Prope Turcos et inter Scismaticos. Conventurile ordinelor mendicante din Ţara Românească (secolele XIV–XVI)
Prope Turcos et inter Scismaticos. The Monasteries of the Mendicant Orders in Wallachia (14th–16th Centuries)

Summary/Abstract: Although the Dominican missionaries were active in the region south of the Carpathians as early as the 13th century, only in the next century they founded here monasteries: one in Câmpulung and another one in Târgovişte. The first monastery was founded probably in 1344 in the residence-city by the prince Nicolae Alexandru and his wife Clara. The Dominican monastery in Târgovişte was built before 1370. The two houses of the Order formed the contrata Valachiae Maioris, which was incorporated in the Congregation of Pilgrim Friars (1377). After 1456 the two monasteries in Wallachia were assigned to the Dominican province of Hungary. The monastery in Târgovişte and the contrata Valachiae Maioris were last mentioned in 1496. The existence of the Dominican houses in Wallachia ceased under unknown circumstances between 1496 and 1532. The Franciscan Order was represented in Wallachia by two monasteries. The first, in Severin, was founded in 1365–1369 by the Hungarian king Louis of Anjou. The monastery belonged to the custody of Bulgaria. Its mission was to propagate the Catholic faith among Bulgarians and Romanians. The monastery was destroyed by the Ottoman invasions in the last decade of the 14th century. Later, in 1507, another Franciscan monastery was founded in Târgovişte, which belonged to the custody of Transylvania. It was deserted by friars between 1552 and 1554, most probably in 1553, as a consequence of the victory of the Ottoman armies and their protected prince against the Habsburg faction. The present study is dedicated to the first stage of the history of the monasteries of the Mendicant Orders in Wallachia, closed at the middle of the 16th century.

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