Zalava, slave in the Kingdom of Hungary
Cameron Sutt
The focus of this portrait is a slave on the estate of a lay landlord in the Kingdom of Hungary under the Árpád dynasty. The person, Zalava, was a real slave mentioned, along with his brother Zulav, in a series of charters from the 1270s. The central event of his life depicted in this portrait is also real and is the actual subject of these charters from which I have taken his name. Since the charters mentioning Zalava and all other servi from the period were focused upon the transactions and activities of the elite in society, the servi who frequently appeared in them show up merely as items. Therefore, many of the details of Zalava’s life and the lives of other slaves mentioned in the portrait are in part the product of imagination and educated guesses. At the same time, all the events in this portrait are based upon actual incidents found in the charters. Of course, they did not all happen around Zalava, but I have included them in his life story so as to give an impression of the lives of these voiceless men and women.
The portrait of Zalava is representative of those slaves owned by lay landlords in the Kingdom of Hungary. The situation of subjects living on the estates of the great ecclesiastical institutions would have been different, and I have attempted to show that briefly. The organization and utilization of labor on royal estates had its own complexities, and I thought it best not to burden the portrait excessively with their complications.
Unfortunately, none of the charters used in this portrait have been translated, but they can be found scattered throughout the large collections of printed charters listed below. The Feast of the Ascension is one of the required celebrations mandated by the Synod of Szabolcs, found in the collection of the earliest laws of the Kingdom of Hungary. The description of Nicolas’ castle-fort is taken from archaeological findings of the last couple of decades. Much of the discussion regarding these fortifications has likewise not been translated, but some summaries can be found in the volume edited by Zsolt Visy.
Further Reading
Sources
Bak, János M., György Bónis, and James Ross Sweeney, eds, The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom Hungary, 1000–1301, 2nd ed. Idyllwild: Charles Schlacks, Jr., 1999.
Fejér, Georgius, ed. Codex Diplomaticus Hungariae ecclesiasticus ac civilis. 11 vols., 43 bks. Buda: A Magyar Királyi Egyetem, 1829–1844.
Karácsonyi, János and Samu Borovszky. Regestrum Varadinense Examinum Ferri Candentis Ordine Chronologico Digestum, Descripta Effigie Editionis a. 1550 Illustratum. Budapest: A Váradi Káptalan, 1903.
Nagy, Imre, Iván Páur, Károly Ráth, and Dezső Véghely, Codex Diplomaticus Patrius. 8 vols. Győr: Imre Nagí, Iván Páur, Károly Ráth and Dezső Vézhely, 1865–1891.
Nagy, Imre, Farkas Deák and Gyula Nagy. Codex Diplomaticus Patriae. Budapest: A Magyar Történelmi Társulat, 1879.
Wenzel, Gusztáv. Codex Diplomaticus Arpadianus Continuatus. 12 vols. Pest: Eggenberger Ferdinánd, 1860–1874.
Secondary Literature in English
Engel, Pál. The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary 895–1526. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2001.
Sutt, Cameron. Slavery in Árpád-era Hungary in a Comparative Context. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Sutt, Cameron. “Parentela, kindred, and the crown. Inheritance practices in Árpád-era Hungary.” in Inheritance, Law and Religions in the Ancient and Mediaeval Worlds. Eds. Béatrice Caseau and Sabine R. Huebner. Paris: Centre d’Histoire et de Civilisation de Byzance, Monographies 45, 2014.
Szabó, István. “The Praedium. Studies on the economic history and the history of settlement of early Hungary.” Agrártörténeti szemle 5 Supplementum (1963): 1–24.
Visy, Zsolt (ed.). Hungarian Archaeology at the Turn of the Millennium. Budapest: Ministry of National Cultural Heritage, 2003.