Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)
Tartalom
rCt 'KVji'ikh í-i i VÁC IN THE OTTOMAN ERA 103 livestock which used to be a determining factor in the life of the town. The growth of the Hungarian population proves a respectable vitality and also the fact that the economic significance of Vác retained enough of its former appeal to ensure the continuation of immigration even in the decades called "the century of Hungarian decay”. The frequent family names of the previous century like Bak, Farkas, Ferenci, Fórizs, Göncöl, Kónya, Kuti and Orosz can be found in the list of the urbárium of 1653 as well. Besides the persistent natives we can also find 37 family names formed of place names whose bearers, unknown at the end of the previous century, must have moved into the town in the first half of the 17th century. Some of these immigrants came from other parts of the country, from the area lying between county Somogy and Transylvania. Most of them however came from the nearer or farther neighbourhood, in Pest, Nógrád, Heves, Hont and Bars counties. Two more groups of people were added to the above immigrants, the families Horvát and Tót respectively. No Horváts (Croatians) had been registered in the 16th century, now there were five families in the town by this name; there had been Tots (Slovaks) before, but their number increased to twenty families altogether. The castle and the town of Vác in the Ottoman period We should not derive any conclusions from the family names recorded around the middle of the 17th century about the proportion of craftsmen or the hierarchy of trades, because names had become more or less permanent by this time. However, the author of this essay would like to share a theory with the reader. In 1653 among those family names referring to trade, the most numerous were the ones related to clothing: Szabó (Tailor), Varga (Shoemaker), Szűcs (Furrier), Takács (Weaver) and Ötvös (Goldsmith) were in the top six. It is implausible that the people living in Vác in this declining, miserable age would have taken consolation in fancy clothes, having new skirts/petticoats, jackets/jerkins and smock-frocks sewn and ornate pendants made or pewter that were used only on special But this impression may be true insofar as it takes the characteristic concerns of the contemporary society into account. The people in this unstable world were anxious to collect valuables that they could take with them Sipahi I
