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1222 - The Golden Bull

Until the end of the twelfth century, the king's power remained paramount in Hungary. He was the largest landowner, and income from the crown lands nearly equaled the revenues generated from mines, customs, tolls, and the mint. In the thirteenth century, however, the social structure changed, and the crown's absolute power began to wane. As the crown lands became a less important source of royal revenues, the king found it expedient to make land grants to nobles to ensure their loyalty. Unfortunately the fruits of Bela's diligence and foresight were dissipated by the follies of his two immediate successors, Emerich (1106-1204) and Andrew II, who weakened the royal power in attempting to win support by lavish grants of the crown domains on the already over-influential magnates, a policy from which dates the supremacy of the semi-savage Magyar oligarchs, that insolent and self-seeking class which would obey no superior and trampled ruthlessly on every inferior.

King Andrew II (1205-35), a profligate spender on foreign military adventures and domestic luxury, made huge land grants to nobles who fought for him. These nobles, many of whom were foreign knights, soon made up a class of magnates whose wealth and power far outstripped that of the more numerous, and predominantly Magyar, lesser nobles. The most conspicuous event of Andrew's reign was the promulgation in 1222 of the so-called Golden Bull, which has aptly been called the Magna Carta of Hungary, and is in some of its provisions strikingly reminiscent of that signed seven years previously by the English king John.

When Andrew tried to meet burgeoning expenses by raising the serfs' taxes, thereby indirectly slashing the lesser nobles' incomes, the lesser nobles rebelled. In 1222 they forced Andrew to sign the Golden Bull, which limited the king's power, declared the lesser nobles (all free men not included among the great Barons or magnates) legally equal to the magnates and gave them the right to resist the king's illegal acts. The lesser nobles also began to present Andrew with grievances, a practice that evolved into the institution of the parliament, or Diet.

The Golden Bull has been described as consecrating the humiliation of the crown by the great barons, whose usurpations it legalized: the more usually accepted view, however, is that it was directed not so much to weakening as to strengthening the crown by uniting its interests with those of the mass of the Magyar nobility, equally threatened by the encroachments of the great barons. The preamble, indeed, speaks of the curtailment of the liberties of the nobles by the power of certain of the kings, and at the end the right of armed resistance to any attempt to infringe the charter is conceded to "the bishops and the higher and lower nobles" of the realm; but for the rest, its contents clearly show that it was intended to strengthen the monarchy by ensuring that the momentary folly or weakness of the king should not endanger the institution itself. This is especially clear from clause xvi., which decrees ihat the title and estates of the lords-lieutenant of counties should not be hereditary, thus attacking feudalism at its very roots, while clause xiv. provides for the degradation of any lord-lieutenant who should abuse his office.

On the other hand, the principle of the exemption of all the nobles from taxation is confirmed, as well as their right to refuse military service abroad, the defence of the realm being their sole obligation. All nobles were also to have the right to appear at the court which was to be held once a year at Szekesfehervar by the king, or in his absence by the palatine, for the purpose of hearing causes. A clause also guarantees all nobles against arbitrary arrest and punishment at the instance of any powerful person.

This famous charter, which was amplified, under the influence of the clergy, in 1231, when its articles were placed under the guardianship of the archbishop of Esztergom (who was authorized to punish their violation by the king with excommunication), is generally regarded as the foundation of Hungarian constitutional liberty, though like Magna Carta it purported only to confirm immemorial rights; and as such it was expressly ratified as a whole in the coronation oaths of alt the Habsburg kings from Ferdinand to Leopold I. Its actual effect in the period succeeding its issue was, however, practically nugatory; if indeed it did not actually give a new handle to the subversive claims of the powerful barons.