Mercenaires serbes (seimeni) dans l'armée de Matei Basarab

The present article, entitled Serbian mercenaries (seimeni) in Matei Basarabs army, brings to the attention of specialists, but especially of the general public, a lesser-known category of mercenaries, which appeared in Wallachia during the reign of Matei Basarab (1632 -1654). We are talking about some Serbian outcasts, pursued by the Ottoman authorities, who found refuge north of the Danube, in Wallachia. Wishing to strengthen his army, Prince Matei Basarab organized these Serbs into a separate corps in the Wallachian army. If at the beginning there were a few hundred Serbian mercenaries, towards the end of Matei Basarabs reign the number of these mercenaries increased to around 4000. Of course, the maintenance of these foreign mercenaries was quite expensive, a fact that made Matei Basarab, in the last year of his reign, and then his successor on the throne, Constantin Șerban, think about licensing them.