The Emerging Power of The Feudal Barons (13th Century)
King Béla III (1172–1196) was the first monarch who alienated a whole county when he granted the ownership of all the royal estates in Modruš county to Bartolomej, who became the ancestor of the Frankopan (Hungarian: Frangepán) family. In his grant, the king stipulated that the Counts Frankopan would be obliged to arm some horse-mounted knights for the monarchs.
King Andrew II (1205–1235) radically changed the internal policy his predecessors had been following and he started to grant enormous domains to his partisans. He not only alienated castles and whole counties (i.e., the royal estates attached to them), but he also made "perpetual grants" (Hungarian: örökadomány, Latin: perpetua hereditas) that passed not only from fathers to sons (or in the lack of sons, to brothers or their sons) but all the male members of owner's family could inherited them. From the 1220s, several individuals commenced to refer to their clan in the official documents by using the expression de genere ("from the kindred of") following their name which suggests that the relevance even of distant kinship started to increase.
The king's new policy endangered the liberties of the royal servants owning landed property in the counties that the king had granted to his partisans. Therefore, in 1222, the royal servants led by former "barons of the realm" who had been dismissed by King Andrew II enforced the king to issue the Golden Bull in order to ensure their liberties. In the Golden Bull, the king also promised that he and his successors would not grant offices to foreigners without the consent of the Royal Council. The first precedent when the nobles decided on a foreigner's reception into the nobility of the kingdom was set during reign the reign of King Andrew III (1290–1301), when in 1298, the assembly of the nobility authorized the king to grant an office in the royal administration to his uncle, the Venetian Albertino Morosini.
The last provision of the Golden Bull authorized the prelates and the "nobles" to resist any royal measures that could endanger their liberties confirmed by his decree.
Should it happen that we or any of the kings following us acted against these arrangements of us, this charter shall authorize both the bishops and the notabilities and nobles (both the ones who are present now and who would live later and also their descendants) to whenever resist and contradict universally or individually both to us and to the kings following us without suffering the ignominy of treachery. —Section 2 of the Article 31 of the Golden Bull (Decree of 1222)Following the Mongol invasion of the kingdom in 1241-42, King Béla IV endeavoured the landowners to build strongholds in their domains and therefore, he often granted lands to his partisans and obliged them to have a fortress built there. As a consequence, at least 75% of the 162 fortresses built in the kingdom from 1242 until 1300 was erected on private estates. The maintenance of the fortresses required significant financial resources and therefore, the scattered character of landed property went under a radical change because the strongholds became the centres of bigger units of estates that consisted of the villages attached to them. The possession of one or more strongholds strengthened the position of the upper nobility, because the castle-owners could resist the monarchs for a longer period and they could also expand their influence over the owners of smaller estates around their castles. Based on their fortresses and retinues, the wealthier members of the landed nobility endeavoured to strengthen their own position and they often rebelled against the monarchs. They began to employ the members of the lesser nobility in their households and thus the latter (mentioned as familiaris in the deeds) became subordinate to them. A familiaris (servant) had to swear fidelity to his dominus (lord) and he fell under his lord's jurisdiction with regard to any cases connected to their special relationship. On the other hand, a familiaris reserved the ownership of his former estates and in this regard, he still fell under the jurisdiction of the royal courts of justice.
From the 1290s, the most powerful barons commenced to govern their domains de facto independently of the monarchs and they usurped the royal prerogatives on the enormous territories possessed by them or by their familiaris. Following the death of King Andrew III, the largest part of the kingdom became subject to the de facto rule of oligarchs like Máté Csák, Amade Aba and Ladislaus Kán who took advantage of the struggles among the claimants to the throne and expanded their supremacy to several counties. King Charles I Robert (1308–1342) had to spend the first decades of his reign in waging wars against the most powerful oligarchs and he could strengthen his position within the kingdom only by the 1320s.
Read more about this topic: Upper Nobility (Kingdom Of Hungary)
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