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The Hungarian nobility consisted of a privileged group of laymen, most of whom owned inheritable landed property, in the Kingdom of Hungary (including all the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen as well) between the 1260s and 1946. Late 12th-century documents used the term "noblemen" in reference to the dignitaries of the royal court and the heads of the counties. Most of these aristocrats were native lords, some even tracing their families' origins back to tribal chiefs who lived at the time of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin around 895. Other aristocrats were regarded as newcomers, because their ancestors (mainly German, Italian and French knights) came after the establishment of the kingdom around 1000. The immigrant knights contributed to the introduction of heavy cavalry and the spread of chivalric culture. According to scholarly theories, groups of Slavic or Romanian notabilities of the polities from the period preceding the Hungarian conquest also survived. Beside the aristocrats, less illustrious individuals held landed property and were obliged to provide military service throughout the kingdom. For instance, a privileged group of armed serfsthe "castle warriors"held estates in the lands attached to royal castles. Through the integration of the different classes of free and non-free warriors, a new group emerged after a decline in royal power started at the end of the 13th century. They referred to themselves as "royal servants" to emphasize their direct contact to the monarch. They forced Andrew II of Hungary to spell out their liberties (including their exemption of royal taxes) in the Golden Bull of 1222, which became the fundamental document of noble privileges. The royal servants' identification as noblemen was enacted in 1267. The highest royal officials had by that time were mentioned as "barons of the realm". In short time, the counties transformed into the most important institutions of the self-government of noblemen. A decree of 1351 declared the principle of "one and the selfsame liberty" of all noblemen. However, there were groups of privileged landownersthe so-called "conditional nobles"that did not enjoy all the privileges of "true noblemen"; for instance, they were to render military services in exchange for the estates that they held on their lords' domains. Moreover, significant economic, political and social differences existed between the wealthiest noblemen (who owned castles and dozens of villages and held sway over thousands of peasants) and noblemen who themselves cultivated their tiny plots. The rich landowners employed impoverished noblemen in their households as their ''familiares''. Through their ''familiares'', they could control both the counties and the Diet, or parliament. According to customary law, only sons and male members of the noble families could inherit noble estates. Noblemen's daughters were only entitled to the "daughters' quarter" which was to be given in money or movable property, except if a noble women was married off to a commoner. Only the monarch had the power to "promote a daughter to a son", authorizing her to inherit her father's estates. If a nobleman died, his estates were divided among his sons in equal parts, which contributed to the impoverishment of noble families. A group of noble families bearing hereditary titles emerged in the middle of the 15th century. First the monarchs granted the title of "perpetual count" to noblemen; the existence of "natural barons" was acknowledged from the 1480s. Nevertheless, István Werbőczy's ''Tripartitum''a collection of customary laws compelled in 1514emphasized the equal status of all noblemen and identified the Hungarian nation with the community of noblemen. The law book also summarized the noblemen's privileges, including their personal freedom and their exemption of taxation. In some cases, not individuals but a group of people was granted a legal status similar to that of the nobility; ''e.g.'', the Hajdú people enjoyed the privileges of the nobility not as individuals but as a community. The Latin became the language of the nobility. It represented that Hungary belonged to the western states in the modern historical consciousness and served as a symbol of independence against German expansion. It also symbolised that the nobility had a common culture.〔 Latin was used at tribunals and served as lingua franca in the spheres of official life.〔 Beginning in the 14th century, Hungarian nobility was based on a Patent of Nobility with a coat of arms issued by the monarch and constituted a legal and social class. Privileges of nobility—e.g. no taxation but obligatory military service at war at own cost—were abolished 1848, titles of nobility were abolished in 1947, and the abolishment of titles of nobility were again confirmed in 1990. Similarly to other countries in Central Europe, the proportion of the nobility in the population of the Kingdom of Hungary was significantly higher than in the Western countries: by the 18th century, about 5% of its population qualified a member of the nobility. The core privileges of the nobility were abolished or expanded to other citizens by the "April laws" in 1848, but the members of the upper nobility could reserve their special political rights (they were hereditary members of the Upper House of the Parliament) and the usage of names of the nobles also distinguished them from the commoners. All the distinctive features of nobility, including titles, were abolished in 1947 following the declaration of the Republic of Hungary. The abolition of titles of nobility was confirmed by parliamentary legislation in 1990. ==Origins (before 1000)== The Magyars, or Hungarians, dwelled in the Pontic steppes in the middle of the 9th century. Regino of Prüm, Leo the Wise and other contemporaneous authors portrayed the Magyars as nomadic warriors who "ride their horses all the time"〔''The'' Chronicle ''of Regino of Prüm'' (year 889), p. 206.〕 and "do not last long on foot".〔''The Taktika of Leo VI'' (18.61), p. 459.〕 The Magyars crossed the Carpathian Mountains in search for a new homeland after the Pechenegs invaded their lands in 894 or 895. The Magyars defeated the Bavarians, annihilated Moravia, and settled in the lowlands of the Carpathian Basin. The Hungarians were organized into tribes and each had its own chief in the middle of the 10th century, according to Constantine Porphyrogenitus. Porphyrogenitus also wrote that the Hungarians "do not obey their own particular princes, but have a joint agreement to fight together with all earnestness and zeal",〔''Constantine Porphyrogenitus: De Administrando Imperio'' (ch. 40), p. 179.〕 suggesting that the tribal chiefs were military commanders instead of political leaders. At least the leaders of the tribes were bilingual, speaking both Hungarian and "the tongue of the Chazars",〔''Constantine Porphyrogenitus: De Administrando Imperio'' (ch. 39), p. 175.〕 according to the emperor. According to historian Pál Engel, the tribal chiefs bore the title ''úr'', as it is suggested by Hungarian terms''ország'' ("realm") and ''uralkodik'' ("to rule")derriving from this word. The ''bős'', whose title derived from the Turkic ''bey'', were military leaders subjected to the tribal chiefs. Burials yielding sabres and other weapons, silver sabretaches, jewels and remains of horses show that a numerous class of mounted warriors existed in the first half of the 10th century. They were buried either in large cemeteries where hundreds of graves of men who had been buried without weapons surrounded their burial places, or in small cemeteries with 25-30 graves. There is no evidence that the chiefs lived in fortified abodes, because none of the forts in the Carpathian Basin can certainly be dated to the 10th century. However, wood-and-stone houses from the same century that were unearthed in Borsod suggest that 10th-century notabilities lived in abodes made of stone and wood. The Aba, Bár-Kalán, Csák and many noble kindreds asserted a descent from 9th and 10th-century chiefs in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, but there is little evidence to substantiate their claim. According to historian László Makkai, most of these clans bore lions on their coat-of-arms. However, decorative motifs, which can be regarded as the totems of tribes (the griffin, wolf and hind) in the 10th-century, were rarely used in Hungarian heraldry in the following centuries. According to historian Martyn Rady, both the Hungarians' defeats during their raids in Europe and the centralizing attempts of the grand princes from the Árpád dynasty caused the destruction of the families of the tribal chiefs. In Slovakian historiography, certain noble kindreds are described as Slavic noble families which had survived the fall of Moravia. For instance, Ján Lukačka writes that the Hont-Pázmány kindred, whose ancestors are mentioned as Swabian knights in medieval chronicles, was actually descended from aristocrats from the Principality of Nitra who had yielded to the Hungarian monarchs in the 10th century. According to Vlad Georgescu, Ioan-Aurel Pop and other historians, Romanian landowners also survived the Hungarian Conquest in Transylvania and other regions east of the river Tisza. Other historians (including Pál Engel and Martyn Rady) write that the presence of Romanians cannot be proven before around 1200, and their leaders, known as ''knezes'', primarily acquired their landed propierty through settling Romanian commoners on the sparsely inhabited domains of the kings, prelates and noblemen in the 13th and 14th centuries. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hungarian nobility」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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