Published: 2025-06-24

A Few Words on the Early Life of Petru Rareș up to the Year 1527

Katarzyna Niemczyk-Wiśniewska Logo ORCID

Abstract

The article discusses the early life of the Moldavian voivode Petru Rareș before 1527—before he assumed power in the principality. According to some historians, he may have been identical with a confident Piotr who was in Poland then and was a pretender to the Moldavian throne. However, an analysis of the sources shows that such an identification is not possible, and Petru Rareș cannot, under any circumstances, be equated with Piotr, who may have been a son or grandson of Peter Aaron. The article also attempts to clarify the origins of Petru Rareș. He was born between 1482 and 1487 from an illegitimate relationship between Stephen the Great and Maria of Hârlău, who at the time was married to a fishmonger nicknamed Rareș. The voivode’s mother came from the Cernat family of boyars, who owned estates near the fish-rich Lake Brateș. It is likely that before taking power in Moldavia, Rareș managed a fishery. The article also addresses Rareș’s attitude toward his predecessor, Stephen the Younger, and his council, arguing that he could not have been his rival or contender for the throne.

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Niemczyk-Wiśniewska, K. (2025). A Few Words on the Early Life of Petru Rareș up to the Year 1527. Średniowiecze Polskie I Powszechne, 7–18. https://doi.org/10.31261/SPiP.2025.21.01

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Domyślna okładka

2025
Published: 2022-11-23


ISSN: 2080-492X
eISSN: 2353-9720

Publisher
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego | University of Silesia Press

Licence CC Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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