Foundation of Wallachia - Last Centuries of The Early Middle Ages

Last Centuries of The Early Middle Ages

Among the oldest attestations of the countries of the Vlachs (early Romanians) on the left side of the Danube, there is a quotation of a passage from an Armenian book of geography. The passage represents an interpolation, probably from the first centuries of the second millennium, which refers to an “unknown country called Balak”, situated in the neighborhood of the “Sarmatians’ country” and of “Zagura” (Bulgaria). Another 11th-century reference to the Vlachs’ country appears to be the section of the ancient Turkic chronicle Oghuzname ('Oghuz Khan's Tale'), preserved in a 17th century text, which narrates the battles of the Cumans against several peoples, including the Vlachs (Ulak).

The Cumans, a Turkic tribe approached the Danube Delta shortly after 1064–1065, and from 1068 the entire territory between the Aral Sea and the lower Danube were controlled by them. But this vast territory was never politically united by a strong central power. The different Cuman groups were under independent rulers or khans who meddled in the political life of the surrounding areas, such as the Rus’ principalities and the Byzantine Empire. In attacking the Byzantine Empire, the Cumans were also assisted by the Vlachs living in the Balkan Mountains (now in Bulgaria) who showed them the mountain paths where no imperial guard was set up.

In 1185, the Balkan Vlachs, together with the Bulgarians, rose up in arms against the Byzantine Empire. They created, with the help of the Cumans and the Vlachs living on the left bank of the Danube, a new state, the Second Bulgarian Empire between the Balkan Mountains and the Danube (to the south of the future Wallachia). The new state was called “Vlachia” or “Vlachia and Bulgaria” in Western sources. For example, in 1204 the pope elevated the head of the Bulgarian church to the rank of “primas” (primate) “of all Bulgaria and Vlachia”. “Vlachia” as a designation for northern Bulgaria only disappeared from the sources after the middle of the 13th century.

In 1211, King Andrew II of Hungary (1205–1235) settled the Teutonic Knights in the region of Braşov in order to put an end to the frequent incursions of the Cumans into Transylvania. The knights were given all the territory they could conquer beyond the Carpathian Mountains as a fief to be held from the king of Hungary. According to a royal charter of 1222, the knights’ military power stretched across the Carpathians all the way to the Danube. That the Teutonic Knights won several victories “beyond the snowy mountains” (ultra montes nivium), that is to the south and to the east of the Carpathians, is also confirmed by papal letters. However, the Teutonic Knights were forced out of the territory in 1225 by King Andrew II, who claimed that they had ignored his authority.

The Mongols enter Europe in 1223 when they defeated a joint Rus’-Cuman army at the river Kalka (now in Ukraine). Some Cuman groups, after their defeat of the Mongols, become willing to adopt Christianity. As early as 1227, one of the Cuman chieftains, Boricius subjected himself and his people to the future King Béla IV of Hungary, converted to Christianity and agreed to pay an annual tax and the tithe. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Cumania, located in northeastern Wallachia and southwestern Moldavia, was established in 1228. A significant presence of the Vlachs within the newly established bishopric is documented in the correspondence between the Hungarian crown prince and Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241), as the pope complained about Orthodox prelates active among the local Vlachs.

The Diocese of Cumania was de jure a part of the Kingdom of Hungary, and King Andrew II adopted the title of "king of Cumania" in 1233. There can be no doubt that the king also placed garrisons at key points on the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains in northeastern Wallachia. But the military outposts in the region of the bishopric are only first mentioned in relation to the Mongol invasion of 1241 by Roger of Torre Maggiore.

In parallel with the emergence of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary also persuaded an active expansionist policy in the Balkan Peninsula from the end of the 12th century. To that end, Oltenia was put under the control of a Hungarian governor, who received the title of ban. The centre of the new province (the Banate of Severin) was Fort Severin (now Drobeta-Turnu Severin, Romania), on the Danube, in the vicinity of the Iron Gates. Its first ban, Luke, was mentioned in 1233.

In 1236 a large Mongol army was collected under the supreme leadership of Batu Khan and set forth to the west, in one of the greatest invasions in world's history. The Mongols’ most devastating attacks against the western territories of the Desht-i Quipchaq (‘the steppe of the Cumans’) took place in 1237–1238. The development of the battles was not recorded in the sources, but the Cuman's subsequent migration to Hungary, Bulgaria and other neighboring territories is eloquent enough. Although some Cuman groups survived the Mongol invasion,the Cuman aristocracy was slain. The steppes of eastern Europe were conquered by Batu Khan’s army and became parts of the Golden Horde.

But the Mongols left no garrisons or military detachments in the lower Danube region and did not take direct political control of it. Although theoretically part of the Golden Horde, the steppe corridor between the Dnieper River and the lower Danube was only a “region of hegemony”, not of direct control.