Berend Review

To most students and historians of Medieval European History, the existence in the Medieval Iberian Peninsula (modern-day Spain and Portugal) of Christian kingdoms in which Muslim and Jewish minorities coexisted more or less peacefully alongside a dominant Christian majority is now well known. This brilliant new work by Nora Berend, however, brings to the attention of scholars another medieval kingdom with a pluralistic society which featured religious minorities living under Christian rule: Hungary. Indeed during the periods covered by this work (c.1000-c.1300) not only Jews and Muslims but also ‘pagan’ Cuman nomads lived alongside a Christian population in Hungary.

The first chapter introduces the reader to the historiography and problems of ‘frontier societies’ and briefly lays out the general history of the Hungarian kingdom during the period covered by this study. In the second chapter Berend identifies, as far as the paucity of the sources permits, the origins and characteristics of each group. In many cases the evidence, both documentary and narrative, is extremely limited and considerable questions remain unanswered. The Jews appear to have been merchants from Jewish settlements in Germany whilst the Cuman tribesmen came from the steppes of the East in gradual waves. The origin of the Muslim minority is more mysterious. Berend justly emphasises the fact that these groups were themselves heterogeneous.

As Berend clearly points out, a clear and crucial difference between medieval Hungary and other regions of Christendom (such as Spain, Portugal and Sicily), is that although Hungary was a ‘frontier society’ none of the religious minorities living there were conquered populations that came under Christian rule as a result of military expansion. On the contrary, all three groups immigrated to Hungary of their own free will and with the sanction of the Hungarian Crown as hospes (‘guests’). This immigration was not limited to non-Christians and a fourteenth century chronicler listing the origins of these hospes also includes Germans, Czechs, Armenians, ‘Latins’ (Frenchmen and Italians), Poles, Greeks and even Spaniards. A reminder, if one was needed, that state-sponsored policies favouring immigration pre-date the twentieth or twenty-first centuries.

The legal position and economic role of each group are carefully examined. Non-Christians enjoyed judicial autonomy and the legal dealings of Jews with Christians were carefully regulated. Nonetheless, Berend also underlines the fact that Hungary in the thirteenth century was a cellular society and that non-Christians were not alone in having a particular legal status. Christian immigrants or ‘guests’, such as settlers from Germany, also held specific privileges and a separate legal status. The economic position of non-Christians in medieval Hungary was not limited to a single activity but included several roles (money-lending, minting of coins, tax-farming, trade and agriculture). As Berend remarks, it cannot be claimed that their economic position guaranteed them the support and protect of the Crown. Probably a greater consideration for the Hungarian Crown was the military role of Muslims and Cumans: both these groups served as soldiers in the Hungarian Crown’s armies, a situation that, regarding the Muslims, has clear parallels in Spain and Portugal. The Cumans filled a useful military niche as light cavalry and horseback archers. They were employed to protect the borders of the realm, particularly the eastern borderlands against incursions by other nomadic tribes. The personal bodyguard of King László IV (1272-1290) consisted of Cumans and a contingent of Muslims was sent to assist the bishop of Prague in the twelfth century. So vital was the role played by the Cuman tribesmen in the defence of the kingdom that the Crown sought to retain their loyalty by means of marriage alliances.

A particularly interesting part of this work observes the contrast in Papal and royal attitudes towards the non-Christians, and more particularly the Cumans. In the thirteenth century a conflict erupted between the Papacy, keen to enforce the exclusionist measures adopted by fourth Lateran council in 1215, and Hungarian Church on one side and the Hungarian Crown on the other concerning the treatment of non-Christians. As Berend writes, the clash had many causes but prominent amongst these was an ideological one over the role of non-Christians in a Christian society. The importance of the military role played by the Cumans meant that their relations with the Crown were somewhat different from those of the Jews or Muslims. The kings of Hungary were moved by pragmatic reasons to cultivate the loyalty of the Cumans tribesmen and their leaders. Kings gave lavish gifts to the nomads, acted as their godparents and even contracted marriage alliances. The pernicious impact of the devastating Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241 on relations between the Christians and Cumans is particularly interesting. The Cumans were popularly believed to have colluded with the equally pagan Mongols and peasants attacked the nomads. This distrust even began to affect the Crown’s attitude towards the nomads. The final chapter exposes the manner in which the fate of each group differed. The small and isolated Muslim minority had mostly disappeared by circa 1300 and it appears to have been converted and assimilated. The pagan Cumans likewise progressively accepted baptism and were Christianised. In the modern period they were culturally and ethnically indistinguishable from other Christian Hungarians. Unlike the Muslims, however, they preserved their own social structure and judicial system and these continued to set them apart from other Christians. It was only the Jews who were able to preserve a separate cultural and religious identity virtually intact into the modern era.

To conclude, this book is a remarkable new addition to medieval scholarship. Berend has shrewdly sidestepped a simplistic debate, regularly found in older works on Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations in Spain, over whether or not medieval Hungary was a ‘tolerant’ or ‘intolerant’ society. Instead, she has presented a thoroughly researched study of the complex social, judicial and economic situation of non-Christians in medieval Hungary. It will be of great worth not only to scholars of Central European history but also to those working on other medieval ‘frontier societies’ and on Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations in southern Europe. It opens up an area of medieval history hereto inaccessible to the great number of scholars and students, including the author, who are unable to read Hungarian.

Francois Soyer, U. of Cambridge