Mărturii asupra cnezilor din Banatul medieval de câmpie (secolul XIV – prima jumătate a secolului XV) / Testimony of the Knezes in the Medieval Plain Banat (14\ Century – First Half of the 15th Century)

Abstract

Our approach attempts to reconstruct, as much as the existing documentation allows, the trajectory of the Knezesof the medieval Banat for over a century, the temporal restrain imposed by the existing sources being doubled bytheir frustrating nonexistence. The intense process of feudalism in the area, marked by reforms imposed by theAngevin dynasty, led to adverse consequences for Romanian social structures, especially the Knezes, which areseen stripped of their dominions. This is the moment when the institution loses its social and legal ascendancy anddecades to the statute of the subjects of the great feudal estates.