Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 1. (2019)
Oana Toda: Tobacco Clay Pipes from Rupea Castle and their Historical Context
130 О. ToDA opportunity for gain. During the next century, the Habsburg authorities were quick to instate a tobacco monopoly with huge effects on taxation and distribution. The measure only entered Hungary*9 and Transylvania last, in 1851.89 90 The illegal and, most likely, insufficient local production from Transylvania was supplemented through external trade. The import and transit of tobacco leafs made it to the customs registers and the first mention is dated in 1672.91 By 1683, Transylvanian authorities had already tried to stop the imports, but transit was still allowed. The tobacco shipments, even though barely notable compared to other types of merchandise, were introduced to Transylvania and transited towards Poland, Hungary, and the Habsburg Empire,92 with merchant companies being granted permission to enter the principality.93 As one can notice from the Turnu Rosu custom registers, it was continuously brought into the country between 1682 and 168694 (the registers record it with some fluctuations until 1692) and some of the shipments were intended for internal commerce.95 It also appears that the Transylvanian market absorbed those products that could not be sold on the Polish market.96 According to the analysis of L. Demény, at least some of the tobacco originated in France,97 while in the 18th century the Transylvanian market probably also imported the lower quality tobacco produced in Wallachia, Moldavia,98 99 and Oltenia." Pipes and pipe components were transited through Wallachia and Transylvania towards Poland in the last quarter of the 17th century and the customs registers record them as such: Pipaszár (‘pipe stem’). However, the quantities were so small that these products could easily pass unnoticed when analyzing these archival sources.100 Therefore, this aspect can be better researched by taking into account the archaeological material. The imported products of the late 18th and 19th centuries are quite easy to spot even in the small lot presented in this article, as the main production centers of the Habsburg, later on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, are well-known and the types and variants well-documented. Hence, one can state that the pipes with catalogue numbers 13 to 16 most likely reached Rupea through long distance trade. The 17th and 18th century pieces, however, are more problematic. Leaving aside their fragmentation, no connection can be made as of yet between these artifacts and production centres located in Transylvania, because of the highly lacunar state of research.101 Besides some unpublished evidence for pipe workshop activity102 and a certain one from Oradea,103 only vague data on the functioning of pipe production places were recorded for: Bobälna - Cälan104 and ‘the black Borga pipes of Borgó [a. n. Bärgäu area?] brought from Transylvania into Hungary.105 89 Maxwell 2006, 7-9. 90 Müller 1911,397. 91 Gruia 2013, 37. 92 Murgescu 2012a, 144; Pakucs 2012, 92. 93 Gruia 2013, 37. 94 Demény 1969, 474; during those years 1150 r. fl. worth of tobacco was transited towards Poland. 95 Gruia 2013, 38. 96 Murgescu 2012b, p. 203. 97 Demény 1969,478. 98 Cälätori sträini 1997, 398, 476. 99 Where tobacco crops became the object of regulated taxation during the Habsburg rule. See: Cälätori sträini 1997, 111 (1726), 184(1731). 100 Demény 1969, 476. 101 Gruia 2013,40. 102 See footnote 5. 103 Emödi 1998. 104 Apparently a production site existed in Hunedoara County in Bobälna and then moved to Cälan, where it remained active only between 1805 and 1818 (Tomka 2000, 47). 105 Tomka 2000, 47 (citing J. Möller).
