Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Humanities

Doctoral Dissertation

Nándor Virovecz

The Life of Menyhárt Balassa and Early Modern Hungarian Political Culture

Doctoral School of History Professor Dr. Gábor Erdődy Cultural History Doctoral Programme Professor emeritus Dr. László Kósa, MHAS

Members of the Committee: Professor emeritus Dr. László Kósa, MHAS Dr. István Fazekas, PhD, Habil. associate professor Dr. Pál Ács, DSc, Honorary professor Dr. Eleonóra Géra, PhD, Habil. associate professor Dr. Judit Balogh, PhD, Habil. associate professor Dr. Ildikó Horn, DSc, professor Dr. Nóra Etényi, CSc, Habil. associate professor

Supervisor Dr. Gábor Várkonyi, PhD, Habil. associate professor

Budapest 2017 Preconceptions – questions – problems

The political culture of the period from the battle of Mohács to the Convention of Speyer was famous for the phenomenon of individuals easily switching allegiance between the Habsburg and Szapolyai parties. The rivalry between the two powers was in fact generated and deepened by the Ottoman aggression. The reactions of the Hungarian political elite resulted in Hungary’s territorial division. The public of the mid-sixteenth century blamed the Hungarian elite’s political practices as a cause of the country’s disintegration, arguing against it with ethical and moral reasons. The related Hungarian historical tradition of ‘being disunited’ and the discourse of the aristocracy of Hungary were also condemned. This opinion was enhanced by the popular and awareness-raising publications written during the socialist era to satisfy the demands of contemporary ideological expectations. Menyhárt Balassa (Melchior Balassa de Gyarmat) was a famous (or infamous) politician and war-lord during the period explained above, who became the emblematic character of this epoch due to the comedy written about him (Comedy about Melchior Balassi’s Betrayal...). There were two basic problems concerning the work: first, its unauthenticated nature and in addition to this, the unknown time of it being written and finished by the author. However, there were other contemporary sources about Balassi’s valour and heroic courage, shown by his brave struggles against the ottomans. That is why there are two contradictory opinions about his personality – and consequently, of him. This defined the point of view of historians and literary historians of the early modern Hungarian political culture after the battle of Mohács. There is no relevant published literature about this problem that would use proper source criticism. The first editors of the encyclopaedias in the 18th and 19th centuries published many data and well-known facts about his life, but they used the works of the historians from the 16th and 17th centuries and adopted their approaches. A multi-layered research about his character helps us to get closer to the problems of this period and give answers to the questions posed by secrets of the Comedy, which have been unanswered for two hundred years since its „discovery”. During my dissertation, I studied the mentality, the attitude, the strategy of success of the elite and the political culture through these factors.

The sources Unfortunately, there is no memoir, diary or „ego-document” written by Menyhárt Balassa that could be a primary source to reconstruct the basic features of his character. That is why I published his six letters – which were previously unknown – as an appendix to my

1 dissertation so that we could learn about his mentality or way of thinking. Even like this, it is not easy to get trustworthy information about him, since as one of the contemporary historians stated: he was ‘the master of pretension’. Firstly, I had to ignore all the negative terms coming from the Comedy, but also all the heroic songs about his victories containing his positive image. Only after that I could view his deeds rather critically. My primary sources were the historioans of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as Ferenc Forgách, Miklós Istvánffy and Farkas Bethlen. As I have already mentioned, the editors of later encyclopaedias often made use of these works. There were many other publications used, the bulk of which were the archival sources of the Történelmi Tár (Historical Repository and Hungarian Historical Repository). This series contained documents from family archives and the National Museum, but also recent and already published researches from the Secret State Archive in Vienna. It was especially Eudoxiu Hurmuzaki who revealed a lot of letters in his monumental edition which were relevant for Transylvanian state affairs. Historical researches on the common events of the mid-16th century (Imre Lukinich, Endre Veress) and the search for the Comedy’s author by Jenő Házi, Ágnes Szalay, Antal Pirnát and Mihály Balázs resulted in the appearance of works that applied a broader perspective on these issues, gathering a wide range of historical sources and giving some new information about the political role of Balassa. Recent publications must also be mentioned in the form of Ildikó Horn’s doctoral dissertation about the Transylvanian elite by Ildikó Horn and the papers of Teréz Oborni who dealt with the relationship of Balassa and Transylvania. Unfortunately, the 16th-century documents in the Balassa family archive were always not relevant as most of them focused only on the issue of protecting of land rights. Also, there is no collection in relation to him among the others about the family members. The Royal Books in the Archive of the Chancellery kept his appointments, oath of allegiance and the diplomas issued by the king. There are several documents and scattered sources about tithe rent charge, salary and the administration of the Balassa domains in the Archive of the Royal Chamber. Many letters written by the Balassa brothers to each other in the 16th and 17th centuries are also stored there and in Section E 200 of the National Archives of Hungary. There are also valuable and unavoidable data in the collection of Nádasdy family’s correspondence in their own archive, since letters by the four Balassa brothers (Imre, Zsigmond, Menyhárt, János) to Tamás Nádasdy could be found there. In my work, special attention is paid to the Perényi family archive and the Zichy family archive (especially the one named „Zsélyi”), the last one also containing the Várday and Melith family archive. Limited information originated from Batthyány family archive and from the copies of the Pray Collection in the University Library

2 of the Eötvös Loránd University. There are several reports to the town senate and judges of Selmecbánya in the collection created after the battle of Mohács in the NAH. These were excellent sources through which I could deal with the memoires of the contemporary historians who mentioned the events taking their course near to the Balassa estates in the 1530s and 1540s. With these letters at hand, it was relatively easy to reconstruct the role of the Nyáry, Kosztka, Podmaniczky and Balassa families during the times of the „civil war” in Hungary. Significant sources were discovered in the Esztergom Primate Archives in relation to the relationship between the lords. There are two letters by Balassa in the Department of Manuscripts of the National Széchényi Library which are the integral parts of the Hungarian Monuments. More related letters could be found in the Illésházy collection. The Department of Manuscripts in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences stores not only the unique Comedy but also the copy of the Rerum Carponensium Codex, a relevant source of the history of the 1530s and 1540s. Authentic documents from the Benedictine monastery of Garamszentbenedek were especially relevant sources which helped me to discover the policy of the Balassa brothers about enlarging their estates and the inner relations in the counties where they were possessors. Similarly to the already mentioned archive of the monastery, the Révay family archive and the Pálffy family archive are also situated in Bratislava (Slovakia), which include some importans datas to Balassa Menyhárt’s life. As a matter of fact, the documents from the Österreichisches Staatsarchiv’s Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Vienna, especially the collection named Hungarica, and from the Finanz- und Hofkammerarchiv Hoffinanz Ungarn were the starting points when it came to discovering the life of Balassa. I should also mention at this point that the two letters wrote by him in Hungarian are also in Vienna in the Kriegsarchiv, but they are available on microfilm in the Archives of War History. That is why I published them next to the others in the appendix.

The research process and the results In view of the fact that Balassa’s contemporaries in the 16th century had a bilateral opinion about him, first I tried to research and discover the sources of these opinions, meanwhile I collected relevant sources with critical analysis. Through this method I had to breakdown the elements of this image. First of all, the systematisation of the documents and new datas came from the archival research referred to above were the basis and the background to write the biography devide it into five parts. Menyhárt Balassa was an active participant in all important events from the battle of Mohács to the convention of Speyer, therefore his

3 activities, statement, and fights help us to get closer and understand the questions of this period. Each stages of his career give an answer to the questions of the „dual-kingdom’s” internal fights, and touch on the central problems about how king Ferdinand I. take charge in the areas in Hungary, which he controlled it before namely. After that I managed to compile a kind of biography, in which hitherto unknown and unexpected sources and datas were used to make statements, a new fund was born, which enabled an examine with critical analysis. This was the most helpful way in the research to the author and the origin of the Comedy. By way of introduction I tried to demonstrate the evolution of Balassa’s image, the origin of the opinions, and his the position in the Hungarian histrocial tradition. Due to the secret of the comedy there was an infamous image about Balassa, which intensified the opinions of the Hungarian historians in the late nineteenth century. The character of a lord like Balassa fixed to the conception of László Bárdossy, who had basic researches in the thema of the Hungarian politics and diplomatic relationships after the battle of Mohács to the capturing of Buda. Bárdossy had a famous sentence about this period: the Hungarian elite passed this fifteen years without any action or movement to reunite the ‘dual-kingdom’ or defend the country against the ottomans. After the Second Wold War in the Hungarian historigraphy came a caesura, the marxism ideologized the discourse, and the dishonest character of Balassa was adopted by István Nemeskürty in his essay, who used it to illustrate the useless of the aristocracy. Firstly I had to clean the affinities of the Balassa family in the first half of the sixteenth century. There was a great help for it the monograph of Sándor Eckhardt and péter Kőszeghy. During my research I always faced the lack of sources, dispeti all that I cleared the role of the Balassa brothers in the early period of the ‘dual-kingdom’. They started unitedly to take part in the war between the Habsburg and Szapolyai parties, followed aligned politics in the favour of the family. Their identity and deeds were determined by their father’s position and office. Ferenc Balassa was a court-familiar of the king, served as a captain of the light horse, and holded a baron office, the ‘bán’ of the croatian-slavonian territories. This two element was the mental herytage of the brothers, which they followed during their whole life. First of the brothers Imre reached the baron office as the ‘vajda’ of Transylvania, but Menyhárt also tried to reach it, and during the power struggles in the years of 1550–1552 he got it. The central part of Northern Hungary after the disintegration of the country came into a special and unique situation. In the 1530’s years it was a buffer zone and frontline betwenn the Habsbrug and Szapolyai territories, and after the ottomans captured Buda, a defense circle

4 of fortresses was built, that’s why Northern Hungary became bounded by three powers. The nobility of this region had to made decision quickly and give reactions as fast as they can, not only to keep the regional position, but also to survive. That was the main reason why they switched allegiance, because mostly it depended on the presence of the stronger power. After all by the time of changing rulership it was not evident where the region and the landowners belonging. The strategy of success of the Balassa brothers manifestated during the dual- kingdom, that the king gave them donations of land for their services, and they followed advantageous and consistent marriage policy. The brothers engaged widows, and also became legal guardians of the children of their wifes. Thereby they became possessors of huge estates, because they monopolized their heritage, that is why the public stigmatized them as legacy- hunters. As Menyhárt Balassa due to his marriage gained the Lévay-heritage, he became the most powerful lord in two counties. But the marriage had an other consequence, because Balassa’s wife, Anna Thurzó was a relative of the Szapolyai-Petrovics family relationship, and due to this fact Balassa also became the relative of the ‘group’ which ruled the eastern Hungarian lands and Transylvania. On the other hand, because of the ottoman conquest, their esttates became border lands after the occupation of Esztergom. in teh year of 1544. this ottoman garrison about 1500 men went to Balassa’s main castle to siege and capture it, and they also tried to cath hold of Balassa. Up to now we only had informations about this action from the narratory of Sebestyén Tinódi, but fortunatly I discovered a contemporary detailed report about this adventure, which was written on the following day, so we could check for authenticity. To the middle of the 1540’s years Balassa became so both parties, teh Hasbrug and the Szapolyai was intrested to conciliate his favour. The campain against Ferenc Bebek up to now was undiscovered, although it’s very important to recognise the Balassa family policy again, how they kept on their allegiance by service for the king. The campaign in the year 1549. was generally known by the publications about the spanish soldiers lead by Bernardo de Aldana who took part in it. The goal of the campaign was to capture the castles of Balassa, it was required to be detailed circumstancially. In the mid-16th century Hungary was a battlefield for the fighting of the Habsburg, the Szapolyai and the Ottoman empires. King Ferdinand I wanted to seize the eastern country-part and Transylvania, the two territories which were made an Ottoman vassal land by the Szapolyai political legacy. Queen Isabella and the infant John Sigismund were the legitimate and elected

5 sovereigns of the country-part, but the real ruler of the land, controlling the governance, was György (Utješenović/Utješenić) Fráter. Parallel to his expansion goals, Ferdinand tried to strengthen his Kingdom in Hungary. His efforts included the construction of an anti-Ottoman border defence system, whose future fortifications were put under the authority of the royal chamber. Balassa played important roles on both sides during the years of the rulership change. But after, that he refused all the offers for transferring his castles, included the bids, there was a conflict of interest between the royal court and him. The king applied a problem about one of his castles sales contract to legally valid the campaign, and due to the fact Balassa became unlawful possessor. The wider context is that Ferdinand wanted to get de facto authority over those Hungarian territories, which he ruled namely as a king. Although he wanted to start the negotiations with György Fráter about transferring the power in the eastern part of Hungary. It was essential to ensure the northern region not only to sthrenghten his kingdom, but also to demonstrate the power for the Szapolyai party. As a result of Balassa’s unpredictable political orientation his fortresses in Northern Hungary were confiscated, and he had to flee to Transylvania. During the years of the rulership change he held high offices first on the Szapolyai side, then in the Habsburg administration. His engagement was motivated by personal interests and the aim to protect the country-part. There were many reasons why Balassa served queen Isabella. The first, that the king exiled him, the second that Balassa was appointed by Isabella as ’vajda’ of Transylvania. At this point we could recognize, that Balassa followed the family heritage, because he reached the baron position, and fighted against György Fráter and king Ferdinand. After the Transylvanian military takeover king Ferdinand didn’t want to remove the members of the ex- Szapolyai party, because he needed their support too. At that point there was a conflict of interest with György Fráter, because he wanted to execute the most significant persons, especially Balassa. The destiny of friar György is well-known, and the circumstances too, how the italian mercenaries of Giambattista Castaldo lead by Marco Antonio Ferrari murdered him. Due to the fact, that Balassa offered to kill the friar too, and the Hungarian lords hated him, they are responsible for the death of György Fráter like his murderers. In addition, he was presumably influenced by the contact taken up with the Turks and by his injury which overshadowed everything. Tracing Balassaʼs engagement helps to understand the unstable situations and sometimes absurd phenomena of these years. The Habsburg power in Transylvania was too weak, the efficiency of the administration was not able to affiliate, and due to the diplomatic relations the Szapolyai family, John Sigismund and queen Isabella returned to the country in the year of 1556. First time, Balassa

6 hasn’t supported the restauration, because he was apprehensive of the ottoman occupation of Transylvania. But in the year of 1556 he was one of the biggest supporters of the Szapolyai political restauration, so Balassa had been adapting to this situation. But after all, all the Transylvanian lord imagined different ways for the future of the country, and Balassa had also his own plan. As one of the main developments of the northeastern castle sieges at the turn of 1561/1562, Menyhárt Balassa switched his allegiance to King of Hungary and Holy Roman Emperor (Habsburg) Ferdinand I and launched a war against the elected king of Hungary, John Sigismund Zápolya. The nobleman had established links with the Viennese court right from the start of the Szapolyai family’s restoration of power (1556), nevertheless he managed to dominate the power struggles of Eastern Hungary by becoming a governor. In 1562 he launched an attack against John Sigismund, coordinating his move with the Viennese court. This was Ferdinand’s third attempt to unify Hungary under the Habsburg rule, in which the likes of Balassa had come to play a traditional role. Through the dissertation I presented the background of this switch of allegiance, describes the characteristics of the dual rule’s political culture and places all of this in context. The dissertation contains two chapter of analysis, the first about the role of Balassa in the contemporary Hungarian society, examined his household and court through his ‘servitor’-s, and the second is about the Comedy. One element of the contemporary opinion about Balassa was that he is so greedy that he couldn’t pay off his servants and also don’t want to honour their servicies. The Comedy says that’s the reason why he haven’t got court. But Tinódi, as I mentioned, wrote in his poems that Balassa was a society-organizer in the Hungarian-ottoman borderline. Balassa had two braking point in his life: in 1549, and in 1564. The first time due to the fact he had to flee to Transylvania, his court became fragged. The second event was the same, because István báthory captured Balassa’s castle Szatmár, captured his family, and many of his men too. Before 1549 in Balassa’s court we could find the traditional nobility of the two counties where he was ’comes’, but refugee noblemen from the southern part of Hungary, from the land the ottomans occupied also served the powerful lord. There was a unique feature of the hungarian-ottoman border. In the service of Balassa wecould also find renegades, who were muslim turks, but baptised and became on of his captains. At this part of the dissertation I attached a table containing the people with the period and position in which they served Balassa.

7 The Comedy about Melchior Balassi’s betrayal was printed in 1569 Transylvania, by a Unitarian bishop Pál Karádi. There are two basic problems about the work: the first, it’s unauthenticated, the second, that we don’t know exactly when wrote and finished it the author. There were many discussions about the literary genre too, because the name ’comedy’ probably was given by Karádi. The text is divided into five parts, and contains only dialogues. Due to the fact, that most of the historical datas and facts – which were mentioned in the five parts – are trustworthy and all characters were real, contemporary living persons, we should assume that the fiction is minimal during the plot. Although we haven’t got any sources of stage performance, however the stageability of the Comedy is evident. I tried to look after the allusions, hints, and all phrases addressed to the audiences. This method hihglightes the relationships between the characters and their individual qualities too. These relationships are in accordance with the historical facts and persons, therefore we could better come to know the author or the circle of authors. There was a question about the plot location, because there is only one well-identified place in the text. According to the research of the dialogues it is clear that the five parts plays at three locations. One of them is very important (the archbishop’s garden) because it is required to identify the anonym archbishop. This involves that his character is not an allegory of the Catholic Church, he was a real person, who was recognizable for those, who known him by criticism. In the wake of the dissertation it is clear that the author was such a person (or circle of persons) who knew very well not only lord Melchior Balassa, but his court also. We might conclude that the Comedy didn’t addressed to public audiences, it was written for a narrow circle in the years of 1565-1566. Its author was an intellectual humanist, worked and lived near of Hungarian Royal Court and the main offices (especially the Chancellery).

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