2013_2_Rácz

György Rácz

The Congress of Visegrád in 1335: Diplomacy and Representation*

The Congress of Visegrád, held in 1335, was one of the outstanding diplomatic events in Central Europe in the fourteenth century. The present study, after outlining the general historical developments which characterized the kingdoms involved, namely Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, in the early decades of the fourteenth century, retraces the immediate preliminaries of the diplomatic summit, before all the efforts at eliminating the political and territorial conflicts which opposed Poland and Bohemia on the one hand, and Poland and the Teutonic order on the other hand, through the mediation of Charles I of Hungary, the senior ranking ruler of the region. The study examines all the chief agreements concluded during the conference, on the basis of all the available charters and the narrative sources, carefully accounting for the differences of viewpoints which characterize the narratives of chroniclers from the various countries. It comes to the conclusion that, contrary to Hungarian historiography, although the conference did have a commercial aspect, it was certainly not the main thrust of the events at Visegrád. Finally, the study makes an effort at establishing, upon the amounts of food consumed, the number of the respective retinues of the Polish and Czech rulers, and thereby determine whether the numbers involved could be regarded as average or whether they implied a conscious show of strength on the part of the two kings.

Keywords: Fourteenth-century diplomacy, Central European politics, princely retinues

 

The Congress of Visegrád was by far the biggest diplomatic event that took place in Central Europe in the first half of the fourteenth century.1 In the following pages we offer a summary of the events, based on the narrative and documentary sources, and make an effort at establishing the respective numbers of the Czech and Polish delegations.

The picturesque little town of Visegrád is located in the largest bend of the river Danube. The historical sources unanimously testify that here, in the autumn of 1335, the leaders of Central European kingdoms held an international conference, a so-called royal summit, in order to resolve international disputes. The meeting was held in the court of the Hungarian King Charles I of Anjou, the actual initiator of the conference. The upper castle on the hilltop was built during the reign of King Béla IV to provide a line of defence in the event of a new Mongol invasion. The strategic significance of this location led to the extension of the upper castle with a massive keep by the Danube, as well as the construction of a fortified wall that connected the upper and lower castles, turning the hillside into a formidable system of fortifications.

Interestingly enough, the Slavic origin of the name Visegrád (meaning “high castle”) does not refer to what is now the upper castle but to an older one built on a hill farther north. What was once a Roman fort later became an ispán’s castle, which the local Slavs called “high castle,” a name retained by the Hungarians even after the building’s dilapidation. Populated by German settlers, the village at the foot of the hill rapidly developed into a town in the second half of the fourteenth century, shortly after King Charles I of Anjou had relocated his seat from Temesvár (Timişoara, Romania) to Visegrád in 1323 and defeated his oligarchic opposition. It was here that the central court and the administration were established. The harmony of landscape and architecture that evolved at the foot of the hill inspired Charles of Anjou to envision what would become one of Central Europe’s most significant royal seats in the fourteenth century. The excavation of the buildings of the royal court destroyed under Ottoman rule has been ongoing since 1934. Archaeologists have uncovered the foundations of the palace built by the Angevins, where an assassination was attempted against Charles I in 1330. By 1335 the castle and the town were able to accommodate the Bohemian King John of Luxemburg, his son and heir Charles, Count of Moravia, Casimir III (the Great) of Poland, Prince Rudolf of Saxony and Boleslaw III, Duke of Silesia, representatives of the Order of Teutonic Knights as well as their entourage for over an entire month.2

In order to understand the reasons that led to the royal summit one needs to study the circumstances of the respective countries at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Although the spread of the Black Death and other epidemics in this period in a sense marked the closure of the Middle Ages in Western Europe, the culture of chivalry was at that time still in full bloom. The fourteenth-century history of the three Central European kingdoms, Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary, features a time of progress and development reflected in similar ways in each country. At the beginning of the century all three neighboring kingdoms had been experiencing frictions and social unrest. By the second half of the century the three leaders had managed to resolve internal conflicts and build up strong countries. In Bohemia and Hungary the old dynasties had died out almost simultaneously at the beginning of the 1300s, while in Poland, Władisław Łokietek – who belonged to one of the branches of the Piast dynasty – ascended to the throne. The demanding tasks that all three countries were about to face influenced as a matter of fact their relationship to one another. Władisław Łokietek I, Prince of Krakow (1306–1320), succeeded in unifying the fractured Polish territories and made himself king upon the approval of the pope in 1320, thus re-making the Kingdom of Poland (ruled from 1320 to 1333). In Hungary, once the lineage of the Árpád dynasty ended in 1301, Charles of Anjou (1301–1342) came to the throne and, like Łokietek, commenced his reign with dedication and a gift for leadership. The rulers of Poland and Hungary supported each other in their struggles against the oligarchs in their own territories, and this alliance would remain one of the pillars of Central European politics throughout the fourteenth century.3

With the end of the Bohemian Přemyslid dynasty in 1306, the rival of the Angevins, John of Luxemburg (1310–1346), ascended to the throne of Bohemia, which brought about stability in Czech–Hungarian relations as well. One indication of this is that Charles of Anjou, having suffered the untimely loss of his first two wives, married Beatrice of Luxemburg, sister of the king of Bohemia, in 1317. The death of Beatrice in 1319, however, put an early end to this marriage. Because John did not have any more sisters to marry, Charles resorted to asking his other neighbor, the Polish king, for a fiancée. His marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of the newly crowned Władisław Łokietek, in 1320 forged a strong alliance between Hungary and Poland. At the same time, King John provided further support to Charles’s campaign against Máté Csák, his major adversary – a favor Charles did not let go unreturned. With the subsequent worsening of Hungarian–Austrian relations, the ties between the two kings strengthened, thanks to the long-standing animosity between the Luxemburgs and the Habsburgs.4

Charles’s good relations with both countries were eclipsed, however, by the enmity between the Bohemians and the Poles. One of the causes of this conflict lies in the Luxemburgs’ claim to the Polish throne, who in this regard simply stepped into the shoes of their Přemyslid predecessors. According to the rules of contemporary international relations, such a claim was legally justifiable and involved the whole heritage of Wenceslas III (1305–1306). The realization of this goal, however, was hindered by the unsuccessful campaign of the Bohemian king on the one hand, and by the diplomatic policies of the Angevins, who supported Łokietek, on the other. As a result, John of Luxemburg reduced his claim to Greater Poland and yielded Pomerania to the Teutonic Order. The Piasts had intended to lay claim to Silesia, a one-time Polish territory, but by the beginning of the fourteenth century the majority of the Silesian rulers were already under the overlordship of the Luxemburgs.

After the death of Władisław Łokietek I in 1333, his son Casimir III ascended to the throne, which breathed new life into the relations of the three countries. Once in power, Casimir launched himself into the task of sorting out matters left to him by his father. Poland was not only burdened by the feud with the Luxemburgs but also by territorial disputes with the Teutonic Order. With the new king on the Polish throne, John of Luxemburg also took an interest in improving Bohemian–Polish relations, for he was in search of an ally against his long-time enemies, the Austrians and Emperor Louis of Bavaria, with whom he had disputes over the heritage of Henry, Duke of Carinthia. In 1334, in order to settle the dispute over the Polish territories, the parties involved decided to choose arbiters: the Polish king appointed Charles of Anjou, while the Teutonic Order appointed John of Luxemburg.5 This move served as a platform for the subsequent peace process. The Hungarian king—who, after the death of Łokietek, became the ranking ruler of the region—set to the task with great zeal and mediated between the old Bohemian king and the young Polish ruler. Chief among his motives was his long-term goal to lay claim to the Polish throne for the Angevin dynasty. With Hungary in the role of mediator, the conference at Visegrád thus marked the closure of a two-year process of diplomatic negotiations between Bohemia and Poland on the one hand, and Poland and the Teutonic Order on the other. The mechanism of diplomatic preparations seems to have been engineered from Visegrád, which meant the constant coming and going of deputies to maintain contact and secure the flow of information.6

As a first step Casimir signed a one-year ceasefire with Charles, Margrave of Moravia and son of the Bohemian King John, at Sandomir on May 28, 1335. In the treaty he included King Charles of Hungary along with two Polish dukes as bails to confirm the peace treaty with their charters.7 Afterwards, on August 24, John’s and Casimir’s deputies met in the Hungarian town of Trencsén (Trenčín, Slovakia). Casimir authorized his deputies to follow the advice of the representatives of the Hungarian king throughout the peace process. The deputies also had the right to assume financial responsibilities on behalf of the king up to 30,000 silver marks. The Polish politicians were well aware that reimbursement of the financially unstable Bohemian king would be the key to the solution. After all, with the exception of the financial aspect, the other points of the peace treaty, which revolved around the Bohemian king’s claims to the Kingdom of Poland, had already been clarified. Consequently, King John, along with his son, waived his rights concerning Poland, while the Polish king gave up his claim to overlordship over Bohemian-governed Silesia and Masovia (Plock). The agreement was documented in a charter issued by the representatives of Casimir and sealed by their own seals, upon the promissory note that the Polish king would confirm it as well.8 With that, the Bohemian delegation went to the Hungarian royal court in Visegrád, where the Bohemian–Hungarian agreement was soon signed. The copy, dated September 3 and issued and sealed by the Hungarian king, has survived in the Czech royal archives.9

The time was now ripe for the commencement of the negotiations between the arbiters and for the meeting of the three kings. At the beginning of November 1335, the 47-year-old Hungarian King Charles of Anjou invited and hosted his brother-in-law and ally, the 25-year-old Polish King Casimir III, the 39-year-old Bohemian King John of Luxemburg, along with his 19-year-old son Charles, Margrave of Moravia (the future Emperor Charles IV), and a great number of Polish, Silesian, and German princes as part of their delegations, as well as the representatives of the Teutonic Order, for over three to four weeks. Contemporary chroniclers soon realized the significance of this event and reported on it in several accounts in all the countries involved. These documents typically highlight one aspect of the event while leaving others in the background.

In contemporary Czech historiography, represented by the Chronicle of Francis of Prague, compiled in the first half of the fourteenth century, the attitude is illustrated by the very title of its relevant chapter: “How the King of Bohemia Alienated Poland.” The author answered the question in the following way. The king of Bohemia, in the company of his firstborn, Charles, and several noblemen, went peacefully to Hungary and visited its king, Charles. There he spent three weeks, in the course of which they mutually preserved the fidelity and concord which existed between them, and confirmed them by oath, whereupon the king of Bohemia and his retinue returned to his kingdom, loaded with gifts. He took with him to Prague Casimir, already king of Poland, to whom he had sold Poland for twenty thousand marks in the presence of the king of Hungary. Here the Polish king spent several days, seeing many honors lavished upon him, and then returned home, where he proclaimed the happy news of having obtained the right and title to the Kingdom of Poland. While still in Hungary, these three kings had sworn a mutual alliance against all princes (contra omnes principes). Part of this alliance was a promise that the daughter of the Polish king would be given in marriage to the brother-in-law of the king of Bohemia, namely the five-year-old son of Henry, duke of Bavaria, who was called John.10

Charles of Luxemburg, Margrave of Moravia and later Holy Roman Emperor, offers an account of the congress in his autobiographies, which amounts to a contemporary report on the event, given that he attended it in person. No wonder he does not go into details about the formalities of hospitality, nor does he provide insight into the dynamics of the talks; yet it comes rather as a surprise that he emphasizes the Bohemian–Polish–Hungarian alliance only, without discussing the arbitration process. In his work he mentions that his father was already in Visegrád when he arrived; he then goes on to explicate the above-mentioned familial relationships among the rulers, and finally describes the roots of the Bohemian–Polish dispute.11 It is worth citing his text verbatim: “After this had taken place, we took the road to Hungary to our father, whom we found in Visegrád on the Danube with King Charles I. This king had earlier been married to the sister of our father, but she had died, and now he was married to the sister of King Casimir of Krakow, with whom he fathered three sons: the first was Louis, the second Andrew, the third Stephen. In that place King Charles brought about a peace between our father and the king of Krakow, by the terms of which our father renounced the rights belonging to him over Lesser Poland, namely Gniezno and Kalisz and the other provinces of Lesser Poland. To our father and the kingdom of Bohemia the king of Krakow renounced in perpetuity for himself and his successors, the kings of Lesser Poland, all his claims to all the duchies of Silesia and Opole and the city of Wrocław. There had previously been dissension between them because our grandfather, King Wenceslas II of Bohemia, held the aforementioned Lesser Poland and the duchies of Krakow and Sandomierz, having married the only daughter of Przemysł, the king of Lesser Poland and duke of Krakow and Sandomierz. On his death this Przemysł gave his kingdom along with the duchies which he possessed to our grandfather and the crown of the kingdom of Bohemia in perpetuity. But the aforementioned Casimir was the princess’s uncle and said that he held the right to the kingdom of Lesser Poland, asserting that a woman did not have the right to inherit the kingdom. And thus for a long time war had continued between the kings of Bohemia and Casimir and his deceased father Władisław, who were the kings of Krakow or Lesser Poland. It was thus that this war was brought to an end by the mediation of the aforementioned king of Hungary. In this he allied himself and promised to aid our father against the duke of Austria, who had taken the duchy of Carinthia from our brother, and against the aforementioned Louis [ie. Wittelsbach]. The following princes were allied together: our father, the king of Hungary, and Duke Henry of Bavaria, who was married to our sister.”12

The fifteenth-century Polish chronicler Jan Długosz highlights this other aspect of the congress in his account: the actual reason why the kings gathered together in Visegrád had been to settle the dispute over those Polish territories seized by the Teutonic Knights. While he thus captured the essence of the event, he provided the text of the charter of peace as well: “When the time approaches for the royal arbitrators to pronounce judgment, the two kings agree to meet in Wyszehrad (!) Castle on St. Elizabeth’s Day and there deliver judgment. King Casimir goes there to present his case in person. King John of Bohemia is there too. The Knights, who have never implemented the condition whereby the town and castle of Brześć were to be transferred to a third party, either the Duke of Mazovia or the Bishop of Włocławek, are represented by [Henry] Reuss of Plauen, the Governor of Toruń and Świecie. Each side presents its case and the documents to back it. But the King of Bohemia behaves more as an advocate for the Knights, than as an arbitrator, and is especially concerned that his sale of Pomerania to the Knights, which had brought him a very sizeable sum in coin, silver and gold, should not be invalidated. The decision, when pronounced, is that Kujawy and Dobrzyn belong to Poland, and Pomerania to the Teutonic Knights. This is a bitter blow for Casimir, for it deprives him of part of his inheritance, but, knowing how weak he is and afraid lest he become weaker still should hostilities be resumed, for he has enemies enough already and is considering declaring war on Ruthenia, he accepts even the condition that the castle of Nieszawa, though belonging to Kujawy, is to remain with the Order, thus giving the latter control of both banks of the Vistula and enabling it to use the river as a waterway. It is further decided that all liegemen, whether of King Casimir or of the Order, who have been expelled from their properties, are to be allowed to return and have their properties and the favour of their liege lord restored to them; or, should they prefer, they may sell their properties and go elsewhere. These decisions are pronounced on November 26.”13

The text of a fourteenth-century chronicle has survived in the work of the fifteenth-century Hungarian chronicler János Thuróczy, which gives a presumably contemporary account of the formal details of the meeting of 1335. Unlike Długosz’s account, this document focuses primarily on formalities; but such a description is just as valuable for us as political information. Let it be quoted here word for word, also because this will be the starting point for our attempt to establish the numbers of the retinues present: “In the 1335th year of the Lord, around the festivities of Saint Martin, King John of Bohemia, his son Charles, and the king of the Poles came to the castle of Visegrád, to the court of King Charles, to seal their alliance with a peace treaty for all time. And so it happened. Out of the generosity of the Hungarian king 2,500 loaves of bread were provided for the lunch of the Czech king, as well as a good share of the royal meals, all in abundance, while the horses’ daily share of fodder was 25 garleta. For the lunch of the Polish king 1,500 loaves of bread and other foods, as well as 180 barrels of wine were provided. The king of Hungary presented the king of Bohemia with various sorts of jewellery: 50 silver jars, two quivers, two belts, a magnificent chess board, two invaluable saddles, a knife with a belt that are worth 200 silver marks, and an elaborate pearl-oyster. Because the king of Poland was to pay homage to the king of Bohemia, and because Charles of Hungary took the sister of the Polish king as his wife, King Charles gave him 500 marks of the finest gold so as to save him from paying taxes to the Bohemian king. It was resolved that in the event of an enemy attack on any one of these countries, the others would help the one in trouble. And this has been sealed by an oath among one another.”14

The official documents issued in Visegrád in the autumn of 1335 do little to nuance the descriptions of the chroniclers. Although the chronicles do contain a kernel of truth, the events that they describe often occurred in different places, at different times, and not in the way they suggest. In the above example the Hungarian chronicler falsely asserts that Poland, as a feudal subject, had financial commitments to Bohemia and that Charles offered the required amount to “ransom” his brother-in-law. On the basis of the documents connected more immediately to the conference, it is possible to draw a more realistic picture. We have seen that at the meeting in Trencsén the “ransom” to be paid to the Bohemian king had not yet been specified. At the Visegrád meeting in November, however, Casimir, facing financial difficulties at the time, had no choice but to haggle over the amount to be paid. He finally agreed to pay 20,000 threescore Prague groschen (20,000 Bohemian silver marks) to the Bohemian king in exchange for the latter’s renunciation of his title of king of Poland. King John, in turn, issued a charter of abdication to be deposited with the Hungarian king. Should Casimir fail to produce the amount missing, the Hungarian king had the choice of giving the deposited charter back to the king of Bohemia or supplying the missing 6,000 marks himself.15 As 6,000 silver marks amount to 500 golden marks, the chronicle cited above has preserved this aspect of the event; however, it is mistaken in identifying the Hungarian king’s collateral statement with the payment itself.16

The actual celebration of the treaty of alliance took place on November 19, the nameday of Elizabeth Piast, wife of the host king.17 Many charters were dated that day, as was the Bohemian–Polish peace treaty,18 one of the most important documents of the meeting. Another charter of the same date provided for the security of the road leading from Poland to Wrocław and the demolition of the castle of Boleslauitz (Bolesławiec).19 Yet another was a marriage contract among the allied dynasties (a usual protocol on such occasions) aimed at protecting the newly forged Bohemian–Polish alliance. Due to the lack of younger sisters to marry, Casimir offered his baby daughter Elizabeth to the six-year-old grandson of the Bohemian king, the only child of Duke Henry of Bavaria and Duchess Margaret of Luxemburg (John’s daughter). Due to the untimely death of the boy in 1340, the marriage was not realized.20

The signing of the peace treaty took place on the same day as the verbal declaration of the arbitration. A thorough study of the historical sources demonstrates that this was the most important underlying reason for the meeting of the kings. The adversaries had been conscientiously preparing for the decisive event of the arbitration proceedings. On September 21, 1335, the Teutonic Order had the charters underpinning their rights transcribed in the archives of the Grand Master of the Order at Marienburg (Malbork),21 while the Polish king had already submitted a lawsuit against the Teutonic Knights to the pontifical court of law in the summer of 1335.22 In Visegrád the arbitration process had already commenced in November with an investigation into the plenipotentiary powers of the representatives of the Teutonic Order. This procedure was inevitable because the Grand Master of the Order was absent from the meeting (as appears from the charter on the peace itself). Once the authorization documents had been approved, it came to the presentation of statements and charters by the two sides. We have no information on the charters presented by the Polish deputies, but the Teutonic Knights certainly had those from the archives at Marienburg in their hands, as well as a complete draft of the peace treaty that they had composed earlier on.23 The arbitration was first declared orally, definitely before November 21, which is the date of the charter addressed by Władisław, Duke of Leczyca and Dobrzyn, to John of Luxemburg. Władisław cites the decree of the court of arbitration, which decided that the territories of Dobrzyn, hitherto under the rule of the Teutonic Order, were to revert to Casimir the Great. The duke reasserts that he had ruled over these territories until the Teutonic Knights and John of Luxemburg seized the area following the war waged against Łokietek.24 According to the charter, after the arbitration Casimir the Great would restore to him the region of Dobrzyn, and the duke would not demand war indemnities from John of Luxemburg.25 Closely connected to this charter is another document issued by Casimir the Great on November 23, in which he requested King John of Bohemia to give back the region of Dobrzyn to Duke Władisław.26

After days of negotiations between the arbiters and the barons, the arbitration was set down in a charter dated November 26. It stipulated that Casimir ruled over Kujawy and Dobrzyn, while the Teutonic Order received Pomerania.27 In his letter dated December 3 the King of Bohemia informed the Master of the Teutonic Knights of the dispositions drawn up during the meeting and of the subsequent duties at hand. He also listed the charters which the negotiating parties had to issue with regard to the case: “To the venerable Lord Theoderic, Knight, Grand Master of the Order of the Glorious Virgin Mary of the German Hospital of Jerusalem, to the beloved friend, John, by divine grace King of Bohemia, the Count of Luxemburg sends greetings, grace, and blessings. Let it be known that, during the three weeks we spent at the court of the Lord King of Hungary, we arranged your affairs and those of the Order, as we could, precisely as your knights who were with us could have reported it. First, the Lord King of Poland ought to guarantee by documents the renunciation of the lands of Culmerland (Chełmno Lands) and Pomerania (Gdansk Pomerania) as well as sincere friendship towards you in the future. Item, the Lord King of Hungary and we ought to give testimonial documents on the aforementioned renunciation of the King of Poland and on the concord and agreement between you and the King of Poland. Item, the King of Poland ought to submit a supplication to the Lord Pope in order that the Pope shall make a confirmation of the donation of the lands of Culmerland and Pomerania to you and to the Order. Item, the King of Poland ought to give documents and receive documents from archbishops and other ecclesiastical and secular persons to the fact that damages of the past war shall not be avenged, and shall not be attacked in any ecclesiastical or secular court. Item, the King of Poland ought to order documents from the King of Hungary on the renunciation of the lands of Culmerland and Pomerania in his and his successors’ names, since his wife is the sister of the King of Poland. Done under our seal on the Sunday when “Ad te levavi” is sung in the year of the Lord 1335.”28

Although there is no indication as to where the letter was written, it is quite certain that it was not written in Visegrád. According to the dates mentioned in the charters, the kings convened around All Saints’ Day, which designates November 1 as the starting date of the conference. In his letter dated December 3 King John talks about a meeting lasting three weeks; but the peace treaty between the Teutonic Order and Poland, which took place on November 26 in the presence of all those invited, indicates that the meeting lasted a bit longer. According to the Prague chronicle cited above, John and Casimir arrived in Prague on December 6. Casimir drafted another charter, addressed to the Teutonic Order and dated May 26, 1336, declaring that he accepted the arbitration.29

In addition to the two main points of the meeting’s agenda (the peace treaties between Bohemia and Poland, and between Poland and the Teutonic Order), we also have information on the follow-up discussions between the three kings that took place after the arbitration process. The lack of written documents on these discussions does not mean that questions unrelated to the arbitration were not addressed. For instance, the alliance forged between Hungary and Bohemia on September 3 was clearly designed against the Austrian dukes.30 It seems certain that the idea of a prospective campaign against them was also conceived in Visegrád. The military events of the following year, presumably also orchestrated from Visegrád, show evidence of prior arrangements, although they have not been documented. Some historians therefore regard the Visegrád meeting as a cradle of war rather than peace.31

Although the meeting received a lot of attention from all sides, as we have seen above, each party tended to highlight its own points of interest. As the event represented a turning point in fourteenth-century Polish international relations, it is not surprising that Polish historiography has addressed it in most detail, primarily focusing on Polish–Teutonic and Polish–Bohemian relations.32 Such aspects remained in the background in the writings of Hungarian chroniclers and the Visegrád meeting has instead been widely understood as a crucible of economic alliances.33 This assumption was based on a decree issued by Charles I in Visegrád on January 6, 1336, which regulated routes of commerce and the customs tariff between Hungary and Bohemia.34 The text of the decree suggests that Charles and King John had thoroughly discussed the issue beforehand – almost certainly in November in Visegrád. The commercial agreement was an important preliminary to the military campaign against the dukes of Austria. Also, the towns in the territory of present-day Slovakia may have played a role in initiating this trade agreement. The meeting in Visegrád therefore did have an economic aspect; yet this should not be generalized into the main focus of the conference.35

Finally, it is worth touching briefly upon the rather anomalous description of the conference that has come down to us as part of the Hungarian Thuróczy Chronicle, cited above, which has hitherto defied historians’ efforts at interpretation. Moreover, a closer examination of the text may probably take us nearer to establishing the size of the princely retinues that came to Visegrád, and thus provide relevant new information to both Czech and Polish historians. According to the ruling opinion of Hungarian historiography, the chapters dealing with the last years of the rule of Charles I of Anjou were probably inserted into the chronicle composition in the time of Louis I, by the hands of a Franciscan friar, thought by some scholars to have been called John Kétyi.36 It was from there that Turóczy adapted it into his own chronicle in the fifteenth century. We have seen above that the 500 marks given by the king of Hungary exactly corresponded to the 6,000 silver marks of which King Charles gave a warranty to King John on behalf of Casimir the Great. Thus, the fourteenth-century Hungarian chronicler was apparently well informed about the financial aspects of the negotiations, which increases our confidence in the reliability of his other data. For the lunch of the Czech king 2,500 loaves of bread were distributed every day, along with an ample portion of the royal victuals. The fodder (pabulum) for the horses amounted to 25 garletas per day. The relevant figure of bread for the Polish king was 1,500 loaves, plus a share in the royal victuals, while 180 barrels (tunella) of wine were also on supply.

The text makes a clear distinction between the amounts of bread due to the retinues of the kings of Bohemia and Poland respectively. As for the amount of wine, the figure given in the text should perhaps be interpreted in the sense that it represents not a daily portion but the total amount consumed by all the participants during the conference. Although fodder turns up only with reference to the retinue of the king of Bohemia, it is highly improbable that the Poles’ horses received none. While the plural form (equis suis) could also be interpreted as including the horses of both kings’ retinues, it is more probable that it refers more precisely to bohemorum, meaning that it was the amount provided for the Czech horses, as the portions supplied for the Poles are listed in a separate sentence. It is only the bread portion which figures separately on both “menus.” It makes evident that the retinue of the Polish king was much smaller than that of his colleague from Bohemia. More can be learned, however, if we can convert the figures of consumption into numbers of persons and animals, thereby gaining important information on the probable numbers of retinues attending the Visegrád summit. It is certainly worth the effort, of course without surveying the entire history of bread in the Middle Ages, especially because we do not know whether we are dealing with leavened bread or with unleavened flatbread, and nor do we have information on the size of bread in 1335.37 We should therefore count in the simplest possible way. We will surely not be too wide of the mark if we take one kilogram as the weight of one loaf of bread, and count with half a kilogram as the daily portion, taking into consideration that it was a princely conference, and thus other victuals, mainly meat, were also abundantly on the offer, as is indeed stated by the chronicler. In this case, the Czech delegation would number 5,000 persons, as opposed to 3,000 on the Polish side.

We can base sounder calculations on the amounts of fodder consumed by the horses. These amounts are given by the Latin text in garleta, a unit which has been interpreted in Hungarian historiography in various ways: it was most commonly translated as either köböl or mérő.38 Whereas the köböl contained 64 liters on average, defining the mérő is much more difficult, for its size varied, although it was generally somewhat smaller than the köböl. The amount obtained by either way of counting, however, is out of keeping with the information we have on the quantities of bread. Moreover, the Latin term for mérő is metreta, and the equivalent of köböl is cubulus, not garleta.39 Neither translation, therefore, is good.

That the garleta was a measure of grain of Italian origin has been known for a long time.40 Its exact size, and thus the meaning of the word, was established beyond doubt by Jenő Szűcs, but his results failed to raise the scholarly interest they merit.41 The number of charter references, which has grown considerably since the publication of the charters from the era of King Sigismund began, support abundantly Szűcs’s calculations.42 After a thorough examination of the sources, Szűcs came to the conclusion that “one gerla of wheat corresponded in modern measures to 13,536 (or at least 11,589) quintals, an enormous quantity, which by its sheer dimensions evokes a good cartload.” This huge number is underpinned, according to Szűcs, by the fact that in a whole series of late medieval Hungarian texts the gerla (girla) is the equivalent of corus (“cart”). Accordingly, he drew the conclusion that “when János Kétyi comments with regard to the royal summit of Visegrád in 1335 that the daily amount of fodder for the horses of the king of Bohemia was 25 garleta of oats, this piece of information is entirely in keeping with those which maintain that the retinue of that king consumed 2,500 loaves of bread and 180 barrels of wine for lunch each day…”43

Now, it is easy to calculate that the 25 cartloads of fodder which the horses belonging to the retinue of the king of Bohemia consumed corresponded to 33,900 kgs. Then we have to turn to consumption itself, however, for, as our source gives no information on either the nature of fodder or the size and type of horses, we do not know whether we are dealing with hay or oats, or a mixed fodder, and whether it was smaller or larger horses which ate it.44 Unfortunately, we have no data on the consumption of fodder by horses from medieval Hungary, but later evidence can be used for estimation.45 Thus, the need for dry matter by a full-grown horse a day would oscillate—depending, of course, on the intensity of work done and on the quality of fodder—between 8 and 12 kgs. In my view, we do not run the risk of making a big mistake if we calculate with a daily amount of 6-7 kgs in the case of horses that were not required to do any hard work during the conference. They were also probably put out to graze on the bank of the Danube, and thus had access to green fodder as well. In this way, we would come to an average of 5,000 Czech horses. However, we also have to take into consideration that a nobleman may have had several horses, and that the fodder must have been of excellent quality, and so it is unlikely for the horses to have consumed 6-7 kgs a day. Yet by reducing the daily portion, our stock of horses increases, and we may end up with as many as seven or eight thousand. However we juggle the numbers, they remain very high, and it is still only the Czechs we have counted with. If we take everything into account, a minimum of 5,000 Czech retainers and 3,000 Polish ones must have meant an onerous burden for the small town of Visegrád, especially in view of a stay there which extended for a whole month. Moreover, these persons and animals had to be not only fed but also accomodated, and the fodder of 25 cartloads a day stored somewhere on the territory of the town. If we take these numbers seriously, and we have no reason not to, as they mutually support each other, then we have to accept the fact that in 1335 the royal court at Visegrád, in the widest sense of the term, was able to host and provision an army of about 8,000 horsemen.46 This certainly indicates a fairly developed logistical ability on the part of the contemporary Hungarian royal court.

In view of this, it is almost unnecessary to engage in the interpretation of the 180 barrels (tunella) of wine. It is, indeed, almost impossible, as the tunella could range anywhere from 50 to 900 liters, which makes any estimation of its actual size illusory. Hungarian historians used to translate tunella as átalag, a barrel used around Tokaj and in the neighboring northeastern counties, which contained roughly 75 liters.47 As a matter of fact, this figure fits neatly with the amounts of bread and fodder. As our source fails to reveal whether this amount belonged to the Czechs or the Poles, we have to suppose that it was the quantity consumed by all the participants in a single day. If we count with barrels of 75 liters, we come to a minimum of 13,500 liters. In the case of a mixed Czech–Polish entourage of 8,000 men, this would yield a per capita consumption of 1.7 liters a day; not too much for just hanging around for a month.

However, wine was certainly consumed not only by the Czechs and the Poles, but also by all those present, the Hungarian hosts and the representatives of the Teutonic Order included. The Hungarian chronicler, besides passing over the fact of the arbitration itself in silence, fails to mention the presence of the representative of the Order. True, the delegation of the latter was led not by the Grand Master but by Count Henry of Plauen, governor of the province of Chulm, but even he certainly had a retinue of his own. As mentioned above, it is only natural that the chronicler limited his narrative to facts which mattered from a Hungarian point of view, as did all the other writers, each of whom framed his own account of the summit from the standpoint of his home country. Yet today we can safely break with the narrowly nationalist approach of the medieval chroniclers and state that the prime cause of the Visegrád royal summit was to provide the occasion for the two arbiters, the kings of Hungary and Bohemia, to make their judgement in the dispute between Poland and the Teutonic Order. The mere fact that the Hungarian chronicler failed to realize this and left the presence of the Order unrecorded, by no means diminishes the value of his work, for he makes several other statements which were clearly based on either the information provided by an eyewitness or some kind of contemporary account. The list of those gifts offerred to the king of Bohemia by his hosts, for instance,48 is more likely to have been taken from a contemporary notice or register than from the narrative of an eyewitness.49 In my opinion, therefore, the chronicler drew on the accounts of the royal court, then still available, in which the expenses of the Hungarian king for 1335 were recorded. This would also account for the lacunae and oddities which can be observed in the text. The author converted columns of numbers into a narrative. As for the expenses of the delegation of the Order, they were probably missing from the royal accounts. Their provision was presumably made from other (their own) sources, which is far from surprising in view of the fact that, unlike Casimir III and John of Luxemburg, the Order was not an ally but merely one of the parties in an arbitration. This may be the reason why the Order remained unmentioned in the accounts on which the chronicler drew and which put into writing the expenses of the Hungarian king in connection with the summit.

Finally, one more question must be asked. Was the enormous size of the royal retinues attending the summit an exception or the norm? The retinue of Sigismund of Luxemburg which escorted him on his well-documented travels in Western Europe amounted occasionally to 1,000 to 1,500 persons,50 and that of the guests who gathered around him at Buda in 1412 also contained several thousand people.51 Prague and Krakow were too near to Visegrád for the kings of Poland and Bohemia to resist the temptation of taking a huge entourage with them. Was their enormous retinue the part of routine representation or did it amount to an extraordinary and purposeful display of strength? In order to answer this question, one has to remember on the one hand that from Bohemia two princes came, each with his own entourage. On the other hand, the kings of Bohemia and Poland engaged not only themselves but also their most powerful subjects in making the peace, and they could not terminate the negotiations without their knowledge and consent. We know that urban delegates were also present, for some of the documents have survived in the city archives of Breslau (Wroclaw). Altogether some forty individual partners can be shown to have participated in the negotiations, the Hungarian lords included. Naturally enough, each brought a retinue of his own, which, together, constituted a mass of some 10,000 people, organized into various hierarchical structures. In all probability, its constituent parts idled away their time by memorable amusements and hunts, excursions to Fehérvár and Buda, and, of course, by chivalric tournaments on the bank of the Danube, while the kings negotiated and made peace up in the Citadel or in the Solomon Tower.

The scope of this study does not allow for a survey of the effects of the decrees passed at the meeting. Suffice it to say that the treaty forged with the Teutonic Order created a precedent and would later serve as a cornerstone of peace. The arbitration concerning Pomerania proved that the parties were willing to settle international conflicts through diplomatic means. The alliance between the three Central European countries lasted for over half a century and provided each country with the right to conduct its international relations autonomously (with the Balkans, the eastern regions, Germany, and Italy). Visegrád would also play an important role in the maintenance and renewal of the alliance in the upcoming years as well. It was here that Charles I renewed the 1335 treaty with Charles, Margrave of Moravia, heir to the throne of Bohemia. The margrave promised that he would support the Hungarian king’s claim to the Polish throne and, in turn, the Hungarian king would relinquish his claims on Silesia if he or his sons ascended to the Polish throne. Casimir and his royal delegation visited Visegrad again in 1339 with the intention of bequeathing Poland to his sister’s son Louis. This agreement ensured that Louis was elected king of Poland in 1370. These events illustrate that throughout the Middle Ages Visegrád functioned as a place for conflict resolution and rightly became an emblem for Central European cooperation over the centuries to come.

 

 

Archival Sources

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (Hungarian National Archives – MNL OL), Diplomatikai Fényképgyűjtemény (Collection of Photocopies – DF) Accessed September 5, 2013. http://www.mom-ca.uni-koeln.de/mom/CZ-NA/ACK/.

 

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