Colonization continued with the arrival of the Teutonic Knights in Ţara Bârsei in 1211. They were granted the right to freely pass through "the land of the Székelys and the land of the Vlachs" in 1222. The knights tried to free themselves from the monarch's authority, thus King Andrew II expelled them from the region in 1225. Thereafter, the king appointed his heir, Béla, with the title of duke, to administer Transylvania. Duke Béla occupied Oltenia and set up a new province, the Banate of Severin, in the 1230s.