Veres Gábor - Berecz Mátyás (szerk.): Hagyomás és megújulás - Életpályák és társadalmi mobilitás a végváriak körében - Studia Agriensia 27. (Eger, 2008)

OROSS ANDRÁS: Végvárak és a Magyarországon működő kamarák a 17-18. század fordulóján

András O ros s

BORDER CASTLES AND TREASURIES IN HUNGARY AT THE TURN OF THE 18TH CENTURY

The Treasury System at the end of the 17th Century

This study focuses on the key elements of military finance as carried out by the treasuries functioning within the Kingdom of Hungary. While outlining the treasury system we come to the conclusion that there were six treasuries in Hungary to which was delegated the task of financing the military. The treasuries’ most important military-based expenditure was the purchasing of food provisions, which was almost entirely dedicated to the feeding of those standing armies stationed in the country. In addition the treasuries were responsible for paying the castellans, the artillerymen serving in the castle and the armoury treasurers. Indeed, there are also examples of payment being remitted to individual castle garrisons, and everyday provisions (blankets, straw mattresses, candles, firewood) being supplied to border castles.

During the course of the 1680s and 1690s a number of changes occurred which altered the way military finance was organised in the 16th and 17th centuries. The most important effects of these procedural changes were: the decline and ultimate disappearance of a castle system that had protected the Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg monarchy for a century and a half; diminishing the role of the border castles, both as military installations and estate centres, something that led ultimately to the demolition of some castles at the beginning of the 18th century; in the field of finance it became necessary to put under treasury control those parts of the country that had been reannexed, while at the same time reminding the country that increased tax revenue should entitle Hungary to greater powers within the financial institutions of the Habsburg Monarchy; and finally, the feeding of a large standing army during the course of the war had created an enormous and insoluble problem, something that caused the estates to send complaints to the monarch on a regular basis.

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