Roma in Europe

Abstract

The Romani people arrived in the Balkans from Anatolia by the thirteenth century and in the Kingdom of Hungary around 1400 at the earliest. They were in Spain by 1425 and most countries of Continental Western Europe around this date, and in the British Isles by at least 1500. Their history prior to this, according to established “histories of the Gypsies,” is vague, except for some Byzantine references to a people called Athingganoi1 or Atsingani who were originally a sect of Persian mystics who appeared in Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire in the ninth century. Apparently, their name was later applied to the proto-Roma who appeared in this area in the latter eleventh century or early twelfth century because both groups were nomadic and practiced “occult arts .”2