A latin country which is not Catholic is an anomaly; but Rumania, proud of her Roman descent, language, and traditions, got her Christianity from Byzantium, and was, together with the rest of Eastern Europe, drawn into the Byzantian schism. The Rumanians trace their origin to Trajan, who transformed this fertile land of Dacia into a Roman colony that maintained its racial distinctiveness from the third century to the present day. Transylvania was the cradle of the race, but through the usual vicissitudes entailed by invading hordes and changing alien domination, Dacia was broken up and had a chequered history like her Slav neighbours, with whom she never merged. The capital of ancient Dacia was Alba Julia, situated in Transylvania, and it was in this historic village instead of in modern Bucarest, actual capital of Rumania, that the Rumanian sovereigns were lately crowned. Thus was accentuated the re-union of the three provinces, Moldavia, Valachia and Transylvania, once more into a single State. The ceremony naturally gave offence to Hungary, who had held Transylvania for centuries, and the Hungarian citizens that dwell in these regions viewed the proceedings with disfavour.

Yet Hungary had never been successful in her attempt to Magyarize the persistent Latins who form the majority of the population. King Hermann, who was forced by his nobles to grant the Golden Bull, Hungary’s Magna Charta, took little count of the cowed natives, but invited the Saxons to settle in the land in order to counterpoise the turbulent feudal chiefs.