A castle warrior or castle serf (, )Bán 1989, p. 237. was a landholder obliged to provide military services to the ''

ispán The ispánRady 2000, p. 19.''Stephen Werbőczy: The Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary in Three Parts (1517)'', p. 450. or countEngel 2001, p. 40.Curta 2006, p. 355. (, , and ),Kirschbaum 2007, p. 315. deriving from title of župan, ...

'' or head of a royal castle district in the

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...

. Castle warriors "formed a privileged, elite class that ruled over the mass of castle folk"Engel 2001, p. 71. (Pál Engel) from the establishment of the kingdom around 1000 AD. Due to the disintegration of the system of castle districts, many castle warriors became serfs working on the lands of private landholders in the 13th and 14th centuries; however, some of them were granted a full or " conditional noble" status.

Origins

The origin of castle warriors can probably be traced back to Stephen I, the first crowned

king of Hungary The King of Hungary () was the Monarchy, ruling head of state of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 (or 1001) to 1918. The style of title "Apostolic King of Hungary" (''Magyarország apostoli királya'') was endorsed by Pope Clement XIII in 1758 ...

(1000 or 1001–1038), since most royal castles were erected during his reign. However, the settlement of armed

commoner A commoner, also known as the ''common man'', ''commoners'', the ''common people'' or the ''masses'', was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither ...

s around princely fortresses may well have begun under the rule of his father,

Grand Prince Grand prince or great prince (feminine: grand princess or great princess) (; ; ; ; ) is a hereditary title, used either by certain monarchs or by members of certain monarchs' families. Grand duke is the usual and established, though not litera ...

Géza. The ''jobbágy'' or ''iobagio'' expression, first recorded between 1127 and 1131, is of Hungarian origin, connected to the Hungarian word for "better" ''(jobb)''. Castle warriors held landed property with a territory carved out from royal estates attached to a royal castle.Lukačka 2011, p. 37. In return for this landholding, they rendered military service to the ''ispán'' of the royal castle.Rady 2000, p. 20.Curta 2006, p. 401. Their property was often quite large, with a territory of about .

Flowering

Although landholders were superior in status to castle folk, royal legislation did not treat castle warriors as full-fledged freemen.Zsoldos 1994, p. 715. For instance, a castle warrior who had departed from his lord was "regarded as a fugitive in the same way as a runaway serf" (Pál Engel). Nevertheless, they had the right to appeal to the monarch against the ''ispán'' they were serving. Moreover, they could not be deprived of the land they owned, which passed to their children upon death. Castle warriors were also exempted from the " freemen's pennies" (''denarii liberorum'' or ''liberi denarii''), a tax payable by all freemen to the kings. Castle warriors appointed by the ''ispáns'' held the chief offices of the castle districts. Thus both the heads of the "hundreds" (the basic units of the administration of a district), and the officers of the military contingent of the castle were always chosen from among their number. Likewise, the

castellan A castellan, or constable, was the governor of a castle in medieval Europe. Its surrounding territory was referred to as the castellany. The word stems from . A castellan was almost always male, but could occasionally be female, as when, in 1 ...

was always a castle warrior in the first centuries of the kingdom. Castle warriors were eager to preserve their special status, thus they frequently sued ''udvarniks'' or castle folk who tried to take their lands or usurp their privileges. Even so, castle folk were sometimes elevated to the higher status of castle warriors.

Disintegration

The alienation of some pieces of "castle lands" began under the early kings of the

Árpád dynasty The Árpád dynasty consisted of the members of the royal House of Árpád (), also known as Árpáds (, ). They were the ruling dynasty of the Principality of Hungary in the 9th and 10th centuries and of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 to 130 ...

, which initially always resulted in the resettlement of castle warriors on new lands.Rady 2000, p. 31. However, King Andrew II (1205–1235) distributed large parcels of "castle lands" (sometimes whole counties) among his followers. This resulted in a significant number of castle warriors losing their direct contact with the monarchs and becoming subject to the authority of other lords. Even the status of those who remained on castle lands were threatened from the 1370s by the emerging idea of "royal right". According to this concept, all land that was not owned by the nobility or an ecclesiastic body belonged to the monarch, thus the property rights of those who had not been ennobled could be questioned.Engel 2001, pp. 148-149. Nevertheless, many castle warriors were granted nobility by the monarchs in order to "remove the 'stain of ignobility' which was attached to castle service" (Martyn Rady).Rady 2000, p. 81. Even castle warriors living in castle districts distributed to private landholders could receive special collective liberties, although they were never granted "true nobility". For instance, the "noble ''iobaigiones'' of Turopolje" in

Zagreb county Zagreb County () is a county in Northern Croatia. It surrounds, but does not contain, the nation's capital Zagreb, which is a separate territorial unit. For that reason, the county is often nicknamed "Zagreb ring" (). According to the 2021 censu ...

were granted the right to elect their own judges, a right which they preserved until the 19th century.

Footnotes

Sources

* Bán, Péter (1989). Entry ''várjobbágy'' in: Bán, Péter; ''Magyar történelmi fogalomtár, II. kötet: L–Zs'' Thesaurus of Terms of Hungarian History, Volume I: L–Zs Gondolat. . * Curta, Florin (2006). ''Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250''. Cambridge University Press. . * Dolovai, Dorottya (2006). Entry ''jobbágy'' in: Zaicz, Gábor; ''Etimológiai Szótár: Magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete'' ("Etymological Dictionary: Origin of Hungarian Words and Affixes"); TINTA Könyvkiadó; Budapest; . * Engel, Pál (2001). ''The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526''. I.B. Tauris Publishers. . * Kontler, László (1999). ''Millennium in Central Europe: A History of Hungary''. Atlantisz Publishing House. . * Lukačka, Ján (2011). ''The beginning of the nobility in Slovakia''. ''In:'' Teich, Mikuláš; Kováč, Dušan; Brown, Martin D. (2011); ''Slovakia in History''; Cambridge University Press; . * Rady, Martyn (2000). ''Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary''. Palgrave (in association with School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London). . * ''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. . . . . . (ISBN may be misprinted in the book as 88445-29-2). * Zsoldos, Attila (1994). Entry ''várjobbágy'' in: ''Korai Magyar Történeti Lexikon (9–14. század)'' Encyclopedia of Early Hungarian History, 9th–14th centuries" Akadémiai Kiadó; Budapest; . {{Refend Kingdom of Hungary

Origins

Flowering

Disintegration

See also

Footnotes

Sources