A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 45. (2006)

Kunt Gergely: 18-19. századi körözőlevelek elemzése

resting (and rarest) warrants are the ones containing a dialogue, usually between the prisoner and the clerk. Most warrants contained more or less similar data: the name, the alias, religious affiliation, age, the form of the head and the nose, a description of the beard, the hair-style, the moustache, the eyebrows, the teeth and the mouth. The success of a warrant depended on to what extent the description fitted the wanted person and to what extent he/she could be recognised from the description. An astonishing variety of expressions were used for describing facial features, gait, intellectual abilities, speech, dialect, accents, individual marks, profession, drinking habits, etc. Certain decrees on clothing were passed in order to emphasize the social differences. These decrees defined the type of costume, which could be worn. The nobility's financial status can be differentiated in the light of these decrees and the descriptions of their costume in various documents. As a matter of fact, these decrees only had a „documentary" alue, insofar as they recorded the customs of particular place and age. These clothing decrees could never be wholly enforced. Individual items of clothing were described in great detail since the wanted person usually had a single set of clothes only. At the same time, these descriptions are rarely detailed enough to reflect the differences between the costume worn by various ethnic minorities and Hungarians. Obviously, some elements of the costume did reflect an individual's origins. None of the sources mentions a change in the costume. Various items of the Sunday best clothing - the boots, the vest, the bonnet, etc. - were sometimes replaced with fancier ones. In contrast, the hairstyle was often changed, although with little success, for the authorities apparently learnt of the change and the new hairstyle was also described in addition to the old one. Peasants usually found it impossible to regularly renew their clothing, and they usually wore „old fashioned" lothes. They had better opportunities for clothing if they found employment as domestic servants or farm-hands. The burghers tried to imitate the nobility, but since their majority was of German stock, they usually followed the German fashion. The nobility had the greatest freedom, at least in principle, to satisfy their whims as regards clothing; however, the descriptons contained in the documents reveal that their clothing was often little better than that of a wealthier peasant. Gergely Kunt 281