Diaconescu, Marius (szerk.): Mediaevalia Transilvanica 1998 (2. évfolyam, 1. szám)
Relaţii internaţionale
The Political Relations between Wallachia and Hungary 7 significance of the vassal relationships during the epoch. On the other hand, the Hungarian historiography minimised at its turn the independence acts of Wallachia, as well as the cases when the Hungarian armies were defeated. Our study is trying to rediscuss the topic and balance the two trends, and also to point at some common places of the historical writing. Without claiming to achieve an exhaustive approach of the topic, we try to sum up the political relations between Wallachia and Hungary during the Anjou epoch. 2. The Origins and the Beginnings of the Hungarian Suzerainty Hungary's foreign policy during the period of the founding dynasty, the Arpadian, was usually aggressive, permanently offensively oriented, with annexationist purposes. The 13th century also meant the beginning of the Saint Stephen's kingdom expansion towards the regions of the Danube springs, south of the Carpathians15. This expansion should be naturally understood as ruling in the sense of the vassalage relationships that characterised the Middle Ages. From a political point of view, the Cumans were the owners of the territory located between the Carpathians and the Danube. There is indisputable proof that, at one moment, the kings of Hungary were suzerains over a large part of this region. The privileges granted to the Teutonic knights16 by King Andrew II after 1211, after the colonisation of the land of Bârsa (located in the Southeast of Transylvania, within the Carpathian curvature) show that the Cumans inhabited the territory south of the mountains. They were considered as enemies of the kingdom at that moment17. The document does not allow us to determine whether the Cumans ruled the entire territory lying between the Danube and the Carpathians. In the meantime, the Teutonic knights who settled in the land of Bârsa seem to have been an outpost facing the Cuman territories. Later documents, issued after granting the mentioned privileges, indicate that the knights also possessed lands relatively located south of the mountains (stretching from river Bârsa's springs, in the mountains, to the Danube)18. The Teutons did not hesitate to be the first who occupied it after settling in the land of Bârsa. They soon built a city, placed there by means of a papal document, "beyond the snowy mountains" (ultra mons nivium)19. The Hungarian king reconsidered, at a certain moment, the legacy 15 Ş. Papacostea, începuturile politicii comerciale, p. 10, claims that the motive of the territorial expansion of the Hungarian kingdom towards the Danube springs was economically defined, aiming at obtaining the access to the Eastern commerce. 16 The bibliography: H. Glassl, Der Deutsche Orden im Burzenland und in Rumänien, in Ungarn Jahrbuch, 3, 1971, pp. 23-49, apud Ş. Papacostea, Românii în secolul al XlII-lea, pp. 31, note 69. 17 Documenta Romániáé Historica, D. Relaţii între Ţările Române (following up: DRH, D.), I, pp. 1- 3. Ş. Papacostea, Românii în secolul al XlII-lea, p. 31. 18 DRH, D„ I, pp. 1-3. 19 Ibidem, p. 11.
