Principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania

Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania

Beginning with the 10th century took place the existence of statehood entities of the Romanian population, first in Transylvania and Dobrudja, then in the 12-13th centuries, also in Moldavia and Wallachia, building three Principalities that were neighbors, but autonomous.

Transylvania

The Romanians had to face the policy of conquests conducted by the Hungarian kingdom. In 895, the Magyars, who came from the Volga lands, led by Árpád (850 - 907), settled in Pannonia. They were stopped in their progress towards the west by Holy Roman Emperor Otto I in the Battle of Lechfeld (955), so the Hungarians settled down in the Romanians area.

Despite the resistance of the Romanian states, in 1003, King Stephen I of Hungary (975 – 1038) led an army into Transylvania, ruled by Hungarian tribal chieftains, making it part of the Hungarian Kingdom, born on December 25, 1000 under Pope Silvester II. In order to defend the southern and eastern borders of the voivodate and to consolidate their power in Transylvania, where the Romanians continued to be the great majority ethnic element, in the 12-13th centuries the Hungarians resorted to the colonization of Szecklers and Saxons at the frontier areas.

The administration of Transylvania was in the hands of a voivod, who by the mid-13th century controlled the whole region. As early as 1288 Transylvania's noblemen convoked their own assembly, or Diet.

The Romanians were submitted to a confessional discrimination in Transylvania, through the measures adopted by the Hungarian King Louis I of Hungary (1326 - 1382), who conditioned, by a decree, the belonging to the nobility by the adhesion to the Roman Church. This discrimination further deepened after the Bobâlna revolt occurred in 1437 by the peasant against their feudal masters. The uprising gathered momentum before the three Estates of Transylvania - the Hungarian nobility, the Saxon burghers, and the Szeklers - joined their forces and quelled the revolt. In 1438, the states formed the Unio Trium Natiorum, jointly pledging to defend their privileges against any power except that of Hungary's king, their representatives being the only members of the Diet, while the Orthodox Romanians were just tolerated.

Wallachia

Posada Early Romanian states formed in the 10th and 11th century appeared in historical sources under the name of Blachi or Vallachi (Vlachs).

In the late 11th century the territory of Wallachia was incorporated in the Second Bulgarian Empire ruled by the Asen dynasty. A number of medieval sources call the first three rulers of the dynasty Vlachs and they referred to themselves as "Emperors of Bulgaria and Wallachia".

In the middle of the 13th century the Romanian lands south and east of the Carpathian mountains fell under the dependency of the Tatars.

Legend says that in 1290 Negru-Vodă, a leading Romanian nobleman, left Făgăraş in southern Transylvania with a group of nobles and founded "Ţara Românească" (which means "Romanian land" in Romanian language) on the territory between the southern Carpathians and the Danube, referred as "Wallachia".

The edification of Wallachia could occur only when the Mongol power weakened in the area and the Hungarian kingdom changed its dynasty. The dynasty of Arpad’s descendants passed away and the rule of the kingdom by the Anjou family came across difficulties. In south and east of the Carpathian Mountains the autonomous feudal state of Wallachia was formed under Basarab I, the first Wallachian prince (1310-1352). In 1330 he defeated the king Charles I of Hungary in the Battle of Posada; consequently, the kingdom of Hungary admitted the independence of the principality formed in the South of the Carpathians. The Eastern Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople established an ecclesiastical seat in Wallachia and appointed a metropolitan. The church's recognition confirmed Wallachia's status as a principality, and Wallachia freed itself from Angevin suzerainty in 1380.

Moldavia

Moldavia became an independent State under Bogdan I in 1359. The legend says that a Romanian voivode, named Dragoş left Maramures, crossed the Carpathian mountains and settled with other Romanians on the plain between the mountains and the Black Sea. They were joined in 1349 by a voivode from Transylvania named Bogdan I, who revolted against his feudal overlord and settled on the Moldova River, from which Moldavia derives its name. A decade later Bogdan declared Moldavia's independence from the Angevins, who ruled the Kingdom of Hungary, becoming the first rulers of Moldavia (1359-1365).