The Share of Tithe Paid to Parish Priests in Sixteenth-Century Transylvania: A Topographical Approach

Géza Hegyi
Transylvanian Museum Society; HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 3 (2024): 403-430 DOI 10.38145/2024.3.403

The most important source of income for the medieval Latin Church, the tithes paid by lay people from their crops and livestock, was divided between several levels of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The set of beneficiaries varied from one country or diocese to another, while the proportions essentially from one locality to another. In the Transylvanian diocese, the bishop (or the chapter) got the substantial part of the tithe (half to three quarters), while the archdeacon, as regional magistrate, uniformly received a quarter. Despite the canon law standards, in many cases only a fraction of the quarta remained to supply the parish priest. On the other hand, the parish priests from the deaneries of royal Saxons (i. e. German settlers) could usually keep the full tithe.
The aim of my research is to reconstruct the share of tithe of the Transylvanian parish clergy by locality, to map it and to analyze the spatial inequalities thus revealed. Due to the unilateral source endowments, we have only a few direct data on this, so I calculated indirectly the size and proportion of the priestly share, based on the data of a list from 1589, which only gives the local rents of the bishops and the archdeacons’ share of tithe. According to my results, the inhabitants of 1239 localities paid tithes in mid-sixteenth century Transylvania. For 457 settlements (mostly in the Székely Land) we do not know the share of the priest. In the known cases, the three most common distributions were when the local priest received no tithe (35%), a quarter of the tithe (36%) or the whole tithe (25%). The spatial distribution of the parishes with quarta was not uniform, but rather concentrated in some small areas due to various historical reasons. The level of priestly share correlated with secular and ecclesiastical privileges, the ethnicity of the population that paid the tithe, and the person of the landlord.
These results can provide important aspects for the interpretation of sources based on priestly income, such as the papal tithe register of 1332–1336, fundamental to the history of medieval Transylvania.

Keywords: Transylvania, tithe, parish priest, distribution, quarta, Saxons

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Differences in Quality of Life and Profitability on Small and Large Farms (1730–1930): A Statistical Approach

Gábor Demeter
HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 3 (2024): 361-402 DOI 10.38145/2024.3.361 

The competitiveness and productivity of large landholdings and small estates and the incomes or welfare of the people living on such estates have long been an important issue in the Hungarian historiography – and in everyday politics too. Based on the statistical evaluation of serial sources from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries we give a thorough analysis on the productivity of smallholdings and large estates, which showed a remarkable a spatio-temporal diversity contrary to the statements in the literature focusing on case studies or social aspects of the problems. The size of the investigated area (Kingdom of Hungary versus Hungary after 1920), as well as land-use colored the palette further. Statistical analysis also proved that socio-economic features on large landholdings were not so unfavorable as depicted by literature. There was a remarkable diversity within the large-estates regarding productivity too, and while in the 19th century their income/ha values were better, than the income on small estates, this gap partly disappeared between 1910 and 1935.

Keywords: Productivity, incomes, large estates, smallholdings, tenant peasantry, Kingdom of Hungary, 18th–20th centuries

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Spatial Transformations and Regional Differences in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary (1000–1500)

Beatrix F. Romhányi
Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 3 (2024): 339-360 DOI 10.38145/2024.3.339

Spatial transformations of the economies and/or demographic trends of pre-modern European kingdoms are difficult to assess, as statistical data are not available. However, it is possible to create large data sets using different types of sources, including written and archaeological, which can be used as indicators of relative population density, economic activity, and regional differences. Although most of these data included are qualitative in nature and many can only have binary values (0 or 1), the use of a large number of variables has led to reasonable results that can be compared with the results of analyses in later periods. Most of the data available are related mainly either to agriculture or ecclesiastical institutions (parishes and monasteries). The period before the Mongol invasion in 1241 is mainly represented by archaeological data, while for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there are considerably more written sources. One of the most important sources is the papal tithe register of 1332–1337, the only tax in Hungary directly related to the differences in agricultural incomes. However, the focus of this paper is not on individual time periods, but on the spatial changes that occurred within the medieval Kingdom of Hungary between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, with a particular emphasis on possible driving forces behind these changes and various regional differences.

Keywords: Middle Ages, Kingdom of Hungary, regional differences, spatial transformations, long-term processes

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Jakša Kušan’s Forgotten Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Croatia

Josip Mihaljević

Croatian Institute of History

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 1  (2024):107-132 DOI 10.38145/2024.1.107

Croatian journalist and writer Jakša Kušan (1931–2019) was one of the most prominent Croatian émigré dissidents. By editing and publishing the non-partisan magazine Nova Hrvatska (New Croatia), he tried to inform the global public about the suppression of human rights and civil liberties in socialist Yugoslavia, even under constant threat of being attacked by the Yugoslav secret police. After the fall of communism, he returned to Croatia and continued his work in the media and the civil sector for a brief time. In this article, I offer an overview of the most relevant of Kušan’s oppositional activities during the period of communist rule in Croatia and Yugoslavia and consider the roles and impact of his activities. I also venture some explanation as to why his life and work have mostly been forgotten in today’s Croatia. One possible answer to this question could be his complex relationships with the Croatian dissidents who won the first multiparty elections in Croatia in 1990. My discussion is based on the findings of the COURAGE project (Cultural Opposition – Understanding the Cultural Heritage of Dissent in the Former Socialist Countries), oral history sources, and archival documents of the Yugoslav secret police.

Keywords: Jakša Kušan, Croatian émigré, dissent, socialist Yugoslavia, Croatia, democracy, COURAGE project, Yugoslav secret service

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Smokescreens and Smear Campaigns: The Dutch Communist Party in Times of Crisis

Thomas Buijnink

Doctoral School of Sociology, Eötvös Loránd University

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 1  (2024):80-106 DOI 10.38145/2024.1.80

This article seeks to establish how different crises in the Eastern Bloc affected the political standpoints of the Communist Party of the Netherlands, Communistische Partij Nederland (CPN), through an analysis of publications in affiliated party magazines between 1953 and 1981. This analysis is conducted within a framework consisting of party change theories and the literature about Eurocommunism as a Europe-wide phenomenon. The analysis indicates that the CPN went from supporting military interventions in Germany, Poznan, and Hungary to condemning them in Czechoslovakia, initially while maintaining ideological distance from political opponents in the Netherlands. This changed in 1981, when the CPN seemingly without restraint joined the mainstream political parties in condemning the introduction of martial law in Poland and the Socialistische Partij (SP), the Socialist Party of the Netherlands, took over the CPN’s position as a political outsider. This indicated a shift in the party’s stance from a niche to a mainstream positioning against Moscow.

Keywords: Communist Parties, Eastern Bloc, Eurocommunism, Netherlands

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The First Generation of Architectural Historians in Modern China: Their Studies and Struggles

Shanshan Liu

Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 1  (2024):59-79 DOI 10.38145/2024.1.59

This paper examines the intellectual history of the first generation of architectural historians in China, with a focus on the activities of Liang Sicheng and his colleagues from the 1920s to the 1950s. It analyzes the various oppressive forces they encountered during this period. Initially, they challenged Western and Japanese hegemonies in Chinese architecture research. Following World War II, they faced off against Soviet Union experts to safeguard China’s architectural heritage. The paper evaluates their successes and failures in achieving academic and social goals, their impact on the preservation of Chinese heritage, and their ongoing influence in academic and societal spheres. Additionally, it explores how professional ethics were utilized to dismantle colonial narratives and perceptions in China, suggesting that professionalism can serve as a mode of intellectual opposition.

Keywords: Modern China, intellectual history, architectural historian, Liang Sicheng

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