Laws of King Stephen I
Two books of decrees issued in the name of the first king of Hungary. Beside rules on property, killing and theft they order villages to build churches and punish work on Sundays and the breaking of fasts.
The decrees survive in later manuscripts; the edition used here prints them in two books. They show what making a kingdom Christian meant in practice. Ten villages are to build a church and endow it, the king supplying vestments and altar cloths and the bishop a priest and books (2.1). Anyone found working on a Sunday loses the ox, horse or tools he was working with (1.8). Priests and counts are to see that everyone goes to church on Sunday, except those who mind the fires, and those who stay away are to be beaten and shorn (1.9). Eating meat on a Friday or in the Ember fasts is punished by a week’s confinement and fasting (1.10–11).
The older Life of the king says that Stephen I of Hungary issued a decree with the bishops and chief men of Hungary after his coronation (Greater Legend of Saint Stephen 9).
Cited in
- AD 1000 or 1001, estimated date