Bursts by Barabasi Albert-Laszlo

Author:Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo [Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2010-03-11T22:00:00+00:00

18

“Villain!”

July 19, 1507

It seems every family has at at least one remarkable ancestor—a witty great-aunt whose personality shines through generations or a great-great-grandfather whose deeds survive the dustbins of history. My family went as far back as the sixteenth century to find our man. Lénárd Barlabási was, at the peak of his career, a Transylvanian vice voivode, next in line after Count János Szapolyai, who, as the voivode, governed the province.

It’s not that Lénárd’s descendants were undeserving. On the contrary, his cousin, János, was named bishop of Csanád, the episcopate vacated when György executed Miklós Csáky at Nagylak. Others are remembered for their tragic deaths, like Péter Barlabási, who was hanged when his patron, Prince György Rákóczi II, was deposed. Or there is Péter’s son, István, who lost his life in battle after he joined Rákóczi on his frivolous campaign to claim the Polish throne. Many others on the leafy family tree may have been wonderful and accomplished men and women, but we know only of their quarrels. Much of what survived are court documents, detailing bitter fights among themselves or with others in the ongoing struggle to hold on to the wealth and influence Lénárd had established.

The life of Lénárd Barlabási is easier to trace because many of his letters have survived in various archives, turning him into an oft-quoted witness of the sixteenth-century social and political landscape of Transylvania. Unfortunately, his letters are not in Hungarian but the administrative Latin commonly used in those days. As a result they are indecipherable not only to me but puzzle even experts of medieval history. Indeed, Daniel Gregory Perett, a doctoral fellow in medieval studies at the University of Notre Dame, translated the 1507 letter I found in Nagyszeben into English for me but felt compelled to accompany the rendition with three pages of disclaimers and comments.

The first three paragraphs of Lénárd’s 1507 letter discuss the case of a serf accused of theft. He was from Vingard, a small village near Nagyszeben. According to Daniel Perett’s translation, the castellan of Vingard calls the serf a “good and just man” and categorically rejects the charges against him. Given all the he-said, she-said, Lénárd requested that all parties assemble before him at a future date.

The second half of the letter is especially interesting:

Also, we have received news that on the most recent market day at Meggyes certain inhabitants and occupants of the township of Szeben near the township of Meggyes have been robbed and killed.

We have discovered through careful inquiry that this act of banditry is to be attributed to none other than the knight György Dózsa, a Szekler of Makfalva located in Maros County.

We therefore counsel you to write immediately to the knight András Lázár and the other Szekler lords, warning them that they should not harbor such a public robber of the whole realm of Transylvania in their midst but should rather punish him without delay for having committed such an act of banditry so that, as a result, it may

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