Wolf Mária: A borsodi földvár. Egy államalapítás kori megyeszékhelyünk kutatása - Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén megye régészeti emlékei 10. (Budapest - Miskolc - Szeged, 2019)
Irodalom- és rövidítésjegyzék
395 society. However, as the belt in burial 67, overturned in accordance with pagan customs, indicates, their Christianity at that time was still superficial, with only outward manifestations. The churches unearthed in the count’s castle in Borsod and outside its ramparts can be considered the two earliest in Borsod County. The finds clearly show that both stood at the end of the 11th century and their ranges of duties were very distinct. The information we have shows that similarly to other count’s centres, there was a dean seat in Borsod that belonged to the diocese of Eger and its dean was first mentioned in 1245. An examination of the churches of the Borsod royal county seat partially confirmed and partially refuted earlier suppositions. The hypothesis that deanery churches were located in the counts’ castles themselves and not outside was bolstered. The excavated cemeteries around deanery churches prove that these early church centres in many cases carried out the functions of a parish; their range of duties did not differ as clearly as was supposed. It appears that deanery churches only served truly as county churches, handling conversions, church administration and supervision, when another church existed at the same time to serve the spiritual needs of the folk of the castle or the settlement at the base of the castle. As we have seen, we have very little written information about Borsod Hillfort. After 1332, when the castle fell into private hands, it no longer appeared in the sources. Therefore, it is even more surprising that in the second half of the 1 б11’ century, Borsod was again mentioned as a castle. In his monograph about the county, Samu Borovszky wrote the following: ‘As the Turkish incursions grew more frequent, the number of castles in the county swelled. In the mid-1550s, Ferencz Bebek built a castle on the ruins of the ancient Borsod Hill fort, but Zsigmond Balassa captured it and burned it down.’ The castellum crops up in the 1568 records of a witness hearing. The news of the castellum burning down, which Borovszky himself spread, turned out to be incorrect. The original witness report reveals that, during the siege, the mill beneath the castellum was set on fire, not the castle. Borovszky’s mistake, naturally does not mean that we should doubt the credibility of the testimony in the witness hearing records. Between 1992 and 1994, we unearthed many remains of the building on the northwest side of the castle, immediately adjacent to the ramparts, or partially beneath the collapsed ramparts. Among the foundation ruins, we found a denarius issued by Ferdinand I in 1544 in Körmöcbánya, and near it a socketed bit that also dates to the 16th century. The isolated, late medieval remains found in a secondary context in various places in the castle may have belonged to the furnishings of the castellum. We can only determine the date the castellum was built by comparing archaeological finds with historical information. The year 1544, when the coin found in the foundation was issued, is a terminus port quern, the earliest possible date of construction. We can consider 1558, the year of Ferenc Bebek’s death, the ante quern. We can further narrow this date if we recall that after the loss of Fülek in 1554, Ferenc Bebek again became a supporter of Szapolyai and his interests turned to Transylvania. He travelled in Poland, Transylvania, and Istanbul, and therefore presumably spent little time on his property in Borsod County. In all likelihood, the Borsod castellum therefore must have been built between 1544 and 1554. The written sources clearly indicate that Ferenc Bebek did not have any official right to build the castle, as Borsod was never legally one of his properties. After 1568, the castellum is never mentioned again. A description of the country from the period of Joseph II (1782-85), however, mentions that a hill can be found at the border of the village upon which a castle once stood. Lajos Négyesi attributes an important role in Bocskai's uprising to Borsod Castle. Bocskai’s and Basta’s letters suggest that the Battle of Edelény, fought between 25-28 November 1604, took place in the stretch of land between Ládbesnyő and Borsodvár. He believes that the surviving copper engraving by Wilhelm Peter Zimmerman provides an authentic depiction of the location of the battle. He identifies the settlement surrounded by trenches and ramparts as Borsod Castle. The castle only appears again in a document from 1708. At that time no medieval buildings stood in the castle, and the process had begun during which the village creeped upwards and began using the castle as a building site. This is well demonstrated by a late 18th-century map too, on which several houses were depicted in the area of the castle. Especially interesting is that more of the remaining ramparts could be seen at that time than today. A large portion of the ramparts, therefore, was destroyed not in the Modem Age, with the settling of the village, but most likely during the Turkish-Age battles when the castellum and village were also ruined.
