Town and Countryside in early modern Hungary The Case of Sopron, c. 1500-1800

The town of Sopron (Ödenburg) is situated near the western border of Hungary at the junction of major routes of commerce, no further than 70 km from Vienna. As early as in 1291 the town had become a chartered town or free royal town, which meant the most fully-fledged municipial autonomy in this period. The town was subordinated only to the king and could represent itself in parliament from 1445. The surrounding seigniorial towns and villages often lodged an appeal with the Town Court due to its wide legal autonomy. The inhabitants of seigniorial towns and the villagers could have been under the necessity of going to the town, and the legal proceedings they experienced in Sopron may have meant a model pattern for them. The seigniorial town (oppidum) is a settlement under the landlord's authority, with limited legal privileges, concentrated mostly on agricultural production and on the exchange of products of its immediate hinterland. Sopron as a county town was gradually becoming significant during the early modern period. The county (megye) was not only the unit of administration in Hungary, but that of the autonomy of nobility, too. The importance of Sopron as a county town attracted many noblemen dwelling in Sopron county to the town. The county was one of the most densely populated in the 15-18th c., at the beginning of the 18th c., for example, the density was 32 person/km2 and it rose more than 40 p/km2 by the end of the century. The population of Sopron was approximately 3500-3700 in the middle of the 15th c., and due to the decline during the later decades some 3000 persons lived in the town in the early 16th c. According to the first national census the population of Sopron was 12600 in 1784-87. These data place Sopron at the high level of Hungarian urban hierarchy in this period. This paper will explore two significant aspects of the relation between the town and its countryside: the problems of mutual economic dependence and the role of Sopron as a centre of culture.

The roots of "Western European societal evolution". A concept of Europe by Jenő Szűcs

Jenő Szűcs wrote his essay entitled Sketch on the three regions of Europe in the early 1980s in Hungary. During these years, a historically well-argued opinion emphasising a substantial difference between Central European and Eastern European societies was warmly received in various circles of the political opposition. In a wider European perspective Szűcs used the old “liberty topos” which claims that the history of Europe is no other than the fulfillment of liberty. In his Sketch, Szűcs does not only concentrate on questions concerning the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Yet it is this stream of thought which brought a new perspective to explaining European history. His picture of the Middle Ages represents well that there is a way to integrate all typical Western motifs of post-war self-definition into a single theory. Mainly, the “liberty motif”, as a sign of “Europeanism” – in the interpretation of Bibó’s concept, Anglo-saxon Marxists and Weber’s social theory –, developed from medieval concepts of state and society and from an analysis of economic and social structures. Szűcs’s historical aspect was a typical intellectual product of the 1980s: this was the time when a few Central European historians started to outline non-Marxist aspects of social theory and categories of modernisation theories, but concealing them with Marxist terminology.

The roots of "Western European societal evolution"

Jenő Szűcs wrote his essay entitled Sketch on the three regions of Europe in the early 1980s in Hungary. During these years, a historically well-argued opinion emphasising a substantial difference between Central European and Eastern European societies was warmly received in various circles of the political opposition. In a wider European perspective Szűcs used the old “liberty topos” which claims that the history of Europe is no other than the fulfillment of liberty. In his Sketch, Szűcs does not only concentrate on questions concerning the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Yet it is this stream of thought which brought a new perspective to explaining European history. His picture of the Middle Ages represents well that there is a way to integrate all typical Western motifs of post-war self-definition into a single theory. Mainly, the “liberty motif”, as a sign of “Europeanism” – in the interpretation of Bibó’s concept, Anglo-saxon Marxists and Weber’s social theory –, developed from medieval concepts of state and society and from an analysis of economic and social structures. Szűcs’s historical aspect was a typical intellectual product of the 1980s: this was the time when a few Central European historians started to outline non-Marxist aspects of social theory and categories of modernisation theories, but concealing them with Marxist terminology.