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information about Prince Räköczi’s vineyard policy in Tokaj Wine-Region. It is
just only known that, in his absence, he governed his estates by bailiffs and chief
wine dressers.”
At any rate, after Prince George Rákóczi IIs death, his family finally left
Transylvania and moved back to Sárospatak, the administrative centre of Tokaj
Wine-Region. Notably, the Rákóczi family was Protestant, and they were staunch
supporters of the Calvinist or Reformed Church in Hungary. However, the late
George Rakéczi II’s widow, Mother Superior Sophia Bathory (1628-1680), had
converted to Calvinism merely for the sake of her marriage earlier.*° After her
husband's death, she returned to Catholicism and supported the Counter-Ref¬
ormation in Upper Hungary. His son, Prince Francis Räköczi I (1642-1676) also
became a Catholic, thus acquiring favor with the Catholic Habsburg Court. His
mother, the Jesuit and Paulite fathers persuaded him to accept Catholicism.?!
In 1666, Prince Francis Rakéczi I joined the so-called Wesselényi conspiracy
(1664-1670) against the Viennese Court. At the same time, this conspiracy move¬
ment blundered in 1670. Therefore, he laid down his arms and applied for mercy
at the Viennese Court. All other leaders of the conspiracy were executed and im¬
prisoned for high treason.”’ The participants’ properties were confiscated. Francis
Rákóczi I, due to his mother's and the Hungarian Catholic Higher Clergy’s inter¬
vention, was pardoned for a ransom of 300,000 rhine forints, several castles, and
estates. So, he was also obliged to mortgage his best vineyards in Tokaj Wine-Re¬
gion. Following the fall of the Wesselényi conspiracy movement Prince Rákóczi
remained politically neutral, but, before long, he passed away in 1676.”°
His heirs, namely his daughter Princess Julianne Rak6czi (1672-1717) and his
son, Prince Francis Räköczi II (1676-1735), after aging, re-changed and redeemed
all the earlier mortgaged and confiscated estates, castles, and vineyards in Tokaj
Wine-Region form the Viennese Court at the end of the 17 century. Thus, in
1698 and 1699, they divided into two pieces all the Rak6czis’ properties. So, Prin¬
1% MNL-OLE 156. UC. No. 146:28.
2° BarTuHA Krisztina, Az utolsé Bathory. Somlyai Bathory Zséfia életrajza (1628-1680) [The Last Bathory.
Biography of Sophia Bathory of Somlyó, 1628-1680], = Belvedere 12, 2000, No.1-2, 11-17.
21 APF (= Archivio storico della Sacra Congregazione per l’Evangelizazzione dei Popolio de „Propaganda
Fide” Rome, Italy) SOCG (<= Scritture Originali riferite nelle Congregazioni Generali). Vol. 462. Fol.
404r.-406/v.; APF SC (= Scritture riferite nei Congressi) Fondo Ungheria e Transilvania, Vol. 1. Fol.
44/r.-v., Fol. 290r.-298/v.; ARSI (= Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome, Italy) Litterae Annuae
Provinciae Austriae. Vol. 142. Fol. 194r.
2 MNL-OL E 156. UC. No. 102:1., No. 158:31/c., No. 159:41.
23 ULRICH Attila, Kamarai szölöelkobzasok, szölöbirtokok 1670-1701 — között, — különöste¬
kintettel a Wesselényi összeesküvés utáni okkupációkra [Confiscations of Vineyard, Vineyard’s Estates with
regards to the Confiscations on Consequences of Wesselényi’s Conscpiracy], = Szölötermeles es borkereskedelem
[Viticulure and Commerce of Wines], szerk. Orosz Istvan, Papp Klára., Debrecen, Debreceni Egyetem
Törtenelmi Intézete, 2009, (Speculum Historiae Debreceniense 2. A Debreceni Egyetem Történelmi
Intézete kiadvanyai), 109-127.
24 MNL-OL E 156. UC. No. 59:6/c., No. 70:41., No. 70:43.
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