Difficulties and Possibilities

Within a short period, between 1657 and 1664, Transylvania lost a quarter of its territory, hundreds of villages and market towns, the most important commercial road, one of its largest cities, most of its customs revenues, and most of its stock of gold and silver coins. Enclosed by mountain ranges, Transylvania had always been threatened by isolation and economic insufficiency, and these threats had seldom seemed more real.

While Transylvania plunged into this unprecedented crisis, the rest of Europe was experiencing major economic transformation. In terms of social structure, Europe had been split between bourgeois and feudal regions, but these were reunited by the complex forces of early-industrial, capitalistic development unleashed in western Europe as well as by the expansion of world trade. Although Transylvania's economy was even less developed than that of royal Hungary, it had already become integrated to some extent into the continental economy and its division of labour. Transylvania, like other countries in east-central Europe, incurred benefits as well as costs from this integration. The process brought new difficulties and pitfalls but also new possibilities. The indirect effects of Europe's economic development, combined with Transylvania's natural assets, probably explain why the country managed to survive its losses and move toward economic recovery.

{2-272.} Much of the country's money supply had disappeared abroad. In order to be freed by the Tartars, János Kemény had to pay 300,000 thalers; aristocrats paid 3,000 to 10,000, and the lower orders between 55 and 1,000 thalers. In 1659, Kolozsvár alone disbursed 60,000 thalers in war reparations. In 1661, Szeben had to raise 500,000 thalers; its citizens had to part with all their reserves of silver, gold, and grain, and many of them 'had hardly enough left for their daily bread'.[42]42. Letter from the citizens of Szeben to Ali Pasha, 14 November 1661. OL, Agy, Levelezés 4.

When Apafi took office, he had to send 110,000 thalers to the Porte in partial settlement of Transylvania's arrears. The country had to raise 40,000 gold pieces each year to cover the tribute to the Turks; additional, local tributes were exacted by the Turkish pashas and imperial garrisons. As if this burden was not enough, Transylvania, like other countries, suffered the severe consequences of the transformation of Europe's monetary system in the 17th century. Demand had surged all across Europe for large-denomination gold and silver pieces as well as for small coins. The western countries conducted a currency reform and established state banks to back the new currency and manage credit. These changes did not proceed smoothly. The Habsburg government introduced a new coin, the kreutzer, throughout the empire, then waited fifty years before creating a state bank charged with managing the money supply. In international trade, and particularly in the countries that traded with the Ottoman empire, a rise in the value of the Dutch 'lion thaler' helped to cushion the difficulties of transition.

In Transylvania, a succession of princes minted large-denomination, precious metal coins, but not enough to meet demand. They also minted a small amount of low-denomination coins, but these, like the more valuable ones, were siphoned out of the country. Meanwhile, small coins flowed in from abroad: the almost valueless and easily forged garas (groat) and poltura from Poland, as well as the Austrian kreutzer and the Wallachian, Moldavian, Turkish, {2-273.} and Balkan ospora. Good money was hoarded, while the small coins were exchanged in weighed quantities and often forged. Thus, after 1657, Transylvania had to contend with monetary anarchy as well as with a severely depleted money supply.

Beginning in the 1660s, Apafi's government made a sustained effort to reestablish and preserve monetary stability. The export of precious metal was prohibited, the minting of coins was carefully regulated, draconian measures were taken against forgers, attempts were made to take valueless coins out of circulation, and currency exchange came under central supervision. In 1672, the diet ruled that Transylvanian coins should bear a likeness of the prince. Although Transylvania continued to suffer well into the next century from monetary problems and a shortage of coins, Apafi did manage to restore a certain stability for some three decades by resorting to the contemporary techniques of state credit and borrowing.

As early as 1663, the government raised 14,000 gold pieces in loans from Brassó and Szeben, as well as from a few landowners, other towns, and the churches. Over time, loans were also raised from a new class of entrepreneurs, but the merchants of Brassó and Szeben remained the most reliable sources of borrowed funds. The diverse coinage raised in taxes was exchanged for 'good currency' in Szeben. Trading enterprises, mostly Greek ones linked to the English Levant Company, flourished in the two Saxon towns, and they probably contributed to the revival of Transylvania's foreign trade as well as to the heavy inflow of Flemish 'lion thalers'. Recent research shows that, in this period, the latter coins became far more common in Transylvania than the most devalued currency, the Turkish akche. The exchange rate of the thalers fluctuated over the three decades, peaking at 200 dinars in the late 1660s and again in the early 1680s. Although the western European countries profited most from this circulation of lion thalers, it probably contributed to the revival of Transylvania's economy. That revival was based on the country's natural resources.

{2-274.} Demand grew steadily for Transylvania's copper, mercury, and salt. Sweden had shown an early interest in the copper. When, in 1628, Sweden's Chancellor Oxenstierna sent Paul Strassburg on a diplomatic mission to Transylvania, the envoy proposed to Gabriel Bethlen that their countries form a cartel and win control of the European market for copper. Both western and eastern markets seemed to have an insatiable demand for the cheap and high-quality mercury mined at Zalatna.

Contemporary government statistics confirm that salt rivalled precious metals as the country's most valuable resource. In the words of a Unitarian preacher-poet,

'Némely országokat bővíttetett borssal,

Velentzét Czitrummal, pomagránátokkal,

Angliának földét kies Rozmarintal,

Transylvániát is megáldotta Sóval.'

[Some countries have been endowed with pepper,

Venice with lemon and pomegranate,

England with fragrant rosemary,

While Transylvania has been blessed with salt.][43]43. Laudes Salis (RMKT IV, p. 495)

When, in 1662, Küchük Pasha presented a demand for war reparations, the payment came from the revenue of the salt mines at Torda, Vizakna, Szék, Kolozs, and Dés; it was neither the first nor the last time that salt had helped to save Transylvania. As Europe entered the early phase of industrialization, demand grew for copper and mercury, as well as timber, lime, and leather. Similarly, salt was needed not only for cooking and animal husbandry but also for new and old industries, notably food preservation and pharmaceuticals.

After the Treaty of Vasvár, Transylvania experienced new difficulties in reaching potential markets. Its trade had always been hampered by distance, transportation costs, and other risks; now, it {2-275.} was denied access to the trading routes leading from Várad to Kassa and to the market towns of the Great Hungarian Plain. On the other hand, the trade route between Poland and the south, which once traversed Moldavia, now passed through Transylvania and Wallachia. The adoption of this new transit route in the period 1673–92 was attributable to political and military events in the Ukraine and Podolia as well as to the war waged by the Crimean Tartars. As a result, Debrecen grew in commercial importance, but Transylvania's exports could only reach western markets by a roundabout route. Western industrial products — English cloth, German tools — reached Transylvania mainly from the south, through the Ottoman territories and Wallachia, as well as by way of Poland. Zalatna's mercury was exported via Danzig to Amsterdam, or overland across the Balkans (and possibly by sea from Constantinople) to Ragusa and Venice. Meanwhile, Transylvania's neighbours vied for control of the market for her most valuable exports. Constantinople tried persistently to win control of all or some of the principality's salt mines. In order to favour the production of mercury at Idria, the Habsburg government banned imports of Transylvanian mercury in the German lands, ordering the confiscation of all shipments.

Despite Transylvania's various handicaps, its productive forces — what Apafi termed its 'makers' (csinálmányok) — were in comparatively good shape when the country faced these new economic challenges. This owed as much to the legacy of 16th-century prosperity and Gabriel Bethlen's economic policies, to the immigration of craftsmen and the knowledge brought home from studies abroad, as to the country's economic geography. The most profitable installation was the mill, the only device at the time that converted natural energy into industrial power. The mill at Torda, with its four grinding stones, had been built at a cost of 1200 forints, and it generated an annual income of 1600 forints. Although most of the mills were of simple design, several had complex mechanisms {2-276.} adapted to specific functions. Transylvania was richly endowed with timber and iron, as well as with that essential source of energy, rapidly flowing waterways. Chelebi Evlia marvelled at the profusion of mills, although it is impossible to verify whether he could actually see several hundred sawmills to the west of Udvarhely Castle. Judging from the detailed descriptions (dating from 1685, 1692, and 1679) of the sawmills at Görgényszentimre and Huszt, Transylvania continued to keep pace with technological innovations. In the last third of the century, a growing number of sources testify to the spread of oil presses equipped with a cylinder and three or six copper cauldrons, and of thrashing and fulling mills. The iron foundry of Csík was operating, as before, with a complex hydraulic system of dams, holding tanks, channels, and iron-hubbed water wheels; a similar installation was still operating at Torockó in the 19th century.

The mountainous regions accounted for over 70 per cent of Transylvania's territory. Since the country was rich in minerals and timber as well as water power, the mining and industrial sectors were more highly developed than in the case of its neighbours to the east and south. The agricultural sector was dominated by stock breeding; fodder, fruit, vines and vegetables were cultivated in the fertile river valleys and basins of central Transylvania. The cultivation of grain in peripheral areas had provided a degree of self-sufficiency, but this productive balance was upset when, in 1664, most of the grain-growing regions were severed from Transylvania.