The Peregrination and Migration of the Guild-Fellows in the Carpathian Basin in the 18th Century

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
About the turn of the 17th–18th century, after the Ottoman wars Hungary’s territory became reunified. The rare populousness of the middle region and the undeveloped industry offered great opportunities to the migrants.
In the middle of the 18th century the fellows, who did not get a place in the local guilds, migrated to the middle regions of the country in order to find a job and living. We can follow based on several examples of migration from the Northern parts to the Southern regions and a running from the Western to the Eastern settlements at the same time. So we can define some main routes: fellows march from Buda in the direction to Szeged and Pécs, meanwhile they come to Buda and Pest from Pozsony. Altough the migration from Austria, especially from Vienna with its over 60 000 craftsmen to Pozsony and the counties Vas and Moson is less important, but considerable.
The migration in the Northern part of Hungary shows very interesting directions, whereas the fellows moved earlier to Krakow and Lemberg they run now south- and westwards. Compared with the catchment area of Buda we can set out, that the migration through Pest-Buda to the Southern regions ran its course without any inhibitions, while Kassa that held almost every Northern guilds under its influence aimed to put off the migration or it tried to keep the migration in its own catchment area.
We need to the analysis of the migration processes because of the special capabilities of the guild-resources (quantity, quality and type of the documents, variegation of the document keeping institutions etc.) particular methods. To this end a new guild-database is presented which can be a brilliant help beyond its other useful functions also to the migration-examinations because of its international compatibility even in international projects. The examples mentioned in the presentation are already the results of the research carried out with the help of this data-base.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Csilla Tuza is Archivist at the National Archives of Hungary. She received her Diploma in education in History and German at the Eötvös Lorand University in 1993. She attended the Doctoral School of History, Early Modern Hungarian History Program 2001-2006. Her fields of research include the history of the Hungarian guilds, historiography, and history of the economy in the 18th century in Hungary.