In the document, King Andrew II of Hungary vowed that he would not employ Jews and Muslims to administer royal revenues, which caused a decade-long discord with the Holy See starting in the early 1220s, composing of diplomatic complaints and ecclesiastical censures.
[4] The first known sign of this is that Pope Honorius III requested King Andrew II and Queen Yolanda of Courtenay to abandon the employment of Jews and Muslim in royal administration in April 1221.
[5] When a group of discontented lords assumed power in the spring of 1222, they forced Andrew to issue the Golden Bull of 1222, which prohibited the employment of Muslims and Jews in royal administration.
[2] Andrew continued to employ them in the subsequent years, according to a letter of Pope Honorius III to Ugrin Csák, Archbishop of Kalocsa and his subordinates in August 1225,[6] blaming the prelate of tolerating the violation of the prohibition in the realm, and even in his own archdiocese.
[7] This ban was confirmed when Andrew II, urged by the prelates, issued the Golden Bull's new variant in 1231, which authorized the Archbishop of Esztergom to excommunicate him in case of his departure from its provisions.
[8] Robert, Archbishop of Esztergom made a complaint to the Roman Curia in 1231 that Andrew II continued to employ Jews and Muslims despite the aforementioned prohibitions and his former conflict with the Holy See over the issue.
[9] Pope Gregory IX instructed Robert in March 1231 to take action because, according to complaints, Christians in Hungary have suffered various harms because of Jews and Muslims.
[10] Even from the year 1232, the names of non-Christian officials were preserved: Samuel was of "Saracen" origin, who later converted to Roman Catholicism, and Teha (or Teka) was Jewish, both were ispáns of the royal chamber (Latin: comites camere).
As a result, Archbishop Robert excommunicated Andrew's key financial advisors – Palatine Denis, son of Ampud, Master of the treasury Nicholas and the aforementioned former chamberlain Samuel of "Saracen" origin – and placed Hungary under an interdict on 25 February 1232.
[13][15] Pope Gregory IX, simultaneously with his letter, also sent James of Pecorara, Cardinal-Bishop of Palestrina as his papal legate to Hungary, who was entrusted to reach an agreement between King Andrew II and Archbishop Robert.
According to historian Tibor Almási, Andrew II, in possession of the papal reassurance, endeavored to hold back all progress in the negotiations to the end, and James of Pecorara could not even threaten a more severe sanction.
[14] The cardinal sent his chaplain Roger of Torre Maggiore to Rome to report that Andrew II hesitates to reconcile with the Holy See and has been sabotaging the negotiations in various ways for months.
On 20 August 1233, the two papal envoys caught up with Andrew II and his accompaniment in the forests of Bereg in the northeast corner of the Kingdom of Hungary before his departure to lead his military campaign against Halych.
[21] In the document, the papal legate expressly required that Palatine Denis – a key reformer of economy, who was involved many conflicts with the church in the previous years – should also swear to the oath of Bereg.
It was issued on 20 August 1233, and then in September 1233 it was transcribed by Andrew in a letter to the papal legate James of Pecorara, and finally by Archbishop Robert of Esztergom on 19 February 1234.
In accordance with the agreement, the palatine or other appointed royal courtier had to be sent out each year to check for a violation of the law; every transgressor, whether Jew, Muslim or Christian, will lose property and be sentenced to eternal slavery for life.
James of Pecorara endeavoured to ensure that neither the monarch nor his barons appropriated church revenues, primarily the salt mining and trade from Transylvania via the river Maros (Mureș).
Historian Nora Berend considered the oath of Bereg and the subsequent interdict was a chapter in the power struggle between the papacy, Hungarian prelates and the royal court.
During the reign of Béla IV, who ascended the Hungarian throne after the death of his father Andrew II in 1235, frequently appointed Jews as court chamberlains, for instance one Henul, Wluelius and Altman.