Körmöczi Katalin szerk.: Historical Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum 3 - From the End of the Turkish Wars to the Millennium - The history of Hungary in the 18th and 19th centuries (Budapest, 2001)

ROOM 10. Hungary in the 18th Century (Gábor Németh)

country, the Reformed (Calvinist) Church, with its fine, historic schools, had the greatest following among the ethnic Magyars. By-passing the Diet, Charles III issued a religious decree in 1731 (the Carolina Resolutio) which forced the Protestants into a subordinate position, restricted the practice of their religion and linked the holding of office to the taking of a Catholic oath. The Reformed Church is represented by the plate for distributing the Communion bread, and by the Hungarianand Augsburg-made Communion vessels and a Communion chalice. Of the Protestant denominations, the Evangelical, or Lutheran Church certainly deserves mention. It flourished mainly among town-dwellers of German origin. In Transylvania, the Unitarian Church played a significant role. The Serb, Southern Slav and Romanian population belonged to the Eastern Greek (Orthodox) Church which did not acknowledge the primacy of Rome. Characteristic relics of this denomination are the so-called Mount Athos crosses, minutely carved from boxwood and set in silver filigree. The artophoria were used to hold the consecrated bread used for Holy Communion in services. The Greek Catholic (Uniate) denomination, which split away from the Eastern Church and attached itself to the Roman Catholic Church, enjoyed significance from the 18th century onwards. The Jewish population, which was engaged in trade and industry, settled in the towns and commercial centres. On religious festivals and on the Sabbath, Torah scrolls were embellished with Torah armour and Torah crowns. The Jewish sacral objects shown are fine works of Baroque goldsmith's art in Hungary. THE POSITION OF THE PEASANTRY In the 18th century, Hungary remained an agrarian country. The overwhelming majority of its inhabitants were peasants living in feudal dependency and dwelling in villages or in market-towns possessing a certain degree of freedom. In addition to spontaneous migration to the depopulated areas, there was also, from the 1720s onwards, settlement of an officially organized kind and settlement organized by individual landowners. A special settlement committee was set up by Maria Theresia in 1766. Primarily it was Swabian settlers who arrived. As a result of natural population increase and the influx of settlers, Hungary's population reached 9.3 millions around 1784, and its ethnic composition changed. The Magyar element predominated in the central regions of the country, while the Romanians predominated in the southeast, the Slovaks in the north, the Serbs in the south, and the Croats in the southwest, with the GermanSaxon and Swabian component being scattered among the traditional town populations. The newcomers were given tax and other concessions. For those arriving in uninhabited areas, village and house plans were drawn up, as the exhibited copper engraving shows. During the course of the century, the feudal burdens on the peasants increased. Despite royal measures aimed at improving the situation and standardizing burdens, a number of peasant revolts broke out in the 18th century. From the 1760s onwards, the modernization of agricultural production were being urged not only by Austrian legislators, but also by Sámuel Tessedik ( 1742-1820), who was working to improve the circumstances