Arrival in Europe
After centuries in the Byzantine world, Romani groups are recorded in Greece and the Balkans by the 14th century and, travelling as "pilgrims from Little Egypt" with letters of protection, reach Western Europe in the early 15th century.
- The Gypsies — Angus Fraser, Blackwell (1992)
- I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies — Yaron Matras, Allen Lane (2014)
- The Roma in Romanian History — Viorel Achim, Central European University Press (2004)
- Romani: A Linguistic Introduction — Yaron Matras, Cambridge University Press (2002)
Byzantine sources from the eleventh century onward mention people called Atsinganoi, fortune-tellers and entertainers; many scholars think these were Roma, and the name lives on in German Zigeuner and Hungarian cigány. In 1322 two Franciscan friars on Crete described people living in tents who claimed descent from Ham, and by the fourteenth century Roma were living around the Venetian port of Modon in the Peloponnese, known as “Little Egypt”. In Wallachia, a document of 1385 already records Roma as slaves of a monastery.
- The Gypsies — Angus Fraser, Blackwell (1992)
- The Roma in Romanian History — Viorel Achim, Central European University Press (2004)
From 1417, groups led by men calling themselves dukes and counts of “Little Egypt” appeared in German cities, then France, Italy and Spain, saying they were Christian pilgrims doing penance. They carried letters of protection from the emperor Sigismund and, they claimed, the pope; in 1425 King Alfonso V of Aragon gave a safe-conduct to “Don Johan of Little Egypt”. At first they were welcomed with alms. By the end of the century, suspicion had replaced charity, and Roma had reached Scotland, England and Scandinavia.
- The Gypsies — Angus Fraser, Blackwell (1992)
- I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies — Yaron Matras, Allen Lane (2014)
Why it matters today
These first encounters fixed the names that Roma still struggle with ("Gypsy", "Gitano", "Zigeuner", "Tsigane") and the outsider image that followed them. They also explain why there are so many different Romani groups: each settled in a different country and absorbed its language, religion and music, while keeping something of its own.