Diaconescu, Marius (szerk.): Mediaevalia Transilvanica 1998 (2. évfolyam, 2. szám)
Relaţii internaţionale
The Relations of Vassalage 257 the throne Vlad the "Usurper", as the historians called him60. Thus, the new Voivode, and not Mircea, was the first to pay tribute and pledge fidelity to the sultan! Banned by the Turks supported by some of his boyards, Mircea went to Transylvania, most probably to his domain of the Land of Făgăraş. It is rather probable that meanwhile internal conflicts might have taken place in certain areas of Wallachia61. Why is it that the king did not intervene immediately since he was with his army at the borders? The others political reasons had determined him to delay the intervention. He may have hoped that the new voivode would pledge fidelity. Or else we can accept the version according to which, in certain areas of the country, Mircea was trying to resist the new voivode imposed by the Turks. On the other hand, the king's immediate goal seems to have been to subdue Steven (Ştefan I), the Moldavian voivode, a vassal of his enemy, the king of Poland. During the winter of 1394-1395 the king failed to bring to submission the Moldavian voivode62. It was only after this defeat and his return to Braşov, in Transylvania, that the king came to consider Wallachian affairs. Confident in his success, the king underestimated Vlad's position, supported by the Turks and a part of the boyards. He trusted Mircea, ignoring his adversaries' political and military potential. This is the general context in which, after receiving Mircea and his boyards' homage, he concluded an additional document, the so-called treaty of Braşov, dated March 7th 139563. In this document Mircea accepted certain obligations meant to support Sigismund in the anti-Ottoman campaign. Thus, Sigismund, who was planning an anti-Ottoman crusade to the south of the Danube, set Mircea's participation in the campaign as a condition for his help against his pro-Ottoman enemies in Wallachia! The underestimation of the military potential of the pro-Ottoman party in Wallachia was further proved by the subsequent evolution of the events. After his Moldavian campaign, the king demobilized the army. Then, having concluded the treaty with Mircea on March 7lh, he summoned them back but got refused especially by the Hungarian noblemen. At the beginning of April a small contingent was sent to Wallachia, which comprised only 400 lancers accompanied by two archers each - about 1200 men - led by István Losonci. There might have 6(1 About the Vlad the Usurper was written by O. Iliescu, a numismate: Vlad Ier, voivode de Valachie: le régne, le sceau et les monnaies, in RRH, 1988, no. 1-2, pp. 73-105. However, the author ignores documentary and narrative Hungarian sources. 61 Ibidem, pp. 78-79, 84, claims that it was only in May 1395 that Vlad ascended to the throne, following the failure of István Losonci’s campaign. On the contrary, this campaign was meant to bring Mircea back on the throne after his defeat by the Turks! It is possible that there was a certain lapse of time between the Turks' victory and Vlad’s actual enthronement but Mircea's presence in Transylvania was attested on February 1395 at the latest. 62 On the 1395 campaign in Moldavia and the opinions of Romanian historiography see: R. Manolescu, Campania lui Sigismund de Luxemburg în Moldova (1395), in Analele Universităţii Bucureşti, seria Ştiinţe sociale. Istorie, 1966, pp. 59-72. 63 See infra.
