Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 33/4. (2013)
Articles
Churchyards in the Transylvanian Basin from the ll,h to the first half of the 13th centuries 187 Following our theoretical approach, it is difficult to draw any conclusions on the ethnic identity of the populations in these churchyards. The elite of a political-military structure ruled a society by using symbols of different nature .208 In the case of the 11th-13th century cemeteries it can firmly be stated that its elite was the politicalmilitary elite appointed by the Hungarian Kingdom and his king. The common traditions of the population living in castles, villages is impossible to identify by archaeological means, based on comprehensive archaeological finds from the 11th-13th centuries Transylvanian Basin. As a result, in most cases it is not ethnic realities but the illustration or symbolisation of social statuses that can be detected. Certainly, it cannot be excluded that in particular cases the difference in social status maybe closely connected to different ethnicity, but it is impossible to detect them in medieval churchyard cemeteries by archaeological means. In the county centres and in the castles housing different religious institutions such as Alba Iulia, Cluj-Napoca-Mdndsfur, Däbäca population of heterogenous origins may have concentrated, which is referred to in the sources too. In small settlements there are more chances that the population was homogenous, but this can neither be proved nor refuted for the puritanism of the graves. 13.4. The problem of social status in the churchyards from the ll,h-13lh centuries (PI. 8, PI. 22, PI. 43) Although in the previous era the rank or respect of a deceased person, or the prestige of the family (through the deceased person) was symbolised by different categories of weapons, horse burials and funeral garments adorned with jewellery, from the time of the reign of King Stephen I the Christian conversion of the population in the Carpathian Basin made these ancient pagan rites obsolete. Similarly to the communities of other regions or other ages (from the Palaeolithic age on) the symbolic competition between medieval individuals and families consequently led to a change of the way the status or the social importance of a person was symbolized on their death in the Middle Ages. Christianity, which taught spiritual and, from the point of view of the economic-political hierarchy, an egalitarian picture of the after life209 superseded the symbols 208 Assman 1992. 209 On the Christian picture of the other world and on Christian burials, see: Rush 1941. that represented the status of the individual or the family in the burials ,210 but it allowed another representation. This tendency is very well indicated by Theodulf s decree, which, at the end of the 9th century, emphasises that bishops, monks and priests can be buried in the church and, what is most interesting to us, laymen who are worthy of it can also be interred there .211 This symbolic competition of power and wealth meant the same in the case of medieval laymen as the jewels, weapons and/or parts of horses in the burials of the bygone pagan times. In contrast with older days, the poverty of furnishings does not mean the poverty of the society, but the Puritanism of medieval way of thinking, which was often dissonant. Simplicity and Puritanism are the solution to this problem, but the aim to represent power and prestige remained the same and the burials in the church or as close to the church as it was possible were its manifestations. That is the reason why overlapping burials and superpositions can be found around the churches, which are the characteristic features of churchyards as opposed to the cemeteries with rows of graves. That is why the location of the 59 graves from Däbäca-Casf/e Area IV containing silver items have been analysed by us. Out of the 59 mapped graves 41 were found in the central section of the cemetery ,212 which shows that among the population of the Árpádian era, it was the wealthier people who took their valuables with themselves into the grave. Although it is an insignificant result, but this phenomenon makes it clear that the more potent members of the family were buried around the church213: At the same time, it cannot be completely excluded that in the three cemeteries in and near the Dábáca castle, populations of different statuses were buried. The major differences in the cemetery sizes may be cited here: near the large cemetery in Castle Area IV, and in the smaller cemeteries in A. Tämas’s Garden and Boldägk/ Boldogasszony populations of different origins (clerici, comes, miles, servi) were buried. This interpretation may be supported by the large number of weapons found in the castle area, 210 It is very interesting that sword or sabre burials became fashionable again from the 16lh century on, especially inside church. In this issue see the excavation of Béla Posta, Márton Roska and István Kovács in Alba Iulia, which was carried out very well (Posta 1917, 1-155). A same phenomenon is known from Scandinavia (Kiefer-Ollsen 1997,188, note 17). 211 Szuromi 2005, 10, note 28. 212 Gáli 2011,63. táb. 213 Gáli 2011,62. táb.
