Romania in The Middle Ages - Background

Background

At the end of the 8th century the establishment of the Khazar Khaganate north of the Caucasus Mountains created an obstacle in the path of nomadic people moving westward. In the following period, the local population of the Carpathian–Danubian area profited from the peaceful political climate and a unitary material culture, called Dridu, that developed in the region. Finds from the Dridu settlements, such as coulters and sickles, confirm the role of agriculture in their economy.

In the 9th century centrifugal movements commenced in the Khazar Kaghanate. One of the subject peoples, the Hungarians left its dominion and settled in the region between the rivers Don and Dniester. They abandoned the steppes and crossed the Carpathians around 896. According to the 13th-century Gesta Hungarorum ("Deeds of the Hungarians"), at the time of the Hungarian invasion Transylvania was inhabited by Romanians and Slavs and ruled by Gelou, "a certain Romanian", while Crişana was inhabited by several peoples, among them Székelys. Whether the author of the Gesta had any knowledge of the real conditions of the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries remains debated by historians.

In 953 the gyula, the second leader in rank of the Hungarian tribal federation, converted to Christianity in Constantinople. Around that time, according to the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, the Hungarians controlled the region on the border of modern Romania and Hungary along the rivers Timiş, Mureş, Criş, Tisa and Toutis. In 1003, as the Annals of Hildesheim narrates, Stephen I, the first crowned monarch of Hungary (c. 1000–1038) "led an army against his maternal uncle, King Gyula", and occupied Gyula's country.

Stephen I granted privileges to the Roman Catholic Church, for example by ordering the general imposition of the tithe upon the population. Burials in most local pre-Christian cemeteries, for example at Hunedoara, only ceased around 1100. Stephen I also divided his kingdom, including the territories of modern Romania he had occupied, into counties, that is administrative units around royal fortresses, each administered by a royal official called count. In time the voivode, a higher royal official first attested in 1176, became the principal of all the counts in Transylvania. In contrast with Transylvania, the counts in modern Banat and Crişana remained in direct contact with the king who appointed and replaced them at will.

From the end of the 9th century the Pechenegs controlled the territories to the east and south of the Carpathians. According to the Eymund's saga, they fought together with the Blökkumen ("Romanians") in the Kievan Rus' in the 1010s. The Pechenegs were swept aside from their territories by the Cumans between 1064 and 1078. A late variant of the oldest Turkish chronicle, the Oghuz-name relates that the Cumans defeated many nations, including the Ulâq ("Romanians"). Some of the Pechenegs fled into the Kingdom of Hungary where they were employed to guard the border districts, for instance in Transylvania.

The 11th-century settlements in Transylvania are characterized by small huts with ceramic assemblages marked by clay cauldrons. The increasing number of coin finds suggests that the province experienced economic growth in the late 11th century. The first document pertaining to the province is a royal charter of 1075 referring to taxes on salt levied at Turda. The earliest precious metal mine in medieval Transylvania, the silver mine at Rodna was first mentioned in 1235.

In the 12th and 13th centuries hospites ("guest settlers") arrived in Transylvania from Germany and from the French-speaking regions on the river Rhine who in time became collectively known as "Saxons". In 1224 Andrew II of Hungary (1205–1235) granted special liberties to the Saxons who had settled in southern Transylvania. For instance, they were authorized to choose their local leaders; only the head of the entire community, the count of Sibiu, was appointed by the king. They were also granted the right to use "the forest of the Romanians and the Pechenegs". The first references to viniculture in Transylvania are connected to the vineyards of the hospites of Cricău, Ighiu, and Romos.

As a result of the Saxon immigration, the Székelys – Hungarian-speaking free warriors cultivating communal lands – were transferred to the southeast of the province. From the 13th century they were governed independently from the voivode by a royal official, the count of the Székelys. Besides the Saxons, the Cistercians became the agents of expansion in Transylvania. When their abbey at Cârţa was established in the early 13th century, Andrew II ordered that the strip of land running up to the mountains between the rivers Olt, Cârţişoara and Arpaş be transferred from the Romanians to the new monastery.

Following the defeat of the Cumans by the Mongols on the river Kalka in 1223, some chieftains of the western Cuman tribes accepted the authority of the king of Hungary. Their conversion led to the creation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cumania to the east of the Carpathians. However, the Orthodox Romanian population of the territory received the sacraments from "some pseudo-bishops of the Greek rite", according to a papal bull of 1234. In 1233 Oltenia was organized into a military frontier zone of the Kingdom of Hungary, called the Banate of Severin.

The expansion across the Carpathians was stopped by the invasion of the Mongols that lasted from March 31, 1241 to April, 1242. It was a major watershed in the medieval history of the region: although the number of casualties is disputed, even the most prudent estimates do not go below 15 percent of the total population.