Medieval Transylvania

I have read those links above and I have some questions.

�The voievodat is the old transilvanian political organisation and it belongs to the Romanian system � in Moldova and Muntenia�

1. Why voievodate is so special? What are the differences to any other principalities etc.?

2. Why did he or she think that the voivodate is a Romanian political system? The voivod word itself is slavic and there were many voivodates in Poland. Romanian historians proved that voivodship system was transferred from Transylvania to the other Romanian principalities.

�The Hungarian administrative structure consisted of comitat, a copy of Carolinian system, while at the east of Tisa the only political reality remained the voievodat.�

My view on this issue is the following:

Between the 9th and 12th centuries, the Magyars conquered Transylvania from the local Romanian and Slavic population. This population already had a local aristocracy and land system different from the system adopted by the Magyars. Between the 12th and the 14th centuries, the Magyars phased out the power of this Romanian and Slavic aristocracy. Some of them were assimilated, others left for Wallachia and Moldova. In fact, Romanians accept that the royal lines and the principalities themselves of Wallachia and Moldova were founded by Transylvanian nobles of mixed Romanian and Slavic origin who were leaving Transylvania due to "persecution" or simply losing their traditional privileges in their homeland.

While still in the early stages of consolidating their power in Transylvania, from the 11th to the 13th centuries, the Magyars had to concede certain liberties and some autonomy to the Romanian and Slav elite. After the 13th century, the political power of this elite passed on to Magyar nobles. They took advantage of the existing framework and used some of the existing Romanian and Slavic institutions, to gain more power and autonomy than would have been possible otherwise. After the 13th century, Transylvania did have some measure of autonomy, but the power was not in the hands of Romanians anymore, but rather in the hands of Magyar noblemen, or sometimes of mixed origin or assimilated Romanian noblemen.

By the late Middle Ages, Transylvania was led mostly by Hungarians, and Romanians were left with a fringe role to play in politics, although they were the majority of the population. But the early political situation, and the early Romanian institutions laid the framework for an autonomy of the Transylvanian Hungarians which would not have been possible otherwise.

I have translated some parts of History of Transylvania. (I have some difficulties with English language so I apologize for the wrong grammar.)

Transylvanian territories south to river Maros remained in a different status than the Northern half of Transylvania.At first this area was not divided to counties, but was a single province headed by a voivod (in 1111 princeps ultrasilvanus) a higher rank than the comes/megy�sisp�n. Perhabs this rank was a posterior of the former Bulgarian viceroys. Anyhow emperor Constantine Porphyrogenetos used the name vojevoda to the Hungarian tribal leaders, he might be heard that the Transylvanian slavs used this name to their Hungarian Lords. Northern and Southern Transylvania were separated not only in organization, but also in estate-relations. In the North the descendants of the original Hungarian conquerors could endure, while in the South squatter families (perhabs the exception of the Gy�gyis) settled down during the time of St. Stephen and later. (�) All this points to a different time and circumstances of the Hungarian occupation than the Northern part of Transylvania.

(...)

Some more facts:

- Medieval Hungarian kings did not mention Transylvania in the royal title. (They use even the titles: king of Serbia and Bulgaria. Countries which was only temporary and partly conquered.)

- In official court text Transylvania was generally mentioned as the Transylvanian parts of the Kingdom.

- If we see the list of the voivods a lot of them are Hungarians (Mihaly and Simon might be Slovak, they come from the territory of modern Slovakia). They were belonged to some Hungarian clans. It turns out from this list that they usually administered Transylvania to a short term. It is clear that this rank was rotated among Hungarian nobles and was not an inherent title.

- Transylvania has a parliament, but this parliament was not a legislator, but -according to my sources- a tribunal.

All in all my opinion is: Transylvania was a part of the Hungarian Kingdom, but because of her distance to the political center and her special historical background had an autonomy within the Kingdom.

I think that the two theory has a common base. When the Hungarians arrived they found a native population. This native population made a great influence to the later political frame work. The differences: according to Hungarians the country of the gyulas has a much more relevance, and naturally do not speak Romanian influece (only pure slav) because of the migration theory. (If Romanians didn�t live in Transylvania when the Hungarians arrive they couldn�t influenced the later political organization.)

 PS. According to Romanian sources Transylvania was captured gradually in the 9-12 th century. Hungarians usually says that whole Transylvania belonged to Hungary since the 9th century. I think I have found a solution which resolve this apparent (?) difference. Hungarians differs gyep� (frontier) and hat�r (border). Hat�r is a line where one country nominally ends and an other country begins. Gyep� is a line where public administration ends and border guards stands. In early medieval times there were a large gyep�elve (area beyond the gyep�s and inside the border) around Hungary. I have read that the Transylvanian gyep� was expanded between the 9-12th century. I think that Romanian historians speaks about the gyep� when they speak gradual conquest and Hungarian historians speak about the border.

[QUOTE=Decebal] The voievod of Transylvania was naturally a Hungarian, because no Magyar king would aprove of the nomination of a Romanian or Slav voievod who could challenge the authority of the Magyars. Transylvania was not an united kingdom when it was conquered by the Magyars, as opposed to Bulgaria or Serbia, but rather a series of voievodates and cnezates . The Magyar crown was not about to recognize the concept that Transylvania was one unit, since this would encourage tendances for autonomy or even independence. Claiming to be king of Bulgaria or Serbia was simply a means of claiming nominal authority over those countries.[/QUOTEl]

To tell the truth I haven't seen any reliable proof for the existance of a vassal Transylvanian state. Yes there were cnezates outside the counties, but this is natural in medieval circumstances. There were  autonomous territories for cumans, j�szok and even muslim groups, but this is not an evidence for statehood. In the XIII: century the borders of Hungary got fixed. Serbia or Bulgaria were the current territory under the rule of the Bulgarian or Serbian ruler. If they expanded the border the territory of Serbia/Bulgaria expanded. If a Hungarian king conquer some territories he created a new title for himself. Transylvania is not mentioned, because it was a part of Hungary. Titles were much more important in medieval times.

There must be some misunderstanding. Naturally the gyep� was expanded gradualy between the 9-12 century. Do you think that my theory is acceptable?

When there are no historical documents or conclusive archeological evidence, linguistic evidence is a valid tool to support historic theories. This has been done over and over again in the study of the history of area which lack historical documents, such as Africa, for example.

To be honest, I haven't found anything on the church terms in Aromanian. While I can somewhat understand the language, from what I've seen of it, resources on it are very hard to find. According to linguists though, the separation between the modern Romanian and Aromanian must have occured in the 10th century. This means that a migration, either north or south, or another historical event must have separated the two population at the latest in the 10th century, and possibly a bit earlier. This reinforces what I've said, which is that while a migration is possible, a late migration in the 13th century as some Hungarian historians claim, is highly unlikely, if not downright impossible.

Who's talking about genetics here? To my knowledge, no genetic map of the area exits for the 3rd to 9th centuries. Besides, Romanians are a very mixed population, with Dacian, Slavic, latin (including colonists from many regions of the Roman empire: Italy, Gaul, Iberia, Dalmatia, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria...) components. Let alone the more modern Turkish, Magyar and Tatar influxes.  Even if a genetic map of Transylvania for the 3rd to the 9th centuries existed, it would be a very difficult task to compare it to the modern Romanian population, and the results can easily be contested.

The elements that gave them an identity were culture and most importantly the common language. The question here is not whether they were the descendants of the latins from Rome, but rather if they were inhabiting Transylvania by the time the Magyars came.

I'm kind of skeptical about this kind of interpretation. While the Magyars, the huns and the avars may have had a common lifestyle, they were from different linguistic groups. To my knowledge, Huns were of Turkic origin, Avars of Mongolian origin and Magyars are unique, or part of the Finno-Ugric group. The homelands of these groups covered 20 million square kilometers. According to this way of thinking, this is like saying that the United States were only colonized by one people, Western Europeans, because the English, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch and even the Danes were all involved at some point in time. Of course, that is a gross generalization, because we all know that while those nations may have shared a somewhat similar lifestyle, they were in fact quite different from one another. As far as the Etruscans go, I think that their origins are still a matter of intense debate. Besides they only occupied Northern Italy, what does this have to do with Transylvania?

The Nestor Chronicle mentions the vlachs while describing historical events associated with early Russian history. This is very different from mentioning the Franks, which the Russians hadn't directly come in contact with, as part of the peoples of the world. Besides, it is a matter of perspective: this could be a long discussion, but it's not a gross error to say that the Franks are the ancestors of the French. As we all know, the French are the result of a mixture between the Gauls, the Latins and the Franks. This statement is incomplete, but not an outright lie. Making that statement about a people the chronicler's people had never met does not automatically qualify all the rest of the chronicle as a lie.

I have found a somewhat different explanation of the word vlach:

The origin of the word Vlach is disputed, some say it is possibly Germanic: the same origin led to the words "Welsh" and "Walloons" in other parts of Europe. The word Vlach could also come from the Greek peoples word "Vlahoi" which means Shepard/Goat herder. Slavic peoples initially used the name Vlachs when referring to Romanic peoples in general. Later on, the meaning got narrower or just different. For example Italy is called W�ochy in Polish, and Olaszorsz�g in Hungarian. The term was originally an exonym, as the Vlachs used various words derived from romanus to refer to themselves (rom�ni, rum�ni, rum�ri, arom�ni, arum�ni etc). Only the Meglenites adopted the term Vlashi to describe themselves.

I'm sorry Raider, can you restate you theory? In the midst of all these discussions, I got sidetracked, and it's hard to follow exactly what your theory is. We started out with the medieval status of Transylvania and we ended up discussing the formation of the Romanian people and the Magyar conquest. At least it didn't degenerate into a flame war yet.

As I said, I do not know Aromanians have church words of latin or greek origin. I'll look into it, but it's hard to find detailed resources on their language. As far as their existence south of the Danube, Romanian historians have 2 explanations for that: 

1. A migration from north to south occured

2. The formation of the Romanian people took place both south and north of the Danube, but they were separated by the slavic and bulgar migration. This is a better explanation than the 1st one.

I personally beleive that a 3rd one is correct: The formation of the Romanian people took place both south and north of the Danube, and sometime in the 9th or 10th century, most Aromanians from between the Balkans and the Danube migrated north. The land north of the Danube already had Romanians though. Thus, the 2 branches of the Romanian people separated: one north of the Danube, and one in the Balkan mountains.

As I said before, I do not believe that a statement such as the "Franks were the ancestors of the French" makes everything that the Nestor Chronicle says, untrue. 

As far as the reliability of the chronicles are concerned, I am not aware of any other chronicles from the 10th to the 13th century that state that in fact the Magyars found the land to be empty, or occupied only by Slavs. In fact, I found a couple more that state that Vlachs were indeed there when the Magyars arrived. One is the Gesta Hungarorum by Simon of Keza, not to be confused with the Gesta Hungarorum  by Anonymous, which we've been discussing. It states:

Pannonie, Panfilie, Macedonie, Dalmacie et Frigie ciuitates, que crebris spoliis et obsidionibus per Hunos erant fatigate, natali solo derelicto in Apuliam per mare Adriaticum de Ethela licentia impetrata, transierunt, Blackis, qui ipsorum (Romanorum) fuere pastores et coloni, remanentibus sponte in Pannonia"; "Postquam autem filii Ethele in prelio Crumheld cum gente Scitica fere quasi deperissent, Pannonia extitit X annis sine rege, Sclavis tantummodo, Grecis, Teutonicis, Messianis et Ulahis remanentibus in eadem, qui uiuente Ethela populari seruicio sibi seruiebant" (see Szentpetery's "Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum", I, p. 156-157, 163).

This chronicle, dating from the 13th century therefore acknowledges the Vlachs to be the descendants of the Romans and to have lived in Transylvania when the Magyars arrived.

Another source is "Descriptio Europae Orientalis" / "Description of Eastern Europe" written in 1308 by a French anonymous writer and conceived as a information mean for Charles Robert of Anjou and Charles of Valois, the former a claimant for the Magyar crown and the latter for Constantinopol Latin Empire's. The Romanians are described as descendants of the Romans: "Notandum (est hic) quod inter machedoniam, achayam et thesalonicam est populus ualde magnus et spatiosus qui uocantur blazi, qui et olim fuerunt romanorum pastores, ac in Ungaria ubi earnt pascua romanorum propter nimiam terre uiriditatem et fertilitatem olim morabantur. Sed tandem ab ungaris inde expulsi, ad partes illas fugierunt; habundant enim caseis optimis, lacte et carnibus super omnes nationes...". Thus he suggests the Romans' descendants took refuge in Transylvania, where they remained thereafter. (see also O. Gorka's foreword to first edition of "Anonymi descriptio Europae Orientalis", Krakow, 1916).

The Gesta Hungarorum by Anonymous was indeed written 200 years after the start of the Magyar conquest of  Transylvania. But do you really think that the author could have confused the issue and said that the Vlachs were already in Transylvania 200 years previous, if (according to Hungarian historians), the Vlachs were only arriving in Transylvania when the chronicle was written? The author was also more than likely Magyar, so why would he make such a glaring mistake, which anyone from his time could have caught on to?

If you can show other documents of the period that state that Vlachs were not in fact living in Transylvania when the Magyars arrived, then your argument might have some merit. But if you have no evidence to the contrary, other than saying that these sources were not reliable, because of mistakes made at other points in the text (and what about all the facts in them that were actually accurate?), then this you don't really have a strong case. These chronicles are the the only ones from the time which we have on this issue and they all corroborate each other.