Archontology and Prosopography of Financial Administration in Medieval Hungary

The RHC „Lendület” Medieval Hungarian Economic History Research Team is dealing with the fundaments of the financial administration: the persons who works in these offices. The prosopographical database of the Research Team uses standard and determinable aspects in case of each persons, for example their origin, their marriages, their social and economic relations or their underlings. This prosopographical database is essential to understand and properly examine the logic and the system of the financial administration and the economy of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. The heads of these offices in some cases were burghers of the capital or other important cities, merchants who had experience with money and finance, and noblemen as well. In several cases we found foreigners among them ‒ mostly Italian or German merchants ‒ who made their career in the Kingdom of Hungary. They had different social and economic network but thanks to these offices they became members of the Hungarian society as a burgher or as a nobleman. The paper shows two examples of remarkable and interesting careers of foreign soldiers of fortune. The Prussian Johann Falbrecht, and Johann Lemmel from Bamberg became important members and chiefs of the Hungarian finance and economic administration in the first half of the 15th century. The examined two German burghers had important role in the mining and minting chambers, which careers could be related to their extended economic and political network as well