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The land and houses of the Pécs City Centre – introduction

During my employment with the art monuments of Pécs, the study of the available local historical literature was a matter of course. During the turn of the century, interest in local history was very lively. Previously, since the 18th century, József Koller, then Pál Aigl, and later József Brüsztle made their mark with valuable activities, however, these were according to their spiritual calling, especially church-related, although connected hand in hand to the secular. Around the middle of the 19th century, the work of Mihály Haas had a largely secular character; unfortunately his understanding is far behind that of his predecessors. At the end of the 19th century, a powerful work to research the past of the town and county began, which passed over into the 20th century. Because interest into the town’s past existed not only in some, but in large parts of the population, numerous publications appeared in this regard. It was very advantageous that the local press became stronger at this time and opportunity for the publication of even more studies was present. Outstanding at this time was Adolf Cserkuti, who, as municipal archivist, wrote a variety of sound and authentic articles. Béla Németh published many smaller and some larger works due to his research in the national archives. The directors Otto Szőnyi, then György Fejes published partly in the daily press and in the annals of the museums, mainly on current topics. They, particularly Szőnyi, also had independent publications. István Szentkirályi, Péter Gerece, and numerous others researched in this direction. The work of Ferenc Várady and his colleagues must be highlighted as they achieved a monograph outstanding for the time in an exemplary way. The subjects of this research were mainly events and people. But events always take place somewhere, people are always somewhere. Therefore, they have their own factual references and effects. During studies of local historical literature, exactly these problems were revealed. The locations in the publications could often not be correlated with a current place. We did not know the previous street names. Comprehensible house numbering came to be only at the end of the 19th century. Precisely because of these shortcomings, the habit continued for centuries, to name the houses after their owner or previous owner. In many cases, even the streets were named after a house owner living in the street. This naming custom was practiced even by our researchers to a significant degree, because the contemporaries that they turned to understood it well; but to us it offered no satisfactory orientation. As the heritage of Béla Németh in the archive of Baranya County shows, this problem was apparent already in his time.

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These deficiencies led me to try to make a clear identification. Because most of the events of the past are linked with the ancient centre of the town, I have limited myself to this field. So that one can access the time before the middle of the 19th century, the 1856-based land register seemed best suited, which was valid until 1895. This could be complemented very well with the official documents produced by the city, which included all city land and their most important data. The document of 1864 is to be highlighted which became necessary due to the newly introduced street and house renumbering. Previously house numbering was common according to districts, so it happened that beside a house with the number 200 was another with the number 500. The land register also follows this house numbering system. But the numbering of 1864 did not succeed well, and therefore did not last long. The issue of the numbering had to be rearranged in the mid-1880s and the result is the primarily still existing numbering system. This was introduced in 1887 in the publication edited by Béla Németh. This publication should have created the connection between the land register and the existing reality. These sources have created a sufficient basis for the identification with the additions of publications in the daily press. The history of the city did not, however, begin around 1856, therefore the above results were not satisfactory. The “regnicolaris conscription” is a very precise, conscientious work from the year 1828. Its connection with the land register of 1856 was made possible by the activity of Béla Németh. An excerpt from the land register book is in his estate. Since then, this official directory is lost, which included the change of ownership of the real estate-related protocols of the land registration and at the time took the role of the land register. The excerpt from Németh includes the land registrations between 1828 and 1850 which affected the city. With these one could trace back the identifications until 1828. Since the most important period of the town's history was the struggle to obtain the rank of a free royal city and the roots of the later events go back to this time, the continuation of the research seemed desirable. But this could not be done going back in time. One had to go back much further. This was possible with the land register of 1722 which no longer exists. Fortunately, this work was designed so that quite an authentic map of the city could be created. It was therefore obvious to use this one and with urban records be able to reach 1828, and in this way to connect to the current research. At the same time this method provided for a control, because at the 1828 meeting point the information had to be correct and thereby the identification was unambiguous.

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I tried to go back even further in time, but with little success. There were only two sources available. One was the conscription of 1687 of Vinczens-Nagy, which – being an inventory of an administrative county ravaged by war - promised no great success. In fact, only a few data were usable. The other, a better conscription, was made in 1695. Here there was the problem that in 1704 a significant part of the population fell victim due to the devastation of the Serbs, families died out, and new immigrants took their place. During the Serbian devastation, along with the Town Hall, all city records were destroyed, which reasonably would have captured the previous changes. Only since 1707 have some of the administrative records remained. Therefore we could not make a satisfactory connection between the conditions around 1695, and the land registry of 1722. Only data for utca Kossuth Lajos and utca Sallai were usable. As well, there were only a few scattered documents from other parts of the city. Above, I have outlined in short, the motivation for the research, the extension of the original program and the guidelines for the research process. However, it seems necessary - at least in short form - to publish the edited source material and at the same time to assess this. About the real estate and home sales, the city from the outset kept a registry, an urbarial directory, and land registration books. Unfortunately nothing of them has survived. For every purchase and sale of real estate, the approval of the city was necessary. The written material is extremely sketchy; luckily the approval occurred in the Council meeting so that tracks have been preserved in the logs of Council meetings. Most of the time. But because the transfer of the real estate cost money, one endeavoured to avoid this. One was forced to do this only if one wished to further sell the property. Thus, it was not a rare case if there were 2-3 transfers of properties in one day. The honour of nobility living in the city did not allow that ordinary citizens deal with their affairs, therefore only rarely do we find information concerning changes in ownership of houses of the nobles, but by going through other channels it is detectable. In addition, it seems so that the Administration was also at fault, because some traces did not appear in the logs. The biggest shortcoming is that the protocols are not fully available. So for example the logs from the period of November 1730 until January 1735, then from December 1737 until November 1739 are missing. There is also no material from 1850 to 1856. The remaining conscriptions from this period which were actually created for other purposes provide a degree of support, as a replacement, so to speak. The data logger did not proceed randomly, but in the order of the houses. If it was possible to determine this order, the records in many cases were a help. So you could, in spite of difficulties, with small defects, successfully follow the owner of the land, their dimensional changes, partitions, mergers and prove it.

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The importance of the utilized conscriptions is different in terms of this work. The first-ever conscription conducted by the city and extant was constructed in 1712. Actually this concerns the collection of the war tax. Since each house has paid, it is suitable as a compilation of houses. This record is important, not only because it is the first, but also because from it, the extensive destruction and the gaps are evident which were caused by the devastation of the Serbs in 1704. Therefore, I have marked at each property whether on it stood a house. There was some land that I could not identify, so there will be a slight inaccuracy. The conscriptions served primarily as tax collection. There was obviously a reason for this in that four quality categories were laid down, which give us an idea of the former buildings of the city. This image is pretty pathetic. Almost ninety percent of the houses are classified in category four, but this could not be in the material interests of the city. Here, the conscriptions include the years 1764 and 1774. In the conscriptions, the houses were of course given numbers; these were, however, only serial numbers, each time there were others which is why they were useless for identification. The struggle to obtain the status of a Free Royal City brought a change. For this, the material situation of the city had to be disclosed. The requirement for the purpose of real estate assets was a city map and the corresponding real estate cadaster. On behalf of the city, the geometer Antal Duplatre measured the town in 1766/1777, and made a land register. Unfortunately, the map and the land register have been lost. Copies are available only of a map of the inner-city. These copies are all exactly consistent, so that they are probably faithful replicas of the original. On this basis, it is possible to determine that the work of Duplatre had not reached the level that would have possible with the devices and methods for the survey work at the time. It is to to be assumed that the real estate cadaster also left a lot to be desired, because on 13 February 1784, the city commissioned the surveyor Ferenc Quits to make, "based on the Catastrum map and the Liber Fundalis a new register". This was created, but it has also been lost. However, a list made on the basis of it which contains the floor plan numbers of the plots, the house numbers and the name of the owner in 1786 has been preserved. Unfortunately, it contains only the garden area of the houses, otherwise no information. But even so, it is very valuable, because since 1785 the house and the land size is specified in all sales in square fathoms, which considerably facilitated the identification. But this lasted only until 1801. From then on the houses were renumbered repeatedly, because in the meantime as a result of the division of land and new construction, the house numbering had become confusing. Subsequently a new house numbering was performed in 1828, in an annual "regnicolaris conscriptio"; this was, however, not long lasting. The numbers changed at short intervals until the introduction of the land register of 1856, which was valid until 1895. More specifically, from 1864 on, dual numbering was common.

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At that time, the city had investigated the question of street names and introduced house numbering after streets instead of the hitherto existing numbering according to districts. So in the land registry old house numbers and on the next line, new numbers came into use. But since the system of house numbering from 1864 was not particularly well managed, a new numbering system was again introduced around 1885, which proved resistant and is essentially still valid. In accordance with the above review, for each site, I specify the number valid for the years 1712, 1722, 1777, 1786 (or 1794), 1828, 1856, 1864 and 1885. Regarding the areal measurements of land, the situation is as follows. Before the Duplatre survey there was no information about the area measurements of land. From then on the values provided by Duplatre were used, which were however flawed. We know of many check measurements, which differed from the specifications of the Fundualis book, often around 20-30 square fathoms. These surveys, however, in no instance led to changing the information in the Fundualis book. The following report is significant for this situation: „Diese Aufnahme ist nach dem Masstabe der authentizirten Mappe de Douplatre in Facie Loci bearbeitet worden. Zu dieser Aufzeichnung wird auch angegeben, welcher namentlich genannte Besitzer wieviel besitzt, aber wenn es sich aus dieser Aufnahme herausstellen sollte, dass das Urbarialis-Buch vom Fassionalis-Brief abweichen sollte, und beide vom Auszug der gegenwärtigen Landvermessung, dann fragt sich, welche zu verwenden ist.“ ["This recording has been edited according to the measurements of the authenticated map of de Douplatre. In this record is also noted which named owner possesses how much, but if it should emerge from this recording, that the Urbarialis book should deviate from the tax list letter, and both from the current land surveying then it must be asked which is to be used."] This occurred on May 12, 1826. It can be inferred that the information of the area measurements is unusable. This was also not possible following the land register of 1856, because this is characterised not only that there are no maps, but also no area measurements, only the area measurements of the gardens existing at the time, whose values in a wondrous way end in zero in all cases. An important consideration when assessing the surveys is that on each property a house stood. If for some reason a vacant lot was noted, then this is always specified separately. The name published in the collection is usually, but not always, the name of the owner. It may also be the name of the second husband of the widow of the landowner, or in a similar way, the name of a son-in-law who is being sustained by the family. This is evident at a later sale, when the second husband or the son-in-law does not appear, but the widow or the maiden name of the heiress. When changes in ownership occurred, the change of title was usually specified, the name of the seller and of the buyer, and especially earlier, their profession. The information is provided whether it is for vacant or cultivated land. The neighbors and the price is specified. In a period in which the house numbering was introduced, the house number and area are indicated but not the names of neighbors. In many cases, other information can appear other than the aforementioned. For reasons of size, it was impossible to present the source material in its entirety. Quite apart from that, up to the mid-19th century mostly German or Latin was used. Referring to the original would have complicated the usage.

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I was therefore anxious to publish in all cases the names of the seller and the buyer, also the subject matter of the contract, the profession of the business partners, the area measurements of the land, and the purchase price, but all this in the most succinct formulation. In all cases I specify the source, so that if someone should require further information, they should be able to try this. About information from the logs of Council meetings there is little hope. If however separate pieces of files, documents, or the daily press were used as a source, then an attempt is to be recommended. In many cases, it happened that the found information could be expanded upon from a parallel source. In such a case, I do not name the parallel source, but I do mark the notable words in brackets in the relevant place. The information in brackets is therefore always authentic. I always put the foreign language information in Hungarian translation. More specifically, in mutatis compact translation. Only rarely do I quote one or another part. Surnames I tried to spell accurately, but Christian names, if possible, in their current Hungarian form. This meant that, especially in the 18th century, the same person had several, often hardly comparable names. But I did not consider that as a sufficient reason to select from these name variants, a single, constant family name as a proxy. This occurs especially with the Slavs in the time before Emperor Joseph; there are also many similar cases for others. A special category is when, at the beginning of the 18th century, in many cases, the surname is replaced by the profession, or, more often the place of origin is used. It happens that I quote Hungarian sources literally, with Hungarian translations I use the current orthographic rules. Except in the above mentioned main sources, there is numerous evidence of other origins. Such are the authentic footage of the city archives, the documents and protocols of the Episcopal archive and the archive of the cathedral chapter, in some cases also the provincial archives. In the research and translation of this mostly Latin material, Ede Petrovich, Archivist of the cathedral chapter, was a very great help to me. In processing the material I always used maps. It necessarily follows that I also did this with regard to the formulation of the maps. The user is thus forced to follow the sometimes perhaps too compact mediated changes on the map, because only in this way do they become clear. This purpose is served by the attached map of the states of 1722 and 1960. In many cases, the use of the Duplatre map of 1777 and the cadastral map of 1865 can be advantageous. The research material shows only those changes which occurred until 1895, because that is the past. Changes which occurred since that time are in the land register which was in force then and is still used today, which is the present. Consequently, I treat the land divided since then as a unit, though I show the facts of the division with the appearance of the house numbering.

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However, the situation in terms of the residential buildings is different. My goal was, where possible, to register all residential and public buildings built before 1945 and still-standing with their most important data, such as date of the establishment, the builder, the architect, the producer, and the nature of the building. However, the relevant results are rather poor. The reason is the lack of source material. Until the middle of the last century no permission was needed for the project, this was governed by fire regulations at most. The first step to clean up the problem was that in 1853 the city initiated a committee for supervision of building beautification, which dealt mainly with questions of urban development. When someone filed a construction project, they went to the spot and decided on the street front. Later, however, its scope was extended. For example, the committee ensured that gutter passages stemming from the middle ages be prohibited at the construction of the street front with terraced houses. Or he obligated the builders to construct a firewall for every building. But the minutes of the committee are lost, therefore only sketchy details are available about construction during its term of office. The first building code appeared in force in 1873, its practical application, however, was delayed for years. Only a few documents of construction were to be found, and these were very incomplete. As can be seen from the registers a significant proportion was rejected, another part was lost. Therefore, despite intensive support of the archivists only a fraction of the development of buildings managed to be captured. The daily press also gave valuable assistance because it often reported on construction. I have used this of course. Sometimes one had to settle for the entries in the registers, for example: building material of XY. These were, however, not proof of the building of a new house or a significant change, but the timing and style of the building could provide a certain orientation. As a result of what is shown here, perhaps only half of the homes built after the regulation can be more or less clarified. If we take into consideration the original appearance of the city and that behind the modern wall plaster of a substantial part of the buildings hide ancient walls, one must accept that the number of homes with unknown past remains very high. The individual plots of land and houses are presented according to the house numbering of 1960. Also, because individual house numbers have since changed and will change in the future, it seemed necessary to arrange this question consistant with time. The house numbering I have used is essentially identical to that appearing in the cadastral maps of the 1960s. Where there are variations, however, the number on the map follows the number used by me. So, the cadastral map valid for a long time can guarantee uniqueness. There are still some questions to clarify regarding the house numbering. It had already been mentioned that before the numbering of 1885, many difficulties had arisen because no new numbers were available when building new homes or when dividing properties. Therefore, it was necessary to create new house numbers by using “1/2” in between the old numbers.

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There were also 7/8 numbers. They tried to put a stop to this in 1885, as quite a few sites received several numbers. So a property fronting on two lanes regardless of whether or not there were houses on it was numbered twice. A similar procedure was followed with corner plots. That is, the same land could have two house numbers. By treating the data of each site under only one house number and showing the other house numbers of the same property, gaps would result in ongoing house numbering of the other streets. A similar problem can occur even after the division of land after 1885. For this reason I point out in these places where the information for the site can be found. This actually does not belong to the subject of real estate research, if however in the course of the research notable different information related to the house appears, I insert this in the chronology inserted though it might not be exhaustive. For all information, the source is specified. Since the full name of the sources is necessarily large, I used abbreviations. Abbreviations should where possible stem from the initial letters of the important words. The abbreviation of Tanácsülési jegyzőkönyv is TJ [Protocol of the Council]. That of the newspaper Pécsi Figyelő [Pécs Observer] PF. If there is an article published in a study under the name of the author, then the first two letters of the acronym are the initials of the author. The work with the title of "A régi jezsuita kollégium háztelke" was given the acronym CAJ [The home land of the former Jesuit College] by Adolf Cserkuti. The abbreviations I used are put in alphabetical order, along with the full equivalents. This list of abbreviations contains an important part of the bibliography of local history, therefore it is of help for people locally. In this work I did not concern myself with the streets, with the episcopal castle and the inner-city church. I have treated the issue of the streets of the city centre in a separate study; the episcopal castle and the inner-city church as independent units of differing development can be the subject only of independent studies. A question to be solved was in what form to present the collected enormous material. I did not know of another such work, no exemplary model was available. Most practicable seemed to be a strict adherence to an alphabetical order, the house numbering and chronological sequence. This is what I have done. I must also refer to an apparent contradictory fact. It can happen that I put two non-matching claims in connection with the same facts resulting from different sources. My task for this work was not to criticize the sources but to present the data. Therefore, the user must decide what information he considers to be authentic. Finally, an observation. No matter how much extensive material I have researched with the utmost care, it is likely that later much new data will come to the fore. Since this is necessarily the case with all research and therefore the perfect conclusion of research is possible only in infinity, I am forced to provide the results of my work to the interested parties with all their defects and certainly with hidden errors.

József Madas