The name of the game – the historical names of the Hungarian parliament

Since the introduction of Hungarian as the offi cial language of the Kingdom of Hungary (1844) the Hungarian parliament has offi cially been called Országgyűlés (in a common but not entirely correct English translation: “National Assembly”). In the “feudal” (estate) period, no such offi cial Hungarian name was in use, and even the Latin denominations changed over time, from the 13th up to the 19th century. The use of the word parliament (parlamentum) was rather exceptional, and appeared in the earliest sources only, while the words congregatio, conventio, comitia and diaeta became common, however none of them exclusive, and all of them frequently used with attributes, in possessive form or in the combinations thereof (as e.g. congregatio generalis, comitia regni or generalis diaeta regni). This study is intending to make an attempt to show the origin, emergence and development of these various Latin expressions, and, in the last part, to present the Hungarian variants as well, also highlighting the importance and criteria of a historical demarcation between the two Hungarian forms of the English expression “national assembly”, országgyűlés and nemzetgyűlés.


Introduction
The Hungarian Parliament can look back on a many-centuries-long history. Its direct predecessor is a royal judicial assembly that was used to be held by the Hungarian kings in the city of Székesfehérvár traditionally "on the feast day of the holy king", St. Stephen (1000-1038, in order to hear cases. 1 In the Golden Bull of 1222, Andrew II (1205-1235) promised to hold this meeting in every year, and to let, further to the prelates and barons usually invited since St. Stephen, also his royal servants (servientes), i.e. the free University Eötvös Loránd of Budapest, it is emphasised that the general congregatios of 1290 and 1298 can be accepted as parliaments because they "already functioned as a national legislative assembly". 9 In the introduction of his recent publication of the sources of medieval Hungarian law, the historian János M. Bak is also confi rming this view: "the coronation decree of Andrew III and the parliamentary decretum of 1298 can be regarded as the earliest true pieces of legislation". 10 The congregatio of 1290 made a decision on the necessity to hold annual meetings in order "to consider the state of the realm and inquire into the actions of barons -how each behaved in his county and how he maintained the rights of the kingdom". 11 Furthermore, the preamble of the decree of 5 August 1298 says that the king "convened a general assembly", 12 and from the wording of the decree itself it is clear that the articles were enacted at the occasion of this meeting, convoked by the last king of the Árpád-dynasty, Andrew III (1290-1301. 13 Article XVII of the same decree also orders that "all prelates […] as well as all barons and nobles shall be bound to come together at Rákos near the River Danube […] in order to review everything contained in the charter of the lord king, and to establish what is necessary". 14 By these provisions, the medieval parliament of Hungary was born, having very probably developed from the custom of annual royal meetings referred to in the Golden Bull. However, Erzsébet S. Kiss mentions that the only known example when a royal prince (namely the son of Béla IV, the later Stephen V) actually celebrated "the feast of the holy king" in Székesfehérvár on 20 August ("the day of St.
Stephen") happened in 1260. 15 12 In the Latin text: "Quo viso idem dominus Andreas Spritu Sancto suggerente aures aperuit sue clementie et fi delibus consiliis acquiescens congregationem indixit generalem ad hoc…" (in English: "Having seen this, the same Lord Andrew, guided by the Holy Spirit, opened the ears of his compassion and, accepting faithful counsel, convened a general assembly…", see BAK, 207 and 212. 13 ECKHART, 95;RADY, Hungary and the Golden Bull of 1222, 105. 14 In the Latin text: "Statuimus, ut omnes prelati, quos legitimum impedimentum non detinuerit, necnon et omnes barones et nobiles universi ad quindenas beati Georgii in Racus iuxta Danubium convenire teneantur, ut omnibus ibidem recensitis, que in litteris domini regis expressa continentur, institutis, que necessaria fuerint…" (in English: "We decree that all prelates, not prevented by a legitimate hindrance, as well as all barons and nobles shall be bound to come together at Rákos near the River Danube on the fi fteenth day after the Feast of St. George in order to review everything contained in the charter of the lord king, and to establish what is necessary", see BAK, 211 and 220. According to Károly Kmety, the end of the sentence should have been "…que necessaria fuerint statuentur". See  After the death of Andrew III (that, at the same time, meant the extinction of the male line of the House of Árpád), the estates tried to enforce the royal obligation of holding yearly assemblies. The Angevin king, Charles I (1308-1342), already crowned (unconstitutionally with a supplementary crown instead of the Holy Crown traditionally connected to St. Stephen) in 1301, had to meet this expectation in the fi rst two decades of his reign, but as soon as he was able to consolidate his power, he seemed to be unwilling to continue this practice. 16 Therefore, in 1318 four Hungarian prelates showed him a copy of the Golden Bull, with Martyn Rady's words: "in the hope that he would acknowledge the royal obligation to convene an assembly". 17 Nevertheless, the last known diet was convened by him in 1320, 18 and his son, Louis I "the Great" (1342-1382) appears not to have held any similar assemblies either -maybe with one exception, in 1351, when he reinforced the provisions of the Golden Bull and the "liberty" (privileges) of the nobles with some amendments at a diet probably convened in Buda. 19 Not speaking about the diffi cult years between the death of Louis I and the accession to throne of his son-in-law, Sigismund of Luxemburg (1387-1437), a revival of the Hungarian national assemblies can be observed only in the 15 th century, primarily after Sigismund's decease. 20 It is worth noting that Sigismund himself also made an important contribution to the history of the Hungarian parliament, in 1405, when he invited the deputies of the free towns to the diet the fi rst time in Hungarian history, in order to discuss their matters. 21 The attendance of the towns at the assemblies through their representatives became regular from the 1440s on, 22 while right in 1446 hundreds of noblemen, who earlier had also been represented from time to time by deputies chosen at noble assemblies in the counties, 23 were invited personally to attend the assembly in order to elect John Hunyadi ( This personal invitation was transformed to an obligation of attendance in 1458 (by Act XIII), and it led to an unfortunate practice of holding mass assemblies, especially in the Jagiello era (1490-1526), thus after the death of Matthias I Corvinus (1458-1490. 25 The signifi cance of the diets in the turmoil of the 15 th and 16 th centuries was enormous. After Sigismund's death, the estates quickly made clear that the election of the king fell into their competence. Further to the election of the ruler, the diet obtained the right to approve royal taxes (by custom already since the mid-16 th century, and from 1504 also by written law, namely Act I of 1504), 26 and to "vote recruits" for the king (set up an army for the kingdom) as well. 27 For the 16 th century, the exercise of the legislative power in general also became impossible without the diet: Stephen Werbőczy emphasised in Chapter 3 of the Second Part of his famous law book Tripartitum (prepared for the diet in 1514, and fi rst published in 1517) that the king cannot issue statutes by himself, but "once the people are summoned and asked whether such laws are acceptable to them or not, and they approve the laws, then such bills are henceforth to be observed as laws [...] Magyarországon, 1608-1918[Parliament and Parliamentary Life in Hungary, 1608-1918 (una eademque libertas), 32 the high costs of personal attendance meant such a burden to the less wealthy noblemen that this change has gradually been accepted by them, especially when Pressburg (today: Bratislava, Slovakia) was established as the new location of the diets. 33 The modern (now also historical) 34 bicameral structure of the Hungarian parliament was fi nally set up in 1608 (Act I post coronationem), based on the already established practice of holding separate meetings with the aristocrats in the royal council (before the battle of Mohács in the castle of Buda, during the Habsburgs' reign in different buildings in Pressburg or even Sopron (establishing the Hungarian constitutional monarchy based on the Belgian model of 1831) 40 changed the structure of the parliament compared to the 1608 regulations. The only (very important) modifi cation was that the lower chamber was transformed into a modern kind of House of Representatives by the introduction of a limited male suffrage instead of the privilege of the estates concerning the appointment of their ablegati. The second chamber (invariably called "Upper Table") remained unchanged until 1885, but the aristocratichistorical element was kept (though slightly restricted) even after this reform. After a short interruption after the First World War, the Hungarian parliament became bicameral again for the rest of the interwar period, and it has become unicameral (maybe defi nitively) only in 1945. If we look at the names used Europe-wide for the same purpose, we can establish that the Hungarian naming practice was very similar of that of the other European countries functioning in the same or similar political system of Ständestaat (or "estate monarchy"). According to Zoltán Szente, 42 the following words were applied in the Middle Ages and in the early modern era for legislative assemblies:  In the opinion of the author of the present study, a further distinction is to be made, namely between the different language variations of the word "assembly" and those of the word "diet" (in correct Latin: dieta), because, as we will see in the following, these two have slightly different etymology. As the entire Hungarian parliament was never called "court" (curia), in the next part of this paper we will focus on the use of four characteristic denominations in their order of appearance in the Hungarian historical documents: "parliament"; the several forms of "assembly"; the separate and very popular word "diet"; and the equivalent of "estates" in the Hungarian legal sources: Status et Ordines (not mentioned by Hajnóczy in his book). After these, we will have a quick look at the Hungarian denominations as well.

Parliament (parlamentum)
The English word "parliament" is now a very popular name of legislative assemblies. Many of the contemporary national assemblies of European countries and also of countries on other continents (obviously emerged under the strong infl uence of European constitutional law and theory) are called this way, however, in the Middle Ages, the use of this name was rather exceptional. The fi rst known example when a general and nation-wide assembly was called like this is a document of the English king Henry III (1216-1272) from 1244 in which he referred to the assembly leading to the issue of the famous Magna Carta Libertatum as "Parliamentum Runimede, quod fuit inter Dom. Joh. Regem patrem nostrum et barones suos Angliae". 43 The etymology of this word is disputed, but we accept the view of those who are saying that it was used as an equivalent (or "bad substitute") 44 of the Latin word colloquium, meaning a personal meeting in order to hold a discourse, 45 and very probably deriving from the French verb parler 46 or its Italian version parlare (to talk), both being indirect derivatives of the ancient Greek word παραβολή (comparison) with the mediation of the Latin language (parabola). 47 This etymology seems to be especially well-founded for the cases of medieval assemblies in England or Hungary, as the general scope thereof was that the king could discuss the urgent matters of his realm with a privileged group of his subordinates. According to Hajnóczy, only one Hungarian assembly was called parlamentum (in the entire form: parlamentum publicum regni), the one convened by Ladislaus IV in 1289. 48  The Hungarian equivalent of the word "parliament" (parlament) is widely known and accepted in our contemporary language as an (unoffi cial) denomination of the parliament of Hungary. However, in the history of the Hungarian language, it is far newer than the usage of the Latin version (parlamentum). According to our knowledge, its fi rst occurrence is from 1612 in the meaning of legislative assembly, though not referring to the Hungarian diet but the English (or Scottish) parliament, 53 because the book itself was a Hungarian translation of the famous work of the Scottish king James VI (1567-1625, king of England as James I from 1603), Basilikon Doron (1599)

Latin forms of the word assembly
Congregatio Congregatio (with different attributes and combinations thereof) was undoubtedly the most frequently used Latin word for denominating the legislative assemblies in medieval and early modern Hungarian legal documents. 55 Hajnóczy alone discovered 25 appearances of congregatio in law texts, starting with 1435 (preface of the decree of Sigismund of Luxemburg issued in that year), right up to the 18 th century, practically until contemporary times from his point of view. The most frequent form of usage was congregatio generalis, used in not less than twelve articles in different Hungarian laws according to Hajnóczy's research. 56 According to György Bónis, the attribute generalis referred to the fact that these were nationwide assemblies for all the privileged inhabitants of the realm, instead of partial assemblies for given groups of people, or parts of the country. 57 Erzsébet S. Kiss mentions in her study that this term very probably derived from ecclesiastical document, as several types of meetings of the clergy were used to be called congregatio generalis, from the assemblies of monastic orders and convents up to the papal synods. In the 13 th century, the Hungarian kings and royal offi cials could easily become aware of this meaning, as it can be seen in the letters written by popes to Hungarian kings (e.g. the letter sent by Pope Innocent III to Andrew III) or prelates. In the Chronicon Pictum ("The Illuminated Chronicle", 58 in Hungarian: "Képes Krónika"), probably written by Márk Kálti, guardian-canon of Székesfehérvár around 1360 on the basis of a mandate received from king Louis I, a judicial assembly held by queen consort (and regent) Elena in 1131 in Arad is mentioned (retrospectively) the fi rst time as congregatio generalis. According to S. Kiss, and contrary to the above cited opinion represented by Bónis, in 13 th -century royal documents the same expression was used for partial assemblies convened by the kings for different groups of counties as well. 59 Article XVIII of the decree of 1290 (probably already adopted at a legislative assembly that was, as we have already seen, also mentioned as "parlamentum") is referring to the necessity of convening yearly assemblies as ordered in the Golden Bull with the following words: "in quolibet anno semel omnes barones et nobiles regni nostri Albam ad congregationem debeant convenire" ("once each year all the barons and nobles of the realm shall convene" generalis (e.g. in 1446, 1458, 1459, 1462, 1464, 1492, 1495, 1498). 61 In the preamble of the Tripartitum, Stephen Werbőczy also refers to the parliament (to which his great work was presented as a bill) the same way, in the name of king According to Hajnóczy, the fi rst appearance of comitia in the text of Hungarian laws can already be found as early as in Act VI of 1542 (as comitia generalia), while in the later (17 th and 18 th ) centuries the word comitia can be found in legal sources in its simple form as well as in attributed forms like comitia regni (1655, 1765) or comitia generalia regni (1741,1765). 66 When the compilation of the Hungarian statute law later (from its famous 1696 edition) known as the Corpus Iuris Hungarici was fi rst published in 1584, its full title was also "Decreta, constitutiones et articuli regum inclyti Ungariae [...] publiciis comitiis edita" (in English: "Decrees, laws and articles of the noble Kingdom of Hungary [...] adopted at public assemblies"). Furthermore, in Act I (post coronationem) of 1608 (that was, as we mentioned before, the most important regulation concerning the Hungarian parliament until 1848, and remained partially in force until 1944), the terms comitia regni and comitia generalia appear as well.
In the fi rst section it is laid down that the scope of the law is to specify whom the king shall invite to the future assemblies: "quive per suam majestatem regiam ad publica regni comitia per suae majestatis regales vocari", while in the fi nal (12 th ) section the law prohibits the king to invite any persons not belonging to the "estates and orders" listed in the previous paragraphs with the following words: Dieta or diaeta According to the eminent researcher of the 18 th -century Hungarian diets, István M. Szijártó, the parliaments held in this age were the most often referred to in contemporary documents and literature as diaeta, regni comitia (see in the previous section of this study) or diaeta regni. 68 The word diaeta is misspelled, and this mistake is very probably deriving from the other meaning of diet, the food consumed by a given person or group of people. 69 Anyway, the fact that this form appeared much more often than the correct form (dieta) in medieval and early modern sources is well refl ected in the fact that Hajnóczy does not mention the latter even once. 70 The etymology of this word is still not clear, however it is presumed by many researchers that it has to be somehow in connection with the Latin word dies (day). Consequently, dieta could have originally meant a daily portion, one day's run or a daily allowance. The German equivalent of day, Tag was (and is still) used as a term meaning assembly. 71 66 HAJNÓCZY, 1. As it is well known, the imperial diets of the Holy Roman Empire were called Reichstag, while the provincial assemblies Landtag. In Scandinavia, similar terms have been adopted under German infl uence: riksdag in Sweden, rigsdag in Denmark and Norway. 72 According to the researches of Géza Pálffy, the contemporary German (imperial and Austrian) sources referred to the Hungarian diet as Landtag, though the use of this word was incorrect, because the characteristics of the Hungarian parliament as a "composite assembly" were preserved even under the rule of Habsburg kings, since the assemblies of Croatia and Slavonia (sabor) and, in the beginning, even the Transylvanian congregatio generalis sent there its deputies. Therefore it should have been rather called Reichstag, similarly to the imperial diet, than Landtag (a provincial assembly). 73 If we look at the Hungarian historical sources, we can observe that the word "diet" (in the well-known misspelled form diaeta) was already used as early as in 1453. 74 In Hajnóczy's work (already cited many times in the present study) not less than 14 appearances of diaeta (alone, together with other terms, or with the attribute generalis) are counted from the 15 th -18 th centuries, right up to Hajnóczy's own times. When the parliament made clear that tax should not be imposed without the approval of the estates (Act I of 1504), the assembly to be convened to the Field of Rákos was (also) referred as the diaeta generalis ("general diet"). 75 In the enormously important regulation of 1608, further to this form, we can fi nd the expressions generalis regni diaeta ("general diet of the realm") and publica regni diaeta ("public diet of the realm") as well. 76 Finally, we would like to mention that the famous Hungarian poet, Mihály Csokonai Vitéz (1773-1805) published his one-man journal on the sessions of the parliament in 1796 having chosen the title Diétai magyar múzsa ("Hungarian Muse at the Diet"). 77 Diéta is the form of the word according to the modern Hungarian spelling, written with a long (accented) é instead of e. In the present-day Hungarian language both meanings of diet are still accepted and used in the form "diéta": in colloquial usage as food, while in the historiography as a reference to medieval and early modern Hungarian and foreign parliamentary organs (in case of Hungary, always in the sense of parliaments held before 1848, thus showing the contrast between the estate assemblies and the democratic parliament that is usually referred to as parlament or, more offi cially, országgyűlés).

Hungarian terms used for denominating the legislative assembly
Until the 19 th century (1844), the only language used in legal and other offi cial documents in the Kingdom of Hungary was -apart from an unsuccessful attempt of Joseph II in 1784 to introduce German language as the offi cial language of public administration in Hungary as well as in the other countries and provinces of his realm -the Latin. However, especially among the members of the lesser nobility, Hungarian was also widely in use. Though the fi rst complete Hungarian translation of the Corpus Iuris Hungarici is from as late as 1896, Werbőczy's Tripartitum was published fi rst in an incomplete Hungarian translation by Balázs Weres already in 1565 in Debrecen, and some years later, in 1571 a revised and more complete Hungarian edition was published by Gáspár Heltai in Kolozsvár (now Cluj, Romania). 84 In the Principality of Transylvania (a semi-independent state since 1570) Hungarian was also used as an offi cial language, 85 in publication of laws as well. 86

Rákos
As already mentioned, because of the ancient privilege of the servientes to attend the meetings "as they wish" (Golden Bull, 1222) and the principle of una eademque nobilitas (1351, 1514), there were several occasions in Hungarian history until the second part of the 16 th century 87 when mass assemblies were held, with the personal attendance of hundreds, or even thousands of noblemen from around the country. The location of these, sometimes "tumultuous" assemblies was usually the Field of Rákos, a large open territory close to the castle of Buda where the council meetings (with the prelates, barons and magnates) were held by the king, but at the opposite side of the river Danube, near the town of Pest (united with Buda only in 1873). 88 The fi rst assembly that summoned here was in May 1277. 89 Thirty years later the fi rst Angevin king, Charles I was elected at this place, and so was Wladislas II in 1790 and the two-month old John II Szapolyai (1540-1571, Hungarian "national" counter-king chosen against Ferdinand I) in 1540 as well. ("Decision of Rákos") in 1505 also at this site, on electing a Hungarian "national" king for the case Wladislas II would die without heir. The name of this emblematic place of the mass assemblies of Hungarian nobles became a term for the Hungarian diet in the 16 th -century, however not in Hungary but abroad, especially in Poland -according to Polish spelling, in the form of "rokosz" (in the Polish language the letter "sz" is to be pronounced as English "sh", similarly to the Hungarian "s"). 90 This name became such popular that even some special assemblies of the confederation of Polish nobles were called rokosz, for example the one convened by the king in 1606 in order to reach the approval of noblemen for an extraordinary tax of war. 91 According to an article published by Elemér Moór in 1936 in a journal called Népünk és nyelvünk ("Our people and language"), 92 the Poles very probably adopted their word rokosz as the name of the assembly of the Hungarian nobles from the Slovaks living at the border between the northern part of the historical Kingdom of Hungary called Felvidék (the "upper country", now the territory of the Republic of Slovakia) and Poland. Furthermore, Moór mentions (based on the research of another Hungarian linguist, Béla Iványi) 93 that there is a document from 1497 in the archive of the margraves of Brandenburg which already referred to the Hungarian diet as Rakusch, and the imperial chancellery of Ferdinand I also used this word in connection with the assemblies of Hungary. 94 However, there is only one known example when the word Rákos was applied as a term for parliament, from 1515. 95

Országgyűlés
The name of the parliament of Hungary is országgyűlés since the Hungarian language was made offi cial by Act II of 1844. In 1848, two of the famous April Laws, Act IV "on the yearly sessions of the parliament" ("az országgyűlés évenkénti üléseiről") and Act V "on the election of delegates to the parliament based on popular representation" ("az országgyűlési követeknek népképviselet alapján választásáról") contained this word in its titles. 96 This is a composite word, consisting of two elements, ország (country, realm) on one hand, and gyűlés (assembly) on the other. Basically, it is a literal translation of the Latin expression comitia (generalia) regni that, as we have already seen, was already in use as one of the most frequent forms for denominating the parliament in the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries. It is interesting to mention, that in the 17 th century, the word ország was also used as a synonym of the lower chamber and its members, the regnicolae (in a more complete Hungarian form: "országlakók" meaning "inhabitants of the realm" The fi rst known appearance of the expression országgyűlés (written separately and with contemporary spelling as "orszag gywles") was found by the poet and scholar Gábor Döbrentei (1785Döbrentei ( -1851 in 1835. It is a judgment from 1560 in a legal dispute concerning a fruitery and vegetable garden that had been, at least according to the claimants, unlawfully taken from a certain nobleman called Péter Czeczey when he had been away, right because of his obligation to attend the diet: "mykor orszag gywlesben wolth" (with modern Hungarian spelling "mikor országgyűlésben volt", in English: "while he was at the assembly of the realm"). 98 In the late 16 th Transylvania where, contrary to the Kingdom of Hungary where Latin kept its privilege, Hungarian was used as an offi cial language, we can also fi nd an ancient example of use of the word gyűlés (assembly). Prince Kristóf Báthory wrote in April 1578 in a letter of invitation to the Transylvanian diet the following "Coloswarat [...] generalis giwlest vegeztwnk celebraltatni" (modern Hungarian: "Kolozsvárott [...] generális gyűlést végeztünk celebráltatni", in English: "we have decided that a general assembly would be celebrated in Kolozsvár [Cluj]"). 99 Another popular variant was the possessive form "ország gyűlése" (meaning literally the "assembly of the realm" or "assembly of the country / land") or even "országunk gyűlése" (the assembly of our country). A good example for the fi rst one can be found in the famous handbook of procedural law Directio Methodica written by János Kitonich (1560Kitonich ( -1619, fi rst published in Latin in 1619, and translated to Hungarian in 1651 by János Kászoni (b. 1605), regarding litigations to be brought to the diet as a judicial forum: "Ország gyülésére való Pörök" (with modern spelling: "az ország gyűlésére való perek", in English cca. "litigations belonging to the competence of the assembly of the realm"). 100 For the other form, we may refer to a letter sent by the Hungarian estates to the Slavonian estates in 1608 about Archduke Matthias, the later Matthias II (called in this letter as the regent) who should not be involved in the affairs of Hungary until "the coming assembly of our country" ("az jövendö Orszagunk Gyölésigh", with modern spelling: "az jövendő országunk gyűléséig"). 101 The third old version of országgyűlés leads us to the modern offi cial English translation "National Assembly", in the sense of the word national as "country-wide", as a known contemporary synonym for generalis. This version, "országos gyűlés" can also be found in some 17 th century documents, such as the Hungarian edition of the Tripartitum published in 1643 in Bártfa (now Bardejov, Slovakia) in which the expression "ad diaetam & conventione generalem" was translated to "bizonyos hagyot napra, vagy Orszagos gyülesre mennenek" (with modern spelling: "bizonyos hagyott napra vagy országos gyűlésre mennének", in English: "[who are] going to a certain day or general assembly" -that is, at the same time, a good proof of the already mentioned connection between the words diaeta and "day"), 102 or a very nice example from 1653, right on the fi rst page of the compilation of Transylvanian laws known as Approbatae: "a' közönséges jorol akarván concludálni Országos Gyülésekben" (in English: "wanting to conclude on the general good in national assemblies"). 103 In the late 18 th century, when the publication of the materials of diets (as diaries, bills, adopted laws) became common, the titles of such books usually contained the aforementioned possessive form "ország gyűlése", sometimes even with the attribute "Hungarian": "Magyar ország gyűlése" that can be spelled in a modern form as "Magyarország gyűlése", and in this case it can also be translated simply to "the assembly of Hungary". 104 We have also found a relatively early example where the two parts of the possessive form were connected to each other with a dash: the Hungarian title of the Acta Comitiorum ("Documents of the Parliament", containing all relevant documents from the letter of invitation and the royal propositiones up to the diaries of the sessions and the laws adopted at the diet, all of them in Latin language only) published in 1807 in Buda is spelled as "Az  According to the linguists, the use of the dash represents that two separate words are going to be connected more closely to each other, later forming a new, composite word. 106 Nemzetgyűlés As we mentioned in the previous chapter of this study, országgyűlés is a common name for parliaments in the modern Hungarian language, and if it is written in a legal document, book on any other formal publication with capital fi rst letter as "Országgyűlés", we can always be sure that this is about the parliament of Hungary, because our legislative assembly has been offi cially called like this since the introduction of Hungarian as the offi cial language. 107 However, there were short periods in Hungarian history, when another offi cial name was used, that is nemzetgyűlés ("national assembly"). We would like to emphasise that the fact that the name Országgyűlés is commonly translated to English as "National Assembly", 108 can be slightly misleading, and in the fi nal part of the present study we would like make an attempt to substantiate this statement. In the Hungarian language the word "nemzet", which the attribute "nemzeti" ("national") is deriving from, means nation in the sense of "people", the ensemble of citizens, and before 1848 the community of the inhabitants of Hungary having political privileges, Werbőczy's "noble-nation". That is why Hajnóczy, at the end of the fi rst chapter of his book containing the list of different names for the Hungarian parliament, does not propose the use of expressions like this in Hungarian, because, according to his enlightened opinion based on the principle of popular sovereignty of the 18 th century, an assembly cannot be called "national" where only a part of the nation is represented. 109 From this point of view, the parliament of our time could legitimately be called "National Assembly" in English, because popular representation is nowadays satisfactorily guaranteed by general suffrage. It is not surprising that the Hungarian expressions "nemzeti gyűlés" (national assembly) and "nemzet gyűlése" (assembly of the nation) were fi rst used in Hungary in connection with the Assemblée nationale of the French revolution, already in 1789. The latter ("nemzet gyűlése") has been transformed to the composite word "nemzetgyűlés" very similarly to the formation of the word "országgyűlés" (from "ország gyűlése"). 110 When the fi rst Hungarian legislative assembly based on popular representation (franchise as regulated in Act V of 1848) summoned on 5 July 1848 in Pest (as provided by Act IV of 1848), the legendary poet of the Hungarian 1848, Sándor Petőfi (1823-1849) published a revolutionary poem addressed to its members with the title "A nemzetgyűléshez" ("To the National Assembly"). 111 Thus, as the lower chamber was renamed to House of Representatives (Képviselőház), the parliament as a whole could have been renamed to nemzetgyűlés as well, but it hasn't been. However, as we mentioned, there are some periods in the history of the Hungarian parliamentarism when the legislative assembly was offi cially called nemzetgyűlés instead of országgyűlés. If we look at these, we can fi nd two (maybe cumulative) reasons why this name change could occur. The fi rst era was between 1920 and 1926, when the continuity of the Hungarian historical constitution was restored after the revolutions of 1918-19, but the second chamber (Főrendiház) was not reinstated until January 1927. The old Főrendiház ceased to exist (by the legal nonsense of self-dissolution) in the fl urry of the post-fi rst-world-war events in October 1918. The second period started very similarly: the upper chamber (since 1927 simply called Felsőház, "Upper House") also dissolved itself in practice when all its functionaries resigned on 3 November 1944, two weeks after the arrow-cross movement had been brought to power by Gestapo. The new, provisional assembly organised by the opposition parties and communists under the territories already liberated by the Soviet army in Debrecen, the eastern part of Hungary, became unicameral and was called Ideiglenes Nemzetgyűlés ("Provisional National Assembly"). Consequently, we may observe on one hand that the legislative organ of Hungary was called nemzetgyűlés instead of országgyűlés always in provisional, transitional periods; and on the other hand that, when the word nemzetgyűlés was in use as a denomination, the Hungarian parliament never had a second chamber. By virtue of Act XII of 1926 reinstating the second chamber of the parliament in its position from 1927, i.e. restoring the historic, bicameral structure thereof, it had to be offi cially called országgyűlés again. After the second world war, the name országgyűlés was brought back by Act XXII of 1947 on the parliamentary elections (already in its Hungarian title: "az országgyűlési választásokról" instead of "a nemzetgyűlési választásokról"). 112 The questions whether the Hungarian parliament should be called országgyűlés (as it is actually called) or nemzetgyűlés, and that the offi cial English name "National Assembly" is the translation of the fi rst, the latter or both, have less importance from the point of view of our constitutional history than the question whether the parliament should be unicameral or bicameral. According to the Hungarian historical constitution, our legislative assembly should be, and in all periods of our history when the historical constitution was respected, it actually was bicameral. However, in fact, we have not had an upper chamber since November 1944, and it would be impossible to reinstate the original one, and maybe it would not be possible to create a new one either. The same happened in many other European countries as well: the maintenance of bicameral parliaments in non-federal countries has become exceptional. Returning to the question of denomination classifi ed above as secondary, we would like to refer to the Fundamental Law of Denmark of 1953 that transformed the Danish bicameral parliament (earlier called Rigsdag) to a unicameral assembly called Folketing ("Assembly of the People", or with other words: national assembly). Between 1849 and 1953, Folketing was the name of the lower chamber of the parliament of Denmark, thus in 1953 the new, unicameral assembly was simple given the name how the lower chamber had earlier been called. Following this (very well-founded) logic, if we accept that the Hungarian parliament was always called nemzetgyűlés in provisional, transitional periods of history only, it should now bear the name "Képviselőház" ("House of Representatives"), since this was the name of its lower chamber, based on popular representation, between 1848-1918 and 1927-1944. For a legal historian who adheres to historical terms, the use of name "országgyűlés" for a unicameral parliament will always seem to be a bit problematic.

Conclusion
Similarly to the diets of other European countries based on a mixture of personal attendance of some privileged groups of the society and the representation of other classes or groups, the Hungarian parliament also has its origins at the turn of the high and late Middle Ages. The fi rst royal assemblies that can already be called parliament were convened in the last decade(s) of the 13 th century. The Hungarian diet had no offi cial name. It was usually referred to with Latin expressions known and used in other countries as well, such as congregatio, conventio, comitia and diaeta. The last two became very popular in the early modern period, and the Hungarian historiography often uses the Hungarian version of diaeta ("diéta") in order to distinguish the general assemblies of the estates from the modern parliaments based on popular representation (rather called "parlament"). Interestingly, the Latin equivalent of the latter, parlamentum, was almost never used in the medieval and early modern period, except for some early examples in the late 13 th century. For a long time, Hungarian was not accepted as the language of political and legal communication (except for the Principality of Transylvania). In the Kingdom of Hungary it has become offi cial only as late as in 1844. Since then, the name of the Hungarian parliament has been "országgyűlés" (national assembly in the sense of the word "nation" as the country). Another form, "nemzetgyűlés" (national assembly in the sense of the word "nation" as the people) was in use as well, in the literature for a short time already in 1848 (making a comparison with the Assemblée nationale of the French revolution), while offi cially in two brief and provisional periods in the 20 th century, 1920-26 and 1945-47 (always referring to the necessity of the establishment of a permanent, defi nitive parliament that can be fi nally called "országgyűlés" again). Now, the offi cial Hungarian name of our legislative assembly is therefore Országgyűlés (with majuscule), and its offi cial English name is National Assembly. The word parlament is also commonly used, in the normal speech and in more formal communications as well, however, if we want to refer specifi cally to the parliament of Hungary, we prefer to apply the word országgyűlés. A good example of this distinction is the fact that the Hungarian parliament can be called "magyar országgyűlés" or "magyar parlament" as well -those two expressions are synonyms of each other -but the European Parliament shall always be called "Európai Parlament", the form "európai országgyűlés" would be more than unusual.