The Archontology of Veliki Kalnik in the Middle Ages

Comitatus Veliki Kalnik prostirao se oko tvrdog grada Veliki Kalnik. U razdoblju Arpadovića, ta je upravna jedinica bila nezavisna kraljevska županija, na čijem je čelu bio comes. U 14. st. postao je županat unutar velike Križevačke županije. Nosioci vlasti u županatu bili su kaštelan (kasnije kapetan), zemaljski župan, stotnik i pristav. U članku se donose arhontološki podaci za to područje od prvih poznatih podataka do kraja srednjega vijeka.The ruins of the castle of Veliki Kalnik (Hung. Nagykemlék) are located in the northern part of Croatia, near the town of Križevci. The castle was built as early as 1242, because it was then attacked by the Mongols. King Stephen V granted the castle and its appurtenances to Ban Roland of the Rátót kindred in 1270. It was again mentioned as a royal castle by King Andrew III in 1291. In the Angevin period, the castle was a part of the honour of the Ban of Slavonia. Vuk Hrvatinić held it between 1396 and 1405, and after his death the castle was owned by his widow. In 1409, Queen Barbara, wife of king Sigismund, got it. It was later pledged to John Garai and his wife, than to Duke Ziemowit IV of Poland. In 1428 the bishop of Zagreb, John Alben, got it as donation, and bequeathed it to his church in his testament. However, the king reacquired it and later gave it to King Tvrtko II of Bosnia in 1435 and afterwards as a pledge to Ulrich of Cilli in 1439. In 1481 king Matthias Corvinus donated Veliki Kalnik to Duke Ladislas Kosača of St. Sava and later in 1487 the king gave it to Andrew Bot of Bajna as a pledge. King Wladislas II donated the castle to Duke John Corvinus, son of king king Matthew I in 1490. After the death of Christopher, the son of John Corvinus, in 1506, the king donated Veliki Kalnik to Duke’s widow and the daughter. In 1510, Margrave George of Brandenburg got it from King Wladislas II. The comitatus of Veliki Kalnik laid around the castle and in the Árpád period it was an independent royal county of Slavonia. It is unknown when it was established. In the fourteenth century, this county was integrated into the county Križevci as a castle district. The history of the castle district is connected with the history of the castle of Veliki Kalnik in that way that the castellans of the different owners can be identified. In the thirteenth century, the authorities of the comitatus of Veliki Kalnik consisted of the comes and the comes terrestris. In the later period, when Veliki Kalnik was castle district, the most important people in it were castellan and comes terrestris. In the fifteenth century, instead of castellan, the head of the castle district held the title of captain (capitaneus). In the thirteenth and the fourteenth century, there were also lesser office-holders (centurio, pristaldus) mentioned in documents, but later they disappeared. However, it seems that these offices were still filled in the second half of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth century, but names of their holders have not been mentioned in the sources. In the last twenty years, two Hungarian historians were concerned with the medieval archontology of Hungary. First, in 1996, Pál Engel published a book about the office-holders from 1301 to 1457. Attila Zsoldos collected the archontology of the Arpadian period and published it in 2011. However, they concentrated just on the upper levels of office-holders, to the level of castellans and above. The comites terrestres and the lesser office-holders of the Slavonian castle districts were not taken into consideration. There are also some data about the castellans, which have to be corrected, because new sources were published in the last two decades and some new castellans were found to be mentioned in the archonotology. Naturally, it is expected that this archontology of Veliki Kalnik will be also in need of revision with new research and publications of sources in the future