Journal Analele Banatului N.S. Archaeology-History

Zoltán Iusztin

Vicecomiţi în comitatul Timiş (sec. XIV – XV) / Viscounts in Timiş County (14 th– 15th).

Jan. 1, 2015

Abstract

The leadership of the counties or other administrative districts through deputies did not represent an innovation in the Hungarian kingdom at the beginning of the 14th century. Already in the previous centuries, the tax collection, the trial of various causes and the management of local issues represented the responsibility of the delegates sent by the central authority. For the end of the Arpad’s dynasty one can trace the institutionalization of these delegates, who were appointed as viscounts, as they were intended to represent and second the counts. Besides, both their service and social status reveal significant evidence about familiarity and the nature of relations within medieval society. Due to the scarcity of documentary sources we could identify only some 50 viscounts who worked in Timiş County, in a period of two centuries. This number is small, as on some occasions the leadership of administrative units consisted in two, three or four persons. The fact that their number was sometimes so high is due to the counts, which, as proved by some examples, had an interest to attract the provincial wealthy noblemen in their service. Thus the counts were the ones who decided the number and the identity of the viscounts. Some historiography sources state that the viscounts were also the rulers of the counties seat castles. This reality can by proved also in the case of Timiş County, where some of viscounts held the title of vice/castelanus de Temeswar.