Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)
Tartalom
VÁC IN THE OTTOMAN ERA 91 ed the right by the sultan to hold the main Friday services. There were two smaller prayer houses or mosques too. These were founded privately. One of them was built by Kasim, the first Sanjakbeg of Nógrád, the other one by a certain Voivod Hasan. They established charitable funds for the maintenance of these mosques: thus the incomes of houses, shops and gardens were pledged for this purpose. These two mosques became the centres of the two districts inhabited by Muslims. The staff of the djami in the castle were even more prestigious: both the imam, head of the congregation and leader of the religious services, and the daily allowance of the hatib who delivered the Friday sermons, were paid by the treasury. Sometimes the two posts were occupied by the same person. These two key players of religious life were helped by people of lower status, muezzins, who summoned the faithful to prayer five times a day, and also subordinates who took care of the carpets and the candles. The staff of the mosques often consisted of only the imam and the muezzin. The Turkish djamis, especially the ones In the capital city, were not only the scenes of the religious life, but also the centres of a building complex including cultural and social institutions: the elementary and higher school, library, hospital, alms kitchen, hostel, public bath, public well, etc. The faraway border towns of the empire did not have such large complexes as the capital city, but they had at least some elements of them. In Vác there was an elementary school teaching the basis of religion next to Kasim beg's mosque. It was established by a princess from the Sultan's family who bought the vacant lot in the market place next to St Michael's Church and had 18 shops built on it, whose rental incomes were ordered to be used for the support of the school. The public bath also belonged to the mosque of Kasim Beg. This house used to be owned by a priest called László. After his escape it went into the possession of the treasury, and following several changes in ownership it became a public bath. Finally, the register has the names of some householders which indicates that there were also some Ottoman monks, dervishes living in Vác. We have no information about the size of their community, we only know that around 1570 it was led by a superior called Hadji Kasim Dede, who had visited Mecca. The Muslims who settled in Vác were generally not rich. Some of them might have been wealthy, but most of them were poor when they arrived in Hungary. Educated on fiction, a lot of people in the 21st century imagine the average Turkish soldier as someone who hides a purse full of gold in his baggy trousers and drags prisoners in fetters tied together on a rope. The few available inventories of estates contradict this image. An inventory dated on 27 September 1546 was made of the properties of the deceased horseman called Behrám in Vác. He owned no house or garden or any other landed properties, his most precious treasure was his horse. All of his other movables included a shield, a horse-blanket, a woven carpet and a broadcloth dolman. For lack of heirs the treasury put up all this for auction. The proceeds of the auction were used to meet the costs of the funeral, the feeding of his horse and the debts of the deceased. Whatever was left was taken by the treasury which was just enough to cover the pay of another horseman for a month. This inventory was made quite early. Later on the Muslims who settled down became consolidated financially, but there are no hints of fabulous fortunes in the 17th century inventories either. We might suppose that there was no place left for the Hungarians in an Ottoman centre full of clerks and tradesmen. However, the original inhabitants were removed from only very few settlements. One of them was Visegrácj, probably due to the fact that the area of the town by the fortification on the riverbank and the lower castle was very small and it was needed for the Ottoman soldiers. In most places Turkish flan baker platter (PMMI-TIM 57.5,18)
