Majorossy Judit: Egy történelmi gyilkosság margójára. Merániai Gertrúd emlékezete, 1213 - 2013. Tanulmánykötet - A Ferenczy Múzeum kiadványai, A. sorozat: Monográfiák 2. (Szentendre, 2014)

I. - Szabó Péter: A pilisi királyi erdő a középkorban

Péter Szabó

The Royal Forest of Pilis in the Middle Ages

Introduction

This study is an attempt to interpret the landscape around medieval Buda, or, to be more precise, a specific part of that landscape that had strong connections to the importance of Buda as a royal centre. If we follow the Danube upstream from Buda towards the north and further on as the river turns west, we pass Visegrád and arrive at Esztergom. Going back in a straight line towards Buda, our journey has taken us around a triangle enclosing biggish hills that are mostly wooded. The south-western third of this area is limestone, while the north-eastern two thirds are volcanic: the whole area has been called Pilis since the Middle Ages, when it was a Royal Forest.

The word pilis is of Slavic origin, a survival left behind by the same settlers who named Visegrád (‘high castle’).1 A version of pies can be found in most Slavic languages; it refers to a ‘barren, treeless area’ - and later to the tonsure of monks. The Pilis Mountains were named after their highest peak (756 m). Pilis peak is treeless nowadays, and apparently already was so when the Slavic settlers first saw it. Indeed, we can be fairly certain that it has been treeless since the end of the latest Ice Age (cca. 12 000 years ago), because on top of it grows the rare plant Ferula sadleriana, which cannot survive in shade and has practically no ability to colonize new territories in search of sunlight.2

In the Middle Ages, Pilis was surrounded by the four most important towns of the Hungarian Kingdom: Esztergom, an early royal centre and seat of the archbishop; Visegrád, royal centre in the fourteenth century; Buda, royal centre and capital since the fifteenth century; and (somewhat further to the south) Fehérvár, the burial and coronation place of the medieval rulers. This area was called ‘the centre of the kingdom’ (medium regni) in the Middle Ages.3 To date, research has focused almost exclusively on the towns, and little is known about the area they surrounded. Moreover, discussion concerning Pilis has mostly revolved around the concept of‘forest county’ (erdőispánság in Hungarian).4 This term was created by nineteenth-century historians who realized that in some regions of Hungary (including Pilis) administrative units were created in the twelve and thirteenth centuries that were called in the same way as regular counties (comitatus), but which were different from such counties in a number of important characteristics. Because the common feature of these areas seemed to be their woodland cover, historians named them ‘forest counties.’5 This, however, is a modern term. In the Middle Ages, if scribes wanted to emphasise what made these counties special, they called them silve regales, ‘Royal Forests.’

Royal Forest in Europe

The concept of Royal Forests (with a capital F to differentiate them from the modern word ‘forest’) was created some time in the Early Middle Ages in the Merovingian Frankish territories. It is by no means accidental that among modern languages those that have two words for a territory covered with trees are German (Forst and Wald), French (fórét and bois), Italian foresta and bosco), and Dutch forest and woud). The first term in each case originates from the Latin

1 Kiss (szerk.) 1988: II. 346-347,768.

2 Kalapos 1998.

3 Búzás (szerk.) 1996.

4 The most important works about medieval Pilis are: ÁMTFIV. 583-714; Pesty 1880: 59-67; Zsoldos 1998;Tringli 2001; Kristó 1988: 252-254.

5 Pesty 1880: passim; Mályusz 1922; ÁMTF 1.45-47.

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