Macartney: Hungary - A Short History

NOTES

[2]The date of Stephen's birth is uncertain. Some chronicles give it as early as 967, but the older of his legends describes him as 'still a child' when he succeeded his father.

[3]Some modern historians doubt whether these physical emblems were really sent, and it is certainly impossible to accept without qualification the national tradition which long identified the famous Holy Crown of Hungary, still in existence, with Sylvester's gift, for the circlet which forms the lower part of the crown is demonstrably Byzantine work of the eleventh century; it seems to have been sent, in or about A.D. 1075, to the Hungarian King Géza I by the Byzantine Emperor Michael Dukas VII. There are, however, no technical grounds against assigning an earlier date to the closed upper part with which the circlet has been united (probably under Béla IV), and foreign sources, as well as the Hungarian legend, attest the sending of a crown. The Cross is mentioned only in the Hungarian legend.

[4] Roughly equivalent to the later Galicia

[5]In a second edition of the Bull this clause was whittled down to recognition by the King that the Primate-Archbishop was entitled to excommunicate him if he violated his oath.

[6]In the following paragraphs I have adopted an old-fashioned and probably somewhere over-simplified view of the processes described. Many modern Hungarian historians postulate an almost total decay of the old free class and the rise of a totally new one, the servientes regis, with a status originally inferior to that of the old freemen. Under this interpretation, the privileges granted in the Golden Bull to the 'servientes regis' apply only to this new class, while the older freemen are not mentioned in the Bull at all. Those holding it explain the omission by saying that the privileges of the older class were so obvious as to need no reaffirmation. I find this interpretation contrary to common sense, to Hungarian psychology, and also to a number of texts. In any case, even if a distinction existed in 1222 between the freemen by hereditary right and the servientes regis, it disappeared soon after it. A decree issued by Béla IV in 1247 speaks specifically of 'nobiles Hungariae universi qui et servientes regis dicunter', who approach Béla with the request 'ut ipsas in libertate a S. Stephano rege statuta et abtenta dignaremus conservare'.

[7]A novelty in the Bull was that foreign service had to be paid.

[8]This was due partly to the opposition of the existing nobles to further dilution of their privileges, partly to the introduction as principal arm of heavy cavalry, which made it useless to ennoble men who could not afford the new equipment.

[9]This generalisation does not apply to the remote peasant communities on the periphery who were 'ennobled' en masse, i.e., relieved of taxation in return for guarding the frontiers. But it is true of practically all families for whom ennoblement meant real advance in the social scale.

[10]This does not, of course, mean a general assembly of all the 'nobles' of Hungary, but of their representatives, the class from which the county 'assessors' were drawn.

[11]By this time the tradition had grown up that coronation was invalid unless performed with the Holy Crown.

[12]Strictly, the porta was the gate through which a peasant's wagon passed into his yard. It was thus not an exact measure, since two or three peasants might share one yard.

[13]The resentment was particularly strong where religious considerations reinforced purely political ones, as among the Bogumils of Bosnia.

[14]A mere coincidence (Ed.).

[15]There was a curious counterpart to this in that many of the villages on the Turkish side of the frontier, down to the line Pécs-Baja-Szeged, continued during most of the occupation to pay a proportion of their old taxes, tithes and rents to the representatives of the former recipients. These were usually collected by agents of the Hungarian frontier fortress commanders, who retained the money as part of their pay, setting it off against the sums due to them from the county authorities. The existence of these cross-payments was recognised by both states, and sometimes actually found mention in peace treaties. In allowing them, the Turks also recognised the existence of a sort of shadow county organisation on their territory, and permitted it a certain voice in their subjects' internal administration.

[16]A word meaning literally 'foot-soldier', which had come to be used for the pro-Habsburg party, as contrasted with the 'easterner' kuruc party.

[17]It is interesting that in the urban boys' schools there were three 'foreign' pupils (presumably the sons of army officers) to every four 'Hungarian'.

[18]It was not introduced in Croatia until 1780.

[19] One hold = 0.576 hectare = 1.43 English acre.

[20] As said above, the Bánát had already been abolished in 1779.

[21]This Law (Law X of 1790) was thereafter counted by the Hungarians as the fundamental guarantee of the national status.

[22] i.e., excluding Croatia as well as Transylvania and the Frontier.

[23]The census of 1787 showed 9,782 male nobles (of all ages) in Croatia, and 155,519 in Inner Hungary. This census counted the Slavonian counties as part of Inner Hungary, but these contained only 160 noble families all told.

[24]Opinion on the peasant question throughout the Monarchy had been enormously influenced by the bloody Galician jacquerie of 1846.

[25]Only persons holding a quarter sessio or upwards qualified for this title. Holders of less than a quarter sessio ranked with landless men as 'cottars' (zsellérek).

[26]This reduced the number of voters from 6.7 per cent of the population (1870) to 5.9 per cent by raising the property qualification. It is true that this change was not aimed against the proletariat or the non-Magyars, most of whom were already excluded under the earlier franchise, but against the Magyar opponents of the Compromise.

[27]Some of the largest estates belonged to the Church - so the See of Nagyvárad owned 330,000 hold, that of Esztergom, over 170,000, etc. Some of the municipalities of the Alföld owned estates almost as large. These were mostly let, at low rents, to the local citizens.

[28] 24 crowns = [sterling]1 sterling.

[29]On the Allies' order, the Hungarian Parliament passed a law dethroning the Habsburgs, but not even Hungary's own anti-Legitimists ever took this as morally binding.

[30]Even in these a candidate's nomination papers had to be signed by a large number of sponsors, whose signatures were open.

[31]A tiny group, at that time a headquarters staff without an army, which had formed itself during the war and claimed to represent the interests of the agricultural proletariat.

[32] It had already been proclaimed a republic in January 1946.

[33]A Treaty of mutual defence and military co-operation, concluded in May 1955 between the U.S.S.R. and the Satellites.

Macartney: Hungary - A Short History