The Geobotany of Medieval Hungary: a Preliminary Report 

The Geobotany of Medieval Hungary:
a Preliminary Report
Andras Grynaeus and Tamas Grynaeus (Budapest)
Introduction
Old Hungarian plant identification is usually traced back to the
Herbarium of Peter Melius Juhasz (1578, Kolozsvar; today Cluj-Napoca,
Romania) and to the Stirpium nomenc/ator pannonicus of Carolus Clusius
(1583, Nemetujvar; today Güssing, Austria). Earlier, easily identifiable data can
be gleaned from the Hungarian marginal notes of the illustrated Casanate Corvina
(1470-1500) and some early herbals, such as the Ortus sanitatis (􀁟1525),
the Herbolarium ( 1 500-1 540), or the exemplars with commentaries of L.
Fuchsius (sixteenth century) and Dorstenius (sixteenth-seventeenth centuries). 1
Earlier, but more uncertain data, identified only by name, can be found in the
abundant p1ant-name material of the first dictionaries (Dictionary of Beszterce,
around 1395; Dictionary of Schlägl, around 1405; Dictionary of Sopron, around
1435; etc.) and in the early Hungarian glosses?
The plant-name vocabulary of our medieval charters is much earlier and
richer. Szamota analysed the early Hungarian plant names berkenye (service),
fozegy (willow), kOris (ash), körtvely (pear), mogyor6 (hazel), nyir (birch), som
(comel) and szil (elm) from the foundation charter of the Tihany Abbey (1055).3
The data of the Oklevelsz6tar (Charter dictionary) have no annotations on their
origins (place);4 the data published in the different charter collections (e. g., B.
1 Tamäs Grynaeus and J6zsefPapp, „Regi rnagyar (gy6gy)növenynevek, 15.-17. szäzad“ [Old
hungarian (rnedical) plant names, fifteenth-seventeenth centuries], Communicationes Historiae
Artis Medicinae, 1977, 3 1 -49.
2 See Regi magyar glosszarium (Dictionary ofOld Hungarian glosses), eds. Jolän Bemir and
Sändor Käroly (Budapest: Akaderniai Kiad6, 1984).
3 lstvän Szarnota, „A tihanyi apätsäg I 055-iki alapit6levele“ (The foundation charter of
Tihany Abbey frorn 1 055), Nyelvtudomanyi Közlemenyek, 25 (1895), 129.
4 Magyar oklevel-sz6tar (Hungarian charter dictionary), eds. lstvän Szarnota and Gyula Zolnai
(Budapest: Horänszky, 1902-1906, reprint, 1984).
78
Ila, Gy. Györffy, I. Bakäcs, etc.5) are not only rich sources of medieval popular
plant knowledge, but, because they are locatable, enable conclusions on
medieval geobotany as weiL The data series can be enlarged by the data of
further charter collections, such as the charters on forestry published by Karoly
Tagänyi, or the volumes of the charters from the Angevin time or of King
Sigismun family name > place name; or plant name
> p/ace name > family name. The exact meaning of the contemporary
word is unknown here as weiL
Plant remains found in arcbaeological excavations can be well localised
in space (although an important condition, namely that the plant be native ofthe
closest area of the site, is not always fulfilled). These remains may be dated
with some restrictions and their botanical identification is possible, too. However,
we do not know what they were called by their contemporary users. Therefore,
these two types of data – archeobotanical remains and plant names –
complement each other.
Benefits and difficulties of tbe periodisation of the material
We bave divided the given period into centuries in order to distinguish
the constant and the changing elements and also in order to make more precise
conclusions. Although a great part of our material would allow more exact
81
dating – as one can see in Iist 1 -, and periodisation according to centuries is
somewhat formal since it does not at all correspond to historical, economic, or
social events, we prefer to retain this type of periodisation. The reasons for our
decision are the following:
1) This fits the conventions of history best.
2) The age of so:me data cannot be defined more precisely, therefore we
would have to omit them.
3) The toponyms may refer to a much earlier time or situation. „The
difficulty lies in the fact that a toponym does not appear at the moment
of its birth, but in some cases only decades or centuries later,
usually when a legal act or a change in the legal situation worth
recording happened in the geographical area of the place name. . . .
Between 866 and 1002, i. e. for more than a whole century we d o not
know any place name in the Carpathian Basin, . . . and our knowledge
concerning the eleventh and twelfth centuries is also very limited
because of the well-known Iack of written sources.“16 Here, we have to
mention that Makkay, following the opinion of Melich, 1 7 considers
the place names Körös, Gyertyamos, Kökenyer – among others –
Ioan-words from the time before 895, i. e. from the Late Avar Period.
As we did not want to deal with the much-debated questions of the Hungarian
conquest period, we used the term „Middle Ages in Hungary“ in a
broader sense. We have included archaeological data from the 9th century as
weil as written evidence from the sixteenth, or even from the seventeenth century,
for instance in the case of rare plants. However, the overwhelming majority
of our material remains in the period described above, i. e. between 1001 and
1 526.
This uncertainty in the age does not concern the plants appearing in the
perambulations, although an older landmark-tree can remain at its place for 50,
100 or 150 years.
Methods
A data base was developed18 (Iist 1), following the order of the counties
according to Györffy. From this database one can sort the entries by county or a
!arger region, by century or by plant species. One can also sort the them by
origin, i. e. place name, linguistic aspects (e. g., from perambulation), archaeological
find identified to species, or persons‘ names. We included data originat-
16 Gyula Krist6, „Szempontok korai helyneveink törteneti tipologiäjähoz“ (Typology of our
early toponyms), Acta Univ. Szegediensis de Attila Jozsef nominata, Acta Historica, 55
(1976), 5, 7.
17 Jänos Makkay, A magyarsag keltezese (Dating of the Hungarian people) (Budapest: author,
1993), 64.
1 8 With the help ofWindows-Excel.
82
ing from the same place in different centuries. However, we have to stress that
the appearance of a data item in a given time does not mean that the plant in
question was not a native of the region before and after. The inverse is also true:
the absence of data concerning a plant in a given period does not mean that it
was not native there, because the written records as weil as the archaeological
excavations are rather aceidentat In other words: the data must not be
evaluated as regressive and progressive, positive or negative evidence.
· On the basis of the data series different maps were drawn.19 As examples,
we give the data on three species (grape, oak, and beech) from the eleventb to
the sixteentb centuries, originating from the counties analysed up to the present,
and we summarise tbe questions raised by these data.
Conclusions and questions
At present, the database consists of 3680 items that represent 188 different
plant names. This quantity of data is statistically !arge enough to allow
some modest conclusions concerning tbe medieval geobotany of the region
investigated:
Grape: In her article of 1980, Melinda Egetö outlined the vineyard
regions by means of 56 toponyms from the whole of medieval Hungary. 20 Our
preliminary 405 items (map 2-6) presented here allow us much more reliable
conclusions. It is important to stress that our further work will process tbe data
of several counties (e.g. Veszprem, Zala) where viticulture played an important
role in agriculture.
Even on the basis of our present data, we can argue that grapes do not
demoostrate the thesis of Prinz and Teleki, repeated consistently ever since, of
the „gradual spreading towards the north“ of viticulture. Contrary to this, even
the few eleventh century data draw the sarne northern border as later records. It
is just the increasing of the area of cultivation that can be observed. Some
regions, such as the valley of the Hernad, were planted with grapes from the
thirteenth century onwards.
We hope that our complete data base concerning vineyard areas will
allow us to decide, whether M. Belenyesi21 or M. Egetö is right in this debate.
The latter author states that in the Arpadian Period viticulture was restricted to
the vicinity of rivers, while hills and lower slopes of mountains were brought
into cultivation only later.
19 With the help of AUTOCAD and a program developed at the Archaeological Institute of the
Eötvös Loränd University, Budapest. We are greatly indebted to Baläzs Holl for his indispensable
help.
20 Melinda Egetö, “Közepkori szölömüvelesünk kerdesehez“ (On the question of medieval
wine culture in Hungary), Ethnographia, 9 1 (1980), 53-78.
21 Märta Belenyesi, „Szölö es gyümölcstermesztesünk a XIV. szäzdban“ (Vine- and fruitcultivation
in the fourteenth century), Neprajzi Ertesitö, 37 (1955), 1 1 -28.
83
Oak: The data on oak (477 items) show that the range of this genus
covered the whole Carpathian Basin (map 7). The possibility of identification of
different oak species may offer new points of view for the long debate on the
interpretation of oak data ( see the works of Camillo Reute?2):
– Ilex appears often (but not always) near rivers, i. e. on wetlands.
– The range of ‚haraszt ‚ (another oak species) is not identical with the
area of the other oak names, it appears even in places where other oak
species do not occur.
Beech: Somogyi, GyörffY, and Z6lyomi place the lower border of beech
much farther to the north than our data and the geobotanical map of Z6lyomi
( 1 936)23 show. Moreover, according to the plant name data (8 1 items – map 8)
we find – surprisingly enough – small beech spots in Borsod county, near the
Tisza River (Nemesbikk, in the region of Palkonya), and at several places on the
Great Hungarian Plain. If the plant called „bükk“ (beech) in the sources is
identical with Fagus silvatica, the actual range of this tree (near the Matra
Mountains) differs considerably from what we have found for the Middle Ages.
This astonishing difference awaits explanation. In the higher mountain areas,
the range of beech according to our data and its recent appearance approximate
each other.
We hope that once our work is completed it will be a useful tool for
historians to reconstruct and understand the periods of Hungary’s earlier history.
22 Camillo Reuter, „Surkuscher“ (an Old Hungarian oak name), Magyar nyelvor, 88 ( 1 964),
1 98-200; idem, “Tö1gy es haraszt“ (two 01d Hungarian oak names), Magyar Nyelv, 6 1
( 1 965), 80-89; idem, „Haraszttöl es Tölharaszt“ (two Old Hungarian oak names), Magyar
Nyelv, 65 ( 1 969), 76-79; idem, „Adatok a regi magyar fa- es erdönevek ismeretehez“ (Data
on the knowledge of Old Hungarian tree- and woodland-names), in Az erdogazdalkodds
törtenete Magyarorszagon (The history of forestry in Hungary), ed. Szabolcsne Kolossvary
(Budapest: Akademiai Kiad6, 1975), 80-87.
23 Rezsö So6, Zoltan Hargitai, and Kälmän Keresztes, „Europa fl6ra es vegetäci6terkepe“
(Geobotanical map of Europe), Acta Sei. Mathem. Natural. Univ. Francisco-Josephina, 22
(1 944), 1 – 1 5. Tibor Hortobägyi and Sirnon Tibor, Növenyfoldrajz, tarsuldstan es ökol6gia
(Geobotany, phytocenology and ecology) (Budapest: Tankönyvkiad6, 1991).
84
00
V.
\\
p 5􀄋 ·􀁮 km
– Analysed counties
􀊬 Counties whose analysis is in progress
Map I: The analysed counties of Hungary
!.Dngitude, l..a tiwde, !.Dng.EOTR • Lat. EOTR • PLANT PLANTNAME Locolity Date f. DatcL Charttr’s d text•• COUNTY SOURCE, <g«e• degr<e• Ccntu.ry NAME (spu:ia) vol., p.
(genus)
21,310 48,610 13 n)ir Csony 1255 a.popoJiea Abauj Gyö.l.75 544469,145 78878,320 14 nlzsa DobS%11 1329 Rusast.n. Abauj Gyo.l.78 21.250 48,610 13 eger Enyieke 1267 Elli“Spotolec 1292 bordtzsma Abouj Gyö.l.87 0\
805919,475 332136,080 14 ? Gib;lrt 1316 ru􀅺um Abauj Gyö.l.87 808226,651 324282,470 13 ? Golop 1258 per m-s q.dicitur Scomuch osofa Abauj Gyö.l.88 808226,65 I 324282,470 13 csere.sznye Golop 1258 a. merasi (!) Abauj Gyo.t88 808226,651 324282,470 13 gyümölcsbly Golop 1258 a. gymutchen Abauj Gyo.l.88 808226,651 324282,470 13 rckertye Golop 1258 n:quetiarbuk.ur Abauj Gyo.l.88 808226,651 324282,470 13 som Golop 1258 Scomuch bn. Abauj Gyö.l.88 814016,780 35081 1 ,830 1 3 szolo Gönc 1270 bordtzsma Abauj Gyö.l.89
21,290 48,590 13 körtc Gönyu 1290 a.piri Abauj Gyö.1.90
21,290 48,S90 13 tölgy quetCUS Gönyu 1290 a.querci Abauj Gyö.l.90 21,100 48,730 14 körtc Hily6 1332 Konhweleshyglt,Kurthwelusheyglt Abauj Gyö.l.91
20,980 48,SSO hn 14 �er Jänok 1323 a.egurfa Abauj Gyö.l.95 20,980 48,550 14 tölgy itex J!nok 1323 a.ilcx Abauj Gy6.1.95-96
• Geographical Coordinates of localities of present Hungary are given in EOTR codcs (uniform national space.-infonnatical system).
Other coordinares are given in degrecs.
•• hn = loponyms szn= personal names
List l : Example of the entries into the data base
00
-I
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 Kilometers
Map 2: Vineyards, all data (eleventh-fifteenth centuries)
from the analysed counties
-t�
00
00
0 1 00 200 300 400 500 600 Kilometers
Map 3: Vineyards, e\eventh century
89
\0
0
_ •vv 􀇦uv 􀊫w 400 500 600 Kllometers
Map 5: Vineyards, thirteenth century
􀀅–􀀆
\
\D
Map 6: Vineyards, fourteenth century
10
N
Map 7: Oak, all data (eleventh-fifteenth centuries)
from the analysed counties
kocs nytalan
magyal
qucrcus
\0
….,
Map 8: Beech, all data (eleventh-fifteenth centuries)
from the analysed counties
MEDIUM AEVUM
QUOTIDIANUM
44
KREMS 2001
HERAUSGEGEBEN
VON GERHARD JARITZ
GEDRUCKT MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG DERKULTURABTEILUNG
DES AMTES DER NIEDERÖSTERREICHISC HEN LANDESREGIERUNG
niederästerreich kultur
Titelgraphik: Stephan J. Tramer
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung
der materiellen Kultur des Mittelalters, Körnermarkt 13, A-3500
Krems, Österreich. Für den Inhalt verantwortlich zeichnen die Autoren,
ohne deren ausdrückliche Zustimmung jeglicher Nachdruck, auch in
Auszügen, nicht gestattet ist. – Druck: KOPITU Ges. m. b. H., Wiedner
Hauptstraße 8-10, A-1050 Wien.
Inhalt
From the Latrine, through the Woods, and into the Lake:
Ecologica/ Sampies from Medieval East-Central Europe
An Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………… 5
ÜJie Sillasoo, Ecology and Food Consumption ofLate Medieval Tartu,
Estonia (14th-15th Centuries) ……………………………………………………………. 6
Peter Szab6, “There Is Hope for a Tree“: Pollarding in Hungary ………………… 41
Andrea Kiss, Hydrology and Environment in the Southern Basin
ofLake Fertö/Neusiedler Lake in the Late Middle Ages …………………… 61
Andräs Grynaeus and Tamäs Grynaeus, The Geobotany of Medieval Hungary:
a Preliminary Report ……………………………………………………………………. 78
Buchbesprechungen ………………………………………………………………………………. 94
From the Latrine, through the Woods, and into the Lake:
Ecological Sampies from Medieval East-Central Europe
An Introduction
Recycling is nowadays a decisive issue in ecology. This holds true for
historical ecology in East-Central Europe as weil, albeit in a very different sense.
Whereas reusing old material is doubtlessly valuable in environmental protection,
the same is rather questionable, if the old material comprises historical sources. The
reason to put tagether and present the following four essays was to help, as far as
the authors could, recycling be back where it truly belongs.
Historical ecology is a well-established discipline in Western Europe. In
East-Central Europe, much progress has been made recently, and now many
scholarly publications appear on the subject. In other words, the methodology is
understood and applied. However, it is only in exceptional cases, such as the
climatology research in Brno, Czech Republic, or the excavations of the medieval
royal garden at Visegrad, Hungary that the methods are applied on sources, be them
written or archaeological that are freshly gathered for the topic. Historical ecology
is an essentially quantitative field of research. Before the writing process commences,
a !arge amount of data must be collected. Furthennore, the type of data we
use is atypical for fonner research. A chance mention of heavy rains in a charter, or
pieces of seeds in a Iatrine did not use to be considered significant. This may weil
be true if they stand alone; but alt occurrences of heavy rains for a hundred years,
or a/1 plant remains in a Iatrine carry otherwise unreachable information. The task,
then, is twofold: we have to collect as much data as we can, and we have to Iook
for the type of data that has not yet been searched for.
Many leamed articles on the historical ecology ofEast-Central Europe fail to
perform this task. They take what was published before and examine it from a
different angle, which, although an inevitable step, does not suffice alone.
Tbe connection between the otherwise rather diverse essays presented here is
that they all try to analyse sources hitherto unexplored. We hope that we live up to
the requirement of introducing essentially new data to the common knowledge.
Whether our analyses may also stand the test of time is for the reader to decide.
Feter Szabo (Budapest)
5