Balc ( hu, Balk) was, according to many historians (''e.g.'',

Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol (; March 23, 1847, Iaşi – February 27, 1920, Bucharest) was a Romanian historian, philosopher, professor, economist, sociologist, and author. Among his many major accomplishments, he is the Romanian historian cred ...

, Ştefan Pascu), the third ''

voivode Voivode (, also spelled ''voievod'', ''voevod'', ''voivoda'', ''vojvoda'' or ''wojewoda'') is a title denoting a military leader or warlord in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe since the Early Middle Ages. It primarily referred to the me ...

'' of

Moldavia Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centr ...

, ruling in ca. 1359 or 1364, but the sequence of the ''voivode''s listed in the Slavo-Romanian chronicles does not refer to him. He was the son of

Sas SAS or Sas may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''SAS'' (novel series), a French book series by Gérard de Villiers * ''Shimmer and Shine'', an American animated children's television series * Southern All Stars, a Japanese rock ba ...

, the second ''voivode'' of Moldavia. Although Balc was the legitimate pretender to the throne,

Bogdan Bogdan or Bohdan (Cyrillic: Богдан) is a Slavic masculine name that appears in all Slavic countries as well as Romania and Moldova. It is derived from the Slavic words '' Bog/Boh'' (Cyrillic: Бог), meaning "god", and ''dan'' (Cyrillic: ...

, who had been ''voivode'' in

Maramureș Maramureș or Marmaroshchyna ( ro, Maramureș ; uk, Мармарощина, Marmaroshchyna; hu, Máramaros) is a geographical, historical and cultural region in northern Romania and western Ukraine. It is situated in the northeastern Carpath ...

, crossed the

Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretches ...

into Moldavia possibly immediately after the death of Sas, before Balc was able to consolidate his reign. In Moldavia, Bogdan joined local forces opposed to the Hungarian monarchy. Balc fought valiantly at the head of his men, but he was severely wounded and lost several members of his family and retinue. Following his defeat, Balc fled Moldavia for Hungary. According to a diploma issued on February 2, 1365, King

Louis I of Hungary Louis I, also Louis the Great ( hu, Nagy Lajos; hr, Ludovik Veliki; sk, Ľudovít Veľký) or Louis the Hungarian ( pl, Ludwik Węgierski; 5 March 132610 September 1382), was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1342 and King of Poland from 1370 ...

(1342–1382) gave Cuhea and other possessions in

to Balc and his brothers for their faith towards their sovereign and particularly for their devoted behavior in Moldavia. The domains around Cuhea had belonged to Bogdan, but the king had confiscated them in order to compensate Balc and his brothers for the loss of the state east of the Carpathians. Later, Balc became the head of Szatmár ''(Sătmar)'',

Ugocsa Ugocsa was an administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is now in north-western Romania () and western Ukraine (). The capital of the county was Nagyszőllős (now Vynohradiv, Ukraine). Geography Ugocsa county ...

and Máramaros ''(Maramureș)'' counties in the Kingdom of Hungary, and he was also invested with the title of

Count of the Székelys The Count of the Székelys ( hu, székelyispán, la, comes Sicolorum) was the leader of the Hungarian-speaking Székelys in Transylvania, in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. First mentioned in royal charters of the 13th century, the counts wer ...

References

Sources

*Engel, Pál: ''Magyarország világi archontológiája (1301-1457)'' /The Temporal Archontology of Hungary (1301–1457)/; História - MTA Történettudományi Intézete, 1996, Budapest; . *Spinei, Victor: ''Moldavia in the 11th-14th Centuries''; Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1986, Bucharest *Treptow, Kurt W. – Popa, Marcel: ''Historical Dictionary of Romania'' (the list ''‘Rulers of Romania – Moldavia’''); The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1996, Lanham (Maryland, US) & Folkestone (UK); *Vásáry, István: ''Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185-1365''; Cambridge University Press, 2005, Cambridge; {{DEFAULTSORT:Balc Of Moldavia House of Dragoș 1399 deaths 14th-century Hungarian people Counts of the Székelys Rulers of Moldavia Romanians in Hungary Year of birth unknown Medieval Hungarian nobility