Arrabona - Múzeumi közlemények 36/1-2. - Ajánlva a hetven éves Dr. Domonkos Ottónak (Győr, 1998)

Summary

tariffs, customs registers, merchants' account books and testaments. The data which can be collected from these sources - however incomplete they may be - confirm the supposition that the production of honey and the trade in this commodity played a much more important role in the economic life of the observed region than previously assumed. Honey was ranked third among agricultural export goods registered at the customs offices in Sopron and Pozsony (Bratislava) after livestock and wine, with roughly the same customs value as for hides and fish. However, the sweet stuff has been given far less attention in historical writing than the other goods listed above. One explanation for that may be, that apiculture left very few traces in the sources, since the production of honey does not require any separate land. After the dissolving the system of specialized "serving people" in the Árpád age, bee-keeping was pursued as spare-time occupation, alongside other activities, such as handicrafts or fishing. Merchants also transported and exported honey together with other commodities. In some well-documented cases from the towns of Sopron and Pozsony (Bratislava), however, the sources supply data not only on the quantity and value of the honey brought to market, but also about people who were involved in the trade in one way or another. These references reveal the existence of a well organized multi-layered system of intermediate trading. It is reflected through this middleman scheme, like the ocean in a drop (of honey...), how wide layers of medieval society were involved in commodity production. These layers: producers and merchants in villages, market towns and towns "proper" were connected with each other by a highly elastic trading chain. This system worked in both ways, not only by collecting and transfering honey from the producers to the consumers, but also by ensuring the supply of imported goods and thus contributing to higher standards of living in the production areas. The present piece of writing, partly because it cannot rely on previous research on the topic, raises rough questions rather than giving polished answers. The least clear points are at both ends of the mediatory chain. The range of producers and the techniques of apiculture are just as hard to trace back on the basis of our scanty sources and in our present state of knowledge, as the final end of the exported honey, that is the way from the wholesale merchants to the customers. As several examples indicate, a significant proportion of honey was bought up by honey-cake makers living at a distance of 1 -2 days' journey from the centres of distribution, but the major parts of the ware were probably marketed much further away, in Upper Austria and Southern Germany. It would be the task of further research to trace, on the basis of customs registers from Vienna and elsewhere, the further route of the honey exported from Hungary, and to place this ware in the range of commodities transported to supply the great merchant towns in Southern Germany and Northern Italy. In the long run we may also answer the question, to what extent did the dissolving of the East-Central European economic integration, beside the expanding import of sugar, contribute to the diminishing importance of honey among the commodities of long-distance trade. DANTER Izabella: Details of the ornamental art of Mátyusföld Folk ornamentation is one of the most popular areas of folk culture. Since the middle of the last century the exploration of the value of folkart has been entwined with the international and national exhibitions. The study of folk culture in Mátyusföld ARRABONA KftKj 36/1-2.