their appearance and ravages in Europe, calls them a ‘Tartarian tribe’ who moved forward in great numbers as a vast wave.  Their ferocity, he says, was untamed; they fought with cavalry and light armour, trusting to their showers of arrows, against which the swords and lances of the European armies could not avail.  ‘The memory of Attila,’ he adds, ’was renewed in the devastations of these savages, who, if they were not his compatriots, resembled them both in countenance and customs.’[119]

But the nation who suffered the most severely from their irruptions, and whose history reflects their ferocity the most faithfully, were the Germans.  Fortresses were erected to check their inroads, but ’exultingly and with scorn these wild horsemen brushed past them, and as though they were in pursuit of game they picked off the peasant at the plough, or the soldier mounting guard upon the walls.  Men, women, and children were captured wherever they were found; were coupled by the hair of their heads and driven in herds, like cattle, into Hungary.  If a regular army moved out against them, they dispersed like the winds of heaven, and the joyful cry went up, “God be praised, they are gone;” but soon they reappeared to harass the retreating soldiery.  The horrors of desolation and rapine were the condition most congenial to them; in these they revelled and rejoiced; and most happy were they when they could anoint their beards with German blood, or, casting their firebrands into the houses of God, could witness the devouring flames as they rose up into the skies.’[120]

Although in after times the Hungarians claimed the suzerainty over part or the whole of Wallachia (and we shall have occasion hereafter to refer to their relations with that country), their domination during the ninth and tenth centuries was of a very partial and transient character.  They probably moved westward from the Ukraine at the beginning of the ninth century, and between the years 839 and 860 they were actively aggressive in Eastern Wallachia.  They are said to have attacked Constantine, the Christian missionary, on his way through the district they occupied, but his venerable mien prevented them from doing him any injury.  He is said not even to have allowed their cries to disturb him during prayer, in which he was engaged when they made their appearance.  Towards the close of the century, as we have already said, they sustained a defeat at the hands of the Bulgarians, when, under their chief Arpad, they had formed an alliance with the Emperor Leo, who is said to have made peace with the enemy and left them in the lurch.  After this they were driven into the Carpathians, A.D. 894, and, having first overrun the greater part of Transylvania, they commenced those aggressions into Germany, France, and Italy, which for a considerable period rendered them the terror of all Europe.  At the end of the tenth century, having met with severe reverses and been compelled to withdraw into Hungary, they at length settled down under an established government.  The first king was undoubtedly Stephen (997 or 1008 A.D.), and they annexed Transylvania, which up to that time had been a debatable territory, either about 1002 according to some writers, or, as others affirm, not until the time of Ladislaus the Holy (1078-1095 A.D.).[121]