The story of Hungary 11

The story of Hungary 11

we permit, desire, and request that, as thou and thy successors will be

crowned with the crown we sent thee, the wearing of the double cross

may serve thee and them as an apostolic token, even so that, according

to the teachings of God’s mercy, thou and they may direct and order,

in our and our successors’ place and stead, the present and future

churches of thy realm. * * * We also beseech Almighty God that thou

mayest rule and wear the crown, and that He shall cause the fruits of

His truth to grow and increase; that He may abundantly water with the

dew of His blessing the new plants of thy realm; that He may preserve

unimpaired thy country for thee, and thee for thy country; that He

may protect thee against thy open and secret foes, and adorn thee,

after the vexations of thy earthly rule, with the eternal crown in His

heavenly kingdom.”

 

The brilliant successes so rapidly achieved by Stephen during the first

years of his reign secured the triumph of Christianity and of the royal

authority in the western half of the country only. The adherents of the

ancient faith and liberty still remained in a majority in the eastern,

more-thinly peopled regions beyond the Theiss and in Transylvania.

Gyula, the duke of Transylvania, and the uncle of Stephen, was not

slow in protesting against the new kingdom and the innovations coupled

with it. The rebellion failed, as we have already seen. Gyula and his

whole family were made captives by the victors, and neither he nor

his posterity ever regained their lost power. Transylvania was more

closely united with the mother country, and from that time, during a

period extending over more than five centuries, was ruled by _vayvodes_

appointed by the kings. Soon after Stephen opposed victoriously

the Petchenegs, the allies of the defeated Gyula, who were settled

beyond the Transylvanian mountains in the country known at present

as Roumania, and having also defeated Akhtum, who, trusting in the

protection of the Greek emperor, was disposed to act the master in the

region enclosed by the Danube, Theiss, and Maros, there was no one in

the whole land who—openly, at least—dared to refuse homage to the crown

pressing the temples of Stephen and to the double cross. During the

twenty years succeeding the events just narrated, history is entirely

silent as to any great martial enterprise of Stephen. It is true that

hostilities were frequent along the northern and western borders

against the Poles and Czechs, but they were never of a character to

endanger the territorial integrity of the country. During those years

of comparative peace Stephen firmly established the Hungarian Christian

kingdom.

 

The Christian Church was the corner-stone of all social and political

order in the days of Stephen. The Church pointed out the principal

objects of human endeavor, marked out the ways leading to the

accomplishment of those aims, drew the bounds of the liberty of action,

and prescribed to mankind its duties. It educated, instructed, and

disciplined the people in the name and in the place of the state, and

in doing this the Church acted for the benefit of the state. Hence it

was that Stephen, in organizing the Hungarian Christian Church and

placing it on a firmer basis, consulted quite as much the interests

of his royal power as the promptings of his apostolic zeal. Where the

Christian faith gained ground, there the respect for royalty also took

root, and the first care of royalty, when its authority had become

powerful, was to preserve the authority of the Church.

 

Immediately on his accession to the throne, Stephen addressed himself

to the great and arduous task, and in all places where the promises of

the holy faith, scattered by his proselyting zeal, met with a grateful

soil, he established the earliest religious communities. Later, as

the number of parishes rapidly increased, he appointed chief prelates

to superintend and maintain the flocks and to keep them together. The

ecclesiastical dignities and offices were conferred, in the beginning,

without exception, upon members of the religious orders, they being at

that time the most faithful warriors of Christianity against paganism,

and the most devoted servants of the triumphant church. Stephen took

good care of them, and rewarded them according to their merits. He

founded four abbeys for these pious monks, who all of them belonged

to the religious order of St. Benedict. The abbey of Pannonhalom was

the wealthiest and most distinguished among these; and to this day, it

maintains the chief rank among the greatly increased number of kindred

societies. The first schools were connected with the cathedrals and

monasteries, and although their mission consisted mainly in propagating

the new church and faith, they yet cultivated the scanty learning of

the age.

 

Stephen endowed the bishoprics and monasteries with a generosity

truly royal. He granted them large possessions in land, together with

numerous bondsmen inhabiting the estates. The Hungarian Catholic

Church has preserved the larger part of these grants to this day.

His munificence was displayed in the cathedral at Stuhlweissenburg

(Székesfejérvár), built in honor of the Virgin Mary, of whose marvels

of enchantment the old chronicles speak with reverential awe. The

chronicler calls it “the magnificent church famous for its wondrous

workmanship, the walls of which are adorned with beautiful carvings,

and whose floor is inlaid with marble slabs,” and then he proceeds

in this strain: “Those can bear witness to the truth of my words who

have beheld there with their own eyes the numerous chasubles, sacred

utensils, and other ornaments, the many exquisite tablets wrought of

pure gold and inlaid with the most precious jewels about the altars,

the chalice of admirable workmanship standing on Christ’s table, and

the various vessels of crystal, onyx, gold, and silver with which the

sacristy was crowded.”

 

Stephen’s munificence was not confined to his own realm, and numerous

memorials of his beneficence and generosity are still preserved in

foreign lands. As soon as Christianity had gained a firm foothold

in the land, and the Hungarian people felt no more as strangers in

the family of Christian nations, the natives, either singly or in

larger numbers, began to journey to the revered cities of Rome,

Constantinople, and Jerusalem. Stephen took care that these pilgrims

should feel at home in the strange places they visited. Thus, amongst

other things, he had a church and dwelling-house built in Rome for the

accommodation of twelve canons, providing it also with a _hospitium_

(inn). In Constantinople and Jerusalem also he caused a convent and

church to be erected, within whose hospitable walls the Hungarian

pilgrim might find rest for his weary body, after the fatigues of the

long journey, and spiritual comfort for his thirsting soul. He was ever

mindful of the interests of Christianity both at home and abroad. He

not only founded the Hungarian Christian Church, but knew how to make

it universally respected, and, in his own time already, the popes were

in the habit of referring to Hungary as the “archiregnum”—that is, a

country superior to the others.

 

In establishing the Hungarian kingdom Stephen necessarily shaped its

institutions after the pattern of the Western States, but fortunately

for the nation he possessed a rare discrimination which made him

imitate his neighbors in those things only which were beneficial or

unavoidable, whilst he rejected their errors and refused to introduce

them into his own land. At that period feudalism, although it had

sadly degenerated, prevailed, England alone excepted, throughout the

whole West. It was a system which did not permit the strengthening of

the central power of the state, and the countries subjected to it were

divided up into parts but loosely connected, each of which acknowledged

an almost independent master, who, although he held his county or duchy

from his king, and owned and governed it by virtue of that tenure,

was yet powerful enough to defy with impunity the sovereign himself.

Without adverting to the pitiful dismemberment of Italy, we need only

mention that France was divided into about fifty, and Germany into five

small principalities of this character. The kings themselves might make

use of their kingly title, they might bask in the splendor of their

own royalty, but of the plenitude of their royal power they could but

rarely and then only temporarily boast.

 

Stephen’s chief aim was to enhance the royal power by rendering it

as independent as he possibly could of restrictions on the part of

the nation, and to introduce such institutions as would prove most

efficacious in the defence of the integrity and unity of nation and

country. He left the nobility—the descendants of those who had taken

possession of the soil at the conquest of Hungary—in the undisturbed

enjoyment of their ancient privileges; he did not restrict their

rights, but in turn did not allow himself to be hampered by them. He

only introduced an innovation with reference to the tenure of their

property, which he changed from tribal to individual possession,

using his royal authority to protect each man in the possession of

the estates thus allotted to him. The nobles governed themselves,

administered justice amongst themselves, through men of their own

selection, and the king interfered only if he was especially requested

to judge between them. The nobles had always free access to the king’s

person, not only during Stephen’s reign, but for many centuries

afterwards. The nobility was exempted from the payment of any kind of

taxes into the royal treasury, and they joined the king’s army only if

the country was menaced by a foreign foe, or if they chose to offer

their services of their own free will.

 

Inasmuch as the great power of the nobility had its foundations on

freehold possessions in land, Stephen was careful to support the

dignity of the royal power by the control of large domains. The royal

family were already the owners of private estates of large extent, and

to these the king now added those vast tracts of land which, scattered

throughout the whole realm, and more particularly extending along

the frontiers, were without masters, and could not well pass into

private hands, as the scant Hungarian population was inadequate for

their occupation. These domains, which, for the most part, were thinly

inhabited by the indigenous conquered populations, speaking their own

languages, and the colonization of which by foreigners became a special

object with the kings, were now declared state property, and as such

taken possession of and administered by Stephen. He divided these

possessions into small domains, called in Latin _comitatus_, county,

and in Hungarian _megye_, eyre or circuit, and placed at the head of

the administration of each county a royal official styled _comes_,

count. These districts subsequently gave rise to the county system,

which was destined to play such an important part in the history of the

country, but originally they were designed to answer a twofold purpose,

one financial and one military. One portion of the people living on

these royal lands had to hand over to the royal treasury a certain

part of their produce, whilst another portion was bound to military

service for life. In this way the royal counties furnished a sort of

standing army, always at the