ABSTRACT
The marked rise of central courts of law in late medieval Europe demanded explanation from historians. By now it is a generally shared view that the ordinary users of courts contributed to this process. This chapter aims to open a new window onto the disputes of late medieval people. It is concerned with the late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century disputes between layfolk and their priests, taking place in the Kingdom of Hungary, which at the time consisted of the personal union of two countries, Hungary and Croatia, under the Jagiello dynasty. The disputes of laypeople and local clergymen typically were rooted in their conflicting interests as neighbours rather than their lay versus ecclesiastical status. If everyday lay-clerical conflicts derived from neighbourhood disputes, it suggests that the parties lived in close coexistence. The rural parish clergy were normally local boys, the sons of local peasants; they were intensely integrated socially - by kinship, affinity and friendship - into local communities.
