Rusʹ. A hypothetical predecessor of Kievan Rusʹ is the 9th-century Rusʹ Khaganate, whose name and existence are inferred from a handful of early medieval Byzantine and Persian and Arabic sources. Etymology The most common theory about the origins of Russians is the Germanic version. The name Rus, like the Proto-Finnic name for Sweden (*Ruotsi), supposed to be descended from an Old Norse term for "the men who row" (rods-) as rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and that it could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roslagen (Rus-law) or Roden, as it was known in earlier