A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 1975 (Debrecen, 1976)

Néprajz - Dankó Imre: Changes in the Hungarian peasantry’s way of life and culture, with special regard to the Plain of Southern Bihar

was consolidated, serfs formed a social class. Life was based upon agriculture, practised in a two-course rotation system, in cut-over areas. People used rudimentary ploughs, harvested with sickles and reaped crops were threshed. The main produces were cereals and in some places a certain viniculture developed. Primeval occupations were carried on. Fishing and hunting were considerable, but both were controlled and limited according to feudal systems. Animal husbandry consisted of breeding species brought along by the conquerors (horse, cattle), of domesticating species found in the country (pigs) and was greatly extensive. Only the most necessary, indispensable crafts were exercised (smiths), but they never developed into guild industries. The bulk of industrial activity was pursued within the family sytem, by the population itself (spinning, weaving). Traffic was primarly used for reaching the royal castellans' residences, later for reaching the big estates' centers. Besides the roads, which were not specially built, navigation on rivers and standing waters was of major importance. Trade was primitive, consisting mainly of real exchange. Commerce was mainly oriented towards the south (Greece) and consisted chiefly of bying hides and leather goods, or else mediating goods which were not produced locally. This was the introduction, the propagation of money economy. As a consequence of economic development society's general differentiation began in the XVth century. Differentiation was promoted by the inconsistencies of feudalism which already began to show, feudal anarchy beginning in the XVI th c, fostered by the Turkish conquest and by the splitting of the country into three parts. Peasantry of the southern Bihar plain played an active part in Dózsa's Peasant War (1514), manifesting repeatedly its anti-feudal feelings. After the fall of the fortress Gyula (1566), the palisade of Sarkad gained considerable importance. Amidst the permanent feuds and feudal anarchy certain civil tendencies still prevailed, manifesting themselves in the rapid and exclusive propagation of the reformation. Feudal anarchy and long lasting wars made ownership uncertain, impeded production's stabilisation and development. The feudal society's desintegration ensued. Many people fled from their homes, others again joined the free heyducks, while in the mean time other fugitives (southern Slavs, Gipsies, Roumanians) appeared temporarily. Soldiery (both Hungarian and foreign) became an important element numerically. Too depopulation, which attained its height by the end of the XVII th. century, at the time of the so-called liberation wars, never got total. In contradiction with earlier opinions, the population everywhere remained constant. Changes occurred, however, as regards social affiliations, since the remaining inhabitants meanwhile acquired various priveleges, they were soliders or led In the XVI-XVII th. с economic life declined, its organisation and development stopped. Agriculture lost its impact, animal husbandry, though increasing in number, did not improve in quality owing to circumstances and production methods. The plain of southern Bihar, previviously a cultured site, ran wild. The country's liberation from Turkish occupation did not immediately change these circumstances. A revival of feudalism showing in other settlements did not touch this territory to such an extent as the neighbouring county Békés. The new landowners (the Esterházy family, or the Tisza family, the latter originally local small-holders, who gradually increased their wealth could not easily enforce their rights against lower gentry, or such elements who meanwhile acquired privileges (like the heyducks.- Kőrösnagyharsány etc.). In most cases a taxe system ensued, assuring better economic and social possibilities to the peasantry of southern Bihar than the classic serfdom's conditions. Based upon the census of the years 1715 and 1720, the treatise describes the economic conditions of the different villages. These circumstances can be regarded as the basis of further changes and development. Compared with these data he next two hundred years till the serfs' liberation in 1848 - show an almost unbroken line of development. Land property took a final form, normal production conditions were assured. Agriculture regained its previous importance and in order to improve production results new territories were tilled. Changes were brought about in the ways of production. Farming began, agricultural implements developed, they were more solid, resisting to wear and tear. From the social point of view the development brought about a wider differentiation with in the peasantry. By the middle of the XIX th. century every settlement in southern Bihar had its cotters' stratum, numerous and of considerable social impact. Wealthy peasantry developed a so-called „pay off in labour" system with the less wealthy or the cotters, wich lead to further impoverishment. Differentiation in peasant society also showed in the difference of production methods. Phase shiftings took place in high nobility estates, in the farming of landed serfdom and in the production technique of partial plot owner serfs, in their implementation, in the species of their produces, grown or bred. As to the cotters, they 476