Download PDF | Laurenţiu Rădvan - At Europe's Borders_ Medieval Towns in the Romanian Principalities -BRILL (2010).
646 Pages
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe thanks to many people who have helped me in publishing this book, so I would like to apologize if I forgot anyone. Thanks are due to the U.S. Fulbright Commission in Romania for the post-doctoral grant it has provided, which allowed me to complete my research on the medieval towns of Central and South-Eastern Europe. Recognition is also due to Professor Keith Hitchins, who has patiently listened to my every question and provided academic support during my stay in the United States. I also need to mention the staff of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, especially those in the Russian, East European and Eurasian Centre and the University Library, who have extended a warm welcome and ensured that my stay was as pleasant as possible, providing access to every available resource.
I would like to express my gratitude to Florin Curta, who has given me the opportunity of publishing in the excellent collection he coordinates for Brill Publishers. To the staff of this publishing house, thank you for your careful guidance. This is also a chance to thank all those who, all through this project, have provided me with useful advice, answers to my questions, access to information or simply their kind words: Ioan Capro‘u, Dan Dumitru Iacob, Victor Spinei, Cristian Luca, Mariana lapac, Ovidiu andor, George ipo‘. Thanks to Alexandru-Florin Platon, Dean of the Faculty of History in my home university, University “Al. I. Cuza” Ia‘i, Romania, thanks to the head of the Chair of Medieval History, Petronel Zahariuc, and to my fellow colleagues. I would also like to thank Valentin Cîrdei, for his excellent translation of this book, and to Radu Pîrnău, for his painstaking work on the maps in the volume. Last but not least, thanks to my wife, Mihaela, for her support, but mostly for the patience she has shown.
INTRODUCTION
The medieval town and its dilemmas This book is an examination of the emergence and evolution of medieval towns in the Romanian Principalities, from the 13th century and up to the fi nal days of the 15th century. The medieval world cannot be fully understood without an exhaustive insight into the town as a whole, and all that it represented: a community of free, privileged citizens for whom trade and the manufacture of common or luxury items were a way of life. A work which would approach the various issues related to the structures of urban life in this side of Europe, and which would also review each region, with its specifi cs and its particular development, is conspicuously lacking.
This is the challenge we would like to address in our work. How do we defi ne a town? This is an old but ever-present question, troubling historians all around the world. The question becomes even more intricate for scholars in the eastern areas of Europe, since towns located there looked or were organized in a more or less different fashion than towns in the western and southern regions of the continent. There are three main lines of interpretation that most researchers focus on: the economic, the legal, and the topographic one. Some historians believe that only the settlements undertaking active trade or manufacture can be seen as towns.
Others rely on the “legal” standing of the town, a settlement which acted on a distinct set of privileges, defi ning the status of the community. The settlement also enjoyed a privilege, more or less extended. A third group of researchers associate urban centres in the Middle Ages with the presence of surrounding walls and a clear-cut layout.1 The closer we get to Eastern Europe and the Black Sea, the less do these principles apply, since few towns ever come to comply with them. Some centres display a bustling trade life, but lack privileges and walls (the so-called “market towns” in Central Europe, the Eastern European târgs). Others have privileges (not as extensive as in the West), are engaged in the economic process, but have no walls, like the towns in Wallachia, Moldavia, or Serbia. However, there are also towns which rise to the standards mentioned above (the royal towns in Hungary, the privileged ones in Poland, etc.).
If we were to go by the traditional defi nitions of the town and only look at the latter group, Central and Eastern Europe would present us with the lowest density of towns on the continent. However, the complexities of urban life go beyond established defi nitions. Demographically, the town was a cluster of people outnumbering the ones in common villages. Topographically, we may note that, by and large, urban centres are located in places that favoured trade, around the castles of kings or noblemen, near crossroads, by river fords, etc. Some medieval towns rose atop Roman settlements, but their pattern of organization was in no way connected to the Antiquity.
The central marketplace, with a more or less orderly outline, came into its own as a true magnet for trade, and had two purposes: the original, commercial one, and a second one, as the core of urban life, where the townspeople gathered (agora). In most cases, the marketplace had many buildings with a symbolic value: the town hall, the headquarters of the institution governing the town and ensuring it kept its autonomy, and the town church, where believers showed their faith. The town’s purposes obviously set it apart from the village. Its main purpose is still an economic one: a trade centre, but also a manufacture hub, since agricultural pursuits were only ancillary.2 The political purpose stems from the town remaining a seat of power (a legal, administrative, or religious centre).
Not only could its inhabitants manufacture or sell various goods, but they could also wield weapons, so the medieval armies also included corps of townspeople, often better equipped than peasants. The town also has a vital cultural purpose. Along with the Church, the town becomes the domain of the written word, since its inhabitants could not do without reading, writing, and counting in their work.3 Many urban crafts were put to “cultural use,” since the craftsmen erected churches, cathedrals, and went on to print books. The development of the town also involved the birth and growth of specifi c lifestyles, as well as that of mentalities tied to a set of values. The townspeople embraced work more willingly, and restored it to its former glory for the late medieval society. The town community had a mixed social make-up, which brought together the wealthy upper layers, the patriciate (majores), who controlled the institutions, and the lower ones, the poor (mediocres). The two were set apart over time by two criteria that became the mainstay of this world: infl uence and money.
All the above-mentioned features converge into one bottom line: the medieval town was “a multifunctional phenomenon.”4 All these aspects come into play as the modern historian attempts to defi ne the medieval town. However, we must follow the medieval points of reference in our research, and this is why we will focus on the legal element. Nowadays, we may see a settlement with a large, economically active population and a market or industry as a town. However, the medieval person also valued the rights he enjoyed, since they granted him a certain status. Of the thousands of settlements present at any given point in the medieval world, the “privileged town” stands out.5 Its inhabitant was a free man, without any masters, except maybe the king who had granted or acknowledged his privilege.
In the case of towns, this document was not granted individually; its scope was the community, and it covered all the individuals making up that community. Where the contents were concerned, the more diverse the towns, the more varied the privileges. Their provisions vary greatly from one area to another. There were full privileges, like the ones in Italy or Germany, extended privileges, like in Poland or Hungary, but also limited ones, like those in Serbia, Wallachia or Moldavia. Historical climate led to more ample privileges in Central and Southern Europe, and more restricted ones towards the outer reaches. Therefore, to defi ne a medieval settlement as a town, we must fi rst identify its privilege.
In a large number of cases, the privilege was granted after the emergence of the settlement per se, and after it had reached a certain stage of economic and social development. In a minority of them, the town charter was issued when the settlement was created or shortly afterwards. We also cannot overlook a process which swayed the course of urbanization in Central and Eastern Europe: colonization. Economic and social reasons determined the kings, princes, dukes, or bishops in Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Wallachia, and Moldavia to provide incentive for or to accept the colonization of their domains by foreign settlers, better prepared and organized. This process followed a specifi c path, since the newcomers were lured by land, economic rights and legal liberties. The creation of new settlements, be they villages or towns, which abided by the so-called “German law,” is owed to them.
This centuries-long process did not involve only foreigners, but locals as well, relocated as the new principles required. The rights received by settlers were the groundwork of the privilege, which was kept in its original form or was later extended. The privilege charter was not preserved in many towns; the main culprits are various adversities, medieval or modern (the ravages of war and natural disasters). Even so, sources provide us with ample evidence to classify a certain settlement as a town. The presence of community-elected fi gures, who could try its members, issue decrees or draft documents they stamped by town seal is one instance of this. We must emphasize another point: the privilege was the product of a compromise between the central authority and the inhabitants. However, in Central and Eastern Europe, we believe that the royal or local authority was the focus of this compromise, and not the inhabitants.
This was not a “communal movement” in the strictest sense of this phrase, but originated only in initiatives by townspeople in large centres, who struggled to gain rights. Since it had leverage in this situation, the royal authority was the one to regulate the status of towns. This ensured it larger income, better development for the kingdom (or the principality), and a political basis. Despite support from the king, the townspeople of these areas were never a social or political force to be reckoned with. The further we travel east, the more diffi cult it becomes to note the inner workings of the town community, since sources are reluctant to tell us anything in this respect. There are hints that the townspeople acted as one, in defence of their rights, especially when it came to being tried by their own representatives or to using the town domain.
Another debate revolves around whether continuity between urban settlements in Antiquity and medieval ones existed. This matter is far from simple, and only archaeology can shed light on it. Research related to it has shown that, in some cases, there was some degree of habitation continuity (Ruinenkontinuität).6 Even in the harshest days of the Middle Ages, Central-European or Balkan lands crossed by migrating peoples continued to be inhabited. If we come near, or even within the territory in the grasp of the former Roman Empire, we will notice that Roman camps, municipia, and colonies were located where modern-day towns stand.
On many occasions, to found new settlements, the Romans took over the location of older settlements erected by previous inhabitants of the area (Celts, Dacians, etc.). Nonetheless, the towns continuously inhabited between the crumbling of the Roman structures and the emergence of medieval states are few in number. Most are in the Byzantine Empire and some in Italy, Gaul, and Spain. The repopulation of old towns, on the same spot or nearby, occurred only when the political climate became more stable, and new, more enduring states emerged. The major difference between them and the ones in Antiquity is that the former were organized differently and had other purposes. This work will often make use of the phrase “pre-urban settlement.”
This type of early urban settlements was often the subject of scholarly debate, since the terminology at work was not entirely consistent. Some preferred the phrase we have adopted, while others relied on “proto-towns,” “embryonic-towns,” or “incipient towns.”7 There are slight differences between the four, since they instance the two perspectives on urban evolution, which set apart settlements with a specifi c economic and legal status or those with economic and administrative purposes. We have given preference to “pre-urban,” since it seems more in keeping with how we see the town, and we see it as an intricate, but many-sided whole.
The pre-urban settlement is simply a settlement that was not a town, but had some of its features. Almost all later towns fall under this category in their stage of emergence. Still, not all settlements at one point in a pre-urban stage became towns. For some, the right conditions were missing, while for others, “luck” simply did not present itself. Even though the above statement is somewhat unorthodox, it captures a frequent occurrence in the Middle Ages. A fi re, a disaster, an invasion followed by destruction or all these together could condemn an aspiring settlement to oblivion.
The time and the place The political, social, and geographic scope of our research covers part of Central and Eastern Europe. We would prefer avoiding the long debate on the borders of this area (or notion), since it does not fall within the subject of this work.8 The historical specifi cs of the area led to the rise of two principalities mostly populated by Romanians: Wallachia and Moldavia. The Romanians in Transylvania could not form a state, since this land came under the control of Hungarian kings relatively early, between 1000 and 1200. A voivodate endured here as a political and territorial unit, but it had a reduced autonomy.
Compared to it, the two principalities had a vast autonomy, their leaders being virtually independent in matters of internal affairs. They even had right of life or death over their subjects. Even though the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia had pledged vassal fealty to the king of Hungary (the Moldavian one also made this pledge to the king of Poland), they had almost complete freedom in external affairs. The emergence of the Ottoman Empire gradually shifted the balance of power in the region. First of all, the rulers of Wallachia acknowledged the sovereignty of the sultan, before mid 15th century (the fi rst tribute was offi cially paid in 1417). The Moldavian rulers followed suit afterwards (the fi rst tribute was paid in 1456). Until the fall of Hungary, but also afterwards, the principalities played a very artful political game, which allowed them to keep their autonomy intact.
The dependence on the Ottoman Empire heightened in the latter half of the 16th century and in the 17th. Even in the 18th century, when Ottoman domination was at its peak, Wallachia and Moldavia still had autonomy. The local political climate had a decisive infl uence on the emergence, evolution, and organization of towns. Migratory peoples took their toll on Central, and especially Eastern Europe, arresting social and political structures in their development. This is why urbanization here lagged behind the similar process in Western Europe. It was only after this trend was somewhat mitigated that, after mid 13th century and in the 14th, local states coalesced, ensuring the stable climate required for the emergence of new towns. Despite being almost one century late, towns in the Romanian Principalities (and those in the northern Balkans) join those in Hungary and Poland in this side of Europe.
The 15th century is the prime period for medieval towns in the area, but this begins to change at the dawn of the dynamic 16th century. Towns in Serbia and Bulgaria had already come under Ottoman control, so urban centres in the Romanian Principalities would not be able to avoid the Eastern infl uence in politics, economy and society. More remarkable is the fact that towns here preserved their original, basic organization, for the two centuries to come. We have chosen to preface the study of towns in the Principalities with a description of the emergence and evolution of towns in medieval Poland and Hungary, as well as of those south of the Danube.
We have done so in order to more easily determine which elements were common, but also with methodology in mind, since the comparative approach has provided a more revealing insight into how towns in the Principalities came about. This work has not considered the more distant Byzantine Empire, Bohemia, or Austria, but they were mentioned every time the opportunity arose. On an urban level, they had a greatly diminished infl uence on the Romanian area, so we did not insist on them.
Written sources and the issue of terminology
When researching towns in the Romanian Principalities, we were faced with a diffi culty common to all historians who ever took interest in this subject: the state of sources. In this respect, not only urban history, but the entire medieval history of the Romanians is not exactly in mint condition. The dawn of the Principalities is scarcely documented. Chancelleries of the rulers in Wallachia and Moldavia came into existence in the 14th century. The fi rst document issued by a ruler is dated 1351/1352 for the former country, and 1384, for the latter.9
Few pre-1500 texts were preserved, severely hindering research into any historical process related to this period. The several hundred internal documents which survived in various archives have been collected by historians and published under two main collections: Documente privind istoria României, incomplete and without documents in their original language, and Documenta Romaniae Historica, almost complete and in keeping with all scientifi c standards.10 A large number of other local collections or volumes fi ll in the array of written sources available. We took particular interest in volumes which include documents for certain towns: Câmpulung, Târgovi‘te, Ia‘i, Suceava, Bârlad, or Lăpu‘na.11 Internal documents, especially the offi cial ones, are more accurate in their depiction of the structure of town communities and their relations with the ruler.
They also provide details on the estates of the inhabitants or their pursuits. However, they only paint a fragmented picture of daily life, leaving our study with few hints to go by. This shortcoming would be compensated in the 17th century, when the preserved documents multiplied substantially. The language of choice for most documents in these times was Old Slavonic. Written Hungarian and German prevailed in towns with communities of this origin, and Romanian joins them after 1521. Written sources outside the Principalities come in handy when considering politics, diplomacy, religion, and, most of all, economy.
The main collection we will therefore rely on is the so-called “The Hurmuzachi Documents,” which mainly published documents extracted from the archives in Hungary, Austria, or Poland.12 The commercial agreements concluded by the Moldavian rulers and the Polish and Hungarian kings were published by Mihai Costăchescu and Ioan Bogdan.13 Some of the customs records for Transylvanian towns were also kept, and the towns in the Principalities had close trade relations with them.
They include valuable data on the merchandise exchanged by the two parties, the amount, customs taxes, the name and the origin of merchants engaged in trade, etc. They have been published over a hundred years ago by Grigore Tocilescu, Ioan Bogdan, Silviu Dragomir and others.14 Last but not least, documents in the Italian archives of Vatican, Genoa, and Venice are of particular importance, and an ever-growing number of Romanian and foreign historians have begun focusing on them.15 Narrative sources complete this picture with chronicles or accounts of travels. The oldest chronicles remaining are those in Moldavia, written in Old Slavonic in the ruler’s residence or in the monastery of Putna. Their best edition is the one published by Ioan Bogdan and revised by Petre P. Panaitescu in 1959.16
They are completed by the fi rst chronicles to be written in Romanian in the 17th century or at the turn of the next one by Grigore Ureche (kept via copyists and intermediaries), Miron Costin and Ion Neculce,17 as well as the fi rst scholarly work on the history of Moldavia, that we owe to Dimitrie Cantemir.18 Where Wallachia is concerned, no medieval offi cial chronicle was kept. It is assumed that bits of these chronicles were adopted in several 17th century Histories and kept in various versions.19 Internal chronicles are signifi cant in themselves, since they shed new light on the emergence of towns, and from a different angle than that of offi cial records. Hagiographies or monastery histories are only secondary, since they only relate small details on towns.20 The literature from abroad is vast in this respect. The oldest accounts of Romanians come from histories written by scholars in Hungary, Poland, Russia, the Byzantine or the Ottoman Empire.21
But while towns are only incidentally mentioned in these works, the most valuable narrative sources on urban life in Romanian-inhabited land are traveller’s journals. Most of the travelers who arrived in or crossed the Principalities came from an urban environment, so they provided useful, albeit late accounts (especially from the 15th–17th centuries). All this literature has been compiled into a collection called Călători străini despre ≥ările române, with the fi rst fi ve volumes being of special interest to us.22 We have also relied on epigraphy and cartography, where they proved useful.23 Written sources, and especially offi cial documents, raise a whole range of problems. Terminology is the most distressing of them, since it invites confusion. One of the reasons is the diversity of medieval terminology. It varies across chancelleries and the language used within them. Since the languages used in worship became offi cial languages in themselves, the Byzantine area used Greek, the Slav and the Romanian one, Old Slavonic, while the rest of Europe was the province of Latin. In the early Middle Ages, the kingdoms which followed in the West after the Roman Empire kept a Roman urban terminology: municipium, territorium.
Civitas was also used in reference to towns that were also bishop’s sees. The last term was also used in the later days of the Middle Ages and resulted in the French cité, the Spanish ciudad or English city. As we leave the scope of infl uence of the once-mighty Roman Empire, urban terminology becomes infused with local terms from Old German, Slavonic or Hungarian. Therefore, along with oppidum and foro, the terms defi ning the pre-urban stage or the simple trading post status of some settlements are complemented by trg / targ or vásárhely. Castellum, but also burgus, gord and vár are used to indicate a fortifi ed settlement. Burgus endured through the Middle Ages, and it became widespread under many regional forms: Germ. burg / purg, En. borough, It. borgo, Sp. burgo, Fr. bourg, faubourg; the inhabitants in a burgus were: burgensis, Bürger, purgari, etc. The eastern area of Europe preferred the Old Slavonic gord and the Hungarian vár.
The former displayed some local variations: Rus. gorod, Pol. gród, South-Slavonic grad and Cz. hrad. As város, initially meaning “suburbs,” the latter was adopted by the Southern Slavs, the Albanians, entered Modern Greek and found its way into Romanian as ora‘. These terms are also complemented by: urbs, villa, portus, suburbium, as well as the local variants of podgradije, town, wik, Stadt, miasto, etc.24 A focused study of local documents allows us to probe the meanings of terms used to defi ne the staples of life in towns. Still, some terms raise some disturbing issues when it comes to translating them into English. One such term is târg, with a two-fold meaning in Romanian: pre-urban settlement, a marketplace in town, permanent or temporary (a fair), and even a business.
To complicate the matter further, Moldavian offi cial documents assign it the meaning of “town”. Translating it by an appropriate English term (for instance, “market town,” “marketplace,” “town”) would confuse the readers, so we preferred rendering it in its original form of târg. However, we did keep it only in its main meaning of “pre-urban settlement,” using similar English terms for all its other meanings (marketplace, fair, town). We took the same stance to words describing institutions specifi c to the town community. The elected representative for the townspeople bears different names in the two Principalities, so, in the same vein, we kept the original name ( jude≥ in Wallachia, ‘oltuz or voit in Moldavia). This was also the case with designations for offi cials (pârcălab, vornic), whose exact English counterpart, describing their scope of authority, is hard to fi nd. Another word which generates issues in translation is curte. Its primary meaning is that of a main seat for the ruler and his family.
The curte had both an aulic, and a military purpose, since in most cases it was fortifi ed. In this book, we have attempted to adapt English words to defi ne the curte, naturally taking into account the local status of town residences. Those in capital-towns (Arge‘, Târgovi‘te, Suceava) were complex buildings, vast, true palaces, while those in smaller towns were larger, fortifi ed houses. In this case, we believe that keeping the original curte would have lead to confusion with court, which has multiple meanings in English. One fi nal matter that begs clarifi cation is a social one: in areas inhabited by Romanians, and in Bulgaria and Russia, the noble is called a boier or boiar.
As he owned land and was tied to the ruler by fealty, the boier in the Romanian Principalities is partly akin to the nobles in the rest of Europe. Even so, he does display some peculiar features, which determine us to avoid calling him a noble, but rather a boyar, a word which came into use in academic literature (in the English one as well). We will dwell on these terms at certain points throughout the book, and also note them in the glossary at the end.
Archaeology
Archaeological excavations could provide valuable information, as they did for many western towns, but Wallachia and Moldavia had only few thorough archaeological initiatives. Excavations were performed mostly in large towns, where the old residences of the ruler and the churches within them were studied: Bucharest, Târgovi‘te, Câmpulung, Floci (for Wallachia), Ia‘i, Suceava, Baia, Siret, Bacău, Trotu‘ and Adjud (for Moldavia). Historical centres in towns were the secondary target of archaeologists, and were researched only during restoration work or, as it was more often the case, discoveries were brought along by the massive demolitions of the Communist regime in the 1980s.
This is why most archaeological data on old towns stems from the so-called “salvation excavations.” The ones who put to adequate use archaeological fi ndings in urban research include Panait I. Panait, N. Constantinescu, Gh. I. Cantacuzino, and Anca Păunescu for Wallachia,25 Vasile Neam≥u, Al. Andronic, Mircea D. Matei, Al. Artimon, Victor Spinei, and Stela Cheptea for Moldavia, to mention but a few of them.26 Unfortunately, various reasons led to many of their discoveries to remain unpublished to this day or to be transmitted to the academia long after they were undertaken. There is an obvious lack of solid collaboration between historians and archaeologists when it comes to urban history. Some archaeologists believe a settlement should combine several features (provided by material discoveries) to be seen as a town, while most historians focus on other features (provided by documents).
Archaeologists also tend to see towns as mainly involved in manufacture, while historians believe they relied mostly on trade.27 The precarious state of sources should bring both parties together, into a comparative approach that would shed light on the early days and evolution of towns. We must turn to the surrounding areas to see the lines along which this process evolved, since the Romanian-inhabited territory was not isolated, but had ties abroad. Unfortunately, few Romanian researchers were able to reconcile the various types of sources in order to come up with a more accurate picture of the urbanization.
Historiography and interpretations
The dawn of the Principalities, as local states more or less dependent on neighbouring powers (Hungary, Poland, the Ottoman Empire), is obscured by the passage of time. The unsatisfactory sources only allow for theorization upon this period, and theories are so numerous, that they often baffl e readers who are unfamiliar with the region’s history. This is why we attempted to bring the major, most adhered-to theories into one common strand. However, our opinions, which originate in our view of sources, have led us to emphasize the more plausible interpretations. Almost all historians studying this period were Romanian, indicating the little interest generated by the history of the Principalities abroad. The reasons are various.
Patriotism aside, the history of Romanians has a local character, and was often studied by foreign historians as an appendix to the history of neighbouring powers, on whom they were more or less dependent. Whereas pre-Second World War Romanian historians such as Nicolae Iorga or Gh. I Brătianu were well immersed in European historiography, the advent of Communism plunged historical research into a Marxist and nationalist trend, decreasing even further its appeal abroad. This brings us back to the state of sources.
Internal documents were inconsistently published, sometimes with errors or great delays, and archaeological excavations were mostly dedicated to matters which suited the Communist regime (proving the continuity of Romanian occupation of this land), with medieval history being pushed into the background. All these took their toll: a chronic obliviousness to Romanian medieval history in Europe or the USA.28 Few major foreign researchers have focused on Romanian history in the past 50 years, and most were interested in modern or contemporary history: Keith Hitchins, Denis Delentant etc.29 A tentative change began to manifest itself after 1989, but only because many Romanian students left their country to study or perform research, and some chose subjects in Romanian history. These are the reasons why a researcher interested in any subject related to this area of Europe has to either go by the few works published in widely spoken languages or to learn Romanian. Our book comes to cover this information gap, hoping to spark more interest for what is an otherwise rich and sometimes surprising history.
We will not attempt to describe extensively the historiography of towns in the Romanian Principalities, since this would require a whole, separate work. As pointed out above, the historian interested in this issue is faced with several diffi culties. There are scarcely any valuable, in-depth works on towns, and coherent monographs are hard to come by. A series of articles in dedicated journals partly make up for these shortcomings. Urban history was a topic of interest even before the Second World War, but most of the works of the time were written either under the sway of passion for the places described, or by amateurs. After 1947, research into the past history of towns was no priority, since their origin and urban evolution were rapidly subsumed to the paradigm of materialist-scientifi c views of the time. A change becomes noticeable after 1989, but it is by no means drastic. The appearance of the “Historia Urbana” journal and of the Commission for the History of Towns of the Romanian Academy has somewhat chanelled the efforts to reclaim town history, but the lack of scholars in the fi eld is still manifest.
Also, some researchers naturally turned to fi elds largely ignored or hindered in Communist times (genealogy, anthropology, history of mentalities, etc.) and left towns aside. In present-day Romania, the only region which attracted more historical interest as such was Transylvania. Towns established there enjoyed an institutional status specifi c to Central Europe, guaranteed by the Hungarian kings and implemented by and for German colonists, who began to settle in Transylvania in the mid 12th century. Recent research by Thomas Nägler, Otto Dahinten, Paul Niedermaier, Eniko Rüsz Fogarasi, as well as several collections of studies, showed how closely related in structure were Transylvanian towns to those in Central Europe.30 As for the towns in Wallachia and Moldavia, several factors contributed to the existence of a different status. Unlike Transylvania, the two principalities based their political institutions on the Byzantine model, an initiative which baffl ed local historians.
Where towns were concerned, they identifi ed in sources elements which are obviously linked to the structures of Central Europe; however, they were not able to provide a consistent explanation on how these elements were introduced and how they ascribed specifi c features to towns in the region. Confl icting information in sources on towns south and east of the Carpathian Mountains has determined scholars to rally under two major lines of interpretation when considering the emergence and the organization of urban centers: 1. towns created as predominantly commercial centers thanks to the contribution of social elements of foreign origin; 2. towns arising as the medieval Romanian society reached a new stage in its development, the “division of labour”, namely the separation of crafts and agriculture. The latter perspective sees towns as manufacturing, rather than trade centers. Advocates of the former point of view were particularly vocal during the interwar period, when the vast majority of scholars claimed that towns in the Romanian medieval Principalities were simply the result of economic and political infl uences from Central Europe.
It was assumed that the vector for these infl uences were foreign colonists, who settled south and east of the Carpathian Mountains. The emergence of towns would have occurred before or at the same time as the very rise of the Romanian Principalities as medieval states. A. D. Xenopol, one of the fi rst outstanding Romanian historians, emphasized the role of Saxons colonizing towns such as Baia or Câmpulung, where they had allegedly brought institutions from Transylvania or Poland. Xenopol’s argument was at least in part based on the fact that the local names for the judge and the members of the town council (‘oltuz, pârgari) in both Wallachia and Moldavia were of German origin.31 Nicolae Iorga, a self-declared supporter of the theory of the foreign origin of Romanian towns, approached the issue in similar terms: “We are nowadays certain that our towns had not been established by Romanians.”32 Iorga believed that, together with foreign colonists, the trade routes also played a major part in the rise of local towns across the Romanian Principalities, an idea later developed by Gh. I. Brătianu. According to such views, the commercial interests of European powers paved the way for the emergence of towns, since routes could allow for free and thriving trade only under political protection.
Unlike Iorga, Brătianu was more reluctant in supporting the foreign origin theory.33 Iorga’s ideas were further developed by I. Hurdube≥iu34 and Petre P. Panaitescu. The latter’s contribution is especially signifi cant in this respect, since Panaitescu radically changed his views following the advent of the Communist regime. To a valuable collection of studies published in 1947, he added a new paper refl ecting the ideas of the interwar school of thought. In his study, the author emphasizes the role of foreign colonists in promoting trade in emerging towns before the rise of the Romanian Principalities.35 Interwar historiographic views maintained that, with the support of the king of Hungary or that of rulers of the Romanian Principalities, foreign colonists have arrived to the regions south and east of the Carpathian Mountains, laying the foundations for some of the oldest towns in the country.
They introduced elements of administrative, legal and economic organization specifi c to Central Europe. To a certain extent, this theory was also tackled by Emil Vîrtosu, Emil Lăzărescu and D. Ciurea, who put their ideas to print after the war. Vîrtosu, a specialist in sigillography, relied on the evidence of seals for the towns of Câmpulung, Baia and Roman, all of which had their legend written in Latin. Vîrtosu believed that seals, together with the institutional layout of towns adopting a Western pattern, would substantially reinforce the role of Saxon colonists in the making of the old urban centers.36 Lăzărescu focused on studying the oldest town of Wallachia, Câmpulung. A tombstone dating back to 1300 mentions a certain comes Laurentius de Longo Campo, a character that caused much controversy, especially when it came to his social and political status.
Lăzărescu believed that the comes was an agent of the king of Hungary, a political and military ruler of the town, who would later come under the control of the voivode of Wallachia.37 One fi nal theory sees D. Ciurea follow in the steps of Brătianu and attributing the foundation of towns in Moldavia to the commercial development of the region east of the Carpathians, also motivated by the interest that wealthier neighboring states, such as Hungary and Poland, displayed in extending their commercial relations towards the Danube and the Black Sea.38 After the Second World War, Marxist interpretations were introduced to the debate under the new political circumstances of the Soviet occupation and the dawn of a political regime approved and controlled by the Soviet Union.
As a consequence, Romanian historians were expected to draw their inspiration from Soviet historians, whose fundamental thesis was that the Middle Ages were an age fraught with feudal dissolution and intense class struggle. The idea that medieval towns had a foreign origin was apparently unacceptable to the evergrowing nationalist bias of the Romanian Communists. Therefore, some historians embraced the new thesis of a specifi cally Romanian social evolution. They shifted the emphasis to the social division of labor, stressing the importance of crafts in towns, the “crystallization of feudal relations” and class struggle, with the urban phenomenon being seen as a native one, subjected to only a few infl uences from abroad. Championed by Petre P. Panaitescu, this line of interpretation was also adopted by Nicolae Grigora‘, tefan Olteanu, Constantin C. Giurescu, Constantin erban, Mircea D. Matei and others. The fi rst one took a middle way in the debate, as illustrated by the chapter on towns published in his work in Via≥a feudală în ˘ara Românească ‘i Moldova (1957).39 He then radically changed his position for the Introducere la istoria culturii române‘ti, published in 1969. No longer interested in communes, he now postulated the existence of valley (or river) market-towns and town communities (so-called “ora‘e-ob‘ti”). The former were local political and economic centers, while the latter were supposedly urban forms of organization derived from rural social structures. “Ora‘eleob‘ti” were “a specifi cally Romanian creation, a Romanian solution to the development of urban life in medieval Europe.”
There is however very little evidence to substantiate Panaitescu’s theory, the only urban community regarding itself as ob‘te being that of Câmpulung, and that only at a late date, namely in the 17th century. Even though he had advanced the new theory, Panaitescu also promoted some of his older ideas at the same time. He claimed that trade was a factor of utmost importance in the rise of the medieval towns, since foreign settlers establishing themselves in towns in the Principalities maintained relations with Transylvania. Panaitescu also saw the rise of medieval towns as playing “the cultural role of promoting social freedom.” In Panaitescu’s opinion, towns stood out as hotbeds of innovation, the main factor behind the “opening up of economic relations with Europe as a whole.” This medley of ideas, combining faith in the “Romanian” and “rural” origin of towns with the notion of “social freedom” only created more theoretical confusion and furthered debate, instead of advancing clarity and limpid expression.40 Until the late 1960s, no major work was published on medieval towns, except monographs dedicated to individual urban centers. For most historians, research into the past history of towns was a marginal fi eld, over which political, economic or social history had the upper hand. The fi rst work of synthesis on towns in Moldavia and Wallachia was published by Constantin C. Giurescu in 1967. Giurescu had already approached the topic in his Istoria românilor, published in several editions in the 1930s. While his interwar position on the issue could be best described as neutral (he, among other things, pointed out the role of Saxon, Hungarian, and Armenian tradesmen),41 Giurescu now decided to align himself to the offi cial position claiming a local origin for all towns in the Romanian Principalities. Indeed, Giurescu’s arguments are solid, especially in regards to the economic and political factors having a crucial signifi cance for the rise of towns in Moldavia (the only region that he studied). Moldavian towns supposedly evolved from villages, centers of regions with a higher concentration of settlements, which became small towns and then served as seats for local rulers.42 The fi nal shift to urban centers with a specifi c organization occurred as a result of the participation in the local and international trade, and due to the creation of the medieval state. Critics of Giurescu’s work accused him of placing the rise of medieval towns in Moldavia too early on the timeline. According to him, urban centers had already come into being by 1350, at the time the principality of Moldavia came into being as well, but this idea found no support in archaeological evidence.43
So far, excavations disproved Giurescu’s statements. However, they did point to a relatively simultaneous development of towns and state structures in both Moldavia and Wallachia. The 1300s were a period of both urbanization and state emergence. Despite all its weaknesses and ideological bias in favor of the tenets of national Communism, Giurescu’s monograph is one of the most rigorous scientifi c ventures in the Romanian urban history of the past few decades. Most prominent among scholars making extensive use of the archaeological evidence is Mircea D. Matei, who, unlike some of his fellow historians, worked out a theory of urban development, instead of just publishing and describing archaeological fi ndings. Matei offered a synthesis of his views in a book published in 1997. After placing the local urban phenomenon within the European context, he insisted upon a set of specifi cally Romanian conditions (demographic, geographic, political, and social), which according to him could explain the rise of medieval towns. He acknowledged the existence of foreign settlers coming from across the Carpathian Mountains in search of economic opportunities, whom Matei saw as the heralds of new forms of civilization.44 However, Mircea D. Matei denies the existence of any privileges for towns and instead excessively emphasizes the importance of manufacturing in the urban economy. My own dissertation represents the most recent contribution to the debate surrounding the medieval towns in Wallachia. My basic thesis is that political factors did not outweigh economic considerations in the rise of medieval towns. Local residences of rulers existing before the rise of medieval states were able to draw around them social groups with various professions and multiple ethnic origins, their members being traders, as well as craftsmen, and Romanian, as well as foreign. The fi rst pre-urban settlements emerged against this backdrop before 1300. The colonists were the ones to introduce most political and administrative institutions, as evidenced by several specialized terms, all of German origin, which endured well into the modern period. Members of the urban elite were, in the oldest towns, chosen from among Saxons, Hungarians and Armenians; Romanians were not excluded, but they, together with Greeks rose to economic prominence only after 1500. Privileges obtained were the groundwork for town communities to follow a Central-European model of organization, their autonomy being limited by the authority of princely representatives. I also attempted to identify elements in the process of locatio, of towns being established following a well-determined layout, on the basis of topographical studies.45
* This is the research level that will serve as a starting point in our work. Despite having met many diffi culties, we hope this work will open up a new perspective on a neglected subject. Our analysis runs through three large parts. The fi rst one will lead us into the political, economic, and urban climate in Central and Eastern Europe. We will review the emergence and evolution of Polish and Hungarian towns, as well as of those in the vast and varied south-Danubian land, until 1500. It is on them that our understanding of similar processes in the Principalities hinges, and since our approach follows a timeline, we will begin with Wallachia, and then focus on Moldavia. In some cases, we have gone beyond the year 1500, but only where we were presented with historical facts relevant to our research. Some towns, which emerged in late 14th century, are thoroughly documented only around 1500. We have outlined the major differences in the urbanization process in the two countries, also emphasizing the role of colonists. In doing so, we have parted ways with the interpretations given so far. There are separate subchapters dedicated to urban terminology, târgs, the residences of the ruler, and local structures (economic, social, ethnic, institutions). Two large chapters focus on each medieval town in the Principalities, with case studies that we hope will serve as a starting point for any researchers committed to the same subject. The citation system is the common one. Since we have used a great number of Romanian works, we have translated their titles in English only in the bibliography at the end. The names of kings and rulers in the surrounding countries were noted in the most common English form. The names of rulers in Romanian Principalities, on the other hand, were spelled in their original form, especially since many names are specifi c only to this area (Radu, Mircea, Ilie, Bogdan). Their surnames were translated in English. The transliteration of town names was done with consideration to their present-day status, so as not to cause confusion.
In the Middle Ages, the political status of many towns was different, and many had different names in German, Polish, Hungarian, or local languages (for instance, Trnava/Nagyszombat/Tyrnau). Furthermore, there are towns bearing the same name, although in different areas (Targovište). This is why we chose to spell the town names according to the country they are in today. The history of this area, and that of the towns developing here, is very diverse. This diversity is also refl ected in this book, and we believe it will spark interest for a less-known region of Europe.
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