Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 20. 1980 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1983)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Lukács László: Vándoralakok, vándormunkások és a területi munkamegosztás Kelet-Dunántúlon. – Vagrants, Internant workers and the territorial division of Labour in Eastern Transdanubia. p. 185–199. t. XLV–XLII.

When the great pastures between the Danube and Tisza rivers were ploughed up after World War II many shepherds came to the Mezőföld, where they rented grazing lands from cooperative farms or roamed with their grazing flocks. Shepherds from Kecskemét regularly brought their flocks either in the summer or the winter to the pastures of the Mezőföld during the 1950s and 1960s. Many among them settled in communities of the Mezőföld. Even today many shepherds "from the other side" (i. e. from the other side of the Danube), above all from Solt and Kecskemét, graze their flocks in the Mezőföld. Peasants who dealt in cattle visited markets in far-reaching territories. Cattle-dealers from the villages surrounding Székesfehérvár brought steer and poorer quality cattle from the Bakony and the region between the Danube and Tisza rivers. They fattened them up on good feed, then sold them at higher prices at the markets of Székesfehérvár, Bodajk, Mór, Kisbér, Lovasberény, Csákvár, Seregélyes and Sárosd. The peasants who engaged in cattle-dealing were generally those with several hectares of land who were striving to break out of poverty. The major urban centers of this region were Székesfehérvár and Veszprém. The five yearly national markets of Székesfehérvár were truly of a national scope; the weekly markets on Wednesday and Saturday rated as important in the region. The horse and cattle markets warrant foremost mention, but the grain market and display wares were also important. We know that during the Monarchy, Austria, Italy and Turkey maintained standing committees for the registration of remount horses at the horse market of Székesfehérvár. Beef-cattle from the cattle market were sent mainly to Vienna. A share of these cattle originated from the region between the Danube and Tisza. In the 1890s there were a number of farmers in Little Cumania (Kiskunság) who drove 70—80 calves to the summer market of Székesfehérvár. The weekly markets were important for the marketing of grain, wood and products manufactured in the regional system of the division of labour. Yearly four national markets were organized in Veszprém. According to Fényes (1851): ".. .with respect to grain, of much greater importance were the weekly markets held on Friday; the grain market of Veszprém ranks as one of the first in our country." Earlier Richard Bright, the English doctor and geologist who travelled in Hungary at the time of the Congress of Vienna, mentioned the weekly markets of Veszprém in his travelogues: "The wine and grain markets of Veszprém are noteworthy, perhaps doing a more thriving business than the market of Székesfehérvár..." Until the railroad was built, seven counties took their wheat to Veszprém for sale. Besides supplying wheat to the wheat deficient region of the Bakony, the wheat market of Veszprém was also a supplier to the wheat markets of Győr and Graz. After the construction of the railroads the commercial role of Veszprém was taken over in part by other centers (Nagykanizsa, Tapolca). Markets also attracted all sorts of vagrants. Before the First World War one could still see tinkers, glaziers and traders in medicinal herbs from the Uplands at the markets of Székesfehérvár. Bosnians sold all sorts of small merchandise from the trays hung around their necks, from pocket-knives to moustache-wax. Farmers could hire Bosnian cutters and sowgelders in front of the Carp (Ponty) Restaurant on Market Square. Romanians with dancing bears and various groups of gypsies also made their appearance at the market. Slovaks not only arrived to this region as peddlers, but also as raftsmen. Slovak raftsmen from the Uplands rafted down the Vág, then down the Danube to Adony, bringing pine-wood, planks, staves and shingles so necessary for building in the woodless Mezőföld. Three other spheres of the regional division of labour were linked to some extent to the Danube: towage, fishing and milling. In this region the haulers of Tolna and Iváncsa worked in towing. On their horse-drawn boats they transported mainly grain between Eszék (Osijek) and Budapest. Rivermen and towers even had a shrine, on the bank of the Danube at Ercsi. In the first half of the 18th century the boatmen placed a statue of Mary above the spring which wells forth here. In this region the Danube fishermen from Ercsi to Tolna clustered in the fishermen's guilds of Ráckeve, Paks and Tolna. Especially in the period before the flow of the Danube was regulated, a large number of fishermen worked in every riverbank settlement. We know of two descriptions of sturgeon fishing from this period, from Dunaföldvár (1702) and Tolna (1800). Before drainage and canalization, the streams and lakes of this region were abundant in fish and crayfish. The reeds of Velence Lake were used for roofing in the northern half of Fejér County. Mills along the Danube ground grain in this region all the way up to the middle of this century in the communities of Érd, Százhalombatta, Ercsi, Adony, Rácalmás, Dunapentele, Dunaföldvár, Madocsa and Paks. They hauled grain from the Vál Valley and the eastern section of the Mezőföld to the Danube mills. River mills ground for large territories. Mills were constructed very densely alongside the streams which flowed from the Bakony and Vértes mountain ranges (the Séd, Gaja, the Mór canal and its branches). Imre Hegyi has dealt with folk forestry and itinerant workers in the Bakony. Therefore I will discuss this topic only briefly. Until the First World War every summer Slavonian and Croatian coopers carved barrel staves in the forests of the Eastern Bakony mountains. From the 1880s until the Second World War woodworkers came from Zala County in the wintertime to construct railroad ties. Woodworkers from Olaszfalu and Bakonybél made pitch-forks and rakes in the forests of the Várpalota estate. At the turn of the century wooden pitch-fork makers from Bakonybél and Lókút also worked in Styria, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. Those who remained here at home traversed almost all of Transdanubia and northwestern Hungary with their wooden goods and tools. The domestic wood industry of the Eastern Bakony also supplied the Mezőföld with provisions. The makers of these products (wooden pitchforks, wooden rakes, wooden shovels, yokes, wheelrims, snathes, wheel barrows, sleighs, sleds, raves, wooden spoons, besoms, bushels, baskets, beehives) also appeared at local markets or carted them around to sell. In Dudar, and in Gánt, an oak pig-sty was made which could be assembled for porkers. This was also sold at markets. The residents of Gánt, Zámoly and Mór hauled huge quantities of firewood to the weekly market at Székesfehérvár from the forests of the Vértes. They sold it by cartload or by csille. A csille was a bundle of 25—40 pieces of finely-chopped wood tied together with a thatch rope. Coal merchants from Bakonycsernye, Borzavár, Bakonyszentlászló, Csesznek, Dudar and Fenyőfő travelled from village to village in the Mezőföld selling wood-coal prepared in the Eastern Bakony. Lime-merchants from Várpalota travelled the countryside selling lime. The central mountain range also provided the Mezőföld with stone, although mud construction characterized the region by and large. In the last century millstones were cut out of the Velence mountain range. The vagrants and itinerant workers introduced here played a significant role in the preservation and formation of folk culture by disseminating cultural elements and becoming acquainted with new cultural elements. Migration left important marks on the cultural development of an individual, and perhaps via the individual, on the cultural development of a community. Seasonal workers left their homes out of necessity for shorter or longer periods of time, yet while they worked in what was for them foreign territory they received not only wages, but also were influenced culturally in a meaningful way. The trip itself broadened their perspective: they became familiar with other areas, settlement patterns, economic systems, work methods and behavioural patterns. I have had the opportunity to come to know former summás-s in Alsóőr (Unterwart, Burgenland), Mindszentkálla (today Veszprém County) and Hollókő (Nógrád County) who had worked in the Mezőföld. Even today they describe in true-to-life terms the manorial farmsteads, where they worked decades ago. They recount the differences between the landscape, the conditions of the soil, property relations, agricultural production, settlement and dietary patterns of their home and the Mezőföld which they came to know in the course of seasonal labour. The itinerant worker often was able to become familiar with cultural elements which up to that time had been completely alien. While threshing in the Mezőföld at the beginning of the 19th century, Táncsics saw in Nagyvenyim for the first time in his life acacia trees and houses built half-way into the ground. 197