A History of Central Eastern Europe

A noble title unique to SZEPES and dating back to the Dark Ages, was the TÍZLÁNDZSÁSOK.
Meaning "nobles with ten lances" (NOBILES SUB DECEM LANCEIS CONSTITUTI, Latin) the title reflects
its original price: military service. These nobles were exempted from the jurisdiction of the
ZUPAN and, like the ZIPSERBUND, they were organized into a separate autonomous "seat."
Beginning in 1243, instead of personal military service (during which a king might lose some of
his best men), the title-bearer had to provide 10 lance-bearers, fully-armed, for the kings' army
for a year. The "nobles with ten lances" kept their autonomy until 1804 when their "seat" was
merged into that of SZEPES COMITATUS.
Austrian military forces occupied the 3 royal towns and 13 ZIPSERBUND towns that were
mortgaged to Poland in 1769. The reasons encountered so far for this move are to “protect” the
German residents and “for sanitary reasons” which may be a single, and valid, reason. One term
of the Treaty of Lublin was that the towns be maintained in the same state as when they were
mortgaged in 1412. Apparently this is exactly what Poland did – maintain them in their 1412
condition – for 357 years! Smart investors know the answer to the question “Should I invest
money to improve a property I lease?” So the reasons given may have actually had a basis in
fact. EMPRESS MARIA THERESA (1717 – 1780) and her son JOSEPH II (1741 – 1790), HOLY
ROMAN EMPEROR (since 1765) felt that the Hungarian crown had more-than-paid-off the 357-
year-old mortgage; 357 years of customs duties, road tolls, court fees and all the other income
generated by these 16 towns had to exceed the 7 tons of silver called for in the Treaty. With
today’s price of silver close to $16.00/troy ounce, 7 tons costs a tad over $3.25 million, or
$9,115.00 annually. Split by 16 towns, this averages out to just $570.00 from each town! Okay,
throw in $30.00 in interest and that means that the yearly income in excess of $600.00 per town
was profit. Poland made out like a bandit in this deal.
But none of this had to do with the reason Austria occupied the towns in the first place.
The EMPRESS did not want to chance losing this border region to Prussia or Russia. Those 2
powers had been scheming to do away with Poland all together for a few years and it looked like
that was exactly what was going to happen. But they were just 2 of the 3 powers that encircled
the huge kingdom and the 3 rd one did not like the prospect of having a longer border with either
of the 2 schemers. Jumping the gun a bit, Austria first grabbed what was already legally hers –
the 16 towns. The appetite sufficiently whetted, Austria continued “protecting” areas wellbeyond
the Polish border until those areas were renamed the KINGDOMS OF GALICIA AND
LODOMERIA and were under HAPSBURG rule – justified with a reference to the 13 th c KINGDOM OF
HALYCH (covering the same territory) which became a fief of the ÁRPÁDS when KÁLMÁN ÁRPÁD,
PRINCE OF HALYCH, and 2 nd son of ANDRÁS II, KING OF HUNGARY, was crowned KING OF
HALYCH in 1215. The Hungarian nobility chafed at this slight – the land should have been
annexed to their kingdom rather than another HAPSBURG possession.
This “chafing” grew as revolutions swept the globe – with the French and American ones
at the forefront. As the Austrian grip on Hungary loosened in the 1 st half of the 18 th c, due to the
failed 1848 revolution and the successful Compromise of 1867, Hungary’s grip on Slovakia
(Upper Hungary) tightened. The worse of the repressive “Magyarization" policies came into
effect around 1889, the same year the mass exodus from Slovakia commenced. The counties of
SZEPES, SAROS, ZEMPLIN and UNG in Upper Hungary were the poorest regions in the kingdom
and had the greatest number of emigrants.
World War I released Slovakia from its 1,000 year submission to Hungary. The next 70
years were spent in an uneasy federation with their kinsmen, the Czechs. Finally, in 1993, after
living there for over 12 centuries, the SLOVENSKÁ REPUBLIKA came into existence.
39