page_title: Romania in the Early Middle Ages
section_title: Gutthiuda: land of the Goths (c. 290–c. 455)
hierarchical_section_title: Romania in the Early Middle Ages / Late Roman Age / Gutthiuda: land of the Goths (c. 290–c. 455)
caption_attribution_description: English: Gutthiuda
context_page_description: The Early Middle Ages in Romania started with the withdrawal of the Roman troops and administration from Dacia province in the 270s. In the next millennium a series of peoples, most of whom only controlled two or three of the nearly ten historical regions that now form Romania, arrived. During this period, society and culture underwent fundamental changes. Town life came to an end in Dacia with the Roman withdrawal, and in Scythia Minor – the other Roman province in the territory of present-day Romania – 400 years later. Fine vessels made on fast potter's wheels disappeared and hand-made pottery became dominant from the 450s. Burial rites changed more than once from cremation to inhumation and vice versa until inhumation became dominant by the end of the 10th century.
  The East Germanic Goths and Gepids, who lived in sedentary communities, were the first new arrivals. The Goths dominated Moldavia and Wallachia from the 290s, and parts of Transylvania from the 330s. Their power collapsed under attacks by the nomadic Huns in 376. The Huns controlled Eastern and Central Europe from around 400, but their empire disintegrated in 454.
context_section_description: The Goths started penetrating into territories west of the river Dniester from the 230s. Two distinct groups separated by the river, the Thervingi and the Greuthungi, quickly emerged among them.  The one-time province of Dacia was held by "the Taifali, Victohali, and Thervingi" around 350.
  The Goths' success is marked by the expansion of the multiethnic "Sântana de Mureş-Chernyakhov culture". Settlements of the culture appeared in Moldavia and Wallachia at the end of the 3rd century, and in Transylvania after 330. These lands were inhabited by a sedentary population engaged in farming and cattle-breeding. Pottery, comb-making and other handicrafts flourished in the villages. Wheel-made fine pottery is a typical item of the period; hand-formed cups of the local tradition were also preserved. Plowshares similar to those made in nearby Roman provinces and Scandinavian-style brooches indicate trade contacts with these regions. "Sântana de Mureş-Chernyakhov" villages, sometimes covering an area exceeding 20 hectares (49 acres), were not fortified and consisted of two types of houses: sunken huts with walls made of wattle and daub and surface buildings with plastered timber walls. Sunken huts had for centuries been typical for settlements east of the Carpathians, but now they appeared in distant zones of the Pontic steppes.
  The multiethnic Gutthiuda was divided into smaller political units or kuni, each headed by tribal chiefs or reiks. In case of emergency, the tribal chiefs' council elected a supreme leader who was known as iudex regum ("judge of kings") by St Ambrose. Christian prisoners of war were the first missionaries among the Goths. Ulfilas, himself a descendant of a Cappadocian captive, was ordained bishop "of the Christians in the land of the Goths" in 341. Expelled from Gutthiuda during a persecution of Christians, Ulfilas settled in Moesia in 348.
  Gothic dominance collapsed when the Huns arrived and attacked the Thervingi in 376. Most of the Thervingi sought asylum in the Roman Empire, and were followed by large groups of Greuthungi and Taifali. All the same, significant groups of Goths stayed in the territories north of the Danube. For instance, Athanaric "retired with all his men to Caucalanda"—probably to the valley of the river Olt— from where they "drove out the Sarmatians". A hoard of Roman coins issued under Valentinian I and Valens suggests that the gates of the amphitheatre at Ulpia Traiana were blocked around the same time. The Pietroasele Treasure which was hidden around 450 also implies the presence of a Gothic tribal or religious leader in the lands between the Carpathians and the Lower Danube. It contains a torc bearing the inscription GUTANI O WI HAILAG, which is interpreted by Malcolm Todd as "God who protects the Goths, most holy and inviolate".
caption: Gutthiuda, the country of Thervingi
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