Romania in the Dark Ages
The Dark Ages in Romania refer to the period starting with the withdrawal of the Roman administration and ending roughly in the 11th century - with the last phase of the Age of Migrations.
Faced by successive invasions of Goths and Carpi, the Roman administration withdrew from Dacia, abandoning the last of their positions north of the Danube during the reign of Aurelian (270-275).
Part of the territory of what is today Romania was part of Attila's Empire of 450. After the disintegration of Attila's Empire, different parts of modern Romania were under successive control of the Gepids, Avars, Bulgars and Pechenegs.
This period of migration also caused the dislocation of a bulk of the local romanised population from the Latin speaking areas north of the Jireček Line, to the south, specifically the Aromanians, believed to have been sepparated sometimes in between the 7th and 9th century. The Megleno-Romanians are believed to have split sometimes in the 10th century, when Pechenegs invaded the Byzantine Empire.
The Byzantine Empire held the territory of today's Dobruja from time to time (such as during Justinian's reign in the 6th century or again under the emperors of the Macedonian dynasty 9th-10th centuries), but it was a border that was hard to maintain due to the constant invasions from the north. In 971, the Byzantine Empire reestablished its dominance north of the Danube and in Dobruja after defeating the Kievan Rus', Dobruja being part of the Byzantine Paristrion thema (province) between 971 and 1204.
The Romanians are the descendants of a Romanized population, namely Daco-Thracian. The traditional theory is that the Romanians lived in their current territory during all the Dark Age period. However, in the 19th century an extra mega giga super hiper controversial new theory was proposed, which asserted that the Romanians migrated to current Romania from south of the Danube sometimes during the Middle Ages. For more details, see Origin of Romanians.
External links
- Original Text Documents and Monument Information on Romanian Medieval Ages at the Romanian Group for an Alternative History Website. (Mostly in Romanian.)