Vlach law

The establishment around them of a large number of "slaves" starting from the 6th century led to the linguistic Slavization of a significant number of these communities, so that in the 8th century, the word "Vlach" came, in Slavic languages, to designate any Orthodox shepherd, whether he remained Romanophone (as in the Kingdom of Eastern Hungary and the Principality of Transylvania) or became Slavophone (as in a large part of the Balkan Peninsula).

[3] In medieval Serbian charters, the pastoral community, primarily made up of Vlachs, were held under special laws due to their nomadic lifestyle.

The Banat highlands preserved specific legal practices until the late 17th century, that were recognised by officials of the Kingdom of Hungary and by the Principality of Transylvania.

[7] In Hungarian historiography, the origin of Vlach law, that the kenez was not only chieftain, but also a settlement contractor, who receives some uninhabited land from the king in order to settle it and then he and his descendants judge over the settlers in non-principal matters.

[9] In a certificate of King Louis the Great of Hungary dated 1350: "hoping that under their diligent care our Vlach villages will gain many inhabitants, we give the keneziatus".

A document dated in 1352, in which the lord-lieutenants of Krassó County writes the following: "They asked me for the uninhabited land of the Mutnok stream with the same freedom as the kenezes living in the Sebes district rule their villages in order to populate it."

[10] According to Romanian historiography, the knezes were the representatives of autochthonous population and their settling activities were taken close to their village, new groups of houses being built at the outer limit of an old settlement.

Some voivodes and knezes rebelled against the King and passed over to Moldavia and Wallachia where they established their own rule, while those in conflict with the new authority move into the Kingdom of Hungary.

The duties of the Romanian knezes varied according to the district and to the individual conditions under which their ancestors had initially acquired and settled the land: to provide a single mounted warrior for guarding the Danube river against intrusion, and to supply livestock, including delivery of the "sheep fiftieth".

[13] The structure of early feudal Romanian society had a jude and a ducă, two titles later renamed under Slavic influence as cneaz and voievod.

As such, during Arpad dynasty knezes that were not on church or nobility lands were under royal authority and became its representatives to the community, including the application of the law.

In this context, many knezes acted as minor nobility, holding the title hereditarily and expanding their rule by new settlements in neighbouring areas.

[13] According to Romanian historian Ioan-Aurel Pop, in Transylvania, after the establishment of the Union of Three Nations and the suppression of the Bobâlna Uprising in 1438, the Vlach law gradually disappeared while the Romanian masters and boyars (which enjoyed the Universitas Valachorum) had to choose between three solutions: the loss of all rights and the fall into serfdom, having to migrate beyond the Carpathians to Moldavia or Wallachia, or merging into the Hungarian nobility by converting to Catholicism and adopting the Hungarian language.

The border guards had a self-government and were linked to this centralized military and political order through their right of land ownership and personal freedom.

As another result, the border guards were extremely loyal to the Habsburg king and he could utilize them not only against the Ottomans but also for internal conflicts against peasants and nobles.

When the Military Frontier was established, many former serfs, nomadic farmers and immigrants from the Ottoman Empire-occupied areas were tasked with guarding the borders.

The Vlachs were tasked with guarding the borders, supervising major roads and mountain paths to ensure the safety of passengers and cargo transports.

[24] The colonization of peoples under the Vlach law resulted in ethnic enclaves of Czechs, Poles and Ruthenians in historical Hungary.