Download Danube-Tisza-Maros-Temes

Danube - Tisza - Maros - Temes
Four Rivers and the Destinies of their Peoples:
From Augustus to Eugène
Bruce Mitchell (Advisor: Dr Martyn Rady)
A Dissertation for the degree of Master of Arts
at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies,
University of London.
Submitted, September 1994.
Index of Maps
Map 1
The Balkans (Jelavitch: History of the Balkans)
Map 2
The Danube lands under Roman Rule (Jelavitch: History of the Balkans)
Map 3
Dacia, 106 - 271 (Erdély Története)
Map 4
The Avar Period in the Carpathian Basin (Magyarország Története)
Map 5
Mediaeval Balkan Empires ( Jelavitch: History of the Balkans)
Map 6
Inhabited Territory in the Middle Danube Basin, 490 - 567/8. (Magyarország Története)
Map 7
Campaigns of Saloman and the Counts (Magyarország Története)
Map 8
Eastern Europe in the 9th Century and the Magyars' Road to Present Day
Hungary. (One Thousand Years)
Map 9
The Carpathian Basin in the 9th century, According to Historical Sources.
(Magyarország Története)
Map 10
Campaigns Preceding the Honfoglalás (Magyarország Története)
Map 11
Hungary in 902. (Magyarország Története)
Map 12
Encampment Territories Granted to the Pechenegs in Árpádian Hungary
(Pechenegs, Cuman s and Iasians)
Map 13
Bulgaria in the Middle Ages (Jelavitch)
2
Map 14
Cuman and Ias Settlement Areas in Hungary (Pechenegs, Cumans and Iasians)
Map 15
Moldavia and Wallachia (Jelavitch)
Map 16
The Principality of Transylvania in 1606 - 1608 (Erdély Története)
Map 17
Transylvania after the Peace of Vasvár (Erdély Története)
Map 18
Ottoman Territorial Losses 1683 - 1815 (Jelavitch)
Map 19
17th Century Transylvanian Trade Routes (Erdély Története)
Map 20
Austria Military Map (1880) form Military Map Collection at JATE, Szeged.
Map 21
Ethnic Map of the territory of Present-Day Vojvodina in the 11th century
(Kocsis Károly).
Map 22
Ethnic Map of the territory of Present-Day Vojvodina in the 15th century
(Kocsis Károly).
Map 23
The Flood Areas of the Tisza (Royal Naval Staff Intelligence Division).
Map 24
Drainage Network of the Carpathian Basin prior to River Control
(Magyarország Nemzeti Atlász)
Map 25
The Military Frontier of Austria and Hungary.
Map 26
Ethnic Map of the territory of Present-Day Vojvodina in1773.
(Kocsis Károly)
3
4
Preface
The question of where any territory actually begins and ends elicits various responses,
depending on when the question is posed, and by whom to whom. While even an island's
surface may be disputed between political rivals, at least its coastline keeps frictions within
bounds. Continental territories, though continents be but islands magnified, are deprived
this luxury. Empires wax and wane across their surface, the flow of time accompanied ever
by the exhilaration and decay of power. Some areas are doomed by geography and the
perspicacity of the powerful to hold up that flow awhile and gather unto themselves the
wealth of nations. The exceptional may maintain their advantage until it be seen to be
theirs by right, yet, whether Babylon, or Rome, or Constantinople, or Venice, all eventually
weary from the struggle: they are swept away, if the currents of human history do not in
the meantime pass them by to leave them as washed-up jetsam from a past time.
Fortune is always relative, however, and the boon of Constantinople was the bane of the
provinces which supplied it. When those provinces were lost, the City gradually, but
irresistibly, shrivelled to a dried husk, while its lost power shifted among the unstable
constellations of less well-found fragments of its former Balkan dependencies. This process
of disintegration and fitful growth was overshadowed by the birth-pains of early modern
central Europe and the inchoate fencing-in of the nomads of the Pontus steppe. The
Hungarians participated in both the latter processes, becoming themselves tamed and
feudalized, while being encouraged, after Augsburg, to look to the east and south, rather
than to challenge the authority of the German Emperor. Their portion was to constrict and
divide the nomads' westward progress along the line of the Carpathians. Yet the strength
of the Magyars, even while prospering within the fertile Carpathian Basin and reinforced by
the introduction of Pecheneg and Saxon settlers and Cuman refugees, was inadequate to
the task. First the Mongols (1241) and then the Turks (1526) crushed the insubstantial
barrier, reducing the kingdom to a smouldering wreck. Yet while the Mongols ravaged the
major part of the kingdom, their most memorable sojourn in Hungary lasted little more
than a year. The Turks, on the other hand, also at the end of a formidable career of
conquest, remained in occupation for a hundred and fifty years. Their conquest however,
5
was equally incomplete, and could not be extended to more than one-third of the
Hungarian kingdom. The inability of the Hungarians to hold the territory with sufficient
strength ever and again drew in forces from without, whether they be colonists invited by
the kings, or raiders from the south or the steppe. Only the stronger Hungarian kings had
really been able to bring the whole of the Carpathian Basin under their effective rule.
During the more troubled reigns, oligarchs, local voivods, "junior" or rival kings had
disputed the Hungarian king's hegemony, in need resorting to foreign protectors. The
Hungarians' tale of a thousand years of state continuity within the Lands of St Stephen's
Crown thus holds little water, even for the period of the existence of the mediaeval
Hungarian kingdom. The fringes of that territory, where the state strove most furiously to
assert its existence, were also exposed to the most strenuous efforts of neighbours to
wrest them away from Ofen - Pest. It was here that any invading army would be at its
freshest and most effective, here where the defence would be at its most vigilant, and yet
most stretched.
While some areas are favoured by nature, and can over long periods retain a measure of
control over their destiny, other areas seem doomed to be perpetually the arenas where
the mighty clash. Perhaps the Dobrudja offers the clearest example. A corridor to the
Balkans, it has been used as such by invaders from the Sarmatians to the Soviets, and never
has it constituted the nucleus of a dominating power. Home in recent times to Turks,
Bulgars, Tatars, Kutzo-Vlachs, Russian emigrées and even Germans, none were able to
overcome the region's basic dearth of external security. Even in the Roman period, the
swampy Dobrudja had been the weak link in the Danube Limes,and it was here that the
Goths broke in and laagered before destroying Decius in 251. From here upriver, the
Danube formed the imperial frontier along almost its entire course, defining the
northernmost extremities of Moesia, Pannonia, Noricum and Raetia while separating them
from the Germanic tribes on its left bank.
Unlike the Byzantine frontier, which would expand and contract wildly about the single
point, Constantinople, the Roman imperial frontier on the Danube held firmly from the first
century to the late fourth, and, with interruptions, was bequeathed to the Byzantines more
or less intact in the sixth. The frontier became the Empire, while the edifice behind it
6
crumpled. Paradoxically, despite its vulnerability, it remained a strip of relative prosperity,
derived from trade with the Germans and Asiatic nomads (whose wealth derived in part
from Roman "subsidies"). Yet still, the frontier was not "a thing in itself"; it only existed in
relation to the political subject it protected. Once this disintegrated, the question of
"border" had to be reformulated. Givens lost their validity, and key-points such as Sirmium
became apples of discord between contending parties striving to erect their own stable
successor-states. Byzantium was far more than first among equals, yet by the end of the
sixth century, was evicted from the middle Danube and would not return before the
eleventh. From the arrival of the Huns in the late third century, a whirl of Germanen and
nomads succeed one another within the Carpathian Basin, clashing with, overthrowing,
passing over, or absorbing both each other and the remnants of previous populations. The
whole process is so convoluted and opaque as to fustrate the most inquisitive of scholars,
while the various modern national interpretations of that past, and the multiplicity of
languages necessary for their study, clearly adds to the burden.
As the intention is to cover a period of over 1,700 years, the present study therefore limits
itself in its title to a relatively small space, the Danube-Tisza-Maros-Temes basin. There is
no corresponding political unit. That this space is a effectively a open sack is convenient, as
there is a lot of coming and going, primarily from the east. The author is aware of certain
weaknesses, particularly in his treatment of the Serbs.
7
Rome, the Danube Frontier, Dacia and the Jazyges.
Rome reached the southern bank of the Danube under Augustus. The provinces of Moesia and
Pannonia (Map 2) were in the third century to become the most threatened stretch of the
Imperial frontier, and the fortress-city of Sirmium the key to any invading barbarian intent on
pillaging the Balkans, or aspiring Caesar preparing to march against Rome. Beyond the Danube
lay the Scythian waste, a wide plain where wild horsemen ranged unchecked by any natural
hindrance. This plain was bounded on the west by the middle reaches of the Danube, around
Aquincum, and on the east, by the Dacian kingdom. Stung by the repeated Dacian victories
under Decebalus over Domitian's lieutenants towards the end of the first century AD, Marcus
Ulpius Trajanus determined on and by 106 eventually achieved the elimination of Rome's last
peer within Europe. Trajan's conquest, however, did little to ease the pressure on Rome's
frontiers: the new province of Dacia was but a huge isolated salient, an armed camp thrust into,
yet unable to subdue, a barbarian world.
Though a military road connected Dacia to Pannonia Inferior via the course of the Maros and
the Danube - Tisza interfluve (Map 3), the southern fringe of the Pannonian plain was
effectively scorned by Rome and left in the hands of the Jazyges, Sarmatians who sometimes
supplied auxiliary troops to the Romans1. When, however, in 166, they raided Pannonia in
concert with a general Marcomannic - Lombardic invasion, Marcus Aurelius determined to bring
the interfluve within the empire as a new province called Sarmatia2. The rigours of eight winter
campaigns on the Danube, the emperor's consequent ill-health, and revolt in the east,
frustrated once and for all the ambition of prince and Empire. Starting from Marcus' son, the
dissolute Commodus, the natural pressures that impel order towards dissolution gained such
momentum as to defy any single man's capacity to resist. Henceforth, the interior of the Empire
would wither away, while the frontier districts, the object of the emperors' continual attention,
absorbed the mass of imperial resources. The frontier towns such as Aquincum, Sirmium,
Singidunum, and Carnuntum (see Map 2), like Trier and Colonia Agrippensis in Germania, acted
not so much as bulwarks to repel invasion, but rather as advertisements of the apparently
1
2
Tacitus: Annals XII, 29
Grant: p.90
8
boundless wealth of the empire, a spur to ambitious chieftains among the Germanic and Altaic
tribal confederations beyond the frontiers. They would also have been conduits through which,
by everyday trade, some of that wealth would have been released into the barbarian
hinterland. It is not unreasonable to suppose that this bounty diminished with increasing
distance from the frontier.
Vandals, Goths and the evacuation of Dacia
Dacia was increasingly squeezed from the north by the Gepids and by the Visigoths from the
east, and in time became untenable. The Dacians themselves were never wholly conquered,
and rebellions by subjects or invasions by 'free' Dacians occurred during the reigns of Antoninus
Pius (158), Commodus (183), Maximinus Thrax (236), Maximus & Pupienus, and Philip I (238247)3 Shortly after Philip's eventual victory, the Goths swept into the Dobrudja. Their crushing
of the Emperor Decius and his legions in 251 marked a watershed in the relations of Rome and
the Germanic tribes. Excepting a strip between the Temes and Danube (incl. Tibiscum?) Dacia
was to all intents and purposes abandoned to the barbarians: the Taifali, a Germanic tribe,
settled in the Banat, while Visigoths occupied Wallachia. Finally, by order of Aurelian, the
remains of Dacia beyond the Danube were evacuated in 271-2, under circumstances which
have, since the formulation of the Daco-Romanian Continuity Theory, added fuel to the fire of
Hungarian - Romanian rivalry over Transylvania. The Transylvanian Basin became the abode of
Vandalic Victovali and Gothic Gepidae. With the Great Migrations already under way, the
Jazyges were, in 337, overthrown by a revolt of their serfs4. These, quite possibly partly early
Slavs, were subsequently overlaid once more by the Asding Vandals5.
3
4
Grant, pp. 86, 103, 138, 149, 150.
Cambridge Mediaeval History, Vol 2, p 431.
9
The Daco-Romanian Controversy
A: The Romanian Contention
The Daco-Romanian Continuity theory is highly complex and the debate has now raged since at
least the 1780s : the issue cannot be resolved here in a few pages. It is safe to conclude that a
link of some kind does exist between the Romanians of today and the presence of legionary
troops in Dacia after the conquest in 106 AD. Just what that link is, however, must remain the
object of research for many years to come. The similarities between Latin and the Romanian
language, and consequent reflections upon the Vlachs of the Grandeur that was Rome have
been used to buttress ethnic claims to Transylvania. Dr Daniel Abondolo (SSEES) however warns
against confusing language with people. They are not the same thing. Language he likens to
software, whilst people are the hardware which transmit it. It is perfectly possible for a
language to persist in an area when the original population has passed on to a new home.
Conversely, it is equally possible for a people to lose a language and aacquire a new one. The
Franks and Bulgars, and latterly, immigrants to the USA are offered as examples. Archaeological
discoveries around Alba Iulia (Gyulafehérvár), Medias (Medgyes), and Turda (Torda), Sibiu
(Nagyszeben) and the Olt Valley in Brasov county6, may since the Second World War have
added credence to Romanian claims of a certain continuity, but one cannot help passing the
Romanians' conclusions through a filter before swallowing them.
B: Weaknesses of the Romanian Case
Transdanubian Dacia was an imperial province for 166 years: Romanization within Britannia had
proceeded for four centuries before 406, when the legions left for Gaul with the usurper
Constantine (406-411), and yet Romano-British culture still proved to be brittle and lacking truly
deep roots. Pre-Roman Dacia, to take the Romanian line, was a substantial power with a highly
civilized and cultivated population. And yet within the short period of Roman administration,
during which many of the occupying troops were of Thracian and Syrian origin, and whose
retention of their own languages after long periods of Latinization is proven by inscriptions they
5
6
Cambridge Mediaeval History, pp.195-205.
Mackenzie, pp. 47- 50.
10
left behind7, the only European Volk which was supposedly on a par with the Romans had
abandoned their own culture and language and adopted those of their one-time arch-enemy.
Furthermore, they are then expected to have become transformed into arch-defenders of that
identity, and to have maintained it intact despite perpetually renewed submergence below the
ferocious, predatory hordes from the steppes. Yet not all Dacians had come under Roman rule,
and even those that did periodically revolted.
C: Alternative Views
An alternative view was offered in the Cambridge Mediaeval History of 1911/1913 8, where Dr T
Peisker of Graz portrays the Vlachs as "Romanised Altaian nomads, probably Avars and
Bulgars". He opposes to the continuity theory the uncomfortable fact that the Vlachs have
historically been a predominantly nomad group, while the Dacians - so the Romanian view -and
the Daco-Romans certainly were not. The Vlachs have maintained their nomadic ways
wheresoever this has proved possible - those of Istria perpetuating the practice until most
recent times. Peisker dismisses the view that the Daco-Romans retired with their sheep into the
hills whenever a new nomad horde arrived with the simple comment that the new invading
nomad hordes themselves needed those same hills to graze their own herds. A flock of sheep is
visible from a great distance, and none too mobile. A swift attacker would overtake them in a
trice. In the winter, the Daco-Romans would have been compelled to face the hordes in the
valleys in any event: "thus the Romanians could not have escaped, and their alleged game of
hide-and-seek would have been in vain"9. He follows this with the assertion that the Romanians'
origins must be sought south of the Danube, and late, "because nomads are never quickly
denationalized", and the Vlachs particularly not.. It were necessary for them to have lived for
many centuries in close proximity to a settled and strongly Romanic population. The need for
salt and a mild climate in winter would push the range of possibilities for the location of the
possible Vlach Urheimat outward, toward the Aegean and Adriatic coasts. The demand for
intercourse with a solidly Roman population reduces the options to one: the Dalmatian coast.
7
Kurze Geschichte Siebenbürgens, pp 50-2.
Cambridge Mediaeval History, Vol. 1, pp 357-8; Vol. 2, pp. 440-1.
9
Op. cit.
8
11
"From this district, the expansion of the Roumanians had its beginning, so that the name DacoRoumanians is nothing but a fiction" 10.
In general, this ties in with Hungarian views which ascribe to the Romanians a Balkan origin. Van
Leisen, for instance11, describes them as originating from Thracian and Illyrian stock, with an
admixture of shepherds settled on the Albanian coast from Italy in the fourth, fifth and seventh
centuries. The concept of a basically Altaic Vlach stock is apparently Peisker's own contribution
to the controversy. This thesis of an extra-Balkan origin for the Romanians seems to have found
little favour with the Magyars, or indeed with anyone else, though this is universally conceded
in the cases of the Turks, Bulgars and South Slavs, to say nothing of the Magyars themselves.
The "Balkan origin" theory demands that the Romanians gradually spread northwards - against
the run of the Völkerwanderung - until they reached the Carpathians and spilled over into the
basin beyond. The traditional Hungarian idea was that they arrived in an established, Christian
Hungarian realm as unorganised and supplicant Vlach shepherds to be granted refuge by
beneficent Hungarian kings. The Vlach's migratory lifestyle and their atomised summer
habitation among the mountains is referred to disparagingly, with the allegation that the
Romanians thereby escaped the effects of the recurrent wars, and at the same time the honour
of defending the valleys that were their winter homeland. This "honour" was dutifully seized by
the Magyar and German population, whose natural growth was consequently held back until
the point was reached where they were overshadowed by their less "patriotic" neighbours.
The "Balkan" theory seems however unable to accommodate the fact that the most substantial
Romanian-Vlach groupings developed not in the more sheltered Dalmatian regions of their
putative origin - where they have now all but died out - but at the point furthest removed, in
Wallachia and Moldavia, in the direct path of Pechenegs, Cumans and Mongols, in fact on the
fringes of the Magyars' own Etelköz, and that much Vlach immigration to Transylvania
originated from Moldavia. This could perhaps be read as evidence to support Peisker's
contention of an Altaian origin, but does not resolve the central mystery of their Romanisation.
D: The Lack of Documentation
10
Ibid., p. 358.
12
Hungarian emphasis on the alleged latecoming of the Romanians into our area rest substantially
on the lack of documentary evidence to the effect that the Romanians were present at the time
of the honfoglalás in 895, or during the later conquest of Transylvania. Yet the first document of
any kind from Transylvania dates only from 116512, so the absence of mention of Vlachs until
1210 is not necessarily as compulsive a piece of negative evidence as pro-Hungarian scholars
would have us believe. In any case, documents aplenty did not survive the Mongol irruption of
1241. In fact, those documents that have survived make no secret of the existence of Vlach
rulers in, for example, the Banat (see below), and this is conceded by Erdély Története. In
essence, both Hungarians and Romanians and their advocates have in the past resorted to the
tattered doctrine of prior tempore, potior jure, believing thereby to substantiate their claims to
control of the region. The story is so involved and the evidence still so scanty and controversial,
however, that this approach can do nothing but harm to Hungarian-Romanian relations.
Whatever the truth may be, it may still be pertinent to ask whether the origin of the wandering
Vlachs common to much of the Balkans in any case be identical to that of the majority of folk
who have come to comprise the Romanian nation. Despite the depredations of repeated
invasion, there must have remained some "indigenous" population in Transylvania, even were
it drawn from the detritus of a hundred tribes, and their retention of a form of Latin as a useful
lingua franca quite possible.. The existence of a limited sub-Roman population has already been
mentioned. They can not long have maintained their separate identity: a subtle evolution
involving admixtures of Dacians, Gepids, Goths, Huns, and Avars with their dependent Slavs.
This evolution , most likely at its strongest when each of these in turn lost their dominance and
joined the ranks of the vanquished, must have occurred, as it continues today.
The Visigothic Period
In the old province itself, which soon became host to the Visigoths, certain (unnamed) islands
of "continuing sub-Roman settlement persisted after the withdrawal of the military, and small
11
12
Das siebenbürgische problem, Genf, 1943, pp.43-5
Documentation even of German settlement in Transylvania is delayed by 50 years after their
13
Visigothic villages...", which enjoyed trade links with Syrian and Roman traders13. Mackenzie
cites discoveries of coin finds within Dacia dating to as late as Theodosius II (408-450)14 , but
these in themselves prove only that trade persisted - they say little about who was participating
in the process. An interesting contention, however, is that "there was a difference between the
customs of the local population, which used bronze coins that were of negligible value for their
metal content, and those of the Goths, who valued coins for their content of precious metal"15.
He deduces from the fact that "... the great majority of the coins were of bronze, very few of
silver, and those of gold were extremely rare..." 16 that the population responsible for the hoards
were not Goths keen to acquire aesthetically pleasing gold, but an established, sedentary
population engaging in regular trade. It is however perfectly possible to think of other reasons
for the preponderance of bronze and extreme scarcity of gold specie. Firstly, and most
obviously, natural proportion and intrinsic value. Secondly, inflation within the Roman Empire
was rife, and many hoards of the lower value coinage, whose metal content was repeatedly
debased, have been found throughout the empire. Silver and gold coinage, though also
debased, always retained at least a wash of a more precious metal, and would therefore have
been more likely to retain its value. Thirdly, Gothic jewellers' most important source of gold was
"the Roman world, probably in the form of gold coins"17. Much of the gold specie available
would have been transformed in the goldsmiths' workshops. Might the settlements Mackenzie
not therefore also have been Gothic?
Irruption of the Huns
The Great Migration was hurled toward its climax when the Huns, nearing the end of their
westward career, fell upon and obliterated the Black Sea Ostrogothic kingdom. The horror of
their approach was sufficient to charge all in their way with a desire only to move as far and as
fast as possible. The Huns' momentum transmitted to the panicked Ostrogoths and Visigoths,
the Romans found themselves compelled to allow the latter passage of the Danube frontier. By
...arrival (Martyn Rady).
Randers-Pehrson, p.39
14
Mackenzie, pp 48-50
15
Op. cit.
16
Op.cit.
17
Todd, p. 95
13
14
375, the Huns had reached the Danube Basin, submerging for a while the Gepids and Asding
Vandals. In the nomadic tradition, the hub of Hunnic power shifted around the region, resting
between 425 and 430 in the Temes-Maros-Körös region and returning to the Temesköz in 435
on the division of the Hunnic realm between Attila and his brother, Bleda. Bleda remained here
until his murder by Attila in 445, when the latter, who had hitherto camped in Muntenia, made
the Temesköz the centre of his short-lived empire18. Shortly after Attila's death, the Huns' helots
rose in revolt under the leadership of the Gepids, gaining a decisive victory in 455 on the banks
of the river Nedao. In the sixth century, the tide of the Völkerwanderung was for a while held in
check by an imperial resurgence, as the skilful diplomacy of Justinian combined with the
generalship of Narses and Belisarius served to turn Lombard against Gepid, Utigur against
Kotrigur, and Avar against Hun.
The Avar Domination, Retreat of Byzantium
The course of the succeeding centuries is lost in the confusion of disintegration, and the
concatenation of raid, flight, and destruction which accompanied the region's tortuous path
through the Dark Ages. The Germanic Gepids (Map 4) were in 568 swept to destruction by the
Asiatic Avars, whose origins and habits recalled those of the feared Huns (they also acquired
their name in the Nibelungenlied). Their domination of Europe in centuries to come would rely
substantially on the existence of a numerous dependent Slavic population, and the Avar
Khagan, Baian (whose name has been perpetuated in the title Bán, and, by extension, the
Bánát), transplanted large groups to various strategic parts of his empire, forming the basis of
the later Sorbs, Serbs and Croats at least19. They were by no means always as amenable as the
Khagan had intended20, and already by 603, they were starting to break free from Avar control.
The key Byzantine fortress of Sirmium, recovered on the Gepid collapse, was lost to the Avars in
582, opening up the entire Balkan peninsular to Slav raiders and settlers. The wider Byzantine
frontier along the Danube, having become reduced to a thin, brittle shell before a depopulated
and devastated hinterland at permanent risk of Slav raid and infiltration, at length crumbled
under the disastrous reign of Phocas (602-610). It was not until the eleventh century that
18
19
Erdély Története, Vol 1, p. 136
Cambridge Mediaeval History, Vol. 2, pp.433-437
15
Byzantine forces would again penetrate beyond the Danube into the Pannonian Plain. In the
meantime, the process whereby the Slavs assimilated their Altaic overlords gradually unwound.
Ethnic Composition of the Eastern Hordes
The eastern hordes themselves were never pure ethnic nations - nor could they ever be.
Metamorphosis was part and parcel of the nomad existence. "In the furious tumult in which the
Central Asiatic mounted hordes constantly swarmed, and fought one another for the spoils, it is
to be presumed that nearly all such people, like the Scythians and Magyars, at least once,
sustained the loss of their wives and children. The mounted nomads could therefore, remain a
pure race only where they constantly opposed their own kin, whereas in the south and west they
were merged so imperceptibly in the Semitic and Indo-European stock that no race-boundary is
perceivable"21. They were far rather loose confederations, constellations of tribal groups which
happened to agree generally for the short term, on a common objective, or perhaps they might
be simply impelled in the same direction. Ethnicity need not be a binding factor. Separate
hordes from the same "nation" could appear as auxiliaries on both sides of a battle. This
constant admixture of admixture in the Carpathian Basin excludes any possibility of a direct line
being established between present-day nations and historical ethnies.
The Bulgar Supremacy
The Avar realm (Map 5), though it dominated the map of Europe throughout the seventh and
eighth centuries, gradually lost its vitality and cohesiveness. The nomads gradually became
settled mainly in the Pannonian Plain, more distant regions slipping out of their grasp. By the
eighth century, their decline was irreversible and a combined Frankish - Bulgar attack in 796
overthrew the last Khagan. The last recorded mention of the Avars is from the year 82222. For
the next century, our region formed a part of the Bulgarian Empire (Map 6). Although this for a
while extended as far as Bohemia, its centre of gravity remained firmly south of the Danube,
20
Cambridge Mediaeval History, Vol. 2, p. 276.
Cambridge Mediaeval History, Vol.1, p.356.
22
Cambridge Mediaeval History, Vol. 2, p. 609.
21
16
abutting onto the Byzantine Empire, and it was here that its most important battles were to be
fought. Khan Krum's campaigns against the luckless Nicephorus and Stauracius brought the
Bulgars back to the gates of Constantinople, from which they were only deflected by the
fortuitous death of the Khan himself. In Transylvania, a Bulgar presence was established around
Szászsebes (Sebes), but this was outweighed by the indigenous population, now consisting
mainly of Slavs23. This incarnation of the Bulgarian state was brought to a bloody end by Basil II
"the Bulgar Slayer" of Byzantium in about 1014.
The Arrival of the Magyars, and 11th Century "Dacians"
Mention has been made above of "free" Dacians maintaining their liberty until at least the third
century24. It is likely that they became absorbed by the Asding Vandals, or the Goths, or any of
their Altaic successors. The name of Dacia, however, was perpetuated by creation of a new
province from parts of Moesia. This had been done away with by Diocletian, but re-established
in new form by Theodosius in 395. In later Byzantine literature, the name would crop up again,
but with a most curious twist. In Anna Comnena's Alexiad, on the occasion of an invasion of the
Empire led by the "Scythian" chief Tzelgu (Spring 1087), she refers to "... a large body of Dacians
led by one Solomon..."25. This Solomon had been King of Hungary from 1073 to 1074, since
when he had maintained his position by raid and rapine (Map 7). "Scyth" had become a
traditional term for horse-peoples of the steppes, by now applied indiscriminately by the
Byzantines to denote all such peoples and Slavs, denoting a considerable degree of assimilation
between the two. But the promise later made to the victorious Alexius I Comnenus, by
"Scythian" envoys, to supply 30,000 horsemen to the Emperor on demand, their subsequent
tactics and eventually the use of their common name makes it clear that these were indeed still
a mounted nomad people, the Pechenegs. Comnena makes further reference to Dacia and the
Dacians in connection with a campaign in 105926, the Crusade of Peter the Hermit, most of
whose followers passed "through Dacia",27, the treaty of Devol between Bohmond and Alexius,
23
Erdély Története, I, pp. 189-197.
See also Jen_ Fitz, pp 54-6, Cambridge Mediaeval History.
25
Alexiad of Anna Comnena: VII, i.
26
Alexiad: III, viii.
27
Alexiad: X, v.
24
17
where ambassadors of the Kral (Király!) were present28, and in an aside on the Balkan
Mountains (Haemus)29, in which she speaks of extremely wealthy Dacians (and Thracians) being
established to the north. In all these cases, it is perfectly clear that she is referring to Hungarians
- not Vlachs, of whom she makes no mention at all. Thus the very label which a pro-Continuity
scholar would have us automatically associate with Vlachs in Transylvania has in fact been
usurped by newcomers to the region with nothing at all in common with Trajan - and this label
is accorded by a historian of the very self-conscious Empire which is supposed to have spawned
the Daco-Romans! In a parallel to the terms Britannia and Briton, Italia and Italian, a radically
changing population has not invalidated the name of Dacia. Its retention signally does not
signify continuity of population.
The Hungarians' origins are no less in dispute than those of the Romanians. Put simply, the
Magyars who arrived with the Honfoglalás in 895 consisted of a complex of Finno-Ugric tribes
with assimilated elements of Chazar (Kavar rebels30), Volga Bulgar and Turkic origin, which had
coalesced in Etelköz - the Dniepr-Dniestr interfluve (Map 8). In common with their Hunnish and
Avar forerunners, they were subject to the dynamics of ethnic admixture and loss which
characterised the nomadic hordes. Although the Magyars did appear to contemporaries as
reincarnations of the Avars and of the Huns at their worst, it is not possible to draw a direct line
of descent between them. It is probable that the Magyars absorbed some remnants of the
Avars after the Honfoglalás (Map 9), despite the contemporary geographical names Avarorum
Solitudo and Pannoniorum Solitudo - and, during their earlier sojourn within the Khazar Empire,
some fragments of the shattered Huns, but it is most unlikely that these comprised more than a
tiny proportion of the ferocious Hungarian hosts that would range as far as Toulouse and even
Spain. The Székely, who were ultimately to settle in the crook of the Carpathians, came early
under the sway of the Magyars, the facts of their origins becoming embellished and at last
swallowed up by fable. The nationalist Romanian "academic" S. Mehedinti, rounding off his
contribution to the propaganda volume Siebenbürgen, reminds his Nazi readership that
28
Alexiad: XIII, xii.
Alexiad: XIV, viii.
30
Horváth, p.27.
29
18
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, in de administrando imperio, described the Magyars as "Söhne
Satans"31.
It was, nevertheless, as allies of Byzantium that the Magyar hordes, perhaps numbering no
more than 20,000 mounted warriors32, set out to attack Bulgar frontier posts on the
Carpathians in 895. During this campaign, the Bulgars successfully appealed to the Turkic
Pechenegs for assistance. The Pechenegs, settled to the east of the Magyars, overthrew the
Magyars' camps in Etelköz, causing a mass exodus westwards, towards the Carpathian passes.
The exact progress of the Magyar occupation of the Carpathian Basin (Map 10) is unclear, but it
does appear to have proceeded from north to south, the point of entry having been gained
around Ungvár (Uzhgorod). It may be that the Magyar warriors returning from combat with the
Bulgars effected a juncture with the main body within the Basin, having travelled upstream
along the Danube. Transylvania, at any event, was clearly left for another day. Once established,
the Hungarians became the terror of Western and Central Europe, giving tangible form, with
the Vikings and the Arabs, to the hopes and fears of millennialists. Yet the victory of Otto I at
Augsburg (955) hastened the process whereby the Asiatic Magyars were transformed into an
essential part of the European mosaic. They had already begun to abandon nomadism for
agriculture a mere fifty years after the honfoglalás.33
The Hungarian Eastern Campaigns
The Hungarian conquest of Transylvania and the Banat began around the middle of the eleventh
century. The old Hungarian claims of a terra deserta awaiting Magyar settlement are obsolete
and have been refuted by archeaology (Map 11). This has been conceded by the authors of
Erdély Története, though they expend some ink34 to refute the interpretation placed upon
Anonymous by S. Pascu in A magyar krónikairadalom, Nyesztor és a Francia Névtelen
tudósításaiból (Cluj, 1972), whereby Anonymous' assertion that Transylvania was inhabited by
31
Siebenbürgen, p. 773.
Horváth, p.10.; Lázár, p. 39.
33
Obolensky, Byzantine Frontier Zones, p.309.
34
Erdély Története, Vol, 1, p. 586.
32
19
Vlachs and Slavs (Blasii et Sclavi) is, simply on account of the word-order, made to mean that
the Romanians constituted the majority of the population of 10th century Transylvania. In the
same context of criticising Pascu, they mention the statement of Anonymous that the Bánát was
at the time of the Honfoglalás inhabited by Vlachs, Bulgars (including assimilated Cumans) and
Pechenegs. The Hungarian position has thus developed from primitive denial of any Vlach
presence in Banat-Transylvania at the time of the honfoglalás, to disputing the proportion of
Vlachs among the total population. Magyarophobes, please note.
The Magyars found their way east barred by local voivods, some of whom seem to have been
Vlachs. One of these, Menumorut, was held by Árpád in sufficient esteem to have his son Zulta
take Menumorut's daughter to wife35. Another, named Glad, ruled between the Maros and the
Danube36, in other words, in the Banat. Though he was defeated, his descendent, Ahtum,
succeeded to the territory and continued in the dignity, until forced into surrender by King
Stephen. Even afterwards, the Hungarian kings found it convenient to retain the services of the
Voivods and Kenézes in the area, particularly around Fogaras, rather than to impose their own
officials everywhere.
Pechenegs and Cumans
One of the persistent characteristics of the Asiatic way of life was the impermanence of
conquest and alliance. Constantine Porphyrogenitus complained of the Magyars' weak
attachment to their bond, while the Pechenegs were a ramshackle alliance of about a dozen
tribal groups, often appearing on opposite sides in a battle with little loyalty to either. But by
the late eleventh century, this near anarchy had dissipated their strength vis-á-vis the
sedentary peoples. Then the Turkic Ghuzz bundled the Pechenegs west of the Dnieper and in
1070, both were displaced by the Cumans. The Pechenegs, suffering two major reverses against
the Byzantines and Cumans (Mount Levunion, 1091; 1123)37, dissolved as an effective force, and
many refugees joined the ranks of those who had already fled to seek the protection of the
Hungarian King, Stephen II. One of the areas chosen for settlement for the Pechenegs was along
35
36
Lehrer, p.7.
Erdély Története, Vol.1, p.196: Mackenzie, p.53.
20
the river Harangod (Aranka), in the northern Banat, another in the marshy Sárrét in Körös
country (Map 12). As subjects of the Hungarian crown, they were under obligation to supply
armed forces in time of war - mainly horsemen - but were accorded privileges and a collective
freedom (libertas Bissenorum).38
The Pechenegs' eclipse had been brought about by an alliance between Byzantium and the
Cumans. The latter had originally lived around the Huang-ho (Yellow River) in China, but the
foundation of the Khitan (Qitay/Khitay/Ch'itan) empire north of Peking had impelled them
westward39. By 1068, after the familiar process of amalgamation and assimilation, they had
taken over the Dnieper - Danube corridor40 . After the success at Mount Levunion (1091), the
Cumans turned against Hungary and ravaged Transylvania and the Tisza area. "King (St.) Ladislas
routed them near Temesvár, and again at the lower Danube, triumphed over the fresh Cuman
force that was thrown against Hungary in retaliation"41 For the next century and a half, the
Cumans dominated the steppe.
In 1166, Byzantine forces in pursuit of Cumans based along the Danube had invaded
Transylvania. The anarchy that resulted - the Cumans received assistance from the Székely argued powerfully for a reinforcement of the southern border, especially when unsuccessful
war broke out with Byzantium in 1167. Manuel I Comnenus' disaster at Myriokephalon (1176)
and the emperor's death in 1180, however reversed the situation, and the Hungarian capture of
Sirmium in 1181 opened the way for a successful Hungarian-Serb campaign which penetrated
as far as Sofia. The Norman capture and sack of Thessaloniki (1185) and the rebellion of the
Bulgaro-Vlachs in the same year both exploited and hastened the Empire's plunge from
superpower to pawn under the Angelos dynasty. The Bulgaro-Wallachian Asenid Empire (Map
13) engaged in perpetual warfare with Byzantium, its successors and the Latin Empire of
Constantinople42. The beginning of the 13th century was punctured by continual hostilities
between Hungary and the vigorous Asenid Empire over the status of Nándorfehérvár and
37
Alexiad of Anna Comnena: VIII, iv-vi.; Horváth, pp. 25-6, 31.
Horváth, p. 33.
39
Rodzinski, p. 118.
40
Horváth, pp. 42-3.
41
Ibid., p.44.
42
vid. Villehardouin: The Conquest of Constantinople.
38
21
Barancs estates, and the activities of the Bulgars' Cuman allies. Wallachia was another apple of
discord, the local Vlachs and Cumans retaining some degree of independence. Erdély Története,
on the strength of documents from 1234 and 123843 points out the presence of a few Hungarian
and Saxon immigrants mixed with the majority Romanian population. The point of this is to
claim by extension that they had emigrated thence form an already solidly Hungarian
Transylvania. Moldavia was certainly in the power of the Cumans.
The Fall of Magna Hungaria and Cumania
In the year 1235, a Dominican monk, Julian, left Hungary with three companions to seek out
those relatives of the Magyars who had become separated during the long migrations. In the
vicinity of Bashkiria, he made contact, but fled back to Hungary with news of the approach of
the Mongols. Upon his return in 1237, seeking to persuade the population of Magna Hungaria
to follow him back to the Carpathian Basin, he found that they had already been destroyed, and
conveyed back a letter from Genghis Khan to King Béla IV, demanding his immediate
submission44. The Great Khan had begun his conquests in 1219, and, by this time, was
irresistible. Even the Cumans and Russians were overthrown at the River Kalka (16 June 1223).
After a pause, he released once more the tides of conquest, but was initially checked by the
Cuman Khan on the River Ural. In 1238, however, the collapse of Russia hastened the overthrow
of the Cumans. At Easter, 1239, about 70-80,000 of them45, with their defeated Khan, Köten
(Kötöny) and, perhaps with the less numerous Iasians in tow, were accepted by Béla as refugees
in Hungary. This, to Mongol eyes, was tantamount to a declaration of war. Béla's guilt was
compounded by his slaughter of the Mongols' envoys.
The Mongol Invasion
The story of the Cumans' reception within Hungary, and of their betrayal and defection at a
desperate juncture in Hungary's history is of course, too involved to do justice to here. Suffice it
43
Ibid.
Lázár, p. 30, 75.
45
Horváth, p. 61.
44
22
to say that they were distributed in privileged, tribal bands throughout the land (including one
group in the Banat), and that their nomadic way clashed head-on with the now sedentary
Hungarians, causing damage and friction wherever they went. The Hungarian nobility, their own
powers recently curtailed, viewed the newcomers with jealousy, and the general opinion seems
to have been that the Cumans were but a vanguard of the Mongol army. The stage was thus set
for the most short-sighted action in Hungary's history. As the Mongols overwhelmed the
defenders of the Verecke Pass, Kötöny and his bodyguard, in a royal palace in Pest, where they
were supposed to be enjoying the king's protection, were wiped out. In revenge, the Cumans
passed south along the Danube-Tisza interfluve and left the country, obliterating everything in
their path, including a Hungarian army under the Bishop of Csanád which was heading north to
do battle with the Mongols. A greater disaster was to befall Béla on 12 April, when, near the
village of Muhi, the Royal Hungarian army was annihilated by Batu Khan: Béla himself barely
escaped with his life, by fleeing to Dalmatia. Until winter froze the Danube, the Mongols'
ravages were confined to the eastern half of the country. Only in 1242 were they able to pursue
their adversary. Their period of enforced sojourn east of the Danube saved the king, but
devastated the east of the kingdom. The death of Ogodai Khan in distant Karakorum gave both
a glimpse of a fragile future. The result of the Mongols' depredations have been preserved for
us in the Carmen Miserabile of Rogerius, Canon of Nagyvárad.
Consequences of the Mongol Invasion
"Passing up the valley of the river Maros in Transylvania, Rogerius did not
meet one living person in several days' journey. The roads and byways were
overgrown with grass and it was only the white bones gleaming among the
ruins of the churches and palaces in Gyulafehérvár that indicated that not
long before, the town had been the political and ecclesiastical centre of a
flourishing part of Hungary. During his sad journey, on which bell towers of
ruined churches acted as his waymarkers, he lived on the vegetables he
collected from the deserted gardens of the extinct inhabitants. It was only
by the village Fráta in Kolozs County that he first happened upon some
people, who had found refuge on a wooded mountain there."46
46
Erdély Története, vol.1., p.310-1, own translation.
23
It must have been hard for the survivors to shake off the fear that the Mongol withdrawal was
merely temporary, and that they would return with still greater strength. To be sure, there
were further incursions, but none was to approach the invasion of 1241-2 in vigour. So they
gradually returned to their destroyed villages to rebuild their homes, but the slaughter of
captives (which in addition included tens of thousands of Russians whom the Mongols had
driven before them into Hungary) consequent famine, not to mention the thousands carried off
into slavery, had greatly reduced their number. The most important long-term consequence of
the Mongol invasion was therefore demographic. Whether or not Hungarian claims of a
population surplus in Transylvania, which had hitherto "sustained" settlement beyond the
Carpathians, can be justified47, Transylvania was henceforth to remain a net immigration land
for a long time to come.
King Béla IV had nominally taken the future Romanian principalities under his protection on the
Cumans' collapse in 1241, but he was unable to absorb them after the Mongols retired.
Repeated Mongol attacks kept conditions in flux and two Voivods were able to establish their
autonomy, in narrow zones at the feet of the mountains bordering Transylvania. Yet this
scarcely solved Hungary's problems: it rather created further rivals for the king. Neither was
adequate protection against the Mongols guaranteed thereby.
Béla therefore donated the Szõrény Banat and Cumania to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem
(1247). The charter specifically excluded from their jurisdiction the territories of Voivod Litvoi
(quam Olacis relinquimus prout iidem hacentus tenuerant) and of the Romanian Voivod
Seneslaus48. The Szörény Bánát was extended as far eastward as the Olt river, where it abutted
on Cumania. The Knights obtained similar rights to those Andrew II had granted to the Teutonic
Knights in the Bárcaság (this latter award had been rescinded when the Order made over its
ward to the Pope.). Again Germanic knights proved a broken reed. The Knights of St. John,
unable to raise adequate forces, and deprived by the king of settlers from among the existing
Hungarian or German population of his kingdom, soon renounced the award and left the
country. Moldavia remained a politically derelict and very sparsely populated territory, even
47
Erdély Története, vol.1., p.311; Lehrer, p. 12-13.
24
into the fourteenth century, and Hungarian efforts to subjugate the territory would not helped.
The limitations of Hungarian resources were nevertheless evident: most effort would be
directed towards establishing a secure line of defence on the line of the Carpathians.
Renewed Cumanian Settlement in Hungary
The Cumans, now a dislocated folk living either side of the lower Danube - their political status
vis-á-vis the now distant Mongols (their supreme warlords in conclave at Karakorum until 1247)
is unclear - were now sought out again by Béla IV. The Asenid empire's present convulsions and
vulnerability49, and their own present weakness, persuaded the Cumans to lay aside the
memory of Kötöny's murder, and in 1247, the Cuman Khan's daughter, receiving the name
Elizabeth on her baptism, was wed to Stephen V, Béla's eldest son. The refugee Cumans (not
the entire Cuman Volk), organised into seven kindreds, were settled in the Danube-Tisza-KörösMaros-Temes region (Map 14), which had been 50 - 80 % depopulated during the Mongols' year
of bloodshed.50 The Borchol kindred had originally came from the Donets region, and some of
their kin remained behind among the Mongols' Kipchak subjects. Those Borchol who were
received in Hungary were settled south of the Maros, in the vicinity of present-day Arad. The
Koor kindred was of more recent formation. It was settled along the Aranka valley, overlaying or
replacing the earlier Pecheneg settlers.51 In 1280, however, just one year after the Second
Cumanian Law regulated the Cumans' position within the kingdom, a revolt broke out. Those
who had settled between the Körös and Maros joined forces with the Borchol, but all went
down in defeat at the battle of Lake Hód. The survivors, including the Borchol clan en masse
"fled to Wallachia to join their eastern kinsmen under Mongol domination ... only a few
scattered families ... remained behind (to preserve) the memory of the Cumans' presence in
these districts"52 henceforth, the most significant Cumanian settlements within Hungary were to
be those in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve, and it was Cumans from here that would be used to
put down the Saxon rebellion of 1324.53
48
Erdély Története, Vol. 1, pp. 306-7.
Horváth, p. 52.
50
Horváth, p. 54.
51
Horváth, p. 55-58.
52
Horváth, p. 58.
53
Erdély Története, Vol.1, p.321.
49
25
The Székely, early Saxons and das Altland
King Géza II (1141-1162) had already settled a number of landless peasants and impoverished
nobles from the Moselle region and Wallonia in the Olt valley around and above Nagyszeben,
transplanting Székely eastward to make room. This territory became known among the later
Saxon54 population as das Altland. The fringes of this territory retained their original
inhabitants, however, with the result that many of the later Saxon villages acquired Saxon
names derived from Slav, Hungarian or Székely (or Romanian?) originals55. In 1192, the Szeben
Provostship was established, and under Andrew II, Saxon settlement was expanded56. According
to the Saxons' charter of 1224 (the Andreanum), the Saxons were to inhabit four diverse
territories (Szeben province, extending from Szászváros to Barót., Medgyes-Selyk, Brassó and
Beszterce), each of which was to be administered by a bailiff, normally of Hungarian noble
origin, who was appointed by the King. The Counts of Szeben (Gerébs) were a perpetual thorn in
the side of the Bishop of Transylvania and even for the Voivod himself.
Under Béla IV, a new settlement area was made available for the Saxons; the Bistritz valley
(perhaps a slavicization of the mountain Vlach name Repedele57) guarding the Radna Pass. One
of the three Mongol armies in 1241, however, passed this way, and the Germans were swept
54
The term "Saxon" came to be applied to the community of settlers of German origin, even
though only a proportion were accounted Saxons in their lands of origin. Large numbers also
came from Flanders (the Frandrenses), the Moselle, Luxembourg, Westphalia, Hesse,
Thuringia and Bavaria (Mackenzie, p.47.).
55
See Prof. Sever Pop, in Siebenbürgen (Bucharest, 1940); die Toponynie Siebenbürgens. In
this article, he seeks to prove the continuity of the Romanians in "Dacia" by means of tracing
toponymic names back to the Roman period. In all truth, he scarcely manages to prove
anything more than that a few such names, such as Szeben/Sibiu have a corresponding Latin
name, in this case, Cibinium, but offers no documentation of this. Might not this form of this
particular toponym be a mediaeval Latin type? Apart from this case, he offers a series of
towns within Dacia which have retained their Roman names. Ad-Mediam (Mehadia), Alburnus
(Rosia), Ampeium (Zlatna), Apulum (Balgrad), Napoca (Cluj), Porolissum (Moigrad), Potaissa
(Turda), Salinae (Uioara). After consultaion with Dr Daniel Abondolo (SSEES), it appears that
the most apparent link (Ad-Mediam / Mehadia), is in fact the most cogent evidence against
Pop's case. The second d must in the course of the Latin to Romanian evolution have
disappeared. The other examples are dismisssed as translations or borrowings.
56
Erdély Története, Vol.1, p. 296-7.
26
away58. Nagyszeben and the Altland were also devastated. After 1241, both Saxon and Székely
territories were consolidated. The remaining Székely along the lower course of the
Nagy-Küküllõ were moved to Kézdi Szék and to along the River Aranyos, their original lands
being bestowed upon the Saxons, whose numbers were being swelled by new immigration from
various parts of Germany. The growth of the Saxon population was such that it spilled over the
boundaries of the Saxon districts. Saxon settlers in the counties bordering the Saxon territories,
however, failed to attach their villages to the Saxon district administratively, resulting in a
differentiated social development, more akin to that of the Hungarian agricultural classes59.
After a Saxon revolt in 1324 an administrative reorganization abolished the Count's authority
and divided Szeben Province into judicial districts (Széks), whose principal officials, Royal Judges,
were usually appointed at the discretion of the king. The other three districts continued as
before, but by 1402, the King was permitting Medgyes and Selyk Széks to elect their own Royal
Judges, introducing an element of Saxon autonomy. Szeben (1464) and the seven districts of
Szeben province (1469) obtained this right later. Matthias Corvinus (1458-1490) in 1486
confirmed the Andreanum (1224) for Szeben province and extended its terms to Brassó,
Beszterce and Medgyes-Selyk60 .
The Romanian Colonisation
It is, perhaps, no coincidence that the Romanian population of our region becomes rapidly more
visible after the Mongols' passage. Certainly, Hungarian historiography has a persistent and
generally cohesive argument to explain this, and it is this on which the following is mainly
based61.
57
Prof. Sever Pop, in Siebenbürgen, Bucharest, 1941; , p. 325.
Erdély Története, Vol. 1, p. 310.
59
Erdély Története, Vol. 1., p. 312.
60
Erdély Története, Vol.1, pp.334-5.
61
Particularly as formulated in Erdély Története. The author is not persuaded that this work
provides a completely satisfactory answer, the authors still being unable to shake off Hungary's
imperial and more recently revisionist past, not to mention Hungarians' irrepressible
conviction of their innate superiority over their neighbours. The book does, however, represent
a substantial advance, and does away with many of the Hungarians' more ridiculous claims,
such as the terra deserta. The vicious diatribe launched against Erdély Története and its
58
27
The inadequacy of the old royal castles, situated at the counties' centres, led to their being
abandoned and donated to the Church or to private persons. The crown began to build more
inaccessible mountain fortresses. These were established in thinly inhabited areas, unsuitable
for agriculture, and generally unfavourable to colonisation by Hungarian or Saxon farmers. The
Hungarian and Saxon population was anyway much reduced after 1241 (the assumption being
that the Romanians had hitherto formed an insignificant proportion of the population) and
colonists were hard to find62. Yet without some population, these mountain redoubts would fail
to become established. Additionally, while the crown hived off more and more royal estates in
the interior of Transylvania to private persons, the royal exchequer required that the remaining
mountain estates be made more remunerative.
The Carpathians abound in rich pastureland, eminently suitable to highland herdsmen. It is
therefore not surprising to find the kings settling Rumanian herdsmen in the vicinity of the royal
fortresses. What, in the context of this argument, is surprising, is to find that the Romanians
mostly established their habitations on the fortresses estates along the outer side of its western
mountains, facing the Hungarian plain. It is here that Daco-Romanian Continuitists claim
the Daco-Romans most faithfully retained their heritage. According to Erdély Története,
however, the collapse of the Cumans permitted, and the developing disorder in the Asenid
kingdom encouraged, a gradual northward migration among the Vlachs of the Balkans. Arriving
on the fringes of Hungary, the Vlachs were supposedly received and settled systematically, at
first only on the Royal Estates, this being an exclusive royal prerogative. Hungarian sources
invariably refer to the Rumanians as mountain shepherds. Even in the sixteenth century, an
official report stated that the Rumanians were herdsmen, living either in forests or in the
contributors by Ilie Ceaucescu under the old regime (Lupta Integrului Popor: Revista Romana
de Istorie Militara 4 (14), 1987, pp64-69) served only to vilify the critic.
The author regrets what must surely be seen as excessive reliance on one source for the period
1241 - 1526, and hopes that this may be excused on account of non-availability of equally upto-date Romanian texts in languages known to him.
62
Yet this is not entirely the case, as the Saxon territories were receiving a great influx of settlers
from Germany.
28
mountains (Walachi, qui tantum in silvis et montibus non contemnendum pecorum numerum
alunt).63
The Romanians appear to have been a people practically defined by sheep-rearing: within both
Hungary and Serbia, the sheep fiftieth tax (quinquagesima ovium, in the Balkans: travnina), was
paid only by the Rumanians. This consisted of the delivery of one sheep and one lamb for every
fifty sheep held. This tax contributed to the maintenance of the fortresses, and responsibility for
its delivery to the Hungarian Castellan (maior castri) was held by their leaders, the kenézes and
voivods. The Hungarian version goes that the kenézes and Voivods were the first Romanians to
be 'captured' by the sedentary way of life, via their obligations of military service to the
Hungarian Crown, The majority of the Rumanians "merely" (such adjectives flow habitually from
Hungarian pens) pastured their herds among the mountains. This set the kenéz and voivod apart
from the common Romanian and conferred upon him a certain prestige. In the fullness of time,
the Kenézes were rewarded with power over the "free" Slavic villages. Subsequently, family
members who were not needed with the herds were left behind, limiting transhumance to
certain groups, while the others practised shepherding within the boundaries of the villages, or
no further afield than in the neighbouring mountains. 64
The settlement history of our region continued to be extremely dynamic in the late Middle
Ages. The few confirmed Rumanian settlements extant in the thirteenth century - mainly in or
near the mountains in the southern half of Transylvania - are during the fourteenth century
swamped by a mass of new settlements throughout the mountainous and even hilly districts of
Transylvania, except the Székelyföld. Impermanence and fluctuation seem to have been the
keynotes of this period :
"In one Rumanian district of the Szörény Banat, there were five villages in 1365,
while thirteen settlements were registered in 1404, only one of which is to be
found among the original five... In 1510, the district embraced 36 villages, but
63
64
Erdély Története, Vol. 1, p. 313.
Erdély Története, Vol. 1 p. 312-7.
29
the previous thirteen names, with the exception of two, had disappeared.
Thirty-four new settlements had been founded in their place." 65
These changes within the Rumanian population during the fourteenth century were too great to
be explained away solely as natural increase. The arrival in Hungary (1334) of a certain Voivod
Bogdan "bringing such a great number of people with him that the migration took nine months",
and the gift (1359) to a Wallachian Rumanian family settled in Temesköz "to accommodate their
following", augmented by another five estates six years later66, surely offers us a clue. The
increasingly frequent mention of Vlachs/Romanians in documents relating to parts of
Transylvania and the Banat, and even Poland, coupled with their "gradual disappearance from
Serbian records"67 does strongly suggest a northward migration. By the fifteenth century, the
Balkan Vlachs had shrunk to relative insignificance.
As the Royal Estates in Eastern Hungary were unable to accommodate all the immigrants, it
became commonplace for settlements to spring up on private estates, even where special
authorisation was lacking. Here, Vlachs' shepherding was confined within much narrower
geographical bounds than on the Royal Estates. Transhumance was obstructed at every turn
and gradually faded away, except in the mountains themselves. The first permanent Rumanian
settlements developed at the feet of the mountains, on the fringes of already existing
Hungarian, Slav or Saxon villages, especially in the conditions of labour shortage (mortalitas
magna fuit in regno Ungarie, multe civitates et ville deserte habitatoribus vacuate)68, which
followed the Black Death (1348-1349). Such, claims Erdély Története, was the origin of the twin
villages so common to our region. That these villages were, prior to the fourteenth, often even
before the fifteenth century, used without an ethnic attributive, is held to indicate an ethnic
homogeneity. Their basic names are claimed as being always of Hungarian or Saxon origin, and
this is taken to mean that the Romanians were the last nationality to settle, within the
boundaries of the agricultural Hungarian or Saxon villages. Romanians were supposedly settled
by nobles on their estates to replace the Hungarian and Saxon feudal tenants who either
65
Erdély Története, Vol. 1, p. 341. Own translation.
Erdély Története, Vol. 1, pp. 341-2.
67
But, n.b. the rapidly shrinking territory of Serbia in the fourteenth - fifteenth centuries!
68
Erdély Története, Vol. 1, p.342-3.
66
30
abandoned their barons, or were carried off by plague or raiders from beyond the borders. This
traditional Hungarian version of events is coloured by the assumption that the Hungarians and
Saxons were "smarter" and therefore substantially eluded feudal dependence to seek their
fortune in the towns, while the Romanians were more primitive and easily pleased, and were
further spared the laborious process of building villages: they were able to profit from the
Hungarians' and Saxons' misery, but the latters' art was such that they still retained the whip
hand in Transylvania. This remains a Leitmotiv in Hungarian sentiments regarding Transylvania.
The Last Árpáds, Social Disorder and the House of Anjou
The towns of Dés, Kolozsvár, Torda and Gyulafehérvár grew up around older Royal Castles,
which, as we have seen, lost their military importance after the Mongol invasion. The castles'
original populations had been Hungarian, which of course, says nothing about the populations
living in the towns around them. Gyulafehérvár, according to Rogerius (see above), had, before
the Mongols destroyed it, had been "the political and ecclesiastical centre of a flourishing part
of Hungary", complete with "churches and palaces". Colonists (hospeses) settled in the
wrecked towns from the mid thirteenth century included a proportion of Hungarians, but,
despite the Hungarian vision noted above, were, in the main, of German origin (a process of
assimilation with the Magyars diminished their apparent weight). The nature of the towns was
gradually transformed, their former agrarian and commercial populations fusing with the newlyarrived artisans and traders until the towns had become powerful units able to exert
themselves politically vis á vis the Voivod of Transylvania and eventually, in some cases
(Kolozsvár, Nagyvárad, Brassó, Nagyszeben, Szatmárnémeti, Arad, Temesvár, Versec, Panscova,
Marosvásárhely), to acquire considerable rights of self-administration.
From the thirteenth century, advances in military doctrine would require that kings raise limited
numbers of soldiers equipped to the highest standard, instead of the universal levy, which
provided larger bodies of inferior troops. This perforce pressed those spared active service into
the role of feudal tenants, as they were henceforth to merely provide the material support for
the weapons and service of those still in the military. This brought them inevitably under the
economic and legal authority of the latter. This became the lot, for instance, of the Cumans and
31
Iasians: originally serving the crown en masse, soon they were required to equip only 600
soldiers. This dissolved the homogeneity of their society - the military stratum forced the
commoners into feudal servitude while themselves becoming members of the nobility or the
nascent bourgeoisie. Developments in Transylvania proceeded in a similar vein, but more
inconsistently and piecemeal.69
The last serious Mongol attack was in 1285, when their break-in was blamed on the
Cumanophile Ladislaus IV. The Székely army was able to inflict a serious defeat on the Mongols'
main body as it was withdrawing laden with spoils of their campaign. Although the Mongol
threat thereafter receded, this did little to stabilize the internal relations of late mediaeval
Hungary. Ladislaus himself was at constant odds with the barons and the bishops and leaned
repeatedly on the Cumans to counterbalance their influence. The Saxons prosecuted a war
against the Bishop of Transylvania and, in 1277, attacked Gyulafehérvár. After the suppression
of the Cumanian revolt of 1280 and Ladislaus' murder in 1290, central authority rapidly
dwindled, Hungary threatening to become a patchwork state. Charles Robert of Anjou, who
succeeded the last Árpád, Andrew III, eventually did unify the country, but only after more than
a decade of civil war.
Moldavia and Wallachia (Map 15) crept towards statehood: Charles Robert's plan to assert
Hungarian authority over Voivod Basaraba of Moldavia ended disastrously in 1330. Charles'
army, including Hungary's Cumans, was lured to defeat by a traditional feigned retreat executed
by Basaraba's Cuman-Kipchak and Vlach warriors70. This failure notwithstanding, the Cumans of
Hungary continued to play a role in the campaigns of Charles Robert and his Angevin successor,
King Louis (the Great) I (1342-1382). Thereafter, the Cumans rapidly fade from the records.71
During the reign of Louis the Great (1342-1382), his expansionist policies often brought him into
further conflict with the Wallachian Voivods. While their raids presented no serious danger,
their armies repeatedly threatened the mainly Saxon villages along the border. Louis therefore
rebuilt Talmács and Törcs fortresses and mobilised the Saxons of Szeben and Brassó to defend
the passes. As the two principalities painfully established themselves, commerce with
69
Erdély Története, Vol.1, p.330-1.
Horváth, p.83.
71
Horváth, pp. 83-5.
70
32
Transylvania nevertheless took root. The Saxon towns, primarily Szeben, Brassó and Beszterce,
being close to the border, took the lion's share of the profits. The Staple Right granted to Brassó
on 1369 permitted it to profit from the interchange of German and Polish cloth, and agricultural
products and livestock from Wallachia. Beszterce had already in 1368 acquired Staple Right over
Polish trade passing through Moldavia. Szeben had to wait until 1378 before obtaining similar
privileges. King Louis hoped thereby to secure the eastern transit trade-routes, which for
centuries had gone round Hungary. Most of the trade consisted of manufactured goods from
the west, rather than local produce. In similar fashion to the merchants of Vienna, the Saxon
traders exploited their staple right saving them considerable time and expense in travel. It was
the Romanians who had to come to them, except for major transactions or delicate deals. The
Saxons travelled beyond the Principalities only rarely, and for the very sake of adventure. When
they did travel, it was mainly to the fairs of Germany72.The death of Louis in 1382, however,
introduced a further series of struggles for the succession to the throne. Only with the victory of
Sigismund of Luxembourg (1387-1437) did the fighting subside.
The Turkish Advance
By then, however, the Ottoman threat to Hungary was beginning to take shape. Even after the
Fourth Crusade had sought to destroy Byzantium, the Greeks had recovered both power and, in
1261, Constantinople itself.. By 1341, the Despotate of Epirus had been subdued, but
practically nothing of the Empire remained in Anatolia. Invited across the Dardanelles by John
Cantacuzenus73 to participate in another of the Greeks' tiresomely perennial civil wars (1340s),
the Ottoman tail by 1352 began to wag the dog. Once established in Europe, their advance
through the Balkans soon appeared irresistible. In 1385, Sofia fell, followed by Thessalonica in
1387. 1389 saw the fateful battle of Kosovo, and Bulgaria was annexed to the Ottoman Empire
in 1393. Mircse (Mircea), Voivod of Wallachia, was forced to flee into Transylvania and seek
Hungarian assistance. The Hungarian army which accompanied him back to Wallachia in 1395
was, however, defeated and a further attack led personally by Sigismund was checked and
72
73
This paragraph, Erdély Története,Vol. 1, p. 336.
"Cantacuzenus was a surgeon to Byzantium, and the operation was always successful, but the
patient always died". Dame Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Vol. 2, p.264.
33
harried back the way he had come by a Turkish-nominated Voivod. A subsequent Turkish attack
broke into the Barcaság.
Sigismund called for a European crusade to beat back the Turks, but the result was catastrophe
at Nikopol (1396). Wallachia again became the battlefield of the mighty, Hungarian- and
Turkish-sponsored pretenders toppling each other in turn. In preparation for defence, the Saxon
towns built defensive walls, strongly reinforced with towers, (1387 - 1438). The villages of
southern Transylvania meanwhile acquired the fortified Gothic churches so characteristic of
Transylvania. The Ottomans' momentum was eventually absorbed, but this was due to logistics
and, even more so, to Tamerlaine's rubbing out of Sultan Bayezid and his army in the rout of
Angora (Ankara) in 1402.
The accession of Sultan Murad II (1421), however heralded a more active Ottoman role in the
Balkans. An incursion into Hunyad County and a raid on Szászváros had already occurred in
1420. The next year, Brassó, the Barcaság and the Fogaras area were despoiled. 1422 saw a
major Turkish assault on Constantinople. King Sigismund now sought to establish the Order of
the Teutonic Knights - since their eviction from the Baltic after their disaster at Tannenberg
(1411) martyrs in search of a cause - in the Szörény Banat and the northern part of Wallachia,
but the task was beyond their now diminished strength..
Maladministration, absentee voivods and internal rivalries persisted and, in 1432, Turkish and
Rumanian armies broke into Hungary again, inflicting serious material and human losses on the
Saxon and Székely territories. Newly fortified Brassó and Szeben held out successfully. 1438 saw
the Turks return again, this time reinforced with Romanian and Serbian conscripts and vassals,
including the dread Vlad Dracul. One wing, in a diversionary manoeuvre, burst through the
Transylvanian Iron Gates Pass into Hunyad County, while the main body, personally led by
Sultan Murad II aimed unsuccessfully for Temesvár. Szászsebes, Gyulafehérvár and Küküllôvár
were attacked and pillaged, but Szeben held out again. The Turks were able to retain a foothold
in the country for two months before successfully returning south with much booty and several
thousand captives.
34
By the 1440s, Hungary had found its hero: Johannes Hunyadi. Descended from a Romanian
bojár family that had immigrated from Wallachia, he was to regain the initiative against the
Turks: for a few years, it even seemed possible that the Ottoman flood might be reversed. His
career started badly, with defeat in 1442 near Szentimre, but the timely arrival of his co-Voivod,
Nicholas Újlaki, overturned the enemy as they were preparing for the siege of Szentes. Hunyadi
was then able to pursue the fleeing Turkish army, and even to deliver Wallachia. 1443 saw him
south of the Balkan mountains, and the following year he was again in Bulgaria, but
overreached himself and led king Ladislaus and the "crusading" army to catastrophe at Varna.
Still he sought the elusive victory. Appointed Governor of Hungary during the infancy of Ladislas
V (1440-1457), he sought to establish secure advanced bases of operations by donating the
Rumanian Voivodships of Wallachia and Moldavia to his feoffees. Again, he was defeated, this
time in Serbia, at the battle of Kosovopolje (1448). 1456 however, was to be the year for which
he is chiefly remembered. Sultan Mehmet II, the Conqueror of Constantinople, was trounced
while besieging Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade) and his army dispersed. But before Hunyadi could
fully exploit his success, he fell victim to the plague. His younger son Matthias was soon after
elevated to the throne.
Smarting from his defeat at the hands of Hunyadi at the gates of Belgrade in 1456, and having in
the meantime reduced Serbia 1459, and Bosnia 1462, Sultan Mehmet II in 1463 launched the
first attack through to the Banat, but without success. The second followed in 1476, and
likewise ended in failure. A third serious Turkish attack, in 1479, which mainly affected Fehér
County, in particular Szászsebes and Gyulafehérvár, was brought to a stop at the costly battle of
Kenyérmezô, which resulted in a major defeat for the Turks. The Saxon areas suffered from two
Turkish attacks in 1493.
The Ottoman High Tide
Geography dictated that the route toward an ultimate Ottoman victory lay along the valley of
the Danube; history was to counter this imperative with the stubbornness of the old
Babenberg-Habsburg Ostmark, the glacis for nascent western civilisation. Vienna was but briefly
35
able to shelter and harbour its resources behind those of the factious Hungarian nobility.
Belgrade fell to Suleiman in 1521. At the Catastrophe of Mohács, 1526, King Ladislaus II and the
Hungarian Army were annihilated and the Hungarian throne fell vacant. Mohács shattered the
fragile kingdom's unity. The Turks pushed on through Szeged and established Johannes I
Zápolya as king in Buda in 1529, launching several attacks towards Vienna. In 1541, Suleiman
did away with Zápolya and openly conquered Buda. Transylvania fell away into an ambiguous
autonomy, balancing between the Porte and Vienna. Archduke Ferdinand of Austria,
meanwhile, had hurried to realise a dynastic claim to the wreck of the Hungarian state and
managed to hold on to its western and northern fringe, maintaining a link to Transylvania and
perpetuating thereby a three-cornered struggle over the territory. In 1552, the Turks occupied
the Banat of Temesvár.
Habsburg generals would henceforth fight bitterly to keep Turkish armies at arm's length from
their prince's heartlands - their favoured battlefield, in other words, was the Hungarian
Kingdom. The shifting borders between the Habsburg Hungary, Transylvania and Turkish
Hungary was marked by fortresses (Maps 16-7) manned by underemployed and underpaid
garrisons who often broke the peace on their own account to secure a living74. Eventually,
Habsburg dynastic strength, Ottoman over-extension and resolute, if often ultimately
unsuccessful defence of such citadels as Rhodes 1522, Malta 1565, and Szigetvár, 1566,
combined with Suleiman's defeats before Vienna in 1559 and at Lepanto in 1571 combined to
restrain Turkish expansionism. By this time, simple logistics were imposing limits on the
Ottoman military which even outweighed the contributions of the Hungarian defenders of
Szigetvár and Eger (1552). A Turkish campaign army would normally arrive in Hungary about the
end of July, which left scarcely two months for the actual fighting before autumn forced a
withdrawal. Only once did the Turks manage to reach Vienna before July was out75. The vitality
which had hitherto fuelled the Sultans' drive towards Vienna thus became increasingly absorbed
in the pleasures of the harem and internal feuds.
Habsburg Conquest of Hungary and Transylvania
74
75
Lázár, p.109.
Lázár, p.114.
36
The Kiuprili Grand Vezirs' return to an active military policy eventually met with total disaster,
again under the walls of Vienna, in 1683. Magris reminds us of the words of Schwicker, where
"nations emerge and the world trembles before their power, but they too, soon pay tribute to
the transience of earthly things"76. A swift Turkish collapse saw Habsburg armies sweep into
central Hungary and seize Buda in 1686. Thereafter, the advance appeared unstoppable (Map
18). Transylvania's precarious independence between Constantinople and Vienna was
irrevocably undermined. Prince Apafi wrote to the Polish king after the recapture of Budavár of
his fear for a "loss of freedom within Christendom77". He also took up with the Prince of
Brandenburg and Louis XlV. Almost before the fear was expressed, Apafi received a letter from
the Emperor, Leopold, requesting winter quartering for his war-weary troops in Transylvania.
The following autumn, the Habsburgs moved to suppress Transylvanian independence, the
Duke of Lorraine entering Transylvania with his army after victory against the Turks. The
"Hungarian" Parliament in Pozsony proclaimed the right of the Habsburg Dynasty to the Lands
of the Crown of Saint Stephen. Lorraine captured Somlyó, Kolozsvár and Szamosújvár before
parleying with Apafi's representatives outside Szeben. The Pact of Balázsfalva, which recognised
the Principality's religious and commercial freedoms, followed, but Lorraine had a coin issued
from Szeben bearing the legend "Capta Transylvania"78, so that none should mistake his intent.
Transylvanian particularism led to numerous revolts on behalf of Apafi, and, after his death, in
support of Thököly and his rival, Rákóczy.
The dramatic successes of the Holy League, culminating in the capture of Belgrade (1688)
weakened the allies' loyalty to each other. Soon, Poland was induced to turn against Austria,
while Louis XIV of France attacked the German Principalities, leaving picturesque ruins such as
Heidelberg to posterity. Louis supported the claim of Thököly to the Transylvanian principality.
On 21st of August, 1690, at the head of Hungarian, Wallachian, Turkish and Tatar soldiers,
Thököly was able to surprise and defeat an imperial army at Zernyest, capturing its general,
Heißler. Paucity and scarcity of resources prevented him from exploiting the victory, so Thököly
sought an agreement with Vienna which would guarantee his position as Prince. Turkish attacks
76
Claudio Magris: Danube: p.295.
Erdély Története, Vol. 2, p. 874.
78
Erdély Története, Vol. 2, p.876.
77
37
on Belgrade forced the emperor to at least dissimilate an interest (Leopoldine Diploma). Then
Belgrade fell (1690), and an alarming rumour spread that the imperial army had been
completely destroyed. Though the Turks' advance was brought up short by a defeat at
Szalánkemén, it was feared in Vienna that this might be only temporary. It was therefore felt
that the dreams of driving on Constantinople should be abandoned for the more pragmatic aim
of capturing Várad. This project was made the more urgent by an English proposal for
Transylvanian independence. The siege of Várad began in summer 1691, and was brought to a
victorious conclusion in June 1692. In 1695, imperial troops for the second time invaded
Transylvania. The Peace of Ryswyck with France (1697) subsequently enabled Leopold to
transfer the main body of his troops back to face the Turks. Within the year, despite limited
revolts and even wholesale defections to the enemy, Prince Eugène fell upon the Turks as they
attempted the crossing of the Tisza by Zenta, and inflicted a crushing defeat. By the Peace of
Karlowicz, 1699, the Porte acknowledged the loss of central Hungary and ceded the Bacska and
Baranya, but not the Banat of Temesvár, to Austria.
Rákóczi's supporters persisted in rebellion against Habsburg encroachment until at least 1705.
In 1704, the Porte had transferred its support to Thököly, currently in exile in Nicomedia, on the
Bosphorus. A small army had entered Transylvania on his behalf and, swelled with local drafts
and volunteers, arrived in Gyulafehérvár. The Rákóczi and Thököly factions were, however,
unable to unite against the Habsburgs and fell upon each other. Habsburg generals rallied and
inflicted a crushing defeat at the Battle of Feketehalom on 13th, April 1704. Transylvania's
independence was once and for all lost after the defeat of Mihály Teleki at Zsibó, (11th
November 1705). The imperial army entered Transylvania and devastated the country. The
Parliament of Segesvár, which met on 15th, December 1705, invalidated Rákóczi's appointment
as Prince of Transylvania, while swearing allegiance to the Emperor. While Rákóczi did not take
this lying down, his career had entered into irreversible decline79. The Peace of Szatmár (1711)
confirmed Transylvania's submission to the Austrian Emperor and, two years later, Transylvania
was fully incorporated into Hungary.
79
The section 1686 - 1705 is substanially dependent upon Erdély Története, Vol. 2 pp.874 920.
38
The Turkish Legacy
The Banat had enjoyed a particular status within the Hungarian kingdom, and had periodically
provided a residence for the Hungarian king himself. But whilst its proximity to the frontier
afforded it a certain prosperity, this same prosperity continued to attract the attention of the
envious beyond. It was the same frontier paradox which had beset the Roman towns of
Pannonia. Its nearness to Belgrade, the key to the lower Danube Valley, rendered it vulnerable
during both the Turks' advance, and their retreat. Almost continuous warfare between 1463
and 1552, and again from 1686, left the region devastated and with a decimated population.
The vernacular Hungarian likes to blame this state of affairs squarely on the Turks, talking of the
Puszta as if it had been deliberately pusztított (made waste, desolate) by Ottoman requisition
and depopulation policies. This is however, clearly a lopsided view. In times of peace, there
were few obstacles in the way of a westward trade, and much of the cattle reared on the Plain
was driven towards Vienna, with the Turks simply imposing a head tax at the Danube and Tisza
crossings80. Trade with Transylvania was also brisk (Map 19). During hostilities, the Habsburgs
and Transylvanians (the latter supported by their Haiduk auxiliaries), when unable to hold
territory, would each equally have ensured that its capacity for supporting their enemy's war
machine was curtailed. The prevalence of large villages in an otherwise empty landscape is to
be explained more with reference to tax privileges than to defence81. Debrecen, for example,
never brought itself to erect more than an earth rampart.
There are nevertheless, few physical traces of the Turkish legacy within the triangle of Ottoman
Hungary: a small number of mosques (Pécs, Szigetvár) have survived the ruthless destruction or
conversion of already insubstantial Turkish building beyond the pasha's stronghold in Buda. An
Austrian map (Map 20) from the Military Map Collection of Dr Sándor Márki82 in Szeged,
Hungary does indicate a small village named Török Szákos on the edge of the Banat, near Arad.
Hans Schwalm's 1935 map das Deutschtum des Banats83 records it with the Romanian name
80
Lázár, p.110.
Lázár, p. 110.
82
Former Professor of History at the University of Kolozsvár, 1885-1919, and JATE
University, Szeged, 1919-1924.
83
Das Deutschtum des Banats appears as Illustration no. 39 in the author's BA dissertation,
Fälschung und Wahrheit: die ethnographishe Kartographie des Karpathenbeckens im
81
39
Sacosul Turcesc. At one time there must have been a Turkish population here, but by the time
Schwalm compiled his data84, there were apparently only Romanians with a few Germans and
Hungarians. A number of other specifically Turkish toponyms have been recorded, yet the
Turkish population of occupied Hungary consisted almost entirely of imperial officials and
military personnel.85
Migration and Colonisation, 1690 - 1750
Little data is available on the residual population which greeted the Habsburg armies. A Slavic
population had been settled in the more southerly parts of the Bacska and Banat, and more
densely, in the Szeremség (Sirmium) in the 11th century (Map 21) and this could probably be
traced back to the Avar period. Their numbers were certainly augmented by northbound
refugees during the Turkish advance through the Balkans (Map 22)86. Temesvár, as noted
below, was certainly inhabited. Much of the surrounding territory however, had decayed into a
malarial swamp, and the remainder was chronically under-cultivated. The best land was often
flooded by the Tisza and its tributaries (Maps 23-4). Roads and canals were all but non-existent.
Migration to the Bacska (just to the west of our region) began even as the battles for its
liberation raged. A small Catholic Serbian (Bunjewacz, Schokatzen) population had immigrated
comparatively recently, from Bosnia, Hercegovina and Dalmatia87. 5000 Serbs reached the area
from Turkish lands in 1687 and were settled as militia in Szeged, (Maria-Theresiopel) Subotica,
and Baja (Frankenstadt). Whilst the Banat remained in Turkish hands, some Orthodox Serbs also
settled across from the Banat. A Serbian revolt against the Turks in 1689 swelled the
immigration and Emperor Leopold II found himself obliged to offer asylum and certain religious
and political privileges. Led by their Patriarch, Arsenius III, thirty thousand families took up the
Emperor's offer and crossed the Danube.. 1594 saw the arrival of the first Germans. They were
artisans, and settled in the Peterwardein fortress by today's Novi Sad. Their ranks were
84
85
20.sten Jahrhundert. The Austrian map referred to above appeared as Illustration no. 1.
Using Romanian data from 1920.
Ref Dr. Peter Sherwood, SSEES.
86
See Kocsis Károly, Etnikai változasok a mai Szlovákia és a Vajdaság területén a XI századtól
napjainkig. pp. 14-21.
87
Bohmann, p.89.
40
strengthened when the Germans of Belgrade evacuated that city in the face of the Turkish
recovery of 1696-7. By 1715, Germans were firmly established in Baja (Frankenstadt) as well88.
A successful Russian campaign in 1715 encouraged the Turks to seek a rematch against Venice,
which was cleared out of the Morea. Austria, however, was still represented on the battlefield
by Price Eugène, and on 13th October 1716, his army arrived outside Temesvár. "When
requested to surrender, the pasha who was defending the place replied that he knew perfectly
well that he couldn't win, but that he felt it his duty to contribute to the Renown of Prince
Eugène by making his victory more arduous and glorious"89. Eugène followed this conquest by a
victory at Peterwardein in 1717, and at Belgrade the following year. He was rewarded by the
Peace of Passarowicz, 1719. This treaty confirmed earlier Habsburg gains and additionally
detached the Banat of Temesvár from the Ottoman Empire. It was subsequently integrated into
the Habsburg Military Frontier system (Map 25).
The restoration of the recovered territories was placed in the hands the Habsburg general,
Mercy. His banatische Einrichtungsprojekt (1718) introduced a determined campaign to restore
some resilience to the Banat which would in turn strengthen the frontier marches90. Between
1718 and 1734, Mercy's progressive governorship gradually transformed the province. Settlers
introduced from all over the Habsburg domains (Styria, Tyrol, Bohemia, Saxony; in lesser
numbers, Italy (Trentino) and Spain) provided the labour for a great programme of public
works: roads, bridges, dikes and canals were constructed and mining developed in the eastern
mountains91. The German-speaking colonists established themselves as a separate entity
alongside the existing Hungarian, Serb and Vlach population and acquired the collective name
Schwab. In time, this identity became strong enough for the Schwaben to absorb the Spanish
and Italian colonists92. The first Swabian colonisation (13,000-15,000 persons) took place
between 1722 and 1726 and consisted almost exclusively of Catholic Habsburg subjects, as
88
Bohmann, pp.93-95.
Claudio Magris: Danube, p.304.
90
Bohmann, p. 93.
91
HMSO, Transylvania and the Banat, pp. 25-6.
92
Magris informs us that Becskerek, in 1734, was "full of Spaniards, who had there founded a
New Barcelona": Danube, p. 294.
89
41
required by Prinz Eugen. Temesvár was barred to settlement by Serbs and Jews93. Colonists
were assisted by the Staatliche Kolonistenanwerbungs- und Speditionsbüro in Worms and
Regensburg and attracted by substantial tax concessions. A revolt among the recent Serbian
immigrants set the process back, but also stimulated a renewed Swabian colonisation from
Silesia.
War with Turkey again raged between 1737 and 1744 and the vulnerability of the new
settlements cruelly displayed. Almost the entire Swabian colonisation was obliterated, with the
exception of the German villages along the Maros. The colonists either fled, were killed, or
ended up in the important slave market in Üsküb (today Skopje, Macedonia)94. Once peace had
been restored, the process of colonisation was resumed. Colonists were introduced from the
Upper Rhine, Hesse, Trier, Mainz, Cologne, the Palatinate, and Bavaria. These were
supplemented by the first French-speaking Lorrainers in 1752 (Their descendants would in some
cases retain knowledge of their ancestors' native tongue until the 1930s95). By 1751,
colonisation was sufficiently advanced for Maria Theresa to be able to introduce civil
administration in the Banat, except in the frontier districts, which remained subordinated to the
military until well into the 19th century. 1779 saw the reincorporation of the Banat into
Hungary. Yet this by no means signified a normalisation of the province. Colonisation continued
apace, particularly with Germans and French-speakers. It became the cultural centre of the
Serbs, and remained so even after the wars of independence began in 1804. Indeed, local Serbs
had a special disparaging term for those Serbs born south of the Danube - i.e. within Serbia
proper - Gedza96. The Ausgleich of 1867 paved the way for increased Hungarian colonisation
and programmatic Magyarisation through education. 1920 would bring division between
Romania and the Serb-Croat -Slovene Kingdom and by 1935, Schwalm could trace the
settlements of 13 nationalities - and still have a category for "others" It has been said that a
chameleon, placed on an ethnographic map of this region, would simply explode.
93
Bohmann, p.95.
Bohmann, pp. 94-5.
95
Newman, The New Europe, p.348-9.
94
96
Magris, Danube, p. 298.
42
Conclusions
Traditional Hungarian historiography revels in the deus ex machina. The Mongols wipe out
the Uralic Magyars just before they are "gathered in", and then desolate Hungary and
decimate the Hungarians. The dreadful Black Death, a mere hundred years later, tears even
greater gaps in the ranks of the Hungarian and German population, and these are scarcely
restored when the Turks begin to carry away captives for the slave markets. History has
been so, well, "unfair", to the Magyars. The Romanians, of course, also suffered
immeasurably from all three, but they were "merely" shepherds in the mountains. The
Hungarians' and Germans' loss was the "greater" because of their "higher cultural level",
and the surviving Romanians were able to profit from other peoples' labour and eventually
usurp their territory. Much of this Weltanschauung can still be detected in Erdély
Története, and some of it is not very subtle. This is, however, not surprising, as the territory
of Historical Hungary was larger than could be effectively subdued by the Hungarian
population. Holes were bound to emerge in the wake of disaster, and were bound to be
settled by peoples suffering population pressure elsewhere. It is fair to say that the
Hungarians chose a most awkward place to settle. Yet recrimination is fultile. Whatever
happened, happened, and there is no place for "if onlys".
The result was that the frontier character of the region under examination was
perpetuated. The fluidity of the period up to the honfoglalás gradually eased and gave way
to the age of marches. Again, the costs and benefits of the status were made manifest in
the establishment of a few selected hard points (e.g. Temesvár) in an otherwise sparsely
populated territory. Our region formed the soft underbelly of Hungary, giving onto the
plains of Wallachia, which repeatedly gave sustenance to refugee nomadic peoples at the
end of the long flight from the steppes. Consistently, Hungarian and Bulgarian efforts to
control this area ended in failure, eventually permitting a autochthonous political tradition
to develop.
On the Hungarian side of the Carpathians, the Hungarian proportion in the population was
reduced by a steady influx of Romanian and German colonists. Serbs fleeing the advancing
43
Turks also added to the population, while compounding the mixture. 1526, Mohács, is
spoken of as another of the great heroic disasters, but it appears that the battlefield did
not, after all, witness the slaughter of Hungary's finest and bravest. King Ladislaus may
have ordered the mobilization of all serfs for the battle, but it appears they never arrived.
Most bodies exhumed from the mass graves at Mohács were those of foreign
mercenaries97. Had the Hungarian king and nobility not proceded with such villainous
hatred against the uprising of Dózsa György in 1514, they might have mobilized the country
more successfully against the Turks. Similarly, a more measured attitude towards the
Cumans might have spared the country some of its sufferings in 1241-1242. Still, they did
not, and it did not.
The Hungarians, like the Byzantine Greeks in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, did
not achieve unity. Desperately aware of the Turks, their parties rather fought each other
with redobled vigour. In the Hungarian case, the Ottomans were denied a complete victory
due to the extent of their own victories. Vienna was at the extreme end of their armies'
radius of action, and Transylvania escaped occupation. After 150 years, central Hungary
was indeed devastated, but again, Hungarian soldiers and Generals had contributed their
fair share. While the Habsburgs cannot be claimed to have been the most enlightened of
liberators – there were instances of regiments defecting to the Turks – their occupation of
the Banat most certainly did mark a positive watershed in the region's history. Their
takeover of Transylvania and suppression of its autonomy was more ambivalent in its
results.
97
Lázár, p. 101.
44
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