Balc () was, according to many historians (''e.g.'',

Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol (; March 23, 1847 – February 27, 1920) was a Romanian historian, philosopher, professor, economist, sociologist, and author. Among his many major accomplishments, he is credited with authoring the first major synthes ...

, Ştefan Pascu), the third ''

voivode Voivode ( ), also spelled voivod, voievod or voevod and also known as vaivode ( ), voivoda, vojvoda, vaivada or wojewoda, is a title denoting a military leader or warlord in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe in use since the Early Mid ...

'' of

Moldavia Moldavia (, or ; in Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, Romanian Cyrillic: or ) is a historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester River. An initially in ...

, ruling in ca. 1359 or 1364, but the sequence of the ''voivode''s listed in the Romanian chronicles does not refer to him. He was the son of Sas, the second ''voivode'' of Moldavia. Although Balc was the legitimate pretender to the throne,

Bogdan Bogdan (Cyrillic: Богдан) is a Slavic masculine name that appears in the South Slavic languages and in Polish, Romanian and Moldovan. It is derived from the Slavic words ''Bog'' (Cyrillic: Бог), meaning 'god', and ''dan'' (Cyrillic: ...

, who had been ''

'' in

Maramureș ( ; ; ; ) is a geographical, historical and cultural region in northern Romania and western Ukraine. It is situated in the northeastern Carpathians, along parts of the upper Tisza River drainage basin; it covers the Maramureș Depression and the ...

, crossed the

Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinav ...

into Moldavia possibly immediately after the death of Sas, before Balc was able to consolidate his reign. In Moldavia, Bogdan joined local forces opposed to the Hungarian monarchy. Balc fought valiantly at the head of his men, but he was severely wounded and lost several members of his family and retinue. Following his defeat, Balc fled Moldavia for Hungary. According to a diploma issued on February 2, 1365, King

Louis I of Hungary Louis I, also Louis the Great (; ; ) or Louis the Hungarian (; 5 March 132610 September 1382), was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1342 and King of Poland from 1370. He was the first child of Charles I of Hungary and his wife, Elizabeth of ...

(1342–1382) gave Cuhea and other possessions in

to Balc and his brothers for their faith towards their sovereign and particularly for their devoted behavior in Moldavia. The domains around Cuhea had belonged to Bogdan, but the king had confiscated them in order to compensate Balc and his brothers for the loss of the state east of the Carpathians. Later, Balc became the head of Szatmár ''(Sătmar)'', Ugocsa and Máramaros ''(Maramureș)'' counties in the Kingdom of Hungary, and he was also invested with the title of

Count of the Székelys The Count of the Székelys (, ) was the leader of the Hungarian-speaking Székelys in Transylvania, in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. First mentioned in royal charters of the 13th century, the counts were the highest-ranking royal officials in ...

References

Sources

*Engel, Pál: ''Magyarország világi archontológiája (1301-1457)'' /The Temporal Archontology of Hungary (1301–1457)/; História - MTA Történettudományi Intézete, 1996, Budapest; . *Spinei, Victor: ''Moldavia in the 11th-14th Centuries''; Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1986, Bucharest *Treptow, Kurt W. – Popa, Marcel: ''Historical Dictionary of Romania'' (the list ''‘Rulers of Romania – Moldavia’''); The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1996, Lanham (Maryland, US) & Folkestone (UK); *Vásáry, István: ''Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185-1365''; Cambridge University Press, 2005, Cambridge; {{DEFAULTSORT:Balc Of Moldavia House of Dragoș 1399 deaths Counts of the Székelys Monarchs of Moldavia Romanians in Hungary Year of birth unknown 14th-century Hungarian nobility 14th-century Moldavian people