Medieval Transylvania: Voivodeship, Nobles and Serfs

In the Middle Ages Transylvania was an autonomous voivodeship within the Kingdom of Hungary. It was headed by the voivode, appointed by the king, who held administrative, military and judicial powers. Romanians formed the majority, but were gradually excluded from political life. Besides the Romanians, Hungarians, Székelys and Saxons lived in Transylvania. The Romanians were organized in knezates and districts, led by knezes, who served as judges and defenders of the community. In the 13th–14th centuries some of the knezes were integrated into the Hungarian nobility, on condition that they convert to Catholicism.

John Hunyadi (c. 1407–1456), of Romanian origin, became one of the most important figures of south-eastern Europe. He was voivode of Transylvania, ban of Severin and, between 1446 and 1453, governor of Hungary. As a general, he waged a tenacious struggle against Ottoman expansion. In 1442 he won important victories at Sântimbru and at the Iron Gates of Transylvania, and in 1443 he led the “Long Campaign” in the Balkans. He was defeated at Varna in 1444 and at Kosovo in 1448, but he remained a symbol of Christian resistance.

Hunyadi’s greatest triumph was the defence of Belgrade in July 1456, where he defeated the army of Sultan Mehmed II. The success halted the Ottoman advance towards Central Europe for half a century. It was so important that the Pope ordered the church bells to be rung at noon, a custom preserved to this day. Hunyadi died of plague on 11 August 1456, shortly after the victory. His son, Matthias Corvinus, was elected king of Hungary by the nobility in 1458 and reigned until 1490 as one of the greatest monarchs of his age.

The position of the Romanians of Transylvania worsened. In 1437 Romanian and Hungarian peasants rose up at Bobâlna, aggrieved by the excessive taxes imposed by Bishop George Lépes. In the wake of the uprising, the Hungarian nobles, the Saxons and the Székelys concluded an agreement at Căpâlna in 1438, called the Unio Trium Nationum (the Union of the Three Nations), directed against the peasants and their claims. The Romanians, as a nationality, remained outside this political system, and the Orthodox religion was merely tolerated. This fixed legal and political inequality for the centuries that followed.

In 1514 another uprising, led by György Dózsa, a Székely nobleman, swept across Hungary and Transylvania and was cruelly crushed by John Zápolya. After the Hungarians were defeated by the Ottomans at Mohács in 1526, the Hungarian kingdom fell apart, and in 1541 the Principality of Transylvania was established, under Ottoman suzerainty. The Principality had its own diets and kept a wide autonomy, but the Romanians, although the majority, were not recognized as a “nation” and remained excluded from political life. In time, this situation would give rise to their struggle for rights.