Basarab I of Wallachia - Vassal of The King of Hungary

Vassal of The King of Hungary

Toward the middle of the 13th century voivodates dependent on the Kingdom of Hungary began to form on the territories of future Wallachia, but evidence shows that they soon sought independence from the Hungarian crown. The trend toward unification seems to have begun with Litovoi who was at war with the Hungarians in 1277 and was killed in battle.

The Kingdom of Hungary underwent a strong political crisis at the end of the Árpád dynasty. The Golden Horde’s domination also decreased in the territories between the Carpathian Mountains and the river Danube at the end of the 13th century. These enabled the states in the sub-Carpathian regions to consolidate their autonomy and to progressively extend their authority over the Danube plains.

Basarab was a vassal of King Charles I of Hungary, who called him ‘our voivode of Wallachia’ in a diploma issued on 26 July 1324. He became the king’s vassal probably after 1321, because it was towards the end of 1321 or the beginning of 1322 when the king personally lead a campaign to the Banat that resulted in his recapture of the castle of Mehadia from the rebel Vejteh family. Basarab, however, was already referred to as ‘Basarab of Wallachia, unfaithful to the king’s Holy Crown’ in a diploma issued on 18 June 1325. The diploma also narrates that a certain Stephen, son of Parabuh, a Cuman count in Hungary, in the course of a dispute, stated that Basarab’s strength exceeded that of the Hungarian king himself.

The Hungarian historian István Vásáry suggests that the king must have referred to him as a rebellious vassal because Basarab had occupied the Banate of Severin, a province of the Kingdom of Hungary on the territory of modern Oltenia. The Romanian historian Tudor Sălăgean thinks that by 1325 Basarab had already been in possession of the strategic fortress of Severin as a result of a peace treaty between Hungary and Wallachia in 1324. Nevertheless, between 1324 and 1330 no reference can be found in the sources to any ban of Severin, so it must have been during these years that Basarab seized the province.

The fact that Pope John XXII (1316-1334) addressed Basarab, in 1327, as a ‘devoted Catholic prince’ and praised his actions against the unfaithful seems to show some collaboration between the Romanian voivode and the Catholic world, but the precise details are missing.