Századok – 2015
2015 / 5. szám - Kujbusné Mecsei Éva: "Ki légyen főbíránk" Nyíregyháza főbírái 1753 és 1848 között
1092 KUJBUSNÉ MÉCSÉI ÉVA „WHO SHOULD BE OUR CHIEF JUDGE?” The Chief Judges of Nyíregyháza between 1753 and 1848) By Kujbusné Mécséi Éva (Summary) At Nyíregyháza written sources about the election of the magistracy only survive from the period after the town’s resettlement in 1753. According to these, for several decades the chief judges were chosen from those among the settlers of Békés, the largest group in the village, who had played a dominant role in the resettlement, and were reputedly the best farmers. They held office for one or two years. After Nyíregyháza had been promoted to the status of market town in 1786, the constantly growing population needed such leaders who, literate and knowledgeable about the wider world, could be of help to them in the acquisition of further rights and exemption from seigneurial domination. The management of credit operations needed for the perpetual exemption, and of the legal measures which made these possible, and the acquisition of the necessary royal favour, could only be entrusted to an educated chief judge. The inhabitants of the greatly transformed market town, enjoying administrational autonomy and civic rights, and then the electa communitas and the senate, elected after 1837, in accordance with the royal privilege, a mayor alongside the chief judge, and the former took complete control over town affairs after 1848.
