THE CASES OF S ZEGED AND D EBRECEN

In my paper, after a short introductory survey of urban development in medieval Hungary, I will focus on the histories of two towns, Szeged and Debrecen. Both towns are located in the eastern part of the realm and on the territory of the Great Hungarian Plain. These two towns can be regarded as the most important locali-ties of this region in the late fifteenth century. My primary aim is to demonstrate how the urban policy of King Matthias and the members of the Hunyadi family affected the development of these two towns, which in the second half of the fif-teenth century went through profound changes.

GENERAL FEATURES OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN THE MEDIEVAL KINGDOM OF HUNGARY

By the mid-fifteenth century, when Matthias ascended to the throne of Hungary, the towns of the realm had a past reaching back several hundred years. However, it should be stressed already at this point that real towns, that is, ones that – be-sides being centres of trade and handicrafts – enjoyed broad legal autonomy, did not appear before the turn of the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries. These places are mostly referred in Latin documents as civitates (sometimes as oppida), with their inhabitants named as cives et hospites. A particular and characteristic fea-ture of medieval Hungarian urban development is that foreign ethnic groups, be-longing to the socio-legal category of hospites, i.e. guests, largely contributed to the formation of towns, once the necessary level of economic and social deve-lopment was reached. Their presence in Hungarian pre-urban and real towns is sometimes testified by direct evidence, i.e. information provided by royal char-ters and narrative sources, while in other cases we have only indirect evidence, such as toponyms. Among these foreign groups the ‘Latins’ and the Germans should be mentioned. The ‘Latins’ were constituted preponderantly by Walloons and Italians. Walloons came from Flanders, Northern France and Lorraine, and appeared in Hungary particularly in the eleventh-twelfth centuries, while the Ital-ians arrived primarily from Lombardy. Their presence was very important, espe-cially during the reign of the Angevin kings, and in the late fifteenth century,

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ticularly after Matthias’s marriage to Beatrice of Aragon. It should be noted, however, that most of the Italians cannot be regarded, in fact, as burghers of the Hungarian towns, since they remained foreign merchants, or became royal offi-cials working in different branches of state-administration. The Germans were partly Saxons living in Transylvania and in the Szepes (present-day Spiš, Slova-kia) region, and partly Teutonici, i.e. people coming from the towns of Austria and Southern-Germany (Wien, Augsburg, Nürnberg etc.). Besides Transylvania and the Szepes region, the towns of the western borderland, for example, the chartered royal cities of Pozsony (Bratislava, Pressburg), Nagyszombat (Trnava, Tyrnau) and Sopron (Ödenburg), just to mention the most important ones, the mining towns and, of course, the royal city of Buda, the medieval capital of the realm, were also places where Germans lived in large numbers in the Late Mid-dle Ages. In short: from the second part of the thirteenth century German ascen-dancy became obvious in most of the towns of the Hungarian Kingdom.¹

The thirteenth century, primarily the years following the Mongol invasion of 1241, brought several serious changes in the socio-political and economic life of the kingdom. This is the time when Hungary, parallel with the decline of the trading contacts with Kiev and Constantinople, became an integral part of Western Euro-pean economy. Links tying Hungary to Germany and Italy had become ever closer.

Surprisingly enough, after the Mongol invasion only the German immigration con-tinued.²

1 For further details see Fügedi, Erik, „A befogadó: a középkori a magyar királyság” [Medieval Hungary as a welcoming kingdom], In: Fügedi, Erik, Kolduló barátok, polgárok, nemesek [Mendi-cant friars, burghers, nobles] Budapest, 1981. 398–418.; Györffy, György, „A székesfehérvári lati-nok betelepülésének kérdése” [The settling of Latin guests in Székesfehérvár], In: Székesfehérvár évszázadai [Centuries of Székesfehérvár]. Székesfehérvár, 1972. Vol. I–II. II. 37–44.; Kubinyi, András, „Zur frage der deutschen Siedlungen im mittleren Teil des Königreichs Ungarn (1200–

1541)”, Vorträge und Forschungen 18 (1975) 527–66.; Székely, György, „A székesfehérvári lati-nok és vallolati-nok a középkori Magyarországon” [The Latins and Walloons of Székesfehérvár in medieval Hungary], In: Székesfehérvár évszázadai, II. 45–72.; Petrovics, István, „A korai magyar városfejlődés és az idegen jog” [Early Hungarian urban development and foreign law], In: Régi és új peregrináció, magyarok külföldön, külföldiek Magyarországon [Old and new peregrination, Hungarians abroad, foreigners in Hungary] Papers of the Third International Congress on ian Studies. Szeged, 1993. 267–71.; Korai magyar történeti lexikon (9–14. század) [Early Hungar-ian historical lexicon, ninth to fourteenth centuries). Ed. in chief Kristó, Gyula, Eds. Makk, Ferenc and Engel, Pál. Budapest, 1994. s.v. vallonok, olaszok, németek; István Petrovics, „The fading glory of a former royal seat: the case of medieval Temesvár”, In: Nagy, Balázs and Sebők, Marcell (eds.) …The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways… Festschrift in Honor of János M. Bak. Budapest, 1999. 527-28. Engel, Pál, The realm of St Stephen: A history of medieval Hungary, 895–1526. London and New York, 2001. 69; Petrovics, István, „Foreign ethnic groups in the towns of Southern Hungary in the Middle Ages” (Forthcoming).

2 Szűcs, Jenő, „Az utolsó Árpádok” [The last kings of the Árpád dynasty], Budapest, 1993. 223-41.; Szende, Katalin „Was there a bourgeoisie in medieval Hungary?” In: Nagy–Sebők (eds.),

…The Man of Many Devices, 446.; Engel, The realm of St Stephen, 112; Petrovics, Foreign eth-nic groups.

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It should also be noted that from the thirteenth century onwards the term hospes referred primarily not to foreign immigrants, but to such persons who dur-ing the process of colonization had acquired a special legal status but were not necessarily of foreign origin. This fundamental change meant that anybody en-joying that particular legal status – regardless of ethnic origins – could be re-ferred to as a hospes. Thus, in addition to the Latins and the Germans, Hungari-ans, Armenians and Slavic people were also among the hospites.³

Another particular and characteristic feature of urban development is that the nature of urbanisation in medieval Hungary was determined by two factors: one of them being the production and export of gold and the other the import of lux-ury goods. The network of towns that came to life in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was essentially shaped by these economic circumstances. The most im-portant towns emerged at places where consumption was concentrated: in the middle of the kingdom where the royal court resided, along the frontier where merchants from abroad entered the kingdom, and in the mining regions where precious metals were produced. Consequently, Hungary's urban network had a strange, semicircular shape, which more or less followed the ranges of the Carpa-thian mountains. It is conspicuous, but in the light of the above mentioned facts not surprising, that within this semicircle in the southern part of Transdanubia, in the Great Hungarian Plain, and in the Temes region, towns can hardly be found.⁴ There are only two localities in this area, Szeged and Pécs, which were towns of outstanding importance, the latter being, in fact, an episcopal seat.⁵ However, the case of Pécs, or rather that of Nagyvárad (present-day Oradea, Romania) shows that an economic upswing did not necessarily depend on a privilege. Although Nagyvárad had neither walls, nor real self-government, and its inhabitants were not cives, but the tenants of the bishop and the chapter residing in the town, thanks to its favourable geographical location, became one of the most important trade centres of the realm. It had the right to hold 9 annual fairs, which, with the ones in its agglomeration, Olaszi and Vadkert, runs to 11 altogether.⁶

The urban network of fifteenth-century Hungary was constituted, above all, by 30 localities, which were regarded as royal free cities. Among them were the mining towns: Selmec-, Körmöc-, Beszterce-, Új-, Baka-, Béla-, Libetbánya

3 Petrovics, The fading glory, 528.

4 Szűcs, Az utolsó Árpádok, 266-76.; Petrovics, The fading glory, 529.; Kubinyi, András, Város-fejlődés és vásárhálózat a középkori Alföldön és az Alföld szélén [Urban development and the network of markets on the Great Hungarian Plain and its fringes in the Middle Ages]. Szeged, 2000. 11.; Engel, The realm of St Stephen, 247-53.

5 Kubinyi, Városfejlődés és vásárhálózat, 92.; Kubinyi, András, „Pécs gazdasági jelentősége és városiassága a késő-középkorban” [The economic significance of Pécs and the level of its ur-banization in the Late Middle Ages] In: Font, Márta (ed.) Pécs szerepe a Mohács előtti Ma-gyarországon [The role of the town of Pécs in the period preceding the battle of Mohács]. Pécs, 2001. 43–52.

6 Kubinyi, Városfejlődés és vásárhálózat, 92.

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(present-day Banská Štiavnica, Kremnica, Banská Bystrica, Nová Baňa, Pu-kanec, Banská Belá, L’ubietová – all in Slovakia), Nagybánya (present day Baia Mare, Romania) and the towns of the Transylvanian Saxons: Nagyszeben, Brassó, Beszterce, Medgyes, Szászsebes, Szászváros, Segesvár (present-day Si-biu, Braşov, Mediaş, Bistriţa, Sebeş, Oraştie, Sighişoara – all in Romania). How-ever, the most illustrious group of the royal free cities was formed by the so called free royal or tavernical cities, represented by the 8 walled localities that came under the jurisdiction of the Tavernical Bench, headed by the dignitary magister tavernicorum, i.e. the Master of the Treasury. (Buda, Sopron, Pozsony (present-day Bratislava, Slovakia), Nagyszonbat (present-day Trnava, Slovakia), Kassa (present-day Košice, Slovakia), Bártfa (present-day Bardejov, Slovakia), Eperjes (present-day Prešov, Slovakia). Pest, the eighth city, due to its rapid de-velopment, could join this group, in all probability, around 1481, i.e. during King Matthias’ reign. Another group was formed by those towns, which were privi-leged to appeal to the court of the personalis, i.e. to the sedes personalita: Eszter-gom, Székesfehérvár, Lőcse day Levoča, Slovakia), Szakolca (present-day Skalica, Slovakia), Kisszeben (present-(present-day Sabinov, Slovakia) and Szeged.⁷

Besides, there were many other towns in the realm that had already passed into private lordship, therefore, their inhabitants were not considered free burgh-ers. Some of these towns were fortified like Kőszeg, Kismarton (present-day Eisenstadt, Austria), Szalónak (present-day Stadtschlaining, Austria), Trencsén, Beckó, Kézsmárk (present-day Trenčin, Beckov, Kežmarok – all in Slovakia), Siklós; some were episcopal towns, though they were individually referred to as civitas, but they were not free towns in fact. However, the overwhelming major-ity of towns belonged to the category of oppida, i.e. they were unwalled localities subject to seigneurial jurisdiction. Some of them were under the seigneury of the king: Komárom (present-day Komárno, Slovakia), Tata, Nagymaros, or the queen: Óbuda, Ráckeve, Miskolc, Beregszász (present-day Beregove, Ukraine) and the five towns of the Máramaros (present-day Maramureş, Romania) salt-region, while other oppida were subjected to secular or ecclesiastical lords.⁸

The most important conclusion that can be drawn from the facts presented above is that the town in the legal sense of the word should not be confused with the more general idea of the town as a commercial centre, or to be more precise, as a central place. It was András Kubinyi who made the concept of central places fit Hungarian circumstances, and with the help of his research results it can be easily shown how urbanized a certain settlement was. It seems that there were

al-7 Engel, The realm of St Stephen, 254-55.; Kubinyi, András, „Városhálózat a késő középkori Kár-pát-medencében” [The network of towns in the Carpathian Basin in the Late Middle Ages] In:

Csukovits, Enikő–Lengyel, Tünde, Bártfától Pozsonyig. Városok a 13–17. században [From Bártfa/Bardejov as far as Pozsony/Bratislava. Towns in the thirteenth-seventeenth centuries].

Budapest, 2005. 9–10.

8 Engel, The realm of St Stephen, 255.

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together 1,200 central places in fifteenth century Hungary, of which only 180 to 200 can be regarded as urban type localities. However, the overwhelming major-ity of these places, approximately 150 settlements can only be regarded as towns in the economic sense of the word. To put it another way: central places can be ranked into seven categories, of which only the localities belonging to the first four categories can be regarded – functionally – as towns. In order to demonstrate Kubinyi’s results, let me have a few examples of the four categories. In brackets one can see the points in Kubinyi’s categorization a locality could gain as a cen-tral place:

Category I: Towns of primary importance:

Buda (55); Pozsony/Bratislava (49); Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca (45); Kassa/Ko-šice (43); Székesfehérvár (43); Szeged (42); Pest (41); Sopron (41);

Várad/Oradea (41).

Category II: Towns of secondary importance:

Pécs (39); Esztergom (38); Bártfa/Bardejov (33), Eperjes/Prešov (32).

Category III: Towns of minor importance and oppida with major urban func-tions:

Nagybánya/Baia Mare (29); Lippa/Lipova (28); Debrecen (28); Kismar-ton/Eisenstadt (22)

Category IV: Oppida with medium urban functions:

Kőszeg (19); Visegrád (17); Kisszeben/Sabinov (16)⁹

After this short survey of the history of towns in medieval Hungary, it is possible now to proceed to the case studies of Szeged and Debrecen.

Part II/1.

SZEGED IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Szeged was one of the most important towns of Southern Hungary in the Middle Ages. It emerged at the confluence of the Rivers Tisza and Maros. Although a watch-tower stood here in Roman times, and different nomadic peoples (e.g.

Huns, Avars) also favoured this region, no urban-type settlement existed here be-fore the arrival of the Magyars in the late ninth century. Both archaeological

find-9 Kubinyi, Városfejlődés és vásárhálózat, 7–94; Kubinyi, Városhálózat a késő középkori, 17–31.

See the full list of central places on page 30.

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ings and documentary evidence support the contention that the town of Szeged evolved in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Due to its favourable geographical location, all regions of the kingdom could be reached from here. While the River Maros connected Szeged with Transylvania, the River Tisza created a link with the southern and northern parts of the realm. Moreover, from Szeged, with its very busy ford, important land routes led to the western and north-western locali-ties of the kingdom.

The name of Szeged appears in written sources as early as 1183, but its hos-pites were first mentioned only in 1247. The appearance of the hoshos-pites who, most probably were ethnic Hungarians and the subjects of the king, demonstrates that the pre-urban Szeged was being transformed into a real town after the Mon-gol invasion. In contrast with other parts of the kingdom, no foreign ethnic groups seemed to have played a role in this process. The influx of Romance speaking Latin guests to Hungary took place mainly prior to the thirteenth cen-tury and even at that time they avoided settling in the localities of the Great Plain.

The situation was the same with the Germans who succeeded the Latin guests.

Depending on their occupation, both the Latin and German settlers preferred ad-ministrative centres, primarily royal and ecclesiastical seats, and the mountainous regions of the kingdom to the Great Plain. The lack of toponyms such as Olasz(i), (‘Italians’), Szász(i) (‘Saxons’), Német(i) (‘Germans’) etc. in the territory of the Great Plain confirms the above statement.

The first mention of Szeged in the sources that can be analysed from a demo-graphic and ethnic point of view, occurs in the tithe-list from the year 1522. This important document enumerated 1,644 mostly independent families in Szeged and, according to scholars who made estimates on the basis of this tithe-list, the number of inhabitants of the town might have reached 8,000 – or according to another opinion, 9,500 – at that time. This shows that Szeged was one of the most populous towns of the Hungarian Kingdom in the Late Middle Ages. For the sake of comparison let me mention that Buda, the medieval “capital” of the realm had 12–15,000, while Pest, the second largest one had 10,000 inhabitants at the end of the fifteenth century. The tithe-list also justifies that the population of Szeged was able to preserve its Hungarian character even in the first half of the sixteenth century.

It is equally important to stress that Szeged was not only a town with a large number of inhabitants, but was also a thriving commercial centre, the bases of which were provided by the large-scale cattle- and horse-breeding, and the wine-production in the Szerémség, a region located between the Danube and the Sava rivers. Besides, from the earliest times on a royal salt warehouse had been in op-eration in the town, also enhancing its development. In accordance with the gen-eral Hungarian situation, commerce played a more important role than craft in-dustry in the economic life of the town. Consequently, Szeged had the privilege of holding three weekly markets in the fifteenth century, and from 1499 an an-nual fair.

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From the point of view of the ecclesiastical structure, Szeged was the centre of an archdeaconry, although the archidiaconus Segediensis moved, probably in the thirteenth century, to Bács (present-day Bač in Serbia) where the archbishops of Kalocsa had one of their seats. The town had two parish churches, one dedi-cated to St. George, the other to St. Demetrius, two hospitals, and four monaster-ies (two belonging to the Franciscan order, one to the Dominicans and one to the Premonstratensians) in the Late Middle Ages. These ecclesiastical institutions, however, did not threaten or restrict the autonomy of Szeged, which – with the exception of shorter periods – pertained to the king in the whole of the Middle Ages. This favourable legal position and the economic importance the town had reached by the late fifteenth century led to King Wladislas II declaring Szeged to be a royal free town in 1498. It should also be noted, nevertheless, that the new legal status of Szeged was enacted only in 1514.¹⁰

Part II/2.

DEBRECEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The other town of the Great Hungarian Plain, Debrecen also had a very favour-able geographical location: it came into being in a region that served as a natural passage between Upper Hungary and Transylvania. Owing to this, Debrecen also functioned as a thriving commercial centre, though its trading activity was con-siderably restricted by Várad (present-day Oradea, Romania), an episcopal seat situated about 30 kilometres from Debrecen on the geographical border between the Great Hungarian Plain and Transylvania. In contrast with Szeged, Debrecen appeared in written documents relatively late (it was mentioned for the first time in 1235), and for a long period, similarly to Szeged, it was not a unified settle-ment. The town later to be named as Debrecen was composed of three indepen-dent villages (Debrecen, Mesterfalva, Szent László-falva), owned by the

mem-10 For the medieval history of Szeged see Szeged története [History of Szeged], Vol. I. From the beginnings up to 1686. Ed. Kristó, Gyula. Szeged, 1983. The relevant parts were written by László Szegfű, István Petrovics and Péter Kulcsár. See also Petrovics, István, „Dél-dunántúli és dél-alföldi városok kapcsolata Felső Magyarországgal a középkorban” [Economic and social contacts of towns situated in the southern parts of Transdanubia and the Great Hungarian Plain with Upper-Hungary in the Middle Ages]. In: Csukovits–Lengyel, Bártfától Pozsonyig, 133-4., 144-48., 153-55.; Petrovics, István „Witch-hunt in Szeged in the early eighteenth century.” In:

Blanka Szeghyová (ed.), The role of magic in the past. Learned and popular magic, popular be-liefs and diversity of attitudes. Bratislava, 2005. 108–116. Documents, mostly charters, pertain-ing to the medieval history of Szeged are published in extenso in the work of János Reizner,

Blanka Szeghyová (ed.), The role of magic in the past. Learned and popular magic, popular be-liefs and diversity of attitudes. Bratislava, 2005. 108–116. Documents, mostly charters, pertain-ing to the medieval history of Szeged are published in extenso in the work of János Reizner,