peasants were unable to pay this amount, especially because they also had to pay the seigneurial taxes to the owners of their parcels. To secure the payment of the arrears, the bishop applied ecclesiastic penalties, placing whole villages under interdict in summer 1436. He also excommunicated the petty noblemen who had refused to pay the tithe. However, most serfs resisted and their lords were unwilling to assist the bishop. At the bishop's request, the king ordered the voivode and the ispáns (or heads) of the counties to secure the collection of the tithe in early September. The king also decreed that all peasants who failed to pay the arrears within a month after their excommunication were to pay twelve golden florins as a penalty. Rebellion breaks out The revolt developed from local disturbances in the first half of 1437. The villagers from Daróc, Mákó and Türe (Dorolțu, Macău and Turea) assaulted the abbot of Kolozsmonostor at Bogártelke (Băgara) in March. In Alsó-Fehér County and around Déva (Deva), the serfs gathered into small bands and attacked the noblemen's manors. Peasants from Alparét and Bogáta (Bogata de Sus) were the first to settle on the top of the nearby Mount Bábolna in May or June. Being surrounded by high cliffs and dense forests and crowned by a plateau of about , the mountain was an ideal place for defence. Following the Taborites' military strategy, the rebels established a camp on the flat summit of the mountain. A lesser nobleman, Antal Nagy de Buda, came with a group of peasants from Diós and Burjánosóbuda (Deușu and Vechea) to the mountain. The Vlach Mihai arrived with people from Virágosberek (Florești). Salt miners from Szék (Sic) and poor townspeople from Kolozsvár joined the peasantry. About 5–6,000 armed men gathered on the plateau by the end of June, according to historian Lajos Demény's estimation. Bishop Lépes and his brother, the vice-voivode, started to assemble their troops near the peasants' camp. The absent voivode, Ladislaus Csáki, hurried to Transylvania. The counts of the Székelys, Michael Jakcs and Henry Tamási, also joined the united armies of the voivode and the bishop. The young noblemen who joined the campaign wanted to make a sudden assault on the peasants, but the bishop suggested that the peasants should be pacified through negotiations. The delay enabled the rioters to complete the fortification of their camp. First battle and compromise The peasants elected