Szabolcs-Szatmár-Beregi levéltári évkönyv 13. (Nyíregyháza, 1999)

Rezümék (angol, német)

name of their feudal domain, Bator. In the first one of the charters confirmed in 1512 King Charles I grants privileges to four brothers of the family then already called Bathori as a reward for their faithful service and as a compensation for damages suffered by the family earlier. The king exempted the population of the village of Bator from the jurisdiction of all the judges in the country, their landlords remaining the only judges over the village and all criminals caught in its territory (including the right to sentence somebody to death). The second, third and fourth charters obliged traders passing the town to stop and offer their goods at the weekly market, held on Thursdays, for sale or exchange. They were only allowed to go on their way after the market was closed. The Bathori family presented their four charters of privilege at the chancellery of Ladislaus II in 1512. The chancellery recorded that the seal of the king was seen on the first and third charters, but it is not mentioned in the case of the second and fourth. The king had all the four ones rewritten and confirmed them all. In 1537 the family requested King John I to confirm the charter issued by Ladislaus II. After that time the original charters were lost, and they even got out of the possession of the family in unknown time and circumstances. One thing that is known for sure is that the Bathori family filed a law suit at the Octavial Court of 1575 in order to regain the original charters, issued by Charles I and confirmed in 1512. The deputy of the Lord Chancellor, the supreme landlord and authority of the country, acknowledged that the original charters were in his possession, but he was only willing to give the family officially certified copies. This was finally the decision of the court as well. Since that time, only the copies of the charter confirmed and rewritten in 1512 have been known. It is presumed that one of these copies found its way to the provincial town of Nyirbator, and when the male line of the family died out 1613, three respectable burghers of the town requested the chapter of the collegiate church of Esztergom to give them an officially certified copy. Matthew II issued a new version of the charter of privilege originally written on 18 March 1330. Matthew's charter was based upon the copy issued by the Chapter of Esztergom, but the other three charters are not mentioned in King Matthew's version. The charter preserved by the provincial town of Nyirbator is one of the copies prepared in the last third of the 16

th century, and it contained all the four original ones. After 1575 the charter rewritten and confirmed in 1537 may have had two — or perhaps three — different copies. The one preserved in the archives of Nyirbator was probably one of these.