ored by the brothers Peter and Asan,
under the best and bravest kings of the family of Asanidae, until the
year 1285, when it was disturbed, but not destroyed, by the inroads of
the Tartars. After the Turks had begun to make irruptions into the
European provinces, in the fourteenth century, it was brought under the
yoke by the Sultan Bajazet towards the close of that century, and wholly
annihilated in the year 1392.'

Down to this period (the middle of the fourteenth century) we have been
necessarily compelled to speak loosely of the territories which were
overrun and held by the various barbarian races, for there is no clear
information concerning the limits of their occupation; but henceforward
our record will deal chiefly with Roumania as at present constituted.
The Wallacho-Bulgarian monarchy, whatever may have been its limits, was
annihilated by a horde of Tartars about A.D. 1250. The same
race committed great havoc in Hungary, conquered the Kumani, overran
Moldavia, Transylvania, &c., and held their ground there until about the
middle of the fourteenth century, when they were driven northward by the
Hungarian, Saxon, and other settlers in Transylvania; and with their
exit we have done with the barbarians.

[Footnote 126: He calls himself 'Calojohannes Imperator Blacorum et
Bulgarorum,' which Lauriani translates 'Kaiser der _Romaenen_ und
Bulgaren,' Emperor of the Roumanians, &c. In this and the preceding
letter the reader has illustrations of the bias which weakens the
evidence of alleged facts in Roumanian history. Those writers who are
unwilling to concede Roman descent to the people make no mention of such
expressions as that used by Innocent concerning their ancestry, whilst
the patriotic native historians use license in translation in order to
improve their position.]

[Footnote 127: In the Bull they are called 'Imperatores totius
Bulgariae,' which Lauriani (p. 56) unfairly translates 'Die Kaiser von
ganz Bulgarien und Romaenien' (Emperors of all Bulgaria _and
Roumania!_).]

CHAPTER XI.

FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES, BETWEEN THE MIDDLE OF THE
THIRTEENTH AND OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURIES TO THE ACCESSION OF MICHAEL
THE BRAVE, A.D. 1593.

State of the country at, the close of the barbarian era--Foundation
of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia--Traditions of Radu
Negru and Bogdan Dragosch--Historical evidence--Description of the
various rulerships in Wallach