Stroe Leurdeanu

Biography

Rise

Leurdeanu is seen by various historians as one of the most significant boyars in early modern Romanian history, when Wallachia was an autonomous subject of the Ottoman Empire. He was born around 1600 as the son of Wallachia's Great Logothete, Fiera Leudeanu, and as such a relative of Constantin Șerban, who would become Prince of Wallachia in the 1650s. Several sources suggest that Stroe's mother was Tudora, Fiera's second wife and previously the paramour of Prince Michael the Brave; if proven, this would make Stroe a half-brother of Michael's boyaress daughter, Marula Cornățeanca. From his marriages, Fiera also had sons Vintilă, Nedelco and Neagu, none of whom managed to enter titular boyardom; Fiera's daughters include Stanca, who married Balica of Breasta, and an anonymous wife of Vornic Dumitru Dudescu.

Leurdeanu's first assignment appears to have been as Postelnic from June 15, 1625, under Alexandru Coconul; he is next mentioned as Spatharios of the Wallachian military forces on January 8, 1627. His father had his final commission in 1626, dying at some point in 1629. During his subsequent ascent, Stroe was married three times. No surviving document mentions the name of his first wife, though she is known to have given birth to his eldest son, Istratie Leurdeanu. She may also have given birth to two of Stroe's other known sons, Sluger Nedelco and Clucer Costea. Stroe's last two wives are known by name. The first was Vișa Goleasca, related to the Craiovești-Brâncoveanu family—daughter of the Greek Postelnic Fota and niece of Preda Brâncoveanu, she was more distantly related to Matei Basarab, who took the Wallachian throne in 1632. According to family tradition, Vișa had in fact been adopted by her princely relative, meaning that Leurdeanu was symbolically Matei's son-in-law. From this matrimonial arrangement, Stroe received in 1630 the village of Criva. The third and last of Leurdeanu's wives was another one of Prince Matei's relatives, Elina of Prooroci (died 1655).

An untitled boyar during most of Alexandru IV Iliaș's reign, Stroe returned on April 27, 1629, to serve as Logothete. One record also cites him as Great Stolnic between November 21, 1632, and February 8, 1633, but he continued to be cited as a Logothete after that interval. In October 1633, at the height of a Polish–Ottoman War, he is cited as fighting alongside the Ottoman Army. His tenure as Logothete straddled the rules of Alexandru IV, Leon Tomșa, and Matei Basarab, to October 6, 1635. On December 20, Matei made Leurdeanu a Logothete of the treasury, and later simply a treasurer (Vistier); he held those twin offices to March 2, 1641. Banking on his wife's influence at the court, he obtained the village of Slănicul de Jos in Muscel County, ignoring a rival claim stated by the Vlădescu boyars.

First disgrace and return

According to various reports, the childless Prince Matei was grooming Istratie to be his heir on the throne. The Craiovești–Leurdeanu alliance soon gave way to violent rivalry, in circumstances that are not entirely elucidated. According to chronicler Georgius Krauss, jealous boyars suggested to Matei that Istratie was plotting to have him killed. A document dated to 1652 clarifies that Stroe was sacked upon revelations of embezzlement or theft—specifically, that he and two boyar accomplices had broken into the crate holding coins that Wallachia owed in Ottoman tribute (the haraç), and taken out 85 bags of gold. A 1654 writ left by Constantin Șerban claims that Stroe narrowly escaped decapitation, though he was innocent of the charges. Matei, who had no means of covering his losses, only resorted to having the three men cursed and stripped of their offices. Historian Vasile Novac notes that the details of the accusation were overall implausible: Stroe was alleged to have taken 42,500 thaler in one single strike.

According to writer Constantin Gane, the boyars "did not want" Istratie to rule over them, which led them to fabricate charges against him as well. This looming threat caused Istratie to seek protection in territory more directly controlled by the Ottomans. Prince Matei was allegedly "infuriated" by his behavior, persecuting Nedelco and Costea, and confiscating one of the Leurdeanus' village fiefs. However, Krauss also claims that the families eventually reconciled when Matei allowed Istratie to return home. In this account, the Prince ensured that Istratie married well, to Ilinca—daughter of Nicolae Pătrașcu and granddaughter of Michael the Brave. This granted the younger Leurdeanu ownership over 24 villages from Michael and Pătrașcu's unclaimed personal estate. On April 27, 1654, days after Prince Matei's death, Stroe Leurdeanu was made Logothete by Constantin Șerban, who had usurped the throne; the following day, Istratie was reinstated as Postelnic. Stroe's first diplomatic assignment was a mission to the Sublime Porte, obtaining Șerban's recognition by Sultan Mehmed IV. The delegation, also including Drăghici Cantacuzino, Pană Filipescu, and Preda Bucșanu, "prostrated before the Emperor-sultan Mehmed and Dervish Mehmed Pasha, the vizier, with tears in their eyes and pleading that they allow Constantine Voivode to rule as prince in their country."

This ascendancy was interrupted by the Seimeni uprising in February 1655. After February 15, Leurdeanu had left Wallachia and taken refuge in the Principality of Transylvania, at Corona (Brașov), being joined there by his wife and children. The rebels ransacked his Bucharest residence, which was located outside Sfântul Ioan-Grecesc Church, in Tabaci mahala. The attack probably involved the mahala's eponymous tanners. Elina's two sisters later testified that the family's wealth was much affected by the uprising, which also destroyed the villages owned by Stroe and took away his "Gypsies" (see Slavery in Romania).

Ghica's protege

Stroe preserved his high office following the appointment of George Ghica as Prince, being confirmed as Logothete on January 21, 1660. He would serve as such to August 28 of the same year, returning as Vornic from January 11, 1661, to December 2, 1665. This tenure also saw him serving two short terms as Wallachian regent, or Caimacam, in 1663 and 1664—initially alongside Dumitrașcu Cantacuzino; at the time, Ghica was overseeing Wallachian participation in the Austro–Turkish War. From September 1660, Grigore I Ghica's reign sparked a latent civil war between the main branches of the Cantacuzino family and a coalition formed by Greek and Romanian boyars. Though generally known in historiography as the Băleanu party, after Gheorghe Băleanu, the latter camp was in fact organized around Leurdeanu, and, according to Rezachevici, would be more accurately known as the Leurdenists. This stand-off followed an initial attempt at alliance between the two clans: in 1658, Stroe's daughter Elina had married Șerban Cantacuzino, but had most likely died before 1663.

According to several Romanian historians, the conflict was unavoidable once Constantin I, at the time a Postelnic, intervened to prevent the sacking of Wallachia by its two Caimacami. Despite being Constantin I's nephew, Dumitrașcu took Stroe's side, and was widely seen as subordinate to his will; their co-conspirators were a Romanian Paharnic Staico Bucșanu, and two prominent Greeks, Balasache Muselim and Nicula Sofialiul. In late 1663, Leurdeanu and Dumitrașcu took measures to curb the Postelnic's rise. They reputedly informed Grigore Ghica about the goings-on at the court, alleging in particular that his former son-in-law (who was serving under arms at the time) intended to take the throne. While Gane believes the accusation was "calumny [and] crazy talk", Rezachevici notes that it was sufficiently plausible. According to the 18th-century chronicler Constantin Căpitanul Filipescu, Ghica had his own suspicions against the Postelnic's sons, as they had rejected his plans for rebelling against the Ottomans with Habsburg support.

Returning to Bucharest with his defeated army, Prince Grigore ordered a confrontation of the boyar witnesses at Craiova, during which Mareș Băjescu took the Postelnic's side and accused the others of perjury. Upon the end of this summary trial in December 1663, Ghica ordered Constantin I's strangling. His killing disgusted the Wallachian public, in particular for its relative secrecy, expediency, and execution method. Șerban Cantacuzino received a less drastic treatment: Ghica ordered his "carving at the nose", which theoretically invalidated him from ever becoming Prince. The clampdown also caused the Postelnic's other heir, Drăghici, to flee Wallachia; he died at Istanbul in 1667, possibly murdered by Sofialiul.

Second disgrace and final return

The arrival on the throne of Antonie Vodă in April 1669 was a major setback in Stroe's political career. Antonie, seen as a "native Prince", and therefore as sympathetic to the Cantacuzino cause, began his reign by placing a curse on all those who had inspired Ghica's violent repression; with other targets either absent from the country or already dead, Antonie focused his wrath on the Leurdeanus. While his son Matei was openly persecuted, Stroe was arrested and tried for his role as vasul dracului ("Satan's vessel") in the 1663 episode, but "adamantly and fiercely refuted the charges". His trial began on Easter Sunday, in April, and formally ended on June 18 (New Style: June 28). During its proceedings, the Cantacuzinos produced three letters, which reputedly showed Stroe urging Ghica to physically liquidate their patriarch. As was the legal custom of the day, Leurdeanu was not allowed to confront either the evidence or his accusers; in the anti-Cantacuzino epic known as Cronica Bălenilor, the letters are condemned as inauthentic. The accounts compiled by Axinte Uricariul in the 1710s suggest that the letters existed, but not that they were necessarily authentic: "who truly wrote them, God only knows".

Initially sentenced to death, Leurdeanu was pardoned by the Prince. This was reportedly requested by Constantin I's widow (also named Elina), who asked that Stroe be instead ordered to spend his remaining years in monastic solitude. According to historian Violeta Barbu, the Prince was in fact interested in preserving a political balance and reapplied a "fundamental norm" of old Wallachian (and more generally Romanian) society. Elina, she notes, only granted Leurdeanu forgiveness as a "private gesture", and because Leurdeanu had offered her blood money. Another scholar, Ion Ionașcu, suggests that Antonie's punitive justice was not even-handed, since several boyars who had conspired with Leurdeanu remained active at the court, with Gheorghe Băleanu even contributing to Stroe's sentencing.

After being taken into custody, Leurdeanu was stripped of his clothes and made to wear his letters as a necklace, then placed in a wagon which took him from Bucharest to Snagov Monastery. Upon taking orders, he defied his peers by asking to be renamed "Mohamet". Eventually taking the name Silvestru (first recorded in April 1670), he managed a fourth escape into Transylvania; according to Ionașcu, this escape is most accurately dated to September 1670, when he is mentioned as entering Hermannstadt "together with his wife and child". The local authorities detained them and sent them to Michael Apafi, the Transylvanian Prince, as hostages, on September 29.

Legacy

Vornic Leurdeanu was certainly survived by two of his sons: Pitar Stroe II and a Hieromonk Ghenadie; Matei Golescu was last attested for having served as Comis in 1673. One document from 1680 suggests that Stroe Sr may have also had a living daughter, married to Șerban Pârvu Cantacuzino, grandson of his enemy Drăghici. Pitar Stroe reconciled with the Cantacuzinos and the Craiovești, serving three short terms as Wallachia's Caimacam under Constantin Brâncoveanu; his own son, Statie, married Ilinca, daughter of Stolnic Constantin II. While Istratie had died childless, Matei Golescu's son, diplomat Radu Leurdeanu Golescu, would play an important part in the Pruth River Campaign and the Turkish War of 1716. His political activity saw a complete reconciliation with the Cantacuzinos, who became allies of his in a boyar revolt against the intruding Phanariotes; in one instance in 1716, he welcomed the Habsburg armies on his estate at Vieroși, helping them storm into Bucharest. One of Radu's daughters was matriarch of the modern Golescu family, through her son Radu Golescu; meanwhile, Stroe's eponymous estate of Leordeni was inherited by Stroe's great-granddaughter Safta, who married into the Crețulescu family. In the 19th century, it became the domain of doctor-politician Nicolae Kretzulescu.

In addition to his patronage of churches at Vieroși and Golești, Stroe Leurdeanu inaugurated work on the family manor in the latter village. Unlike the country manor, his home in Tabaci no longer exists, having been leveled to build CEC Palace. Golești church preserved two silk stoles, donated by СTPOЄ ВЄΛЬ ВИСTIA ("Stroe the Great Treasurer") and his wife Vișa, and now displayed by the National Museum of Art of Romania. Of the paintings commissioned by Leurdeanu, only one portrait of him and his family survives in a watercolor copy; the original was probably at Leordeni church. It shows Leurdeanu wearing a combination of Ottoman and Polish clothes, including the kontusz, and donning a chupryna hairdo. Stroe was also the likely owner of a large collection of Transylvanian tinware, accidentally discovered during a 1965 dig at his wife's estate of Dealul Goleasca (by then part of Ștefănești). Stroe's wayside cross, dating back to 1647, survives outside Cuvioasa Paraschiva Church in Valea Caselor, Dâmbovița County. His copy of the Wallachian legal manual, Îndreptarea legii, was preserved in Moldavia, at Huși, and in 1916 was the oldest book found in that city's library.

As noted by author Gheorghe Bengescu, the first generations of Romanian historians "have shown themselves to be more than harsh in depicting Stroe Leurdeanu, though he had always denied, including during his trial, any participation in the crime for which he stood accused." The Cantacuzinos, who retained political prominence into the 20th century, cultivated Leurdeanu's image as an antagonist. His sentencing was the subject of a mural painting by Nicolae Vermont, commissioned in 1909 for the Cantacuzino Palace in Bucharest. In 1939, travel writer Emanoil Bucuța noted that, while the Golescus as a whole had a good standing in Romanian history, their patriarch Stroe impacted the landscape of Golești with "tumultuous recollections". Writing in 1971, Dumitru Almaș called Leurdeanu "one of the most complex and dramatic boyar characters in Romanian medieval history. [...] He lived during a troubled era, one made even more troubled by his fierce, gold-thirsty, authoritative presence."