Romania in the Early Middle Ages

Their invasion gave rise to the earliest reference, recorded some centuries later in the Gesta Hungarorum, to a polity ruled by a Romanian duke named Gelou.

[6] The Lower Danube marked the boundary between the empire and "Barbaricum"[7] until Emperor Trajan decided to expand the frontiers over territories controlled by the Dacian Kingdom.

[31] A great number of Romanian words of uncertain origin[32] are related to animal husbandry: baci ("chief shepherd"), balegă ("dung"), and brânză ("cheese"), for instance, belong to this group.

[33] Many words related to a more settled form of animal husbandry were borrowed from Slavic, including coteţ ("poultry house"), grajd ("stable"), and stână ("fenced pasture").

[34][37] The first group includes a ara ("to plough"), a semăna ("to sow"), a culege ("to harvest"), a secera ("to reap"), grâu ("wheat"), in ("flax"), and furcă ("pitchfork"), while a croi ("to cut out"), a plivi ("to weed"), brazdă ("furrow"), cobilă ("plow line"), coasă ("scythe"), lopată ("shovel") and many others are Slavic loanwords.

[41] When referring to the Romance-speaking population of Southeastern Europe, early medieval sources used the Vlach exonym or its cognates, which all derived from the Common Slavic term for speakers of the Latin language.

[50][51] Under Emperor Constantine the Great (306–337), a bridge across the Danube was constructed at Sucidava, a new fort (Constantiana Daphne) was built, and ancient roads were repaired in Oltenia.

[52][53] The Lower Danube again became the empire's northern boundary in 369 at the latest, when Emperor Valens met Athanaric—the head of the Goths—in a boat in the middle of the river because the latter had taken an oath "never to set foot on Roman soil".

[57] Although Eastern Roman emperors made annual payments to the neighboring peoples in an attempt to keep the peace in the Balkans, the Avars regularly invaded Scythia Minor from the 580s.

[64] On the other hand, evidence – mainly pottery with "Chi-rho" (Χ-Ρ) signs and other Christian symbols – is "shadowy and poorly understood", according to archaeologists Haynes and Hanson.

[65] Urns found in late 3rd-century cemeteries at Bezid, Mediaş, and in other Transylvanian settlements had clear analogies in sites east of the Carpathians, suggesting that the Carpians were the first new arrivals in the former province from the neighboring regions.

[148] Around the same time, semi-sunken huts with stone or clay ovens appeared in Moldavia and Wallachia,[149][150][151] forming ephemeral settlements with an area smaller than 5 hectares (12 acres).

[165][166] The same conclusion can be drawn from Procopius's report of the "phoney Chilbudius" – a young Antian serf who "spoke the Latin tongue"[167] – who was dispatched by his fellow tribesmen to negotiate with the Eastern Roman Empire in 545.

[168] The disappearance of bronze and gold coins from sites north of the Lower Danube demonstrates an "economic closure of the frontier" of the Eastern Roman Empire between 545 and 565.

[186] Spurs—never found in Avar context but widely used in Western Slav territories[187]— were unearthed in Şura Mică and Medişoru Mare, suggesting the employment of non-Avar horsemen in the 8th century.

[191] Archaeological sites in Moldavia, Oltenia and Wallachia became characterized by the growing popularity of hand-made vessels with finger impressions[192] and by a decline in detectable cemeteries.

[201][202] Bistriţa ("swift"), Crasna ("nice" or "red"), Sibiu ("dogwood"), and many other rivers and settlements with names of Slavic origin also evidence the presence of Slavs in Transylvania.

[218] The large, unfortified "Dridu" settlements were characterized by traditional semi-sunken huts, but a few houses with ground-level floors have also been unearthed in Dodeşti, Spinoasa, and other places.

[229] For instance, the Royal Frankish Annals makes a passing reference to Abodrites living "in Dacia adjacent to the Danube near the Bulgarian border"[230] on the occasion of their envoys' arrival in Aachen in 824.

[240] In the same year, the nomadic Hungarians – who had arrived in the Lower Danube region from the steppes of Eastern Europe in 837 or 838[241][242] – became involved in a conflict between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire on the latter's behalf.

[237] About 300 years later, Anonymus, the author of Gesta Hungarorum, wrote a comprehensive list of polities and peoples of the Carpathian Basin at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries.

[274] Anonymus also wrote of Menumorut's defeat, but said he preserved his rule in Crişana until his death by giving his daughter in marriage to Zolta, heir to Árpád, the head of the Hungarians.

[272][270] In a contrasting account, the Illuminated Chronicle writes of Hungarians fleeing through the eastern passes of the Carpathian Mountains to Transylvania[270] where they "remained quietly" and "rested their herds"[275] for a while before moving further west.

[323][324] In the territory of modern Romania, three Roman Catholic dioceses were established with their seats in Alba Iulia, Biharea (from the last decades of the 11th century in Oradea), and Cenad.

[336] Székely groups from Gârbova, Saschiz, and Sebeş were moved around 1150 into the easternmost regions of Transylvania, when the monarchs granted these territories to new settlers arriving from Western Europe.

[344] The Diploma Andreanum confirmed the custom of freely electing their priests and local leaders; only the right to appoint the head of their community, the "Count of Sibiu", was preserved for the monarchs.

[363] A letter of 1234[352] written by Pope Gregory IX refers to a "certain people within the Cuman bishopric called Walati" (Vlachs) who even persuaded Catholic Hungarians and Germans to accept the ecclesiastic authority of Orthodox prelates.

The Tatars, standing behind them all at the back, laughed at their plight and ruin and killed those who retreated from the battle and subjected as many as they could to their devouring swords, so that after fighting for a week, day and night, and filling up the moat, they captured the village.

Having robbed them of their money, clothing and other goods, they cruelly executed them with axes and swords, leaving only some of the ladies and girls alive, whom they took for their entertainment.A new period of intensive settlements began in Banat, Transylvania and other regions within the Kingdom of Hungary after the withdrawal of the Mongols.

[384] Taking advantage of the emerging anarchy, Voivode Litovoi attempted to get rid of the Hungarian monarchs' suzerainty in the 1270s, but he fell in a battle while fighting against royal troops.