Romania in the Early Middle Ages
Encyclopedia
The Early Middle Ages in Romania spans the period from the withdrawal of the Roman administration
from the province of Dacia
in the 271–275 AD, thenceforward modern Romania
's territories were to be crisscrossed by migrating populations
for almost 1,000 years. After the Roman province of Dacia
was abandoned in the 270s, the territories that would later come to be known as Wallachia
, Transylvania
, Bessarabia
and Moldavia
were occupied by a number of succeeding peoples pushed across the map during the Migration period
, including the Goths
, Attila
's Hunnic Empire
, the Gepids, Avars
, Bulgars
, Magyars, Pechenegs, and Cumans
.
The Vlachs
, which would develop into the modern Romanian ethnicity
, do not become tangible before the High Middle Ages
, and their prehistory during the Migration period is a matter of scholarly speculation. According to some scholars, the existence of the present Eastern Romance languages
prove the survival of the Thraco-Roman
s in the low-Danube
basin during the Migration period
.
Following the Second Dacian War
, the region of Dacia
was a Roman province for 170 years (between 106 AD and 275 AD). Roman Emperor
Trajan
made a concerted effort to recruit settlers
for Roman Dacia, although in case of other provinces the government had done very little to encourage civilian
s moving into newly conquered areas. The colonizing population was clearly heterogeneous, but they represented imperial culture and civilization
and brought with them the Latin language.
While Dacia was still a Roman province, it faced attacks and incursions by Dacians
, Sarmatians
, Carpians
, and as early as 211, the first of the Gothic
invasions. There were also Costoboci
, Iranian
Rhoxolani
, and Germanic
Bastarnae
, elements that had been part of the ethnic mosaic
of that area. Eastward of the Roman province, north of the Black Sea
, the migrating groups were competing between each other, against indigenous populations, and against Roman garrison
forces. The result was the strengthening of a series of largely Gothic dominated political units.
Following the partial withdrawal of Roman forces from the province under Emperor Gallienus
(260–268), the situation in Dacia was tenuous. Emperor Aurelian
(270–275) could not spare the men and materiel that would be required to restore the Dacian limes
and ordered the withdrawal of all the Roman legionary forces stationed there. The withdrawal under Aurelian in 271 was largely of administrators and landowners, the poorer Dacians stayed on.
On one hand, archaeological
and linguistic
research suggests that Roman life continued in Dacia after the 270s, and the masses of the Romanized
population (the "Daco-Romans") continued to lead a peaceful life. Moreover, several Free Dacians settled down in the former province, and many Latin speakers crossed their territories and settled amongst them, and therefore Romanization continued and was further spread, even to the areas which had not been directly conquered by the Romans. There was no obstacle in the way of the affirmation of Christianity
, and as the Christianization
of the "Daco-Romans" was done in Latin, by the spreading of the Christian faith, Romanity was actually strengthened. Christian artifacts
found in many ancient Roman centers suggest that Dacia was largely Christianized after 313 (when the Edict of Milan
made Christianity official throughout the empire), but not by official act, proselytism
, or mass baptism
.
On the other hand, early literary sources imply that the masses of the Romanized population had left the province of Dacia by the time the legions were withdrawn. Toponyms
and linguistic research also suggests that the vernacular
spoken by the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the former province was not the Latin language when the East Germanic tribes
invaded Dacia.
Emperor Aurelian did not abandon territories south of the Danube
: modern Dobruja
(between the Danube and the Black Sea) continued to be part of the Roman Empire for another 350 years. The region had nevertheless been exposed to major hardships, and the withdrawal of troops from Dacia left its territory dangerously open to attack. Especially outside the walled towns, the population were the victims of epidemic
s, economic stagnation, plundering troops, and arbitrary tax collecting. Emperor Diocletian
(284–305) fortified the entire length of the Danube that had been opposite the former province of Dacia, often with fortresses on both sides of the river. Small forts on the northern bank served as fortified landing points, bridge guards, and observation and customs posts as elsewhere along the frontiers.
Following the Roman withdrawal, the Goths were fully occupied taking possession of the northern Danubian region on both sides of the Carpathian Mountains
, dividing it with the Taifali, and keeping control of it. In the process their former allies, the Carpians, the Bastarnae and the Vandals
became their rivals. The latter had to give way: most of the Bastarnae settled in Thrace
in 280, and in 295 the rest followed; around 300, large numbers of Carpians were resettled on Roman soil. By the middle of the 4th century, the former province became the "land of the Goths" or Gutthiuda. But the populations of their territories were certainly mixed, with large numbers of Dacians and Sarmatians, not to mention Roman prisoners, but the dominance of the Germanic immigrants is clear.
One of the Gothic groups, the Thervingi
, or "forest people", established itself west of the river Dniester
. The Thervingi had no monarchic kingship, but an oligarchic council could reactive a kind of monarchy by electing a "judge" (called iudex in Latin).
The Goths' own material culture
was almost certainly that named by modern archaeologists after two of its most significant sites, Chernyakhov
(now Cherniakhiv, Ukraine
) and Sântana de Mureş
(in modern Romania), but a simple one-to-one equitation is demonstrably mistaken. The overwhelming majority of Chernyakhov settlements were open and unfortified, and they were of varying size. The populations of these villages derived their subsistence from mixed farming, with a high priority being given to the production of cereals, and at the same time, considerable effort was put into animal husbandry
.
In at least one instance, archeological finds suggest that the old Roman fortifications were being used by the Goths as permanent settlements. One example is the castrum at Pietroasele
, another such fortification was situated at Tyras
.
In the summer of 328, Emperor Constantine the Great
(306–337) opened the stone bridge across the Danube between Oescus
(in present-day Bulgaria
) and Sucidava
(now in Romania) linking the empire with Oltenia
, which was intended as a buffer zone
. At the same time, the fortress of Daphne
(in present-day Romania) was erected and linked by means of a large ferry
with Transmarisca (now in Bulgaria). Driven away from the Danube, the Goths changed their direction of advance, and around 330 began the increasing infiltration of Transylvania
.
After 332, a succession of religious missions had come to the Gutthiuda; and the Arian
mission, which proselytized in Gothic
, exerted the greatest influence. In 341 Wulfila was ordained a bishop
to the already existing Christian community in Gothic territories
. Many of these Christians were descended from Christian Roman prisoners. Wulfila was ultimately expelled with many other Christians after having engaged in missionary work, but Christians still lived north of the Danube and maintained close contacts with those who lived south of the river.
Between 340 and 360, members of barbarian
tribes were transferred en masse into Dobruja. Among them the Sarmatians, who served in the Roman army, contributed to the barbarizing of the province. They continued to keep their cultural habits intact until the 7th century.
Around 375, the Huns
attacked the Goths living on the territories east of the river Dniester, or Greuthungi
. Shortly afterward, the Huns crossed the river, and in the autumn of 376 groups of the Goths, said by contemporaries to number 200,000, were permitted to cross the Danube. The Gothic force was not just an army, but an entire population group with men, women and children, dragging themselves and their possessions around in large wagon train
s.
In the chaos caused by the invasion of nomadic Huns, there began a war of all against all which revealed the weaker position of the non-Thervingians. The expulsion of the Sarmatians of the Caucaland (which was probably located in the Carpathian Mountains along the Olt River
) by the Goths clearly reveals this process of disintegration. In the next 30 years, numerous Gothic groups met varying fates. Some of them delayed conquest, or perhaps avoided it altogether, by establishing themselves in geographically protected ecological niche
s in Transylvania, but most (if not all) of the Goths who remained north of the Danube ended up under Hunnic control. For example, in the 440s the Gothic group dominated by the Amal family
and their rivals could muster 10,000 fighting men, and hence had maybe a total population of 50,000. This group would later become the central to the creation of the Ostrogoths.
Archaeological researches suggest that the "Daco-Romans" abandoned all their ancient cities and established new settlements situated in sheltered, hidden places when the nomads' predatory expeditions became increasingly destructive. Such hidden places were not only in mountainous and hilly areas, where too large a population could not be accommodated, but also in forests (since over 70% of Romania’s territory was covered by forests at the time). Thus, the circumstances created by the continuous invasions, caused an "ebb and tide" movement phenomenon of the natives. On the other hand, toponyms imply that neither the mountainous and hilly areas, nor the lowlands of present-day Romania were inhabited by a Latin-speaking population at that time.
Following their victory over the Goths, it was only in 395 that the Huns launched their first great invasion against the Roman Empire by crossing the frozen Danube. It is certain that between 410 and 420, the Huns had moved from the Caucasus Mountains
, where they had been in about 395, to the Great Hungarian Plain
.
In material civilization, the Huns belonged to the lower stage of pastoralism
, that is the raising of livestock
. The basic unit of Hun society was formed by the five or six persons of one family who lived in one tent
. There is no reason to believe that the Huns were very numerous, hence some of the subject peoples continued to be ruled directly by their own native kings or chiefs. Under the Huns, companies of the Scirii
and Carpians (Carpodacians) were serving in a subordinate position, like the Alans
; and the Huns exploited the agricultural surpluses of their Gothic and other subjects.
The subjection of a variety of peoples, and the eventual restoration of stability in the north Danubian regions, seem to have given rise to the emergence of a unitary ruling dynasty amongst the Huns, and to the Hunnic Empire
itself. From 441 to 453, the history of Europe was dominated by military campaigns on an unprecedented scale—the work of Attila
. In 448, Attila demanded that a wide belt of country south of the river Danube should be completely evacuated by the Eastern Roman Empire. This strip of land was to stretch from Singidunum
(now Belgrade
, Serbia
) to Novae (now Svishtov
, Bulgaria), a distance of some 300 miles (482.8 km), and was to be five days' journey in depth, that is about 110 miles (177 km). Consequently, the Danube, with all its fortifications and great frontier cities, was no longer to be the boundary of the Roman Empire.
Attila died in 453, and his empire collapsed under the competing claims of his sons and the revolt of most of the subject peoples. A confederacy of the latter defeated the Hun army at the Battle of Nedao
in 454, and in the aftermath the Hun dominion disintegrated even more rapidly than it had first been formed. But the Huns did not disappear suddenly from the Carpathian region. In the late 460s Attila's sons were still able to launch attacks into the Roman Empire, and there were still substantial numbers of Goths in their following. Attila's last surviving son, Hernac
, found asylum in east Roman territory in northern Dobruja in 469.
, Someş
and Crasna
. Settlement sites suggest that the single farmstead or hamlet
was widespread. In the Transylvanian hills, earlier hilltop fortifications were occasionally reoccupied by Gepid groups.
Early in the 5th century, the Gepids were subjugated by the Ostrogoths, and in the following decades their warriors were increasingly drawn into service with the Huns. After Attila's death the great rebellion of the Germanic peoples was led and inspired by the Gepid king Ardaric
. Following their victory, the Gepids took over part of the former Dacia province where they controlled the salt mine
district. To secure the Danube frontier in the western Balkans
, Emperor Justinian I
(527–565) relied on three rival groups (Gepids, Lombards
, and Heruls), and imperial political influence was maintained by preventing any one confederacy from establishing a clear domination.
In 567, the Avars
and Lombards combined to destroy the Gepid kingdom that by now, had been centered on Sirmium
(now in Serbia), and the lands occupied by the Gepids passed under Avar control. However, at least some splinters of the Gepid people survived this shock. Archaeological research suggests that they remained in possession of the salt mines in Transylvania until around 630.
some of the participants at Attila's funeral called the ceremonial feast strava, which may have been a Slavic term. However, the presence of Slavs in the Hunnic Empire is undocumented, so the idea that the westward expansion of the Huns was accompanied by arrival of the first Slav-speaking
settlers in the Danube region has not been proven. The first written evidence of the appearance of the Slavs
refers to raids around 518. The archaeologist Florin Curta suggests that the Sclavenes appear in 6th-century sources as an umbrella term
for a multitude of groups living north of the Danube, which could not be classified as either "Huns" or "Gepids".
The archaeological evidence of the 6th and 7th centuries to the north of the lower Danube indicates a mixture of different elements. Local archaeologists have identified elements which they associate with Avars, Gepids, Slavs, steppe nomads, Romanized indigenous populations and Romans. In the 6th–7th centuries, most, if not all, settlements were occupied only for brief periods, then abandoned and new settlements established nearby. What caused this shifting of hamlets must have been the itinerant form of agriculture practiced by their inhabitants and requiring that lands under cultivation be left fallow after a number of years of cultivation without manuring
.
The Slav raids intensified in frequency and scale from the 530s: hardly a year went by in this period without a major raids of the Slavs sometimes together with other peoples (such as Huns and Kutrigurs
). For the 6th-century authors, who wrote about the Slavic peoples, the Slavic "homeland" was north of the Lower Danube. The arrival of the Avar nomads in the Lower Danubian area in the 560s further disrupted the situation. The Slavic raids of the late 6th century were often associated with Avar raids and attacks against the key points of the Roman system of defense
. The Balkans were freely overrun by Slavs after 615.
The Slavs are the third element, including the Dacians or other tribes and the Romans, that played a certain part in the configuration of the Romanians
' personality. In their relationship with Romanians, the Slavs played the same role as the one played by the Germanic elements in the case of other Romanic peoples. Linguistic studies and double (possibly translated) hydronym
s suggest that, after the onrush of the Slavs, the center of Danubian Romanity was concentrated in the former "Dacia Trajana" province (Roman Dacia) and the neighboring areas. By that time, the Proto-Romanians had adjusted the old Roman institutions to fit life in rural communities, or villages (in Romanian sate from Latin fossatum) which were led by a village headsman, the chosen "judge" (later called knez
under Slavic influence). On the other hand, local toponymy implies that the ancestors of the Romanians (the Romanized population of the provinces of the Roman Empire to south of the Danube) moved to the mountainous regions of the Balkan Peninsula around 600. Linguistic studies also suggest that the Proto-Romanians were not in close contact with Slavic-speaking populations before the 10th century.
The Avars were tightly organized soldiers and horsemen who quickly subjugated almost all communities in Eastern Europe
after 568. A vast array of subject peoples, such as various Slavic and Bulgar
tribes, and the remnants of the Huns, was below the Avars.
The Slavs appear as important partners of the Avars: the ecological niche
of the steppe
, like in the case of the Great Hungarian Plain
, was controlled by the nomads, and it was surrounded by a zone of Slavic settlements. The Avar Khagan
ate was politically dominated by the nomads, but economically reliant on the subjugated agriculturists. Early Avar society was based on procuring prestige goods
from the Eastern Roman Empire and food supplies from small economic units in the form of either direct production from family lands or tribute from subjugated population groups. More often than not, the Avars chose to move the entire population of a conquered city or territory in the middle of their empire. It seems very likely that the Slav language was one of the main languages spoken as a lingua franca
in at least part of the communication community that was the Avar Khaganate.
In Transylvania, the Avar cemeteries cluster around the salt mines which suggest that the Avars controlled the salt mine district. The salt production implies the existence of a subject sedentary population. The involvement of the Slavs in salt extraction and trade is documented by Romanian and Hungarian
loanword
s of Slav origin, e.g. both the Romanian and the Hungarian world for 'salt mine' (ocnă and akna respectively) were borrowed from the Slavs. The chronology of spur
s excavated in Transylvania also suggests the existence of cavalry
troops. The internally hooked spurs were found in western Slavdom
in a broad zone from the river Elbe
to the Southern Bug
, and as far as the Danube.
The Late Avar period (c. 700–c. 800) has produced the greatest number of settlements known for the entire Avar history, and very large cemeteries in use for more than two or three generations. Both categories of sites suggest an advanced degree of sedentization
. The Avar confederacy disintegrated rapidly as a result of internal conflicts and the defeats it suffered in clashes with the Franks
under Charlemagne
during the 790s. Having lost their western territories to the Franks, the Avars became at war with Krum, ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire
, who defeated them.
people, had been living in scattered tribes north of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov
and along the Lower Don
. The group of the Bulgars that was led by Asparukh
moved into what is now Bessarabia
(in the Republic of Moldova
), and then in the 670s crossed the Danube. Asparukh conquered the Slavic tribes there and eventually established the First Bulgarian Empire, which was centered in the northeast of present-day Bulgaria
and stretched along both sides of the Lower Danube.
The Bulgars themselves do not seem to have been particularly numerous. They had a mixed pastoral and agricultural economy, but trade was also important for them. Archaeology shows that for a while many Bulgars kept their settlements distinct from those of the Slavs, but in time (and it seems in some cases quite early) mixed settlements of Slavs and Bulgars appeared in some places, but the dating of these sites is not clearly established. Bulgar cemeteries north of the Danube have not been found farther than 12 miles (19.3 km) from the river. None of them can be dated earlier than the second half of the 8th century, which suggests that the Bulgar occupation of the Wallachian Plain took place only a century after the Bulgar settlement of northeastern Bulgaria.
After the invasion of Asparukh's Bulgaria on the left of the Danube, no important invasions were recorded for almost two centuries. During the period of the evolution of the Dridu culture, which ranged from the 8th to 11th centuries, the Lower Danube Plain area experienced a steady demographic growth, which distinguishes this period from both previous and subsequent centuries.
A powerful state was created by Krum after his 805 defeat of the Avar Khaganate, but all the surviving information about subsequent Avar–Bulgar relations refers to Avars joining the Bulgars, not to Bulgars conquering Avar territories. A Greek
inscription on a stone column erected by Khagan Omurtag of Bulgaria
mentions the organizing of an expedition which reached the Dnieper River
. Another column bears an inscription mentioning an expedition on the river Tisa.
Contemporary sources suggest a Bulgar control of the salt-mine district of Transylvania. The Annals of Fulda narrates that, in 892, the Carolingian king Arnulf
demanded from the Bulgars that they not permit any more selling of salt westward, to Great Moravia
. Because there were no salt mines in Bulgaria, a justified conclusion could be drawn that the salt sold to Moravia came from Transylvania. On the other hand, in order to hinder the selling of the salt, the Bulgarians would not have to watch the salt mines in Transylvania, but only the commercial routes across the Tisa valley. Presumably Bulgar burial assemblages have also been found in southern Transylvania; the earliest of them have been dated to the 9th and early 10th century. The Bulgarian control never expanded into northwestern Transylvania.
The first written mentions about the Romanians (Vlachs
) north of the Danube were recorded in two different sources written in the 12th–13th centuries, for which the possibility of interference was impossible, but their interpretation is still subject to debate among scholars.
The Russian Primary Chronicle
, written in the 1110s, mentions that the Slavs had been the first inhabitants of the Carpathian Basin before the Volochs conquered the territory. Afterwards, as the chronicle narrates under the year 898, the Volochs were driven out by the Magyars who settled among the Slavs and subjugated them. Scholars who think that the territory of present-day Romania was inhabited by Romanians when the Magyars invaded the territory suggest that the Volochs are identical to the Romanians (Vlachs). Their opponents think that the Volochs can rather be identified as Eastern Franks who had occupied the western parts of the Carpathian Basin and the Magyar Conquest put an end to their rule.
The Gesta Hungarorum
is the earliest surviving chronicle of Hungary
, and was written around 1200. Nothing indicates that its author had any reason to forge anything, and thus treating the Gesta as a forgery is a mistake. On the other hand, nothing proves that its author had factual knowledge of the real conditions of the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. The Gesta narrates that the Magyars, when invaded the Carpathian Basin at the end of the 9th century, came across three knezdoms or voivodeships.
Scholars who accept the narration of the Gesta Hungarorum assume that as early as the 8h and the 9th centuries, some of the Romanian knezes had already become village owners, and some even managed to possess all the villages (15–20) on the valley of a river or in a depression
. These landholders were considered "nobles" (in Romanian boieri
, adopted from Slav
). For defensive needs, several knezdoms would gather together under the rule of a more powerful knez with military skills, called voievod or vodă in Romanian (this term was also adopted from Slav).
corridor between the river Don and the Lower Danube. As described in late 9th century Muslim
sources, for the winter they withdrew to dwellings in river valleys, especially at river mouths: these were the sites of permanent settlements or villages.
Having been defeated by the Pechenegs and the Bulgarians around 895, the Magyars moved into the Middle Danube region via the mountain passes of the eastern Beskids
. No evidence exists of Magyars crossing the Eastern Carpathians into Transylvania, or even moving from the Middle Danube region into Transylvania before the middle of the 10th century. The eight archaeological sites that are attributed to the Magyar conquerors are mainly men’s graves with strong military character, and they all are situated in western Transylvania, for example at Cluj
, Gâmbaş
, and Deva
. Until the mid 10th century, the Magyars were under constant threat of Pecheneg attack; therefore, they built a double defensive line on both the western and eastern side of the Apuseni Mountains
and the Banat Mountains
. Anything east of the double defensive line as far as the dwelling area of the Pechenegs was considered a marcher region
. Place names adopted by the Magyars in Transylvania suggest that the region had been inhabited by people mostly of Slavic tongue before the Magyars settled there.
Around 950, one of the Magyar tribal leaders, who held the title of gyula, visited Constantinople
, was baptized and received the Stephen
name. He was also given a bishop
named Hierotheos who accompanied him back to Tourkia (that is, to Hungary). His dwelling area was to be sought around the region bordered by the rivers Timiş
, Mureş, Criş
and Tisa.
The disastrous defeat of the Magyar forces in the Battle of Lechfeld
(955) put an end to the raids in the West. Their campaigns to the south came to an end in 970, when the Magyar forces were defeated in the Battle of Arcadiopolis. After 970, the free nomads were locked into the tight "prison" of the Carpathian Basin. Some of them migrated away and thus they expanded the boundaries of the Magyar dwelling area and reached regions in which they could not continue living as nomads. Written sources do not provide any information about how this happened, in which direction it took place, but the earliest layer of Hungarian toponyms suggest that as part of the settling process Transylvania also received a new Magyar population. In the 980s–990s, the gyula and his family also transferred their seat to Transylvania.
After 1002, a chieftain named Ahtum
, who had been ruling over the Banat, was baptized in the Orthodox faith
in Vidin
(now in Bulgaria). His base of power was in Morisena (now Cenad
, Romania) where Ahtum established a monastery which he populated with Greek monks. His power was based on considerable resources, mainly cattle and horses, but he also controlled traffic along the river Mureş and taxed transports of salt from Transylvania.
(852–889) was baptized and he also allowed the Byzantine (Eastern Orthodox) clergy to enter Bulgaria and begin their missionary work
. In 893 a council declared Christianity a state religion
and turned Old Church Slavonic
into the official language of Church and State. The ancestors of the Romanians also followed the Old Slavonic rite.
In 971, the Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimiskes
(969–976) marched against the Rus' people
who had seized the Bulgarian capital
of Preslav
, and defeated them. The emperor forced Tsar
Boris II of Bulgaria
(969–971) to abdicate and annexed most of Bulgaria outright advancing the frontier to the Lower Danube for the first time since the early 7th century. Although, Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria (997–1014) could restore the Bulgarian Empire for a while, but by 1018 the whole territory of Bulgaria had been occupied by the Byzantines.
From 1020, the jurisdiction of the archbishopric of Ohrid
(now in the Republic of Macedonia
) expanded over the Romanians within the Byzantine Empire.
The Pechenegs were a Turkic tribe. In 894/895, they crossed the river Don and formed an alliance with Tsar
Simeon I of Bulgaria
(893–927) against the Magyars. The Pechenegs fell upon the latter who, wedged between two hostile forces, immediately looked for a new home further west.
The land of the Pechenegs was divided into eight "provinces" (most likely the territories of the leading clan
s), and the entire steppe corridor between the Danube and the Dnieper rivers was under their control. The Pecheneg economy was predominantly pastoral. In permanent need of agricultural produce, the Pechenegs had no reason to destroy the local network of rural settlements that had flourished in the 9th century under the protection of the First Bulgarian Empire. Most settlements in the region between the rivers Danube and Dniester continued to be occupied after 900 and no significant changes in material culture have been noted that could be attributed to the defeat of the Magyars and the subsequent Pecheneg migration. The Primary Chronicle points out that the Ulichians and the Tivertsi
ans settled on the Dniester River, spreading up to the Danube.
In 1018, the Pechenegs were allies of Grand Prince Sviatopolk I of Kiev
(1015–1019) against his brother, Grand Prince Yaroslav I the Wise
(1019–1054). The unknown author of an early 13th-century biography of St. Olaf of Norway
also mentions Blókumenn among Sviatopolk’s allies. Similarly, the inscription of an 11th-century runestone commemorates a merchant who was traveling to Constantinople and was killed by Blakumen. The traditional interpretation of the ethnonym
Blakumen is Vlach. In this case, the Vlachs, that is the early Romanians, were clearly north, not south of the river Danube at that time, although the exact region cannot be established with any precision. On the other hand, the ethnonym is also interpreted as "black men".
It is perhaps during this period of time that most, albeit not all, sites south and east of the Carpathian Mountains were deserted. By 1050, the sites that had flourished during the 10th century had already been abandoned.
In 1087, the Pechenegs invaded Thrace
, where at last they were put to flight, but Emperor Alexios I Komnenos
(1081–1118) made the mistake of pursuing them, and was beaten at Silistra
. The Empire was saved by the arrival of another Turkic horde, the Kipchaks
(Cumans
) who emerged from the Russia
n steppe behind the Pechenegs and defeated them on the Danube. On April 29, 1091, the combined Byzantine and Cuman forces crushed the Pecheneg army at Mount Levunion
and decimated them. The remnants of the Pechenegs made a fresh attempt which was confined to Bulgaria in 1121, but they were surprised and massacred by Emperor John II Komnenos
(1118–1143).
, Stephen, defeated the army of his rebellious kinsman, Koppány
who died in the battle. Koppány's corpse was quartered and its parts were pinned to the gates of four castle
s, among them to the gates of Bălgrad (now Alba Iulia
, Romania) which was the seat of Stephen's maternal uncle, Gyula
.
At Christmas of the year 1000 or on New Year's Day in 1001, Stephen was crowned the first King of Hungary
, but he still had to defeat the chiefs of the tribal states one after another in order to rule the entire country. Stephen started it with his greatest rival, his uncle, Gyula and occupied his territory in 1003. Ahtum, who had been ruling over the Banat, also found himself in conflict with the king when he taxed transports of salt from Transylvania to the Hungarian Kingdom
's heartland of Pannonia
. One of Ahtum's retainers, Csanád
, fled to the Hungarian king, only to return at the head of a large army, with which he eventually defeated and killed Ahtum in the king’s name.
King Stephen is reported to have founded ten Roman Catholic diocese
s with two archbishops at their head in the entire Kingdom of Hungary. On the territory of present-day Romania, the bishops of Bihor
, Cenad
and Transylvania
became the suffragans of the archbishop of Kalocsa
(now in Hungary). Although no data of medieval charter
s alludes to the establishment of the Bishopric of Transylvania, it must have happened shortly after 1003, but its first bishop is included among the prelates in a charter of 1075. The diocese was dedicated to Saint Michael
whose cult was especially strong in the territory of the Byzantine church which suggests that a bishopric of Latin rite
succeeded the missionary bishopric of Byzantine rite
that had been set up when the gyula was baptized in Constantinople around 950. In Ahtum's former "kingdom", a Venetian
monk named Gerald
began a mission of Christianization of the entire region. He became Bishop of Cenad in 1030. From about 1100, the diocese of Bihor was named after its new seat, Oradea
.
Where King Stephen I enjoyed an effective authority, counties
and castle districts appeared together with bishoprics; the county was an independent administrative institution based entirely on territory—as opposed to this, the castle districts included only the king’s properties. In Transylvania, already at least five castle districts or counties had been established before the mid 11th century: Dăbâca
, Cluj, Turda
, Hunedoara
, and Bălgrad. To denote the head of the royal governor of a county, the word ispán (equivalent of the southern Slav
župan
) was used.
The Kingdom of Hungary had to defend itself against foreign incursions. For example, the Pechenegs and the Oghuz
invaded the country in 1068 and 1085, and its eastern part faced a Cuman attack in 1091. The Hungarian state had by 1200 established its frontiers firmly on the Carpathian Mountains.
The settlement process of Transylvania proceeded in the 11th–12th centuries. The settlement area expanded from the northwest and west to south and east, respectively, during the 12th century. Toponyms suggest that Hungarian settlement was directed primarily toward northern Transylvania throughout the 11th century, and the regions along and south of the Mureş River
also acquired considerable Hungarian population after the early 12th century.
Written sources, dating from before the mid 12th century, announce that "guest" settlers from Western Europe
also moved into Transylvania. The earliest settlers may have been Flemings
or Walloons
. During the reign of King Géza II
(1141–1162), groups of settlers, larger than the ones before, arrived in Transylvania. The legate of the Holy See
mentioned between 1191 and 1196 that King Géza II had granted desolate lands to the Flemish arrivals. "Saxons" as a generic name for the "guests" was not established before 1206, and the emerging Transylvanian "Saxon"
community played an important role in the life of Hungary. According to the income register of King Béla III
(1172–1196) from around 1195, their taxes made up 9% of royal revenues. In 1224, King Andrew II
(1205–1235) spelled out the privileges of the German "guests" in a charter later referred to as the Andreanum; thus all of the "Saxons" were placed under a single authority, that of the count of Sibiu
(in German, Hermannstadt).
Documents from the 13th and 14th centuries suggest that the Székely
must have been on frontier defense duty at the western and eastern borders of the Hungarian dwelling area. The first Székely groups left for the east by the early 12th century. The name of the seven original Székely groups and toponyms imply that they had lived in Bihor and in Southern Transylvania before they settled in the Székely Land
(in Hungarian, Székelyföld) in Eastern Transylvania. By 1228, the title of Count of the Székely had been in use which indicates that King Andrew II appointed an official to lead them. The Székely were a well organized community of warriors living off cattle breeding; they served as light horsemen
in the royal army and throughout the centuries preserved elements of nomadic warfare.
There is no mention of Romanians in the royal charters of Hungary before the grant of King Andrew II to the Cistercian abbey at Cârţa
. The abbey was established around 1207 and its estates were carved out of the "land of the Vlachs". A Vlach presence on the southern frontier of Transylvania clearly antedates the arrival of the Cistercians. This is substantiated by the hoard of silver found in Cârţişoara
which also contained a Byzantine gold coin
struck for the Emperor John II Komnenos
. This land, later called Făgăraş
, was to remain until the end of the Middle Ages
as a separate Romanian district, not melting into the Saxon lands nor becoming a county of Transylvania. Around 1210, Romanians fought in Bulgaria in the army of the Count of Sibiu together with Saxons, Székely and Pechenegs. In 1224, the Andreanum entitled the Transylvanian Saxons to use the forests and waters granted to the Romanians and the Pechenegs.
The count of Bălgrad appeared in variety of ways in Latin (tribunus, princeps, comes) in the 11th and 12th centuries. After 1199, the count of Bălgrad had the title voivode and by that time, he had managed to secure the rule for himself in several Northern Transylvanian counties. The voivode became the chief officer of the king in Transylvania. He was appointed by the king who could revoke the appointment and delegate the office to someone else in sign of his favor. During the 89 years between 1199 and 1288, the office of the voivode changed holders 43 times.
Before the middle of the 13th century, Transylvania was dominated by the king’s men known to contemporary sources as "castle warriors" (in Medieval Latin
documents, iobagiones castri), a social group associated with the increasing number of royal castles. However, even the relatively independent "castle warriors" were high-placed subjects within the manorial system. In contrast with them, the "royal servants" (servientes regni) were independent landholders, small or great, and possessed subjects, few or many.
In 1233, the Hungarian troops crossed the Danube into Wallachia, where they occupied the Severin
region, creating a special banate
there. The banate of Severin, which incorporated the entire region of Wallachia
up to Olt River
, included the territories of several Vlach chieftains (knez
es). The knezes and their followers were obliged to provide tribute in kind to support the banate, and also to assist as warriors in the defense of the territory.
In 1054, the Russian
chronicle
s first note the presence of the Kipchaks (Cumans) in the steppe
north of the Black Sea
, as well as that of the Oghuz, whom they pushed and drove away. The Cumans remained sole masters of the Russian steppe when the Oghuz were cut to pieces by Byzantines and Bulgars in the course of ill-fated expeditions into the Balkans in 1065 and succeeding years. According to a variant of the oldest Turkic
chronicle, Oghuzname, inserted in the Turkish Genealogy by Abulghazi Bahadur
(1603–1663), the Cumans—personified in the eponymous hero
Quipchaq—fought against the countries of the Kievan Rus'
, the Romanians (Ulak), the Magyars and the Bashkirs
.
The Cuman tribes ceased to be under a single leadership and, as a consequence, the Rus' princes of Kiev
were capable of driving a wedge at the line of the Dnieper River
. Depending on their region and their time, different sources each used their own word to denote different sections of the vast Cuman territory. The eastern territories of the Cuman empire were called Dašt-i Qipčak ("Kipchak steppes") by Muslim historiographers, and its western parts were mentioned as Zemlya Polovetskaya ("Polovtsian Land") in Russian chronicles. Cumania
was predominantly the territory of today's Wallachia and Moldavia
when the Cuman missions of the Dominicans
began to work their way to the east of the Carpathian Basin.
In the late 11th century, there was a significant shift in population away from the steppe corridor in the vicinity of the Danube and into the densely forested area of the Central Moldavian Plateau
, on both sides of the middle course of the river Prut
located in present-day Moldova
, Ukraine
and Romania. These were villages of agriculturists, and not temporary camp sites of nomad
ic pastoralists
. In the 12th century many settlements in what is now southern and eastern Romania, as well as Moldova either diminished in size or disappeared altogether. Judging from published archaeological evidence, there are about 100 sites dated to the 11th and 12th centuries known from the area east from the Carpathian Mountains. By contrast, only 35 sites are known which have been dated to the 12th and 13th centuries. No 12th-century settlements have so far been found in the steppe lands in eastern Wallachia and north of the Danube Delta
. The 12th century witnessed a sudden increase in the number of strongholds in Bukovina
, which suggest that the military frontier of the Principality of Galicia
was on the upper courses of the rivers Dniester
and Prut.
In 1164, Andronicus Komnenons
, the rebellious cousin of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos
(1143–1180), was intercepted by Vlachs when he was on his way to the court of Prince Yaroslav Osmomysl of Galicia
. As Andronicus is specifically said to have reached the borders of Galicia, the Vlachs in question may have been located somewhere in present-day Moldavia. In 1166, Emperor Manuel launched a combined attack on Hungary, with an expeditionary corps which included a large number of Vlach recruits, most likely from the eastern regions of the Balkan Peninsula. When the Byzantine troops marched along one of the main rivers in Moldavia (perhaps Siret
) before entering Transylvania, they passed through a land entirely bereft of men.
The assault on the Cumans in the Lower Danube region began with the introduction of the Teutonic Knights
in 1211, when King Andrew II of Hungary allowed them to settle in the Ţara Bârsei (in German Burzenland), specifically in those regions "towards the Cumans". They were given a large territory within the limits marked by the upper course of the river Olt, the Transylvanian Alps
, and the royal castles of Hălmeag and Ungra
. The Knights took the war into enemy territory, thus turning the defense into aggressive offensive. The ultimate goal of the Knights seems to have been to create a state on the southeastern frontier of Hungary; finally, in 1225, at the head of a large army, King Andrew II attacked the Teutonic Knights and expelled them from Transylvania.
It was the 1223 Battle of the Kalka River
, a disastrous defeat for the Cuman and Russian forces at the hand of the Mongol
, that changed the power relations in Eastern Europe
. After the battle, the Cuman chiefs could not be sure when a new Mongol attack would appear.
In 1227, Robert, the archbishop of Esztergom organized a ceremonial meeting with a Cuman chieftain named Boricius, who had expressed the desire to convert together with his family and retinue. The future Béla IV
visited Boricius' lands across the mountains and in 1228 the superior of the Dominicans in Hungary was appointed Bishop of Cumania
with jurisdiction over the entire territory stretching eastwards to the river Siret. According to the charter of 1234 of Pope Gregory IX
, Romanians lived in the territory of the Cumanian bishopric who had archbishops of Orthodox rite, and Hungarian, German and other believers moved there from Hungary, mixed with them and adopted their rite. In 1233, King Andrew II of Hungary adopted the title rex Cumaniae ("king of Cumania").
The beginning of the Mongol campaign in Eastern Europe
(1236) radically changed the situation and a large-scale westward migration of the Cumans began. In the summer of 1237, groups of Cumans appeared in Bulgaria; in 1239, another group, which came from the steppes north of the Black Sea under the rule of Köten
was allowed by king Béla IV (1235–1270) to settle in Hungary. The Cuman Bishopric took the brunt of the Mongol invasion in March 1241. Nevertheless, many of the Cumans remained in the steppes and were absorbed into the Mongol state, strengthening its armies.
.jpg)
In 1018, the former Bulgarian Empire became part of the Byzantine realm, and its inhabitants paid tax to New Rome
. In Byzantine Bulgaria, Byzantine Macedonia and northern Thessaly
, Bulgarians
and Vlachs (Romanians) lived together amicably. The Vlachs also gave assistance to the Cumans, who were Byzantium's nomadic enemy, in attacking the Empire. Nevertheless, Cumans also came to settle in Bulgaria, some of whom received large pronoia
s (grants of an income source, usually a landed estate) from the Byzantines, to defend the Danube frontier or to garrison various interior regions.
What sparked the revolt of 1185–1186 was a tax that Emperor Isaac II Angelos
decided to levy in order to cover the expenses for his wedding. The other cause of the rebellion was of rather personal character. Two brothers Peter
and Asen
hoped to obtain a mountain district in the Balkan Mountains
as a pronoia for service to the emperor, but the emperor refused. The two brothers called for a full rebellion and procured some Vlach and Bulgarian shamans, who at a gathering of many Vlachs and Bulgarians went into a trance
and prophesied the success of the forthcoming rebellion. Peter and Asen were also able to mobilize many Cumans. Byzantine and Western chroniclers (e.g., Niketas Choniates and Geoffrey of Villehardouin
) explicitly refer to the brothers' Vlach descent.
What followed was a Bulgarian–Vlach–Cuman uprising in 1185 that produced a state in which all three peoples participated. This second Bulgarian monarchy
called itself "Bulgaria", but between 1185 and 1250 Western sources called the new state or its northern part simply Vlachia or Wallachia. The collapse of the Cumans in 1238–1239 considerably weakened Bulgaria militarily. In 1253, eleven years after the Tatar subjugation of Bulgaria, Rubruc
's travel account clearly indicates that the Bulgarians paid tribute to the Tatars
(that is, Mongols).
s north of the Gobi Desert
. In 1206, Genghis Khan
, founder of the Mongol Empire
, summoned a great assembly
, and on this occasion he was proclaimed supreme khan
by all the Mongol and Turkic tribes.
In 1235, a decision to launch a massive campaign in Eastern Europe
was taken at a Kurultai
, the great assembly of the Mongol chieftains. The supreme command of the expedition was given to Batu
, a grandson of Genghis Khan
.
In 1241, a Tatar (Mongol) army led by Böček crossed the mountains of the Kara Ulagh ("Black Vlachs") . Böček defeated the Vlachs and one of their leaders, known as Mišlav
. Batu's army entered Hungary across the Northern Carpathians, and Batu inflicted a crushing defeat upon King Béla IV's army in the Battle of Mohi
on April 11, 1241. The swiftness of the invasion took many by surprise, and forced them to retreat and hide in forests and enclosed valleys of the Carpathians.
The Mongol hordes left the Kingdom of Hungary after 12 months. Even so, they caused immense devastation: at least 15–20% of the population fell victim to the Mongol invasion and the famine that followed it.
. Planned settlement also assumed considerable proportions after the Mongol invasion. When a second invasion of the Mongols came in 1285, it was easily repelled.
Toward the middle of the 13th century voivodates dependent on the Kingdom of Hungary began to form on the territories east and south of the Carpathian Mountains. In 1247, King Béla IV granted to the Knights Hospitaller
a number of territories in the "land of Severin", and the delineation of those territories in the royal charter brought about a detailed description of several Romanian polities in the region. But evidence also shows that these polities soon sought independence from the Hungarian crown. For example, the Romanian Voivode Litovoi
rebelled against King Ladislaus IV of Hungary in 1272.
In 1330, King Charles I of Hungary
made an expedition against Voivode Basarab I
, but the king was eventually forced to withdraw toward Transylvania. Retreating through the mountains, the Hungarians were ambushed by Basarab's forces at Posada
, and soundly defeated on November 12, 1330, after three days of fighting. The battle marked the appearance of the first independent Romanian principality
, Wallachia
.
< Roman Dacia
| History of Romania | The Middle Ages
>
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
from the province of Dacia
Roman Dacia
The Roman province of Dacia on the Balkans included the modern Romanian regions of Transylvania, Banat and Oltenia, and temporarily Muntenia and southern Moldova, but not the nearby regions of Moesia...
in the 271–275 AD, thenceforward modern Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
's territories were to be crisscrossed by migrating populations
Migration Period
The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions , was a period of intensified human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 400 to 800 CE. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...
for almost 1,000 years. After the Roman province of Dacia
Roman Dacia
The Roman province of Dacia on the Balkans included the modern Romanian regions of Transylvania, Banat and Oltenia, and temporarily Muntenia and southern Moldova, but not the nearby regions of Moesia...
was abandoned in the 270s, the territories that would later come to be known as Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
, Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
and Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
were occupied by a number of succeeding peoples pushed across the map during the Migration period
Migration Period
The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions , was a period of intensified human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 400 to 800 CE. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...
, including the Goths
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
, Attila
Attila the Hun
Attila , more frequently referred to as Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire, which stretched from the Ural River to the Rhine River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea. During his reign he was one of the most feared...
's Hunnic Empire
Hunnic Empire
The Hunnic Empire was an empire established by the Huns. The Huns were a confederation of Eurasian tribes from the steppes of Central Asia. Appearing from beyond the Volga River some years after the middle of the 4th century, they first overran the Alani, who occupied the plains between the Volga...
, the Gepids, Avars
Eurasian Avars
The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars were a highly organized nomadic confederacy of mixed origins. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turko-Mongol groups...
, Bulgars
Bulgars
The Bulgars were a semi-nomadic who flourished in the Pontic Steppe and the Volga basin in the 7th century.The Bulgars emerge after the collapse of the Hunnic Empire in the 5th century....
, Magyars, Pechenegs, and Cumans
Cumans
The Cumans were Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After Mongol invasion , they decided to seek asylum in Hungary, and subsequently to Bulgaria...
.
The Vlachs
Vlachs
Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...
, which would develop into the modern Romanian ethnicity
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
, do not become tangible before the High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
, and their prehistory during the Migration period is a matter of scholarly speculation. According to some scholars, the existence of the present Eastern Romance languages
Eastern Romance languages
The Eastern Romance languages in their narrow conception, sometimes known as the Vlach languages, are a group of Romance languages that developed in Southeastern Europe from the local eastern variant of Vulgar Latin. Some classifications include the Italo-Dalmatian languages; when Italian is...
prove the survival of the Thraco-Roman
Thraco-Roman
The terms Thraco-Roman and Daco-Roman refer to the culture and language of the Thracian and Dacian peoples who were incorporated into the Roman Empire and ultimately fell under the Roman and Latin sphere of influence.-Meaning and usage:...
s in the low-Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
basin during the Migration period
Migration Period
The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions , was a period of intensified human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 400 to 800 CE. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...
.
Background
Second Dacian War
The Second Dacian War was fought in 105 to 106 because the Dacian king Decebalus had broken his peace terms with the Roman emperor Trajan from the First Dacian War...
, the region of Dacia
Dacia
In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...
was a Roman province for 170 years (between 106 AD and 275 AD). Roman Emperor
Roman Emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...
Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
made a concerted effort to recruit settlers
Colonies in antiquity
Colonies in antiquity were city-states founded from a mother-city—its "metropolis"—, not from a territory-at-large. Bonds between a colony and its metropolis remained often close, and took specific forms...
for Roman Dacia, although in case of other provinces the government had done very little to encourage civilian
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
s moving into newly conquered areas. The colonizing population was clearly heterogeneous, but they represented imperial culture and civilization
Culture of ancient Rome
Ancient Roman culture existed throughout the almost 1200-year history of the civilization of Ancient Rome. The term refers to the culture of the Roman Republic, later the Roman Empire, which, at its peak, covered an area from Lowland Scotland and Morocco to the Euphrates.Life in ancient Rome...
and brought with them the Latin language.
While Dacia was still a Roman province, it faced attacks and incursions by Dacians
Dacians
The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...
, Sarmatians
Sarmatians
The Iron Age Sarmatians were an Iranian people in Classical Antiquity, flourishing from about the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD....
, Carpians
Carpians
The Carpi or Carpiani were an ancient people that resided, between not later than ca. AD 140 and until at least AD 318, in the former Principality of Moldavia ....
, and as early as 211, the first of the Gothic
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
invasions. There were also Costoboci
Costoboci
The Costoboci were an ancient people located, during the Roman imperial era, between the Carpathian Mountains and the river Dniester.The Costoboci invaded the Roman empire in AD 170 or 171, pillaging its Balkan provinces as far as central Greece, until they were driven out by Romans...
, Iranian
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
Rhoxolani
Rhoxolani
The Roxolani were a Sarmatian people, who are believed to be an off-shoot of the Alans. Their first recorded homeland lay between the Don and Dnieper rivers; they migrated in the 1st century BC toward the Danube, to what is now the Baragan steppes in Romania.The Greco-Roman historian Strabo ...
, and Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
Bastarnae
Bastarnae
The Bastarnae or Basternae were an ancient Germanic tribe,, who between 200 BC and 300 AD inhabited the region between the eastern Carpathian mountains and the Dnieper river...
, elements that had been part of the ethnic mosaic
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
of that area. Eastward of the Roman province, north of the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
, the migrating groups were competing between each other, against indigenous populations, and against Roman garrison
Garrison
Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....
forces. The result was the strengthening of a series of largely Gothic dominated political units.
Following the partial withdrawal of Roman forces from the province under Emperor Gallienus
Gallienus
Gallienus was Roman Emperor with his father Valerian from 253 to 260, and alone from 260 to 268. He took control of the Empire at a time when it was undergoing great crisis...
(260–268), the situation in Dacia was tenuous. Emperor Aurelian
Aurelian
Aurelian , was Roman Emperor from 270 to 275. During his reign, he defeated the Alamanni after a devastating war. He also defeated the Goths, Vandals, Juthungi, Sarmatians, and Carpi. Aurelian restored the Empire's eastern provinces after his conquest of the Palmyrene Empire in 273. The following...
(270–275) could not spare the men and materiel that would be required to restore the Dacian limes
Limes Moesiae
Limes Moesiae was a Roman-built system of fortifications consisting of three lines of defense, between the Black Sea shore and the Danube. Additionally, in Wallachia there were other two lines of defense: the "Constantine Wall" and the "Limes Transalutanus"....
and ordered the withdrawal of all the Roman legionary forces stationed there. The withdrawal under Aurelian in 271 was largely of administrators and landowners, the poorer Dacians stayed on.
After the Roman withdrawal
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
and linguistic
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
research suggests that Roman life continued in Dacia after the 270s, and the masses of the Romanized
Romanization (cultural)
Romanization or latinization indicate different historical processes, such as acculturation, integration and assimilation of newly incorporated and peripheral populations by the Roman Republic and the later Roman Empire...
population (the "Daco-Romans") continued to lead a peaceful life. Moreover, several Free Dacians settled down in the former province, and many Latin speakers crossed their territories and settled amongst them, and therefore Romanization continued and was further spread, even to the areas which had not been directly conquered by the Romans. There was no obstacle in the way of the affirmation of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, and as the Christianization
Christianization
The historical phenomenon of Christianization is the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire peoples at once...
of the "Daco-Romans" was done in Latin, by the spreading of the Christian faith, Romanity was actually strengthened. Christian artifacts
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
found in many ancient Roman centers suggest that Dacia was largely Christianized after 313 (when the Edict of Milan
Edict of Milan
The Edict of Milan was a letter signed by emperors Constantine I and Licinius that proclaimed religious toleration in the Roman Empire...
made Christianity official throughout the empire), but not by official act, proselytism
Proselytism
Proselytizing is the act of attempting to convert people to another opinion and, particularly, another religion. The word proselytize is derived ultimately from the Greek language prefix προσ- and the verb ἔρχομαι in the form of προσήλυτος...
, or mass baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
.
On the other hand, early literary sources imply that the masses of the Romanized population had left the province of Dacia by the time the legions were withdrawn. Toponyms
Toponymy
Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...
and linguistic research also suggests that the vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
spoken by the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the former province was not the Latin language when the East Germanic tribes
East Germanic tribes
The Germanic tribes referred to as East Germanic constitute a wave of migrants who may have moved from Scandinavia into the area between the Oder and Vistula rivers between the years 600 and 300 BC. Later they went to the south...
invaded Dacia.
Emperor Aurelian did not abandon territories south of the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
: modern Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...
(between the Danube and the Black Sea) continued to be part of the Roman Empire for another 350 years. The region had nevertheless been exposed to major hardships, and the withdrawal of troops from Dacia left its territory dangerously open to attack. Especially outside the walled towns, the population were the victims of epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
s, economic stagnation, plundering troops, and arbitrary tax collecting. Emperor Diocletian
Diocletian
Diocletian |latinized]] upon his accession to Diocletian . c. 22 December 244 – 3 December 311), was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305....
(284–305) fortified the entire length of the Danube that had been opposite the former province of Dacia, often with fortresses on both sides of the river. Small forts on the northern bank served as fortified landing points, bridge guards, and observation and customs posts as elsewhere along the frontiers.
Gutthiuda: the land of the Goths (c. 271–after 376/before 420)
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
, dividing it with the Taifali, and keeping control of it. In the process their former allies, the Carpians, the Bastarnae and the Vandals
Vandals
The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century. The Vandals under king Genseric entered Africa in 429 and by 439 established a kingdom which included the Roman Africa province, besides the islands of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearics....
became their rivals. The latter had to give way: most of the Bastarnae settled in Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
in 280, and in 295 the rest followed; around 300, large numbers of Carpians were resettled on Roman soil. By the middle of the 4th century, the former province became the "land of the Goths" or Gutthiuda. But the populations of their territories were certainly mixed, with large numbers of Dacians and Sarmatians, not to mention Roman prisoners, but the dominance of the Germanic immigrants is clear.
One of the Gothic groups, the Thervingi
Thervingi
The Thervingi, Tervingi, or Teruingi were a Gothic people of the Danubian plains west of the Dnestr River in the 3rd and 4th Centuries CE. They had close contacts with the Greuthungi, another Gothic people from east of the Dnestr River, as well as the Late Roman Empire...
, or "forest people", established itself west of the river Dniester
Dniester
The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs through Ukraine and Moldova and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto state of Transnistria.-Names:...
. The Thervingi had no monarchic kingship, but an oligarchic council could reactive a kind of monarchy by electing a "judge" (called iudex in Latin).
The Goths' own material culture
Material culture
In the social sciences, material culture is a term that refers to the relationship between artifacts and social relations. Studying a culture's relationship to materiality is a lens through which social and cultural attitudes can be discussed...
was almost certainly that named by modern archaeologists after two of its most significant sites, Chernyakhov
Cherniakhiv
Cherniakhiv is a inhabited locality in Ukraine and it may stand for:* Cherniakhiv, a town in Cherniakhiv Raion, Zhytomyr Oblast;* Cherniakhiv, a village in Kaharlyk Raion, Kiev Oblast;...
(now Cherniakhiv, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
) and Sântana de Mureş
Sântana de Mures
Sântana de Mureş is a commune in Mureş County, Romania, composed of four villages:- History :It formed part of the Székely Land region of the historical Transylvania province. Until 1918, the village belonged to the Maros-Torda County of the Kingdom of Hungary...
(in modern Romania), but a simple one-to-one equitation is demonstrably mistaken. The overwhelming majority of Chernyakhov settlements were open and unfortified, and they were of varying size. The populations of these villages derived their subsistence from mixed farming, with a high priority being given to the production of cereals, and at the same time, considerable effort was put into animal husbandry
Animal husbandry
Animal husbandry is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising livestock.- History :Animal husbandry has been practiced for thousands of years, since the first domestication of animals....
.
In at least one instance, archeological finds suggest that the old Roman fortifications were being used by the Goths as permanent settlements. One example is the castrum at Pietroasele
Pietroasele
Pietroasele is a commune in Buzău County, Romania, known for its vineyards. The name means "the rockies". The commune is composed of six villages: Câlţeşti, Clondiru de Sus, Dara, Pietroasa Mică, Pietroasele and Şarânga.-History:...
, another such fortification was situated at Tyras
Tyras
Tyras , was an ancient Greek city founded as colony of Miletus, probably about 600 BC, situated some 10 m from the mouth of the Tyras River...
.
Constantine I
Constantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...
(306–337) opened the stone bridge across the Danube between Oescus
Oescus
Oescus, or Palatiolon Palatiolum, was an ancient town in Moesia, northwest of the modern Bulgarian city of Pleven, near the village of Gigen. It is a Daco-Moesian toponym. Ptolemy calls it a Triballian town, but it later became Roman...
(in present-day Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
) and Sucidava
Sucidava
Sucidava is a Dacian and Daco-Roman historical site, situated in Corabia, Romania on the north bank of the Danube...
(now in Romania) linking the empire with Oltenia
Oltenia
Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....
, which was intended as a buffer zone
Buffer zone
A buffer zone is generally a zonal area that lies between two or more other areas , but depending on the type of buffer zone, the reason for it may be to segregate regions or to conjoin them....
. At the same time, the fortress of Daphne
Constantiana Daphne
Daphne was a Byzantine fortification inaugurated, most probably in 327, on the left bank of the Danube, across Transmarisca, in the delta of the Arges river. In 367, emperor Valens crossed the Danube at Daphne using a pontoon bridge....
(in present-day Romania) was erected and linked by means of a large ferry
Ferry
A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
with Transmarisca (now in Bulgaria). Driven away from the Danube, the Goths changed their direction of advance, and around 330 began the increasing infiltration of Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
.
After 332, a succession of religious missions had come to the Gutthiuda; and the Arian
Arianism
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...
mission, which proselytized in Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...
, exerted the greatest influence. In 341 Wulfila was ordained a bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
to the already existing Christian community in Gothic territories
Gothic Christianity
Gothic Christianity refers to the Christian religion of the Goths and sometimes the Gepids, Vandals, and Burgundians, who may have used Wulfila's translation of the Bible into Gothic and shared common doctrines and practices...
. Many of these Christians were descended from Christian Roman prisoners. Wulfila was ultimately expelled with many other Christians after having engaged in missionary work, but Christians still lived north of the Danube and maintained close contacts with those who lived south of the river.
Between 340 and 360, members of barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
tribes were transferred en masse into Dobruja. Among them the Sarmatians, who served in the Roman army, contributed to the barbarizing of the province. They continued to keep their cultural habits intact until the 7th century.
Around 375, the Huns
Huns
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...
attacked the Goths living on the territories east of the river Dniester, or Greuthungi
Greuthungi
The Greuthungs, Greuthungi, or Greutungi were a Gothic people of the Black Sea steppes in the third and fourth centuries. They had close contacts with the Thervingi, another Gothic people from west of the river Dnestr. They may be the same people as the later Ostrogoths.-Etymology:"Greuthungi" may...
. Shortly afterward, the Huns crossed the river, and in the autumn of 376 groups of the Goths, said by contemporaries to number 200,000, were permitted to cross the Danube. The Gothic force was not just an army, but an entire population group with men, women and children, dragging themselves and their possessions around in large wagon train
Wagon train
A wagon train is a group of wagons traveling together. In the American West, individuals traveling across the plains in covered wagons banded together for mutual assistance, as is reflected in numerous films and television programs about the region, such as Audie Murphy's Tumbleweed and Ward Bond...
s.
In the chaos caused by the invasion of nomadic Huns, there began a war of all against all which revealed the weaker position of the non-Thervingians. The expulsion of the Sarmatians of the Caucaland (which was probably located in the Carpathian Mountains along the Olt River
Olt River
The Olt River is a river in Romania. It is the longest river flowing exclusively through Romania. Its source is in the Hăşmaş Mountains of the eastern Carpathian Mountains, near the village Bălan. It flows through the Romanian counties Harghita, Covasna, Braşov, Sibiu, Vâlcea and Olt...
) by the Goths clearly reveals this process of disintegration. In the next 30 years, numerous Gothic groups met varying fates. Some of them delayed conquest, or perhaps avoided it altogether, by establishing themselves in geographically protected ecological niche
Ecological niche
In ecology, a niche is a term describing the relational position of a species or population in its ecosystem to each other; e.g. a dolphin could potentially be in another ecological niche from one that travels in a different pod if the members of these pods utilize significantly different food...
s in Transylvania, but most (if not all) of the Goths who remained north of the Danube ended up under Hunnic control. For example, in the 440s the Gothic group dominated by the Amal family
Amali
The Amali, also called Amals or Amalings, were the leading dynasty of the Goths, a Germanic people who confronted the Roman Empire in its declining years in the west...
and their rivals could muster 10,000 fighting men, and hence had maybe a total population of 50,000. This group would later become the central to the creation of the Ostrogoths.
Archaeological researches suggest that the "Daco-Romans" abandoned all their ancient cities and established new settlements situated in sheltered, hidden places when the nomads' predatory expeditions became increasingly destructive. Such hidden places were not only in mountainous and hilly areas, where too large a population could not be accommodated, but also in forests (since over 70% of Romania’s territory was covered by forests at the time). Thus, the circumstances created by the continuous invasions, caused an "ebb and tide" movement phenomenon of the natives. On the other hand, toponyms imply that neither the mountainous and hilly areas, nor the lowlands of present-day Romania were inhabited by a Latin-speaking population at that time.
The Hun Empire (c. 376/420–469)
Caucasus Mountains
The Caucasus Mountains is a mountain system in Eurasia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus region .The Caucasus Mountains includes:* the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range and* the Lesser Caucasus Mountains....
, where they had been in about 395, to the Great Hungarian Plain
Great Hungarian Plain
The Great Hungarian Plain is a plain occupying the southern and eastern part of Hungary, some parts of the Eastern Slovak Lowland, southwestern Ukraine, the Transcarpathian Lowland , western Romania , northern Serbia , and eastern Croatia...
.
In material civilization, the Huns belonged to the lower stage of pastoralism
Pastoralism
Pastoralism or pastoral farming is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas, and sheep. It may have a mobile aspect, moving the herds in search of fresh pasture and...
, that is the raising of livestock
Livestock
Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...
. The basic unit of Hun society was formed by the five or six persons of one family who lived in one tent
Tent
A tent is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over or attached to a frame of poles or attached to a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using guy ropes tied to stakes or tent pegs...
. There is no reason to believe that the Huns were very numerous, hence some of the subject peoples continued to be ruled directly by their own native kings or chiefs. Under the Huns, companies of the Scirii
Scirii
The Scirii were an East Germanic tribe of Eastern Europe, attested in historical works between the 2nd century BC and 5th century AD.The etymology of their name is unclear...
and Carpians (Carpodacians) were serving in a subordinate position, like the Alans
Alans
The Alans, or the Alani, occasionally termed Alauni or Halani, were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.-Name:The various forms of Alan —...
; and the Huns exploited the agricultural surpluses of their Gothic and other subjects.
The subjection of a variety of peoples, and the eventual restoration of stability in the north Danubian regions, seem to have given rise to the emergence of a unitary ruling dynasty amongst the Huns, and to the Hunnic Empire
Hunnic Empire
The Hunnic Empire was an empire established by the Huns. The Huns were a confederation of Eurasian tribes from the steppes of Central Asia. Appearing from beyond the Volga River some years after the middle of the 4th century, they first overran the Alani, who occupied the plains between the Volga...
itself. From 441 to 453, the history of Europe was dominated by military campaigns on an unprecedented scale—the work of Attila
Attila the Hun
Attila , more frequently referred to as Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire, which stretched from the Ural River to the Rhine River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea. During his reign he was one of the most feared...
. In 448, Attila demanded that a wide belt of country south of the river Danube should be completely evacuated by the Eastern Roman Empire. This strip of land was to stretch from Singidunum
Singidunum
Singidunum is the name for the ancient city in Serbia which became Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It was recorded that a Celtic tribe Scordisci settled the area in the 3rd century BC following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans. The Roman Empire conquered the area in 75 BC and later garrisoned...
(now Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
) to Novae (now Svishtov
Svishtov
Svishtov is a town in northern Bulgaria, located in Veliko Tarnovo Province on the right bank of the Danube river opposite the Romanian town of Zimnicea. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Svishtov Municipality...
, Bulgaria), a distance of some 300 miles (482.8 km), and was to be five days' journey in depth, that is about 110 miles (177 km). Consequently, the Danube, with all its fortifications and great frontier cities, was no longer to be the boundary of the Roman Empire.
Attila died in 453, and his empire collapsed under the competing claims of his sons and the revolt of most of the subject peoples. A confederacy of the latter defeated the Hun army at the Battle of Nedao
Battle of Nedao
The Battle of Nedao, named after the Nedava, a tributary of the Sava, was a battle fought in Pannonia in 454. After the death of Attila the Hun, allied forces of the Germanic subject peoples under the leadership of Ardaric, king of the Gepids, defeated the Hunnic forces of Ellac, the son of Attila,...
in 454, and in the aftermath the Hun dominion disintegrated even more rapidly than it had first been formed. But the Huns did not disappear suddenly from the Carpathian region. In the late 460s Attila's sons were still able to launch attacks into the Roman Empire, and there were still substantial numbers of Goths in their following. Attila's last surviving son, Hernac
Hernac
Hernac, one of the sons of Attila, was a ruler of part of the Huns after the father's death. As part of the disintegration of the Hunnic kingdom he, unlike his brother Dengizich, managed to come to terms with the Roman empire and obtained a new fiefdom in Dobrudja on east Roman soil....
, found asylum in east Roman territory in northern Dobruja in 469.
Gepidia: the land of the Gepids (454–567)
The Gepids first appeared in the Carpathian region in the aftermath of the 3rd century barbarian invasions against the Roman Empire. In 291, they tried in vain to chase out the Goths from the former province Dacia. Afterward, they settled in the area bordered by the rivers TisaTisza
The Tisza or Tisa is one of the main rivers of Central Europe. It rises in Ukraine, and is formed near Rakhiv by the junction of headwaters White Tisa, whose source is in the Chornohora mountains and Black Tisa, which springs in the Gorgany range...
, Someş
Someş River
The river Someş flows through Romania and Hungary.It rises from two headstreams, the Someşul Mare, in the Rodna Mountains in Bistriţa-Năsăud County and the Someşul Mic in the Apuseni Mountains of Cluj County...
and Crasna
Crasna River (Tisza)
The Crasna or Kraszna is the name of a river in northwestern Romania and northeastern Hungary.The Crasna is a tributary of the Tisza River. Its source is in Transylvania, Romania, near the village of Crasna. It flows through the Romanian counties Sălaj and Satu Mare and the Hungarian county...
. Settlement sites suggest that the single farmstead or hamlet
Hamlet (place)
A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...
was widespread. In the Transylvanian hills, earlier hilltop fortifications were occasionally reoccupied by Gepid groups.
Early in the 5th century, the Gepids were subjugated by the Ostrogoths, and in the following decades their warriors were increasingly drawn into service with the Huns. After Attila's death the great rebellion of the Germanic peoples was led and inspired by the Gepid king Ardaric
Ardaric
Ardaric was the most renowned king of the Gepids. He was "famed for his loyalty and wisdom", one of the most trusted adherents of Attila the Hun, who "prized him above all the other chieftains"...
. Following their victory, the Gepids took over part of the former Dacia province where they controlled the salt mine
Salt mine
A salt mine is a mining operation involved in the extraction of rock salt or halite from evaporite deposits.-Occurrence:Areas known for their salt mines include Kilroot near Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland ; Khewra and Warcha in Pakistan; Tuzla in Bosnia; Wieliczka and Bochnia in Poland A salt mine...
district. To secure the Danube frontier in the western Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, Emperor Justinian I
Justinian I
Justinian I ; , ; 483– 13 or 14 November 565), commonly known as Justinian the Great, was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire.One of the most important figures of...
(527–565) relied on three rival groups (Gepids, Lombards
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...
, and Heruls), and imperial political influence was maintained by preventing any one confederacy from establishing a clear domination.
In 567, the Avars
Eurasian Avars
The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars were a highly organized nomadic confederacy of mixed origins. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turko-Mongol groups...
and Lombards combined to destroy the Gepid kingdom that by now, had been centered on Sirmium
Sirmium
Sirmium was a city in ancient Roman Pannonia. Firstly mentioned in the 4th century BC and originally inhabited by the Illyrians and Celts, it was conquered by the Romans in the 1st century BC and subsequently became the capital of the Roman province of Lower Pannonia. In 294 AD, Sirmium was...
(now in Serbia), and the lands occupied by the Gepids passed under Avar control. However, at least some splinters of the Gepid people survived this shock. Archaeological research suggests that they remained in possession of the salt mines in Transylvania until around 630.
The early Slavs (5th–7th centuries)
According to the sixth-century historian, JordanesJordanes
Jordanes, also written Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th century Roman bureaucrat, who turned his hand to history later in life....
some of the participants at Attila's funeral called the ceremonial feast strava, which may have been a Slavic term. However, the presence of Slavs in the Hunnic Empire is undocumented, so the idea that the westward expansion of the Huns was accompanied by arrival of the first Slav-speaking
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
settlers in the Danube region has not been proven. The first written evidence of the appearance of the Slavs
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
refers to raids around 518. The archaeologist Florin Curta suggests that the Sclavenes appear in 6th-century sources as an umbrella term
Umbrella term
An umbrella term is a word that provides a superset or grouping of concepts that all fall under a single common category. Umbrella term is also called a hypernym. For example, cryptology is an umbrella term that encompasses cryptography and cryptanalysis, among other fields...
for a multitude of groups living north of the Danube, which could not be classified as either "Huns" or "Gepids".
The archaeological evidence of the 6th and 7th centuries to the north of the lower Danube indicates a mixture of different elements. Local archaeologists have identified elements which they associate with Avars, Gepids, Slavs, steppe nomads, Romanized indigenous populations and Romans. In the 6th–7th centuries, most, if not all, settlements were occupied only for brief periods, then abandoned and new settlements established nearby. What caused this shifting of hamlets must have been the itinerant form of agriculture practiced by their inhabitants and requiring that lands under cultivation be left fallow after a number of years of cultivation without manuring
Manure
Manure is organic matter used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Manures contribute to the fertility of the soil by adding organic matter and nutrients, such as nitrogen, that are trapped by bacteria in the soil...
.
The Slav raids intensified in frequency and scale from the 530s: hardly a year went by in this period without a major raids of the Slavs sometimes together with other peoples (such as Huns and Kutrigurs
Kutrigurs
The Kutrigurs , first mentioned in 539/540, were a horde of equestrian nomads later known as part of the Bulgars that inhabited the Eurasian plains during the Dark Ages. They came into existence when the Eurasian Avars conquered half of the Hunno-Bulgars, whilst the remaining group, who were free ...
). For the 6th-century authors, who wrote about the Slavic peoples, the Slavic "homeland" was north of the Lower Danube. The arrival of the Avar nomads in the Lower Danubian area in the 560s further disrupted the situation. The Slavic raids of the late 6th century were often associated with Avar raids and attacks against the key points of the Roman system of defense
Limes
A limes was a border defense or delimiting system of Ancient Rome. It marked the boundaries of the Roman Empire.The Latin noun limes had a number of different meanings: a path or balk delimiting fields, a boundary line or marker, any road or path, any channel, such as a stream channel, or any...
. The Balkans were freely overrun by Slavs after 615.
The Slavs are the third element, including the Dacians or other tribes and the Romans, that played a certain part in the configuration of the Romanians
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
' personality. In their relationship with Romanians, the Slavs played the same role as the one played by the Germanic elements in the case of other Romanic peoples. Linguistic studies and double (possibly translated) hydronym
Hydronym
A hydronym is a proper name of a body of water. Hydronymy is the study of hydronyms and of how bodies of water receive their names and how they are transmitted through history...
s suggest that, after the onrush of the Slavs, the center of Danubian Romanity was concentrated in the former "Dacia Trajana" province (Roman Dacia) and the neighboring areas. By that time, the Proto-Romanians had adjusted the old Roman institutions to fit life in rural communities, or villages (in Romanian sate from Latin fossatum) which were led by a village headsman, the chosen "judge" (later called knez
Knyaz
Kniaz, knyaz or knez is a Slavic title found in most Slavic languages, denoting a royal nobility rank. It is usually translated into English as either Prince or less commonly as Duke....
under Slavic influence). On the other hand, local toponymy implies that the ancestors of the Romanians (the Romanized population of the provinces of the Roman Empire to south of the Danube) moved to the mountainous regions of the Balkan Peninsula around 600. Linguistic studies also suggest that the Proto-Romanians were not in close contact with Slavic-speaking populations before the 10th century.
The Avar Khaganate (567–797/803)
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
after 568. A vast array of subject peoples, such as various Slavic and Bulgar
Bulgars
The Bulgars were a semi-nomadic who flourished in the Pontic Steppe and the Volga basin in the 7th century.The Bulgars emerge after the collapse of the Hunnic Empire in the 5th century....
tribes, and the remnants of the Huns, was below the Avars.
Ecological niche
In ecology, a niche is a term describing the relational position of a species or population in its ecosystem to each other; e.g. a dolphin could potentially be in another ecological niche from one that travels in a different pod if the members of these pods utilize significantly different food...
of the steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
, like in the case of the Great Hungarian Plain
Great Hungarian Plain
The Great Hungarian Plain is a plain occupying the southern and eastern part of Hungary, some parts of the Eastern Slovak Lowland, southwestern Ukraine, the Transcarpathian Lowland , western Romania , northern Serbia , and eastern Croatia...
, was controlled by the nomads, and it was surrounded by a zone of Slavic settlements. The Avar Khagan
Khagan
Khagan or qagan , alternatively spelled kagan, khaghan, qaghan, or chagan, is a title of imperial rank in the Mongolian and Turkic languages equal to the status of emperor and someone who rules a khaganate...
ate was politically dominated by the nomads, but economically reliant on the subjugated agriculturists. Early Avar society was based on procuring prestige goods
Luxury good
Luxury goods are products and services that are not considered essential and associated with affluence.The concept of luxury has been present in various forms since the beginning of civilization. Its role was just as important in ancient western and eastern empires as it is in modern societies...
from the Eastern Roman Empire and food supplies from small economic units in the form of either direct production from family lands or tribute from subjugated population groups. More often than not, the Avars chose to move the entire population of a conquered city or territory in the middle of their empire. It seems very likely that the Slav language was one of the main languages spoken as a lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
in at least part of the communication community that was the Avar Khaganate.
In Transylvania, the Avar cemeteries cluster around the salt mines which suggest that the Avars controlled the salt mine district. The salt production implies the existence of a subject sedentary population. The involvement of the Slavs in salt extraction and trade is documented by Romanian and Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s of Slav origin, e.g. both the Romanian and the Hungarian world for 'salt mine' (ocnă and akna respectively) were borrowed from the Slavs. The chronology of spur
Spur
A spur is a metal tool designed to be worn in pairs on the heels of riding boots for the purpose of directing a horse to move forward or laterally while riding. It is usually used to refine the riding aids and to back up the natural aids . The spur is used in every equestrian discipline...
s excavated in Transylvania also suggests the existence of cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
troops. The internally hooked spurs were found in western Slavdom
West Slavs
The West Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking West Slavic languages. They include Poles , Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatian Sorbs and the historical Polabians. The northern or Lechitic group includes, along with Polish, the extinct Polabian and Pomeranian languages...
in a broad zone from the river Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
to the Southern Bug
Southern Bug
The Southern Bug, also called Southern Buh), is a river located in Ukraine. The source of the river is in the west of Ukraine, in the Volyn-Podillia Upland, about 145 km from the Polish border, and flows southeasterly into the Bug Estuary through the southern steppes...
, and as far as the Danube.
Sedentism
In evolutionary anthropology and archaeology, sedentism , is a term applied to the transition from nomadic to permanent, year-round settlement.- Requirements for permanent settlements :...
. The Avar confederacy disintegrated rapidly as a result of internal conflicts and the defeats it suffered in clashes with the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
under Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
during the 790s. Having lost their western territories to the Franks, the Avars became at war with Krum, ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire
First Bulgarian Empire
The First Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state founded in the north-eastern Balkans in c. 680 by the Bulgars, uniting with seven South Slavic tribes...
, who defeated them.
Bulgars before baptism (632–864)
From the late 5th century, the Bulgars, a nomadic Turkic-speakingTurkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
people, had been living in scattered tribes north of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov
Sea of Azov
The Sea of Azov , known in Classical Antiquity as Lake Maeotis, is a sea on the south of Eastern Europe. It is linked by the narrow Strait of Kerch to the Black Sea to the south and is bounded on the north by Ukraine mainland, on the east by Russia, and on the west by the Ukraine's Crimean...
and along the Lower Don
Don River (Russia)
The Don River is one of the major rivers of Russia. It rises in the town of Novomoskovsk 60 kilometres southeast from Tula, southeast of Moscow, and flows for a distance of about 1,950 kilometres to the Sea of Azov....
. The group of the Bulgars that was led by Asparukh
Asparukh of Bulgaria
Asparuh was ruler of a Bulgar tribe in the second half of the 7th century and is credited with the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire in 680/681...
moved into what is now Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
(in the Republic of Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
), and then in the 670s crossed the Danube. Asparukh conquered the Slavic tribes there and eventually established the First Bulgarian Empire, which was centered in the northeast of present-day Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
and stretched along both sides of the Lower Danube.
After the invasion of Asparukh's Bulgaria on the left of the Danube, no important invasions were recorded for almost two centuries. During the period of the evolution of the Dridu culture, which ranged from the 8th to 11th centuries, the Lower Danube Plain area experienced a steady demographic growth, which distinguishes this period from both previous and subsequent centuries.
A powerful state was created by Krum after his 805 defeat of the Avar Khaganate, but all the surviving information about subsequent Avar–Bulgar relations refers to Avars joining the Bulgars, not to Bulgars conquering Avar territories. A Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
inscription on a stone column erected by Khagan Omurtag of Bulgaria
Omurtag of Bulgaria
Omurtag was a Great Khan of Bulgaria from 814 to 831. He is known as "the Builder".In the very beginning of his reign he signed a 30-year peace treaty with the neighboring Eastern Roman Empire which remained in force to the end of his life...
mentions the organizing of an expedition which reached the Dnieper River
Dnieper River
The Dnieper River is one of the major rivers of Europe that flows from Russia, through Belarus and Ukraine, to the Black Sea.The total length is and has a drainage basin of .The river is noted for its dams and hydroelectric stations...
. Another column bears an inscription mentioning an expedition on the river Tisa.
Contemporary sources suggest a Bulgar control of the salt-mine district of Transylvania. The Annals of Fulda narrates that, in 892, the Carolingian king Arnulf
Arnulf of Carinthia
Arnulf of Carinthia was the Carolingian King of East Francia from 887, the disputed King of Italy from 894 and the disputed Holy Roman Emperor from February 22, 896 until his death.-Birth and Illegitimacy:...
demanded from the Bulgars that they not permit any more selling of salt westward, to Great Moravia
Great Moravia
Great Moravia was a Slavic state that existed in Central Europe and lasted for nearly seventy years in the 9th century whose creators were the ancestors of the Czechs and Slovaks. It was a vassal state of the Germanic Frankish kingdom and paid an annual tribute to it. There is some controversy as...
. Because there were no salt mines in Bulgaria, a justified conclusion could be drawn that the salt sold to Moravia came from Transylvania. On the other hand, in order to hinder the selling of the salt, the Bulgarians would not have to watch the salt mines in Transylvania, but only the commercial routes across the Tisa valley. Presumably Bulgar burial assemblages have also been found in southern Transylvania; the earliest of them have been dated to the 9th and early 10th century. The Bulgarian control never expanded into northwestern Transylvania.
Banat, Crişana, and Transylvania on the eve of the Magyar Conquest (9th century)
Vlachs
Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...
) north of the Danube were recorded in two different sources written in the 12th–13th centuries, for which the possibility of interference was impossible, but their interpretation is still subject to debate among scholars.
The Russian Primary Chronicle
Primary Chronicle
The Primary Chronicle , Ruthenian Primary Chronicle or Russian Primary Chronicle, is a history of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110, originally compiled in Kiev about 1113.- Three editions :...
, written in the 1110s, mentions that the Slavs had been the first inhabitants of the Carpathian Basin before the Volochs conquered the territory. Afterwards, as the chronicle narrates under the year 898, the Volochs were driven out by the Magyars who settled among the Slavs and subjugated them. Scholars who think that the territory of present-day Romania was inhabited by Romanians when the Magyars invaded the territory suggest that the Volochs are identical to the Romanians (Vlachs). Their opponents think that the Volochs can rather be identified as Eastern Franks who had occupied the western parts of the Carpathian Basin and the Magyar Conquest put an end to their rule.
The Gesta Hungarorum
Gesta Hungarorum
Gesta Hungarorum is a record of early Hungarian history by an unknown author who describes himself as Anonymi Bele Regis Notarii , but is generally cited as Anonymus...
is the earliest surviving chronicle of Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, and was written around 1200. Nothing indicates that its author had any reason to forge anything, and thus treating the Gesta as a forgery is a mistake. On the other hand, nothing proves that its author had factual knowledge of the real conditions of the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. The Gesta narrates that the Magyars, when invaded the Carpathian Basin at the end of the 9th century, came across three knezdoms or voivodeships.
- Thus, according to the Gesta, there was the voivodeship of MenumorutMenumorutFor the residential district named after him, see Menumorut, Satu MareMenumorut or Menumorout ruled, according to the 13th century Gesta Ungarorum , the land between the rivers Tisa, Mureş and Someş when the Magyars invaded the Carpathian Basin around 895...
in CrişanaCrisanaCrișana is a geographical and historical region divided today between Romania and Hungary, named after the Criș River and its three tributaries: the Crișul Alb, Crișul Negru and Crișul Repede....
with its center at the Bihor fortressBihariaBiharia is a commune in Bihor County, northwestern Romania. It is composed of two villages, Biharia and Cauaceu . In 2002 it had 5,870 inhabitants, of whom 85.87% were Hungarians, 12.12% Romanians and 1.73% Roma.-History:...
. Menumorut is described to have been the vassal of the emperor of Byzantium. - The BanatBanatThe Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania , the western part in northeastern Serbia , and a small...
area was ruled by voivode GladGlad (duke)Glad was a duke of Bulgarian origin who, according to the 13th-century chronicle Gesta Ungarorum "", ruled in the territory of modern Banat at the time of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin around 896...
, who owned strong fortresses in OrşovaOrsovaOrșova is a port city on the Danube river in southwestern Romania's Mehedinți County. It is one of four localities in the county located in the Banat historical region. It is situated just above the Iron Gates, on the spot where the Cerna River meets the Danube.- History :The first documented...
(today in Romania), and in KovinKovinKovin is a town and municipality in South Banat District of Vojvodina, Serbia. The town has a population of 14,250, while the municipality has 36,802 inhabitants.- Name :...
and Horom (today in SerbiaSerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
). His army, according to the Gesta, was supported by CumansCumansThe Cumans were Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After Mongol invasion , they decided to seek asylum in Hungary, and subsequently to Bulgaria...
, Bulgarians and Romanians, but the Cumani may be a name used in lieu of Pechenegs by the chronicler. - The third voivodeship mentioned in the Gesta was situated in Transylvania. According to the Gesta, it was inhabited by Romanians and Slavs with GelouGelouGelou or Gelu was a Romanian duke mentioned in Gesta Hungarorum as having opposed the conquest of Transylvania by Tuhutum, one of the “seven dukes” of the Magyars. His story was recorded only by the anonymous writer of the 13th century Gesta...
, "a certain Romanian" having the supreme authority over them. The inhabitants of Gelou's voivodeship are described to be poor, suffering greatly because of the attacks of the Pechenegs and the Cumans from the east.
Scholars who accept the narration of the Gesta Hungarorum assume that as early as the 8h and the 9th centuries, some of the Romanian knezes had already become village owners, and some even managed to possess all the villages (15–20) on the valley of a river or in a depression
Depression (geology)
A depression in geology is a landform sunken or depressed below the surrounding area. Depressions may be formed by various mechanisms.Structural or tectonic related:...
. These landholders were considered "nobles" (in Romanian boieri
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
, adopted from Slav
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
). For defensive needs, several knezdoms would gather together under the rule of a more powerful knez with military skills, called voievod or vodă in Romanian (this term was also adopted from Slav).
The Magyars (c. 839–c. 1028)
The first written record specifically and without doubt referring to the Magyars is a Byzantine account from 839. They quickly established a firm control over the entire steppeSteppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
corridor between the river Don and the Lower Danube. As described in late 9th century Muslim
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
sources, for the winter they withdrew to dwellings in river valleys, especially at river mouths: these were the sites of permanent settlements or villages.
Having been defeated by the Pechenegs and the Bulgarians around 895, the Magyars moved into the Middle Danube region via the mountain passes of the eastern Beskids
Beskids
The Beskids , ) is a traditional name for a series of Eastern European mountain ranges.- Definition :The Beskids are approximately 600 km in length and 50–70 km in width...
. No evidence exists of Magyars crossing the Eastern Carpathians into Transylvania, or even moving from the Middle Danube region into Transylvania before the middle of the 10th century. The eight archaeological sites that are attributed to the Magyar conquerors are mainly men’s graves with strong military character, and they all are situated in western Transylvania, for example at Cluj
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
, Gâmbaş
Aiud
Aiud is a city located in Alba county, Transylvania, Romania. The city has a population of 28,934 people. It has the status of municipality and is the second-largest city in the county, after county seat Alba Iulia. The Aiud administrative region is 142.2 square kilometres in area.- Administration...
, and Deva
Deva, Romania
Deva is a city in Romania, in the historical region of Transylvania, on the left bank of the Mureș River. It is the capital of Hunedoara County.-Name:...
. Until the mid 10th century, the Magyars were under constant threat of Pecheneg attack; therefore, they built a double defensive line on both the western and eastern side of the Apuseni Mountains
Apuseni Mountains
The Apuseni Mountains is a mountain range in Transylvania, Romania, which belongs to the Western Carpathians, also called Occidentali in Romanian. Their name translates from Romanian as Mountains "of the sunset" i.e. "western". The highest peak is "Cucurbăta Mare" - 1849 metres, also called Bihor...
and the Banat Mountains
Banat Mountains
The Banat Mountains are a number of mountain ranges in Romania, considered part of the Western Romanian Carpathians group.The Banat Mountains consist of:* the Banat Mountains per se, which include:...
. Anything east of the double defensive line as far as the dwelling area of the Pechenegs was considered a marcher region
Marches
A march or mark refers to a border region similar to a frontier, such as the Welsh Marches, the borderland between England and Wales. During the Frankish Carolingian Dynasty, the word spread throughout Europe....
. Place names adopted by the Magyars in Transylvania suggest that the region had been inhabited by people mostly of Slavic tongue before the Magyars settled there.
Around 950, one of the Magyar tribal leaders, who held the title of gyula, visited Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
, was baptized and received the Stephen
Gyula II
Gyula II was a Hungarian tribal leader in the middle of the 10th century. He visited Constantinople where he was baptized. His baptismal name was Stephen .- Life :...
name. He was also given a bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
named Hierotheos who accompanied him back to Tourkia (that is, to Hungary). His dwelling area was to be sought around the region bordered by the rivers Timiş
Timis River
The Timiş or Tamiš is a 359 km long river originating from Țarcu Mountains , southern Carpathian Mountains, Caraş-Severin County, Romania. It flows through the Banat region and flows into the Danube near Pančevo, in northern Serbia....
, Mureş, Criş
Körös River
Körös is the name of a 195 km long river in eastern Hungary. It is formed at the confluence of the rivers Fehér-Körös and Fekete-Körös near Gyula. The Sebes-Körös flows into the Körös near Gyomaendrőd...
and Tisa.
The disastrous defeat of the Magyar forces in the Battle of Lechfeld
Battle of Lechfeld
The Battle of Lechfeld , often seen as the defining event for holding off the incursions of the Hungarians into Western Europe, was a decisive victory by Otto I the Great, King of the Germans, over the Hungarian leaders, the harka Bulcsú and the chieftains Lél and Súr...
(955) put an end to the raids in the West. Their campaigns to the south came to an end in 970, when the Magyar forces were defeated in the Battle of Arcadiopolis. After 970, the free nomads were locked into the tight "prison" of the Carpathian Basin. Some of them migrated away and thus they expanded the boundaries of the Magyar dwelling area and reached regions in which they could not continue living as nomads. Written sources do not provide any information about how this happened, in which direction it took place, but the earliest layer of Hungarian toponyms suggest that as part of the settling process Transylvania also received a new Magyar population. In the 980s–990s, the gyula and his family also transferred their seat to Transylvania.
After 1002, a chieftain named Ahtum
Ahtum
Ahtum, also Achtum or Ajtony , was a local ruler in the region of Banat in the first decades of the 11th century. King Saint Stephen I of Hungary sent Csanád - one of Ahtum’s former retainers - to fight against him...
, who had been ruling over the Banat, was baptized in the Orthodox faith
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
in Vidin
Vidin
Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Serbia and Romania, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as of the Metropolitan of Vidin...
(now in Bulgaria). His base of power was in Morisena (now Cenad
Cenad
Cenad is a commune in Timiş County, Banat, Romania. It is composed of a single village, Cenad.-Demography:...
, Romania) where Ahtum established a monastery which he populated with Greek monks. His power was based on considerable resources, mainly cattle and horses, but he also controlled traffic along the river Mureş and taxed transports of salt from Transylvania.
First Bulgarian Empire after baptism (864–1018)
In 864, the ruler of Bulgaria, Boris IBoris I of Bulgaria
Boris I, also known as Boris-Mihail and Bogoris was the Knyaz of First Bulgarian Empire in 852–889. At the time of his baptism in 864, Boris was named Michael after his godfather, Emperor Michael III...
(852–889) was baptized and he also allowed the Byzantine (Eastern Orthodox) clergy to enter Bulgaria and begin their missionary work
Christianization of Bulgaria
The Christianization of Bulgaria was the process by which 9th-century medieval Bulgaria converted to Christianity. It was influenced by the khan's shifting political alliances with the kingdom of the East Franks and the Byzantine Empire, as well as his reception by the Pope of the Roman Catholic...
. In 893 a council declared Christianity a state religion
State religion
A state religion is a religious body or creed officially endorsed by the state...
and turned Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
into the official language of Church and State. The ancestors of the Romanians also followed the Old Slavonic rite.
In 971, the Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimiskes
John I Tzimiskes
John I Tzimiskes or Tzimisces, was Byzantine Emperor from December 11, 969 to January 10, 976. A brilliant and intuitive general, John's short reign saw the expansion of the empire's borders and the strengthening of Byzantium itself.- Background :...
(969–976) marched against the Rus' people
Rus' (people)
The Rus' were a group of Varangians . According to the Primary Chronicle of Rus, compiled in about 1113 AD, the Rus had relocated from the Baltic region , first to Northeastern Europe, creating an early polity which finally came under the leadership of Rurik...
who had seized the Bulgarian capital
Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria
Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria refers to a conflict beginning in 967/968 and ending in 971, carried out in the eastern Balkans and involving the Kievan Rus', Bulgaria, and the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines instigated the Rus' ruler Sviatoslav to attack Bulgaria, leading to the collapse of the...
of Preslav
Preslav
Preslav was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire from 893 to 972 and one of the most important cities of medieval Southeastern Europe. The ruins of the city are situated in modern northeastern Bulgaria, some 20 kilometres southwest of the regional capital of Shumen, and are currently a...
, and defeated them. The emperor forced Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
Boris II of Bulgaria
Boris II of Bulgaria
Boris II was emperor of Bulgaria from 969 to 977 .-Reign:Boris II was the eldest surviving son of Emperor Peter I of Bulgaria and Maria Lakapena, a granddaughter of Emperor Romanos I Lakapenos of Byzantium...
(969–971) to abdicate and annexed most of Bulgaria outright advancing the frontier to the Lower Danube for the first time since the early 7th century. Although, Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria (997–1014) could restore the Bulgarian Empire for a while, but by 1018 the whole territory of Bulgaria had been occupied by the Byzantines.
From 1020, the jurisdiction of the archbishopric of Ohrid
Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid
The Archbishopric of Ochrid was an autonomous Orthodox Church under the tutelage of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople between 1019 and 1767...
(now in the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
) expanded over the Romanians within the Byzantine Empire.
Patzinakia: the land of the Pechenegs (c. 895–1121)
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
Simeon I of Bulgaria
Simeon I of Bulgaria
Simeon I the Great ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern Europe...
(893–927) against the Magyars. The Pechenegs fell upon the latter who, wedged between two hostile forces, immediately looked for a new home further west.
The land of the Pechenegs was divided into eight "provinces" (most likely the territories of the leading clan
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
s), and the entire steppe corridor between the Danube and the Dnieper rivers was under their control. The Pecheneg economy was predominantly pastoral. In permanent need of agricultural produce, the Pechenegs had no reason to destroy the local network of rural settlements that had flourished in the 9th century under the protection of the First Bulgarian Empire. Most settlements in the region between the rivers Danube and Dniester continued to be occupied after 900 and no significant changes in material culture have been noted that could be attributed to the defeat of the Magyars and the subsequent Pecheneg migration. The Primary Chronicle points out that the Ulichians and the Tivertsi
Tivertsi
Tivertsi, a.k.a. Tivertsy, Tiverians is a tribe of early East Slavs which lived in the lands near the Dniester, and probably the lower Danube, that is in modern-day western Ukraine and Moldova and possibly in eastern Romania and southern Odessa oblast of Ukraine...
ans settled on the Dniester River, spreading up to the Danube.
In 1018, the Pechenegs were allies of Grand Prince Sviatopolk I of Kiev
Sviatopolk I of Kiev
Sviatopolk I Vladimirovich was the Kniaz' of Turov and Velikii Kniaz of Kiev whose paternity and guilt in the murder of brothers are disputed.-Early life:Sviatopolk's mother was a Greek nun captured by Sviatoslav I in Bulgaria and married to his lawful heir...
(1015–1019) against his brother, Grand Prince Yaroslav I the Wise
Yaroslav I the Wise
Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Rus, known as Yaroslav the Wise Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Rus, known as Yaroslav the Wise Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Rus, known as Yaroslav the Wise (Old Norse: Jarizleifr; ; Old East Slavic and Russian: Ярослав Мудрый; Ukrainian: Ярослав Мудрий; c...
(1019–1054). The unknown author of an early 13th-century biography of St. Olaf of Norway
Olaf II of Norway
Olaf II Haraldsson was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028. He was posthumously given the title Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae and canonised in Nidaros by Bishop Grimkell, one year after his death in the Battle of Stiklestad on 29 July 1030. Enshrined in Nidaros Cathedral...
also mentions Blókumenn among Sviatopolk’s allies. Similarly, the inscription of an 11th-century runestone commemorates a merchant who was traveling to Constantinople and was killed by Blakumen. The traditional interpretation of the ethnonym
Ethnonym
An ethnonym is the name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms and autonyms or endonyms .As an example, the ethnonym for...
Blakumen is Vlach. In this case, the Vlachs, that is the early Romanians, were clearly north, not south of the river Danube at that time, although the exact region cannot be established with any precision. On the other hand, the ethnonym is also interpreted as "black men".
It is perhaps during this period of time that most, albeit not all, sites south and east of the Carpathian Mountains were deserted. By 1050, the sites that had flourished during the 10th century had already been abandoned.
In 1087, the Pechenegs invaded Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, where at last they were put to flight, but Emperor Alexios I Komnenos
Alexios I Komnenos
Alexios I Komnenos, Latinized as Alexius I Comnenus , was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118, and although he was not the founder of the Komnenian dynasty, it was during his reign that the Komnenos family came to full power. The title 'Nobilissimus' was given to senior army commanders,...
(1081–1118) made the mistake of pursuing them, and was beaten at Silistra
Silistra
Silistra is a port city of northeastern Bulgaria, lying on the southern bank of the lower Danube at the country's border with Romania. Silistra is the administrative centre of Silistra Province and one of the important cities of the historical region of Southern Dobrudzha...
. The Empire was saved by the arrival of another Turkic horde, the Kipchaks
Kipchaks
Kipchaks were a Turkic tribal confederation...
(Cumans
Cumans
The Cumans were Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After Mongol invasion , they decided to seek asylum in Hungary, and subsequently to Bulgaria...
) who emerged from the Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n steppe behind the Pechenegs and defeated them on the Danube. On April 29, 1091, the combined Byzantine and Cuman forces crushed the Pecheneg army at Mount Levunion
Battle of Levounion
The Battle of Levounion was the first decisive Byzantine victory of the Komnenian restoration. On April 29, 1091, an invading force of Pechenegs was heavily defeated by the combined forces of the Byzantine Empire under Alexios I Komnenos and his Cuman allies....
and decimated them. The remnants of the Pechenegs made a fresh attempt which was confined to Bulgaria in 1121, but they were surprised and massacred by Emperor John II Komnenos
John II Komnenos
John II Komnenos was Byzantine Emperor from 1118 to 1143. Also known as Kaloïōannēs , he was the eldest son of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina...
(1118–1143).
Banat, Crişana, Maramureş, and Transylvania (c. 1000–1241)
In 997, the new Grand Prince of the MagyarsGrand Prince of the Magyars
Grand Prince was the title used by contemporary sources to name the leader of the federation of the Hungarian tribes in the tenth century.-The title:...
, Stephen, defeated the army of his rebellious kinsman, Koppány
Koppány
Koppány was a Hungarian nobleman of the tenth century. Brother of the ruling prince of Hungary, Géza of the Árpád dynasty, Koppány ruled as Prince of Somogy in the region south of Lake Balaton...
who died in the battle. Koppány's corpse was quartered and its parts were pinned to the gates of four castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
s, among them to the gates of Bălgrad (now Alba Iulia
Alba Iulia
Alba Iulia is a city in Alba County, Transylvania, Romania with a population of 66,747, located on the Mureş River. Since the High Middle Ages, the city has been the seat of Transylvania's Roman Catholic diocese. Between 1541 and 1690 it was the capital of the Principality of Transylvania...
, Romania) which was the seat of Stephen's maternal uncle, Gyula
Gyula III
Gyula III, also Gyula the Younger, Geula or Gyla, was an early medieval ruler who apparently ruled in Transylvania . His actual name was probably Prokui, yet Prokui cannot possibly be the same as Gyula. Around 1003, he and his family were attacked, dispossessed and captured by King Stephen I of...
.
At Christmas of the year 1000 or on New Year's Day in 1001, Stephen was crowned the first King of Hungary
King of Hungary
The King of Hungary was the head of state of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 to 1918.The style of title "Apostolic King" was confirmed by Pope Clement XIII in 1758 and used afterwards by all the Kings of Hungary, so after this date the kings are referred to as "Apostolic King of...
, but he still had to defeat the chiefs of the tribal states one after another in order to rule the entire country. Stephen started it with his greatest rival, his uncle, Gyula and occupied his territory in 1003. Ahtum, who had been ruling over the Banat, also found himself in conflict with the king when he taxed transports of salt from Transylvania to the Hungarian Kingdom
Kingdom of Hungary in the Middle Ages
The Kingdom of Hungary was formed from the previous Principality of Hungarywith the coronation of Stephen I in AD 1000. This was a result of the conversion of Géza of Hungary to the Western Church in the 970s....
's heartland of Pannonia
Pannonia
Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
. One of Ahtum's retainers, Csanád
Csanád
Csanád is the name of a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is presently in western Romania and southeastern Hungary. The capital of the county was Makó.-Geography:...
, fled to the Hungarian king, only to return at the head of a large army, with which he eventually defeated and killed Ahtum in the king’s name.
Diocese
A diocese is the district or see under the supervision of a bishop. It is divided into parishes.An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese. An archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or had importance due to size or historical significance...
s with two archbishops at their head in the entire Kingdom of Hungary. On the territory of present-day Romania, the bishops of Bihor
Roman Catholic Diocese of Oradea Mare
The Diocese of Oradea is a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical territory in Romania, with the episcopal see in the city of Oradea. It covers most of Crişana—the counties of Bihor and Arad, 10.5% of which are Catholic. Its adherents are predominantly Hungarian. It is subordinate to the Bucharest...
, Cenad
Roman Catholic Diocese of Szeged–Csanád
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Szeged–Csanád is a diocese located in the cities of Szeged and Csanád in the Ecclesiastical province of Kalocsa-Kecskemét in Hungary.-History:* 1035: Established as Diocese of Csanád...
and Transylvania
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Alba Iulia
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Alba Iulia is an archdiocese in Transylvania, Romania. It was established as the Diocese of Transylvania in 1009 by Stephen I of Hungary and was renamed as the Diocese of Alba Iulia on 22 March 1932...
became the suffragans of the archbishop of Kalocsa
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kalocsa-Kecskemét
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kalocsa–Kecskemét is an Archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary. Since 1993, its official name is Archdiocese of Kalocsa-Kecskemét. The diocese is the metropolitan of the Diocese of Pécs and the Diocese of Szeged-Csanád. The patron...
(now in Hungary). Although no data of medieval charter
Charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified...
s alludes to the establishment of the Bishopric of Transylvania, it must have happened shortly after 1003, but its first bishop is included among the prelates in a charter of 1075. The diocese was dedicated to Saint Michael
Michael (archangel)
Michael , Micha'el or Mîkhā'ēl; , Mikhaḗl; or Míchaël; , Mīkhā'īl) is an archangel in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic teachings. Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans refer to him as Saint Michael the Archangel and also simply as Saint Michael...
whose cult was especially strong in the territory of the Byzantine church which suggests that a bishopric of Latin rite
Latin liturgical rites
Latin liturgical rites used within that area of the Catholic Church where the Latin language once dominated were for many centuries no less numerous than the liturgical rites of the Eastern autonomous particular Churches. Their number is now much reduced...
succeeded the missionary bishopric of Byzantine rite
Byzantine Rite
The Byzantine Rite, sometimes called the Rite of Constantinople or Constantinopolitan Rite is the liturgical rite used currently by all the Eastern Orthodox Churches, by the Greek Catholic Churches , and by the Protestant Ukrainian Lutheran Church...
that had been set up when the gyula was baptized in Constantinople around 950. In Ahtum's former "kingdom", a Venetian
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
monk named Gerald
Gerard Sagredo
Saint Gerard Sagredo , also called Gerhard or Gellert, was an Italian bishop from Venice who operated in the Kingdom of Hungary , and educated Saint Emeric of Hungary, the son of Saint Stephen of Hungary). He played a major role in converting Hungary to Christianity...
began a mission of Christianization of the entire region. He became Bishop of Cenad in 1030. From about 1100, the diocese of Bihor was named after its new seat, Oradea
Oradea
Oradea is the capital city of Bihor County, in the Crișana region of north-western Romania. The city has a population of 204,477, according to the 2009 estimates. The wider Oradea metropolitan area has a total population of 245,832.-Geography:...
.
Where King Stephen I enjoyed an effective authority, counties
Comitatus (Kingdom of Hungary)
A county is the name of a type of administrative units in the Kingdom of Hungary and in Hungary from the 10th century until the present day....
and castle districts appeared together with bishoprics; the county was an independent administrative institution based entirely on territory—as opposed to this, the castle districts included only the king’s properties. In Transylvania, already at least five castle districts or counties had been established before the mid 11th century: Dăbâca
Dabâca, Cluj
Dăbâca is a commune in Cluj County, Romania. It is composed of three villages: Dăbâca, Luna de Jos and Pâglişa.- Demographics :According to the census from 2002 there was a total population of 1,804 people living in this town. Of this population, 87.91% are ethnic Romanians, 7.53% are ethnic...
, Cluj, Turda
Turda
Turda is a city and Municipality in Cluj County, Romania, situated on the Arieş River.- Ancient times :The city was founded by Dacians under the name Patavissa or Potaissa...
, Hunedoara
Hunedoara
Hunedoara is a city in Hunedoara County, Transylvania, Romania. It is located in southeastern Transylvania near the Poiana Ruscă Mountains, and administers five villages: Boş, Groş, Hăşdat, Peştişu Mare and Răcăştia....
, and Bălgrad. To denote the head of the royal governor of a county, the word ispán (equivalent of the southern Slav
South Slavic languages
The South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers...
župan
Zupan
Żupan was a long garment, always lined, worn by almost all males of the noble social class in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, typical male attire from the beginning of the 16th to half of the 18th century, still surviving as a part of the Polishnational dress.- Derivation :The name żupan has...
) was used.
The Kingdom of Hungary had to defend itself against foreign incursions. For example, the Pechenegs and the Oghuz
Oghuz Turks
The Turkomen also known as Oghuz Turks were a historical Turkic tribal confederation in Central Asia during the early medieval Turkic expansion....
invaded the country in 1068 and 1085, and its eastern part faced a Cuman attack in 1091. The Hungarian state had by 1200 established its frontiers firmly on the Carpathian Mountains.
The settlement process of Transylvania proceeded in the 11th–12th centuries. The settlement area expanded from the northwest and west to south and east, respectively, during the 12th century. Toponyms suggest that Hungarian settlement was directed primarily toward northern Transylvania throughout the 11th century, and the regions along and south of the Mureş River
Mures River
The Mureș is an approximately 761 km long river in Eastern Europe. It originates in the Hășmașu Mare Range in the Eastern Carpathian Mountains, Romania, and joins the Tisza river at Szeged in southeastern Hungary....
also acquired considerable Hungarian population after the early 12th century.
Written sources, dating from before the mid 12th century, announce that "guest" settlers from Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
also moved into Transylvania. The earliest settlers may have been Flemings
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
or Walloons
Walloons
Walloons are a French-speaking people who live in Belgium, principally in Wallonia. Walloons are a distinctive community within Belgium, important historical and anthropological criteria bind Walloons to the French people. More generally, the term also refers to the inhabitants of the Walloon...
. During the reign of King Géza II
Géza II of Hungary
Géza II , , King of Hungary, King of Croatia, Dalmatia and Rama . He ascended the throne as a child and during his minority the kingdom was governed by his mother and uncle...
(1141–1162), groups of settlers, larger than the ones before, arrived in Transylvania. The legate of the Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
mentioned between 1191 and 1196 that King Géza II had granted desolate lands to the Flemish arrivals. "Saxons" as a generic name for the "guests" was not established before 1206, and the emerging Transylvanian "Saxon"
Transylvanian Saxons
The Transylvanian Saxons are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania from the 12th century onwards.The colonization of Transylvania by Germans was begun by King Géza II of Hungary . For decades, the main task of the German settlers was to defend the southeastern border of the...
community played an important role in the life of Hungary. According to the income register of King Béla III
Béla III of Hungary
Béla III was King of Hungary and Croatia . He was educated in the court of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I who was planning to ensure his succession in the Byzantine Empire till the birth of his own son...
(1172–1196) from around 1195, their taxes made up 9% of royal revenues. In 1224, King Andrew II
Andrew II of Hungary
Andrew II the Jerosolimitan was King of Hungary and Croatia . He was the younger son of King Béla III of Hungary, who invested him with the government of the Principality of Halych...
(1205–1235) spelled out the privileges of the German "guests" in a charter later referred to as the Andreanum; thus all of the "Saxons" were placed under a single authority, that of the count of Sibiu
Sibiu
Sibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt...
(in German, Hermannstadt).
Documents from the 13th and 14th centuries suggest that the Székely
Székely
The Székelys or Székely , sometimes also referred to as Szeklers , are a subgroup of the Hungarian people living mostly in the Székely Land, an ethno-cultural region in eastern Transylvania, Romania...
must have been on frontier defense duty at the western and eastern borders of the Hungarian dwelling area. The first Székely groups left for the east by the early 12th century. The name of the seven original Székely groups and toponyms imply that they had lived in Bihor and in Southern Transylvania before they settled in the Székely Land
Székely Land
The Székely Land or Szekler Land refers to the territories inhabited mainly by the Székely, a Hungarian-speaking ethnic group from eastern Transylvania...
(in Hungarian, Székelyföld) in Eastern Transylvania. By 1228, the title of Count of the Székely had been in use which indicates that King Andrew II appointed an official to lead them. The Székely were a well organized community of warriors living off cattle breeding; they served as light horsemen
Light cavalry
Light cavalry refers to lightly armed and lightly armored troops mounted on horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry, where the riders are heavily armored...
in the royal army and throughout the centuries preserved elements of nomadic warfare.
Cârta Monastery
Cârţa Monastery is a former Cistercian monastery in the Ţara Făgăraşului region in southern Transylvania in Romania, currently a Lutheran Evangelical church belonging to the local Saxon community...
. The abbey was established around 1207 and its estates were carved out of the "land of the Vlachs". A Vlach presence on the southern frontier of Transylvania clearly antedates the arrival of the Cistercians. This is substantiated by the hoard of silver found in Cârţişoara
Cârtisoara
Cârţişoara is a commune in Sibiu County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of a single village, Cârţişoara....
which also contained a Byzantine gold coin
Byzantine coinage
Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: the gold solidus and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins...
struck for the Emperor John II Komnenos
John II Komnenos
John II Komnenos was Byzantine Emperor from 1118 to 1143. Also known as Kaloïōannēs , he was the eldest son of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina...
. This land, later called Făgăraş
Fagaras
Făgăraș is a city in central Romania, located in Braşov County . Another source of the name is alleged to derive from the Hungarian language word for "partridge" . A more plausible explanation is that the name is given by Fogaras river coming from the Pecheneg "Fagar šu", which means ash water...
, was to remain until the end of the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
as a separate Romanian district, not melting into the Saxon lands nor becoming a county of Transylvania. Around 1210, Romanians fought in Bulgaria in the army of the Count of Sibiu together with Saxons, Székely and Pechenegs. In 1224, the Andreanum entitled the Transylvanian Saxons to use the forests and waters granted to the Romanians and the Pechenegs.
The count of Bălgrad appeared in variety of ways in Latin (tribunus, princeps, comes) in the 11th and 12th centuries. After 1199, the count of Bălgrad had the title voivode and by that time, he had managed to secure the rule for himself in several Northern Transylvanian counties. The voivode became the chief officer of the king in Transylvania. He was appointed by the king who could revoke the appointment and delegate the office to someone else in sign of his favor. During the 89 years between 1199 and 1288, the office of the voivode changed holders 43 times.
Before the middle of the 13th century, Transylvania was dominated by the king’s men known to contemporary sources as "castle warriors" (in Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...
documents, iobagiones castri), a social group associated with the increasing number of royal castles. However, even the relatively independent "castle warriors" were high-placed subjects within the manorial system. In contrast with them, the "royal servants" (servientes regni) were independent landholders, small or great, and possessed subjects, few or many.
In 1233, the Hungarian troops crossed the Danube into Wallachia, where they occupied the Severin
Drobeta-Turnu Severin
Drobeta-Turnu Severin is a city in Mehedinţi County, Oltenia, Romania, on the left bank of the Danube, below the Iron Gates.The city administers three villages: Dudaşu Schelei, Gura Văii, and Schela Cladovei...
region, creating a special banate
Ban (title)
Ban was a title used in several states in central and south-eastern Europe between the 7th century and the 20th century.-Etymology:The word ban has entered the English language probably as a borrowing from South Slavic ban, meaning "lord, master; ruler". The Slavic word is probably borrowed from...
there. The banate of Severin, which incorporated the entire region of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
up to Olt River
Olt River
The Olt River is a river in Romania. It is the longest river flowing exclusively through Romania. Its source is in the Hăşmaş Mountains of the eastern Carpathian Mountains, near the village Bălan. It flows through the Romanian counties Harghita, Covasna, Braşov, Sibiu, Vâlcea and Olt...
, included the territories of several Vlach chieftains (knez
Knyaz
Kniaz, knyaz or knez is a Slavic title found in most Slavic languages, denoting a royal nobility rank. It is usually translated into English as either Prince or less commonly as Duke....
es). The knezes and their followers were obliged to provide tribute in kind to support the banate, and also to assist as warriors in the defense of the territory.
Cumania: the land of the Cumans (1065–1241)
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
chronicle
Chronicle
Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...
s first note the presence of the Kipchaks (Cumans) in the steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
north of the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
, as well as that of the Oghuz, whom they pushed and drove away. The Cumans remained sole masters of the Russian steppe when the Oghuz were cut to pieces by Byzantines and Bulgars in the course of ill-fated expeditions into the Balkans in 1065 and succeeding years. According to a variant of the oldest Turkic
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
chronicle, Oghuzname, inserted in the Turkish Genealogy by Abulghazi Bahadur
Abulghazi Bahadur
Abulghazi Bahadur was khan of the Khanate of Khiva from 1643-1663. Having spent ten years in Persia before becoming khan, he was very well educated. Under his rule Khiva experienced a golden age. He had successfully repelled the Kalmyk raiders...
(1603–1663), the Cumans—personified in the eponymous hero
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
Quipchaq—fought against the countries of the Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rus was a medieval polity in Eastern Europe, from the late 9th to the mid 13th century, when it disintegrated under the pressure of the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240....
, the Romanians (Ulak), the Magyars and the Bashkirs
Bashkirs
The Bashkirs are a Turkic people indigenous to Bashkortostan extending on both parts of the Ural mountains, on the place where Europe meets Asia. Groups of Bashkirs also live in the republic of Tatarstan, Perm Krai, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Tyumen, Sverdlovsk, Kurgan, Samara and Saratov Oblasts of...
.
The Cuman tribes ceased to be under a single leadership and, as a consequence, the Rus' princes of Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
were capable of driving a wedge at the line of the Dnieper River
Dnieper River
The Dnieper River is one of the major rivers of Europe that flows from Russia, through Belarus and Ukraine, to the Black Sea.The total length is and has a drainage basin of .The river is noted for its dams and hydroelectric stations...
. Depending on their region and their time, different sources each used their own word to denote different sections of the vast Cuman territory. The eastern territories of the Cuman empire were called Dašt-i Qipčak ("Kipchak steppes") by Muslim historiographers, and its western parts were mentioned as Zemlya Polovetskaya ("Polovtsian Land") in Russian chronicles. Cumania
Cumania
Cumania is a name formerly used to designate several distinct lands in Eastern Europe inhabited by and under the military dominance of the Cumans, a nomadic tribe who, with the Kipchaks, created a confederation. The Cumans were also known as the Polovtsians, or Folban...
was predominantly the territory of today's Wallachia and Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
when the Cuman missions of the Dominicans
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
began to work their way to the east of the Carpathian Basin.
In the late 11th century, there was a significant shift in population away from the steppe corridor in the vicinity of the Danube and into the densely forested area of the Central Moldavian Plateau
Central Moldavian Plateau
The Central Moldavian Plateau , or Codru Massif is a geographic area in Moldova. It is the central and SE part of the Moldavian Plateau. It has elevations that in the N-S direction decrease in altitude from 400 m to under 200 m....
, on both sides of the middle course of the river Prut
Prut
The Prut is a long river in Eastern Europe. In part of its course it forms the border between Romania and Moldova.-Overview:...
located in present-day Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and Romania. These were villages of agriculturists, and not temporary camp sites of nomad
Nomad
Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...
ic pastoralists
Pastoralism
Pastoralism or pastoral farming is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas, and sheep. It may have a mobile aspect, moving the herds in search of fresh pasture and...
. In the 12th century many settlements in what is now southern and eastern Romania, as well as Moldova either diminished in size or disappeared altogether. Judging from published archaeological evidence, there are about 100 sites dated to the 11th and 12th centuries known from the area east from the Carpathian Mountains. By contrast, only 35 sites are known which have been dated to the 12th and 13th centuries. No 12th-century settlements have so far been found in the steppe lands in eastern Wallachia and north of the Danube Delta
Danube Delta
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania , while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine . The approximate surface is...
. The 12th century witnessed a sudden increase in the number of strongholds in Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
, which suggest that the military frontier of the Principality of Galicia
Halych
Halych is a historic city on the Dniester River in western Ukraine. The town gave its name to the historic province and kingdom of Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, of which it was the capital until the early 14th century, when the seat of the local princes was moved to Lviv...
was on the upper courses of the rivers Dniester
Dniester
The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs through Ukraine and Moldova and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto state of Transnistria.-Names:...
and Prut.
In 1164, Andronicus Komnenons
Andronikos I Komnenos
Andronikos I Komnenos was Byzantine Emperor from 1183 to 1185). He was the son of Isaac Komnenos and grandson of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos.-Early years:...
, the rebellious cousin of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos
Manuel I Komnenos
Manuel I Komnenos was a Byzantine Emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean....
(1143–1180), was intercepted by Vlachs when he was on his way to the court of Prince Yaroslav Osmomysl of Galicia
Yaroslav Osmomysl
Yaroslav Osmomysl was the most famous Prince of Halych from the first dynasty of its rulers, which descended from Yaroslav I's eldest son. His sobriquet, meaning "Eight-Minded" in Old East Slavic, was granted to him in recognition of his wisdom...
. As Andronicus is specifically said to have reached the borders of Galicia, the Vlachs in question may have been located somewhere in present-day Moldavia. In 1166, Emperor Manuel launched a combined attack on Hungary, with an expeditionary corps which included a large number of Vlach recruits, most likely from the eastern regions of the Balkan Peninsula. When the Byzantine troops marched along one of the main rivers in Moldavia (perhaps Siret
Siret River
The Siret or Sireth is a river that rises from the Carpathians in the Northern Bukovina region of Ukraine, and flows southward into Romania for 470 km before it joins the Danube...
) before entering Transylvania, they passed through a land entirely bereft of men.
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
in 1211, when King Andrew II of Hungary allowed them to settle in the Ţara Bârsei (in German Burzenland), specifically in those regions "towards the Cumans". They were given a large territory within the limits marked by the upper course of the river Olt, the Transylvanian Alps
Southern Carpathians
The Southern Carpathians or the Transylvanian Alps are a group of mountain ranges which divide central and southern Romania, on one side, and Serbia, on the other side. They cover part of the Carpathian Mountains that is located between the Prahova River in the east and the Timiș and Cerna Rivers...
, and the royal castles of Hălmeag and Ungra
Ungra, Brasov
Ungra is a commune in Braşov County, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Dăişoara and Ungra. In Ungra there is a medieval 13th century Transylvanian Saxon church and many old houses....
. The Knights took the war into enemy territory, thus turning the defense into aggressive offensive. The ultimate goal of the Knights seems to have been to create a state on the southeastern frontier of Hungary; finally, in 1225, at the head of a large army, King Andrew II attacked the Teutonic Knights and expelled them from Transylvania.
It was the 1223 Battle of the Kalka River
Battle of the Kalka River
The Battle of the Kalka River took place on May 31, 1223, between the Mongol Empire and Kiev, Galich, and several other Rus' principalities and the Cumans, under the command of Mstislav the Bold and Mstislav III of Kiev...
, a disastrous defeat for the Cuman and Russian forces at the hand of the Mongol
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...
, that changed the power relations in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. After the battle, the Cuman chiefs could not be sure when a new Mongol attack would appear.
In 1227, Robert, the archbishop of Esztergom organized a ceremonial meeting with a Cuman chieftain named Boricius, who had expressed the desire to convert together with his family and retinue. The future Béla IV
Béla IV of Hungary
Béla IV , King of Hungary and of Croatia , duke of Styria 1254–58. One of the most famous kings of Hungary, he distinguished himself through his policy of strengthening of the royal power following the example of his grandfather Bela III, and by the rebuilding Hungary after the catastrophe of the...
visited Boricius' lands across the mountains and in 1228 the superior of the Dominicans in Hungary was appointed Bishop of Cumania
Diocese of Cumania
The Diocese of Cumania was a Roman Catholic diocese in Hungary.The diocese was founded in 1227 with its seat in Milcov, serving the Cumans and the Teutonic Knights in the Burzenland. The diocese was destroyed during the course of the Mongol invasion of Europe in 1241.It was a suffragan of the...
with jurisdiction over the entire territory stretching eastwards to the river Siret. According to the charter of 1234 of Pope Gregory IX
Pope Gregory IX
Pope Gregory IX, born Ugolino di Conti, was pope from March 19, 1227 to August 22, 1241.The successor of Pope Honorius III , he fully inherited the traditions of Pope Gregory VII and of his uncle Pope Innocent III , and zealously continued their policy of Papal supremacy.-Early life:Ugolino was...
, Romanians lived in the territory of the Cumanian bishopric who had archbishops of Orthodox rite, and Hungarian, German and other believers moved there from Hungary, mixed with them and adopted their rite. In 1233, King Andrew II of Hungary adopted the title rex Cumaniae ("king of Cumania").
The beginning of the Mongol campaign in Eastern Europe
Mongol invasion of Europe
The resumption of the Mongol invasion of Europe, during which the Mongols attacked medieval Rus' principalities and the powers of Poland and Hungary, was marked by the Mongol invasion of Rus starting in 21 December 1237...
(1236) radically changed the situation and a large-scale westward migration of the Cumans began. In the summer of 1237, groups of Cumans appeared in Bulgaria; in 1239, another group, which came from the steppes north of the Black Sea under the rule of Köten
Köten
Köten was a Cuman khan and member of the Terter clan. This Köten is the same Prince Kotjan Sutoevic of the Russian annals, who forged the Russian-Cuman alliance against the Tatars...
was allowed by king Béla IV (1235–1270) to settle in Hungary. The Cuman Bishopric took the brunt of the Mongol invasion in March 1241. Nevertheless, many of the Cumans remained in the steppes and were absorbed into the Mongol state, strengthening its armies.
Second Bulgarian Empire (12th–13th centuries)
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
. In Byzantine Bulgaria, Byzantine Macedonia and northern Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
, Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
and Vlachs (Romanians) lived together amicably. The Vlachs also gave assistance to the Cumans, who were Byzantium's nomadic enemy, in attacking the Empire. Nevertheless, Cumans also came to settle in Bulgaria, some of whom received large pronoia
Pronoia
Pronoia refers to a system of land grants in the Byzantine Empire.-The Early Pronoia System:...
s (grants of an income source, usually a landed estate) from the Byzantines, to defend the Danube frontier or to garrison various interior regions.
What sparked the revolt of 1185–1186 was a tax that Emperor Isaac II Angelos
Isaac II Angelos
Isaac II Angelos was Byzantine emperor from 1185 to 1195, and again from 1203 to 1204....
decided to levy in order to cover the expenses for his wedding. The other cause of the rebellion was of rather personal character. Two brothers Peter
Peter IV of Bulgaria
Peter IV ruled as emperor of Bulgaria 1185–1197. Together with his brother Asen he managed to restore the Bulgarian Empire after nearly 170 years of Byzantine domination.-Name:...
and Asen
Ivan Asen I of Bulgaria
Ivan Asen I ruled as emperor of Bulgaria 1189–1196. The year of his birth is unknown.-Life:...
hoped to obtain a mountain district in the Balkan Mountains
Balkan Mountains
The Balkan mountain range is a mountain range in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. The Balkan range runs 560 km from the Vrashka Chuka Peak on the border between Bulgaria and eastern Serbia eastward through central Bulgaria to Cape Emine on the Black Sea...
as a pronoia for service to the emperor, but the emperor refused. The two brothers called for a full rebellion and procured some Vlach and Bulgarian shamans, who at a gathering of many Vlachs and Bulgarians went into a trance
Trance
Trance denotes a variety of processes, ecstasy, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer...
and prophesied the success of the forthcoming rebellion. Peter and Asen were also able to mobilize many Cumans. Byzantine and Western chroniclers (e.g., Niketas Choniates and Geoffrey of Villehardouin
Geoffrey of Villehardouin
Geoffrey of Villehardouin was a knight and historian who participated in and chronicled the Fourth Crusade...
) explicitly refer to the brothers' Vlach descent.
What followed was a Bulgarian–Vlach–Cuman uprising in 1185 that produced a state in which all three peoples participated. This second Bulgarian monarchy
Second Bulgarian Empire
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...
called itself "Bulgaria", but between 1185 and 1250 Western sources called the new state or its northern part simply Vlachia or Wallachia. The collapse of the Cumans in 1238–1239 considerably weakened Bulgaria militarily. In 1253, eleven years after the Tatar subjugation of Bulgaria, Rubruc
William of Rubruck
William of Rubruck was a Flemish Franciscan missionary and explorer. His account is one of the masterpieces of medieval geographical literature comparable to that of Marco Polo....
's travel account clearly indicates that the Bulgarians paid tribute to the Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
(that is, Mongols).
The Mongol invasion (1241–1242)
At the end of the 12th century, numerous Turkic, Mongol, and Tungusic tribes roved in the steppeSteppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
s north of the Gobi Desert
Gobi Desert
The Gobi is a large desert region in Asia. It covers parts of northern and northwestern China, and of southern Mongolia. The desert basins of the Gobi are bounded by the Altai Mountains and the grasslands and steppes of Mongolia on the north, by the Hexi Corridor and Tibetan Plateau to the...
. In 1206, Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
, founder of the Mongol Empire
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...
, summoned a great assembly
Great Assembly
The Great Assembly or Anshei Knesset HaGedolah , also known as the Great Synagogue, was, according to Jewish tradition, an assembly of 120 scribes, sages, and prophets, in the period from the end of the Biblical prophets to the time of the development of Rabbinic Judaism, marking a transition from...
, and on this occasion he was proclaimed supreme khan
Khan (title)
Khan is an originally Altaic and subsequently Central Asian title for a sovereign or military ruler, widely used by medieval nomadic Turko-Mongol tribes living to the north of China. 'Khan' is also seen as a title in the Xianbei confederation for their chief between 283 and 289...
by all the Mongol and Turkic tribes.
In 1235, a decision to launch a massive campaign in Eastern Europe
Mongol invasion of Europe
The resumption of the Mongol invasion of Europe, during which the Mongols attacked medieval Rus' principalities and the powers of Poland and Hungary, was marked by the Mongol invasion of Rus starting in 21 December 1237...
was taken at a Kurultai
Kurultai
Kurultai is a political and military council of ancient Mongol and Turkic chiefs and khans. The root of the word "Khural" means political "meeting" or "assembly" in the Mongolian language, it is also a verb for "to be established"...
, the great assembly of the Mongol chieftains. The supreme command of the expedition was given to Batu
Batu Khan
Batu Khan was a Mongol ruler and founder of the Ulus of Jochi , the sub-khanate of the Mongol Empire. Batu was a son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan. His ulus was the chief state of the Golden Horde , which ruled Rus and the Caucasus for around 250 years, after also destroying the armies...
, a grandson of Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
.
In 1241, a Tatar (Mongol) army led by Böček crossed the mountains of the Kara Ulagh ("Black Vlachs") . Böček defeated the Vlachs and one of their leaders, known as Mišlav
Bezerenbam and Miselav
Bezerenbam and Mişelav were the Wallachian leaders mentioned in 1241, in the Persian chronicle of Rashid-al-Din Hamadani . They appear in the context of the Mongol invasion of Europe...
. Batu's army entered Hungary across the Northern Carpathians, and Batu inflicted a crushing defeat upon King Béla IV's army in the Battle of Mohi
Battle of Mohi
The Battle of Mohi , or Battle of the Sajó River, was the main battle between the Mongol Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary during the Mongol invasion of Europe. It took place at Muhi, Southwest of the Sajó River. After the invasion, Hungary lay in ruins. Nearly half of the inhabited places had...
on April 11, 1241. The swiftness of the invasion took many by surprise, and forced them to retreat and hide in forests and enclosed valleys of the Carpathians.
The Mongol hordes left the Kingdom of Hungary after 12 months. Even so, they caused immense devastation: at least 15–20% of the population fell victim to the Mongol invasion and the famine that followed it.
After the Migrations
The military defeat brought about a radical change in the Hungarian king's policy: Béla IV completely abandoned the old principle according to which the erection of fortresses was a royal prerogativeRoyal Prerogative
The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege, and immunity, recognized in common law and, sometimes, in civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy as belonging to the sovereign alone. It is the means by which some of the executive powers of government, possessed by and...
. Planned settlement also assumed considerable proportions after the Mongol invasion. When a second invasion of the Mongols came in 1285, it was easily repelled.
Toward the middle of the 13th century voivodates dependent on the Kingdom of Hungary began to form on the territories east and south of the Carpathian Mountains. In 1247, King Béla IV granted to the Knights Hospitaller
Knights Hospitaller
The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta , also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta , Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Roman Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of military, chivalrous, noble nature. It is the world's...
a number of territories in the "land of Severin", and the delineation of those territories in the royal charter brought about a detailed description of several Romanian polities in the region. But evidence also shows that these polities soon sought independence from the Hungarian crown. For example, the Romanian Voivode Litovoi
Litovoi
Litovoi, also Litvoy, was a Vlach voivode in the 13th century whose territory comprised northern Oltenia .He is mentioned for the first time in a diploma issued by king Béla IV of Hungary on 2 July 1247...
rebelled against King Ladislaus IV of Hungary in 1272.
In 1330, King Charles I of Hungary
Charles I of Hungary
Charles I , also known as Charles Robert , was the first King of Hungary and Croatia of the House of Anjou. He was also descended from the old Hungarian Árpád dynasty. His claim to the throne of Hungary was contested by several pretenders...
made an expedition against Voivode Basarab I
Basarab I of Wallachia
Basarab I the Founder was voivode or prince of Wallachia . His rise seems to have taken place in the context of the war between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Orthodox states in the north of the Balkan Peninsula...
, but the king was eventually forced to withdraw toward Transylvania. Retreating through the mountains, the Hungarians were ambushed by Basarab's forces at Posada
Battle of Posada
The Battle of Posada was fought between Basarab I of Wallachia and Charles I Robert of Hungary.The small Wallachian army led by Basarab, formed of cavalry, foot archers, as well as local peasants, managed to ambush and defeat the 30,000-strong Hungarian army, in a mountainous region near the...
, and soundly defeated on November 12, 1330, after three days of fighting. The battle marked the appearance of the first independent Romanian principality
Danubian Principalities
Danubian Principalities was a conventional name given to the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which emerged in the early 14th century. The term was coined in the Habsburg Monarchy after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in order to designate an area on the lower Danube with a common...
, Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
.
See also
- DobrujaDobrujaDobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...
- History of TransylvaniaHistory of TransylvaniaTransylvania is a historical region in the central part of the Romania. In ancient times it was part of the Dacian Kingdom and Roman Dacia. Since the 10th century, Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Hungary...
- MoldaviaMoldaviaMoldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
- WallachiaWallachiaWallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
- Early Middle AgesEarly Middle AgesThe Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...
- Late AntiquityLate AntiquityLate Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...
- 1st millennium1st millenniumFile:1st millennium montage.png|From left, clockwise: Depiction of Jesus, the central figure in Christianity; The Colosseum, a landmark of the once Roman Empire; Gunpowder is invented during the latter part of the millennium, in China; Chess, a new board game, takes on popularity across the globe;...
Further reading
- Pop, Ioan-Aurel; Bolovan Ioan (2006). History of Romania: Compendium. Romanian Cultural Institute (Center for Transylvanian Studies). ISBN 978-973-7784-12-4.
- Vékony, Gábor (2000). Dacians, Romans, Romanians. Matthias Corvinus Publishing. ISBN 1-882785-13-4.
- Durandin, Catherine (1995). Historie des Roumains (The History of the Romanians). Librairie Artheme Fayard. ISBN 978-2-213-59425-5.
External links
- A Byzantine campaign in the Balkans (594): The History of Theophylact Simocatta”.
- Köpeczi, Béla; Makkai, László; Mócsy, András; Szász, Zoltán; Barta, Gábor. “History of Transylvania”. Köpeczi, Béla; Barta, Gábor; Bóna, Istán; Makkai, László; Miskolczy, Ambrus; Mócsy, András; Péter, Katalin; Szász, Zoltán; Tóth, Endre; Trócsányi, Zsolt; Várkonyi R., Ágnes; Vékony, Gábor. “Histoire de la Transylvanie”. Köpeczi, Béla; Barta, Gábor; Bóna, Istán; Makkai, László; Miskolczy, Ambrus; Mócsy, András; Péter, Katalin; Szász, Zoltán; Tóth, Endre; Trócsányi, Zsolt; Várkonyi R., Ágnes; Vékony, Gábor. “Kurze Geschichte Siebenbürgens”. (mostly) Original Text Documents and Monument Information on Romanian Medieval Ages at the Romanian Group for an Alternative History Website. “Invazia Mongolă în Ungaria şi în spaţiul Românesc” (The Mongol Invasion in Hungary and in Romanian Territory). Revista Romana de Studii Culturale (2004/1-2). Teodor, Eugen S. “Cronologia atacurilor transdanubiene. Analiza componentelor etnice şi geografice” (The Timeline of the Raids across Danube: Ethnical and Geographical Facts).
< Roman Dacia
Roman Dacia
The Roman province of Dacia on the Balkans included the modern Romanian regions of Transylvania, Banat and Oltenia, and temporarily Muntenia and southern Moldova, but not the nearby regions of Moesia...
| History of Romania | The Middle Ages
Romania in the Middle Ages
The Middle Ages in Romania began with the withdrawal of the Mongols, the last of the migrating populations to invade the territory of modern Romania, after their attack of 1241–1242...
>