Diaconescu, Marius (szerk.): Mediaevalia Transilvanica 1998 (2. évfolyam, 1. szám)
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16 Marius Diaconescu Timişoara citadel almost every year for a period68. At first, the king tried to persuade the rebels in the citadel to surrender. After capturing banus Theodore, whose son, John, rebelled in the Mehadia citadel, the king sent him away, guarded by a group of loyal servants, to be tied to horse tails, in front of the citadel, trying to make the rebels in it surrender. This strategy was wrong, lor the ones inside, helped by the military force of the Bulgarians from Vidin, tried, instead, to release the prisoner, although uselessly69. The event took place sometimes before the 23rd of October 121770. The purpose of the action was not achieved as the citadel continued to be in the hands of the rebels. The Crown conquered the citadel only after another campaign, to which the king himself took part, developed from December 1321 to February 1322, period in which the king was present for a longer period in the region. On the 23rd of November 1321 he was in Timişoara, where we find him again from the 6th of January to the 9th of February 1322; after this he left to Buda71. This was not a proper conquest as the good turns of another nobleman, Martin, Bugar's son, were used72. The capitulation can be explained also in the circumstances in which the king had victories on every front after 1318. During the spring of the same year, 1322, the documents certify the appearance of Szécsi Dénes73, an owner of a castle at Mehadia serving the king. Only after this campaign he could have received the citadel, because on the 16th of December 1320 he was known only as possessing the castle in Jdioara, while on the 18th of March 1322 he was already a castle owner at Jdioara and Mehadia74. In a later document, from 1329, his and his brothers' faithful deeds are reminded and the king mentions the act of his appointment as owner of a castle at Mehadia, to resist in front of the Bulgarians, of Basarab, the Voivode of Wallachia, the schismatic king of Serbia, and to the Tartars75 *. Dénes is certified in his quality of castle owner of Mehadia (Myhald) constantly between the 18th of March 1322 and the 26th of November 1324. In 1327, we learn about him again in his quality of castle owner of Mehadia, beside his title of High Steward (magister dapiferorum)16. We insisted on Szécsi Dénes' investment and activity as owner of a castle at Mehadia because this historical character had a significant role for the evolution of the relations between Basarab, the voivode of Wallachia, and the king of 8 P. Engel, Az ország újraegyesítése. I. Károly küzdeleméi az oligarchák ellen (1310-1323), (following up: Az ország újraegyesítése) in Századok, 122, 1988, no. 1-2, pp. 137-139. 69 Gy. Györffy, Adatok, pp. 547-548. AO, IV, Budapest-Szeged, 1996, nr. 605, pp. 228-229. The translation of the fragment discussed here in Maria Hóiban, op. cit., p. 91. 70 P. Engel, Archontológia, I, p. 367, dates the attempt in 1314. Györffy György, Adatok, p. 540, dates it in 1316 71 P. Engel, Az ország újraegyesítése, p. 139. 72 The demonstration for the rebels' capitulation: Maria Hóiban, op. cit., p. 92, the note 11. Györffy György, Adatok, p. 539, considers that there was only one action of retrieving the citadel, in 1316, after which the king appointed his castle owner. The distinction between the two campaigns has been very well made by Maria Hóiban, op. cit., p. 92. 71 Györffy György, Adatok, pp. 548-549. 74 P. Engel, Az ország újraegyesítése, p. 130, the note 171. 75 DRH.D., I, p. 41. 16 AO, IX, Budapest-Szeged, 1996, p. 302.
