Urbs - Magyar várostörténeti évkönyv 1. (Budapest, 2006)

Abstracts

privilege and the participation at the diet the town became a member of the estates of the Kingdom society of orders. The acquirement of this status also secured the prerogatives normally enjoyed by the nobility. However, the circle of free royal towns was not completely homogeneous until the sixteenth century. The survey tries to identify those settlements, which belonged to the free royal towns on the basis of the following features. Scholarship considers the common court of appeal in the case of the towns of the medieval Hungarian Kingdom a strong cohesive force. In the case of free royal towns it is certainly considered an indispensable criterion of their status. However, the appeal of the towns did not mean a serious border line concerning their privileged status in the early modern period. The towns of the tavernical court working without noble assessors were considered equal to those free royal towns that had recourse with their affairs to the so-called court of the personalis presentiae regiae locumtenens (representing the king in the highest court). The analysis of the terminology of the period reveals that the technical tenns 'civitas ' and 'oppidum ' strengthened and separated towards the end of the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries these two terms had a real content related to the membership of the estates of the realm, more precisely they distinguished the free royal towns from the private manorial settlements. However, some settlements were accidentally called civitas although they had market-town rights. Neither the taxation habits of the towns (only free royal towns paid the tax voted by the diet and determined by the chamber) can provide a precise distinction. This can be explained by the lack of any uniform system of those towns being members of the estates of the realm. Several towns disposed of almost all the rights of free royal towns, and the chamber obliged them to pay tax as well as other free royal towns. Concerning the free royal town status the most important feature is the representation at the diet, after all, it belonged to the fundamental rights of nobility to participate in these assemblies in person or through its legates. Prior to the battle of Mohács (1526), the participation of towns at the diet may be regarded incidental. However, the lack of their regular attendance at the diets indicates the deficiency of their membership of the estates of the realm. For this reason it may be questioned, whether the towns had the rights inherent with their privileged status at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries at all. After the battle of Mohács the presence of the towns at the diet was almost complete. In the second half of the sixteenth century Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia), Sopron, Nagyszombat (Trnava, Slovakia), Kassa (Kosice, Slovakia), Bártfa (Bardejov, Slovakia), Eperjes (Presov, Slovakia), Lőcse (Levoca, Slovakia), Kisszeben (Sabinov, Slovakia), Szakolca (Skalica, Slovakia), Trencsén (Trencin, Slovakia), Zágráb (Zagreb, Croatia), Várasd (Varazdin, Croatia), Kőrös (Krscievci, Croatia), Kapronca (Koprivnica, Croatia), the Lower Hungarian seven mining towns were the members of the fourth order without doubt. Beside these other towns also entered this privileged status until 1608, some of them were temporarily again parts of the Hungarian Kingdom (Székesfehérvár - 1602, Várad/Oradca, Rumania - 1603, 1604), others, such as Modor (Modra, Slovakia), Bazin (Pezinok, Slovakia) and Szentgyörgy (Jur pri