POLITICĂ ȘI ADMINISTRAȚIE LA FRONTIERA SUD-VESTICĂ A PRINCIPATULUI TRANSILVANIEI. FUNCȚIONAREA COMITATULUI SEVERIN ÎN SECOLELE XVI-XVII
POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION ON THE SOUTH-WESTERN FRONTIER OF THE PRINCIPALITY OF TRANSYLVANIA. THE FUNCTIONING OF SEVERIN COUNTY IN THE 16TH–17TH CENTURIES

Summary/Abstract: Probably organized at the end of the 15th century, the county of Severin overlapped the old Romanian districts in the upper part of Banat. From the 16th century it merged administratively with the district of Caransebeș, with which it had a common body of officials. Integrated into the principality of Transylvania, following the conquest of lowland Banat by the Ottomans, the county of Severin retained a number of peculiarities in its organization. Perhaps the most notable aspects were the fact that the ban of Caransebeș-Lugoj replaced the function of County lord (Lat. comes suppremus, Hung. Ispán) and that the banat and the County, although two administrative units terminologically speaking, functioned as one in terms of the body of officials. In the 17th century, the area was aligned with the legislative system of the principality of Transylvania, but nevertheless retained the use of certain legal practices that recalled the medieval tradition of ius valahicum. The functioning of this administrative unit was violently interrupted in 1658 following the the Ottoman occupation. The present analysis aimed at capturing, through the institutions, how an administrative unit on the periphery/border of the Transylvanian principality functioned in the 16th–17th centuries.

• Details
• Contents