{2-160.} The New Serfdom

In Transylvania, the reconfirmation of serfdom occurred in even more oppressive circumstances than in other countries. The reasons for this lay partly in historical chance, and partly in the fact that the country's greatest landowner was also its ruler.

The historical circumstance was the devastation caused by the Fifteen Years' War. In Hungary, this reorganization of serfdom progressed through two stages, in the 16th century and then in the early 17th century. In Transylvania, by contrast, the restoration of serfdom in a variant of its original form occurred in a single phase following the war. A large proportion of the peasantry had fallen victim to that protracted conflict, and most of the others became homeless fugitives. In the process, the renewal of serfdom initiated by the Báthoris was halted, and the entire system was considerably weakened.

The migration of peasants was driven by the flux of warfare and the ready availability of abandoned plots. The previously stable life of villeins became one of constant movement. In these circumstances, there could be no question of increasing the villeins' feudal dues in the early years of the century; the feudal system itself had to be reconstructed in Transylvania.

Two parallel approaches were taken. On the one hand, a six-year exemption from taxes was offered as an inducement to villeins to settle on abandoned plots. On the other, exceptionally harsh measures were taken against roving villeins. The most vivid example is a law, passed in 1615, which provided that 'the many men who loaf around, go into hiding, and are masterless', the 'fugitive servants' who are 'homeless and rove about the country' must be seized and punished.[88]88. EOE 7, p. 284. The scope and salience of the problem is revealed by the fact that the diet passed more measures aimed at rogues, vagrants, and fugitive villeins than on any other matter.

{2-161.} The loosening of the feudal system had been precipitated by both the war and the great drought at the turn of the century, calamities that also produced acute misery and precariousness. Resettlement on the land offered some hope of tranquillity and prosperity, but it also involved feudal dependence, which proved to be a powerful deterrent. Despite the lure of tax exemptions and the threat of sanctions, masses of villeins continued to flee and rove until well into the middle of the century.

The identification of princely authority with the interests of the landowners only complicated the life of peasants wishing to escape serfdom. The prince could have exploited these tendencies to weaken the grip of the feudal orders. The migrant villeins were eager to win the protection of the state by becoming soldiers, miners, or even laborers on treasury estates. Instead of encouraging or simply allowing such recruitment, the prince promoted repressive legislation against all forms of migration and thus gave the feudal orders free rein to regain control over the peasantry.

At the same time, the ruling princes abused of their special status to circumvent the law. Following the example of ordinary landowners, the supervisors of treasury estates refused to hand over fugitive villeins; army officers and mine official army did likewise. In these situations, it was not the prince-ruler but the prince-proprietor who prevailed over the landowners seeking to retrieve their villeins. No one could compete with a proprietor who also happened to control the state apparatus.

The villeins were of course the principal victims of this conjunction of forces. The prince and the feudal orders may have had some conflicting interests, but all depended on the villeins' labor, and thus they presented a united front against all attempts by villeins to loosen the shackles of serfdom.