Wallachia 737Further reading: Gerald of Wales, The Journey
through Wales/The Description of Wales, trans. Lewis
Thorpe (New York: Penguin Books, 1978); Antony D.
Carr, “Wales,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History.
Vol. 6, c. 1300–c. 1415,ed. Michael Jones (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 334–344; Antony D.
Carr, “Wales,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History.
Vol. 7, c. 1415–c. 1500,ed. Christopher Allmand (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 532–546; R.
Ian Jack, Medieval Wales(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1972); David Walker, Medieval Wales(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990); Glanmor Williams,
The Welsh Church from Conquest to Reformation,rev. ed.
(Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1976).
al-Walid, Abd al-Malik(r. 705–715)Umayyad caliph
Ruling from 705, al-Walid became known for his reli-
gious fervor, cultural patronage, and building activities.
Although it had hitherto been shared by Christians and
Muslims, he confiscated and razed the Basilica of Saint
John the Baptist in his capital, Damascus, against the
wishes of the local Christians. He turned it into the pre-
sent magnificent Grand Mosque between 706 and 715.
He intended it to be the most sumptuous mosque yet
built and summoned workers and craftsmen, both Chris-
tian and Muslim, from all over the world to build and
decorate it. Heavily damaged in a fire in 1893 and having
suffered considerable rebuilding, it had long been a
model for the architecture of such buildings and
remained one of the most important mosques in Islam.
He also built schools, HOSPITALS, and orphanages in the
city. Under his rule the administration of the caliphate
was taken out of the hands of the Syrian Christians, who
were replaced by Muslim officials, further Islamizing the
caliphate. He started the construction of the new great
mosques in MEDINAand MECCA. Under his rule the Arab
empire, continuously expanded through conquest
approaching its greatest extent, reaching from Transoxi-
ana to Spain. He died in 715.
See also ISLAMIC CONQUESTS AND EARLY EMPIRE;
UMAYYADS.
Further reading:al-Tabari, The Zenith of the Mar-
wanid House: The Last Years of Abd al-Malik and the
Caliphate of al-Walid,trans. Martin Hinds (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1988); Sulayman Bashir,
Arabs and Others in Early Islam(Princeton, N.J.: Darwin
Press, 1997); G. R. Hawting, The First Dynasty of Islam:
The Umayyad Caliphate A.D. 661–750 (Kent: Croom
Helm, 1986).
Wallace, William, Sir (ca. 1270–1305)a leader of
Scots resistance
Of noble descent, William was born in about 1270 in
Ellerslie or Elderslie near Paisley in Ayrshire in SCOT-
LAND, the son of Sir Malcolm Wallace. He killed an
Englishman who insulted him and was declared an out-
law in May 1297. He started a guerrilla war and was
joined by patriotic nobles and began to enlarge the scope
of his operations and ambitions. After being elected
guardian of the kingdom in 1297 for the imprisoned
JOHNBALLIOL, he destroyed an English army at Stirling
Bridge near Abbey Craig in September 1297 and drove
the English out of Scotland. In 1298 a new invading army
led by King EDWARDI himself met and defeated Wallace’s
forces at the Battle of Falkirk on July 22, 1298. He then
resigned his office of guardian to ROBERTI THEBRUCEand
John Comyn the Younger (d. 1306). After the submission
of the Scottish nobles in about 1303, he unsuccessfully
sought help from Pope Boniface VIII and PHILIPIV of
France. Wallace returned to Scotland and continued to
conduct a guerrilla war but was captured by treachery
and taken to LONDON. He was tried as a traitor, although
he had never taken an oath of allegiance to England, and
executed on August 23/24, 1305. The quarters of his
body were publicly exhibited at Newcastle-on-Tyne,
Berwick, Stirling, and Perth.
Further reading:G. W. S. Barrow, Kingship and Unity:
Scotland 1000–1306 (London: Edward Arnold, 1981);
Andrew Fisher, William Wallace(Atlantic Highlands, N.J.:
Humanities Press, 1986); Graeme Morton, William Wal-
lace: Man and Myth(Stroud: Sutton, 2001); Alan Young
and Michael J. Stead, In the Footsteps of William Wallace
(Stroud: Sutton, 2002).Wallachia Medieval Wallachia was a region between
the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube and is now
part of modern-day Romania. There had once been an
earlier region called Wallachia in the Bulgarian province
of Thessaly. Both seem to have been inhabited by people
called VLACHS. In the 10th century, the majority of the
population of Wallachia was Romanian and Christian but
used Slavonic as the language of its liturgy and culture.
After the fall of the first Bulgar state to the Byzantine
Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries, Byzantine control
was reestablished over the whole lower Danube as far as
its mouth and the shores of the BLACKSEA. The Turkish
Petchenegs and CUMANSraided and then moved into the
eastern plains of Wallachia in the 11th and 12th cen-
turies. The Cumans were slowly destroyed by the com-
bined efforts of the Hungarians, the Latin Empire of
CONSTANTINOPLE, and the MONGOLS.
Around 1300 several small principalities appeared in
western and central Wallachia. By the early 14th century
the principality of Arges in the center of the country united
Wallachia under a Romanian dynasty, the Basarab. From
then on the country would be called Land of the Romani-
ans, but other sources continued to refer to it as Wallachia.
Wallachian princes paid tribute to HUNGARYbut tried to
distance themselves from it by obtaining from Con-
stantinople the title of autocrats and the creation of their