The counts of Okić
When Okić and its tithe, owed to the Zagreb bishopric, were first mentioned in 1193, no lord of Okić was named. We can only surmise that this was the aforementioned Jaroslav of Okić, whose name appears in a charter just some twenty years later. A record from 1217 notes that the estate of Count Jaroslav of Okić extended as far as the village of Blato on the Sava — that is, the very site where Zagreb's University Hospital is now under construction. It is assumed that Jaroslav held the office of great župan or even ban.
Ivan I, son of Jaroslav, won distinction in 1242 when the Tatars broke into Croatia, laid unsuccessful siege to Kalnik, laid waste to Zagreb and pressed on towards the sea. By all accounts they also attacked Okić Castle without success, the fortress reportedly being held by Count Ivan, who thereby aided King Béla IV in the struggle against the Tatars. In recognition of this service, Count Ivan received a special charter from King Ladislaus in 1284. The claim that Okić was successfully defended is further supported by a charter of King Béla IV dating from 1242 — issued immediately after the departure of those Asian aggressors — which granted a special charter to the neighbouring market town of Samobor. In it the king refers to the fortified castle of Okić or Oklić, but makes no mention of it having been destroyed or damaged. In 1251 Count Ivan of Okić received yet another mark of royal favour when King Béla IV gave him leave to build a second castle near Okić, to provide future defence of the area. This was Lipovec in the Samobor hills, which from that time served Okić as a twin fortress.
The primary sources speak admirably of Count Ivan I of Okić, and on the basis of them I. Kukuljević concludes: "Ivan, Count of Oklić, was not only a brave warrior and faithful servant of his sovereign, but also a man of great piety and a supporter of the Church and the clergy. Just as he had fought heroically for his homeland in the Tatar war, so he distinguished himself still further in the Bohemian war against King Ottokar, whose men had, in the immediate vicinity of Oklić Castle and on Croatian soil, built the new frontier town of Samobor, to the great peril of the entire surrounding area. This affront done to him, to the people and to the king could not be endured by the valiant Ivan, and so from Oklić Castle he set about with great effort and expense to wrest that new town from his king's enemy — which he at last, after a long and bloody battle, happily succeeded in doing. In reward for this great service, King Ladislaus IV granted him in 1284 the town and new castle of Samobor together with the gate-toll (tributum Portae) that was collected near the town on the border of the Kingdom of Croatia."
From the various grant charters we may conclude that Count Ivan I of Okić was both wealthy and powerful. He paid particular attention to the Cistercian monastic order, which had recently come to Croatia and was making its mark through its estates and buildings — as at Topusko (then known as Toplica), where the portal of their once great church still stands, and at Zagreb and at Otok on the Sava near Zagreb. To the Cistercian abbey there, Ivan donated the church of Saint Helena near Samobor, together with a field, three vineyards and a mill on the Samobor stream (probably the Gradna). The following year he donated to the same monastery his dues collected at the market town of Samobor, and shortly afterwards endowed a new Cistercian abbey at Brezovica near Zagreb, which at that time formed part of his Okić estate. From this we may infer that the boundary of that estate towards Zagreb ran along the River Sava, meaning that what is today Novi Zagreb would have belonged to the lordship of Okić. He also granted the Brezovica monastery certain lands for its upkeep and placed it under the governance of the abbot of Saint James at Otok on the Sava.
Ivan was evidently a man of standing, as one document records that he was appointed as an arbitrator between the abbey of Toplica (Topusko) and a certain Count Martin over a dispute regarding landholding. His final act at the same time heralded the imminent end of the counts of Okić. In 1283 he sold the fortress of Lipovec to Count Radoslav of Blagaj, of the Babonić family, who would soon become lords of Okić as well.
The wealth and the numbers of the Counts of Okić are attested by further written sources that mention a certain Jurko, son of Ban Oklić (1256), and Dionis or Dioniš of Okić, who before 1275 served as palatine (lord steward, chief courtier) at the court of the Croatian-Hungarian kings — indicating that the Okić family belonged to the magnate class of the society of their day. At Körmend, a castle in the Transmura region of Hungary (not far from Čakovec), he had a church or chapel built and endowed it with land for its upkeep. From this we may conclude that the Okić family held estates beyond the Drava and the Mura as well, that is, at the heart of the joint state of the time.
It is not known precisely how or when the Okić estate passed into the hands of the counts of Blagaj, but it is recorded that as early as 1293 the lord of the castle and its domain was the aforementioned Radoslav Babonić (Baboneg) of Blagaj. King Andrija II of Hungary-Croatia granted him the lands of Okić, Petrinja, Vinodol, Podgorje, Samobor, Zelina, Vrbas and Gala — encompassing almost the entire region from present-day Banja Luka to the Carniolan border. He was installed in this vast holding by the Zagreb Chapter, represented by its archdeacon, who bore the title of Sanskrit Vrbas-Dubnica, since parts of western Bosnia then belonged to Croatia (Slavonia). The subsequent fate of Ivan of Okić, who appears in documents for the last time in 1297, is unknown. He had most probably sold the entire estate to the Blagaj family, just as he had sold the fortress of Lipovec some ten years earlier.
When the Babonić brothers of Blagaj divided their holdings in 1314, one of them — again an Ivan — received the right to collect tolls on the road below Okić, whose destination is unknown to us; it is therefore assumed that he was also the owner of the fortress and the Okić estate. Alongside him, another Ivan is mentioned, whom we may call Ivan II. The original documents identify him as Ivan, son of Ivan, son of Jaroslav — the last of the Okić line — to whom in 1349 the archdeacon of Gorica sold three villages belonging to the Zagreb Chapter: Navlaka, Otok and Kosnica, on the condition that he pay the Chapter, as the new owner, the same dues as the previous holders. This sale was confirmed in 1366 by King Ludovik I (Louis) of the Angevin dynasty, known as Louis the Great because he drove the Venetians from the Croatian coast and united the whole of east-central Europe — from the Adriatic to the Baltic, including Poland and Lithuania — into a single realm.
It is not known how the lords of Blagaj lost their vast estates stretching from the Vrbas and Sana rivers to the Sava and the Samobor hills — perhaps in war with King Charles Robert — but from 1327 Okić was in the king's hands, under the direct administration of the Croatian ban. Towards the end of the 14th century, in the bitter wars that King Sigismund waged in Bosnia and against the Turks, Okić too came under the hammer. The king sold it in 1393 for ten thousand gold florins to Tomaš, son of Benvenutas or Benvenjud. From that time Tomaš styled himself "of Okić" (de Okych), and in 1395 he had all his estates inventoried and their boundaries with Samobor, Lipovec and Susnjed (Sesedgrad) defined — where the lord was Lovro Tot — while in Rakitje the Zalović nobles held sway, and in Brezovica the Ivanovići. The ridge of the Samobor hills formed the boundary between Lipovec and Okić, and to Okić belonged all the villages from Brezovica and Stupnik to Kupčina and Šišljavić, including Cvetkovići, with the streams of Okićnica, Kupčina and others also mentioned.
Towards the end of the 14th century and into the early 15th, a dynastic war raged throughout the Croatian-Hungarian kingdom, drawing in Tomaš of Okić on the side of King Sigismund. The rival king Ladislav of Naples therefore attempted to seize his estate and grant it to Nikola, the prince of Krk. Since Ladislav soon had to withdraw from Croatia and in 1409 sold Dalmatia to Venice, the princes of Krk — better known as the Frankopans — did not take possession of Okić at that time, but rather somewhat later.
Around this period several noblemen bearing the name Okićki are mentioned. One of them, Toma, as the owner of Okić Castle, pledged two of his estates to the counts of Celje and Zagorje; then there were Vladislav Okićki and Sigismund Okićki, the latter of whom had the Okić estate inventoried again in 1406. One of the Okićki family, Benvenuto, added to his first title that of Ostrožinski, having become the owner of that estate and its fortress.
