Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)
Tartalom
104 VÁC IN THE OTTOMAN ERA in case they had to flee: the nobility, for example, hoarded gold and silver objects, precious weapons and finery; the town citizens hoarded decent clothes, surplus bed- and tablecloths, and simple jewellery some of which were bequeathed, unused, to their descendants as part of the family fortune. If the trades names listed above also support the author's assumption, it means that the Hungarian inhabitants of the town were able to collect some modest valuables even in this miserable age. In the 17th century several foreign travellers mentioned Vác, although they did not waste too many words on it - perhaps because they were approaching Buda on the right bank or by ship on the Danube. The most detailed report was written by the ever-enthusiastic, great tale-teller globe trotter Evliya Chelebi, who visited Vác in the autumn of 1663. He related the history of the town at great length (probably he is to blame for the misconceptions about the repeated occupation of the town after 1541 and the garrison amounting to ten thousand), but he cut the description of the castle and the town short. We can also read about Vác in the itinerary written by Henry Howard in 1665 and that of Edward Brown in 1669. The three accounts are quite different, but basically they confirm each other. The castle and the town were definitely separated, the castle - with Suleyman's Djami still standing there - was merely a military object. The people were separated along religious and ethnic lines. Evliya Chelebi calls the part of the town inhabited by the Turks outer castle; it was surrounded by a double wall made of wattle and daub, and there were seven djamis (one of them founded by Karakash Mehmed Pasha in 1620). However, Brown mentions only two mosques, that is exactly as many as we know of from the previous century. The Hungarians lived in the suburbs surrounded with a simple wicker wall and ditch. Their church also stood there (Evliya reports three, but Brown mentions only one church; the latter account seems to be more realistic). All three descriptions agree upon the decline of Vác too. Brown did not openly declare this view but made it clear by comparing the formerepiscopal see to the in significance of present conditions. He wrote a depressing report: "This town is in a miserable condition; it used to be an episcopal see, but during the past 130 years it has changed hands twenty times, has been raided several times, on one occasion even burnt." Evliya Chelebi, who tended to find even shabby huts pretty houses, expressed his definite disapproval of the poverty shameful to a sanjak centre. He missed the essential
