Erdős Ferenc - Fülöp Gyula - Szakály Ferenc: Polgárdi története - Fejér Megyei Levéltár közleményei 22. (Székesfehérvár, 1997)

The history of Polgárdi

According to the historical-linguistic researches the name of the village originates from the Bavarian-Austrian noun, purger (town dweller). Its Hungarian equivalent can be derived from the Hungarian noun, polgár (burgher). The suffix -di has been stuck to the placename by analogy. At the turning of the century another explanation was received as well. According to János Károly the settlement received its name from the Pechenegs settled here from Bulgaria. According to the documents preserved from the 13th century the forms Pulgar in 1277, Polgár, Palgar, Pologar in 1397, 1421, 1435, 1467 appear parallely. Then Polgary appears in 1506, the nameform Polgardy-Polgárdi used nowadays as well turns up. From the above mentioned facts it turns out that the sources known by us mention the settlement in the last third of the 13th century for the first time. However the „foundation" of the town cannot be connected to the year of 1277. As we referred to it in the archeological introduction, the founders of the settlement already inhabited the region in the Bronze Age. From the firm establishment of writing it appears more and more frequently in sources. In 1277 King (Kun) László (Leslie) IV donated the settlement to the Jakab comes belonging to Bökény clan. Before the donation it was the property of Székesfehérvár, Szolgagyőrvár and that of the royal principality. The donation was reinforced by the last king of the Árpád Dynasty, King Endre (Andrew) III in 1292. King Károly Róbert (Charles Robert) from the Anjou Dynasty deprived the disloyal clan of the property in 1334. During more than five decades proprietor families succeeded one another. It caused some change in the history of the settlement that in 1397 King Zsigmond (Sigimund) I donated the settlements of Battyán, Polgárdi and Somlyó lying in Fejér County to György Batthyány (Kővágóörsi), the warden of the castle of Esztergom and to his sons, Albert and László. Between the end of the 14th century and 1945 the history of Polgárdi is connected to that of its proprietor family, the Batthyánys. The emotional and mental rela-