On the Social Structure of the Kingdom of Hungary According to the Records of the Regestrum Varadinense

The current paper concerns several elements of social structure as defined within the records of the Oradea Register (Regestrum Varadinense). This collection, known in the literature for almost five centuries, has been studied as a source of legal proceedings, ordeals or substantive law of the high Middle Ages in the Kingdom of Hungary. It was later explored as a source of topography, personal names and Hungarian and Slavic elements in medieval Latin. In the 19^th century, the collection also became an important source on the history of medieval Hungarian society and administration. As such, social structure and social relations are not based on class definitions only. Records of the Oradea Register show interesting differences between men and women in law; while in legal proceedings, there were not any substantiated important differences, in substantive law, we find a different structure of delicts related to women. For many reasons, the Oradea register became an important role for studying societal stratification (udvornici, iobagiones, castrenses, servants, dusnici, et al.). In reflection with other diplomatic material from the Kingdom of Hungary in the first third of the 13^th century, we are witnesses of a society on the verge of great changes, before the completion of the nobility and before the creation of medieval towns.