A Hajdú-Bihar Megyei Levéltár évkönyve 28. 2001 (Debrecen, 2001)
Tanulmányok - Szendiné Orvos Erzsébet: Debrecen és Erdély kapcsolata a XVI. sz. közepén
18 Szendiné Orvos Erzsébet: Debrecen és Erdély kapcsolata... THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEBRECEN AND TRANSYLVANIA IN THE MID-16™ CENTURY (The Peace Treaty of Nagyvárad and its consequences) 1538-1571 Erzsébet Szendiné Orvos This is a sequel of the author’s earlier work analysing the sixteenth-century relationship of Debrecen and Transylvania. The essay discusses the consequences of the Peace Treaty of Nagyvárad from an economic, social and political point of view. The legal status of Debrecen in this period is a very interesting issue, especially as regards its public law relationship with Transylvania. This is a very complex question, and the sources currently available do not provide a definitive answer to the peculiar situation of the city. The author states that, in spite of the fact that Debrecen stood at the crossfire of three powers, nevertheless it was one of the largest and richest market-towns of the country in the period examined. The phenomenal economic development of the city was not hindered even by the fact that in addition to its own landlord it also had to pay taxes to the Turks and the Hungarian king. As regards its public law status after the Peace Treaty of Nagyvárad, the city of Debrecen as a part of the Partium region was annexed to Transylvania, but it was the Treaty of Speyer that clearly attached the city to the principality. One of the results of this, in turn, was that a peaceful period of nearly a quarter of a century started in the city.
