Such were the commencements of the Hungarian constitution,--an unbending aristocracy from the outset, into the forms of which time has doubtless introduced many changes,--but of which the spirit and the principle continue to this day, precisely what they were nine centuries ago. The first of these innovations occurred when Stephen ascended the throne; and by the open profession of Christianity, gave a different character to the whole order of society. His predecessors had never worn a title more imposing than that of duke; Stephen received from the pope both a royal crown, and the style and dignity connected with it. Moreover, Stephen, by creating bishoprics, and richly endowing both them and the monasteries, very much widened the circle of the nobility; which by the creation of new offices, and the granting of fiefs both by prelates and princes, received from time to time large accessions to its numbers. Then began distinctions to be claimed and recognised, even in the rights and privileges of the privileged classes. The nobles were divided into princes, prelates, barons of the kingdom, and magnates, whose rights, though in some trifling respects different, were yet so much akin as to permit their being treated as political equals. Next to them, yet claiming the essential privileges of nobility, came the king's chief retainers, with the holders of fiefs under the princes and prelates, and the principal retainers of the magnates; and finally, a humbler class followed, who, corresponding to our territorial but untitled aristocracy, are now content to bear the appellation of eidelmen, or gentry. All of these were, in the strictest acceptation of the term, freemen. They owed to the sovereign their right hands in war; and when the exigencies of the state required, such aids in money as they themselves might vote, but without such vote, in solemn comitia granted, there was no authority anywhere to exact from them either a blade of corn, or the most minute coin of the realm.