Fehérvár

Who holds it

Name

King Emeric; the town is royal and the seat of Fejér county under its ispán; the provost of the royal basilica rules the church

Title

Lord of the town

Confidence

medium

Lord in 1200

King Emeric; the town is royal and the seat of Fejér county under its ispán; the provost of the royal basilica rules the church

Overlord

King Emeric

How things stand that morning

Royal and quiet; no coronation is due in 1200 (Ladislaus is crowned in 1204).

Charter

No written town law or charter in 1200: Hungarian town privileges are granted from the 1230s onward. The customs of the Latins of Fehérvár, confirmed in writing in 1237, later serve as a model for other towns.

Council

Not pinned for 1200.

Communities

Hungarians; Latin settlers (Walloons, Italians); the canons of the basilica; the Hospitallers.

Fairs and markets

Markets; fairs not pinned (the great feast days of the basilica draw crowds).

Walls and castle

A town on marsh islands with walls and a royal house; the basilica precinct (the walls' material in 1200 is not pinned).

Trade and crafts

Pilgrim and crusader traffic, the court's needs at coronations and royal assemblies, crafts and the road from Esztergom and Buda to the Drava and the Adriatic.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The basilica's role and the twelfth-century prosperity are well attested; the Latins' liberty is known from 1237.

On the map: The town's near land is a few kilometres round the settlement; Hungarian towns of 1200 governed no district of their own.

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.