The Gypsies in the Romanian Lands During the Middle Ages: Slavery

The Gypsies in the Romanian Lands during the Middle Ages: Slavery Viorel Achim 1 The Age and Origin of Slavery in the Romanian Lands From the first attestations of their presence in Wallachia and Moldavia, the Gypsies were slaves. They were to remain in this social condition for many centuries until the laws abolishing slavery in the middle of the nineteenth century. The Gypsies were also enslaved in Transylvania, more particularly in the re- gions that were for a time under the control of the Wallachian and Moldavian princes. Even after the end of the dominion of the two Romanian states there, the Gypsies remained for a time as slaves, a vestige of that previous era.1 The origins of slavery in the principalities have not formed the basis of an independent study in Romanian historiography. Generally speaking, works of social history, which inevitably make reference to the slavery of the Gypsies, content themselves with the statement that slavery dates from before the cre- ation of the principalities and that its origin is unknown. Since the appearance of the Gypsies in the Romanian territories was linked with the Tatars, who ruled there after 1241, the slavery of the Gypsies has been regarded as a vestige of that era. In the view of Nicolae Iorga, the Gypsies who were the slaves of the Tatars were taken over by the Romanians preserving their state of bondage.2 Other writers explain the appearance of slavery in the Romanian territories with reference to the Romanians’ battles with the Tatars. As a result of these battles, Gypsies captured from the Tatars were transformed into slaves.3 The problem of slavery in the medieval history of Romania is not restrict- ed to the slavery of the Gypsies. Alongside the Gypsy slaves, in the Romanian states there were also Tatar slaves. Moldavian documents of the fifteenth century tell us about this second category of slaves. These Tatars were mistakenly Source: Achim, Viorel, “The Gypsies in the Romanian Lands during the Middle Ages: Slavery,” in Viorel Achim, The Roma in Romanian History, Budapest: Central European University Press, 1998, 27–85. 1 See below pp. 42–43. 2 N. Iorga, op. cit., p. 22. 3 Al. Gonţa, op. cit., p. 313ff. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��8 | doi ��.��63/97890043466��_033 984 Achim identified as Gypsies and so the theory of the arrival of the Gypsies on Romanian territory in the thirteenth century during the Tatar domination was constructed on the basis of this identification. It is certain that the Tatar slaves mentioned in the Moldavian documents were a legacy of the Tatars. They were Tatars (or rather slaves of the Tatars) who had ended up in the possession of the Romanians. We find it highly plausible that at the time of the conflicts between the Romanians and the Tatars during the fourteenth century, the Romanians would have transformed Tatar prisoners of war into slaves. Having spent a long period of time under Mongolian domination, we can hypothesise that the Romanians could have adopted from the latter the practice of enslav- ing captured enemies. It is not, however, obligatory to regard these prisoners of war as Tatars from an ethnic point of view. As has been supposed, it is highly probable that the Tatar slaves in Moldavia were in fact a population of Cumans, established in the region before the arrival of the Tatars.4 The Romanians took them over as slaves and kept them on in this state. The question that needs to be asked is: when did they come into the possession of the Romanians? For how long had there been Tatar slaves? Since the founding of the principality in the middle of the fourteenth century? Or from a later time, when the Moldavian state had incorporated the territory to the south where Tatar domination had continued until the last decade of the fourteenth century? It is difficult to give an answer to these questions in the absence of any definite historical evidence. To historians, however, it is certain that there were also Tatar slaves in Wallachia, although they are not mentioned in official documents. The toponyms “Tătărăi” in Muntenia (identi- cal to the toponyms “Tătăraşji” in Moldavia) appear to indicate this very population of slaves acquired from the Tatars. We believe that we may assume that “Tatar” slaves existed in Wallachia and Moldavia from the foundation of these principalities, which took place at the beginning and the middle of the fourteenth century respectively. Once passed under this new dominion, Tatar prisoners of war or Tatars’ slaves entered the service of the prince as slaves. This is not, however, an instance of a phenomenon peculiar to Romanian history. In Eastern Europe, the turning of pagan enemies into slaves was prac- tised in the first centuries of the second millennium. It is known that prior to their Christianisation, the Hungarians would turn prisoners of war into slaves. In the Hungarian Kingdom, Muslim Saracens and Mozaic Khazars were used as slaves until the thirteenth century, when they were forced to convert to Christianity.5 In fourteenth century Hungary, however, the institution of 4 N. Beldiceanu, Irène Beldiceanu-Steinherr, op. cit., p. 13. 5 See Al. Gonţa, op. cit., pp. 307–311, with the references in the notes..

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