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 According to the modern theory of ‘forest counties,’ when the Kingdom of Hungary was formed around AD 1000 larger uninhabited areas - including what were later to become ‘forest counties’- became royal property.13 In the sources these are described as predia, and their administrative heads as procuratores (keepers). Around 1200 these persons started to be called comites, and the territories comitatus. The main reason for this change, according to the theory, was large property donations by the king. “The appearance of ecclesiastical and private [non-royal] properties [...] led to a loosening of earlier property structures. In the forest counties, in the first decades of the thirteenth century this process reached a level that required the reformulating of administrative structures based on actual property relations, that is, the making of [new] counties.”14 This theory reads well and is apparently valid for most ‘forest counties,’ however, some elements require attention. First, we do not know how later ‘forest counties’ became royal property. There are several places in the Carpathian Basin that seem perfect candidates for being turned into ‘forest counties’ but were never mentioned as such. Second, there are huge differences in the early administrative status of later ‘forest counties.’ In some cases (such as Zólyom in the north), it is true that the county system was not very well-developed there at the beginning of the thirteenth century, but the territories of at least two ‘forest counties’ (Pilis and Bakony) were parts of early and well-established counties. Here, there was certainly no need to change the existing administrative structures. It appears then that ‘forest counties’ were the Hungarian version of the Western European forestum. Because the contemporary term for such areas was Royal Forest (silva regalis), I will use this term henceforth. Royal Forests in Hungary started to take on a more concrete administrative form in the thirteenth century. However, how the concept may have developed later on we shall never know, because ownership conditions in late medieval Hungary were unfavourable for the existence of territorial units with a special administrative status, such as the Royal Forests had had to date. As argued above, in Western Europe Forests gradually ceased to be connected to ownership and came to refer to rights of use. In late medieval Hungary this was impossible. Here, land ownership was always absolute - in feudal terms, allodial. The king simply did not have a free hand to regulate rights of use on somebody else’s land. The result was the disappearance of Forests as distinct administrative units. They were transformed into regular counties or became parts of neighbouring counties - there was no general rule, and the process had almost as many variations as there were examples.15 By the fifteenth century only minor anomalies in the regular county system remained from what once were ‘forest counties.’ Hungary is not the only country in East-Central Europe where Royal Forests existed in some form. In Poland, for example, the famous Bialowieza was also a Royal Forest, and in the Czech Lands the word foresta was used in a sense similar to Western Europe.16 However, the development of the concept of Royal Forests in these countries is equally little researched. In the following, I shall focus on the concrete case of the Royal Forest of Pilis. In addition to its history as a Forest, I shall also deal with woodlands generally, and in connection with this with settlement history. The Royal Forest of Pilis From the Beginnings until the Thirteenth Century In the eleventh and twelve centuries the territory of Pilis was in royal ownership. We can see this for example when the Provostry of Dömös, in the north, was founded around 1107 by Prince Álmos, brother of King Coloman. Why the territory was Almos’ is not known, except that it probably had something to do with him being part of the royal family.17 18 The first written source to mention Pilis already with this name and in a geographical sense was issued by Pope Urban III to the Hospitallers of Esztergom. In this document the Pope referred to a charter of King Géza II of Hungary (1141-1161) talking about Pilis as ‘his very own Forest’ (propria silva sua).lg Perhaps the most important feature of 13 Magyar 1994. 14 Zsoldos 1998: 19. 15 Szűcs 1993: 2-4. 16 Samojlik (ed.) 2005; LMALB II. 716-717. 17 According to a document Dömös was donated to Álmos by King Coloman around 1100 AD, however, the evidence listed is only indirect. AMTF IV. 630. 18 Knauz 1863: 131. 75
