The study discusses a topic often neglected by urban history: urban gardens and manors. These green areas within the city were probably of a great significance in their time, since intramural gardens constituted nearly half of all the urban territory and their produce provided the city’s population with basic subsistence. In order to explore medieval urban gardens in Buda, the paper uses references found in available charter evidence and historiographical sources, complemented by garden walls documented in archaeological record. The research yielded various categories of gardens within the internal and external boundaries of Buda, which all played different roles in the city’s economy.The sources about urban gardens within the castrum are scarce, which is understandable since the high-density coverage of built-up areas probably did not leave much room for them. There is evidence, however, for gardens belonging to residential buildings, which were potentially extramural extensions, either attached to the main plot or situated completely separately. In the suburbium, the increasingly steep hillside closer to the castle walls was less suitable for residential purposes, so burghers planted orchards and manors in Taschental and Tótfalu quarters situated in the area at the foot of the castle. There were also gardens, farms, and manors in the wider surroundings of the city, which provided food for the burghers. Surviving evidence also shows the presence of vegetable gardens (solarium), orchards (pomarium), herb gardens (herbarium), and ornamental or flower gardens (viridarium) among the monastic gardens of Buda. Medieval landscaping standards and customs were for the most part modelled after antique traditions.

The study briefly summarises what surviving written sources tell us about medieval women and their work, using sources from between the 1270s to the mid-sixteenth century. The structure of women’s work was relatively simple in the cities of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. Besides the prevalent traditional homemaker role, the number of opportunities where women replaced men in the workforce steadily increased. Women were of medium height, approximately 160cm (5ft 3”). Girls living beyond their tenth year had an average life expectancy of 40–60 years. The court of archduchess and regents comprised of 15–20 women led by the lady senechal, followed by the ladies in waiting and chamberlains, down to laundresses, servants and maids. Women living in monastic orders were accompanied by lay sisters and servants running the household. In the early days, the consecrated nuns performed a variety of jobs including menial tasks. In urban society widows were keen to remarry as soon as possible to avoid temporary financial insecurity. Following the death of the husband, inheritance dictated that all his movable and immovable property went to the widow and his children. Until remarrying, the widow had complete control over the building inherited in part or total. Guild regulations stipulated that widows of guild members either marry another member of the same guild or the late husband’s apprentice. Similarly to artisans, merchants’ widows were allowed to continue their husband’s trade temporarily. The most frequent work opportunity for women in medieval Buda, however, was market trading. Their number, ethnicity, place of work and range of goods sold were all strictly regulated. They were referred to as fruit, pottage, cheese, poultry, game, vegetable or salt traders according to the goods they sold. The presumable presence of procuresses, prostitutes and witches in Buda is attested to only by entries in the Lawbook of Buda.

Reconstructing the topographical image, that is, the map of medieval Buda requires the survey of a wide range of different sources. One of the most valuable sources about the life of the city is the fifteenth-century Buda Lawbook, which contains the regulation of city authorities and a detailed description of commercial and criminal law. Another useful source are the statutes regulating the work of guilds and their members, as well as the structure and operation of the guilds. Information can also be gleaned from charters of legal cases. These often contain seemingly insignificant mentions of places, which have special importance due to the scarcity of other evidence in this field. Reconstructing the topography of Buda also greatly benefits from the fact that several military engineer visited the city during the operations aimed at reconquering the city from the Ottomans between 1684 and 1686, and their descriptions and maps are exceptionally valuable sources. The city structure and street grid, as seen on contemporary maps and etchings of the three cities (Buda, Pest, Óbuda), preserve characteristics that developed in the late medieval and Ottoman period. In addition, the architectural history of surviving buildings and the analysis of periods and building styles are also helpful in this inquiry. Research into city walls that was conducted before the post-war rebuilding works unearthed a large amount of late medieval evidence. The reassessment of the documentation and publications of their findings is essential, especially in view of international research of medieval cities, trade and architecture. Due to the international nature of trade and commerce, the building styles of medieval Europe are easily distinguishable and they are also recognisable in Hungarian buildings. Combining these different sources and methodologies, the study offers a partial reconstruction of the life of late medieval Buda. The identification of places mentioned in charters, the information provided by maps and surveillance, the architectural history of surviving buildings, as well as the material described in secondary literature lead to informed conclusions together. At the same time, the available sources are fragmentary in all groups of evidence, so the findings remain insufficient to build a complete, adequately detailed picture of the medieval city. Since surviving buildings generally preserve characteristics developed between the second half of the fourteenth and mid-sixteenth century, and most of the available documents come from this period too, the study focuses on these two hundred years.