Most of the literary sources for the origin of the Romanians have been interpreted in various ways by the adherents of divergent scholarly theories.[1] Works on this subject have also been colored by political considerations, since the ethnogenesis of the Romanians (who share the “Vlach” exonym with other peoples speaking an Eastern Romance language)[2] has been the subject of a spirited controversy.[1]
The followers of the theory of the Daco-Romanian continuity emphasize that the continuous presence of a Romanized population (the ancestors of the modern Romanians) on the territory of present-day Romania can be detected in the written primary sources even after the Roman withdrawal from Dacia province in the 270s.[3] Their opponents, who are convinced that the ethnogenesis of the Romanians occurred on the central territories of the Balkan Peninsula, state that no extant primary document proves the presence of the Romanians’ ancestors before the 12th century on the territories north of the river Danube.[4]
The adherents of the divergent schools concur that their debate cannot be decided based purely on literary sources, and the results of other academic disciplines (such as archaeology, linguistics, and human genetics research) cannot be ignored.[5]
The article, following the sources’ chronology, summarizes some important literary sources, and it also presents a set of the competing interpretations of the cited documents.
A passage in an 11th-century Byzantine document describing the events of the rebellion of 1066-1067 in the hinterland of Larissa (in Greece) may be the first account of the Vlachs, a generic term describing Romance populations, in Southeastern Europe.[6] Its author states that these Vlachs descended from the Dacians, and he implies a southward migration of these Vlachs. The document suggests that these Vlachs’ “homeland” used to lie south of the Danube, and it also mentions the Bessi (an ancient Thracian tribe living south of the Danube) among their ancestors.[7]
They /the Vlachs/ were conquered by Emperor Trajan who had defeated and annihilated them. Their king, named Decebal, was killed (...). They are, in fact, the so-called Dacians and Bessi who used to live near the Danube and Sava rivers, where now the Serbs live, in inaccessible and inhospitable places (...) And they left the region: some of them spread to Epirus and Macedonia, although the majority of them settled in Hellas.—Kekaumenos (11th century): Strategikon[8]
A 12th-century Byzantine chronicler, when describing the events of a Byzantine attack on Hungary, incidentally mentions that the Vlach recruits[6] is said to have descended from Italian settlers.[4]
(...) Vlachs who are said to have descended from the one-time Italian settlers.—John Kinnamos (the second half of the 12th century): The Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus[4]
A 13th-century Flemish Franciscan missionary, in accordance with his conception concerning the origins of the Danube Bulgars from the Volga Bulgars, derives the Vlachs from a certain people (Illac / Ulac) living near the Bashkirs.[9]
Neighboring the Pascatur are the Ulac (this is the same word as Blac, but the Tatars cannot pronounce ‘B’), and among them originated those who live in Assan’s territory: both the former and the latter are like known as the Ulac.—William of Rubruck (c. 1220-c. 1293): His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Möngke, 1253-1255[10]
A chronicle written in Hungary in the 1280s is the first source identifying the Vlachs with the “Romans’ shepherds” who were described as the inhabitants of Pannonia by earlier documents.[11]
The citizens of Pannonia, Pamphylia, Macedonia, Dalmatia, and Phrygia, who had been exhausted by repeated raids and sieges from the Huns, having received permission from Attila quit their native soil and crossed the Adriatic Sea to Apulia; the Vlachs, however, who had been their shepherds and husbandmen, elected to remain behind in Pannonia. These Székely are in fact remnants of the Huns, and when they found out that the Magyars were returning to Pannonia, they came to meet them on the borders of Ruthenia (...). (...) this was not in the plains of Pannonia but in the mountains, which they shared with the Vlachs, mingling with them, it is said, and adopting their alphabet.—Simon of Kéza (13th century): The Deeds of the Hungarians[12]
The Florentine humanist, Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) thought that the descendants of Emperor Trajan's settlers lived in the western part of Eastern Europe.[5] Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405–1464) supposed that the Romanians were the descendants of the Roman soldiers who had been sent to fight against the Dacians, and they had been named after their military leader, a certain Pomponius Flaccus.[5] Antonio Bonfini (1427/1434-1502), who lived in Hungary from 1486, wrote that the Romanians had descended from Trajan’s legionnaires.[5]
Because the Romanians are descendants of the Romans, a fact that even today is attested by their language, a language that, even though they are surrounded by diverse barbarian peoples, could not be destroyed (...) even if all kinds of barbarian attacks flooded over the province of Dacia and the Roman people, we can see that the Roman colonies and legions that had been established there could not be annihilated.—Antonio Bonfini (1427/1434-1502)
A chronicle recorded in Russian annals reproduces a tradition in Moldavia of the origin of the Romanian people.[13] The text presents the complete lack of its anonymous author’s historical and critical sense, but it demonstrates the memory of Rome in the origin, genesis and past of the Romanians.[13] The chronicle narrates that a certain “King Ladislaus” granted land to the ancestors of the Romanians in the Kingdom of Hungary.[5]
In 6867 /1359 AD/ two Christian brothers, Roman and Vlahata persecuted by heretics fled, and left Venice; they come to a place called Old Rome. Here he built a castle and named it Roman after himself. (…) Following a division of the laws of Christ, the Latins built themselves a new castle and called it New Rome. (…)At the time of King Vladislav, the Tartars from the region of the rivers Prut and Moldova advanced against the Hungarians led by Prince Nejmet. (…) /King Vladislav/ sent emissaries to the Old-Romans and the Romanians. Thereupon, we Romanians united with the Old-Romans and went to Hungary to help King Vladislav. Soon, a decisive battle took place between King Vladislav and the Tatar Prince Nejmet along the banks of the river Tisa. The Old-Romans were at the forefront of the battle. (…)
Vladislav, the Hungarian King (…) urged them /the Old Romans/ to join his forces and not to return to Old-Rome, because the New-Romans would do harm to them. (…) Then they /the Old Romans/ asked King Vladislav not to force them into the Latin Church and to permit them to keep their Christian faith according to the Greek rites. They also asked the king to give them a place to stay. The king was very pleased and gave them land in Maramureş, between the Rivers Tisa and Mureş at the place called Criş. That is where the Old-Romans settled. They started to marry Hungarian women and led them to their own Christian religion. (…)
The oldest Muntenian chronicle, attributed to Stoica Ludescu, also preserved a popular tradition among the Romanians:[14]
They belonged to the Romanians who separated from the Romans and went to the north. Crossing the waters of the Danube, some settled at Turnu Severin; others, along the waters of the Olt, the Mureş, and the Tisa; and still others in Hungary, reaching as far as Maramureş. Those who settled at Turnu Severin extended along the foot of the mountains to the waters of the Olt, others wandered downward along the Danube, and thus all places having been filled by them, they came as far as the borders of Nicopolis.
The followers of the continuity theory suggest that the Romanians descended from the Romanized Dacian tribes, part of whose territory had been conquered and organized into the Roman province Dacia by Emperor Trajan (98-117 AD).[16] Their opponents emphasize that the early sources suggest that the Dacian participation in the Romanization of Dacia province was minimal; on the other hand, the sources’ statements may be exaggerations.[5]
And he /Trajan/ gave spectacles on one hundred and twenty-three days, in the course of which (...) ten thousand gladiators fought.—Cassius Dio (c. 150-235): Roman History[17]
Trajan began again. «(...) I subdued the Getæ, the most warlike race that ever existed (...). For they believe that they do not die but only change their place of abode, and they meet death more readily than other men undertake a journey. Yet I accomplished that task in a matter of five years or so.»—Emperor Julian the Apostate (331-363): The Caesars[18]
Ancient sources suggest the massive and organized colonization of Dacia province with Latin-speaking ethnic elements.[16]
After the death of Trajan, Aelius Hadrian was made emperor; (...) he immediately gave up three of the provinces which Trajan had added to the empire (...). When he was proceeding, to act similarly with regard to Dacia, his friends dissuaded him, lest many Roman citizens should be left in the hands of the barbarians, because Trajan, after he had subdued Dacia, had transplanted thither an infinite number of men from the whole Roman world, to people the country and the cities; as the land had been exhausted of inhabitants in the long war maintained by Decebalus.
The earliest documents suggest that Emperor Aurelian (270-275) had Dacia province evacuated in good order when he decided to withdraw the Roman military units from the territory.[11] Authors from antiquity imply that Dacia province had already been lost during the reign of Emperor Gallienus (253-268).[5]
On seeing that Illyricum was devastated and Moesia was in a ruinous state, he /Aurelian/ abandoned the province of Trans-Danubian Dacia, (...) and led away both soldiers and provincials, giving up hope that it could be retained. The people whom he moved out from it he established in Moesia, and gave to this district, which now divides the two provinces of Moesia, the name of Dacia.—Augustan History (280s-330s)[20]
Gallienus, who was made emperor when quite a young man, exercised his power at first happily, afterwards fairly, and at last mischievously. (...) Dacia, which had been added to the empire beyond the Danube, was lost.—Eutropius (the latter half of the 4th century): Abridgement of Roman History[19]
After him [Quintillus], Aurelianus took the empire, a native of Dacia Ripensis. (...) He eliminated the Province of Dacia, which Trajan has made beyond the Danube, despairing of being able to preserve it after the devastation of Illyricum and Moesia. He gathered the Romans that were conducted from the towns and lands of Dacia in middle Moesia and called it Dacia.—Eutropius (the latter half of the 4th century): Abridgement of Roman History[19]
A 6th-century author, who was raised in Moesia,[3] only referred to the legions leaving Dacia.[21]
(...) the Emperor Aurelian, calling his legions from here, settled them in Moesia and there, on the other side, he founded Dacia Mediterranea and Dacia Ripensis
From the 4th century, sporadic references can be found in literary sources to latinophone individuals or groups living on the territories north of the Danube.[3]
Documents written in the 4th-6th centuries suggest that Dacian-speaking Carpians, Indo-Iranian peoples, Germanic tribes, and Huns lived on the territories north of the lower Danube at that time.[5]
The Marcomanni were slaughtered and the whole nation of the Carpi was transferred to our soil, where some of them had already been settled from the time of Aurelian.—Aurelius Victor (middle of the 4th century): De Cæsaribus[23]
—Eutropius (the latter half of the 4th century): Abridgement of Roman History[19]
A report written by a member of the embassy sent by Emperor Theodosius II (408-450) to the court of Attila the Hun (434-453) implies that “the language of the Ausones” (the Latin) become a real international language in the space of the territories north of the Danube.[3] On the other hand, the diplomat makes no mention of Latinized people beyond the Roman Empire: among the Huns only those spoke Latin who had more contact with the Empire.[5]
For the subjects of the Huns, swept together from various lands, speak, besides their own barbarous tongues, either Hunnic or Gothic, or - as many as have commercial dealings with the western Romans - Latin; but none of them easily speak Greek, except captives from the Thracian or Illyrian sea-coast;—Priscus of Panium (5th century)[24]
The diplomat’s account of a village, located by Romanian historian Stelian Brezeanu in the Banat, is regarded by the same historian as a proof that the migratory peoples preserved almost entirely the structures of the sedentary society.[3]
(...) when we reached a certain point took another route by the command of the Scythians /the Huns/ who conducted us, as Attila was proceeding to a village (...). (...) In the villages we were supplied with food - millet instead of corn, and mead /in the text medos: Priscus was hearing of the Germanic world/[25], as the natives call it, instead of wine. The attendants who followed us received millet, and a drink made of barley, which the barbarians call “kam”.—Priscus of Panium (5th century)[24]
The territories north of the lower Danube were a Slavic “homeland” for the 6th-century authors who wrote about them.[6] The “Sclavenes” seem to appear in the sources as an umbrella term for a multitude of groups living north of the Danube frontier, which could not be classified as either “Huns” or “Gepids”.[6]
In the land of Scythia to the westward dwells, first of all, the race of the Gepidæ, surrounded by great and famous rivers. For the Tisa flows through it on the north and northwest, and on the southwest is the great Danube. On the east it is cut by the Flutausis /the Olt or the Prut/, a swiftly eddying stream that sweeps whirling into the Ister's waters. Within these rivers lies Dacia, encircled by the lofty Alps as by a crown. Near their left ridge, which inclines toward the north, and beginning at the source of the Vistula, the populous race of the Venethi dwell, occupying a great expanse of land. Though their names are now dispersed amid various clans and places, yet they are chiefly called Sclaveni and Antes.
They /the Slavs and the Antes/ live among nearly impenetrable forests, rivers, lakes, and marshes, and have made the exits from their settlements branch out it in a feigned panic and run for the woods. When their assailants disperse after the plunder, they calmly come back and cause them injury. The so-called refugees who are ordered to point out the roads and furnish certain information must be very closely watched. Even some Romans have given in to the times, forget their own people, and prefer to gain the good will of the enemy. Those who remain loyal ought to be rewarded, and the evildoers punished.—Pseudo-Maurice (late 6th century): Strategikon[27]
In the episode of the “phoney Chilbudius”, the Roman general, Chilbudius is reported to have disappeared in an expedition on the left banks of the Danube; shortly afterwards, an Ant slave strikingly resembled with Chilbudius, came to the Roman authorities, pretending that he was the imperial commander and he
spoke Latin and had learned many of Chilbudius’ manners and he was able to imitate him (...)
Some scholars interepreted this episode as evidence for the fact the Roman prisoners in the Wallachian field spoke Latin and used it as a lingua franca.[3] In addition to Priscus of Panium's reference to the "language of the Ausoni" and Pseudo-Maurice's above-cited report, the episode confirm the importance of the circulation of the Latin language in the lands north of the Danube.[3] On the other hand, the episode does not prove that the “phoney Chilbudius” mastered Latin north of the Danube.[2] Nevertheless, contemporary sources attest the use of more than one language by individuals whom their authors viewed as Antes or Sclavenes: the “phoney Chilbudius” was able to claim successfully a false identity, that of a Roman general, because he spoke Latin fluently.[28]
In fact, language shifts were inextricably tied to shifts in the political economy in which speech situations were located; this is shown by the episode of the Gepid taken prisoner by Priscus’ (a Roman general) army, during the 593 campaign.[28] He was close to the Sclavene “king” Musocius and communicated with him in the “king’s language”; he betrayed his leader and cooperated with Priscus presumably using Latin as a language of communication.[28]
In 568, the Avars occupied the Carpathian Basin, and their power extended into the Pontic-Caspian steppe until the 630s.[6] Thenceforward, the numbers of those who eventually moved into the Middle Danube region were greatly increased by repeated migrations from the steppe of separate, different groups; moreover, early sources prove that groups of Gepids were still living in the Tisa region.[6]
The soldiers assigned by the commander-in-chief crossed the nearby river /the Tisa or the Timiş/ and there they came across the Gepids’ three villages. Having been defeated, the barbarian armies (3,000 Avars; from other Barbarians, further 2,200 over 4,000 /6,200/; and among Slavs, 8,000) were taken captive.—Theophylact Simocatta (6th-7th centuries): History[29]
By the 7th century, the Carpathian-Lower Danubian region had become a land of Slavs which was recorded even by a faraway Armenian geographer.[30] On the other hand, the information provided by geographical sources is limited in value, because they show a rather vague understanding of the geography of Southeastern Europe.[6]
on the north side the large country of Dacia where dwell the Slavs /who form/ twenty-five tribes in whose place invaded the Goths.—Anania Shirakatsi (7th century): Geography Guide[31]
In the 9th century, the Slavs from the region appear in several documents by the names Timočani, Abodriti, Prædecenti, and Osterabtrezi, although their geographical situation cannot be defined on the basis of these sources.[4]
Dacia, also called Gepidia, is now inhabited by Huns who are also called Avars.—Ravenna Cosmography (around 800)[5]
The emperor /Louis the Pious/ also received the envoys of the Obotrites who are commonly called Praedenecenti and live in Dacia on the Danube as neighbors of the Bulgars (...)
A nearly contemporary source suggests that around 892, the salt mine district in southern Transylvania was under the control of the First Bulgarian Empire.[6]
He /Arnulf of Carinthia/ dispatched his delegates (...) to the Bulgars and their king Laodomir to renew the former peace, and asked him not to permit the Moravians to buy salt from there.—Annals of Fulda - AD 892 (8th-9th centuries)
Around 895, Simeon I of Bulgaria attacked the Magyars, inciting against them their eastern neighbors, the Pechenegs.[6] The destruction brought by the Pechenegs forced the remaining Magyars to embark on another migration, which took them into the Carpathian Basin.[6]
The place of the Pechenegs, in which at that time the Turks /the Magyars/ lived, is called after the name of the local rivers. The rivers are these: the first is that called Barouch /Dnieper/, the second river that called Koubou /Bug/, the third river that called Troullos /Dniester/, the fourth river that called Broutos /Prut/, and the fifth river that called Seretos /Siret/.—Constantine Porphyrogenitus (905-959): On Administering the Empire[33]
Around 948, the land of the Pechenegs (Patzinacia) was divided into eight “provinces”, and four of them were located west of the river Dnieper; thus the entire steppe corridor between the rivers Danube and Dnieper was under Pecheneg control.[6]
The other four clans /of the Pechenegs/ lie on this side of the Dnieper river, towards the western and northern parts, that is to say that the province of Giazichopon is neighbor to Bulgaria, the province of Kato Gyla is neighbor to Turkey /Hungary/ , the province of Charaboï is neighbor to Russia, and the province of Iabdiertim is neighbor to the tributary territories of the country of Russia, to the Oultines and Dervlenines and Lenzenines and the rest of the Slavs. Patzinacia is distant (…) one day’s journey from Russia, a four days journey from Turkey, half a day’s journey from Bulgaria; (…).—Constantine Porphyrogenitus (905-959): On Administering the Empire[33]
By 948, the region between the rivers Mureş, Tisa, and Danube had come under the rule of the Magyars.[4]
(...) the regions above these, which comprehend the whole settlement of Turkey /Hungary/, they now call after the names of the rivers that flow there. The rivers are these: the first river is the Timisis /the Timiş/, the second river the Toutis /possibly the Bega/, the third river the Morisis /the Mureş/, the fourth river the Krisos /the Criş/, and again another river, the Titza /the Tisa/. Neighbors of the Turks /Magyars/ are, on the eastern side the Bulgarians, where the river Istros, also called Danube, runs between them; on the northern, the Pechenegs; on the western, the Franks; and on the southern, the Croats.—Constantine Porphyrogenitus (905-959): On Administering the Empire[4]
Records on the people called N-n-d-r who lived on the territories between the Slavs and the Magyars are also interpreted as a references to the ancestors of the Romanians;[13] on the other hand, nandor was the ancient name of the Bulgars.[34]
Besides the Saqlāb /Slavs/[34] there is a people of Rūm /from the Roman Empire/[13] who are all Christians and they are called Nandar, and they are more numerous than the Magyars but they are weaker.—Abu Said Gardezi (middle of the 11th century): The Limits of the World from the East to the West[34][35]
A Varangian runestone from Gotland commemorates a merchant (Hróðfúss) who was traveling to Constantinople and was killed by the Blokumenn.[6] The traditional interpretation of the ethnonym Blokumenn is Vlach.[36] An alternative explanation is that the term means “black man”, though of what kind is not clear;[36] the term may stand for the mixed tribes that are called “Black Hats” in the Russian sources.[9]
Hróðvísl and Hróðelfr, they had stones set up in memory of /their/ three sons. This one in memory of Hróðfúss. Blokumenn betrayed him on an expedition. God help Hróðfúss’ soul. May God betray those who betrayed him.
The Russian Primary Chronicle relates that the Volochs attacked and subdued the Slavs living in the Carpathian Basin.[4] If the Volochs are identical with the Vlachs, the chronicle’s entries in question are among the first references to the Romanians’ ancestors.[16] On the other hand, the text shows explicitly that the Slavs had inhabited the area before the Volochs; and therefore the Volochs must be identical to the Franks who occupied part of the Carpathian Basin at the end of the 8th century.[4]
The Varangians dwell on the shores of that same sea and extend to the eastward as far as the portion of Shem. They likewise live to the west beside this sea as far as the land of the Angles and the Voloshski (Волошьски). For the following nations also are a part of the race of Japheth: the Varangians, the Swedes, the Normans, the Rus’, the Angles, the Gauls, the Volhva (Вольхва), the Romans, the Germans, the Carolingians, the Venetians, the Genoese, and so on. Their homes are situated in the northwest and adjoin the Hamitic tribes. Coming from the east, they /the Magyars/ marched in haste over the high mountains, which are called the mountains of the Magyars, and began to fight against the Volochs (Волохи) and the Slavs who inhabited these countries. The Slavs had originally lived there, and the Volochs (Волохове) had subdued the country of the Slavs. Later, however, the Magyars drove out the Volochi (Волъхи), subdued the Slavs, and settled in their country.
A 12th-century Byzantine author reports that Emperor Manuel I (1143–1180), in 1166, launched a combined attack on the Kingdom of Hungary with an extraordinary corps crossing the Danube from Dobrudja, and the corps included a large number of Vlach recruits.[6]
Leon, also known as Vatatzes, brought many soldiers from other areas, even a large number of Vlachs (...) It is said they were colonists, arrived long ago from Italy.—John Kinnamos (the second half of the 12th century): The Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus[4]
A Byzantine historian’s record on the capture of Andronikos Komnenos by Vlachs in 1164 also proves that these Vlachs had already been living north of the Danube (probably somewhere in present-day Moldavia) by that time.[4][6]
But just when Andronikos began to feel safe because he had (...) reached the borders of Galitza, towards which he had hastened in search of a place of refuge, he fell into the hunters’ snares. Apprehended by the Vlachs, who had heard the rumors of his escape, he was led back to the emperor.—Niketas Choniates (c. 1155 -1215): O City of Byzantium - Annals of Niketas Choniatēs[38]
The Nibelungenlied (“The Song of the Nibelungs”), written between 1191 and 1204,[39] describes Attila the Hun accompanied by the Vlachs whom their duke Ramung was leading.
Many men from Greece and Russian were riding there, and the good horses of Poles and Wallachians passed swiftly by as their riders spurred them with vigor, while they all freely comported themselves according to their native usage. From the land of Kiev, too, many a knights was riding there, not to mention wild Pechenegs who, laying the arrow to the bow at full stretch, shot at birds on the wing with zest. (...) In advance of King Etzel /Attila/ there rode a retinue - magnificent men they were, both courtly and debonair – composed of four and twenty princes of lofty rank who desired nothing more than to see their queen. Duke Ramung of Wallachia galloped by with seven hundred men, and it was as though they sped past like birds in flight. (...)—The Nibelungenlied (12th century)[39]
The oldest surviving Hungarian chronicle, the Gesta Ungarorum (“The Deeds of the Hungarians”) records the Romanians’ presence in the Carpathian Basin prior to the arrival of the Magyars.[16] According to the Gesta, the Magyars came across three Romanian cnezates (dukedoms) when invaded the Carpathian Basin around 895.[40] On the other hand, the chronicler’s methods are those of a historical novelist.[35] The chronicler had no knowledge of either the actual circumstances of the Magyar Conquest or the Magyars’ real enemies, and thus he defined the ethnic bond of the leaders hostile to the Magyars on the basis of the ethno-political circumstances surrounding Hungary around 1200.[35] For example, the history of the first years of the Second Bulgarian Empire gave rise to the appearance in conjunction of Bulgars, Vlachs and Cumans in the Gesta.[4]
/In Pannonia/ there lived the Slavs, Bulgarians and Vlachs, and the shepherds of the Romans. For after the death of King Attila, the Romans said the land of Pannonia was pastureland because their flocks grazed in the land of Pannonia./Pannonia/ had first been the land of King Attila and that after his death the Roman princes had taken possession of the land of Pannonia, up to the Danube, where they had gathered their shepherds. But the great Kean, duke of Bulgaria, grandfather of Duke Salan, had taken possession of the land that lies between the Danube and the Tisa, as far as the borders of the Ruthenes and the Poles, and made the Slavs and Bulgarians live there. Duke Morout, whose grandson is called by the Hungarians Menumorout (...) had taken possession of the land between the Tisa and Igfon wood, that lies towards Transylvania, from the Mureş river up to the Someş, and the peoples that are called Cozar inhabited that land. A certain duke called Glad coming from the castle of Vidin had with the help of the Cumans taken possession of the land from the Mureş river up to the castle of Orşova.
(...) when he /Tuhutum father of Horca/ learned from the inhabitants of the goodness of the land of Transylvania, where Gelou, a certain Vlach, held sway, strove through the grace of Duke Árpád, his lord, to acquire the land of Transylvania for himself and his posterity.
When he /Opaforcos Ogmand, a spy/ arrived, he spoke much to his lord of the goodness of that land: that that land was washed by the best rivers, whose names and advantages he listed, that in their sands they gathered gold and that the gold of that land was the best, and that they mined there salt, and the inhabitants of that land were the basest of the whole world, because they were Vlachs and Slavs, because they had nothing else for arms than bows and arrows and their duke, Gelou was inconstant and did not have around him good warriors who would dare stand against the courage of the Hungarians, because they suffered many injuries from the Cumans and Pechenegs.
An early 13th-century biography of St. Olaf of Norway, which is preserved in a late 14th-century manuscript known as Flateyjarbók mentions Blokumenn among the allies of Grand Prince Sviatopolk I of Kiev (1015–1019).[6]
The following happened in Greece, the time King Kirjalax /the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos/[42] ruled there and was on an expedition against Blokumannaland /Wallachia or Black Cumania[42]/. When he arrived at the Pézína Plains /inhabited by Pechenegs along the lower Danube/, a heathen king advanced against him with an irresistible host. They had with them a company of horsemen, and huge wagons with embrasures on top. And when they prepared their night quarters, they drew up their wagons, one beside the other, around their tents, and dug a large moat outside of that, so that altogether it made a strong fortification like a stronghold.—Snorri Sturluson (1178/1179-1241): Heimskringla[43]
The “Black Vlachs” mentioned by a Persian historian were certainly the Vlachs in Transylvania or the Carpathian Mountains though their precise location is uncertain.[44]
Böchök went via Qara Ulagh /possibly Moldavia/ through the mountains and defeated the Vlach peoples.—Rashid-al-Din (1247-1318): Compendium of Chronicles[45]
The oldest Turkish chronicle, the Oghuz-name, which is preserved in a copy incorporated into a 17th-century text, relates that Kipchak, the eponymous hero of the Cumans, had defeated many nations, including the Ulâq (Vlachs), no doubts those previously mentioned in Norse sources.[6]
An anonymous Italian author, writing in Tuscany in the 14th century, drew up a description of the world. Among the populations inhabiting the Kingdom of Hungary, this author mentioned the Romanians and the Vlachs (i Rumeni e i Valacchi), not knowing the names referred to one and the same people.[46]
In the same region / Ungaria / there are Romanians and Vlachs, and they are two great people, and they have their own territory, and they are pagans.—Anonymous Florentine author (14th century)[46]
From 976 onwards, various written sources mention Romanians (Vlachs) in Thessaly and the Balkan Mountains.[11] One theory holds that the Romanized Dacians, who had lived between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains, was obliged to seek refuge in the south and southwest when the Slavs settled down south of the Danube;[16] the opposing theory argues that the Vlachs living on the territories south of the Danube were the ancestors of both the Romanians and the Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, and Istro-Romanians.[4]
In the war of 587-588, the Byzantine commander Comentiolus lead his armies from Marcianopolis (Devnya, Bulgaria) to the Eastern Balkan Mountains in the vicinity of the river Kamchiya.[5] Sources written in the 7th century record the episode that the order among the marching soldiers was lost, because someone speaking in a “native language” called on the one ahead of him to turn around (torna, torna[47]) and other soldiers thought that a command was given to retreat (because at that time, the language of command was Latin in the Byzantine Army).[5]
(...) a beast of burden had shucked off his load. It happened as his master was marching in front of him. But the ones, who were coming from behind and saw the animal dragging his burden after him, had shouted to the master to turn around and straighten the burden. Well, this event was the reason for a great agitation in the army, and started a flight to the rear, because the shout was known to the crowd: the same words were also a signal, and it seemed to mean “retreat”, as if the enemies had appeared nearby more rapidly than could be imagined. There was a great turmoil in the host, and a lot of noise; all were shouting loudly and goading each other to turn back, calling with great unrest in the language of the country «torna, torna», as if a battle had suddenly started in the middle of the night.—Theophylact Simocatta: History (7th century)[5]
The Byzantine authors’ works describe the drama of the prisoners captured during the raids of the migratory peoples in the Balkan provinces.[3] In 680, the Avar khagan, however, could not prevent a group of rebel subjects from leaving the empire and moving to the outskirts of Constantinople.[6] The rebels were the descendants of a group of captives brought to the Avar heartland from the Balkan raids of the early 7th century and settled in the environs of the former city of Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia).[6]
(...) we have previously provided information about the Slavs (...), and the Avars, and also about how they had ravaged almost the whole Illyricum (...), moreover (...) the towns and settlements of Rhodopia and Thrace, and of the region of the long wall surrounding Byzantium. And the (...) Khagan had the whole population (that is those who had been taken into captivity and thus thenceforward had become his subject) settled along the Danube river on the regions over Pannonia, in the province whose metropolis used to be the City of Sirmium. Thenceforward, they mingled together with the Bolgars, the Avars and other barbarian peoples; they begat children among themselves and thus they became a nation of immense multitude. Their children learned from their parents the customs they had brought with themselves and the nation’s morals also adjusted to Roman traditions./After some 60 years/ the Khagan of the Avars regarded them as a separate nation and appointed a leader named Kuber to them. He /Kuber/ learned from some of his intimate followers how the people were yearning for their parents’ towns. After considering this, he called upon the whole insurrectional Roman nation and also other peoples (...).
Afterwards, following his victory, Kuber and his men-at-arms crossed the (..) Danube river and arrived to our soil where they settled on the Keramésios Fields.—Miracles of Saint Demetrius II (7th century)[29]
A number of political leaders spoke two or more languages, and only in exceptional cases is this fact mentioned in our sources.[48] For example, the Bulgar leader Mavros who had escaped from the Avar khanate in the late 7th century spoke four languages: Greek, Latin, Slavic and Bulgarian, and this versatility made his secret plots against Thessalonica so dangerous.[48]
The eastern lands of the Balkan Peninsula were overrun by Slavs, the more western territories (western Bosnia, Croatia, and Dalmatia) seem to have chiefly suffered Avar raids.[49] But the fate of the indigenous population is not as clear.[49] Many were killed, while others were carried off beyond the Danube; still others withdrew to the mountains or remote regions, and their descendants reappeared later as Vlachs or Albanians.[49]
The emperor Diocletian was much enamored of the country of Dalmatia, and so he brought folk with their families from Rome and settled them in this same country of Dalmatia, and they were called ‘Romani’ (…), and this title attaches to them until this day. (…) The territory possessed by these Romani used to extend as far as the river Danube, and once on a time, being minded to cross the river and discover who dwelt beyond the river, they crossed it and came upon unarmed Slavonic nations, who were also called Avars. (…) Once through, they /the Slavs/ instantly expelled the Romani and took possession of the (…) city of Salona. There they settled and thereafter began gradually to make plundering raids and destroyed the Romani who dwelt in the plains and on the higher ground and took possession of their lands. The remnant of the Romani escaped to the cities of the coast and possess them still, namely, Decatera, Ragusa, Spalato, Tetrangouring, Diadora, Arbe, Vekla and Opsara, the inhabitants of which are called Romani to this day. And since what is now Serbia and Pagania and the so-called country of the Zachlumi and Terbounia and the country of the Kanalites were under the dominion of the emperor of the Romans, and since these countries had been made desolate by the Avars (for they had expelled from those parts the Romani who now live in Dalmatia and Dyrrachium), therefore the emperor settled these same Serbs in these countries (…).—Constantine Porphyrogenitus (905-959): On Administering the Empire[33]
The Vlachs are mentioned in connection with the events of the rebellion of 1066-1067 against a tax surcharge imposed by Emperor Constantine X Doukas (1059–1067).[6] The leaders of the rebellion were all prominent men of Larissa (in Thessaly), two of whom are specifically mentioned as being Vlachs, and Bulgarians are also mentioned among the rebels.[6] The source implies that the Vlachs had more or less permanent settlements in the mountains of Bulgaria and they were possibly involved in transhumant pastoralism.[6]
Endeavoring to capture the heads of the conspiracy, he /Niculitzas/ was thinking of the followings: if he captured and did not delude or decapitate them immediately, their followers, though they were Vlachs and Trikalits /the inhabitants of Trikala/, could rise against him, and they might defeat him and kill him mercilessly.In the mornings, they had meetings in the house of Beriboes the Vlach.
In addition, he also asked the Vlachs: «Where are your flocks and women now?», and they answered: «In the mountains of Bulgaria», because it is their custom that their flocks and families live at the high mountain peaks and in other cold places from April to September.
The following record also confirms that the Vlachs and the Bulgars lived side by side, in close proximity.[9] This is also the first source that implies cooperation between the Vlachs and the Cumans.[9]
As he /the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos/ drew near to the environs of the city /Larissa/ and had crossed Mount Kellion, he left the public highway on his right and the hill called by the locals Kissabos and descended to Ezeban, a Vlach village lying quite close to Andronia. (...)Before this, he had sent written instructions to him /to Nikephoros Melissenos/ to recruit as many men as could, not from the veterans (..), but to enroll new men for a term of duty from the Bulgars and the nomads (commonly called Vlachs) and any others who came from any province, both cavalry and infantry. (...)
When all precautions had been taken, he returned from Chortarea and pitched camp by the Holy Lake near Anchialus. During the night, a certain Poudilus, one of the leading Vlachs, came and reported that the Cumans were crossing the Danube. (...)
As it happened, the Cumans were shown the way through the passes by the Vlachs and so crossed the Zygum without any trouble. As soon as they approached Goloë, the inhabitants threw into chains the commander of the garrison and handed him over to them. In fact they gladly welcomed the Cumans.—Anna Comnena (1083-after 1153): The Alexiad[50]
A Jewish explorer describes the Vlachs as mountain people in Boeotia.[6] He learned about the Vlachs living in the mountain region near Lamia (in Phthiotis, Greece), a region he called “Wallachia”.[6]
(...) The city /Sinon Potamo/ is situated at the foot of the hills of Wallachia. The nation called Wallachians live in those mountains. They are as swift as hinds, and they sweep down from the mountains to despoil and ravage the land of Greece. No man can go up and do battle against them, and no king can rule over them.—Benjamin of Tudela (12th century): Itinerary[51]
The sources cited above yield a perfect explanation why Bulgars, Vlachs and Cumans became the common enemies of Byzantium on the eve of the liberation movement in 1185.[9] The revolt was sparked by a tax that Emperor Isaac II Angelos (1185–1195, 1203–1204) decided to levy in order to cover the expenses for his wedding.[6]
He /Emperor Isaac II/ celebrated the wedding rites penuriously, using public monies freely collected from his own lands. Because of his niggardliness, he escaped notice as he gleaned other cities which were joined together around Anchialos, provoking the barbarians who lived in the vicinity of Mount Haimos, formerly called Mysians and now called Vlachs, to declare war against him and the Romans. Made confident by the harshness of the terrain and emboldened by their fortresses, most of which are situated directly above sheer cliffs, the barbarians had boasted against the Romans in the past; now, finding a pretext (...) – the rustling of their cattle and their own ill-treatment – they leaped with joy at rebellion. (...)They descended Mount Haimos, fell unexpectedly upon the Roman towns, and carried away many free Romans, much cattle and draft animals, and sheep and goats in no small number. The emperor marched against them (...) Peter and Asan, and their fellow rebels ran violently to the Istros (...) and sailed across to join forces with their neighbors, the Cumans.
While he /Emperor Alexios III Angelos/ was still ailing, the Cumans with a division of Vlachs crossed the Istros. They attacked the Thracian towns around Mesene and Tzouroulos and at the first assault plundered them of whatever had remained to them (...)—Niketas Choniates (c. 1155-1215/1216) : O City of Byzantium - Annals of Niketas Choniatēs[38]
In accordance with the important role the Vlachs played in the liberation movement that had led to the foundation of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the new country separating from Byzantium was called Blacia in the Latin sources.[9] In the second stage of development, the terms Vlakhia and Bulgaria appeared, but this double designation referred to the whole territory of the Second Bulgarian Empire.[9] At a later date, the overlapping terms separated, and each was used to designate distinct parts of historical Bulgaria.[9] The fourth and final phase in the history of these terms was characterized by the dominance of the term Bulgaria and the disappearance of Vlakhia.[9]
John the Vlach sent word to the high barons /to the leaders of the Fourth Crusade/ that if they could crown him king so that he would be lord of his land of Vlachia, he (...) would come to their aid to help them take Constantinople with all of a hundred thousand men. Now Vlachia is a land which belongs to the emperor (...). Now Vlachia is a very strong land which is all enclosed by mountains so that one can neither enter nor leave it save by a narrow pass. (..) he /Kaloyan/ went to the Comans and he wrought so with one and another that he became their friend and they were all in his service and he was just like their lord. Now Comania is a land bordering on Vlachia (...).
The Greeks in Adrianople begged him /Emperor Baldwin I of Constantinople/ , as their lord, to leave a garrison in the city because Johanitza, King of Wallachia and Bulgaria, had subjected them to frequent attacks. Meanwhile King Johanitza was advancing to the relief of Adrianople with a very great army; for he was bringing with him not only Wallachians and Bulgarians, but also some fourteen thousand mounted Comans, who had never been baptized.
But westwards from the mouth of the Tanais as far as the Danube everything is theirs /the Tatars’/, and even beyond the Danube in the direction of Constantinople, Blakia, which is the land of Assan, and Little Bulgaria (...), all pay them tribute.—William of Rubruck (c. 1220-c. 1293): His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Möngke, 1253-1255[10]
A 13th-century chronicler when narrating the events of the First Crusade mentions that the crusaders passed through “Blachia”.
In the days of Urban II, Pope of Rome, having taken the Cross, a large crowd from Provence, France, Lorraine and Germany lead by Peter the Hermit (...) arrived to Constantinople through Hungary, Blachia, Pannonia and across the sea.
A Persian historian when narrating the Tatars’ operations on the right bank of the Danube refers to the “city of the ūlāqūt” (the city of the Vlachs) which must have been situated in Bulgaria.[44]
The Kiral, the ruler of those realms, was driven to the edge of the sea, and when he got into a boat (...) which was on the sea shore, and set sail into the sea, Quada’an turned back and on the way to the city of the ūlāqūt he took Q-rqīn and Quīla /possibly Kyustendil in Bulgaria/ after much fighting.
The basic Christian terms in Romanian are of Latin origin which suggests that the Christianization of the Romanians’ ancestors was done in Latin.[16] Although during the Roman rule, Christianity could not manifest itself freely in Dacia province, but after 274, there was no obstacle in the way of its affirmation.[16] The Gospel was not limited to the Germanic populations, and it was not addressed to them in a first stage.[3] The primary sources record that Bishop Wulfila preached in Greek, Latin and Gothic; on the other hand, this cannot imply that he preached in Latin north of the Danube, because the Gothi minores (the people of Wulfila) settled in the Empire in 348, and his translation of the Bible suggests that among the Goths the sermons were preached in Gothic.[5]
The (...) Goths, having engaged in a civil war among them, were divided into two parties, one of which was headed by Fritigern, the other by Athanaric. When the latter had obtained an evident advantage over his rival, Fritigern had recourse to the Romans, and implored their assistance against his adversary. (...) This became the occasion for the conversion of many of the barbarians to the Christian religion for Fritigern (...) embraced the religion of his benefactor /the Emperor Valens/, and urged those who were under his authority to do the same. Therefore it is that so many of the Goths are even to the present time infected with the errors of Arianism, they having on the occasion preferred to become adherents to that heresy on the emperor’s account. (...) /As/ Wulfila did not restrict his labors to the subjects of Fritigern, but extended them to those who acknowledged the sway of Athanaric also, Athanaric (...) subjected those who professed Christianity to severe punishments; so that many of the Arian Goths of that period became martyrs.—Socrates of Constantinople (c. 380 - before 450): Ecclesiastical History[56]
Following this and similar doctrines for 40 years, flourishing splendidly in the bishopric through apostolic grace, he /Wulfila/ preached in the Greek, Latin, and Gothic tongues (...)the blessed Wulfila, having completed seven years in the office of bishop, was driven out by the vehemently threatening persecution from the country of the barbarians with a great host of confessors onto Roman soil
Remaining with his people (...) 33 years on Roman soil, he preached the truth—Auxentius of Durostorum (4th-5th centuries): Letter[57]
The author of a poem addressed to Nicetas, Bishop of Remesiana (Bela Palanka, Serbia), who carried out an active mission south of the Danube and wrote in Latin, praised the bishop for having preached successfully to the Bessi settled around Naissus (Niš, Serbia).[58][59] The author also emphasizes the universal pacifying and civilizing power of Nicetas’s Christianizing efforts among the Bessi, the Schythians, the Getæ and the Dacians.[60]
For the Bessians, whose minds are harder than their lands, who indeed are harder than their own snow, have now become sheep, and you lead them as they flock to the hall of peace. (...) Now the Bessians are richer, and delight in the reward of toil. The gold which they previously sought from the earth with their hands they now gather with their minds from heaven. The Getæ run to you, as do also the Dacians, both those who dwell in the hinterland and the cap-wearers living on the bank of the Danube, rich in numbers of cattle.—Paulinus of Nola (c. 354-431): Poem 17[61]
The foundation of the Archbishopric of Justiniana Prima in 535 could also contribute to the emergence of a new Romance language within the archdiocese on the central territories of the Balkan Peninsula.[5]
We, being desirous of conferring many and various benefits upon the province in which God first permitted Us to see the light, do hereby establish there the center of sacerdotal authority; intending that the temporal head of the first Justinianian /Justiniana Prima/ shall be not only a metropolitan, but also an archbishop; and that his jurisdiction shall include other provinces, that is to say Dacia upon the Mediterranean, as well as Dacia Ripense, Second Mysia, Dardania, the province of Prævalitana, Second Macedonia, and that part of Second Pannonia in which is the City of Bacense.—Emperor Justinian I (482/483-565): Novel XI[62]
In 1020, the Byzantine Emperor Basil II determined the jurisdiction of the archbishopric of Ohrid and authorized the archbishop
to collect the church levy (...) from the Vlachs living throughout Bulgaria and the Turks near the /river/ Vardar who are within the Bulgarian borders. They must respect and hold him in high regard and obey his words.—Emperor Basil II (958-1025)[9]
Primary Sources:
Secondary Sources: