Középkori utak és határhasználat a pilisi apátság területén

László Ferenczi, József Laszlovszky

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

    Abstract (may include machine translation)

    The Pilis Cistercian Abbey, as one of the most important of Hungary’s medieval monasteries, was subject to detailed historical and archaeological studies. Until recently, however, the medieval landscape around the monastery was not in the focus of attention. In the past years, new excavations have identified traces of a medieval grange in the vicinity, which underlined that systematic investigations of landscape features have the potential to contribute significantly to - or challenge - our knowledge on different aspects of the history of the abbey. Therefore, the present study aims at discussing the topographic evidence from medieval perambulations and early modern estate maps in order to identify the major landmarks of the medieval landscape (roads, boundaries, and the historic land use patterns).
    Throughout the whole Transdanubia there is a strong presence of the pre-existing complex Roman road network, which often seems to be in continuous use in the medieval period as well, traces of which could have been identified in the Pilis region by archaeological field surveys. Recent research has also pointed out that the medieval road system was similarly complex and certain parts of it are genuinely of medieval and not of Roman origin further used in later times. Such was, for example, the important route that connected the royal centres of Buda and Esztergom, as well as certain royal chapels and royal monastic foundations, like the monastery of Pilis, which could function as temporary accommodations of the Árpád Age itinerant royal court.
    In order to get a more detailed view on the topography of the medieval roads in the area — that is, the central part of the country, which is also referred to as the medium regni and was characterized by the presence of the royal forest, royal residences and towns as well as royal monastic foundations (Cistercian and Paulinian houses) -, the two available medieval (1299, 1367) as well as two other eighteenth-century perambulation documents have been analyzed with regard to the parts of the monastic estate, together with eighteenth-century maps documenting the reference points of later perambulations. It is, thereby, demonstrated that the previous suggestions (based on archaeological field surveys and historical geographical surveys) concerning the locations of some deserted medieval settlements (namely, the villages of Boron and Kandi), to which the above-mentioned medieval perambulations pertain, were fairly accurate. The course of their boundaries could be more accurately outlined with the help of the estate maps and military survey maps, and also the ancient roads (Roman and medieval) could be clearly identified.
    On the other hand, these perambulations are extremely important for the reconstruction of the economic activities of the abbey, since account books or other types of sources reporting about such activities have very rarely survived in general, and for the Pilis Abbey (and for most Cistercian monasteries) in particular no such documents were preserved. In fact, the central parts of the Cistercian estates (on which the present study was focusing as well) are generally less represented in terms of the amount of archival records, than the other parts of these estates, since they were usually less exposed to legal debates, transactions etc., which form the bulk of the available material. In case of Pilis, this lack, to some certain extent, is not a surprise, since the abbey was located literally in the middle of the royal forest. Nevertheless, as to the results of environmental historical and archaeological data, these perambulations have recorded many details of the medieval land use patterns. Vineyards, plough-lands, meadows, and multiple fishponds - all can be considered as parts of the agro-forestry system — situated at the slopes of the hills, and at the edge of the woodland, and they were clearly the characteristic features of the medieval landscape, perhaps not only within the local monastic estates, but also around the whole region. On the other hand, the mentioned excavation of the monastic grange at Pomáz-Kovácsi-puszta, which recovered the traces of a glass producing workshop, adds another layer to the interpretation of monastic economic activities, at once, calling for more systematic field surveys which might reveal further elements of monastic landscapes.
    Original languageHungarian
    Pages (from-to)103-124
    Number of pages22
    JournalStudia comitatensia
    Volume33
    Issue number1
    StatePublished - 2014

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