|
.
|
2. The Hunyadi Family
Written sources first mention Matthias Hunyadi’s forebears in 1409, when King Sigismund granted the estate of Hunyadvár (Hunedoara) in Transylvania to Matthias’ grandfather Vajk. The family died out in 1508, when Erzsébet, the daughter of Matthias’ illegitimate son John Corvin, died young. A total of six generations are known of from that century from 1409 to 1508. Matthias’ forebears on his father’s side were Romanians from Wallachia. The earliest members of the family had customary Romanian forenames, and the sources usually mention them by the name Oláh (=Vlach). The name “Hunyadi” emerged during the life of the second known generation, because the custom for Hungarian nobles was for the family to take the name of one of their old estates. The grandfather took up service in King Sigismund’s court, and his son John Hunyadi served in baronial courts as a young man. The Hunyadis belonged to the wealthier middle nobility; the first of them to come by a great fortune was John Hunyadi, in the 1440s. The family attained baronial rank in 1339, when John Hunyadi received the joint appointment of ban of Szörény (Turnu Severin) with his brother.
Matthias’ historian, János Thuróczy, claimed that the King’s forebears moved from Wallachia to Hungary. There were another two stories current at that time. One said that John Hunyadi was the illegitimate son of King Sigismund. The other was propagated by the Italian humanists, who traced several royal houses of the time to ancient Roman clans. Petrus Ransanus identified the ancestors of Matthias as the Corvins of ancient Rome. He was led to this conclusion by two Latin words: corvus, Latin for raven, the family’s heraldic bird, and Covinum, the Latin name of the family’s first supposed estate, Keve (Kovin). Matthias never used the name Corvin for himself, but did for his son John.
The family’s old arms bore a raven holding a ring in its beak. In 1453, King Ladislas V appended to these a red lion rampant holding a crown in its paw, on a silver shield.
|
