Cseri Miklós, Füzes Endre (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum évkönyve 14. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2001)

ZENTAI TÜNDE: Az ágy és a népi alváskultúra a 14-16. században

Bett. Von der Beschreibung der Gewalthaberei in Ganna (Komitat Veszprém) gegen die Leibeigenen im Jahr 1430 erfahren wir, dass die Leute nackt im Bett lagen, was laut den mittelalterlichen Darstellungen bei den Vornehmen, die genügend warmes Bettzeug hatten, üblich war. Aufgrund der kritisch bewerteten Beweise können wir die Frage, ob die Häuser des gemeinen Volkes am Ende des Mittelalters, zu Beginn der Neuzeit über Betten mit Bettgestell verfügten, positiv beantworten. Die Vielfalt an Bettzeug und besonders die Benützung von Federbetten ab dem 13. Jahrhundert setzen irgendein Gestell voraus, wo tagsüber das Bettzeug aufbewahrt wurde. Ab dem 14. und 15. Jahrhundert macht das Niveau des Bauernhauses die Verbreitung von Möbeln, darunter vom Bettgestell wahrscheinlich, um so mehr, da dies ab dem 16. Jahrhundert immer mehr dokumentiert wird. Die rauchfreie, von draußen geheizte Stube ermöglichte die Erneuerung der Wohnkultur bei der wohlhabenderen Bauernschicht. Tünde Zentai BEDS AND SLEEPING CUSTOMS IN HUNGARIAN RURAL HOMES DURING THE 14

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th CENTURIES Our Finno-Lngrian word for bed (ágy) keeps its original meaning even at the beginning of modern times. It is a collective noun referring to the place of sleeping, the contents of bed and sometimes to the furniture. The bedstead was called after the Hungarian conquest "nyoszolya" with a loan-word from the Southern Slavonic language. Rulers and lords are depicted lying on a platform or hewn bed. A novelty of the 15

th century is the renaissance bed with four posts, arriving from Italy to Hungary in 1476 during the reign of King Matthias. At this time, beds are made with a new technology in the workshops of cabinet-makers. In the homes of the common people bedding is normally on the floor at this time. We find the bed on the floor, the mat and the oval shaped filled mattress mentioned in written sources and depicted on paintings with such subjects. The children and the servant of the preacher sleep on the floor in Füzes in 1587, as well as the coopers in Bazin in 1586. Certain inhabitants of Kolozsvár, Székelyudvarhely and Kadicsfalva sleep in the porch in the 16

th century, while unmarried men or the villain's wife spend the night in the loft or in the stable. In this period the poor sleep usually on the floor in the British Islands, in Scandinavia, Spain, France, in German regions and in Eastern Europe. Hungarian sources reveal however, that the practice of sleeping on the floor has the tendency to disappear in the 3 6

th century. It is normally the unexpected guest or the subordinated person whose bed is made on the floor. In 1552, Gáspár Heltai judges sleeping on the straw mattress - it means not on a bed - as a sign of poverty. We learn from a letter of Ambrus Beychy (1570) that sleeping on the floor is butt for ridicule. Many data inform us about the use of raised bedsteads among the common people. We see their forms and shapes on paintings in the churches of Northern Hungary from the 14

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16h centuries: patients in poor environment and poorhouses lye on hewn beds with headboards (Kassa, 1474-77, Bártfa 1480-85, Szmrecsán 1510). We see illustrations of raised beds, bed-seats, benches and the so called "cold beds", the catafalque (Cserény 1483, Lőcse 1520). Data are provided about sleeping on a bench from the home of a priest (Füzes, 1587) and from a Saxon farmer's house (1573). The cradle is common in many farm houses. We can follow-up the process how this oldest furniture became widespread among the people due to the confessions made in the course of the canonisation of St. Marguerite in the 13

th century. The rocking-cradle appears in the works of Gáspár Heltai (1552) and Ferenc Wathay ( 1604) as a generally used piece of furniture and the protocols of witchcraft trials mention cradles in the houses of villains in the 16

th century. The witchcraft trials refer to the bed of women in confinement, being the respected place of the blessing with offspring as well as the target of bewitching.