Dankó Imre szerk.: A hajdúk a magyar történelemben III. (A Hajdú-Bihar Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 28. Debrecen, 1975)

Rácz István: Hajdúszabadság a második jobbágyság rendszerében Magyarországon

István Rácz HEYDUCK PRIVILEGES IN THE SYSTEM OF THE SECOND VILLEINAGE IN HUNGARY This paper presents the enlarged version of the author's contribution to an international Symposion in Budapest, 12-15 September 1972, with the basic aim of determining the place of Heyduck privileges within the system of the second villeinage in Hungary. The development of serfdom in the 16-17* centuries was fundamentally determined by a system of soil-bound refeudalization. However, certain groups and layers of the peasantry tried to evade the bonds of the second villeinage and to maintain or resuscitate the possibilities of relative freedom. The best chance for doing so was offered in the market-towns, but many of the serfs joined the ranks of the military border units. Finally, many of them tried to obtain the Heyduck privileges and so to rise from the soil-bound state. The Heyducks appeared towards the end of the 15

th century in the Hungarian society, and included in those times the impoverished elements of serfdom. They mostly worked as wage labourers in the market-towns of the Great Hungarian Plain and were engaged by local farmers as herdsmen. After the country was divided into two (1526) and then into three parts (1541), these herdsmen, called Heyducks, gradually changed their pastoral job into that of mercenaries. Due to the weakening of the country's armed forces, kings and barons equally availed themselves of their services. At the beginning of the 17

th century, István Bocskai, Prince of Transylvania, endowed some 10 000 Heyducks with military privileges. In return for their military services he donated them landed property in the depopulated serf villages near Debrecen, settling them there and exempting them from any kind of serf labour. As a matter of fact, the Heyducks were raised to collective nobility, i. e. their liberty was valid only within the boundaries of their settlement, but became null and void elsewhere, as opposed to the privileges of the all-Hungarian nobility, which applied to single persons and were of unrestricted validity. Henceforth the Heyducks were mainly engaged in the tillage of land, and rendered military services only in case of need. Throughout the whole period of feudalism the Heyduck towns remained communities of agrarian structure. The temporarily successful opposition of a part of Hungarian peasantry to the everlasting system of being bound to the soil was largely due to the constellation of foreign policy and particularly to the imminent danger of Turkish aggression. In this case a negative historical factor became thus advantageous to the class struggle of peasantry. However, after the Turks were driven out of the country, the arms of the Heyducks were no more needed. The ranks of the population were gradually refilled, and the perpetual system of soil-bound habitation could be strengthened. With joint forces the nobility almost annihilated the Heyduck liberties after the end of the 17

th century, and only 7 Heyduck towns in County Szabolcs maintained restricted privileges. So this way of the peasantry's rise was also definitely obstructed by the ruling class. As a final conclusion, the author points out a substantial difference between the Hungarias Heyducks and the development of peasant freedom in Europe. Right from the beginning the Heyduck liberty was of feudal character, since the privileges granted by Bocskai endowed them with collective nobility. With the stabilization of the perpetual soilbound condition the feudal character of Heyduck liberty became more and more pronounced. The heyducks actually never ambitioned to transform the social system, they saw their only chance for progress in joining the ranks of the nobility. However, the nobility was unwilling to accept them and so they finally got stuck half-way between serfs and noblemen. As a result of delayed feudal development, of different natural conditions etc. a considerable part- of the peasantry in the Scandinavian countries maintained its landed property and relative freedom even within the feudal system, and became a separate fourth estate. At the turning of the 15th and 16th centuries the free peasants represented one fifth of the whole peasantry in Denmark, one third in Norway and more than a half in Sweden. The development from that of the peasantry in Western Europe where the peasants, released from allodial pressure, actually became tenants. The Hungarian Heyducks issue from the social evolution of Eastern Europe, they constitute a social layer of military and rural character which is thus comparable with the Cossacks of Poland and Russia and with social elements known as hajdút, hajdutin, hajduc, haramia and kleft in Croatia and the Balkan countries.