This short library compiles a series of charters and letters issued by various princes of Wallachia, including Mircea I, Mihail I, Radu II, Dan II, Vlad II Dracul, Dan III, Vladislav II, and Vlad III Dracula. These texts outline customs duties, trade regulations, and the rights of Brașov merchants, aiming to protect them from unfair practices and ensure their ability to trade freely. The letters emphasize the importance of justice, fair treatment, and the consequences for those who violate these agreements. The historical context reflects the economic relations between Wallachia and the merchants of Brașov during the late medieval period.

Tributaries and Peripheries of the Ottoman Empire offers thirteen studies on the relationship between Ottoman tributaries with each other in the imperial framework, as well as with neighboring border provinces of the empire’s core territories from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries.

Viorel Panaite analyzes the status of tribute-payers from the north of the Danube with reference to Ottoman law of war and peace, focusing on the legal and political methods applied to extend the pax ottomanica system over Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania.

The fifteenth century Romanian Prince Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler, is one of the most fascinating personalities of medieval history. Already during his own lifetime, his true story became obscured by a veil of myths. As a result, he has been portrayed both as a bloody tyrant — who degenerated down throughout the centuries into the fictional vampire of the same name created by Bram Stoker at the end of the nineteenth century — and as a national and Christian hero who bravely fought to defend his native land and all of Europe against the invading Turkish infidels. Even in more recent historiography, the true history of Dracula has been obscured by Communist and nationalist historiography.

A significant contribution to the history of the political life and culture of the later medieval aristocracy. MAURICE KEEN Orders of lay knights - the most famous of which are those of the Garter and the Golden Fleece - were founded at some time between 1325 and 1470 in almost every kingdom of Western Christendom, and played an important part in the life of the court. Jonathan Boulton defines the "monarchical" orders as those with corporate statutes which attached the presidential office to the crown of the princely founder, or made it hereditary in his house. Modelled eitherdirectly or indirectly on the fictional society of the Round Table, they incorporated varying numbers of elements borrowed from the older religious orders of knighthood and from contemporary institutions. This study explores the nature and history of thirteen orders, and reveals them as not only an ingenious supplement to (or replacement for) the feudo-vassalic ties that still bound the leading members of the nobility to their sovereign, but also as the most important institutional embodiments of the secular ideals of chivalry that were at the heart of the international court culture of the age. JONATHAN BOULTON teaches at the University of Notre Dame.

Viorel Panaite analyzes the status of tribute-payers from the north of the Danube with reference to Ottoman law of war and peace, focusing on the legal and political methods applied to extend the pax ottomanica system over Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania.