Pacta conventa (Croatia)

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Pacta conventa (Lat. agreed accords) was an alleged agreement concluded in 1102 between King Coloman of Hungary and the Croatian nobility. While some claim it was a voluntary union of the two crowns, leaving Croatia as a sovereign state, others argue that Hungary simply annexed Croatia outright and forced an agreement.

A version from the 14th century is preserved in a Budapest museum.[1].

Circumstances of the agreement

After Petar Svačić, the last Croatian king of Croat descent, was killed on the battlefield in 1097, the Croats had refused to surrender.[citation needed] To end the war, an agreement was made where, in 1102, the Croatian nobles allegedly concluded the Pacta conventa with King Coloman before his crowning as the Croatian king in Biograd.[2]

The Hungarian king offered "an agreement as pleases them" to the Croatian nobles from the families of Kačić, Kukar, Šubić, Svačić, Plečić, Mogorović, Gušić, Čudomirić, Karinjanin and Lapčan, Lačničić, Jamometić and Tugomirić.[citation needed]

Content of Pacta conventa

The agreement determined that Croatia and Hungary would be governed by the same ruler as two separate kingdoms.[citation needed] When he was crowned in Biograd na Moru, Coloman promised all the public and state rights to the Kingdom of Croatia and some additional rights to the Croatian nobility.[citation needed] The Croats acknowledged Coloman as the king of Croatia and Dalmatia and promised they would help him in war, at their cost on the Croatian side of Drava and at his cost on the Hungarian side.[citation needed]

Coloman and his successors were invested with all the rights of kingship over the Kingdom of Croatia: to appoint the ban, to issue privileges and land grants, to certify the laws voted by the Croatian Parliament, to collect taxes and duties, to own the "royal land" (terra regalis) of the extinct Croat royal dynasty, to have supreme command over the Croatian army and to make foreign policy.[citation needed]

Validity of the document itself

The document's validity is questionable,[3][4] While some claim the earliest text concerning the alleged agreement came from the second half of the 14th century[5][6] others call it a late medieval forgery, not a twelfth century source.[7][8] While various items of the text seem anachronistic to some, other historians say these could be reworkings of a text from an actual agreement.[9]

Since the 19th century, a number of historians have claimed that Pacta conventa was not a genuine document.[citation needed] Some claim that the document is a forgery found in the Zagreb diocese and published in 1960, noting that Pacta Conventa was written with an idiom used three centuries after its supposed origin, i.e. in the 14th century and that Hungarian sources do not mention any "personal union" between Hungary and Croatia.[citation needed] Though the validity of the document is disputed, there was at least a non-written agreement that regulated the relations between Hungary and Croatia in approximately the same way, since from 1102 until 1918 kings of Hungary were also kings of Croatia, represented by a governor (ban), but Croatia kept its own parliament (Sabor) and considerable autonomy.[10].

Nevertheless, its source of inspiration must have been the political and social developments that had taken place over a 300-year period following 1102[11] when the two kingdoms united under the Hungarian king, either by the choice of the Croat nobility or by Hungarian force.[10] The Croatian nobility retained its laws and privileges including the restriction of military service that they owed to the king within the boundaries of Croatia.[12]

Interpretations of the agreement

According to the Library of Congress country study on the former Yugoslavia King Coloman crushed opposition after the death of Ladislaus I of Hungary and won the crown of Dalmatia and Croatia in 1102.[13] The crowning of Coloman forged a link between the Croatian and Hungarian crowns that lasted until the end of World War I.[13] Croats have maintained for centuries that Croatia remained a sovereign state despite the voluntary union of the two crowns[13][14], but modern Hungarian[15] and Serbian[16] historians claim that Hungary annexed Croatia outright in 1102.[13][17] According to the country study on Hungary Croatia was never assimilated into Hungary; rather, it became an associate kingdom administered by a ban, or civil governor [18].After death of king Louis II during the Battle of Mohács in 1526 Croatian parliament has elected Ferdinand Habsburg for king of Croatia [19][20]. In either case, Hungarian culture permeated Croatia, the Croatian-Hungarian border shifted often, and at times Hungary treated Croatia as a vassal state.[13]

According to the Croatian historical narrative[21], Croatian parliament took opportunity in 1526 to reassert its autonomy from Hungary with election of Ferdinand Habsburg for king and words:"...we joined the Holy Crown of Hungary by our own free will just as we do now, the rule of Your Majesty"[22]. Croatian historians also argue that the struggle for ascendancy to the Habsburg throne at this time provides evidence of Croatia's political autonomy.[23] Unlike Hungarian historians, Austrians never claimed they conquered Croatia by force and there appears to be little reason to doubt Croatian claims about the events of 1526.[24] The intro of The Hungaro-Croatian Compromise of 1868 (The Nagodba) starts as: "Since Croatia and Slavonia have alike de jure and de facto belonged for centuries to the Crown of St. Stephen..."[25] Although the Nagodba provided a measure of political autonomy to Croatia-Slavonia, it was subordinated politically and economically to Budapest.[26]

The document titled Pacta Conventa that was supposedly signed in 1102 but not saved was claimed by leading Croatian historians to be a contract stipulating personal union of Hungary and Croatia.[4] However, even if its authenticity were accepted the document would still not represent anything more than a contract between the Coloman King of Hungary, Slavonia, Croatia and Dalmatia and his Croatian nobility, so it would not be perceived as an interstate agreement in domain of public international law.[4] In 1105 Coloman granted privileges to maritime cities in exchange for their submission. These included the election of their own bishops and prior which is later only confirmed by the king, prohibition of Hungarians settling in towns, the cities didn't pay tributes while royal agents supervised the collection of custom duties without interfering in local politics.[27]

While Croatian historian Nada Klaić thinks that some sort of surrender occurred in 1102, giving the Croatians light terms.[28], Slovenian historians Matjaž Klemenčič and Mitja Žagar believe the Pacta Conventa never actually existed, but the story about it was important to support the Croatian position later in the Habsburg Empire of rights on the basis of that agreement.[15] They think that although Croatia ceased to exist as an independent state, the Croatian nobility retained relatively strong powers.[15] Klaić thinks that the Trogir manuscript, the earliest text of the alleged pact is not the text of that surrender, but describes contemporary relations between King and nobility and then traced that current 14th century reality back to an initial agreement,[28] while Klemenčič and Žagar think that although Croatia ceased to exist as an independent state, the Croatian nobility retained relatively strong powers.[15]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Eduard Hercigonja, Tropismena i trojezična kultura hrvatskoga srednjovjekovlja, Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 2006. ISBN 953-150-766-X
  2. ^ Curta, Stephenson, p. 267
  3. ^ Van Antwerp Fine, p. 71
  4. ^ a b c Ana S. Trbovich (2008). A Legal Geography of Yugoslavia's Disintegration. Oxford University Press. p. 87. ISBN 9780195333435.
  5. ^ Van Antwerp Fine, p. 70
  6. ^ Curta, Stephenson, p. 267
  7. ^ Curta, Stephenson, p. 267
  8. ^ Bellamy, p. 37
  9. ^ Van Antwerp Fine, p. 70
  10. ^ a b "Croatia (History)". Encarta.
  11. ^ Curta, Stephenson, p. 267
  12. ^ Curta, Stephenson, p. 267
  13. ^ a b c d e Curtis, Glenn E. (1992). "A Country Study: Yugoslavia (Former) - The Croats and Their Territories". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2009-03-16. Cite error: The named reference "Congress" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  14. ^ Bellamy, p. 37
  15. ^ a b c d Matjaž Klemenčič, Mitja Žagar (2004). The Former Yugoslavia's Diverse Peoples: A Reference Sourcebook. ABC-CLIO. p. 16. ISBN 9781576072943.
  16. ^ Bellamy, p. 37
  17. ^ Bellamy, p. 37
  18. ^ Stephen R. Burant, ed. Hungary: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1989
  19. ^ R. W. SETON -WATSON:The southern Slav question and the Habsburg Monarchy
  20. ^ Povijest saborovanja
  21. ^ Bellamy, p. 39
  22. ^ Bellamy, p. 39
  23. ^ Bellamy, p. 39
  24. ^ Bellamy, p. 39
  25. ^ http://www.h-net.org/~habsweb/sourcetexts/nagodba1.htm The Hungaro-Croatian Compromise of 1868
  26. ^ Biondich, Mark (2000). Stjepan Radić, the Croat Peasant Party, and the Politics of Mass Mobilization, 1904-1928. University of Toronto Press. p. 9. ISBN 9780802082947.
  27. ^ Curta, Stephenson, p. 266
  28. ^ a b Van Antwerp Fine, John (1991). The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century. University of Michigan Press. p. 285. ISBN 9780472081493.

References

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