A ''knez'' or ''kenez'' ( ro, cnez or ; hu, kenéz; la, kenezius) was the hereditary leader of the
Vlach
"Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Easter ...
(
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
) communities, primarily in the medieval
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...
.
Terminology
Official documents, written in Latin, applied multiple terms when they mentioned the Vlach leaders (or chiefs) in the Kingdom of Hungary in the 13th and 14th centuries. The most widely used terms''kenezius'' and its variantsderived from the Slavic ''
knyaz'' ("ruler").
The office was closely associated with communities living according to the "
Vlach law
The Vlach law (, ro, legea românească, "Romanian law", or , "customs of the land", ) refers to the traditional Romanian common law as well as to various special laws and privileges enjoyed or enforced upon particularly pastoralist communities ...
", thus the term ''knez'' was replaced by the term ''
scultetus Scultetus or Sculteti is the Latinized form of German family names Schultheiß, Schulze, Schulte, etc.
Notable people of the surname include:
* Abraham Scultetus (1566–1625), German professor of theology
* Bartholomäus Scultetus (1540–161 ...
'' in the northeastern regions, where German law prevailed. A territory subjected to the authority of a ''knez'' was known as ''keneziatus'' (or ''keneziate''). Several ''keneziates'' formed a ''voivodate'', which was subjected to a higher official, the ''voivode''.
See also
* ''
Knyaz''
References
Sources
*
*
*
Conditional nobility (Kingdom of Hungary)
Medieval Romania
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