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 forestum, which is first recorded around 648 AD in a charter of the Benedictine abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy (today in Belgium).6 The same word was imported into England after the Norman Conquest (cf.forest, v. wood). Although the precise etymology offorestum is not clear, in the Middle Ages it was thought to have come from the expression foris est, referring to what is ‘outside something.’Until recently most researchers were misled by the modern meaning of the word ‘forest’ (and its European equivalents). This resulted in gross misunderstandings, for example when mentions of foresta in charters were mapped to estimate woodland cover in early medieval Europe.7 However, the original meaning offorestum has nothing to do with trees: it referred to a territory ‘outside of something,’ namely outside of common law. Medieval Forests were territories set aside from common law for keeping wild animals for the king and other magnates. Some were covered with trees, but others were not. The development of the concept of Forests is poorly understood.8 Roman law did not recognize hunting as a privilege; territories set aside for hunting for the elite were first recorded among the Germanic tribes, the very first mention of the word forestum - noted above - forming part of this process. It appears that originally royal ownership and hunting rights were joined. As the concept further developed, ownership and hunting rights separated, and a Forest gradually came to refer to hunting rights on anybody’s property. The last stage in this process is represented by the English Royal Forest of the eleventh-thirteenth centuries, which included the right to keep and kill fallow deer, red deer, roe deer and wild boar on any territory.9 Such Forests could be created only by the king, and often without any changes to existing ownership or conditions of use. In the thirteenth century the whole of Essex, for example, was a Royal Forest. English Forests were accompanied by huge bureaucracies and had their own Forest Law.10 How did the current meaning of the word ‘forest’ develop? The answer lies in the ecology of temperate Europe. Early medieval foresta were typically created in marginal places that were outside the most intensely managed landscapes. The natural vegetation in most of these places was woodland. As time went by and the original legal concept and meaning of Forests gradually disappeared, the word changed its meaning and came to refer to vegetation. Nonetheless, how and precisely when this happened in the various regions of Europe has so far not been determined. Royal Forests in the Hungarian Kingdom “[...] and from here [the boundary] comes to a certain stream next to a wood, and [...] [it continues] in this wood along a stream that flows into the river Torna, [...] and [...] going towards the south it comes to the boundary of Bakony Forest, and here, at the entrance to a certain valley at a certain spring at a place which is commonly called Kuachbike there are two boundary signs, which separate [the land described in the document] from the said Bakony Forest. The stream that originates in the said valley called Kuachbike separated their territories from Bakony Forest, which is a Royal Forest”11 Based on what was argued in the Introduction, it might seem logical to look for Royal Forests behind the expression silva regalis, which was used in connection with Pilis and other areas in Hungary. Nonetheless, it is also clear that any such correspondence can be valid only to a certain extent: there exists no equivalent of the Latin forestum in the Hungarian language. Forestum occurs in medieval sources altogether four times.12 Even if we interpret this as an attempt to introduce the word into local Latin usage (from where it could have made it into the vernacular), the attempt was obviously not successful. However, the quotation at the head of this chapter clearly indicates that the concept of Royal Forest existed in some form in medieval Hungary: the author of the charter felt that there was a difference between the small local wood that the boundary crossed and Bakony Forest, which was an administrative unit with its own boundary. Hence the addition of the short explanatory phrase: silva videlicet regalis. 6 Arnold 2006. In general, the word was used either as as a neuter forestum, -a), or as a feminine foresta, -ae). 7 Higounet 1965. 8 The few available works are the following: Rubner 1964; Jarnut 1985; Hennebicque 1980; Wickham 1994; Dasler 2001. 9 Rackham 1989. 10 Young 1979. 11 „[...] et inde [...] ad quendam rivulum proper unam silvam, et [...] inter ipsam silvam per quendam fluvium, qui cadit ad fluvium Thornua, [...] et [...] versus meridiem progrediens venit usque ad terminos silue Bokon, et ibi in capite cuiusdam vallis supra quendam fontem in loco wlgariter Kuachbike vocato sunt due mete, que separant a silva Bocon prenotata, cursus etiam fluvii incipientis in predicta valle Kuachbike vocata [...] ab eadem silva Bokon, silua videlicet regali terram ipsorum separat.” AOO X. 95 (translated by the author). 12 LLMAH IV. 123. 74
