Bács-Kiskun megye múltjából 22. (Kecskemét, 2007)

ÖSSZEFOGLALÓK

TIBOR IVÁNYOSI-SZABÓ HUNGARIAN STOCK FARMING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HOMOKHÁTSÁG IN THE 17TH CENTURY The Homokhátság already became an important area in the Middle Ages mainly because of its bigger stock farming by which it provided one of the most imoprtant exports of the country. As our written sources are incomplete and were ravaged many times, history still has not been able to draw a consistent picture of our economic development in the Early Modern Ages. The villages and market towns suffered great losses in the period of the Turkish occupation and during the expulsion of them. Only Kecskemét and Nagykörös could save a considerable quantity of their old scripts. A comprehensive overview was published in the previous volume of this series about the cultivation of Kecskemét in the 17th century. This time the stock farming is presented on the basis of the sources of Kecskemét. We can find here datas and detailed analyses of the stock farming in Kecskemét as well as of the whole Homokhátság similarly to the previous study about the region's cultivation. The most important part of this study is about cattle farming, and its importance in the establishment of social and property status is emphasized in this essay. The new result of this working up is an outline of the structural characteristics of the sector. Horse breeding was also a dominant sector in this region in the previous centuries. The value, military and economic importance of the horses just grew further thanks to the many decades warfare. It is easy to understand that the town council also bred an own herd. The statistical datas show that in what proportion the society was interested in this sector and that to what degree the horse breeding helped the financial and social stratification of the market town's population. The natural endowments of Homokhátság provided the greatest opportunity for breeding sheep. The datas concerning the extension of sheep breeding are available in a much bigger quantity than what they have been able to utilize so far. The lists of sheep levies make it possible to extend our knowledge of the quantity of stock each farmer owned. The conditions of mass pig-breeding were not given in Homokhátság until the wide spreading of corn-growing. The breeding of this domestic animal was carried out only in smaller proportions and extents because of the abscence of bigger marshlands and the continual ruin of forests. However, it had an important place in the farming life of many social groups and in the catering of the whole town.