middle ages

The study is dedicated to the beginnings and development of the Bohemo-Moravian nobility, the role of the elites and specific terminology used in preserved sources like chronicles and other documents. The greatest attention is paid to legal sources, especially a set of provisions in early provincial law called the Statutes of Conrad Otto from the first half of the 13^th century. This work contains important information on the possible stratification of the Bohemo-Moravian nobility as well as their role in the offices and the provincial judiciary.

The current study is devoted to the efforts of the medieval Hungarian nobility to ensure a peaceful afterlife for themselves and their families. This was hoped to be achieved through donations to the church and religious orders serving in the area. The paper begins with a brief focused on donations to the church that members of the nobility made during their lives and the actions they expected from the church or individual clergymen in return for such pious contributions.

The people of the Medieval era strived to ensure salvation for themselves, their ancestors and their descendants in any way their social and financial status permitted. One possible means to this end was available through Mass-endowments. The current study is based on an analysis of 85 Mass-endowments from 34 Hungarian aristocratic families (1406 – 1531). Besides barons, family members—and particularly their widows and descendants—are covered in the scope of this research.

The present study deals with how the bodies of deceased medieval kings and other significant persons were treated after death. The body of a monarch still represented royal majesty, which, according to the beliefs of the time, had been entrusted to him by God himself. Because royal majesty was seen as immortal, complex rites of passage were necessary for the burial of kings.

Death and dying were a ubiquitous reality of the world of medieval society, with lasting effects on the living from all social groups in equal measure. However, for the rulers of the day, the process of dying and the subsequent burial was an important social, political and cultural event. Over time, special funerary ceremonial complexes developed that included a variety of rituals and symbols which indicated the status and importance of the medieval monarchs.

The death of a person is a complex issue fact that older law looked at in two ways. First and foremost, death represented a consequence; the application of a legal sanction. The oldest law considered execution more as a means of healing, as a ritual, and only in the late Middle Ages was execution thought of as a deterrent or a means of retaliation towards a criminal. In the second approach, death could be a prerequisite for a range of legal consequences.

The question of death is essential at the level of individuals as well as society, from primitive tribes to high theology, ethics or philosophy. The Latin name for death—exitus letalis (natural departure)—implicitly suggests that death in our culture does not mean a definitive end but a mere “departure.” Based on the funeral rituals and myths found in nearly all cultures, almost none considered death to be a definitive end. What part of us departs, to where, in what way? What transcends our death?

Sanctions and penalties enforced upon law-breakers are an age-old phenomenon. The division of civil and criminal laws from a legal standpoint began in practice relatively late in the territory now known as Slovakia. Terminology is first used in public administration beginning to distinguish clearly between these two spheres of legislation as late the 13th century. In previous times, the difference was not so obvious and in some norms from the 9th to 12th centuries, completely indiscernible.

Pribina was a Slavic leader of unknown origin from the 9th century who was expelled by the Moravian prince (dux) Mojmir I. However, his rank in the territory north of the Danube before exile is a matter of an ages-long scholarly debate. This article presents an analysis of historiographic discourse which has resulted in the national scholarly construction of an early medieval, hypothetical Slovak/Nitrian rulership of Pribina.

Research of the oldest aristocratic clans in Hungary encounters several difficulties. Sources of the period until as late as the 12th century usually noted only names of nobles without any mention of their family affiliation, nor any other genealogical relation, such as father or grandfather. Therefore, genealogical trees of most Hungarian aristocratic families can be put together only from the 13th century. However, there are some exceptions, such as the Hont-Poznans, an exceptional family that is written into the early medieval history of Hungary.