Are you curious to know how people lived in the 18th century? What disputes and conflicts determined the daily life of the people of that time? Who were the leaders of Upper Ciuc Seat at that time? Who had decision-making power in the various disputes and litigations? The answers to all these questions can be found in the minutes of a dispute from that period.
October's artefact is a record that recently became part of the collection of the Szekler Museum of Ciuc. The 466-page document comes from the archives of the Reformed Church of Brașov and, although in a rather poor condition, it is complete and its pages are intact. The volume has a height of 33 cm, the width of the closed book is 20 cm, respectively 39 cm when it is open. The black leather-bound cover suffered the most damage, where the back cover had disappeared over the centuries.
As content, it includes litigation from Upper Ciuc Seat and witness testimonies in various cases, mostly from the early reign of Maria Theresa. These small stories of the litigious cases are providing extremely useful data, additions for historians in terms of local history. From the point of view of the period, it gives us data on the times and conditions before the Siculicidium, the Massacre at Siculeni. It gives us sights about the inhabitant’s daily life of the villages from Upper Ciuc Seat in the 18th century, as well as a perspective on social relations and the context of the conflicts that developed later. There are numerous trials with the theme of possession and robbery, thus the volume refers to almost all the settlements in the Upper Ciuc Seat region. It is also an excellent source of information in familial history and, due to property disputes, finance culture. According to the summary at the beginning of the volume, at that time the royal judge of Ciuc, Gheorgheni and Cașin Seat was Ferenc Lázár from Lăzarea, and most of the trials took place in Frumoasa.
Pages 104-105, opened at random, refer to four cases:
Page 104 includes the third and also the last case discussed in the session of January 20, 1741 in Frumoasa, the description of which begins on the previous page. Antal Geréb from Araci sued the widow of the late László Abaffi from Tomești, Anna Boros, claiming that his late husband gave him some estates, such as that of György Kováts from Racu and the hayfield named Tekse Szege from Toplița-Ciuc, lands whose ownership was transferred to him by his late father, by contract. A judgment was also issued in this case.
On the next page 105 are recorded all three cases from the following session of January 28, 1741 in Frumoasa. In the first of them was decided the amount of Ms. Miklós Kristály's dower. In the second, András and János Veres from Racu are suing Mrs. Ilona Máthé György because last summer, during the collective work at János Cserei, she called one of them a thief and the other the father of a thief. The sentence was postponed. In the third, Miklós Bánffi, a gypsy from Delnița, serf of Dávid Petki from Crihalma, sued Bartalis Ladó from Delnița, together with two others, for the loss of his horse from the stables. A decision is made regarding the amount of compensation.
The reading and interpretation of the original text of the two pages is facilitated by the accompanying transcriptions and translations of the Latin expressions. The minutes can be consulted in a dedicated area at the ticket office, from Tuesday to Sunday, daily between 9.00 and 17.00.
