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In the Alps, relicts of pre-Variscan basement are composed of metagreywackes and metapelites (partly migmatic) with intercalated amphibolites and sheets of Cambro–Ordovician peraluminous metagranitoids. Such gneiss terranes are the result of an orogenic type, which was globally widespread in early Paleozoic times. It caused the formation of several 100 km wide cratonized subduction–accretion complexes (SACs) hosting peraluminous arcs at the periphery of Gondwana. “Cenerian orogeny” is a newly suggested term for these early Paleozoic events, which culminate in the Ordovician. The justification for a separate name is given by three characteristics, which are significantly different compared to the Cadomian, Caledonian and Variscan orogenies: the age, the paleogeographic position and the tectonic setting. Other parts of the southern and central European crust might also have been generated by the cratonization of peri-Gondwanan SACs during the Cenerian orogeny. © 2017, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.