Diaconescu, Marius (szerk.): Mediaevalia Transilvanica 1998 (2. évfolyam, 1. szám)
Relaţii internaţionale
The Political Relations between Wallachia and Hungary 13 also place in the context provided by the conflicts with the Bulgarians5'1, reinforcing the strategic meaning of such a territorial institution. The knowledge concerning the incomes and the services owned by the Crown in those territories, as well as the detail concerning the fisheries on the Danube and the ponds in Celeiu (Cheley) also prove that at that moment, 1247, a certain suzerainty was exerted, one way or another, over those territories. A "bilateral nature of some collaboration and protection relationships"50 51 is out of the question. As the Hungarian king conceived the situation, the respective territories were parts of his kingdom. It is probable that the Mongolian invasion might have favoured the Hungarian State in this region, meaning that, threatened by the devastating danger, the leaders of the Romanian territorial formation accepted the Hungarian suzerainty, virtually offering protection. The existence of the taxes and military help from the local people, organized into specific state-territorial formations - principalities (knezates) -, and of the military support from the suzerain authority, could indicate the existence of some actual vassalage relationships. Obviously, these relations did not precisely follow the occidental rules of the feudal relations. The taxes, that is the material aspect of the vassalage relations, meant their main expression, beside the formal acknowledgement of the Hungarian king as suzerain. Any attempt towards independence was annihilated by means of military force, as the case of voivode Litovoi proves, in 1270, during the minority of King Ladislau IV the Cuman52. The continuity of the vassality relations was secured during the 13th century with the help of armed forces. Because the voivode of the Romanians, Litovoi, unified a part of the Southern Carpathian territories (included in his name a part of our kingdom, lying beyond the Carpathians - as the king accuses him) and refused to send the rightful incomes to Ladislau IV the Cuman, the suzerain sent an army which re-established the old system. The confrontation was bloody, the voivode being slain, and his brother taken prisoner53. The prisoner offered a big ransom for himself and accepted to pay the tribute54. It is interesting the fact that, initially, the king did not disagree with the territorial unification. He only requested that the usual material "rights" should be delivered: "with all our urges he did not take care of paying the incomes that we were entitled to from that part". The 50 Ibidem, pp. 85-89; Gy. Kristó, Az Árpád-kor, pp. 136-137; J. Szűcs, op. cit., pp. 136-137. 51 Maria Holban, op. cit., p. 85. 52 Gy. Kristó, Az Árpád-kor, p. 142, dates the conflict in 1272. But the crisis situation in Hungary was untill 1276: J. Szűcs, op. cit., pp. 279-291. R. Popa, La începuturile evului mediu românesc. Ţara Haţegului, Bucureşti, 1988, pp. 251-252, dates the event in 1275-1276. 53 Ş. Papacostea, Românii în secolul al XlII-lea, p. 142, overstates the significance of the military conflict and minimalizes the unstable character in Hungary during that period. 54 DRH. D„ I, pp. 30-33.
