Abstract
This article problematises the question of how the household can be used as an analytical unit for interpreting the social dynamics of rural life in medieval Hungary. It focuses on issues of social hierarchy and the complexity of village communities, discussing both the material and non-material aspects of peasant and lesser nobility households.
The current state of research in Hungary is such that investigations on household archaeology have yet to discover the paths to more-nuanced interpretations of problems traditionally within the scope of this field of research. The socio-economic status of household owners is often reflected in the richness of material finds, particularly imported objects or specific types of finds, while we can also rely on written documents in order to interpret archaeological evidence in this context.
However, the lifestyles of the peasantry and lesser nobility were not necessarily distinctive as reflected by archaeological materials, so that the dichotomy of the wealthy and poor status of households is not a suitable indicator of legal/social statuses. Based on the archaeological evidence, it is usually possible to draw conclusions on the general living conditions of individual households in rural settlements.
However, in most cases it is highly problematic to directly connect or interpret any type of find material as a sole indicator when defining the legal status of the inhabitants. On the other hand, the structural organisation of village space should be considered when approaching this problem: the size and position of the household tofts have also been studied in connection to their legal-social status.
The paper attempts to look at broader socio-economic trends and explore how they could have influenced the material dimensions of rural life, focusing on the aforementioned social groups.