Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 13. 1972 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1974)
The Meeting of the Commission for Urban History Székesfehérvár, 26 March 1972. - Fügedi Erik: Medieval topography of Fehérvár. XIII, 1972. p. 303–304.
THE MEETING OF THE COMMISSION FOR URBAN HISTORY Székesfehérvár, 26 March 1972 MEDIEVAL TOPOGRAPHY OF FEHÉRVÁR Fehérvár, in Latin called Alba Regia was one of the most important towns of medieval Hungary, where Hungarian kings were crowned and hurried. Besides being sedes regalis, it was a busy commercial town throughout four centuries. At the beginning of the 15 th century Fehérvár was a well defined geographical entity, but according to legal status and conditions it fell to different pieces. The nucleus, called castrum Albense, enclosed with walls, was the possession of the chapter of the royal basilica and of the citizens. The most important buildings were the royal basilica and the Peter and Paul cathedral, the parish church of the citizens. The nucleus was girded by a series of suburbs, first by the suburb of Buda, called suburbium,, where a Nicholas church and collegiate chapter was the almost sole owner of the whole area. Around this church met all the roads reaching the city from the East and North. In the West in a settlement called insula (in Hungarian the suburb of Palota) the Knights of St. John had their seat. This suburb was inhabitated by the serfs of the Knights, to whom it served as the center of their scattered and mostly far-away estates. Around the Knights church the roads reaching the city from the South and the West had their junction. Both institutions, the Nicholas church as well as that of the Order of Malta were founded as hospitals, taking care of pilgrims and merchants. Two small settlements, probably with strong agrarian character, completed the gird around the castrum. The origin of this agglomeration is to be found undoubtedly in the city itself, where the royal basilica was founded in 1015, where the first and the most important market place of the country was situated. The ramparts are first mentioned in 1063. It is most likely — and the latest excavations proved it — that already at the end of the 10 th century there had been a small royal fortress, occupying the hill of the Peter and Paul cathedral, where the first Christian duke of Hungary (f997) lay burried. In the 12 th century (very likely between 1147—1167) foreigners so called latini (French and Italians) settled down. They were provided with a royal charter; granting to them the free election of their own magistrate, entitled to deliver sentence in all criminal and civil cases, a dutyfree commerce within the country and accross the borders and admission of newcomers into their community. In 1241 the Mongols invaded Hungary. They stormed Fehérvár too, but the city was saved by her favourable geographical position and by the firm resistance of the latini. A few years later, when preparing the country's defence, the King decided to transfer the latini from the suburb into the city. From this time on they lived within the city walls and were given the possession of the market. Fehérvár of the 11 th century was surely a town in the political and economic sense of the word. She was the seat of the king, and an ecclesiastical and administrative center, where church institutions and schools could be found. She was called regalis civitas too. From the economic point of view it was the most important market place of the country, lying on the route from the Danube valley through Transdanubia to the Holy Land. But she was not a town in the social and legal sense of the word. All her inhabitans, ecclesiastical as well as lay ones, were the king's subjects, underlying to the jurisdiction of the royal judges and to the administrativ power of the count {comes). There was no sign whatever of judicial and administrative autonomy, of the most important characteristic of medieval European town. Therefore we call this type of town a nomadic one, meaning that it fulfilled all the political and economic functions of a town, without being separated in legal and administrative sense from the countryside. The arrival of the latini changed the situation overnight. Self-government in a broad sense was granted to them and Fehérvár became a town like any other town in medieval Europe. The transfer of the latini completed the change. From now on Fehérvár was an urban settlement with all the liberties a town could enjoy. The evolution of Fehérvár corresponds with the two periods of the evolutions of township in Hungary. The first period ending somewhere in the second half of the 12 th century, was that of the nomadic towns. Arabian geographers and travellers described them as towns; our 303
