page_title: Romania in the Middle Ages
section_title: Establishment of Moldavia
hierarchical_section_title: Romania in the Middle Ages / High Middle Ages (1242–1396) / Establishment of Moldavia
caption_attribution_description: Română: Cetatea NeamțuluiEnglish: The Neamt Fortress This is a photo of a historic monument in județul Neamț, classified with number NT-II-m-A-10707
context_page_description: The Middle Ages in Romania began with the withdrawal of the Mongols, the last of the migrating populations to invade the territory of modern Romania, after their attack of 1241–1242. It came to an end with the reign of Michael the Brave who managed, for a short time in 1600, to rule Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania, the three principalities whose territories were to be united some three centuries later to form Romania.
  Over most of this period, Banat, Crişana, Maramureş, and Transylvania – now regions in Romania to the west of the Carpathian Mountains – were part of the Kingdom of Hungary. They were divided into several types of administrative units, such as "counties" and "seats". The heads of the Transylvanian counties or "counts" were subordinated to a special royal official called voivode, but the province was seldom treated as a single unit, since the Székely and Saxon seats were administered separately. In the kingdom, Romanian peasants, being Orthodox, were exempt from the tithe, an ecclesiastical tax payable by all Roman Catholic commoners.
context_section_description: After 1241 the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester was controlled by the Golden Horde.
  Nevertheless, the contemporary Thomas Tuscus's reference to the Romanians' conflict with the Ruthenians in 1277 suggests that Romanian political entities existed in northern Moldavia at that time. In 1345 Andrew Lackfi, the count of the Székelys led an army over the Carpathians and occupied this region where a border province was organized by Louis I of Hungary.
  Romanian historical tradition links the foundation of Moldavia to the "dismounting of Dragoş", a Romanian voivode from Maramureş. Although Dragoş was succeeded by his son, Sas, his line did not last long. His descendants were soon expelled by Bogdan, a former voivode of Maramureş who fled to Moldavia and joined with local boyars in a revolt.
  In Moldavia, agriculture and animal raising remained the principal economic activities. Similarly to Wallachia, wooden plow remained the main agricultural tool throughout the Middle Ages. The constant clearing of land shows that finding new land was still preferred to crop rotation. The establishment of the principality enhanced the security of travel, thus Moldavia could also profit from the transit trade between Poland and the Black Sea ports. The first local coins were minted in 1377, under Peter I Muşat (c. 1375–1391).
  The succession to the throne, similarly to Wallachia, was governed by the hereditary-elective principle. Thus either a legitimate or an illegitimate member of the Muşatin family could be proclaimed prince by an assembly of the boyars. In 1387 Peter I Muşat recognized Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland as his suzerain, but Hungary also maintained its claim of suzerainty over the principality. Therefore, the princes of Moldavia could counterbalance the influence of Poland and Hungary by playing one off against the other.
caption: Fortress at Neamţ
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