Connections between discursive practice and marital power in published source material of Middle-Hungarian manorial trial documents

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse trial documents from manor courts, where a married couple can be identified as defendant or plaintiff. On the one hand, Middle-Hungarian (in a historical linguistical sense) discursive practice is presented, and,  on the other hand, it is also explored how a twentieth-century editor does or does not reflect in his summary and in his notes on the social practice mirroring in the discursive practice, the role of wives. The analysis is supplemented by a questionnaire, which informs about understanding historical texts today – how readers can identify the role of husbands and wives by relying only on the Middle-Hungarian trial documents and how they do this if their comprehension can be controlled by the commentary from the twentieth century.