Bereg, Ugocsa, Máramaros

Who he is

Name

not pinned for 1 January 1200

Title

the ispán of Borsova and the king's forest keepers

Since

not pinned

Confidence

low

No keeper is named for 1199-1200 in the sources reached. Máramaros is first named in a royal charter of 1199 as a royal hunting ground ('cum in Maramorisio tempore venationis venatum ivissemus': when we had gone hunting in Máramaros in the hunting season).

Overlord

King Emeric of Hungary

What it holds

• Borsova castle (Vári) and its castle folk
• the Bereg forest up to the Verecke pass
• the Ugocsa forest
• the Máramaros hunting forest up to the Galician and Moldavian crests (the Tatar pass road to Kolomyia)

How it was acquired

Royal domain since the conquest; kept as the king's forests.

Allies and rivals

Across the Verecke and Tatar passes: Galicia, held since 1199 by Roman Mstislavich of Volhynia. East of the Máramaros mountains: the Cuman steppe (outside). South: the Szatmár and Szabolcs counties (Great Plain sheet) and the Transylvanian forests round Radna.

How things stand that morning

Royal forest, thinly peopled; no raiding over the passes is recorded for the winter of 1199-1200. Across the crests: Galicia under Roman (Stryi, Dolyna, Kolomyia) and the Cumans' country beyond the Prislop.

Wealth

Hunting, furs, honey and wax, timber floated down the Tisza. Máramaros salt is not attested in 1200.

Military

Borsova castle and the forest guards. No figures survive.

Threats

• a Galician or Cuman raid down the passes (none recorded for 1200)

Places of note

• Borsova castle: Earthwork castle and county seat on the Tisza
• Verecke pass: The conquest road from Galicia into the basin
• Tatar pass: From the Máramaros to the Prut valley and Kolomyia

Where the sources disagree

• The research brief lists Máramaros salt among the kingdom's wealth in 1200. No source reached shows salt working in the Máramaros by 1200: the region is first named in 1199 as a royal hunting ground and was almost unpeopled in the 13th century; its salt mines and royal salt towns appear in the later 13th and 14th centuries. Transylvanian salt (Transylvania sheet) is the salt of 1200.

Evidence: Máramaros's 1199 mention is the one firm date; the forests' keepers and the Bereg and Ugocsa arrangements are known from 13th-century charters.

On the map: Forests, not settled counties; the crests are drawn on the later borders.

Primary sources for Hungary

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Chronicle of Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines (about 1227 to 1241, at the Cistercian abbey of Trois-Fontaines in Champagne). The widest net of any Latin chronicle for 1200, compiled from dozens of sources, many now lost. Read online
• The Austrian and Salzburg annals (kept in the 12th and 13th centuries, with continuations to the late 13th century). A family of monastic annals from Austria, Styria and Salzburg, printed together. Read online
• The Hypatian Chronicle (the Kievan Chronicle compiled about 1200 at the Vydubichi monastery; the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle in the 13th century). The southern record. Read online
• History of the bishops of Salona and Split, by Thomas the Archdeacon, Thomas of Split (about 1266). Written two generations later by a Split churchman born about 1200. Read online
• History of the doges of Venice (about 1229, with a continuation). The earliest surviving Venetian narrative close to the events. Read online
• The Deeds of the Hungarians, by the Anonymous Notary of King Béla, Anonymus (P. magister) (about 1200 to 1210, the date disputed). Not a record of events but a picture of the kingdom's nobility and geography as a courtier of about 1200 wished to see it: the clans and their lands, the castles and counties, the Vlachs, Cumans and other peoples of the Carpathian basin, all projected back onto the conquest. Read online
• The Book of Census of the Roman Church, Cencius Camerarius (Cencio Savelli, later Pope Honorius III) (1192, with later additions). The papal rent roll: every church, monastery, town and kingdom that owed a census to Rome in 1192, diocese by diocese, with the sums, followed by lists of papal lands and castles, the ceremonial Ordo and copies of charters. Read online
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III for 1199 to 1201, Innocent III and the papal chancery (22 February 1199 to 21 February 1201). The pope's outgoing letters for the year, in his chancery's own copy, touching nearly every realm in the atlas. Read online

4 more in the sources library for Poland, Hungary and the Adriatic.