The founding of Wallachia (), that is the establishment of the first independent Romanian principality, was achieved at the beginning of the 14th century, through the unification of smaller political units that had existed between the Carpathian Mountains, and the Rivers Danube, Siret and Milcov.Pop 1999, p. 45.Georgescu 1991, p. 17.Treptow, Popa 1996, p. 218.
Prior to the consolidation of Wallachia, waves of nomadic peoples – the last of them being the Cumans and the Mongols – rode across the territory.Pop 1999, p. 30. The territory became a frontier area between the Golden Horde (the westernmost part of the Mongol Empire) and the Kingdom of Hungary after 1242.Vásáry 2005, pp. 144, 148. The Romanians in Muntenia, east of the Olt River, had to pay tribute to the Mongols; and west of the river, in Oltenia, they were oppressed by the Bans of Severin, appointed by the Kings of Hungary.Vásáry 2005, p. 148. The Golden Horde's domination decreased in the region at the end of the 13th century, and at that time the Kingdom of Hungary also underwent a strong political crisis.Sălăgean 2006, p. 193. These events enabled the incipient states of the territory to consolidate their autonomy.
One Romanian tradition records that Wallachia was founded when a certain Radu Negru (‘Radu the Black’) arrived from the Făgăraș region in the 1290s after crossing the Transylvanian Alps with "a great many following him".Sedlar 1994, p. 24.Rădvan 2009, p. 48. Jean W. Sedlar wrote that "more credible" is the report that some Romanian lords in the Olt and Argeș valleys chose as leader one of their number, a certain Basarab.
It was Voivode Basarab I (c. 1310–1352) who broke off with the Kingdom of Hungary and refused to accept the king's suzerainty. Basarab I received international support and the recognition of the autonomy of Wallachia due to his great military victory over King Charles I of Hungary (1301–1342) at Posada on November 12, 1330.Engel 2001, p. 434. The Metropolitan See of Wallachia, directly subordinated to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, was set up during the reign of Basarab I's son, Nicolae Alexandru (1352–1364).Pop 1999, p. 46.Georgescu 1991, p. 33. The first silver and bronze coins were minted in Wallachia in 1365.Georgescu 1991, p. 27.
Last centuries of the Early Middle Ages
Among the oldest attestations of the countries of the Vlachs (early Romanians) on the left side of the Danube, there is a quotation of a passage from an Armenian book of geography.Spinei 2009, p. 50. The passage represents an interpolation, probably from the first centuries of the second millennium, which refers to an "unknown country called Balak", situated in the neighborhood of the "Sarmatians’ country" and of "Zagura" (Bulgaria).Spinei 2009, pp. 50–51. Another 11th-century reference to the Vlachs’ country appears to be the section of the ancient Turkic chronicle Oghuzname ('Oghuz Khan's Tale'), preserved in a 17th-century text, which narrates the battles of the Cumans against several peoples, including the Vlachs (Ulak).Spinei 2009, p. 81.Curta 2006, p. 306.
The Cumans, a Turkic tribe approached the Danube Delta shortly after 1064–1065, and from 1068 the entire territory between the Aral Sea and the lower Danube were controlled by them.Spinei 2009, pp. 114., 116–117. But this vast territory was never politically united by a strong central power.Vásáry 2005, p. 7. The different Cuman groups were under independent rulers or khans who meddled in the political life of the surrounding areas, such as the Rus’ principalities and the Byzantine Empire. In attacking the Byzantine Empire, the Cumans were also assisted by the Vlachs living in the Balkan Mountains (now in Bulgaria) who showed them the mountain paths where no imperial guard was set up.Vásáry 2005, p. 21.
In 1185, the Balkan Vlachs, together with the Bulgarians, rose up in arms against the Byzantine Empire.Pop 1999, p. 40. They created, with the help of the Cumans and the Vlachs living on the left bank of the Danube, a new state, the Second Bulgarian Empire between the Balkan Mountains and the Danube (to the south of the future Wallachia). The new state was called "Bulgaria and Vlachia" in Western sources.Vásáry 2005, pp. 29–30. For example, in 1204 the pope elevated the head of the Bulgarian church to the rank of "primas" (primate) "of all Bulgaria and Vlachia".Dimitrov 2007, p. 52. Vlachia as an exonym for northern Bulgaria only disappeared from the sources after the middle of the 13th century.Vásáry 2005, p. 31.
In 1211, King Andrew II of Hungary (1205–1235) settled the Teutonic Knights in the region of Brașov in order to put an end to the frequent incursions of the Cumans into Transylvania.Engel 2001, pp. 90., 431.Spinei 2009, p. 146. The knights were given all the territory they could conquer beyond the Carpathian Mountains as a fief to be held from the king of Hungary.Engel 2001, p. 90. According to a royal charter of 1222, the knights’ military power stretched across the Carpathians all the way to the Danube.Spinei 2005, p. 417. That the Teutonic Knights won several victories "beyond the snowy mountains" (ultra montes nivium), that is to the south and to the east of the Carpathians, is also confirmed by papal letters. However, the Teutonic Knights were forced out of the territory in 1225 by King Andrew II, who claimed that they had ignored his authority.Spinei 2005, p. 418.
The Mongols entered Europe in 1223 when they defeated a joint Rus’-Cuman army at the river Kalka (now in Ukraine).Korobeinikov 2005, p. 388. Some Cuman groups, after their defeat of the Mongols, became willing to adopt Christianity.Engel 2001, p. 95.Spinei 2005, p. 427. As early as 1227, one of the Cuman chieftains, Boricius subjected himself and his people to the future King Béla IV of Hungary, converted to Christianity and agreed to pay an annual tax and the tithe.Spinei 2005, p. 423. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Cumania, located in northeastern Wallachia and southwestern Moldavia, was established in 1228.Spinei 2005, pp. 426., 436 A significant presence of the Vlachs within the newly established bishopric is documented in the correspondence between the Hungarian crown prince and Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241), as the pope complained about Orthodox prelates active among the local Vlachs.Curta 2006, p. 352.
The Diocese of Cumania was de jure a part of the Kingdom of Hungary, and King Andrew II adopted the title of "king of Cumania" in 1233.Spinei 2005, p. 432. There can be no doubt that the king also placed garrisons at key points on the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains in northeastern Wallachia.Vásáry 2005, p. 138. But the military outposts in the region of the bishopric are only first mentioned in relation to the Mongol invasion of 1241 by Roger of Torre Maggiore.
In parallel with the emergence of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary also persuaded an active expansionist policy in the Balkan Peninsula from the end of the 12th century.Vásáry 2005, p. 136. To that end, Oltenia was put under the control of a Hungarian governor, who received the title of ban.Spinei 2005, p. 421.Vásáry 2005, p. 146. The centre of the new province (the Banate of Severin) was the Severin Fortress (now Drobeta-Turnu Severin, Romania), on the Danube, in the vicinity of the Iron Gates. Its first ban, Luke, was mentioned in 1233.
In 1236 a large Mongol army was collected under the supreme leadership of Batu Khan and set forth to the west, in one of the greatest invasions in world's history.Korobeinikov 2005, p. 390.Spinei 2009, p. 166. The Mongols’ most devastating attacks against the western territories of the Desht-i Quipchaq (‘the steppe of the Cumans’) took place in 1237–1238.Spinei 2009, p. 38. The development of the battles was not recorded in the sources, but the Cuman's subsequent migration to Hungary, Bulgaria and other neighboring territories is eloquent enough.Spinei 2009, p. 167. Although some Cuman groups survived the Mongol invasion, the Cuman aristocracy was slain.Korobeinikov 2005, p. 406. The steppes of eastern Europe were conquered by Batu Khan's army and became parts of the Golden Horde.
But the Mongols left no garrisons or military detachments in the lower Danube region and did not take direct political control of it.Curta 2006, p. 413. Although theoretically part of the Golden Horde, the steppe corridor between the Dnieper River and the lower Danube was only a "region of hegemony", not of direct control.
Earliest voivodates in medieval documents
After the Mongol invasion, a great many (if not most) of the Cuman population left the Wallachian Plain, but the Vlach (Romanian) population remained there under the leadership of their local chiefs, called knezes and voivodes.Vásáry 2005, p. 144. In 1247, King Béla IV tried to bring the Knights Hospitallers to the region and granted to them a number of territories in the "land of Severin".Pop 1999, p. 44.Curta 2006, p. 407. The knights’ mission, however, proved to be a total failure (there is even no report whether they occupied their posts), but the royal charter for the knights, dated June 2, 1247, lists four autonomous territorial-administrative units (kenezates) in Oltenia and western Muntenia.Vásáry 2005, p. 147.
Two of them, the kenezates of Johannes and Farcaș were given to the Knights Hospitallers. But the voivodates under Litovoi and Seneslau were exempted from the grant, and the royal charter expressly stipulated that they were to be left "to the Vlachs as they had owned it until now". On the other hand, the royal charter also describes that Voivode Litovoi's rule had extended on the northern side of the Transylvanian Alps into the Hunedoara region, but the king removed this territory from Litovoi's authority in 1247; thenceforward Litovoi's kenezate was restricted to the Oltenian part of the Jiu valley.Curta 2006, pp. 407–408. Voivode Seneslau held the territories of central and southern Muntenia on the banks of the rivers Argeș and Dâmbovița.Georgescu 1991, p. 16.
After the failure and disappearance of the Hospitallers, the history of the region is shrouded in obscurity for decades. But the trend toward the unification of the Romanian polities seems to begin with Voivode Litovoi. He (or his namesake son) was at war with the Hungarians and killed in battle sometime between 1270 and 1280. In the battle, his brother, Bărbat was captured. Bărbat was forced not only to pay ransom but also to recognize Hungarian rule.
'Dismounting' by Radu Negru
Romanian chronicles written in the 17th century narrate that a herțeg or duke of Făgăraș and Almaș, named Radu Negru (‘Radu the Black’) or Negru Vodă (‘The Black Voivode’) was the first voivode of Wallachia.Brătianu 1980, p. 87. These texts state that Radu Negru, together with some colonists ("Romanians, Catholics and Saxons") arrived from the region of Făgăraş in Transylvania.Brătianu 1980, pp. 93., 102. The first documentary evidence for a terra Blacorum (‘land of the Vlachs’) on the territory later called Făgăraș is an early 13th-century property register which mentions the order of King Andrew II of Hungary that estates previously in Vlach hands be transferred to the Cistercian abbey at Cârța.Curta 2006, p. 354.Engel 2001, p. 119. Radu Negru and his followers crossed the Carpathians to Muntenia and founded Wallachia with its capitals in Câmpulung and Curtea de Argeș. The chronicles narrate these events under the year 1290 or 1292.