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• The Role of Gifts in the Diplomatic Relations between Sigismund of Luxemburg and the Teutonic Order

  37–58

  László Pósán

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  105

  In the diplomatic relations between Sigismund of Luxembourg and the Teutonic Order, gifts of varying kinds and value played an important role, in line with contemporary European practice. Far more records survive concerning the gifts presented by the Order to the Hungarian and King of the Romans than those sent by Sigismund to the Grand Master. The Order’s gifts often conveyed symbolic political messages; by contrast, no such function can be clearly identified in Sigismund’s case. In its gift-giving practices, the Order also considered the potential political influence of wives and daughters at princely courts, and accordingly extended gifts to them. Given the Order’s monastic and ecclesiastical character, such a practice on Sigismund’s part is hardly conceivable. Particular attention should be paid to the Grand Master’s most prestigious gifts, namely trained hunting falcons, highly esteemed across Europe. These were distributed according to the rank of the recipients and the significance of political relations, with the number of birds serving as an indicator of status.

  Notably, the treasury accounts of the Grand Master record only one Hungarian gift deemed worthy of specific mention: Hungarian wine. Strikingly, the sources indicate that this “gift” was in fact purchased by the Order at considerable cost. As for other items Sigismund may have sent to Prussia, these can be inferred from the practices of other European rulers, typically consisting of objects compatible with the knights’ monastic lifestyle or of religious relics.

• Marktstädte in Ungarn an der Grenze zwischen Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit: Die ungarischen Marktstädte

  229-260

  László Pósán

  Views:

  170

  In the late Middle Ages, two principal types of market and agrarian towns can be distinguished in the Kingdom of Hungary: on the one hand, the lowland settlements, characterized by extensive animal husbandry and the possession of large tracts of land; on the other, the viticultural towns situated in hilly regions. The transition from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century – particularly the watershed moment of the Battle of Mohács in 1526, when the Ottoman advance brought about the military and political disintegration of the medieval Hungarian kingdom – had comparatively little immediate impact on most of these urban centers, especially those oriented toward pastoral production. Indeed, the sixteenth century largely reinforced their established developmental trajectory.

  The pattern proved more complex in the case of viticultural market towns. Syrmia (the hilly region around Fruška Gora, in present-day Serbia), which constituted the most important wine-producing area of medieval Hungary, was transformed into a frontier zone of the Ottoman Empire and thereby exposed to recurrent incursions. The ensuing insecurity prompted a significant outmigration of vintners and wine producers from the region into the interior of the kingdom. As a consequence, viticulture in Syrmia declined, while other centers, most notably the Tokaj region, experienced rapid expansion. From the sixteenth century onwards, Tokaj emerged as a leading center of Hungarian wine production, ultimately eclipsing Syrmia in both productivity and reputation.