A River Between Worlds: Environment, Society and War Along the River Raab/Rába (c. 1600–1660)

zbirka48

Tracing flood histories is one example for the challenges of writing

environmental histories in Central Europe. Two quite different sets of skills are

needed. One set is the historian’s craft. The historian works at making sense of

sources, constructing a compelling narrative from chaotic facts, tracing human

appreciation of the Danube, human uses of the Danube, human interventions

into the Danube … . The skills of the landscape ecologist, the hydrologist, the

historical geographer, the geomorphologist and many other natural scientists

are needed for the second building block. We need reconstructions of past

riverine landscapes, ecosystems, of paleo-meanders and we need a chronology

to answer questions of cause and effect – what was first, the intervention or

the problem? Without knowing about the substrate of perceptions of historical

actors, we cannot evaluate their perceptions for our narrative. How does the river

the newspapers are talking about actually look like? Very different from how we

perceive it today. Both are necessary, none is more important, both skills are of

equal importance for an environmental history of the Danube River Basin.

(Verena Winiwarter)

In the immediate vicinity of the medieval Ljubljana

there were extensive woodlands, stretching far

into the hills in the southeast and northwest. …

The greater part of Ljubljana’s supply with wood,

however, came from areas further away, 15–20

kilometres from the city. … In the time of need, as

during the threat from Ottoman incursions in 1478,

when Ljubljana was strenghtening its fortifications,

the king allowed the citizens unlimited use of wood

from any forests in the immediate vicinity. … [A]

unique source … dates back to 1510, the time of war

between Austria and the Republic of Venice. Therein

Emperor Maximilian … ordered his captain in

Ljubljana that he should, together with the citizens,

enclose or fence … forests and prohibit the cutting,

so that the young trees could grow and the forests

could flourish again, to provide for the needs of his

city and castle in the future.

(Miha Kosi)

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Man, Nature and Environment between the Northern Adriatic and the Eastern Alps in Premodern Times

9 7 7 1 4 0 8 3 5 3 0 0 5

4 8ISBN 978-961-237-723-6

9 7 8 9 6 1 2 3 7 7 2 3 6

Zbirka_ZC_Man_Nature_Environ.indd 1 3/3/15 10:08 AM

Zčzbirka

Zbirka zgodovinskega časopisa

Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani

Man, Nature and Environment Between the Northern Adriatic

and the Eastern Alps in Premodern Times

Edited byPeter Štih and Žiga Zwitter

Ljubljana 2014

CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana

94(4-191.2)(082) 502.11(4-191.2)(082)

MAN, nature and environment between the northern Adriatic and the eastern Alps in premodern times / edited by Peter Štih and Žiga Zwitter. - Ljubljana : Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete =University Press, Faculty of Arts : Historical Association of Slovenia, 2014. - (Zbirka Zgodovinskega časopisa ; 48)

ISBN 978-961-237-723-6 (Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete) 1. Štih, Peter 277728512

ISSN 0000–0000

Zčzbirka 48

ISSN 1408-3531

Peter Štih, Žiga Zwitter (editors)

Man, Nature and Environment Between the Northern Adriatic and the Eastern Alps in Premodern Times

* * *Zbirka Zgodovinskega časopisa 48

* * *Editor-in-Chief of the series: Peter Štih

International editorial Board: Tina Bahovec, Bojan Balkovec, Borut Batagelj, Rajko Bratož, Ernst Bruckmüller, Liliana Ferrari, Ivo Goldstein, Žarko Lazarević, Dušan Mlacović, Božo Repe, Franc Rozman, Janez Stergar, Imre Szilágyi, Marta Verginella, Peter Vodopivec, Marija Wakounig.

* * *Peer reviewers: Harald Krahwinkler and Vasko SimonitiDesign: Vesna Vidmar

* * *Published by: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts) (for the publisher: Branka Kalenić Ramšak, Dean of Faculty of Arts), Historical Association of Slovenia (for the publisher: Branko Šuštar, President of HAS).

The publication was financially supported by: Slovenian Research Agency (projects Man, Nature and Environment between the Northern Adriatic and the Eastern Alps in the Premodern Times (J6-4087, 2011-2014, head: Peter Štih) and The adaptation patterns of human activities to the environmental changes after Last Glacial Maximum in Slovenia (J6-4016, 2011-2014, head: Dušan Plut)).

* * *Print: Littera Picta d.o.o., Ljubljana 2014Print Run: 200

* * *Authors are responsible for ensuring grammatical and scientific adequacy of the submissions.

CONTENTS

Verena Winiwarter: The Emerging Long-Term View: Challenges and Opportunities of Writing Environmental Histories in Central Europe ....... 8

Katarina Čufar, Matjaž Bizjak, Manja Kitek Kuzman, Maks Merela, Michael Grabner, and Robert Brus: Environmental History of Pišece Castle Reconstructed with the Aid of Wood Investigation, Dendrochronology and Written Sources ................................................................................. 24

Peter Štih: Mensch und Wald in den Ostalpen (bis zur Großen Kolonisation) ... 36

Jelena Mrgić: Rocks, Waters, and Bushes–What did the Ragusan Commune Acquire from the Bosnian King in 1399? An Environmental History Approach....................................................... 52

Donata Degrassi: Water, Wood, Minerals: The Resources of Friuli and Their Use Between the XIIIth and XVth Centuries .................................... 74

Dušan Mlacović: The Communes of the Northern Istria in the Late Middle Ages and Wood ........................................................................................ 86

Miha Kosi: Interaction Between the City and its Environment: The Case of Late Medieval Ljubljana .................................................................... 102

Matjaž Bizjak: Medieval Account Books as a Source for Environmental History ........................................................................... 124

Günther Bernhard: Gubernialindizes, Patente und Kurrenden, Kalender, Fuggerzeitungen und Archivalien aus Grundherrschaftsarchiven als Quellen zur Umweltgeschichte des Alpen-Adria-Raumes in der Frühneuzeit ............................................................................................. 144

Boris Golec: Erze, Wasser, Feuer und Erdbeben als Mitgestalter des räumlichen, wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Antlitzes der Städte und Märkte im Land Krain in der vormodernen Epoche ............................. 156

Janez Mlinar: Das Eisenhüttenwesen und sein Einfluss auf Mensch und Natur in Spätmittelalter und Frühneuzeit: Beispiele aus dem westlichen Oberkrain ............................................................................. 182

Marko Štuhec: Nature in Some Normative and Expressive Sources in the 17th and 18th Centuries in the Territory of Present-Day Slovenia ........... 192

Peter Mikša: Exploring the Mountains – Triglav at the End of the 18th Century ............................................................................................ 202

Martin Knoll: Describing Socio-Natural Sites: How Early Modern Topographical Literature Deals with Alpine and Riverine Landscapes ............................................................................................. 216

Martin Schmid: Dealing with Dynamics: The Preindustrial Danube as an Interdisciplinary Challenge .................................................................... 228

András Vadas: A River Between Worlds: Environment, Society and War Along the River Raab/Rába (c. 1600–1660) ................................... 242

Hrvoje Petrić: Some Aspects of the Interrelationship Between Humans and the River Drava in the Pre-Industrial Times with an Emphasis on the Late 18th and Early 19th Century ............................................................. 260

Christian Rohr: Coping with Natural Hazards in the Southeast Alpine Region in the Middle Ages and in Early Modern Times ........................ 290

Žiga Zwitter: Water and Forest in 17th-Century Jauntal/Podjuna (Carinthia): The Analysis of Patrimonial Court Records and a Description of Tenants’ Holdings from the Seigneury of Eberndorf/Dobrla vas ........... 314

Michael Grabner, Elisabeth Wächter, and Markus Jeitler: Historic Transport of Logs and Timber in Austria–and How to Trace Back Their Origin ... 352

Gernot Gallor: Das rechtliche Spannungsfeld zwischen Nutzung und Schutz des Waldes in der Neuzeit ...................................................................... 362

Robert Brus and Domen Gajšek: The Introduction of Non-Native Tree Species to Present-Day Slovenia ............................................................ 380

Miha Seručnik: Countryside on the Brink of Modernity: Josephinian and Franciscan Cadastres as Sources for the Eco-History of Carniola ......... 394

Index of Geographical Names .......................................................................... 413

A. VADAS: A River Between Worlds: Environment, Society and War Along the River Raab242

András VadasA River Between Worlds: Environment, Society and War Along the River Raab/

Rába (c. 1600–1660)*1

1* The author would like to thank Alice Choyke (Central European University, Budapest) for proof-reading this article.

VADAS, András, PhD-candidate, Central European University, Budapest, Department of Medieval Studies; PhD-candidate, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Department of Medieval and Early Modern European History; HU–1221 Budapest, Múzeum krt. 6-8, [email protected] River between Worlds: Environment, So-ciety and War along the River Raab/Rába (c. 1600–1660) The paper addresses the problem of the envi-ronmental legacy of the Ottoman war period in the Carpathian Basin, more specifically in the surroundings of the River Rába/Raab. In this paper I argue that societies living by the Rába were not only affected by Ottomans and their raiding activities but also by the systematic transformation of the river for the sake of border protection on the part of the Hungarian forces. In the period at the focus of the present work (c. 1600 to 1660), the Rába River was never part of the immediate frontier between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. However, because of its strategic location it still represented one of the most important natural barriers in the plain area of the Carpathians and therefore already played a key strategic role from the second third of the sixteenth century and particularly from the year Kanizsa fell to the Ottomans (1600). In this period the river was both a key element in the economic life of the region but also served to protect the hinterland of the Hungarian Kingdom. These two functions, however, from time to time conflicted with each other.Keywords: Environmental history, forest histo-ry, frontier studies, historical floods, historical hydrology

Author’s Abstract

VADAS, András, doktorand, Central European University, Budapest, Department of Medieval Studies; doktorand, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Department of Medieval and Early Modern European History; HU–1221 Budapest, Múzeum krt. 6-8, [email protected] na meji svetov: Okolje, družba in vojna ob Rabi (1600–1660)Razprava obravnava vprašanje okoljskih po-sledic obdobja turških vojn v Panonski kotlini, in sicer ob reki Rabi. Zagovarjam trditev, da na ob Rabi živeče družbe niso vplivali samo Turki in njihovi plenilski pohodi, temveč tudi sistematično preoblikovanje reke s strani ogrskih sil z namenom varovanja meje. V obravnavanem obdobju (pribl. 1600 do 1660) Raba nikoli ni bila del neposredne meje med Osmanskim ce-sarstvom in Ogrskim kraljestvom. Pa vendarle je zaradi svoje strateške lege še vedno predstavljala eno najpomembnejših naravnih ovir na območju Panonske nižine in tako že od druge tretjine 16. stoletja, še posebej pa od turškega zavzetja Kaniže (1600), igrala ključno strateško vlogo. V tem obdobju je reka predstavljala ključni element v gospodarskem življenju regije, a tudi varovala notranjost Ogrskega kraljestva. Omenjeni funkciji sta bili občasno v neskladju. Ključne besede: okoljska zgodovina, zgodovina gozdov, mejne študije, zgodovinske poplave, historična hidrologija

Avtorski izvleček

Man, Nature and Environment Between the Northern Adriatic and the Eastern Alps in Premodern Times 243? 243

Introduction

The environmental1 legacy of periods of war has been intensively studied in recent environmental history scholarship, but with very few exceptions case studies focus on the environmental footprint of wars during Modern Times.2 In this paper I will argue that it was not only the First World War or the Gulf War that changed the face of the environment in the regions in question but also the Ottoman‒Habsburg war.

From the moment the Ottoman expansion began in the Carpathian Basin, natural obstacles in the central plain area became of strategic importance. Amongst them hills, rivers, lakes and marshlands were the most obvious. A decade after the battle of Mohács (1526) – the decisive battle in the expansion of the Ottomans in the Carpathian Basin – the importance of these natural barriers, especially rivers running through the plains, had already been identified as possible means of bor-der protection. This recognition had important long-term consequences. The face of the Ottoman–Hungarian frontier zone changed: the environment was partly transformed intentionally but there were also several unintended outcomes also observed by contemporary writers.

One of the wealthiest men in the Kingdom, the later palatine Tamás Nádasdy ordered the plans to be developed to see how rivers could be used to supply the army already under pressure after the appearance of the Ottomans in Western Transdanubia. Although as far as is known these plans were never brought into effect, they serve to emphasize the importance of the area researched in the pre-sent study, the environment of the Rába River. A decade later, in 1543 and 1544, again at Nádasdy’s command, the Rába was surveyed in great detail.3 The survey highlights how intensively water was already used in the mid-sixteenth century

1 This article represents a significantly modified version of an article published in Hun-garian. The sources mentioned here in English are being published in their original language (Latin and Hungarian) in Vadas, Csákány és a Vas megyei Rába-mente. See for the sources also: id., Környezettörténeti kérdések.

2 For an overview see: Hupy, The Environmental Footprint. For further bibliography, see: http://environmentallegaciesofwar.com/bibliographies/ (last accessed: 10 September 2014).

3 Bendefy, Középkori magyar hossz- és területmértékek, pp. 63–64; MNL OL E 142 Fasc. 2 No 2. (1543–1544), pp. 1–25 (“Registrum super dimensione ripparum fluvii Raba”) and MNL OL E 185 No 2 (44.) fol. 18–23. On the survey, see: Benczik, Fentő és góré, pp. 42–48; Pálffy, A császárváros védelmében, pp. 53–54; Pálffy, Európa védelmében, pp. 20–28, esp. p. 20 (note 29). Most recently, see: Vadas, Körmend és a vizek, pp. 84–85.


and proves the already mentioned defensive role attributed to the river. Though the river already had some role in the protection of the Hungarian Kingdom and, of course, in its immediate hinterland Vienna in the mid-sixteenth century, the situation fundamentally changed during the Fifteen Years War (1591–1606). With the fall of the castle of Kanizsa (present-day Nagykanizsa) and the towns of Győr / Raab and Pápa, the presence of the Ottomans on the right bank of the Rába could no longer be considered a temporary phenomenon.4 Despite the fact that after the peace treaty that put an end to the war at the turn of the sixteenth century leaving only Kanizsa in the hands of the Ottomans amongst the three settlements, the threat along the Rába River did not come to an end. In the mid-seventeenth century, the presence of the Ottomans by the Rába was an everyday occurrence. The local landlords, and amongst them the prominent Batthyány family whose archives were consulted when writing this paper, took all necessary measures to protect their settlements and naturally, incomes. In the following pages, the aim will be to discuss the means by which the settlements on the left bank of the Rába were protected and how these protective measures affected local farming activity and the environment in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Fig. 1. The political map of the Carpathian Basin before 1600 with the studied area marked (Fig. by the author)

4 Simon, Magyar nagybirtokosok tervezetei; Pálffy, Európa védelmében; Kelenik, Egy végvidék születése, pp. 311–357.

Timişoara

Man, Nature and Environment Between the Northern Adriatic and the Eastern Alps in Premodern Times 245

Sources

Throughout the period in the focus of this paper (c. 1660 to 1660) the studied settlements belonged to the Batthyány family (see: Fig. 1.). The choice fell on settlements in Vas county that belonged to this family because starting with the years following the fall of Kanizsa (1600), the Batthyány archive is extremely rich. The most diverse sources for the area survived from two settlements, Körmend and Csákány (present-day Csákánydoroszló, Hungary). In the consulted material it is the group of private letters that have come down to us from both settlements in the highest numbers. A prominent member of the family, Ádám (1610–1659), radically reformed the administration of the farming on the Batthyány estate complex. Part of the reform included the development of a highly professional and decentralized administrative system.5 As part of this system, the heads of the administration, the provisors (land stewards) of the different domains were required to inform their landlords, mostly Ferenc (?–1625) and later Ádám mentioned above of all farming, trade and administrative issues in the settlements under their authority. This is reflected in the large number of letters, accounts and urbariums (terriers) preserved in the well-kept archives of the family. Apart from the provisors and their employees the military administration also had an intense letter exchange with the Batthyány family as both Ferenc and especially his son Ádám held important positions in the military hierarchy of Hungary at the time. Altogether around four thousand letters from the period studied here concern these settlements one way or another. These sources were combined with other sources such as terriers, invento-ries, short accounts and maps.6 Apart from the sources preserved in the Batthyány archives, the most important consulted material are the minutes of the noble gathe-rings of the counties located along the Rába. Vas county, as well as neighbouring Sopron and Győr from time to time undertook a variety of different measures to protect the left bank of the Rába, activities well documented in the minutes of the gatherings.

5 Póka, A Batthyány-birtokkomplexum and Koltai, Batthyány Ádám (both with further literature on the topic).

6 For the maps, see: Hegedűs, Nepomuc Johannes, Mappa fluvii Arabonis inter Territoria Possessionum Gasztony, Csákány, S. Márton et Praedii Németh-Falu defluxum cum ejusdem Fluvii eruptionibus, ac vitiosarum Gÿrationum transfossionibus exhibens, ac repraesentans. (1791.) MNL OL S 12 Div. XIII No 182. See also the earlier, detailed map of the region by Marsigli from 1683 published in Kisari Balla, Marsigli tábornok térképei, pp. 390–391. No 131–132 (for the map see also in the same volume: 224–227. Note the sometimes erroneous identifications of the place names). The map is preserved in: BUB Ms. 50/27.


Fig. 2. Settlements in the focus of this study and the major domains of the Batthyány family (Fig. by the author)

The Rába and the defence system of the Hungarian Kingdom

The Rába River (Raab) originates in the Eastern Alps (Fischbacher Alps) and runs into the Mosoni Danube by the town of Győr. With its catchment area of roughly 10,000 km2 and a length of 300 kilometres, the Rába is the third largest river in present-day Hungary and the most important right bank tributary of the Danube between the Enns and Dráva (Drava, Drau) Rivers. Its average discharge


is 80 m3

s at Győr.7 Most of its water comes from the Austrian part of its catchment therefore the flood regime of the river is closely connected with the snow melt and the precipitation maxima in the Alpine region.8 The section of the river examined in these pages is important in terms of its flood discharge as in that section the Rába flows through a more extensive plain area after reaching the foothills of the Alps. Here, the river has enough space to meander while upstream (in Austria) it flows in a rather narrow riverbed.

As the river ran through an area with intense farming activity and rich plough lands, some settlements such as Körmend had a significant crop production. This production of course required that there be a possibility to grind the grains, pre-ferably close to the agricultural lands themselves. The Rába provided an obvious source of hydropower. Already about a dozen major mills operated along the river in the late medieval period. However, from the moment the Ottoman threat became constant, the ways the river was exploited became more complex. It continued to serve as the most important source of energy in the region but during smaller raids in military campaigns it also had to protect the people living along the river. These two different uses, however, frequently contradicted each other.

Not only did the Rába serve as an important element in the defence system but so did the nearby forests as a number of means of protection made use of the trees along the water course. 9 The various ways certain areas could be defended was highlighted in the study of the letters and other sources listed above. First, the cutting down of trees into rivers (in Hungarian: bevágás and fentőzés) was one of the most widespread ways employed to protect a riverbank. Secondly, all along the Rába small watch-towers (górés) were erected at relatively small distances from each other to ease communication. Some were built on small elevations by the Rába and some were hidden in wooded areas. At least four górés existed in the seventeenth century in the few kilometres section near Csákány along the river banks. Their maintenance and construction was the duty of the local peasantry and nobles owning one land parcel. As a consequence, many of the górés were obviously either abandoned or fell into disrepair. The góré itself of course did not provide protection, but the river cuttings (bevágás) and the fentős had to be watched over constantly.10

The most widespread medieval defensive strategy in the lowlands of the Carpathian Basin was certainly the creation of marshes by artificial flooding of

7 Szalay, Szilágyi, Magyarország vizeinek; Ambrózy, A Felső-Rába; Goda, Vasvári, A Felső-Rába; Károlyi, Somogyi, Felszíni vízfolyások, pp. 104 and 107–111.

8 Bergmann et al., Hydrologische Monographie.9 On the defence against the Ottomans and its connections to the forests: Benczik, Fentő

és góré, pp. 42–48. On the problem of the different forms of protection with the example of the Rábaköz (in Sopron county downstream from the region studied here along these lines): ÖStA HHStA Csáky Fasc. 103. No 11 and Fasc. 104. No 86 and 98. For their edition, see: Gecsényi, Elképzelések a Rábaköz.

10 The letter of Bernát Csány to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 8799 (9 June 1655).


different areas (gyepű). Despite the fact that this region in the early centuries of the Hungarian statehood served as a marsh or gyepű against the threat of the Holy Roman Empire, no mention can be found in the studied material of such measures in the Early Modern Period. However, there is one case which indicates that the idea of artificial flooding of important communication roads was still used. János Keczer, a captain of the aforementioned fortification of Csákány, suggested to his landlord that one of his abandoned fish ponds be reconstructed because the Ottomans had attacked Csákány and Körmend through the basin of this dried-out pond on a number of occasions.11

The first form of border protection to be discussed in detail is the so-called bevágás (literally meaning “river cutting”). The method as noted above is based on the felling of trees at places in a river where the water current and the riverbed otherwise would have allowed an easy crossing. The already mentioned Rába-survey from 1543–44, the minutes of the noble gatherings of Vas and Sopron counties as well as several letters mention this form of border protection along the Rába.12 In 1619, the land steward of Csákány, Benedek Károly, informs Ádám Batthyány, his landlord, that it was impossible to transport promised wares because the “river had been cut” earlier. The Rába was not only unsuitable for crossing but the bridge had also become unusable as a result of this work.13 A few decades later in 1655, the captain of the rather small fortification of Csákány, Bernát Csány, apart from again referring to cutting the trees into the water in order to hinder easy crossing by Ottoman troops, draws attention in a letter to the need for the river to be more regularly looked after.14 The problem of insufficient care given to guarding the borders keeps reoccurring in the consulted letters. It is even more interesting that despite the presence of local military forces it was the local peasantry that was driven to guard the river and also using the cutting method to protect it. 15 Despite all efforts however, when water-levels were particularly low it was impossible to protect the banks only by guarding them and destroying some fords. At times the Rába provided dozens of fords as reflected in some of the letters and also in the survey of 1543–44.16

That the river should be largely impassable may have been crucial from the point of view of border protection, it was certainly damaging to the local economy. Many of the settlements on the left bank of the Rába had holdings – meadows, plough lands as well as forests – on the right bank that they were interested in using.17 The

11 The letter of János Keczer to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL OL P 1314 No 24516 (24 July 1651). 12 Such as the letter of Benedek Károl to Ferenc Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 24059

(18 May 1619) and the letters of Bernát Csány to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 8799 (9 July 1655) and No 8802 (2 August 1655). See also: Benczik, Fentő és góré, p. 43.

13 The letter of Benedek Károl to Ferenc Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 24059 (18 May 1619).14 For his figure, see: Takó, Csákánydoroszló, pp. 71–72.15 On the protective measures taken in order to keep the Ottoman away from the Rábaköz:

Gecsényi, Elképzelések a Rábaköz.16 The letter of István Potyondi to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 38296 (undated).

For the forms of border protection, see: Gellén, A Rába, pp. 237–239.17 The letter of Bernát Csány to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 8802 (2 August 1655).


local peasantry in some cases, having had enough of the loss of this income, began to take out the felled trees from the rivers, removing the river cuttings so that they would reach the other bank. It is particularly interesting in light of the fact that in some cases the same peasant who was forced to cut down trees into the river was the same person that later pulled them out.18 This happened in 1639 in the domains of another noble family, the Csákys:

“The people living by the Rába have cut the river (...) Some, like the peasants of Csáky did go into the river, pulled out the trees and they are now crossing the river.”19

and very similar problems occurred in the neighbouring Sopron county:

“At the Rába from Bodonhely to the castle of Kesző [present-day Várkesző, Hungary] many fords were created by vagrants and some disobeying people, activities which have already been banned early on and which represent great threats to the Rábaköz. Therefore the noble county must decree (…) that nobles as well as peasants should have the freedom to catch the people trying to cross at banned fords.”20

The latter source quoted here comes from a letter sent by Péter Káldy, a confident of Ádám Batthyány, later the chief commander of his personal army, supposedly in order to inform his landlord of the growing threat.21 He did so because by this time Batthyány was one of the leading figures in the military hierarchy of the Hungarian Kingdom and Káldy, as a prominent member of the administration of Vas county hoped that Batthyány would react by ordering the necessary works to be carried out again. The problem of pulling previously cut trees out of the river at Csörötnek (a village upstream from Csákány) was also a reoccurring subject of debate in the council of Vas county.22

The landlords in the Rába region took all measures to obstruct the peasantry from crossing the river since this could help the Turks identify the place where the fords lay.23 When the river-ice was crossed during winter, they demonstrated that the ice was thick enough to step on. Landlords who had properties in the region – amongst others the previously mentioned Nádasdy family – thus tried to prevent locals from using the ice-bridge of rivers. The prohibition decreed by the Nádasdys was a subject of debate at several noble gatherings both in Sopron and Vas counties as the local peasantry rebelled against the will of their landlords. After a decade-long lawsuit, a gathering of the nobility of the two counties held in common gave the peasantry the right to use the ice-bridge of the rivers and stipulated that the goods confiscated by the Nádasdy family as a penalty should be given back.24

18 The letter of Bernát Csány to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 8803 (4 August 1655).19 The letter of Péter Káldy to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 23211 (6 December 1639).20 Komáromy, Sopron vármegye, p. 66.21 On Péter Káldy, see: Dominkovits, Egy 17. századi Vas vármegyei alispán, pp. 183–206.22 The letter of László Csáky to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 8448 (17 August 1643).23 The letter of István Keserű to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 26424 (24 December

1614); Tóth, Vas vármegye II, pp. 16. (No 792), 20 (No 816) and 182 (No 1554). For other cases see: Benczik, Fentő és góré, p. 44.

24 On this, see: Turbuly, Sopron vármegye II, p. 133 (No 573); Tóth, Vas vármegye II, p. 65 (No 1056).


The river cuttings had their own annual rhythm. As with many of the water- related works, it was carried out in most cases right after the end of the spring floods – in March and April – when the usually high water-levels made Ottoman raids unlikely. However one finds cases of river cuttings taking place within basically any period of the year, especially after flood events.

The other widespread form of protection against raids was the so-called fentő. There is evidence for the presence of this form of defensive structure both by Kör-mend25 and Csákány26 and all along the Rába from the point where it entered the Hungarian Kingdom to the point where it joined the Mosoni Danube.27 The fentő was similar to the river cutting (bevágás) to the extent that one of its elements also comprised the felling of trees into the riverbed. Nevertheless, a significant difference between the two defensive methods was that trees were felled on the side of the enemy not on the side meant to be protected. With this latter method – in the case of the Rába, piles of trees called fentő were deposited on the left bank. Branches were then placed between these piles and the gaps filled with mud. When finished, these constructions looked similar to the walls of plank fortifications and created real obstacles to crossing the river. However, their construction required significantly more effort than the river cuttings and therefore never was used in longer sections. In the minutes of the noble gatherings of Vas county, fentős are mentioned on a number of occasions and based on one of the entries to the minutes it is very likely that this method of border protection had its origins in the time quite a earlier than the period of the Ottoman wars.28

In wintertime the forms of border protection by the rivers were fundamentally different from the types discussed above. When the water froze, artificial flooding and cutting of the trees into the running water was obviously impossible. There is evidence for instance from 1565 that during the siege of the castle of Tokaj (North-East Hungary) holes were cut into the ice covering the Bodrog and Tisza Rivers so that soldiers of the attacking Habsburg army would fall into the ice.29 In November 1572, György Zrínyi mentions in a letter that his peasants were trying to break the ice of the Dráva River at Légrád (Legrad, Croatia). His efforts proved unsuccessful as the water froze over again within a few days.30 It seems that ice breaking was not an exceptional task. A statute from Győr county obliged the peasantry and the landlords of the Szigetköz region to take part in the defence when the river waters froze by guarding the river during the night and by breaking the ice during daylight

25 The letter of Gáspár Francsics to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 15159 (28 March 1647). See furthermore, other letters of Francsics: MNL OL 1314 No 15301 (10 March 1651) and 15303 (20 March 1651).

26 The letter of Benedek Károl to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 24142 (21 No-vember 1624) and Bernát Csány to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 8803 (4 August 1655). See also: Benczik, Fentő és góré, p. 43.

27 On the górés around Győr and the question of supplying them see: Pálffy, A császárváros védelmében, pp. 170–172.

28 On this, see: Tóth, Vas vármegye II, pp. 136 (No 1362) and 171 (No 1508).29 Istvánffy, Magyarok dolgairól I/2, pp. 368–371. See also Soós, A tokaji vár, p. 76.30 Takáts, Emlékezzünk eleinkről, p. 257.


hours.31 Accordingly, the people of the Tóköz region were ordered at the beginning of 1594 to break the ice and cut holes into the ice. As noted in the case of the siege of Tokaj when despite all efforts the rivers froze over, the duty of the peasants was different: in the small region of the Tóköz (by the Rába downstream from the focus of this study) instead of breaking the ice the peasants had to cut holes in the ice. A similar case appears in a letter by Ferenc Káldy, the son of the above-mentioned Péter Káldy. Káldy informs Ádám Batthyány that Vas county had ordered the local peasantry in Oszkó to cut holes in the ice of the Rába. It is odd that the village of Oszkó lies on the right bank of the Rába, so that the ordered work did not serve any apparent defensive purpose for the safety of the village.32

Long-term environmental consequences for the frontier zone – conclusions and outlook

The forms of border protection discussed above leave no doubt that the Ottoman period in the region studied in detail had at least some impact on the surrounding environment. Two problems are highlighted above and will be analyzed in this subchapter. The first is the use of wood and its possible impact on the forest cover in the Rába region – which may of course be partly representative for at least a section of the frontier zone – and second, the transformation of the riverbed as a consequence of using the Rába in a different manner.

When studying the history of early modern woodlands in the Carpathian Basin, most of the studies until recently argued for a loss of forests in consequence of the Ottoman wars. Two factors have been emphasized: on the one hand, the needs of military industry (esp. construction of plank fortifications and gunpowder produc-tion) that of course required significant amounts of wood and on the other hand, the growing importance of cattle herding on the Great Hungarian Plain. The latter required pastures rather than closed woodlands. The paradigm of the loss of forests in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries fitted the anti-Ottoman paradigm as well as did the image of the resurgent Hungarian Kingdom in the eighteenth century.33 Though some criticism already arose in the Interwar Period, in recent decades archaeologists, historians as well as forest scientists expressed doubts about this quite simplistic paradigm.34 But despite the criticisms the whole re-evaluation of this process remains unfinished. Most authors still only aim to evaluate the extent of forest cover in the late medieval period and Early Modern Times and of course attempt to explain the supposed changes. The most promising new research comes

31 Ráth, A Győr vármegyei hódoltságról, p. 8.32 The letter of Ferenc Káldy to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 No 23563 (25 October

1658). On Ferenc Káldy, see Koltai, Batthyány Ádám és könyvtára.33 The image is very much a consequence of the important work by Hóman, Szekfű, Magyar

történet.34 In some points this view has been criticized: Szakály, Magyar adóztatás, pp. 365–376

and Vági, Van-e hazánkban, pp. 670–682.


from ecologists. In the last decade they have successfully demonstrated that the woodland-steppe, considered a prevailing element in the landscape of the Car-pathian Basin before the appearance of the Ottomans in the region, had not even been dominant in the Middle Ages.35

One of the criticisms that has already been raised, but in the light of the analysis carried out above should certainly be emphasized more, is the idea of the systematic consumption of one’s own resources – both on the side of the Ottomans and the Hungarians. Supposing the Ottomans were planning a permanent presence in the Carpathian Basin, it was not in their interest to consume their own forests, something that was certainly true for the Hungarians as well.36 Thus, classic timber harvesting was typical on neither the Ottoman nor the Hungarian side. Historians have recently demonstrated that even in frontier zones where a more severe destruc-tion of woodland resources could be expected, the situation was more complex. The so-called “scorched earth tactics” was seldom used as an element of warfare. Therefore, no systematic forest clearance can be attributed to the war periods of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 37 Forest and wood was rather seen as an important resource as a key element in the riverine border protection techniques discussed earlier as well as in the construction of fortifications and watch-towers along the frontier zone. Wood also represented an important energy resource, especially for military industry though estimates of fuel consumption have almost never been carried out in Hungarian research.38 Of course cutting down trees was an everyday activity in the countryside in that period – as it is now – but the real question is whether these forests were actually clear cut or whether the clumps of felled trees were reforested again or not.39

Apart from the problem of how woodlands were exploited in the war period, the changing face of waters was also considered. The undisturbed flow of the Rába had already changed in the Middle Ages as the people living by the river made use of the water as a source of energy. However, in Early Modern Times with the changing role of the river, the number of dams and, in consequence, the embankments changed significantly. Based on the sources studied for this piece of writing, the changing usage of the river had at least two serious long-term en-vironmental impacts. The first impact was growing siltation, the valley – as well as the valley of the Marcal River, artificially connected to the Rába – becoming marshy and the second the high number of disastrous flood events. These uninten-

35 Molnár, Kun, Alföldi erdőssztyepp-maradványok; Szabó, Woodland; Illyés, Bölöni, Lejtősztyepek; Biró, A történeti térképekre alapuló vegetációrekonstrukció, esp. pp. 69–72; Molnár et al., A Duna-Tisza közi homoki sztyepprétek, pp. 39–56.

36 For the problem of the Ottoman and understanding of the environment of the Carpathian Basin, see: Ágoston, Where Environmental and Frontier Studies Meet.

37 Pálffy, A török elleni védelmi rendszer, pp. 163–217; id., The Origins and Development of the Border Defence System, pp. 3–69. On the usage – or indeed the rare usage – of scorched earth policies: id., Scorched-earth tactics, pp. 181–200, esp. p. 183. See also: id., Elképzelések, pp. 387–403.

38 Id., A főkapitányi hadiipari műhely.39 See this problem with regard to cattle herding: Szabó, Erdők a kora újkorban.


ded consequences required governmental reaction. Starting with the diet of 1622 (Act 42) in every decade at least one decree ordered the bed of the Rába River to be cleaned. This siltation process continued, however, despite the decrees until at least the end of the Ottoman wars.40 The other consequence, as I have tried to demonstrate elsewhere, was the great number of disastrous flood events.41 Though the Rába was not a significant river in the region compared to the major rivers of the Basin area such as the Danube, the Tisza or the Száva/Sava it was still not negligible in size. When the traveller and geographer Evliya Çelebi passed by the river he recorded the following:

“We were rambling on our horses when the great Rába River again showed up [...] The next day when the trumpets were sounded there was such a shower as if it had been poured by water-bearers. The Rába started to swell because of the rains and became just like the Dsihon, the Nile or the Euphrates.”42

Although various topoi are hardly lacking from this description by the famous traveller private letters still reflect the great number of rather disastrous flood events in the studied period. Despite the fact that during the first half of the seventeenth century the precipitation was higher than the average of the previous five hundred years, it still does not explain the extreme number of floods that caused major damage in the studied settlements.43

Even in the twentieth century – not to mention the last few years – the Rába has produced dozens of extreme flood events. In some cases these floods even had serious consequences, both in terms of victims and material losses. But even taking into account contemporary events in the early modern sources it still needs to be explained, why these extreme flood events occurred. As noted above, some but not all the problems may be attributed to climatic factors. It may well be that the human disruptions down the flow of the river were a much more important factor.

The Rába as a frontier partly changed its face after the peace treaty of Va-svár (1664) which put an end to the short period of hostilities following the long so-called “peaceful war” lasting from the peace treaties of Vienna (1606) and Zsitvatorok (Žitava firth in Slovakia in [1606]) until the Ottoman campaign against the fortified town of Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky in Slovakia) in 1663. Despite the

40 Such as: Act 42 in 1622; Act 15 in 1625; Act 14 in 1630; Act 64 in 1635; Act 30 in 1655. For their bilingual (Latin–Hungarian) edition: Márkus, Magyar törvénytár, pp. 214–215, 246–247, 288–291, 338–339 and 600–603. See also: Károlyi, A vízhasznosítás, p. 75.

41 Vadas, Körmend és a vizek; id., Környezettörténeti kérdések, passim and id., The “waters leave”.

42 The Dsihon is very likely to be the same as Amu-Darya. For the edition of the source: Karácson, Evlia Cselebi török világutazó, IV. pp. 22 and 53. The English translation of the excerpts of the travels of Evliya Çelebi does not contain these sections: Dankoff, An Ottoman Traveller.

43 For the climatic background, see: Vadas, The “waters leave”, pp. 281–282.


Fig. 3. The documented flood events on the Rába River in Upper Vas county (1600 to 1658) (the periods with grey background indicate a relative lack – less than thirty – of available letters; Fig. by the author)44

peace treaty signed in 1664, the period coming afterwards still witnessed a number of Ottoman raids in the border zone. This meant that the Rába River was still partly important as a part of the defence system. However the lack of full control over the problem of the river is already clearly highlighted in the sources in the 1670s. After the so-called Wesselényi-conspiracy, a noble conspiracy in the late 1660s originating in the disappointment with the Ottoman policy of the Habsburgs, the properties of the Nádasdy family were confiscated. The Hungarian Chamber as the new authority for administering the confiscated lands received a number of com-plaints from landlords in the Rába region including the provost of the prestigious collegiate chapter of Csorna that in recent times the water and the border itself had not been cared for properly.45

With the end of the presence of the Ottomans in the immediate neigh- bourhood of the Rába valley the protective role of the river obviously ceased and the Rába again became a river that simply ran through one of the central areas of the Hungarian Kingdom. Of course the role the river played as an energy resource did not cease. Already in the year of the peace treaty of Karlóca (Sremski Karlovci in Serbia [1699]) the lower section of the Rába had been very exactly surveyed and plans were made to regulate the flow of the river. Though the regulations ensuing survey were unsuccessful, it is still telling that the issue of the Rába was a priority

44 For the sources, see: id., Környezettörténeti kérdések and id., The “waters leave”, pp. 267–286.

45 The letter of Mihály Czuppon, MNL OL E 41 Fasc. 58. 1674/No 122 (21 April 1674). See also: Benczédi, A Habsburg-abszolutizmus, p. 548 (note 27).

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in the late-seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries.46 Mistakes made during regulation works did not add to the success of water use, something even reflected in the sources preserved on the settlements studied above. The manorial mill of Csákány, according to the conscription of 1715 “in the good old days as they say could grind 700 or 800 thousand little cubes (...) but its use was reduced” in the following period.47

The study of the private letters, terriers and river surveys of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had a twofold aim. One aim was to show the research potential of these sometimes underestimated types of sources in environmental historical scholarship and the second aim was to make the argument that the environmental transformation of the Hungarian–Ottoman frontier zone was a complex process with long-lasting impacts on the local societies. I have tried to demonstrate that this period of war had a clear environmental legacy which comprised perhaps not only, or not primarily, the deforestation of the whole basin area but rather changed hydrological conditions of the rivers in the border region. Broadening the future study areas and detailed analysis of the sources from the the eighteenth century regulations might contribute significantly to a better understanding of the environmental history of wars and of frontier zones in the Early Modern Period.48

References

Archival sourcesBHG – Batthyanyisches Herrschaftsarchiv Güssing (Austria)

BUB – University Library of Bologna (Italy) Ms – Collection of Manuscripts

MNL – Hungarian National Archives (Hungary) OL – National Archives (Budapest) E 41 (Archives of the Hungarian Chamber, Litterae ad cameram exaratae) E 142 (Archives of the Hungarian Chamber, Acta publica) E 185 (Archives of the Hungarian Chamber, Archivum Familiae Nádasdy) P 1314 (Archive of the Batthyány Family, Missiles) S 12 (Collection maps, Maps of the Procuratorship)

46 Edition of the survey: Thaly, Az Rába. One original copy of the survey was deposited in the Csesznek-archive of the Esterházy family. In 1885, Thaly edited the source from that copy, which is now lost. On the regulations in the eighteenth century, see: Sárközi, Árvizek; Szalacsy, A Rábaszabályozó Társulat. See especially Dóka, A Rába-szabályozás, pp. 55–60; Varga J., A körmendi uradalom, pp. 71–82.

47 BHG Lad. 11. Fasc 2. (Őrség) Anno 1715, p. 5 (no pagination originally)48 On the Rábaköz, see: Komáromy, Sopron vármegye, pp. 61–71; Sárközi, Árvizek and

Pájer, Rábaköz, pp. 9–14.


ÖStA – Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (Austria) HHStA – Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (Vienna) Csáky – Archivum Csáky (Archives of the Csáky family at Szepesmindszent)

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zbirka48

Tracing flood histories is one example for the challenges of writing

environmental histories in Central Europe. Two quite different sets of skills are

needed. One set is the historian’s craft. The historian works at making sense of

sources, constructing a compelling narrative from chaotic facts, tracing human

appreciation of the Danube, human uses of the Danube, human interventions

into the Danube … . The skills of the landscape ecologist, the hydrologist, the

historical geographer, the geomorphologist and many other natural scientists

are needed for the second building block. We need reconstructions of past

riverine landscapes, ecosystems, of paleo-meanders and we need a chronology

to answer questions of cause and effect – what was first, the intervention or

the problem? Without knowing about the substrate of perceptions of historical

actors, we cannot evaluate their perceptions for our narrative. How does the river

the newspapers are talking about actually look like? Very different from how we

perceive it today. Both are necessary, none is more important, both skills are of

equal importance for an environmental history of the Danube River Basin.

(Verena Winiwarter)

In the immediate vicinity of the medieval Ljubljana

there were extensive woodlands, stretching far

into the hills in the southeast and northwest. …

The greater part of Ljubljana’s supply with wood,

however, came from areas further away, 15–20

kilometres from the city. … In the time of need, as

during the threat from Ottoman incursions in 1478,

when Ljubljana was strenghtening its fortifications,

the king allowed the citizens unlimited use of wood

from any forests in the immediate vicinity. … [A]

unique source … dates back to 1510, the time of war

between Austria and the Republic of Venice. Therein

Emperor Maximilian … ordered his captain in

Ljubljana that he should, together with the citizens,

enclose or fence … forests and prohibit the cutting,

so that the young trees could grow and the forests

could flourish again, to provide for the needs of his

city and castle in the future.

(Miha Kosi)

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Man, Nature and Environment between the Northern Adriatic and the Eastern Alps in Premodern Times

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A River Between Worlds: Environment, Society and War Along the River Raab/Rába (c. 1600–1660)

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