Ságvári Ágnes (szerk.): Budapest. The History of a Capital (Budapest, 1975)

The Medieval Sister Cities

controlling the quality and value of goods and enforcing their ordinances. In those earlier days the trend towards a narrow oligarchy in the craft guilds themselves, though increasing, was only evident in a few of them. These made it more difficult for the ordinary journeyman to become a master, that is, to become independent. He had to pay considerable sums of money to become a master, and was only excused from them—in whole or in part— if he were the son of a master craftsman or had married the widow or daughter of one. The crafts became increasingly differentiated. There is documentary evidence of the existence of 79 crafts at Buda and 32 crafts at Pest at the time. The majority of the craftsmen worked in the clothing, metal and food-processing trades, and at Pest, also in the leather trade. Sub-divisions were greatest in the metal crafts and the making of arms; such trades, and the goldsmiths and silversmiths as well, were likely to be stimulated by the more varied and luxurious demands of a capital city. The manufacture of knives, on the other hand, declined, due to the large-scale import of knives from Styria; the only other adverse effect of imported goods was in the weaving trade. The trade in furs was especially important.

The production of corn and other cereal crops around both cities declined, and even vanished, and the food had to be transported from other parts of Hungary. Corn and other cereals were mainly brought down the river from the Small Plain (Kisalföld). The outskirts of Buda were covered by vineyards, but the production of wine was mostly in the hands of the wealthy burghers, for whom it was only an extra source of income, or was made by the poorer citizens for their own personal consumption. The large numbers of workers in the vineyards swelled the ranks of the town-dwellers, and to a certain extent contributed to the depopulation of certain neighbouring villages. This accounted for the disappearance of Óbudaörs, Nándor and Sasad; we still do not know the exact location of the two latter villages. For one of the forms of breaking the feudal bondage for the peasants was flight to the city. The peasants in the villages around Buda planted vineyards which, unlike ploughlands, could be sold without the landlord’s permission to the burgesses of the city. Then, landless, they took refuge in the city. There is a certain amount of evidence of market gardening on the left bank of the Danube devoted to the production of melons, radishes and turnips, but otherwise cattle-rearing and animal breeding was the main occupation. Here too, the villages vanished and were replaced by meadows. Village handicrafts were unable to compete with the production of the two neighbouring towns; the city market swamped the village. Only a few settlements somewhat further off, as for instance the market towns of Tétény and Csepel, were able to maintain themselves and prosper. Owing largely to the sanitary conditions of the Middle Ages, most of the burgher families died out after three generations or so. Both cities needed continuous immigration to maintain their strength. The majority of the newcomers to medieval cities and towns were drawn from the surrounding districts, that is, from the area serving the weekly markets, and this was equally true of Buda and of Pest. But both cities—especially Buda—also acquired new inhabitants from towns up and down the country, as well as the many foreigners who settled in Buda, particularly those from cities trading with the Hungarian capital on a considerable scale. They came primarily from Nuremberg and Vienna, but in fact all the Germanspeaking cities south of a line drawn from St. Gallen to Cracow through Nuremberg and Breslau contributed their quota; as a result the Germans never disappeared from Buda although their number was continuously diminishing; but in Pest there were hardly any Germans. From the middle of the fourteenth century Óbuda rapidly declined, but at the

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