A county ( 'castle-county' or ) is the name of a type of administrative unit in Hungary.

This article deals with counties in the former Kingdom of Hungary from the 10th century until the Treaty of Trianon of 1920. For lists of individual counties, see: Administrative divisions of the Kingdom of Hungary. For counties of Hungary since 1950, see: Counties of Hungary.

Nomenclature

Origin of the name The Latin word is derived from the word , which originally stood for companion or retinue member. In the Early and High Middle Ages, the title was a noble title used with various meanings, in the Kingdom of Hungary especially (but not exclusively) with the meaning "county head".

The Hungarian word is likely derived from Southern Slavic (, ) meaning approximately territorial border. The Slavic word in turn is related to Latin (middle) through a common Indo-European root. The original word is still used in present-day Slavic languages: in Slovak (as ), in Slovenian (as ), in Serbo-Croatian (as , ), in a similar sense, and in Hungarian it seems to have meant, initially, the border of a county. Hungarian has another word () of the same origin meaning borderland.

The Hungarian word (county head) is derived from the Southern Slavic word (), which was used by the Slavs living in the Carpathian Basin before the arrival of the Hungarians and stood for the head of various territorial units. The title was also used as a ruling title in medieval Serbia.

vs. county For centuries, the official written language of the Kingdom of Hungary was Latin. The Latin word for the English and Hungarian county, , is sometimes used in English.

Terminology in various languages

County Royal county (11th–13th centuries) Latin (and other names) in later Hungarian : in later Slovak: , in later German .

Some Hungarian historians distinguish between the functions of a (led by a ) and those of a (led by a ), usually arguing that the administrative unit called sometimes included several military units called . This system was created by the state founder monarch Stephen I of Hungary. Noble county (13th century to 1848) Latin: (no other form from the 13th century onwards) Hungarian: (in the Middle Ages both, later mainly , from 1949 exclusively ) Slovak: (modernised county only) German: (rarely) (modernised county usually )

District Latin: Hungarian: Slovak: German:

A typical county in Hungary is made up of several districts. The headquarters of the districts were usually located in small towns.

County head Royal county: Latin: , in later Hungarian: , in later Slovak: , in later German: Noble county: Latin: , Hungarian: , Slavic languages: , German:

Main county head Latin: , Hungarian: , Slovak: , German:

Deputy county head Royal county: mentioned as by the then Latin sources. Noble county and later: Latin: , Hungarian: , Slovak: , in German:

General Assembly Latin: , Hungarian: , Slovak: , German: Its decrees and decisions are binding on all county officials. The county regulations were enacted by the county assembly constituted the county's local legislation. The county legislation was subordinate only to the laws of the parliament.

Noble judges Latin: , Hungarian (pl) , Slovak (pl) , German (later only)

Deputy noble judges Latin: , Hungarian: , Slovak: , German: .

Jurors , Hungarian: , Slovak: , German

Municipal town Hungarian: , Slovak: , German:

Royal counties (late 10th – late 13th centuries)

History The Hungarians settled in the Carpathian Basin in 895. The first counties were probably those situated in present-day northern Pannonia (Transdanubia); they arose before or around 1000. The exact time of the creation of many other counties is disputed. Many of them, however, arose not later than the reign of King Stephen I (1000/01–1038). Initially there were also several small frontier counties (Latin: ), established for military purposes only (e.g. comitatus of Bolondus), which however ceased to exist in the 14th century when royal counties were transformed into noble ones. Initially, there were also some small special castle districts, which ceased to exist in the 13th century.

Functioning Each county was the responsibility of a county head, whose seat was a castle – a quasi-capital of the county. The county head was the representative of the king, the judge, and the chief law enforcement officer in his respective territory. He collected the taxes and payments in kind made by the subjects to the king, gave two thirds of them to the king, and kept the rest. His castle had special fortifications and was able to withstand even long-term sieges. The sources mention deputy county heads in the 12th century for the first time.

The royal county consisted of castle districts.

Noble counties (late 13th century – 1848) History In the late 13th century, the royal counties gradually turned into highly autonomous noble counties. The reasons for this development were: The arrival of new hospites: hospites were foreign settlers who were allowed to apply their own foreign law in their settlements; particularly Germans and especially after 1242. This considerably restricted the real powers of the county heads, since the hospites were outside their jurisdiction. At the end of the 12th century, and even more so in the early 13th century under King Andrew II, large parts of royal territory (i. e. of the kingdom) were donated to the so-called "royal servants" (in the 9th–12th centuries members of certain professions, mostly craftsmen, who were settled in special villages and served the king with their respective skills). In the 13th century, the royal servants managed to co-ordinate their activities in order to increase their own powers at the expense of those of the county heads (see also the Golden Bull of 1222) and thus became nobles: servientes regis.

As a result, by royal decrees of 1267, 1290, and 1298, the king could only confirm that the royal counties had turned into noble ones. Nobles (mostly former royal servant families) became quasi-rulers in the counties. The change from a royal to a noble county, however, took place at different times in each county.

In the 15th century, the borders of the counties stabilised and basically remained unchanged until 1920. Between the early 16th century and the late 17th century, however, most of the counties ceased to exist once they became part of the Ottoman Empire (the Turks) or of the Principality of Transylvania. After the final defeat of the Turks in 1718, the three southern counties Temesiensis, Torontaliensis and Krassoviensis created the special administrative district Banatus Temesiensis (Temeswar Banate). This district was dissolved again in 1779, but its southernmost part remained part of the Military Frontier (Confiniaria militaria) till the late 19th century.

The bodies of the new counties considerably helped to defend the interests of lower and middle nobility with respect to the oligarchs, who were often the de facto rulers of the kingdom, and with respect to the absolutistic efforts of the Habsburg kings. The counties as noble institutions were abolished only in the course of the Revolution of 1848 by legal articles III–V and XVI/ 1848.

Temporary centralization (1785–1790) In 1785, king Joseph II decided to abolish the counties as entities of noble autonomy (self-governance) and tried to introduce a new system of absolutist centralized state administration in the Kingdom of Hungary. The kingdom, including Croatia and Slavonia, was primarily divided into 10 newly created military/administrative districts, each of which consisted of four to seven counties. The territory of each county initially corresponded to the traditional one, but in 1786 many of them were merged, and the counties became pure units of state administration: the main county heads were abolished, the county clerks became employees of the state, the courts became the responsibility of the state, etc. The capitals of the districts were chosen to be centrally situated in the district. The number of processus districts was reduced. The official language became German rather than Latin. The districts were headed by a commissioner appointed by the Austrian emperor, who was simultaneously also the king of Hungary. After the death of Emperor Joseph II, however, facing strong resistance against any kind of absolutist centralization in Hungary, the new king Leopold II had to repeal all the reforms, and the old system of the self-government of the counties was reinstated in 1790.

Functioning Only the duty to support the king militarily, the territorial unit and formally also the title of county head remained from the former royal counties.

The new county was a self-governing (autonomous) entity of lower gentry. It was led by the county head (comes), appointed by the king, and by his deputy, appointed by the county head. These two persons were the link between the king and the nobility. As a rule, the county heads (from the 15th/16th centuries onwards called main county head) were the supreme feudal lords of the county. From the beginning of the 14th century, the county head was at the same time the castellan of the respective county castle in 13 counties. People became county heads for a limited period of time and could be recalled by the king, but a number of prelates (from the 15th century also seculars) received the "eternal county leadership" of their diocese.

The formal title comes was also borne by some dignitaries of the Court (e. g. comes curiae) and other nobles in the Early Middle Ages, and then by other members of the middle nobility in the Late Middle Ages, and it did not mean count in these cases.

From the 13th–14th centuries onwards, the deputy county heads, and not the county head himself, were the real administrators of the county. The county heads were also higher dignitaries of the state or of the court at the same time (palatine, treasurer, etc.), so that they did not have much time for the management of the county. The deputy county heads role was to administer the county during the county heads absence. Originally, the deputy county head was a personal employee of the king and thus the main person through which the king exercised influence in the county. At the same time, the deputy was the castellan of the castle of the county head or an economic officer (Latin: provisor) of the properties of the same. Initially, the nobles of the county could not influence the appointment of the deputy county head, but in the early 15th century, they managed to put through a rule that only a noble from the same county could become the deputy county head (see below).

Initially, in the 13th century, the influence of nobles made itself felt only in the judicial sphere. The judges of the servientes regis - the so-called iudices servientium - developed into the noble judges (see below), and the courts of the servientes regis - the so-called sedes iudiciaria or - developed into the county court (the Latin name remained ). The meetings were led by the county head, later de facto by his deputy (see below). Until the 15th century, the county head's co-judges were his deputy county head, the (usually four) noble judges, and a number of persons appointed ad hoc from among the present nobles. From the 15th century onwards, permanent jurors were elected from among the nobles of the county. The served as the court of first instance for minor disputes of the nobles and as the appeal instance for village courts and patrimonial courts ().

From the beginning of their existence, the noble judges were the real representatives of county autonomy. They were elected by the congregatio generalis (see below) and were not only judges, but also political administrators of their respective processus districts (see below). They formed the core of the newly arising class of squires.