From what country did they come into Germany?—Muratori thinks, from Italy: but how unfounded this opinion is, appears clearly from their coming to that country after they had been in Germany. The Bologna Chronicle ascertains the time when Italy became acquainted with these people. The horde therein mentioned, which arrived in that city on the 18th of July, 1422, consisted of about a hundred men; whose leader’s, or (as they called him) duke’s, name, was Andreas. They travelled from Bologna to Forli, intending to proceed to pay the Pope a visit at Rome. Muratori founds his judgment on this chronicle, not knowing that Gipseys are spoken of in the German prints five years earlier.
Still less true is what Majolus asserts, that they came from Spain, and first entered the German territories in the year 1492, when they were driven out of Spain by Ferdinand the Catholic. Hungary is certainly the country whence they came into Germany. Not only the time confirms this conjecture, as we find them in Hungary in 1417, the very same year in which they were first observed in Germany, but Aventin expressly mentions Hungary among the countries from which he supposes them to come.
In this state our examination rests, in regard to whether they came immediately into Germany, or first appeared stationary in some other place.
That Poland should be the country which harboured the first Gipseys, and that they spread thence into Wallachia, Transylvania, and other countries, is a mere arbitrary surmise. The writer (J. G. Eccard) who advances this opinion, appeals to Münster’s intelligence, but that does not contain a syllable in confirmation of it. Others, with the greatest confidence, maintain that Wallachia and Moldavia, where they also wandered about in 1417, are the places in which they made their first appearance in Europe. Cantemir, on the contrary, is very undecided, saying, “Whence, or at what time, this nation arrived in Moldavia, neither do they know themselves nor is there any mention made in our annual publications.” However, the second opinion seems to approach very near the truth, but does not point out the particular province in which the Gipseys were first observed;—Of what use would that be? But one information, compared with other circumstances, is of so much assistance here, that we may, without hesitation, pronounce Turkey to be the country whence these eastern guests found their way to us. This is probable—First, because Aventin expressly makes Turkey their original place of rendezvous: secondly, as this explains why the south-east parts of Europe are most crowded with Gipseys, as before stated (vide p. 7). It happened in Turkey, as in every other place through which they passed, that many of these wanderers remained behind; now, as all that came to Europe passed by this route, whether at once or in different divisions, it was possible, indeed a necessary consequence, that a greater number should continue here, than in the different countries where their hordes were much divided and diminished.