Petercsák Tivadar – Veres Gábor szerk.: Agria 44. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2008)
Komjáti Zoltán: Adalékok Gróf Koháry István (1649-1731) Heves vármegyei birtokviszonyaihoz
Zoltán Komjáti Observations on the Estates of Count István Koháry (1649-1731) in Heves County From the final third of the 17 t h century right up until his death István Koháry (1649-1731) was one of the biggest landowners in the county of Heves. He held eight feudal tenures in eight different places. István Koháry acquired possession of the feudal residences in three settlements (Gyöngyös, Pata, Tarján) from his father, who had gained the deeds from the Forgách family. In the spring of 1724 the three estates were bought back by the original owners. The main agricultural activity there was the cultivation of the grapes that ensured the supply of wine to those of the Koháry estates that were not in Heves County. The other five Heves estates (Hort, Adács, Visznek, Ape, Hasznos) came from his grandmother's line: Tamás Bosnyák had obtained Hort from Matthias II by virtue of being the Chief Captain of Fülek (now Fil'akovo, Slovakia) in 1614. Tamás Bosnyák's daughter, Judit, became the wife of the Chief Captain of Gyarmat, Imre Balassa II. In his will of 1635 Tamás Bosnyák left both estates to his daughter. The Balassa family owned the feudal residences up until the Thököly Uprising, at which point Imre Balassa Ill's properties were confiscated by the royal fiscus as a punishment for joining up with the Thökölys. When István Koháry fell into the custody of Imre Thököly and the payment of the ransom struck difficulties, he received the above-mentioned settlements as a royal gift. The paper is the consequence of a thorough study and analysis of the substantial archival evidence. During this research it became evident, on account of a total lack of any reference to the fact, that István Koháry did not live in Gyöngyös between 1694 and 1703. At the same time, one also gets a clear impression of that process whereby the aristocrat had to protect his estates in the period following the expulsion of the Turks at a time when the County of Heves was also susceptible to a contemporary phenomenon whereby peasants were quite liable to take possession of abandoned and neglected lands. The defence of his lawful property rights amounted to a considerable challenge for István Koháry. The only means of doing this was to appeal to the county (whose chief captain sat in session in Fülek until 1682), something that the aristocrat resorted to on numerous occasions. 131
