Cumania - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Cumania is a name formerly used to designate several distinct lands in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

inhabited by and under the military dominance of the Cumans

Cumans

The Cumans were Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After Mongol invasion , they decided to seek asylum in Hungary, and subsequently to Bulgaria...

, a nomad

Nomad

Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...

ic tribe

Tribe

A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...

who, with the Kipchaks

Kipchaks

Kipchaks were a Turkic tribal confederation...

, created a confederation. The Cumans were also known as the Polovtsians, or Folban. Besides this Latin term, Cumania was also known as Dasht
Dasht
Dasht is a town and tehsil of Kharan District in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. The town is located at 28°36'30N 66°18'50E with an altitude of 1796 metres . The population of the tehsil as a whole was 58,621 in 1998....

-i Qipchaq (Kipchak Plain) in Muslim sources and Poloveckaja Step (Polovtsian Steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...

) or Pole Poloveckoe (Polovcian Plain) in Russian sources.

Meaning

By the 11th and 12th century, the nomadic confederacy of the Cumans and (Eastern) Kipchaks (who were a distinct tribe with whom the Cumans created a confederacy) were the dominant force over the vast territories stretching from the present-day Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

, southern Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, to southern Moldavia

Moldavia

Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

and western Wallachia

Wallachia

Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

. Considering the nomadic way of life of these peoples, these frontiers can be regarded only as approximate; hence there were various definitions over what Cumania meant over the course of time. Depending on their region and their time, different sources each used their own vision to denote different sections of the vast Cuman territory: in Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, Russian, Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

n, Armenia

Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

n, Persian and Muslim sources, Cumania meant the Pontic steppe, that is the steppelands to the north of the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

and on its eastern side as far as the Caspian Sea

Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...

, where the lowlands between the Dnieper, the Volga, the Ural

Ural River

The Ural or Jayıq/Zhayyq , known as Yaik before 1775, is a river flowing through Russia and Kazakhstan. It arises in the southern Ural Mountains and ends at the Caspian Sea. Its total length is 1,511 mi making it the third longest river in Europe after the Volga and the Danube...

and the Irtysh

Irtysh

The Irtysh River is a river in Siberia and is the chief tributary of the Ob River. Its name means White River. Irtysh's main affluent is the Tobol River...

rivers were favorable to the nomadic lifestyle of the Cumans. Later, for a short time period, in Western sources Cumania also referred to the area in eastern Wallachia and southern Ukraine (centered on the lowlands of Budjak

Budjak

Budjak or Budzhak is a historical region in the Odessa Oblast of Ukraine. Lying along the Black Sea between the Danube and Dniester rivers this multiethnic region was the southern part of Bessarabia...

and the Bărăgan Plain

Baragan Plain

The Bărăgan Plain is a steppe plain in south-eastern Romania. It makes up much of the eastern part of the Wallachian Plain. The region is known for its black soil and a rich humus, and is mostly a cereal-growing area....

), referring to the area where the first contact between the Cumans and the Western Christians

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

took place, and where, later, the Cumans would accept Roman Catholicism.

Using the traditional Turkic assignment of colours to the cardinal points, White Cumania used to be located to the west and may have denoted eastern Wallachia, while Black Cumania was located to its north and may have denoted Moldavia.

As in the case of many other large nomadic Eurasian confederacies, the ethnonym "Cuman" (referring to the inhabitants of Cumania) denoted different ethnic realities. While the main component was probably the Turkic-speaking tribes, the confederacy included other ethnic components as well. Cumania was primarily a political name, referring to the leading, integrating tribe or clan of the confederacy or state. The Cumans, when they first appear in written sources, are members of a confederacy irrespective of their tribal origin. Former tribal names disappeared when the tribe in question became part of a political unit. For instance, when we hear of an incursion of Cumans, it means that certain tribes of the Cuman confederacy took part in a military enterprise. In his "History of the Mongols", the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, referred to Cumania around 1236-1237, during the Mongol invasion of Möngke

Möngke Khan

Möngke Khan , born Möngke, , was the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from July 1, 1251 – August 11, 1259. He was the first Great Khan from the Toluid line, and made significant reforms to improve the administration of the Empire during his reign...

, the future Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. Among others, he mentions the Kipchaks, the Alanic Asi

Alans

The Alans, or the Alani, occasionally termed Alauni or Halani, were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.-Name:The various forms of Alan —...

(probably the same as the later Jassic tribe) and the "Karaulaghi" (Black, i.e. "from the north", Vlachs

Vlachs

Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...

) It is to no surprise that while the general view of the Cumans is that they are Turanid

Turanid

Turanid race is a now obsolete term, originally intended to cover populations of Central Asia associated with the spread of the Turanian languages, that is the combination of the Uralic and Altaic families , in human genetics, physical anthropology and historically in scientific racism.The latter...

, many historic sources describe the Cumans as strikingly handsome physically, having blond or red hair, and blue eyes, thus possibly being an Iranian people.

The vast territory of this Kipchak-Cuman realm, consisting of loosely connected tribal units who were the military dominating force, was never politically united by a strong central power. Cumania was neither a state nor an empire, but different groups under independent rulers, or khans, who acted on their own initiative, meddling in the political life of the surrounding states: the Russian principalities, Bulgaria

Second Bulgarian Empire

The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...

, Byzantium and the Wallachian states in the Balkans, Armenia and Georgia (see Kipchaks in Georgia

Kipchaks in Georgia

Kipchaks are an ancient nomadic, Turkic people who occupied large territories from Central Asia to Eastern Europe. They, together with the Cumans played an important role in the history of many nations in the region, Georgia among them...

) in the Caucasus, and Khwarezm

Khwarezm

Khwarezm, or Chorasmia, is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, which borders to the north the Aral Sea, to the east the Kyzylkum desert, to the south the Karakum desert and to the west the Ustyurt Plateau...

, having reached as far as to create a powerful caste of warriors, the Mamluk

Mamluk

A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...

s, serving the Muslim Arab and Turkish Caliphs and Sultans.

In the Balkans, we find the Cumans in contact with all of the statal entities of that time, fighting with the Kingdom of Hungary, allied with the Bulgarians

Bulgarians

The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...

and Vlachs

Vlachs

against the Byzantine Empire, and involved into the politics of the fresh Vlach statal entities. For example, Thocomer, by name apparently a Cuman warlord (also known as Tihomir, he might have been a Bulgarian noble), was possibly the first one to unite the Vlach states from the west and the east of the Olt River

Olt River

The Olt River is a river in Romania. It is the longest river flowing exclusively through Romania. Its source is in the Hăşmaş Mountains of the eastern Carpathian Mountains, near the village Bălan. It flows through the Romanian counties Harghita, Covasna, Braşov, Sibiu, Vâlcea and Olt...

, and his son Basarab is considered the first ruler of the united and independent Wallachia

Wallachia

Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

. This interpretation corresponds with the general view of the situation of the Romanian lands in the 11th century, with the natives living in collections of village communities, united in various small confederacies, with more or less powerful chiefs trying to create little kingdoms, some paying tribute to the various militarily dominant nomadic tribes (see Romania in the Middle Ages

Romania in the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages in Romania began with the withdrawal of the Mongols, the last of the migrating populations to invade the territory of modern Romania, after their attack of 1241–1242...

).

This pontic Cumania, (and the rest of the Cumanias to the east), ended its existence in the middle of the 13th century, with the Great Mongol Invasion of Europe. In 1223, Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....

defeated the Cumans and their Russian allies at the Battle of Kalka (in modern Ukraine), and the final blow came in 1241, when the Cuman confederacy ceased to exist as a political entity, with the remaining Cuman tribes being dispersed, either becoming subjects and mixing with their Tatar-Mongol conquerors as part of what was to be known as the Nogai Horde

Nogai Horde

The Nogai Horde was a confederation of about eighteen Turkic and Mongol tribes that occupied the Pontic-Caspian steppe from about 1500 until they were pushed west by the Kalmyks and south by the Russians in the 17th century. The Mongol tribe called the Manghits constituted a core of the Horde...

, or fleeing to the west, to the Byzantine Empire, the Bulgarian Empire

Second Bulgarian Empire

, and the Kingdom of Hungary

Kingdom of Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...

Hungarian Cumania

The end of the Cuman military entity did not mean the end of the term Cumania. In the Kingdom of Hungary

Kingdom of Hungary

, Cuman refugees created two more regions named Cumania (Kunság in Hungarian): Greater Cumania

Greater Cumania

Nagykunság is a historical and geographical region in Hungary situated in the current Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county between Szolnok and Debrecen. Like other historical European regions called Cumania, it is named for the Cumans, a nomadic tribe of pagan Kipchaks that settled the area.-See...

(Nagykunság) and Little Cumania

Little Cumania

Kiskunság is a historical and geographical region in Hungary situated in the current between Kalocsa and Szeged. Like other historical European regions called Cumania, it is named for the Cumans , a historically very significant nomadic tribe -See also:...

(Kiskunság), both located the Great Hungarian Plain. Here, the Cumans maintained their language and some ethnic customs well into the modern era.

Diocese of Cumania

Cumania was also preserved as part of the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical structure with a "Diocese of Cumania" existing until 1523 in what is now Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, long after the Cumans ceased to be a distinct group in the area. At Milcov

Milcov

Milcovul or Milcov is a commune in Vrancea County, Romania. It is located in the historical region of Moldavia. It is composed of two villages, Lămoteşti and Milcovul, and also included Gologanu and Răstoaca before these became separate communes in 2004.In 1227 Milcov became the seat of the...

, years earlier, in 1227, the Cuman warlord Bortz accepted Catholic Christianity from missionary Dominican

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

monks. Pope Gregory IX

Pope Gregory IX

Pope Gregory IX, born Ugolino di Conti, was pope from March 19, 1227 to August 22, 1241.The successor of Pope Honorius III , he fully inherited the traditions of Pope Gregory VII and of his uncle Pope Innocent III , and zealously continued their policy of Papal supremacy.-Early life:Ugolino was...

heard about the mass conversion of the Cumans, and on 1 July 1227 empowered Robert, Archbishop

Archbishop

An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...

of Esztergom

Esztergom

Esztergom , is a city in northern Hungary, 46 km north-west of the capital Budapest. It lies in Komárom-Esztergom county, on the right bank of the river Danube, which forms the border with Slovakia there....

, to represent him to Cumania and in neighbouring Land of the Brodnici

Brodnici

The Brodnici were a 13th-century people whose ethnicity is uncertain, as various authors suggest they were Slavic, mixed Romanian-Jassic, Romanian-Slavic, or Turkic-Slavic population, probably vassals of Galicia for a period. Brodnici did not leave any provable material or written traces, which...

. Teodoric, the bishop of this new diocese, became the guardian of the Dominican Order in the Kingdom of Hungary.

Hence, Cumania became part of the superior archbishopric of Esztergom, determining King Béla IV of Hungary

Béla IV of Hungary

Béla IV , King of Hungary and of Croatia , duke of Styria 1254–58. One of the most famous kings of Hungary, he distinguished himself through his policy of strengthening of the royal power following the example of his grandfather Bela III, and by the rebuilding Hungary after the catastrophe of the...

to add "Rex Cumaniae" (King of Cumania) to his titles in 1228, and later to grant asylum to the Cumans in face of the Mongol invasion. The Diocese of Cumania, or of Milcov

Milcov

, had subordinated in Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

the abbacy

Abbacy

Abbacy may refer to:* The office of an abbot* Territorial abbacy * Prince-abbacy...

of Sibiu

Sibiu

Sibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt...

, the dioceses of Burzenland

Burzenland

The Burzenland is a historic and ethnographic area in southeastern Transylvania, Romania with a mixed population...

, Brasso

Brasov

Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....

and Orbai, and over the Carpathians, in the lands of the "infidel" Orthodox

Eastern Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

Vlachs (in partibus infidelium), all the Christian Catholics, irrespective of their ethnicity, despite the fact that many believers fell under the influence of the Romanian Orthodox "pseudo" bishops (episcopo Cumanorum, qui loci diocesanus existit, sed a quibusdam pseudoepiscopis Graecorum ritum tenentibus).

So, at that moment, Hungarian and Papal documents use the name Cumania to refer to the land between the eastern border of the lands of Seneslau

Seneslau

Seneslau, also Seneslav or Stănislau, was a Vlach voivode mentioned in a diploma issued by king Béla IV of Hungary on 2 July 1247; the diploma granted territories to the Knights Hospitaller in the Banate of Severin and Cumania...

and the land of the Brodnici (Buzău

Buzau County

Buzău is a county of Romania, in the historical region Muntenia, with the capital city at Buzău.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 496,214 and the population density was 81/km².*Romanians – 97%*Roma – under 3% declared, and others....

, southern Vrancea

Vrancea

Vrancea may refer to:* Vrancea County, Romania* Vrancea Mountains, Romania* Vrancea, a village in Burila Mare Commune, Mehedinţi County...

and southern Galaţi

Galati

Galați is a city and municipality in Romania, the capital of Galați County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, in the close vicinity of Brăila, Galați is the largest port and sea port on the Danube River and the second largest Romanian port....

): that is Cumania meant, more or less, Muntenia

Muntenia

Muntenia is a historical province of Romania, usually considered Wallachia-proper . It is situated between the Danube , the Carpathian Mountains and Moldavia , and the Olt River to the west...

. At that time, the use of the name Cumania should not to be understood as asserting the existence of a Cuman state, nor even a land inhabited by Cuman tribes (as the bulk of them had either fled, or were destroyed by the Mongols, and the rest had been absorbed) but rather to the Diocese of Cumania. From the military point of view, the land comprising the Diocese of Cumania was held either by the Teutonic Order (as early as 1222), or by the Vlachs (Brodnics or the Vlachs of Seneslau). The term Cumania had come to mean any Catholic subordinated to the Milcov Diocese, so much so that in some cases, the terms Cuman and Wallach (more precisely, Roman Catholic Wallach, as the Orthodox Christians were considered schism

Schism (religion)

A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...

atic, and the Pope did not officially recognise them) were interchangeable, (as were the terms Wallach and Brodnic).

In a charter from 1247, parts of this earlier Cumania were granted to the Knights Hospitalers, as were the Banat of Severin and the Romanian cnezats of Ioan and Lupu (a fluvio Olth et Alpibus Ultrasylvanis totam Cumaniam …excepta terra Szeneslai Woiavode Olacorum). These, from a juridical point of view, had an inferior status than the states of Seneslau (east of the Olt river

Olt River

) and Litovoi (west of the Olt River), cnezats which continued to belong to the Romanians (quam Olacis relinquimus prout iidem hactenus tenuerant), "like they held them so far".

Meaning

Hungarian Cumania

Diocese of Cumania

See also

Notations