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# {1-675.} The Market Towns of the Region East of the Tisza and the Entrenchment of Calvinism

In the late Middle Ages, Hungary had become integrated into the European trading economy mainly through its agricultural exports. Cattle and wine became the most profitable exports of countries in the Carpathian Basin, and demand for these commodities continued to grow. At the same time, the life of Hungarian villeins underwent significant alteration.

Thanks to favourable economic changes in the second half of the 15th century, villeins found that they could sell their surplus product on the open market. Indeed, as the practice of paying rent in money to landowners became generalized, villeins were driven to produce for the market. The changes put a premium on skill and adaptability, and the result was growing social differentiation among villeins. In the heart of Hungary, on the Great Plain, there were vast areas, devoid of genuine towns, where resourceful villeins turned to crafts and trade; although the products of distant towns were brought to the region's markets, these local producers could sell their simpler goods at a lower price. Other villeins became cattle and wine traders. Since noblemen traditionally despised the world of commerce, and since merchants in distant towns showed little interest in such rustic activities, it was the more prosperous villeins who seized the opportunities presented by the growth in Western demand.

More and more of the ambitious farmer-merchants and villein-craftsmen — along with cotters looking for work — moved to market villages, and over time the latter grew into a new type of settlement known as market towns (mezőváros, or, in Latin, oppidum). Under law, the inhabitants remained villeins, obligated to provide services for their landlords and subject to the jurisdiction of the nobiliary courts. However, they were progressively allowed to discharge their obligations by cash payment and to have their internal affairs {1-676.} managed by their own leaders; their economic freedom was protected by the landowners, for it generated greater income for the latter. Handicrafts and the wine and cattle trade enriched these peasant-citizens (civíses). Their cattle herds in the vast hinterland the Great Plains' market towns grew ever larger, and their wines produced in the Hegyalja (Tokaj) region found an eager market.

The participation of these villeins in Europe's agricultural trade was a phenomenon unique in Eastern Europe. In most of the countries of that region, the nobility not only preserved its social eminence but also turned the strong demand for agricultural products to its exclusive advantage. Poland's grain exports came from noblemen's estates that had been adapted to mass production. Villeins were progressively dispossessed of their land, which was turned into noblemen's possessions (allodiums or manors), and the latter's heavy demand for manpower was satisfied by substantial increases in socage service. The nobility thus consolidated its dominant position, which was based on non-economic, master-servant relations. This social pattern was typical of Eastern Europe, and it would remain frozen until the 19th century.

By contrast, the economic consolidation of Hungary's market towns pointed to an alternative model, one in which production for the market was the resort of villeins and not only of nobles. Indeed, the changes in the pattern of vine-growing and cattle-breeding shared some features of the disintegration of the feudal estates in the West. The land left untended by impoverished villeins was leased by the prosperous peasant-citizens; the latter did not have to pay feudal dues to the landlord for such plots.

To be sure, these market towns began to encounter new difficulties after 1500. The nobles of lesser property, who had no market towns, took umbrage when many of their villeins migrated to the market towns of the great landowners. They tried to reverse this tendency and diminish the appeal of the market towns by resorting to new laws, including one that compelled each villein to pay in {1-677.} kind one ninth of his production. They also tried to abrogate the traditional right to free movement. The resulting tensions contributed to the outbreak of the Peasants' War in 1514, and the punitive laws that were passed after that conflict seemingly confirmed the nobility's triumph. However, that war had little practical effect on life in the market towns, which until 1526 continued to grow and prosper.

When, at the end of the 1520s, Hungary was divided into two parts, the Great Plain, with its prosperous market towns, came under King John's rule, as did — after some minor disturbances — the Hegyalja vine-growing region. Only the southernmost market towns, Szerémújlak and Kamanc, ended up in the Ottoman zone.

When the Szapolyai part of Hungary progressively lost control over many towns and mines, the development of the market towns became a matter of economic urgency. Some data survived regarding a few of the major market towns in the Great Plain to indicate that they continued to develop. The three important market towns belonging to the Gyula estate, Gyula, Simánd, and Békés, were still flourishing in the mid-1500s. The villeins in these towns had no difficulty in paying to their landlord the annual tax of three gold forints (which included both the census tax and commuted deliveries). Socage services remained well below the level enacted in 1514, i.e. one day a week, and the 'ninth' was still payable in cash. The income derived by peasant-citizens from cattle-breeding must have been considerable: estate officials estimated that while the average annual value of the 'ninth' was 1200 forints, the expansion of cattle- and horse-breeding would generate an annual profit of 3000 forints.

Cattle-markets were held with some frequency, and even after the fall of Buda and Szeged, people on the Gyula estate would continue to trade actively with their western neighbours. The Pozsony registers show that around 1540, many cattle-traders from Gyula conducted cross-border business. Crafts were also pursued actively in the market towns, engaging the activity of 28 percent of the population in Gyula, 27 percent in Békés, and 37 per cent in Simánd.

{1-678.} Even in the absence of similar hard data, it is clear that Debrecen's economic development was even more spectacular, and this despite the fact that within fifteen years, the town passed through the hands of four successive landlords (the Szapolyai family, Laski, Gritti, and Bálint Török). Cattle was the town's main source of wealth; this was the period when herds began to proliferate in the Hortobágy and other nearby pastures. Handicraft and trades also flourished, and Debrecen's commercial links reached to Cracow, Vienna, Brünn, and Boroszló.

The major market centres were Debrecen, Gyula, Békés, Simánd, Lippa (which John I elevated to the status of royal free borough), Szatmár, and, more peripherally, Kecskemét, Nagykőrös, and Szeged. Their lead was followed by the many smaller market towns located between the Danube and the Tisza, and east of the Tisza. Collectively, the numerous peasant-citizens of these towns constituted a considerable economic force, and it is scarcely surprising that Szapolyai tried to win their support.

Hungary's disintegration accelerated after King John's death, taking its toll of the network of market towns. In the 1540s, the emerging Principality of Transylvania lost the entire region between the Danube and the Tisza, as well as the counties of Arad, Békés, Csanád, and Csongrád. It retained, in the Temesköz, only the small towns of Lugos and Karánsebes, which were reduced to serve as frontier forts, and in Zaránd county, only the westernmost settlements. The Hegyalja region changed hands several times before being definitively incorporated into the Habsburgs' part of Hungary.

The peasant-citizens had no political rights, and their power was derived from their considerable numbers. The boundaries that were set in 1540–45 divided those numbers into three fragments, each of which was forced to adapt to a different set of circumstances. The most important districts — Kecskemét, Szeged, and Lippa — incurred the greatest damage. In the Ottomans' domain, {1-679.} Islamic law took precedence over the traditional Hungarian legal order. It would no longer be possible to fight off tax collectors and other officials by manoeuvring between the king and the landlords: all significant settlements became estates of the Turkish Padishah. The Great Plain bore the brunt of the battles over frontier lines and, when a semblance of peace had returned, of the devastating raids that ensued. Moreover, since the region adjoined the more contested borders, peasant-citizens of its market towns were the most exposed to the burden of double taxation. Debrecen, for instance, was officially part of the Principality of Transylvania, but it lay at the junction of three state borders, and thus, from 1567 onwards, it had to pay an annual tax to Gyulafehérvár (3200 forints) and Istanbul (2000 forints) as well as Pozsony (1000 forints).

The market towns suffered from additional problems, such as insecure trading routes, the multiplication of customs zones, and the commercial reorientation of the West. Coincidentally, tax-rates were raised by the governments and, at an even faster rate and with greater determination, by the landlords.

Nevertheless, it appears that all these changes did not have a deep impact on the life of the market towns. In the Turkish zone, the market towns' population continued to grow, and their economic activity, notably with regard to cattle, did not decline. This was due in part to the surprising circumstance that the decrease of trade with the West had no palpable effect on the demand for livestock. However, there was another, more important factor helping to sustain the development of many market towns during the second half of the 16th century: the prevailing atmosphere of threat and insecurity.

The unending war, sometimes overt, at other times latent, and the hardship caused by double taxation drove more and more Hungarians to flee the countryside and find refuge in the comparatively secure market towns. This accounts for much of the population growth in such peasant centres as Kecskemét, Nagykőrös, {1-680.} Debrecen, Ráckeve, and Tolna. At the same time, some of the emerging communities of peasant-citizens were themselves preparing to flee if Turkish oppression proved unendurable. This happened in the case of Szeged, a market town recently elevated to the rank of 'royal borough'; after 1552, its population fled to Nagyszombat, Kassa, and Debrecen. Where the people stayed put, as in Gyula, Kecskemét, and Debrecen, they nurtured close contacts with the towns of Upper Hungary, from Pozsony to Kassa; and when they came on visits, it was clear to their welcoming hosts that they were assessing the possibility of moving there. In the process, the market towns lost their wealthiest inhabitants, and neither migrants from the countryside, nor Southern Slav refugees from Serbia, Bosnia, and the former Southern Hungary could fill the gap.

This complex situation had a rather negative impact on Transylvania beyond the Királyhágó, where circumstances did not favour the emergence of large market towns. Negative factors included distance from Western and Polish markets; pastures smaller than on the Great Plain; wines inferior to those of the Hegyalja; the comparative economic backwardness of the region; and, the dense network of Saxon towns. There was little scope for expanding the markets for agricultural produce, and the Saxons did all in their power to constrain initiatives in this direction. For example, in the early 1500s, Brassó engaged in lengthy litigation until it obtained a royal decision abrogating the right of Sepsiszentgyörgy to hold public markets.

To be sure, a few localities managed to exploit their competitive advantage. Thanks to their profitable salt-mines, Torda and Dés consolidated their local economies and gained the status, first, of market towns, and then, in the era of the principality, of full-fledged towns. But these small towns all belonged to the king, and later to the prince; authentic villein settlements never managed to rise to their level. (One of the major marketplaces in non-Saxon Transylvania was Marosvásárhely, a quasi-market town inhabited by people who enjoyed Székely rights.)

{1-681.} The attrition of market towns on the Great Plain and the gradual flight northward of their peasant-citizens deprived the new principality of its economically strongest element, which was perhaps also the most likely to advance socially. Of the market towns that remained under the authority of Gyulafehérvár, only Debrecen could show steady growth. In the mid-1500s, that town, located at a featureless spot in the region east of the Tisza and devoid of fort or river, had close to 1300 tax-paying households, or as many as 20,000 inhabitants. The other market towns that depended on the principality also grew, but remained of little consequence. The two largest were Tasnád and Kraszna; the first had 319 tax-paying family heads in 1569, and the second, 281 in 1594, which indicated that both towns had populations in excess of four thousand.

The decline of the market towns had long-term effects on Transylvania: financial loss, in terms of taxes as well as of investment capital. And there was a cultural loss as well: the intellectual ferment that had accompanied the religious revival gradually waned.

The first, Lutheran wave of the Reformation had swiftly conquered the Saxon towns, where it was linked to the name of Honterus; soon afterwards, it spread to the region east of the Tisza. The civic consciousness of the peasantry had manifested itself in 1514, and it was given new impetus by the trials and tribulations of the 1530s. The more promising sons of peasant-citizens in the prosperous market towns were once sent to pursue their studies at Cracow, Vienna, and Bologna; by the end of the 1530s, they were being directed to Luther's university at Wittenberg.

The returning students helped to propagate the ideas of the Reformation. A remarkable number of the early Hungarian preachers of Lutheranism were former 'Observant' Franciscans, an order that had played a significant role in the market towns' rebellion in 1514; they included András Szkhárosi Horvát, Imre Ozorai, Mihály Sztárai, and István Benczédi Székely. They had intimate links with {1-682.} the market towns, where most of them were serving as parish priests. The most illustrious of these early preachers, Mátyás Dévai Bíró, began with his ministry at Kassa and Buda, then was a preacher at Debrecen, where he died in ca. 1545; Imre Ozorai came from Tolna; János Gálszécsi preached his last sermon, at Gyula, around 1540; Szkhárosi was active in the same period at Tállya; András Batizi worked at Szikszó, Sátoraljaújhely, and Tokaj; as for István Benczédi Székely, he lived and worked successively in Szikszó, Olaszliszka, and Gönc.

These were years of civil war, when the fate of districts was largely in the hands of their feudal lords. The Reformation could have made no headway among Hungarians without the support of these lords. The master of the Temesköz, Péter Petrovics, established the Lutherans' second diocese in Hungary, after that of the Saxons; and Lutheran ministers from Temesvár, Arad, Makó, and Szeged held synods at Torony in 1549 and 1550. The Lutherans' first Hungarian superintendent, the bishop of the Temesköz, was Máté Gönczi; his name suggests that came from a peasant-citizen family. The Perényi and Drágffy families, whose seats were at Ugocsa and Béltek, and whose estates stretched from Ugocsa to the Szilágyság, offered a refuge from persecution to Ozorai. Hungary's second Lutheran community (after that founded by Honterus) was formed under the auspices of the same families, and particularly of Anna Báthori, the widow of Gáspár Drágffy. The shift to the new doctrine was confirmed by the priests from Szabolcs, Szatmár, Szilágy, and Ugocsa, meeting in a synod on 20 September 1555 at the market town of Erdőd. In the Gyula district, the Patócsy family, who had inherited the Czibak properties, backed the proselytizing work of preachers such as István Szegedi Kis.

The aristocrats' support was undoubtedly an important factor, but it does not account for the popularity of Luther's teachings among peasant-citizens. The reasons obviously included accessibility, for Hungarian was the operative language; the gradual discarding {1-683.} of the pomp and ceremony intrinsic to the feudal world; and a more critical attitude toward secular authority. Another reason was the misery inflicted on Hungary by war, which could be blamed on the 'old world'; Lutherans were disposed to regard such suffering as God's punishment for their forerunners' sinful deviation from true Christianity.

By the end of the 1540s, a good many of the Hungarian peasant-citizens on the Great Plain had converted to Lutheranism. Under John I, the state made little effort to resist the Reformation. György Fráter did not feel secure enough to employ force in defence of his Catholic faith. And the Ottomans, for their part, cared little about the religious disputes of their Christian subjects. If Luther's teachings were nevertheless challenged, it is because the prevailing freedom of thought facilitated further religious reform.

Around 1550, proselytizers for the second, Swiss wave of the Reformation began to appear in Hungary. The ideas of Zwingli and Calvin first reached the region east of the Tisza, and within it, Debrecen, which was then attached to Transylvania. The new doctrine was propagated in Transdanubia by Gál Huszár, in Abaúj and Zemplén counties by Gáspár Károlyi, and in the Turkish-ruled regions by István Szegedi Kis.

In Debrecen, the beginnings of Calvinism may be traced to the final years of the life of Mátyás Dévai Bíró, when the veteran religious reformer dissented from the Wittenberg Theses on some minor theological questions. In 1551, a synod, held at Ladány, of Lutheran preachers in the region east of the Tisza dismissed his successor, Márton Kálmáncsehi Sánta, on grounds of heresy. The latter fled to Ung county, where Péter Petrovics, who had moved to Munkács, offered him safe refuge. In Petrovics's former domain, the Temesköz, the Protestant Church suffered stresses, then disintegrated when the Ottomans took over in 1552. At Munkács, Petrovics continued to back religious innovation, if only in order to give new impetus to his battle against the Habsburgs. In early {1-684.} December 1552, the synod at Beregszász issued the first declaration of Calvinist faith in Hungary.

The proselytizing work of Kálmáncsehi and his friends was greatly facilitated by Petrovics's active support as well as by the country's continuing troubles under Habsburg rule. When Transylvania seceded in 1556, those who were still known as 'Sacramentarians' quickly prevailed throughout the region east of the Tisza. The diocese was re-organized, and Kálmáncsehi became Hungary's first Calvinist bishop, based at Debrecen. The peasant-citizens were attracted by the autonomy of the new Church, and they readily took to the soberly simple Calvinist service. The Lutheran superintendent of the Szatmár district, Demeter Tordai, showed some disposition to favour Sacramentarian doctrine as early as 1555, but he was pressured by his synod, and particularly by the landowner György Báthori, to repudiate the new bishop. Within a few years, Báthori had followed the example of Petrovics, and churchmen of the Szatmár rallied to the new creed.

Kálmáncsehi's untimely death brought no break in the triumphal spread of Calvinism in the region east of the Tisza. Debrecen's new pastor (later to become superintendent in the region east of the Tisza), Péter Melius Juhász, was young and energetic. Born with a talent for organization, he was also a highly effective preacher and a painstakingly methodical theologian. It was during his tenure that Gál Huszár arrived in Debrecen and established, in the early 1560s, the first printing press in the region east of the Tisza. Gergely Szegedi, Melius's fellow pastor in Debrecen, was perhaps the most poetically-inspired of the era's hymnists and translators of psalms, who also included Sztárai and Szkhárosi. Even Melius produced a few hymns which, while heavy on theology, had some merit.

To be sure, poetry was a minor concern of Melius, whose literary achievement lay more in the realm of sermons, polemical essays, and Biblical exegesis. His often abstruse theses are lightened {1-685.} by a few finely turned phrases, but they are most striking for their intensity. Religious debates in the age of the Reformation were notoriously vehement, but few surpassed Melius's ardent hatred, abusiveness, sarcasm, and fanaticism.

Melius's life was one long struggle against multiple enemies. He fought to eliminate what remained of the Catholic clergy's influence in the districts of Eger and Kassa, he argued with Luther's Hungarian and Saxon followers; and he engaged in spiteful quarrels with the first Anti-Trinitarians who reached Debrecen, then with Ferenc Dávid. Melius wanted to bring an end to the proliferation of doctrines that marked the first thirty years of the Reformation, for he did not wish to transgress the Apostles' Creed, a step that, in his view, had already been taken by Ferenc Dávid and his followers. Wherever he was given authority, he managed to achieve his ends. In 1561, while serving as superintendent in Debrecen, Melius wrote a treatise known as the Debreceni és egervölgyi hitvallás [The Creed of Debrecen and the Eger Valley], and which was essentially adopted six years later at the synod of the region east of the Tisza. Designed to regulate all aspects of life, marked by a thoroughness that was rare in Reformation Europe, the creed regulated not only liturgy, dogma, and Church organization, but also personal and public morality as well as political and economic behaviour of individuals and families.

Although the peasant-citizens of Debrecen wavered at times in their convictions, they never withdrew support from their chief pastor, the man whom his enemies derided as 'Pope Péter'. The seat of the bishop of the region east of the Tisza dominated its region, and the smaller market towns that stretched from Szabolcs to the southern confines of Bihar all followed its lead in matters of religion.

The phase of religious reform in the region east of the Tisza culminated with the synod's ratification of Melius's rigorous doctrines in 1567. Debrecen's desire for order and extensive regulation reflected its sense of isolation, which grew as the region encompassing {1-686.} the market towns became fragmented, as well as the oppressive effect of ongoing wars. The light dimmed to some extent after Melius's death. The great bishop was not only a theologian, a founder of the Church, and a poet and writer; he also translated parts of the Bible and edited the first Hungarian work on herbalism, a contribution noted in the history of medicine. The light dimmed after his death, which came on 15 December 1572. It would be a long time before the region east of the Tisza had another bishop as talented as Melius. The writers and hymnists of the succeeding generation were not without literary merit, but they were mere epigones of Szkhárosi, Gergely Szegedi, and Melius.

This slowdown and turning inward occurred principally in the case of the market towns in the region annexed to Transylvania. At least in the 1560s and 1570s, the area under Turkish occupation displayed a different pattern. There, if only for a short time, the Ottomans' military preponderance offered greater security, and their indifference to Christianity greater latitude for the pursuit of religious reform. The seedlings of Anti-Trinitarianism (which came to be known as Unitarianism) spread from Transylvania and took root in a region stretching from Békés county to Baranya county.

The unsettled atmosphere in the region east of the Tisza gave rise in 1569–70 to a peculiar peasant revolt near Debrecen. Its leader, György Karácsony, was passionate and fanciful demagogue who declared himself to be the new 'black man'. With an unarmed 'holy army', he attacked the Ottomans' fortified position at Balaszentmiklós (Törökszentmiklós). Driven back, Karácsony proceeded to Debrecen, where he tried to incite the poorer strata to challenge higher authority. In the end, the chief magistrate had to appeal for help to Bálint Prépostvári, who led mounted troops from the Szatmár garrison to disperse the rebellious peasants. Karácsony was executed in Debrecen. The ill-conceived rising, which resulted in needless slaughter, occurred when Péter Melius was at the height of his power, two years before the death of this great reformer.