Buda heresy

In a political context, the heresy was a tiny segment of a wider conflict during the era of Interregnum following the death of King Andrew III of Hungary, when various claimants fought for the Hungarian throne.

[2] Béla IV granted the collection right of local fair duty and the right of patronage over the Church of Our Lady, which was under construction, to the Dominican nuns at Rabbits' Island in 1255, which seriously harmed the economic interests of the merchants.

On 15 June 1295, the town council verified that burghers Kunc (also Prenner) and Hermann leased the tithe income from the wine production of the bishop for 140 marks.

After an appeal of the Dominican nuns to Rome in March 1298, Pope Boniface VIII entrusted Benedict Rád to investigate the city council's "aggressive anti-clerical steps", thus he also interrupted the cooperation with Buda.

In December 1301, he instructed Albert, the parson of the Church of Our Lady to procure the burghers – by name, Kunc (Prenner), Petermann, Tym, Dietrich, Martin, Hermann and Mohran – to recover the wine production tax to the Diocese of Veszprém.

The papal legate dealt with the pleading of the chapter of Óbuda in the spring of 1302, who complained that the rector and the city council hinder the work of their tax collectors for past two years.

[9] At this time, Brother Nicolaus of the order of the Preachers, bishop of Ostia and cardinal, came to Hungary, vested with the authority of the Holy See, on behalf of Charles.

Simultaneously, the pope had recalled his papal legate Niccolò Boccasini, who placed the pro-Wenceslaus capital, Buda under interdict and excommunicated its city council.

[9][11] 18th-century theologian and historian Péter Bod identified the spiritual leaders of the heretical movement as Waldensians, based on this, György Székely also shared that standpoint.

The Waldensians said the Holy See was not eligible for the collection of tithe, which provided an ideological basis to the secular city council, which refused to pay ecclesiastical taxes for years.

[12] Historian László Zolnay argued the Buda heresy was supported by the local lower clergy; he also connected the near-contemporary poem Planctus clericorum (Hungarian: Papok siralma; "A Lamentation of Priests"), which was written around 1310, to the movement.

Petermann and his councilors endorsed that movement, which questioned the legal basis of the economic claims of their rivals, the church institutions and weakened its moral authority.

While the city council fought for the enforcement of urban privileges, represented by Werner, then his son Ladislaus, its some members were additionally also confronted with the ecclesiastical institutions in a matters of a private nature, for instance rich merchants Kunc and Hermann, who had valid contract with the Diocese of Veszprém.

Four members of the 12-member city council (Kunc, Petermann, Hermann and Martin) confronted the church in the past decades; they were considered the internal opposition to Werner and his faction.

Because of their harsh pro-Wenceslaus and anticlerical positions, Ladislaus, son of Werner possibly gradually became a partisan of Charles of Anjou after the failed siege in September 1302.

Those treacherous priests of whom we have spoken he delivered over, bound hand and foot, to Thomas, archbishop of Esztergom, who placed them in prison, where they miserably expired their souls.Otto was never able to strengthen his position in Hungary, because only the Kőszegis and the Transylvanian Saxons supported him.

[18] With that, Archbishop Thomas renewed the former ecclesiastical punishments against the town, issued by Gregory Bicskei, papal legate Niccolò Boccasini and Michael Bő.

[19] Thomas announced a period of 40-day forgiveness to all attackers of the city; thus practically the archbishop called for a crusade against Buda, which was declared as a "prey" for all marauders, as historians Ferenc Salamon and László Zolnay emphasized.

[20] Escaping from his Bohemian captivity, the ex-rector Ladislaus, son of Werner marched into the town with the assistance of John Csák's troops on 1 June 1307.

John Csák captured and sent priest Louis and those local clergymen, who had participated in the suppressed Waldensian movement, to the court of Archbishop Thomas of Esztergom.

[21][22] The papal legate Gentile Portino da Montefiore convoked the synod of the Hungarian prelates, who declared the monarch inviolable in December 1308.

Amidst his unification war against the oligarchic powers, Charles transferred his residence from Buda to Temesvár (present-day Timișoara in Romania) in early 1315.

In his work, he dated the events to 1302; accordingly, after Charles of Anjou unsuccessfully laid siege to Buda in September 1302, the burghers who were "overconfident by triumph", unilaterally absolved themselves of the Church's punishment and, cooperating with local priests supporting them, excommunicated Pope Boniface VIII (i.e. not Benedict) and the Hungarian prelates, who were pro-Charles in majority.

Salamon did not mention the existence of a specific religious hereditary movement, he considered this was a merely politically motivated, occasional step by the local citizens, without ideology.

He dated the event to the autumn of 1302 and compared it to the contemporary long-standing hostility between the Holy See and the Kingdom of France, when Philip IV threw Pope Boniface's bull Ausculta Fili into a blazing fireplace in February 1302.

[27] Historian Péter Galambosi questioned the legitimacy of the comparison, as Philip IV, who tried to extend his sovereignty in church politics, had a different kind of conflict with the Roman Curia.