A rendiség maradványai a polgári korszak községi háztartásaiban. Példák Csíkból és Háromszékről
The Remnants of Feudal Estate System in Bourgeois-Era Communal Budgeting. Examples from Csík and Háromszék

Summary/Abstract: The Hungarian Villages Act of 1871, the first of its kind, offered rural municipalities two primary sources of income to fund public expenses: the shared benefits of communal goods, long enjoyed by local boards even before the law’s enactment, or—if those were insufficient or unavailable—the imposition of additional municipal taxes. This paper aims to explore the issue of access to material resources across various village types, categorized by their social composition rooted in feudal traditions. In the counties of Csík and Háromszék, the predominant settlement type was the mixed village, which encompassed estates belonging to Székely border guards as well as the players in feudal systems (landlords and dependent peasants). The municipalities in these villages had broad access to income generated by common lands—such as forests and pastures—and by feudal privileges (like the right to sell alcoholic beverages). However, these advantages proved transient. Following the redistribution of land under civil law, these once-ample resources dwindled. Two smaller settlement categories also emerged in this region: the feudal villages and the new settlements that gained independence after the 1848 bourgeois revolution. The governing bodies of these settlements had limited access to the aforementioned resources, which, once the law allowed, compelled them to resort to imposing additional taxes.

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