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

years” the inhabitants of the villages lying on the border of the marsh sometimes ploughed the fields of other villages. Many people sought for subsistence in the marsh. They cut reed and sold them far away - in Debrecen, Beregszász or Munkács. They also sold loach, turtle and fish also in the region of Munkács and Beregszász. They offered the pelts of martens and beavers to tanners, furriers and itinerant traders.

The birds of the marsh were important sources of subsistence for 8-10 villages. The law banned hunting, fishing and fowling for villains but necessity knows no law. Pákász (fisher-hunter-gatherer people of the marshland), loachers, fishermen and serfs navigating their boats in the marsh knew better than any landlord where wild geese, ducks, herons, egrets, moor-hens and other birds built their nests. Both the eggs and the meats were consumed. They also knew where the nets had to be lowered and where the fish-trap had to be set. They knew where bags of water-chestnuts could be collected, where beavers built their castles and where foxes waited for their pray. This knowledge overwrote the writ of the landlord.

The statements of the peasants revealed that yet a patriarchal attitude characterised the landlords of Szatmár. Only a few landlords collected the ninth. Regular corvée was demanded only in estates practicing an allodial economy. In the Nyir district, the minor aristocrats who had only 1-2 villains charged their serfs a sum that was generally between two and six forints, which was half or one third of the amount a villain could earn with corvée in a day if he was paid for the day labour. The charge was probably proportionate with the value of the work done in the corvée. It was generally characteristic, however, that in the case of an urgent work - harvest, hay covering, vintage, ploughing and sowing - that people worked in groups. In such cases the landlords and the villains united for the sake of the successful work.

The statements also tell that the squireens of Szatmár, who had one or two villains, worked together with the villagers: they ploughed, sowed, harvested, cut reed, fished, fowled, grazed herds, fell trees, carved wood and built their own and their neighbour’s houses. The village was a single community with the squireens and the villains in it. They worked together during the weekdays. The only occasion of segregation was in the church, at the table during feasts, on the occasion of marriages and feasts held at birthdays or name days. Apart from the dance party after the joint work, the gipsies first played the songs of the squires and only then of the peasants. Peasants were not allowed to wear fine fur or carry weapons but they were similarly dressed when they worked in the fields.

The deputy county head, the judge, the county jurors and the socage tenure regulation commissioner who registered the statements of the peasants were separated from the villains by an unbridgeable gap - and the secondary school of the Cistercian Order in Nagykároly. This difference of rank meant a greater distance within the village than we can imagine it to date. Everything was measured by rank at that time. According to the contemporary belief, this measure, the difference of rank and the distance between the people was determined by God. And the schooled aristocrats made the best of it. The peasants ignorant of alphabetic education accepted it without mutiny.

It was also accepted even when the culture of the villains based on tradition and experiences of many generations surpassed that of office-holders proud of their schooling.

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