The Peasant Revolt of Bábolna 1437-1438

Abstract

On April 24, 1445, János Vitéz of Zredna, a well-known Hungarian humanist bishop, wrote to a friend about conditions existing in his homeland:The sword is now the destroyer of every right … hence, Liberty is in the grip of Hatred, and pillage and looting are the providers of luxury…. No one gives mercy to another and everyone knows fear…This was not merely humanist rhetoric; Vitéz's perceptions accurately described the Hungarian situation, where the powerful barons had become the controllers of the machinery of the state.The Hungarian province of Transylvania (see p. 26), “the Land beyond the Forests,” in which the drama of 1437-38 was enacted, experienced a parallel development. During the fourteenth century, the barons in that province (as in the rest of Hungary) established seigneurial control over the peasant population. A system of feudal dues and obligations was imposed on the peasantry, and free movement from one estate to another was effectively curtailed. The tensions that this situation created in Transylvania were heightened by conflicts that were peculiarly Transylvanian in character.