Des princes scythes aux capitaines des Iasses

To this day in Hungary – itself an ethnic and linguistic exception in Europe – awareness of a variety of ancient traditions and identities persists. Not those that readily come to mind (Slovaks, Croatians, Serbs or Romanians), but those of communities that have long since adopted the Hungarian language, while harbouring a keen sense of their distinctive presence in the country’s history. It was in the Middle Ages that these privileged communities first appeared: Széklers and Saxons in Transylvania (today in Romania), Germans in the Szepes region of Upper Hungary (today Slovakia), Cumans and Iasians in the plains between the Danube and the Tisza and Pechenegs, mostly between the Danube and Lake Balaton. The presence in Hungary of the Iasian community (originally speaking an Iranian language, close to modern Ossetian) was first documented in 1323. A charter of that year authorised the Iasians to elect their own officials and removed them from the authority of Cuman notables, but givens their geographic localisation and structural evolution the study of Iasians and Cumans is inseparable. Yet, they are two distinct cultural entities, even if their statutory evolution in Hungary was shared. Following a look at the conventions – and confusions – regarding the translations of the Hungarian term Jász, this study traces the presence of Iranian peoples, both in the history of the Hungarians before their arrival in Pannonia and following their settlements in the Carpathian Basin, and goes on to examine key aspects of their status in mediaeval Hungary (13th – 16th centuries)