Immigrants and Locals in Medieval Hungary: 11th–13th centuries | 12 | (original) (raw)

This chapter analyzes several key issues concerning the interaction between immigrants and locals. First, the functions the immigrants filled in the kingdom. Second the patterns of privileges and third the degrees of immigrant integration into the kingdom. Fourth, touching on historiographical debates about the origins of xenophobia in Hungary, the chapter looks at the medieval views concerning immigrants to the kingdom. Western immigrants often had a military role. In the case of peasant settlers, military service was provided through several villages together equipping a soldier. Immigrant groups from the steppes east of the kingdom provided another type of military service. Some of the Turkic nomads who periodically raided the kingdom of Hungary ended up settling in the kingdom, usually fleeing west following a defeat. The economic and political usefulness of immigrants was substantial for the kings of Hungary, who initially guarded the monopoly of settling immigrants on their own lands.