with true nobility. The ennobled Vlachs enjoyed the same privileges as their ethnic Hungarian peers, thus they became members of the "Hungarian nation" which had been associated with the community of noblemen. On the other hand, the Vlach commoners who lived on their estates lost their liberties. The Székelys were a community of privileged border guards. They fought in the royal army, for which they were exempted from taxation. A royal official, the count of the Székelys, was their supreme leader, but the Székely seats were administered by elected officials. The Saxons also had the right to elect the magistrates of their seats. They enjoyed personal freedom and paid a lump sum tax to the monarchs. The wealthiest Saxon towns – Bistritz, Hermannstadt and Kronstadt (Bistrița, Sibiu and Brașov) – owned large estates which were cultivated by hundreds of peasants. Dozens of Saxons and Székely families held landed property in the counties, for which they also enjoyed the status of noblemen. Saxon and Székely leaders were occasionally invited to Torda to attend the general assemblies, which enabled the leaders of the three nations to coordinate their actions. The towns, located in the counties, could hardly compete with the large Saxon centers. Kolozsvár was granted the right to buy landed property from the noblemen or other landowners in 1370, but its burghers were regarded as peasants by the bishops of Transylvania and the abbots of Kolozsmonostor Abbey, who forced them to pay the ninth (a seigneurial tax) on their vineyards until 1409. The merchants from Kolozsvár, Dés and other Transylvanian towns were exempted from internal levies, but the noblemen often ignored that privilege, forcing the merchants to pay duties while travelling across their domains. The Hungarians, Saxons and Székelys adhered to Roman Catholicism. The Diocese of Transylvania included most of the province, but the Saxons of Southern Transylvania were subjected to the archbishops of Esztergom. Catholic commoners were to pay an ecclesiastic tax, the tithe, but John XXIII exempted the lesser noblemen from paying it in 1415. However, George Lépes, the bishop of Transylvania, ignored this decision, especially after John had been declared an antipope. The Vlachs were originally exempt from the ecclesiastic tax, but Sigismund of Luxemburg, king of Hungary, decreed that the Vlachs who settled on lands abandoned by Catholic peasants were to also pay the tithe. Sigismund was an absent monarch, deeply involved in European politics; he spent