Roumania Past and Present, James Samuelson [best novels to read to improve english .txt] 📗

Ural mountains and the river Obi.[117] Their savage nature, which long survived their advent into Europe, has been graphically described by several writers. Roesler, who has carefully studied their early history, says that they were mare-milking nomads living in tents, that they ate the half-raw meat of game or fish without knives. Mare's milk appears to have been what we may call their temperance beverage; whilst stronger drinks were the blood of wild animals or of their enemies on the field of battle; and the hearts of the latter were considered a sovereign remedy for diseases.[118] Our own Hallam, in describing their appearance and ravages in Europe, calls them a 'Tartarian tribe' who moved forward in great numbers as a vast wave. Their ferocity, he says, was untamed; they fought with cavalry and light armour, trusting to their showers of arrows, against which the swords and lances of the European armies could not avail. 'The memory of Attila,' he adds, 'was renewed in the devastations of these savages, who, if they were not his compatriots, resembled them both in countenance and customs.'[119]

But the nation who suffered the most severely from their irruptions, and whose history reflects their ferocity the most faithfully, were the Germans. Fortresses were erected to check their inroads, but 'exultingly and with scorn these wild horsemen brushed past them, and as though they were in pursuit of game they picked off the peasant at the plough, or the soldier mounting guard upon the walls. Men, women, and children were captured wherever they were found; were coupled by the hair of their heads and driven in herds, like cattle, into Hungary. If a regular army moved out against them, they dispersed like the winds of heaven, and the joyful cry went up, "God be praised, they are gone;" but soon they reappeared to harass the retreating soldiery. The horrors of desolation and rapine were the condition most congenial to them; in these they revelled and rejoiced; and most happy were they when they could anoint their beards with German blood, or, casting their firebrands into the houses of God, could witness the devouring flames as they rose up into the skies.'[120]

Although in after times the Hungarians claimed the suzerainty over part or the whole of Wallachia (and we shall have occasion hereafter to refer to their relations with that country), their domination during the ninth and tenth centuries was of a very partial and transient character. They probably moved westward from the Ukraine at the beginning of the ninth century, and between the years 839 and 860 they were actively aggressive in Eastern Wallachia. They are said to have attacked Constantine, the Christian missionary, on his way through the district they occupied, but his venerable mien prevented them from doing him any injury. He is said not even to have allowed their cries to disturb him during prayer, in which he was engaged when they made their appearance. Towards the close of the century, as we have already said, they sustained a defeat at the hands of the Bulgarians, when, under their chief Arpad, they had formed an alliance with the Emperor Leo, who is said to have made peace with the enemy and left them in the lurch. After this they were driven into the Carpathians, A.D. 894, and, having first overrun the greater part of Transylvania, they commenced those aggressions into Germany, France, and Italy, which for a considerable period rendered them the terror of all Europe. At the end of the tenth century, having met with severe reverses and been compelled to withdraw into Hungary, they at length settled down under an established government. The first king was undoubtedly Stephen (997 or 1008 A.D.), and they annexed Transylvania, which up to that time had been a debatable territory, either about 1002 according to some writers, or, as others affirm, not until the time of Ladislaus the Holy (1078-1095 A.D.).[121]

[Footnote 117: Roesler, p. 156 et seq. ]

[Footnote 118: Roesler, p. 164 et seq. ]

[Footnote 119: Vol. i. p. 20. Hallam says, in a note loc. cit. : 'In Italy they inspired such terror that a mass was composed especially deprecating this calamity, "Ab Ungarorum nos defendas jaculis."']

[Footnote 120: E. Duller, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes , p. 108. Leipzig: Wigand. 1840.]

[Footnote 121: During their passage across the Carpathians the Hungarians are said to have encountered and reduced to submission a number of petty chiefs and tribes, believed by certain writers to have been the descendants of Daco-Romans who had settled in those mountains many centuries previously. Amongst them 'Dukes' Gellius or Julius, Claudius, and Mariotus are mentioned. The chronicler of these events is known as the 'Anonymous Notary of King Bela' of Hungary, and his narrative is adopted by those modern writers who hold the view that the early princes of Wallachia descended from the Carpathians, whilst other writers, and notably Roesler, who denies that theory, throw discredit upon the whole story, and consider the writings of the 'anonymous notary' a fabrication. The bias exhibited by the different historians makes it impossible to arrive at any just conclusion on the subject.]


VI.

In studying the historical records of this time, the reader will frequently encounter the names of two tribes which will cause him considerable perplexity, namely, the Patzinakitai ,[122] as they were called by the Greeks, and the Wallachs , who were variously called 'Vlaci,' 'Blaci,' 'Valachi,' 'Olachi,' &c. Of the former little can and need be said. They are sometimes called Romans; were dominant in certain parts of the country in the tenth, and probably also the eleventh, century; assisted the Bulgari to drive the Hungarians over the Carpathians, and were even strong enough to make war upon the Eastern Empire about the end of the eleventh century. About that time ineffectual attempts were made to christianise them, and the last we hear of them is at the close of the thirteenth century, when they were associated with the Wallachs in the Carpathians, and probably gave their name to a district in which they were settled. They are believed, later on, to have migrated into Hungary, and cease to be named as a distinct people.

Concerning the Wallachs, however, who have played a most important part in Roumanian history, a good deal is known, but much is still obscure and the subject of heated controversy. First as to their origin. Some writers believe them to have been a branch of the Slaves; others think they were the Daco-Roman colonists of Moesia, who, joining the Slaves, crossed the Danube with them, and that subsequently the fused races were known as Wallachs, who gradually spread themselves northward to the Carpathians. Other historians are silent about them until the foundation of the 'Wallacho-Bulgarian Empire,' and then they simply mention that the two races joined for the purpose of gaining their independence.[123] There are, however, certain historians of the middle agea who accord to them a direct Roman origin and say they were the descendants of the Roman colonists who managed to retain their language and their hold upon the soil throughout the dark ages, and in spite of the irruptions and passage of the barbarian tribes of the north and east. This is now the view generally accepted.

As we have freely quoted the opinions of modern writers, many of whom, along with the authorities on which their views are based, are entirely unknown to the bulk of our readers, it is only fair that they should be made acquainted with the views of well-known historians who flourished nearer the time of which we are writing.

Anna Comnena says (between 1081 and 1118 A.D.): 'The Emperor Alexius commanded Cæsar Nicephorus to enlist as many soldiers as possible by conscription; but not veterans; new men who had not yet been in campaigns. He instructed him as to the tribes from which he was to select his recruits, namely, from the Bulgarians and from amongst those youths who had become hardened by a pastoral life; who possess no settled habitations, but wander about from place to place; those who, in the vulgar tongue, are called "Wallachs" ("Blachos").'

Bonfinius enters into details of their history. He tells how Trajan conquered the Dacians; how the province was evacuated; but that the colonists had multiplied to such an extent that the repeated incursions of barbarians failed to exterminate them; and he adds that they adhere so tenaciously to their language that one would imagine they had fought for that rather than for their lives. 'Who would not be astonished,' he says. 'when he considers the deluges of Sarmatians and Goths, the irruptions of Huns, Vandals, and Gepidæ, the incursions of Germans and Lombards, to find that traces of the Latin tongue should be met with amongst the Dacians and Getæ, whom we now call Wallachs, because they are such good marksmen? The Roumanians are descended from the legions and colonists who were led into Dacia by Trajan and other emperors: they were called Wallachs from Pius of Flaccus (after a German pronunciation), but by us, because they are such good marksmen.'

Æneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II., 1458) is still more explicit. In a few pithy sentences he gives the geography of Wallachia and Transylvania; the history of Dacia from the time of the Persian and Greek wars to the Roman conquest; the fall of the colony; the derivation of the name from Flaccus; and then he adds: 'The people even now speak the Roman language, but so mutilated that an Italian can hardly understand them.'

And not only did learned writers recognise the descent of the Wallachs from the old Roman colonists, but crowned heads referred to it in their communications with the Bulgarian chiefs and with one another, as we shall see presently. Lauriani, from whose work we have made these extracts, says that the Hungarian writers were nearly always silent on the subject, or spoke of it with the utmost bitterness. He, however, quotes two who, in treating of the various nationalities, admit that Moldavia and Wallachia contain the descendants of the Roman colonists who speak a perverted Latin. One of them gives an extract from a poem by Martin Opitz (1621), who describes the national dance of Wallachia, the Hora, or 'Chora' as he calls it. After speaking of the vicissitudes through which the people have passed, he says of their language that the Roman tongue is still in vogue; and of the people who are dancing he says: 'The men, who are almost made (? clothed) upon the Roman model, are bad, but witty, think much and say little.'[124]

We have already made a brief reference to the influence of the barbarian rule upon the language and habits of the modern Roumanians, and it is very interesting to find that in the seventeenth century, when Opitz lived, this fact had already been noticed. Although it concerns chiefly the national sentiment of the Roumanians of to-day and is no doubt very fascinating for them, the enquiry still presents some interesting problems for readers of every nationality.

[Footnote 122: Modern French and German writers called them Petschenigues and Petschenegen.]

[Footnote 123: For further details concerning the Patzinakitai and Wallachs the student must consult the pages of Roesler, Pic, Engel, Lauriani, &c.]

[Footnote 124:

'Die Menschen, die noch jetzt fast römisch Muster tragen,
Zwar schlecht, doch witzig sind, viel denken, wenig sagen.' ]


VII.

As the reader is already aware, the first domination of the Bulgarians in the Danubian provinces was followed by that of the Eastern Empire after the victories of Basilius at the commencement of the eleventh century, and as a change of rulers in those days usually meant a change of oppressors, it is