Matthew III Csák
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox nobility Máté Csák or Matthew III Csák (between 1260 and 1265 – 18 March 1321;<ref name='Kristó'>Template:Cite book</ref> Template:Langx, Template:Langx), also Máté Csák of Trencsén<ref name='Kristó'/> (Template:Langx, Template:Langx), was a Hungarian<ref name="TomaKováč2001">Template:Cite book</ref> oligarch who ruled de facto independently the north-western counties of Medieval Hungary (today roughly the western half of present-day Slovakia and parts of Northern Hungary).<ref name='Kristó (1986)'>Template:Cite book</ref> He held the offices of master of the horse (főlovászmester) (1293–1296), palatine (nádor) (1296–1297, 1302–1309) and master of the treasury (tárnokmester) (1309–1311).<ref name='Markó'>Template:Cite book</ref> He was able to maintain his rule over his territories even after his defeat at the Battle of Rozgony against King Charles I of Hungary. In the 19th century, he was often described as a symbol of the struggle for independence in both the Hungarian and Slovak literatures.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
Early yearsEdit
He was a son of the Palatine Peter I Csák, a member of the Hungarian<ref name="TomaKováč2001"/> genus ("clan") Csák.<ref name='Markó'/> Around 1283, Matthew and his brother, Csák, who later served as bearer of the sword (kardhordó) in 1293,<ref name='Zsoldos'>Template:Cite book</ref> inherited their father's possessions, Komárom (Slovak: Komárno) and Szenic (Slovak: Senica).<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> At about that time, they also inherited their uncles' (Matthew II and Stephen I Csák) possessions around Nagytapolcsány (Slovak: Veľké Topoľčany, now Topoľčany), Hrussó (Slovak: Hrušovo) and Tata.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> Their father had started to expand his influence over the territories that surrounded his possessions.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
Matthew was born around 1260s. A diploma recorded his lameness which caused by either birth defect or a result of a war injury. He was presumably first mentioned by a charter issued by the Somogyvár Abbey on 5 August 1284, where the sons of the late Peter were summoned in a case of land title rights to Kötcse. Historian Gyula Kristó argues that the document mentions the possible elder brothers of Matthew and Csák as they first appeared in contemporary sources only in 1291.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> Following Peter's death, the members of the rival Kőszegi family from the Héder clan strengthened in Pozsony and Sopron Counties taking advantage of that the Csák clan has been weakened due to the death of Matthew II and Peter I. The Kőszegis defeated the local Osl clan in Sopron County and also forged ahead to Pozsony County where captured Pozsony Castle for a short time.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
King Andrew's partisanEdit
.jpg){kind=link}
In 1291, Matthew took part in the campaign of King Andrew III of Hungary against Austria.<ref name='Markó'/> In the next year, when Nicholas I Kőszegi rebelled against King Andrew III and occupied Pozsony (German: Pressburg, Slovak: Prešporok, today Bratislava) and Detrekő (Slovak Plavecké Podhradie), Matthew managed to reoccupy the castles on behalf of the king.<ref name='Markó'/> Henceforward, the Danube became the border between the developing domains of the Kőszegi and Csák families.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> King Andrew appointed him to master of the horse and he also became the ispán (comes) of Pozsony County (1293–1297).<ref name='Zsoldos'/> On 28 October 1293, Matthew issued a charter and promised that he would respect the liberties of the burghers of the city of Pozsony that King Andrew had confirmed before.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
During this period, Matthew started to augment his possessions not only by the king's donations, but also by using force.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> In 1296, he bought Vöröskő (Slovak: Červený Kameň) from its former holders for money; however, contemporary documents prove that he enforced several neighboring landowners to transfer their possessions either to him or his partisans.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> He even was ready to occupy territories; e.g., around 1296, he took possession of the lands of the Archabbot of Pannonhalma south of the Danube and he also trespassed the possessions of the Collegiate Chapter of Pressburg.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
Around the end of 1296, Matthew acquired Trencsén (Slovak: Trenčín) and afterwards, he was named after the castle.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> In 1296 King Andrew appointed him Palatine,<ref name='Markó'/> but shortly afterwards the king absolved one of Matthew's opponents, Andrew of Gimes from the Hont-Pázmány clan of all responsibility for the damage he had caused to Matthew.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> The document proves that the relationship of the king and Matthew worsened and the king deprived him of his office of Palatine in 1297.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> At the same time, the king granted Pozsony County to his queen, Agnes of Austria.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
Kings' rivalEdit
Matthew continued to style himself Palatine even after 1297.<ref name='Kristó'/> He managed to overcome Andrew of Gimes and his family and thus expanded his influence along the Zsitva River (Žitava River).<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
In 1298, King Andrew III allied himself with King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia; the alliance was probably directed against Matthew whose possessions lay between the two monarchs' territories.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> In the next year, King Andrew sent his troops against him, but he could resist the attack;<ref name='Kristó'/> only Pozsony County was reoccupied by the king's partisans.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
Before 1300, Matthew entered into negotiations with the representatives of King Charles II of Naples and reassured him that he would assist the claim of his grandson, Charles for the throne against King Andrew III.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> However, in the summer of 1300, Matthew visited Andrew's court, but the king, the last male member of the Árpád dynasty, died on 14 January 1301, and following his death a rivalry broke out among the several claimants for the throne.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> At that time, Matthew's brother, Csák died childless and therefore Matthew inherited his possessions.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
Following the death of King Andrew III, he became the Neapolitan prince's follower, but shortly afterwards, he joined the party that offered the crown to Wenceslaus, the son of King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> He was present at the coronation of the young Bohemian prince (27 August 1301) who granted him Trencsén and Nyitra counties;<ref name='Markó'/> therefore he became the lawful holder of all the royal castles and possessions in the two counties.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> In the following years, Matthew Csák occupied the possessions of the Balassa family in the two counties and he also took several castles in Nógrád and Hont counties.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
King Wenceslaus could not strengthen his rule against his opponent and he had to leave the kingdom (August 1304).<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> By that time Matthew Csák had already left King Wenceslaus' party,<ref name='Markó'/> and shortly afterwards he made an alliance with Duke Rudolph III of Austria against the king of Bohemia.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> Although he did not join to King Charles' partisans, but his troops took part in the campaign King Charles and Duke Rudolph lead against the Kingdom of Bohemia (September–October 1304).<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> The internal struggles, however, did not end, because on 6 December 1305 a new claimant, Otto III, Duke of Bavaria was crowned King of Hungary.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> Matthew Csák did not accept King Otto's rule, and his troops struggled together with King Charles' armies who occupied some castles on the northern part of the kingdom.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
On 10 October 1307, an assembly confirmed King Charles' rule, but Matthew Csák and some other oligarchs (Ladislaus Kán, Ivan and Henry II Kőszegi) absented themselves from the assembly.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> In 1308, Pope Clement V sent a legate to the kingdom in order to strengthen King Charles' position.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> The legate, Cardinal Gentile Portino da Montefiore managed to persuade Matthew to accept King Charles' rule at their meeting in the Pauline Monastery of Kékes (10 November 1308).<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> Although Matthew himself was not present at the following assembly (27 November) in Pest where King Charles' reign was again confirmed, he sent his envoy to attend at the meeting.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> Shortly afterwards, King Charles appointed Matthew Palatine of the kingdom.<ref name='Markó'/> However, at the new coronation of King Charles (15 June 1309), he was only represented by one of his followers.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> In the next year, King Charles appointed him to the office of master of the treasury,<ref name='Kristó'/> which then was the first high-ranking political position during the first regnal years of Charles as the position of palatine was "devaluated".
Matthew Csák did not want to accept the king's rule; therefore, he did not attend King Charles' third coronation, when he was crowned with the Holy Crown of Hungary (27 August).<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> Moreover, Matthew Csák still continued to expand the borders of his domains and occupied several castles in the northern part of the kingdom.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> On 25 June 1311, he led his troops towards Buda and pillaged the surrounding territories and on this account the Cardinal Gentile excommunicated him<ref name='Kristó'/> on 6 July 1311.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> However, he did not accept the punishment and persuaded some priests to continue their services on his territories.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
The indignant oligarch pillaged the possessions of the Archdiocese of Esztergom.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> When the citizens of Kassa (Slovak: Košice) killed Amade Aba, the powerful oligarch of the north-eastern parts of the kingdom (5 September 1311) Matthew made an alliance with his sons against the king who sided with Kassa.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> His troops liberated Sáros Castle (Slovak: Šarišský hrad), besieged by the king, and then marched against Kassa.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> At the Battle of Rozgony, the king's armies defeated Matthew's and his allies' troops (15 June 1312).<ref name='Kristó'/> Following the battle, the king occupied the territories of Amade Aba's sons.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> Although Matthew's domain stayed undisturbed, the occupation of the neighboring territories by the king hindered his expansion.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
Last yearsEdit
In 1314, the king's armies invaded Matthew Csák's domain, but they could not occupy it.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> In the meantime, Matthew occupied some fortresses in the March of Moravia and therefore King John of Bohemia also invaded his territories (May 1315).<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> The Czech armies defeated his troops (whom he encouraged in Hungarian language) at Holics but they could not occupy the fortress.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> King Charles also invaded Matthew's domain and occupied Visegrád.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
Charles I launched small campaigns against the Csák dominion during 1314 and 1315. When Matthew invaded Szepes and his troops plundered the region, he was narrowly defeated by Philip Drugeth, the king's loyal soldier.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> During this time Thomas Szécsényi received Hollókő from Charles, who confiscated the land from the Kacsics clan, the disloyal relatives of Thomas. Charles gradually encircled the Csák dominion, when appointed loyal castellans to head of the nearby forts.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
The king attempted to weaken the unity among Matthew's partisans through diplomatic means. According to a royal charter issued in September 1315, Charles I stripped three of the oligarch's servients of all their possessions and gave those to Palatine Dominic Rátót, because they absolutely supported all Matthew Csák's efforts and did not ask for the king's grace. One of these sanctioned nobles was Felician Záh, who later unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate the entire royal family in 1330.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
In 1316, some of his former followers rebelled against Matthew, and although he occupied their castle at Jókő, some of them left his domain.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> In 1317, he invaded the possessions of the Diocese of Nyitra, and his troops occupied and pillaged its see.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> As a consequence, Bishop John excommunicated him and his followers again.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
The king's armies continued to invade his territories and occupied Sirok and Fülek (Fiľakovo), but Matthew could maintain his rule over his territories until his death.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
DomainEdit
Matthew Csák's domain had been developing gradually before the Battle of Rozgony, and it reached its greatest territorial extent around 1311.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> By that time, 14 counties of the kingdom, and about 50 castles were under his and his followers' rule.<ref name='Kristó'/>
Around 1297, he organized his own court, similar to the king's court and he usurped royal prerogatives on his domains, similarly to other oligarchs (e.g., Amade Aba, Nicholas Kőszegi) of the beginning of the 14th century.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> Thus he became the de facto ruler of his domain and he made alliances independently of the king.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> He refused to accept appeals to the king against his decisions and he denied to put claimants in possession of lands the king had granted them on his territories.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> Although some of the local landowners did not want to accept Matthew's supremacy, but sooner or later, they had to leave their possessions.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
Following his death, his cousin Stephen Sternberg (or Stephen the Bohemian) became the lord of his domain,<ref name='Kristó'/> because his son (Matthew IV) had died and his grandsons (Matthew V and James) were still minors at the time of his death in 1321.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> However, Stephen Sternberg could not resist the king's invasion and Matthew Csák's former domain was overtaken by the king's armies in a few months' time.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/>
Legacy in the Slovak romantic movementEdit
Matthew Csák significantly influenced regional history of today's Slovakia in the 13th–14th centuries. Alongside other activities, he founded several new settlements mainly in Trencsén County and supported raising towns.<ref name="lukacka">Template:Cite book</ref> The level of independence he had achieved together with his contacts with the Czech lands (especially with Moravia) positively influenced also the development of local Slovak speaking nobility.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Regardless of his relatively short rule his (ex-)domain was called the Matthew's Land (terra Matthei) already in the 14th century. This concept had been preserved until the 15th century, when individuals still used to claim their origin from the Matthew's Land (de Terra Matthei) instead of the official administrative divisions or settlements of the Kingdom of Hungary.<ref name="lukacka"/>
This was later reflected in the Slovak national revival in the 19th century. Although his personality was known to older generation of Slovak intellects (Adam František Kollár, Anton Bernolák), he became a subject of the national mythology only in the period of Ľudovít Štúr. The motive of Matthew Csák was introduced in 1836–37 by a Slovak lawyer Alexander Boleslavín Vrchovský.<ref name="macho136">Template:Harvnb</ref> Thereafter, the topic was covered by numerous Slovak poets and writers like Ľudovít Štúr, Ján Kalinčiak, Jozef Miloslav Hurban, Mikuláš Dohány, Viliam Paulíny-Tóth, Samuel Ornis, Jonáš Záborský, Jozef Škultéty and others.<ref name="macho136"/> In the romantic national discourse of the 19th century, he was perceived as a Slovak national hero, defender of Slovak interests and/or an uncrowned Slovak king. Matthew Csák and his "realm" became the symbols of Slovak independence with the purpose to expropriate his historical heritage for the emerging national state of Slovakia.<ref name='Kristó (1986)'/> Ľudovít Štúr, the most prominent personality in the period of the Slovak national revival presented Matthew Csák in his poem Matúš z Trenčína ("Matúš of Trenčín") as champion of Slovak interests who build on legacy of Great Moravia, predicting that the Slovak nation "will be free one day".<ref name="Kirschbaum1996">Template:Cite book</ref>
However, such idealized view remained favored only by a narrow group of Slovak intellectuals and was not (in most cases) adopted by ordinary people.Template:Sfn The idea of Matthew Csák as a Slovak national hero was already eroded by critically thinking members of the Slovak intellectuals in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century (Jonáš Záborský, Július Botto) and was finally crushed in 1923 by Slovak historian Jozef Škultéty.Template:Sfn Similar views are also rejected by the modern critical Slovak historiography and in Slovak historic memory Matthew Csák is perceived simply as a feudal magnate, a notable regional figure and the "Lord of Váh and Tatras".
See alsoEdit
- Beckov Castle – owned and fortified by Matthew Csák
- Amade Aba – oligarch who ruled de facto independently the northern and north-eastern counties of the Kingdom of Hungary<ref name='Kristó'/>
- Ladislaus Kán – oligarch who governed de facto independently the Transylvanian parts of the Kingdom of Hungary<ref name='Kristó'/>
FootnotesEdit
SourcesEdit
- Template:Cite journal
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite journal
- Template:Cite journal
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite journal
External linksEdit
Template:S-start Template:S-hou Template:S-off Template:Succession box Template:Succession box Template:Succession box Template:Succession box Template:Succession box Template:S-end