Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 54. (Budapest, 1970)

TANULMÁNYOK - Kubinyi András: The Social and Economic Standing of Persons Concerned with Health Treatment in Buda at the Turn of the 15th and 16th Centuries (angol nyelvű közlemény)

Ages we may assume that the apothecarians had a similar role in the Hungarian capital, too. The topographical layout of the apothecaries supports this observation. Thanks to an excellent researcher in the topography of Buda, Vidor Pataki, who refuted Albert Gárdonyi's erroneous views [82], to-day's Tárnok Street, more exactly in its western row of houses [83], We need little to add to Pataki'

s well-supported contention. But in order to get acquainted with the role of the apothecaries in the life of the town, we should re-examine some of the data, most of which had already been dealt with by him. The characters mention a house several times between 1475 and 1500 which was owned first by Fülöp Nagy, later by the new husband of the former's widow, literátus (clerk) Sebestyén Iváncsy, after which the Szt. Lélek (Holy Ghost) hospital of Felhévíz, and later the Szt. András (St. Andrew) chapel of Esztergom drew an annuity. In 1500 the southern neighbour of the building was Pál Szabó. The location of the house was given as "among the apothecaries"

, "in the street that is in the row of the apothecaries"

, "in the array of the apothecarian houses", "in the row of the apothecaries" [84]. One of the neighbouring houses was described in 1475 in the following way: is stands in the street of the apothecaries, its northern neighbour is the house of Fülöp Nagy (the one we have mentioned above), its southern one is the seat of the buns (in vicinitatibus ... sedium semellarum), while it is facing Imre Bornemissza in the east, and the butchers' stalls in the west [85]. The identification is supported by the above quoted wine tithelists of 1505 and 1510, which mention the southern neighbour of the NagySebestyén house, Pál Szabó : prope Semlyesek, i.e. near the Zsemlyeszék (Seat of the buns), and in 1510 the same house, owned by Sebestyén'?, widow is described: "in teatro prope Zemlyzek", i.e. in the (main) square, near the Zsemlyeszék. It should be added that the selling stand called Zsemlyeszék in Hungarian, and in Latin (in literal translation) "sedes semellarum" was also known as Zsemlyeapothecary. In 1528 the house of the Corpus Christi chapel of Esztergom lay athwart from the south "ex opposito apotece semellarum"

, i.e. apposite to the apothecary of the "zsemlyék" (buns) [86]. Finally there is another datum. At the end the 15th century the Szt. Jeromos chapel of Esztergom drew an annuity after a house in Buda, which stood in the row of the apothecarians, opposite to the house of the town (council-) hall [87]. That is further explained by the following description: the list of 1510 mentions the house of a certain János Rácz "in teatro, ex opposito consistorii"

, which means in the (main) square, opposite to the council-hall [88]. The data quoted prove that the Row or Street of the Apothecarians was not a street strictly speaking, but a part of the main square of the town, actually its centre, which came into being when the vacant place lying between the townhall (at the site of the present museum in Szentháromság Street) and the St. Georg Church, standing at the place of the present Honvéd Memorial Statue, was built in. The Buda Law Book informs us that the marketwomen were selling in front of it, and the butchers' stalls were behind it [89]. Hence the Row of the Apothecarians lay in the economic — and due to the town-hall, political—centre of the town [90], The central position of the selling stands