Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)
Tartalom
VÁC IN THE ÁRPÁD ERA (895-1 301) 61 fierceness of the invaders proved to be efficient: according to Rogerius everybody obeyed them unconditionally. Batu Khan planned to stay for a long time and his army needed to be fed, so they made the survivors continue their work: harvest, beating the wheat and scythe. THE REVIVAL OF THE TOWN The Mongol rule came to an end in the spring of 1242. After they left unexpectedly - marching away with thousands of prisoners and immense loot - King Béla IV and his nobility set about the hopeless-looking task of the restoration of the country. It was the population of the Great Plain that suffered the heaviest losses, many more fell victim here than elsewhere. In a few years' time nomadic Cumans were settled in the Nagykunság and Kiskunság. Other places, especially the thinly populated Upper Hungary were resettled by German settlers, most of whom might have been driven from their homeland by overpopulation and the shortage of land. Few of them arrived with full purses and set up in profitable businesses, keeping their business relations back home in the Netherlands. In the decades following the Mongol Invasion a Bishop Stephen Bancsa's seal King Béla IV (Thuróczy Chronicle) Bishop Bancsa, later the Archbishop of Esztergom, portrayed on lead-glass in the Cathedral of Chartres (inscription: STEPH/anus/ CARDINALIS DEDIT HA/n/C VITREAM -The window-glass was donated by Archbishop Stephen) considerable proportion of commerce in Hungawas controlled by the newcomers from the West, who found a new home here. In 1240 Stephen of the ßoncso clan from Lower Hungary became the bishop of Vác. He had been sent abroad by King Béla IV to get help before the Mongol Invasion. Although neither he nor other diplomats managed to obtain any significant military support, the king must have been satisfied with his activity since he was soon promoted from the low-paid Bishopric of Vác into the seat of the archbishop of Esztergom in about 1244. We know that he started to restore his properties including his seat, Vác. For lack of sources we cannot be certain whether the German immigration began in his time, but his successor Philip undoubtedly saw the establishment of the German town in Vác. After the death of Princess Margaret, King Béla IV's daughter, the pious Dominican nun, news began spreading about miraculous recoveries at her grave, and that people praying for her help got saved from serious dangers several times. In 1276 the papal delegates started to collect and record the miracles associated with her with the aim of her canonization. In the records of canonization we can read about two people from Vác: Benedek the tailor of unknown origin and language, and a German woman called Elsa, both of whom gave evidence of Margaret's sanctity with grateful hearts.
