ISTVAN

STEPHEN

See also:

• ISTVAN STEPHEN VERBOCZY

VERBOCZY  WERBOCZ] (1465?-IS41), Hungarian jurist and statesman, first became known as a scholar and theologian of such eminence that he was appointed to accompany the emperor Charles V. to Worms, to take up the cudgels against Luther . He began his political career as the deputy of the county of Ugocsa to the diet of 1498, where his eloquence and scholarship had a great effect in procuring the extension of the privileges of the gentry and the exclusion of all foreign competitors for the Hungarian throne in future elections . He was the spokesman and leader of the gentry against the magnates and prelates at the diets of 1500, 1501 and 1505 . At the last diet he insisted, in his petition to the king, that the_ law should be binding upon all the gentry alike, and firmly established in the minds of the people the principle of a national monarchy . The most striking proof of his popularity at this time is the fact that the diet voted him two denarii per hearth for his services in 1505, a circumstance unexampled in Hungarian history . In 1517 Verboczy was appointed the guardian of the infant Louis II., and was sent on a foreign mission to solicit the aid of Christendom against the Turks . On his return he found the strife of partiesfiercer than ever and the whole country in a state of anarchy . At the diet of Hatvan, on the 25th of June 1525, he delivered a reconciliatory oration which so affected the assembly that i' elected him palatine . During the brief time he held that hig: office he unselfishly and courageously endeavoured to serve both king and people by humbling the pride of the magnates who were primarily responsible for the dilapidation of the realm . But he was deposed at the following diet, and retired from public life till the election of Janos Zapolya, who realized his theory of a national king and from whom he accepted the chancellorship . He now devoted himself entirely to the study of jurisprudence, and the result of his labours was the famous Opus tripartitum juris consuetudinarii inclyti regni hungariae, which was the law-book of Hungary till 1848 . See Arpad Karolyi, Verboczy's Mission to the Diet of Worms (Hung.; Budapest, 1880) ; Vilmor Fraknoi, Before and after the Catastrophe of Mohdcs (Hung.; Budapest, 1876); ibid., Stephen Werboczi (Hung.; Budapest, 1899) .

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