800TH ANNIVERSARY OF PROCLAIMING VARAŽDIN A FREE ROYAL BOROUGH

Motif on the s/s: Panorama of Varaždin from 1732.; City View at South Side, author: Sigismund Kapp, 1732, water colour on paper. Album of the Congregation of Blessed Virgin Mary in Varaždin, Varaždin City Museum 800th ANNIVERSARY OF THE ANDREW’S CHARTER (1209 – 2009) The City of Varaždin was founded in the Middle Ages, along a Manor House, probably already at the time of Croatian national rulers. As the name of Varaždin prefect and kastrum, the Fortress, are mentioned for the first time in a legal document in 1181 in 1981 the city celebrated the 800th anniversary of the first written reference to Varaždin. Barely three decades after the oldest written document in which the name Varaždin is mentioned, the Hungarian - Croatian King Andrew II (1205 – 1235) declared Varaždin, at that time called villa Warasd, a free royal borough. It was the first borough, town in a present-day sense, with privileged status in Croatia, and the second on Hungarian territory. The reason King Andrew granted Varaždin citizens certain privileges is of a peculiar nature. Andrew, as the first Croatian Duke (1203) took up arms against his brother Emerik, the legal King. Emerik managed to capture and arrest him in the camp near Varaždin and immediately imprisoned him in a tower of a nearby village Kneginec. Citizens of the Varaždin borough took care of him while he was imprisoned. After long months of imprisonment, Emerik before his death on 30 November 1204, released Andrew from the dungeon. On 7 May 1205 Emerik’s underage son and heir Ladislaw died, Andrew finally became the legal King of Croatia and Hungary as Andrew II. Wishing to repay the people of Varaždin for their loyalty expressed during his imprisonment in Kneginec, in 1209, Andrew II presented the citizens with the Deed of Covenant rewarding them with privileges and special benefits and a valuable real property. A Deed of Covenant is a written document regulating the following: county prefect or any of his administrators have no judicial authority over the citizens, justice can be administered only by a judge (rihtardus) appointed by the citizens, citizens are not obliged to pay taxes or thirtieth to a prefect, only when exporting goods to Germany; households have to pay to the Fortress administrator 12 Denars on St Martin’s day, when appointing a new prefect or replacing administrator of a Fortress, a borough shall obligatory donate an ox, 20 cans of wine, 100 loafs of bread; town dwellers without an heir are free to hand over their property to a church or relatives, and those ready to move out of the borough are free to sell their property; when a stranger afflicts some damage to a dweller, a borough judge shall bring a decision on the case. A Deed of Covenant decides on borders of the borough, real property within the borough and the borders of a village, villagers are subjects of a borough and not to be disturbed on their property by the Fortress owners. By Andrew’s Deed of Covenant the Varaždin borough with its expanded territory as a royal property was divided into two administrative units, two separate municipalities. The Old Town and its lands on behalf of a King were managed by a prefect with a seat in Varaždin castrum, present-day Old Town, and the Town of Varaždin was also under the King’s direct jurisdiction, and was entirely independent, and managed by a Judge and a Council. This type of administrative and economic organisation was in place until 1861. The Old Town and the Town of Varaždin after the division in 1209 experienced its own separate history, but as neighbouring municipalities shared the same faith. The Old Town (until 1397)was under the authority of royalties and Varaždin county prefects, and for almost two centuries under the authority and administration of noble families, counts of Celje (1397), counts of Vitovci, Ivaniš Corvinus, Beatrice Frankopan and Juraj Brandenburg and Ivan and Krsoe Ungnada (until 1583). After that the Old City municipality was first administered and later on given into a permanent holding to the Erdödy family. As owners and hereditary prefects these families managed the Old Town for two and a half centuries. Simultaneously with the history of the Old Town, the Town of Varaždin also has a centuries-old history. Owing to Andrew’s privileges, and because the city is situated at the crossroads of important paths, the town shall develop until the 15th century into a valuable commercial and artisan centre, in spite of numerous attempts of the kastrum owners to take away their land and rights granted by Andrew’s Deed. In order to preserve their rights, Citizens demanded from each new king to confirm their rights and freedom in a form of a document and used it whenever they felt their rights and privileges were threatened. In the 16th century the threat of Turkish attacks appeared imminent, the Fortress was restored and the army headquarters were established. Citizens also built walls and trenches to protect the Inner City. When the threat was gone, Citizens again paid full attention to the development of the economy, construction, art and education that is closely connected with the emergence of new church congregations. Along with the existing Franciscan Congregation, Jesuits came to town in 1632, Capuchin order in 1697 and Ursulin nuns in 1703. Strong development of a town attracted numerous Croatian nobilities, and they built in Varaždin numerous magnificent palaces. Varaždin really developed into a capital of the Croatia and Slavonia Kingdom. The peak of development and glory was at the time of the Queen Maria Teresa (1756) when the town became a seat of the governor Nadasdyja, and in 1767 the capital of the Croatian Royal Council and the Croatian Government. Varaždin was called a little Vienna for about twenty years up until the great fire broke out in 1776 and the town was abandoned first by a governor and a government and later on a prevailing number of nobility. The fire was a catastrophe for Varaždin, two thirds of the houses were burnt to the ground and one third of the town’s population left charred remnants of their houses and moved out to other towns, mostly migrating to Zagreb. After the catastrophe the town was painstakingly rebuilt, and in 1820 the town walls were pulled down, and new building plots were created for new settlements. Social upheavals and changes relevant to the events which took place in1848 left serious consequences on the Old Town and the Town of Varaždin. New political, social and economic circumstances resulted in a new understanding and realisation that two parts of town should unite into one The City of Varaždin. Nevertheless the unification of the two communities did go neither smoothly nor uncomplicated. The Old Town considered itself as a loosing side and only in 1861 felt compensated by four representative seats in the Royal Council of a free city, and earlier administrator of the Old Town and the Fortress owner count Erdödy, was honoured by the status of an honorary citizen of Varaždin. After 650 years of division of the two Varaždin communities, two municipalities were united – the Old Town and the Town of Varaždin were united in one City of Varaždin.