Cseri Miklós - Horváth Anita - Szabó Zsuzsanna (szerk.): Discover Rural Hungary!, Guide (Szentendre, Hungarian Open Air Museum, 2007)

II Upland Market Town - II-5 Tithing House from Mád

11-5 Tithing house from Mád I Tithe was a tax of one tenth of the serfs' products and livestock which was paid to the landlord and the church. The main products were cereals (wheat, rye, barley, oat, spelt, millet), wine, lambs and bees. Tithing houses, the places for collecting tithe, were characteristic features of Upland market towns. The original of the two-storey tithing house was built around 1720 in Mád. It was used primarily for storing grains. While the ground floor has a room-kitchen-pantry layout, the first floor has only one large room for storing cereals. The walls were constructed from locally mined quarry stone. Its unique facade is decorated with beautifully carved stone window frames and wrought iron window lattices. A large press from the previous Dessewfy-estate used for a greater quantity of grapes stands in a lean-to in the yard. One part of its beam is fixed whilst the other can be adjusted using a weighted spindle. In smaller presses the grapes are put into a square wooden basket on the bottom and pressed down by a weight applied by a spindle. Before presses came into use in the Uplands grapes were put into huge vats and smashed using a knob and marc was trodden by the feet. Once the use of treadsacks of loose fabric was widespread. As wine making takes