Origin of the Romanians

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Part of a series on the History of Romania
Prehistory
Dacia: Dacian Wars - Roman Dacia - Thraco-Roman
Early Middle Ages: Origin of the Romanians
Middle Ages: Foundation of Wallachia - Foundation of Moldavia
Early Modern Times: Phanariotes
National awakening: Organic Statute - 1848 Moldavian Revolution - 1848 Wallachian Revolution - War of Independence
Kingdom of Romania: World War I - Greater Romania - World War II
Communist Romania: Soviet occupation - 1989 Revolution
Romania since 1989
Romania
Timeline - Military history  v • d • e

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The Romanians (also sometimes referred to along with other Balkan Latin peoples as Vlachs) are a people speaking Romanian, a Romance language, and living in Central and Eastern Europe. The Origin of the Romanians has been disputed for some time and there are two basic theories:

1. Daco-Romanian continuity in Dacia, Moesia and some adjacent regions.
2. Migration of Romanic peoples from former Roman provinces south of the Danube in the Balkans (The Rösler Theory).

The exact region where the Romanian language and people formed is not only a scientific puzzle, but also a heated political controversy. 19th-century Hungarian historians largely supported the migration theory, which maintained that Transylvania was not inhabited by Romanians at the time of the Magyar conquests in central Europe during the 10th century. Most Romanian historians support the theory of Daco-Romanian continuity and maintain that Transylvania was continuously inhabited by the ancestors of Romanians. The debate was politically charged in the 19th-20th centuries because of territorial conflicts concerning Transylvania between Romania and Hungary.

More recently, as former axioms of ethnogenesis have shifted, the historian Walter Pohl noted that "centuries after the fall of the Balkan provinces, a pastoral Latin-Roman tradition served as the point of departure for a Valachian-Roman ethnogenesis. This kind of virtuality — ethnicity as hidden potential that comes to the fore under certain historical circumstances — is indicative of our new understanding of ethnic processes. In this light, the passionate discussion for or against Roman-Romanian continuity has been misled by a conception of ethnicity that is far too inflexible."^[1]

Contents 1 Daco-Romanian continuity 1.1 Arguments for 1.2 Archaeological Evidence 1.3 Arguments against 2 Ancient and medieval sources 2.1 4th-10th centuries 2.2 11th century 2.3 12th-13th centuries 2.4 14th-16th centuries 3 18th Century-Modern Foreign Authors 4 Migration from the south 4.1 Arguments for 4.2 Arguments against 5 Footnotes 6 See also 7 Sources 8 External links

[edit] Daco-Romanian continuity

After the Romans conquered Dacia in 106, a process of romanization of the Dacians took place. The Roman administration retreated from Dacia around 271, and according to this theory, the romanized Dacians stayed on, and have continuously lived in Dacia throughout the Dark Ages. Romanians are their descendants.

[edit] Arguments for

• Extensive Roman colonization of Dacia.

• Constantine the Great assumed the title Dacicus Maximus in 336 just like Trajan did in 106, suggesting the presence of Dacians in Dacia even after the Aurelian withdrawal of 270-275.^[2][3][4]

• The similarity between the current Romanian traditional clothes and the Dacian clothes, as depicted on Trajan's Column. Examples of similarity include embroidery of clothing^[5] and the wearing of opinci sandals^[6] as portrayed on the Arch of Constantine

• The name for a type of fuel, "pacura", is derived directly from the Latin "picula". This particular fuel can only arises naturally north of the Danube, particularly in Transylvania, where it was used by the Romans and Dacians. This word is not used in any other Romance languages, surviving only in Romanian.^[7]

• Romanian is the only Latin language to keep the true original grammar of the Latin language.^[8] This is disputed, however, as the only originally Latin feature of modern Romanian is the verb conjugation pattern of the perfect and plusperfect tenses. Other cited examples is the neuter gender preserved only in Romanian from Latin and the lack of articles. Another example is the preservation of declension. This is very debatable, however, as the most probable explanation for these features is the heavy Slavic influence during the Middle Ages.

• Romanians share the name Vlach/Voloch and Olah/Olasz with the Italians, meaning the Hungarians and Slavs thought both were one and the same populace^[9]

• There is no historical document which attests to some sort of migration of Romanians from the Balkans to the North.^[10] For there to be more then 10 million Romanians in the north and less than 1 million in the South means that this supposed "migration" would have been huge, almost as big as the Slavic migrations, yet no one ever mentioned it in history. This is particularly perplexing as this migration supposedly happened from the Byzantine Empire who were the most advanced people of that era, noticing even populations as small as a tribe of 500 Cumans.^[11]

• Dacian toponyms were kept; examples are the names of some rivers (Samus - Someş, Marisia - Mureş, Porata - Prut), the names of some cities (Petrodava - Piatra Neamţ, Abruttum - Abrud) and most important in the name of Carpathian mountains, name which is directly derived from the Dacian tribe of Carpians or Carpodacians^[12][13]

• While the Romanians north of the Danube were not mentioned earlier than the Xth century, neither is another Latin populace, the Romanche of Switzerland, and neither are the Albanians, yet no one would conclude that these people were somehow absent from the world before this time^[14]

• The Hungarian word for Christmas, Karacsony, is derived directly from the Old Romanian word for Christmas “Cracion” which is itself derived from the Latin “creation” meaning “birth.”^{[original research?]} Hungarian phonology elongates the vowel sound between “cr”, resulting in “car”, and since the “C” produces a hard “K” sound, the letter is changed in Hungarian spelling.^{[original research?]} Phonology then also caused the “ci” to be replaced by “cs”, while still retaining the “ch” phoneme, and finally, a “y” is attached at the end in order to have the word be more homogeneous with the already-existing Hungarian vocabulary.^{[original research?]} This indicates that the Hungarians were already in contact with the Romanians when they were Christianized.^[15]

• Almost all Romanian religious terms are inherited directly from Latin which means Romanians were Christianised in the Latin language^[16]

• The colonists came from different provinces of the Roman empire. They had no common language except for Vulgar Latin. In this multi-ethnic environment, Latin, being the only common language of communication, might have quickly become the dominant language. American history furnishes similar examples, with the overwhelming dominance of Standard English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese in different parts of the Americas, with insignificant dialectal differences.

• Some morpho-syntactic, lexical and phonetical regional differences within Romanian indicate that in certain regions of Romania the language preserved more Latin substance than in the rest of the country.^[17] The boundaries of these linguistic areas coincide quite exactly with the borders of the ancient Roman province of Dacia, encompassing modern Transylvania, Banat and Oltenia.

• The existence of a stronger Latin heritage in the territories of the ancient Roman Dacia is explained by the intense Romanisation of these territories, which formed core areas of Romania. The uninterrupted and isolated existence of a Romanised population living there ensured a conservative transmission of this Latin heritage across generations. From these core areas Romanian spread over the Carpathians, meanwhile losing a little of its Latin substance. The general dissemination into Romanian of words of Magyar origin supports the theory of the Romanian diffusion from Transylvanian core areas across the Carpathians.^{[original research?]}

• Numerous archaeological sites prove the continuity of Latin settlements north of the Danube after the evacuation of 271, including:
  • Daco-Roman ceramic artifacts from the 5th-6th centuries, found at: Bratei, Soporu de Câmpie, Verbiţa, Sǎrata Monteoru
  • Christian tombs and objects found at: Cluj-Napoca, Alba-Iulia, Biertan, Dej
  • Many inscriptions in the Latin language: inscriptions on silver ring from Micia, ceramic objects from Porolissum, brick found at Gornea, inscription on bronze object found at Biertan (reading "EGO ZENOVIUS VOTUM POSUI").
  • Walls erected in the 4th century at Sarmizegetusa.

• If the Romanians had been living alongside Albanians before the Xth century, they would have more in common than a few words: they would have a communal language (as affirmed by the Bulgarian linguist Decev). The phonological disunity between the shared words also evidences that these words are inherited from a common sub-stratum (Thraco-Illyrian)^[clarify] and not the result of having a shared geographical region of origin^[18]

• The name Vlach is a name for Romanians used only by the Southern Slavs. The Eastern Slavs call Romanians Voloch which fits Eastern Slavic phonology. If the Eastern Slavs met the Romanians after the Southern Slavs (which would have happened had the Romanians originated South of the Danube) they would have called Romanians Vlach as well, borrowing the name from the Southern Slavs. The use of the word Voloch shows that the Eastern Slavs encountered the Romanians separately, before the Southern Slavs gave them the Vlach name, and thus, must have been north of the Danube before the Slavic migrations.^[19][20][21]

• The lack of Germanic elements in Romanian is due largely to the low level of interaction between the Goths and Romanians, as well as the low population of Goths living in the area. Similar absences are noted in the Basque language whom the Goths ruled for centuries. The Goths were also present South of the Danube in even greater numbers, and were even brought in by the Romans as refugees, so placing the Romanians South of the Danube does not provide an argument against a lack of Germanic words. It can be concluded from this that the adoption of Gothic elements in Romanian would have had more to do with the type of interaction between the Goths and proto-Romanians, and not with whether they lived in the same geographic region.^[19]

• The lack of documents pertaining to the existence of Romanians North of the Danube before the Xth century is largely due to the fact that the Byzantines, outside of the borders of the Byzantine Empire only recorded populations which they felt had some important political interaction with the Byzantines. For instance, the Avars, after being defeated and greatly weakened, are not mentioned at all north of the Danube between the years 626-743 even though their presence is visible through archaeology. Since the proto-Romanians were under Barbarian domination, they were of no political consequence to the Byzantines, and at best were only mentioned in a few documents before the Xth century. As their political importance grew (with the foundation of the 2nd Bulgarian Empire, interaction with the Pechennegs etc.) so too did the number of Byzantine documents mentioning them.^[19]

• The argument that "Colonization of Dacia was not long enough for Romanization to occur" is easily refuted by the fact that acculturation does not have to happen through conquest, and the evidence that the Dacians and Getai were very willing to adopt foreign cultures and languages. For instance, even though Greeks never retained a position of political dominance over the Dacians, there are records that many Dacian tribes had learned to speak Greek just by interacting with the Greek colonies at the coasts of Pontus Euxinus (the Black Sea). At the latest, Dacian and Roman interactions started in 44 B.C., when Burebista sent military aid to Caesar’s enemies.^[19]

• The absence of Romanians in Hungarian documents before the XI and XII century is that the Magyar state was not developed enough to ensure such high measures of population control, such as censuses or judicial documents. However, many Romanian judicial terms are of Magyar origin, implying that the Romanians were present when these terms were first applied and used by the Hungarian state. The Romanians in Transylvania needed to understand the Magyar judicial system in order to use it, and this explains how such words diffused throughout the Romanian language. If Romanians had not been present in Transylvania before the XII century, then such an absorption would not have been possible, and the terms would have been replaced by Slavic or Greek terms.^[19]

• In the earliest documents which affirm the existence of Romanians in Transylvania, all the documents refer to the Romanians living in dense forests. A "charta" given to the Saxons by the Hungarians, the region of Fagaras is called "silva Blacorum et Bissenorum (forest of Vlachs and Pechennegs). If the Romanians were pastoral migrants from the South, why would they run with their sheep into dense forests? The geographical location of Romanians in Transylvania is more reflective of a populace fleeing into the forests before the invading migratory horsemen. The archaeologist Andrei Popa, now deceased, has also confirmed the presence of numerous other "Vlah sylvae" within Transylvania before they were reorganized in Comites. This same symptom of Romanians living in dense forests is also found south of the Carpathians. Regions like Codrul Vlasiei derive from Vlasca, meaning "Land of Vlachs" in Slavic languages. Vlasi is the plural term for Vlach so we can conclude that this dense forest (codru) would have been the home to the Romanians South of the Carpathians as well, and is once again reflective of a populace trying to flee from horse-bound invaders. The particular use of the word "Vlasi" is an early term, and reflects on the fact that this name was given at a time when Romanians and Slavs had only mingled slightly.

• The Slavic elements in Romanian are present only in particular words, and not in the grammatical structure or the phonology and structure of words in Romanian. This indicates linguistically that by the time the Slavs mingled with the Romanians, the Latin element in the Romanian language was already solidified, and only a super-stratum of Slavic words, many of which are synonyms for Latin words, could be added.^[19]

• The words “Erdo” and “Erdely” are not of Finno-Uguric family and therefore not of Magyar origin, this means they are a corruption of another words. The Romanian word “Ardeal” was corrupted into “Erdel” and “Erdol” meaning “land of forested heights”. From the word Erdely, Erdo was then extracted to describe a simple dense forest, this is confirmed by linguists who have studied Magyar phonology. When a word from Romanian is corrupted into Hungarian,“a” usually becomes “e”, Andreas becomes “Endre”, the Latin “ager’ becomes “eger”,“sant” meaning “saint” in old Romanian becomes “sent”,“agris” becomes “egres” etc. This event also happens with the word Ardeal which at first becomes “Erdel” until 1390, where it is converted to “Erdely”. “Ard” as an Indo-European root-word means “hill, forested heights, mountain” and appears in hundreds of geographic locations, all sharing these topographic characteristics. Examples: Ardal (Iran), Arduba (Albania), Ardnin (Austria), Ardel (Italy), Ardelu (France) etc. Fact confirmed in Julius Caesar’s work “De Bello Gallico”, there we can find the phrase “Ardeunna Silva”

• The hydronyms and toponyms in Romania and throughout Transylvania are predominantly carried over from antiquity. Names like Somes, Mures, Abrud, Dunare, Prut, Nistru, all are adaptations of the original Latin, Greek, or Dacian words. Slavic toponyms and hydronyms are present in Romania, but these are present in many parts of Eastern Europe as well. Many hydronyms and toponyms in mainland Greece are also Slavic, but this does not imply that Slavs were the sole people to populate Greece or Romania.

• The first ruler of Transylvania to be formally recognized by the Kingdom of Hungary was Leustachius, who had the title of “Voievod of Transylvania” as written in G. Wenczel’s Codex Diplomaticus (“Leustachius, waywoda Transilvaniae”). The position of “Voievod” as a formal administrative position was only preserved by the Romanians in the Middle Ages. Transylvania was the only region under the Hungarian crown which kept this administrative rank as the highest rank attainable, rather than being re-organized into Comites as the other regions of Hungary were, by using the title of Voievod, it is evidenced that the Hungarian crown was somehow necessitated to recognize an older political institution in Transylvania. Romanians had used the title of “Voievod” before Transylvania was conquered by the Hungarians and continued to use it afterwards in Wallachia and Moldova, only Romanians retained this title others adopting King, Tzar or Khan.^[19]

• The word Olah does not derive from the Slavic word “Vlah” as replacing the “v” with an “o” has no etymological or phonological explanation. During the Middle Ages, the word “Olah” was used both when referring to Romanians as well as Italians, which shows that the Romanians were very similar to Italians in terms of language, and that the Magyar tribes had encountered both ethnic groups at roughly the same time, in the late 9th and early 10th century, when the Magyars raided Northern Italy. The word “Olasz” now used for all Latinate people except Romanians is a recent phenomenon.^[19]

• The Romanian batran, meaning “old”, is significant as it does not derive from the Latin equivalent “vetus” (in Italian, Vecchio, in French, Vieux etc.); instead it derives from the Latin word veteranus, referring to a Roman Legionary after he is released from military duty. The reason for this is because of the procedures of Roman colonization. When a village was Romanized, the veterans of the Roman Legion had an important role; because military service was long (twenty-five years), a large part of these Roman legionaries were married, the wives and children having to live nearby the military camps, named canabae. Since many of the legions and auxiliary troops of Rome were to maintain their position permanently in Dacia, it is evident that many of the wives of the soldiers would be indigenous, Dacian. At their release from military service, the legionary was named veteranus, and he would obtain (if he did not have it before) the right to citizenship for himself and his entire family, as well as a piece of land to cultivate. The children of the veterans and the Dacian women were Roman citizens and spoke Latin, but the majority would have known Dacian, their maternal tongue. The children of these children, the grandchildren of the veterans, would be totally Romanized. In two, maximum three generations, the followers of these mixed marriages forgot their indigenous language. Thus the number of veterans in Dacia would have been considerably large, which is why an elder is referred to through exactly this word, batran, derived from veteranus, having been modified through Romanian phonetics. In essence, the system of veteranus would be critical in the Romanization of Dacia, as elderly vetarans, who had now gained rights to property, would have no reason to leave what they had worked for over 25 years to attain. The case here is not about a single wave of veterans under Trajan, but for a continuous series of settlements of veterans which wanted to remain in Dacia.^[19]

• The river Tarnava is evidence of the co-existence between the Slavs and Romanians in Translvania described by the chronicler Nestor. Tarnava derives from Slavic trunu, or nail. Since the Hungarians used a different name for the river, “Kukulo”, it would have been impossible for Romanians to use the Slavic name for the river had they arrived after the Magyars (and according to Hungarian history, with a Magyar majority in Transylvania). In such a situation the Romanian name would have been derived from Hungarian, but the fact that it is of Slavic origin attests to Slavs and Romanians living together around the river before the Magyars.
  • Another important river is Bistrita. Another Slavic word, however influenced by Romanian. Bistrita in Slavic means “the fast one”, in Romanian, this translates into “repedele”. Today, however, the river is officially Bistrita, but known as Repedele by the locals. There are many other instances were the Slavic name replaces the original Romanian name, such as for Nucet, now known as Cozia (from Slavic koza, goat).
  • Barsa. According to the linguist Sextil Puscariu, this name would derive from the verb “labarta”, dissimilated into “rabartsa”. It is of Traco-Illyiric origin, so it would be impossible for the Romanians to have preserved it had they not originated from such a sub-stratum, and in the geographical region around Barsa. We can conclude that it was taken from the very ancestors of the Romanians. In Geto-Dacian names we also find the radical “bars”.
  • The river Cerna. Although “cerna” in Slavic means “black”, the river’s waters are clear. The Romanian form is surely influenced from the Latin name Tierna and influenced by Slavic phonetics.
  • The river Barzava. Another word of Geto-Dacian origin, from the radical bere or berez, meaning white, and its suffix bis, or vis. Possibly also named after a nearby Dacian city, Berzobis.
  • Turda. The origin of this word is Turri-Dava, from Latin. The name then would be formed from Turris – tower – and dava – citadel.
  • Abrud. The origin of this name comes from Latin Abruttum, a synonym for gold.^[19]

• The majority of Romanian words assumed to be of Dacian origin are not shared with Albanian. Therefore, it is impossible to assume they were adopted from the Albanians or that the Vlachs lived among the Albanians before the 10th century.^[19]

• The notion that the withdrawal of Dacia in 271 was a total evacuation is false and cannot be attained from contemporary written sources, nor archaeology or demographics. Hungarian historians have tried to misrepresent the writings of Eutropius and Flavius Vopiscus, saying that when these two authors wrote of a withdrawal from Dacia, they meant a complete abandonment and relocation. The Latin language does not have definite and indefinite articles (no equivalent of the word “The”), and is by default set to the partitioned, indefinite (mentioning a population only speaks of a portion of it, and not all). If there is a need to switch to the definite, in other words, to express themselves precisely and in totality, the use of the adjectives totus or omnis was done historically. As neither Eutropius, nor Flavius Vopiscus, nor any other author mentioning the withdrawal uses these words, it is clear that they had never intended to speak of the whole Roman populace North of the Danube, but rather, only a fraction of it, of an indefinite quantity.^[19]

• The logistical requirements of a complete withdrawal from Dacia, that is to say, a complete evacuation. In order for the Romans to have evacuated all of the colonists from Dacia (which would have been massive given the extensive colonization due to critical resources found in Dacia), a track of every city, village, cottage, and citizen must have been kept, and their evacuation carefully recorded. However, no single logistical document referring to this withdrawal has ever been found. No census of how many colonists were withdrawn. There are no catalogues of who was moved and when. It is also important to note that such a massive migration of a sedentary population has never been recorded in World History. There is no historical precedent for such a logistical operation.^[19]

• Ernst Gamillschag has attested that the Romanians have preserved the Thracian word for the Danube, “Donaris/Donare” which means “The big river” even though the Albanians and Aromanians use the Turkish word “Duna.” He writes “The old name for the river would have disappeared from the Daco-Roman vocabulary had they only returned to their old homeland centuries after they left. The name “Donaris” was borrowed by the Romans who mixed with the Dacians, and this word has been well preserved.”^[19]

• Romanization could not have been possible South of the Jirecek Line, which runs through Bulgaria, Serbia, and the upper part of Albania, as that region was historically Hellenized, whereas only regions to the North of this line were Romanized (this due to the strong standing of Hellenic culture South of this line). The formation of the Romanian people South of this line (in modern Albania) is nigh impossible.^[19]

• An early 13th century biography of St. Olaf of Norway, now preserved in the 14th century manuscript Flatejarbok, mentions Vlachs (Blokumenn) as being Sviatopolk’s allies (in the early XIth century).^[19]

• The survival of the Romanians North of the Danube is not surprising especially when we consider another example of such survival, in Wales. When the Romans left Britain, a certain portion of the Roman population was resettled at Brittany in France, but some remained. These people became known as the Welsh, which is a Germanic word for Latin-speakers, and is also the root-word for the term “Vlach”. When we consider the current geographical region of Wales, we find them behind the only mountains in Roman-occupied Britain, where Roman culture was still preserved (though with extremely strong Celtic influences). These mountains acted as an effective shield against the Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Picts, Angles, and other barbarians which ravaged the country. When we consider the topographical realities of Transylvania, it is impossible to assume that no trace of Roman civilization could have survived there while it did in Britain. The Carpathians at Transylvania dwarf the Welsh mountains, and Transylvania also has the advantage of having dense forests, and a very hilly topography. Some historians (both in antiquity and modern times) have described it as looking like a natural fortress. Nomadic barbarians preferred to move through flat plains, where they could benefit from the agility of their horses, which is proven in the way that the Huns, Avars, and Gepids, all choosing to go around the Carpathians into the Pannonian plain through Slovakia, where the mountains are lower, and then possibly swinging around into Transylvania (though their penetration in this region can not be attested as significant).^[19]

• The notion that “Vlachs” were colonized in Transylvania in the 13th century by Ladislaus IV the Cuman, king of Hungary loses its credibility when we look at the documentation for this “colonization.” Of the 217 documents pertaining to Transylvania during the reign of Ladislaus IV, none of them mention this colonization. Comparatively, we have 19 documents referring to the 25 year long colonization in Transylvania of the Teutonic Knights, an event which happened 50 years before the “Vlach colonization.”

• inherited Albanian words (Ex: Alb. motër 'sister' < Late IE ma:ter 'mother') shows the transformation Late IE /a:/ > Alb /o/, but all the Latin loans in Albanian having an /a:/ shows Latin a: > Alb a. This indicates that the transformation PAlb /a:/ > PAlb /o/ happened and ended before the Roman arrival in the Balkans.

[edit] Archaeological Evidence

• Archaeological digs throughout Transylvania and Romania have discovered many clay pots dating from the IV, V, VI, and VII centuries. What makes these pots particularly interesting is that they were made using the potter's wheel, an invention which no migratory people had when the came through Romania. The only population which could have produced these pots is one which had sufficient contact with the Roman and Hellenic world to adopt this style of making pots. We know the Slavs did not adopt this style until much later because pots made without the use of the potter's wheel are also found throughout Romania during this time.^[19]

• The thousands of old Roman coins dating from the IV, V and VI centuries found on Romania are peculiar because they are a) made of bronze and b) show the portrait of contemporary emperors on them. The first part affirms that these coins were not valuable, meaning that they were common currency. There is no way such coins could have found their way into Romania through tribute or trade between the Romans and barbarians because the Goths, Avars, Huns, and others would only accept gold coins and items as tribute, as bronze coins had little value or use to them. The material indicates that these coins were used as a common bartering currency for low-value items (like food or iron) by a poor populace. Their number, and the diverse locations that they've been found in, indicates that this populace was large, and spread all over the country. The second aspect reflects the historical fact that there was significant communication between this proto-Romanian populace and the Roman Empire, enough to allow for the accurate re-minting of coins. Even if the coins were imported by the proto-Romanians from the Romans, it still is evidence of significant contact between the Romans and the Romanians North of the Danube.^[19]

• Vasile Parvan discovered two documents in Transylvania dating from the IV century which mentions a Goth "king" who referred to himself as "jude" over his populace, an administrative title preserved also by the Romanian principalities in the Middle Ages. This king chose the title because it must have had some significance to the people he presided over, otherwise there would have been no point in using it as opposed to some proto-Germanic word like "Herzog." Since this title was only relevant to Romanians, it is clear that this king must have presided over the proto-Romanians.^[19]

• Latin documents, although rare, are still present after the withdrawal of the Roman administration. Their presence affirms the existence of a populace that could understand Latin, while the rarity reflects the trend of ruralization of the proto-Romanians, caused by the frequent Barbarian raids on the cities in the former colony of Dacia.^[19]

• At the supposed site of relocation of these colonists, that being Moesia, of which only a small upper part was renamed as Dacia. In this region, there is no recording of any drastic increase of population, something which would definitely have resulted from such an influx of refugees. When the Goths sought refuge in the Eastern Roman Empire to escape the Huns, their presence is clearly attestable in cesspits, cemeteries, and archaeological relics. The relocated Dacian colonists however, did not leave any impression at all. There is no sudden growth in cemeteries, nor in cremation urns discovered. There is no expansion of cities and towns in the 3rd century, and no new towns are created. This leads to one of two conclusions: Either the newly relocated colonists made sure to only cremate themselves and simply throw away their ashes into the wind, consume as little as possible, smash every pot they had, and be homeless for the rest of their existence; or, such a massive relocation never happened.^[19]

• A Daco-Roman necropolis was discovered in Sibiu belonging to the local population, which had, among the objects buried with the deceased, ceramic objects of Roman cultural origin, coins from the time of Antonius Pius (138-161) and Septimius Sever (193-211) and vases made in the Dacian style.^[19][22]

• During the 5th-7th centuries houses all over Romania are noted as having "vatra" ovens, being ovens made of clay and surrounded by stones. These ovens could not have belonged to the Slavs who had a different style of construction, and is noticeable in Dacian-occupied areas in Romania during the 1st-3rd century. Traditional Roman ovens were also discovered in the same area as these "vatra ovens."^[23]

• The cultural elements and styles of archaeological artefacts discovered over the period of the 3rd-5th centuries show a clear material and stylistic continuity, indicating continuous habitation by the same people. The cultural character of the findings remains the same until the 6th century, with the arrival of the Slavs.^[24]

• The following locations show continuous Daco-Roman habitation from the 3rd to the 5th century^[25]
  • Mines: Baia de Cris, Tincova, Ruda, Alun, Hunedoara, Baita Cib, Fizes, Cabesti, Videim, Albac, Bistrita de Sus, Vidra, Cimpeni Lupsa, Salciua, Podeni, Potaissa, Baisoara, Valea Ierii.
  • Monetary thesauri: Bicasi, Pilu, Carei, Copalnic, Soimuseni, Doba Mica, Simieu Silvaniei, Porolissum, Babiu, Gurani, Sintna, Arad, Pecica, Cenad, Horia, Biled, Carani, Jimbova, Checea, Unip, Faget, Debra, Deva, Huedoara, Sepes, Ungureni, Apulum, Seica Mica, Seica Mare, Sura Mare, Sibiu, Ocna Sibiului Soars, Lasiea
  • Daco-Roman and Roman settlements: Taga, Soporu, Band, Lechinta, Ludus, Cipau, Brateiu, Seica Mica, Biertan, Sighisoara, Sinpaul, Morada, Ineu, Pilu, Biharia, Berca, Mediesu Aurit, Apa, Dej, Rascruci, Napoca, Baciu, Sebes, Hatg, Deva, Debra, Apulum, Gura Vaii, Cazanesti, Hateg, Faroia.
  • Major Cities and forts: Deva, Haţeg, Hunedoara, Sighişoara, Ulpia Traiana Sarmisegetuza, Bistriţa, Bicasi.
  • Bridges: Apulum

[edit] Arguments against

• The circumstances of the Roman conquest.
  • The native population of Dacia suffered considerable losses during the course of the long wars; in essence, Trajan had to repopulate the territory, because the area had become depopulated owing to the heavy losses suffered by the native population.^[26] Eutropius mentions that^[27]"Dacia lost all its men in the long war of Decebal." (Breviarium historiæ Romanæ)^[26]
  • The fate of the native population of any newly conquered territory depended largely on how and after what preliminaries it came into the hands of Rome: Trajan annexed Dacia after two bitter and protracted wars; these struggles and the occasional Roman defeats made the Dacians a hated and much-despised enemy.^[26] Cassius Dio relates that when Trajan returned to Rome he gave spectacles in the course of which 10,000 gladiators fought; according to Criton, the number of prisoners from the Dacian wars was extremely high, Trajan, however, spared the lives of only some 40 men after his victory.^[26]
  • The wars brought considerable losses to the Dacian men; part of the local population was deported or fled.^[28] The surviving Dacian men were drafted as auxiliary troops and were sent to Britannia and the east; their later fate is not known.^[26] Expressly Dacian names^[29] occur not in Dacia, but in other parts of the Roman Empire where Dacians were taken as slaves.^[26]
  • The proper names which can be evaluated from the province total about 3,000 and the Thracian-Dacian names number about 60 (about 2%); thus, the share of Thracian or Dacian personal names is insignificant (e.g., names from the native population comprise about 24% of the total in Noricum), and some of them may even have belonged to colonists form the Balkans.^[26] This suggest that Dacian participation in the Romanization of Dacia was minimal.^[28]
  • The incorporation of the native population into an administrative and territorial organization (civitas peregrine) convenient to Rome was an essential point in the establishing of any new province and the civitas system in part provided the institutional framework for Romanization.^[26] In contrast with other provinces, no traces of this system^[30] can be detected in Dacia.^[26]
  • It was in the towns where Romanization first began, when the leaders of the conquered populations in Gallia, Hispania, and elsewhere adopted the Roman culture and the Latin language. Of all the provinces of the Roman Empire, Dacia Traiana had the lowest number of cities (11 or 12 towns are known to have existed).^[28] The new settlements in which the existence of Dacians is assumed were situated in rural areas far^[31] from the towns.^[28]
  • Romans conquered less than 50% of the territories inhabited by Romanians;^[32] besides, many Dacians lived in remote mountainous areas, with little contact with the main Roman colonies.^{[citation needed]}

• Archaeological evidence following the Roman conquest.
  • The archaeological record definitely suggests that a few Dacian groups^[33] stayed behind in the province after the Roman conquest.^[26] However, after the conquest, the few Dacian groups were transferred from their villages to other territories within the province - only a few settlements (and no cemeteries) continued to exist after the conquest.^[28]
  • The material culture of the surviving Dacian population is rather undifferentiated: aside from the burial finds, only the pottery vessels can be studied^[34] in this respect.^[26] Only a few vessel types^[35] continued to be manufactured in the provincial period from the diverse pottery industry of the former pre-conquest period.^[26] This type of earthenware is practically the only material attributed to Dacians living at these sites.^[28]
  • In Dacia, hardly any interaction or exchange of ideas can be noted between the pottery of the native population and the pottery wares used by the new settlers.^[26]

• The short period of the Roman conquest.
  • The province existed for a mere 165 years; assimilation and a complete change of language would have been impossible in such a short time.^[26] Moreover, as Eutropius recounts^[36] "On seeing that Illyricum was devastated and Moesia was in ruinous state, he abandoned the province of Dacia which had been founded by Trajan and led away both soldiers and provincials, giving up hope that it could be retained. The Romans who were evacuated from the towns and fields of Dacia he resettled in the centre of Moesia which he named Dacia." (Breviarium historiæ Romanæ)^[26]
  • The surrender and the evacuation of Dacia is described rather uniformly in the sources.^[26] The evacuation of Dacia was an emergency measure, but it was an well organized action: the remaining garrison troops were withdrawn and the surviving population was resettled in Moesia where a new province called Dacia (later Dacia Ripensis and Dacia Mediterranea) was created.^[26]
  • After the disintegration of the Roman administration and provincial organization and the collapse of military defense in the Middle Danubian provinces, Roman civilization in the region was sooner (e.g., in northeastern Pannonia) or later (e.g., in western and southern Pannonia, Raetia and certain parts of Noricum) swept away by the successive invading waves of the Migration period some 130-150 years later.^[26] Surviving population groups (who stayed behind the provinces) were either assimilated by the continuously changing newcomers or perished - they were not to become the ancestors of a population speaking a Romance language in spite of the fact that the situation and circumstances (a uniform population that had evolved over the course of 400 years of Romanization) were infinitely more favorable there than in Dacia.^[26]
  • After the withdrawal of the Romans from Dacia Traiana, the historical and ethnic picture of the former Roman province was radically changed. These changes were caused primarily by invasions of the Huns that scattered the East Germanic tribes (the Goths and the Gepids) in Eastern Europe and destroyed all vestiges of Roman urban life north of the Danube.^[28] There are numerous written accounts about the history of Germanic tribes in the Migration period.^[28]

• Archaeological evidence following the Roman withdrawal.
  • Archaeological evidence demonstrate that the Roman army, the soldiers’ families and all other civilians whose livelihood was strongly linked to the military were evacuated from the province.^[26]
  • Life came to an abrupt end in the 48 Roman castella and the settlements that depended on and lived off these forts (the so-called vici auxiliary): those which were not resettled and built in during the Middle Ages^[37] to this day offer the same desolate spectacle with their earthen ramparts and deep ditches as the agri decimates of Baden-Württemberg (abandoned at roughly the same time), or the border forts of the Antonine Wall in Scotland.^[26]
  • It is probable in the case of the four municipia that held out the longest, i.e., in Napoca,^[38] Potaissa,^[39] Apulum, and Ulpia Traiana, that the small and wretched population groups within or around their walls at first accepted Gothic overlordship, however the traces of these groups in the archaeological records (a few burials) do not extend beyond the close of the 3rd century.^[26] At the same time, the buildings within the stone walls decayed rapidly, and by the turn of the 4th and 5th centuries the military headquarters in Potaissa was being used as a burial ground by groups of eastern barbarians.^[26]
  • The rural homes (villae) and the farmsteads of the advocates of Romanization had perished to such an extent that in the 4th century the Goths had already opened cemeteries on their sites (e.g., in Pălatca).^[26] Of the 58 rural settlements in which a Roman-Dacian symbiosis was assumed,^[40] only 4 (7%) continued to be inhabited after the Roman withdrawal (i.e., Archiud, Mugeni, Şura Mică and Obreja).^[28]
  • There is only one way a “Romanized” population could possibly have survived: if they had resorted to active defense and had withdrawn into hastily erected hilltop forts and fortified sites (as indeed had the provincial population of the Balkans and of southwest Pannonia, the population of the Ardennes) – however, there are no traces of late Roman refugia or fortified places in Transylvania.^[26] In Sarmizegetusa, the amphitheater was blocked by gravel which is thought to indicate that it had been used for defense^[41] - but after the 4th century no archaeological findings are ascertainable for the two following centuries.^[28]
  • Objects^[42] excavated in Soporu de Cîmpie do not exclude nor do they prove a continued use of its cemetery following the Roman withdrawal, because they were used from the 2nd to the 5th century in a vast territory of the Roman Empire as well as in the Barbaricum (territories outside the empire).^[28]
  • The cemetery of Bratei reveals elements of the Migration Period and is an example of a continuity of settlement and is, at the same time, illustrative of ethnic discontinuity, since the excavations reveal elements characteristic of different peoples (Romans, Germanic tribes, Slavs, and Avars).^[28]
  • Relics of the late Roman rites and costumes characteristic of the Tetrarchy (293-313 AD) and later do not occur on the left bank of the Danube. The so-called cruciform brooches may have reached the Barbaricum as booty (with sporadic finds of such fibulæ among the Germanic Quadi, the Sarmatians of the Great Hungarian Plain); therefore these “crossbow” brooches do not confirm the presence of a Roman population.^[26] The presence of Roman coins neither is evidence for the presence of Romanized persons - in fact, the Roman coin circulation of other regions of the Barbaricum shows little, if any, divergence from the circulation of post-271 Roman coins in Transylvania.^[26]
  • The Visigothic wares reflect the cultural impact of the Roman provinces lying beyond the Lower Danube (especially of the handicrafts of the border towns); these influences and Roman imports (glass, amphorae and flagons) are more frequently documented in the lowland along the northern side of the Lower Danube than in the inland regions to the north.^[26] There is even less evidence of late impacts of the former Roman provincial handicrafts; moreover, the technological know-how of firing vessels to a bright red or yellow color disappeared entirely.^[26]
  • The number of Christians among the Goths appears to have been considerable already around 347, therefore the few 4th to 6th century Christian oil lamps and the votive tablet (donarium) with the inscription ZENOVIUS and a pendant bearing the monogram of Christ cannot be cited as proof for some sort of “Roman” presence.^[26] The 4th century donarium from Biertan had been manufactured somewhere in Illyricum.^[26][28]
  • The number of Latin inscriptions from the 4th century increased in Serdica^[43] the new capital of Dacia that lay in a Greek-speaking area; this phenomenon can certainly be linked to the Latin-speaking population evacuated from Dacia.^[26]

• Toponyms.
  • The extensive disappearance of Roman names, much greater by far than in the other European provinces of the empire, also confirms the evacuation and surrender of the province, demonstrating that it does a complete and total change in population.^[26]
  • Change in place-names and changes of population rarely take place at the same time - local populations rarely disappear without trace.^[26] In the parts of the empire where great masses of the Roman population stayed behind (in the later neo-Latin countries) an abundance of Roman toponyms and river names may be found which were affected only by regular patterned linguistic change.^[26] In other areas where the provincial population retained only part of their former homeland which was resettled by new peoples, place-names were changed to a certain extend; e.g., in Raetia, Noricum and Pannonia, the Roman population survived into the 5th century and afterwards they disappeared so that only a small percentage of their place-names have come down to us (however, in addition to water names, town names have also survived in these former provinces).^[26]
  • In Dacia, only the names of a few rivers have been preserved: the Someş and the Mureş; however, as only a section of these rivers flowed through Dacia, the survival of their name cannot be entirely attributed to the Dacian population.^[26] The survival of the river names of the Olt and Cerna can be ascribed to the Romans and Byzantines who controlled the northern bank of the Danube and the narrow shoreline from counter forts.^[26] Moreover, the pre-Latin names of the large rivers were transmitted in Slavic form - the Slavic peoples occupied the Gepid-inhabited parts of Transylvania during the second half of the 5th century and the first wave of the Slavs reached the Danube toward the end of the 5th century.^[28]
  • In addition to a few controversial water names, not a single place-name has survived in Dacia.^[26] The earliest stratum of place-names and river-names in the Transylvanian area of the Carpathian Basin is of Slavic origin.^[28] Although some geographical names are assumed to be inherited directly from the Latin, but their identification have been challenged; e.g., there is a proposed etymology of the name of Sîncel (documented as Zonchel for the first time in 1252) from the Latin (sanctus > santicellus > sînt(u)cel), but the latter qualifies “a far-fetched form”.^[28]

• Linguistics.
  • The discovery of the ancient characteristics of Romanian and their relationship with several Balkan languages (e.g., the Albanian, Bulgarian, and Greek) challenged the theory of continuity in the former Roman province of Dacia.^[28]
  • Romanian contains, to the same degree as the other Romance languages, all the characteristics of Late Latin, i.e., the changes that appeared in Latin during the 3rd to 7th centuries; the absence of numerous lexical elements does not have much importance, since every Romance language shows the absence of several words that exist in the other Romance idioms.^[28] Dacia Traiana was under Roman rule for a much shorter time (about 165 years) than were the provinces south of the Danube (about 600 years); and during the period of Late Latin the area of Dacia Traiana was divided from the Latin-speaking population in the Roman Empire – this situation would have led to a Romance language substantially different from one that could develop on the Balkans during the period of the Late Latin.^[28]
  • The first written texts in Northern Romanian shows that the dialect of Romanian spoken in Maramureş and in adjacent areas of Moldavia (i.e., in territories in which Roman settlements never existed) was much closer to Latin only a few centuries ago^[44] than any Romanian dialect today.^[28] The most conservative language of the Vlach idioms is Aromanian, which shows many archaic characteristics in all areas of language:^[45] phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexical elements.^[28]
  • There is nothing to support the idea that the Goths living north of the Danube would have had any influence on the speech of the ancestors of the Romanians, although from 271, the area to the north of the Lower Danube became the land of the Goths.^[26][28] The presence of a Germanic population in Transylvania (most probably Ostrogoths), can be attested from the 4th century and written sources of the 5th and 6th centuries refer only to Germanic peoples in that territory.^[28] The lexical elements assumed to derive from Gothic are mostly of Slavic origin,^[46] and the Romanian grammatical elements believed to be of Gothic origin^[47] are also found in Albanian, Bulgarian, and other Balkan languages.^[28]

[edit] Ancient and medieval sources

[edit] 4th-10th centuries

• In the 4th century, the Historia Augusta mentions that

On seeing that Illyricum was devastated and Moesia was in a ruinous state, he abandoned the province of Trans-Danubian Dacia, which had been formed by Trajan, and led away both soldiers and provincials, giving up hope that it could be retained. The people whom he moved out from it he established in Moesia, and gave to this district, which now divides the two provinces of Moesia, the name of Dacia.

—Historia Augusta^[48]

• The Roman-Gothic author Jordanes, who was raised in Moesia and was familiar with the ethnic character of the area,^[49] wrote in the 6th century that the Romans had only moved the legions from Dacia, and not the population.

the Emperor Aurelian, calling his legions from here (evocatis exinde legionibus), settled them in Moesia and there, on the other side, he founded Dacia Mediterranea and Dacia Ripensis

—Jordanes^[50]

• An anonymous who pronounces an encomium in the honour of Caesar Constantine (emperor between 337-361) speaks of restored Dacia (Dacia restito) eulogizing him for the victory obtained against Goths and Taifals in 332^[51]

• The Byzantine chronicler Priscus of Panium mentions in the year 448, the presence of a Latin-speaking populace North of the Danube. The populace was called by him "Ausoni".^[52] It should be noted that this was at a time before Slavic migration, so the exonym “Vlach” was not applied to this populace.^[53]

For the subjects of the Huns, swept together from various lands, speak, besides their own barbarous tongues, either Hunnic or Gothic, or - as many as have commercial dealings with the western Romans - Ausoni.

(...) a barbarian who sat beside me and knew Ausoni (...)

—Priscus of Panium^[54]

• In 545, Procopius of Caesarea mentions^[55] "The trick played by an Ant (a Slav or Alan from present-day Moldavia) who is supposed to have passed himself off as a Byzantine General by speaking a form of Latin which he had learned in these regions."

• The 7th century hagiographic work "Miracula Sancti Demetrii", when referring to events in 620, speaks of the Avars taking a large number of Roman prisoners from the Eastern Balkans and transferring them North of the Danube. There they became a great and numerous people by mixing with the other populaces there while keeping their way of life "based on Roman mores but especially on their Christian faith." They eventually gained their own leader and some would move back South of the Danube.^{[56][original research?]}

• At the Nicaean Synod in 787, the following person is signaled on the 73rd seat: “Ursus Avaritianensium ecclesiae episcopus.”^[57] The name of the episcope of the Avaritians (i.e. people ruled by the Avars), being Ursus, is of Romanic origin.^[58]

• When ancient authors write of the leadership of the Avars, apart from the Khagan Kuber, they also had an archonte named Mauros who was fluent in four languages: Greek, Latin, Slavic, and Bulgarian.^[59] The languages spoken by Mauros suggest that these were the languages spoken by the ethnic groups that made up their subjects, but it is very likely that the language that they all understood was Latin – possibly, a vulgar Latin, which would also mix in words from the other languages.^[60]

• An ancient letter from one Emmerich of Elwangen to Grimaldus, abbot of St. Gall, written about 860 mention Vlachs, under the name of Dacians, living north of Danube together with Germans, Sarmatians, and Alans. The letter reads:^[61] "Gentes innumeras... Sunt his Germanique truces et Sarmata bellax-atque Getae nec non Bastarnae semina gentis-Dacorumque manus et Martia pectori Alani."^[clarify]

• The chronicle Oguzname, the oldest Turkish chronicle in existence, mentioning a warlike expedition of the Cumans, affirms the existence of a “Country of the Vlachs” east of the Carpathians in 839, affirming that the region was well organized and with a powerful army.^[62]

• The Byzantine Emperor Constantine the 7th Porphyrogenetes (912 - 959) writes at the middle of 10th century "De cerimoniis", "De thematibus" and "De administrando imperio". Dealing briefly with the settlement of the Slavs in Balkans and with the events triggered by this, Constantine the 7th speaks in his last work about a population, calling them Romans: "They are called Romans and they have preserved this name to the present times"^{[63][verification needed]}

• The Armenian cartographer Chorenatsi writes in the 9th century of "the country which is called Balak” (in reference to Blachs/Vlachs) North of the Danube.^[19] This is a doubtful statement,as Chorenatsi was a historian, not a cartographer and lived in the 4th century, not in the 9th. Please revise!

• The chronicle Oguzname, the oldest Turkish chronicle in existence, mentioning a warlike expedition of the Cumans, affirms the existence of a “Country of the Vlachs” (Ulaqi) east of the Carpathians in 839, affirming that the region was well organized and with a powerful army.^[19]

[edit] 11th century

In the 11th century, Abu Said Gardezi wrote about a Christian people from situated between the Slavs and Hungarians:^[19]

That is the Džaihūn which is on their /the Magyars’/ left side. Beside Saqlāb /Slavs/ are a people az Rūm / from the Byzantine Empire (Rûm)^[64] or of Rome^[65][66]/ who are all Christians and they are called N-n-d-r, and they are more numerous than the Magyars, but they are weaker.^[67]

A rune stone from the Sjonhem cemetery in Gotland dating from the 11th century commemorates a merchant Rodfos who was traveling to Constantinople and was killed north of the Danube by the Blakumenn.

Rodvisl and Rodälv raised this stone for their three sons. This one after Rodfos. He /Rodfos/ was betrayed by the Blokumenn on his journey. God help the soul of Rodfod. God betray those who betrayed him /Rodfos/.^[68]

The Alexiad by Anna Komnenos mentions "Dacians" crossing the Ister (Danube) from the North, going Southward into the Roman Empire, during the reign of [[|Isaac I Komnenos|Isaac Komnenos]]

At the time when the chieftains of the Dacians decided no longer to observe their treaty with the Romans arid broke it treacherously, then, directly they heard of this, the Sauromatoe (anciently called Mysians) also decided not to remain quiet in their own territory. [88] Formerly they dwelt on the land separated from the Roman Empire by the Ister, but now they rose in a body and migrated into our territory. The reason for this migration was the irreconcilable hatred of the Dacians for their neighbours, whom they harassed with constant raids.^[69]

After this she also mentions raids conducted by the Scythians (likely Pechenegs) who had "Dacians" in their army.^[70]

An early 13th century biography of St. Olaf of Norway, now preserved in the 14th century manuscript Flateyjarbók also mentions Blokumenn as being Sviatopolk’s allies (in the early 11th century).^[71][72]

The traditional^[73][74] interpretation of the ethnonim Blakumenn or Blokumenn in Old Norse is Wallachian (Romanian),^{[75][73][76][77]} though alternative^[78] explanation is that the term means 'black men'; some authors interpret it as Black Cuman.^[79]

According to Strategikon of Kekaumenos (1066), the Vlachs of Epirus and Thessalia came from north^{[verification needed]} of the Danube and from along the Sava.^[19]

These /Vlachs/ are, in fact, the so-called Dacians, also called Bessians. Earlier they lived in the vicinity of the Danube and Saos, a river which we now call Sava, where the Serbians live today, and /later/ withdrew to their inaccessible fortifications. (...)

And these left the region: some of them were dispersed to Epirus and Macedonia, and a large number established themselves in Hellas.

—Kekaumenos: Strategikon^[80]

Kekaumenos writes in 1078 that the Vlachs were the instigators of a 1066-1067 rebelliong against the Byzantine Empire. He mentions that these Vlachs, anticipating military turbulence, sent their wives and children “to the mountains of Bulgaria”, suggesting the existence of permanent settlements in that region and transhumant pastoralism, contradicting the Hungarian point of view that the Vlachs were nomadic.^[19]

[edit] 12th-13th centuries

Nestor's Chronicle, (1097-1110), relating events from 862 to 1110, mentions Wallachians attacking and subduing the Slavs north of Danube and settling among them.^[19]

For many years the Slavs lived beside the Danube, where the Hungarian and Bulgarian lands now lie. From among these Slavs, parties scattered throughout the country and were known by appropriate names, according to the places where they settled. Thus some came and settled by the river Morava, and were named Moravians, while others were called Czechs. Among these same Slavs are included the White Croats, the Serbs, and the Khorutanians. For when the Vlakhs (Волхмъ) attacked the Danubian Slavs, settled among them, and did them violence, the latter came and made their homes by the Vistula, and were then called Liakhs. (...)^[81]

Coming from the east, they /the Magyars/ marched in haste over the high mountains, which are called the mountains of the Magyars, and began to fight against the Volochi (Волохи) and the Slavs who inhabited these countries. The Slavs had originally lived there, and the Volochi (Волохове) had subdued the country of the Slavs. Later, however, the Magyars drove out the Volochi (Волъхи), subdued the Slavs, and settled in their country. Since then, that region has been called Hungary.

—Primary Chronicle^[82]

Around 1120, the Gesta Henrici written by the cleric Godefirdus von Viterbium mentioned the countries conquered by Rome including “Blachina” (Blach, being a synonym to Vlach, meant Romanian)^[19]

The Nibelungenlied (“The Song of the Nibelungs”), written between 1140 and 1160, describes a passage mentioning Vlachs and their leader, Ramunc. The context of the whole song was the marriage of Attila, and many cultures, each speaking a different language. From these, we find the duke Ramunc, who, together with seven hundred of his best fighters, scare away the horses of the Huns.

Men saw ride before King Etzel on the road many bold knights of many tongues and many mighty troops of Christians and of paynims. When they met the lady, they rode along in lordly wise. Of the Russians and the Greeks there rode there many a man. The right good steeds of the Poles and Wallachians were seen to gallop swiftly, as they rode with might and main. Each did show the customs of his land. (...)^[83]

Before Etzel, there rode a retinue, merry and noble, courtly and lusty, full four and twenty princes, mighty and of lofty birth. They would fain behold their lady and craved nought more. Duke Ramung of Wallachia, with seven hundred vassals, galloped up before her; like flying birds men saw them ride.

—The Nibelungenlied^[84]

Thomas Tuscus wrote, on the expedition of the emperor Conrad III against the Turks, in a Crusade during 1140 AD: “The troops from Provence, from France, Lotaringia and Germany went towards Constantinople through Hungary, Valahia and Pannonia” implying the existence of an organized Vlah state during the 12th century.^[19]

The Byzantine writer Joannes Kinnamos writes of the Vlachs North of the Danube in 1167, saying:

Leon, also known as Vatatzes, brought many soldiers from other areas, even a large number of Vlachs, about whom it is said that they are the descendants of colonists from Italy.^[80]

Niketas Choniates tells us that as Andronic Comnenos was heading towards the Cneazate of Hailici in 1164, but was captured by Vlachs along the way. It’s important to note that at the time the Byzantine Empire controlled all the territory up to the Danube Delta (as the Empire of Vlachs and Bulgars was only founded in 1185), including Dobruja, and the state of Hailici controlled most of the Medieval state of Moldova. This leaves only Southern Moldova and Eastern Wallachia as the location of this kidnapping.

The Gesta Hungarorum also mention the presence of Vlachs in Pannonia and them mixing with Slavs, but retaining their language and culture.^[85] The Gesta Hungarorum furthermore mentions that the Magyars conquered Transylvania from the Vlachs and Slavs

the inhabitants of that land were the basest of the whole world, because they were Vlachs [Blasii] and Slavs

—Gesta Hungarorum, Chapter 25^[86]

Thomas of Spalato mentioned the same thing.^{[verification needed][87]}

Weltchronik (World Chronicle) by Rudolf von Ems, written around 1250, mentions Vlachs living in Pannonia.^[88]

In vromdin sundir sprachin/Valwen und wilde Vlachin/jensit des sneberges hant/sint lant du si begant^[89]

Jansen Enikel’s Weltchronik (The Chronicle of the World), written in Vienna in 1277, mentions Charlemagne going on a campaign in the east (around 8th century) and meeting with Wallachians.^[90] At the time of Charlemagne, the Hungarians have yet not arrived in Pannonia, and the chronicle, when mentioning the Hungarians, refers to the people inhabiting the future Hungary.^{[original research?]}

Around 1285, In the chronicle of Simon of Keza, the Vlachs of Pannonia are mentioned as a settled population after the