Fort bondman. (lat. jobagiones castri)

A group of lower ranking soldiers (milites) In the age of the Árpád kings. They were free; not encumbered by compulsory supply of labour and produce, only obligation being military service in the local fort under supervision of the Lord Lieutenant; in return they were allocated service estates in the fort's landholding. These estates were not permanent land grants and were not inheritable by their descendants. The Fort Bondmen formed the county's military organisation, not residing inside the forts but settled in the forts' bondman villages, in each of these 2-5 bonded families worked the land. The Fort Bondmen broke in two groups. One, most likely came from Géza chieftain's transplanted and scattered clans' military escorts. These were held in high esteem and were materially well off. They linked their free, weapon-handling status to the era of king St. István, therefore they called themselves "the freemen, bondmen of the Saint King" (iobagiones, liber Sancti Regis). The other group was made up of men freed from the populace of the forts during the 11-12^th centuries (iobagiones de castrensibus excepti); in Hungarian, they were the "risen bondboys". Their obligations included the providing of food and shelter (descensus) to the Lord Lieutenant. Changes of hands in the fort estates during the 12-13^th centuries, however, placed the Fort Bondmen in perilous situation; they came under the threat of being subjected to the might of the landed lords, with consequent loss of their freedom. This had indeed became the fate of many. Their name "jobagio" became synonym with the concept of the suppressed classes of quite different background, which happened to be in the process of forming their own, separate layer in the society. An other group of the Fort Bondmen had succeeded in converting their service estates into heritable grants, this way they could undertake to carry the not inconsiderable cost of new, more expensive heavy weaponry. At the same time, together with the royal service personnel, it elevated itself into the newly emerging class of the minor nobles (köznemesek). These could have been the original "Bondmen of the Saint King", as a case of noble ancestry is suggested by the showing of place of origin through the use of the expression "de genere". Materially, however, they were not much better off, from the ranks of their descendants came the majority of the gentry.

Source: "Magyar Történelmi Fogalomtár"; File: Csiba Library #5D, Transl. by Charles Chiba