Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)

Tartalom

VÁC'S REMAINS FROM THE LATE MIDDLE AGES (1301-1 526)

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on a panel by Hans Brosamer in 1523, and today it is in the State Gallery in Karlsruhe. He was the first citizen born in Vác whose portrait is known to us. Besides the Germans there were also Jews living in Vác. We do not know much about them: a source in Buda mentions a Jew from Vác, and the street register of the Ottoman era mentioned above contains a street called Jewish (today Katona Lajos Street). Besides the burghers there were also a few noblemen in the town. Judging from the tax registers of the Ottoman era the number of the inhabitants could have been around 1200-1500.

Of the manorial taxes no registers (urbanurns) have survived from the Middle Ages in the Bishopric of Vác, but we have five of them from the Ottoman era, which show that tax items underwent hardly any changes, so they may serve as a basis for drawing conclusions regarding the late medieval manorial taxes. The town of Vác - just like Nógrád - paid tax three times a year: they paid the ground rent on St George's Day (24 April) and St Michael's Day (29 September), 100 Forints each time, and on Lucas's Day (18 October) a sturgeon was to be given to the bishop. The sturgeon belongs to the family of sturetons, the largest kind offish in the Danube, which might weigh several hundred kilos. Today it only lives in the lower Danube, but before the building of the Iron Gate power station it used to swim upstream from the sea estuary as far as Vienna. St George's Day was a common tax-collection date all over the country, St Michael was the patron saint of the town, and Lucas's Day was probably the closing date of sturgeon season.

In the area of the present town there were three villages in the Middle Ages, all of which ceased to be populated during the Ottoman era. Naszály used to lie at the foot of the hill of that name. Its inhabitants moved to Vác at the beginning of the Ottoman occupation, and its manorial tax merged into the taxes of Vác. Gyada was situated on the northern side of Naszály on a brook; as it was far from Vác, it was also deserted during the Ottoman era, so its lands were used by the people of the villages of Nőtincs and Agárd.The third one, Csörög was nearthe southern border of the town by the Gombás Stream; unlike the other two villages, it was destroyed only in the course of the 15 years war.

Wolfgang Eisen

on Hans Brosamer's painting

(State Gallery of Karlsruhe)

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