The royal forests of the Árpáds in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (original) (raw)
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SILVA BEREG A ROYAL FOREST IN MEDIEVAL HUNGARY (English version)
The author of this study is concerned with researching the Bereg royal estate, which formed part of the frontier regions of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. In the 11th century Bereg belonged to the great frontier county of Boržava, but formed an independent territory within it. A separate county organization under noble control was established in it only later. Its centre was a royal manor, where the kings of Hungary settled people of German origin in the first half of the 13th century. Its importance mainly lay in the fact that it was a dynastic property of the House of Arpád at least from the 11th century. It was a part of the Carpathian mountains dominated by forests. Members of the Arpád dynasty often went there to hunt. In Western Europe such properties were known as forestes and the prerogatives of the monarch prevailed there. It is very probable that forest properties of the dynasty including Bereg were also protected by special rights of the monarch in the Kingdom of Hungary. According to all the evidence, Bereg was a royal forest where members of the Arpád dynasty hunted, and it had an internal organization similar to that known from Western Europe.
Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 2023
The former royal forests of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania present a unique example of centuries-old protection. Based on archival documents and published literature, we analyzed the evolution of the management and protection system of Białowieża Forest in the fourteenth-eighteenth century. The timeframe of our analysis (1386-1795) covers the period of the union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Białowieża Forest (BF, now on the borderland of Poland and Belarus) has been the most prominent example of successful long-term protection efforts. The results present: (1) the evolution of the legal status of BF in 1386-1795, (2) the role this woodland played for the monarchs, (3) the goals of protecting BF's resources, (4) types of threats to the forest environment and methods of counteracting risks and enforcing protection, and (5) the development of the hunting and forest personnel of BF and their duties. The egalitarian character and horizontal structure of that personnel, which existed since the fourteenth century (beaters), by the years 1765-1795 developed into a five-level, hierarchical structure (beaters, rangers, guards, subordinate foresters, and a forester), with differentiated tasks and a high complexity of responsibilities and duties.
Conservation and hunting: Białowieża Forest in the time of kings
2005
The Białowieża Forest survived thanks to its status of a royal property and special protection over centuries. This last fragment of European primeval forests is not only a natural heritage but also a cultural legacy from our forefathers. This book is based on results of the most recent research in the history of the Forest's natural environment. It reveals some events from the old times, such as: royal hunts, fate of the hunting manors in Bialowieża, as well as the ups and downs of European bison protective initiatives. It shows various efforts and how effective they were to come to a compromise between protecting the nature and taking advantage of it.
Despite the lack of direct documentary evidence, the paper points to diff erent possibilities in the historical environmental research in our historiography. It presents certain methodological steps which could, along with comparative approach, yield some new results in the historical knowledge of the Middle Ages. Th e starting point would be to reconsider the chronological boundaries of the research, which, by all its issues, belongs to the 'long durée' processes and must be treated as such. Both historical and anthropological evidence are used in order to reconstruct the traditional and innovative uses of woods in everyday life and industrial production.
Povijesni prilozi, 2024
The text focuses on the relationship among the medieval castle, its social background and the careers of castle officials. It is based on present archontological research as well as prosopography approaches. Using the example of six castles in the regions of Zvolen/Zólyom and Tekov/Bars County in the late Middle Ages, it is possible to define the circle of officials of higher and middle degree: captains, castellans and stewards. During 1402 – 1526, this heterogeneous group consisted of approximately 108 persons. About a quarter of them were castle officials coming from the relevant castle estate or county, as well as officials of foreign origin settled during their service in the given region. Almost three quarters of the officials had not shown any connection with their home region. The post of castellan had been held mostly by poor landowners and occasionally by noble burghers. The office of the steward for which the designation provisor curiae had also been used, had not required a noble title and was also held by subjects. The establishment of officials during their service at the place of work had taken place through the acquisition of property. Officials who had or had been creating a property background in the region had worked in their positions longer, including multi-generational service. On the contrary, officials had shown the fluctuation without ties to the place of work.
This paper presents the changes in the concept of feudalism from the end of the eighteenth century to the present day in both general and Hungarian medieval research. The author notes that the concept of feudalism has been losing ground for decades in general medieval research. The system which was previously thought to be feudalism never really took root Hungary, but certain phenomena close to the European standard can be recognized: praedium, nobiles praediales, etc. The second part of the study examines the appearance of honour (honor) in Hungary, the heyday of which, according to the renowned Hungarian historian Pál Engel, was during the Angevin period. The final part of the study deals in detail with the possible patterns and antecedents of the honour system in the Árpádian period.
Descriptions of the Forests of Slavonia in Travelogues of the Early Modern Age
Historical Studies on Central Europe
Forest history is a relatively new discipline in Croatian historiography. The scale ofexploitation remains the main point of interest for scholars dealing with forest history. Nevertheless,recent scholarship has turned scholarly interest towards another question: Can exploitation (timberconsumption) be the only criterion for the anthropization of forests? The present paper analyzesthree travelogues from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and compares them withquantitative data originating from various historical sources. It shows how travelogues do not onlyoffer a vivid description of a land and its inhabitants but can also be used as a valuable confirmationof historical conclusions based on quantitative historical data. Even more, travelogues may providesome specific data not available elsewhere. In this case, three travelogues (Atanazije Jurjević, OsmanAga of Timişoara/Temesvár, and Friedrich Wilhelm von Taube) give a broader understanding of theanthropization of forests in ...
Multidimensional tracking and consequences of the usage of forest products in Early Modern Poland
The quantification of human impacts on past forest ecosystems becomes more challenging as one goes deeper into the past. This is primarily due to a scarcity of appropriate source material. It is well known that the inclusion of the Polish lands in the zone of economic ties with Western Europe at the end of the 15th century enabled intensive export of cereal and forest products. In this paper, we have used place names established before 1600 to demonstrate how ancient forests were exploited. By analyzing the naming material, we distinguished three basic types of names related to logging, industrial production, and beekeeping. In addition, we have included several theoretical considerations related to the environmental consequences of forest exploitation. Thus, our article provides a strong basis for further research into the environmental effects of past landscape changes.
Historica , 2023
Due to its role in transforming landscapes, and because of its knowledge production that took place in a transnational space, forestry is a salient aspect of environmental history globally. Yet, the way forestry management practices evolved in the eastern part of Austria-Hungary has a meagre presence in the literature of environmental history or in the study of empires. This paper begins with outlining routes of circulation of knowledge of forestry within the Habsburg Empire. It emphasises the role of the Academy (later College) of Forestry and Mining at Banská Štiavnica (Selmecbánya in Hungarian) but does not ignore the role of other actors outside that education institution. Then, the paper turns to how the history of professionalization of forestry and the nascent legal notions related to land contributed to the changes of the landscape in the Kingdom of Hungary in the last decades of the 19 th century. The third section discusses the importance of the effort by the community of Hungarian foresters to create a Hungarian professional language.