Both of these powers were interested in preventing any possible accession of territory to the Bulgarian kingdom; and Rumania (q.v.) had for many years been a formidable opponent of Hellenism among the Macedonian Vlachs.
Next to the Slav races in importance are the Rumanians (Vlachs), who are in an immense majority in ten of the eastern and south-eastern counties (90.2% in Fogaras), in eight others form from 30 to 60% of the population, and in two (Maramaros and Torontal) a respectable minority.'
The base of the very mixed and evershifting population in these parts were the Vlachs (Rumanians), perhaps the descendants of Trajan's colonists, who, under their voivode, Bazarad, led King Charles into an ambuscade from which he barely escaped with his life (Nov.
This desolate region was subsequently peopled by Vlachs, whom the religious persecutions of Louis the Great had driven thither from other parts of his domains, and, between 1350 and 1360, their voivode Bogdan threw off the Hungarian yoke altogether.
Previously to 1320, what is now Vlachs towards combating or averting it.