Folia archeologica 31.

Gerelyes Ibolya: Török szíjgyártók és nyergesek Budán a XVI. században

TURKISH HARNESS-MAKERS AND SADDLERS IN 16th CENTURY BUDA In the second half of the 16th century a considerable number of Turkish merchants and craftsmen were settled in Buda. These master craftsmen wanted to meet in the first place the demand of Turkish soldiers and officials serving there. Range and quality of goods, imported to Hungary under Turkish rule or produced here reflected this change in demand. As a result of this natural process certain crafts gained ground in Buda and Pest, resp. in certain larger towns. Of these crafts leather-working, smithcraft, pottery and testile industry are worthy of a special mentioning but as for its high level and importance leather-working stood pre-eminent among the other crafts of the period. During the 16th and 17th centuries Turkish leather-working had a great influence on the Hungarian craft. According to the evidence of OsmanliTurkish loan-words: technical terms, still living in our language or fallen into oblivion, the Hungarians became acquainted with certain sorts of leather, leather-working tools and leather footwear through the Osmanli Turks. Such Osmanli-Turkish loan-words still living and well-known are szattyán (saffian), bagaria (Russian leather), or the now less-known keszele and mesin, meaning certain sorts of leather. To the vocabulary of leather working such widely accepted words belonged as bicsak (shoe-knife), csiriz (starch gum), mus ta (slicker) and the word iplik, now almost forgotten, but still used in the leather branch at the beginning of this century, meaning yarn or slender leather strip. Certain sorts of footgear came into general use in Hungary during the 16th and 17th centuries, as a special sort of boots, the slipper, and the so-called pacsmag (a sort of sandals). Suburbs named Tabán

, emerging in larger towns of Turkish occupied Hungary, keeping their names still in our times, point to a large-scale tanning industry and leather-working. We find this name, coming from the Turkish debbaghane (tan-yard), besides Buda also in Esztergom, Csongrád and Szeged, indicating a great number of tanners who once worked there. Turkish customs' registers of Buda, still extant from this period, preserving the names of local master-craftsmen as well as sorts of goods in trade, give evidence of the activity of Turkish harness-markers and saddlers. We get an insight into the work of the Turkish harness-makers of Buda through the inventory of estate, published and analysed in the present paper, listing the workshop equipment of the saddler Dur Ali, deceased in Buda in 1570. On the ground of the inventory we can take it for certain that the crafts of the saddler and harness-maker were entwined. Besides saddles the mastercraftsmen produced various straps belonging to harness, as bridles, breast straps, braces, leading-reins, leg-straps, halters and whips. Presumably they did not only produce various kinds of straps but dealt also in other parts of 18*