Kovacsics József: A történeti statisztika forrásai (Budapest, 1957)

Angol nyelvű összefoglaló

for themselves, the landlords hindered sometimes the conscription or used violence against the census officers; they declared the serfs falsely as their domestics, in order to exempt them from the State tax; they occupied the land of the serfs for themselves. The serfs themselves at the time of the conscriptions often fled away or declared they were cottars. Later on, under the Turkish occupation, the census officers did not venture into the occupied area; instead they simply summoned the village mayors from beyond the frontier and, in such cases, they assessed the tax on the basis of the not always reliable information received from them. The number of the serfs' tenements of the villages in question was then established in a similar way. But in general, the rule was that the conscription officers had to walk or ride from village to village and so they personally ascertained the number of serfs' tenements in each village. Since the conscriptions were carried out for each district separately, i. e. on a geographical basis, the identifying of different communities of a particular county having identic names has been greatly facilitated. Although the conscriptions do not help to establish the number of the population, they are valuable in so far as inmost cases they contain information regarding the number of persons exempted from the tax, i. e. the number of cottars, craftsmen, newly-settled, as well as the number of the destroyed houses; the size of the serfs' tenements (i. e. the number of whole, half-, quarter- etc. tenements in the village), and the causes of differences between the conscription data of different years (for instance, the diminishment in the number of sessions as a result of damage by fire, plague, running away of serfs etc.). Thus, on the basis of the relative data, we may draw a picture on the dismembering of tenements, on pauperisation, on the devastation caused by epidemics and so on. The conscriptions contain also the name of the landlord who possessed the village. Thus, it is possible to follow the process of formation of the big estates, on the ground of data showing the growth of the number of serfs' tenements in the hands of certain families in a particular county or even in the country as a whole. On the basis of the data at our disposal we may draw up some charts and thus acquaint ourselves with the histórico-statistical changes which took place in a particular region or county investigated. The effort of the tax-payers to evade tax assessment led finally to the alteration of the basis of the conscriptions. At the end of the 16th century it was the houses which were conscribed. But even this method could not steadily ensure an efficient tax collection. Already in 1609 a new system was introduced. Following this, as basis of assessment served the principal means of production of the serf, i. e. the number of his draught animals. In the course of the 17th century, however, when establishing the number of the serfs' tenements, there was an evergrowing endeavour to take into account the whole productive capacity of the serf. But, as the conscriptions of this character contain only the number i. e. the basis of tax, but not the computation method used, they are hardly suitable for histórico-statistical investigations. The last nation-wide conscription of this type was carried out in 1647. In 1696, after the liberation of the whole country from Turkish domination, a new conscription was carried out. It was intended to take into full consideration the productive capacity of the serfs, by conscribing the areas cultivated by them. In addition, also the practicability of pasturage and the use of woodlands as well as the difficulties caused by inondations, billeting etc. were to be regarded. The drawback of the 1696 conscription was that — contrary to the original intention — it was not carried out uniformly in the whole country. Practically, it never served as a basis of tax assessment. From this time onwards, the delegates of the counties and towns were invited to the so-called "palatinal assemblies" (the Palatine was the 29 A történeti statisztika forrásai 449