Káldy-Nagy Gyula: A gyulai szandzsák 1567. és 1579. évi összeírása – Forráskiadványok a Békés Megyei Levéltárból 10. (Békéscsaba, 1982)

THE CENSUS OF THE SANJAK OF GYULA OF 1567 AND 1579

t THE CENSUS OF THE SANJAK OF GYULA OF 1567 AND 1579 The armies of sultan Suleyman occupied the castle of Gyula at the end of August, 1566, and this soon became the seat of a sanjak. In the same district the sanjak of Arad had already been established during the Turkish military expedition of 1552, but in 1566 this was reorganized and the more important castle of Gyula became its centre. In the following year, 1567 already order was given to make a census of the inhabitants of the sanjak of Gyula and of the neighbouring sanjak of Csanád, putting down the names, and the expected tenth of the different crops and products (or their value in money), as well as the amount of the different taxes, in the common way. The dates then put down were changed by the changing demographic conditions, and therefore in both these sanjaks a new census was ordered 12 years later. In our work we publish the census of the sanjak of Gyula of 1567 and 1579. To use these as historical sources we need the knowledge of the following facts, according to which these censuses were made. The Turkish census-taker, when putting down the name-list of the inhabitants of the different settlements fixed besides the name of the head of a family, the names of his older (usually above 14-15 years old) unmarried sons and that of his single brother living in his house, or the name of his son-in-law, and even that of his servant. On the name-list all single men were registered, who were earning their own living and living alone, or widowers. But only those single men were put on the list by their father's name, who were earning their own living, living alone, and the names of the head of the family, or members of the household were registered only by their Christian names. So, in some cases, the servants were listed by their Christian names, and under those the census-taker usually wrote the Hungarian word "szolga" (servant), or the Slavic "sluga", or the Turkishized form of it, "isluga". Similar to this he wrote down all those by their Christian names, and under that their occupation or trade, who were known this way, e.g. John the smith. To name the trades or occupations the Turkish census-taker used the following Hungarian words: "bíró (judge), deák (scholar), pap (clergyman), kalugyer (monk), kovács (smith) and zsellér (cotter)". Above the names he sometimes wrote down the number of sheep, but this he did with Turkish words, similarly if somebody was blind, or a poor beggar. Very rarely, though sometimes it happened that above some names he noted the Hungarian word "nemes" (noble), of course he did this also in Arabic letters. After having listed the names of the inhabitants of different settlements on above mentioned way the number of those paying the jizye-tax was put down under the Turkish 399