2024_3_Demeter corr

Differences in Quality of Life and Profitability on Small and Large Farms (1730–1930): A Statistical Approach*

Gábor Demeter
HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 3 (2024): 361-402 DOI 10.38145/2024.3.361

The competitiveness and productivity of large landholdings and small estates and the incomes or welfare of the people living on such estates have long been an important issue in the Hungarian historiography – and in everyday politics too. Based on the statistical evaluation of serial sources from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries we give a thorough analysis on the productivity of smallholdings and large estates, which showed a remarkable a spatio-temporal diversity contrary to the statements in the literature focusing on case studies or social aspects of the problems. The size of the investigated area (Kingdom of Hungary versus Hungary after 1920), as well as land-use colored the palette further. Statistical analysis also proved that socio-economic features on large landholdings were not so unfavorable as depicted by literature. There was a remarkable diversity within the large-estates regarding productivity too, and while in the 19th century their income/ha values were better, than the income on small estates, this gap partly disappeared between 1910 and 1935.

Keywords: Productivity, incomes, large estates, smallholdings, tenant peasantry, Kingdom of Hungary, 18th–20th centuries

Introduction

The competitiveness and productivity of large landholdings and small estates and the incomes or welfare of the people living on such estates have long been an important issue in the Hungarian historiography, and indeed this issue remains controversial today. That matter at hand is not simply an economic or social question. Rather, it is one of the means through which the various political regimes after 1848 sought to legitimate their rule and policies. Neither is this issue negligible from the point of view of contemporary regional research and territorial planning. In his discussion of peripheralization at the time of the regime change in the early 1990s Endre Miklóssy identified the preponderance of large estates, rural overpopulation, and the marginalization of livestock farming as three of the four main historical factors contributing to the alleged backwardness of the region today.¹ Thus, the question can also be raised from the perspective of conditions today, or in other words, one could ask which former type of farm (allodial estates or farms dominated by plots) and social class (villages of former tenants with plots or villages inhabited by the landless, who after 1848 were mostly daily-wage agrarian laborers) are associated with areas which today are peripheral. The latter, the connection between the territorial pattern of social classes, and areas that are peripheral today, is not examined in the present paper.3In the interwar period, a political debate broke out on the issue of the comparative productivity of large versus small estates. Miklós Móricz (brother of the family writer Zsigmond Móricz) contended that large estates were more productive, but these estates were also associated with poorer living conditions for the populations living on them (and he supposed a causal relationship between the two).² Jenő Czettler pointed out the advantages of the large estates from the perspective of productivity—in the interwar period, because large estates had 20 percent better grain yields and 30 percent better yields for potatoes than small estates.³ Mihály Kerék refuted this. He contended that livestock production on smallholdings (which most statistics do not measure) compensated for the advantages of large holdings in grain production⁴ (and net cadastral land income)⁵ per acre. A table comparing the Balkan countries in the volume by Zagorov, Végh and Bilimovich, which was published after World War II, shows that in Hungary and Romania (as opposed to Greece, which also had a polarized estate structure) the yields of large estates were 20–30 percent higher than the yields of small estates in terms of grain production.⁶ However, Tibor Tóth’s research on the Interwar period, which is limited to the Transdanubian region, shows that the yields were better on smallholdings, although the return rates were somewhat slower^.7 The issue is not a specific Hungarian problem. According to Yanaki Mollov, Bulgarian smallholdings had better yields per hectare than the large estates in the interwar period.⁸ However, this is not the case if per capita values are calculated (labor force), and small farms were much more vulnerable to climate variability and changes in the external economic situation (including price volatility, which became an acute crisis after 1929).

The profitability of a given estate type may well have depended on many factors, including type of land use, land quality, location of the sample area, and the availability of technological advances, all of which are examined in the present study. Even the proclivities of political regimes (i.e. legal measures) may have been helpful in many cases (for instance in the case of Ottoman Macedonia in the nineteenth century or in dualist Hungary). However, there are also examples when state intervention was not beneficial (for instance the permanent agrarian crisis in Serbia and Bulgaria after 1870, which was due to the maintenance of smallholder peasant democracy). Productivity and profitability also varied over time. There are many ways to measure these changes, but they do not always produce the same results.

If our results show that productivity measured according to harvest yield per acre was better on large estates then we need to consider the possible reasons for this, which include the following: (a) plot size, parcel size, parcel numbers, (b) technological development, (c) land use and product structure of the smallholdings and large estates, (d) whether the nobility managed to acquire better quality lands after 1848, or (e) whether the landed gentry, losing their tax exemption after 1848, attempted to manipulate the cadastral land survey during the registry period (1851–1865), when land income became the basis for land tax (1865), thus reducing their land tax by claiming that their lands were of poor quality. Klára Mérey, Pál Sándor, and Lajos Für have given concrete examples of how large landowners acquired fallow land after 1848 that had formerly been used by the peasants.⁹They have also shown, furthermore, that these lands were often of better quality than the plots remaining in peasants’ hands.¹⁰ Scott M. Eddie, however, argues that this was not a general trend in 1850–1870. His sophisticated cliometric studies using country-scale data support the hypothesis that large estates (more precisely, the estates owned by the aristocracy) were subject to a more favorable tax classification than might have been expected in only one county out of the 52 studied (see the case of Viharsarok, also analyzed here).¹¹The peasant estate was also sometimes placed in a higher “golden crown” category because it had a higher proportion of ploughland, even if the soil quality was actually worse because peasants were forced to cultivate more arable lands regardless of quality (see the case of Békés County in the discussion below).¹²On the other hand, the proportion of land taken up by pastures and forests was sometimes higher on large estates, and because of their generally lower income per acre, the average cadastral income per hectare on the whole large estate was also lower compared to the peasant farms, which were primarily ploughland. (The Draskovich family’s estates in southern Baranya offer an example of lands with a higher proportion of pastures and forests, while the Benyovszky family’s estates in the same area were primarily ploughlands).¹³

Productivity in the 18th Century

In the discussion below, I offer an overview of the issue by providing a summary of research done between 2018 and 2023. According to the census of 1728, which survived in 11 counties (2,200 settlements),¹⁴ the declared (and this word is important) seed yield (measured in proportion to seeds sown)¹⁵ on serf plots was not more than 1:2 in 25 percent of the settlements (500 settlements), and a seed yield of 1:4 or more was measured in only 20 percent of the settlements. (If the output is calculated in cubulus before sowing and harvesting and paying the tithe and state tax, a grain output of 1 to 4 was close to 800 kg/ha). The average yield of 1:3 was exceeded in Heves, Nógrád, Tolna, Sopron, and Szabolcs Counties. The lower-than-average value in Bihar and Szepes Counties, which are mountainous and forested, is not surprising, while the below average yield of Pest County is more surprising (animal husbandry still dominated the central plains in the eighteenth century due to the devastation caused in 1541–1699 during the Ottoman era). The declared yields of the municipalities of Somogy, Zala, and Vas Counties were also below 3:1. As 10 of the 11 counties are located in present-day Hungary (which is mostly lowlands), data from counties for which the sources do not provide these figures probably would not meaningfully raise this 1:3 average.¹⁶ As the landlords and the Church each took 10 percent of the harvest and 33 percent of the harvest had to be spared as seed for the next year, this 1:3 ratio allowed peasants to keep only 47 percent of their harvest, and part of this had to be used to pay taxes to the state. Thus, in the end, not more than 30 percent remained for peasant consumption. Supposing that 200 kg of grain are required for one adult and 150 for one child every year as a minimum, this makes total human consumption for a family 1,000–1,200 kg¹⁷ (without animals). This cannot be more than 33 percent of the total grain produced, ranging from 3,000 to 3,500 kg (otherwise the taxes cannot be paid). Calculating with a general output ratio of 1:3, this means that 1,000–1,200 kg of seed had to be set aside to be sown for the next year. Land size was calculated in cubulus, which indicates the volume of seed, 92 kg¹⁸ for a Hungarian acre (1 cadastral acre equals with 5,570 sq m, 1 Hungarian acre is 4,200 sq m). Thus, 11 to 12 acres (4.5 to 5 ha) had to be sown to produce this amount of grain at an output ratio of 1:3 in order to secure the subsistence of a family. In the case of an output ratio of 1:5, the seed set aside for the next year was 20 percent of the total harvest, taxes paid to the landlord and the Church came to a total of 40 percent, leaving 60 percent for the peasant to use to feed his family and pay the royal taxes. This left him with more than 40 to 45 percent of his harvest after taxation. Thus, even a smaller plot under 10 acres could sustain a similar family of six according to the figures used above.

To obtain more land, peasants could change the field-system and increase the ratio of cultivated lands from the usual 50 percent (the remainder 50% was used as fallow or grazeland) in the two-field system to 67 percent by applying three-field system (using one third of the plot for autumn crops, one third for spring crops and one third as fallow in a rotational system). They could also rent land from the landlords. This three-field system was often used in hilly regions in 1728 to compensate for lower soil quality.¹⁹Applying the three-field system in the 18th century was not necessarily the sign of modernization or relative welfare (crop surplus), as plots using three-field system were not more productive, than lands under two-field system. It was rather a response to challenges caused by relative land shortages.

In 1728, the larger plots (sessio) had proportionally smaller yields per acre than the smaller units of land. In the lands with poorer yields, the plots tended to be larger, both in absolute terms (sessio size) and measured per capita. Had this not been the case, the population would have been compelled to move. (More than 60 percent of tenant peasants worked lands that were less than half a plot. This is a clear indication of the progressive fragmentation of the lands.) In his research on the Székely Land in the early eighteenth century,²⁰ Dezső Garda has shown that there was no significant difference in the grain yield of the armalist noblemen (nobles without peasants), the tenant peasants, and the landless cottars. The yields fluctuated around nine of ten kalangya.²¹ The differences between social groups were more pronounced in terms of livestock (1.9 and 3.7 cattle per family for cottars and members of the petty nobility, respectively). Most of the large estates were basically engaged in livestock farming in the first decades of the eighteenth century, either because of the general demand in Europe or because of labor shortages. Before the unification of peasant duties in 1767, the number of days spent on in corvée (compulsory work on a landlord’s manor) or the geographical location of the manor may be a guide to the nature of the large estates (allodia). Vast landholdings that made little use of corvée or allowed tenant farmers to free themselves of this obligation by making payments instead were more likely to be livestock farms (as these required less labor force thus were unable to exploit corvée efficiently), while near the larger cities (Vienna, Buda) grain production began to spread, and this required a workforce. This also suggests that the grain farming methods used on large estates may not have been very efficient in the beginning of the eighteenth century.

As eighteenth-century cadastral census data survived along the valley of the Tisza River, they can be used to quantify the share of tenant peasant plots compared to large estates, as well as to compare the yields on peasant plots and large manors at the end of the eighteenth century (Figs. 1 and 2). In contrast to Jászság and Nagykunság, the Tisza floodplain (and the Hevesi plain) was dominated by manorial ploughlands in 1786. This had not changed even in 1865, when water regulations were introduced and cadastral surveys were made to document the boundaries of estates and tenant plots.²² In the Central Tisza floodplain, both in regional comparison and also on the smallholdings, the grain yield per acre was lower than in Nagykunság and the plains of south Heves, for instance, and more land was owned by the lords and more crops were appropriated by the nobility (Table 1), whereas the amount of land per one agricultural inhabitant (including the cottars) was the smallest.²³ On the other hand, at the end of the eighteenth century, there was hardly any measurable difference between the yield per acre of small and large landholdings according to the surviving cadastral data. In terms of the total area of large holdings and plots, there were hardly any settlements on the Central Tisza floodplain, in the Békés loess and Nagykunság, and in South Heves which did not reach the limit of self-sufficiency (nine pm²⁴/person or five pm without animals) calculated by Glósz, with the exception of the region of Kiskunság (Danube-Tisza Interfluve, and in this area there was still heavy emphasis on animal husbandry on the large, empty quicksand plains) and Dévaványa in the moorland of Sárrét. Here, therefore, self-sufficiency had to be achieved either through animal husbandry or other forms of work (cottage industry, migrant labor). However, if we deduct the production of large estates from the total regional production, the situation was not good elsewhere either. Along the Tisza River (in contrast to the settlements of the Nagykunság or southern Heves), the yield was often barely 5 pm per person for peasant plots, if landless cottars are included and the yields of large holdings are not added (Table 3). Thus, the landless cottars²⁵ were forced to work either on the large estates or in animal husbandry (either as owners or herders) in the late eighteenth century. As long as there was enough common grazeland (this was the case until the beginning of great water regulation works in the late 1840s), the livelihood of this stratum was assured. However, the expansion of the large estates (and private land in general) over the commons and the expansion of ploughing on the large estates at the time of the river regulations²⁶ eliminated their livelihood and also provided the large estates with a cheap labor force that was no longer self-sufficient and thus could be easily exploited. This class was the biggest loser of the water regulations works and the new laws on land property after 1848. (The former common lands fell into the hand of landlords after 1848, who, prompted by the European grain hunger after the great crisis in 1847, began the transformation of even lower quality lands to arable land. These lands were profitable until grain prices collapsed after 1873).

According to Glósz, one or two sown cadastral acres were usually enough for one person to subsist, and since the amount of arable land per tenant peasant in most of the floodplains reached ten to twelve acres in the beginning of the nineteenth century, families of five to six people were able to live off the land at the time. By 1910, however, even with the increase of cultivated lands due to water regulation, only an average of six sown acres was available per family, which could only be sufficient for a family of this size if yields doubled (to twelve pm/acre, or about one ton/ha).

It is also important to underline that the yields of the arable land of the landlords in the Central Tisza floodplain were not good, and water regulation resulted in the further expansion of these low-quality ploughlands.²⁷

Table 1. Differences in grain productivity of Hungarian lands based on the specific variables extracted from the data of the first cadastral survey in the 1780s

Landscape-type (1786, settlement number in brackets)	Ploughland as a proportion of the total %	Meadow and pasture as a proportion of the total %	Share of manorial ploughland (and yields) %	Ploughland, total (acre/person)	Peasant plot acre/person	Total grain output/person (in pm)	Yield of manorial land (pm/ acre)²⁸	Yield of peasant plots (pm/acre)	Yield for one peasant (inc. cottars) pm/person
Western Hungary: Győr, Moson, Sopron (71)²⁹	30.43	60.19	41.50	1.88	1.05	13.15	7.04	7.02	8.48
South Heves (32)	48.16	43.82	52.98	2.35	1.13	17.68	7.48	7.28	7.74
Tisza floodplain (31)	20.42	78.19	58.89	1.81	0.77	12.57	7.16	7.27	5.10
Hills of North Heves (39)	34.24	25.89	52.15	2.03	0.77	12.02	5.88	5.96	6.28
Nagykunság plains (12)	24.52	71.04	28.36	1.87	1.34	17.17	9.16	8.76	12.01
Csongrád County (3)	24.74	74.11	23.56	1.77	1.62	15.37	9.55	8.67	11.88
Jászság (11)	49.34	47.27	3.61	3.40	1.85	10.87	5.40	5.42	10.48
Kiskunság sand dunes (8)	30.40	67.80	10.63	4.15	1.88	10.08	4.85	5.17	9.35
Altogether (216)	30.73	61.46	37.72	2.15	1.18	13.71	6.90	6.86	7.95
Source: Calculations based on raw data published by Dávid, “Magyarország első kataszteri felmérése” and Rózsa’s recent explorations, Rózsa, “Az ártéri gazdálkodás mérlege.”

01fig_1786_nagybirt_szanto_vs_jobbagyio_szanto_aranya.jpg

Figures 1–2. The size and proportion of manorial arable land (light grey) in the surviving material of the 1786 cadastral census (based on Dávid, “Magyarország első kataszteri felmérése” and Rózsa’s recent explorations, Rózsa, “Az ártéri gazdálkodás mérlege.” / Regional differences in the land use of total cultivated land in 1786 based on the cadastral census (light grey for ploughland, medium grey for meadow and pasture, dark for garden and forest). There was hardly any arable land in the settlements of the Tisza floodplain, which were characterized by small administrative areas and large (manorial) estates with high share of the available arable land.

Productivity of Smallholdings and Large Estates from the 1860s to 1910

The significance of the data series published in 1865 during the first surviving cadastral survey³⁰ is that it is available for the whole country (except Transylvania and the large towns). To a limited extent it also makes it possible to calculate the net cadastral incomes³¹ of large and small estates, since the number of settlements where only smallholdings or only large estates were recorded (the data for so-called puszta, or “plainland farmsteads,” which had only one or two owners, were recorded separately) was statistically relevant. (Where both large estates and smallholdings were present, we cannot calculate their incomes separately.) From Table 2, it is clear that in the 1860s (after the abolition of corvée), the large holdings were more productive (in terms of harvest yield per acre) than smallholdings. Smallholdings had harvests per acre that were only 66 percent of the harvests (measured per acre) of the large estates.

Table 2. Differences between the profitability of small farms and large holdings in Hungary in 1865 (net cadastral income, excluding the production of livestock)

Indicator	Small farms (sample)	Large landholdings (sample)	Large estates with some small farm	Country total and average**
Number of holdings	126,758 out of 2,010, 000	187 out of 23,685	138*+235	2,034,630.0
Total utilised area (acre)	1,380,000.0	409,000.0	131,487.0	33,510,620.0
Net cadastral income (forint)	3,610,000.0	1,944,000.0	599,600.0	98,056,000.0
Average size of holding (acre)	10.9	2190.0	1000.0	16.5
Average net income per holding (forint)	28.5	10,395.0	4500*.0	.048.2
Net income per 1 acre (forint)	2.6	4.7	4.6	2.9
Proportion of area used	92	80.0	95.0	91.0
Study sample	6.2% of farms, 4.1% of land, 3.7% of income	1.1% of farms, 1.3% of land, 2% of income	0.4% of land, 0.6% of income	100
Counting only large estates. Excluding Transylvania and Croatia and some large cities (e.g. Debrecen).

Were the differences in income between small and large estates due to technological differences, or were they rather due to the fact that after the reforms in 1848, the nobility acquired land of better quality?³² Followers of prominent twentieth-century Hungarian historian Gyula Szekfű argue, on the basis of parcel names, that the large landowners established their estates on land cleared and cultivated in the nineteenth century and not on parcels obtained from peasants. This land therefore cannot have been of a terribly high quality and cannot have yielded impressive harvests or large incomes (and therefore there was no need for the landowners to manipulate the data). The results given above, however, seem to contradict Szekfű’s idea, though only partially. Surprisingly, if we approach the data series in a different way, in 1865, smallholdings were overrepresented in settlements with a high net cadastral land income of over six forints³³ per acre (323,000 holdings, or 15 percent of the smallholdings, compared to 2,635 large holdings, or 10 percent of the large estates).³⁴ This seem to support Szekfű’s thesis (according to which the land quality of the large holdings was generally poor). However, since the distribution of landholdings within a settlement (and therefore the difference in their soil quality) is not known, these data are not conclusive.³⁵ At the other extreme, for the settlements with a low net income of one or two forints per acre (below average), we counted 6,630 large estates and 466,000 small farms in total, which is 28 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Here, large estates are overrepresented, but this is also due to large forest estates with poor yields (this is immediately clear if one plots the large estates on the map).

In other words, the dominant land use of the estate types has a strong influence on the incomes/acre expressed in money. Despite the low group average in the sample in Table 2, smallholdings were not characterized by uniformly low productivity. In Baranya in 1910, for example, smallholdings did not yield worse net cadastral incomes per acre than the larger holdings, because the smallholdings had a higher proportion of arable land, which had higher net cadastral incomes than forests, meadows, and pastures, and this increased the weighted average of the net income per plot.

The notion that, after the 1875 tax reform, when cadastral net income became the tax base, the tax system favored large estates and the taxes placed on smallholdings were higher in absolute terms is untenable. In 1910 (the investigation was reduced to the recent territory of Hungary due to the availability of data), the direct tax³⁶ per capita in settlements dominated by large estates was 20 kronen (30 K for the large estates of aristocrats), and in settlements dominated by small estates it was 15 K (in the national territory of Hungary today).

Figure 3. The differences in land use depending on estate types in two districts of Baranya County in 1910 (Demeter and Koloh, “Birtokstruktúra és jövedelmezőség.”

Figure 4. Net land income per cadastral acre in kronen (K) in different subsets of two districts of Baranya County (Ormánság and Hegyhát), 1910 (Demeter and Koloh, “Birtokstruktúra és jövedelmezőség.”)

Table 3. The difference between the net cadastral income per acre of a large estate (over 100 cadastral acres) and the total settlement average and its relationship to the land use-types on the former Harruckern estate 1857–1865 (selected cases)

Landholder	Location (settlement)	Arable in acre	Meadow and garden in acre	Vineyard in “kapás”	Pasture in acre	Large estates in total (in acre)	Net cadastral income, in forint	Net cadastral income per acre on large estates in forint	Net cadastral income per acre on total area of the settlement in forint	Share of arable land on large estates in %
Count György Apponyi	Orosháza Kis-Csákóval	633	1		680	1,316	6,125	4.65	5.49	48.10
Count György Apponyi	Csaba	3,353	1,020	20	1,166	5,561	32,099	5.77	6.25	60.29
György Bajzáth	Szentetornya	608	64		63	736	5,802	7.88		82.61
Dániel Bakai	the peripheries of Csaba	61	43	1	6	113	608	5.38	6.25	53.98
József Bartóky (abarai és bartóki)	the peripheries of Csaba	76	12		46	135	807	5.98	6.25	56.30
Count László Batthyányi	Csákói-puszta, Csaba, Kondoros	3,912	10		255	4,178	34,205	8.19	6.25	93.63
Baumgarten brothers	Orosháza	1,216	144		582	1,942	11,074	5.70	5.49	62.62
István Beliczey	the peripheries of Csaba	334	3			338	2867	8.48	6.25	98.82
József Beliczey	Csaba határában	103				103	622	6.04	6.25	100.00
Rudolf Beliczey		214			6	220	1,850	8.41		97.27
József Bernrieder (Paks)	Orosháza	327	12			340	2,853	8.39	5.49	96.18
…
Antal Wenckheim		1,456	337		28	1,822	10,286	5.65	6.25	79.91
Baron Béla Wenckheim	Csaba	1,103				1,103	6,624	6.01	6.25	100.00
Mrs József Wenckheim	Csorvás	435				435	2,602	5.98	5.71	100.00
Károly Wenckheim	Csorvás	310				310	1,861	6.00	5.71	100.00
Rudolf Wenckheim	Csorvás	489				489	2,938	6.01	5.71	100.00
Baron Viktor Wenckheim	Csorvás	163				163	979	6.01	5.71	100.00
Móric and Albert Wodianer	Gyoma	2,599	4,201	3	3,141	9,945	27,647	2.78	3.42	26.13
Móric and Albert Wodianer	Csorvás	723				723	4338	6.00	5.71	100.00
Estates between 100–500 cadastral acres are given in italics. The highlighted background indicated large estates with net incomes higher than the overall municipal average and estates where the share of arable land was above 80 percent. See footnote 40 for source information.

The same is true if we use per acre values instead of per capita. The average tax for settlements without large estates was 6.5 K per acre, and the average tax for settlements dominated by estates owned by the petty nobility was the same, whereas for villages dominated by aristocratic estates it was 7.3–8 K per acre. Since direct taxes also included land tax alongside a household tax and corporate and industrial taxes, the tax values are also indicative of income conditions. Thus, the hypothesis that large estates paid less tax per acre because the nobility used its political influence to manipulate taxation to underestimate the value of their land in the golden crown system is not tenable in general either. In fact, they did not pay less, as proved above, and Eddie’s aforementioned thesis (that large estates in general did not enjoy more favorable tax rates between 1850 and 1870) seems persuasive.³⁷

Mariann Nagy also concludes that the higher the share of smallholdings in a county, the lower the net cadastral income (r= -0.39).³⁸ Our own country-level (within the state boundaries of Hungary after 1920), settlement-scale study confirms that in the villages dominated by large holdings, net cadastral income per capita (27.8 vs. 21 K) and, to a lesser extent, net cadastral income per acre (10.5 vs. 8.6 K) were also higher in 1910 than in settlements dominated by smallholdings. However, by 1935 the difference had almost disappeared. Thus, this phenomenon showed significant dynamics within two generations!

For the mid-nineteenth century, another case study gave new information concerning the productivity of large and small estates. In 1857, several censuses of the former Harruckern estates (today Békés County in southwestern Hungary) were recorded,³⁹ and here the net income per acre (in forints) can be calculated for more than 80 large estates. Since we also know which settlements these large estates were located in, their net incomes could be compared with the average land incomes of the total municipality (which includes small farms) in 1865. The resulting picture is rather chaotic, because the net cadastral income per acre of large farms varied between five and nine forints/acre, and in some cases the net cadastral income per acre of large landholdings was lower than the overall municipal average. Since this was not owing to differences in the sizes of large farms, we also examined the role of land use. Interestingly, large farms were more profitable than small farms if the share of ploughlands exceeded 75 percent of the area of large farms. (This implicitly also means that the large estates might have had better soil quality, at least for grain production, since it was the large estates that offered a viable way of expanding arable land up to 90 percent of the whole). When the share of ploughlands was between 60 and 70 percent, the net income per hectare of the large farms was equal to the average net income of the municipality, and below this percentage value, the small farms were more profitable (Table 3). Large farms were therefore more competitive in the case of monocultural farming.

Leaving aside land quality and land use as factors and focusing only on the size of the landholdings, in the 42 settlements analyzed in Békés, Csongrád, and Csanád Counties, the large landholdings had 25 percent higher net incomes per acre than the small landholdings in 1865 (Table 4), confirming the result of our general survey for 1865 but contradicting the results of the investigation of the 80 large estates above (Table 3). However, as before, we were unable to quantify the role of animal husbandry, so we cannot estimate how it would modify the differences. Net cadastral income, as an indicator, allows us to determine neither where the income/expenditure ratio was better (i.e. which estate type was more efficient) nor where the expenditures were lower (i.e. which landholding size was less capital intensive), since no other indicator is available at the settlement level beside the “income minus expenditure value” (i.e. net cadastral income).⁴⁰

Table 4. Differences in net cadastral incomes of smallholdings and large estates (1865) on the area covered by the genetic soil map of Békés County (1858)

Dominant farm structure (by municipality)		Net cadastral income forint/acre	Net income forint/estate owner	Average estate size (acre)
Mixed (25)	Avg.	4.30	135.0	31.40
Smallholdings dominate (5)	Avg.	4.24	61.1	14.44
Large estates dominate (12)	Avg.	5.43	29846.0	5494.31
Total number of settlements and “puszta” on map (42)	Avg.	4.45	8615.6	1933.97

Using a special source, however, it is possible to examine how land quality affected income and determine whether large estates were located on better land or not in these three counties. Table 4 above is based on the cadastral survey conscription published in 1865, which includes the precise, accurate number of large and small estates (but not their size separately) and the number of “puszta.” A genetic soil map of the area (the second oldest in Europe) from 1858 has also survived. By superimposing the administrative boundaries of 1865 (Figure 5) on the soil map using GIS-techniques, one can identify the dominant soil type per settlement, and the settlement level average values for net cadastral income per acre in 1865 can be compared to the soil types. Net cadastral income per acre and per holding was highest in the loess (Table 5), which also suggests that the loess was dominated by large estates, while in contrast, the sand or the saline solonetz soils (vertisols) were dominated by small estates in 1865. The net cadastral income per acre on smallholdings located on sands was good, while the incomes of small farms established on peat and solonetz soils was poor. Settlements with mixed saline-loess soils were also dominated by large estates, but with better income per acre values. In other words, the large estates were mostly located on better soils.

Table 5. Net cadastral income per acre and per holding (in forints) by soil type and average size of holdings by soil type in 1865

Soil type and settlement number		Net cadastral income forint/acre	Net cadastral income forint/estate	Average estate size
sand IV (1)	Avg.	5.49	97.38	17.74
peat (2)	Avg.	2.38	103.25	43.36
loess I (8)	Avg.	5.91	2,3076.77	3,903.40
salty/saline II (14)	Avg.	3.51	1,811.74	516.68
salty and peat (1)	Avg.	2.32	68.75	29.66
salty and bound clay (2)	Avg.	3.47	56.81	16.35
salty and loess (14)	Avg.	5.09	10,813.64	2,126.25
total (42)	Avg.	4.45	–	–
Source: Our calculations based on the 1858 soil map and income data published in 1865.

By comparing the productivity of small and large estates located on the same soil types (Table 6), one can highlight the “soil-neutral” efficiency of the farm type. The combined query of the incomes (1865)—soil (1858) database revealed that in the case of loess, the large estates were clearly more efficient, while in the case of saline soils, the smallholdings were more efficient, obviously because the smallholder was forced to produce a minimum quantity even by investing extra work (and/or a larger workforce) to subsist, while the large farm was not under such pressure. In the case of settlements with mixed loess and saline soils, there was no significant difference between small and large farms.

Table 6. Differences in net cadastral income grouped by soil types and farm sizes (in forints, 1865)

Dominant soils (1858)	Farm size (type, settlement number, avg. estate size)	Net cadastral income forint/acre	Net cadastral income forint/estate
sand	MIXED estate structure (1)	5.49	97.38
peat	MIXED estate structure (2)	2.38	103.25
loess	DOMINANCE OF SMALLHOLDINGS (2) (79), cadastral acres	4.67	370.32
	DOMINANCE OF LARGE ESTATES (6) (4848 cadastral acres)	6.32	30,645.59
	TOTAL (8)	5.91	23,076.77
saline	MIXED estate structure (12)	3.52	90.46
	DOMINANCE OF SMALLHOLDINGS (1) (4 cadastral acres)	4.06	36.79
	DOMINANCE OF LARGE ESTATES (1)	2.74	24,242.00
	TOTAL (14)	3.51	1,811.74
saline and soot	(1)	2.32	68.75
saline and clay	MIXED estate structure (1)	3.38	95.65
	SMALLHOLDING DOMINANCE (1)	3.57	17.97
	TOTAL (2)	3.47	56.81
saline and loess	MIXED estate structure (6)	5.53	183.82
	SMALL FARMS DOMINANCE (3) (18 kh)	4.52	83.67
	LARGE ESTATES (5) (6122 kh)	4.90	30,007.40
	TOTAL (14)	5,09	10,813.00
Source: Our calculations based on the 1858 soil map and income data published in 1865.

How did landowners manage to acquire good quality land? In order to answer this question, we superimposed the soil map from 1858 on the Harruckern map of land use in the 1780s, which also contained aggregated landuse and population data at the settlement level (unfortunately, it did not include yields). Our research has shown that around 1780, most of the land far away from rivers and covered with loess was used as pasture (Tables 7 and 8), which, as public property (communal land, which meant that both the landlord and the peasants had the right to use it), fell into the hands of the manor according to the laws of 1848. These areas, converted into ploughland as a result of the land-use change induced by grain hunger in Europe, which generated high prices, showed extremely high yields and high incomes in the mid-nineteenth century due to decades of fertilization and fallowing.

Water regulation works began here around 1865, so the statistics cited reflect the incomes of the pre-regulation situation, when plots on saline soils and peat were more exposed to water. This implicitly also meant that the water regulation work of 1865 generated a temporary ameliorating situation for the smallholders (although peat that has lost water is easily damaged by wind and compaction caused by trampling, so the improvements are only temporary). In contrast to the situation along the Körös River, in the Central Tisza region at the end of the eighteenth century the floodplains of the rivers were dominated not by small farms but by large estates and communal-public lands used as pastures and meadows for grazing. This all became manorial land after 1848. So, water regulation along the Tisza River favored large estates.

Table 7. Differences in land use types on different soils (%) and farm types in 1865

Soil type (I-V: soil quality)		Smallholding / large holding ratio	Arable (%)	Meadow (%)	Pasture (%)	Woodland (%)	Vineyard (%)	Reed (%)	Uncultivated (%)
sand IV	1	138.17	65.84	4.33	25.16	0.00	1.54	0.00	3.13
peat III	2	32.72	18.06	29.74	16.28	10.64	0.21	7.99	17.09
loess I	8	17.39	60.37	19.04	17.02	0.39	0.16	0.00	3.01
saline II	14	73.40	44.02	16.13	28.95	2.92	1.22	1.03	5.73
saline and sooty peat	1	175.50	34.91	29.17	21.47	0.47	0.84	2.31	10.83
saline and clay, V	2	141.83	37.98	12.40	31.62	3.86	3.17	0.42	10.55
saline and loess	14	52.28	59.89	9.44	23.21	0.94	0.64	0.78	5.10
Total	42	61.32	51.20	14.96	24.02	2.06	0.87	1.06	5.83
Source: Our calculations based on the 1858 soil map and the income data published in 1865 (area and income of Hungary by cultivation). The dominant land use pattern(s) have been highlighted by bold letters.

Table 8. The land use and quality of the land (in 1858) that functioned as praedium (non-urbarial, non-peasant plots) in 1790

Praedium	Soil quality 1858	Soil genetic type 1858	Arable %	Meadow %	Pasture %	Forests %
Kígyósapáti pr.⁴¹	2	saline	0.00	4.76	95.24	0.00
Nagykondoros pr.	1	loess	0.00	0.00	100.00	0.00
Nagy Csákó	1	loess	0.00	0.00	100.00	0.00
Kis Csákó	1	loess	0.00	0.00	100.00	0.00
Csorvás dominale⁴²	1	loess	0.00	0.00	100.00	0.00
Csorvás comm.	1	loess	0.00	0.00	100.00	0.00
Eperjes pr.	1	loess	0.00	0.00	100.00	0.00
Szénás pr.	2	saline	0.00	0.00	100.00	0.00
Kis Kamut pr.	1	loess	100.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Szt. Miklós pr.			100.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Csejti Pr.	2	saline	0.00	0.00	100.00	0.00
Bélmegyer pr.	2	saline	0.00	55.03	40.46	4.51
Gerla pr.	3	peat	0.00	44.48	44.48	11.04
Ölyved pr.	3	peat	0.00	73.61	24.51	1.88
Királyhegyes pr.		loess	0.00	12.27	87.73	0.00
Apáca pr.	1	loess	0.00	0.00	100.00	0.00
Tamás pr.	2	saline	0.00	40.20	24.87	34.93
Kis Péll pr.	5	clayey	0.00	24.97	75.03	0.00

The relationship between soil conditions and net cadastral land income can also be examined in 1910, since the genetic soil type can be considered a conservative property (at least for a span of 50 years), and the municipal net cadastral income is also available from 1883 and 1910 and even sorted even by type of land use. So, net income is available for different products (Table 9), which was not true of the survey done in 1865. The difference between loess-soils and clayey or salty solonetz soil is still remarkable, and estate size on loess remained extremely high in 1910.

By 1935, the positive trends in the net cadastral income of smallholdings in the Pécs region (southern Hungary) mentioned earlier (Figure 4) had also changed. The net cadastral income per acre of small estates fell from almost twelve crowns in 1911 to less than eleven crowns, while that of large estates rose to over eight crowns, and on the Biedermann and Benyovszky estates, the net income per cultivated acre of land jumped from eight or nine golden crowns⁴³ before World War I (Figure 6) to ten or eleven. This confirms that we have a spatially and temporally fluctuating phenomenon, which also depended on market volume, soil quality, and land use, in addition to technology and crop culture.

Figure 5. Overlay of the 1858 Békés-Csanád soil map with post-1886 settlement boundaries

Table 9. Differences in the net cadastral income per acre and per holding of settlements on different soil types, and the relationship between average holding size and soil type in 1910

Soil quality (settlements)	Total net cadastral income, 1865 K*/acre	Total net cadastral income, 1910 K/acre	Net cadastral income of woods K/acre	Net cadastral income of grape K/acre	Net cadastral income of ploughlands K/acre	Net cadastral income of pastures K/acre	Net cadastral income of meadows K/kat. hold	Average net cadastral income per one estate	Average estate size (acre)
clayey V (3)		12.41	3.80	16.87	14.26	2.85	6.16	243.49	18
sand IV (3)	11 (1)	20.56	8.47	23.17	20.61	9.21	12.04	128.93	6
peat III (4)	5 (2)	11.83	7.27	15.17	13.30	5.03	11.13	203.13	17
peat and saline (4)	4.5 (1)	10.06	8.44	13.34	11.44	3.10	7.21	133.14	13,5
loess (34)	12 (8)	16.85	5.44	21.34	17.33	7.25	8.29	5,828.85	295
loess and saline (2)	10 (14)	19.19	9.63	22.82	22.17	7.95	9.40	329.68	19
saline II (21)	7 (14)	11.95	6.16	18.85	13.50	4.35	6.20	315.00	24
saline and loess I and II (14)	10 (14)	23.26	6.26	17.51	18.15	4.96	7.56	161.16	9,5
Total: 85	9 (42)	16.09	6.25	19.23	16.10	5.74	7.68	2,405.99	125
* Calculated from forints. One forint = two kronen. Numbers in brackets indicate the number of settlements involved in the investigation in 1865. The sets of settlements in 1865 and 1910 are not identical, so any conclusions concerning changes in incomes should be handled with care.
Source: Our calculations based on the 1858 soil map and Arad / Békés / Csanád vármegye adóközségeinek területe és kataszteri tisztajövedelme.

Figure 6. Differences in the net cadastral incomes of small and large estates of different types in 1935, expressed in golden crowns. (Demeter and Koloh, “Birtokstruktúra és jövedelmezőség.”)

Socio-Economic Characteristics of Estate Types (1890s–1930s)

The question of profitability is therefore not settled by the series of studies summarized above. Income alone, however, does not necessarily offer a precise means with which to classify a settlement (or the type of enterprise that predominates) as developed or underdeveloped, since the concept of welfare includes a variety of other dimensions (health, environment, cultural indicators, etc.). And as a large part of the income generated in settlements that were dominated by large estates did not fall into the hands of the agrarian producers, this indicator is therefore inappropriate for comparisons of welfare. If we want to check or reproduce Miklós Móricz’s local-scale research for the whole country and investigate further the contradictory picture of large estates as either “oppressive” or “modern and profitable,” other social, economic and demographic factors must be taken into account in addition to cadastral income (which is more an indicator of farming quality than of livelihood).

The GISta Hungarorum database⁴⁴ allows the reconstruction of the socio-economic-demographic conditions of the settlements dominated either by large estates or small farms for 1910. Since various indicators of development are also available (the Human Development Index, HDI at settlement level from 1910 calculated by Zsolt Szilágyi),⁴⁵ it is also possible to determine whether there was a correlation between general development levels and farm type in 1910. For this purpose, we extracted a list of large farms from the compendium compiled by Gyula Hantos (1926)⁴⁶ and the Farmers’ Inventory (1897). The former provides statistical data on large estate types within the post-1920 boundaries of Hungary. The latter makes the entire area of the historical country available for analysis from an earlier period, but using different criteria and classifications of large estates. The Farmers’ Inventory from 1935 provides further possibilities. First, it is possible to group the settlements according to the share of the large estates as a proportion of the total area of the given settlements, and second, it is possible to examine the difference in net cadastral incomes per acre between large estates and small farms in the 1920s, but only for the post-Trianon area of the state.⁴⁷

Based on Hantos’ dataset from the 1920s (the postwar territory of Hungary) and the socio-economic indicators from the census of 1910, it was possible to distinguish aristocratic, non-aristocratic noble, ecclesiastic, etc. large estate types (above 100 acres), and one can also draw a distinction between large estates consisting mostly of arable land and large estates large estates consisting mostly of non-arable land. Using the socio-economic indicators from 1910, the several conclusions can be drawn, each of which I discuss below.

Natural reproduction rate (measured according to the proportion of the population under six years of age) was 1–2 percent higher on almost all types of large holdings than in the settlements dominated by smallholdings.⁴⁸ The situation was reversed for the population aged 60 and over, with a higher proportion on smallholdings (eight percent versus nine percent). The proportion of elderly people was lower on large farms dominated by arable land, indicating a larger workforce (i.e. people belonging to the work force were usually younger). In 1910, literacy rates on large estates of the noble, feudal, aristocratic, and non-feudal types were one to two percent lower than on small estates. This constitutes a significant change from circumstances in 1880, when literacy rates in the settlements dominated by smallholdings were markedly lower compared to the values in large-estate dominated settlements. Indeed, over the course of those three decades, literacy rates in settlements dominated by smallholdings increased by five percent points. Almost all large estates had 50 percent higher per capita net cadastral income than settlements dominated by smallholders (which is not surprising). The reason for this difference in per capita income clearly lies in the differences in cadastral income per acre, which was significantly higher on the large estates (10.6 vs. 8.6 kronen) than in settlements dominated by smallholdings. Since the amount of land per agricultural earner (including day laborers) was also higher on large estates, the difference in income per earner could be more than 50 percent on most large estates compared to small estates (except for Church and state-owned large estates, where the difference was smaller). The net cadastral income per acre was higher even on the large holdings that were dominated by pasture than it was on the smallholdings.

Death rates were also higher on large estates, as were birth rates. Migration gains were clearly more significant on large estates, with values up to two to three times higher (Church and state-owned estates were the least preferred),⁴⁹ and in 1910, migration still provided a means with which to address rural overpopulation. On large estates, the death rate from measles, dysentery, and whooping cough was lower.

In terms of distance from the railways, large estates were usually closer than small estates, and the proportion of smallholders compelled to work as day laborers was also higher on large estates (not surprisingly). The quality of housing, on the other hand, was uniformly worse on large estates. In this light, it is particularly noteworthy that mortality from diseases influenced by housing conditions (such as tuberculosis and the commonly prevalent diseases mentioned above) was still lower on these estates. This was probably due to better access to health services in settlements dominated by large estates. The proportion of deceased who had received some medical treatment was also higher on large landholdings.

Finally, the HDI value calculated by Zsolt Szilágyi⁵⁰ for 1910 was also clearly better in the settlements dominated by large estates and was higher than the national average (Table 10). However, from the perspective of today’s development levels and patterns, there is no connection between the present status of a piece of agricultural land as part of a periphery or core and the locations of former large estates. This means that much has changed over the course of the past century. (High development values were recorded in 2016 on former large estates, where the abundance of arable land was moderate around 1920, i.e. 50-75 percent of the cultivated land).

Based on the 1897 Farmers’ Inventory (which included landowners with estates over 100 cadastral hold), we can draw conclusions for the whole country, not just for the post-Trianon area. Of the 12,600 settlements, 5,576 had no large landholdings and their complex development index was much lower than that of the settlements with large landholdings in 1910 (except the group of large estates less than 15 percent of which was arable land, i.e. they were dominated by forests or pasture). There was hardly any difference in the proportion of the population under six years of age in each group, and the same is true for the population over 60 years of age, in contrast to the results of our investigation using Hantos’ dataset for the “reduced” interwar area in 1926. However, literacy rates were significantly higher in settlements with large estates dominated by ploughland (the opposite was true for the post-1920 country study). The improvement in literacy rates between 1880 and 1910 showed no significant difference between estate types (this also differs from the result of the statistical evaluation of Hantos’ estate list for the post-1920 country), showing an overall improvement of 20 percent (compared to the 5 percent increase in literacy rates in settlements found in the territory of post-Trianon Hungary). The proportion of deceased persons who had received some form of medical treatment was higher on large estates than on small farms. The rate of illegitimate births was high in settlements dominated by forest holdings and was below the national average in settlements with large estates dominated by arable land. However, these two mentioned types of large holdings were the most unfavorable in terms of settlement level infant mortality in 1910.

Table 10. Characteristics of the socio-economic-demographic conditions in the settlements dominated by large estates in the statistics compiled by Hantos in 1926 on large estates (group averages)

Group	Estate	Population under 6 years 1910, %	Population above 60 years 1910, %	Over 60 years old / under 6 years old	Average birth rate, 1901–10	Average death rate, 1901–10	Average natural reproduction rate, 1901–10	Population increase rate, 1901–10	Average migration rate, 1901–10	Whooping cough, scarlet fever, measles as a % of total deaths, 1901–10	Tuberculosis as a % of total deaths, 1901–10
large estates of non-nobles	33	17.27	8.32	0.50	37.86	24.04	13.82	74.77	60.96	3.86	16.17
aristocrats	182	16.39	8.10	0.52	37.52	24.08	13.44	73.20	58.99	4.09	14.79
clerical	51	16.28	8.83	0.57	38.33	25.43	12.90	63.61	50.71	4.36	14.53
state (urban)	40	15.73	8.17	0.54	35.57	24.96	10.61	91.30	80.70	3.58	15.18
corporate	3	19.37	4.98	0.26	41.34	21.12	20.22	68.17	47.95	6.00	11.91
foundation	9	15.86	9.03	0.62	35.30	23.68	11.62	98.81	87.19	3.01	16.50
noble	13	16.22	8.00	0.59	38.76	25.16	13.60	111.91	96.11	2.61	15.07
hereditary	20	17.63	7.59	0.45	39.76	25.16	14.60	68.45	53.85	4.66	15.36
all large estates	351	16.46	8.20	0.53	37.60	24.44	13.16	75.80	62.16	4.02	14.99
all municipalities of the country after Trianon	3,392	15.74	9.03	0.62	35.78	23.63	12.15	44.64	31.82	4.74	16.25
settlements without large estates	3,042	15.65	9.13	0.63	35.56	23.53	12.03	41.03	28.31	4.82	16.39

Group	Settlement wealth per capita, 1908, K*	Direct tax per capita, 1909, K	Settlement income per capita, 1909, K	Earners from population, %, 1910	Industrial earners from all earners, 1910, %	Tertiary earner in %, 1910	Literate in 1910, %	Literate in, 1880, %	Increase in literacy rate (1880-1910) %	Average size of population 1910
large estates of non-nobles	34.09	23.79	8.58	39.09	9.79	16.33	63.43	45.60	17.83	5,665.21
aristocratic	29.72	20.20	7.35	39.27	11.25	15.36	64.84	44.84	20.01	5,100.73
clerical	37.09	19.60	6.97	38.70	9.32	13.33	65.93	45.50	20.43	5,408.08
state (urban)	46.29	10.76	4.19	41.37	17.58	27.70	66.96	49.17	17.79	41,761.78
corporate	9.86	34.79	5.43	37.56	6.08	9.50	59.44	36.68	22.76	2,944.33
foundation	41.73	23.45	6.23	40.09	9.12	14.18	67.15	51.70	15.45	9,236.22
noble	46.74	19.95	8.36	38.00	10.07	12.38	64.09	43.41	20.68	4,462.31
hereditary	19.96	24.50	6.25	38.07	9.27	15.62	61.83	44.43	17.40	4,368.45
all large estates	33.30	19.82	6.98	39.30	11.30	16.39	64.92	45.53	19.39	9,398.59
all municipalities of the country after Trianon	25.31	16.06	6.44	40.82	10.18	13.61	65.67	42.47	23.21	2,362.15
settlements without large estates	24.38	15.63	6.37	40.98	10.05	13.28	65.74	42.10	23.64	1,549.47
* Kronen

Group	Smallholders compelled today laborers %, 1910	Cadastral income / agr. earner (K, 1910)	Cadastral income/capita (K, 1910)	Cadastral income per acre (K, 1910)	Cadastral income per estate (K, 1910)	Average estate size (acre, 1910)	Average estate size per one agr. earner (acre, 1910)	Direct tax / cadastral income in 1910
large estates of non-nobles	64.32	146.00	32.76	12.78	467.44	31.81	11.64	0.73
aristocrats	62.01	125.54	28.70	10.47	1945.19	275.39	12.35	0.70
clerical	62.17	95.39	25.05	9.61	124.52	12.74	9.66	0.78
state (urban)	59.47	96.31	18.88	10.14	4776.94	247.35	10.37	0.57
corporate	43.98	258.43	32.44	11.11	5986.46	430.17	20.42	1.07
foundation	58.01	127.40	33.31	12.00	263.55	21.74	10.75	0.70
noble	63.16	106.85	30.42	9.92	158.80	16.85	11.02	0.66
hereditary	60.43	159.60	31.05	10.93	1222.40	91.68	14.60	0.79
all large estates	61.66	122.18	27.78	10.57	1757.26	186.64	11.77	0.71
all municipalities of the country after Trianon	62.98	77.69	21.75	8.82	239.51	28.61	9.85	0.74
settlements without large estates	63.12	72.53	21.04	8.62	64.30	10.37	9.62	0.74

Group	Deaths, receiving medical treatment (1=100%)	Share of persons involved in home industry to total population, 1910	Infant mortality measured to deaths, avg. of 1901–1910 (1=100%)	Houses of bad quality material in 1910 (1=100%)	HDI in 1910 (Szilágyi 2019)	Territorial development index in 2010- (Pénzes 2014)	Distance from nearest railway station (m, 1890)
large estates of non-nobles	0.86	0.002	0.33	0.64	0.42	0.524	14,226
aristocrats	0.76	0.002	0.34	0.54	0.41	0.548	9947
clerical	0.74	0.001	0.32	0.68	0.41	0.576	14,138
state (urban)	0.87	0.002	0.31	0.54	0.43	0.616	7891
corporate	0.76	0.003	0.39	0.51	0.44	0.479	18,282
foundation	0.88	0.002	0.31	0.70	0.42	0.531	9542
noble	0.73	0.001	0.36	0.81	0.40	0.544	8090
hereditary	0.81	0.002	0.35	0.57	0.43	0.518	12,291
all large estates	0.78	0.002	0.33	0.59	0.41	0.588	10,850
all municipalities of the country after Trianon	0.48	0.002	0.32	0.46	0.38	0.568	11,768
settlements without large estates	0.44	0.002	0.32	0.45	0.38		11,870

Settlement wealth per capita was also high for large estates over 75 percent of which was arable land, as was the value of direct taxes. This was similar for “smaller” large estates under 500 acres. Municipal incomes per capita were similar in all categories, except for large estates over 75 percent of which was arable land, where we find an outlier value. Large estates over 75 percent of which was ploughland and those with over 1,000 acres had higher birth rates, while there was no difference in the death rates between estate types. However, migration rates were high towards settlements with large estates dominated by forest and grassland and estates that were over 1000 acres, while in settlements with large estates dominated by arable land the rate of population growth from migration was below the national average. The death rates from scarlet fever, measles, and whooping cough were particularly high in settlements with large holdings dominated by pasture and forests and on large holdings under 500 acres, exceeding the average measured for villages dominated by smallholdings. (Again, this contradicts the results of the earlier study on a narrower area, suggesting that the difference is not really due to the size of the estate but to other, natural geographic and cultural causes, as was true in the case of the contrast regarding literacy described above.) In the case of tuberculosis, however, there was no such remarkable difference. The share of industrial earners was significant on extremely large estates and large estates dominated by pasture, forest, and ploughland, two percentage points above the share measured in settlements dominated by small estates. Large estates dominated by ploughland and estates over 1,000 acres were four and a half kilometers closer to railway stations than small estates (again excluding large estates dominated by forest and grassland).

Table 11. The socio-economic and demographic development conditions in 1910 in the settlements dominated by the large estates on the basis of the 1897 Farmers’ Inventory compared with the situation in settlements dominated by small farms

Large estate	Case number (settlements)	Composite development indicator of Demeter, 1910	Population below 6 years, 1910 %	Population above 60 years, 1910, %	Literacy rate, 1910, %	Increase in literacy in %, 1880–1910	Settlement wealth per capita in K, 1909	Direct tax per capita in K, 1909
under 500 kh*	2,215	0.407	16.017	9.010	50.505	21.908	35.400	12.143
500–1000 kh	1,308	0.719	16.293	8.703	53.434	22.551	30.277	14.214
above 1000 kh	3,559	0.995	16.190	8.347	56.065	21.998	28.373	15.274
average of all large estates	7,082	0.760	16.155	8.620	53.840	22.072	30.922	14.099
average of all settlements	12,658	0.513	16.022	8.814	51.554	21.774	30.760	12.836
all settlements without large estates	5,576	0.200	15.850	9.060	48.650	21.400	30.550	11.230
* Cadastral acre = 5570 m2.

Large estate	Birth rate, avg. of, 1901–1910	Death rate, avg. of 1901–1910	Natural increase avg. of 1901–1910	Total increase, avg. of, 1901–1910	Migration rate, avg. of 1901–1910	Measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough as a % of total deaths, 1901–1910	Tuberculosis as a % of total deaths, 1901–1910
under 500 kh	36.167	24.512	11.655	35.733	23.711	7.045	13.800
500–1000 kh	36.811	24.262	12.549	35.840	23.521	6.742	14.186
above 1000 kh	37.121	24.635	12.487	52.561	39.432	5.757	14.758
average of all large estates	36.765	24.527	12.238	44.209	31.576	6.342	14.353
average of all settlements	36.193	24.496	11.697	39.473	27.664	6.552	14.243
all settlements without large estates	35.470	24.460	11.01	33.460	22.700	6.820	14.100

Large estate	Agrarian earners from all earners, %, 1910	Industrial earners, %, 1910	Acre per 1 agrarian inhabitant, 1910	Smallholders compelled to do daily labor for wages, 1910, %	Net cadastral income/capita, 1910, K	Direct tax/net cadastral income, 1910	Net cadastral income on 1 cultivated acre, 1910, K
under 500 kh	80.28	8.54	4.675	63.83	14.87	1.043	5.927
500–1000 kh	78.17	9.13	4.720	62.49	18.40	0.992	7.210
above 1000 kh	73.16	11.35	5.059	63.13	20.16	0.967	7.774
average of all large estates	76.31	10.06	4.876	63.23	18.18	0.995	7.092
average of all settlements	78.06	9.32	5.051	65.69	15.73	1.096	6.230
all settlements without large estates	80.29	8.39	5.270	68.81	12.62	1.23	5.14

Large estate	Literacy rate in %, 1880	Distance from railway station (m) 1890	Decrease in distance from railway station, 1890-1910	Population dealing with home industry from total population (1=100%)	Deceased receiving medical treatment, 1910 (1=100%)	Illegitimate births, avg. of 1901-1910 (%)	Infant mortality from deaths, avg. of 1901-1910 (1=100%)	Average estate size in acre, 1910
under 500 kh	28.596	16358.1	7559.2	0.003	0.314	8.649	0.294	11.128
500–1000 kh	30.883	14662.1	6384.2	0.003	0.359	8.743	0.303	12.031
above 1000 kh	34.068	13494.4	6280.5	0.003	0.487	9.475	0.312	34.375
average of all large estates	31.768	14605.7	6699.6	0.003	0.409	9.081	0.305	23.013
average of all settlements	29.782	15689.2	7141.4	0.003	0.345	9.000	0.298	22.343
all settlements without large estate	27.260	17065.4	7702.6	0.000	0.260	8.900	0.290	21.490

Table 12. The value of socio-economic-demographic indicators (1910’s census) in the sub-groups of the large landholding population, based on the categorizations used in the Farmers’ Inventory (Gazdacímtár) in 1935

Estate type by size in acre (settlement number in brackets)	Settlement size (population), 1910	Average death rate, 1901–1910 (1=100%)	Population under 6, 1910 (1=100%)	State tax per capita (1910, K)	Crude death rate, avg. of 1901-1910	Literacy rate in 1910 among population above 6 years, %	HDI 1910 (Szilágyi, Zsolt, 2019)	Composite development in 1910 (composed of the single variables used here)
under 500 acres (502)	900.664	0.024	0.160	7.177	23.283	78.275	0.382	1.214
above 500 acres (1969)	3267.898	0.024	0.147	13.012	24.045	77.125	0.387	1.379
fragment (275)	1103.306	0.022	0.161	7.092	23.464	78.143	0.380	1.104
All settlements’ value	2611.682	0.024	0.149	12.388	23.845	77.440	0.385	1.321

Estate type by size in acre (settlement number in brackets)	Average cadastral income of large estates, 1935, aK*	Average cadastral income of large estates per acre, 1935, aK	Proportion of estates under 1 acre, 1935 (1=100%)	Proportion of estates over 100 acre, 1935 (1=100%)	Average size of all estates inc. large landholdings (kh)	Total cadastral income of ALL estates in 1935, aK	Total cadastral income of smallholdings in 1935, aK	Cadastral income of smallholdings per acre in 1935, aK
under 500 acres (502)	2058.86	7.169	0.232	0.422	1409.34	11305	9100	7.299
above 500 acres (1969)	18,926.28	6.643	0.262	0.600	5519.81	47914	27,483	6.184
fragment (275)	262.19	7.534	0.277	0.197	1237.12	11149	10,829	4.935
All settlements’ value	14,047.96	6.830	0.258	0.526	4317.04	37281	22,403	6.264
* Golden crowns instead of pengő to make data comparable with that in 19

The share of smallholders compelled to work as day laborers approached the high value typical for smallholding villages only in the type of large holdings that were predominantly pasture. This may have been due to the fact that on the large holdings that were predominantly ploughland and on extensive large holdings landless day laborers were often the majority of the work force. Net cadastral income per capita was more significant on large holdings than on smallholdings (except for the large estates dominated by pasture or forests), supporting the notion that large holdings were more productive (though this still does not include data on livestock). For large holdings of over 1,000 acres 75 percent of which were ploughland, net cadastral income per acre was also notably high.

The significance of the 1935 Farmers’ Inventory for the present investigation (as well as the inventory from 1910, which we did not use here) is that it allows us to determine the productivity of small farms. By aggregating the total area and total income of large farms by settlement given in the inventory and subtracting these values from the total income and total area of settlements published by the Central Statistical Bureau in 1935 we can calculate the unpublished cadastral income data for smallholdings. In addition, it is also possible to create groups based on the proportion of large holdings (as a percent of area) per settlement and calculate the socioeconomic indicators for these subsets, within the post-1920 state boundaries.

The share of large landholdings as a percentage of total cultivated land in 1935 was analyzed in the following subgroups: above 60 percent, 40 percent-60 percent and 20 percent-40 percent. 1,970 settlements had large estates of over 500 acres (a share usually higher than 60 percent of the total cultivated land of the settlements), 500 settlements had large estate(s) between 100 and 500 acres, and 275 settlements had only large estate fragments under 100 acres (here the share of large estates was usually less than 20 percent of the total cultivated land). Some 600 settlements had no large holdings at all on their administrative area. To sum it up, in 1935, 56 percent of the settlements had a landholding of over 500 acres on their territory (Table 12).

Despite the fact that the 1910 value of the historical HDI calculated by Szilágyi did not show significant differences between the estate types, this does not exclude the possibility that some of its components (HDI is composed of literacy rate, life expectancy, GDP/capita) did so—offsetting each others’ effects. However, there were no differences in mortality rates, neither within the large estate types nor compared to the national average (mortality rates were used as proxies to life expectancy missing from 1910). The proportion of the population under six years of age was one percent higher on settlements with large estates compared to settlements with no estates over 100 acres kh, and 1 percent higher than the national average. The direct taxes per capita, which functioned as the basis of the local municipal surtax (and was used as a proxy to substitute missing settlement-level GDP data by Szilágyi, were high on large estates of over 500 kh (direct taxes still applied to incomes from tertiary and secondary sectors, in addition to agrarian land taxes).

Estate type by size in acre (settlement number in brackets)	Settlement size (population), 1910	Average death rate, 1901–1910 (1=100%)	Population under 6, 1910 (1=100%)	State tax per capita (1910, K)	Crude death rate, avg. of 1901-1910	Literacy rate in 1910 among population above 6 years, %	HDI 1910 (Szilágyi, Zsolt, 2019)	Composite development in 1910 (composed of the single variables used here)
under 500 acres (502)	900.664	0.024	0.160	7.177	23.283	78.275	0.382	1.214
above 500 acres (1969)	3267.898	0.024	0.147	13.012	24.045	77.125	0.387	1.379
fragment (275)	1103.306	0.022	0.161	7.092	23.464	78.143	0.380	1.104
All settlements’ value	2611.682	0.024	0.149	12.388	23.845	77.440	0.385	1.321

Estate type by size in acre (settlement number in brackets)	Average cadastral income of large estates, 1935, aK*	Average cadastral income of large estates per acre, 1935, aK	Proportion of estates under 1 acre, 1935 (1=100%)	Proportion of estates over 100 acre, 1935 (1=100%)	Average size of all estates inc. large landholdings (kh)	Total cadastral income of ALL estates in 1935, aK	Total cadastral income of smallholdings in 1935, aK	Cadastral income of smallholdings per acre in 1935, aK
under 500 acres (502)	2058.86	7.169	0.232	0.422	1409.34	11305	9100	7.299
above 500 acres (1969)	18,926.28	6.643	0.262	0.600	5519.81	47914	27,483	6.184
fragment (275)	262.19	7.534	0.277	0.197	1237.12	11149	10,829	4.935
All settlements’ value	14,047.96	6.830	0.258	0.526	4317.04	37281	22,403	6.264
* Golden crowns instead of pengő to make data comparable with that in 1910.

However, compared to the previous examinations, there is a significant difference in net cadastral income per acre. The net cadastral incomes per acre on large estates were lowest for large holdings over 500 acres in 1935. At the same time, the net cadastral incomes of small farms were also low, somewhat lower than that of large holdings, but this situation was reversed for holdings between 100 and 500 acres. Here, the net cadastral income per acre on a large estate was higher than on large estates over 500 acres, but the net incomes of smallholdings were even greater. In contrast, the cadastral incomes per acre of the fragmented large estates exceeded that of the other categories of large estates and was also higher than cadastral incomes on smallholdings, since the net cadastral incomes of the small estates were lowest here, in this category, where there were hardly any large estates anyway. In other words, the presence of large landholdings seems to have had a positive effect on the net cadastral income per acre of small landholdings too.

If the values of single variables are aggregated in one composite development index, the most undeveloped settlements were those where only fragments of large estates were found (less than 100 acres in 1935), while settlements with large holdings over 500 acres showed development levels above the national average (1.37). This sheds new light on Móricz’s investigations concerning the welfare of the people who lived and worked on large estates in the interwar period.

Archival Sources

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [National Archives of Hungary] (MNL OL)

A39 A Magyar Kancelláriai Levéltár [Archives of the Hungarian Chancery]

Acta Generalia (1770–1848), 3688/1786

Központi Statisztikai Hivatal [Archives of the Central Statisctical Bureau]

Iratgyűjtemények (volt F iratgyűjtemény) (1701–1996), XXXII-23-j-12, 31–85. doboz.Az 1728-as adóösszeírás feldolgozásának anyaga (Perjés Géza hagyatéka).

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Békés Vármegyei Levéltára [National Archives of Hungary, Archives of County Békés] (MNL BéML)

IV. Megyei törvényhatóságok, szabad királyi városok és törvényhatósági jogú városok [County municipalities, royal cities, and towns with municipality rights]

B. 156 A Csabai Cs. Kir. Vegyes Szolgabíróság iratai [Papers of Csaba

B. 202 Szarvas mezőváros iratai

B. 302 Document of Békéscsaba nagyközség iratai

B. 317 Gyoma nagyközség (1872-ig mezőváros) iratai

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Rózsa, Sándor. “Az ártéri gazdálkodás mérlege: A nagykunsági települések gazdasági kondíciója az első kataszteri felmérés alapján” [The economic balance of floodplain management: The economic condition of the settlements of Nagykunság according to the first cadastral survey]. In Környezettörténet 3, edited by Gábor Demeter, Zoltán Kern, Zsolt Pinke, Beatrix F. Romhányi, András Vadas, and László Bíró, 39–64. Budapest: MTA BTK, 2021.

Sándor, Pál. “A XIX. századi parasztbirtok vizsgálatának történeti-statisztikai forrásai, módszerei és újabb eredményei” [Historical-statistical sources, methods and recent results of the study of the nineteenth-century peasant farms]. Agrártörténeti Szemle 6, no. 1–2 (1964): 36–81.

Sándor, Pál. “A XIX. századi parasztbirtok vizsgálatának problémái és újabb eredményei a felszabadulás utáni irodalom tükrében” [The problems and recent results of studying the nineteenth-century peasant farms in the light of post-liberation literature]. Agrártörténeti Szemle 10, no. 1–2 (1968): 94–117.

Sándor, Pál. Birtokrendezési periratok [Property settlement documents]. Értekezések a történeti tudományok köréből. Új sorozat 69. Budapest: Akaémiai, 1973.

Szilágyi, Zsolt. “Regional Differences in Development and Quality of Life in Hungary during the First Third of the Twentieth Century.” Hungarian Historical Review 8, no.1 (2019): 121–52.

Szilágyi, Zsolt. Az ismeretlen Alföld: A táj területi egyenlőtlenségei a 20. század elején [The unknown Great Plains: Spatial inequalities in the landscape at the beginning of the twentieth century]. Budapest: BTK TTI, 2022.

T. Mérey, Klára. A somogyi parasztság útja a feudalizmusból a kapitalizmusba [The path of the peasantry in Somogy from feudalism to capitalism]. Budapest: Akadémiai, 1965.

Tóth, Tibor. A Dunántúli kisüzemek termelése és gazdálkodása az 1930-as években: Kísérlet néhány matematikai-statisztikai eljárás alkalmazására [The production and management of small farms in Transdanubia in the 1930s: An attempt to apply some mathematical-statistical methods]. Értekezések a történeti tudományok köréből 102. Budapest: Akadémai, 1983.

Zagorov, Slavcho, Aleksandr Bilimovich, and Jenő Végh. The Agricultural Economy of the Danubian Countries, 1933–45. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1955.

1 Miklóssy, “A területi elmaradottság,” 881–89.

2 Large estates had higher birth rates and lower death rates than the villages dominated by small estates, but population increases were not high due to significant emigration (reaching 40 percent of the natural population increase, whereas in the small estates emigration accounted for an estimated 25 percent of the population increase), despite the fact that population density was the lowest on the large estates. Miklós Móricz interprets this as an indication that the large estate were less sustainable, although it is more likely that fewer people were needed to run a large estate efficiently. Móricz, “Nagybirtok,” 293–309.

3 Czettler, “Földbirtok-politika,” Table 51.

4 According to a statistical assessment of 232 small farms, Kerék argues that although large farms produced more grains (an average of +2 quintals of grain per acre and +800 liters of milk per cow compared to smallholding), the small farms had much larger numbers of livestock, which means that while the large farms had a gross income of 135–167 pengő per acre, the small farms have gross incomes of 170–190 pengő per acre. In addition, the Hungarian smallholders marketed more products (as a percentage of their products) than Balkan smallholders (which were self-sustaining economies according to Chayanov), up to 60–70 percent (compared to 25–35 percent), similarly to the large estates. It is therefore not surprising that the share of contributions made by smallholders to total marketed goods was also high. The net income was thus between 57 and 64 pengő on the small farms compared to 31–35 pengő on the large landholdings. Kerék, A magyar földkérdés, 361–64.

5 Net cadastral land income is calculated in Hungarian statistics as the difference between incomes and costs, so it is similar to the term profit.

6 Zagorov et al., The Agricultural Economy, 15–22, and 50.

7 Tóth, A Dunántúli kisüzemek, 29.

8 Mollov and Kondov, Dohodnostta. According to our recent surveys, this did not stand for the 1860s.

9 Für, A csákvári uradalom, 33–139; Sándor, Birtokrendezési periratok, 94–95; Orosz, A jobbágyvilág megszűnése, 125; Egyed, Falu, város, civilizáció, 134–35; Sándor, “A XIX. századi parasztbirtok,” 1968, 94–117, and Sándor, “A XIX. századi parasztbirtok,” 1964, 36–81.

10 T. Mérey, A somogyi parasztság, 248; Orosz, A jobbágyvilág megszűnése, 133.

11 Eddie, Ami “köztudott”, az igaz is?, 83.

12 See Demeter et al., “Földminőség.”

13 See Demeter and Koloh, “Birtokstruktúra és jövedelmezőség.”

14 MNL OL. Központi Statisztikai Hivatal [Archives of the Central Statisctical Bureau]. Iratgyűjtemények (volt F iratgyűjtemény) (1701–1996), XXXII-23-j-12, 31–85.

15 In the eighteenth century, instead of yields expressed in quintals, grain yield was given as a ratio to seeds sown. Thus, all quantified data expressed here in kg, q, or tons are calculated and estimated.

16 See Demeter and Horváth, “Sopron vármegye.”

17 Glósz’s calculations are very similar. From a different basis he gives five pozsonyi mérő (pm) for an adult person without animals, which is 225 kg. In case of animals fed from arable land this goes up to nine pm. (Glósz, “Területi hiány és felesleg”; Glósz, “A gabonakereskedelem feltételrendszere”; Glósz, “A birtokviszonyok.”

18 This is only valid from the late 18th century according to Schwartner’s description. See Bogdán, Magyarországi űr-, térfogat-, súly és darabmértékek, 303–4.

19 In our opinion (see Demeter and Horváth, “Sopron vármegye”), three-field system were usually applied where intensive farming was needed because of the lack or low quality of arable land. In general, seed yields were also higher for plots using the two-field system. The implementation of three-field system was to compensate for this by extending the arable area from 50 percent to two-third of the ploughland, by reducing the fallow land. In regions using three-field system the ratio of peasants with half plots or less was also high, referring to relative shortages in arable land. The data also indicate that manure was not widespread on lands of better quality and higher yield in 1728. Wheat grain yields were only 1:2.5 in villages in which manure was used, but were close to 1:3 in villages in which manure was not used. The villages in which manure was used presumably relied more on livestock farming than on crop production.

20 Garda, Főnépek, lófők, gyalogkatonák, 138–50.

21 The term refers essentially to a haystack, though the term does not indicate a precise shape or quantity.

22 Demeter et al., Kisatlasz, 175 (Map 129). According to calculations based on the raw data of the 1897 Farmers’ Inventory (Gazdacímtár 1897), the share of arable land on large estates was above the national average in the floodplain counties, but on small farms it was even higher.

23 In Nagykunság and Csongrád Counties in the south, even the small amount of tenant ploughlands resulted in a large grain output per acre, and the landlord expropriated only a quarter of this. In the Tisza floodplain, more than half of the total harvested cereals went to the landlord, as was the case, for instance, in Heves, but the extent of the ploughlands was much greater in the latter. Thus, although the total per capita cereal yield in the Central Tisza region was higher than in the Kiskunság and Jászság, in the latter regions the proportion of grain expropriated by the landlords were only around 10 percent.

24 Pozsonyi mérő. Hereinafter referred as pm. Two pm equals to one cubulus, thus one pm is approximately 45 kg.

25 MNL OL. A39 A Magyar Kancelláriai Levéltár [Archives of the Hungarian Chancery]. Acta Generalia (1770–1848), 3688/1786.

26 See Demeter and Koloh, “Birtokstruktúra és jövedelmezőség,” 25–76.

27 Considering arable land, small farms were more productive in Ormánság, while in Békés and Csanád Counties large farms were more productive in terms of income per acre.

28 From this, we deduct the seed. One Hungarian acre = one cubulus = two pozsonyi mérő of seed (125 l = 92 kg) = 4,200 sq m. This gives an estimate of the seed output, which is 2:7 in Moson and 2:9 in Nagykunság as a ratio of seed yield to seeds sown.

29 Control area.

30 Magyarország művelési ágak szerinti terjedelme és földjövedelme, 1865.

31 We still do not have data on settlement level yield (in tons) between 1865 and 1910. Instead, net cadastral income was measured in 1865 in forints, which was the basis of the land tax. However, this indicator reveals nothing concerning expenditures or gross incomes.

32 Eddie, Ami “köztudott”, az igaz is?

33 One forint = two kronen (two crowns or two golden crowns) = ca. two French francs.

34 Our 1865 (and 1910) data only give the value of crop production. They do not reveal anything concerning livestock production. The figure of six forints was well above the national average.

35 For net income per acre above six forints, smallholdings included settlements such as Ruszt and Kismarton/Eisenstadt (no large holdings were recorded in either place, so there were no such settlements skewing the average upwards), which certainly owe their inclusion in the group to their special agricultural crops (wines, grape) and not to cereals.

36 That included land tax based on net cadastral income, taxes on houses, industrial taxes, and profit taxes paid by enterprises.

37 Eddie, Ami “köztudott”, az igaz is?, 75–88.

38 Nagy, A magyar mezőgazdaság, 36.

39 MNL BéML IV. Megyei törvényhatóságok, szabad királyi városok és törvényhatósági jogú városok B. 156. A Csabai Cs. Kir. Vegyes Szolgabíróság iratai 1133/1857. Birtokosok kimutatása községenként 1857-ben; MNL BéML V. Mezővárosok, rendezett tanácsú városok, községek. B.202. Szarvas mezőváros iratai 635/1857. List of landowners with more than 100 acres; MNL BéML V. Községek B. 317. Gyoma nagyközség (1872-ig mezőváros) iratai b. Közigazgatási iratok 823/1857. List of landowners with more than 100 acres; MNL BéML V. Városok B. 302. Document of Békéscsaba nagyközség iratai b. Tanács-ülési jegyzőkönyvek 582/1857. List of landowners with more than 100 acres.

40 Keleti, A telekadó és kataster, 7–14.

41 Pr. refers to praedium, in this case that is economically exploited area without settlement (community) on it (Hungarian puszta).

42 Part of the settlement was owned by the landlord, the other part belonged to the community.

43 Whereas golden crown and kronen before 1910 meant almost the same, the new Hungarian currency after World War I, the pengő, had a different exchange rate. Therefore we use values expressed in golden crowns (real price instead of nominal price represented by pengő) in order to make them comparable with the prewar kronen (crowns) and to eliminate the effect of inflation.

44 For the census data of 1910 in excel sheets, see: www.gistory.hu.

45 Szilágyi, Az ismeretlen Alföld.

46 Hantos, Magyarország nagybirtok-térképe.

47 In a separate study, the socio-economic-demographic indicators of villages in 1910 that were dominated by former tenants versus landless cottars are analyzed to examine the extent to which they differed from one another 60 years after the abolition of serfdom.

48 Differences were checked with a two sample t-tests. Hereafter, unless otherwise indicated, differences are defined as significant at p=0.05 significance level, which means that there is only a five percent probability of that the measured difference is insignificant (contrary to our assumption).

49 This did not necessarily meant that work opportunities and living conditions on the large estates were better. Rather, it was simply not possible to create new plots for smallholders at the time except by breaking existing estates into smaller fragments. This made migration a viable macro-social strategy. The populations of large estates were recruited from poor areas (such as Göcsej, Matyóföld, and Szabolcs).

50 Szilágyi, “Regional differences.”

* This study was supported by and realized within the frames of the HAS RCH Lendület "Ten Generations" research project.

2024_3_Romhanyi

Spatial Transformations and Regional Differences in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary (1000–1500)

Beatrix F. Romhányi
Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 3 (2024): 339-360 DOI 10.38145/2024.3.339

Spatial transformations of the economies and/or demographic trends of pre-modern European kingdoms are difficult to assess, as statistical data are not available. However, it is possible to create large data sets using different types of sources, including written and archaeological, which can be used as indicators of relative population density, economic activity, and regional differences. Although most of these data included are qualitative in nature and many can only have binary values (0 or 1), the use of a large number of variables has led to reasonable results that can be compared with the results of analyses in later periods. Most of the data available are related mainly either to agriculture or ecclesiastical institutions (parishes and monasteries). The period before the Mongol invasion in 1241 is mainly represented by archaeological data, while for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there are considerably more written sources. One of the most important sources is the papal tithe register of 1332–1337, the only tax in Hungary directly related to the differences in agricultural incomes. However, the focus of this paper is not on individual time periods, but on the spatial changes that occurred within the medieval Kingdom of Hungary between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, with a particular emphasis on possible driving forces behind these changes and various regional differences.

Keywords: Middle Ages, Kingdom of Hungary, regional differences, spatial transformations, long-term processes

Introduction

While the comparative study of regional differences has become an increasingly important approach in the research undertaken in recent decades, researchers face serious challenges when attempting such comparisons from a diachronic point of view. First, they must address problems concerning the changing significance of the indicators. Second, they must grapple with the problem of the changing or unknown boundaries of the territorial units analyzed.¹ If one goes further back in time, a third major difficulty arises: the lack of statistically analyzable, serial or at least numerical data. However, the possibility of processing large and complex data sets containing both qualitative and quantitative data offers a new perspective for diachronic research and may help historians overcome these difficulties. In recent years, such data sets were compiled for the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, using a combination of written and archaeological evidence. Collaboration with geographers and historians who focus on later periods added a lot to the methodology and inspired new research projects, one of which started in 2024 and aims to develop the already existing medieval data set further and connect it to the databases relevant to the modern period.² In the discussion below, I focus on some lessons of this series of analyses, calling attention in part to how different types of agricultural incomes (basically, those characteristic of rural areas) can be represented visually and interpreted based on the available evidence.

Sources, Possibilities, and Limitations

The sources for such a database are partly written and partly archaeological. For the earlier period, i.e. the period before the Mongol Invasion in 1241–1242, archaeological evidence predominates, while from the second half of the thirteenth century onwards written evidence becomes more and more important. The problem with most of the data is that, unlike the data used in modern statistical surveys, they cannot be linked to a single date and sometimes not even to a clearly defined, brief period. The only exception is the Papal tithe register of 1332–1337, which can be supplemented by the Zagreb register of 1334.³These two sources cover nearly 90 percent of the parish network in the early fourteenth century. Thus, in this case too, additional sources from a longer period need to be consulted to fill in the missing data.

Another problem is the lack of continuous variables for most of the period. Hardly any tax censuses survive, and those that do survive do not cover the whole of the kingdom. Furthermore, the royal tax levied on tenant peasants was not dependent on income. The amount was the same, rather, for all taxpayers. Again, the only exception in this case was the papal tithe, since the tax paid by the priests to the papal curia was related, albeit indirectly and in a somewhat complicated way, to the agricultural incomes of the faithful who paid the church tithe.

Given the limitations and difficulties mentioned above, other methods are needed to measure regional differences before modern statistical data collection became a common practice. First, a combination of well-defined historical, art historical, and archaeological data needs to be compiled in a complex database. These data then need to be assessed as a proxy for development. As their relevance changes over time (for example, the presence of certain institutions, the value of privileges, or indicators such as literacy do not always reflect the same position in the settlement hierarchy), the validity of proxy data needs to be reassessed in each context.

Since life in medieval European societies was closely linked to a network of religious institutions, such as parishes and monasteries, data concerning these institutions can also serve as the basis for the database. Unlike many other phenomena in this part of Europe, these institutions are also well documented and can be (or were) precisely dated (on the basis of either written sources or archaeological/art historical evidence). Furthermore, as they were ubiquitous throughout Latin Europe, the basic structure of the network did not differ significantly from region to region. This allows for meaningful comparison of the data, even between distant parts of the continent.

One may ask why it is worth setting up such databases and analyzing them in a comparative way. Even if there are no statistical data for the medieval and early modern periods, pilot projects, such as those depicted on Maps 1 and 2, have shown that well-defined indicators and appropriate methods of creating visual depictions can lead to new, meaningfully interpretable results. In this way, we can identify long-term processes, stable and changing elements of spatial patterns, and periods of transformation. These periods of transformation do not necessarily coincide with the turning points defined by political history. This new approach thus calls attention to the importance of other factors, such as environmental changes, changes in the way of life, and technical developments, which may well have influenced settlement patterns and economic activity more than politics.

Furthermore, this methodology makes it possible to link longer historical periods and draw comparisons between data concerning recent times and data relevant to considerably earlier periods (and significantly, even to arrive at new comparisons of the pre-Ottoman period and the post-Ottoman period). This is particularly important, as the Ottoman period caused a well-known rupture in many respects, and the fragmentation of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, combined with the large-scale loss of sources and the profound transformation of both estate structure and society, led to discontinuities in the historical narratives and made it difficult to model the changes that took place.

This kind of research also promises to further a more nuanced understanding of how certain regions became developed or underdeveloped. Which regions enjoyed periods of continuous development, and which remained less active? If we can answer these questions with reasonable accuracy, these findings may well contribute to a better grasp of long-term processes in the past and even prospective for regional planning today.

There are limitations on the potentials of this research, however. The data sets are very different in size (from a few hundred entities—based on both written and archeological evidence—for the period of the foundation of the kingdom c. 1000 to about 15,000 entities for the end of the Middle Ages), and the data themselves are of different types, ranging from serial sources related to economy such as the papal tithe register to individual sources reflecting cultural achievements such as the schools, students attending universities or even organs and tower-clocks. Furthermore, even for individual settlements, the data are very uneven, making it impossible to interpret development levels at the settlement level. A partial exception is the group of the privileged towns throughout the Middle Ages. It is also important to note that, in the absence of serial sources, data must be collected over longer periods, often several decades. The criteria for data collection must therefore be precisely defined and strictly adhered to. However, even so, the results of the analyses cannot be tied to an exact year or even decade. A certain level of uncertainty remains, which means that only changes between relatively distant time periods (at least a hundred years) can be assessed.

One further difficulty is that data from the period after the Mongol Invasion are mainly available for settlements with parish churches. This is evident in the case of the dataset for the 1330s. Even if there are data for settlements that are not mentioned in the papal tithe list, alone the fact that the papal tithe is an exceptional continuous variable implies that settlements not on the list can be included in the database under very strict conditions. To safeguard the integrity of the dataset, only parishes can be integrated, even more so, as we have some data concerning the amount of the tithe paid by the parishes not listed. In the late medieval database, the challenge is different. As there is no continuous variable we could use, actual data collection at the settlement level is necessary and fortunately also possible (at least theoretically) due to the much larger quantity of written evidence. However, additional data are available for only one third of the documented settlements. This means that an analysis based on raw data would use up a lot of entities that can be localized but for which no other data are available. These data thus have no real value. As the analysis of such a database would lead to distorted result. Again, the solution is to aggregate the data by parish so that the analysis can be based on a differentiated data set. Fortunately, the parish was the basic administrative unit in much of Europe between the late thirteenth and late eighteenth centuries, for instance in France and England, as well as in the Kingdom of Hungary. Thus, the use of parishes as a basis for data analysis is not only necessary but also consistent with the reality of the period.

In the following, I will present some results of the analysis of the datasets for 1220 and 1330 (marked in bold in Table 1), because the dataset for 1100 is too small for a complex analysis, and the construction of the database for the late Middle Ages has just begun. These two datasets will serve as comparative material for some aspects of the argument.

The Database

Table 1. Composition of the data sets of the periods of time investigated

c. 1100	c. 1220	c. 1330	c. 1500
c. 700 entities	c. 2,300 entities (including passes)	c. 4,200 entities (“municipalities” / parishes)	c. 15,000 entities (c. 4,730 “municipalities” / parishes)
Bishops’ sees	All data types for the time c. 1100	PAPAL TITHE LIST (completed with related, partly serial sources)	Legal indicators
Collegiate chapters	Charter evidence	Lay and ecclesiastical administration	Ecclesiastical indicators
Monasteries	Narrative sources (domestic and foreign)	Mendicant friaries	Economic indicators
Monastic estates	Privileged ethnic groups (e.g. Jews, Latini)	Economic and/or judicial centers	Cultural indicators
County castles, other strongholds	Market, toll, ford	Markets, fairs	Other specific data
Rural churches, churchyards	Economic and judicial centers	Urban privileges

As can be seen from the data structures described in Table 1, it was necessary to create a composite “development score” based on weighted data and to establish development levels to ensure comparability. The size of the database for the early thirteenth century is about half the size of that for the 1330s and consists of c. 2,250 entities. Empirical research has shown that this is the minimum number of entities required to model regional differences in the Carpathian Basin as a whole. Therefore, the database for the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries has not been transformed into a visual representation in the same way (Map 3) and is not discussed in this article. As for the database for the Late Middle Ages (c. 1500), it has just been established, and substantial datasets will be uploaded later.

The Findings and Conclusions

Two primary outputs were produced: maps illustrating the hierarchy of settlements (Maps 1–2) and diagrams showing the development slopes (N–S and W–E, Figs 1–2). With regard to the maps, it is important to stress that, despite the collection of data at the settlement level, the analysis can only be carried out at the regional level, i.e., only the regional level can be interpreted in a historically meaningful way. The difference between the two maps is obvious at first glance: while the peripheral areas, which were barely inhabited at the beginning of the thirteenth century, were filled with settlements a century later, the central parts of the Great Plain were depopulated. At the same time, the marked contrast in settlement density between the western and eastern parts of the Carpathian Basin almost disappeared. This pattern of the settlement and parish network proved enduring. It can be seen not only on the map for 1500, but also up to the early twentieth century (Maps 4–6). It is even represented on the Lazarus-map (1528, Fig. 3) and to some extent also on the Lazius-map (1556). The latter is important because it also depicts the cause of this emptiness in a very spectacular way, showing cattle in the region and adding the inscription Cumanorum Campus, Bachmege deserta, pascendis pecoribus apta.⁴

The difference in developmental slopes is also instructive (Figs 1–2). On the one hand, there is no significant difference between the north-south transects. In both periods, the center of gravity was in the north. On the other hand, a shift can be observed in the west-south transects. While before the Mongol Invasion the western part of the kingdom was clearly more densely populated and therefore more active (more developed), the diagram for the 1330s shows a roughly even level of development, where only the periphery appears to be underdeveloped, or rather underpopulated and therefore less active.

In the creation of visual representations of the data for the 1330s, the problem of the missing parish boundaries arose almost immediately. While certain features can be represented using points, the visual depiction of regional differences can be distorted by the fact that large parts of the Carpathian Basin were characterized by a loose parish and settlement network. However, the fourteenth-century boundaries remain unknown for the overwhelming majority of the parishes. To overcome this problem, actual parish boundaries were substituted with Voronoi cells (Map 7). As parish churches served the everyday needs of pastoral care and the distances between the places in which people resided and the places where Sunday masses were held offer a good indicator of the spatial distribution of the population, the Voronoi diagram will define the areas which were closer to a given parish church than to any other parish church in the neighboring cells. This diagram thus offers a usable substitute with which to model the medieval parish system.

In this way, tithe per area unit could be calculated, and differences in certain types of land use became clear. The structure of the settlement system, including the absence of certain types of settlement, was also instructive. In southern Transdanubia, for instance, where a very dense parish network developed before the 1330s, the parsons usually paid a low (sometimes very low) sum as papal tithe. This would suggest that they had rather modest incomes. Based on this, one would conclude that the population of the region was poor. However, when projecting these sums on the Voronoi diagram representing the territory of the parishes, the picture changes radically. Based on the tithe per area unit, parts of Baranya, Somogy, Tolna, and to some extent even Vas and Zala Counties produced high values compared to other parts of the kingdom (Map 8)^.5 This means that agriculture was intensive and lucrative in this part of the Carpathian Basin, and a large proportion of land, maybe around or slightly above 30 percent, was ploughed (the national average was below 20 percent). Incomes from agriculture were relatively high in part thanks to viticulture, which seems to have been continuous in the region since Roman times.⁶ The average size of the tenant hides in this region support this conclusion, as do data concerning very small plots in Baranya County.⁷Also, while in most parts of the kingdom an acre of c. 0.34 ha was used and approximately 120 acres were counted for a tenant hide, in this part of Hungary both the size of the acre and the number of acres per tenant hide were lower. It is even possible that in some parts of the region the Roman iugerum (0.25 ha) survived as a measurement unit, albeit the general the so-called “small acre” was used, a unit of measurement equal to c. 0.28 hectares.⁸

When speaking about the structure of the local settlement network, it is important to keep in mind the substantial differences between the different regions of the kingdom. For instance, southern Transdanubia, mentioned above, was (and is) a very rural region where there were very few towns in the Middle Ages.⁹ The Turopolje region and Lower Slavonia, south of the Sava, as well as the Székely Land in Transylvania appear even more rural, and they both had a very low tithe per area unit ratio. At first glance, one would interpret this feature as a sign of poverty, but certain types of animal husbandry, especially sheep farming, could also contribute to that picture. Nevertheless, it is also clear that neither the Turoploje nor the Székely Land were among the wealthiest regions of fourteenth-century Hungary. On the opposite end of the imaginary scale, we find the northern mining district. In this highly urbanized region, which had important towns which paid high sums to the papal tithe collectors, there were few villages. We can count on a similarly incomplete settlement network, but with much smaller (and in the fourteenth century less wealthy) towns in the Great Hungarian Plain and Máramaros County. In the first case, this relative lack of network development was caused by large-scale livestock farming, which was widespread in the region since the mid-thirteenth century. In the second case, it was a consequence of the salt mining industry, which was the basis of the local economy. On the Great Hungarian Plain, the low number of villages compared to the emerging market towns is a fairly well-known thing, and the high lucrativity of animal husbandry was no surprise either. But the outstanding position of Máramaros County as early as in the 1330s was surprising, because there is later written evidence indicating the importance of salt exploitation there. However, the position of Máramaros County was also a consequence of the fact that there were only a handful of well-off, comparatively urban settlements, and the surrounding mountainous area was almost completely uninhabited at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Thus, the incomplete settlement network, which in these cases was a consequence of the virtual absence of villages, appears at a higher level of development than expected.

The consequences of the above are somewhat paradoxical, but understandable. It is clear that urbanization significantly contributed to regional development level in the Middle Ages. But this does not necessarily explain changes in the individual income levels (the living standard) of the inhabitants of the given region. Regions with specific products such as minerals (ores or salt) or livestock usually require complex trade networks not only to sell their products but also to buy food, especially grain. Both the basis of their economy and the need to supply the population with food favored a comparatively high population density, which means the development of towns and cities. As such commodities can be produced in regions where agriculture is limited either by natural circumstances or by the type of economy itself (the need for large pastures), the village will more or less become the missing element in the settlement network. The higher level of urbanization, in turn, will lead to the emergence of more complex social and economic systems, even without the presence of institutions representing central or local power (although these institutions will of course appear in such central places). However, the essentially rural character of a region and the lack of anything resembling urban settlements, which in a modern context would be considered signs of underdevelopment and poverty, should not be perceived as such in medieval times. Also, one has to be aware of changes over time. For instance, agriculture and viticulture seem to have provided considerable incomes, while transhumant sheep-farming was not (yet) a lucrative sector in the fourteenth century, but this seems to have changed in the following century, even if sheep-farming did not become a leading economic sector (in contrast with cattle-farming). Therefore, one has to be very careful when interpreting the regional differences visible on the maps. To arrive at better models of settlement structures and developmental levels in the Middle Ages, different methods of modeling are required, as well as complex narratives that deal with spatial and sectoral changes.

Moreover, the analysis of several aspects of the medieval and early modern spatial organization in the Carpathian Basin yielded an important finding. As noted above, major political events that marked the region between the Migration Period and the end of the Ottoman occupation (e.g., the collapse of the Avar Khaganate c. 800, the Hungarian conquest c. 900, the foundation of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1000, the Mongol Invasion of 1241–1242, the Battle of Mohács in 1526, and the Peace of Karlovac in 1699) are not reflected in the changes of spatial patterns. This means that the changes happened independently from the political events and the changing political systems. Patterns of landscape use remained essentially unchanged between the eighth and twelfth centuries, with some elements that can be traced back to the late Roman period. The transformation that took place in the long thirteenth century began well before and independently from the Mongol Invasion, and the process did not end before the first third of the fourteenth century. The new spatial structure, which stabilized by the mid-fourteenth century, persisted throughout the early modern period, despite the Ottoman occupation, and it only began to fade as late as in the last decades of the eighteenth century. Driving factors in the thirteenth-century transformation were environmental changes (a changing water regime, aeolian sand movement), dynamically increasing population (intense immigration from West and East), and new commercial and technical possibilities (the development of the mining districts due to the increasing demand for precious metals, including gold, silver, and copper, as well as changing land use in the Great Hungarian Plain to meet the demand for cattle). The newly emerging and growing sectors (mining, livestock farming) also resulted in intense internal migration.

Thus, regional characteristics can be much more persistent than presumed, and the interpretation of the stability or instability of these patterns demands a more complex approach. Speaking about long-term characteristics, we have to acknowledge, for instance, that the Budapest–Vienna economic axis, sometimes referred to as a result of the policy of the Habsburgs, who sought access to resources in the Kingdom of Hungary, seems to be much older and was present (and left discernible traces) even in the Roman period (and thus could be referred to as the “Aquincum–Vindobona axis”), which means that it was (and still is) the main development agent of the Carpathian Basin¹⁰and proved so strong and enduring that it was only cut in the middle of the twentieth century, with the fall of the Iron Curtain. On the other hand, the active and inactive periods of specific regions need to be looked at more attentively, and we have to look for explanations that are more complex than the narratives that refer almost exclusively to political or military events. For instance, environmental changes, technical development, changing energy sources, and even changing external relations seem to have been decisive driving factors in certain transformations.

Bibliography

Buturac, Josip. “Popis župa Zagrebačke biskupije 1334. i 1501. godine” [Description of the County of Zagreb bishopric 1334 and 1501 years]. Starine [JAZU] 59 (1984): 43–108.

Demeter, Gábor, István Papp, Beatrix F. Romhányi, and János Pénzes. “A területi egyenlőtlenségek településszintű vizsgálata a történeti Magyarország és utódállamai területén, 1330–2010 (I)” [Long-term study of territorial inequalities at settlement level in the territory of the historical Hungary and its successor states, 1330–2010 (I)]. Területi Statisztika 63 (2023): 271–99. doi: 10.15196/TS630301

F. Romhányi, Beatrix. “A középkori magyar plébániák és a 14. századi pápai tizedjegyzék” [The medieval Hungarian parishes and the fourteenth-century papal tithe register]. Történelmi Szemle 61 (2021): 339–60.

F. Romhányi, Beatrix. “Plébániák és adóporták: A Magyar Királyság változásai a 13–14. század fordulóján” [Parishes and hides: the transformation of the Kingdom of Hungary around 1300]. Századok 156 (2022): 909–42.

F. Romhányi, Beatrix, Gábor Demeter, and Zsolt Szilágyi. “A Magyar Királyság regionális különbségei a pápai tizedjegyzék keletkezése idején” [Regional differences of the Kingdom of Hungary in the period of the papal tithe register]. In Magyar Gazdaságtörténeti Évkönyv 2022, edited by Gábor Demeter, Boglárka Weisz, and Ágnes Pogány, 17–52. Budapest: Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont, 2023.

Kubinyi, András. “Mezővárosok egy városmentes tájon: A középkori Délnyugat-Magyarország” [Market towns in region without towns: Medieval southwestern Hungary]. In A tapolcai Városi Múzeum közleményei 1, ed. Zoltán Törőcsik, 319–35. Tapolca: Városi Múzeum, 1989.

Müller, Róbert. A mezőgazdasági vaseszközök fejlődése Magyarországon a késővaskortól a törökkor végéig [The development of agricultural iron tools in Hungary from the Late Iron Age until the end of the Ottoman occupation]. Zalai gyűjtemény 19. Zalaegerszeg, 1982.

Rationes collectorum pontificorum. Pápai tizedszedők számadásai 1281–1375. Edited by Arnold Ipolyi. Monumenta Vaticana I/1. Budapest, 1887.

Tímár, Gábor, Gábor Molnár, Balázs Székely, and Katalin Pilhál. “Orientation of the Map of Lazarus (1528) of Hungary: Result of the Ptolemian Projection? In Cartography in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Georg Gartner, and Felix Ortag, 487–96. Berlin–Heidelberg: Springer, 2010. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-03294-3_31

Map 1. The settlement network of the Kingdom of Hungary c. 1220, based on archaeological and written evidence. Source: designed by the author.

Map 2. The parish network of the Kingdom of Hungary c. 1330, primarily based on the papal tithe list and related documents. Source: designed by the author.

Map 3. Heatmap of the data for c 1100, primarily based on archaeological data. Source: designed by the author.

Map 4. Heatmap of the parish network of the 1330s (Ø: 30 km), with the parishes indicated as dots. Source: designed by the author.

Map 5. Heatmap of the settlement network of the 1500s (Ø: 30 km), with the parishes indicated as dots. Source: designed by the author.

Map 6. Heatmap of the settlement network of 1910, with the settlements indicated as dots. Source: courtesy of Zsolt Szilágyi.

Map 7. Voronoi diagram of the fourteenth-century parish network of the Kingdom of Hungary. Source: designed by the author.

Map 8. Papal tithe per area unit, projected on the Voronoi diagram of the fourteenth-century parish network of the Kingdom of Hungary. Source: designed by the author.

Fig. 1. Development slopes of the Kingdom of Hungary c. 1220. a: West–East section, b: North–South section. Source: database of the author.

Fig. 2. Development slopes of the Kingdom of Hungary c. 1330. a: West–East section, b: North–South section. Source: database of the author.

Fig. 3. The Lazarus-map (1528). The shape and the extent of the empty space in the middle of the map corresponds approximately to the loose settlement network of the Great Hungarian Plain, shown by Map 4. On the orientation and projection of the Lazarus map, see Tímár et al., “Orientation.” Source of the image Wikimedia Commons.

1 Demeter et al., “A területi egyenlőtlenségek.”

2 The project K145924: Regional differences of the Kingdom of Hungary c. 1500 supported by NKFIH, also aims to complement the existing eighteenth-century data set with data on parishes and the data of modern northern and eastern Croatia (medieval Slavonia with Pozsega, Valkó, and Szerém Counties, as well as the parts of Baranya County south from the Drava River). The results of the project and the datasets produced in the course of the pilot projects will be published and modelled in the framework of the GISta Hungarorum database.

3 Rationes; Buturac, “Popis župa Zagrebačke biskupije.” On these and other, smaller sources and their evaluation, see F. Romhányi, “A középkori magyar plébániák.”

4 F. Romhányi et al., “Plébániák és adóporták,” 38.

5 It is worth noting that this part of Roman Pannonia remained under Roman rule after the partition of the province in the fifth century AD, when the northeastern part was ceded to the Huns.

6 Cf. the archaeological evidence, namely the tools connected to viticulture from Migration Period strata. Müller, A mezőgazdasági vaseszközök fejlődése.

7 F. Romhányi, “Plébániák és adóporták,” 936.

8 Ibid., 938.

9 Cf. Kubinyi, “Mezővárosok egy városmentes tájon.”

10 Demeter et al., “A területi egyenlőtlenségek.”

2024_2_Berend

Medieval Diversity: Contexts and Meanings

Nora Berend

University of Cambridge

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In these concluding remarks to the collection of articles, I tease out the meanings of the term “diversity,” considering the contexts in which it appeared and how the various meanings it acquired in shifting contexts are meaningful for historical analysis. If one considers the possible connotations of “diversity” when applied to the age of Sigismund, what comes to mind immediately is diversity associated with Sigismund himself. As king of Hungary and Croatia, prince-elector of Brandenburg, king of Bohemia, king of the Romans, and later emperor, he ruled over diverse lands. This was depicted, for example, in the famous posthumous portrait in Nuremberg by Abrecht Dürer with the display of coats of arms.1 Furthermore, his royal title, in line with those of his predecessors, added a large number of territories, some of which were only part of the realm in wishful thinking: “Sigismund, by the grace of God king of the Romans forever August, and of Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Rama, Serbia, Galicia, Lodomeria, Cumania, and Bulgaria; Margrave of Brandenburg and heir of Luxembourg.”2 Sigismund was reputedly fluent in many languages and at home in different cultures. The Hungarian chronicler Johannes Thuróczy claimed that Sigismund’s long beard was a tribute to the Hungarians, whose ancestors allegedly had had long beards.3 There are also many depictions and portrayals of Sigismund. They served as reminders of his sway in diverse locations through visual means.

Sigismund’s political role was similarly diverse. He organized the crusade to Nicopolis, gathering Hungarian, French, Burgundian, German, and Italian troops and thus uniting a very diverse set of armies, only to suffer a major defeat in 1396. Other crusades did not fare much better.4 While Sigismund was a failure on the battlefield, he is seen as a major innovator in diplomacy who traveled all over Europe and spent substantial amounts of time in various cities, from Paris to Rome and Buda to Perpignan. He tried to mediate between England and France in the Hundred Years’ War. He was instrumental in ending the papal schism at the Council of Constance, yet he also failed to protect John Hus at the same council and ignited the Hussite wars.5

Contemporary authors were critical of the discrepancy between the king’s persuasive speeches and the various promises he made on the one hand and his actual deeds on the other:

This king was a lord of good words, he could say what everyone wanted to hear; he bade, gave, counselled, and promised much to which he did not hold, and he was not ashamed of this… His words were sweet, lenient, and good, and his works were brief, meager, and small.6

Although this is from a hostile source (the Klingenberger Chronik, by a partisan of Duke Frederick IV of Austria-Tyrol whom Sigismund placed under imperial ban and dispossessed in 1415), it is not the only such writing by an author who was not impressed by Sigismund’s acts compared to his promises. The clash between Sigismund’s lofty rhetoric for Christendom and his personal debauchery and the clear mix of opposing personality traits that this implied led one author to make the following claim:

The contradictory qualities, lofty thinking and frivolous action, religiosity and cynicism, chivalric virtue and breaking his word, spiritual depth and cruelty, piety and lasciviousness merged in him in an almost fantastic way. […] He was a dreamer and a calculator, a knight and a real-politician, uniting the ideas of Alexander the Great novels and Machiavelli.7

Portrayals of Sigismund in national historiographies were similarly varied.8 Traditional evaluations of Sigismund tended to be negative, although for different reasons. In the Hungarian historiography, he was not taken seriously because he came to rule by right of his wife. He was seen as a weak king who had to give in to nobles and was responsible for the failed crusade of Nicopolis. According to a persistent popular legend, however, John Hunyadi, who was venerated as a national hero, was his illegitimate son. This may have been at least partly based on the well-attested fondness Sigismund had for women. As Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376/7–1445) quipped, “if the Schism had involved women, we would have achieved unity sooner.”9

From the point of view of many German historians, Sigismund had utopian plans and no real successes, apart from collecting crowns. For Czech historians, he was an enemy of the Hussites, who represented the Czech national cause, and he was responsible for the Hussite wars. An author in 1937 explained the contradictions in Sigismund’s personality by the spine-chilling logic of the times as carried in his blood. According to this claim, due to his ancestry, which brought together west and east, Sigismund embodied the collision of “sophisticated Western education and irrepressible Slavic primeval power and wildness.”10

Eventually, reevaluations of Sigismund began to present him as having done the best under difficult circumstances with very limited resources. He was lauded for a cultural revival in Hungary as well as for the success of a marital alliance as a counterweight to hostile barons. His own bravery as well as his propensity to reward loyal service and find excellent military commanders and advisors were highlighted. His reform projects for Church and Empire were seen positively. Indeed, he was often hailed as a master of performative communication. Thus we can, as is so often the case, reflect on the diversity of historians’ points of view and, in particular, on the significant shifts of perception over time.

More recently, it has been suggested that to compensate for the difficulties he faced, despite his financial problems, Sigismund cultivated the ritual, emotional, and material aspects of rulership, such as symbolic displays and splendid clothing.11 This line of research directed attention towards diversity in the use of spectacle in particular, or in other words, towards how public ceremonies performatively constructed rulership. Sigismund used imperial cities such as Constance for large assemblies, where burghers, merchants, ambassadors, and ecclesiastics would witness such ceremonies. One example is the Congress of Buda in 1412. The meeting’s principal aim was to broker a peace deal between Poland and the Teutonic Order. Those present included Sigismund himself, King Władysław II of Poland, and the king of Bosnia. It was attended by people from seventeen different countries, reportedly thirteen dukes, twenty one counts, 1,500 knights, 4,000 servants, one cardinal, one legate, three archbishops, eleven other bishops, 86 players and trumpeters, seventeen messengers, and 40,000 horses.12 According to Jan Długosz, even the envoys of Zeledin (Jalal al-Din), khan of the Golden Horde, traveled to Buda. The khan was an ally of Władysław II of Poland, and according to the chronicler, Sigismund used the “Tatar” presence “to threaten the Venetians.”13

Art was a vital tool in the performance of power, but if one considers the art of the period from the perspective of diversity, there are interesting paradoxes. One example is the depiction of the Pope and Emperor Rotulus in Berlin’s Staatsbibliothek from 1431, which offers an example of diversity in repetition. The pope and emperor figures are similar, but there are subtle differences in the forms of their crowns and in some details.14 A reliquary cross from Nagydisznód/ Cisnădie /Heltau, c. 1440, is celebrated in the catalogue of an exhibition on Sigismund for its complexity: “[t]he diversity of precious materials and complex iconography makes this cross one of the most outstanding Central European goldsmith works of the period.”15 While for the modern observer, the reliquary is valuable and alluring because it is made of a variety of precious metals, it reveals a more intriguing diversity. The cross was probably originally made as a reliquary for a Holy Blood relic, as suggested by the use of a ruby for the wound on Christ’s side. The cross was tied to the most universal Christian holy figure, yet it was at the same time very local, as it included the patron saints of the parish church, St. Walburga and St. Servatius.

Another example is the so-called Jankovich saddle, a bone saddle from c. 1420–40.16 This saddle was made with plates of ivory fastened over a wooden frame and hide, with imagery including St. George, a wild man (thought to represent the inner beast), and representations of courtly love with a minstrel. The meaning of the imagery refers to chivalry, protection from enemies, and the defense of Christian borders, and it has links to the Order of the Dragon. At the same time, this type of saddle was likely inspired by saddles that figured in works of literature, since ivory saddles appeared in romance literature from the twelfth century on, referred to by writers such as Chrétien de Troyes and Chaucer. The fifteenth-century saddle was probably used for ceremonial events, as were the many other such saddles known from the period. Thus a type emerged, making earlier literary representation a reality linked to prestige and a way to differentiate the elites.

Diversity was linked to differentiation in society in other ways as well, notably through the Order (“society”) of the Dragon, which was founded in 1408 by Sigismund.17 While it started out as a monarchical chivalric order of nobles in the entourage of the king, with Sigismund’s election as king of the Romans in 1410, it was very quickly transformed into an international order, with membership used as a reward and in diplomacy. There was a fundamental difference embedded in the order itself: only 24 members, barons of the realm, could wear both the dragon and the cross, while members of a second rank were not limited in number, but could only wear the dragon.

The fact of being admitted as a member, especially of the first rank, was an honor, but it also bound the person to Sigismund, as members had to swear loyalty to the king and promise to help him against the “pagans” (meaning the Ottomans). The Order was used by Sigismund to build alliances inside Hungary and to promote relations with the rulers of Serbia, Bosnia, and Wallachia. He also used it in international diplomacy to promote the anti-Ottoman crusade. In 1433, for his imperial coronation, Sigismund convinced Pope Eugene IV to grant the full remission of sins in a crusading indulgence to the members of the Order of the Dragon:

Item, because, by the power of its statutes and fulfilment of its oath, whoever is touched by the device or the society of the Dragon is obliged personally to set forth against the Turks, schismatics and heretics, and also infidels and to expose his own person and to attend to the extermination and confusion of the same [groups of people], the lord emperor himself therefore supplicates that our lord should mercifully consider conceding in perpetuity that the aforementioned lord emperor and his successors, the kings of Hungary and those of the aforesaid society and also all and everyone of the kingdom of Hungary and those of other foreign nations who personally set out for the defense of the Kingdom of Hungary and in support of the lord emperor and the successors of the kings and of the aforesaid society against those labeled infidels, schismatics, and heretics should have full remission of sins and penalties, in the same way that crusaders (crucesignati), confessed and penitent, in the passage for the acquisition of the Holy Land [have]. Permitted for all in the most blessed form.18

The Order of the Dragon was thus associated with war against the Ottomans, raising an interesting point about the sign of the dragon itself. The following explanation was given for this choice:

we and the faithful barons and magnates of our kingdom shall bear and have, and do choose and agree to wear and bear, in the manner of society, the sign or effigy of the Dragon incurved into the form of a circle, its tail winding around its neck, divided through the middle of its back along its length from the top of its head right to the tip of its tail, with blood [forming] a red cross flowing out into the interior of the cleft by a white crack, untouched by blood, just as and in the same way that those who fight under the banner of the glorious martyr St. George are accustomed to bear a red cross on a white field.19

The dragon was often used as a sign of evil, and so the defeated dragon was chosen as the sign of the Order: the members promised to crush the ancient enemy under the triumphant cross of Christ. The sign of the dragon itself had diverse meanings, since it usually implied negative connotations (as in depictions of the dragon defeated by St. George), yet at the same time, in its use as the sign of the Order, it allowed members to recognize one another and so became a sign of status and prestige.

Diversity also existed in politics, notably in the many ways of dealing with the Ottoman threat. At the time of Sigismund’s accession to the Hungarian throne, various countries between Hungary and the Ottomans were engaged in defensive warfare against the latter. With the collapse of Serbia, the Ottomans became a more direct danger for the kingdom of Hungary. After the failure of the Nicopolis crusade, it was only Ottoman interest in Asia Minor that brought relief. Sigismund therefore employed a variety of means to counter the Ottoman threat. Diplomatic efforts to gain the loyalty of Serbian and Bosnian rulers failed in the end, as the Serbs and Bosnians became tribute-payers of the Ottomans. Sigismund was also interested in finding allies against the Ottomans in Asia. He tried to secure finances and build up defensive systems on the borders. He also ordered nobles to arm peasant archers, and he specified the obligations of the nobility during a general levy to fight.

Sigismund also used courtly ceremony to call attention to the Ottoman threat. He made speeches at balls, promising war against “the Turks.”20 During a visit to Perpignan in 1415 to discuss Church union with the Byzantines, Sigismund was accompanied by a supposedly Ottoman prisoner who had been captured by him in battle. The Buda congress already mentioned was also intended to promote a crusade against the Ottomans, and Sigismund also made use of German to promote crusades. Yet there are accounts of Sigismund getting completely drunk and even being reprimanded by clerics at the Council of Basel for jousting instead of fighting against the infidel.

Sigismund’s efforts to raise awareness of the need for a crusade also had some odd consequences. For example, a report to the Teutonic Order warned that Sigismund claimed he intended to set off for the Holy Sepulcher in the company of a pagan princess, but in reality he was perhaps pondering an attack on the Order.21 So we should also consider the possible difference between the intention of a message and the recipient’s interpretation. There is yet another aspect of diversity in Sigismund’s relations with the Ottomans: trying to find common ground, for example when Sigismund negotiated with an Ottoman envoy. Western and Ottoman customs diverged, and the envoy behaved according to Ottoman norms. Sigismund, however, tried to honor him through behavior that corresponded to Western ideas. Sigismund sat on a throne surrounded by his court, and the Ottoman envoy knelt three times while approaching him. The king, however, bowed towards him each time and then had a chair set up facing him for the envoy to sit on.22

Hungary, one of the realms ruled by Sigismund, is often cited as an example of diversity, with the famous Admonitions attributed to King Stephen I (although written by a cleric) extolling immigrants:

For as guests arrive from different parts and provinces, so they bring with them different tongues and customs, different examples and weapons, and all this adorns the royal court while deterring foreigners from overweening contempt. For a country of one single language and one set of customs is weak and vulnerable. Therefore, I enjoin on you, my son, to nurture them [newcomers] benevolently and to hold them in high esteem so that they should stay with you rather than dwell elsewhere.23

There was thus a long tradition of diversity in Hungary. If we compare Sigismund’s reign to those of previous rulers, however, in some ways there was in fact less diversity. The earlier populations of Cumans and Muslims had disappeared by then, for example. Yet in other ways, there was more diversity, for instance through links to the Empire, linguistic variety (which included a growing use of the vernacular), and the appearance of new genres.

However, Sigismund was not only associated with diversity. An anonymous treatise in the name of Sigismund, the Reformatio Sigismundi, c. 1439, which was a manifesto for reform (which suggests that it was a vision of Sigismund), called for an end to regional autonomy and disorder and the creation of a centralized government under the Roman emperor.24 Tendencies towards more uniformity also appeared in the arts. While many artists were invited to Sigismund’s court at Buda from other parts of Europe, this was in order to produce what has been called international Gothic, a style that was more uniform across Europe than before and linked to royal courts. It replaced earlier, more isolated and diverse styles.25 It has also been suggested that the stone funerary monuments of Hungarian aristocrats became increasingly uniform more or less during Sigismund’s reign, as a Buda workshop produced and then influenced the manner in which these gravestones were made.26

Some trends therefore moved away from diversity towards more centralization and more uniformity. Yet the diversity of the world at the same time came to be the focus of more conscious attention. At the end of the fourteenth century and during the first decades of the fifteenth, Jewish responsa (she’elot u teshuvot) discussed the variations in Hungary and Austria of blowing the shofar and saying various prayers. Sources also indicate a difference of opinion between two rabbis concerning the use of a tablecloth for Passover. The tablecloth had been laid over a sack, and the issue was that yeast may have rubbed off on it. According to one view, this meant that the sack merely had to be shaken out, but according to another, it had to be washed before it could be used for Passover.27

The much-traveled Oswald von Wolkenstein even celebrated the diversity of the world. Originating from South Tyrol, he served various lords, including Sigismund, in whose service he went on diplomatic missions. He also authored numerous poems. In one, he celebrated the diversity of life itself:

Now, since all creatures that God has brought forth,

whether in water, in the air, or on earth

express their thankfulness to the Lord in His Majesty,

simply for the grace that He granted them form,

alas, stupid man, why then is your heart so wild [blind],

since you well know that God has created you in His image

and has granted you His grace so generously

in so much infinite variety?

He gave you a body and life, soul and reason;

earth, fire, water and the wonderful air are your servants,

and so all animals, wild and tame, the smell of fruit in the deep ground

are at your disposal in wondrous manner.28

Oswald was a member of several chivalric orders. He was a Knight of the Holy Sepulcher and a member of the Order of the Elephant, the Order of the Falcon, and the Order of the Dragon.29 He was proud of his travels to “France, León-Galicia, Aragon, Castile, England, Denmark, Sweden, Bohemia, Hungary, Apulia, Navarra, Cyprus, Sicilia, Portugal, Granada and Egypt,” and also to “Morocco, Arabia, from Armenia to Persia, through the Tartar lands to Syria, via Byzantium to Turkey, Georgia … Russia, Prussia, Estonia, Lithuania, Livonia.”30 In one of his poems, he noted, I have dwelled … with Christians, Greek-Orthodox, and heathens.31 In another, he boasted of his linguistic skills and his gifts as a musician:

French, Arabic, Catalan, Castilian,

German, Latin, Slovenian, Italian, Russian and Greek:

these ten languages I used whenever necessary.

Moreover, I knew how to play the fiddle, the trumpet, drums, and the flute.32

He also reflected on the diversity of customs in the lands he visited. He recounted how the queen of Aragon fixed earrings in his ears and in his beard, a custom at the court there, but something which simply provoked laughter at home.33

A contemporary travel account by Johann Schiltberger (1380–c. 1440) provides even more detail, as it is a lengthy narrative rather than short poetry. Johann, who was born not far from Munich, wrote, “I left my home near the city of Munich at the time that King Sigismund of Hungary left for the land of the Infidels.”34 Taken prisoner by the Ottomans, he later recorded his experiences, also adding material from hearsay. He paid particular attention to customs that diverged from European ones, be that the local alternation of winter and summer pastures for animals or the growing of pepper in India.35

Schiltberger also compared Christian and Muslim customs, highlighting various differences. He compared Muslim ritual ablution to Christian confession, saying that Muslims believe they were pure after washing themselves, just as Christians were purified by confession made with full penitence. He likened Muslim Friday to Christian Sunday as the holy day. He pointed out that Muslims did not bury their dead in or around temples but out in the fields. He also wrote about the kerchiefs worn on the head by men, Christians wearing blue and Jews yellow.36 He demonstrated that many of these differences in the end signified the same referent: purification, a day set aside for prayer, the distinction between adherents of other faiths. Thus underneath diversity, he found commonalities.

Yet digging even deeper, ultimately a grave difference is manifest in Johann Schiltberger’s thinking between what he saw as the true faith and what he categorized as false belief. He recounts a particular legend concerning a sign that would mark a child who would someday bring great grief to the Christian world. According to the legend, a Christian priest in Egypt knew of a prophecy about a child named Mohammed. According to this prophecy, this child would introduce a doctrine against Christianity which would cause much suffering to Christians. He and his successors would acquire great power, which, however, would decrease after one thousand years had passed. There would be a sign which would identify the child: a black cloud which would always hover over him. The priest identified, Mohammed, who traveled with merchants, from this sign.37 As distinguishing signs go, this one stands out: a divinely ordained cloud following one person. Ultimately, Johann claimed that Muslims themselves knew that the Christians would someday regain their lands, and the Muslims would be expelled. The Muslims had only managed to conquer these lands in the first place because Christians had abandoned justice, had been haughty, and had turned away from God.38

Faced with so many types of diversity, how are we to make sense of “diversity” itself in the age of Sigismund? The first important point is that some forms of diversity may hide a common purpose or meaning, such as in the case of some religious rites in Christianity and Islam. Yet it is also possible that a single sign comes to acquire a diverse array of meanings, denoting different things depending on the context. This is the case, for example, with beards. Johann Schiltberger stated that Mohammed forbade Muslims from shaving their beards:

he who would have a face different to that he received from God does it against God’s command. They also say that whoever cuts his beard does it from vanity and pride and to please the world and scorns the creation of God; it is particularly the Christians who do this to please their women… for the sake of vanity, they disfigure the image in which God created them.39

In this text, beards are signs of adherence to Islam. Yet Sigismund’s luxuriant beard was his trademark. It is depicted in multiple portraits, some of them even hidden as representations of Biblical figures, though Sigismund himself saw Muslim Ottomans as the enemy. As mentioned above, supposedly Sigismund’s beard was a way of honoring his ties to Hungary.

Another issue concerns how and why diversity emerged. Interconnections through travel, dynastic ties, and the interests of the ruler and the elites often fostered forms of diversity. Yet diversity also manifested in moments of crisis, for instance the multiple interests that pulled in different directions in the empire or during the Schism. Should we use the same label, “diversity,” for all these phenomena? Or should we distinguish between occurrences that were given a positive connotation and instances that were given a negative meaning? And how did context determine the real meanings behind forms of diversity? We need to remind ourselves of historical change as well: diversity in Sigismund’s age was not the same as it is now. There was no diversity for the sake of inclusion, and there was no explicitly tolerant worldview. Quite the contrary, there were strict limits on what was considered acceptable, resulting in discrimination and persecution, for example of people who belonged to other religions or who espoused beliefs categorized as heresy. So we need to be careful, since diversity has taken on very different meanings in our age.

There were powerful limits to any positive assessments of diversity in Sigismund’s times. This was due in part to a worldview strongly imbued by Biblical ideas: Oswald von Wolkenstein’s poem celebrated life’s diversity but saw it all as existing for the sake of Man. The limits of diversity were also due in part to the hold Catholicism had at the time. Even in the age of papal schism, divergence from Catholic tenets was not tolerated, as the Hussite wars demonstrated. We should keep in mind that the Latin word “diversitas” also meant contrariety, contradiction, and disagreement. Diversity was often seen as negative, something to be condemned or even persecuted, whether embodied in prostitutes, Jews, or heretics. At other times, too much diversity caused unease. There are seeming celebrations of diversity, such as the Admonitions attributed to Stephen I, but underneath, we see the pragmatic motives for encouraging settlers. Ultimately, medieval diversity was seen as positive when it was utilitarian: nature served man, knowledge of many languages was a useful tool, and immigrants served the interests of the ruler.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Altmann, Wilhelm, ed. Eberhart Windeckes Denkwürdigkeiten zur Geschichte des Zeitalters Kaiser Sigmunds. Berlin: R. Gaertners Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1893.

Balogh, Iosephus, ed. “Libellus de institutione morum.” In Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum, vol 2, edited by Emericus Szentpétery, 611–27. Budapest, 1938. Reprint, Budapest: Nap Kiadó, 1999.

Classen, Albert, trans. The poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein: An English translation of the complete works (1376/77–1445). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Fejér, György. Codex Diplomaticus Hungariae ecclesiasticus ac civilis. Tomi X. Vol. 6. Buda: Regiae Universitatis Ungaricae, 1844.

Fudge, Thomas A. The crusade against heretics in Bohemia, 1418–1437: sources and documents for the Hussite crusades. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002.

Johannes de Thurocz. Chronica Hungarorum. Vol. 1. Edited by Elisabeth Galántai, and Julius Kristó. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1985.

Klein, Karl Kurt, and Burghart Wachinger, eds. Die Lieder Oswald von Wolkensteins. 4th ed. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015.

Koller, Heinrich, ed. Reformation Kaiser Siegmunds. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Staatsschriften des Späteren Mittelalters 6. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1964.

Komoróczy, Géza, and Shlomo J. Spitzer. Héber kútforrások Magyarország és a magyarországi zsidóság történetéhez a kezdetektől 1686-ig [Hebrew sources on the history of Hungary and Hungarian Jewry from the beginnings to 1686]. Budapest: MTA Judaisztikai Kutatócsoport – Osiris Kiadó, 2003.

Michael, Maurice. The Annals of Jan Długosz. Annales seu cronicae incliti regni Poloniae. An English Abridgement. Chichester: IM Publications, 1997.

Sargans, Anton Henne von, ed. Die Klingenberger Chronik. Gotha, 1861.

Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Hdschr. 143. Last accessed on April 27, 2024. https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN747128251&PHYSID=PHYS_0001

Telfer, J. Buchan, ed. The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger, a native of Bavaria, 1396–1427. London: The Hakluyt Society, 1879. Reprint, Farnham–Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2010.

Secondary Literature

Boulton, D’Arcy Jonathan Dacre. The Knights of the Crown: The Monarchical Orders of Knighthood in Later Medieval Europe, 1325–1520. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1987.

Fraknói, Vilmos. “Genealogiai és heraldikai közlemények a vatikáni levéltárból” [Genealogical and heraldic publications from the Vatican Archives]. Turul 11 (1893): 1–8.

Hardy, Duncan. “The Emperorship of Sigismund of Luxemburg (1410–37): Charisma and Government in the Later Medieval Holy Roman Empire.” In Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West, edited by Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, and Martha Dana Rust, 288–321. Leiden: Brill, 2018. doi: 10.1163/9789004363809_011

Hoensch, Jörg K. “Az 1945 utáni Zsigmond-kutatás súlypontjai” [The focus of post-1945 research on Sigismund]. Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 111, no. 3 (1998): 133–48.

Horváth, Henrik. Zsigmond király és kora [King Sigismund and his time]. Budapest: Budapest Székesfőváros, 1937.

Housley, Norman. The Later Crusades, 1274–1580: From Lyons to Alcazar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Jékely, Zsombor. “A Zsigmond-kori magyar arisztokrácia művészeti reprezentációja” [Artistic depictions of the aristocracy of the Sigismund era]. In Sigismundus Rex et Imperator. Művészet és kultúra Luxemburgi Zsigmond korában, 1387–1437. Kiállítási Katalógus [Sigismundus Rex et Imperator: Art and culture in the age of Sigismund of Luxembourg, 1387–1437. Exhibition catalogue], edited by Imre Takács, 298–310. Mainz: von Zabern, 2006.

Takács, Imre, ed. Sigismund of Luxemburg, Art and Culture 1387–1437. Budapest: Szépművészeti Múzeum, 2006.

Takács, Imre, ed. Sigismundus Rex et Imperator: Művészet és kultúra Luxemburgi Zsigmond korában, 1387–1437. Kiállítási Katalógus [Sigismundus Rex et Imperator: Art and culture in the age of Sigismund of Luxembourg, 1387–1437. Exhibition catalogue]. Mainz: von Zabern, 2006.

Verő, Mária. “Megjegyzések a Zsigmond-kori csontnyergekhez” [Remarks on the Sigismund-period bone saddles]. In Sigismundus Rex et Imperator. Művészet és kultúra Luxemburgi Zsigmond korában, 1387–1437. Kiállítási Katalógus [Sigismundus Rex et Imperator: Art and culture in the age of Sigismund of Luxembourg, 1387–1437. Exhibition catalogue]., edited by Imre Takács, 270–78. Mainz: von Zabern, 2006.

Whelan, Mark. “Sigismund of Luxemburg and the Imperial Response to the Ottoman Turkish Threat, c. 1410–1437.” PhD diss., University of London, 2014.

1 https://www.albrecht-durer.org/Emperor-Charlemagne-And-Emperor-Sigismund.html.
2 “Sigismundus, Dei gratia Romanorum Rex semper Augustus, ac Hungariae, Bohemiae, Dalmatiae, Croatiae, Ramae, Serviae, Galliciae, Lodomeriae, Cumaniae, Bulgariaeque Rex, Marchio Brandenburgensis, nec non Lucemburgensis haeres.” His titles changed over time. This example is from 1425, Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, t. X, vol. 6, 695, no. CCCXI.
3 Johannes de Thurocz, Chronica Hungarorum, Book 5, Chap. 24.
4 Housley, The Later Crusades, 1274–1580, 76–79.
5 Fudge, The Crusade Against Heretics in Bohemia, 1418–1437.
6 Sargans, Die Klingenberger Chronik, 209.
7 Horváth, Zsigmond király és kora, 10.
8 For a discussion of the earlier secondary literature, Hoensch, “Az 1945 utáni Zsigmond-kutatás súlypontjai.”
9 “Wer zwaiung an den frowen gelaint,/ wir hetten uns leicht ee ueraint.” Klein and Wachinger, Die Lieder Oswald von Wolkensteins, 54; “If the disagreement [Schism] had played a role with the ladies, / we would have certainly reached a compromise much earlier.” Classen, The Poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein, 75.
10 Horváth, Zsigmond király és kora, 12.
11 Hardy, “The Emperorship of Sigismund of Luxemburg.”
12 Whelan, “Sigismund of Luxemburg and the Imperial Response to the Ottoman Turkish Threat,” 68.
13 Michael, The Annals of Jan Długosz, 411.
14 Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Hdschr. 143, https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN747128251&PHYSID=PHYS_0001
15 Takács, Sigismund of Luxemburg, Art and Culture 1387–1437, 86.
16 Takács, 356, 4.65, see also 356–364 and Verő, “Megjegyzések a Zsigmond-kori csontnyergekhez.”
17 Boulton, The Knights of the Crown, 349; Takács, Sigismundus Rex et imperator, 337–56.
18 Fraknói, “Genealogiai és heraldikai közlemények a vatikáni levéltárból,” 7–8.
19 Boulton, The Knights of the Crown, 350.
20 Whelan, “Sigismund of Luxemburg and the Imperial Response to the Ottoman Turkish Threat.”
21 Ibid., 70.
22 Altmann, Eberhart Windeckes Denkwürdigkeiten, 175.
23 “Sicut enim ex diversis partibus et provinciis veniunt hospites, ita diversas linguas et consuetudines, diversaque documenta et arma secum ducunt, que omnia regna [variant: regiam] ornant et magnificant aulam et perterritant exterorum arrogantiam. Nam unius lingue uniusque moris regnum inbecille et fragile est. Proptereo iubeo te fili mi, ut bona voluntate illos nutrias, et honeste teneas, ut tecum libentius degant, quam alicubi habitent.” Balogh, “Libellus de institutione morum,” 625.
24 Koller, Reformation Kaiser Siegmunds.
25 Takács, Sigismund of Luxemburg Art and Culture, 80.
26 Jékely, “A Zsigmond-kori magyar arisztokrácia művészeti reprezentációja,” 306.
27 Komoróczy and Spitzer, Héber kútforrások, 188–91, 195–99, 183–84 respectively.
28 Classen, The Poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein, 56.
29 Ibid., 12–13.
30 Ibid., 64, 126.
31 Ibid., 71.
32 Ibid., 71.
33 Ibid., 72, also 77–78.
34 Telfer, The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger, 1.
35 Ibid., 14, 61–62.
36 Ibid., 68–69, 74.
37 Ibid., 65–66.
38 Ibid., 77.
39 Ibid., 71–72.

2024_1_Mihaljevic

Jakša Kušan’s Forgotten Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Croatia*

Josip Mihaljević

Croatian Institute of History

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 1 (2024):107-132 DOI 10.38145/2024.1.107

Croatian journalist and writer Jakša Kušan (1931–2019) was one of the most prominent Croatian émigré dissidents. By editing and publishing the non-partisan magazine Nova Hrvatska (New Croatia), he tried to inform the global public about the suppression of human rights and civil liberties in socialist Yugoslavia, even under constant threat of being attacked by the Yugoslav secret police. After the fall of communism, he returned to Croatia and continued his work in the media and the civil sector for a brief time. In this article, I offer an overview of the most relevant of Kušan’s oppositional activities during the period of communist rule in Croatia and Yugoslavia and consider the roles and impact of his activities. I also venture some explanation as to why his life and work have mostly been forgotten in today’s Croatia. One possible answer to this question could be his complex relationships with the Croatian dissidents who won the first multiparty elections in Croatia in 1990. My discussion is based on the findings of the COURAGE project (Cultural Opposition – Understanding the Cultural Heritage of Dissent in the Former Socialist Countries), oral history sources, and archival documents of the Yugoslav secret police.

Keywords: Jakša Kušan, Croatian émigré, dissent, socialist Yugoslavia, Croatia, democracy, COURAGE project, Yugoslav secret service

Introduction

The life of Jakša Kušan is a relevant topic in the history of dissent and non-conformism in the former socialist countries of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. Kušan, who spent much of his life in exile, was one of the most prominent journalists and publishers of the Croatian diaspora. From 1955 to 1990, he propagated a vision of a democratic and pluralistic Croatia. By publishing the non-partisan newspaper Nova Hrvatska (New Croatia), he sought to inform not only the Croatian emigrants but also the Yugoslav and Western public about the suppression of human rights and civil liberties in socialist Yugoslavia and to emphasize the precarious position of the Croatian nation in the federal Yugoslav state. The communist authorities in Yugoslavia attempted to hinder his activity in exile by creating an extensive network of agents and informants around Kušan. Despite the efforts of the Yugoslav State Security Service (UDBA/SDS),1 however, Kušan managed to publish the journal for more than three decades. The journal earned the epithet of the most respected political magazine among Croatian émigrés. Although Kušan was emotionally attached to the idea of creating an independent and sovereign Croatia, he believed that in the political struggle, one should avoid indulging in the emotions that led many Croatian émigrés to political radicalism. He believed that Croatian émigrés would not gain the support of the Western world if they showed any willingness to use terrorist methods.

Croatian political emigration would significantly contribute to Croatia’s independence from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. In the 1970s and 1980s, Kušan strongly supported many of the Croatian dissidents and oppositional figures who eventually won the first multi-party elections in Croatia in 1990. However, Kušan’s connections with the people who formed the new government were severed very quickly, and he found himself on the margins of political life. Although he performed some public duties in the 1990s, mostly in the civil and NGO sector, Kušan did not participate actively in political life, and he wrote less and less and stopped publishing. Gojko Borić claims that Kušan was marginalized from the moment of the establishment of the Republic of Croatia as an independent state and that today he has been almost completely forgotten and his legacy has become a matter of debate.2

This paper has two main goals. The first is to emphasize the most relevant of Kušan’s oppositional activities during the period of communist rule in Yugoslavia and consider the roles and impact of his activities. The second is to venture some explanation as to why his life and work have mostly been forgotten in today’s Croatia. The discussion is based primarily on the findings of the COURAGE project (Cultural Opposition – Understanding the Cultural Heritage of Dissent in the Former Socialist Countries),3 oral history sources (interviews), and archival documents. The COURAGE project researched Kušan as a significant oppositional figure to socialist Yugoslavia, describing his private collection of books, photographs, and letters related to the activities of Croatian émigrés.4 As part of this project, two long interviews were conducted with Kušan in 2016 and 2018.5 For this article, a dossier (intelligence file) on Kušan created by the notorious UDBA (the secret service of socialist Yugoslavia) was also analyzed. Files of the Croatian branch of the UDBA, including the file on Kušan, are held today at the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb and recently became available to researchers.6 In this research, I have used various books from the fields of history, political science, and diaspora studies, as well as various articles from scientific and other journals and online sources.

Kušan’s Life before Exile

Kušan was born in Zagreb on April 23, 1931 to a middle-class family. During World War II, when he was still a boy, his family did not sympathize with the Ustasha regime in the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, or NDH), which was a fascist puppet state supported by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Kušan’s family was Western-oriented, appreciating parliamentary democracy and liberalism. They listened to Western radio stations, such as the BBC.7 Nevertheless, hopes for the establishment of democracy were dashed after the end of the war. After the overthrow of the fascist regime of the NDH, another form of totalitarianism, the communist one, rose to power in the new Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (Federativna Narodna Republika Jugoslavija, or FNRJ).8

Kušan finished high school in 1950 in his hometown. As a high school student, he corresponded with members of the International Friendship League.9 He also came into conflict with philosophy professors over the issue of ideology, and similar conflicts arose when he pursued the study of law at the University of Zagreb. Unlike most of his colleagues, who wrote essays and seminar papers based on texts by Karl Marx, Kušan took an interest in subjects associated with the works of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Kautsky, authors who were not widely promoted at the time. Due to his nonconformist views, he soon came into conflict with the communist party nomenclature at the university.10

During his student days in Zagreb, he was part of a circle of young intellectuals who were dissatisfied with the political situation in Yugoslavia, especially with the oppressive methods used by the regime and the lack of cultural ties to the Western world. In 1953, they began to hold regular gatherings, and they started entertaining the idea of establishing a political organization, which was prohibited by law. In 1954, they organized an illegal organization called the Croatian Resistance Movement (Hrvatski pokret otpora, or HPO).11 They illegally procured newspapers published by Croatian emigrants, but they were disappointed by these publications, which did not meet their expectations or standards. In their assessment, the Croatian émigrés were uninformed and did not have close enough ties with their homeland. Kušan felt that the émigrés were more concerned with relations among the Croatian émigré communities (and the differences that divided these communities) than they were with the fate of the people in Croatia. The first proclamation made by the HPO, which was written in 1954 and bore the title “Message of the Croatian youth from the homeland to Croats in exile,” was an appeal to Croatian emigrants to set aside their petty disputes and problems and work together for the sake of Croatia.12 Kušan was the main founder of HPO and also the person who authored all the organization’s documents.13 The group was also dissatisfied with the attitudes of the Western states, many of which supported Josip Broz Tito and his communist regime in Yugoslavia because of his dispute with the Soviets. They therefore decided that someone from the group should go to the West and engage in journalistic work there. Kušan volunteered to be that person, in part because he was already under police surveillance.14 Kušan had caught the attention of the authorities because he had defended a friend, a student at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, at the Disciplinary Court of the University of Zagreb. His friend had been accused of having publicly expressed political beliefs that were not in line with party propaganda.15 The case turned into a strong demonstration against the communists, who led the student organization at the faculty.16 Partly in response, at the beginning of 1954, students who were members of the party organizations began to take revenge on Kušan and forbade him to attend lectures and exams. They soon initiated disciplinary proceedings against him at the Faculty of Law. As a consequence of these proceedings, Kušan was given a comparatively lenient punishment for having “exceeded his right to defense,” but this meant that he was subjected to police interrogations and also received death threats. Kušan decided to move to Belgrade to continue his law studies. According to him, the atmosphere in Belgrade was completely different, and he was not under the same strict control that he had been put under in Zagreb.17

Fleeing Yugoslavia and Founding the Magazine Nova Hrvatska

In Belgrade, while pursuing his studies, Kušan worked as a tourist guide for English-speaking groups of tourists. At the end of April 1955, he received a Yugoslav passport, and he left Yugoslavia in May. He crossed the border with Austria and traveled to Italy, where he stayed for a short time before moving to The Hague via Rome, where in 1955 he received a scholarship at the Academy of International Law. One of the judges of the Hague Tribunal, Dr Milovan Zoričić, helped him obtain the scholarship. In early 1956, he settled in Great Britain, where he was given political asylum. In London, he continued his education at the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1957 to 1961, but he did not complete his studies because he was too busy working as a journalist and editor.18 In 1956, HPO, his organization in Croatia, was discovered by the Yugoslav authorities. Its members were arrested and, in 1957, were sentenced to prison.19

In 1958, Kušan received a scholarship from the Free Europe University in Exile (FEUE), which had been founded in 1951 by the American National Committee for Free Europe.20 At this university, especially during its summer seminars held in Strasbourg, respectable members of the liberal academic community from the United States, as well as many prominent European emigrant intellectuals gave lectures. At the same time, it was a gathering place for refugee students from countries under communist rule, who were educated at the institution in a liberal democratic spirit. The Yugoslav communists contended that it was a school for CIA informants.21

In Strasbourg, Kušan connected with many young intellectuals from Europe, and especially with his compatriots. He began to cooperate with some of them in efforts to further the political education of society as a whole and to call attention to the harmfulness of totalitarian rule in Yugoslavia. Kušan continued to maintain contacts with like-minded people from his homeland, and he soon created a network of associates to work together on efforts to inform the public. In 1958, he founded the magazine Hrvatski bilten (Croatian Bulletin) in London.22 In 1959, the magazine was renamed Nova Hrvatska (New Croatia, or NH). The primary goal of the periodical was to inform the Croatian public abroad about the events in their homeland and to reveal the truth about the undemocratic practices of the communist regime in Yugoslavia. One of the aims of the magazine was to set aside the ideological differences within the Croatian émigré communities and work together for Croatian independence. The desire to unite the various political currents in the Croatian diaspora is clearly evident from the slogan at the top of the front page of the first issue of the magazine: “Croats of all parties, unite!”23

From the mid-1960s, NH became the most influential polemically oriented magazine in which discussions concerning solutions to the Croatian question were held. It was initially published monthly, but from 1974 until it was discontinued in 1990, it transitioned to a bi-monthly publication schedule. In the beginning, it was distributed through its trustees, and later it was sold in public places.24 It had the largest circulation of publications among the Croatian diaspora (some editions ran up to 20,000 copies). As an editor-in-chief, Kušan advocated democracy and the freedom of the individual and freedom of peoples. He believed that only a politically informed and educated individual could be an active factor in his social environment, and he saw this principle as a shield against political manipulation of individuals and political parties.25 About Kušan’s work as editor-in-chief, Borić said that he adhered to the principle of objectivism, which meant drawing a strict distinction between information and commentary and taking into account different views on the contents of his reporting. That was an especially hard task, because it was difficult to gather reliable information from totalitarian Yugoslavia.26 According to Gojko Borić, one of the founders of NH, the magazine differed significantly from other Croatian émigré publications, which tended only to report on news from the homeland that confirmed their political views.27 Kušan’s main goal was to educate Croatian emigrants politically, in part to make them less susceptible to the false promises made in the propaganda of some radical Croatian emigrants.

The NH often published news that the Yugoslav government did not want to get out, and the comments NH gave when interpreting certain news and events were negative towards the communist regime in Yugoslavia. The editorial also received confidential information, mostly from anonymous senders, and that information was published or rejected, depending on the assessment of its credibility. The editorship was always at risk of falling prey to false claims, which happened in some cases, which is why some Croatians in exile criticized the magazine and declared such rare failures as hoaxes contrived by the Yugoslav secret services.28

The correspondence with associates from the country was handled through encrypted messages. Thus, for example, in correspondence with one of his friends and associates who he did not know was a UDBA informant with the code name Rajko,29 Kušan wrote at the end of 1964 that he was interested in the Congress of Lawyers in Belgrade, which meant the Eighth Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Savez komunista Jugoslavije, or SKJ). Kušan also wrote that he “expects a baby in a few days,” which was a coded message to indicate that he was expecting a new issue of NH.30 For the transmission of messages and information, the editorial board of NH used people who occasionally traveled from Yugoslavia to the West. The NH associates and informants were most often people from the closest family circle of the NH journalists.

The Yugoslav authorities were also bothered by the fact that NH was smuggled to and illicitly distributed in Yugoslavia. Kušan also sent NH to his homeland by mail to the many ordinary citizens whose addresses had been made public, for example, as part of some prize games in the newspapers. Through secret channels, a pocket-size edition (14.5 x 10 cm) of the magazine the articles in which could only be read with the use of a magnifying glass was usually sent to Yugoslavia.31 Kušan also sent NH to numerous political leaders in Croatia, such as members of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Croatia.

The Yugoslav secret services constantly followed the writing of NH and tried to prevent the publication of the magazine, which is evident from the UDBA file on Kušan. As early as the beginning of 1958, the UDBA learned from Tihomil Rađa’s conversation with a UDBA informant that in the summer of 1957 in Strasbourg Kušan and Rađa had agreed to launch Hrvatski bilten.32 In the mid-1960s, the UDBA stated in its reports that “the editorial office of this paper is one of the main centers of subversive-propaganda and anti-Yugoslav activity.”33 The UDBA tried to gain access to Kušan’s store of documents and the magazine’s archives, which included files on contributors and associates. They never succeeded, although they managed to get some of the documents.34

Kušan’s Political Views and His Activities in the Diaspora: A Thorn in the Side of the Yugoslav Communist Regime

Throughout his life in exile, Kušan continuously raised the question of Croatian national independence and spoke openly about the suppression of human and civil rights in socialist Yugoslavia, which is why he was constantly under the surveillance of the Yugoslav secret services.35

From the documentation of the UDBA, one can learn a lot about Kušan himself. According to the reports from the early 1960s, Kušan initially worked under difficult conditions. This is clear from the report of UDBA’s informant Rajko, who visited Kušan in London in 1964. He states that Kušan was not making any profit from NH and that the Kušans lived off the salary of his wife, Zdenka:

He worked day and night, ate almost nothing, and looked like a biblical ascetic—thin, pale, bloodshot eyes, badly in need of a shave, hollow. Usually, they don’t eat enough: they drink tea in the morning, and then she goes to work, and he works in the apartment, and they take the main meal only when she comes and prepares it around 6 o’clock, and even that meal is less than our average lunch.36

Another UDBA informant (code name David) offered similar reports concerning the difficult living conditions of Jakša Kušan in October 1965. He reported that Vinko Nikolić, one of the most prominent Croatian émigré intellectuals, said that Kušan lived under comparatively modest, even meager circumstances and that he edited his magazine on an old-fashioned typewriter.37 He also noted that another Croatian emigrant, Jure Petričević, had said that Kušan lived in poverty and that he depended mainly on the help of some Englishmen.38

Nevertheless, in the second half of the 1960s, Kušan was better off financially because he got a job as an associate to Viktor Zorza.39 In September 1967, Rajko talked to Kušan’s brother, Zlatko. They touched on Jakša’s activities in London. Zlatko told him that Jakša had secured regular employment with the prominent English liberal newspaper The Manchester Guardian and that he worked as a close assistant to the editor for Eastern Europe, the Polish Jew Victor Zorza, one of the most respected journalist experts on Eastern European politics and a man with strong ties to the Liberal Party in Britain. Kušan allegedly collected and systematized news and data on which Zorza wrote his articles and comments.40 The UDBA’s agents considered him a man close to the British Foreign Office. Consequently, it was assumed that Kušan was also leaning on the British secret services.

Kušan sympathized with the left in Britain. Thus, one UDBA informant reports that Kušan, as an English citizen, consistently voted for the Labor party.41 From his youth, Kušan had been a sympathizer of the Western form of political rule, especially the British. However, when he left Yugoslavia as a young man in 1955, he was not against socialism. He considered that, due to the character of the regime, it was impossible to expect the introduction of pluralism, but that a big step would also be to allow a faction within the Party.42

From the very beginning of his activities in London, Kušan stood out as someone who espoused different views regarding the realization of Croatian independence. Although he harshly criticized the communist regime in Yugoslavia, he thought that the liberalization process within the League of Communists of Yugoslavia could expand the space of freedom in the country.43 He advocated for reconciliation between nationalists and communists and felt that the radical methods used by some organizations in the Croatian diaspora were not good or effective as means of fulfilling Croatian goals. He claimed that terrorism was unacceptable both to the Western and the Eastern blocs, which were already inclined to preserve Yugoslavia. He advocated a strategy of gradually building democratic consciousness and cooperation among Croatian emigrants with the liberal wing of Croatian communists. In this sense, in the second half of the 1960s, one of the missions of his journal was to encourage democratization processes within the League of Communists of Croatia and to promote the Croatian reform movement (Croatian Spring) in the West in the hopes of gaining foreign sympathy and support.44 He believed that through the liberalization of the regime in Croatia, the situation in the whole of Yugoslavia could be liberalized. He believed that the League of Communists of Croatia could eventually turn into some kind of socialist or social democratic party. In such a democratic environment, Croats would then be free to decide in a referendum whether to stay in Yugoslavia or secede.45 Because of his conciliatory attitudes towards the communists, Croatian émigrés with more right-wing leanings were suspicious of Kušan, and some of them even called him a communist and a UDBA man.46

Kušan was constantly under surveillance by the UDBA through its numerous agents, collaborators, and informants,47 and his correspondence was secretly controlled. Due to his activities in exile, the District Court in Zagreb opened an investigation into his activities in February 1965.48 The Yugoslav Embassy in London invited him several times and sought to persuade him to stop his political activities in exile while promising him some privileges. Kušan refused, although he had to bear in mind that his family (parents and brothers) still lived in Yugoslavia, and they were also under surveillance by the UDBA.49 Zlatko was arrested in 1959 and charged because he had corresponded with his brother. He defended himself at the hearing, saying that maintaining a written relationship with his brother was not a criminal offense.50 He was forced to explain the way in which they corresponded. They sent messages encrypted in Braille, and Zlatko received the letters from his brother at the address of one of his friends who was blind, and he would send a letter to Jakša addressed to one of Jakša’s English friends.51 Zlatko was later invited by the UDBA to take part in “informative interviews” several times, and in 1972, he was even detained and interrogated for 10 days.52 The UDBA also conducted “informative interviews” with Jakša’s other brother, Petar, in 1975, and his passport was confiscated because he once visited his brother Jakša during his travels abroad.53 In 1977, they confiscated the Jakša’s mother’s passport, and they only returned it seven years later, in 1984.54 The return of the passport was just another UDBA setup. They gave her passport back, but in return, during her visit to London, she was expected to try to persuade Jakša to stop his anti-Yugoslav activities.55 The UDBA failed in its endeavor.

The UDBA speculated that Kušan had maintained contacts with the British intelligence service while still a student in Yugoslavia, because during his stay in Italy in 1955, he had received a British visa “in an unusually short time” and “some photos and other published materials in Nova Hrvatska indicate that Kušan has access to British diplomatic and intelligence sources.”56 The UDBA suspected that the British intelligence service was providing scholarships offered by Kušan to young and talented students abroad who had distinguished themselves through their hostile activity against Yugoslavia.57 However, after reviewing all the documents in his UDBA file, I did not come across any documented evidence of his alleged collaboration with the UK services. The only thing the UDBA had were reports submitted by its informants, who said that some of Kušan’s associates had said that he had connections to the British services.58 In an interview for the COURAGE project, Kušan pointed out that his choice of London as a place to work and publish was a complete success because it was an open environment that received refugees from all around the world and provided him with full protection from the Yugoslav secret services. “The UDBA did threaten us,” he said, “but the English authorities always gave police protection whenever we reported threats. That is why the authorities in Belgrade often said that we were collaborators with some British secret services, and in the end, they never touched us.”59

The editorial office of NH was originally located in a small basement room in London and was constantly struggling with a lack of money for publishing. Moreover, in the second half of the 1960s, the periodical almost went out of publication, because Kušan himself was too busy with his work as an analyst for The Guardian. In 1969, no issues of NH were published. In 1970, one regular issue and one double issue were published, and in 1971 only one was released. In addition to financial difficulties and lack of time, the reason for the reduced publication is that Kušan himself wondered if NH was needed at all. Kušan believed that, in the more liberal atmosphere in Croatia in the late 1960s, and early 1970s, the local magazines and newspapers were freeing themselves from the shackles of communist censorship and were presenting the situation in the country more and more objectively.60 During the Croatian reform movement, better known as the Croatian Spring (1967–1971), Kušan nurtured sympathy for the movement because it was a process he had hoped for.61 Jakša was delighted with Većeslav Holjevac, a former high-ranking partisan officer and long-time mayor of Zagreb, who, since the mid-1960s, had advocated in support of cooperation between the homeland and Croatian émigrés. Kušan described Holjevac’s book Hrvati izvan domovine (Croatians Abroad), which was published in 1967, as the first real step towards buildings ties with the Croatian émigré communities, and he noted that Holjevac had enabled several associates of the Emigrant Foundation of Croatiato come into contact with Croatian émigré organizations, including associates of NH.62 Kušan believed that during the Croatian Spring, especially within the League of Communists of Croatia, a process of democratization was taking place that would eventually lead to the disintegration of the communist regime and, ultimately, the democratization of the whole of Yugoslavia. He was more than disappointed when the Croatian reform movement was suppressed in late 1971 and early 1972.

Although he was disappointed with the collapse of the Croatian spring, this event meant new life for Kušan’s magazine. Communist censorship once again shackled the media in Croatia, so NH became more important. Ironically, communist censorship indirectly saved the journal. Censorship in Croatia reached such a level that the Hrvatski pravopis (Croatian Orthography) written by Stjepan Babić, Božidar Finka, and Milan Moguš, published in 1971, was banned by the Yugoslav authorities for political reasons shortly after it went into print. The Yugoslav authorities destroyed the entire print run of 40,000 copies. Only a few internal copies were preserved. This act of censorship was part of the Yugoslav authorities’ confrontation with the Croatian Spring at the end of 1971, because the Croatian orthography was created within the Matica hrvatska, the most important cultural-oppositional institution in socialist Croatia. However, the editorial board of NH, headed by Kušan, managed to get a copy and publish it in London in 1972. For many years, this book was a best-seller in the Croatian diaspora because it was a symbol of the Croatian Spring.63 The financial success of this book, as well as the contributions from about 20 friends of NH who donated money, enabled the editorial board of NH to buy a house in London which provided a new home for the editorial office. According to Kušan, it was the best investment in the history of NH.64

Kušan and NH constantly reported on fabricated lawsuits against Croatian intellectuals who were tried after the collapse of the Croatian Spring. NH tried to make news of these people’s fates reach the Western public and the Croatian émigré communities. In this regard, they also worked closely with Amnesty International, which they provided information and from which they also received information.65 Kušan also maintained contacts with and published articles and books by Croatian dissidents and oppositionists who could not publish in their homeland. UDBA informants reported that Kušan said that this way a “Croatian Solzhenitsyn could be created.”66 Kušan may have seen some kind of Croatian Solzhenitsyn in Franjo Tuđman, a Croatian historian and communist dissident who was expelled from the party in 1967. Kušan was involved in the publication of Tuđman’s book The National Question in Contemporary Europe in 1981,67 and Kušan’s wife Zdenka translated into English the court documents from Tudjman’s trial, which were also published in London in 1981.68 For the promotion of Croatian dissident writers, Kušan did the most, working together with Vinko Nikolić, when they decided to exhibit together at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Nikolić was the editor-in-chief of the cultural magazine Hrvatska revija (Croatian Review) and the head of the publishing house that bore the same name. Since 1973, they had been exhibiting in Frankfurt every year, and their exhibition stand was always well attended, although they knew that UDBA agents and informants were among the visitors.69 Yugoslav authorities even used the diplomatic apparatus in their attempts to ban Kušan’s participation in the Fair,70 but they did not succeed. Moreover, Kušan and Nikolić expanded their exhibition stand every year.

In addition to his connections with Croatian dissidents, UDBA’s informants also talked about Kušan’s connections with dissidents of other nationalities, such as the famous Milovan Đilas.71 Because he cooperated with Đilas, other Croatian émigrés criticized Kušan.72 In his work against the communist government in Yugoslavia, Kušan also collaborated with Serbian and Albanian dissidents and émigrés, and he took part in some anti-Yugoslav demonstrations organized in European cities.73

The collapse of the Croatian Spring and police clashes with the liberal and national currents in Croatia gave additional impetus to those in exile who believed that Croatian national goals could only be achieved by violent means.74 To acquaint the Western public with the position of Croats in Yugoslavia and to gain international support for the overthrow of the communist regime in Yugoslavia, a small number of Croatian émigré organizations advocated terrorism and were particularly active in the 1970s.75 Kušan believed that the terrorist actions did more harm than good to the Croatian struggle for independence, and in that sense, he also commented on the terrorist actions that some Croatian emigrants carried out in Germany and other European countries.76 He had no sympathies for the action of the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood (Hrvatsko revolucionarno bratstvo, or HRB), a Croatian revolutionary organization founded in 1961 in Australia that used terrorist methods, and their guerrilla incursion into Yugoslavia in June 1972. He believed that such actions were doomed to failure and would lead to unnecessary bloodshed, and he felt that the Croatian émigré communities would thus get a bad reputation in the world.77 The Croatian terrorist actions worked in favor of the Yugoslav government. The Yugoslav missions abroad and the secret services worked continuously to create a negative image of Croatian émigrés, trying to portray them as fascists and terrorists. The Yugoslav security and intelligence apparatus occasionally encouraged the radicalism of Croatian extremists in exile to discredit the political émigré community as a whole.78

The collapse of the Croatian Spring also affected numerous Croatian émigré organizations and individuals who were increasingly convinced that they had an obligation to take up the fight for Croatian interests and unite for this cause. In this sense, there were more attempts to unite all Croatian émigré organizations, which was accomplished with the establishment of the Croatian National Council (Hrvatsko narodno vijeće, or HNV) in 1974 in Toronto. It was an umbrella association of the Croatian diaspora which coordinated various émigré organizations that sought to present the case for Croat independence to the international community.79 In 1975, some of the most prominent magazines published by members of the Croatian émigré community, such as Hrvatska revija, Nova Hrvatska, and Studia Croatica joined the HNV. In 1975, Kušan also became a member of the HNV’s Congress and the Head of its Press and Advertising Department (1975–1977, 1979–1983).80 During the preparations for the elections for the Third Congress of the HNV, which were to be held in Australia in 1979,81 Kušan visited Australia and gave an interview for the national television there in which he spoke about the current case of the so-called Croatian six, who were six Australian citizens of Croatian descent who had been accused of attempting to carry out several terrorist attacks in Sydney in early 1979, which involved putting poison in the city’s water supply and planting a bomb in a theater. After a long trial, six Croatian-Australian men were sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1981 for a conspiracy to conduct terrorist attacks. The whole case was the result of the operation organized by the Yugoslav state security service to portray the Croatian-Australian community as extremists using Australian intelligence and police services as its tools.82 It was one of the methods of operation of the Yugoslav secret services, which sought to discredit the Croatian political émigré community. Before the trial was over and many years before the setup was revealed, Kušan told Australian television that it was a setup by the Yugoslav secret services.83

Since the late 1970s, Croatian émigrés had increasingly focused on calling attention to human rights violations in Yugoslavia.84 After the Helsinki Final Act was signed in 1975 at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), in which the communist countries pledged to respect human and civil rights, the issue of violation of these rights became one of the main means with which to exert pressure on the communist regimes in Europe. Croatian émigré organizations had increasingly warned Western institutions and the public about the position of political prisoners in Yugoslavia, and they had emphasized the right of Croats to national self-determination. In this sense, they were especially active during the CSCE in Belgrade (June 1977–March 1978) and Madrid (November 1980–September 1983). The UDBA noted Kušan’s particularly strong anti-Yugoslav activity during these conferences.85 Kušan always sought to portray the issue of human rights violations against Croats within the Yugoslav communist regime as an integral part of a transnational problem.

Return to the Homeland and Displacement to the Margins

After the fall of communism in Croatia in 1990, the editorial board of NH felt that there is no reason to publish the journal abroad. They planned to transfer the journal to Croatia and publish it from there. However, by returning to Croatia, Kušan became aware of the numerous problems in a society that suffered the consequences of almost half a century of communist rule. The prevailing spirit of materialism and the lack of idealism stunned Kušan. In his memoirs, he spoke about the atmosphere in which inherited habits and the mentality of censored journalism prevailed.86 In the newspaper business, he faced theft, corruption, and embezzlement, and he soon gave up publishing his journal.87 The Serbian uprising and open aggression against the Republic of Croatia in 1991 had an additional negative impact on the development of the media in Croatia at the time.

Nevertheless, in late 1990, Kušan decided to return to his homeland permanently and continue his struggle for a better society. In 1993, he became a chairperson of the board of directors of the Open Society Institute of Croatia. Given that the society was funded by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, Kušan was criticized by the Croatian right and the conservatives. However, Kušan responded to his critics, saying that Soros gave more money for humanitarian purposes than for political purposes.88 In 1995, Kušan was a co-founder of the Association of the Homeland and Diaspora for a Democratic Society. This association was renamed the Association for a Democratic Society, and Kušan was its president in 2004.89

In the 1990s, Kušan was disappointed by political developments in modern Croatia. He did not participate actively in political life. Moreover, in the public sphere, he was largely marginalized and has practically been forgotten in today’s Croatia. One of the main questions this paper raises is why he was marginalized. It is difficult to give a precise and clear answer to this question. Relevant historical sources, such as archival documents from the period after 1990, are still unavailable, so I can only venture tentative answers based on data concerning his political views until 1990, his memoirs published in 2000, and statements made by some of his close contemporaries.

Historian Wollfy Krašić considers Jakša Kušan the first Croatian intellectual to sketch the idea of so-called Croatian reconciliation or the all-Croatian peace.90 It is the idea of the necessity of cooperation among former enemy sides from World War II, Ustashas and Croatian partisans, and their descendants in the creation of an independent Croatian state. At the time of the fall of communism, the aforementioned former communist dissident Franjo Tuđman achieved great political success and won the first multi-party elections in Croatia in 1990. Although Tudjman’s idea of reconciliation generally coincided with Kušan’s vision, after the independence of Croatia, the two of them had practically no mutual relations. Perhaps the relationship between Kušan and Tuđman was a crucial factor in the process of Kušan’s marginalization in Croatian public life. After the death of Kušan in 2019, Vladimir Pavlinić, his long-time close associate and also one of the editors of Nova Hrvatska, said that Tuđman was the one to blame. He claimed that Tuđman had begun to establish secret contacts with Kušan’s circle in the mid-1970s. Tuđman had sent documents concerning his trials and his new books to the editorial board of Nova Hrvatska, and they had published and translated them into English so that the global public would be able to read about him and his case.91 However, Pavlinić believes Tuđman shifted his circle of confidants in exile to Canadian-Australian radical organizations in the late 1980s. According to Pavlinić, Tuđman discarded the once very useful Kušan even before Kušan returned to Croatia. Pavlinić says that Tuđman invited Kušan from London to Zagreb in June 1990 to talk about founding a Croatian news agency and that at one point he had asked Kušan why he was writing hostilely about him and his political party, Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, or HDZ).92 Tuđman referred to an article Kušan had published in Nova Hrvatska in March 1990. Kušan had commented extensively in the article on the First General Assembly of the HDZ, which had just been held. Kušan had claimed that the assembly had not touched on real political issues and that the gathering had resembled communist congresses, where it was not important what was said but only who was speaking.93 Kušan had been critical in the article of the HDZ, perhaps even more so because he advocated that the anti-communist opposition in Croatia act together as a united coalition. As the HDZ decided to run in the elections on its own, Kušan sympathized with its rival, the Coalition of People’s Accord (Koalicija narodnog sporazuma, or KNS). Pavlinić believed that Kušan’s libertarian thinking was enough for Tuđman to label Kušan an enemy of the people and that this had been a stigma that Kušan had carried until his death.94 Another one of Kušan’s former associates, Gojko Borić, had a similar view. He believed that any members of the émigré communities who had not been close to Tuđman had suffered great disappointment and failed in anything they had undertaken after the collapse of communism in Croatia.95

A few years before his death, Kušan mentioned that the change in his relations with Tuđman took place after the founding of the HDZ in June 1989.96 It is difficult to say what disrupted the relationship between the two. Perhaps the answer to that question lies in another question: why did Tuđman turn to Canadian-Australian circles of the Croatian émigré world?

If we observe the development of Kušan’s attitudes regarding the struggle for Croatian independence, a certain evolution of attitudes is noticeable. Although Kušan advocated the necessity of Croatia’s exit from communist Yugoslavia, in the 1980s his attitudes softened, and on several occasions, he said that Croatia could remain in Yugoslavia if Yugoslavia were to become a real liberal democracy. One of the reasons why Kušan was marginalized in the 1990s may be that, while supporting the struggle of all dissidents in Yugoslavia in the 1980s, he insisted less on Croatian independence and more on the democratization of Yugoslavia. Perhaps this shift, the milder approach of Kušan’s circle to the question of the existence of Yugoslavia, was why Tuđman turned to the Canadian and Australian part of the Croatian émigré world, which was more nationalistic and hardline. Perhaps Tuđman turned to the émigrés in Canada and Australia because they were also wealthier than those from Kušan’s circle, and he hoped to get stronger financial support from them for his political activities.

On the other hand, Kušan was disappointed with the achievements of democratic Croatia in the first decade of its existence. He believed that the ideals that he and other émigrés gathered around Nova Hrvatska had fought for had not been realized.97 Kušan was also disappointed with the new government’s attitude towards the Croatian émigré communities. He believed that the government had embraced members of these communities who had never had much influence and who, in his assessment, had no real grasp of the true values of freedom and democracy.98 He believed that the HDZ’s policy was guided by short-term goals and that the émigré communities were important to the party only as a source of financial and material resources with which the party would be better positioned to win elections and resist Serbian aggression. He believed that the UDBA in Croatia had changed sides overnight and joined the new government. In his memoirs, he expressed these concerns:

In this way, human rights violators from the previous regime, including notorious criminals, were not brought to justice. In return, and for balance, mostly extreme elements from the émigré world were brought home, and they were given high political, military, and police duties. The former UDBA agents and “the greatest Croats” found themselves side by side in many places... Essentially, this only confirms what we often emphasized, namely that there was never a significant difference between totalitarian communists and national extremists.99

Kušan believed that this was why many respectable Croatian émigrés distanced themselves from the new government. He believed that the HDZ had chosen this path to facilitate its consolidation and because of a lack of democratic sense at the top of the party. Furthermore, the political inexperience of voters and the apparent weakness of the domestic media, both as a direct consequence of the half-century one-party system and the war that soon followed, facilitated the undemocratic practice and delayed democratization processes.100 According to Kušan, these negative developments had psychological causes. The high degree of materialism which prevailed in all post-communist societies had further accelerated the spread of corruption and the overwhelming alliance between tycoons and politicians.101

This hypothesis requires further study, which will only be possible when archival sources from the 1990s are fully available. In this sense, it is worth mentioning the personal archive of Franjo Tuđman, which is still inaccessible to the public. It would also be useful to see and research the editorial archive and correspondence of the magazine Nova Hrvatska, which Kušan handed over to the National and University Library in Zagreb. Unfortunately, although more than a quarter of a century has passed since Kušan turned these documents over, they are still inaccessible to the public. This can also be seen as an indication that Kušan is a forgotten figure in Croatian political and cultural history. On the other hand, Kušan’s private collection, which he kept in his apartment in Zagreb, is also important for future research. According to his wishes, his private collection will be handed over to the Franciscan monastery in Visoko in Bosnia and Herzegovina.102

Nevertheless, it is a telling fact that only after Tuđman’s death did Kušan become more present in public life, and he also performed some public duties. This was the time of the new left-liberal coalition government, which ruled Croatia for several years after the death of Tuđman. From 2000 to 2004, Kušan was a chairperson on the board of directors of the Croatian Heritage Foundation, and from 2001 to 2002, he was a member of the Council of the Croatian Radio and Television.103

Conclusion

Although most of the East European diasporas which originated from areas that were subjected to communist rule were antagonistic towards communism and were preoccupied with the question of national identity and national independence,104 within these diasporas, there was a diversity of ideas and political views. One of the atypical representatives of the Croatian political diaspora was journalist and publicist Jakša Kušan.

Kušan distinguished himself from the majority of Croatian political emigrants through his persistent endeavors to broaden his network of resistance. Already as a student at the Free Europe University in Exile, he encountered and connected with various intellectuals, including the renowned writer Czesław Miłosz.105 He maintained a long-standing collaboration with the distinguished journalist Viktor Zorza, and through his journalistic and editorial work, he established connections with various democratically oriented intellectuals and organizations, such as Amnesty International. In building his network of resistance, he collaborated with other ethnic and national groups, not only those originating from the Yugoslav region but also with Poles and Estonians, for instance.106 Through years of participation at the Frankfurt Book Fair, he emphasized the importance of culture as a primary form of resistance against authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Alongside democracy and freedom, he regarded culture as one of the main pillars of the new democratic Croatia.

This article presented the most important of Kušan’s activities during the period of communist rule in Yugoslavia, bringing to light new information concerning his life and work. The archives of the Yugoslav secret services are a fascinating source of data which can fill numerous lacunae in our knowledge of Kušan’s oppositional activities. This article shows that Kušan was a ubiquitous figure in the Croatian émigré world who was involved in many of most important events and organizations in Croatian diaspora, such as the Croatian National Council, and who was also important transnationally. In the diaspora, he stood out because of his constant struggle for democratic principles and pluralism, as well as the idea of reconciling the Croatian right and left, which, he felt, was a prerequisite for the creation of a modern democratic and pluralistic Croatia. In that sense, he had a significant influence on numerous actors in the émigré world and among dissidents and oppositional figures in Yugoslavia. Recent historiography has already noted that the idea of all-Croatian reconciliation, first outlined in the mid-1950s by Kušan, was eventually advocated by communist dissident Franjo Tuđman, who in the late 1980s became one of the main representatives of the opposition to communism in Croatia and won the first democratic multi-party elections in 1990 and became the first president of the newly independent Croatia. Kušan may have been somewhat surprisingly marginalized after his return to Croatia in the early 1990s in part because of his relationship with Tuđman. It is possible that in the context of the struggle for political power in Croatia, Kušan, who had been a long-term supporter and promoter of Tuđman, became a political enemy. Although this hypothesis requires further study and substantiation with sources which remain inaccessible, it certainly does not seem implausible. In the 1990s, Kušan was close to Tuđman’s political opponents, and he wrote critically about the new democratically elected government.

Kušan was thus not simply an archetypal representative of the transnational struggle against communist dictatorships but also a non-conformist who persisted in the fight for democracy and human rights even after the communist dictatorship had fallen. He continued his “Battle for a New Croatia,” which was also the title of his memoirs published in 2000.107

Archival Sources

Hrvatski državni arhiv, Zagreb [Croatian State Archives] (HDA)

HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH The State Security Service of the Republic Internal Affairs Secretariat of the Socialist Republic of Croatia

Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša

Oral history (interviews)

Bing, Albert, and Josip Mihaljević. Interview with Jakša Kušan, May 26, 2016. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection.

Mihaljević, Josip. Interview with Jakša Kušan, April 05, 2018. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection.

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Ćosić, Mirko. “Franjo Tuđman i problemi objavljivanja knjige Nacionalno pitanje u suvremenoj Europi” [Franjo Tuđman and the problems of publishing the book ‘The National Question in Contemporary Europe’]. Časopis za suvremenu povijest 52, no. 3 (2020): 759–89.

Daley, Paul. “Catholic extremism fears in 1970s Australia made Croats ‘the Muslims of their time’.” The Guardian: International Edition, July 29, 2016. Accessed September 3, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2016/jul/29/catholic-extremism-fears-in-1970s-australia-made-croats-the-muslims-of-their-time.

Durin-Horniyk, Veronika. “The Free Europe University in Exile Inc. and the Collège de l’Europe libre (1951–1958).” In The Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare: Cold War Organizations Sponsored by the National Committee for a Free Europe/Free Europe Committee, edited by Katalin Kádár Lynn, 439–514. Saint Helena, CA: Helena History Press, 2013.

Hameršak, Filip. “Kušan, Jakša.” In Hrvatski biografski leksikon [Croatian biographical lexicon], Leksikografski zavod Miroslav Krleža, 2013. Accessed August 27, 2021. http://hbl.lzmk.hr/clanak.aspx?id=11571.

Horner, David M., and John Charles Blaxland. The secret Cold War: The official history of ASIO, vol. 3, 1975–1989. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2017.

International Friendship League. “About Us: The story of the IFL.” Accessed: September 15, 2021. https://iflworld.org/about-us/.

Klemenčić, Mladen. “Jakša Kušan: Deficitarni smo u idealizmu i idealima” [Jakša Kušan: We are deficient in idealism and ideals]. Hrvatska revija 10, no. 3 (2010): 4–11.

Krašić, Wollfy. Hrvatski pokret otpora: hrvatske državotvorne organizacije i skupine 1945–1966 [Croatian resistance movement: Croatian state-building organizations and groups 1945–1966]. Zagreb: AGM, 2018.

Krašić, Wollfy. “Hrvatsko proljeće i hrvatska politička emigracija” [The Croatian spring and the Croatian political emigration]. PhD diss., University of Zagreb, 2016.

Kušan, Jakša. Bitka za Novu Hrvatsku [Battle for New Croatia]. Rijeka: Otokar Keršovani, 2000.

Kušan, Jakša. “Najveći borci za Hrvatsku došli su upravo iz bivših udbaških redova!” [The greatest fighters for Croatia came from the former UDBA ranks]. Jutarnji list (online edition), December 19, 2016. Accessed August 11, 2021. https://www.jutarnji.hr/vijesti/hrvatska/najveci-borci-za-hrvatsku-dosli-su-upravo-iz-bivsih-udbaskih-redova-5401727.

Kušan, Jakša. “Nakon saborovanja HDZ” [After the HDZ assembly]. Nova Hrvatska 32, no. 5 (1990): 4.

McDonald, Hamishl. Reasonable doubt: Spies, Police and the Croatian Six. Bondi Junction, NSW: Doosra Media, 2019.

Mihaljević, Josip. “Jakša Kušan Collection.” COURAGE Registry, 2018. Accessed September 15, 2021. doi: 10.24389/39098

Mihaljević, Josip. “Stjepan Babić, Božidar Finka, Milan Moguš. Hrvatski pravopis (Croatian Orthography), 1972. Book.” COURAGE Registry, 2018. Accessed September 12, 2021. http://cultural-opposition.eu/registry/?uri=http://courage.btk.mta.hu/courage/individual/n52777&type=masterpieces.

Mihaljević, Josip. “Summer Courses of the Free Europe University in Exile, 1957. Brochure.” COURAGE Registry, 2018. Accessed September 17, 2021. http://cultural-opposition.eu/registry/?uri=http://courage.btk.mta.hu/courage/individual/n21734.

Na suđenju dr. Tuđmanu sudilo se Hrvatskoj [Croatia was tried at Dr Tuđman’s trial]. London: United Publishers, 1981.

Palić-Kušan, Jasna, trans. Croatia on trial: the case of the Croatian historian dr. F. Tudjman. London: United Publishers, 1981.

Pavlinić, Vladimir. “Jakša Kušan – čovjek kojemu je u slobodi oduzeta slobodna riječ” [Jakša Kušan - a man who was deprived of free speech in freedom]. Autograf.hr, July 31, 2019. Accessed September 7, 2021. https://www.autograf.hr/jaksa-kusan-covjek-kojemu-je-u-slobodi-oduzeta-slobodna-rijec/.

Perušina, Valentina. “Hrvatska politička emigracija – sigurnosna prijetnja socijalističkoj Jugoslaviji” [Croatian political emigration – a security threat to socialist Yugoslavia]. Polemos 22, no. 44–45 (2019): 13–37.

Scott-Smith, Giles. “The Free Europe University in Strasbourg: U.S. State-Private Networks and Academic ‘Rollback’.” Journal of Cold War Studies 16, no. 2 (2014): 77–107.

Tokić, Mate Nikola. Croatian Radical Separatism and Diaspora Terrorism during the Cold War. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2020.

Trošelj Miočević, Tanja. “Hrvatsko narodno vijeće od 1974. do 1990” [Croatian National Council 1974–1990]. Obnovljeni život 75, no. 2 (2020): 229–44.

Vlašić, Anđelko. “List Nova Hrvatska 1958–1962” [The paper Nova Hrvatska, 1958–1962]. In Disidentstvo u suvremenoj povijesti [Dissent in contemporary history], edited by Nada Kisić Kolanović, Zdenko Radelić, and Katarina Spehnjak, 291–314. Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2010.

Wright, Michael. Victor Zorza: a life amid loss. Lancaster: Observatory Publications, 2006.

1 Until 1966, the official name of the Yugoslav secret service was the State Security Administration (in Serbian, Uprava državne bezbednosti, or UDBA). From 1967, its name was State Security Service (in Croatian, Služba državne sigurnosti, or SDS).

2 Borić, “Veliki emigrantski novinar Jakša Kušan.”

3 The COURAGE project was an EU funded project on the legacy of cultural opposition in the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It explored and compared collections on cultural opposition and dissent. For more on the project see the project’s webpage COURAGE: Connecting Collections.

4 Mihaljević, “Jakša Kušan Collection.”

5 Bing and Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan; Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan.

6 The file on Kušan was created by the Croatian branch of the UDBA/SDS (the official name of the Croatian branch was State Security Service of the Republic Internal Affairs Secretariat of the Socialist Republic of Croatia). The Service monitored all persons whose activities were assessed as a threat to the state’s political and security system. See HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša.

7 Klemenčić, “Jakša Kušan: Deficitarni smo u idealizmu i idealima,” 5–6; Bing and Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan; Krašić, Hrvatski pokret otpora, 161.

8 The 1963 constitution officially renamed it the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Socijalistička Federativna Republika Jugoslavija, orSFRJ).

9 Krašić, Hrvatski pokret otpora, 164. The International Friendship League is a voluntary non-profit organization founded in 1931 which aims to enhance understanding and friendship between peoples of all nations through the development of personal friendships between individuals of different countries. International Friendship League, “About Us: The story of the IFL.”

10 Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan.

11 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 5. The group included students Stanko Janović, Ivo Kujundžić, Tvrtko Zane (alias Branimir Donat), and Zorka Bolfek. On HPO, see Krašić, Hrvatski pokret otpora.

12 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 37–49.

13 Krašić, Hrvatski pokret otpora, 160.

14 Bing and Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan.

15 Krašić, Hrvatski pokret otpora, 168–72.

16 Vlašić, “List Nova Hrvatska 1958–1962,” 292–93.

17 Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan.

18 Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan.

19 Krašić, Hrvatski pokret otpora, 222–36.

20 On the Free Europe University in Exile, see Durin-Horniyk, “The Free Europe University in Exile Inc. and the Collège de l’Europe libre (1951–1958)”; Scott-Smith, “The Free Europe University in Strasbourg.”

21 Mihaljević, “Summer Courses of the Free Europe University in Exile, 1957. Brochure.”

22 In addition to Kušan, who was the editor-in-chief, the members of the editorial board were Tihomil Rađa, Gojko Borić, Tefko Saračević, Marijan Radetić, Đuro Grlica, Ante Zorić, and Stjepko Šesnić. Vlašić, “List Nova Hrvatska 1958–1962,” 291–92.

23 Vlašić, “List Nova Hrvatska 1958–1962,” 296.

24 Ibid., 293.

25 Kušan, Bitka za Novu Hrvatsku, 8.

26 Borić, “Veliki emigrantski novinar Jakša Kušan.”

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 Informant Rajko was Kušan’s old friend, a lawyer Drago Dominis.

30 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 210.

31 Ibid., 201.

32 Ibid., 82.

33 Ibid., 10.

34 Ibid., 1005–10.

35 In his private collection, there is also a copy of a video (VHS) of an interview Kušan gave to Australian television in 1979 in which he spoke about the situation in Yugoslavia and Croatia’s struggle for independence. Mihaljević, “Jakša Kušan Collection.”

36 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 186–87.

37 On Vinko Nikolić, see Bencetić and Kljaić, “Nikolić, Vinko.”

38 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 242.

39 Ibid., 302.

40 Ibid., 288–89. Zorza was one of the most respected Western commentators on the communist countries and China, and he was among the first to notice and write about the conflict between the USSR and China. On Zorza, see Wright, Victor Zorza: a life amid loss.

41 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 304.

42 Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan.

43 Ibid.

44 Krašić, Hrvatsko proljeće i hrvatska politička emigracija, 54. On the Croatian Spring, see Batović, The Croatian Spring.

45 Krašić, Hrvatsko proljeće i hrvatska politička emigracija, 54.

46 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 146–47.

47 Under his supervision, the UDBA used more than 20 informants whose code names were Bodul, Majk, Kokić, Rajko, Jusufi, Putnik, Ivo, Špica, Branko, Max, David, Marijan, Forum, Joško, Boem, Janko, Leo, Lovro, Grbavi, Prizma, Maja, Lula, Olja etc. HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 8, 12–27, 182, 235, 974–979.

48 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 4, 214–28.

49 Ibid., 154–55.

50 Ibid., 97.

51 Ibid., 98–107.

52 Ibid., 15, 20, 450–52.

53 Ibid., 20.

54 Ibid., 22–25.

55 Ibid., 182, 1030–31.

56 Ibid., 6.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid., 135, 229, 326.

59 Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan.

60 Krašić, Hrvatsko proljeće i hrvatska politička emigracija, 52.

61 Ibid., 53.

62 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 305.

63 Mihaljević, “Stjepan Babić, Božidar Finka, Milan Moguš. Hrvatski pravopis (Croatian Orthography), 1972. Book.”

64 Kušan, Bitka za Novu Hrvatsku, 103.

65 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 1038.

66 Ibid., 505.

67 Ćosić, “Franjo Tuđman i problemi objavljivanja knjige Nacionalno pitanje u suvremenoj Europi.”

68 Palić-Kušan, Croatia on trial. Kušan also published the Croatian edition of the book in the same year. See Na suđenju dr. Tuđmanu sudilo se Hrvatskoj.

69 Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan; HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 18, 954–57, 1066–68.

70 Kušan, Bitka za Novu Hrvatsku, 123.

71 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 7.

72 Ibid., 417–18.

73 Ibid., 6–7.

74 Krašić, Hrvatsko proljeće i hrvatska politička emigracija, 173.

75 On the terrorist actions of Croatian radicals in exile see Tokić, Croatian Radical Separatism and Diaspora Terrorism during the Cold War, 2020.

76 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 497.

77 Ibid., 1036–37.

78 Perušina, “Hrvatska politička emigracija,” 29.

79 Banac et al., “National Movements, Regionalism, Minorities,” 546.

80 Miočević, “Hrvatsko narodno vijeće od 1974. do 1990.”

81 The Australian government banned the HNV meeting, so elections were held in January 1980 in London. Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan.

82 McDonald, Reasonable doubt; Horner and Blaxland, The secret Cold War; Daley, “Catholic extremism fears in 1970s Australia made Croats ‘the Muslims of their time’.”

83 Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan.

84 Čulo, “Ljudska prava u hrvatskoj emigrantskoj misli (1945–1990).”

85 HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH, Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša, 903–7.

86 Kušan, Bitka za Novu Hrvatsku, 313.

87 Ibid., 309–13.

88 Borić, “Veliki emigrantski novinar Jakša Kušan.”

89 Hameršak, “Kušan, Jakša.”

90 Krašić, Hrvatski pokret otpora, 13–18.

91 Pavlinić, “Jakša Kušan.”

92 Ibid.

93 Kušan, “Nakon saborovanja HDZ,” 4; Pavlinić, “Jakša Kušan.”

94 Pavlinić, “Jakša Kušan.”

95 Borić, Hrvat izvan domovine, 79.

96 Kušan, “Najveći borci za Hrvatsku došli su upravo iz bivših udbaških redova.”

97 Kušan, Bitka za Novu Hrvatsku, 5.

98 Ibid, 7.

99 Ibid., 314.

100 Ibid., 314–15.

101 Ibid., 315.

102 Mihaljević, “Jakša Kušan Collection.”

103 Hameršak, “Kušan, Jakša.”

104 Apor et al., “Cultural Opposition Goes Abroad,” 474.

105 Mihaljević, “Summer Courses of the Free Europe University in Exile, 1957. Brochure.”

106 Mihaljević, Interview with Jakša Kušan.

107 Kušan, Bitka za Novu Hrvatsku.

* The research is conducted within the project “Exploring emotions in the (re)construction of diaspora identity: Croats in Australia and New Zealand (1945–1991),“ funded by the Croatian Science Foundation.

2024_2_Intro

Concepts of Diversity in the Time of Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368–1437): Introductory Remarks and Conceptual Approaches*

Julia Burkhardt

Faculty of History and the Arts, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

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Paul Schweitzer-Martin

Faculty of History and the Arts, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 2 (2024):153-171 DOI 10.38145/2024.2.153

On January 20, 1438, a memorial service for Sigismund of Luxembourg was held in the cathedral of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik). Sigismund, who had been king and emperor of many realms, had died a few weeks earlier, and in many regions of Europe, he was commemorated with church services, the ringing of bells, and solemn speeches.1 Ragusa was no exception: here, in front of an exclusive audience, the Italian scholar Philip Diversi († 1452) spoke in memory of the deceased.2 Philip first referred to his unworthiness and then outlined Sigismund’s connection to Ragusa before moving on to the emperor’s greatest achievement: Sigismund’s commitment to unity in the Church, evident in his efforts against the Ottomans and Hussites. Whole countries, including “Italy, Germany, Spain, Gaul, England, all the transalpine regions, all peoples and nations” even the very “earth and all the seas [...], the rivers, mountains, valleys, and finally all elements”3 had born witness to Sigismund’s achievements. The emperor had traveled to all “places, coasts, the most remote regions and the whole world, as well as to kings, leaders, princes, and Christian peoples”4 with tireless commitment and prudence. If this picture of imperial omnipresence did not convince the members of Philip’s audience, they should compare their own deeds with those of Sigismund. They would then clearly see that their achievements hardly bore any comparison with his, “neither with regard to the variety of regions, nor the effort to travel all over the world, nor the speed of their execution, the dexterity of warfare, the number or size of battles, or the conclusion of peace and alliances.”5 Thus all the peoples of all the many languages of Europe should commemorate the great emperor’s passing.

Similarly, almost four years earlier, Isidore of Kiev († 1462) had commented on Sigismund’s praiseworthy character and accomplishments. Isidore had traveled to the Council of Basel as a delegate of the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos to negotiate the union of the Latin and Greek churches.6 En route, he stopped at the Imperial Diet in Ulm, where he held a panegyric speech and managed to persuade Sigismund of the importance of future cooperation. Isidore also praised Sigismund’s commitment to the unity of Christendom throughout Europe (only logical in view of his efforts to bring about Church union). Sigismund, Isidore insisted, was well equipped to do this. He was, after all, fluent in Latin, German, Hungarian, Czech, and Italian.7 In addition, Isidore claimed, Sigismund had shown a sense of justice and foresight. He had stayed awake “through whole nights in concern for the state [... and had taken care] with foresight of peoples, cities and people, and everything that concerned them!” Isidore also noted that if the emperor’s presence was necessary somewhere, “then [he did] not allow [himself] any rest, without thinking even in the least about postponement or rest for the body. As if on wings, [he seemed] to fly here and [was] always on the move [...].”8 Isidore expressed his astonishment at the emperor’s devotion and accomplishments with an exclamation rich with pathos: “Who has as much power and rulership and who commands as many vast peoples [...] as you, Your Majesty?”9

Ruling Diverse Realms and Territories: The Case of
Sigismund of Luxembourg

Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368–1437) not only ruled over an impressive array of territories but also reigned for a long period of time. From the perspective of diversity, Sigismund of Luxembourg’s reign represents a fortunate but also challenging case study. Fortunate because immensely rich and varied sources have survived from Sigismund’s long reign in Hungary, the Holy Roman Empire, and Bohemia. These sources provide detailed insights into the significance and roles of categories of difference, social affiliations, group identities, and negotiation processes. The two examples introduced above only give a small glimpse of these kinds of bonds and processes. Challenging, however, because Sigismund was confronted with very different cultural and political conditions in each of his kingdoms. The reality of a personal union across several kingdoms therefore consisted less of a centrally organized power structure and more of different spheres of influence with their own structures and methods of exerting influence. The rule of Sigismund as a cosmopolitan figure who governed vast territories led to a multiplication and differentiation of monarchical centers.10 Resilient alliances, effective communicative strategies, and a considerable degree of everyday political pragmatism were constitutive for the period of Sigismund’s rule. Depending on the situation and the local balance of power, Sigismund, his allies, and his opponents alike had to renegotiate or reconfirm interests, power relations, and coalitions in different regions, depending on the temporal, spatial, and social contexts.

The territories ruled by Sigismund and the neighboring regions significantly influenced by him served as the framework and the focal points of case studies for the international and interdisciplinary conference “DIVERSITAS (Sigis)MUNDI – Politische, soziale, religiöse und kulturelle Vielfalt in der Zeit Sigismunds von Luxemburg (1368–1437)“ [DIVERSITAS (Sigis-)MUNDI. Political, social, religious, and cultural diversity in the time of Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368–1437)], which took place in Munich in February 2023.11 The conference aimed to reveal dynamics, conflicts, regional peculiarities, and the significance of various affiliations in the time of Sigismund of Luxembourg by focusing on a range of case studies. In addition to questions of political history, issues involving social and economic history, migration history, gender history, religious history, object and art history, personal history, and spatial history were considered. Presentations and joint debates were dedicated to the question of how religious, cultural, and linguistic diversity influenced local practices of rule and governance. Furthermore, we considered the extent to which categories of difference (such as religion, social status, gender, and ethnicity) established politically relevant group constellations. We also discussed whether specific practices and semantics were developed to cope with diversity. Finally, we considered the ways in which the various categories of difference overlapped or reinforced one another.

In order to provide a forum for discussion of these questions, the conference focused on the period of Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368–1437). But more importantly, it considered the meanings and applicability of diversity as an analytical term for Medieval Studies. The conference panels were structured around four fields: political, social, religious, and cultural diversity. These fields enabled the participants to focus on a variety of types of diversity, e.g. religious practices, concepts of the unity both of the Church and of empires. Other issues were discussed, including multilingualism, the roles of learned men and women, multiple cities, and propaganda and conflicts.

This special issue of the Hungarian Historical Review presents selected case studies from the 2023 conference. Instead of providing a summary of the papers or retracing the four conference sessions, our introduction focuses on the various possible meanings of the term diversity, methodological approaches to the study of diversity, and the relevance or applicability of these approaches to the field of Medieval Studies.12 We discuss ways in which we can study political, social, religious, and cultural differences in the Middle Ages through the prism of diversity and the terminological and methodological challenges this presents.

Modern and Historic Meanings of “Diversity”: Approaching
a Challenging Term and Its Usages in Medieval Studies

The term diversity can be understood in a variety of ways, as current debates concerning social/gender/class equality and sociological discussions about social orders aptly demonstrate.13 In historical research, however, there seems to be no fixed definition. For this reason, the conference concept used a broad understanding of this term, defining diversity simply as any potential system of differentiation.14 Some conference papers noted that diversity is not merely an analytical term, as one does indeed find the Latin term diversitas in numerous medieval sources.15 However, more than once it became clear that this term does not translate to a modern concept of diversity, especially not to diversity as “celebration of difference.”16 This first impression, if perhaps vague, is confirmed by the definition of diversitas provided by the Oxford Latin Dictionary:

dīuersitās, -ātis f.

1. A state of being apart, separateness, distance.

2. The condition or fact of being different, diversity, difference; difference

of method.

3a. Difference of opinion, disagreement (between).

3b. a contradictory state, inconsistency.17

These observations lead us to two questions. First, is it misleading to use the term diversity in studies on the Middle Ages despite the fact that it may well have meant something else in the sources? Second, is diversity a useful neutral and methodologically convincing term?18 Numerous papers of this special issue highlight that the term could have an ambiguous or even negative nuance in the Middle Ages.19 Does that mean we should draw distinctions between positive and negative connotations of diversity in historical research?

To provide some idea of how these two questions can be handled, we should first discuss conceptual and terminological aspects regarding diversity. Today, the concept of diversity is of growing importance and finds itself at the center of political and social debates (e.g. political/religious/social/ethnic/gender diversity, diversity management in work environment, biodiversity, etc.).20 For the most part, the term is used to refer to issues of race, class, and gender, but it is not limited to these aspects.21 The Merriam-Webster Dictionary provides recent examples on the web for each dictionary entry.22 These examples suggest that American newspapers and magazines tend to use the term diversity together with the word inclusion, so the term indeed leans towards aspects of race, class, and gender.23

This certainly is not the way Sigismund of Luxembourg or his contemporaries (the case study for this special issue) would have understood diversity. However, recent trends and debates have clearly reflected on academic research and on study programs taught at history departments and other university institutes.24 In January 2023, for example, the History Department at the University of Münster advertised a permanent position (open to historians of all historical periods) as lecturer with a focus on diversity.25 They were seeking someone who could teach “in the field of ‘diversity’ (including culture, religion, ideology, ethnic or social origin, gender, age, disability),” understood as “a social phenomenon as well as a key concept and field of research in historical studies.”26 According to this text, the department’s concept of diversity is quite broad. Compared to the focus fields of our conference, it additionally comprises ideology, ethnic origin, gender, age, and disability.27 Overall, this advertisement testifies to a growing academic interest in this field, independent of specific periods, as much as it shows how extensive and vague the very concept of diversity is.

Drawing on this example, we pondered the extent to which the term is relevant (or increasingly relevant) to the field of Medieval Studies in particular. Without claiming completeness, we tried to establish a first impression based on findings generated by searches in the bibliographical databases RI-Opac (Regesta Imperii-Opac) and IMB (International Medieval Bibliography). According to our statistical analysis, the term diversity (or “Diversität” in German) has only come into use for publications by medievalists since the late 1990s. If one counts all entries using the term “Diversität” or “diversity” in the title of a book or article without, however, counting titles that were indexed with the term diversity, the number of results is limited: about 90 in the IMB and about 30 in the RI-Opac. Compared to many other key words of medieval studies, these are fairly low numbers. As is so often the case, there are various explanations. Mostly, this topic has a lot to do with labels. There has been considerable research and scholarship on social and religious difference in the Middle Ages, but often this scholarship is part of studies focused mostly on other topics and therefore does not show in the databases if one considers only the titles of publications. Examples include studies focused on the crusaders or on pluri-religious cultural contact zones.28

What, however, do authors mean when they use the label diversity for their publications? Diversity is often used as a synonym for “variety” or “plurality,” and vice versa.29 These terms are not quite the same in English and German, but they have clear overlaps. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes diversity as “the condition of having or being composed of differing elements (especially the inclusion of people of different races, cultures, etc. in a group or organization).”30 Plurality is defined as “a) the state of being plural, b) the state of being numerous, c) a large number or quantity,”31 while variety is “the quality or state of having different forms or types.”32 While we cannot discuss the manifold studies on plurality in the Middle Ages here,33 we would like to suggest the use of diversity as an analytical tool for Medieval Studies. This is not a political agenda that seeks to highlight or promote diversity in history. Rather, compared to terms such as plurality and variety, diversity as a concept seems to offer the clearest focus on individuals and groups, and this makes it an attractive concept for the study of social groups and their structures and forms of identity.

Diversity as an Analytical Tool for Medieval Studies?
Conceptual and Terminological Suggestions

Accordingly, the levels of meaning and areas of application of this term vary considerably. Diversity is often used to describe very different areas, ideas, and social practices. Cultural scientist Margit E. Kaufmann even characterizes diversity as a “tense dispositive of the Zeitgeist.”34 According to Kaufmann, the widespread use of the term diversity can be understood as a reaction to tensions within Western societies. Cultural anthropologist Steven Vertovec even states that our time is not necessarily “characterized by a higher degree of social difference than earlier times, but […] discourses about diversity are ubiquitous in the contemporary era.”35

From a historical perspective, on the other hand, Thomas Bauer, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies, recently noted a significant loss of diversity and ambiguity in modern times under the catchphrase of the “disambiguation of the world” (“Vereindeutigung der Welt”). Bauer suspects that this development is a trait of modernity, which is characterized by a trend toward the annihilation of diversity and the rejection of ambiguity. In contrast, Bauer attests to the exemplary character (from the perspective of diversity) of pre-modern societies, because they were “tolerant of ambiguity” (“ambiguitätstolerant”) and thus well versed in modes of dealing with social, cultural, and religious differences. In contrast to countries in Africa, the Near East, or Asia, which he contends offer examples of “real multiculturalism” (“wirkliche Multikulturalität”), Bauer considers pre-modern Europe monocultural due to the homogenizing effect of Christianity: “In the pre-modern era, no continent was as religiously and culturally uniform as Europe.”36

A medieval monarch like Sigismund of Luxembourg or his contemporary observers like Philip Diversi and Isidore of Kiev would probably have been surprised by this assessment. After all, Sigismund ruled and influenced large parts of Europe. Sigismund was always confronted with diverse day-to-day political disputes, different groups, differing concepts of belonging, and a differentiation of participatory structures, whether these differences were consequences of the “Great Western Schism,” the war against the Hussites, debates concerning the power of disposition in his kingdoms, efforts to unify Christendom, or defense measures against the Ottomans.

But do we need the concept of diversity for research on Sigismund and his time? Does the study of historical constellations through the prism of diversity really yield new or different findings? Or is diversity just a buzzword synonymous with variety, plurality, or multiculturalism? And does the term, which is used today primarily in reference to race, class, and gender, possibly direct our gaze away from forms of alterity in medieval societies? The aim of this special issue is not to impose modern notions of diversity on medieval societies. Nevertheless, it seems that a term that is primarily used with political and social connotations and implications has great potential for academic discussions, less as an empirical than as an analytical category.

At the heart of diversity lie “different conceptions of social difference.” It is thus a relational concept which highlights differences in terms of social categories and can be applied to relational structures within a social space. Consequently, as Steven Vertovec suggests, an important basic assumption is “the recognition of social difference,”37 regardless of which aspects are brought into focus. This is also where Moritz Florin, Victoria Gutsche, and Natalie Krentz started in 2018 when they made the first systematic attempt to make diversity applicable to historical case studies. They understand diversity as a “system of differentiations”38 that could be pronounced and asserted differently depending on historical constellations. First, a broad reservoir of categories of difference is to be assumed (e.g. religion, language, gender, social position, etc.), which can become visible and effective in different ways. Then, we must ask for forms of dealing with these social differences. In addition to the marking of otherness, the resulting options for perception and action are crucial. These include both observable positioning by means of clothing, symbolic external presentation, and use of language or religious practice and discursive positioning within a social hierarchy.39

Depending on the context, differentiated categories can lead to social inequalities, disparate distribution of resources, and different opportunities for participation. They can but do not necessarily have to contribute to the consolidation of social hierarchies. At the same time, the categories that are used to define and legitimize differences are variable in terms of their content or use, and thus the practices and semantics of differentiation are similarly variable. Categories of difference can be used to legitimize or negate claims to resources or to create new normative orders.40

Diversity as a historical category of analysis thus does not serve as a means of tracing static forms of inclusion or exclusion.41 Rather, according to our hypothesis, it can further more nuanced contextualization of political, social, cultural, and religious differences and hierarchies historically in their relevance to processes of social negotiation and also reveal semantic or narrative changes in the ways in which these differences were reified, challenged, or exploited.42 Whether “plurality” (“Vielfalt”) is an adequate synonym for diversity or whether, as in recent migration research, terms such as “multiplicity” (“Vielheit”)43 or alternatives are more appropriate remains a matter for discussion.

The papers in this special issue consider which sources reveal information about social differences and hierarchies. They thereby show that a variety of sources and phenomena can provide knowledge about forms of social differentiation. One can easily state that it is possible to study diversity in the Middle Ages and that this study of diversity is fruitful. However, not everything we can study has to be studied or has the same importance. Without any doubt, the concept of diversity offers new perspectives on social groups and phenomena that have not been given the attention they deserve. At the same time, we need to discuss whether and how the modern concept of diversity is applicable to the Middle Ages. The easy answer would be yes, it is applicable, but we have to be cautious and precise. It is important to understand the study of diversity not solely as analysis of markers of difference, such as race, class, and gender, but also as the study of concepts, definitions, and uses of variety, understanding contemporary assessments of such variety and its social functions and contexts.

Baring this in mind and based on the papers of the conference and the articles in this special issue, we would like to highlight four aspects that struck us as good reference points to show why it is important to focus on diversity as a concept. First, when applying the concept of diversity, many case studies also found notions of unity and uniformity. These concepts are certainly essential to any understanding of groups and societies, and thus they are of great importance to the field of medieval studies. In some cases, unity and uniformity seem to be opposed to social differentiations. In other cases, these differentiations can be part of unity. Thus, as an analytical tool, diversity can further a more nuanced understanding of how various forms of unity were understood and how they functioned.44

Second, differences and hierarchies typically can be found in processes of inclusion and exclusion used by self-fashioning social groups. This becomes visible in the cases of numerous religious groups and subgroups but also in uses of language (understood broadly also as discursive styles), forms of symbolic expression, and communication strategies.45 At the same time, the papers discuss how social groups were imagined, for instance in the case of individual cities, knights, the nobility, and possibly even heretics.46 If we analyze these constellations through the prism of diversity (within a realm or outside it), we can arrive at a richer grasp of how these groups were constructed and how they functioned.47

Third, we can ask whether positive and negative conceptions of diversity can be handled analytically the same way. Negative and positive connotations of diversity certainly are closely linked to processes of inclusion and exclusion and can even be used as tools in these processes. As a term, diversity has a number of meanings, ranging from separateness and the condition of being different to a difference of opinion. And scenarios of diversity are conceived in multiple ways. If possible, in our analysis we should make clear how diversity was assessed at the time in its specific context to preclude misconceptions by modern readers.48

And last, what role do differences and imaginations play in learning and imitating in art and scholarship, in connecting people, and in establishing opportunities for cultural exchange? Contact zones (understood both spatially and socially) seem to be especially fruitful for these questions.49 These contact zones can include regions such as the Adriatic or the Mediterranean,50 assemblies such as councils or parliaments,51 and cities and even courts.52 We can study both the intellectual works and artifacts produced in these milieus and contact zones and we can focus on individual people and their motives and interests.

These four spotlights highlight only some aspects and debates of this special issue. In many cases, the focus on diversity puts social groups, social practices, social discourses, and forms of identity building or interactions with these forms of identity into focus. This seems to be a promising way of broadening our perspective on the period of Sigismund of Luxembourg beyond the emperor and the nobility surrounding him. Analyzing modes of differentiation in the Middle Ages thus means applying the analytical category of diversity, which furthers a more nuanced understanding of social groups, their practices, and how they interacted with and conceived of one another.

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* We would like to thank our anonymous reviewers for their remarks, which helped clarify our argumentation.

1 Jörg, “Trauerfeierlichkeiten Kaiser Sigismund.” On rituals in Ragusa, cf. Janeković Römer, “Public rituals,” 7–43.
2 On Philip Diversi and his speeches, see the studies by Janeković Römer, “The orations of Philip Diversi,” 43–79; Janeković Römer, “Newly Discovered Autograph,” 67–117; Janeković Römer, “Laudes civitatum,” 275–89.
3 Janeković Römer, “Oratio in funere Sigismundi imperatoris,” 52–83, here 59–60: Attestatur demum Italia, Germania, Hispania, Galia, Anglia, omnes provintię transalpinae, omnes regiones, omnes gentes ac nationes. Testantur terrę et omnia maria, testantur flumina, montes, valles, et omnia denique elementa longos crebros continuos ipsius comeatus, incredibiles labores, maxima capitis pericula rectissima consilia, singularissimos modos, divinam solicitudinem, prudentiam apertam, et admirabilem industriam quae tam solicite, constanter, intimide, sapienter, diligenter, clare, benignissime et astute egit, exercuit, passus est, subiit, adhibuit […]. in opus adduxit atque demonstravit cum ea loca, illas oras, remotissimas regiones, et ipsum universum orbem, reges, duces, principes et populos christicolas preter sui regalem dignitatem discurreret et circuiret et conveniret unde summo christianorum consensu, eius sanctissimis exortationibus initum convocatum, congregatum atque confectum est, illud splendidissimum, sanctissimum divinissimumque Constantiense concilium in quo cum bona fere infinita acta fuerint unum maximum totius christianitatis saluberimum culmen completum extitit.
4 Janeković Römer, “Oratio in funere Sigismundi imperatoris,” 52–83, here 60: In opus adduxit atque demonstravit cum ea loca, illas oras, remotissimas regiones, et ipsum universum orbem, reges, duces, principes et populos christicolas preter sui regalem dignitatem discurreret et circuiret et conveniret unde summo christianorum consensu, eius sanctissimis exortationibus initum convocatum, congregatum atque confectum est, illud splendidissimum, sanctissimum divinissimumque Constantiense concilium in quo cum bona fere infinita acta fuerint unum maximum totius christianitatis saluberimum culmen completum extitit.
5 Janeković Römer, “Oratio in funere Sigismundi imperatoris,” 52–83, here 62: Si enim ante oculos ponere libuerit omnes a nostris imperatoribus omnes ab ex terris gentibus potentissimisque populis omnes a regibus clarissimis res tractatas voluerimusque cum suis comparare palam videbimus nec diversitate regionum nec orbis circuiendi solicitudine nec perficiendi celeritate nec bellorum studio nec preliorum numero aut magnitudine nec pacis aut concordiarum confectione posse conferri.
6 On the political and religious context, see Kolditz, Johannes VIII.
7 Schlotheuber, “Bedeutung von Sprachen Luxemburgerherrscher”; Deutschländer, “Höfische Erziehung und dynastisches Denken.”
8 Hunger and Wurm, “Isidoros von Kiev,” with the critical edition of the speech at 154–63 and a German translation at 164–73. We refer to the last part of passage no. 6, in the German translation p. 170: “ganze Nächte in Sorge um den Staat [… und kümmerst] Dich vorausschauend um Völker, Städte und Menschen und alles, was diese betrifft […]! Wenn aber irgendwo Deine persönliche Anwesenheit nötig ist, dann gönnst Du Dir keine Ruhe, ohne auch nur im mindesten an Aufschub oder Erholung für den Körper zu denken. Wie auf Schwingen scheinst Du bald hierhin, bald dorthin zu fliegen [und] bist immer in Bewegung […].”
9 Hunger and Wurm, “Isidoros von Kiev” (as note 8), 171: “Wer hat schon so viel Macht und Herrschergewalt und wer gebietet über so viele riesige Völker […] wie Du, Majestät?”
10 We refrain from providing a comprehensive description of the current state of research and merely refer to a few particularly influential studies: Hruza and Kaar, Kaiser Sigismund; Takács, Sigismundus Rex et Imperator; Pauly and Reinert, Sigismundus von Luxemburg; Hoensch, Kaiser Sigismund.
11 For a conference report and summary, see Willert, “Tagungsbericht.”
12 Our text merges the introduction to the conference (J. Burkhardt) and the summary (P. Schweitzer-Martin).
13 For an introduction to various methodological approaches, see Vertovec, Routledge International Handbook; Krell, Diversity Studies.
14 On difference as an analytical category, see Ruby, “Security makes a difference”; Hirschauer, “Un/Doing Differences.”
15 See, for example, the quotation from Philip Diversi’s speech in note 5 above.
16 Berend, “Medieval diversity.”
17 Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary, 617.
18 Klymenko, “Religious Diversity”; Müller, “Alterity and Self-Understanding”; Reinle, “Diversity and Divergence”.
19 E.g. Schneidmüller, “Unitas and Diversitas”.
20 Gaupp, “Epistemologies of Diversity”; Vertovec, Superdiversity, 125–39; Mounk, The Great Experiment.
21 Brauner, “Recht und Diversität,” 9–84, especially 9–16.
22 “In an era where there is so much focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion, Chybowski felt that bringing Chong to UConn would provide invaluable input, with his life’s work focused on exploring and dismantling history, geography, race, and culture.” Melanie Savage, Hartford Courant, February 2, 2023. “Rihanna has also made philanthropy part of her mission by championing diversity and inclusion through all of her brands and pledging $15 million towards climate justice through her Clara Lionel Foundation.” Cameron Jenkins, Good Housekeeping, February 2, 2023. “The Black History Month promotion comes as part of AMC’s work with groups like their in-house African American Experience Council, which is working to promote diversity and inclusion within AMC’s ranks and offerings.” Tim Chan, Rolling Stone, January 30, 2023. Merriam-Webster, “Diversity.” February 2, 2023.
23 And as the example of Rihanna, a popular artist, shows, diversity can involve huge amounts of money. Taylor, “Fenty Beauty’s Diversity-based Business Model.”
24 Various German universities offer special programs on “Diversity studies” (apart from regular MA/BA study programs). See, for example, the initiatives in Bamberg (https://www.uni-bamberg.de/diversity/diversity-in-lehre-und-studium/diversity-themen-in-der-lehre/), Munich (https://www.lmu.de/de/die-lmu/arbeiten-an-der-lmu/zusaetzliche-angebote/diversity/index.html), Bonn (https://www.gleichstellung.uni-bonn.de/de/universitaetskultur/gender-diversityvorlesungsverzeichnis) or Heidelberg (https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/diversity/genderlehre.html).
25 Universität Münster, Lehrkraft für besondere Aufgaben, January 18, 2023.
26 “Lehrtätigkeit im Bereich Diversität (u.a. Kultur, Religion, Weltanschauung, ethnische oder soziale Herkunft, Geschlecht, Alter, Behinderung) als gesellschaftliches Phänomen sowie als geschichtswissenschaftliches Schlüsselkonzept und Forschungsfeld.” Quote from the advertisement as in note 25.
27 Some of these aspects are also touched upon by the papers in this special issue. Gender, age, and disability are not at the core of the case studies, but they are discussed to a certain degree. But these aspects certainly have been studied and are studied for the Middle Ages. See, for example Neumann, Old Age before Modernity; McDonagh et al., Intellectual Disability; McNabb, Medieval Disability Sourcebook; Nolte et al., Dis/ability history der Vormoderne.
28 See, for example: Echevarría et al., Religious Plurality; Baumann et al., Religion – Migration – Integration.
29 On this methodological problem, see Strack and Knödler, “Einleitung,” 8–16 and (for a diachrone perspective) Wiese, “Religiöse Positionierung.”
30 Merriam-Webster, “Diversity.”
31 Merriam-Webster, “Plurality.”
32 Merriam-Webster, “Variety.”
33 See, for example, Ehrich and Oberste, Pluralität – Konkurrenz – Konflikt, and Borgolte, “Mittelalterwissenschaft.”
34 Kaufmann, “Mind the Gaps.”
35 “Wir leben im Zeitalter der Diversität. Das heißt nicht unbedingt, dass die Gegenwart durch ein höheres Maß an sozialen Unterschieden gekennzeichnet ist als frühere Zeiten, sondern dass Diskurse über Diversität in der heutigen Zeit allgegenwärtig sind.” Vertovec, Diversität, 21. See also Vertovec, Superdiversity.
36 “In der Vormoderne war kein Kontinent religiös und auch kulturell so einheitlich wie Europa.” Bauer, Die Vereindeutigung der Welt, 10.
37 “Verschiedene Vorstellungen von sozialer Differenz” and “die Anerkennung sozialer Differenz”: Vertovec, Diversität, quotes 21 and 23.
38 “System von Differenzierungen”: Florin et al., Diversity – Gender –Intersektionalität, 9.
39 See also Hirschauer, “Telling People Apart.”
40 Burkhardt, “Frictions and Fictions.”
41 There are various profound studies on mechanisms of inclusion/exclusion in the Middle Ages. We refer only to some works, without any claim of exhaustiveness: Goetz and Wood, Otherness; Folin and Musarra, Cultures and Practices; Tolan, Expulsion and Diaspora; Eisenbeiß and Saurma-Jeltsch, Images of Otherness; Reichlin, “Ästhetik der Inklusion”; Borgolte and Dücker et al., Integration und Desintegration.
42 Louthan et al., Diversity and Dissent.
43 Terkessidis, “Komplexität und Vielheit.”
44 See, for example, Murray, “From Jerusalem to Mexico”, and Sère, L’invention de l’Église.
45 On new forms of communication and publishing in the Late Middle Ages, see Schweitzer-Martin, Kooperation und Innovation; Brockstieger and Schweitzer-Martin, Between Manuscript and Print.
46 Pleszczyński et al., Imagined communities; Stouraitis, War and Collective Identities; Hovden et al., Meanings of Community.
47 Burkhardt, “Argumentative Uses”; see Hübner, “Impossible Propaganda” and Adde, “League of Lords.”
48 On the question of medieval “alterity,” see Jaspert, “The Mediterranean Other”; Srodecki, “Antemurale-based Frontier Identities,” and the discussions in Braun, Wie anders war das Mittelalter.
49 See, for example, Mersch and Ritzerfeld, Lateinisch-griechisch-arabische Begegnungen.
50 Jaspert and Kodlitz, Entre mers – Outre-mer; Jaspert, “Iberian Frontiers Revisited”; Ehrich and Oberste, Städtische Räume.
51 Burkhardt, “Assemblies Holy Roman Empire.”
52 See, for example, Opacic, Prague and Bohemia; Schlotheuber and Seibert, Böhmen und das Deutsche Reich.

2024_2_Schneidmüller

Unitas and Diversitas: Sigismund’s Empire as
a Model of Late Medieval Rulership

Bernd Schneidmüller

Heidelberg University

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 2 (2024):172-194 DOI 10.38145/2024.2.172

This article analyzes the emperorship of Sigismund (1368–1437) as a particular configuration of rule in the fifteenth century. Research on the medieval Holy Roman Empire in the Latin West has traditionally focused on the great emperors from the ninth century to the thirteenth. In contrast, imperial coronations and imperial rule in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have received much less attention. The article first presents the structural features of the Holy Roman Empire and then focuses on the significant changes to this structure in the late Middle Ages. Discontinuities made imperial rule the exception rather than the rule. Long intervals between imperial coronations always required reinventions of traditions, which led to situational negotiations among popes, authorized cardinals, and emperors. In 1433, Sigismund was the first emperor since 1220 to receive his coronation from the pope himself in Rome. The article makes it clear that Sigismund was a master in the creation of new rituals and symbols. During his reign, the imagery of the empire expanded significantly. Alongside unity (unitas) came diversity (diversitas). The article shows how differently the imperial coronation of 1433 was perceived and narrated by contemporaries in Italy and Germany.

Keywords: Holy Roman Empire, emperorship in the late Middle Ages, coronation, Emperor Sigismund, Roman popes, perceptions of power

Through his imperial coronation on May 31, 1433, Sigismund (1410–1437) aligned himself with the long-established traditions of papal elevation ceremonies in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.1 In the Middle Ages, the concept of Latin emperorship elevated kingship to a heightened status and gave it a unique and universal dignity. This was deeply rooted in salvation history, yet it did not necessarily translate to a practical increase in power. This article outlines the overarching framework encompassing the images, assertions, and actualities of emperorship in the late Middle Ages.2 It then delves into Sigismund’s emperorship, exploring four lines of inquiry: (1) the novel notions of parallels between Roman emperorship and kingship in the context of Sigismund’s dual kingship in 1410–11; (2) the reasons behind the absence of Sigismund’s imperial coronation during the Council of Constance despite his role as a patron of the Holy Roman Church; (3) the question as to whether the Roman king truly needed a ceremonial elevation to emperor in Rome; and (4) the motivations behind the late achievement of Sigismund’s imperial coronation. Was it merely a matter of preference or was it a belated pursuit of a missed opportunity?

The essay begins with an introduction of depictions of an emperor, laying the groundwork for a comprehensive analysis of sources that have been acknowledged but not yet systematically contextualized. Sigismund emerges as a ruler around whom there was a rich array of imagery and who was skilled in grand presentations and a creator of rituals and symbols of authority. The work on monuments of German kings and emperors by Schramm and Fillitz fail to capture this abundance.3 Only the exhibitions in 2006 in Budapest and Luxembourg made an earnest attempt to amass these images.4 Claudia Märtl has recently highlighted the disparity in research attention to emperorship between the early and high Middle Ages compared to the fifteenth century, which has led to an uneven focus on written and visual sources.5

Proceeding with a focus on Emperor Sigismund, the essay first offers three illustrative examples. Firstly, “the man with the fur cap,” a parchment on wood housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, garners attention for its quality and uniqueness. Its creation is dated to around 1420 or 1436–37.6 Multiple representations of Sigismund wearing a fur cap suggest its significance to the king and emperor. The depiction reveals a diadem atop the fur cap and the opulence of his robe.

Secondly, the image of Sigismund’s Roman imperial coronation by Pope Eugene IV (1431–1447) in 1433 endures visually. Bronze reliefs by Filarete, commissioned by Eugene between 1433 and 1445, adorn the central portal of the new St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. These reliefs portray significant scenes, including Sigismund’s coronation and his journey with the pope to the Ponte Sant’Angelo. The images symbolize the submission of the Christian emperor to the authority of the pope.7

A third image is sketched in the words of the Mainz merchant Eberhard Windeck. He wrote his “Book of Emperor Sigismund” soon after Sigismund’s death. It has survived in several text manuscripts and in two illuminated manuscripts. Windeck tells a scandalous story denouncing the negligent treatment of the Germans at the Roman Curia. It is said that Sigismund’s imperial crown was placed crookedly on his head during the coronation: “So the emperor knelt before the pope. Then the pope lifted his right foot and placed the crown straight on the emperor’s head, as is right and customary.” In his narrative of the presentation of the sword, Windeck amplified the scandal of the “foot-crowning.” Allegedly, during the reading of the Gospels, the pope gave the emperor the bare sword “with the top to his hand. The emperor’s marshal reversed it and placed it correctly in the emperor’s hand. And then the emperor finished singing the gospel.”8 The narrative presentation of this double affront was intended to scandalize and provoke German sentiment against the Curia. This tale, while probably not historically accurate, provides insight into the contemporary perspective on imperial coronations.

These images present emperorship characterized by humility and humiliation. Eberhard Windeck’s chronicle defines Sigismund as the “Light of the World,” emphasizing his role as both Roman king and emperor.9 In his account of the emperor’s death, Sigismund’s flair for drama in his presentation of himself is evident, as he dons ecclesiastical vestments and the imperial crown before passing. Windeck describes Sigismund’s desire for his corpse to put on display for days to show that the ruler of the world had died.10

The juxtaposition of the titles “Light of the world” and “Lord of the world” raises questions about the essence of emperorship in the fifteenth century. This assertion of universal primacy contrasts with the submissiveness Sigismund displayed before the pope. These observations prompt an exploration of the evolving nature of late medieval emperorship in Latin Christianity, leading back to a deeper examination of Sigismund’s role as emperor.

Emperorship as a Figure of Order

Emperorship represented an elevated form of kingship, but what contributed to this elevation? Who played a role in shaping it? Who embraced it? It is worth examining the foundational principles of emperorship within the Holy Roman Empire.11 Below, I present nine key aspects in a simplified breakdown.12

(1) Emperorship drew its inspiration from ancient models of order. It embodied both a sense of exceptional universality and the ability to accept external rulers, without making this apparent contradiction a central challenge. The concept of earthly superiority was developed to boost the legitimacy and authority of the emperor, although this concept did not necessarily extend beyond the empire’s borders. A strict hierarchical structure was not theoretically established. The distinction between higher-level emperorship and subordinate kingship was context-dependent and pragmatic. An early medieval doctrinal text offered the following formulation: “King is he who rules over one people or more. Emperor is he who rules over the whole world or takes precedence in it.”13 While some sources did describe emperorship as dominion over the entire world, these memorable phrases did not align with the reality of diverse rule on earth. Despite being perceived as universal during the Latin Middle Ages, emperorship functioned within the plurality of monarchies.

(2) The restoration of the Roman Empire in the West by Charlemagne in 800 endowed the notion of emperorship of the Latin Middle Ages with a new dimension. After initial experimentation with rituals in the early nineth century, emperorship formed a liturgical partnership with the papacy as the second universal authority that claimed unique dominion on Earth. The “ordines” of crowning and anointing in St. Peter’s Basilica integrated the spiritual agency of the popes and the religious devotion of the emperors. The historical primacy of the Roman Empire, established in ancient times, shifted to emphasize collective responsibility for Latin Christianity. This conferred a sacred grandeur and distinct Christian charisma on the emperorship, rooted in its foundation at the tomb of Peter, prince of the apostles. This evolved into the idea that Augustus’ empire preceded the Christian church and laid the groundwork for the Savior’s birth. However, imbuing secular rule with spiritual significance led to functional dependencies and personal considerations, preventing a comprehensive political embodiment of imperial dignity throughout the Middle Ages. This complexity should not be seen as a missed opportunity of the imperial state or as capitulation to papal precedence, as once argued by German scholarship. On a pragmatic level, the Frankish and later East Frankish kings’ patronage of the Holy Roman Church offered a significant opportunity for participation in the imperial traditions of the ancient Mediterranean world.

(3) The unity of the Mediterranean region as a whole was disrupted in the seventh century. First, the Arab expansion and the formation of the Muslim empire fractured this unity. Subsequently, in the eighth century, the Franks gained political ascendancy in the West. This prompted the Roman papacy to shift its allegiance from Constantinople to rulers in Gaul and Italy, resulting in the coexistence of two Roman and Christian empires. Thus, the once unified ancient world empire gave way to three separate empires. From Charlemagne’s re-establishment of the western imperium Romanum in 800 until the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Christendom navigated the presence or contestation of two Christian emperors. During Sigismund’s reign, genuine attempts were made to reconcile Eastern and Western Christianities, yet the competition between Christian and Muslim universal claims persisted beyond the Middle Ages. Between 800 and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the emperorship of Frankish, East Frankish, and German kings played a significant role in shaping the history of Latin Europe. Additionally, variations of imperial concepts emerged at times in regions such as the British Isles, Iberian Peninsula, and France.

(4) The notion of the shared responsibilities of emperors and popes encountered challenges during the Investiture Controversy, during which the popes asserted their authority more forcefully than the emperors. This period marked the onset of conflicts over primacy and the nature of their mutual relationship. These disputes often revolved around ritual actions during personal encounters, with both pope and emperor demanding obedience from each other.

(5) Around the year 1200, Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) heightened the papal claim to examine the eligibility and qualification of the future Roman kings. This pretense was grounded in the earlier papal transfers of the emperorship from the Greeks to the Franks and then to the Germans (translatio imperii). According to Innocent III, this historical transfer granted the popes authority over the empire’s destiny from its inception. Since only the Roman king would later be crowned as the Roman emperor by the pope, it was deemed essential for the pope to assess the king’s suitability at the time of election. While the Roman kings never fully acknowledged this approbation claim, they had to contend with it consistently. In 1338, the prince electors in the “Rhenser Weistum” and Emperor Louis IV (1314–1347) in the “Licet iuris” imperial law codified their interpretations of the election of kings and emperorship. According to this perspective, a person elected by a majority of electors would automatically become a Roman king without requiring papal approval. Going one step further, Emperor Louis IV even linked the Roman emperorship directly to the electors’ election. This pragmatic understanding, which dispensed with the papal coronation, gained acceptance in the sixteenth century. Until that point, a few more emperors negotiated situational compromises during their coronations. Charles IV, Sigismund, and Frederick III each made adjustments during their respective coronations to accommodate the shifting dynamics of their time.

(6) The most significant impact of emperorship on Latin Europe emerged indirectly. The very notion of universality and supremacy fostered a heightened sense of dignity and independence among neighboring realms. In personal encounters, the primacy of the empire was acknowledged only as a matter of ceremony, if at all. Within their own domains, rulers like the French king perceived no higher authority than themselves. This perspective was shared by Roman popes, as well as legal scholars in Italy and France. This political parity between emperor and king laid the groundwork for the principles of state sovereignty that took shape in the sixteenth century, influencing the global political landscape of the time. Consequently, the diverse characteristics of different realms took precedence over the concept of imperial unity.14

(7) A chronological overview reveals a lack of consistent theoretical continuity in the concepts of empire and imperial ideals during the Latin Middle Ages. Despite established “ordines” for imperial coronations, the institution of emperorship required reinvention and redefinition with each succession. The temporal disparity between kings’ elections north of the Alps and their subsequent papal coronations in Rome hindered any continuous imperial narrative. Between 800, the year of Charlemagne’s coronation, and 1519, when Maximilian I passed away, 30 emperors ruled in Latin Christianity. For 413 of these 720 years, a Roman emperor ruled. After Otto the Great revived the Roman emperorship in 962 and linked it to the East Frankish or German kingship, his eight successors held the title of emperor in continuity until 1137. In contrast, from 1138 to 1519, most Roman kings did not proceed to the Roman imperial coronation. Within the 300 late medieval years spanning Frederick II’s imperial coronation in 1220 to Maximilian I’s death in 1519, periods of active emperorship were exceptions rather than the norm. Between Frederick II’s coronation in 1220 and the subsequent coronation in Rome in 1312 of Henry VII, 92 years passed without an imperial coronation. Henry VII’s elevation marked the next imperial coronation, achieved without the participation of the reigning pope based in Avignon at the time. Authorized cardinals conducted the coronation of two Luxembourg dynasty rulers, Henry VII in 1312 and Charles IV in 1355. The coronation of Louis IV from the Wittelsbach dynasty in 1328 was carried out by opposing bishops or an antipope. This increasing temporal and personal detachment led to a divergence between the election of the Roman king and the emperorship in the fourteenth century. Sigismund, in 1433, became the first emperor since Frederick II in 1220 to receive his imperial crown from a legitimate pope, a span of 213 years. This period encompassed 55 years since the passing of Sigismund’s father, Charles IV, in 1378. Thus, the concept of imperial continuity or living memory is not applicable. After Sigismund, Frederick III from the Habsburg dynasty was the final emperor to be crowned at the Roman apostle’s tomb in 1452. Subsequent rulers often retained the title “Elected Roman Emperor” without undergoing a papal coronation. Only one more instance of the liturgical collaboration between pope and emperor occurred for Charles V in Bologna in 1530. The three-century span from 1220 to 1519 underscores that a reigning emperor was the exception rather than the rule. While the royal throne in the Roman-German Empire was rarely vacant, and sometimes multiple contenders vied for the crown, there were 118 years of emperorship contrasted with 181 years without an emperor. The lengthy reigns of Frederick II (30 years) and Frederick III (41 years) accounted for 71 of those 118 years. The remaining four emperors – Henry VII, Louis IV, Charles IV, and Sigismund – reigned for periods ranging from one to 23 years.

(8) While contemporary encomiums praised the emperor as “Lord of the World,” rulers themselves were cautious when making assertions about their global primacy or dominion over the entire world. The chancellery and court focused primarily on the emperor’s protective role over the Holy Roman Church and Christianity. Few exceptions saw imperial claims encroach upon neighboring kingdoms. Notably, in 1240, Emperor Frederick II and the pope engaged in heightened disputes that briefly rose to the level of claims to imperial supremacy. Even then, the Hohenstaufen chancellery made clear distinctions between recipients within the Holy Roman Empire and other kings. A circular letter sent in 1240 to King Henry III of England requested solidarity, while a similar version for the Archbishop of Trier invoked the Germanic peoples’ defense of the empire and world dominion.15 This was a critical moment of imperial superiority propaganda. However, instances of such explicit claims diminished in the subsequent years. During Henry VII’s reign, particularly on the day of his imperial coronation in 1312, he disseminated circular letters throughout the Latin Christian world, conveying his vision of a universal monarchy on Earth.16 This rhetoric surprised both his contemporaries and later historians, with its emphasis on his unique authority. Malte Heidemann’s analysis of these texts and their reception demonstrated how exceptional these expectations of universal subjugation under his rule were. The reactions to this rhetoric were equally telling: the French king impetuosly defended the independence of France, while the king of Naples vehemently rejected any notion of imperium or unitas.17 It is significant that Henry VII’s grandson Charles IV and his great-grandson Sigismund chose to distance themselves from their ancestor’s claim to world dominion. In his election proclamations in 1433, Sigismund expressed joy at being raised to the rank of emperor of the Romans, without delving into sweeping claims.

(9) While the emperors themselves exercised restraint in their assertions, fifteenth-century scholars exhibited a greater degree of ambition. They articulated imperial hopes and claims, deriving these visions from the continuation of the imperium Romanum and its role in Christian salvation history. Soon after Sigismund’s passing, the “Reformation of Emperor Sigismund” emerged as a manifesto for empire reform. In this document, Sigismund only serves as a precursor to the prophesied future peace emperor, Friderich von Lantnewen. This imagined emperor would usher in an era of peace and rule as a priest-king in the tradition of the Old Testament figure Melchizedek, thereby fulfilling God’s order on Earth. This harmonization of divine and worldly realms would be symbolized by the eagle on a golden background, representing the empire and God.18 Nine years after Sigismund’s death, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini wrote a letter to King Frederick III (1440–1493) exploring the origins and authority of the imperium Romanum. This letter positioned the empire as a divine creation, with the author dissociating it from any dualism with the papacy. Aeneas Silvius then emphasized the empire’s specific political mission for the present and future. The core ideas of this letter revolved around the necessity of monarchy to curb individual excesses and ensure peace. This political unity could only be realized under a unique ruler, appointed by God, who could bring about universal peace (pax universalis).19 The imperium Romanum, from this perspective, was God’s creation, initially ruled by kings or magistrates and later by an emperor. The empire’s legitimacy stemmed from both the power of nature and the recognition of Jesus Christ, born during the reign of Emperor Augustus. Christ’s acknowledgment of the imperium solidified its status as a temporal power, coexisting alongside the papacy as two distinct powers. This notion surfaced in humanist discussions about Sigismund’s coronation as well. Some even suggested that the existence of the imperium Romanum would prevent the advent of the Antichrist. The Roman people, as the originators of the empire and world monarchy (monarchia orbis), proclaimed Charlemagne as Patricius and later as Augustus. This lineage extended to the Teutons and culminated in Frederick III. To King Frederick III, Aeneas proclaimed the highest earthly authority, emphasizing his role as the guardian of secular concern.20 Aeneas’s words, while suggestive and subject to qualification, highlighted the evolving perceptions of imperialism in the mid-fifteenth century.

Profiles of Sigismund’s Empire

For an extended period, Sigismund’s tenure as emperor remained a lesser explored topic among medievalists. This could be attributed to waning interest in late medieval emperorship compared to earlier periods, coupled with Sigismund’s relatively belated ascendancy to imperial status, which lasted only four years. During his lengthy term as Roman king from 1410–11 to 1433, an imperial coronation could have followed the Council of Constance’s conclusion in 1417–18. Such an event was indeed on the horizon and had been contemplated by the court. However, Sigismund’s engagement with the ill-fated Council of Basel and the ultimate failure of the conciliar approach cast a shadow over the emperorship of the last of the Luxembourger emperors.

Hönsch’s comprehensive biography adeptly amalgamated the components of imperial action. However, the focus here is more pointedly directed towards the councils and imperial reform.21 Regarding Sigismund’s imperial coronation, Hermann Herre’s compilation found in the volume of the Reichstag records22 held sway for an extended period. Nonetheless, the attempt to reconstruct the reality of the day of Pentecost 1433, as undertaken there, was hampered by the favored analysis of the late medieval coronation ordo. We do not know for certain whether this text was indeed utilized for the imperial coronation. The epistolary and historiographical sources do not confirm this with any conclusiveness.

Only recently have the Italian campaign and imperial coronation of Sigismund garnered the requisite scrutiny in in-depth examinations by Péter Kovács23 and Veronika Proske.24 Kovács and Proske dispel the notion of a seemingly unequivocal reality of the event through successful individual analyses of the numerous and highly diverse written, visual, and musical sources. These documents unveil a vibrant panorama or a polyphonic symphony, thus providing a varied foundation for an understanding of the events of 1431 to 1433. In contrast, Duncan Hardy’s essay on Sigismund’s emperorship is notably concise.25

In six points, I explore the theme of “emperorship as a figure of order” for Sigismund. In doing so, I must extend my temporal scope beyond the recently extensively researched final six years of Sigismund’s life.

(1) Responsibility and Imperial Kingship: In the 1390s, as king of Hungary, Sigismund called upon the Christian community to organize defenses against the Ottomans. The Hungarian army, however, joined by crusaders mainly from Burgundy, suffered a crushing defeat at Nicopolis in 1396. Sigismund narrowly escaped capture. He upheld his commitment to the crusade until the end of his life. Even in his last year, while fatally ill, he supposedly expressed his intention not to pass away before embarking on a crusade to the Holy Land.26 Following his election and subsequent establishment as Roman king in 1410–1411, Sigismund renewed his dedication to Latin Christianity. Despite limited means, he engaged with personal charisma in preparing for the Council of Constance. Martin Kintzinger and other researchers have meticulously studied Sigismund’s extensive travels in Western Europe, as well as his active involvement in the Council.27 Until 1414, Sigismund effectively pursued the Roman king’s responsibility to reform the Holy Roman Church. He consistently motivated monarchs, nobles, and clergy from different regions of Latin Christianity to participate in the Council. Rarely in the late Middle Ages was the will of a Roman king asserted so forcefully beyond his imperial borders. Sigismund subsequently augmented his Hungarian kingship with the Roman kingship and later the Roman emperorship. This dominion over multiple realms established a composite and even imperial kingship. The official title emphasized the superior authority of the Roman king and emperor preceding the Hungarian royal title, symbolizing kingship over various realms. His documents’ intitulationes, following the dignity of Roman king or emperor (Latin with plural genitive: rex / imperator Romanorum), presented his kingship over Hungary, Dalmatia, and Croatia, followed by “etc.” (in the singular genitive for the names of countries). After Sigismund had attained the Bohemian kingship, the chancery appended the kingship of Bohemia following Hungary and preceding Dalmatia and Croatia. Sigismund’s second significant Hungarian seal specified the scope of his kingship as Hungary, Dalmatia, Croatia, Bosnia with Herzegovina (Latin: Rama), Serbia, Galicia, Volhynia (Latin: Lodomeria), Cumania, and Bulgaria.28

(2) Familial Bonds: Sigismund’s ascent to the Hungarian throne and his entry into the politics of the Holy Roman Empire were initially shaped by family negotiations and considerations concerning his elder half-brother Wenceslas and his nephews Jobst and Prokop. Wenceslas, as the heir to Emperor Charles IV’s throne, had assumed kingship over both the Holy Roman Empire and Bohemia. Even after having been deposed as Roman king by the prince electors in 1400, he continued to assert his claim to the Roman kingship. From Sigismund’s election as Roman king in 1410 until Wenceslas’ death in 1419, this resulted in an unprecedented and delicate duality. Sigismund demonstrated a flexible disposition, adhering to or diverging from binding agreements depending on circumstances. Early agreements between Wenceslas and Sigismund, opposing King Ruprecht, attest to this. In 1402, as king of Hungary and Vicar General of the Roman Empire, Sigismund informed Giangaleazzo Visconti of the settlement among the four Luxembourg princes and the impending campaign in Italy, wherein Wenceslas would participate as rex Romanorum.29 The division of the Roman emperorship and Roman kingship was repeatedly contemplated within the Luxembourg family. Initially, in 1410, between Wenceslas and Jobst,30 and subsequently in 1411, between Wenceslas and Sigismund. While distinctions between father and son existed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (such as between Emperor Frederick II and King Henry (VII) and between Emperor Charles IV and King Wenceslas), the functional partition among brothers was novel. The plan was for Wenceslas to retain the Roman imperial dignity, the imperial regalia, and his kingship over Bohemia. Sigismund upheld his promise not to seek the imperial crown during Wenceslas’ lifetime.31 Noteworthy was the agreed separation of the Roman emperorship and Roman kingship. This evolution would have rendered the imperial dignity a mere ornamental distinction for a Bohemian king, lacking imperial agency within the empire and Christianity.

(3) Defensor et protector: Sigismund asserted this agency as Roman king. Throughout the preparations for and course of the Council of Constance, he functioned as protector and defender of the Church, as well as of the Council itself. During the Council’s rituals, the Roman king presented himself adorned in imperial regalia (in habitu imperiali) and seated prominently at the southern crossing pillar of Constance’s cathedral. In terms of rank, Sigismund held a position above the nations, though he was de facto limited to the German nation. For the council, he adopted a distinctive visual depiction, wherein a prince aims the tip of a bare sword at the king’s head or crown. Werner Paravicini referred to this depiction, observed during the royal Christmas service or princely enfeoffments, as the “Constance gesture.”32 Sigismund embraced a ritual that had been pioneered by his father Charles IV. During the Christmas service, the ruler read the Gospel of Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth with an unsheathed sword, akin to Augustus, whose decree marked the inception of Christian salvation history.33 Sigismund’s dramatic entrance at the beginning of the Council of Constance was of such significance that he endured considerable hardships during the hastened procession to Constance, and he instructed Pope John (XXIII), present at the event, to await his arrival. Achim Thomas Hack characterized the grand entrance before the Council in the following words: “At the seventh reading during Matins and the first Mass, Sigismund, donning the liturgical attire of a deacon and accompanied by candle bearers, ascended the cathedral pulpit and, with his sword unsheathed, recited the Gospel Exiit edictum a Caesare Augusto.”34 Thus, Roman royalty laid the groundwork for the Council to reunify Latin Christianity. While the council did not address all the formidable challenges, the election of Martin V (1417–1431) in 1417 marked the end of the papal schism and a return to the papal office’s singular authority. It is perplexing that Martin’s return to Rome in 1420 did not lead to Sigismund’s elevation as Roman emperor after Sigismund’s endorsement by the new pope. While the chancellery was already planning to give the emperor a novel emblematic, the opportunity was ripe after Wenceslas’ demise in 1419.

(4) Ritual Dynamics: The previously mentioned “Constance gesture” exemplifies Sigismund’s mastery of ritual. His flair for attire and ceremony is evident in various contexts. Yet, Sigismund also fostered the creation of new symbols and signs for the imperial imagery.35 In 1415, he commissioned a mural fresco in Frankfurt, the place of the royal elections, to depict the new quaternion system.36 Post the emperor, empire, and prince electors, this fresco integrated dukes, margraves, landgraves, burgraves, counts, nobles, knights, towns, villages, and peasants as representatives of the empire in groups of four. While the rationale behind selecting and combining these 40 members remains enigmatic, this societal hierarchy illustrates a noteworthy innovation. It intertwined the responsibilities of the king and elector, as formulated in the Golden Bull of 1356, with the medieval community of princes, forming an elite action group of the empire. Numerous depictions since the fifteenth century underscore the integrative power of this model, linking its constituents to the emperor and empire’s distinctive position within salvation history. Sigismund’s influence extended beyond the structure of quaternions. The double-headed eagle with a halo, symbolizing emperorship, also traces back to him. Its significance is evident from an entry in the “Hauskanzleiregistraturbuch.” In November 5, 1417, six days prior to Martin V’s papal election, the protonotary Johannes Kirchen ordered two imperial majesty seals (sigilla imperialis majestatis) from a goldsmith, specifying the double-headed eagle as the seal’s image.37 In Sigismund’s imperial seal since 1433, the intricate idea of the double-headed eagle is codified into an enduring iconographic order. On the obverse, Sigismund presents himself with five coats of arms: the haloed double-headed eagle representing the Holy Roman Empire and the coats of arms of Luxembourg, Bohemia, Hungary, and Upper Hungary (patriarchal cross). The reverse bears only the haloed double eagle, accompanied by a programmatic inscription referencing the eagle of the prophet Ezekiel, symbolizing the sanctity of the imperium Romanum and the interweaving of the spiritual and temporal realms. The inscription reads “The eagle of Ezekiel has been sent to the bride from heaven. Higher than the eagle flies no seer and no prophet.” (Aquila Ezechielis sponse missa est de celis. Volat ipsa sine meta, quo nec vates nec propheta evolabit alcius).38 Bettina Pferschy-Maleczek delves into the mystical and allegorical dimensions of this symbolism in an extensive article. Based on the vision of Ezekiel (Ezek 1:4–28), the eagle signifies both the fourth gospel and the fourth and final world empire, the imperium Romanum.39

(5) Union of the two greatest lights: Using these words, the papal secretary Cencio Rustici extolled the liturgical harmony between the pope and the emperor in his celebratory oration during Sigismund’s coronation as emperor. As was customary for this genre, the accolades for the new Rome and for Pope Eugene IV as a “celestial man and earthly deity” (celestis homo et terrenus deus) resonated with grandeur.40 With great ceremony, Sigismund, 65 years of age at the time, made his entry into Rome on Ascension Day in 1433 and encountered the pope there. A few days later, the imperial coronation took place in St. Peter’s Basilica during Pentecost. The recent works by Kovács and Proske provide detailed accounts from eyewitnesses and distant chroniclers, offering insights into an imperial coronation that shared essential elements with the models of the fourteenth century. Noteworthy is the repeated mention by Gimignano Inghirami, dean of the Sacra Rota and a man who was deeply involved in the ceremony, of the new emperor’s struggle with gout. Due to this ailment, Sigismund needed assistance and was provided a small seat near the altar.41 Why did Sigismund, a Luxembourger, subject himself to over two years of challenging and at times degrading travel through Italy? A little more than a decade earlier, after the successful conclusion of the Council of Constance, he could have celebrated his journey to the Roman tomb of the Apostles as the successful protector of the new elected pope. The motivation to travel to Rome was evidently driven by the changes in the papal office in 1431 and the threat to the established principle of recurring councils of the Roman Church, as outlined in the Constance Council decree “Frequens.” The rejection of the Council of Basel by Pope Eugene IV and the Council Fathers’ plans to depose him led Sigismund to resume his diplomatic endeavors from before the Council of Constance. His aim was now to secure the imperial crown, which would grant him greater influence over the council proceedings. The well-documented negotiation process sheds light on the extensive efforts Sigismund undertook to maintain his authority over the church and council. The initial period from the start of the Italian campaign on April 1, 1431 to the acquisition of the Iron Crown in Milan on November 25, 1431 was relatively brief. In contrast, the time leading up to the Roman imperial coronation dragged on tediously. The succinct account by the Liège chronicler Cornelius Menghers of Zantfliet, who described Sigismund’s move to Rome to obtain the third crown as the holder of already two crowns, presents the extended duration as part of the lawful progression from Italian king to Roman emperor.42 However, the reality was far more demanding. In the end, the mutual benefits for the emperor and the pope prevailed, as Eugene IV’s rule remained tenuous. By accepting Eugene as the person to crown him, Sigismund reinforced Eugene’s authority. Thus, Sigismund’s entry into Rome and the imperial coronation were staged as a continuous display of harmonious agreement. In an encomium of Sigismund, possibly delivered at the Council of Basel, a Bolognese orator recalled the closeness between the pope and emperor, characterized by kisses, tears of joy, and overwhelming ardor. The bond was so strong that onlookers perceived their distinct bodies as a singular entity, “marvelous in our eyes.”43 The musical composition “Supremum est mortalibus bonum,” a motet by Guillaume Dufay, a member of the papal chapel, praised the pope and king as peacemakers and celebrated the long-awaited peace as the ultimate good for humanity and a divine gift.44 However, amidst the abundant praise, it is important not to overlook the fact that Italian humanists also subjected Emperor Sigismund to ridicule. A mere four days after the imperial coronation, Poggio Bracciolini wrote a letter to Niccolò Niccoli in which he gave an eyewitness account of Sigismund’s time in Rome. The letter compared the medieval imperial coronation tradition, stemming from Charlemagne, to the Roman empire of antiquity. Poggio’s disdain was directed at the term “king of the Romans,” which the present emperors adopted even before their consecration and coronation. He perceived this term as perverse and believed it originated from barbarians unfamiliar with ancient history and the power of words. In this manner, Poggio derogated Emperor Sigismund as an uninformed individual. This remark from the scholar dismissed the four-century-long self-assuredness of Roman royalty as a privileged monarchy within Latin Christianity. The glory of Roman antiquity now became the benchmark for a late medieval period that highly valued the legitimizing “power of words” (vis verborum).45

(6) Recollected emotions: Prior to his coronation, Sigismund had been accepted into the community of the canons at St. Peter’s in the church of Santa Maria in Turri. Following the imperial coronation, on the Tiber bridge, he elevated numerous followers to knighthood in the traditional manner. A letter documents as many as 180 honors.46 After the knighting at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, this elevation during the imperial coronation held the highest distinction for a Christian knight. This triumph might still have been rooted in the belief articulated by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1155 that he possessed the right to rule over Italy and be crowned emperor as a conqueror. Notably, no German princes or Hungarian magnates were present at Sigismund’s imperial coronation. Consequently, numerous knightly and patrician attendants carried their knightly pride back to the land north of the Alps, enhancing the memory of the 1433 imperial coronation. This was accompanied by numerous imperial confirmations of privileges, noble grants, coat of arms enhancements, favors, and legitimizations of illegitimate birth.47 The news of the imperial coronation prompted celebrations in German cities, with bells ringing, bonfires blazing, and grand processions taking place in imperial cities.48 The response in Nuremberg is meticulously documented, where accounts detailed the costs and benefits of the imperial coronation for the city. A decade earlier, Sigismund had entrusted the imperial regalia to Nuremberg’s Holy Spirit Hospital in perpetuity. They arrived in 1424. The Nuremberg City Council sent a legation to Rome for the imperial coronation, led by Erhard Haller and city clerk Ulrich Truchsess. The city’s records chronicled expenses of 2296 ¼ florins and 8 pounds of Nuremberg Heller for the legation’s 14-week absence.49 In return, the envoys secured 23 imperial privileges, including nine with a Golden Bull. One of these documents confirmed the perpetual residence of the imperial regalia in Nuremberg. This golden-bull document from the new emperor upheld the king’s privilege from 1423, which had previously only been confirmed with a wax seal. In total, the imperial city of Nuremberg held 27 rulers’ charters with golden bulls issued between 1313 and 1717. Remarkably, a third of these charters dated back to the day of Sigismund’s coronation as emperor alone.50 The expenses associated with issuing eight golden bulls and 14 charters under majesty’s seal on coronation day were meticulously recorded: 600 ducats for the imperial chancery, 200 ducats for the gold used in the bulls, 40 ducats for the goldsmith, and 50 ducats in gratuities for the chancery clerks.51 With this extraordinary abundance of costly gold bulls, Nuremberg compensated for not having received the renowned “Golden Bull” of Emperor Charles IV and the Electors in the fourteenth century. Of the seven originals of this pivotal document, six were reaffirmed at the time with the imperial gold bull, while only Nuremberg relied on the more affordable wax seal version. Five members of the Nuremberg delegation, identified by name, were among the newly knighted individuals in 1433. Ulrich Truchsess and Erhard and Paul Haller, were granted an imperial confirmation and augmentation of their coat of arms.52 The benefits of Sigismund’s reign for Nuremberg were commemorated in the renowned artworks by Albrecht Dürer in the early sixteenth century, dedicated to the shrines of relics kept in the city. Alongside the portrait of Charlemagne, credited as the originator of the regalia, stood Sigismund, to whom Nuremberg owed the preservation of these cherished artifacts.53 Nonetheless, the jubilation over the imperial triumph in Germany was coupled with a disconcerting sentiment that the Curia had treated the emperor with disrespect. Eberhard Windeck presented a thought-provoking anecdote that likely was not considered in the historical reconstruction of the events within the Roman St. Peter’s church. Windeck’s intention was to evoke emotions through his narrative. Allegedly, the cardinal designated for the coronation had questioned the emperor in advance about his legitimacy of birth and piety. Sigismund affirmed his legitimacy but then added that the cardinal himself was neither pious nor fit for coronation due to his alleged act of mutilating a woman’s breasts. According to this story, the cardinal in charge then carelessly placed the crown on the emperor’s head during the coronation, causing it to tilt to the right side. In response, as mentioned earlier, the pope straightened the crown with his right foot, adhering to custom.54 This tale of the papal foot-adjustment roused sentiments in Germany. The story contrasted moral righteousness and concern for Christianity with the perceived moral decay within the Curia and the popes’ perceived arrogance. This account, passed down even during the Reformation, fueled the grievances (gravamina) of the German nation during the late Middle Ages. Consequently, the image emerged of the virtuous emperor humiliated by a cunning pope.

Conclusion

In her analysis of Sigismund’s political system, Sabine Wefers evaluates the role of the emperorship as follows: While the emperorship was undoubtedly a form of “elevated kingship,” its practical function was essentially equivalent to regular kingship.55 This assessment seems accurate, but it underestimates the legitimizing significance of imperial dignity for the emperors of the late Middle Ages. Hence, the approach taken in this article diverges from examining the utilitarian aspect of the emperorship and instead proceeds from the perspective of the emperorship as a splendid symbol of order. Consequently, alongside modes of action, there arises a focus on interpretations, perceptions, rituals, and their impacts. In terms of functionality, the limitations of imperial authority were repeatedly demonstrated during the later Middle Ages. Nonetheless, no other monarch would have undertaken Sigismund’s ambitious efforts to organize Latin Christianity and enable the Council of Constance. The institution of emperorship provided a framework for a vision of unity even amid enduring diversity.

In this paper, I have outlined three conceptions of emperorship, delineated nine characteristics typical of emperors, and presented six distinct profiles of Emperor Sigismund. A key argument of this article centered on the fluidity in the conception and structure of empire in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This openness was largely attributed to the frequent interruptions in the reigns of emperors. Only the Roman kingship succeeded in establishing lasting continuity. A detailed comparison of the reigns of Roman kings and emperors reveals that imperial rule between 1250 and 1519 was more of an exception than the norm. Consequently, each late medieval imperial coronation should be seen in its exclusivity rather than as a recurring pattern. This perspective lends significance to Sigismund’s delayed decision to seek coronation as emperor from the pope, underscoring his understanding and vision of himself as the defender of the Roman Church as well as the protector of the Council. Thus, Sigismund’s stance is revealed within a comprehensive framework of emperorship, allocating roles to the participants in the reenactment of crowning and sacring as established rituals. Nevertheless, the significant interruptions in late medieval imperial coronations led many of Sigismund’s contemporaries to perceive and portray imperial authority in varying ways.56

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Weiland, Ludwig, ed. Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et regum. Vol. 2, 1198–1272. Hanover: Hahn, 1896.

Weizsäcker, Julius, ed. Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter König Ruprecht. Vol. 2, 1401–1405. Gotha: Perthes, 1885.

Windeck, Eberhard. Eberhard Windeckes Denkwürdigkeiten zur Geschichte des Zeitalters Kaiser Sigmunds. Edited by Wilhelm Altmann. Berlin: Gaertner, 1893.

1 Hoensch, Sigismund; Pauly, Sigismund; Schlotheuber, “Sigismund.”
2 Scales, Shaping; Jones et al., “World of Empires”; Schneidmüller, “Kaiser sein.”
3 Schramm and Fillitz, Denkmale, 75–77.
4 Takács, Sigismundus, 122–67. Cf. Kéry, Sigismund.
5 Märtl, “Kaisertum und Italien,” 328–35.
6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismund,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#/media/File:Pisanello_024b.jpg. Accessed March 17, 2024. Cf. Takács, Sigismundus, 153–54.
7 https://www.wga.hu/html_m/f/filarete/stpete7.html. Accessed March 17, 2024. Cf. Takács, Sigismundus, 460–61.
8 Windeck, Denkwürdigkeiten, 343–44. Cf. Bojcov, “Kaiser”; Schneider, Windeck.
9 Römscher kunig und keiser, [von] dem man sprach lux mundi, das ist ein liecht der werlt. Windeck, Denkwürdigkeiten, 1–2.
10 Also saß er uf eim stuole und verschiet. also soltu nü merken, waz er in befalch, e er starp: wanne er sturbe, so solt man in ston lossen zwen oder drige tage, daz alle menglichen sehen sollten, das aller der welt herre dot und gestorben were. Windeck, Denkwürdigkeiten, 447.
11 Sulovsky, “Concept”; Sulovsky, Making.
12 For the following paragraphs cf. Schneidmüller, Kaiser des Mittelalters, 10–15; Schneidmüller, “Kaiser, Kaisertum.”
13 Super totum mundum aut qui precellit in eo. Beyerle, “Schulheft,” 7.
14 Schneidmüller, “Imperium.”
15 Weiland, Monumenta, 312.
16 Schwalm, Monumenta, 801–7.
17 Heidemann, Heinrich VII.
18 Koller, Reformation, 332–42.
19 Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, De ortu, 58–59. English translation: Izbicki and Nederman, Three Tracts, 95–112.
20 Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, De ortu, 60–69.
21 Hoensch, Sigismund, 371–99.
22 Herre, Reichstagsakten, 701–848.
23 Kovács, “Coronation”; Kovács, König Sigismund.
24 Proske, Romzug; Proske, “Pro duobus.”
25 Hardy, “Emperorship.”
26 Beckmann, Reichstagsakten, 259–64, cit. 263.
27 Kintzinger, Westbindungen.
28 Kondor, “Two Crowns.”
29 Weizsäcker, Reichstagsakten, 190–92.
30 Leuschner, “Wahlpolitik,” 552; Hoensch, Sigismund, 152.
31 Nach dem keiserriche und siner wirdikeite nicht stehen noch werben noch uns der annemen oder underwinden. Kerler, Reichstagsakten, 102–6.
32 Paravicini, “Schwert,” 279–304.
33 Heimpel, “Weihnachtsdienst auf den Konzilien,” 388–411; Heimpel, “Königlicher Weihnachtsdienst,” 131–206.
34 Hack, Empfangszeremoniell, 567.
35 Kintzinger, “Zeichen,” 365–69; Scales, “Illuminated Reich,” 73–92.
36 Schubert, “Quaternionen,” 1–63; Hoffmann, Darstellungen, 53–58.
37 Altmann, Regesta Imperii, no. 2662a; Sickel, “Geschichte,” 14. Archival Manuscript: Vienna, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, RK Reichsregister F Hauskanzleiregistraturbuch Kaiser Sigismunds, 1417-1418, fol. 72r. Accessed March 17, 2024: https://www.archivinformationssystem.at/bild.aspx?VEID=4089040&DEID=10&SQNZNR=151.
38 Allgeier, “Adler-Siegel.” 37; Bleisteiner, “Doppeladler,” 4–52.
39 Pferschy-Maleczek, “Nimbus,” 448–50.
40 Cencio Rustici, “Oratio,” 157–58. Cf. Proske, Romzug, 192–93.
41 Guasti, “Ricordanze,” 46–47.
42 Zantfliet, “Chronicon,” 433.
43 Edited by Proske, Romzug, 184.
44 Text, accessed March 17, 2024: https://www.diamm.ac.uk/documents/174/08_Du_Fay_Supremum_est_mortalibus_bonum.pdf. Music, accessed March 17, 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x85jsfbiVQ.
45 Existimo autem hoc a barbaris derivasse, qui priscas historias ignorarunt, neque verborum vim tenuerunt. Poggio Bracciolini, Lettere, 122–24, cit. 124.
46 Herre, Reichstagsakten, 844.
47 Kovács, “Coronation,” 126–34.
48 Herre, Reichstagsakten, 844.
49 Die Chroniken, 451–52.
50 Nürnberg – Kaiser und Reich, 26; Norenberc, 62–63, 66–67.
51 Die Chroniken, 451–52.
52 Kovács, “Coronation,” 130–32; Altmann, Regesta Imperii, no. 9459–9461. Cf. Die Chroniken, 304, 387.
53 Accessed March 17, 2024: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismund,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#/media/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_082.jpg.
54 Windeck, Denkwürdigkeiten, 343–44.
55 Wefers, System, 213.
56 This paper was initially presented in German. I improved the English translation by making use of the “rephrase” feature on chat.openai.com.

2024_2_Müller

Alterity and Self-Understanding: Inclusion and Exclusion Strategies of Southern German Estates in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

Markus Christopher Müller

Institute of Bavarian History at the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 2 (2024):195-212 DOI 10.38145/2024.2.195

This article analyses diversification strategies in the politics of Sigismund I as king and emperor. Three examples (Swabia, Bavaria, and Tyrol) show different aspects of this diversity. In Swabia, Sigismund attempted to mediate alliances between the knightly societies and the city federations in order to create a counterweight to the imperial princes. In Bavaria, he privileged the knighthood and thus created a dynamic that led to the formation of the land estates with their own identity. Sigismund also supported rebellious nobles in Tyrol against their prince. All interventions can be better contextualised against the backdrop of his imperial policy. At first glance, he was not successful anywhere, but the imperial privileges he granted had an impact on the conflicts between the knighthood/nobility and princes in the fifteenth century and thus diversified late medieval constitutional practice.

Keywords: nobility, empire, constitution, knighthood, Swabia, Bavaria, Tyrol, estates

When King Sigismund was in Nuremberg in September 1422, he had difficult months behind him which had born witness to his coronation as king of Bohemia, victories and defeats against the Hussites, and a hasty flight. Furthermore, he was not in Nuremberg entirely voluntarily, for after he himself had let an invitation to a possible court day in Regensburg lapse, the electors had summoned him to appear in Nuremberg on July 15, 1422.1 Historian Sabine Wefers speaks of the self-organisation of the empire.2 Sigismund arrived on July 26 and tried to make the day called by the electors his own after all.3

On September 13, 1422, the Sunday before the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, he allowed the knighthood in the empire (it remains unclear whether at this point he was only addressing the estate of imperial knights, which was also not yet clearly definable) to unite for the protection of their rights and to admit imperial cities to their union. In the corresponding charter, at least one of which is preserved in the original in Munich, the king emphasises his concern for safeguarding the rights of the knighthood of his realm.4 His aim was for the nobility to be happy and blessed.5 Sigismund had to intervene, as he had heard that the knighthood in Germany was suffering much coercion and that many of its rights were being challenged.6 This is followed in the corresponding charter by the cities, to which he grants the full right to join the associations of the nobility.7 For himself and all his successors, Sigismund confirmed the right of association for the knighthood and cities in his realm.

The charter from September 13, 1422 has so far received attention as King Sigmund’s “privilege,” especially in research on the Swabian nobility. Hermann Mau even regarded it as the “Magna Carta der deutschen Reichsritterschaft.”8 The aim of this royal privileging of Sigismund was, in my view, to diversify the political constellations of actors in the Holy Roman Empire so that Sigismund himself would be able to intervene as the ordering head of this empire and thus to create counterweights to the Electoral College. Sigismund’s approach can be seen as innovative against the backdrop of his father’s legislation (the Golden Bull) and the denigration by towns and princes of previous associations of lesser nobles as “evil societies” (böse Gesellschaften, e.g. in the early 1380s).

If we understand diversity as a system of differentiations9 that could be developed and asserted in different ways depending on historical constellations, this can be seen as Sigismund’s attempt to create diversity in order to secure and expand his rule. In the following, I will examine how realistic this attempt proved. I draw on three concrete examples: the Swabian noble alliances, the estates of the Duchy of Bavaria, and rebellious nobles in the County of Tyrol. I conclude with an admittedly incomplete attempt to assess the exemplary results to Sigismund’s imperial policy and his understanding of rule. A quick glance at the secondary literature suffices to show that the relationship between King and Emperor Sigismund to the non-princely nobles has hardly been studied. Historians have tended focus on his relations with the princes of the Holy Roman Empire and the political actors who enjoyed “imperial immediacy” (reichsunmittelbar).10 From a broader perspective, the preliminary findings of this paper can further a more nuanced understanding of the associative political culture of the late medieval empire, as recently emphasised by Duncan Hardy, for example:11 “The Empire therefore consisted of a shifting kaleidoscope of intertwined jurisdictions and networks.”12 The functioning of these networks within the empire in its parallel and mutually overlapping constitutional structures and constellations, especially below the level of the imperial princes, has not yet been sufficiently studied.13 In this article, I attempt to do this from the perspective of diversity.

The Swabian Noble Alliances

On April 25, 1413, the regional Swabian knightly confederations under the banner of St. George concluded the Bund der Gemeinen Gesellschaft, the so-called Jörgenbund.14 A few days later, 19 imperial cities entered a union among themselves with a protective relationship with Count Palatine Ludwig and Count Eberhard of Württemberg.15 More than a year later, at Christmas 1414, Sigismund came to the empire as the elected Roman king. At this time, he could only rely on the support of the electors to a limited extent. Accordingly, Sigismund quickly sought to harness the political potential of the lower nobility and the cities. He built on the origins of the Society of St. George’s Shield in the suppression of the Appenzell rural communes and the League above the Lake in 1407–1408, which surely played a major role in making the Society and other associations of lesser nobles potential partners of kings and emperors.16 At the Diet of Constance in February 1415, Sigismund reminded the city delegates of the great city alliances of the fourteenth century, and he explained to them that the princes were increasing their rights at the expense of the empire, while the empire only had the cities to support it. However, his attempts at motivation were unsuccessful. The cities refused to accept the royal alliance policy proposed.17

All the more surprising is the reason Sigismund gives in his Nuremberg charter of September 13, 1422 for not only allowing an alliance between the nobility and the cities but even having called for it. In the charter, he states that all the cities represented in Nuremberg had a great desire to achieve unity and friendship among themselves.18 He, the king, could therefore only welcome the fact that the cities stuck together when the princes joined forces.19 However, it is doubtful whether Sigismund acted as reactively as scholars have often believed him to have done. Rather, the charter should be understood merely as a rhetorical attempt to realise a project that had been running since 1414 at the latest, albeit unsuccessfully in this case as well.

This corresponds to an assumption expressed by Heinz Angermeier that it was not the intention of the imperial cities to engage in a new imperial policy. Rather, it was the king who based on his Hungarian experiences, believed that he could also only develop a monarchical policy in Germany with the help of the cities.20 After Sigismund’s initial conflicts with the Hungarian estates, he was able to come to terms with them in the following years. The model for his attempts to establish city alliances in the empire was certainly the great city privileges of the Hungarian diet of 1405. He probably assumed that this would also enable him to govern successfully in the empire.

This attempt to encourage and favour alliances of the lower nobility, the knighthood, and the cities was supplemented by a clear policy of prohibition, which can be seen as two sides of the same coin. For example, Sigismund forbade the Elector of Mainz and the Rhenish imperial cities of Mainz, Worms, and Speyer to form alliances, with a clear justification addressed to the Elector of Mainz: Since Emperor Charles IV had forbidden such association, he too, Sigismund, thought it was forbidden. He therefore did not want the Elector to approach the aforementioned cities. Instead, he should show consideration for the king and the Empire. In this case, Sigismund clearly argued with the prohibition of alliances formulated in the Golden Bull,21 which the king knew how to interpret differently for himself than for the imperial princes: an alliance could only be established with the knowledge and will of the imperial power. Sigismund wanted to secure a monopoly on it, so to speak.22 Mark Whelan has identified several factors of the communication between the Princely Abbey of Ellwangen and Sigismund’s court which can probably be cited as an additional difficulty in achieving this goal: “the obstacles associated with traversing the vast Luxembourg realms and the costs involved in treating with an often distant sovereign.”23 As Whelan points out, this did not mean that these problems diminished Sigismund’s “significance to contemporaries,”24 but they perhaps did make some of his policies more difficult to implement in practice.

Nevertheless, some of the electors also tried to apply Sigismund’s strategy and organise alliances under their leadership. However, the cities and the St. Jörgen Society refused such electoral association plans at the end of 1427. In May of the following year, the electors again tried to establish such an alliance under their aegis, but we know of no reaction to their efforts.25

At the Diet of Pressburg in 1429, Sigismund himself again called on the cities and knights in the Roman-German Empire to form an alliance, but again without any discernible result.26 Here too, the situation in Swabia nevertheless served as a model illustrating the merits of his argumentation. He sent the knight Konrad von Flörsheim to the knighthood in the Gau and Westerreich, west of the Vogesen, who was to call on them to unite in the name of the king. They need only examine and recognize the benefits such an association, which Sigismund had helped them to achieve, had brought to the Knighthood of Jörgenschild.27 Hermann Mau saw this as Sigismund’s ultimately failed attempt to create a “new basis of power”28 for himself and the empire.

So what remains of the intended diversification? Probably more than contemporaries were aware of. In his work on the Schwäbische Bund, the Swabian Confederation, Horst Carl describes the period under Sigismund as an important phase in the cooperative socialisation of the nobility in the German southwest.29 However, the privilege of 1422 by no means belongs only to the prehistory of the Swabian imperial knighthood, because the hypothesis that Sigismund only addressed knights and towns that were impartial to the empire is not persuasive, as the following example clearly illustrates.30

The Land Estates in the Duchy of Bavaria

The Bavarian estates (Landstände or Landschaft) existed in 1422 in the four partial duchies that had been created in the late fourteenth century after the death of Emperor Ludwig IV under his sons and grandsons.31 There they formed their own political entities without giving up the idea of an existing Duchy of Bavaria.32 Whether they were the addressees of Sigismund’s Nuremberg charter is difficult to say, but probably not. Nevertheless, the Bavarian estates took this royal charter very much for granted and included it as the thirtieth letter of freedom in their collection of rights and privileges created in 1508.33

It was obviously easy for them to integrate this royal document into their perception of themselves and their status, because this right of the nobility and the knighthood to unite with the towns had long been a reality in the Duchy of Bavaria. The institutionalised inclusion mechanisms, which we know as the right of the nobility to unite, were at the same time countered, however, by equally (and I would say causally) necessary exclusion mechanisms, which first and foremost slowly contoured the group that wanted and was supposed to unite. These exclusion mechanisms were also strongly developed in the Duchy of Bavaria at the beginning of the fifteenth century.34

The treatment of guests (Gäste), i.e. of foreigners, or non-Bavarians in this specific case, was regularly a topic of discussion, as was their role in the ducal administration, the council bodies, and the affiliation with the Landschaft.

The three Bavarian dukes Stefan, Friedrich, and Johann had to make several concessions to the nobility at a Diet in Munich in 1392: For themselves and their descendants, they promised not to issue any charter to guests, i.e. foreigners, which could call into question the rights of the “land und leut,”35 a term that the estates liked to use, in Bavaria. If they did, these documents would be pronounced invalid. Likewise, the dukes vowed for both Upper and Lower Bavaria that they would not take guests into consideration when appointing councilors (Räte), guardians (Pfleger), and other court offices, and that they would not appoint anyone who did not come from Bavaria, i.e. that they would only take Bavarian compatriots into their service.36 As a reaction to this, on the same day the “graven, freien, dinstleut, ritter und knecht, stet und mergkt gemaingklich wie die genant sein die zu den landen obern und nidern Bairn gehörent,”37 so counts and nobility, towns and markets in Upper and Lower Bavaria declared that they wanted to unite, also to resist, but in a way that the dukes should always remain with the rule in Bavaria, for the unity of the country, one could well say.

The two charters of the Tuesday before St. Catherine’s Day 1392, one issued and sealed by the princes (Landesfürsten) and one issued and sealed by the estates, reflect the reciprocal relationship. The assurance of exclusivity necessarily went hand in hand with the right to exclusivity for a privileged group. The following year, Duke Johann and Duke Ernst of Bavaria-Munich promised at a diet in Munich that they would only staff their council as well as their castles and fortresses with locals.38 This exclusion was also linked to inclusion, for in the same charter, the two dukes granted the counts, knights and nobles, the towns and markets, or in other words, the “land und leute” of their partial duchy, the right to assemble at any time as soon as necessary.39 On the eve of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in 1396, the dukes Stefan and Johann confirmed in Munich that they would only fill their council positions and all offices with persons who had been born in Bavaria or who were residents there, i.e. who had landed property and thus belong to the “land.”40

At this point, one could mention numerous other letters of alliances, privileges, and their confirmations which were written with particular frequency around 1400. They all move within the range of exclusivity and inclusivity that has been described, and it is only by thinking about them together that we can understand the diversity of political actors and structures. If we think further about Patrick Lantschner’s observation for the late Middle Ages that “the logic of conflict is the logic of political order itself,”41 the dynamic between inclusion and exclusion can also be interpreted not only as a conflict between prince and estates, but as a principle of political order, as Christina Lutter also points out for Vienna.42

The question of exclusivity is by no means confined to Bavaria, especially on Sigismund’s side, but is also encountered in the monarch’s immediate environment. The question of the national composition of his council became particularly intense after the death of his chancellor Georg von Passau in early August 1423. The number of Hungarian magnates, for example, in the witness lists and the strong participation of Italian scholars of jurisprudence were repeatedly criticised in the empire, but so was the prominent role of some members of the Swabian noble alliances in Sigismund’s close environment.43

In addition, Sigismund’s efforts concerning the “Landfrieden,” which Heinz Angermeier has clearly elaborated,44 are also reflected in a charter of the Bavarian Landschaft. According to a charter from a diet in Augsburg on the Monday after Palm Sunday 1429, one of the reasons for the association of the estates was that Sigismund had seen the unchristian work and the many sufferings that war and conflict had brought both for the rich and for the poor.45 The estates of the Duchy of Bavaria also included this charter, which originated in a different context, in their collections, rights, and privileges and thus also used it in later centuries to legitimise their claims to imperial authority.46 In 1434, the Bavarian knighthood had all its rights, freedoms, and privileges explicitly confirmed by Emperor Sigismund. The document was later included in the collection as the thirty-sixth letter.47 Under threat of a fine of 100 gold marks for violation of the chartered rights, Sigismund placed the knighthood under special imperial protection. This possibility of sanctions was also explicitly directed against the princes of the empire, i.e. also (although not mentioned by name) against the Bavarian dukes, and it sanctions harmonised well with Sigismund’s strategy of forming alliances at the level of the regional nobility, as shown by the example of Swabia. Thus in Bavaria and throughout the empire, sensitivity concerning the exclusivity of one’s own rights and privileges seems to have been part of the actors’ mindset and certainly played a central role in the question of diversity in the constitutional structure of the late medieval empire. The aforementioned imperial privileges for the Bavarian knighthood also contributed significantly to the formation of the estates, which were later able to invoke precisely these documents – a dynamic that has never been studied before.

Older traditions involving these kinds of demands for exclusivity can be found here. If we look at Tyrol, for example, Margrave Ludwig had also stipulated in the so-called “Großer Freiheitsbrief” (Great Charter of Freedom) of January 28, 1342, which his father, Emperor Ludwig IV, had confirmed, that no important position in Tyrol would be filled by a foreigner.48 This observation leads to the third example.

The Nobility of the County of Tyrol

In the county of Tyrol, Sigismund’s strategy of diversifying political actors fell on ground that was every bit as fertile as in Bavaria, since there is also evidence of a long tradition of corporative political participation in Tyrol. Sigismund wanted to take advantage of this to weaken the Habsburgs, who ruled Tyrol at the time.49

During his reign, the feud between Duke Ernst and Duke Friedrich in Tyrol ended (specifically, in 1417). After that, the struggle for territorial power, which the noble families of Rottenburg, Wolkenstein, Spaur, and Starkenberg in particular wanted to dispute with the ruler, continued for almost a decade. For this period, Werner Köfler assumes that the influence of the nobility in Tyrol reached a highpoint.50 The Tyrolean Landschaft repeatedly acted as a mediating authority. In 1420, Friedrich IV, who wanted and needed to expand his position of power, demanded that the richest nobles of Tyrol return the pledged offices and courts of the prince, though he did offer as a sum in return. However, the nobles refused to return them and sought help not only from other nobles in Tyrol but directly from King Sigismund. There they quickly found support.

As late as December 18, 1422, Sigismund from Pressburg encouraged the support of Ulrich von Starkenberg and Oswald von Wolkenstein. The brothers Michael and Lienhart von Wolkenstein were to support them against Duke Friedrich of Tyrol, who was attacking them. On December 29, Sigismund ordered Duke Friedrich to cease his hostilities against “his servant” Wilhelm von Starkenberg and his brother Ulrich. They would not violate Tyrolean land law, and thus Friedrich had no right to take action against them. If Friedrich, called the duke “with the empty purse,”51 wanted to assert his claims, he should do so before the king or before Dukes Ernst and Albrecht of Austria. Sigismund thus intervened relatively quickly in the Tyrolean disputes by strengthening the opposition among the nobles.

At a meeting in Merano at Pentecost 1423, Duke Friedrich confirmed the rights and freedoms of the assembled estates in order to quickly achieve an association of the country against the opposition of the nobility. With Sigismund’s support, however, the latter wanted to prevent such an agreement at all costs. When the king was in Altsohl (today Zvolen, Slovakia) in July, he once again increased his support for the rebelling nobles. Since Friedrich IV had not fulfilled his obligations to him as king and to the entire Roman-German Empire, in July 16, he was deprived of all fiefs in the county of Tyrol, the land on the Adige and in the Inn valley, as well as other courts. Sigismund announced his intention to return them to the empire and to grant the County of Tyrol to the brothers Ulrich and Wilhelm von Starkenberg as a fief for their loyal service. At the same time, at the request of the two brothers, Sigismund confirmed the rights and privileges of the estates on the Adige and in the Inn valley. Here we encounter a phenomenon that can be observed regularly throughout the fifteenth century: emperors and kings used their power to grant privileges to provincial estates to strengthen them against sovereigns. This constituted a diversification of the constitutional structure of the Roman-German Empire. On the following day, July 17, Sigismund ordered the Imperial Marshal Haupt von Pappenheim to lead the imperial panoply against Duke Friedrich, the disturber of the peace. Sigismund also called on the nobility of neighboring Tyrol, namely Counts Hans von Lupfen and Friedrich von Toggenburg, to take up arms against the disobedient Friedrich and to support Ulrich and Wilhelm von Starkenberg and to march into the Inn and Etsch valleys. One day later, on July 18, 1423, the Tyrolean nobility (we can see how well coordinated the king and the nobility were at this point) formed an alliance on behalf of the entire Tyrolean countryside to protect its freedoms and rights vis-à-vis the prince. At this moment, Sigismund seemed to have been successful with his strategy of playing the Tyrolean nobility off against the disagreeable prince. Friedrich, however, remained unimpressed with the day convened for August 5. In the forefront, he had so-called cedulas (“Zedeln”) sent to the courts of the country, which Friedrich thus gave more political significance than before, informing them about grievances in the country that needed to be remedied and the evil activities of the rebellious nobility. The “Zedeln” also contained the explicit prohibition against entering into any alliance without the consent of the prince, and they were thus clearly directed against alliances of the nobility, such as the alliance that King Sigismund had deliberately permitted in Nuremberg the previous year.52

Friedrich’s only problem was that hardly any nobles appeared in Brixen on August 5. The few who were present therefore asked for the date to be postponed, and a committee was formed to solve the problem later. The rebellious nobles, however, did not succeed in getting the estates on their side. On the next day, probably a committee meeting, on November 18, 1423, the bishop of Brixen and representatives of the estates appeared alongside the ruler and some of his councillors, who distanced themselves from the alliance that had been formed by the nobles. Finally, the council condemned the alliance of the nobility as an affliction of Tyrol.

Over the course of the year, Duke Friedrich succeeded in settling with a large part of the Tyrolean nobility, which is why de facto the alliance only lasted a few weeks. The sources, however, are silent about King Sigismund, who had wanted to intervene in the conflict a few months earlier. Friedrich’s fight against the Starkenbergs, who were particularly supported by Sigismund, continued. On May 10, 1424, a meeting in Innsbruck decided to send a delegation of representatives of the land estates to Greifenstein, the main castle of the Starkenbergs. This delegation failed, however, whereupon the Landschaft agreed to support the ruler by force of arms. Friedrich had thus decided the conflict de facto in his favour.

This enabled him to consolidate his rule, not quickly, but steadily, against the few remaining opposition families. In 1426, the Landschaft successfully mediated between him and the Spaur. Wilhelm von Starkenberg gave up the fight against the duke in November of the same year. Only Oswald von Wolkenstein53 remained, whom we know well from other contexts around Sigismund. Isolated as the last resister from the noble group, he wrote his depressed song “Durch Barbarei, Arabia” in the winter of 1426–1427, which ended with the following words: “Mein freund, die hassen mich überain / an schuld, des müss ich greisen. / das klag ich aller werlt gemain, / den frummen und den weisen, / darzü vil hohen fürsten rain, / die sich ir er land preisen, / das si mich armen Wolckenstein / die wolf nicht lan erzaisen, / gar verwaisen.”54 In 1427, he was summoned to the Diet in Bolzano, secretly left the country, was captured and brought to Innsbruck. Already on December 15, 1424, more than two years earlier, King Sigismund had promised him that he would comply with his request and intercede with Duke Friedrich IV on the rebel’s behalf. Here too, Sigismund did little apart from make announcements from afar. Nevertheless, Oswald von Wolkenstein was admitted to the Order of the Drake (Drachenorden) by Sigismund at the Diet of Nuremberg in 1431, which presumably gave him a belated sense of satisfaction.

Thus, in Tyrol, Sigismund made significant attempts in the initial conflict to oust the unpopular Habsburgs by diversifying the power structures within the county. The fact that all the relevant charters were issued far from Tyrol, not even in southern Germany, points to another problem. Sigismund seems to have had neither time nor energy to enforce his attempts. In the end, he failed in Tyrol in his fight against the establishment of a strong principality in the south of the empire. But here too, over the long term, an enduring image emerged of Sigismund as a leader who could dynamize the people emerged.

An Attempt at Synthesis

Now it is worth taking a final look at Sigismund’s attempts to diversify the political landscape of the Holy Roman Empire in his favour. Although the knighthoods of Swabia, Franconia, and Bavaria had formed a defensive alliance against the Hussites in Ellingen on July 10, 1430, this alliance expired again after three years on St. George’s Day 1433. After Sigismund’s return from the imperial coronation in Rome at the end of 1433, further efforts of his failed at the imperial diets in Basel and Ulm in 1434 and at the imperial diet in Regensburg. In March of the same year, the negotiations between the St. Jörgenschild Society and the Swabian League of Towns failed in Kirchheim unter Teck.55 In mid-October 1434, Sigismund left the Empire for good, and with his departure, the negotiations on the Swabian association were broken off and never resumed.

But why did Sigismund’s sometimes very ambitious efforts fail at first sight?

Perhaps it can be said quite simply at first: Sigismund’s efforts towards diversification failed because of the diversity of the actors and the unwillingness of the cities to cooperate with the nobility and the knighthood, as a Nördlingen city scribe reported from Kirchheim in 1434: “aber es wart keine ainung troffen, quia displicuit civitatibus, et semper, in quantum licite potuerunt, quesiverunt vias exeundi.”56 The efforts to achieve peace (Landfrieden) at the end of the fourteenth century had already failed due to the differing interests of the cities and knights.57 Sigismund’s renewed attempts were equally unsuccessful.

Thinking further about an idea of Heinz Angermeier’s concerning the land peace order (Landfriedensordnung): Sigismund, with his numerous territories outside the empire, tended to be less affected by his own policy of diversification within the empire. He never had a direct view of his efforts to further associations and alliances and quickly lost sight of them.

The system of diversification can also be seen in Sigismund’s role as King of Bohemia. In the fight against the Hussites, he generously endowed the “Catholic” cities with privileges, as Alexandra Kaar has shown, but he repeatedly fell short of his promises to them as well.58 Ultimately, the mutual securing of advantages functioned there in a way that did not work in such a direct manner vis-à-vis imperial cities, especially in the German southwest. The goal of creating “a world of personal relationship framed and maintained by symbolic communication and conventional and negotiatory institutions and associations”59 ultimately failed.

The royal charters were gratefully received in the regions of the empire in which a certain level of political participation had already been established, but without always having the effect intended by Sigismund. The question of failure thus ultimately remains one of perspectivation. If we look at the long-term consequences of the policy of diversification, it will certainly not be easy to reconstruct concrete causal chains. Even his greatest critics will not be able to deny that Sigismund’s attempts, which were considered a failure by his contemporaries, certainly had a dynamizing effect on the establishment of the estates in the territories of the empire and that he thereby enabled more differentiated actor structures to emerge in the constitutional structure of the empire.

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1 RTA 8, 111. Many of the following source quotations are taken from the edition of the Reichstagakten (RTA), to this: Wolgast, “Deutsche Reichstagsakten.” On court days, imperial days, diets, and their distinction, see Hardy, “‘Tage’,” and Annas, Hoftag – Gemeiner Tag – Reichstag.
2 “Selbstorganisation des Reichs.” Wefers, Das politische System, 93.
3 An overview is provided by Wefers, Das politische System, 81–110.
4 Sigismund expresses his concern, “damit der adl bestet ist, also versorgt werde das er bestee und nicht zerrutte noch zerstort oder also gedrungen sey an seinen rechten.” Sigmund – RI XI, 1 no. 5246.
5 Sigismund continues: “bey unsern zeiten an seinem wesen gelücklich und seligklich beleibe.” Sigmund – RI XI,1 no. 5246.
6 Sigismund describes the situation of the knighthood: “wann wir wol vernomen haben, das die ritterschaft in teutschen land viel zwang leidet und vast gedrungen wirdet an iren rechten von etlichen.” Sigmund – RI XI,1 no. 5246.
7 Sigismund addresses the cities: “Darumb mit wolbedachten muet, guetn rate und rechter wissen geben wir volle macht und gewalt, und das sy auch unsere und des reichs stete in densel-ben punt wol nehmen mögen, die sich zu in wolten verpinden.” Sigmund – RI XI,1 no. 5246.
8 Mau, Rittergesellschaften, 59.
9 “System von Differenzierungen.” Florian et al., “Diversity,” 11.
10 Wefers, Das politische System, and Wefers, Primat der Außenpolitik, with her strong focus on foreign policy, almost does not address the political issues below the imperial level, which paints Sigismund’s picture too strongly in one direction.
11 Hardy, Associative Political Culture, passim.
12 Hardy, “The Emperorship of Sigismund,” 293. Other works dealing with Sigismund’s ruling practices include Sigismund von Luxemburg, edited by Macek et al., Kaiser Sigismund, edited by Hruza and Kaar, and Whelan, “Dances, dragons and a pagan queen.”
13 While the question of an imperial constitution (Reichsverfassung) has been raised again and again, its connection with the constitutional structures of the territories is not clear. Still central to this discussion is Moraw, Von offener Verfassung zu gestalteter Verdichtung, passim.
14 Mau, Rittergesellschaften, 12–35. Cfr. to the internal constitution of society Obenaus, Recht und Verfassung der Gesellschaften mit dem St. Jörgenschild.
15 Cfr. Florian, Graf Eberhard der Milde, 77–92, especially 81.
16 The origins are reconstructed by Carl, “Vom Appenzellerkrieg zum Schwäbischen Bund.”
17 Mau, Rittergesellschaften, 51.
18 Sigismund emphasises with regard to the cities: “daz alle die stette die nun zu ziten allhie zu Nurenberg sint eine große begirde hant daz die stette eine einunge und eine frúntschaft mit enander hettent.” RTA 8, 127, 136, line 11f. See also Hoensch, Kaiser Sigismund, 263 with reference to the Reichstagsakten.
19 Sigismund continues with regard to the princes and cities: “sich die stette zusammen hieltent, wen die fursten eines werent.” RTA 8, 131, 142, line 33f.
20 “Nicht die Intentionen der Reichsstädte waren mithin auf ein neues reichspolitisches Engagement ausgerichtet, vielmehr war es der König, der aus seinen ungarischen Erfahrungen heraus glaubte, auch in Deutschland eine monarchische Politik nur mit Hilfe der Städte entfalten zu können.” Angermeier, Königtum, 53.
21 The Golden Bull is published: Die Goldene Bulle Kaiser Karls IV. vom Jahre 1356, edited by Wolfgang, MGH Leges 8 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1972), 11. According to Capitulum XV De conspiratoribus of the Golden Bull (p. 70f.), which was similarly contained in Friedrich Barbarossa’s Roncal Peace of 1158, connections between lords and cities were forbidden. Sigismund thus certainly contributed in the long term to a weakening of the normative dimension of the Golden Bull on this point.
22 Angermeier, Reichsreform, 360, sees this as the transition from a policy of association to a policy of alliances.
23 Whelan, “Dealing,” 342. Also Whelan, “Taxes, Wagenburgs and a Nightingale,” with a focus on the Hussite Wars.
24 Whelan, “Dealing,” 342.
25 Cfr. Angermeier, Reichsreform, 350–60.
26 Cf. Mau, Rittergesellschaften, 82.
27 Cf. Mau, Rittergesellschaften, 58f.
28 “Neue Machtgrundlage.” Mau, Rittergesellschaften, 36.
29 Phase of “genossenschaftlichen Vergesellschaftung des Adels.” Horst, Schwäbischer Bund, 100.
30 Mau, Rittergesellschaften, 49, Anm. 148.
31 Holzapfl, “Bayerische Teilungen.”
32 Lanzinner, “Landstände.”
33 The Letters of Freedom have been published, but only in an older edition. I am preparing a modern historical-critical edition: Lerchenfeld and Rockinger, Die altbaierischen landständischen Freibriefe, here no. 30, 74f.
34 There are as yet no monographs on the Bavarian estates in the Middle Ages. First overviews can be found in Carsten, Princes and Parliaments, 348–57; Lieberich, Landherren und Landleute; and Volkert, “Entstehung der Landstände in Bayern.”
35 Lerchenfeld and Rockinger, Die altbaierischen landständischen Freibriefe, no. 13, 30–33, 31.
36 “Auch ist ze wissen, das wir und unser erben und nachkomen kainen gast noch yeman anders kainerlay brief umb pfantung und angriff unserer egenanten land und leut nit geben söllen, als sy des von unsern vordern und von uns auch brief habent. Teten wir es daruber, oder ob wir vor sölich brief icht gegeben hieten, die söllen unsern egenanten landen und leuten unschedlich sein. Und wie sy sich sölicher angriff und pfantung werent, daran thunt sy nicht wider uns noch unser erben in kain weiss.” Lerchenfeld and Rockinger, Die altbaierischen landständischen Freibriefe, no. 13, 30–33, 31f. The charter continues: “Auch bekennen wir, das wir unsern landen und leuten zu obern und zu nidern Bairn die genad getan haben, das wir und unser erben nu fürbas zu unsern räten, pflegern und allen andern ambten wie die genant sind in denselben landen kainen gast nicht nehmen noch setzen söllen, der zu unsern landen obern und nidern Bairn nicht gehöret.” Lerchenfeld and Rockinger, Die altbaierischen landständischen Freibriefe, no. 13, 30–33, 32.
37 Lerchenfeld and Rockinger, Die altbaierischen landständischen Freibriefe, no. 13, 30–33, 33.
38 “Wir sullen auch ainen rat alzeit setzen und nehmen nach rate ritter und knecht und unser stet, und sullen auch all unser vesten, schloss und pfleg besetzen mit landherren und landleutn die zu dem land obern und nidern Bairn gehoren und die darin gesessen sind.” Lerchenfeld and Rockinger, Die altbaierischen landständischen Freibriefe, no. 16, 36–38, 37.
39 “Es mögen auch unser vorgenent graven und freien, dinstleut, ritter und knecht, stet und mergkt, land und leut wol tag suechen und zu ainander komen her gen Münichen oder anderswo, als oft in das not beschicht, und zue in aus dem land pitten wen sy verstent der darzue nutz und guet sey, und da mit ainander reden der herschaft des landes und ir notturft.” Lerchenfeld and Rockinger, Die altbaierischen landständischen Freibriefe, no. 16, 36–38, 37.
40 “Wir söllen und wöllen auch fürbas kainen unsern rat, noch kain unser gericht, pfleg noch ambt besetzen noch entpfelhen mit kainem gast, dann alain mit leuten die zu den landen Bairn gehörent und darinne gesessen sind.” Lerchenfeld and Rockinger, Die altbaierischen landständischen Freibriefe, no. 20, p. 43–47, 46.
41 Lantschner, The Logic of Political Conflict, 207.
42 Lutter, “Konflikt und Allianz.”
43 For example RI XI,1 5598; RI XI,1 5991, 5894, 5804.
44 Angermaier, Königtum und Landfriede, and Hardy, “Between Regional Alliances and Imperial Assemblies.”
45 Lerchenfeld and Rockinger, Die altbaierischen Freibriefe, no. 35, p. 83–86.
46 Ibid., no. 30, p. 74f.
47 Ibid., no. 36, p. 96–98.
48 Hölzl, “Freiheitsbriefe,” 7 (A).
49 Cfr. for the following elaborations especially Köfler, Land, Landschaft, Landtag, passim; Jäger, Geschichte der landständischen Verfassung Tirols, vol. 2, 307–87; and Fahlenbock, “Durch uns und unnser Landtschaften gemacht.”
50 “Höhepunkt politischer Einflußnahme.” Köfler, Land, Landschaft, Landtag, 58.
51 “Herzog Friedrich Friedrich mit der leeren Tasche”; Fahlenbock, “Durch uns und unnser Landtschaften gemacht,” 70.
52 Cfr. Köfler, Land, Landschaft, Landtag, 251–53.
53 See Schwob, Oswald von Wolkenstein.
54 On this poem by Oswald von Wolkenstein Moser, see “Durch Barbarei, Arabia.”
55 See Tumbült, “Schwäbische Einigungsbestrebungen unter König Sigmund.”
56 RTA 11–13, no. 117.
57 Cf. e.g. Zielke-Dünnebeil, “Die Löwen-Gesellschaft,” 60–62.
58 See Kaar, Die stadt. On the broader context of Sigismund’s trade prohibitions against the Hussites, see Kaar, “Wirtschaft, Krieg und Seelenheil.”
59 Hardy, “The Emperorship Sigismund of Luxemburg,” 314. Angermeier, Königtum und Landfriede, 345, refers to it as a “System sich ergänzender und gegenseitig helfender Einungen im Reich.”

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