Izvorni znanstveni članak
Hungarian Horizons in the History of the Church in Dalmatia. The analysis of royal donations to the Church
Judit Gál
orcid.org/0000-0002-5692-0426
; Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, Budapest
Sažetak
This work provides an overview of the complex role of the Hungarian royal grants to the Church in Dalmatia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, during the rule of the Árpád dynasty. The first part of the analysis focuses on the temporal and territorial characteristics of the grants, with special regard to the newly granted lands. The following part examines the places where the royal donations were issued, in order to obtain a broader picture of their usage in the royal court. The last part of the investigation focuses on the recipients of the royal grants, and here the author also analyses the opportunities that the reception of the grants offered to the cities in Dalmatia. Finally, the paper focuses on the question of how the urban development influenced the issuing of the royal grants to the Church and how the royal court accommodated itself to social changes in the coastal lands.
The temporal and territorial analysis of the grants shows that royal grants to the Church were issued from the very beginning of Hungarian rule in Dalmatia. After the mid-thirteenth century, the number of grants decreased drastically. The number of the grants was the highest when kings or dukes were personally present in Dalmatia, when they visited the region for military reasons or made their regular tours. After the Mongol invasion, the kings and dukes of Hungary donated only a few lands to the Church. The grants attest that the kings and dukes supported the most important cities and showed their favour towards the influential monasteries of the region. They used grants to win the support of the Church both during internal struggles and in the event of external threats. It can also be seen that the royal policy of grant-giving had a symbolic continuity with the previous Croatian royal dynasty: the kings and dukes gave grants to those monasteries which had enjoyed the favour of the Tripimirović dynasty. When the kings and dukes visited Dalmatia, giving grants was part of the royal custom. It provided the rulers with the opportunity to establish a connection with the governed territories and their elites. While the rulers showed their generosity, the grants also marked a dominant-submissive relationship between the issuer and the receiver of the grants, in that manner shaping social and political relationships. The number of grants started decreasing around the 1230s, and by the second half of the thirteenth century they had almost disappeared. The reason for this change was that the kings and dukes accommodated themselves to the urban development of Dalmatia. Once the Church had lost its previous influence, the rulers had to change their policy. Previously they had been accustomed to making use of ecclesiastical influence in the cities. Since economic changes led to an increase in the value of lands, the communes started forbidding the donation of lands to the Church, as such lands were in that way removed from economic circulation. The kings turned to the secular elite of Dalmatia, and started to focus on grants to the cities, in order to maintain their loyalty and obedience towards the royal court.
Ključne riječi
royal grants; the Árpád dynasty; Dalmatian cities; Church; the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries
Hrčak ID:
168176
URI
Datum izdavanja:
31.12.2015.
Posjeta: 1.328 *