FUN LEARNING WITH HUNGARICANA #1 : CHARTERS : A WILL in ABAUJ CIRCA YEAR 1438

What does the term "Charter" mean? Modern definition: A charter is a legal document granted to an individual or corporation. It outlines the purpose and structure for the creation of a colony, city, or organization, as well as the rights each organization will have.

Charters in the National Archives of Hungary, or found through the databases of Hungaricana, are decisions made by the King or other authorities such as Princes, Nobles, land-owners/ Barons (including churches), or local authorities, about property rights, and may include information about grants, repossessions, and who is who. They also document wills, such as the one we will look at here.

Charters may not apply to your family or personal research, but it can be some fun to look into them anyway to see if any of the places your ancestors lived are included in the Hungaricana databases. It can be thrilling to find someone with your surname mentioned in a very old Charter, even if you'll never be able to prove they are related to you. With these Charters you can get a feel for the way of life and mentality of a time and place. 

The Charters are from pre-printing press days when a scribe had the specialized skills of writing and reading. Nobles often remained illiterate and allowed the scribe - a servant - to do his work. Religious people - priests, monks, nuns - were more learned than most people, who were unable to read or write. As a note, sometimes just being able to handwrite your name was considered literate. Instead of a handwritten signature, some people, including notaries, used wax seals, often with the family heraldry, to indicate their presence or approval.

Using the Google (or another translator) can be extremely helpful when you don't know the Hungarian language. This is because the old, handwritten Hungarian (which might differ from more current Hungarian) of the Charters can be difficult but HUNGARICANA's modern language abstracts are sometimes close to word for word. You can go to the original document (some of which are in tatters, other pristine) and see if there is more information if intrigued by the abstract.

In the example below, we also encounter Latin of the early Medieval period.

Let's take a look!

I chose to search for Gonc (In Abauj County) because the now small settlement, which got bypassed when the railroad was built, was once an important  "hustle-bustle" administrative center in Hungary and many Charters were entered there.  

TITLE and TRANSLATION THAT WILL COME UP IN HUNGARICANA
DIPLOMATIKAI LEVÉLTÁR (Q szekció) • Kincstári levéltárból (E) • MKA, Acta Paulinorum (Q 312) • 13191

THE DATE ON THIS CHARTER IS May 22,1438 (!)

Diplomatic Archive section Q  From the treasury archive (E)  MKA, acta Paulinorum (Q312) / 13191

Issuers of the charter Mihály gönci plébános

Mihály alesperes

György telkibányai plébános

Antal deruskai plébános   (de Ruskai indicates the settlement Goncruszka a few miles from Gonc.)

TRANSLATION : Milahly is the parish priest from Gonc (which today is named Saint Emerics) and he is a deputy. Gyorgy is a parish priest from Telkibanya (which is a settlement around the mountain from Gonc.) Antal is a parish priest from Deruska. (Goncruska)

végrendelet - this is a will

ABSTRACT TEXT
The parish priests of Mihaly- Gonc, Gyorgy -Telkibanya and Anta -Deruska prove that GYORGY CUPRAR, citizen of Telkibanya, bequeathed his vineyard and mill, which grinds various products and wood, to SZUZ MARIA, monastery in Gonc. (MONESTARY OF THE VIRGIN MARY) Fragment of three green imprinted seals. (These are the official wax seals of the three priests.)
....

ABSTACT TEXT CONTINUES:

Parish priest and deacon Mihaly of Gwnch (Gonc), parish priest Gyorgy of Telkybania, and parish priest Antal of Ruska testify that on the Monday before the feast of the Ascension of the Lord (May 19) in the parish priest Mihaly's house (dota), citizen GYORGY CUPRAR of Telkibania appeared before them and made a will to leave the village of Chechuz in the territory of Telkibania with all its benefits, with the exception of one plot of land, which he will keep for himself during his lifetime, to the monastery of the Virgin Mary near Gwnch, also to this monastery he leaves his vineyard in Sancho on the Chater Mountain with the stipulation that the monks of the monetary cultivate the vineyard and give him half the yield of the vineyard as long as he lives. At the head of the village and the vineyard should say a mas de quinque vulneribus Christi.(Translation from Latin: Mass of the Five Wounds of Christ) every day, with the exception of Saturday, and a mas de assuncione Maria viginis glorios (Mass of the Glorious Assumption of Mary). He also leaves the mill for grinding cereals and pulses located in the territory of Telkybania to the monastery, with the stipulation that as long as he, his wife and her sister are alive, they will use the mill, and only after their death will it be fully transferred to the monastery.

GO TO THIS LINK TO SEE THE ORIGINAL including the three seals of the priests.

https://archives.hungaricana.hu/en/charters/LINK TO 13191

We know that in the 1400's the village may have been called or written GWNCH so I also searched for Chater Mountain and also the village Chechuz - none of which are coming up on the Internet...  Maybe you can find them?

Hungarian Genealogy and History Tips in this series can be viewed together by clicking on the tab Hungaricana Fun

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HUNGARIAN SURNAMES and GIVEN NAMES and JEWISHNESS : GENEALOGY

I was researching a woman noble named Judit Thuranszky de Turik et Komjathna and some other historical persons who are probably linked in some way to this area and who I have reason to think may have been Jewish, at least hundreds of years ago.  Perhaps it's that I once spent hundreds of hours reading 200 years plus of one particular Catholic church records of marriages and found one person - a man who was the town pharmacist - who was listed as Jewish.  Perhaps it's because I know that in Hungary people who were living on the land of a noble who became Lutheran or Reformed  or Evangelical, or some other religion, tended to feel the pressure to follow there - and back during the Counter Reformation.  Perhaps it's because that the Moslem Ottoman empire was in place for so long in the territory that is Hungary that basically, I think of Hungary as a place where there has been a lot of religious upheaval. Or that as a genealogist I'm often hearing "Jewish Rumors" that someone's grandparent said that was the family's roots.  Or that DNA tests showed this was so.  Or that the Hungarians were Nazis or that they were actually more tolerant of having Jewish people in the country.  Or was that only along the grape growing and wine trade regions? Maybe even the "Jewish Rumors" that are always around about Princess William of Wales a.k.a Kate Middleton makes me wonder just how many generations of living as Christians does a family have to be to prove otherwise.


When it comes to finding genealogy archival documents, basically from the late 1700's Catholic churches in smaller towns and villages were keeping the records of marriages both "mixed" and of non parishioners because there was no mandate for civil registrations.  This was practical because sometimes the priest at the church was one of the few who could read and write and also because so many people lived in wooden structures in villages and on estates but it was only the church or the residences of wealthy people who were made of stone that might better withstand a fire. In the larger cities where there were separate structures for the Reformed church, the Catholic church, and the Jewish Synagogue, records were kept individually - at least after that structure was built.  Still, I have frequently checked these even when not expecting someone to be on them, just in case.


In all the records I have read, the name Judit is fairly rare, and to me a "giveaway" that the person in Jewish.  So I found an attempt to address this question by someone named Kinga Frojimovics on the JewishGen site.  To me her sampling seems limited and this is originally from 2003 but it's probably still worth the read. This article gives the dates for surname adoption.
JEWISH GEN - KINGA FROJIMOVICS - JEWISH NAMING CUSTOMS HUNGARY


As a comparison, when I do American genealogy I sometimes come across families in which "Old Testament" names have been given to the children but I find them going to the Baptist or another church and I don't find them buried in Jewish graveyards.  There are many names that are "Old Testament" that have been popular for Americans at different time periods: consider the names Sharon and Deborah for instance. But in Hungary you can encounter naming patterns that are far less about the parents just liking the name, and more about honoring the birth order among the common villagers, or ancestors with nobles being given multiple names at baptisms that seem to be less ordinary.


As for surnames and titles, I think things get more mysterious for us 21st century researchers who are trying to understand how different people lived and thought way back when, as well as make our way through those charters and other manuscripts that mention important families, even when on our knees in thanks when we find one that is very legible and neatly written though in Old Hungarian; to some extent we take the word of the translator.


One article I read said that Turanism was the name given to those who were sure that Hungarians had Asian roots.  Well, was this family the Turanszke's especially devoted to that belief?  Was this perhaps because they themselves knew that their ancestors came from Asia?


Anyone wishing to give an opinion?