Petercsák Tivadar: Nemesi és paraszti közbirtokosságok Heves Megyében (XVIII-XX. század) - Studia Agriensia 23. (Eger, 2003)
NOBLE AND PEASANT JOINT TENANTRY IN HEVES COUNTY (18th-20th CENTURY)
accordance with the amount of arable land each peasant had. The finer legal and organisational points behind common usage were not finalised for many decades, and it was for this reason that the village community applied earlier feudal practices when confronted with new possibilities and requirements. According to the laws in existence at the end of the 19th century, at the turn of the century one sees farming associations (Hung.: gazda- testület, úrbéres gazdaközösség) which tended to develop into pasturage associations (Hung.: legeltetési társulat) and forest landowners (Hung.: erdőbirtokosság) during the 1920s and 1930s. In Heves County, apart from the joint-tenantries of the old peasants between the 1870s and the 1940s, one also sees peasant societies (Hung.: paraszti társaság, birtokosság) which resulted from the purchase of common woodland, pastures and arable land. These worked in the same way as old peasant joint tenantries. At the time of the land distribution of 1945 locals living in the northerly wooded areas of the county received woodland rather than arable land, the common usage of which was regulated in their status as new woodland (Hung.: új erdőbirtokosságok). The peasant joint tenantries in Heves County either covered a village’s entire pasturage and woodland or continued to preserve the old feudal distinctions between the gentry, the peasantry and the cottagers. From the beginning of the 20th century the names given to the various economic collectives founded by peasants and cottagers frequently had names paying homage to earlier property relations (Hung.: telkes gazdák, zsellér közbirtokosság). Even if a village didn’t have an association representing the cottagers, the pasturing rights entitled to peasants and cottagers were nevertheless reserved for them on their behalf. There were also examples of occasional and regular cooperation in the joint tenantries existing within a particular village, when for instance they joined forces to to take on herdsmen and swineherds. In most villages those joint tenantries made up of former peasants organised the usage of the forest and the pasturage together, playing an important economic role in the process. They managed the 295
