Századok – 2020

2020 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Pálosfalvi Tamás: Monarchia vagy rendi állam? Gondolatok a késő középkori magyar állam jellegéről

MONARCHIA VAGY RENDI ÁLLAM? 182

King would have been forced to seek the support of the middling nobility in order to exert effective authority. Following in the footsteps of Mályusz, Pál Engel argued that the Hungarian Kingdom was fatally weakened after 1439 by the emergence of the ‘system of estates’, a decline that was only temporarily halted by the strong rule of Matthias Corvinus. The present study proves that the evidence cited by Mályusz, and the conclusions built on them by Engel, cannot be sustained, and that the institutionalization of parliament after 1439 did not necessarily involve any basic transformation of the Hungarian state.