Search

Search Results

• Further Additions to the Export of Wines from the Upper Tisza Region (Mostly Tokaj-Hegyalja) to Krakow (1586–1605)

  111–216

  Bálint Vinkler

  Views:

  69

  During the early modern period in Poland, wine was quite fashionable among both the nobility and the common people, despite the unsuitable climatic conditions for domestic production. Wine had to be imported from abroad. Sources indicate that wine from Hungary, Austria, the Rhine region, Bohemia, Moravia, Romania, Spain, and France, as well as Greek Malvasia, Dalmatian Rivoli, and Venetian Muscat, was already being imported here in the Middle Ages. However, the Polish wine market was almost entirely dominated by Hungarian wines. While the primary sources on the history of the wine trade – the national customs and tax records – were destroyed in both Hungary and Poland; secondary municipal sources survived, and it is in Kraków that they are found in the greatest abundance. These are still accessible today and are excellent for research purposes. Based on customs, wine tax, and cellar records from Kraków, this study examines the wines from the Upper Tisza region (primarily Tokaj-Hegyalja) that generated the highest volume of trade, specifically covering the twenty-year period between 1586 and 1605.

• Bauernkrieg in Franken 1525Grundzüge – Begriffe – Ressourcen

  129-148

  Helmut Flachenecker

  Views:

  231

  The term “Peasants’ War” generally refers to the events of 1524/25, when peasants and citizens in Switzerland, Upper Swabia, Württemberg, Austria, Tyrol, Thuringia, and Franconia dared to revolt against their feudal lords. The respective regional and local concerns played an important role that should not be neglected in a generalized account of the events, but there were also commonalities: a strong anti-clerical movement developed, particularly in areas where monasteries, abbeys, and other ecclesiastical landlords were strongly positioned. The lords’ control over the local and, in some cases, centuries-old special rights of peasants, citizens, and knights became stronger, and the conflicts with them became more intense. The mostly oral local laws of villages and noble lordships were pushed back in favor of the new written state law based on Roman law.
  The rebels operated in a diverse and fragmented landscape of various territorial rulers in Franconia, which made it difficult for them to take concerted action. This area is defined by a complex conglomerate of different rulers, towns, castles, and monasteries. Is this complexity of different rulers in a small region with open borders one of the causes of the uprising? Specifically, the following topics are addressed: Wine growing and vineyard workers, the deliberate destruction of vineyards, the ownership of mills, in general the natural resources and their use by humans, as well as the importance of the ‘community’ (gemein) in cities and towns, whose quartermasters had significant political influence in times of uncertainty. These would be intangible resources of social and political coexistence within the framework of city districts. This meant that conflicts in the Peasants’ War are focused on various natural, economic, social, and religious resources, which defined the respective scope for action, which took place in narrowly defined areas.

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

  229-260

  László Pósán

  Views:

  174

  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.

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

  37–58

  László Pósán

  Views:

  109

  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.