Takács Péter (szerk.): A jobbágylét dokumentumai az úrbérrendezés kori Szatmár vármegye Nyíri járásából - A nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum kiadványai 66. (Nyíregyháza, 2010)

A jobbágylét dokumentumai az úrbérrendezés kori Szatmár vármegye Nyíri járásából

blankets, cloths, plum brandy, carved wooden tools, laths, fruits, marmalades and dried food even as far as Debrecen. The more adventurous people took loach, fish, turtles and water creatures caught in the Kraszna and the Ecsed marsh to Beregszász and Munkács.

According to the statements of the peasants, the natural endowments and exchange of commodities within three-four miles determined the activities of the inhabitants of the Nyírség district. The household of a villain having a whole or the half of a unit of plot and the manor of a squire who did not have permanent servants differed only in prestige and culture, which did not surpass the capability of reading and writing. A house of daubed walls stood both in the peasant and the manor yard with a shed for the draught animals, the dairy cows, the small calves and colts and, in wealthier plots, a bam for the storage and the threshing of the harvested crop, a pigsty for the farrows and the lard pigs and a drying-room for apples and plums where they were grown. There was a hen-house made of sticks and twigs in nearly every plot, where poultry could find shelter from foxes, stray dogs and other carnivores. Ducks and geese were also lodged here for the night in separate compartments. Beehives stood farther from the house, generally in the orchard. Most of the farmers had bees of a few hives or baskets. Honey replaced sugar at cooking, frying and in the delicacies.

Reed, bulrush or rush, sometimes shingles covered the roofs of the houses. Most of the tools and the storage commodities were prepared from wood. Because of this, conflagrations were frequent.

The plot was surrounded by a wattle fence, which also protected it against stray animals and rambling people. Household energy - for frying, cooking, heating, singeing of pigs and spirit distillation - was gained from wood or at best reed brought from the floodplain of the Szamos, the Kraszna and the Tisza. In the villages lying on the sandy territories of Nyírség, the energy came from the wood material of bushes, the reeds of the water banks, the straw of the cultivated cereals - wheat and rye - weed from the unused fields or the dried manure of cattle.

The attention of the enlightened sovereign and his councillors covered every movement of daily life. The qualities of the lands, the meadows and the pastures and their sizes were always asked. The watering places of animals, the existence or lack of retting-pits, the proximity of passable rivers and the possibility of rafting were registered. The existence or lack of manual and carting work was asked. The existence of nearby manufactures and mines was specially asked just like the possibility of salt transportation in every settlement. They wanted to know about the existence or lack of orchards and vineyards.

The milling possibilities, the existence of mills and how they could be approached were asked everywhere. The inhabitants of the villages of Nyír had their crop milled in dry mills and in the watermills on the Kraszna and the Szamos. The condition of the roads, the bridges and the tax stations were mentioned in every village.

Separately formulated seven questions inquired about the regular damages afflicting the settlements. The floods of the Kraszna and the Szamos meant problems in the Nyir district year by year. Sometimes the Tisza also disturbed the life of a few villages. The 130-140 thousand hectares of the Ecsed marsh occupied the fields of three-four villages in rainy years. The fields became waterlogged and reed grew in the meadows. In “watery

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