of the country. During those years of comparative peace Stephen firmly established the Hungarian Christian kingdom.
The Christian Church was the corner-stone of all social and political order in the days of Stephen. The Church pointed out the principal objects of human endeavor, marked out the ways leading to the accomplishment of those aims, drew the bounds of the liberty of action, and prescribed to mankind its duties. It educated, instructed, and disciplined the people in the name and in the place of the state, and in doing this the Church acted for the benefit of the state. Hence it was that Stephen, in organizing the Hungarian Christian Church and placing it on a firmer basis, consulted quite as much the interests of his royal power as the promptings of his apostolic zeal. Where the Christian faith gained ground, there the respect for royalty also took root, and the first care of royalty, when its authority had become powerful, was to preserve the authority of the Church.
Immediately on his accession to the throne, Stephen addressed himself to the great and arduous task, and in all places where the promises of the holy faith, scattered by his proselyting zeal, met with a grateful soil, he established the earliest religious communities. Later, as the number of parishes rapidly increased, he appointed chief prelates to superintend and maintain the flocks and to keep them together. The ecclesiastical dignities and offices were conferred, in the beginning, without exception, upon members of the religious orders, they being at that time the most faithful warriors of Christianity against paganism, and the most devoted servants of the triumphant church. Stephen took good care of them, and rewarded them according to their merits. He founded four abbeys for these pious monks, who all of them belonged to the religious order of St. Benedict. The abbey of Pannonhalom was the wealthiest and most distinguished among these; and to this day, it maintains the chief rank among the greatly increased number of kindred societies. The first schools were connected with the cathedrals and monasteries, and although their mission consisted mainly in propagating the new church and faith, they yet cultivated the scanty learning of the age.
Stephen endowed the bishoprics and monasteries with a generosity truly royal. He granted them large possessions in land, together with numerous bondsmen inhabiting the estates. The Hungarian Catholic Church has preserved the larger part of these grants to this day. His munificence was displayed in the cathedral at Stuhlweissenburg (Székesfejérvár), built in honor of the Virgin Mary, of whose marvels of enchantment the old chronicles speak with reverential awe. The chronicler calls it “the magnificent church famous for its wondrous workmanship, the walls of which are adorned with beautiful carvings, and whose floor is inlaid with marble slabs,” and then he proceeds in this strain: “Those can bear witness to the truth of my words who have beheld there with their own eyes the numerous chasubles, sacred utensils, and other ornaments, the many exquisite tablets wrought of pure gold and inlaid with the most precious jewels about the altars, the chalice of admirable workmanship standing on Christ’s table, and the various vessels of crystal, onyx, gold, and silver with which the sacristy was crowded.”
Stephen’s munificence was not confined to his own realm, and numerous memorials of his beneficence and generosity are still preserved in foreign lands. As soon as Christianity had gained a firm foothold in the land, and the Hungarian people felt no more as strangers in the family of Christian nations, the natives, either singly or in larger numbers, began to journey to the revered cities of Rome, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. Stephen took care that these pilgrims should feel at home in the strange places they visited. Thus, amongst other things, he had a church and dwelling-house built in Rome for the accommodation of twelve canons, providing it also with a hospitium (inn). In Constantinople and Jerusalem also he caused a convent and church to be erected, within whose hospitable walls the Hungarian pilgrim might find rest for his weary body, after the fatigues of the long journey, and spiritual comfort for his thirsting soul. He was ever mindful of the interests of Christianity both at home and abroad. He not only founded the Hungarian Christian Church, but knew how to make it universally respected, and, in his own time already, the popes were in the habit of referring to Hungary as the “archiregnum”—that is, a country superior to the others.
In establishing the Hungarian kingdom Stephen necessarily shaped its institutions after the pattern of the Western States, but fortunately for the nation he possessed a rare discrimination which made him imitate his neighbors in those things only which were beneficial or unavoidable, whilst he rejected their errors and refused to introduce them into his own land. At that period feudalism, although it had sadly degenerated, prevailed, England alone excepted, throughout the whole West. It was a system which did not permit the strengthening of the central power of the state, and the countries subjected to it were divided up into parts but loosely connected, each of which acknowledged an almost independent master, who, although he held his county or duchy from his king, and owned and governed it by virtue of that tenure, was yet powerful enough to defy with impunity the sovereign himself. Without adverting to the pitiful dismemberment of Italy, we need only mention that France was divided into about fifty, and Germany into five small principalities of this character. The kings themselves might make use of their kingly title, they might bask in the splendor of their own royalty, but of the plenitude of their royal power they could but rarely and then only temporarily boast.
Stephen’s chief aim was to enhance the royal power by rendering it as independent as he possibly could of restrictions on the part of the nation, and to introduce such institutions as would prove most efficacious in the defence of the integrity and unity of nation and country. He left the nobility—the descendants of those who had taken possession of the soil at the conquest of Hungary—in the undisturbed enjoyment of their ancient privileges; he did not restrict their rights, but in turn did not allow himself to be hampered by them. He only introduced an innovation with reference to the tenure of their property, which he changed from tribal to individual possession, using his royal authority to protect each man in the possession of the estates thus allotted to him. The nobles governed themselves, administered justice amongst themselves, through men of their own selection, and the king interfered only if he was especially requested to judge between them. The nobles had always free access to the king’s person, not only during Stephen’s reign, but for many centuries afterwards. The nobility was exempted from the payment of any kind of taxes into the royal treasury, and they joined the king’s army only if the country was menaced by a foreign foe, or if they chose to offer their services of their own free will.
Inasmuch as the great power of the nobility had its foundations on freehold possessions in land, Stephen was careful to support the dignity of the royal power by the control of large domains. The royal family were already the owners of private estates of large extent, and to these the king now added those vast tracts of land which, scattered throughout the whole realm, and more particularly extending along the frontiers, were without masters, and could not well pass into private hands, as the scant Hungarian population was inadequate for their occupation. These domains, which, for the most part, were thinly inhabited by the indigenous conquered populations, speaking their own languages, and the colonization of which by foreigners became a special object with the kings, were now declared state property, and as such taken possession of and administered by Stephen. He divided these possessions into small domains, called in Latin comitatus, county, and in Hungarian megye, eyre or circuit, and placed at the head of the administration of each county a royal official styled comes, count. These districts subsequently gave rise to the county system, which was destined to play such an important part in the history of the country, but originally they were designed to answer a twofold purpose, one financial and one military. One portion of the people living on these royal lands had to hand over to the royal treasury a certain part of their produce, whilst another portion was bound to military service for life. In this way the royal counties furnished a sort of standing army, always at the disposal of the king, and supplied, at the same time, the revenues necessary to support that army. Stephen found also other means to replenish his treasury and to add to his military strength. The revenues derived from the mineral and salt mines, and from the coining of money, flowed into the royal coffers; he levied, besides, a thirtieth on all merchandise, market-tolls at fairs, and collected tolls on the roads, and at bridges and ferries. The towns and the privileged territories had to pay taxes, and, on a given day, to send presents to the king. Stephen added, besides, to his military strength by granting to individuals—mostly