Vezető a Déri Múzeum kiállításaihoz (Debrecen, 1978)

English Summary

• Churches and cemeteries (vitriné 30.) The laws of Stephen I and Ladislas I contained provisions to reinforce Christianity and to supersede pagan customs. The population of more villages are buried around the little churches of the villages. For the first time noble families had simple, but since the end of the 11 th century bigger three-nave churches and clan-monasteries built. (Monostorpályi, Szerep, Herpály, Ohat.) The earliest relics of Debrecen (vitriné 31.) The earliest archeological trace concerning Debrecen are the coin finds found during building of Hotel Arany Bika. The development of Debrecen can be put to the end of the 11th century, to the place of the Great Church of our days where the old St. Andrew church and its predecessor stood. Perhaps inhabitants of a castle lived there. Later Debreceni Dózsa and his family superior to them did a lot to change the little village into a town. THE ECONOMICS OF DEBRECEN can be treated as a prototype of the plain market towns surrounded large fields. The structure of the fields and the economic system characteristic of modern times developed in the 17th

—18th centuries. The centre of the rich peasants' farms, the fundament was the house in the town. As belongings to the house a certain quantity of field was divided yearly (field after the house) and also meadow and pasture and wood. The garden belonged to the house where they grew vegetables and grapes. To the beginning of the 18th century Debrecen had bought vast territories from the deserted „pusztas" of the Hortobágy. Part of these was gained by the inhabitants (hired fields) the other part was the common property of the town (mainly pastures and woods.) From the fields belonging to the town inhabitants got parts according to their fortune or for proper fee. So the consummated peasants' farms necesserily consisted of more units: a) the town was surrounded by gardens b) Outside the gardens there were inner pastures in common usage. c) on the plough

—lands ranches were built, which became, besides the centres in the town, the centres of the seignioral domestic economy. d) In the wooded shrubberies the farmers built shelters for winter for their animals, which later also may have turned into ranches. e) Outside these fields there were the outer pastures (Hortobágy!) where the inhabitants of Debrecen grazed their animals kept in extensive circumstances. 401