B. Halász Eva - Suzana Miljan (szerk.): Diplomatarium comitum terrestrium Crisiensium (1274-1439) (Subsidia ad historiam medii aevi Hungariae inquirendam 6. Budapest - Zagreb 2014)

Epilógus

COMES TERRESTRIS CRISIENSIS. AN INTRODUCTORY STUDY

Nos Petrus Chirke vicebanus regni Sclavonic et comes Crisyensis ac Andreas filius Martini comes terrestris de eodem memorie commendantes significamus, quibus expedit universis? With those words begins a charter kept in the Archive of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts under the signature D-VI-33, referred to later in this book. Two persons are mentioned in the superscription (intitulatio), and on the first, Peter Csirke, we have relatively extensive findings: he was a member of the Széplaki (Csirke) family of the Aba kindred and was a retainer of Ban Peter Cudar. During the ban's first government in Slavonia (13694371), Csirke was only the comes of Križevci and during the second (1373-1381), alongside with that position, he held the office of the viceban. We have rather limited information regarding the second individual mentioned in this document, a certain Andrew, son of Martin, and the office which he held. This office, in particular the position and the institute of the comes terrestris of Križevci (comes terrestris Crisiensis)1 2 and the people who held it, will form the main focus of the following lines.

Regarding the term comes terrestris: the first word refers to the leading individual heading a particular county, a count. The second word (iterrestris, e) means that the term in question is a portion of land or an (drylanded?) estate. Thus, the structure of translation seems clear: comes of a land or a territorial count. If we peruse the medieval Latin dictionary composed by Antal Bartal, we find not only single components, but the whole phrase. Bartal, instead of using a literal translation, interprets the term in the following manner: "an elected judge of true or kindred organised nobility." In order to support this he draws upon the charters issued by a comes terrestris from a different geographical area, in this case

1 When we refer to the charters issued by the comites terrestres Crisienses, we are using the number of the document corresponding to the one in our Diplomatarium. For the quotation above, see: 17 November 1376 (Documenta 19).

2 In the English and Hungarian version of this introductory study we shall use the Latin term comes terrestris for this position, while, in the Croatian version, we shall mostly use the Croatian term "zemaljski župan."

105