Upper nobility
The upper nobility was the highest stratum of the temporal 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.
Upper nobility
In the course of the 11th to 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 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" ' 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" ' in official documents but their legal status was exclusively linked to the office they held and their offspring could not inherit it.
File:Cetin.jpg|thumb|250px|left|The Cetin Castle - a fortress owned by the Counts Frankopans from the 14th century
In 1193, King Béla III granted Modruš County in Croatia to Bartolomej, the ancestor of the Frankopans ' 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" ' 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" ' or 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".
File:Palanok Castle Panorama.jpg|thumb|250px|right|The Munkács Castle - the seat of Prince Fyodor Koriatovych at the turn of the 14-15th centuries
Besides the Counts Frankopan, the members of foreign ruling houses and the nobles of foreign origin who held offices in the royal administration or owned estates in the Kingdom of Hungary were the first individuals who used noble titles, but in theory, their legal status was still equal to that of the poorest members of the lesser nobility. Similarly, the status of the brothers Szentgyörgyi did not change when they were rewarded with the hereditary title count of the Roman Empire in 1459 by Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor who had been claiming the throne for himself against King Matthias I.
File:Castelul Huniazilor.jpg|thumb|250px|left|The Hunyadi Castle in Temesvár, built in the 15th century
King Matthias I also rewarded his partisans with hereditary titles when he appointed them to hereditary heads of counties ' and authorized them to use red sealing wax. In 1487, a new expression appeared in a deed of armistice signed by King Matthias: the document mentioned 19 noble families as "natural barons in Hungary" ' in contrast to the "barons of the realm" whose position was still linked to the high offices they happened to be holding. During the reign of King Vladislaus II, the special legal position of certain noble families was enacted and the act referred to their members as "barons" even if they were not holding any high offices at that time.
Although in the 16th century, the Tripartitum declared again that all the nobles enjoyed the same liberties independently of their offices, birth or wealth, but in practice, even it acknowledged that some differences had been existing within the nobility. Nevertheless, the Tripartitum still distinguished between the "true barons" ' who held the highest offices and the "barons only by name" ' who did not hold any high offices but used noble titles. From 1526, the Habsburg kings rewarded their partisans with hereditary titles such as baron and count and the members of the families wearing such titles were invited to attend in person at the Diets. This customary practise was confirmed by legislation in 1608, when the Diet passed an act prescribing that the monarchs were to send a personal invitation to the members of the upper nobility when convoking the Diet; thenceforward, the prelates and the members of the upper nobility formed the Diets' Upper House.
File:Hrad Krasna Horka.jpg|thumb|250px|left|The Krasznahorka Castle - a seat of the Counts Andrássy
The Habsburg monarchs endeavoured to establish an "international" aristocracy within their empire and they granted several estates in the Kingdom of Hungary to their followers descending from their other realms and provinces; the Estates, however, managed to reserve the right that the kings could not grant offices and estates to foreigners without their authorization. From 1688, the members of the upper nobility were entitled by law to create an entail which ensured that their estates were inherited without division in contrast to the common law that prescribed that a noble's inheritance was to be divided equally among his heirs.
The "cardinal liberties" of the nobility were abolished by the "April laws" in 1848, but the members of the upper nobility could reserve their hereditary membership in the Upper House of the Parliament. In 1885, aristocrats who did not meet all the financial criteria set up by legislation, lost their seat in the legislative body. The Upper House was dissolved in 1918 and it was reorganized only in 1926, but thenceforward, the members of the upper nobility were only entitled to elect some representatives to the Upper House.
In 1945, the land reform liquidated the financial basis of the special status of the upper nobility. And finally, following the declaration of the Republic of Hungary, the Parliament passed an act that prohibited the use of noble titles in 1946.
The tribal aristocracy (9th–11th centuries)
In the 9th century, the tribal federation of the nomadic Magyars was composed of seven tribes. The tribes were divided into 35-50 clans. The Magyar clans must have been organized based on the real or fictitious kinship of their members; each of them had its own name and the clans possessed separate territories within the lands occupied by the tribe they were linked to. In the 9th-10th centuries, the kende, the gyula and the horka were the leaders of the Magyar tribal federation, while the tribes were headed by their own princes and each clan must have also had its own head.The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos recorded that
Around 896, the Magyars invaded the Carpathian Basin and by 902, they occupied its whole territory. The Magyars made several raids to the territories of present-day Italy, Germany, France and Spain and also to the lands of the Byzantine Empire. The regular raids contributed to the differentiation of the tribal society because the leaders of the military actions were entitled to reserve a higher share of the booty for themselves. The military actions also contributed to the formation of the retinues of the heads of the tribes and the clans. The Magyars were obliged to stop their regular military actions westwards following their defeat at the Battle of Augsburg on the Lech River in 955; and in 970, the raids against the Byzantine Empire also finished.
When the period of the military raids closed, the organization of the future Kingdom of Hungary commenced during the reign of Grand Prince Géza who united the western parts of the Carpathian Basin under his rule. The establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary is connected to King Saint Stephen ; he defeated the independent Magyar tribal leaders who endeavoured to resist his rule and thus he managed to expand his authority over the whole territory of the Carpathian Basin by the 1030s. King Stephen I organized several "counties" that became the basic units of the royal administration. Some scholars claim that King Stephen I organized the "counties" on the basis of the territories possessed by the clans, but other authors pointed out that the relationship between the "counties" and the Magyar clans cannot be proven.
King Saint Stephen's acts ensured the private ownership of landed property; therefore, several families of the tribal aristocracy acquired the ownership of parts of the lands their clans had previously possessed. Consequently, several families of the future upper nobility descended from the tribal leaders who had surrendered to King Stephen I, and even the descendants of some rebellious tribal leaders could reserve a part of their ancestor's estates.
Although King Stephen I made a concerted effort to strengthen the position of Christianity in his kingdom and he adopted severe measures against the followers of pagan customs, but several Magyar tribal leaders did not give up their former lifestyle.
On the other hand, the Christian missionaries' efforts were not in vain, and several members of the tribal aristocracy became an ardent advocate of the Christianity; and finally, all of them who could reserve their estates integrated into the upper stratum of the Christian society following the period of the internal wars in the 1040s.