A comparative perspective on the oath of a new burgher

Author(s): Hana Komárková / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2021

The role of immigration in the life of the late medieval and early modern town was important . A key part of this process (and best captured in the sources of urban origin) was the integration of a new burgher into existing urban social and economic structures . Like most of the power-economic relations of this time, the individual-burgher relation-ship to the group was based on mutual guarantees confirmed by an oath taken by a newly-accepted member . The essay will focus on the relevance and usability of early modern and modern codifications of urban oaths to explore the development of urban structures in the late Middle Ages and Early Modernity . It will also focus on comparing the content of the oath of the new burgher both in the general context of the oaths used in the urban environment and in the context of the specific development of the urban community in the area under consideration (Silesian and north Moravian towns based on Magdeburg rights) compared to the situation in the Western part of Holy Roman Empire.

A CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENT ON ŠAIH HAMZA FROM ORLOVIĆI (BOSNIA)

Author(s): Adem Handžić / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2019

Authors wrote earlier about Hamza Dede and his tekye, that he erected in 1519 in the village Orlovići, not far from the old castle Kušlat (on the road Vlasenica-Zvornik). Even S. Bašagić touched upon this in his works, and then others also referred to it (M. Karanović, R. Muderizović). Dr Muhamed Hadžijahić particularly dealt with that question. Based on four preserved Ottoman documents on the tekye (berats) and based on some other modest data, Hadžijahić tired to enlighten the formation of the tekye and its significance. He put special effort in the determination of the development and work of the Dervish Order, that is the Order of Hamzevije in Bosnia, that should – according to its name, and based on some other circumstances – originate from that tekye and which due its heretic teaching, and as it seems, also due to active participation of some followers in certain rebels against the Ottoman Empire, in the second half of the 16th century, was severely persecuted.

A Contribution to the Military Revolution Debate: The Janissaries Use of Volley Fire during the Long Ottoman-Habsburg War of 1593-1606 and the Problem of Origins

Author(s): Günhan Börekçi / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2006

According to proponents of the “Military Revolution” theory, musketry volley fire was among the military innovations that fundamentally altered early modern field warfare. The origins of European volley fire date back to the 1590s, but no western army, with the possible exception of the Dutch in 1600, was able to use this tactic in action until the 1620s. Furthermore, it has been thus far assumed that the Ottomans failed to adopt this new tactic and thus experienced setbacks in the face of their European adversaries during this period. By utilising hitherto overlooked Ottoman narrative and visual sources, this article first shows that the Janissaries were indeed using volley fire in action in 1605, and possibly before. Secondly, it raises questions about the origins of Ottoman volley fire, which are currently unclear. Overall, the Janissaries' use of this tactic during the Long War not only affects our understanding of Ottoman warfare but also necessitates a reassessment of the patterns of invention and diffusion of military innovations in the early modern period.

A cukor története a kapitalizmus története? (Sidney Mintz: Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History)

Author(s): Sándor Kozák / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 29/2021

Review of Sidney Mintz: Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History

A Dangerous Domain: Bartholomew Keckermann on History and Historiography

Author(s): Wojciech Ryczek / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

The main purpose of the paper is to present and discuss some Keckermann’s thoughts on history and the art of historiography, expressed in the treatise De natura et proprietatibus historiae commentarius (Hanovie 1610), published posthumously by his student, David Schumann. According to the humanist from Gdańsk, history is not art, science, or discipline, because it does not have own commonplaces (loci communes), regarded as the basis for method. Nevertheless, history plays an important role in teaching of the practical arts such as politics or economy, because it is an inexhaustible source of examples, taken from narratives about the past events to illustrate general rules related to human life and actions. An excellent historian would be only someone who is able to combine searching for the truth with frankness in its telling. Therefore, he is obliged to use a simple style without almost any rhetorical devices. In relation to single events history serves as a tool of description and explication. Thus it provides the necessary illustrative material in the form of examples for the practical disciplines.

A Dunába vetett vonópad - Adalék a Mohács előtti Magyarország pénzveréséhez

Author(s): János Buza / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 02/2015

Hans Dernschwam, an agent of the Fugger merchant company at Buda in the first half of the 16th century, wrote in his memories that the Hungarian moneyers used an instrument called draw bench (Zieh-Banck). The draw bench was applied to thinning the metal molds (Zaine) which were handed over to the moneyers. In 1526 the moneyers, returning to Körmöcbánya (today Kremnica, Slovakia), threw the draw bench into the Danube at Esztergom. The reason of this act remained unrecorded. News of the draw bench became known outside Hungary as well. Bertrand Behaim Jr, a chief official of mining and minting at Körmöcbánya – and previously chief master of coinage in Tirol and later in Austria – had the draw bench carried to Hall, close to Innsbruck, where the moneyers of Körmöcbánya presented the new instrument in the course of work. The new instrument also came to the attention of the city of Nuremberg. We know from a letter of Christoph Fürer, a well-to-do patrician, mining entrepreneur and wholesaler from Nuremberg, that with the draw bench used in Hungary, two moneyers could do the work that was performed by 6 to 8 of their colleagues working with the traditional methods. It is, consequently, fairly obvious that it was in fear for their living that the moneyers of Körmöcbánya threw into the Danube the instrument which would have made their work much more productive. They certainly had good reasons to do so, for the description of Dernschwam makes it clear that the application of the draw bench made it possible to produce greater number of better-shaped and cheaper coins than before. The fact that the name of the inventor of the draw bench was not recorded, has given birth to a number of hypotheses. The author of the present study is of the view that the inventor(s) of the instrument should be looked for among the personnel of the Thurzó Fugger mining enterprise. It is known from the researches of Oszkár Paulinyi, that János Thurzó and his son constructed and implemented at Nagybánya (Frauenbach; today Baia Mare, Romania) an instrument which permitted the extraction of water from the mines. This mechanical structure was much more complicated than the draw bench mentioned above. The employees of the Thurzó-Fugger mining company were consequently in possession of the required capital and professional skills to manufacture effective mechanical instruments. While the draw bench ceased to be used in the course of the 16th century, its expansion in Europe took momentum after the first quarter of the 17th century.

A Duna–Tisza–Maros köz és Temesvár a középkorban

Author(s): István Petrovics / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 12/2020

After discussing the notion of Bánság (Romanian, German, Serbian: Banat) and the geographical and political-administrative characteristics of the region in question, the paper focuses on the development of Temesvár, medieval precursor of modern Timişoara, in the period that preceded the mid-16th century. Temesvár was and remained the centre of Temes county and the seat of the archdeaconry of Temes, and was the place where between 1315 and 1323 Charles I of Anjou, king of Hungary, had his royal residence. Later, in parallel with the Balkans policy of the Hungarian Kingdom and the Ottoman menace, the importance of Temesvár increased significantly, especially from the military point of view. This situation, however, restricted the self-government of the town to that extent that Temesvár did not succeed in gaining admittance to the category of the most developed towns (royal free towns) of the realm in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. After averting a siege in the fall of 1551, Temesvár finally fell to the Ottomans in 1552. This opened a new chapter in the history of the town.

A fejedelemség kori törvénykezési szakaszokról (1556–1600)

Author(s): Zsolt Bogdándi / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2015

It’s a well-known fact that the court of the Royal Table became the principal royal conciliar court at the second half of the 15th century. The discussions usually took place during the judicial terms (generally four each year), the so-called octaves. The Royal Table of the elected king II. János Szapolyai has been mainly patterned after the medieval Table of the kings. The emerging new state’s characteristics, in particular the fact that it was composed of two slightly different regions (the so-called Partium and Transylvania with three privileged communities, Hungarian noblemen, Saxons and Szeklers) was reflected in the organization and the functioning of the Table. Different court sessions were held for the noblemen from Partium, for the Szeklers and for the noblemen of Transylvania. These octave courts (generally two for each privileged community) at the beginning of the studied period have started on the day of major feasts (Epiphany, St George, Lucae ev., Reminiscere) and from 1571 on the eighth day of these feasts, and they lasted around thirty days. The court sessions took place mostly in Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia), Kolozsvár (Cluj) and Székelyvásárhely (Târgu Mureș).

A Few Comments on the Historical Borders in Poland

Author(s): Henryk Rutkowski / Language(s): English Issue: 6/2018

The main topic of this paper are the borders of Poland in the 16th century. The country’s state and province borders were first delineated by Bernard Wapowski on his 1526 map from (scale 1:1,000,000). While the map is known only from fragments, Gerardus Mercator used Wapowski’s borders in his map of Europe published in 1554. In 1880, Stanisław Smolka proposed elaborating maps of territorial divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th century. The first implementation of this program was the Atlas of the Ruthenian Lands of the Crown, elaborated by Aleksander Jabłonowski (to the scale of 1:300,000) and published in 1904. In 1964, a plan to publish a series of maps under the title of ‘Historical atlas of Poland: detailed maps of the 16th century’ was announced by the Institute of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences. The series aims at to cover ethnically Polish lands within the Crown. Out of the planned eight volumes, five were published in the years 1966–2008, and then their content was combined and published in English in 2014. The newest volume to date, published in 2017, concerns Greater Poland. Central large-scale maps (to the scale of 1:250,000) depict all towns and villages that existed in the second half of the 16th century. The maps indicate state borders, borders of voivodeships, lands, districts, and, in relation to lands owned by the Roman Catholic Church, the borders of dioceses, archdeacons and parishes. Settlements and borders of state administration were recreated with the use of extraordinary tax registers called pobor, and the basis for marking church boundaries was the documentation of canonical visitations. Additional maps to the scale 1:500,000 concern the distribution of landed property, with borders marked between various categories of land ownership. Interpolation of settlements belonging to different administrative units and having a different ownership status was used as a method in the reconstruction of borders of territorial units. This is the most detailed study on the shape of borders on historical Poland lands, not only presenting this element of geographical space in the 16th century, but also serving to further our understanding of border shapes in the earlier and later centuries. 

A few remarks on the history of the Zborowski family in the 16th century with reference to the book by Ewa Dubas-Urwanowicz

Author(s): Zbigniew Anusik / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2018

A gyulafehérvári hiteleshely levélkeresői (1556-1690)

Author(s): Emőke Gálfi / Language(s): Hungarian

After the secularization of the Catholic ecclesiastical institutions in 1556, a new era had begun in the history of the place of authentication of the Chapter of Transylvania, which resided in Alba Iulia. This period has been characterized by a specific and totally different evolution of this institution, which was no more under the control of the Church. For the purposes of conducting its charter issuing activity, lay letter searchers (requisitors) were appointed by the princes, who were also paying these office holders. The majority of the members of the Chapter have left the country together with the bishop Paul Bornemissza (who’s chair remained vacant for a long time), and those who remained in Alba Iulia were converted to Protestantism. They became the office holders of Queen Isabela and, after a while, of his son, prince Ioan Sigismund of Zápolya. The fact that some earlier members of the Chapter continued their work at the place of authentication proves that the state apparatus of the newly born Principality needed these intellectuals who had been previously educated by the Catholic Church. For almost 20 years, the place of authentication and its archives had been given very limited tasks. The institution didn’t dispose of a very important object used in the authentication process of the documents, namely the seal of the Chapter. This object has been probably taken by one of the canons, who left together with bishop Bornemissza. For this reason, the appointed office holders could only transcribe the documents kept in the archives of the Chapter. That’s why they were called requisitores, which means “letter searcher”. The reorganization of this institution took place in 1575, when the requisitors were granted all the previous tasks: a new seal was given to the place of authentication, which was similar to the earlier; the requisitors among transcribing the documents started to issue different charters and to fulfill external activities on the demand of the princes (entering into possessions, boundary inspections, etc.). Starting with 1556, the requisitors were appointed and paid by the princes and the character of the Chapter’s archive has changed as the time passed: not only the documents created by the place of authentication have been kept here, but also the Libri Regii, tax registers and legislative documents. As a result of these changes, the archive became the institution that preserved the most important documents of the Principality and at the same time the reputation of the office holders grew. So, it was natural that during the period of the Principality, the office holders of the place of authentication were chosen very carefully by the princes from the members of the Transylvanian intelligentsia, which had close ties both with the Unitarian Church and the Reformed Church. The first chapter describes the birth of the requisitorial office and the secularization of the Catholic ecclesiastical institutions. This chapter, based on the consulted documents, proves that the ecclesiastical estates (including the lands owned by the Chapter) were already given to Queen Isabela and his son in 1556, and they haven’t been returned to the Catholic Church, as one could suppose from the contradictory laws issued at the end of that year. The volume continues with the description of the period until 1575, when the appointed requisitors’ single task was to search and transcribe documents. The reorganization that took place in 1575, based on a detailed written instruction dated at the end of that year, made the charter issuing activity of the requisitors of this institution comparable with the activity of the Chapter before the secularization. These characteristics remained unchanged until the end of the period of Principality.The second chapter presents a detailed analysis of a group of intellectuals represented by the requisitors of the Chapter of Alba Iulia. The chapter starts with the presentation of this institution’s structure and also discusses both the way the requisitors were appointed by the princes, and their duties and privileges. This chapter emphasizes the fact that the institution needed well-qualified personnel, and the requisitors needed to be well-trained in matters of paleography, Latin and legal issues. Romanian or German language proficiency often constituted an important advantage. It seems to be proven that the majority of the office holders spoke one of these languages.Due to the fact that the prestige of the Chapters archive constantly grew, the requisitors have been entrusted with multiple new duties and responsibilities. In addition to these responsibilities, they were also granted some privileges.As regards the estates and other properties possessed by the requisitors, it became obvious that many of the office holders were given goods and possessions by the clients of the place of authentication, in return for their services. The charters granted property rights of movable assets and real estates, and these rights represented the evidence of ownership in trials. For the clients who were taking part in actions for the ownership of properties it was of great importance to find these documents in the Chapters archive and to obtain their transcripts. The services of the office holders were rewarded with different donations.It’s well-known that during the Middle Ages, the personnel of the places of authentication consisted of clergy members who studied at Western universities or at the chapter or monastic schools attached to the chapters or convents. After 1556, the place of authentication from Alba Iulia was no longer under the jurisdiction of the church, but the society, in which this institution functioned, still remained religious. During the first period after the secularization, the earlier members of the clergy were appointed as requisitors and they have worked there until the reorganization that took place in 1575. After that, the personnel consisted of lay intellectuals, many of them with theological training. We may say that the majority of them have received higher education and have studied at Western European universi ties. A good example is the carrier of the chronicler of the court Gáspár Bojti and the personal librarian of Gabriel Bethlen, Mihály Barsi.In addition to the above mentioned objectives, our purpose was to characterize the social class from which the requisitors originated, to describe their previous career and the time they served as a clerk at the archives. We concluded that before being appointed to this office, the clerks were often notaries of the princely chancellery and sometimes this office constituted a gift for different services rendered on behalf of the princes. It was also proven that every clerk became a noble at the end of his career as a result of his services rendered at the place of authentication on the request of the princes and other clients.The third, longest chapter presents the biographies of 37 requisitors. Among them there were important figures of the Transylvanian cultural history, such as the chronicler István Szamosközy and Gáspár Bojti.The volume presents the members of a group of intellectuals who worked in the probably most important charter-issuer institution during the period of Principality.To reveal the role and importance of these office holders, it is enough to have in mind the character of the Transylvanian society, based on the possession of estates. Nevertheless, the requisitors were members of an intellectual class that continued the heritage of the Medieval Era, they’ve had close ties with the Church, which supported their activity.

A gyulafehérvári udvarbírák és az általuk igazgatott uradalom a 16. század közepén

Author(s): Emőke Gálfi / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: III/2016

The princely estate of Alba Iulia (Gyulafehérvár) has been established at the middle of the sixteenth century. The landlords of the estate were partly the Bishops of Transylvania before 1542, and the Chapter of Transylvania before 1556. The Episcopal estate have been managed by administrators (provisores) with exact duties and competences, and they were usually the bishop’s men of confidence. In 1542, after the death of bishop János Statileo, the Episcopal estate was offered to queen Isabella to supply the court of Alba Iulia. The study aims to discuss the system of administration, the territorial extension of the Episcopal estate, the aspects of the social development and the income of the estate between 1542 and 1556.

A hadseregellátás problémája a tizenöt éves háborúban

Author(s): Zoltán Péter Bagi / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 04/2020

The paper aims to offer a conceptual basis, focussed on the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the period of the Long Turkish War, to serve as a preliminary to the studies analysing army provision and financing in the eighteenth century. Accordingly, the author deals with each of the relevant sub-topics by picking and summarising the examples and results of his previous research.

A harmadik limai zsinat és az egységes evangelizációs rendszabályok a perui egyháztartományban

Author(s): Constanza López Lamerain / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2016

The Third Council of Lima (1582–1583) was a significant provincial assembly for South America, especially because it drew up an important policy statement for indigenous Christianisation in the ecclesiastical province of Peru. The provisions made by the council corresponded to the policy of the Spanish monarch in the late 16th century, aiming at the regulation of the administration of the colonies in the New World. Also, the celebration of the Council of Trent, which had closed its sessions in 1563, induced a revision of the Church’s guidelines in Hispanic America. These circumstances encouraged a rigorous Christianization policy for South America, which was the most important outcome of the Third Council of Lima.

A hódoltságkori puszta kialakulása és a pusztásodás jelentősége Dél-Magyarországon

Author(s): Gábor Máté / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2019

The study presents the historical process of rural depopulation with particular regard to the stretch of land in Southern Hungary (Dél-Dunántúl, Szerémség, Bácska, Temesköz), where the depopulation and desolation at the time of Ottoman occupation was the greatest. First it clarifies what the word puszta denotes, and presents its various meanings. He then presents the historical periods of depopulation. The article argues that the puszta was not simply a depopulated area, but a region where the changed political conditions and socioeconomic structures have resulted in a substantially different landscape. The puszta did not lack the presence of men. Hungarian, Serb, Bunyevac peasants, and Serb and Vlach peasant soldiers lived (in ever-decreasing numbers) in the area, who had an impact on the landscape with their farming. In the Turkish towns there was a Muslim population, and outside the city wall there were communities of various Christian denominations and occupations. The Hungarian population in the towns of the Great Hungarian Plain enjoyed a degree of economic autonomy, and controlled the livestock farming in the puszta of the devastated regions of central and south Hungary. The study places special emphasis on the presentation of the „close-ups” and traumatic sides of the desolation in addition to the characteristics of the frontier existence. It also outlines the process of the post-liberation landscape changes, as well as touches on the surviving phenomena that persisted in the following centuries, and even today bring to the mind the devastation and depopulation brought about the Turkish occupation of Hungary.

A humanizmus az igei tudomány szolgálatában (I.)

Author(s): Dezső Buzogány / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2020

When speaking of Reformation and Humanism, we tend to connect them to each other. But as we come closer to the essence of each, we discover their substantially different nature. The gist of Humanism is the human nature. On statues and paintings of the Renaissance the man is portrayed as a great, powerful, almost almighty person. On the other hand, Reformation places God, Christ, salvation, reconciliation etc. at the centre of its teaching. Humans are included too, but only as sideliners, as weak, infirm, needy, helpless figures. Nevertheless, Reformation has benefited to a significant extent from Humanism via its emphasis on the grammar for mastering the languages of the Scripture (Hebrew and Greek), dialectics striving to a better understanding of the scriptural message, and rhetorics as a substantial technical help spreading the Gospel. Therefore, teaching these disciplines at the universities of the Reformation has become of major importance during the 16th century.

A humanizmus az igei tudomány szolgálatában (III)

Author(s): Dezső Buzogány / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 3/2020

First and foremost, the Protestantism sought to incorporate the first three disciplines of the seven liberal arts into the methodologies of scholarly theology and the curricula of school education. It also served the purpose of preparing seminary students for preaching the Word in their mother-tongue. Once they mastered the languages of the Two Testaments, dialectics (or logic) aided them in decoding the meaning (or the message) of the passage, while rhetorics guided them in composing a structurally sound sermon. (This threefold unity is still applied today in Hungarian theological education, albeit under a different name.) Dialectics is the foundation for the study of all sciences. Indeed, the potential benefits of certain scientific disciplines cannot be fully achieved without a thorough understanding of its principles. Therefore, as religious sermons are modelled after secular rhetoric, their structural features cannot be correctly assembled without resorting to the laws of philosophical dialectics.

A humanizmus az igei tudomány szolgálatában (IV)

Author(s): Dezső Buzogány / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2020

A syllogism (Greek: συλλογισμός – “conclusion, inference”) is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true. Aristotle defines the syllogism as “a discourse in which certain (specific) things having been supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so”. The Aristotelian syllogism dominated Western philosophical thought for many centuries in the Middle Ages. But the history of syllogistic thinking does not end with the Middle Ages. It continued to be used even by the church reformers of the 16th century. Thus, alongside a dialectic way of thinking, it contributed to the development of the new dogmatics coined by the church reformers in the 16th century.

A intertextualidade camoniana em ...Onde Vaz, Luís? (1983) de Jaime Gralheiro ou Luís Vaz de Camões revisitado no teatro português contemporâneo

Author(s): Anna Kalewska / Language(s): Portuguese Issue: 18/2019

The objective of the article is a comparison between Os Lusíadas/The Lusiads (1572) by Luís Vaz de Camões and ...Onde Vaz, Luís (1983) by Jaime Gralheiro, showing the processes of narrative incorporation of an epic pattern into the dramatic hypertext, made through a “mosaic of quotations”. The discussion attends to the generic transformation, a very productive one in terms of aesthetics and ideology, with visible traits of parody, disguise, pastiche, narrative transposition of more than one unique text but many of them by various Portuguese authors of the XVIth century (including Fernão Mendes Pinto, António Ferreira, Pedro de Andrade Caminha, Damião de Góis, Gil Vicente) ment for a jocular dramatic piece, both tragic and grotesque, conceived out of social criticism and according to a Brechtean ideological character. The article shows a sample of multiple relations between the primary hypotext and the texts derivated out of it, confirming the present paper’s aim in many works of Portuguese literature writers, of prose and theater writings. The heroic hypotext vs. the hypertexts are unfolded in dramatic and novelesque post-modern refabulations (José Saramago included!). Another study of the imaginary makes the realm of revisiting the Portuguese literature is possible in relation to contemporary history and human existence, with space- -and-time frontiers and literary genres extinguished in the “intertextual lottery” of Camões and his metamorfoses with regard to fictional authors and protagonists. A diagnosis of hic et nunc (just now!) is being produced in a methodologically consistent way according to the classics of intertextuality focused on dramatic and romanesque writings in Portugal in the decline of the former century. The Carnations’ Revolution in the background and the revolutionary democratic aftermath accompanying the undertaken analytic process.

A ius regium székelyföldi megjelenése: egy látszólagos tudományos konszenzus

Author(s): Balázs Viktor Rácz / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2021

The Szekely legal history, especially the presence of the ius regium in the Szekely Land has been in the centre of research ever since the birth of critical historiography, but due to the controversial interpretation of sources and the lack of scientific discussion, an ultimate scientific consensus is yet to be formed. This study aims to confront the opinions, exploit the neglected sources, and harmonize the historiographical and legal aspects. In conclusion we can state that, although the ius regium could have been enforced in some special cases, both the custom and the judicial practice of the Voivodal Table hindered this opportunity, and the ius regium was not introduced to the Székely Land in a general level at all until the articles of the Diet of Segesvár in 1562.