DESPRE FAMILIARES SI FAMILIARITAS ÎN CAZUL FAMILIEI HIMFI*
FAMILIARES AND FAMILIARITAS IN THE CASE OF HIMFI FAMILY

Summary/Abstract: This study addresses the question of service and social relations between nobles in the medieval kingdom of Hungary by analyzing the evidence provided by the history and archive of a noble family. The Himfi were a family of royal hunters originating in the Veszprém county, who succeeded to climb the social ladder by entering the royal service during the Angevine dynasty. They were quite successful in developing their landed resources which were concentrated mainly in Veszprém county and the Banat region in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This study is analyzing on the one hand the political careers of a few members of Himfi family in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and on the other hand the composition and structure of their retinues. The phenomenon of service in medieval kingdom of Hungary has for a long time been presented in terms borrowed from the vocabulary of Western historians, that is in terms of feudalism and vassalage. Some historians in Hungary and Romania have objected to the use of this terminology showing that familiaritas is not to be equated with vassalage. The medieval documents of Himfi family never speak of vassals, but rather of familiares, famuli, servientes. These were servants of noblemen undertaking various military, legal, or administrative tasks. They were seldom rewarded in land. Most often they received sums in cash, or goods. The land granted to a faithful servant, either by the king or a nobleman, was not a fief, but rather full property or what is known as alod. Service extended sometimes for decades, or some families continued to maintain service relations with a patron for generations. But there are also examples of people moving in the service of other potentates. The Himfi archive does not hold examples of oaths taken by servants, but there are examples of servants killed while defending their masters. A recurring pattern of recruitment shows that among the servants of the Himfi, there were nobles from neighboring villages who sought protection or simply employment. Incentives for seeking employment could be the aspirations for political careers, the most efficient way of getting rich, or the economic pressures, like the prospects of poverty. The Himfi family’s analysis demonstrates that the most prosperous periods in its history were those when its members were employed directly in the king’ service, during the reign of King Louis the Great. The following period, that of king Sigismund of Luxemburg, was not as prosperous: the Himfi could only enter the service of aristocrats appointed as royal representatives in the Banat.

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