page_title: Banat in the Middle Ages
section_title: Age of Angevins (1316–1395)
hierarchical_section_title: Banat in the Middle Ages / Kingdom of Hungary / Age of Angevins (1316–1395)
caption_attribution_description: English: Administrative units of the Kingdom of Hungary in the southern Pannonian plain in 1370.Српски / srpski: Административне јединице Краљевине Угарске на југу Панонске низије 1370. године.
context_page_description: The Middle Ages in the Banat started around 900. Around that time, Duke Glad ruled Banat, according to the Gesta Hungarorum. Archaeological finds and 10th-century sources evidence that Magyars settled in the lowlands in the early 10th century, but the survival of Avar, Slav and Bulgar communities can also be documented. A local chieftain, Ajtony, converted to Eastern Orthodoxy around 1000, but his attempts to control the delivery of salt on the Mureș River brought him into conflict with Stephen I of Hungary. Ajtony died fighting against the royal army in the first decades of the 11th century. His realm was transformed into a county of the Kingdom of Hungary. Counties were the most prominent units of royal administration.
  Featuring items of the "Bijelo Brdo culture" can be detected in the lowlands from around 975. Artefacts from the Byzantine Empire or imitating Byzantine objects were found along the Danube, and in the Banat Mountains. Pagan burial rites disappeared by the end of the 11th century, evidencing the local inhabitants' conversion to Christianity.
context_section_description: Charles I moved his court to Timișoara in early 1315 and fortified it. Building projects evidence that he planned to set up a new royal residence in the town, but he returned his seat to the middle of Hungary in 1323. During Charles I's reign, new stone fortresses were built, not independently of Charles I's conflicts with Basarab I of Wallachia. Franciscan friars settled in Lipova, Orșova and other places, Dominicans in Timișoara, and Pauliens in Gătaia before the middle of the 14th century. The Franciscans promoted a simplified version of Gothic architecture. Abutments excavated in Berzovia suggest that a Gothic church was built in the village after around 1350.
  Agricultural techniques are documented from the 14th century. Manured plowing lots were first mentioned in 1323. Archaeological evidence of the shoeing of horses can be dated to the same century. Frequent references to conflicts in connection with horses and oxen show the importance of draft animals in local economy. Pork was the most important meat in the peasants' diet, according to archaeological evidence from Remetea. Fishing, and hunting for wild boars, deer, aurochs, beavers, martens and badgers in medieval Banat is also well-documented. Local noblemen practised falconry.  
  Vineyards existed at Ciortea, Banatska Subotica and Recaș. Water mills functioned along the rivers Nera, Caraș, Bârzava and Pogăniș. Mills yielded significant income to the noblemen, because the peasants were to grind their wheat there. The Himffys earned a yearly income of 5,5 florins from the mills in their domain at Remetea. In 1372, Louis I prescribed that the peasants along the Timiș were to be use the royal mills. The iron mines in the Dognecea Mountains were the monarchs' property. Regional fairs held at "Bodugazonfalwa" (near Cenad), Semlac, Veliko Središte and other villages were mentioned in 14th-century royal charters. Timișoara and Lipova were the most prosperous towns in Banat. 
  Local noblemen invited "guest settlers" to their estates, granting them tax exemption for three years and the right to free movement. The Cuman Ispán Kondam settled peasants at Beba Veche and at "Halazmortva" (near Senta in Serbia) in 1321, the Telegdis invited "guest settlers" to their five villages in 1337. Notable people also moved to Banat during the 14th century. Ladislaus Jánki, Archbishop of Kalocsa, conducted negotiations with one Voivode Bogdan, son of Mikola, on King Charles's behalf about the movement of the voivode and his people "from his country" (Serbia or Wallachia) to Hungary between the autumn of 1334 and the summer of 1335. Charles I's son, Louis I of Hungary, granted more than ten villages near the Recaș River to the six sons of a Wallachian lord, who had "left all their estates and goods" in their homeland after a conflict between King Louis and Nicholas Alexander of Wallachia.
  Royal charters from the 14th century evidence that Vlachs (or Romanians) were present in Banat. The first recorded place name of Romanian origin was mentioned on a list of the Telegdis' villages in Arad County in 1337. By the end of the century, a dozen Vlach districts were mentioned in Banat. The Vlachs' local leaders, who were titled either as knezes or voivodes, were mentioned from around 1350. Their residences and the Orthodox churches built in their estates can archaeologically be documented from the same century. At Reșița a dwelling tower was erected on a hill, at Berzovia a wooden manor was built on a hill near the Bârzava River in the second half of the century. Written sources do not reveal which Orthodox bishopric had jurisdiction over the Orthodox parishes in Banat.
  The Orthodox Vlachs were not required to pay the tithe which was payable by all Catholic peasants to the Church. In 1328, Pope John XXII stated that the obligatory payment of tithes was one of the main obstacles of the conversion of non-Catholics (including Cumans and Vlachs) in Hungary. The Vlachs paid a special in kind tax, the quinquagesima (or "fiftieth") after their sheep, which shows that sheep-breeding was their principal e
caption: The counties in Banat and the neighboring territories around 1370
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