His father was the famous Palatine Werbőczi István (1458-1541) who wrote the Tripartitum. (Note, I use the Eastern name order for Hungarian names where family names come first.) The Tripartitum was a collection of Hungarian laws, the “Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary in Three Parts”. Practically, it is a manual of Hungarian customary law completed in 1514 by Werbőczy István and first published at Vienna in 1517. Although it never received official approval, it was highly influential and went through fifty editions in three hundred years.

However, the Tripartitum did not include the so-called written law (parliamentary laws, royal decrees, and statutes of the assemblies of the counties and the statutes of the free royal cities), which were always recorded in the law books after the decisions. 

Werbőczy was a petty nobleman and the Tripatitum “enshrines the ideals of a typical contemporary member of his class”. It asserts the privileges of the nobility against the crown, the equality of all nobles as against the claims of superiority of the upper nobility (magnates), and the onerous duties of serfs. A peasant revolt led by Dózsa György had been suppressed earlier in 1514, which influenced Werbőczy’s harsh treatment of serfs. The Tripartitum played a large role in perpetuating Hungary’s feudal system.

Werbőczy Imre was born in the mid-1510s. His father used to be a faithful supporter of King Szapolyai János but Imre left his father’s side when Sultan Suleiman occupied Buda castle in 1541. Behold, it could have been hard to break up with such a famous father: his father was an internationally accepted scholar who had been appointed to accompany Emperor Charles V to Worms to take up the cudgels against Martin Luther. Moreover, Pope Clement VII had commended Werbőczy as a scholar for his eminence in canon law and theology during Werbőczy’s dispute with Martin Luther at the Imperial Diet of Nurnberg. In 1517 Werbőczy István was appointed the guardian of the infant King Lajos (Louis) II and was sent on a foreign mission to solicit the aid of Christendom against the Turks.  In 1525,  he was the Palatine of the Kingdom of Hungary for a short time.

After 1541, his father stayed in Buda and his son must have blamed the fall of Buda to the Turks as his father’s political failure. However, a short time later his father died because he was poisoned, allegedly by the Ottomans. It was the point when his son took the side of King Habsburg Ferdinand. Imre began his military career by fighting regularly against the Turks. His fights took place around his domains in Tolna and in Baranya County. The famous Hungarian poet and musician, Tinódi Lantos Sebestyén was among his retinue. 

  Werbőczi immediately rushed to meet them but the Turks were anticipating his coming. The Hungarian cavalrymen were equipped with long lances and their charge brought a large success, right in the first part of the battle. Many Turks fell while others fled, leaving behind their captives. Werbőczy had already broken his lance and he was injured by a Turk on his face. They began their duel with sharp sabers: but according to Tinódi “his opponent cut the throat of Werbőczy’s nice horse, almost separating its head.” The animal fell on Imre, while the Turk was trying to cut him to pieces. Fortunately, Imre’s trusted men hurried there and rescued their lord, wounding the Turk warrior, then, taking his head, too. During the battle, they killed 90 Turks and captured a further 16 of them. Among the captives, there were Agha Murad, Voivodes Mustafa, and Ibrahim who were taken to Döbrököz castle. As for the 220 Hungarian captives, they were all freed.