The freemen's pennies or the pennies of freemen (Hungarian: szabadok dénárja; Latin: liberi denarii) was a direct tax in the Kingdom of Hungary in the 11th-13th centuries.
Origins
The distribution of different types of royal revenues in the Kingdom of Hungary during the reign of the Árpádian kings is unknown, but taxes-in-kind and obligatory labour service generated significant income for the monarchs.[1][2] Although the origin of direct taxation is uncertain, historians assume that a direct tax payable by all freemen[3] was introduced by the first king of Hungary, Stephen I, who died in 1038.[1] The Byzantine kapnikon may have influenced the new tax, which was known as freemen's pennies, because both taxes yielded the same revenue in silver.[4] Each freemen were to pay 8 denars to the king when the tax was first mentioned in the laws of Coloman the Learned around 1100.[2]
Development
Coloman the Learned exempted all freemen who lived on their own estates of the tax.[5] Those who lived on another man's lands were to pay the tax, but they could redeem 50% of the sum if they provided military service to the monarch or supplied him with horses and carts.[5] According to Coloman's law, the ispáns (or heads) of the counties were responsible for the collection of the tax and they had to transport the money to Esztergom.[6] In Esztergom, they paid two-thirds of the tax to the royal treasury, but they could retain one-third of the collected sum.[6]
Andrew II of Hungary granted tax exemption to freemen who lived in a prelate's estates in early 1222.[5] In the same year, the king pledged that he would not collect the freemen's pennies on the estates of royal servants (or free warriors) either.[5][7]
Engel, Pál (2001). The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526. I.B. Tauris Publishers. ISBN1-86064-061-3.
Berend, Nora; Urbańczyk, Przemysław; Wiszewski, Przemysław (2013). Central Europe in the High Middle Ages: Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, c. 900-c. 1300. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-78156-5.
Blazovich, László (1999). "The origins of the Golden Bull and its most important provisions as reflected in Hungarian constitutional and legal history". In Besenyei, Lajos; Érszegi, Géza; Pedrazza Gorlero, Maurizio (eds.). De Bulla Aurea Andreae Regis Hungariae MCCXXII. Edizioni Valdonega. pp. 181–190. ISBN88-85033-36-9.
Weisz, Boglárka (2018). "Royal revenues in the Árpádian Age". In Laszlovszky, József; Nagy, Balázs; Szabó, Péter; Vadas, András (eds.). The Economy of Medieval Hungary. BRILL. pp. 255–264. ISBN978-90-04-31015-5.
