Abstract
The reliability of the information comprised in the tradition passed down by chronicler Neculce about fixing the Moldavian Northern border on Ceremuș River as a result of the peace treaty between Stephen the Great and the Polish King after the battle from Codrii Cosminului, was completely refuted by our historiography in the beginning. Then, after new Polish sources which confirmed it were published, it was accepted by the historians. For this reason, one needed an exhaustive analysis of all known sources about “the donation on Ceremuș”.
Surveying all references to the eleven villages mentioned in Neculce’s narration from the internal documents issued in Moldavia and in the Ruthenian Voivodeship within the Polish Kingdom, confirmed, beyond any doubt, that in 1499 King John Albert donated to Ioan Tăutul, the great chancellor of Stephen the Great, the villages on the right side of Ceremuș.
Evidence from documents issued after 1531, after the peace negotiations between the envoys of king Sigismund I and those of Petru Rareș, but also from the text of the treaty concluded at the end of August 1538 by the Moldavian ruler and great hetman Jan Tarnowski, the King’s representative, give us all the reasons to believe that it was then that the small territory on the right side of Ceremuș was ceded to the rulers from Suceava upon a verbal agreement.
Keywords
Ceremuș, Ioan Tăutul, Ion Neculce, lifetime donation, Northern border of Moldavia
