A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 46. (2007)

†Udvari István-Viga Gyula: Bars vármegye 18. századi jobbágy-parasztjainak életviszonyaihoz

between the different areas and they alsó ensured the exchange of various commodities. The various categories created as part of the Urbárium reflected the different subsistence options and the divergences in the lifeways of the peoples settling in different areas. These alsó outline the régiónál cultural variations and thus the statements of landed peasants are alsó an important source of cthnographic and historical studies. (2) The statements from County Bars clearly indicate that the landed peasant population had a monetary economy, which was one precondition to redeeming feudal obligations (still present in the county in the mid-18th century), but it alsó rcflects the importance of monetary circulation. Beside the rolc of fairs and markets, the main driving force behind monetary circulation was the constant need for food in the mining towns and the agrarian markets whereby these commodities were obtained. The monetary circulation of the landed peasantry probably indicates that the commodities from the uplands were not simply bartered for food from plainlands, as often suggested in the ethnographic literature, but were purchased using money. Evén though each social layer participated in the wheat trade, this commodity was in practice transmitted to the uplands by the nobility until the 18th-19th centuries, vvhen this activity was taken over by merchants. Fairs and markets providcd an opporlunity for the encounter of various lifeways and it seems likely that they were the setting for the transmission and adoption of various cultural goods too. It vvould appear that the rise in feudal obligations in the mid-18th century was related to the internál trade, but this requires a separate study. f István Udvari-Gyula Viga 292