Budapest Régiségei 15. (1950)

Gerevich László: Gótikus házak Budán 121-238

quate. The scattered data are amateurish and can hardly be used. The material of the archives is more important and its profound study would enable us to sum up the question. So we must have recourse to historical data. It is worth while to interpret positively the oft quoted description of Otto, bishop of Preising, who travelled in Hungary in the year 1147. We must consider, that the bishop was lacking in goodwill and the circumstances were strange for him. It is evident from his remark, that, at this time, there were already stone houses in the country. This is an important result after hardly 150 years of development. O

n the other hand it is not astonishing, that the number of wooden and reed constructions was greater. After the middle of the first millennium, the stone building lost its importance. From the descriptions of the »Vita Severini« we can draw as conclusion, that on the Roman settlements of Western Pannónia, wooden temples were built. But the main trend of the taste seems to point to the style of stone houses. This seems to be proved by the earliest remains of the foundations of the Esztergom castle, dating from the eleventh century. In the twelfth century the second royal palace was already standing in the town, but instead of archaeological material, only the data of the archives prove this. Prom the thirteenth century, we possess more data, but still very little archeological material. With the exception of ruins of monasteries and castles, we possess no characteristic remains of secular buildings. Here the research is restricted to dating the ruins of the single walls. A famous monument of this period is a house in Pozsony, on Káptalan-street, called the »Court of the Provost«. The gable and the inner wall are decorated with friezes of semi-circular arches, the other parts are of a Gothic character. Many data of the thirteenth century prove the existence of summer houses of non-constant character, but when a town dwelling house is described, a stress is laid on the stone as building material. According to leases of the years 1242 and 1243, Esztergom citizens rented stone houses from the Esztergom Chapter. This, and other similar documents, prove that burghers and artisans lived in stone house already in the first half of the thirteenth century, i. e. not only palaces were built of stone. In contrast to the records, historical descriptions mention often wooden buildings. We quote e. g. the »Carmen Miserabile« by Rogerius. When the citizens of Esztergom surrendered the town, they set on fire the suburbs and the numerous houses of wood, up to the palace, defending the palaces. This shows, that the suburbs consisted of timber houses, but the more important dwelling houses of the city were built of stone, Whereas the wooden buildings were more numerous, those houses which represented the style were built of stone. This is perhaps the reason why the public records always mention stone buildings. As the latter are always emphasized, the commentators inferred from this fact, that wooden houses prevailed. Besides, the selling and bequest of cheaper houses, belonging to the poorer classes, were seldom recorded. In the records, the difference- between stone and timber buildings is a qualitative distinction. In the Carmen Miserabile, we read about Gyulafehérvár : »basilicarum et palaciorum muros deruptos et subfossos«-in this case we also might think of stone houses. In. our country, these stone houses represented the Romanesque and later the Gothic style. We refer to the loggia in the description of the royal palace in the Town of Esztergom, furthermore to the royal palace in the Castle, which changed its style earlier than the ecclesiastical buildings. We shall prove this later, when describing the Buda architecture in detail comparing it with the European situation. German monographs show, that in the second half of the twelfth century, stone houses were scarce in Germany. In the 230