Urbs - Magyar várostörténeti évkönyv 3. (Budapest, 2008)

Abstracts

JUDIT BALOGH The formation of the town elite of Székelyudvarhely at the turn of the 16th and 17th century The study tries to introduce the process through which the town population of Székelyudvarhely established in the second half of the 16th century, and primarily the town elite which determined the image of Székelyudvarhely for a long time. The investigations of the study are based on the chapters of the szék (county of the Székely Land) litigation documents that refer to Udvarhely. By comparing the previously already known debtors lists and the name lists of the lustra register allows one to get acquainted with the society of the town, the group of its officers, the geographical location of the residential places of the elite, the positions they occupied within the space of the town. In addition to this, from the lawsuits the occupations and the social positions of the members of the elite can be also traced. On the basis of this it is an extremely exciting result that a large part of the elite that was established in the second half of the 16th century belonged to that group of the Székely society, which was referred to as the „tenants of the prince". The road network of the town had been also developed in this period. Practically each member of the elite dealt with the operation of pubs and they also had significant Saxon connections as well. The data of inheritance lawsuits also show that the financial strength of the inhabitants of Székelyudvarhely (primarily that of the elite) exceeded the financial strength of a large part of the village inhabitants of the county. In spite of this, the Székely nobility included in its career strategy the establishment of their town residence quite late in time, which even in the first half of the 17th century was limited only to earning money through rental fees. LÁSZLÓ BLAZOVICH Settlements in the Southern Plain. A study based on the defters The Turkish defters prepared in the sixteenth century, as it is well known, represent an important source of the settlement history of the era, moreover, from their data it is possible to draw conclusions as regards the condition of the settlement network of Hungary existing before the battle of Mohács. Mr. Gyula Káldy-Nagy, provided numerous new data for the research concerning the road network of the larger settlements, when he published the 1567 and 1579 defters of the sanjak of Szeged. On