Kehida Summary
Kehida
Summary
Summary
The territory around Kehida lying in the Lower Zala-valley attracted settlers already in ages before written history. The most significant archaeological relics to prove this, date back to the migration period: in the area of the village, even two of the graveyards of the Avars were explored, a people which dominated the Carpathian Basin for two centuries before the Hungarian Settlement.
When the name of the village first came up in Medieval written sources in 1232, it was already an important settlement, where the nobility of Zala county gathered, and as a result of their meeting, they turned to the king asking for new rights for themselves in a letter dated “in ponte Ketud” that is in the bridge of Ketud. Thus, the charter of Kehida is also an important witness of social changes relating to the history of Hungary in the XIII century.
In the period between 1232 and the middle of the XVI century, the noblemen of Zala county held their general assemblies or court proceedings also on several other occasions in Kehida, and their choice of this site could be justified by the central position of the village from the borders of the county.
It was owned by three families between the turn of the XIII–XIV centuries and the end of the XVI century. János, Koppányi Onth’s son from the Lőrinte dynasty lost this estate during the disturbed times after the extinction of the Árpád dynasty. The Kanizsaies, one of the most significant families of Western-Transdanubia were the masters of the settlement between 1322 and 1523. They collected the tolls for the bridge over the Zala river, and forcefully organised the annexation of the neighbouring village of Kiskallos to the outskirts of Kehida. No further mention was made of the latter one since the beginning of the XV century, even its name sank into oblivion. The church of Kiskallos, consecrated to Saint Nicolas, however, survived the devastation of the village, and was preserved on the outskirts of Kehida called Pusztafalu reconstructed to become the tomb of the Deák family.
The Kanizsai family awarded Kehida, which was lying far from the centre of their estate to Dénes Háshágyi, member of the family, for his significant services in 1523. The village remained in the exclusive ownership of the Háshágyi descendants for a hundred years until the extinction of the male line of the family. In the 1540-ies, when the Turkish attacks against places in Zala county became more and more frequent, the Háshágyi family reinforced their manor-house. They even built the nearby Saint Peter church in Kehida into their castle. Although the fortress gave protection to its tenants against smaller plunders, it could not withstand harder sieges, and thus, it became devastated during the Turks’ revenge campaign in 1588.
In the XVII century, families relative to the Háshágyi family on the female line, and pledge holders shared the land area around the settlement. The Hertelendy family appeared as owners in 1681, when half of the toll amount was theirs. During the wartime, the village got burnt and robbed several times. Its population was quickly diminishing, but the settlement did not fully become depopulated. The remaining population of Kehida temporarily settled around the former church of Kiskallos at the end of the XVII century.
According to the data of medieval sources, the serfs of Kehida apart from land cultivation and animal husbandry, also dealt with the production of vegetables and grapes. They fished and caught crabs in the Zala river.
With the passing of the wars against the Turks and the Habsburgs, a gradual re-settlement of the village started to its ancient and current sites in the first decades of the XVIII century. The re-settler of Kehida was probably landlord Gábor Hertelendy, who had the palace and the manor-houses built, and who founded the new, baroque parish-church.
After the final settlement, the population of the village grew to about three-hundred and fifty, and its economic strength also multiplied. The population of the village in the XVIII–XIX centuries – except for a few Jewish families and descendants of those employed on the estate – was basically pure Hungarians, mostly of the Catholic religion.
The non-noble population of Kehida earned their living until the middle of the XIX century as the subjects of one single estate, the Hertelendy-Deák domain, and lived solely from land cultivation and animal husbandry. Its inhabitants created their vine-hills by felling down forests, and the water of the Zala river dammed up mills, was hired by fishermen.
The “second founder” of the village, Gábor Hertelendy’s daughter, Anna married the descendant of a family from the small nobility, Gábor Deák in 1757, who thus laid the foundation of a financial and social rise for the Deák family. In the first half of the XIX century, one of the landlords of Kehida, Antal Deák became the sub-prefect of Zala county, and its delegate to the general assembly of the country, and his brother, Ferenc – also a member of Parliament – became a dominating personality of the whole Hungarian liberal opposition.
It was primarily the income of the family’s estate in Kehida which provided Ferenc Deák with the financial independence necessary to play a role in the opposition’s political life. During his post as a minister in 1848, he was still the landlord of Kehida, but he already prepared the compromise of 1868 between Austria and Hungary in the capital after he had sold the estate. His manor-house in Kehida, which in his days hosted all the dignitaries of the Hungarian history of the XIX century, is one of the most significant monuments of the settlement today.
In the second half of the XIX century, small peasants were farming in about one third of the area of the village, while the “greatest Hungarian”, István Széchenyi’s son, Ödön became the owner of the estate first, and later the Baronyi brothers, a banker family, who managed to obtain nobility.
By the beginning of the XX century, the village changed a lot both in terms of its number of population, and its external image. Its population grew over eight hundred people, new, healthier houses were erected, however, it was not moved by the movement of industrialisation – railway construction – with its population still living from agriculture.
During the XX century, Kehida gradually became the centre of neighbouring villages after several of the smaller villages in the vicinity lost their independence, with Barátsziget being the first one, and later followed by Kustány, and became parts of Kehida. Therefore, the strength of the village to retain its population was never lost despite large historical changes, but on the contrary, tourism starting at the end of the XX century – primarily due to the thermal spa – opened perspectives probably never seen before for the development of the village.
In the XX century, it was still over-dominance of agriculture which could be witnessed in the economic life of Kehida – similarly to earlier centuries. Small peasant farming in mostly small lands was characterised by low efficiency and lack of break-out possibilities. It was only the farming activity carried out by the agricultural vocational school built in the second half of the 1920-ies which could prove that land was paying back with good crop results for appropriate investments and modernisation.
The village never received any significant industrial facilities, this branch of the economy was only represented – in addition to the mill – by private tradesmen. Those who wanted industrial work, mostly commuted or left their home-village.
Never before did the image of the village change so much as during the last century of the second millennium. Private and public buildings, bridges and other objects never before created such a well-organised network as nowadays. In the 1990-ies, the XX century achievements of civilisation finally found their way to Kehida, tilting the balance of historic debt to a positive direction.
