the golden horde and the black sea 277
Basarab, the founder of the state, thus inaugurated the romanian prin-
cipality’s policy of equilibrium between two worlds, arising from a geopo-
litical fate which was to mark the state throughout history. Wallachia was
constantly forced to strike a dangerous balance which could never simul-
taneously satisfy both powerful neighbours, to the east and the West. the
long series of such frustrations, with all their hard consequences, began
at this moment.
the principal source on romanian-hungarian relations in the 1320s
emphasises that although the voyvode scrupulously fulfilled all his feudal
obligations toward the suzerain at Buda, nevertheless the king invaded
in September 1330, bringing a large army through the mountains.551 the
objective of the campaign is stated in similarly clear language, and reveals
just how unsatisfied the king was with the compromise of 1324:552 the
invasion aimed to depose Basarab and replace him with a candidate
from the hungarian court. the plan to make the romanian principal-
ity into a hungarian province was set in motion: once the king reached
the fortress at Severin, he entrusted it to the castellan of Mehadia and
Jdioara, Dionysius Szécsi, together with the title of ban.553 the Chroni-
con Pictum goes on to relate in similarly objective terms how the voyvode
attempted to stop the royal army from advancing further—rightly, as the
chronicle sees it—by offering a substantial sum of money and promising
to cede territory, and then recounts the truly disastrous outcome of the
expedition.554
What the chronicler does not seem to know, given that he seems sur-
prised at the unprovoked and unjustified hungarian invasion of the roma-
nian principality, is that charles I, as well as strongly desiring to reconquer
territories lost to Basarab, was also taking advantage of a favourable set of
circumstances which, he hoped, would help him crush his adversary.
Just as the show of force by the romanian-Bulgarian coalition, with
tartar support, in 1323, had had the side-effect of persuading the king
551 the Chronicon Pictum Vindobonense (Izvoare/popa-Lisseanu, XI, p. 109) does not
accuse the voyvode at argeş of anything that might have justified the invasion, rather not-
ing that ipse princeps censum debitum regie maiestati semper fideliter persolvisset.
552 holban, “raporturile,” p. 15, says that for charles I the agreement was “merely pro-
visional, and could be abandoned at the earliest opportunity.”
553 Ibid.; cf. achim, “Vechimea,” pp. 233–234: “In hungarian documents of the fourteenth
century, the ‘ban’ and ‘banate of Severin’ were to all practical purposes a programme of
expansion into the romanian principality, to recover the arpad dynasty’s holdings in olte-
nia of the previous century and to attain suzerainty over the state that had encompassed
the territory;” see also idem, Politica, pp. 38 ff.
554 achim, “Vechimea,” pp. 109–112.