Martyn Rady

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary

Studies in Russia and East Europe This series includes books on general, political, historical, economic and cultural themes relating to Russia and East Europe written or edited by members of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, or by authors working in association with the School. Titles include:

John Channon (editor) POLITICS, SOCIETY AND STALINISM IN THE USSR Stanislaw Eile LITERATURE AND NATIONALISM IN PARTITIONED POLAND, 1795–1918 Rebecca Haynes ROMANIAN POLICY TOWARDS GERMANY, 1936–40 Geoffrey Hosking and Robert Service (editors) RUSSIAN NATIONALISM, PAST AND PRESENT Lindsey Hughes (editor) PETER THE GREAT AND THE WEST New Perspectives Krystyna Iglicka and Keith Sword (editors) THE CHALLENGE OF EAST–WEST MIGRATION FOR POLAND Andres Kasekamp THE RADICAL RIGHT IN INTERWAR ESTONIA Stephen Lovell THE RUSSIAN READING REVOLUTION Marja Nissinen LATVIA’S TRANSITION TO A MARKET ECONOMY Danuta Paszyn THE SOVIET ATTITUDE TO POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN CENTRAL AMERICA, 1979–90 Vesna Popovski NATIONAL MINORITIES AND CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS IN LITHUANIA, 1988–93 Alan Smith THE RETURN TO EUROPE The Reintegration of Eastern Europe into the European Economy

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

Roger Bartlett and Karen Schönwälder (editors) THE GERMAN LANDS AND EASTERN EUROPE

Jeremy Smith THE BOLSHEVIKS AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION, 1917–23

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

Jeanne Sutherland SCHOOLING IN THE NEW RUSSIA

Studies in Russia and East Europe Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–71018-5 (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

Senior Lecturer in Central European History School of Slavonic and East European Studies University College London

in association with

School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

© Martyn Rady 2000 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2000 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 0–333–80085–0 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rady, Martyn C. Nobility, land and service in medieval Hungary / Martyn Rady. p. cm. — (Studies in Russia and East Europe) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–333–80085–0 1. Hungary—History—1000–1699. 2. Nobility—Hungary—History– –To 1500. 3. Feudalism—Hungary—History—To 1500. I. University College, London. School of Slavonic and East European Studies. II. Title. III. Series. DB930.5 R33 2000 943.9—dc21 00–041491 10 09

9 08

8 07

7 06

6 05

5 04

4 03

3 02

2 01

1 00

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP.

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

For Letty

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

This page intentionally left blank

E

O

M

R

B

S I L E S I A

A

O

A

R

A V I

L

I P nu b e

A

ÁRVA

D GÖMÖR

Trencsén

Zólyom

BARS

ABAÚJ

N

Diósgyor ´´

IA

´´ Koszeg

Buda Székesfehérvár

z

R

Veszprém

Y

vii

O

H

Modrus

A

V

T R A N S Y os L ar

Kolozsvár

Gyulafehérvár FEHÉR

Csanád

N

O

I A

BÁCS POZSEGA

Temesvár TEMES

Bács

HUNYAD

Szekels

A

N

Romanians

^

R O

A

A

L

Szörény

Keve

T

M

Banate of Macsó

R

WALLACHIA

Haram

Belgrade

Banate of Srebrenik

A

E

KRASSÓ

Banate of Jajce

I

Saxons

VALKÓ

Vodica

C

D

I

P

M

I

E

T

A

A

I

BOSNIA

A ADRIATIC SEA

V

M

Arad

Pécs

Zagreb

L

Várad BIHAR

Kalocsa

SOMOGY

ZAGREB

a

Cumans

´´ KORÖS

MOLDAVIA

SZABOLCS

Pest

ZALA

Sa va

MÁRAMAROS

Esztergom

´´ Gyor

T i s

TR

A U

S

M

SOPRON

A

O

Eger

Vác

D r a v a

L

Munkács

Gönc Nyitra

Pozsony

Vienna

S

N

SZEPESSÉG

M

a

O

LIPTÓ

E

D

P

O

T

T

O

M

A

N

D a n u b e

0

50

100

Map 1: Hungary in the fifteenth century 10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

200

300 kms

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

H

I

M

E

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

This page intentionally left blank

Contents xi

Abbreviations used for Commonly Cited Sources List of Maps

xiii xv

Introduction  1. Werboczy and the Hungarian nobility 2. A note on sources

1 1 8

1 The Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries 1.1. The work of the early Árpád kings 1.2. Households 1.3. Distinctions of men 1.4. Inheritance and the kindred

11 11 16 20 22

2 Origins of the Hungarian Nobility 2.1. The aristocracy and landownership 2.2. From servientes to nobles 2.3. Nobles and counties

28 28 35 39

3 Territorial Lordship 3.1. Dividing the land 3.2. Castle and lordship 3.3. Immunity and jurisdiction 3.4. Land and status

45 45 48 54 58

4 Authentication 4.1. Oral testimony and the pristaldus 4.2. Loca credibilia 4.3. The loca credibilia and inquisitions 4.4. Language and authentication

62 62 66 70 74

5 Conditional Nobles 5.1. Praediales and nobiles iobagiones 5.2. Landholding in the Highlands 5.3. Szörény and the Southern Danube

79 79 85 90

6 The Kindred and the Quarter 6.1. The solidarity of the kindred

96 96 ix

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

Acknowledgements

6.2. Inheritance law and the ‘new donation’ 6.3. The daughters’ quarter 6.4. Prefection

97 103 107

7 Familiaritas 7.1. ‘Public’ and ‘private’ power 7.2. Familiares and their duties 7.3. Lordship and its obligations 7.4. Land and service 7.5. The royal aula and the ethos of chivalry

110 110 112 120 123 126

8 Offices and Honores 8.1. Definition and significance 8.2. Castles and honores 8.3. Revenues and distribution 8.4. Honores as ‘fiefs’

132 132 133 137 142

9 Military Obligation 9.1. Personal service and noble taxation 9.2. Banderia 9.3. Reform and differentiation of service 9.4. A note on numbers

144 144 146 149 156

10 Counties and Corporations 10.1. Crown and estates 10.2. Counties and the settlement of disputes 10.3. The counties and the regnum 10.4. The counties and familiaritas

158 158 162 169 173

Conclusion

179

Notes

183

Works Cited

213

Index

225

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

x Contents

My first thanks are due to the Council of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, for granting me a year’s study leave in the session 1997–8. The School’s Research Policy and Funding Committee also provided generous support for several visits to Budapest in the autumn of 1998. Earlier drafts of this text were read by Professor János Bak of the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University in Budapest, by Damir Karbi´c of the Croatian Academy of Sciences in Zagreb, and by Professor Pál Engel of the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Professor Engel was also kind enough to let me read a preliminary version of his new history of medieval Hungary. Throughout the writing of the present book, my former supervisor, Professor László Péter of the University of London, has maintained a critical and watchful eye, and has given most generously of his time. I continue to be indebted to his scholarly advice and example. I have also benefited from discussions with my colleagues at the School, Professor Dennis Deletant, Professor Robert Pynsent, Dr Daniel Abondolo, Peter Sherwood, Dr Kieran Williams, Dr Wendy Bracewell and Tim Beasley-Murray, as well as from much earlier conversations in  and Budapest with the now late Professors Elemér Mályusz, Jeno Szucs Erik Fügedi. It was the last of these who, more than fifteen years ago, first alerted me to some of the opportunities for research on the medieval Hungarian nobility. Previous versions of parts of the present book were delivered as papers at the School’s annual Romanian Studies Day, to the School’s Centre for the Study of Central Europe, and to the Medieval Nobility Workshop organized by the Department of Medieval Studies of the Central European University in Budapest. I am most grateful for the comments and advice received on all these occasions. MARTYN RADY School of Slavonic and East European Studies University College London

xi

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

Acknowledgements

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

This page intentionally left blank

Árpád-kori történeti földrajz: György Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország történeti földrajza, 4 vols, 1963–98. AO: Anjou-kori okmánytár (Codex Diplomaticus Hungaricus Andegavensis), (ed), Imre Nagy, Gyula Nagy, 7 vols, Budapest, 1878–1920. AUO: Árpád-kori új okmánytár (Codex Diplomaticus Arpadianus Continuatus), (ed) Gusztáv Wenzel, 12 vols, Pest-Budapest, 1860–78. Blágay család oklevéltára: A Blágay család oklevéltára 1260–1578 (Codex diplomaticus Comitum de Blagay), (Monumenta Hungarica Historica, 28), (eds) Lajos Thallóczy, Samu Barabás, Budapest, 1897. CJH, i: Corpus Juris Hungaricae (Magyar törvénytár), (ed.) Dezso Márkus, i, 1899. Diplomata Hungariae Antiquissima: Diplomata Hungariae Antiquissima, i, (ed.) György Györffy, Budapest, 1992. Dl: Hungarian National Archive, Budapest, Collectio Ante-Mohácsiana. DRH 1301–1457: Decreta Regni Hungariae (Gesetze und Verordnungen Ungarns) 1301–1457, (eds) Ferenc Döry, György Bónis, Vera Bácskai, Budapest, 1976. DRH 1458–1490: Decreta Regni Hungariae (Gesetze und Verordnungen Ungarns) 1458–1490, (eds) György Bónis, Ferenc Döry, Géza Érszegi, Zsuzsa Teke, Budapest, 1989. DRMH: Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary (Decreta Regni Mediaevalis Hungariae) 1000–1490, (eds) János M. Bak, György Bónis, James Ross Sweeney, Leslie S. Domokos, Paul B. Harvey, 3 vols, Los Angeles, 1989–96. Krassó vármegye története: Krassó vármegye története, (ed.) Frigyes Pesty, vols iii–iv (Oklevéltár), Budapest, 1882–3. Lexikon: Korai magyar történeti lexikon (9–14. sz.), (eds) Gyula Kristó, Pál Engel, Ferenc Makk, Budapest, 1994. Mon. Strig.: Monumenta Ecclesiae Strigoniensis, (eds) N. Knauz, L.C. Dedek, 3 vols, Esztergom, 1874–1924. Oklevelek Temesvármegye: Oklevelek Temesvármegye és Temesvár város történetéhez, iv (Oklevelek, i), (ed) Tivadar Ortvay, Pozsony, 1896. PRT: A pannonhalmi Szent-Benedek-rend története, (eds) László Érdelyi, Pongrác Sörös, 12 vols, Budapest, 1902–16.

xiii

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

List of Abbreviations Used for Commonly Cited Sources

RR: Regesta regum stirpis Arpadianae critico-diplomatica (Az Árpád-házi királyok okleveleinek kritikai jegyzéke), (eds) Imre Szentpétery, Iván Borsa, vol 1 (3 parts), vol 2 (4 parts), Budapest, 1923–87. Smiˇciklas: Smiˇ ciklas, T. (ed.), Codex Diplomaticus Regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, vols ii–xix, Zagreb, 1904–16.  Tripartitum: Werboczy, István. Tripartitum operis juris, (eds) Sándor Kolozsvári, Kelemen Óvári, Budapest, 1897. Zimmermann-Werner: Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen in Siebenbürgen, (eds) Franz Zimmermann, Carl Werner, G. Müller, G. Gündisch, 5 vols, Hermannstadt – Bucharest, 1892–1975. ZsO: Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, (eds) Elemér Mályusz, Iván Borsa, 4 vols, Budapest, 1951–94.

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

xiv List of Abbreviations Used for Commonly Cited Sources

List of Maps

xv

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

vii

52

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

1 Hungary in the fifteenth century 3.1 Kindreds and landholding in Bihar County in the early fourteenth century (Source: György Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország történeti földrajza, second edn, i, Budapest, 1987, pp. 580–1)

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

This page intentionally left blank

1.

 Werboczy and the Hungarian nobility

The term ‘noble’ held several consecutive meanings in medieval Hungary. To begin with, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, it meant a member of the small group of leading men and office-holders who gathered around the person of the ruler: the proceres, principes and iobagiones regales. Then, in the thirteenth century, the description broadened to encompass the many royal servientes thrown up by the disintegration of the old castle system of administration. The servientes’ relationship to the ruler was expressed in terms of fidelitas and the personal service which they were expected to discharge. From no later than the mid-twelfth century, and right through until well into the fourteenth, a nobleman might also be one who claimed membership of an ancestral kindred and who referred to himself as the scion of a genus. This association of status with ancestry is responsible for the Hungarian word for a nobleman, nemes, which itself derives from the Hungarian nem meaning a family or kindred. During the fourteenth century, however, the term nobilis was gradually understood as meaning a landowner or, to use the contemporary term, a homo possessionatus. This last meaning of nobility may be discerned in the writings of the  early sixteenth-century Hungarian jurist, Stephen Werb oczy. Although  Werboczy conceded that there were exceptions to the rule, he firmly located noble status within the structure of Hungarian landownership. A nobleman was the holder of a property which he had inherited and which originated in a royal donation. Donation derived in the first place from ‘outstanding deeds and services’. These accomplishments were mainly understood as being performed in battle and thus the land 1

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

Introduction

so given constituted a peculium castrense (a term completely unfamiliar in Hungarian law, which Werbo czy borrowed from Roman texts). As a scholar who had acquired both property and preferment in the course of his legal career, Werbo czy also permitted the study of letters as an alternative route to ennoblement: a peculium quasi castrense (again a civilian term unknown in Hungary).1 Nevertheless, whatever the type of service rendered, the act of ennoblement or of nobilitatio almost invariably had as its consequence the gift or collatio of property.2 Werbo czy was at pains to point out that land acquired by however distant an ancestor did not lose its connection to the ruler. In the event of treason (nota infidelitatis) or default of heirs (defectus seminis), the property reverted to the prince, since he was the source of all grants of land.3 The ruler was also the originator of all titles of nobility. As Werbo czy explained, upon their appointment of Hungary’s first king, the leading men of the realm had handed over to him and his successors the right not only to dispose of the kingdom’s land but also to create noblemen from out of their own ranks. Kingship and nobility thus existed as ‘reciprocal and reflexive and as always mutually dependent’. As Werbo czy explained, ‘There is no prince except he be elected by the nobles, nor is there a nobleman unless he be created by the prince and adorned with the dignity of nobility’.4 By the time Werbo czy was writing, the close personal bond between ruler and nobleman, which had originally marked their relations, had become attenuated. During the preceding centuries, the nobles of the realm had both extracted themselves from many of the duties which they owed to the ruler, and set themselves up as an estate constitutive of the regnum which was vested with its own separate rights and personality. By his doctrine of ‘one and the same  liberty’, Werboczy contributed to the estates-principle by proclaiming the legal equality of all nobles. To further this programme, he briefly promoted the notion of the Holy Crown as a corporation by their membership of which all nobles counted as equals. Even so, his notion of incorporation was firmly rooted in the tradition of noble landownership resting on royal donation.5 The nature of nobility in late medieval Hungary was thus twofold. It proceeded from a personal act of the ruler, which put the recipient and his heirs in an immediate relationship to the monarch. Ennoblement was, moreover, usually accompanied by the donation of land, the possession of which exemplified the relationship between the nobleman and his royal master.6

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

2 Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary

Three things followed from this formulation. First, land which had been bestowed by the ruler to a nobleman and his heirs constituted a gift and was owned as completely as was possible in the Middle Ages. It is thus sometimes (and misleadingly) compared to what was known in  Germany as an allodium or allod. As Werboczy explained in one passage, which is known after its location in his text as the primae nonus, the Hungarian nobleman had a complete right (liberam potestatem) to all produce within his estate, the income of which was also exempt from taxation.7 The possession of this land did not, moreover, have to be renewed through periodic acts of homage. Although, as we will see, the rights of the possessor’s kindred still had to be taken into account, the property could be sold, pledged or exchanged by its new owner and his heirs. It reverted to the ruler only in cases of nota and defectus. Secondly, the nobleman was directly obligated to the ruler. By accepting noble status and the land which went with it, he had entered into a close and reflexive relationship with the prince. The commitments which the nobleman owed derived not on account of the land given to him but by reason of his nobility, of which the land which he held stood as the ‘adornment’ and mark. Nevertheless, the nature of the bond between ruler and subject which the act of ennoblement introduced was one which could not be specified. It might be comprehended in custom and practice but it could not be pinned down to a set of formal obligations. In this respect, the relationship between king and noble was as imprecisely laid as that existing between a French lord and his knight, which might be described simply in terms of ‘love’.8 From this followed the third consequence. If the nobleman’s relationship to the ruler was defined by conditions attaching to his land, then he was not noble at all. Under these circumstances his obligations derived not from his relationship to the king but instead from the land itself. As we will see, ‘conditional’ nobles who owed duties on account of their land were not full members of the estate of nobility. The only route by which they could obtain this status was either through a royal act which removed the obligations attaching to their land or through the obliteration from human memory of these impediments. Conditional nobles were not therefore ‘true nobles’. Appropriately,  therefore, they do not feature in Werboczy’s account of the law as it applied to the estate of Hungarian nobility. What all this actually meant in practice was that a hierarchy of property relations could not develop in Hungary. All noble land was freely

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

Introduction 3

held as a royal donation and its possession was the mark of nobility. If land was held of another by ‘subinfeudation’ or encumbered with obligations deriving ratione terrae, then it was not owned as a royal gift and its possessor could not, therefore, be considered a nobleman. In this way, the association of nobilitatio with fidelitas and donatio hindered the development in Hungary of a system of landholding by which properties were ceded to lords who in turn granted them out to noble tenants in exchange for specific services. As we will also argue, Hungary’s unfamiliarity with certain civilian texts prevented any subsequent reconceptualization of noble land tenure in terms of fief holding.

The absence of a feudal hierarchy based upon noble landholding has given rise to several longue durée explanations of Hungarian history. According thus to György Bónis, the absence of hierarchy facilitated the emergence in Hungary of estates which were arranged horizontally. The triumph of horizontal relations made possible the definition and ‘closure’ of the noble estate in the late fifteenth century with all which that implied for the peasantry and for intermediate social groups. 9 Although writing more generally about East-Central Europe, Otto Hintze has viewed the absence of a hierarchy of feudal relations as impeding the development of ‘absolutist’ methods of government in the region during the medieval period.10 For Heinrich Mitteis, the more general failure of states east of the Rhine, among which he includes Hungary, to achieve ‘the integration of tenure and jurisdiction with fealty’, had the similar consequence of weakening princely power. According to Mitteis, the triumph of the ‘allod’ over the fief engendered particularism and drove wedges through the hierarchical arrangement of society and authority found in classic feudalism. Political forces were subsequently reconfigured in the form of estates, which led to the establishment east of the Rhine of the Ständestaat of divided and competing sovereignties.11 In contrast to the political particularism identified by Mitteis, Perry Anderson has noted the social hegemony which the weakness of feudal institutions gave to the East European nobility. According to Anderson, the fusion of territorial, personal and economic lordship which the absence of vertical feudal relationships made possible, aided the construction of a ‘single, manorial authority’ and so hastened the enserfment of the peasantry.12

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

4 Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary

The most striking account of the impact of the ‘allod’ on later histor Szucs.  13 Szucs’s  ical development has, however, been given by Jen o inspiration, István Bibó, had seen medieval Hungary as belonging largely to the structure of Western Europe, ‘in a fairly simplified  context with some provincial characteristics’. Szucs, by contrast, regarded the ‘deformation’ of Hungarian society as reaching back into the Middle Ages. The failure of fully-developed institutions of feudalism to emerge in Hungary prevented the establishment of a civil society characterized by mutual and interlocking obligations. Here  follows Bibó in affirming that feudalism acted as the ‘kinderSzucs  explains, ‘Not only the fief itself and garten of democracy’.14 As Szucs other well-defined systems of institutions and ceremonies were lacking, but also the “reciprocity of unequals”, the emphasized contractual character of the personal bond.’ Since Hungary never experienced feudalism in its complete western form, it missed out on the historical stage ‘for the development of direct legality in general and for the thor ough predominance of law as “custom”’. In contrast to Mitteis, Szucs understood that the failure to distribute power within a feudal structure had the consequence of ‘enthroning’ sovereignty rather than of dispersing it within ‘the newly formed “political” sector of society’.  The upshot, according to Szucs, was that in Hungary and in EastCentral Europe more generally, ‘political society’ remained both underdeveloped and insufficiently freed of the state. 15 For Anderson too  (whose account strongly influenced Szucs’s own), the absence of contractual relations in the East European variety of feudalism disconnected government from society and so made possible the imposition of absolutist methods of rule.16 These last points have been further refined by George Schöpflin who has noted the function of developed feudal institutions in reinforcing in Western Europe the concepts of reciprocity, accountability and autonomy of law: features which he finds ‘weak, sometimes to the point of invisibility’ in the lands to the east. 17 In similar fashion, but  quite independently of both Szucs and Anderson, Lászlo Péter has argued that the failure of the region east of the Elbe to develop a feudal beneficiary system impeded the development of parliamentary institutions and hastened the development of polities which were either autocratic or within which authority was sharply divided between ruler and estates. Péter goes on to explain a large part of Central Europe’s subsequent development, including the ease of the communist takeover after 1945, by reference to the imperfect constitutional

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

Introduction 5

6 Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary

Criticisms of Hungarian feudalism presuppose a ‘western model’ based upon the union of beneficium and commendatio. It would be too much to claim that this conjunction only occurred in the minds of later jurists, for the social relationships of the time clearly permitted such a legal and semantic gloss to be put on them.19 Nevertheless, whether we read Georges Duby on the Mâconnais or Susan Reynolds’ more recent analysis of feudo-vassalic relations in Western Europe, it is plain that the ‘reification of fealty’ through the institution of the fief was a largely twelfth-century phenomenon which had much to do with the new demands made by governments and lawyers.20 It was in this respect, a product neither of a continuous historical development which reached back to the Carolingian period nor of local responses seeking to compensate for some supposed lack of royal government. As far as Western Europe is concerned, it must additionally remain uncertain just how deeply the institutions of fief and vassal penetrated noble society. By over-reading the sources, historians may have unwittingly read too much lawyer’s language into what were very diverse relationships of land and power. Moreover, even if the conjunction of fief and homage ever did take place in the manner imagined by many historians, it is not at all clear that this was the act around which most noble relationships turned. West European societies used a variety of methods in the Middle Ages to obtain and reward loyalties and to ensure the effective government of both kingdom and private lordship. Grants of land in exchange for services were surely only one of these. In this context, the advice of Susan Reynolds with regard to West European feudalism is timely: Political conditions and legal systems differed and the rights and obligations of property, however it was classified, differed accordingly. Calling the traditional model an ideal type and pointing to variations as exceptions or anomalies that do not affect its validity has . . . discouraged historians from investigating either uniformities or variations. Reliance on the model allows them to work within their separate national traditions with a minimum of comparisons,

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

traditions which Hungary and the region as a whole inherited from the Middle Ages.18 It would seem, therefore, that the legal relationship of the Hungarian nobleman to his land has much to answer for.

Introduction 7

The same considerations must equally apply to studies of Hungarian feudalism. If we presuppose an ideal model of feudal relations, then its Hungarian variants may indeed seem ‘unarticulated, rough or mixed’, and ‘deformed to some degree’. 22 Once, however, we abandon the model, we will see a web of personal relations, service and mutual obligation existing in Hungary. As was typical throughout medieval Europe, these relations betook both of a vertical and of a horizontal character, or, to use another vocabulary, of institutions both of vassalage and of association. The most obvious form which relations between nobles assumed in medieval Hungary was the institution of familiaritas. This, rather than being a distinctive Hungarian phenomenon, bears some resemblance to aspects of English ‘bastard feudalism’, even to the extent of including the occasional contract of retainer. Familiaritas was promoted by Hungary’s medieval kings as a way both of raising armies and of administering the kingdom. For this reason, it fused early on with office-holding. By the fourteenth century, whole parts of the royal and territorial administration lay in the hands of lords who charged their own familiares with the performance of military or governmental functions and with the collection of revenues. Relations between lord and familiaris were seldom expressed through the nexus of property. In Hungary, therefore, the structure of noble landholding remained largely separate from the ‘commendatory’ hierarchy of service, which was for its part built on familiaritas and on the retention of offices and honores. Alongside these hierarchical relations of power, associative forces were also at work within Hungarian noble society. These led most notably to the construction of the counties as institutions both of justice and of political power at a local level. The counties also acted as noble constituencies for the election of deputies to the diet in respect of which the diet constituted the communitas communitatum of the realm. The noble county might be transformed into an instrument of the great lords who exploited its resources both to subvert justice (although it appears that they seldom did so) and to ensure the selection of the right deputies to the diet. Nevertheless, the county could also function separately from the power-blocs of noble familiares, and

10.1057/9780333985342preview - Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Martyn Rady

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to npg - PalgraveConnect - 2017-01-28

using the model to fill in gaps in their own evidence while explaining what does not fit it as the result of Germanic or Roman survivals, national character, or other circumstances that look special because they do not fit the model.21

You have reached the end of the preview for this book / chapter. You are viewing this book in preview mode, which allows selected pages to be viewed without a current Palgrave Connect subscription. Pages beyond this point are only available to subscribing institutions. If you would like access the full book for your institution please: Contact your librarian directly in order to request access, or; Use our Library Recommendation Form to recommend this book to your library (http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/connect/info/recommend.html), or; Use the 'Purchase' button above to buy a copy of the title from http://www.palgrave.com or an approved 3rd party. If you believe you should have subscriber access to the full book please check you are accessing Palgrave Connect from within your institution's network, or you may need to login via our Institution / Athens Login page: (http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/nams/svc/institutelogin? target=/index.html).

Please respect intellectual property rights This material is copyright and its use is restricted by our standard site license terms and conditions (see http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/connect/info/terms_conditions.html). If you plan to copy, distribute or share in any format including, for the avoidance of doubt, posting on websites, you need the express prior permission of Palgrave Macmillan. To request permission please contact [email protected].

preview.html[22/12/2014 16:51:21]