Apostolic kings of Hungary. The regions of the Theiss and the western borders of Transylvania were the first to be occupied by the invading Hungarians, who were then able, at the beginning of the 12th century, to enter Transylvania proper, where the Mureș pierced the western ramparts of the mountains, creating strongholds for the bishops and burgraves, on the Carolingian principle, and attempting to secure exploitation of the salt and gold mines. In order to gain the southern and eastern portions of the province as well, they were forced to employ the Teutonic knights recently expelled from the Holy Land. These built their castles on the northern slopes of the Carpathians, and Hungarian peasants, the Szekler, were sent to watch the frontier which marched with the Touranian nations of the steppe. Thousands of Roumanians, especially in this eastern region, abandoned their original language and ethnographical character, becoming assimilated to the Szekler: in some cases the sole element preserved was the Greek creed. But to change the nature of the whole Roumanian population was a physical impossibility: the number of the conquerors was too small—so small that the king was forced to resort in foreign countries the elements necessary for the consolidation of the invaded territories. The Hungarians were never an invading flood of the intensity of the Slavs in the Balkans. To bring the southern slopes of the Carpathians within his dominion, or at least within his fief, the Arpadian monarch of the 13th century, after the havoc wrought by the Tartar incursion, was forced to call to his help fresh knights from the Holy Sepulchre, the knights of St. John, to whom was promised the Banate of Severin with all the adjacent Roumanian districts. In this way the numerous and powerful peasantry of these districts, endowed with a strong military system, were
