Aparatele diplomatice ale Moldovei şi Ungariei în a doua jumătate a secolului XV. O privire comparativă
Moldavian and Hungarian Diplomatic Structures in the Second Half of the 15th Century: A Comparative Overview

Summary/Abstract: Duly witnessed by the remaining sources of the time the Moldavian Diplomatic means and ends may find a way to center-stage research with help of the much better documented and, indirectly, first of all, and directly investigated, by the scholars, Hungarian Diplomacy and Diplomats of the late 1400’s. It is a period for which, if the Hungarian archive material, concerning the internal mechanism and the careers of those involved in Matthias Corvinus’ Diplomacy, is still far from being known, the Moldavian one is basically exhausted and the almost 500 known internal documents from the reign of Stephen the Great, a insignificant figure in comparison to the close to 50000 internal Hungarian documents, from the second half of the 15th Century, registered in the Hungarian National Archive, often fail to give us conclusive evidence about the way Moldavian Diplomats were selected, rewarded, about the decision-making on the top political level, about the chancery. On the other hand several documents from the Italian Archives come to shed light on the variable role played by Moldavia in the rather complex late medieval geopolitics, but the light, nevertheless, only scratches the surface. Under such circumstances, any judgment brought upon the events and actions from the reigns of the Stephen and Matthias, even though there seems to be, and there is, enough suggestive and quite rewarding information, from financing, finances and titles to diplomatic propositions and double-dealings, must be made with restrain. This goes naturally for all of the observations. In Moldavia, the diplomatic career did not give a great chance for a political career. The great Moldavian diplomats had in general a successful administrative career behind them. In Hungary, although, diplomacy does not equal personal success, serving the ruler in his foreign affairs brought important honors and estates to the diplomat. It was most rewarding for the clergy, because, under Matthias especially, diplomatic services were the key to bishoprics. In Moldavia, that works, from the 1470’s on, for the catholic bishops only, as the orthodox clergy is not to be found in explicit diplomatic service, in diplomatic missions, until more the fifty years later. As to the diplomats training, in Western affairs, the Hungarian envoys and their supervisors had an obvious advantage due to the common administrative use of Latin and because of the kingdom’s, again naturally, greater experience in catholic political dealings. Given these facts, on can not the omit the quite expedient and rapid way in which Moldavian diplomacy learned the medieval politically speech, learned how to emphasize the land’s strong-points by using the Western views of Moldavia, as well the distances covered by the Moldavian Contacts, which, although shorter, and less often traveled, in the Western regions, than those traveled by Hungarian envoys, stretch over a space thirty time the size of the Stephen the Great’s possessions. Still, it

• Details
• Contents