The study examines a special tax relating to the relationship of towns and their home counties during the first decades of the sixteenth century. This tax, the so-called pecunia exercitualis, was the half of the royal tax paid by landlords’ peasants to the county. It is notable that barons also collected royal tax from their villeins, but they had the right to keep this half of the revenues for themselves. The county had to use these tax revenues to finance all military expenses. During this period, royal towns had valuable estates, for example, the town of Sopron was the third wealthiest landlord in its home county.The paper studies the pecunia exercitualis through a controversy that arose between towns and counties in 1525. The county argument was that since the towns had been paying the pecunia exercitualis to the king from the time of King Vladislaus II, they were liable to pay it this way in the future as well. Admittedly, the tax was introduced in 1498 but at the same time the king exempted the royaltowns and their villages from the county taxes. The diets between 1498 and 1500 often dealt with this question, although the problem was not the towns’ hereditary estates but their pledges and the private means of the burghers. The royal towns and counties of Upper Hungary played a significant role in this dispute, because burghers and town communities there held a large number of pledges. Since the towns had to pay tax after their pledges, the outcome favored the nobility. Sopron at the time did not possess many pledges, and its hereditary estates were exempt from the county tax. In addition, the town recruited its own mercenaries. This suggests that although it is likely that Sopron did not pay tax to the county during the reign of King Vladislaus II, it did so in some cases under the reign of King Louis II.

In my present paper I examined the social group of the noble judges (iudices nobilium, szolgabírók) in Abaúj (Abov-Turňa) county in the age of King Sigismund (1387–1437). In the charters I found 36 noble judges and other emissaries of the county. These persons stemmed from about twenty noble families. My research was based upon the reconstruction of the families and the social contacts of the noble judges. I used the method of genealogy, archontology and prosopography. With them I managed to determine the social status and the local prestige of these noble families. The most important characteristics of the social group of the noble judges can be summarized as follows. In respect to their property most families of the iudices nobilium belonged to the lesser nobility, but there were also wealthier nobles among them. Furthermore, their social contacts with the well-to-do noblemen, as well as their inter-comital family relations show that they enjoyed a more extended social prestige. These persons or members of their families could be retainers for the barons, and they could also be castellans or officiales. This social background could play a part in their election to the judge’s position, which also promoted their later carriers. In most cases the iudices nobilium of Abaúj county in the first half of 15th century were not poor curialis nobles, and the office of the “szolgabíró” enjoyed at least a moderate prestige.