Buda, Medieval Capital of Hungary

chapter 15 Buda, Medieval Capital of Hungary

András Kubinyi*

There is an enormous literature on the ‘capital city question’. The distinct but overlapping concept of the ‘royal seat’ or residence has also attracted much attention in the last decade and a half.1 Hungarian historians have recently shown capital-city characteristics to have been concentrated in an area known as the “center of the realm” (medium regni) in the period following the founda- tion of the state. These characteristics were shared among the three towns at the edge of that area: Esztergom, Székesfehérvár and Óbuda. The center subse- quently transferred from Óbuda to Buda, but some capital functions remained in the other two cities: the archbishop of Esztergom was Hungary’s primate and legatus natus in the late medieval period, and Székesfehérvár remained the city of coronation and royal burial.2 International historians have also recognized the significance of the Hun- garian medium regni.3 Buda finally became the residence of the king only

Translated by Alan Campbell * András Kubinyi (1929–2007) was and will always remain one of the most influential research- ers of medieval Buda (see the introductory chapter of the present volume). This article is a translation of one of his last studies dedicated to this city’s past: “Buda, Magyarország középkori fővárosa,” Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 29 (2001) 11–22 [reprinted in Kubinyi, Tanulmányok , ii, pp. 538–549]. 1 A considerable part of the previous scholarship is referred to, and the problem is well pre- sented in Evamaria Engel and Karen Lambrecht, “Hauptstadt – Residenz – Residenzstadt – Metropole – Zentraler Ort. Probleme ihrer Definition und Charakterisierung,” in Metropolen im Wandel. Zentralität in Ostmitteleuropa an der Wende vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit, eds Eva- maria Engel, Karen Lambrecht and Hanna Nogossek (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), pp. 11–31. 2 The notion of medium regni was identified by Bernát L. Kumorovitz, “Buda (és Pest) ‘fővárossá’ alakulásának kezdetei,” [The beginnings of the formation of Buda (and Pest) as ‘capital’] Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 18 (1971), pp. 7–57. For an overview of the idea of the medium regni, see András Kubinyi, “Preface: From the ‘Middle of the Country’ to the Capital,” in Medium regni, pp. 5–8; György Györffy, Pest–Buda kialakulása. Budapest története a honfoglalástól az Árpád-kor végi székvárossá alakulásáig [The formation of Pest-Buda. The history of Budapest from the Hungarian conquest to its late Árpádian-period formation as capital] (Budapest, Akadémiai, 1997), p. 223. 3 Klaus Neitmann, “Was ist eine Residenz? Methodische Überlegungen zur Erforschung der spätmittelalterlichen Residenzbildung,” in Vorträge und Forschungen zur Residenzenfrage (Residenzenforschung, 1), ed. Peter Johanek (Sigmaringen: J. Thorbecke, 1990), pp. 11–43,

BUDA, MEDIEVAL CAPITAL OF HUNGARY 367 in the early fifteenth century (lasting up to the Ottoman conquest), and its status as a capital city before that time is debatable.4 Here I will investigate Buda’s status through some contemporary references to ‘capital’ features – particularly those manifested in certain important events – and the self- assessment of Buda citizens. Early fourteenth-century sources undoubtedly identify Buda as a royal seat. In 1308, the Anonymi Descriptio Europae Orientalis described Buda as the seat of the Hungarian kingdom and largest city.5 In the same year, King Charles i wrote that he had transferred governance of the kingdom to Buda and taken up residence in the city together with his prelates and barons.6 These two items of information do not have exactly the same meaning. The Descriptio calls Buda the “seat of the realm”, rather than sedes regis or regia, i.e. “the seat of the king”. There is also a problem with the expression civitas principalis, which may seem to correspond to “capital city”, but actually denotes a category, as is clear from an urban decree of 1405 which mentions the civitates principaliores, i.e. the “more principal cities.”7 The same category existed in Poland, whose develop- ment was similar to Hungary’s. Indeed, Polish historians have identified six main cities denoted as civitates principaliores in the late Middle Ages.8 Further complicating the issue is a Hungarian-language source from the first half of the sixteenth century: “Szeged is a large city in Hungary; what is more, it is the king’s capital city [fő várasa].”9 Since Szeged was never the king’s

here pp. 41–42; Winfried Eberhard, “Metropolenbildung im östlichen Mitteleuropa. Eine vorläufige Diskussionsbilanz,” in Metropolen im Wandel. Zentralität in Ostmitteleuropa an der Wende vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit, eds Evamaria Engel, Karen Lambrecht and Hanna Nogossek (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), pp. 277–282, here p. 281. 4 The question has a long historiography. Cf. Albert Gárdonyi, “Magyarország középkori fővárosa,” [The medieval capital of Hungary] Századok 78 (1944), pp. 219–231. Scholarship up to the beginning of the 1990s is summarized in the different studies published in the exhibi- tion catalogue: Budapest im Mittelalter; see also above, note 2. 5 “…ubi est sedes regni, que est maxima civitatum […] in tota Ungaria” – ámtf, iv, p. 606. 6 “…suscepto regni nostri gubernaculo in Budensem civitatem nostram principalem […] venissemus” – ámtf, iv, p. 606. Cf. Erzsébet Ladányi, “Libera villa, civitas, oppidum. Termi- nologische Fragen in der ungarischen Städteentwicklung,” Annales Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestinensis de Rolando Eötvös Nominatae. Sectio historica 18 (1977), pp. 3–43. 7 Ladányi, “Libera villa,” pp. 23–24. 8 Maria Bogucka and Henryk Samsonowicz, Dzieje miast i mieszczaństwa w Polsce przedroz- biorowej [The history of towns and the bourgeoisie until the partitions of Poland] (Wrocław– Warsaw–Łodz: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1986), pp. 106 and 120. 9 Memoria Rerum. A Magyarországon legutóbbi László király fiának legutóbbi Lajos királynak szül- etése óta esett dolgok emlékezete (Verancsics-évkönyv) [The memory of the things that happened in Hungary since the birth of the last King Ladislas’s most recent son, King Louis (Verancsics journal)] (Bibliotheca historica), ed. József Bessenyei (Budapest: Magyar Helikon, 1981), p. 16.