Politics and society in Central and South-East Europe

The region described in the title – historically known as Banat (Hung. Temesköz or Bánság) – was in almost permanent change after the Mongol Invasion of 1241–1242. The area is characterised ith a special landscape including extended wetlands, meandering water courses and the sands of Alibunar on the one hand, and with important economic resources, such as the mines around Resica/Reşiţa and the fords of Haram/Banatska Palanka and Keve/Kovin, on the other. To these factors we can add the frontier zone between Latin and Orthodox Christianity and – from the late 14th century – the conflict zone between the Hungarian Kingdom and the expanding Ottoman Empire. All these factors had their impact on the region’s society. The main trends of ethnic and religious transformations can be traced partly through written evidence directly related to migration, partly through indicators referring to the above phenomena indirectly.

(Abstract from „POPULATIONS AND RELIGIONS: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE DANUBE-TISZAMUREȘ/ MAROS INTERFLUVE BETWEEN THE MIDTHIRTEENTH AND THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY”, Beatrix F. Romhányi)

We are able to present a series of points of view after running through documentary data we have at our disposal and analyzing them, as those data reflect the way the elites in the Banat consolidated their social and juridical statute during the reign of the king-emperor, due to their military merits. First of all we have to wonder if the new legislative direction the Angevins introduced and Sigismund of Luxemburg kept on determined only social and confessional coercions or came with a series of opportunities for the social elites in the medieval Banat preserve their privileged statute. When obliged to integrate into norms of an Occidental provenience, with the written acts to prove their quality of lands owners, the nobles there would have availed themselves of representing an important force during the long-lasting conflicts on the Danube line and that should have been used in defending the kingdom. The fact that their loyal military services were frequently followed by new acts of donation to acknowledge their hereditary possessions shows the central power’s concern on preserving the defensive capacity of that area and lso a powerful social medial range to be counterpoised to the barons’ leagues which had created so any problems in Sigismund’s first part of ruling.

(Abstract from „THE BANAT ELITES INVOLVING IN DEFENCE OF THE MAGYAR KINGDOM’S SOUTHERN BORDER DURING SIGISMUND OF LUXEMBURG’S AGE”, Ligia Boldea)