Ispánság of Szepes

Who he is

Name

not pinned for 1 January 1200

Title

ispán (comes) of Szepes

Since

not pinned

Confidence

low

The royal county (comitatus Scepusiensis) was created in the second half of the 12th century; no ispán is named for 1199-1200 in the sources reached.

Overlord

King Emeric of Hungary

What it holds

• Szepes castle and its castle folk
• the Hernád and Poprad basins up to the High Tatras
• the border guards' villages (the later Seat of the Ten Lance-bearers)
• the first settlers' villages (Germans and 'Latins', not pinned by name for 1200)
• the Poprad valley road to the Sącz land (Kraków), through unsettled forest

How it was acquired

Conquered and organised in stages: the southern part at the end of the 11th century, the royal county in the second half of the 12th.

Allies and rivals

Across the Tatras and the Pieniny: the Kraków lands (Nowy Targ forest, Sącz), at peace. No Polish claim on Szepes is recorded for 1200; the 1214 Spiš agreement between Andrew II and Leszek the White is later.

How things stand that morning

Royal county in Emeric's hands. The upper Poprad valley north of Kežmarok (Podolin, Gnézda, Ólubló) is unsettled border forest that neither side yet rules; across it lie the Kraków lands of Sącz and the Podhale forest.

Wealth

Small in 1200: the castle folk's dues, timber and furs, a road toll on the way to Poland. The silver, copper and iron of the Szepes and Gölnic mountains are worked on a large scale only in the 13th century.

Military

Szepes castle and the border guards. No figures survive.

Threats

• none pinned for 1200

Places of note

• Szepes castle (Spišský hrad): Royal castle and county seat
• Szepeshely (Spišská Kapitula): Seat of the Szepes provostry (Church map)

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Twelfth-century Szepes is known mostly from later charters and archaeology; dates for the county, the castle and the settlers are scholarly estimates.

On the map: The northern edge is drawn south of Podolin and Ólubló because Hungarian rule reached them only in the 1250s-1290s; the forest beyond was a no man's land.

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.