The Town as Landlord.: Košice and Its Villages before the Abolition of Serfdom

This paper aims to investigate the complex relationship between a town and its hinterland in the situation where the town acts as landlord for the surrounding settlements. The case study examines the multi-ethnic town of Košice (Kassa in Hungarian), one of the most important centres in the Kingdom of Hungary (and Slovakia’s second largest city today), in the years before the abolition of serfdom by the laws of 1848. As a free royal town, Košice was entitled to possess villages due to the privileges bestowed upon it by the kings of Hungary. The paper first examines the economic aspects of this relationship to provide an over- view of the contribution of the villages to the urban economy. It then focuses on the everyday interactions between the town and its villeins to highlight the characteristics of the behaviour of the city as seigneur from a micro-level perspective. The investigation proves that while the town council’s attitude towards peasants was consistently strict, it never acted in a despotic manner. The peasantry, on the other hand, sought loopholes in the regulations and tried to take advantage of lax control or the seigneur’s generosity. However, the villagers also regarded the city as indispensable for their livelihoods and as vital support in times of crisis.This paper aims to investigate the complex relationship between a town and its hinterland in the situation where the town acts as landlord for the surrounding settlements. The case study examines the multi-ethnic town of Košice (Kassa in Hungarian), one of the most important centres in the Kingdom of Hungary (and Slovakia’s second largest city today), in the years before the abolition of serfdom by the laws of 1848. As a free royal town, Košice was entitled to possess villages due to the privileges bestowed upon it by the kings of Hungary. The paper first examines the economic aspects of this relationship to provide an over- view of the contribution of the villages to the urban economy. It then focuses on the everyday interactions between the town and its villeins to highlight the characteristics of the behaviour of the city as seigneur from a micro-level perspective. The investigation proves that while the town council’s attitude towards peasants was consistently strict, it never acted in a despotic manner. The peasantry, on the other hand, sought loopholes in the regulations and tried to take advantage of lax control or the seigneur’s generosity. However, the villagers also regarded the city as indispensable for their livelihoods and as vital support in times of crisis

The origins of the negative historical representations of burghers in Hungary

Hungarian historiography needs to review its negative representation of towns and burghers typical of the first half of nineteenth-century Hungary, as Vera Bácskai, a major figure of Hungarian urban history suggested in a paradigmatic paper. Starting from her statements, this article examines the historical narratives of secondary school textbooks and wider historical syntheses of Hungarian history published in the age of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918). The author shows that the burghers’ negative image was rooted in the political fights prior to the 1848 Revolution and the emergence of modern nationalism

Réflexions sur les catégories des recensements. L'exemple des bourgeois de la ville de Kassa (Hongrie), 1788-1847

La série des recensements effectuée par les échevins de la ville de Kassa entre 1788 et 1847, par sa continuité et par l'ampleur de ses informations, constitue une source très précieuse pour l'histoire sociale de la Hongrie. Ces recensements étaient effectués chaque année et servaient de base pour la répartition de l'impôt de l'année suivante. Pendant soixante ans, les rubriques d'enregistrement demeurent identiques : elles sont organisées en fonction des chefs de famille (eux seuls sont enre..