Arrabona - Múzeumi közlemények 31-33. (Győr, 1994)

Néma Sándor: Adalékok a Győr megyei szőlőhegyi (hegybeli) települések kialakulásához az 1700-as évektől 1828-ig

Additional material on the development of habitations on the hills of Győr county between 1700 and 1828 Hungarian literature has dealt with the development of the farmstead extensively, but not too much has been said about the habitations which were created on the hills in the Transdanubian area. So, it may be said that in Győr county the less investigated areas are the hill settlements covered with vineyards. Technical research in Hungarian literature defines hill settlements in two ways. One of them is as the municipality of hill vineyard owners; the other means simply the settlement on the hill. This text deals with the development of these habitations using the terminology of Melinda Égető. Most of these settlements developed at lower-Sokoró, that is, the part of Bakony Hills that lies in Győr county, or, by geographical determination, on the slopes of Pannonhalma Hills. The peaceful development of this area was possible only after the recapture of Buda in 1686 and Székesfehérvár in 1688. The first hill settlement in this period was Ság (Győrság). After 1710 more and more came into being. At the beginning the law prohibited homesteading in the hills. Firstly the Benedictine order gave permission and in the middle of the 18 th century other secular proprietors gave their permission. These settlements developed in the outskirts of the villages seen below which were destroyed, or partly destroyed, by foreign occupation or military expeditions: Ság (Győrság), Écs, Kisbarát, Nagybarát (Győrújbarát), Szemere (Győrszemere), Csanak and Ménfő (Győr-Ménfőcsanak), Tényő, Pázmánd (Pázmándfalu), Pátka (Sokorópátka). The latest hill settlement was founded in Semlyénsuka as a part of Söptér puszta (Hungarian steppe), in 1819. The number of the inhabitants in these places was two to three times more than the number living in the villages the outskirts of which served as the basis of the established settlement. Till 1710 the inhabitants of these settlements consisted of people from the ruined villages plus deserters. Later, when the law referring to the vineyards permitted their settling down, the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages (especially the cottars) willingly founded these new hill settlements. This change meant an increase in the cottars' standard of living and they could near the earning power of the land serfs. An especially important process in the development of lower-Sokoró in the 18 th century was the forming and developing of these settlements. In this way this land became known as a free, marketable, perpetuable form of possession. The special legal status of the vineyards laid the foundation for the achievement of bourgeois status. The hill settlement founded and lived in by cottars changed into an independent community and thereby became the main historical-ethnographical feature of lower-Sokoró. / Sándor Néma 138