Ingatlanforgalmi ügyek a késő középkori magyarországi mezővárosokban és falvakban

Absztrakt

The legality of contracts in estate matters (purchase, exchange, pawn or transmission of the property) was alsó depended on the official acknowledgement of local magistrates. As a result, towns and villages issued many charters concerning these types of matters. In this study I attempt to give an account describing the characteristic and structure of these charters and the transactions behind them. Charters relating to sales contracts of estates are considered as the most formularized and therefore most comparable sources. The declaration of the vendor became a sterile, artificial and staged Latin text. But due to this transformation, the elements of customary law concerning sale and purchase: the neighbourhood's pre-emptive rights, the warranties and the ritual pledge or toast called in Hungárián 'áldomás', which the texts themselves more or less show in formulas, can be studied and compared. The security of the transaction was strengthened by the institution of warranty. It was commonly used in all kinds of real estate sales and other priváté contracts. The vendor warranted to defend and reimburse damages of the new owners and their heirs in case of any subsequent proceedings relating to the estate. The formulas of the warranty can be grouped into three categories: 1. protective clause (tutoria): the vendor defends the new owners at his own expense, 2. strife clause (calumpnia): if anybody (the vendor or his relatives) sue for the estate, is guilty and has to pay, 3. guarantee or „warranty" clause (evictio): if the vendor would not defend the new owners, pays a compensation. I alsó try to analyse the examples of the neighbourhood's pre-emptive rights and the distinctive features and identical marks of the exchange, pawn or transmission cases. The testamentary matters give surely the most complex and most diverse forms shown in the charters. In front of the council the will could have been declared by the still alive testator or the inheritors or the executors. The succession could have been decided in civil suits and compromises. The inheritors could have acquired the property in return for the testator's debts. The examined source material offers somé examples for support agreements and care contracts, as well. Finally I attempt to describe the wide and straight territorial competence of the towns and villages. The wide competence means that the transferred property did not have to lie within the boundaries of the settlement itself. It was enough if the vendors or the buyers were local citizens. When others take fassio in front of the town council and the purchased property is alsó in another village, the town is probably a centre of a greater latifundium. But the territorial competence could have been tighten by others: the landlord or ecclesiastical institutions functioned as places of authentication (loca credibilia). Especially such ecclesiastical institutions have "ingested" the job of writing and issuing charters about estate matters concerning the territorial jurisdiction of town councils. It is remarkable, however, that these markét towns are rather similar to the free royal cities (which were far above them in terms of their legal position) in respect of their charters and legal practice. It is not just following the sample, but alsó social development, as well. After humble beginnings in the fourteenth century, the analysed material quantitatively increased in the second and third decades of the fifteenth century, then in the period of 1470-1526 another turn can be detected. The jurisdiction of towns and villages and their official written culture have already reached a standard that was necessary to their administration. In early modern times, only the continuity and further development of this advanced and high-quality local practice, legal knowledge and law enforcement can be observed.