the golden horde and the black sea 279
his own kinsmen, his successor on the Lower Danube was a mere shadow,
his name only remembered in connection with the first defeat that the
tartars ever suffered at the hands of the hungarians and the romanians,
in the 1340s.559
the last known Bujak magnate is Demetrius, princeps Tartarorum,
recorded in 1368 as ruling over a mere enclave,560 probably independent
of Sarai and not under its protection, which would shortly be swallowed
up into Moldavia’s borders.561
559 a hungarian and a romanian chronicle both present Atlamos as the chief of the
tartars at the mouth of the Danube, and Janibek’s brother-in-law; an anonymous roma-
nian ballad remembers him as ‘the haiduc alimoş’; cf. the sources and secondary literature
at ciocîltan, “părţile,” p. 351.
560 Bujak was a domain par excellence reserved for the tartar nomads, who grazed the
lands with their herds and flocks. a document notarised on 11th february 1361 at chilia by
antonio di ponzò records that Thorboch tartarus de miliario Coia de centanario de Rabech
de decena de Boru had sold a slave to Bernabò di carpena, witnessed by a number of Geno-
ese and also by Bechangur nuncius Coia, Aruch et Oia tartari habitatores Iavarii, thereby
proving that the tartars continued to live in the traditional chinggisid regimental struc-
tures (ponzò/Balard, p. 16; cf. ciocîltan, “alanii,” p. 947, and on the broader subject of this
chapter, idem, “hegemonia”).
561 chaka at the beginning of the century and Atlamos in the 1340s gave way to the last
magnate of Bujak, who appears in the source documents in 1368, Demetrius; his title of
‘prince of the tartars’ indicates that he was an independent chieftain at this stage of the
Golden horde’s disintegration (Brătianu, “Demetrius,” and Spinei, Moldova, p. 75).