The Principality of Wallachia

(Today part of: region Wallachia in Romania)

The people known as the Wallachians appeared in the 12^th century in the Carpathian lands between the rivers Olt and the Danube. The area was under the control of Hungarian kings in mid-13^th century, after which time the Mongol incursions and the dying out of the Árpád dynasty, followed by the inevitable civil war for the throne, curbed their power. In the meantime, these events enabled the strengthening of the local Wallachian elite to gain a greater degree of independence, and establish the Principality of Wallachia at the beginning of the 14^th century, led by Basarab I (ruled 1310-1352), residing in Campulung. Soon after, to the north of it, in the area between eastern Carpathians and the river Dniester, in mid-14^thcentury, rose the Principality of Moldavia.The fates of these two political entities will be closely interconnected from that time on.

Orthodoxy with Old-Slavic rites dominated both of them. Furthermore, the ancient Roman occupation left after itself a crude form of Latin in the deserted areas that will mark the local populace from their neighbors (the Slavs and Hungarians). In the Middle Ages 60% of the vocabulary was made up of borrowed words from Slavic languages, or Greek or Albanian. At the beginning of the 15^th century the Ottoman conquests of their lands began. In general, the 14^th, and especially from the 15^th century on, the political success of Wallachian and Moldavian dukes was reduced to maintaining their autonomy, rather than achieving sovereignty and independence, and depended on the exploitation of the rivalry between the Hungarians and the Ottomans.