The Bethenici (also Bethenzi or Bechelenzi) were a West Slavic people living east of the Elbe river in the ninth century. They lived near the confluence of the Elbe and the Havel, probably between the rivers alongside the Smeldingi. Writing over a century later, Thietmar of Merseburg says that the Kuckenburgers, a certain class of "citizen warriors" in Meissen under Margrave Gunzelin of Kuckenburg, were called Vethenici in Slavonic. This may indicate that the name was never that of a people, but of a class of warriors.