Romania in The Early Middle Ages

Romania In The Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages in Romania started with the withdrawal of the Roman troops and administration from Dacia province in the AD 270s. In the next millennium a series of peoples, most of whom only controlled two or three of the historical regions that now form Romania, arrived. Among the new arrivals, the Goths, Gepids and Slavs lived in sedentary communities; the Huns, Avars, Pechenegs, and Cumans were nomadic pastoralists. The Bulgars and the Hungarians arrived as nomads but established Christian monarchies in 864 AD, and around 1000 AD, respectively. The Early Middle Ages ended with the withdrawal of the Mongols after their invasion in 1241 and 1242.

During this period, society and culture underwent fundamental changes. Town life came to an end in Dacia with the Roman withdrawal, and in Scythia Minor 400 years later. Fine vessels made on fast potter's wheels almost disappeared by the AD 450s, and hand-made pottery became dominant for at least half a millennium. Burial rites changed more than once from cremation to inhumation and vice versa until inhumation became dominant by the end of the 10th century.

Romanians, also called Vlachs during this period, speak a language of Latin origin, but a significant part of their vocabulary, including the lexical fields of animal husbandry, agriculture, handicrafts, religion, and society, has been borrowed from Slavic languages. The Vlachs converted to Orthodox Christianity and adopted a Slavonic liturgy. In contrast with them, the Hungarians, Hungarian-speaking Székelys and Saxons who settled in the intra-Carpathian region in the 10th to 12th centuries adhered to Catholicism.

The existence of a late 9th-century state of Vlachs and Slavs in Transylvania was recorded some 300 years later. Contemporary documents first mention Vlach polities north of the Danube after 1242. On the other hand, Vlachs played a significant role in the Second Bulgarian Empire between the 1180s and the 1240s.