272 chapter four
the arpads in the trans-Danubian and trans-carpathian lands.525 once
he considered himself strong enough, in the 1310s, to have any chance
of success at reconquering the previous dynasty’s territories, lost in 1291
after Noghai’s Danube offensive, the hungarian ruler did not delay politi-
cal and military action on the South-eastern front. Within this region, the
Severin-Vidin area rapidly proved a strategic priority.
the carpathian-Balkan wing of the tartar hegemony had recently
undergone structural modifications which meant that the hungarian king
found himself facing local magnates, supported of course by tartar con-
tingents. the romanian voyvode at argeş, the Despot of Vidin and the
tsar at tarnovo fought back in a largely coordinated manner. although
we do not have as many sources as we might wish for a full explanation
of events, nevertheless a series of documents does cast light upon at least
part of the story, and allows a plausible reconstruction of the outlines.
In 1314 pope John XXII circulated a letter seeking to console hungarian
catholics and those in neighbouring regions for losses inflicted “by the
schismatics, the tartars, the pagans and the other unbelieving nations”526
with predictably little result. then in 1319 the pope, outraged by the schis-
matics’ continued depredations, made a more concerted attempt to stamp
out this ‘plague’.527 the king in turn also complained to the supreme pon-
tiff in 1325 about the maltreatment which catholics in the borderlands
suffered from the schismatics, the tartars and the pagans, and repeated
his complaint two years later.528 the stability of the kingdom was par-
ticularly threatened by cooperation between forces from beyond the car-
pathians and the transylvanian rebels led by the voyvode Ladislas Borsh,
deposed in 1315.529 this opportunist alliance was directed against hun-
garian royal authority in transylvania, and was merely a passing threat
525 When Béla IV granted a charter to the Knights hospitaller in 1247, this was a reflec-
tion of the Buda monarchy’s limited capacity to command in the territories between the
central carpathians and the Danube (DRH D, I, pp. 21–24).
526 Documente/hurmuzaki, I/1, pp. 574–575. although the term schismatici refers to the
members of Greek rite orthodox in general, a document of 1352 from the hungarian chan-
cery restricts its sense to the romanians, significantly for fourteenth-century affairs: per
gentes schismaticas, videlicet per Olachos (Codex Andegavensis, p. 603).
527 pascu, Contribuţiuni, p. 19.
528 Ibid.
529 a document of 1319 reveals that the rebels had support from schismatics both
within and beyond transylvania, so that the pope advised the king to go to war against
them (ibid.). these friendly relations between rebels and orthodox provide the context
for ottokar of Styria’s anecdote about otto of Bavaria being held prisoner by the tran-
sylvanian voyvode Ladislaus Kán in 1307, who then handed him over a year later to the
“voyvode of the romanians,” Basarab (cf. ibid., and papacostea, Românii, p. 169).