Nicholas I Drugeth
Nicholas Drugeth de Gerény was a Neapolitan-born Hungarian baron and military leader in the first half of the 14th century. As a member of the prestigious Drugeth family, he arrived in the Kingdom of Hungary along with his father and brothers upon the invitation of King Charles I at the turn of 1327 and 1328. Nicholas entered the service of the royal court as one of the tutors of princes Louis and Andrew. In this capacity, he protected boldly the children during Felician Záh's unsuccessful assassination attempt in 1330. Thereafter, Nicholas served as Master of the cupbearers.
Following the death of his older brother William without male heirs, Nicholas would have inherited his large wealth and power in Northeast Hungary in 1342, but as a result of court intrigues, the newly enthroned Louis I confiscated most of the inheritance. Nicholas and his younger brother John II were able to retain landholdings only in the mostly uninhabited, northeasternmost part of the kingdom, in Ung and Zemplén counties. Nevertheless, although politically marginalized, Nicholas did not lose his favor at the royal court. He participated in Louis' second Neapolitan campaign, becoming captain of the occupied Salerno in 1350. Returning Hungary, he was installed as Judge royal in 1354, but died in the next year. The Gerény branch of the Drugeth family descended from him, but this branch became extinct after two generations by the end of the 14th century. The Homonna branch, as the only surviving cadet branch descended from his younger brother.
Tutor of the royal children
Nicholas was born in the 1300s as the second son of John I Drugeth and Pasqua de Bononensi. The Drugeth family belonged to those Neapolitan elite of Ultramontane origin, who arrived to Apulia with Charles I of Anjou in 1266. By the first decade of the 14th century, brothers Philip and John – Nicholas' father – were considered as the most important members of the family. While John entered the service of Clementia, briefly Queen consort of France and Navarre. Philip joined the accompaniment of Clementia's brother Charles in the journey to Hungary, where laid claim to the throne and successfully acquired it by 1310. Nicholas had an elder brother William, and three much more younger siblings, John II, Philip II and Clementia. They grew up together in the queenly court of Clementia at Paris and Aix-en-Provence. Nicholas was certainly adult by 1324, when paid the papal tithes on behalf of the Saint Mary family chapel with the rank of a parish church, which located in the Drugeths' feudal estate in Pascarola.File:Orlai Zách Felicián.jpg|thumb|left|The assassination attempt of Felician Záh on the royal family in 1330, painted by Soma Orlai Petrich
John Drugeth and his family were invited from Naples to Hungary by King Charles I in order to inherit the wealth and power of Philip Drugeth, who lived in Hungary for decades as the king's most loyal comrade-in-arms, and by the time of his death he had risen to be one of the most influential barons. While John succeeded his brother as Palatine of Hungary, William, who was in his twenties, inherited his late uncle's wealth and large-scale province in Northeast Hungary, instantly becoming the richest and most powerful magnate in the Kingdom of Hungary. Nicholas also arrived to Hungary in 1327 or 1328. Along with Nicholas Tapolcsányi, Nicholas Drugeth became the tutor of the Hungarian princes Louis and Andrew, who were still small children at the time. Serbian historian Đura Hardi emphasizes, the service of engaging one of the Drugeths as tutor of their children by the Capetian House of Anjou looked back on a six-decade tradition. Both Nicholas Drugeth and Nicholas Tapolcsányi were present, when an enraged noble Felician Záh attempted to assassinate the entire royal family at dinner on 17 April 1330 in the royal palace of Visegrád. According to the narration of the near-contemporary Illuminated Chronicle, the two tutors managed to save the lives of the princes by placing themselves in Felician's way. Both Drugeth and Tapolcsányi received severe wounds in the head, but they both successfully recovered after the incident.
During a preparation of his military campaign to the Kingdom of Poland, the childless William Drugeth announced his last will and testament in Sáros Castle on 9 August 1330, where he designated as the heir of all of his possessions his younger brother Nicholas, again under the principle of primogeniture. Accordingly, Nicholas would have inherited eight castles – Szalánc, Parics, Barkó, Jeszenő, Palocsa, Lubló, Szokoly and Nedec or Dunajec – with their benefits and accessories. The castles laid in the territory of the Drugeth Province in Northeast Hungary, in Szepes, Abaúj, Sáros and Zemplén counties, all but one of the castles are located in what is now Slovakia; Dunajec is located in Poland. In addition, Nicholas also became heir of some unidentified lands in Szatmár County and Újbécs, a settlement north of Pest. Micholas would inherit William's charters and documents, his entire stud, workstock, his guarantor horses and his weapons, under the conditions that he owes their sister Clementia 300 marks of fine silver from the income of the listed estates, to which he grants the customs duty of Lubló to their sister until full settlement. William also entrusted his personal servitor Walter to Nicholas that he may be accorded the same treatment as he enjoyed, and if he were to leave his service, he would be dismissed with a worthy payment.
Nicholas Drugeth was first styled as Master of the cupbearers by a contemporary charter in August 1332. Beside that, he also served as ispán of Ugocsa County from the same month. He held these offices until 1343 and 1342, respectively. Historians Ignaz Aurelius Fessler and István Miskolczy considered prince Andrew was accompanied by Nicholas to Naples in 1333–1334, where he was betrothed to his cousin Joanna, granddaughter and heiress apparent of King Robert of Naples. They argued, Nicholas, as tutor of the six-year-old Andrew, remained in Naples for a while. However, there is no source for that, as Đura Hardi emphasizes. Nicholas participated in the war against the Duchy of Austria in the summer of 1336. He was present at the siege of the fort of Kreisbach in July.
Confiscation of his heritage
Charles I died in Visegrád on 16 July 1342. His 16-year-old son Louis I ascended the Hungarian throne without resistance five days later. Although Louis had attained the age of majority, his mother Queen Elizabeth and her confidants – primarily, Thomas Szécsényi – exerted a powerful influence on him, which resulted the immediate political marginalization of William Drugeth. Two months after the death of Charles I, William also died in September 1342. Thereafter, his estates in Northeast Hungary ought to pass back to the Crown, as he had no any legitimate male heirs. Under the influence of Queen Elizabeth and Thomas Szécsényi – the "Polish party" –, Louis rejected William's last will and testament from 1330, and his younger brother Nicholas was not recognized as his heir. Instead of him, Nicholas Zsámboki was made Palatine of Hungary within weeks, who had held only insignificant positions before that. The Hungarian barons were fed up with the Drugeths because, based on the experiences of the previous decades, they felt they can have only secondary roles compare to them. Louis, who already was born in Hungary, did not have an emotional dimension to the place of origin – Naples – of his family, as a result the Drugeth family no longer enjoyed this special attention. The idea that Nicholas Drugeth should be the next lord of the Drugeth Province was never seriously consider. After a brief power demand of Thomas Szécsényi, the semi-autuonomus province in Northeast Hungary was partitioned and disintegrated by early 1343.Nicholas Drugeth was also dismissed from his courtly positions at the turn of 1342 and 1343. He was last styled as Master of the cupbearers in January 1343, while the governance of Ugocsa County was taken from him still in the autumn of 1342. The royal court also confiscated the vast majority of the Drugeths' private property. On 7 January 1343, a court hearing was held, where Nicholas and his younger brother John II submitted a charter in order to prove their right to William's heritage. As a result, the brothers were given back three castles – Barkó, Jeszenő and Nevicke – out of the nine that they used to have, and they were virtually pushed back within the territory of Ung and Zemplén counties, a relatively uninhabited area at the northeast corner of the kingdom, while the regions rich with mines or on the trade routes between Poland and Central Hungary were irretrievably lost. Nicholas and John became the possessors of the Homonna lordship in Zemplén County, which consisted of 22 villages: Peticse, Kemence, Szinna, Tavarna, Sztakcsin, Zubna, Papfalva, Jankóc, Hankóc, Lácfalva, Hazsina, Homonna, Porubka, Göröginye, Kajna, Lukasóc, Holcsikóc, Pihnye Vadna, Tankafalva, Plempnafalva and Kepla. They also owned Salamon, Záhony and the village of Zemplén with its fair in the southeast part of the county. Nicholas and John inherited the villages of Nagykapos and Mocsár in Ung County.
Nicholas served as ispán of Ung County from 1343 to 1354 – the last remaining position within the former political administration of the collapsing Drugeth Province. Local nobles joined and continued his service; for instance, his earliest vice-ispán was Dominic Csicseri. His former sister-in-law, Maria Follia – William's widow and a lady-in-waiting of Queen Elizabeth – further reduced his heritage: when she escorted her mistress to Naples, she exercised her alleged widow right to William's family estate in Naples, when she was granted a portion from Pascarola, the main feudal property of the Drugeths, by Queen Joanna in January 1344. Đura Hardi emphasizes Maria had no legal right to inherit the feudal estate, in comparison to her late husband's brothers, who did not receive an invitation to accompany Elizabeth on her journey to Naples. In the upcoming years, there were various lawsuits between the Drugeth brothers and the chapter of Lelesz, who claimed the ownership of Nagykapos for themselves.