"Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary is the first western-language account of medieval landholding and noble society in Hungary. Rady indicates that, although all noble land was held of the ruler, a complex web of relationships still permeated the Hungarian nobility. Among the institutions which the author discusses are clientage, office-holding and military retaining, the noble kindred and county community, the settlement of disputes, law-finding, record-keeping and inquisitions. Rady challenges the view that Hungarian noble society was qualitatively different from its western counterparts. Such differences as existed were ones of degree rather than kind. Moreover, Rady indicates that the medieval Hungarian nobility was never as numerous as is usually maintained. Rady's account extends from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries and includes studies of noble society in Slavonia, the Slovak Highlands and Transylvania."--BOOK JACKET.