A Cloister on Trial: Religious Culture and Everyday Life in Late Medieval Hungary [Reprint ed.] 1409467597, 9781409467595, 113837993X, 9781138379930, 9781315564524

Table of contents :
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements ix
Series Editor’s Preface xi
Introduction 1
Part I: Contexts
1. The Trial 21
2. The Cardinal and Religious Reform 45
Part II: Reading the Trial Text
3. The Protocol 59
4. The Witnesses 79
5. Narrative, Memory, and Identity 95
Part III: Religion, Reform, and Reformation
6. Townspeople and Friars 111
7. Religion 125
8. Morality 145
9. Ritual and Community 161
10. The Landlord 185
11. Conclusion: Lay Agency in Reform and Reformation 201
Epilogue 221
Bibliography 225
Index 249

Citation preview

A Cloister on Trial

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A Cloister on Trial

Religious Culture and Everyday Life in Late Medieval Hungary

Gabriella Erdélyi Hungarian Academy of Sciences

First published 2015 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Gabriella Erdélyi 2015 Gabriella Erdélyi has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Erdélyi, Gabriella. [Kolostorper története. English] A Cloister on Trial: Religious Culture and Everyday Life in Late Medieval Hungary / by Gabriella Erdélyi. pages cm. – (Catholic Christendom, 1300-1700) I ncludes bibliographical references and index. 1. Monasteries – Hungary – Körmend – History – 16th century. 2. Augustinians – Hungary – History – 16th century. 3. Körmend (Hungary) – Church history – 16th century. I. Title. B X2676.H8E7313 2015 271’.404397 – dc23 ISBN: 9781409467595 (hbk) ISBN: 9781315564524 (ebk)

2015007053

Contents List of Illustrations   Acknowledgements   Series Editor’s Preface   Introduction  

vii ix xi 1

Part I: Contexts 1

The Trial  

21

2

The Cardinal and Religious Reform  

45

Part II: Reading the Trial Text 3

The Protocol  

59

4

The Witnesses  

79

5

Narrative, Memory, and Identity  

95

Part III: Religion, Reform, and Reformation 6

Townspeople and Friars  

111

7

Religion  

125

8

Morality  

145

9

Ritual and Community  

161

10 The Landlord  

185

11

201

Conclusion: Lay Agency in Reform and Reformation  

Epilogue  

221

Bibliography   Index  

225 249

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List of Illustrations Figures 1.1

Tamás Bakócz’s Portray on his Commemorative Medal, 1513. Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, Budapest, Éremtár [Hungarian National Museum, Coin Collection] 26 1.2 Bakócz Chapel, 1519. Basilica of Esztergom (Photo: Author) 27 3.1 a & b The Witness Testimony of Pál Nagy, townsman of Körmend (Register, fols 85v–6r) 61 3.2 The clausula of János Miletinczi, public notary (Register, fol. 110r) 63 10.1 Péter Erdődy’s Apparition at Hunting. Kotari, Franciscan Friary and Church dedicated to St. Leonard, High Altar of St. Leonard, Predella. Photo: Orsolya Bubryák 192 E.1 St. Elizabeth Parish Church and Parsonage, Körmend. Photo: Balázs Zágorhidi Czigány 223 Maps I.1 I.2

The Kingdom of Hungary around 1500 Körmend in the Late Middle Ages (On the basis of the first surviving town map from 1667, published by Tóth, Körmend, p. 657.) 4.1 The Environs of Körmend  10.1 Erdődy Estates in the Early Sixteenth Century

xiii 17 82 200

(Maps designed by Béla Nagy, in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of History, Budapest) Tables 3.1 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3

The Augustinian Friars living in Körmend Witnesses from Körmend The Witnesses by Residence Stories Related Relations between Witnesses and Friars Talkative and Silent Witnesses

65 81 83 101 102 103

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5.4 Lay and Clerical Companions of the Friars 11.1 Religious Affiliation of Parish Priests on Private Estates

105 211

Acknowledgements The idea of the book was born in the Vatican Library in Rome, where on a hazy November morning, during my work in 1998, I came across by chance the detailed records of a cloister’s trial in Western Hungary. These records form the basis of the book. I am indebted to several institutions and individuals, without whom this book would have never reached completion. First of all the Institute of History of the Research Centre for the Humanities at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has, for the past fifteen years, provided the time, independency, financial support and creative professional environment necessary for research and writing. The everyday conversations with my colleagues have considerably shaped the book and made it a better one. I owe the greatest intellectual and personal debt to my scholar-mentor, colleague and friend Katalin Péter. She had offered invaluable support and advice during my early career, and it was also she who encouraged me to venture upon this book project. I am happy to be able to dedicate the outcome to her. I have benefited immeasurably from being able to present and discuss earlier versions of parts of this book at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, the European Social Science History Conferences and the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference. I also want to express my deep gratitude to several people in the broader profession who have stimulated and advanced this project, in one way or another, at its different stages: Zoltán Csepregi, Mihály Balázs, Pál Fodor, Maria Crăciun, Péter Tusor, Gábor Klaniczay, Bill Christian, István Szijártó, Monika Baar, Natalie Zemon Davies, Péter E. Kovács, Ralph Houlbrooke, István Fazekas, Robert J. W. Evans, Gábor Almási, Joel Harrington, Tamás Pálosfalvi, Enikő Csukovits, István Tringli, Herman Selderhuis, Tibor Neumann, Heléna Tóth, Szabolcs Varga, Beatrix Romhányi, Tamás Fedeles, Veronika Novák, Antal Molnár, and Judit Majorossy. The financial support for the project has been provided by several institutions: the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA, Project 81435), the János Bolyai Scholarship granted by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Balassi Institute, the Hungarian Academy in Rome, the Collegium Hungaricum in Vienna, the Österreichischer Austauschdienst, and the Stiftung Aktion Österreich-Ungarn. I am immensely indebted for their generous help.

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The origins of this book go back to my doctoral thesis at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, (2003), whose results had been published in Hungarian, in 2005. This book is its completely rewritten, re-conceptualized and updated version. A much earlier version of chapter 1–2 appeared as “Conflict and cooperation: the reform of religious orders in early sixteenth-century Hungary”, in Maria Crăciun and Elaine Fulton (eds), Communities of Devotion: Religious Orders and Society in East Central Europe, 1450−1800, Farnham-Burlington: Ashgate, 2011, 121−152. I am grateful for the permission to make use of the revised version. I would also like to thank Béla Nagy who gave expert help in producing the maps. I have received some photos to illustrate the book from Orsolya Bubryák and Balázs Zágorhidi Czigány. Paul Olchváry and Matt Ellis had an indispensable role in the creation of the final text as my scrupulous copy-editors. The dedicated staff of my publisher, my editors Tom Gray and Kirsten Weissenberg as well as Valerie Rice, who improved my English, made the final and often stressful stages of the production a pleasurable experience. The approaching birth of my little son, Ferenc proved to be the best motivation to finish the manuscript by October 2013. My two daughters, Anna and Júlia have not only brought into my life joy and emotional richness, but also helped me to learn how to use time most economically. Nonetheless, without the unflinching help and loving care of our two grandmothers this book would have never been accomplished. My final words, as always, go to my husband, Sándor Horváth, who is a curious and critical reader of my work and a loving companion.

Series Editor’s Preface Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700 counter-balances the traditional, still-influential understanding of medieval (or Catholic) and reformation (or Protestant) religious history that has long resulted in neglect of the middle ground, both chronological and ideological. Continuities between the middle ages and early modern Europe remain overlooked or underestimated, in contrast to the radical discontinuities, and in studies of the later period especially, the identification of ‘reformation’ with various kinds of Protestantism too often leaves evidence of the vitality and creativity of the Catholic church, whether in its Roman or local manifestations, out of account. The series therefore covers all varieties of religious behavior, broadly interpreted, not just (or even mainly) traditional institutional and doctrinal church history, and is to the maximum degree possible interdisciplinary, comparative and global, as well as non-confessional. The goal is to understand religion, primarily of the ‘Catholic’ variety, as a broadly human phenomenon, rather than as a privileged mode of access to superhuman realms, even implicitly. The period covered, 1300-1700, embraces the moment which saw an almost complete transformation of the place of religion in the life of Europeans, whether considered as a system of beliefs, as an institution, or as a set of social and cultural practices. In 1300, vast numbers of Europeans, from the pope down, fully expected Jesus’s return and the beginning of His reign on earth. By 1700, very few Europeans, of whatever level of education, would have subscribed to such chiliastic beliefs. Pierre Bayle's notorious sarcasms about signs and portents are not idiosyncratic. Likewise, in 1300 the vast majority of Europeans probably regarded the pope as their spiritual head; the institution he headed was probably the most tightly integrated and effective bureaucracy in Europe. Most Europeans were at least nominally Christian, and the pope had at least nominal knowledge of that fact. The papacy, as an institution, played a central role in high politics, and the clergy in general formed an integral part of most governments, whether central or local. By 1700, Europe was divided into a myriad of different religious allegiances, and even those areas officially subordinate to the pope were both more nominally Catholic in belief (despite colossal efforts at imposing uniformity) and also in allegiance than they had been four hundred years earlier. The pope had become only one political factor, and not one of the first rank. The clergy, for its part, had virtually

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disappeared from secular governments as well as losing much of its local authority. The stage was set for the Enlightenment. Thomas F. Mayer Founding Series Editor

Map I.1

The Kingdom of Hungary around 1500

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Introduction In the middle of May 1518, a prelate with his retinue, distinguished officials of the Church, arrived in the small town of Körmend in western Hungary. They came to conduct an investigation by questioning local people as to whether the Augustinian friars had in fact caused scandals by living immorally and whether, because of this, had been deprived of their old cloister legitimately. The members of the small group—the auxiliary bishop arriving from the capital, Buda1, and a public notary coming from Esztergom, the headquarters of the national church, all with their attending servants—must have been rather fatigued, the rich cloak of the bishop faded with a thin layer of the dust from the road after spending five or so days on horseback riding over the Bakony hills, across a panoramic (but on horseback rather tiring) region of Transdanubia.2 They must have been followed by the curious gazes of the townspeople. Entering the town from the northwest, they came riding southbound through the town on the main road—on the ancient Roman “Ivy Road”, in fact—where cattle was driven day by day toward Zagreb and Venice. Upon reaching the market square, they found themselves suddenly in front of the cloister, which was closely integrated into the daily life of the town and the constant witness of transit trade. This group however did not pass through, like many other people who crossed this town that lay at the junction of trade routes, but instead intended to stay for several days. At the cloister they may have turned left and crossed the market square, followed by a growing number 1   Márton Attádi, as the titular bishop of Augustopolis, was active as auxiliary bishop in the diocese of Pécs (Quinqueecclesiensis). He stayed in Buda however when the trial commenced on May 4. He received there his commission on May 6, which prescribed for him to start the investigation in Körmend within nine days. Register, fols 21rv. (See note 11 below for full reference.) 2   They covered a distance of c. 220 kilometers between Körmend and Buda/ Esztergom. They had altogether nine days to reach Körmend—making 40–45 kilometers a day, it took them about five days—and there cite witnesses, for which three days must have sufficed. On May 13 they were already in Körmend, when the notary authenticated in the castle a document. Register, fols 25v–7r. On the distance that could be done with a day’s journey, that is from sunrise to sunset (depending on such factors as season; weather; quality of road, horse, and rider; weight of luggage; number of travelers; and river crossings) see Margaret Harvey, ‘Travel from Durham to York (and back) in the Fourteenth Century’, Northern History, 42 (2005): pp. 119–30, where contemporaries’ estimates concerning a bishop’s travel range from twenty to thirty miles in a winter day.

2

A Cloister on Trial

of watchful folk, then reached the parish church and the parsonage in the southeast. They were probably warmly received by the priest, István, the incumbent, and other members of his household. As the parsonage lay beside the recently embellished four-corner renaissance castle, the most comfortable brick building in the town, they probably took their lodgings there, listening by night to the murmur of the River Rába running nearby.3 The news and the excitement must have spread quickly through the town and beyond, since over the next couple of days the high officials were taken around the town and neighboring villages in order to summon witnesses. Their presence must have provoked curiosity, since such notabilities from the capital city were a rare sight in the streets of these small and remote places. At most, people had the opportunity to see and talk to archdeacons and seigniorial stewards as the commissioners of the local bishop and of the landlord, visiting diocesan churches and conscribing tenants and their obligations.4 Meanwhile, the daily routine in the castle as well was disrupted. The landlord, Péter Erdődy (?–1546)—an affluent nobleman with modest talents but very good connections—had suddenly arrived, probably from his nearby residence in the county, the castle of Monyorókerék (Eberau in Austria). He hastily began to arrange his affairs, including hiring a lawyer.5 Two days afterward, on the morning of May 15, a large crowd began gathering at the parsonage. By the time the bell of the friary church was rung at nine o’clock, everybody had arrived, sixty people or so in all. In addition to the bishop-judge and the notary, forty-nine witnesses, peasants, petty noblemen, and pastoral clergy from the town and its environs, were on hand to take their oath collectively before the 3   The only other venue suitable for putting up such notabilities would have been the castle. As the landlord, however, was involved in the trial, having the officials stay there would have seriously damaged even the appearance of their neutrality. Moreover, the interrogations also took place at the parsonage. On the topography of Körmend see: Koppány Tibor, Körmend városának építéstörténete [The Architectural History of the Town of Körmend], (Körmend, 1986); István György Tóth, ‘Körmend alapítása. A város alaprajza a 17. Században’ [The Foundation of Körmend. The Town Plan in the Seventeenth Century], Századok, 113 (1979): pp. 643–58. 4   From the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries very few church visitation records survive, indicating at most an irregular practice. Seignorial conscriptions are more numerous from the fifteenth century onward. The first such sources for Körmend survive from the seventeenth century, in the archives of the landlords of that period, the Batthyány family. Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (MNL OL) [The National Archives of Hungary], P 1313 and P 1322, Urbáriumok. 5   The relevant letter is dated May 13, 1518, in the castle of Körmend. Register, fols 25v–7r.

Introduction

3

interrogation began. They were all men, but the open-air ceremony (the parsonage could not have housed all these people) may have attracted additional onlookers, including women. Naturally, the representatives of the opposing parties also tensely waited for the proceedings to commence. Three Augustinian friars, who had arrived shortly before from Buda to represent the Augustinian case, hung around in their black habits. One of them was the friar Zsigmond, an earlier prior of the Körmend friary,6 who, though feeling uneasy in the uncomfortable situation, possibly greeted his former acquaintances among the witnesses, including the parish priest. As the Augustinians already knew, their opponents were not the observant Franciscans, who were currently living in their old friary and against whom they had appealed to the pope, but the landlord and his advocate, who had taken upon himself the defense of the observant Franciscans. By this time, the mood of excitement may have further increased in town with the news that the investigation had been ordered in Rome by the pope himself. Everybody knew that this meant a challenge to the authority of the powerful and headstrong Hungarian renaissance prelate, Cardinal Tamás Bakócz (1442–1521), Archbishop of Esztergom, who was the last Hungarian prelate having a chance to ascend to the papal throne and who had accumulated wealth enough to establish the social standing of the magnate family of the Erdődys for centuries to come.7 The self-made prelate, whose favorite nephew and chief heir was the young landlord of Körmend, Péter Erdődy, had expelled the Augustinians a year earlier and introduced in their place in the friary the observant Franciscans. He was probably the last great man who visited the town. In the middle of October 1511, as he was heading to Rome for the opening universal council (and in hope of the imminent death of the old and weak pope, Julius II),8 he did make a small detour to visit the friary, where he exhorted the friars to live a more pious and less noisy life. The cardinal’s interest and intervention proved to be a turning point in the life of the people of Körmend and the cloister, bringing the local affair to the attention of a wider public. The process that turned the local into a central and official event generated a plethora of written documents. This book investigates the process of how ordinary people emerge from these written records as historical agents. While the book tells the story of the trial, the detailed interrogations of the papal enquiry into the local scandal caused by lazy, boozing, and womanizing friars will open a window onto the particular

  Register, fol. 23v.   His only biography is Vilmos Fraknói, Erdődi Bakócz Tamás élete, 1442–

6 7

1521 [The Life of Tamás Bakócz of Erdőd, 1442–1521], (Budapest, 1899). 8   Fraknói, Erdődi Bakócz Tamás, pp. 107–9.

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face of late medieval religious culture in this unremarkable and remote small town. The historical reconstruction of the extraordinary but not unique events of the remote past promises the excitement of an investigation. The intellectual adventure is facilitated by a chance discovery, something dreamed about by all historians, during my research in the Vatican Archives and Library. Although the fact that Bakócz transferred the Augustinians’ old friary in Körmend to the observant Franciscans had been acknowledged by Hungarian historiography,9 the records of the subsequent trial have escaped the medievalists’ attention most probably due to the fact that through a series of misreadings and misunderstandings the materials landed finally in the collection of a seventeenth-century papal dynasty, the Barberinis.10 In the winter of 1998 I was searching for all kinds of materials concerning Hungary in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in the labyrinth of papal collections. On one rainy day in late November, having happened upon the name of Cardinal Bakócz in manuscript indexes, I requested access to a volume I hoped might contain one of the letters of his widespread correspondence. And so I took into my hand an unassuming little book. A note on its last page stated that it contained the documents of a case between the monks of the monastery of Farfa in Italy and some other Augustinian friars. Another archival note on a subsequently inserted page in the front claimed however that the case in question took place between Tamás, the Cardinal of Esztergom, and a cloister in Vapricensis Diocesis, which I hastily identified as a French diocese.11 The contradictory information confused me, obviously, yet the possible involvement of the 9   Zsuzsanna Bándi, Körmend a középkorban [Körmend in the Middle Ages], (Körmend 1987), p. 74. 10   On Hungarian medievalists working in Rome since the end of the nineteenth century see Lajos Pásztor, 'L’Istituto Storico Ungherese a Roma e il vescovo Vilmos Fraknói', Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria, 100 (1977): pp. 143–66; Péter Tusor, Magyar Történeti Kutatások a Vatikánban [Hungarian Historical Researches in the Vatican], Collectanea Vaticana Hungariae, I/1 (Budapest and Rome, 2004). 11   The Italian archivists seem to have misread the word Francisci as Farfensis, and distorted the strange name of the remote Hungarian diocese, where the Körmend friary lay, into the more familiar French one (Wesprimiensis into Vapricensis). The volume ended up in the archives of the Barberini family most probably due to the fact that Cardinal Carlo Barberini (1630–1704) was the abbot of the monastery of Farfa in the neigbourhood of Rome at the end of the seventeenth century. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma, 1964), vol. 6, p. 171. Cardinal Barberini held a synod here in 1685. Synodus diocesianae insignium abbatiarum S. Mariae Farfensis et S. Salvatoris Maioris ord. S. Benedicti

Introduction

5

notorious renaissance cardinal from Hungary caused me to look at the material more closely. First, I quickly realized that I held the documents of a trial that took place in Hungary, in the small town of Körmend, where an old cloister stood, and the conflict involved, in addition to the cardinal, Augustinian and Franciscan friars.12 My excitement grew with the impression that the minute protocol of witness depositions must be something similar to the inquisition registers of Montaillou, based on which Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie brilliantly reconstructed the social and cultural fabric of the small medieval community in the French Pyrenees, a work that had deeply impressed me as a student.13 These records opened to me a very similar yet peculiar world, and thus I became not only the first person to read these texts in many years but, in a sense, the last investigator in the trial. This book presents the results of this query. Late medieval judges had the task of ascertaining whether or not the Augustinian friars had been legitimately expelled from the cloister by Cardinal Bakócz. I, on the other hand, was interested in concentrating on the randomly dispersed clues within the fabric of the witness testimonies, in the nature of the relationship laypeople maintained with the friars, and their attitudes and actions with regard to the cloister. In short, I considered it as a window that could open a fresh insight into the social and religious milieu of a late medieval small community. After the cardinal’s brief visit to Körmend, the fatal turning point in the life of the townspeople and the Augustinian friars happened a few years later. It was in 1517 when the cardinal, under the claim that the friars caused scandals and lived dissolutely, initiated a process against them, which ultimately ended with their expulsion. Shortly afterward, Bakócz introduced observant Franciscans into the vacant friary. The Augustinians, in their sorry plight, appealed to the Papal Curia in order to reclaim their cloister and the pope subsequently ordered the local investigation of the case. The Vatican collection has preserved the original register of this examination, conducted in the spring of 1518, which was afterwards sent back to the pope to make his final decision. The first, smaller part of the invicem perpetuo unitarum celebrata per eminentissimum … dominum Carolum Barberinum, AD 1685 (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana). 12   Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Roma, Codices Barberiniani Latini, vol. 2666. Edited as The Register of a Convent Controversy (1517−1518). Pope Leo X, Cardinal Bakócz, the Augustinians and the Observant Franciscans in Contest, ed. G. Erdélyi, Collectanea Vaticana Hungariae, II/1 (Budapest and Rome: Pázmány Péter Katolikus Egyetem and MTA Történettudományi Intézet, 2005), hereafter cited as Register. 13   Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, village occitan, de 1294 à 1324 (Paris, 1975).

A Cloister on Trial

6

register contains the papers of the process conducted in Buda (such as the legate’s patent expelling the Augustinians, citation of witnesses, instruction to conduct the witness interrogation, and the judge’s report). The second, more voluminous part is more exciting with regard to the everyday life of townsmen and friars, since it records in Latin transcript the testimonies of the forty-nine witnesses questioned in Körmend. The agent of change, as the Augustinians argued in their appeal to the pope, was the powerful prelate Cardinal Bakócz, a one-time candidate for the papal throne. The cardinal spoke of a “cloister reform” motivated by religious concerns, while the Augustinians portrayed themselves as the victims of a political game. Were the Augustinians expelled under false pretenses? Or was the cardinal motivated by the public indignation about the friars’ misbehavior? The questions investigated by contemporary judges, serving as the leitmotif of the narrative, are rephrased by the historian: who was the agent of change, laypeople or church authorities? I investigate the political implications of the affair at two different levels (chapters 1 and 2). From the cardinal’s court we arrive at Rome, examining issues related to papal politics and the reform of religious orders in Hungary; but, as the book suggests, local affairs—the relationship of friary and town—played a more decisive role in shaping the events. And this is where the story of the friars’ scandal in Hungary parts company with the notorious affair of the Dominican nuns and friars of Zamora.14 The conflict of the Spanish Dominicans with their local bishop, who banished them under similar charges of sexual promiscuity, was also recorded in the course of a papal enquiry in the second half of the thirteenth century. Peter Linehan, in his exciting narrative of the Zamora case, raises the enumeration of the particulars above the trivial in the contexts of grand scale church politics. He suggests that this local scandal triggered the turn of papal politics, which subsequently supported the integrity of the parish in its rivalry with mendicant orders. By contrast, the resonance of the anecdote of the Körmend trial evolves from the locality. As a result, the central chapters of the book attempt to explore the relationship of town and cloister. Throughout, the historical narrative is fashioned as a kind of detective story, the first scene being the two-day witness hearing. What were the judge, the rival parties, and the witnesses trying to achieve in the courtroom? In order to come closer to their thoughts and deeds behind the documents before us, and to make sense of the milieu in the courtroom, which deeply shaped the witnesses’ readiness to speak, the protocol will be deconstructed (chapter 3).15 Engaging with   Peter Linehan, The Ladies of Zamora (University Park, Pa., 1997).

14 15

  For useful epistemological and methodological concerns when reading judicial sources see primarily Arlette Farge, Fragile Lives: Violence, Power

Introduction

7

the microscopic analyses of witness interrogations and their written records, the situation of the hearing can be conjectured, under the impact of Carlo Ginzburg’s approach,16 as a cultural dialogue of the bishop-judge, notary, temporal authority, and the witnesses. Did the knowledge and the power of the elite silence the voices of the ordinary men? As is always the case with judicial sources, it was the professional literate elite who transcribed the words of the illiterate, as also in our case.17 Consequently, I will have to read against the grain of the source’s professed function, when trying to reconstruct the religious and daily life of a small community based on interrogations about the local friars’ trespasses.18 However, the effort to better understand the complex and mutual relations that evolved between the dominant and the dominated cultures seems well furnished by such materials.19 For example, a close look at the behavior of ordinary men in front of the interrogating judge will highlight the ways in which underlings measured their words and deeds and acted according to their own rationality (and passing impressions and wavering emotions) rather than passively obeying authority and the expectations of the powerful. Instead of the opposition of popular and elite cultures and the model of acculturation (the spontaneous or forced reception of official norms), the tracking of the tactics of cultural consumption will enlighten, and Solidarity in Eighteenth Century Paris, Harvard Historical Studies, 113 (Cambridge, Ma., 1993), pp. 1–6; Shannon McSheffrey, ‘Feature Questions of Evidence. Detective Fiction in the Archives: Court Records and the Uses of Law in Late Medieval England’, History Workshop Journal, 65 (2008): pp. 65–78; Winfried Schulze (ed.), Ego-Dokumente. Annäherung an den Menschen in der Geschichte (Berlin, 1996). 16   Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a SixteenthCentury Miller, trans. John and Anne Tedeschi (Baltimore, 1980, Italian edn 1976). 17   See the pro and contra arguments for using judicial records as egodocuments (letters, autobiographies, diaries) in Ralf-Peter Fuchs and Wienfried Schulze (eds), Wahrheit, Wissen, Erinnerung. Zeugenverhörsprotokolle als Quellen für soziale Wissensbestände in der Frühen Neuzeit, Wirklichkeit und Wahrnehmung in der Frühen Neuzeit, 1 (Münster, Hamburg, and London, 2002). 18   The method of reading against the grain is described by Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives. Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth-century France (Stanford, California, 1987), p. 4; Fuchs and Schulze (eds), Wahrheit, p. 26. 19   Early modern missionary and visitation records also provide ample aspects to reconsider the relation of elite and popular culture. See for example. David Gentilcore, From Bishop to Witch: The System of the Sacred in Early Modern Terra d’Otranto (Manchester, 1992); Trevor Johnson, ‘Blood, Tears and Xavier-Water: Jesuit Missionaries and Popular Religion in the Eighteenth-Century Palatinate’, in Robert Scribner and Trevor Johnson (eds), Popular Religion in Germany and Central Europe, 1400–1800 (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 183–202.

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in other circumstances too, both the gaps and interfusions of high and low cultures.20 Another thread of the detective work seeks to explore how the witnesses were selected, which is still identical with the task of the contemporary judges. Did the patron’s party, as the Augustinians claimed, indeed try to win the trial by directly influencing witnesses? (See chapter 4.) Witnesses were drawn partly from townsmen and partly villagers from the environs, including peasants and petty nobles together with their local priests. It is important to note here that we will be witnesses to only male voices, since, rather surprisingly, the Erdődy–Franciscan party, whose task it was to prove the legitimacy of the Augustinians’ expulsion by witness depositions, refrained from summoning women to court, and thus going against the custom at church courts, despite the fact that women could have surely recalled several episodes, hidden from male eyes, not just concerning the friars’ sexual conduct but also their escapades in taverns and negligence of liturgy. Anyhow, working back from testimony to the hidden acts of pretensions, distractions, offenses, and silences, the book aims to unveil the storytelling and self-fashioning strategies of witnesses as well as the role of gossip in the shaping of public opinion. In Chapter 5 I experiment with a methodologically novel way of reconstructing narrative and its transmission in a late medieval community. The reading of the witness depositions as a “network of stories” will allow us a glimpse into how the relationship of the laity and the friars had been rather shaky and ambivalent, shaped by the dynamic of conflict and solidarity as opposed to outright refusal expressed with ostensible unanimity in the courtroom (chapter 5). Further chapters seek to understand the dynamic of conflict and cooperation inherent in lay–clerical relations. What did commoners expect from the regular clergy and the clergy in general and how did the clergy respond to this? And how did parishioners strive to restore religious life in the friary? Chapter 6 outlines the factors that guided the daily process of conflict and solidarity played out in the churches, homes, taverns, and streets of Körmend. In the following chapter (chapter 7), the relationship of town and cloister unfolds from the initial question: why did the laity insist on the services of the immoral friars—who, due to their misconduct, were perceived to convey harm rather than help in distributing the sacraments —even though there were plenty of secular clerics available? The attempt to define the dynamic of the local religious market focuses on the words, actions, and attitudes of town-dwellers. Their emotions oscillated between 20    Roger Chartier, ‘Popular Appropriations: The Readers and Their Books’, in Chartier, Forms and Meanings. Texts, Performances, and Audiences from Codex to Computer (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 83–97.

Introduction

9

anxiety, anger, and contempt toward the friars. Their actions aimed to restore religious life in the friary and public harmony in the streets. The (mis)behavior of the friars, as the book argues, disturbed not only the economy of salvation (chapter 7), but also breached community morals based on reciprocal obligations. Clerical negligence of the cloister buildings, which stood in ruins in the centre of the town to the shame of many, seriously damaged communal identity and pride (chapter 8). These are the types of questions that inform the first eight chapters as the story of the Körmend trial is constructed. As by now might already be clear, within the wide range of studies dealing with popular religion, this book engages with those that focus on the role the laity played in the religious life of the countryside in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.21 Since our story wishes to enlighten readers to the ways parishioners strove to restore religious life in the friary and public peace to the streets, simple lay folk emerge as the agents of religious renewal, and it is the local community, rather than the church or state, which seems to have created the impetus for reform. Studies of late medieval (and early modern) lay religious culture most often focus on devotional and social practices within the parish structure and the parish church. Another strand is engaged with social and economic networks between mendicants and local communities. While in Britain studies of parochial religion proliferate, in continental Europe the reciprocities of mendicant and lay cultures tend to catch scholarly attention due rather to the regional differences in the vitality and strength of parochial versus mendicant spirituality.22 This book wishes to bring these separated fields of study together and seeks to portray the dynamic relationship of all agents and spaces of local religion. This approach renders it similar to the recent study of communal piety in a late medieval

21   From the abundant literature it must suffice here to mention only some of the most recent works that had a shaping influence on my approach. Beat Kümin, The Shaping of a Community: The Rise and Reformation of the English Parish c. 1400–1560 (Farnham, 1996); Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath. Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (New Haven and London, 2003); David Mayes, Communal Christianity: The Life and Loss of a Peasant Vision in Early Modern Germany (Leiden, 2004). 22   I am thinking of the works of such authors as Burgess Clive, Cristopher Marsh, and Beat Kümin with regard to parish religion in England, and the works of Kaspar Elm, Bernhard Neidiger, Roberto Rusconi, Daniel Bornstein, and Larissa Taylor on the interactions of mendicants and lay society in the Holy Roman Empire, Italy, and France.

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English small town, Tenterden in Kent.23 Robert Lutton’s well-researched and illuminating reconstruction of local religious culture investigates beyond the parish church the role of other non-parochial institutions, too. Although the extra-parochial institutions in focus (chapel and guild there, friary here) vary due to the different nature of the source materials at hand, the integrated approach in both cases facilitates a differentiated image which challenges the revisionist portrayal of a harmonious and unified parish religion (promoted most persuasively by Duffy) on the eve of the reformation. While Lutton attributes the multiplicity and concurring trends of local piety to family traditions, differences regarding lay attitudes to the clergy will be traced here on an individual level. The integrated approach will hopefully bring us closer to the everyday experiences, hopes, and fears of ordinary parishioners. The effort to grasp and describe religious culture as a relational domain, in which clergy and laity interacted, cooperated, and contended,24 will, as I hope, cast a novel light on several aspects of religious and daily life. We can for example make sense of the fundamental differences of religious experiences provided by the friary and the parish church. And we will see real scenes— friars and parochial chaplains drinking together in the local tavern, or the parish priest officiating mass in the empty cloister church—instead of the idealized rivalry of mendicant orders and the diocesan church so frequently portrayed by historians. Furthermore, the expectations of the laity toward the friars and pastoral clergy, amply commented on by witnesses, persuasively documents how lay attitudes and practices had a shaping influence on mendicant and clerical religion and the changes it underwent in the late medieval period. The bottom-up analysis strongly modifies the standard top-down model arguing for the deep impact of mendicant spirituality on lay society, richly documented by scholarship.25 Here, instead, their routine reciprocity will be evoked. 23   Robert Lutton, Lollardy and Orthodox Religion in Pre-Reformation England. Reconstructing Piety (Woodbridge, 2006). 24   See Natalie Zemon Davis’s call to reorient the historical study of religion, ‘From “popular religion” to religious cultures’, in Steven Ozment (ed.), Reformation Europe: a Guide to Research (St Louis, Miss., 1982), pp. 321–41, p. 322. 25   On the influence of regular and clerical spirituality on the laity see most recently: Maria Crăciun, ‘Mendicant Piety and the Saxon Community of Transylvania, c. 1450–1550’, and Marie-Madeleine de Cevins, ‘The Influence of Franciscan Friars on Popular Piety in the Kingdom of Hungary at the End of the Fifteenth Century’, in Maria Crăciun and Elaine Fulton (eds), Communities of Devotion: Religious Orders and Society in East Central Europe, 1450–1800

Introduction

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While telling the story of the crisis and reform of religious life in Körmend, lay religious experience will emerge in the interplay of lay– clerical interactions as well as of official dogma and liturgy, which again integrates traditionally separated strands of scholarly literature. As for the relations between the local clergy and parishioners, on the one hand, revisionist studies evoking the vibrancy of late medieval religious life offer a harmonious picture;26 on the other hand, anticlericalism has established itself in reformation studies as the hegemonic driving force of the Protestant Reformation.27 The static pictures of complete harmony or sharp antagonism will come alive in the streets of Körmend. Such episodes as a peasant ministering to a celebrating friar or the confraternity members renovating the cloister buildings, simultaneously with the mockery of the drunken friars in the tavern or the chasing away of the lame prior and his lover will allow us a glimpse of ambivalence based on the interplay of (Farnham, 2011), pp. 29–70 and pp. 71–90; Ronald J. Stansbury (ed.), A Companion to Pastoral Care in the Late Middle Ages, 1200–1500 (Leiden, 2010). 26   The model study of this is Eamon Duffy, Stripping off the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400-c. 1580 (New Haven and London, 1992). In terms of Hungarian historiography, the very early and seminal monograph of Lajos Pásztor on late medieval piety fulfilled the role of rehabilitating the state of Catholicism in the parishes in pre-reformation Hungary. Lajos Pásztor, A magyarság vallásos élete a Jagellók korában [The Religious Life of Hungarians in the Age of the Jagiellos], (Budapest, 1940, reprint 2000). More recent approaches informed by cultural anthropology center on particular public rituals of lay religious practice (processions, pilgrimages, cult of local saints, pious donations, lay confraternities). See for example Károly Goda, ‘Buda Festiva: Urban Society and Processional Culture in a Medieval Capital City’, Czech and Slovak Journal of Humanities, 2 (2011): pp. 58–79; Dávid Falvay (ed.), Árpád-házi Szent Erzsébet kultusza a 13– 16. században [The Cult of Saint Elisabeth of Hungary from the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries], (Budapest, 2009); Judit Majorossy, Church in Town. Urban Religious Life in Late Medieval Hungary, PhD Diss., Central European University, Budapest, 2005; Judit Majorossy, ‘Late Medieval Confraternities in Pressburg’, in Nathalie Kruppa and Leszek Zygner (eds), Pfarreien in Mitteleuropa im Mittelalter. Deutschland, Polen, Tschechien und Ungarn im Vergleich (Göttingen, 2007). 27   An important contribution to this trend is the collected volume of Peter A. Dykema and Heiko A. Oberman (eds), Anticlericalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2000). See also Geoffrey Dipple, Antifraternalism and Anticlericalism in the German Reformation: Johann Eberlin Von Günzburg and the Campaign Against the Friars (Brookfield, 1996); Hans-Jürgen Goertz, Pfaffenhass und gross Geschrei: Die reformatorischen Bewegungen in Deutschland, 1517–1529 (Munich, 1987); A. G. Dickens, ‘The Shape of Anti-clericalism and the English Reformation’ in E. I. Kouri and T. Scott (eds), Politics and society in Reformation Europe: essays for Sir Geoffrey Elton on his sixty-fifth birthday (London, 1987).

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conflict and solidarity underpinned by the underlying interdependence of laity and clergy. As far as official religion, dogma, and liturgy are concerned—whether Sunday mass, public holy hours, funeral ceremonies, or church tenets— the story related here will suggest that these were also important factors that shaped popular conceptions and practices. Challenging thus the mainstream in research to focus less on belief and more on actions—but going along with the most recent turn which appreciates again church liturgy and doctrine as a rich and primary source for lay religious sensibilities28—this book argues that religion became increasingly perceived not only as a matter of morality but also of knowledge, with a shrinking gap between laity and clergy. Paradoxically, though, lay familiarity with (but not precise knowledge of) church tenets is deduced from an analysis of witnesses’ statements regarding their refusal to take holy communion (chapter 9), paraphrasing in a pre-reformation context the model study of David Warren Sabean located in Lutheran Württemberg.29 On the one hand, the microscopic lens has the virtue again of depicting late medieval Eucharistic and penitential religious culture, traditionally represented separately,30 as an integrated experience. On the other hand, it reinforces the model of appropriation as opposed to the trickle-down theory of acculturation, because it illuminates how the laity reinterpreted official messages and religious rituals and used religious practices also as social and cultural rites constructing and representing the community, which 28   See most importantly Natalie Mears and Alec Ryrie (eds), Worship and the Parish Church in Early Modern Britain (Farnham, 2013). After the long decades dedicated to the social aspects of popular religion, the source of inspiration of course came from Eamon Duffy’s oeuvre and Cristopher Marsh, Popular Religion in Sixteenth-Century England. Holding their Peace (New York, 1998). On lay indoctrination see lately: Robert J. Christman, Doctrinal Controversy and Lay Religiosity in Late Reformation Germany: The Case of Manfeld, (Leiden, 2012). 29   David Warren Sabean, ‘Communion and Community: the refusal to attend the Lord’s Supper in the sixteenth century’, in Sabean, Power in the Blood. Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 37–60. 30   The most comprehensive work on late medieval eucharistic piety is Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi. The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1991). For some aspects in Hungary see Maria Crăciun, ‘Rural altarpieces and religious experiences in Transylvania’s Saxon communities’, in Robert Muchembled and William Monter (eds), Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe, vol. 4 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 191–217. Another strand of studies is dedicated to the sacrament of penance and the ritual of confession, primarily based on confessional manuals. The classical work is Thomas N. Tentler, Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation (Princeton, 1977).

Introduction

13

tangibly illuminates the workings of a pragmatic religion based on the intersection of the divine and the social. The deciphering of the social meaning of communion in a Hungarian small community is indebted for its perspective to a long tradition of scholarship focusing on the social functions of late medieval and early modern religion, but it is genuinely new regarding its argumentation and method.31 As the title of chapter 9 also suggests, the “community” will figure as one of the actors in the story. It will denote however a variety of entities. Although the community of the town of Körmend could not be sociologically reconstructed based on the extant and rather scarce sources, the concept will refer to the social community which coincided with the religious community, the parish, addressed primarily in chapter seven. More typically, however, community comprises the participants of a particular event.32 The audience of the daily communications about the friars will be called a news or gossip community (including townsmen and people from the environs alike), while those sharing in the Easter confession and communion form a ritual community. The last episode of the historical narrative returns to the starting point: the issue of reform politics, whose “high” and “local” dimensions have been considered from the outset. Chapter 10 revisits the relationship between the community and the friars by focusing on the role of another agent, the secular lord: Péter Erdődy, who was the nephew of Cardinal Bakócz and lived on his Transdanubian estates. How did his presence influence the sphere of communal actions and aspirations? The implementation of the religious reform of the friary, from this perspective, will finally emerge as a complex process shaped in the dynamic of communal and seigniorial politics, in which spiritual and political goals closely intertwined.33 The study of the exceptional has been the explicit target of practitioners of “microhistory”, starting off from the premise that extraordinary events allow exceptional insights into the normal and everyday workings of a

  See primarily the seminal article of John Bossy, ‘Mass as a Social Institution, 1200–1700’ Past and Present, 100 (1983): pp. 29–61. More recently for example Amy Nelson Burnett, ‘The Social History of Communion and the Reformation of the Eucharist,’ Past and Present, 211 (2011): pp. 77–119. 32    Cf. Alan Macfarlane, Reconstructing Historical Communities (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 1–21. 33   The process of religious reform can be perhaps best compared to the sixteenth-century transformations taking place in the territorial towns of the Holy Roman Empire. Cf. William Bradford Smith, Reformation and the German Territorial State: Upper Franconia, 1300–1600 (Rochester, 2008). 31

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society and culture.34 The trespasses of the Körmend friars can be thus considered as a functional disorder that was sanctioned and recorded due to its abnormality. The concerted attention to individual strategies derives from the assumption that the possibility of change is inherent in the actions of people, who are able to find the ruptures and contradictions between prevailing norms and structures.35 While narrating the events at Körmend, I was also led by a curiosity, going beyond the outcome and consequences, which are more easily approachable, to reveal what kind of intentions, options, and limitations people had in different situations. We will peer into the courtroom wishing to see how individual witnesses weighed their situations and made decisions. The close reading of their depositions will help evoke the words, memories, and experiences of ordinary lay folk, who appear as flesh-andblood men maneuvering as best they could within limits set by class, power, and culture as witnesses in a trial; tenants of a powerful landlord; and members of a parish and of a market-town community. Moreover, the exceptional outbursts of violence upsetting the daily routines of the town streets will render more comprehensible the ways the community and the landlord alike strove to maintain his identity and consolidate his authority. Finally, the minute reconstruction of the lay practice of the rituals of holy confession and communion is intended to come as close as possible to their “lived religion”.36

34    On the notion of the “normal exception” (eccessionalmente normale) see Edoardo Grendi, ‘Micro-analisi e storia sociale, Quaderni Storici, 35 (1977): pp. 506–20, p. 512. It has been since interpreted in diverse ways. The one preferred here is outlined by Carlo Ginzburg and Carlo Poni, ‘The Name and the Game: Unequal Exchange and the Historiographic Marketplace’, in Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (eds), Microhistory and the lost peoples of Europe (Baltimore, 1991), pp. 1–10, esp. pp. 7–8. 35    Paul-André Rosental, ‘Construire le macro par le micro: Fredrik Barth et la microstoria’, in Jacques Revel (ed.), Jeux d’échelles. La micro-analyse à l’expérience (Paris, 1996), pp. 141–59; Giovanni Levi, ‘On Microhistory’, in Peter Burke (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing, (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 93– 113. 36   The term “lived religion”, by now widespread primarily on the part of American scholars, was coined in the 1990s to denote a historical anthropology or cultural history of religion that overtly attempted to bypass the standard cultural oppositions (of high and low, elite and vernacular) that seemed to be inevitably inherent in studies of “popular religion”. David D. Hall (ed.), Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice (Princeton, NJ, 1997), p. vii. For a most subtle and sensible empirical attempt of reaching down to the lived religion of a small community see Robert Anthony Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith

Introduction

15

Beyond the possibilities lurking in the study and narration of the “normal exception”, the book makes another attempt in establishing the link between the particular and the general. The Körmend affair can be also read as an example representing some larger historical trends. While the events unfold, the particular bottom-up images of the longue durée process of growing lay involvement in matters of religion emerge repeatedly (like townsmen themselves repairing the decayed friary buildings, or we see a mystery play being performed in the town judge’s house); or with relation to particular episodes of the story we will reflect several times on how the threads of late medieval reform and sixteenth-century reformations, in Hungary, primarily its Protestant variant, were closely interconnected (for example the survival of sacramental religion, or the unchanging character of lay expectations from the clergy). Yet, the general lessons of the story are drawn more explicitly in the concluding chapter, where the narrative is, hence, shaped less by the voices of contemporaries than by the perspectives of historians. To what extent was the active involvement of community and landlord typical in bringing about religious change? Instead of reducing the scale, as we did earlier, in the final chapter (chapter 11), time and space will be expanded. I compare my findings concerning lay agency in monastic reform with the achievements of communities and landlords in religious activities centered on the parish church, which, along with friaries, was the other central space of local religion. How did landlords and rural congregations share the rights and obligations of electing clergymen (incumbents and stipendiary clergy) and their maintenance together with the local church? The rich evidence of mid-sixteenth century visitation records and sporadic late medieval evidence from all over the country suggest no major shift in endeavors and strategies of local agents before and after the Protestant Reformation: parish churches were run by lay society in an interplay of communal politics and seigniorial action. The communalism paradigm37 being applied and tested in the Hungarian countryside, on the one hand, refutes the idea of the reformation as a revolutionary phase of secularization,38 while reinforcing the scholarly and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950 (New Haven, CT, 2002, first edn 1985). 37   Peter Blickle has first directed attention to the role of communal politics in the reform process in both rural and urban settings. Peter Blickle, The Communal Reformation: the Quest for Salvation in Sixteenth-Century Germany, trans. Thomas Dunlap (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1992, German edn in 1985). 38   See the latest version of the old thesis by Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation. How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge, Ma, 2012).

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perceptions concerning the interconnectedness of late medieval reform and sixteenth century reformations, all being part of the long-term processes of the Christianization of society and the growing influence of the laity in spheres of religion. On the other hand, it also raises the questions of whether rural communities and individuals could assert their will more freely in the processes of both monastic and evangelical reforms due to the limited involvement and interest of distant magnate lords in local religious affairs, while the will and decision of town magistrates could not be evaded. Although the events narrated in this book could have happened anywhere, a description of their geographical setting may help furnish the readers’ imagination. The late medieval Kingdom of Hungary—which in principle consisted of the personal union of two countries, Hungary and Croatia, under the Jagiello dynasty—had a population of between 3,000,000 and 3,500,000 people. Beside the Roman Christian majority, the number of Orthodox Christians (Romanians, Ruthens, and Serbians) gradually increased as the Balkan inhabitants took refuge to the north from the Ottoman expansion and the ceaseless warfare in the southern border regions of the country from the 1390s onward.39 The majority of the population comprised peasant tenants living under feudal lords in villages and small towns, while the mostly Germanspeaking citizenry lived in the free royal cities. Due to the limited number of such civitates (c. 30, each counting a few thousand citizens), however, market centers developed into so-called market towns (by the end of the fifteenth century c. 150, each having a few hundred inhabitants), with a similar urban pattern in the Holy Roman Empire and other parts of East Central Europe.40 Market towns (in the sources oppidum, mezőváros in Hungarian) were franchized settlements, as the townsmen of Körmend had the right to choose a town judge each year and they enjoyed duty-free trade in the region and had a weekly market. Still, in contrast with free royal cities, their inhabitants were considered by law to be serfs (jobbágy in Hungarian) and lived under the authority of the landlords. At the beginning of the sixteenth century Körmend comprised 130 plots of land   András Kubinyi, ‘Die Bevölkerung des Königreichs Ungarns am Ende des 15 Jahrhunderts’, in Gyula Kristó (ed.), Historische Demographie Ungarns 896– 1896 (Herne, 2007), pp. 66–93. 40   On the urban network in Hungary see: Vera Bácskai, ‘Small Towns in Eastern Central Europe’, in Peter Clark (ed.), Small Towns in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 77–89. On regional similarities: Maria Boguska, ‘The Towns of East Central Europe from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century’, in Antoni Maczak, Henryk Samsonowicz, and Peter Burke (eds), East Central Europe in Transition (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 97–108. 39

Introduction

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with houses on them and thus counted some 600–700 inhabitants living on agriculture and small trade.41 The town was founded by royal settlers at the meeting point of trade routes and the fortified crossing of the River Rába, which surrounded the town on three sides, while on the north it was defended, as was usual with market towns, by a wattle wall and a moat. Following the general trend, Körmend underwent conspicuous development in the second half of the fifteenth century under the auspices of secular landlords. The predecessors of Tamás Bakócz, the Ellerbach magnate family, founded the parish church of St. Elizabeth and developed the fortifications of the castellum, which Péter Erdődy remodeled in the early sixteenth century as the fashion of the time dictated.

Map I.2

Körmend in the Late Middle Ages

41    Zsuzsanna Bándi, Körmend a középkorban [Körmend in the Middle Ages], (Körmend, 1987).

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The appearance of the town was dominated by a regular layout of originally equal-sized house plots (which later however grew varied), which was typical of towns with centrally initiated settlement.42 The inner townscape was in turn dominated by the ecclesiastical institutions located there. There was the old parish church dedicated to St. Martin, which was probably a round church situated on the ridge of the hill where the first inhabitants settled. In the era discussed, however, the parish priest had already moved to the more spacious Church of St. Elizabeth situated in the western, more recently developed part of the town. To its south stood the parish school, where the rumbling of the millwheels on the River Rába or the frolicking of people in the nearby bathhouse must have been heard. Together with the clerical students, from whom the most ambitious ones usually continued their studies at the University of Vienna, the town housed more than a dozen priests and clerics. The clerical supply was augmented by the residents of the Augustinian friary of the Holy Virgin Mary, standing opposite the castle on the south of the main square, whose regular hustle and bustle further intensified on the day of the weekly market.43 As was usual at the time, the cloister was probably a two-story building emerging from the host of single-level wooden houses. Attached to it we find the long single-nave church of mendicant orders. The Körmend cloister was one of the earliest Augustinian ones in Hungary, founded by King Béla IV (1235–70), hence its old buildings must have evoked the past for local people and passers-by alike. The stone houses of the more distinguished townsmen and noblemen must have stood along the main street running into the western side of the main square. This is the space in which we have to imagine the everyday life of Körmend coming to life in the pages that follow.

  On the townscape see Koppány, Körmend, pp. 11–24.   On the cloister see Bándi Zsuzsanna, ‘Ágostonosok remeték Körmenden’

42 43

[Augustinian Hermits in Körmend], Vasi Szemle, 23 (1979): pp. 359–66. For more on the school see István György Tóth, ‘Iskola és reformáció Körmenden a 16– 18. században’[School and Reformation in Körmend from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century], A Ráday Gyűjtemény Évkönyve, 6 (1989): pp. 10–21.

Part I Contexts

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Chapter 1

The Trial Reform or Spoliation? It was the pope, Leo X, who ordered that the case of the Körmend friary be investigated. Ecclesiastical trials, drawing on the legal culture of the late medieval Church, relied heavily on a thorough interrogatory method that centered on core questions such as, “Who? What Where? When? Why? With whom?” As inquests into heresy, canonization processes, and other affairs, such trials involved a witness interrogation, which was determined both by the “inquisitorial model” and by the professionals who conducted it. This inquisitorial method that lay behind the inquest into the mendicant friary in Körmend afforded the judge a dominant position in the court, interrogating the witnesses according to a detailed list of questions. Consequently, those formulating the questionnaire would inevitably shape the witnesses’ answers and the final judgment itself. The Romano-canonical procedure included a thorough examination and a careful recording of the evidence.1 The transcript of the proceedings would then be sent to the pope, who would make a decision in consultation with his cardinals. This record, now kept in the Vatican Library, forms the basis of the story below. Pope Leo X ordered the inquest into the case of the friary of Körmend after an appeal by the Augustinians. During the in partibus process, commencing in May 1518, the opposing parties related conflicting perspectives on the preceding events. The Augustinians’ arguments can be inferred from the papal breve: The prior and the friars of the cloister dedicated to the Holy Virgin, in Körmend, expressed to us with great lamentation that they had always led an agreeable, tranquil, and honorable existence, and their friary had been in possession of the order and friars of St. Augustine for as long as anybody could remember, and hence, no legitimate reason can be found to support that the said prior and friars should be divested of their ancient home. Our beloved son, Tamás, Cardinal of Esztergom ... and our legate in Hungary with a special commission, for some unknown 1   R. C. Van Caenegem, ‘Methods of Proof in Western Medieval Law’, in Caenegem, Legal History: a European Perspective (London and Ohio, 1991), pp. 71–114.

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reason, perhaps inspired by the observant friars of St. Francis, under the pretext that the aforementioned prior and friars of the Holy Virgin in Körmend neglected to perform the canonical hours and the holy mass as they were obliged to do in their friary, ordered, as we are informed, that the poor prior and friars ... should be deprived of their cloister, which would then be placed in the possession of the observant friars of St. Francis to the extraordinary detriment and disgrace of the said friars and their entire order.2

In short, the Augustinians contended that Cardinal Tamás Bakócz unduly took the cloister from them despite their model existence, an action commenced at the insistence of the Franciscans. The friars portrayed their expulsion as a violent maneuver by the Franciscans, one that served to blunt their attack on the cardinal: “They were expelled ... by the strength and power of the observants”, as Mihály Kolozsvári, the Augustinian prior of Vác who performed the role of advocate in Körmend, formulated it. Moreover, they emphasized that their order lay directly under the jurisdiction of the pope and the order’s superior general, which rendered them exempt from the authority of the primate of Hungary, whose procedure against them was, hence, unlawful and legally invalid.3 During the interrogation at Körmend, the Franciscans’ representatives presented their accusations in a set of articles enumerating the Augustinians’ transgressions, which they then had to support with witness testimony. The seventh and final article contained the following statement: “All that he has said is true as a whole as well as in parts, and it was, and still is, the common talk and opinion (publica vox et fama) in the region”.4 Their argumentation rested on the notoriety of the Augustinians’ way of life. As opposed to the so-called ordo iudiciarius, which involved the interrogation of eyewitnesses of both sides, this procedure was known in canon law as the ordo per notorium.5 The concept of fama publica, as referred to in medieval court records, was acknowledged by all types of courts and judges in the Late Middle Ages. Its power derived from its collective nature: it was what everybody said and knew, hence

  The papal breve to György Szatmári, bishop of Pécs (Quinqueecclesiensis), judge-delegate. Register, fols 4v–5v. 3   Register, fol. 25r. 4   The articles written by Márton Újhelyi, the Erdődys’ advocate, Register, fol. 17v. 5   James A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law (London and New York, 1995), pp. 120–53. 2

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it was socially accepted as fact.6 Consequently, litigant parties, in fact, had to manipulate rival versions of fama. As this strategy relied on talk of conspicuous, if not scandalous, public episodes that had circulated orally in the public arena, the opponents of the Augustinians had a huge advantage. The notoriety of the Augustinian friars was already established in the streets of Körmend and subsequently in the courtroom by the stories circulated about their transgressions and collective censure.7 Obviously, the “eventless” argument of the Augustinians (that they had always lived up to an exemplary standard) could not be supported by the telling of convincing and entertaining stories, which might have helped to win over neutral observers. The judge-delegate in Körmend gave way to the general social currency of fama publica when he heard testimony by not only eyewitnesses, but also by anyone in the region in contact with the knowledge forged by everyday conversations in the public arena. The 49 men summoned to the parsonage of Körmend from the town and its environs were expected by the Franciscans to confirm the Augustinians’ sins and the fama of their offences. Common opinion was generally valued just as much as fact. Gathering the witnesses was the task of the party that had composed the articles of the questionnaire that recounted the Augustinians’ digressions. This questionnaire was the basis for the examination of the witnesses. The Augustinians had the opportunity, though, to advance their counter arguments at the beginning of the process, to produce documents to refute the charges against them, and to influence the selection of the judge-delegate and clerks. Furthermore, during the interrogation, they could compile a list of questions (litterae interrogatoriae) designed to diminish the force of the other party’s arguments. Their questions aimed to undermine the credibility of the witnesses and the authenticity of the common knowledge, on which the testimonies were based.8 Witnesses who gave testimony had to provide some personal data and swear an oath that they were not pressured by the Franciscans or   On the medieval meanings of fama publica and especially its use in courts see the studies in the collected volume of Thelma Fenster and Daniel Lord Smail (eds), Fama. The Politics of Talk and Reputation in Medieval Europe (Ithaca and London, 2003), esp. pp. 17–22. 7   Cf. Chris Wickham, ‘Fama and the Law in Twelfth-Century Tuscany’, in Thelma Fenster and Daniel Lord Smail (eds), Fama. The Politics of Talk and Reputation in Medieval Europe (Ithaca and London, 2003), pp. 15–26. On the function of public action and public talk in the life of the town community see chapter 7. 8   Cf. G. R. Evans, Law and Theology in the Middle Ages (London and New York, 2002), pp. 96–8, 121–36. 6

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by the local landlord who served as the friary’s patron. The Augustinians also overtly voiced their suspicion that the fama publica originated from ill-intentioned people of low social status, who were envious of the Augustinians, and as such, the bad reputation of the Augustinians was a purposeful fabrication serving to justify the forceful intrusion of the Franciscans into their cloister. In short, they strove to undermine the objectivity of common opinion, suggesting that it was not based on the knowledge of the majority, but was simply a malicious rumor generated by a small group of the cloister’s enemies. The opposing party used very different strategies to forward their argument. They maintained that Cardinal Bakócz had intervened to “reform” the friary; in other words, to restore its religious and communal life. The articuli composed by the Franciscans claimed that the friary, contrary to the intentions of its founding king, was either abandoned or scarcely inhabited, maintaining that the one or two friars living there performed their holy services haphazardly or not at all. They went on to claim that the cloister buildings and the church stood in ruins due to the friars’ extreme negligence. It further maintained that the friars visited pubs, where they engaged peasants in conversations that often ended in arguments and fights due to their excessive drinking. Finally, the articles alleged that the Augustinians did not refrain from associating with suspicious women and women of ill repute, whom they even invited to the cloister.9 Under these circumstances, the argumentation concluded, the cardinal considered that he could best reform the cloister by ordering it handed over to observant mendicants. And as the judge-delegate also noted in his final report to the pope, Cardinal Bakócz undertook the reform with sufficient authorization and performed it within the framework of an appropriate legal procedure.10 The contemporary debate of spolium versus reformatio suggests an alternative vision of reform, one driven by political interests and/or religious ideals. Although at the level of words the Augustinians leveled the brunt of their counter-attack against the Franciscans, it was ultimately the powerful figure of Cardinal Bakócz whom the friars in fact blamed for their “unlawful” dismissal. Their argumentation implied a contradiction: while, on the one hand, they strove to present the events as an isolated conflict between two religious orders, they, at the same time, portrayed themselves as the victims of political maneuvering. The other party, however, envisioned a reform driven by religious, “observant” ideals, 9   The articles of the questionnaire listing the Augustinians abuses, Register, fols 16v–17v. 10   The final report of Bishop György Szatmári to the pope, June 18, 1518. Register, fols 1rv.

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depicting the events as an episode in the contemporary rivalry between the two great camps of conventuals and observants. Acknowledging the Augustinians’ bias, the political aspect of the events calls for a nuanced consideration due to the involvement of Cardinal Bakócz (1442–1521). Bakócz is typically acknowledged by Hungarian historians as having the most spectacular ecclesiastical career of the time, ascending from the peasantry to a position just short of the papal throne.11 He, however, was quick to leave behind his rural milieu for Italy, where he studied with the support of his eldest brother, himself a clergyman who had obtained nobility for the family. Back from Bologna and Ferrara, Tamás was bestowed a place in the entourage of Gabriele Rangoni da Verona, Bishop of Transylvania and royal chancellor (1476–80), the Franciscan who had, in 1456, preached in favor of the crusade against the Ottomans together with Giovanni da Capestrano at Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade, Serbia).12 It was he who paved the way for the talented and ambitious young Bakócz into the royal court. Having acquired his first benefice, the provostry of Titel (Tumen, Serbia), which he “inherited” from his brother (1480), his ecclesiastical career took off, and he soon ascended to the archiepiscopacy of Esztergom (Strigonium, in 1497), and thus became the primate of the kingdom. As archbishops automatically acquired the position of Lord Chancellor, he simultaneously became the head of interior affairs in the royal court. Bakócz received the red hat in 1500, with the mediation of Venice, in return for his diplomatic services. In the 1510s he was “pope and king in his country, in short, he can be whatever he wants to be”—as the Venetian ambassador said of the great authority of the Hungarian renaissance prelate-politician. Bakócz wielded a power comparable to that exerted by the cardinal-chancellors of western European monarchies.13 Bakócz himself was fully aware of his extraordinary abilities, which is indicated by the image and the inscription on his commemorative medal, which served as an established tool of pontifical representation   On the conclave in 1513, where he also received some votes, see Ludwig Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste, vol. 4 (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1906), pp. 15–17. 12   Norman Housley, ‘Giovanni da Capistrano and the crusade of 1456’, in Housley (ed.), Crusading in the Fifteenth Century: Message and Impact (Basingstoke, 2004), pp. 94−115, pp. 215−24. 13   The ambassador is quoted in Székely, ‘Reform und Politik im Leben des Kardinals Bakócz’, in Siegfrid Hoyer (ed.), Reform–Reformation–Revolution. Ausgewählte Beiträge einer wissenschaftlichen Konferenz in Leipzig, 1977 (Leipzig, 1980), p. 84. On his personality see Vilmos Fraknói, Erdődi Bakócz Tamás élete, 1442–1521 [The Life of Tamás Bakócz of Erdőd, 1442–1521], (Budapest, 1899), p. 178. 11

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at the time. The medal’s reverse, with Bakócz’s portrait on the front, records the cardinal’s entry into Rome (1513): it pictures the goddess of fortune triumphing, with the help of virtus, over the boisterous sea, which represents personal vicissitudes. As is commonly acknowledged, virtue−meaning personal merit−and fortuna, which also alludes to the ability to seize arising opportunity, are the attributes of the self-actualizing renaissance personality. At the same time, the ruling strategies employed by the unscrupulous sovereign, the modern politician of the time, are also

Figure 1.1 Tamás Bakócz’s Portray on his Commemorative Medal, 1513 represented in the interplay of the same two principles in Machiavelli. The supplement to the Ciceronian adage often cited at the time (“If you are guided by virtue, you are escorted by fortune” – Virtute duce comite fortuna) also reflects the papal candidate’s self-assertion: “I am a goddess [that is, Fortuna], a worthy companion of virtue” – Sum dea virtuti iure locata comes.14

  Ágnes Szalay Ritoókné, ‘Bakócz Tamás Breviáriumának kéziratos versei’ [Manuscript Poems in the Breviary of Tamás Bakócz], in Ritoókné, ‘Nympha super ripam Danubii’. Tanulmányok a XV–XVI. századi magyarországi művelődés köréből [Studies on the Cultural History of Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Hungary], ( Budapest, 2002), pp. 175–90, pp. 182–3. 14

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Figure 1.2 Bakócz Chapel, 1519 The cardinal applied the usual gestures of renaissance self-fashioning with great care and consciousness.15 He seized every opportunity to construct and symbolically represent his power. The chapel of the Basilica of Esztergom, which he intended to be his greatest achievement and his burial site, rivals the most wonderful Italian masterpieces of the high renaissance.16 In Hungary and abroad, he was a renowned patron of the young wishing to study, and also of humanist scholars and artists. His ceremonial march in Rome, designed to show off his wealth, also carried the message that he was worthy to ascend St. Peter’s throne notwithstanding his non-Italian origins. His intensive practice of nepotism was also modeled on Italian social norms and expectations. With the cardinal’s support, four   This concept is designed to denote a self-conscious shaping of personal and social identity. Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago, 1980). 16   Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Court, Cloister and City. The Art and Culture of Central Europe 1450–1800 (London, 1995), p. 46. 15

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of Bakócz’s relatives rose to offices high in the church, with three of them also gaining high-ranking state offices. This established channel of social mobility was spiritually legitimized by papal nepotism working through the institution of “cardinal-nephew” (cardinalis nepos). Bakócz was the first Hungarian prelate to ensure that the huge properties he accumulated during his career were transformed into family wealth at the hand of his nephews with royal permission.17 This very talented self-made man is portrayed by traditional historical discourses as an archetypal renaissance personality embracing different extremes. His only biographer portrayed him as a prelate-politician driven by individual interests rather than public concerns. Moreover, he did not refrain from any means that might promote his goal of ascending the papal throne and founding a rich dynasty. His political rationalism is contrasted with his humanist erudition, his generous patronage of literature and art, as well as some manifestations of his personal religiosity. “Although his soul appears to have been filled with worldly interests, a deep religious sentiment also found a place in it. ... Tamás of Erdéd, the rough and ruthless man ... exhibited tender feelings and an earnest devotion toward the mother of God”—wrote his biographer at the end of the nineteenth century.18 His pastoral conduct also reflects his untempered character: he supported the reform of the Premonstratensian order in Hungary, as some mediaevalists argue, besides religious concerns driven by political envy.19 The complaints of the Augustinians at Körmend seem to fit in well with this picture. Aside from the figure of the cardinal, some aspects of the observant movement and cloister reforms also need careful consideration, since they seem to drive home the Augustinians’ arguments. The fault-line between conventual and observant monasticism of the fourteenth and fifteenth century emerged from the varied stances of friars and superiors to monastic revival, generally termed as the “observant movement”. The adherents of reform, demanding the observance of the original rules, intended to revive the heart of monasticism: poverty, virginity, and obedience. The central ideal of apostolic poverty led reformers to urge the renouncement of private property, which served to bind monks and friars back to the observance of 17   His testamentary dispositions: Ferencz Kollányi, A magyar katolikus főpapság végrendelkezési jogának története [The History of the Right of Testament of the Hungarian Catholic Episcopate], (Budapest, 1896), pp. 96–8. On nepostism: Wolfgang Reinhard, ‘Nepotismus. Der Funktionswandel einer papstgeschichtlichen Konstanten’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 86 (1975): pp. 145–85. 18   Fraknói, Erdődi, p. 178. 19   Elemér Mályusz, Egyházi társadalom a középkori Magyarországon [Ecclesiastical Society in Medieval Hungary], (Budapest, 1971), p. 229.

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community in their devotional and everyday life as it was enshrined in their rules. They were confronted by the conventuals, who denied the necessity of change, and believed that the customs and privileges that had emerged over time did not prevent them from keeping their monastic vows. The advocates of change believed however that contemporary practice fell far from the church’s original ideals and presaged a deep crisis. They strove to resist what they perceived as corruption and restore communal patterns of life by enforcing the prohibition of private possessions, strict observance of monastic enclosure, mandatory attendance at masses and evening prayers, communal meals, wearing the frock, and a stricter asceticism (observing fasts and silent hours).20 The articles of the Körmend process are just as congruous with this as their final evaluation: the Augustinians “led a loose life in neglect of monastic discipline, ignoring their superiors”.21 Hence the transfer of the cloister of Körmend was inspired, if taken at face value, by observant ideals. According to the Augustinians, however, this religious discourse only served to conceal the real motives lurking in the background. Their argument is plausible in light of the general historical assessment concerning the reform of cloisters, a process in which authorities outside the religious orders tended to claim an active role. Monarchs, municipal magistrates, secular and ecclesiastical landlords, popes and their legates, and bishops were often the primary agents. Secular authorities, evidently, were driven by their own objectives, which did not necessarily coincide with the friars’ agenda. Moreover, in the fifteenth century, the involvement of secular authorities in religious reform had intensified compared to previous centuries. This tendency ran against observant aspirations, which considered the starting point of spiritual renewal the state of independence from worldly influences. Since, moreover, religious life was often reformed by the removal of conventuals and the introduction of other observant friars, as it was with the case in Körmend, the reform became a complex process involving a clash of 20   For a succinct summary of the observant movement see Kaspar Elm, Verfall und Erneuerung des Ordenswesen im Spätmittelalter, in Elm, Forschungen und Forschungsaufgaben, Untersuchungen von Kloster und Stift, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck Instituts für Geschichte, 68; Studien zur Germania Sacra, 14 (Göttingen, 1980), pp. 188–238. See also Kaspar Elm (ed.), Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, Berliner Historische Studien, 14; Ordensstudien, 6 (Berlin, 1989), pp. 3–400; James D. Mixson, Poverty’s Proprietors: Ownership and Mortal Sin at the Origins of the Observant Movement (Leiden, 2009). 21   Register, fol. 17v. For an analogous example see Paul L. Nyhus, ‘The Franciscan Observant Reform in Germany’, in Elm (ed.), Reformbemühungen, pp. 207–18, p. 211.

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divergent interests and motives. From the relatives, friends, and foes of the friars, through the local bishop to the monarch, the various personal and political interests of several participants intermingled.22 We have no reason to assume that in Körmend the events followed a different scenario. The controversy of spolium contra reformatio between the opposing parties will serve as a leitmotif of our historical narrative that seeks to reveal the backstory of the cloister reform in Körmend. Was the reform of Körmend part of a large-scale church political maneuver on the part of the cardinal, and were the Augustinians banished under false pretenses? Or rather, can the events be better grasped in their local context? While reconstructing in chronological order the apostolic process, we can gain some important insights into the wider political implications of the affair, including the relationship between pope and cardinal, the political standing of the Franciscan and Augustinian order in Rome and in Hungary, as well as papal policy with regard to the process of reform. I also hope that examining other cases of reform of mendicant houses in both Hungary and Europe will help us illuminate some aspects of the events in Körmend. Did Bakócz, for example, act arbitrarily, without adequate authorization, as the Augustinians argued? Later, in chapter 2, I will explore how this particular case fits in with the broader picture concerning the reform of religious orders in Hungary in the same period, concentrating on the role Cardinal Bakócz played in the reform process, which will help us clarify his role in the banishment of the Augustinians from Körmend. The question of whether the events were initiated and decided on high or locally is instrumental to the understanding of one of our central concerns: which were the agent of religious change, church authorities or ordinary laymen? Between Center and Periphery On September 17, 1513, Pope Leo X authorized Tamás Bakócz, his legate in Hungary, to banish the Augustinian friars and transfer the friary of Körmend to some observant representatives of another unnamed mendicant order. As the pope argued, the archbishop’s request was inspired by the fact that the friary “is severely ruined, is inhabited by only two or three friars at most, who ignore their superiors and perform the holy services at their

  See the studies under the chapter Landesherren, städtische Obrigkeit und Ordensreform, inElm (ed.), Reformbemühungen, pp. 515–70. Moreover Manfred Schulze, Fürsten und Reformation. Geistliche Reformpolitik weltlicher Fürsten vor der Reformation, Spätmittelalter und Reformation, Neue Reihe, 2 (Tübingen, 1991), pp. 80–119. 22

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own pleasure, which leads not only to the indignation of the neighborhood but, what is much worse, to a decay of faith and religious worship”.23 The cardinal’s words stemmed from his personal experiences, as he had visited the friars on his way to Rome in the fall of 1511, while heading to the Lateran Council. Several witnesses, the churchwarden of the cloister church among them, remembered the extraordinary occasion at the interrogation a few years later: He once heard from the mouth of the Most Reverend Archbishop, addressing the friars, that they were too few and that they neglected the divine services, and if they did not grow in numbers and were not willing to improve their lives, and to better take care of the divine services, he would dismiss them, since he would not let the cloister fall into such an abandoned state and be so void of holy prayers. As to the question concerning the time and place of his statement, the witness replied that it happened when the Archbishop of Esztergom was on his way to Rome and that all this happened inside the cloister.24

His personal visit evidently testifies to his commitment concerning the local affairs in Körmend even though the cloister lay on his route to the Eternal City. At that time, he stood at the peak of his political power. In 1512 he was remembered as first among the cardinals. Hence, following the death of Pope Julius II, the archbishop, being already in his seventies, may have hoped that his dream of winning the papal throne would finally come true. Although in the first round of the conclave he did receive a respectable number of votes, the College of Cardinals, dominated by Italian prelates, as usual, gave the tiara to a young cardinal from Florence, Giovanni da Medici, over the elderly primate of remote Hungary.25 The new pope deemed the restoration of peace between Christian sovereigns and the initiation of a crusade against the Ottomans to be the primary tasks of the Lateran Council. These projects, although among the original objectives of the council, were dynamically organized only under Leo’s reign.26 Besides his commitment to defending Christianity, these   Register, fols 11r–12v.   Register, fol. 87r. 25   As first cardinal see Székely, Reform und Politik, p. 84. On the papal 23 24

election see Ludwig Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste, vol. 4 (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1906), pp. 14–15. 26   Eugen Guglia, ‘Die Türkenfrage auf dem V. Lateran Council’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichischen Geschichtsforschung, 21 (1900): pp. 679–91; Kenneth M. Setton, ‘Pope Leo X. and the Turkish Peril’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 113 (1969): pp. 367–424.

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political pursuits also happened to serve his personal interests. The crusade came as a convenient means of dismissing his rival, who was planning to settle in Rome for a long stay: On July 15, 1513 he hastily appointed the Hungarian primate his legate in Hungary and other countries to launch an anti-Ottoman crusade.27 The malice of the cunning Florentine could not be masked even by his insincere regret over Bakócz’s departure. The Hungarian cardinal, who had always presented himself publicly in Rome as a staunch advocate of Christian unity and anti-Ottoman action, had no chance to decline the honorable duty of “serving the common good and the interest of the respublica Christiana” as “the angel of peace”. His commission included further diplomatic directives intended to foster European unity. He could only make a feeble and unsuccessful effort to reject the undesired appointment. “We often held council with Cardinal Thomas … whom we finally, although the task was not in his intention and perhaps because of his advanced years he wanted to decline it … have sent to Your Majesty and your kingdom, Poland, as our legate”, wrote the pope to the Polish King, Sigismund I, in October 1513.28 But Bakócz did not surrender easily in this political skirmish. In return for his departure, which he kept deferring, he put forward various requests. First of all, to facilitate the success of the enterprise, he obtained full authority for his commission, and in November he gained permission to return to Rome after the campaign had been launched. But the pope also willingly granted the demands that were independent of his mission: Bakócz asked for, and received, considerable ecclesiastical benefices, important licenses of church administration, and permission for indulgences for the chapels that he had founded and honored.29 This is the chain of events into which his request for the reform of the Augustinian friary of Körmend fits, which the pope, in the given situation, must have fulfilled without hesitation. After all, there was nothing unusual in Bakócz’s request. The starting point of his petition was that “he had bought on money raised by his industry and labors in the past years” the market town of Körmend, where the cloister in question was to be found.30 The archbishop came in possession of 27   Augustinus Theiner (ed.), Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam sacram illustrantia, 2 vols. (Romae, 1859–1860), vol. 2, no. 800, no. 802. 28   Stanislaus Górski (ed.), Acta Tomiciana (16 vols, Poznaniae, Wratislaviae, and Cracoviae, 1882–1961), vol. 3, Epistolae et legationes, responsa, actiones, res gestae … Sigismundi I. Regis Polonie, pp. 12–13. 29   Theiner, Vetera monumenta, vol. 2, no. 800, no. 802 (plenia potestas); no. 801 (visitator apostolicus); no. 803 (extension of his jurisdiction as primate); see also no. 804–5 and no. 808–9. 30   Register, fol. 11r.

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the market town and the castle through a contract of inheritance forged in 1496 with a Transdanubian aristocrat, János Ellerbach of Monyorókerék, who had died without leaving issue. According to the contract, in return for his considerable previous loans, he would obtain the Ellerbach estates in the County of Vas, though he managed to assert his rights to the estates against the Ellerbachs only after several years of litigation.31 Bakócz thus acted as landlord, which was usual in such matters: during the fifteenth century several petitions arrived in Rome from Hungary motioning for the reform of a mendicant house where the petitioner was both landlord of the locality and patron of its friary. The three examples suitable for comparison32 all relate to Franciscan houses (Sárospatak, Újlak [Ilok, Croatia], Szécsény) under the patronage of secular landlords coming from the highest circles of society (barones).33 The patrons petitioned either the pope directly or his actual legate, in the middle of the fifteenth century, with a similar justification to that of Bakócz. For one thing, they all referred to the deteriorating state of the friary buildings, which they offered to renew at their own expense. Moreover, they criticized the friars’ moral decline and liturgical negligence, all of which aroused the indignation of the common folk. And since, as the breves obtained put it, their pious intentions served the salvation of the faithful and the strengthening of Christian faith, Rome granted permission to transfer the friaries to observant Franciscans in all three cases. For the four years following his procurement of the papal permission, Bakócz took no action. He only initiated the implementation of the cloister’s reform in 1517, as recorded in his patent of April 28, 1517 ruling the Augustinians’ expulsion. (I will come back to the reasons for this delay.) The same patent tells us that in the spring of 1517, an investigation, including an interrogation, had been conducted in Körmend, whose documents, unfortunately, have not survived. As the patent issuing the verdict claims, however, the testimonies convinced the archbishop of the 31   See Zsuzsanna Bándi, Körmend a középkorban [Körmend in the Middle Ages], (Körmend, 1987), pp. 37–41. 32   Here I consider only those cases when the apostolic breve, from which the justifications of the supplicant can be deduced, is at hand, and also when the cloister’s reform was eventually successfully achieved. 33   On Sárospatak see: Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (MNL OL) [The National Archives of Hungary), Fényképgyűjtemény [Photo Collection], Diplomatikai Fényképgyűjtemény (DF) [Photo Collection of Medieval Charters] 275504. On Újlak see: MNL OL DF 275506, published in Bullarium Franciscanum [nova series], ed. Fr. U. Hüntemann and J. M. Pou Y Marti (3 vols, Quaracchi, 1929–49), vol. 1, no. 1472. On Szécsény see: MNL OL DF 275516, published in Bullarium Franciscanum, Hüntemann and Marti, vol. 2, no. 1397.

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abuses and idleness of the Augustinians, whom he therefore called upon to leave their house. A month later, on May 27, 1517, he instructed the observant Franciscans to take over the friary.34 It was at this point that the Augustinians appealed to the pope for protection. As we have seen, in their appeal they regarded the archbishop’s procedure against them as unlawful for two reasons: on the one hand, they refuted its reasons and, on the other hand, they had a grievance regarding the way it was implemented. They accused the Franciscans of prompting the archbishop’s actions against them. Their final argument was that Bakócz’s action violated their canonical status. Although they could not produce a written document to this effect, it is in fact true that mendicant orders and their houses, through their privileges from the papacy, enjoyed exemption from episcopal jurisdiction and, constituting a separate unit in the territory of national churches, they belonged under the direct authority of the order’s superior general and the pope himself. Hence, a cloister reform could be authorized only with the special licenses of either general or pope. The Augustinians’ argumentation in this case was halting, nonetheless, since Bakócz was not only head of the Hungarian Church but as legate he was also the local representative of papal authority,35 which the Augustinians knew just as well as the Curia. At the appeal, on September 1, 1517, Pope Leo X delegated György Szatmári, bishop of Pécs (Quinqueecclesiensis) (c. 1457–1524) as judgedelegate. He instructed the prelate to immediately restore the Augustinians to their unlawfully taken cloister and then to examine the case and send the results to Rome, because he himself wished to make the final verdict. At the same time, the pope prohibited all ecclesiastical judges, among them Cardinal-Legate Bakócz by name, from persecuting the Augustinians in Körmend and elsewhere in Hungary “under false pretexts”, “in view of the fact that we do not want the friars of the order of St. Augustine to be submitted in either civil or criminal law cases to anybody else than the Holy See and their superior general”. Finally, he authorized Bishop Szatmári to excommunicate those who disobeyed and to employ the aid of secular law enforcement, invalidating the authorization that he, in his words, “perhaps” had previously given to his cardinal-legate.36

34 35

  Register, fols 10v–14v.   Cf. Richard A. Schnutz, ‘Medieval papal representatives: legates, nuncios,

and judges-delegate’, in Joseph Strayer and Donald Queller (eds), Post Scripta: Essays on Medieval Law and the Emergence of the European State in Honor of Gaines Post, Studia Gratiana, 15 (Rome, 1972), pp. 441–63. 36   The papal breve to György Szatmári, bishop of Pécs, Register, fols 4v–5v.

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Most of the elements of the papal direction give cause for thought. The only exception where no hidden intent might be suspected is Bishop Szatmári’s selection, since prelates had been delegated by Rome for similar tasks in the same seemingly ad lib manner.37 He was probably chosen because as head of the Royal Chancery he was at the time the most influential prelate in the country. Furthermore, a case that involved the cardinal-legate called for a judge of his stature. Still, it is not at all self-evident why the pope designated as the judge’s first task the return of the cloister and prescribed the performance of witness interrogations only as a subsequent step. Such a scenario, true, was consistent with canon law: Gratianus’s decretals prescribed as a first step, in the case of forceful dispossession (spolium), the reinstatement of the damaged party.38 The words of the Augustinians’ advocate in Körmend properly reflect how consciously they tried to take advantage of the legal institution of spolium: until the cloister is restored to them, they would withhold consent to the interrogation of the witnesses, “since according to the apostolic decree he who suffers forceful dispossession ... shall be first of all reinstated into his possession, and there is not a person who does not know this”.39 Despite the legal principle, its actual implementation was varied, of course, though in the majority of cases (at least this is my impression on the basis of conventual Franciscan appeals from all over Europe), the papacy made it dependent upon the result of the investigation whether a friary would be returned.40 Furthermore, the pope and the persons and curial offices involved in the decision-making had the freedom to deliberate not only whether investigation or restitution came first, but also had the liberty to decide who would have the authority to make the final decision. In several cases, this right was also delegated to the local commissioners executing the examination. The fact that in Körmend the Curia reserved this right for itself seems to have provoked a grievance from Bishop Szatmári, as evinced by his report attached to the register of the process. After committing himself to Bakócz’s lawful procedure, he noted: “without making a decision in the case, as Your Holiness ordered, the protocol has

  On the practice of delegating judges selected from among local prelates see Brundage, Medieval, pp. 127–9. 38   Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. A. Friedberg (2 vols, Graz, 1955–9), vol. 1, Decretum Gratiani, C. III. q. 1. c. I–IV, Expoliatis vel eiectis omnia sunt redintegranda. 39   Register, fol. 24v. 40   Bullarium Franciscanum, Hüntemann and Marti, vol. 3, for example no. 625, no. 1744. 37

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been sent to Your Holiness as a proof of my loyalty and devotion”, which appears to be something more than just a neutral statement.41 But in the case of Körmend, why did Rome come up with such a controversial decision, one clearly in favor of the Augustinians? Considering the factors involved in the papal decision, the curial bias may reflect the political influence of the two orders in Rome. Did perhaps the Venice-born superior general of the Augustinians or Gilbert Nicolai, the first man of the observants, elected upon the victory over the conventuals (May 1517), cherish more intimate relations with Leo X? It would also be helpful to know how much influence the cardinal protectors of the orders, Dominic Grimani of the Franciscans and Egidio da Viterbo, former Augustinian superior general, exerted, and who the other allies or patrons of the two orders were.42 The related actors are silent, however, in these respects. Their silence suggests that the case did not reach the highest level of the orders. If nowhere else, at least in the register volumes, which systematically recorded the official activities of the Augustinian superior general, there should have existed a related entry.43 The fate of the remote Hungarian friary hence seems to have mattered more to the pope and his entourage than to the top circles of the relevant orders. Since Hungary’s cardinal-protector between 1518 and 1523 was Giulio de’ Medici, cousin and successor of Leo X, he probably did not pursue an independent policy.44 Consequently, the pope’s personal interest must have been aroused by the involvement of Bakócz, his former rival. His emotional involvement may have generated his paradoxical rhetoric. In fact, Leo X, identifying with the Augustinians’ standpoint, argued that the order stood under exclusive papal authority against his own legate representing his authority in Hungary. This was a legal nonsense, which 41 42

  Register, fol. 1rv.   On the role of cardinal protectors acting for religious orders see Katherine

Walsh, ‘Papal Policy and Local Reform, Part II’, Römische Historische Mitteilungen, 22 (1980): pp. 105–45, pp. 124–5; Philipp Hofmeister, ‘Die Kardinalprotektoren der Ordensleute’, Theologische Quartalschrift, 142 (1962): pp. 425–64. On Da Viterbo and Grimani see John Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order from Its Origins to the Year 1517 (Oxford, 1968), p. 591; Francis X. Martin, Friar, Reformer and Renaissance Scholar: Life and Work of Giles of Viterbo, 1469– 1532, The Augustinian Series, 18 (Villanova, PA, 1992). 43   Archivum Generalis Ordinis Eremitarum Sancti Augustini (AGA), Serie Dd (Registri dei Reverendissimi Padri Generali). 44   On the beginnings of his office in 1518: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivum Arcis (Armadio I–XVIII), no. 2858. Cf. Joseph Wodka, Zur Geschichte der nationalen Protektorate der Kardinäle an der römischen Kurie, Publikationen des ehemaligen Österreichischen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 4/I (Innsbruck and Leipzig, 1938), dating his office as protector from 1519, p. 62.

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the pope must have been aware of himself. How shall we interpret then the papal argumentation? Did he really call into question the lawfulness of Bakócz’s procedure, was he emotionally blinded, or was he just inadvertently misusing the common rhetoric? Let us first inspect whether Bakócz’s procedure could have provided any grounds for criticism. Compared to the above-mentioned cases, when secular landlords initiated reforms in their petitions to the pope, the investigation performed by Bakócz followed the usual script and seems customary. As such, it is the Augustinians’ audacity that is striking. They, in contrast to their conventual contemporaries under attack, did not even appear before Bakócz at the delivery of judgment that closed the local investigation in the spring of 1517, but appealed straight to Rome. There is an important point that needs to be considered, however, with regards to Bakócz. He acted not in his capacity of judge-delegate and archbishop, but as papal legate representing the authority of the pope ex officio. The reform activity of other late medieval papal legates in the country might therefore be illuminating. In the middle of the fifteenth century, it was Cardinal Guiliano Cesarini and Juan de Carvajal who, as papal legates, ordered and implemented the reform of several Franciscan friaries in Hungary.45 And they both proceeded autonomously, without any prior papal authorization in the given case, their reform steps only confirmed afterwards.46 It is especially noteworthy that they simply issued reform decrees without conducting investigations and interrogations concerning local conditions, which occasionally triggered complaints and resistance. In contrast, Cardinal Bakócz, also a legate, requested a special permission to reform the friary at Körmend and “for the sake of greater certainty” he did conduct a local examination before decreeing the Augustinians’ banishment. Obviously, his way of proceeding violated neither legal customs nor written canons, and moreover, his extreme caution can be regarded exceptional. This may have been motivated, on the one hand, by the fact that the reform involved two different orders, which increased the potential of an intense struggle of interests and prestige. On the other hand, Bakócz was in one person, landlord, judge-delegate, and cardinal-legate, which rendered the case unique and called for a particular precaution in order to avoid suspicion. In short, Bakócz gave no formal reason for the   Vilmos Fraknói, Carvajal János bíbornok magyarországi követségei (1448–1461) [Cardinal Juan de Carvajal as Papal Legate to Hungary], (Budapest, 1889); János Karácsonyi Szent Ferencz rendjének története Magyarországon 1711-ig [The History of the Order of St. Francis in Hungary until 1711], (2 vols, Budapest, 1922–24), vol. 1, pp. 58–9, p. 331. 46   MNL OL DF 275632. 45

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pope to disapprove of his actions. The pope’s rhetoric, voicing his direct jurisdiction over the Augustinian order against his own legally proceeding cardinal-legate, makes sense only if Leo X regarded the Hungarian primate as an exponent of local interests rather than of papal authority. This peculiar perspective of Pope Leo X can be best understood in the light of the general tendencies of papal attitude toward the observant movement. In this respect, both curial behavior and rhetoric had significantly changed in the second half of the fifteenth century. Rome was originally interested in the reform of the mendicant orders, which also increased their efficacy in papal service. Their expansion had produced congregations independent of the provinces, and the reform of religious houses in practice increased the influence of local authorities, secular and ecclesiastical alike, over mendicant orders. The universal church, not surprisingly, discouraged this tendency, and from the 1460s often prohibited the occupation of conventual houses by observants supported by local authorities. The confirmation of the conventuals’ privileges was accompanied by rhetoric reclaiming direct papal jurisdiction over mendicant orders.47 The papal licenses granted at the petitions of observant reform in Hungary, submitted in the 1440–1450s, reflect this general tendency. The authorization of Bakócz in 1513 can be regarded, however, as going against the trend in order to circumvent the cardinal’s immense power and prestige. By the early sixteenth century, Rome had long been striving to promote the reform of religious houses by reforming the conventuals’ way of life instead of expelling them. That way the physical and legal conflicts between conventuals and observants, which severely damage the authority of the universal church, are eliminated. The change in papal policy culminating during the pontificate of Paul II (1464–71), became tangible during the debate over the Hungarian friary in Szécsény: at the appeal of the Franciscan provincial, the pope ordered their house be returned to them.48

  Katherine Walsh, ‘Papsttum und Ordensreform in Spätmittelalter und Renaissance: Zur Wechselwirkung von Zentralgewalt und lokaler Initiative’, in Elm (ed.), Reformbemühungen, pp. 411–31; Kaspar Elm, ‘Die Bedeutung Johannes Kapistrans und der Franziskanerobservanz für die Kirche des 15. Jahrhunderts’, in Elm, Vitasfratrum: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Eremiten- und Mendikantenorden des zwölften und dreizehnten Jahrhunderts: Festgabe zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Dieter Berg, Saxonica Franciscana, 5 (Werl, 1994), pp. 309–20. 48   Pope Paul II’s relevant bull served as a point of reference for his successors. For the bull issued for the Augustinians see Bullarium Ordinis Sancti Augustini, Regesta, vol. 3, 1417−1492, ed. C. Alonso, Fontes Historiae Ordinis Sancti 47

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The pope’s order in 1517 concerning the investigations at Körmend reflects that Bakócz’s prestige had seriously declined. The crusade he had launched in Hungary against the Ottomans in 1514 turned into a massive peasant revolt, whose bloody events reverberated all across Europe.49 The horrified Hungarian nobility put the blame for the unlucky turn of events on Bakócz, the “peasant prelate”. With the ensuing decline of Bakócz’s fame and power, Leo X did not need to seek the favor of the Hungarian cardinal any longer. Bakócz was still, however, an authoritative figure in Hungary. The pope, correct in his estimation, sought to protect the Augustinians: he ordered the immediate restitution of the friary to the Augustinians and retained the final decision for himself against the influence of Cardinal Bakócz. Another case, this time a cloister reform, seems to support our assumption regarding Bakócz’s decline of power. In 1511, the Benedictine nunnery of Somlóvásárhely in Transdanubia was transferred to Premonstratensian nuns by the archbishop due to their negligent lifestyle, as Bakócz, being also the lord patron of the convent, argued.50 It is interesting that the Benedictine leaders, trying to avoid an open conflict with the cardinal, unlike the Augustinians, did not seek Rome’s protection, but instead sought to thwart the transfer by less conspicuous passive resistance and postponed the official appeal against Bakócz’s order until 1524. As Bakócz had passed away by that time, the pope did not hesitate to commission the judges-delegate to perform both the examination and the final decision.51 The circumstances of the 1518 examination in Körmend did justify the anxiety of the Augustinians and of the pope about the predominance of the opposing party. The judges-delegate conducting the investigation, consciously or not, manifested some bias toward the more powerful party, the cardinal-supported Franciscans. The pope’s delegate, Bishop György Szatmári, as royal chancellor held in his hand supreme power alongside the underage king. His papal commission, probably against the intentions of Leo X, proved to favor the pope’s old rival in the conclave. Bishop Augustini, Tertia Series, 3 (Romae, 1998), no. 630 (1464). On Szécsény see: Bullarium Franciscanum, vol. 2, no. 1569. 49   The crusade of 1456 was not far from turning into a revolt either. The peasant army was quickly dissolved when the people started to murmur against the nobility whose troops failed to arrive in time. In more detail see Norman Housley, ‘Crusading as social revolt: The Hungarian peasant uprising of 1514’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 49 (1998): pp. 1–28. 50   Monumenta Romana Episcopatus Vesprimiensis, ed. Collegio Historicorum Hungarorum Romano (4 vols, Budapest, 1896–1908), vol. 1, no. 188, pp. 233–41. 51   Ibid. vol. 4, no. 231, pp. 294–5.

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Szatmári and Cardinal Bakócz, the earlier protégé and patron in the royal court, nurtured a confidential relationship, despite their differing political stances.52 In November 1514, after the peasant revolt, when anti-Bakócz sentiments had reached their climax, Szatmári remained the cardinal’s only ally.53 It might have been a small gesture of gratitude toward his old patron that the judge he delegated in place of himself during the process concerning the friary in Körmend was Mihály Vitéz, who had entered into his service from Bakócz’s entourage. Vitéz must have come into contact with Bakócz in Rome, where he served as Hungarian confessor at St. Peter’s between 1511 and 1516. Their relationship is apparent in several episodes. Vitéz, for example, was surely endowed by the pope with the provostry of Esztergom at Bakócz’s request and, in 1513, he was one of the cardinal’s escorts in the conclave. The cardinal also used the services of the legally trained priest at curial lawsuits while in Rome and again later at the court of Esztergom.54 Another official involved in the process, Márton Újhelyi, who acted as the lawyer on Bakócz’s side against the Augustinians, also came from the legal administrative circles of the archbishop. As with Vitéz, he was a procurator of the archiepiscopal see.55 János Miletinczi, the notary public in Körmend who compiled and authenticated the protocol sent to Rome, also worked there. Although, several other members of this Slavonian noble family stood in the service of the Erdődys, Miletinczi was accepted by the Augustinians as notary at Körmend.56 The dense personal network and cooperation between the circles of Szatmári and Bakócz is ultimately 52    Pál Tóth-Szabó, Szatmári György prímás. 1457–1524 [Primate György Szatmári], (Budapest, 1906), p. 33; András Kubinyi, ‘A belpolitika II. Lajos uralkodása idején’ [Internal Affairs during the Reign of King Louis II], in Pál Engel, Gyula Kristó, and András Kubinyi, Magyarország története 1301–1526 [The History of Hungary, 1301–1526], (Budapest, 1998), pp. 342–3. 53   See Bakócz’s confidential letter to one of his familiaris, urging him to follow the directions of Szatmári and ask his help with regard to various affairs. MNL OL DF 280766. Therefore, I consider the claim of the bishop’s anti-Bakócz stance at the time wrongly based. Gábor Barta and Antal Fekete Nagy, Parasztháború 1514ben (Peasant War in 1514), (Budapest, 1973), p. 230. 54   József Köblös, Egyházi középréteg Mátyás és a Jagellók korában [The Middle Layers of Ecclesiastical Society during the Time of King Matthias Corvinus and the Jagiellos], (Budapest, 1994), pp. 376–7. 55   András Kubinyi, ‘Írástudás és értelmiségi foglalkozásúak a Jagelló-korban’ [Literacy and Lay Intellectuals in the Jagiello Era], Magyar Herold, 1 (1984): pp. 186–208, p. 193 and p. 204. 56   On the Miletinczis see György Bónis, A jogtudó értelmiség a Mohács előtti Magyarországon [Legal Professionals in Hungary before Mohács], (Budapest, 1971), pp. 364–5.

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testified to by Reverend Márton Attádi’s career and his role in the process. Bishop Attádi was a new figure in the circles of Szatmári as his auxiliary bishop at the time of the proceedings. A few months earlier, however, he could be found in Bakócz’s service.57 On the whole it seems well founded to claim that all the legal executors of the process belonged to the inner circles of Bakócz. In light of all this, the fact that the Augustinians did not object to the participation of the above-mentioned judges in the examination seems curious. On the one hand, the principle of judiciary autonomy and impartiality regulated minutely by canonists seems to have been severely damaged. On the other hand, the parties involved were provided a surprisingly broad influence in the selection of judges they considered suitable.58 The Augustinians’ silence, however, is not a reflection of their complacence. Before the interrogations commenced, Mihály Kolozsvári, Augustinian prior of the friary in Vác, burst out with these bitter words: Poor Augustinian friars, because of the overwhelming authority and power of the supporters of the observants, did not find in the present case of their spoliation a more suitable advocate and notary other than him …, who is merely a simple and ignorant friar of the order, to talk, argue and write in their name, and to represent their cause, though they had promised to pay in advance a considerable reward.59

The reason for his despair is evident: the judges consistently disregarded their objection to both having the examination started and to the interference in the process of Péter Erdődy, the nephew of Bakócz, while they were fruitlessly demanding the restitution of their house. Even if the legally versed Augustinian leaders were obviously frustrated, they still refrained from raising an objection against the judges. Their 57   Attádi held several benefices in the diocese of Pécs: he was for example canon and archdeacon of the cathedral chapter of Pécs, and provost of the collegiate church of Marót. Register, fol. 1r, 18r. He had a university degree of the liberal arts: Monumenta Romana, Fraknói, vol. 4, p. 139. He must have closely acquainted Bakócz in Rome, where he was royal envoy in 1513. Tamás Fedeles, ‘Középkori pécsi segédpüspökök’ [Coadjutors of Pécs during the Middle Ages], Magyar Egyháztörténeti Vázlatok, 22, no. 1–2 (2010): pp. 5–20, p. 15. In April 1517, in the legate’s patent issued in Esztergom ordering the expulsion of the Augustinians he appears as a witness: Register, fol. 13r. 58   The appearance of bias in itself was enough ground to refuse a judge (recusatio), which could be achieved simply by any parties claiming that the judge was his enemy. Evans, Law and Theology, pp. 108–19. 59   Register, fol. 25r.

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behavior was rooted in legality, since they had no legitimate reason to reject the nominated judges. Formally, Cardinal Bakócz had nothing to do with the parties involved in the process. Though back in 1513 he was licensed to reform the friary as its lord patron, during the process in 1517 the parties involved, as well as the witnesses, regarded the archbishop’s nephew, Péter Erdődy, as landlord. They acted correctly, as Péter had already been managing the Bakócz estates in the County of Vas for years. The situation was legally acknowledged in May 1517 with the king approving of Bakócz’s last will, which designated Péter as his heir in Körmend.60 Péter, consequently, also acted legitimately, when during the process started on the appeal of the Augustinians, in the summer of 1518, he interfered in defense of the observant Franciscans and thus fulfilled his responsibilities as church patron.61 At the outset of the trial, initiated in the capital of Buda, the Augustinian leaders denied the legitimacy of Erdődy’s interference and challenged his authority as church patron. When, in May 1518, Mihály Vitéz, provost of Fehérvár (Alba Regia), while conducting the process in place of Bishop Szatmári, requested the Franciscans’ comment on the papal breve, magister Márton Újhelyi interrupted him. He was, as we have seen, Erdődy’s advocate and “as a third person, being thoroughly involved in the matter”, objected to the implementation of the breve. He used a formal mistake in the papal order first as an excuse. He pleaded that the pope ordered the restitution of a friary in the diocese of Veszprém (Vesprimiensis); however, the friary in Körmend belonged to the diocese of Győr (Iauriensis). Hence, the papal order, they claimed, was irrelevant. And when Újhelyi demanded the witness interrogation commence on the basis of the questionnaire he had compiled, the Augustinians, referring to their papal privileges, called upon him to stop harassing them, in view of the fact that “he and Péter Erdődy had nothing to do with their cloister”.62 The cardinal’s name was not mentioned once during the process. The Augustinians’ efforts to exclude Erdődy from the process and limit the procedure to the two religious orders coincided with the papal agenda. The Holy See also strove to define and manage cloister reforms 60   His last will: Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (MNL OL) [The National Archives of Hungary], Mohács előtti Gyűjtemény [Pre-Mohács Collection], Diplomatikai Levéltár (DL) [Archive of Medieval Charters] 89092; Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖStA), Haus-Hof und Staatsarchiv (HHStA), Familienarchiv Erdődy, Urkunden 10269 and 10270. 61   On the rights and responsibilities of church patrons see Ferencz Kollányi, A magánkegyúri jog hazánkban a középkorban [The Right of Patronage in Mediaeval Hungary], (Budapest, 1906), pp. 250–51. 62   Register, fols 2v–4r and 15r–16r.

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as ecclesiastical affairs with no interference from outside authorities. Yet, in Körmend, these efforts failed, and the lord patron dominated the proceedings: the judges in charge executed the interrogation in spite of the Augustinians’ objections, and the papal order to restore their house was neglected. The register of the process, which the pope may have received in the late summer of 1518, began with György Szatmári’s report. He summarized the proceedings with the following words: Since on the basis of the verdict of the Most Reverend Legate ... the auditor [i.e. Mihály Vitéz] was able to clearly establish that the hermits had been deprived of their house not arbitrarily but legitimately and the auditor reported to me the process that he had conducted reliably and in detail, I came to the conclusion that to return the house would have been unjust and would have aroused the indignation of many.63

It seems that Leo X had listened to the advice of the bishop of Pécs and left the friary in the hands of the Franciscans.64 Thus, eventually, despite its own peculiarities, the Körmend reform is a typical case with regard to the power balance of papacy and local agents. Despite canonical norms, local authorities managed to exert control over the process of reform. Rome was relegated to a role of adapting to local agendas.65 In order to save face, the papacy legitimized its sanction of local decisions by presenting itself as the keeper of peace. Observant cloister reforms went in hand with the recurrent papal rhetoric regarding the need to avoid scandalum, which served the papacy well in camouflaging its weakness in relation to local agents.66 Therefore, the late medieval process of cloister reforms, similar   Register, fol. 1r.   I have searched for but have not yet found the papal decree in the series of

63 64

Registri Vaticani in the Vatican Archives. 65   For the papacy’s limited scope of action see the reform of Franciscan houses in German Saxony: Schulze, Fürsten und Reformation, p. 83. 66   For a more pregnant example see the papal words addressed to the archbishop of Mainz, who reformed the Franciscan houses in his province. The German cardinal-legate argued, similarly to Szatmári, that the archbishop of Mainz proceeded lawfully, the observants enjoyed wide-ranging popularity among the laity, and envisioned a substantial lay outrage if the friaries would be returned to the conventuals. In 1472 the pope replied: “Since we, with God, intend to prevent scandals and to foster peace, acknowledging the reform that you have implemented, we encourage you as our brother in God to direct all your efforts and diligence toward settling this case in a manner so that no further complaint should reach us”. Bullarium Franciscanum, Hüntemann and Marti, vol. 3, no. 307. For the use of the same rhetoric see Bernhard Neidiger, ‘Stadtregiment und Klosterreform in Basel’, in Elm (ed.), Reformbemühungen, p. 550.

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to the canonization of saints, can be regarded as a process of negotiation between the center and the peripheries, with the papacy assuming more control after the Council of Trent in the process of confessionalization.67

  For such an approach of canonization procedures see Peter Burke, ‘How to be a Counter-Reformation Saint’, in Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy. Essays on Perception and Communication (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 48–62. 67

Chapter 2

The Cardinal and Religious Reform We have learned that Bakócz very consciously respected all legal expectations. If anything, his excess of precaution is remarkable rather than any arbitrariness in his dealings. Is this evidence of, we might ask, an underlying effort to conceal a political agenda lurking behind the observant reform at Körmend? The fact that neither he nor his nephew, acting as local landlord, invested in the restoration of the cloister buildings, resulting in the Franciscans’ desertion of the friary a few years later, may be interpreted as a symptom of a focused effort to remove the Augustinians. As some of the witnesses recalled, on his way to Rome, in 1511, the cardinal visited the friary and warned the friars to change their way of life lest they be expelled1—which must have also been a calculated move, since such preliminary exhortations were an established part of legal procedures of cloister reforms. But what was it that provoked his anger against the Augustinians? An underlying conflict between the cardinal and the order, totally independent of the situation in Körmend, cannot be excluded. In addition to earlier scholarly suppositions, there are also new data implicative of the tension inherent in their relationship. In the registers of the Augustinian superior general’s activities, one finds the notice that Gabriele da Venezia, in a circular issued in April 1520 to the Hungarian province, impelled the friars “to live a holy life and especially to reconcile with the cardinal of Esztergom”.2 How does this relate to the events in Körmend? Was the cardinal enraged by the Augustinians’ stiff resistance and subsequent appeal to Rome after their removal from the friary, or it had originated from other, previous affairs? The late medieval conditions of the Augustinians’ Hungarian province, with special regard to its attitude toward the dynamic reform movement commanded from Rome, briefly addressed below, will help us better understand the events in Körmend. Elemér Mályusz, perhaps the most influential Hungarian medievalist of the middle third of the twentieth century, presupposed that the idea and practice of reform was embraced in the Hungarian Augustinian province as well. If Mályusz’s assumption is correct, instead of a crisis in the market town on the cardinal’s estates, 1 2

  For example Register, fol. 87r.   Archivum Generalis Ordinis Eremitarum Sancti Augustini (AGA): Registri

dei Reverendissimi Padri Generali, Serie Dd. (Dd). vol. 13, fol. 132v.

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the transfer of the friary to another order could have been more smoothly achieved in cooperation with the reform-minded Augustinian superiors. It was the same medievalist who, in his monograph on medieval “ecclesiastical society”, which was a very modern scholarly enterprise for the time, argued that Bakócz’s conduct with relation to the Premonstratensian and Benedictine reform movements in the early sixteenth century was ultimately biased, and his stubborn anti-Benedictine policy as well as his resolute support of Premonstratensian revival was driven not by religious zeal but by personal impulses and his pursuit of power.3 The question arises as to whether such motives were also at play in the reform of the Körmend friary that took place in exactly the same period. The above indications prompt the analysis that follows, which seeks to understand better the local events at Körmend in the context of the late medieval reform movements of religious orders in Hungary. Were the seemingly local events decided at the level of high politics between Esztergom and Rome, or should we rather consider it as a locally framed episode? The Cardinal and Monastic Reforms At the beginning of the sixteenth century a dynamic reform process started in both the Benedictine and Premonstratensian orders in Hungary. The reformers tried to promote the revival of communal religious life by adhering to the canonical election of superiors, by holding regular visitations, and by a more centralized organization and leadership of their orders. The first significant results of their efforts manifested in 1510–12 in both orders.4 The Benedictine reform was initiated by the monarch himself, Wladislaus II (1490–1516), who, in 1500, appointed Máté Tolnai as Abbot of Pannonhalma. The abbot subsequently became the leading figure of the movement. Bakócz disfavored the arch-abbot’s efforts to organize the congregation because they encroached on his authority as primate: the reformed abbeys had come under the direct authority of the arch-abbot   Mályusz, Egyházi társadalom, pp. 226–32.   For a more elaborated study of the reform movements see Mályusz, Egyházi

3 4

társadalom, pp. 221–33; Oszvald Arisztid, ‘Fegyverneky Ferenc, sági prépost, rendi visitator 1506–1535’ [Ferenc Fegyverneky, Provost of Ság and Visitor of the Order], in Emlékkönyv Szent Norbert halálának 800 éves jubileumára (1134–1934). Fejezetek a magyar premontreiek nyolcszázéves multjából [Commemorating the 800-years-Anniversary of the Death of St. Norbert. Essays on the 800-Year-Past of the Premonstratensians in Hungary], (Gödöllő, 1934), pp. 51–108.

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instead of the archbishop. The conflict escalated when the king died and the congregation was confirmed by the pope in 1518, with the archbishop overtly supporting the opposition of the arch-abbot within the order and thus impeding the implementation of reform. In short, political rivalry and pride seems to have been integral to the cardinal’s proceedings.5 At the same time, the realization of the reform ideals and objectives of the Premonstratensians, spreading from France, can also be attributed to the archbishop. As a first step, he managed to have his protégés (Ferenc Fegyverneky, Uriel Majthényi, and András Dévai), all learned clerics, installed with royal cooperation, as heads of three great provostries under royal patronage, while the fourth house selected for reform had Bakócz as its patron. In 1510, almost without notice, control passed into their hands and, through them, the order came under the primate’s influence. Unquestionably, the cardinal’s zeal for reform precipitated his drive to be able to enforce his own authority.6 Nonetheless, the reform of the order achieved considerable results in restoring monastic life, as the archbishop’s men were genuine promoters of religious revival. They had faced serious difficulties, however, and achieved only partial successes in regaining some of the provostries alienated from the order. Hence, the smooth and quick transfer of an old Benedictine convent to the Premonstratensian order seems rather astonishing at first glance. The case of the nunnery, which stood on Bakócz’s estates (Somlóvásárhely), can be best explained, again, by the cardinal’s influence. As it plausibly illuminates both the anti-Benedictine tone of his proPremonstratensian policies while also manifesting several similarities with the reform at Körmend, it seems worthy to discuss this more in more detail. As it happened in Körmend, preliminary to the transfer in June 1511, an examination was performed, including an interrogation. Although the records of the process are lost to us, from the archbishop’s final decree issued by his vicar, the charges against the Benedictine nuns clearly emerge. As in Körmend, they were alleged to have lived in religious negligence and moral abuses: “the abbess and some nuns, neglecting religious discipline, did not blush to lead a lecherous life, to visit pubs and, succumbing to their wanton desires; they organized dances in the convent, indulged in debauchery and, worse, they strolled about outside of the convent”.7 We have no way of knowing what in fact happened. The nuns may have not lived impeccably at certain times, since it was the spread of exactly such laxities that nurtured reform endeavors of monastic life. The 5 6

  Mályusz, Egyházi társadalom, p. 229.   Oszvald, ‘Ferenc Fegyverneky’, pp. 53–6, pp. 58–9, p. 80; Mályusz, Egyházi

társadalom, pp. 213–15. 7   MNL OL DL 22140.

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visitor commissioned by the reform-minded Benedictine leaders found a deplorable state of affairs in several monasteries, two of which (Ják, Csatár) lay on the cardinal’s estates.8 Yet, he did not interfere. Whatever the case, the nuns at Somló, similarly to the Augustinians, did not surrender passively. While the Augustinians sought the protection of the pope due to their exempt status from the archbishop’s and royal jurisdiction, the nuns trusted in the support of the local nobility against their magnate landlord. As a result, the king, as their ultimate patron, exhorted them to refrain from inciting further disturbances in the region and to obey their lord patron.9 The royal charter also makes it clear that the events at Somló went beyond the scope of seigniorial reform. The decrees of the 1510 general chapter of the Premonstratensians, which Bakócz presented to the king for approval, contained, among other things, the directive that the superiors could send nuns “to houses in need of reform as they see appropriate”. Consequently, Bakócz’s confidants, provosts Fegyverneky and Majthényi, left for the chapter in January 1510 with the plan of expelling of the Benedictine nuns of Somló. The royal monition functioned as the formal prerequisite of reforms, since the reform was carried out in the name of the king. Just as Pope Julius II, in his confirmation of May 15, 1512, believed himself to be fulfilling the request of the king, Wladislaus also presented himself as the initiator of the reform, mentioning Cardinal Bakócz only as the executor of the royal will.10 The reform of the convent of Somló by a cross-order transfer formed part of the cardinal’s devoted support of the Premonstratensian reform, which had a sharp anti-Benedictine edge. Obviously, the religious life in the convent of Somló could have been more effectively reorganized in cooperation with the reform-minded Benedictine leadership—which would not happen, however, due to the cardinal’s envy of their growing influence.

  A pannonhalmi Szent Benedek-rend története [The History of the Order of Saint Benedict of Mons Sacer Pannoniae], ed. L. Erdélyi (12b vols, Budapest, 1902–12), vol. 12/b, pp. 222–3 (Ják), 256–65 (Csatár). Concerning the visitations see Géza Érszegi, ‘Hétköznapok a középkorvégi magyarországi bencés monostorokban’, [Everyday Life in the Benedictine Monasteries of Late Medieval Hungary], in Takács Imre, Szovák Kornél, and Monostori Martina (eds), Mons Sacer 996–1996. Pannonhalma 1000 éve [Mons Sacer 996–1996. Thousand Years of Mons Sacer], (3 vols, Pannonhalma, 1996), vol. 1, 561–7. 9   ÖStA HHStA Arch. Erd., Urkunden 10247. 10   Monumenta Romana, Fraknói, vol. 4, no. 177, pp. 211–12. 8

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The Cardinal and the Mendicant Orders Bakócz’s close and politically intricate relations with monastic orders and his deep involvement in their inner affairs makes it inevitable to ponder whether his actions regarding the friary in Körmend should also be approached in a broader context. The two competing religious orders also debated in court the cardinal’s interventions as part of his attitude and relations to the two orders respectively. As opposed to the Augustinians’ outright claim that the archbishop was induced by the observant Franciscans to take their cloister, the Franciscans declared during the interrogation that they did not act of their own will, rather it was Bakócz who obliged them to inhabit the friary, and therefore they would willingly renounce it without litigation.11 Both specific and more general circumstances support the Franciscans’ standpoint. The idea of reform seems not to have originated from them, nor were they involved in its preparations. Moreover, they probably reacted rather reluctantly to the cardinal’s summons at the end of May 1517 to move into the ruined friary. Observant Franciscans were highly popular with all ranges of the laity in late medieval Hungary. By the fifteenth century, they had developed a rather “popular-spiritual” profile as opposed to the “elitist-intellectual” mentality typical of the Augustinians in Hungary. While the education of Augustinians focused on theology and their cleric friars were educated well in their famous schools, which also attracted clerics from outside the order, and from universities outside Hungary,12 Franciscan friars rarely attended university and at the beginning of the sixteenth century the leadership of the order offered a model image of the Franciscan friar as someone aspiring to hear the confessions of ordinary men rather than being a qualified theologian.13 In addition to their popular preaching,

11 12

  Register, fols 1rv, 3v–4r.   Elemér Mályusz, ‘Az ágostonrend a középkori Magyarországon’ [The

Order of the Augustinian Hermits in Medieval Hungary], Egyháztörténet, 1 [1943]: pp. 427–40. 13   See the letter of the provincial, Balázs Dézsi, in 1514, to the Italian friars concerning the activity of the Italian lector in Hungary: “we do not need our friars to be exercised in subtleties and argumentations, but they should rather be trained in the holy scriptures and in more simple studies (in planis scientiis), especially the things concerning the hearing of confessions (in casibus conscientie), which they need much more”. Quoted by Szűcs, ‘Ferences ellenzéki áramlat a magyar parasztháború és reformáció hátterében’ [A Movement of Opposition within the Franciscan Order in the Context of the Hungarian Peasant War and the Reformation], Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények, 78 (1974): pp. 409–35, p. 423.

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which aimed at the moral and spiritual instruction of the common man,14 the collection and administration of the jubilee indulgence monies also brought them in close contact with the laity.15 The observant Franciscans’ ideal and practice of poverty appealed to the laity all the more, since by this time other mendicant orders managing landed properties (mills, arable land, and vineyards) had entangled themselves in everyday economic conflicts with local communities, paradoxically as a result of the generous pious donations and legacies of the laity.16 The Franciscans’ popularity among the laity is reflected by the high number of lay foundations built for them. During the fifteenth century, their supporters raised forty-four new houses for them.17 As they also had a newly raised friary in the market town of Egervár, near to Körmend, the prospect of gaining an old and ruined cloister from the Augustinians in the same area must not have appeared very attractive. Their cooperation with Bakócz also seems improbable in the light of the final failure of the reform and the Franciscans’ departure from Körmend. The cardinal’s obstinacy and willfulness must have also contributed to the tragic failure of the preaching of the crusade in 1514, in which he involved the observant 14   On the model sermon collections of Pelbárt Temesvári (Pelbartus de Themeswar) (c. 1435–1504; author of Stellarium, Basle 1498, and Pomerium, Hagenau 1499) and Osvát Laskai (Oswaldus de Lasco) (c. 1450–1511, provincial in 1497–1501 and 1507; author of Biga salutis, Hagenau 1498–99, and Gemma Fidei, Hagenau 1507) and their widespread European reception reflected by their numerous reprints in the first half of the sixteenth century see Gedeon Borsa, ‘Laskai Osvát és Temesvári Pelbárt műveinek megjelentetői’ [The Publishers of the Works of Osvát Laskai and Pelbárt Temesvári], Magyar Könyvszemle,121 (2005): pp. 1–24. On the preaching activity of the friars in Hungary see Károly Tímár, ‘Ferencrendi hitszónokok a XV. és XVI. században’ [Franciscan Preachers in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries], Religio, 69 (1910): pp. 260–62. 15   Jenő Szűcs, ‘A ferences obszervancia és az 1514. évi parasztháború. Egy kódex tanúsága’ [Franciscan Observance and the Peasant War of 1514. Evidences of a Codex], Levéltári Közlemények, 43 (1972): pp. 213–63, pp. 235–6. 16   See the argumentation of Beatrix F. Romhányi, ‘A koldulóbarátok szerepe a XV–XVI. századi vallási megújulásban’ [The Role of Mendicant Friars in the Religious Revival of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries], in Romhányi and Gábor Kendeffy (eds), Szentírás, hagyomány, reformáció. Teológia- és egyháztörténeti tanulmányok [Holy Scripture, Tradition, and Reformation. Studies of Theological and Church History], (Budapest, 2009), pp. 151–2. 17   Erik Fügedi, ‘Koldulórendek és városfejl’dés Magyarországon’ [Mendicant Orders and Urbanization in Hungary] in Fügedi, Kolduló barátok, polgárok, nemesek. Tanulmányok a magyar középkorról [Mendicant Friars, Burghers, Noblemen. Studies on Medieval Hungary], (Budapest, 1981), pp. 83–4; Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének története, pp. 38–9 and p. 356.

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Franciscans, as I suggest, also against their own will. It is tempting to present the case as an analogue to the events in Körmend. Preaching the crusade against the Ottoman Turks had traditionally been the preserve of the observant Franciscans in Hungary. The young Bakócz could directly experience the success of their crusade-preachings in the entourage of Gabriele Rangoni, a fellow friar and aide of Giovanni da Capestrano, preacher of the 1456 crusade.18 I find it therefore rather surprising that the legate approached the observant Franciscans to preach the crusade only when he found the work performed by the episcopal clergy whom he had initially entrusted it to, ineffective.19 But why, the question inevitably arises, did he resist the self-evident solution of calling the Franciscans in the first place? On the one hand, the chronicle of the order briefly mentions the scandals, which surfaced in the order around 1512–1513, connected to their management of the indulgence monies for the upcoming jubilee. On the other hand, there is evidence suggesting that the Hungarian observants were struggling with serious internal quarrelling at the time. The tensions that lay between a radical group of spirituallyminded young friars and the conservative leadership led to an open revolt in 1512–13 under the guidance of an Italian commissioner sent to Buda from the Roman center.20 And it seems justifiable to assume that Bakócz was fully aware of the difficult situation of the Franciscan superiors. The archbishop was an old patron of the order and he appears to have nurtured intimate bonds with Balázs Dézsi, their provincial. In short, Bakócz neglected the order’s difficulties to save his own enterprise. The analogue is relevant in this respect: in both the crusade-preaching as well as in the process of the friary’s transfer it was the cardinal who pressed the Franciscans to promote his own agenda and take no heed of their own needs and interests. The failure of both missions also reinforces such an underlying scenario: the crusade turned into a peasant rebellion, in which the faction of young spiritualist friars played a vital role; and the friary was abandoned in 1524 by the Franciscans, who were not able to restore the devastated buildings. Bakócz’s private devotion also seems to support that he had wished that the reform of religious life in Körmend be accomplished by the observant Franciscans. Another likely choice would have been the Dominican friars. The archbishop is claimed to have commenced his studies in a Dominican school near to his village, and furthermore he chose a Dominican as his private confessor. However, since papal theologians had traditionally been 18   Stanko Andrić, The Miracles of St. John of Capistran (Budapest, 2000), pp. 22–9; Housley, ‘Giovanni da Capistrano’. 19   Szűcs, ‘A ferences obszervancia’, pp. 235–6. 20   Szűcs ‘Ferences ellenzéki áramlat’, p. 412 and pp. 414–16.

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provided by this order, this can also be regarded as a sign of the Roman orientation of his religious taste.21 It may attest however to his personal religious attitude that the altar of the renaissance chapel, which he regarded as his greatest achievement, was adorned with motifs characteristic of the observant Franciscans.22 Concerning Bakócz’s relations with the Augustinians, the only extant direct evidence is the above-mentioned brief notice from the registers of the Augustinian superior general, which alludes to the anger of the cardinal toward the Hungarian Augustinians.23 As their earlier relationship remains murky, we can only hope that a closer look at the question of reform within the Augustinians’ Hungarian province will shed some light on the scenario at Körmend.24 After a two-decade crisis of leadership, the order was headed by Egidio da Viterbo, an outstanding humanist scholar, preacher, and reformer (1506–17).25 The new superior general had to face two different problems, which had brought the order to the brink of dissolution: the loosening of communal life, and discipline and the increasing political independence of observant congregations.26 In the Hungarian province consisting of approximately forty houses, the difficulty lay in planting the spirit of reform and introducing a more strictly regulated life. In order to ensure an uninterrupted relationship with the Italian and trans-Alpine provinces, including Hungary, the superior general often urged the provincials to go on with the reform and expected from them monthly dispatches of the conditions within their provinces.27 The   Cf. Mauro da Leonessa, Il Predicatore Apostolico. Note storiche (Isola del Liri, 1929). 22   On the altar-table the IHS monogram is to be seen in a round medal, which must have spread in Hungary with the mediation of Giovanni de Capestrano. Jolán Balogh, Az esztergomi Bakócz kápolna [The Bakócz-Chapel in Esztergom], (Budapest, 1955), p. 35, figure no. 89. 23   April 10, 1520. AGA, Serie Dd, vol. 13, fol. 132v. 24   On a more lavish elaboration of the issue see Gabriella Erdélyi, ‘Crisis or Revival? The Hungarian Province of the Order of Augustinian Friars in the Late Middle Ages’, Analecta Augustiniana, 67 (2004): pp. 115–40. 25   Giles of Viterbo O.S.A. Letters as Augustinian General (Lettere ufficiali, 1506–1517), ed. C. O’Reilly Fontes Historiae OSA, Series 2 (Rome, 1992); Martin, Friar, Reformer (used as a general reference below, without further citation). 26   Francis X. Martin, The Augustinian Order on the Eve of the Reformation, Miscellanea Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 2; Bibliothéque de la Revue d’histoire ecclesiastique, 44 (Louvain, 1967), pp. 77–81 and 96–103. 27   Aegidii Viterbiensis O.S.A. registrum generalatus, ed. A. de Meijer, Fontes Historiae Ordinis Sancti Augustini, I/ 17–18(2 vols, Rome, 1984–88), vol. 1, no. 577 (1510) and no. 614 (1510); vol. 2, no. 883 (1517). 21

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extrapolation of reform was further supported by a new procedure whereby the newly elected provincials and the decisions of provincial chapters were acknowledged by Rome only on condition that they were committed to the cause of reform. In practice, this meant making a promise to introduce eight regulations concerning discipline, personal poverty, and a common liturgy. After such antecedents, in 1509 magister Márton Pécsi (“de Quinque Ecclesiis”), in 1514 Pál Dombus, and probably in 1518 Balázs Pécsi, were confirmed in their positions as provincials.28 However, the fact that the superior general’s urges to reform continued indicates that the promised initiatives had not been implemented by the Hungarian provincials. In November 1509, Márton Pécsi was threatened with dismissal if he continued sabotaging the desired reform.29 That this was not an empty threat is shown by the fate of a French provincial dismissed for the same reason. This suggests that the older generation of Hungarian superiors, even if they did not expressly resist, did not enact the reforms initiated by Rome. Da Viterbo’s decree, which prescribed that only those who were willing to accept the stricter norms could study at the order’s colleges, seemed to ensure that the next generation of superiors would be committed to the reform. The most suitable places for this were the Italian schools, since the superior general could successfully exert his universal right to appoint teachers and students only in these places. Therefore he intended to strengthen the international nature of these schools in the hope that when the students returned home they would foster the spirit of reform in their homelands. It appears that in sending students to Italy the Hungarian province lived up to the expectations of Rome, and had to be urged only occasionally not to forget about their financial support.30 The superior general, however, was dissatisfied and insisted on introducing his moderate reform program in the remote Hungarian province as well. If his written appeals proved futile, he appointed a local friar as his visitor, and commissioned him to execute the reform. Because Hungary skipped this intermediate stage, which again signals the lack of local supporters for the reform, he sent an Italian in July 1512: Agostino da Vicenza, magister of theology, who had been magister regens of the order’s colleges in Rome and then in Siena and was now appointed to this position in Esztergom. His foremost task was to introduce the new   Aegidii Viterbiensis O.S.A. registrum, de Meijer, vol. 1, no. 275 (1509) and vol. 2, no. 122 (1514); July 23, 1518: ‘Acta capituli Vngarie confirmamus omnia preter gradus … . Litteras reformationis publicas ad provinciam illam Vngharie scribimus’. AGA, Serie Dd, vol. 12. fol. 79v. 29   Aegidii Viterbiensis O.S.A. registrum, de Meijer, vol. 1, no. 407. 30   AGA, Serie Dd, vol. 13, fol. 39v (1518). 28

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educational system, which was a pivotal point in the reform.31 Subsequent provincials, however, stubbornly opposed the activity of the Italian professor. As for Bakócz’s role, it is probably not a coincidence that Da Vicenza was commissioned while Bakócz stayed in Rome. This was the time of the first session of the Lateran Council, which was opened by the speech of Egidio da Viterbo, in which, referring to the Hungarian cardinal, he urged the joining of forces against the Turks. Moreover, we can also assume that Bakócz consciously postponed the transfer of the Körmend friary for years until the Italian friar left Hungary in the fall of 1516. Altogether it seems the seeds of reform in the order did not fall on fertile ground in the Hungarian province in the sixteenth century, just as the reform endeavors of the fifteenth century had also ended in failure. We, however, do not know whether the hostile reaction at the beginning of the sixteenth century arose against the very idea of reform or just against the interference of Rome. There are several signs suggesting that conditions in Hungary were not as bad as they had been in the first half of the fifteenth century. Financial contribution (the so-called collecta) to the central administration was regularly paid.32 There were a sufficient number of students studying in the Italian houses and the majority of leaders claimed the title of lector,33 while some even attained a higher scholarly degree.34 Moreover, the leaders of the province, even if they were not representatives of the Italy-based observant movement, were well-qualified and placed emphasis on maintaining the regularity of communal life. Complaints on the part of the laity concerning the religious life of the friars did not go unnoticed. Written complaints of the Körmend town community resulted in the provincials sending more friars. The visitation of the friaries by the provincials was not an exceptional phenomenon either, as it also happened

  Aegidii Viterbiensis O.S.A. registrum, de Meijer, vol. 2, no. 478 and 569.   Between 1506–19 collecta was paid yearly. AGA, Serie Ll (Collette del

31 32

padre Generale), vol. 2 (1441–1519), fols 75–6. 33   For the period between 1472–82 see Ede Petrovich, ‘Új magyar egyetemi vonatkozású adatok a XV. századból egy római levéltárban’ [New Data Concerning University Life in Fifteenth-Century Hungary from a Roman Archive], Filológiai Közlöny, 16 (1970): pp. 158–63. See besides “Martinus, Bologna 1455” (AGA, Serie Dd, vol. 6, fol. 289); “Michael de Crigio Ungarus, Siena 1510” (Aegidii Viterbiensis O.S.A. registrum, de Meijer, vol. 2, no. 614); “Franciscus Ungarus, Rome, 1519” (AGA, Serie Dd, vol. 13, fol. 74v). 34   The lector of the friary at Sárospatak, János Kisvárdai, baccalaureus in 1489–90 and Tamás Úz, prior in Esztergom, baccalaureus in 1508. Xystus Schier, Memoria provinciae Hungaricae Augustinianae antiquae, ed. M. Rosnak (Graecii, 1778), p. 51, p. 101.

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in Körmend, as the witnesses remembered.35 And even though the cloister in Körmend, which was so significant earlier, was in fact lost to the order, they also had a few new acquisitions by royal or seigniorial foundations.36 The internal conditions of the order may have also been favorably influenced by the fact that, in the person of Balázs Pécsi, the order found a qualified and popular leader, who was re-elected many times, and enjoyed the patronage of King Louis II. Their relationship must have beneficially contributed to the political significance of the order.37 The fact that they questioned the legitimacy of the cardinal’s proceedings during the process against them in Körmend also attests to the Augustinians’ self-confidence. They were, however, frustrated in their hopes, since the king was not ready to engage in a conflict on their behalf with the old and ill, but all the more rigorous, cardinal. Bakócz’s anger toward the order was soon to be related to the superior general personally by Balázs Pécsi, during his visit to Rome in the spring of 1520. Da Venezia, in response, sent an ink bottle as a present to the king and recommended the provincial and his province to the ruler, which was probably meant to ensure a more active show of royal support in the taming of the outraged cardinal.38 By examining the political context within the church as it shaped the Körmend trial over the Augustinian friary, we have established that Bakócz’s political influence played a major role, which shaped both papal decision-making as well as the proceedings of the judges conducting the examination. We have also shown that the cardinal’s participation in the contemporary reforms of the Premonstratensian and Benedictine orders, an episode of which was the transfer of the Benedictine nunnery in Somlóvásárhely, was influenced by personal and political motivations. With relation to the transfer of the Körmend friary, we could not, however, prove the workings of such a general political agenda. Obviously, the archbishop nurtured more intimate relations with the observant Franciscans with regard to his personal devotion and also as a prelate-

  Register, fol. 72v. On the friary of Bártfa see Diplomatarium comitatus Sarosiensis, ed. C. Wagner (Posonii–Cassoviae, 1780), p. 532, p. 540, p. 545. 36   Beatrix F. Romhányi, Kolostorok és társaskáptalanok a középkori Magyarországon [Cloisters and Collegiate Churches in Medieval Hungary], (Budapest, 2000), p. 23, p. 41, p. 47. 37   On his relationship to the king see the letter of the superior general written to Blasius on the occasion of his illegal re-election. AGA, Serie Dd, vol. 14, fols 41v–2r (1521). See also the letter of King Louis II to the superior general. AGA, Serie Dd, vol. 15, fol. 94r (1526). 38   The answer of King Louis II to Gabriele da Venezia, superior general. AGA, Serie Dd, vol. 13, fol. 145v (1520). 35

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politician. It seems, however, insufficient to claim any overarching political scheme behind the events in Körmend. Other than this, however, the local context seems decisive in the shaping of the events with regard to the cloister at Körmend. In other words, Bakócz intervened in the life of the friars and the town primarily not as a prelate-politician; but he may have rather been driven by a concern over the local crisis in the town under his lordship. Admittedly, this cloister reform seems to be more essentially characterized as an episode of religious reform shaped by the interplay of seigniorial and communal interests and agendas. Hopefully, this local context will also render more comprehensible the as-of-yet unanswered question: why did the landlord’s promise to renovate the cloister buildings remain unfulfilled, thus turning the entire process into a failure? The negligence of the archbishop, at this level of the interpretation, also suggests the relevancy of local relations as opposed to high politics: the reform, which was, in other cases, promoted by the archbishop with all possible means, did not play a role in the construction of his power and prestige. Before looking at the relationship of the friary, the town community, and the landlord in the years preceding the process, however, the course of the witness interrogation and the formulation of its protocol have to be closely examined, since we will draw on it heavily in our analysis of the locality.

Part II Reading the Trial Text

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Chapter 3

The Protocol In the present (and the two following) chapters, I will assume the role of the contemporary judge or the modern detective asking questions concerning the trial itself. What were the judges, the opposing parties, and the witnesses trying to accomplish? And, inevitably, how can we glimpse the thoughts and deeds behind the documents at our hands?1 A Cultural Dialogue? Similarly to other documents from the era, the protocol of the process at Körmend bears the telltale signs of the elite’s hand or, rather, their notions and power.2 This reduces our chances of becoming post sequent witnesses of the earlier cultural dialogue3 of the parties. Yet, the witness hearing can be best conjectured as an interaction between the literate elite, represented here by the judges and the notary, and ordinary people. Did the knowledge of the elite and the authority of the powerful ultimately silence the voice of the people? This is the central dilemma of the present chapter. I intend to evaluate how much the written testimonies reflect the knowledge of the witnesses. Did they speak freely and frankly and were their words recorded accordingly, or did the air in the parsonage of Körmend, where

  For useful epistemological and methodological concerns when reading judicial sources see primarily Arlette Farge, Fragile Lives: Violence, Power and Solidarity in Eighteenth Century Paris, Harvard Historical Studies, 113 (Cambridge, Ma., 1993; French edn 1986), pp. 1–6; Shannon McSheffrey, ‘Feature Questions of Evidence. Detective Fiction in the Archives: Court Records and the Uses of Law in Late Medieval England’, History Workshop Journal, 65 (2008): pp. 65–78; Winfried Schulze (ed.), Ego-Dokumente. Annäherung an den Menschen in der Geschichte (Berlin, 1996). 2   The phenomenon is aptly grasped by the phrase of the “archives of repression”. Dominique Julia, ‘La religion – histoire religieuse’, in Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora (eds), Faire de l’historie, vol. 2. Nouvelles Approches (Paris, 1973), pp. 137–67, p. 147. 3   The concept is used here as proposed by Carlo Ginzburg in relation to inquisitorial processes. Carlo Ginzburg, ‘The Inquisitor as Anthropologist’, in Ginzburg, Clues, Myths and the Historical Method, trans. J. Tedeschi and A. Tedeschi (Baltimore, 1989; Italian edn 1986), pp. 156–65. 1

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the interrogation took place, vibrate with a sense of oppression, rendering witnesses compliant and silent? Beyond the unequal power balance, the making of a truthful dialogue was further threatened by suggestive questioning. The interrogation was performed on the basis of the questionnaire composed by the landlord’s advocate. Witnesses were distanced from the possibility of speaking spontaneously, though they were required to take sides in a debate presented to them in elaborated statements: they could confirm or refute the statements concerning the abuses of the Augustinian friars and qualify the fama circulating about them as unbiased public opinion fostered by honest people or as malicious and unfounded rumor induced be their enemies. A third option at their disposal was to suggest that fama was a subsequently forged propaganda, which would also have qualified as such their own testimony. Finally, they were requested to evaluate the legitimacy of the ongoing process: to confirm or deny its legally correct and religious character. If they denied it, they, in essence, confessed to having been bribed as witnesses. It comes as no surprise, hence, that the assertions of the articles were confirmed, verbosely or laconically, based on either knowledge or hearsay, by the witnesses. But did they let their first-hand knowledge and opinion flow freely or had they merely echoed the standpoint of the more powerful party? In addition to being fully aware of the archbishop’s influence, witnesses could tangibly experience it during the interrogation. They may not have been familiar with the close links between the judge, the notary, and the archbishop. They did, however, see and listen as the officials proceeded to hear the oaths of the witnesses, neglecting the Augustinians’ protest and their frustrated complaint concerning the dominance of the party supporting the Franciscans. In order to be able to capture the vernacular voices of witnesses homogenized by the normative structures of power and law into a stilus curiae Latin text, in this chapter I will deconstruct the protocol. My attempt to reconstruct the earlier dialogue that had been smoothed by the notary into a third person narrative is intended to make sense of the milieu in the courtroom, to better understand the role the judge played, which essentially shaped the witnesses’ willingness to speak forthrightly. In the Latin text at our disposal, participants’ roles and performances are finely intertwined. We need to look for the words and knowledge of the ordinary people in between the lines of the written performance of the literate elite.4 The interrogation followed the usual practice: the judge read 4     For a similar deconstruction of interrogation records see Péter G. Tóth, ‘„Mit tud, látott, avagy hallott azon tanú?” Tanúvallomások és malefíciumnarratívok a magyarországi boszorkányperekben’ [What did the witness know,

Figure 3.1a–b The Witness Testimony of Pál Nagy, townsman of Körmend (Register, fols 85v–6r)

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out to the witnesses the articles of the questionnaire one by one. If someone replied “I do not know”, by observing the right to keep silent, he was not questioned further. If, however, the witness confirmed the read-out claims, the judge went on to ask the questions prescribed by the Augustinians. The questionnaire and the judge’s own inquiries primarily served to reveal as many details as possible about the abuses of the Augustinians. Conversely, the Augustinians’ survey was designed to verify the credibility of the witnesses’ personality and the authenticity of their words. As social standing was integral at the time to the establishment of personal credibility, these questions were, on one hand, directed to this end. As the customs of legal procedure dictated, the witnesses in Körmend were asked about their status (peasant or noble), age, and wealth. Obviously, the lessthan-usual question regarding the date and place of their last confession and taking of the holy communion, also served to clarify the witnesses’ credibility as shaped by their status within the community.5 The question concerning the relationship between the witnesses and the opposing parties was also a customary and necessary part of legal procedures. In Körmend, however, this otherwise routine question was formulated with extreme suggestiveness. As opposed to the neutral formula entailing a free alternative (“does the witness cherish hostility, anger, or love toward any of the parties and does he prefer the victory of any parties?”),6 the Augustinians overtly suggested the legal and emotional ties between the witnesses and the “patron’s party”: “Does the witness feel any hatred toward the friars of the Augustinian hermits or rather manifest a deeper piety toward the observant Franciscans and consequently would he prefer the latter instead of the former to stay in the friary?”7 The authenticity of stories related by witnesses, on the other hand, was held at the time to be constructed by circumstantial evidence (such as place, time, and participants) and elicited by the recurring question: how does the witness know this?—details best related by eyewitness accounts.8 see or hear? Witness Testimonies and Narratives of Sorcery in Hungarian Witch Trials], in Éva Pócs (ed.), Démonológia és boszorkányság Európában [Demonology and Sorcery in Europe], (Budapest, 2001), pp. 199–225. 5   On the role of taking and refusing the Holy Communion in shaping communal relations see chapter 9 below. 6   See for example the procedure at the vicar’s court of Tasnád (Varadiensis diocese,Tășnad in Romania). Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (MNL OL) [The National Archives of Hungary], Mohács előtti Gyűjtemény [Pre-Mohács Collection], Diplomatikai Levéltár (DL) [Archive of Medieval Charters] 55798. 7   Register, fol. 28r. 8   Kenneth Pennington, The Prince and the Law, 1200–1600. Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1993), pp. 132–64. On issues related to the uses and making of evidence, authority, and

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Figure 3.2 The clausula of János Miletinczi, public notary (Register, fol. 110r) In short, just as the Augustinians’ questions served contemporary judges to assess the truthfulness of testimonial evidence, they also facilitate the historian’s endeavor to learn more about the witnesses and the nature of their information. Moreover, the performance of the judge greatly influenced the production of relevant information, and therefore deserves a thorough analysis. Did Márton Attádi, baccalaureus of the liberal arts and auxiliary bishop of Pécs, dedicatedly question the witnesses or did he merely want to promptly finish the interrogation?9 The dialogue between him and the witnesses can be inferred by comparing the documents that constitute legitimacy see in general Suzanne Marchand and Eelizabeth Lunbeck (eds), Proof and Persuasion. Essays on Authority, Objectivity, and Evidence (Brussels, 1996). 9   On his qualifications see: Monumenta Romana, Fraknói, vol. 4, p. 139.

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the starting point the questionnaire and the Augustinians’ survey and the protocol it ultimately produced. The protocol was composed by the papal and royal notary, János Miletinczi, who came from a Slavonian family of legal professionals, and was also affiliated with the archdiocesan court.10 The Questioner By keeping close track of the syntactic features and the thematic logic of the written (initial and final) records of the interrogation, the conversation between the judge and the witnesses can be reconstructed more or less faithfully. If we look closely enough at the manner of the judge’s questioning, we may be able to sense the atmosphere in the courtroom, which obviously impacted the witnesses’ conduct. Moreover, it opens a window into the mental outlook of ordinary people, tangibly reflecting some of their notions and classifications. Most importantly, beyond the entertaining differences between late medieval and modern perceptions and concepts, we gain occasional insights into the cultural dialogue, the gaps between the knowledge of the questioners and the respondents. This way we can deduce that the judge performed his task properly, which means that he followed the questionnaire and the survey and occasionally raised on his own accord some additional questions. Following protocol, in the face of “I do not know” responses, he did not insist on further questioning, nor did he pester those who confirmed the article based on hearsay or with empty words. Occasionally, however, it would have been worth his further questioning, particularly of those witnesses whose words suggested that they had first-hand experiences concerning the friars. When asked about the tavern-going habits of the friars, for example, several witnesses revealed, that he (the witness) was a drinking companion of the friars. The priest Benedek Halastói, incumbent of the village of Hidashollós, attested that there was no such year in which he did not drink with the friars. Yet, the judge was content with the laconic replies and was not driven to reveal withheld information. At least, though,

10   His professional kinsmen were: Nicolaus natus nobilis Andree Radozlaw de Myletincz, the papal notary at the diocesan court of Zagreb (MNL OL DL 36528, 1517); Anthonius Dionisy de Mylethyncz, imperial notary in the diocese of Zagreb. His motto (Nos protege semper, MNL OL DF 275511, 275536 served as the model for János Miletinczi’s motto: Defende nos. On public notaries and their social networks in late medieval Hungary see György Bónis, ‘A sasadi tizedper közjegyzői’ [The Notaries of the Decima-Trial of Sasad], Levéltári Közlemények, 41 (1974): pp. 103–25.

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he did not suppress the words of the witnesses willing to speak, be they poor day-laborers or men of substance.11 Moreover, the judge was consistent in asking the time of the narrated events and the actors’ name, which is reflected, alongside concrete answers, by the frequent “I don’t remember” replies. Yet, as far as the friars were concerned, the witnesses were able to mention only fourteen Christian names and two last names (Table 3.1). Their imperfect knowledge can only be partly attributed to forgetfulness. Although by the beginning of the sixteenth century family names have become widespread and often transmitted between generations, the friars were still identified by their personal features of body or character (lame prior, syphilitic friar, the drunkard friar Antal). A person’s place of origin was also more easily recalled than their family names (“a woman from the village of Bük/Kecskéd”).12 The words of Simon Rosos attests to this: “Although he knows well one of the girlfriends of the friars, he does not know her name”.13 Table 3.1 The Augustinian Friars living in Körmend Time

Name of Friar

“A long time ago”/ “following the death of King Matthias [1490]”

Simonbeaten while strolling at night (37th and 46th witnesses, 6th article)

[after 1493]

Claudiusalone in the friary (47th/3rd)

[around 1498]

Mattheusalone in the friary before he dies (32th/3rd, 33th/3rd)

[around 1500 ]

friary vacant (32th/3rd)

“between 1503 and 1508, when the witness was a student and chaplain” (27th)

Ambrosiusdrunkard friar Jacobusdrunkard friar Blasiusdrinks away his breviary (20th/6th.); drinks wine before saying mass (20th/5th.)

11    To the contrary, a witness hearing concerning the preaching of a Franciscan friar turned into a Protestant preacher furnished the lesson that free and unlimited speaking in the courtroom was the prerogative of the powerful, while the judge tended to silence ordinary townspeople. Norbert Schindler, ‘Die Prinzipien des Hörensagens. Predigt und Publikum in der Frühen Neuzeit’, Historische Anthropologie, 1 (1993): pp. 359–93, p. 369. 12   On the problem of identification of individuals in lack of modern devices such as photos and written documents see Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, Ma., and London, 1983), passim. 13    Register, fol. 85r.

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Time

Name of Friar

[1510] “during the time of the last pestilence”

friary vacant

1511 Bakócz’s visit to [no information on friars] the cloister on his way to Rome [around 1514] the scandal of friar Mihály and his lover, Dorottya

Michaelwho escaped after the scandal Anthonius

[1514–1515?]

Bibbosus Anthoniusalone in the friary (43rd witness/6th article) for a month, during which time he heard confessions, later (after 1514) performing his first mass in Pápóc (at which time the witness already resided in Körmend) (28th/3rd)

[1515–1516] the church servant, István Tóth from Báta: has lived in Körmend for four years, serving the friars for two years

Matheus Toth priorlame prior, who was seen 3–4 years earlier talking to a woman in the upper level of the cloister (36th/6th) Sigismundus (31st/6th) Anthoniusseen in the tavern of Gergely Sós three years earlier, being just about to leave for the fields, carrying an axe (12th/5th) Gallus (28th/5th) Gasparus Bantho (28th/5th) Ambrosiusrang the bells but did not say mass (38th/3rd); lost at the card tables four years earlier (32nd/5th); ready to say mass after neglecting evensong (32nd/5th); the widow of István of Bükes used to visit him in the friary 3–4 years previous (48th/6th)

1517

Anthoniusseen in the cloister choir (28th/6th) [Sigismundus]

1517, before the removal Sigismundusalone in the friary (31st/3rd) in May ?

Stephanus priorLife less dissolute in the friary during his time. (32nd/3rd)

May 15, 1518, at the time of the witness hearing

Sigismundus de Vaciaa friar living in Buda, earlier prior at Körmend, present at the interrogation

The judge’s rule-oriented proceedings and indifferent attitude, allowing for silences and vague or empty answers, stands in contrast to the resolute inquests of inquisitors such as the notorious figure of Jacques Fournier, the

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future Pope Benedict XII.14 The lax atmosphere in the courtroom is both a gain and loss for the historian looking for truth behind appearances, for actions behind words. On the one hand, as witnesses did not have to face the mental stress in the courtroom that often characterized inquisition chambers, they were probably less inclined to deliberately distort the facts or lie.15 On the other hand, the judge’s lack of personal interest and curiosity resulted in minimal questioning. Had he been a judge eager to understand the hidden agendas of events and actors (akin to the ambitions of anthropologists, historians, or detectives),16 he would have no doubt asked (in keeping with the survey), for example, the townsman Gergely Karolj, who claimed to have lived next to the friary for twelve years, whether he conversed with or maintained close relations with the friars. The testimony of Miklós Pondor from Nádalja is another proof of frequently missed possibilities: “he saw a great deal of the friars, who used to drop into his tavern and eat and drink together with others when he was selling his wine in his house in Körmend”—as he readily replied to the question, which the judge this time did not neglect to ask.17 Had he assumed the role of the anthropologist, he would not have moved on without finding out who the friars’ lovers were—lovers the witnesses kept mentioning simply, as an echo of the questionnaire, as “suspicious women” (suspecta mulier). How and where did they attain their increased freedom (and their ensuing bad reputation) that allowed them to maintain intimate relations with the friars and their free access to the friary? Did they draw on their marginal or rather their established position? As the judge proved indifferent to such social aspects, we are left with only random remarks. The parish priest of Körmend, for example, deemed it worthy to comment, “In addition to commoners there was a noble woman among these women of ill repute”.18 14   Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error, trans. B. Bray (New York, 1978). The judge seeing through the strategies of the witnesses is exemplified by Michael R. Weisser, The Peasants of the Montes: The Roots of Rural Rebellion in Spain (Chicago, 1972). 15   Interesting insights are provided into the strategies of witnesses before the inquisition by Richard L. Kagan, Lucretia’s Dreams, Politics and Prophecy in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Berkeley, 1990); Carlo Ginzburg, ‘Stregoneria e pietá popolare. Note a proposito di un processo modenese del 1519’, in Ginzburg, Miti, emblemi, spie. Morfologia e storia (Torino, 1986), pp. 3–27. 16    On the analogous situation and methods of the inquisitor and the anthropologist see Renato Rosaldo, ‘From the Door of his Tent: The Fieldworker and the Inquisitor’, in James Clifford and George Marcus (eds), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley, 1986), pp. 77–97. 17    Register, fol. 97r (Gergely Karolj) and fol. 63r (Miklós Pondor). 18    Register, fol. 89r (6th article).

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What appears at first glance as an indifferent attitude on the part of the judge, one leaving the historian’s questions unanswered, occasionally turns out to derive instead from the rift between his and our knowledge. For instance, his inadvertence with regard to the circumstances of the witnesses’ latest confession and communion is striking. Only one of the witnesses specified that he had confessed to his parish priest that year, and another claimed to have confessed in the town of Győr in other words, not in his parish. These were spontaneously shared details, which stand in contrast to the silence of the majority on the issue, whom Attádi, putting the survey aside, did not ask. His negligence can be explained by the contemporary triviality of the question: at Easter, people routinely confessed their sins to their parish priest.19 The same can be assumed concerning the prescribed question of the survey, which inquired whether the witnesses participated in the divine services celebrated in the cloister church. When people said to have “often” visited the church “to listen to divine services” or visited the church “out of piety”, the judge was satisfied (as he most probably knew exactly what those words meant, since he was familiar with everyday religious practices), and we are left to speculate as to the type (matin, evensong, holy mass, private prayer, or confession) and frequency of lay worship. It is no less troubling when the judge is assiduous in asking, only to have his efforts go unrewarded. This can be attributed to the gap between his knowledge and that of the witnesses rather than concealment on the part of the witnesses. The judge seems to have been frankly interested in the origins of the friary and steadfastly asked how many friars the founding king located in Körmend. Unsurprisingly, the witnesses had little idea. Most of them resorted to repeating the words of the survey (“in full number”/“so many as can perform satisfactorily the prescribed divine services”). Some witnesses tried to guess, putting forth numbers between six and twenty. There was only one person who knew that the official full number was twelve, information he had heard from the Augustinians themselves. It was due to his clerical education and ecclesiastical mindset that he exhausted the witnesses with sacramental nuances, which were in fact irrelevant from the perspective of the trial. For example, some of the witnesses complained that during the time when Friar Antal lived in the cloister alone, the friar listened to their confessions and absolved their sins despite not yet being an ordained priest. Attádi unexpectedly hastened to ask: Was Antal diaconus or subdiaconus at that time? As we might rightly expect, the witnesses, laymen, and local clergy alike, were unfamiliar with

   On the practice of confession and communion see chapter 9.

19

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this canonical distinction.20 Even the chantry priest born in Körmend, who would be best informed about public affairs, was ignorant of this. It was only the parish priest of the village Szentkirály who said that “Antal was subdiaconus when he confessed and absolved penitents”. The bishop’s hope to clarify the issue was dispelled when afterwards, the incumbent of Körmend, who had a keen sense of social hierarchy (consistently making the distinction between commoners and noble persons) happened to say that Friar Antal was only an acolyte (the clerical order below the subdiaconus) at the time. Apparently, making the distinction between clerical orders posed a difficulty for even the rural pastoral clergy.21 The Recorder While the judge exerted influence over the outcome of the trial through his interaction with the witnesses, the notary decisively shaped the process by the way he recorded testimonies and composed the final register. As was usual, János Miletinczi also briefly summarized the progress of constructing the regestrum that was sent to Rome. He explained that the notes he jotted down during the interrogation, with the help of a scribe, served as the basis for the register. The exceptionally orderly and systematic look of the register, having a uniform structure and neat handwriting with a negligible number of corrections, seem to justify this multistage process of labor. The notary, who was responsible for the authenticity of the document, characterized the principle applied throughout as “a diligent collation with the originals”.22 Is it then possible for us to hear the voices and the spoken knowledge of the witnesses in a text reproduced over the course of a multiple transfer? This is the standard dilemma of historians dealing with legal documents. Optimists say yes. It suffices to mention that even the story-telling skills of commoners have been forcefully portrayed by closely reading sixteenthcentury petitions of royal pardon, which can be considered, like with our record of witness testimonies, the collective product of the illiterate and the literate. Petitions bear the impression of verisimilitude as a result of the notarial practice, who on the whole followed the official prescription “to take down faithfully what is said”.23 Similarly, the Decretales of Pope 20 21

  Register, fol. 67r, 75v, 87v, 96r and 105r.   Register, fol. 75v, 3rd article (parish priest of Szentkirály); fol. 87v, 3rd

article (parish priest of Körmend). 22   Register, fol. 110r. 23   Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives. Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford, California, 1987), p. 22.

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Gregory IX (1227–41) contained a canon according to which the task of the notaries functioning as court registrars was to record fideliter all the phases of the process. Accordingly, vicars in Hungary usually instructed commissioners “to record the words and depositions of witnesses fideliter”.24 How did János Miletinczi put this directive into practice? It appears that he took the expectations seriously and had the skills to perform his duties “faithfully”. True, the overall transformations (from word to letter, from vernacular to Latin, from dialogue to narration) only seldom give way to the idiom of his mother tongue or to the rhythm of oral dialogue (as in the quotations left in the first person singular). This gives us an exceptional chance to visualize the friar strolling about by night in the streets of Körmend in “secular clothing” as somebody wearing a sword on his side and a cap (“called by the people soap”) on his tonsured head. And we also learn by chance that the friars drank together in the cloister “with herdsmen, vulgarly called haiduks, and herdsmen of other sorts”.25 However, we find digressions, repetitions, lapses in a dialogic form, witnesses talking nonsense, and jumbled answers. The notary also recorded when the judge inattentively repeated his inquiry about a certain detail that had already been mentioned. Following established notarial practice, the notary must have refrained from writing down any blasphemy that the witness voiced. In order to divert the dishonor from the reader, in the register he simply stated that the blasphemy occurred: the castellan arrested one of the friars “for certain blasphemous words he uttered”.26 More importantly, he did not hesitate to note in the final register the uncertainties (quantum recordari posset) and inaccuracies (circa) of witnesses, as well as their contradictory dating of events (circa annum tertium és circa annum octavum for the same event). The monotonous flow 24   On the relevant canon of the Gregorian decrees see István Barta, ‘Középkori közjegyzőségeink történetéhez’ [On the History of Medieval Public Notaries in Hungary], in Janits [Borsa] Iván (ed.), Szentpétery Imre irodalmi munkássága. Szentpétery Imre Emlékkönyv [The Oeuvre of Imre Szentpétery: Studies in Honor of Imre Szentpétery], (Budapest, 1938), pp. 37–8. For vicarial instructions see for example Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (MNL OL) [The National Archives of Hungary], Mohács előtti Gyűjtemény [Pre-Mohács Collection], Diplomatikai Levéltár (DL) [Archive of Medieval Charters] 55798, 15483. In the Register it reads as: executors “should take good care that witness testimonies are recorded faithfully” (fol. 21v). 25   Register, fol. 85r (Simon Rosos about worldy clothing) and fol. 92r (András Csuti about haiduks). 26   Register, fol. 52 (6th article). Cf. David Warren Sabean, ‘Soziale Distanzierung. Ritualisierte Gestik in deutscher bürokratischer Prosa der Frühen Neuzeit’, Historische Anthropologie, 4 (1996): pp. 216–33.

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of schematic replies echoing the words of the preformulated statements is successively interrupted by unique episodes full of small and individual details. Even the Latin text is capable of reflecting the differences between the notions and words used by witnesses: while a simple peasant speaks of friars “living without a head and a superior”, the parish priest of Körmend cuts the explanation short by resorting to ecclesiastical jargon (tanquam acephali).27 All these are signs that the notary did not censor, correct, edit, or substitute anything. He did not even reorganize argumentations that may have seemed “illogical” and copied the testimonies into the final register in their original order. In short, he simply and “faithfully” noted words and copied texts, allowing us to glimpse behind the written text the words and deeds of witnesses. Perceptions of Time There is another possibility at our hand to check the reliability of the protocol. In the course of the interrogation the witnesses had to conjure up and relate events stretching back centuries. Moreover, ostensibly for authentication, the judge repeatedly asked them to confirm the dates. All this presents an opportunity to examine the way the witnesses dated events. As previously suggested, we can thus gain further insight into the notary’s compiling of the protocol; while at the same time we can depart from the main line of the investigation and open a little window onto the conceptual universe of contemporary people. In a dichotomous model by which transitions in traditional and modern societies—pre- and postindustrial—are interpreted, it is customary to describe the ways those in the former era measured time as horizontally and vertically fragmented, those in the latter as uniform and universal.28 That is to say, in the era being examined, those belonging to different social strata had varying ways of measuring time.29 Can we possibly detect in the protocol the varying 27 28

  Register, fol. 88v and fol. 41v (5th article).   See the classic study of E. P. Thompson, ‘Time, Work-discipline and

Industrial Capitalism’, Past and Present, 38 (1967): pp. 56–97. For a good summary of the anthropological approaches of time as a cultural phenomenon see Alfred Gell, ‘Time and Social Anthropology’, in Yasuhiko Nagano (ed.) Time, Language and Cognition (Osaka, 1998), pp. 9–24. 29    A. J. Gurevich, Categories of Medieval Culture, trans. G. L. Campbell (London, Boston, Melbourne, and Henley, 1985; Russian edn 1972), pp. 25–40; Jacques le Goff, ‘Au Moyen Age, temps de l’Eglise et temps du marchand’, Annales E.S.C.,15 (1960): pp. 417–33.

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ways the literate commissioners and the witnesses remembered, measured, and marked time? While the commissioners were urban residents with university educations, the witnesses were peasants, lesser nobles, and priests living in the countryside, and most of them had learned to read and write in the local parish school at best. On the basis of the above model, then, we must presuppose substantial differences between them. By looking closely at the statements of time and dating made by the witnesses we can test once again whether the protocol is a reliable source of the voices of ‘ordinary people’. The notary recorded the charters and the times of the court hearings in the protocol as follows: In the Year of Our Lord Fifteen Hundred and Eighteen, in the sixth indiction, on the day of Mars,30 the fourth day of the month of May, around the hour of Terce … in Christ our holiest father and Lord, by favor of divine dispensation, in the sixth year of the pontificate of Pope Leo X.31

The method by which Miletinczi noted years, months, and days suggests that he used a calendar. In ordering them he designated on the one hand an objective point in time, which as regards the years he complemented with the indiction (based on a likewise complex calculation) and with the year in power of the reigning pontiff. This was in line with the prevailing practice at the time among notaries across much of Europe. In contrast with this modern method, however, he measured the passing of time in each day not linearly, instead structuring nighttime and daytime by the traditional method, based on the canonical prayer times of friars—as with Terce, the prayer said around 9:00 a.m—whereas increasing numbers of other notaries across Hungary at the time were thinking in terms of the even more precise, 24-hour day.32 He thus simultaneously employed both traditional and modern time paradigms, which are usually described as experienced versus measured time, or on the one hand as a task-oriented conception of time and on the other as an abstract one, or as cyclical time of varying concentration and uniform-linear time. To what extent did the notary’s perception differ from the ways the witnesses structured their memories of time? 30   “Indiction” designates any of the years in a fifteen-year cycle; “day of Mars” comes from the Latin dies Martis, which equals Tuesday; “Tercia”, the third hour of the breviary prayer said by monks was held at c. 9 a.m. 31    Register, fol. 2r. 32    Enikő Csukovits, ‘Órahasználat a középkori Magyarországon’ [The Use of Clocks in Medieval Hungary], Történelmi Szemle, 34 (1992): pp. 169–72.

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The witnesses thought not in terms of months but of seasons and agricultural work cycles, for it was in accord with them that they lived their everyday lives.33 For example, the parish priest of Szentkirály was not ashamed to acknowledge that he ate and drank together with the friars “during the winter and sometimes summer, too”, and another witness spoke of the debauchery committed by one of the friars “during the grape harvest”.34 Instead of calendar days, they structured time on the one hand in line with the church-mandated system, speaking for example of one friar’s indulgence on Shrove Tuesday. The parish priest of Kölked recounted having “seen ... Friar Zsigmond with this sort of women in the bathhouse as the two of them washed each other, and that this had happened on Saint Sigismund Day, the anniversary of the friar’s name day”.35 And so the judge’s inquiry as to when it happened, which usually came as, “In which year, month, and day did the event at issue occur?” did not jog the witnesses’ memories one bit.36 The ringing of bells for mass and evening prayers structured their daily sense of time to such an extent that reminiscent of the notary’s measuring of time the Augustinian friars of Körmend went right on ringing those bells for appearance’s sake even when afterwards they did not bother with saying the evening prayer.37 More determining than the way time was measured by priests and monasteries was the fragmentation of their days by the demands of work, their meals, and the movement of the sun.38 Asked when they’d seen the Augustinians in the tavern, the witnesses replied, “by   On the perception of time with relation to medieval and early modern Hungary see Péter Szabó, Élet- és időszemlélet a kora újkori Magyarországon: városok és udvarok világa [Attitudes to Life and Time in Early Modern Hungary: the World of Cities and Courts], (Budapest: 2011); István György ‘Tóth, Harangkongás és óraketyegés’ [Ding-dong and Tick-Tock], in Vera Zimányi (ed.), Óra, szablya, nyoszolya. Életmód és anyagi kultúra Magyarországon a 17–18. században [Clock, Sabre, Bed. Everyday Life and Material Culture in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Hungary], (Budapest, 1994), pp. 115–32. 34    Register, fol. 75r and fol. 85r (3rd article). 35    Ibid. fol. 75r (tempore carnis privii) and fol. 74v, 6th article (the parish priest of Kölked). 36    See the answer of Pál Nagy of Kemesmál: “he does not remember the year, the month and the day when such kind of women were taken to the cloister”. Register, fol. 73r (6th article). 37   “He knows that the friars missed to recite the holy hours of both day and night, although they rang the bell for these”. Register, fol. 90r (Gergely Polgár, 3rd article). 38   For similar findings see Arnold Esch, ‘Mittelalterliche Zeugenverhöre als historische Quelle. Innenansichten von Zeiterfahrung und sozialem Leben’, in Ralf-Peter Fuchs and Winfried Schulze (eds), Wahrheit, Wissen, Erinnerung. 33

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day and by night”, “from morning to sunset”, or “before lunch and after vespers”.39 It was due to the witnesses’ personal involvement that Vespers often served as a point of reference: they themselves often took part in the 6 p.m. (Vespers; vesperae) and the 9 a.m. (Terce; tertia) prayer hours. In reply to a question inquiring as to the witness’s relationship with the friars, a former castellan of Körmend replied: He often went to the friary to attend mass, but never to the Augustinian friars’ morning prayer hour, while sometimes taking part in vespers. But he does not know if the friars held the rest of their prayer hours in the friary or not, for he himself is a layman, and he does not know what prima, tertia, sexta, and nona are.40

These words once again indicate just how out of touch the judge, who had given the names of the prayer hours in Latin, was with the gap in knowledge between himself and the witnesses. Only one layperson knew of the Compline that closed the evening at 9 o’clock, and indeed the reason given is telling: the Augustinians, still in the tavern, had missed both Vespers and the Compline.41 As to dating events according to years, the use of the anno domini form was rather infrequent on the part of witnesses. It was the parish priest of Csákány alone who maintained: “Insofar as he can recall the year, he says that it happened around 1503, 1504, and 1505 after Christ, and in the years prior and after”.42 In pinpointing the date of this or that transgression by friars, others instead gave the subjective measure of distance from their present rather than an objective point in a sequence of years (e.g., “three or four years have passed since then”). This is also in line with others’ observations as to the common practice among all but the highest echelons of lay society during the Middle Ages and even the early modern period.43 Their structuring of time by distance in years from the present was supported by personal associations. Their remembering was facilitated by linking events to memorable personal incidents or periods of their own Zeugenverhörprotokolle als Quelle für soziale Wissensbestände der Frühen Neuzeit (Münster, Hamburg, and London, 2002), pp. 43–56. 39    Register, fol. 72v, 57v, 67v, 65v (5th article). 40    Ibid. fol. 60v (Lukács Mindszenti, 3rd article). 41    Ibid. fol. 92r (András Csuti, 5th article). 42    Ibid. fol. 65rv (3rd article). 43    See for example Robert Bartlett, The Hanged Man. A Story of Miracle, Memory, and Colonialism in the Middle Ages (Princeton and Oxford, 2004), p. 55. On the measuring of time of the Hungarian nobility, which was not counting years, see Tóth, Harangkongás, p. 117.

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lifetimes. Thus it was that the parish priest of Hidashollós knew twenty years had passed since Friar Máté had lived alone in the friary, for this marked an important turning point in his own life as well: he was ordained and celebrated his first mass at that time. Several people kept track of how many years they’d lived in Körmend: “According to him”, the protocol had András Csuti as recalling, “the friars had left the friary to ruin, for twenty years ago, since he has lived here, he knows it was in better condition”.44 As for his ability to offer up specific years of neglectful services, the parish priest of Csákány likewise cited his own past in Körmend; for the above quote referring to the period around 1503, 1504, and so on continues thus: “years in which he worked in the Körmend school, then as chaplain, and often visited the friary”. The witnesses were thus helped along in counting the events concerning the Augustinians in years by their being able to link those events to their own lives. This is only natural, for otherwise why would they have had to keep track of the precise or approximate times of the friars’ transgressions? One Körmend resident explained that he could not recall which year Friar Antal had lived alone in the friary, for he hadn’t counted.45 Indeed, they held only approximate knowledge of even such personal information as their own age.46 The inaccuracy of marking events in years is also considered characteristic of oral cultures. Additionally, they were not only false, but more importantly self-contradictory too. And so, for example, “about three years ago” and “about eight years ago” referred, in fact, to the same scandalous event that occurred around 1514–15.47 Key stages or events in witnesses’ personal lives served not only to jog memories, however, but also functioned as an independent dimension of time. Many witnesses said simply that this or that had happened “in my time”. Nor were references to biological life spans unusual; that is, witnesses recounting that they had visited the friary since “childhood” or “youth”. At other times a particularly notable life stage provides a frame    Register, fol. 78r (the parish priest of Hidashollós); fol. 88r (András Csuti). See moreover the words of the incumbent of Körmend: “he has seen the friars for eight years, since the time he has lived in the town”; Gergely Karolj living in Körmend: “it is twelve years that he has known the friary”. Ibid. fol. 92r and fol. 97r. 45    Ibid. fol. 67r (István Tóth from Báta, 3rd article). 46    In more detail see chapter 4. 47    Circa annum tertium [i.e. proxime preteritum], Register, fol. 31v, 6th article (the priest Albert of Nagyliszka). Circa annum octavum, ibid. 97v. 6th article (Gergely Karolj). The date of the notorious scandal is my calculation: István Tóth from Báta, who says to have lived for four years in Körmend does not mention the episode, but has personal experiences about the events coming shortly after (like the Friar Antal living alone in the cloister, etc.). 44

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for the events at issue; for example, there was the alpha and omega of local petty nobles, a past as a castellan or as a judge. Perhaps most interesting is when a witness recalls the whole of his career: The priest Lőrinc of Körmend, after listing in detail and by name the women who delivered meals to the friary, explained in reply to a query from the surprised or suspicious judge that he knew all this “because he had spent his days from childhood to the present in town and had seen certain things in his youth, and the rest after assuming the holy orders.48 As for the parish priest of Szentkirály, thirty-nine-year old Balázs Gyarmati, he linked the events in Körmend to certain stages of his clerical career: Both the [frequency of] services and the number of friars had declined notably in the friary, since when he himself was still a student in Körmend he’d see only one person living in the friary, Friar Máté, but after the friar died, to the best of his recollection the friary remained empty ... One time when he was already a priest, only a friar named Antal remained in the friary ... Sometimes he passed the time with the friars ... when he was still a schoolmaster, but then he did also when he was a priest.49

Local events comprised the other system of coordinates relating to the recent past a system likewise virtually unknown to outsiders from the outset. Simon Rosos recounted the “time of cardinal and archbishop Tamás”, in other words, the period when he was the landlord in Körmend, as a time when nine friars lived for a year in the friary. The transition between landowners thus represented a new era not only in the lives of the friars but also of the townspeople: it was to those years probably 1510– 1512, when he himself lived in Körmend that Miklós Pondor from Nádalja linked the latest hiatus in services, “during which when Lord Péter Erdődy became the landlord of Körmend, and especially the year in which Lord Péter got married”.50 It was no less important whom the seigneur appointed as castellan, who moreover took part in the judicial administration of the manorial court, and whom they regularly met up with in the church and in the taverns. It is not surprising, then, that while the witnesses were apt to forget the exact year or the participants’ names of this or that incident, they nonetheless did know who had been the castellan at the time.51 The     50   51   48

Register, fol. 95v.  Ibid. fol. 75v.  Ibid. fol. 84r (Simon Rosos) and fol. 63r (Miklós Pondor from Nádalja). Five of those narrating the most popular story remembered who was the castellan at the time (tempore castellanatus cuiusdam Benedicti Ferde), but only two of them could tell the name of the arrested friar and the year in which the 49

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subject of the examination did most certainly play a role in the fact that aside from the castellan, among the local officials it was not the judges but rather the reigning prior who periodized time for the community. Thus it was that one nobleman from Rádóc ascribed his escapades with the Augustinians to the reign of Máté Tóth as prior, while a Hidvég landowner recalled that services became more frequent in the friary while Prior István held his post.52 Finally, it is likewise noteworthy, and hardly coincidental, that it was precisely the two castellans of Körmend who measured time against the death in 1490 of King Mátyás (Hunyadi). This was especially true of Lukács Hollósi of Mindszent, who used this not only to define the span of his own reign as castellan but also in defining the dates of local events.53 Aside from this, the witnesses’ frame of reference twice sees the local cross paths with historical events. One is a rather unsurprising reference to the cloister having stood empty “during the recent plague” in the words of one witness who recalled the 1510 plague, which took its toll in this region, too. The other, however, exceptionally referred to the distant past: a peasant tenant from Nádasd noted that King Béla had founded the cloister “during the Karbel [?] war”.54 This is quite surprising in light of the generally accepted assertions made of the lack of perception of historical time on the part of medieval peasants.55 That being said, it is clear that this witness Tamás Sibrik, who said he was twenty years old and others who made similar references to the distant past, were unaware that they were talking of a centuries-long time span. (The cloister had been founded by King Béla IV in the mid-thirteenth century.) Sibrik for example believed episode happened (and even they erred). See moreover the words of the priest Benedek Halastói: “he knows that one of the Augustinian friars was found with a suspicious woman in the village of Bük ... and she was captured by a client of László, castellan of Körmend at the time. He does not remember however in which year this happened”. Ibid. fol. 79r (6th article). 52    Lénárt Basó of Rádóc and Oszvald Polányi of Hidvég, ibid. fol. 54r (5th article) and fol. 75v (3rd article). 53    King Matthias was a point of reference (for example post obitum quondam regis Mathie) also for Pál Nagy of Kemesmál and Lukács Mindszenti of Hollós: Register, fol. 71v (3rd article) and fols 60v–62r. 54    in ista preterita pestilentia, the priest Tamás Rádóci; tempore belli Karbel, András Bíró from Nádasd, Register, fol. 52r (3rd article) and fol. 93r (1st article). I have not succeeded in identifying the war called “Karbel”. 55   Ralf-Peter Fuchs, ‘Erinnerungsschichten: Zur Bedeutung der Vergangenheit für den “gemeinen Mann” der Frühen Neuzeit’, in Fuchs and Winfried Schulze (eds), Wahrheit, Wissen, Erinnerung. Zeugenverhörprotokolle als Quelle für soziale Wissensbestände der Frühen Neuzeit (Münster, Hamburg, and London, 2002), pp. 89–154.

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that the cloister’s founders had brought the Augustinians to Körmend, “but he was not sure about this, for he was not yet an adult when the cloister was built”. Similarly, even the Körmend priest who a few years before had been tasked with supervising the Augustinians measured their local past in decades only.56 That is to say, their historical knowledge did not in fact extend beyond their own lives. By now we have looked at the role played by all participants in the making of the protocol. We tried to glimpse the bishop-judge and the notary at work. The judge appeared as an educated prelate insensitive to popular perceptions, who behaved rather indifferently. His proceedings resulted on the one hand in limited questioning and scarce information, on the other hand provided freedom for witnesses to speak. The notary was not over-zealous either in performing his task. He recorded the words of the witnesses precisely and faithfully. As for the ‘other side’, we checked whether the protocol reflects the knowledge of the witnesses by looking at the haphazard details of time measuring and dating of events. Since it produced a consistent and realistic pattern of what we know of popular perceptions of time, the claim seems justly based that the protocol is a reliable source of the ‘ordinary voices’ of the witnesses.

   Tamás Sibrik, Register, fol. 43v (2nd article); the priest Albert of Nagyliszka: “The friars of the Order of St. Augustine, as he can remember, have lived in the cloister of Körmend for forty years, he does not know however who founded the cloister”. Ibid. fol. 30v. 56

Chapter 4

The Witnesses The Erdődys had to assemble the witnesses in Körmend to prove their allegations against the Augustinians. What factors did they take into account in doing so? The Augustinians overtly suggested that the witnesses were under the influence of the “patron’s party”: they were their peasant tenants or noble servitors, hence, respecting or fearing their feudal superiors. Would Péter Erdődy, who stayed in Körmend shortly before and during the interrogation, have really tried to influence the trial’s outcome in this way? We can better understand the events by taking a closer look at the witnesses and the situation, which saw them in important roles. It was clearly in the interest of the Erdődys to have all the more witnesses heard (even if the cost of the interrogations fell on them),1 for that enhanced the weight and value of the evidence. The forty-nine witnesses they were able to amass in the few days available to them could be called a modest achievement; for their numbers typically ranged from two dozen to as many as two hundred in more serious cases.2 In the course 1 

The diocesan vicar’s instructions concerning the transport of witnesses reads partly thus: “The witnesses shall be transported to and from [the proceedings] by the exhibiting party and at that party’s expense”. Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (MNL OL) [The National Archives of Hungary], Mohács előtti Gyűjtemény [Pre-Mohács Collection], Diplomatikai Levéltár (DL) [Archive of Medieval Charters], 55798. This cost must have represented a difficulty even for the simple nobility, as shown well for example by the fact that in the course of their lawsuit against the aristocrat Tamás Szécsi over his estates in Tótfalu and Morácwhose parish priest was among the witnesses in Körmendno witnesses were called, after all, for the Moráces’ relative poverty precluded them from doing so. And so the county court made a decision on the basis of the documents submitted. Ibid. DF 261995. 2  Secular proceedings before county courts and the royal high court stipulated the questioning of at least twenty-four witnesses (Tripartitum opus iuris consuetudinarii inclyti regni Hungariæ per Stephanum de Werbewcz editum: The Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary: A Work in Three Parts Edited by Stephen Werbőczy (1517), ed. and trans. J. M. Bak, P. Banyó, and M. Rady, The Laws of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary, 5 (Idyllwild, CA, and Budapest, 2005), Part II, p. 32). We might cite a few examples. No less than 184 witnesses were questioned in the violent killing of Sebestyén Rosos, who managed the estates of the nunnery of óbudaand who also happened to be the brother of one of the witnesses of the trial at issue here, Simon Rosos of Körmend. Vera

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of a summons, the plaintiff and the witnesses would invariably meet in person3; first, when the judge would be transported to the homes of the named witnesses, and when the witnesses were subsequently taken to the scene of the trial. The latter in particular could also have been a good opportunity to “soften” witnesses, during the interrogation the witnesses themselves adamantly denied that this had been the case. “Forward the witnesses’ testimonies to us bearing your seals ... doing so faithfully and indicating the nature and degree of credibility each witness merits”, read the judge-delegate’s order to the interrogator, Márton Attádi.4 Furthermore, beyond the quantity of testimonies, the judge did indeed weigh the evidence based on the credibility of the witnesses and their statements. One key criterion was that their words be based on either firsthand knowledge or hearsay linked with each witness’s place of residence. For example, in secular trials before county or royal courts, witnesses were assigned a hierarchical value based on their “relative residence” (that is, their residence relative to the place at issue in the proceeding; whether in the immediate proximity, a neighboring village/region, or further afield in the county). In the case under consideration here, it is evident above all in this regard that few witnesses were summoned from Körmend. With thirteen witnesses, those in Körmend called on but a third of their potential witnesses. And this ran counter to the interest of the Erdődys in seeking to prove the Augustinians’ transgressions, for they too were well aware that the locals knew the most about everyday goings-on at the cloister situated on the town’s main square. What, then, accounts for their decision? Comparing this to other contemporary cases involving the hearing of witnesses, the situation seems less unusual. Indeed, the geographic composition of the witnesses selected by the Erdődys is perfectly in line with the prevailing practice at the time. Although the witnesses’ presumed knowledge was enhanced by their being locals, because of this their credibility was undermined. Indeed, every townsmen of Körmend was a Bácskai, Magyar mezővárosok a XV. században [Hungarian Market Towns in the Fifteenth Century], (Budapest, 1965), p. 127. In an ecclesiastical court proceeding, 29 witnesses were called in a case involving a secured loan MNL OL DL 15467, 1460); and 23 witnesses were summoned in a case involving the family inheritance of a parish priest (Ibid., DL 18032, 1478). 3  The usual formulas of witness testimonies also reflect this. For example: “The witness replied that besides being summoned for questioning, he had neither been ordered to do a thing nor threatened”. “The witness affirms that no one gave him an order as regards his statement in the case at hand, and that he received nothing and was promised nothing, and nor does he expect any favor or benefit in the future in return for his statement”. MNL OL DL 15467, DL 18032. 4  Register, fol. 21v.

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tenant bound to the town’s feudal lord, Péter Erdődy, and several local nobles stood in his service as retainers (familiares).5 As for the priests serving in Körmend’s churches, he was their patron. For this reason the Erdődys as plaintiffs had to strike a reasonable balance between quantity and quality of information. Like their contemporaries, this is what they did also. And we should not be surprised to learn that they took pains to ensure that most witnesses should be legally independent of them. Table 4.1 Körmend

Witnesses from Körmend Priest István

Incumbent

Priest Albert of Nagyliszka

Chantry priest in the parish church

Priest Lőrinc

Chantry priest in St. Martin church outside the town walls

Nob.* György Bük Circ. András Csuti

Noble retainer of Péter Erdődy (Cattle trader)

Circ. András Pap

Judge

Prov. et circ. István Tóth from Báta Prov. et circ. Gergely Polgár Prov. Gergely Karolj Prov. György Király

An earlier servant in the cloister

Prov. Pál Nagy

Augustinian lay-brother, churchwarden, the dean of the lay confraternity dedicated to the Virgin Augustinian and Franciscan laybrother (Craftsman)

Prov. Simon Rosos Prov. Mátyás Tapasztó

(Member of the town magistrate) Toll-collector An earlier judge

13 people titles or rankings denoting social status: nob.‒nobilis; circ.‒circumspectus (for townsmen); prov.‒providus (for peasant tenants) *

And so 36 witnesses arrived from 18 regional villages. It is worth comparing the witnesses’ residences with that of other, secular trials 5 

On the institution of familiaritas, denoting the relationship between lord and his (mostly noble) retainer expressed in terms of fidelity, service, reward and mutual obligations see Martyn Rady, Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary (Basingstoke, 2000), pp. 110–31.

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concerning Körmend. There was no shortage of trials in the era. Indeed, in the decades to come, Körmend’s feudal lords, who kept frequently replacing each other, did not flinch even from violence in their efforts to expand the borders of the castle and its appurtenances to the detriment of the town’s residents and the lesser landowners of the region. In 1562, for example, 80 people were questioned about exactly what happened in 1544, when Péter Erdődy violently reacquired the castle and town of Körmend, which had earlier come into the possession of the Hassághys.6 Almost half of the witnesses were from the same villagesadjacent to Körmend, nearby, or in the same countyas were those who had previously born witness in the case involving the Augustinians.

Map 4.1

The Environs of Körmend

The witnesses summoned in a case in 1499 stemming from an act of violence over a property dispute came not only from the same locales as those in the Augustinians’ Körmend case but also included two gentry families (the Deses of Rádóc and Farkases of Csákány), and two particular

6  Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Haus-Hof und Staatsarchiv (ÖStA HHStA), Wien, Familienarchiv Erdődy (Arch. Erd.), Kt. 96, fasc. 8, no. 15.

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individualsMiklós Philep of Rádóc and Pál Nagy of Kemesmál, likewise petty noblemenalso represented in that other case.7 Table 4.2 The Witnesses by Residence Csákány

Nob.* András Farkas of Csákány Illés Maráci, parish priest

Gosztony Halastó Hidvég Hidashollós

Prov. Lőrinc Varga Prov. László Bokor Balázs, parish priest Egr. et nob. Oszvald Polányi of Hidvég István, parish priest Nob. Lukács Mindszenti Benedek Halastói, parish priest

Ivánc

Nob. et egr. Balázs Ivánczi

Kemesmál

Nob. Mihály Kemesmáli Nob. Pál Nagy of Kemesmál

Kölked

Péter Tolnai, parish priest

Marác

György, parish priest

Nádalja

Prov. et circ. Benedek Benke Prov. Miklós Pondor

Nádasd

Nob. et egr. Ferenc Nádasdi Prov. András Bíró

Pusztarádócz

The priest Tamás Nob. Lénárt Basó Nob. György Basó Nob. Mihály Dese Nob. Albert Rádóci alias Szabó Nob. Miklós Philep

Rátold/Rátót

Prov. Péter Kovács

Sál

Nob. András Sáli Prov. Miklós Borsos

7 

MNL OL DL 58214.

84 Szarvaskend

A Cloister on Trial Nob. Benedek Sibrik, son of Litteratus Márk of Szarvaskend Nob. Tamás Sibrik Prov. György Márton

Szecsőd Szentkirály

Miklós Szecsődi, parish priest Balázs Gyarmati, parish priest

Szentmihály

Nob. Péter Porthol Prov. Pál Espan Prov. János Vas

18 villages

36 witnesses

* titles or rankings denoting social status: egr.‒egregius (for wealthy nobles); nob.‒ nobilis; circ.‒circumspectus (for townsmen); prov. ‒providus (for peasant tenants)

It was by ensuring that no witness from a nearby village was their tenant or otherwise was in their service that the Erdődys sought to maximize the value of the information, a matter of striking the right balance between quantity and credibility. Since in seven of these villages Péter Erdődy owned land and tenants,8 it seems certain that this was the result of deliberate filtering in the selection process. Yet another key factor in considering the witnesses’ testimonies was each witness’s social status. Here, too, the evidence likewise suggests a deliberate striving for a certain balance. The eighteen-strong nobility comprised the majority of the roster of witnesses. Also summoned were nine Körmend townsmen; ten village peasants; and twelve priests, among them two chantry priests (rector altaris) from Körmend and nine village parish priests. While at first glance the number of priests seems unusually high, this no doubt reflected the effort to select well-informed individuals for the case. And local clergymen naturally knew the most about the lives led by the Augustinians. As their clerical colleagues, they regularly met with the friars of Körmend. Sometimes the friars took part in funerals in neighboring villages, and at other times village parish priests held mass in Körmend; 8  The villages of Csákány, Hidashollós, Ivánc, Szecsőd, and Szentkirály were part of the Monyorókerék estate, some lands therein being in the possession of the Erdődys as the heirs of János Ellerbach. MNL OL DL 101233 (1496). See also Zsuzsanna Bándi, Körmend a középkorban [Körmend in the Middle Ages], (Körmend, 1987), p. 39, pp. 42–3, pp. 59–60, p. 67; MNL OL Mikrofilmtár [Microfilm Collection] (Mft.), Erdődy cs. vépi levéltára (The Archive of the Erdődy Family at Vép, U 31), fasc. 3, no. 104.

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and at times the friars would drop in at parsonages as they went about collecting alms. Not surprisingly, then, the parish priests’ inside knowledge of the one-time lifestyles of the Augustinians is much in evidence in their statements. For example, Balázs Gyarmati, the incumbent in the village of Szentkirály, recounted “seeing in his own house that Friar Ambrus went three days without saying the canonical hours, and when Ambrus again wanted to nonetheless say mass in his church, Gyarmati did not allow him, since he had seen and he knew just how unsuitable a condition Ambrus was in to do so”.9 Women, too, might have been considered “experts” possessing such inside knowledge had the oft-mentioned lovers of the Augustinians been summoned as well. But the judges would have given their words little credibility, viewing such witnesses as “suspicious women”. This explains their omission. However, other womenthose seen as respectable ladiesmight have offered up other sorts of details than did the men, perceived as they would have been of walking about local roads with “women’s eyes”. For some reason, though, the Erdődys did not use this opportunity: all the witnesses in the Körmend trial were men, whereas women, noble and non-noble alike, often did serve as witnesses both in secular courts and in those ecclesiastical courts that specialized in troublesome cases involving widows and orphans. The large number of rather young witnesses is likewise striking. While in other cases it was rare for a witness to report their age as under forty, in the present case, no less than seventeen of the witnesses said they were in their twenties and thirties. Sixteen witnesses represented the middle generation, saying they were in their forties; while twelve said they were in their fifties. As for those acknowledging even more advanced ageprecisely those people who would perhaps have had the most to say, having seen the most in their lives, and who would presumably have been regarded with the greatest respectthere were surprisingly only four of them. This suggests not only that the Erdődys simply didn’t see it as necessary to summon mainly older witnesses, but also that the witnessesin contrast with common practice—did not add to their years to enhance their standing as respected individuals or to lend more credibility to their recounting of events that had happened long before. Indeed, it is not rare to come across witnesses claiming to be over 100 years old in other trials of the era.10 The 9 

Register, fol. 77r. For example, in a case in 1573 involving the ownership of Pucaföldea field next to Körmenda peasant from Szentpéterfalva said he was 100 years old and reported that “before the [1526] Battle of Mohács” he had reaped the field for the Erdődys. János Balogh of Kisunyom, who claimed to be 110, recalled having seen the placing of the foundation stones of the Körmend castle. He was 10 

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oldest witnesses in the present, Körmend case were seventy and “seventy or more”. Ironically, the witnesses’ imprecision in reporting their ages as well as their being explicit that the ages they give are only estimates likewise enhanced their credibility. Both are characteristic of the way memory operates in an oral culture. Those at the Körmend trial sought to diminish uncertainty by the medieval practice of rounding to an even numberas shown by the statistically unlikely prevalence of numbers ending in zero (29 out of 49). Also reflecting the witnesses’ relative ability to recall their ages is the fact that the younger witnesses were more apt to promptly offer up a precise number when asked their age. Most striking as regards the witnesses’ social status is the disproportionate number of nobles. But this presumably reflected the prevailing attitude and practice of the nobility, as summed up thus by a jurist of noble origin who compiled a written collection of the customs and laws of the kingdom in the early-sixteenth century: “Peasants and commoners can be lured from the path of truth by gifts or threats much more easily and quickly than nobles”.11 Besides age and social standing, both wealth and respect were likewise central to establishing credibility. Hence the Erdődys sought to summon leading community figures who commanded respect. Unfortunately, we know nothing of the ten peasant tenants in this regard. The protocol is in fact the only available historical record that mentions their names and existence. Among the ten Körmend residents, we know of the positions held formerly or at the time of the trial by three of them: András Pap was the town judge and György Király was one of his predecessors in that role. Pál Nagy, as seen before, was the churchwarden of the cloister church and dean of the lay confraternity dedicated to the Virgin. Gergely Polgár, as suggested by his family name, which means “Citizen”, may have also been a town magistrate. As for all the other witnesses, only their relative wealth can provide a glimpse into their presumed community roles. Although most gave but a customary reply when asked about their assets, claiming that they have some movables according to their status, twelve offered up estimates in the form of specific numbers. Perhaps they were those who were truly content over or even outright proud of their economic circumstances regardless of whether this meant an imposing presumably recalling the renovation of the old castle into a fortified structurea project undertaken by the Erdődys from 1510 to 1520. Two widowsone from Ják and the other from Vasallyalikewise reported being 100 years old. ÖStA HHStA Arch. Erd., Kt. 95, fasc. 2, no. 16. 1573. See also Tóth, Harangkongás, pp. 115–16. 11  István Werbőczy’s domestici iuris compendiumis published in a bilingual Latin-English edition: Tripartitum, Bak, Banyó, and Rady, Part II, Chapter 27.

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estate of 2,000 forints or, say, the 10 forints that was just enough to get by. For example, the reply of nobleman György Büki, among those in Körmend who was in the service of Péter Erdődy, resulted in these words in the protocol: “Beyond his assets as a nobleman, which he owns in four villages, he possesses movable property commensurate with his standing“. Oszvald Polányi of Hidvég likewise appears to have been self-confident in his reply: “He abounds in movable property, and indeed he also has a castle and tenants”.12 The Polányis, just as the Nádasdis, Ivánczis, and Sibriksin contrast with those members of the nobility who possessed only one plot of land (nobiles unius sessionis) or the petty nobles who had few plots represented the medium landowners of Vas County owning a few dozen plots and tenants in several villages. Their higher social standing and greater wealth were indicated by their elevated titles: they were not simply nobles (nobilis), they were so-called “illustrious” men (Latin egregius, Hungarian vitézlő). It seems they had not their modest assets, but their often quasi-hereditary positions (castellans, estate managers or engaged in the county administrative apparatus as vicecomites) earned in the service of aristocrats to thank for their exalted titles. This, then, was no doubt why the young Sibrik boys could not yet expect to be called egregii. Oszvald Polányi’s words further suggest a person who has seen a modest rise in personal wealth and social station. He was most proud that by the time he reached old age, he was able to move from an old manor house to a fortified castle. He had been given permission back in 1502 from King Wladislaus II to build a manor house of wood or stonea structure that was in fact apparently completed by 1518.13 None of those six Körmend residents who actually estimated their assets was poor. Indeed, at 50 forints, even those of the “poorest” among them, István Tóth, who not long before had been in the service of the Augustinians, was comparable to that of a nobleman from Csákány.14 This 12 

Büki: Register, fol. 103v; Polányi: Ibid. fol. 32r. In 1509 Oszvald held estates in eleven villages (MNL OL DL 67965). As regards the building of his manor house: Ibid. DL 58212; and his enrichment: Ede Reiszig, ‘A Geregye nemzetség’ [The Geregye Clan], Turul, 18 (1900): pp. 117–33, p. 124. 14  Given the destruction of the archives in market towns, we know little about the heritable assets of the burghers in these places; that iswith the exception of the tenant plot that comprised part of a (noble) landlord’s propertyabout that property, movable and otherwise (vineyards, clearings, and mills), which they came to acquire. László Solymosi presents the will of a market town (Kállósemjén) burgher (1521) in ‘Két középkor végi testamentum Szabolcs vármegyéből’ [Two Last Wills and Testaments from the Middle Ages in Szabolcs County], in Ágnes 13 

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is noteworthy also because we have fairly precise information about the assets of András Farkas of Csákány, born in this county to a family of the lesser nobility. A 1512 proceeding brought against him and his brother Illés saw a thorough accounting done of their movable property and landed estates: their brother Pál, who had meanwhile died, had robbed his masters, the Henczelfies. The delegates found the following after Illés’s widow had already removed a lot with her new husband to their home: in addition to their noble plot and country house, they had two tenant plots in Csákány together with their belongings (arable lands and a fish pond). Their movable property comprised two cows, oxen, and other draft animals each; plus eleven mérő (40 kilogramms each) of wheat and fodder. András’s portion of all thishalfcame to him by virtue of the court awarding it to his wife and son. The rest was given to the Henczelfies in compensation for the 700 forints of damages they had suffered. András was thus left with movable property worth much less than 50 forints (one cow, one ox, and one draft animal, and so on.).15 Another typical trajectory of a member of the lesser nobility is represented by Lukács Mindszenti. Körmend’s onetime castellan, he was probably born to a one-plot noble family, and following in the footsteps of his father, he was in the service of János Ellerbach even as a boy. It was in that capacity that he presumably met Péter Balog, the steward of his master’s holding in Hidashollós; Mindszenti went on to marry Balog’s daughter, Orsolya. With this marriage he was finally able to complement his noble title with some modest assets. He and his wife lived in the house she’d inherited in Hidashollós that was situated on a piece of land that comprised three adjoining tenant plots. They also had an unoccupied plot of land at the south end of the village, next to the Rába River bridge, while he complemented the benefits of his service with cultivating a vineyard in Tótfalu. Following the death of his father-in-law, his lord, János Ellerbach, eased Mindszenti’s circumstances (which were still not exactly easy) by releasing his lands from obligations in cash and in kind toward their landlord.16 While Mindszenti was a noble living on tenant plots, András Csuti was a wealthy Körmend merchant who held in pledge noble properties with

Kovács (ed.), Emlékkönyv Rácz István 70. születésnapjára (Debrecen, 1999), pp. 203–25, pp. 218–20). Based on this document, the burgher at issue owned eleven pieces of livestock, some cleared land, a house, a plough, clothing, and 56 forints in cash. 15  MNL OL DL 58251 (1511), DL 58252, DL 58265 (1512). 16  ÖStA HHStA Arch. Erd., Urkunden 10156 (1487).

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tenants and owed no taxes to a landlord.17 Although Mindszenti said he “abounded” in movable property, his assets did not begin to measure up to the exceptionally large, nearly 2,000 forint wealth that Csuti had amassed by selling cattle in regions to the west. While he enjoyed no privileges as a noble, the community in which he lived did regard him as one; for example, for all intents and purposes he did at least serve as a noble in his role as an arbitrator in disputes between local nobles and when he took a lien on an occupied tenant plot.18 Nonetheless, while giving his testimony at the Körmend trial, Csuti identified himself with the title circumspectus, which alluded to his status as a burgher. As for Péter Porthol of Szentmihály, while he called himself a noble, in truth he too was probably a freed tenant (libertinus) similar to Csuti.19 At the same time, his assets placed him more or less squarely in the Körmend middle class: similar to the Körmend judge and churchwarden, he estimated his worth at 100 forints. (To put things in perspective, in 1546 a stone building on Körmend’s main square was estimated to be worth 136 forints.).20 17 

For more on unusual roles held by market town burghers and village peasants, whose trajectories reflected the differentiated positions of the peasantry in the late Middle Ages, see Ferenc Szakály, Mezőváros és reformáció. Tanulmányok a korai magyar polgárosodás történetéhez [Market Town and Reformation. Studies on the Early Phase of the Rise of the Burgess Class in Hungary], Humanizmus és Reformáció, 23 (Budapest, 1995), pp. 414–15. 18  Noble titles thus carried substantial prestige in the eyes of market town and village residents. In contrast, the self-respecting burghers of the city of Buda preferred the title circumspectus, which alluded to their status as burghers, to the title egregius held by medium landowners. See András Kubinyi, ‘Budai és pesti polgárok családi összeköttetései a Jagelló-korban’ [The Contacts of the Burghers of Pest and Buda in the Jagiello-era], Levéltári Közlemények, 37 (1967): pp. 228– 91, p. 281. Csuti testified, for example, that his servants “come from the ranks of shepherds and hayduks”. Lien: MNL OL DL 58281 (1517). Csuti as nobilis arbiter, ibid. DL 101827 (1520–23). Libertinus in 1528: ÖStA HHStA Arch. Erd., Kt. 95, fasc. 5, no. 2. See also István György Tóth, ‘Szabadosok és kisnemesek’ [Libertini and Lesser Nobles], in Ferenc Szvircsek (ed.), Magyarország társadalma a török kiűzésének idején [Hungarian Society in the Era of Turkish Expulsion], (Salgótarján, 1984), pp. 55–67. 19  Indeed, unless historical records include two different people by the same name, one year earlier he was a peasant tenant of György Hosszútóthi (an in-law of the Polányis), serving as the judge in the village of Szentmihály. It seems unlikely that in this era he would have meanwhile received the royal letter legitimating his status as a noble. MNL OL DL 22851. On the (low) chances of receiving noble privileges and title see István Szabó, ‘A jobbágy nemesítése’ [The Ennoblement of Peasant Tenants], Turul, 55 (1941): pp. 11–21. 20  The house of Körmend merchant Mihály Faiertag was seized in this value owing to his debt. ÖStA HHStA Arch. Erd., Urkunden 1362 (certificate affixed

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One of the young men in the Sibrik family, Benedek, likewise represented a case in which precise legal status was out of line with the regard in which he was held by his community. His cousin Tamás Sibrik, who came from the family’s more moneyed and distinguished side, clearly sought to distance himself from Benedek in the course of his own testimonymentioning Benedek only by his particular family name, Szarvaskendi, and suppressed the information that they were relatives. Tamás's treatment was due to the fact that Benedek was a Sibrik only on his mother’s side. His mother, Márta Sibrik, received her hereditary portion, the so-called filial quarter (quarta filialis), based on the ancient estates of her father in the village of Egyházasbagod. As a five and half plot, it was enough to sustain the living of lesser nobles only. She then managed to purchase a manor house with some arable land in Szarvaskend, along with three tenant plots in the western end of the same village, from a sibling who had no heirs. But the rest of the village was owned by her brother László and his five sons, including Tamáswhose apparent contempt for his cousin Benedek was clearly not tempered by the fact that Benedek’s father, Márk Litteratus of Szarvaskend, was a member of the lesser nobility from the city of Pest who had moved to the village on getting married; and that as a literate gentleman, Márk had a well-paying position, managing the Abbey of Szentgotthárd in service to the upper nobility.21 While most residents of Körmend made their living through agricultureby harvesting crops and vineyards, keeping livestock  and trade of its produce, as the above examples also suggest, among the witnesses in this trial there were also crafstmen, who represented a slim cross-section of local society. Among them was Mátyás Tapasztó, reporting 75 forints in assetsassets that, as suggested by his family name (which in Hungarian means “putty”, “cement”, or, by extension, “mortar”) he had earned by laying bricks for houses and tiles for stoves. The fact that he travelled across the country to sell his merchandise and services perhaps suggests the size of his operation.22 Unfortunately it is unclear how the aforementioned Simon Rosos, who had relatives in Buda, had earned his with the seal of the Körmend council). 21  On Benedek Sibrik’s father: Nobilis Marcus litteratus de Zarvaskend (MNL OL DL 58314) or Marcus Ferencze de Pesth (Ibid, DL 70078, 1497). The filial quarter of Márta Sibrik: ibid. DL 70087, 70090. On the division of Zsigmond Sibrik’s estate between Márta and László: Ibid. DL 70086, DL 70044; on Tamás Sibrik’s testimony: Register, fols 45r–6v. 22  On discovering Friar Mihály and his lover, he was “at Székesfehérvár with his merchandise”. As for his Easter confession, he did that in the city of Győr, yet another 100 kilometers away, no doubt again while traveling on business. Register, fol. 101v.

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respectable 300-forint estate. It seems that it wasn’t by pursuing longdistance trade of grain, livestock, or spices in the West, as several other leading figures of the town did.23 The relative wealth of the witnesses in the Körmend case is apparent even compared to the situation of village peasants: Miklós Pondor from Nádalja reported assets of 40 forints, while László Bokor from Gosztony had 15 forints and “earning his bread through daily work”, and Márton György from Szarvaskend had but 10.24 It was neither wealth nor respect, but rather their closer relationship with the lord of the manor that serves to explain the selection of the final two witnesses in the Körmend case. Gergely Karolj was engaged as Erdődy’s toll-keeper in Körmend, and the nobleman György Büki was his familiaris. In this respect it is noteworthy of all the witnesses, not just those from Körmend, that those who had formerly served the onetime landlord János Ellerbachamong them Ferenc Nádasdi, as well as Körmend’s castellans in the 1490s (the noblemen Lukács Mindszenti and Pál Nagy of Kemesmál)did not wind up serving the young heir of their one-time masters. More precisely: at the time of their testimony they were not under contract to him. Indeed, the testimony of Lukács Mindszentiwho even after two decades was in spirit still loyally in the service of his one-time master, János Ellerbachgives the impression that all the while he’d been serving the Erdődys. This does not exclude the possibility that he was telling the truth; which is to say, that at the time of his testimony he was no longer in their service. Otherwise, how could he have given such a detailed description of the meetings between Péter Erdődy and the Augustinians, of Erdődy’s charitable requests to the friars? Moreover, these accounts of his were even more vivid than what he reported about Ellerbach’s fulminations toward the Augustinians, though he had likewise been there first-hand to hear the latter.25 23 

He and his relative, György Rosos does not appear in customs documents remaining from the years 1538–55, in contrast to other town councillors. Bándi, Körmend, p. 117, Appendix V. 24  But not even they were among the poorest: only those people whose movable property did not amount to at least 3 forints were exempt from state tax. Pál Engel, Gyula Kristó, and András Kubinyi, Magyarország története 1301–1526 [The History of Hungary], (Budapest, 1998), p. 321. 25  Csuti’s “loyalty” to Ellerbach is among other things suggested by his response when asked which order he would prefer to see occupy the cloister. He alone replied in a way that reads thus in the protocol: “While he likes the friars of both orders, he would nonetheless prefer that the Franciscans stayed ..., for Körmend’s previous landowners, while they lived and owned the town, had also wanted to bring the observant Franciscans into the cloister”. Register, fol. 59v. His memories of two landowners: ibid. fol. 62r and fol. 60v.

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As for the other man who was formerly in the service of Ellerbach, Ferenc Nádasdi, we likewise have information only from later—1528— that it was in service of the Erdődys that he took part in the capture of a peasant of nearby landowners, the Petős. Among his peers we find another witness from the Körmend case, nobleman András Csuti of Körmend, who at the time served his master as castellan of Körmend.26 In collecting information about the witnesses I found only one other, comparable, examplein which witnesses’ relatives were in the service of nobleman Péter Erdődy: In 1518 János Ivánci was his master’s castellan in the village of Jánosháza; and a record from 1521 shows Illés Farkas from CsákányAndrás’s brotherto have been castellan of Körmend.27 Even in light of these relationships between the landowner and the witnesses, we cannot accept the Augustinians’ suggestion that the Erdődys deliberately selected their own people to bear witness against the Augustinians. All in all, the proportionate inclusion of those who served the Erdődys in the past (Mindszenti), at the time of the trial (Büki, Ivánczi), and who were to serve them in the future (Nádasdi, Csuti, Farkas of Csákány) may be completely random, as could the other factors examined (place of residence, age). Where selection does divert from the random, howevergender, social standingcontemporary expectations account for that. That is to say, in selecting the witnesses the Erdődys sought to ensure that the majority of the witnesses were legally independent persons, and that the non-nobles, as a guarantee of their trustworthiness, were respected members of their local communities. They came at the same time from the environs of Körmend, which was regarded as a prerequisite for being well-informed. Hence, not even in the mind of an objective judge could the line-up of witnesses have awoken any doubt. And so it was presumably with few question marks that Attádi added his observations on the witnesses’ credibility, his assessment of the testimonies, at the end of the proceeding when submitting the protocol to his employer. As was the case when the witnesses were selected, the other circumstances related to the interrogation were in line with contemporary practice. The witnesses appeared before the judge at 9 a.m. on Saturday, May 15, 1518. After swearing a collective oath, they were interrogated one by onea process that presumably unfolded at a fast pace and was over with by some time Sunday night; for the protocol indicates that the trial was complete by 9 a.m. on Monday, May 17. All that otherwise happened that morning was that Péter Erdődy’s lawyer asked the judge to reinforce the witnesses’ testimonies in the usual manner, by holding an on-site review of the condition of the cloister. This happened, too: they all 26  27 

ÖStA HHStA Arch. Erd., Kt. 95, fasc. 5, no. 2. Bándi, Körmend, pp. 42–3; MNL OL DL 104343 (1518).

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went to the cloister, and after wandering about all its buildings, Miletinczi noted on the final pages of the protocol: We ascertained by the proof afforded by our own eyes that indeed the cloister had fallen into a rather ruinous, abandoned condition. We further saw that a portion of the ruins ... had already been restored by Lord Péter Erdődy and the observant Franciscan friars themselves, and as apparent to both the bishop and myself, the scribe, the buildings, the services, and the friars alike have showed a tendency toward increased numbers and order from day to day.28

Beginning day one with witnesses who had arrived from out of town, and leaving the locals for the next day, seems to have been a reasonable decision. Even assuming that no more than twenty-five witnesses could have been heard on the first day, some ten witnesses from out of town would still have had to return the next day. The trial was held at the parsonage, “the most suitable and most appropriate building for this purpose”. For one thing, this building may have had ample room for those persons present, approximately 60; for another, the parsonage and the adjacent church and cemetery comprised a usual venue for ecclesiastical proceedings. That being said, it does not seem to be a neutral venue, after all, given that the church’s patron, Erdődy acted as the plaintiff and the parish priest himself was a witness. No doubt the Augustinians were silent about this because it was precisely on account of their neglect that the buildings comprising the cloister had become unsuitable as the scene of such an event. The approximately 60 people on hand included not only the witnesses but also the judge and the notary, the Erdődy’s lawyer, three Augustinian friarsZsigmond Váci, one-time prior of Körmend, and two colleagues of his from Budaand those two witnesses on hand to certify the proceedings. They all saw and heard the witnesses place their hands on the Bible and swear to “God the Almighty, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all their saints” to tell the truth without “deception or treachery, in exchange for neither gifts nor favors, and not out of fear, friendship, or offence”. Following this, the Augustinians handed over their questionnaire, and the interrogation ensuedas necessary “one at a time and in private”.29 Each round of testimony began with the judge reminding the witness of his oath; which is to say, with these words: “The false witness commits 28 

Register, fol. 107r. Register, fol. 12v. On the text of the oath see Martinus Kovachich, Formulae solennes styli in cancellaria curiaque regum, foris minoribus, ac locis credibilibus … olim usati (Pesthini, 1799), vol. 2, p. 356 (1476). 29 

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a threefold offence: first by offending God, second by misleading the judge, third by violating the rights of the other party”.30 It was not only a multiple offence, but in Christian understanding also a mortal sin to testify falsely.31 It should, then, come as no surprise that perjury—that is, “when a lie is confirmed by an oath taken maliciously to deceive or harm someone’s rights”—was punished by forfeiture of property and honor by customary law. Still, it happened frequently—so alleged this sixteenthcentury commentator. In fact, as he continued, “very many people give their testimony with stained and defiled consciences, not after the order and manner they know to be true but according to the instructions and wishes of the plaintiff or defendant by whom they were called. I myself can testify to such practices”.32 The Church in the meantime sought to ward off perjury and false witnessing by the threat of excommunication disseminated from the pulpit.33 Not even our thorough examination, then, has revealed anything to suggest that the witnesses in the Körmend trial were guided by such “evil aims”, whether stemming from external pressure or internal motivations (such as an antagonistic relationship with the Augustinians). All told, in all respects these proceedings met contemporary expectations.

30 

MNL OL DL 15467, interrogatoria. “the viciousness and illicit sin of perjury”—as it reads in some of the Körmend testimonies. 32  Tripartitum, Bak, Banyó, and Rady, Part II, Chapters 27, 29, and 30. 33  A veszprémi egyház 1515. évi zsinati határozatai [The Synodal Decretals of the Diocese of Veszprém in 1515], ed. L. Solymosi (Budapest, 1997), p. 72. The directive to Attádi read thus: “Mete out church punishment without room for appeal to any of the summoned witnesses who bear false witness out of hatred, gratitude, favor, or any other sort of guile”. Register, fol. 21v. 31 

Chapter 5

Narrative, Memory, and Identity In a final effort, joining forces with judges and detectives, I will once again work back from testimony to the hidden acts of silence, pretension, distraction, affront, and deceit. Having viewed the agendas of the opposing parties, the detachment of the questioner, and the faithful industry of the record-keepers, the excitement of peeping into the courtroom and watching the witnesses in action awaits us in the present chapter, which is facilitated by a methodologically novel way of reading judicial records. To be cited as a witness and give testimony in court was no extraordinary episode in the life of sixteenth-century men and women. However, the situation of the witnesses at Körmend was peculiar. Although their own lot was not at stake, they had to talk about themselves with regard to general prohibitions or taboos such as excessive drinking, gambling, or womanizing. How did they define, use, or try to manipulate such a situation? In order to be able to observe this “hidden transcript” and the minute tactics behind their recorded words, we must read the trial records closely, since, unlike anthropologists who can intrude into unfamiliar worlds by asking questions and engaging with locals, we have little else to rely on.1 We cannot verify their answers to see if they remembered or misremembered things in order to suppress other memories deemed best forgotten; we can merely observe them.2 We can gain a richer sense of the deeds behind the words with the help of other disciplines.3 Making use of the constructivist theories of 1 

Scott’s concept of “hidden transcripts” (as opposed to the “public transcript”) denoting practices challenging the system of domination beneath the surface which hence go unnoticed by the powerful seems applicable here with regard to the courtroom tactics of witnesses. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, CT, and London, 1990). 2  On the agency of historical documents and especially court records (as opposed to their traditionally assumed function of archiving past events) see Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. E. Prenowitz (Chicago, 1996; French edn 1995), p. 11. 3  For other interdisciplinary approaches of reading legal records see for example Michael Goodich (ed.), Voices from the Bench: Narratives of Lesser Folk in Medieval Trials (London, 2006); Miri Rubin, “The Making of the Host Desecration Accusation: Persuasive Narratives, Persistent Doubts”, in Suzanne Marchand and Elizabeth Lunbeck (eds), Proof and Persuasion: Essays on Authority, Objectivity, and Evidence (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), pp. 100–23; Kari Telste, ‘A Tale of

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remembering and communication, I will read the testimonies, focusing particularly on orally related stories, as the representation of the witnesses’ individual perspective and then as of communal wisdom.4 Putting it more plainly, I seek to answer the following questions: When witnesses answered questions, were they content with merely evoking their memories or were they instead determined to persuade their listeners of the sins or the innocence of the Augustinians? Can we infer from the written evidence who decided to keep silent and why? Or, conversely, who chose to speak profusely even if they knew little relevant information? Identifying their story-telling strategies will allow us to glimpse the ways witnesses shaped their versions of events in order to fit the politics of the moment. Beyond the creation of personal identity, story telling also had multiple functions in communal life. Why were certain anecdotes circulated relentlessly while others never became worthy of gossip? The stories recounted by the witnesses can be classified according to the character of the events related: there were extraordinary events worth telling because of their uniqueness, while others tended to be more easily remembered for their everyday nature.5 I counted about forty such “unique stories”,6 and another fifteen “characteristic stories” described

Courtship or Immorality? Some Reflections on Court Records as Narratives’, Tid ok Tanke (thematic issue Fact, fiction and forensic evidence, ed. by Sølvi Sogner), 1 (1997): pp. 75–82; Thomas V. Cohen, ‘Three Forms of Jeopardy: Honor, Pain and Truth-Telling in a Sixteenth-Century Italian Courtroom’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 29 (1998): pp. 975–98. 4  Constructivist theories make it possible to correlate the discursive and social practices of historical actors. Our witnesses’ words, compared to their earlier social and mental worlds, are distorted by many factors. Constructivists maintain that both the mental process of remembering and the social phenomenon of communication are organized by attitudes, interests, and schemes of action, which are the organizing principles of human knowledge. This allows for a joint treatment of narratives of both hearsay and of personal experience and remembering. Frederic C. Bartlett, Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (Cambridge, 1995; first edn 1932); Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: a Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York and Toronto, 1967). 5  On the relation of subject-matter and narrativity see János László, Társas tudás, elbeszélés, identitás. A társas tudás modern szociálpszichológiai elméletei [Social Knowledge, Narrativity, and Identity: Modern Social-Psychological Theories of Social Knowledge], (Budapest, 1999), p. 14, pp. 66–70. 6  See for example: “Friar Balázs … drank away his breviary in a village tavern, which was then redeemed by the cloister’s prior from the tavern-keeper”. Register, fol. 54v.

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minutely,7 along with others presented in less detail:8 the number altogether amounts to seventy-five. Most of them were based on news circulating in the community.9 “Townspeople kept talking among themselves ...” or “he has seen and heard from many people worthy of credence ...” is a typical opening line. The conversations in the streets, markets, taverns, and churches probably became even more frequent under the impact of the official inquiries into the life of the Augustinians. The interrogation itself can be considered as another scene of gossip, where the exchanges with the judge also incorporated the stories that the witnesses related to each other during the two days of the examination.10 These narratives, lacking the formulaic nature of the rest of the scribal evidence, reflect a double-faced picture of the relationship between town and cloister. The stories primarily follow the lines of the friars’ abuses arousing general indignation and provoking sanctions. The people used varied strategies to reform the Augustinians: they scolded them, argued with them, refused to give them alms; they applied individual self-help, while at other times they collectively planned to drive them away by force. In other instances they turned to the friars’ ecclesiastical superiors, requesting they exert tighter control over them. From behind the witnesses’ chance remarks, however, other, often peaceful and occasionally cheerful, moments of their everyday life also surface. We learn that although the friars’ sins revolted the parishioners, they still frequented not only the gambling table of the drunken and lascivious friars, but their masses and holy hours as well, which in turn incurred a great risk to their own physical and spiritual wellbeing. The moral trespasses of the friars resulted in a neglect or irregular celebration of the divine services, which—as they believed—invoked for 7  For example: “he often met the friars and visited the friary in order to participate in divine services. He often talked to the friars, asking them why they neglected so much the divine services, to which they answered there were only few of them and had little to live on, therefore they could not perform masses and holy hours”. Ibid. fol. 92r. 8  For example: “he heard both from the inhabitants of the market town of Körmend and from people living in the surroundings that when they sometimes went to the friary to listen to the morning mass of the Augustinian friars, they were waiting for long and in vain, since there was no mass celebrated”. Ibid. fol. 42v. 9  While individuals by name as source of information remained under ten, witnesses refer to the fama publica (or its variants such as “sermo et rumor inter cives”) 95 times, to which the typical “since he heard” answers can also be added to. 10  The first witness related: “yesterday he told the Augustinian friars, who were then in Körmend, that even the garden of the cloister had a much higher value now, compared to their times […], since the observants had restored the buildings”. Ibid. fols 31v–2r, 42r.

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them the harm rather than the help of the sacred realm.11 In short, the laity’s attitude toward the friars was very much ambivalent. A year after the Augustinians’ removal and the Franciscans’ arrival, however, no trace of this ambivalence remained: the witnesses unanimously held a low opinion of their ex-friar-fellows and by moral, religious, and communal arguments, justified their expulsion. The only exception to this was the priest Balázs, incumbent of an adjacent village called Halastó, who said: “he likes the Augustinians but neither his body nor his soul wishes for the observant Franciscans, and he would prefer the Augustinians to stay in their house”.12 How shall we interpret this sudden and collective change of attitude? Were the witnesses, as the Augustinians openly argued during the investigation, under such pressure that their opinion was silenced, the priest Balázs solely being able to resist? Or, rather, was their unanimous opinion a psychological phenomenon? Looking closely at the structure of the stories, it seems they realistically mirror the process of remembering, and the witnesses did not intentionally fabricate plausible stories by making up forgotten details, so as to convince the judge and the future reader.13 When the judge inquired about the details (time, place, reason for being present, and so on) of their statements, they often (35 times) simply answered “I do not remember”. It is easy to recite opening lines whose detail gives the impression of verisimilitude: “He knows that once, when on the vigils of Epiphany, the Augustinian friars were taking part, as was usual, in the procession ...”.; or “He saw Friar Antal more or less three years before in the tavern and when the friar was ...”. The plausible nature of these narratives is further enhanced when they are embedded in the routine scenes of work and leisure or the recurrent cycles of feasts. The regularity of the occasions in which sinful conduct tended to occur speaks to the everyday nature of the abuses themselves. And although the witnesses tended to forget dates and names, they could safely recall the scenario of events or the gestures of actors, which are the central schemes of remembering and narration. The story related by the incumbent of Körmend is an apt and typical example of this: He knows that one of the friars was sent by his fellows to remote parts to collect alms. On his return, he secretly withheld some of the money from the prior and the friars and one day he visited the house of Kristóf 11 

On the practice and belief in the consumption of the sacred in more detail see chapter 7. 12  Register, fol. 47r. 13  On the role of concrete details, “reality effects” in narratives see Roland Barthes, ‘The Reality Effect’, in Tzvetan Todorov (ed.), French Literary Theory Today: A Reader (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 11–17.

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Paÿertak, the local saddler, where wine was measured and sold. The friar got entangled in a row with a curial, which happened four years ago (he does not remember which day) and ended in a fist fight. In due course, the friar was pitched to the ground with such force that he looked half dead. While the friar was lying on the floor the curial prodded with his hands the friar’s pockets for money, which he took away and while keeping some of it he restored the rest. The friar was finally escorted from the tavern to the cloister ... He knows all this, since he has heard it from his fellow witness, the priest Albert and other priests who were present and whose names he does not remember.14

The story variants which keep recurring (4 stories told 35 times)15 also reflect the process of remembering and communication: the stability of the central plot, the contradictions of circumstantial details, and the effects of personal involvement in the public event can all be observed. One of them concerned the violation of monastic chastity. In the story, which recurred five times, each witness gave some new detail which was common knowledge and important. Two of them only heard that “the friars made a woman pregnant”. A nobleman mentioned a prior, whose name he did not remember. An elderly townsman of Körmend added that the son of the prior “still lives with his mother. The mother does not deny that the prior was the father of her son, which the witness himself heard from the said woman, and this rumor is circulating anyway”. Another nobleman who lived in the town, who, due to the extended social network of his wife, was exceptionally familiar with local affairs, related, moreover, that it was Margit Ferdenos who gave birth to the prior’s son, who became a local swineherd.16 Public attention ultimately revolved around the story of Friar Mihály and his lover Dorottya. From among the seventeen witnesses relating the stories, only four were eye-witnesses, which thus frames the story as a popular piece of everyday conversation. The core story is as follows: Once the castellan of the castle of Körmend found one of the friars with a woman of ill repute in his cell, after which the friar was confined to the castle and the woman pilloried in the market place and then banished.17 This 14 

Register, fols 88v–9r. Beyond Story 1 and Story 3 described below it was Story 2: Instead of the negligent friars the ruinous friary buildings were renovated by the townspeople (repeated eight times in the 4th article); Story 4: One of the friars used to visit suspicious places in the night, an abuse for which a townsman attacked him (repeated five times in the 6th article). 16  Register, fol. 45r, 88v, 70v–71r, 91r, 105r. 17  See for example ibid. fols 90v–91r. 15 

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was further unanimously embellished by a smaller group of witnesses: the friar deceptively called his lover his sister or god sister and she was first taken to the castle along with the friar and was then also flagellated in the pillory. After the castellan let the friar go, upon the request of some layman and some priests, he was chained in the cloister’s store-room, but soon managed to escape. Beyond some further details (the protagonists were Friar Mihály and Castellan Benedek Ferde; the event occurred in the summer; the couple was found naked on the bed; the friar was taken away to the castle in front of many people, and so on) the plot was reproduced more lavishly only by those who were directly involved. For instance, the nobleman György Büki said that a few days before the scandal the friar had met his lover in his house and after much whispering between them they claimed they were each other’s brother and sister.18 The episode in which the escaped friar waited for his girlfriend in Oszvald Büki’s house was related by the superintendent appointed to supervise the Augustinians, the priest Albert of Nagyliszka. The superintendent may have known about the circumstances because the friar’s flight was his responsibility: the castellan handed over the friar to him to ensure his punishment as his superior.19 Finally, there were several contradictions in the definitions of the persons involved and the dating of the event. As the above stories were repeated many times with different variations, suggesting that everyday conversations in the town community centered around the friars’ sexual misdeeds. By contrast, tavern scenes were considered much less exciting or entertaining and thus less worth telling and listening to,20 since such brawls and carousals happened daily and were partaken in by many21 (see Table 5.1). “He himself often had a drink with the friars, but in which year and in which house and how many times, he did not remember, as they did it so often and in so many different places”—replied András Csuti to the judge, which exemplifies the general disinterest in such stories.22 We face here the popular opinion of men who all knew the tavern scenes from everyday personal experience.

18 

Ibid. fol. 104v. Ibid. fol. 31v. 20  Tavern episodes were repeated much less frequently: 21 stories were recalled 25 times, while witnesses related the 20 love stories 45 times. 21  Rumor is nurtured by events which are important, and by news which are rare and incomplete. Gordon W. Allport and Leo Postman, The Psychology of Rumor (New York, 1947), pp. 108–9. 22  Register, fol. 92r. 19 

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Table 5.1

101

Stories Related

The topic of stories

Number of stories

Stories repeated

Number of repetition

Liturgical negligences

6

–

Negligence of cloister buildings

2

Roof and ambulatory renovated by townspeople

8

Tavern scenes

11

–

0

Womanizing

19

A woman left pregnant by a friar

5

A townsman beat up a friar who was visiting suspicious places at night

5

The castellan caught friar Mihály and his lover in the cloister and punished them

17

Other

2

0

0

Total

40

4

35

Moreover, the network of the stories represents not only the structure of the gossip about the Augustinians, but also precisely maps social relations, staking out the boundary between the community and the outsiders. Among the witnesses, thirteen were residents of Körmend, while others arrived from elsewhere in the regionthirty-six people from eighteen places. Their scattered origin is reflected in the structure of their knowledge: they all speak about different events and rarely repeat the same anecdote. In other words, only a few of the anecdotes became common knowledge through the conversations of the people in and around the town of Körmend. The fourteen persons who did not provide any new information about the life of the friars all came from neighboring villages, while the seventeen-person group of witnesses who recalled the most anecdotes, corresponds with present and earlier townsmen (such as former castellans, students, and schoolmasters). The realistic pattern of the stories related in the courtroom reinforces the notion that the atmosphere was relaxed enough to let witnesses speak freely, with no hidden or collective agenda to be met. Yet they consciously or spontaneously yielded to power relations, as their unanimously expressed anti-Augustine standpoint conveys. Contrary, however, to the above-quoted Balázs, parish priest of Halastó, who was an exception to this general rule, there may have been some, whose attitude toward the

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Augustinians might have indeed changed over time (in between the events and the examination). I especially suspect such a transformation in case of those witnesses, who did not simply relate past events, but—in a manner far exceeding official expectations—sharply criticized the expelled friars, while praising the Franciscans and enthusiastically expressing their consent concerning their introduction into Körmend. Astonishingly, such outright denunciation of the Augustinians was typical of those ten witnesses who previously associated regularly with the friars in the friary and public taverns alike. By contrast, those who did not converse with the friars, some of whom even deliberately resisted visiting their cloister, offered a much more objective opinion. How shall we interpret this extremely hostile attitude of the ex-fellows? Did they undergo a personal change in the interceding time or they were instead simply lying? It is not easy to find our way through the labyrinth of words and thoughts. It seems, however, fair enough to suppose that those who spent a lot of time in the company of the friars were well informed about their illicit adventures. Were they willing to share their knowledge with the judge? Looking at the number of related anecdotes, it seems that the ex-fellows kept a considerable amount of information to themselves. Those who only occasionally played and drank with the friars tended to be at large more talkative then regular fellows (see Table 5.2). Table 5.2

Relations between Witnesses and Friars

Groups of witnesses

Group members

Number of stories related

Number of stories per head

Regular fellows of friars

10 (20.5%)

31 (24.4%)

3.1

Occasional company of friars

13 (26.5%)

47 (37%)

3.61

Those visiting only the cloister church, and outsiders

26 (53%)

49 (38.6%)

1.88

Total

49 (100%)

127 (100%)

2.89

The fact that some of the closest friends of the friars proved remarkably loquacious does not alter this general tendency. For example, István Tóth from Báta, who was a servant in the friary for two years, related the most stories, nine in all. Some other earlier companions also told at least four anecdotes. In their case, the tension between the willingness to speak about their common adventures and the refusal of the friars can probably be explained by their inner transformation in the interceding time. By contrast, those companions who limited themselves to very few stories or

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assumed the disguise of complete ignorance (as shown in Table 5.3) we can suspect of dissimulation. Their conspicuous denial and trenchant moral reproach of their ex-fellow friars must thus have served to compensate for the suppression of facts. Table 5.3

Talkative and Silent Witnesses

Number of stories told by a witness

Number Groups of witnesses of witnesses

9

2

1 fellow, 1 church visitor

7−4

15

3 fellows, 7 occasional companions, 5 church visitors/outsiders

3−1

18

4 fellows, 6 occasional companions, 8 church visitors/outsiders

0

14

2 fellows, 12 church visitors/outsiders

This sort of contradiction between fact and opinion is a kind of gap in the texture of the testimonies, one that indicates a chasm between narration and reality.23 This might have served to divert attention just as rich but digressive storytelling. For example the priest, Balázs Gyarmati, parish priest of the neighboring village of Szentkirály, who had once been both student and schoolmaster in the town, gave a detailed picture of the debauchery of the friars: he was familiar with the conditions in the cloister, the names of friars, and the number of the religious community, which, as he said, he visited “once for spiritual comfort, once for eating and drinking”, and he recalled many concrete events as well. It is interesting, though, that he always appears in these stories in roles that cast him a very positive light: he rescues one of the friars lying drunk in the street from the anger of the townsfolk; he saves Friar Ambrus, once a guest in his house, from a mortal sin, when he did not let the friar say mass after he had neglected to say the canonical hours for days—all of which he related as a response that obviously digressed from the question concerning the tavern-going habits of the friars. It is also surprising that, although he often visited the friary, he only knew from hearsay that the cloister often had female guests, and he could not even say if these women were of ill repute or not. Therefore, it seems 23 

To describe the same phenomenon, Natalie Zemon Davis used the expression “wound” when looking at petitions of royal pardon. Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives. Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford, Calif., 1987), pp. 47–8.

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that his loquacity served to conceal his own adventures with the friars, giving not only the friars away, but also his fellow priests, in his endeavors to save his own reputation. For example, the priest György, incumbent of another village called Marác, who was interrogated ahead of him, could thank the priest Balázs that his tavern-gambling with the friars came to light, about which he had kept quiet. The priest Balázs recalled: “The Augustinian friars were, as he saw them, playing cards in Körmend and the villages alike, and he heard from their competitors that the Friar Ambrus had lost a hundred Hungarian denars. His competitors included two priests, the priest Pál, who was then chantry priest in Gyarmat and the other was the priest György, incumbent of Marác”.24 The priest György had obviously chosen a different tactic in deciding to keep totally silent. He affected an indifferent attitude toward the friars and maintained total ignorance about their lifestyle, saying that “he lived far away and he cared nothing or little about these things”.25 We can thus be grateful to the priest Balázs (to whom the priest György once probably boasted of his winnings at the card-table) that we can now identify György among the earlier fellows of the friars. Such an overt contradiction between testimonies where one witness denounces another, occurs only in the clerical testimonies. There are no such attacks in the deposition of laymen. When Lőrinc, who served as a chantry priest in Körmend, mentions the house of Gergely Karolj as a regular host of the friars’ drinking, Gergely himself speaks frankly about this: “He used to drink together with the friars in various taverns and times and in his own house too, when he had opened a new barrel”.26 Although half of the closest friends of the friars were priests, they related altogether only eight stories, while the lay companions told 24 stories at the interrogation. It was the local clergymen hence who strived to conceal their own misdeeds (as displayed in Table 5.4).

24  25  26 

Register, fol. 76v. Ibid. fols 46rv. Ibid. fols 97rv.

Narrative, Memory, and Identity

Table 5.4 Lay companions

Lay and Clerical Companions of the Friars Number of stories

9 István Tóth from Báta, townsman, cloister servant 5 Noble György Büki, townsman András Csuti, 4 townsman, cattle merchant Noble Lénárt 4 Basó, villager Gergely Karolj, townsman 5 laymen

105

2

24

Attitude manifested toward the friars at the interrogation

Clerical companions

Number of stories

Attitude manifested toward the friars at the interrogation

Neutral

Illés Maráci, parish priest of Csákány

3

Definite refusal

3

Definite refusal

2

Neutral

0

Overt sympathy

0

Neutral

Definite refusal Benedek Halastói, parish priest of Hollós Definite refusal Tamás Rádóci, parish priest of Rádóc Modest refusal Balázs, parish priest of Halastó Definite refusal György, parish priest of Marác 5 parish priests

8

But why did the members of the lower clergy seek to hide their own errors, while the laypeople felt no such restraint in the courtroom? It is true that different norms applied to laymen and clergymen. Visiting taverns, for example, was forbidden by the superiors of only the latter group. But witnesses spoke not only about peaceful and occasional tavern meetings, but also about fist fights, drunkenness, sacrilegious acts, and complicity in all sorts of transgressions by the friarsincidents that were not only censured by authorities but also ran counter to communal norms. Yet, they did not resort to staying silent or to digressive storytelling, even though they must have often resorted to such tactics at their annual confession. Still, in the courtroom, they did not apply their rhetorical skills. I assume that laymen and clergymen perceived the situation very differently. For the laity, the figure of the judge was neutral, and thus they did not strive to present themselves positively before him. He was a strange prelate coming from afar, and whose strange questions concerning canonical nuances they did not even understand. The parish priests must have felt a much keener need to impress their questioner. And possibly their manipulations were

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not driven by solidarity with the friars, over whose faults some of them lingered willingly, but rather they were ashamed to confess their everyday mistakes in front of a fellow priest and superior. They had their own honor at stake, and it was only the priest Balázs, who was willing to put it in jeopardy. By closely reading the testimonies before us, we have found them bearing the marks of verisimilitude in many respects. This renders implausible that a hidden agenda (the collective corruption of witnesses) shaped the testimonies. The episodes remembered, rather than invented, in the courtroom suggest that religious life in the friary had indeed dissolved. This infringed on the interest of both patron lord and the faithful. The witnesses generally maintained that the Franciscan friars lived honestly and performed their duties adequately. Their future stay in the friary was in the common interest of all. Thus we can expect that everybody testified honestly to what they knew and thought to the best of their knowledge. This was, however, not the case. People used many different tactics: while some, of course, spoke truthfully, others, with special regard to the closest ex-companions of the friars, during the interrogation, distanced themselves from the friars and though they talked a lot, they gave away few relevant facts; while some of those who had a lot to tell pretended to be ignorant. But what did this show if, after all, everybody was interested in proving that the Augustinian friars of Körmend had led a lifestyle unworthy of them? The relationships between the witnesses and the friars, going against rationality and self-interest, ranged from rejection to friendship. Their attitude toward the Augustinians, who had in the meantime been expelled, had also changed with time passing in various ways. Some felt sorry for them, while others who had previously been friends with them (identified mainly as the parish priests of the surrounding area), adapting to the new conditions, were truly happy about their departure. Moreover, they perceived and interpreted the situation in which they had to respond in many different ways. Some conformed to the expectations of the stronger party, while others openly admitted to having different preferences. Beyond power politics, witnesses were influenced by the microcosm of the interrogation. While local priests wanted to avoid losing face before their superior (who was acting as judge), laypeople felt freer to confess their own misdeeds. This is my most plausible reconstruction of the scenario of the interrogation in Körmend. The behavior in the courtroom of the ordinary man of earlier centuries illustrates both the gaps and connections between popular and elite cultures. In other words, it highlights the ways underlings measured their words and deeds and acted according to their

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own rationality (and passing impressions and wavering emotions) rather than passively obeying the authority and the expectations of the powerful. Beyond the story-telling strategies and self-fashioning of witnesses, in addition to the role of gossip in public opinion, the deconstruction of the depositions highlighted the fact that the relationship between the laity and the friars had previously been rather ambivalent, and shaped by the dynamic of conflict and solidarity, as opposed to outright refusal expressed with ostensible unanimity in the courtroom. The following chapters seek to better understand and to portray in more detail the dynamic of layclerical relations in the context of late medieval everyday life and religious culture.

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Part III Religion, Reform, and Reformation

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Chapter 6

Townspeople and Friars What did commoners expect from the regular and the secular clergy? Having finished with the detective work of the previous chapter, in what follows I seek to understand more closely the nature of lay discontent. “Many of the Christian faithful have been scandalized by the extravagant lifestyle of the Augustinian friars,” is a statement that would be repeated by witnesses many times. Some of them, including Péter Kovács (“Smith”), a resident of the village Rátold, laid stress on the neglect of their liturgical duties rather than on their dissipations: “as the friars were few, they set aside every service and evensong apart from the one mass, which greatly scandalized the locals.”1 These words suggest that the people were revolted by the behavior of the friars. As the witnesses’ chance remarks have revealed, however, the relationship between the laity and friars was just as much shaped by gestures of cooperation as by conflict. Our first concern will be to reveal the factors that guided this daily process that played out in the churches, homes, taverns, and streets of Körmend. A dynamic relationship based on an ever-changing mix of conflict and solidarity does not fit either of the two prevailing traditional conceptions: either an inherent opposition between laity and clergy, as manifested in the anticlericalism that was to be the hegemonic driving force of the religious transformations to come in the sixteenth century;2 or, by contrast, a complete harmony of clergy and laity embedded in a rich and vibrant late-medieval religious life.3 The daily interactions of clergy and laity in Körmend will offer a more complex and, hence, plausible reality. The joyous, and often erotic and violent episodes embedded in their daily work and leisure will cast a novel light on the close relationship of local clergy and commoners and the carnivalesque aspect of their everyday life in the countryside. Since our story will primarily cast light on the ways the laity strove to restore religious life in the friary, in the pages below the laity will emerge 1 

Register, fol. 33v (Polányi), fol. 93v (Kovács). Cf. Peter A. Dykema and Heiko A. Oberman (eds), Anticlericalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2000); Hans-Jurgen Goertz, Pfaffenhass und gross Geschrei: Die reformatorischen Bewegungen in Deutschland, 1517–1529 (Munich, 1987). 3  The model study of this is Eamon Duffy, Stripping off the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400–c.1580 (New Haven and London, 1992). 2 

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as the agent of late medieval cultural and religious change. For one thing, this means that the interactions with the regular and secular clergy formed a significant aspect of lay religious experience. Moreover, the events at Körmend persuasively document how lay attitudes and practices had a shaping influence on mendicant and clerical religion and the changes it underwent in the late medieval period. The routine reciprocity emerging from the bottom-up analysis again strongly modifies the standard topdown model that is richly documented by scholarship.4 Finally, the storyoriented analysis of lay religiosity will proceed from public social behavior toward the inner patterns of beliefs of the ordinary lay folk. The anger and contempt they occasionally felt towards the friars provoked action. On the one hand, the location of regular meetings between the Augustinians and the faithful was at the friars’ church, where the people came for mass, evensong, and for confession, while on the other hand, they also socialized informally at the cloister and the taverns. As András Bíró (“Judge”), a peasant living in nearby Nádasd, recalled: “he often saw the friars in taverns drinking and getting drunk with laymen, where it could happen that in conversation the people would rebuke the friars, saying it was inappropriate for good friars to overindulge in wine as much they did.” The laity’s reprimands of the irresponsible friars frequently provoked vehement debates. When the friars were asked why they neglected the services and the cloister buildings so much, the Augustinians disclaimed responsibility and replied that from the little alms they received they did as much they could. They clearly charged a higher price for their services and regarded their sacred power, which stemmed from their clerical status, as a commodity. Pál Nagy (“Big”), the dean of the lay confraternity in the friary church, was also shocked by such irreverence. At the interrogation he narrated: When the Friar Ambus rang the bells for vespers, he [Nagy] had set out for the cloister with the intention of attending vespers, however, he did not find any friars there. He met with Friar Ambrus only, who was already heading to the tavern. When he asked him whether the vespers had been already done, the friar replied: “We cannot do both ringing the bells and singing the vespers at the same time!”5 4 

On the influence of regular and clerical spirituality on the laity see most recently: Ronald J. Stansbury (ed.), A Companion to Pastoral Care in the Late Middle Ages, 1200–1500 (Leiden, 2010). 5   Register, 93v (András Bíró); the Augustinians belittling the alms they received: fol. 88r/4th article (István, parish priest of Körmend), fol. 90v/4th article (Gergely Polgár), fol. 92r/3rd article (András Csuti); Pál Nagy: fol. 86r.

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The disrespect of the friars for the lay people occasionally culminated in threatening behavior. A young nobleman, Benedek Sibrik of Szarvaskend, related that “when the Friar Antal set out from the tavern to go to the fields, one of the peasants asked him why he was taking an axe with him, to which he replied: ‘If he wants to know, he will show him on the way to the fields.’”6 The Augustinians may have resorted to such blusters because they felt their existence in Körmend endangered. The principle of clerical immunity could not tame the outrage of the people at the friars who, by neglecting their duties, turned status roles upside down.7 Violent self-help was a daily occurrence. The people regarded the immediate punishment of friars, whom they deemed to behave unacceptably, to be their self-evident right. More than that, they may have considered it their duty to act: they hoped that their violent censures would improve the friars’ conduct and would help restore normal conditions.8 In certain situations, however, their anger was dissipated by laughter instead of violence. For instance, we hear of mockeries: “from time to time in the taverns, people would completely deface the drunken Augustinians’ heads, habits, and tonsures by spreading millet mush over them.” Sometimes they thought that the only safe way to get them to sober up was to chase them from the tavern back to the cloister.9 After all, the friars went to the taverns so early in the morning that they would say mass there instead of in the cloister—was the wry humor that circulated regarding the Augustinians. At other times, the people hid their contempt in praise: “these are good friars, because everything they have, wherever they found it, they consume together with us”—Lukács Mindszenti proclaimed, as he recalled in front of the judge the things he must have heard during his time as castellan in Körmend. And when the young nobleman, Tamás Sibrik of Szarvaskend, was stopped on his way to mass, and told there was no point in him going, “as there is only one friar in the friary, who, poor thing, cannot say mass, because he is indisposed … and lying down paralyzed; he’s suffering from syphilis,” perhaps a little irony was lurking in their commiserations.10 6  

Ibid. fol. 44r. Cf. Victor W. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (New York, 1997, first edn 1969), pp. 166−203. 8   On the role of self-help in the process of conflict resolutions see: David Levinson and Martin Ember (eds), Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology (4 vols, New York, 1996), vol. 1, p. 242. 9   Register, fol. 70v/5th article (Ferenc Nádasdi on tavern mockery), fol. 101r (Mátyás Tapasztó on chasing). 10   Register, fol. 57r. (Albert Szabó of Rádóc on mass in the tavern), fol. 61v (Mindszenti), fol. 45r (Sibrik). 7  

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Words and deeds, mockeries and beatings, were all forms and means designed to improve the ways of the friars. As one of the witnesses, the petty noble Ferenc Nádasdi put it, “On innumerable occasions he heard noblemen and others alike complaining about the friars, cursing, mocking and mistreating them because of their neglect of the vespers and the holy services.” Rather than punitive sanctions, some saw the breaking off of relations with the friars to be the solution to the situation. According to the churchwarden, “the zeal of the people for the Augustinian friars abated to such an extent that several of them were even unwilling to attend their masses.” Others considered the withdrawal of financial remuneration to be the appropriate response to the decrease in religious services. Körmend resident, Mátyás Tapasztó, often heard the townspeople saying that as the friars neglected the holy services, they no longer owed them any alms. The problem would thus have been solved, in terms of the material and pragmatic attitude openly expressed by the friars: no mass, no alms. The townspeople did not think like this, however. In exchange for their donations they did not simply expect the friars to mediate divine grace by means of the sacraments, but looked upon the friars as model figures. The parish priest of Kölked recorded such lay complaints: “how could we devotedly share alms with friars who live such degenerate lives, setting such a bad example and horrifying everyone, and they do not even perform the services.”11 Beyond their words, the townspeople’s actions also reflected the notion that they were merely using the cutback in support as a means of reforming the friars, but they did not think to fully solve the matter that way. The commonly felt indignation was not dispelled and the occasional episodes of violent self-help did not cease for all that. Their arsenal of devices of conflict settlement, however, went beyond the gestures of punishment and censure. They could also be supportive and compliant in private and public alike. Some felt sorry for the friars in their stupors, after having drunk excessively, and propped them up on their way home from the tavern, thus saving them from potential reprisals of anger or mockery. Ferenc Nádasdi claimed that “he often saw the Augustinian friars drinking with laymen in the town and village taverns, and at times they would get so drunk that if others had not helped and supported them, they would not have been able to get back to the friary.” Instead of leaving the church in disgust when the mass was cancelled, others helped to celebrate it. Péter Kovács from Rátold saw that “sometimes only two friars were present, or even just one, indeed when a person wished to celebrate mass, a peasant often had to minister to him at the altar.” True, people increasingly withdrew their 11   Ibid. fols 69v–70r (Nádasdi), fol. 87r (churchwarden), fol. 100v (Tapasztó), fols 73v–4r (parish priest of Kölked).

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financial support from the friars, who just poured the money down their throats. But the members of the confraternity who managed the money given to maintain the cloister still managed to organize the renovation of the most dilapidated parts themselves.12 The townsfolks’ tools ultimately ranged from the immediate retribution of clerical transgressions to the compliant suppression of the same. For instance, the former servant of the friars, István Tóth, from Báta, upon Friar Antal’s request, was willing to remain silent until the time of the interrogation about an intimate scene that he had witnessed by chance: “Last year he saw the Friar Antal lying with a woman in the choir of the cloister church and doing the thing with her. When he saw this, he was accompanied by Litteratus János of Somogy … and the friar begged him earnestly not to tell anyone what they had seen.” Even the parish priest of Kölked was willing to keep a secret, although in light of his testimony he seems to have been taking pride in his profession rather than protecting the friar. He had caught Friar Zsigmond while celebrating his name-day with his girlfriend in the bathing house. The priest’s intimate relationship with the friar, resulting from their shared secret, was ritually sealed during a substantial breakfast that they enjoyed together in the home of Gáspár Kis (“Small”), a townsman of Körmend. In fact, eating in the town instead of the friary seems to have been a common occurrence in the daily routine of the friars. And, surprisingly, a few married women were even willing to serve their food to the friars in the cloister. This habit was recorded by the priest Lőrinc Körmendi, who “frequently saw the friars with the women who would cook for them in their homes, when they took the food to them for lunch and dinner.”13 The deepening of the crisis, though, is marked by the fact that in certain instances the people of Körmend even mobilized the ecclesiastical and the secular authorities, and thus turned their private squabbles with the friars into a public affair. Many complaints about the Augustinians were heard by the lower clergy in the area. As a result, for instance, the priest István, who had been the incumbent in Körmend for the previous eight years, often censured the “black friars” for letting the friary fall into ruin and for their outrageous lifestyle.14 The secular priests had no jurisdiction over the friary and could only exert informal pressure on the friars. This did not satisfy the town dwellers, who thereafter sought to induce the secular 12  

Ibid. fol. 70r (Nádasdi), fol. 39v (Kovács), fol. 84v (Rosos on renovation works). 13   Ibid. fol. 68r (Tóth), fol. 74v (parish priest of Kölked), fol. 95v (Körmendi). On women cooking for the friars see moreover Gergely Karolj, fol. 97v. 14   Ibid. fol. 88r. On complaints to the incumbents of Kölked and Szentkirály see moreover, fol. 74r, fol. 75v.

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and ecclesiastical superiors of the friary to act as well. They would urge the castellans, the local representatives of the lord patron, to intervene and punish the friars who had forgotten themselves. One-time castellan Pál Nagy of Kemesmál recalled: “the people frequently complained to him as a local magistrate about the transgressions and excesses of the friars,” and it happened that “some of the people of the manor approached him with the request to let them break into the cloister and drag the dubious women of that sort out of the friars’ lodgings.”15 But it also led to an organized and official action by the town-dwellers: in the name of the community, the town magistrate appealed several times by letter to the provincial of the Augustinians, “in the interests of God and the spiritual benefit of them all, that he should take care that the friary not suffer such a lack of divine services, and should send a sufficient number of friars who can perform the masses and the vespers as well as other services properly, and can minister to the edification of the faithful by their zealous deeds.”16 Their request was not without result: the provincial himself came to Körmend to visit the friary, and to compensate for and eliminate the possibility of future infractions. As reported by witnesses, however, all willingness to help on the part of the order leadership proved futile: the brothers openly denied their obedience, and the small number of new friars recently placed there were unable to make radical changes to the situation. As told by Rosos: “at their request, the provincial did not send more than two, three or four friars to the cloister, so that the Augustinians were thus four in total, or only three or two, and occasionally five, then sometimes six to eight …, who soon became depleted to such an extent, that only one friar was left again.”17 In such periods, when the people of Körmend considered any change on the part of the Augustinians to be hopeless, a more radical method of solving the crisis came to the fore. They did not hide their intention from the Kölked parish priest, “that they themselves want to drive the Augustinians away, and it is better for the friary to remain vacant than to be inhabited by such wicked and sinful friars, who are an offence to the people and the shame of their order, and indeed, of the whole clergy.”18 They also repeatedly discussed among themselves that they would like to put the friars out of their house. According to the churchwarden, “the friars 15  

Ibid. fol. 73r, 72v. Another former castellan, Lukács Mindszenti of Hollós, was also familiar with the discontent and plans of the townspeople, fol. 60rv (see below in more detail). 16   Ibid. fol. 83v (Rosos) and another townsman, Mátyás Tapasztó also mentioned their petition to the Augustinian provincial, fol. 100v. 17   On the friars’ resistance: ibid. fol. 84r, (Nagy), fol. 72v (Rosos). 18   Ibid. fol. 74r.

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were encompassed by such contempt that … the people would often say in disgust that they would chase the Augustinians away, and they wanted to do it themselves.” István Tóth called their intention a “rebellion.” The words of Pál Nagy of Kemesmál reflect not only the common resolve, but also that people were well aware that such an undertaking would not only abuse the norms of the Church, but would also upturn the existing structures of power: “He heard that the people in the area had decided to drive the disorderly friars away forcibly and on their own authority.”19 We have considered now the wide range of strategies the laity applied in order to restore religious life to the friary: at times they were patient, tolerant, and willing to help, at others they avenged the transgressions immediately and violently. In addition to spontaneous individual actions, with sufficient premeditation, they were also able to act collectively. All this, however, is only one side of the coin. Whatever was said during the interrogations belonged not to the normal but to the extraordinary way of things. From behind the witnesses’ chance remarks, the other, often peaceful and at times definitely cheerful side of everyday life emerges. Just as they unhesitatingly undertook violent self-help to punish clerical abuses, it was just as natural for people to get together with the friars for a drink and a have a chat from time to time in taverns or the friary alike. We should not imagine the daily life of the town as an uninterrupted series of violent conflicts. An image of a peaceful coexistence disturbed for short intervals seems more realistic. As our insight into the story-telling and courtroom tactics of the witnesses has revealed, people had rather varied relationships with the friars. On one end of the spectrum, we could identify several priests amongst their most intimate drinking and gaming companions. And, at the other extreme, we have faced a few who, as opposed to the majority who were the occasional companions of the friars, actively avoided the friars on principle. It seems, however, that such consistent behavior was exceptional. With Ferenc Nádasdi being the one who “did not keep company with the friars, since he was not fond of them due to their disorderly existence, which most often kept him from visiting their cloister and their mass.” The only other such person was the incumbent of Kölked, who, after experiencing the friars’ negligence “bore little devotion toward them, so if he came to Körmend, he preferred to hear mass in the parish church.”20 Such consistency of morality and daily practice proved difficult to accomplish for those living in the town. Even if they refrained from associating with the sinful friars, they remained dependent on their divine 19  

Ibid. fol. 68v (Nagy), fol. 72v (Tóth), fol. 87r (Pál Nagy). Ibid. fol. 69v (Nádasdi), fol. 73v (priest of Kölked).

20  

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services. As the castellan Pál Nagy professed: “he did not converse with the Augustinians even though he went to the friary every day, that is, when they held mass, in order to participate.” Similarly, the incumbent of Körmend “frequently went to the friary for his confession and to hear or say mass, and on such occasions he was amazed at the desolate state of the friary and the friars’ negligence.”21 By contrast, the great majority of the people, beyond attending their masses or going to the friary to confess, did not dislike the friars’ company in leisure times. Villagers met the friars primarily in the taverns. Regardless of age or social status, from castellans and the magistrates, to the poorest serfs and shepherds, everyone would drop in not only to quench their thirst, but more importantly to learn about the latest news and see to their affairs. Tavern-going was nothing to be ashamed of: “he saw the friars in the tavern during the day and in the evening, when he himself would call in there as castellan of Körmend, in order to manage his master’s affairs”—as the nobleman Pál Nagy of Kemesmál explained. The other castellan made a very similar observation: “in town and village taverns alike, the Augustinians feasted and caroused together with peasants, other laymen, and priests, whilst frequently sitting down to play tavern games, in which both laymen and priests took part … He heard about this … and saw it himself, when he went into town to arrange his own affairs or those of his lord.”22 These village and small town taverns basically differed from the permanent public inns of cities in that they were private homes serving occasionally as an informal arena of social life. When anyone opened a barrel and measured out his own wine to neighbors, it was advertised by a sign hung over their door.23 Since drinking went hand in hand with eating, the presence of landladies in this male-dominated venue of sociability must also be presumed. As András Csuti remembered, for instance, “he saw the friars going to taverns, where they had food cooked for them, and together with the laity, drank themselves under the table.”24 Most of the laity, however, also regularly socialized with the friars in the cloister. “He met the Augustinians on innumerable occasions in their cloister, occasioned by 21  

Ibid. fol. 72r (Nagy), fol. 88r (incumbent of Körmend). Ibid. fol. 72v (Pál Nagy), fol. 61v (other castellan, Mindszenti). 23  See the expressions regarding tavern-keeping: “vendidisset vinum ad signum,” and “vinum initiasset”). Register, fol. 97v, fol. 63r. English village taverns functioned in the same way. A. Compton Reeves, Pleasures and Pastimes in Medieval England (New York, 1998). On the presence of women in rural taverns and alehouses, with marked regional differences, see A. Lynn Martin, Alcohol, Sex, and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Gordonsville, Va, USA, 2001), pp. 58–78. 24   Register, fol. 92r. 22  

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varied matters, and since his youth he had often visited the friary either to hear mass or evensong, or at other times to converse with the friars and to eat with them,” recalled Simon Rosos, an elderly, respected, and well-to-do townsman. The company of the friars in the friary consisted partly of their lay-brethren (confratres). Besides Rosos, Pál Nagy was also one of them: “As he was their lay-brother, he would often go to see them in the cloister … both to attend service, and to arrange some of the friars’ affairs,” he said, explaining the reasons why he was so well-informed.25 Since Nagy was also churchwarden and dean of the parishioners’ confraternity, and being also responsible for the buildings, he indeed had a lot to do in the friary. But drinking in the friary seems to have been a common pastime in a broader circle as well. György Király (‘King’), one-time judge of Körmend, remembered: “He ate, drank and talked with some of the friars both inside and outside the friary, and moreover, he often went to the friary to hear mass.” Not even the lesser nobles shied away from relating “that from time to time he would visit the friars in their house for leisure and conversation, or to make his confession, and he would often come to hear mass too,” as the castellan Lukács Mindszenti narrated.26 On the whole, the laity seems to have had a rather ambivalent relationship with the friars: although revolted by the friars’ abuses, they nonetheless made use of what liturgical services remained, and enjoyed their company. They still went to confess to Friar Antal, nicknamed “the Drunkard,” although they were aware that he had not yet been ordained. And beyond being the friars’ accomplices in concealing their transgressions, they themselves also took part in the friars’ misdeeds on several occasions: they too had a good drink from the wine smuggled into the stoop during the Epiphany procession and often sat with the friars in the tavern to gamble.27 Their recreation spent together in the streets, private homes, taverns, and the cloister seems less shocking when compared to the relationship between the people and the secular clergy. The shared times and locations of their daily routines and ritual feasts is richly documented. Local pastoral priests participated in popular feasts tied to ecclesiastical ones, just like feasts within the family were hallowed by their presence.28 In late 25   Ibid. fol. 84r (Rosos), fol. 86r (Nagy). On the institution of lay-brethren of religious orders see in more detail chapter 7. 26   Ibid. fol. 98v (Király), fol. 60v (Mindszenti). The nobleman Tamás Sibrik testified similarly, ibid. fol. 45v. 27   For playing cards and other gambling games see ibid. fol. 67v, fol. 72v, fol. 74r, etc. For the procession see fol. 54r. 28  On the close relations between the rural pastoral clergy and villagers in the Hungarian countryside emanating from the scenes recorded in petitions of papal pardon see in more detail Gabriella Erdélyi, Szökött szerzetesek. Erőszak

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medieval everyday life the sacred and the profane were closely entwined, as it was with the public and the private spheres; and work and leisure time, which generated a convivial atmosphere on weekdays that would be alien to modern sensitivities accustomed to rigid separations.29 As the literate and powerful elite was not yet disturbed by noisy street life, the clergy also immersed themselves in popular activities, just as the nobility did—at least this is how the social and cultural transformations of the early modern period are traditionally narrated in whichever paradigm (the process of civilization, the reform of popular culture, social disciplining, or confessionalization).30 Adapting this narrative we can say that the last joyous and sensual episodes of this undisturbed and shared popular culture were taking place in the streets and semi-public spheres of Körmend and its environs. The peaceful and sometimes expressly cheerful days were only seldom interrupted by moments when the people wearied of the Augustinians’ looseness, and thus laid hands on them or speculated about their expulsion. The crisis of the cloister, therefore, must be imagined as a process characterized by fluctuation. During the everyday actions and conversations of the townspeople, the public feeling shifted between lamentation (lamentatio), angry scolding (querelas), hatred (odium), and mockery (illusio). Not just the tools but also the aims kept shifting all the time: peaceful days were sometimes replaced by combative actions, with the aim of managing the issue of the friars by urging their expulsion. Even in seemingly inactive periods, people seem to have been driven by an inherent constancy to improve the adverse situation: “Good and respectable people in Körmend and outside, in the neighboring villages … , talk about these things not out of envy or anger but because their devotion urges them to take care of these things in a different way, and that is why

és fiatalok a késő középkorban [Runaway Friars: Violence and Youth in Late Medieval Hungary], (Budapest: Libri, 2011), pp. 115–42. 29  On some of these aspects of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century popular culture see Norbert Schindler, Rebellion, Community and Custom in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 93−145, 193−235. 30  Elias, Norbert, Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation. Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen (2 vols, Basel: Verlag Haus zum Falken, 1939); Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Farnham, 2009, first edn 1978); Ronald Po−Chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe, 1550−1750 (London and New York, 1989); Joachim Bahlcke and Arno Strohmeyer (eds), Konfessionalisierung in Ostmitteleuropa: Wirkungen des religiösen Wandels im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert in Staat, Gesellschaft und Kultur (Stuttgart, 1999).

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they keep talking about them.”31 The words of István Tóth from Báta, who had previously served the Augustinians in the friary, suggest that the conversations about the Augustinians’ way of life served the purposes of change and the people used their exchanges to unite and mobilize their forces. It was not by chance that they kept repeating their expectations and grievances among themselves. Nor did they hide their discontent from the strangers visiting their town. When a surprised nobleman coming to Körmend from the village of Nádasd complained that he went to mass in the friary in vain, the townspeople gave a resigned explanation: “How could there be a mass when nobody lives in the cloister, and it happens that a whole week passes without a mass or evensong, and even if sometimes there are a few friars in the cloister, it is easier to find them in the tavern than in their cloister.”32 At certain times they struck a more combative note: We do not really know what these black friars want and how they want to live, because they do not live as good friars should. They do not care about celebrating mass and do not set a good example for us, but with their loose way of life and violation of the monastic regulations they instead cause indignation and turn us in the wrong direction, and therefore it would be better if they were not here at all.

—said the parish priest of Hollós with his own words what he had heard in the streets and taverns of Körmend.33 The voicing of their indignation and complaints to outsiders was an act of self-representation, though it also served to distance themselves from the friars and their sins. Moreover, the discourses circulated about clerical malpractices greatly contributed to turning communal and individual discontent into action. The stories about the actions aimed at reforming the Augustinians, ranging from driving them back to the friary to beating them, by manifesting additional proofs of the friars’ sins, provided fresh topics for further conversations. As a result, it is hardly surprising that the townspeople circulated those stories among themselves, as well as to strangers, which ended with an exemplary punishment of the friars. As we have seen, the heroes of the most popular story, Friar Mihály and his lover, ended up in the stocks and the pillory. Another often-recited story had Friar Simon as its protagonist. According to the memories of the old townsman Simon Rosos, “Friar Simon … took off his frock and dressed in secular clothing, and while armed with a sword walked around the town 31 

Ibid. fol. 68v. Ibid. fol. 69v. 33   Ibid. fols 73v–4r. 32 

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in the company of laymen of ill repute. Balázs Szalay, a townsman, upon encountering Simon, slapped him on the face and injured him badly.”34 Lukács Mindszenti, the previous castellan, presented the events in a completely different light: “He heard it from honorable townsmen that the friars meandered around in a scandalous way during Lent in taverns and other dubious places in secular clothing, and one of them was stopped and slapped on the face, denuded, and put in the stocks.”35 The simple and one-time tomfoolery became here a gross group violation of sacred time, which may explain why the glass overflowed right then and the citizens violently punished the clerical behavior that they had overlooked at other times. Beyond this, in the castellan’s story the emphasis is placed not on the spontaneous sanctions of the laity, but rather on the friars being officially and publicly punished. The ill-fame of the Augustinians was forged in the public arena by direct public action and by the ongoing public discussion about it, which, in turn, created its status as “truth.”36 The oral circulation of “success stories” served with particular force the community’s concentration of its energies as well as its self-fashioning. By contrast, stories about failed retributions remained isolated. For instance, only the aged Simon Rosos told the judge about the story that took place at the time of grape harvest, when one of the friars, probably during the usual round of wine-alms collecting, “tried to forcefully deflower a reluctant girl in the loft of a house and the people then wanted to beat the friar for his sin. The friar, however, made a narrow escape and fled to the friary and, taking his belongings with him, he left secretly without the prior’s notice, at which the friars themselves as well as the townspeople took serious offence. This scandal is still talked about in Egerszeg [the place where it happened],”—the witness ended his report.37 Another event, which took place in Körmend but was related by András Sáli alone, involved Sáli witnessing the prior dallying with a woman named Margit Prodon in the cloister garden, upon which he went to fetch his fellows to help punish the delinquents. However, noticing the threatening group approaching, the pair, employing evasive tactics, fled in opposite directions.38 The reactions of local leaders to the doings of the friars and their responses to lay complaints also had a shaping influence on the forming of communal goals and tools. The subsequent incumbents of Körmend 34 

Ibid. fol. 84v. Ibid. fol. 60v. 36  Cf. Chris Wickham, ‘Fama and the Law in Twelfth-Century Tuscany’, in Thelma Fenster and Daniel Lord Smail (eds), Fama. The Politics of Talk and Reputation in Medieval Europe (Ithaca and London, 2003), pp. 19–23. 37  Ibid. fols 85rv. 38   Ibid. fol. 43r. 35 

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used their mediating role between Church, lord, and community in separate ways.39 The inner struggles of the priest Balázs Gyarmati, who had previously been a student and schoolmaster in Körmend, and was at the time of the hearing the incumbent of the village of Szentkirály, left their mark on his testimony: He once saw one of the Augustinian friars from Körmend in the village of Vasallya … collapse onto the ground in a state of excessive intoxication, and to his shame [the friar] lay there for a long time, in the sight of many men and women, as if he had given up the ghost. Out of his respect for the Augustinian order, the witness then had him lifted up and taken into a house, so he could lie down until he sobered up. [Gyarmati] also ordered that no one should prevent the friar from leaving in peace when he had sobered up. And although he had originally intended to arrest the friar and take him bound to the friary, he ultimately decided that it did not pertain to him and it was not his job to have such a thing done; he thus let the friar off.40

In other words, in the given situation, he decided to preserve clerical immunity rather then follow the communal practice of self-help. Occasionally the castellans of Körmend also took the same position: Pál Nagy of Kemesmál, partly for similar considerations, “out of due respect for the order, and also to avoid the scandal which would have ensued,” denied the request of his people to use force to remove the women who had been taken into the friary.41 His words attest to the process of how popular opinion was actually constructed amidst the daily interactions and power games, of which the people were well aware.42 The castellans clearly recognized that their intervention would support those voices which urged taking severe action against the Augustinians. Benedek Ferde, castellan 39  Burke portrayed noblewomen and printers as typical figures mediating between popular and elite cultures. Burke, Popular Culture, p. 55, pp. 99–100. On the traditional role of the medieval parish clergy in promoting peace among quarrelling members of their flock see Erdélyi, Szökött szerzetesek, p. 135; Peter Marshall, The Catholic Priesthood and the English Reformation (Oxford, 1994), p. 190; Tim Cooper, The Last Generation of the English Catholic Clergy: Parish Priests in the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield in the Early Sixteenth Century (Suffolk, 1999), p. 98. 40   Register, fol. 76v. 41   Ibid. fol. 72v. 42   For the functions of power games in village politics see David Warren Sabean, Power in the Blood: Popular culture and village discourse in early modern Germany (Cambridge, 1992), passim.

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of the Erdődys, seems not to have worried about such consequences. He once arrested a vituperative, foul-mouthed friar. Another time, he dragged the Friar Mihály to the dungeon, together with his girlfriend, and only released them on the request of local priests (who presumably claimed the immunity of the clerical order) and thus entrusted the friar’s punishment to his Augustinian superiors.43 Due to his intervention, the conflict between friars and townspeople was nevertheless publicized. The rumors about the eventwhich made their way through homes, taverns, the church, the school, and the confraternityshaped official public opinion,44 which focused again on the aim of chasing the friars away. The castellan’s behavior provided an opportunity for the community to legitimize their own violent action by the authority’s procedure, though it also contradicted official ecclesiastical norms. The question inevitably arises then as to why the long-planned “rebellion” was put off for decades, ultimately rendering the ambivalent relationship of laity and friars to one of vacillation between conflict and solidarity.

43   Register, fol. 52v (on the arrest of the vituperative friar). On the castellan’s role in the arrest of Friar Mihány and his lover see Register, fol. 31v, fol. 96r. 44   Robert W. Scribner, ‘Mündliche Kommunikation und Strategien der Macht in Deutschland im 16. Jahrhundert’, in Kommunikation und Alltag in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit, 15 (Wien, 1992), pp. 183– 98, pp. 183–5.

Chapter 7

Religion The dissolute existence of the friars and the neglect of their liturgical duties provoked lay resentment, which was expressed by anger, contempt, and anxiety. But what did the townsfolk expect from the friars, and from the clergy in general, that was left unaccomplished? The testimonies suggest that they called the Augustinians to account for not regularly celebrating the divine services in their church. As posited by one of the noblemen from the village of Rádóc, “there were not as many services as there should have been in such an outstanding friary, due to which the people living here became so indignant, that many complained of how these magnificent buildings were lacking in friars and services”.1 Considering that even without the friars, there were at least eight priests and numerous other clergymen living in the town, the indignation and despair of the town-dwellers is surprising. If they wanted to attend mass, they could have gone to the parish church on the main square or to the small church of St. Martin in the northwestern section of town, where a chantry priest (rector altaris) was active. As in the parish church of St. Elizabeth, a chaplain assisted the incumbent, and there were also clerical students directed by a schoolmaster in the parish school; this ensured a staff that sufficed to sing even the public holy hours at the laity’s request.2 Moreover, in addition to the high altar, we have evidence of an additional four side-altars and their priests in the parish church. The question arises as to why, then, the parishioners insisted on the services of the ‘bad’ friars, even though there were plenty of secular clerics available? To understand late-medieval religious culture, a look at the concept of the “consumption of the sacred” seems in order. In this chapter, the word “consumption” is intended simply to denote the laity’s increasing appetite for and investment in the tools of spiritual salvation. (Its broader meaning—the process by which the laity, in close communication with the clergy, appropriated the sacred, reinterpreting religious practices as social and cultural rites—will be discussed in chapter 9.)3 “Anything we dedicate 1 2

  Register, fols 55rv.   An urban example for this lay demand: Elemér Mályusz, Egyházi

társadalom a középkori Magyarországon [Ecclesiastical Society in Medieval Hungary], (Budapest, 1971), p. 140. 3   The expression has been used by Angelo Torre in this extended sense. Angelo Torre, Il consumo di devozioni. Religione e comunità nelle campagne

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from our goods to the salvation of souls will be to our benefit in the afterworld”, commented one aristocratic woman about her motivations in founding a perpetual chantry in a Corpus Christi chapel.4 Hungary saw a considerable increase in such pious legacies, or bequests, from the second half of the fifteenth century onward. In terms of their distribution, two factors are noteworthy here. On the one hand, we can observe a marked preference for donating to the Franciscan houses followed by other mendicant orders, in contrast with a lack of donations to monastic institutions.5 On the other hand, the endeavor to provide pious legacies for all local and neighboring religious institutions—all the parish churches if there was more than one, as well as friaries, hospitals, and chapels6—is likewise discernible, indicating that it was common practice to exhaust all available sacred media of salvation. First, I will describe the nature and makeup of the religious supply in the market town of Körmend, focusing on the role of the parishioners in providing for the town clergy and the churches. It will be shown that there was an intense lay demand for the clergy and the rituals they performed, and that the parishioners were ready to invest financially in maintaining them, even if it involved considerable additional expenses above obligatory church duties. Official liturgies thus seem to have played a crucial role in lay religious experience and must have decisively shaped the popular religious mind.7 Later, I will seek to interpret their behavior as a symptom of the Eucharistic and penitential devotional culture of the time, which was regulated in practice by the principle of intercession and the institution of good works. Finally, I will map the potential appeal of the mendicant cloister in the town’s spiritual market.

dell’Ancien Régime (Venezia, 1995). 4   Remig Békefi, A káptalani iskolák története Magyarországon 1540-ig [The History of Chapter Schools in Hungary until 1540], (Budapest, 1910), pp. 440–41. 5   Beatrix F. Romhányi, ‘A koldulóbarátok szerepe a XV–XVI. századi vallási megújulásban’ [The Role of Mendicant Friars in the Religious Renewal of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries], in Beatrix F. Romhányi and Gábor Kendeffy (eds), Szentítrás, hagyomány, reformáció. Teológia- és egyháztörténeti tanulmányok [Holy Scripture, Tradition, and Reformation. Studies of Theological and Church History], (Budapest, 2009), pp. 145–6. 6   Judit Majorossy, Church in Town: Urban Religious Life in Late Medieval Pressburg in the Mirror of Last Wills, unpublished PhD diss., Budapest, 2006. 7   For a similar appreciation of official liturgy with regard to popular religion see Christopher Marsh, Popular Religion in Sixteenth-Century England: Holding Their Peace (New York, 1998), pp. 27–95.

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The Local Spiritual Market The parish priest of Körmend seems not to have been elected by the congregation; instead the lord patron presented his own candidate to the bishop of Győr (Iauriensis).8 István, the parish priest, arrived in town when Péter Erdődy became landlord; István referred to Erdődy at the hearing as his patron. The maintenance of the parish priest nevertheless involved no insignificant financial burden for the parishioners. In simple (that is, non privileged) parishes like Körmend, the incumbent received only a small part of the tithe (if he received any).9 Consequently, the cost of his living expenses fell increasingly on members of the community, who owed him parochial tax and payment in kind or cash for liturgical services and special ceremonies (such as weddings, funerals, and baptisms).10 Over and above this, however, the majority of parishioners gave voluntarily and generously, in the form of pious bequests and testamentary legacies; to have masses said for family members’ and their own salvation; or for the maintenance of the church and parish buildings (pro fabrica).11 The latter primarily derived not from ecclesiastical, but from communal customs and expectations. In both cities and rural settlements of market towns and villages as well, these funds were administered (separately from the parish priest’s revenues) by churchwardens (vitrici) elected by the parishioners.12 8   The election of the parish priest was not included in the town’s letter of privilege (1244). Zsuzsanna Bándi, Körmend a középkorban [Körmend in the Middle Ages], (Körmend, 1987), p.14. On the norms and practices that governed the election of local clergyman see a nuanced analysis in Chapter 12. 9   On the contest between the middle and the lower clergy over the tithe in the diocese of Győr and elsewhere in the country see Mályusz, Egyházi társadalom, pp. 49–53. 10   On the incomes of parish priests see Ferencz Kollányi, A párbér jogi természetéhez [On the Legal Character of ‘Párbér’], (Budapest, 1908); István Szabó, A középkori magyar falu [The Medieval Village in Hungary], (Budapest, 1969), pp. 200–204; László Solymosi, ‘Egyházi és világi (földesúri) mortuarium a 11–14. századi Magyarországon’ [Ecclesiastical and Secular (Manorial) Mortuarium in Hungary in the Eleventh–Fourteenth Centuries], Századok, 121 (1987): pp. 547– 83, pp. 547–62. 11   Among the testamentary legacies of testators in the city of Sopron the ones “zum paw” were the most frequent. Katalin Szende, ‘A soproni középkori végrendeletek egyház- és tárgytörténeti tanulságai’ [The Church- and Object Historical Lessons of the Medieval Wills of Sopron], Soproni Szemle, 44 (1990): pp. 268–72, p. 269. On votive masses see below. 12   András Kubinyi, ‘Egyház és város a késő középkori Magyarországon’ [Church and Town in Late Medieval Hungary], in Kubinyi, Főpapok, egyházi intézmények és vallásosság a középkori Magyarországon [Prelates, Church

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Pál Nagy, the churchwarden of the Augustinian’s church, was heard as a witness and related that “because of his office and by the will of the townspeople, as he was the churchwarden”, he directed the construction works of the friary, which were covered by lay donations.13 Thus, most probably, the congregation also administered the funds raised to maintain the buildings of the other two churches. As this fund was managed separately from the incumbent’s income, he made his living, along with the revenues from his farming activities, mostly from fees obtained in connection with liturgical services. The latter source of income depended to a large extent on lay demand for sacraments and votive masses. The employment of chaplains was also conditioned largely by the laity’s liturgical needs. Chaplains shared the fees for these services with the incumbent, as regulated by individual contracts. In Körmend, chaplains seem to have been employed regularly. Illés Maráci, parish priest of the village of Csákány in 1518, had previously been employed as chaplain in Körmend.14 When, prior to this, Maráci had been a student in the Körmend school, in his own words when testifying, “for want of friars, from time to time he had sung mass with his fellow students on high days in the friary”. Another onetime student, Miklós Szecsődi, parish priest in Szecsőd, his native village, had similar memories about his student years. The career of Balázs Gyarmati differed only slightly from those of his schoolmates: after his studies he served in Körmend as schoolmaster before taking on the pastoral care of the villagers of Szentkirály in the town’s environs.15 Similar to the school in Körmend, parish schools in the countryside had diverse functions. For one thing, the elementary education (reading, writing, arithmetic, and religious instruction) of the children of the town and its environs was carried out within its walls. The senior students, then, who were preparing for a clerical career, together with the head of the school, served as assistants to the parish priest. Their task was to enhance the grandeur of the divine services, for which they shared with the chaplain a portion of the sum received for the ceremonies. Aside from Institutions, and Religiosity in Medieval Hungary], (Budapest, 1999), pp. 287– 300, p. 295. 13   Register, fol. 86v. 14   Joannes de Halogÿ, an altarist in Körmend in 1562, had also previously been a chaplain. Haus- Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Familienarchiv Erdődy, Kt. 96, fasc. 8, no. 15. According to Mályusz, the living standards of chaplains improved in the later medieval period due to the increase of lay liturgical demands. Mályusz, Egyházi társadalom, p. 142. 15   Register, fols 64v–5r (Illés Moráci), fol. 79v (Miklós Szecsődi), fols 74v–7r (Balázs Gyarmati).

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this, they rang the bells, and on feast days they organized mystery plays.16 Ascension Day, for instance, was made memorable in Körmend by their presentation of the ascension of Christ.17 The clerical students, who were satisfied with a modest education and career, ended up as village priests in the same region. The chantry priests were also at the disposal of the parishioners. We find five of them in Körmend at the time, each with an income provided by lay endowments. They were fairly independent from the parish incumbent, remaining under the patronage of the founder. Evidently, the foundation of altar and chapel benefices presupposed that the donor disposed over alienable (that is not inherited, but acquired) real estates.18 As such, even the urban elite of free royal cities could seldom afford such an altar19; the beneficed altars in Körmend, with perhaps one exception, were founded by the aristocratic lords of the town. We are best informed about the foundation of an altar to the Virgin Mary in the context of Körmend’s St. Elizabeth parish church. Borbála Szécsi, the widow of the magnate Bertold Ellerbach, in exchange for one tenth of the income from a mill in Körmend and another in Szecsőd, in 1485 requested that a mass be said every day by the chantry priest. The parish priest, however, may have kept this income for himself, since later the son of the benefactor had to request him to employ a chantry priest, and he supplemented the benefice with one tenth of the income from the other Körmend mill. The beneficiaries of the St. Catherine altar in the parish church (the priest Albert of Nagyliszka) and of the altar to the dead in St. Martin’s church (Lőrinc Körmendi), who were both heard at the interrogation, named Péter Erdődy as their patron. These altars were therefore also endowed by the lord. No details survive, though, about the   Remig Békefi, A népoktatás története Magyarországon 1540-ig [The History of Popular Education in Hungary until 1540], (Budapest, 1906), pp. 21–51. 17   Register, fols 74rv. Cf. Jenő Házi, Sopron középkori egyháztörténete [The Ecclesiastical History of Sopron in the Middle Ages], Győregyházmegye Múltjából, 6 (Sopron, 1939), pp. 240–43. 18   For example, a village with a mill and two meadows sufficed as a benefice for a chantry priest (in Újlak [Illava, Slovakia] by the aristocrat Balázs Magyar, in 1489). Mályusz, Egyházi társadalom, pp. 147–9. For examples of chapel foundations see Lajos Pásztor, A magyarság vallásos élete a Jagellók korában [The Religious Life of the Hungarians in the Jagiello-Era], (Budapest, 1940, reprint 2000), p. 77, p. 90, and p. 91. For more on altar foundations see chapter 11. 19   Eighty per cent of the medieval wills of the burghers of Sopron include provisions for donations propter anime salutem. Only a small portion of the persons behind them, eighteen, could however afford to endow an altar, some of them for their own sons. The number of perpetual chantries (weekly masses) was higher by sixteen per cent. Szende, 'A soproni középkori végrendeletek’. 16

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circumstances under which the Holy Cross and St. Nicholas altars were founded in the parish church.20 The community of Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia) raised a chapel in honor of St. Sebastian at the time of the 1502 plague, and established a confraternity in the Franciscan church to maintain it. There is also evidence attesting that in the western Hungarian city of Sopron, in the second half of the fourteenth century, a chapel was built and then maintained by the “confraternity of the citizens”.21 Although it seems to have been beyond the financial means of people living in market towns to build a chapel (in contrast with the communities of the richest royal cities in late medieval Hungary), they did exploit the liturgical services of the existing clergy and paid them for saying masses for the soul; this, in turn, represented an additional source of income for the auxiliary clergy. Nonetheless, it appears that the people of Körmend were not at all satisfied with their situation: beyond the eight priests and numerous clerical students, they also demanded the services of the cloister, despite all financial burdens that incurred. Had they achieved their goal, with a religious community of twelve friars living in the cloister, the number of local clergy would have amounted to a number (one priest for every thirty persons) equivalent to the clerical provision of free royal cities in Hungary or western European towns.22 On the whole, this suggests that, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, there was a huge lay demand for the clergy and the church   On the altars to the Virgin Mary and to the Dead see Bándi, Körmend, pp. 71–2, p. 91/note 120. On the incumbents of the Holy Cross altar, see István György Tóth, Jobbágyok, hajdúk, deákok. A körmendi uradalom társadalma a 17. században [Peasants, Soldiers and Students. The Social History of the Körmend Manor in the Seventeenth Century], Értekezések a Történeti Tudományok Köréből, Új Sorozat, 115 (Budapest, 1992), p. 140. On the incumbent of the St. Nicholas altar see Register, fol. 27v. 21   Theodor Ortvay, Geschichte der Stadt Preßburg (vol. 2/part 4, Pressburg, 1903), p. 526, p. 528; Házi, Sopron, p. 288. Based on some dozen examples Lajos Pásztor argues that the overwhelming majority of chapels and altars in cities and market towns were founded by individuals, wealthy patricians, and noblemen rather than communities. Pásztor, A magyarság, pp. 140–41. The comparison with the German regions in this respect is edifying, where in certain regions as much as 30 per cent of rural clerical benefices were founded by peasant communities. Rosi Fuhrmann, ‘Die Kirche im Dorf: Kommunale Initiativen zur Organization der Seelsorge vor der Reformation’, in Peter Blickle (ed.), Zugänge zur bäuerlichen Reformation, Bauer und Reformation, 1 (Zürich, 1987), p. 155. 22   Calculating with a population of 650 heads and eight clergymen in town, there was one priest available for 81 inhabitants. This can be compared for example with the city of Sopron with 3000 inhabitants: for its ten church institutions (a Franciscan friary among them) calculating 100 priests (in the parish church there 20

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liturgies performed by them. We should not be therefore amazed by the people’s indignation and despair when they waited in vain for the friars to celebrate mass. Let us briefly consider below why the experience of the sacred mattered to them so much. The Economy of the Sacred To the late medieval mind, the manifestations of the sacred within the material world established the principle of order. Liturgical rites, as well as the rites of passage of the individual’s lifecycle, regulated both the sacred and the social order.23 To churchgoers, the holy mass provided the most regular possibility to experience the sacred. In its liturgy, the emphasis fell on transubstantiation, the true presence of Christ in the host, this representing the most elementary manifestation of the sacred.24 In the later Middle Ages, as historians have shown, parishioners generally received the Eucharist once a year: at Easter, after they had confessed.25 Official expectations in Hungary were conceived in accordance with the universal code: “During Lent, the people should be admonished to prepare for confession and the Eucharist, so that everyone can confess and receive communion on the day of resurrection”—so the bishop of Veszprém directed his priests in 1515.26 Our scant data suggest that the were 20 side-altars), the rate will be one priest per 30 inhabitants. Szende, 'A soproni középkori végrendeletek', p. 270. 23   I will use the concept “economy of the sacred” elaborated by Robert Scribner since it effectively overcomes the binary oppositions suggested by such pairs as “religion and magic”, or “official and popular religion”. Robert Scribner, ‘Cosmic order and daily life: sacred and secular in pre-industrial German society’, in Scribner, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987), pp. 2–16. 24   Rubin, Corpus Christi. The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 12–35, pp. 83–107. 25   The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) made Easter confession to the parish priest and communion obligatory. Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, ed. J. Alberigo, J. A. Dosetti Perikle, P. J. Claudius Leonardi, and P. Prodi (Bologna, 1973), p. 245. On the practice of confession see: Thomas N. Tentler, Sin and confession on the Eve of the Reformation (Princeton, 1977), pp. 70–82; Virginia Reinburg, ‘Liturgy and the laity in late medieval and Reformation France’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 23 (1992): pp. 539–41. 26   A veszprémi egyház 1515. évi zsinati határozatai [The Synodal Decretals of the Diocese of Veszprém in 1515], ed. L. Solymosi (Budapest, 1997), p. 98: 1397– 99 lines. The central role of communion is well reflected by the fact that the synod of Veszprém added the most detailed and lengthiest amendments to earlier decrees

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Church was describing normal practice. During the days following the latest designated time for Easter confession (Holy Thursday), almost all of the lay witnesses interrogated in Körmend (33 of 36) declared that they had “made confession and received the Eucharist around Easter”. The recurrent remark of late medieval diocesan councils (“as the faithful usually receive the Eucharist once a year”) also suggests that the custom was to take communion once a year.27 It seems that confessions were heard during Holy Week, and according to local custom, the confessor was entitled to a penny from men, and a loaf of bread from women.28 People acted rationally: they went to confess as close to the time of receiving the Eucharist as possible. The parish priests, though, had to exhort people to cleanse their conscience of their sins as early as possible during the period of Lent.29 The diocesan synod of Lőcse (Levoča, Slovakia) even provided the parish priests with the practical advice to ring the bells at an appropriate hour every day during the first half of Lent, thus summoning the people to confession. Early confession was urged so that the priests could detect sins reserved to be absolved by a bishop or the pope, a list of which was announced from the pulpit each Sunday of Lent. In spite of this, many put off confession until the end of Lent. This is suggested by the fact that those who were punished were those who did not go to confession even then.30 Confession and communion, however, were not only the central sacramental rituals of the feasts commemorating the passion and resurrection of Christ, they were also inextricably linked to the individual’s death. The when describing the sacraments of confession and communion, and its liturgy in both kinds. (These amendments will be indicated below in brackets). On earlier diocesan synods see: Alexander Szentirmai, ‘Die ungarische Diözesansynode im Spätmittelalter’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonische Abteilung, 47 (1961): pp. 266–92. 27   A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 60: 397–8 lines. 28   The general practice is revealed by the abuse of the greedy parish priest of Szentpéter and Nagyszentpál, who demanded more. Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (The National Archives of Hungary, MNL OL), Mohács előtti Gyűjtemény (Pre-Mohács Collection), Diplomatikai Levéltár (Archive of Medieval Charters, DL) 14548 (1452). See moreover: Házi, Sopron, p. 334. 29   See the exempla concerning confession in the model sermons of the observant Franciscan preacher Pelbárt Temesvári (Pelbartus de Temeswar) Pomerium sermonum Quadragesimalium [henceforth Pom. Quad.], I, 12, N. As these were model sermons designed for the lower clergy preaching to the simple folk, they allow for deductions concerning clerical knowledge and behavior. 30   Sacra Concilia Ecclesiae Romano Catholicae in Regno Hungariae celebrata ab anno Christi MXVI usque ad annum MDCCXXXIV, ed. C. Péterffy (2 vols, Posonii, 1741–42), vol. 1, pp. 192–211, p. 193.

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practice is visible in the surviving records of certain extraordinary cases. It was the custom for the dying to bequeath something to the parish priest in exchange for hearing their confession. Certain greedy parish priests, who tried to make a law out of custom, would not bury the dead until the heirs had paid out the usual sum. We read in a witness testimony commenting on the abuses of the incumbent of the village of Nagyszentpál that “due to the sensual idleness of the parish priest, one of the peasants departed from this world without confession and the last rites”. As a result of this and other similar cases, the peasants began moving to other estates. The great significance attributed to last confession is also suggested by the fact that even a legal report on a feud casually noted that an ill person who had been dragged out of bed, “departed without confessing his soul”, while being threatened.31 This assertion—which contrasts the regular confession and communion widespread in the modern age with the annual practice in later medieval times—must, however, be slightly modified. Crowds of pilgrims setting out on the feasts of Christ, Mary, and the saints, as well as on the anniversaries of the consecration of shrines, could only hope for the indulgence of sins they had confessed. Partaking in the holy Eucharist was also a precondition for receiving indulgences.32 Along with this, it is difficult to say how much the clerical admonition to repent and confess as often as possible above the obligatory minimum, struck a receptive chord among parishioners. The institution of private confessors, evidenced on a broad scale among the aristocracy and the urban elite, certainly allows for the assumption that many confessed with frequency.33 Even the church itself did not recommend regular participation in the Eucharist, provided it was

31   MNL OL DL 14548; DL 14694 (1453); DL 105546 (1526). See moreover the expression of fear of sudden death, without taking the Eucharist in manuscript prayer books. Ferenc A. Molnár, Két régi ima az oltáriszentségről [Two Old Prayers on the Eucharist], Nyelvtudományi Értekezések, 148 (Budapest, 2000), pp. 16–17. 32   See the privileges of indulgence granted for churches under construction: MNL OL DL 15499 (1460), 14671 (1453). For further examples see Pásztor, A magyarság vallásos élete, pp. 144–5. 33   Temesvári, Pom. Quad., I, 35, sermo de confessione frequenter facienda pro gratia amplianda. Antoninus Florentinus (1389–1459), archbishop of Florence, in his very popular manual on confession (Confessionale), published also in Buda in 1477, recommended monthly confession. Régi Magyarországi Nyomtatványok, 1473–1655 [Old Prints in Hungary, 1473–1600], (3 vols, Budapest, 1971–2000), vol. 1, no. 3. For papal licenses of private confessors see: XV. századi pápák oklevelei [Breves of Fifteenth Century Popes], ed. P. Lukcsics (2 vols, Budapest, 1931–38), passim.

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more than once, or perhaps two to four times a year, on major feast days.34 The ecclesiastical concern is clearly reflected by a decree of the synod of Veszprém in 1515, urging the lower clergy to prevent people from taking the Eucharist frequently by stressing reverence for the host: If we contemplate the greatness of the most holy body and the divine majesty, we could find nothing to evoke in us deeper reverence than this sacrament. In adoration and participation in this, we can fulfill the devotion necessary for our salvation; nevertheless, we may not omit anything of which we are capable by human effort. So let the priests be attentive and circumspect during administration of this sacrament and unification with the divine, that the irrational folk approach this sacrament, worthy of unconditional adoration, not only with piety, but also with fear. First and foremost, though, the priests must not present the living and heavenly bread to the Christian faithful in small broken pieces, but the Eucharist should be provided to the laity as a round form, since this way devoted women can more easily be withdrawn from taking communion too often.35

The final lines testify to the contemporary perception of women as outstandingly devout.36 As has been plausibly argued, the differentiation of religious practices of men and women was not, as traditionally assumed, a recognition of an innate female religiosity. Instead, gendered differences in ritual practice reflected the division of roles within the household, with women having a considerable field of action in public religious rituals (for example, the rites surrounding birth and death).37 On the other hand, the clerical concern rested on the traditional representation of women as lustful temptresses. Writers of pastoral advice suggested to priests that women who came to confess often must be heard only briefly and publicly.38 Behind the clerically suggested attitude toward the Eucharist as an experience of deference mixed with fear lay the manifold prescriptions that made it very difficult for parishioners to meet the requirements for 34   Peter Browe, Häufige Kommunion im Mittelalter (Münster, 1938), pp. 28–9. Ecclesiastical literature stressed the importance of clerical communion on behalf of the laity. Rubin, Corpus Christi, p. 50. 35   A veszprémi egyház, p. 98: 1388–96 lines (amendment). 36   Caroline Walker Bynum, ‘Women Mystics and Eucharistic Devotion in the Thirteenth Century’, in Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption. Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York, 1992), pp. 119–50. 37   Christine Peters, Patterns of Piety. Women, Gender and Religion in Late Medieval and Reformation England (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 15–19. 38   Florentinus, Confessionale, p. 24.

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worthy communion (strict fasting and abstinence, perfect penitence, and sacramental confession). Accepting the body of Christ was therefore perceived as an act of ambivalence bound up with desire and fear, an act whereby one received spiritual sustenance, and, if partaken of unworthily, harm. The process of popular appropriation of church teachings generated a special cult. In the later Middle Ages, alongside the annual sacramental communion, the regular practice of spiritual communion became particularly widespread. While the church attributed the effect of transmitting divine grace to the practice, parishioners expected first and foremost healing and protection from looking upon the elevated host following the moment of transubstantiation.39 It seems a reasonable argument that this kind of magical use of the Eucharist influenced laypeople to attend the ritual of the mass more frequently than expected by the Church on Sundays and feast days.40 As becomes clear from the testimonies of the witnesses, attending mass formed part of the daily routines of both town-dwellers and the noblemen and peasants from villages: whoever came into town to tend to their work or business affairs would also drop into the cloister church for mass. The zeal of the nobleman Pál Nagy of Kemesmál is perhaps no exception: “He would go to the cloister every day, when they were celebrating mass, and he visited the church regularly both before his being castellan and during his time, but also after he had been removed from office”.41 Of course, many just waited for the elevation of Christ’s body, as Church ordinances forbidding premature departure would suggest.42   A. Molnár, Két régi ima, pp. 26–8 (prayers for elevation). For the liturgy of elevation: A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, pp. 99–100: 1432–9 lines (amendment). Charles Caspers, ‘The Western Church during the Late Middle Ages: Augenkommunion or popular Mysticism?’ in Charles Caspers, Gerard Lukken, and Gerard Rouwhorst (eds), Bread of Heaven. Customs and Practices surrounding Holy Communion. Essays in the History of Liturgy and Culture, Liturgia Condenda, 3 (Kampen, The Netherlands, 1995), pp. 83–97; Rubin, Corpus Christi, pp. 62–73; Pásztor, A magyarság vallásos élete, p. 72. János Szapolyai, the would-be king of Hungary (1527–41) was made blind for the rest of his life in the moment of the elevation as a divine punishment for the cruel and unchristian execution of the leader of the peasant revolt of 1514 ­– recorded György Szerémi, Szapolyai’s court chaplain the popular belief he himself shared. Georgius Sirmiensis, De Perditione Regni Hungariae, trans. into Hungarian by L. Juhász, Monumenta Hungarica V (Budapest, 1961). 40   Eamon Duffy, Stripping off the altars: traditional religion in England 1400–1580 (New Haven, 1992), pp. 95–102. 41   Register, fol. 72r. For others testifying to the workaday attendance of mass see: Ibid. fol. 45r, fol. 60v. 42   Pásztor, A magyarság, pp. 71–2; A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 72: 716–20 lines (amendment). 39

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Alongside the body and the passion of Christ, late medieval devotional culture focused on the concept of purgatory. By the fifteenth century it had transformed from being a transitional state between death and eternal bliss into a “third place” between this world and the next.43 The rich visionary literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, among them the accounts of the Hungarian visitors of St. Patrick’s Purgatory in Ireland, attest to how the idea of the purgatory and its torments had become engraved on the consciences and imagination of contemporaries.44 With the stress put on the sinfulness of mankind in the face of Christ, the gulf between the human and the divine increased.45 As Pelbárt Temesvári argued in his discussion of the Last Judgment, only those very few of saintly life reach heaven immediately, and only those end up in hell like Herod, Pontius Pilate, and Judas and the like; meanwhile the rest of the souls, which is the great majority, suffer in purgatory.46 All who died in a state of venial sin, or who forgot to confess something, or who had not obeyed the commandment of love, had to stand the transitional pains of the “cleansing fire”; however, if mortal sin had been forgiven in confession and one had received the Eucharist on his/her deathbed, one could also be confident of eventual salvation.47 The underlying idea in this triple scheme—hell, heaven, and purgatory—was, of course, the passion of Christ, which made the reconciliation of mankind with God, in other words, the redemption from original sin at all possible. That belief in purgatory was important in Hungary across social strata is evidenced, in particular, by the intensive consumption of such intercessory rites for the dead as funereal and commemorative rituals. As we will see below, performing funeral ceremonies was an essential role the friars were expected to play in Körmend and its environs. Humans could partake in the infinite treasure of merits gained by Christ on the Cross through their good works.48 The mendicant orders were the most effective proponents of a religious culture organized around penance   Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory, trans. A. Goldhammer (Aldershot, 1984; French edn 1981), especially pp. 133–76. 44   Lőrinc Tar confessed in his account (1411) that his journey was motivated by his craving for certainty regarding the existence of the soul and his curiosity of the much-discussed purgatory. Tar Lőrinc pokoljárása [The Journey to Hell of Lőrinc Tar], ed. S. V. Kovács (Budapest, 1985), p. 24. 45   Peters, Patterns of Piety, passim. 46   Temesvári, Pomerium de Sanctis, Pars Hyemalis, p. 8. 47   Duffy, Stripping off the altars, pp. 338–54 (The Pains of Purgatory). 48   Antal Schütz, Dogmatika. A katholikus hitigazságok rendszere [Dogmatics. The System of Christian Truths of Belief], (2 vols, Budapest, 1937), vol. 2, pp. 572–7 (indulgence) and pp. 698–705 (purgatory); Robert N. Swanson, Religion and Devotion in Europe, c. 1215–c. 1515, (Cambridge, 1995), p. 37. 43

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and good works, the pains of purgatory, the passion of Christ, and the Eucharist. Friars appeared in the early-thirteenth century, and at the same time the Church decreed annual confession as a duty of all Christians and formulated new teachings on purgatory and good works. As confessors and preachers primarily in urban settings, as well as instructors of the parish clergy as authors of pastoral manuals, friars played a great role in spreading new teachings. As they were dependent on almsgiving, they needed to be not only competent because of their higher educational standards, but also interested in emphasizing the value of good works.49 The three basic forms of satisfaction for temporal sins as well as of meritorious works (as also proclaimed by observant Franciscan preachers in Hungary) were, in order of benefit: almsgiving; prayer or attending mass; and fasting or, more generally, abstinence.50 As the opportunity to give satisfaction for temporal sins ended with death, to advance the progress of the soul in purgatory was incumbent on family, relatives, and friends, who could pray and have masses said for the souls of the departed, and in return the justified could intercede for the worldly happiness of the living. Thus, although the Church in principle accentuated the significance of personal life, pious deeds, and repentance in the economy of salvation, as opposed to intercession,51 in everyday practice the notion of purgatory and good works advanced the working of the institution of intercession. The meritorious effect of good works functioned both ways: the poor who received alms, the dead helped by masses, or the clergymen heaped with donations had to pay back their debts by prayers and intercession for their benefactors.52 The principle of reciprocity and intercession 49   Roberto Rusconi, L’ordine dei peccati. La confessione tra medioevo ed etá moderna (Bologna, 2002), pp. 105–60; Giovanni Miccoli, ‘Gli ordini mendicanti e la vita religiosa dei laici’, in Storia d’ltalia, vol. 2 (Turin, 1974), pp. 793–875; Rubin, Corpus Christi, pp. 87–9, pp. 109–12; Zelina Zafarana, ‘La predicazione ai laici dal secolo XIII al XV’, Studi Medievali,24 (1983): pp. 265–75; David L. d’Avray, The preaching of the friars. Sermons diffused from Paris before 1300 (Oxford, 1985). For further aspects of the preaching of the observant Franciscans in Hungary see chapters 9 and 11. 50   Temesvári, Pom. Quad., I, p. 48, sermo de partibus satisfactionis et de pervalore earum ac dispensatione, P. See moreover Pásztor, A magyarság vallásos élete, pp. 18–19. 51   Temesvári, Pomerium de Sanctis, Pars Hyemalis, p. 3, L: “all Christians will be finally judged according to good works of piety”; Pom. Quad., I, p. 5, U: “God has more mercy on a true penitent than for the intercession of all saints. If someone in the state of mortal sin refuses to confess his sins, God will not forgive him, even if asked by the Virgin Mary and all saints”. 52   Temesvári, Pom. Quad., I, p. 48, sermo de partibus satisfactionis et de pervalore earum ac dispensatione, U: “alms have the merit of prayer and fasting

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also prevailed in a broader sphere: Christians who founded a chapel or a chantry had a share in the meritorious effects not only of the masses said by the chantry priest, but also of the prayers of the congregation. With this new foundation the means of grace for the whole congregation increased significantly: they had gained a stipendiary priest, to whom they themselves could also give further commissions, and by attending his masses they could promote their earthly and heavenly welfare alike.53 A married couple, citizens of Nagybánya (Baia Mare, Romania), “attempting to avoid the final hazard to their souls, the end of their lives by means of good works”, made the following provision in their last will and testament dated 1475: the chaplain they had employed should say a mass every Thursday in honor of the Body of Christ, and in such a way that “the miraculous sacrament ... be graciously presented to the gaze of the parishioners”, and “the miraculous body of Christ be carried round in a procession to be held once a month preceding the mass”.54 The chantry’s beneficiaries were the chantry priest of the parish church of St. Elizabeth of Kassa (Košice, Slovakia) and the city magistrates. The peculiar situation that a couple from Nagybánya made provisions for in another city can be explained by the popularity of Corpus Christi confraternities, which were active in Kassa at the time. Most of the confraternities organized by townspeople in late medieval Hungary dedicated themselves to the cult of the body of Christ:55 Along with their regular Thursday masses and processions, they played an important role in augmenting the glamour— and thus the intercessory powers—of the Easter liturgies and of Corpus Christi Day of the whole parish.56 The Friars’ Spiritual Advantage In light of the workings of the religious mentality briefly portrayed above, we can now better understand the attitudes of the townspeople of ..., deserves more grace, since the one, who receives it, is obliged to pray for the benefactor”. 53   Clive Burgess, The Parish, the Church and the Laity in Late Medieval Bristol, The Bristol Branch of the Historical Association, Local History Pamphlets, 80 (Bristol, 1992), pp. 4–6. 54   Békefi, A népoktatás, sources: no. 141. 55   For a list of Corpus Christi confraternities see: Pásztor, A magyarság vallásos élete, pp. 23–7; András Kubinyi, ‘Vallásos társulatok a késő középkori magyarországi városokban’ [Religious Confraternities in Late Medieval Hungarian cities], in Kubinyi, Főpapok, p. 346, p. 350. 56   Majorossy, ‘Corpus Christi’, pp. 268–72.

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Körmend. Besides the merits deserved by almsgiving to the Augustinians, the daily ceremonies in the friary that supplemented the official high masses of the parish church would have constituted an enormous surplus of the sacred. The presence of the friars provided a better opportunity for festive masses with singing, and a greater assistance, which was considered by the laity to be more efficacious. Moreover, with the friary, the clerical capacity needed for votive masses paid for by parishioners increased significantly. This was important, since officially it was prescribed that a priest could perform only one mass a day.57 Votive masses assumed extraordinary significance in lay piety, since they were designated for goals chosen by ordinary parishioners and celebrated in special forms, which caused the people to attribute special efficacy to these rites.58 The votive masses at the side-altars, or those celebrated every weekday morning in the cloister, in comparison with the Sunday meetings held in the parish church, constituted a special experience in yet another regard: while the latter were community observances, the former, with their simple ceremony and few participants, could perhaps more easily become occasions for an encounter between the individual and God.59 The parishioners particularly depended on mendicant friars for an increase in the worldly grandeur and spiritual efficiency of the liturgies in memory of the dead and other post-mortal ceremonies. Paradoxically, it was for this particular reason that the friary in Körmend stood empty from time to time. According to András Csuti, for instance, the town would be left without a mass when “the friars were invited to other churches to pay final respects to the departed by celebrating the funeral ceremonies”. The chantry priest Lőrinc also related that the “friars or a friar would be invited to the villages together with secular priests to bury the dead, or to hold a memorial”, and Lőrinc must have gone with them at such times.60 57   Rubin, Corpus Christi, p. 50; Pásztor, A magyarság vallásos élete, p. 81. Although the practice went against regulations, priests often celebrated twice or thrice a day, which also reflects the scale of lay demand. 58   The belief in the increased efficacy of votive and festive masses is an argument of Lajos Pásztor based, on the one hand, on German cases, when this unorthodox lay belief generated complaints of the clergy, and, on the other hand, on the rich missal literature of Hungary describing votive masses. Pásztor, A magyarság, pp. 73–5. 59   For a similar interpretation see Duffy, Stripping off the altars, pp. 109–16, pp. 125–7. 60   Register, fols 91v–2r (Csuti), fol. 95r (the priest Lőrinc). Cf. Péter Berta, ‘A túlélők teendői. A posztmortális szolgálatok rendje későközépkori városaink vallásos közösségeiben’ [The Obligations of Survivors. The Order of Post Mortal Service in Late Medieval Hungarian Urban Congregations], Századok, 132 (1998): pp. 765–92, p. 782.

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The cemetery next to the cloister moreover indicates that many townsfolk chose to be buried there. For example Miklós Borsos, a peasant from the environs, went to the friary, as he explained later to the judge, with an offering of a small donation to the friars to have a mass said, probably in order to shorten the sufferings of some of his departed kin buried there.61 It is not surprising, therefore, that it was a cause for indignation when the Augustinians slept through the time for morning mass and got up at noon, as witnessed by Benedik Sibrik, together with his fellow students, or when at times they did not celebrate mass for days on end. When the nobleman Ferenc Nádasdi found neither friar nor mass in the cloister, he was told by town-dwellers that he might even have waited in vain for a week.62 A further duty of the friars was to pray for parishioners at their public holy hours, which again provided to be a different kind of religious experience for those laypeople who attended. The parish clergy performed his duty of offices privately. The Augustinians friars, as witnesses argued, also neglected these offices. Their laxity, in addition to the recurring complaints of the people, is exemplified by the case of Friar Balázs, who drank away his breviary containing the daily order of prayers in the village tavern of Ják. The rare pledge, worth several florins, had to be redeemed from the innkeeper by the prior—as a member of the petty nobility from the village of Rádóc recalled.63 The parishioners became worried about negligence of the offices, since they wanted to participate in these, especially in the early morning and evening prayers. For example, the castellan of Körmend said “he often visited the cloister to hear mass, but he never participated in the morning office, but sometimes in their vespers”.64 The memories of the witnesses evince that the parishioners often visited the friary. They spontaneously spoke about the buildings in detail: they mentioned the belfry, the ambulatory, the organ loft, kitchen, the inner courtyard, and the upper building next to the friars’ rooms. Their knowledge of cloister spaces evinces informal uses of space beyond ritual activities. “He had met the friars very often in their friary for different reasons ... sometimes to hear mass or canonical hours, other times to converse and eat together with the friars”—so the elderly Simon Rosos remembered. His convivial relationship with the friars derived from his status of confrater. In other words: he was a member of the confraternity of

61 62

  Register, fol. 82v.   Ibid. fols 43v–4r (Sibrik), fol. 69v (Nádasdi). Simon Rosos, living in

Körmend also “knew for sure that in different periods though, but the friars did not celebrate mass for many days in the cloister church”. Ibid. fol. 83v. 63   Ibid. fol. 54v. 64   Ibid. fol. 60v.

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the Augustinians, much like another townsman, Pál Nagy.65 The admission of a layperson into a mendicant confraternity usually formed the peak of a longstanding relationship, manifested in pious legacies or patronage of a religious house or order. Lay brethren, then, shared in the merits of the friars’ liturgical acts and had the right to be buried in the cloister church. Choosing a burial place in a religious house rather than the parish church also seems to have become a widespread practice beyond the aristocracy among town-dwellers, as reflected by the rivalry for burial rights between the secular clergy and mendicants.66 The presence of the Augustinians gave the parishioners of Körmend the opportunity to decide whether to go to their parish priest for confession or to one of the friars.67 Several of the interrogated witnesses took advantage of the latter choice. Lukács Mindszenti of Hollós said “he would keep company with the Augustinian friars from time to time, sometimes dropping in to talk to them, at other times to make a confession”. Miklós Pondor, from the nearby village of Nádalja, recalled that “sometimes he attended mass in the friary church, in other words, when there was mass, and sometimes he went to make his confession there too”.68 I would suggest that they were both talking about occasions above the obligatory, annual confession. Their confession seems not to have been held to be any more extraordinary than going to mass, or popping into the friary for an afternoon chat. The complaint that the Friar Antal would hear confessions   Ibid. fol. 84r (Rosos), fol. 86r (Nagy). The Augustinians’ confraternity is not documented otherwise. 66   For aristocrats see Kornél Szovák, ‘Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum. Megjegyzések a 14. század főúri vallásossághoz’ [Notes on Fourteenth-Century Aristocratic Piety], in Péter Tusor (ed.), R. Várkonyi Ágnes Emlékkönyv [Studies in Honor of Ágnes R. Várkonyi], (Budapest, 1998), pp. 79–97, p. 82. For the citizenry see the case of a Buda citizen, who was member of eight religious confraternities. Beatrix F. Romhányi, ‘“Mereretur vestre devocionis affectus ..”. Egy vallásos középkori budai polgár: Söptei Péter, kancelláriai jegyző’ [A Pious Citizen from Medieval Buda: Péter Söptei, Notary of the Chancellery], in Beatrix Romhányi, András Grynaeus, Károly Magyar, and András Végh (eds), “Es tu scholaris”. Ünnepi tanulmányok Kubinyi András 75. születésnapjára [Studies in Honor of András Kubinyi on his 75th Birthday], (Budapest, 2004), pp. 37–44. For conflicts over burial right see Romhányi, ‘A koldulóbarátok szerepe’, pp. 146–7, pp. 150–51. 67   The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) prescribed confession to the parish priest, but added: “if someone has a good reason to confess his sins to someone else, he should first ask and receive permission from his own priest”. Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, ed. J. Alberigo, J. A. Dosetti Perikle, P. J. Claudius Leonardi, and P. Prodi (Bologna, 1973), p. 245. 68   Register, fol. 60v (Mindszent), fol. 63r (Pondor). 65

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even though he was not yet ordained was repeated several times at the hearing.69 This reinforces the assumption that the parish clergy could not satisfy the penitential needs of the laity. It was most probably, though not only, a question of frequency, but people may have tended to elect friars as confessors and spiritual advisors for the sake of a personal and spiritual relationship, an experience that could not be provided by parish priests, who rather acted on behalf of the entire community.70 As for the character of the confessional rite itself, their voluntary confessions on weekdays, under quiet and peaceful conditions within the walls of the friary, cannot be compared with the yearly confession prescribed as a condition of taking the Holy Communion in the scramble of the Holy Week, performed publicly. In consequence, the mendicant house in the town carried the potential of individual and voluntary spaces and practices of lay devotion beside the official, communal, and prescribed forms of parish piety. The maintenance of preaching positions or the provision of occasional preachers, in order to supplement the feast-day sermons of the parish priest, was a considerable financial burden for congregations. The Augustinian friary in Körmend provided a good potential opportunity for this service at a very low price.71 The parishioners, quite exceptionally, decided to maintain an altar, or perhaps even founded one for their confraternity in the mendicant church instead of the parish church. On the one hand, their choice may reflect the community’s desire for a sphere of religious action independent of the parish priest. Autonomy and responsibility went hand in hand: the members of the confraternity collected money and restored the cloister church themselves, instead of giving it to the negligent friars.72 As we can infer from the testimonies, the confraternity was an urban religious institution, since its known members were all recruited from town inhabitants, rather than the nobility from surrounding villages.73 The lay confraternity seated in the cloister church is another sign of the laity’s endeavor to create the possibilities of religious experiences framed by the mendicant house rather than their parish church.   Ibid. fol. 67r, 87r, 105r.   In the late fifteenth century widows with no heirs often gave very generous

69 70

pious bequests for single friars, who supported them spiritually and financially in their old age. See Romhányi, ‘A kolduló barátok szerepe’, 149–50. 71   For urban preaching positions see Mályusz, Egyházi társadalom, pp. 317– 19. Reference to the preaching of the Augustinians in Körmend: Register, fol. 62r. 72   The restoration work was mentioned by several witnesses, for example: Register, fol 45v, 84v, 86v. In more detail see chapter 6. 73   The members of the confraternity were Pál Nagy, the dean of the confraternity, György Király, who was also town judge, and Simon Rosos, all citizens of Körmend. Ibid. fol. 84v, 86v, 99r. The lay confraternity in Körmend is otherwise not documented. Cf. Kubinyi, ‘Vallásos társulatok’, p. 346.

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Conclusion Having considered some of the salient features of late medieval religious mentality, we can now return to our initial question. Why were the people so much worried about the negligence of the Augustinian friars? While Mary and the saints were the celestial intercessors for men in the scheme of salvation, the ordained priesthood served as intercessors on Earth. In the formulation of contemporary synodical books: “Priests are intercessors between God and Man, preaching to the people the commandments and turning to God with the supplications of the people”.74 In the later Middle Ages, the intercessory role of the clergy intensified in course of the Eucharistic turn of devotional culture, because they were defined as the only legitimate administrators of the Eucharist.75 Therefore, the anger against the Augustinians in Körmend was aimed primarily at the intercessors who neglected their duties, because in this way the friars disturbed the economy of the sacred, jeopardizing the spiritual and physical security of the community. What is more, they did this at a time when laypeople wanted to take part in the duties of the clergy in ever more varied forms (masses, canonical offices, confraternities), thereby accumulating their own merits. The friars’ negligence of liturgical services disappointed the people all the more as the mendicant house in their town normally could have provided great advantages for them, not to mention additional religious experiences. The rivalry of a mendicant friary with a parish church for their favors and investments could have created an opportunity for choice. More importantly, while the parish church was a place of communal religious experiences, mendicant friars seem to have served the demand of the laity for individual spiritual practices. The increased role of the ordained clergy in the economy of the sacred ran counter to the growing autonomy of individuals and communities in spheres of religion. The profound pastoral and jurisdictional changes within the church in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries came to fruition fully at the parish level—with the mediation of mendicant friars—in the generations immediately preceding the Protestant Reformation. The religious argument presented by the agents of the cloister reform in Körmend was understood and responded to by lay witnesses, since religion figured not only as a clerical, but a lay (communal as well as individual) responsibility. People readily invested in maintaining a stipendiary clergy   A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 63: 477–80 lines.   This process is described as a strategy of certain clerical elites in order

74 75

to maintain authority over the access to the sacred by Charles Zika, ‘Hosts, Processions and Pilgrimages: Controlling the sacred in fifteenth-century Germany’, Past and Present, 118 (1988): pp. 25–64.

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(financial offers counted as acts of good work) and took advantage of their religious rituals. The process of the consumption of the sacred was aimed at securing spiritual afterlife and temporal prosperity for the individual and the community alike.

Chapter 8

Morality The expectations of the residents of Körmend and environs toward the Augustinians gradually turned into disappointment. Their anxiety over their spiritual and temporal security put at risk by the friars’ liturgical failures seems to have turned into anger and disdain when they perceived that the friars did not respect the local moral code that was expected to pertain to all. As we have seen, their anger dissolved into occasional violent episodes. It is easy to notice that it was primarily the sexual misbehaviors of the friars that tended to incite violence. While one of the friars was preaching in the church to the people, his girlfriend was waiting for him in his room. The duplicitous friar’s impertinence could not be taken passively: the townspeople, led by Gergely Pocha, burst into the room and 1 removed the lady from the cloister. The words of a townsman suggest that people acted consciously and were aware of their impatience toward the lechery of the friars: “Years ago a few friars were beaten several times for their sinful transgressions of all sorts, but especially for those concerning women”—as Gergely Polgár commented in the courtroom, regarding local 2 events. The intolerance toward the friars’ sexual misconduct is surprising in light of what is generally known about the late medieval practice of the concubinage of the parish clergy and its social acceptance.3 This could be explained by the particularly huge gap between proclaimed church principles and the friars’ everyday practices: according to church tenets, even within the clerical order only the regular clergy, who devoted all their lives to God, qualified for salvation, which was the ultimate aim of life 4 in this world. Consequently, a commonly held sense of justice may have 1 

Register, fol. 62r. Ibid. fol. 90v. 3  Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer, From Priest’s Whore to Pastor’s Wife: Clerical Marriage and the Process of Reform in the Early German Reformation (Farnham, 2012), pp. 11–50; Jennifer D. Thibodeaux, ‘Man of the church or man of the village? Gender and Parish Clergy in Medieval Normandy’, Gender and History, 18 (2006): pp. 380–99. 4  Robert W. Scribner, The German Reformation (London, 1986), p. 12; Clive Burgess, ‘A “fond thing vainly invented”: an essay on Purgatory and pious motive in later medieval England’, in Susan J. Wright (ed.), Parish, Church and People: Local Studies in Lay Religion, 1350–1750 (London, 1988), pp. 56–84, pp. 60–61. 2 

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been especially hurt by their misconduct. This argumentation, however, becomes insufficient if we do not take at face value that commoners were familiar with all church tenets. It would be better, then, to derive our interpretations from lay experiences and practices. We can easily ascertain the level of tolerance with regard to the concubinary parish priests by consulting the records of the church visitations (1559–62) conducted in the Catholic archdiocese of Esztergom under reform. Several hundred examples from the urban and rural realms alike attest that the lower clergy, with the exception of a negligible minority, did indeed keep a wife or concubine, or a female cook, in the 1550–60s.5 In other words, with the spread of the new teachings, some of the good Catholics as well as priests who had converted to the new faith, married their concubines and female cooks.6 And what is of primary interest for our present argument: the laity, unlike the higher clergy, were not the least bit worried that their priests were also leading family lives. It seemed completely normal to locals that their parish priest, similarly to them, had children and brought them up with the mother. Several incumbents who, as the visitors noted, administered the sacraments as good Catholics, were at the same time on record as being married, and indeed were praised by parishioners for leading exemplary moral, honest lives.7 However, it was always briefly mentioned if the parish priest exchanged his wife for a younger one, and local chatter became louder when the priest kept changing his concubines or secretly visited his lover behind his wife’s back in the vineyard.8 Visitors met with the greatest indignation in the village of Galgóc (Hlohovec, Slovakia), where one of the chantry priests was living with a married woman, and among the long list of the carnal sins of the

5  Reformné hnutie v arcibiskupstve ostrihomskom do r. 1564 (Reformatio in archidioecesi Strigoniensi ad a. 1564), ed. V. Bucko (Bratislava, 1939), pp. 121– 284. 6  The recurrent chapter on ‘concubinary priests’ in diocesan synodal decretals is also suggestive of the widespread practice. There is further evidence with regard to clerical marriages from other regions of the country from the same period. For example in the village of Récse (in Transdanubia) “the parish priest married ceremoniously, in the manner of peasants”. A veszprémi egyházmegye legrégibb egyházlátogatásai (1554–1760) [The Earliest Visitation Records of the Diocese of Veszprém, 1554–1760], ed. J. Pfeiffer (Veszprém, 1947), pp. 24–40, p. 29. 7  Reformné hnutie, Bucko, p. 154, p. 196. 8  A veszprémi egyházmegye, Pfeiffer, p. 30 (market town of Egerszeg); Reformné hnutie, Bucko, p. 175 (village of Turán [Turany, Slovakia), p. 212 (village of Herestyén [Male Chrasztany, Slovakia]).

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parish priest of the village of Herestyén was his having eloped with a girl and his penchant for seducing women at confession.9 The visitation records of monastic houses, the Benedictine abbeys in Transdanubia and Upper-Hungary (today Slovakia), reflect similar lay standards. In 1508, out of the seventeen monasteries visited to survey conditions preliminary to reform measures, in six places the abbots had broken their vow of chastity by keeping concubines. Lay resentment was incited, however, by the breach of communal norms: the womanizing abbot of Murakeresztúr was nicknamed “the Wolf” and the superior of the abbey of Bakonybél was rumored to have made suspicious hints at the wives of peasants and of having prostitutes delivered to the abbey. On the other hand, the peasants openly defended the abbot of Kolos, who led an “honorable” life with his lover.10 By contrast, the parishioners tolerated the permanent relationships of the friars in Körmend just as little as they did their group carousals. The tolerance of monastic ways can probably be explained by the circumstance that the abbots built “peasant houses”, as they were called by the laity, for their families and kept their children there along with the mothers, and those abbots who were not concerned about appearances even moved there themselves, while the more bashful only paid regular visits from the abbey. This practice was accepted by the laity. Only their fellow monks grumbled, since they were financially damaged by the support such abbots turned to their families.11 The situation of the mendicant friars of Körmend was essentially different. Even if they had wanted to, they could not have lived in such marriage and family-like relationships, deemed “honorable” by the laity, as the beneficed clergy did. Their relationships—primarily with single women, maiden girls, and widows—remained “suspicious” though they often proved to be permanent. Margit, for instance, who had a child from the prior, lived alone with her swineherd son in town while maintaining a secret relationship with the father. “Once he was in the cloister and saw one of the Augustinian friars, the crippled prior, in the upper house of the cloister ... beside the cells with Margit, a suspicious woman from Körmend, as they were talking”, Miklós Borsos recalled at the hearing.12 9 

Ibid. p. 194, pp. 212–13. For similar cases from Spain see Stephen Haliczer, Sexuality in the Confessional: A Sacrament Profaned (Oxford, 1996). 10  A pannonhalmi Szent Benedek-rend története [The History of the Order of Saint Benedict of Mons Sacer Pannoniae], ed. L. Erdélyi (12b vols, Budapest, 1902–12), vol. 3, pp. 618–19. 11  Ibid. p. 617 (monastery of Babocsa), p. 620 (monastery of Koppánymonostora). 12  Register, fol. 82v.

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Friar Mihály and Dorottya also seem to have been permanent partners. Dorottya was a single woman, judging from her punishment: banishment from town after being flagellated in the pillory. Her faithful lover ran after her in her exile.13 Friar Zsigmond, who lived alone in the friary in 1517, had an affair with a woman called Ilona, who, as the church servant observed, regularly had dinner with the friar in the cloister. She must have been the one with whom, in the public bath, the friar celebrated his name day.14 Friar Ambrus’s partner was the impoverished widow of István of Bükes, a petty noble from the vicinity,15 and also the relative of the wife of the nobleman György Büki, who lived in Körmend. György had interesting details to share at the interrogation: The widow of István of Bükes ... was often taken into the cloister by friar Ambrus under the pretense that they were relatives, although they were not ... and the woman arrived at the friar’s place not through the cloister’s gate but through the hedge of the garden. All this he knows because the woman went to the friar from his house.16

The friars occasionally became entangled in unusual relationships with married women and couples as well. One friar frequently visited the house of János Asbolth, whose wife, just as the wives of Miklós Nyilas and Miklós Karol, delivered meals she cooked to the friary. This was not only recalled by one of the chantry priests at Körmend, but the openeyed György Büki knew about this as well: “He saw suspicious women visiting the friars and cooking for them, but what they were doing inside, he does not know”.17 The Augustinians abused their privileged status in various ways: “A woman with whom they used to do the thing, as it is said, was given as wife to a famulus of theirs, so that under the pretense of this marriage they could have her more freely, as much as they wanted to”— said a peasant from a neighboring village.18 At other times they tried to veil their fornications by spuriously claiming to be within the bounds of the accepted social institution of “spiritual kinship”. To cover up their romantic liaisons, they frequently addressed their lovers, whom they took 13 

Ibid. fol. 31v. On the similar punishment of girls and widows for fornication see further cases in Úriszék. XVI–XVII. századi perszövegek [Manorial Court Records from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries], ed. E. Varga (Budapest, 1958), no. 48, 288, 478. 14  Register, fol. 67v (dinners in the cloister), fol. 74v (bathing). 15  On the Bükesi family see Bándi, Körmend, pp. 79–82. 16  Register, fols 104v–5r. 17  Ibid. fol. 95v, 104v. 18  Ibid. fol. 94r.

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into the cloister, as their “god-sisters” (soror spiritualis). Spiritual kinship relations were formed in baptism and, like consanguinity, involved the canonical prohibition of marriage.19 Still, the friars seem to have expected that their spiritual network of relationships would be less closely monitored by the community if they tried to disguise their illicit liaisons as regular meetings between god-sisters and god-brothers. To sum up, the comparison of the sexual practices of mendicant friars and the beneficed clergy shows that the friars’ versatile sexual relationships remained “suspicious” contrary to other priests living “honorably” with their concubines. Thus it seems that to the popular mind, clerical honor and reputation heavily depended on sexual behavior, and contrary to the ecclesiastical norm of clerical celibacy,20 people expected marriagelike relationships, as well as the performance of child-rearing and household-keeping duties from their priests. Consequentially, the friars’ sexual relationships endangered communal peace and such basic social institutions as marriage and family. Friar Antal, on his alms-collecting tour, “recompensed” the lady cook of the parish priest of Egyed for her loneliness, having found her alone in the house. The friar, driven by his bodily greed, was not even bothered by the fact that the event was witnessed by his companion, István Tóth.21 This was still perceived as a minor issue compared with those cases when the friars endangered the chastity of young maidens. This, people would not tolerate: a friar who had committed this serious offence, although failed in his attempt, had to take a hurried and final leave from the cloister to escape from the people’s anger and fists. The witnesses also told stories in which the friars violated the sanctity of the church: the church servant caught Friar Antal in the choir of the church (superius in choro ecclesie) in flagranti with a woman; at other times the friars sought to find a safe haven for their secret liaisons in the belfry. Such cases of sacrilege, the pollution of sacred places, occurred frequently not only in the practical and theoretical genres connected with disciplining the clergy and penitence, but also functioned as a literary topos. In everyday practice it counted as such a serious offence that, if disclosed, it could only be redeemed by the perpetrators through public penitence and the place itself could only be purified by reconsecration.22 19 

John Bossy, ‘Godparenthood: The Fortunes of a Social Institution in Early Modern Christianity’, in Gaspar von Greyerz (ed.), Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1800 (London, 1984), pp. 194–201. 20  On the intellectual debates concerning the norm see Helen Parish, Clerical Celibacy in the West, c. 1100–1700 (Farnham, 2010). 21  Register, fol. 68r. 22  Ibid. fol. 85r (attempt at defloration), fol. 68r (sex on the church chorus); fol. 34r (sex in the belfry). On sacrilege in the literary tradition see Dyan Elliott, Fallen

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The friars’ “frailty” must have been further stressed by their immunity from secular jurisdiction. By contrast, the regular clergy, from the fifteenth century on, had been increasingly obliged, upon their installation, to settle their conflicts with the laity in front of the manor court.23 The lack of control over the mendicant orders is also well reflected by the case of Friar Mihály, who, although first taken into the castle by the landlord’s men, was soon released and transferred to his ecclesiastical superiors, which eventually turned out to be equivalent to impunity due to his subsequent flight. His girlfriend, however, was punished with the usual punishment of widowed or unmarried women: she was set in the pillory and flagellated, and finally driven away from the town. Meanwhile the friar who had breached his contract with God simply walked away, despite the fact that adulterers legally incurred capital punishment, an imbalance that could rightly provoke the people’s sense of injustice. Besides their communal life, compounded by the lack of instruments of social control on the part of their patron lord and the parish community, the friars were also social outsiders, a condition that may have rendered them predisposed to varied transgressions. Due to the centralized organization of their orders, mendicant friars enjoyed an exceptional horizontal mobility compared to the parish clergy. Because the friars came to Körmend from distant places and lived in the town only temporarily, they were not tied by kinship to the locals.24 The parish clergy, by contrast, were closely integrated into local communities by social bonds. Out of the thirteen priests at the interrogation, only two arrived from locations distant to the diocese, while the majority served in the vicinity of their native villages and four of them served “at home”. One of these was Lőrinc Körmendi, the chantry priest in the church of St. Martin, who, as he testified, was born in Körmend, just as his parents had been, and spent most of his days in the town.25 In short, the rural parish clergy were local boys: they tended to come from Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1998), pp. 61–76. 23  György Bónis, ‘Az egyházi bíráskodás fejlődése a Mohács előtti Magyarországon’ [The Development of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in Medieval Hungary], in Szentszéki regeszták. Iratok az egyházi bíráskodás történetéhez a középkori Magyarországon [Register of Records of Ecclesiastical Courts. Documents on the History of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in Medieval Hungary], ed. Gy. Bónis (Budapest, 1997), p. 655. 24  For example, the prior Zsigmond came from the more distant diocesan seat of Vác, and Friar Antal (‘the Drunkard’) from the market town of Pápóc (diocese of Győr), where he celebrated his first mass. Register, fol. 23v, 67r. 25  Ibid. fols 95rv.

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the social groups they served. They also inherited family property, ran a household which provided for their relatives, were tied by affinity and consanguinity to the village community, labored as local farmers, and participated in local feuds and brawls. They were uneducated (or more precisely unevenly educated), just like the villagers, whom they also resembled in appearance: they were bearded, traveled on horseback, and wore a sword without worry of church prohibitions. Consequently, they formed a kind of transition between the profane and sacred social realms.26 The parish priests’ argument during the above cited church visitation to the effect that they keep a wife “in the interest of a family rather than because of bodily lust” was acceptable not only for their parishioners but was also received with sympathy by the visiting archdeacons, unlike the reform-minded bishop.27 Mendicant friars, on the other hand, wearing special habits and tonsure, must have appeared to the laity as inherently different. Lacking the devices of legal and social discipline, the community was unable to enforce the observance and penalize the breach of norms obligatory for all its members. The friars’ behavior was perceived by the laity as immoral as they neglected the local code of behavior and hence disturbed communal harmony. As they were the professional mediators between the sacred and the physical world (which people perceived as closely interwoven), their immorality jeopardized the temporal and spiritual prosperity of the community.28 No surprise it turned the people’s moral disdain into hatred and anxiety regarding their safety.

26 

For a general description of the late medieval pastoral clergy see Elemér Mályusz, Egyházi társadalom a középkori Magyarországon [Ecclesiastical Society in Medieval Hungary], (Budapest, 1971), 137–70, 209–304. On their social origins, educations, and job-market more recently see Gabriella Erdélyi, Szökött szerzetesek. Erőszak és fiatalok a késő középkorban [Runaway Friars: Violence and Youth in the Late Middle Ages], (Budapest, 2011), pp. 97–160. For comparisons see Enno Bünz, ‘Thüringens Pfarrgeistlichkeit vor der Reformation’, Historiches Jahrbuch, 124 (2004): pp. 45–74; Tim Cooper, The Last Generation of the English Catholic Clergy. Parish Priests in the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield in the Early Sixteenth Century (Suffolk, 1999). 27  Reformné hnutie, Bucko, p. 168. In 1493, the diocesan synod of Esztergom formulated an additional decree about concubinary priests, which lamented that visiting archdeacons collected the fines for concubinage for themselves, and reported such abuses only exceptionally. Leges ecclesiasticae regni Hungariae et provinciarum adiacentium, ed. I. Batthyany (3 vols, Albae Carolinae–Claudipoli, 1785–1827), vol. 2, pp. 557–8. 28  Cf. Robert W. Scribner, ‘Reformation and Desacralisation: from Sacramental World to Moralised Universe’, in Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia and Robert W.

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As for the local patron lord, he seems to have been less content with conformity to the local moral code, but instead demanded exemplary behavior from the friars, in accordance with their religious rule. He asked the Augustinians many times, as related by witnesses, “that they change their lives, morals, and company for the better, and should not fail to perform the divine services, but should rather show a good example by their lives living piously according to their rule”.29 The town-dwellers would have been satisfied with much less: they were not shocked that the friars paid daily visits to taverns, as all the men did, though this was strictly forbidden by ecclesiastical regulations for the clergy.30 The people, however, were scandalized when friars stayed all day in the taverns. As witnesses noted with sarcasm, “They go to the tavern so early that they celebrate the mass not in their cloister but in the tavern”, and they sat there “from morning until late hours at night when they were so drunk that they could hardly find their way back to the cloister”. As people expected all community members to carry out their duties, drunkards were generally disdained. “The friars used to drink with such drunkards as they were themselves”, one witness noted scornfully.31 Playing games, playing cards, and playing dice were not against the unwritten communal moral code, as reflected by the regular prohibitions of town magistrates and overlords anxious for public order.32 The inhabitants of Körmend also merrily played cards with the friars and other clergymen in taverns.33 But even their occasional companions were outraged by the impertinence of the friars when they played a game called furfura, which was a peasants’ game; peasants were also called hajdús (haiduk or heyduks) in Hungarian. It is played with millet seeds, into which all players place a coin; and when the millet is redistributed among players, the coins are shared by chance.

Scribner (eds), Problems in the Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Europe (Wiesbaden, 1997), pp. 75–92. 29  Register, fol. 62r. 30  A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, pp. 82–3. 31  For the friars being stigmatized as drunkards and heavy drinkers see Register, fol. 57r, 63v, 67v, 93v. 32  For prohibitions of playing games see István Szabó, A középkori magyar falu [The Medieval Hungarian Village],(Budapest, 1969), p. 234. The Franciscan author, Osvát Laskai discerns playing chess, cards and dice as legal activities even on ecclesiastical feast days, and attributes a mortal sin only to those who play not for fun but rather to gain money. Quoted by Pásztor, A magyarság, p. 21. 33  Several witnesses mention that peasants played tavern games with friars. The nobleman Mihály Rádóczy mentioned an unidentified type of game in the course of which “the friars played a pyramid game and cards”.

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This game, as related by an onlooker, “is disdained by honorable men, but the friars were not ashamed to play it”.34 The Augustinians broke another moral code by letting the cloister buildings fall into decay. The parish priest had accomplished much more in this respect, too. The witnesses’ testimonies were heard at the parish house, since it was the most convenient and appropriate for such an occasion. The laity also expected the clergy to live as attentive and caring masters of their households, and they were shocked to see that the “cloister’s lands and garden looked as chaotic as if nuzzled up by pigs”. They were pleased once again to rebuke those expelled Augustinians present at the interrogation: “The garden of the cloister is alone worth ten florins more now than the whole cloister during their times, since the observant friars have so beautifully restored the building to the pleasure of all”.35 Obviously, in addition to the spiritual functions of the mendicant house, it was an essential object of communal pride, and a representation of communal identity and material well-being. In addition to violating the communal code of conduct, the friars appear in several courtroom anecdotes in roles familiar from contemporary literary genres. Instead of responding to the public outcry with self-control, some of the residents of the cloister joined the increasingly sizable groups of vagrant friars. They did not refrain from violence in conflicts among themselves or when they interfered in lay disputes. “In the year before the friars were removed, when certain guarantors wanted to arrest István Szakál in the friars’ garden, the brothers rushed to István’s aid. As a result, one of the guarantors, Pál Oszvald of Hollós, was injured so badly in the cloister that his head was bleeding”—so Lukács Mindszenti recalled the events. On another occasion, as the young Tamás Sibrik claimed, they stooped to “robbing a poor man when they were out begging, and took his horse and saddle away, which they gave back to him in Körmend only for a large fee”.36 The Augustinians seem to have willingly associated with a special mobile and armed group of peasant communities, the so-called haiduks, who were cattle herdsmen employed in long-distance trade. This is suggested by two small clues. For one thing, the social contact between the herdsmen and the friars is evidenced by the aforementioned haiduk game of chance (furfura), which the Augustinians were fond of playing. The most shameful thing, though, was not the game of chance itself, but the circumstance that the Augustinians were doing all this in the house of Judge János Szabó, at the same time that students of the school were 34  35  36 

Register, fols 74rv. Ibid. fol. 45v, fol. 32r. Ibid. fol. 61v (Mindszenti), fols 45rv (Sibrik).

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there performing the Ascension of Christ.37 Understandably, this audacity disgusted even those who at other times would have been happy to sit down at a table to play a round of cards or a game of dice with the friars. András Csuti, a townsman who had grown rich on cattle trading in regions to the west of Hungary, moreover related that he himself drank regularly with the Augustinians in the taverns, and in the friary “the friars indulged in wine with shepherds, commonly called haiduks, and other herdsmen” as he heard from his servants, who were “of such society”. His words, together with the stories on cloister gatherings related by other witnesses, suggest once again that the townspeople found it natural for the friars to participate in routine tavern conversations just as they casually visited the friary in their leisure. They, however, kept a distance from the tavern or cloister binges that ended in inebriation and chaos. Only a restricted circle of those leading licentious lives took part in the rowdy binges, replete with blasphemous singing of ecclesiastical songs, to which belonged the parish priest of Rádóc, on his own plain admission: The Augustinian friars would take three or four dubious women into their friary, where they spent time with them to their hearts’ content, and when they were well tanked up on wine in the evening, they would sing and yell Omnipotent Father God, causing great offence to the Christian faithful living there. He knows about this, because he did it himself together with the Augustinians.

What was perhaps referred to here is the eulogy culminating the liturgy of the Eucharist in the mass with the elevation of the bread and chalice (“Through Him, and with Him, and in Him, is to You, God the Father Almighty”). Inasmuch as this assumption is correct, the scene may have been a cheery, though undoubtedly improper visualization, using a wine glass of the transformation of the host into the body of Christ, or rather the wine into the blood of Christ.38 The haiduks and mendicants got along well not only in their leisure time, but they also proved to be ready to take up arms together against their lords. It is a commonly shared view in Hungarian historiography that many simple priests found themselves on the side of the rebels during the peasant revolt of 1514. Among them a young generation of observant Franciscan friars are identified, who used their anti-Ottoman preaching (the revolt erupted in course of the crusade launched by the pope and Bakócz, as papal legate) as an ideological tool to turn the war against

37  38 

Ibid. fols 74rv. Ibid. fols 92rv (Csuti), fol. 52r (parish priest of Rádóc).

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the pagans into a war against the nobility.39 After the revolt was brutally put down, under the impact of the horrors they experienced, the nobility described their enemies in their retributive laws as follows: besides peasants and haiduks they spoke of “unbeneficed priests and students dwelling in schools”, whom they prohibited from carrying weapons.40 What was it that rendered the haiduks and the unbeneficed, vagrant clergy—among them some (ex-)mendicants and clerical students—prone to common action? In addition to their peasant origins, they were for the most part young men, who, freed from parental control, were on the roads in groups, had no property, and had little to lose. They were the “wage workers” of the Church, living on the market of the religious services demanded by the laity. They become apparent in growing numbers in our sources in the turbulent years of 1510s.41 From the perspective of historical sociology dedicated to the analysis of great social transformations, these groups, being exceptionally mobile and outsiders to the feudal and mutual relationships, entered upon the road of “disaffiliation”, as Robert Castel put it. Their emergence in a sizable number indicates that the traditional schemes of social integration were being transformed.42 Their presence was characteristically responded to with anxiety and criminalization on the part of power elite. Consequently, they tended to assume the role of the rebel, the riotous, and the deviant. Along with their entanglement in everyday trespasses and episodes of collective violence, mendicants, the unbeneficed pastoral clergy, and clerical students who were in search of sustenance got involved in another 39 

Jenő Szűcs, ‘A ferences obszervancia és az 1514. évi parasztháború. Egy kódex tanúsága’[The Franciscan Observant Movement and the Peasant War of 1514 in Hungary. The Evidence of a Codex], Levéltári Közlemények, 43 (1972): pp. 235–6; Gabriella Erdélyi, ‘Tales of a peasant revolt: taboos and memories of 1514 in Hungary’, in Erika Kuijpers, Judith Pollmann, Johannes Müller, and Jasper van der Steen (eds), Memory Before Modernity. Practices of Memory in Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2013). See also chapter 1. 40  Corpus Juris Hungarici. Magyar Törvénytár 1000−1526, ed. D. Márkus (Budapest, 1899), anno 1514/art. 60. 41  On the wide layers of unbeneficed clergy in search of employment in the growing market of religious services in early sixteenth-century Hungary including vagrant mendicants, see in more detail Gabriella Erdélyi, ‘Élet a falakon túl: úton lévő papok tábora’ [Life outside the walls: lesser clergymen on the roads], in Erdélyi, Szökött szerzetesek, pp. 97−114. 42  Robert Castel approached the social transformations concomitant with the transition from feudalism to capitalism by analyzing the new routes of social integration (wage work), their failures (unemployment), and their thematization (the topos of the hooligan). Les Métamorphoses de la question sociale, une chronique du salariat (Paris, 1995).

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antiestablishment movement, in which they likewise played the role of mediator between the elite and popular cultures: they became one of the first groups to spread the evangelical ideas in Hungary. The first preachers are identified in a poem by the Lutheran preacher of the market town of Tállya, András Szkhárosi Horvát (?–1549) as “priests, clerks, children, and bards”.43 Szkhárosi, who describes himself elsewhere as a “friar turned pastor”, was obviously one among them.44 Surprisingly, it was the same Szkhárosi, prominent among the wellknown Lutheran preachers in Hungary, who most ardently attacked the friars’ false belief and morals, with an emphasis on their “excessive lewdness”. He contrasted the friars’ lechery, which arose from celibacy, with the virtues and chastity of marital life, by which he adopted the rhetorical strategies of his fellow reformers.45 How can we possibly account for this? What did this early evangelical discourse draw on and what goals did it serve? In Hungary, Lutheran ideas first made an impact in the royal court 43 ‘ Az istennek irgalmasságáról és ez világnak háládatlanságáról’ (1546) [On the Grace of God and the Ingratitude of the World], in 16. századbeli magyar költők művei [The Works of Sixteenth-Century Hungarian Poets], ed. Á. Szilády, Régi Magyar Költők Tára, 2 (Budapest, 1880), vol. 1, p. 207. 44  András Szkhárosi Horvát, ‘Emberi szerzésről’ (ca 1542) [On Human Invention], in 16. századbeli magyar költők, Szilády, vol.1, pp. 227−30. On Franciscans turned into evangelical ministers see Sándor Őze, ‘A ferencesek és a reformáció kapcsolata a XVI. századi Magyarországon’ [Franciscans and the Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Hungary], in Norbert Medgyesy−Schmikli and Sándor Őze (eds), A ferences lelkiség hatása az újkori Közép-Európa történetére és kultúrájára [The Impact of Franciscan Spiritualty on the Modern History and Culture of Central Europe], (Piliscsaba, 2005), pp. 157−75. On Szkhárosi see Tibor Klaniczay, ‘A magyar reformáció irodalma’ [The Literature of the Hungarian Reformation], Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények, 71 (1957): pp. 12−47, pp. 20−21. On Franciscans and other mendicants as the early propagators of the new faith see, Geoffrey Dipple, Antifraternalism and Anticlericalism in the German Reformation: Johann Eberlin von Günzburg and the Campaign against the Friars (Aldershot, 1996); Petr Hlaváček, ‘Errores quorumdam Bernhardinorum: Franciscans and the Bohemian Reformation’, trans. David V. Zdenĕk, in David V. Zdenĕk and David R. Holeton (eds), The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice (Prague, 2000), vol. 3, pp. 119–26. http://brrp.org. Accessed July 23, 2013; Richard Rex, ‘The friars in the English Reformation’, in Peter Marshall and Alec Ryrie (eds), The Beginnings of English Protestantism (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 38–59. 45  Szkhárosi, ‘Emberi szerzésről’. Cf. for example P. Melanchton, Declamationes, De conjugio (1555), in Philippi Melanthonis Opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. H. E. Bindseil, Corpus Reformatorum, 12 (Brunsvigae, 1844), pp. 128–38, esp. 128–9; J. Calvin, ‘Institutio religionis Christianae’, in Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss, Corpus Reformatorum, 29–87 (59 vols, Brunsvigae, 1863–1900), vol. 2, p. 936.

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in the 1520s, spreading swiftly to German-speaking cities in the north of the country and Transylvania, reaching across communication barriers to the Hungarian population of towns in the 1530s. The ideas of religious renewal spread without considerable political resistance, since medieval state and church structures were heavily disrupted due to the Ottoman invasion and the political division of the country. Religious reform reached the Hungarian nobility and the rural population in parallel with the appearance of Calvin’s views on the sacraments, which left a mark on Protestant confessionalization and Church formation, taking shape only in the late sixteenth century.46 The case of the friary of Körmend suggests that the evangelical criticism of the friars could be effective precisely because they were central figures of late medieval lay-clerical interactions and religious life. Mendicant friars, as preachers and confessors, had an intense relationship with both rural and urban populations in the late Middle Ages.47 Therefore the general discontent toward the clergy in this period, stemming from the laity’s growing involvement in religious affairs, manifested itself with particular intensity toward this specialized group of the clerical order. It is well documented how, at the same time, the tendencies of late medieval crisis and revival were experienced by the regular clergy and especially the mendicants. The disintegration of religious life in the Körmend friary followed by an efficient reform with the introduction of observant friars was itself an episode in this dynamic process. In Hungarian, it was a conjugal advisory poem by András Batizi, a preacher from Tokaj, that represented the first written text affirming that God had created marriage to multiply and support mankind and, more importantly to “remove lechery”; in writing this, Batizi had drawn on Luther’s arguments verbatim.48 As opposed to marriage, which was created by God, monasticism is, consequently, an invention of man, a perversion of Christian doctrine, a disruption of moral order and of the unity of the 46  Katalin Péter, ‘Hungary’, in Robert Scribner, Roy Porter, and Mikulaš Teich (eds), The Reformation in National Context (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 150–67. 47  For the complex relationship of mendicant houses and their host towns see for example Bernhard Neidiger, Mendikantenzwischen Ordensideal und städtischer Realität, Berliner Historische Studien, 5; Ordensstudien, 3 (Berlin, 1981); Norbert Hecker, Bettelorden und Bürgertum. Konflikt und Kooperation in den deutschen Städten des Spätmittelalter (Frankfurt am Main, 1981). 48  András Batizi, ‘A házasságról való ének’ [Song on Marriage], 1546, in 16. századbeli magyar költők, Szilády, vol. 1, pp. 120–24. Compare with Martin Luther, ‘Eyn Sermon von dem Ehelichen Stand’ (1519), in D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (127 vols, Weimar, 1883–2009) (hereafter: WA), vol. 2, pp. 166–71.

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church.49 Obviously, the polemic against the old clergy, who partly justified their privileges by their vow of chastity, moved on a theoretical-theological as well as on an empirical-moral plane. Evangelical propaganda against the old clergy was linked with a campaign against women’s special rights and other privileged groups. In the interpretation of the new, universal, and uniform sexual norm, women of uncertain status who lived alone or in groups were presented as the accomplices of lecherous monks and friars. In the town of Gyöngyös, pamphlets were circulated in 1538 about the illicit relationship between Franciscan friars and the Beguins, and the 1562 Credo of Debrecen urged the destruction of the “brothels” of the friars and nuns.50 It was also a recurring charge against the friars that while taking care of nuns’ souls they abused confessions by seducing respectable and pious married women.51 Even if all this reminds us of the stories told by the witnesses at Körmend, we must also remember the parishioners’ tolerance toward the sexual conduct of the clergy, which challenges the scholarly thesis arguing that it was the ethical dimensions that drove home the Lutheran theological tenets concerning the abolishment of the old clergy and made the reformation a mass movement.52 Along with considering the gulf between lay expectations and clerical performance, we may come closer to understanding how the motors of evangelical rhetoric set the mendicants as its particular target if we consider its political context. The criticism was also generated by the rivalry of the evangelical preachers and the Franciscans, who from among the old clergy in Hungary opposed evangelical preaching in word and writing with the most vitality. When the middle reaches of Hungary came under Ottoman 49  Luther, ‘De votis monasticis iudicium’(1521), in WA, vol. 8, pp. 564–666; Calvin, Institutio, pp. 929–41. 50  Egyháztörténelmi Emlékek a Magyarországi Hitújítás korából [Sources on Church History at the Time of the Reformation], ed. V. Bunyitay, R. Rapaics, J. Karácsonyi, F. Kollányi, and J. Lukcsics (eds), (5 vols Budapest, 1902–12), vol. 3. pp. 308–11; A XVI. században tartott magyar református zsinatok végzései [The Decrees of Calvinist Synods in Sixteenth-Century Hungary], ed. Á. Kiss (Budapest, 1881). Szkhárosi also mentions that friars “live shamefully” with nuns. ‘Az Istennek irgalmasságáról és ez világnak háládatlanságáról’, in 16. századbeli magyar költők, Szilády, vol. 2, p. 204. 51  Dipple, Antifraternalism, pp. 30–33, pp. 150–51; Steven Ozment, The Reformation in the Cities: The Appeal of Protestantism to Sixteenth Century Germany and Switzerland (New Haven and London, 1975), pp. 53–4. 52  Hans-Jürgen Goertz, Pfaffenhaß und groß Geschrei. Die reformatorischen Bewegungen in Deutschland 1517–1529 (München, 1987); Peter A. Dykema and Heiko A. Oberman (eds), Anticlericalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, 51 (Leiden, 1993).

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occupation in the 1540s, it was only the observant Franciscans and the Paulines who continuously managed to maintain and inhabit a few houses notwithstanding the advances of the “pagans” and the “heretics”.53 Hence, Szkhárosi’s rhetoric zeal against the friars may have served to justify his personal conversion54 just as much as it was a piece of propaganda designed to discredit political rivals—rivals, since not only many of the new preachers but also the first written refutation and the most fervent enemies of the evangelical tenets also came from the Franciscan order.55 Their ongoing popular acceptance was openly bemoaned by the new evangelical preachers: “They still preach the sacred word of Christ / But it is called falseness and Luther’s heresy by the friars, / And all the noblemen, the poor blind, have been lulled by them” Szkárosi complained.56 This discourse was, however, central to the making of the new clergy’s social identity, just as it represented the power contest between the old and the new reform generations. Apparently, the life of the regular clergy had become a popular topic in the decades preceding the Reformation. Monks and friars were typical 53  In Ottoman Hungary, two Franciscan cloisters survived in Gyöngyös and Szeged, while the Paulines had five-six houses in Habsburg Hungary. Pál Ács, ‘Katolikus irodalom és kultúra a reformáció századában’ [Catholic Literature and Culture in the Century of the Reformation], Vigilia, 5 (1995): pp. 360–74; Ferenc Szakály, ‘Török uralom és reformáció Magyarországon a 16. század közepe táján’ [Ottoman Rule and Reformation in Hungary in the Middle of the Sixteenth Century], Világosság (1984/1): pp. 51–9. 54  Luther’s De votis monasticis iudicium was also intended to help overcome the spiritual and political crisis and facilitate the marriages of apostate friars and monks. On conversions and the function of conversion narratives in general see: Kim Siebenhüner and Monica Juneja, ‘Religious Conversion in Transcultural Perspective’ – An Introduction, The Medieval History Journal, 12 (2009): pp. 169–89. 55  Szkhárosi was earlier Franciscan preacher in Várad (Oradea, Romania). This eastern Hungarian town was also the scene of one of the earliest religious disputes: the polemical treatise of the Lutheran preacher, Mátyás Dévai Bíró, was disputed in the first half of the 1530s by the Franciscan guardian and superior of studium, Gergely Szegedi. János Horváth, A reformáció jegyében. A Mohács utáni félszázad magyar irodalomtörténete [Engaged with the Reformation. Hungarian Literary History in the Sixteenth Century after the Battle of Mohács], (Budapest, 1957), pp. 162–3. Another militant anti-Lutheran observant Franciscan was Demeter Csáti, ibid. p. 181. The cloister and town of Sárospatak was another headquarters of the Franciscans during the early years of the Protestant Reformation. Jenő Szűcs, ‘Sárospatak reformációjának kezdetei’ [The Beginnings of the Reformation at Sárospatak], A Ráday Gyűjtemény Évkönyve, 2 (1982): p. 36. 56  Szkhárosi, ‘Az Istennek irgalmasságáról’, p. 206.

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and central figures in conversations from the market place through to the universities and to the papal court. Their lives and characters featured centrally in the humanist satirical literature that dealt with the actualities of the day. The womanizing and avaricious but publicly pious, hypocritical friars were familiar figures of the early-sixteenth century.57 Evangelical rhetoric therefore struck familiar chords. So it should not come as a surprise that the characters, events, and turns of the stories related by the people in Körmend about the Augustinians’ lewdness (the preaching friar’s lover in the room, fornication in the church), swindles (a friar stealing and selling a horse) and drunkenness (saying mass in the pub) reveal an eerie occasional resonance with the topoi of the written tradition.

57 

Eduard Fuchs, Illustrierte Sittengeschichte vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 1. Renaissance (München, 1909); Prosatori Volgari del Quattrocento, ed. C. Varese, La Letteratura Italian, Storia e Testi, 14 (Milano, 1955). On theological, legal, and penitential literature see Elliott, Fallen Bodies.

Chapter 9

Ritual and Community Earlier I examined the laity’s conspicuous demand of church services in the context of late medieval sacramental and penitential religious culture. We have seen that the intensive consumption of the sacred was aimed at securing a spiritual afterlife and temporal prosperity for the individual and the community alike. People were thus anxious when the official liturgies were canceled by the friars. We have also discerned the moral expectations of the community toward the friars, who often abused their privileged position and failed to meet even the local moral code though it was more tolerant compared to church expectations. We described the emotions incited by such scandalous clerical behavior (using the witnesses’ expressions) as “anger” and “contempt”, which occasionally incited violent interactions and sanctions. The anxiety, anger, and contempt, discussed separately above under the labels of “religion” and “morality”, were in reality intertwined in an integral whole, in a similar way to the sacred and the social order.1 In the following I will attempt to demonstrate this complexity by reducing the scale of the analysis to the two sacraments—confession and communion—that formed the foci of late medieval devotional culture in order to be able to cast a novel light on their lay experiences and understandings. More precisely, I propose a genuinely new hypothesis regarding the dynamics between lay and church notions which shaped the social meanings of the sacraments. The Mediators and the Sacrament The fourth peril of anger is that it confers judgment on itself … The fifth peril of anger is that on the lips of such a man, the Lord’s Prayer becomes a curse against himself.2 1  Duffy also considers the blurred boundaries of “the matters of the soul and of the body”, or “the tendency for sacred and secular to converge” a salient feature of late medieval popular religion. Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (New Haven and London, 2003), pp. 54–5, pp. 70–71. 2  Pelbárt Temesvári (Pelbartus de Temeswar) Pomerium sermonum Quadragesimalium [henceforth Pom. Quad.], II, 22, sermo de periculosissimo vitio ire, T, U.

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The dissolute daily existence of the friars did not emerge solely as a moral issue. It appears that people were more worried about the consequences of their tavern-going, in other words the neglect of the holy mass was more troubling than the tavern brawls themselves. “He heard that the friars got so drunk in the evenings, that they were unable to say mass in the mornings …, because of which the people became really indignant”— recalled János Vas from the village of Szentmihály. But as the witnesses also frequently remembered, “the friars … often went to the tavern to drink with peasants, and amused themselves with drinking through the time of vespers”. The sensitivity of the townsman Gergely Polgár was also offended by the fact (otherwise he would not have mentioned it at the hearing) that “he saw the Augustinian friars so drunk at times that they could hardly get back to the cloister, but even so he saw them saying mass the next day”. There seems to have been no essential difference as perceived by the faithful between cancelling services and celebrating them with a hangover. This is also suggested by the words of Lénárt Basó, a nobleman from Rádóc village: “He heard from Antal Baramo of Ják that the friar Balázs, a former Körmend Augustinian, took a large draught of the wine before starting mass, to the knowledge and in the sight of Antal Baramo”. This suggests that people expected the friars to perform ceremonies according to Church rules, which implies that they were surprisingly familiar with official regulations. After all, in conformity with the expectation behind Basó’s remark, the Church prescribed strict fasting for the officiating priest: “No one should dare to celebrate mass following the consumption of even a slight amount of food or drink”.3 The rule-centered celebration of liturgy was crucial, because this had an effect on the physical and spiritual state of the celebrating priest. The parish priest of Szentkirály expressed this precisely: “He saw in his own house how the friar Antal did not even look at his breviary for three days, and when he wanted to say mass in his church, seeing and knowing how inept the friar was, he did not allow him to celebrate”.4 Besides the knowledge of norms, the norm-oriented practice of the village pastoral clergy is also reflected by the fact that the incumbents in the environs of Körmend, as they related at the hearing, frequently made their confessions to the Augustinians, which means they took the ordinance seriously that

3 

Register, fol. 40v (Vas), fol. 63v (Pondor), fol. 90v (Polgár), 54r (Basó). On diocesan decrees see: A veszprémi egyház 1515. évi zsinati határozatai [The Synodal Decretals of the Diocese of Veszprém in 1515], ed. L. Solymosi (Budapest, 1997), p. 71: line 690. 4  Register, fol. 77r. Cf. the diocesan decree: “No one should say mass before listening to the matins”. A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 71: lines 688–9.

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possibly they should not say mass whilst in mortal sin.5 Pelbárt Temesvári (with reference to St. Augustine) explains the tenet of the automatic efficacy of the sacraments in several places in his writings: Each sacrament will cause harm to those who handle it in an unworthy manner, and in consequence also to those who partake of it unworthily. However, it is to the benefit of those who receive it from the former in a worthy state, because the sacraments themselves house the Holy Spirit whom they symbolize, and thus they bestow grace.6

But why did laypeople expect church rites to be performed regularly? Were they also worried about their priests? The working assumption (afterward to be put to test) seems more realistic that they were instead concerned about their own welfare: they may have considered that unworthy mediators would more likely mediate harm than help to them. In other words, in contrast to the ecclesiastical notion, they probably thought that the sins of the clergy would pollute the sacrament they handled and also those partaking in it.7 The danger arose most tangibly in the Eucharist, where it was the priest who transformed the bread and the wine into the body and blood of Christ, the vehicles of divine grace, by means of the authority bestowed on him. Following this, the laity received from his hand what he had prepared, and they had to be in an equally worthy state to partake of it. “Whoever receives a sacrament of the church unworthily, that is with his conscience in a state of mortal sin, commits a mortal sin each time he does this”—the Franciscan preacher taught his audience on the second Sunday of Lent. The lesser clergy could also have learned about the operation of

5 

The incumbents of Körmend, Hollós, and Halastó all claimed that they would confess in the friary. Register, fol. 88r, 77v, 47v. The chantry priest Albert of Nagyliszka also confessed on the day of the interrogation before mass, ibid. fol. 30v. Cf. the diocesan decree: A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 71: lines 696–700. 6  Temesvári, Pomerium de Tempore, Pars paschalis, 35, F, published in Temesvári Pelbárt válogatott írásai [The Selected Works of Pelbárt Temesvári], ed. S. V. Kovács (Budapest, 1982), p. 147. See also Temesvári, Pom. Quad., II, 14, L. 7  The issue of the sacramental powers of a sinful clergy is an old one. Medieval heretic movements (Wycliffites, some branches of Waldensians and Hussites) in their calling for clerical reform renewed, though with minute differences, the originally Donatist view which denied the validity of sacraments administered by ‘wicked’ priests. The ‘popular’ belief described here is however not so much about the uselessness of such priests and their works but rather their ‘efficient harmfulness’.

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the sacraments from synodal books: “The sacraments … serve each one in accordance with the heart or conscience with which he receives them”.8 But were there any channels through which the teachings of the Church reached the parishioners? And if they did, how did the parishioners understand and what did they make of these messages? The world of clerical admonitions, prayers, and ceremonies accompanying the liturgy of communion is worthy of attention in this respect. As opposed to the poor understanding of early modern preaching, as argued by a long-standing scholarly tradition based on complaints of contemporary clergy, the much shorter messages, which were not only passively heard but also repeated by parishioners or ritually enacted, may have elicited more attention and 9 comprehension. The parish priests had to warn their parishioners first and foremost that “no one should dare to take the Eucharist while in mortal sin, otherwise he eats and drinks judgment upon himself”.10 In the Pauline original, which served as a point of reference for medieval Eucharistic theology: “For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves”.11 That this was common knowledge is evidenced, just as the emotions it aimed to evoke, by its occurrence in a contemporary vernacular codex produced for a lay audience: “I come, my dear Lord Jesus Christ, to thy holy table. I fear, my Lord Jesus, the holy word, spoken by Apostle Saint Paul, who takes it worthily, takes eternal glory to himself, but who takes it unworthily, takes eternal damnation”.12 The elevated spirit of the moment, with the candles burning on the altar, together with the solemn ceremony also marked by the removal of head coverings, was further accentuated by the priestly admonition to fear the Eucharistic host and by the evocation of the day of final judgment.13 The tension surrounding the ceremony was further increased by the contradiction between the necessity of taking the Eucharist worthily and 8 

Temesvári, Pom. Quad., II, 14, K; A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 63: lines 470–71. 9  Cf. Arnold Hunt, The Art of Hearing: English Preachers and Their Audiences, 1590–1640 (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 60–116. 10  Repeated unaltered since 1382, see: A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 60: lines 398–401. In 1515, the standard admonition was amended: “The priest has to warn parishioners to be careful lest they take the sacrament to their damnation instead of their salvation”. Ibid. p. 99: lines 1421–2. 11  1, Cor. 11, 29. Pelbárt Temesvári quotes St. Paul too, Pom. Quad., II, 14, K. 12  Thewrewk-kódex. 1531 [Thewrewk-codex, 1531], ed. J. Balázs and G. Uhl, Régi Magyar Kódexek, 18 (Budapest, 1995), pp. 314–15. 13  A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 98: lines 1398–1406 (amendment), p. 61: lines 409–410 (amendment).

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the recognition of unworthiness due to one’s human condition. Although it was possible for everyone to be united in Christ after being purged from sin by the examination of conscience, penitence, and confession, in the prayer preceding the reception of the Eucharist one had to face once more the fact that: “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof”.14 It was only due to the merits of Christ that taking the Eucharist was still possible for an unworthy man. The prayers recited in the vernacular during the elevation were also built on this contradiction: Remove from me, my merciful Lord Jesus Christ, my gracelessness so that after being cleansed I may taste in my mind and body thy holy body worthily. And allow me that by eating of thy holy body and blood, which I wish to take unworthily, all my sins be forgiven.15

Repentance, respect, fear, unworthiness—the church sought to awaken such thoughts and emotions in parishioners preparing to unite with Christ in the host. Strangely enough, the force of these messages is marked by the fact (clearly in opposition to the intentions of the Church), that there were several parishioners who did not partake of the Eucharist at Easter. Some of the villagers heard at Körmend even shed some light on their motivations. For instance, András Bíró, a peasant from the village Nádasd, testified that “he had gone to confession earlier that year, but did not take the holy Eucharist because of his fierce enemies”. Miklós Borsos, another peasant in the area, lingered on his future intentions: “He had gone to confession earlier that year, but he did not take the Eucharist today because there was no parish priest in the village, but he would like to take it”. His words reveal that at Easter he did not confess. The case of the petty noble, Lukács Mindszenti of Hollós, is the most gripping, since he allows insight into the logic of his social and religious behavior: He had gone to confession earlier that year, but did not take the host because of his enemies. In fact, it appeared to his conscience that he should not partake of the Eucharist until he reconciled with his enemies, but as soon as he could come to an agreement with them, he would take the communion at once.16

14 

Ferenc A. Molnár, Két régi ima az oltáriszentségről [Two Old Prayers on the Eucharist], Nyelvtudományi Értekezések, 148 (Budapest, 2000), p. 49; A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 100: lines 1449–50 (amendment). 15  Debreczeni codex; Gömöry codex, ed. Gy. Volf, Nyelvemléktár, 11 (Budapest, 1882), p. 77. 16  Register, fol. 93r (Bíró), 81v (Borsos), 59v (Mindszenti).

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Enmity, most often a neighborhood or family dispute, seems to have been the typical reason for failing to take the Easter Eucharist. It is no coincidence that the date of the last confession and communion of a peasant from the village of Nádalja was omitted from the protocol: he accounted for his ignorance of the Augustinians’ lifestyle by the fact that he rarely visited town due to the hostility between one of his kin and the castellan of Körmend.17 Clerical reflections also support the idea that neighborhood conflicts played a large role in people abstaining from communion. The Franciscan preacher first of all mentions among recusants those who are stubbornly vindictive, and touches only later on those who show off with their unworthiness in the disguise of false humility, while leaving the ignorant and indifferent to the end.18 Moreover, one must notice that people being in a state of enmity went to confession, but refrained from taking the Eucharist, irrespective of their willingness for reconciliation (for instance, Lukács Mindszenti), or not (for example, András Bíró). This could be explained by the ecclesiastical control of the practice of confession: its omission entailed exclusion from the community of the faithful; or, more concretely, a prohibition on receiving the sacraments.19 Confessional letters served as a means of control: if someone confessed outside his parish, the confessional letter issued by the confessor had to be presented before receiving the Eucharist.20 The ritual of communion, charged with ambivalence, however, was not under such control. In fact, in certain cases it was the clergy itself that advised refraining from taking communion, lest it should be taken unworthily.21 Those who confessed but neglected to take communion 17 

Ibid. fol. 59r (Benedek Benke from Nádalja). Temesvári, Pom. Quad., II, 45, sermon for Palm Sunday, sermo de accidia vel negligentia confessionis et communionis faciende ex precepto ecclesie, U: “It is highly necessary to speak about the negligence of communion, since this is committed by many”. 19  See the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, Alberigo, Dosetti Perikle, Leonardi, and Prodi, p. 245, 21st decree. On the distinction between the liturgical excommunication (excommunicatio minor) in questions tied to the penitential practice and the social excommunication (excommunicatio maior) administered by church courts see Elizabeth Vodola, Excommunication in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1986), p. 36. 20  Jenő Házi, Sopron középkori egyháztörténete [The Ecclesiastical History of Sopron in the Middle Ages], Győregyházmegye múltjából, 6 (Sopron, 1939), p. 75 (Franciscans had to compile and submit to the parish priest the list of those whom they had absolved in confession.) 21  See the 21st decree of the Fourth Lateran Council and the diocesan ordinance admonishing the parish clergy to secretly urge the penitence and confession of 18 

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deserved only spiritual punishment: “Those who do not receive the host will receive multiple punishments from God, so this is to be avoided … as they will be damned forever”—warns the Franciscan preacher.22 And although the Church promised equal punishment for those receiving the Eucharist unworthily as for those who refused to take it—in other words, the prospect of iudicium and damnatio—it seems parishioners considered unworthy communion as more perilous. In their understanding, as can be inferred from the attitude of the witnesses at Körmend, taking unworthy communion would be as if they had taken poison. (This is, after all, far from being equal with the established ecclesiastical argument that people abstain from the Eucharist rather than consuming the host in a state of mortal sin.23) In other words, the body of Christ was considered not only a spiritual food, but also as affecting both the body and the soul in a beneficial or harmful manner. Whereas the mere sight of the host could save one from dying on that day,24 eating it unworthily, parishioners reckoned logically, could cause immediate sickness or death. Even if this popular understanding stood in sharp contrast to the orthodox theological notion of the divine grace being originally inherent in the sacrament, it could still be “rationally” deduced from what parishioners heard in the mass. After all, the warning of Saint Paul to the Corinthians concerning the coming judgment continued thus: “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep”.25 Furthermore, the interfusion of physical and spiritual dangers could have been also based on a literal interpretation of some of the most popular exempla. Speaking of the dangers of anger, Pelbárt Temesvári not only mentions the coming judgment, but also argues that “on the lips of such a man, the Lord’s Prayer becomes a curse against himself”, since he had lied by reciting, “forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us”.26 And if on Ash Wednesday, the sinful man who had reveled till morning almost choked

people with secret sins before letting them to communion, and to deter public and unconfessed sinners from communion. A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, pp. 60–61: lines 401–9. 22  Temesvári, Pom. Quad., II. 45, Z. 23  “Although the negligence of communion is a lesser sin compared to taking it in sin, nevertheless it is also a mortal sin”. Temesvári, Pom. Quad., II, Sermo 45, U. See also Nádor-kódex. 1508 [Nádor codex, 1508], ed. I. Pusztai, Régi Magyar Kódexek, 16 (Budapest, 1994), pp. 4–5. 24  Lajos Pásztor, A magyarság vallásos élete a Jagellók korában [The Religious Life of the Hungarians in the Jagiello-Era], (Budapest, 1940, reprint 2000), p. 72. 25  I, Cor., 11:30. 26  Temesvári, Pom. Quad., II, 22, sermo de periculosissimo vitio ire, U.

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when scattering the ashes on his head in regret,27 what could be expected by those who swallowed the host and the wine with a bad conscience? A tract on worthy and unworthy participation in the Eucharist, translated into the vernacular for Poor Clare nuns, makes the following observation: “Until now the Scripture has spoken of the bitter poison for those taking communion unworthily, and from here on continues with the sweet honey of the worthy communicant”. And further on: “When Christ’s esteemed blood is taken with good will, it will cure all the sicknesses of the soul … But if the holy remedy is taken in mortal sin, it will rather bring death upon death”.28 In consequence, the parishioners’ materialist approach to the workings of the sacred and the close intertwining of the spiritual and the physical could be deduced via a concrete interpretation of figurative ecclesiastical speech. But perhaps we can take one more step forward. Following the decree concerning the obligation of annual confession, the Fourth Lateran Council formulated that a sick person, before resorting to medical aid, on pain of excommunication, should turn to a priest first, “because the sickness of the body may at times result from sin”.29 This suggests that a wide variety of notions ranging from the official to the popular must have prevailed among even the late medieval clergy. The case of a small town priest in Western Hungary tangibly testifies to the interfusions of high and low culture. In October 1487, the judges of the Roman central court issuing letters of papal pardon for severe offences and crimes faced once again a dramatic testimony.30 Márton Ratt, pastoral priest in the market town of Rohonc (Rechnitz, today in Austria), asked to be absolved for committing the multiple crimes of homicide, heresy, and apostasy.31 In an armed defense of his church under attack he killed a man and caused the death of several others, actions he had concealed at his ordination; moreover, he celebrated mass during interdict. All this made him suffer a grievous spiritual and bodily crisis:

27 

Ibid. I, 1, F. Nádor-kódex. 1508, Pusztai, p. 6, lines 15–16. 29  Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, Alberigo, Dosetti Perikle, Leonardi, and Prodi, p. 245, decree 22. 30  On the court of the Holy Apostolic Penitentiary, which oversaw cases reserved for the pope's own judgment, see recently: Kirsi Salonen and Ludwig Schmugge, A Sip from the “Well of Grace”: Medieval Texts from the Apostolic Penitentiary (Washington, 2009), where earlier literature is cited. 31  Archivio Poenitentiaria Apostolica, Roma (APA), Registra Matrimonialium et Diversorum, vol. 37, fols 217v–18r. 28 

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Afterward, his reason being lessened, he consecrated the host for administering the sacrament to the faithful; and more than that, he told to some other priests that because of his manifold sins he did not believe that transubstantiation had taken place. Being shaken by that fear he fell so severely ill and reached such a state of madness that one day, wanting to die, he tried to hang himself and put a rope on his neck, as a result of which he harmed his throat and fell under excommunication.32

The priest, Márton, doubted his ability to perform transubstantiation effectively due to his state of sin. In other words, he assumed, similarly to the laity, that the workings of the sacred are influenced by the physical and moral world, which ran against the official conception whereby “the sacrament is not perfected by the righteousness of the minister or of the recipient … but by the power of God”.33 It seems that due to his heretical thoughts and words, which questioned the redeeming power of Christ’s death, he even had to excuse himself publicly (hereticales articulos insuper publice abiuraverit). It is his anxiety, however, and his ensuing illness and desperate actions, which indicate that Márton himself perceived that a serious issue touching upon the essence of belief was at hand. Additionally, the small-town priest sharing popular views, unlike many of his clerical colleagues, was an educated man: he had studied the liberal arts and probably theology as well at the University of Vienna in 1451.34 Consequentially, the official liturgy was a crucial experience for parishioners, who thus expected their priests to secure a safe contact with the spiritual when performing the liturgies. Clerical mediation, to the popular mind including the parochial clergy, could be hindered by the moral failures of the mediators.35 Sinful clergymen mediated to the parishioners physical danger instead of support in particular through the sacraments, which explains the common outcry and violent punishment of immoral friars on the streets of Körmend. Speaking more generally, 32 

Ibid. vol. 37, fol. 217v. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologie, Pars III, question 68, article 8. http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19950/pg19950.html (accessed July 5, 2013). 34  Anna Tüskés, Magyarországi diákok a bécsi egyetemen [Hungarian Students at the University of Vienna], Magyarországi diákok a középkori egyetemeken, 1 (Budapest, 2008), p. 187 (no. 3564). 35  Compare with the seventeenth-century example of a reformed community attesting to the similar expectations of the laity toward the parish clergy: Donald A. Spaeth, ‘Common Prayer? Popular observance of the Anglican liturgy in Restoration Wiltshire’, in Susan Wright (ed.), Parish, Church and People: Local Studies in Lay Religion 1350–1750 (London, 1988), pp. 125–51, pp. 131–2. 33 

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the commoners’ relationship toward the sacred, and its mediators, was rather pragmatic and ambivalent, similarly to the popular attitude toward the demonic, which was also considered to be suitable for both help and harm.36 The Community and the Sacrament We desire … that you should return to us … as soon as possible … after being reconciled to your enemies … as we would rather have a thousand love you, than for you to have one enemy. (Ferenc Nádasdi to his son, Tamás, 1536.) [If we had been informed of these events earlier], we would certainly have drowned this dog in the castle moat, … And if he had stood in our way, for this wasting of your assets we would have broken down and desolated the Kéthida house of this swine. … If we forgive him all this, the whole world will be amazed and deride us, as so much damage has been done here, that it cannot be counted. (Ferenc Nádasdi to his son, Tamás, on account of the plundering of his pawned assets, 1539.)37

Notwithstanding ostensible similarities, which suggest their underlying interaction, the lay and ecclesiastical understanding fundamentally differed with regard to the relationship of the social and the spiritual. Consider the previously quoted words of Lukács Mindszenti: “He had gone to confession earlier that year, but did not take the Eucharist because of his enemies. In fact, it appeared to his conscience, that he should not partake of the Eucharist until he reconciled with his enemies, but as soon as he could come to an agreement with them, he would take the communion at once”. These words indicate that the castellan considered reconciliation with his enemies to be a prerequisite of a good conscience, of worthy participation in the Eucharist. Those who similarly refused to take the Eucharist due to a pending enmity did not even consider it necessary to 36 

Scribner exemplifies the parallel lay approach of the demonic and the sacred with the notions with regard to harmful saints. Robert Scribner, ‘Cosmic Order and Daily Life: Sacred and Secular in Pre-industrial German Society’, in Scribner, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany, (London, 1987), p. 14. 37  Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (The National Archives of Hungary, MNL OL), Magyar Kamara Archívuma, Nádasdy család levéltára (E 185) [Archives of the Nádasdy Family], Missiles, Nádasdy Ferenc levelei Nádasdy Tamáshoz [Letters of Ferenc Nádasdy to his son Tamás], December 26, 1536; August 29, 1539, and September 7, 1539.

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justify their position, which suggests the self-explanatory nature of the scenario: if you have enemies, you do not take the Eucharist. In the codex prepared for the Sisters of Mercy, however, one reads the following with regard to the conditions of worthy communion: “Christ rightly forbids participation in this sacrament to the envious and hostile, saying: Don’t take the sons’ bread and throw it to the dogs”. In the same place, on the criteria: A fourth sign telling you whether you are worthy to take this sacrament, is when you recognize in yourself / that you hold no form of hatred and anger in your heart toward those who have sinned against you / But if they would sin yet more against you, you would be prepared to forgive them / So that the merciful God may forgive your great sin.38

There is a striking difference between the two approaches. While the layman considers the de facto settlement of the animosity to be necessary for worthy participation in the Eucharist, the theologian argues for the inner reconciliation of the heart. In order to better understand the mental horizons of Lukács (who most certainly did not read codices), which were obviously influenced by official discourse, we must take a closer look at the channels of mediation between the theologian and the village petty noble, as well as the messages passing between them. At the very beginning of the forty-day fast and the repentance that prepared parishioners for taking communion, the Franciscan preacher admonished all to put aside anger and to seek reconciliation and peace.39 Besides, the message of social harmony must have reached many when the clergy proclaimed from the pulpit the sins to be repented and confessed. Concerning the mortal sins of anger and hatred, they would quote the words of Christ: “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins”.40 Communal harmony was not only promoted by words, but also accomplished by liturgical acts during Holy Week, beginning with the Palm Sunday procession and the blessing of willow branches.41 38 

Nádor-kódex, 1508, Pusztai, p. 1, line 39. Temesvári, Pom. Quad., I, 1, N. 40  Matthew 6:15. Quoted by Temesvári, Pom. Quad., II, 22, sermo de periculosissimo vitio ire, dominica tertia quadragesimae, T. 41  Sándor Bálint, Karácsony, Húsvét, Pünkösd [Christmas, Easter, Pentecost], (Budapest, 1976), p. 195; Nándor Szíjártó, ‘Egy középkori misekönyvünk’[A Missal in Medieval Hungary], Theologia, 3 (1936): pp. 166–7. Cf. Robert W. Scribner, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987), pp. 25–6; Eamon Duffy, The Stripping off the Altars: Traditional Religion 39 

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The liturgy for Holy Thursday played a vital role in the process. At the high mass, which was celebrated with particular solemnity, in the section from the Gospel, Christ takes leave of his disciples: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you”. Priests using model sermons or the Bible could have amply supplemented this with other sections from the Gospels (such as “love your enemies too, and make peace with brothers you have harmed”) and expositions, first and foremost that “we are the members of Christ, so we must be in agreement, like members of the same body”.42 Then, in the public confession following the sermon, enumerating the sins in detail in order to facilitate self-examination, the priest and the people said together, “I have sinned against your holy divinity in my evil thoughts, in evil speech, and in my evil deeds … in doing harm and causing offence to my neighbor”.43 The public confession of sins in the mass originated from the ancient Holy Thursday liturgy for the reconciliation and episcopal absolution of those obliged to public penitence, which was still practiced in many places in the early-sixteenth century.44 The Holy Thursday liturgy was an event involving the reconciliation of church and the confessed in England 1400–1580 (New Haven, 1992), pp. 25–6. The Synod of Szepes in 1460 declared Holy Thursday and Holy Friday to be feast days. Sacra Concilia Ecclesiae Romano Catholicae in Regno Hungariae celebrata ab anno Christi MXVI usque ad annum MDCCXXXIV, ed. C. Péterffy (2 vols Posonii, 1741–42), vol. 1, p. 219. On the liturgy of Holy Friday on the basis of contemporary missals see József Dankó, ‘Magyar szertartási régiségek’ [Hungarian Litrugical Antiquities], Új Magyar Sion, 2 (1871): pp. 161–82. 42  Matthew 5:44. Quoted by Temesvári, Pom. Quad., I, 50, Holy Thursday. See also Érsekújvári codex [1529–1531], ed. Gy. Volf, Nyelvemléktár 9–10 (Budapest, 1888), pp. 559–60. 43  Confessio bona ad communicantes (Németújvár manuscript, from beginning of the sixteenth century). Edited in László N. Szelestei, ‘A középkori magyar nyelvű bűnvallóimáról’[On the Medieval Prayer of Public Confession], in István Bárdos and Margit Beke (eds), Egyházak a változó világban [Churches in the Ever Changing World], (Esztergom, 1991), pp. 293–8, p. 296. See moreover Josef A. Jungmann, Missarum solemnia (2 vols, Wien, 1949–58), vol. 1, pp. 608– 10 (offene Schuld). 44  The name of dies viridium, zöldcsütörtök, Gründonnerstag, green being the color of purity and forgiveness, derives from this. Ludwig Eisenhofer, Handbuch der Katolischen Liturgik (2 vols, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1932–3), vol. 1, p. 513; ‘Ordinarius Agriensis’ (1514), Régi Magyar Könyvtár [Old Hungarian Library], ed. K. Szabó (3 vols, Budapest: MTA, 1879–98), vol. 3, no. 197, pp. 37–9 (the liturgy of public penance). In the city of Pécs in southern Hungary, a married woman (aborting her child) was instructed by his confessor to join the public penitents performing penance collectively during the Holy Friday liturgy “secundum morem illius patrie”. APA, Registra Matrimonialium et Diversorum, vol. 5, fol. 187r (1456).

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and absolved congregation, including public sinners. The church left little doubt that peace between the parishioners was a necessary prerequisite for this, and this was clearly expressed in the liturgy of foot-washing, even for those who did not understand the Latin quote of Christ’s words spoken during the distribution of the supper that followed it: “A new commandment I give you: Love one another! As I have loved you, you must also love one another!”45 Through being cleansed and reunited, the members of the congregation prepared to be united with the risen Christ in the Eucharistic host.46 This was facilitated through merits of the sacrifice and the resurrection of the Son, by reconciliation with God the Father, which formed the central message of the Easter Sunday teaching.47 Before receiving the body of Christ, however, parishioners were questioned by the priest as to whether they had been to confession, and whether they had truly repented their sins and had relinquished any hatred.48 Upon their affirmative answer the familiar warning was issued once again: may they not receive the powerful sacrament to their condemnation, rather than their salvation. In accordance with the central message of the forty-day period preceding Easter communion, forgiveness and reconciliation were both urged from the pulpit and enacted in the liturgy, and as such the most important duty of the clergy was to mediate the reconciliation of enemies.49 45  John 13:34; ‘Ordinarius Agriensis’, pp. 41–2 (mandatum). In the city of Sopron, the parish priest performed foot-washing. Házi, Sopron, p. 334. Cf. Duffy, Stripping, pp. 28–9. 46  See the words of Christ: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them” John 6: 56 from the tractate on holy communion in the Nádor-kódex, Pusztai, p. 7. On the strong communal nature of the liturgy of transubstantiation see the sermon on the feast of Corpus Christi in Érsekújvári codex, Wolf, pp. 559–60. Luther also maintained that before taking communio one must remove enmities from the community and establish the “unity of hearts”. ‘Sermo de digna preparatione cordis pro suscipiendo Sacramento eucharistie’, WA vol. 1, p. 329. 47  Temesvári, Pomerium de Tempore, Pars Paschalis, 9, B: Christ “said to his disciples for various reasons: Peace I live with you. First of all out of the reason of love …, secondly, out of the reason of reconciliation, since through his death he reconciled the world with God, and professed peace between God and men”. See ibid. 4, N. 48  A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 99: lines 1418–22 (amendment). See also the liturgy of the last rite: the priest “has to ask whether he is willing to forgive to his enemies”. Ibid. p. 100: line 1469 (amendment). 49  “Finally, squabbling parties cannot be reconciled if the mediator is unsuitable to do that, since he is not on good terms with either party and is incapable to establish bonds of friendship”. A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 63: lines 481–3.

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The restoration of peace, however, was not limited to the symbolic sphere outlined above: the other sacramental rite of the Holy Week period— confession—served the same end. Mendicant theologians as authors of confession manuals argued that sacramental confession was a tribunal for the conscience (forum conscientiae). On the one hand, confession was characterized as a judicial act: the confessor as the sinner’s judge was obliged to impose punishment in the form of satisfaction for sins.50 As the physician of the soul at the same time, though, he had to select this so it would result in healing for the sinner.51 In practice, however, the concept concerning the power of binding and loosing52 facilitated the use of the sacrament of confession as a means of social control. “God absolves the sinner on accord of his repentance, but he remains bound in the eyes of the Church …. The confessor binds the sinner by obliging him to perform the satisfaction, and absolves the sinner when he dismisses his punishment or allows him to take the sacrament”,

50 

On confession manuals and confession as a means of social control see Thomas N. Tentler, ‘The Summa for Confessors as an Instrument of Social Control’, in Charles Trinkaus and Heiko A. Oberman, The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion,Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, 10 (Leiden 1974), pp. 103–25. The most popular manual, the so-called Summa Angelica was widely used in Hungary. See for example: Szentszéki regeszták. Iratok az egyházi bíráskodás történetéhez a középkori Magyarországon [Register of Records of Ecclesiastical Courts. Documents on the History of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in Medieval Hungary], ed. Gy. Bónis (Budapest, 1997), no. 4194; Remig Békefi, Káptalani iskolák története Magyarországon 1540-ig [The History of Chapter Schools until 1540 in Hungary], (Budapest, 1910), p. 433. 51  The relevant decree of the Fourth Lateran Council is echoed by Hungarian dioceses, see A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 56: 282–96 lines. The amendments here suggest moreover that the agenda of the fifteenth-century Church to use private confession as a means of educating and catechizing the laity also prevailed in Hungary, in both theory and practice. The confessant had to be familiar with the mortal sins, most importantly the Ten Commandments and the seven deadly sins, as well as be able to recite the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary as well as the prayer of confession. If the confessant did not know these, “the priest should teach them and say them together with him in the native language”. Ibid. p. 57, p. 59: lines 368–74. Together with the Credo/Symbolum this was what the church expected from parishioners to know. On the Ten Commandments in rhyme facilitating memorizing see A. Molnár, Két régi ima, p. 25. Cf. John Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1400–1700 (Oxford, 1985), pp. 49–50. 52  “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”. Matthew 18:18.

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as maintained by the only confession manual printed in Hungary.53 As we can see, sin and punishment inferred one another: the remission of sins was only possible upon fulfilment of the punishment. More precisely, the intention to perform the satisfaction was sufficient for absolution, but the state of grace could be restored only by its accomplishment.54 Although the automatic efficacy of divine grace working in the sacrament was thus restricted,55 in practice it helped turn the tribunal of conscience into a means of social control.56 The works of satisfaction, on the one hand, served to placate God for the injury committed against him by means of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving (satisfactio). On the other hand, it aimed to compensate for injustices and damages suffered by neighbors whether to their persons or their assets (restitutio),57 the manner of which was minutely regulated in manuals for confession.58 Moreover, the restitution of neighborly damages had to be accompanied by a begging of forgiveness, followed by reconciliation and mutual pardon of the parties. As some of the popular exempla also professed, the divine remission of sins could ensue only afterward.59 The very same concepts occur during the negotiation of feuds and neighborhood disputes mediated by private arbiters; most commonly: the 53  Antoninus Florentinus, Confessionale ([Buda], 1477), Régi Magyarországi Nyomtatványok (1473–1655) [Old Prints in Hungary], (3 vols, Budapest, 1971– 2000), vol. 1, no. 3. fol. 27r. 54  Ibid. fol. 26r, fols 88rv; Temesvári, Pom. Quad., I, 41, U. 55  Luther reinterpreted both contritio and confessio, while totally rejected the idea of satisfactio, which he considered a clerical invention to the exploitation of the faithful. D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (127 vols, Weimar, 1883–2009) (hereafter: WA), vol. 7, pp. 112–13. 56  Tentler, The Summa, p. 119; Bossy, Christianity, pp. 46–8. 57  Temesvári, Pom. Quad., I, 46, sermo de satisfactionis modo regulari et iteratione, A. 58  Florentinus, Confessionale, fols 93–128, de restitutionibus. Cf. Temesvári, Pom. Quad., 40, sermo de restitutione alienorum necessario debita; sermo 41, de restitutione quando et cui debeat fieri et quid de impotente. The central concepts of the Lenten sermon collection are contritio, ieiunium as well as penitentia, satisfacere, and restituere. 59  Florentinus, Confessionale, fols 101v–2r. In the Guilerin codex: confession was invalid in case of defectus remissionis, in other words if the confessor “is not willing to forgive for those who sinned against him”. Polikárp Radó, ‘A Guilerinkódex’[The Guilerin codex], Irodalomtörténet, 36 (1947): pp. 1–8, p. 4. Another example comes from Temesvári: a monk, who insulted one of his fellow monks and died, came back and appeared to the offended party asking for his forgiveness, in lack of which Christ refused to forgive the offender. Temesvári Pelbárt válogatott művei, V. Kovács, p. 308.

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disturbed concordia or pax should be restored by remunerating for material damages, named in the documents produced in the procedure as restitutio or satisfactio.60 It is not surprising that these documents, which served very practical ends, did not mention that the external legal settlement had to be accompanied by mutual pardoning. Yet one can find exceptional cases when the routinely repeated spoken words were also recorded in writing. An agreement reached with the mediation of arbiters in 1510 prescribed that Balázs Somai must pay twelve florins, then “together with honorable men and respectable women … he should request the pardon for his abuses and insults and make peace with Albert Szucsáki, who should then forgive Balázs Somai and make no further demands on him”.61 This suggests that the popular idea of conflict resolution, as expressed by Lukács Mindszenti, has shaped the workings of the ecclesiastical system of penance. In other words, the theological notion was “damaged” in practice, and penance worked according to the principle that the reconciliation of the heart and good conscience (also necessary for taking the sacrament) automatically followed external, legal agreements involving remuneration for damages. Consequently, the petty nobleman may have just as well been compelled by his confessor to settle his conflicts as he may have been dictated by his own conscience (as he claimed) to abstain from taking the Eucharist until he does so. The settlement of enmities and the reconciliation between enemies tended to receive particularly great stress on the occasion of deathbed penance and confession. The will of the petty nobleman György Hermán, a familiaris of Cardinal Tamás Bakócz, allows exceptional insight into these dramatic moments. At the end of a long illness, he added to the list of his generous pious legacies the following: On account of the death of a priest, who was killed because of me, although I have performed penance and confession, I have not yet made satisfaction for it; no matter how his death occurred, I ask merciful God to forgive me, so that my soul will not suffer punishment. And I therefore ask my friends, the nobleman Bertalan Tarródy of Szecsőd and László Rumi, to negotiate in this matter, and to pay, together with the heirs of my lands, the blood-fine in accordance with the agreement to be made with the other party.62

60  See for example the feud between the Erdődys and Sibriks before the town court of Körmend. ÖStA HHStA Arch. Erd., Kt. 95, fasc. 2, no. 14 (in the years 1568–70). 61  MNL OL DL 36399. 62  Ibid. DL 20899 [1500–21].

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This man, who was perhaps unable to perform satisfaction due to his illness, was rightly concerned about his soul: although anyone who had spent his whole life in sin could save his soul from eternal damnation at the last moment, the torments of purgatory awaited those who missed the opportunity to accomplish their sacramental satisfaction. To provide for the subsequent performance of satisfaction was urgent so as to mitigate such torments, which was therefore commonly entrusted to heirs and executors of last wills.63 The practice of intercession was also recommended by the church. Temesvári urged heirs to perform neglected satisfactions so as to evade their own damnation,64“since no one can enter paradise if not freed from all debt, so that neither he nor anyone else is liable for him”.65 Of course, reconciliation with one’s enemies on the deathbed was also necessary for them to partake in the last rites that would pave their way to eternal life. The mutual settlement of debts was desired for the worldly welfare of remaining relatives and friends alike.66 The principle of reciprocity was so deeply rooted in contemporary mentality and shaped everyday social relations so decisively that the above practices continued to form part of the rites surrounding death in the early modern era across all social strata and confessions.67 Nevertheless, there were also some who felt the urgency of making peace with their enemies exclusively on their deathbed, in the shadow of

63 

See for example the testaments of the burghers of Pozsony (Pressburg, today Bratislava), many of whom commissioned their heirs and last will executors to carry out the pilgrimages which themselves had failed to make (“ain kirchfart … die ich schuldig bin”): Theodor Ortvay, Geschichte der Stadt Preßburg (vol. II/part 4, Pressburg, 1903), pp. 388–9. 64  Temesvári P.:Pom. Quad. I. 41. Z: “si ipse in vita non potuit satisfacere debet in testamento restitutionem legare et heredibus iubere ne et illi damnentur”. Ibid. I. 45. sermo de satisfactionis necessitate per se vel per alium implende, X: “quando non potes per teipsum penitentiam implere precipue in mortis hora, dispone ex bonis tuis ut alter faciat pro te”. 65  Ibid. I. 45. U. 66  The settlement of debts comprised a standard part of testamentary dispositions. 67  For the norms and practice of market town-dwellers writing their testaments see Ildikó Kristóf, ‘“Rendeld el házadat, mert meghalsz”. A végrendelet készítés normái és formái a 16–17. századi magyarországi falvakban és mezővárosokban’ [“Sort out Your Affairs Because You Are about to Die”, in Katalin Benedek and Eszter Csonka Takács (eds), Démonikus és szakrális világok határán [On the Border of Demonic and Sacred Worlds], (Budapest, 1999), pp. 521–56, p. 544. Catholics tended to give an oral testament at the same time with making their last confession, see ibid. p. 536.

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eternal damnation (or not even there).68 We have met a few witnesses at Körmend also who, in contrast to Lukács Mindszenti, were less worried that they did not receive the Eucharist at Easter due to enmities. The fear of taking poison must have been understandably stronger than the concern that in this way they would be excluded from the ritual community that was united in the sacrament. Confession was also a rite that shaped the sacral community in a certain regard: while lining up during Holy Week, many may well have thus witnessed or heard ostensibly secret information. The most spectacular part of confession was when, as an act of transferring grace, the confessor laid his hand on the confessant’s head and blessed him, while saying the words of absolution.69 Whoever was refused this gesture suffered a stain on his honor, and his secret sin cut him off from the others: confession and communion both regulated the sacral community. Communion, though, also played a role in the life of the “real” community: refusal to attend the sacrament communicated hostile relations, while participating in it functioned as a public ritual declaring and sealing reconciliation, in a manager to that of shaking hands to validate an agreement before judges.70 The Reformation and the Sacrament The Eucharist and the system of penance, together with the associated messages and ceremonies, played an important role in regulating the 68 

For example, a young woman in contest with her father over her inheritance refused to attend to her dying father, saying: “God should not take him out of this world before he makes peace with all people”—which, as an exceptional case, also reinforces the argument that reconciliation and the settlement of debts was the norm. Úriszék, Varga, p. 152 (1618). 69  A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, p. 57: lines 306–13. Cf. David W. Myers, The Poor Sinning Folk: Confession and Conscience in Counter-Reformation Germany (Ithaka and London, 1996), p. 47. On the gesture of the imposition of hands in other contexts see József Pál and Edit Újvári, Szimbólumtár [A Treasury of Symbols], (Budapest, 2001), p. 268. 70  For cases where agreement in court was confirmed by the shaking of hands, see Középkori leveleink 1541-ig [Medieval Letters in Hungarian before 1541], ed. A. Hegedűs and L. Papp, Régi Magyar Levéltár, 1 (Budapest, 1991), p. 32; Szentszéki regeszták, Bónis, no. 4161 (1516). For early modern examples, when symbolic acts (among them the handshake) served to verify legal acts see: Ildikó Sz. Kristóf, ‘A számoktól a (jogi) szövegekig: alfabetizációtörténet, olvasástörténet vagy kommunikációtörténet?’ [From Numbers to (Legal) Texts: History of Alphabetization, History of Reading, or History of Communication?], Acta Papensia, 2 (2002): pp. 10–11.

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social and spiritual relationships of the laity, even if ritual practice was diverse: people confessed their sins and attended communion rarely or frequently, for the sake of appearances or out of sincere desire. The contemporary significance of these two closely related sacraments is also reinforced by the fact that they became the focus of criticism and attack by sixteenth-century reformers, and later the center of their new theological system. Evangelical thinkers did not primarily castigate clerical abuses and popular superstitions, but the official dogma of the church and the practices resulting from it. Luther, the Augustinian theologian, wrote in 1518 the following on confession as practiced, contrasting with his own recommendations: A grievous sin is committed by those who come to the Eucharist while clutching at the straw that they have made confession, that they know of no mortal sin, and they have performed their prayers beforehand and thus prepared themselves. All these eat and drink to their own judgment, as not only are they not worthy and pure through these things, but rather by means of their confidence in this purity, they become even more defiled. If, however, they believe and trust in the fact that they will obtain grace here, this faith alone will make them pure and worthy, which faith is not based on works, but on the purest, holiest and most solid word of Christ: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.71

Rejecting confession as a cleansing rite, as preparation for taking the Eucharist (while still retaining private confession), Luther radically reinterpreted the workings of the sacrament: it is not appropriately performed confession that makes us eligible to take the Eucharist, but a thirst for grace and the faith that through it we may obtain grace.72 He also considered superfluous the external conditions for the efficacy of sacramental confession, discussed at length in fifteenth-century manuals: the Franciscans of Szeged in Hungary listed for example nineteen such conditions.73 Instead of an active examination of conscience, then, he considers the repentance of sins and the intention to lead a righteous life to be necessary. Moreover, he argues for admitting the specific sin that prompted a person to make confession, rather than making a complete 71 

‘Instructio pro confessione peccatorum’ (1518), WA vol. 1, pp. 258–65, p. 264. Cf. ‘Sermo de digna preparatione cordis pro suscipiendo Sacramento Eucaristie’ (1518), ibid. pp. 329–34, pp. 330–31. 72 ‘ Instructio pro confessione peccatorum’, WA vol. 1, p. 264. 73  Radó, ‘A Guilerin-kódex’, p. 4. Cf. Temesvári, Pom. Quad., I, 26, sermo de confessionis sacre conditionibus sedecim a theologis positis.

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list of sins, which is impossible to do anyway.74 By rejecting the notion of clerical regularity, which arouses concern among laypeople, he once again speaks of faith: “Let it be immaterial whether a priest is in error, or is bound, or carelessly dispenses absolution, if you receive the word in sincerity and with faith … you are absolved in spite of that, and the whole totality of the sacrament is yours”.75 In a sermon of 1519 on the sacrament of penance, he also criticized the practice of penance in his era: Some think to obtain the forgiveness of sins by means of saint’s days and indulgences. They run here and there, either to Rome or to St. James, buy indulgences here and there. This is all in vain and in error. This will just make things worse, as God himself has to remit sins and bring peace to the heart. Others exert themselves with many good deeds, and fast and work too much, so much so that they injure their bodies … thinking that they can be released from their sins by means of their aggressive works, and thus obtain peace in their hearts. The error of both groups is that they want to do good works in advance, before their sins have been forgiven. Whereas sins must be forgiven first, before they do good works, and works do not cast out sin, but the casting out of sin does good works. Because good works must be done with a joyful heart and a good conscience toward God, that is, with the remission of sins.76

So instead of the “old” mechanism we have witnessed in the case of Lukács Mindszenti—whereby works of satisfaction are followed by a pure conscience and forgiveness—Luther proclaimed a new logic: we obtain forgiveness by our faith, which results in an appeased conscience, and enables us to live a righteous life. While for Lukács the external, objective situation resulted in a subjective state, for Luther this was reversed, as a consequence of which partaking in the sacraments, at least in principle, could change from a public ritual to an exchange between God and the individual.

74 

Luther, ‘Sermo de poenitentia’(1519), WA vol. 1, pp. 319–24, pp. 319–21; ‘Confitendi ratio’(1520), WA vol. 6, pp. 158–69, pp. 161–4. See, by contrast, Temesvári, Pom. Quad., I, 14, sermo de contritionis salubris formatione et sufficientia, D: “The first thing necessary to do is the examination of conscience, and the careful consideration of all mortal sins and their circumstances one by one”. 75  ‘Eyn Sermon von dem Sacrament der Buß’ (1519), WA vol. 2, pp. 714– 23, p. 719. On clerical (ir)regularity see Temesvári, Pom. Quad., I, 28, sermo de confessionis fructibus et reiteratione necessaria, D. 76  Luther, ‘Eyn Sermon von dem Sacrament der Buß’.

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It is not possible to trace here how this radically new understanding of the relationship between the physical and the spiritual, and thus the workings of the conscience, was appropriated by the laity. Nevertheless, we can look to David Sabean’s findings regarding the peasants of latesixteenth-century Lutheran Württemberg.77 In fact, this work was a chief influence on me and inspired my attempt to understand the behavior of the parishioners I have seen in late medieval Hungary, among the witnesses at Körmend, in abstaining from the Eucharist. Reading Sabean’s close study of church visitation records from rural parishes, I found it astonishing what an important role the ritual of communion played in the lives of individuals and communities of early modern Germany, and how peasants attributed a completely different meaning and function to it than was expected, and possibly enforced, by their local ministers and the higher ecclesiastical authorities. Our analysis above suggests that the villagers of late-sixteenth-century Protestant Württemberg thought in exactly the same way as the parishioners of late medieval Körmend. Let us consider Sabean’s conclusions: One could not go to communion with an agitated heart (or … a bad conscience). In such a state one was unworthy, and liable to bring down judgment on oneself. In almost every case, the agitated heart was the outcome of a quarrel, a running dispute, or a libel action. … Conflict was a civil matter to be settled in courts, and during the time that a matter was pending, no meal of reconciliation was possible. The sacrament could not bring a peaceful heart; rather, a peaceful heart was a precondition for taking the sacrament.78

The situation of the peasants of Württemberg, however, was essentially different from that of the people of Körmend: their behavior ran against the official Württemberg theology, which, following Luther, considered internal forgiveness sufficient for taking the sacrament and receiving grace. More strikingly, even the perception of the local village pastors and also of the higher ecclesiastical and secular authorities, differed from the new theological tenets. They all fixed one’s behavior—that is, the resolution of disputes—as a condition for taking the Lord’s Supper, and interpreting the Lutheran doctrine of sola gratia within existing power relations, they sought to use the ritual as a means of soliciting the obedience of their 77 

David Warren Sabean, ‘Communion and Community: The refusal to attend the Lord’s Supper in the sixteenth century’, in Sabean, Power in the Blood: Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 37–60. 78  Ibid. p. 46.

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subjects.79 Accordingly, the unworthy were banned from the monthly Lord’s Supper, and the impenitent may have even been thrown into jail, or were refused Christian burial.80 This might remind us of the late medieval penitential practice whereby those who did not go to confession would be threatened with exclusion from the sacral community.81 In other words, church control shifted from confession to communion. However, it pertains to my argument more directly that common folk, notwithstanding changing official discourses, seem to have continued to use the ritual of communion as a communal rite to publicize relations within the community—enmity by refusal; peace by participation—and thus continued considering the restoration of inner peace impossible without the external works of satisfaction. The villagers of late-sixteenth-century Württemberg, similarly to those of late medieval Hungary, conceived their relationship with God in terms of the reciprocity that pervaded their social relationships. Thus Luther was quite justified in alleging that his contemporaries “do not allow God to be merciful, and they only want him as a judge; as if he would not forgive anything freely, if it were not paid for beforehand”.82 In order to better understand the nature of the ambivalence central to the relationship between the laity and the friars, we have drastically decreased our scale of analysis and looked at the laity’s tactics of appropriating the official liturgies of confession and communion. The next chapter of the Körmend story will continue to investigate lay-clerical relations by focusing more on the local landlord, Péter Erdődy, whom we met cursorily before while looking at the politics of his powerful uncle, Cardinal Bakócz. While trying to illuminate further spheres and aspects of lay involvement in local religion, the central space of our narrative remains the local church. Instead of the duality of lay and clerical agendas,

79  On the similar function of social disciplining of communion on the hands of the Anglican lower and higher clergy see Spaeth, ‘Common Prayer’, p. 131. There is also sporadic evidence from the early-sixteenth century about the traditional parish clergy attempting (rather unsuccessfully) to resolve quarrels within the parish (as was their duty under canon law) by denying communion to those seeking it “out of charity”. Peter Marshall, The Catholic Priesthood and the English Reformation (Oxford, 1994), pp. 185–6. See moreover Duffy, The Voices of Morebath, pp. 47–64, where it is argued that the parish account book recorded by the vicar of the tiny village of Morebath in Devonshire from the 1520s served as a tool of healing and sustaining communal harmony. 80  Sabean, ‘Communion and Community’, passim. 81  A veszprémi egyház, Solymosi, pp. 75–76: lines 806–11. 82  Luther, ‘Eyn Sermon von dem Sacrament der Buß’.

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however, the distinction between communal and seigniorial attitudes and actions becomes central.

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Chapter 10

The Landlord By now we have examined the role the cardinal played in reforming the Augustinian friary, as well as the relationship between the residents of Körmend and the friars. Consequently, we have a much better sense of the complex process of implementing religious reform at both the level of high politics and popular, local politics. It seems therefore timely to address our initial question once again: which person or persons functioned as the key agent of religious reform in Körmend? At the outset, I proposed an alternative between the clergy and the laity, and we have closely inspected the actions of Cardinal Bakócz and the community in this market town. This analysis suggested that the laity comprised the driving force of reform, while the prelate engineered the process. The relationship between cloister and community oscillated for decades between conflict and cooperation. While the friars were an important media in the local economy of the sacred, the cloister buildings formed an essential means of fashioning communal identity. However, since the sacred economy was often endangered rather than enhanced by the friars, who proved to be unworthy mediators (and the ruinous cloister was more a source of shame than pride), the general tranquility of the streets was occasionally disturbed by clamorous scenes. The community tried everything to reform the Augustinians, ranging from derision to physical violence. At certain times, even the idea of driving the friars away was voiced. One of the witnesses recalled that people were not only talking about driving the friars away, but even had come to the decision that this was the only solution.1 Another eyewitness called the actions of the townspeople against the negligent mendicants a “rebellion”.2 György Király in turn stated that in the end the community did not dare to expel the friars. His words suggest that people perceived this to be beyond their authority, as a breach of prevailing norms and structures of power from which they refrained. How did the presence of the landlord alter the scope and limits of communal needs, aims, and action? In this chapter, I will revisit the relationship between the community and the friars by focusing on the role of another agent, the secular lord. The analysis of the role secular authorities played in late medieval religious reform will

1  2 

Register, fol. 72v. Ibid. fol. 68v.

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illuminate the reform of the friary as a process shaped within the dynamic of communal and seigniorial agendas. While the notion that the Reformation constituted a complete break with the Middle Ages has gained wide acceptance, the “observant” reform—in other words the foundation and reorganization of monasteries implemented by secular authorities (Klosterreform by territorial princes, city magistrates and landlords)—was self-evidently described as a process running against the dissolution of the same cloisters by the next generation of the Reformation. In the past thirty years, however, as the paradigm of confessionalization has gained ground and the new focus on continuities between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has come to the fore, the interpretive gaze has become keener and has noticed, instead of ruptures, the structural parallels and continuities between the two subsequent processes.3 Within this framework, both the late medieval reform and the Protestant reform, including the closure of religious houses, are considered to be movements that began within the Church, but as the laity eventually took the upper hand in channeling the process, in the end they brought about the “laicization of religion”. The church(es) that had thus evolved—so the argument goes—responded more actively to the needs of the laity and came increasingly under lay supervision.4 While historians unanimously interpreted both events within the macro-historical process of the laicization of religion, opinions diverge regarding the underlying 3 

For a succinct overview of the shifting focus of the historiographical perspective see: Heinz Schilling, ‘Reformation–Umbruch oder Gipfelpunkt eines Tempts des Réformes’, in Bernd Moeller (ed.), Die Frühe Reformation in Deutschland als Umbruch: wissenschaftliches Symposium des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 1996, Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte, 199 (Gütersloh, 1998), pp. 13–34. For late medieval and Reformation continuities of the reform activities of secular princes see Manfred Schulze, Fürsten und Reformation. Geistliche Reformpolitik weltlicher Fürsten vor der Reformation, Spätmittelalter und Reformation, Neue Reihe 2 (Tübingen, 1991); Dieter Stievermann,   Landesherrschaft und Klosterwesen im spätmittelalterlichen Württemberg (Sigmaringen, 1989). More recently, religious reform and territorial consolidation in German territories have been described as inseparable processes beginning in the fourteenth and culminating in the seventeenth centuries. William Bradford Smith, Reformation and the German Territorial State: Upper Franconia, 1300–1600 (Rochester, NY, 2008). 4  I use the term Paul Nyhus conceived to describe the laity’s active role in the practice of late medieval cloister reforms in particular, and the growing lay authority in church affairs in general. Paul L. Nyhus, ‘The Franciscan Observant Reform in Germany’, in Kaspar Elm (ed.), Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, Berliner Historische Studien, 14; Ordensstudien, 6 (Berlin, 1989), p. 217.

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intentions of actors. Did the laity strive to expand their power over the church, which is more easily recorded subsequently, or were people moved rather by religious goals and values? Answers vary on the matter, granting primacy in the minds of actors either to religious motives or to the expansion of political power, but narratives tend to be reduced to this simplistic alternative.5 Looking closely at the local events, in Körmend, I have become increasingly convinced, however, that the long-term processes captured by hindsight and the categories constructed to describe them cannot be adapted to the historical understanding and representation of everyday cultural practices. The experiences, choices, and decisions of social agents can hardly be reduced to an opposition of religious versus political variables.6 On the contrary, in order to capture the perspective of historical agents, a more flexible vocabulary and a more inclusive 5 

In addition to the literature citated in note 3, see also Walter Ziegler, ‘Reformation und Klosterauflösung. Ein ordensgeschichtlicher Vergleich’, in Elm (ed.), Reformbemühungen, pp. 585–614; Kaspar Elm, ‘Verfall und Erneuerung des Ordenswesen im Spätmittelalter. Forschungen und Forschungsaufgaben’, in Elm, Untersuchungen von Kloster und Stift, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck Instituts für Geschichte, 68; Studien zur Germania Sacra, 14 (Göttingen, 1980), pp. 188–238, pp. 224–30. 6  The question as to whether the masses were mobilized by the “sola fide” evangelical message about the new logic of salvation or the idea of “sola scriptura” (with its social consequences) remains a central dilemma of the theories designed to explain the reception of Lutheran ideas in Germany. See Heinrich Richard Schmidt, ‘Die Ethik der Laien in der Reformation’, Bernd Moeller (ed.), in Die Frühe Reformation in Deutschland als Umbruch: wissenschaftliches Symposium des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 1996, Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte, 199 (Gütersloh, 1998), pp. 333–70. The concentrated efforts to overcome the simplistic duality of religion versus politics in our understanding of the motives of individual and collective actors notwithstanding, the model has survived. See most lately Stuart Carroll, ‘The Rights of Violence’, Past and Present, 214 (2012), Supplement 7 (Ritual and Violence. Natalie Zemon Davies and Early Modern France, edited by Graeme Murdock, Penny Roberts, and Andrew Spicer): pp. 127–62. In contrast, for example Sabean’s account, informed by historical anthropology, successfully avoids this dual approach. David Warren Sabean, Power in the Blood. Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1992). For describing the process of conversion, “popular politics” has been another useful context in recent years. In these historical narratives, popular attitudes to and the practice of religious reform are described as a complex process of “adaptation”, “manipulation”, or “appropriation”, meaning a selective reordering of evangelical ideas by parishioners according to local political agendas. For a succinct summary of the literature see C. Scott Dixon, Contesting the Reformation (Oxford, 2012), pp. 103–10.

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frame of reference is necessary. Therefore, after reconstructing the role played by subsequent landlords of Körmend in religious reform in the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries, I will interpret their motives and actions as integral to the processes of the legitimization of power and aristocratic self-fashioning.7 Moreover, instead of trying to distinguish between the underlying political and religious agendas of religious reform, it seems more fruitful to acknowledge the fact that medieval (in fact, pre-modern) non-clerical authorities felt as responsible for the Christian religion and the church as they did for the building of society. Inevitably, as will be demonstrated below, the religious-devotional practices and the day-to-day practice of domination (Herrschaft) targeted to harness the loyalties of subjects were inseparable processes at the grassroots level. For contemporaries, the intersection of political and religious dynamics, to which modern sensibilities object, seemed natural.8 With regard to the relationship of town and landlord it is striking that the community did not—as we might assume based on the silence of witness testimonies on the matter—turn to the landlord, who was the patron of the cloister, with its grievances against the friars. The people of Körmend, however, were very proactive in their relations with other authorities: on occasion, they mobilized either their parish priest or the castellan against the friars, and they even requested the help of the Augustinian provincial in writing. Moreover, letters of complaint were a well-established manner of communication between peasant communities and landlords. Can we interpret this as an act of passive resistance reflecting the tense relationship between town and landlord? In other instances, however, the people of Körmend readily sought the mediation and protection of Péter Erdődy, who came to govern the earlier Ellerbach estates on behalf of Bakócz in 1505 and became heir and landlord by law in 1517.9 Erdődy never hesitated to petition the king’s protection for his peasants when they had suffered

7  I am utilizing Greenblatt’s concept of Renaissance self-fashioning, designed to denote a self-conscious shaping of personal and social identity, since it seems applicable to all historical periods. Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance SelfFashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago, 1980). 8  As Smith argues, “for the bishops of Bamberg the idea that religious reform could provide a foundation for the expansion of princely authority seemed natural”. Smith, Reformation, p. 92. 9  In that year Bakócz’s testament was approved by the king, who acknowledged that the cardinal’s extended estates might descend to his family rather than the church. Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (National Archives of Hungary, MNL OL), Mohács előtti Gyűjtemény (Pre-Mohács Collection), Diplomatikai Levéltár (Archive of Medieval Charters), 89092.

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damages by neighboring landlords to their persons or their goods.10 No surprise, then, that the witnesses commented recurrently that as peasants they were held in respect and honor by their landlord. And even if this is measured as a calculated platitude, one of the witnesses proudly added that Erdődy was a benevolent and generous landlord, which probably reveals something of their actual relationship. In sum, landlord and town seem to have cherished a harmonious relationship. Perhaps the community did not request the mediation of the patron of the friary, since he was doing what was expected of a good landlord anyway. This would also help to answer our initial dilemma as to why the community’s action did not extend in the end to the often-mentioned “rebellion”, the violent banishing of the friars. Lukács Mindszenti of Hollós, the earlier retainer (familiaris), recalled at the interrogation regarding his patron that “he often heard the magnificent (magnificus) lord János Ellerbach, the landlord of the town of Körmend, reproving the Augustinian friars for neglecting the divine services and threatening to expel them from their friary and replace them with others”.11 Another former retainer, Ferenc Nádasdi, also remembered the determined conduct of his patron, Ellerbach, who was landlord before Erdődy: János Ellerbach ... often intended to exclude and turn the Augustinian friars out from the religious house of Körmend on account of their unbounded negligence and evil life. ... He has also seen and heard as he threatened the friars with beating and other punishments unless they changed their lives, performed the divine services regularly, and took adequate care of their buildings. Had the landlord lived longer, the friars, he believes, would have already been expelled from the friary, since he knows that Ellerbach had already taken some steps to this end.12

What did Nádasdi mean when he referred to steps taken by the landlord? Did Ellerbach also—as Bakócz later did—intervene legally and turn to the general of the Augustinian order or the pope himself with a request for permission to reform the cloister as its patron? The above words of his men, Mindszenti and Nádasdi, who knew him face-to-face, suggest a more pragmatic and authoritative personality. I would therefore 10 

See Erdődy’s letter to King Louis II in which he claims that the cellars and wine of the inhabitants of Körmend within the territory of the neighboring manor of the monastery of Zalavár had been seized by the manor’s governor. Zsuzsanna Bándi, Körmend a Középkorban [Körmend in the Middle Ages], (Körmend, 1987), p. 60; MNL OL 49892 (1526). 11  Register, fol. 60v. 12  Ibid. fol. 70r.

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assume that Ellerbach started to negotiate the affairs of the friary straight away with the potential newcomers, that is, with the superiors of the religious order whom he had marked out to live in Körmend. The words of Lukács Mindszenti show that Ellerbach had also contacted the observant Franciscans: “he himself is fond of both orders, however, he would prefer that the Franciscans rather than the Augustinians stay in the friary, since the earlier landlords of Körmend had also wished, while they lived, to introduce the Franciscans to the friary”.13 Ellerbach was probably only prevented from realizing his goal by his sudden death in 1499. His successor, Péter Erdődy, encouraged the friars, as his more gentle manner dictated, with benevolent words to live as friars should live, and he promised them that he would be ready to support them in any possible way, providing them with food and clothing and helping them restore the devastated buildings, and as a sign of his promise, as the witness himself saw, lord Péter supplied them with bread and wine and made other provisions.14 As all his efforts were to no effect, however, his failure to reform the friars must have urged him to mobilize the authority of his prelate uncle in order to place the observant Franciscan friars in the place of the Augustinians. Beyond the noble retainers of landlords, the townspeople of Körmend most probably also knew about the intentions and the actions of their subsequent landlords. As Mátyás Tapasztó claimed at the hearing, “had the citizens of the town been able, they would already have banished the Augustinians friars, as their landlord at the time, the late János Ellerbach, also wanted to expel them, as far as he knows”.15 Town community and landlord shared the goal of reforming the friars, and although they did not coordinate their actions, they both strove to overcome the crisis of the friary using any means at hand. Some of the witnesses’ words even suggest that the community’s mental horizon and scope of action went beyond the goal of driving away the bad friars. The parish priest of Kölked, a village in the vicinity, heard the people murmuring only that “they want to expel the friars on their own and they would rather have the cloister empty than inhabited by these sinful friars to the scandal of the people”.16 But this appears to have been only one of several communal plans, and by no means the most ambitious. No coincidence perhaps that it was Gergely Polgár, a former town judge, who remembered that “at certain moments the indignation of 13  14  15  16 

Ibid. fol. 59v. Ibid. fols 62v−3r. Ibid. fol. 100v. Ibid. fol. 74r.

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the people rose so high that the citizens murmured that they would banish the negligent friars, who deserved to be driven out and replaced by others of a more religious standing”.17 The earlier judge might have had more profound knowledge of the plans and actions of the community, but we can venture little more than hypotheses regarding which religious order the townspeople wanted to inhabit the cloister instead of the Augustinians and how they attempted to implement this change. The preferences of the landlords of Körmend and the popularity of the observant Franciscans with all layers of society at the time suggest that the assumption that they also would have opted for the observant Franciscans is not unfounded. We have now seen that the landlords of Körmend, who were also patrons of the friary, all dedicated themselves to resolving the local crisis. Although with varied tones and diverse tools depending on differences in character, they all attempted first to prompt the Augustinians to mend their ways, and when they failed, they sought to reform religious life by inviting another religious order to the town. The fundamental uniformity beyond the variety in detail of their actions, which in other words seem to follow a cultural pattern, suggests that a mapping of their motives will render landlord-peasant relations more comprehensible, or framed more generally, the everyday practices of power beyond the pursuit of individual purposes will emerge. In the documents designed to record and publicize and, by the same token, to legitimate their actions of religious reform, secular authorities represented their intervention as a practice of private devotion: as a good deed, pleasing to God, intended to mend their ways and help them gain individual salvation. The witnesses echoed the words of the articles of the questionnaire construed by the Erdődys: driven by religious zeal (zelo fidei), their landlord reformed the cloister. Similarly, King Wladislaus (Jagiello) II (1490–1516), who in 1493 closed the monastery of Visegrád because of the scandals of the Benedictine friars and donated it to the Paulines, claimed to have acted pro salute anime nostre.18 In his petitions to Rome, Palatine Mihály Ország argued in 1467 that he wished to restore the desolate friary in Szécsény because of his own devotion to the Franciscan order and his desire to achieve salvation.19 The Erdődy family also cherished close links with the Franciscan order. In 1519, the brother of Péter—Simon, bishop of Zagreb—was granted a 17 

Ibid. fols 90rv. Oklevéltár a magyar királyi kegyúri jog történetéhez [Chartulary Concerning the History of the Ius Patronii of Hungarian Kings], ed. V. Fraknói (Budapest, 1899), pp. 55–6. 19  Bullarium Franciscanum [nova series], ed. Fr. U. Hüntemann and Fr. J. M. Pou Y Marti (3 vols, Quaracchi, 1929) vol. 1, no. 1397. 18 

Figure 10.1 Péter Erdődy’s Apparition at Hunting

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share in the spiritual merits accumulated by friars in return for the favors he did for the order.20 Even more interesting, in 1531 Péter founded a friary for the observant Franciscans. According to a memorandum preserved together with the deed of endowment, the magnate was hunting in Slavonia on his estates of Okics (Okić, Croatia) when Saint Leonard appeared with great splendor and exhorted him to found a friary in his honor at the site of the apparition. Péter obeyed this voice and had a religious house built for the Franciscans in the surroundings of the Okics castle and the market-town of Jasztrebarszka (Jastrebarsko, Croatia) and provided for their future expenses from the revenues of his estates. Apparitions at hunting were an established scenario accounting for the foundation of ecclesiastical institutions.21 His preference for the Franciscans, however, sheds some light on Péter’s personal tastes. “Starting from my youth, I have manifested a peculiar devotion to Saint Francis, the confessor of Christ and his order”, he confessed in the foundation letter. And again, he hoped to receive spiritual gains in return from the Franciscans: they were to intercede in their prayers to God on his behalf.22 The practice of private devotion, however, was almost always represented simultaneously as a gesture in service of the spiritual needs of subjects. The questionnaire in Körmend gave voice to the seigniorial perspective: the landlord reformed the friary “to promote religion and further the salvation of the Christian flock”. This was paraphrased by the parish priest of Hollós as follows: “so that the people’s devotion to God would increase”. A Körmend citizen thought that the reform “would dayby-day intensify the divine service and the devotion of the people”.23 As

20 

Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (ÖStA HHStA), Familienarchiv Erdődy (Arch. Erd.), Urkunden 11106. 21  See for example the account about King Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary (c. 1040–95), who, so the story goes, was urged by an angel who appeared to him while hunting to have a church built on the very spot, in Várad, in honor of the Virgin Mary, which he did. Képes Krónika [Illuminated Chronicle. Mark of Kalt’s Chronicle of the Deeds of the Hungarians], trans. L. Geréb (Budapest, 1971), p. 99. 22  ÖStA HHStA Arch. Erd., Urkunden 11211, November 27, 1531 (transcript). His heirs also provided for the sustenance of the friars: ibid. Acta devotionum et piorum institutorum, Elench, Kt. 130, no. 15. On the devastation of the towns of Okics and Jasztrebarszka in 1520 see Péter E. Kovács, ‘“Összetörték, elrabolták”. Egy szlavóniai mezőváros anyagi kultúrája az 1520. évi hatalmaskodás tükrében”’ [“Broken and Stolen”. The Material Culture of a Slavonian Market Town as Reflected by the Documents of an Act of Violence in 1520], Történelmi Szemle, 39 (1997): pp. 425–45. 23  Register, fol. 68v.

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repeated unanimously by landlords, they reformed the religious houses in order to increase the faith of the people and to further their salvation.24 Private and collective devotion, or, more precisely, the authority’s responsibility for the spiritual well-being of its subjects, were closely interwoven, but so were the sacred and the secular realms. Péter Erdődy admittedly hoped to provide for the terrestrial safety and prosperity of his family by raising the friary. The crisis of religious institutions and the occasional violent brawls and heated quarrels between the laymen and the friars that accompanied it and disturbed everyday tranquility was undesirable for the secular authority. And such street conflicts were foreseeable when the embittered or outraged townsmen lost their temper, as probably happened not only in Körmend but also in the streets of Újlak (Ilok, Croatia).25 The anxieties of the authorities must have intensified when disrespect for the local friars tended to turn into a general anticlerical attitude on the side of the laity. As some of the witnesses in Körmend confessed, the contempt of the people extended beyond the deviant friars to their religious order and even the entire clergy.26 Any kind of mistrust or challenge of well-established power structures could not be watched idly by those in positions of authority. Kings and landlords alike expected that the “new friars of good life” would provide an example of model behavior for the town: “more than anyone else, with their holy life, they give a daily example for the faithful, by conduct and word alike, worthy of being followed”.27 As King Matthias wrote in his reform edict (1489) of all religious orders in the country: “our forerunners, kings and subjects alike, enjoyed peace and security afforded by the dedicated prayers of the religious to God. It is our duty to follow in their sacred footsteps”.28 The discourse and its central notions concerning the religious reform activity of secular authorities help us understand them as integral to the process of domination at both the local and national levels. In other words, the authorities’ endeavors to provide regular divine service and friars of 24 

See the petitions of Mihály Ország, the Pálócis and Miklós Újlaki in Bullarium Franciscanum, Hüntemann and Pou Y Marti, vol. 1, no. 1397 (1467); MNL OL, Fényképgyűjtemény (Photo Collection), Diplomatikai Fényképgyűjtemény (Photo Collection of Medieval Charters) 275516, 275506. 25  “The inhabitants of the town and its surroundings … cannot bear further the presence of the infamous friars in the cloister”. MNL OL DF 275506. 26  Register, fols 71r, 74r. 27  The reform decree of King Wladislaus II in 1493 published by Oklevéltár, Fraknói, pp. 55–6. 28  A pannonhalmi Szent Benedek-rend története [The History of the Order of Saint Benedict of Mons Sacer Pannoniae], ed. L. Erdélyi (12b vols, Budapest, 1902–12), vol. 3, 540–42.

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exemplary lifestyles in monasteries were a symbolic means of soliciting the obedience of their subjects. In this context, the late medieval practice of Hungarian monarchs of transferring monastic houses of substantial wealth but ebbing lay demand to the mendicant orders or the hermit Paulines becomes understandable. Even if such transfers were disadvantageous economically, they functioned as gestures to legitimate and stabilize existing structures of power.29 And returning to the case of Körmend, the fact that the anxiety, rage, and contempt of the townspeople toward the friars never amounted in practice to a “rebellion” must have been due to the activities of landlords. As subsequent seigneurs all performed their duties as patrons of the friary, in the end this stopped the community from assuming its role.30 So far we have seen that communal and seigniorial interests ran parallel. Commoners and authorities alike strove to use all available means at hand to restore the religious life of the friary for both sacral and secular benefits, including the salvation of the soul and the restoration of civic peace and communal unity. The communal drive for reform, however, reached a stalemate and was successfully accelerated and channeled by seigniorial intervention. How can we account for the fact, then, that their shared interests notwithstanding, even if we find no traces of direct communal and seigniorial cooperation, the reform of the friary, in the long run, ended in failure? Rather surprisingly, in later years the Erdődys, going back on their initial promises and the repeated requests of the Franciscans, neglected to restore the ruinous cloister buildings. Since the costs of restoration surpassed the financial capacities of both the town and the Franciscans, the friars eventually abandoned the uncomfortable place in 1524.31 The failure of Péter Erdődy to restore the friary, either out of disinterest or 29 

András Kubinyi, ‘Mátyás király és a monasztikus rendek’ [King Matthias and the Monastic Orders], in Kubinyi, Főpapok, egyházi intézmények és vallásosság a középkori Magyarországon [Prelates, Ecclesiastical Institutions and Religiosity in Medieval Hungary], (Budapest, 1999), pp. 239–48, p. 246, where the author suggests that the king undertook the economic expenses in return for religious benefits. 30  Natalie Zemon Davis, ‘The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in SixteenthCentury France’, Past and Present, 59 (1973): pp. 51–91. 31  See the letter of Pope Clement VII in 1524, in which, at the request of the observant Franciscan provincial, he grants a license for the friars to leave the friary of Körmend due to the unsuitable conditions. Egyháztörténelmi Emlékek a Magyarországi Hitújítás korából [Sources on Church History at the Time of the Reformation], ed.V. Bunyitay, R. Rapaics, J. Karácsonyi, F. Kollányi, and J. Lukcsics (5 vols, Budapest, 1902–12), vol. 1, no. 127.

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parsimony, renders the religious reform at Körmend an exception. Other landlords, who similarly engineered the renewal of the religious houses in the territory of their estates, never hesitated to invest financially. If we compare the circumstances of the above cases of reform, one important difference emerges. The market towns of Újlak, Sárospatak, and Szécsény, where the reformed monasteries in question stood, were at the same time the residences of their landlords, who came from the highest echelons of society.32 The landlords and their families, the members of their households, often stayed in the castles adjacent to the market towns, which also functioned as administrative centers and burial places for their kindred. The cloister church of Újlak, the ancient estate from which the family took its name, served obviously also as a family burial place. The fact that the voivode of Transylvania and ban of Macsó (today the Mačva region, Serbia) and Slavonia, Miklós Újlaki, who was one of the most powerful aristocrats of the time, intended to be buried in the cloister church, as he confessed in his petition to the pope, lent special importance to the reform. (He and later his son were indeed buried here.33) His very generous donation to the friary, which exceeded the actual value of its properties, was meant to add to the grandeur of the religious institution where his kindred lay buried, and the prayers of the observant friars, expected in return, were to curb the pains of purgatory endured by his kinsmen.34 The concern for the salvation of the soul also played a central role in the case of the Franciscan friary of Sárospatak. In their petition to the pope, the Pálóci family, which had been the landlord family of the town since 1429, depicted the time of the friary’s foundation in the thirteenth century as a golden age (a great number of friars performing the divine 32  On Szécsény and Újlak see: András Kubinyi, ‘Nagybirtok és főúri rezidencia Magyarországon a XV. század közepétől Mohácsig ’[Great Estates and Aristocratic Residences in Hungary from the Middle of the Fifteenth Century to Mohács], A Tapolcai Városi Múzeum Közleményei, 2 (1991): pp. 214–27, p. 225. More on Újlak: Tamás Fedeles, ‘Egy középkori főúri család vallásossága. Az Újlakiak példája’ [The Piety of a Medieval Magnate Family. The Case of the Újlakis], Századok, 145, no. 2 (2011): pp. 377−418. On Sárospatak: Mihály Détshy, ‘Az utolsó Pálóci végrendelete’ [The Testament of the Last Palóci], in Enikő Csukovits (ed.), Tanulmányok Borsa Iván tiszteletére [Studies in Honor of Iván Borsa], (Budapest, 1998), pp. 37–44. 33  János Karácsonyi, Szt. Ferencz rendjének története Magyarországon 1711-ig [The History of the Franciscan Order in Hungary before 1711], (2 vols, Budapest, 1922–4), vol. 1, p. 282; vol. 2, pp. 175–6; Stanko Andrić, The Miracles of St. John of Capistran (Budapest, 2000), pp. 42–3. 34  See the mandate of Pope Nicholas V to the archbishop of Esztergom on May 5, 1451, MNL OL DF 275506.

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services in the richly endowed cloister) which they now wished to restore: “In those days a great number of magnates and noblemen, who supported several friars with their pious alms, had decided to have their sepulchers in the church of the friars”.35 The practice of the members of the royal court and household, who often stayed in Sárospatak at the time, served as a model for the reform activities and aims of the Pálóci family two centuries later. Beyond the overtly displayed sacral goals, the reform of monasteries, as had been the case at the time of their foundation in other instances, was part of the seigniorial agenda to build or develop their residences. This, of course, at the same time served communal prosperity and interests too, the town of Újlak being a case in point once again. The capital of the region of Syrmia thrived on wine-growing and wine trade, but its urban development was closely tied to the political aspirations of Miklós Újlaki. As the ban of Slavonia and Macsó, he wanted to create an autonomous region from the territories under his command with Újlak as its center, which led to the town’s legal promotion from oppidum to civitas, granted by a royal privilege in 1453. At the same time, the reform of the religious house was also underway. After the investigation ordered by the pope ended in December 1451, the voivode set to restore the cloister buildings. The observant friars were willing to move in only at the pope’s special disposal in 1455.36 The reform of the friary formed an integral part of the urbanization and residence-developing process. With their preaching, school, church, and exemplary life of modesty, the observant Franciscans (the ban must have hoped) would widen the mental and spiritual horizons of the inhabitants and stabilize everyday tranquility, on which prosperity depended. It is no mere chance that the ban also founded a friary for the observant Franciscans in the centers of his other two large bodies of estates, in Galgóc (Hlohovec, Slovakia) and in Transdanubian Palota.37 In Újlak, Miklós invested the landed properties of the earlier conventual cloister to found another hospital at the foot of his castle, a fact that undermines the traditional view according to which secularization was the driving

35 

Ibid. DF 275516. On the town’s privileges: Antal Hegedűs, Népélet és jogalkotás a középkori Újlakon [Popular Life and the Making of Law in Medieval Szabadka (Subotica, Serbia)], (Újvidék, 1983), pp. 102–15, pp. 193–203. The report of the archbishop of Esztergom on the results of the investigation: MNL OL DF 275507. The papal breve: XV. századi pápák oklevelei [Breves of Fifteenth-Century Popes], ed. P. Lukcsics (2 vols, Budapest, 1931–8), vol. 2, no. 1346. 37  Karácsonyi, Szt. Ferencz rendjének története, vol. 2, p. 53, p. 209. 36 

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force of the observant reform guided by secular authorities.38 Meanwhile, the privileges of other urban religious institutions were also extended.39 Sacrality became the decisive factor in Újlak’s urban development for a long time, when the observant Franciscan Giovanni da Capestrano, whose preaching during the anti-Ottoman crusade and victorious battle at Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade in Serbia) was met with great enthusiasm among the people, died here in 1456. The voivode launched the campaign promoting Capistrano as a saint at his deathbed and gave support to the popular veneration of his body, which eventually turned the remote little town into a famous place of pilgrimage.40 The reform of the Körmend friary seems to have been an enterprise of a more limited character. It did not form part of a grandiose plan to create a splendid burial place for an aristocratic family, nor was it integrated into a more general scheme of estate development and urbanization. Can we perhaps attribute the final failure of the reform to this missing context? Péter Erdődy kept his residence in Monyorókerék (now Eberau in Austria), the headquarters of his estates in Vas County, which was well suited to the purpose due to the castle-construction works and foundation of ecclesiastical institutions (a parish church and Pauline house) carried out by his predecessors, the Ellerbachs.41 On the other hand, Körmend at that time had no large estates attached to it, and although Erdődy turned the castellum here into a castle by fortification works, he had no earnest reason to spend much time there. He even seems to have stayed more frequently in the castle of Somló, the center of his estates in Veszprém County, which is indicated by the fact that he kept a portable altar here, which enabled him to hear mass in the castle. On his Slavonian estates, he furnished his residence in Monoszló (in Kőrös County, today Moslavina in 38 

On the hospital foundation: mandate of Pope Nicholas V to the archbishop of Esztergom on May 5, 1451, MNL OL DF 275506; Újlaki’s last will mentions the building works of the Galgóc friary dedicated to St. Lawrence and of the Galgóc hospital, to be finished by the executors of his last will. MNL OL DL 17162 (February 14, 1471). For a discussion of the secularization thesis see Bernhard Neidiger, ‘Stadtregiment und Klosterreform in Basel’, in Elm (ed.), Reformbemühungen, pp. 562–4. 39  XV. századi pápák, Lukcsics, vol. 2, no. 1231–3. 40  Andrić, The Miracles of St. John of Capistran, p. 69, pp. 91–6, p. 159. Johannes Hofer, Ein Leben im Kampf um die Reform der Kirche (2 vols, Heidelberg, 1964–5), vol. 2, p. 413. 41  In addition to Erdődy’s choice of name (de Monyorokerek, sometimes de Monozlo et Monyorokerek), the fact that he was summoned to court from Monyorókerék also attests to the place of his residence. ÖStA HHStA Arch. Erd., Urkunden 10268 (1517).

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Croatia), the sacral character of which was provided by a friary founded for the observant Franciscans in 1460. Finally, the castles and market towns of Okics–Jasztrebarszka–Lipovec (Okić, Jastrebarsko, and Lipovec in Croatia) appear to have formed the nucleus of his estates in Zagreb County.42 Consequently, if Erdődy kept his residence elsewhere, the representation of the sacrality of his seigniorial authority played no role in reforming the cloister of Körmend. This would explain why he did not invest the time and money necessary in order to restore the cloister buildings. The various strands of this inquiry, especially some of the earlier thoughts on communal action and the present discussion of seigniorial reform, suggest the conclusion that the landlord’s intervention in the life of the Körmend friary seems to have been primarily triggered by clerical abuses and the discontent of the laity. With the observant Franciscans appearing on the scene, however, the scandals stopped and the feeling of insecurity quickly dissipated. The conduct of the new friars after the passing of a year met communal expectations, or at least the witnesses whose testimony has survived attested to a feeling of general satisfaction. The Franciscans made the most pressing repairs to the buildings and were said even to have tidied up the gardens. Once the daily routine set in again, the conditions of the cloister buildings, which did not serve Erdődy as a tool of aristocratic self-fashioning, were of no further interest to him, which reinforces the argument according to which the drive for reform lay with the community. Reform was shaped in the intricate interplay of communal and seigniorial politics, in which spiritual and political goals closely intertwined. Their common desire to secure private and collective salvation and civic peace proved adequate motivation to expel the disobedient Augustinian friars. In the long run, however, their interests diverged: for the community the cloister was an important factor, which both shaped and represented civic identity. Since communal financial resources were insufficient to accomplish the restoration, however, the fate of the friary was sealed.

42 

On the Körmend castle: Tibor Koppány, Körmend városának építéstörténete [The Architectural History of the Town of Körmend] (Körmend, 1986), pp. 20– 23. Bakócz’s license to keep a portable altar in Somló: ÖStA HHStA Arch. Erd., Urkunden 10237 (1507). In case of his death, Erdődy assigned as a residence for his widow the Somló Castle in 1525. ÖStA HHStA Fam. Arch. Erd., Elench 130 (1525). On the Franciscan house of Monoszló: Karácsonyi, Szt. Ferencz rendjének története, vol. 2, p. 119. On Okics–Jasztrebarszka–Lipovec: Kovács, ‘Összetörték, elrabolták’, pp. 425–7.

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Map 10.1 Erdődy Estates in the Early Sixteenth Century

Chapter 11

Conclusion: Lay Agency in Reform and Reformation With the preceding chapter, we have placed the reform of the Körmend cloister within the long-term process of growing lay agency in church affairs. More specifically, we have concluded that the religious reform of the friary in Körmend was shaped decisively within a dynamic of communal and seigniorial needs whose spiritual and political aspects were inseparable. Moreover, we attributed the initial success of implementing reform to the overlaps of the above agendas. In other words, subsequent lords of the town deemed it advisable to take charge of religious reform initiated by energy that came “from below”, but which served at the same time their own political interests of restoring peace and stabilizing power structures. The final failure of reform stemmed, in turn, from the divergence of communal and seigniorial action. In this chapter, I draw general lessons from the Körmend story. To what extent was the active involvement of community and landlord typical in bringing about religious change? To answer this question, I compare findings concerning lay agency in monastic reform with the achievements of communities and landlords in religious activities centered around the parish church, which has remained (and this constitutes a divergence from western European tendencies) the primary focus of lay devotion, even if the mendicant ethos has increasingly attracted the laity.1 Thus I recreate the original context and reintegrate what has been separated only by historical discourses: local religion centered around two institutions, the friary, if there was one, and the parish church, with their related institutions, such as hospitals, schools, and confraternities. In order to be able to reflect on continuities and changes, I also extend the timeframe of the inquiry: how did the scope and limits of communal and seigniorial action—facilitated exceptionally ample space in face of the disrupted medieval state and church structures—change during the early phase of the Protestant Reformation in the Hungarian countryside? 1 

Marie-Madeleine Cevins, L’Église dans les villes hongroises à la fin du Moyan Age, vers 1320−vers 1490 (Paris and Budapest, 2003); Carmen Florea, ‘The Third Path: Charity and Devotion in Late Medieval Transylvanian Towns’, in Maria Crăciun and Elaine Fulton (eds), Communities of Devotion. Religious Orders and Society in East Central Europe, 1450−1800 (Farnham, 2011), pp. 91−120.

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The Election of Rural Clergymen and Historiography The approach put forward below was prompted by the much contested, but established secularization thesis according to which the Protestant Reformation created something originally new by turning the medieval church run by the clergy into a church of the laity. As is often claimed, under the impact of the new teachings, communities that previously were conceptualized as entirely passive suddenly realized their rights and began to demand the right to choose their own priests and supervise and control church incomes and properties.2 A more nuanced understanding of the late medieval situation in general and villagers’ busy piety and readiness to run local churches in order to further their work in particular may help us evaluate more precisely the nature of sixteenth century religious changes. From a more general perspective, instead of assuming that practices automatically followed from ideas and that commoners passively followed the dictates of the elite, I again emphasize the constituent role of everyday practices in bringing about social and religious change. The analysis is facilitated, furthermore, by an exceptionally rich source material on rural religion in the middle of the sixteenth century. By this time, the new teachings, which were first embraced in the royal court (where Mary of Habsburg arrived in the early 1520s with her courtiers) and the German-speaking cities, had reached the countryside, including both the Hungarian nobility and peasantry.3 The detailed records of the church visitation carried out in the northwestern regions of the country are therefore the early fruits of confessional rivalry. The commissioners of the reform-minded Catholic archbishop, Miklós Oláh (1493–1568), spared no time or energy to record what they had heard and seen in tiny villages and small towns in preparation for the national synod designed to restrain 2  See the works of Steven Ozment ans Lawrence Stone and their “liberal protestant” followers who, with a firm belief in progress, argue for the revolutionary impact of the reformation in its religious, social, cultural and political aspects alike. Steven Ozment, Protestants: The Birth of a Revolution (New York, 1992); Lawrence Stone, ‘The Educational Revolution in England’, Past and Present, 28 (1964): pp. 41−80. The same argument is applied in service of an apology for Roman Catholicism against the secularization of the Reformation most recently by Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation. How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge, Ma, 2012). 3  On the early reformation in Hungary see two accounts that complement each other: Katalin Péter, ‘Hungary’, in Robert Scribner, Roy Porter, and Mikuláš Teich (eds), The Reformation in National Context (Cambridge, 1994) pp. 150−67; Zoltán Csepregi, ‘Konfessionsbildung und Einheitsbestrebungen im Königreich Ungarn zur Regierungszeit Ferdinands I’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 94 (2003): pp. 243−75.

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the epidemic spread of “heresy”.4 For the modern reader, their descriptions open a window onto communities in the process of religious change. This change can perhaps best be grasped in the way local clergymen were elected and appointed to parochial positions. The ability of lay agents to elect and call reformed friars into monasteries was the key element, as we have seen, of observant reforms. It was also a crucial moment in the sixteenth century. As Robert Scribner observed about the early Reformation in German cities: What made the Reformation a movement rather than a collection of abstract theological ideas was the attempt of ordinary people to put their belief into action. The most important step was to obtain a godly preacher who would proclaim the Word and share in the building of some kind of revivified Christian community. For this reason, the efforts of little communities ... to find and keep a godly preacher are central to the understanding of Reformation.5

As for the countryside, villages and small towns with feudal authorities above them (which are our primary concern), we can build on Peter Blickle’s convincing claim that city and village shared their basic reformation agenda of “communalizing the church”, the crucial element of which was the appointment of pastors.6 It seems all the more intriguing to approach the appointment of clergy in the interplay of communal and seigniorial attitudes and practices, since historical scholarship, and Hungarian historians in particular, tends to portray religious change as orchestrated either by the one or the other. As opposed to the simplistic models of “from above” or “from below”, the historical reality presents itself, at a closer look, to be more intricate and complex.7 The first modern master narratives of the Hungarian reformation, in accordance with European trends of historical writing 4 

The visitation records are published in Reformné hnutie v arcibiskupstve ostrihomskom do r. 1564 (Reformatio in archidioecesi Strigoniensi ad a. 1564), ed. V. Bucko (Bratislava, 1939). 5  Scribner, ‘Preachers and People in the German Towns’, in Scribner, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987) p. 124. 6  Peter Blickle, The Communal Reformation: the Quest for Salvation in Sixteenth-Century Germany, trans. T. Dunlap (Atlantic Highways, New Jersey, 1992; German edn 1985), pp. 98−110. 7  Some of the recent works seeking to overcome such artificial polarities include David Mayes, Communal Christianity: The Life and Loss of a Peasant Vision in Early Modern Germany (Leiden, 2004) and Ethan H. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003).

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of the interwar period, are organized around the alleged “heroes” of the reformation, converted lords and “star” Lutheran pastors working in their courts. Consequently, their narratives rest on the assumption that tenants had to follow the new faith of their landlord passively. This means, on the one hand, that these narratives make no distinction between aristocratic private devotion and patronal conduct, which we observed with regard to cloister reforms conducted by landlords. On the other hand, by conjecturing that the right of patronage mechanically governed social behavior, they leave no space whatsoever for communal action.8 Against this background, the recent account of the rural reformation can be read as a counter narrative. Here, the protagonists are peasants who freely choose their religion, since they can find their ways in matters of religion autonomously and can make rational decisions. Their freedom of religious choice is facilitated, as the argument goes, by the indifference of their landlords. The apparent cases when Lutheran patron lords kept evangelical preachers in their castle churches yet did not remove the old village clergy from their estates made the author conclude that they were simply not interested in the religion (in what kind of divine service they attended and who performed it for them) of their subjects, just as they did not interfere with the choice of spouse and other personal affairs of their serfs. The author accounts for this seigniorial attitude within the process of domination: after the open conflict between lords and peasants in the 1514 peasant revolt, the issue of religion became neither a tool with which to elicit the obedience of subjects nor a means of everyday peasant resistance in the sixteenth century.9 My aim here is to draw a more balanced picture of the ways in which communities and landlords participated in implementing religious reform. First of all, the large discrepancy of seigniorial action with regards to the friary and parish church is astonishing. The suggested indifference of lords to the religion of their subjects runs against the sense of responsibility for the spiritual well-being of parishioners manifested by Péter Erdődy and other secular authorities of previous generations through their acts of reforming religious houses. The figure of the indifferent landlord emerged from the church visitation records mentioned briefly above. The thesis of indifferent 8  The classic narrative of “seigniorial reformation” by János Horváth (A reformáció jegyében. A Mohács utáni félszázad magyar irodalomtörténete [In the Spirit of the Reformation. The Literary History of the Half-Century after Mohács] [Budapest, 1953]) based its social model on interwar narratives, most notably Bálint Hóman and Gyula Szekfű, Magyar történet [Hungarian History], vol. 3 (Budapest, 1939), pp. 247–78. 9  Katalin Péter, A reformáció: kényszer vagy választás (The Reformation: by Force or Free Choice?), (Budapest, 2004).

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communities, which is even more shocking, was voiced, moreover, on the basis of their correspondence with their landlord. In this case study on seigniorial-communal relations with regard to religion from the 1520–30s, not only did George the Pious, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1484– 1543), a marked Lutheran convert, not take any interest in the spiritual needs of the subjects on his estates in Eastern-Hungary, but the small town communities also passively observed the appointment of his officials to parochial benefices, which consequently left the people with no mass.10 On the one hand, we need to explain how this is compatible with the elevated communal concern for religious matters (aimed at a sufficient provision for sacraments and the preparation for the afterlife) witnessed, as one case among many, in Körmend. On the other hand, it is important to notice that active and passive communities obviously coexisted. Did the level of communal autonomy change in relation to the conduct of the lord? Or are we deceived by our sources? The church visitation record is a product of a dialogue between clergy and commoners: the church officials, when they arrived in the remote little places, asked the parish priest about his flock and the members of the community about their priest, respectively. Lord patrons, who were most often absent magnates, participated in this dialogue only exceptionally, and are mentioned only when they had done something exceptional. Do they appear as more marginal figures in the process of religious change as a consequence of this? And if communities did not negotiate with their landlords in matters of religion, does this necessarily mean that they were passive and indifferent? In order to be able to draw a more balanced picture of communal and seigniorial attitudes in matters of religion, it is worth considering a few relevant but often neglected aspects. The Role of Lords and Communities in the Election of Clergymen For one thing, if village priests followed different creeds than their patron lords in the mid-sixteenth century, this can be attributed to other factors than the alleged indifference of landlords toward religious practice in the parish. Several communities had the right to elect their own priests, a 10  Zoltán Csepregi, ‘A mezőváros és a földesúr diskurzusa vallási kérdésekben Brandenburgi György kelet-magyarországi és felső-sziléziai uradalmaiban 1523−1543’ [The Discourse of Market Town and Landlord in Matters of Religion on the Estates of George of Brandenburg-Ansbach in Eastern-Hungary and UpperSilesia], in András Szabó (ed.), Mezőváros, reformáció és irodalom, 16−18. század [Market Town, Reformation, and Literature, Sixteenth−Eighteenth Centuries], (Budapest, 2005), pp. 27−32.

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fact that was first given due attention in the narrative of the communal reformation. While in England a lower level of communal participation in religious life developed in the form of the election of churchwardens,11 on the Continent (including in Hungary) several examples testify to the control of both town and village governments over the parish church. As the findings of the leading medievalist András Kubinyi suggest, communal participation in late medieval Hungary had diverse origins and involved diverse rights and practices. The right of electing the pastor could be part of the authority of the municipal government granted by royal privilege. In other instances, the “communitas parochialis”, which tended to be identical with the political community, was granted the right to elect the parish incumbent by the local patron lord (subpatronatus).12 But it was not unusual for the patron and community to present their common nominee to the bishop together.13 Random examples attesting to the varied equilibrium of communal-seigniorial roles prop up relatively frequently in the fifteenth century corpus: members of the local noble patron family, the churchwardens and the entire community of Várkony (today Vrakúň, Slovakia), a village near Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia), elected their new pastor together, whom they had previously dismissed for alleged misbehavior.14 And we have the rare written evidence from Szentendre, a village under royal authority, where the community explicitly claimed to 11  A powerful challenge to this established thesis is put forward by Beat Kümin, The Shaping of a Community: The Rise and Reformation of the English Parish c.1400–1560 (Farnham, 1996), arguing for strong communal forms comparable to those in Germany. 12  A similar tendency prevailed in the way hospitals were run and supervised, which from the fifteenth century increasingly became urban institutions (several hospitals functioned in market-towns and a few in villages), since communities either founded new hospitals or took over the right of patronage from other founders. As a result, hospital chaplains entrusted with pastoral services were elected by town councilors acting as hospital masters. Judit Majorossy and Katalin Szende, ‘Hospitals in Medieval and Early Modern Hungary’, in ed. Martin Scheutz (ed.), Europäishes Spitalwesen: Institutionelle Fürsorge in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit (Wien and München, 2008), pp. 275−320. 13  With slight modifications, Kubinyi supported by ample evidence the arguments of Dietrich Kurze (Pfarrerwahlen im Mittelalter. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Gemeinde und des Niederkirchenwesens, Forschungen zur kirchlichen Rechtsgeschichte und zum Kirchenrecht, 6 (Köln−Graz, 1966) concerning communal rights in the election of parish priests in late medieval Hungary. ‘Plébánosválasztások és egyházközségi önkormányzat a középkori Magyarországon’ [Election of Parish Priests and Congregations in Medieval Hungary], Aetas, 7, no. 2 (1991): pp. 26–45. 14  MNL OL DL 48649 (1456).

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be acting on their right of patronage over the parish church dedicated to St. Andrew when electing their pastor.15 Patrons, consequently, were probably not indifferent, but rather their scope of action was limited by communal rights. And their willingness to share rights seems to have been a natural consequence of the sharing of fiscal burdens, which is suggested not only by the admittedly scanty medieval evidence, but also by the more systematic data produced by church visitors in the early 1560s. Members of the official church usually met the elected representatives of village and parish community, the judge and the churchwarden (vitricus). In addition to interrogating members of the community about the moral and religious profile of the priest and asking the priest about the morals of the community, visitors were interested in the state of the church, inside and outside. When they found the church building in bad condition (ruinosa, desolata), as was often the case, they admonished the judge and the churchwarden, the elected representatives of the village community and congregation, to see to the repair of the church.16 Decayed, disorderly churches were not exceptional, whatever the creed of the patron and community. In a few instances, however, patrons also appeared on the scene. They were the petty nobles living in the village, as opposed to the distant magnate patrons. And when visitors met patrons, they always urged patron and community together to renovate the church.17 Looking at the ruinous church in the village Kosztolány, the visitor commented that the state of the church was due not to the priest, but to the negligence of its patrons (the aristocratic family Ország) and community.18 Visitors put the blame on the patrons alone when they attributed the decay to the disputes among local petty nobles, who cared little for the church buildings.19 Obviously, the church authorities held patrons and community together responsible for the physical condition of the church. Peasants and nobles shared this

15  Kovachich Martinus Georgius, Formulae solennes styli in cancellaria curiaque regum, foris minoribus, ac locis credibilibus authenticisque Regni Hungariae olim usitati (Pesthini, 1799), pp. 280−81 (c. 1480). 16  Reformné hnutie, Bucko, Galánta (Galanta, Slovakia, p. 146), Radosna (Radošina, Slovakia, p. 160),Tapolcsány (Topoľčany, Slovakia, 163), Kacsány (Kvačany, Slovakia, p. 167). 17  Ibid. for example Bossány (Bošany, Slovakia, 158); Vásárd (Trhovište, Slovakia, p. 165). 18  Ibid. Kosztolány (Veľké Kostoľany, Slovakia, p. 187). 19  Ibid., Egyházaskarcsa (Kostolné Kračany, Slovakia, p. 139); Ruttka (Vrútky, Slovakia, p. 178); Koros (Krušovce, Slovakia, p. 183).

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view. Usually they promised to do the work.20 When peasants refused, they claimed to be heavily overloaded by their landlord with tasks, but they never argued that it was not their duty.21 The visitation records also offer examples of instances in which communities actively participated in the election of the parish incumbent. For example, the peasants of Garamszentbenedek (Hronský Beňadik, Slovakia) living under the authority of the local Benedictine abbey, caught a priest in the street themselves. The “heretic” priest of the neighboring village had run away from the visitors. He was arrested in Szentbenedek, and the villagers took the opportunity to fill the vacancy in the parish church by electing him. They asked only the visitor for permission, which was necessary since the priest was obviously a no-good Catholic, wearing a beard but no tonsure.22 In Magasfalva (Vysoká, Slovakia) the parishioners took good care of the church, but it had no incumbent. The visitor apparently asked them why they did not have a parish priest, to which their reply was recorded in these words: “They are ready to keep a good Catholic priest if they are authorized”.23 This shows the people’s awareness that the issue was open to negotiation and they could obtain the right to appoint their priest. And they also considered it natural to cover the living expenses of their pastor. In Szentpéter (Liptovský Peter, Slovakia), the priest was a local boy and a fierce heretic, openly refuting Catholic tenets, which the visitor noted: “Confident of his parishioners’ support, he fears nothing”.24 There can be little doubt that he was picked by the community. Even these few examples offer ample testimony to the widespread experience of communal participation, though at different levels, in the election of priests. This does not contradict the contention of historians according to which communal patronage and nomination rights remained an exception throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in most parts of Europe.25 Nevertheless, several parish communities exerted influence over the choice of the parish priest as a natural consequence of their

20 

Ibid. for example Bossány (Bošany, Slovakia, p. 158). The concern of noble patrons for the state of church buildings, although it varied in intensity, is also reflected by their testamentary legacies for the building and decoration of churches. 21  Ibid. Lapás (Veľký Lapáš, Slovakia, p. 165); Szentmárton (Martin nad Žitavou, Slovakia, p. 202). 22  Ibid. p. 215. 23  Ibid. p. 142. 24  Ibid. p.169. 25  Blickle, Communal Reformation, p. 166.

Conclusion

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financial responsibilities in the maintenance of the parish church and the provision of a livelihood for the priest, to which I return later.26 From the perspective of this inquiry, the consequence of communal participation in the election of parish priests is obvious. If the parish priest followed a different religious creed than his patron in the sixteenth century, this might have ensued through varied scenarios. True, the landlord may have been indifferent to parish religion and appointed any priest available. The shortage of priests in the transitional period of the mid-sixteenth century, with the decay of the old Church and the gradual formation of new ones, seriously limited choices. But it is just as possible that the village community selected its own candidate. Either scenario (and the alternation of the two) might have resulted in the confessional diversity of parish priests within the territory of a single estate. Surprisingly, however, this was not the case. When the data of the visitation records are grouped and compared by estates, it becomes clear that in some of the estates one of the confessions, Catholic or non-Catholic, prevailed. The only plausible explanation for this is that the magnate enforced his will over all his lands, since it seems improbable that hundreds of small localities all shared the same religious sympathies. Even if it did not interfere with their feudal authority, for some magnates the creed of the village priests still mattered, as did the kinds of religious services they performed for their congregations. Others did not bother. This variance of seigniorial conduct can be accounted for only by personal dispositions, the influence of which was further facilitated by the multiplicity of legal standards providing ample scope for individual action. András Báthori, who is commonly known as having been a fierce persecutor of “heretics” as voivode of Transylvania (1552–3) and judge royal (1554–66), seems not to have tolerated any opposition in his role as lord patron on his estates either. He made sure to have Catholic priests in all parish churches, and if the community inclined to the new faith, the clashing sympathies of lord and community resulted in vacant churches.27 26  For England and Europe see Beat Kümin, ‘The English Parish in a European Perspective’, in Katherine French, Gary Gibbs, and Beat Kümin, The Parish in English Life (Manchester, 1997), p. 24. On churchwardens in the Hungarian countryside see Kubinyi, ‘Plébánosválasztások’, pp. 35−8. 27  The example of the village Kürt (Mostová, Slovakia) is instructive. In 1561, the visitor found a Catholic priest who, as he perceived, had started to convert the population. A year later, the community argued that the landlord was to blame for their having no priest, and noted that in earlier years they had had Lutheran pastors. So whether the community removed the Catholic priest (and put the blame on the landlord) or the landlord dismissed the Lutheran pastor, the result was that there was, temporarily at least, no incumbent. Ibid. pp. 137−8, p. 147.

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Under such willful lords, communities that opted to negotiate with the priest instead of the landlord did better, as village clergy adapted more willingly to parishioners and served communion according to different practices, in one or two kinds, to everyone as requested.28 At the same time, the “attentive” landlord rewarded Catholic congregations by renovating the church.29 On the other side of the confessional divide there was another aristocratic combatant of the evangelical movement, György Bebek, who had a similar temperament. The new preachers to whom he had granted the old benefices openly challenged the authority of the visitors, calling Bebek their prelate, king and defendant.30 The bewilderment or, respectively, the fascination of visiting officials, which made them comment profusely when they experienced such an overwhelming power of landlords, suggests, however, that this was not the order of the day.31 In contrast, on the estates of the Forgách brothers, the Révay brothers, Ferenc Thurzó and Gáspár Mágochy, parish priests (as Table 11.1 shows) followed various creeds, a fact which suggests no intensive seigniorial control over appointments. Whether Catholic or Protestant, their personal dispositions allowed communal tastes to prevail in matters of religion. Finally, the estate of Kristóf Ország also manifested religious diversity, with a strong Catholic majority under a landlord with Calvinist inclinations. Although in Csejte (Čachtice, Slovakia), the place where the landlord had his residence, the parish priest was a “heretic, who infected a great part of the town”, those still clinging to the old faith could attend services held by two different altar-priests.32

28 

Ibid. for example Dévény (Devín, Slovakia, 141); Récse (Rechendorf, Rača, Slovakia, 143); Udvarnok (Dvorníky, Slovakia, p. 166). 29  Ibid. Bajna (Bojná, Slovakia, p. 161). 30  Sándor Takáts, ‘Bebek György’ [György Bebek], in Takáts, Régi idők, régi emberek [Old Times, Old People], Budapest, 1922), pp. 67–87; Reformné hnutie, Bucko, Szögliget, Tornagörgő (Hrhov, Slovakia), p. 229. 31   Ibid. Zámoly (“omnia floci pendunt ipsi” [patroni Lutherani]) p. 127. Trsztena (Trstená, Slovakia, p. 168). 32  Ibid. p. 188.

6

2

16

10

Diverse

Total

Religious profile of estate

Diverse with a Catholic Catholic majority

21

0

Overwhelming Catholic majority

22

4

2

Diverse

6

1

3

1

2

2

0

3

9

Estate Bajmóc (Nyitra County) 1559, 1560

Number of Catholic parish priests Number of non9 Catholic parish priests Number of parish 4 priests with “suspectus” religion Vacancies 1

Estate Szklabinya (Túróc County) 1559, 1560 4

Estate and Year of Visitation

Kristóf Ország: with Simon and Helvetian sympathies Imre Forgách: Patrons of Lutheran Preachers Estate Sempte Estate Csejte Estate Gimes (Pozsony County) 1560 (Bars County) 1561, 1562; 1559, 1561 Estate Galgóc 1559 15 14 1

András Báthori: Catholic

Ferenc Thurzó: bishop of Nyitra, married in 1557

Sons of János Révay: unknown

The landlord and signs of his private devotion

Table 11.1 Religious Affiliation of Parish Priests on Private Estates

Diverse

7

4

0

2

1

Gáspár Mágochy: Patron of Lutheran Preachers Estate Torna (Torna County) 1561

Non-Catholic

Several

0

8

0

Estate Szádvár (Torna County) 1561

György Bebek: Lutheran

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While law, legal customs, and the principle of reciprocity integral to social relations defined the scope of communal action, on some occasions this could be reduced to nothing by the policies of aggressive magnate lords. The process of domination, if not in relation to their peasants, also influenced seigniorial attitudes to parish religion. The scope of communal participation was limited not only by head-strong landlords, but also by the increasing role played by parish benefices in the system of noble patronage in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. As was the case in German territories, Hungarian magnates, modeling their actions on the royal practice, often rewarded their noble retainers for their services in the management of estates with ecclesiastical benefices under their patronage, parish churches featuring high among them. As a consequence, the villages and small towns under the lordship of the Margrave of Brandenburg, for example, faced a serious shortage of clergy in the 1520s, since the retainers of the magnate endowed with parish benefices were typically castellans governing estates and only exceptionally ordained, but always absentee priests, who often neglected even to appoint a vicar for the pastoral care of communities.33 The role of magnates as patrons of churches and as patrons in the system of noble clientele intersected at this point. Although the phenomenon can be documented all over the country, there is no single rule: the conflict of roles was resolved differently depending largely on personal dispositions. Péter Erdődy did not use parish benefices to remunerate his officials. In Körmend he always kept resident priests.34 As his last will also suggests, he acted as a responsible landlord, providing for the spiritual well-being of his subjects. In 1544 he not only gave considerable properties and revenues to parish churches, chapter churches and religious houses, but also ensured that funds would be invested in the performance of divine services for parishioners. For example, he stipulated that the parish priest of Körmend and later landlords shall keep two or more chaplains on the revenues of the substantial estates he left for the parish church.35 Even as a cursory glance at noble last wills suggest, such public-spiritedness was not exceptional. A lesser nobleman, Mihály Moznichar of Szered (Sered, 33 

Zoltán Csepregi, Tanulmányok a reformáció nyelve: A magyarországi reformáció első negyedszázadának vizsgálata alapján [The Language of the Reformation. Studies on the Early Reformation in Hungary] (Budapest, 2010), DsC dissertation, pp. 36−40. 34  Witnesses remember earlier incumbents, while the parish priest István was heard at the interrogation in 1518. ÖStA HHStA Arch. Erd., Kt. 96, fasc. 8, no. 15. (32nd and 33rd witnesses). 35  Furthermore, he specified that the collegiate church of Vasvár would celebrate a mass devoted to the Holy Trinity each Sunday in return for his bequest. ÖStA HHStA Arch. Erd., Urkunden 1349, no. 10.

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Slovakia), not only invested a considerable amount of money to found a chapel and provide a living for a chantry priest in the church of his place of residence, but also provided funds to cover the living expenses of two more chaplains in neighboring communities (Súr/Šúr and Sempte/Šintava Slovakia). Still dissatisfied, he left cash for several churches and priests in the surroundings, whom they urged to use the money “pro salute omnium animarum”, while spending much less on his own funeral. His dedication to local religion might have been due in part, as his last will suggests, to the absence of family and heirs.36 Others, like Gáspár Serédy, behaved more like the Margrave of Brandenburg. On his large estate in northwestern Hungary, he did not even bother to appoint his officials as parish priests, but occupied parish properties and gave them to his servitors. His officials followed the lord’s example: they harassed parish priests until they left their offices, after which church properties were automatically occupied at the request of Serédy’s embittered subjects, as one learns from the records of the investigation ordered by the king, Ferdinand I (1526–64). Obviously, this wolfish parvenu, although himself a Catholic at the time, saw his role as patron of churches simply as an opportunity to acquire more money.37 Fifteen years later, however, the parish churches utterly devastated under him were found by the visitors of the archbishop to be in good order and administered by Catholic clergy. The revival of local religion must be at least partly attributed to the activity of the new landlords, the Counts of Szentgyörgy and Bazin (Pezinok, Slovakia).38 Instead of dwelling on the diversity generated by individual contingencies, it is more important to assert at this point that the conflict of seigniorial roles, which affected parish religion, did not arise with regard to monastic affairs. Mendicant houses had no substantial properties, which limited the incentive of patrons to interfere. And although town and city magistrates fostered growing ambitions to control matters of local 36  MNL OL DL 20760 (1494). I am grateful to Tibor Neumann, who helped identify his family name. 37  Egyháztörténelmi Emlékek a Magyarországi Hitújítás korából [Church Historical Sources from the Age of Religious Renewal], ed.V. Bunyitay, R. Rapaics, J. Karácsonyi, F. Kollányi, and J. Lukcsics (5 vols, Budapest, 1902–12), vol. 5, no. 92. For a more detailed analysis of the source see Katalin Péter, ‘The way from the church of the priest to the church of the congregation’, in Eszter Andor and István György Tóth (eds), Frontiers of Faith. Religious Exchange and the Constitution of Religious Identities 1400–1750 (Budapest, 2001), pp. 9–19, esp. pp. 15–6. 38  Reformné hnutie, Bucko, Grünau/Grinád (Myslenice, Slovakia), Limpak (Limbach, Slovakia), Bazin (Pezinok, Slovakia), Szentgyörgy (Biely Kameň, Slovakia) etc., p. 133, pp. 143–4.

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religion, religious orders, perhaps due to the direct supremacy of the pope over them, more efficiently defended the immunity of their jurisdiction over the nominations of local superiors.39 As a result, mendicant houses could not be turned into a means of fund raising or noble patronage in the hands of secular lords, which rendered them rather predisposed to act as good patrons with no loss. And the reorganization of religious life, a process in which they willingly participated, served also the legitimation of their power, of which they were fully aware. Alongside the contingencies of individual character, the structural variables inherent in the parish and monastic contexts therefore seem sufficient to explain the varied proceedings of magnates as church patrons. The Sphere of Communal Independence I have considered some of the factors that were at play in the dynamics of communal and seigniorial agendas, which as a consequence meant that the appointment of local clergy could proceed according to varied scripts from place to place. Just as the character of magnates exerted an enormous influence on the scenario of priest appointments, the ability of communities to act autonomously also varied independently of seigniorial behavior. This initial impression is reinforced by visitation records. One is astonished by the huge differences between neighboring communities. In one place there were people capable of taking care of themselves, or at least the autonomous ones got the lead, whereas a few miles away people seemed to be totally passive. The diverse attitude of congregations toward religion was also reflected, irrespectively of confessional sympathies, by the condition of their churches. Several congregations lived without a priest and did nothing to change the situation. Some of them—willingly or under

39 

For the scope and limits of communal supervision over mendicant houses and the appointment of superiors see the examples of the relations of the city magistrate of the free royal city of Bártfa (Bardejov, Slovakia) and the Augustinian friary (Guitman Barnabás, ‘Reformáció és felekezetszerveződés Bártfán’ [Reformation and Confessionalization in Bártfa], in Beatrix F. Romhányi and Gábor Kendeffy (eds), Szentírás, Hagyomány, Reformáció. Teológia- és egyháztörténeti tanulmányok, [Holy Scripture, Tradition, and Reformation. Studies on Theology and Church History], (Budapest, 2009), pp. 252−62), and the case of the free royal city of Eperjes (Prešov, Slovakia) and the Carmelite house. Kund Regényi, ‘Az eperjesi Szentháromság karmelita konvent története’ [The History of the Carmelite Cloister Dedicated to the Holy Trinity of Eperjes], in Sarolta Homonnai, Ferenc Piti, and Ildikó Tóth (eds), Tanulmányok a középkori magyar történelemről [Studies on the Medieval History of Hungary], (Szeged, 1999), pp. 103–14.

Conclusion

215

pressure—ungrudgingly followed the faith of their lord.40 But for example in Liptószentmiklós (Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia), the community, going against the Catholic parish priest, was ready to pay a Lutheran pastor in cooperation with the patrons.41 I suspect it is no coincidence that the parish priest of Handlovalehota (Handlová, Slovakia), who was unwilling to serve the communion to his parishioners under both kinds, was replaced the following year by another priest who was ready to do so.42 Finally, for a more realistic portrayal it is essential to stress that religious life at the parish church was multi-layered and complex. The parish incumbent was very often not the only clergymen performing religious services. Rather there were several other clerics employed under various circumstances. Thus even when a community seems to have accepted the nomination of the landlord or the lack of a resident parish priest passively, this did not mean that they were watching helplessly as they were left deprived of priests and sacraments. The subjects of George of Brandenburg may have simply accepted that there was no priest to bury their dead, baptize their babies, and administer the Eucharist at mass, and they calmly went without. Several other examples, however, attest to the great variety of alternative strategies that were used by communities in order to secure regular and versatile sacramental worship. Although with changing intensity, this seems to have been a general ambition of late medieval small communities. Temporary vacancies were usually remedied at least at an individual level: some of the people visited the nearby churches to receive the sacraments.43 Several communities, or their elected officials, judges, and churchwardens, invited a nearby parish priest to hold mass a few times a week and administer the sacraments in their church in return for communal payment. This kind of maternal-filial church relation was organized in the village of Grünau/Grinád (Myslenice, Slovakia) under Serédy. However, Serédy’s official did not let the outside priest enter, and declared himself their parish priest so that—as villagers complained to the investigators— he could take possession of the wine from the church’s vineyard, which the villagers had started to cultivate collectively when their former pastor had left them.44 Although perhaps to no avail, even under the worst of landlords the community tried to provide for its spiritual needs. 40  Reformné hnutie, Bucko, see for example Zámoly, under the shared patronage of two noblemen, p. 127. 41  Ibid. p. 171. 42  Ibid. p. 157, p. 181. 43  See passim in Egyháztörténelmi Emlékek, Bunyitay et al., vol. 5, no. 92, and Reformné hnutie, Bucko. 44  Egyháztörténelmi Emlékek, Bunyitay et al., vol. 5, no. 92, p. 92.

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At other places, people were not so content having no parish priest. The considerable autonomy of the residents of Jánosfalva (Bačka Palanka, Serbia), a tiny village in southern Hungary, is striking. Although they had a parish priest, he was absent and “ran after worldly affairs” instead of performing his pastoral duties, as they complained repeatedly to the diocesan vicar. Their insistence brought success. Since the priest, Imre, refused to obey the vicar’s summons, the vicar allowed the community to elect and present a new priest.45 What rendered this remote little community capable of acting so independently? Was there a landlord involved in the story, whose authority they tried to evade by appealing instead to the ecclesiastical superior of the nonresident priest? In this case the disobedient incumbent, who perhaps managed the affairs of his lord elsewhere while enjoying the benefice, trusted in the support of his patron. But it is equally possible that the community’s confidence was founded by law or custom and they had long acted as patrons. We are left with the vicar’s words: he allowed the community to choose and present another pastor, acknowledging the danger imminent in their being left without a priest administering the sacraments, especially in times of plague. So be it as it may, the necessity, the ultimate need to perform the last rites for the dying and to bury the dead, must have added additional impetus for communal action. Petitioning the diocesan court concerning absent priests or vacancies seems to have been an efficient and well-established strategy that the people living on the Brandenburg estate could also have used. If not, they had other possibilities. The peasants of Jánosfalva were totally dependent on their parish priest, as they argued, since they had no auxiliary clergymen employed at the parish church. In other words, their financial capacities were probably only sufficient to pay for the services of one priest, although they well knew, as their comment suggests, that several other villages could afford to have and did have more than one priest. There is evidence indicating that parochial assistant clergy, chaplains, and schoolmasters were often hired directly by parishioners to assist the incumbent.46 Only a systematic collection of the scanty data will persuasively demonstrate that alongside feudal patrons, village and small town communities, or communal institutions like confraternities and guilds, were able and eager founders of side-altars and chapels in parish churches (as well as outlying 45 

MNL DF DF 266123 (1472). As the villagers of Nyárasd (Topoľníky, Slovakia) said to investigators, in addition to the parish priest, who celebrated two masses a week in exchange for his livelihood, they also maintained a chaplain, whom they paid additionally and without detriment to the parish priest. Egyháztörténelmi Emlékek, Bunyitay et al., vol. 5, no. 92, p. 98. 46 

Conclusion

217

chapels independent of the parochial structure). Yet we have good reason to conjecture that the practice, well documented in German territories, existed in Hungary too.47 Throughout the late Middle Ages, several churches were founded and built by parishioners, who in consequence had the right of patronage.48 In the case of Körmend, the data available indicates only that some of the altars in the parish church were raised by landlords, while the origin of others is unknown, but the confraternity had its altar in the cloister, which was a financially rational decision, as the friars were able to celebrate the divine services of the confraternity without having to shoulder the burden of maintaining a priest.49 But even village churches often had two, three, or even more side-altars, as is indicated both by the scattered late medieval data and the findings of the mid-sixteenth century visitation.50 And like village parish priests, chantry priests not infrequently were local boys, suggesting that the community or their families bestowed the small benefice for their sons, just as citizens also provided in this manner for both the sacred and social prestige of their families.51 And if they had no local candidate, they could freely choose from among the increased number of vagrant priests on the lookout for benefices or at least some temporary employment.52 Peasants in command of more moderate economic resources left their 47  Cf. Fuhrmann, ‘Die Kirche im Dorf: Kommunale Initiativen zur Organization der Seelsorge vor der Reformation’, in Peter Blickle (ed.), Zugänge zur bäuerlichen Reformation (Bauer und Reformation 1, Zurich, 1987); Guido Heinzmann, Gemeinschaft und Identität spätmittelalterlicher Kleinstädte Westfalens (Norderstedt, 2006), pp. 263−72. 48  For examples see Ferenc Kollányi, A magán kegyúri jog hazánkban a középkorban [The Right of Private Patronage in Medieval Hungary], (Budapest, 1906), p. 63, p. 68; Ernő Marosi, Magyar falusi templomok [Village Churches in Hungary], (Budapest, 1975), pp. 26−8. 49  On the altars in Körmend in more detail see chapter 7. 50  Reformné hnutie, Bucko, passim, but recorded more thoroughly by visitors in Hont and Bars Counties in 1559, pp. 201−15. 51  A good example is the market town of Egerszeg in Transdanubia, where three out of its four chantry priests came from some of the trend-setting local families. A veszprémi egyházmegye legrégibb egyházlátogatásai, 1554–1760 [The Oldest Visitation Records of the Diocese of Veszprém, 1554–1760], ed. J. Pfeiffer (Veszprém, 1947), pp. 36−7. As we have seen, the majority of parish priests, chaplains, and chantry priests in Körmend and the neighborhood of Körmend were also locals. 52  For the growing number of unbeneficed clergy in late medieval Hungary (in line with the general European tendency), see Gabriella Erdélyi, Szökött szerzetesek. Erőszak és fiatalok a késő középkorban [Runaway Friars. Violence and Youth in Late Medieval Hungary], (Budapest, 2011), pp. 97−114.

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purchased vineyards, mills, or the few forints they had in order to pay a priest to say perpetual or temporal masses, wishing to provide for their personal salvation and the salvation of their kindred while also aiming to meet the needs of communal clerical provision.53 To cite one example, a couple in the market town of Sátoraljaújhely left a deserted mill to contribute to the cost of building a local parish church. Their private legacy came under communal management: the three churchwardens sold it to the parish priest of the neighboring market town, Patak, and through them the tota communitas was responsible for defending him in its peaceful possession.54 Another parochial event in the same place a few years earlier also shows tangibly that parish religion was a communal matter. In 1506, the citizens of the free royal city of Bártfa (Bardejov, Slovakia), who were cultivating vineyards in the winegrowing hills of Újhely, proposed to the councilors of Újhely that they would raise a new chantry in the parish church provided also with living expenses for a chantry priest. The people of Újhely were so enthusiastic about the enterprise that they added two more vineyards to the chantry benefice, obviously from the communal asset accumulated by similar pious donations. The chantry foundation letter issued by the parish priest and councilors of Újhely entrusted the citizens of Bártfa to elect the person of the chantry priest, whom they subordinated to the incumbent, also specifying his liturgical obligations, which included ministering the incumbent in festive masses. Thus the entire community profited from the religious services of the third chantry priest in the town.55 The patrons of the parish church, the members of the magnate Pálóci family, played no role in the joint enterprise of the two communities, the actions of which

53  Examples of peasants’ pious legacies: Egyháztörténelmi Emlékek, Bunyitay et al., vol. 1, no. 66, p. 68 (vineyards for side-altars). Other immovable assets given to local religious houses, primarily the Paulines or parish churches in return for masses for the soul: MNL OL DL 20905, 21175 (1500), 21327 (1504), 21935 (1509). Also László Solymosi, ‘Két középkor végi testamentum Szabolcs vármegyéből’ [Two Late Medieval Testaments from Szabolcs County], in Ágnes Kovács (ed.), Emlékkönyv Rácz István 70. születésnapjára [Festshrift for the Seventieth Birthday of István Rácz], (Debrecen, 1999), pp. 218–20. 54  MNL OL DL 21935 (1509). 55  Ibid. DL 216809. For more details on the chantry-foundation in particular and the churches of late medieval Újhely in general see István Tringli, ‘Sátoraljaújhely egyházai a reformáció előtt’ [The Churches of Sátoraljaújhely before the Reformation], in Juan Cabello and Norbert C. Tóth (eds), Erősségénél fogva várépítésre való. Tanulmányok a 70 éves Németh Péter tiszteletére [Proper for Castle Building for its Strength. Studies in Honor of Péter Németh on His Seventieth Birthday], (Nyíregyháza, 2011), pp. 377−96.

Conclusion

219

illustrate well the scope and limits of communal participation and financial resources. Summary Whether communities managed to influence absentee incumbents to nominate as their vicars people from among the assistant clergymen fostered by parishioners is a question that still awaits an answer. As the rich German evidence suggests, in practice this tendency rendered congregations capable of controlling parish religion.56 One nonetheless can conclude that local religious life was manifold and complex, including communal and individual practices that created autonomous levels of parish religion, independent of patrons. Negotiation with landlords was only one means among many for communities to provide for their priests and their sacramental demands. Much as the people of Körmend mobilized their resources in order to restore religious life in the friary, parish communities actively participated in the maintenance of parochial religion. Sacramental piety and clergy served a variety of individual and communal needs, both spiritual and social. The vitality of the sacramental mentality is well reflected by the general demand of communion under both kinds. The widespread practice of people taking both the body and the blood of Christ irrespectively of their Catholic or Protestant sympathies was recorded by visitors with little astonishment in the 1560s.57 The appointment of local clergy, which I treated as the focal point of religious change, was shaped in the countryside in the matrix of communal and seigniorial agendas. The comparison of the monastic and parish context has revealed that the differences in seigniorial behavior, the tendency to be dedicated to monastic reform and remain disinterested in parochial provision for clergy and sacraments, was unquestionably influenced by individual dispositions, but more importantly was also structurally rooted. As opposed to parochial livelihoods, mendicant houses could not be used to reward their noble familiares, which rendered aristocrats predisposed to act in the monastic context as responsible patrons. 56  Dieter Scheler, ‘Patronage und Aufstieg im Niederkirchenwesen’, in Günther Schulz (ed.), Sozialer Aufstieg.Funktionseliten im Spätmittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit (München, 2002), pp. 315−36. 57  Reformné hnutie, Bucko, passim, in fact on all pages. It seems highly probable that in Hungary, as opposed to Germany for example, the earlier practice of communion under both kinds for the laity did not cease by the fifteenth century. Elemér Mályusz, Egyházi társadalom a középkori Magyarországon [Ecclesiastical Society in Medieval Hungary], (Budapest, 1971), pp. 317−8.

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Diverse scenarios in relation to the parish church resulted partly from fragmented local conditions. The right of patronage was shared in various forms between lords and communities. And irrespectively of written law, communities had diverse strategies to participate in the election and appointment of local clergy. The late medieval multiplicity of legal standards in turn increased the scope of individual action: we have observed landlords who asserted their will in parish religion as in any other sphere of life, while others did not interfere with the religious choices of their subjects. Communities also manifested different levels of independency in matters of religion, often independently of feudal authority, but rather as a result, presumably, of local politics. Communal election of local clergy, which in the late Middle Ages depended on local privileges and negotiations—in other words, it was a sporadic secular matter—was turned by Luther into a universal Christian right legitimated by the Gospel, an ideological shift that must have given impetus to communal agendas.58 Similarly, the laicization of religion, the expanding sphere of lay activities in church affairs, had already blurred the distinction between clergy and laity when Luther turned it into a general Christian norm by proposing the principle of the priesthood of all believers. My inquiry thus reinforces the scholarly perception of the interconnected nature of late medieval reform and sixteenth-century reformations,59 all being part of the long-term processes of Christianization of society and growing lay agency in matters of religion.

58  ‘Dass ein christliche Versammlung oder Gemeine Recht und Macht habe, alle Lehre zu urtheilen and Lehrer zu berufen, ein und abzusetzen, Grund und Ursach aus der Schrift’, in Martin Luther, Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (73 vols, Weimar: Böhlau, 1883–2009), vol. 11, pp. 408−16 (1523). 59  Most importantly, Robert Lutton and Christine Peters have pointed to such shifts in lay piety, primarily various forms of Christocentric devotion, which rendered a positive response to the Lutheran tenets at all possible. Lutton, Lollardy and Orthodox Religion, 207–10.; Peters, Patterns of Piety, passim.

Epilogue On May 17, the interrogation ended with the collective morning visit by all participants to the cloister. The visit served as visual support of the oral evidence.1 While afterward the witnesses dispersed in several directions, the bishop and the notary departed again for Buda. Exactly one month later they appeared in the residence of Bishop Szatmári2 in order to present him with the results of their work, by this time in the form of a neatly transcribed protocol. They must have spent a very pleasant morning together, as they were all old colleagues and perhaps also friends, even if not equal in rank. The two judges whom Szatmári delegated in his place, Mihály Vitéz and Márton Attádi, belonged to the intermingling circles of the two most important prelate-politicians of central government, Cardinal Bakócz and Bishop Szatmári, similar to Márton Újhelyi, who joined the company as Erdődy’s advocate, as well as Miletinczi, the notary.3 While they arranged their business, Szatmári adding his report to the protocol and sealing it with his stamp, they may have discussed not only their experiences with regard to the Körmend affair but probably also recalled the time they had spent together in Rome in the early 1510s. Finally, they dispatched an envoy carrying the protocol to the pope.4 Our next records about the cloister are from years later. And it comes as no surprise when we learn that in 1524 it was the Franciscans who were still living in Körmend. In other words, the documents of the trial convinced Pope Leo X that the expulsion of the Augustinians had been legitimate, and thus, obviously, he approved of the proceedings of Bakócz. As of yet I have been unable, unfortunately, to find the relevant papal breve. Nevertheless, Pope Clement VII was probably also himself poorly informed with regard to the fate of the Körmend cloister. In 1524, reading the Franciscans’ request, he could only have learned that Cardinal Bakócz had transferred the old Augustinian friary to the observant Franciscans, who however 1 

Register, fols 106v–7r. Probably his private palace is implied here (in an unidentified location on the long Mindszent street) rather than the palace of the diocese of Pécs, standing on the busy market square, adjacent to the residence of Bakócz. See András Végh, Buda város középkori helyrajza [The Topography of the Medieval City of Buda], (2 vols, Budapest, 2006–8), vol. 1, pp. 157–61, p. 221. 3  For more details with regard to the interfusion of circles of Bakócz and Szatmári, including the executors of the Körmend trial, see chapter 1. 4  Register, fols 107v–8r. 2 

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wished to abandon the buildings since the cardinal, going back on his original promises, neglected to renovate the shabby and uncomfortable buildings.5 At all events, Clement VII granted the permission, and the Franciscans moved away, leaving the Körmend cloister vacant for several years to come. The trial of 1518 was gradually forgotten. The subsequent history of the cloister is rather vague. From time to time, in the later sixteenth century, Dominican friars and nuns are mentioned in the sources as living in the town, perhaps in the old cloister, perhaps elsewhere. When in 1570 it is referred to as the “abandoned cloister,” in the parish church people were already listening to sermons cast in the spirit of Lutheran ideas.6 By the time the wave of recatholization reached Hungary and Körmend in the second half of the seventeenth century, the cloister had completely disappeared from the map of the town.7 Was it demolished stone by stone to build new structures? By the twentieth century, it had fallen out of historical memory as well: historians and archeologists have a hard time when even trying to identify its mere location.8 (When I visited the town in 2000, only the parish church slightly evoked the past, which the monumental baroque palace, in place of the old renaissance castle, resisted.) In the early nineteenth century, some medieval objects randomly surfaced in the palace’s garden, among them several rings, plates decorating dresses, cups and small plates, a signet of Frater Thimoteus, two crucifixes and a holy-water stoop, presumably once worn and used by the Augustinian friars.9 The nicely decorated silver and gold-plated objects make one reconsider his earlier notions of mendicant poverty.

5  Egyháztörténelmi Emlékek a Magyarországi Hitújítás korából [Sources on Church History at the Time of the Reformation], ed.V. Bunyitay, R. Rapaics, J. Karácsonyi, F. Kollányi, and J. Lukcsics (5 vols, Budapest, 1902–12), vol. 1, no. 127. 6  Tóth István György, ‘Körmend alapítása. A város alaprajza a 17. században’ [The Foundation of Körmend. The Town Plan in the Seventeenth Century], Századok, 113 (1979): p. 647; Tóth István György, ‘Iskola és reformáció Körmenden a 16–18. században’ [School and Reformation in Körmend from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century], A Ráday Gyűjtemény Évkönyve, 6 (1989): pp. 12–13. 7  The first surviving town-map dates from 1667, with no trace of the friary, published by Tóth, Körmend, p. 657. 8 

Koppány, Körmend városának építéstörténete, p. 13. Mónika Zsámbéki, ‘A körmendi kincslelet’, in László Szabó (ed.), Körmend története [The History of Körmend], (Körmend, 1994), pp. 434–50. 9 

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Figure E.1 St. Elizabeth Parish Church and Parsonage, Körmend Historians knew as much (or as little) as Clemens VII concerning the fate of the Körmend cloister.10 But even if they had been familiar with the documents of the trial, they would have most probably framed a story with the cardinal and the religious orders, who were the central figures of the trial itself, as its protagonists. For nineteenth-century Protestant historians the scandals of the Körmend friars would have served to accentuate the deep crisis and imminent collapse of the late medieval church. On the other end of the polemical spectrum, Catholic scholars would have chosen to qualify the efforts of religious reform on the part of the Catholic higher clergy personified by Bakócz. Fifty or so years ago, the widespread belief in historical progress and evolution would have urged historians to depict the events as a prelude to the religious and social revolution of the Reformation putting the observant Franciscans center stage as early revolutionaries. This book’s perspective and emerging thesis of growing lay agency is admittedly shaped by the interplay of present-day social and political dilemmas in communication with scholarly discourses. On its pages, the story of the Körmend friary has become an exemplary study of the role ordinary laypeople played in shaping contemporary religious culture and change. Bakócz and his nephew intervened in the life of the friars and 10  Zsuzsanna Bándi, Körmend a középkorban [Körmend in the Middle Ages], (Körmend 1987), p. 74.

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the town driven by a concern over the local crisis, the laity’s discontent and the friars’ scandals, which disturbed daily life in the town streets and also threatened the existing structures of power. In face of a passive authority, the community would have “rebelled”; as witnesses maintained, it would, in other words, have driven the sinful friars away on its own behalf. The common desire of community and landlord to secure private and collective salvation and civic peace proved adequate motivation to expel the disobedient Augustinian friars. In the long run, however, their agendas diverged: while for the community the cloister was an important factor, which both shaped and represented civic identity, it played no role in the landlord’s sacral representation and aristocratic self-fashioning. Consequently, after the Franciscans appeared and, hence, the scandals stopped and the tension dissipated from the streets of Körmend, he lost interest in the affair. Communal financial means were, however, insufficient to accomplish the restoration of the friary buildings. With the Franciscans leaving Körmend, communal resources, both social and religious, dwindled dramatically. People must have passed by the vacant friary sadly doomed to its final decay.

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Index Page numbers in bold refer to information to be found in illustration titles.

absolution 172, 175, 178, 180 acculturation 7, 12 agency 15, 95, 106–7, 201, 220, 223 agent of religious reform 6, 30, 111–2, 185 agriculture 17, 90 Albert of Nagyliszka, chantry priest in Körmend 75, 78, 81, 100, 129, 163 alms, almsgiving 97–8, 112, 114, 137, 139, 175, 197 Ambrosius, see Ambrus, Friar Ambrus, Friar, 85, 103–4, 112, 148 Antal, Friar, Augustinian 65, 68–9, 75–6, 98, 113, 115, 119, 141, 149–50, 162 Anthonius, see Antal Friar anthropology 11, 14, 187 anticlericalism 11, 111 Antoninus Florentinus, archbishop of Florence 133 apostasy 168 apostate friars 159 apparition 192–3 arbiter or arbitrator 89, 175–6 aristocracy 133, 141 articles (articuli) 22–4, 29, 60, 62, 191 Asbolth, János, townsman in Körmend 148 Ascension of Christ 129, 154 Ash Wednesday 167 Attádi, Márton, auxiliary bishop, interrogating judge 1, 40–41, 59–78 (passim), 80, 92–4, 105–6, 221 Augustinian friars of Körmend 65–6 as model figures 114 as mediators of the sacred 114

as outsiders 149–55 as violaters of the local moral code 150–4 collecting alms 85, 98, 122, 149 hearing confessions 141–2 legal immunity of 150 negligence of liturgy by, 8, 24, 33, 101, 112–4, 140, 143, 162, 189 negligence of cloister buildings by 9, 24, 101, 118, 152, 189 preaching of 142, 145 public opinion about 23–4, 99–107, 122–4 sexual behavior of, 6, 8, 24, 99–101, 115, 122, 145, 147–9 sacred power of 112 see also individual friars visiting taverns, see tavern scenes Babocsa, Benedictine abbey 147 Bakócz Chapel 27, 52 Bakócz, Tamás, cardinal, archbishop of Esztergom 13, 17, 21–2, 60, 66, 76, 154, 176, 182, 185, 188–9, 199, 221, 223, 228–9, 235, 243, 246 appointed as papal legate 31–2 career of 25, 31 in historiography 28 and monastic reform 45–58 (passim) last will of 28, 42, 188 nepotism of 27–8 and the 1514 peasant revolt 39–40 reforming the Körmend cloister 3–6, 30–42 representation of power of 25–7 Bakonybél, Benedictine abbey 147 Balázs, Friar, Augustinian in Körmend 96, 140, 162

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Balázs, parish priest of Halastó, witness in the trial 83, 98, 101, 105, 163 Balog, Orsolya, wife of Lukács Mindszenti 88 Balog, Péter, steward 88 Balogh, János, of Kisunyom 85 Barberini, Carlo, cardinal 4 Bártfa (Bardejov, Slovakia), free royal city, Augustinian friary 55, 214 chantry foundation 218 Basó, György, of Rádóc, nobleman, witness in the trial 83 Basó, Lénárt, of Rádóc, nobleman, witness in the trial 77, 83, 105, 162 bathing house 18, 73, 115, 148 Báthori, András, 209, 211 Batizi, András, Lutheran preacher 157 Batthyány family 2 Bebek, György 210–11 Béla IV, King of Hungary, 18, 77–8 bell-ringing 2, 66, 73, 112, 129, 132 Benedictine order, see observant reform, of Benedictines; sexual misconduct, of Benedictines, Somlóvásárhely; observant reform, of Benedictines; Tolnai, Máté Benke, Benedek, from Nádalja, witness in the trial 83, 166 Bibbosus Anthonius, see Antal Friar Bible 93, 172 Bíró, András, from Nádasd, witness in the trial 77, 83, 112, 165–6 Blasius, see Balázs Friar blasphemy 70 Blickle, Peter 15, 203 blood-fine 176 Bochor, László, from Gosztony, witness in the trial 83 Bologna, university of 25 Borsos, Miklós, from Sál, witness in the trial 83, 140, 147, 165 Bradford Smith, William 188 Brandenburg-Ansbach, Margrave of, George the Pious, 205, 212–3, 215

breviary 65, 72, 96, 140, 162 Buda, free royal city 1, 3, 6, 42, 66, 90, 141, 221 burial place 141, 196, 198 Bük, village 65, 77 Büki, György nobleman in Körmend, witness in the trial 81, 87, 91–2, 100, 105, 148 Calvin 157 Calvinist 210 Carvajal, Juan de, cardinal, papal legate 37 Catholic 146, 177, 202, 208–11, 213, 215, 219, 223 Catholicism 11, 202 Cesarini, Guiliano, cardinal, papal legate 37 chantries 126, 129, 138, 218 chantry foundation 126, 129–30, 138, 142, 213, 216–8 chantry priest 104, 129, 138, 146, 213, 217–8, see also St. Elizabeth parish church of Körmend, chantry priest of chaplain 10, 138, 213, 216–7, see also St. Elizabeth parish church of Körmend, chaplain of children, of clergymen 146–7 Christ, 164, 169, 171–4 body of 138, 154, 163–4, 167 merits of 136, 165, 173 passion of 136–7 Christianization 16, 220 Christocentric devotion 220 church patron 8, 42, 214 church visitation diocesan 146–7 monastic 46–8, 54 records of 2, 7, 15, 147, 181, 204–5, 207–9, 214, 217 churchwarden 127, 206–7, 209, 215, 218, see also Nagy, Pál, townsman of Körmend Claudius, Augustinian friar in Körmend 65 Clement VII, pope 195, 221–3

Index

clerical immunity 113, 123 clergy, see also parish clergy as mediator of the sacred 143, 161, 163, 168–70 lay attitudes to 10, 15 stipendiary/assistant clergy 15, 130, 138, 143, 216, 219 unbeneficed clergy 154–5, 217 cloister, of the Holy Virgin, in Körmend 1, 3–4, 15, 18, 21–2, 33 ambulatory of 101, 140 Béla IV, King of Hungary, founder of, 18, 77–8 church choir of 115 garden of 97, 122, 148, 153, 199 patron of 24, 33, 39, 42–3, 188–9, 33, 39, 42–3, Erdődy, Péter; Ellerbach, János prior of, 3, 11, 21–2, 65–6, 77, 93, 96, 98, 140, 150 son of 99, 147 renovation of cloister buildings 11, 45, 56, 99, 115, 128, 142 servant of 102, 120, 149 see also Tóth, István, from Báta superintendent of 100 cloister foundation 50, 55, 186, 193, 197–8 cloister reform 6, 28–30, 42–5 and aristocratic residences 197 and urban development 197 communal agenda of, 111–24 (passim) role of secular authorities in, 186–200 (passim) see also Somlóvásárhely; Szécsény; Újlak commoners 8, 67, 69, 86, 111, 146, 170, 195, 202, 205, see also ordinary people communalism 15 communication 13, 96, 99, 188 communion, holy 12–14 and women 134 at Easter 131–2 fear of 164–5, 178

251

frequency of taking 133–4 in both kinds 215, 219 lay appropriation of 161–70, 181–2 official liturgy and teachings of 164 refusal to partake in 165–7 social meaning of 170–71 spiritual 135–6 worthy and unworthy 135, 163–7 community 7, 9, 12–13 gossip 13, 101 identity of 9, 14, 153, 185 moral code of 9, 145–60 (passim) parish, 207–8, 219, see also congregation ritual 13, 178 sacral 178, 182 town 14, 23, 54, 56, 100, 180, 205, 216 village 151, 207–8 confession, holy 12–14, 105, 118–9, 161–84 (passim) and conflict resolution 174–7 and women 134 as a means of social control 174–5 at Easter 90, 131–2 church control of 166 Luther on 179 manual 174, 179 Summa Angelica 174 on deathbed 133, 136, 176 public 172 confessional letter 166 confessional rivalry 202 confessionalization 44, 120, 157, 186 confessor 132, 172, 175–6, 178 as judge 174 at St. Peter’s 40 friars as 137, 142, 157 private 51, 133 confrater, see confraternity, mendicant, lay brother of confraternity Corpus Christi 138 dean of, 81, 86, 112, 119 lay/urban 130 mendicant, lay brother of 140–41

252

A Cloister on Trial

of Holy Virgin, in Körmend cloister 11, 115, 124, 142, 217 congregation as parish community 15, 127–8, 138, 142, 173, 207, 210, 214, 219 monastic 38, 46–7, 52 conscience 94, 132, 163–5, 168, 170, 174–6, 179–81 constructivist theories 96 consumption of the sacred 125, 130, 145 conversion 159, 187 Corpus Christi chapel 126 Corpus Christi Day 138 Council of Trent 44 courtroom tactics 95, 102–7 courts county 79 diocesan 64, 216 manorial 76, 150 royal high 79 craftsman 81, 90 credibility of witnesses, 23, 62, 80, 84–6, 92 Credo of Debrecen (1562) 158 Croatia 16, 193–4, 199 crusade, against the Ottomans 25, 31–2, 39, 51, 198 cultural consumption 7 cultural dialogue 7, 59 customary law 94 Csákány, village 83–4, 87–8, 92, 128 Csatár, Benedictine monastery 48 Csáti, Demeter, Franciscan preacher 159 Csejte (Čachtice, Slovakia) 210–11 Csuti, András, townsman of Körmend, witness in the trial 70, 74–5, 81, 89, 91–2, 100, 105, 112, 118, 139, 154 damnation 164, 177–8 death 132–3, 174 debt 177 defectus remissionis 175 Dese family, of Rádóc 82

Dese, Mihály, of Rádóc, nobleman, witness in the trial 83 Dévai Bíró, Mátyás, Lutheran preacher 159 Dévai, András, Premonstratensian provost 47 Dézsi, Balázs, observant Franciscan provincial 49, 51 diaconus, subdiaconus 68–9 dispute settlement 175–6 dogma 11–12, 179 popular appropriation of 135 Dombus, Pál, Augustinian provincial 53 domination 95, 188, 204, 212 and cloister reform 194–5 Dominicans 6, 51, 222 Dorottya, lover of Friar Mihály 66, 99–100, 148 economy of salvation 9, 137 education 49, 54, 128–9, 151 Egerszeg (Zalaegerszeg), market town 122, 146, 217 Egervár, observant Franciscan cloister 50 Egyházasbagod, village 90 elevation 135, 154, 165 elite 7, 14, 59–60, 120, 155–6, 202 Ellerbach, Bertold, magnate 129 Ellerbach family, 17, 33, 198 Ellerbach, János, of Monyorókerék, landlord of Körmend 33, 84, 88, 91–2, 189–90 emotions anger 9, 45, 52, 55, 103, 112–4, 120, 143, 145, 161–3, 171 anxiety 9, 39, 125, 145, 151, 155, 169 fear 93, 133–5, 164–5, 169, 178 hatred 62, 120, 151, 171, 173 enmity 165–6, 170, 182 Eperjes (Prešov, Slovakia), free royal city, Carmelite cloister 214 Epiphany 98, 119 Erdődy family 3, 22, 40, 79–81, 84–6, 92, 191

Index

and the Franciscans 191–3 estates of 200 Erdődy, Péter 182, 192, 204 as church patron 127, 129, 152 as nephew of Cardinal Bakócz and landlord of Körmend 2–3, 13, 17, 42, 76, 176 familiares of 81–2, 84, 87, 91–3 role in cloister reforms of 45, 79, 185–201 testament of 212 Erdődy, Simon, bishop of Zagreb 191 Espan, Pál, from Szentmihály, witness in the trial 84 Esztergom 1, 41, 53 archdiocese 146 archbishop of 196–8 Basilica of 27 provostry of 40 synod of 151 Eucharist, see Christ, body of; communion; holy mass,transubstantiation Europe 9, 16, 30, 35, 39, 72, 208 excommunication 94, 166, 168–9 exempla 132, 167, 175 evangelical reform 16 Faiertag, Mihály, merchant in Körmend 89 false testimony 93–4 fama publica 22–4, 60, 97 see also public opinion familiaris (noble retainer) 40, 81 91, 176, 189–90, 212 Farfa, monastery 4 Farkas, András, of Csákány, nobleman, witness in the trial 83, 88 Farkas family of Csákány 82 Farkas, Illés, of Csákány, nobleman, castellan of Körmend 92 fasting 135, 137, 162, 175 Fegyverneky, Ferenc, Premonstratensian provost 47–8

253

Ferde, Benedek, castellan of Körmend 76, 100, 123 Ferdenos, Margit, lover of prior 99, 147 Ferdinand I (Habsburg), King of Hungary 213 Ferenc Thurzó, magnate 210–11 Ferrara, university 25 feud 133, 151, 175–6 filial quarter 90 foot-washing 174 Forgách, Simon, magnate 210–11 Forgács, Imre, magnate 210–11 forgiveness 135, 137, 162, 175 fornication 148, 160 forum conscientiae 174 Fourth Lateran Council (1215) 131, 141, 166, 168, 174 France 9, 47 Franciscans, observant as rivals of evangelical preaching 158–9 friars of Körmend, 3–5, 22–4, 34, 39, 42–3, 45, 49–50, 62, 91, 93, 98, 102, 106, 190–91, 193, 195, 199, 221–4 preaching of 137 see also observant reform, of Franciscans free royal cities (civitates) 16, 129–30, 214, 218 freed tenant (libertinus) 89 friendship 93, 106, 173 funeral 12, 84, 127, 136, 139, 213 Galgóc (Hlohovec, Slovakia) 146 observant Franciscan cloister 197 Gallus, Augustinian friar in Körmend 65 gambling 95, see also tavern scenes Garamszentbenedek (Hronský Beňadik, Slovakia) 208 Gáspár Mágochy, magnate 210–11 Gasparus Bantho, Augustinian friar in Körmend 65

254

A Cloister on Trial

Gergely Polgár, townsman of Körmend, witness in the trial 73, 81, 86, 112, 145, 162, 190 Germany 181, 187, 206, 216, 219 gestures handshake 178 imposition of hands 178 Ginzburg, Carlo 7, 59 Giovanni da Capestrano, observant Franciscan preacher 25, 51, 198 good works 126, 136–8, 180 gossip 8, 13, 96, 107 Gosztony, village 83 Greenblatt, Stephan 188 Gregory IX, pope 70 Grimani, Dominic, cardinal-protector 36 Grünau/Grinád (Myslenice, Slovakia) 213, 215 Gyarmati, Balázs, parish priest of Szentkirály, witness in the trial 69, 76, 84–5, 103–6, 123, 128, 162 Gyöngyös, market town, Franciscan cloister 158–9 Beguins in 158 Győr, town 68, 90 bishop of 127 diocese of 42, 150 György, parish priest of Marác, witness in the trial 83, 104–5 haiduks, herdsmen, 70, 89, 152–5 Halastó, village 83, 98 Halastói, Benedek, parish priest of Hidashollós, witness in the trial 64, 75, 77, 83, 105 Handlovalehota (Handlová, Slovakia) 215 Hassághy family 82 hearsay 60, 64, 80, 96, 103 heart 164, 171, 173, 176, 180–81 heirs 84, 90, 133, 142, 176–7, 193, 213 Henczelfy family 88 heresy 21, 159, 168–9, 203

Hermán, György, nobleman, familiaris of Bakócz 176 Herrschaft, see domination Hidashollós, village 64, 83–4, 88 Hidvég, village 77, 83 Holy Apostolic Penitentiary 168 holy mass high mass 139, 172 lay attendance of 135, 140–41 transubstantiation 131, 135, 169, 173 votive/masses for the soul 127–8, 139 Holy Roman Empire 9, 13, 16 Holy See 34, 42, see also Rome; Papal Curia; papacy Holy Virgin Mary, 93, 129–30, 137, 193 Holy Week, 132, 142, 171, 174, 178 homicide 168 honor 94, 106, 178, 189 clerical honor and sexual behavior 149 hospital foundation 198 illiterate, the 7, 69 Ilona, lover of Friar Zsigmond 148 in partibus process 21 indoctrination 12, 162, 164 indulgences 32, 50–51, 133, 180 inquisitor 66–7 inquisitorial process 59 intercession 126, 137, 177 István Prior, Augustinian in Körmend 77 István, parish priest of Hidvég, witness in the trial 83 István, parish priest of Körmend, witness in the trial 2, 69, 75, 81, 98, 112, 115, 118, 127, 163, 212 Italy 4, 9, 25, 53–4 Ivánc, village 83–4 Ivánci, János, castellan of Jánosháza 92 Ivánczi, Balázs, nobleman, witness in the trial 83

Index

Jacobus, Augustinian friar in Körmend 65 Jagiello dynasty 16, 191 Ják, village 86, 140 Benedictine monastery 48 Jánosfalva (Bačka Palanka, Serbia) 216 Jasztrebarszka (Jastrebarsko, Croatia), observant Franciscan cloister 193, 199 judicial sources 6–7, 59, 69, 76, 95 Julius II, pope 3, 31, 48 justification by faith 179–80 Kállósemjén, market town 87 Karol, Miklós, townsman of Körmend 148 Karolj, Gergely, townsman of Körmend, toll-collector, witness in the trial 67, 75, 81, 91, 104–5, 115 Kassa (Košice, Slovakia) 138 Kemesmáli, Mihály nobleman, witness in the trial 83 Király, György, townsman of Körmend, witness in the trial 81, 86, 119, 142, 185 Kis, Gáspár, townsman of Körmend 115 Kolos, Benedictine abbot of 147 Kolozsvári, Mihály, Augustinian friar, advocate in the Körmend trial 22, 41 Koppánymonostora, Benedictine abbey 147 Kovács, Péter, from Rátold, witness in the trial 83, 111, 114–5 Körmend, market town 13–14, 16–17 castle of 2, 17, 33, 82, 85–7, 99–100, 198–9 castellan of 70, 74, 76–7, 88, 91–2, 99–100 see also Csuti, András; Farkas, Illés; Ferde, Benedek; Mindszenti, Lukács; Nagy, Pál, of Kemesmál cemetery of 93, 140 congregation of 127–8 dungeon of 124

255

foundation of 17 inhabitants of 16–17 landlord of, see Erdődy, Péter; Ellerbach, János market, weekly 18 market square of 1, 18, 80, 89, 125 parish priest of 2, 67, 69, 71, 98, see also István, parish priest of Körmend parish school of 18, 75, 124–5, 153 education in 128 parsonage of 2–3, 23, 59, 223 relationship of town community and landlord 188–200 (passim) relationship of townsmen and friars 8, 97–8, 111–24 ambivalence of 97–8, 119 lay strategies to reform cloister 112–7 peaceful coexistence 117–20 sharing leisure time 118–20 solidarity 114 violent conflicts 111–6, 122, 124, 152 spiritual market of 127–31 see St. Elizabeth parish church of Körmend St. Martin, old parish church of 18, 125 Altar to the Dead 129 chantry priest of 81, 150 town judge of 16, 81, 86, 112, 119, 142, 153, 190 town court of 176 town magistrate 81, 86, 116, 118 seal of town council 90 Kubinyi, András 206 Kümin, Beat 206 Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy 5 laicization of religion, 15–16, 106–7, 142–3, 157, 186, 201, 205, 213, 216, 220, 223 Laskai, Osvát, observant Franciscan provincial, preacher 50, 152

256

A Cloister on Trial

last will, 138, 177, 198, 212–3, see also testamentary legacies; and individual cases Lateran Council, Fifth 31, 54 see also Fourth Lateran Council lay-clerical interactions, 8, 11, 119–20 legitimization 188, 214 Lent 122, 131 Leo X, pope 3, 5–6, 21–2, 24, 30–32, 34–6, 37–40, 42–3, 47–8, 72, 154, 221, 228, 245, see also Medici, Giovanni da letters of papal pardon 119, 168 Linehan, Peter 6 Liptószentmiklós (Liptovský Mikuláš), Slovakia) 215 literate, the 59–60, 69, 72, 120 litterae interrogatoriae 23, see also questionnaire Litteratus, János, of Somogy 115 Litteratus, Márk, of Szarvaskend 83, 90 liturgy, official of Holy Week, 171–4, see also reconciliation local politics 123, 185, 220 Lord’s Prayer 161, 167, 174 Lord’s Supper 181–2 Louis II, King of Hungary 55, 189 Lőrinc, Körmendi, chantry priest, witness in the trial 76, 81, 104, 115, 129, 139, 150 Luther 157, 159, 173, 175, 179–82, 220 Lutheran patron lords 204–5, 210–11 preacher 156, 159, 204, 209, 211, 215 as “heretic” 159, 208–10 tenets 156, 158, 181, 187, 220, 222 Lutton, Robert 220 Magasfalva (Vysoká, Slovakia) 208 magistrate 16, 29, 138, 152, 186, 213–4 Mainz, archbishop of 43

Majthényi, Uriel, Premonstratensian provost 47–8 Marác, village 79, 83, 104 Maráci, Illés, parish priest of Csákány, witness in the trial 74–5, 83, 128 market towns (oppida) 16–17, 87, 89, 127, 130, 206 marriage clerical 145–9 evangelical perspective on 157–8 Márton, György, from Szarvaskend, witness in the trial 83, 91 Mary of Habsburg 202 Máté, Friar, Augustinian in Körmend 75–6 Matheus Toth, see Tóth, Máté, Augustinian prior in Körmend Mattheus, see Máté Friar Matthias [Hunyadi], King of Hungary 65, 77, 194 Medici, Giovanni da 31 Medici, Giulio de’ 36, see also Clement VII, pope memory 86, 222 mendicants as promoters of penitential piety 137–8 as mediators between elite and popular culture 155–6 as rebels 155–6 evangelical rhetoric against 156–8 in humanist satirical literature 160 rivalry with diocesan clergy 10 spirituality of 9–10 merits (spiritual) 136, 139, 141, 143, 191 Michael, see Mihály, Friar microhistory 13 Mihály, Friar, Augustinian in Körmend 99–100 Miklós, Újlaki, ban of Slavonia and Macsó 194, 196–7 Miletinczi, János, notary public, notary in the Körmend trial 1, 40, 60, 63, 64, 69–73, 78, 93, 221

Index

Mindszenti, Lukács, of Hollós, nobleman, castellan of Körmend, witness in the trial 74, 77, 83, 88–9, 91–2, 113, 116, 118–9, 122, 141, 153, 165–6, 170, 176, 178, 180, 189–90 model sermons 50, 132, 172 Mohács, battle of 85 Monoszló (Moslavina, Croatia), observant Franciscan cloister 198–9 Monyorókerék (Eberau, Austria), castle 2, 198 mortal sin 94, 103, 136–7, 152, 163– 4, 167–8, 171, 174, 179–80 moveable property 87–8 Moznichar, Mihály, from Szered (Sered, Slovakia) 212 Murakeresztúr, Benedictine abbot of 147 mystery play 15, 129 Nádalja, village 83, 141, 166 Nádasd, village 73, 83, 112, 121, 165 Nádasdi, Ferenc, nobleman, witness in the trial 83, 91–2, 113–5, 117, 140, 170, 188 Nagy, Pál, of Kemesmál, nobleman, castellan of Körmend, witness in the trial 73, 77, 83, 91, 116–9, 123, 135 Nagy, Pál, townsman of Körmend, churchwarden, dean of confraternity, witness in the trial 61, 81, 86, 112, 128, 141–2 Nagybánya (Baia Mare, Romania) 138 Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade, Serbia) 25, 198 neigbourhood conflict 166 nepotism 27–8 Nicholas V, pope 196, 198 Nicolai, Gilbert, observant Franciscan superior general 36 noble patronage, system of 212–4 normal exception 14–15

257

notary, see Miletinczi, János Nyilas, Miklós, townsman of Körmend 148 oath 92–3 observant reform 28–9 of Augustinians, 52–4 of Benedictines 46–8 of Franciscans 49–52 of Premonstratensians 46–8 Okics (Okić, Croatia) 193, 199 Oláh, Miklós, archbishop of Esztergom 202, 213 operation of the sacraments 162–8 ordinary people 3, 7, 30, 49, 59–60, 64, 72, 203, see also commoners ordo iudiciarius 22 ordo per notorium 22 Ország, Kristóf, magnate 210–11 Ország, Mihály, Palatine 191, 194 Orthodox Christians 16 Oszvald, Pál, of Hollós 153 Ottoman, expansion 16, 25 Ottoman Hungary 158–9 see also crusade, against the Ottomans Ozment, Steven 202 Pál, chantry priest in Gyarmat 104 Pálóci family 194, 196–7, 218 Palota, observant Franciscan cloister 197 Pap, András, town judge of Körmend, witness in the trial 81, 86 papacy 34–5, 43–4, see also Holy See; Papal Curia; Rome, Papal Curia 5, see also Holy See; Rome; papacy papal legate 29, 33, 37, 43, 154 papal supremacy 214 papal throne 3, 6, 25, 28, 31 Pápóc, market town 66, 150 parish clergy, see also clergy concubinage of 145–6 election of 203–19 (passim) maintenance of 127–31

258

A Cloister on Trial

social integration of 150–51 parish school of Körmend 18, 75, 125 schoolmaster of 101, 103, 123, 125, 128 students of 18, 101 parochial tax 127 Paul II, pope 38 Paulines 159, 191, 195, 218 Paÿertak, Kristóf, saddler in Körmend 99 peace 9, 31–2, 43, 123, 149, 171–4, 176–8, 180, 182, 192, 194–5, 199, 201, 224 peasant revolt 39–40, 51, 135, 154–5 peasant tenant 16, 77, 79, 81, 84, 86, 89 Pécs, city 172 Pécsi, Balázs, Augustinian provincial 53, 55 Pécsi, Márton, Augustinian provincial 53 penance, system of 12, 136, 176–8 Luther on 179–80 public 149, 172 perjury 94 Peters, Christine 220 Pető family 92 petty noble 2, 8, 76, 83, 87, 114, 148, 165, 171, 176, 207 Philep, Miklós, of Rádóc, nobleman, witness in the trial 83 piety, eucharistic 12, 126, 143, see also religion, sacramental pilgrimage and pilgrims 11, 133, 177, 198 pillory 100, 121, 148, 150 pious bequests and donations 11, 50, 114, 126–7, 142, 218 plague 77, 130, 216 Pocha, Gergely, townsman of Körmend 145 Polányi, Oszvald, of Hidvég, nobleman, witness in the trial 77, 83, 87, 111 Pondor, Miklós, from Nádalja, witness in the trial 67, 76, 83, 91, 141, 162

Poor Clare nuns 168 portable altar 198–9 Porthol, Péter, of Szentmihály, nobleman, witness in the trial 84, 89 Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia) 130, 177, 206 Franciscan church 130 St. Sebastian chapel 130 preaching 49–51, 65, 132, 137, 142–3, 145, 154, 158, 160, 164, 197–8 Premonstratensian order 28, 39, 46–8, 55 prior, Augustinian lover of 99, 122 private devotion 51, 191, 193, 204, 211 process of civilization 120 Prodon, Margit, lover of the prior 122 procession 11, 138 Epiphany 98, 119 on Palm Sunday 171 Protestant Reformation 10–11, 15, 143, 201–2 communal 206 reception of, in Hungary 156–7 and women 158 protocol or register 5–7, 59–71, 78 public opinion 8, 22–4, 60, 107, 127 see also fama publica public prayers 12, 22, 97, 125, 140 matin 68, 74, 140, 162 vespers 68, 73–4, 112, 114, 116, 140, 162 Pucafölde 85 punishment divine 135, in the confession 174–6 of friars 100, 113–4, 121, 124, 169, 189 of women for illicit sexuality 148, 150 spiritual 167 purgatory 136–7, 177, 196 Pusztarádócz, village 83

Index

questionnaire 21, 23–4, 42, 60, 62, 64, 93, 191, 193 Rába, river 2, 17–18, 88 Rádóci alias Szabó, Albert, nobleman, witness in the trial 83, 113 Rádóci, Tamás, parish priest, witness in the trial 77, 105 Rangoni da Verona, Gabriele, Franciscan, bishop of Transylvania 25, 51 Ratt, Márton, priest in Rohonc 168 reciprocity 9–10, 132, 137, 177, 182, 212 reconciliation 136, 166, 170–78, 181 reformatio 24, 30 religion lay 9, 11–12, 112, 126 lived 14 local 8, 15, 182, 201, 213 official 11–12, 126, 131–42 parish 9–10, 208–13, 218–20, see also congregation penitential 12, 126, 142, 161, 182 popular 9–12, 14, 126, 131, 161 sacramental 15, 132, 161, 215, 219 religious diversity 209–10, 213 remembering 74, 96, 98–9 remission of sins 175, 180 respublica Christiana 32 Révay, János, sons of 210–11 right of patronage 204, 206–7, 217, 220 rituals, religious 11–12, 14, 178, see also confession; communion; foot-washing cleansing 179 communal 182 role of women in 134 Rohonc (Rechnitz, Austria) 168 Rome, city 3–4, 6, 26–7, 30–32, 40–41, 45, 53–5, 66, 180, 221 as Papal Curia 33–9, 43, 45–6, 53–4, 69, 191 see also Holy See; papacy Rosos, Sebestyén 79

259

Rosos, Simon, townsman of Körmend, witness in the trial 65, 70, 76, 79, 81, 90, 115–6, 119, 121–2, 140–42 Royal Chancery 35 Rumi, László, nobleman 176 rumor 24, 60, 99–100, 124 Sabean, David 181, 187 sacraments, administration and reception of 8, 114, 128, 146, 157, 205, 215–6, 219 automatic efficacy of 163 baptism 127, 149 last rites 133, 173, 177, 216 see also communion; confession; Eucharist; penance sacred economy 131–8, 143–4 sacrilege 149 St. Augustine 163 St. Elizabeth parish church of Körmend 17–18, 223 chantry priest in 69, 81, 84, 104, 139 foundation of altar benefices 129 chaplain of 65, 75, 125, 128, 212, 217 high-altar 125 patron of 127, see also Erdődy, Péter; Ellerbach, János side-altars 125, 129–30 St. Francis 193 St. Leonard 193 St. Paul 164 saints 11, 43, 93, 133, 137, 143, 170 canonization of 21, 43 Sáli, András, nobleman, witness in the trial 83, 122 salvation 9, 33, 125–7, 134, 136–7, 143, 145, 164, 191–6, 224 Sárospatak, market town, Franciscan cloister 33, 54, 159, 196–7, 218 satisfaction 137, 174–7, 180, 182 Sátoraljaújhely, market town 218

260

A Cloister on Trial

scandals 1, 3, 5–6, 43, 51, 66, 100, 122–3, 190–91, 199, 223–4 school of mendicants 48, 51, 53 parish 72, 128, 155, see also Körmend, parish school sexual misconduct lay attitude to 145–8 of parish clergy 145–6 of Benedictines 147 see also Augustinian friars of Körmend, sexual behavior of Scribner, Robert 131, 170, 203 secularization 15, 197 self-fashioning 8, 27, 122, 185, 224 of witnesses 100–107 aristocratic 188, 199 self-help 97, 113–4, 117, 123 Sempte (Šintava, Slovakia), chaplain of 213 sermon 166, 172–3, 175, 180, 222 shame 9, 116, 123, 185 Shrove Tuesday 73 Sibrik, Benedek, of Szarvaskend, nobleman, witness in the trial 84, 87, 90, 113, 140 Sibrik, Márta, noblewoman, mother of Benedek 90 Sibrik, Tamás, of Szarvaskend, nobleman, witness in the trial 77–8, 84, 87, 90, 113, 119, 153 side-altar 125, 131, 139, 216–8 Sigismund I, King of Poland 32 Sigismundus de Vacia, see Váci, Zsigmond, Augustinian prior Sigismundus, see Zsigmond Friar Simon, Friar, Augustinian in Körmend 65, 121–2 Sisters of Mercy 171 Slavonia 85, 193 ban of 196–7 social disciplining 120, 150–51, 182 social integration 155 Somló, castle 198–9 Somlóvásárhely, Benedictine convent, transfer of 39, 47–8, 55 Sopron 127, 129–30

spiritual kinship 148–9 spiritual market 127–31, 138–44 spolium 24, 30, 35 Stephanus prior, see István Prior, Augustinian in Körmend stocks 121–2 Stone, Lawrence 202 story-telling strategies 96–107 Súr (Súr, Slovakia), chaplain of 213 syphilis 65, 113 Szabó, János, town judge of Körmend 153 Szalay, Balázs, townsman of Körmend 122 Szapolyai, János, King of Hungary 135 Szarvaskend, village 84, 90 Szatmári, György, bishop of Pécs, judge-delegate in the Körmend trial 22, 24, 34–5, 39–43, 221 Szécsény, Franciscan cloister 33, 38–9, 191, 196 Szécsi, Borbála, aristocrat 129 Szécsi, Tamás, aristocrat 79 Szecsőd, village 84, 128–9 Szecsődi, Miklós, parish priest of Szecsőd, witness in the trial 84, 128 Szeged, Franciscan cloister 159, 179 Szegedi, Gergely, Franciscan preacher 159 Szentgotthárd, abbey 90 Szentgyörgy and Bazin (Pezinok, Slovakia), Counts of 213 Szentkirály, village 84, 103, 115, 123, 128 Szentmihály, village 84, 89 Szentpéter (Liptovský Peter, Slovakia) 208 Szepes, synod of 172 Szerémi, György, court chaplain, chronicler 135 Szkhárosi Horváth, András, Lutheran preacher 156, 158–9 Tállya, market town 156

Index

Tapasztó, Mátyás, townsman of Körmend, witness in the trial 81, 90, 113–4, 116, 119 Tar, Lőrinc 136 Tarródy, Bertalan, of Szecsőd, nobleman 176 Tasnád (Tășnad, in Romania) 62 tavern scenes 64, 67, 74, 100–101, 112–3, 121–2, 140 excessive drinking 24, 112, 114, 162 friars and laymen together in taverns 102, 104, 112, 114, 118, 154 gambling 104, 119 mass in the tavern 113, 152 mockeries 113 playing games and cards 104, 118, 152 tavern brawls 11, 24, 99–100, 105 Temesvári, Pelbárt, observant Franciscan preacher 50, 132, 136, 163, 167, 175, 177 Ten Commandments 174 testamentary legacies 126–7, 218 pro fabrica 127 propter anime salutem 129 theology 49, 53, 164, 169, 181 time, perceptions of 71–8 Titel (Tumen, Serbia), provostry of 25 tithe 127 Tolnai, Máté, Benedictine abbot 46 Tolnai, Péter, parish priest of Kölked, witness in the trial 73, 83, 114–7, 190 Tóth, István, from Báta, townsman of Körmend, witness in the trial 66, 75, 81, 102, 105, 115, 121 Tóth, Máté, Augustinian prior in Körmend 66, 77 trade 1, 16–17, 90–91, 153, 197 Transylvania 157 voivode of 196–8, 209 Újhelyi, Márton, advocate in the trial 22–3, 33, 40, 42, 221

261

Újlak (Ilok, Croatia), observant Franciscan cloister 33, 194, 196–8 Vác, Augustinian cloister 22, 41 Váci, Zsigmond, Augustinian prior 3, 150 Vapricensis diocesis 4 Várad (Oradea, Romania) 159, 193 Varga, Lőrinc, witness in the trial 83 Várkony (Vrakúň, Slovakia) 206 Vas, János, from Szentmihály, witness in the trial 84, 162 Vasallya, village 86, 123 Vasvár, collegiate church 212 Vatican Archives ix, 4, 21 Venezia, Gabriele da, Augustininan superior general 45, 55 Veszprém, bishop of 131 synod of 131, 134 Vicenza, Agostino da, Augustinian magister regens 53–4 Vienna, University of 18, 169 violence 14, 82, 113, 145, 153, 155, 185 Visegrád, Benedictine monastery 191 visionary literature 136 Viterbo, Egidio da, Augustinian superior general 36, 52–4 Vitéz, Mihály, judge-delegate in the Körmend trial 40, 42–3, 221 Werbőczy, István, jurist 86 Wesprimiensis diocesis 4 widow 66, 85–6, 88, 129, 142, 147–8, 150, 199 of István of Bükes, lover of Friar Ambrus 148 witness depositions authenticity of 23, 62–71, 78 verisimilitude of 96–107 witness interrogation 2–3, 6–7, 21–3, 41–3, 47, 60–71 (passim), 104–6, 115–7, 221 witnesses in the trial honor of 106 relations with friars 102–6

262

A Cloister on Trial

social standing of 84–6, 90–92 financial assets of 87–9 story-telling strategies of 102–7 dissimulation 102–3 Wladislaus (Jagiello) II, King of Hungary 46–8, 191, 194 womanizing 3, 95, 101, 147, 160, see also Augustinian friars of Körmend, sexual behavior of women as lovers of the Körmend friars 65, 101, 115, 145, 147–8, 150 banished 99 chased from the cloister garden 122 cooking for friars 115, 148

flagellated 100 of ill-repute 24, 67, 99, 103 on the pillory 99 put in castle dungeon 124 staying in the friary 123 suspicious (suspecta mulier) 24, 67, 77, 85, 147–9 Württemberg 12, 181–2 Zagreb 1 bishop of 191 diocese of 64 Zalavár, monastery 189 Zsigmond, Friar, Augustinian in Körmend 73, 115, 148