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6. Finances

King Matthias’ revenues in the early years of his reign were much lower than those of King Sigismund. Only some two hundred thousand florins found their way into the treasury each year. About half of this was salt tax, salt mining and trading being a royal monopoly in Hungary. At the very beginning of his rule, a new post was created, the estate manager (provisor curiae) of Buda Castle, who was put in charge of all royal estates in the kingdom. After the coronation, the treasury was given wide powers, and taxes, customs and coinage were reorganised.

Constant warfare and the higher level of royal pomp consumed large sums. In the last decades of Matthias’ rule, his annual revenue amounted to 800-900,000 gold florins. A large part of the revenue was from the “extraordinary” tax known as “aid” (subsidium), which was nonetheless levied very regularly, every year. This tax was paid by the tenant peasants and the “single-plot nobles”. Then there were taxes on privileged people and towns, and the salt, mining and customs revenues.

At the start of Matthias’ reign there were three kinds of coin in circulation: two silver – the denar and the obulus, known popularly as coins and half-coins – and the gold florin, rarely used in day-to-day business. The gold florin was minted with unchanging weight and purity, but silver coins depended on current economic policy. In the early 1460s, the treasury issued debased denars, but started to mint new, durable coins in the second half of the decade. This resulted in stable coinage values: one florin was worth 100 denars, and one denar two obuli. A fourth coin, the garas, which had not been minted in Hungary since Louis the Great, was introduced, worth four denars. This system of coinage survived Matthias and remained in place until 1521. The exterior of the coins also changed: reformed gold and silver coins featured the Madonna, and this remained a constant motif of Hungarian coins for several centuries.