Maramureș (in Romanian; Latin: Marmatia; ; ) is a historical region in the north of Transylvania, along the upper Tisa River. The territory of the southern part of this region is now in the Maramureș County in northern Romania, whereas its northern section is included in the Zakarpattia Oblast of western Ukraine.
Prehistory
There is evidence that the region of Maramureș was first settled in the Superior Paleolithic era. Archaeological discoveries of this primitive society have been uncovered in the Iza Valley near the village of Nănești.
Remnants from a Neolithic culture were discovered in many regions of Maramureș. Artifacts were found around Sighetu-Marmației, Costiui, Oncești, Cornești and Giulești. Some discoveries can be dated back to 6000 BC.
Traces of Mesolithic settlements, approximately 7000 years old, have been found near the villages of Camianitsa and Dibrova (Apșa de Jos) in Northern Maramureș and are considered among the oldest in Eastern Europe. Their inhabitants were hunter-gatherers, who lived during the winter in half-dug houses near the rivers and in the summer in aboveground huts. Using tools such as chisels, bows and arrows as well as harpoons, they worked stone and developed textured and glazed pottery and Ceramic. In a corner of their households they made clay kilns. The people of that period often moved their houses due to soil exhaustion. Cattle raising led to populating of mountain regions. The inhabitants of Maramureș from that period, together with those of nearby regions, belonged to the so-called Criş culture. Later, around 2000 BC, the migration of Indo-Europeans occurred. By the Bronze Age, the region of Maramureș was well settled, though due to the geography the population was quite sparse. Major archaeological discoveries have been found in more than twenty locations from the Bronze Age. This cultural establishment provides the first proof that the settlers of this region were of Geto-Dacian ancestry. During this time, the lands of Maramureș and much of modern Romania was the Kingdom of Dacia.
Antiquity
In antiquity, the region was governed by Thracian tribes, also known as Geto-Dacians. Around 300 BC - 200 BC, the migration of Celts brought Central Europe a more advanced technological culture. The second largest metallurgic center in Europe was located near Maramureș, at Galish-Lovachka, near the present town of Mukachevo. Apart from silver coins, over a thousand metal tools have been found there, such as scissors for cutting sheep wool scythes or swords and the remains of jewel workshops. The migration of the Celts also had negative effects. It gradually led to hostility between the Celts and the local Geto-Dacians. At the beginning of the 1st century BC, the latter, under King Burebista, defeated the Celts, forcing them to retreat to the territory of today's Germany. The Dacians during that period built their houses on higher banks of rivers, remains of which still exist at Cetatea (near Ocna Slatina). The salt from this town was also very valuable during that period.
In 107, the Roman province of Dacia Superior was established, with an initial northern boundary along the Someș River, later to be moved further north. Maramureș became a region immediately adjacent to the Roman province. Roman coins have been found throughout the region, such as those at Nankovo (1000 Roman silver coins), Brestovo (25 golden coins), Ruske Pole and Gaidoshi. The salt mine at Ocna Slatina, the metallurgical center at Zatiseanski (Djacovo, Vovchanske), as well as the largest pottery district in Eastern Europe (on the river Mits) were all located in the region.
Although the Roman administration retreated after 168 years, the Roman influence remained, due to the now linguistically Roman and ethnically Daco-Roman locals, who had become Christian .
A great migration reached the region at the end of the 4th century, when Huns came to the Panonian plains. By the middle of the 5th century, the Huns formed a major polity with its center between the rivers Danube and Tisza (?) under the control of the legendary Attilla. In 451, Attilla was defeated by a Roman-Visigoth alliance under the Roman general Aetius, which weakened his influence. While he made a comeback, attacking in the following year Italy itself and sacking Aquileia, Padua, Mantua, Verona and Brescia, and coming close to sacking Rome (saved, according to tradition, by the intervention of Pope Leo I), he died in 453. Soon after, his heirs were defeated by their rebellious subjects in the Battle of Nedao and the Hunnic empire disintegrated.A. Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins, M. Whitby (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. XIV, Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425–600, Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 14-18
Early Middle Ages Different tribes, such as the Gepids, Vandals, Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Lombards and Slavs moved through the region of Maramureș. At the end of the 7th century, the whole region was under the Avar khanate. Before the coming of the Hungarians in 896, little is known regarding political control over the area.
The first groups of Slavs arrived nearby at the end of the 6th century, but they were not numerous . In the 8th century, however, a larger Slavic population followed. While some of the Slavs-Croatians soon migrated to the Balkan peninsula, those that remained populated the Pannonian territories immediately to the west of Maramureș. In the 9th century, the region bordered Velika Horvatia to the west and a small Slav dukedom, separating it from the much larger and stronger kingdom of Great Moravia. To the south, the region bordered the territory of Gelu, which was defeated in 904 by Hungarians. During this period, Slavs gradually converted to Christianity. In the 880s, disciples of Cyril and Methodius, expelled from Great Moravia, settled in the region immediately to the west of Maramureș and founded monasteries in inaccessible and beautiful mountain places.
In 896, the Hungarians arrived under their leader Álmos through the Verecke Pass (the valley of the river Latoritsa). In 903, under Arpad, they conquered the fortresses of Ungvár. In the 11th century, the Kingdom of Hungary extended its borders into Transylvania up to the crests of the Carpathian mountains. As with most border areas of the Kingdom of Hungary in the Middle Ages, this territory was purposefully left mostly unsettled as a deterrent to invaders: the territory is mentioned in chronicles of the time as part of the res nullis (no-man's land) or terra indagines (uninhabited defensive border land).
The social organization of Maramureș during the Middle Ages was also very specific. The people in many mountain villages, where each family had a considerable domain, were called free peasants. In Romanian-speaking areas, these were called nămeși [nameshi] or free peasants. The Romanian term indicates belonging to a small clan, from the Romanian neam (bigger old family). This term has been preserved to this day, both in the areas that remained Romanian and in those which later gradually became Slavic. Hungarian and German terms also existed for similar circumstances in Hungarian and German-settled areas.
In the 12th century, King Géza II of Hungary invited Saxons (Germans) from the Rhine regions to settle there.
Between the 12th and 15th centuries, Maramureș and surrounding areas were the source of an emigration. The Romanian population was gradually assimilated into new-coming Slavic populations, but sometimes strongly influenced the local culture. In the southeastern corner of modern Poland, where "lex vallachorum" was in force as late as the 16th century, or eastern Moravia, where their autonomy was devastated by Wallenstein during the Thirty Years' War.
In March 1241, the Tatar-Mongols under the Khan Batu overwhelmed the mountain defenses and entered through the Verecke Pass (separating the county of Bereg from Galicia) to plunder Transylvania and the Kingdom of Hungary. They destroyed many towns and monasteries, killing up to half the population. Hungarian villages, being mostly in the valleys, bore the greatest brunt of the slaughter, and this helped start the decline in Hungarian population that influenced the modern political disposition of the territory. The Mongols destroyed the towns of Teceu (Técső then) and Ocna Slatina (Aknaszlatina then) as well as the surrounding villages. In 1242, they hastily retreated, after learning that the Great Khan had died, in order to back their leader Batu to become the new Great Khan.
1241–1526 In 1245, the Hungarian king Béla IV invited grape-growers and wine-makers from Italy and Germany to settle in the places destroyed by the Tatars.
Like other border regions, portions of Maramureș became a settled part of the Kingdom of Hungary later than other areas. The depopulated border regions began to be settled, in this case by both Vlach and native Hungarians, well after the Mongol Invasion of Batu Khan (1241). It was designated a county in 1303, and its territory reached the crest of the Carpathian Mountains. Prior to this time, it had been described only as (uninhabited) "forest."
In the 13th century, the nearby counties of Ung, Bereg and Ugocsa were temporarily ceded to the Halic-Volyn Principality, but returned to Hungary in 1308 under the new Anjou dynasty. The three counts - Petk of Ung, Kopasz of Bereg and Moish of Ugocsa - opposed the return to Hungary and restoration of the local population to the Catholic Church. They plotted to install Iuri, the son of Prince Lev Danilovich of Halic and the grandson of Béla IV, as king of Hungary. But King Carol Robert of Anjou, with the help of the counts Drughezzi from Italy, prevailed.
Anjou's military and diplomatic tenacity was soon to be tested by Maramureș as well. In the middle of the 14th century, the nobility of Maramaros, while still jealously guarding their rights at home, were an important catalyst in uniting the lands to the east of the Carpathian Mountains and forming the Moldavian Principality. Nobles from Maramaros lent large numbers of knights (called 'vitéz' in Hungarian) who were called and 'viteji' by the grateful Moldavians. This is the source of Moldavia's first and most famous dynasty, the Mușatins. One of the major participants in these events was the count of Maramaros Bogdan of Cuhea, who succeeded in 1342 and again in 1349, in totally eliminating the royal authority from Maramureș, only to find his efforts thwarted by the superior diplomatic ability of King Louis of Hungary over the lesser local (Romanian) nobility. In 1349, documents mentioning "Ioan, son of Iuga, voevod of Romanians from Maramureș" and "Nicolae, son of Petru", addressed to king Louis of Anjou regarding the rights of a certain "Giula, son of Darius" over the villages of Giulești and Nireş."Diplome Maramureșene", Maramureș, Sighet, 1900, p. 28
Bogdan's failure in Maramureș prompted him to remove his forces to Moldavia in June 1359. This left many of his villages with only defenseless peasants. In Moldavia, the arriving forces drove out Balc and Drag, grandsons of the legendary voevod Dragoș, loyal vassals of the king of Hungary. As captains of the easternmost military mark, they had been organizing the defense against the Tatars on the eastern slopes of the Carpathians. When their reconciliation with Bogdan failed and the latter was able to gather sufficient support in Moldavia to gain independence both from Hungary and from Poland, Louis endowed Balc and Drag with the lands that Bogdan held in Maramureș and made them Voevods of the Vlachs, but this time vassals of the King. Documenting this in 1365, Louis ensured that the historic Kingdom of Hungary established its border along the crests of the Carpathians, a line preserved until the end of World War I.