Sources about Vlachs, Written sources about vlachs before 10 c

Practically direct written sources about vlachs appear once with the Asen brothers revolt against bizantines. This is somehow abnormal, considering a series of factors:
- they were the only inheritors of romance language in balkans
- their number was rather, since later they will asimilate large parts of slavs, cumans,...
- is likely they were not an unimportant population, since they started anti-bizantine revolt.
How do you see this lack of written sources? There was a neglection of historians? The areeas vlachs lived(highlands) were considered out of the subjects, and, in consequence, vlachjs were considered unimportant and/or unknown? The sources were destrouyed in early middle age, for different interests? The sources were destroyed in latter middle age, for different interests?....

Some of the sources were surely destoyed with no interest at all but simply by wars, riots and so on. The theory of conspiracy that someone in Middle Ages destroyed deliberatelly the written sources about vlachs or romanians is a paranoic idea.

According to Wikipedia there are a few earlier mentions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlachs
See the "history" section of that article.

In my opinion, it is difficult to find mentions of Vlachs when you are looking for them as if they were and independent autonomous group that was separate from Byzantium. The historic truth is that the Vlachs (and the Romanian Principalities in general) were closely tied in with Byzantium and the Ottoman empire that followed it. So, if you research the history of Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire you will find a wealth of data about the territories that form today's Romania.

The reason why there are few mentions of events that happened 1000 years ago is simply to do with age and time and the effect they have on written documents. The further you go back in time, the scarcer is the information about anything. Unless it is carved in stone, any written stuff simply vanishes with time - paper/parchment/vellum are notoriously fragile (and even stone gets damaged with time). It is extremely unusual for any document to survive for more than 1000 years. Most of the documentary evidence that we have going back to those days are copies of copies of copies handmade by scribes. All it takes is a moment of fleeting carelessness for a page to go missing or be ignored by a scribe and there goes a chunk of history.
Most of the times, such documents existed in one single copy. If that got damaged by a fire or flood before a scribe got a chance to copy it, it was gone. It was only when the moving type was invented that it was possible for documents to be duplicated and thus increase their chances of survival increased. Even so, making multiple copies did not ensure survival. Here is an example: Everyone knows about Shakespeare. It is believed that less than 250 copies of Shakespeare's Original Folio exist today, almost 400 years later and all of them are preserved and extremely well guared. Most of them are third or fourth editions. There is only one copy of the first edition, which was printed a few years after Shakespeare's death by two of his closest associates who put it together from play and rehearsal notes (no hand-written Shakespeare playscript exists). So, it is an absolute miracle that we know any of Shakespeare's plays. He (possibly the best known man in the world) is a mystery and thick books were written trying to figure out who he was (or if he existed at all). I am not trying to veer this "off topic" - all I am trying to say is that all we know about Shakespeare is a whole lot of myth and hear'say that was passed on to us by others. Same goes about anything to do with the humanity's past.

HTH
Radu

There are many sources. Byzantine sources are rich in references about the Vlachs. Father Dumitru Staniloae dealt with this problem. And is not alone.

http://foaienationala.ro/biblioteca/fontes...ii-iii-iv/.html

http://foaienationala.ro/imparatii-traco-i...straromani.html

http://foaienationala.ro/scrieri-despre-in...i-romaniei.html

http://foaienationala.ro/straromanii-in-secolele-iii-iv.html

http://foaienationala.ro/romania-sau-imper...-la-bizant.html

http://foaienationala.ro/teologia-istoriei...i-romanesc.html

http://foaienationala.ro/pr-mihai-andrei-a...romanilor”.html

This post has been edited by MRX on April 28, 2011 09:51 am

As a curiosity, here is the prayer "Our Father" in the Celtic language of Wales in the sixteenth century:

"Poerinthele nostru acela ce esti în cheri
Svintzascoese numele teu
Vie emperetzioe ta
Facoesa voe ta,cum en tzer ase şi pre poementu
Poene noastre datorii le nostre, cum şi ni se loesoem datorniczilor noştri
Si nu dutze pre noi la ispitire
Tze ne mentueste pre noi de vicleanil. Amin!"

It is sure in Celtic language??!!! It is not a translation in old romanian language, from Celtic? Cos is extremelly well resembling with romanian language from modern period!! What is the source of this praying?

That is most definitely not Welsh.

Here is the Welsh version:
Ein Tad, yr hwn wyt yn y nefoedd,
Sancteiddiei dy Enw.
Deued dy deyrnas.
Bydd dy ewyllys ar y ddaear, megis yn y nef.
Dyno i ni heddiw ein bara beunyddiol.
A maddau i ni ein dyledion,
Fel y maddeuwn ni i'n dyledwy^r.
Ac nac arwain ni i brofedigaeth;
Eithi gwared ni rhag drwg.
Amen

Here is the Irish (Gaelic) version:
Ár n-Athair atá ar neamh,
Go naofar d'ainim,
Go dtagfadh do ríocht,
Go ndéantar do thoil ar an talamh mar a dhéantar ar neamh.
Ár n-arán laethúil tabhair dúinn inniu,
agus maith dúinn ár bhfiacha
mar a mhaithimidne dár bhféichiúna féin
Ach ná lig sinn i gcathú,
ach saor sinn ó olc,
Amen.

For curiosity's sake, here is the Aromanian version:
Ciace nostru
Ciace nostru car le şti en cer,
neca se sveta nomelu teu,
Neca venire craliestvo to. Neca fie volia ta,
cum en cer, aşa şi pre pemint.
Pera nostre saca zi de nam astez.
Odproste nam dutzan,
ca şi noi odprostim a lu nostri dutznici.
Neca nu na tu vezi en napastovanie,
neca na zbăveşte de zvaca slabe.
Amin.

HTH
Radu

Source is a work of Edward Chamberlayne of Odington, Gloucestershire, english historical and miscellaneous writer (1616 - 1703), author of Angliae Notitia (Magnae Britanniae Notitia), published and republished between 1661 and 1745, and probably later, and then resumed by Bogdan Petriceicu Haşdeu in 1875, Augustin Deac (History of historical truth - 2001) and Paul Lazar Tonciulescu (Ramania, paradise found - 2007).

I don't think is pure fantesist ideea, i think it was perfect probable. But, probably the reasons were pure pragmatic ones: land owning. Probable it was an usual practic-unfortunately vlachs didn't riposted(writtings)

Then was about an early romanian emigrants in walles

MRX: I wouldnt relly very much on what Paul Lazar Tonciulescu writed. He is from "Tărtăria" current. Nothing more to say about him ...

Valium: from early Middle Ages almost to modern era, romanians were reknown for "jus vallahicum": the oral transmision of the law and rights, recognised by all foreigners. So, wallachians didnt write or writed extremelly less. That's why (at least in Transylvania) romanians went so easily serfs and romanian nobility disapeared very soon (around XIVth century) when a better organised power (hungarian state) went with papers. Jus vallahicum was canceled by written papers of a overlapped power.

In XVIIIth-XIXth century, romanian peasants still called their knighting letters "scrisori pe piele de câine" showing how much value they gaved to written words.

(The Middle Age transylvanian-hungarian case is the one I know, not intented to spark hungarian-romanian discussions or controversials).

That's a misconception, or misleading interpretation.
The scripts on dog's skin were actually very valuable (and rare), officially accepted documents. So the Rumanian ethnics in Transylvania (as everybody else) who received such pergamens had actually no real reason to belittle them.
See also here: http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kutyab%C5%91r [in Hungarian]

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on April 28, 2011 05:35 pm

I know this, and I really believe valachians didnt write anything...
The main question is why are not sources about them in bizantine, or western sources?
Should be a clue valachians were faraway from both? Would bizantines destroyed their own sources? We know Asen brothers were, before their revolts, rather bizantine subjects
Nevethenless, the only source, is Anonimus, an hungarian...
On the other hand, bulgarians lacked the sources on their own, so, what about vlachs?!

That's a misconception, or misleading interpretation.
The scripts on dog's skin were actually very valuable (and rare), officially accepted documents. So the Rumanian ethnics in Transylvania (as everybody else) who received such pergamens had actually no real reason to belittle them.
See also here: http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kutyab%C5%91r [in Hungarian]

Gen. Dénes

I might be wrong, seeing as peiorative the term of scrisori pe piele de caine. I still wonder why the dog skin was so valued in the era.

This post has been edited by 21 inf on April 28, 2011 06:17 pm

There are sources before Anonymus. Constantin Porfirogenetul wrote about the teritories from north of Danube. Some of them might point wallachians. I often saw that some people said that there are no sources about wallachians in a certain period: are the wallachians the only case, especially on early Middle Ages? I believe not, but we didnt compared the number of sources for other nations from the same period. Maybe if we look to others also, we'll see they also dont have many writings to remind about them.

For comparison, detractors of dacian rules of romanian language, says that only a very small number of words in romanian might be of dacian origins, the rest being greatly of slav origin. Very few romanians (or others) maybe studied that the phenomenon is the same for spanish and french language. The same little percent of iberic and celtic words are to be found in both this languages, but fewer contested the origins of spanish and french. And the french have a name of a german population, not even a celt or latin one! All this 3 languages have a stratum, a 1st superstratum and a 2nd superstratum: stratum - dacian, iberic and celtic, a latin 1st superstratum for all 3 and a later different 2nd superstratum, which is slav for romanians and other for spanish and french.