| Balancing the State Budget | 2. ECONOMIC REORGANIZATION AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION | The Lower Orders: Villeins, Freemen, Miners, Craftsmen, Village Communities |
The closed, autonomous communities that had characterized Transylvania's social structure began to disintegrate well before the last decades of the principality. That ineluctable process followed different patterns in the case of Székelys and Saxons, corresponding to their peculiar socio-economic circumstances, but there were also common features: Székelys and Saxons blended into the national feudal order, with its wealthy and poor, privileged and dependent strata. In this period, there appeared also the first, faint signs of structural change in Transylvanian society. The essence of change was aptly summed up by Miklós Bethlen when he divided Transylvania's socially and economically diversified society into the lower, middle, and upper orders. However, these categories were far from rigid. Although the society remained marked by feudalism, the categories of noble, burgher, and villein were now beginning to lose their clear and exclusive significance. Each of these social categories came to encompass wide variations in lifestyle, education, and prospects.
{2-300.} Thus, while both landowners who disposed of hundreds of villeins and ennobled peasants who had once served as villeins were counted as members of the noble orders, even contemporaries were well aware of the wide disparity in their actual rights and scope for political participation. However, the disintegration of traditional social categories did not directly undermine the basic feudal order; rather, it brought a certain internal regrouping and restratification. Meanwhile, powerful social forces were intent on conserving the old structures and acted as a brake on such restratification. The conflict between these two tendencies — social mobility and social conservatism — was a distinctive feature of the era in Transylvania, and foreshadowed the social movements and struggles of the subsequent period.
Change in the military and economic spheres was the main cause of this social restratification, but some legacies of Transylvanian history also played a part. The most important of these had to do with the lesser nobility: it had not become as broad and internally differentiated a social stratum in Transylvania as it had in Hungary proper.
As was the case even earlier, the principality's military forces encompassed two categories. The first, the permanent core, consisted of the court regiments, which also performed domestic police duties, and the castle garrisons. Additional frontier defence was provided by the Székelys and hajdús, two groups that enjoyed certain special privileges and constituted the army's main fighting force in times of war. It is in this second category that, between 1657 and 1664, Transylvania suffered its most serious depletion of military capability. The principality lost the hajdú towns in Bihar County, and the Székely soldiery was decimated, indeed, virtually annihilated in the Polish campaign and the subsequent punitive attacks by Tartars.
In the uncertain peace that marked the years after the Treaty of Vasvár, it became plainly obvious that in order to survive, {2-301.} Transylvania needed a readily mobilizable army. With Várad occupied by janissaries, and with Székelyhíd Castle torn down on Turkish orders, Transylvania was vulnerable on its western approaches to attacks not only by Habsburg border garrisons but also by the Turks. The efforts of the pasha of Várad to seize an important salt mine could only be blocked by military force. Apafi and his advisers knew that it was only a matter of time before Transylvania would be drawn once again into war. Thus, beginning in the mid-1660s, the prince strove to develop a rapidly mobilizable army that would be independent of the landowners and of the nobility's own forces.
On the crown estates around fortresses, there were already free peasants whose only obligation was to perform military service. The prince proceeded to add to their number and to regularize their status. Between 1660 and 1680, a great many Hungarian and Romanian villeins were given their freedom in exchange for an obligation to serve as soldiers. The prince granted noble rights to many of them, at times to entire villages; following ancient custom, he guaranteed their livelihood by providing land free of feudal obligations. They were responsible for acquiring their weapons, horses, and other equipment. The status of free soldier-peasants entailed some conditions: the land was theirs to cultivate and bequeath to their sons, but it could not be sold, for the Treasury retained title. In the first half of the century, such free peasants generally performed their military duty in the fortresses, and their exemption from feudal obligations was only provisional. Under Apafi, their status was gradually institutionalized, and several distinct groups emerged: the arms-bearers (armások) of the Kővár district, the riflemen (puskások) and guardsmen (darabontok) on crown estates, and the boérs of Hunyad and Fogaras. Theses groups enjoyed varied status and material benefits. Their ranks included both freemen and people who claimed to be noble but were, in fact, ordinary peasants or 'semi-nobles'. Typically, Apafi instructed his {2-302.} steward at Balázsfalva to recruit guardsmen 'not among the wealthy peasants nor among the very poor, but among the middle-ranking peasants, and particularly those who do not own oxen'.[59] As before, Apafi would grant letters of nobility to reward meritorious military service (e.g. in 1675, to a Désfalva villein, István Katona Szász), but he increasingly resorted to such grants simply to facilitate recruitment and enhance the social standing of soldiers. The members of this expanding social caste originated in a diversity of regions and material circumstances. In a riflemen's register dating from 1699, several names bear the qualification 'poor', which signified that they lacked the means to equip themselves for soldiering. Among the boérs, one of the oldest of these groups, many were wealthy enough to have their own villeins.
Apafi's policies in the Székely land were intimately linked to the progressive development of a soldier caste under princely authority. He followed the lead of Gabriel Bethlen and György Rákóczi I in forbidding free Székely soldiers, be they noble lófő or ordinary guardsmen, to adopt the status of villeins; but he had to impose this rule in much altered circumstances. Although Bethlen managed to forestall a massive shift to villeinage, his achievement was largely nullified in the crisis-ridden years between 1657 and 1660. Many Székelys captured in battle could only raise the necessary ransom money by selling themselves into villeinage. The disastrous war prompted many others to avoid further military service by adopting the status of villeins; some even paid the landlord just to become villeins and obtain his protection. On the other hand, the attempts to preserve and consolidate Transylvania's statehood favoured the reverse tendency. Many Székely villeins were restored by princely decree to free status and the attendant military obligation; as an inducement, lófős and guardsmen were granted letters of nobility. The imposition of ever greater burdens on villeins also made soldiering more attractive, for the possibility of choosing a 'free', 'vagrant' (kóborló) way of life, free of any obligation, had diminished by the 1680s.
{2-303.} The impact of these external factors is reflected in the Székelys' social structure. The change can be measured by comparing the censuses conducted in the Udvarhely district in 1614, under Bethlen, and in 1720. Over the intervening period, the proportion of noblemen grew eightfold, from one to eight percent, and of lófős from 16 to 41 percent; the proportion of guardsmen fell by half, from 13 to 7 percent, of villeins from 30 to 23 percent, and of cotters from 7 to 6 percent, while the traditional category of free Székelys virtually disappeared. The fragmentary evidence that survives from the 1703 census also points to a growth in the soldier strata since 1614. These crude indicators confirmed a fundamental change: Székely society was losing its distinctively homogeneous and closed quality. Many Székely soldiers were assigned to court regiments or to garrison service in fortresses; paid and equipped like other soldiers, they were integrated into the principality's regular army. Others settled down in the vicinity of county castles to serve as riflemen. Although the majority of Székelys remained in their home district, in their capacity as soldiers, they came increasingly under the control of the central government. Much to the Székelys' resentment, the government appointed outsiders to serve as captains of the Székely districts (széks).
Székelys who were not involved in military service had to pay tax to the state. The government levied a lump-sum tax in the Székelyföld, at a level — around 5,000 forints — that changed little between 1665 and 1685; but the prince now determined how much tax was to be paid by each Székely town. He also favoured the foreigners who had settled in the Udvarhely szék and the urban craftsmen, and he would not allow nobles to give shelter to simple potters. Social substrata included, among common Székelys, various occupational groups, such as salt-cutters, foundrymen, and 'moneyed carters'.
Thus, on the one hand, the state offered attractive prospects, including noble and privileged status, the prince's protection, and {2-304.} partial tax exemption, for Székelys who chose a soldier's life; while, on the other, it tried to eliminate what was left of the Székelys' traditional liberties. As a result, the Székely-soldier stratum expanded; increasingly tied to the central power, it fitted into the variegated military caste that enjoyed special privileges and was mushrooming throughout Transylvania.
The counties and feudal orders, which generally defended the interests of landowners, protested ceaselessly at the expansion of this caste of freemen-soldiers. The noble orders refused to recognize these soldier-nobles as equals; to defend their private interests, they disingenuously invoked ancient Székely liberties in an attempt to turn Székely soldiers against the government. These initiatives failed, for the momentum of change was too strong. This particular phase of social change was halted, or became distorted, only after 1711.
In the Székely lands, as elsewhere, social mobility resulted mainly in the growth of the middle strata. Apafi granted the rank of noble freemen to a great many people, most of whom were rewarded for their official or intellectual services. A case in point is István Greisingh, a native of Brassó who was ennobled for his services in the prince's chancellery. Many clergymen and teachers were also granted letters of nobility; one example is one of Pál Béldi's villeins, János Kovács, who was ennobled by Apafi for 'having made people benefit greatly from his learning'. Letters of nobility were intended to enhance the authority of preachers who served state interests; when the people of Marosvásárhely did not give proper respect to a preacher whose wages were paid by Apafi, the prince threatened to have the dissenters 'thrown into a salt mine'.
It was, as at the time of György Rákóczi I, commonplace for the managers of estates to be promoted to noble rank. The administrators and scribes on the Treasury's domains, mines, and agricultural estates were first to enjoy the court's favour. But the more entrepreneurial private landowners were also keen to acquire literate, {2-305.} respectable, and responsible managers, as evidenced by János Petki's advice to his villein-supervisor. By intermarriage, or by exploiting the opportunities offered at a time of internal migration for acquiring 'noble' property, more and more people were granted nobility in this period who simply asserted their noble origin.
Indeed, the most striking social change in the twenty-five years after the Treaty of Vasvár was the expansion in the ranks of the nobility; by some contemporary accounts, half of the population came to claim that status. Most of the newly-minted nobles were officeholders or provided some other service. Their social status lay somewhere between that of peasant and noble landowner, though their legal and financial circumstances put them closer to the former than to the latter. This new and evolving social stratum was highly diverse with regard to language, religion, customs, education, and interests. Although its members could try to make the most of their office and expertise, be it with the pen or with the sword, this stratum was far from wielding real political influence. In some respects, the new nobles outweighed the 'familiars', the feoffees of earlier times; their privileges were no longer purely personal and tied to the time of service, but permanent. Yet they were not full-fledged members of the noble orders. At Enyed, for example, the 'new' and 'old' nobles lived in separate communities. Although still bound by many traditional ties, the new nobles were no longer the feoffees of a noble lord; their rights and obligations were now spelt out in a contract, they received a regular salary, and, at times, they had to assume heavy financial responsibilities. Their letters of nobility differentiated them from the peasants but did not exempt them from paying taxes to the state.
Depending on the nature of their employment, some new nobles were in a position to criticize their masters, and a few subgroups developed a distinctive political outlook, but it took time for them to make an impact on national political life. The road to high state office was barred to most of them, although the odd son of a {2-306.} villein or minor official did rise to become councillor to Apafi. On the other hand, the new nobles could fill the social vacuum created by the shortage of prosperous middle nobles in Transylvania. The group of new nobles engaged in agriculture is concisely identified in the fiscal instructions issued in 1703: 'The following are subject to tax: noblemen, persons possessing letters of nobility, semi-nobles, and free farmers such as those in Germany, and especially Silesia, who are not beholden to any master but generally have a few villeins, they pay taxes'.[60] Theirs was not a closed social class. Their ranks were continually fed from the lower orders and, indeed, they were acutely aware that those over whom they had some power were snapping at their heels. Their main weakness was that little replenishment or support came their way from the urban middle class. That middle class, the classical bourgeoisie in countries more advanced on the path of urbanization, suffered a double blow in Transylvania from the loss of Várad. When Kolozsvár took over Várad's function as a border fortress, it lost its civilian status to become a garrison town with an ennobled population. Torda and Dés became similarly 'ennobled'. Nagybánya and Felsőbánya fell under the authority of the commercial chamber of Szepes. Debrecen retained its close links to Transylvania but, due to its marginal location, could not serve as an important factor in the country's sociopolitical life.
The prince promptly launched the reconstruction of Gyulafehérvár, but that town could not regain the power and splendour it possessed when it was the country's capital. The princely court generally resided in Ebesfalva or Fogaras. The Székely towns, notably Marosvásárhely and Csíkszereda, entered a dynamic phase of growth, but they faced strong competition from the Saxon towns. Economic life came to be d ominated by the Treasury, landowners, and a few groups of wealthy burghers and entrepreneurs.
{2-307.} In Transylvania's Saxon towns, the medieval type of closed economy was declining, and, as elsewhere, it was supplanted by a concentration of wealth and influence in the hands of a small social stratum. The number of poor people and craftsmen increased, and the middle class shrank to a small fraction of its former size. The decline of urban communities that once were the mainstay of civic rights and privileges was felt most sharply by this middle stratum. That stratum had been of significant size and wealth, but its weakness was not a wholly new development. Transylvania's towns were divided by linguistic, ethnic, and religious differences, and, within the country's middle stratum, the Saxons' privileges served to buttress feudal separatism. Wealth and local political power had become concentrated in the hands of a commercial elite; few ordinary craftsmen participated in local government or were chosen as delegates to the diet. The disintegration of the once closed and unified Saxon middle class was accelerated by the settlement in their towns of noblemen, and of merchants of diverse ethnic origins, as well as by the appearance in Saxon lands of non-Saxons, mainly Romanian villeins and shepherds. The newcomers brought diversity to the formerly homogeneous towns. Social and economic factors interacted in these changes, which foreshadowed a certain restratification of Transylvanian society.
The goldsmiths apparently held on to their social position; in 1691, their ranks at Brassó included 36 master craftsmen and 14 journeymen. Far from being simple craftsmen, these people constituted the most educated stratum of the middle class. They travelled abroad, and many were highly literate and cultured. The goldsmiths lent money to the state, received minting privileges, and became partners in the landowners' early entrepreneurial ventures. How-ever, guild records reveal some early signs of this ancient and distinguished group's coming disintegration: there are many references to fraud, to the shoddy workmanship of men whose fathers had enjoyed an unimpeachable reputation, and to emigration. There {2-308.} is also evidence that, after 1690, more and more were abandoning this great craft for other jobs, to work as scribes, managers, or rope-makers. Most of those members of the middle class who rose to public prominence were still goldsmiths or the scions of goldsmiths, although their paths diverged greatly. Brassó's most distinguished magistrate, Simon Drauth, came of a family of Saxon goldsmiths; he was ennobled by Apafi in 1670. Another goldsmith, Caspar Kreutz, was a courageous dissident known for his pursuit of truth and justice; in 1688, he led an uprising in Brassó against the local government and Habsburg troops, and was beheaded for his audacity. István Komáromi, a noble goldsmith from Gyulafehérvár who had crafted the 'seals of the Wlach church', was jailed after daring to oppose Miklós Bethlen. In contrast, János Jó, a goldsmith from Torda, became an intimate of the mighty aristocrats. The biographies of goldsmiths are replete with stories of tragic reverses, of forgery, petty despotism, going into hiding, private scandal, and suicide. Thus there is much evidence to suggest that the civic associations, the guilds, and the once-strong organizations (Bruderschaft) of journeymen were losing their capacity to preserve distinctive communities. Many goldsmiths sought refuge in their work, tried to chronicle the reasons for these unfavourable changes, and transferred their wealth to church foundations for the benefit of a broader community.
Other groups from the urban middle stratum had little social or political impact at the national level. Some of the entrepreneurs belonging to wealthy trading groups took too many risks and ended up bankrupt. Others were drawn into the struggles of mightier economic forces; such was the case with the Nagyszeben councillor Mátyás Miles, János Páter, the most successful entrepreneur of the era, and Kristóf Gotzmeister Kalmár, who lost his money in a joint enterprise with Béldi. The new stratum of craftsmen encompassed tinners, millers, braziers, joiners, watchmakers, and people working in various branches of the transport, clothing, and food industries; {2-309.} they were in competition with the closed community of Habáns and with the peasant craftsmen. By the turn of the century, more and more members of this stratum achieved some prominence and became involved in social activism. A Danish ambassador, on his way from Vienna to St. Petersburg, found suitable accommodation in the fine home of a master carpenter at Kolozsvár, Ferenc Szakál. That craftsman held a variety of municipal and church offices, and his well-written diary offers a realistic and socially sensitive picture of his times and of the vicissitudes of his peers.
Perhaps the most noteworthy stratum in the Apafi was the intelligentsia, an amalgam of diverse groups whose lifestyle and material circumstances place them in the social stratum known as the 'middle orders'. Priests, teachers, physicians, lawyers, and inspectors served the interests of the various social strata and churches according to the customs of a feudal system. Some among them rose to prominence by applying their skills and cosmopolitan education to promote universal values in a national context. The Apáczai Csere brothers, whose ancestors were villeins, are a case in point. János, a professor at Gyulafehérvár and Kolozsvár, was a pioneer of modern scholarship. His younger brother climbed the social ladder to become a civil servant in Hunyad County and a diplomat (orator) at the Porte. The distinguished cultural figures who followed in the footsteps of János Apáczai Csere include Sámuel Enyedi, Pál Csernátoni, and Márton Dézsi; Ferenc Pápai Páriz, who won distinction as a doctor as well as a physicist; the first modern printing master, the scholarly Miklós Misztótfalusi Kis; the Szeben physician Sámuel Köleséri; Mihail Halici, a Romanian from Karánsebes; and two Saxons, Johann Troester and Laurentius Toppeltinus, who appraised Transylvania's situation in a broader, international context. These men pursued their diverse careers amidst difficult conditions: they had to contend with the general hardships of the era, the disposition of more privileged groups to protect the hierarchical structure of feudalism, and, above all, with the limited opportunities in Transylvania for their talents.
| Balancing the State Budget | 2. ECONOMIC REORGANIZATION AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION | The Lower Orders: Villeins, Freemen, Miners, Craftsmen, Village Communities |