Cultural and Technological Innovations Around 1300 The…

The Árpád dynasty in the male line dies with King Andrew III on January 4, 1301.

Charles' partisans take him to Esztergom, where the Archbishop Gregory Bicskei crowns him with an occasional crown because the Holy Crown of Hungary is guarded by his opponents.

The majority of the magnates of the kingdom, however, do not accept his rule and …

…proclaim Wenceslaus, the son of Wenceslaus II of Bohemia, king.

The young Wenceslaus, accepting the election, becomes engaged to the late King’s daughter and is crowned with the Holy Crown of Hungary in Székesfehérvár by Archbishop John of Kalocsa.

Wenceslaus and his father will never succeed in having more than a portion of Hungary submitted under their rule, however.

The reconstruction effort taken by Béla IV in the late thirteenth century and the fall of the Árpád Dynasty in 1301 have shifted significantly the locus of power in Hungary.

As the royal fortunes declined, rival magnates had carved out petty kingdoms, expropriated peasant land, and stiffened feudal obligations.

During the chaotic interregnum following the death, in 1301, of Endre III, “Andrew the Venetian,” and the consequent extinction of the Árpád line, local lords have used the fortresses built by Béla to defy royal power and rule over the various provinces.

Charles Robert, a grandson of Charles II, the Angevin king of Naples, had claimed the Hungarian throne immediately after Endre's death.

Other aspirants had included Bavaria's Duke Otto III and the son of Bohemia's Wenceslas II, but Charles Robert has had the advantage of the support of his uncle, Germany's Habsburg king Albert, and Pope Boniface VIII.

Theodore Svetoslav, following his coronation as Emperor of Bulgaria in 1300, seeks revenge for the Tatar attacks on the state in the previous twenty years.

The traitors are punished first, including his former benefactor, Patriarch Joakim III, who is found guilty of helping the enemies of the crown and executed.

Pursuing a ruthless course of action, the emperor punishes all who stand in his way.

The reign of Theodore Svetoslav is connected with the internal stabilization and pacification of Bulgaria, the end of Mongol overlordship, the reassertion of relatively effective central control over outlying provinces, and the recovery of portions of Thrace lost to Constantinople’s empire since the wars against Ivailo of Bulgaria.

Some noble factions, repelled by the new emperor's brutality, seek to replace him with other claimants to the throne, backed by Andronikos II.

A new claimant appears in the person of the sebastokratōr Radoslav Voïsil or Vojsil, from Sredna Gora, a brother of the former emperor Smilets, who is defeated, and captured by Theodore Svetoslav's uncle, the despotēs Aldimir (Eltimir), at Krăn in about 1301.

Moldavia, the area between the Carpathians and the Dnister, had been part of Cumania for almost too hundred years, starting with the second half of the eleventh century, until being disrupted by the Tatar invasion in 1241 and 1242.

As the Tatars conquered the area, the Cumans, who had been previously converted to Catholicism, had fled to Hungary and Bulgaria, leaving some traces behind, including some toponyms, such as Vaslui and Comăneşti.

Apart from Cumans and Tatars (who live especially between the Prut and Dnister), Moldavia has an increasingly larger Romanian population which had immigrated from both from Transylvania and Maramureş, as well as from the south (Muntenia and Bulgaria).

Other people living in Moldavia are the Alans (or Jassi, hence the name of the city of Iaşi) who are vassals of the Tatars; as well as the Brodnici, whose ethnicity is still unclear and a matter for debate.

The foundation of Moldavia occurs sometime in the early fourteenth century, following a colonization by Vlachs (Romanians) from Maramureş.

Its nucleus is located in what is now Bukovina, around the Moldova River, which gives the name to the principality.

The exact place where the Vlachs lived during the Dark Age is under debate, the main theories being the "continuity theory" which claims they lived around the Carpathian Mountains, away from the migrating tribes and the "migration theory" which says they lived south of the Danube and colonized the current territory of Romania between ninth and twelfth century.

The Romanians have settled in the hilly and wooded areas, but there are also Germans (Saxons) and Hungarians who have colonized the Eastern slopes of the Carpathians.

A migration of Transylvanian traders had preceded the founding of the principality: for instance, the cities of Baia (later, Moldavia's first capital), Suceava and Siret had been founded by Saxons.

The Csángó now living in western Moldavia are either the descendants of these Hungarian colonists or the other Magyarized populations (such as Cumans or Pechenegs) who had converted to Catholicism in the Diocese of Cumania.

The principality of Wallachia had been established in the eastern Balkans at the end of the thirteenth century.

Prior to the consolidation of a Wallachian state, its plains had been held by various migrating peoples, the last of them being the Pechenegs (around 900-1100) and Cumans, who had vanquished the Pechenegs through an alliance with Constantinople, the decisive battle being the Battle of Levounion.

The territories of eastern Wallachia and southern Moldavia had then been part of Cumania for more than one hundred and fifty years, the political power in the region being held by the various Cuman tribal chiefs.

The Cumans had begun to lose power in the region with the Hungarian expansion and especially during the 1241-1242 Mongol invasion of Europe, after which many of them had fled to Hungary.

The earliest document where the Romanians are reported to live in the region is the Kievan Primary Chronicle (1113) of Nestor, which mentions the Vlachs as fighting the Hungarians.

The next reference to Romanians is from Transylvania and dates from 1222, being a letter written by Andrew II of Hungary who had donated the land of Burzenland and gave privileges to the Teutonic Knights.

The area mentioned as being the Vlachs' is probably Făgăraş, one of the the traditional Romanian areas of Transylvania, for some time being ruled by Wallachian voivodes.

Just two years later, a 1242 document grants the Teutonic Knights the right to make use of the forest of the Vlachs and Pechenegs.

Oltenia, unlike Muntenia, was never part of Cumania, Cuman influence in this region being minimal.

The Banate of Severin had been founded in the 1230s as a territory of Hungary, the first ban, Luke, being mentioned in 1233.

In 1247, King Béla IV of Hungary had allowed the Knights Hospitaller to settle in Severin to defend the Hungarian borders against the invaders.

A diploma had given them Severin and other possessions pertaining to it, including the "knyazates of John and Farkas", but excluding the voivodate of Litovoi, which was to be left to the Vlachs who were holding it.

They had been allowed also to use the land beyond the Olt River ("Cumania"), with the exception of the Vlach voivodate of Seneslau, which had similar rights as Litovoi.

The Knights Hospitallers probably failed in their mission, as only a few years later, they disappeared from the region.

In the meantime, Litovoi had increased his power, rebelling in 1272 against the Hungarian King Ladislaus IV wanting to gain the territory of the Banate of Severin, an important strategic point.

The king had sent George, son of Simon, to fight against Litovoi, killing him in battle and capturing his brother, Bărbat, bringing him to the royal court.

Bărbat became Litovoi's successor, ruling his voivodate between 1285 and 1288.

The continuing weakening of the Hungarian state by further Mongol invasions and the fall of the Árpád dynasty in 1301 has opened the way for the unification of Wallachian polities, and to independence from Hungarian rule.

The Khilji Dynasty, an Indo-Afghan ruling dynasty that is made-up of mamluks (slaves), is the second Muslim dynasty to rule the Delhi Sultanate of India, ruling from 1290 over a large area in Indian subcontinent.

Having subjugated Gujarat, Sultan Alauddin Khilji has turned his attentions to Malwa, while also busy repelling the intermittent Mongol invasions that had begun in 1299.

A series of hard-fought, bloody sieges against strongly fortified centers begins with the capture of Ranthambore Fort in 1301.

Riots encouraged by the Mamluks break out in Egypt in 1301.

Many Jews and Christians, including all the Jews of Bilbays, are forcibly converted to Islam.

Giovanni Pisano often works in concert with his famous father, Nicola, but is solely responsible for the pulpit of the church of Sant' Andrea at Pistoia, completed in 1301.

Giovanni has crowded the pulpit’s relief panels with moving figures executed in a sinuous and lyrical style rooted in French Gothic sculpture.

In the “Crucifixion” panel in particular, the sculptor has achieved a dramatic and deeply emotional effect.