Voivode of Transylvania
Voivodes enjoyed income from the royal estates attached to their office, but the right to "grant lands, collect taxes and tolls, or coin money"[5] was reserved for the monarchs.
Because of the gradual disintegration of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary in the 16th century, the last voivodes of Transylvania, who came from the Báthory family, ceased to be high-ranking officials.
[6] Although Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos wrote of the voivodes[7] or chieftains of the Hungarian tribes around 950, he seems to have adopted the term used by a Slavic interpreter.
[8] Romanian historians maintain that the title, homonymous with the one used in Wallachia and Moldavia, suggests a perpetuation of the local ruling tradition.
[9][further explanation needed] The border position of Transylvania[10] led to the formation of the voivodeship, since the monarchs could not maintain direct control over this remote region.
[13] Two royal charters issued in 1111 and 1113 mention one Mercurius "princeps Ultrasilvanus", but he may have been only an important landowner in Transylvania without holding any specific office.
[2][6][10] In addition to voivode, royal charters used the titles banus,[14] dux and herzog for the same office in the next decades, showing that the terminology remained uncertain until the second half of the 13th century.
[20] The ispáns of the Transylvanian counties of Doboka, Hunyad, Kolozs, Küküllő and Torda were not listed among the witnesses of royal charters from the beginning of the 13th century, hinting that their direct connection to the monarchs had by that time been interrupted.
[5] The Diploma Andreanum, a royal charter of 1224, placed the territory of the Saxons between Broos (Szászváros, Orăștie) and Barót (Baraolt) under the authority of the Count of Hermannstadt (Nagyszeben, Sibiu), who was appointed by and directly subordinate to the monarchs.
[29] Following the Mongol invasion of 1241 and 1242, King Béla IV of Hungary exempted the inhabitants of Bilak (Mărişelu),[31] Gyalu (Gilău), Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia), Harina (Herina), Tasnád (Tășnad) and Zilah (Zalău).
[37] During most of the 14th century, the voivodes held the castles at Bánffyhunyad (Huedin), Boroskrakkó (Cricău), Csicsóújfalu (Ciceu-Mihăieşti), Déva (Deva), Hátszeg (Hațeg), Kőhalom (Rupea), Küküllővár (Cetatea de Baltă), Léta (Lita), Nagy-Talmács (Tălmaciu), Torja (Turia) and Újvár (Gogan Varolea), together with their lands.
[21][47] They tended to choose from among the noblemen serving in their own retinue,[48] which ensured that their followers received a fair share of their revenues.
[52][53] Initially, the voivodes and their deputies held their courts at Marosszentimre (Sântimbru), but they heard disputes at their own abodes from the 14th century.
[52] King Louis I even prohibited all prelates and noblemen who owned lands in Transylvania from bringing legal proceedings of lesser importance concerning these estates to the royal court.
[55][56] "Then, contempt of the general diet and the noble assembly of the Transylvanians held on the mandate of the king or of the lord voivode of Transylvania is fined by a hundred marks, amounting to the same number of florins; and that of a judicial seat, by fifty."
"General assemblies" convoked and presided over by the principal judges of the realm became important judicial institutions in the last decade of the 13th century.
[61] The threat from the peasants' revolt of 1437 gave rise to the first joint meeting of the Hungarian noblemen and the representatives of the Saxons and the Székelys, which was convoked without a former royal authorization by the vice-voivode.
[66] Military functions are attested, for instance, by Pousa, the voivode at the time of the Mongol invasion who fell in battle on March 31, 1241.
[73] His successor Stephen Báthory likewise won a resounding victory at Breadfield (Hungarian: Kenyérmező, Romanian: Câmpul Pâinii) on October 13, 1479.
[74] By contrast, John Zápolya (Szapolyai), the last voivode before the battle of Mohács on August 29, 1526 did not arrive to the battlefield in time, summoned too late.
[13] This apparent stability was the consequence of the weakening of central government under the last two kings of the Árpád dynasty, Ladislaus IV (1272–1290) and Andrew III (1290–1301).
[83] Historian Ioan-Aurel Pop characterizes the following period as including "voidvodal dynasties":[21] five members of the Lackfi family (father and four sons) were successively appointed between 1356 and 1376.
[86] The Mongols comprehensively plundered the eastern territories of the Kingdom of Hungary, including Transylvania, during both their invasion in 1241 and their withdrawal the following year.
[14][89] The first years of the reign of the minor Ladislaus IV were characterized by armed conflicts between parties of the leading noble families.
[13] Later Borsa fought the bishop of Várad (Oradea) and even resisted King Andrew III who besieged him in the fortress of Adorján (Adrian) at Szalárd (Sălard)[31] for three months in 1294.
[98] Dózsa Debreceni, the voivode King Charles I appointed in 1318, defeated some rebellious minor lords, but royal authority in Transylvania was only restored by Thomas Szécsényi in the 1320s.
[100] Irritated by a new tax that King Matthias Corvinus had just introduced, representatives of the Three Nations concluded an alliance against the monarch and declared the three incumbent voivodes (the brothers Counts John and Sigismund Szentgyörgyi and Berthold Ellerbach) their leaders.
[104] At that point his voivodes, Stephen Majláth and Emeric Balassa, decided to separate Transylvania from the kingdom in order to save the province from an Ottoman invasion.
[106] Sultan Suleiman I permitted the king's widow, Queen Isabella, to retain the territories east of the river Tisza (Tisa), including Transylvania, in the name of her infant son, John Sigismund.
[106] The office of voivode was vacant[1] until September 1549, when Ferdinand (who had not given up the idea of reuniting the territories of the entire kingdom) appointed Martinuzzi to this post.
