Lex és consuetudo: a magyarországi jobbágyköltözés középkori szabályrendszere

One of the basic liberties of the medieval Hungarian peasantry was their right to choose their lord and place of dwelling, a liberty that had emerged in the thirteenth century in the Kingdom of Hungary. The transfer from one lord to another was always conditioned by a carefully observed set of rules. While some of these rules appear in written form in royal decrees and urban privileges, much of the relevant procedure was rooted in the customary law of the peasantry, and thus only occasionally emerges in the charter material. The present study examines the legal framework that had to be observed by the participants from the moment the decision on the transfer was taken to the accomplishment of this decision, and the way in which the previous dwelling was abandoned and the new one taken.