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Tatarian-Hungarian relations
Borbala Obrusanszky
(Karoli Gaspar University of Reformed Church, Budapest)
Abstract: Hungary had been attacked by Mongols in 1241 and they occupied huge territory beyond the Carpathian basin. The next century, the Hungarian kings wanted to get back those territories from the Golden Horde. In 1345 one military group of the Eastern Hungarian border or Seklers won over the Golden Horde and reoccupied Cumania or present-day Moldova until the Dnester river. The Hungarian king of that time, or Ladislaus the Great did not want to keep hostility towards Tatars, so they concluded peaceful treaty with them.
Keywords: Tatars, Golden Horde, Hungarians, Seklers.
In the 13th century Mongolian invaders came from Asia and seized the great part of Eastern Europe and influenced its history for hundreds of years, they redrew Eastern European political and economic landscape determing its development for a long time. During this long era many significant events happened, which are not sufficiently well known for researchers in Europe. One good example is the History of Hungarian Kingdom and its relations with Mongols and Tartars which lasted from the 13th. until the early 18th. century. The topic is too diverse, and thus, the emphasis was put only on one part of this relations.
A long, nearly five centuries event series during Tatarian-Hungarian relations we know much about Batu Khan's victorious military campaign against Hungary in 1241. After that both international and Hungarian literatures no longer emphase Mongolian or Tatarian campaigns in Hungary, so only few historians recorded the Hungarian victory over Nogay Tatars, who invaded Hungary in 1285 and Laslo IV (1272-1290) Hungarian king drove back them up to the ridge of the Carpathian-mountains. The second phase of the Hungarian and Tatarian relations took place during the 14th. century, when Hungari-
an kings restrengthened their central royal power over the Carpathian-basin and wished to get back those eastern territories, which belonged to Hungarian Holy Crown, it concerned Cumania or present-day Moldva and Moldavia. Although Charles Robert's (1308-1342) first attempt in 1330 ended in failure and Basarab, leaders of Cumans and Tatars stopped the Hungarian army, the next year the Hungarian troops won him over, and it was such a significant event, that John XXII, Roman Pope welcomed that and he announced crusade against Tatarians, who invaded Hungarian border in 1334.
After one decade the Hungarian troops defeated army of the Golden Horde, and it was one of the first great defeats of the Great Empire under the leadership of Janibek khan. Unfortunately not the Hungarian victory, but the later Russian one or Battle of Kulikovo is enhaced by scholars worlwide. Althought Hungarians won over them, they didn't want to expand more territories from Tatars, they stopped at the old border and they created a good commercial relations with them and made alliances together with Genoan traders against Venice, who were the biggest enemies for both Hungarians and Genoans. The new alliance revived the Black Sea trade and carried Eastern commercial goods towards Western and Northern Europe. According to Hungarians' wishes, the greatest trade routes passed through their own country and the trade led to the development of some Hungarian and Hungarian-Saxon cities in Transsylvania and outside the Carpathian-mountains, or Moldva.
The great Hungarian victory.
The Golden Horde, namely Jochi's ulus bordered with the Hungarian Kingdom in the east, it is present-day Moldva and Moldavia, but it bored the name Cumania in the Middle Ages. The Mongols came there and occupied it near the end of the 1230's, connected with Batu khan's western campaign. That time one group of Cumans leading by Cuten fled to the Hungarian Kingdom and settled down there. After the great Mongolian invasion of Hungary, Mongols retured back to Desti Kipchak through present-day Moldva and Moldavia, and that territory came under the authority of the Golden Horde khans.
We have some authentic sources of Tatarian-Hungarian relations of the 14th. century, which focused mostly on battles. As we have mentioned above, lots of border incidents happened in the 1330's, when some darugas under leadership of Janibek khan and allied
Cuman troops entered the Carpathian basin and harassed those Hungarians, who lived in estern part of Transsylvania. According to the below mentioned chronicles, Louis the Great (1342-1382) Hungarian king heard about incidents and decided to start a war with them. He appointed to Endre Lackfi, Transylvanian voivode as the leader of the Hungarian troops marched to the eastern border to fight with Tatarian troops. In early February of 1345 Hungarians reached the Tatarian army somewhere in the eastern ridges of Carpathian Mountains and Seklers, or Eastern Hungarian people, had a brilliant victory over them, getting huge amount of booties. In addition to that, they drove back Tatarians until the Dniester river, it was a great lost for the eastern power. The Medieval Hungarian chronicles reported the following records about that:
«Similarly, when the Tatarians devastated Hungary and often attacked the border of Transylvania, and Seklers, the king sent his warlike man, Endre Lackfi, voivode of Transylvania together with Sekler nobles and powerful people against the Tatarians. They entered their land, and met his prince Athlamos, who resisted and landed with a great army against them. Hungarians overcame them, their prince was beheaded, lots of flags and prisoners were sent to Royal Majesty to Visegrad (Hungary). Then Seklers attacked Tatarians several times and returned with large booties. Those Tatars who survived ran away from coastal landscapes to the rest of Tatars»1.
Another source says:
«Similarly, after Our Lord's birth one thousand three hundred and forty-fifth, after the third year of coronasation of Louis, around Candlemas Assumption Day Seklers and few Hungarians together marched against Tatars and with their swords countless Tatars slaughtered their own land. A powerful Othlam leader was captured alive, who was the second greatest ranked person after the Khan, and Khan's sister was His wife. He was beheaded instead of Tatars promised to pay immeasurable amounts of ransom. The Hungarians, however, were aware of His future deed, refused to ransom, she was brought back to the flags of the enemy, many prisoners, a lot of booties in
1 Janos Kukkulei: A campaign against Tatars. Chapter VI. (Hungarian chronicle from the 14th century)
gold, silver, beads and even expensive clothes. Without interruption for three days was such a struggle»2.
Only some modern literatures explained who was Othlam as «Tatar Khan» in the Hungarian sources, he was identified as Janibek's brother-in-law, who wore high military rank in the Golden Horde. Both above mentioned sources gave the exact name of the leader (Athlamos, Othlamus3), who is called the prince. Ome Hungarian researchers, as Istvan Vasary accepted this Identification or Athlamos was a prince, but it is not likely that the death of so high-rank person didn't occur in any other inner or Tatarian sources. I think he was only a leader of a province, or daruga4 and he was responsible for western territories or the Prut-Dniester Region Tatars, whichwas the only place bordered with the Hungarian Kingdom. Ciociltan thinks that he led Budjak Tatars, who lived in the southern part of Bessarabia [1, p 279].
In the course of battle an outstanding miracle happened, as some medieval historical sources - Hungarian and Venezian - reported that. Not only Hungarians got to know it, but some Tatarian prisoners of war also: «It is also said that while battle was going on between Christians and Tatars, St. Ladislaus's head disappeared from the church of Nagyvarad (presently: Oradea). At last, the guard of the church found His head after so sweaty as if it were alive and had a great work, and it seemed to come from somewhere. The miracle proving by some Tatarian prisoners, who spoke that they were defeated not by Seklers and Hungarians, but a certain Ladislaus, who has been invoked by their enemies. Other Tatar man said, when he marched against the Seklers, a great man sat on a big horse and went before them, he wore a golden crown, holding a battle-ax in his hand, and cut Tatarians. Above his head, a beautiful woman flied, who had glorious crown. It is clear from this scene - Hungarian writer noticed - that Seklers and
2 Anonymust Minorite: Victory over Tatarian battle. Chapter VIII. (Hungarian chronicle from the 14th century).
3 Hungarian Turcologists think the Tatarian name could be similar to Turkish Atlamis. In: Vasary.
4 Daruga is a Mongolian expression with te meaning of «leader, boss». Daruga served as leaders of a certain province, e.g. Crimea, Caucasus, Khoresm. It is very likely to former Cumania or Moldva and Moldavia had the same leveled leader [3, p. 130].
Hungarians helped Virgin Mary, and Saint Ladislaus, ex-Hungarian king, who fought for Jesus Christ's faith»5.
The great victory of the Seklers themselves kept as a miracle, and gave thanks to their great king, Ladislaus, who earlier in the 1060's, as Duke of Transsylvania struggled with Oguz who marched the eastern borders of Hungarian Kingdom also. At that time, or during the 14th century, Hungarian artists depicted the amazing, admiration victory on the walls of churches in Seklerland. In that places lots of churches built and they were devoted Saint Ladislaus for the victory and on the walls they represented the great victory over Cumans or Tatars. On the scenes we can observe mythical struggle of Cuman warrior and King Ladislaus, the scholars found eight fresco scenes from this era in the territory of Seklerland6. Csaba Hidan, Hungarian resercher found that former masters realistically portrayed Eastern warriors both Cumans and Tatarians and Hungarians, the armors of the frescoes really used in the course of the 14th century, so the frescoes are the faithful correspondence of the 14th century Tatar-Hungarian battles.
Role of Moldova.
As Louis the Great did not participate personally in the Eastern campaign, so he did not take part in rebuild of administration of Cumania, or present-day Moldva. He didn't extend his central authority over the recovered territority, but around 1352 he appointed one of his nobles, Dragfi of voivoda of Belteleki from Maramaros, who was a great leader of the Upper Tisza region to reorganize Cumania, under the dependence of the Hungarian Kingdom and he got a wide range of self-governmence right. He along with Endre Lackfi's support Cumania began to populate, of that time it was almost an inhabited or sparsely populated countryside. In the literatures we can read that Moldva and Moldova under the reign of Voivode Bogdan broke the Hungarian supremacy and the province became an independent state, but this information is only partially true, the area enjoyed a high degree of autonomy and loosely bounded to the Hungarian crown up to the end of the 15th century, when the Ottoman Empire got supremacy its rich land but they kept the previous custom and gave an autonomy
5 Anonymous Minorite: Saint Ladislaus's miracle. Chapter IX.
6 We can find such frescoes are: Gelence, Bogoz, Szekelyderzs.
for those voivode. For a long time Moldva and Moldavia did not exist as a state, their leaders had only title «voivode», which referred to its a province leader, paying attention to «voivode» dignity belonged to Hungarians and nomadic tribes of Eurasian steppe belt7.
The territory name usually was Cumania, where Louis the Great settled down Hungarians and Saxons, moreover the Hungarian king asked Minorite monks from the Pope to evangelise Roman or Western Christianity in spite of Islam or Ortodoxy faith. It was a significant task for Louis the Great, who considered himself as the defender of the Christians, like his model, King St. Ladislaus. He restored Bishop of Milko in present-day Moldva, which was established by Andrew II (1205-1235) Hungarian king in the course of the 13th century and Dominicant monks baptized those Cumans, who followed the ceremony of the Tatars8.
The Hungarian chronicles recorded not only under Louis the great's reign settled down Hungarians and Saxon traders, but the process went on and they continuously moved eastward and settled down beyond the Carpathian Mountains, in the 14-15th centuries. One historical source, or Madjari Tarihi recorded that the 1420's large number of Hungarians and Saxons migrated to Moldva because of the great possibilites. In addition that Louis the Great built few fortresses to ensure the protection of the Dniester borderline for traders and new populations. We can find some remnants of them, e.g. there are three Orhei settlements, whose names were derived from Hungarian «guardian place»9. Hungarians lived there until the 17th. century and at that time they were able to speak native language, but nowadays everybody assimilated to the majority of Romanians.
As I have mentioned above, Louis the Great did not want to be an enemy of Tatars, but he wished to establish a peaceful relations with the Golden Horde, namely for economic reasons. His decrees and
7 On the titles of vaida and voivoda [7, p. 40-46].
8 On the Bishopry in Milko [6, p. 464].
9 A few examples of ancient Hungarian settlements are Csoborcsok (Cioburciu), Hotin es Stauceni, Mugyilo, (Moghilau in Romanian). Kisjeno (Chi^inau), and Hungarians or Changos in Budjak. In addition to that we can discover settlement Orhei, near to Butuceni and Trebujeni. A second and the well-known city is Orhei, also, it is situated nortward to Chi^inau and the third Orhei situated southward to Chi§inau-tol, it is a name of a mound [2, p. 229].
donations from the second half of the 14th. century proved that policy. He began to develope the Eastern trade route from the Black Sea along the Danube-river, and the Hungarian Kingdom became the major transit and the great amount of commercial goods overpassed their cities, from there small branches diverged and led goods to Northern and Western Europe. As for Louis the Great not the Tatars but Venice was the main enemy, that's why the Hungarian king concluded not only commercial alliance with Tatars but the other big Italian merchant city state, Genoa and allowed it to carry goods across Hungary almost tax free. The king gave privileges to Genoan merchants in 1352 and it was confirmed later, also10. This special advantage of the resulted a booming trade in goods and the various kinds of merchants -Hungarians, Saxons, Italian, Tatarian, etc. - went across Moldova and carried their wares. Saxon and Hungarian traders who lived in Transsylvania, sold western cloth eastward and they imported eastern spices [8, p. 286]. One famous Hungarian economist, Gergely Berzeviczy said at that time the most important trade center of Europe focused on the Hungarian Kingdom. The Moldva commercial roads passing through two Transylvanian cities benefited most, one of the Middle Ages to the gate at the east end of the Hungarian Kingdom. The two major Hungarian cities southern, Brasso (Brasov) and northern Beszterce (Bistrica) gained huge amount profit from the trade. The later one monopolised the supply of goods toward Poland.
Numismatics evidences.
The coins of a given period show the amount of the traffic of goods and who ruled a certain territory as well. Let's investigate what coins circulated in the above mentioned Eastern territories, namely Moldova or Cumania and the surrounding places.
It is interesting that from the former Hungarian Kingdom coins of any minted Tatars or Golden Horde are unknown, which suggests the Carpathian Basin did not revolve Eastern money for exchange of goods at the time, it is likely that other coins were accepted there. The Hungarian scholars think, some good quality European coins were in turnover: Bohemian or Czech silver Groschen and the Hungarian golden Forint. On the southern part of modern Moldavia reserchers
10 Louis the Great confirmed priviledge for Genoa merchants in 1379 [11, p. 117].
had found local Tatarian coins in circulation, and some northern regions as well, supposedly it was the meeting points of Tatarian and Western goods [10, p. 345-346].
For a long time Moldva and Moldavia or Medieval Cumania had no enough strong ecomony to mint an independent money, but gradually, as the Eastern or Black Sea trading began to flourish, and great amount of trade goods were exchanged, a necessity to use a separate coin appeared. We can find the first minted coin from the time of Voivoda Peter I (1375-1391) who minted silver groschen to supply local market needs. The presence of half groschen minted in Moldva indicates a small amount of local trade in that territory, this coin itself was not enough for supply the money demands of a state, it just sasisfied the local commerce and other good quality foreign coins circulated there.
The Moldavian coin itself is unique on the reverse, because we can discover the Hungarian Anjou coat of arms of the 14th. century: on the left side it is a legendary symbol of Arpad-dynasty, or red and silver strings, on the right it is the Italian coat of arms with Anjou lily. This kind of coat of arms created by Hungarian king Charles Robert and used by his son, Louis the Great up to 1382.
The design features have the following inscription: «Si Mol-doviensi» and on the reverse there is a head of bull buffallo11 surrounded by the Sun and the Moon, with the following inscription: «Sim Petri Woiwo», with the meaning: Peter, the voivoda12. Both sides of the coins show the territory which was not independent, but the voivoda or vaida was a powerful local lord who belonged to the Hungarian Kingdom.
Regarding the buffallo head it has an outstanding story. According to the legend from the Middle Ages, Dragfi, a great nobleman of Northeastern part of Hungary, went on hunting, suddenly a buffallo appeared in front of him and wanted to show a way for him. Dragfi chased it as Hungarians' ancestors, Hunor and Magor did before with a wonderful deer, and the buffallo led Dragfi to his new homeland, in Moldva. The story is very similar to the legend of chasing deer by
11 On Dragfi's legend [5, p. 7].
12 A woiwo on the Moldavian coins is a variant of Hungarian vaida, which was used in Transsylvania during the Middles Ages.
steppe people, and this motive was widespread throughout the Eurasian steppe belt, we can find some variants in the Hungarian or Bolgarian folklore tradition. The symbol of the Sun and the Moon together have an ancient meaning and it was derived from the steppe society also, from the Huns until Sekler, Turk, Kozaks, etc., who depicted them on their flag. In the neighborhood Seklers had the same flag with the Moon and the Sun, so does the coat of arms of Cumania itself [5, h. 7].The meaning of the symbol is the great emperor of the steppe society who is able to unite the Earth and the Heaven, or every mankind of the world.
Summary.
In spite of the Mongolian invasion of 1241-1242, in the nearest future we must focus on the flourishing Hungarian-Tatarian relations in the 14th. century, when the Hungarian Kingdom and the Golden Horde made alliance in trading. We need to discover some obscure events of these relations in order to clarify some significant part of Eastern European History.
REFERENCES
1. Ciocîltan Virgil. The Mongols and the Black Sea Trade Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Brill, 2012.
2. Domokos Pal Peter. Moldvai ùtjaim. A moldvai magyarsâg. Budapest, 2001.
3. Grekov B.D., Yakubovskiy A.Yu. Zolotaya Orda i ee padenie [The Golden Horde and its fall]. Moscow, Leningrad, 1950. 478 p.
4. Johannes de Kikullew et anonymus minorita chronica: De gestis Ludovici I. regis Hungarorum. Avialable at: http://mek.oszk.hu/05500 /05564/05564.htm
5. Kahler Frigyes. A moldvai pénzverés torténetéhez. Az Érem, 1989, no. 1, pp. 6-11.
6. Mikecs Laszlo. A Karpatokon tùli magyarsag. Magyarok és românok I—II. Szerk. Deér Jozsef & Gâldi Laszlo. Budapest, Athenaeum, 1943
7. Obrusaszky Borbala. Vajda and Boila: On an Ancient Hungarian Title. The DSCA Journal Danish Society for Central Asia's Electronic Yearbook. The Huns and the Hungarians, 2008, p. 40-46.
8. Pach Zsigmond Pal. Levantine trade and Hungary in the Middle Ages: theses, controversies, arguments. Études historiques hongroises. Bd. 1 (1975), s. 283-307.
9. Por Antal. Janos, kukullei esperes Nagy Lajos torténetiroja 1349— 1397. Szâzadok, 1893, p. 1-15.
10. Sedlar Jean W. East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 10001500. Vol. 3. University of Washington Press, 1994.
11. Wenzel Gusztav. Magyar diplomâciai emlékek az Anjou-korbol. Budapest, 1876.
About the author: Borbala Obrusanszky - Doctor, Karoli Gaspar University of Reformed Church (1091, Kalvin tér 9, Budapest, Hungary); borbala.obrusanszky@gmail.com
Татарско-Венгерские отношения
Борбала Обрушански
(Университет Кароли Гаспар Реформатской Церкви, Будапешт)
Аннотация: В 1241 г. Монголия напала на Венгрию году и заняла огромные территории за пределами Карпатского бассейна. В следующем веке венгерские короли захотели вернуть эту территорию. В 1345 году одна военная группировка на восточно-венгерской границе (Шек-леры) нанесли поражение Золотой Орде и вернули Куманию или то, что в настоящее время называется Молдавией, вплоть до реки Днестр. Венгерский король того времени Ладислав Великий не хотел вражды с татарами, и вследствие этого они заключили с ним мирный договор.
Ключевые слова: Татары, Золотая Орда, Венгры, Шеклеры
Сведения об авторе: Борбала Обрушански - профессор Университета Кароли Гаспар Реформатской Церкви (1091, площадь Кальвина, 9, Будапешт, Венгрия); borbala.obrusanszky@gmail.com
