How Far Back? Challenges and Limitations of Cadastral Maps for the Study of Urban Form in Hungarian Towns

This public lecture is held in the framework of the Faculty Research Seminar.

This paper discusses the usefulness – and the limitations – of cadastral maps in reconstructing urban spatial development in past times. In a broader sense, it addresses the methodological issue of the extrapolation of later evidence to earlier periods. Cadastral maps are the first nation-wide large scale overviews of both towns and countryside. Their emergence in several European countries in the late eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century was connected to the need of centralised state administration to gain full control over the territories under their government. Therefore they are excellent sources for the period when they were made. However, due to the relatively slow pace of industrialization at the time of their production, several features of earlier origin may still be observed on these maps.

This paper examines and compares five of these features: watercourses, defensive structures, public buildings, street patterns, and plot boundaries, using three towns in Hungary: Buda, Győr, and Sopron as case studies. It traces the presence of these elements on the cadastral maps and contrasts them with data from earlier maps, town prospects and archaeological excavations. The main aim is to define how far back in time these features can be followed, and thus to provide considerations for the critical use of cadastral maps even in such cases when very little comparative data from earlier periods are at our disposal. Since the “European Atlas of Historic Towns” project uses cadastral maps as the main source for its topographical presentation, the conclusions may be relevant for the project as a whole.

Katalin Szende is associate professor in the Department of Medieval Studies at CEU. She has studied archaeology, classical philology and history at ELTE, Budapest. Her main field of research concerns medieval towns in the Carpathian Basin: their society, everyday life, literacy, and topography. She is a member representing Hungary in the International Commission for the History of Towns.