Gacovic Od romanskog stanovnistva do Rumuna Timocana (VII-XVI vek) knjiga III (1)

310 Slavoljub Gacović
scientists, the cradle of the Romanian people, which is in the sources
throughout the medieval period known as the Vlachs.
As indicators of strong contacts between Slavic and Roman Christian
population we may use many smaller scale basilicas, which do not have a
medieval layer on the sites, and which the inhabitants to this day have called
Crkvina. All of the basilicas show one common trait that all ceased to be
operational in the early seventh century.
In addition to many indicators of the coexistence of Christian Romans
and the barbarians from the seventh to the ninth/tenth century, the so called
hagionyms also testify, as well as the oldest religious buildings, whose
names of saints served in the naming of many places on the Balkan
peninsula and witness the many oases of the Christian, and then the neo-
Latin, Romanic and Romanian population among the Slavic crowd. The
Roman Christian world has certainly had influence on the barbarians who
were partly Christianized with time and under the influence of the local selftaught
preachers.
In the area of today's Timok area from the yaer 870 up to 1018 the
Moravian diocese was formed (6 MopdBov), as well as Vidin (1 Bidiivn),
Branicevo (1 Bpavit(6pn) and Nis (6 Not(ooc), and in 1020 Basil II in his
charter gives to the Archbishopric of Ohrid the Vlach bishopric Jor the
Viachs throughout Bulgaria, which indirectly indicates a multitude of
Roman Christian population that had lived in previous centuries on the
territory of Bulgaria (Timok - Osogovo - Sara), and which had clearly
influenced the acceptance of Christianity by barbarians.
The entity of Roman inhabitants, in addition to many indicators, can
be best seen by examining the emergence and development of Roman or
Romanian language of the Timok area, while the centuries-old coexistence
of Romance and Slavic population in the Timok - Osogovo – Sara area may
be discussed taking into consideration the so-calléd Balkanisms, which had
been occurring from the year 1000 on, and on the basis of Latin and
Romanian lexical residues in the Prizren - Timok dialect in the same region.
The first part shows the development of the Romanian language from
classical and Danube Latin, which served as a means of communication in a
very wide area and was understood by all people, and officials, companies,
traders, slaves, colonists and ideas could circulate freely from one end of the
Roman Empire to the other. We pointed out to the Late Latin texts of the
fourth, seventh and eighth centuries from the area of Gaul and Spain in
which we find vulgar forms preserved in all or almost all of the Romance
languages and which unite all the Romance languages from Romania to
Spain. We then pointed to those specific elements, the innovative and the
substrate, then those elements that indicate the Latin-Greek coexistence,
elements of Slavic intrusion, as well as those specific elements of the
Romanizacija i romansko stanovnistvo Timocke zone (I-XVI vek) 311
economy, nparticularly agriculture, farming and shepherdry, social
organization, elements in the field of intellectual and spiritual spheres,
Christianity and so on with abundant examples given above.
In the second part, we pointed to the Romanian borrowings from the
territory of South Serbia, and Prizren-Timok zone, bearing in mind the
etymological purposes, which may be broken down to genuine borrowings,
recorded in areas where today there is no direct contact between speakers of
the two languages, spread throughout the area of Eastern Serbia, in the shape
of a wedge, due to an exceptionally high concentration of Romanian
toponyms, which, according to Van Wijk, indicates the presence of
Romanian population in the early Middle Ages and more recent local
borrowings in the area of present-day direct contact of the two languages, in
the northeastern region of Serbia.
When we talk about the language of Vlachs/Romanians of the Timok
area, there are listed written sources, and the first source that should be
mentioned is the work Notitia Orbis from 1404 by the Archbishop Ioan de
Sultanyeh, who after describing Serbia (Servia) and Russia (Russi), finishes
the work with the words that ,,... it was a good country Vulgaria or Bulgaria,
which is now devastated by the Turks“ (Vulgaria sive Bulgaria et fuit bona
patria, est modo devastata per Turcos) and that the citizens of Vulgarije or
Bulgarije „... have a language close to Latin® (habent linguam propriam et
quasi latinam), that is to say, that ,the Vulgars speak a vulgar Romance
language“ (Ideo vocantur Vuéari a lingua Vulgarica romana) and that
therefore they boast to once have been Romans, and it is obvious that,
judging by the language, they are of the same origin as the Romans“ (Ipsi
ideo jactant se esse Romanos et patet in linguam quia ipsi locuntur quasi
Romani). Tt is clear that Archbishop loan de Sultanyeh speaks about the
Latin population of Bulgaria, which in the medieval period included the
entire Timok area, to the Morava River.
On the language of Roman inhabitants, the Vlachs/Rumanians, in late
antiquity province of Dacia Ripensis (eastern Serbia, and northwest
Bulgaria) called Valachi, we may use as evidence a very interesting part of
an appeal by Flavio Biondo (1392-1463), Italian humanist and secretary of
the papal curia, which was sent to many crowned heads of Europe before the
fall of Constantinople in 1453. By insisting on forming an anti-Ottoman
coalition, in the appeal, among other things, he mentions „the area of the
Danube, where the neighbors are Riparian Dacians and the Vlachs, who as it
is said, with pride insist that they are of Roman origin“ (Et qui e regione
Danubio item adiacenti Ripenses Daci, sive Valachi, originem, quam ad
decus prae se ferunt praedicantque Romanam). Flavio Biondo says for the
Vlachs of the former province of Dacia Ripensis, which, we must stress,
included part of present-day eastern Serbia up to Miroč mountain, that they