“Fighting Where Nature Joins Forces with the Enemy:” Nature, Living Conditions, and their Representation in the War in the Alps 1915–19181

Daniel Marc Segesser

University of Bern

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First World War propaganda, but also popular movies like Luis Trenker’s Berge in Flammen, for a long time presented the image of the war in alpine territory as a place, where solitary heroes fought a war in a magnificent natural scenery that was so different from the carnage of the western front. Based on recent research that has shown that the latter was not true, the following contribution focuses on the perception and representation of nature and natural phenomena in contemporary publications, diaries, and letters from Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. It analyzes the relationship between soldiers from many countries on the one hand, and nature as well as natural phenomena such as avalanches, fog, or rain on the other. The contribution discusses the reactions of officers and soldiers to nature and the respective natural phenomena and offers new insights on everyday living conditions of officers and soldiers in a landscape with harsh conditions that had never before been a battlefield for such a prolonged period of time.

Keywords: First World War, environmental history, nature, weather conditions, Alpine territory

Slightly above the Passo dello Stelvio, close to Rifugio Garibaldi and Piz Trais Linguas, the following inscription in German as well as Hungarian can be found:

Faithful unto death to its Emperor and Apostolic King, fatherland, and home […] the IV Reserve Battalion of the 29th Hungarian Infantry Regiment under the command of Captain Kalal and Lt.-Col. Edler von Kunze gloriously and without giving way even one step defended […] the Stilfserjoch [Passo dello Stelvio] as well as the snow-covered, barren, and icy heights between the Piz Trais Linguas, the Scorluzzo, the Naglerspitze, and the Krystallkamm in the war years 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918.2

Still today, many people passing the Passo dello Stelvio come up to this commemorative plaque, which has been moved a few meters onto Swiss territory, and lay down wreaths to honor the memory of those for whom it was erected in 1918 by the commanding officer Freiherr Moritz von Lempruch.3

Photo 1: Commemorative plaque for officers and soldiers of the IV Reserve Battalion of the 29th Hungarian Infantry Regiment on Piz Trais Linguas

(Photograph by the author, August 2017.)

Dangerous, Barren, Awesome, and Beautiful: An Introduction to Nature’s Role and Natural Phenomena in the War in the Alps 1915–18

All of this is part of an ongoing fascination amongst a large numbers of visitors to the former war zone between the Umbrail pass in the west and Mt. Krn in the east with a war that for a long time has been portrayed as an unconventional battlefield, so different from the many other fronts of the war.4 Although historians like Isabelle Brandauer, Christa Hämmerle, Marco Mondini, or Markus Wurzer have shown that life and fighting on the alpine front was not so much different from the brutal reality of other fronts,5 the majority of the literature dealing with this part of the war—published mainly by non-professional historians6—offers interpretations that stress either the heroic character of the men involved, the sacrifice they made, or the perseverance they showed. In similar ways efforts of today’s regional tourist offices present the former battlefield in several outdoor museums as an awesome experience of nature, but in which the reality of war is no longer present.7

In this context nature is usually presented simultaneously as dangerous and barren as well as awesome and beautiful, not least because it was the essential prerequisite for the existence of the mountaineer warrior, who fought out this war individually rather than as part of an indiscernible mass. The impressive natural scenery formed the aesthetic aura for a war fought out personally, with death coming suddenly and in the sight of one’s homeland’s highest summits rather than in the mud of the frontline in the west or the east. And yet, the mountainous landscape was represented as even more dangerous than the enemy. Officers and soldiers not only had to fight the enemy’s armed forces, but also the forces of nature which were even viewed as the ultimate conquest to be made in some sort of sportsmanlike alpine competition.8 In a manner similar to the description of the mountaineer warrior, who is at the same time archaic and modern, nature too is likewise described as active as well as indulgent, as both destructive and majestic and as a force, which “joins forces with the enemy.”9

This was also the way that nature was presented in wartime propaganda as well as in interwar era movies, novels, and publications. In contrast to many places on the eastern and western front as well as in the Balkans, many of the alpine areas were rather well known to the general public as a consequence of pre- and postwar tourism promotion. In contrast to other places where winter battles took place, such as the Carpathians or the Caucasus,10 it was fairly easy to get stories about this part of the war out to the public early on, a fact that has shaped the memory of the war in alpine territory up to the present. In their publications, people like Walter Schmidkunz and Luis Trenker,11 Fritz Weber,12 Gunter Langes,13 and Heinz von Lichem,14 following views common among the Deutscher und Österreichischer Alpenverein, presented a picture of the war in which the enemy on the one hand was a traitor, while on the other his mountaineering achievements had to be acknowledged.15 It is probably in this context that Lichem also claimed that according to the testimony of the surviving commanding officers, as well as of accounts of soldiers from all sides, about two-thirds of the 150,000 to 180,000 war victims of the alpine front died because of the rigors of the high altitude (including disease), with 60,000 deaths on the alpine front being attributable to avalanches alone.16 Looking at figures given by Heinrich Menger in 1919, who speaks of 2,840 dead officers and soldiers for the winter of 1916/17 for the Tyrolean and Carnic front,17 and at the official data in the official history of the Austro-Hungarian army, stating 880 dead for November and December 1916,18 this figure seems to be too high19 and may probably be attributed to the fact that—apart from statistical problems20—the impact of the environment was amplified to fit with the argument that men on the frontline were not just fighting the enemy, but an enemy far bigger, that is, nature.

It is in light of this latter question of perceptions that this contribution explores what officers and soldiers of the time wrote about nature as well as natural phenomena, such as avalanches, fog, or rain, and how they coped with weather and climate in locations where no one before had ever tried to stay for the entire year. It will not be possible to present the entirety of perceptions of nature and natural phenomena, but in exploring rarely used and partially only recently published diaries as well as letters and contemporary publications from Austria, Italy, and Switzerland that disclose natural phenomena in wartime, this contribution will attempt to give a transnational picture—and thereby try to overcome the criticism of Hans Heiss that Austria and Italy have remained in a state of friendly ignorance of each other, working back to back.21 In diaries officers and soldiers recorded their own impressions of nature over time and in real time. Either as manuscripts or in some cases as published versions diaries survived, but many were also lost.22 What is clear is that not all officers or soldiers kept diaries. Therefore only a specific extract of experiences is left to us, which often stems from people who had an affinity for writing. This latter aspect is also true in regard to the second type of source, letters written to relatives at home; although, as Mondini has shown for the Italian side, many illiterate soldiers turned to writing during the war with the help of their literate comrades.23 Contemporary publications, often written by people closely attached to official bodies such as the Austro-Hungarian Kriegspressequartier, can therefore be considered to represent the official or semi-official discourse on nature in alpine territory. In some cases—mainly in publications in newspapers—they were, however, also written to keep the home front informed and reassured. The first part of this contribution will give a quick overview on the war in alpine territory in the years 1915 to 1918 before looking at the three types of sources, in order to map out the existing presuppositions and stereotypes. A short conclusion will complete this article.

The War in the Alps, its Historiography, and its Development

So far Marco Armerio, Tait Keller, Selena Daly, Diego Leoni, and Mario Podzorski have been among the few professional historians who specifically discussed the perception of nature in their studies. Armiero and Keller claimed that as a consequence of the Great War, the “Alps were celebrated as the natural bastion of the nation, the ultimate borders of the Italian community,”24 or “a bastion for Germany and Austria […,] a national sanctuary and a ‘Volkssanatorium’ […,] where martial and mountaineering ethos [fused].”25 While Armiero mainly concentrated on the memory of the war and only included a few testimonies mainly of veterans,26 Keller’s studies contain an analysis of several contemporary sources from the war years. However, he mingles information from such sources with accounts of the interwar period, which weakens his conclusion that “soldiers on the Alpine Front felt their spirits rise when they saw the mountains” and that those “on the home front believed that the mountains aided the war effort [… giving] strength and courage.”27 In her article Daly looks at the experiences of mountain combat by Futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, thereby concentrating on one specific experience.28 Leoni gives an impressive account of the daily lives of soldiers in the war in alpine territory. He makes great use of diaries and letters, but when relating to nature his focus is more on its impact than on perception.29 Podzorski analyses daily lives of Swiss soldiers in Val Müstair and on the border triangle between Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Switzerland in the region between the Punta di Rims and Piz Cotschen. He gives an impressive overview about the daily routine, sentry and patrols, construction work, cutting wood, repairing roads, accommodation, food and drink, leisure time, health issues and hygiene, contacts with soldiers from the belligerents, and last but not least, nature (as weather and landscape). His study is, however, limited to Switzerland, which was neutral and whose military therefore only had a limited experience of the war itself in the form of border violations and the watching of operations of the belligerents.30

The war in the Alps formally began on May 23, 1915 with Italy’s declaration of war against Austria-Hungary. The largest part of the frontline between the Passo dello Stelvio in the West and Tolmin in the East consisted of mountainous terrain with heights mainly between 1,000 and 2,000 meters above sea level, but sometimes reaching almost 4,000 meters in the Ortles region and 3,000 meters in the Dolomites.31 Operations along the alpine border did not, however, begin immediately, although some of the troops had been deployed to their positions before the war began.32 The Italian High Command had decided to proceed cautiously on this part of the front and rather concentrate on offensives in the lower Isonzo/Soça region, where it believed the chances for a breakthrough were best.33 For sure, this was largely due to the fact that up to the 1880s the military high command had not considered alpine territory a possible battleground, and consequently fighting in high altitude was to a large extent a novelty to modern warfare.34 Already long before the war the Austrian military high command had decided to build fortresses at strategic positions blocking the entry into the main valleys of Trentino, Tyrol, and Carinthia, even if this meant giving up some parts of its territory, such as Cortina d’Ampezzo.35 Although two major offensives—the so-called Austro-Hungarian “Strafexpedition” in 191636 and the battle of the Ortigara in 191737—were mounted, for two years in its eastern part and three years in its western part the frontline did not change much until the end of the war. Soldiers were compelled to fight and survive year-round in an environment in which human beings usually only lived and came into contact for a very short part of the year.38 At the beginning of the war the terrain was mostly unknown to the soldiers deployed into these areas and there had been almost no military training for fighting and surviving in high altitude before 1914. On either side, the number of troops who even to a small extent had been trained for mountain warfare was small. Troops therefore at first had to adapt to this new way of warfare, a fact that offered opportunities for the mythologizing of figures like mountain guide Sepp Innerkofler. Over time, however, technology took over also in high altitude and officers as well as soldiers adapted to a way of warfare previously unknown, but no less brutal than on the western front.39

Making Sense of the War and its Natural Environment in Official and Semi-official Publications

Not least in view of the growing number of victims caused by the war, but mainly because by the end of 1914 it became clear that this global war was not going to be short, governments of all the major belligerents actively began to make sense of the war. In the case of Italy the Habsburg authorities used the image of the traitor, who had to be fought on the heights of one’s native mountains, while for Italy the war against the Danube monarchy was presented as one of freeing Trento and Trieste from the yoke of the tyrant in Vienna.40 This propagandistic effort did not remain without effect on the officers and soldiers in the frontline, although not all of them were responsive in the same manner. Amongst those using demeaning terms for the enemy was Karl Ausserhofer, who spoke of “Bölz” or “Katzelmacher” in his diary when referring to Italians.41 Even more explicit was Franz Josef Krug, who specifically called the Italians “traitors” and “greedy for booty.” They would, however, never be able to tear down this mountain rampart that was well defended against the “archenemy.”42 Karl Hane,43 Walter Schmidkunz,44 Emilio Campi,45 and Nicola Ragucci46 on the other hand avoided demeaning terms and only spoke of the enemy, the “Italians” or the “Austrians,” respectively. Ragucci went a little further, eulogizing his own soldiers as “soldiers that the world ignores […]! Unknown heroes! Worthy descendants of ancient Rome!”47

In contrast to many others, writers and artists were often able to avoid being recruited as frontline troops. Instead they served as official and semi-official war correspondents, photographers, and painters and became part of the propaganda effort of the belligerents.48 In this function they published realistic, fictitious, or semi-fictitious reports about the war, mainly with the aim to reassure the population at home that all was well and that, if men fell, they had given their lives for a good cause. Of course the primarily male reporters were not entirely free in what they were writing, but in regard to their representations of nature there was some leeway as the following analysis will show. The authors chosen all grew up in middle-class families and were officials, professional officers, teachers, or journalists. As such they were most certainly influenced by the positive and often nation-centric view of alpine nature that was dominant among the bourgeoisie of many European countries.49

It comes as no surprise that the mountaineer Walter Schmidkunz, who was an active member of the Deutsch-Österreichischer Alpenverein as well as the Wandervogel-Bewegung,50 was amongst those whose description of nature and natural phenomena was most pronounced. Being a war correspondent of the Kriegspressequartier between August 1917 and October 1918, his book Der Kampf über den Gletschern was published in three editions between 1917 and 1918. He opened with romantic language, speaking of the “deserted wilderness made up of snow and granite,” of the “icy heart of the Adamello,” of a spuming stream, where bear and fox say goodnight to each other, or of the eternal mountains,51 only to continue with the weeks of wet and cold, the night of a stormy foehn, fog, avalanches, hunger not quenched by a hunted chamois buck, or the difficulties of discerning an enemy attack from noises of natural phenomena, such as the falling of a rock, or the light of a star from that of an enemy lantern.52 Schmidkunzen’s presentation of living and fighting in high altitude was ambivalent, showing both nature’s splendors as well as its dangers, but of course his chapters, which he wrote as if he had been present himself in the actions he described, always ended on a positive note such as a sunrise, which brought back warmth to freezing soldiers, whose cry of joy told nature as well as the enemy that they were still in control.53

In a similar manner popular writer Franz Karl Ginzkey54 spoke of the “romantic surging of valleys and heights, half flogged by rain, half kissed by the sun,”55 the “brilliance of […] the hilly high plateau of Folgaria,”56 or the beauty of mountains like the Rosengarten and the Latemar,57 only to describe a “witches’ cauldron full of uncertainty and lurking death”58 as well as emplacements reclaimed by hard labor out of solid rock. In this latter case man and nature are combined by Ginzkey to create a bulwark that men never could have built themselves.59 The bulwark or mountain rampart was also an important symbol that Franz Joseph Krug used. He was a former editor of the Grazer Tagblatt and an officer from the frontline in Carinthia. Supported by the command of the 10th Army and the Karnisch-Julische Kriegszeitung, he was very eager to tell the people at home about the so-called silent front in the Carnic Alps, where heroic soldiers stopped the enemy from entering the homeland, while at the same time fighting the forces of nature. In this “unique double war” against the enemy as well as against the “adverse forces of nature in high-altitude mountains,” a large number of “maximum performances” were necessary not only to “wage war against the archenemy, but also against the tremendous forces of nature in winter.”60 Krug, however, not only pointed to the heroic deeds of soldiers and officers in difficult circumstances, but also mentioned the fact that every benefit had been drawn from engineering, in order to enable officers and soldiers to wage war.61 Visiting Swiss Colonel Karl Müller,62 the German director of the Alpine Museum in Munich Carl Müller, and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti were even more fascinated by the way modern (and urban) technology worked in the mountains and how infrastructure originally built for tourists could now be used for wartime purposes.63 For Carl Müller the war and its technology was able to overcome problems that had seemed insurmountable in peacetime:

The war in alpine territory has become lord over [all the problems]; there are no constraints and there is no resistance. Using the most refined resources of technology, but also the help of the simple power of untiring human hands supported by ordinary tools, but animated by formidable energy [the war in alpine territory] has subdued steep pinnacles as well as rugged glaciers and made them subservient to man, without taking account of the casualties it takes and despite the fact that subjugated nature does not want to acquiesce to the yoke and again and again revolts against its conquerors, destroys their works often enough, and tries to take revenge on body and life of those who try to enslave it.64

To some extent Müller’s words resembled those of Marinetti, who in a much more ideologically oriented language, also tried to “enslave the mountains to Futurist ideals [and] visions of industrialised modernity.”65

Marinetti also tried to exploit the positive associations that were attributed to the Italian alpine soldiers, the so-called Alpini, equalizing the efforts of the Volunteer Cyclists, to whom he belonged, with those of the venerated Alpini, who were the protagonists of “a warrior myth” because they were “descendant[s] of mountain stock, which allows only the strongest, the most able and most determined to survive.”66 Amongst those praising the Alpini to the utmost was Cesare Battisti, a former deputy of the Cisleithanian Reichsrat, who fought on the Italian side, before being caught and executed in Trento in July 1916 for high treason. For him

mountaineers and mountains form just one thing. The terrain merges with the people. You will find thousands of men from the plains, who have never paid any attention to the form of the terrain, who do not know six inches of earth without pavement; but the mountaineer has a feeling for the mountain, he has a geographic sense of the area he lives in. […] An Alpino from Valtellina, who explained to his comrades the reasons for war, said: “Let us go to liberate our waters.” Do we really have to tolerate that the sources of our rivers are in the hands of the enemy?67

Battisti’s aim was to show that these soldiers, growing out of a different community, loved their country and their people, but nevertheless remained a harmonic family, in which the person was more important than his military function. It was the alpine environment that generated such a quality within the men of the Alpini battalions.68 Battisti was not alone in this assessment. Between 1915 and 1917 the Italian high command almost tripled the number of Alpini battalions and also created a substantial number of new mountain artillery batteries to support them. Nevertheless it proved unable to use these valued special forces in a manner adapted to warfare in the mountains. Except for their success in taking Mt. Krn (Monte Nero) in June 1915, the Alpini failed as much as the infantry along the Isonzo/Soça Valley.69 The myth nevertheless remained intact. Not least therefore the Futurist Marinetti stressed the fact that his unit survived the same conditions with less supplies than the Alpini, implying that he and his unit were able to overcome even greater hardships. Marinetti’s major aim in this context was to escape from the perception of futurism as a preserve of the urban middle class and to align himself with the simplicity of the common soldier, with whom a majority of Italians seemed to sympathize. At the same time he tried to prove that “industrialised modernity” was still superior to nature.70

While Schmidkunz, Ginzkey, and both Müllers had been part of an orchestrated propaganda effort of the belligerents and Marinetti as well as Battisti tried to prove their irredentist credentials, Jakob Heer’s texts were published out of a different motivation. He was a teacher and part of the Infantry Battalion 85 from Glarus, which was stationed in different parts of Switzerland to guard its mountainous border.71 The publication of his texts in the local newspaper Glarner Nachrichten aimed to inform and put at ease relatives back home as to the fate of their loved ones, who had to serve in an unfamiliar environment.72 Heer generally presented an ideal picture of nature, pointing to the echo of cowbells, the romantic mountain landscape, the picturesque and monumental setting, magnificent air, skiing competitions, or even the great number of very old Swiss stone pines, left in place to protect the valley from falling rocks and avalanches.73 Sometimes, however, Heer also considered real war, like when throwing stones down a slope, even though there were no enemy troops there;74 when he grumbled about the weather, referred to historical figures like Jürg Jenatsch and writers like Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, or criticized the fact that the local population had used up natural resources such as wood to an extent that was detrimental to society.75 When called upon not to write about positive aspects only, Heer stressed that Swiss soldiers had no reason to complain. They should not forget their privileged situation, living in peace in the midst of a terrible war.76 In September 1916 Heer came close to the battlefield at the Passo dello Stelvio and was rather depressed when he pondered the fate and living conditions of Austrian and Italian soldiers. He therefore showed great sympathy for refugees and deserters, offering them bread and cheese.77

Joining Forces with the Enemy? Nature and Natural Phenomena in Wartime Diaries from Austria and Italy

In contrast to contemporary publications—whether government-inspired or otherwise—war diaries do not contain that many reflected accounts, but can be considered self-testimonies written shortly after events, forming a sequence of notes, thoughts, and moments summing up what happened. As a consequence mental leaps and gaps are often present in diaries, unless their authors edited or changed them after the war.78 Five diaries, by Karl Ausserhofer, Emilio Campi, Karl Hane, Joseph Mörwald and Nicola Ragucci, were chosen for this study.79 Each has been edited by a professional historian and contains at least a short introduction about the authors as well as on the state of the diaries. This helps to understand the context in which the diaries came into existence and gives an idea about the way the authors approached nature and what interpretative patterns influenced them.

Three of the diaries are from Austria and two from Italy. Ausserhofer was a farmer from South Tyrol born in 1880. Due to his age and his being a Landsturmmann, he was not sent to the eastern front in 1914, but remained on duty close to his hometown, before being assigned to the Dolomite front (Fanes Valley, Son Pouses, Lagazuoi, Asiago) for the remainder of the war (1915–18).80 Campi was a military chaplain with the battalion Pieve di Cadore, a local unit from the alpine zone in Italy, which formed part of the 7th Alpini Regiment. Campi had been born in 1888, consecrated as a priest in 1911 and sent from his parish in the region of Verona to his new position in the Cadore, where he often stayed with his troops close to the frontline.81 Hane was a teacher from Vorarlberg, born in 1892, who served as a cadet and non-commissioned officer in the area between Rovereto and Lavarone.82 Mörwald was a gardener from Upper Austria born in 1894, recruited into the artillery and on his way to the eastern front, when his unit was redeployed to the region around the Plöckenpass in the Carnic Alps, where he served until the armies of the central powers broke through at Caporetto/Kobarid in October/November 1917.83 Ragucci was a medical doctor and pharmacist from Naples. He was the oldest of the diarists, born in 1863. In 1915 he was called up again and served as a major in the Italian medical corps, first in Aversa and Naples, before being sent to the Field Hospital 040 in Cortina d’Ampezzo in August 1916. While neither Ausserhofer nor Mörwald had any intellectual background,84 Ragucci was friends with some writers and painters like Edmondo de Amicis and Luigi de Luca, a fact that very probably influenced the writing of his diary, which is more deliberative than those of Ausserhofer and Mörwald.85 As a priest and a teacher respectively, Campi and Hane had some intellectual background, which may explain their reflection, though neither of them at the time had connections beyond local intellectuals.86

In contrast to wartime publications, diaries were much less coherent and there was a considerable fluctuation in length as well as in the numbers of entries. Using the example of Karl Ausserhofer’s diary, Sigrid Wisthaler has shown that the fluctuation in entries on the one hand depended on the conditions at the front. In October and November 1916, Ausserhofer was confronted with an extremely cold autumn and early winter, a fact that explains why his entries for that period were very short. Similarly and probably because of lack of supplies in April and May 1918, Ausserhofer stopped making daily notes and often summarized events for several days in one entry.87 Wisthaler also tried to assign Ausserhofer’s entries to different categories such as weather, military service, food and leisure time, perception of the enemy, self-perception, clothing, hygiene and accommodation, emotions, sickness and death, family and civilian population, depiction of landscape, hope for the future, comrades, and religion. According to her calculation, the first two ranked highest for the period that Ausserhofer spent in the frontline, while food and leisure time, emotions, sickness and death, family and civilian population, and hope for the future were aspects that Ausserhofer mainly discussed in his diary when away from the front in military hospitals, during rehabilitation, or while on leave. For Wisthaler, it is clear that the particular context was an essential prerequisite to explain the topics that Ausserhofer wrote about. Weather phenomena were essential, while he was in the frontline, as they were a precondition for surviving in high altitude.88

With the exception of the case of Karl Hane, where some information is available,89 no such detailed analysis exists for the other diaries, but the tendency is the same. Fog, rain, hail, and (for those who were in the mountains during winter) snow were among the natural phenomena that Hane most often mentioned, not least because several times he had to sleep in wet clothes or could not sleep at all.90 Campi and Mörwald also complained about bad and especially cold weather when it kept on going like this for over a month up in the mountains.91 Hane, Mörwald, and Campi were therefore very glad when “eventually good weather”92 eased the situation and hoped it would stay that way for at least some time.93 In such situations they also spoke of (a most) splendid weather.94 Because of his serving in a field hospital, Ragucci’s notes tend to be a little more deliberative. Nevertheless, apart from talking about the wounded—sometimes at length, especially when he felt very much with a specific person95—the weather also took up a large share of his entries. As he was serving through the harsh winter of 1916–17,96 Ragucci’s emphasis was most often on the massive snowfall in and around Cortina d’Ampezzo. This was especially the case in November and December 1916, when Ragucci was not only preoccupied with the communications of Cortina, but when he also wondered about the height of snow that had amassed on the barracks of the Alpini close to the peaks of the Tofane.97 While in such contexts Mörwald mainly referred to the shoveling of the snow,98 Ragucci found time to reflect on it, calling it “awesome and impressive,” when he found that 1.25 meters of snow had accumulated on his terrace overnight.99 He also spoke of the silver slopes of the valley and the sea of snow that covered the area around his hospital.100

In such circumstances of heavy snowfall, numerous avalanches came crashing down. Such was the case in February and March as well as November and December 1916. Mörwald called this a “terrible snow weather,” or the “terror of winter,” and described the “thundering and rolling” of avalanches.101 Ausserhofer, whose diary for February–March 1916 is lost and who was on leave from 12 November 1916 onwards,102 nevertheless already spoke of the “lasting bad weather” and “a terrible mass of snow,” with avalanches that killed 6 people of his company and many more in other places during that early period.103 Campi also commented on snowfall, specifically in September, October, and December 1915 as well as February and March 1916, which caused frostbite and made paths difficult,104 but also offered a lovely panorama.105 Although he was hampered by heavy winds, dense snowfall, and barren paths, Campi decided to spend Christmas 1915 amongst his troops and in the proximity of the Zygismondi cabin. He recorded that in spite of the difficult conditions, he was glad to have shared this moment with men on the frontline rather than staying in his comfortable hotel room.106 In February and March 1916 Campi’s desire to be close to his soldiers made life very difficult. At first he had to bury a number of soldiers that had been killed by the avalanches that had overwhelmed a number of barracks and emplacements.107 Finally he contracted a cough, a headache, and high fever in the same area where he had spent Christmas.108 He could not be evacuated, as neither the paths were open nor was the cable car operating: “we are blocked by snow, without food, without wood, the mail has neither reached us nor departed. […] Our situation becomes more critical and more dangerous as time goes by.”109 Only on 16 March could he finally leave the mountains.110

Campi was not the only one affected so closely by avalanches. Mörwald had similar experiences in February–March as well as December 1916, suffering from frostbite that could not be treated, as snowfall and avalanches blocked his unit for almost 10 days.111 In December 1916 Mörwald just returned from his leave when he was again caught in heavy snowfall, avalanches having destroyed some barracks and the unit’s two kitchens.112 The next day Mörwald and his comrades unsuccessfully tried to dig out their gun that had been buried in snow. The day after an avalanche hit part of their camp, and Mörwald and his comrades succeeded in saving 24 soldiers and their NCOs. They could not, however, save another man who was stuck on a slope on the other part of the valley. It was extremely difficult for Mörwald and his comrades to hear the cries for help and not be able to do anything for that man, who finally died during the following night.113 Avalanches did of course not come down as far as Cortina, but nevertheless Ragucci was also affected by their outcome, as many of the wounded were transported to his hospital. Without knowing what had already happened, on 13 December 1916 Ragucci commented in his diary on the “great proof of courage and readiness to make sacrifices that the marvelous young men have to submit to in this horrible period. Today it is not the ordinary enemy that you are fighting, but today you are fighting the snow; you don’t seize the gun, but the best weapon currently is the shovel.”114 Late that night Ragucci was informed by the divisional command that a high number of wounded would be transported to his hospital, the first reaching it the following day with ventral bruises and bone fractures. Transport proved difficult, however, especially as the snowfall continued. Ragucci was therefore very pleased that the snowfall stopped during the evening of 15 December, and for the following day he spoke of “splendid weather,” which was a great respite for him.115

Snowfall and rain, however, were not the only weather that distressed officers and soldiers. They also had to be on their guard against fog, or more specifically what the fog could hide. In Ausserhofer’s dairy we read of the opportunities afforded to the enemy to approach the emplacements without being seen.116 For Mörwald, bad weather such as fog could, however, also be a protection in a difficult situation such as after the fall of the summit of the Cellon just above his emplacement at the end of June 1916.117 Ragucci’s description of nature—such as in the case of the defiant and solemn peaks of the Cinque Torri118—was closer to that of the published sources discussed above. On the other hand he was much closer to death in his hospital and his descriptions of dying soldiers are much longer than those of either Ausserhofer, Hane, or Mörwald.119 As a priest Campi also had to cope with dead officers and soldiers fairly often, but he usually referred to them in a religious manner, because this was as much his job as his vocation.120

There were, however, experiences of nature that were also quite exceptional. Amongst them there is Campi’s climbing of the Cima Undici on 13 May 1916 and his celebrating mass on the Terza Tofana on 17 September of the same year.121 Hane’s exceptional experience with nature was quite unique, and none of the others analyzed here seem to have experienced anything like it. He was struck by a lightning and gave a very detailed description of what happened. Although Hane’s record of the event was written down in hindsight, when he was in hospital, his account is very detailed, which is rather unusual for his entries. As a rule Ausserhofer, Campi, and Mörwald only gave short accounts of storms or heavy rain, mentioning at most the severity of the storm or the fact that they got wet.122 The same was true of Hane, at least up to 11 July 1916.123 That day was very hot and for Hane very dull, that is, until he saw a storm coming from Monte Zugna. He tried to turn his tent canvas into a raincoat. While calling on his officer cadet to turn off the telephone, he was struck by lightning, which he experienced as:

a loud noise, a strong shock onto my knee, and a feeling as if someone had been cruising on the skin of my feet with a red-hot iron. From the pain I cried out loudly. The foot was lame, but soon recovered some strength. The grass around us was on fire. The officer cadet dead. […]. Horrible! I am saved! What fortune! But pain! […]. The officer cadet held the shell of the telephone in his hand when the lightning went through his head. He cried: “Extinguish the fire, I am burning!” Then he turned pale and was dead! I remained conscious. The lightning went through my loaded gun, but it did not go off, as Dobmayer [a good friend of Hane] later found out, looking at the surface quality you could just see where the lighting had gone down, and then passed onto my knee. […] My coat and jacket have a small hole, just as big as a Heller coin. Trousers, underpants, shirt, and leggings were in tatters, charred and burnt from knee to hip.124

Hane was finally evacuated to hospital, where he had to undergo a long treatment, because large parts of his skin had been burnt. He therefore never returned to the front line, and like Ausserhofer did not talk about the natural conditions or natural phenomena while in hospital or in rehabilitation.125

The Dwindling of the Image of the Magnificent Alps: Wartime Natural Phenomena in Exemplary Letters from the Frontline

Like diaries, letters are also a form of self-testimony, but in contrast to the former they have a specific addressee, are not for the writer alone, and usually reflect on what he (or she) can tell the recipient.126 As letters were less often preserved than diaries,127 this contribution will only focus on a few of them written by German artillery captain Carl Franz Rose to his wife and children.128 Rose was sent in 1915 to the Italian front as part of the German Alpenkorps to support the weak Austro-Hungarian artillery units, first on the plateau of Lavarone, then in Sesto, and finally until January 1916 in Corvara. Like Schmidkunz, Rose was also a mountaineer and therefore showed a strong love of nature.129 This became very clear already in his first letter of 2 June 1915, where he commented on the “magnificent alps [… with] fine cows […] luscious meadows [and a] splendor of flowers.”130 Nature was glorious, all the rest—especially food and the Austrian comrades—lukewarm.131 In letters to his wife and his son Heinz, he spoke of the “superb Dolomites” that the two would have to come to see after the war. Rose, however, also mentioned how dangerous as well as difficult fighting in high altitude was, and how well the horses and mules served the troops.132 Nevertheless the constant climbing was tiring and Rose especially disliked the cold nights and bad weather. He was therefore glad that as an officer he did not have to stay outside most nights,133 and not very happy when he learnt that he would have to stay in the mountains in winter. Rose’s conviction that the war was a good thing waned more and more: “[It is] dreadful being so alone, almost impossible to bear. And now it looks as if this is going to continue for a long time! It seems that things do not go according to the will of the High Council [the German government], as I was told in Berlin back then. This is a misery and I will not take part in this for much longer.”134

He nevertheless accepted it and asked his wife to send him the necessary clothing.135 With some irony he commented that “men from the flat country became alpine mountaineers, learning to ski,” only to complain about the large quantities of snow as well as the problems with heating the provisional dwellings that had been set up.136

Conclusion

In conclusion, you can state that the experience of nature and everyday life in the war in alpine territory was very complex and diverse, but also to a considerable extent influenced by presuppositions and stereotypes. Publicly—and this later became the master narrative—many stressed the splendor of the mountains and the way in which mountains, though dangerous, became symbols of national defense that could in some cases even tangibly support those fighting in high altitude. Carl Franz Rose is a good example of a man who came to the mountains with a romantic view and told his family about the monumentality of the alpine scenery. In his case it took some time to realize and describe also the negative aspects of a life at high altitude, in the cold, with fog, rain, and snow. Ragucci’s testimony was quite similar, and as he was always able to return to his hospital, a former grand hotel, his experience of nature and weather conditions was less negative over the long term than that of Rose. Men like Ausserhofer, Hane, and Mörwald were less deliberative. They almost never talked about the splendor of the mountains. Their eyes were fixed on everyday fighting and the weather—good weather giving respite, bad weather making life even more miserable. There are several essential factors that explain their ambivalent representations of nature: class, intellectual connections, upbringing, education, and personal attitudes; the daily changing conditions; and the various contexts behind why all these men wrote. Further research is necessary to verify the findings of this exemplary study. By analyzing a more important number of contemporary documents and linking them more closely to the existing master narrative in the current historiography, it will then be possible to gain a more sophisticated understanding of a theatre of war that was as much different as it was similar to the other fronts in this global war. In this context it is important to be more aware of the diverse perceptions and understandings of nature in a war where nature itself seemed to have joined forces with the enemy.

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Was There a Socialist Type of Anthropocene During the Cold War? Science, Economy, and the History of the Poplar Species in Hungary, 1945–19751

Róbert Balogh

HAC RCH / University of Debrecen

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The paper argues that exploring the content and sites of transnational entanglements is a more adequate way to study the relationship between the Cold War and the Great Acceleration phase of Anthropocene than looking at the so-called East vs. West in isolation. By focusing on how scientific ideas, economic concepts, industrial projects, and data production emerged and intertwined in the case of activities related to poplar trees in Hungary, it becomes clear that anthropogenic landscape change during the state socialist period was embedded into the global circulation of ideas about forests, materials and ecology. The paper also points out that forestry is a relevant area of knowledge for studying the reasons behind anthropogenic change leading to the Anthropocene because of continuities it provides across World Wars and regions, and because the profession engages with biological knowledge production, business interests, political demands regarding long-term economic growth, and notions of ecological crisis in its everyday practice.

Keywords: anthropocene, science studies, history of forestry, state socialism, paper production

Anthropocene, Cold War and Poplar from the Perspective of Hungary

Trees can become symbols of historical change. In early 2018, a group of Australian scientists proposed that one of the rings of the only Sitka spruce tree living on Campbell Island, 600 kilometers south of New Zealand, namely, the ring dated to 1965, should become the marker for the divide between Holocene and Anthropocene epochs. Chris Turney and his team found that the 14C content of the tree rapidly grew in 1965 date due to fallout from nuclear bomb testing that had taken place some years earlier.2 This perspective emphasizes the globalized nature of ecological change. Turney’s observation focuses on a location that looks extremely remote, thus, marginal from the Global North. Reinforcing the same message, the scientist talks of biochemical changes taking place at the level of cells in a tree that a human being purposefully planted there, thousands of kilometers away from its natural habitat. Turney overcomes what might appear as a contradiction between global challenge and local phenomena by stressing that human activity had its impact even in the most remote locations in 1965.

Anthropocene may simply be translated as the Age of Humans. This term emerging around the year 2000 indicates that human influence has become the single most important factor changing the biophysical system of the Earth. The use of the term has been criticized from a number of perspectives. According to critics, talking of Anthropocene recreates the idea of a sharp division between nature and culture that is the very notion that has led to the current damages to sustainability, it veils the role that capitalism has played in biophysical change, and it also ignores non-Western perspectives of ecology as well as the historical contingency of thinking of ecological crisis in the West.3 Despite the importance of chronology and historical narrative in these discussions, few historians have used Anthropocene as a framework of analysis. Coming close to Turney’s proposed dating, J. R. McNeill and Peter Engelke’s recent global environmental history associated Anthropocene with the term Great Acceleration that signifies the rapid rise of the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.4 The authors posit that while the post-1945 period was the age of omnipresent ecological destruction, the Cold War was only one of the factors behind biophysical changes since global-scale urbanization, demography, and consumption were powerful factors in their own right. McNeill and Engelke also demonstrate that while talking about the impact of Cold War, countries of the ‘West’ and the ‘Socialist States,’ including China, were all engaged in environmentally harmful activities as part of the arms race and struggle for influence. This latter view is not the mainstream among environmental historians working on East-Central Europe. As Zsuzsa Gille’s and, more recently, Viktor Pál’s monographic studies have pointed out, a number of writings emphasize that it is the Soviet Union and Sovietized thinking that is to blame for pollution and loss of biodiversity and habitats.5 The purpose of this paper is to contextualize planned and actual anthropogenic landscape change taking place in Hungary, one of the countries of the ‘Socialist Bloc,’ emphasizing both specificities of global connectedness and locally specific features. As Zoltán Ginelli has recently argued, Hungary’s semiperipheral position is a vantage point from which relations that look like dichotomies may be reviewed: “Semiperipherality shares both central and peripheral aspects: being strongly connected through its cultural or geographical proximity to the global center, but remaining peripheral, dependent and subjugated to the global core as its ‘internal other’; not having colonies, but benefiting from civilizational superiority and imperialist practices over the global periphery; developing a strong urge to catch up with and imitate the center, while sharing its civilizational and modernization mission towards the periphery.”6 Looking at the Anthropocene thesis from this angle contributes to describing the relationship between capitalism and global biophysical change as well as the ‘Western’-ness of the term Anthropocene.

The idea that state socialist regimes developed a Sovietized and harmful pseudo-science instead of carrying out research in the interest of humans has encroached on the popular image of poplar trees in Hungary. On August 30, 2017, the Assembly of the Capital City of Budapest decided that it should get rid of all the trees belonging to the species commonly called ‘Canadian poplar’ because its flowers damage respiratory health, carry the risk of fire, and is a relic from socialist times.7 The decision indicated that it referred to the species taxonomically named Populus × canadensis. However, this term is a terrain of ambiguity. In the accepted nomenclature of the poplar species, which came into force in 1955, Populus × canadensis is no longer accepted as a name of a taxon.8 It is most likely that the decision of the assembly targeted Populus × euroamericana, which is a hybrid of a North American poplar species, Populus deltoides, and another one believed to be an indigenous species of Hungary, Populus nigra. The text of the decision errs when it ignores that this hybrid is not the result of a scientific or pseudo-scientific project; instead, it is a natural outcome that has been around since the eighteenth century. The frequency with which hybridization can take place is in fact talked of as a danger to the genetic stock of poplars.9 Throughout the twentieth century, especially since the 1920s, a number of cultivar varieties have been produced of the Populus × euroamericana hybrid. In fact, the name Populus × canadensis may also refer to the variety called Merilandiana that is called ‘early poplar’ in common Hungarian.10 With the recent politicization of the poplar, we are at the heart of the uncertainty between nature and culture and its archival production in the post-socialist context. Moreover, this is an instance when dendrology experiments and conventional historical records both form part of the archives used for historical research.

The short proposal to eliminate the poplar from Budapest did not spell out the most important context of the link between state socialism and poplar species: paper and cellulose production. Moreover, there are a number of other contexts to keep in mind. Poplar, growing faster than all other families of species considered for forestry in the twentieth century, made it important for urban planning, design of highways, and for containing desertification of areas of the Great Plains of Hungary since the 1920s. Yet, it was the rapid rise of demand for paper products and the cost associated with their import that brought the poplar project to center stage in the history of forestry of the state socialist period of Hungary. Poplar was not the only species that triggered large-scale investment and institutional and transnational effort for increasing the area of growth—in the hope of obtaining more arable land and raw material for industry. The story of pine, especially Pinus silvestris, merits a separate study in this regard.11 The history of afforestation is also intertwined with the history of poplar projects in Hungary, though it cannot be equated with it.12

In this paper, I study the history of knowledge production about poplar in Hungary in order to look at links between state socialism, scientific approaches, global institutions, ideas about the economy, and the Anthropocene during the Cold War period until the mid-1970s. In the first part, I explore the question if there was both an ‘Eastern’ and a ‘Western’ science in light of the production of poplar species and emerging views and research about a canker disease that attacked poplar plantations in various parts of the northern hemisphere in the twentieth century. The second section interprets and contextualizes formulas that high-ranking Hungarian foresters presented at global events related to projecting future commodification of forest resources. I will consider these thoughts in light of activities and agendas of Cold War institutions, such as, the European Economic Committee of the UN (UNECE) and the Comecon. The third section brings together the issues of science, data and economic decisions, and relates these to the social and political context of the Yugoslavian-Hungarian deal about paper production that had been in preparation since 1969 and was eventually signed in 1975. Studying the entangled nature of scientific, political, and economic projects related to poplar species, along with the history of how knowledge emerged in state socialist Hungary, contributes to understanding projects and actual changes in the nature-culture relationship during the Cold War decades.

The picture I draw here will not be a complete discussion of how the Anthropocene unfolded in state socialist Hungary. I do not discuss the roles that afforestation and poplar played in the history of the relationship between changing flood basin landscape and hydropower generation projects, such as Bős-Nagymaros or Lake Tisza. I also exclude the issue of pollution that the papermaking industry produced. Energy production, pollution, and protest are topics that other historians have been working on and they deserve separate papers.13 The present approach is relevant for the discussion on the validity of the term Anthropocene. It looks at developments from the perspective of a semiperiphery and studies forestry, which is an area of knowledge production where the relationship between nature and culture had a century of history by the 1960s.

A Case for Entangled History: Poplar Science in Hungary in the Context
of Postwar Ideas about Development and Transnational Science

The history of the poplar species is an entangled history transgressing geopolitical and chronological demarcation lines. Thus, the history of how the transnational scientific poplar project interacted with the launch and expansion of the poplar project in Hungary is a site for assessing the plausibility of the assumption that there was a ‘Socialist’ as opposed to a ‘Western’ science during Cold War.

Poplar is one of families of the tree species that are termed as fast-growing because its rotational cycle, as established by modern forestry, is a fraction of the number of decades that beech, pine, and oak take to reach what is believed to be their optimum industrial size. As a result, proliferation of poplar tree hybrids was one of the global projects that intended to bring about large-scale anthropogenic change in the post–World War II decades under the umbrella of the Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO). As a result of an emerging global timber market, new ideas of economic development, and the growing importance of exploring industrial uses of timber in forestry research, beginning in the 1930s there were botanical and forestry experiments aimed at selecting and improving the poplar species.14 By that time, the European experience in the cellulose industry showed that the material was indispensable, but importing spruce as a major resource put a large burden on the national economy in times of exportation difficulties.15 European countries lacking pine forests or with significant regional variation of accessibility, such as the Netherlands, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Hungary, were in a particularly difficult situation in this regard. Italy became the first hub of collecting and selecting poplar species and Italian foresters gained specialized knowledge in vegetative propagation (cloning) of selected clones.16

The poplar program in Hungary has to do with three transnational histories. First, there were pre–World War II links to Italian forestry. Second, Hungary took part in so-called international provenance studies that aimed at finding what the optimal conditions were for certain varieties.17 Third, in 1949 the government of the Rákosi era allowed some foresters to take part in the 3rd Full Session of the International Poplar Commission (IPC) in Belgium and in the Netherlands.18 In fact, Hungarian foresters Miklós Rosner and György Koltay were the only participants from the ‘Socialist Bloc’ at the event. The international event in actual fact included only European participants: Swedish, British, Swiss, French, Hungarian, Italian, many Dutch and Belgian, and a few Luxembourgian foresters. FAO and the international organization of forestry research institutes, IUFRO, also sent a representative in their own right.19 The meeting of 1949 was an important milestone for the Hungarian perspectives because, due to discontinued membership of countries of the ‘Socialist Bloc’ in FAO and other UN organs in the 1950s, there was no Hungarian delegation at the subsequent six full meetings. During that decade, Yugoslavia was the only East-Central European country to take part in some of the full IPC meetings. From 1955, meetings became biannual or less frequent. Yet, this was a sign of decline only until 1961 when the IPC started to have its Executive Committee. By the 1960s the IPC stopped being a Western and Southern European event. Yugoslavia hosted a full session in 1962, Teheran was the venue of the full meeting in 1965, Bucharest in 1971. In the light of this trajectory, the regional event that Hungary hosted in September 23–29, 1956 was an important opportunity for reinvigorating the IPC network of contacts both among socialist countries and across the Iron Curtain.20 Assessing the international embeddedness of the poplar project of Hungary, the report on the event believed that:

In the first place, we need to highlight the general impression that foreign participants took with them. A few of them have taken part in other poplar conferences and when comparing our event and the other ones they stated that what they saw here was proof of the high standard of research and practical work. We may say that we used to work in isolation, but it has its advantages besides disadvantages, namely, we continued to work on processes (cross-breeding distant species, homogenous hybrid poplar stands) that have been rejected abroad and we managed to bring these to fruition.21

In other words, the report was critical of the era of isolation but was keen to point out that parallel experiments and innovation might contradict and refute contemporary mainstream practices. The IPC regional event was an occasion to gather feedback on ongoing experiments and applications. It also indicated that poplar research in Hungary began around 1950, during some of the coldest years of the Cold War and that is why a booming and high international visibility was possible and feasible immediately after Stalin’s death. Moreover, the event highlighted that there were three crucial issues for a transnational poplar research program, namely, reconciling sustainable levels of biodiversity of forest stands with needs of industrial use and with the push to lower costs of planting and felling, the acceptance and credibility of experimental results, and the issue of a poplar disease, Dothichiza canker. It was also clear that the three issues were intertwined. What the report on the regional event suggested as a definitive conclusion about the viability of homogenous plantations was actually still in an experimental stage in 1956. Two years earlier, János Magyar, the forester with superior knowledge of mathematics, set out to resolve the question of what constituted the minimum necessary biodiversity for the poplar project. His conclusion was that it would not make sense to mix different poplar species in the same stand; however, best results may be expected if below poplars there is a second tree level in the stand that is made up of species that tolerate shade. During the discussion of his results, György Koltay plainly stated that “The biological condition of homogenous poplar stands is bad, and their productivity remains acceptable only as long as the negative impact of biological conditions does not show up.”22 The concise nature of Magyar’s methodology and presentation asked for more research on more numerous stands before a final conclusion could be reached.

In the same years, another factor, the spread of Dothichiza canker, also underlined the salience of experiments about the biological condition of stands where poplar hybrids dominate. The issue of canker became so serious that it looked it would end the career of some of the most promising Populus × euroamericana clones in the second half of the 1950s. The disease causes the bark of poplar trees to swell and deform, but it may also begin as a leaf infection. Trees are likely to survive initial the disease, though many tend to die and collapse during the next wet period because of their reduced level of resistance. In Hungarian poplar stands, the symptoms appeared suddenly in the early 1950s, and specialists had to dig for a description that appeared in print in 1938. The cause of canker was a mystery that took years to solve. The bibliographical references of papers published in the 1950s point to lacunae in transnational knowledge circuits during Hungary’s years of relative isolation. In 1953, T. R. Peace’s the comprehensive study of poplar in UK stated that it had no information about the spread of canker in Eastern Europe, while researchers of the Forestry Research Institute of Hungary (Erdészeti Tudományos Intézet – ERTI) did not reference Dutch experiments and results from the 1930s and 1940s that T. R. Peace of the UK Forestry Commission praised.23 Hungarian foresters also did not know of Alma Waterman’s work which referenced turn-of-the century results, including specifications of large-scale canker damage registered in 1915–1916 in some of the states of the USA.24 The common denominator in literature was another British botanist, K. A. Sabet, who posited a link between weather and Dothichiza canker and between fungi and bacterial infection causing it.25 Eventually, foresters agreed that the disease appeared as a result of combined presence of fungi known as Cryptodiaporthe populea (Sacc.) and bacteria.26 By the time Magyar nyárfatermesztés (Hungarian Poplar Cultivation) was published in 1962, Hungarian researchers were aware of all previous publications and the various names that authors used to name the disease.27 Since all authors agreed that there was no cure for the disease, research was oriented towards identifying resistant and vulnerable varieties and circumstances that increase risk. To avoid a major loss of stands, foresters needed to prevent weakening of trees from dry periods and unsatisfactory soil conditions, and too much manure also increased susceptibility. The example of Dothichiza canker allows one to highlight three features of the transnational aspects of poplar research. First, the range of the poplar species and varieties that forestry experimented with was a common pool across the Iron Curtain in the 1950s. In fact, if it was not for the widespread of Populus × euroamericana clones, Dothichiza canker would not have threatened poplar plantations. Second, decades of expertise in vegetative propagation for engineering suitable variants did not mean that it became possible to control nature-culture interaction. Third, in the early 1950s, knowledge circulation was lacking between Hungarian foresters and their Western counterparts, but this did not mean a complete stop to scientific articles crossing borders. Peace’s study mentioned the lack of information in key publications appearing in the ‘West.’ This situation changed by the early 1960s, but the regional IPC event of 1956 played a key role in realizing distances and reconnecting Hungarian researchers to the circulation of ideas elsewhere.

These conclusions clarify the fact that the contemporary status of the state socialist form of political control was relevant to the history of the poplar in Hungary. Initially, planting more poplar species as means of water management along rivers and as part of protective forest belts was one of the aspects of afforestation. Afforestation had nearly a century of history by 1950, but it was during Rákosi’s regime that it became a means of mobilization and a link to ‘Stalin’s plan to transform nature,’ which was launched after the postwar famines in the Soviet Union. Propaganda and the need to respond or adjust to it remained an integral part of political life after the Rákosi era and after 1956. The poplar project evolved into a national assessment of all postwar poplar stands, and, subsequently into the National Poplar Committee under one of the key bodies of the early Kádár era, the Committee of Economic Affairs of the Council of Ministers. This meant the politicization of the attitude towards the poplar species and ever more propaganda about the issue.28 The high number and content of articles that appeared in the most important contemporary journal targeting foresters, Az Erdő, also confirm that the poplar campaign and the goals it set had a profound impact on forestry in the early 1960s. Looking at propaganda related to the poplar campaign is one of the ways to connect related written source material that researchers and institutions produced and a wider social realm of foresters and forestry employees working on the ground. Under such conditions, oversimplification of tasks and the tendency to look at poplar species as panacea were everyday issues. Poplar made its way to the agenda of the local units of the National Forestry Association. It appears from the debate articles that a younger generation of foresters was impatient with the limitations that classification of niches meant in terms of the choice of species. In regions such as Hajdú County, replacing oak with poplar looked like a natural process that loss of soil humidity had been triggering for nearly a century. However, senior researchers, especially Imre Babos, who produced textbooks about afforestation, were squarely against replacing oak stands along the Tisza River or overusing spruce and poplar in the Western border area.29 The tone that some members of the generation of foresters who played major role in producing basic literature for afforestation campaign in the 1950s used in an official professional journal to discredit the excesses of poplar propagation shows that there was a political decision to place limits on the undesirable transformation of forests, land use practices, and landscapes that the propaganda might have brought about. Debates about the ways soil and niche classification limited the expansion of the area covered by poplar species, in other words, about the usefulness of experimentation and scientific observation, intensified among Hungarian foresters as the poplar project gained political salience and a national dimension throughout the 1960s. As we shall see in the third section of this paper, the assessment carried out between 1973 and 1976 found that while the campaign of 1960–61 reached its goal in terms of drastically increasing the presence of poplar species in terms of both percentage and visibility in specific landscapes, poplar-based afforestation often took place without due regard for soil quality and requirements.

Studies summarizing knowledge produced on poplar cultivation (volumes published in 1954, 1962, 1978, and 1996) are consistent about stating that the poplar program in Hungary began as a set of transnational entanglements.30 This consciousness reflects that taking part in projects with global reach was considered to be a prestigious and valuable act throughout these decades. The interaction between the agenda of IPC and poplar research in Hungary shows that differences between experiments and goals did not constitute a fundamental divergence of scientific work on specific fields. This unity did not only stem from common elements of point of departure such as the reception of related work in Italy and the IPC meeting of 1949. The goal of Hungarian poplar researchers was to produce and eventually present globally relevant results on the occasion of regional level academic meetings even when formal full-scale participation in FAO meetings was halted by the ‘Eastern Bloc.’ Dendrology and scientific forestry aspects of the poplar project were fundamentally about the belief that it was possible to transform the state of nature into another one in which a group of specifically designed non-human species turn into resources in the foreseeable future and, thus, benefit goals of national economic development.

In summary, increasing the area covered by poplar was a transnational project in the post–World War II era. Despite years of relative isolation from transnational level knowledge production, the main goals of the poplar project in Hungary were in tune with international developments and major threats were also shared. Due to relatively fast growth, short rotational cycle, and the industrial qualities of its timber, the poplar species carried the promise for growing industrial output and economic growth, or at least, improving the terms of trade in a number of countries of the northern hemisphere by the late 1950s. The Hungarian poplar project was not a pseudo-scientific exercise. Yet, politicization of the poplar campaign and, thus, the difficulties of setting limitations for it, arguably, distinguished it from parallel projects elsewhere. However, zeal and propaganda were coupled with professional demand for experimental evidence before moving forward with plantation and the selection of cultivars.

Global Commodification, Economic Projections, and Cold War Institutions

Before turning to the question of how landscapes changed and how the timber was eventually used, the next step in assessing the relationship between the Anthropocene and the Cold War in the light of poplar projects is to consider the changes that the years between 1955 and 1975 brought about in terms of thinking about the calculability of the timber commodity chain and how entanglements worked in this field from the point of view of Hungarian foresters. The proposals that Hungarian forestry economists aimed to mainstream at the transnational level were closely intertwined with the vision about Hungary’s position in global economy that informed the “New Economic Mechanism” of the second half of the 1960s. This introduction of a new approach to state socialist economy in Hungary catalyzed thinking about linkages between timber and commodification and the global position of Hungary. Thus, the argument of this section complements recent results in the analysis of the global position of Hungary at that time. Tamás Gerőcs and András Pinkasz and the monographic study of István Feitl argue that one of the major histories of the political economies of 1960s was the failure of the countries of the Socialist Bloc to set up frameworks of closer integration that might have opened a way of emancipation in place of dependencies. Dependence was the result of the contemporaneous drive of modernization and import substitution and, more generally, a semiperipheral position.31 Second, this section also contributes to bridge the gap that seems to exist between the popularity of long-term economic projections with Hungarian foresters and the market-oriented New Economic Mechanism.

There were three sites where interaction between Hungarian foresters’ economic ideas and transnational environments took place. Two of these were institutions operating within the framework of the United Nations: the FAO World Forestry Congresses, held every six years since 1948, were essential for aggregating and disseminating new ideas about what forests meant for society and economy. The congresses of Seattle (1960), Madrid (1966), and Buenos Aires (1972) were groundbreaking in this regard for their role in drawing attention to both global inequality and ecological sustainability in these assessments.32 At the European level, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE, operating since 1947) was another important and permanent site for prognostication that brought together experts from across the ‘blocs.’ In 1972, the summary report of the activities of UNECE emphasized that collecting statistics about production and trade of wood and timber products was a novelty in the postwar period.33 The regular publication of Timber Bulletin for Europe was a key output of the activities of UNECE in the field. It maintained a database of commodity prices that allowed projecting and mapping economic factors, such as, demand for certain goods, availability of resources, and patterns of aggregate growth. Third, a specialized body of experts working on issues related to timber, cellulose, and paper appeared on the Comecon scene in the late 1950s. The Permanent Committee on Timber, Cellulose, and Paper Comecon was set up in 1956 and soon began to work on a 15-year prospective plan.34 The documentary footprint of that plan was an assessment of technological development vis-à-vis ‘capitalist’ countries, assessing the volume and extent of trade between individual member states and capitalist countries, with an evaluation of dependency and setting up a framework of exchange within which growth in efficiency and catching up would be possible. This exchange potentially included joint projects, but no specific ones were launched.

Biographies are the link connecting archives of a regionally specific UN body, professional global meetings, Comecon, the ministry-level dossiers of state socialist Hungary, and the story of poplar projects. In Hungary, foresters working in key positions during the late 1960s and early 1970s belonged to the same generation attending the Forestry College of Sopron just before 1945: Emil Sali, Aladár Halász, András Madas, and Béla Keresztesi were in their early fifties in 1970. While in the early 1960s, Keresztesi had the most political capital, it was Madas who reached the highest position in the group. After spending decades in senior positions at the Office of Planning, he was deputy minister at the giant Ministry for Agriculture and Food Procurement between 1972 and 1975. Upon his retirement, he produced academic texts that are keys to understanding how a generation of high-ranking forestry economists thought about turning forests into sustainable commodities under conditions of state socialism.35 Having to engage with the issues that a new price mechanism meant for forestry, and with the poplar project, influenced Madas’s thinking in a decisive way. From the mid-1960s, Madas posited in all his publications that the export of primary agricultural products could not finance paper related import, but export of previously imported timber material was an important asset in this regard.36 Madas became committed to applying the idea of ‘timber economy’ that reflected that forest management, timber processing, and international trade should be treated as a whole.37 For him, this meant that calculations about future timber consumption and availability at the continental and global scale should precede regional and national level planning and decisions.38 The long-term plan that the National Technical Development Committee of Hungary published in 1967 frequently referred to the Timber Bulletin that the UNECE published. Together with Aladár Halász, he was one of the Hungarian expert delegates to UNECE and he had a career there: Madas was repeatedly elected chief expert of forestry. In the mid-1960s, as a result of his participation in UNECE and his familiarity with statistical work produced at that institution, Madas began to work out a model about timber supply for the global scale. He presented his work at the section he chaired at the World Forestry Congress of 1973 and a year later the publishing house of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences published his model in English.39 On the one hand, his work was premised on assessing whether a certain region was a major timber importing region or an exporting one and if it was feasible to establish link between centers of demand and of supply. He did not see sites of export as underdeveloped. Rather, he argued that the most underdeveloped areas were those that were unable to export due to lack of infrastructure. His prime example for this was mechanization of timber production in Canada, the country that needed to double its export capacity if growing demand in the USA was to be satisfied. His geographic analysis had blind spots: he only considered growing demand in China in passing and he believed that the lack of infrastructure in Western Africa and in Latin America would prevent these areas from becoming centers of export. He was most nuanced in his assessment of Northern Europe, Japan, and North America. One of the most outstanding features of his presentation was that he treated Europe together, without reference to the Iron Curtain, but discussed the Soviet Union separately. In this form, ‘socialist’ countries were only one of a group of countries where Soviet exports were expected to grow to an unspecified extent. Madas’s second but related starting point was that historical trends and correlation between demography, GDP, and demand for different timber products should be combined in arriving at plausible estimate. He offered corrections to earlier models published by UNECE on this basis. Importantly, he posited that 20 percent of all forested areas should be reserved in the interest of the oxygen balance of the atmosphere and for recreational purposes. Altogether, Madas argued that demand would double until 2000 due to a surge in the consumption of paper products and despite a relative decline of many other categories of timber commodities, but he believed that this increase may be met in a sustainable manner. The model showed a belief in the possibility of prediction based on economic rationality and mathematical modeling and was receptive to fresh concerns about ecological crisis. He did not spend time on discussing the role of Hungary in the model, but the implicit message was difficult to miss: each country needed to integrate into a regional and global economic scene that had nothing to do with being or not being a socialist economy or a Soviet ally. His analysis also made it obvious that there was no database available at the time that could match his ambition to predict supply and demand.. Therefore, for his projection and estimation he used data available for end points fixed in time. He also thought it obvious that it is demand and supply that determined the future of commodities. Within this picture it would make no sense at all for a government to force the use of resources disregarding its own global position or not admitting uncertainties. For Madas, a sensible policy was one that was clear about challenges, addressing them strategically. Rational economic decisions and projections had a place, but short-term decrees contingent on concerns for a political support base could hardly fit in. In 1966, Halász, as head of a team of foresters, edited a publication that consisted of tables about timber trade. These tables did not list the ‘socialist bloc’ or Comecon member states as a separate region within Europe and did not apply political divisions to any other part of the world.40 This choice reflects a vision where commodity and hard currency requirements depended more on opportunities and availability than on power blocs.

‘Paper timber’ export and import in several European countries between 1955 and 1964 in 1000 m3

Table 1. Export and import of ‘paper timber’ in several countries
(Translation of Halász 1966, 54.)

These published tables had their roots in Ministry reports showing that Hungary was chiefly integrated into the European timber market via cellulose and paper products.41 The narrative was clear: the volume and value of imports multiplied between early 1950 and the early 1960s and stabilized at the high end. The changing figures related to export was the outcome of Hungary being increasingly involved in the re-exportation of timber from the Soviet Union for the purposes of paper production.42 Emil Sali, the Head of Forestry Department within the ministry, and member of Madas’s generation, believed that a greater capacity to share across Comecon countries would reduce the financial difficulties that paper demand caused.43 The report of Madas’s team about global trends and resources had reservations about Soviet Union’s capacity to open up new routes to timber in Siberia, and thus underlined that cooperation has to mean more than trade with the Soviet Union. Moreover, Madas’s team of researchers also saw limited further growth of timber resources and high labor costs in Northern Europe, and thus predicted that timber imports would grow steadily in ‘capitalist western’ economies.44 In their view, for Hungary, the way to go forward was to grow its own timber stock, and equally importantly, push for regional cooperation across borders. Comecon would have been a likely candidate for becoming a framework for this change, but Madas and the generation of forestry economists discussed above never seemed to have proposed anything in that regard. And this was a not simply a coincidence.

In 1957–58, as part of breaking away from the Stalinist notion of autarky, but keeping to the idea of import substitution, a number of experts’ meetings discussed the position and status of Comecon member countries in terms of potential timber resources and timber processing industrial capacity as well as their major problems. However, there was a long-lasting disagreement regarding the scope of the committee. While Hungary, the GDR, and Bulgaria were interested in more cooperation, Romania wanted to limit it. Their stance was that the Permanent Committee on Timber, Cellulose, and Paper should first discuss whether a certain product could be included in the agenda. Initially, the Soviet Union supported Romania’s position.45 One of the turning points of the discussion was when Hungarian representatives of the Committee argued that the Soviet support for the Romanian position related to agenda setting was untenable in the light of statements that the Soviet delegation at UNECE made about the importance of cooperation.46 During the first years of its existence, the work of the Permanent Committee revolved around gathering data and information, and decisions about strategic direction that should be followed. The meeting held in Moscow in February 1958 accepted that in the field of developing paper production, one of the goals should be sharing the burden of industrial capacity building among Comecon member states. The Hungarian delegation suggested that considering the technological superiority of GDR industry in processing hardwood, it might be considered if GDR can increase its capacity to take resources of other member states to produce cellulose.47

The document that Comecon’s Permanent Committee accepted was premised on a dilemma: it highlighted that paper production and production capacity were insufficient in Comecon countries and that these countries had overused their forest resources since the end of World War II and that this trend had to be reversed. As a workaround, the document promoted the use of reed, hay, and waste until better machines and production lines became available for more efficiency. The report that Hungary prepared about its own situation emphasized that with all efforts of afforestation and mechanization, only 50 percent of yearly timber requirement was expected to come from the forests of the country. The summary also showed that Hungary imported only 3 percent of its paper needs from Comecon countries while its paper import from ‘capitalist’ countries increased 62-fold even as overall paper supply decreased between 1950 and 1957. The drop in total use of paper was a sign of shortage rather than of drastically increased efficiency.48 Moreover, some of the technologies of cellulose production were entirely absent.

Cellulose and paper production were not the main focus of reports that Hungarian authorities prepared for the purposes of drawing up the 15-year plan of Comecon. The possibility of replacing timber with other materials, reusing waste, introducing more and better machinery in felling, moving, sawing, furniture making, and meeting the requirements of railways, mines, and construction occupied the center stage.49 Yet, these documents recognized that there was a need for change in the type of resources and cellulose products the paper industry utilized for better keeping up with demand in Hungary. The initiative regarding the shared establishment of cellulose factories among Comecon countries did not have a bright future. It also disappeared from the agenda of the meetings of the Permanent Committee by early 1961–62.50 Unfortunately, the archival record of the work of Hungarian representatives in the Permanent Committee between 1963 and 1968 is yet to be located. For the years in which related documents reappear in the archives of the supersized Ministry of Agriculture and Food Provision, Hungarian reports on meetings of the permanent Comecon committee on agriculture and forestry express a degree of disappointment in regard to how much cooperation actually took place. This picture resonates with István Feitl’s argument about the failed attempt of Hungary and Poland to fundamentally change the structure of Comecon.51 Despite wide-ranging data collection, estimates, and prognoses about the way substantial coordination within Comecon could improve the economic position of member countries in global comparison, by 1970 standardization and bi- or trilateral scientific cooperation were the only noticeable Comecon activities in the field of forestry. There were serious issues with mechanization due to the lack of available machines within Comecon and the unwillingness of member states to sign multilateral agreements.52 In terms of the archival landscape, the simple filing of reports written in Russian replaces discussions and position papers.53 There were no plans submitted for a joint cellulose project.

A revealing episode from 1973 connects global thinking and local events of the paper supply chain. Besides Madas, several members of the Hungarian delegation to the Seventh World Forestry Congress were also stakeholders in the issue of the poplar project. In 1973, Keresztesi was the head of ERTI and editor of collective efforts to summarize the state of the art of the Hungarian poplar project in 1962 and also in 1978. Aladár Halász was deputy head of the Department of Economics of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Procurement; Endre Szenes was the director general of LIGNIMPEX, the state export-import agency dealing in timber. Thus, it was one of the highlights of the weeks spent in Argentina when, as part of their organized study trip, the delegation joined a Finnish party visiting a cellulose and papermaking factory near Rosario. The Hungarians were delighted to see an adjacent paper tree plantation consisting of 5–15 year old pine and eucalyptus species with felling going on in a part of the area at the time of visit. The group was so impressed with the method of propagation and care for the seedlings that they gathered and produced a detailed technical description of each step of the process.54 The scene represented the ideal situation of high technology applied in a paper tree plantation of very short rotational cycle a few kilometers away from a large processing complex that produced both cellulose and paper products. The ground reality in Hungary was far from this exotic perfection.

On the Ground: Data, Cooperatives, and the Yugoslavian-Hungarian
Paper Deal

In response to the lack of effective Comecon coordination in timber processing, the Hungarian government eventually moved to bilateral solutions, and imported related machinery from the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, the USA, and Italy. In the field of paper imports, the major bilateral move was a contract on timber products that LIGNIMPEX, on behalf of the Hungarian government, signed in the autumn of 1975 with Yugoslavia concerning joint production of cellulose and paper. The deal with Yugoslavia entailed that Hungary would transport poplar as raw material for paper to two Yugoslav paper mills along the River Sava: Krsko in present-day Slovenia, and Srmska Mitrovica (Szávaszentdemeter) in present day Serbia. Throughout the second half of 1960s, the relationship between the political elite of the Hungarian and the Yugoslavian party-states improved beyond imagination.55 Thus, bloc level politics did not stand in the way of using the opportunities that the Danube provided for timber trade. At the same, the relationship with another potential partner, Czechoslovakia, was at an all-time low around 1969–70. The volume of timber that Hungary had to bring to the factory at Srmska Mitrovica was three times larger than the volume intended for the Krsko plant. In return, Hungary would receive cellulose and paper products at a price that was 5% below the Scandinavian market price. The most important objective of the Hungarian government was to save hard currency on paper importation.56 In the lack of records about the negotiations, one may only assume that the Yugoslav government was interested in signing a deal to overcome problems of raw material supply to the factories. Transports to Krsko were to begin in the summer of 1976, while to Sremska Mitrovica only in 1977. The contract signed with Yugoslavia meant that the volume of poplar timber production needed to rise sharply until 1980 and stabilize at a high level for the next fifteen years.57 To gain insight to the ground realities of the poplar project in Hungary, we may look at the Yugoslav–Hungarian deal as the outcome of three decisions on the Hungarian side. First, it had to be decided that there should be no processing capacity built in Hungary for the timber material that the poplar project would produce. Second, the quantity and quality of timber had to be calculated. Third, transporting timber from Hungary to the processing plants had to be judged feasible and possible from the point of view of logistics.

Regarding the first question, archival traces are scanty, but it is clear that it was a matter discussion for nearly a decade as to whether the country should build its own productive capacity.58 In 1958, Madas believed that expansion of the paper mill at Csepel would solve the question.59 Another potential candidate was the paper mill in Dunaújváros (formerly Sztálinváros), south from Budapest, along the Danube. It was built and became operational in the mid-1970s, but studies submitted to the Ministry of Light Industry did not see it feasible to expand it further to process poplar grown in Hungary.60

The question of how the quantity and quality of available poplar timber was assessed is a more complex issue. The Hungarian–Yugoslavian poplar-paper deal entailed a large-scale effort of resource commodification that consisted of several steps during the 1960s and the 1970s. In 1966, the assessment of the implementation of the plan that the National Poplar Committee drew up showed that by 1970 there would be an abundance of poplar ready to be commodified. As András Madas put it in a letter to the deputy head of the National Planning Office (OT): “since liberation we have planted circa 330,000 hectares of forest. Fast-growing poplar species constitute around 20 percent of these new forests. Thus, the capacity of the country to produce raw material has been considerably increased.”61 However, the scale of the planned Yugoslavian–Hungarian deal made authorities feel that there might not be enough poplar trees in Hungary to fulfill contractual obligations.62 Thus, only a year later, the Department of Forestry of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Provision also carried out an assessment of the availability of raw material for the Yugoslavian–Hungarian deal, making an account of poplar and willow species that were considered ‘paper timber.’ The assessment showed that the Hungarian party would be able to fulfil its obligation in the first year of the contract, especially since supplies to Sremska Mitrovica were to begin in 1977. The calculation also stated that even though large areas of poplar stands were set to mature in the same period, it would only be possible to keep up with such a rise in demand if additional species and sources were included, such as spruce imported from the Soviet Union and beech from Hungary.63 In 1975, amid such uncertainty, the Department of Forestry embarked on a third survey that was intended to produce a reliable database and be more comprehensive than the previous ones. The design of the study was such that it reflected awareness of the fact that the partnership with Yugoslavia meant that calculations about economic feasibility and availability of supplies had to be combined with a long-term ecological assessment of the poplar project that had been on-going since 1960. Sali explained in the books summarizing poplar research that researchers used data directly from management plans, but they checked each area for which a plan was prepared before 1966, and the survey included all forests where the proportion of poplar species was at least 5 percent.64 The assessment of 1958, which preceded and conditioned the forming of the National Poplar Commission, concluded that several local level forest management plans erred in assessing ratios of poplar species in afforested areas. In 1958, Keresztesi, in his paper summarizing this data, estimated that 162,658 ha. of poplar would be planted between 1958 and 1975.65 The assessment of 1975–78 showed that in 1973 the total area of poplar was 154,300 ha. and this figure was expected to decrease in the coming decade. This meant that in peak years poplar species covered around 11 percent of total forested area, while this figure was closer to 8 percent in most years of the period under discussion. This figure is comparable to the area covered by pine in the late 1960s. Delegated staff of ERTI and the planning unit of the Department of Forestry used computers for developing the predictive model and for calculating the quantity and quality of timber for each subsequent year. The models showed that certain factors, especially considerations of quality, would result in loss of the area of poplar until 1990, while additional plantation was also considered.66 Although when narrowing it down to the question of the Yugoslavian–Hungarian deal, the survey gave a positive response, the overall result was that the quality of poplar in Hungary was less than mediocre and that this was due to hasty decisions about the locations of poplar stands that did not take soil conditions seriously enough during the early 1960s. Foresters also concluded that Hungary would not be able to supply a pulp making factory if it were built on its territory. The recurring evaluation of the impact and implementation of the 20-year plan of the National Poplar Committee, namely, increasing the area and quality of poplar within the total forested area and within the afforestation effort, was one of the catalysts and opportunities for thinking in terms of a ‘timber economy’ in Hungary.67 The assessment was a formidable and successful exercise that contained valid methods for assuring data quality, evaluation, and predictive analysis using all available computational technology to achieve the best results. It was no less than the reappraisal of the sustainability of commodification of poplar species and stands in the light of changes that the new economic thinking, collectivization, and global market integration brought about in the relationship between nature and culture in Hungary. Uncertainty about the conclusion of assessments might make the impression that the study was the outcome of ‘communist’-style official optimism and calculation.68 However, the methods of data collection were the outcome of several factors, such as, ideas about the economy and about nature, transnational circuits of and long-term practices of knowledge production, and conflicts over land use. Forestry has been a data intensive science since the mid-nineteenth century. As part of the forest management documentation, foresters were expected to create a plan about how and when a specific forest area reached optimum timber output for the intended type of product. Experiments and mathematics were used for producing tables about growth rate of different tree species, and calculations of value and prices were also an integral part of the knowledge base. Data collection and the assessment of data played a key role in the poplar project as a result of continuities within the profession, and not only due to the nature of the state socialist regime or advances in computational technology.

As part of the complexity, specifically state socialist conflicts over land use also mattered. The launching of the plan of National Poplar Committee coincided with the final wave of aggressive collectivization. Studies of Gábor Máté demonstrate that in the drive to apply chemicals and water management techniques, collectivization at times brought about landscape degradation and created ecological issues that were not present before.69 It is yet to be explored how the poplar plan impacted the first years of new cooperatives, but there is at least one document that allows researchers to highlight points of tension. In regard to Somogy County, the author of a 1963 report believed that natural conditions were suitable for poplar and it would be possible to plant 6,000 hectares. According to the draft, cooperatives would have to undertake the bulk of the task, besides the Hungarian State Railways and Water Management authorities. The author, however, noted that 40–70 percent of seedlings died due to carelessness and grazing.70 When Madas and Halász dealt with the economic behavior of newly formed cooperatives and the actual shortage of raw materials such as pine and firewood, they brought attention to several risks that rational economic behavior of the leadership of cooperatives might cause. Madas pointed out that in terms of land ownership pattern, Hungary was unique among ‘socialist’ countries. There was virtually no private forest by the 1970s, but cooperatives managed 22 percent of forested areas and a relatively low proportion, 77.7% of forests, were under direct state management. Madas and Halász believed that this was not an ideal situation since cooperatives treated forests as secondary areas of activity and used timber for relatively inferior purposes, thus keeping the valuable material off the market.71 The pressures that the Yugoslavian-Hungarian deal triggered resulted in a showcase of these issues. In the first year of the contract, issues with actual supplies were so serious that they could potentially jeopardize the entire deal. The question of prices was no less complicated than logistics. In the climate of post-1968 economic regime where enterprises were encouraged to make profit, buying up stocks was only possible if the price offered was higher than it would have been for other products. Ministerial administration sought a fix to these pressing issues experienced on the ground. In order to make the supply chain operate, central administration organized meetings for various regional level actors of the reshaped realm of cooperatives, forestry enterprises, and state enterprises involved in trading timber related commodities.72 Despite serious issues encountered regarding cooperation between forestry enterprises and cooperatives, the latter were expected to take an ever-larger share in the poplar program since without their poplar stands the entire operation would have fallen short of supply.73 Because of these developments, and other logistics issues, less than half of the required quantity left for Yugoslavia by mid-June 1976, and later months looked uncertain too. It was also a difficult logistical task to make sure that production in the eastern part of Hungary reached the ports where ships departed from. Although the two neighbouring Pest and Bács-Kiskun counties, and a county along the Danube, Győr-Moson-Sopron, were the prime areas of poplar, without the output of the Trans-Tisza region there would not have been enough timber to transport.74 Despite these concerns and the social sensitivity of the World Forestry Congress of 1973, forestry economists did not consider social conflict or forms of resistance to the poplar campaign as a factor.75 It requires a further reading against the grain to locate specific instances and forms of resistance to the poplar project.

The Yugoslavian–Hungarian paper deal led to a major professional, institutional, and academic enterprise to assess and predict the future availability of a species seen as a natural resource, the presence of which had been the result of anthropogenic intervention in the late 1950s and during the 1960s. Attention shifted to the issue of identifying and sustaining ecological conditions that made commodification possible. The assessments of the poplar project included the problem of the distance between data and information, institutional interests, Hungary’s place in the global economy and within the so-called ‘Eastern Bloc,’ and the problem of combining local efforts into a single cause. The correlations and risks that the tables point to reflected that the production of paper poplar was a site where the collectivization of agriculture, forestry, prices induced by the New Economic Mechanism, and scientific practices of producing information about nature all intertwined.

Conclusion

This paper addressed the science and economy of an Anthropocene thesis from the vantage point of semiperipheral Hungary during the Cold War. It chose the poplar species as the subject matter because poplar-based industrial production underwent a surge in post–World War II Hungary and it included large-scale efforts at landscape change, while research activities began in the first half of twentieth century. Historicizing poplar is an opportunity to study how the performativity and transnational nature of economics and life sciences intertwined with the political history of Cold War institutions and the social-political history of state socialist countries to bring about a new era of nature-culture relationship that we may call the Anthropocene.

The first section highlighted that forestry research on the poplar species was an essentially transnational one, even if that history might look domestic or isolated to present-day interpreters. The history of the interaction between activities of the International Poplar Committee was intertwined with major stages of the Cold War, such as the withdrawal and return of countries of the Socialist Bloc to UN organizations. Moreover, the institutionalization of links among researchers also connects to natural-cultural histories, such as the history of engineering hybrid clones, the idea and technology of tree plantation, and the presence, destruction, and economic loss that living organisms preying on trees might cause. This is not to deny that that the social history of landscape change, and the way professional groups might influence it, was arguably specific to state socialist regimes such as Hungary. That is because the science of the Anthropocene is about entanglements.

Economic models that top leaders of Hungarian forestry profession presented at global events were reflections and an attempted means to break away from a semiperipheral position, despite the limitations and failed hopes that Comecon meant by the 1960s. The section on the projecting of long-term patterns of timber availability showed that it was the combination of the drive to growth, consciousness of dependencies, emerging notions about a potential ecological crisis, and a shifting social context that resulted in changes in the nature-culture relationship. The global economy and ecology of the era of Anthropocene has been a process of emergence, rather than an outcome of plans.

Besides transnational entanglements of science and economic models, the history and specific stories of data collection proved to be a hub for understanding what was specific about the way ideas about aggregate demand and economic potential come together with measurements of ecological sustainability—to turn potentially valuable resources into commodities of calculable-calculated value in state socialist Hungary. The third section addressed how the state socialist economy of Hungary adapted to the changing natural-cultural circumstances that its very actions of commodification contributed to. The assessment of the poplar project between 1973 and 1976 pronounced that what looked like policy at first sight was the hybrid of many factors: incompletely counted trees, the political decision to promote or harm certain interests, human economic behavior and its perception, and regional and global ecological, economic, and political contexts. The Yugoslavian–Hungarian paper and cellulose deal signed in autumn 1975 was the key element at the juncture of the poplar planation campaign that began 1960s and assessments of timber resources. The context of the deal underlines that linking local events and global change is indispensable for the studying the Anthropocene from a historical perspective.

These histories of linkages, entanglements, and complexities help us see both state socialism and the Anthropocene less as a matter of course. Since the history of the formula of nature-culture is not fully accessible, there is scope to add new and unexpected elements to it in order to change the model of future ecology.

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The Participation of the Medieval Transylvanian Counties in Tax Collection

András W. Kovács
Research Institute of theTransylvanian Museum Society
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In Transylvania the county authorities had to assist in collecting royal (state) taxes owed by the serfs of noble estates (like in other parts of Hungary). In 1324 the king exempted the Transylvanians from paying the tax called collecta that they previously had to submit to the voivode. (Based on analogies, it can be suggested that this tax was collected either because of the cancellation of the yearly renewal of money or the refusal of the compulsory exchange of older money.) From 1336 the yearly renewal of money and with this the compulsory exchange of the former money ceased to exist. In order to compensate this profit of the treasury (the chamber), King Charles I (1301–1342) assessed a new tax, which similarly to the previous one was called the chamber’s profit (lucrum camerae), but the “gate” (household or porta) became the taxation unit. This tax, according to the lease contract of the Transylvanian chamber from 1336, was also collected in Transylvania, but in 1366 King Louis I (1342–1382) exempted the Transylvanians from paying it. In 1467 the king tried to have the tax called tributum fisci regalis (that substituted the chamber’s profit) collected also in Transylvania, whereon an uprising broke out. This latter tax and the more and more frequently collected extraordinary tax (subsidium, contributio, taxa) usually made up one florin per household. For the upkeep of their delegations sent to the king, the Transylvanian counties collected an occasional tax, the so-called courting money (pecunias udvarnicales), from their serfs. There is data of its collection from the fifteenth century on. These taxes, normally collected from estates located in territory of the counties, were exempt from payment because of royal privilege or because they belonged to the town of Szeben (Sibiu/Hermannstadt), the Seven Seats (‘Sieben Stühle’), but estates of the towns of Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca/Klausenburg), Brassó (Braşov/Kronstadt), Beszterce (Bistriţa/Nösen, Bistritz), and Medgyes (Mediaş/Mediasch) were also exempt. These settlements’ exemption from paying the taxes had to be confirmed by recurrent voivodal (or sometimes royal) mandates sent to the vicevoivodes of Transylvania, the county authorities, the tax assessors, and tax collectors.

Keywords: Middle Ages, Transylvania, tax collection, counties, pecunia udvarnicalis, taxa, contributio, subsidium

 Introduction

This study investigates the royal (state) taxes collected in Transylvania, the eastern province of Hungary, from the serfs who lived on noble estates, and the role county authorities1 played in the process until 1526. The taxation of these counties (Belső-Szolnok, Doboka, Kolozs, Torda, Hunyad, Fehér, Küküllő), because of a local tax and the exemption from paying the chamber’s profit (lucrum camerae), differed from the taxation of other parts of the country, and was fundamentally dissimilar from the taxes paid by the privileged Transylvanian Székely and Saxon areas.

Fourteenth-Century Taxes

The most important bodies of the financial administration were the chambers; the Transylvanian chamber probably existed already by the end of the Árpádian period.2 In 1324 King Charles I exempted the Transylvanian nobility and their serfs from paying the lodging and upkeep tax (the descensus and the victualia) as well as the tax named collecta, which until then had to be submitted to the voivode of Transylvania (vayvoda Transsilvanus), the officeholder appointed by the king to lead the province.3 From 1336 the chamber’s profit (lucrum camerae) became the direct tax of the serfs, which bears its name from the previous practice in which the treasury (chamber) earned profit through the yearly renewal of the money and the compulsory exchange of old coins. The taxation unit from that time on was the porta (household).4 According to the lease contract of the Transylvanian chamber from 1336, the levying of the household tax in the counties belonged to the jurisdiction of the chamber count, and the tax had to be collected by the officers of the chamber count (per comitum camere nostre vel suos officiales) in the presence of a delegate of the archbishop (of Esztergom), of the master of the treasury (in presentia hominum domini archyepiscopi et magistri tawarnicorum nostrorum), and the county authority. The count (comes provincialis; ispán) and the judges of the nobles (iudices nobilium; szolgabíró) received one-third of the fine that was inflicted on those who refused to pay the tax.5 In 1366 King Louis I exempted the Transylvanian nobles and their estates from paying the chamber’s profit (and the upkeep tax).6 Although later royal confirmations of the privilege charter are not known, the serfs of the Transylvanian nobles enjoyed this exemption for a long time (until 1467). Outside of Transylvania the chamber counts with their administration, the tax assessors and tax collectors (dicatores, exactores) assisted by county authorities, were in charge of collecting the tax.7

Extraordinary and local taxes however were sometimes also levied in Transylvania. According to a charter from 1368, the officialis at Szentimre (Sântimbru) of Péter Járai, vicevoivode of Transylvania (1344–1350, 1359–1368), with the help of the judges of nobles of Doboka and Kolozs Counties, had to collect a tax, four denars for each plot (mansio), awarded to the vicevoivode by the nobles of the country.8 There is no later reference to this tax.

Courting Money

The nobility of the Transylvanian counties collected the courting money (1448, 1456, 1477, 1488, 1499: pecunias udvarnicales)9 or courting denars (1466: denarios udvarnicales)10 from their serfs for the upkeep of their delegations11 sent to the king. The contemporary name of the tax according to data from 1491—if it is not a misspelling—may have been udvarlópénz,12 which, if one can connect with later mentions (1619, 1710), also attests to the meaning of the adjective ‘courtier’ (udvarló) as a ‘person who does service at the court.’13 There is no data on the collection of the courting tax elsewhere than in Transylvania.

The (deputy) counts (comites and vicecomites) and the judges of the nobles in Transylvania took part in the collection of this local (and extraordinary) tax directly. In 1448 the Transylvanian vicevoivodes ordered the barons, nobles, and people of all origin and rank in Szolnok County to collect the courting money from their serfs because the Transylvanian nobles decided to send a delegation, including Miklós Kémeri and János son of Gyerő of Gyerővásárhely, to the prelates, barons, and honorable persons of the country in Buda; but many people disregarded paying the money. So they again ordered the collection of money by the first day of the next court period of Szolnok County, and if nobles would again deny fulfilling it, the task shall be remitted to the vicecounts and the judges of the nobles to have it collected from every single estate under the fine of three marks.14

In 1456, at the assembly called by the vicevoivodes to Torda (Turda/Thorenburg) of Transylvanian nobles, Székelys, and Saxons, the deputies of the universitas of the nobility reported that they elected Tamás Lökös (Wass) of Cege (Ţaga) to join the delegation to the king, and he was given 32 gold florins of courting money (pecunias udvarnicales) for garments and horses. Afterward, the heirs of Tamás Lökös gave testimony that the deceased did in fact spend the money on clothes and horses.15 According to this account, the courting money was paid only by the nobility of the counties and not by the Székelys and Saxons. The exemption of the Saxons is also confirmed by the fact that royal, voivodal, and vicevoivodal mandates disallowed the Transylvanian nobility and the counties from collecting courting money from the estates that were lying in county territories but were attached to the Seven Seats (‘Sieben Stühle,’ its center was Szeben; 1488; 1491; 1492; 1501; 1505).16

In 1477 upon the request of Erzsébet, widow of János Dengelegi Pongrác, voivode of Transylvania (1475–1476, 1467–1472, 1475–1476), King Matthias (1458–1490) exempted her serfs from paying the courting money and sent a mandate to the voivode of Transylvania, the vicevoivode, and the county authorities stating such.17 Although it was the king who forgave its collection, the courting tax was not a tax collected for the ruler; in 1499 and 1501 voivode Péter Szentgyörgyi (1498–1510) referred to the royal taxes (contributio regie maiestatis; taxa regalis) and the courting money (pecunia udvarnicalis) as separate types of taxes.18

In 1492, when upon the request of the abbot of Kolozsmonostor (Cluj-Mănăştur), King Vladislas II (1490–1516) exempted the serfs of the abbey from paying the courting money, the abbot himself also called this tax in Transylvania an occasional one, but which the people of the abbey had not paid in living memory.19

In 1496, Vladislas II ordered that the tax the Transylvanians called courting money should be collected from all serf-holding nobles proportionately to their estates, with the exception of those nobles only who already live in the royal court.20

So the courting money was an occasional tax that the nobles of the Transylvanian parts would levy for no other reason than to cover the expenses of the delegates sent to the court. This is the reason why Székelys and Saxons did not pay it: as privileged peoples they appealed their issues on their own, and, what is more, the nobility of the counties was not entitled to offer any tax in their name.

Extraordinary Taxes

From the coronation of Matthias onwards, there is a markedly large quantity of data on the collection of extraordinary—including war—taxes,21 but the data on their collection originates mostly from the archives of Saxon towns.22 The war taxes however had been collected earlier as well, and in Transylvania too.23 The taxes passed by the Hungarian diet also applied to Transylvania, but the Transylvanian nobility in itself had no right to vote on the tax.24

In 1467 King Matthias eradicated the chamber’s profit (lucrum camerae) when the taxes of the treasury (tributum fisci regalis) were substituted for it;25 this was also to be introduced in Transylvania. However, after the Transylvanian uprising of 1467, the previous tax system was reintroduced (and even if more families lived behind one “gate,” they still had to pay only after one household). From the 1470s onwards, when Matthias had the extraordinary tax (subsidium, i.e., benefit, or contributio, i.e. tax) collected, he included the chamber’s profit in it, meaning that the lucrum camerae (or portal tax) was not collected separately; the two taxes added up to one florin per porta.26 The normally passed tax to be paid by tenant peasant households was collected yearly.27

The so-called royal account book of treasurer Zsigmond Ernuszt from 1494–1495 preserved the name of the royal tax collectors (exactores et dicatores) who were sent to Transylvania (in both years they were István Istvánfi and Miklós Kápolnai), their salaries (300/331 florins), as well as the sum of the tax levied on the seven Transylvanian counties. In every county, the tax collectors were accompanied by the counts and the judges of the nobles, who also received salary from the treasury (168/148 florins). In 1495 during the period of tax levying, the treasury either granted an honorarium to ten better-off Transylvanian nobles (potioribus nobilibus regni Transsilvanensis) or exempted their estates from the tax payment (probably because they mediated for the undisturbed collection of the tax).28

The levying (of the serfs) of nobles—one of the contributions (contributio) of the three privileged “nations”—was not amongst the largest Transylvanian incomes of the king. The instructions and reports29 written during the reign of King Ferdinand I (1526–1564) in Transylvania (1552–1556), of which the ones by royal deputies György Werner and Pál Bornemissza are likely the most important, testify to this.30 Thanks to the sophisticated literacy of the Habsburg administration, previously unknown data of major significance is available for this short period that also mirrors the medieval situation. According to the treasurer Péter Haller, the deficiencies of the collection of Transylvanian contribution can be attributed to the negligence of the counts; it was not possible, not even with voivodal powers, to force them to have the taxes collected, which was confirmed by the collectors of the contributio as well (1553).31 According to a 1554 letter of László Gyalui Vas, Transylvanian financial director (supremus proventuum Regie Maiestatis in Transsilvania administrator) of Ferdinand I, sent to an unknown recipient, it was almost impossible to collect the remainder of the contributio of the Transylvanian counties even with the power of the voivodes.32

There are no surviving tax accounts from the territory of the Transylvanian counties from before 1526.33 The participation of the counties in collecting the taxes for the king at this point is verified by the following charter evidences.

On December 4, 1464, King Matthias ordered his tax collectors (dicatoribus), Antal Patai Dezső and Mihály Zsuki, to present him their tax accounts.34 There is no information concerning the representatives of the county authority who were ordered to accompany them (previously Antal Dezső was count of Kolozs and Doboka Counties in 1460). From 1470 there is data pertaining to a royal tax collector of Fehér and Küküllő Counties called Miklós Piri (de Piry).35 A damaged charter of Matthias from 1472 urged the authority of one of the—probably Transylvanian—counties to collect the contributio from the estates of the nobles.36

On February 4, 1499, Péter Szentgyörgyi, the voivode in a mandate to Doboka County—to the comites or the vicecomites and judges of the nobility—and the universitas of its nobility urged them to collect the royal tax (contributio regie maiestatis) from the serfs of the county according to the register of the tax assessors, as the deadline set by the tax collectors, Tamás Harinai Farkas and János Somkeréki Erdélyi, had passed.37

In 1513 the voivode János Szapolyai (1510–1526) forbade Kolozs County from collecting the 47 florins of royal tax (subsidia maiestatis regie) owed by István Zsuki based on his wealth totaling 53 portas. He addressed the order to the authority of Kolozs County and to the tax collectors (exactoribus presentis subsidii);38 in 1518 it was also Szapolyai who sent a mandate to the authority of Hunyad County to gather and hand over to the tax collectors the 60-denar tax offered to the king (subsidium sue maiestatis) by the Transylvanian nobles;39 while in 1526 he ordered Fehér County to pay the royal tax (subsidia maiestatis regie) to the delegate of the treasurer.40

It was possible to compensate for the unpaid taxes directly from the estates of the nobles who denied payment, but this had to be brought into effect by the counties. In 1523 the vicevoivode István Tomori (1523–1526) informed Torda County that there was no longer any need to avenge the estates of Tamás Háportoni Forró as he did in fact pay the taxes (subsidium regie maiestatis).41

In Transylvania tax collection was supervised by the voivode,42 and the related lawsuits also belonged to the jurisdiction of his court, not that of the counties. In 1499, the voivode Péter Szentgyörgyi instructed every Transylvanian county that the lawsuits concerning the contributio due to the king and the courting money should be heard in front of the voivode and not at county courts.43 The example of the lawsuit below does not contradict this principle: in 1483 the voivode, István Báthory (1479–1493), ordered the steward (provisor curie) of Csicsó (Ciceu) castle to bring those servants and serfs of Mihály Szerdahelyi from Retteg (Reteag) who set themselves up for tax collectors and taxed the serfs of István Erdélyi at Virágosberek (Floreşti), Németi (Mintiu), and Csépán (Cepari/Tschepan) to the coming court period of Belső-Szolnok County. So the lawsuit was not about taxation,44 but about the related fraud, and by his authority, the voivode gave the order to the provisor.

Exemptions

In villages owned by and legally “attached” to the Saxon towns and seats but lying in county territory, the taxes paid by the serfs of the county nobility were not collected.45 The “separation” from the county primarily meant the exemption from its authority, but it went hand in hand with the exemption from the taxes collected in the counties as well as the exemption from mandatory soldiering. This of course did not mean that their tax-paying and soldiering duties ended, but that these duties had to be fulfilled according to their new environment. This paper does not aim to list every area that was exempted from county taxation and soldiering (e.g., the whole of the Székely Lands and Saxon Lands, for a while the Fogaras District, which was outside of the county organization, as well as towns that paid taxes in a different way, their lands, and also some market towns). In the following pages we will only discuss those cases that have data on the prohibiting of county tax collectors or on exemptions typically in the case of settlements that previously belonged to the authority of the counties but later were attached to one of the privileged towns, seats, or districts. The orders issued on these matters preserve important, elsewhere irretrievable data mostly on county taxation, as they specify what kind of tax should not be collected there.

The abbey of Kolozsmonostor

As noted above, according to the privilege charter of August 27, 1492 issued by King Vladislas II, the estates of the monastery of Kolozsmonostor were exempted from paying the courting money.46 Based on this it can be assumed that the serfs of other ecclesiastical institutions were also exempted from paying this tax, but as of now no further data confirms this.

The estates of the Saxon Seven Seats and the town Szeben

The inhabitants of the settlements lying in the territories of the counties but owning Saxon privileges were taxed differently than other serfs of the counties. From the fifteenth century numerous royal, voivodal, and vicevoivodal mandates survive which forbade the assessment and collection of the county taxes at the privileged settlements. As the majority of these estates lay in Fehér and Küküllő Counties, the addressees in most cases were the authorities of these two counties or the tax collectors being sent there, and in the case of the royal charters usually the voivodes and the vicevoivodes. For instance, the addressees of the mandate of Matthias dated to June 9, 1475 were the collectors of the one-florin tax of the Transylvanian parts, but primarily those of Fehér and Küküllő Counties, and the grantees were the Saxons of the Seven Seats and Two Seats (‘Zwei Stühle’), the Barcaság (districtul Bârsei, Burzenland, terra), Brassó and Beszterce (both civitates), furthermore the abbeys of Kerc (Cârţa/Kerz) and Egres, and the estates of the provostry of Szeben attached to the Saxons. The reason for this exemption was the obligation of the Saxons to pay a total of 10,000 gold florins, taking care of the division of this burden themselves.47 The methods of taxation applicable to the estates attached to the Saxon seats became established relatively late. In 1473 the envoy of Beszterce to Szeben was informed that the county tax would be collected also from the (county) territories attached to the Seven Seats.48

The exemption of the settlements from taxation had to be provided with recurrent voivodal (sometimes royal) mandates addressed to the vicevoivode, counties, tax assessors, and tax collectors.49

The abbey of Egres, the provostry of Szeben, the lands confiscated from Miklós Salgói, and the estates of the abbey of Kerc

In 1416 King Sigismund (1387–1437) sent a mandate to Miklós Csáki, voivode of Transylvania (1402–1403, 1415–1426), to further allow the hospites living on the estates of the abbey of Egres called Monora, Csanád, Apátfalva (Holdvilág), and Sorostély (all in Fehér County) to join the ‘banderial’ army of the seven Saxon seats and to prevent the Transylvanian nobles from forcing them under their own banderia.50 In 1416 the king, on the request of Imre, his special chaplain and abbot of the Cistercian abbey of Egres, forbade anyone from the occupation or collection of the incomes, the census, and the collecta of the same estates of the abbey after the abbot’s death as he put these lands under the protection of the Seven Seats.51

In 1424 King Sigismund donated the Saint Ladislas provostry to the town of Szeben, including its three estates (Nagyekemező, Kisekemező, Rüsz), and from the estates of Bolkács and Zsidve in Küküllő County, the sections that were confiscated from Miklós Salgói.52

The abbey of Kerc and its estates enjoyed the privileges of the Seven Seats in terms of jurisdiction, taxation, and soldiering already in the thirteenth century,53 but in 1474 King Matthias once again donated the estates to the Holy Virgin Church54 of Szeben.

Péterfalva (Petiş/Petersdorf) and Rovás

In 1486, King Matthias issued a mandate to the Transylvanian voivode and Fehér County in which he ordered that no tax (taxa, collecta) paid by the (serfs of the) nobility of the county shall be collected from the inhabitants of the Péterfalva and Rovás estates, as he attached these territories to the Saxon seats and exempted them from the authority of the Transylvanian voivode and the comes of Fehér County, as well as from soldiering (the two estates were earlier bequeathed by the widow of Péter Veresmarti to the Virgin Mary Church of Szeben).55 In 1488, referring to a royal privilege (exemptionalis), vicevoivode István Telegdi forbade Fehér County from collecting the royal taxes or the courting money from the inhabitants of Rovás as the estate belongs to the Virgin Mary Church of Szeben.56 However, even later on, there were noble holdings to be found at Rovás, where noble and voivodal jurisdiction remained.57

Talmács (Tălmaciu/Talmesch)

The king had the right to remove a settlement from the jurisdiction of the county. In 1453 King Ladislas V (1440–1457)—actually János Hunyadi (1452–1455), who wielded power with the title of chief-captain (supremus capitaneus regie maiestatis)—detached from Fehér County the castles of Talmács and Latorvár (Lotrioara/Lauter), as well as Vöröstorony (Turnu Roşu/Rothenturm) and its related estate and donated these to the Seven Seats. He also extended the Seven Seats’ right to the donated estates,58 the donation being confirmed by Matthias in 1468.59 Later this estate formed the basis of the Saxon sub-seat (Filialstuhl) of Talmács.

Rukkor (Rucăr/Ruckersdorf)

In 1453 King Ladislas V donated half of Rukkor, along with the estate of Talmács, to the Seven Seats,60 but its fate was different than that of other estates because its other half was obtained by the Saxons only in 1486.61 In 1488 Matthias banned the Transylvanian counties and the tax collectors there from assessing taxes on Rukkor, the tax of which had to be added to the census of the Saxons.62

Fogaras and Omlás (Amnaş/Hamlesch)

The district (districtus) of Fogaras and the estate of Omlás came into the possession of the Seven Seats as a royal donation in 1469,63 which then was confirmed by Matthias in 1472 and again in 1483.64 In 1486 Fogaras came back into the hands of its previous owners, the Vingárti Gerébs.65 The villages of the estate of Omlás later formed the Saxon sub-seat of Szelistye (Sălişte/Grossdorf). In 1485 the tax collectors of Fehér and Küküllő Counties had to be forbidden from collecting taxes from Omlás and Talmács (and other Saxon estates).66

Felek (Feleacu) (estate of Kolozsvár)

In 1377 King Louis I gave the ‘sheep fiftieth’ (quinquagesima ovium; this was a tax due to the king) of the Romanian serfs of Felek village to its owner, the town of Kolozsvár, and further forbade the tax collectors from the collection this tax.67 In 1415 King Sigismund also guaranteed the town that the Romanian inhabitants of Felek shall not be obligated to turn in the sheep fiftieth and foodstuffs (prandium),68 and in 1478 King Matthias issued a mandate to the Transylvanian tax collectors forbidding them to oblige the peasants of the two estates of Kolozsvár, Felek, and Fejérd (Feiurdeni; this latter was also donated to the town by him) to pay the taxes collected in the province, as their taxes should be tallied with that of Kolozsvár.69 In 1509 the palatine (1504–1519) and regie maiestati locumtenens Imre Perényi (1509–1510, 1510–1511, 1515) ordered the collectors of the taxa and the contributio of Transylvania not to count the serfs of Felek amongst those of the county, nor to collect their taxes.70

The estates of Brassó

The estates of Brassó that lay in Fehér County were also exempted from the taxation of the county. In January 1496 King Vladislas II—in response to the complaints of the town of Brassó—ordered the tax assessors and tax collectors of Fehér County not to demand provisionment (victualia) from the estates of Tohán (Tohanu/Tohan), Zernyest (Zărneşti), Újfalu (Barcaújfalu; Satu Nou/Neudorf), Sárkány (Şercaia/Schirkanyen), and Páró (Părău/Mikesdorf). This was because he donated them to the Corpus Christi altar of the parish church of Brassó for his salvation and in terms of taxation attached them to the town; therefore its inhabitants shall not pay taxes in the manner of the serfs of noble estates.71

Brassó received Törcsvár (Bran/Törzburg) and its estate from King Vladislas II in 1498 as a pledge.72 On July 24, 1500,73 in terms of paying the contributio and taxa, and soldiering, King Vladislas classified the serfs and other inhabitants living on the estates of Brassó as Saxons, mandating that voivode Péter Szentgyörgyi, treasurer János Bornemissza (1500–1504), and the tax assessors shall tax them accordingly. From the estates mentioned in the privilege—Pürkerec (Purcăreni), Zajzon (Zizin), Tatrang (Tărlungeni), Szentmihály (Cernatu), Türkös (Turcheş/Türkesdorf), Bácsfalu (Baciu/Batschendorf), Krizba (Crizbav/Krebsbach), Apáca (Apaţa/Geist; estate complex of Törcsvár), Sárkány, Mikefalva (= Páró),74 Újfalu (holdings of the town), Zernyest, and Tohán (the latter two belonging to the Virgin Mary parish of Brassó)75—some were in Fehér County and accordingly were exempted from county taxation. On June 24, 1501 in response to the complaints of the magistrates of Brassó and the Barcaság district, King Vladislas II gave a mandate not only to the county authorities but also the universitas of the nobility of the Transylvanian parts that they shall not assess taxes on the town of Brassó and its estates in the Barcaság and the tax collectors should not demand the taxa and the census, because they would then be taxed twice; in the meantime he also ordered the voivode Péter Szentgyörgyi to protect the grantees.76 In 1533, voivode István Báthory (1530–1534) explained in his answer sent to the authorities of the town Brassó that he had received their letter expounding on the privileges and exemptions of the town (namely, that Törcsvár and its parts belonged to the church of Brassó and since the “holy kings” these had been exempted from the contributio, that is from the taxa regia and the exercituatio, or had been paying those together with the Saxons) and that he also received knowledge of the fact that not long before, when the Saxons paid two florins per capita as subsidium, Brassó refused to pay the tax, and as a result the inhabitants of Törcsvár and its parts did not pay the tax at all, be it as Saxons or as nobles.77

The district of Radna (Rodna) (estate of the town of Beszterce)

Not long after the decision of the diet of 1467, which declared that the castle estates of Radna, Omlás, and Fogaras cannot be given away, in the autumn of 1469 Matthias gave the district of Radna (districtus Radna) to the town of Beszterce. The Saxon lands also counted amongst the royal domains, so this did not mean the contempt of the 1467 decision, in the background of which the king’s wishes can be supposed anyway. In 1472 King Matthias—in answer to the complaints of the town of Beszterce—ordered the tax assessors and tax collectors not to tax the Romanians (Vallachos) living in the district of the valley of Radna (in districtu Rodna Velgje).78

Volkány (estate of Segesvár)

Volkány was bestowed to Segesvár from Fehér County by King Matthias in 1487.79 King Vladislas II confirmed it again in 1491,80 and so did King John I (1526–1540) in 1531. In 1501, Péter Szentgyörgyi, the voivode of Transylvania—with reference to the royal donation that the mayor of Segesvár, Anthon Polnar, presented—ordered the incumbent counts, vicecounts, and tax collectors not to collect the royal taxa and the courting money in Volkány, the estate of the St. Nicholas Church of Segesvár; and also forbade the county to fine the people of Volkány, as had happened a couple of times in the past.81 In 1521, when Louis II (1516­–1526) confirmed the belonging of Volkány to Segesvár, he mandated the Fehér County authority and the universitas of its nobility to respect the extension of the rights of Segesvár.82 In 1527 it was Péter Perényi, voivode of Transylvania (1526–1529), who ordered the Transylvanian county authorities and the tax collectors not to force the inhabitants of Volkány to pay in any way the taxes levied on the county, as that would constitute double taxation of the village.83

Pócstelke (Păucea/Puschendorf; estate of Medgyes)

In 1508 Vladislas II exempted the serfs who lived at the part of Pócstelke that belonged to the St. Margaret Church of Medgyes from paying any ordinary or extraordinary royal tax (the estate of Pócstelke was bought for the church by the town),84 and in 1514 he ordered Küküllő County not to collect any tax at all (taxa, contributio and subsidium) in the estate part of Medgyes at Pócstelke.85

The above-listed exemptions (with the exception of Kolozsmonostor, and the its privileges later acquiring Pócstelke) are all recorded in the section of the 1494/1495 royal account book registering the exempted county territories (although it does not give details about the estates of Szeben). According to this source, amongst others, no tax was collected from Fogaras (the king forgave that to its previous landlord, Péter Geréb), from Radnavölgye, from the estates of Szeben, from “Csanád” (this meaning the Csanád, Monora, Apátfalva, and Sorostély estates of the abbey of Egres), and neither from the village of Felek, which belonged to Kolozsvár.86

Conclusions

The direct state tax of the serfs, the chamber’s profit (the lucrum camerae), was collected from 1336 onwards also in Transylvania with other local taxes; however, King Louis I exempted the Transylvanians from paying these in 1366. So far we only have fifteenth-century data on the collection of the so-called courting money in the Transylvanian counties for the upkeep of the delegates sent by the Transylvanian nobles to the royal court. When in 1467 instead of the lucrum camerae King Matthias introduced the tributum fisci regalis and wanted to collect it in Transylvania, an uprising broke out. After its fast repression only the one-florin tax was collected with growing intensity. The collection of the taxes of the counties was supervised by the leading officeholder, the voivode (and his deputy, the vicevoivode). The settlements which belonged to any of the privileged towns (Kolozsvár, Beszterce, Brassó) or to the Saxon Seven Seats, or which received a privilege themselves, were exempted from the jurisdiction of the counties, did not pay the taxes collected by the counties, and did not take part in the banderial army of the counties.

The sources do not suggest whether the counties were divided into smaller units, such as districts, and if so what role these played in taxation.

Archival Sources

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára, Budapest [Hungarian National Archives, State Archive] (MNL OL)

Diplomatikai Fényképgyűjtemény [Collection of Diplomatic Photographies] (DF)

Diplomatikai Levéltár [Collection of Diplomatics] (DL)

Archiv der Evangelischen Kirchengemeinde Mediasch

Urkunden

Arhivele Naţionale ale României. Serviciul Judeţean Sibiu al Arhivelor Naţionale [Sibiu County Branch of the Romanian National Archives], Sibiu (SJAN-SB)

Magistratul oraşului şi scaunului Sibiu. Colecţia de documente medievale (Urkunden). [The magistrate of the town and seat of Sibiu. Collection of medieval documents (Urkunden)]

Arhivele Naţionale ale României. Serviciul Judeţean Braşov al Arhivelor Naţionale [Braşov County Branch of the Romanian National Archives], Braşov (SJAN-BV)

Arhiva oraşului Braşov, Colecţia Schnell [Archive of city Brassó, Collection Schnell]

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Decreta Regni Hungariae 1301–1457 = Decreta regni Hungariae: Gesetze und Verordnungen Ungarns. Collected by Franciscus Döry, edited by Georgius Bónis, and Vera Bácskai. Publicationes Archivi Nationalis Hungarici 2: Fontes, 11. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1976.

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KárolyiOkl = Codex diplomaticus comitum Károlyi de Nagy-Károly: A nagykárolyi gróf Károlyi család oklevéltára, edited by Kálmán Géresi. 5 vols. Budapest: Kocsi Sándor and Franklin, 1882–1897.

KmJkv = Jakó, Zsigmond, ed. A kolozsmonostori konvent jegyzőkönyvei (1289–1556). 2 vols [Protocols of the convent of Kolozsmonostor]. Publicationes Archivi Nationalis Hungarici 2: Fontes, 17. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1990.

KvOkl = Jakab, Elek. Oklevéltár Kolozsvár története első kötetéhez [Documents for the first volume of the history of Kolozsvár]. Buda: Magyar Királyi Egyetemi Könyvnyomda, 1870.

SzapolyaiOkl = A Szapolyai család oklevéltára: Documenta Szapolyaiana. Vol. 1, Levelek és oklevelek. Epistulae et litterae (1458–1526). Monumenta Hungariae Historica: Diplomataria. Collected and edited by Tibor Neumann. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont, Történettudományi Intézet, 2012.

SzT = Erdélyi Magyar Szótörténeti Tár [Transylvanian Hungarian etimological dictionary]. Collected and compiled by Attila Szabó T. 14 vols. Bucharest: Kriterion, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, Kolozsvár: Erdélyi Múzeum-Egyesület, 1975–2014.

TelOkl = Samu Barabás, ed. Codex diplomaticus Sacri Romani Imperii comitum familiae Teleki de Szék: A római szent birodalmi gróf széki Teleki család oklevéltára. 2 vols. Budapest: Magyar Történelmi Társulat, 1895.

Ub = Franz Zimmermann, Carl Werner, Georg Müller, Gustav Gündisch, Herta Gündisch, Konrad G. Gündisch, and Gernot Nussbächer, eds. Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen in Siebenbürgen. 7 vols. Hermannstadt: Verein für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde and Bucureşti: Editura Academiei Române, 1892–1991. – Additions and continuation (online): Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen in Siebenbürgen (Online-Fassung), ed. Martin Armgart, Adinel Dincă, Thomas Şindilariu, Attila Verók, Sarah May, Johannes Gerstner, Gernot Nussbächer. Universität Trier, 2012. Accessed on December 2, 2018. http://siebenbuergenurkundenbuch.uni-trier.de

WassLt = Antal Valentiny, and András W. Kovács, eds. A Wass család cegei levéltára [Cartulary of the Wass family of Cege]. Erdélyi Nemzeti Múzeum Levéltára 3. Kolozsvár: Erdélyi Múzeum-Egyesület, 2006.

ZsOkl = Elemér Mályusz, Iván Borsa, Norbert C. Tóth, Tibor Neumann, Bálint Lakatos, and Gábor Mikó, eds. Zsigmondkori oklevéltár. 14 vols [Sigismundian cartulary]. Publicationes Archivi Nationalis Hungarici 2: Fontes, 1, 3–4, 22, 25, 27, 32, 37, 39, 41, 43, 49, 52, 55. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó–MNL OL, 1951–2017.

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Draskóczy, István. “Az erdélyi Szászföld demográfiai helyzete a 16. század elején” [Demographic situation of the Transylvanian Saxon lands in the beginning of the 16th century]. Erdélyi Múzeum 61, no. 1–2 (1991): 1–30.

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Engel, Pál. Kamarahaszna-összeírások 1427-ből [Chamber’s profit accounts from 1427]. Új Történelmi Tár 2. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1989.

Gábor, Gyula. A megyei intézmény alakulása és működése Nagy Lajos alatt [The formation and functioning of the institution of the county during the reign of King Louis the Great]. Budapest: Grill Károly, 1908.

Gyöngyössy, Márton. “A kamara haszna a késő középkorban” [The chamber’s profit in the Late Middle Ages]. In Pénztörténet – gazdaságtörténet: Tanulmányok Buza János 70. születésnapjára [Numismatic history – economic history: Studies in honor of the 70th birthday of János Buza], edited by József Bessenyei, and István Draskóczy, 141–52. Budapest and Miskolc: Mirio Kulturális Bt., 2009.

Hegyi, Géza. “Radna és a Radna-völgy a középkorban (1241–1469/1475): Birtok- és településtörténet” [Radna and the Radna valley in the Middle Ages: Estate and settlement history]. Erdélyi Múzeum 68 no. 3–4 (2006): 32–54.

Hóman, Bálint. A magyar királyság pénzügyei és gazdaságpolitikája Károly Róbert korában [Finances and economic policy of the Kingdom of Hungary during the reign of King Charles I]. Budapest: Budavári Tudományos Társaság, 1921.

Jakó, Zsigmond. “A kolozsmonostori apátság és hiteleshelyi jegyzőkönyvei a szekularizációig” [The abbey of Kolozsmonostor and the protocols of its place of authentication until the secularization]. In KmJkv, vol. 1, 19–169.

Kubinyi, András. “A Mátyás-kori államszervezet” [The state organization in the period of King Matthias]. In Hunyadi Mátyás: Emlékkönyv Mátyás király halálának 500. évfordulójára [Matthias Corvinus: Memorial volume on the 500th anniversary of his death], edited by Gyula Rázsó, and László V. Molnár, 63–147. Budapest: Zrínyi, 1990.

Kubinyi, András. “Erdély a Mohács előtti évtizedekben” [Transylvania in the decades before the battle of Mohács]. In Tanulmányok Erdély történetéről [Studies in the history of Transylvania], edited by István Rácz, 65–73. Debrecen: Csokonai, 1988.

Mályusz, Elemér. Az erdélyi magyar társadalom a középkorban [The Hungarian society in Transylvania in the the Middle Ages]. Társadalom- és művelődéstörténeti tanulmányok 2. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Történettudományi Intézet, 1988.

Müller, Georg Eduard. Stühle und Distrikte als Unterteilungen der Siebenbürgisch-Deutschen Nationuniversität 1141–1876. Hermannstadt: Hauptverlag der Deutschen Volksgruppe in Rumänien, 1941.

Müller, Friedrich. “Die Schäßburger Bergkirche: ein kunstgeschichtlicher Versuch.” Archiv des Vereines für siebenbürgische Landeskunde 1 (1853): 303–62.

Neumann, Tibor. “Dózsa legyőzője: Szapolyai János erdélyi vajdasága (1510–1526)” [The defeater of Dózsa: The Transylvanian voivodeship]. Székelyföld: Terra Siculorum 18, no. 11 (2014): 93–107.

Neumann, Tibor. “Királyi hatalom és országgyűlés a Jagelló-kor elején” [Royal power and diets in the beginning of the Jagiellonian period]. In Rendiség és parlamentarizmus Magyarországon a kezdetektől 1918-ig [Estates and the parliament in Hungary from the beginnings to 1918], edited by Tamás Dobszay and al., 46–54. Budapest: Országgyűlés Hivatala, 2014.

Neumann, Tibor. “Minden időkben kegyelmes uratok kívánunk lenni: A királyi városok adóztatása a 15. század végén” [We are about to be your gracious lord at all times: Taxation of royal towns at the end of the 15th century]. In Hatalom, adó, jog: Gazdaságtörténeti adatok a magyar középkorról [Power, tax, right: Studies in the economic history of medieval Hungary], edited by István Kádas, and Boglárka Weisz, 13–106. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont, Történettudományi Intézet, 2017.

Nógrády, Árpád. “A lázadás ára” [The price of uprising]. Erdélyi Múzeum 67, no. 3–4 (2005): 131–37.

Nussbächer, Gernot. “Contribuţii la istoricul cetăţii Bran şi a domeniului ei în secolele XIV-XV” [Contributions to the history of Bran and the estate complex of Bran in the 14th–15th centuries]. Cumidava 9, no. 1 (1976): 25–33.

Nussbächer, Gernot. “Posesiunile oraşului Braşov în Ţara Făgăraşului în secolele XV–XVII” [The estates of Braşov în Făgăraş district in the 15th–17th centuries]. Anuarul Institutului de Istorie şi Arheologie Cluj-Napoca 24 (1981): 325–36.

Oborni, Teréz. Erdély pénzügyei I. Ferdinánd uralma alatt 1552–1556 [Finances of Transylvania during the reign of King Ferdinand I]. Fons könyvek 1. Budapest: Szentpétery Imre Történettudományi Alapítvány, 2002.

Pop, Ioan-Aurel, Daniela Marcu Istrate, Tudor Sălăgean, and Alexandru Simon. De vertice montis: Feleacul, Clujul şi Transilvania în Evul Mediu [Feleac, Cluj, and Transylvania in the Middle Ages]. Minerva. I. Homines et mores 15. Cluj-Napoca: Academia Română and Centrul de Studii Transilvane, 2017.

Solymosi, László. “Az Ernuszt-féle számadáskönyv és a középkor végi népességszám: A középkori megyei adószámadások forrásértéke” [The account book of Ernuszt and the population of Hungary at the end of the Middle Ages: The source value of medieval county tax registers]. Történelmi Szemle 28 (1985): 414–36.

Szabó, Dezső. A magyar országgyűlések II. Lajos korában [Hungarian diets during the reign of King Louis II]. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1909.

Szabó, Noémi Gyöngyvér. “A kolozsmonostori bencés apátság gazdálkodása a késő középkorban.” [The farming of the Benedictine abbey of Kolozsmonostor in the late medieval period]. Debreceni Egyetem PhD. diss., 2012.

Temesváry, János. Erdély középkori püspökei [The medieval bishops of Transylvania]. Kolozsvár: Minerva, 1922.

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* The research has been implemented with the support provided from the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund of Hungary, financed under the K 119 430 funding scheme, and the Hungarian Academy of Science Domus Hungarica Program. I am thankful for the comments of Géza Hegyi and Boglárka Weisz on this article.

(Map drawn by Béla Nagy)

Did Romanians Living on Church Estates in Medieval Transylvania Pay the Tithe?

Géza Hegyi
Research Institute of the Transylvanian Museum Society
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The Romanians of Transylvania, who were followers predominantly of the Orthodox rite, did not pay tithe to the Western Church in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. However, again according to the secondary literature, beginning in the fifteenth century, two groups of Transylvanian Romanians were obliged to pay this tax: those living on church properties and those who had moved to settlements formerly inhabited by Catholics (referred to as “terrae Christianorum”). This study deals with the issue of the first group, analyzing the only source that would support the thesis in question, namely a letter of King Sigismund of Luxembourg (which in some editions was dated to 1398 and in others to 1425 or 1426). Although the facts described in the document would correspond to realities from 1426, the contradictory dates, the confusing language, and the absence of the original (the earliest manuscript copies of the text are from the eighteenth century) arouse suspicions. Even if we accept it as authentic, the phrase “decima Volahorum,” which is used in the letter, cannot be interpreted as an ordinary tithe, but only as a royal tax. Neither the late medieval registers of revenues of the Alba Iulia chapter nor the urbaria of the estates of the Transylvanian bishopric offer any evidence in support the thesis according to which Romanians who lived on church properties paid the tithe.

Keywords: Transylvania, tithe, Romanians, church property, source criticism

Introduction

One of the most significant differences between Western (Catholic) and Eastern (Orthodox) Christianity in the Middle Ages was the paying of the tithe. While Catholics had to pay one tenth of their most important agricultural produce to the Church (or its value in currency), members of the Orthodox Church had no such obligation.1 Given this difference, the study of the collection of the tithe in a region in which members of the two Churches lived side by side but in which the Catholic Church was nonetheless the religion of the state (and therefore also the more dominant religious institution) is of particular interest. The following question arises: how did this asymmetrical intercultural relationship affect the original exemption from paying the tithe among Orthodox communities?

In the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, the Western Church was compelled to confront this issue when relatively large groups of people who followed the Eastern rite came under its authority, first in southern Italy and then, as a consequence of the Crusades, in the Holy Land and Greece.2 In these areas, which were denominationally mixed, the new landlords preferred to put Orthodox serfs on their estates (which sometimes earlier had been worked by Catholic serfs), from whom they could demand higher seigneurial taxes, since Orthodox serfs did not have to pay the tithe. Since this clearly led to reductions in the incomes of the Western Church, at the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215 the Church stipulated, in the 53rd canon, that estate owners collect the tithe from all tenants regardless of whether the serfs followed the Western or Eastern rite.3 We know very little about how this measure was actually put into practice, but with the fall of the Latin states at the end of the thirteenth century, it became irrelevant anyway.

The History of the Research on the Subject

The other region in which communities belonging to the two Churches (the Catholic and the Orthodox) lived intermixed was East Central Europe, or more precisely, Bosnia, Galicia, and Eastern Hungary (including Transylvania), where Catholic Hungarians, Székelys, and Saxons lived alongside comparatively large Orthodox Romanian, Serb, and Ruthenian communities under the jurisdiction and rule of the Hungarian kingdom, which was fundamentally Western in its cultural and religious orientation.

Hungarian and Romanian scholars and historians have studied the question of the relationship between the Romanian communities of this region and the paying of the tithe for a long time. Transylvanian historian József Kemény (1795–1855) did some of the fundamental groundwork on the subject,4 drawing on the source work of József Benkő (1740–1814), Ignác Batthyány (1741–1798), and Antal Szeredai (1740–1798), among others.5 Greek Catholic historian Zenovie Pâclişanu (1886–1957)6 and Orthodox theologian Ştefan Lupşa (1905–1964)7 made Kemény’s findings part of the Romanian historiography, often adding their own interpretations of the sources. In his monumental work on the burdens placed on the serfs of Transylvania in the sixteenth century, David Prodan (1902–1992) offers a relatively short but all the more thorough discussion of this question.8 Historians Andor Csizmadia (1910–1985),9 Ernst Wagner (1921–1996),10 Adrian Andrei Rusu (1951–),11 and Ioan-Aurel Pop (1955–)12 only touch on the question of the “tithe paid by Romanians.” Viorel Achim (1961–), in contrast, has added considerably to our understanding of this question with numerous essays on the issue as it arose in Banat13 and with the publication of several new sources.14 Thus, today he is considered the expert on the subject.

The historians and writers named above are in almost complete consensus on the view that, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Orthodox Romanians did not pay the tithe.15 If from time to time one finds references to Orthodox Romanians alongside the word “decima” in the sources, either this was a reference to a tithe paid to the Archbishop of Esztergom by the king from his incomes (including the fiftieth paid by Romanian-speaking subjects)16 or the Romanian community in question had converted to Catholicism17 (although the Hungarian kings, in an effort to further religious conversion, strove to prevail on the pope to exempt these converts from paying the tithe).18

The situation began to change under King Sigismund, but the changes affected only some of the Romanian communities.19 In Hungary more narrowly understood (i.e. not including Transylvania), with the exception of the efforts of a few prelates (in 1415 and 1469), Romanians remained exempt from the tithe.20 In Transylvania, however, according to the consensus in the secondary literature, first Romanians living on the estates of the bishop and of the chapter were compelled to pay the tithe, followed by the Romanians who had settled on “Christian lands,” i.e. villages or plots which earlier had been inhabited by Catholics.21

An Analysis of the Charter of 1426

In this article, I examine the first of these two cases, i.e. the case of Romanians who were living on estates owned by the Church and the question of whether or not they were obliged to pay the tithe. On the basis of the sources, I throw into question the consensus mentioned above in the secondary literature.

Some historians have dated the start of this practice to 1398,22 while others have dated it to 1425 or 1426.23 When one examines the secondary literature more closely, however, one notes that in each case these conclusions are based on the same source, specifically a letter in which King Sigismund informed the Transylvanian nobility that, the request made by their delegates (Miklós Apafi of Almakerék [Malâncrav/Malmkrog] and László Gyerőfi of Szamosfalva [Someşeni]) notwithstanding, for the moment he would not oblige the Romanians living on the estates of bishops and other Church estates to pay the tithe (“decimam Volahorum episcopalium et ecclesiasticorum exigere distulimus”), since in order to maintain the bishops’ banderia24 and in order for the chapter and other figures of the Church to be able to fulfill their obligations to the military, they would have to tax the Romanians on their estates (“episcopus banderium proprium, capitulum autem et alii viri ecclesiastici certas summas pecuniarum ratione exercitus solvere et propter illas expediendas eorum Volahos exactionari habent”). He did promise, however, to come to Transylvania once the military campaign that was underway at the time had come to an end and to reach a decision on this issue, after thorough negotiations, that would satisfy both parties. In a separate postscript he even exempted the noblemen without lords (“nobiles dominos ... non habentes,” i.e. a nobleman who was unwilling to serve as the familiaris25 of another, wealthier lord) from military conscription (“ab ingressu presentis nostre exercitualis expeditionis duximus supportandos”).26

The different datings by different historians are explained by the fact that, in the clause of the document, at the date formula, the year according to the Christian Era is not indicated next to the place (Visegrád) and the day of the year (“vigilia festi Visitationis Virginis gloriose,” i.e. July 1). True, one should be able to determine the year in which the letter was written on the basis of the three regnal years of King Sigismund specified in the same place (“regnorum nostrorum anno Hungariae XImo, Romanorum vero IIdo, Bohemiae VIto”), but these three dates contradict one another. His eleventh annus regni as King of Hungary refers to 139727 (and not 1398, as it was considered by some of the editors!), while his second regnal year as “Roman” (i.e. German) King refers to 1412, and his sixth annus regni as King of Bohemia to 1426.28 It is possible that individual numbers were distorted when the text was copied or issued, and we could even presume how this distortion took place if we could assume that the Czech annus regni is accurate,29 in other words that the letter was written on July 1, 1426.30 In this case, the original text must have read “regnorum nostrorum anno Hungarie XLmo, Romanorum vero sedecimo,” and the Latin numerals could easily have been miscopied as “XI” and “secundo.”31

The simplest way of verifying the abovementioned emendation, clearly, would be simply to consider the original of the charter. We do not, however, have any such charter, and indeed to my knowledge there are no reliable transcriptions either, neither from the Middle Ages nor from the Early Modern Era. Most of the editions (more precisely, those dated to 1398) are based on József Benkő’s edition, but Benkő did not indicate the source he used. The editions dated to 1426 follow quite faithfully (servilely) one of the copies made by József Kemény sometime around 1840,32 which refers to Count Ádám Székely’s (†1789) collection of manuscripts, which at the time was held in the library of the Calvinist college in Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca/Klausenburg).33 The collection is currently held by the Cluj County Directorship of the Romanian National Archive, and one of the two volumes containing the text was indeed found in it, but the volume contained no reference to the source on which the text was based, so it offered no further clues.34 Given the similarities in the ways in which the text was apparently miscopied, however, one can assume that this version and the Benkő edition are closely related and indeed were perhaps themselves based on the same flawed copy.

The text is found three more times in Kemény’s collection of manuscript copies.35 One of these versions is less interesting than the other two because it simply reproduces Benkő’s version.36 In the second, however, the regnal years which were reconstructed by me figured, and, according to this, it was dated to 1426, but Kemény later “corrected” the numbers, prompted by the works of Benkő and Kósa, and changed the year to 1398.37 Thus, it is possible that Kemény was using the original document or, more probably, a better quality copy, a hypothesis which seems plausible in part because some of the names are written using forms that were historically accurate (e.g. Gerew and Wissegrad for Gyerő and Visegrád). The third version of the text, which has not yet been published, is even more interesting. It is found in the copy of the November 1, 1426 transcription made by the convent of Kolozsmonostor (Cluj-Mănăştur), a copy which includes a plethora of explanatory notes.38 The original version of this transcription has not survived either, and again, Kemény has failed to indicate the source, but the use of medieval spellings for names and the almost correct date formula39 suggest that this version is in all likelihood a relatively close variant of the original.

A summary of the letter, dated to 1425, was published by György Fejér, who refers to the Codex Széchényianus held in the Manuscript Collection of the National Széchényi Library as the source, though in all likelihood he never actually set eyes on this codex, since he repeats word for word the corresponding passages from the first catalogue of the collection, which offers ample summaries of the contents of the individual holdings.40 Regrettably, the Codex Széchényianus, which once consisted of eleven tomes, cannot actually be identified among the holdings of the Széchényi Library at the moment, but I did manage, using the old catalogue, to find a version of the text in question dated to 1425 in a volume of copies made in 1792–1793.41 A reference in this work led me to the valuable collection of Dániel Cornides,42 but since this collection also failed to indicate the sources on which it was based, I again failed to find any version of the text dating back earlier than the second half of the eighteenth century, and thus also failed to come any closer to the hypothetical original.

It was necessary to go into detail concerning these texts and the issues surrounding them because the absence of the original and the decisive role played by Benkő and Kemény in bringing the charter into “circulation” casts a shadow of doubt on the source in question.43 However, the manner in which the text has been passed on (down several branches, see Fig. 1) makes it seem highly unlikely that the charter is merely a fabrication cobbled together by erudite eighteenth-century source collectors (even if, given the confusion concerning the date of its composition, it is not free of all doubts). Of course, this alone hardly suffices to confirm its authenticity, and thus further study is necessary, more specifically, an examination of its contents.

Figure 1. The textual filiation of the July 1, 1426 charter issued by King Sigismund. I used bold to indicate what was allegedly the medieval original and its transcriptions, italics to indicate manuscript copies made in the Modern Era, and parentheses to indicate textual “witnesses” which today are either lost or inaccessible.

The fact that the source seems to correspond, from the perspective of its genre, to the age in which (one assumes for the moment) it was composed can be cited as evidence of its authenticity. The first examples of comparable “closed letters” (litterae clausae) date to the 1420s, i.e. documents in which only the address written on the exterior indicates the person to whom the letter is addressed, and in the text of the letter only “fideles dilecti” is used as a form of address, but in the line in which the dates are written various years of reign are given (often without the date for the Christian era).44 The various details mentioned in the text seem to correspond to the facts as we know them on the basis of other sources. For instance, there is mention of Miklós Apafi between 1399 and 1446 in the sources and of László Gyerőfi between 1411 and 1430.45 Sigismund was indeed in Visegrád in July of 1426, and he did indeed spend an extended period of time in Transylvania between November of 1426 and July of 1427, as he had promised to do.46 The announcement of the coming war was also accurate, since on June 12, 1426 the king wrote a letter to Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, in which he indicated that he wanted to send three armies to the fields, in part to fight against the Hussites and in part to fight, under his leadership, against the Turks, who Dan II of Wallachia (1422–1431) had driven from his land at the end of May.47 The military campaign was indeed launched in the summer or autumn of that year in accordance with these plans, with only the slight alteration that the royal army was led not by the king himself, but by Pippo Spano, Count of Temes (Timiş).48

The written materials which have survived from the period in question draw a distinction, too, between members of the petty nobility who served as “familiaris” and those without lords (“dominos non habentes”). According to King Sigismund’s decree of 1435 (his so-called fifth decree), the former had to join the army at their lords’ expense as part of their lords’ banderia, while the latter had to do so at their own expense, under the leadership of the count of the county (“eorum comes parochianus”).49 It is quite clear that for the people who belonged to this second group, which was of little value on the battlefield anyway, the exemption in 1426 from having to participate in the military, which was a significant financial burden, came as a relief.

The language and tone of the source, however, are both problematic. While most of the words which seemed to me at first a bit unusual and more part of the Latin used in the Modern Era (for instance, words like conspectum, facunde, gratitudo, subsistens, and involutus) can actually be found in the charters of the time, the same cannot be said of the rare phrases built out of them (for instance “ingratius apparere non debet,” “exigere distulimus,” and “causis rationabilibus subsistentibus”).50 In some places, the sentences are so complex that they are almost incomprehensible, and the text is heavy with interpositions and stylistic frill. This baroque phrasing, furthermore, is coupled with a remarkably restrained and diplomatic tone. The king almost seems to be making excuses for himself to the Transylvanian nobility (which would be odd indeed) for his refusal to compel Romanians living on Church properties to pay the tithe. If one compares this with the clear and simple phrasing and style of similar orders,51 the difference is striking. Thus, while there are strong arguments in favor of considering the text authentic, given the absence of the original and the unusual stylistic features we would be wise to use the charter only with some qualifications and reservations.52

The question of authenticity, however, ultimately is of only secondary importance, since in my assessment we would not be able to use the document as a source in a discussion of the question of the Romanian-speaking communities and the Church tithe even if its authenticity were beyond any doubt. If we interpret the phrase “decima Volahorum episcopalium” as a reference to the tithe as it is generally understood, then why would the document present the notion of the ruler not collecting this “tithe” for a time as some kind of unusual favor or kindness, and why would the nobility of the province complain of releasing it (to the Church!)? Collecting the tithe, after all, was hardly possible without the assistance of the secular authorities (“brachium seculare”) and in particular the support of the king and the participation of the county authorities.53 Nonetheless, in the Middle Ages it did not become an official state tax, since at least in principle the justification for the collection of the tithe was the notion that it was “Christ’s inheritance.”54 In other words, it was the rightful property of the Church and the Church alone. Similarly, although the nobility often came into conflict with the higher clergy over the issue of the tithe, these conflicts never broke out over questions of principle, but rather over the practical matters concerning the tithing on the estates of the noblemen or over personal differences. In the question of how the bishop taxed his own serfs (with a tax, furthermore, that he was entitled, as a “religious right,” to collect from every member of the Catholic Church), laymen quite certainly had no say whatsoever.

One might propose as a solution to this dilemma the changing relationship between the state and the tithe, which was shifting because of the growing threat posed by the Ottoman Empire. Following defeat in the Battle of Nicopolis, at diet held in Temesvár (Timişoara/Temeschwar) in October 1397, Sigismund decreed, at the prompting of the barons and noblemen, that as long as the war with the “pagans” was still underway, every figure of the Church was obliged to surrender half of his income55 for the defense of the border. Furthermore, according to Sigismund’s decree, estate owners were to turn over half of the tithe collected from their serfs directly to the individuals designated by the assembly.56 This measure was still in effect in 1439 (since the threat posed by the Ottoman Empire had hardly vanished,)57 and according to some of the scolars this may well explain the king’s and the nobility’s interest in the question of the tithe in 1426.

An essay was recently published on the implementation of paragraph 63 of the 1397 law, and the conclusions reached in this essay make it easier to verify the above hypothesis.58 Two of the findings are important from the perspective of the question at hand here. One of them is the observation that, when paying this wartime tax, the figures of the Church always turned over precisely the same sum59 to the representatives of the king60 or his treasurer (a sum which varied only depending on the individual institution in question). The exact amount was determined by those compelled to pay it in the course of negotiations with the king,61 and it was not changed at the councils which were later held and announced every year (where the only question was whether or not someone would be given an exemption for the year in question).62 Thus, this wartime tax can be considered a sort of “flat fee,” and it did not in fact depend on the actual income for a given year (the stipulation of the 1397 law notwithstanding).63 Indeed, the state made no effort to determine the actual annual revenues of the churchmen or to seize its precise share of them.

Furthermore, as was determined in the aforementioned article, the misleading phrasing of some of the charters notwithstanding, the tax in question in fact was only paid by the members of the middle layer of the Church, i.e. the provosts and their chapters, the archdeacons, and some of the monastic orders (the Benedictines and the Premonstratensians), not the bishops. The bishops contributed to the defense of the country by keeping their banderia ready and armed (as indeed is indicated in the document allegedly from 1426 under examination here).64 They were only able to do this, of course, by using their incomes as prelates, the vast majority of which came from the tithes collected from the serfs on their estates.65 Thus, it would hardly have been in the interests of the state to have attempted to put these incomes under its direct administration (furthermore, it would have been a violation of canon law). This could only be done when a seat was left empty. When a bishop died, Sigismund often left his diocese under the control of a secular “governor,” and the tithes that were collected from the estates were used to strengthen defenses in the southern borders.66 This practice, however, cannot have been the solution adopted in the case of the situation described in the July 1, 1426 document, since Balázs Csanádi (1424–1427) was serving as Bishop of Transylvania at the time.67

Thus, in my view, the phrase “decima Volahorum,” if indeed existed at all, did not mean the “normal” Church tithe. Rather, it must have been some kind of royal tax which Romanians, specifically, were obliged to pay to the royal treasury. One could mention, as a comparable example, the charter of 1293, in which King Andrew III of Hungary exempted the 60 Romanian families who were going to be settled on the estates of Fülesd (Feneş) and Enyed (Aiud) of the Transylvanian chapter from payment of the so-called fiftieth (“quinquagesima ovium”)68 and the tithe (“decima”). The text is very precise in this case and specifies that this latter is a royal tax too, not a Church tithe.69 Prodan interprets the mention of a tax in both the 1293 document and the 1426 document as a synonym for the fiftieth.70 This interpretation is interesting in part because sources indicate that Sigismund collected the fiftieth from the Romanians of the Transylvanian chapter, neglecting its aforementioned exemption. This happened because the king allegedly bore a grudge against the Transylvanian elite, perhaps because of its mass participation in the uprising of 1403. The chapter only regained its right to keep the “quinquagesima” from Regent János Hunyadi in 1446.71 In this context, it is easier to understand why the nobility of the province protested in 1426 against the favors granted to the Church landlords regarding the collection of the “Romanian tithe” (i.e. the fiftieth). The goal of the king, however, is quite clear from the text: with the exemption, he sought to strengthen military potential of the Church.

Evidence Found in Economic Documents from the Late Middle Ages

Thus, the letter from 1426 does not suffice to prove that the Romanians living on Church estates in Transylvania were compelled to pay the (Church) tithe. Apart from this document, there are no other sources which one could cite in support of this contention. The lists and registries which were drawn up in the Late Middle Ages, furthermore, clearly reveal this notion to be false. In the records concerning the incomes of the Transylvanian chapter in 1477, 1496, and 1504, villages which paid their taxes in sheep (i.e. the villages with Romanian populations) are clearly distinguished from the settlements which paid the Church tithe, i.e. paid the tithe in grain and wine.72 Even if it were possible, in principle, that some of the latter settlements had Romanian populations (too),73 it is still clearly obvious that the vast majority of Romanian villages were not obliged to pay the tithe. The urbarium which was drawn up sometime around 1552 for the estates of the Transylvania bishopric does not indicate which settlements were obliged to pay the tithe and which were not, but the villages which are identified as Romanian (“Walacalis”) or under the stewardship of a so-called “kenezeus” (head of a local Romanian community)74 do not figure in the 1587–1589 tithe-lease registry listing the settlements of the seven Transylvanian counties which paid the tithe.75

Conclusions

As this discussion has shown, there is no real evidence in the sources in support of the contention according to which the Romanians living on Church estates in Transylvania were in a disadvantageous position, from the perspective of an obligation to pay the tithe, in comparison with the serfs living on royal or noble estates (through this contention which has gained widespread acceptance in the secondary literature and is often repeated as something of a cliché).76 In fact, the same principle applied to all of them in the Late Middle Ages: they could only be compelled to pay the tithe if they had settled on so-called “Christian lands” (i.e. in settlements which earlier had been inhabited by Catholics). At most one could suggest that in their implementation of this principle the bishop and the chapter were more consistent when dealing with their own estates than when dealing with the estate of others. This question, however, will have to await further study.

Archival sources

Arhivele Naţionale ale României, Serviciul Judeţean Cluj al Arhivelor Naţionale, [Cluj County Branch of the Romanian National Archives], Cluj-Napoca (SJAN-CJ)

Colecţia colegiului reformat Cluj [Collection of the Calvinist college in
Kolozsvár] (Fond 890)

Biblioteca Academiei Române [Romanian Academy Library], Filiala Cluj [Cluj-Napoca Branch], Cluj-Napoca (BAR-CJ)

Ms. KJ 288/C, Josephus Kemény, Diplomatarii Transilvanici Supplementum, 13 vols.

Ms. KJ 288/D, Josephus Kemény, Diplomatarii Transilvanici Appendix, 22 vols.

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [National Archives of Hungary],
Budapest (MNL OL)

Diplomatikai Fényképgyűjtemény [Diplomatic Photograph Collection] (DF)

Diplomatikai Levéltár [Diplomatic Archive] (DL)

Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtár és Információs Központ [Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences], Budapest (MTAKt), Kézirattár és Régi Könyvek Gyűjteménye [Departement of Manuscripts and Rare Books]

Ms. TörtOkl 2o15–26 és 4o31, Daniel Cornides, Diplomatarium, 13 vols.

Országos Széchényi Könyvtár [National Széchényi Library], Budapest (OSzK), Kézirattár [Manuscripts Collection]

Fol. Lat. 1119., Chartae Transsylvanicae diversi argumenti ex documentis fide dignis descriptae.

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Szeredai, Antonius. Notitia veteris et novi capituli Albensis Transsilvaniae. Alba Iulia, 1791.

Trócsányi, Zsolt. Erdélyi kormányhatósági levéltárak [Transylvanian Government Archives]. Magyar Országos Levéltár Kiadványai 1: Levéltári leltárak 5 [Publications of the National Archivs of Hungary 1: Archival Inventories 5.]. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1973.

Wagner, Ernst. “Register des Zehnten und des Schaffünfzigsten als Hilfsquellen zur historischen Demographie Siebenbürgens.” In Kálmán Benda, Thomas von Bogyay, Horst Glassl, Zsolt K. Lengyel, eds., Forschungen über Siebenbürgen und seine Nachbarn: Festschrift für Attila T. Szabó und Zsigmond Jakó. Studia Hungarica: Schriften des Ungarischen Instituts München 31, 201–24. Munich: Rudolf Trofenik, 1987–1988.

Zimmermann, Gunter. “Zehnt. III. Kirchengeschichtlich.” In Gerhard Müller, Horst Balz, Gerhard Krause, eds., Theologische Realenzyklopädie, vol. 36, 496–504. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004.

(Map drawn by Béla Nagy)

(Map drawn by Béla Nagy)

The Organization of the Central Court of Justice in Transylvania in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century

Zsolt Bogdándi
Research Institute of the Transylvanian Museum Society
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This study analyzes the organization of the independent Transylvanian central court of law, the so-called Royal/Voivodal/Princely Table (Tabula) and its court of appeal, the court of personal presence (personalis presentia), in light of the modest secondary literature, the dietary decisions, and archival sources. We offer a sketch of the organization of the Hungarian royal and Transylvanian voivodal court of law in order to present the model on which the central court system was established in the period of the Principality. We also present the characteristics of the functioning of the central court that can be attributed to the special features of Transylvanian society and the newly emerging state.

Keywords: Principality of Transylvania, Age of Principality, umpirage, courts of law, Princely Table

Introduction

It is probably a commonplace by now that the political history of the new state that emerged in the eastern part of the Kingdom of Hungary, which was splitting up in the aftermath of the battle of Mohács (1526), is much better known than the economic, social, cultural, or legal history of this region. Uncommon topics, such as the organization and the functioning of the central judicial system of Early Modern Transylvania, have basically escaped the attention of historians, and thus the secondary literature on them is relatively poor.1 This is surprising, given that many of the sources (and in the case of family archives the clear majority) were produced in the course of court cases and thus primarily are documents which concern and reflect the functioning of the judicial branch.

This study presents the structure of the Transylvanian princely high court and its court of appeal, the court of personal presence, in the second half of the sixteenth century. We chose this period as the focus of our investigation as these were the decades during which the basic offices of the independent Transylvanian state, such as the autonomous courts of law, came into existence. These offices functioned according essentially to the same principles for the next ca. 150 years. We do address the so-called Princely Table in order to avoid confusion, as during the reigns of king elect János II Szapolyai (1556–1571) (also known as János Zsigmond) in Transylvania and in the counties of the Hungarian Kingdom that were attached to it (called the Partium2) royal high court and under the reign of the Báthorys (1571–1602), which lasted almost until the end of the period investigated here, a voivodal high court was functioning, though with a structure and jurisdiction that was somewhat different from the medieval royal and voivodal seat.

It is important to clarify the names that were used to denote the central court of the political entity in the given period. In the diplomatic sources, i.e. the summonses (evocationes) and the reports (relationes), the “court” (curia) is the most frequent term used. This term clearly referred to the Princely Table.3 From the plentiful examples that illustrate the identical meaning of the two terms, let us just refer to a few: in his mandate dated November 3, 1585, Zsigmond Báthory (voivode/prince of Transylvania with interruptions between 1585–1602), ordered nobles to send István Keresztúri to the high court (“coram nobis in curia nostra”) for the eighth day (octava) to stand trial for the acts of might of which he was accused.4 In the report of the bailiffs of the voivode, which is dated two days later and written in Hungarian, they referred to the court of law in the native Hungarian form: the suspects are called to appear at his Table (“táblájára”) and his court (“udvarába”) to give an explanation of their deed.5 Curia/Court/Table consequently were all used to denote the high court of the ruler. Most of the mandates of judges were issued in the name of the ruler. Cases in which the prosecutors referred to a mandate of the institutionalized high court, such as when in 1572 court scribes Dániel Vadai and Gábor Bősházi summoned someone on the mandate of the court of the ruler (“ex commissione sedis judiciariae spectabilis magnificentiae vestrae”), were rare.6

For those interested in the judicial system of Early Modern Transylvania, the scope of the sources on which one can touch when analyzing the characteristics of a certain period is limited. The decrees of the Transylvanian and Hungarian diets contain many measures on the central jurisdiction, but these measures formed only a framework, and sometimes it is rather unclear how the different acts, which in many cases simply reasserted previous regulations, were implemented. In order to understand the functioning of the so-called high (curial) courts, it is therefore necessary to study the documents they issued and the formulary books they composed. This is particularly true, given that the archive of the high court did not survive. In the period studied, of course, one cannot talk about an institutionalized archive of the Princely Table. The relevant documents were kept in the lodgments of the protonotaries (protonotarii), and after their deaths, these documents were inherited by their successors.7 It is possible that fragments of the “archives” of the protonotaries survived the upheavals of the age of the Principality and were incorporated into the Archive of the Transylvanian Royal Table (Tabula regia iudiciaria Transylvaniae), which was established at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and were only destroyed during the siege of Budapest in 1945. It is also not clear whether in the sixteenth century some kind of minutes (registrum) were kept during the functioning of the high court8 or the follow-up of a lawsuit was limited to the notes made by the protonotaries at the back of the mandates (mandatum) and sentences (litterae iudiciariae). Nor has any register survived of the distribution of letters of fines (litterae iudiciales) or the order of taking up (levata) and adjudicating the cases.

Antecedents: The Royal Curia and the Court of Law of the Voivode of Transylvania9

The structure of the medieval royal courts of law is well known, and their close association with the king’s court is well reflected by its name, “curia.” Since the legislative reform of King Matthias (1458–1490), three “major judges” were in position: the judge royal, (iudex curiae regiae), the count palatine, and the royal personal presence (personalis presentia regia).10 The royal court of law in Buda consisted of these chairs, the leading chair of which usually was the judge (személynök). By issuing summons with short deadlines (fifteen and thirty-two days), the royal court transformed itself into a permanent court of law.11 This permanence, however, is relative, as towards the end of the Middle Ages more and more cases to be continuously heard were postponed to a certain court period.12 These periods were more or less regularly held on the octava of the main feast days, such as on that of the octava of St. George, the octava of St. Michael, Epiphany, and the octava of St. Jacob.13 After the establishment of the Table, the court of the personal presence of the king did not cease to exist. In certain cases (in matters of knightly honor, major acts of might, and guardianships), the King acted as propria in persona. In matters of perfidy, the person was summoned to appear in front of the king, but the judgments were declared by the whole diet and the letters of sentence were issued in the name of the prelates, barons present, and the whole nobility. In the royal high court, a special chair was kept for the king, who sometimes occupied it. Apart from him, the members of this court were the ordinary judges, their deputies and protonotaries, the assessors, and a scribe for each protonotary. In preparing and deciding on the cases, as well as in general throughout the whole lawsuit, in most cases the protonotaries, who were the representatives with legal expertise, were the most important persons. With the establishment of the Royal Table the jurisdiction of the royal council also did not cease to exist. The king and the members of his council (prelates and barons) held court if one of the parties was not satisfied with the decision made at the high court and held the case in the personal presence of the king.14 On these occasions, the major judges, the protonotaries, and the assessors had the right to attend but were entitled neither to speak nor to vote. The case under appeal was presented by the judge under whose presidency the former decision had been made, and this decision was then either approved or changed.

In Transylvania, the voivodal court, following the pattern of the royal high court, was usually held in fixed locations connected to the Church feasts.15 The court periods were usually held first in Szentimre (Sântimbru) and Torda (Turda/Thorenburg) and later in Székelyvásárhely (Marosvásárhely, Târgu Mureş/Neumarkt), and from the end of the fifteenth century onwards more or less consistently in Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca/Klausenburg). In the early period, the dates of the courts changed frequently. From the fifteenth century onwards, usually four octavas were held, the octava after Epiphany, the octava of St. George, the birth of St. John the Baptist, and the octava of St. Michael. The holding of the sessions was later regulated with some minor modifications by the 1486 decree of King Matthias and in a decree of Wladislas II (1490–1516).16

The Foundation of the Princely Table

From the perspective of its foundations, the political entity that gradually came into existence in the eastern part of the Kingdom of Hungary following the fall of Buda (1541) could build on the juridical system sketched above. After the period between 1541 and 1556, which can be considered more as a period of orientation, the formation of the independent state of Transylvania took place after the end of 1556, during the period of Queen Isabella (1541–1559) and after the return of King elect János II Szapolyai. The decisions made in Kolozsvár at this time reflected the preparations for independent statehood. They ordered the election of judges, protonotaries, assessors, and a legal director (director causarum) on the condition that they could not claim a share of the income of the court of law, but they would be paid by the queen and her son based on an individual agreement.17 Despite the early statutes, the central juridical system did not come into existence immediately, and in the early stages its functioning was not undisturbed. The initial disorder is reflected in the archival sources, and it is also indicated by the lack of charters. There are no surviving documents from the first two court sessions, which decided on the “de iure” foundation of the high court at the end of 1556, even if theoretically they should have been exceptionally long. One year later, Queen Isabella, in a charter she issued in the market town of Torda on July 2, 1557, mentioned a court session to which the diet, which was also held in Torda beginning on June 1, postponed every lawsuit of all the three Transylvanian nations.18 The document, in reference to the decrees of the 1556 diet of Kolozsvár, approved almost verbatim the previous judgment of the voivodes of King Ferdinand, István Dobó and Ferenc Kendi (1553–1556).19 It is clear from a later source that the court session began on June 24 (“pro festo Nativitatis beati Joannis baptistae”), and here, unlike later, following the example of the medieval voivodal court of law, the cases of the three nations of Transylvania were heard together. The decree of the diet held in June 1557 probably referred to the same court session, when the lawsuits related to the acts of might committed since the incursion of Péter Petrovics20 were postponed to the octava of the feast of the Holy Trinity.21 Then the octava of Michaelmas day was also mentioned, to which the “bigger” lawsuits were postponed, but there is no surviving evidence relating to that court session, nor is there any similar source on the session of March 1557, to which a letter of sentence refers.22 The decree of the diet of June 1557 relating to the judicial system was limited to a stipulation according to which eight assessors should partake in the work of the court of law. This stipulation probably goes back to medieval origins. In a mandate issued in 1561, nine assessors were listed. Thus, when each seat of the assessors was filled, the Princely Table consisted of twelve legists, including the two protonotaries and the legal director (director causarum).23 It is worth noting that the Transylvanian legal director took part in the work of the Table, because there is no information indicating the involvement of the director causarum of the Partium area in the work of the high court. The jurisdiction accessible to him was probably limited to the counties in Partium.

It is clear from the above that the activity of the Princely Table was not permanent or continuous, but rather was connected to different sessions, so-called termini for all the nations of the estates (Transylvanian nobles, nobles from the Partium, Székelys) as well as to the Transylvanian diets. After the reorganization of the high court, the aim was to have two court sessions a year for each nation, but the dates varied frequently and sometimes sessions were cancelled. As far as one can tell on the basis of the decrees, the six legislative sessions were reinstalled during the reign of István Báthory (1571–1586) at the end of 1571, with some adjustments of the previously indicated dates. The two court sessions of the Transylvanians were held beginning on the Monday after Reminiscere Sunday and the octava of St. Luke, that of the Székelys’ beginning on the octava of Epiphany and June 1 and for the Hungarian nobles from Partium beginning on the octava of St. George and December 1. Not counting Sundays, for the latter the two sessions were ordered to last for twenty-five days and the sessions for the first two nations were to last thirty days.24 This structure was formalized in the Approbatae.25

The Princely Table also had jurisdiction in the cases appealed from the court of the Saxons, the Universitas,26 the seat of which was in Szeben (Sibiu/Hermannstadt), but without a separate court session for them their cases usually were discussed during the diets.27 There was no need for a separate Saxon court session, as the cases of Saxons were only rarely appealed to the princely high court, and they only could have been summoned at their own court.28

The diet held in March 1557 decided, on the question of the location of the courts (both in the case of the lawsuits of the Hungarian nobles of Partium and the Transylvanians), that they were to be held where the royal majesties were actually residing, but for the periods to follow separate sessions were to be held for the Transylvanian nobility, the Székelys, and the nobles of Partium.29 In the Middle Ages, if the king was presiding at the high court, the court held its meetings in one of the council chambers of his palace. In other cases, however, it met in the house of the Primate of the country (the Archbishop of Esztergom) in Buda, probably at the same place where the “official room and archive” of the smaller chancery was kept.30 It seems likely that, based on medieval model, when the ruler was in Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia/Weissenburg) and took part in the work of the princely high court, the location of the sessions was one of the rooms of the princely palace, while on other occasions the previously mentioned domus iudiciaria, i.e. the lodge of the protonotary (and in the meantime certainly of the smaller chancery), could have served as the site of the trials. This was true, of course, only when the court session was held in Gyulafehérvár. Because of the features of the new state, in order to meet the needs of the nations that formed the state, the princely court of law was itinerant. Thus, one cannot speak of a permanent seat for the Princely Table. In Kolozsvár, Vásárhely, or Torda the domus iudicaria was a rented lodge that suited the needs of the court.31

At the abovementioned 1557 diet, a decree was issued which according to Zsolt Trócsányi “disposes a separate high court for the Partium region… (let Bálint Földváry be the protonotary, let the separate Hungarian high court be established).”32 However, in my assessment, in light of the legal evidence this decision did not undo the unity of the princely high court. In the text of the decree there is no reference to a high court of Partium. The decree mentions only an expert protonotarius designated to judge on the cases brought by Hungarian nobles from the Partium region, similarly to his fellow who was working in Transylvania. This was also when the question of the number of assessors was raised (“assessoribus pluribus iuris peritis sedem iudiciariam ornare dignentur”), with members who were probably more familiar with the customary law of the Hungarian nobility from the Partium. Accordingly, in 1559, the Table adjudicated during the St. Luke’s day court session of the Hungarian nobility from Partium held in Gyulafehérvár as a unified body, and as had become customary in Hungarian documentary practice by the mid-fifteenth century, the protonotaries indicated on a letter of sentence who the person was who would revise and issue the document (“Lecta et extradata per me magistrum Valentinum de Fewldwar serenissimae regiae majestatis prothonotarium”), and in addition, the document was also indorsed by László Mekcsei (“Coram me Ladislao de Mekche eiusdem serenissime regie majestatis prothonotarium”).33 The jurisdiction of the two protonotaries had not yet been clearly defined, so there was no person who was assigned exclusively to the cases of the Hungarian nobles of Partium, the Székelys, or the Transylvanian nobles. This is probably why, during the court session held for the Hungarian nobility from Partium after St. Luke’s day, the order of their signatures on a letter of sentence that was issued in a case concerning a major act of might was just the opposite.34 The joint jurisdiction of the two protonotaries was also expressed in a decree issued in June 1558, according to which justice was to be served in the presence of both persons and both persons should agree on the incomes and the usage of the seal.35 This was probably done in order to avoid the related controversies which would have arisen if a person who was expert in Hungarian law were to be chosen to act as president of the high court, to be present at the hearings, to handle the income of the court, and to pay the assessors from this income and turn over the rest to the treasury.36 This position, however, referred to as super intendens, most probably remained vacant, as there are no references to the activities of this figure in the legal evidence or the later decrees; a person with the similar task of presiding over the high court was only invested in 1589. It is more important that at the same time, on the basis of a medieval model,37 a court of appeal to the high court was founded. This made it clear that the cases judged by the protonotaries could be brought to the personal presence of the queen and her son, who judged with their councilors.

The Court of Personal Presence (personalis presentia)

In the late medieval period, the king held a court of appeal with the prelates and barons in cases in which a person was discontent with the decision reached by the major royal courts and their protonotaries at a trial held at the high court and appealed to the personal presence of the king.38 In these cases, the judges ordinary, the protonotaries, and the assessors had the right to attend but were not entitled to take the floor;39 the case appealed was presented by the judge ordinary in front of whom the case previously had been presented, and then the decision of the first instance was either approved or changed. Precisely this procedure was employed in Transylvania in the second half of the sixteenth century: the case was presented by the protonotary in front of whom the case originally had been presented; then the decision was either changed or approved at the personalis presentia, and the letter of sentence was issued (similarly to that of the Princely Table) in the name of the ruler (elected king, voivode, prince), with the judicial seal and the lecta of the protonotary.

The court of appeal of the high court usually appears in the sources as “solius majestatis nostrae presentiam” or in Hungarian as “felséged tulajdon személye” (“the personal presence of your majesty”). It is not clear how much this indeed meant the personal presence of the ruler, but for instance on May 27, 1570 in Torda the letter of sentence issued emphasized the actual presence of János II.40 Of course, this suggests that the ruler was not always physically present. From the period of János II, there were instances, if only rarely, when some persons of the court of the personal presence were mentioned by name; Mihály Csáki, who served as chancellor and councilor (1549–1551, 1556–1571), appears twice, and Jakab Pókai, master of ceremonies (magister curiae), is mentioned once among the assessors.41 In most cases, however, the identity of the councilors who formed the court remains unknown. While the Princely Table’s personal composition was determined by the decrees, the sources suggest that the members of the court of the personalis presentia were chosen by the ruler and depended on the circumstances. While the court of the personal presence of István Báthory, voivode of Transylvania during the diet of Torda on May 30, 1573, was formed by some magnates, councilors, Transylvanian nobles, and legal experts,42 the sources from September 1582 mention only councilors, protonotaries, and legal experts,43 while in March 1592 councilors, legal experts, the president of the high court, protonotaries, and assessors adjudicated.44 In the period of the Triple Council (1583–1585) designated to govern Transylvania by István Báthory, who had earlier been elected king of Poland, the praesides who represented the prince took part in the court of appeal, and for the court session on the octava of St. Luke’s day in 1583 they even took the young prince with them to Kolozsvár.45 They did so primarily because they (and probably expert legal officers) were entitled to revise the appealed cases “in persona Principis,” which role was later taken over by János Ghiczy (1585–1588) when he became governor.46 We have a concrete example when, at the court of personal presence, the governor was adjudging: in a lawsuit concerning the ownership of the Kund (Cund/Reussdorf) estate the first instance was held at the high court of Kristóf Báthory (1576–1581), but after the death of the voivode, the case was appealed to the court of personalis presentia, where the decision was made by the governor with councilors and legal experts.47

It is relatively easy to determine when and where the courts of personal presence were held. The personalis presentia was presiding in the same periods as the high court of law, i.e. during the high court sessions and the diets, and also at the same locations. We have data from the beginning of the period discussed here when the personalis presentia gathered on the fourth day of the octava of the Epiphany session in 1559 held in Gyulafehérvár.48 A decision was made on a case which originally had been heard at the high court in the session that began on June 24, 1557 (members of the court were “nonnullis dominis et nobilibus, sedis nostre judiciarie juratis assessoribus magistroque prothonotario nostro,” as at the time Mekcsei was the sole protonotary). The claimant, however, was not satisfied with the decision, so he appealed to the personal presence of the queen and her son. László Mekcsei, the protonotary, approved this appeal, but because of the obligations of the rulers (“nobis itaque diversis quidem arduis nostris et regni nostri negociis occupatis existentis”), the case was postponed to the Epiphany session of 1559, where “unacum nonnullis dominis proceribus ac aliis nobilibus prestantibusque viris consiliariis regni nostri prothonotariisque nostris pro tribunali sedentibus prenominatus protonotarius noster seriem dicte appellacionis nobis requirentibus refferre curavit.” After this, the privilege presented was read out, those present were consulted on the case (magnates, nobles, councilors, protonotaries), and the decision of the high court was approved.49 Interestingly, the protonotaries were mentioned as members of the court of personalis presentia, i.e. the same people who had made the decision at the first instance. In medieval legal practice, however, they had the right to attend the court hearing but did not have a say. However, in this case, alongside the councilors, they also seem to have been able to adjudge (again). Later, however, this practice was not typical. In the court of the personalis presentia, with only a few exceptions, the councilors decided with the assistance of legal experts. There was a telling example of a case in March 1577 which sheds some light on the functioning of the personalis presentia during the court sessions and the strict division of the courts according to nations. On March 25 (i.e. at the session after Reminiscere Sunday for the Transylvanian nobility), in Gyulafehérvár a letter of sentence was issued in the name of Kristóf Báthory which tells of a lawsuit which had begun one year earlier at the session held on St. Luke’s day in Kolozsvár between István Lázár of Szárhegy (Lăzarea) and Boldizsár Bánffy of Losonc (Lučenec) concerning a piece of land by the Tapolca River in the Székely seat of Gyergyó. A common inquest had been ordered, but the respondent had not been satisfied with the decision, so he had appealed “in solius nostri presentiam.” There, on March 23, 1577 (a Saturday), in the presence of the voivode, his councilors, and legal experts, the respondent’s lawyer presented his argument according to which the claimant could not summon him to the court of the voivode, but rather only to the Székely seat and the session held for the Székelys. He therefore requested that the case be sent back to the court of first instance and the appeal be terminated.50 The objection of the respondent was accepted at the court of personal presence, as the claimant had no right to summon the respondent to the session held for the Transylvanian nobility, but only to the Székely seat and their session. They nonetheless stipulated that the claimant had the right to summon the respondent to appear at the next Székely court session (“proclamari facere possit”).

Regarding the jurisdiction of the court of personal presence, one can only sum up by saying that the decrees do not include any related regulation, so appeals to the personalis presentia depended only on the financial resources of the contestants.

The Foundation of the Presidency of the Princely Table

The diet held in Medgyes (Mediaş/Mediasch) in December 1588 ordered a “chief legal expert” to lead the process (processus) of the Princely Table.51 Earlier, I thought that this office had been created in 1558 with the establishment of the office of super intendens. However, there is no sign of its actual functioning.52 Trócsányi emphasizes the dubious effectiveness of this act,53 and as we could not find data on the bearer of this office in the sources, it seems more and more likely that this 1558 decree remained on paper only. Accordingly, the praesidens was only appointed during the diet of Medgyes (or as a consequence of this diet, at the beginning of the next year). Why was there a need for this office, and why was the president installed in his office precisely when he was? It is known that at the diet of December 1588 Zsigmond Báthory was bestowed with his princely rights. In return, the estates managed to expel the Jesuits and to remedy their smaller legal complaints.54 The establishment of the office of praesidens may indicate strengthening of the estates, or one may think that the magnates who possessed power tried to take control over jurisdiction and prevent the young prince from strengthening his hold on power. As we have seen in discussion of the personal presence, the method was given, as previously, the Triple Council designated by István Báthory and then János Ghiczy, the governor, oversaw the activities of the court of law in persona principis (as later the president did). The text of the decision of Medgyes does not mention the name of the designated praesidens, but we have data on the president of the high court from the court session that began on February 23 of the following year.55 Previously, I thought that the anonymous praesidens in the letters of sentence could be identified as a literatus, Gergely Szentegyedi Somlyai. The only pitfall of this identification is that he appears in the sources as director causarum of Transylvania in 1591,56 and he appears as the president of the princely high court only in September 1592. Consequently, he assumed this office two years earlier than suggested by Zsolt Trócsányi, and he remained in this position up until his death at the scaffold erected on the main square of Kolozsvár.57 But who was the first praesidens of the high court, who was in office between 1589 and 1592?

The identification of the magnate praesidens appointed at the diet of Medgyes was not made possible by study of the letters of sentences but rather by a note in the royal book (liber regius) of Zsigmond Báthory. On March 7, 1589, Zsigmond Báthory gave councilor, president of the high court, and count of Torda County Boldizsár Bánffy and his wife the market town of Marosszereda (today Nyárádszereda/Miercurea Nirajului) and the part of the estate of Nagyadorján (Adrianu Mare) in return for one fourth of the castle of Bethlen (Beclean).58 This means that Bánffy was presiding at the first court session after the diet of Medgyes. Probably, there was some hope that the prestige enjoyed by the magnate and count of Torda County would help maintain the undisturbed functioning of the high court. There is no data on the legal erudition of the first praesidens. This may explain that his – lacking in sources difficultly definable – tasks were taken over by “egregius” Gergely Szentegyedi Somlyai in 1592, who was advancing as a practicing legal expert to this office. We do not know the circumstances of the dismissal or rather voluntary demission (as he was able to keep all his other offices) of Bánffy, but it clearly shows the caliber and the high ambition of the literatus Gergely Somlyai that as a praesidens he followed an “in persona principis” councilor.59

There is increasing uncertainty concerning the fate of the office of the president of the high court after the violent marginalization of the group of magnates who raised objections to the break with the Porte. Given the limited number of letters of sentences, it is increasingly certain that the usual court sessions were cancelled after February 23, 1592 (Reminiscere Sunday) and the high courts were only functioning during sittings of the diet. This could be explained by the confused internal political situation, the participation in the war, and the perpetual state of crisis, but in fact we do not know the precise reason for this transformation.60 A letter of sentence dated to the period of the diet held in Gyulafehérvár beginning on April 25, 1593 mentions some councilors, legal experts, the president, the protonotaries, and the assessors as members of the princely high court.61 At the same time, the sentenciae issued the following year had different wording. The letter of sentence dated May 10, 159762 was issued during the diet in Gyulafehérvár that began on April 27 and to which the guardianship cases, further acts of might cases appealed from the county courts, and other short procedures usually heard at the personal presence of the prince (“coram propria nostrae serenitatis presentia”) were postponed. The hearing of these cases during the diets was decided because of the cancellation of the court sessions, which was decreed in Act 9 of this very diet: “until the Lord God shows the dates when the sessions should be hold.”63 Compared to the previous period, the composition of the high courts that gathered during the diets also changed. Along with the protonotaries and the assessors, the “presence” of Zsigmond Báthory was represented (“in persona nostrae serenitatis”) by Pongrác Sennyei, master of ceremonies (1593–1598), according to what was noted above in May 1597 but also in January and March 1598,64 with the important difference that the title of praesidens was no longer part of his title. We know that, in 1598, the influential councilor Pongrác Sennyei performed the tasks of a chancellor, such as opening the report of an interrogation.65 His tasks may have been associated with his jurisdictional duties, but as the sources do not mention him as the president of the high court, his title remains unclear.

According to Trócsányi, the “Transylvanian national high court was single-leveled and the diet also was unicameral.”66 The part of his statement regarding the jurisdiction is true only to a certain degree. It is clear from the documentary evidence that until the 1590s the court of the personalis praesentia functioned as the court of appeal of the high court. The curial judicial system, thus, was two-leveled. Further investigations will also determine whether in the seventeenth century, after the end of the period of war, the court of appeal of the high court functioned again or not.

Conclusions

For the Principality of Transylvania, which came into existence after 1556, the constitutional setup of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary was the model. With regards to the formation of the central court of law, usually referred to as the Princely Table, the medieval models were tailored to local circumstances. This explains the characteristics of the judicial system: the originally separate protonotaries for Transylvania and for the Partium region, which were originally separate (but not with separable jurisdiction); the separate director for Transylvania and Partium (the scope of whose activity cannot be precisely defined); the separate court sessions for each nation (later, with the frequent contraction of the sessions held for the nobility of Partium and Transylvania); the holding of these events in different locations; and the voluntary and partial absence of the Saxons from this system (the civil suits of the Saxons were only rarely brought to the high court, and these suits, for which there was no separate court session, were usually discussed at the diets). The medieval models were also followed by ordering the court of personal presence as the court of appeal to the high court, where the chair was supplemented by councilors and which occasionally was attended by the ruler himself. The establishment of the office of praesidens is also related to the question of the structure of the high court. Although there was an earlier attempt to appoint a superintendens, the establishment of the presidency of the Princely Table took place only after the diet of Medgyes in 1588, probably at the initiative of the powerful estates and probably based on the model of the medieval personalis praesentiae regiae in judiciis locumtenens.

Archival Sources

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [National Archives of Hungary], Budapest (MNL OL)

Erdélyi vonatkozású iratok [Documents on Transylvanian matters] (R 298)

Gyulafehérvári Káptalan Országos Levéltára (GyKOLt) [Archives of the Chapter of Gyulafehérvár], Cista comitatuum (F 4)

Kolozsmonostori Konvent Országos Levéltára (KmKOLt) [Archives of the Convent of Kolozsmonostor (Cluj-Mănăştur)], Cista comitatuum (F 17), Protocolla, libri regii et stylionaria (F 15)

Wesselényi család levéltára [Archive of the Wesselényi family] (P 702)

Arhivele Naţionale ale României, Serviciul Judeţean Cluj al Arhivelor Naţionale [Cluj County Branch of the Romanian National Archives], Cluj-Napoca (SJAN-CJ)

Fond familial Bánffy (Fond 320) [Archive of the Bánffy family, in the Archives of the Transylvanian National Museum, in custody of the SJAN-CJ]

Fond familial Bethlen de Ictar (Fond 329) [Archive of the Bethlen family of Iktár, in the Archives of the Transylvanian National Museum, in custody of the SJAN-CJ]

Fond familial Kornis (Fond 378) [Archive of the Kornis family, in the Archives of the Transylvanian National Museum, in custody of the SJAN-CJ]

Fond familial Thoroczkay (Fond 444) [Archive of the Thoroczkay family, in the Archives of the Transylvanian National Museum, in custody of the SJAN-CJ]

Fond familial Teleki din Luna (Fond 438) [The Kendilóna/Luna Archive of the Teleki family, in the Archives of the Transylvanian National Museum, in custody of the SJAN-CJ]

Primăria oraşului Dej (Fond 24) [Archive of the town of Dej/Dés]

Biblioteca Centrală Universitară “Lucian Blaga” Cluj-Napoca (BCU), Colecţii speciale [“Lucian Blaga” Central University Library of Cluj-Napoca, Special Collections]

Ms. 309, Ms. 1271 (Formerly in the Manuscript Collection of the Library of the Transylvanian National Museum, now in custody of the BCU)

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Barabás, Samu ed. Székely Oklevéltár VIII. 1219–1776 [Székely Diplomatary]. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1934.

Bogdándi, Zsolt, and Emőke Gálfi, eds. Az erdélyi káptalan jegyzőkönyvei 1222–1599 [The protocols of the chapter of Transylvania]. Kolozsvár: Erdélyi Múzeum-Egyesület, 2006.

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Szilágyi, Sándor ed. Erdélyi Országgyűlési Emlékek: Monumenta comitialia regni Transsylvaniae. I–XXI. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1876–1898.

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Bogdándi, Zsolt. “A fejedelemség kori törvénykezési szakaszokról (1556–1600)” [On the Court Sessions of the Age of the Principality]. Erdélyi Múzeum 77, no. 1 (2015): 64–83.

Bogdándi, Zsolt. “Az erdélyi központi bíráskodás kialakulása és főbb jellegzetességei (1541–1571).” [Main Features of the Central Jurisdiction of Transylvania]. In A magyar jog fejlődésének fél évezrede: Werbőczy és a Hármaskönyv 500 esztendő múltán [The Development of Hungarian Law in Half a Millennium: Werbőczy and the Tripartitum after 500 Years], edited by Gábor Máthé. 117–39. Budapest: Nemzeti Közszolgálati Egyetem, 2014.

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Bogdándi, Zsolt. “Az erdélyi és a partiumi jogügyigazgatók a 16. század második felében” [Legal Directors in Transylvania and the Partium in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century]. In Hivatalnok értelmiség a kora újkori Erdélyben [Clerk Intelligentsia in Early Modern Transylvania], edited by Zsolt Bogdándi, and Tamás Fejér. 9–24. Kolozsvár: Erdélyi Múzeum-Egyesület, 2017.

Bogdándi, Zsolt. “Az erdélyi ítélőmesterek hiteleshelyi jellegű tevékenysége a 16. század végén” [Place of Authentication-like Activities of Transylvanian Protonotaries at the End of the Sixteenth Century]. In “...Éltünk mi sokáig két hazában.....” Tanulmányok a 90 éves Kiss András tiszteletére [Studies in Honor of the 90th Birthday of András Kiss], edited by Veronka Dáné, Teréz Oborni, Gábor Sipos. 135–46. Debrecen: Debreceni Egyetemi Kiadó, 2012.

Bónis, György. A jogtudó értelmiség a Mohács előtti Magyarországon [The Legal Intelligentsia in Hungary Before the Battle of Mohács]. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1971.

Bónis, György. Magyar jogtörténet II [Hungarian Legal History]. Kolozsvár: Méhkas Diákszövetkezet, 1943.

Dáné, Veronka. “Minden birodalmak ... törvénnyel is oltalmaztatnak.” Az Erdélyi Fejedelemség törvénykezése [“Every Empire… is Protected by Law.” The Legislation of the Principality of Transylvania]. Korunk 24, no. 3 (2013): 50–56.

Dáné, Veronka. “Az Őnagysága széki így deliberála:” Torda vármegye fejedelemségkori bírósági gyakorlata [The Court of His Majesty Ordered as Such: The Jurisdiction of Torda County in the Age of the Principality]. Debrecen–Kolozsvár: Debreceni Egyetem Történelmi Intézete–Erdélyi Múzeum-Egyesület, 2006.

Dósa, Elek. Erdélyhoni jogtudomány: Első könyv: erdélyhoni közjogtan [Legal Studies in Transylvania: I. Common law in Transylvania]. Kolozsvár, 1861.

Eckhart, Ferenc. Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténet [Hungarian Constitutional and Legal History]. Budapest: Osiris, 2000.

Fejér, Tamás. “Kancelláriai jegyzetek az erdélyi fejedelmi kancellária okleveles gyakorlatában a Báthoryak korában (1571–1602)” [Extra Sigillum Notes in the Documentary Practice of the Transylvanian Princely Chancellery]. Turul 88, no. 3 (2015): 81–96.

Hajnik, Imre. A király bírósági személyes jelenléte és ennek helytartója a vegyesházakbeli királyok korszakában [The Personal Presence of the King and his Locumtenens in the Period of the Kings of Different Houses]. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1892.

Hajnik, Imre. A magyar bírósági szervezet és perjog az Árpád- és a vegyes-házi királyok alatt [On the History of Hungarian Legal Organization and Procedural Law During the Árpád Dynasty and the Kings of Different Houses]. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1899.

Jakab, Elek. A Ghyczyek Erdély történetében különös tekintettel a kormányzói intézményre [The Ghyczy Family in the History of Transylvania, with Special Regard to the Institution of the Governor]. Budapest: Az M. T. Akadémia Könyvkiadó-Hivatala, 1875.

Janits, Iván. Az erdélyi vajdák igazságszolgáltató és oklevéladó működése 1526-ig [The Jurisdiction and Charter Issuing Activity of the Transylvanian Voivodes until 1526]. Budapest: Királyi Magyar Egyetemi Nyomda, 1940.

Kubinyi, András. “A királyi udvar a késő középkori Magyarországon” [The Royal Court in Late Medieval Hungary]. In Idővel paloták... Magyar udvari kultúra a 16–17. században [Palaces in Time… Hungarian Courtly Culture in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries], edited by Nóra G. Etényi, and Ildikó Horn. 13–32. Budapest: Balassi kiadó, 2005.

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Formularies of the Chancellery of the Transylvanian Principality in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century

Tamás Fejér
Research Institute of the Transylvanian Museum Society
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In this essay, I examine the formularies that were used in the chancellery of the Transylvanian Principality which took form at the end of 1556 during the first 50 years of its existence. I offer brief descriptions of four of these formularies in which I indicate their length and present the most important aspects concerning the nature of the information they contain. I also offer a detailed presentation of one of them in order to call attention to the importance of the rigorous study of every detail of these sources. Historians cannot afford to ignore these sources, which contain over 1,100 formulas, as they are vital to the study of the history of law and the history of the chancellery itself. They offer glimpses into the work of the chancellery, the ways in which charters were produced, and the processes according to which the texts of the charters were transformed into formulas, processes over the course of which, for the most part, the compilers “cleaned” the documents of their specific details (i.e. proper names, place names, and dates), keeping only the essential elements on the basis of which they would be able to compose the texts of new charters.

Keywords: formulary, formula, chancellery, documentary practice, Early Modern Era, Transylvanian Principality

Introduction

The publication and study of formularies1 looks back on a significant history in Hungarian historical scholarship. The origins of this history are tied to the work of legal historian Márton György Kovachich (1744–1821).2 Among the historians who built on his work, I would mention here only György Bónis (1914–1985), who studied primarily medieval formularies3 but at the same time left an indelible mark on the scholarship on the formularies of early modern Transylvania by publishing and presenting in an exemplary manner the collection of formulas compiled by János Jacobinus who served at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as princely secretary (1598–1601).4 His thorough edition could serve as a model for the study of all of the Transylvanian formularies of the Early Modern Era, though (one should add) the Jacobinus formulary, which is only ten pages long and contains only 22 formulas, made possible an examination that was rigorous in its attention to every detail, which would hardly have been possible in the case of a formulary consisting of several hundred pages and containing several hundred formulas. I share Bónis’ view that “the Transylvanian formularies should be published individually at least as regestas and excerpts, and the conclusions which can be reached on the basis of them should be drawn.”5 In my opinion, however, it would suffice if we had a thorough exposition and description of each of the formularies from the era of the Transylvanian Principality and the short titles at the beginning of the individual formulas (which for the most part offer a good impression of the essential aspects of the text) were to be published. This would enable scholars to inform themselves relatively easily about the content of a given manuscript, and they would then be able to examine the original texts which are of interest to them (depending on whether their interests lie in legal history, institutional history, diplomatics etc.). However, formulas which contain specific data (such as proper names, place names, and dates) or which are of interest for some other reason could be published as regestas, which are useful, if perhaps with some caution, from other perspectives as well, and not simply as formulas.6

In the first half-century of its existence, several formularies were used in the Transylvanian chancellery7 which took form at the end of 1556. In 1938, Anna Pécsi familiarized the community of Hungarian historians with the János Bácsi formulary,8 and a few years later, György Bónis and Antal Valentiny published the aforementioned János Jacobinus formulary. After these promising initial efforts, however, interest in formularies waned. Only recently have there been signs of some change. A substantially more rigorous examination of the János Bácsi formulary has been undertaken,9 and I myself recently published an article on another formulary from the late sixteenth century.10 In addition to these formularies, we know of one formulary and a fragment of another formulary which were also used in the chancellery in the second half of the sixteenth century. In this article, I offer a brief description of these formularies, including a detailed presentation of one. Ideally, a thorough study of all the formularies from the same perspectives would be necessary in order to provide a broader picture of everyday administration in the chancellery (for instance) or even the composition of the formulas themselves.11 The formularies, after all, are interesting not only from the perspective of legal history, but also as sources on institutional history, more broadly, or diplomatics, more narrowly.

Formularies

1. The formulary of János Bácsi.12 This formulary, which as far as we know is the earliest one to have been used in the chancellery of the Transylvanian Principality, is named after Ioannes Bachy, whose name is found on the binding. This Bácsi served at the end of the 1560s and the first years of the 1570s as a scribe in the chancellery. The voluminous formulary consists of 341 numbered pages which contain 466 formulas and the epitaph for King Mátyás (1458–1490), thus a total of 467 Latin texts. At the beginning of the manuscript, one finds a detailed alphabetical index of the titles of the individual formulas and the page numbers on which they are found.13 According to the index, the formulary consists of three “books,” though there are no references to these “books” in the formulary itself. The index, however, indicates that the first book is found on pages 1–130, the second on pages 131–228, and the third on pages 229–311. Most of the manuscript seems to be the work of a single scribe. Only towards the end does one find formulas and one or two short entries which could be attributed to other hands, and the last formula (from December 15, 1641) is the work of an entirely new scribe. This last formula, however, suggests that the formulary was in use for a long time, including into the reign of Prince György I Rákóczi (1630–1648). For 340 of the formula, the issuer is not indicated. This information, however, would not have been necessary from the perspective of the charters for which the formula would be used. The other 126 formula were issued by the following issuers: four by Lajos II (1516–1526), 70 by Ferdinand I (1526–1564), 28 by János Szapolyai (1526–1540) and Prince János Zsigmond (1556–1571),14 12 by György Fráter, who served as Bishop of Várad (Oradea/Grosswardein), treasurer, regent and chief justice (1542–1551), four by Pál Várday, Archbishop of Esztergom and royal deputy (1542–1549), two by László Mikola, the queen’s vice regent and Transylvanian deputy chief justice (1542–1551), and one each by palatinal deputy Ferenc Révay (1542–1553), judge royal Tamás Nádasdy (1543–1554), royal counselor István Cserényi and protonotary Pál Szigeti (1567–1571). Thus, a substantial proportion of the material does not have any specific bearing on Transylvania or is from the period before the chancellery began to function. A significant number of the formulas were “cleaned” by János Bácsi (to whom the compilation of the formulary is attributed) of their specific details (such as proper names, place names, and dates). Only ten formula have dates ranging from 1531 to 1569. The place of composition is given slightly more often.15 With only a few exceptions, the formulary contained the templates for the documents which were under the sphere of authority of the cancellaria minor (which itself was headed by the protonotary). Thus, clearly it was in use by the cancellaria minor and it clearly constitutes an important source on the functioning of the principality’s chancellery and, within this, the smaller chancellery. It is a source that still awaits proper rigorous study.

2. A surviving fragment of a formulary with a total of only seven pages16 with 22 formulas in Latin and one truncated text. Of these, 17 were issued by János Zsigmond and five by Kristóf Báthory (1576–1581). Only a few of the texts contain proper names and place names. Five of the formulas indicate the place of composition (Gyulafehérvár), and one even contains the date (May 30, 1568). The texts seem to have been written by two different hands. Most of the formula were composed on the basis of de gratia documents, which were under the authority of the great chancellery.17

3. Stylionarium cancellariae Sigismundi Báthory.18 This manuscript, which comes to 276 pages and is the work of many hands, contains 224 formulas in Latin. Most of them, as indicated in the formulary, were issued by Prince Zsigmond Báthory (1581–1597, 1598–1599, 1601–1602), while János Zsigmond issued six, István Báthory (1571–1576) one, Kristóf Báthory seven, and the place of authentication from Kolozsmonostor (Cluj-Mănăştur, today a district of the city of Cluj) two. For 15 formula, the issuer is not provided. For 37, the date is given, most often including the day, month, and year, but sometimes only the year. The earliest date of composition is November 20, 1572 (pag. 84–90). The latest, not including the six formula which were copied onto pages 224–29 (which had been left empty) in the first half of the seventeenth century, was composed on January 2, 1595 (pag. 275–76; the latter formula is also the last entry to be made in the manuscript). 22 of them date to the first half of the 1590s and thirteen to the 1580s, i.e. to the reign of Zsigmond Báthory.19 The name of director causarum fiscalium (kincstári jogügyigazgató) János Királyfalvi appears in the formula entitled “Procuratoria constitutio coram prothonotario facta” (which is found on the first page of the formulary). János Királyfalvi rose to this office sometime between November 16, 1591 and February 14, 1592.20 Thus, work began on compiling the manuscript after he had won this post, and it came to an end sometime after the date of the aforementioned last formula (January 2, 1595). The formulary was in use for decades, or at least one can come to this conclusion on the basis of the formulas which were copied into it in the first half of the seventeenth century, the latest of which was issued by Prince György I Rákóczi (pag. 227–28).

With regards to the contents of the formulary, it contains primarily models for documents belonging to the authority of the cancellaria minor. It also contains formulas for de gratia charters, but not many. Thus, the formulary was used first and foremost by the clerks of the smaller chancellery. For a significant share of the documents, the proper names and place names remained, but the dates rarely survived.

4. The formulary of János Jacobinus.21 The formulary attributed to János Jacobinus, who served as secretary of the chancellery (1598–1601), was never actually completed. It is only ten pages long and contains 22 formulas in Latin, of which 15 were issued, according to the formulary, by Zsigmond Báthory, one by his wife, Maria Christierna of Habsburg,22 and five by Mihai Viteazul, Voivode of Wallachia (1593–1600) and for a short time (November 1599–September 1600) imperial governor of Transylvania for Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. (In the case of one of the formulas, the issuer is not indicated.) Six of the formulas are dated, and the dates all fall between September 1, 1597 and May 15, 1601. Most of the documents contain proper names and places names. Almost without exception, the formulary contains formulas which were composed on the basis of charters drawn up in the great chancellery, so it clearly was used here too.

5. A formulary from the era of Zsigmond Báthory.23 As far as we know, the historian and archivist Lajos Kelemen (1877–1963) was the first person to offer a short description of this formulary in his work on the Manuscript Collection of the Cluj University Library. According to Kelemen, at the time, the manuscript collection contained more than 20 formularies dating from the sixteenth–nineteenth centuries. One of them, he noted, was the János Bácsi formulary. “The other, more interesting formulary,” he writes, “is a copy by the chancellery scribes of the charters which were drawn up in the chancellery of Zsigmond Báthory.”24 The formulary was used by the art historians Jolán Balogh (1900–1988)25 and András Kovács26 and also by the historian Adrian Andrei Rusu.27 The manuscript and the wealth of material it contains, nonetheless, remained essentially unknown to (or has not met with interest among) scholars until only recently.28

The 30 × 19.4 cm manuscript is 161 pages long29 and contains 399 individual texts. Some of these texts, however, have not survived in their entirety, and some of them were not drawn up by the chancellery (for instance, wedding invitations). The formulary does not have an original title, and the writings were penned by several different hands. The formulas, naturally, were written in Latin. One finds only three Hungarian-language texts, one of which was added to formula 193 as a transcript and the other two of which are wedding invitations (formulas 249 and 251).

The manuscript, which contains some 400 individual texts, clearly demonstrates that, given the variety and complexity of the administrative tasks it faced, the chancellery needed formularies as complete as possible, for the necessary charters and documents. Considering the essentially established charter-formulas and the wide diversity of the types of documents, it seems likely that even clerks familiar with the composition of charters needed the formulary, and scribes with less experience in all certainty made considerable use of it. Thus, the clerks who compiled the formulary copied the charters which were drawn up in the chancellery (or at least some of them) into the manuscript, with larger or smaller omissions. They were guided by the practical goal of recording these texts so that they could be used later as models in the composition of documents of a similar nature. Thus, as I will demonstrate later in this article with examples, the formulas contained varying amounts of information in comparison with the original charters. Rarely was every element of the original preserved. Usually, only sections which might later be useful or necessary in the composition of a new document were kept, while specific details, such as proper names, place names, and dates were omitted. Many of the formulas, however, fall somewhere between these two “types.” The intitulatio and the inscriptio were shortened, dates of composition were recorded only partially or omitted entirely, and some of the proper names and place names—which in general, as was typical of formularies, were simply replaced with the letter T (talis) or “T de T,” or, less frequently, the letter N (nomen)—were removed.30 The titles at the beginning of the formulas informed the reader of the type of document and the essence of the text. In a few rare cases, they also referred to the specific content of a formula, for instance “Nobilitatio pro Ioanne Fiotta cum armis” (formula 70) and “Donatio duorum pratorum foenilium egregio domino Benedicto Mindzenthy” (formula 266).

Some of the formulas are of a de iustitia nature, i.e. they concern matters of the administration of justice and would be used as templates for documents such as letters of summons (litterae evocatoriae), letters of inquest (litterae inquisitoriae), letters of postponement (litterae prorogatoriae), and letters of sentence (litterae sententionales) etc., while some are of a de gratia nature, for instance coat of arms letters (litterae armales), grants of market rights, estates, and tithe, comes (ispán), and bishopric appointments, exemptions, princely approval letters (litterae consensuales), etc. The former, naturally, reflect the work of the smaller chancellery, the latter of the great chancellery. Thus, we are dealing with a “mixed” formulary which was used in both branches of the chancellery of the principality and which reflects almost all of the areas of the extensive documentary practice of the chancellery. Many of the formulas were products of the work of the chancellery as a place of authentication. In the course of this work, charters were issued for the different parties concerning the declarations (fassiones) which were made in front of the protonotary or, less frequently, the chancellor on matters such as pledges, the exchange of estates, wills, and letters of attorney (litterae procuratoriae). There are also some formulas which were not based on charters issued by the chancellery (for example, various letters of report or litterae relatoriae which were drawn up at the command of the prince and sent to the chancellery by places of authentication or bailiffs, i.e. homines vaivodales,31 wedding invitations, or other charters drawn up by issuers which will be mentioned below). One notices the efforts of the compilers to group the various formulas by type of document. For instance, the formulas found on pages 87–98 and 355–72 are summons, the formulas on pages 115–26 are letters of attorney, those on pages 166–72 are letters of nobility (nobilitatio), those on pages 8–11 and 343–54 are admonitions (litterae admonitoriae), etc. In some cases, however, formulas that were similar from the perspective of their subjects were copied alongside one another. For instance, formulas 295–298 deal with Church matters, and within this group, formulas 297 and 298 concern the Transylvanian Romanian Orthodox Church. Formula 299 also concerns the Romanians of Transylvania, recording the bestowal of the office of voivode (vaivodatus) of a village. Thus, these three formulas form a new unit from the perspective of their content. Formulas 306–310 all address matters concerning the Saxon communities. In some cases, these two organizational principles are mixed, i.e. the compilers have grouped the formulas according to type of document and subject matter. Formulas 144–149, for instance, are all mandates (broadly understood) concerning the division of landed property (divisio). Within this, formulas 144, 146, and 148 are letters of admonition and summons, formulas 145 and 147 are princely orders regarding the execution of such divisio, and formula 149 is a litterae certificatoriae. Thus, one finds clear signs of deliberate efforts to arrange the formulas in groups, but there is no single principle or system according to which the entire manuscript can be said to have been organized. The large number of formulas and the amount of time that was devoted to compiling the manuscript (more on this soon) indicate that for years the compilers collected the texts of charters that were being issued with the aim of creating a resource in which clerks would find a model or template that could be applied to almost every new case that might arise.

Zsigmond Báthory is indicated as the issuer of the vast majority of the formulas. Chronologically, the following formula were issued by the following individuals: formula 49 by Voivode István Majláth (1534–1541); formulas 322, 334, 355, and 358 by János Zsigmond;32 formula 270 by István Báthory; nine formulas by Kristóf Báthory;33 formulas 365 and 366 by Hungarian King Rudolf (1576–1608); formula 282 by the aforementioned Kolozsmonostor place of authentication; and formulas 179, 185, and 186 by the Gyulafehérvár place of authentication.34 In addition, Chancellor Farkas Kovacsóczy (1578–1594) is given as the issuer of formula 141, castellan of Eger Bálint Prépostváry of formula 103, castellans and iudex nobilium substitutus (helyettes szolgabíró) of the district of Karánsebes (Caransebeş) of formulas 187 and 213, and János Gerendi of formula 286. One also comes across formulas for which the issuer is not given, but in all likelihood most can be attributed to Zsigmond Báthory. It is not entirely clear why formulas based on charters that were not issued by the chancellery were included. As examples, one could mention the litterae manumissionales of János Gerendi or the charters issued by the aforementioned officers of Karánsebes. It is quite clear, however, that the given clerk considered the documents important (even if perhaps not from the perspective of the documentary practice of the chancellery) and for this reason included them in the manuscript.

The formulary gives the date for 43 of the formulas.35 The earliest among them is April 19, 1538, the latest May 20, 1595. For 15 of the formulas, the charters on which they were based give the date, and for another two the date is found in their copies in the aforementioned Stylionarium cancellariae Sigismundi Báthory (hereafter StylionariumSB). These seventeen formulas are from the period between September 5, 1583 and January 2, 1595. Thus, we know the dates of 60 formulas in total. 58 were issued between 1583 and 1595, during the reign of Zsigmond Báthory. Most of them (51) were issued in the period between 1590 and 1595. There are also formulas for which only the year is given (for instance formulas 105 and 162) and others for which only the day and month are given (for instance formulas 182, 195, and 221). For some of the formulas, only the place of composition is given.36 With varying precision, one could date most of the formulas for which no date is given on the basis of the information and concrete references they contain, but that is not my aim here.

With regards to the place and time of the compilation of the formulary, one can come to the following conclusions on the basis of the discussion above. Since the formulary contains almost exclusively models of charters produced by the chancellery, it was in all certainty composed in the chancellery. However, the compilers of this “official” formulary, which was compiled for use by the chancellery, have not yet been identified by name. A comparison of the letter of reports sent to the chancellery by the various chancellery scribes and the handwritings found in the formulary might yield conclusions concerning this question. Watermarks37 helped me determine the date of composition of the manuscript. The earliest Brassó (Braşov/Kronstadt) watermark in the formulary was already in use in 1589,38 so one might cautiously suppose that 1588 was the terminus post quem. Thus, sometime after 1588 the compilers may have begun to copy the texts of the charters into the manuscript. As already mentioned, most of the dated formulas were drawn up in the early 1590s, and this offers further support for the conclusion above. (In the best-case scenario, the dates of the formulas indicate the date when the original charters which served as models were drawn up, but at the same time they can serve as a terminus post quem for the date when the given charters were transformed into formulas.) The latest dated items in the formulary date from May 20, 1595, but after this, another 80 formulas were copied into the manuscript. Thus, in all likelihood, the work of compiling the formulary came to an end in late 1595 or the beginning of 1596, if the manuscript at the time was not significantly longer than the version which has survived to the present day (which as noted earlier, consists of 161 pages).

Copies of the texts of several charters which served as models survived in the so-called libri regii registers,39 which were maintained by the chancellery. At the same time, two of the original charters, on which formulas were based, have survived, and variations of the texts of some formulas are found in the StylionariumSB as well. These various texts offer insights into the processes according to which the individual formulas were composed. Here, I offer a detailed presentation of differences between only the following versions. Zsigmond Báthory’s 1590–1591 liber regius contains a copy of the charter which served as the model for formula 169.40 It was copied in an abridged form, so the formula contains a considerably more complete text, though the names of the neighbors of the exempted house were omitted. At the same time, the dates differ. In the case of the liber regius registry, the date is October 8, 1590, whereas in the case of the formula, the (quite definitely incorrect) date is December 16, 1591.41 This also indicates that one must treat the dates in the registries of the formularies with caution, since the compilers obviously did not trouble themselves much over the precise dates when copying the texts (in this specific case, the date may indicate the day on which the text was copied into the formulary). Formula 108 also consists of a more complete version of the text, since the charter of June 3, 1591 (which was used as a template) was also entered into the liber regius in an abridged form.42 In this case, however, the formula contains all the individual data, with the exception of the date. A copy of the original charter on which formula 221 was based was similarly entered into the liber regius of Zsigmond Báthory.43 Because the clerk sought to compose a model for a charter of confirmation, in the formulary he shortened the ten-page privilege to a page and a half, since he mentions only the issuers of the three charters to be transcribed. Their names are followed, after the remark “Descriptis litteris omnibus usque ad finem conclusio hoc modo sequitur,” by the usual confirmation clause. It should be noted that the month and day given for the formula are February 20, whereas the date for the copy found in the liber regius is January 26 (1591), and instead of the actual issuers of one of the transcribed charters, one finds a fictive name: Gergely Petroczky. The names of the estates, which according to the formula were in Szörény (Severin) County, were also omitted. The copy of the charter, however, concerns properties in Máramaros (Maramureş) County, i.e. in an entirely different county.44 Compared to the text copied into the liber regius,45 almost half of formula 223 is missing (the section beginning with the pertinentia charter-formula and ending with the date). Also, some of the family names are imprecise (for instance the name Georgius Bako is given instead of Georgius Domonkos), and several proper names have been omitted. The date of composition of formula 110 was removed, as were two words, but otherwise the text corresponds entirely to the version copied into the liber regius.46

The original which served as the basis for the formula 266 has survived, as has the liber regius copy.47 As a comparison of the texts reveals, there are very few differences between the formula and the original. The absence of the date, however, constitutes a serious obstacle to efforts to use the formula as a historical source. At most, one could base conjectures concerning the date of the formula on the mention of Benedek Mindszenti in the offices of cubicularius (kamarás) and arendator decimarum (tizedarendator). The entry in the liber regius, however, contains all the essential information (even if it was written in abridged form). This suggests that the quite numerous abridged entries in the libri regii contained all the essential information in the original charters, if perhaps in different wordings.

Thus, on the basis of the discussion above one can conclude that the texts of the charters which served as models were transformed into formulas with the omission of shorter or longer passages and usually the partial or complete removal of specific details. The resulting texts contain all the elements that would later be necessary to draft charters of full value and force. In the case of formulas which contained either some or (in very rare instances) all of the proper names and place names and the date, a comparison with the versions found in the libri regii reveals that the compilers of the formulary did not always concern themselves much with the precise transcription of specific information (and one should note, this was not their goal). Rather, in some cases they simply gave fictive dates and fictive proper names instead. Thus, formulas which contain specific information, though valuable and worthy of study as examples of this genre of document, should be used as historical sources preferably only if other sources are available against which this information can be verified.

With regards to the texts found in both formularies, the following details merit mention. Formula 86 contained some of the proper names, but they were omitted from the version copied onto pages 14 and 15 of the StylionariumSB. According to the secondary literature, the more specific details one finds in such a text, the more likely it is that the text in question was copied directly from the original.48 Thus, it is possible that the version from which more of this information is missing was made on the basis of the text found in the formulary under discussion, and in the course of the process of copying the text, specific details which seemed superfluous were omitted. Though they share the same title, formula 362 and the version found on pages 37 and 38 of the StylionariumSB vividly illustrate that the clerks who drafted the formulary were concerned not so much with fidelity to the original texts as they were with the task and practical goal of creating useful formulas. Kristóf Báthory is mentioned as the issuer of one, Zsigmond Báthory of the other (as we are dealing with formulas, the fact that the date 1590 appears in the Kristóf Báthory text did not cause the compiler any particular difficulty). They are both “genuine” formulas, and thus both are lacking in specific information. Only one longer passage reveals that they are versions of the same text. In this case as in the aforementioned one, the text found in the formulary is more complete, which again suggests that the less detailed version was based on it. The same is true of formula 364 and the formula copied onto pages 42 and 43 of the StylionariumSB. The text of the first is more complete and contains individual elements. It is important to mention that in one of the texts the person lodging a complaint is a man, while in the other, she is a woman. Thus, the compilers of the formulas clearly were willing to modify the original details at any time, since these details had no practical significance whatsoever anyway. At the same time, there is a case in which, although the version found in the formulary is more complete (formula 363), the other version (StylionariumSB, page 42) contains passages of text which are not in the former. Concerning formula 391 and the text on page 52 of the StylionariumSB, the latter is slightly more complete and includes the date of composition, so formula 391 may have been based on it. Thus, all signs suggest that in some cases the compilers “borrowed” texts from the formularies to make their own collections as complete as possible. I would also mention formula 279 and the text on page 259 of the StylionariumSB, which are identical in every way and which contain all the individual information. It seems likely that both texts were copied directly from the same charter.

One very frequently comes across various “instructions” in the texts, most of which are in Latin, though a few are in Hungarian. These instructions are intended as guidance in the composition and editing of charters (they also spare the compilers of the manuscript the task of copying passages which seem superfluous or which can already be found in the formulary), but they also clearly show that the compilers knew the contents of the formulary well. Furthermore, they offer glimpses into the everyday work of the chancellery and the process of drawing up the charters. In other words, they call attention to concrete aspects of the “minor details” of work at the chancellery, aspects about which we otherwise would have no other sources on which to draw. In the interests of providing a clear overview, I have divided these instructions into three groups. The first group consists of instructions concerning which formula to use for substitution of the passages of text omitted from a given formula, for instance “Caetera ut in attestatoriis simplicibus” (formula 7); “Caetera ut in formula praemissa” (formula 14); “[...] (prout in litteris salvi conductus) usque ubivis in ditione nostra constitutis et commorantibus [...]” (formula 57); “Initium sit prout in litteris passus: Universis et singulis spectabilibus etc.” (formula 68); “[…] etc. caetera ut in donationis formula usque limitibus existentibus” (formula 137); “[...] etc. caetera prout in aliis formulis” (formula 280); “[...] etc. vide nro 285 usque earum veritas suffragatur” (formula 305); and “[...] etc. prout in aliis ad finem usque” (formula 383). Since in some cases the formulas used for charters of transcription or confirmation do not contain the charters to be transcribed, the compilers note that they must be copied into the charters which will be issued: for instance “Interserantur statutoriae de verbo ad verbum. Subiiciatur: [...]” (formula 46); “Hic integre et totum debebit describi mandatum quo perfecto sic ad caetera progrediendum” (formula 216); “Hic tota requisitoria est describenda qua descripta sic exordiendum” (formula 276); formula 267 for certain princely approval letter mention only the issuers of the charter to be transcribed and then add that it must be “usque ad finem videlicet nonagesimo tertio”, in other words copied in its entirety. “Az uthan mindgiarast ird ezt [then immediately write this]: Et paulo inferius subscriptum erat [...] Ez uthan esmet [then again] scribe hoc: [...].” Similarly, according to the instruction in formula 285, the charter should be copied “[...] usque ad finem. Absolutis litteris subiiciatur post numerum anni: Et in ultima earundem margine subscripta erant [...] Tandem sequitur: [...]”. One also comes across notes offering assistance in the phrasing of the charter or the composition of a similar kind of document: for instance, formula 6, regarding the situation of a person unable to appear before the chancellery or the place of authentication, says the following: “[...] qui cum ob loci distantiam (vel alio impedimento quocunque fuerit).” It then notes that the time and place of the execution should be indicated: “Qumodo ipse (tempus) in et ad (locum seu curiam nobilitarem) [...] accessisset.” In the text of a mandate of institution (litterae introductoriae) issued to the letter searchers (requisitores/levélkeresők), after the inscriptio and salutatio, one finds the following: “(Tandem donatio de verbo ad verbum sine ulla immutatione scribatur. Initium autem inde fiat: Quod nos cum ad nonnulorum etc. Sed pro Quod nos scribatur Cum nos ad etc. in eam formam.) Cum nos dignum et honorificum habentes respectum […] etc. usque haeredibus et posteritatibus utriusque sexus universis. Tandem sequitur: vigore aliarum litterarum nostrarum donationalium […].” At the very end of the formula, there is also a reference indicating that “Praesentibus [i.e. the “Praesentibus perlectis exhibenti restitutis” clause] omittatur in statutoria ad requisitores etc.” (formula 247); at the end of formula 231, which concerns granting the fourth part of the tithe (quarta decimarum) without paying the arenda49 the compiler offers the information necessary for another variation: “Quando vero pro arenda datur, tunc sic scribitur: a loco decimari solitarum pro solita arenda quadraginta florenos, uti perhibetur, constituenda plebano eius loci annuatim et consuetis temporibus de reditibus arendae decimarum huius regni dependenda vita eiusdem T. durante. Et commissio debet dirigi etiam ad plebanum.” After the formula 294 for the invitation to the Diet, the compiler notes the following: “Brassoviam et Bistricium50 scribatur: una cum iudice vestro. Ahol penig polgarmester ninchien [where there is no mayor], sic: una cum regio sedisque iudicibus vestris.”

In addition to including these instructions, the compilers often abbreviated some charter-formulas. One could mention the abbreviation “S. P. D.” for “Secus non facturi. Praesentibus perlectis exhibenti restitutis. Datum etc.” (for instance formulas 77 and 224–225). In some cases, a compiler has changed the word order (for instance formulas 69, 89, and 110), interchanged shorter passages (formulas 146, 200, and 202), made corrections (formulas 13, 58, and 131), given other possible versions in the margins (formulas 76, 113, 237), or inserted words which were omitted (formulas 76, 11, 173). Finally, I would mention a special case when the first two thirds of a formula were copied on folio 51v and 52r and the last third was copied on folio 62v, though this was then indicated at the end of the former with the note “Caetera vide numero 194 inferius.”51 In this case, the compilers simply wanted to add a new coat of arms letter to those already listed but there was not enough space for the introduction of the lengthy document. On the basis of this, however, one could conclude that in the course of compiling the manuscript the clerks kept a certain number of pages for specific types of documents and then later used them. This happened only rarely, however. Otherwise the system would have been more effective in the classification of the documents on the basis of type.

I will not delve into an investigation of the rich and complex content of the manuscript,52 but I will call attention to the foreigners who came from various parts of Europe and who were active in Zsigmond Báthory’s entourage and in the territory of the principality.

Conclusions

In summary, the almost 1,300 pages of the formularies discussed above contain more than 1,100 formulas which provide, if not an exhaustive, then at least a detailed and thorough overview of the kinds of charters and documents issued by the chancellery of the Transylvanian Principality in the second half of the sixteenth century, including documents the originals of which did not survive. They also offer glimpses into the work of the chancellery, revealing aspects of its functioning on which there are few or no other sources. Thus, they are important sources if only from these perspectives, but considering the serious loss of early modern source materials in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on Transylvania, including the large-scale destruction of the princely archives, they are even more significant. And while it is important, as noted in the discussion above, to treat the formulas with caution when using them as historical sources, at the same time one can hardly ignore the relevance of the information they contain, given that most of them were composed on the basis of charters which were in fact issued and delivered and which in many cases have not to our knowledge survived. Thus, anything we know of their content is based on the formulas. In other words historical scholarship has a great deal to gain from more focused study of the Transylvanian formularies, which for the past six or seven decades have been largely pushed to the margins of scientific inquiry.

Archival Sources

Biblioteca Centrală Universitară “Lucian Blaga” Cluj-Napoca (BCU), Colecţii speciale [“Lucian Blaga” Central University Library of Cluj-Napoca, Special Collections]

Ms. 999, Ms. 1271 (Formerly in the Manuscript Collection of the Library of the Transylvanian National Museum, now in custody of the BCU)

Muzeul Secuiesc al Ciucului, Colecţia de documente [Szekler Museum of Ciuc, Archival Collections], Miercurea Ciuc (MSC ColDoc)

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [National Archives of Hungary], Budapest (MNL OL)

Gyulafehérvári Káptalan Országos Levéltára (GyKOLt) [Archives of the Chapter of Gyulafehérvár], Libri regii (F 1)

Kolozsmonostori Konvent Országos Levéltára (KmKOLt) [Archives of the Convent of Kolozsmonostor], Protocolla, libri regii et stylionaria (F 15)

Arhivele Naţionale ale României, Serviciul Judeţean Cluj al Arhivelor Naţionale [Cluj County Branch of the Romanian National Archives], Cluj-Napoca (SJAN-CJ)

Colecţia bresle [Collection of Guild Documents, in the Archives of the Transylvanian National Museum, in custody of the SJAN-CJ] (Fond 544), Breasla lăcătuşilor din Cluj [The Locksmiths’ Guild of Cluj]

Fond familial Wesselényi din Jibou (Fond 250) [The Zsibó/Jibou Archive of the Wesselényi Family, in the Archives of the Transylvanian National Museum, in custody of the SJAN-CJ]

Bibliography

Printed sources

Bónis, György, and Antal Valentiny. Jacobinus János erdélyi kancellár formuláskönyve (1602) [The Formulary of Transylvanian Chancellor János Jacobinus]. Kolozsvár: Minerva, 1947.

Fejér, Tamás, Etelka Rácz, and Anikó Szász, eds. Báthory Zsigmond királyi könyvei 1582–1602 [The Libri Regii of Zsigmond Báthory, 1582–1602]. Vol. I/3 of Az erdélyi fejedelmek királyi könyvei I. 1569–1602 [The Libri Regii of the Transylvanian Princes I. 1569–1602]. Kolozsvár: Erdélyi Múzeum-Egyesület, 2005.

Iványi, Béla. “Egy 1526. előtti ismeretlen kéziratos formulás könyv” [An Unknown Manuscript Formulary from before 1526]. Történelmi Tár (Új Folyam) 5 (1904): 481–538; 6 (1905): 33–41.

Jakó, Zsigmond, ed. A kolozsmonostori konvent jegyzőkönyvei (1289–1556) [The Protocols of the Kolozsmonostor Convent (1289–1556)]. 2 vols. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1990.

Kovachich, Martinus Georgius, ed. Formulae solennes styli in cancellaria curiaque regum, foris minoribus ac locis credibilibus autenthicisque regni Hungariae olim usitati. Budae, 1799.

Secondary literature

Andea, Avram. “Formulary and chancery practice in Transylvania during Michael the Braveʼs reign (1599–1600).” Anuarul Institutului de Istorie G. Bariţiu. Series Historica [Yearbook of the History Institute G. Bariţiu. Series Historica]. Supplement no. 1 (2015): 263–80.

Balogh, Jolán. Kolozsvári kőfaragó műhelyek: XVI. század [Kolozsvár Stone Mason Workshops: Sixteenth Century]. Budapest, 1985.

Bogdándi, Zsolt. “Az erdélyi ítélőmesterek hiteleshelyi jellegű tevékenysége a 16. század végén” [The Work of Transylvanian Protonotaries as Place of Authentication at the End of the Sixteenth Century]. In “... éltünk mi sokáig ʻkét hazábanʼ...” Tanulmányok a 90 éves Kiss András tiszteletére [“… for a long time we lived in ‘two homes’…” Essays in Honor of the 90-year-old András Kiss], edited by Veronka Dáné, Teréz Oborni, and Gábor Sipos, 135–46. Debrecen: Debreceni Egyetemi Kiadó, 2012.

Bogdándi, Zsolt. “Fráter György bírói működésének emlékei Bácsi János formuláskönyvében” [Signs of the Work of György Fráter as a Magistrate in the Formulary of János Bácsi]. Történelmi Szemle 56, no. 4 (2014): 621–38.

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