Gyulai Éva: Szőlőbirtoklás Miskolcon a 16. században (Officina Musei 3. Miskolc, 1995)

Vineyard possession in Miskolc in the 16th century

by way of donations and fundations. A citizen of Miskolc donated a vineyard to the rector of the altar Evangelist Saint John in 1522 (Picture 1). In 1540, in the early years of Turkish rule, ruler Ferdinand I. from the Habsburg dynasty put the domain around the castle of Diósgyőr, including the town of Miskolc, in pledge to landlord Zsigmond Balassa and the domain - sometimes as a multi-possession - became the pledge, condominium of successive landlord dynasties till as long as 1702. It was only for a short time, in 1563-64, that the domain was taken back into royal possession, but even then king Maximilian I put it back again in pledge. This was the time when the urbárium, i. e. the document on payments to be made by the market towns and villages belonging to the domain with the vineyards in landlord's possession as well (allodium in Latin), was compiled (Picture 2). In the domain around the castle the number of vineyards under the landlord's personal administration was rather small, most of them was also donated to his vassals (familiáris) and feudatories (servitor) for their devoted services. It was a general phenomenon at that time that the landlords of the castle gave land properties, as presents, to the stratum of border castle defenders the so-called „noble order", so this social group came to be included among the vineyard possessors of Miskolc from the outside. The villein citizens of Miskolc did not looked at this privilaged stratum of vineyard owners as a welcomed one in the town as it is clear from their complain put in writing to their ruler (Picture 3). In 1562 the landlady of the castle domain donated in her Latin-language diploma a house and a vineyard in Miskolc to her vassal, a scribe called Mr János Szabó (literátus) and, at the same time, she relieved him from his duty of paying tithe, i. e. she relieved the landed properties from the burder of paying (Picture 4). The stewards of the Diósgyőr castle took their share not only from the neighbouring vineyards but also from the wine of the area. In 1563 the captain of the Diósgyőr castle declared the volume of 20 casks of wine allotted to him insufficient since the cask here - he argued - was very small in volume so he demanded one cask of wine per week for „being served at table" (Picture 5). The landlords and the stewards of the castle often committed abuses against the citizens of the town to get more wine that they could sell successfully at that time. At the same time they made their vassals in Miskolc buy their own unsaleable poor-quality wine as it was mentioned critically by the ruler himself in his diploma issued in 1564 (Picture 6). Though several of the noble families in Miskolc had vineyard possessions in the second half of the 16th century, the number of vineyards held in villeinage remained predominant. The villeins of Miskolc acquiring property through vineyard possession were striving to gain - along with their economic prestige - the rank of a nobleman as a social privilage like Mr Pál Gombos in 1560. On a reconstructed coat-of-arm you can see a vintaging man from a country town (the winner of the coat-of-arm himself) (Picture 7). Likewisely the preacher of the Reformed Church, Mr Mihály Hevessy also deserved the rank of a nobleman who studied at the University of Wittenberg and after he was ordained to be a priest by Melanchton he returned to Hungary and in the 1570-ies he became one of the first protestant preachers of Miskolc. Since also the landlords as pledgees became converted to Protestant faith, the preacher was donated vineyards for his ecclesiastical services. In 1572 the landlady relieves his house and vineyard in Miskolc - which were formerly in the possession of the Saint Stephen Catholic Church - from the duty of paying the tithe to the landlady. He was paid the ecclesiastical tithe like the Catholic priests, his predecessors, as seen on his receipt filled out personally by him in 1578 (Picture 8) with his seal on it showing a tiny mythological figure as a proof of receiving the so-called oktavabor (an eighth part of the ecclesiastical tithe)(Picture 9).