Agria 39. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2003)

Csiffáry Gergely: Az 1552-es egri várvédő hősök névsora, sorsuk és az „egri név”

We only have the Christian names of 32 (8.98%) of those named, 31 men and one woman. In the case of two of the defenders we only have their surnames. Looking at the list according to social background: 67 (18.8%) were of noble descent, another 47 (13.2%) may have been of noble descent, 6 (1.7%) were half-noble, and the 236 (66.3%) a mixture of serfs, townspeople, servants etc.. Consequently there were 114 people who can be considered noble, making up between 5.4 and 5.9% of all those defending the castle, whilst common serfs, townspeople, servants made up a substantial majority (93-94%). Based on the results of previous research the author has established that 55.7% of those defending the castle were made up of groups sent by the king and the so-called guards. The number of mercenaries sent by the king being 546 (26.8%) in number, the guards 589 (28.9%). As almost a third of those defending the castle were made up of royal mercenaries, one can no longer uphold the widely held view that those ruling in Vienna were happy to resign the castle to its fate. Amongst those defending the castle we find nine families in which siblings, halfsiblings and relations fought alongside one another. Whole families pulled together and took part in the defence of the castle. Based on the list, one finds 21 families where wives, children and relations may indeed have participated together. The soldiers fighting in the defence were not in position to leave their wives to fend for themselves, as prior to the siege Dobó had the houses belonging to the officers and the domestic staff surrounding the castle systematically demolished for the sake of the defence and an improvement in their artillery options. For such people, and indeed the administrative officials, the town magistrate, the counsellors and their families, the castle remained their only possible sanctuary, During the course of the siege the women present in the castle were mainly made up of regular garrison members, soldiers' wives and the women and girls who had fled to the castle from the town and the local villages. Following the siege the ruler rewarded 28 of the defenders with noble offices and gifts of royal lands. Castellan Dobó and his family were promoted to the rank of baron. An addition two cavalry officers were given coats-of-arms, an infantry corporal was enobled, and an infantry captain was presented with a letter of nobility from the monarch. Following hostilities amongst those who were recommended for rewards were six castle defenders who were spared payment of the royal taxa regia for the rest of their lives. Apart from this there were eight common serfs who had their previous convictions declared null and void. It is in this way that one can date the emergence of the noble order to the middle of the 16th century. One of the reasons for rewarding those who had taken part in the siege was the ruler's desire to prevent the disbandment of a tried and practised and well-honed unit, and to persuade them instead to stay at the service of the castle in Eger. From the data collected it emerges that the officers in service in 1552 went on to serve at the castle for a period of ten, fifteen or even twenty years. In his introduction the author considers what could have been purchased with the rewards, based on the prices and the wages of the time. This was done by using tithe payments on grain to ascertain the incomes of six individuals (3 serfs and 3 craftsmen). The incomes of a further five inhabitants of Eger were evaluated based on tithes paid on wine. What is interesting is that most of those defending the castle were, to use common parlance, just your average soldiers, serfs, craftsmen, or villagers on the street. It is a real mystery, therefore, why these these people earned their places amongst the pantheon of heroes. The answer lies in the fact they were defending more than their odd hundredweight of grain or their several hundred litres of wine they were defending what remained of Hungary, 361