John, also Joan or Ioan, was a ''

cneaz A ''knez'' or ''kenez'' ( ro, cnez or ; hu, kenéz; la, kenezius) was the hereditary leader of the Vlach ( Romanian) communities, primarily in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that exi ...

'' (local chieftain or ruler) mentioned in the

Diploma of the Joannites The Diploma of the Joannites, or Diploma of the Knights of St. John, was a grant issued in 1247 by King Béla IV of Hungary, to Master Rembald of the Knights Hospitaller. It allowed the Knights to settle in Severin, in what is today Romania, where ...

issued by King

Béla IV of Hungary Béla IV (1206 – 3 May 1270) was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1235 and 1270, and Duke of Styria from 1254 to 1258. As the oldest son of King Andrew II, he was crowned upon the initiative of a group of influential noblemen in his fath ...

(1235–1270) on 2 July 1247; the diploma granted territories to the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headq ...

in the

Banate of Severin The Banate of Severin or Banate of Szörény ( hu, Szörényi bánság; ro, Banatul Severinului; la, Banatus Zewrinensis; bg, Северинско банство, ; sr, Северинска бановина, ) was a Hungarian political, mili ...

and ''

Cumania The name Cumania originated as the Latin exonym for the Cuman–Kipchak confederation, which was a tribal confederation in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe, between the 10th and 13th centuries. The confederation was dominated by two Tu ...

''. John held a '' kenazate'' which was given to the knights by the king. His ''kenazate'' lay in southern

Oltenia Oltenia (, also called Lesser Wallachia in antiquated versions, with the alternative Latin names ''Wallachia Minor'', ''Wallachia Alutana'', ''Wallachia Caesarea'' between 1718 and 1739) is a historical province and geographical region of Romania ...

. The diploma of Béla IV also refers to the ''kenazate''s of Farcaş and ''voivode'' Litovoi and to ''voivode''

Seneslau Seneslau, also Seneslav or Stănislau, was a Vlach ''voivode'' mentioned in the Diploma of the Joannites issued by king Béla IV of Hungary (1235–1270) on 2 July 1247. The diploma granted territories to the Knights Hospitaller in the Banate of Sev ...

. Seneslau and Litovoi are expressly said to be Vlachs ''(Olati)'' in the king's diploma. The Romanian historian Ioan-Aurel Pop suggests that the ''kenazate'' of John was one of the incipient Romanian states south of the Carpathian Mountains. In the diploma, his name is given in its

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

form ''(Johannes)'', and so contains no hint of the nationality of its bearer.

References

Sources

*Pop, Ioan Aurel: ''Romanians and Romania: A Brief History''; Columbia University Press, 1999, New York; *Rady, Martyn: ''Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary''; Palgrave (in association with School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London), 2000, New York; *Spinei, Victor: ''The Romanians and the Turkic Nomads North of the Danube Delta from the Tenth to the Mid-Thirteenth Century''; Brill, 2009, Leiden and Boston; *Treptow, Kurt W. - Popa, Marcel: ''Historical Dictionary of Romania'' (part ''‘Historical Chronology’''); Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1996, Lanham and Folkestone; *Vásáry, István: ''Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185-1365''; Cambridge University Press, 2005, Cambridge; {{ISBN, 0-521-83756-1 Medieval Romanian nobility 13th-century Romanian people 13th-century Hungarian people

See also

References

Sources