3. Byzantine Epoch. Assanid Empire. The Blachs or Wallachs of the Balkans.

     Many Latin inscriptions confirm the persistence of the vulgar Latin tongue in the Balkans until the end of the fifth century. The occupation of the peninsula by the Slavs, almost completed by the end of the seventh century, caused part of the Daco-Roman and Thraco-Roman elements to seek refuge in the mountains (Rhodope, Pindus, Epirus), their descendants later to be called Wallachs or Blachs.
     The name of Blachernae, a suburb of Constantinople, which, according to a tenth-century chronicle, was derived from that of a Scythian Duke Blachernos, killed at Constantinople, might, according to Popa-Lisseanu, be connected with the term Blach, Wallach (Blacernoi, descendant or son of Wallach).
 In the eighth century the Rinchinii and Blachorinchinii¹ are mentioned as attacking the monastery of Castamonitu. In 976 the Byzantine author, Kedrenos, tells us that the brother of the Bulgarian king Samuel was killed by Wallach wagoners² between Castoria and Prespa in Macedonia.
 In 980 Basil II, the Bulgaroktonos, conferred the domination over the Wallachs of Thessalia on one Nicoulitza³ (Nikoulitzai).
     In 1014 King Samuel was defeated between Serres and Melnik in the hills of Kimbaloggoi, a Latin name like the Ca^mpulung of Wallachia, mentioned in 1300.
     According to Cecaumenos (Strategicon,  in 1066), the Wallachs of Epirus, Thessalia, etc., all came from the north, and were descended from the Dacians and Bessi (Thracians) who dwelt north of the Danube and along the Sava. It is interesting to note that here, also, the chronicler mentions the north-south movement postulated by Hungarian historians, adverse to the Roman continuity in Dacia.
 In 1019 an edict of Emperor Basil II (the Bulgaroktonos) puts the Wallachs of Bulgaria (Blacoi), which had been supposed as an independent state, under the archbishopric of Ochrida.⁴
     In 1027, the Annals of Bari mention the Bulgarians and the Wallachs in the armies brought into Italy by the Byzantine Emperor: "hoc anno descendit in Italiam cum exercitu magno i.e. Vussorum, Turcorum, Guandalarum, Burgarorum, Vlachorum, Maceronum, aliorumque ut caperet Siciliam." (Annales Barenses).
     In 1166, Manuel Comnenus assembled a large number of Wallachs for his army in the regions bordering on the Black Sea in order to attack the Hungarians. These Wallachs "are supposed to be the descendants of the former Roman coloni" (Chronicle of Kinnamos; it is not clearly stated whether those Wallachs actually came from the mouths of the Danube or from the Balkan provinces of the Empire; but Tomaschek and other commentators believe that they came from north of the Danube.)
     In 1114, Anna Comnena had already mentioned Wallachs who acted as guides in the crossing of the Danube (were these the Brodnici or 'men of the ford'?) to the invading Cumans, and it was one of their chiefs named Budila, who in 1095 came to warn Emperor Alexis in his camp at Anchialus (but here, too, Anna Comnena notes that Wallachs served as guides to the Cumans in the mountain passes).
 A runic inscription from the eleventh century, found in the isle of Gothland, recalls the murder of the Scandinavian traveller Rothfos by 'Blakumen'⁵ as he was going to the Black Sea and Constantinople. The murder took place on the present day borderline between Galicia and Moldavia.
     In 1164, before the above-mentioned army of Manuel Comnenus started its advance, Andronic Comnenus was taken prisoner by Wallach shepherds (Brodnici) at the same Galician frontier.
     At the same period, Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, who died in 1173, mentioned Vlachia and the Vlachs of Macedonia ('no Emperor can conquer them,').
    The crusaders of Frederick Barbarossa in 1190 in the region of Nis met with resistance from Wallachs who towards 1189 had revolted, led by their chiefs Peter and Asen, against the Byzantine domination.
 In 1190, the Assanids asked for the help of the peoples north of the Danube to conquer the Byzantines. Byzantine writers mention Cumans and Wallachs as among the northern warriors.⁶
     Let us note again that when Nicetas mentions the Brodnici, he omits to mention the Wallachs.
     The Patriarchate called Wallachia Ungro-Vlachia, and Moldavia Ruso-Vlachia. It is possible that the "Ongari infideli', of the chronicle of Stephano Magno, who constituted the shock troops of the Byzantine army when retaking Constantinople during the night of 24-25 July, 1261, were not Cumans but Danubian Wallachs.
     Choniates wrote, between 1202 and 1214, that the Thessalian mountain region was called 'Great Wallachia'.
     At the beginning of the twelfth century, the Wallachs are mentioned in the Chanson de Roland in connection with the contingents of the Saracen army: "...and the third consists of Nubles and Blos..."
     The Blos are the Blas or Blachii, the Nubles the Bogomil Paulicians.
     The Wallachs south of the Danube were also mentioned in connection with their struggles against the Latins by Phillipe Mouskes, a French poet of the first half of the thirteenth century: "Que contre les Blas soit en gierre," and in connection with the marriage of the second daughter of Henry of Anjou: "Et la seconde ot Jehanins Sires des Blas et des Comins." (that is, John or Joannitius Assan). In another verse, the same author wrote: "Que li rois de la tiere as Blas." In this case, he might refer to the Wallachs north of the Danube, for they are mentioned in connection with the defeat of the Tatars.
     'Blachia' and the "Blachii" have often been mentioned by Choniates and by Robert de Clari when writing about the Frankish Empire and the early years of the thirteenth century.
     The phenomenon of 'ebb and tide' of the Daco-Roman and Thraco-Roman population north and south of the Danube, already noted at the time of the first barbarian invasions, can be seen continuing with the same periodic magnitude, with the almost miraculous persistence of the Latin dialect destined to become Roumanian.
     The Wallachs, both north and south of the Danube, after having long remained faithful to the Greek ritual, had, in the ninth century, and under the influence of the Bulgarian Tsars (Tsar Simeon), adopted the Slavonic liturgy.
 We saw that in 1028, the Wallachs of the Balkans, having been subjected to the archbishop of Ochrida, once more had to follow the Greek liturgy; those north of the Danube retained their Slavonic ritual. In 1054 came the Great Schism.⁷
     We have already mentioned the Assanid dynasty which created what is generally known as the Roumano-Bulgarian Empire; here follows a few details:
     Two Wallachian chiefs from the Haemus or Rhodope (Balkan mountains of Bulgaria where a numerous Wallachian population was to be found.), Peter and Assan, decided to revolt against Emperor Isaac the Angel as a result of a blow given to Assan by a Byzantine official at Constantinople. They defeated the imperial army, but Assan was murdered in 1196, Peter in 1197. Ionita 'Kaloyannes' (Iohannitius) succeeded his two brothers. In 1204, he was crowned at Tirnovo by Cardinal Leo as King of the Bulgars and Wallachs. The previous day, the Cardinal had anointed Basil, Patriarch of Tirnovo, as Primate of the Bulgars and Wallachs; Ionita with his boiars and his clergy had submitted to the Church of Rome (the Bulgaro-Roumanian Empire reverted to orthodoxy about 1230, when Ioan Assan II was excommunicated).
     All the documents of the time mention the fact that the Assanids were Wallachs.
 Nicetas Chonites Akominatos mentions several times that Peter and Assan were Wallachs from Mount Haemus; the documents from the Papal Chancery even state that Ionita was a descendant of the ancient Romans.⁸
     The chronicle of the German Ansbertus mentions that the Crusaders were attacked by 'Blachis ille Iohannitius...cum Blacis et Comanis et allis'.
     Villehardouin, Henri de Valenciennes and Robert de Clari call Ionita, 'Iehan le Blac, Iohanice le Blac'.
     In 1205, Ionita, ally of the Byzantines and with the help of Cuman and Wallach auxiliaries, defeated and captured the Emperor Baldwin near Adrianople. Baldwin died at Tirnovo. The Regent Henry of Byzance writes to the Pope: 'A Iohannitio Blachorum domino...Irruit subito Blachus ille Iohannitius, cum Blachis, Cumanis et alliis'.
     Ionita was murdered in his turn in 1207. His successors were: his nephew Borila (1207-1218) and his nephew Ioan Assan II (1218-1241), son of Assan. His reign marked the apogee of the expansion of the Assanid Empire; even Albania, excepting Durazzo, was part of it.
 After Ionita, the state had become purely Bulgarian⁹ (and orthodox), but in 1237, a letter of Pope Gregory IX still speaks of Ioan Assan as 'Dominus Blachorum et Bulgarorum'.
 The last Assanids were Caliman I (1241-1246), Michael (1246-1257) and Caliman II who died in 1258.¹⁰
 

4.

     We have noted in the Hungarian chronicles, in the Descriptio Europae Orientalis and in the Chronicon Pictum the presence in Hungary of the Wallachs, 'pastores Romanorum', mingled with Slavs whom they had conquered or assimilated (Nestor's Chronicle), settled there (the Wallachs) since the epoch of Roman Pannonia, they had moreover stayed on even during the occupation by the Huns (this being confirmed by the observations of Priscus on the 'Autochtones' he had met in the Banate and in Pannonia, and on the 'ausonian' tongue which was spoken alongside the barbarian tongues.)
 We have seen in Pannonia, duchies (voivodates) with a  Roumano-Slav population, Roumanian¹¹ or Slav chiefs, opposing the eastward advance of the Arpadian conquerors; we refer here again to those Hungarian chronicles that are more in the nature of epic poems, romantic tapestries, in which both events and periods are sometimes confused, but which nevertheless were based on written traditions which the various chroniclers, whose texts have come down to us, used as their sources. And the tradition, at the end of the twelfth century and later, was clearly that the Arpadians had not found Transylvania to be a 'no man's land' but composed of a number of small Roumanian and Slav states that had to be conquered. It was only after the Treaty of Trianon that the myth of the non-continuity of the Roumanians in Transylvania, of their arrival during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, was set up as dogma by Hungarian polemists.
     Actually, the conquest of Transylvania or rather the addition of an eastern march, including also the Maramures to the kingdom of St. Stephen, began somewhat later and lasted somewhat longer (eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries).
     The Siculi, we saw, were upon arrival of the Hungarians driven back towards the western mountains of Transylvania where they found the Blachi or Wallachs; living with them, they borrowed their alphabet (vide supra, Simon of Keza, etc.)
     The Weltchronik of Rudolf von Ems, written about 1250, also shows us on the borders of this eastern march the Cumans and 'wilde Vlachin jensit des sneberges', across the snowclad mountains.
 We saw that, in 1210, contingents of Saxons, Roumanians¹², Siculi and Petchenegs ('associatus sibi Saxonibus, Vlachis, Siculis, Bisensis') led by the Saxon Count Joachim, set out from Sibiu against the Assanid Emperor, Borila Asen.
     A Hungarian document of 1224, of Andrew II, giving privileges to the Saxons, mentions as being in the north of Transylvania 'the forest of Petchenegs and Wallachs' (sylva Blacorum et Bissenorum).
     On 11th March 1291, the Assembly of Alba-Iulia was presided over by the King 'cum universis nobilibus, Saxonibus, Syculis et Olachis' (Zimmerman-Werner, Urkunden Buch, I. p.177). The Roumanians are here recognized as a nation with rights equal to those of the others. This is yet another argument against the Hungarian theory that the Roumanians had filtered into Transylvania in the course of the thirteenth century, coming from the south and the east and the Balkans. The Roumanian expansion at that time, for the very reason of the eastward thrust of the Hungarians was itself directed eastward; as witness the groups of 'Wallach' warriors who, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, helped to crystallize into one state the small voivodates of Oltenia and Wallachia, and the ones who towards 1350 founded the principality of Moldavia.
     As we have seen, the Descriptio Europae Orientalis also speaks of an emigration from north to south of Wallachs of Pannonia as a result of the arrival of the Arpadians.
 We have said already that the Hungarians, having built the castles of Turda and Dej in the eleventh century¹³, occupied, about 1210, the silver mines of Baia, and Rodna in Maramures; this province with its wild forests became the 'Royal Land', the favourite hunting domain of the Arpadian kings.
     A document of King Koloman, of 1103 or 1113, mentions a Mercurius Princeps Transylvanus.
     The charter of 1222 of King Andrew II gives the 'Burzenland' (the rich plain north of Brasov) to the Teutonic Knights 'usque ad terminos Brodnicorum', as far as the borders of the Brodnici, who here seem to inhabit Moldavia (symbiosis of Daco-Roumanians, Slavs and Cumans). The charter gives the knights the right to have six vessels on the Olt and six on the Mures, and freedom from customs duties when their ships should pass through the land of the Wallachs and Siculi.
     The Siculi had not yet settled in their present habitat (the Trei-Scaune' were still inhabited by Slavo-Roumanian Brodnici).
     Canon Karacsonyi and Popa-Lisseanu believe that these two customs systems (supposing there were autonomous administrations for these two nations) were to the west of the Burzenland, the Wallach customs posts being in the region of Piersani-Halmeag, the Siculian ones in the region of Kohalm.
     The bull of the same year sent out by Pope Honorius III confirms this charter; in a copy, the term Blacorum has been substituted for 'Brodnicorum' as if these two terms were equivalent (Zimmerman-Werner).
     Brodnicii (Roumanian Slavs?) are moreover mentioned in Hungarian documents of the same period as dwelling in the direction of Sibiu and Fagaras.
     In the year 1227, Pope Gregory IX named the Archbishop of Strigonia apostolic legate to the land of the Cumans and the land of the Brodnicii (the Cuman prince Bortz is mentioned in it as having been converted to Catholicism; the bull says 'in Cumania et Brodnic, terra illa vicina'; this Brodnic land appears to have been the Sereth and the Dneister).
     The Brodnicii were Orthodox Christians, the Cumans pagans.
     The first Bishop for the Cuman country was called Theodoric.
 A letter of 1234, from the same Pope Gregory IX to the Crown Prince of Hungary (the future Bela IV) informs him that in the Cuman country were certain peoples named Wallachs - 'qui Walati vocantur' - who called themselves Christians but followed the Greek rites of certain pseudo-bishops, and who had a pernicious contact not only with certain Hungarians and Germans of the Hungarian kingdom, but also with other inhabitants who were at one with these Wallachs.¹⁴
 Popa-Lisseanu believes that the Siculi were brought into the 'Trei-Scaune' (three Seats) north of Burzenland only after the departure of the Tatars of the 1241 invasion, and that before them these two regions were inhabited by 'Brodnicii' (Slavo-Roumanians using a Latin dialect).¹⁵
     In 1247, after the Tatar invasion which terminated the Cuman preponderance in the Roumanian regions and caused the disappearance of the short-lived Catholic bishopric of the Cumans, King Bela IV established by charter the Knights Hospitallers of St. John in the Banate of Severin, which was then governed by a 'Ban', afterwards by the knezes Farcas (= wolf in Hungarian, Lupu?), Ioan and Litovoi. To the Order was also given 'Cumania' between the Olt and the Carpathians, excluding the knezate of Seneslas.
     After the death of Bela IV and of his son Stephen, Litovoi re-established his position in the Banate of Severin; the Hungarians declared war on him in 1279, defeated and killed him, his brother Ba^rbat being made prisoner and forced to pay ransom.
     The Roumanians give up the land of Hateg to the Hungarian crown.
     Bassarab, first prince of Wallachia of that dynasty, appears to have retaken the Banate of Severin in 1290.
     Before the unfortunate expedition of Charles Robert of Hungary against Bassarab in 1330, the latter, who had consolidated into one state the small voivodates or knezates of Wallachia, recognized the suzerainty of the King who called him; 'Basarab, son of Tihomir, our Transalpine Voivode'.
     The Roumanian historians now agree in admitting that Bassarab is a Cuman name; the dynasty was therefore possibly Cuman, as also were possibly the families of certain other minor voivodes and Roumanian chiefs of that epoch, both in Transylvania and in the future Roumanian principalities.
     Yet another example to show to what extent the terms Cuman and Wallach were interchangeable, as were the terms Wallachs and Brodnicii; whereas the above-mentioned document of 11th March 1291 speaks of the 'universities' of Saxon, Siculian and Wallachian nobles at Alba Iulia, the assembly of Buda on 29th July 1292 is mentioned in another document as 'universitas nobilium Ongarorum, Siculorum, Saxonum et Comanorum'; the term Cumans simply replacing that of Wallachs.
 The Carmen Miserabile of the Italian prelate Rogerius¹⁶ is a chronicle written after 1241 (occupation of Transylvania by the Tatars which he witnessed) giving interesting details of the organization of the Transylvanian knezates, a type of administration which was characteristic of the Roumanian communities.
     Rogerius tells us how the inhabitants of the village of Frata (today Magyar-Frata, near Cluj, entirely Roumanian) received him, offering him black bread; the village population ('quae Frata dicitur in vulgari,' in the vulgar Latin, or Ausonian, spoken by the inhabitants) 'contituerunt canesios (ie knezes) id est balivios, qui justitiam facerent...et erant canesii fere centum... Conveniebant canesii pene qualibet septimana...Elegi igitur potius cum ipsis canesiis ad exercitum ire...Canesii vero ad recipienda munera acceserunt'.
     These knezes 'brought back peace' (after the Tatar invasion). Neither the Hungarians nor the Saxons of Transylvania availed themselves of the institution of knezates which was purely Roumanian (the word was Slavonic but was the title of prince in Russia), nor of the 'scaune' or seats of justice. The part of the country inhabited from the end of the thirteenth century to the present day by the Szekels - Siculi - has always been called 'Trei-Scaune' in Roumanian.
     The first Voivodes and knezes mentioned by the Hungarians were west of Transylvania; afterwards the entire east of this province was organized into knezates and voivodates and not into counties as was the rest of Hungary; it was not until the end of the fifteenth century that the Roumanian organizations were almost entirely suppressed. The title of Voivode, also of Slavonic origin (duke or army chief), was, under the first Arpadians, applied to the Slav or Roumanian dukes who were the suzerains of groups of Roumanian knezes, but it was later almost exclusively applied to the great chiefs of the Roumanian communities, as we shall see. The qualifying ethnic term accompanying the words voivode and kneze is never other than 'Olahus' or Wallach, with the exception of a few great feudal Magyars such as Ladislaus Apor who bore the title of Voivode of Transylvania, borrowed from the local Roumanian nomenclature; a voivode or kneze was never qualified as Slavonic.
     The kneze Lytovoi became a Voivode in 1251; his voivodate was on the right bank of the Olt; on the left bank, in Wallachia proper, was the voivodate of Seneslas.
     In 1324, we find Bassarab, son of Tihomir, the founder of the Bassarab dynasty, as Voivode of Wallachia.
     Bassarab defeated the army of Charles Robert of Hungary in the mountain gorges of the Olt, in 1330, and died in 1352. The formation of the Transalpine state of Walachia by the consolidation of its small voivodates perhaps prevented that of a permanent 'universitas' of the Roumanians subjected to the crown of Hungary.
     Before the infelicitous expedition of Charles Robert against Bassarab the latter recognized, as we have already seen, the suzerainty of the King, who called him 'our Transalpine Voivode.'
     The Painted Chronicle mentions Toma, Voivode of Transylvania for that period, and Dionisie, son of Nicholas, grandson of Iancha, (this Dionisie later bore the probably entirely honorary title of Ban of Severin) as having urged Charles Robert on in his war against Bassarab.
     The battle of 1330, often called the battle of Posada, probably took place at Lovistea in the valley of the Olt.
     Charles Robert recounted in detail (charter of 13th December 1335) how one Nicholas, son of Radoslav, saved his life by defending him from the swords of five Wallachian warriors, allowing the King to make his escape. The battle is described with a wealth of detail that still reflects the sinister horror of the gorges in which the Hungarian army was decimated by that of Bassarab.
     The adventures of Otto of Bavaria as prisoner first of Ladislas Apor, Voivode of Transylvania, then (1308) of the Roumanian Voivode of Hateg, his escape through Galicia and his return to Bavaria are told in the poem of Ottokar of Styria, written about 1309, entitled Oesterreichische Reimchronik. In eight different stanzas, the Wallachs are mentioned as a distinct entity (as a rule with the Siculi -- 'Zokel und Walachen.')
     Apart from the document quoted above mentioning the Wallachian contingent of the Saxon Count Joachim of Sibiu, Zimmerman-Werner (Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen in Siebenburgen, vol. 1, Hermannstadt, 1892) mentions documents of 1222, 1223 and 1252, showing that at that time the region of Fagaras contained many Roumanians.
     The duchy of Fagaras was moreover, under the first Bassarabs, a fief held by them by approval of the kings of Hungary.
 One of the documents of the period most important to Roumanian historians is a letter written in 1345 by Pope Clement V to King Louis of Hungary; in it the Sovereign Pontiff states that several Roumanians ('Olahi Romani'; this is the first time that Wallachians are called Romans¹⁷) living in Hungary, Transylvania, Wallachia (Ultralpina) and at Sirmium (on the Sava), have become Catholics and that others are disposed to conversion.
     To achieve this end, he, the Pope, had sent letters to Alexander son of Bassarab, and to other Roumanian nobles, such as Nicholas, Prince of Remecha (remetea in the Banate?), Sanislas of Sypparach, Aprozye Voivode of Zopus and Nicholas, Voivode of Auginas.
     Let us schematically follow the rapid development of Wallachia proper (called 'The Roumanian Land' or 'Ungro-Vlahia' in the documents issued by its sovereigns) under the first Bassarabs.
     After the failure of the attempted revolt of Voivode Litovoi against the Hungarians about 1273, we no longer find Roumanian formations mentioned in Wallachia until 1324, when, in a Hungarian privilege, the mention 'Bassarab our Transalpine Voivode' occurs.
     It is possible that Tihomir, named as father of Bassarab, was the son of the Seneslas of 1247 (Giurescu's hypothesis); thus there would be a race of Voivodes in the Arges, the supremacy of which would have been recognized by the descendants of Litovoi and by other Voivodes and knezes of lesser importance; 1324, the consolidation had already taken place (the Hungarian Banate of Severin had been conquered about 1290) and Bassarab, who assumed the title of 'Grand Voivode', gained his complete independence by defeating Charles Robert in 1330.
     It is now admitted that the foundation of the Wallachian state was not due to conquest ('descalicare') by a legendary Negru-Voda, coming from Fagaras in Wallachia in 1290 (a conquest parallel with the 'descent' of Bogdan of Maramures into Moldavia, which latter event has been authenticated) but to the almost organic and complete consolidation referred to above.
     Bassarab I died in 1352 having extended his state as far as the eastern Danube and even beyond the Pruth in the district of Kilia, in the south of what  later by extension became to be called Bessarabia.
     Bassarab I was succeeded by his son Nicholas Alexander (1352-1364); the latter in his turn by his son Vladislas, known as Vlaicu Voda (1364-1375).
 Vlaicu Voda held in fief from the king of Hungary the land of Amlas to the southeast of Sibiu, and the Fagaras¹⁸ of which he was duke (Dux de Fogrus on a seal).
     About 1369, a Hungarian army led by Nicholas, Voivode of Transylvania, attacked the Prince of Wallachia and was defeated, Nicholas being killed.
     Vlaicu Voda was succeeded by his brother Radu, he completed the beautiful 'Princely" church of Curtea de Arges, begun by Bassarab I; Radu was buried in the same church, his tomb having been recently found and opened. The costume and the jewels of the Voivode were found to be in a fair state of preservation and are of a perfectly western, Gothic style. Radu was by tradition confused with the legendary Negru-Voda and became a hybrid Radu-Negru (Rudolphe the Black).
     To Radu, succeeded first his son Dan, then the latter's brother Mircea, called Mircea the Old (1386-1418), during whose reign Wallachia reached its greatest expansion as a separate state.
 The official title of Mircea the Old was 'Grand Voivode of all the land of Ungro-Vlachia¹⁹ (Hungro-Wallachia) and of the reigns beyond the mountains (certain plateaus in Transylvania), also of the Tatar regions (Kilia and its surroundings, in southern Bessarabia), duke (Hertzeg) of Amlas and Fagaras (in Transylvania), Lord of the Banate of Severin and of the two banks of the Danube down to the Great Sea, and Lord of the fortress of Da^rstor (Silistria)'.
     This refers to the Dobrogea, the two banks in question being taken from the northward bend of the Danube onwards, approximately from present-day Turtucaia.
     Dobrogea actually means 'Land of Dobrotici' and in documents of 1390 and 1391, Mircea moreover calls himself 'Terrarum Dobrodicii Despotus'.
     Mircea, who built the fortress of Giurgiu, had the glory of destroying the army of Bayezid who had attacked him at Rovine (near Craiova) in 1394.
     In 1396, he and his army suffered in the disaster of Nicopolis side by side with King Sigismund, but yet had again the satisfaction of defeating the Turks in 1397 and 1400. But a further Turkish expedition in 1417 had the final result of reducing the Grand Voivode to the payment of the first Wallachian tribute to the Porte (the first Moldavian tribute was paid under Peter Aron in 1456).
 One of the most interesting provinces bordering upon Transylvania is the Maramures, whence, according to the Roumanian chronicles, confirmed in entirety by the contemporary Hungarian documents, the Roumanian voivodes Dragos, and then Bogdan, set out, about 1352, with small armies or bands of Roumanian warriors, and having arrived east of the Carpathians, founded the state of Moldavia²⁰ by organizing the Roumanian, Cuman and Slavo-Roumanian (Brodnicii) peoples which they found there.
     The name Maramures appears for the first time in 1199.
     In the register of Varad, Gustav Wenzel found a mention in 1209 of a 'terra Bogdan' which, in 1735, Szaszki Tomka Janos identified as the land of Maramures (maramors in the first Latin documents) is Roumanian.
     In 1231, the 'Maramors' is still a royal hunting domain.
     In 1299 there appears a Voivode Maurice of Maramures (Wenzel); his son is called Nicholas.
     From 1300 onwards, the documents show an important number of Roumanians there, with their own organizations and almost complete liberty, in no way late-comers, and never mentioned as coming from elsewhere, as were the Hungarian and Saxon 'hospites'.
     It seems therefore very probable that these Roumanians were the inhabitants of the land when the Arpadian kings discovered it as a hunting domain in 1199. The kings of Hungary then constantly brought settlers there, as indicated by existing documents: e.g.. Saxons in 1272; in 1300, Andrew III paid subsidies to other immigrants. In 1329, Charles Robert, in consideration of the loyalty of his guests 'hospitum nostrorum, fidelium de Maramorusio, Saxonum et Hungarorum...' granted them, as they had immigrated into a land of small fertility, 'multum sterilis', a series of privileges, one of which, stipulated that men of another language and nation should have no right to dispossess them. These occupants of another nation were no doubt Roumanians with their Voivodes and their knezes. Whence, maybe, the revolt of the Voivode Bogdan and his departure with a large number of Roumanians.
     Charles Robert, at the Chapter of Eger (1336) speaks of Dragh and Dragos, Wallachs of the Maramures. Was this Dragos the aurochs hunter of the legend? Thurocz says: 'regnante Ludovico I, Bogdan vajvoda Valahorum de Maramorosio floruit'. But the first mention in a contemporary document of Bogdan, the founder of Moldavia, occurs in 1343 when he was despoiled of his title but not of his possessions.
     He was dispossessed of his Hungarian possessions in 1365, after his passage into Moldavia; his lands are enumerated. His brother Juga 'Voyvoda Olachorum de Maramorisio' also possessed large domains (in 1349 King Louis the Great wrote to his son John 'fidelio suo Johanni filio Ige Woywodae Olacorum de Maramorisio').
     Bogdan had several sons, one of them was Latzco, Voivode of Moldavia, 1365-1373.
     The Moldavian chronicle of Putna ascribes the foundation of Moldavia to Dragos of Maramures who had entered Moldavia chasing an aurochs, about 1352; he is supposed to have reigned two years, after him his son Sas four years, then Bogdan four years. This reign of Bogdan would therefore have lasted from 1359-1363.
     Juga had as sons Stephen and John, who also became Voivode.
 The biography of Louis the Great, too, calls Bogdan: 'Wayvoda Olachorum de Maramorisio'  (he might be the son of 'Stephanus, filius Nicolai²¹ quondam voivodae comes²² de Maramorisio' mentioned by Zimmerman-Werner, Urkundenbuch I., p.407. This same Nicholas is mentioned in 1303 as 'nobili viro et honesto Nicolae Voivodae'; his son Stephen is mentioned in 1326).
     Thus, the documents show us Bogdan, Voivode of Maramures, and his Roumanians, as born in that province, their forbears established there before the Hungarian and Saxon 'hospites' of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
     The Ruthenians descended towards the Maramures, Bereg, Ugocea, and Ung from the end of the thirteenth century onwards, but especially later on, in the fourteenth century, under Charles Robert and Louis the Great, who established many on the royal domains (Munkacz, etc.); they were orthodox and remained under the authority of the metropolitan of Halicz.
     In 1345, King Louis the Great gave a knezate in Sarasau to the Voivode Erdeu and to his brother Stan, and to the latter's son Mic.
     In 1359 breaks out the conflict between the King and the Voivode Bogdan, who left to found the principality of Moldavia; the king gave the land of Bogdan 'infidelis notorius' to other Roumanian noblemen who had remained faithful.
     Apsa de Jos is mentioned in the fourteenth century as belonging to the Voivode Balc and Drag, Brebestii in 1442 belonged to the sons of the Voivode Balc.
     The latter had received from King Louis the towns of Boicod and Borsa, taken from Bogdan after he left.
     The town of Budesti with the entire royal domain of the Coseu valley was given to Bud and to other Roumanians of the Maramures in 1361.
     In 1365, Balc and his brothers Drag, Dragomir and Stefan, received the town of Jeud; in 1360, the Roumanian knezes of Giulesti received the town of Desesti; in 1373, the town of Rozavela was the residence of Voivode John (villae Iohannis Waywodae).
     In 1361, King Louis conferred the property of Genye on the Roumanian Voivode Balc, who was also 'fishpan' of Satmar; in 1365, the king gave to the same Roumanian Voivode Balc, son of Sas, and to his brothers, the land of Cuhea, confiscated from Bogdan the disloyal; in 1373, they received the land of Bustina.
     Thus in most documents the Maramures appears from the commencement of the fourteenth century as having a specifically Roumanian character. Even the Hungarian historians admit that it is proved that the Roumanians were there as early as the beginning of the thirteenth century (G. Wenzel and I. Szilaggi).
 T. Lehoczky even admits that, according to the documentary evidence, Roumanians 'of unkown origin'²³ have 'without any possible doubt' lived in the counties of Maramures, Ugocea and Bereg before the arrival of the Hungarians, where, at the same time as the Ruthenians from Galicia, they engaged in cattle-breeding. I. Petrovay also admits the presence of the Roumanians with their organization in knezates and voivodates before the Hungarians. As it was not before the fourteenth century that the Kings of Hungary effectively took possession of Maramures, it is only from that time onwards that the documents give us details about this knezal and voivodal organization, with a practically uninterrupted chain of voivodes belonging to the lineage of Bogdan, the founder of the first Moldavian dynasty.
     These Roumanians of the Maramures distinguished themselves in the royal armies. In 1365, Dragomir, father of the 'Roumanian' John of Rozavela (mentioned before in 1373?) was killed in the battle of Vidin; his brother died in a battle in Podolia against the Lithuanians.
     In 1419, 'Tathon Petrus, Iohannes, Valachi Maramoriensis' asked the King for the land of Taracz as a reward for their military achievements.
     In 1326, Charles Robert gave the land of Szurdak to the Roumanian Stan; this gift was confirmed by Louis the Great in 1346 to the Roumanian Miyk (Micu).
     In 1361, Louis the Great gave half the knezate of Ozon to the Roumanians Bud, Sandor, Oprisa, Ion, Dragomir and Bolya 'fidelium Olachorum nostrorum de terra Maramoriensi'.
     Upon Nicholas, Saracin, Valentine and Luca, all sons of Cracium, he conferred the knezate of the Roumanian villages of Lipce and Zelemezeu 'fideliorum valachorum nostrum...quasdam villas nostras olachales Lypche et Zelemezeu'.
     In 1391, Voivode Balitza and his brother Drag left for Constantinople; the Patriarch, on 13th August 1391, appointed the Egumen Pahomie as his vicar for the counties of Salaj, Satmar, Ugocea, Bereg, Ciceu, Ungurasul and as far as Bihor.
     The edict of King Andrew III (the last of the Arpadians) of 1293, already mentions 'Wallachian noblemen' in various parts of Transylvania; we shall see later that many Roumanian chiefs (Voivodes or knezes) were indeed raised to the nobility in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; it can even be said that a large part of the great Magyar families in Transylvania are of Roumanian origin.
     During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Roumanian nobility of the Banate, the Crisana and the Maramures was to a very large extent Magyarized through Catholicism.
     The great landowners of the Maramures and of the neighbouring lands were in the fifteenth century, members of noble Roumanian families, as for example, the Dolha, who owned extensive lands. The Roumanian family of Dragfi owned the five towns of the county.
     Other Magyarized noble Roumanian families in these districts were the Kokenyesi, Nemes, Szaplonczay ('nobiles wolahay de Soponcza' in 1457), Szarvaszarai ('nobiles wolahay de Zarwazo' in 1457).
     Among the most illustrious families the Banfy, the Kendeffy and the Cirvin of Hunyade (with Matthias Corvinus, the King of whom the Hungarians are most proud) were of Roumanian origin.
     Certain Roumanian Voivodes of the county of central Solnoc in 1427-1428 were among the richest in the land.
     Before leaving the Maramures, let us note that, although the majority of serious Hungarian writers admit both for the Maramures and for the county of Bereg, that the Roumanians were established there before the arrival of the Hungarians, certain writers have been led, by observing in the documents the existence of a Roumanian Voivode named Bogdan living on the border of the Banate in 1335, who asked to be admitted into Hungary, to suppose (without the least proof or presumption) that this Bogdan was the Bogdan of Maramures (first mentioned in 1343) and to conclude that the whole Roumanian element of Maramures, Transylvania and of Moldavia, was due to the arrival of this southern Bogdan with his retinue.
 The Bogdan 'son of Mykula' who, in 1335, obtained the authorization to enter into Hungary from the south of the Banate, is (by those writers) at times supposed to come from the Balkans (in which case the first Roumanian colonization of the Banate is attributed to him), at other times supposed to be a Bassarab, son of the leader who defeated Charles Robert. Whence a zig-zag trajectory ascribed to this Bogdan and his retinue²⁴: Fagaras -- Wallachia -- Banate -- Hungary -- Maramures -- Moldavia.
     Let us remember that the Voivode Bogdan of Maramures is already mentioned in documents there in 1343, that his brother Juga is quoted in 1349 as possessing great domains, as 'Voyvoda Olacorum de Maramorisio', the two brothers appearing as mighty lords, firmly rooted in the province.
 The absurdity of this hypothesis of the identification of the two Bogdans is admitted even by Hunfalvy, who can scarcely be suspected of neglecting anti-Roumanian arguments; he admits that the Bogdan of 1335 indeed settled in Hungary, but that there is nothing to indicate his origin and nothing to show that he took with him a large number of his subjects²⁵ (an entire nation would be needed to satisfy the advocates of the theory of the identification of the two Bogdans).
     As by an indirect route we have come back to Bogdan of Maramures and to the foundation of the Moldavian state,  let us now mention the contemporary texts confirming this event which the suzerain of the adventurous Voivode took so tragically. John of Tarnava (kukulloi Janos, archdeacon of Kikullew=Kukulo=Tarnava, biographer of King Louis the Great) wrote:
     'Hujus (Ludovico) tempore, Bogdan Woywoda Olachorum de Maramorisio coadunatis sibi Olachis ejusdem districtus, in terram Moldaviae, coronae Regni Hungariae subjectam, sed a multo tempore propter vicinitatem Tartarorum habitatoribus destitutam, clandestine recessit...et quamvis....tamen crescente numerositate Olachorum inhabitantium illam terram in Regnum est dilitata' (Thurocz, Chronica Hungarorum, inserta simul chronica Joannis Archidiaconi de Kikullew).
 In the document by which King Louis, in 1365, gave to the Voivode Balc, son of Sas²⁶ and to his brothers the land of Cuhea confiscated from Bogdan, the King's anger burst out: 'Bokdan Voyvoda et suis filys...infidelibus notoryus...Bokdan et fily sui fulminante dyabulo humani generis inimico.'
     By fitting together the royal documents of the period, one can without difficulty distinguish the events relating to the foundation of the Moldavian state.
     About 1352, Louis the Great of Hungary allowed Dragos, Voivode of Maramures to found on the other side of the Carpathians, a 'march' pertaining to the kingdom of Hungary.
     Dragos did found that march (valleys of Suceava, the Moldava, the Bistritza and the Trotus) and reigned over it during the two years as King's delegate and vassal. His son Sas succeeded him and ruled from 1354 to 1359; he, in his turn, was succeeded by his son Balc.
     It was then that Bogdan, who had also the title of Voivode of Maramures, but who, as early as 1343, had revolted against the King (a document of that year calls him ex-Voivode of the Maramures and 'unfaithful'; in 1349, he was called 'notoriuosly unfaithful') came down from the Maramures into Moldavia (the name he gave to the new state) with a band of Roumanian warriors (estimated as not more than 10,000), expelled Balc and set up the march as an independent duchy.
 The King, aided by Balc, attempted in vain to subdue his rebellious vassal; Balc and brothers re-entered the Maramures, where the king, to reward them for their fidelity, gave them (to Balc and brothers Drag, Dragomir and Stefan, who, leaving their goods and their many friends in Moldavia, returned to Hungary) the land of Cuhea (including Jeud, Bascov, Viseu, Moiseni, Borsa, Selistea, in the Maramures) taken from Bogdan²⁷.
     We do not know whether Dragos and Bogdan did or did not belong to the same family. Bogdan's son Latzco, was Prince of Moldavia from 1365 to 1373; he was replaced by Costea who founded the Musat dynasty.
     We have already seen that according to the documents of 1222, 1223 and 1252 quoted by Zimmerman-Werner, the district of Fagaras at that period already counted many Roumanian inhabitants; moreover, at the beginning of the thirteenth century the lands of Barsa, Fagaras, Sibiu, Huniedoara and Caras were not yet included in the Hungarian jurisdiction, and the names themselves given to those 'lands', to which one must add the lands of Oasa, Hateg and of the Motzi, are of Roumanian origin.
     The Roumanian institution on knezates and voivodates (mentioned by Canon Rogerius in 1241) functioned there under the -very lax - suzerainty of the Hungarian kings.
     We shall see, further on, that the duchy of Fagaras was a fief held by the first Bassarabs.
     The Banate was first of all a royal domain. After 1300, the King began to give land in that region away, with documents which show, as for Maramures, that there were Roumanians already established there with all their administrative forms. This Roumanian element is mentioned in a document of 1247, of King Bela IV, concerning the Teutonic Knights, whom the king settled in the Banate of Severin; the document mentions both the voivodal institution and the settled Roumanian population; 'totam terram de Zeurnio, cum alpibus ad ipsam pertinantibus et aliis atinentiis omnibus, pariter cum Kenazatibus Lymioy (Litovoi) voivodae quam Olatis relinquimus, prout iidem hactemus tenebant'.
     In 1310, there was a kneze in the Banate named Bach (Baciu), in 1347 we find a Roumanian kneze Bracan, with all his rights and prerogatives.
     Charles Robert ennobled Roumanians from the Banate: Carpath, Stan, Vlaicu and Vlad, who received the riverlands of the Timis.
     In 1356, several Roumanian knezes are mentioned, among whom is one Bazarad (Bassarab) or Carasul Mare.
     In 1370, Louis the Great granted a charter with privileges to the 'fideles olahy nostry' Roman and Ladislas, sons of Struza, with two royal lands which their father, the kneze, had alreay held in fief.
     In 1387, the King gave the village of 'Marul' to the Roumanian Bogdan son of Stefan Mutnic.
     Other documents mention four Roumanian villages with the kneze Rados (Radu) in the valley of Izgar, four knezates in the valley of the Vermes, the kneze Noxa (Nneacsu), without land, and the knezes Proda and Stanc (Stanciu).
     In 1363, mention is made of 'Kenezy holahorum ad ipsum castrum pertinentes' on the territory of the fortress of Iladia.
     For the fifteenth century, we have royal letters thanking the Wallachs of the March of the Banate for their services rendered against the Turks: (in 1457) 'Ladislaus Dei gracia...fidelibus nostris universis et singulis valachis Nobilibus et Kenesys ditrictus Komyathi salutem graciam...' (he thanked them, with the Wallachian noblemen and knezes of seven other districts for having defended the frontiers and the fords.)
     Also in 1494: 'Nos Wladislaus...Quod pro parte et in personis fidelium nostrorum universorum Wolachorum...consideratis fidelatatibus et serviciis per eosdem Wolachos in exercitualibus expedicionibus contra seussinos Turcos'.
     At that time evedently the Kings of Hungary recognized the 'universitas' that is, the Wallachian nation, of which the Hungarian leaders of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries deny the existence.
     In 1500, on the occasion of a law-suit, a reference is made to 'jure valachiae requirente'; in 1503, we find 'juxta ritum volchiae'.
     A decision made by the Diet of the Banate, called together in 1433, says that the territory will have to be defended against the Turks by the Roumanians, the Serbs and the Cumans. The mention of the Cumans in 1433 is interesting.
     After the defeats of the last Serbian Tsars of Scanderbeg and of the small Christian princes of the Balkans, a great migration of Macedo-Roumanians and Roumanians took place from the Timok towards the Banate and Hungary, continuing both in waves and by means of slow infiltration until the end of the eighteenth century.
     In 1457 Ludovic the Posthumous issued a long charter at Vienna, ennumerating in detail the ancient privileges of the Roumanian noblemen and knezes of the eight districts of the Banate, confirming them in view of the faithful services to him and to his predecessors.
     'Nobilium et Keneziorum nec non aliorum Valachorum de districtibus Lugas, Sebes, Mihald, Halmas, Krassofii, Komiathy, et Illyed...Consideratis fidelitatibus et fidelium serviciorum meritis eorundem universorum Nobilium et Kenesorium ac ceterorum Valachorum...Volentes eisdem gratitudinis vicem rependere, omnia et singula eorundem Valachorum et Keneziorum privilegia...per predecessores nostros Reges Hungariae ipsi concessa sunt, authoritate Regio pro eisdem nobilibus Vlachis sic...in omnibus hujusmodi eorum libertatibus, prerogativis et juribus manutere et conservare promittimus...' etc.
     We shall also find the Roumanians (the importance of whom in the Maramures and the Banate we have just noted) between the Mures and the Crisuri in the counties of Ugocea, Bereg, Arad, Zarand, Bihor, and Satmar. A document of 1214 translated from Slavonic into Roumaian gives the name of a town in the county of Zarand: 'Macra videlicet Apa'. A document of Charles Robert of 1318 mentions the monastery of Ineu 'cum villis olahibus et aliis'.
     The Chapter of Cenad, in 1364, indicates the boundaries of a large stretch of land belonging to Carstea, Negul, Vlaicu, Nicolas, sons of Vasil, 'all Wallachs'.
     In the fifteenth century, Cristorul near Brad is mentioned as the residence of a Roumanian Voivode (Olahuk Vajvodaja) whose rights extended over all Zarand and who was answerable only to the Count of Timisoara.
     The fortress of Soimus near Rodna had on its territory seventy-five Roumanian villages, that of Varadia forty-six, that of Szad seventeen.
     The region of Siria had a majority of Roumanian villages, each rules by a kneze, grouped into eight 'seats', each with a Voivode.
     In the period 1404-1415 is mentioned the Voivode Bolea of Baia de Cris with his sons; in 1448-1451, at Halmaj, the Voivode Moga and Voivode Vasil at Ribita.
     In 1475, a Roumanian Voivode is mentioned at Nicolestii (Zarand); in 1493-1494 a Voivode Vasil at Araniag, in 1495 Matei, a Roumanian Voivode (woywodatus Wolachorum) of Somosches.

....The Hungarian historians who have studied the past of the county of Bereg admit that the Roumanians appear to have been established there before the Hungarians. There too they often organized themselves into voivodal communities and both in this county as in the neighbouring one of Ung they set themselves up as frontier guards and received in this capacity gifts of land from Charles Robert, Louis the Great and others. Many Roumanian noblemen in Bereg are mentioned.
     In these districts, the Roumanians were subject to certain traditional taxes which freed them from all others. The documents specify 'Vigessima ovium, census Valachorum' (the twentieth part²⁸ of the sheep).
     Between 1330 and 1334, the Roumanian Nicholas and Maxim are found settled near the river Ilosva (Iliusa) where they possessed a vast domain. In the county of Ung, the knezate of the royal town of Felsev-Nereslenche, near the river Taraz, was in 1371 given to Sandu, Jon, Stefan and Nicholas, sons of Stanislas whose father was 'woywoda Olahorum reginalium' (Voivode of the Roumanians in the Queen's domain).
     In 1364 and 1370, Queen Elizabeth, in her charters, defended the privileges of her 'Wallachians in the county of Bereg'.
     The Wallachian Voivode Ladislas of Stanfalva (Bereg) was received at Munkacz in 1493 by John Corvinus.
     In the county of Ugocea, six Roumanian villages are mentioned in 1387.
     A charter of King Geza in 1075 mentions Lake Rotunda in Bihor.
     Roumanian names continue to appear in Bihor in 1202-1203 (Qurud = Crud, Micus = Mic, Tata, Nugucz = Nucutz, Karachin = Cracium, Qucus = Cuc, Fata, Micu, Moula, Porca, Sceraka, Urda, etc.)
     In the valley of the Black Cris, Canon Rogerius mentions the Voivode of Geroth in 1241.
     In 1271, one finds the Voivde Jon of Beius (Bulenus); in 1284, there is a reference to the locality of Ohatelke (belonging to the Chapter of Oradea), near the Black Cris. In 1294 is mentioned the Roumanian population on the territory of the city of Soimus (Black Cris) and also that of the walls of the 'Quick Cris'.
     The lands of the Roumanian Voivode Negul (Neagul) are mentioned in 1326.
     The most ancient statutes of the Chapter of Oradea Mare (beginning of the fourteenth century) already mention Roumanians ('...subditos nostros olahales') on their possessions in Bihor and Zarand. They mention also the traditional tithes of the 'Kenezi et olahi nostri'.
     In Bihor, in 1349, the Voivode Peter of Fel-Venter obtained the right to have a Roumanian priest (Olah papot); in 1363 another mention is made of Voivode Jon of Beius (the same name as in 1271).
     The villages depending on the Chapter of Oradea had privileges; they paid lower dues than the Hungarian villages (until the reign of Maria-Theresa), probably because of military services rendered in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
     The Roumanian voivodes of those domains are mentioned, in 1374, as having the right of jurisdiction over their villages.
     Between 1383 and 1395, the Voivode George was ennobled and was given Ilyefalva in fief.
     Villages inhabited by Roumanians are mentioned in documents of King Sigismund in 1404.
     In 1410, Voivode Peter of Beius is mentioned with all his knezes and his judges.
     The privileges of the Roumanians depending upon the bishopric of Oradea were confirmed in 1444 (after the battle of Varna in which their contingent fought); in accordance with this document; the voivode chose twelve among his knezes to judge all litigations between Roumanians.
     In 1533, the Roumanian Voivode George of Karand obtained from the bishop the right of 'noble residence' and market in Ilyefalva (this took place after the battle of Mohacs, that is, in autonomous Transylvania which for 150 years was independent of the crown of Hungary; the voivode concerned may be a descendant of the above-mentioned Voivode George of Ilyefalva).
     In Crisana one can trace the Roumanian voivodes from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries: Jon of Beius, Ladislas, Nicholas, Peter and John Pop. The knezal and voivodal organization also prevailed in the county of Arad where, as in Bihor and in Zarand, the majority of the population (according to the documents mentioned by Csanky) in the fourteenth century consisted of Roumanians.
     In 1377, the King conquered 'de manibus Valachorum' the fortified castle and the camp of Megessala (Mediesul Aurit).
     A document of 1383, of Queen Mary, mentions Roumanian knezes with their privileges in the county of Satmar.
     In the fifteenth century, a number of Wallach villages are mentioned around Careii-Mari, in the plain of Satmar.
     The great noble family of Dragfii, of Roumanian origin, possessed in 1424 eighteen Roumanian villages in Satmar.
     In the county of Salaj, the Roumanian element seems to have been well established from the first half of the thirteenth century onwards.
     In the county of Central Solnoc, in 1405, forty-eight Roumanian villages are mentioned; certain Roumanian voivodes of the county of Central Solnoc, in 1427-1428, were among the richest men in that county.
     Thus it is in the western parts of Transylvania and on its borders, Maramures, Crisana, Bihor, Banate, Cenad, Bereg and Ugocea, with as a central core the main fastnesses of the western mountain range, that we find the documentary evidence as to the great antiquity of the Roumanian political organization, with its knezes and voivodes. This confirms the observations made on philosphical grounds by Professor Gamillscheg.
     From the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, the Roumanians, in a new east to west expansion - the reaction agaisnt the west to east drive of the Magyars in the preceding century (which as a matter of fact was still continuing) - not only crossed the Tisza, meeting their blood-brothers in the counties of Bereg, Ugocea and Ung, but also spread towards the north-west and the north, appearing at Abauj, Torna, Arva, Lipto, Trencsen, Zips, and going as far as Moravia, Silesia and Poland.
     In the county of Gyor, the village of Olahpataka (on the river Sajo) is mentioned in 1427.
     In 1393 is mentioned Gregory, son of 'Gregorii vojvodae Olachorum de Macaria'.
     In the county of Borsod, the Roumanians with their Voivode had as their main centre the fortress of Kereszetes.
     In the district of Zemplen, the Roumanians are mentioned in the thirteenth century; in the district of Gyomor, Wallachian shepherds and their privileges are mentioned during the Middle Ages.
     Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary (himself of Roumanian origin according to Hungarian chronicles), renewed the privileges of the Roumanians of the frontier regions (tatra) of Arva and Lykava in 1471.
     The 'vigessima ovium' (tax of one twentieth of the sheep) was still mentioned in the case of the Roumanians who came to winter with their flocks round Turocz in 1564; the Roumanians were also mentioned in 1566 in the counties of Nytra and of Turocz.
     The Roumanians of Trencsen (Slovakia) are mentioned in twenty-two villages; apart from the 'vigessima ovium', they paid a due of 'casseum valachicum'.
     One of the first eastward waves of Roumanians had progressed along the Carpathians of the north and north-west in the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries, as a result of the settlement of the Hungarians in Pannonia (those had advanced as far as Nytra). From the Maramures, new currents of Roumanian expansion towards the north made themselves felt in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; these Roumanians appear in documents up to the eighteenth century, then gradually become Magyarized. The same applies to the county of Arva.
     At about the same time, a large number of Roumanians arrived, as we have already stated, in Moravia and in Silesia (a 'Walachei' round Teschen); their knezates and voivodates appear until the sixteenth century; they were still being mentioned during the Thuirty Years War and finally on the occasion of the Wars against the Turks of Leopold I (between 1660 and 1687).
     In Poland, Roumanians are mentioned as being on the river San in 1431, having come from Hungary.
     In Galicia and Lodomeria, the Roumanians are mentioned from the thirteenth century onwards.
     Many Roumanians came from the Balkans into Croatia and Slavonia at the beginning of the sixteenth century; we shall meet them again in the period discussed later.
     We have already seen the summary of the facts showing that the Roumanians, called Wallachians by the Hungarian documents, were already installed in Transylvania, in the Banate and in the Maramures at the time of the eastward thrust of the armies of the Arpadian Kings; we have also seen that the phenomenon of ebb and tide of the Romanized population, already noted on both sides of the Lower Danube, during the Byzantine epoch, continued to occur during the Middle Ages, but at that time especially from one bank to the other of the Upper and Middle Danube, and through the mountain passes of the Carpathians. And these currents and cross-currents brought about the continuation of the contact between the various permanent nuclei of the Daco-Thraco-Roumanian elements and wove the fabric of that homogeneous tongue which, according to the observations made by Radulescu-Motru, has up to a certain point created the Roumanian race today.
     As W. von Wartburg writes: 'Es kann wohl heute als erweisen gelten, dass zahlreiche Romanen auch nach 275 in Dazien verblieben sind, dass sie unter und mit den wechselnden germanischen, Slavischen, mongolischen Herrenvolken gelebt und diese uberdauert haben, und dass sie zum Grundstock der heutigen Rumanen geworden sind.'²⁹
     And G. Bratianu: 'A state of cultural regression (villages and shepherds) has thus preserved the untiy of the language (even from one side of the Danube to the other...) The formation of the Roumanian people is the epilogue of the process of Romanization in south-eastern Europe'.
     The event which a short while before the temporary disappearance of the Kingdom of Hungary (1526) put an end to the privileges of the Roumanians of Transylvania and to their organization into knezates and voivodates, was the bloody peasants' revolt which, in 1514, accompanied the rising of the Szekler George Dozsa against the Hungarian landlords of Transylvania (War of the 'Curutzes').
     The repression by John Zapolya was terrible, and the small Roumanian voivodates and their privileges were suppressed by the Diet of the same year, because the Roumanian peasants³⁰ had, on the whole, supported the revolt against Magyar nobility, in the Maramures, especially, (we have seen that, at that time, the Roumanian nobility of Transylvania was to a large extent Magyarized).
     The poem 'Stavromachia' by Stephanus Taurinus of Olmutz tells of this crusade of the Catholic noblemen against the mainly schismatic peasants:
 

  Nam quartem Belam trux Tartarus Ungaria ab orbe  Ejecit, pepulit Dacos e sedibus altis  Quas secat aurifluis Marisus foecundus harenis....  Ruricolae, atque omnes uno ore 'Arma, arma' tonabant  Jam pugnae sua signa canunt, pugnatur utrimque  Fortiter et primae robusti Saxones alae  Permixti Vlaccis fato cessere cruento.

     This was the battle of Colosba on the Somes. Here, the Wallachians are alternatively called Dacians.
     In these last few pages, mainly devoted to the existence and permanence of the Roumanian element in Transylvania, we have not paid much attention to the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, except to note their relations with the neighbouring kingdom; but we have seen that the foundation, about 1350, of the Principality of Moldavia has been represented by the Hungarian chronicles, as well as by the Moldavian ones, as a revolt of part of the Roumanian nobility of the Maramures against the king of Hungary (Louis the Great), a 'swarming' from west to east across the Carpathians (another of these periodic waves which are at the basis of the homogeneity of the Roumanian language).
     This raid of Bogdan I (called 'descalicare', 'descent from horseback' of the conquerors upon their settlement in their territory) has the same romantic attributes as the early Arpadian sagas.
     The Roumanian warriors of the Maramures found, in Moldavia, the ancient remnants of the Daco-Romans, forgotten in the mountainous valleys of the eastern Carpathians and, in the plains, those of their Slavo-Roman Brodnicii and Bolochoveni cousins which the Tartars of Batu-Khan had not dispersed.
     Moldavia, including Bessarabia which almost immediately became part of the new state, became thus the final stage of medieval Roumanian expansion; between the Slavonic invasion and the reconquest due to Bogdan's Roumanians, there had appeared in those regions the Alans (Iranians), the Petchenegs (Uralo-Mongols), the Cumans (id.), which destroys the pretentions of fanatic Slavophiles such as Bromberg.
     This Moldavian expansion was very rapid.
     Peter I said, 'al Musatei, son of Costea, obtained from Poland (in return for an unrefunded loan) Galician Pocutia with Snyatin and Kolomea'. His brother, Roman, who succeeded him as Prince of Moldavia, 1391-1394, called himself in 1392 'Lord of the Mountains down to the sea'. The large Moldavian fortresses of Hotin, Soroca, Tighina, Kilia (taken from the Wallachians), Cetatea Alba, were erected on the Dneister as bulwarks agains the Tartars by his son Alexander the Good (1400-1432) and the latter's grandson, Stephen the Great (1457-1504).
     These two reigns saw the apogee of Moldavian power; Cetatea Alba was taken by the Turks in 1484, and after having at different times borne the names of Tyras, Maurocastron (under Byzantium), Moncastro (under the Genoese), became Akkerman.
     The Tartars of the great empire of Genghis Khan had granted permission for the establishment of a Genoese factory-colony at Caffa in the Crimea, a factory of which those of Moncastro and Kilia had been branch factories; The documents of the Genoese notaries of Caffa prove that even in the Crimea, Roumanian merchants had established themselves from the end of the thirteenth century onwards. In 1290, there was a Marioara, a trader described as 'Velachus sive Ungarus', another 'Teodorus Velachus Pollanus' (this indicated Hungarian or Polish suzerainty); in 1470, still at Caffa, Stachus Demetrius, Radu, Stoicha.
     This Genoese factory at Caffa was not closed before 1475.
     Let us add that, like their colleagues of Wallachia, certain Moldavian princes possessed fiefs in Transylvania, the two fortresses of Ciceul and Cetatea of Balta were ceded to Stephen the Great, then to his son Peter Rares.
 

¹ These Blachorinchinii (Blacorugcinioi) of Chalcidice were named after the river Rhinos or Rhincos.
² para tinwn Blacwn oditwn. This concerns David, son of Shishman.
³ A descendant of the Nicoulitza, bearing the same name, organized a revolt of the Wallachs of Thessalia in 1060.
⁴ In 1028, this archbishopric of Ochrida replaced the Slav alnguage by Greek in the liturgy of the Wallachs as it did for the other peoples pertaining to the same diocese. But the Wallachs or Roumanians north of the Danube were found by the Hungarians to have the Slav liturgy, which proves that if, according to the Hungarian theory, the Roumanians of Transylvania came from the south, this exodus must have taken place before 1028, which is opposed tothat same theory.
⁵ The 'Blakumannaland' is mentioned in the twelfth century by the Icelandic chronicler Snorri Sturlson, 1179-1224, in connection with the expedition of Alexis Comnenus into the land where dwelt also the 'Pezinavollu', (Petchenegs).
⁶ Nicetas: "Skuqai meta Blacwn ton 'Istron diabantei' "
⁷ The institution of the Uniate chruch in Transylvania about 1700, had as a result the adoption of Roumanian instead of Slav language in the Greek-Catholic (Uniate) liturgy, and afterwards in theorthodox one; this example was followed in Wallachia and in Moldavia in the following years. The Phanariots once more intrduced in the principalities Greek as a liturgical language; it was only when native princes were installed in 1821, that Roumanian liturgy was restored to the place it had retained in Transylvania.
⁸ Pope Innocent III writes to Johannitius: 'audio quod de nobili Urbis Romae prosapia progenitores ui originem traxerint...' In 1202, Basil, Bishop of the Wallachs of Zagora in the Haemus writes to the same Pope: '...tamquam heredes descendentes a sanguine romano' when talking of his flock.
⁹ As the Latin (proto-Roumanian) colloquial dialect of Ionita's Wallachian subjects was not a literary tongue (and was not yet used in Orthodox liturgy) the use of Slavonic in the Assanid Chancellery explains the bulgarization of the Bulgaro-Roumanian Empire.
¹⁰ Mauro Orbini in his chronicle published in 1601 ('Il regno de gli Slavi', Pesaro) mentions that the Second Assanid Empire not only had an army copmposed of Bulgarians and Wallachians, but also that he applied for help to Wallachians north of the Danube: 'Al'horo Jasen...passando il Danubio riccorsero al aiuto de Valachi vicini...' (a very important statement in relation with ou 'ebb and tide' theory.
     Wallach contingents in the armies of the Shishmanid Tsars of Vidin (throughout the fourteenth century) are also mentiojned by Orbini: Tsar Michael's army counts at one moment 12,000 Bulgarians and 3000 Wallachians. Tsar Alexander (1331-1371) has 'fatto un buono essercito de Bulgari et Valachi...' With his army he routs Emperor John Cantecuzene.
¹¹ Let us remember that the sovereign of the 'duchy' situated in the heart of Transylvania was called 'Gelou Dux Blaccorum' by the Anonymous Notary, and sometimes 'Dux Ultrasilvanus' (it was specified that he possessed 'bonitatem terrae ultrasilvanae'); he was killed in battle against the army of the Arpadian chief Tuhutum, who seized his duchy. Duke Gyula at the time of St. Stephen was mentioned as a descendant of Tuhutum and uncle of St. Etienne (by his sister, the beautiful Sarolt, mother of the king).
¹² The corresponding document (of Bela IV, June 1, 1259, Szasadok, 1912, p.292) is one of the most important concerning the presence of the Roumanians in Transylvania at the moment of the arrival of the Hungarians in that province, and contradicts, as do other texts, besides, the fantastic Hungarian thesis which turns Transylvania into a "no-man's land" into which the Roumanians from the Balkans, wandering herdsmen, would have filtered in the course of the thirteenth century. Rather, the Hungarian advance, in the same way as the Tatar invasion of 1241, determined a southward migratory current (as confirmed by Descriptio Europae Orientalis).
¹³ About 1080, there was a battle between Hungarians and Petchenegs in Transylvania; the latter had arrived in Bihor about 1058. This is probably the battle with the Petchenegs that the Anonymous Notary puts forward by a century (the episode of Duke Menomorut).
¹⁴ 'Nonnuli de regno Ungariae tam Ungari quam Theutonici et alii othrodoxi morandi causa cum ipsis transeunt ad eosdem, et sic cum eis, quia populus unus facti, cum eisdem Walathis, eo cuntempto' - the bishop of the Cumans - 'premissa sacramenta in grave orthodoxorum scandalum et derogationem non modicam fidei christianae' (here orthodox is used in the sense of Catholic). Here, too, the very close relations between these various populations: Cumans, Brodnicii of Moldavia, Wallachs of Transylvania, can be seen.
¹⁵ A letter of 1231 written by the same Pope Gregory IX to the Archbishop Robert of Strigonis mentions 'Comanorum et Brodicorum provincilis sibi vicinis'. As Popa-Lisseanu suggests, the Brodnicii (Roumanians with strong Slav admixture) seem, like the Bolochoveni or Wallachs of the north (Galicia), to have come to an agreement with the 1241 Tatars in order to continue the tilling of their lands.
¹⁶ Rogerius later became archbishop of Spalato and as such even visited King Bela IV.
¹⁷ Which incidentally underlines the tradition concerning their descent from the ancient coloni. This is the oldest testimony on the subject for the Roumanians north of the Danube; for those south of the river, the 'Blaachi' of the time of the Crusades, we have seen that the Chancellery of Pope Innocent III declared, in 1204, that the Asenid Emperor Ionita, in his quality of Wallachian descended from the ancient Romans. We have seen that the Chronicle of Kinnamos says the same thing concerning the Wallachian soldiers of Manuel Conenus (1166).
¹⁸ He gave the town of Sinca in Fagaras, to his relative Ladislas of Dobica, who had distinguished himself on the battlefield in 1364 on the occasion of the first clash between Turks and Roumanians in front of Vidin.
¹⁹ This Byzantine denomination appears for the first time in 1323 in a document pointing out that in a struggle against the Byzantines, Tsar Michael of Bulgaria was aided by a contingent of Ungro-Wallachs.
     The relations between Mircea and the Bulgarian Tsars were fairly intimate, and the Slavonic influence resulting from them was considerable following upon the Angevin influence in the days of Radu.
²⁰ The root of the word Moldavia is found for the first time in 1286 in the name of a Tatar dignitary, Ymor filius Molday.
²¹ Possibly Nicholas, son of the previously mentioned Voivode Maurice.
²² Note this feudal title which seems to cover the entire province.
²³ Were they Roumanians from Pannonia pushed eastward by the Arpadian drive? An infiltration from the permanent nucleus of the Western mountains? Or Brodnicii, Roumano-Slavs, having come from the northern Carpathian mountains, as did the Ruthenians?
²⁴ This Voivode Bogdan might quite well have belonged to the family of a contemporary Voivode from Severin.
²⁵ Pal Hunfalvy, Az Olahuk tortenete, History of the Roumanians, Budapest, 1894. In connection with the possible settlement of Bogdan, son of Mykula, in the vicinity of the Banate, let us note that in 1337 could be found between the Danube and the Tisza, the villages of 'Villa Mykola et Bogdanfalva'; in the district of Crasna in 1341: 'quondam villam ollakalem Bogdanhayza vocatam'.
²⁶ This Sas, father of Balc is the same as Sas, son of Drago mentioned as having ruled four years in Moldavia, after Dragos, i.e. approximately from 1354-1359.
     The 'sons of Sas' further received the land of Bustina in 1373.
     In 1390, King Sigismund ordered a delimitation of lands for the magistrate Balc and the Voivode Dragh.
²⁷ As a result of the same infelicitous expedition against Bogdan, a certain Dragos, son of Ghiula, and his sons Ghiula and Lad, received the villages of Slatina, Brebu, Copacesti, Desesti, Hernicesti and Sugatag in the Maramures.
²⁸ Giurescu mentions 'quinquagesima', the fiftieth part.
²⁹ 'It may be taken today as proved that a great number of Romans stayed in Dacia, even after 275, that they lived among and under the succession of Germanic, Slavonic and Mongolian conquering races, and continued their existence, to become the fundamental racial stock of the present-day Roumanians.' (Die Angliederung der romanischen Sprachraume, Zeitschrift fur romanische Philologi, LVI, 1934, p.17.)
³⁰ To be mentioned in particular are the Roumanian leaders: 'Captain' Ciurulea, 'Captain' Dragui, Peter Popp.
 
 
 

Back to the Library