or weakness of the king should not endanger the institution itself.”
This is especially clear from clause xvi., which decrees that the
title and estates of the lords-lieutenant of counties should not be
hereditary, thus attacking feudalism at its very roots, while clause
xiv. provides for the degradation of any lord-lieutenant who should
abuse his office. On the other hand, the principle of the exemption
of all the nobles from taxation is confirmed, as well as their right to
refuse military service abroad, the defence of the realm being their
sole obligation. All nobles were also to have the right to appear
at the court which was to be held once a year at Székesfehérvár,
by the king, or in his absence by the palatine,[1] for the purpose
of hearing causes. A clause also guarantees all nobles against
arbitrary arrest and punishment at the instance of any powerful
person.
This famous charter, which was amplified, under the influence of the clergy, in 1231, when its articles were placed under the guardianship of the archbishop of Esztergom (who was authorized to punish their violation by the king with excommunication), is generally regarded as the foundation of Hungarian constitutional liberty, though like Magna Carta it purported only to confirm immemorial rights; and as such it was expressly ratified as a whole in the coronation oaths of all the Habsburg kings from Ferdinand to Leopold I. Its actual effect in the period succeeding its issue was, however, practically nugatory; if indeed it did not actually give a new handle to the subversive claims of the powerful barons.
Béla IV. (1235–1270), the last man of genius whom the Árpáds produced, did something to curb the aristocratic misrule which was to be one of the determining causes of the collapse of his dynasty. But he is best known as the regenerator of the realm after the cataclysm of 1241–1242 (see Béla IV.). Béla IV. On his return from exile, after the subsidence of the Tatar deluge, he found his kingdom in ashes; and his two great remedies, wholesale immigration and castle-building, only sowed the seeds of fresh disasters. Thus the Kumanian colonists, mostly pagans, whom he settled in vast numbers on the waste lands, threatened to overwhelm the Christian population; while the numerous strongholds, which he encouraged his nobles to build as a protection against future Tatar invasions, subsequently became so many centres of disloyalty. To bind the Kumanian still more Stephen V. and Ladislaus IV. closely to his dynasty, Béla married his son Stephen V. (1270–1272) to a Kumanian girl, and during the reign of her son Ladislaus IV. (1272–1290) the court was certainly more pagan than Christian. Valiant and enterprising as both these princes were (Stephen successfully resisted the aggressions of the brilliant “golden King,” Ottakar II. of Bohemia, and Ladislaus materially contributed to his utter overthrow at Durnkrüt in 1278), neither of them was strong enough to make head against the disintegrating influences all around them. Stephen contrived to hold his own by adroitly contracting an alliance with the powerful Neapolitan Angevins who had the ear of the pope; but Ladislaus (q.v.) End of the Árpád Dynasty. was so completely caught in the toils of the Kumanians, that the Holy See, the suzerain of Hungary, was forced to intervene to prevent the relapse of the kingdom into barbarism, and the unfortunate Ladislaus perished in the crusade that was preached against him. An attempt of a patriotic party to keep the last Árpád, Andrew III. (1290–1301), on the throne was only temporarily successful, and after a horrible eight years’ civil war (1301–1308) the crown of St Stephen finally passed into the capable hands of Charles Robert of Naples.
During the four hundred years of the Árpád dominion the nomadic Magyar race had established itself permanently in central Europe, adopted western Christianity and founded a national monarchy on the western model. Hastily and violently converted, driven like a wedge between the Eastern and the Western Empires, the young kingdom was exposed from the first to extraordinary perils. But, under the guidance of a series of eminent rulers, it successfully asserted itself alike against pagan reaction from within, and aggressive pressure from without, and, as it grew in strength and skill, expanded territorially at the expense of all its neighbours. These triumphs were achieved while the monarchy was absolute, and thus able to concentrate in its hands all the resources of the state, but towards the end of the period a political revolution began. The weakness and prodigality of the later Árpáds, the depopulation of the realm during the Tatar invasion, the infiltration of western feudalism and, finally, the endless civil discords of the 13th century, brought to the front a powerful and predacious class of barons who ultimately overshadowed the throne. The ancient county system was gradually absorbed by this new governing element. The ancient royal tenants became the feudatories of the great nobles, and fell naturally into two classes, the nobiles bene possessionati, and the nobiles unius sessionis, in other words the richer and the poorer gentry. We cannot trace the gradations of this political revolution, but we know that it met with determined opposition from the crown, which resulted in the utter destruction of the Árpáds, who, while retaining to the last their splendid physical qualities, now exhibited unmistakeable signs of moral deterioration, partly due perhaps to their too frequent marriages with semi-Oriental Greeks and semi-savage Kumanians. On the other hand the great nobles were the only class who won for themselves a recognized political position. The tendency towards a representative system of government had begun, but the almost uninterrupted anarchy which marked the last thirty years of the Árpád rule was no favourable time for constitutional development. The kings were fighting for their lives, the great nobles were indistinguishable from brigands and the whole nation seemed to be relapsing into savagery.
It was reserved for the two great princes of the house of Anjou,
Charles I. (1310–1342) and Louis I. (1342–1382), to rebuild the
Hungarian state, and lead the Magyars back to
civilization. Both by character and education they
were eminently fitted for the task, and all the circumstances
House of Anjou.
were in their favour. They brought from their native
Italy a thorough knowledge of the science of government as the
middle ages understood it, and the decimation of the Hungarian
magnates during the civil wars enabled them to re-create the
noble hierarchy on a feudal basis, in which full allowance was
made for Magyar idiosyncracies. Both these monarchs were
absolute. The national assembly (Országgyülés) was still
summoned occasionally, but at very irregular intervals, the
real business of the state being transacted in the
Reforms
of Louis I.
royal council, where able men of the middle class,
principally Italians, held confidential positions. The
lesser gentry were protected against the tyranny of the
magnates, encouraged to appear at court and taxed for military
service by the royal treasury direct—so as to draw them
closer to the crown. Scores of towns, too, owe their origin
and enlargement to the care of the Angevin princes, who were
lavish of privileges and charters, and saw to it that the high-roads
were clear of robbers. Charles, moreover, was a born financier,
and his reform of the currency and of the whole fiscal system
greatly contributed to enrich both the merchant class and the
treasury. Louis encouraged the cities to surround themselves
with strong walls. He himself erected a whole cordon of forts
round the flourishing mining towns of northern Hungary.
He also appointed Hungarian consuls in foreign trade centres,
and established a system of protective tariffs. More important
in its ulterior consequences to Hungary was the law of 1351
which, while confirming the Golden Bull in general, abrogated
the clause (iv.) by which the nobles had the right to alienate
their lands. Henceforward their possessions were to descend
directly and as of right to their brothers and their issue, whose
claim was to be absolute. This “principle of aviticity” (ösiség,
aviticum), which survived till 1848, was intended to preserve
the large feudal estates as part of the new military system, but
its ultimate effect was to hamper the development of the country
by preventing the alienation, and therefore the mortgaging of
- ↑ The full title of the palatine (Mag. nádor or nádor-ispán, Lat. palatinus) was comes palatii regni, the first palatine being Abu Samuel (c. 1041). By the Golden Bull the palatine acquired something of the quality of a responsible minister, as “intermediary between the crown and people, guardian of the nation’s rights, and keeper of the king’s conscience” (Knatchbull-Hugessen, i. 30).
