Agria 43. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2007)
Misóczki Lajos: Az észak-magyarországi vendégforgalom a XVII. századig
number of travellers increased and by 14 th and 15 th centuries the ever-growing amount of trade and traffic linking this and other regions meant that newer and safer roads were required. Despite the addition of new roads and bridges, however, the quality of the roads continued to have an adverse effect on transport. Most people travelled either on foot or on horseback, while those who could afford it went by wagon. Travelling was popular among the ruling classes. Louis the Great would travel a distance of one hundred kilometres a day with his entourage: in November 1381, leaving from his palace in Diosgyor he reached Verőce on the River Dráva some 500 km away in five days. The Battle of Mohács in 1526, the occupation of Buda in 1541 and the subsequent division of Hungary into three parts failed to put an end to travelling or to visiting of people living in distant parts. Despite the conflicts, diplomacy remained lively between the courts in Vienna and Transylvania and the Porte in Istambul. The visiting of relations increased, as did the numbers of students attending western universities and wandering priests and teachers. Water traffic also increased, particularly on the Danube. The boatmen of Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia) and Komárom ferried people on their 16m-long seven-oar 250-passenger craft, for example. 17 th century travellers had access to printed travel guides. It was David Frölich, rector of the school in Késmárk (Kezmarok, Slovakia) (and mathematician at the "imperial court") who made a huge contribution to the fields of both the theory of travel and travel literature. In June 1615, aged twenty, he climbed the High Tatras in the company of two friends, in an attempt to examine the height the mountains. By the 18 th century the methods used in his analyses became familiar to many in Frolich's Journeys books, particularly his Medulla and Cynosura. Therefore, tourism in Northern Hungary had not only started by the end of the 17 th century, it also had a thorough grounding both in theory and in practice. It was something that opened the way for growth in the field in the 18th century, and the great strides that were made during the century that followed. 614
