Decree of Turda
| Decree of Turda | |
|---|---|
| Created | 28 June 1366 |
| Location | Torda (present-day Turda, Romania) |
| Author(s) | King Louis I of Hungary |
| Purpose | Determination of procedural rules |
The Decree of Turda (Hungarian: tordai dekrétum; Romanian: Decretul de la Turda) was a 14th century decree by King Louis I of Hungary that granted special privileges to the Transylvanian noblemen to take measures against malefactors belonging to any nation, especially the Romanians.
Background
In the 14th century, the Kingdom of Hungary had a political and economic consolidation, thus Transylvania prospered as never before. The campaign against the Golden Horde in 1345 led by Andrew Lackfi, Count of the Székelys had finally expelled the Tatars and ended the devastations of the Mongols.[1]
According to Hungarian historians, the main source of problems was the relationship between nobles and villains, which was not resolved and was further complicated as claimed by legal and social aspects of the settlement of Romanians in the Hungarian counties.[1] Due to the different ways of life, the constantly increasing population of Romanians in Transylvania led to repeated conflicts with the Hungarians. King Louis I of Hungary visited Transylvania in 1366 to deal with the disorder.[1][2]
According to Romanian historian
History
King
The conditions imposed by the decree for maintaining or acceding nobility (in particular, affiliation to the
The decree takes action against malefactors: propter presumptuosam astuciam diversorum malefactorum, specialiter Olachorum in ipsa terra nostra existencium (…) ad exterminandum seu delendum in ipsa terra malefactores quarumlibet nacionum, signanter Olachorum - because of the evil arts of many malefactors, especially Romanians, who live in that our country (…) to expel or to exterminate in this country malefactors belonging to any nation, especially Romanians.[10]
Historians have not reached a consensual view of the exact circumstances of the issuing of the decree and its main purpose.[11]
According to Romanian historian Ioan-Aurel Pop, this was the first time in Transylvania that discriminatory law enforcement along ethnic lines was legally codified.[12]
István Petrovics writes that the mobile way of life of the increasing Romanian population caused their conflicts with the sedentary Hungarians.
According to Benedek Jancsó, documents from the 14th-15th centuries attest several social problems, the relationship between the semi-nomadic shepherding Romanian settlers and the permanently settled and farming Transylvanian Hungarians and Saxons was the same as between the farming Hungarians in the Great Hungarian Plains and the wandering Cumans with their flocks. This explains the strict measures taken by King Louis the Great in 1366 that the "proliferating malefactors must be exterminated".[4]
Notes
- ^ ISBN 0-88033-479-7.
- ^ ISBN 9780754664772.
- ^ Pop, Ioan-Aurel (1996). Românii şi maghiarii în secolele IX-XIV. Geneza statului medieval în Transilvania] [Romanians and Hungarians from the 9th to the 14th Century. The Genesis of the Transylvanian Medieval State]. Center for Transylvanian Studies. pp. 179–183.
- ^ a b Dr. Jancsó, Benedek. "Erdély története az Anjou-ház uralkodása alatt" [History of Transylvania during the reign of the House of Anjou]. Erdély története [History of Transylvania] (PDF) (in Hungarian). Cluj-Kolozsvár: Minerva. p. 63.
- ^ Pop 2013, p. 458.
- ^ Pop 2013, pp. 458–459.
- ^ Pop 2003, p. 122.
- ^ Pop 2013, p. 459.
- ^ Pop I.-A., Nations and Denominations in Transylvania (13th - 16th Century) Archived 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine In Tolerance and Intolerance in Historical Perspective, edited by Csaba Lévai et al., Edizioni PLUS, Università di Pisa, 2003, p. 111 – 125
- ^ I. Dani, K. Gündish et al. (eds.) Documenta Romaniae Historica, vol. XIII, Transilvania (1366-1370), Editura Academiei Române, Bucharest 1994, p. 161-162
- ^ Pop 2013, p. 461.
- ^ I.A.POP - Romanians and Hungarians in Transylvania, IX to XIV centuries, pages 183-184, 2009
- ^ Pop 2013, p. 49.
- ^ Pop 2013, pp. 469–470.
Sources
- Makkai, László (1994). "The Emergence of the Estates (1172–1526)". In Köpeczi, Béla; Barta, Gábor; Bóna, István; Makkai, László; Szász, Zoltán; Borus, Judit (eds.). History of Transylvania. Akadémiai Kiadó. pp. 178–243. ISBN 963-05-6703-2.
- Petrovics, István (2009). "Foreign Ethnic Groups in the Towns of Southern Hungary in the Middle Ages". In Keene, Derek; Nagy, Balázs; Szende, Katalin (eds.). Segregation-Integration-Assimilation: Religious and Ethnic Groups in the Medieval Towns of Central and Eastern Europe. Ashgate. pp. 67–88. ISBN 978-0-7546-6477-2.
- Pop, Ioan-Aurel (2003). "Nations and Denominations in Transylvania (13th-14th Century)". In Lévai, Csaba; Vese, Vasile (eds.). Tolerance and Intolerance in Historical Perspective. Plus. pp. 111–123. ISBN 88-8492-139-2.
- Pop, Ioan-Aurel (2013). "De manibus Valachorum scismaticorum...": Romanians and Power in the Mediaeval Kingdom of Hungary: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Peter Lang Edition. ISBN 978-3-631-64866-7.