The Early Settlers of Mucsi 

This is an edited and refined Google translation of “Volkstracht der Fuldaer Siedlung Mutsching -Mucsi” by Ida Hambuch found in Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Ungarndeutschen 1981  (Tankönyvkiadó Vállalat A kiadásért felelős: Petró András igazgató. Egyetemi Nyomda — Budapest, 1981) This brief history of the community is followed by a description of the clothes of the inhabitants of Mucsi. The author explains the process of sowing hemp, spinning, weaving and wool-producing, and then he gives a detailed description of children's and adults' clothing. He devotes a separate section to the fashion worn on weekdays and on holidays. Only the history at the beginning of the article has been translated here. The entire article in German with detailed footnotes and drawings can be found with a Google search.  

The village of Mutsching/Mucsi in Tolna County is situated in a valley along a small stream. To the north of the village runs the main street, which connects the environs. The name of the village was first mentioned in the year 1273 in a document of King Ladislaus IV. A different form of the name was found in a document from the year 1403. In the year 1406 King Sigmund took the town away from a disloyal Michael Szerecsen of Mesztztegnye and gave it to Pipo of Ozara, but by 1498 it again belonged to the Szerecsen family. According to the tax rolls of the year 1542, the town belonged to the Bishop of Fünfkirchen. The papal register of the year 1561 counts Mucsi (Muchy) as part of Gränz/Szigetvár.  

A writing of mayor Gergely Czonka in the year 1561 stated that twelve bonded serfs and two house owners were living in the town.  In 1563 the town of sixteen houses had to pay taxes to the Turks. In the year 1702 a royal proclamation mentioned it as a property of Count Johann Zinzendorf. In 1722 Mutsching/Mucsi belonged to the parish of Dewel/Tevel, by 1729 to Hidjeß/Högyész, by 1733 to Seiwicht/Závod and in 1745 the town acquired its own priest, and ten years later Tschiwrak/Csibrák belonged to the Mucsi parish. At that time the community had one hundred fifty Catholics, thirty-seven Lutherans, and nine Calvanists.  

In 1722 Count Wenzeslaus Zinzendorf  sold Mucsi to Count Claudius Florimundus Mercy, who resold it again in 1773 to Count Apponyi. A large portion of the landless inhabitants worked as day laborers for him. Possession of the town remained with the Apponyi family until nationalization in the year 1945. During the Türkish wars, the Hungarian population of the southwestern Transdanubia shrunk to a minimum. In areas where in 1572-1573 close to 45,000 persons lived, in 1692 there were counted only 3,271, of which 1,651 lived in Fünfkirchen. The desolation reached such proportions that by 1717 in the area between Groß-Säckl/Nagyszékely in Tolna County to Peterwardein, one could hardly find an occupied settlement. Even Mucsi was not exempted.  

After the expulsion of the Turks, the owners of the various estates looked to repopulate their holdings. One of the reasons for the German colonization of Hungary was the diminution of the population of the lands during the Turkish administration. The German settlement wave reached its high point under the Holy Roman Emperor Karl VI in the second decade of the eighteenth century. When the Germans from Hessen settled in Schwabian Turkey, Johann Hack reported that “already prior to the peace of Passarowitz on 21 July 1718, which brought Turkish sovereignty in Hungary to an end, there were fifty families from Fulda that had arrived after Hungary was freed. Further immigration remained quiet until the year 1764 under Prince Henry VIII of Bibra. A warning which was issued on 10 May 1722 showed, however, that the immigration continued between 1718 and 1764, which was verified by the church books of Nimmersch/Himesháza, Mucsi, and Seiwicht/Závod.” In the three aforementioned communities, Frankish immigrants settled themselves in the towns. 

The settlement of Tolna County was fostered chiefly by Count Mercy, who was the head of the settlement commision of Temeschburg (Hungarian Temesvár, today Timisoara). A large part of the Hessian settlers, who were designated for the Tokaier Hills area and the Banat, he settled into Tolna. “When a large group of settlers would arrive in Vienna to rest a little, the adjutant of Count Mercy, Captain Vátzy, would persuade them into traveling promptly on to Tolna.” 

At the end of the eighteenth century, a limited immigration was established, as can be determined by a document of the Marburger State Archive: “Because the royal Hungarian Assembly nobles have repopulated their estates with many well behaved families and have no further need of colonists, they now have good grounds to ask his royal and imperial apostolic majesty to restrict further settlement, and therefore at the start of 1787 until further notice, to greatly limit further requisitions, and therefore we can no longer guarantee such generous provisions and rights in the future.  But if they come at their own expense and at their own risk, strangers can still move in and can seek individual settlement agreements with the current private landholders.”  The German inhabitants of the village of Mucsi came therefore from Hessen.  Why the countrymen of Hessen emigrated is explained by Johann Schmidt. The inhabitants of the Archduchy of Hessen-Darmstadt had to endure much and had been greatly affected during the Thirty Years War and the Seven Years War. The poverty caused by the war was further increased by the heavier taxation. The inhabitants had to provide funds for dam building, castle building, game preserve money, travel expenses for the ruling families, and individual taxes, empire taxes, Roman taxes, and Türkish taxes. Then were added costs of damage, which Prince Ernst Ludwig had incurred through his hunting. 

The emigration was organized by agents of the emperor in Hessen by Johann Krauss, and later by Johann Falck and Johann Georg Müller. “It was in the year 1723 when Johann Franz Falck, the leader of the Temesvarer Imperial Administration, arrived in Worms to assist all those who had decided on emigrating. The princes tried to place obstacles to the emigration. The emigrants had to satisfy their tax obligations, which were sometimes higher than their total worth. An Example of that is “a report in the year 1723 from court bailiff Wilhelm Ludwig Sterck on behalf of his prince, Ernst Ludwig, Landgraf of Hessen.“ The report speaks of “substantial and personal fees” required of those who wished to emigrate. 

Blazer Rapp	Vermögen 66 fl	Schulden 62 fl
Hans Georg Korns	Vermögen 80 fl	Schulden 56 fl
Leonhard Leibigs	Vermögen 30 fl	Schulden 28 fl
Heinrich Brücher	Vermögen 70 fl	Schulden 70 fl

The terms, which the sponsors had given to attract the settlers to Hungary, were affordable and especially attractive to these subjects, who had lived in oppressive conditions. Their landlords had printed advertisements distributed for so-called “Guarantees.” Even Count Claudius Mercy had such circulars distributed in 1733.   

His conditions were affordable. The village was given the land to use freely. Whoever had more than six animals, had to pay fifteen Gulden, one sheepskin of wheat, one sheepskin of oats and a delivery of hay as an annual fee.  Whoever had fewer livestock, had to pay half the amount or pay less. They were not required to give mandatory labor or a tenth of the crop. If they started a new vineyard, they were exempt from the requirements for six years. The settlers had the right to take as much wood as they wanted, but they had to pay a fee for the amount they took. Count Mercy insured freedom of religion, and to avoid religious arguments, each town was allowed to limit settlement to its own confession. Those who settled in Mucsi were almost all Catholic. 

As previously mentioned, Mucsi belonged to Count Mercy in 1722. He was named as “one of the founders of Schwabian Turkey.” He took care to assist the settlers in any way possible, not just materially. “The care of some landlords as by the first Count Mercy to settle only those of a particular national culture or confession could not always be followed in practice. In Mucsi, however, a fairly uniform population was settled in. In the national land registry of 1696 Mucsi was still classified as a Hungarian village with nine families listed. The landlord was Adam Széplaki Bottka. In the year 1720 there were eleven Hungarian families counted. “The Hungarian population gave sporadic quarter to Slovaks, so that at the beginning of the German immigration in the year 1720 under the new landlord Wenzeslaus Zinzendorf,  five Slavic, not more than three Hungarian and the first three German families were found in the town, these last by name were: Johann Jahn, Johann Both and Baltasar Fuchsberger.” The descendents of these three families still live in the town. Those of Count Mercy from Alsace, Hessen and Nassau who were settled in Hungary came under spiritual guidance of Rev. Peter Willerscheid, who was born in Trier and arrived in Högyész at Pentecost of the year 1723.  Some settled in Diósberény, Szakadát and in Mucsi. 

A large portion of the population of the town of Mucsi has its origins in the region of Fulda, and that is the origin of the word “Stiffoller” (Stift-Fuldaer) which is still familiar in the town.  The towns the settlers came from can be learned from the contents of marriage and death registers of the village.   

Eheregister 1745-1749
Name	Ort	Diözese
1. Johann Trapp	Katharina 1746	Fulda
2. Margaretha Trapp	Laschenroth (Löschenrod)	Fulda
3. Simon Wagner	Altenmark	Steijria
4. Catharina Burghard	Pilgerzell	Fulda
5. Georg Harmann	Rodenmann	Fulda
6. Sebastian Quell	Reinhard (ü. Schüchtern)	Fulda
7. Gertrud Büttner	Reinhard	Fulda
8. Andress Hurt	Motten	Fulda
9. Margarethe Enders	Stallberg/ü Rockenhausen	Fulda
10. Georgius Schwab	Lütther, an der Hard	Fulda
11. Johannes Wäner	Niderkalbach	Satrapias Lohr Moguntina
12. Ursula Schmitt	ex Langenprozelder, Satrapia, Neuhof	Fulda
13. Nicolaus Kaijdel	Rothenzaan	Fulda
14. Georgius Seiffer	Wüstensachen	Herbiopolensis
15. Adam Hajd, Vagabundus	Brudendorff, Paroch. Stattfeld ü. Bamberg	Herbipoln
16. Elisabeth Harttinger	Stinckenbrunn	Austria
17. Maria Buhl	Eichenwinge	Fulda
18. Johannes Gärnerd	Simprechthausen Paroch. Officii Jaxberg. Herbipolensis Würtzburg
19. Elisabeth Erdl	Albstatt, Parocia Somborn	Moguntina
20. Georg Heijl	Heroida	Fulda
21. Johannes Müller	Rickers, Parochia Flijden	Fulda
22. Margaretha Schneider	Gaijschig, prope Hammelburg	Fulda
23. Gasparus Müller	Dellwig	Fulda
24. Petrus Keijl	Eiderfeld (Eiterfeld)	Fulda
Sterberegister
Johannes John	Schmahan	Fulda
Josephus Sponn	Welkers	Fulda
Daniel Streitenbergei	Brunzell (Bronzell)	Fulda
Margaretha Bayer	Hainbuch (Hainbach)	Fulda

Father John Bayermann from the Würzburg Diocese 

The numbers of the German population grew rapidly.  The village in the year 1767 had a

population of 166 German families. In the year 1828 Mucsi had 1,619 inhabitants of which 12 were Jewish; the others were German Catholics. The town had 213 Houses.  The census in 1910 registered 2,192 people of which 2,113 were German. 

The population cross section developed in this way. In the year 1879 the priest of Mucsi at that time, Rev. Franz Nagy, characterized the inhabitants in a not ungenerous way. The village was surrounded by dense forest, which barely allowed contact with the outside world. The people lived with their livestock in the forest; their lives were tied to the forest. They had also adopted the character and disposition of a forest people. They worried about their food and their necessary clothing.  The forests had to be cleared first, so the farmers got a lot of cheap lumber with which they could build houses. There were hardly any straw roofs in the village; baked bricks were to be found in almost every house. But bricks were only used for the part of the house which served as the livestock stalls; the rest was made with stomped earth. The towns of the entire surrounding area bought their bricks from Mucsi. This work lasted until smaller “brick kilns” were erected elsewhere. 

Most of the inhabitants also made wooden shoes and not just for themselves but also to sell. Making of wooden shoes was a man’s chore and only in the winter, because in the summer the whole family did farm work. The inhabitants of Mucsi were blessed with many children. In each family there was an average of eight to nine children, just as in their original homeland around Fulda.  One school has had an administration since 1779.  Between 1799 and 1879 two teachers taught three hundred children in two classrooms. In the year 1945 there were approximately three hundred thirty schoolchildren. In the village they first established the so called Sunday school. The students attended this school for two years on Sunday mornings after they had completed their regular six years of schooling. 

Because of the great poverty, most people worked as day laborers in the vineyards of Count Apponyi.  The inhabitants occupied themselves with viticulture from the beginning. In the years from 1880 to 1890 many vineyards were destroyed by the grape stalk louse. Poverty increased when many of the younger folk went to work elsewhere, the girls mostly to Kaposvár.  At the establishment of new vineyards they would first plant the rootstock and then graft on the vine. The vines were then resistant to the grape stalk lice.