Pacta conventa (Croatia)

After Petar Snačić, the last Croatian king of Croat descent, was killed on the battlefield in 1097, the Croats had refused to surrender. To end the war, an agreement was made, probably in 1102. The Croatian nobles allegedly concluded the Pacta conventa with King Coloman before his crowning as the Croatian king in Biograd. The Hungarian king offered "an agreement as pleases them" to the twelve noble Croatian tribes from the families of Čudomirić, Gusić, Kačić, Kukar, Jamomet, Lasničić, Lapčan and Karinjan, Mogorović, Poletčić, Snačić, Šubić, and Tugomirić.

The agreement determined that the Croatian nobles who signed the document with King Coloman would retain their possessions and properties without interference. It also granted the mentioned families exemption from tax or tributes to the king. Each of the twelve noble Croatian tribes were obliged to answer the king's call if someone attacked his borders and send at least ten armed horsemen to war, as far as the Drava River (Croatia's northern boundary with Hungary) at their own expense. Beyond that point, the Hungarian king paid the expenses.

The document's validity is questionable. While some claim the earliest text concerning the alleged agreement came from the second half of the 14th century others call it a late medieval forgery, not a twelfth century source. While various items of the text seem anachronistic to some, other historians say these could be reworkings of a text from an actual agreement. Hungarian historian János Karácsonyi thought it was a 14th century forgery, Slovene historian Ljudmil Hauptmann dated the document to the 13th century, Croatian historians Miho Barada and Marko Kostrenčić thought it was made in 1102, while later Croatian historian Nada Klaić thought it was a forgery probably made in the 14th century. Croatian historian Stjepan Antoljak in turn said the Pacta was an incomplete historical source, but not a forgery. The dispute and uncertainty over the Pacta conventa matches the overall uncertainty and dispute over the relationship between the Croatian and Hungarian kingdoms in the 10th and 11th century, with Croatian historian Ferdo Šišić and his followers assuming Tomislav of Croatia had ruled most of the area inhabited by Croats, including Slavonia, while the Hungarian historians Gyula Kristó, Bálint Hóman and János Karácsonyi thought the area between Drava and Sava belonged neither to Croatia nor to Hungary at the time, an opinion that Nada Klaić said she would not preclude, because the generic name "Slavonia" (lit. the land of the Slavs) may have implied so. Though the validity of the document is disputed, there was at least a non written agreement that regulated the relations between Hungary and Croatia in approximately the same way, since from 1102 until 1918 kings of Hungary were also kings of Croatia, represented by a governor (ban), but Croatia kept its own parliament (Sabor) and considerable autonomy. The source of inspiration for the text of the document must have been the political and social developments that had taken place over a 300 year period following 1102 The crowning of Coloman forged a link between the Croatian and Hungarian crowns that lasted until the end of World War I. A number of Hungarian historians also accept the view that Croatia and Hungary entered in a personal union in 1102 and that, whatever the authenticity of the Pacta conventa, the contents of it correspond to the reality of rule in Croatia. According to the country study on Hungary Croatia was never assimilated into Hungary; rather, it became an associate kingdom administered by a ban, or civil governor. In either case, Hungarian culture permeated Croatia, the Croatian Hungarian border shifted often, and at times Hungary treated Croatia as a vassal state. Slovenian historians Matjaž Klemenčič and Mitja Žagar believe the Pacta Conventa never actually existed, but the story about it was important to support the Croatian position later in the Habsburg monarchy as being a basis of their rights to statehood. Klemenčič and Žagar think that although Croatia ceased to exist as an independent state, the Croatian nobility retained relatively strong powers. Klaić thinks that the Trogir manuscript, the earliest text of the alleged pact, is not the text of that surrender, but describes contemporary relations between king and nobility and then traced that current 14th century reality back to an initial agreement. According to the Croatian historical narrative, the Croatian parliament took the opportunity in 1526 to reassert its autonomy from Hungary with the election of Ferdinand by the words:" we joined the Holy Crown of Hungary by our own free will just as we do now, the rule of Your Majesty". Although the Nagodba provided a measure of political autonomy to Croatia Slavonia, it was subordinated politically and economically to Budapest.