ileges of a feudal sovereign, than the powers of a high
officer of state.

Such were the commencements of the Hungarian constitution,--an
unbending aristocracy from the outset, into the forms of which time has
doubtless introduced many changes,--but of which the spirit and the
principle continue to this day, precisely what they were nine centuries
ago. The first of these innovations occurred when Stephen ascended the
throne; and by the open profession of Christianity, gave a different
character to the whole order of society. His predecessors had never
worn a title more imposing than that of duke; Stephen received from the
pope both a royal crown, and the style and dignity connected with it.
Moreover, Stephen, by creating bishoprics, and richly endowing both
them and the monasteries, very much widened the circle of the nobility;
which by the creation of new offices, and the granting of fiefs both by
prelates and princes, received from time to time large accessions to
its numbers. Then began distinctions to be claimed and recognised, even
in the rights and privileges of the privileged classes. The nobles were
divided into princes, prelates, barons of the kingdom, and magnates,
whose rights, though in some trifling respects different, were yet so
much akin as to permit their being treated as political equals. Next to
them, yet claiming the essential privileges of nobility, came the
king's chief retainers, with the holders of fiefs under the princes and
prelates, and the principal retainers of the magnates; and finally, a
humbler class followed, who, corresponding to our territorial but
untitled aristocracy, are now content to bear the appellation of
eidelmen, or gentry. All of these were, in the strictest acceptation of
the term, freemen. They owed to the sovereign their right hands in war;
and when the exigencies of the state required, such aids in money as
they themselves might vote, but without such vote, in solemn comitia
granted, there was no authority anywhere to exact from them either a
blade of corn, or the most minute coin of the realm.

It was the right of the nobles to assemble and pass resolutions which,
when approved of by the king, obtained the force of law. Up to the
commencement of the thirteenth century, they used to meet in the open
air; and as each brought to the place of assembly as large an armed
following as he could muster, it was no unusual circumstance to find as
many as eighty thousand men in the