HUNGARIAN URBARIUM 1767 : RELIGIOUS PRIESTS and NUNS in 1767 - FEW LANDOWNERS and OFF TO THE CONVENT : GENEALOGY PRO TIP # 8

HUNGARIAN URBARIUM 1767 : RELIGIOUS PRIESTS and NUNS in 1767 - FEW LANDOWNERS and OFF TO THE CONVENT : GENEALOGY PRO TIP # 8

So many CONVENTS, MONASTERIES, SEMINARIES, and ESTATES OWNED BY DIOCESE and HOLY ORDERS are evident on the 1767 URBARIUM -  HUNGARIAN LANDHOLDER CENSUS. 

The Jesuits, the Paulines, the Benedictines...

Let me start with some Hungarian words translated so you'll be aware of what you're reading. I'm going to list these as a progression so you can see how the word meanings go. Sorry I don't have the keyboard to put in the pronunciation marks.

TELEK - property (Usually means equipment such as farm equipment rather than a house or estate.)

CSALAD - family home or stead. (On census csalad may imply a residence that is owned rather than rented or is considered the family stead.)

SZELLER - cottar (implies rented building such as a tradesman's workshop or store. Note that I recently learned that cottar indicates a house on a small plot of land only big enough for a family's own vegetable and herb garden. Consider profession of person who lives there as may tradespeople lived and worked in the same dwelling.)

HELY - place (geographic such as on map)

OHAZA - old country - home country
HAZA - house or home - HAZY - "house of" as in Eszterhazy "house of Eszter"
EGYHAZ - church
EGYHAZI - old church
EGYHAZATYA - church father
EGYHAZATYAK - church fathers
FOLD - land
EGYHAZI FOLDEK - church lands
EGYHAZI ANYAKONYV - church register (births, marriages, deaths)

TEMPLOM - church but best to think of this word used to say a spiritual worship place of any religion including Jewish or Muslim.

KOLOSTOR - monastery

TEMETKEZESI - burial place or grave

KAPOLNA - chapel (sometimes indicates place for Baptism)
KAPTALAN - charter house (indicates place to pay taxes or make payments.)

APATSAG - abbey
KONVENT - convent

BENCES - Benedictine
BENCESREND - Benedictine Holy Order  (Also called "Black Monks")
BENCESAPACA - Benedictine Nun

PAP - Priest

APACA - Nun

PALOS PAPOK - Pauline Priests (plural)

PALOS APACA - Pauline nun

PALOS KONVENT - convent of the Pauline Holy Order

GROF - Count (GR is abbreviation)
GROFNE - Countess or Wife of the Count
BARO - Baron (BR is abbreviation)
BARANO - Baroness or Wife of Baron
BAROKISASSZONY - Unmarried daughter of a Baron
EMBER - person
FONTOS EMBER - important person

SZENT - Saint

... So I want to write a bit about GOTHIC FICTION which I took a class on in college..  GOTHIC FICTION began with the REFORMATION.  Novels featuring lusty and bloodthirsty sinning monastics, priests, and nuns were popular. These fictional characters had sex, got pregnant, murdered people, were sadistic or mean.

You could say that these novels were media and they were a lot like FAKE NEWS today, in the case of GOTHIC FICTION intended to promote Protestantism. We know about them because so many were printed (the printing press having been invented and used primarily for printing Bibles) that some of these novels still exist in archives!  Were they based on true stories?  It's always possible some were but we don't really know for sure. Today GOTHIC FICTION is written by authors such as Anne Rice, who wrote pornography featuring castles and nobles and virgins and horses under a different name... but who is better known for her VAMPIRE novels, such as "Interview With A Vampire," which was made into a film. (In her book "Interview With A Vampire"  her characters search the world for others like them and stop in Central Europe where they are surprised to learn that People Actually Believe They Exist.) To be literary about her work, Rice is writing about Power being played out, about people who when told to jump say, "How high?" Rice has been known to have a personal struggle with Catholicism.

Women in the the mid-late18th century, when the Urbarium of 176,7 took place were present in religious contexts. We see that there are many places in the counties where there are parishes, churches, temples, retreat houses - and islands!, monasteries, schools, and convents. Most women had two choices, to be a wife and mother or dedicate her life to God or Jesus in a Holy Order. But convents were more like old YMCA with its inexpensive rooms for women who wanted to get way and go somewhere to grieve their widowhood, preserve their virginity until a marriage contract could be discussed, or hide away to heal a heart break and preserve or renew their reputation. 

Some convents were boarding schools, and some took in orphaned girls. (When the fashion designer CoCo Channel was a girl in France and their mother died, her father took her and her sister to a convent and then deserted them there.) So you see, there was much to learn besides prayers and needlepoint at the convent. Wealthy and noble women were often taught to read and do the math they would need to run large estates at the convent while their husbands went visiting their fellows or off to politics or battles. And on the Urbarium 1767 you will see quite a few women who were countesses or baronesses who were widowed.

We can assume these women were running the estates they inherited, at least temporarily, until a son came of age, the estate was lost in debt, or they remarried. 

YOU WILL ALSO SEE A FEW UNMARRIED DAUGHTERS OF COUNTS WHO HAD LAND OF THEIR OWN.  A WOMAN WITH LAND WAS A WOMAN WITH A DOWRY, a desirable marital partner.

To get to all the posts/genealogy tips regarding the NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF HUNGARY/ Hungaricana's URBARIUM 1767 you can search this BLOG by looking through my archives, through searching for the word URBARIUM using the Google Search Feature embedded in the blog, or by clicking on the link at the bottom of the post.

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Addition of words and editing for clarity February 2025

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