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.[1] 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.[1]
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.[2] According to some scholars, the existence of the present Eastern Romance languages prove the survival of the Thraco-Romans in the low-Danube basin during the Migration period.[3]
Following the Second Dacian War, the region of Dacia was a Roman province for 170 years (between 106 AD and 275 AD).[4] 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 civilians moving into newly conquered areas.[5] The colonizing population was clearly heterogeneous, but they represented imperial culture and civilization and brought with them the Latin language.[6]
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.[7] There were also Costoboci, Iranian[8] Rhoxolani, and Germanic[9] Bastarnae, elements that had been part of the ethnic mosaic of that area.[10][11] 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.[10] The result was the strengthening of a series of largely Gothic dominated political units.[10]
Following the partial withdrawal of Roman forces from the province under Emperor Gallienus (260–268), the situation in Dacia was tenuous.[12] 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.[12] The withdrawal under Aurelian in 271 was largely of administrators and landowners, the poorer Dacians stayed on.[13]
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.[14][15] 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.[16] 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.[16] 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.[17]
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.[18] 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.[19]
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.[20] The region had nevertheless been exposed to major hardships, and the withdrawal of troops from Dacia left its territory dangerously open to attack.[20] Especially outside the walled towns, the population were the victims of epidemics, economic stagnation, plundering troops, and arbitrary tax collecting.[20] 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.[21] Small forts on the northern bank served as fortified landing points, bridge guards, and observation and customs posts as elsewhere along the frontiers.[21]
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.[22] In the process their former allies, the Carpians, the Bastarnae and the Vandals became their rivals.[22] The latter had to give way: most of the Bastarnae settled in Thrace in 280, and in 295 the rest followed;[22] around 300, large numbers of Carpians were resettled on Roman soil.[10] By the middle of the 4th century, the former province became the "land of the Goths" or Gutthiuda.[23] 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.[10]
One of the Gothic groups, the Thervingi, or "forest people", established itself west of the river Dniester.[24][25] The Thervingi had no monarchic kingship, but an oligarchic council could reactive a kind of monarchy by electing a "judge" (called iudex in Latin).[26][27]
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),[28] but a simple one-to-one equitation is demonstrably mistaken.[29] The overwhelming majority of Chernyakhov settlements were open and unfortified, and they were of varying size.[30] 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.[31] In at least one instance, archeological finds suggest that the old Roman fortifications were being used by the Goths as permanent settlements.[32] One example is the castrum at Pietroasele, another such fortification was situated at Tyras.[32]
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.[33] 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).[33] Driven away from the Danube, the Goths changed their direction of advance, and around 330 began the increasing infiltration of Transylvania.[33]
After 332, a succession of religious missions had come to the Gutthiuda; and the Arian mission, which proselytized in Gothic, exerted the greatest influence.[34] In 341 Wulfila was ordained a bishop to the already existing Christian community in Gothic territories.[35][36] Many of these Christians were descended from Christian Roman prisoners.[35] 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.[35]
Between 340 and 360, members of barbarian tribes were transferred en masse into Dobruja.[37] Among them the Sarmatians, who served in the Roman army, contributed to the barbarizing of the province.[37] They continued to keep their cultural habits intact until the 7th century.[37]
Around 375, the Huns attacked the Goths living on the territories east of the river Dniester, or Greuthungi.[38] Shortly afterward, the Huns crossed the river,[39] and in the autumn of 376 groups of the Goths, said by contemporaries to number 200,000, were permitted to cross the Danube.[40] 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 trains.[41]
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.[42] 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.[42] In the next 30 years, numerous Gothic groups met varying fates.[43] Some of them delayed conquest, or perhaps avoided it altogether, by establishing themselves in geographically protected ecological niches in Transylvania, but most (if not all) of the Goths who remained north of the Danube ended up under Hunnic control.[44] 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.[45][46] This group would later become the central to the creation of the Ostrogoths.[47]
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.[16] 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).[16] Thus, the circumstances created by the continuous invasions, caused an "ebb and tide" movement phenomenon of the natives.[48] 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.[49]
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.[50] 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.[51]
In material civilization, the Huns belonged to the lower stage of pastoralism, that is the raising of livestock.[52] The basic unit of Hun society was formed by the five or six persons of one family who lived in one tent.[53] 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.[54] Under the Huns, companies of the Scirii and Carpians (Carpodacians) were serving in a subordinate position, like the Alans;[55] and the Huns exploited the agricultural surpluses of their Gothic and other subjects.[56]
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.[57] From 441 to 453, the history of Europe was dominated by military campaigns on an unprecedented scale—the work of Attila.[58] In 448, Attila demanded that a wide belt of country south of the river Danube should be completely evacuated by the Eastern Roman Empire.[59] This strip of land was to stretch from Singidunum (now Belgrade, Serbia) to Novae (now Svishtov, Bulgaria), a distance of some 300 miles (480 km), and was to be five days' journey in depth, that is about 110 miles (180 km).[59] Consequently, the Danube, with all its fortifications and great frontier cities, was no longer to be the boundary of the Roman Empire.[59]
Attila died in 453, and his empire collapsed under the competing claims of his sons and the revolt of most of the subject peoples.[60] 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.[60] But the Huns did not disappear suddenly from the Carpathian region.[61] 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.[62] Attila's last surviving son, Hernac, found asylum in east Roman territory in northern Dobruja in 469.[63]
The Gepids first appeared in the Carpathian region in the aftermath of the 3rd century barbarian invasions against the Roman Empire.[64] In 291, they tried in vain to chase out the Goths from the former province Dacia.[65] Afterward, they settled in the area bordered by the rivers Tisa, Someş and Crasna.[65] Settlement sites suggest that the single farmstead or hamlet was widespread.[66] In the Transylvanian hills, earlier hilltop fortifications were occasionally reoccupied by Gepid groups.[66]
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.[67] After Attila's death the great rebellion of the Germanic peoples was led and inspired by the Gepid king Ardaric.[68] Following their victory, the Gepids took over part of the former Dacia province[69][70] where they controlled the salt mine district.[71] 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.[72]
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.[73] However, at least some splinters of the Gepid people survived this shock.[66] Archaeological research suggests that they remained in possession of the salt mines in Transylvania until around 630.[71]
According to the sixth-century historian, Jordanes some of the participants at Attila's funeral called the ceremonial feast strava, which may have been a Slavic term.[74][75] 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.[74][75] The first written evidence of the appearance of the Slavs refers to raids around 518.[76] 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".[77]
The apparently fairly sudden appearance of a relatively uniform material culture in the fifth century after the collapse of the classical Cherniakhovo Culture (together with its subsequent spread into areas of central Europe where we know from written sources that Slavs were penetrating) suggests that we can see here a material reflection of the appearance of Slav self-identification.—Paul Barford, The Early Slavs, p. 43[74]
The archaeological evidence of the 6th and 7th centuries to the north of the lower Danube indicates a mixture of different elements.[78] Local archaeologists have identified elements which they associate with Avars, Gepids, Slavs, steppe nomads, Romanized indigenous populations and Romans.[78][79] In the 6th–7th centuries, most, if not all, settlements were occupied only for brief periods, then abandoned and new settlements established nearby.[80] 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.[81]
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).[82] For the 6th-century authors, who wrote about the Slavic peoples, the Slavic "homeland" was north of the Lower Danube.[83] The arrival of the Avar nomads in the Lower Danubian area in the 560s further disrupted the situation.[84] 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.[85] The Balkans were freely overrun by Slavs after 615.[86]
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.[87][88] 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.[87] Linguistic studies and double (possibly translated) hydronyms[89] 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.[90] 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).[91] 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.[92] Linguistic studies also suggest that the Proto-Romanians were not in close contact with Slavic-speaking populations before the 10th century.[93]
The Avars were tightly organized soldiers and horsemen who quickly subjugated almost all communities in Eastern Europe after 568.[94][95] A vast array of subject peoples, such as various Slavic and Bulgar tribes, and the remnants of the Huns, was below the Avars.[94]
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.[96] The Avar Khaganate was politically dominated by the nomads, but economically reliant on the subjugated agriculturists.[95] 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.[97] More often than not, the Avars chose to move the entire population of a conquered city or territory in the middle of their empire.[97] 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.[98]
In Transylvania, the Avar cemeteries cluster around the salt mines which suggest that the Avars controlled the salt mine district.[71] The salt production implies the existence of a subject sedentary population.[99] The involvement of the Slavs in salt extraction and trade is documented by Romanian and Hungarian loanwords of Slav origin, e.g. both the Romanian and the Hungarian world for 'salt mine' (ocnă and akna respectively) were borrowed from the Slavs.[99][100] The chronology of spurs excavated in Transylvania also suggests the existence of cavalry troops.[101] 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.[102]
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.[103] Both categories of sites suggest an advanced degree of sedentization.[103] 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.[104] Having lost their western territories to the Franks, the Avars became at war with Krum, ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire, who defeated them.[105]
From the late 5th century, the Bulgars, a nomadic Turkic-speaking people, had been living in scattered tribes north of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov and along the Lower Don.[106] 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.[107] 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.[107]
The Bulgars themselves do not seem to have been particularly numerous.[108] They had a mixed pastoral and agricultural economy, but trade was also important for them.[108] 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.[109] Bulgar cemeteries north of the Danube have not been found farther than 12 miles (19 km) from the river.[110] 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.[110]
After the invasion of Asparukh's Bulgaria on the left of the Danube, no important invasions were recorded for almost two centuries.[111] 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.[111]
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.[112] A Greek inscription on a stone column erected by Khagan Omurtag of Bulgaria mentions the organizing of an expedition which reached the Dnieper River.[113] Another column bears an inscription mentioning an expedition on the river Tisa.[113]
Contemporary sources suggest a Bulgar control of the salt-mine district of Transylvania.[114] 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.[115] Because there were no salt mines in Bulgaria, a justified conclusion could be drawn that the salt sold to Moravia came from Transylvania.[115] 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.[115] 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.[110] The Bulgarian control never expanded into northwestern Transylvania.[116]
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.[117][118]
The Russian Primary Chronicle, written in the 1110s,[117] mentions that the Slavs had been the first inhabitants of the Carpathian Basin before the Volochs conquered the territory.[119] 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.[119] 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).[120] 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.[121]
The Gesta Hungarorum is the earliest surviving chronicle of Hungary, and was written around 1200.[117][122] Nothing indicates that its author had any reason to forge anything, and thus treating the Gesta as a forgery is a mistake.[123] 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.[124] The Gesta narrates that the Magyars, when invaded the Carpathian Basin at the end of the 9th century, came across three knezdoms or voivodeships.[125]
Duke Morout, whose grandson is called by the Hungarians Menumorout, because he had concubines, 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.—Gesta Hungarorum (Chapter 11)[128]
And while they tarried there some while, Tuhutum father of Horca, as he was a shrewd man, when he 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.—Gesta Hungarorum (Chapter 24)[128]
When the father of Ogmand, Tuhutum's scout, circling like a wolf, viewed, as much as the human gaze may, the goodness and fertility of the land and its inhabitants, he loved it more than can be said and most swiftly returned to his lord. When he 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.—Gesta Hungarorum (Chapter 25)[128]
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.[131] These landholders were considered "nobles" (in Romanian boieri, adopted from Slav).[132] 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).[131][133]
The first written record specifically and without doubt referring to the Magyars is a Byzantine account from 839.[134] They quickly established a firm control over the entire steppe corridor between the river Don and the Lower Danube.[135] 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.[136]
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.[137] 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.[137] 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.[138] 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.[139] Anything east of the double defensive line as far as the dwelling area of the Pechenegs was considered a marcher region.[139] 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.[140]
Around 950, one of the Magyar tribal leaders, who held the title of gyula, visited Constantinople, was baptized and received the Stephen name.[141][142] He was also given a bishop named Hierotheos who accompanied him back to Tourkia (that is, to Hungary).[143] His dwelling area was to be sought around the region bordered by the rivers Timiş, Mureş, Criş and Tisa.[144]
The disastrous defeat of the Magyar forces in the Battle of Lechfeld (955) put an end to the raids in the West.[145] Their campaigns to the south came to an end in 970, when the Magyar forces were defeated in the Battle of Arcadiopolis.[145] After 970, the free nomads were locked into the tight "prison" of the Carpathian Basin.[146] 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.[147] 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.[148] In the 980s–990s, the gyula and his family also transferred their seat to Transylvania.[149]
After 1002, a chieftain named Ahtum, who had been ruling over the Banat, was baptized in the Orthodox faith in Vidin (now in Bulgaria).[150] His base of power was in Morisena (now Cenad, Romania) where Ahtum established a monastery which he populated with Greek monks.[150] 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.[151]
In 864, the ruler of Bulgaria, Boris I (852–889) was baptized and he also allowed the Byzantine (Eastern Orthodox) clergy to enter Bulgaria and begin their missionary work.[152] In 893 a council declared Christianity a state religion and turned Old Church Slavonic into the official language of Church and State.[153] The ancestors of the Romanians also followed the Old Slavonic rite.[154]
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.[155] 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.[155] 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.[156]
From 1020, the jurisdiction of the archbishopric of Ohrid (now in the Republic of Macedonia) expanded over the Romanians within the Byzantine Empire.[157]
The Pechenegs were a Turkic tribe.[158] In 894/895, they crossed the river Don and formed an alliance with Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria (893–927) against the Magyars.[134][159] The Pechenegs fell upon the latter who, wedged between two hostile forces, immediately looked for a new home further west.[134]
The land of the Pechenegs was divided into eight "provinces" (most likely the territories of the leading clans), and the entire steppe corridor between the Danube and the Dnieper rivers was under their control.[160] The Pecheneg economy was predominantly pastoral.[161] 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.[162] 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.[163] The Primary Chronicle points out that the Ulichians and the Tivertsians settled on the Dniester River, spreading up to the Danube.[164]
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).[165] The unknown author of an early 13th-century biography of St. Olaf of Norway also mentions Blókumenn among Sviatopolk’s allies.[165] Similarly, the inscription of an 11th-century runestone commemorates a merchant who was traveling to Constantinople and was killed by Blakumen.[165][166] The traditional interpretation of the ethnonym Blakumen is Vlach.[166] 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.[167] On the other hand, the ethnonym is also interpreted as "black men".[166]
It is perhaps during this period of time that most, albeit not all, sites south and east of the Carpathian Mountains were deserted.[168] By 1050, the sites that had flourished during the 10th century had already been abandoned.[168]
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.[169] The Empire was saved by the arrival of another Turkic horde, the Kipchaks (Cumans) who emerged from the Russian steppe behind the Pechenegs and defeated them on the Danube.[169] On April 29, 1091, the combined Byzantine and Cuman forces crushed the Pecheneg army at Mount Levunion and decimated them.[169] 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).[155][170]
In 997, the new Grand Prince of the Magyars, Stephen, defeated the army of his rebellious kinsman, Koppány who died in the battle.[171] Koppány's corpse was quartered and its parts were pinned to the gates of four castles, among them to the gates of Bălgrad (now Alba Iulia, Romania) which was the seat of Stephen's maternal uncle, Gyula.[171]
At Christmas of the year 1000 or on New Year's Day in 1001, Stephen was crowned the first King of Hungary,[171] but he still had to defeat the chiefs of the tribal states one after another in order to rule the entire country.[172] Stephen started it with his greatest rival, his uncle, Gyula and occupied his territory in 1003.[172] 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.[173] 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.[173]
King Stephen is reported to have founded ten Roman Catholic dioceses with two archbishops at their head in the entire Kingdom of Hungary.[174] 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).[175] Although no data of medieval charters 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.[176] 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.[177] In Ahtum's former "kingdom", a Venetian monk named Gerald began a mission of Christianization of the entire region.[173] He became Bishop of Cenad in 1030.[173] From about 1100, the diocese of Bihor was named after its new seat, Oradea.[175]
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.[178] In Transylvania, already at least five castle districts or counties had been established before the mid 11th century: Dăbâca, Cluj, Turda, Hunedoara, and Bălgrad.[179] To denote the head of the royal governor of a county, the word ispán (equivalent of the southern Slav župan) was used.[180]
The Kingdom of Hungary had to defend itself against foreign incursions.[181] For example, the Pechenegs and the Oghuz invaded the country in 1068 and 1085, and its eastern part faced a Cuman attack in 1091.[182] The Hungarian state had by 1200 established its frontiers firmly on the Carpathian Mountains.[183]
The settlement process of Transylvania proceeded in the 11th–12th centuries.[184] The settlement area expanded from the northwest and west to south and east, respectively, during the 12th century.[185] 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.[186]
Written sources, dating from before the mid 12th century, announce that "guest" settlers from Western Europe also moved into Transylvania.[187][188] The earliest settlers may have been Flemings or Walloons.[183] During the reign of King Géza II (1141–1162), groups of settlers, larger than the ones before, arrived in Transylvania.[189][190] The legate of the Holy See mentioned between 1191 and 1196 that King Géza II had granted desolate lands to the Flemish arrivals.[189] "Saxons" as a generic name for the "guests" was not established before 1206,[191] and the emerging Transylvanian "Saxon" community played an important role in the life of Hungary.[133] According to the income register of King Béla III (1172–1196) from around 1195, their taxes made up 9% of royal revenues.[133][192] 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).[193][194]
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.[195] The first Székely groups left for the east by the early 12th century.[196] 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.[197] 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.[198] 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.[199]
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.[200] The abbey was established around 1207 and its estates were carved out of the "land of the Vlachs".[201][202] A Vlach presence on the southern frontier of Transylvania clearly antedates the arrival of the Cistercians.[202] 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.[202] 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.[203] Around 1210, Romanians fought in Bulgaria in the army of the Count of Sibiu together with Saxons, Székely and Pechenegs.[201] In 1224, the Andreanum entitled the Transylvanian Saxons to use the forests and waters granted to the Romanians and the Pechenegs.[204]
The count of Bălgrad appeared in variety of ways in Latin (tribunus, princeps, comes) in the 11th and 12th centuries.[133] 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.[133] The voivode became the chief officer of the king in Transylvania.[133] He was appointed by the king who could revoke the appointment and delegate the office to someone else in sign of his favor.[133] During the 89 years between 1199 and 1288, the office of the voivode changed holders 43 times.[205]
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.[206] However, even the relatively independent "castle warriors" were high-placed subjects within the manorial system.[207] In contrast with them, the "royal servants" (servientes regni) were independent landholders, small or great, and possessed subjects, few or many.[207]
In 1233, the Hungarian troops crossed the Danube into Wallachia, where they occupied the Severin region, creating a special banate there.[208] The banate of Severin, which incorporated the entire region of Wallachia up to Olt River, included the territories of several Vlach chieftains (knezes).[209] 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.[209]
In 1054, the Russian chronicles 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.[210] 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.[211] 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.[212]
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.[213] Depending on their region and their time, different sources each used their own word to denote different sections of the vast Cuman territory.[214] 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.[214] 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.[214]
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.[215] These were villages of agriculturists, and not temporary camp sites of nomadic pastoralists.[215] 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.[216] 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.[217] By contrast, only 35 sites are known which have been dated to the 12th and 13th centuries.[217] No 12th-century settlements have so far been found in the steppe lands in eastern Wallachia and north of the Danube Delta.[216] 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.[218]
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.[155][183] 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.[183] 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.[183] 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.[219]
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".[220][221] 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.[220] The Knights took the war into enemy territory, thus turning the defense into aggressive offensive.[221] 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.[222]
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.[223] After the battle, the Cuman chiefs could not be sure when a new Mongol attack would appear.[223]
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.[224] 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.[224] 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.[204] In 1233, King Andrew II of Hungary adopted the title rex Cumaniae ("king of Cumania").[225][226]
The beginning of the Mongol campaign in Eastern Europe (1236) radically changed the situation and a large-scale westward migration of the Cumans began.[227] In the summer of 1237, groups of Cumans appeared in Bulgaria;[227] 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.[192][228] The Cuman Bishopric took the brunt of the Mongol invasion in March 1241.[229] Nevertheless, many of the Cumans remained in the steppes and were absorbed into the Mongol state, strengthening its armies.[230]
In 1018, the former Bulgarian Empire became part of the Byzantine realm, and its inhabitants paid tax to New Rome.[231] In Byzantine Bulgaria, Byzantine Macedonia and northern Thessaly, Bulgarians and Vlachs (Romanians) lived together amicably.[232] The Vlachs also gave assistance to the Cumans, who were Byzantium's nomadic enemy, in attacking the Empire.[233] Nevertheless, Cumans also came to settle in Bulgaria, some of whom received large pronoias (grants of an income source, usually a landed estate) from the Byzantines, to defend the Danube frontier or to garrison various interior regions.[234]
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.[235] The other cause of the rebellion was of rather personal character.[236] 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.[237] 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.[107][238] Peter and Asen were also able to mobilize many Cumans.[107] Byzantine and Western chroniclers (e.g., Niketas Choniates and Geoffrey of Villehardouin) explicitly refer to the brothers' Vlach descent.[239]
What followed was a Bulgarian–Vlach–Cuman uprising in 1185 that produced a state in which all three peoples participated.[108] This second Bulgarian monarchy called itself "Bulgaria",[108] but between 1185 and 1250 Western sources called the new state or its northern part simply Vlachia or Wallachia.[240] The collapse of the Cumans in 1238–1239 considerably weakened Bulgaria militarily.[241] 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).[242]
At the end of the 12th century, numerous Turkic, Mongol, and Tungusic tribes roved in the steppes north of the Gobi Desert.[243] 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.[244]
In 1235, a decision to launch a massive campaign in Eastern Europe was taken at a Kurultai, the great assembly of the Mongol chieftains.[245] The supreme command of the expedition was given to Batu, a grandson of Genghis Khan.[246]
In 1241, a Tatar (Mongol) army led by Böček crossed the mountains of the Kara Ulagh ("Black Vlachs") .[247] Böček defeated the Vlachs and one of their leaders, known as Mišlav.[248] 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.[249] The swiftness of the invasion took many by surprise, and forced them to retreat and hide in forests and enclosed valleys of the Carpathians.[250]
The Mongol hordes left the Kingdom of Hungary after 12 months.[251] 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.[251]
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 prerogative.[252] Planned settlement also assumed considerable proportions after the Mongol invasion.[253] When a second invasion of the Mongols came in 1285, it was easily repelled.[254]
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.[255] 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.[256] But evidence also shows that these polities soon sought independence from the Hungarian crown.[255] For example, the Romanian Voivode Litovoi rebelled against King Ladislaus IV of Hungary in 1272.[257]
In 1330, King Charles I of Hungary made an expedition against Voivode Basarab I, but the king was eventually forced to withdraw toward Transylvania.[258] 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.[258][259] The battle marked the appearance of the first independent Romanian principality, Wallachia.[258]
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||