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Levente PAP
later, in 1693, in Vienna, the Court Chancery for Transylvania was set up, and thus the Principality gradually got under Habsburg authority losing its former independence. At the Court of Vienna the shape which the status of Hungary and the Principality of Transylvania was to take within the bounds of the Monarchy had been a serious matter even in the years before the Diploma. The policy that the Habsburg administration applied in the new territories was mainly determined by a document entitled Einrichtungswerk des Königreichs Hungarn, drawn up by the committee whose head was count Lipót Kollonich (Varga J. and Kalmár 2010). The major interest of the Court of Vienna was that the economy of each newly annexed land should rise to the level of the Austrian lands and be able to support itself in this respect. A possible solution to make the economy prosper was considered to be the repopulation of deserted territories. The migration from the marginal regions of the Hungarian Kingdom towards the territories of the Hungarian Plain and South-Transdanubia opened the possibility for ethnic groups from the border regions of the Carpathian Basin (Slovenians, Croatians, Slovaks, Serbians, Ruthenians, Romanians) to immigrate to the country. The spontaneous immigration and movements of population were not a solution to the demographic problems (Varga J. 1999, 42–43). The Court intended to deal with this problem in its own manner: by deliberately settling Germans from the Holy Roman Empire to the territories of the Hungarian Kingdom. However, every settling process had in sight one very important consideration: regarding the division of denominations, it aimed to increase the proportion of the Catholic population. This could partly be achieved by the settlement of Catholic ethnic groups (Swabians), or by obligatorily converting people of other denominations – first of all, Romanians, Ruthenians and Serbians of Orthodox Rite – to Catholicism (Nagy 2013a, 58–74).1 Although these principles were, above all, valid for the territory of the Hungarian Kingdom, since in Transylvania the system of three nations and four religions recognized by law had been preserved, even here the religious policy was shaped according to this law. At Monarchy level, the importance of the pursuit of such religious policy was especially enhanced by the fact that the Catholic population, loyal both to Rome and to the Habsburg Court, was much easier to govern. Since, at that time, no notable Armenian community lived on the territory of the Hungarian Kingdom (unlike in Transylvania), the Habsburg administration did not deal with their situation in particular. From the territory of the Armenian kingdoms that lost their independence in the eleventh century due to the invasion of the Seljuk Turks and the Mongolians, an exodus of population started, and it continued in the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries. At that time the larger part of the emigrating population found refuge in Poland and Moldavia (Lukácsy 1859, 63–65; Nistor 1912, 55–57; Kovács 1
The Habsburg administration recognized the freedom of worship of the Lutherans and the Reformed, but also urged their assimilation into the Catholic church.