Székely Zoltán: Arrabona - Múzeumi Közlemények 50/1. (Győr, 2012)

Tanulmányok - Dominkovits Péter: A mezővárosi írásbeliség egy dokumentuma a XVII. század elejéről: Gálházy Miklós mosoni bíró levele Sopron város magisztrátusához, 1608

ARRABONA 2012. 50/1.

TANULMÁNYOK

A SOURCE OF THE OFFICIAL ADMINISTRATION OF A MARKET-TOWN FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE 17TH CENTURY (A letter of Miklós Gálházy, the Magistrate of Moson, 1608)

The minutes of the council meetings (i.e. from Nezsider, belonging to the Magyaróvár Estate, 1561, Magyróvár 1581) became an important type of the official sources from the middle of the 16th century, but such sources did not survive in many market-towns. In these cases the importance of other documents of the market-towns, the letters of the correspondence with other settlements and testimonial letters issued for private parties increases.

Unfortunately, no minutes of the council meetings of the market-town of Moson, which was a prominent emporium of the Magyaróvár Estate, have not survived, consequently the other types of official documents are essential to the study of the life of the settlement and the composition of the body of civil servants. The old Archives of Győr keeps several letters from Moson town (1615), which were published by Alfréd Lengyel. In the Archives of Sopron Free Royal Town a letter of Miklós Gálházy, the Magistrate of Moson has survived from 1608 concerning a debt of 110 Ft resulting from a cattle trade transaction. (The interested party, Caspar Polzer or Gáspár Mészáros, a butcher from Bruck a.d. Leitha was a serf of Sopron Town in the relevant period.)

This source publication and data provision briefly describes the transaction and locates this letter of request into the numerous requests of other market-towns (Csepreg, Loncsmánd, etc.) to Sopron Township.

Péter Dominkovits