raný stredovek

The study looks into and compares three main contemporary sources describing the first pandemic in 542, also known as the Plague of Justinian—the secular historian Procopius and two church historians, John of Ephesus and Evagrius. The bubonic plague epidemic spreading from Egypt was the most destructive scourge of the Byzantine Empire during the reign of Emperor Justinian I.

In the paper, the author considers the nobility of Levoča (Lőcse, Leutschau, Leutsovia); nobility settled down in the town in the 16th century partially under pressure from the Ottoman invasion. In particular, it describes how Serédi Gáspár, a captain of Upper Hungary and a senior military officer of Ferdinand I. Hapsburg, obtained a house in Levoča. His name is mentioned in a town tax book from 1551; however, he was the owner of the house as early as 1550. After his death, this house was obtained by Peter Fügedi, a royal servant of Serédi Gáspár.

When you mention "a medieval state" these days, it kindles some interest only in very few people. It is considered a self-evident fact a state was a completely normal part of our human history since time immemorial. The main reason why the term state is now commonly used also for the Early Middle Ages is the idea that today's modern states simply evolved from the ancient times. Historians, too, refer to a medieval political formation as State. They rarely, however, ask what is actually State when writing about political formations from the past.