Upper nobility (Kingdom of Hungary)

The upper nobility (Hungarian: főnemesség, Latin: barones) was the highest stratum of the society in the Kingdom of Hungary until 1946 when the Parliament passed an act that prohibited the use of noble titles, following the declaration of the Republic of Hungary.

In the course of the 11-15th centuries, only people who held specific high offices in the royal administration or in the Royal Households were distinguished by law within the nobility, but from the 16th century, families whose ancestors had been authorized by the monarchs to use a distinctive noble title (e.g., baron, count) formed a hereditary social class.

Its first members descended from the leaders of the Magyar tribes and clans and from the western knights who immigrated to the Kingdom of Hungary in the course of the 10-12th centuries. They were the "men distinguished by birth and dignity" (maiores natu et dignitate) mentioned frequently in the charters of the first kings. From the 1210s, the dignitaries of the central administration and the Royal Households were referred to as "barons of the realm" (barones regni) in official documents but their legal status was exclusively linked to the office they held and their offsprings could not inherit it.

In 1193, King Béla III granted Modruš County in Croatia to Bartolomej, the ancestor of the Frankopans (Frangepán) family; thenceforward, he and his descendants used the hereditary title count but no specific privileges were connected to it. Quite to the contrary, the theory of the "one and same liberty" (una eademque libertas) of the nobles strengthened and finally, it became enacted in 1351. From 1397, the descendants of the "barons of the realm" were referred to as "barons' sons" (filii baronum) or magnates (magnates) in official documents and from the 1430s, they received the honorific magnificus, an expression that had earlier been used only when addressing the "barons of the realm".

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