Ispán
The ispáns were appointed and dismissed by either the monarchs or a high-ranking royal official responsible for the administration of a larger territorial unit within the kingdom.
Heads of counties were often represented locally by their deputies, the vice-ispáns[7] (Hungarian: alispán,[8] Latin: vicecomes[8] and Slovak: podžupan)[6] from the 13th century.
On the other hand, some of these high-ranking officials and some of the prelates were ex officio ispáns of certain counties, including Esztergom, Fehér and Pest until the 18th or 19th centuries.
[12] The Hungarian word ispán is connected with the term župan ('head of a župa') in the Croatian and modern Slovak, and to the synonymous Old Church Slavonic expression, županъ.
[12] However, Dorota Dolovai sees a direct borrowing problematic from phonological perspective[12] and also András Róna-Tas says that the omission of the vowel u during the procedure (župan>špan>išpan) suggests an intermediate (non-Slavic) language.
Slovak Slavist Šimon Ondruš explains the intermediate form špán as derived from žьpan by the extinction of Proto-Slavic ь and phonetic assimilation of the first letter.
[15][16] Ondruš does not exclude the possibility of borrowing from South Slavic languages instead of Slovak,[14] but according to Pukanec Croatian and Slovenian are less probable candidates since they preserved the form župan.
[18][19] Most of the fortresses were "simple earthworks crowned by a wooden wall and surrounded by a ditch and bank" (Pál Engel) in the period.
[3] Archaeological evidence shows that a few castles had already existed in the last quarter of the 10th century,[3] implying that the new system of local administration was set up in the reign of Stephen I's father, Grand Prince Géza (c.
[18] Each district of this type formed an administrative unit with "well defined boundaries" (Pál Engel) known under the name of vármegye[20] or "county".
[28] Officials responsible for the management of the forested lands, the "royal keepers" never equalled the heads of castle districts in rank, although they were also styled ispán in the 12th century.
[32] King Andrew II (1205–1235) was the first monarch to distribute large parcels among his followers, which "undermined the social and military organisation upon which the prestige of the counts" rested (Pál Engel).
[32] Furthermore, a rebellion of the so-called "royal servants" (in fact landowners directly subjected to the sovereign)[36] forced King Andrew II to issue a charter known as the Golden Bull of 1222 which exempted them of the jurisdiction of the ispáns.
[37] The development of towns set further limits to the counts' authority, since at least 20 settlements received the right to self-government under King Béla IV (1235–1270).
[40] Accordingly, the ispáns supervised the activities of the judges elected by the community of local noblemen with the task to "revise existing property rights" (Pál Engel) in many counties in Transdanubia in 1267.
[45] Large territories of the Kingdom of Hungary were put under the authority of powerful landlords by the time when King Andrew III, the last member of the Árpád dynasty died on January 14, 1301.
