Mi haszna van az uradalomnak, ha a fejedelem hajdúkkal éli azt? A bihari Csáky uradalmak a 17. században [What is the use of a manor, if the prince settles hajduks there? The Csáky estates in bihar in the 17th century]

Papp, Klára (2024) Mi haszna van az uradalomnak, ha a fejedelem hajdúkkal éli azt? A bihari Csáky uradalmak a 17. században [What is the use of a manor, if the prince settles hajduks there? The Csáky estates in bihar in the 17th century]. AGRÁRTÖRTÉNETI SZEMLE, 65 (1-4). pp. 199-218. ISSN 0002-1105

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Abstract

The Csáky family received their estates in Bihar County as a donation from King Sigismund of Luxemburg. At the beginning of the 17th century, these estates were managed by Anna Wesselényi, the widow of István Csáky, who oversaw the repopulation of villages devastated during the Long Turkish War (1591– 1606). In 1625, István's sons divided the estates: István Csáky, who would later become Master of the Treasury, took possession of the Körösszeg (now Cheresig, Romania) estate, while his brother László, the future Chief Justice, inherited the Adorján (Cetatea Adrian, near Sălard, now Romania) estate, along with the market town of Margitta (now Marghita, Romania). By the 16th century, Körösszeg Castle was part of a network of smaller fortifications protecting Várad (Oradea, now Romania). In 1598, its garrison, consisting of 123 cavalrymen and 40 infantrymen, was paid by the Transylvanian treasury. Although Körösszeg, as a private estate, could not receive hajduk privileges, its soldiers could receive princely donations of land in other deserted villages: Tamási (now Tămăşeu, Romania) in 1608, Vekerd (Vecherd, now in Romania) in 1631). The hajduk soldiers of Körösszeg, according to their contractus, served the Prince in wartime and the Csáky family during peacetime. Despite these arrangements, the Transylvanian legal code, the Approbatae Constitutiones, categorized Körösszeg as one of the privileged hajduk towns in 1653. This situation had its roots in the deteriorating relationship between István Csáky and Prince George I Rákóczi in the 1630s. The Prince first seized the estate but returned it following the Eperjes (now Prešov, Slovakia) Agreement with the Habsburg ruler in 1633, though he restricted the family's rights to its use. This paper, based on sources preserved in the Csáky family archive – including castle inventories, urbarial records, annual audits of the manor's accounts, petitions, testimonies, and correspondence – closely examines this period. It explores the options available to the estate managers for making the estate profitable, and to what extent their actions were shaped by their own ambitions or inconsistencies. The study also considers how the abuses and violence of the hajduk captains impacted their work, the extent to which princely authority limited the utilization of the estate's resources and uninhabited lands, and how the growing threat of Turkish attacks from the mid-century further constrained their efforts. During the conflicts with the Turks, which culminated in the loss of Várad, Körösszeg Castle was destroyed, and the settlement remained depopulated in the latter half of the 17th century. This destruction significantly diminished the value of the Csáky family's Bihar estates.

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