Origins
The Hungarian and Latin words (Latin was the kingdom's language of administration until the 19th century) could also be used in the more general sense of "a nobleman," but they had the specific meaning identifying a noble person of this particular rank in the kingdom. The Slovak version of the title stemmed from an old broader word related to "land" (zem) that they were given when the largest number of them were ennobled, which was in return for helping King Béla IV to defend the country during the Mongol invasions of 1241-1242. To serve in arms when called on became one of the zemans' few obligations towards the king.
Read more about this topic: Zeman (nobleman)
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)