The Hungarian nobility consisted of a privileged group of individuals, most of whom owned
landed property, in the
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephe ...
. Initially, a diverse body of people were described as
noblemen, but from the late 12th century only high-ranking royal officials were regarded as noble. Most aristocrats claimed ancestry from a late 9th century
Magyar leader. Others were descended from foreign knights, and local Slavic chiefs were also integrated in the nobility. Less illustrious individuals, known as
castle warrior
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified ...
s, also held landed property and served in the royal army. From the 1170s, most privileged laymen called themselves
royal servants to emphasize their direct connection to the monarchs. The
Golden Bull of 1222 enacted their liberties, especially their tax-exemption and the limitation of their military obligations. From the 1220s, royal servants were associated with the nobility and the highest-ranking officials were known as barons of the realm. Only those who owned
allodslands free of obligationswere regarded as true noblemen, but other privileged groups of landowners, known as
conditional nobles, also existed.
In the 1280s,
Simon of Kéza was the first to claim noblemen held real authority in the kingdom. The
counties developed into institutions of noble autonomy, and the nobles' delegates attended the
Diets (or parliaments). The wealthiest barons built stone castles enabling them to control vast territories, but royal authority was restored in the early 14th century.
Louis I of Hungary introduced an
entail system and enacted the principle of "one and the selfsame liberty" of all noblemen. Actually, legal distinctions between true noblemen and conditional nobles prevailed, and the most powerful nobles employed lesser noblemen as their ''
familiares'' (retainers). According to
customary law, only males inherited noble estates, but the kings could "
promote a daughter to a son", authorizing her to inherit her father's lands. Noblewomen who had married a commoner could also claim their inheritancethe
daughters' quarter (that is one-quarter of their father's possessions)in land.
The monarchs granted hereditary titles and the poorest nobles lost their tax-exemption from the middle of the 15th century, but the ''
Tripartitum''a frequently cited compilation of customary law published in 1514maintained the notion of all noblemen's equality. In the early modern period, Hungary was divided into three parts
Royal Hungary
Royal may refer to:
People
* Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name
* A member of a royal family
Places United States
* Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Royal, Illinois, a village
* Royal, Iowa, a cit ...
,
Transylvania
Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the ...
and
Ottoman Hungarybecause of the expansion of the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
. The princes of Transylvania supported the noblemen's fight against the
Habsburg dynasty in Royal Hungary, but they prevented the Transylvanian noblemen from challenging their authority. Ennoblement of whole groups of people was not unusual in the 17th century. Examples include the 10,000 who received nobility as a group in 1605. After the Diet was divided into two
chambers in Royal Hungary in 1608, noblemen with a hereditary title had a seat in the Upper House, other nobles sent delegates to the Lower House.
Most parts of medieval Hungary were integrated into the
Habsburg monarchy in the 1690s. Monarchs confirmed the nobles' privileges several times, but their attempts to strengthen royal authority regularly brought them into conflicts with the nobility, who made up about four-and-a-half percent of society. Reformist noblemen demanded the abolition of noble privileges from the 1790s, but their program was enacted only during the
Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Most noblemen lost their estates after the emancipation of their serfs, but the aristocrats preserved their distinguished social status. State administration employed thousands of impoverished noblemen in
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
. Prominent (mainly Jewish) bankers and industrialists were awarded with nobility, but their social status remained inferior to traditional aristocrats. Noble titles
were abolished only in 1947, months after Hungary was proclaimed a republic.
Origins
The
Magyars
Hungarians, also known as Magyars ( ; hu, magyarok ), are a nation and ethnic group native to Hungary () and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry, and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Uralic ...
(or
Hungarians
Hungarians, also known as Magyars ( ; hu, magyarok ), are a nation and ethnic group native to Hungary () and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry, and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Ural ...
) dwelled in the
Pontic steppes when they first appeared in written sources in the mid 9th century. Muslim merchants described them as wealthy nomadic warriors, but they also noticed the Magyars had extensive arable lands. Masses of Magyars crossed the
Carpathian Mountains after the
Pechenegs invaded their lands in 894 or 895. They settled in the lowlands along the
Middle Danube, annihilated
Moravia
Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
Th ...
and defeated the
Bavarians in the 900s. According to scholarly theories, at least three Hungarian noble clans
[They refer to the Hont-Pázmány, Miskolc and Bogát-Radvány clans.] were descended from Moravian aristocrats who survived the
Magyar conquest. Historians who say that the
Vlachs (or
Romanians
The Romanians ( ro, români, ; dated exonym '' Vlachs'') are a Romance-speaking ethnic group. Sharing a common Romanian culture and ancestry, and speaking the Romanian language, they live primarily in Romania and Moldova. The 2011 Roman ...
) were already present in the
Carpathian Basin
The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large Sedimentary basin, basin situated in south-east Central Europe. The Geomorphology, geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewh ...
in the late 9th century propose the Vlach (or chieftains) also endured. Neither of the two continuity theories is universally accepted.
Around 950,
Constantine Porphyrogenitus (d. 959) recorded the Hungarians were organized into
tribes
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confl ...
, and each had its own "prince". The tribal leaders most probably bore the title ''úr'', as it is suggested by Hungarian terms''ország'' (now "realm") and ''uralkodni'' ("to rule")deriving from this noun. Porphyrogenitus noted the Magyars spoke both Hungarian and "the
tongue of the Chazars", showing that at least their leaders were
bilingual.
Archaeological research revealed that most settlements comprised small
pit-houses and
log cabins in the 10th century, but literary sources mention tents still in use in the 12th century. No archeological finds evidence fortresses in the Carpathian Basin in the 10th century, but fortresses were also rare in Western Europe during the same period. A larger log cabinmeasuring which was built on a foundation of stones in
Borsod
Borsod was an administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. The capital of the county was Miskolc. After World War II, the county was merged with the Hungarian parts of Abaúj-Torna County and Zemplén counties to form Borsod-Aba ...
was tentatively identified as the local leader's household.
More than a 1,000 graves yielding sabres, arrow-heads and bones of horses show mounted warriors formed a significant group in the 10th century. The highest-ranking Hungarians were buried either in large cemeteries (where hundreds of graves of men buried without weapons surrounded their burial places), or in small cemeteries with 25–30 graves. The wealthy warriors' burial sites yielded richly decorated horse harness, and
sabretaches ornamented with precious metal plaques. Rich women's graves contained their braid ornaments and rings made of silver or gold and decorated with precious stones. The most widespread decorative motifs which can be regarded as tribal
totemsthe
griffin, wolf and
hindwere rarely applied in Hungarian heraldry in the following centuries. Defeats during the
Hungarian invasions of Europe and clashes with the
paramount rulers from the
Árpád dynasty had decimated the leading families by the end of the 10th century. The , which was written around 1200, claimed that dozens of noble kindreds flourishing in the late 12th century
[The Bár-Kalán, Csák, Kán, Lád and ]Szemere
Szemere is a village in , Hungary.
References
External links
Street map
Populated places in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County
{{Borsod-geo-stub ...
kindreds regarded themselves as descendants of one of the legendary seven leaders of the Hungarian Conquest. had been descended from tribal leaders, but most modern scholars do not regard this list as a reliable source.
Middle Ages
Development
Stephen I (), who was crowned the first
king of Hungary in 1000 or 1001, defeated the last resisting tribal chieftains. Earthen forts were built throughout the kingdom and most of them developed into centers of royal administration. About 30 administrative units, known as
counties, were established before 1040; more than 40 new counties were organized during the next centuries. Each county was headed by a royal official, the ''
ispán''. The royal court provided further career opportunities. Actually, as
Martyn Rady noted, the "royal household was the greatest provider of largesse in the kingdom" where the royal family owned more than two-thirds of all lands. The
palatinethe head of the royal householdwas the highest-ranking royal official.
The kings appointed their officials from among the members of about 110 aristocratic clans. These aristocrats were descended either from native (that is, Magyar,
Kabar
The Kabars ( el, Κάβαροι), also known as Qavars (Qabars) or Khavars were Khazar rebels who joined the Magyar confederation possibly in the 9th century as well as the Rus' Khaganate.
Sources
The Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII is the ...
, Pecheneg or Slavic) chiefs, or from foreign knights who had migrated to the country in the 11th and 12th centuries. The foreign knights had been trained in the Western European art of war, which contributed to the development of heavy cavalry in Hungary. Their descendants were labelled as newcomers for centuries, but intermarriage between natives and newcomers was not rare, which enabled their integration. The monarchs pursued an expansionist policy from the late 11th century.
Ladislaus I () seized
Slavonia
Slavonia (; hr, Slavonija) is, with Dalmatia, Croatia proper, and Istria, one of the four historical regions of Croatia. Taking up the east of the country, it roughly corresponds with five Croatian counties: Brod-Posavina, Osijek-Baranja, ...
the plains between the river
Drava and the
Dinaric Alpsin the 1090s. His successor,
Coloman (), was crowned
king of Croatia in 1102. Both realms retained their own customs, and Hungarians rarely received land grants in Croatia. According to customary law, Croatians could not be obliged to cross the river Drava to fight in the royal army at their own expense.
The earliest laws authorized landowners to dispose freely of their private estates, but customary law prescribed that inherited lands could only be transferred with the consent of the owner's kinsmen who could inherit them. From the early 12th century, only family lands traceable back to a grant made by Stephen I could be inherited by the deceased owner's distant relatives; other estates
escheated to the Crown if their owner did not have offspring or brothers. Aristocratic families held their inherited domains in common for generations before the 13th century. Thereafter the division of inherited property became the standard practice. Even families descended from wealthy kindreds could become impoverished through the regular divisions of their estates.
Medieval documents mention the basic unit of estate organization as ''praedium'' or ''allodium''. A ''praedium'' was a piece of land (either a whole village or part of it) with well-marked borders. Archaeologist Mária Wolf identifies the small
motte forts, built on artificial mounds and protected by a ditch and a palisade that appeared in the 12th century as the centers of private estates. Most wealthy landowners' domains consisted of scattered ''praedia'', in several villages. Due to the scarcity of documentary evidence, the size of the private estates cannot be determined. The descendants of
Otto Győr
Otto (Atha) from the kindred Győr ( hu, Győr nembeli Ottó or ''Atha''; died after 1066) was a Hungarian noble in the second half of the 11h century, who served as palatine ( la, palatinus) in 1066, during the reign of Solomon, King of Hungary. H ...
remained wealthy landowners even after he donated 360 households to the newly established
Zselicszentjakab Abbey in 1061. The establishment of monasteries by wealthy individuals was common. Such
proprietary monasteries served as burial places for their founders and the founders' descendants, who were regarded as the co-owners, or from the 13th century,
co-patrons, of the monastery. Unfree peasants cultivated part of the ''praedium'', but other plots were hired out in return for in-kind taxes.
The term "noble" was rarely used and poorly defined before the 13th century: it could refer to a courtier, a landowner with judicial powers, or even to a common warrior. The existence of a diverse group of warriors, who were subjected to the monarch, royal officials or prelates is well documented. The
castle warrior
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified ...
s, who were exempt from taxation, held hereditary landed property around the royal castles. Light-armored horsemen, known as ' (or archers), and armed
castle folk, mentioned as ' (or guards), defended the
borderlands.
Golden Bulls
Official documents from the end of the 12th century only mentioned court dignitaries and ''ispáns'' as noblemen. This group had adopted most elements of
chivalric culture. They regularly named their children after
Paris of Troy
Paris ( grc, Πάρις), also known as Alexander (, ''Aléxandros''), the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, is a mythological nobleman that appears in a number of Greek legends.
Of these appearances, probably the best known was th ...
,
Hector,
Tristan,
Lancelot
Lancelot du Lac (French for Lancelot of the Lake), also written as Launcelot and other variants (such as early German ''Lanzelet'', early French ''Lanselos'', early Welsh ''Lanslod Lak'', Italian ''Lancillotto'', Spanish ''Lanzarote del Lago' ...
and other heroes of Western European
chivalric romances
As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalr ...
. The first
tournaments were held around the same time.
The regular alienation of royal estates is well-documented from the 1170s. The monarchs granted immunities, exempting the grantee's estates from the jurisdiction of the ''ispáns'', or even renouncing royal revenues that had been collected there.
Béla III () was the first Hungarian monarch to give away a whole county to a nobleman: he granted Modrus in Croatia to
Bartholomew of Krk in 1193, stipulating that he was to equip warriors for the royal army. Béla's son,
Andrew II (), decided to "alter the conditions" of his realm and "distribute castles, counties, lands and other revenues" to his officials, as he narrated in a document in 1217. Instead of granting the estates in
fief, with an obligation to render future services, he gave them as
allods, in reward for the grantee's previous acts. The great officers who were the principal beneficiaries of his grants were mentioned as barons of the realm from the late 1210s.
Donations of such a large scale accelerated the development of a wealthy group of landowners, most descending from high-ranking kindreds. Some wealthy landowners
[Andronicus Aba built a castle at Füzér, and the castle at Kabold (now ]Kobersdorf
Kobersdorf ( hu, Kabold, hr, Kobrštof) is an Austrian market town in Oberpullendorf, Burgenland.
Geography
Kobersdorf is located in Middle Burgenland and is divided into the districts of Kobersdorf, Lindgraben, and Oberpetersdorf. The municip ...
in Austria) was erected by Pousa Szák. could afford to build stone castles in the 1220s. Closely related aristocrats were distinguished from other lineages through a reference to their (actual or presumed) common ancestor with the words ''de genere'' ("from the kindred"). Families descending from the same kindred adopted similar insignia.
[The families from the Aba clan had an eagle on their coat-of-arms, and the Csáks adopted the lion.] The author of the fabricated genealogies for them and emphasized that they could never be excluded from "the honor of the realm", that is from state administration.
The new owners of the transferred royal estates wanted to subjugate the freemen, castle warriors and other privileged groups of people living in or around their domains. The threatened groups wanted to achieve confirmation of their status as
royal servants, emphasizing that they were only to serve the king. Béla III issued the first extant
royal charter
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but ...
about the grant of this rank to a castle warrior. Andrew II's
Golden Bull of 1222 enacted royal servants' privileges. They were exempt from taxation; they were to fight in the royal army without proper compensation only if enemy forces invaded the kingdom; only the monarch or the palatine could judge their cases. According to the Golden Bull, only royal servants who died without a son could freely will their estates, but even in this case, their daughters were entitled to the
daughters' quarter. The final article of the Golden Bull authorized the bishops, barons and other nobles to resist the monarch if he ignored its provisions. Most provisions of the Golden Bull were first confirmed in 1231.
The clear definition of the royal servants' liberties distinguished them from all other privileged groups whose military obligations remained theoretically unlimited. From the 1220s, the royal servants were regularly called noblemen and started to develop their own corporate institutions at the county level. In 1232, the royal servants of
Zala County asked Andrew II to authorize them "to judge and do justice", stating that the county had slipped into anarchy. The king granted their request and
Bartholomew, Bishop of Veszprém, sued one
Ban Oguz for properties before their community.
The
first Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241 and 1242 proved the importance of well-fortified locations and heavily armored cavalry. During the following decades,
Béla IV of Hungary () gave away large parcels of the royal
demesne, expecting that the new owners would build stone castles there. Béla's burdensome castle-building program was unpopular, but he achieved his aim: almost 70 castles were built or reconstructed during his reign. More than half of the new or reconstructed castles were in noblemen's domains. Most new castles were erected on rocky peaks, mainly along the western and northern borderlands. The spread of stone castles profoundly changed the structure of landholding because castles could not be maintained without proper income. Lands and villages were legally attached to each castle, and castles were thereafter always transferred and inherited along with these "
appurtenances".
The royal servants were legally identified as nobles in 1267. That year, "the nobles of all Hungary, called royal servants" persuaded Béla IV and his son,
Stephen V (), to hold an assembly and confirm their collective privileges. Other groups of land-holding warriors could also be called nobles, but they were always distinguished from the true noblemen. The noble who had landed property in the
Banate of Severin were obliged to fight in the army of the
ban
Ban, or BAN, may refer to:
Law
* Ban (law), a decree that prohibits something, sometimes a form of censorship, being denied from entering or using the place/item
** Imperial ban (''Reichsacht''), a form of outlawry in the medieval Holy Roman ...
(or royal governor). Most warriors known as the noble sons of servants were descended from freemen or liberated serfs who received estates from Béla IV in
Upper Hungary on the condition that they were to equip jointly a fixed number of knights. The
nobles of the Church formed the armed retinue of the wealthiest prelates. The
nobles of Turopolje
The nobles of Turopolje or nobles of the plain ( hu, túrmezei nemesek, la, nobiles de campo) formed a group of conditional nobles in Slavonia within the Kingdom of Hungary from the second half of the 13th century to the middle of the 19th&nb ...
in Slavonia were required to provide food and fodder to high-ranking royal officials. The
Székelys
The Székelys (, Székely runes: 𐳥𐳋𐳓𐳉𐳗), also referred to as Szeklers,; ro, secui; german: Szekler; la, Siculi; sr, Секељи, Sekelji; sk, Sikuli are a Hungarian subgroup living mostly in the Székely Land in Romania. ...
and
Saxons firmly protected their communal liberties, which prevented their leaders from exercising noble privileges in the Székely and Saxon territories in Transylvania. Székelys and Saxons could only enjoy the liberties of noblemen if they held estates outside the lands of the two privileged communities.
Most noble families failed to adopt a strategy to avoid the division of their inherited estates into dwarf-holdings through generations. Daughters could only demand the cash equivalent of the quarter of their father's estates, but younger sons rarely remained unmarried. Impoverished noblemen had little chance to receive land grants from the kings, because they were unable to participate in the monarchs' military campaigns, but commoners who bravely fought in the royal army were regularly ennobled.
Self-government and oligarchs
Historian Erik Fügedi noted that "castle bred castle" in the second half of the 13th century: if a landowner erected a fortress, his neighbors would also build one to defend their own estates. Between 1271 and 1320, noblemen or prelates built at least 155 new fortresses. In comparison, only about a dozen castles were erected on royal domains. Most castles consisted of a tower, surrounded by a fortified courtyard, but the tower could also be built into the walls. Noblemen who could not erect fortresses were occasionally forced to abandon their inherited estates or seek the protection of more powerful lords, even through renouncing their liberties.
[According to a 15th-century land-register, many ecclesiastic nobles in the Bishopric of Veszprém were descended from true noblemen who had sought the bishops' protection.]
The lords of the castles had to hire a professional staff for the defence of the castle and the management of its appurtenances. They primarily employed nobles who held nearby estates, which gave rise to the development of a new institution, known as . A was a nobleman who entered into the service of a wealthier landowner in exchange for a fixed salary or a portion of revenue, or rarely for the ownership or
usufruct (right to enjoyment) of a piece of land. Unlike a
conditional noble, a remained an independent landholder, only subject to the monarch.
Monarchs took an oath at their coronation, which included a promise to respect the noblemen's liberties after the 1270s. The counties gradually transformed into an institution of the noblemen's local autonomy. Noblemen regularly discussed local matters at the counties' general assemblies. The (the counties' law courts) became important elements in the administration of justice. They were headed by the or their deputies, but they consisted of four (in Slavonia and Transylvania, two) elected local noblemen, known as
judges of the nobles.
Hungary fell into a state of anarchy because of the minority of
Ladislaus IV () in the early 1270s. To restore public order, the prelates convoked the barons and the delegates of the noblemen and
Cumans to a general assembly near Pest in 1277. This first
Diet (or parliament) declared the monarch to be of age. In the early 1280s,
Simon of Kéza associated the Hungarian nation with the nobility in his ''
Deeds of the Hungarians'', emphasizing the community of noblemen held real authority.
The barons took advantage of the weakening of royal authority and seized large contiguous territories. The monarchs could not appoint and dismiss their officials at will any more. The most powerful baronsknown as
oligarchs in modern historiographyappropriated royal prerogatives, combining private lordship with their administrative powers. When
Andrew III (), the last male member of the Árpád dynasty, died in 1301, about a dozen lords
[The most powerful oligarch, Matthew Csák, dominated more than a dozen counties in northwestern Hungary; Ladislaus Kán was the actual ruler of Translyvnia; and ]Paul Šubić
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...
ruled Croatia and Dalmatia. held sway over most parts of the kingdom.
Age of the Angevins
Ladislaus IV's great-nephew,
Charles I (), who was a scion of the
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou or House of Anjou-Sicily, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct French House of Capet, part of the Capetian dynasty. It is one of three separate royal houses referred to as ''Angevin'', meaning "from Anjou" ...
, restored royal power in the 1310s and 1320s. He seized the oligarchs' castles mainly by force, which again secured the preponderance of the royal demesne. He refuted the Golden Bull in 1318 and claimed that noblemen had to fight in his army at their own expense. He ignored customary law and regularly "
promoted a daughter to a son", granting her the right to inherit her father's estates. The King reorganized the royal household, appointing pages and knights to form his permanent retinue. He established the
Order of Saint George, which was the first
chivalric order in Europe. Charles I was the first Hungarian monarch to grant coats of arms (or rather
crests) to his subjects. He based royal administration on
honors (or office fiefs), distributing most counties and royal castles among his highest-ranking officials. These "baronies", as
Matteo Villani recorded it in about 1350, were "neither hereditary nor lifelong", but Charles rarely dismissed his most trusted barons. Each baron was required to hold his own (or armed retinue), distinguished by his own banner.
In 1351, Charles's son and successor,
Louis I () confirmed all provisions of the Golden Bull, save the one that authorized childless noblemen to freely will their estates. Instead, he introduced an
entail system, prescribing that childless noblemen's landed property "should descend to their brothers, cousins and kinsmen". This new concept of also protected the Crown's interests: only kin within the third degree could inherit a nobleman's property and noblemen who had only more distant relatives could not dispose of their property without the king's consent. Louis I emphasized all noblemen enjoyed "one and the selfsame liberty" in his realms and secured all privileges that nobles owned in Hungary proper to their Slavonian and Transylvanian peers. He rewarded dozens of Vlach with true nobility for military merits. The vast majority of the Upper Hungarian noble sons of servants achieved the status of true noblemen without a formal royal act, because the memory of their conditional landholding fell into oblivion. Most of them preferred
Slavic names
Given names originating from the Slavic languages are most common in Slavic peoples, Slavic countries.
The main types of Slavic names:
* Two-basic names, often ending in mir/měr (''Ostromir/měr'', ''Tihomir/měr'', ''Niemir, Němir/měr''), ...
even in the 14th century, showing that they spoke the
local Slavic vernacular. Other groups of conditional nobles remained distinguished from true noblemen. They developed their own institutions of self-government, known as
seats or
districts. Louis decreed that only Catholic noblemen and could hold landed property in the district of Karánsebes (now
Caransebeș in Romania) in 1366, but Orthodox landowners were not forced to convert to
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
in other territories of the kingdom. Even the Catholic
bishop of Várad (now
Oradea
Oradea (, , ; german: Großwardein ; hu, Nagyvárad ) is a city in Romania, located in Crișana, a sub-region of Transylvania. The county seat, seat of Bihor County, Oradea is one of the most important economic, social and cultural centers in the ...
in Romania) authorized his Vlach (leaders) to employ
Eastern Orthodox priests. The king granted the Transylvanian
district of Fogaras (around present-day
Făgăraș in Romania) to
Vladislav I of Wallachia () in fief in 1366. In his new duchy, Vladislaus I donated estates to Wallachian ; their legal status was similar to the position of the in other regions of Hungary.
Royal charters customarily identified noblemen and landowners from the second half of the 14th century. A man who lived in his own house on his own estates was described as living "in the way of nobles", in contrast with those who did not own landed property and lived "in the way of peasants". A verdict of 1346 declared that a noble woman who was given in marriage to a commoner should receive her inheritance "in the form of an estate in order to preserve the nobility of the descendants born of the ignoble marriage". According to the local customs of certain counties, her husband was also regarded as a noblemana
noble by his wife
A noble is a member of the nobility.
Noble may also refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Noble Glacier, King George Island
* Noble Nunatak, Marie Byrd Land
* Noble Peak, Wiencke Island
* Noble Rocks, Graham Land
Australia
* Noble Island, Great B ...
.
The peasants' legal position had been standardized in almost the entire kingdom by the 1350s. The free peasant tenants were to pay seigneurial taxes, but were rarely obliged to provide
labour service
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
. In 1351, the king ordered that the
ninth
In music, a ninth is a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a second.
Like the second, the interval of a ninth is classified as a dissonance in common practice tonality. Since a ninth is an octave larger than a second, its ...
a tax payable to the landownerswas to be collected from all tenants, thus preventing landowners from offering lower taxes to persuade tenants to move from other lords' lands to their estates. In 1328, all landowners were authorized to administer justice on their estates "in all cases except cases of theft, robbery, assault or arson". The kings started to grant noblemen the
right to execute or mutilate criminals who were captured in their estates. The most influential noblemen's estates were also exempted of the jurisdiction of the counties' law courts.
Emerging Estates
Royal power quickly declined after Louis I died in 1382. His son-in-law,
Sigismund of Luxembourg
Sigismund of Luxembourg (15 February 1368 – 9 December 1437) was a monarch as King of Hungary and Croatia (''jure uxoris'') from 1387, King of Germany from 1410, King of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1433 until his death in 1 ...
(), entered into a formal league with the aristocrats who had elected him king in early 1387. Initially, when his position was weak, he gave away more than half of the 150 royal castles to his supporters, although this abated when he strengthened his authority in the early 15th century. His favorites were foreigners,
[The Styrian Hermann of Celje became the greatest landowner in Slavonia; the Pole ]Stibor of Stiboricz
Stibor of Stiboricz of Ostoja (also written in English as Scibor or Czibor; pl, Ścibor ze Ściborzyc, hu, Stiborici Stibor, ro, Știbor de Știborici, sk, Stibor zo Stiboríc; c. 1348 – February 1414) was an aristocrat of Polish origi ...
held 9 castles and 140 villages in northeastern Hungary. but old Hungarian families
[The Báthory, ]Perényi Perényi may refer to:
* Béla Perényi, Hungarian chess player
*Eleanor Perenyi, American gardener and garden writer
*Péter Perényi, Comes of Temesvár
* Péter Perényi (1502–1548), Voivode of Transylvania
*Miklós Perényi
Miklós Perényi ...
and Rozgonyi families were among the native beneficiaries of Sigismund's grants. also took advantage of his magnanimity. The wealthiest noblemen, known as magnates, built comfortable castles in the countryside which became important centers of social life. These fortified manor houses always contained a hall for representative purposes and a private chapel. Sigismund regularly invited the magnates to the royal council, even if they did not hold higher offices. He founded a new chivalric order, the
Order of the Dragon, in 1408 to reward his most loyal supporters.
The expansion of the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
reached the southern frontiers in the 1390s. A
large anti-Ottoman crusade ended with a catastrophic defeat near
Nicopolis in 1396. Next year, Sigismund held a Diet in
Temesvár (now Timișoara in Romania) to strengthen the defence system. He confirmed the Golden Bull, but without the two provisions that limited the noblemen's military obligations and established their right to resist the monarchs. The Diet obliged all landowners to
equip one archer for every 20 peasant plots on their domains to serve in the royal army. Sigismund granted large estates to neighboring Orthodox rulers in Hungary
[ Mircea I of Wallachia was awarded with Fogaras; ]Stefan Lazarević
Stefan Lazarević ( sr-Cyrl, Стефан Лазаревић, 1377 – 19 July 1427), also known as Stefan the Tall ( sr, Стефан Високи / ''Stefan Visoki''), was the ruler of Serbia as prince (1389–1402) and despot (1402–1427), ...
, Despot of Serbia, received more than a dozen of castles. to secure their alliance. They established
Basilite monasteries on their estates.
Sigismund's son-in-law,
Albert of Habsburg (), was elected king in early 1438, but only after he promised always to make important decisions with the consent of the royal council. After he died in 1439, a civil war broke out between the partisans of his son
Ladislaus the Posthumous () and the supporters of the child king's rival
Vladislaus III of Poland (). Ladislaus the Posthumous was crowned with the
Holy Crown of Hungary, but the Diet proclaimed the coronation invalid. Vladislaus died fighting the Ottomans during the
Crusade of Varna in 1444 and the Diet elected seven
captains in chief to administer the kingdom. The talented military commander,
John Hunyadi (d. 1456), was elected the sole regent in 1446.
The Diet developed from a consultative body into an important institution of law making in the 1440s. The magnates were always invited to attend it in person. Lesser noblemen were also entitled to attend the Diet, but in most cases they were represented by delegates, who were almost always the magnates' .
Birth of titled nobility and the ''Tripartitum''
Hunyadi was the first noble to receive a hereditary title from a Hungarian king. Ladislaus the Posthumous granted him the
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
district of Bistritz (now
Bistrița in Romania) with the title
perpetual count in 1453. Hunyadi's son,
Matthias Corvinus (), who was elected king in 1458, rewarded further noblemen with the same title. Fügedi states, 16 December 1487 was the "birthday of the estate of magnates in Hungary", because an armistice signed on this day listed 23 Hungarian "natural barons", contrasting them with the high officers of state, who were mentioned as "barons of office". Corvinus' successor,
Vladislaus II (), and Vladislaus' son,
Louis II (), formally began to reward important persons of their government with the hereditary title of baron.
Differences in the nobles' wealth increased in the second half of the 15th century. About 30 families owned more than a quarter of the territory of the kingdom when Corvinus died in 1490. A further tenth of all lands in the kingdom was in the possession of about 55 wealthy noble families. Other nobles held almost one third of the lands, but this group included 12–13,000
peasant-nobles who owned a single plot (or a part of it) and had no tenants. The Diets regularly compelled the peasant-nobles to pay tax on their plots. Average magnates held about 50 villages, but the regular division of inherited landed property could cause the impoverishment of aristocratic families.
[Stephen Bánffy of Losonc held 68 villages in 1459, but the same villages were divided among his 14 descendants in 1526.] Strategies applied to avoid this
family planning and
celibacyled to the extinction of most aristocratic families after a few generations.
[From among the 36 wealthiest families of the late 1430s, 27 families survived until 1490, and only eight families until 1570.]
The Diet ordered the compilation of customary law in 1498.
István Werbőczy (d. 1541) completed the task, presenting a law-book at the Diet in 1514. His ''
Tripartitum'The Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary in Three Parts''was never enacted, but it was consulted at the law courts for centuries. It summarized the noblemen's fundamental privileges in four points: noblemen were only subject to the monarch's authority and could only be arrested in a due legal process; furthermore, they were exempt from all taxes and were entitled to resist the king if he attempted to interfere with their privileges. Werbőczy also implied that Hungary was actually a republic of nobles headed by a monarch, stating that all noblemen "are members of the
Holy Crown
The Holy Crown of Hungary ( hu, Szent Korona; sh, Kruna svetoga Stjepana; la, Sacra Corona; sk, Svätoštefanská koruna , la, Sacra Corona), also known as the Crown of Saint Stephen, named in honour of Saint Stephen I of Hungary, was the ...
" of Hungary. Quite anachronistically, he emphasized the idea of all noblemen's legal equality, but he had to admit that the high officers of the realm, whom he mentioned as "true barons", were legally distinguished from other nobles. He also mentioned the existence of a distinct group, who were barons "in name only", but without specifying their peculiar status.
The ''Tripartitum'' regarded the kindred as the basic unit of nobility. A noble father exercised almost autocratic authority over his sons, because he could imprison them or offer them as a hostage for himself. His authority ended only if he divided his estates with his sons, but the division could rarely be enforced. The "betrayal of fraternal blood" (that is, a kinsman's "deceitful, sly, and fraudulent ... disinheritance")
[''The Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary in Three Parts (1517)'' (1.39.), p. 105.] was a serious crime, which was punished by loss of honor and the confiscation of all property. Although the ''Tripartitum'' did not explicitly mention it, a nobleman's wife was also subject to his authority. She received her dower from her husband at the consummation of their marriage. If her husband died, she inherited his best coach-horses and clothes.
Demand for foodstuffs grew rapidly in Western Europe in the 1490s. The landowners wanted to take advantage of the growing prices. They demanded labour service from their peasant tenants and started to collect the seigneurial taxes in kind. The Diets passed decrees that restricted the peasants' right to free movement and increased their burdens. The peasants' grievances unexpectedly culminated in a rebellion in May 1514. The rebels captured manor houses and murdered dozens of noblemen, especially on the
Great Hungarian Plain
The Great Hungarian Plain (also known as Alföld or Great Alföld, hu, Alföld or ) is a plain occupying the majority of the modern territory of Hungary. It is the largest part of the wider Pannonian Plain. (However, the Great Hungarian plai ...
. The
voivode of Transylvania,
John Zápolya, annihilated their main army at Temesvár on 15 July.
György Dózsa and other leaders of the peasant war were tortured and executed, but most rebels received a pardon. The Diet punished the peasantry as a group, condemning them to perpetual servitude and depriving them of the right of free movement. The Diet also enacted the serfs' obligation to provide one day's labour service for their lords each week.
Early modern and modern times
Tripartite Hungary
The Ottomans annihilated the royal army at the
Battle of Mohács. Louis II died fleeing from the battlefield and two claimants, John Zápolya () and
Ferdinand of Habsburg (), were elected kings. Ferdinand tried to reunite Hungary after Zápolya died in 1540, but the
Ottoman Sultan
The sultans of the Ottoman Empire ( tr, Osmanlı padişahları), who were all members of the Ottoman dynasty (House of Osman), ruled over the transcontinental empire from its perceived inception in 1299 to its dissolution in 1922. At its hei ...
,
Suleiman the Magnificent () intervened and captured
Buda in 1541. The sultan allowed Zápolya's widow,
Isabella Jagiellon (d. 1559), to rule the lands east of the river
Tisza on behalf of her infant son,
John Sigismund (), in return for a yearly tribute. His decision divided Hungary into three parts: the Ottomans occupied
the central territories; John Sigismund's
eastern Hungarian Kingdom developed into the autonomous
Principality of Transylvania; and the Habsburg monarchs preserved the northern and western territories (or
Royal Hungary
Royal may refer to:
People
* Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name
* A member of a royal family
Places United States
* Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Royal, Illinois, a village
* Royal, Iowa, a cit ...
).
Most noblemen fled from the central regions to the unoccupied territories. Peasants who lived along the borders paid taxes both to the Ottomans and their former lords. Commoners were regularly recruited to serve in the royal army or in the magnates' retinues to replace the noblemen who had perished during fights. The irregular foot-soldiersmainly runaway serfs and dispossessed noblemenbecame important elements of the defence forces.
Stephen Bocskai,
Prince of Transylvania (), settled 10,000 in seven villages and exempted them from taxation in 1605, which was the "largest collective ennoblement" in the history of Hungary.
The noblemen formed one of the three
nations (or Estates of the realm) in Transylvania, but they could rarely challenge the princes' authority. In Royal Hungary, the magnates successfully protected the noble privileges, because their vast domains were almost completely exempt from royal officials' authority. Their manors were fortified in the "Hungarian manner" (with walls made of earth and timber) in the 1540s. The Hungarian noblemen could also count on the support of the Transylvanian princes against the Habsburg monarchs. Intermarriages among Austrian, Czech and Hungarian aristocrats
[The marriages of the children and grandchildren of ]Magdolna Székely
Magdolna is a given name. Notable people with the name include:
*Magdolna Komka, née Csábi, retired Hungarian high jumper
*Magdolna Kovács, Hungarian orienteering competitor
*Magdolna Nyári-Kovács (1921–2005), Hungarian fencer
*Magdolna Pat ...
by her three husbands established close family links between the Hungarian Széchy and Thurzó, the Croatian-Hungarian Zrinski, the Czech Kolowrat, Lobkowicz, Pernštejn, and Rožmberk, and the Austrian or German Arco, Salm and Ungnad families. gave rise to the development of a "supranational aristocracy" in the
Habsburg monarchy. Foreign aristocrats regularly received Hungarian
citizenship
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
, and Hungarian noblemen were often
naturalized
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
in the Habsburgs' other realms.
[The Tyrolian Count Pyrcho von Arco (who married the Hungarian Margit Széchy) was naturalized in Hungary in 1559; the Hungarian Baron Simon Forgách (who married the Austrian Ursula Pemfflinger) received citizenship in ]Lower Austria
Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt ...
in 1568 and in Moravia
Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
Th ...
in 1581. The Habsburg kings rewarded the most powerful magnates with hereditary titles from the 1530s.
The aristocrats supported the spread of the
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...
. Most noblemen adhered to
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...
in the western regions of Royal Hungary, but
Calvinism
Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...
was the dominant religion in Transylvania and other regions. John Sigismund even promoted
anti-Trinitarian views, but most
Unitarian
Unitarian or Unitarianism may refer to:
Christian and Christian-derived theologies
A Unitarian is a follower of, or a member of an organisation that follows, any of several theologies referred to as Unitarianism:
* Unitarianism (1565–present ...
noblemen perished in battles in the early 1600s. The Habsburgs remained staunch supporters of
Counter-Reformation and the most prominent aristocratic families
[The Batthyány, Illésházy, Nádasdy and Thurzó families were the first converts.] converted to Catholicism in Royal Hungary in the 1630s. The Calvinist princes of Transylvania supported their co-religionists.
Gabriel Bethlen granted nobility to all Calvinist pastors.
Both the kings and the Transylvanian princes regularly ennobled commoners without granting landed property to them. Jurisprudence, however, maintained that only those who owned land cultivated by serfs could be regarded as fully-fledged noblemen.
Armalistsnoblemen who hold a charter of ennoblement, but not a single plot of landand peasant-nobles continued to pay taxes, for which they were collectively known as
taxed nobility
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or ...
. Nobility could be purchased from the kings who were often in need of funds. Landowners also benefitted from the ennoblement of their serfs, because they could demand a fee for their consent.
The Diet was officially divided into two
chambers in Royal Hungary in 1608. All adult male members of the titled noble families had a seat in the Upper House. The lesser noblemen elected two or three delegates at the general assemblies of the counties to represent them in the Lower House. The Croatian and Slavonian magnates also had a seat at the Upper House, and the (or Diet) of Croatia and Slavonia sent delegates to the Lower House.
Liberation and war of independence
Relief forces from the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
From the accession of Otto I in 962 ...
and the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth inflicted a
crushing defeat on the Ottomans at Vienna in 1683. The Ottomans were
expelled from Buda in 1686.
Michael I Apafi
Michael Apafi ( hu, Apafi Mihály; 3 November 1632 – 15 April 1690) was Prince of Transylvania from 1661 to his death.
Background
The Principality of Transylvania emerged after the disintegration of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary in the sec ...
, the prince of Transylvania (), acknowledged the suzerainty of
Emperor Leopold I, who was also king of Hungary (), in 1687. Grateful for the liberation of Buda, the Diet abolished the noblemen's right to resist the monarch for the defense of their liberties. Leopold
confirmed the privileges of the Transylvanian Estates in 1690. In 1688, the Diet authorized the aristocrats to establish a special
trust, known as , with royal consent to prevent the distribution of their landed wealth among their descendants. In accordance with the traditional concept of , inherited estates could not be subject to the trust. The family administered estates in were always held by one person, but he was responsible for the proper boarding of his relatives.
The Ottomans
acknowledged the loss of central Hungary in 1699. Leopold set up a special committee to distribute the lands in the reconquered territories. The descendants of the noblemen who had held estates there before the Ottoman conquest were required to provide documentary evidence to substantiate their claims to the ancestral lands. Even if they could present documents, they were to pay a feea tenth of the value of the claimed propertyas compensation for the costs of the liberation war. Few noblemen could meet the criteria and more than half of the recovered lands were distributed among foreigners. They were naturalized, but most of them never visited Hungary.
The Habsburg administration doubled the amount of the taxes to be collected in Hungary and demanded almost one-third of the taxes (1.25 million florins) from the clergy and the nobility. The palatine,
Prince Paul Esterházy (d. 1713), convinced the monarch to reduce the noblemen's tax-burden to 0.25 million florins, but the difference was to be paid by the peasantry. Leopold did not trust the Hungarians, because a
group of magnates had conspired against him in the 1670s. Mercenaries replaced the Hungarian garrisons, and they frequently plundered the countryside. The monarch also supported Cardinal
Leopold Karl von Kollonitsch's attempts to restrict the Protestants' rights. Tens of thousands of
Catholic Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, image = Hohe_Domkirche_St._Petrus.jpg
, imagewidth = 200px
, alt =
, caption = Cologne Cathedral, Cologne
, abbreviation =
, type = N ...
and
Orthodox Serbs
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...
were settled in the reconquered territories.
The outbreak of the
War of the Spanish Succession
The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict that took place from 1701 to 1714. The death of childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700 led to a struggle for control of the Spanish Empire between his heirs, Phili ...
provided an opportunity for the discontented Hungarians to rise against Leopold. They regarded one of the wealthiest aristocrats, Prince
Francis II Rákóczi (d. 1735), as their leader.
Rákóczi's War of Independence
Rákóczi's War of Independence (1703–11) was the first significant attempt to topple the rule of the Habsburgs over Hungary. The war was conducted by a group of noblemen, wealthy and high-ranking progressives and was led by Francis II Rákó ...
lasted from 1703 to 1711. Although the rebels were forced to yield, the
Treaty of Szatmár granted a general amnesty for them and the new Habsburg monarch,
Charles III (), promised to respect the privileges of the Estates of the realm.
Cooperation, absolutism and reforms
Charles III again confirmed the privileges of the Estates of the "
Kingdom of Hungary, and the Parts, Kingdoms and Provinces thereto annexed" in 1723 in return for the enactment of the
Pragmatic Sanction which established his daughters' right to succeed him.
Montesquieu
Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (; ; 18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher.
He is the principa ...
, who visited Hungary in 1728, regarded the relationship between the king and the Diet as a good example of the
separation of powers
Separation of powers refers to the division of a state's government into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typica ...
. The magnates almost monopolized the highest offices, but both the
Hungarian Court Chancellery Hungarian may refer to:
* Hungary, a country in Central Europe
* Kingdom of Hungary, state of Hungary, existing between 1000 and 1946
* Hungarians, ethnic groups in Hungary
* Hungarian algorithm, a polynomial time algorithm for solving the assignme ...
the supreme body of royal administrationand the
Lieutenancy Council
A lord-lieutenant ( ) is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibilit ...
the most important administrative officealso employed lesser noblemen. In practice,
Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
were excluded from public offices after a royal decree, the , obliged all candidates to take an oath on the Virgin Mary.
The Treaty of Szatmár, Peace of Szatmár and the
Pragmatic Sanction maintained that the Hungarian nation consisted of the privileged groups, independent of their ethnicity, but the first debates along ethnic lines occurred in the early 18th century. The jurist Mihály Bencsik claimed that the burghers of Trencsén (now Trenčín in Slovakia) should not send delegates to the Diet because their ancestors had been forced to yield to the conquering Magyars in the 890s. A priest, Ján B. Magin, wrote a response, arguing that ethnic Slovaks and Hungarians enjoyed the same rights. In Transylvania, a bishop of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church, Baron Inocențiu Micu-Klein (d. 1768), demanded the recognition of the Romanians as the fourth Nation.
Maria Theresa () succeeded Charles III in 1740, which gave rise to the War of the Austrian Succession. The noble delegates offered their "lives and blood" for their new "king" and the declaration of the Conscription, general levy of the nobility was crucial at the beginning of the war. Grateful for their support, Maria Therese strengthened the links between the Hungarian nobility and the monarch. She established the Theresianum, Theresian Academy and the Royal Hungarian Bodyguard for young Hungarian noblemen. Both institutions enabled the spread of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment.
[The former bodyguard, György Bessenyei, wrote pamphlets about the importance of education and the cultivation of the Hungarian language in the 1770s.] Freemasonry became also popular, especially among the magnates.
Cultural differences between the magnates and lesser noblemen grew. The magnates adopted the lifestyle of the imperial aristocracy, moving between their summer palaces in Vienna and their newly built splendid residences in Hungary. Prince Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy, Miklós Esterházy (d. 1790) employed the celebrated composer Joseph Haydn. Count János Fekete, a fierce protector of noble privileges, bombarded Voltaire with letters and dilettante poems. Count Miklós Pálffy proposed to tax the nobles to finance a standing army. However, most noblemen were unwilling to renounce their privileges. Lesser noblemen also insisted on their traditional way of life and lived in simple houses, made of timber or packed clay.
Maria Therese did not hold Diets after 1764. She regulated the relationship of landowners and their serfs in a royal decree in 1767. Her son and successor, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II (), known as the "king in hat", was never crowned, because he wanted to avoid the coronation oath. He introduced reforms which clearly contradicted local customs. He replaced the counties with districts and appointed royal officials to administer them. He also abolished serfdom, securing all peasants' the right to free movement after the Revolt of Horea, Cloșca and Crișan, revolt of Romanian peasants in Transylvania. He ordered the first census in Hungary in 1784. According to its records, the nobility made up about four-and-a-half percent of the male population in the Lands of the Hungarian Crown (with 155,519 noblemen in Hungary proper, and 42,098 noblemen in Transylvania, Croatia and Slavonia). The nobles' proportion was significantly higher (six–sixteen percent) in the northeastern and eastern counties, and less (three percent) in Croatia and Slavonia. Poor noblemen, who were mocked as "nobles of the seven plum trees" or "sandal-wearing nobles", made up almost 90% of the nobility. Previous investigations of nobility show that more than half of the noble families received this rank after 1550.
The few reformist noblemen greeted the news of the French Revolution with enthusiasm. József Hajnóczy translated the ''Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen'' into Latin, and János Laczkovics published its Hungarian translation. To appease the Hungarian nobility, Joseph II revoked almost all his reforms on his deathbed in 1790. His successor, Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold II (), convoked the Diet and confirmed the liberties of the Estates of the realm, emphasizing Hungary was a "free and independent" realm, governed by its own laws. News about the Reign of Terror, Jacobin terror in France strengthened royal power. Hajnóczy and other radical (or "Jacobin") noblemen who had discussed the possibility of the abolishment of all privileges in secret societies were captured and executed or imprisoned in 1795. The Diets voted in favor of the taxes and the recruits that Leopold's successor, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, Francis (), demanded between 1792 and 1811.
The last general levy of the nobility was declared in 1809, but Napoleon easily Battle of Raab, defeated the noble troops near Győr. Agricultural bloom encouraged the landowners to borrow money and to buy new estates or to establish mills during the war, but most of them went bankrupt after peace was restored in 1814. The concept of prevented both the creditors from collecting their money and the debtors from selling their estates. Radical nobles played a crucial role in the reform movements of the early 19th century. Gergely Berzeviczy (d. 1822) attributed the backwardness of the local economy to the peasants' serfdom already around 1800. Ferenc Kazinczy (d. 1831) and János Batsányi (d. 1845) initiated language reform, fearing the disappearance of the Hungarian language. The poet Sándor Petőfi (d. 1849), who was a commoner, ridiculed the conservative noblemen in his poem ''The Magyar Noble'', contrasting their anachronistic pride and their idle way of life.
From the 1820s, a new generation of reformist noblemen dominated political life. Count István Széchenyi (d. 1860) demanded the abolition of the serfs' labour service and the entail system, stating that, "We, well-to-do landowners are the main obstacles to the progress and greater development of our fatherland". He established clubs in Pressburg and Pest and promoted horse racing, because he wanted to encourage the regular meetings of magnates, lesser noblemen and burghers. Széchenyi's friend, Baron Miklós Wesselényi (d. 1850), demanded the creation of a constitutional monarchy and the protection of civil rights. A lesser nobleman, Lajos Kossuth (d. 1894), became the leader of the most radical politicians in the 1840s. He declared that the Diets and the counties were the privileged groups' institutions and only a wider social movement could secure the development of Hungary.
The official use of the Hungarian language spread from the late 18th century, although ethnic Hungarians made up only about 38% of the population. Kossuth declared that all who wanted to enjoy the liberties of the nation should learn Hungarian. Count Janko Drašković (d. 1856) recommended Croatian language, Croatian should replace Latin as the official language in Croatia and Slavonia. In contrast, the Slovak Ľudovít Štúr (d. 1856) stated that the Hungarian nation consisted of many nationalities and their loyalty could be strengthened by the official use of their languages.
Revolution and neo-absolutism
News of the Revolutions of 1848 reached Pest on 15 March 1848. Young intellectuals proclaimed a radical program, known as the 12 points of the Hungarian Revolutionaries of 1848, Twelve Points, demanding equal civil rights to all citizens. Count Lajos Batthyány (d. 1849) was appointed the first prime minister of Hungary. The Diet quickly enacted the majority of the Twelve Points, and Ferdinand I of Austria, Ferdinand V () sanctioned them in April.
The April Laws abolished the nobles' tax-exemption and the , but the 31 remained intact. Although the peasant tenants received the ownership of their plots, a compensation was promised to the landowners. Adult men who owned more than of arable lands or urban estates with a value of at least 300 florinsabout one quarter of the adult male populationwere granted the right to vote in the parliamentary elections. However, the noblemen's exclusive franchise in county elections was confirmed, otherwise ethnic minorities could have easily dominated the general assemblies in many counties. Noblemen made up about one quarter of the members of the new parliament, which assembled after the general elections on 5 July.
The Slovak delegates Demands of the Slovak Nation, demanded autonomy for all ethnic minorities at their assembly in May. Similar demands were adopted at the Romanian delegates' meeting. Ferdinand V's advisors persuaded the ban of Croatia, ban (or governor) of Croatia, Baron Josip Jelačić (d. 1859), to invade Hungary proper in September. A new war of independence broke out and the Hungarian parliament dethroned the Habsburg dynasty on 14 April 1849. Nicholas I of Russia intervened on the legitimist side and Russian troops overpowered the Hungarian army, forcing it to surrender on 13 August.
Hungary, Croatia (and Slavonia) and Transylvania were incorporated as separate realms in the Austrian Empire. The advisors of the young emperor, Franz Joseph I of Austria, Franz Joseph (), declared that Hungary had lost its historic rights and the conservative Hungarian aristocrats
[Counts Emil Dessewffy, Antal Szécsen and György Apponyi were their leaders.] could not persuade him to restore the old constitution. Noblemen who had remained loyal to the Habsburgs were appointed to high offices,
[Count Ferenc Zichy had a seat in the Imperial Council, Count Ferenc Nádasdy was made the Imperial Minister of Justice.] but most new officials came from other provinces of the empire. The vast majority of noblemen opted for a passive resistance: they did not hold offices in state administration and tacitly obstructed the implementation of imperial decrees. An untitled nobleman from
Zala County, Ferenc Deák (politician), Ferenc Deák (d. 1876), became their leader around 1854. They tried to preserve an air of superiority, but their vast majority was assimilated to the local peasantry or petty bourgeoisie during the following decades. In contrast to them, the magnates, who retained about one quarter of all lands, could easily raise funds from the developing banking sector to modernize their estates.
Austria-Hungary
Deák and his followers knew the great powers did not support the disintegration of the Austrian Empire. Austria's defeat in the Austro-Prussian War accelerated the rapprochement between the king and the Deák Party, which led to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. Hungary proper and Transylvania were united and the autonomy of Hungary was restored within the Dual Monarchy of
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
. Next year, the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement restored the union of Hungary proper and Croatia, but secured the competence of the in internal affairs, education and justice.
The Compromise strengthened the position of the traditional political elite. Only about six percent of the population could vote in the general elections. More than half of the prime ministers and one-third of the ministers were appointed from among the magnates from 1867 to 1918. Landowners made up the majority of the members of parliament. Half of the seats in municipal assemblies were preserved for the greatest taxpayers. Noblemen also dominated state administration, because tens of thousands of impoverished nobles took jobs at the ministries, or at the state-owned railways and post offices. They were ardent supporters of Magyarization, denying the use of minority languages.
Only nobleman who owned an estate of at least were regarded as prosperous, but the number of estates of that size quickly decreased.
[The number of estates of between decreased from 20,000 to 10,000 from 1867 to 1900.] The magnates took advantage of lesser noblemen's bankruptcies and bought new estates during the same period. New ' were created which enabled the magnates to preserve the entailment of their landed wealth. Aristocrats were regularly appointed to the boards of directors of banks and companies.
[In 1905, 88 counts and 66 barons had a seat in boards of directors.]
Jews were the prime movers of the development of the financial and industrial sectors. Jewish businessmen owned more than half of the companies and more than four-fifths of the banks in 1910. They also bought landed property and had acquired almost one-fifth of the estates of between by 1913. The most prominent Jewish burghers were awarded with nobility
[Henrik Lévay, who established the first Hungarian insurance company, was ennobled in 1868 and received the title baron in 1897; Zsigmond Kornfeld, who was the "Hungarian financial and industrial giant of the age", was created baron.] and there were 26 aristocratic families and 320 noble families of Jewish origin in 1918. Many of them converted to Christianity, but other nobles did not regard them as their peers.
Revolutions and counter-revolution
The First World War brought about the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918. The Aster Revolutiona movement of Party of Independence and '48, the left-liberal Party of Independence, Social Democratic Party of Hungary, the Social Democratic Party and the Radical Citizens' Partypersuaded Charles I of Austria, Charles IV , to appoint the leader of the opposition, Count Mihály Károlyi (d. 1955), prime minister on 31 October. After the Lower House dissolved itself, Hungary was Hungarian Democratic Republic, proclaimed a republic on 16 November. The Hungarian National Council adopted a land reform setting the maximum size of the estates at and ordering the distribution of any excess among the local peasantry. Károlyi, whose inherited domains had been mortgaged to banks, was the first to implement the reform.
The Allies of World War I, Allied Powers authorized the Kingdom of Romania to occupy new territories and ordered the withdrawal of the Royal Hungarian Army almost as far as the Tisza on 26 February 1919. Károlyi resigned and the Hungarian Communist Party leader Béla Kun (d. 1938) announced the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic on 21 March. All estates of over and all private companies employing more than 20 workers were Nationalization, nationalized. The Bolsheviks could not stop the Hungarian–Romanian War, Romanian invasion and their leaders fled from Hungary on 1 August. After a short-lived temporary government, the industrialist István Friedrich (d. 1951) formed a coalition government with the support of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers on 6 August. The Bolsheviks' nationalization program was abolished. The Social Democratic Party of Hungary, Hungarian Social Democratic Party boycotted the 1920 Hungarian parliamentary election, general elections in early 1920. The new one-chamber Diet of Hungary restored the Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946), Hungarian monarchy, but without restoring the Habsburgs. Instead, a Calvinist nobleman, Miklós Horthy (d. 1957), was elected regent on 1 March 1920. Hungary had to acknowledge the loss of more than two thirds of its territory and more than 60% of its population (including one-third of the ethnic Hungarians) in the Treaty of Trianon on 4 June.
Horthy was never crowned king, and therefore could not grant nobility, but he established a new order of merit, the Order of Vitéz, Order of Gallantry. Its members received the hereditary title of ("brave"). They were also granted parcels of land, which renewed the "medieval link between land tenure and service to the crown" (Bryan Cartledge). Two Transylvanian aristocrats, Counts Pál Teleki (d. 1941) and István Bethlen (d. 1946), were the most influential politicians in the interwar period. The events of 1918–19 convinced them that only a "conservative democracy", dominated by the landed nobility, could secure stability. Most ministers and the majority of the members of the parliament were nobles. A conservative agrarian reformlimited to eight and a half percent of all arable landswas introduced, but almost one third of the lands remained in the possession of about 400 magnate families. The two-chamber parliament was restored in 1926, with an Upper House dominated by the aristocrats, prelates and high-ranking officials.
Antisemitism in Europe, Antisemitism was a leading ideology in the 1920s and 1930s. A law limited the admission of Jewish students in the universities. Count Fidél Pálffy (d. 1946) was one of the leading figures of the Nazi, national socialist movements, but most aristocrats disdained the radicalism of "petty officers and housekeepers". Hungary participated in the invasion of Yugoslavia, Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 and joined the Operation Barbarossa, war against the Soviet Union after the bombing of Kassa in late June. Fearing the defection of Hungary from the war, Nazi Germany occupied the country in Operation Margarethe on 19 March 1944. Hundreds of thousands of Jews and tens of thousands of Romani people in Hungary, Romani were transferred to Nazi concentration camps with the local authorities' assistance. The wealthiest business magnates
[The Chorins, Csepeli Weiss, Weisses and Kornfelds.] were forced to renounce their companies and banks to redeem their own and their relatives' lives.
The fall of the Hungarian nobility
The Soviet Red Army reached the Hungarian borders and took possession of the
Great Hungarian Plain
The Great Hungarian Plain (also known as Alföld or Great Alföld, hu, Alföld or ) is a plain occupying the majority of the modern territory of Hungary. It is the largest part of the wider Pannonian Plain. (However, the Great Hungarian plai ...
by 6 December 1944. Delegates from the region's towns and villages established the Provisional National Assembly in Debrecen, which elected a new government on 22 December. Three prominent Anti-fascism, Anti-Nazi aristocrats
[Counts Gyula Dessewffy, Mihály Károlyi and Géza Teleki.] had a seat in the assembly. The Provisional National Government soon promised land reform, along with the abolishment of all "anti-democratic" laws. The last German Wehrmacht troops left Hungary on 4 April 1945.
Imre Nagy (d. 1958), the Communist Minister of Agriculture, announced land reform on 17 March 1945. All domains of more than were confiscated and the owners of smaller estates could retain a maximum of land. The land reform, as Cartledge noted, destroyed the nobility and eliminated the "elements of feudalism, which had persisted for longer in Hungary than anywhere else in Europe". Similar land reforms were introduced in Socialist Republic of Romania, Romania and Third Czechoslovak Republic, Czechoslovakia. In both countries, ethnic Hungarian aristocrats were sentenced to death or prison as alleged war criminals.
[Baron Zsigmond Kemény was imprisoned for initiating the execution of 191 Jews in Romania, although he had actually brought food to them.] Hungarian aristocrats
[The Batthyány, Batthyány–Strattman, Erdődy, Esterházy and Zichy families.] could retain their estates only in Burgenland (in Austria) after 1945.
Soviet military authorities controlled the general elections and the formation of a coalition government in late 1945. The new parliament declared the Second Hungarian Republic on 1 February 1946. An opinion poll showed that more than 75% of men and 66% of women were opposed to the use of noble titles in 1946. The parliament adopted an Statute IV of 1947 regarding the abolition of certain titles and ranks (Hungary), act that abolished all noble ranks and related Style (manner of address), styles, also banning their use. The new act came into force on 14 February 1947.
See also
*List of titled noble families in the Kingdom of Hungary
Notes
References
Sources
Primary sources
*''Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians'' (Edited, Translated and Annotated by Martyn Rady and László Veszprémy) (2010). In: Rady, Martyn; Veszprémy, László; Bak, János M. (2010); ''Anonymus and Master Roger''; Central European University, CEU Press; .
*''Constantine Porphyrogenitus: De Administrando Imperio'' (Greek text edited by Gyula Moravcsik, English translation by Romillyi J. H. Jenkins) (1967). Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies. .
*''Simon of Kéza: The Deeds of the Hungarians'' (Edited and translated by László Veszprémy and Frank Schaer with a study by Jenő Szűcs) (1999). CEU Press. .
*''The Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary in Three Parts (1517)'' (Edited and translated by János M. Bak, Péter Banyó and Martyn Rady, with an introductory study by László Péter) (2005). Charles Schlacks, Jr.; Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University. .
*''The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, 1000–1301'' (Translated and edited by János M. Bak, György Bónis, James Ross Sweeney with an essay on previous editions by Andor Czizmadia, Second revised edition, In collaboration with Leslie S. Domonkos) (1999). Charles Schlacks, Jr. Publishers.
Secondary sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
{{Hungary articles
Hungarian nobility,
Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Croatia, Hungarian nobility
Transylvania in the Kingdom of Hungary
History of Hungary
History of Croatia
History of Slovakia