Indic Diaspora

The Dom, Lom and Rom share a westward migration, probably in waves, dated to around 1000 CE, through the Ghaznavid and Byzantine worlds. The Rom reached Europe through the Balkans in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Dom settled in the Middle East, and the Lom in the Caucasus.

Medieval Europeans took the newcomers for travellers from Egypt, which gave rise to the name Gypsies. In Wallachia and Moldavia, which arose in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, many Rom were enslaved by boyars, Orthodox monasteries and the state, and worked as smiths and farm labourers.