Hungarian nobility in the context of "Austrian nobility"

The House of Hunyadi was one of the most powerful noble families in the Kingdom of Hungary during the 15th century. A member of the family, Matthias Corvinus, was King of Hungary from 1458 until 1490, King of Bohemia (ruling in Moravia, Lower Lusatia, Upper Lusatia, and Silesia) from 1469 until 1490, and Duke of Austria from 1487 until 1490. His illegitimate son, John Corvinus, ruled the Duchy of Troppau from 1485 until 1501, and five further Silesian duchies, including Bytom, Głubczyce, Loslau, Racibórz, and Tost, from 1485 until 1490. The Hunyadi coat-of-arms depicted a raven with a golden ring in its beak.

The founder of the family, Voyk, received the eponymous Hunyad Castle (in present-day Hunedoara, Romania) from Sigismund, King of Hungary, in 1409. His ethnicity is the subject of scholarly debate. Some modern historians describe him as a Vlach, or Romanian, knez or boyar, from either Wallachia or Transylvania. Others describe him as a Cuman or Slav nobleman. According to the 15th-century historian, Johannes de Thurocz, Voyk moved from Wallachia to Transylvania. Voyk's oldest son, John Hunyadi, was often mentioned as a "Vlach" by his contemporaries.

Köten (Russian: Котян, romanized: Kotyan; Hungarian: Kötöny; Arabic: Kutan; fl. 1205–1241) was a Cuman–Kipchak chieftain (khan) and military commander active in the mid-13th century. He forged an important alliance with the Kievan Rus' against the Mongols but was ultimately defeated by them at the Kalka River in 1223. After the Mongol victory, Köten led 40,000 "huts" to Hungary, where he became an ally of the Hungarian king and accepted Catholicism, but was nonetheless assassinated by the Hungarian nobility.

A royal free city, or free royal city (Latin: libera regia civitas), was the official term for the most important cities in the Kingdom of Hungary from the late 12th century to the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.

The cities were granted certain privileges by the King of Hungary to prevent their control by the Hungarian nobility, hence "royal", and exercised some self-government in relation to their internal affairs and so were "free". From the late 14th century, the elected envoys of the royal free cities participated in the sessions of the Hungarian Diet and so they became part of the legislature. This list also includes cities in the Kingdom of Croatia and the Banate of Bosnia, which were part of the Lands of the Hungarian Crown.

The Transylvanian Diet (German: Siebenbürgischer Landtag; Hungarian: erdélyi országgyűlés; Romanian: Dieta Transilvaniei) was an important legislative, administrative and judicial body of the Principality (from 1765 Grand Principality) of Transylvania between 1570 and 1867. The general assemblies of the Transylvanian noblemen and the joint assemblies of the representatives of the "Three Nations of Transylvania"—the noblemen, Székelys and Saxons—gave rise to its development. After the disintegration of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary in 1541, delegates from the counties of the eastern and northeastern territories of Hungary proper (or Partium) also attained the Transylvanian Diet, transforming it into a legal successor of the medieval Diets of Hungary.

The diet sessions at Vásárhely (now Târgu Mureș) (20 January 1542) and at Torda (now Turda) (2 March 1542) laid the basis for the political and administrative organization of Transylvania. The diet decided on juridical, military and economic matters. It ceased to exist following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, when Transylvania was returned to the control of the Diet of the newly empowered Hungary.

The Golden Bull of 1222 was a golden bull, or edict, issued by Andrew II of Hungary. King Andrew II was forced by his nobles to accept the Golden Bull (Aranybulla), which was one of the first examples of constitutional limits being placed on the powers of a European monarch. The Golden Bull was issued at the year 1222 diet of Fehérvár. The law established the rights of the Hungarian nobility, including the right to disobey the King when he acted contrary to law (jus resistendi). The nobles and the church were freed from all taxes and could not be forced to go to war outside of Hungary and were not obligated to finance it. This was also a historically important document because it set down the principles of equality for all of the nation's nobility. Seven copies of the edict were created, one for each of the following institutions: to the Pope, to the Knights Templar, to the Knights Hospitaller, to the Hungarian king itself, to the chapters of Esztergom and Kalocsa and to the palatine.

The charter's creation was influenced by the emergence of a nobility middle class, unusual in the nation's feudal system. As a regular gesture of generosity, King Andrew often donated property to particularly faithful servants, who thereafter gained new economic and class power. With the nation's class system and economic state changing, King Andrew found himself coerced into decreeing the Golden Bull of 1222 to relax tensions between hereditary nobles and the budding middle class nobility.

The House of Zrinski or Zrínyi was a Croatian-Hungarian noble family, a cadet branch of the Croatian noble tribe of Šubić, influential during the period in history marked by the Ottoman wars in Europe in the Kingdom of Croatia's union with the Kingdom of Hungary and in the later Kingdom of Croatia as a part of the Habsburg monarchy. Notable members of this family were Bans of Croatia, considered national heroes in both Croatia and Hungary, and were particularly celebrated during the period of Romanticism, a movement which was called Zrinijada in Croatia.

Prefection, also promotion of a daughter to a son (Hungarian: fiúsítás; Latin: praefectio in filium), was a royal prerogative in the Kingdom of Hungary, whereby the sovereign granted the status of a son to a nobleman's daughter, authorizing her to inherit her father's landed property and transmitting noble status to her children even if she married a commoner. Such a daughter was called a praefecta in Latin.

The daughters' quarter, also known as filial quarter (Hungarian: leánynegyed; Latin: quarta filialis), was the legal doctrine that regulated the right of a Hungarian nobleman's daughter to inherit her father's property.