Diploma Leopoldinum

The diploma restored civil administration in the principality, and confirmed the traditional liberties of the Three Nations of Transylvania, including the freedom of the four "received" religions.

However, after the unsuccessful siege of Vienna, the Turkish fortunes of war reversed quickly and permanently, the imperial troops went into a counterattack and by 1684 they had already besieged Buda.

Charles of Lorraine cared more for the food of his soldiers than for the interests of the Habsburgs, so he concluded with the elder Apafi the pact of Balázsfalva (October 27, 1687), in which the principality swore to the emperor and received German garrisons.

At the same time (October 31, 1687), the Diet of Pozsony declared the Habsburgs' inherited right to the crown of St. Stephen, which Lipót interpreted together with Transylvania.

Transylvania became a de facto province not a quasi separate state with freedom rights but where the arbitrary of the king or the army what was matter.

The milder tone of the Diploma Leopoldinum is due to the fact that in 1689 Lieutenant General Donat HeisslerDonat John, Count Heissler of Heitersheim was defeated by Thököly in the battle of ZernyestiBattle of Zernest, who was elected prince by the Transylvanians.

Governor György Bánffy [1] and Chancellor Miklós Bethlen [2] were unable to meet the clauses on free religious practice, although they provided for a new distribution of the tithe and the handover of certain churches and schools.

The legislation of the Kingdom of Hungary (Approved, Compiled, and Werböczi's Code) remained in force, and the privileges of the nobility, the Saxons, and the Szeklers were recognized by the emperor.

At the same time, the Vienna Court used the religious union of the Transylvanian Romanians as an instrument for the dislocation of medieval autarchies, in its political effort to break historical monopolies.

This imperial attempt to undermine the privileges of the nobles, the Saxons and the Szeklers could not be implemented because the Romanians were not at that time in a position to offer a consistent social elite.

The hostility of the nobility (mostly Calvinist) towards the United Romanian Church came as a result of the perception of union with Rome as an instrument of Vienna's policy of overthrowing the political system in Transylvania, a possibility legally anchored even by the Diploma of 1691.