The Legend of the Old Romans: South-East European Sources and Context for the Romanian Medieval Mythography
The Legend of the Old Romans: South-East European Sources and Context for the Romanian Medieval Mythography

Summary/Abstract: The Chronicle of the Sovereigns of Moldavia and of its Origins, preserved in the Voskresensky Russian Chronograph, opens with a legend of two Venetian brothers, Roman and Vlachata, and their descendants, the old Romans who came to tensions with some new Romans after the fall into heresy of pope Formosus. The growing conflict between Old and New Romans ends with the emigration of the first from their homeland to Maramureș, after a significant victory over the Tatars. Several conundrums, the attribution of the schism to Formosus, the role of archbishop Sava of Serbia as uncle and baptizer of a Hungarian king, the hostility between Old and New Romans, a religiously neutral Hungarian king, might find a historical meaning by reference to the Opusculum de origine schismatis, the Lives of Saint Sava of Serbia by Domentijan and Teodosije, and post-1204 estrangement between Latin and Slavo-Byzantine Christendom. The legend reveals the 13th century confessional option as a founding stage of medieval Romanian identity.

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