Daughters, Wives, and Queens: Medieval Women in Romania’s History

Exploring the status of women in medieval Romania, across Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania this Women’s History Month reveals a complex picture shaped by diverse historical sources, legal systems, religious influences and, not lastly, legends. Each region presented a distinct profile of women with gender playing a crucial role in shaping their access to knowledge, societal perceptions and, of course, power.

In Wallachia and Moldavia where Eastern Orthodox traditions prevailed, women’s status was largely defined by family and social rank. Yet noblewomen—wives and daughters of rulers and boyars—held influence within the court but also succeeded to play key roles in political alliances. Their names appear in charters as landowners, benefactors of monasteries, or regents in times of crisis. Yet, beyond these privileged figures, records of common women remain scarce, their lives glimpsed only through legal disputes, dowry contracts, or occasional church documents.

Transylvania, with its mix of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant communities, presented an even more fragmented picture. Here, legal traditions differed among Saxons, Hungarians and Romanians (who, marginalized in their own land, had almost none), leading to varied expectations of women’s roles. Saxon laws granted burgher women some economic independence, allowing them to inherit businesses and manage trade. Meanwhile, noblewomen navigated a world shaped by Hungarian feudal laws that often restricted their rights, as it happened to their Wallachian and Moldavian counterparts whose rights were restricted mostly by ecclesiastical laws.

By sewing together the lost threads of medieval women’s lives we can distinguish between a tapestry portraying a woman of whispers and quiet introversion, shaped by legal codes and religious doctrine (an idealized figure expected to embody duty, piety and submission) and a tapestry showing us a woman of flesh and blood (whose actions, choices and struggles emerge from everyday records). It is between these two portrayals where the complex and untold story of how medieval women truly lived, loved and also fought for their place in the medieval society of Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia lies.

To understand the lives of medieval women in Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania historians rely on three main types of sources: legal documents, administrative records and (my favorite during my historical fiction research) narrative accounts, each offering a unique perspective on their roles in society. Yes, the word of mouth and legends also play a part in shaping our understanding.

Legal texts such as the:

• 1504 Tripartitum (Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary in Three Parts reinforced in Transylvania, then part of the Hungarian Kingdom, laws that played a large role in perpetuating Hungary’s feudal system);
• the 1508 Statutes of Transylvanian Romanians (or of Făgăraș County),
• the 1646 “Pravila lui Vasile Lupu” (Vasile Lupu’s Code of Laws, the first official codification of civil law in Moldavia) – all reinforce gender inequality rooted in religious doctrine.

These laws covered engagement, marriage, divorce, family life, and also civil cases involving dowries and inheritance, providing valuable insight into women’s legal rights and challenges. They defined women’s place in a world dominated by men.
Additionally, some of the most valuable chronicles for understanding women in medieval Romanian society are (these are just a few examples and are, by no means, the oldest known documents of their time:

• royal charters from the 15th century as well as collections of Byzantine laws such as the Pravila were an essential element of the legal pluralism that defined the medieval state, society and culture; an example is “The Romanian Book of Learning” or Vasile Lupu’s Pravila, 1646;
• 16th century “The Cantacuzino s Chronicle” (Letopisețului Cantacuzinesc);
• 17th century “The Chronicles of Moldavia” (Letopisețul Tarii Moldovei) by Grigore Ureche;
• “Trial by Fire 1603-1613” by Nagy Szabó Ferenc who described the invasions of Tatars and Turks;
• the Autobiography of 17th century Hungarian Prince of Transylvania John Kemény, one of the most excellent masterpieces of the Transylvanian memoir literature;
• Nicolae Bethlen’s memoirs, 17th cent. Chancellor of Transylvania.

Administrative records, including land contracts, donations and wills, provide a more dynamic view of women’s roles (although never mentioning them outside of their role of wife, sister, or mother). Despite legal constraints women did manage property (as small as a yard, as large as a country), engaged in financial transactions and played definitive (albeit quiet) roles in family matters. Wills, in particular, offer a rare glimpse into personal emotions, as individuals express care for loved ones in their final moments.

Narrative accounts such as chronicles, letters, and travelers’ records offer a more colorful, though often biased, perspective on history. Unlike legal and administrative documents, which focus on rules and transactions, these sources provide a closer look at daily life, emotions, and cultural customs. However, they come with challenges, as most were written by men who typically overlooked women’s lives.

While their works are shaped by personal viewpoints, they offer valuable insights into women’s roles, status, and presence in society. Alongside these written sources, oral traditions—including folk and rural legends—play a significant role in understanding medieval women’s lives.

Passed down through generations these stories provide a rich tapestry of cultural beliefs, personal anecdotes, and societal norms not captured in written texts. Often more fluid and subjective, these legends offer a unique window into the everyday roles of women, their place within families and communities, and their navigation of societal challenges. Folk legends, for example, often portrayed women as both protectors and victims, weaving them into the fabric of local mythology, while rural legends offered a more intimate view of women’s interactions with nature, the household, and the social hierarchy. Though sometimes fantastical, these oral traditions helped shape the collective memory of women’s roles in medieval society, providing insights not found in the formal written records.

Church murals also serve as an important source for understanding the lives of medieval women in Wallachia and Moldavia, particularly the wives of rulers. For the first ladies of Wallachia in the 14th and 15th centuries, historical information is scarce—not only due to the passage of time but also because of historical hardships. Some of the wives of early Wallachian rulers were Catholic, owing to the region’s vassal relationships with the Kingdom of Hungary. As a result, these women were often not depicted in the votive paintings in Orthodox churches, nor were they mentioned in the commemorative records of these religious sites. This lack of representation in Orthodox religious art has made it difficult to piece together details of their lives, and much of the information available today comes from external sources that are often hard to access. Despite these challenges, church murals offer valuable insights into the roles and visibility of women, particularly the wives of rulers, through their association with church-building projects, which were often a means for noblewomen to assert their influence and secure a lasting legacy.

It’s important to note that nearly all surviving medieval texts from Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania were written by men. While this was also the case in much of Western Europe, the aim here isn’t to turn this into a gender debate but to recognize the limitations of these sources and extract what we can about women’s lives from the gaps in the narrative. Legal records defined them, administrative documents recorded their actions, and narrative accounts offer a rare glimpse into how medieval women were perceived—and at times, how they defied societal expectations.

During the next weeks, as part of Women’s History Month, I invite you to join me on a journey after the ideal image of the medieval woman as seen through the eyes of the law; the woman’s real portrait, between family and the medieval society, and the unseen influences that the ruler’s wives had in medieval Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia.