Mircea cel Batrin (Mircea the Old, 1386-1418)
Vlad Dracul (1437-1446) in Wallachia
Ion of Hunedoara, Voivode of Transylvania (1438-1456)
Vlad Tepes (1456-1462) in Wallachia
Stefan cel Mare, Prince of Moldavia (1457-1504)
Ion Voda cel Cumplit (the Terrible) 1572-1574 in Moldavia
Mihai Viteazul (the Brave) 1593-1601 in Wallachia

 - society was divided into social classes and strata with opposite, antagonistic interests, in permanent conflict.Violent uprising of peoples' masses against the exploiters, feudal lords, high clergy and the rich of the towns
 - some of these popular uprisings were more than common peasant revolts, they rather resembled veritable peasant wars
 - such was the uprising in 1437-38 in Bobiln

     It all began with the Dacians. Called Getae by the Greeks and Daci by the Romans. They were a loose confederation of pagan tribes living roughly within the boundaries of modern Romania with some slight encroachment into Hungary. They were warlike by nature. The Roman emperor Augustus claimed them as tributary allies but could not bind them to Rome. They fought the veteran legions of Domitian to a standstill. Not until Trajan defeated them in two campaigns in A.D. 101 and 106 (their greatest chieftain, Decebal, killed himself to escape capture) did Dacia finally become a Roman province and accept Roman colonists. It was these Latin-speaking invaders who gave the region many of its early customs and established among the native stock the Romance language of Romanian.
    - by late 2nd century Roman strength was already in sharp decline. With Commodus (180-92), self-indulgent and brutal son of Marcus Aurelius, began irreversible internal decay and increasing anarchy. The process continued unchecked. In 265, the emperor Valerian fell prisoner to the Persians. In the following reign, that of Aurelian, the increasing pressure of barbarian German tribes forced the legions to abandon their trans-Danubian holdings and to cross that river into Moesia (Bulgaria).
     A thousand years passed. During this time the Daco-Romans settled extensively in the Transylvanian plateau. Some did not stay. Thousands of Transylvanians moved southeastward through the mountain passes to escape the aggressive Hungarians. The land to which they came they had called Muntenia or Greater Wallachia in the east and Oltenia¹ or Lesser Wallachia in the west. Now as emigrants encountering more Latin-speaking people than ever before, they gave the entire area a new name more befitting the Romanized tongue, "the land of the Romanians, "Tara Roma^neasca.
     From the 6th to the 11th centuries it was occupied in succession by the Lombards, the Avars, and the Bulgarians. By the12th century it had fallen to the Cumans, a wild Turkic tribe related to the Avars, who were then defeated by the all-conquering Mongols in 1240. When this savage conquest eventually receded the native population left their mountain retreats, descending to the more heavily forested river valleys to found the principality of Wallachia in 1290, their first prince being Radu Negru or Rudolf the Black. Ca^mpulung, on the southern watershed of the Transylvanian Alps (Prahova River Valley) was Wallachia's first capital. Curtea de Arges was the second.
     By 1310, when Basarab cel Mare (the Great) came to the throne of Wallachia as the second prince of the line, a state in being had definitely been established. The history of the Wallachian dynasty really begins with Mircea cel Batrin (the Old) who came to the throne as the seventh prince in 1386. He was an excellent soldier and an expansionist. In the course of time he crossed the Carpathians with his army to invest and take the duchies of Amlas to the west and Fagaras to the north. The Banat of Severin fell to his attacks. And everywhere he built defensive strongholds against the Hungarians on one frontier and the Turkson the other. This prince extended Wallachian power to the Danube River, where he built the fortress of Giurgiu as a bulwark against the Ottomans. In Dobrogea he launched an offensive in 1389 and again was victor, thereafter continuing construction of fortifications. In this year, also, the Ottoman won the bloody battle of Kosovo, defeating the Christian host and with it the small Wallachian force that Mircea had committed. For a while he stood on the defensive and made the Turks pay in blood. Then, recognizing the situation as hopeless, in 1391 he became the first Romanian ruler to pay tribute to the Porte, the government of the Ottoman Empire. Throughout his entire reign Mircea had but one respite from Turkish pressure. It began in 1402 when the Mongol ruler Tamerlane invaded the Ottoman empire. The decisive battle was fought at Ankara. Sultan Bayezid I was defeated and captured. Only Tamerlane's territorial ambitions in China and return to his distant Asian capital of Samarkand saved the Turkish Empire from utter destruction.
     By 1417 the Turks were once more predominant and again Mircea paid them tribute, 3,000 ducats annually². He did not lose all sovereignty. Wallachia was not forced to become a pashalik (Turkish province), nor was the principality's land confiscated. Even the Wallachian nobility, the boyars, remained intact as a class.
     In 1418, the year after Mircea's final capitulation, he died. There followed a succession of short-lived princes, some of them illegitimate, more than one overthrown by violence. Mihail I (1418-1420) was the eldest of Mircea's legitimate sons. He was followed by Dan II (1420-1431, off and on), a nephew. Then came the broken reign of another son of Mircea, Radu II, called "the Bald," whose repeated tenures on the throne (1421, 1423, 1424, 1426-27) give the clearest evidence of Wallachian instability. Alexandru I, called Aldea (1431-1436), came next as brother followed brother. He was illegitimate. Also illegitimate was Vlad III, called Dracul. Ascending the throne on Aldea's death he was to rule twice: from the winter of 1436 to the fall of 1442 and from the spring of 1443 to the winter of 1447. At the opening of the first reign he was 41 years old.

     The beginning of Rumania is usually dated from the expeditions of the Roman emperor Trajan against the Dacians in 106. The Dacians (the Greeks called them Getae) were a Thracian tribe who had settled between the Carpathian Mountains and the lower Danube river long before. Many Roman colonists established themselves in the fertile new territory, and Dacia Felix (Happy Dacia), as the Romans called it, flourished. The people were romanized. Latin became the Dacian tongue and the Dacians were proclaimed Roman citizens in 212. In the next half century, however, Roman power began to wane. Barbarians from the north started to sweep down on the empire's outposts. Thus it was that, in 275, Dacia was abandoned to the advancing hordes of the Goths. They held Dacia in thrall for a century. Then came an even more cruel invasion, that of the terrible Huns, pouring out of Asia. Avars, another Asiatic tribe, laid Dacia waste in the 6th century. On the heels of the Avars trod the Slavs; and through the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries, Bulgars and then Magyars conquered the land.
     What was happening to the Daco-Roman people all this time is still uncertain. Some historians think that they died out and that the Rumanians of today are descended from later immigrants. Other authorities believe that the Daco-Romans managed to survive and keep their identity. Some may have hidden in the fastnesses of the Carpathians.

     The Dacians settled the area well before the Christian Era. They practiced primitive agriculture and had limited trade with Greek settlements along the western coast of the Black Sea.
     By the 1st century A.D. the Dacians grouped themselves into a loosely formed state ruled by kings. Trying to advance their influence south they encountered the Romans who were advancing north. In a series of campaigns in AD 101 and 106 the Roman Emperor Trajan conquered the areas of Banat, Oltenia and Wallachia. It became a province of the empire and prospered; there was an influx of people, trade flourished and resources were developed. However, toward the end of the 3rd century the Romans were forced to withdraw by barbarian incursions.

 - successive waves of  invaders for ten centuries, very little is known what happened during this period
 - in the 11th century the latin-speaking Vlachs emerged on the Romanian plains, they are believed to be the descendants of Daco-Roman colonists
 - the Vlachs moved into the plains and foothills and fused with a population that, while retaining a small Vlach element, had by then acquired a heavy mixture of Slavs and Tatars from all the invasions over the previous centuries

 - the Romanian principalities were controlled by native princes, who maintained their position through concessions to the nobles, from among whom they had gained pre-eminence. This system led to intrigues and a long succession of rulers who, assisted by the nobles, systematically exploited the peasantry, from whom the heavy annual tribute was collected.
 
    Mircea the Old - reigned 1386-1418
           - exemplified the royal princes of the early days and their place on the field of battle at the head of their armies
           - in 1388, 1394 and 1397 he turned back the Turkish expeditions of Vizier Ali Pasha and in 1404 he again stopped the Turks

-the neighbours
 - by 1396 all of Bulgaria was under Turkish domination  - sometime after 1430 the Turks overran Serbia, Bosnia and Albania
 - the Yugoslavian kingdoms were ruled by the Turks for all of Romanian history (within the timeline)

  Bulgarian Rulers
1300-1322  King Theodore Svetoslav
1322-1323  King George II Terter
1322-1330  King Michael
1330-1331  King Ivan II Stephen
1330-1371  King Ivan I Alexander
1365-1393  King Ivan III Shishman
1396-1878  Under control of the Turkish government

  Hungarian Rulers
1301-1305  King Wenceslaus Wenzel of Bohemia
1305-1307  King Otto of Bavaria
1308-1342  King Charles I Robert (grand-nephew of Ladislaus IV)
1342-1382  King Louis the Great (son of Charles I)
1382-1387  Queen Mary (daughter of Louis the Great)
1387-1437  King Sigismund of Luxemburg (husband of Mary)
1437-1439  King Albert (son-in-law of Sigismund)
1439-1440  Queen Elizabeth (wife of Albert)
1440-1444  King Ladislaus of Poland (grandson of Mary)
1444-1457  King Ladislaus V (son of Albert)
1458-1490  King Matthias Corvinus (also Matyas Hunyadi)

- Wallachia founded at beginning of 14th century by the merging of various political factions carried out by the prince of the Arges region, Basarab I
- a very large country by east European standards especially if one added the two Transylvanian duchies of Fagaras and Amlas over which the Prince of Wallachia ruled as feudal lord
- most people lived in the Carpathian districts - the Danubian plain was covered by extensive forests, but sparsely populated because of the constant threat of invasion

- the territory of the state of Romania, is dominated by the Carpathians (the east, south and western Carpathians), which stretch in a semi-circle round the plateau of Transylvania, separating the mountainous regions of the north-west from the river-crossed plains of the south and east - the plains of Wallachia and Moldavia.

- the stormy period of the Germanic migrations when the Visigoths and Ostrogoths passed through the Balkans left almost no trace, in contrast with that of the Slav population movements which after the 6th century brought about profound changes in the map of southeastern Europe. At the time of the greatest movement of Slav settlers between 600 and 800, most of the inland region was occupied by Slav peasants.

- the governor of Macedonia, M. Licinius Crassus, had succeeded in suppressing the last attempts at rebellion on the part of the local tribes in 29-18 BC in his campaign against the Bastarnae, Daci and Getae.

- after the conquest of the Dacians and their warrior-king Decebalus, Trajan safeguarded the defence of the Roman Empire in the north for a century and a half, from 107 to 271, by annexing the province of Dacia Trajana in 107 in present day Transylvania.

- in 271, the emperor Aurelian, under pressure from the Goths, was forced to evacuate Dacia, the Roman outpost in the area beyond the Danube.

- the Avars who had moved west (from the steppes) were merely dissuaded from renewed attacks for a few years by the federal arrangements of 558, and by 561 they had appeared in the lower Danube region in search of land. When Justinian I and his successor Justinian II (565-578) stopped them from entering imperial territory, they and the Lombards turned against the Gepids, and after destroying them in 567 took up residence in Dacia and the eastern half of Pannonia. With the departure of the Lombards in 568, they enlarged their sphere of influence towards the Alps in the west, and beyond the Carpathian basin to the north and northeast.

- in the late 8th century Byzantium had been unable to resist the Bulgars, who from their base in the Dobrudja had brought the surrounding Slav races - the Severians, in the so-called region of seven races - under their rule. In the next generations the small Bulgar upper class of Turco-Tatar extraction was to be swallowed up in the mass of the Slav population.

- in the eleventh century the nomadic peoples of the steppes of Central Asia, the Pechenegs, the Uzes and the Cumans were to make devastating forays across the lower Danube into the interior of the Balkans; and the western Crusades started.

- in 1185, the brothers Peter (Theodore) and Asen, with strong support from the Vlachs and the Cumans, led a successful revolt against the hated Byzantine rule. The emperor Isaac II Angelus (1185-1195) had at first succeeded in pushing the rebellious Bulgarian leaders back across the Danube. The arrival, though, of considerable Cuman reinforcements and the support of Stefan Nemanja³ had compelled him to agree to an independent Bulgaria, whose territorial rights were to be limited to the areas between the lower Danube and the Balkan mountain ranges.

- the Mongols stormed across eastern Europe in 1241/42 and completely changed the balance of power in the Danube region which received the brunt of their attack. Large parts of the Hungarian empire were devastated; the military power of Bulgaria was decisively weakened.

- last half of 14th century - manifestations of disintegration characterized the political life of the Bulgarians in the last phase before the Ottoman conquest. The Black Sea coastal areas round Varna were subordinated to Balsic and his brother, the despot Dobrotic (after whom the Dobrudja was probably named).

- the dissolution of the Serbian empire after the death of Stefan Dusan in 1355 started a movement of peoples that was to be of great significance in Balkan history. The Albanian and "Wallachian" wandering shepherds, descendants of those Balkan-Roman elements of the population who had fled to the mountain areas before the advance of the Slavs, had already been on the move in previous centuries, and some of them had adopted a settled way of life.

- the political future of the "Wallachian" shepherds lay beyond the Danube in Transylvania and the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, though they frequently exercised their influence on central Balkan affairs, and the participation of Vlachs and Cumanshad helped the brothers Peter and Asen to achieve success in their uprising of 1185 when the Second Bulgarian Empire was founded. Traces of Wallachian settlers can still be found today in Albania and Epirus (the Pindus), west Macedonia and the hinterland of Salonica in the shape of the Kutzo-, Macedo-, or Mauro-Wallachians, i.e. the "Black Wallachians", and the Morlaks and Cincars.

- from their seat at Bursa, the Ottoman rulers began by uniting the numerous Turkish feudal domains in Asia Minor into an organized political entity. In 1353, they finally ventured onto the European mainland. As early as 1365, sultan Murad I (1359-1389) was able to transfer his capital from Bursa to Adrianople,which had fallen into Ottoman hands in 1362. In the following decades the sultan's generals conquered the remaining states and local principalities in the Balkans, and eventually stormed the walls of Constantinople in 1453.

- the success of this grandiose work of conquest was due not only to the irresistible strength of the Ottoman armies and their superiority in the art of war but also to a complete lack of co-operation among the Christian princes.

- in 1395, Marko and Constantine Dejanovic (Serbian princes) fell in battle against Mircea the Old's Vlachs (Wallachians) near Rovine, north of the Danube.

- Turkish successes in Albania, greatly aided by Charles Thopia's request for help against his rivals in the Balsici family in 1385,and also in Bulgaria - culminating in the capture of Sofia in 1382 and Nis in 1386 - threatened to produce a dangerous scissor movement against the allies.

- JUNE 15, 1389, the famous Vidovan (St. Vitus' day), Prince Lazar of Serbia together with Vuk Brankovic and their Bosnian allies under the leadership of the Vojvode Vlatko Vukovic, supported by Croatian, Albanian, Bulgarian and Wallachian troops,challenged the sultan Murad on the Kosovo Polje⁴. The killing of the sultan during the ensuing battle by the legendary Serb, Milos Obilic, gave the encounter a dramatic character. The Serb's violent attack confused the Turks and for a time their position was critical, but the determination of Bayazit, the successor to the throne, brought about another victory for the Turks in spite of their severe losses. The ageing prince Lazar and his immediate followers were taken prisoner and executed.

- Sultan Bayazit Yildirim, the 'lightning' (1389-1402), devoted the following years to completing his father's task of conquering the Balkans. A terrible fate befell the city of Trnovo, the ancient city of the Bulgarian tsars, which was taken by storm in the year 1393. The patriarch Euthymius was exiled to Macedonia and a large section of the population was resettled in Asia Minor. The Turkish sword next reached beyond the frontiers of the Danube and, after the inconclusive battle on the field of Rovine of May 17, 1395, forced the courageous Wallachian prince Mircea the Old into a position of semi-independence. The Hungarian king tried to divert the imminent danger from himself by taking his army down the Danube, having recruited western, and especially French, knights to strengthen it. To begin with, his successes gave him cause for hope. The Bulgarian ruler of Vidin, Tsar Stracimir, defeated its Turkish garrison and after some resistance opened the city's gates. But on September 25, 1396, the sultan, who had arrived in haste from Trnovo, inflicted a crushing defeat on the Christian knights at Nicopolis, and what was left of Bulgarian territory around Vidin lost its independence. By the end of the fourteenth century, Bulgaria right up to the Danube was firmly in Turkish hands.

- the unexpected defeat and capture of sultan Bayazit by theMongolian world conqueror, Timur Lenk, at the battle of Ankara in1402, brought but temporary relief to the Balkan peoples. Mehmed I (1413-1421) together with his brothers Suleiman and Musa put a final end to the bloody wars of succession at the decisive battle of  Camorlu near Philippopolis (Plovdiv), where the Serbian vassals earned themselves lasting fame. He thus enabled his successor, sultan Murad II (1421-1451), to continue a forward policy in the Balkans. In 1422, Constantinople had to withstand a siege, and in 1430, Salonica, which had only come under Venetian domination in 1423, fell prey to the Ottoman conquerors.

- a large part of Serbian territory was already under Turkish rule. But in the north, near Hungary, an independent area had survived around Smederevo. Over this a fierce struggle took place. Though the sultan succeeded in taking Smederevo in 1439, his siege of Belgrade in the following year was unsuccessful. In this situation the hopes of Christendom rested with a glorious war hero who had been victorious in several clashes with Turkish armies and was in time to lead a motley army of Crusaders across the Danube under the command of the Jagellonian king of Poland and Hungary, Ladislas III. He was John Hunyadi, duke of Transylvania, the "Sibinjanin Janko" of Serbian folk songs. His army advanced via Krusevac, Nis and Pirot to Sofia, and won a brilliant victory at Jalovac on the way to Philippopolis. During its retreat, another victory was gained in a rearguard action at Kunovica (1443).
- Murad II proposed a ten year truce and the restitution to the Serbian despot, George Brankovic, of his territory around Smederevo. At the meeting of the assembly in Szegedin in 1444, oaths of agreement were sworn. However, they were only to last a few months. At the instigation of the papal envoy, cardinal Julian Cesarini, Ladislas and John Hunyadi were persuaded to undertake another military expedition. Insufficient preparation and a lackof firm co-ordination with their allies brought that surprising adventure to a humiliating end before Varna on November 10, 1444. King Ladislas and cardinal Cesarini met with their deaths. John Hunyadi was not to concede defeat until 1448 after another battle on the Kosovo Polje.

-...we must here say something of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia which lie next to the eastern and southern slopes of the Carpathians. These areas had for long been particularly exposed to the dangers that threatened from the steppes of central Asia, and the formation of independent principalities in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had been closely connected with the need for the kingdom of Hungary to secure her frontiers.Under the princes of the Bessarab family, Wallachia was the first to extricate itself from Hungarian tutelage, emerging victorious in battles during the fourteenth century...the native princes maintained their independence by constantly adapting their alliances to meet particular situations and were to great extentable to survive the general collapse of the Balkan states. Turkish advances across the Danube were successfully repelled by the Wallachian Mircea the Old at the battle in the Olt valley near Rovine against Bayazit I in 1395. In the long run it was impossible for them to avoid making concession to the superior Ottoman power, especially as the Turkish flag flew over most of Hungary and Transylvania had been reduced to a position of dependence. Already at the beginning of the fifteenth century, after the unsuccessful "crusade" of Nicopolis, Wallachia had had to submit to paying tribute regularly to the sultan in the treaty of 1411.

- the institution of devshirme by which Christian boys were conscripted and brought up in the Islamic faith at the court of the sultan, and which was essential for the survival of the janissary corps.

     - in the summer of 167 hosts of barbarians mustered along the line of the Danube, ready to make an inroad into Roman territory
     - the invading flood poured forth over the unprotected provinces. Not until the two emperors reached the seat of war (spring 168) was the pillaging and ravaging stopped. The barbarians withdrew to the further side of the Danube and declared their readiness to enter negotiations. There in the winter of 168-169 the plague broke out in the Roman camp, and at once the complexion of events changed for the worse. In the spring, weakened and discouraged by disease, the army suffered another severe defeat. Following up their victory, the Teutons assumed the offensive all along the line. A surging mass of peoples - Hermunduri, Naristi, Marcomanni, Quadi, Lacringi, Buri, Victovali, Asdingi and other tribes Germanic and Iazygic - swept over the provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia and Dacia.
     - we have seen how the Danube had been constantly threatened since the appearance of the Goths on the Black Sea, how invasion after invasion had descended on Dacia and Moesia. Soon after the accession of Gallienus (256-7)⁵, Dacia with the exception of the narrow strip between the Temes and the Danube, which continued to be held down to the time of Aurelian, together with the portion of Lower Moesia which lay to the north of the Danube (the present Great Wallachia), became the prey of the barbarians. Some of the Visigoths settled in Great Wallachia and the Taifali in the Banat; the northern districts, especially Transylvania, were occupied by the Victovali and Gepidae, who at this time make their appearance among the enemies of Rome. The consequence of the loss of Dacia and Trans-Danubian Moesia was that the Teutons now became on the lower Danube the neighbours of the Empire.

         - the most diversified was the destiny of those mounted nomads who became romanized in the Balkan peninsula (Romanians or Vlakhs) but, surprising as it may be outside the steppe region, remain true to this day to their life as horse and sheep nomads wherever this is still at all possible...
         - ...they maintain themselves in Romania, East Hungary, Bukovina and Bessarabia for the following reasons: the central portion of this region, the Transylvanian mountain belt, sustained with its rich summer pastures such a number of grazing camps (Romanian catun, Mongolian khotun), that the nomads in the favourable winter quarters of the Romanian plains were finally able to absorb the Slav peasantry...
         - the Romanians were not descendants of Roman colonists of Dacia left behind in East Hungary and Transylvania. Their nomadic life is a confutation of this, for the Emperor Trajan (after 107) transplanted settled colonists from the entire Roman empire. And after the removal and withdrawal of the Roman colonists (~271) Dacia, for untold centuries, was the arena of the wildest international struggles known to history, and these could not have been outlived by any nomad people remaining there. Some say they took to the mountains during the invasions and subsequently always returned. But the nomad can support himself the mountains only during the summer and must descend to pass the winter. But south of the Danube also, the origin of the Romanians must not be sought in Roman times, but much later, because the nomads are never quickly denationalized. For in the summer they are alone on the mountains, using only their own language, and only in their winter quarters among the foreign-speaking peasantry are they compelled to resort to the foreign tongue. Thus they remain, for centuries, bilingual before they are quite denationalized. Accordingly the romanizing of the Romanians presupposes a Romance peasant population already existing there for a long time and of a different race, through the influence of which they first became bilingual, then after centuries, forget their own language. For nomads outside the salt-steppe the sea-coast offers the most suitable winter quarters. Among all the sea-districts, however, only Dalmatia had remained so long Romanic as to be able to entirely romanize a nomad people. From this district the expansion of the Romanians had its beginning.

¹ Called so after the river Olt.
² Mircea was also forced to send a quota of children who would go to fill the ranks of the
Janissaries. The Janissaries were the best-disciplined fighting force in the world at the time.
They were recruited by force from among the young sons of Christian subjects. They were taught
the Muslim religion and, in fact, became Turks. They were subjected to rigorous training and
indoctrination. They were powerful and utterly fearless warriors.
³ Grand Zupan of Serbia.
⁴ "plain of the blackbirds"
⁵ In this year the minting of coins for the province of Dacia breaks off.
 

 
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