Zalai történeti tanulmányok - Zalai gyűjtemény 42. (Zalaegerszeg, 1997)

Bilkei Irén: Zala megye nemessége a Mohács utáni két évtizedben

IRÉN BILKEI:

THE NOBILITY OF COUNTY ZALA IN THE TWO DECADES FOLLOWING THE ROUT AT MOHÁCS

Summary

The author of this study attempts to outline the effects exercised by the Rout at Mohács and by the events thereafter on the history of County Zala. It also deals with the personalities of local birth who were concerned in the events which formed the whole country’s fate and with the changes within the county nobility during the two decades following the Rout at Mohács.

The documents from the period 1527-1547 preserved in the archivalia of the Zalavár and Kapornak Benedictine Abbeys, entrusted with notarial function, form the basic source of the study. The appendix lists in alphabetical order the names of the county squires, their estates and the date when they are mentioned in the above sources. The list is certainly not complete, it contains only those nobility of County Zala who made their appearance before the ecclesiastic bodies entrusted with notar function.

Though the events, which formed the country’s fate immediately after the Rout at Mohács, didn’t take place in County Zala, they made their influence felt.

At the end of 1526, the Hungarian nobility elected two kings, both of whom had their followers also in County Zala. The study deals with those three aristocrats: János Bánffy of Alsólendva, Bálint Török of Enying and Tamás Nádasdy, who - though the followers of different kings - influenced not only the county’s, but the whole country’s fate.

János Bánffy was the faithful ally of Szapolyai (King John I) till death; he held the dignity of palatine in the court.

Bálint Török won the county over on King Ferdinand’s side in 1529-30. Thereafter, taking part in the struggles between the two kings, he interfered in the county’s possession several times.

Tamás Nádasdy took a prominent part in the county’s life as the holder of the Kanizsa-estate - which he won through marriage - and as having the most fenmen at his disposal.

The two kings’ struggles were followed by a civil war. As a consequence of this, the largest estates were rearranged and new aristocrat families emerged. The possession of the well-to-do squire families can be considered continuos from the Middle Ages onward.

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