testaments

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.

As an ultimate purpose this study characterizes in the context of the Western Hungarian free royal town of Sopron (in German Ödenburg) the charitable testamentary acts of the members of the local, dominantly German, yet to some extent Hungarian, urban political elite (mayors and town judges) and of their spouses between 1400 and 1600.