Bringing the Law Back In: Land, Law and the Hungarian Peasantry before 1848

• Published in: The Slavonic and East European review (1928) 2013-07, Vol.91 (3), p.511-534
• Main Author: Gray, Robert W
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 19th century; Agricultural land; Customary law; Customs; Diet; Effectiveness; Freedom; History; Hungary; Land; Land clearing; Land surveying; Land use; Language and culture; Law; Law reform; Legal status; Legislation; Linguistics; Nineteenth Century; Peasant class; Peasantry; Peasants; Property rights; Reform; Revolutions; Right; Rights; Rural Areas; Rural Conditions; Sociolinguistics and ethnolinguistics; Villages
• ISSN: 0037-6795; 2222-4327
• DOI: 10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.91.3.0511

This article investigates the legal position of the peasantry in Hungary prior to their emancipation during the revolution of 1848. It uses earlier legal texts, principally Stephen Werbőczy'sTripartitumof 1517 and Maria Theresa'sUrbariumof 1767, to explore the nature of peasant rights to the land they farmed and the terms of their relations with their lords. In doing so, it argues that the Hungarian peasantry did not fall under a harsh form of ‘serfdom’, as has previously been supposed, but rather enjoyed strong rights protected by various and complex customary arrangements, a fact that severely limited the effectiveness of Maria Theresa's attempts to reform rural conditions. The reformers of the nineteenth century, in contrast, were more attuned to the particularities of Hungarian customary law and thus framed their arguments for reform in reference to existing local customs.