Sopron is the royal county castle of the western frontier, built inside the surviving walls of Roman Scarbantia on the Amber Road.
Across the frontier, about 35 km away, the Babenbergs have just planted their walled new town at Wiener Neustadt (1194) in the Styrian district of Pitten. In 1200 Sopron is a castle with a market settlement and the castle folk of the county; its burghers and their German settlers, walls and privileges belong to the later thirteenth century.
Who holds it
- Name
- The king's ispán of Sopron (not named for 1199-1200)
- Title
- Lord of the town
- Confidence
- low
Lord in 1200
The king's ispán of Sopron (not named for 1199-1200)
Overlord
King Emeric
How things stand that morning
Held for Emeric; hostile but quiet frontier that winter.
Charter
No written town law or charter in 1200: Hungarian town privileges are granted from the 1230s onward. Sopron's town privileges date from 1277.
Communities
Hungarians and castle folk; German settlers not pinned for 1200.
Fairs and markets
Market; fairs not pinned.
Militia
The county's castle warriors.
Walls and castle
Earthwork castle on the Roman walls.
Trade and crafts
The road to Vienna and Wiener Neustadt, wine, cattle.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Sopron's role as a county castle is clear; the town of 1200 is not described in the sources checked.
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.
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.