Friars, Nobles and Burghers – Sermons, Images and Prints: Studies of Culture and Society in Early-Modern Europe - In Memoriam István György Tóth 9789633864609

Table of contents :
Contents
Farewell to István György Tóth
Foreword
I . Approaches and Historiographical Issues
The Religious Borderlines of the Confessionalization and Secularization of European Culture and Societies. Results and Perspectives of My Cooperation with István György Tóth
The Value of Foreign Sources for the Understanding of National History
Hungary and Bosnia 1387–1463. Between Stereotypes and New Interpretations
II. Confessional and Religious Life
II.1. Confessional Identities
Eucharistic Iconography and the Confessional Identity of the Saxon Community in Early Modern Transylvania
“Wider den grausamen Erbfeind deß Christlichen Nahmens”: Lutheran Military Chaplains from Württemberg in the Hungarian Wars against the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
The Ambivalence of Exile. Hungarian Exiles in Germany in the Seventeenth Century
The Counter-Reformation and the 1672 Kuruc Revolt
II.2. Symbol and Representation
A Funeral and a Political Pamphlet: The Funeral Sermon for the Archbishop Johann Schweikard of Mainz in 1626
The Making of a Perfect Friar: Habit and Reform in the Franciscan Tradition
II.3. Strife and Accommodation
The Politics of Church Unification: Efforts to Reunify the Utraquists and Rome in the 1520s
Some Reflections on Uniatism in the Confederation of Poland and Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century
II.4. Religion, Empire and Ideology
The Political Theologies of Empires: Jesuit Missionaries between Counter-Reformation Europe and the Chinese Empire
Conversion as an Instrument of Imperial Rule: The Case of the Russian Empire
III. Society and Culture
III.1. Order, Hierarchy and Cultural Capital
The “Bishops of the Hungarian Crown”: A Case Study in the Ecclesiastical, Social and Constitutional History of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in South-Eastern Europe
Levels of Group Loyalty at the Turn of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Kolozsvár in the Rákóczi War of Independence
Comparing the Enlightenment: Men of Letters and Intellectual Work in Eighteenth-Century Naples
III.2. Disorder, Discipline and Denunciation
Burning Germany: Cities on Fire, Fire Fighting and Fire Insurance in Early Modern Germany
Orthodox Demonology and the Perception of Witchcraft in Early Modern Ukraine
Punishment in Sixteenth-Century Hungarian Towns
III.3. Word and Print, Education and Literacy
Reading Aloud: Between Oral and Literate Communication
A Virgin Deserving Paradise or a Whore Deserving Poison: Manuscript Tradition and Printed Books in Ottoman Turkish Society
Education and Denominations in Transdanubia (1910)
Register of Geographical Names
Bibliography of István György Tóth
List of Contributors
Index of Personal Names
Index of Geographical Names

Citation preview

Friars, Nobles and Burghers— Sermons, Images and Prints

Friars, Nobles and Burghers—Sermons, Images and Prints Studies of Culture and Society in Early-Modern Europe, In Memoriam István György Tóth

Edited by

Jaroslav Miller, László Kontler

Central European University Press Budapest—New York

© 2010, Jaroslav Miller and László Kontler Published in 2010 by Central European University Press An imprint of the Central European University Share Company Nádor utca 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary Tel: +36-1-327-3138 or 327-3000 Fax: +36-1-327-3183 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ceupress.com 400 West 59th Street, New York NY 10019, USA Tel: +1-212-547-6932 Fax: +1-646-557-2416 E-mail: [email protected] All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the permission of the Publisher. ISBN 978-963-9776-67-8 cloth Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Friars, nobles, and burghers--sermons, images, and prints : studies of culture and society in early-modern Europe : in memoriam István György Tóth / edited by Jaroslav Miller, László Kontler. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-9639776678 (cloth) 1. Europe, Central--Civilization. 2. Europe, Eastern--Civilization. 3. Europe, Central--Social conditions. 4. Europe, Eastern--Social conditions. 5. Religion and culture--Europe, Central--History. 6. Religion and culture--Europe, Eastern-History. 7. Europe, Central--Religion. 8. Europe, Eastern--Religion. 9. Europe-History--1492-1648. 10. Europe--History--1648-1789. I. Miller, Jaroslav. II. Kontler, László. III. Tóth, István György, 1956-2005. IV. Title. DAW1047.F75 2010 943.7'023--dc22 2010007100

Printed in Hungary by Akaprint Kft., Budapest

Contents

LÁSZLÓ KONTLER Farewell to István György Tóth JAROSLAV MILLER AND LÁSZLÓ KONTLER Foreword

ix xiii

I. Approaches and Historiographical Issues HEINZ SCHILLING The Religious Borderlines of the Confessionalization and Secularization of European Culture and Societies: Results and Perspectives of My Cooperation with István György Tóth

3

CHARLES KECSKEMÉTI The Value of Foreign Sources for the Understanding of National History

11

DUBRAVKO LOVRENOVIĆ Hungary and Bosnia 1387–1463: Between Stereotypes and New Interpretations

33

II. Confessional and Religious Life II.1. Confessional Identities MARIA CRĂCIUN Eucharistic Iconography and the Confessional Identity of the Saxon Community in Early Modern Transylvania

49

MÁRTA FATA “Wider den grausamen Erbfeind deß Christlichen Nahmens”: Lutheran Military Chaplains from Württemberg in the Hungarian Wars against the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

73

vi

Contents

EVA KOWALSKÁ The Ambivalence of Exile: Hungarian Exiles in Germany in the Seventeenth Century GEORG B. MICHELS The Counter-Reformation and the 1672 Kuruc Revolt

91 107

II.2. Symbol and Representation RADMILA PAVLÍČKOVÁ A Funeral and a Political Pamphlet: The Funeral Sermon for the Archbishop Johann Schweikard of Mainz in 1626

129

MARTIN ELBEL The Making of a Perfect Friar: Habit and Reform in the Franciscan Tradition

149

II.3. Strife and Accommodation ANTONÍN KALOUS The Politics of Church Unification: Efforts to Reunify the Utraquists and Rome in the 1520s

179

DANIEL TOLLET Some Reflections on Uniatism in the Confederation of Poland and Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century

199

II.4. Religion, Empire and Ideology RONNIE PO-CHIA HSIA The Political Theologies of Empires: Jesuit Missionaries between Counter-Reformation Europe and the Chinese Empire

213

ALFRED J. RIEBER Conversion as an Instrument of Imperial Rule: The Case of the Russian Empire

233

III. Society and Culture III.1. Order, Hierarchy and Cultural Capital JOACHIM BAHLCKE The “Bishops of the Hungarian Crown”: A Case Study in the Ecclesiastical, Social and Constitutional History of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in South-Eastern Europe

251

Contents

vii

EMESE BÁLINT Levels of Group Loyalty at the Turn of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Kolozsvár in the Rákóczi War of Independence

281

ANNA MARIA RAO Comparing the Enlightenment: Men of Letters and the Intellectual Work in Eighteenth-Century Naples

297

III.2. Disorder, Discipline and Denunciation CORNEL ZWIERLEIN Burning Germany: Cities on Fire, Fire Fighting and Fire Insurance in Early Modern Germany

319

KATERYNA DYSA Orthodox Demonology and the Perception of Witchcraft in Early Modern Ukraine

341

BLANKA SZEGHYOVÁ Punishment in Sixteenth-Century Hungarian Towns

361

III.3. Word and Print, Education and Literacy ZORAN VELAGIĆ Reading Aloud: Between Oral and Literate Communication

379

ORLIN SABEV (ORHAN SALIH) A Virgin Deserving Paradise or a Whore Deserving Poison: Manuscript Tradition and Printed Books in Ottoman Turkish Society

389

VICTOR KARADY Education and Denominations in Transdanubia (1910)

411

Register of Geographical Names

427

István György Tóth’s Bibliography

431

List of Contributors

447

Index of Personal Names

449

Index of Geographical Names

461

Farewell to István György Tóth LÁSZLÓ KONTLER

“The ever-present István György Tóth” was the epithet used by Roland Mortier at the closing plenary session of the 1987 International Congress on the Enlightenment in Budapest when he conveyed the thanks of the Board of the International Society for Eighteenth Century Studies to the young congress secretary for his good offices. The congress itself was symbolic of the climate in which a rising star of international historical scholarship from a small corner of Eastern Europe could make a special mark. Earlier bilateral exchanges of eighteenth-century scholars from both sides of the grand divide of the times were now repeated, though still in an unredeemed political world of the waning Cold War, on a truly global scale, with several hundreds of the rank-and-file of the profession present. Mortier’s words referred to the secretary’s sense of duty—which he wore with an engaging mix of leisureliness and seriousness—and organizational skills, but it was indeed in István’s nature to be everywhere also in terms of intellectual curiosity and breadth of vision. His “mission for cultural history”—whether digging the archives, working as a guest professor, recruiting and interviewing prospective students, participating in conferences or negotiating plans of collaborative projects—took him to Paris and Berlin, to Nancy and Freiburg, to Chicago and Los Angeles, to Rome and Naples, to Sarajevo and Bratislava, to Vilnius and Moscow, to Beijing and Sydney (the list very far from being complete). At many of these places he could address his hosts in their local tongue, yet the number of languages into which his work has been translated exceeds the number he spoke. But perhaps he could not have been more profoundly everywhere than he was at one single place, Central European University. While throughout his career he remained loyal to his first professional home, the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences— initially as a junior research fellow, and ultimately as Head of the Department of Early Modern History—and earned considerable respect as a

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part-time professor at the University of Miskolc, CEU was simply congenial to his cosmopolitan open-mindedness. As this volume originates with his students and colleagues at CEU, it might be permissible to formulate the address from this perspective too. István was a member of the History faculty at CEU since the very beginning, that is, 1991. His career at CEU, to my mind, is framed by two conversations between the two of us. We were at the next Enlightenment Congress, at Bristol, in the summer of 1991. “Laci, tell me about the CEU,” he called me aside in one of the intervals between sessions, shortly after having been re-elected, at thirty-five, to the Board of the International Society. Not long before then, Péter Hanák, the founding Chair, had invited both of us to join the History Department of CEU as “junior professors”; previously, I had participated in organizing the international seminars that piloted the creation of the department. Whoever knew him just a bit must be aware that István had no taste for a spectacular show of enthusiasm. He would react with a mix of irony and joviality, even when he had already committed himself without making this explicit. This occasion was no exception. He was immediately animated by the prospect of working with a group of students and fellow faculty members coming from a dozen—later on, several dozens—of countries and participating in the formation of a highly unusual training program for young historians. The project of relativizing and, at the same time, fertilizing the national historiographical traditions of “the region” (which in CEU jargon stands for Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe) through a consistent application of the comparative perspective, dovetailed in a most natural manner with his own approach to little explored territories of Hungarian history (alphabetization, everyday life, cultural and religious transfer etc.), alert as he was to recent developments in international research. István was not an ascetic type of person. Had he not found it personally enjoyable and rewarding to contribute to the realization of this project, confidently getting on its feet in spite of its “children’s diseases,” we would surely be poorer by about two dozen theses and dissertations, whose authors include some of the most promising talents in Czech, Croatian, Ukrainian, Romanian and Hungarian historical studies. The second episode dates from the winter of 2004. One grey December morning, István entered my office with a grim expression on his face. That was when I came to know about the death of another Hungarian colleague, Péter Sahin Tóth, who passed away tragically young. “We can never know what’s inside,” István said. It is only under the present shock

LÁSZLÓ KONTLER: Farewell to István György Tóth

xi

that I can clearly recall what passed my mind at that moment: “He’s the one to whom this can never happen,” I seem to have told myself. István had an aura of confidence and assurance. In an academic community in which the drive for theoretical adventure, even risk-taking, is quite high, one could always count on him for a sobering, realistic correction. He could afford this, and all of us accepted this from him with due respect: while he was far from having an aversion to methodological experimentation, he also knew exactly where the sources support and where they contradict theory. In general, too, he was a pragmatist, with both feet firmly on the ground—an attitude from which his habitus as a historian, always sensitive to detail, was transferred to his judgements on situations, problems and individuals. For the same reason he was superbly qualified to make history come alive, and to make life imbued with history. Life, he did enjoy tremendously; he knew how to enjoy it, and he knew how to share such enjoyment with others. Many of us remember him as a ceremonious but cordial Santa Claus, a role he keenly played at Christmas parties for the children of the CEU community in the early years when we were still like a big family; as a guide on field trips; and as a member of committees and convivial companies who, as we knew and expected, would flavour learned explanations and anecdotes with his unmistakable sense of humour. Lately, he was mentioning with a mix of pride and enthusiasm how his son Olivér was becoming an ever more exciting intellectual companion for him. Tragically, they are denied the chance to experience this closest of companionships at its full maturity. As a man open to the world, István set off with passionate interest whenever his profession presented an opportunity for him to see the world. It is still hard to believe that from his last trip we expected him in vain to return. Since the summer of 2005 the History Department of CEU has been a very different place from what it used to be. We share with your beloved ones the sense of incomprehension and anger over the unchangeable and unacceptable. Rest in peace, István.

Foreword

JAROSLAV MILLER–LÁSZLÓ KONTLER

The idea of this commemorative volume in honor of the late István György Tóth originates with some of his former doctoral students at Central European University. They were, however, soon joined by an impressive international community of scholars, István’s colleagues and friends, who voiced their enthusiasm for and interest in the project. The essays assembled in the volume address issues and themes that occupied a central place in Tóth’s own studies. The editors believe that this, by itself, provides the volume with a certain degree of coherence. Tóth’s oeuvre ranges (in a rough chronological sequence of the appearance of these themes in his personal bibliography) from the microscopic society of the earlymodern manor, through the ability to read and write among persons of different status both in such societies and in society at large; then through so many other aspects of everyday life and practices including consumption patterns, time measurement, dress, sexuality and personal hygiene; and finally confessional life, in particular inter-confessional interaction and transfers at the “frontiers of faith,” and as it can be approached through the lens of missionary activity, in which all of the previously mentioned themes obtain special meaning. The theoretical and methodological issues which these topics raise point well beyond the thematic and chronological confines of Tóth’s own research and place it in broad comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives. It is an oeuvre that, through the integrity as well as the versatility of its author, has brilliantly shown us the unity emerging from the diversity of early-modern social and cultural life. The same is attempted in the present collection. In search of an all-embracing consensual definition of culture, Peter Burke once published a list of the most relevant scholarly works in the field of cultural history since the nineteenth century.1 While the classic 1

Peter Burke, What Is Cultural History? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

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studies by Jakob Burckhardt, Johan Huizinga and Aby Warburg that he lists mostly referred to art, architecture, literature and music, for the postwar period Burke included, among other works, Skinner’s Foundations of Modern Political Thought (1978), Darnton’s Great Cat Massacre (1984) or Reddy’s Navigation of Feeling (2001). Although highly selective, Burke’s register offers a significant contribution to Begriffsgeschichte and the history of ideas as it illustrates the semantic expansion of the term ‘culture’ over more than a century. Largely under the influence of anthropological and ethnological research, many (though not all) historians today would probably accept the definition of a culture as a system of shared meanings, values, attitudes and symbolic forms in any sphere of human life. The essays chosen by the editors and published in this volume reflect this broader interpretation. Although thematically diverse, all these studies adhere to the concept of what is sometimes termed the new cultural history or socio-cultural history. The volume is introduced by Heinz Schilling’s theoretically oriented essay summarizing the major outcomes of research pursued within the Cultural Exchange in Europe 1400–1700 Programme (Team I: Religion, cultural differentiation and cultural identities), which was for several years co-directed by him and István György Tóth. Assessing Tóth’s contribution to this field and reconsidering the concept of confessionalization, Schilling suggests some additional issues and themes for debate, namely the dialectic of confessionalism and secularization and confessional fundamentalism around (and after) 1600. By providing a broad theoretical context, Schilling’s text thus serves as the unifying platform for several essays published in the volume. In another study devoted to approaches and historiographical issues, Charles Kecskeméti commends the study of national history in a broad comparative context which Tóth so adeptly cultivated, thanks to his immense knowledge of the relevant international primary source material, not to mention his personal contribution to making them widely available in splendid modern editions. In Kecskeméti’s essay there is also an echo of Larry Wolff’s and Maria Todorova’s concept of the unknown and imagined Eastern and Southeastern territories of Europe, resuscitating in cultural rather than economic terms the centre/periphery model introduced previously by Immanuel Wallerstein and Fernand Braudel. Kecskeméti’s study thus sheds light upon dimensions of Tóth’s research not yet properly discussed: in a way, it puts Tóth’s monographs and journal articles at the centre of a debate about the symbolic geography of early modern Europe and the intensity of cultural exchange between the (South)East and West until the nineteenth century. Commenting upon the

JAROSLAV MILLER–LÁSZLÓ KONTLER: Foreword

xv

reality of life in the somewhat enigmatic regions of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, most western travelers did not fail to point out a striking contradiction between the enormous economic and cultural potential the territory possessed and public disregard for these hidden treasures. Yet from a Hungarian perspective a land such as Bosnia might have been regarded as occupying the same status. Reconsidering the nature of legal and political relations between Hungary and Bosnia in the Middle Ages, the study by Dubravko Lovrenović might be easily read as a contribution to the concept of incompatible symbolical discourses introduced already by Stephen Greenblatt.2 By focusing upon the (mis)communication of two historiographical traditions, the author has critically assessed both the possessive (mostly Hungarian) and the defensive discourse. After this cluster of methodological and historiographical reflections inspired by Tóth’s contributions, the first thematic section of our volume addresses various aspects of confessional and religious life in early modern Europe, many of which also figure prominently in Tóth’s own empirical work. Confessional allegiance has long been recognized to have contributed significantly to the formation of personal and collective identities in the period. Maria Crăciun’s case study demonstrates this, on the basis of rich iconographic documentation, among the Saxons of Transylvania, for whom the retention of religious art and the understanding of the sacrament was a significant marker of Lutheran identity. Márta Fata then traces the activities and attitudes of another striking group of German Lutherans, Swabian military chaplains, in the anti-Ottoman wars in seventeenth-century Hungary and observes that successful service in this environment improved their overall status and later career opportunities. Eva Kowalská looks at migration in the exact opposite direction, and discusses the difficult “life experience” of exile—shared by many thousands of people during and after the Thirty Years’ War—among the Hungarian Lutheran elite in the 1670s in Germany. However, as the article of Georg B. Michels reminds us, there were many Hungarian Protestants who stayed in the country and joined the anti-Habsburg Kuruc Revolt of 1672—again, out of confessional, rather than, as earlier often claimed, national motives. The study of symbolism and representation are today seen as indispensable for the understanding of supposedly more substantial—socioeconomic, political—aspects of life. Still in the context of explorations of the confessional era, Radmila Pavlíčková illustrates the ways in which the 2

Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).

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event of a funeral was full of meanings, in particular how funeral sermons served as political and confessional propaganda. Martin Elbel’s study emphasizes how the outward appearance of Franciscan friars was conceived as a visual message aimed to establish their place in society and to strengthen the ties between them and their sympathizers. The politics and the power considerations of confessionalization, the strife and accommodation among different denomonations compelled to live in a common space, are directly in the focus of the next two studies: the analysis by Antonín Kalous of the efforts to reunify the Czech Utraquists with the Church of Rome at the dawn of the era and Daniel Tollet’s reflections on the condition of the Uniate (Greek Orthodox) church in eighteenthcentury Poland and Lithuania after the age of confessionalization was apparently over but when many of the issues it raised remained on the agenda. Indeed, in the interpretation of Heinz Schilling as well as Wolfgang Reinhard3 the process of confessionalization affected not only the areas of religion and church, but also politics, the social system, state formation and the whole of early modern culture. At the same time, as the essay by Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia shows, the politics of confessionalization shaped cultural and ideological communication between Europe and nonEuropean civilizations, resulting in a “political theology” of empire elaborated by the Jesuit missionaries in China. Alfred J. Rieber also adopts the imperial perspective on the problem of confessional-religious difference and suggests that in pursuing its aims of unifying religion and solidifying the pillars of absolute rule, the Russian state resorted to the same conversion strategies that were previously pursued by Western European empires in the early modern period. In the third part of the collection our authors follow the thematics of Tóth’s research in the fields of social and cultural history. The keywords and key topics in the first section of this part are order and hierarchy, the cements of the precarious social bond of early modern societies, together with the construction of authority through institutional and other paths as well as the building and expression of commitment and loyalty. Joachim 3

See the seminal studies on the concept of confessionalization: Wolfgang Reinhard, “Konfession und Konfessionalisierung in Europa,” in Wolfgang Reinhard (ed.), Bekenntnis und Geschichte. Die Confessio Augustana im historischen Zusammenhang (Munich: Vögel, 1981), pp. 165–189; Wolfgang Reinhard, “Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung? Prolegomena zu einer Theorie des konfessionellen Zeitalters,” Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 10 (1983), pp. 257–277; Heinz Schilling, “Die Konfessionalisierung im Reich. Religiöser und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in Deutschland zwischen 1555 und 1620,” Historische Zeitschrift 246 (1988), pp. 1–45.

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Bahlcke explores the circumstances that led to the creation of the peculiar institution of “titular bishoprics” in seventeenth-century Hungary, as well as those which secured the retention of the titular bishops’ constitutional privileges (a seat in the Upper House of the Hungarian Diet, and subsequently in that of the Parliament) into the late nineteenth century. Emese Bálint then discusses the maneuvering of Kolozsvár (Klausenburg/Cluj) burghers in the context of Ferenc Rákóczi’s War of Independence and the centralizing policies of the victorious Habsburg rulers. Her essay is thus also the first of several articles in the volume that touch the larger issue of communal order and urban identity in the early modern city; at the same time it also refers to the changing relations between cities and the expanding Leviathan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and contributes to the debate over the complex process whereby a medieval burgher community was transformed structurally and functionally into a (proto)modern urban society. Next, a highly complex article by Anna Maria Rao illustrates the difficulties that confronted men of letters in eighteenth-century Naples in establishing their status solely on the basis of their cultural capital, reasserting the need to study the European Enlightenment in terms of “diversity within unity.” If authority and integration figure prominently in this section, cracks in the machinery of authority and the threat of disintegration dominate the next one. The early modern urban scene, as a seat of hierarchized but strongly collectivist, socially cohesive and highly organized communities, frequently eulogized in contemporary topoi of harmony, unity and tradition, figures prominently here, too, but Cornel Zwierlein and Blanka Szeghyová confront the serious dysfunctions within this ideal(ized) order. Zwierlein’s article is concerned with urban fires, among the most disastrous of events in the life of any city given the chaos, destitution and often also serious social conflicts they produced. However, fire was a doublesided phenomenon which could have entirely reversed effects too. Viewed as a sign of divine punishment, the catastrophe usually enhanced piety within urban society and turned town dwellers to a more godly path. By stimulating charitable activities and appealing to the communal spirit, fires also tested the solidarity of burghers and the sturdiness of cohesive forces within urban society. The existence of cohesive and centripetal forces within early modern urban societies is explored from a different angle by Blanka Szeghyová. In order to defend the collectivist and corporate principles of urban life all cities developed a full set of juridical, social and economic instruments that had strong assimilative, integrative and repressive effects. Examining punitive patterns and penal practices in

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seventeenth-century Hungarian cities, Szeghyová raises the broader issue of social control and disciplining strategies aiming at guarding the norms and values of the majority society. Between these two articles, Kateryna Dysa provides a highly contextualized discussion of the phenomena of Orthodox demonology and attitudes to witchcraft in early modern Ukraine, and suggests that unlike in Western Europe, the first was a relatively marginal concern, while the second, though obviously regarded as “sinful,” was rarely if ever confronted on a judicial plane. The concluding section is devoted to the history of alphabetization, literacy and reading and writing practices—a field in which István Tóth did pioneering work, empirically focusing on early modern Hungary and Central Europe but providing much theoretical and methodological inspiration well beyond these temporal and spatial confines. Based on eighteenthcentury evidence from Croatia, Zoran Velagić examines literacy in its social context by exploring the practice of the reading aloud of popular religious books in order to bypass the literacy problem in the dissemination of Christian teachings, and thus questioning the perceived divide between literate and oral communication techniques. Orlin Sabev’s contribution to the volume traces the process by which, and especially the social contexts in which, opposition to the printing press in Ottoman Turkish society ebbed away, whereby he lays a particular emphasis on the “third party” involved—besides the advocates and the opponents of this technological innovation—namely, the reading public. In the closing article of the volume, Viktor Karady revisits a specific topic Tóth studied in great depth in its early modern contexts: the relationship between education, literacy and denominational ties, only to re-emphasize that some of the patterns identified by Tóth in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries prove in fact to belong to longue durée structures that preserved their vigor even into the early twentieth century. As the bibliography of István György Tóth at the end of this volume testifies, the diversity of these essays comes nowhere near to matching the complexity of the oeuvre which has inspired them. There is no consolation for the fact that it is no longer possible to enlist István as a co-author: we can only hope that we have been able to produce a collection in which he would have liked to be one. To the extent to which this hope is realistic, the attempt to pay homage has been as successful as it can possibly be.

I. Approaches and Historiographical Issues

The Religious Borderlines of the Confessionalization and Secularization of European Culture and Societies Results and Perspectives of My Cooperation with István György Tóth HEINZ SCHILLING

Instead of contributing to Professor Tóth’s collection by an article concerned with the research work done exclusively by myself, I have decided to pay homage to István by reflecting on the results and perspectives of our common work in research as well as in academic management and cooperation in research programs. I came to know István first by rumor—by rumor from Freiburg im Breisgau about a young, very gifted and multilingual Hungarian historian who with the support of a DAAD grant was working with my former Doktorvater, Gottfried Schramm. In the late 1980s I met István personally and in the early 1990s we started a close cooperation as the two team leaders of “Team I: Religion, cultural differentiation and cultural identities” within the European Science Foundation (ESF) humanities program, Cultural Exchange in Europe 1400–1700. During several preparatory meetings in Lisbon, Villa Vigoni (by Lake Como), and Naples we decided that the paradigm of confessionalization, which had been developed by Reformation historians during the 1970s and 1980s, could be an appropriate starting point for the team’s work. It proved to be a stimulating concept both for theoretical discussions about the relationship between politics and religion and about the relationship of secular and religious change as well as for case studies. In turn, discussions during the team’s three conferences—in 2000 in Budapest on “Frontiers of Faith,” in 2001 in Coimbra on “Ceremonials and images” and in 2002 in Oxford on “Communication”—reinforced cultural interpretations of confessionalization, which had originally tended to be given a more state-centered interpretation.1 1

The results of the team’s work have been published in Heinz Schilling–István György Tóth (eds.), Religion and Cultural Exchange, 1400–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-

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Understandably, the ESF research group could not cover all topics relevant to the theme of “Religion, cultural differentiation and cultural identities.” Such important fields of research as religious disciplining and social control, presently topics of discussion among early modernists, were only touched on in passing. Nevertheless, two major results of the team’s work deserve to be highlighted. First, this ESF research team, by shifting the emphasis to the cultural aspect of religion in general and of early modern confessionalization in particular, progressively opened up a wide variety of topics and fields to interdisciplinary and comparative research. These include: literature, art, architecture and urbanism; ceremonies, rituals, symbols and anthropological contexts; communication and information, education and pedagogy as well as their specifically confessional orientation; and, last but not least, the specific theological and spiritual contents of early modern confessional cultures. Secondly, the team’s geographic perspective was widened by coopting scholars from Central and Eastern Europe—and this largely thanks to István. This enlightened the now almost-forgotten tradition of coexistence between different confessions and denominations and Christian and non-Christian religions typical of these borderlands which in their time acted as zones of transition between Latin and Orthodox Christianity as well as with the Islamic world—thereby enriching discussion about the meaning of religion and cultural exchange in early modern Europe. Within the vast area of the cultural history of early modern religions and confessions, cultural exchange indicates an especially complex and contradictory relationship problem. On the one hand, cultural relations and exchange were actually reduced in the wake of the Reformation and the subsequent confessionalization of most European societies. Especially during the decades around 1600, it was not cooperation, coexistence and cultural exchange but rather separation, isolation, hostility and antagonism that characterized relations between churches and religions as well as political relationships between the respective confessional states, and frequently also everyday human relations in neighborhoods, towns and regions and even within families. Latin Christianity entered a period of fundamentalist wars of religion, during which Europeans, especially in the centre of the continent, bled themselves white. versity Press, 2006). The conference papers are published in Eszter Andor–István György Tóth (eds.), Frontiers of Faith (Budapest: Central European University, 2001) and in José Pedro Paiva (ed.), Religious Ceremonials and images: Power and Social Meaning, 1400–1750 (Coimbra: Palimage, 2002).

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However, as recent research has shown convincingly, these differences and antagonisms were compensated for by the strong institutional, social and especially cultural development of the respective confessional churches and societies. Meanwhile, within each separate religious group the confessional formation of belief and behavior intensified the exchange of ideas and the transfer of cultural and social practices. And despite their deep-seated hostility, interaction and exchange did not stop totally between the different confessional societies and cultures. Typically, relations between them were strongly competitive and functioned on the model of “challenge and response”: confessional camps or blocks observed each other closely and reacted swiftly to achievements by the others. For example, the Catholic elite soon became aware that their church and confession was being outstripped in the field of education: “It is a great shame that Catholics nowadays in Germany have only few and currently very poor universities,” wrote the famous Jesuit Petrus Canisius as early as 1576 to Cardinal Morone, papal legate to Germany and one of the most gifted papal diplomats of the confessional epoch.2 His detailed advice following on this observation became the starting point for a Catholic educational offensive, mainly by his fellow Jesuits but also by other orders like the Franciscans and Benedictines and later by the Piarists. This initiative was not simply a mechanical response to the Protestant educational system, but in many respects also adapted and incorporated Catholic institutions and methods.3 Conversely, Protestant rulers and politicians during the last decades of the sixteenth century realized that the Catholics, thanks to the modernization of papal diplomacy under Gregory XIII (1572–1585) and to an effective network of nuncios, were gaining the upper hand in diplomacy as well as in legal and military matters. In order to catch up with their con2

Siegfried Seifert (ed.), Briefe des Hl. Petrus Canisius (Leipzig: St.Benno-Verlag, 1983), Nr. 30, pp. 139–152, esp. p. 149. 3 The educational offensive of Catholic confessionalization was most impressive in the eastern borderlands of Latin Christianity. See István György Tóth, “Children in school— children outside school,” in Heinz Schilling–Marie-Antoinette Gross (eds.), Minderheiten und Erziehung im Spannungsfeld von Staat und Kirche (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2003), pp. 233–246; Idem, “Analphabetentum und Elementarbildung in Westungarn (1680–1848),” in Norbert Reiter (ed.), Allgemeinbildung als Modernisierungsfaktor: Zur Geschichte der Elementarbildung in Südosteuropa von der Aufklärung bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994), pp. 49–58; Idem, Literacy and Written Culture in Early Modern Central Europe (Budapest–New York: Central European University Press, 2000); Idem, “Une société aux lisières de l'alphabet. La paysannerie hongroise aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles,” Annales E.S.C. 56 (2001), pp. 863–880.

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fessional adversaries, some leading Protestant (especially Calvinist) powers began a diplomatic offensive to reorganize their political and military forces and establish Protestant alliances and networks between their separate courts and chancelleries. Their most notable project, the ‘correspondence network’ developed around 1600 by Dr. Cornelisz Brederode, envoy of the Dutch States-General to the Protestant powers in western Germany and Switzerland, was obviously modeled after the Catholic international network. Brederode aimed at establishing regular exchanges between Protestant rulers and magistrates in Germany, Switzerland, the Dutch Republic, England, and Denmark—reacting to the Catholic power block, which had recently extended its activities from Spain, Italy and the eastern territories of the German Habsburgs to Poland.4 It is obvious that even at the zenith of confrontation and hostility, confessional churches and cultures were part of a highly interactive system: Catholics reacted to Protestants, Lutherans to Calvinists, Calvinists to Lutherans. Similarly, non-confessional dissenters and denominations developed “more restrained, but also more durable” forms of opposition and dissent in reaction to the formation of confessions.5 Orthodox Christianity, too, at least on its western edges, reacted to the confessionalization process of Latin Christianity, most impressively through the Confessio and the reform program of the Kiev metropolitan Petro Mohyla (1633–1647). His Confessio Orthodoxa, which resulted from a synod organized by Mohyla in Kiev in 1640, was clearly inspired by Roman Catholic examples and even sources.6 After being approved by another synod meeting in late 1642 in Iaşi (in present-day Romania), the Confessio Orthodoxa was subscribed to by the patriarchs of the Eastern Church and became valid in the same way as the Protestant and Catholic confessions of Latin Christianity 4

See Uwe Sibeth, “Gesandter einer aufständischen Macht: Die ersten Jahre der Mission von Dr. Pieter Cornelisz Brederode im Reich (1602-1609),” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 30 (2000), pp. 19–52; Heinz Schilling, “La confessionalisation et le système international,” in Lucien Bély (ed.), L’Europe des traités de Westphalie. Esprit de la diplomatie et diplomatie de l’esprit (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2000), pp. 411– 428; Idem, Konfessionalisierung und Staatsinteressen, 1559–1660, Handbuch der Geschichte der Internationalen Beziehungen, vol. 2 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2007). 5 James M. Stayer, “Radicalism and Dissent: A Provisional Assessment,” in Hans Jürgen Goertz–James M. Stayer (eds.), Radicalism and Dissent in the Sixteenth Century (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2002), pp. 9–25, esp. p. 24. 6 Marcel Viller, “Une infiltration latine dans la théologie orientale. La Confession orthodoxe attribué à Pierre Moghila et le catéchisme de Canisius,” Recherches des science religieuse 3 (1912), pp. 159–168.

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had become during the second half of the sixteenth century.7 During the early seventeenth century Kyrillos Lukaris, the patriarch of Constantinople, came into closer contact with East and Central European Calvinism, whose policy of confessional formation and integration he tried to introduce into his church.8 In addition it seems reasonable to hypothesize that Jews reacted by adjusting their religious organization or even their spirituality to the formation of their Christian host societies. Thus it is obvious that an all embracing cultural process of formation and systematization took place during the confessional era. I cannot go into further details here of the ESF team’s work and its results. These have been documented in volume I of a four-volume series presenting the findings of the four teams of the ESF program, by Cambridge University Press in 2006.9 As a sad duty and honor for me as well as the other contributors, the first volume was dedicated to the memory of Professor István György Tóth. But among the projects István and I wanted to embark on after the work of the ESF programme “Cultural Exchange in Europe 1400–1700” was completed, two were already in concrete planning when we met for the last time in Munich June 2005. Both are the offspring of our ESF collaboration. The first project, on “Confessional fundamentalism around 1600,” is concerned with the military, political and religious crisis during the first decade of the seventeenth century. In my understanding this radical confrontation of international power blocks and ideological systems was the consequence of a rising spirit of irreconcilability accompanied by an eschatological interpretation of world affairs which I have termed the “Christian fundamentalism” of the confessional churches. In June 2005 I organized a conference on this topic at the Historisches Kolleg in Munich. István’s contribution was concerned with the situation 7

Similarities and differences between the confessionalisation process in the West and that of the Orthodox church are discussed in detail in Alfons Brüning, “Confessio Orthodoxa und europäischer Konfessionalismus – enge Anhaltspunkte zur Verhältnisbestimmung,” in Robert O. Crummey et al. (ed.), Russische und ukrainische Geschichte vom 16.–18. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001), pp. 207–221, esp. pp. 208, 210. See also Serhii Plokhy, The Cossacks and Religion in Early Modern Ukraine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 94–99. 8 See Gunnar Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat und europäische Politik 1620–1638 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1968); Heinz Schilling, Konfessionalisierung und Staatsinteressen. Internationale Beziehungen 1559–1660, Handbuch der Geschichte der internationalen Beziehungen, vol. 2 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2006). 9 See footnote 1.

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in the south-eastern borderlands of Latin Christianity and bore the title “Religiöser Fundamentalismus und Toleranz in Habsburg-Ungarn und Siebenbürgen um 1600.”10 This case study presented a good example of, on the one hand, the dialectic of conviviality and tolerance—to a considerable part tactical at that time!—, and fundamentalist attitudes on the other. Due to the specific situation in the south-east corner of Latin Europe, the fundamentalism which at that time dominated theologians and politicians in western and central Europe did not prevail in Hungary and Transylvania around 1600. But, as everybody knows, this changed dramatically in the middle of the seventeenth century. After the Westphalian Peace settlement had reined in the fundamentalism of the confessions and had opened the way to tolerance and a secularization of European culture and society, the development here in the south-east of the continent became the reverse. The Habsburg administration took the opportunity to realize its program of re-catholicizing Hungary and Transylvania, bringing Catholic confessionalism and homogeneity to these formally multiconfessional borderlands at a time when in other parts of Europe the former confessional homogeneity was giving way to tolerance and coexistence. István’s contribution to this discussion will stimulate further research not only on the situation in south-eastern Europe but also on the more general problem of the regional differentiation of religious and cultural processes in Europe. The Munich lecture was one of the very last addresses our friend gave. And—typical for his reliability—immediately after his return to Budapest in mid-June and before leaving for Sydney István mailed the final, annotated version to Munich. Other participants of the conference seriously lagged behind! The second research project which resulted out of the ESF cooperation is concerned with the dialectic of confessionalism and secularization alluded to above. As part of a wider research program on symbols and “representations”—in Rogier Chartier’s sense—this project is focusing on

10

István György Tóth, “Religiöser Fundamentalismus und Toleranz in Habsburg-Ungarn und Siebenbürgen um 1600,” in Heinz Schilling (ed.), Konfessioneller Fundamentalismus. Religion als politischer Faktor im europäischen Mächtesystem um 1600 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), pp. 273–283. The concept of ‘confessional fundamentalism’ is also discussed in Heinz Schilling, “Gab es um 1600 in Europa einen Konfessionsfundamentalismus? Die Geburt des internationalen Systems in der Krise des konfessionellen Zeitalters,” Jahrbuch des Historischen Kollegs 2005 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2006), pp. 69–93.

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religious and secular representations in Early Modern Europe.11 The theoretical framework assumes that among the representations of social order in early modern Europe, religious representations were especially important. But the process of confessionalization of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was from the beginning intricately intertwined with tendencies towards secularization. Both processes stand for partially congruent but also conflicting systems of representation; the project will investigate the relationship between processes and representational systems. This cannot be described as a simple diachronic development from religiosity to secularization. Rather, both need to be seen as different sides of one process of change. The project is based on the hypothesis that secularization was a development that fundamentally altered the ways in which contemporaries viewed themselves and interpreted their world. The increased weight attributed to religion as the “vinculum societatis,” but also the long-term tendencies towards secularization can, although to different degrees, be observed in all areas of early modern societies. The project will investigate the process of change from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century from aspects central to society such as politics, the confessional churches, education, and science. On the basis of different case studies it aims to answer three main questions. First, how did forms of religious representations change during the Reformation and the age of confessionalization? Second, to what degree did religion determine representations of social order? Third, how did the long-term process of secularization impact early modern forms of representation, and how were secular representations and the corresponding social order related to one another?12 The problem can be exemplified by a well-known symbolic representation and its change or transformation during the centuries: the representation of peace by the dove, which was heavily sacralized when the Thirty Year’s War came to an end and the Peace of Westphalia established a new political and ecclesiastical order in Europe. The peace was established 11

12

Matthias Pohlig, “Luhmanns Mond. Ist Säkularisierung ein historischer Prozeß?,” Vorgänge: Zeitschrift für Bürgerrechte und Gesellschaftspolitik 173 (2006), pp. 30–39; Matthias Pohlig et. al, Säkularisierungen im frühneuzeitlichen Europa. Methodische Probleme und empirische Fallstudien (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2008). Meanwhile the results of the project have been published as Matthias Pohlig et al., “Säkularisierungen im frühneuzeitlichen Europa. Methodische Probleme und empirische Fallstudien,” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung. Beiheft 41 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2008).

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with the maxim pax sit Christiana—the peace should be not only between states and political powers, but also between mankind and God—exactly the message of the dove carrying a laurel branch to Noah and bringing (signaling) the message of God’s reconciliation with men.13 Up to the dove of the peace movement at the end of the last century this representation of peace underwent deep changes, intellectually as well as aesthetically. And there is no doubt that this change must be described as secularization, but not in the sense of deleting all former religious connotations but of transforming the religious emphasis and energy into the secular context and giving the new secular meaning a specific legitimation. I had very much hoped that István would be there to help us with answering these questions and generally to share the work of our team at the Humboldt University of Berlin and enrich our predominantly west- and central European perspective with his knowledge of the circumstances and developments in the south-eastern part of the continent. This will no longer be possible. But there is no doubt that we will often cross István’s ways of thinking and historical explanation. In these moments he will be present in our minds and discussions; and I personally will recall thankfully his friendship and his company in our strolls through Naples, Stockholm, Lisbon, and last but not least through Budapest, showing and explaining the monuments and layout of the city and introducing me to the museums and their exhibitions or the highlights of other cultural and scholarly events.

13

See the medals reproduced in Hans Galen (ed.), Der Westfälische Frieden. Die Friedensfreunde auf Münzen und Medaillen (Greven: Eggenkamp, 1987), p. 153, No. 129; p. 179, No. 160; p. 197, No. 182.

The Value of Foreign Sources for the Understanding of National History CHARLES KECSKEMÉTI

Foreign sources, that is, documents produced by and for agencies of countries other than the one dealt with in the text, attract historians for two main reasons. The first is a mere fact-finding need. Foreign archives and libraries may supply information that is missing from the national written heritage, either because the relevant domestic sources have disappeared through natural or man-made disasters, or because the records gathered, recorded and preserved by agents and institutions of foreign states have never belonged to this heritage. The most striking European example is Poland. Partitioned Poland was governed, for 140 years, from Vienna, Berlin and St. Petersburg. Then in 1944, when crushing the Warsaw insurrection, the Wehrmacht systematically destroyed the custodial institutions that preserved the memory of the medieval kingdom and the Polish– Lithuanian Rzeczpospolita. The second reason derives from the intellectual need to consider historical facts and processes from different, converging, diverging or conflicting approaches, and thus to avoid simplism and one-sidedness, especially poisonous in the age of nationalism and other ideologies of hegemonic ambition. Both reasons apply to the research on Hungarian history. The production of written records started immediately after the foundation of the kingdom but developed at a slow pace. It did not become a standard practice of public and private bodies before the fourteenth century, and even then, it did not result in the accumulation of church, family, city and other archives comparable in size to those of the countries christianized in the early Middle Ages, from Italy to Britain1 and from Portugal to the Holy Roman Empire. Then, modern times have been particularly harsh to the 1

M. T. Clancy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999).

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preservation of records. The royal archives of Buda disappeared after the collapse of the kingdom in 1526. Four centuries later, significant parts of the Hungarian National Archives were destroyed by fire during the 1945 siege and then during the Russian intervention of November 1956. Further factors have reduced also the potential archival heritage. The territory of central Hungary was governed from Istanbul from 1540 to the end of the seventeenth century, and from 1526 to 1918, the Hungarian Kingdom belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy, governed from Vienna. Hungary under Turkish rule István György Tóth’s achievement in uncovering, annotating and publishing the correspondence of missionaries taking spiritual care of the abandoned Catholic flock in Turkish Hungary and in Protestant-dominated Transylvania illustrates brilliantly the historian’s response to both needs. With respect to fact-finding, it should be noted that the ten-volume comprehensive History of Hungary, compiled in the twilight of the PartyState era, makes almost no reference to the religious life of the Catholics under Turkish rule—and this for lack of sources. Thanks to István’s pioneering work, this lacuna has been eliminated. The five volumes he published document the poignant struggle for survival of the Catholic church during the long peace (1606–1683) between the two Empires.2 Beyond conveying facts, the Relationes and the four volumes of the Litteræ shed a cruelly harsh light on the gulf between the pious hopes of learned Europe and the Realpolitik of diplomats. From the pontificate of Pius II on, all members of the Republic of Letters agreed that particular interests and intra-European conflicts should be set aside so as to be able to confront the Ottoman expansion. This intellectual consensus produced splendid appeals for the recovery of lost territories. But it was powerless, and European politics were shaped, from the collapse of the Hungarian antemurale christianitatis to the battle of Kahlenberg, by other priorities: the wars of religion and the rivalry between the House of Austria and the 2

István György Tóth (ed.), Relationes missionariorum de Hungaria et Transilvania 1627– 1707 (Budapest–Roma: Ráday Gyűjtemény, Római Magyar Akadémia, 1994) (Bibliotheca Academiae Hungariae in Roma, Fontes 1); István György Tóth, (ed.), Litterae Missionariorum de Hungaria et Transylvania (1572–1717), 4 vols. (Roma– Budapest: Római Magyar Akadémia, Magyar Egyháztörténeti Enciklopédia Munkaközösség, MTA Történettudományi Intézet, 2002–2005). (Bibliotheca Academiae Hungariae –Roma, Fontes 4). Literature on this topic is steadily growing. Antal Molnár alone has published four monographs in recent years.

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Very Christian King. For decades, the Curia was satisfied that the Turkish interlude would shortly be terminated and thus the authority of the church hierarchy restored in Central Hungary, from where the bishops were banned. Therefore, no initiatives were taken, until the seventeenth century, to establish substitute church structures. As highlighted by the Relationes and the Litteræ, the solution came progressively. Hungary and Transylvania became mission territories and in 1622 were placed under the jurisdiction of the Propaganda Fide. The Bosnian Franciscans were given a paramount missionary role, because, as subjects of the Grand Signor, they were authorized to act within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. In 1647, when Rome eventually accepted the status quo, the bishop of Belgrade, a city placed under undisputed Ottoman sovereignty, was given pastoral responsibility over the occupied zone of Hungary. The reservations expressed by Hungarian historians on the achievement of the Bosnian friars, as compared with the missionary action of the Franciscans of the two Hungarian provinces of the Order, disregard the real issue: the concessions the Curia was compelled to grant to Turkey. The letters to the Propaganda Fide conveyed scores of odd or remarkable details regarding Catholic life in Turkish Hungary and Transylvania: for example, priests with wives and children, released captives who found their wife or husband remarried, disputes over the consuming of dairy products during Lent, ransoms to be paid to local officials and also bitter rivalries between members of the different religious Orders. The cardinals of the Congregation were often confronted with delicate and unexpected issues. Hungarian backwardness The writings of foreign visitors, travelers, scholars and diplomats, abound in details and petty facts, appreciated or blamed, which often characterize the everyday life of a nation through centuries. Arthur Young, explorer and student of West-European agriculture, visited France four times, just before and during the Revolution.3 Accustomed to English comfort and unimaginative food, he admired the French culinary art but did not hide his anger when reporting on the “necessary-house,” “a temple of abomination” in the inns and hotels in France. Above all, Young was impressed by 3

Arthur Young, Travels in France during the Years 1787, 1788, 1789, with an Introduction, biographical sketch and notes by M. Betham-Edwards (London: George Bell and Sons, 1889).

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the splendid road system and by the major waterways of the country. He even quoted in his book the enthusiastic comment of Joseph II who in 1781 had visited the underground section of the Canal of Picardy: “I am proud of being a man, when I see that one of my kind has dared to imagine and carry out a structure as huge as it is bold. This thought lifts up my soul.”4 This background explains the distress felt by all French visitors when traveling on the Hungarian roads or investigating the waterway connections in the eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries.5 In the spring of 1757, Ambassador Marquis de l’Hopital traveled through Austria, Hungary and Poland on his way to St. Petersburg. The journey across Hungary from Bratislava to Bardejov, through Buda, Pest, Eger and Košice (using the current official names; a distance of ca. 600 km), took three weeks. Two members of the Ambassador’s retinue drafted detailed accounts of the journey. We read in the report of the Marquis de Fougières that between Eger and Ónod “one has to cross the river Sajó five times, which, fortunately, at the time was quite practicable, but when the snow thaws it is very difficult and dangerous because of the flood this produces. Furthermore one has to see the bridges of Hungary to judge that, built as they are, one does not pass over them without risk.”6 According to the same report, “the country might be suited to commerce and could offer for it all its products in abundance, should one decide to inject some art to facilitate it. It would be easy to link the Tisza with the Danube,7 the Drava with the Sava, and then only a distance of five to six miles would remain to reach Trieste and make the products available for sea-trade.”8 Detailed technical and financial considerations on the waterways to be established with the Adriatic Littoral were developed in several French memos of the early 1760s and again by Adrien Lezay-Marnesia in 1802. As to the roads, Lezay’s lapidary observation summarizes the issue: “In summer everything is road, no more roads in winter, the mud makes part of this kingdom impassable during that season.”9 The reconnaissances made by French military engineers in Western Hungary during the 1809 4

Ibid., p. 105. Charles Kecskeméti (ed.), Notes, rapports et témoignages français sur la Hongrie, 1717– 1809 (Paris–Budapest–Szeged: Institut Hongrois–Bibliothèque Nationale Széchényi, 2006). 6 Kecskeméti (ed.), Notes, rapports, p. 38. 7 This canal would be constructed half a century later. 8 Kecskeméti (ed.), Notes, rapports, p. 40. 9 Ibid., p. 284. 5

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campaign found almost all bridges in a very bad state, and the roads surveyed impracticable in the bad season, not properly maintained and, usually, too narrow. In the whole zone, there were only two roads (all in all a mere 80 kilometers) usable all year, both on the lands of Prince Esterházy.10 The distress felt by these travelers was all the more acute in that they saw a country that was endowed with all possible blessings that might have rendered it prosperous. They ascribed responsibility for this unhappy situation to two factors: the government policy on the one hand and the servile condition of the peasantry on the other. As formulated in the unsigned report of 1757: “It enters, perhaps, into the policy of the Court, not to favor the wealth of a nation which has let them know, more than once, that it cherishes its independence and is reluctant to submit to the yoke.”11 On this matter, all observers, without exception, blame the Viennese government and take the side of the protesting Hungarian political class. Likewise, they concur in the opinion that serfdom has condemned the country to backwardness. The Marquis de Fougières noted: “In spite of all these advantages [fertility of the land, mines, etc.], the inhabitants seem to be in a very great poverty. … They are not guided by industriousness, the largest part of the land is untilled, and they are satisfied to reap just what is needed for the food of the year and the supply due to their lords, some of the latter being mighty rich. Every peasant is a serf in Hungary. ... There is no doubt that this unhappy bond is instrumental in maintaining in the nation the inaction and idleness they have already by nature.”12 Though the measures introduced by Maria Theresa and Joseph II improved the condition of the peasants, the social system remained unchanged. Robert Townson, a distinguished scientist who, after 1810, was to become one of the prominent personalities of Australia’s intellectual life, visited Hungary in 1793.13 His main personal interests were in the areas of agriculture, fauna, flora and mineralogy, but like most enlightened English gentlemen of the time, he was also attentive to politics and social issues. After having surveyed the privileges and rights of the Hungarian nation, he added: “But what is the nation?—Who constitutes the people?—To whom do these valuable rights belong?—In this country, as 10

Ibid., pp. 324–325. Ibid., p. 40. 12 Ibid., pp. 39–40. 13 Robert Townson, Travels in Hungary, with a short account of Vienna in the year of 1793 (London: 1797). 11

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in others where society is in its childhood, the nation, alas! is only the great aristocratic body of nobles and clergy; and the productive part of the community, the citizens and peasants, have few or no rights, and no interference in public affairs; yet must submissively bear all the burdens of the state.”14 In 1802, Bonaparte, First Consul at the time, sent Adrien LezayMarnesia, a brilliant French intellectual from aristocratic stock, to Hungary, with the mission to make a detailed enquiry on the country and, more particularly, to ascertain whether a revolution against the Habsburg rule might be expected. (Lezay concluded that a revolution was not likely to occur before long.) On the issue of nation and people, Lezay’s wording was even more categorical and terse than that of Townson: “Hungary has eight million men: but this is not where the people is. Here, the people is the nobility (populus). What elsewhere is called the people is known in the Hungarian laws only as misera plebs contribuens. By law as well as by fact, the totality of social burdens is borne by those who are not part of the society and the totality of the advantages is reaped by those who do nothing for it.”15 These two passages sound as if they were quoted from the essay De diversis subsidiis publicis (published in 1792) of József Hajnóczy, one of the directors of the underground “Jacobin” movement, who was beheaded in 1795.16 Townson had actually met Hajnóczy and speaks warmly of him, grieving at his tragic fate.17 Other evidence, too, points to the reformist writings of the 1790s. Commenting on the defensive measures of the government against criticisms from the population, Lezay noted: “Censorship on books is of an extreme rigor; but it results in having them hidden and does not hinder people from reading them. I see in Pest, as well as in Vienna, the most prohibited books.”18 14

Ibid., p. 101. However, John Paget, an agriculturist who visited Hungary in 1835–1836, warned his readers that the term serfdom does not apply to the condition of the peasants of Hungary. Peasants have to bear burdens “hard beyond all measure of justice,” are “entirely excluded from all political power,” and “in all disputes with nobles” they are subjected to the jurisdiction that favours their adversaries; but, insists Paget, “it is evident enough that the Hungarian peasant is not a serf—that the laws give him rights fixed and determined.” Hungary and Transylvania; with Remarks on Their Condition, Social, Political and Economical (London: John Murray, 1839), pp. 313, 305. 15 Kecskeméti (ed.), Notes, rapports, p. 275. 16 Kálmán Benda, A magyar jakobinusok iratai [Documents of the Hungarian Jacobins], 3 vols. (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1952–1957). 17 Townson, Travels in Hungary, pp. 206–207. 18 Kecskeméti (ed.), Notes, rapports, p. 252.

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One of his contacts must have shown him the Catechism of the Secret Society of Reformers, the underground movement repressed in 1795, the mere knowledge of which had been used to justify long prison sentences for dozens of persons. Lezay’s text reads: “There are no longer Rákóczis and Tökölis. Hungarians of our days have learned to be governed by reckoning rather than by their passions, and those who, by their name or their wealth could take the leadership of a Party, for the most part, have sold themselves to the Crown.”19 His source could not be but the following article of the Catechism: “Questio: Quomodo cabinetum Viennense Hungarorum servitutem conservat? Responsio (fin): ... Magnates hi ita ab aula Viennensi praeparati primas tenent dignitates et patriam vendunt, leges illius eludunt et proventus suos Hungaricos Viennae consumunt. Ex quo iidem ita magnates ab aula Viennensi corrumpi cœperunt, Hungari nec Rakoczium nec Tökölium nec Berchinium etc. resuscitare possunt. Ita amor patriae in nomine duntaxat subsistit.”20 Of all English and French observers quoted in this paper, William Hunter traveled the most extensively in Hungary,21 He traversed the country in various directions from September 1799 to May 1800. He gathered information from government officials, civil and military, posted in various cities and fortresses, but mainly from two prominent personalities, Count János Hadik, son of Field Marshal András Hadik, counselor at the Lieutenancy, with whom he made friends in Buda, and Gergely Berzeviczy, an economist and political thinker banned from public office after the 1795 trial, in whose house in the Tatra region he spent three “very pleasant” and “most sociable” days.22 Hunter had strong patriotic feelings, castigated revolutionary France (“a fierce and inexorable band of savages”23) and believed in the progress of civilization. With respect to Hungarian backwardness his diagnosis is close to those mentioned above. He insists particularly on the pernicious effects of the tax exemption of the nobility and of the “reciprocated jealousy and enmity between the aristocracy and the crown ... that furnishes a sufficiently obvious reason for the impolished and impoverished state of the country.”24 19

Ibid., p. 224. Benda, A magyar jakobinusok, I : pp. 1002–1014. 21 William Hunter, Travels through, France, Turkey and Hungary to Vienna in 1792. To which are added several Tours in Hungary in 1799 and 1800 in a Series of Letters to his sister in England, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (London: J. White, 1803). 22 Hunter, Travels through France, pp. 292–293. 23 Ibid., p. viii. 24 Ibid., p. 483. 20

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Political pluralism Without doubt, the Hungarian aristocracy and country gentlemen were attached to the institutional system, which secured their well-being through the subjection of the peasantry and protected their privileges against the government, even, though with partial success only, against Joseph II. A memo prepared, most probably, by József Ürményi, one of the leading figures of enlightened Hungary, a close collaborator of Maria Theresa and her two sons, offers a splendid illustration of the high praise that the legal rules which governed the life of the country enjoyed within the nobility.25 This consensus, however, proved to be perfectly compatible with political pluralism. The terms left and right will not be applied to the Hungarian political spectrum before the 1830s, but the cleavage between conservatives and progressionists appeared already at the Diet of 1790/91. A significant percentage of the social, political and intellectual élite, who under Joseph II’s reign adhered to the progressive credo, deplored with the monarch (and with the western witnesses) the backwardness of the country, and when the press became free, they published their suggestions, projects and even dreams. During the two short years of Leopold II’s reign, several hundreds of essays and pamphlets of all political colors were published, from pro-Jacobin to pro-Habsburg and from libertine to Catholic radicalism. The outline of an overall reform-program was developed in the Operata Systematica, the reports of the Parliamentary Commissions, completed between 1790 and 1795. Unfortunately the bulk of the material has not been published so far. The patronizing depreciation of this impressive achievement by the most influential historians of the twentieth century aimed at highlighting the merit of the Vormärz generation, has remained fashionable up to now.26 Napoleon’s intelligence agents, as well as English travelers of the 1790s, drew the basic information from the enlightened circles, which they considered more reliable than the government officials. But other opinions were also recorded. A strange sentence in the reconnaissance report of Battalion Chief Brosseaud, a cartographic engineer, reflects the 25 26

Kecskeméti (ed.), Notes, rapports, pp. 127–154. See, for instance, Gábor Vermes, “Tradicionalizmus és a modernitás hajnala a 18. századi Magyarországon” [Traditionalism and the dawn of modernity in 18th-century Hungary], Aetas 20, 1/2 (2005), p. 227.

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views of the patriotic Catholic gentry of the western counties: “The two main levers, constantly used by the currently reigning dynasty with complete success, especially during the two last centuries, to overthrow what the Hungarians call their liberty, are the protection granted successively to the protestants against the Catholics of the Kingdom, and in other times, to the latter against the former; and its efforts to encourage German colonists to settle in Hungary.”27 Since the House of Austria, even though it had to tolerate the existence of protestant churches, never failed in its fidelity to Rome and to the ideal of the Catholic state, the accusation of siding with the protestants in order to divide the nation clearly came from the Catholic arguments of the mid-1780s opposed to Joseph II. Hungarian partisans of enlightened progress in Napoleon’s time and of liberal reforms, a generation later, convinced as they were of the legitimacy of their privileges, surprised their western acquaintances by a bizarre mixture of advanced and antiquated ideas. Colonel Gérard Lacuée, posted to the Vienna Embassy in 1802, was commissioned by the First Consul to carry out an intelligence mission in Hungary (Lezay mentioned him in his report). Lacuée found “the feudal institutions almost intact,” the condition of the peasants comparable to that of the Spartan helots, and the nobility’s attachment to their privileges so absolute that “the people is almost considered to be of a different race” and that “the heads who dream with the most ardent passion of liberty and equality have not the slightest inclination to abolish the subjugation of the peasantry.”28 Foreign visitors did not need to be briefed by nationals on the material symptoms of backwardness: they had already experienced them on the roads and bridges, in the village inns and along the rivers. But they formed their perception and understanding of the reasons for this backwardness in the light of their dialogues with knowledgeable people whose judgment they could trust. The French reports of 1802 give clear evidence that the sharp bend, operated by Francis II, might have silenced public 27 28

Kecskeméti (ed.), Notes, rapports, p. 337. Ibid., p. 200. John Paget was also surprised by this ambiguity: “I think, I may say without exception, that of the young men whom I met at Presburg, there was not one who did not hold liberal opinions in politics. ... In fact, they do not distinguish very clearly between the words right and privilege. I am sure that these gentlemen are anxious for the freedom and education of the peasantry, and yet it often appeared to us that they spoke of them and to them, as though they belonged to a different class of creation from themselves; in short, all of them are reformers, but many of them seem eminently impractical in their ideas of reform.” Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, p. 14.

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debates and put an end to the freedom of the press but it had not changed the mind of the people. The contacts of Lacuée and Lezay clung to their principles. The latter’s conversations, in particular, must have covered a very wide range of topics. We read in one of his marginal notes: “As long as a nobleman can’t be arrested for debt and if necessary dispossessed, he will be without credit and subsequently without means to undertake a large-scale commercial venture.”29 It was this very idea that would later serve as the starting point of Count István Széchenyi’s epoch-making reform handbook, entitled Credit, published in 1830. We have no means to measure the impact of this exchange of ideas with visitors on the minds of those visited. We know only that as time went on, contacts between the intellectuals of Hungary and their Western counterparts intensified and amplified through travels and correspondence, and that the gap between the political standards acknowledged by the various public opinions diminished drastically. In 1848, revolutionists and patriots had the gratifying impression, throughout Europe, that they shared the same values and spoke the same language. The East-European trap Professor Philip Longworth has written a book of more than 300 pages30 to demonstrate that “if one regards Soviet Communism as a disease, then it seems that Eastern Europe may have had a pre-disposition for the infection.”31 Since his objective was not to relate the history of the eastern half of Europe but to prove the accuracy of an ideological position—namely, that Europe east of Charlemagne’s empire constitutes a civilizational block of its own—the method he chose was to go backwards from the collapse of the Soviet empire to the founding centuries between the reign of Constantine the Great and the emergence of the Central and East European states around the year 1000. His demonstration, which is driven by an amazingly strong Polonophobia borrowed from Russian imperial nationalism, is built on a superb and erudite knowledge of Russian history, on facts such as the backwardness of the region as compared to the West and the persistence of serfdom well into the nineteenth century, and additionally on distortions, omissions and plain “errors” which would be inelegant to list. The most salient feature of the book is an almost complete 29

Kecskeméti (ed.), Notes, rapports, p. 271. Philip Longworth, The Making of Eastern Europe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994). 31 Ibid., p. 7. 30

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disregard for the legal and institutional systems that so radically distinguished the Central European kingdoms from the East European states. Chapter 5, entitled “The Age of Reason and Romanticism (1770– 1848),” contains not a single word on the sessions of the Hungarian Diet between 1790 and 1848 that paved the way to modernity, nor on the liberalism that dominated public opinion through more than a century. The omission could only be deliberate, and all the more irrational in that contemporary English and French accounts on the “Age of Reason and Romanticism” in Hungary did pay paramount attention to the representative system of the country. Townson, for example, considered Hungarian legislation important enough to devote 25 pages of his book to the laws enacted by the Diet of 1790/91. He listed the 74 articles and went on, probably having the status of the Catholics in Great Britain in mind: “But let it be known, for the honour of Hungary, that in the Diet of 1791, when the rights of the Protestants were confirmed, exclusive of the clergy there were only eighty-four members who voted against them; of whom one hundred and eighty-one were Magnates and the greatest part of them Catholics. How great an honour is this spirit of Toleration to the Hungarian nation! Where is the nation in Europe, in which the seceding religions have the privileges they have here? Entire freedom of public worship, with churches and bells, and their own schools and seminaries of learning; and a right to fill all public offices and a seat in the legislative councils.” This chapter concludes with the in extenso translation into English of Article 26/1791, De negotio religionis.32 There was no Diet session in 1799–1800, and thus Hunter could not gain first hand knowledge of this institution. For him, the chief objects of this purely aristocratic assembly “which has no connection with the mass of population ... are to weaken the prerogative of the king and to perpetuate the humility of the people.”33 Convinced that learning, civilization and arts could progress only in countries acknowledging the hereditary right of the reigning dynasty, he saw the elective monarchies of Hungary and Poland as “laid waste by civil discord, groaning under the yoke of feudal despotism, and delivered up as a prey to the passions of men, who were continually sacrificing public advantage to private ambition.”34 32

Townson, Travels in Hungary, pp. 156–181. Hunter, Travels through, France, pp. 466–467. 34 Ibid., p. 242. It is difficult to reconcile these lines with the final passage of the book: “Hungary, however, may possibly, in the hidden course of future events, recover its 33

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In 1802, Lezay managed to change the travel schedule laid down by the First Consul’s secretariat so as to arrive early enough to attend the Diet meeting in Pressburg. There he made the acquaintance of prominent personalities—the report mentions by name Ferenc Széchényi, who had received Robert Townson in his house nine years earlier—and was thus enabled to give a thorough analysis of the Diet, its central role in the public life of the country, its deliberative procedures and the confrontation between opposition and loyalists. Lezay praised the composition of the two Houses: I saw, in another country, national Assemblies from which the senior officials and generally persons attached to the public service were excluded. It was people outside public affairs who were in charge of handling them and who, because lacking positive knowledge, started from general theses and arrived at a legislation unsuited to the way things stood. Here are gathered, by virtue of their offices, the leaders of religion, law and administration, so as to keep the deliberations focused on the state of affairs and prevent them to wander to vain or dangerous matters. The deputies of the counties know the needs of the citizens, the supreme counts35 those of the administrations, the bishops and judges are between them, to ensure that religious and civil laws would be preserved and that those proposed would be in harmony with those which exist. Admirable was the wisdom, which made these arrangements.36

Lezay noted that representation was not limited to counties and the Diet, the institutions of the nobility: “Boroughs and villages also have their councils and their judges for municipal police, and these petty officials are appointed by their inhabitants.”37 He also thought highly of the procedure followed by the Lower House, where the formal decision-making session was prepared by informal discussions in the sittings of the four circles and the frequent exchange of messages between the two Houses: “The character of this constitution is, that instead of beginning abruptly by a public debate, as we see in other countries, all matters are negotiated and handled through mediation.”38 Lezay’s account and the impressions recorded by English travelers sound more credible than the kinship between Russian

freedom, and take its proper rank among the civilized states of Europe. I wish it may, for I feel a peculiar interest in its fate. I like the people; I admire the country; I lament its misfortunes; I pray for its prosperity” (p. 482). 35 An office comparable to the Lord Lieutenants of the English counties. 36 Kecskeméti (ed.), Notes, rapports, p. 273. 37 Ibid., p. 262. 38 Ibid., p. 274.

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autocracy and Hungarian parliamentarism proposed by Professor Longworth: “Yet this absolutist political culture [that of Russia] (noticeable throughout Eastern Europe in the Communist period and even today in the tendency to associate moral and political considerations) was not confined to the Orthodox countries that had inherited the Byzantine political tradition; they found some resonance in the Habsburg regime in Bohemia, in the Polish liberum veto and the intransigence of so many of the Hungarian, as well as Polish, gentry.”39 During the first ten years of his tenure as Chancellor of the Austrian Empire, Prince Metternich managed “to stop time,” as people commented on his actions in the Bavarian Court. He was convinced that his Europe was to be saved from the pernicious effects of representation, and he endeavored to govern the Hungarian Kingdom without convening the Diet. But in 1825 the weight of history, and the pressure of the political class through the counties, forced him to give up. From that year to the spring of 1848, the Diet was convened six times and was in session, all in all, for one hundred and one months. John Paget visited Bratislava in 1835 while the Diet was assembled, as did Julia Pardoe,40 a young globetrotter of the early Victorian years, in 1839. In their books, both gave detailed and precise information to their English readers on the Hungarian parliamentary system, and both expressed genuine admiration on this “oasis of liberty amid a desert of despotism.” “It was startling to remember”—noted Miss Pardoe—“that within nine hours journey of Vienna—surrounded by absolute governments like those of Austria, Turkey and Russia—the iron link being broken only by the frontier of ruined Poland, standing like a sign and a warning to the nations—a race still existed who had resolutely flung the yoke of despotism from their necks, and dared despite the intrigues of cabinets and the threats of power, to assert their rights.”41 Paget liked to recall his first contact with Hungary: “I proffered my passport, as usual, to the guard who opened the barrier; but it was declined with a polite bow, and an assurance that I was in Hungary and had no longer need of it. ... I blessed the land where some trace of personal liberty still existed.”42 39

Longworth, The Making of Eastern Europe, pp. 175–76. Julia Pardoe, The City of the Magyar or Hungary and her Institutions in 1839–40, 3 vols. (London: George Virtue, 1840). 41 Ibid., I: p. 217. 42 Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, p. 2. 40

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It is unquestionable that the Nazi and communist regimes—the latter imposed by Russian military presence—destroyed the political culture of Central Europe, already debilitated by the nationalist fanaticisms of the interwar period, and it is also true that a certain length of time will be needed to get rid of the aftermath of fifty or sixty years of ideological dictatorship. Justifying this post-1918 vandalism by 1000 years of history may seem witty, but does not stand up to scrutiny. Gossip At the turn of the nineteenth century, a rumor spread, in well-informed European circles, of an imminent rapprochement between Russia and Hungary, threatening the integrity of the Austrian Empire. The rumor’s credibility was based on the dramatic events of the summer of 1795. On May 20 and June 3 of that year, five directors and two members of the underground reform movement, known as the Martinovics or Jacobin conspiracy, were executed in Buda. On July 12, Archduke AlexanderLeopold, Palatine of Hungary, died in a firework accident. Nobody in Vienna, Hungary or Paris believed the official version of the accidental explosion at Laxenburg. Gérard Lacuée had no doubt that the Hungarians could easily be induced to shake off the Austrian yoke, and took as a certainty the involvement of the Archduke in the conspiracy. In his letter of June 29, 1802 to Napoleon’s Secretary, he wrote: “The facility with which the former Palatine organized a plot that only his death and his avowal, when dying, prevented from breaking out and, perhaps, succeeding, proves the accuracy of this assertion.”43 Lezay also referred to this rumor, but in a more cautious wording: “In 1795, a plot was uncovered, to which, they say, Archduke Leopold was not alien. Some heads fell, prisoners were sent to Munkatsch; a year later the Palatine died and the Chief Justice lost his place.”44 The Vienna establishment had always considered the Palatines of Hungary untrustworthy by the mere fact that they headed the administration of the most unreliable kingdom of the House of Austria. With the accident of July 1795, the Archduke-Palatines inherited the stigma of unreliability. Archduke Joseph succeeded his brother in 1796. Gossip on his ambitions started in 1799, when he married Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna and thus established privileged relations with the court of St. 43 44

Kecskeméti (ed.), Notes, rapports, p. 176. Ibid., p. 222.

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Petersburg. As the First Consul was advised, a year later, by a former prisoner just back from Hungary: “For centuries, the Hungarians have wished to have a king residing among them. ... They should be shown the means that would break the links which chain them to Austria. This means is, perhaps, in the person of the Palatine’s wife who, educated with great care by Catherine II, ought to be accustomed to the idea of ascending a throne. … The king of Prussia would behold this revolution with pleasure, and Paul would perhaps be willing to uphold the crown on the head of his daughter.”45 The Grand Duchess died early in 1801, but the rumors persisted. In August 1809, a note was prepared for Napoleon in Vienna, then occupied by French troops, on the members of the House of Austria. On Archduke Joseph, Palatine of Hungary, number 4 on the list after Emperor Francis, Empress Marie-Louise and Archduke Charles, the note says: “The Palatine is in an open war with the Emperor and, above all, with Archduke Charles, who view him as a younger brother bound to obey their orders, while he flatters himself that, as Palatine and brother-in-law of the Emperor of Russia, he is entitled to special consideration.”46 In fact, Archduke Joseph administered the kingdom, through half a century, without a major clash with his elder brother nor subsequently with his feeble nephew’s powerful protectors. Whenever the confrontation between the Hungarian Diet, which according to the constitution he chaired, and the government threatened to sharpen, he succeeded in calming things down and thus saving the endangered compromise. Finally, during the summer of 1848, the 53-year old phantasm on the inclination to treachery which the Palatine’s office was supposed to generate seemed to come true. The son of Palatine Joseph, Archduke Stephen, elected to the office in 1847, did not inherit the wisdom and diplomatic skill of his father. Instead of sticking to the role of go-between in order to engineer a peaceful settlement with the Court, he accepted the mission to govern Hungary as the alter ego of his pitiable cousin, and deserted the camp of the rebellious Government too late, after the beginning of the military operations to restore the imperial order. He was banned to his faraway estates in Hesse-Nassau until his death in 1867. Because governments are particularly anxious to come to know the virtues and weaknesses, affinities and antipathies, ambitions and ulterior motives and so on of their foreign counterparts, and because accurate and 45 46

Ibid., p. 168. C.H.A.N. (Centre historique des Archives nationales), AF IV 1677, Plaq. IV, f° 346 v°.

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reliable information on such matters is hardly available, diplomatic and intelligence reports are bound to convey items of hearsay. In the 1800s, when France undertook to reshape the continent, an association of Hungary with Russia seemed conceivable. But it proved to be just a piece of gossip. Hungaroteutomachia47 Johannes Spiesshammer, the humanist scholar and diplomat known as Cuspinianus, made a passionate appeal, in 1513, to the German and Hungarian nations to unite their forces against the Turks, and “should they be angry with one another, to grant forgiveness in the concord of hearts.”48 Cuspinianus hoped in vain for the advent of this concord. From 1526 to 1918, the Germans of Austria and the Hungarians shared a common history in a permanent tension, interrupted occasionally with moments of relief. The antipathy was mutual and stayed undiminished up to the end of the old Central Europe. Century after century, travelers on their way to Hungary were warned in Vienna to be prepared for the worst. The unsigned report on the journey of the Marquis de l’Hopital in 1757 is introduced by the following sentences: “Hungary is depicted, usually, as a large country, unhealthy, sparsely populated and not suited to becoming populous, due to the inclemency of the air, the bad quality of the water and the sterility of the land. We were given this idea in Vienna, and had I not seen, myself, the opposite, I would still be convinced that this is one of the worst and ugliest countries in Europe. But after what I have seen of it, which is not, according to everybody, the best part, I may tell, with certainty, that few are more fertile, and that its current withering condition should be ascribed to causes alien to the country and its inhabitants.”49 In 1793, Robert Townson was warned that “... only in fine weather could it be prudent to travel in a country which, according to the accounts 47

In February 1606, at Northeim in Braunschweig-Lüneburg, the authorities seized the books of Joannes Bocatius. The following title is listed under Nr 5 : Hungaroteutomachia uel colloquium de bello nunc inter Cæsareos et Hungaros excitato. No other mention of this text is known and no copy has been located so far. See András Varga, Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak [Private Libraries in Hungary], I, 1533–1657 (Budapest–Szeged: Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1986), p. 78. 48 Alexander Apponyi, Hungarica—Ungarn betreffende im Auslande gedruckte Bücher und Flugschriften (Budapest: Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, 2004), entry n° 1792. 49 Kecskeméti (ed.), Notes, rapports, p. 46.

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current in Vienna, was little better than in a status of nature, and its inhabitants half savage; ... and I myself, had I not learned to make deductions from popular accounts, would hardly have ventured without a battalion of grenadiers for protection. If I came back alive, I was told, I ought to think myself fortunate. On making the acquaintance however of some Hungarians, who furnished me with letters of introduction, I found these accounts to arise from national hatred.”50 Some forty years will have elapsed when John Paget encountered the “... foolish tales the good Viennese told us of the country we were about to visit. No roads! no inns! no police! We must sleep on the ground, eat where we could, and be ready to defend our purses and our lives at every moment... We finished our journey with the full conviction that traveling in Hungary was just as safe as traveling in England.”51 To Julia Pardoe, the Austrian polite society bad-mouthed the Diet with particular vigor: “Even in Vienna, where the truth must or should be known—the most lamentable fallacies are boldly put forth with regard to this great national assembly. It is represented to the stranger as a meeting of turbulent orators, whose words are loud, and whose labour is but loss of time; a gathering together of ferocious semi-barbarians, craving they know not what; clamouring for an independence of action which they would obtain only to misuse; and violent in proportion to their ignorance.”52 According to all foreign witnesses of past centuries, Hungarians loathed Germans, whom they considered responsible for all the evils their country suffered. Germans were the oppressors, the hereditary enemy, and to crown it all, they had to be thanked as liberators of the country from the Turkish yoke, although, as the malcontents put it, the liberation meant just a new subjection. Blunt statements of this kind may be accompanied by more lenient comments when referring to the behavior of the aristocracy, at ease in Vienna, loyal to the throne and intermarrying with the high society of Austria and Bohemia. The Hungarian superiority complex, other than the traditional introspective extra Hungariam non est vita syndrome, appeared only in the nineteenth century and was limited to the firm belief in the political virtues of constitutionalism and in the nation’s readiness to stand up to oppression. Gérard Lacuée’s suggestion that a French military presence could wake up revolutionary ideas among Hungarians, and gen50

Townson, Travels in Hungary, p. 32. Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, p. 2. 52 Pardoe, The City of the Magyar, I, pp. 216–217. 51

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erate them in the Austrian lands, stems from an awareness of this difference between the two nations. After 1849, the triumphant absolutism was determined to cure the Hungarians of their Asiatic backwardness, as well as of their liberal and parliamentary fancies, by unusually savage reprisal measures in a first period, and then by inflicting civilization through the imposition of German as the administrative and teaching language, through the import of civil servants from the Austrian provinces and through the introduction of the Austrian legal system. But the specific mechanism of the Austro-Hungarian relations that had operated since the sixteenth century prevailed once again, and the parties arrived at a compromise 18 years after the outbreak of the crisis. The dual Monarchy, composed of two liberal parliamentary States, proved to be viable; a world conflagration was needed to destroy it. But the climate was deteriorating dangerously in more than one respect. The Hungarians, though their main claims had been satisfied, maintained their traditional distrust, now fortified by the memory of the post1849 repression. The Austrians, for their part, felt humiliated by being set on parity with underdeveloped and despised Hungary. During the fifty years of its existence, the dual Monarchy progressed at a rapid pace, but the old resentments survived. “A profound ditch separates Austria and Hungary. ... there are only divergences, antipathy, rivalry and, quite often, hatred. One is genuinely interested in the lot that awaits the foreigners compelled to reside in Hungary and they are often questioned on the kind of life they have to lead amid these barbarian Hungarians ”—runs a dispatch from the Vicomte de Fontenay, Consul General of France in Budapest from 1906 to 1912, to his Minister.53 Phraseology tended to radicalize in an age when all national minorities of the Monarchy—Croatians, Czechs, Italians, Poles, Rumanians, Serbs, Slovaks, Slovenes and Ukrainians, who together formed the majority of the population—demanded recognition of their nationhood, and either an equal status with that of the Austro-Germans and Hungarians or the right to join their kin by seceding from the Monarchy. The irruption of antiSemitism in the political field added a touch of vulgarity to the already tangled national polemics. The propaganda that supported the demands of the nationalities against the uncompromising Hungarians started in the 1820s and succeeded in gaining all-European audience at the eve of World War I. From its incep53

MAE (Archives du Ministère des Affaires étrangères), Corr. Pol. et commerciale 1897– 1918, Hongrie, 10, 1910–1911, Dépêche du 9 mars 1910.

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tion it used the time-tested argument of Austro-German rhetoric depicting the Hungarians as ignorant savages. Then the Great War redistributed the roles on a reshaped Central European scene. The 400-year-old Hungaroteutomachia faded out. On the road to World War II, revisionist Hungary sided with the Third Reich, and with it sank into opprobrium. The Entente powers and the States that benefited from the 1918–1920 settlement incorporated in their justificatory theses a reappraised history. It was developed around the core concept, coined probably in 1917, by Ernest Denis, in his pamphlet pleading for an independent Czechoslovakia,54 of a thousand-year-old alliance of Germans and Magyars. The concept, though obviously anachronistic and stemming from the nationalist turmoil of nineteenth-century Central Europe, still has its advocates. In Pierre Béhar’s essay on the “Central European and Balkan geo-political permanencies,”55 published just after the collapse of the Soviet block, the Turco-Mongol tribes, who called themselves Magyars, teamed up with the Germans against the Slavs as soon as they arrived on the plains of the Carpathian Basin, at the end of the ninth century. They separated the Northern Slavs from the Southern Slavs and “presented in the eyes of the Germans the invaluable advantage of taking them in the rear. ... Alliance between Magyars and Germans was henceforth an essential feature of the political constellation in Central Europe. It would operate regularly, and still does so at the beginning of the twenty-first century.56 Assimilating the Hungarians with the Mongols is also inherited from the thesaurus of German rhetoric: “Aber jenem den mongolischen Hordensprachen Innerasiens verwandten Idiome fehlten die nötigen technischen Begriffe.” This sentence, published in the periodical entitled Daheim, was quoted in the House of Representatives by a deputy of the Independence Party on February 15, 1882. Conclusions Tocqueville’s Democracy in America remains the unparalleled model of a foreign observer’s understanding of a nation’s institutional, social, political and mental life. One does not expect, of course, to find comparable 54

Ernest Denis, La question d’Autriche. Les Slovaques (Paris: Delagrave, 1917), pp. 111– 112. 55 Pierre Béhar, L’Autriche-Hongrie idée d’avenir. Permanences géopolitiques de l’Europe centrale et balkanique (Paris: Desjonquères, 1991). 56 Ibid., p. 14.

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excellence in the diplomatic and intelligence archives of modern Europe, nor in the extremely prolific literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries produced by traveling scholars, aristocrats and lady tourists like those quoted in this paper, or by other authors such as Ignace Mouradgean d’Ohsson (on the Ottoman Empire)57 or the Marquis de Custine (on Russia).58 Nevertheless, as masterfully evidenced by Tocqueville, foreigners when studying a national reality do have the advantage of being exempt from the forgiveness that is inherent to the way the nationals view themselves. Even if sympathizing with the country described, they can avoid the self-indulgence and self-centeredness that lead to the justification of infringements on moral standards and deviations from the political rationality common to Europeans of the time. Equally important perhaps, because of their different background, bona fide foreigners grasp specificities in behavior, mentality, social habits and political practice that go unnoticed by nationals, simply because considered natural. In this context the adjective bona fide is essential: if the observer’s perceptiveness is handicapped by prejudices, his account will reflect those received ideas rather than the reality encountered. Whether informed by government officials or politicians of the opposition, sympathizing with this or that pressure group, foreigners do see the visited country in their own way and judge it according to their own standards—unless they deliberately opt for serving as propaganda agents. The understanding of history is impossible by the use of pre-fabricated ideological schemes, Marxist, nationalist or other, or by referring to selected passages of books and documents that happen to coincide with the proposed thesis. István demonstrated that no cliché inspired by patriotic feelings can be sustained against the testimony of major groups of foreign archival sources. In this respect, the Litteræ and the Relationes give an exemplary lesson on the informational value of the documentary endproduct of past transactions once they have become the raw material for scholarly research. Sets of concordant foreign sources may also be instrumental—and indeed more convincing than national records—in dispelling commonplaces nurtured abroad. When supplying data and analyses to Paris for decisionmaking on European policy, the French intelligence agents sent by Napoleon to Hungary were not coining arguments against theories that intellec57

M. d’Ohsson, Tableau général de l’Empire Ottoman...dédié au Roi de Suède, 4 vols. (Paris: 1788). 58 Marquis de Custine, La Russie en 1839, 2 vols. (Paris: Solin, 1990).

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tuals, Western or Hungarian, would first develop one or two centuries later. Reference to a wide enough range of foreign sources may help also in confuting anachronisms resulting from the—alas, not infrequent— retro-projecting habit of militant historians. Reading these colorful accounts on a long-ago vanished world offers also an aesthetic pleasure. István was right in publishing the Litterae and the Relationes. His work is known also in France, where he published, in the spring of 2005, a selection of the Letters of the Missionaries.59

59

István György Tóth, Politique et religion dans la Hongrie du XVII e siècle. Lettres des missionnaires de la Propaganda Fide (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004).

Hungary and Bosnia 1387–1463 Between Stereotypes and New Interpretations DUBRAVKO LOVRENOVIĆ

I Since Julius von Pauler published a short paper a century ago entitled “Wie und wann kam Bosnien an Ungarn?,”1 the study of Hungarian– Bosnian relations in the Middle Ages has been accompanied with a peculiar paradox. Despite occasional stress upon the importance of this issue,2 and new insights and successive enlargement of our knowledge in works by F. Rački,3 F. Šišić,4 V. Klaić,5 L. Petrović,6 D. Mandić,7 P. Anđelić,8 S. 1

Julius von Pauler, “Wie und wann kam Bosnien an Ungarn?,” in Wissenschaftliche Mittheilungen aus Bosnien und der Hercegovina (Wien: 1894), II: pp. 1–6. 2 Nikola Radojčić, Obred krunisanja bosanskoga kralja Tvrtka I. Prilog istoriji krunisanja srpskih vladara u srednjem veku [The coronation ceremony of the Bosnian king Tvrtko I: A contribution to the history of the coronation of Serbian rulers in the Middle Ages] (Beograd: Srpska Akademija Nauka, Posebna izdanja, knj. CXLIII, Odeljenje društvenih nauka, knjiga 56, 1948), pp. 7. 3 Franjo Rački, “Pokret na slavenskom jugu koncem XIV i početkom XV stoljeća” [Movement in the Slav south in the late 14th century and early 15th century], Rad jugoslavenske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti, II, III, IV (1868). 4 Ferdo Šišić, Vojvoda Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić i njegovo doba (1350–1416) [Duke Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić and his time (1350–1416)] (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 1902); Idem, “Nekoliko isprava iz početka XV stoljeća” [A few documents from the early 15th century], Starine XXXIX (1938), pp. 129–320. 5 Vjekoslav Klaić, Povijest Hrvata od najstarijih vremena do svršetka XIX stoljeća, II–IV [The history of the Croats since the dawn of time to the end of the 19th century] (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 1972–73). 6 Leon Petrović, Kršćani bosanske crkve (kr’stiani cr’kve bos’nske) [The Christians of the Bosnian Church] (Sarajevo: Dobri Pastir, 1953). 7 Dominik Mandić, Bogomilska crkva bosanskih krstjana [The Bosnian Christians’ Bogomil Church] (Chicago: 1962). 8 Pavo Anđelić, Srednjovjekovni pečati iz Bosne i Hercegovine [Mediaeval seals from Bosnia and Herzegovina] (Sarajevo: Djela Akademije nauka i umjetnosti Bosne i

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M. Ćirković,9 and N. Klaić,10 historiography on the whole has not moved far from the bases laid down by this Hungarian historian who advocated the idea of the Hungarian rulers’ supreme authority over Bosnia. Following Pauler’s conception, Gejza von Ferdinandy at the beginning of the twentieth century further developed the legal principles of AustroHungarian imperialism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, holding that the territory of “today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina ... before the Battle of Mohács (1526) had belonged to the Hungarian Holy Crown.” With his dubious thesis concerning the title of “King of Rama”—a province that had not originally belonged to Bosnia, but which without justification he equates with Bosnia—the author went a step further, claiming that Bosnian rulers’ authority had been confirmed by the Hungarian kings, which is far from corresponding with the real historical facts.11 Ferdinandy, however, was not Hercegovine, knj. 38, Odjeljenje društvenih nauka, 1970); Idem, “Barones regni i državno vijeće srednjovjekovne Bosne” [The barones regni and the state council of mediaeval Bosnia], Prilozi Instituta za istoriju Sarajevo XI–XII (1975/76), pp. 29–48. 9 Sima M. Ćirković, “Dve godine bosanske istorije (1414–1415)” [Two years of Bosnian history (1414–1415)], Istoriski Glasnik 3–4 (1953), pp. 29–42; Idem, “Vlastela i kraljevi u Bosni posle 1463. godine” [Landed nobility and kings in Bosnia after 1463], Istoriski Glasnik 3 (1954), pp. 123–131; Idem, “O ‘Đakovačkom ugovoru’ ” [About the “Đakovo Agreement”], Istoriski Glasnik 1–4 (1962), pp. 69–82; Idem, “Sugubi venac (Prilog istoriji kraljevstva u Bosni)” [Sugubi venac (A contribution to the history of kingship in Bosnia)], Zbornik Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu, knj. VIII, Spomenica M. Dinića I (1964), pp. 343–369; Idem, Istorija srednjovekovne bosanske države [History of the mediaeval Bosnian state] (Beograd: Srpska Književna Zadruga, 1964); Idem, Herceg Stefan Vukčić-Kosača i njegovo doba [Duke Stefan Vukčić-Kosača and his time] (Beograd: Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti, Posebna izdanja, knj. 376, Odeljenje društvenih nauka, 1964); Idem, “Počteni vitez Pribislav Vukotić” [The honorable knight Pribislav Vukotić], Zbornik Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu X–1 (1968), pp 259–276; Idem, “Odjeci ritersko-dvorjanske kulture u Bosni krajem srednjeg veka” [Echoes of chivalrous-royal culture in Bosnia in the Late Middle Ages], Srednjovjekovna Bosna i evropska kultura, Izdanja Muzeja grada Zenice (1973), pp. 33–40; Idem, “Rusaška gospoda” [The Rusag aristocracy], Istorijski časopis XXI (1974), pp. 5–16; Idem, “Dvor i kultura u srednjovekovnoj bosanskoj državi” [Court and culture in the mediaeval Bosnian state], in Bosna i Hercegovina u tokovima istorijskih i kulturnih kretanja u jugoistočnoj Evropi [Bosnia and Herzegovina in the historical and cultural developments in south-east Europe], Posebna izdanja, Zemaljski muzej (1989), pp. 61–69. 10 Nada Klaić, Srednjovjekovna Bosna. Politički položaj bosanskih vladara do Tvrtkove krunidbe 1377. g. [Mediaeval Bosnia: The political position of the Bosnian rulers until Tvrtko I’s coronation in 1377] (Zagreb: Grafički Zavod Hrvatske, 1989). 11 A new argumentation in clarifying this issue has been given by Tibor Živković, Forging Unity: The South Slavs Between East and West 550–1150 (Belgrade: The Institute of History Belgrade, 2008), pp. 269.

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entirely misguided, since, by making this issue of contemporary relevance, he touched upon the essence of Hungarian–Bosnian relations, namely the issue of the real legal competencies of the Hungarian and Bosnian Crowns in the territory of the mediaeval Bosnian state.12 Certainly, the idea of Hungary’s supreme authority over mediaeval Bosnia pre-dates Pauler and Ferdinandy. It was systematically elaborated on in a booklet published in 1737 in the context of the preparations for the Austro-Turkish War (1737–1739), when a Hapsburg occupation of Bosnia was being justified.13 For the most part, the historiography of the South Slavs—nationalromantic, but Marxist as well—consciously or unconsciously succumbed to the temptation of demonizing Hungary and its role in South-Slav mediaeval history. Both schools, for their own specific reasons, needed a historical enemy around which to build the idea of the solidarity of the people and contemporary national integration ideologies. This ideological construct entered Hungarian–Bosnian relations in the form of a thesis about centurieslong crusades waged from Hungary against the so-called Bogomils.14 The thread running through the historiography of Hungarian–Bosnian relations—with slight differences between particular authors—is the thesis about the “vassal relations” of the Bosnian bans and kings with the Hungarian rulers; these relations are complemented with the specific ecclesiastic and political circumstances in mediaeval Bosnia which on the Hungarian side were used as a pretext for occasional military interventions and ideological disqualifications. Thus created, the stereotype, with slight variations which did not question its basic message, has kept itself 12

Gejza von Ferdinandy, Königreichs Ungarn und seiner Nebenländer (Hannover: Dr. Max Jänecke Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1909). 13 The full title of the booklet published in Leiden in 1737 reads: “Spicilegivm observationvm historico-geographicarvm de Bosnae regno Hungarici quondam jvris occasione armorum caesareorvm hoc anno MDCCXXXVII in Bosniam motorvm. Lvgdvni Batavorum, Impensis Bvartsi, 1737.” It represents a summary of European knowledge of the times about the historiography of Bosnia. The anonymous author is identified on a copy of the booklet in the Georg-August Universität in Göttingen as “Jo[hann] Gerhard Mejer von Berghen”; the credit for bringing the author’s identity to attention belongs to Srećko M. Džaja, “Bosanska povijesna stvarnost i njezini mitološki odrazi” [Bosnia’s historical reality and its mythological reflections], Bosna Franciscana 17 (2002), p. 146. 14 Dubravko Lovrenović, “Bošnjačka recepcija bosanskog srednjovjekovlja (Geneza bogumilskog mita i njegove suvremene političke implikacije)” [The Bosniaks’ perception of the Bosnian Middle Ages (The genesis of the Bogomil myth and its modern political implications)], Zeničke sveske: Časopis za društvenu fenomenologiju i kulturnu dijalogiku 2 (2005), pp. 241–290.

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alive to the present day and has almost cemented one of the major themes of the Bosnian mediaeval period. Thus the valuable results collected in the meantime in historiography have remained obscured by this thesis which has acquired the status of a dogma. In truth, what has been ignored is the irrefutable fact that mediaeval vassalage was a fluid category and a relationship was never established once and forever. Apart from that fact, no difference was made between vassal liabilities of a personal nature and liabilities personified in the crown of the kingdom as a personal symbol of royal authority. Put simply, this means that territorial acquisitions and the principle of feudal subordination did not primarily rely on virtual rights and flamboyant mediaeval rhetoric—no such a case is known—but simply on “the law of the sword.” Here it is essential to differentiate between political influence and de facto authority.15 The basic obligations of vassalage, as this state was understood in mediaeval Europe, included fidelity to the suzerain, military assistance and support against his enemies, presence at his court and the payment of tributes.16 Such a status points to the need for a well-honed historiographic evaluation, and to define means “always to limit.”17 This is why our starting point was based on the search for an answer to the key question: were the Hungarian kings, in the period that this study deals with, the ones who assigned Bosnian rulers their title as rulers? Or conversely, did they ever strip them of the title? The dynastic-legal history of the European Middle Ages was not short of such instances, and their role in this case is what orients us in answering this question. This methodological starting point finds its justification also in the fact that, unlike its relations with Dubrovnik and Venice, which were mostly of an economic nature, Bosnia’s relations with Hungary developed in the ecclesiastic and political domains. The focus of the research on this aspect opens the question of ideological controversies, which for over a century have been present in the discussion about the “religious topography” of mediaeval Bosnia. Words and reality, and different religious denomina15

16

17

Ivo Goldstein, Bizant na Jadranu od Justinijana I. do Bazilija I. [Byzantium on the Adriatic from Justinian I to Basil I] (Zagreb: Zavod za hrvatsku povijest Filozofskog fakulteta, Biblioteka Latina et Graeca, knj. XIII, 1992), p. 153. Jean W. Sedlar, East Central Europe in the Middle Ages 1000–1500, in P. F. Sugar–D. W. Treadgold (eds.), A History of East Central Europe (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1994), vol. III, pp. 366–367. Marc Bloch, Feudalno društvo (Zagreb: Naprijed, 1958), p. 263. Translation of: La Société Feodale (Éditions Albin Michel, Paris, 1949).

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tions within the Christian ecumenical community, have been a recurrent topic in the discussion of Hungarian–Bosnian relations.18 An important factor to be taken into account is that today’s Hungary is completely different from old Hungary in terms of territory.19 Joint or separate administration, linguistic and ethnic similarities and/or differences, observations by contemporaries about the criteria of affiliation, the way this problem was understood abroad—these are key issues for a more complete study of the topic. Additional to all this is the fact that mediaeval Bosnia did not belong to the complex of “associate countries” (partes adnexae) of the Hungarian Crown which, like Croatia, Dalmatia, Slavonia and Transylvania, enjoyed various degrees of autonomy in relation to the holder of political sovereignty personified in the Hungarian Holy Crown.20 The Bosnian Crown, unlike Dubrovnik in the mid-fourteenth century, never entered into an official vassal relation with the Hungarian Crown. When particular Bosnian rulers such as Stjepan Ostoja (1409–1418) and Stjepan Tomaš (1443–1461) took on certain obligations towards the Hungarian kings, these were primarily of a personal nature and were strictly separated both from the sovereignty rights of the Bosnian Crown as a transpersonal symbol of royal dignity and from the rights of the Bosnian Assembly as an expression of the collective will of the Bosnian nobility. The authoritative Hungarian historian Pál Engel has recently stressed that it cannot be claimed unreservedly that “Bosnia throughout the Middle Ages was a vassal country of the Hungarian Crown.”21 Unlike the South Slavs, Hungarian historians have not shown any special interest in this issue,22 even though abstracting Bosnia from the mainstream political developments of the Hungarian Crown between 1387 and 18

Dubravko Lovrenović, “Modeli ideološkog isključivanja. Ugarska i Bosna kao ideološki neprijatelji na osnovi različitih konfesija kršćanstva” [Models of political exclusion: Hungary and Bosnia as ideological enemies on the basis of different Christian confessions], Prilozi Instituta za istoriju u Sarajevu 33 (2004), pp. 9–57. 19 Gábor Klaniczay, “The Concepts of Hungaria and Pannonia in the Age of the Renaissance,” Hungarian Studies 10/2 (1995), p. 173. 20 Dubravko Lovrenović, “Bosanski rusag i sveta kruna bosanska” [The Bosnian Rusag and the Holy Bosnian Crown], Bosna franciscana 19 (2003), pp. 79–106. 21 Pál Engel, “Neki problemi bosansko-ugarskih odnosa” [Some problems in Bosnian– Hungarian relations], Zbornik Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti Zavoda za povijesne i društvene znanosti Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti 16, (1998), pp. 57–72. Originally published as: Zur Frage der bosnisch-ungarischen Beziehungen im 14.-15. Jahrhundert, Südost- Forschungen, 56, München, 1997. 22 Zsigmond Pál Pach, “Old and New Syntheses of Hungarian History,” Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 34/2–3 (1988), pp. 291–306.

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1463 leaves an evident gap in the history of its international relations in South-Eastern Europe. This is particularly true of the late 14th and early 15th centuries, a period marked by the conquests of the Bosnian King Tvrtko I Kotromanić in Croatia and Dalmatia, by the coronation of King Ladislaus of Naples in Zadar early in August 1403 and by the Hungarian King Sigismund of Luxemburg’s military expeditions against Bosnia with the aim of his securing the Bosnian crown.23 The very fact that among all other crowns he aspired to and eventually got—the Holy Crown of Hungary, the German Royal Crown, the Crown of the Holy Roman Empire and the Crown of St. Wenceslas—only the Bosnian Crown remained beyond his grasp justifies the attention. Even if it remains a fact that past relations between Hungary and Bosnia are not of decisive importance for the understanding of Hungary’s mediaeval history, and that the relevance of the topic from the Hungarian point of view by no means corresponds with its importance from the Bosnian point of view, it is equally manifest that Sigismund’s military pressure against Bosnia and his failure to secure the Bosnian crown had a lasting effect on relations between Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Additionally, the role of Bosnia, especially in the person of Duke Hrvoje Vukčić of Split, in the territorial reshaping of Dalmatia under the flag of King Ladislaus of Naples in the first years of the fifteenth century, which eventually led to the Holy Crown’s loss of this province, was such that it cannot be avoided in an overall description of King Sigismund’s international policy. From the Bosnian perspective, the importance of its relations with Hungary can hardly be overrated, as Hungary remained the most important element in Bosnia’s ecclesiastic and political history and its international standing as a whole. This is why in South-Slav and BosnianHerzegovinian mediaeval studies the relations of Bosnia with Hungary are an unavoidable topic and have had many interpreters, while on the Hungarian part only a few authors have paid special attention to this topic. Except for the valuable work published recently by Pál Engel about the territorial conquests of the Hungarian Crown in Bosnia up to the 1440s and the fitting of the Bosnian landed nobility into the Hungarian feudal system, along with the attempts of Elemér Mályusz to clarify certain issues related to King Sigismund’s efforts to secure the Bosnian crown late 23

Dubravko Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti (Sveta kruna ugarska i Sveta kruna bosanska) 1387–1463 [On the land-slide of history (The Holy Hungarian Crown and the Holy Bosnian Crown) 1387–1463] (Zagreb–Sarajevo: Synopsis, 2006), pp. 41–154.

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in the fourteenth century24 and Andras Kubinyi’s paper about King Matthias Corvinus’ policy regarding Bosnia after 1463,25 everything else however remained far below the relevance which the issue of the two Crowns had in shaping overall Hungarian policy in South-Eastern Europe between 1387 and 1463. It is, naturally, necessary to point out that due to the linguistic barrier, we have been deprived of the information contained in these authors’ papers written in the Hungarian language. II Observed against this background, along with all constants and variables of a complex state-dynastic issue, Hungarian–Bosnian relations constitute a particular case of the regionalization of ecclesiastical-political models which gravitated towards Rome within the European space. Their starting point was the elimination of Byzantium from the ecclesiastical-political life of a large part of east-central Europe during the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204), when Hungary, as the executor of the universal pretensions of the Pontificate, was promoted to a regional power.26 The Hungarian rulers were fortunate that the Pontificate had need of them and that these circumstances raised them in the hierarchical scale of estimation of the Roman Curia. This fact, strengthened by the Hungarian kings’ patronage right to the appointment of bishops and archbishops in the countries of the Holy Crown, was followed by the relocation of the Bosnian bishopric in the mid-thirteenth century to the territory under Hungarian sovereignty— the central event of Bosnian ecclesiastical and political history, which would decisively determine the content of Hungary–Bosnia relations until 1463.27 24

Elemér Mályusz, “Ikach rex Bosnensis,” Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae XIV/1–4 (1968), pp. 259–267. 25 András Kubinyi, “Die Frage des bosnischen Königtums von Nikolaus Ujlaky,” Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae IV/3–4 (1958), pp. 373–384. 26 Srećko M. Džaja, “Bosansko srednjovjekovlje kroz prizmu bosanske krune, grba i biskupije” [The Bosnian Middle Ages through the prism of the Bosnian Crown, Coatof-Arms and Bishopric], Jukić 15 (1985), pp. 81–102. 27 Georg Stadtmüller, “Ungarns Balkan-Politik im zwölften und dreizehnten Jahrhundert,” in: J. G. Farkas (ed.), Überlieferung und Auftrag, Festschrift für Michael de Ferdinandy zum sechzigsten Geburtstag, 5. okt. 1972. (Wiesbaden: 1972), pp. 603–613; Đuro Basler, “Ungarn und das bosnische Bistum (1181/85–1247),” Ungarn Jahrbuch 5 (1973), pp. 9–15.

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As if by a domino effect, two events, the emergence of the autocephalous Bosnian Church in written sources in 1326/29 and the proclamation of Bosnia as a kingdom in 1377, defined the course which relations between Hungarian and Bosnian rulers would take from the mid-thirteenth century. Our insight into this problem resulted in the working hypothesis that the djed (grandfather)—“the real master episcope of the Bosnian Church”28— crowned the first Bosnian king in 1377 and, it seems, all his successors as well except for the last king, Stjepan Tomašević, who was crowned with the papal crown in 1461.29 With the close intersecting of changeable European and regional ecclesiastical-political lines of force, along with the ever stronger political and military presence of the Ottomans from the late fourteenth century,30 relations between the Hungarian and Bosnian Crowns in the period 1387– 1463 were a continuous recurrence of the aforesaid events. The proclamation of Bosnia as a kingdom in 1377 resulted in a radical redefinition of its relations with Hungary, giving the adequate answer to the Holy Crown’s pretensions based on the patronage right of the Hungarian kings. It is certainly necessary to draw the line between the two areas: between the legal pretensions and the de facto state, in the conflicts whereof the historical events took place. Should we wish to define in a nut-shell the relation between the Bosnian and Hungarian Crowns, then three issues would have to be focused on: 1. The issue of the legality of the autocephalous Bosnian Church as an alternative (uncanonical) bishopric to the relocated Catholic bishopric. 2. The issue of the legitimacy of the Bosnian Crown based on the state church beyond the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church. 3. The issue of the patronage right of the Hungarian rulers. For the transferred sovereignty (the Catholic bishopric) a replacement was found in Bosnia: the Bosnian Church. The key problem posed by its 28

Ljubomir Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje i pisma [Ancient Serbian charters and letters] (Beograd–Sremski Karlovci: Srpska Kraljevska Akademija, I/1), 1929, pp. 434. 29 Dubravko Lovrenović, “Proglašenje Bosne kraljevinom 1377 (Pokušaj revalorizacije)” [The proclamation of the Kingdom of Bosnia in 1377 (an attempt at re-evaluation)], Forum Bosnae 3–4 (1999), pp. 227–287. 30 Đuro Tošić, “Bosna i Turci od Kosovske do Angorske bitke” [Bosnia and the Turks from the Kosovo to the Angora Battles], Zbornik za istoriju BiH 1, Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti, (1995), pp. 85–97.

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emergence was the building up of the state and political entity, and it was on this basis that the conflict of loyalty emerged. Specifically, the Bosnian Catholic bishopric (the former state church) was in territory under the nominal sovereignty of the Holy Crown, which enabled the Hungarian rulers—as in the mid-thirteenth century—to lay ecclesiastical-political claims to Bosnia as defined by their right of patronage: a strong ecclesiastical-political means to claim national and state sovereignty.31 If as a criterion for historical evaluation we take the autocephalous church, independent of Rome and West-European developments, it shows justification of such an evaluation followed by a conclusion begging to be made that on that path the Bosnian rulers went a few steps ahead of the Hungarian rulers, who through the affirmation of the patronage right also strove, successfully for the most part, to create a state-political structure independent of Rome with some secular features.32 But unlike the Hungarian rulers, who defended that right only in relation to Rome, the Bosnian rulers were exposed to double pressure, from Rome as well as from Hungary. Seen from this point of view, the long advocated thesis about the supreme power of Hungarian rulers over Bosnia loses its last foothold. The form of that relation is vividly illustrated by the Bosnian kings’ heraldic Codex, created out of a combination of western heraldic symbols and the absence from that system of the Hungarian symbol of sovereignty, the double cross. This whole complex reflects one of the basic questions of historicity—the question of the building up of historical entity—which in Bosnia developed in the narrow corner between the particular (the Bosnian Church) and the universal (the Roman Curia). As a Church sui juris which maintained a kind of split within a split, the Bosnian Church on the other hand reflects European ecclesiastical and political trends in the process of detachment of the so-called state churches from Roman patronage, i.e. the process of political pluralization and confessionalization.33 The period of the post-Avignon schism in Western Europe (1378– 1417) was marked by the Bosnian breakthrough onto the Adriatic coast in 31

Dubravko Lovrenović, “Utjecaj Ugarske na odnos Crkve i države u srednjovjekovnoj Bosni” [Hungary’s influence on Church-state relations in mediaeval Bosnia], in Znanstveni skup: Sedam stoljeća bosanskih franjevaca (1994), pp. 37–93. 32 Imre Bard, “The Break of 1404 between the Hungarian Church and Rome,” Ungarn Jahrbuch 10 (1979), pp. 59–69. 33 Heinz Schilling, “Confessionalisation and the Rise of Religious and Cultural Frontiers in Early Modern Europe,” in E. Andor–I. Gy. Tóth (eds.), Frontiers of Faith: Religious Exchange and the Constitution of Religious Identities 1400–1750 (Budapest: Central European University, 2001), pp. 21–35.

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the territory of Hungarian sovereignty, and prominently, too, by Sigismund of Luxemburg’s efforts to be crowned with the Bosnian crown and thus incorporate Bosnia into the framework of the countries of the Holy Crown. This pattern of political engagement by the Hungarian king in Bosnia failed, and was to remain permanently in the sphere of ideology— a form of “universal idealism”—unlike their dynastic aspirations regarding Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia,34 Bohemia,35 Wallachia, and Moldavia,36 in which motives of an economic nature also played a role to a greater or lesser extent. The efforts which the protracted Hungarian military interventions in Bosnia in the early fifteenth century entailed, which were accompanied by activation of ideological vocabulary of a religious nature and the expenditure of huge financial and human resources, were in inverse proportion to the results achieved: the political and economic power of the Hungarian Crown in this theatre beyond the scope of its own territory was not increased, as at such a distance the resources necessary to keep the acquisitions of war over a longer time were lacking. Sigismund’s military campaigns against Bosnia had a typical mediaeval character: they were the wars of the mere seizing of neighboring territories with primarily strategic goals. The economy of mediaeval Hungary, first and foremost its export and import trade, was oriented elsewhere, which left no room for a “trade war” between Hungary and Bosnia like the Hundred Years War between France and England or that between Herceg (Duke) Stjepan Vukčić and Dubrovnik (1451–1454)37; the political ideal of the Hungarian rulers which they tried to realize in Bosnia remained a religious ideal characteristic of the ecclesiastical-political relations of the early Middle Ages. 34

Tomislav Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje - prostor, ljudi, ideje [Croatia’s Middle Ages—area, people, ideas] (Zagreb: Školska knjiga – Zavod za hrvatsku povijest Filozofskog fakulteta u Zagrebu, 1997), pp. 71–72, 77–83, 87–95. 35 Miroslav Polívka, “König Sigismund und die katholischen königlichen Städte in Böhmen während der hussitischen Revolution (1419–1437),” in J. Macek, E. Marosi and F. Seibt (eds.), Sigismund von Luxemburg Kaiser und König in Mitteleuropa 1387–1437, Beiträge zur Herrschaft Kaiser Sigismunds und der europäischen Geschichte um 1400. Vorträge der internationalen Tagung in Budapest vom 8.-11. Juli 1987 anlässlich der 600. Wiederkehr seiner Thronbesteigung in Ungarn und seines 550. Todestages, Studien zu den Luxemburgern und ihrer Zeit, Band 5 (Warendorf: Fahlbusch Verlag, 1994), pp. 157–164. 36 Zsigmond P. Pach, “Die Verkehrsroute des Levantehandels nach Siebenbürgen und Ungarn in der Zeit Sigismunds,” in Macek, Marosi and Seibt (eds.), Sigismund von Luxemburg, pp. 192–199. 37 Sima M. Ćirković, Herceg Stefan Vukčić-Kosača i njegovo doba, pp. 147–173.

DUBRAVKO LOVRENOVIĆ: Hungary and Bosnia 1387–1463

43

Even the occasional withdrawal of Bosnia’s feudal lords and rulers to a vassal position before the bearers of the Holy Crown (a withdrawal which would be rewarded with land estates in Hungary), did not produce the desired results, because this ideal subordination system had little effect in practice as a permanent regulator of the new relations defined by this changed balance of forces. This was most clearly manifested during the three wars launched by Bosnia against Dubrovnik, Hungary’s nominal vassal (in 1403–1404, 1430–1432 and 1451–1454),38 when the Hungarian engagement in the protection of the Holy Crown’s subject did not go beyond diplomatic interventions. When in the early decades of the fifteenth century the Bosnian rulers and regional lords were forced to pay tribute to the Sultan39 after the Turks established their first permanent military-administrative strongholds in central Bosnia,40 the theoretical vassalage was replaced by firm and precise economic and political obligations which had not existed towards the Holy Crown. The territories of the Hungarian and Bosnian Crowns were separate feudal entities in all departments of a legal, ecclesiasticalpolitical and financial nature, and within the complex entitlement of the Hungarian kings Bosnia was not mentioned along with many other countries. Unlike Dubrovnik—let us draw that parallel too—which as of 1358 recognized the sovereignty of the Holy Crown and formalized this through an annual tribute of 500 ducats,41 Bosnia did not have any such liabilities. By thwarting Sigismund of Luxemburg’s plans to seize the Bosnian crown in the most critical period of relations between the Hungarian and Bosnian Crowns, Bosnia remained beyond the dynastic concepts by whose realization in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a large part of eastern and central Europe was “united” in the political domain; but by the same token, having already paid a high price for its ecclesiastical-political 38

Gavro Škrivanić, “Rat kralja Ostoje sa Dubrovnikom” [King Ostoja’s war with Dubrovnik], Vesnik vojnog muzeja JNA V/2 (1958), pp. 35–60. 39 Momčilo Spremić, “Turski tributari u XIV i XV veku” [Turkish tributaries in the 14th and 15th centuries], Istorijski glasnik 1–2 (1970), pp. 35–36; Desanka Kovačević, “Prilog pitanju ranih bosansko-turskih odnosa” [A contribution to the issue of early Bosnian–Turkish relations], Godišnjak Društva istoričara Bosne i Hercegovine XI (1960), pp. 257–263. 40 Hazim Šabanović, “Pitanje turske vlasti u Bosni do pohoda Mehmeda II. 1463 g.” [The question of Turkish power in Bosnia until Mehmed II’s raid in 1463], Godišnjak Istorijskog Društva BiH VII (1955), pp. 37–41. 41 Branislav Nedeljković, “Položaj Dubrovnika prema Ugarskoj (1358–1460)” [Dubrovnik’s position regarding Hungary (1358–1460)], Godišnjak Pravnog fakulteta u Sarajevu XV (1967), pp. 447–464.

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independence, it was then isolated in its struggle against the Turks, who after 1415 became an unavoidable factor in the political life of the country. This unenviable situation, in which the country was caught between Hungarian ecclesiastical-political pretensions and Turkish militarydiplomatic pressure and thus doubly destabilized, was frozen following the failure of the dynastic agreement on the transfer of the Bosnian crown to the counts of Celje in 1427. This is why Bosnia was not included in the general plan of defense against the Turks as drawn up under Sigismund of Luxemburg in the thirties of the fifteenth century, and also why the later separate attempts by Kings Tvrtko II Tvrtković and Stjepan Tomaš to be included in the Hungarian defense system failed. The fact that the Serb despotate was ensured a permanent place in this system was an additional element in the web of circumstances which shut the door for Bosnia before the same opportunities. Thus Bosnia remained a captive of the “Bermuda Triangle” bounded by the Bosnian Crown, papal pretensions and the Hungarian rulers’ right of patronage. This conclusion is justified if we know that the papal crown sent to Bosnia in 1446 did not reach its destination,42 and that the coronation of the last king, Stjepan Tomašević, with the papal crown in Jajce by the end of 1461, realized after the elimination of the Bosnian Church— upon repeated attempts of the Bosnian rulers to be crowned by the crown of the highest rank in Catholic Europe—did not win stability for Bosnia. On the contrary, it is this belated change in the Bosnian ecclesiastical and political paradigm that affected the widening of the split with the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus and the preparation of the final act of catastrophe. The behavior of King Matthias in the years following 1463 and the systematic prevention of the rehabilitation of the Bosnian Kingdom is one of the arguments supporting this statement.43 The Bosnian rulers looked for a way out of this quandary by, among other things, repeatedly offering the government of the state to Venice.44 There is another side to this absurdity. After the unity of the Western Church had been achieved at the Council of Constance in 1417, the Bosnian Kingdom became the ground for a test of strength between the Ro42

Lajos Thallóczy, Povijest (banovine, grada i varoši) Jajca [History (of the banate, city and town/varos) of Jajce] (Zagreb: 1916), pp. 48–49. 43 Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, pp. 341–393. 44 Marko Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija (odnosi u XIV i XV stoljeću) [Bosnia and Venice (their relations in the 14th and 15th centuries)] (Sarajevo: Hrvatsko Kulturno Društvo Napredak, 1996), pp. 193–194.

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man Curia, which intended to introduce Bosnia into the regular ecclesiastical hierarchy and thus eliminate the Bosnian Church, and the Hungarian Crown, which, provided with the right of patronage, attempted by every means, and in the end successfully, to prevent it. Thus the so-called Bosnian “heretics” had the support of Rome, while the “apostolic kings”—the “advance guards” of the Catholic Church in south-eastern Europe— worked against the interests of that same Church. Another paradox of the Middle Ages! Seen in the framework of the prevailing dynastic and political models, the relation between the Hungarian and Bosnian Crowns during the period 1387–1463 is typologically a special case, based on the specificity of Bosnia’s ecclesiastical and political position, with its bishop’s see relocated onto the territory within the competence of the Hungarian Crown. By this distinction, it comes close to the type of dynastic-political relations established between the German emperors and the Bohemian kings, with a difference that the German ecclesiastical, economic, ethnic and linguistic influences on Bohemia as the territory of German colonization was crucially affected by the Germanizing and Latinizing of its royal and urban Slavic culture. Hungary’s immediate spiritual influence on Bosnia was most strongly reflected in the shaping of the political concept of the Crown and of class rights and institutions, in the Christocentric ruling ideology, in sepulchral architecture, and in the development of the idea of knighthood and heraldic symbols.45 Mediaeval Bosnia, via Hungary with its role as a unique 45

Pavo Anđelić, “Grobovi bosanskih kraljeva u Arnautovićima kod Visokog” [The graves of the Bosnian kings at Arnautovići near Visoko], Glasnik Zemaljskog Muzeja, Nova Serija, (Arheologija), XVII (1962), pp. 171–187; Idem, Srednjovjekovni pečati iz Bosne i Hercegovine [Mediaeval Seals from Bosnia and Herzegovina]; Idem, Bobovac i Kraljeva Sutjeska. Stolna mjesta bosanskih vladara u XIV i XV stoljeću [Bobovac and Kraljeva Sutjeska: Seats of the Bosnian rulers in the 14th and 15th centuries] (Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1973), pp. 46–58, 66–98, 115–122, 181–186; Idem, “Barones regni,” pp. 29–48; Idem, “Krunidbena i grobna crkva bosanskih vladara u Milima (Arnautovićima) kod Visokog” [The coronation and crypt church of the Bosnian rulers at Mili (Arnautovići) near Visoko], Glasnik Zemaljskog Muzeja, Nova Serija (Arheologija), XXXIV (1980), pp. 183–247; Idem, “Doba srednjovjekovne bosanske države” [The period of the mediaeval Bosnia state], in Kulturna istorija Bosne i Hercegovine od najstarijih vremena do pada ovih zemalja pod osmansku vlast [Cultural history of Bosnia and Herzegovina from dawn of time to the fall of these lands under the Ottoman power], 2nd revised and expanded edition (Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1984), pp. 435– 583; Sima M. Ćirković, “Odjeci ritersko-dvorjanske kulture,” pp. 33–40; Idem, “Dvor i kultura,” pp. 61–69; Anto Babić, “Fragment iz kulturnog života srednjovjekovne Bos-

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“database,” was firmly linked to Western and Central European royal cultures, on which a strong imprint was left by the French–Burgundian style as the most prominent representative of universal pursuits in the twilight epoch of the Middle Ages. Common cultural denominators such as Saxon-German miners, Mediterranean merchants and the preaching orders (the Franciscans above all) imprinted identical signs of social and religious identity on the whole region of east-central Europe.46 How strong and fruitful those relations were, how much they made mediaeval Bosnia an organic part of the ecclesiastical-political and cultural landscape of east-central Europe, was clearly manifested after the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia in 1463 when they started loosening and were eventually interrupted when Bosnia was separated from its centuriesold cultural context. The reestablishment of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s relations with east-central Europe within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy during the period 1878–1918—even though this was an occupational regime—confirmed its natural orientation to this European region, based upon geographic and historical complementariness.

ne” [A fragment from the cultural life of mediaeval Bosnia], in Iz istorije srednjovjekovne Bosne [From the history of mediaeval Bosnia] (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1972), pp. 305–320; Marko Popović, “Vladarski i vlasteoski dvor u srednjovekovnoj Bosni. Prilog proučavanja fizičkih struktura” [The rulers’ and noblemen’s residence in mediaeval Bosnia: A contribution to the study of physical structures], Zbornik za istoriju Bosne i Hercegovine 2 (1997), pp. 1–32; Dubravko Lovrenović, “Bosansko srednjovjekovlje u svjetlu kristijanizacije vladarske ideologije” [The Bosnian Middle Ages in the light of the Christianisation of the ruling ideology], Bosna franciscana 8 (1997), pp. 156–193; Idem, “Dinastički panegirizam bosanskih Kotromanića u ogledalu sepulkralne arhitekture” [Dynastic panegirism of the Kotromanićes of Bosnia in the light of sepulchral architecture], in Viganj i njegovo doba [Viganj and his time] (Široki Brijeg: Gral, 2004), pp. 201–228. 46 Dubravko Lovrenović, “Srednjovjekovna Bosna i srednjoeuropska kultura (Prožimanja i akulturacija)” [Mediaeval Bosnia and the culture of central Europe (Permeation and acculturation)], Forum Bosnae 5 (1999), pp. 177–206.

II. Confessional and Religious Life II.1. Confessional Identities

Eucharistic Iconography and the Confessional Identity of the Saxon Community in Early Modern Transylvania Maria Crăciun

By the middle of the sixteenth century Transylvania, a province of the medieval kingdom of Hungary, had come into contact with evangelical ideas espoused by reformers from German and Swiss lands. The Saxons, a German speaking population living mostly in southern Transylvania, officially adopted the evangelical Reformation in 1544. This decision brought changes in doctrine, including a new understanding of the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, and a reorganization of the church and its clergy, with Lutheran ministers expressing their theological views and their opinions concerning the building of the new church and the reformation of worship in church synods, professions of faith and church orders. The decision has also led to changes in ritual, a reformation of the liturgy and finally a cleansing of the sacred space. The removal or preservation of the medieval furnishings, particularly of religious art, in the evangelical/Lutheran churches of Transylvania as well as the meanings attached to these artefacts and their importance for the building of Saxon confessional identity are of particular interest. In the present essay I wish to explore the survival of church art after the Reformation among the Saxon community of Transylvania and to assess the role the visual medium continued to play in the religious experience of the laity, while at the same time investigating attitudes to religious art in the new confessional context. Contemporary accounts from the sixteenth century make clear that even in the midst of iconoclastic incidents in Transylvania there was strong attachment to the Eucharist and related imagery. For instance, local sources record that when religious art was removed from the church at Braşov (German: Kronstadt, Hungarian: Brassó) and even the altarpiece on the high altar was dismantled,1 the crucifix next to the font was specifically retained.2 * I would like to thank the Evangelical Consistory of Sibiu for allowing me to photograph the altarpieces of the various Lutheran churches. I am also indebted to the New Europe College Bucharest as part of this research was undertaken while I held a GE NEC fellow-

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In a sense this should not surprise us, as special treatment of crucifixes during iconoclastic incidents is documented elsewhere in Europe. For example, at Basel in 1524 in the midst of iconoclastic violence in Martin Bucer’s church of St Aurelia, the members of the congregation removed all ‘idols’ but spared the wall murals and an image of Christ on the main altar.3 In Zurich in the same year, when it was decided that images were to be removed from the churches, crucifixes were to be allowed to remain.4 However, this was not a general situation, as sometimes crucifixes were the victims of mob violence or even of the zeal of the magistrates. Thus at Strasbourg in December 1526 a great gilded crucifix located behind the high altar in the choir of the cathedral and considered to be able to perform miracles was taken down and destroyed, and on 31 October 1529 images were removed which, because people continued to perform acts of veneration before them, were held to encourage superstition.5 Sometimes it was the angry crowd who performed these acts, for instance at Basel in 1529, when the great crucifix standing in the church was demolished and the high altar with its impressive alabaster retable depicting the Crucified Christ was also destroyed. Moreover, several contemporary accounts record that a huge crucifix was pulled down from the rood screen, dragged through the streets of the city by a rope amidst derision and mockery and finally burned in the market place.6 ship in 2004–2005. I would also like to express my gratitude to the staff and librarians of the Warburg Institute for their help during my research trip there in June 2005. Finally, I am indebted to Graeme Murdock for reading the text and making a number of helpful suggestions. 1 1544 “Item sind mitt Willen der Obrigkeit die Bilder aus den Kirchen, auch der grosse Altar in der Pfarrkirche abgebrochen worden.” Hieronymus Ostermayer, Chronik, in G. Joseph Kemény, Deutsche Fundgruben der Geschichte Siebenbürgens (Klausenburg: 1839), pp. 27–29. Simon Massa, Chronicon Fuchsio-Lupino-Oltardinum sive Annales Hungarici et Transsilvanici (Coronae: 1847), pp. 53–54: “Eodem anno imagines ex templis voluntate senatus ejectae, et altaria demolita sunt, uno tantum summo retento.” 2 “1544 mense Februario. Werden mit Willen der Stadt Obrigkeit die Bilder aus der Kirche geschafft, die Nebenaltäre abgebrochen, dass nur ein grosses Krucifix bei dem Taufstein und der grosse Altar blieben.” Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Brassó (Brassó: 1903), vol. 4, Chroniken und Tagebücher, p. 100. Also commented on by Karl Reinerth, Die Reformation der siebenbürgische-sächsischen Kirche, Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte (Gütersloh, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1956), pp. 43–47. 3 Carl C. Christensen, Art and the Reformation in Germany (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1979), p. 85. 4 Ibid., p. 80. 5 Ibid., pp. 89–90. 6 Ibid., pp. 96–100.

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Such attitudes are not unrecorded in Transylvania either. In 1524 when a crucifix fell down in the church at Veseud (Zied, Vessződ), one parishioner ordered it to stand up and prove itself,7 while in 1526 at Sibiu (Hermannstadt, Nagyszeben) the Corpus Christi procession was interrupted by people who ridiculed the devotional practices of old women and the clergy who condoned them.8 This suggests that it was not so much the image of the Crucifixion as such which was found offensive but rather people’s attitudes to such representations. If such images had been integrated in people’s devotional practices, if they had become the focus of specific beliefs and acts of worship, their retention was problematic. Considering this broader context, the survival of the crucifix in the church at Braşov needs to be explained. Its retention seems to have been the consequence of a magisterial decision, which stemmed, in a way, from adherence to evangelical orthodoxy. After all, Martin Luther himself had explicitly stated that the presence of a crucifix was not prohibited under the first commandment.9 At the same time, the magistrates may have chosen to ignore popular pressure for a more radical cleansing of the sacred space. The impression that attachment to the Eucharist and related representations existed among the Transylvanian Saxons is reinforced by the published acts of the synod of the evangelical church of Transylvania (1565), which mention that an image of the Crucifixion ought to be enough by itself to help the faithful envisage the events of the Passion.10 Although this suggests an intention to reduce the number and complexity of the images present in the church and presumably before the eyes of the con7

Karl Reinerth, Die Gründung der Evangelischen Kirchen in Siebenbürgen (Cologne: Böhlau 1979), p. 24. 8 “Tunc pridem nonnulli Cibinienses blasphemiam magnam perpetraverunt et cives aliqui dixerunt: sacerdotes nostri credunt Deum factum esse caecum, ex eo tot luminaria incedunt. Alii dixerunt: sacerdotes nostri arbitrantur Deum esse puerum, qui velit instar puerorum duci et portari in brachiis vetularum circumcirca per civitatem.” Vince Bunyitai (ed.), Monumenta ecclesiastica tempora innovatae in Hungaria religionis illustrantia (Budapest: Szent István Társulat, 1902), I, p. 261. 9 Christensen, Art and the Reformation, p. 50. 10 “Acta publica sinodii cibinii celebratae die 25 nov anni 1565,” in Georg Daniel Teutsch (ed.), Urkundenbuch der Evangelischen Landeskirche in Siebenbürgen (Hermannstadt: 1883), II, p. 105: “Sufficiat tibi in altari tuo salvatoris in cruce pendentis imago, quae passionem suam tibi repraesentat.” This again fell within more general assumptions of Lutheran orthodoxy. Luther had stated that man has a natural tendency to form mental images and some images, such as crucifixes, are useful as a memorial and a witness. See Christensen, Art and the Reformation, p. 52.

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gregation, it also indicates that visual representations were still to play a significant role in the mental processes of the faithful. When faced with an actual image (such as the Crucifixion) they were required to mentally project a series of narrative events (such as those of the Passion of Christ). This leads one to consider the role of images in the devotional patterns of Protestants and perhaps within the broader religious culture forged in the early modern period. Through an examination of the survival of Eucharistic images in Saxon churches, I would like to suggest that religious art played a central role in the shaping of evangelical/Lutheran confessional identity throughout the first century of the Reformation and into the confessional era. Because in Transylvania Lutheranism was never the dominant or the official religion of the country, the Saxon community was obliged to forge its confessional identity in competition with several rivals. The survival of particular images (especially those with Eucharistic content) and their adaptation to the new religious context suggests that religious art was an important tool in this process of confession building.11 This argues for the relevance of the case of the Transylvanian Saxons for any comprehensive view concerning the role of religious art in the Lutheran context.12 11

This idea was born when I was writing an article on the role of art in religious communication before and after the Reformation. Most of the images analysed were Eucharistic, and I argued that while in the late medieval period such images were mostly meant to transmit doctrinal tenets, after the Reformation they could have become the perfect vehicle for ideas concerning confessional identity. Even after writing the article I felt that this connection between the survival of Eucharistic imagery and the confessional identity of the Saxon Evangelical/Lutheran community could be explored further. See Maria Crăciun, “Rural Altarpieces and Religious Experiences in Transylvania’s Saxon Communities,” in Heinz Schilling–István György Tóth (eds.), Religion and Cultural Exchange in Europe 1400–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 191–217. 12 A wealth of literature attests the increasing interest in the subject of Lutheran art in the past few decades. See Carl C. Christensen, Art and the Reformation; Carlos M. Eire, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Carl C. Christensen, Princes and Propaganda: Electoral Saxon Art in the Reformation, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies (Kirksville, Mo: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1992); Sergiusz Michalski, The Reformation and the Visual Arts: The Protestant Image Question in Western and Eastern Europe (London, New York: Routledge, 1993); Bob Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); John Dillenberger, Images and Relics: Theological Perceptions and Visual Images in Sixteenth Century Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Andrew Morrall, Jörg Breu the Elder: Art, Culture and Belief in Reformation Augsburg

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When assessing the fate of religious art in the Saxon churches of Transylvania after the adoption of evangelical ideas by this community in 1545, what is striking is the high degree of survival of imagery in the churches and the strong continuities in the organization of sacred space, manifested, for example, by the reluctance to do away with altar stones or choir enclosures.13 For example, the 1565 synod decided that the Lord’s Supper would continue to be celebrated on an altar, not on a wooden table, and invoked the practice of the early church in support of this decision.14 In the urban context such iconoclastic incidents as took place were generally contained by the ecclesiastical authorities of the new church who held moderate views on the question of religious art in church, while in villages a more conservative attitude to images was the rule in any case.15 The survival of Eucharistic imagery on the panels of various altarpieces is obvious, even when the latter were re-assembled, as is the case with the altarpieces of Cincu (Grossschenk, Nagysink; see figure 6) and Şaeş (Schaas, Segesd), re-framed, as in the case of the altarpieces of Dupuş (Tobsdorf, Táblás) and Jidvei (Seiden, Zsidve)/Tătârlaua (Taterloch, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001); Joseph Leo Koerner, The Reformation of the Image (London: Reaktion Books, 2004). 13 The church synod of 1565 recommended that whenever possible altars should be reinstated without any disturbances: ‘Altaria nullo modo diruantur...dent operam pii pastores, ut sine tumultibus restituantur’. In Teutsch, Urkundenbuch, II, p. 105. Plans of the parish church of Sibiu have been preserved showing that the lettner was dismantled only in the eighteenth century. I would like to thank Ciprian Firea for making this yet unpublished information available. His findings will be published in “Art and its reception: Late mediaeval altarpieces from Transylvania and their original setting,” New Europe College Yearbook, GE-NEC II Program (forthcoming). 14 “Et testimonia exstant primitivae et purioris ecclesiae, non in mensis ligneis, sed in altaribus administratam esse coenam domini.” Teutsch, Urkundenbuch II, p. 105. This decision is consonant with more general Lutheran practice. Although Luther had expressed an early preference (1526) for a table-type altar, later he changed his earlier position, recommending the Last Supper as suitable iconography for the decoration of altars in his Commentary on psalm 111 (1530). See Christensen, Art and the Reformation, p. 54, p. 137. In fact the use of proper altars instead of communion tables has been discussed as a marker of Lutheran identity by Bodo Nischan, “Becoming Protestants: Lutheran Altars or Reformed Communion Tables?,” in Karin Maag–John D. Witvliet (eds.), Worship in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Change and Continuity in Religious Practice (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004), pp. 92– 98. The polemic between Lutherans and Calvinists on this particular issue reflected a concern to create new Protestant churches with a clear sense of identity. Altars had become more than simply a divisive topic between Lutherans and Calvinists, they had turned into powerful markers of confessional identity. 15 For details see Crăciun, “Rural Altarpieces,” pp. 206–209.

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Figure 1: Altarpiece of Cund, detail of the shrine and empty niches

Felsőtatárlaka), or re-painted16 or re-fashioned in various ways, mostly through the removal of sculpture from the shrine, niches and the sarcophagus type predella, as is most obvious at Biertan (Birthälm, Berethalom), Cund (Reussdorf, Kund; Figure 1. Cund: altarpiece, detail of the shrine and empty niches), Sebeş (Mühlbach, Szászsebes) and Hălchiu (Heldsdorf, Höltöveny), but is present also at Bruiu (Braller, Brulya), Beia (Meeburg, Homoródbene), Dupuş, Fişer (Schweischer, Sövénység), Jidvei, Mediaş (Mediasch, Medgyes) and Şoroştin (Schorsten, Sorostély). The dedication of these churches (and consequently of the high altars) as well as the imagery and the brief narratives on the interior of the movable wings of the altarpieces suggest that these sculptures were generally statues of saints (the Virgin at Biertan, St Nicholas at Cund (Figure 2: altarpiece, open position), St Andrew at Hălchiu (Figure 3: altarpiece, open 16

Restoration work has often revealed signs of repainting. For various examples see Gisela Richter – Otmar Richter, Siebenbürgische Flügelaltäre (Innsbruck: Wort und Welt Verlag, 1992); Harald Krasser, “Zur Siebenbürgischen Nachfolge des Schotenmeisters. Die Birthälmer Altartafeln,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege XXVII (1973), p. 112.

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position), St Ursula at Beia and St Martin at Fişer).17 This impression is reinforced by the survival of some of the original statues in the shrines of other altarpieces, for instance those of Mary, St Catherine and Mary Magdalene in the shrine at Băgaciu (Bogeschdorf, Szászbogács; Figure 4. Băgaciu: altarpiece, detail of the shrine) and St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist in the shrine at Roadeş (Radeln, Rádos).

Figure 2: Altarpiece of Cund, open position

17

The situation at Biertan is discussed in more detail in Maria Crăciun, “Iconoclasm and Theology in Reformation Transylvania: The Iconography of the Polyptych of the Church at Biertan,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte/Archive for Reformation History 95 (2004), pp. 61–97. At Cund, Hălchiu, Biertan, Şoroştin, Mediaş and Beia the difference between the size of the corpus and that of the statue which it houses at present suggests that initially a bigger statue of the titular saint would have been placed there. At Fişer, restoration work (undertaken by Mihály Ferenz) has shown that the original altarpiece did not have a central panel but a corpus which could well have accommodated a statue.

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Figure 3: Altarpiece of Hălchiu, open position

When compared to the removal of the statues from the shrines of altarpieces, the survival of Eucharistic imagery seems all the more evident and calls for explanation. This is particularly true for the image of the Vir Dolorum, which in the late medieval period had been considered well suited to express Eucharistic theology.18 Sometimes, such as in the case of 18

The Vir Dolorum and its function has been debated by Erwin Panofsky, “‘Imago Pietatis’: Ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des ‘Schmerzensmannes’ und der ‘Maria Mediatrix”’, in Festschrift für Max Friedländer zum 60 Geburstag (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1927), pp. 261–306; Romuald Bauerreiss, Pie Jesu. Das Schmerzensmannbild und sein Einfluss auf die mittelalterliche Frommigkeit (München: Widmann, 1931); Gert van der Osten, “Der Schmerzensmann. Typengeschichte eines deutschen Andachtsbildwerkens von 1300 bis 1600,” in Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft (Berlin: 1935); Colin Eisler,“The Golden Christ of Cortona and the Man of Sorrows in Italy,” The Art Bulletin 21/no. 2 (1969), pp. 107–118; no. 3 (1969), pp. 233–250; Hans Belting, The Image and Its Public in the Middle Ages: Form and Function of Early Paintings of the Passion (New Rochelle, New York: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1981); Hans Belting, “An Image and Its Function in the Liturgy: The Man of Sorrows in Byzantium,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 34–35 (1980–1981), pp. 1–16; Louis M. La Favia, The Man of Sorrows, Its Origin and Development in Trecento Florentine Painting: A New Iconographic Theme on the

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the central panel of unknown provenance preserved in the collection of the Brukenthal Museum of Sibiu or the predella of the altarpiece from Cincu (see figure 6), this is the only image which has survived from the entire altarpiece. This leads one to consider its function in the new religious context.

Figure 4: Altarpiece of Băgaciu, detail of the shrine

The image of the Vir Dolorum is frequently present on the predella of altarpieces, such as at Mălâncrav (Malmkrog, Almakérek; ca.1450, Băgaciu (1518), Jidvei/Tătârlaua (1508; Figure 5. Jidvei/Tătârlaua: predella, Eve of the Renaissance (Rome: Edizioni Sanguis, 1980); Bernhard Ridderbos, “The Man of Sorrows: Pictorial Images and Metaphorical Statements,” in A.A. MacDonald– H.N. B Ridderbos–R.M. Schlusemann (eds.), The Broken Body: Passion Devotion in Late Medieval Culture (Groningen: Egbert Fosrsten, 1998), pp. 147–181; Michael Camille, “Mimetic Identification and Passion Devotion in the Later Middle Ages: A Double-Sided Panel by Meister Francke,” in MacDonald–Riddderbos–Schlusemann (eds), The Broken Body, pp. 183–210; Dóra Sallay, “The Eucharistic Man of Sorrows in Late Medieval Art,” in Katalin Szende–Marcell Sebők (eds.), Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU, 6 (Budapest, CEU Press, 2000), pp. 45–80.

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altarpiece) and Cincu (1470). The image is also present on the central panel or in the shrine of altarpieces, for instance the above-mentioned panel preserved at Sibiu (1515) and probably at Dupuş (1522, 1525),19 as well as on the wings of altarpieces, for example at Fişer (1520–1522). The preservation of Vir Dolorum images on painted panels is consistent with the retention of such images on sacrament niches and sacrament houses and sometimes even on church walls. At Mălâncrav, Sibiu, Sighişoara (Schässburg, Segesvár), Homorod (Hamruden, Homoród) and Sînpetru (Petersberg, Barcaszentpéter), the sacrament niche or sacrament house is decorated with Eucharistic imagery, in an architectural setting which suggests a mural altarpiece.20 If not decorated with a relief of the Vir Dolorum, sacrament houses tended to be decorated with a Crucifixion, as in Sighişoara, Moşna (Meschen, Muzsna), Băgaciu, Mălâncrav, Bazna (Baassen, Bázna) and Ighişul Nou (Eibesdorf, Szászivánfalva), or with the pelican feeding its young as at Richiş (Reichesdorf, Riomfalva). Perhaps the most interesting example comes from the fourteenth-century church of St Peter at Valea Viilor (Wurmloch, Nagybaromlak) (1504), which depicts Jesus as the Vir Dolorum and explains the meaning of the image through an inscription: ‘Christus Salvator Mundi’, making an explicit connection between the Eucharistic context and the redemptive sacrifice of Christ. Perhaps in these cases the nature of the iconography can be used to explain the survival of these artefacts.

Figure 5: Predella, altarpiece of Jidvei/Tătârlaua

Moreover, images of the Crucifixion itself, another potent Eucharistic symbol, are also present on the central panels of a couple of altarpieces, 19

Maria Crăciun, “Polipticul de la Dupuş în contextul devoţiunii euharistice din Transilvania (sec. XV–XVI),” Ars Transsilvaniae XII–XIII (2002–2003), pp. 175–203. 20 For a detailed discussion see Maria Crăciun, “Polipticul şi Devoţiunea Euharistică în Transilvania Evului Mediu Târziu,” Caiete de Antropologie Istorică. Sărbătoare, Comemorare, Celebrare IV/1 (7) (2005), pp. 58–67.

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from Sibiu and from Prejmer (Tartlau, Prázsmár). It is perhaps not surprising that these central panels have survived the Reformation, although sometimes with changes. For example at Ungra (Galt, Ugra) a panel with the Crucifixion from the sixteenth century is preserved in the nave of the church.21 The depiction of the Crucified Christ was to become one of the most important Protestant images. Starting with the first examples produced by the Cranach workshop the Crucifixion became the preferred subject of altarpieces commissioned in the new religious context, often decorating the central panel.22 In Transylvania, the Crucifixion is present on the central panel of a considerable number of altarpieces commissioned in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.23 In order to understand their new role we must first consider the use of such images in the late medieval period, focusing on their ability to transmit doctrinal messages or to become a significant element in the religious experience of the faithful. In the late medieval context a multimedia approach was forged deploying both textual and visual means in order to shape the religious experience of the laity within the paradigms of a broader cultural communication fostered by a multi-ethnic and pluriconfessional environment. Consequently, during the late medieval period Eucharistic imagery such as the Corpus Christi or the Sanctus Sanguis was consciously used by the clergy to shape a specific type of piety consonant 21

Hermann Fabini, Atlas der sibenbürgisch-sächsischen Kirchenburgen und Dorfkirchen (Hermannstadt: Monumenta Verlag, 1999), pp. 201–202. 22 This is the case with the Schneeberg altar installed in the church of St Wolfgang in Schneeberg in 1539 or the Kemberg altar donated by the church provost Matthias Wanckel and placed in the parish church of the town in 1565. In the case of the Regensburg altar, painted by Michael Ostendorfer for the new parish church of the town and commissioned by the Protestant municipal government, the Crucifixion is placed on the exterior of the moveable wings. For details see Christensen, Art and the Reformation, pp. 130–148. 23 Agnetheln (Agnita, Szentágota) 1650, Gergeschdorf (Ungurei, Gergelyfája) 1661, Jacobsdorf (Iacobeni, Jakabfalva) 1665, Heltau (Cisnadie, Nagydisznód) 1681, Blutroth (Berghin, Berve) 1684, Bell (Buia, Bólya) 1693, Grossalisch (Seleuş, Nagyszőllős) 1713, Grossau (Cristian, Kereszténysziget) 1719, Irmesch (Ormeniş, Ürmös) 1720, Gürteln (Gherdeal, Gerdály) 1736, Heidendorf (Viişoara, Besenyő) 1747, Arkeden (Archita, Erked) 1752, Deutschen Pien (Pianul de Jos, Alsópián) 1755, Deutsch Tekles (Ticuşul Vechi, Szásztyukos) 1772, Bonnesdorf (Boian, Alsóbajom) 1772, Frauendorf (Axente Sever, Asszonyfalva) 1777, Bussd (Buzd, Szászbuzd) 1778, Draas (Drauşeni, Homoróddaróc) 1787, Honigberg (Hărman, Szászhermány), 1787, Bartholomii (Bartolomeu) 1791, Hamruden (Homorod, Homoród) 1794, Hetzeldorf (Aţel, Ecel) 1792, Bekokten (Bărcuţ, Báránykút) 1767, Freck (Avrig, Felek ) 1805. See Fabini, Atlas, pp. 48–49, 51,74,85, 121, 138, 150, 156–157, 194, 196, 206, 214, 218, 257, 277–278,288–289, 273, 299, 309, 315, 319 .

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Figure 6: Altarpiece of Cincu

with the popular devotion of the period.24 These images were designed and/or adapted to express and disseminate the doctrine of transubstantiation, that is, to advocate and explain the real presence of the body and the blood of Christ in the bread and wine of the sacrament. Moreover, the presence of overtly Eucharistic symbols, especially the chalice and host, could also serve to express the doctrine of concomitance (which implies the presence of both elements, body and blood, in both species of the sacrament) by the direct association of Christ’s blood and the host.25 The 24 25

See Crăciun, “Rural Altarpieces,” pp. 194–206. I have discussed the range of meaning embedded in these images in more detail in Maria Crăciun, “Eucharistic Devotion in the Iconography of Transylvanian Polyptych Altarpieces,” in José Pedro Paiva (ed.), Religious Ceremonials and Images: Power and Social Meaning (1400–1750) (Coimbra: Palimage Editores, 2002), pp. 191–230. The existence of a specific Central European type of Eucharistic Man of Sorrows and its ability to transmit the doctrine of concomitance is argued by Sallay, “The Eucharistic Man of Sorrows,” pp. 59–66.

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viewing of these images as it took place in the liturgical context was also carefully staged. Although the reactions of viewers to these images are more difficult for us now to capture, the integration of the images within a broader visual culture allows us to understand how such persons read the images through pre-existing cultural codes. Although there is some evidence concerning popular cults which developed around images, mostly what we have is information about the ways in which these images fitted into broader devotional patterns.26

Figure 7: Altarpiece of Hălchiu, detail of the shrine

Bearing all this in mind, the survival of such images after the reformation of the Saxon community is all the more intriguing. It seems almost superfluous to point out that Eucharistic theology in Catholic and Lutheran contexts was quite different and that such images now had to transmit new theological messages to the congregations. Consequently, one has to consider how new readings of these images could have been encouraged and/or new meanings attached to them. As I have argued elsewhere, new doctrines were in some cases expressed through a deliberate association of episodes.27 For example, the 26

I have discussed the connection between Eucharistic imagery and devotion to the sacrament, especially the cult of the Corpus Christi and the Sanctus Sanguis, in Crăciun, “Polipticul,” pp. 75–108. 27 I have analysed examples in some detail in Crăciun, “Rural Altarpieces,” p. 212.

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altarpiece at Cincu (Figure 6. Cincu: altarpiece) was reassembled in 1722, when the predella of the former altarpiece from Cincu was attached to a retable which the community had bought from Moşna. In this way a predella representing the Vir Dolorum was added to a pala depicting Doubting Thomas. The re-assembled altarpiece conflated the Eucharistic meaning of the predella with the idea of sacrifice emphasized by the episode on the main panel. Consequently, in the new context the identity between the sacrament and the sacrificed Christ was highlighted with additional strength and the doctrine of consubstantiality, equating the sacrament with the body of Christ, was forcefully expressed. Moreover, the Moşna retable, when considered on its own, could just as easily have expressed the dedication of the altar it decorated to St Thomas, as the entire episode could be read as an attribute of this particular saint.28 In the new context, this association between the Doubting Thomas narrative and the Vir Dolorum enhanced the Christocentric emphasis of the episode. More often than not, during the Reformation the meaning of images was decoded through inscriptions which explained and legitimized the theological content of the images.29 However, one has to take into account the fact that the use of inscriptions was not first introduced during the Reformation. They existed already in the late medieval period when they were generally attached to images with devotional intent. These brief texts were generally prayers and meant to teach the congregations how to pray correctly, even during the liturgy. The inscriptions, which may have been added after the Reformation of the Saxon community, are used in a different way.30 First of all, one should examine more closely the most outstanding example, the inscription added in 1545 on the blue paint covering the bottom half of the cen28

29

30

Charles Hope, “Altarpieces and the requirements of patrons,” in Timothy Verdon–John Henderson (eds.), Christianity and the Renaissance: Image and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento (Syracuse: University Press, 1990), pp. 545–551. Hope argues that an attribute need not necessarily be an object. A narrative episode from the life of that saint could serve equally well to identify him. Sergiusz Michalski, “Inscriptions in Protestant Paintings and in Protestant Churches,” in Arja Leena Paavola (ed.), Ars Ecclesiastica: The Church as a Context for Visual Arts (Helsinki: University Press, 1996), pp. 34–46. Martin Luther himself, when he spoke about the themes of religious art often specified that these representations should be accompanied by an inscription. The picture and the written word were perceived as complementary and, in a sense, mutually reinforcing. See Christensen, Art and the Reformation, p. 60. Although all these examples have been mentioned and analysed briefly in Crăciun, “Rural Altarpieces,” pp. 212–214, their meaning can be further explored and placed in context.

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tral panel representing the Crucifixion from an altarpiece which has been preserved (although dismantled) in the parish church of Sibiu. Two quotations, one from the Old Testament (Isaiah 53: 11–12 ’Justus serwus meus cognicione sui iustificabit multos. Ib: ipse peccatum multorum tulit et pro iniquis rogavit’) and one from the New Testament (Matthew 11: 28–29 ‘Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis et onerati estis et ego refocillabo vos.) were added to the panel, which, judging by the date, must have occurred immediately after the community adopted evangelical ideas. It is obvious that both inscriptions are meant to integrate the panel into the new evangelical context. Their content is deeply Christocentric and intends to nurture and support in their faith the underprivileged of the world, the poor, the suffering, who are offered salvation and remission from sin by the sacrifice and suffering of Christ. The passage from Isaiah had been commented on in the same vein by Martin Luther himself with an emphasis on the link between suffering and salvation: “…to bring us to see Christ as none other than the one who bears and shoulders the burdens of our sins. This figure is a solace to the afflicted....”31 At Dupuş there is also an inscription at the base of the corpus: ‘Ego sum panis vivus qui de caelo descendi si quis manducaverit’ (John 6: 51). Originally, the polyptych of Dupuş expressed the doctrine of the real presence and devotion to the sacrament. Given its size and very specific iconography it may have been destined for a Corpus Christi altar.32 Consequently, one is tempted to speculate that a new reading was invited by the addition of this inscription to the corpus. This inscription, written in Gothic script, seems to have been cut from a larger panel bearing a fuller text, suggesting that it must have been placed on the altarpiece after the Reformation, precisely to underline the new meaning of the iconography. The identification of Christ with the sacrament (“I am the living bread”) changes the meaning to an expression of consubstantiation, forged in an evangelical context. This conclusion is suggested by one of the pronouncements of the synod of Mediaş of 1561 which includes a text entitled Brevis confessio de coena domini ecclesiarum Saxonicarum et conjunctarum in Transilvania which makes an explicit reference to John 6, ‘Qui edit carnem meam et bibit meum sanguinem habet vitam aeternam’, in support of the argument for consubstantiality.33 31

Luther’s Works, vol. 17, Lectures on Isaiah, Chapters 40–66, ed. Hilton C. Oswald (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1972), pp. 215–232. 32 I have explored this in detail in Crăciun, “Dupuş,” pp. 175–203. 33 Teutsch, Urkundenbuch, II, p. 45.

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Interestingly enough, in his comments on this passage Martin Luther insisted that the words do not refer to the sacrament but to spiritual nourishment: “Christ declared that whoever hears him and believes him shall have everlasting life, that the Father will love them, that he will not die but have eternal life, that those who eat this bread will neither hunger nor thirst.”34 Moreover, Luther’s interpretation has a polemical twist as he contests the position of the Sacramentarians and ‘schismatic spirits’ and their understanding of the word “flesh.”35 Luther considers the consumption of this bread as central to the definition of Christianity: “God will not let you apprehend him unless you eat this bread. It is this article that also makes us Christians.”36 The words of John are read by Luther as an expression of Lutheran orthodoxy, offering a specific understanding of the Lord’s Supper: “This is what you must uphold against the heretics in the first place that he is real flesh and blood.”37 At Sebeş, an inscription in the corpus: ‘verbum domini manet in aeternum’, again shifts the emphasis from the image to the word and suggests that it may have been placed there after the Reformation of the Saxon community. The inscription has a scriptural foundation as the first chapter in the Gospel of John proclaims the eternity of God’s Word. This becomes the way of stating the supremacy of the Word of God, which is a key concept within the Reformation. The Word is considered by the reformers to be the foundation of their religious renewal.38 The inscription was suitable for the decoration of an altar, as the Word controlled the Eucharistic celebration. In his sermons on the Lord’s Supper, Luther had not just emphasized the primacy of the Word but had also stated that the Word was the instrument through which God effectively ruled his church. The Word itself created a true presence of Christ in the sacrament. Thus this inscription could in itself be an affirmation of correct Lutheran viewpoints concerning the sacrament. There is even a slight polemical edge to this statement, as Luther considered that the Word was the Christian’s weapon against the heretics.39 Originally the iconography of the polyptych of Se34

Luther’s Works, vol. 23, Sermons on the Gospel of St John, Chapters 6–8, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan–Daniel E. Poerlot (St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), p. 118. 35 Luther’s Works, vol. 23, p. 119. 36 Ibid., p. 120. 37 Ibid., p. 124. 38 Christensen, Art and the Reformation, p. 189. 39 See Thomas Davis, “‘The Truth of the Divine Words’: Luther’s Sermons on the Eucharist, 1521–28, and the Structure of Eucharistic Meaning,” Sixteenth Century Journal 30/2 (Summer, 1999), pp. 326–329.

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beş expressed the Marian dedication of the main altar and of the parish church. The inscription, however, served to create a Christocentric context for the episodes from Christ’s infancy depicted on the interior of the moveable wings. The inscription of these particular words increasingly came to be used to proclaim the Protestantism of an altarpiece. For instance, it was placed on the predella of the eighteenth century (1772) altar of Ticuşul Vechi (Tekes, Szásztyukos). Finally, at Hălchiu (Figure 7. Hălchiu: altarpiece, detail of the shrine) an inscription which highlights the salvific value of the sacrifice of Christ was added to the corpus of the altarpiece: ‘sic Deus dilexit mundum ut filium suum unigenitum daret ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat sed habeat vitam aeternam’. Again, a Christocentric context was created with the help of this inscription. The polyptych had been initially meant to illustrate and decode a dedication to saints, notably to St Andrew (see figure 3). The inscription also helped put forth major tenets of Lutheran faith, for example, of salvation through divine grace. This impression is reinforced by the statement that eternal life is the reward for faith, thus giving expression to the fundamental concept of sola fide. Thus one must conclude that in the context of the Reformation, although Eucharistic images were retained in churches, they were invested with new meanings derived from evangelical/Lutheran theology. One would still need to explain why Eucharistic imagery in particular was preserved, why the sacrament itself seemed to be so very important to the Saxon Lutheran community of Transylvania. If one looks at locally produced professions of faith during the sixteenth century, at the decrees of the evangelical church, at the Kirchenordnungen (church orders), one is struck by the fact that in most of these documents issued by the new church the sacrament is extensively discussed. For instance, in 1557 the ministers are called on to sign a Consensus doctrinae de sacramentis Christi. This document has a section concerned with ‘Capita consensus de sacramentis domini’, which explicitly rejects transubstantiation as well as the errors of Wycliffe, Zwingli and Oecolampadius.40 Somewhat later, at the synod of Mediaş (Synodus pastorum Saxonicarum) on 10 January 1560 the Lutherans felt compelled to give a theological answer to the Sacramentarian doctrines which had been expressed the previous year at the synod of Târgu Mureş (Neumarkt, Marosvásárhely). This reply was, in fact, a reaction to suggestions concerning the Lord’s Supper expressed by the ministers of Cluj (Klausenburg, Kolozsvár). Thus it seems that the explicit purpose of 40

Teutsch, Urkundenbuch II, p. 13.

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the synod of 1560 had been to solve controversies concerning the Lord’s Supper.41 The resulting document advocated consubstantiation (the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine) and communion in both kinds.42 It also contained a discussion concerning the nature of Christ.43 The Synodus pastorum saxonicorum held at Mediaş in 1561 produced a ‘Brevis confessio de coena domini ecclesiarum saxonicarum et conjunctarum in Transsilvania’. Again, this document rejects transubstantiation and advocates consubstantiation,44 taking a stand against both “papist” and Sacramentarian views.45 This text explicitly advocates the real, not the allegorical presence of Christ in the elements.46 The Lord’s Supper is equated with spiritual nourishment.47 Ritual aspects of the Catholic liturgy are also critically commented on.48 The document also included the socalled ‘Propositiones de coena domini’ drawn up at Mediaş on 6 February 1561. This text stated that the elements used in the Lord’s Supper are both 41

Ibid., pp. 25–26. Martin Luther had advocated the real presence of Christ in the sacrament at the Marburg Colloquium in 1529 and had developed at the same time a vitriolic rhetoric against the Sacramentarians. Luther attempted to argue for Christ’s presence in the Eucharist through an appeal to the divine Word. The notion of the ubiquity of Christ’s body served as an explanation for this presence. Davis, pp. 323–325. 43 Teutsch, Urkundenbuch II, pp. 30–31. 44 “…cum pane et vino vere et substantialiter exhibet suum corpus edendum et sanguinem bibendum, in eum finem, ut in nobis exsuscitet memoriam salutiferae suae passionis fidemque accendat, qua certo statuamus, illum velle nobis uniri, peccata remittere et ad aeternam viam resuscitare.” “Contra eorum opinionem aperte fatemur, materiam panis nulli alterationi subjectam esse etiam post consecrationem, sed manere elementa in sacra coena, et tamen revera cum illis visibilibus elementis nobis verum corpus Christi et sanguinem dispensari, idque omnipotentia verbi: Accipite, edite hoc est corpus meum,” in Teutsch, Urkundenbuch II, pp. 41–42. 45 Ibid., pp. 43–44. 46 “Verum corpus et sanguinem illic exhiberi, non figuratum, allegoricum, aut symbolicum, sed illud ipsum corpus, quod pro nobis datum est, eum ipsum sanguinem, qui in remissionem peccatorum pro nobis effusus est.” Teutsch, Urkundenbuch II, p. 46. The text makes it clear that the views of Sacramentarians concerning the allegorical or symbolic presence of Christ in the elements are rejected. The words of John are quoted in support of consubstantiation. 47 “Hoc cum credimus, vere comunicantur ea bona, quae in verbis coenae promittuntur, remissio peccatorum et vita aeterna. Atque haec fides est spiritualis manducatio, de qua supra diximus.” Teutsch, Urkundenbuch II, p. 51. 48 “… quales sunt profanatio papistica coenae domini in missis funebribus et venalibus, transsubstantiatio, circumgestatio in pompis et processionibus, adoratio panis idololatrica, item sacrilegium, quo unam partem coenae laicis adimunt.” Teutsch, Urkundenbuch II, p. 51. 42

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bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ (thus strongly advocating consubstantiation) and rejected both “papist” and Zwinglian interpretations as well as Sacramentarian views.49 The errors of the Sacramentarians and Anabaptists are especially strongly rejected as they denied the real presence of Christ in the elements.50 The text also rejects Catholic liturgical ritual because of the ‘superstitious’ practices it incorporated, especially the blessing of herbs, salt and water, which were seen and used as sacramentals.51 The rejection of Sacramentarian views also appears in the Articulorum delineatio issued at Sibiu on 8 March 1562.52 Another document, the Acta publica in conventu pastorum signed on 28 March 1563, is also interesting as this contains explicit guidelines for the administration of the Lord’s Supper, especially the words of benediction, which were supposed to be uttered by the pastor in German: ‘Gott sei gelobet und gebenedeiet’.53 The text also recommends caution towards those suspected of ‘heresies’, namely the followers of Stancaro, Anabaptists, Sacramentarians and others. This attests indeed to the confessional diversity of Transylvania and even of the Saxon community at that time, but also to the birth pangs of evangelical/Lutheran orthodoxy. This is confirmed by the protocol of the Burzenland chapter which stresses the importance of preserving the true and pure evangelical doctrine (‘conservandi puram, incorruptam evangelii doctrinam’) as established by Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon. This involved the true and legitimate administration of sacraments and conformity in ceremonial (‘verum et legitimum sacramentorum usum et conformitatem in caerimoniis’).54 The sacraments were to be observed ‘as they had been instituted by God’. This was obviously in agreement with Wittenberg guidelines. When Martin Luther spoke of the Word in relation to the Eucharist, he explicitly meant 49

Ibid., pp. 53–56. Ibid., p. 56. 51 Ibid., p. 53. For the use of sacramentals in the late medieval period see Bob Scribner, “Cosmic Order and Daily Life: Sacred and Secular in Pre-Industrial German Society” and “Ritual and Popular Religion in Catholic Germany at the Time of the Reformation,” in Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London: The Hambledon Press, 1987), pp. 1–16 and pp. 17–48; Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 91–130. 52 “Detestamur et omnium sacramentariorum errores, qui tollentes substantiam coena domini, nihil prater nuda symbola rerum relinquunt, cum tamen absente materia nullus possit produci effectus.” Teutsch, Urkundenbuch II, p. 72. 53 Ibid., p. 76. 54 Ibid., p. 77. 50

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the ‘words of institution’, that is, the words spoken by Christ at the Last Supper. The words uttered by Christ at that time constituted the sacrament, and the bread and wine, his body and blood, were instituted by these words as ‘token and seal’ to testify to the veracity of these words.55 Clearly, for the Saxon Protestant community of Transylvania two models were taken into account: the scriptural one and the one offered by the church at Wittenberg and its main reformers The requirements of the latter are in fact explicitly reiterated in the decrees of the 1565 synod. The dispensation of the sacraments had to take place according to the standard usage of the church of Wittenberg. Again one notices concern for correct administration, from a ritual point of view. The words of institution and benediction had to be recited ad populum and everything had to be spoken in the vernacular (‘et haec omnia lingua populari’).56 In 1572, the Saxon Lutheran church adopted the Confessio Augustana Invariata and condemned the Calvinist and Anti-Trinitarian points of view. This act was accompanied by a profession of faith, the Formula pii consensus inter pastores ecclesiarum saxonicarum. In this document it is stated that the Lord’s Supper would be celebrated as it was instituted by Christ: ‘De sacra coena domini firmiter credimus, cum administratur legitime, sicut a Christo instituta est, vere Christum praesentem esse’. It advocated communion in both kinds and the real, substantial presence of Christ in the elements: ‘… pane et vino distribui et sumi verum et substantiale corpus et sanguinem domini nostri Jesu Christi’.57 The real presence of Christ in the sacrament promised the remission of sins for the faithful, the confirmation of their faith and membership in the true church. At the same time, this document rejected the Catholic interpretation of the sacrament because of the superstitious belief and practice associated with the Eucharist (devotion having been turned into idolatry), including the transformation of the elements. Finally, it explicitly rejected the Sacramentarian and Anabaptist points of view.58 The Articuli de praecipuis Christiane religionis capitibus adopted by the ‘University of Saxon Pastors’ on 10 June 1578 at Mediaş reiterated 55

Davis, p. 327. Teutsch, Urkundenbuch II, p. 104. 57 Teutsch, Urkundenbuch II, p. 159. 58 “Improbamus etiam anabaptistarum et sacramentariorum errores, qui negant veram corporis et sanguinis Christi praesentiam in coena, et fingunt, panem et vinum tantum nuda esse symbola absentis corporis et sanguinis Christi, ac verba filii dei transformant in figuratas locutiones, inde alium sensum elicientes, a verbis Christi peregrinum.” Ibid., p. 160. 56

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concern for these ritual issues. The Catholic liturgy was rejected because it had turned into “a theatrical spectacle and horrible idolatry.”59 The text also stated that more emphasis should be placed on the teaching of correct sacramental doctrine (consubstantiation).60 This suggests that the ecclesiastical authorities, the pastors of the new church, did not restrict their efforts to the clarification and exposition of doctrinal points, they also wished theological tenets to be disseminated among the faithful. Thus the 1565 Church synod stipulated that the congregation should become familiar with pious songs which contain the doctrine and correct administration of the Lord’s Supper.61 One has to consider whether these statements of the new church remained constant or whether they changed over time. If one looks at the documents in a chronological perspective, one comes to the conclusion that concern for the correct understanding of the Lord’s Supper (of the Eucharist) is constant. However, in the earlier texts, for instance in 1557, the theologians seemed to be concerned in particular to contest the Catholic point of view and to reject transubstantiation, while a wish to distance themselves from Swiss and South German positions is also expressed. In fact, the names of Zwingli and Oecolampadius were explicitly mentioned. The intensity of the debate increased after 1560 when the synod of Mediaş contested the decisions adopted by the synod of Tărgu Mureş (of 1559) giving a theological answer to Sacramentarian doctrines and firmly advocating the real presence of Christ in the species of the sacrament. Thus between 1560 and 1565 the decrees of the new church, the records of the synods and their professions of faith, besides discussing the nature of Christ, all advocated consubstantiation—the real, not symbolic or allegorical presence of Christ in the bread and the wine of the Lord’s Supper (verum et substantiale corpus et sanguinem domini nostri Jesu Christi)— and communion in both kinds. They also made it clear that they ‘detested the pernicious doctrines’ of Papists, Zwinglians and Sacramentarians. By alluding to membership in the true church, the texts seem to be concerned to reinforce the confessional identity of the Saxon community. In later documents, such as the Formula pii consensus, the Catholic interpretation 59

“Summa cum veneratione coenam domini, a Christo institutam in nostris ecclesiis administramus, nec more papistico eandem in theatricum spectaculum transformamus, nec in horribilem idololatriam missarum convertimus.” Ibid., p. 224. 60 Ibid. 61 “Adhibeantur quoque inter distribuendum cantiones germanicae, piae, continentes doctrinam de institutione et usu coenae dominicae,” in Ibid., p. 105.

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of the sacrament was rejected because of the superstitious belief and practice associated with the Eucharist, devotion which has been turned into idolatry and the focus on the transformation of the elements. This profession of faith of the Saxon church advocated that since the institution of this sacrament Christ has been voluntarily present within it and there was no transformation performed through the magic of words: ‘Nec magica virtute verborum attrahitur in pane corpus Christi’. As the Saxon evangelical church was defining its confessional identity, it became increasingly concerned to define the meaning of the sacrament. In the process it made clear that it was rejecting both transubstantiation (the Catholic position) and the ‘errors’ of the Sacramentarians. It also emphasized that the presence of Christ’s body and blood in the elements was real, not symbolic or allegorical. Consequently, the Lutheran church and its theologians used the sacrament to distance themselves both from the Catholics and the Calvinists. Thus, the sacrament and its meaning were central to the definition of the confessional identity of the Saxon Lutheran community. The consistent concern for this issue in the acts of the synods of the new church, in professions of faith and in church orders proves that the Eucharist was central to defining the confessional identity of the Saxon Church. The issue became all the more important as the number of rivals of the Lutherans grew with Swiss and South German ideas finding sympathetic followers among the Saxons and with ideas from Geneva increasingly gaining support among the Hungarians. The centrality of the sacrament in Saxon Lutheran constructs of confessional identity may help us explain the survival of Eucharistic imagery and its careful reinterpretation in the new religious context. Having demonstrated that identity constructs within the Saxon community revolved around the understanding of the sacrament, one still has to consider the role that religious art may have played in this process and explain the connection between religious imagery and confessional awareness. The discourse against images had become increasingly moderate as the institutionalization of the church progressed, and at the same time the visual medium benefited from a redefinition of its role.62 The iconographic survivals analyzed here highlight the interest in the Eucharist and express the development from a medieval to a Lutheran view of the sacrament. The emphasis was no longer on transubstantiation or concomitance but on consubstantiality between the sacrament and the body of Christ, the offer of grace, the importance of faith and the historical origin 62

Crăciun, “Rural Altarpieces,” pp. 209–210.

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of the sacrament. Consequently, one may conclude that images continued to be used in communication in similar ways to the late medieval period, but that the messages transmitted and the purpose of communication were different. The old images, reinterpreted with the use of text, created a type of evangelical visual repertory which was successfully used to shape the confessional identity of the community and to express Lutheran doctrine. In this sense, the altarpieces as they are today can be seen not just as survivals of late medieval art but rather, because of the transformations they have undergone, as a specifically Protestant art which had been adapted to suit evangelical theology and successfully used to bolster Lutheran identity. In the multi-confessional environment of Transylvania the retention of religious art was to become a significant marker of Lutheran identity, one that would be highly visible and easily recognizable for any person entering a Lutheran church.

“Wider den grausamen Erbfeind deß Christlichen Nahmens”: Lutheran Military Chaplains from Württemberg in the Hungarian Wars against the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries MÁRTA FATA

1. Military chaplains from the Holy Roman Empire in Hungary—State of research It has been recognized for some time that the officers who fought against the Ottomans in the Hungarian theatre of war in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on behalf of the Holy Roman Empire contributed significantly to the spread and strengthening of the Lutheran Reformation in Hungary.1 These Lutheran officers from the Habsburg hereditary lands and the German principalities held several formal offices and performed a number of functions within the Hungarian border defense system. They financed the printing of Protestant books, maintained garrison schools in the bigger fortifications along the border, supported the studies of Hungarian students at German universities, employed chaplains for their troops in Hungary, and acted as intermediaries to procure clergymen from the centers of German Protestantism for their co-religionists in Hungarian towns. These Lutheran officers were following precedents first established by Luther and Melanchthon. Luther dispatched the first German military chaplains to Hungary in 1542, when the liberation of Buda was attempted by an army led by the elector Joachim II of Brandenburg. Melanchthon 1

Particularly to be mentioned is Sándor Payr, A dunántúli evangélikus egyházkerület története (History of the Lutheran church district of Transdanubia) (Sopron: 1924). Although more attention has been given to military clergymen in recent research, the studies do not focus on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. See József Borovi, A magyar tábori lelkészet története (History of the Hungarian Military Chaplaincy) (Budapest: 1992); Péter Zakar, A tábori püspökség felállításának előzményei XVII–XVIII. században (The establishment of the military diocese in the 17th and 18th centuries) (Lymbus: 2005), pp. 295–354.

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instructed Joachim’s court preacher, Johann Agricola, and two other preachers, Kaspar Steinbach and Theobald Aman, to spread the ideas of the Reformation in Hungary.2 The activity of German chaplains in the Hungarian Kingdom was made possible by the fact that most towns and fortifications within the border defense system, which extended from the Transylvanian frontier to the Adriatic Sea, were inhabited by large German-speaking populations. Thus chaplains from the Austrian estates, or later from the German Reichskreise (imperial districts) who arrived to Hungary with the troops of the Emperor, could often double as local preachers. In 1564, for instance, Hans Rueber Freiherr von Püchsendorf und Grafenwerth,3 frontier colonel (supremus capitaneus confiniorum) in the city of Győr, invited the exiled clergyman Joachim Magdeburg to serve as preacher for the German cavalrymen stationed at Győr.4 Soon Magdeburg was preaching sermons not only to the Lutheran officers and soldiers billeted at Rueber’s house but also to the townspeople, often in the streets or even in the open countryside. At the same time, he continued to pursue his distinguished literary activities, and in 1566 among other writings he published his Vermahnung (Exhortation). In the introduction to the latter he mentioned that at Rue2

Phillip Melanchthon, “Instructio pro Casparo ministro verbi Divini ad expeditionem Turcicam,” in Philippi Melanchthonis opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. Carolus Gottlieb Bretschneider (Halis Saxonum: 1837), Vol. IV: pp. 824–826. It may be noted that at the Reichstag of Speyer in 1542 the Protestants promised support for the expedition against the Ottomans only on condition that Protestant soldiers were granted their own military chaplains. 3 Concerning the life and activity of Hans Rueber Freiherr von Püchsendorf und Grafenwerth (ca. 1526–1584) still relevant is Eine Christliche Predig Vber der Leych/ deß wohlgebornen Herrn/ Herrn Hansen Rübers/ zu Puxendorff … wolseliger gedächtnis/ zu Caschaw in der Stifftskirchen den 24. Martii 1584 durch M. Wilhelm Fridrich Lutzen/ damals gewesen Rüberischen Hoffprediger (Tübingen: 1585). Lutz stressed Rueber’s activities (as colonel in the city of Győr, 1556–1568, and as Kreisoberhauptmann in Kassa, 1568–1584) on behalf of Lutheran “Studiosen, Kirchen unnd Schuldiener“ and his support in particular for “vil Studiosi, wölche er bey den Universiteten verlegte”; as well, he built churches at his own expenses and invited preachers from foreign countries: “Kirchen in diesem/ vnd Oesterreichischen Landen etlich auff sein eignen vnkosten/ von newem erbawet/ reine Prediger/ mit großem unkosten/ von frembden landen beruffen/ vnd nicht allein seinen vnderthonen/ solche vorgesetzt vnnd bei sich behalten: sonder sich beflissen/ darmit auch andere/ mit trewen Seelsorgern versehen wurde“ (pp. 31–32.) 4 On information about a chaplain among the frontier guards who was paid by the LowerAustrian estates in 1566 see Géza Pálffy, A császárváros védelmében. A győri főkapitányság története 1526–1598 (In defence of the imperial city: History of the command-in-chief in Győr 1526–1598) (Győr: 1999), p. 128.

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ber’s request he included in the same work an explanation of the Augsburg Confession and the Schmalkaldian Articles (people in Hungary being rather unfamiliar with the Augsburgian document of confession as few copies were available in the country).5 Magdeburg’s song of praise, “Wer Gott vertraut, hat gut gebaut,” composed in 1563, was translated into Hungarian and included in the hymnbook of the Transdanubian Lutherans.6 Johann Schubart from Rostock became Magdeburg’s successor around 1563. When Schubart joined the troops in Tata at the invitation of Colonel Erasmus Braun, Lenard Reuter took his place, and in 1584 he was followed by Andreas Ammon, a master of the University of Wittenberg, who came from Staffelstein in Franconia. Ammon was not only active as a preacher but was also headmaster of the garrison school supported by Rueber’s successor in Győr, Andreas Freiherr Teuffel von Guntersdorf. He sent him to Wittenberg in 1586 so that he might be ordained and serve as a clergyman after his return to Győr.7 Neither church history nor historical research in general has dealt in a systematic way with the topic of preachers from the Austrian and German territories in spite of the importance of their activity in the Hungarian castles along the border and on the battlefield itself. Neither their religion and precise denomination, nor the multiple roles they played both in the soldiers’ everyday life on the outer frontiers of Christendom and as foreign preachers in the Hungarian Reformation have received close investigation so far.8 Such an approach requires first of all a careful stocktaking of all military chaplains who were active in Hungary. This task is not only an indispensable preliminary to further investigation of the topic, but also seems worthwhile given that the defense system consisted of about 120 fortifications along the border and the war against the Ottomans in Hungary lasted for more than 150 years. Being affected by the wars, these clergymen, once back in their native coun5

See Sándor Payr, Fláciánus lelkészek Magyarországban (Flacian priests in Hungary) (Pozsony: 1910), p. 10. 6 Payr, A dunántúli evangélikus, pp. 359, 843. 7 Ibid. 8 Comparable findings are available in Antal Molnár’s recent publication in connection with the role of Catholic officers and chaplains in the fortifications along the border during the Catholic Renovation—a subject which had been completely ignored by previous scientific research: Antal Molnár, “Végvár és rekatolizáció. Althan Mihály Adolf és a magyarországi katolikus restauráció kezdetei” (Border fortress and recatholicization: Mihály Adolf Althan and the beginning of the Catholic restoration in Hungary), in Nóra G. Etényi–Ildikó Horn (eds.), Idővel paloták… Magyar udvari kultúra a 16–17. században (Palaces of yore: Hungarian court culture in the 16th–17th centuries) (Budapest: 2005), pp. 390–98.

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tries, could draw on their war experiences and thus exert influence on their parishioners in towns and villages, which in turn helped to raise money to finance the wars against the Ottoman Empire. This essay will explore issues concerning the education, employment and activity of those Lutheran military chaplains who served in the regiments of the Schwäbischer Reichskreis (Swabian imperial district) on the Hungarian front in the period covering the “long Ottoman war” up to Hungary’s final liberation.9 2. Military chaplains from Württemberg in the Ottoman Wars After the Reformation had officially been established in the duchy of Württemberg in 1534, and the organization of the Church with the Konsistorium (Church Council) as highest authority was consolidated, the duchy—by far the biggest and most powerful territory within the Schwäbischer Reichskreis—became the centre of South German Lutheranism and took a leading role in the anti-Ottoman conflict as well as in aiding Lutheran coreligionists in and outside the borders of the Holy Roman Empire. In this respect, one of the central institutions was the University of Tübingen, which was highly respected among both the Protestant nobility of Austria and Lutheran scholars from Poland, Scandinavia and Hungary,10 not least because of the orthodox Lutheran character of the education both at the University and at the theological seminary founded by Duke Ulrich of Württemberg in 1536, which became the central coordinating point for the training of theologians in the duchy of Württemberg. Students from Lutheran regions in Hungary had a preference for Tübin9

The only study so far of Lutheran chaplains who, among their other appointments, had also been employed in the Hungarian theatre of war has been Christian Kolb, “Feldprediger in Alt-Württemberg,” Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte IX (1905), pp. 70–85, 97–124; X (1906), pp. 22–51, 117–142. Kolb took into account only the documents of the Lutheran Church dealing with “Feldprediger” and completely disregarded both available written accounts (e.g. the Konsistorialprotokolle) and the material of the Schwäbischer Reichskreis. Of the huge amount of available files from the Reichskreis only random samples were analyzed for the present study. 10 Márta Fata, “Studenten aus Ungarn und Siebenbürgen an der Universität Tübingen. Eine 500 Jahre lange Beziehungs- und Wirkungsgeschichte,” in Márta Fata–Gyula Kurucz– Anton Schindling (eds.), Peregrinatio Hungarica. Studenten aus Ungarn an deutschen und österreichischen Hochschulen vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: 2006), pp. 229–264; István Gémes, Hungari et Transylvani. Kárpát-medencei egyetemjárók Tübingenben (1523–1918) (Hungari et Transylvani: Students from the Carpathian Basin in Tübingen, 1523–1918) (Budapest: 2003).

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gen, where from the beginning of the second half of the seventeenth century the best students received free meals at the seminary thanks to the ducal endowment. In turn, graduates from Tübingen were welcome in Hungary, where they easily found employment as pastors, teachers, and court or military chaplains.11 a. The “long Ottoman war,” 1591–1606 The manner of appointment of Lutheran military chaplains was not clearly defined until the second half of the seventeenth century. The Lutheran lord who recruited soldiers for his regiments always took his court chaplain or a specially chosen military chaplain with him. As the cases of early appointees from Württemberg during the long Ottoman war show, the commanding officers turned to the duke and asked him and the Konsistorium to find them a suitable chaplain. The chaplains were nominated by the Lutheran church in Württemberg, but the duke always had the final right of appointment. Thus Franz Conrad Hoffwart, cavalry captain of the Schwäbischer Reichskreis, turned to the Konsistorium in Stuttgart, and asked for the recommendation of a chaplain in the light of the upcoming military campaign in Hungary.12 His request was passed on to the ducal seminary in Tübingen, and the final choice fell on Master Stephan Ruoff (1572–1623) from Bietigheim, who not only willingly accepted the offer but on the basis of his test sermon and his examinations was also considered to be eminently qualified for such an office by the chief administrators of the seminary. The Konsistorium informed the ducal chancellery of their decision on May 13, 1596, and without further ado the latter relayed Duke Friedrich’s consent one day later. 11

12

Further information can be found in Gustav Bossert, “Die Liebestätigkeit der evangelischen Kirche Württembergs von der Zeit Herzog Christophs bis 1650,” Württembergische Jahrbücher für Statistik und Landeskunde (1905), pp. 84–85. Notable figures include the aforementioned Wilhelm Friedrich Lutz, nephew of the reformer of Schwäbisch-Hall Johann Isenmann, who first became pastor on the estates of Gabriel Streun von Schwarzenau, then on those of the Barons of Hofkirchen. With the help of Hans Rueber he was finally employed as Rueber’s court chaplain and as pastor of Kassa before he returned to Swabia. Several towns in royal Hungary were in continual contact with Tübingen, for example, Sopron and Pozsony, where among others Simon Heuchelin from 1608–1621, Andreas Grosch from 1614–1621, and Josua Wegelin from 1635–1640 worked as German pastors. Concerning this topic see further Fata, “Studenten aus Ungarn und Siebenbürgen.” I used the Hungarian names of the towns and villages of the Hungarian Kingdom. Evangelisches Landeskirchliches Archiv, Stuttgart—henceforth ELA—A 26: Allgemeine Kirchenakten, Bü 1157, 3a.

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On May 6th 1597, before marching off with his company towards the Hungarian theatre of war, Otto von Vohenstein, cavalry captain of the Fränkischer Reichskreis (Franconian imperial district), turned to the duke and asked him whether he could “help him out with a scholar who could give his soldiers religious instruction.”13 In this case, too, the Konsistorium instructed the seminary of Tübingen to propose a suitable and willing candidate. Eventually, the decision was made in favor of Master Johann Georg Nockher (1571–1645) from Stuttgart, who had proven his qualification by a successful sermon. On April 3, 1600, Duke Friedrich received a letter from Georg Andreas Freiherr von Hofkirchen (Lower Austria), a confidant of Archduke Matthias, in which he petitioned the duke to provide him “an upright and learned man from the seminary”14 for the imminent march to Hungary. Hofkirchen’s father had already been in correspondence with Duke Ludwig and had requested a preacher and teacher of Augsburgian denomination from him several times. Georg Andreas, a Württembergian originally from Stuttgart, himself had connections with the Stuttgart court. In 1576, on his way to France with his teacher from Württemberg, Wilhelm Friedrich Lutz,15 he had stayed for a month in Stuttgart where he became acquainted with Duke Friedrich. The duke therefore felt obliged to personally instruct the seminar in Tübingen to accommodate him by sending a qualified chaplain upon Georg Andreas’ request. The seminar nominated the scholarship holder Master Johannes Schad (1577–1635) from Öschingen on the grounds that he was “master of the highest in grammar and the humanities, [spoke] Latin with the required eloquence, [and was] a good preacher and excellent theologian.”16 However, Schad fell ill before the journey and could not depart with the court chaplain Michael Nellim, who had been previously sent to Württemberg by Georg Andreas. The Konsistorium therefore informed the duke on May 13th 1600 that in place of Schad another scholarship holder, Christoph Creuser (1574–1635) from Kirchheim unter Teck, should be sent with Nellim.17

13

“[…] mit einem gelehrten man zu einem Feldbrödig gnediglich woollen aushelffen.” ELA, A 26, Bü 1157, 3b. 14 “[…] einen feinen und gelehrten Mann aus dero Schullen und Stipendiis.” ELA, A 26, Bü 1157, 3c. 15 See above no. 12. 16 “[…] ex supremis humanioribus, […] in Lingua Latina wohl beredt, in predigen fertig, und ein feiner Theologus.” ELA, A 26, Bü 1157, 3c. 17 Ibid.

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b. The Battle of Szentgotthárd, 1664 While in the time of mercenary armies—as had been the case in the “long Ottoman war”— employment and service as a Lutheran military chaplain depended on the sole discretion of the commanders of the troops, the mode of appointment fundamentally changed after the Peace of Westphalia. As a result of the post-1648 reforms, the Schwäbischer Reichskreis had both Lutheran and Catholic units; in this connection, however, it was not the soldiers’ denominational affiliation but the unit they belonged to which became the decisive element. Thus, there were soldiers of different denominations for whom consideration had to be shown in order to avoid denominational quarrels. To each regiment, therefore, both a Lutheran and a Catholic priest had to be assigned, who were then supervised by both princes within the district, the Protestants by the Duke of Württemberg and the Catholics by the Bishop of Constance.18 In the Ottoman war of 1664, the Schwäbischer Kreistag (Swabian district assembly) supplied the imperial army (Reichsarmee) with two infantry regiments and four companies of cavalry. While the district cavalry did not measure up against the enemy, the Swabian infantry regiments fought well in the Battle of Szentgotthárd (in the Austrian tradition of Mogersdorf).19 In his decree dated July 29, 1663, Duke Eberhard of Württemberg had declared already at the time of preparation for the war that “some auxiliary forces [should] be sent against the cruel sworn enemy of Christianity,” and that “as a most noble requisite among the necessities for such a campaign against the Turks, troops must be provided with an able and eager military chaplain.”20 In his appeal of August 5, he instructed the administration of the theological seminary to call upon the scholarship holders to apply as army chaplains for the imminent war and to judge the candidates’ suitability for such an office. In case no volunteers applied for military service, the duke added incentives: returning with good references should have a favorable effect on their subsequent professional careers.21 18

Max Plassmann, “Bikonfessionelle Streitkräfte: Das Beispiel des Schwäbischen Reichskreises (1648–1803),” in Michael Kaiser–Stefan Kroll (eds.), Militär und Religiosität in der Frühen Neuzeit (Münster: 2004), pp. 33–48. 19 Peter-Christoph Strom, Der Schwäbische Kreis als Feldherr (Berlin: 1974), p. 79. 20 “[…] wider den grausamen Erbfeind deß christlichen Nahmens den Türckhen einige auxiliary-Völkher zugeschickhet werden [sollen], […] bey solchen Feld- und Türckhenzug nöthigen requisites dieses eines von den vernembsten ist, daß solche völckher mit guthen und eyferigen Feldprediger versehen werden müssen.” ELA, A 26, Bü 1157. 21 Ibid.

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According to the account of the administration of the seminar of August 17, fourteen volunteers applied, and among these Master Philipp Christoph Vischer from Möckmühl was considered to be the most suitable, “Rationi Eruditionis atque Morum.” On November 3, the council of the Konsistorium (the Konsistorialrat) recommended Vischer to the duke for the post of army chaplain of the infantry and cavalry company, for he had “already earned much recognition as a curate; a young man of 23, who has frequently been praised for his disputes and who, in his final examinations, gave proof of his ability to preach and of his good manners, and is, apart from this, a tall and strong person.”22 The troops from Württemberg, however, were already marching off in autumn and had their winter quarters in Lower Styria. For this reason, on December 14 the Württemberg legation proposed in the Reichstag at Regensburg that Vischer should not be sent until spring, when the district troops were supposed to start on their march to Hungary. Until then, soldiers of the Württemberg units might be served “ad interim” by the chaplains of the troops from Braunschweig, Hessen-Kassel and Darmstadt. In the meantime, Vischer was called away for a temporary position as curate at Herrenalb, after he had been confirmed on November 27, 1663 and his ordination as chaplain in the seminary had been made public.23 On April 15, 1664, a second candidate was also heard, namely, Master Philipp Melchior Grätzer (1641–1712) from Vaihingen.24 The third theologian who was named on the list of Tübingen was employed as military chaplain at the suggestion of the Konsistorium, dated April 19, 1664, in order for two chaplains to be designated for the cavalry companies of Württemberg: both companies should have their own pastor, consequently lightening Vischer’s burden as the sole current chaplain of the Württemberg regiment. The duke placed both chaplains, who belonged to the staff of the regiment, in the care of officers: Christian Ernst Pfalzgraf bei Rhein, colonel of the infantry, and Rheingraf Johann Ludwig, colonel of the cavalry, the commanders of the district troops who were destined to march off in spring.25

22

“[…] bereits bey etlichen Vikariaten Satisfaction gethen, 23 jahr alt ethlich mal mit Lob disputiert und in den letzten Examinibus das Testimonium hat, daß er wohl predige, und in moribus sich wohl verhalte, ist auch beneben eine große und starke Person […].” ELA, A 3: Sitzungsprotokolle des Konsistoriums, Vol. 8: 1182. 23 Ibid. 24 ELA, A 3, Vol. 8: 1213. 25 ELA, A 26, Bü 1157.

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c. The war of liberation in Hungary The troops of the Schwäbischer Reichskreis also participated in Hungary’s liberation from Ottoman rule. Between 1683 and 1688, the imperial district provided the Emperor with soldiers for six campaigns. It is true that Swabian aid for the decisive battle for the liberation of Vienna (September 12, 1683) came too late, but the troops took part in pursuing the Ottomans, as well as later in the siege of Buda. In the war against the Ottomans, the militia of the district fought, as an integrated unit, with the troops of the Reichsarmee, and had a share in the conquest of Érsekújvár on August 19, 1685 and Buda on September 12, 1686. In the battle of Nagyharsány on August 12, 1687, and in the siege of Belgrade in 1688, the soldiers of the Schwäbischer Reichskreis put up a brave show.26 The denominationally equal filling of the post of army chaplains, which was designed to keep the peace in the bi-denominational armed forces of the Schwäbischer Reichskreis, became a source of tensions in the last decades of the seventeenth century. The battlefield was not only the scene of military conflict, but also a place where human fates and tragedies played out, where often faith alone could console people for death, loss, and injury. It was probably for this reason that soldiers, in the absence of a clergyman of their own denomination, often turned to the clergyman of the other denomination. In order to avoid such undesirable occurrences, church authorities of both denominations attached great importance to the presence of chaplains of their own denomination. In this context, an incident in 1684 can be explained when a scholarship holder of the seminary in Tübingen, Master Johann Peter Bessler (1660–1710) from Stuttgart, was ordered to the Lutheran regiment “Quirin von Höhnstett.” However, he could not report for duty, as he only arrived after the district troops had marched off.27 The Privy Council (Geheimer Rat), the central institution of the administration in Württemberg, therefore set the Konsistorium right when it declared that “our sergeants and common soldiers, who are devoted to our Protestant religion, need watchful care.”28 To leave the Lutheran soldiers without “a faithful and, above all, practised pastor was irresponsible toward God and the Protestant estates,”29 26

Storm, Der Schwäbische Kreis als Feldherr, pp. 88–87. ELA, A 26, Bü 1158, 3. 28 “[…] eine wachtsame sorgfalt vor die unserer Evangelischen Religion zugethane Unterofficier und gemeine Knecht obliegen will.” Ibid. 29 “[…] einen getreuen und zumahl geübten Seelsorger […] gegen Gott und die Evangelische Mitt-Ständ nicht verantwortlich.” Ibid. 27

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because, after all, Lutheran soldiers had their lodgings for the winter in Catholic places. It seems as if Lutherans feared Catholic influence on the soldiers not so much through the Catholic chaplains, but rather through Catholic priests in the hinterland. As a result of this Catholic–Lutheran rivalry within the military camp, chaplains had to live up to all the higher expectations, and they were, at the same time, subjected to stricter regulation. If the slightest suspicion was aroused against one of the chaplains, punishment or suspension was the consequence, as in the case of Daniel Reusch. He served the Catholic cavalry regiment of Count Johann Franz von Bronckhorst zu Gronsfeld from 1683 through the beginning of the year 1685 and participated in three campaigns against the Ottomans in Hungary, but received his dismissal on April 6, of 1685 on the grounds that he “made the officers and cavalrymen, who were Catholic in the majority, suspicious of the Christian Protestant religion.”30 The sources do not indicate what actually lay behind the affair, but it seems that in the event Reusch was able to prove that he had acted correctly, because on May 6th 1686 he received back the commission of the Lutheran princes and estates of the Schwäbischer Reichskreis for the Gronfeld regiment.31 Two years later, however, after the administering of the vasa sacra and the settlement of his pay, he was discharged because of his “scandalous life.”32 Afterwards, Reusch tried his luck as a maritime chaplain on a convoy ship from Hamburg, and returned to Württemberg only 20 years later, where he merely found nothing better than a minor and badly paid job as information officer for young urban people from Stuttgart. Because of his poverty and frequent hunger during eight years of municipal service, he continued to seek employment as a chaplain in Hungary or in Morea33; but in spite of good references issued by the city of Stuttgart, Reusch was unsuccessful.34 Moreover, as he had not maintained his position as a Württemberg military chaplain, the Church of Württemberg never took him on again. Tensions could also stem from chaplains being badly treated. In particular, there was an increasing number of complaints by Lutheran chap30

“[…] christlich Evangelische Religion bey denen meist catholischen Officierern und gemeinen Reutern, seines Lebens halben, in Verdachtung.” Hauptstaatsarchiv, Stuttgart—henceforth HStA—C 9: Schwäbischer Kreis, Bü 368. 31 HStA, C 14: Schwäbischer Reichskreis, Bü 152. 32 Ibid. 33 In 1715, under the reign of Sultan Ahmed III, the Morea (the peninsula of the Peloponnese) was again taken away from the Venetians by the Ottomans. 34 ELA, A 26, 1088, 2c.

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lains in the infantry regiment of Count Notger Wilhelm zu ÖttingenKatzenstein. Wolfgang Dietrich Wendel (1646–?), pastor of Holzelfingen, was offered employment on April 13, 1685 at the Öttingen regiment but returned already in May, without the church administration’s permission.35 In front of the Konsistorium, he sought to justify why it had been impossible for him to stay. The free meals offered by the Catholic colonel were inedible, and for this reason he had to provide for himself; however, food being very expensive in the war zone, his pay was not enough to sustain him. In addition, he had to bear bad treatment and many insults from the Catholic soldiers of the regiment. For example, his horse had once been replaced by a donkey while he was holding the service.36 Nevertheless, because of his act of disobedience Wendel was removed from his office.37 However, as this incident was not without precedent the Konsistorium reported to the Duke on April 23, 1686 that it would be very difficult to find a Lutheran chaplain for this Catholic regiment, and that no preacher could stay there unless the Duke intervened personally.38 Sources do not give any information on whether the Duke took any measures in this affair, but the situation remained the same, and a succession of chaplains passed quickly through the Öttingen regiment: in 1686, Master Johann Philipp Albeck (1662–1693) from Augsburg, followed by Master Johann Bernard Hafner in 1687 and Master Georg David Hausch (1666–1723) from Knittlingen in 1688, as well as Johann Friedrich Tafel (1664–?).39 Apart from that, military chaplains from Württemberg changed frequently. Letters by Johann Heinrich Calisius (1663–1706) from Kemnat of the year 1688 might, among other things, hint at some reasons for such changes. As chaplain of the Lutheran cavalry regiment of Count Ludwig of Württemberg, Calisius took part in two campaigns against the Ottomans in Hungary. In his third year of service, on March 26, in 1688,40 he submitted his resignation on the grounds that he had to suffer from a severe illness during the first campaign,41 and that he had been put on a great strain in the second campaign, which had lasted till January 1688. Not only had he always been out and about because of the regiment’s continual advance, but at the same time he had also been on service at the 35

ELA, A 3, Vol. 10: 715, 755. ELA, A 3, Vol. 10: 769–770. 37 Christian Siegel, Das evangelische Württemberg (1935), Vol. 17, p. 1/700. 38 ELA, A 3, Vol. 10: 859. 39 ELA, A 3, Vol. 10: 860, 986, 1130. 40 HStA, C 14, Bü 152. 41 ELA, A 26, 1158, 2. 36

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infantry regiment of Württemberg after the death of the chaplain Hafner, whose successor Wiels had resigned from office. As the companies’ winter quarters were many miles apart, he had constantly been on the move. Besides, Calisius complained that because of the shortage of food the prices were increasing even beyond the means of those on the highest salaries.42 To top it all, his best personal items had been ruined and he had lost all of his belongings in an accident on the river Vág. Calisius’s plea for discharge addressed to the Duke gives a further explanation for the frequent change of the Württemberg chaplains. Calisius had argued that no one from the ducal seminary had worked so much and had done service for so long as he had. In the theological seminary there were many qualified candidates who were training for the post of a military chaplain and could therefore take over his work. He himself wanted to finish his theological studies in Tübingen, which he had had to abandon because of his military service. Most scholarship holders, he noted, considered military service to be a practical training which would guarantee them a parish after having gained experience as army chaplains and after their successful graduating from the university.43 3. The pure Word of God plainly taught and preached When Otto von Vohenstein asked for military chaplains from Württemberg in 1597 he noted that “Almighty God gave the country of Württemberg all its learned men; there, His words were purely and faithfully taught.”44 Likewise, the Austrian baron Georg Andreas von Hofkirchen turned to Duke Friedrich for a chaplain, as he was of the opinion that Württemberg had a great number of learned men to offer.45 This good reputation Württemberg owed to the Faculty of Theology at the University of Tübingen. After 1560, among all theological faculties Tübingen took the leading part in theological disputations as Johannes Brenz and his pupils defended and urged the advance of pure and genuine Lutheranism in a number of disputes with other branches of the Reformation which had their homes in Zurich and Geneva. 42

HStA, C 14, Bü 152. Ibid. 44 “[…] der allmechtige Gott dass landt zu Wirttemberg mitt seinen gelerten leytten begabt auch Gottes worte zu dem selbig Rein und lautter geleret und gebrödigt.” ELA, A 26, Bü 1157, 3b. 45 ELA, A 26, Bü 1157, 3c. 43

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The ducal seminary also served to train theologically firm Lutheran clergymen, and the elite of the theologians were raised and educated there. Württemberg’s Lutheran chaplains in general distinguished themselves by their theological education and their conduct, and the majority of them came from the Tübingen seminary. Franz Conrad Hoffwart, cavalry captain of the Schwäbischer Reichskreis, was particularly pleased by his chaplain from Tübingen, because, “as long as he stayed with me,” as he wrote, “he had been busy with preaching, administering the Holy Sacraments, visiting the sick; he carefully fulfilled his duties according to the Augsburgian denomination as the only true one; at the same time he always showed a modest and respectable behavior.”46 Otto von Vohenstein, meanwhile, praised Hans Georg Nockher as being “respectable, devout and god-fearing in his life and teachings.”47 Georg Andreas von Hofkirchen was also contented with the chaplain sent to him, as he “performed well in his office, always behaving respectably and in a Christian way.”48 As they usually lacked experience, the chaplains were up against a great challenge, although they proved their worth, according to a note of the Württemberg legation in Regensburg of 1663. The legation provoked a fundamental discussion on the question whether the young theologians from the seminary were qualified for this difficult office, as they were “not able to respond adequately when confronted with criticism and reservations against the doctrines, which can easily happen; people [did] not confide in and show[ed] little respect for young and inexperienced schoolleavers.”49 In spite of the reservations about younger clergymen, the Konsistorium in its communication of May 11, 1664 took the view that older and married clergymen with wives and children should not be exposed to

46

“[…] so lang er […] bey mir gewesen, […] sich mit Predigen, Raichung der hailigen Sacramente, besuchung der Kranckhen, vnd Anderen, nach Inhalt Augspurgischen vnf zu allein seeligmachenden Confessions Religion, dermassen […] sorgfeltig, vnverdrossen so Tag, so Nacht, Auch sonsten beschaidenlich eingezogen still und Erbarlich erzaigt vnd verhalten […].” ELA, A 26, Bü 1157, 3a. 47 “[…] in Lehr und Leben erbar fromb vnd Gottfurchtig.” Ibid. 48 “[…] in seinem Beruff vnd Ambt so wol in seinem wesen vnd wandell gantz cristlich vnd Erbar verhalten.” Ibid. 49 “[…] nicht allein ratione doctrina in betrachtung allerhand an- und aufstöß an solchen orthen leichtsam begegnen können […] ohnerfahren auch etwa bloß von der Schul und Stipendio herkommen und allzu jung von Jahren sein mögen weilen solchen falls die respect und confideration auf eine solche Person bey dergleichen Leuthen besorglichen nicht großfallen […].” ELA, A 26, Bü 1157.

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the danger of being killed or captured.50 For this reason, the married clergyman and former chaplain from Lomersheim, Master Melchior Eberhard (1615–1682), was turned down, although he had volunteered for service. Vischer received a detailed description of the requirements51 worked out by the Konsistorium, which in the following years served as a model for the other chaplains. There were all together two documents of this kind for chaplains from Württemberg, the second being the order mentioned above, which consisted of 15 items. The first one had been addressed to Michael Heinemann, Duke Ulrich’s chaplain in France, in 1658.52 The “Statt und Instruction” for Vischer dated May 6, 1664 contained detailed instructions as to how he was to act and conduct himself in his “professional and personal life.”53 Among other things, it was laid down that he had to preach the Gospel on Sunday mornings, teach the Catechism in the afternoon, and read extracts from the Sunday epistles on weekdays but above all on Fridays; every day, and particularly before battles, he was to hold prayer hours. He was supposed to regularly administer Communion and properly hear confession. He was further responsible for weddings and baptisms, for visits to sick persons, and finally for funeral orations for the deceased. In Catholic countries or territories, if there was no church at his disposal, he should hold services in halls or rooms, or in the open air. He should be intent on keeping the denominational peace and therefore neither provoke the Catholic side nor associate with crypto-Lutherans. The deplorable state of affairs of swearing, blaspheming, and indecency, not only among the soldiers, but also among the officers and other chaplains, had to stop. Vischer was advised to watch his manners, habits, and dress, and maintain a dignified appearance in order to set an example. “All in all, he shall perform the duty of an upright Lutheran military chaplain in order to please God and man and give His Highness reason to give him higher promotion.”54 Vischer and Grätzer, who both were aware of the significance of their appointment, asked for some casuistical works, among them Ludwig Duntes’s “Casus conscientiae” and Dieterici’s “Analysis evangelica,” to be able to meet the requirements of their office, and duly come up to the 50

Ibid. Ibid. 52 Kolb, “Feldprediger in Alt-Württemberg,” p. 75. 53 “Ambt vndt Leben.” ELA, A 26, Bü 1157. 54 “In Summa, Er soll daß werckh eines rechtschaffenden Evangelischen Hör- vnd Feldpredigers tun, daß er beides, Gott vnd den Menschen gefalle, vndt Ihrer fürstlichen Durchlaut Ursach zu mehrer und höhern promotion gebe.” Ibid. 51

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“tiring and dangerous task.”55 As they emphasized in their request, they feared that, being young theologians without vocational experience, they might be confronted with difficult matters of conscience, and it would not be as easy to establish a consistorium castrense in the camp. Fortunately, the Konsistorium had left works and instructions for them so they felt themselves to be prepared for all eventualities.56 The fate of several churchmen, however, proves that the young chaplains from Württemberg did not fail for their lack of experience or in regard to theological questions, but rather because of their physical weakness. For this reason, the candidates’ state of health became an important aspect for selection. Thus, Georg Friedrich Koch, who was appointed chaplain to Duke Georg Friedrich by the duchess Maria Dorothea Sofia on August 4, 1682, was already sent back on November 13, due to his “silly nature.”57 In considering their choice of a succeeding chaplain, who at the same time was to be the duke’s secretary, the seminary in Tübingen not only had to verify the candidate’s diploma and impeccable conduct, but also see to his good health.58 Often even chaplains of good physical constitution fell ill in Hungary because they were not used to the climate. On this account, many were forced to resign from office earlier, including, for example, Eberhard Christoph Stählin (1658–1693) from the Quirin regiment in March 1684, and Johann Jakob Hegelmayer from the Öttingen regiment in April 1684.59 But without doubt nothing could surpass the ordeal which Jakob Friedrich Adler (1685–1704) endured while serving with the Baden-Durlach regiment from July 27, 1683. His brother, who acted on his behalf and arranged his voluntary dismissal on February 19, 1685, gave a detailed description of his brother’s trials and sufferings. After the unsuccessful siege of Buda in 1685, famine broke out in the camp of the imperial troops, which forced the soldiers “to attack each other, and satisfy their hunger by consuming the flesh of the dead bodies.”60 The natural circumstances added to their miseries and contributed to the soldiers’ physical exhaustion: “Because of the bad road and the deep morass, the terrible march claimed the lives of many soldiers; only 138 out of 2000 reached 55

“[…] beschwerliche vnd gefährliche vocation in gebühr.” Ibid. ELA, A 26, Bü 1157. 57 “[…] seiner blöden natur halber.” Ibid. 58 ELA, A 26, Bü 1158, 1. 59 Ibid. 60 “[…] einander selbsten anzugreifen, da die leebendige Cörper der Todten aufgeschnitten und durch selbiges fleisch ihren Hunger zustillen.” Ibid. 56

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their quarters in the end.”61 Adler’s brother finally fell ill with the “painful and extremely dangerous Hungarian disease because of which he spent three whole weeks in bed; he was in such a miserable condition that his limbs became completely numb. He did not receive enough care and nursing; besides, the country where he lay and suffered was quite expensive, for, in the meantime, the troops received free lodging in the surrounding hamlets, therefore, he was not the only one who needed the attention, which additionally weakened him; thus, he had to learn to walk just as a young child.”62 4. Conclusion In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the majority of Lutheran military chaplains of the Schwäbischer Reichskreis came from the ducal seminary in Tübingen, where the elite of the Württemberg pastors was educated. The source material that I have examined indicates that both the Duke and the Church administration were particularly interested in filling the available posts for the district troops with their own people from Württemberg. By doing so, they could expand their sphere of influence, and perform the function they sought, that of secular and ecclesiastical patrons even for those Protestants of district contingents who did not come from Württemberg. At the same time, the church administration considered military service as a kind of “test of maturity”: if the young chaplains were successful and did well on the campaigns, they could be sure of the Konsistorium’s endeavors to provide them with a parish afterwards. Further systematic analysis of the chaplains’ curricula could probably reveal whether this was in fact the normal progression and likewise answer the question to what extent the young men’s views and activities as pastors were influenced by their experience in the Ottoman wars. The question of whether these military chaplains from Württemberg established relations with the 61

62

“[…] wegen bösen Weeges, und tiifen Morasts [...] durch welchen erbärmlichen March es mit ihnen gekommen, dass von 2000 gemeinen nicht mehr alß 138 in dass asignierte quartier eingegangen.” Ibid. “ […] höchst beschwere- und gefährlichen Ungarischen Krankheit, [...] danach Er 3 gantze Wochen gelegen, in solchen erbärmlichem Zustand, dass Er seine aigne Gliider nicht mehr gekonnt, und möniglich an seinen außkommen subitieret, mosten, Er auch einige Pflaag nicht haben können und darzu solche Zeit über in so teurem Land, da inzwischen die Völckher in denen dorffschaften freyes quartier genossen, dadurch Er dann nicht allein alles wollens verzöhret, was wird auch seine Leibes Cröfften so gar hinweg gegangen, dass Er wie ein junges Kind wider muß lernen gehen.” Ibid.

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country’s native population during the campaigns in Hungary would likewise be of great interest. All these questions require further investigation in German, Austrian, and Hungarian archives. Translated by Julia Riedel

The Ambivalence of Exile Hungarian Exiles in Germany in the Seventeenth Century EVA KOWALSKÁ

Unum hoc pro me militare videtur EXUL sum et EXTORRIS Et forte ob id solum Persona miserabilis Cujus Petitioni et honesto Desiderio nil denegandum ... ... Homo sum et qvasi Exlex, Exmunis et Immunis.1

Exile became a life experience for thousands of people after the Thirty Years’ War as a consequence of the adoption of the ius emigrandi in a religiously divided Europe. Desire to escape religious oppression led people to seek a better life in a new homeland.2 However, the exiles’ integration into their new society was never smooth. The conflict between expectations and reality often ignited tensions not only within the exile communities but between the exiles and their environment. Exile in fact might come close to being the equivalent of a “civil death” in the early modern era, and exiles were often exposed to subsequent persecution if they sought to return to their homeland. Meanwhile, the collective experience of hardships, even if, as often, preserved in the form of secondhand accounts, contributed to the preservation of the exile community’s distinct sense of identity even in a similar (or identical) religious environment, and 1

Daniel Klesch in his letter to the Faculty of Theology in Leipzig. Universitätsarchiv Leipzig, Theol. Fak., No. 18/Film 1445, Photo 0290–0291 (fol. 405–406). The present study is based on the research of archival documents; however, in the following text I will quote only selectively from this literature. The research in German and Austrian archives was completed thanks to fellowships and support from the GWZO in Leipzig, the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Center of Excellence of the Slovak Academy of Science, Collective Identities-Processes. 2 A number of dissertations were published on the status of the exile, for example Georgius Paulus Dreher, Jura Exulum (Altdorffi: 1675); Georgius Krüger, Disputatio philosophico-practica de exilio (Wittenberg: 1674); Christophorus Daniel Klesch, Dissertatio de jure peregrinantium/Vom Recht der Reisenden (Jena: 1713, defended in December, 1680).

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even after they had been living in exile-friendly communities for several generations. A notable example of such a type of exile was the exodus of Hungary’s Lutheran élite in the early 1670s. Their situation differed in some aspects from that of other waves of religious exiles in the early modern era. It is characteristic that the Hungarian exile participants themselves regarded as refugees only those people who were deprived of their offices on basis of governmental decrees and the acts of authorities, who were expelled from their congregations, their parishes and their country, and who, stricken by poverty, suffered under the burden of the Cross. They were turned literally into outlaws as they were not tied to any community, standards or laws. They wandered from one place to another and gave blessings to people, with nothing to offer but their own personalities and their services. They did not represent any official authority. Even though banned from pulpits, they regarded themselves as true preachers as they preached by their own example on the streets.3 Thus the integration of these people into a new background was hindered from the start. They had to keep their status as exiles consistently and they also needed to manifest that status openly: only in this way they could rely on financial support from the host communities. At the same time, however, they had to demonstrate that their hardship was not a punishment but the will of God which could befall anyone who failed to abide by God’s commandments and the principles of faith, or even that it was a mission for preaching the right way to salvation. The exiles presented themselves as superior to their environment, yet they often lived in poverty, and the misery they endured was in contrast to the status they had enjoyed in their homeland. The contradictions in the exiles’ situation were consequently apparent in the way they were viewed by the local communities and also in the attitudes of the exiles themselves, as is evident from numerous works published in Germany during 1670s– 80s. Already by the first half of the seventeenth century, the Kingdom of Hungary was confronted with people who claimed to be the victims of religious persecutions. From the early 1600s it became the destination and asylum of refugees from the Austrian lands which were already the pioneers in re-Catholicization among the lands of the Habsburg Crown. From the 1620s, thousands of Protestants from the Kingdom of Bohemia— 3

Daniel Klesch in his sermon Apostolica status ratio in politeumate coelico Pauli (...) exposita/Das ist Geistlich-Apostolischer Staatist (...) der falschen Welt-Staatisterey entgegen gesetzt (Hamburg: 1675).

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Lutherans, members of the Unitas Fratrum (Unity of Brethren) or Anabaptists—found refuge in Hungary.4 However, as a result of political changes the Kingdom of Hungary did not remain friendly either to exiles or to Protestants in general. Despite the Freedom of Faith Act for both Protestant beliefs (adopted in 1608, amended in 1647) an intensive process of re-Catholicization gathered momentum in the 1660s. An early forewarning of this process was the dispute over the validity of the Freedom of Faith Act. Catholic missionary activities followed, along with the confiscation and conversion of Protestant churches and schools,5 and finally an escalation in attempts to physically banish Protestants from the community and prohibit Protestant services in public.6 These religious issues soon became a burning problem for the Hungarian monarchy, and the methods and tools adopted in the solution came to affect most of the country’s population. Although the harshest re-Catholicization measures—which included physical coercion—were aimed primarily at the “doctrinal representatives,” that is, at intellectuals and priests, the consequent absence of these persons from parish communities exposed the whole Protestant population to the pressure of the state-backed Catholic priests and missionaries. This resulted in a gradual change in the religious structure of the population. Thus by the end of the eighteenth century Catholics became not only a privileged but also the most widely spread denomination. Non-Catholics were left in a minority position, with their civil rights restricted until 1781 and their religious services curbed by strict regulations. Nevertheless, exile as a measure for the preservation of religious identity never developed into an existential necessity affecting the population en masse. Exile remained an experience mainly restricted to the educated élite. On the other hand, history has had little to say of so-called “civil exile” (affecting, e.g., the burgher class or craftsmen).7 4

Ivan Mrva, “Uhorsko, azylová krajina v období novoveku” [Hungary, land of asylum in the early modern age], Česko-slovenská historická ročenka (1999), pp. 17–25. 5 For a detailed description of such cases in the Bajmóc estate at the beginning of 1660s see Martinus Novack, Ungarische gewisse und wahrhaftige Avisen oder ausführlicher und wahrhaftiger Bericht (1679). 6 A book written by the bishop György Bársony, Veritas toti mundo declarata (Cassoviae: 1670), laid the guidelines of the program of persecution of the Protestants in Hungary. 7 The only study to date on this phenomenon is Walter Reißig, “Ungarndeutsche Exulanten in Coburg nach dem Dreißigjährigen Kriege,” in Jahrbuch der Coburger Landesstiftung 27 (1982), pp. 109–127. The account by Eduard Winter, Die tschechische und slowakische Emigration in Deutschland im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Beiträge zur Geschichte der hussitischen Tradition (Berlin: 1955), does not completely conform to the present concept of exile (e.g. even student peregrination is counted as exile).

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Religiously determined exile from the Hungarian monarchy may seem to be but a marginal and ephemeral issue: its duration spanned about a decade, and in comparison to other waves of exile in modern Europe it affected a comparatively small and homogenous group of people, many of whom were later allowed to return to their homeland. In spite of this, their fate attracted the attention of the European public, because it brought to light the internal social situation in Hungary. Viewed with special concern were the events from the early 1670s when the Hapsburg authorities on the pretext of suppressing a social insurgency launched a radical campaign against the Protestants en bloc.8 In a campaign of frightening proportions, virtually all the Protestant clergy and intellectuals were charged with participation in a plot against the sovereign and put on trial, generally without real evidence of involvement.9 More than 500 Lutherans and Calvinists were supposed to stand trial in Pozsony (Bratislava, Pressburg), at hearings held from March 5 to April 4, 1674, although eventually only some 300 of them presented themselves.10 The verdicts handed down by the Pozsony Court were harsh: the alleged offenders were dismissed from their offices and condemned to make a choice between staying in Hungary with the status of commoners or leaving the country. Those who contested the charges and insisted on their innocence were first threatened with the death sentence, and then eventually—in what was presented as an act of leniency—sentenced “only” to life imprisonment in the jails and fortresses of the Kingdom. Of the 91 sentenced priests and scholars, however, as many as 41 were later on sold to Naples as convict crews on Spanish galleys.11 For the rest, neither of 8

The aims of this campaign were pointed out in a book published shortly after Bársony’s treatise: Wilhelm Christian Kriegsmann, Gründe und Ursachen welche die Römische Keyserliche, auch zu Hungarn und Böhmen Königl. Majest. bewegen sollen, nicht zu zugeben, daß die Evangelische verfolgt, und auß dero (...) Ländern vertrieben werden (1672). 9 Those implicated included even students of the higher schools and members of the city councils. 10 The priests in the occupied Hungarian territories were accused too, however they could rely on the protection of the Turkish authorities. On the other hand, the starost (administrator) of Szepes, Stanislaus Heraclius Lubomorski, was not able to resist the pressure of the Polish Jesuits, and the priests from Spiš were considered in the same way as those from Hungary (Szepes county having been under the control of the Polish Kings since the Middle Ages). 11 Georg Lani, Kurtze und wahrhafte historische Erzehlung von der grausamen und fast unerhőrten papistischen Gefängnüss wie auch von der wunderbahren Erlősung auß derselben (Leipzig: 1676), attachment 1. By the time this book was published some of

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the choices presented by the Court was an easy option, and the decision generally involved a difficult inner struggle.12 Signing their consent to the first of the options usually exposed the person to potential risk—the offender might either be put under pressure of forced conversion to the Catholic Church, or at least face accusations of betrayal of the Faith from co-religionists These documents were worded with the aim to confirm the participation of all Protestant priests in a rebellion. If signed, they served as a proof of wavering in the Faith: the signatures were considered as consent to the abandonment of their priestly offices and thus as the sacrifice of the person’s conscience to personal interests and convenience. They were designed to discredit the whole Evangelical Faith and thus to undermine the status evangelicorum in general.13 Even so, these documents were not drawn up uniformly and they were not obligatory for all who were condemned to exile.14 The respective formulations varied in some points. Those who stood trial in Nagyszombat in the autumn of 1673 were presented with a version of the document with explicitly specified charges of high treason.15 During the trial in Pozsony, on the other hand, those who chose exile signed a moderately-flavored text, where the accused had died in fortresses or during transportation to Naples or else had converted to Catholicism. 12 Lani, Erzehlung, § 10 mentions the case of Andreas Urbanovitz from Bíňovce. After subscribing the commitment about leaving for exile he suffered qualms and was contemplating suicide. Lani does not mention him, however, among those who had been condemned to fortresses. 13 Lani, Erzehlung, § 14. Shortly after the trial in Pozsony Johann Labsanszky, the secretary of the tribunal, published a treatise Kurtzer und wahrhaffter Gerichts-Auszug, womit (...) erwisen wird, daß die (...) un-Catholiche Praedicanten nicht in Ansehung der Religion sondern der Rebellion und Aufruhr wegen abgesetzt und deß Königreichs verwisen (Dillingen: March 1675; Nagyszombat: May 1675). It was believed that the real author was the Jesuit Nicolaus Kellio. He was later a missionary in the fortresses to which the condemned were transported. 14 E.g. Anton Reiser or Daniel Klesch protested vehemently against being included among those who would subscribe any commitment. Anton Reiser, Einfältige ExulantenGedanckenüber den Drey und siebetzigen Psalmen (1675), pp. 24–26 admits none but his approval with deportation from Hungary. He also stresses the issuance of the passport in which he and his fellows were addressed as “Nobiles et Eruditi.” Christophorus Klesch, Succincta Papisticae in XIII. Scepusiacis Hungariae Oppidis Anno Sot: 1674 Institutae Deformationis Enarratio (Jena: 1679), records that he had been accused as a participant in the rebellion, nevertheless he had not been forced to sign a commitment before his leaving Hungary. Similarly Michael Ritthaler in 1673. Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, Cod. Guelf. 252.2. Extravagantia, fol. 7–8. 15 Lani, Erzehlung, § 9

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the clause about rebellion and treason was absent, which finally encouraged those who were still hesitant to give their consent to leaving Hungary.16 The conditions of exile which dozens of Lutheran parsons faced were not easy and gave those affected reason to regard their fate as martyrdom in the name of Christ. They no doubt suspected that their position was likely to become vulnerable and for this reason, prior to their departure, they appealed to their parish communities to issue a confirmation of their clean-handedness and honesty: in some cases they even obtained such a confirmation from town councils or from Catholic priests.17 The signing of the consent to exile compelled them to leave their homes within fifteen days, and although they were allowed to rent out or sell their property and estates, many of them missed the deadline for leaving the country, and they left their homes without their wives and families. At the same time, splitting the family could result in the other family members losing heart when facing the prospect of the hardships of exile.18 For the first waves of exiles the first destination after leaving Hungary was Silesia, though the exiles did not normally stay there for long. Due to the presence of numerous exile communities, Silesia as well as Saxony was particularly attractive for ethnic Slovak exiles, but it did not offer the prospect of permanent residence nor adequate living conditions for such a large and specific social group.19 Other regions of Germany therefore also became destinations of the wayfaring exiles. Germany, however, did not ensure a problem-free stay for the exiles either. 16

Andreas Günther, in Johann Rudolph Lademann, Ein danckender Priester. Wurde an dem Exempel des (...) Herrn M. Andreas Günthers (Naumburg: 1709), p. 84, draws attention to the moderation of the commitments during a similar trial in Lőcse. Similarly [Johann Sextius–Johann Burius], Theologico-politico-historico-criticae animadversiones in narrationem historicam (...) captivitatis papisticae (Leipzig: 1676), pp. 29–30. 17 The former teacher in Modra, Michael Ritthaler, placed such a confirmation in his scrapbook (Stammbuch). Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, Cod. Geulf. 248, Extravagantia, fol. 219. A confirmation of innocence was issued by a Catholic priest to Thomas Steller from Besztercebánya. The city councils usually provided wagons and a military escort for the exiles on their journey to Silesia. 18 This happened e.g. to Michael Ritthaler who left his wife at home and lived subsequently as a widower for the rest of his life. Similarly Daniel Klesch and Andreas Günther lived for prolonged periods without their families. 19 According to contemporary memoires, the towns in Silesia and Saxony were overcrowded with exiles. There were 12 Hungarian priests and teachers living in Görlitz in 1673; however only one of them, Martinus Chladni, was mentioned as being so employed (as an “eifriger Prediger” and teacher). In Wrocław there was a group of 60 to 70 exiles from Hungary staying with their wives and children. [Daniel Klesch], Weh- und demüthige ElendKlage derer aus (...) Ungarn (...) vertriebenen (...) Elend Männer (1682), p. 10.

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First of all, the position of an exile involved uncertainty regarding livelihood and daily sustenance: apart from rare exceptions,20 the exiles were dependent upon the mercy of the locals. Here the problems of substantiating their status surfaced again. The libels of Johann Labsanszky had challenged the innocence of the exiles and had attempted to show that the trial was aimed at individual offenders rather than at clerics and scholars en masse. This was meant to make the charged individuals waver, raise doubts in their own minds, undermine their reputation in the eyes of public and shatter their credit. That might mean not only totally destroying the moral integrity of the persons concerned and turning them to outcasts, but also discrediting the Church in general.21 To prevent that, it was necessary to overthrow Labsanszky’s reasoning thoroughly.22 Exilic authors came forward with a “firstaid” defense, using well-tried counter-reasoning to give grounds for their almost divine right to leave their parish communities in case of harsh persecution and, by doing so, to save their Faith, the highest value for every human being.23 The favorite examples cited were from the life of Martin Lu20

E.g. in the case of Andreas Günther mention was made of his usurious practices towards his fellow exiles. 21 On the concept of personal standing in the early modern period see Klaus Schneider – Schwerhoff (eds.), Verletzte Ehre. Ehrkonflikte in Gesellschaften des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit (Cologne–Weimar–Vienna: 1995). 22 Christoph Löhner, Hungarische Prädicanten-Unschuld, wider die dreißig-fach-unwahre Beschuldigung, daß (...) die im Königreich Hungarn Un-Römisch-Katholischen Prädicanten (...) rechtmäßig verurtheilet worden seien (Wittenberg: 1675); [Anonymous], Kurtzer und wahrhafftiger Bericht von der letzteren Verfolgung der Evangelischen Preediger in Ungaren, darinne vorgestellet wird ihre Unschuld (1678). Sermons of consolation were frequently delivered and published in which the situation of the exiles was discussed in detail. See Andreas Günther, Des hocherleuchteten Apostel Pauli Christianus persecutionem patiens/Wie und warum ein Christ in der Welt Verfolgung leiden müsse? (Halle: 1676); [Anonymous], Trostschrift an die in den Königreich Ungarn um des heiligen Evangelii willen heftig bedrängte Ewangelische Christen (sine loco et dato). On this type of literary production see Eva Kowalská, “Kázeň ako zdroj informácií pre sociálne a politické dejiny? K možnostiam interpretácie kázňovej tvorby luteránskych exulantov z Uhorska” [Sermons as an information source for political and social histories: On the interpretation of the sermons of the Lutheran exiles from Hungary, in Zuzana Kákošová – Miloslav Vojtech (eds.), Slovenský literárny barok. Venované 340. výročiu smrti Petra Benického [The Slovak literary Baroque: Dedicated to the 340th anniversary of the death of Peter Benicky] (Bratislava: Univerzita Komenského, 2005), pp. 118–129. 23 Such arguments appear in the treatise of a former priest from Prague, Fabianus Natus. Fabianus Natus redivivus, seu modesta solutio quaestionis de fuga in persecutione, utrum pastores Bohemici recte fecerint, quod ad mandatum Caesareum Praga excesserunt? (Christianopoli: 1675; originally Wittenberg: 1624). The latter edition contains many references to the situation in Hungary.

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ther (who at one stage considered the possibility of exile in Bohemia), the Apostle Paul and even Christ himself. Efforts were made to find precedents to show that even a righteous shepherd may abandon his flock (the parish), especially if even the flock is unable to resist persecution.24 “Vain martyrdom” was denounced, whereas it was emphasized that the persecution of the Church might also be viewed as a trial by fire.25 Much more challenging, however, was the questioning of the right of exiles to work. If they maintained their stance of “martyrs in the name of Christ” they could rely on basic care and Christian charity in parishes where they found asylum. But the search for suitable employment sometimes several lasted years. This was difficult even for those who had occupied high positions in Hungary and who, in some cases, were of German origin by birth. One such was Anton Reiser, a former vicar in Pozsony, then the capital of Hungary, who spent the first years of his exile from 1672 staying at his brother’s place in Augsburg. Eventually he succeeded, with help from Philip Jacob Spener, in obtaining a post as local minister in the small town of Oehringen, before he was offered a new position in Hamburg.26 It soon became evident that the local conditions encountered by the Hungarian exiles—many of them men with degrees from German universities—were far from favorable. Germany was undergoing a slow process of recovery from the misery of the Thirty Years’ War. Moreover, the burghers and townsfolk of the wealthy imperial towns were not always pleased with the presence of small groups of strangers dressed in foreign fashion and outlandish in behavior. Paradoxically, those locals declared their refusal to raise funds for the newcomers in writing on lavishly decorated de luxe paper sheets.27 The exiles took advantage of every occasion to manifest their hardship in order to gain help and benefits from the host towns.28 In particular the town councils in Silesia and 24

Natus, Modesta solutio, pp. 70–78. On this e.g. Esaias Pilarik, De persecutione verae ecclesiae dissertatio theologica (Wittenberg: 1676). 26 See the letters of P. J. Spener to Gottlieb Spitzel written on October 22, 1672 and April 25, 1674, and Johannes Wallmann (ed.), Philipp Jakob Spener. Briefe aus der Frankfurter Zeit. 1666–1686. Bd. 1, 1666–1674 (Tübingen: 1992), pp. 562–563, 724. Spener for a long time supported Daniel Wilhelm Moller, a former professor from Pozsony. 27 An example from Nuremberg dated December 28, 1678. Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10024 Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 7441/4, fol. 242. 28 After their arrival in Naumburg where their father lived, Andreas Günther’s children dressed in “Hungarian clothes” for a whole year. These clothes have been made just before their departure for Saxony. Lademan, Ein danckender Priester, p. 95. Similarly Daniel Klesch mourned the lost of his pilgrim stick that he had considered to be 25

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Saxony were driven to implement restrictive measures in granting benefits and alms to the exiles as part of the local “beggars’ code.”29 Nevertheless, dependence on alms and charity was hardly a respectable life for former parsons and principals of distinguished schools, especially for those with families. They commented with disillusionment on the attitudes of their fellow brethren in the Faith, in particular priests and members of Church Boards who often manifested a lack of enthusiasm in providing financial support to the exiles, never mind offering them church offices. The local priests were concerned in the first place about the possibly dubious quality of teaching should it be provided by the newcomers, and secondly, they were alarmed by the efforts of the exiles to secure church offices.30 In return, the exiles, presenting themselves as KreutzBruder or as “persecuted in the name of Christ,” often indirectly criticized the behavior of their local colleagues: they appealed to Christian love and active faith, required from their listeners due penitence and a public display of regret for sins and lashed out at the indifference to the suffering of others. In so doing they often put themselves in difficult situations.31 As they didn’t have an appropriate commission for the position of pastors in the cities they lived in, they were not officially entitled to act in such a way and brought upon themselves considerable problems. Moreover, in the process they became involved, probably quite unawares, in the debate on the need to reform the Lutheran Church, which concurrently at that a symbol of exile. Daniel Klesch, Baculus exilii. Der Elend-Stab (Amsterdam: 1682). On the behaviour and arguments of the exiles as a part of goal-directed behaviours see Alexander Schunka, “Exulanten in Kursachsen im 17. Jahrhundert,” in Herberge der Christenheit. Jahrbuch für deutsche Kirchengeschichte 27 (Leipzig: 2003), pp. 17–36. 29 The ordinances regarding beggars in Leipzig, 1648 and 1652: Stadtarchiv Leipzig, Urk.-K 3, No. 11 and Titularakten, VII B 11: fol. 458–463; in Dresden, 1684: Churfl. Sächs. Gnädigst=confirmirte Anordnung, Wie es in Zukunft mit Austheilung der allgemeinen und Special-Allmosen bey hiesiger Stadt, ingleichen mit denen fremmden Brand- und Wetter Beschädigten, auch sonst verunglückten Personen und Exulanten zu halten (Dresden: 1684). 30 Other important members of the Church expressed a negative attitude towards the Hungarian exile communities, e.g in Leipzig the professors at the Gymnasium. Richard Sachse (ed), Acta Nicolaitana et Thomana. Aufzeichnungen von Jakob Thomasius während seines Rektorates an der Nikolai- und Thomasschule zu Leipzig (1670–1684) (Leipzig: 1912), p. 443. 31 Stepan Fekete, Trifolium sacrum, (...) Das ist: Geistliches Kleeblat, vorstellend die allernäheste Ursach der Trübsal des Volks Gottes (Jena: 1677), pp. 5–6. Similar sentiments are frequently voiced in the writings of A. Reiser and D. Klesch. Johann Burius, too, sharply criticized the discrepancy between the teaching of the Formula of Concord and the behaviour of its advocates. Johann Burius, Einfältige doch Christlich wohlgemeynende und erhebliche Motiven (1679), p. 47.

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time Philip Jacob Spener had begun to promote in a form of pietism. Parsons’ boards, especially in bigger towns, therefore watched the invitations extended to the exiles and their arrival literally with jealousy. Similarly, controversies between the local authorities who often supported exiles and the local clergy were often a hindrance to a friendly perception of the arriving exiles and to their stay.32 In spite of the fact that a certain degree of initiative and work was expected from the exiled churchmen, it was not easy for them to obtain permission to preach occasional sermons. Yet these were often the only chance to impress the citizens and induce them to raise funds (contributions) to support the exiles. Exiled preachers faced natural resistance from the local established clerics, especially the royal preachers, but also from senior dignitaries who carefully considered any possible political complications that could be triggered by the granting of asylum to the exiles.33 The exiles’ complaints were first directed specifically against Lower Saxony and Königsberg and later on most frequently against Strassburg, which had a reputation among the exiles of being a “merciless town.”34 If an exiled preacher had secular supporters among the wider community, or if there were any of his former students, schoolmates or old friends from Hungary, it could occur that his colleague in the office ordered him, as a proof of his capacities, to prepare a sermon with a one-day deadline, or assigned him only afternoon sermons or made him prepare a sermon with the topic identical to the one he had had earlier the very same day in the principal (morning) sermon.35 The exiled Hungarian priests of German origin did, of course, have an advantage—the 32

E.g. before his election to the post of priest Andreas Günther did not openly use the recommendation he had received from Duke Moritz in order not to break of the rights of patronage. Lademan, Ein danckender Priester, p. 93. 33 For such attitudes and expressions of antagonism against exiles see also Weh- und demüthige Elend-Klage, pp. 6, 31. 34 The oldest priest in Strassburg said to them: “Ey! Ihr guten Ungrischen Exulanten, Ihr habt euch nur selbst durch eüer tumultieren auff denen Canzeln die Verfolgung und das Exilium auff dem Halse gezogen.” Weh- und demüthige Elend-Klage, pp. 4, 32. In Strassburg the exiles were granted a small sum of alms or viaticum just in order to induce them to leave town immediately. Ibidem, pp. 7–8. Also Burius, Einfältige (...) Motiven, pp. 134–135. According to Conrad Dannhauer, a native of Pozsony, there were few “real Christians” among those “inhospitales et barbari.” On the other hand, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Ulm and Regensburg were described as “Exulanten-Trost,” “Exulum Asylum” or “eine rechte Christopolis.” Ibid., pp. 131–133, 135–141. 35 This happened on a number of occasions to D. Klesch in Cuulmbach in 1677, for example. Daniel Klesch, Cynosura peregrinantium ex pentalogo Christi Evangelico (Jena: 1677).

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Slovak or Hungarian priests often did not have a sufficient knowledge of the German language to deliver fluent lectures to a German audience, a deficiency for which they were often rebuked publicly.36 Confronted with misunderstanding, scorn or even rejection by their environment, the exiles suffered from inner conflicts and eventually might come to criticize the social situation in Germany publicly.37 They were often disillusioned by the fact that people in Germany were less enthusiastic in their religious faith than Hungarians. The often highly educated exiled pastors perceived this situation as a form of divine punishment.38 The hardship-battered exiles did not fully understand the comparatively balanced and stable relationship between the local Lutherans and Catholics that existed in certain imperial towns. Problems were fuelled when they ventured to criticize the local clerics not only on a general level, but even ad personam. For example, Thomas Steller antagonized the entire local clergy board, including the dean, after he revealed 90 errors in sermons preached by their colleague Clement Brecht.39 That was a bit too much for the German community, which viewed such acts as a form of public mutiny (Tumultieren), and warning voices were heard appealing against the appointing to office of Hungarian preachers.40 The two-sided tension, or even the odium nationis Hungaricae, was temporarily abated thanks to the arrival of a new group of exiles. These were the ex-convicts released on February 11, 1676 from the galleys—the Spanish warships where they had served as convict crews. Their fate sparked general interest or even admiration, and they gained the support of the population in Protestant countries. For their part they presented themselves as “true martyrs” who were ready to sacrifice their own life for Christ and claimed that they should have stronger support from believers than voluntary exiles, “the consentants.” In describing their fate Georg 36

As mentioned by Daniel Klesch, Geistlich-Evangelische zweyte Nach-Erndte (Leipzig: 1675). 37 The public mocked the Hungarian exiles because of their unusual dress and referred to them as musketeers, officers, Jews, “Höschern oder Ohlbergern,” “gar starke Büttel- und Stadtknechte,” or “stelliones, scurras, crumenisugas, Pracher, Landstreicher und Beutelsauger, Patriarchen aus anderer Welt.” Weh- und demüthige Elend-Klage, pp. 3, 5. 38 [Anton Reiser], Nothwendigen Gedanken der Evangelischen Prediger in Teutsch-Land über denen Exulanten auß Ungarn (1683), p. 24. 39 Weh- und demüthige Elend-Klage, p. 33. 40 Such was the aim behind the publishing of the book Hungaria debellata. See also Wehund demüthige Elend-Klage, pp. 31–32. According to http://www.vd17.de/, signature VD17 12:167423S, this book may be identical to the anonymously published book Pannonia Felicibus Auspiciis Divi Leopoldi Imp. Caes. Augusti Debellata (after 1670).

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Lani stirred public opinion all around Europe with an account that proved to be a true “bestseller,”41 although there was an equally swift response of written protests from the aggrieved exiles.42 The trouble was that this image of the “true” exile was the creation of a man who had himself escaped from a transportation column to Naples and thus did not have a first-hand experience of the sufferings on board the Spanish galleys (he made his way back through Italy under concealed identity and in the company of a Polish Catholic pilgrim). It is therefore appropriate to ask how the controversies within the Hungarian exile community were perceived, particularly if they surfaced in the form of public disputes that might undermine the credibility of their arguments and self-justifications based on sufferings in the name of Christ. First and foremost, we may point out the self-reflection of the exiles’ own attitudes back in their homeland, when persecution was viewed as a form of well-earned punishment.43 The problem of the persecution of the Church became the leading topic of numerous lectures, sermons and theses, in which the authors exposed weaknesses of the Church in Hungary (ignorance of God’s Word, reluctance to offer contributions, negligence in confession and penitence etc.); at the same time they emphasized that trial by fire could reinforce the Church. Persecution was not to be understood just as restrictions to religious freedom: specifically with reference to Germany it was often stressed that a similar fate may befall the Church in that country if no action was taken to remedy sins and do penitence. According to these arguments, the Church was even more seriously exposed to menace from within, jeopardized by giftige Verleumbder, gottlose Ankläger, false witnesses, corrupt judges and tyrannical officials.44 41

Georg Lani’s Kurtzer und doch wahrhaftiger historischer Extract der grausamen (...) Gefängnüß had been issued already in 1675 and was shortly after published in an enlarged version (the Kurtze und wahrhafte historische Erzehlung). This subsequently appeared in many editions and translations. 42 Johann Sextius and Johann Burius published an anonymous answer to Lani’s book, Theologico-politico-historico-criticae animadversiones (as in n. 16). They defended the attitudes of exiles who had subscribed the commitments. Lani’s version, however, was supported by another who escaped from the galleys, Thobias Masnicius. 43 See Andreas Günther in his sermon, Christus Hungariae valedicens (Strahlsund: 1675). Günther himself noted the content was such as would not be pleasant to many compatriots. 44 Andreas Günther, Des hocherleuchteten Apostel Pauli Christianus persecutionem patiens (Halle: 1676), p. 30.

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Assessments issued by German theological authorities (primarily the universities in Wittenberg and Leipzig) became a means of protection against attacks on the theological standpoints of the exiles either from German theologians or from fellow émigrés. These certificates of correct belief authorized the holders to be involved in Church services and confirmed that their ideas were in accord with true teachings. Such certificates were sought mainly by those who hoped to find a position as office holders in the German church,45 and later on also by those who were preparing, due to changes in the church policy of the Imperial Court in Vienna (after 1681), to return to their church communities in Hungary.46 Another sort of confirmation of correct belief, and also a form of social assistance, was the re-enrollment of former university students free-ofcharge into German universities to allow them to gain higher academic degrees.47 This was also made possible on the basis of scholarships granted to Hungarian exiles by some German rulers.48 In spite of the controversies within and around it, a characteristic feature of the Hungarian exile community was its comparatively strong collective identity. Not only did the exiles form tight-knit social circles (for instance in Wrocław, Zittau and Görlitz, from where they ventured further into German territory), but they also stayed in touch with each other after settling in their new places of employment.49 Evidence of such contacts are the dedications and references to their countrymen in books, sermons and other writings printed in Germany.50 The exiles of45

E.g. the confirmation of the University of Leipzig issued for Andreas Günther on February 21st, 1677. Lademann, Ein danckneder Priester, pp. 90–91. 46 Confirmations were issued by the University of Leipzig for Martinus Tarnóczi and for Peter and Johann Sextius on August 8, 1682, and for Johann Kemmel on November 3, 1682. Copia decisionis super problemate controversio ad submissam instantiam exulum Hungaricarum (Leipzig: 1682); Johann Kemmel, Gaudium pastorale/Der Bethlemischen Kirchen Weynacht-Freude (Leipzig: 1684). 47 Daniel Klesch gained a bachelor degree from Leipzig University free of charge. Daniel Klesch, Geistlich- Evangelische zweyte Nach-Erndte (Leipzig: 1675). T. Masnicius and J. Simonides studied in Wittenberg for three months free of charge. 48 The Duke of Württemberg and Theck, Eberhard III, created a foundation for Hungarian students at the University of Tübingen. Burius, Einfältige Motiven, pp. 124–125. 49 Andreas Günther stressed the importance of a network of old friends and patrons among citizens and courtiers during his search for a new job. See Lademann, Ein danckender Priester, pp. 85–90. 50 Addressees included students defending their dissertations, mourners of those in exile, or persons nominated for an important position, e.g. Michael Ritthaler after his nomination to the position of the librarian in Wolfenbüttel.

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ten maintained their exilic identity even in cases when the length of their stay abroad by far exceeded the years of their earlier life in Hungary. For instance, Andreas Günther presented himself as an exile even after holding the office of municipal vicar in Naumburg for 30 years. Georg Lani also presented his exilic fate throughout his whole life, although he rose from the position of an underprivileged exile to the office of professor in the Gymnasium in Leipzig and assembled a library of over 3,000 volumes.51 German-speaking exiles of literary bent were active members (probably also as a group) of German Baroque literature associations.52 A number of exiles of ethnic Slovak origin who obtained positions as parsons in Czech exilic communities also found their place in German society. Such communities were able to survive over generations and thus avoid assimilation.53 While exile was a significant phase in the personal life of its protagonists, it represented an even greater landmark in the history of the Hungarian Lutheran Church. During their displacement dozens of people were confronted with a foreign environment and its mentality and they had to cope with their own image created by the local society. And for the locals, the exiles bore warning that even a law-based system of religious rights would not necessarily remain inviolate. At that, it inspired the exiles in strengthening their religious identity and self-consciousness, either based on the current theology (pietism) or on inclination to and reinforcement of orthodox teaching as the only “legal” guarantee of preserving the church in its status quo. As the exiles had an opportunity to be close witnesses to interventions against pietism,54 they could not help but be aware of the importance of invariability, i.e. such a form of church and way of teaching as had already been acknowledged by the state. Under the unstable conditions in Hungary such an attitude was more important than any immediate 51 52

53

54

Catalogus Librorum, (...) qui(...) auctionis more (...) offerentibus vendentur (Lipsiae: 1701). Daniel Klesch was a member of the literary societies known as the Deutschgesinnete Genossenschaft and the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, and his brother Christian too was active in the former. They were both invited to organize a Hungarian section. A case in point is the numerous family of the Pilariks. See Felix Schroeder, “Die slowakisch-deutsche Predigerfamilie Pilarik,” Südostdeutsches Archiv IX (1966), pp. 65–88. The Transylvanian student Johann Noscovius was himself involved in the campaign against Heinrich Georg Neuß who as a pietist was subsequently removed from the office of superintendent. See Johann Noscovius, Drey offenbare Untugenden, als Lügen, Leugnen und Lästern, (...) an denen so genandten Pietisten sich hervorthun (1698).

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adoption of ideas gained in exile. Pietism with its emphasis on individual and proactive religious zeal was undoubtedly a menace to the authority of officials in established church communities and to the internal integrity of their parishes. To eliminate any threat to the Church, religious communities and the Church as a whole needed to act uniformly and in mutual accord in their contacts with the state authorities, utilizing their narrow and hard-gained maneuvering space. Orientation to foreign allies that favored Lutheran orthodoxy (e.g. the Swedish King Charles XII) was only an additional tactic in favor of this theological line.55 Thus exile in Germany was no peaceful asylum for the “persecuted in the name of Christ” where they could wait snug, safe and in harmony with the locals till the hard times are over. They often had to adapt to a foreign society, and on the other hand, their criticism of the things they faced in Germany was rarely accepted with appreciation. The exiles were challenged not only by an unexpected and unfavorable perception on the part of the locals but also by struggles within their own circles. Disputes between the Libellatics, Simplicisten and Ignoranten, i.e. those who signed the consent commitment and those who “stubbornly” went to prison,56 demonstrate the depth of the moral struggle of individuals who, aware of their faults and share of guilt, in many cases bore the stigma of exile for the rest of their lives. A growth of self-confidence on the part of the clergy may be considered as another consequence of the experience of exile. Those who returned home could demonstrate a firm proof of their faith and make justified complaints about weak support or protection from secular patrons before and during the Pozsony trials and their subsequent sufferings.57 The experience of persecution and suffering imbedded in the minds of clerics a feeling of moral superiority and a conviction that they had the right to 55

Tibor Fabinyi, “Die ungarische lutherische Kirche im Europa des 17. und beginnenden 18. Jahrhunderts am Beispiel ihrer Beziehungen zu Schweden,” in Wolfgang Breulkunkel–Lothar Vogel (eds.), Rezeption und Reform. Festschrift für Hans Schneider zu seinem 60. Geburtstag, Quellen und Studien zur hessischen Kirchengeschichte 5 (Darmstadt-Kassel: Verl. der Hessischen Kirchengeschichtlichen Vereinigung, 2001), pp. 175–185. 56 On this see Nothwendigen Gedanken, pp. 35–37. 57 This fact is stressed in [Sextius–Burius], Theologico-politico-historico-criticae animadversiones, pp. 48–49. The complaints about very low support from schools and churches are also mentioned by Michael Ritthaler, Wohlgemeinter und in Gottes Wort gegründeter Unterricht, vor alle Einfältige, jetzo in Ungarn bedrängte (...) Christen, wie sie sich (...) verhalten sollen (1675), p. 24.

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represent the entire Church.58 This fact, combined with an absence of a permanently operating administrative apparatus—as convents and synods were not allowed, and the posts of deans and superintendents remained unoccupied for decades—contributed to a long-lasting prevalence of the hierarchical principle in Hungary. In spite of that, or perhaps thanks to all the said paradoxes, controversial development and consequences of the exilic experience constituted a significant element of the Lutheran and Protestant traditions in Hungary, even though those immediately affected were just a small and select group of people.

58

Superintendent Daniel Krman lead the delegation sent in 1708 to the Swedish king Charles XII in a name of the whole Lutheran church.

The Counter-Reformation and the 1672 Kuruc Revolt GEORG B. MICHELS

At our last meeting in February 2004, István György Tóth shared a draft of an essay in which he raised a topic that has not received much attention from historians: the outbreak of Protestant violence against Catholics, particularly Catholic priests and missionaries, during the anti-Habsburg revolts of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in Hungary. Highlighting the tribulations of the Pauline missionaries in Szepes county during the Ferenc Rákóczi II Revolt (1703–1711), Tóth demonstrated that one of the principal driving forces of the revolt was strong resentment of the aggressive Counter-Reformation that had targeted largely Protestant Upper Hungary since the mid-seventeenth century. Tóth reminded us that “the overwhelming majority of the followers of Rákóczi were Protestant” and called for a critical new perspective on “the Rákóczi war of liberty” that takes into account the local impact of “decades of brutal CounterReformation.”1 This essay examines the impact of the Counter-Reformation on an earlier anti-Habsburg revolt, the so-called Kuruc Revolt, which engulfed the 1

István György Tóth, “The Protestant Rebels of a Catholic Prince – Missions and Missionaries in the Rákóczi War” (Working paper, Budapest, 2004), esp. pp. 1–3, 8. Tóth emphasized the isolation and precarious position of Catholic missions in predominantly Protestant counties in several of his publications, including István György Tóth, “The Missionary and the Devil: Ways of Conversion in Catholic Missions in Hungary,” in Eszter Andor (ed.), Frontiers of Faith: Religious Exchange and the Constitution of Religious Identities 1400–1750 (Budapest: Central European University; Strasbourg: European Science Foundation, 2001), pp. 79–87, esp. pp. 84–85; Idem, “Hittérítés vallásszabadság nélkül. Olasz misszionáriusok és magyar nemesurak a 17. századi Magyarországon” (Conversion without religious freedom: Italian missionaries and Hungarian nobles in seventeenth-century Hungary), Századok 135/6 (2001), pp. 1313–1347, esp. pp. 1318–1319, 1323, 1327–1328; “Počiatky rekatolizácie na východnom Slovensku (pôsobenie Jána Vanovicziho a rádu Pavlínov)” [The beginnings of re-Catholization in Eastern Slovakia (the activity of Ján Vanoviczi)], Historický časopis 50/4 (2002), pp. 587–606, esp. pp. 590–594.

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thirteen easternmost counties of Upper Hungary2 in the late summer and fall of 1672.3 The revolt began in Ugocsa and Zemplén counties in late August and early September 1672 with a military invasion by Hungarian nobles who had previously fled to Transylvania to escape Habsburg suppression of the Wesselényi Fronde (1666–1670), a failed magnate conspiracy. According to László Benczédi, the leading scholar of the 1672 revolt, these fugitives (bujdosók) were guided primarily by political goals: their proclamations called for the restoration of the nobility’s ancient corporate rights which had been abrogated by the Habsburg court as collective punishment of the Hungarian nobles for joining the Wesselényi Fronde. The county nobility quickly heeded the fugitives’ rallying cry and joined the fight against Habsburg absolutism with goals of ending the military occupation by the Habsburg army, abolishing the enormous tax burdens that had been imposed on the counties by the Habsburg administrators, and retrieving the estates that had been confiscated by the Vienna court. Benczédi, whose analysis focused on texts written by the revolt’s leaders, argued further that the nobility used “an anti-Habsburg national ideology” to appeal to other social classes. For example, István Petrőczy, a general in the rebel army, emphasized “the consciousness of ethnic unity” and called on all “good Hungarians” (jó magyarság) to fight the “alien” (idegen) Germans. Such appeals were heeded by thousands of Hungarian professional soldiers whom the Habsburg authorities had previously dismissed from their positions as border guards on the frontier with Turkey. According to Benczédi, the nobility’s call for the liberation of Hungary from under “the German yoke” also attracted many peasants and townsmen suffering from an unprecedented tax burden as well as the billeting of Habsburg troops. Thus, the small force of the fugitives grew into a large rebel army 2

These were Szepes, Sáros, Zemplén, Ung, Bereg, Ugocsa, Abauj, Borsod, Torna, Gömör, Heves, Szabolcs, and Szatmár counties. Most of the territory now belongs to Slovakia. 3 With the exception of László Benczédi (see note 4), Hungarian and Slovak scholars have almost entirely focused on other revolts. See Ágnes R. Várkonyi, Magyarország keresztútjain. Tanulmányok a XVII. századról (Hungary at the crossroads: Studies of the seventeenth century) (Budapest: Gondolat, 1978), pp. 263–427; Béla Köpeczi, Tanulmányok a kuruc szabadságharcok történetéből (Studies of the history of the Kuruc freedom struggles) (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2004); Vojtech Dangl, Slovensko vo víre stavovských povstaní (Slovakia in the vortex of the estate uprisings) (Bratislava: Slovenské pedagogické nakladatel’stvo, 1986). The origins and meanings of the term “kuruc” remain much debated. It is frequently used as an omnibus category to describe peasants, soldiers, and nobles who fought against the Habsburg army between 1672– 1711.

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that removed Habsburg power as it advanced, until a successful counteroffensive mounted in late October 1672 led to its swift collapse.4 Was it mere coincidence that the thirteen counties participating in the revolt were also the most thoroughly Protestant counties in the Kingdom of Hungary? And how significant was the fact that the Habsburg authorities—and their local supporters—had, since 1670, been engaged in a systematic offensive against Protestantism that entailed confiscating churches and expelling ministers?5 Benczédi considered such questions to be secondary, although he assumed that the brutal Counter-Reformation must have generated religious hatred. Gyula Pauler, whose work Benczédi repeatedly cited, concluded nearly 150 years ago that the 1672 revolt was accompanied by violent outbursts of anti-Catholicism.6 Other historians, however, have remained silent on this issue, focusing instead on the traumas that befell the Protestant community in the aftermath of the 1672 revolt.7 In particular, much has been written about the 1674 Pozsony (Bra4

László Benczédi, Rendiség, abszolutizmus és centralizáció a XVII század végi Magyarországon (1664–1685) [Feudalism, absolutism, and centralization in late seventeenthcentury Hungary (1664–1685)] (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1980), pp. 57–64; Idem, “Historischer Hintergrund der Predigerprozesse in Ungarn in den Jahren 1673–74,” Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 22 (1976), pp. 257–289; Idem, “Hungarian National Consciousness as Reflected in the Anti-Habsburg and AntiOttoman Struggles of the Late Seventeenth Century,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 10/3–4 (1986), pp. 424–437, esp. pp. 429–431. 5 The full scope of this massive campaign is not yet known. See Gyula Pauler, Wesselényi Ferencz nádor és társainak összeeskűvése (The conspiracy of Palatine Ferencz Wesselényi and his associates), 2 vols. (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1876), 1: p. 62, 64– 68, 2: pp. 236–241, 419–425; István Katona, Historia critica regum Hungariae, 42 vols. (Pest: J. M. Weingand & I. G. Koepf Bibliopolium, 1779–1817), 33: pp. 658–666, 924–930. 6 Benczédi, Rendiség, pp. 63–64, 154–155; Idem, “Historischer Hintergrund,” p. 269; Gyula Pauler, “A bujdosók támadása 1672-ben” (The fugitives’ offensive in 1672), Századok 3 (1869), pp. 1–16, 85–97, 166–78, esp. pp. 13–14, 89, 91. A few scholars, who rely on Pauler’s article, broadly describe the outbreak of a religious civil war, including Sándor Tóth, Sáros vármegye monografiája, 3 vols. (Budapest: Sáros Vármegye Kiadása, 1909–10), 2: p. 278; Tamás Esze, “Bársony György ‘Veritas’-a” (György Bársony’s ‘Veritas’), Irodalomtörténeti közlemények 35/6 (1971), pp. 667–693, esp. pp. 676–677; Ignác Acsády, A magyar nemzet története (History of the Hungarian nation) (Budapest: Athenaeum, 1898), pp. 314–315. 7 See Győző Bruckner, A reformáció és ellenreformáció története a Szepességen (1520–1745ig) [History of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Szepes county (1520–1745)] (Budapest: Szepesi Szövetség Kiadása, 1922); Peter Kónya, Prešov, Bardejov a Sabinov počas protireformácie a protihabsburských povstaní (1670–1711) [Prešov, Bardejov and Sabinov during the Counter-Reformation and the anti-Habsburg uprisings (1670–1711)] (Prešov: Biskupský Urad Východného Distriktu, 2000); and all studies cited below.

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tislava) Trial of the Protestant clergy, the subsequent incarceration of the clergy and their forced exile (including the sale of thirty-two pastors as galley slaves). This well-known story has completely eclipsed the year 1672 when Protestantism temporarily triumphed in Hungary.8 To what extent did Protestants participate in the Kuruc Revolt? And how did the revolt affect the Catholic clergy and laity? To answer these questions, I will look carefully at developments in Sáros and Szepes counties. There were few regions in Royal Hungary where the Counter-Reformation was imposed with such brutal force. After military occupation and economic reprisals for joining the last phase of the Wesselényi Fronde—the so-called Ferenc Rákóczi I Revolt of April 1670—these predominantly Lutheran counties faced religious persecution by Bishop György Bársony, the local leader of the Catholic Church. Bársony, who wrote a polemic tract that equated Protestantism with rebellion, personally led armed detachments into Lutheran communities to seize churches and expel Lutheran pastors. His closest ally was the Polish King Michael (1669–1673) who launched a brutal Counter-Reformation campaign of his own: at least thirteen major towns of Szepes county, the so-called Pawned Towns, thus confronted a dual Counter-Reformation, one emanating from Bársony’s headquarters in Szepeshely (Capitulum Scepusiense), the other from Lubló Castle (Lubowenský-Zamek), the center of Polish administration.9 My analysis will draw heavily on the protocols of an investigation conducted by orders of the Habsburg court after the suppression of the revolt.10 The proceedings began on February 11, 1673 in the home of the Eger Cathedral Chapter in Kassa (Košice) under the supervision of agents 8

See Katalin S. Varga (ed.), Vitetnek ítélőszékre...Az 1674-es gályrarabper jegyzőkönyve (They are taken to the tribunal…The protocol of the 1674 proceedings against the galley slaves) (Pozsony: Kalligram, 2002), pp. 11–23; Peter F. Barton – László Makkai (eds.), Rebellion oder Religion? Die Vorträge des Internationalen Kirchenhistorischen Kolloquiums, Debrecen, 12.2.1976 (Budapest: Református Zsinati Iroda Sajtóosztálya, 1977), pp. 15–22, 47–59, 111–120, 135–150. 9 Bruckner, Reformáció, pp. 263–332; Esze, “Bársony,” pp. 675–681; Pauler, Wesselényi, 2: pp. 3–95. In June 1671, King Michael called for eradicating “the poison of the Lutheran sect” (Bruckner, Reformáció, p. 301). The strong presence of Polish missionaries in areas outside the Thirteen Pawned Towns (see below) suggests a collaboration that was far closer than is currently assumed. 10 Hungarian National Archive (HNA), Film Collection, Eger Chapter Archive, Protocollum Seriale Q, no. 148, pp. 367–534, Attestationes pro Fisco Suae Majestatis Regio, collectae et Inclytae Camerae Scepusiensi sub authentico extradatae (hereafter Attestationes). The manuscript is numbered both by folio and page; my citations use only page numbers.

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from the Eger Bishopric and the Zipser Kammer. These agents had received letters signed personally by Emperor Leopold I and Bishop Thomas Pálffy, the Hungarian Chancellor. The agents’ instructions were to investigate “the latest rebellion (novissima rebellio)” that had broken out in Upper Hungary during the previous fall, and more specifically, to explore what roles had been played by nobles, townsmen, peasants, and Protestant preachers (praedicantes). Particular attention was to be focused on rebel attacks on the Catholic clergy and churches.11 The commission took its task very seriously and soon embarked from Kassa to visit various localities and conduct interrogations on site. The most important stops during the commissioners’ investigation included the following privileged towns (civitates), market towns (oppida), fortresses, and villages: Kisszeben (Sabinov), February 15–19; Bártfa (Bardejov), February 24; Palocsa (Plavec), March 1–2; Berzevice (Brezovica), March 3; Szepesváralja (Spišské Podhradie), March 4; Lőcse (Levoča), March 6; Késmárk (Kežmarok), March 10; Szepeshely (Spišská Kapitula), March 17; Szepesolaszi (Spišské Vlachy), March 18; Korompa (Krompachy), March 18; and Gölnicbánya (Gelnica), March 20.12 During their tour, the commissioners gathered information about many other localities that had participated in the revolt.13 They returned to Kassa on March 24 and submitted their final report to the Eger Chapter.14 Within a little more than a month’s time, the commissioners had gathered 202 testimonies representing a unique record of local developments during the 1672 revolt. These testimonies encompassed participants, bystanders, and victims of all social classes ranging from the peasantry to the highest nobility.15 Many are full of realistic detail, and unlike the later court records of the infamous 1674 Pozsony Trial the Eger Commission’s report contains numerous testimonies that sharply contradict the notion— then prevalent among the Catholic hierarchy—that all Protestants were 11

Attestationes, pp. 367–372, 375–378. I have listed place names in Hungarian with current Slovak designations in brackets for the first citation. 13 Of these, only Lőcse did not join the revolt due to the stationing there of a large Habsburg garrison. The town of Eperjes (Prešov) was investigated by a separate commission. 14 Attestationes, p. 534. 15 The 202 testimonies break down as follows: nobles (25 Catholic, 22 Lutheran, 1 Calvinist, 3 undeclared); townsmen (22 Catholic, 33 Lutheran, 1 undeclared); peasants (22 Catholic, 20 Lutheran, 11 undeclared); clergy (18 Catholic, 3 Lutheran); others, including Habsburg officials, estate administrators, sacristans, and famuli (18 Catholic, 1 Lutheran, 2 undeclared). 12

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rebels. Specifically, the protocols contain extensive testimonies by Protestants, including three Lutheran pastors.16 The revolt began in Sáros county in late September 1672. In response to the rebel army’s approach from neighboring Zemplén county, the leaders of the Sáros nobility met in assembly and issued orders to all nobles to arm their peasants and join a general insurrection (insurrectio generalis). County judges—who were soon joined by officers of the rebel army— fanned out to towns and country estates to deliver written summons to take up arms and join the rebel army “without any delay.” Every noble was to swear an oath “of loyalty to the [Hungarian] Kingdom” (ad fidelitatem Regni) and to “some future Prince” (pro fidelitate futuri alicuius Principis) who would replace the Habsburg Emperor. Nobles who disobeyed these orders were threatened with the destruction of property and loss of life. In early October 1672, this method of mobilization was systematically applied to neighboring Szepes county.17 At first glance, the Eger Commission protocols seem to confirm that the rebellion was orchestrated by the Hungarian nobility against the Habsburg occupation, and that religious concerns were of secondary importance. Political slogans and grievances similar to those discovered by Benczédi in the writings of István Petrőczy and other leaders of the revolt appear in the testimonies of noble participants.18 For example, both Protestant and Catholic nobles expressed a desire for the restoration of traditional Hungarian constitutional rights, and concern about the recent imposition of new taxes, military occupation, and the confiscation of noble lands.19 Many of the nobles who were interrogated were, in fact, identified as reversalistae; that is, they had been arrested and punished in the aftermath of the Wesselényi Fronde, and were released thereafter only in exchange for a letter of loyalty to the Habsburg emperor. There can be no doubt that these and other nobles were fervent opponents of the Habsburgs: witnesses repeatedly reported overhearing noblemen’s disparaging remarks about Emperor Leopold I,20 curses denouncing the Germans,21 and toasts “to the happy success of the Hungarians.”22 16

For a discussion of the 1674 trial records, see S. Varga, Vitetnek ítélőszékre, pp. 23–38. Attestationes, pp. 397, 406, 416, 421–422, 433, 440, 448, 451–452, 521. 18 Benczédi, Rendiség, p. 61, 154; Idem, “Hungarian National Consciousness,” pp. 429– 431. 19 Attestationes, pp. 400, 411, 422, 445, 498, 505, 508. 20 Ibid., pp. 384, 387, 397, 402, 406, 416–417, 442, 507, 517. 21 Ibid., pp. 391, 395, 399, 501–502, 507, 515, 517. 22 Ibid. Testimony of Lutheran noble Caspar Kőszegy, pp. 499–500; pp. 390, 399, 515, 518. 17

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However, the primary target of these Hungarian nobles’ revolt were not the Habsburg army or Habsburg administrators but—surprisingly—the Catholic church and its clergy. About a week after the mobilization had started, probably on September 29, 1672, the nobles Ferenc Baranyay and Gábor Dobay entered the village of Jernye (Jarovnice), not far from the town of Kisszeben. They immediately seized the parish priest, György Bartanyi, and had him stripped naked. After a brutal flogging the badly injured Bartanyi was marched through the village’s streets. He was then apparently kidnapped; a well-informed witness from neighboring Kisszeben saw Bartanyi a few days later, still “almost naked,” with several Lutheran nobles. Bartanyi was eventually released a broken man. In his testimony he emphasized that he had been robbed of everything and utterly ruined.23 A similar attack on Kisszeben culminated in the invasion of the cathedral church and an orgy of destruction which included the dispersal of hosts, the smashing of vases with “sacred liquids,” and the cutting to pieces of liturgical vestments.24 The Franciscan Cziprianus, the parish priest, tried to escape but was grabbed from his hiding place and subjected to such horrible beatings that he “went out of his mind.” Then, his “hair was cut and shaven off in mockery (in ludibrium),” he was stripped naked, and he was paraded to the cathedral church. Here, he was—according to several eye-witness accounts—forced to abjure the Catholic faith and convert to Lutheranism.25 Father Cziprianus remained silent about the details of his tribulations: he was furious with Baranyay and his cohorts for ransacking the church and assaulting other Catholic clergy. Cziprianus also blamed his attackers, whom he identified as leading Lutheran nobles, for making denigrating remarks about the Virgin Mary, and for letting servants and soldiers trample the hosts which had been thrown all over the floor of his church.26 A close look at the protocols reveals that Lutheran nobles played the predominant role in the revolt. There are several indicators of their enthusiastic participation. First, testimonies reveal that Lutheran nobles coerced their Catholic peers to swear an oath of allegiance to the Hungarian constitution. When Lajos Melczer, a prominent Catholic noble from Sáros county, failed to swear the oath, he was seized by a group of Lutheran nobles, threatened 23

Ibid. Testimony of Priest György Bartanyi, pp. 392–395; Testimony of Leonard Fabini, Lutheran burgher of Kisszeben, pp. 420–421; pp. 390, 399, 406. 24 For similar attacks in other locations, see Ibid., pp. 399–400, 402, 405, 415, 418, 430, 434, 498a, 500, 503. 25 Ibid. Testimony of Pastor Andreas Galli, pp. 431–432; pp. 394, 404–406, 410, 414, 424, 427–428, 471. 26 Ibid. Testimony of Father Cziprianus Szaladinus, pp. 411–415, esp. pp. 413–415.

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with death, and “taken by violent means to give the oath.” Ádám Pécsy, a high-ranking Catholic official in Sáros county, was told that “if you want to live, you will have to swear the oath.” Pécsy was lying sick in his bed when confronted with this ultimatum. He had no choice but to obey, even though he protested courageously that he would always remain loyal to His Holiest Majesty.27 There are many similar examples in the protocols.28 A second indicator of the powerful role played by the Lutheran nobility is the speed with which they followed the military mobilization order. Catholic nobles, on the other hand, often failed to mobilize.29 Shortly after written calls to arms had gone out from the county assemblies, Lutheran nobles formed armed detachments with peasants and professional soldiers. For example, the Lutheran nobles Baranyay and Dobay assembled a cavalry unit within a few days of receiving their orders and began to roam Sáros, and later Szepes, counties. Both Baranyay and Dobay were known as fervent anti-Catholics. Baranyay’s first act after joining the revolt had been to shoot the Catholic priest of Nagysáros (Vel’ký Šariš). He loved to boast about the murder and later threatened to impale the entire Catholic population of Kisszeben.30 Dobay was a veteran of the Rákóczi Revolt and had gained notoriety among Catholic nobles by calling for the capture and castration of all Jesuits. During the 1672 revolt, he became known for speeches to his soldiers in which he promised that God would not abandon them since they were fighting for a just cause.31 Many other Lutheran—and indeed a few Calvinist—nobles joined the revolt with similar enthusiasm.32 These other participants included, for example, the Calvinist noble István Bessenyey, who led an earlier attack on a Pauline monastery in Zemplén county. On that occasion his troops 27

Ibid. Testimonies of György Bartanyi and Ádám Pécsy, pp. 393, 404–405. Ibid., pp. 392, 400–402, 412, 420, 429, 433, 452–453, 457. 29 Ibid., pp. 400, 402, 412, 421, 469. 30 Ibid. Testimony of Caspar Mihallyko, Lutheran burgher of Kisszeben, pp. 421–425, esp. p. 423; Testimony of Lutheran noble Ferenc Kőkemezey, pp. 452–453. Baranyay’s campaign against Catholic churches and clergy is well documented, pp. 402, 404–405, 407, 410, 413–414, 417–419, 426, 430, 435. 31 Ibid. Testimony of Bartanyi, p. 394; Pauler, Wesselényi, 2: pp. 12, 29; Attestationes, pp. 387, 391–392, 415, 432, 451. 32 Several Lutheran families played prominent roles in the offensive against the church: Berthóty, Berzeviczy, Desőffy (Lutheran branch), Hedri, and Keczer (Sáros county); Thököly, Görgei, Horváth Stansics, Királyi, and Székely (Szepes county). For example, Ádám Berthóty broke into churches and threatened Catholics with death. Ibid., pp. 400, 403–404, 416, 483–484, 486, 489, 522. Márk Horváth led his peasants into Catholic sanctuaries and threw hosts into the mud, pp. 506–507, 510–512, 518. 28

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broke into burial crypts, hurled corpses from towers, ransacked altars, and tied saints’ statues to the tails of their horses.33 The Pécsy brothers, János and Caspar, identified by several witnesses—including a Lutheran pastor—as great troublemakers, vowed revenge against Catholics: János instructed his troops not to spare any Catholics even if they were the soldiers’ own parents; Caspar boasted that any resistance was useless since “40,000 Turks were ready to join [the rebels].”34 Finally, Ferenc Sziney, a veteran of the Rákóczi Revolt, had fought heroically against the Habsburg army in 1670. Now he was fighting a different battle, breaking into churches and ransacking them. In military fashion, he celebrated his victories by carrying a captured Catholic church banner (vexillum templi) triumphantly through the streets.35 The military campaigns of these and other nobles quickly led to the catastrophic collapse of Catholic church authority. Between September 23 and the first week of October, the period during which noble troops mobilized, Catholic priests and missionaries abandoned their posts in Sáros and Szepes counties and went into hiding. Catholic church power melted away literally overnight. For example, Michael Repkovics, parish priest in the village of Oszikó (Osikov) not far from the town of Bártfa, “went into exile out of fear” but had to leave behind his family to endure the pillage of their home.36 The Polish brothers Marikowszki, parish priests in the villages of Pécsyújfalu (Pečovská Nová Ves) and Szent-György (Hubošovce) in the vicinity of the town of Kisszeben, asked the Catholic nobleman Ádám Pécsy to hide them and eventually escaped to Poland dressed as peasants (in vestibus rusticanis).37 The missionary Adalbert Macsinszky, a member of the Polish branch of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, abandoned his parish of Lándok (Lendak) in the Késmárk district when he heard about the approach of a cavalry unit led by the Lutheran noble István Királyi. One of Királyi’s associates boasted later that if Mac33

Ibid. Testimony of Calvinist noble Joannis Kapossy (384–86, esp. 385); Testimony of Pastor Johannes Regius, pp. 429–431, esp. p. 430; pp. 387, 392, 407, 413, 419, 430. Another Calvinist noble, László Kubinyi, denounced the Catholic faith as “a whore’s religion” (kurva vallás), and the pope for using hundreds of monks as his personal harem (Pauler, Wesselényi, 2: pp. 10, 28; Attestationes, p. 432). 34 Attestationes, testimony of Pastor Paul Regius, pp. 436, 396, 398, 403, 406, 412–413, 418–419. 35 Ibid. Testimony of Michael Szimonis, Lutheran burgher of Kisszeben, pp. 418–419; pp. 389, 395, 423; Pauler, Wesselényi, 2: pp.14, 312. 36 Attestationes, testimony of Michael Repkovics, pp. 444–445. 37 Ibid. Testimony of Peter Marikowszki, p. 439

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sinszky had fallen into his hands, he would immediately have hung Macsinszky from the door of the parish house.38 Even Bishop Bársony, the highest-ranking Catholic hierarch in Upper Hungary, failed to return to his post in Szepeshely from a trip to neighboring Poland.39 Catholic priests who fell into rebel hands were usually treated rather brutally, but there were a few exceptions. For example, the Pauline Dominik Kosz was chased from his missionary outpost in Hunfalva (Huncovce). Rather than going abroad, he sought refuge in the home of the parish priest of Késmárk, the fellow Pauline Adrian Sesztak. Rebel soldiers soon broke into Sesztak’s home and dragged both Kosz and Sesztak into the streets. Sesztak, who had already been threatened with decapitation, feared the worst. But a captain (capitaneus) in the rebel army happened to pass by and gave orders to leave the Paulines alone.40 Surprisingly, the Paulines were allowed to stay in their monastery and even to celebrate Mass, although they were kept under house arrest. On one occasion Kosz requested that he be allowed to hear the confession of a sick village dweller. He was told in no uncertain terms to remain in the monastery, but that “the invalid would be brought [to him] in a cart.”41 There is a striking correlation between the expulsion of the Catholic clergy in the 1672 revolt and the implementation of the CounterReformation in the same areas prior to the revolt. The Pauline monk Kosz, for example, had arrived in Hunfalva in May 1670 “with many Papist scoundrels (mit viel Bäpstischen Gesindlein)” to occupy the church and chase away the Lutheran pastor. He was only temporarily successful since the village’s populace—led by a group of women—seized the church building and led the pastor triumphantly through the streets to reclaim the parish house. The parish had to be twice occupied by troops before Kosz could actually function as the parish priest in early 1672.42 Kosz’ story is 38

Ibid. Testimony of Adalbert Macsinszky, pp. 518–519. Gáspár Hain, Szepességi vagy lőcsei krónika (Zipserische oder Leütschaverische Chronica vndt Zeitbeschreibung) (Lőcse: A Szepesmegyei Történelmi Társulat, 1910– 1913), p. 413. While Bársony was in Poland his palace and cathedral were ransacked by noble militias and townsmen from Szepesváralja. See Attestationes, pp. 397, 471, 474. 40 Kosz does not tell us who this captain was. But he must have been very powerful to intercede in this way. 41 Attestationes, testimony of Father Dominik Kosz, pp. 501–2. Similarly, the Franciscans at Bártfa were not harmed thanks to the intervention of a powerful Lutheran noble. See testimony of the Catholic noble János Szegedi, pp. 440–442, esp. p. 442. 42 Bruckner, Reformáció, pp. 269–270; Rudolf Weber (ed.), Historischer Geschlechtsbericht (Familienchronik) von Georg Buchholtz, den Älteren (Budapest: Kaiserliche und Königliche Hofdruckerei Victor Hornyánßky, 1904), pp. 132–133. 39

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similar to that of Father Cziprianus: like Kosz, the Franciscan had to be imposed twice by force. He was first installed in 1671 by a military detachment led by officials of the Eger bishopric, but he soon encountered great difficulties. In early 1672, angry burghers led by the Lutheran pastor dragged him out of the church and beat him badly. Cziprianus was able to resume his role as Catholic priest after a massive invasion of armed Catholic peasants was organized by the Eger church authorities.43 Even Bishop Bársony used military force against Lutheran communities. As early as April 1671, he led troops of the Catholic magnate István Csáky into villages and market towns to expel the Lutheran clergy en masse.44 Bársony did not respect the Lutheran nobility’s right of patronage (ius patronatus), nor did he heed local religious sentiments. In Káposztafalva (Hrabušice), for example, women attacked Bársony with stones and mud when he tried to seize their church. But a large military detachment suppressed the riot and brutally expelled the Lutheran pastor.45 Soldiers led by the same Bársony beat the Lutheran pastor of Illésfalva (Iliašovce) mercilessly and dragged him from the church by his hair. Bársony had also participated in the expulsion of the Lutheran clergy from Farkasfalva (Vlková), Gölnicbánya, Kakaslomnic (Vel’ka Lomnica), Kluknó (Kluknava), Lublókorompa (Kremná), Rihnó (Richnava), and Toporc (Toporec) and many other localities that were subsequently reclaimed by the militias of Lutheran nobles in the fall of 1672.46 The Lutheran seizing of parishes repeatedly went hand-in-hand with attacks on the estates of Catholic nobles who had promoted the CounterReformation. For example, the expulsion of the Polish priest Blasius Tomkovics from Palocsa parish in the north-western part of Sáros county preceded an assault on the estates of István Horváth Palocsay, the scion of a powerful Catholic family that had vowed to eradicate Lutheranism. Palocsay was ordered to join the rebel camp, but he fled to Dunajec Fortress 43

Kónya, Prešov, Bardejov a Sabinov, pp. 44–45. On Csáky, see Pauler, Wesselényi, 2: pp. 21–23; László Benczédi, “Szelepcsényi érsek ügye és a lipóti abszolutismus megalapózáza 1670 őszén” (The case of Archbishop Szelepcsényi and the foundation of Leopoldian absolutism in the fall of 1670), Történelmi szemle 18/2–3 (1975), pp. 489–502, esp. pp. 492–494. 45 Weber, Historischer Geschlechtsbericht, p. 133; Bruckner, Reformáció, pp. 253, 267– 268. 46 Bruckner, Reformáció, pp. 267–269; Samuel Weber, “Az ellenreformáczió a Szepességen” (The Counter-Reformation in Szepes county), Protestáns szemle 19 (1907), pp. 583–588, 645–650, esp. pp. 586–587, 645–646; Attestationes, pp. 484, 487–488, 489a, 499, 501–502, 510–512. 44

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on the Polish border instead. Soon afterward, troops led by the nobles Bessenyey and Dobay put Palocsay’s estates to the torch.47 Szepes county Juror (juratus) Peter Mrasz, a fervent promoter of the Catholic faith in the so-called Sedes Decemlanciatorum district, suffered a similar fate. Peter was arrested after his brother Martin, the local parish priest, disappeared without a trace. He was stripped naked, paraded through the streets of Késmárk, and thrown into prison where two high-ranking servitors of the Lutheran magnate Zsigmond Thököly tried to force him to reveal his brother’s whereabouts. Peter did not cooperate and shortly afterwards a band of Szepes nobles descended on his estates, plundered all of his houses, barns, gardens, and beehives, and finally drove away his horses and cattle.48 The Lutheran county nobles formed a close alliance with the magistrates of Upper Hungary’s most important towns. The Eger Commission gathered substantial information about support for the nobility’s revolt in the free royal towns of Bártfa, Késmárk, and Kisszeben; the towns of Szepesolaszi and Szepesváralja, which were under Polish jurisdiction; and the mining towns of Gölnicbánya and Korompa.49 The German leaders of these towns welcomed military units of the Hungarian county nobility with open arms. Other towns such as Libice (L’ubica), Szombathely (Spišská Sobota), and Poprád (Poprad) sent soldiers and military supplies, money, horses, and food while awaiting arrival of the militias.50 The sudden change in power relations opened up an unexpected opportunity to punish men—and a handful of powerful women—who until re47

Ibid. Testimonies of Blasius Tomkovics and István Palocsay, pp. 467–469; Testimonies of six Palocsay servitors, pp. 469–470; Weber, “Ellenreformáczió,” pp. 587–588. Among Catholic nobles targeted by similar actions were Sigismund Hollo, Janos Gundelfinger (“a worthless occupier of churches”), György Erdődy, and István Csáky. See Attestationes, pp. 446, 453, 458, 475–476, 478, 488–489, 533. 48 Ibid. Testimony of Peter Mrasz, pp. 513–516; Historia ecclesiae evangelicae Augustanae confessioni addictorum in Hungaria universe: praecipue vero in tredecim oppidis Scepusii (Halberstadt: Karl Brüggemann Verlag, 1830), p. 160. 49 Available town histories remain silent about the 1672 revolt. See Historia ecclesiae evangelicae; Ivan Chalupecký, Dejiny Krompách (A history of Krompachy) (Košice: Východoslovenské vydavatel’stvo, 1981); Andrej Kokul’a, Dejiny Bardejova (A history of Bardejov) (Košice: Východoslovenské vydavatel’stvo, 1975); Christian Genersich, Merkwürdigkeiten der Königlichen Freystadt Késmark in Oberungarn (Leutschau: Joseph Karl Mayer Verlag, 1804). For an indirect reference, see Peter Kónya (ed.), Dejiny Sabinova (A history of Sabinov) (Sabinov: Sabinov Mestský Urad, 2000), pp. 121–122. 50 Attestationes, pp. 379, 499–500, 517; Bruckner, Reformáció, pp. 300, 303.

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cently had been favorites of the leading Catholic power brokers in Poland and the Habsburg empire. In Bártfa, for example, the magistrate enlisted military help to burn down the estate of the town noble János Szegedi who had been a strong promoter of the Counter-Reformation since the late 1650s.51 In the predominantly Lutheran town of Szepesolaszi, the magistrate turned against the noble István Roskoványi who had supported the Polish Piarist Ferenc Hanacius’ aggressive attempts to open the town to Catholic worship and preaching. The Lutheran town judge “kicked [Roskoványi] out from his house like a dog,” and had him seized, locked up, and “robbed of all of his belongings.”52 However, the magistrates went much further than punishing elite supporters of the Counter-Reformation.53 In Korompa, where the Piarist Hanacius had established a missionary outpost, the entire Catholic population was forced out apparently by the town judge Lorenz Keil. Three Catholic witnesses described how they were surrounded in front of the town hall and threatened by townsmen under Keil’s leadership. The judge and his associates proclaimed: “You unworthy Catholics! You thought that our God was already dead, but now you see that our God will live; yours, however, has perished and is dead.”54 In Gölnicbánya, the town authorities pointed out Catholic houses to rebel soldiers for subsequent plunder.55 In Szepesolaszi Thomas Liptak, a client of the Lutheran town judge, led rebel soldiers “door by door (ostiatim) to Catholic houses so that their properties would be pillaged.”56 And in Késmárk, a wellconnected victim of such plunder suggested a carefully planned conspiracy to pillage all Catholic houses.57 51

Szegedi had triumphed only after Habsburg troops seized Lutheran churches in April 1671, and again in May 1672. See Kokul’a, Dejiny Bardejova, p. 145; Kónya, Prešov, Bardejov a Sabinov, p. 42. 52 Attestationes, testimonies of Catholic nobles Pál Szügyi and István Roskoványi, pp. 482, 484–485; Bruckner, Reformáció, pp. 310, 315. 53 The punishments of Szegedi and Roskoványi were not isolated events. In Kisszeben, Judith Kapi was threatened with torture and death, Attestationes, pp. 387, 391, 415. Her husband, Ferenc Usz, was also a target, ibid., pp. 387–390. In Korompa, Ezekiel Vás lost everything he owned and was tortured, ibid, pp. 486–487. In Késmárk, Christoph Horváth suffered loss of property and other humiliations, ibid., pp. 475, 479, 500, 502b. In Gölnicbánya, János Molnar’s wife was badly beaten and injured, ibid., p. 523. 54 Ibid., pp. 489–490; Chalupecký, Dejiny Krompách, pp. 41–43. 55 Attestationes, testimony of Martin Pollyak, burgher of Gölnicbánya, p. 523. 56 Ibid., testimonies of Szűgyi, Roskoványi, and three other Catholics, pp. 482, 485–486. 57 Ibid., testimony of Elizabeth Chmelarka, p. 508. Chmelarka’s Lutheran sister-in-law warned her that all Catholic houses would soon be pillaged.

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The persecution of Catholics appears to have been most intense in the towns of Kisszeben, Szepesolaszi, and Bártfa. In these towns fervently anti-Catholic magistrates openly expressed their desire for revenge and drastic action. Benedikt Roxer, the town judge of Szepesolaszi, told a prominent Catholic burgher who begged him for protection that “you Catholics now shall eat what you cooked up in the past (quod pridem cocsistis jam comedatis).”58 N. Walter, a member of the Kisszeben senate, spoke of a life-and-death struggle between Catholics and Lutherans: “We either expel all of these worthless (nequam) Catholics or they will do the same to us.” And Leonard Pus, a Bártfa senator, denounced Catholics as mignons of the Devil (diabolici Catholici) and as traitors who had called on Ruthenian peasants to come to their rescue.59 In Szepesolaszi, Catholic residents were arrested, tortured, and handed over to rebel soldiers for punishment. Only the intervention of the Lutheran pastor Daniel Klesch, who rescued several Catholics from prison, seems to have prevented the worst.60 In Kisszeben and Bártfa, by contrast, the Lutheran clergy did not come to the aid of Catholic residents. Magistrates of these two towns subjected Catholic homes to carefully orchestrated campaigns of plunder.61 They also forbade Lutheran households to employ Catholic servants and maids, and issued strict warnings to cut all social ties and conversations with Catholics. Town leaders particularly targeted converts whom they “persecuted completely and in unheard-of ways,” often forcing them back into the Lutheran faith. Those who remained Catholic were ejected from positions of influence and expelled from the community. In Bártfa, the predominantly Catholic weavers’ guild was threatened with dissolution and expulsion.62 However, such persecutions of Catholics were not supported by the majority of the Lutheran town populations. Several Lutheran witnesses in Kisszeben—including the Lutheran clergy—sought to distance themselves from the actions taken by their magistrate: some claimed that they themselves had been threatened with violence for not agreeing with the town authorities. Others insisted that the town leaders had secretly conspired 58

Ibid., testimony of Szűgyi, pp. 482; pp.,383, 472–473, 488–489. Ibid., testimonies of two Catholic townsmen, pp. 410, 443; testimony of Peter Stoeckel, Lutheran burgher of Bartfa, p. 444. 60 Ibid., testimonies of Szűgyi and five other Catholics, pp. 483, 485, 488. 61 Ibid., testimonies of two Catholics and two Lutherans, pp. 398–400, 410, 428–429. 62 Ibid., testimonies of three Lutheran burghers, two Catholic priests, and three Catholic residents, pp. 402, 443–444, 445, 447–448, 451, 456. 59

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with the county nobility to punish the Catholic population.63 Several prominent victims of anti-Catholic violence supported these assessments: György Bartanyi, the parish priest of Jernye, observed that Lutheran burghers of Kisszeben had rebuked the Catholic clergy’s torturers; the Franciscan Johannes Fivecsky reported that his life had been saved in Bártfa by Lutheran townsmen who stopped a radical noble from shooting him; and Father Cziprianus emphasized that magistrates and nobles had established a regime of terror in which Catholics—both clergy and laity— had been tortured, beaten and robbed.64 The reluctance of many Lutheran townsmen to participate in the persecution of Catholics is mirrored by the passivity of the peasantry. They too expressed their displeasure with the ruthlessness of the nobility and spoke about the great harm (plurima damna) caused by the violence.65 For example, Lutheran serfs owned by the Raszlaviczy family rejected their masters’ violence against fellow villagers who had converted to the Catholic faith. They also accused their lords of breaking into the parish church and robbing the Catholic priest of all his belongings. Serfs who had been forced back into the old faith insisted that they had happily converted to the Catholic faith. They resented the return of their former pastor who coerced them back “into the perversion of the Lutheran faith” with the military support of their masters. These peasant converts were only too eager to denounce their lords as avid haters of the Catholic clergy and the Viennese crown.66 A few spontaneous outbreaks of peasant anger against the Catholic clergy were recorded by the Eger Commission. For example, the peasants of Palonca (Plavnica) took up arms and banned the previously mentioned Father Tomkovics from their village even before the arrival of a noble militia. These peasants spoke about Tomkovics with considerable bitterness and beseeched their Lutheran mistress to duly punish the 63

See, for examples, testimonies of Lutherans Fabini, Michael Jaray, Georg Henrich, Mihallyko, Matthias Pomert, György Szalad, Georg Winter. Ibid., pp. 420–429, 447– 449, 455–456. 64 Ibid., testimonies of Bartanyi, Cziprianus, and Father Joannes Fivecsky, pp. 394, 414– 415, 443–444. 65 Ibid., testimonies of three peasants from Orkuta (Orkucany), pp. 410–11; testimonies of seven Lutheran peasants from Szekcsőalja (Šiba), Lófalu (Kobyly), and Erdővágás (Richvald), pp. 456–457, 462; testimonies of seven peasants from Jékelfalva (Jaklovce) and Margitfalva (Margecany), pp. 525–526. 66 Ibid., testimonies of eleven Catholic and six Lutheran peasants from Raszlavica (Raslavice), pp. 459–462, esp. p. 460.

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priest.67 Similarly, the peasants of Nyársadó (Ražňany), a village in the vicinity of Kisszeben, were furious because the Catholic priest of Kisszeben had seized a chalice and other valuable liturgical utensils (aparamenta) from their parish church. The entire village voluntarily joined the revolt and swore allegiance to the rebel army.68 It is important to note that the Lutheran clergy did not play a leading role in the developments discussed here. The Eger commissioners asked every witness about the extent of the Lutheran clergy’s involvement but found only scanty evidence of any participation. For example, Pastor Basil Lassius, a client of the Thököly clan, prayed in the chapel of Késmárk castle for the “triumph of the Hungarians” and the return of Imre Thököly from Transylvania.69 In Osztrópatak (Ostrovany), where the Berthóty clan had a family estate, a pastor called for military resistance against the Habsburg dynasty and expressed his hope that the Lutheran Electors of the German Empire would help the Hungarian nobility.70 In Pécsújfalu, the home of the Pécsy clan, another pastor gave sermons against the Catholic faith and the Habsburg monarchy.71 The Slavic and German pastors of Bártfa gave sermons in which they argued that “the doctrine of the Catholics was false.”72 Pastor Daniel Klesch, the pastor of Szepesolaszi, also gave sermons against the Catholic Church; he was a charismatic preacher with a significant popular following but—as we have seen—he also intervened to protect Catholics.73 The testimonies gathered by the Eger Commission present convincing cases against only two Lutheran pastors. First, Andreas Galli, the Slavic preacher of Kisszeben, preached that God himself “had suppressed falsity and elevated truth by miraculously returning the churches which had been taken away by the Catholics.” He participated in the forced conversion of Father Cziprianus “by hearing his confession and giving him the Lord’s Supper (Caenam Domini) according to [our] rite.” Galli did not deny the 67

Ibid., testimony of Tomkovics, pp. 468–469. Ibid., testimonies of Cziprianus and Lajos Melczer, pp. 401, 412. Similar peasant actions occurred in Gábólto (Gaboltov) near Bártfa, p. 467, and Sörkút (Výborná) near Késmárk, p. 507, 519. 69 Ibid., testimonies of three Késmárk Catholics, pp. 499, 507–508, 517–518. 70 Ibid. This pastor remained unnamed, pp. 392, 394, 413. 71 Ibid. This pastor also remained unnamed, pp. 397, 415, 419, 444, 460. 72 Ibid., testimony of Lutheran Peter Stoeckel, pp. 444a, 445; Varga, Vitetnek ítélőszékre, pp. 48, 60. 73 Attestationes, testimony of Andreas Ondreikovics, Canon of Szepes Cathedral Chapter, p. 479. 68

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charges against him, but he pleaded that he had been coerced by the nobles Baranyay and Bessenyey.74 The other Lutheran clergyman was Paul Regius, the junior German pastor of Kisszeben. Regius gave radical sermons, participated in the attack on the cathedral church, and pointed out Catholic houses to rebel soldiers for plunder. He also insisted in his testimony that he had been coerced by Baranyay and other nobles.75 It is perhaps not surprising that Galli and Regius played prominent roles in the 1674 Pozsony Trial. There was, indeed, substantial evidence against them and therefore no need to fabricate accusations.76 However, their behavior remained the exception rather than the rule among the Lutheran clergy. The protocols of the Eger Commission suggest several conclusions: First, the Lutheran nobility was primarily responsible for the revolts in Szepes and Sáros counties, as Benczédi also observed. Second, the Lutheran clergy did not play a significant role in these revolts. Third, and most surprisingly given Benczédi’s assertions to the contrary, ordinary people did not play highly visible roles in the revolts. Peasants, for the most part, endured the arrival of noble militias in their villages; they repeatedly insisted in their testimonies that they accepted the return of the Lutheran clergy only because they had no other choice. Many townsmen expressed reservations about the violence perpetrated by their magistrates and by the county nobility. Mob violence against Catholics occurred, but it was largely orchestrated by powerful magistrates and carried out by recruited local thugs.77 The passivity of the vast majority of the population is perplexing. Did ordinary witnesses consciously downplay their participation in the revolt? This conclusion is unlikely, since many other testimonies confirm the selfeffacing statements by the least powerful members of society. Lutheran nobles, for example, who could easily have shifted blame for the revolt onto peasants, did not do so. Instead, they pointed their fingers at other Lutheran nobles to deflect attention from their own involvement. Also, we must consider that Catholic witnesses, who had every reason to call for the punishment of their persecutors, stated repeatedly that ordinary Lutherans were not responsible for victimizing the Catholic clergy and laity. 74

Ibid., testimony of Pastor Galli, pp. 431–432; pp. 398, 415, 423, 425–426. Ibid., testimony of Pastor Regius, pp. 436; pp. 410, 415, 424. 76 Varga, Vitetnek ítélőszékre, pp. 49, 61, 204, 207, 213, 299. 77 Two bands of hooligans, one led by a shoemaker and the other by students (companones Luterani) operated in Kisszeben. Testimonies of Lutheran burghers Johannes Stoeckel and Georg Henrich. Attestationes, pp. 419–420, 427–429. 75

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What then explains the silence of most peasants and townsmen? Did the Habsburg army’s vicious punitive campaigns against peasants in previous years intimidate them into submission? Did serfs resent the nobility’s exploitation of their labor and refuse to rally to the nobility’s support? Did rank-and-file townsmen, who were at the mercy of all-powerful magistrates, decline to act for similar reasons? To be sure, the Eger commissioners did not elicit much information from ordinary men and women. Peasant testimonies, for example, tend to be quite short.78 And while the Eger Commission protocols contain scant information, other sources reveal even less about the possible motivations of ordinary people. In fact, Protestant chronicles, autobiographies by exiled pastors (Exulantenliteratur), parish histories, missionary reports, town archives, and Habsburg military archives are almost completely silent about the 1672 revolt.79 Popular attitudes toward the Counter-Reformation and the Kuruc Revolt thus remain obscured and many questions are still unanswered. The primary actors of the Kuruc Revolt were clearly nobles. However, when we examine the nobility’s actions rather than their proclamations and writings, we observe a struggle less against Habsburg power and its agents (e.g., army, tax collectors, officials) than against the Catholic Church. What explains the nobility’s targeting of the Catholic Church? To what extent did the Habsburg court’s confiscation of Protestant noble lands and properties in the aftermath of the Wesselényi Fronde benefit the Catholic Church and Catholic nobility?80 Was the behavior of Lutheran nobles driven primarily by religion, as is suggested by some strong antiCatholic statements? Or was the ransacking of Catholic churches and pillaging of Catholic nobles’ estates perhaps economically motivated? 78

Serfs owned by the Raszlaviczy clan and the towns of Bártfa and Kisszeben responded with several sentences each. Ibid., pp. 410–411, 454, 459–462. Others fell silent after only one or two sentences or simply deferred to previous speakers. Ibid., pp. 456–457. By comparison, the testimony of townsman Caspar Mihallyko comprised five pages. Ibid., pp. 421–425. 79 On this source dilemma, see Tibor Fabiny, “Religio és rebellió. Szempontok a gályarabság okainak teljesebb megértésehez” (Religion and rebellion: Considerations for a more complete understanding of the reasons behind galley slavery), Theologiai szemle 18/5–6 (1975), pp. 148–153. On town and military archives, see Sándor Münnich, Igló királyi korona- és bányaváros története (History of the royal crown’s mining town of Igló) (Igló: Igló Város Tanácsa, 1896), pp. 2–3; Chalupecký, Dejiny Krompách, pp. 42, 170; István Szabó, “Protestáns egyháztörténeti adatok az 1670–1681. évekből a bécsi hadilevéltárból” (Data on Protestant church history from the years 1671–1681 from the Vienna War Archive), Egyháztörténet, N. S., 1/2–3 (1958), pp. 203–230, esp. p. 203–204. 80 Wesselényi, 2: pp. 160–170, 200–205, 250–252, 312–318, 362–373.

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Economic considerations actually help to explain the nobility’s close alliance with town magistrates. Both groups had been targeted economically by the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the Wesselényi Fronde. The details of this development remain sketchy, but we can discern some of the outlines: for example, an unknown number of Lutheran nobles from Szepes and Sáros counties lost their estates—or parts of their estates—to the Catholic church in 1670. A list of sequestered properties in the Vienna archives contains the names of Lutheran nobles who, not coincidentally, also figured prominently in the 1672 revolt. These nobles include members of the Keczer clan, one of the most powerful families in Sáros county, as well as the Királyi clan. Both of these clans handed over tracts of land to the archbishop of Esztergom and to the Jesuits.81 In towns, magistrates relinquished houses to Catholic priests and suburban estates to religious orders such as the financially starved Pauline Order. Lutheran community endowments were used to bankroll Catholic missionary activity, and arbitrary fines were exacted for the continued functioning of Lutheran schools.82 Thus, both noble and urban Protestant elites had much to gain from reversing the economic losses incurred during the CounterReformation. The alliance between Hungarian-speaking nobles and German-speaking magistrates raises another complication in assessing motivations for the revolt. How important were the national slogans of the Hungarian nobility which Benczédi viewed as ideological tools in the fight against Habsburg domination? If indeed the purpose of the Hungarian nobility had been to rally “the whole nation” to its cause, then the consequences were unexpected. For example, most Hungarian Catholic nobles did not join voluntarily but had to be coerced. In fact, several Catholic nobles were subjected to violence. At the same time, German-speaking patricians joined the Lutheran nobility’s fight “against the Germans” and turned against Hungarianspeaking lay promoters of the Counter-Reformation (such as János Szegedi in Bartfa). Given the exceptional prominence of the Slavic-speaking pastor Galli in the revolt of Kisszeben, it is likely that the German town magistrate acted together with some of the Slavic-speaking town residents. Thus, the Hungarian nobility won support for its struggle among German and Slavic speakers in towns. This suggests that it was not primarily “Hungarian na81

Péter Ágoston, A magyar világi nagybirtok története (Budapest: Grill Károly Könyvkiadóvállalata, 1913), pp. 253–255. 82 I. Tóth, “Počiatky rekatolizácie,” pp. 597–599; Bruckner, Reformáció, pp. 266–267, 270, 281, 284, 301–303, 330, 333; Historia ecclesiae evangelicae in Hungaria, pp. 154–158.

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tional consciousness”83—a category that was in any case invented long after the seventeenth century—that unified resistance against the Habsburg court, but rather a combination of religious, economic, and political factors. To fully assess the role of religion per se in the Kuruc Revolt, it is important to study the participation of the other eleven, mostly Calvinist, counties of Upper Hungary.84 Were Protestant nobles—both Lutheran and Calvinist—united in their reaction to the Counter-Reformation? How did Calvinists experience the confiscation of churches and the expulsion of ministers in the aftermath of the Wesselényi Fronde? Did the rank-and-file population and clergy more readily participate in the Kuruc Revolt, or did the Calvinist nobility dominate there as well? These are some of the questions that need to be addressed in a future study. Finally, we must consider that even after the brutal suppression of the Kuruc Revolt in late 1672, Catholic missionaries reported ongoing difficulties for Catholic clergy. In May 1674, for example, the vice-prefect of the Pauline Order wrote to Rome lamenting the “ultimate revolution and ruin” of church life in Upper Hungary; several Pauline monks had fled their parishes to avoid violence and abduction, among them the priest of Gölnicbánya. In October 1675, the Franciscan Ferdinand Albrecht wrote to Rome and described his tribulations, including a mob attack in Kisszeben in June 1673. After enduring such horrible sufferings, he finally converted to the Lutheran faith and married. And in October 1676, Bishop Bársony wrote that priests were not safe in Upper Hungary: “They have not only been captured in their parishes and most dreadfully tortured, but even lost their lives.”85 The scene was thus set for the next revolt, the socalled Imre Thököly Uprising (1678–1685), which again posed significant challenges to the authority of the Catholic Church in Szepes and Sáros counties.86 83

Benczédi, “Hungarian National Consciousness,” p. 430. This research should also include the town of Eperjes which, unlike other towns in Szepes and Sáros counties, had a sizable Calvinist community. A related revolt which erupted in largely Lutheran Arva county after the suppression of the Szepes and Sáros revolts also deserves attention. See Pauler, “Bujdosók,” pp. 176–177. 85 István György Tóth (ed.), Relationes missionariorum de Hungaria et Transylvania (1627–1707) (Budapest: Ráday Gyűjtemény; Rome: Római Magyar Akadémia, 1994), p. 189; Ferenc Galla, “Magyar tárgyú pápai felhatalmazások, felmentések és kiváltságok a katolikus megújhodás korából” (Papal mandates, exemptions, and privileges pertaining to Hungary from the period of Catholic renewal), Levéltári közlemények 24 (1946), pp. 71–169, esp. pp. 111, 162. 86 See Bruckner, Reformáció, pp. 379–390; Kokul’a, Dejiny Bardejova, pp. 150–151; Chalupecký, Dejiny Krompách, pp. 42–43. 84

II.2. Symbol and Representation

A Funeral and a Political Pamphlet: The Funeral Sermon for the Archbishop Johann Schweikard of Mainz in 1626∗ RADMILA PAVLÍČKOVÁ

He had not ceased his ardent prayers until the Sun set in the West and the heroic Josue Tylli had after many glorious triumphs finally beaten the mighty King of Denmark from the field. And so our Moses, at last, through his early death, when told the joyful news about the victory secured, lowered his arms and found comfort in those words: Dominus exaltatio mea, It is the Lord, who raises me up; And he commended his loyal soul to His grace1 The Archbishop of Mainz, Johann Schweikard von Kronberg, died on September 17, 1626,2 and was buried a short time afterwards, on October 1, in the cathedral of Mainz. The funeral was attended by canons, friars ∗

The author would like to thank the Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel) and the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic for their support during the writing of this essay. 1 J. R. Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig Welche nach Christseligem, den 17. Septembris Anno 1626. zu Aschaffenburg, vorgangenem Ableiben, deβ in Gott ruhenden Fursten vnd Herrn, Herrn Johann Schweickhardten, Ertzbischoffens zu Meyntz, deβ H. Romischen Reichs, durch Germanien, ErtzCantzlers vnd Churfürstens. Als Ihre Churfl. Gnaden Christmiltisten Andeckens, den ersten Octobris, mit gewohnlicher Catholischer solennitet, im hohen Dhombstifft zu Meyntz, Christlich zu der Erden bestattet... (Mainz: 1626), pp. 15–16. I have consulted the copy of the sermon preserved in Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel (hereafter HAB Wolfenbüttel), A: 434.2 Theol. (3). 2 Johann Schweikard von Kronberg (1553–1626) was elected archbishop of Mainz in February 1604. He died at the castle of Aschaffenburg, which he had built between 1613 and 1619. See Erwin Gatz (ed.), Die Bischöfe des Heiligen Römischen Reiches 1448 bis 1648 (Berlin: Duncker&Humblot, 1996), pp. 654–656; Anton Philips Brück, “Das Erzstift Mainz und das Tridentinum,” in Georg Schreiber, Das Weltkonzil von Trient II. (Freiburg: Herder, 1951), pp. 193–243, esp. pp. 238–239; Friedhelm Jürgensmeier, “Kurmainz,” in A. Schindling and W. Ziegler (eds.), Die Territorien des Reichs im Zeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisierung. Land und Konfession 1500–1650, Bd 4, Mittleres Deutschland (Münster: 1992), pp. 61–97; Idem, Handbuch der Mainzer Kirchengeschichte (Würzburg: Aschendorff, 2002), III/1, pp. 149–184.

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and many other men of clergy, as well as by kinsmen, noblemen and people of the court, the university, and the city. The funeral sermon, later published in printed form, was delivered by the late archbishop’s confessor, Johann Reinhard Ziegler, S.J.3 A funeral has always been an event full of many other meanings than that of the simple interment of the deceased body. Especially among social elites it carried meanings of highest importance, for the deceased as well as for the company of mourners. Not the last purpose of the ritual was to ensure immortality for the “social body” of the deceased in the public collective memory. Hence the practice of displaying the body publicly, the castra doloris symbols, the spectacle of the funeral, the distribution of funeral prints to accompany the funeral sermon, and so on. Originating in ancient (oratio funebris) and early Christian tradition, funeral sermons were most probably limited to the highest levels of society (i.e. the secular and clerical hierarchy) during the Middle Ages. The early modern era brought two important changes into the evolution of these occasional homilies: printing made possible the publishing and wide distribution of funeral sermons (the oldest such prints known are from the late fifteenth century); and sermons became a key point of funerals in Protestant churches. The latter, in rejecting prayers of intercession and the mass for the deceased, shifted attention from the dead (whose redemption was beyond any earthly control) towards the living: the main purpose of the funeral sermon was to console the mourners and to instruct them with the word of God and by examples from the life of the deceased.4 Printed funeral sermons were among the most popular forms of reading throughout society and were considered part of enlightening and educational literature.5 Their large quantity has always attracted the attention of German 3

Johann Reinhard Ziegler (1569–1636) was confessor to the archbishop, founded and presided over the Jesuit College in Aschaffenburg between 1621 and 1625, and directed many diplomatic missions to Brussels, Rome and Vienna. See Carlos Sommervogel (ed.), Bibliothéque de la Compagnie de Jésus, Bd. 10 (Brussels–Paris: 1890–1900), pp. 1067–1122: Eloges funèbres. 4 Rudolf Lenz, “Zur Funktion des Lebenslaufes in Leichenpredigten,” in Walter Sparn (ed.), Wer schreibt meine Lebensgeschichte? Biographie, Autobiographie, Hagiographie und ihre Entstehungszusammenhänge (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1990), pp. 93–104; Cornelia Niekus Moore, “Das erzählte Leben in der lutherischen Leichenpredigt, Anfang und Entwicklung im 16. Jahrhundert,” Wolfenbütteler Barocknachrichten 29/1 (2002), pp. 3– 32. 5 Winfried Zeller, “Leichenpredigt und Erbauungsliteratur im Protestantismus,” in B. Jasper (ed.), Theologie und Frömmigkeit. Gesammelte Aufsätze, 2 vols, (Marburg: Elwert, 1971–1978), vol. 2, pp. 23–34; Jill Bepler–Thomas Bürger–Heinrich Grau, Der

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historians, by whom the whole topic has been thoroughly investigated.6 As for the Catholics, their attention during a funeral stayed focused on the care of the deceased’s soul and on activities intended to help it through the torments of Purgatory (the oblation of the Mass, prayer, and charity). However, funeral sermons became a usual part of the funeral ritual even with them, though the particular practice of printing sermons was primarily restricted to high society, where it was motivated by representative purposes. The century of the Reformation witnessed the division of funeral sermons along formal lines as well. While in Protestant sermons the part on the deceased’s life is strictly divided from the part interpreting the word of God (the so-called personalia forming a special chapter), Catholic sermons fully integrated the curriculum vitae into the preacher’s oration.7 The lack of a separate biographical part is probably the reason why Catholic sermons have been relatively neglected by researchers—they are of limited biographical use.8 In general, it can be stated that the funeral sermon was one of the first coherent efforts to summarize the life of the deceased—just as it was also its first interpretation. Using biographical data the funeral preacher created an image of the deceased that was to be preserved in memory. Thus the funeral sermon is primarily a glorification idealizing the deceased, picking those parts of his life concurrent with social norms and generally accepted

erbauliche Tod–die Sammlung der Gräfin Sophie Eleonore zu Stolberg-Stolberg (Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 1997); Franz M. Eybl, “Predigt, Erbauungsliteratur,” in Albert Meier (ed.), Die Literatur des 17. Jahrhunderts (Munich–Vienna: Hanser 1999), pp. 401–419. 6 Rudolf Lenz (ed.), Leichenpredigten als Quelle historischer Wissenschaften, vol. 1 (Cologne–Vienna: Böhlau, 1975), vols. 2 & 3 (Marburg: Schwarz-Verlag, 1979, 1984), vol. 4 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004), online catalogue “Forschungstelle für Personalschriften” in Marburg: www.uni-marburg.de/fpmr; Maria Arnold, “Die Leichenpredigten der Herzog August Bibliothek und ihre Erschliessung,” in Überlieferung und Kritik. Zwanzig Jahre Barockforschung in der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1993), pp. 105–112; online catalogue of printed sermons in the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel: http://avanti.hab.de/hab_db/lpx/html/ start_ger.html. 7 Harald Tersch, “Florentius Schillings ‘Totengerüst’. Zur Konstruktion der Biographie in der katholischen Leichenpredigt,” in Lenz (ed.), Leichenpredigten, 4, pp. 303–346. 8 Birgit Boge–Ralf Georg Bogner (eds.), Oratio Funebris. Die katholische Leichenpredigt der frühen Neuzeit. Zwölf Studien. Mit einem Katalog deutschprachiger katholischer Leichenpredigten in Einzeldrucken 1576–1799 aus den Beständen der Stiftsbibliothek Klosterneuburg und der Universitätsbibliothek Eichstätt (Amsterdam–Atlanta: GA, 1999).

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ideals. Hence a researcher trained in the critical reading of historical sources finds much to object to in funeral sermons. Events which from today’s perspective would seem important are missing or presented in distorted form; on the other side, many dull aspects of the deceased’s life are described with a detail bordering on obsession, for no apparent reason. In consequence, the uneasy but persistent question often presents itself— are the funeral sermons anything but mendacious oratory, cheap adulation designated to please the mourners? Is there any evidence of real value in them?9 The truth is that in its selection, causal chaining and interpretation of information the funeral sermon provides a remarkably interesting insight into the thinking and ideas of the society for whose ears these sermons were written. The purpose of this essay is to analyze in depth the funeral sermon for Archbishop Johann Schweikard. I would like to guide the reader through this text, to identify its various themes and parts and to outline the basic process involved in creating an image of the deceased. Though the sermon was originally intended to be heard as one continuous text, I will try to “unwrap” it, to separate its various layers and levels and to analyze them separately (notwithstanding the fact that they usually flow throughout the whole text). The analysis of the sermon will help us to identify those themes which dominated funeral sermons for the episcopal hierarchy during the era of confessionalization, and will help to define the confessional and political meaning of funerals in that era. Ziegler chose as a motto for his sermon a verse from the Ecclesiastes (3,1–2): Omnia tempus habent, & suis spatiis transeunt universa sub caelo. Tempus nascendi, & Tempus moriendi (“All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven...”). The verse is put to various uses in the text. The first is in the introduction, when the preacher bases upon this verse a conventional thought on the passing nature of the world. Everything has its beginning and its hour of death too, and this wisdom is reinforced by painful lamentations for the late archbishop. The author of the sermon uses traditional quotations from both Old and New Testaments to express his grief and lament, drawn from the Lamentations of Jeremias,10 Job11 and Paul’s letter to the Hebrews.12 9

Rudolf Lenz, De mortuis nil nisi bene? Leichenpredigten als multidisziplinäre Quelle unter besonderer Berücksichtung der historischen Familienforschung, der Bildungsgeschichte und der Literaturgeschichte (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1990), pp. 24–25. 10 Lamentations of Jeremias (5, 15–16): “Defecit gaudium cordis nostri, versus est in luctu chorus noster, cecidit corona capitis nostri, vae nobis quia peccavimus”..

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To the bleak images of worldly transience and human mortality are immediately opposed the Christian hope of resurrection and eternal glory, again citing Scripture.13 Thus, the introduction possesses a traditional didactic character: the sermon reminds the listeners of the vanity and ephemerality of the world (“Hodie mihi, cras tibi”) as well as the solace coming from Christ’s triumph over death. The second use of the motto is as a metaphor for the deceased’s life. The biography of the archbishop is a reminder of basic periods of human life with their virtues and qualities and lists all important events in his life. Thus Johann Schweikard was born on July 15, 1553,14 raised in the fear of God, blessed with all divine gifts and trained in the aristocratic virtues. Thanks to his extraordinary talent and brilliant memory he quickly mastered Latin and went on to higher study at the famous universities of Leuven and Paris, where he lived through the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre on August 24, 1572. However, because he had a special affection for the clerical ways of life and had been given a canonry in Mainz some time before,15 he left for the Collegium Germanicum in Rome.16 After he returned he won respect through his abilities and became in turn a scholastic, a deacon, a bishop suffragan, a vicar general and a dean of canonry; finally, he was elected archbishop of Mainz on February 17, 1604. Pope Clement VIII confirmed his appointment in August and, after receiving insignia of the Elector’s office from Emperor Rudolf II, he was consecrated on November 21.17 11

Job (14, 1–2; 14, 5): “Homo natus de muliere brevi vivens tempore, repletur multis miseriis; quasi flos egreditur & conteritur & fugit velut umbra; … Breves dies hominis sunt: numerus mensuum eius apud te est: constituisti terminos eius qui praeteriri non poterunt”.. 12 Hebrews (9, 27) “Statutum est omnibus hominibus semel mori”. 13 1 Thessalonians (4, 13): “Nolumus autem vos ignorare, fratres, de dormientibus, ut non contristemini sicut et caeteri, qui spem non habent”. 14 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 6. 15 He became a domicellar at the age of 11. 16 Schweikard studied at the university in Mainz for two years, then for a short time at the universities in Trier, Dôle, Valence and Bologna, and was finally sent by Brendel von Homburg (archbishop of Mainz 1552–1582) to Rome in 1574. After a year there he left to study law in Leuven and briefly visited Paris and Orleans. It is not certain whether he stayed in Strassburg (supposedly in 1609). Jürgensmeier, Handbuch, pp. 150–151. 17 He became a domicellar in Mainz in 1564, a scholastic in 1582, a vicar-general between 1584 and 1595, and was elected dean of the canonry in 1595. He was considered as a candidate for the archbishop’s office as early as 1601, after the death of Wolfgang von Dahlberg. However, he was only elected by the canonry after the short episcopacy of

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The Tempus moriendi motif rounds off the sermon, too: on the last three pages the preacher returns to the initial theme, applying the topos of the inevitable mortality of all men to the death of Johann Schweikard. The scene of dying and death is very austere, yet corresponds with the ideal of a good death, codified especially in the ars moriendi handbooks. The preacher notes the exact time of death (the archbishop died after a yearlong illness on September 17, 1626, between 10 and 11 p.m.), names the people who were with the archbishop in his last moments, and mentions a dissection. The sermon then concludes with the usual prayers for the salvation of the deceased’s soul18 and a plea that the now fatherless parishioners of the Mainz archdiocese may have the pleasure of meeting their shepherd on the Day of Judgment and be able to praise God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit for eternity by his side. The deceased’s life has to be understood not merely as a chronological list of events, proceeding from birth towards death. It is also a projection of Johann Schweikard into the familial and social groups in which he as an archbishop and leading politician was supposed to play the corresponding roles. The hero of the sermon emerges not so much as a real individual but as first, a member of an old and important family; second, a good lord of his lands; third, a true friend of the Emperor, archchancellor and “a jewel” of the electoral college; and, fourth, a true jewel of his diocese and the whole Catholic Church. On the other hand, certain aspects of Schweikard’s life are passed over: witch trials under his jurisdiction, his interests in alchemy and mathematics,19 and his patronage of musicians and archiJohann Adam von Bicken (1601–1604). He received the papal confirmation on August 2, the pallium on August 18, and episcopal sanctification in November of the same year. However, he did not receive the electoral insignia and the imperial fief until August 13, 1613, at the imperial assembly in Regensburg. Gatz (ed.), Die Bischöfe, p. 655; Jürgensmeier, Handbuch, pp. 149–150. 18 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 24: “…so gesegne der Allmächtig Gott dein Leib vnnd Seel, deinen höchstgeehrten Leichnamb behält dieser hohe Dhomstifft, vnd dein trewes Hertz vnnd Jngeweid die Societet Iesu zu Aschaffenburg zum Vnderpfandt deiner Liebe gegen vns, deine hochgeehrte Seel ruhe im Schutz der allerhöchsten Dreyfaltigkeit, vnd in Gesellschafft der Engeln Gottes…”. 19 The theologian and polymath Athanasius Kircher stayed at Schweikard‘s court for about a year. As he records in his autobiography, the delegation sent by the archbishop to Heiligenstadt was amused by his optical and pyrotechnic experiments and reported on them to the archbishop, who then summoned the scholar to his court at Aschaffenburg, where Kircher served as assistant to Ziegler, the archbishop’s confessor. In a letter Kircher characterized the archbishop as a man “der sich durch seine mathematischen Kenntnisse in Deutschland einen groβen Ruf erworben hatte”. Kircher drew up a map

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tects, all of which evidently did not fit the image of the deceased the preacher wished to construct. First: emphasis on the descent, the historical lineage and the glory of the family of the deceased is one of the traditional parts of funeral sermons. The iconography of the funeral decoration of the church and the castra doloris, and the funeral poems included in funeral sermons, provided an ideal chance for the public display of familial mythology (for example, the legend of the foundation of the aristocratic family) and important ancestors, whose legacy had been cultivated by the deceased and his deeds. The funeral was one of the means of building and sustaining memory of the family and of familial representation.20 In funeral sermons, the family is usually presented either through the medium of heraldry and its symbols21 (where the coat-of-arms may be mentioned only in passing, or may be interpreted in detail or even used as a central point of the text construction), or in the form of a genealogy attached to the sermon along with a short history of the family, highlighting the most important persons in the genealogy.22 The preachers’ rhetoric here draws on terms relating to age and antiquity, deriving the glory of individual members of the family from their services to the ruler and the church. The preacher says of Johann Schweikard that he came “from a noble and ancient lineage” going all the way back to the times of Charlemagne. Foremost among the ancestors is Rudolf von Kronberg, who supposedly served as archchancellor to Charles the Bald of West Francia and subsequently at the court of the “Roman Emperor” (by whom the preacher means Louis the German, d. 876). It is significant that the family origins are anchored in the era of Charlemagne, with the theme of service to the Roman Emperor creating a heritage which Johann Schweikard was supposed to live up to.23 Following this, Ziegler moves his attention to Schweikard’s of the reclaimed Bergstrasse and was also commissioned with the complete mapping of the Mainz archdiocese, but the project was never completed due to Schweikard’s death. Nikolaus Seng, Selbstbiographie des P. Athanasius Kircher aus der Gesellschaft Jesu (Fulda: Verl der Fuldaer Actiendr., 1901), pp. 25–26; Klaus Wittstadt, “Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680). Theologieprofessor und Universalgelehrter im Zeitalter des Barock,” Würzburger Diözesangeschichtsblätter 46 (1984), pp. 109–121. 20 Mark Hengerer (ed.), Macht und Memoria. Begräbniskultur europäischer Oberschichten in der Frühen Neuzeit ( Cologne–Weimar–Vienna: Böhlau, 2005). 21 Hans Körner, “Heraldik in Leichenpredigten,” in R. Lenz (ed.), Die Leichenpredigten als Quelle historischer Forschung (Marburg: Schwarz Verlag, 1979), 2, pp. 20–29. 22 H. Gensicke, “Die von Kronberg,” Nassauische Annalen 98 (1987), pp. 297–318. 23 As for the origin of the Kronberg family, the literature puts them in the Hohenstaufen Era (1138–1254). The original title “von Eschborn,” used during the first three genera-

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late parents and siblings, listing them by name.24 Ziegler turns to them, expresses his sympathies, but, above all, makes a plea to God to continuously grant this family heroism and courage for ever after.25 Second: The close concentration of temporal and spiritual power in the hands of bishops in the Empire, which emerged already during the Carolinian and Ottonian eras, is also reflected in the present sermon. The deceased was lord of a spiritual territorial state who additionally, after his election, received a fief from the Emperor. Funeral sermons often pay attention to this accumulation of power in the hands of princely bishops who are lords of temporal lands. This is either in the way of simple glorification of this level of the bishop’s image, or of defending the (quiet problematic) accumulation of temporal power in the bishop’s hands.26 Of the four levels present in the sermon, the image of Johann Schweikard as a good landlord is dealt with most summarily by the preacher. It is actually limited to the topos of the “true father” of his land, who makes it richer and greater still—the preacher instances the acquisition of Bergstrasse27—and whose virtues were proved especially during the years

tions, was changed to “von Kronberg” by knight Otto I (1230–1255), after the name of his newly founded castle. There is probably the echo of a real familial tradition in the text of the sermon—the founding of the castle of Eschborn was indeed connected to imperial ministerials. Wolfgang Ronner, “Über die Familie von Kronberg in Krieg und Frieden,” Kronberger Geschichtsblätter 11 (2002), pp. 3–5. 24 He mentions his father (Hartmut XIII von Kronberg, †1591) and mother (Barbara von Sickingen, †1567), his brothers (Frantz, Hartmut, Johann Georg) and his sisters (Anna, Margarette, Clara Anna). The preacher’s knowledge corresponds with the facts as we know them. Johann Schweikard had six siblings: his sister Anna died in 1549 at the age of two (4 years before he was born); Clara Anna died in 1586, Margarette in 1590; both of his older brothers, Franz (1545–1605) and Hartmut XIV (1550–1606), as well as the younger one, Johann Georg (1561–1608), were already dead by the time of Johann Schweikard’s death. 25 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, pp. 6–7. The people present are not named. Of the direct descendants of Hartmut von Kronberg, only his niece Anna Clara and his nephew Adam Philipp XI, children of Johann Georg are known 26 See for example the sermon for Johann Philipp von Schönborn, archbishop of Mainz, delivered by Adolf Gottfried Volusius at the entombment of his heart in Mainz cathedral on March 8, 1673, in which the preacher used examples from the Old Testament to justify the archbishop’s accumulation of temporal and spiritual power. Gordon W. Marigold, “Sacerdos Magnus. Eine unbekannte Leichenrede für Johann Philipp von Schönborn,” Mainfränkisches Jahrbuch 23 (1971), pp. 14–34. 27 After the interdiction of Friedrich of Pfalz and the imperial occupation of the Palatinate by Spinola, the archbishop of Mainz denounced the forfeiture of Bergstrasse and Schauenberg in 1623. Jürgensmeier, Handbuch, pp. 180–182.

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of war, when the country had labored under the burdens of the conflict— through armies marching back and forth, billeting, plundering, burning, and all. It was then that Johann Schweikard stood dauntless, “facing the downfall of his country”.28 “In the highest trouble... he suffered along with his people with sincere lamentation and mourning… and put all his means into use to defend and safeguard them.”29 Third: The political importance of the Archbishop of Mainz resulted primarily from his office as Elector, i.e. from his right to elect the king of the Holy Roman Empire, and from his prestigious status as archchancellor of the Holy Roman Empire. Through this office he presided over the electoral college (Kurfürstentag) and the Reichstag. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Electors of Mainz had had to defend their right to crown the elected king against the Electors of Cologne. The argument was finally resolved in 1657 by a territorially based compromise: the Archbishop of Cologne would crown the king if the coronation was held in Aachen and the Archbishop of Mainz if it took place in Frankfurt, while in the case of the coronation proceeding somewhere else (in Augsburg or Regensburg), the two Electors were supposed to alternate.30 Because of this, it is little wonder that funeral sermons for the archbishops of Mainz paid much attention to the topic.31 Thus, the late Johann Schweikard is glorified as “a loyal friend and archchancellor ” and “outstanding member of the electoral college.”32 Also, all the elections 28

Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 8. During the first years of the Thirty Years War, Mainz was left almost unaffected by military actions. On the contrary, it enjoyed gains from the imperial triumphs. Notwithstanding the fact, the sermon projects us the traditional image of a virtuous ruler—defending his lands when hard times are upon them. 29 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, pp. 18–19. 30 However, this in fact meant that in such cases the right of coronation belonged entirely to the archbishop of Mainz. The only exception was in 1742, when the archbishop of Cologne was allowed to crown his own brother, Charles VII. 31 See, e.g.: “O Ferdinand Römischer Käyser! was für ein getrewe Hand hat dich zum Römischen König gesalbt? was für ein redlicher Arm hat dir die Königliche Cron auffgesetzt? was für ein auffrichtigen ErtzCantzler hastu an diesem Churfürsten gehabt? vnd diβ so lang, biβ daβ Jhm der letzte allergetreweste Athem auβgangen ist...,” in Wolfgang Fuchs, Leich- vnd Lobkrantz, Auβ schönen auβerlesenen Blumen, oder hochlöblichen heroischen Thaten vnd Tugenden Deβ Hochwürdigsten in Gott Fürsten vnd Herrns, Herrn Anselmi Casimiri, deβ Heyligen Stuels zu Mäyntz Ertzbischoffen... (Mainz: 1647), p. 16. HAB Wolfenbüttel, A: 202.78 Quod. (9). For another example see Nicolaus Mohr, Christlicher und Tugendtreicher Lebenswandel des Hochwürdigsten Fürsten und Herrens, Herrens Johann Philippsen, deβ Heil. Stuels zu Mayntz Ertzbischoffen… (Würzburg: 1673). HAB Wolfenbüttel, S: Alv.: Nh 223 (1) 2°. 32 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 4.

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and coronations that Schweikard participated in are mentioned here, because the archbishop’s political standing was closely mirrored in them. Ziegler recalls the election and subsequent coronation of Emperor Matthias in 161233 and of Emperor Ferdinand34 in 1619 and also mentions several political negotiations in which the archbishop-elector participated.35 Then he mentions briefly the Catholic League, established in Mainz in August 1609,36 the journey to meet Emperor Rudolf II in Prague in 1610,37 and the meeting of the Electors in Nuremberg in October 1611.38 Then he comes to the “unfortunate” Reichstag in Regensburg in

33

However, Johann Schweikard was not a resolute advocate of the election of Emperor Rudolf’s brother Matthias. Instead, he favored Archduke Leopold of Passau or Archduke Albrecht of Brussels. The Electors met for the election in Frankfurt on May 21, 1612. On June 9, they presented Matthias with electoral capitulations, and the election took place on June 13. The clerical Electors decided to participate only moments before the election. Matthias was subsequently crowned in Frankfurt on June 24. 34 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 17. 35 Andrea Litzenburger, Kurfürst Johann Schweikard von Kronberg als Erzkanzler. Mainzer Reichspolitik am Vorabend des Dreissigjährigen Kriegs (1604–1619) (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1985); Jürgensmeier, Handbuch, pp. 149–184. 36 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 19: “Die Anno 1609. im Augstmonat, in der Statt Mayntz, durch Vermittelung Jhrer Churfl. Gn. zwischen den Geistlichen Churf. Catholischen, der Keyserlichen Mayestät getrewen Ständen geschlossene, vnd biβ anhero mit so stattlichen Victorien von Gott gesegnete, vnd noch jetzo dem Reich zum besten, mit äussersten erschöpffung vnderhaltene Vnion…” Schweikard became a supporter of the Catholic League only after the failure of his mediating efforts at the Reichstag in Regensburg in 1608 (which was followed by the establishment of the Protestant Union). He had been quite reserved in his attitude towards the League, but afterwards he became (along with Duke Maximilian of Bavaria) its director. His aim was to turn the League into a supra-confessional defensive alliance of aristocracy loyal to the Emperor. However, the events of 1618 and 1619 turned him radical in confessional matters and he now fashioned the re-constituted League as an alliance of Catholic estates. 37 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 19: “Die hernacher, anno 1610. nacher Prag kostbare angestelte Reyβ, vnd Keyser Rudolff erzeigte trewe Dienst, vnd hochvernünfftiges Bericht.” In April 1610, the Emperor Rudolf II summoned a meeting of Electors and imperial princes (Fürstentag) in Prague. The topics were: the possession of the duchy of Jülich-Kleve; efforts to ensure Leopold of Passau’s succession to the imperial throne; settling the arguments with the Emperor’s brother Matthias, i.e. revision of the peace of Liben; and a reform of the imperial government. Besides the archbishop of Mainz, those present included the archdukes Maximilian and Ferdinand; archduke Matthias; the archbishop of Cologne; the Elector of Saxony, Christian II; the landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt; and Heinrich Julius duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel. 38 The election of Rudolf’s successor was supposed to be the subject of discussion for the Kurfürstentag in Nuremberg on May 1612.

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1613,39 and the “dangerous journey” to Heidelberg to persuade Friedrich of Pfalz to stay loyal to the Emperor. After that, there is the “happy” election of Ferdinand II, the meeting with the Elector of Saxony in Mülhausen in 1620, negotiations in Regensburg in 1623 about filling up the electoral college, which resulted in the admission of Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria,40 and finally the meeting with the Elector of Saxony in Schleusingen in 1624.41 Usually, the preacher only reports the facts without any comment or rhetorical embellishment. His goal is to use the list of Schweikard’s activities to prove “that His Lordship always staunchly defended the glory of our Lord, the Catholic faith, the good of the Empire, the authority of the Emperor, the reputation of the electoral college, and was faithful to the Empire until death”.42 Johann Schweikard is glorified as an elector who is aware of his imperial duties and who does not hesitate to risk his life in the service of peace, law—the Golden Bull of Charles IV is mentioned—and public welfare.43 His deeds, as the preacher stresses, gained him the respect not only of emperors, kings, Electors, and princes within the Empire, but of the Holy See as well.44 Fourth, the last but not the least level of interpretation of the life of the deceased is the clerical offices he held, his loyalty to the Catholic Church and his defense of the Church against its enemies. Behind this is the idea of the bishop as good shepherd, an ideal which had been renewed at Trent45 and which draws on various traditional motifs. Thus there is a 39

Emperor Matthias summoned a Reichstag at Regensburg on August 1613. However, the secular Electors did not come. Johann Schweikard was especially disappointed by the attitude of the Elector of Saxony whom he expected to take a stance as a mediator. 40 At the beginning, Johann Schweikard was against the decision to move the office of Elector from the Palatinate to Bavaria. In the end, he agreed (for the sake of keeping the electoral college functioning) that the office would only be given personally to Maximilian of Bavaria for the duration of his life. 41 The 1620s were, however, marked by Schweikard’s decline through age and illness. Since 1623, the Emperor tried to make archduke Charles of Habsburg a coadjutor. However, the canonry refused to accept him. 42 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 20. 43 Ibid: “…by welcher Wahl [of Ferdinand II in 1619] als es sich zum offentlichen Auffstandt vnd höchster Gefahr angelasse, Jhre Churf. Gn. sich offentlich resoluirt, ehe das Leben für deβ Römischen Reichs Wolfahrt zu lassen, als seine Churf. obligation vnd pflicht auβ acht zu lassen.“ 44 Ibid, pp. 20–21. 45 Hubert Jedin, “Das Bischofsideal der Katholischen Reformation,” in H. Jedin, Kirche des Glaubens—Kirche der Geschichte, Bd. 2., Konzil und Kirchenreform (Freiburg– Basel–Vienna: 1966), pp. 75–117; Idem, Geschichte des Konzils von Trient, Bd. IV/2 (Freiburg–Basel–Vienna: Herder, 1975); E. Gatz, “Das Bischofsideal des Konzils von

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description of archbishop’s piety,46 of his special respect towards the Virgin Mary and the saints,47 of his personally performing clerical (i.e., episcopal) duties,48 his establishing of chapels and churches, and his support of friars and of the Jesuit Order especially.49 A strong emphasis on confessional themes was also a feature of funeral sermons—Protestant as well as Catholic—of the turn of sixteenth century. Ziegler’s text of 1626 is no exception. Passing references to the confessional struggle are scattered throughout the text and are expressed almost unconsciously. The very first paragraph states that the archbishop’s body is to be buried “according to Christian Catholic custom.” At the same Trient und der deutschsprachige Episkopat des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Römische Quartalschrift 77 (1982), pp. 204–228; Konrad Repgen, “Der Bischof zwischen Reformation, katholischer Reform und Konfessionsbildung (1515–1650),” in Peter Berglar–Odilo Engels (eds.), Der Bischof in seiner Zeit (Cologne: Bachem, 1986), pp. 245–314. 46 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, pp. 11–12, 16: “Wie eyferig, embsig vnnd inbrünstig sie jeder zeit im Gebett gewesen, bezeugen von Jhrer Churfl. Gn. selbsten verfaβte, mit eygenen Händen geschriebene, vnd hernach allhie zu Meyntz in Truck gebene, vnd jetzt schwang gehende andächtigste Gebettbüchlein… Bekant ist es, daβ er nicht allein seine horas Canonicas auch in höchsten Reichsgeschäfften mit allem Fleiβ gelesen… Beichten, Communiciren, Meβ singen vnd lesen, das Hochwürdig Sacrament auβtheilen, oder auch in der Procession tragen, heilige Oerter vnd Wallfahrten auch zu Fuβ besuchen, welches alle er mit grosser Andacht vnd sonderbarer Aufferbawung zuverrichten gepflegt, ist sein höchster Lust gewesen.“ 47 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 16. 48 Ibid, p. 17: “Die Bischöffliche functiones hat er jederzeit gern, vnd mit einer solchen Manier verrichtet, daβ männiglich gespüret, das ordiniren, die H. Confirmation die er hin vnd wieder im Ertzstifft mit grossem Trost der Vnderthanen in eygener Person gethan den Kindern zu conferiren, altaria consecriren, prophanirte Kirchen vnd Coemeteria zu reconcilijren, seine höchste Frewd gewesen…” That an archbishop should be present in his diocese and perform his clerical duties in person were matters especially accentuated at Trent. To adhere to these rules was always problematic for princely bishops wielding temporal power. Nevertheless, the funeral sermon seeks only to show us an ideal which the deceased was intended to enshrine in social memory. 49 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, pp. 17–18: “Den Stifftern vnnd den Kirchen ist er vberauβ zugethan gewesen, dieselbe gern begabet…” In 1612, he established a Jesuit college in Aschaffenburg (the Jesuit Order had been invited to Mainz already in 1561, by Daniel Brendel von Homburg). However, the special attention given to the Jesuit Order in funeral sermons resulted also from the fact that their authors were often members of the Order and thus had their own interest in presenting the deceased as a supporter of the Order. On Jesuits as the most frequent authors of funeral sermons, see B. Boge–R. G. Bogner, “Katholische Leichenpredigten des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts. Einige vorläufige Thesen zur Geschichte von Produktion und Distribution einer Gattung der religiösen Gebrauchsliteratur der frühen Neuzeit,” in B. Boge–R. G. Bogner (eds.), Oratio Funebris, pp. 317–340.

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time, the preacher turns his attention to the activities of the deceased, who “upheld the Catholic faith under all circumstances,” and then makes a list of the fields where the archbishop focused his efforts on behalf of the Counter-reformation.50 An interesting aside is the preacher’s note of the conversion of the archbishop’s brothers Franz and Hartmut, where he hints at a Lutheran tradition in the family.51 However, the theme of confessional confrontation is not limited to such particulars, but is a motif that offers the basic principle for understanding not only the archbishop’s life, but also the whole of history in general. As the preacher tells the story, at the time when Johann Schweikard was born, in 1553, the danger represented by rebels and enemies of the Catholic Church had already manifested itself. But Almighty God, when his people were in trouble, always brought forward a strong protector: Moses, Samson, David, or Elijah. Moses, rescued on the river bank by Pharaoh’s daughter, had been chosen to bring the oppressed children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage (Exodus 2); Samson’s birth was heralded to a sterile woman by God’s messenger (Judges 13), and Samson had been chosen to destroy the Philistines (Judges 15, 14–17). Moreover, God appointed David to defeat the blasphemous Goliath (1 Samuel, 17) and to punish the Ahabites, worshippers of Ba’al, and he had chosen Elijah to be king (1 Kings, 18). As the preacher proclaims, we can see even in our times that to defeat our “most fearful enemy” God awakens heroes— which surely holds for the recently interred archbishop. God Almighty appointed him as “a noble instrument” to defend the Holy Roman Church and the welfare of the Holy Roman Empire, and to confront the downfall of the country.52 50

51

52

Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 18. Namely in Lohr, Rieneck and Königstein counties and in Fritzlar, Eichsfeld, and Bergstrasse. In spite of the counter-reformation efforts of Schweikard’s predecessors, the counties of Rieneck and Königstein (annexed in 1559/1581 by Daniel Brendel von Homburg) remained Protestant, as did most of the territories of Mainz in Hesse (for example Fritzlar) and the state of Eichsfeld and the territory of Erfurt. After 1623, Schweikard brought the Catholic faith to Bergstrasse. See Jürgensmeier, Handbuch, pp. 165–178. The archbishop’s grandfather, Hartmut von Kronberg († 1549) had been since 1525 a great supporter of the Reformation. There is no mention anywhere of conversion in the life of Johann Schweikard, so most authors suppose that parents converted to Catholicism and their younger sons, Johann Schweikard and Johann Georg, were already baptized as Catholics. Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 8: “Vnnd sehen wir auch bey vnseren Zeitten, daβ vnsere gewaltigste Feind zudempffen, Gott noch allezeit solche Helden erwecket, durch welcher Dapfferkeit alle vnserer Feind Anschläg vernichtet, jhre Macht zerstöret,

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The preacher promoted the year of Johann Schweikard’s birth (1553) to a critical year, when religious unrest and tension was at its peak and the “fire of the cursed rebellion had been started”.53 For sure we can look for a base for this assertion in the actual historical events of the 1550s,54 but the preacher is not concerned with historical analysis here. He uses traditional topoi (implicit in adjectives like venomous, Turkish, Calvinistic, satanic, etc.) to characterize evil and to highlight the purpose to which Johann Schweikard was born. All this is directed towards the glorification of a hero sent by God to his chosen people in the time of its worst troubles. The tempus nascendi supplies not only a logical backbone to the text, but is, at the rhetoric level, promoted to a critical point in the history of the church. It is the moment when God expressed his protection over “the people of the covenant” by sending them a protector. These heroes of the Old Testament are all mentioned again further in the text. This is in the context of Schweikard’s accession to the episcopal seat in Mainz, where the preacher attributes to him the virtues the heroes personify: the wisdom of Moses, the boldness of Samson, the valor of vnnd sie gleich wie der Staub vor dem Wind verstäubert. Diese Vorsehung Gottes erscheinet bey dem tempore nascendi vnsers Ioannis Suicardi handgreifflich, daβ nemblich damals jhn der Allmächtig Gott zu einem fürnemen Jnstrument, seine Kirche zubeschützen, deβ H. Römischen Reichs Wohlfahrt zu retten, vnd deβlieben Vatterlandts Vndergang zu stewren sonderlich auβerwöhlet vnd verordnet.” 53 Ibid, pp. 8–9: “Die Historien gebens daβ eben vmb das Jahr 1553. durch anstifftung deβ vnrühigen gifftigen Caluinischen Geists, so wohl in Franckreich als Niederlandt vnd Teutschlandt, die höllische Consilia sich angespunnen, vnnd das Fewer der verfluchten Rebellion, wider Gott vnd seine Kirch, wider die Römische Keyserliche Majestät, zu vertilgung der Catholischen Religion, fortpflantzung der Türckischen Caluinisterey, gäntzlicher ruin deβ H. Reichs, vnnd Verderbung deβ Vatterlandts angelegt worden, welches hernacher von Jahr zu Jahren, vnd bevor ab zwey vnd zwantzig Jahr so Jhre Churfl. Gn. löblich regieret zugenommen, insonderheit aber diese letzte Jahr, wie wir mit trawrigen Augen gesehen, am aller gefährlichsten auβgebrochen.” The apparently late date assigned to the explosion of politico-religious strife should not surprise us if we bear in mind the construction of the preacher’s argument. 54 Besides the war with Maurice of Saxony, supported by France, which ended with the peace of Passau in August 1552, there was the local conflict with Albrecht Alcibiades von Brandenburg-Kulmbach, a Protestant margrave who tried to strengthen his power at the expense of the clerical princes. He conquered Aschaffenburg and Mainz in 1552, plundered (among other) the residences of the archbishop and demanded a substantial ransom from Mainz. Among other instances presenting themselves to Ziegler as an evidence of “the multiplying Turkish Calvinism” was for example the conversion of Friedrich III of Pfalz to Calvinism in 1566. The adjacency of Mainz to Calvinistic Kurpfalz was, after all, a major issue for the archbishop’s foreign policy in the first three decades of 17th century.

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David, the zeal of Elijah.55 But of these models of identification,56 Moses is the one most used throughout the rest of the text, that is, throughout the evaluation of Schweikard’s episcopate. From the life of Moses, the preacher uses abundantly the story of the defeat of the Amalekites by the Israelites led by Joshua (Exodus 17, 8–16). The scripture tells how Moses, accompanied by Aaron and Hur, climbed to the top of a hill, from where he watched the battle with his arms raised. As long as he held them up, Israel prevailed, but when he lowered his tired arms the Israelites retreated. His companions therefore seated him on a stone and supported his arms until sunset. Joshua defeated Amalek and Moses built an altar, “and called the name thereof, the Lord, my exaltation…”57 In the print, this episode is cited in Latin and German, and its importance is stressed typographically by the choice of larger characters. The story in which Moses is presented as an instrument of God and the cause of Joshua’s victory is applied to the particular historical context of the last eight years of Schweikard’s episcopate during the Thirty Years War. A large part of the text is devoted to the rebellion of the estates of Bohemia (1618–1620). After a general introduction (Calvinistic heretics preparing their poison for a long time in secret connection with Tartars and Turks),58 Ziegler mentions the Prague defenestration of May 23, 1618 (“the tyrannical casting-out of the foremost Imperial high officials at the Imperial castle of Prague….”), the short reign of Friedrich of Pfalz in Bohemia (“Friedrich VIII [sic!] did not shrink from claiming the crown of Bohemia and the kingdom and hereditary lands of the imperial majesty along with it…”), the accord of Mainz—of particular interest for his listeners because of the event’s location59—and the most important 55

Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 11: “…vnnd also der Allmächtig Gott dieses sein erwehltes Werckzeug vnseren hochweisen erleuchten Moysen, vnseren vnerschrockenen Samsonem, vnseren hertzhafften Dauidem, vnseren eyferigen Eliam zu Heyl vnnd Wolfahrt deβ gantzen Reichs, zum Trost vnnd Schutz deβ Vatterlandts angefangen an die Spitzen, vnd vnseren feinden vnder die Augen zu stellen.” 56 Friedrich Polleross, “‘Mas exemplar, que imitador de David’. Zur Funktion des Identifikationsporträts zwischen Tugendspiegel und Panegyrik,” in Dieter Breuer (ed.), Religion und Religiosität im Zeitalter des Barock 1 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995). 57 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, pp. 12–13. 58 Ibid, p. 14: “…Als die Caluinische Amaleciten jhr viel Jahr hero gekochtes Gifft, vnd der Christenheit vnd H. Reich gantz gefährliche vnd verderbliche Anschläg, vnd durch heimliche mit Türcken vnnd Tartaren geschlossene Verbündtnussen, durch hin vnnd wieder gepflogenen Werbungen vnd Kriegsverfassung gesteiffte Consilia so weit gebracht…” 59 Representatives of the Protestant Union started to negotiate with Ambrosius Spinola and signed an armistice on April 12, 1621, where they promised not to fight for Pfalz.

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protagonists of the conflict: Maximilian of Bavaria, Tilly, and Spinola.60 The preacher ends the list of events by recalling Tilly’s victory over the King of Denmark, Christian IV.61 He returns to this event once more at the end of the sermon, when he mourns for Schweikard’s death. The army of the League under Tilly defeated the Danish king at Lutter am Barenberg on August 27, 1626, just three weeks before the archbishop’s passing, “which made the mournful occasion and the irreplacable loss a little more bearable for all Catholics and our archiepiscopate of Mainz.”62 During this narrative, the Archbishop of Mainz is equaled with Moses—he closely watched the “army of Joshua” in constant prayer and plea, “until the sun set in the West.”63 Those ardent prayers of Schweikard’s were then the primary reason for the victory—he did not stop until the “heroic Joshua, Count Tilly” had completely destroyed the enemy. Only after that, when he had received the joyful message about the victory, did the archbishop lower his hands and die. God showed and still shows—“even in our sad times”64—his mercy through his chosen heroes, thus bringing evidence to the chosen people “that… God is guarding us with his strong arm and lets his mercy shine upon our heads.“65 All the characters from the Old Testament the preacher selected as models of identification for the late archbishop have several common traits. It is notable that they are all chosen ones, that they have the privilege of communicating with the Lord, but also that they possess the role of warriors, defending the true Lord and his people against enemies and idolaters. The Archbishop of Mainz is equated not with a priest of the Old 60

Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig, p. 15: “...haben wir mit Augen gesehen, wie trew, eyfrig, vnserer Moyses [sc. Johann Schweikard], vnsern von Gott gesegnete Josue Jhre Hochfürstliche Durchleuchtigkeit Maximilianum Hertzog in Beyern vnd Churfürsten, als sie sich Keys. Mayest. vnd dem gemeinen Wesen zum besten, im eygner Person, mit heroischer Resolution zu Feldt begeben, vnd nacher Böhmen gezogen auch desselben General Leutnant, H. Graffen von Tylli, vnnd darzu dieses Orts der vnder Pfaltz, der Burgundischen Armee Generalen, H. Marchionem Ambrosium Spinolam, zu Göttlicher Ehren vnd Keys. Mayst. authoritet, vnd zu Schützung der Betrangten, vnd Dempffung der Caluinischen Amaleciten angemahnet, vnd dieselbe mit Ertzbischofflichen Segen begleytet...“ 61 Tilly beseiged Göttingen in the summer of 1626 (and forced it to surrender on August 11) while Christian IV was campaigning in the area around Wolfenbüttel, north of Harz, before they clashed at Lutter. 62 Ziegler, Klag- Lob- vnd Trostpredig,p. 23. 63 Ibid, pp. 15–16. 64 Ibid, p. 13. 65 Ibid, p. 13.

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Testament (in funeral sermons, Melchisedech is frequently so used), but with a warrior. The preacher intends that Schweikard should to remain a hero in the minds of mourners—one who dares (“in a manly and chivalrous way”)66 to face the enemies of the Catholic Church and to fight the rebellious destroyers of the Holy Roman Empire and of peace generally.67 There is nothing exceptional in this symbolic image of the defender of the true faith in funeral sermons during the era of confessionalization. A bishop is usually characterized as a warrior of God who is willing to lay down his life and without hesitation undergo a martyr’s death for his congregation, according to the gospel (John (10,11): “ I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep”.68 The bishop’s stylization as a Christian warrior—preachers typically use descriptions like “the great and fearless, wise and successful defender of our most holy Catholic faith”69—is in sermons of the turn of the sixteenth century often connected with the theme of direct physical danger. The road to heroic greatness leads through confessional confrontation, through defense of the faith from its enemies, through courage shown in front of Protestant military commanders,70 or through bold journeys across the lands of the Protestant enemies. 66

Ibid, p. 9. Ibid, p. 7: “Wiederumb die hohe Vernunfft, die heroische Standthafftigkeit, die vnverdrossene Müh, mit welcher Jhre Churfl. Gnaden, sich allezeit vnd Gott Lob mit gewünschtem effect vnderstanden, den Feinden der Catholischen Kirchen, den rebellschen zerstörern deβ Römischen Reichs vnd gemeinen wolbestelten Friedens, Ruhe, vnd Wohlstandt, mit hochvernünfftigem Rath, vnd hertzhafftiger That sich zu widersetzen.” 68 Cited, e.g., in a sermon of Andreas Haill written in the time between the funeral of Wolfgang von Dahlberg, Archbishop of Mainz (1601) and the election of his successor Johann Adam von Bicken (1601–1604). Andreas Haill, Klag Predig Nach dem sehr Trawrigen vnnd kläglichen Fall, deβ in GOtt seliglich entschlaffenen Herrn Wolffgang Ertzbischoffen zu Mayntz, vnd Churfürsten, Darinn wir erstlich jhrer Churfürstlichen Gn. tödtlichen Abgang, hochlöblicher Gedächtnuβ, beweinen... (Mainz: 1602), 11, HAB Wolfenbüttel, A: 231.5 Theol. (4). 69 Johann Ertlin, Ein Catholische Leichpredigt, Bey der Christlichen Begräbnus vnd Besingnus, Weyland des Ehrwirdigen in Gott, hochgelährten Herrn, Herrn Jacob Feuchten Episcopi Naturensis, Weichbischoffen zu Bamberg, Römisch. Kay. May. Rath, Vnd der H. Schrifft Doctorn, rc. So am Dienstag nach Iubilate, den 26. Aprilis zu Morgens früe, diß 1580. Jars, seligklich in Gott verschiden. Zu Bamberg in S. Martins Pfarrkirchen gehalten, vnd in Truck verfertiget... (Ingolstadt: 1580), HAB Wolfenbüttel, 280.71 Theol. (2). 70 Radmila Pavlíčková, Triumphus in mortem. Pohřební kázání nad biskupy v raném novověku [Triumphus in mortem: Funeral sermons for bishops in the Early Modern era] (České Budějovice: Veduta, 2008), pp. 88–93. 67

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* Sermons are in fact only one of various sources which allow us to follow the funeral and its meanings in a given society and time. Lists of guests and their correspondence inform us about who attended the ritual. Bills allow us to learn the costs of its preparation, the costs of decoration, about the menu of the funeral banquet and the dress of the guests. Prints of the castra doloris and the interior decorations convey a visual context of the event. And so on. Thanks to the prints of funeral sermons we are able to recreate the oration which those attending the funeral heard from the pulpit, and to characterize the funeral as an act of communication. The oration is specific not only in the fact that it was indeed a funeral speech, but primarily in the fact that—according to contemporary homiletics—what sounds down from the pulpit is the word of God. The preacher speaks to the audience from above, placed in a symbolic position between Heaven and Earth, from a stage he uses—in accordance with contemporary rhetoric and maxims—only to transmit the Word of God he is inspired with. The preacher is simply a messenger, a servant of the Word of God.71 The image of Johann Schweikard as created by Johann Reinhard Ziegler has many levels. It is an image of a nobleman of glorious ancestry, of a good post-Tridentine shepherd, of a father of his country, of a true servant of the Holy Roman Empire and its ruler. It is the image of a chosen one, sent from Heaven to use his heroic virtues to bring about the victory of God’s people over heretics. Besides the glorification of the Archbishop of Mainz, it is important to note the level of the sermon devoted to the description of contemporary events. Ziegler’s funeral sermon is exceptional in two ways: first, because of the extent of the part focused on the events of 1618 to 1626; then, because of individual attention given to the other protagonists in the narrative, whether it is the Elector of Pfalz, damned by Ziegler, the “Winter King” Friedrich of Pfalz, or the commanders in the service of Ferdinand II and the League, whom the preacher glorified. In one part of the sermon Count Tilly even takes over the lead part at the expense of the deceased, becoming the only secondary character in the plot who is identified with a hero of the Old Testament (Joshua). In these sections the sermon seems to be influenced by pamphlet production. This production had one of its peaks during the Thirty Years War. Europe had been drowned in prints, which through their simple, 71

Urs Herzog, Geistliche Wohlredenheit. Die katholische Barockpredigt (Munich: Beck, 1991), pp. 89–93, 315–347.

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aggressive form explained the public events of the time. These were the events where the Kingdom of Bohemia, Friedrich of Pfalz, and the Emperor Ferdinand of Habsburg played main parts.72 Funeral sermons in the era of confessionalization have to be seen as a part of printed politicoconfessional propaganda, serving such ends as political agitation, the denunciation of the adversary and the forging of a collective confessional identity. The funeral eulogy which in earlier times had focused entirely on the glorification of the deceased and the consolation of the mourners changed its rhetorical emphasis substantially at the end of 16th century and first half of the 17th century. Through the preacher, the audience is given an interpretation of contemporary religious and political struggle, explained through an up-to-date choice of events and bringing a distinct political opinion. The funeral sermon—even in printed form—was not a medium of mass communication. It did not picture confessional and political topics in easily decipherable images, accompanied with a pictorial legend for better understanding. The funeral sermon always was (considering the exclusiveness of the funeral company and the limited distribution of prints, published usually in a run of two hundred copies and only for the needs of relatives and socially appropriate recipients) primarily an intimate form of confessional and political communication with strong self-assuring aspects in terms of confessional paradigm.

72

Peter Wolf (ed.), Der Winterkönig Friedrich V. Der letzte Kurfürst aus der oberen Pfalz (Augsburg: Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte, 2003); Jaroslav Miller, Falcký mýtus [The myth of the Palatinate] (Prague: Argo, 2004).

The Making of a Perfect Friar: Habit and 1 Reform in the Franciscan Tradition MARTIN ELBEL

In the Jubilee year of 1525 Fra Matteo da Bascio, member of the Observant branch of the Order of Friars Minor, traveled to Rome in order to seek support from the Pope. It was eight years since the Friars Minor had been divided and the moderate friars (known as Conventuals or Minorites) became a separate order. This act was intended to unite the remaining friars of stricter observance, divided hitherto into a number of different reform movements, and to return the main body of the Order to the original ideals of St Francis. In spite of that, however, the degree of observance varied from place to place and many friars, friaries or even whole provinces were still in urgent need of reform. Fra Matteo, like many other friars, was dissatisfied with this situation and longed for a more austere life in the footsteps of St Francis. He therefore withdrew from his friary in order to live in a hermitage in seclusion from the unreformed friars. He started wearing a different form of dress, which he believed to be the original form designed by St Francis himself: a coarse tunic with a pointed hood attached. His initiative did not meet a favorable response from his superiors. For this reason he decided to go to Rome and ask Clement VII for help and protection. Both on the road and in Rome his pointed hood aroused curiosity and suspicion, but in the end his mission was successful. He received papal approval to preach, to observe the Rule of St Francis to the letter, and to wear the habit he had chosen. Later, other friars joined Matteo and together they formed another of the many reform branches of the Friars Minor. In spite of all the problems that accompanied the first years of their missionary activities, they succeeded in retaining papal pro1

The original idea for this study was conceived during an inspiring conversation with István György Tóth at a conference in Cluj-Napoca in 2001 on the religious orders in East-Central Europe. The paper was completed thanks to the generous help and hospitality of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Wassenaar.

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tection and later gained full autonomy from the Franciscan minister general. In 1574 the new order was permitted to spread beyond the Alps.2

1. Habit of St Francis preserved in the church of St Clare, Assisi. Zacharias Boverius, Annalium, seu Sacrarum Historiarum Ordinis Minorum S. Francisci qui Capucini nuncupatur Tomus Primus. (Lugduni: Sumptibus Claudii Landry, 1632), 892. [By permission of Research Library Olomouc, shelfmark: III 29.796]

2

On the history of the Capuchin reform see Father Cuthbert, The Capuchins: A contribution to the history of Counter-Reformation, 2 vols. (London: Sheed and Ward, 1928).

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The appearance of the new friars, especially the pointed hood, became such a distinctive feature that it earned them their name: Capuchins. The unusual cowl continued to arouse curiosity wherever they arrived,3 and with the growing popularity of the Capuchins it came to be imitated by other friars. In order to stop further confusion (and appease Capuchin complaints), Clement VII’s successor, Paul III, forbade other Franciscan reform groups to wear the pointed hood unless they subordinated themselves to the authority of the Capuchin vicar general.4 The new habit celebrated the success of the new order, but at the same time it aroused indignation. The Franciscan authorities challenged the legitimacy of the new branch and branded the Capuchin friars as renegades who broke the vow of obedience. They emphasized that Fra Matteo had started wearing his new habit without the permission of his superiors. They complained that the habit, which was supposed to be a sign of the unity of the order and the humility of individual friars, had become a source of discord and pride. In response the Capuchins argued that the pointed cowl corresponded to the original form of habit prescribed by St Francis himself. The adoption of this particular form of habit manifested the Capuchin commitment to revive his legacy which the other friars had abandoned. The Capuchins in the age of the Reformation spent decades disputing with the other Franciscans in defense of their own Franciscan reformation. In these debates the shape of the cowl and the color and texture of its fabric became heated emotional issues on both sides. More than a hundred years after Matteo’s visit to Rome the quarrels were still in progress and the most bitter arguments were yet to come. In 1632 Zaccaria Boverio published the first volume of his chronicle of the Capuchin Order. Attached, the readers could find a separate treatise entitled De vera habitus forma, a Seraphico B.P.N. Francisco instituta, demonstrationes undecim.5 In its ninety-two folio pages enriched with thirty-six copperplates Boverio sought to resolve the debates and put a stop to the never-ending controversy, “which is truly perilous as it fosters 3

For examples from Bohemia see Zikmund Winter, Život církevní v Čechách: Kulturněhistorický obraz z XV. a XVI. století [Church life in Bohemia: A cultural–historical portrait from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries], 2 vols. (Prague: Nákladem České akademie císaře Františka Josefa, 1896), p. 782. 4 Breve Cum sicut nobis, issued on 29 April 1536. Pacifik Matějka, Prvopočátky kapucínského řádu [The origins of the Capuchin Order] (Prague and Olomouc: Institut františkánských studií, 2005), p. 61. 5 Zacharias Boverius, Annalium, seu Sacrarum Historiarum Ordinis Minorum S. Francisci qui Capucini nuncupatur Tomus Primus (Lugduni: Sumptibus Claudii Landry, 1632).

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2. Franciscan tree with a broken branch. Jacobus de Riddere, Speculum apologeticum Fratrum Minorum Ordinis S. Francisci oppositum annalibus Capucinorum R.P. Zachariae Boverii (Antverpiae: Apud Guilelmum Lesteenium et Engelbertum Gymnicum, 1653), title page. [By permission of Koninklijke Bibliotheek Den Haag, shelfmark: 524 D 12].

great scandals under the pretext of Religion and produces everlasting fights among those who should be adorned with peace and concord rather

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than with quarrels.”6 In eleven chapters he discussed all the important issues related to the question of the Capuchin habit: whether there had been any special form prescribed by St Francis, whether the original hood had been pointed or rounded, whether attached to the habit or a separate item of dress. As his arguments, of course, speak in favor of the Capuchin form, he dealt also with the question of when the original form had been abandoned. What makes the treatise fascinating is the aptness of the accompanying pictorial material.7 Boverio provide his readers with detailed visual proofs of his conclusions, starting with illustrations of several surviving habits supposedly worn by St Francis and ending with reproductions of the oldest paintings depicting Francis and the early friars. Needless to say, all images show habits which are identical with the Capuchin ones. The impact of the work was different than Boverio expected, or at least than he claimed to expect. Instead of ending the controversy, it added fuel to the flames. The chronicle—and the treatise on the habit in particular— irritated the Franciscans. The riposte was written by Jacobus de Riddere in 1640.8 In the foreword to Cardinal Barberio, protector of the Franciscan Order, the author explained his intentions. He had been entrusted with a task to construct a mirror that would reveal truth and annihilate hostile attacks—after the fashion of Archimedes using mirrors to set enemy war machines on fire. He claimed that his main argument was derived from the very words of St Francis set down in his Rule: “Which [friars] I warn and exhort, not to despise nor judge men whom they see clothed with soft and colored clothes, using dainty food and drink, but rather let each one judge and despise his very self.”9 As de Riddere underlined, for St Francis 6

Ibid., p. 877. Cristina Pantanella, “Notizie di alcune antiche immagini francescane italiane da un trattato del frate minorita cappuccino Zaccaria Boverio,” in Claudia Barsanti (ed.), Bisanzio e l’Occidente: arte, archeologia, storia. Studi in onore di Fernanda de Maffei (Rome: Viella, 1996), pp. 601–19. 8 I have used the second edition: Jacobus de Riddere, Speculum apologeticum Fratrum Minorum Ordinis S. Francisci oppositum annalibus Capucinorum R.P. Zachariae Boverii (Antverpiae: Apud Guilelmum Lesteenium et Engelbertum Gymnicum, 1653). 9 Kajetan Esser, Die Opuscula des Hl. Franziskus von Assisi: Neue textkritische Edition, zweite, erweiterte und verbesserte Auflage besorgt von Engelbert Grau (Grottaferrata: Collegio S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1989), p. 367. The English translation I quote is by Fr. Alexis Bugnolo, The Wrtitings of St Francis of Assisi, (s.l., 1999). A PDF version downloaded from The Franciscan Archive: A WWW Resource on St Francis and Franciscanism, http://www.franciscan-archive.org/patriarcha/opera/opuscule.pdf, 31 July 2006. 7

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3. Francis makes his habit. Taymouth Hours, England [London], between 1325 and 1335, f. 180v [By permission of the British Library, Yates Thompson, 13]

perfection did not lie in external attributes; moreover, the disputes instigated by Boverio did not behoove religious people. Nonetheless, the length of de Riddere’s text betrays him and suggests that he allowed himself to become entangled in the controversy. For more than three hundred pages he labored to impugn meticulously most of Boverio’s arguments. Nor did he hesitate to use pictorial arguments. The beginning of the book was decorated with an engraving, the central part of which contained a picture showing a tree growing out of the belly of a reclining St Francis. The tree in Franciscan imagery traditionally represented the family of the Friars Minor. Here the tree is apparently injured: one of its branches is broken and falling off. The image is accompanied with figures of Truth and Love and an inscription: Nuda Veritas cum Charitate. All in all, this book was not one to calm down the situation or contribute to reconciliation. Bitter quarrels persisted and in the end they reached such an embarrassing level that the Pope had to ban any further debates on this issue. Similar disputes between religious orders (or between different branches of a single order) were by no means a new phenomenon at that time, and were usually interpreted as symptoms of decay and crisis. The controversy about the proper shape of the Franciscan hood, however,

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seems to be more complex. It happened in a period which was crucial for both orders. The Capuchins were struggling to retain their separate existence; the Franciscans wanted to implement inner reform and root out traditional abuses. Both branches sought to address the Catholic population and counter the Protestants. Indeed, they were quite successful in their endeavors and contributed remarkably to the process of Catholic revival. Yet at the same time they were immersed in controversy which seemed so contrary to their efforts and which threatened their reputation. This paradox raises a number of questions: What was the background of this controversy? Why was the shape of hood such an important issue for the Capuchins and Franciscans alike that it made them risk scandals and accusations of decadence? What was the role of the habit in the activities of friars and what meanings did they attribute to it? In order to answer these questions I will first summarize contemporary critique of similar quarrels in the past. Then I will discuss the function of the habit in the Franciscan tradition. Finally, I will analyze its uses in the context of the early modern reform endeavor. * Generally, clothing played an important role in the existence of religious orders.10 To “leave the world” was expressed by “to take the habit,” which visually separated its bearer from the lay people. With the spread of monasticism, the emergence of new religious orders, and the growing rivalry among them, dress assumed a further role as a distinguishing sign. The cut of the habit, the quality of the cloth and the nature of the girdle and their color were important parts of the identity of the orders and served for mutual demarcation. Lay society, however, often perceived the quarrels on these matters as a mere vanity and a symptom of the decay of religious life. Excessive attention paid by the religious to the external attributes of their status came to be regarded as an embodiment of mendicant vices (or the vices of the religious in general). On the eve of the Reformation (and the emergence of the Capuchins) these contemporary reproaches were most comprehensively summarized by Erasmus of Rotterdam. A famous example of his derision appears in The Praise of Folly (1511): But what could be more charming than to observe how they do everything by rules, as if they were entering figures in a ledger where it would be a terrible sin to overlook the 10

Giancarlo Rocca (ed.), La Sostanza dell'Effimero: Gli abiti degli Ordini religiosi in Occidente (Rome: Edizioni Paoline, 2000).

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smallest detail: how many knots to the shoe, what colours and different styles for each garment, of what material and how many straws wide the cincture may be, the cut of the hood and how many pecks it should hold, how many inches the hair may be, how many hours are allowed for sleep. ... Nevertheless, because of such trifles, not only do they consider outsiders beneath their contempt but one order scorns another, and men who profess apostolic charity raise a catastrophic uproar about a garment that is belted somewhat differently (or a colour that is a little darker).11

This critique is by no means isolated in Erasmus’ works. He returned to this issue time and again in his Colloquies. In The Fish Diet, published for the first time in 1526, he has one of the characters exclaim: “Let a Franciscan go out girded with a leather belt, having accidentally lost his rope cord; or an Augustinian wearing a woolen girdle; or one ungirded who is usually girded—what a horror will there be! How great the danger that women may miscarry at the sight!” 12 In another colloquy, The Sermon, or Merdardus (1531), Erasmus mocks the elitism of the Franciscan Observants. A certain Hilary reports to his friend Levinus about a particularly unimpressive sermon (coincidentally directed against Erasmus’ interpretation of the Magnificat) and Levinus is surprised to hear that the preacher was actually a Franciscan: Levinus: What’s that? From so holy a company? Perhaps from the degenerate sort known as Gaudentes, who wear dark dress, whole shoes, and white cord; who—I tremble to mention it!—don’t shrink from touching money with bare fingers. Hilary: Oh no, he’s from the most select sect—the ones who rejoice in the name of Observants, have ash-gray dress, hempen cord, and sandals, and who would rather kill a man than touch money with bare nail.13

Similar barbs can be found scattered over the entire text of the Colloquies, but there are several pieces which deal exclusively with the Franciscans. These include The Sermon mentioned above, and especially The Well-todo Beggars, published in 1524. The latter tells the story of a Franciscan priest Conrad and his fellow friar who seek lodging in a remote village. First they are refused by an unfriendly parish priest who even swears he would scarcely trust St Peter himself should he appear to him in a Franciscan habit. The desperate friars are obliged to seek lodging in a local inn. The innkeeper, however, is no less unwelcoming when they appear at 11

Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly, trans. Clarence H. Miller (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 128. 12 The Colloquies of Erasmus, trans. Craig R. Thompson (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 356. 13 Ibid., p. 465.

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his doorstep. He claims to be well informed about the dangers the friars represent to wives and daughters, as well as to the supplies of food and beverages of common men. Conrad tries to placate him by explaining that he belongs to the Observant branch, which aims at the strict preservation of the original ideal of St Francis: “You may suspect we are the sort who decline from the founder’s Rule. We are Observants.”14 This argument, however, does not seem to make any impression on the innkeeper. He is quite determined not to let the friars in—he points at an image hanging on the wall and says: “Look at the picture nearest you, on your left. There you see a fox preaching, but at his back a goose pushes its head through the cowl. Again, you see a wolf giving absolution to one who has confessed, but part of a sheep hidden under his robe sticks out. You see an ape in Franciscan dress sitting by a sick man’s bed; he holds out a crucifix in one hand and has the other in the sick man’s purse.”15 Friar Conrad admits that there are indeed many wolves, geese, apes, and even swine, dogs, horses, lions and basilisks dressed in religious garments, but he insists that he is not one of them. He argues that men are not to be judged according to their dress, and finally gains the innkeeper’s confidence and permission to enter the inn. There the dialogue continues. Conrad defends the practice of wearing religious habits, but expresses disapproval of all the abuses associated with them. Especially, he condemns the practice of using religious habits for the burials of lay people: “Whoever persuade them of that are either legacy hunters or fools; whoever believe it are superstitious. God recognizes a fool in Franciscan habit no less than one in a soldier’s uniform.”16 This abuse seems particularly to have attracted Erasmus’ attention. He dedicated to this issue another piece with the eloquent title The Seraphic Funeral (1531), in which he mocked not only the funeral practices of the mendicant orders, but also the alleged spiritual privileges of the Franciscans, including their occasional boast that “the ashen garb, hempen cord, and bare feet” were Francis’ amendments to the Gospel.17 Erasmus claimed he was no enemy of the Friars Minor and that his critique was intended to help the friars to rid themselves of their abuses. Nonetheless, his writings represent a typical specimen of traditional antifraternal critique. Although his ideas stemmed out from his Humanist 14

Ibid., p. 205. Ibid., p. 206. 16 Ibid., p. 215. 17 Ibid., p. 512. 15

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4. Franciscan abuses. Lucas Cranach the Younger, The True and False Preaching (1547) [Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection]

approach towards the religious orders—and also perhaps his own uneasy attitude towards the religious habits he himself was supposed to wear—he mostly repeated common medieval charges against the friars. These charges were nourished by two different but closely intertwined traditions. The first one is voiced by the innkeeper in The Well-to-do Beggars. It

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resulted from the everyday experience of such persons with friars and as such represented the reverse side of their immense popularity. The mendicant friars became one of most visible elements of the medieval Church and aroused many expectations. Any relapse from the ideal image and expected behavior was judged strictly, especially when it came to fundamental principles of religious vocation like poverty and chastity. It must be stressed that such criticisms were far from being the only or predominant response to the mendicant mission. The image of friars in broader society oscillated between two extremes: that of holy, apostolic men living in strict poverty and that of hypocrite, greedy, and lustful creatures living in comfort at the expense of others. A second tradition— represented by the parish priest in The Well-to-do Beggars—was more subtle, but by no means less vigorous. It is not difficult to understand why the priest felt so uneasy with the Franciscan visit: the friars, rather than being a source of support, were often unwelcome competition. Preaching was not always a central feature in the religious life of a parish. And the regular, commonplace sermons of a local priest could hardly compete with flamboyant preaching of the mendicants. Friars came, delivered one or few sermons—which occasionally even targeted the secular clergy— and left, leaving the parish excited and confused. And if the visitors decided to settle down and found a friary in the neighborhood, the situation could get even worse. A mendicant church with a group of well-trained professionals and new attractive devotions could radically change the sacred topography of the town—at the expense of the parish church. Fear that the latter might lose its prestige (and part of the revenues) led to never-ending quarrels over the competences to preach, hear confessions, and perform burials of the lay people. In these quarrels the secular clergy, often backed by the bishop, could draw on a reservoir of theological arguments elaborated by the secular masters of the University of Paris after the clashes with friars in the 1250s.18 18

In 1253, only thirty years after the papal confirmation of Francis’ Rule, the Dominican and Franciscan friars already occupied three chairs at the Paris University and their influence was still growing, much to the disapproval of the secular masters. When, after a conflict with city of Paris, the University declared a strike, the friars refused to join and continued teaching. This provoked a response from the secular masters led by William of St Amour, whose treatise De periculis novissimorum temporum challenged among others the orthodoxy of the mendicant way of life and itinerant preaching. During the subsequent disputes the mendicants were variously called antichristi, pseudopraedicatores, falsi prophetae, pseudoprophetae, pseudochristi. Penn R. Szittya, The antifraternal tradition in medieval literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 4–14, 55.

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5. Franciscan girdle as a rescue rope. Matrica Tertii Ordinis S. Francisci Olomucii, frontispiece [By permission of Moravian Land Archive in Brno, E 21, book 12]

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Neither clerical nor popular antifraternalism overlooked the visual aspects of mendicant activities. On the contrary, the appearance of the friars was an obvious and inviting target. Most of the diatribes on this subject targeted three main areas: the mendicant habit itself, the excessive attention paid by the religious to their attire, and finally, the discrepancy between the connotations of the habit and the actual conduct of the friars. Especially, the contrast between the meticulous attention paid to the external attributes of the religious vocation and the relaxed discipline of the friars themselves was repeatedly used as a clear example of mendicant hypocrisy and corruption. These attacks (repeated also in Erasmus’ works quoted above) grew ever stronger with the emergence of movements aiming at reforming the medieval Church. Already John Wycliffe, for example, made a comment that the mendicants substituted their habit, which was only a sign of religion, for religion itself.19 The Czech Utraquists, facing the advance of the Observants into Central Europe in the midfifteenth century, called them names which were derived mostly from the characteristic elements of the friars’ appearance. Besides the neutral name bosáci (the barefoot), they called the friars kuklíci (little cowls), kápičky (little hoods), trepkaři (slippers), chocholouši (tufts, after the coronal of hair around the tonsure)—often with the addition of the adjective “wolfish,” referring not only to their alleged misconduct but also explicitly to the greyish color of their habit.20 The sixteenth-century Reformation brought new impetus to these attacks. Among the religious orders—at least until the spread of the Jesuits—the Observant branch of the Friars Minor provoked the fiercest attacks.21 Although the arguments elaborated by Luther and other reformers were based on slightly different grounds, the traditional elements of medieval anti-fraternalism provided ample ammunition. The invention and spread of printing increased their range and impact. Broadsheets and cheap prints portrayed friars, together with the pope, as the main wreckers of Christendom. Probably the most eloquent example is the engraving by Lucas Cranach the Younger, The True and False Preaching (1547). The print shows an opposition between true and false Church or between their 19

Szittya, The antifraternal tradition, p. 159. Josef Truhlář (ed.), Manuálník M. Václava Korandy [The Handbook of M. Václav Koranda] (Prague: Král. česká spol. nauk, 1888), passim. 21 Geoffrey Dipple, Antifraternalism and anticlericalism in the German Reformation: Johann Eberlin von Günzburg and the campaign against the friars (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1996), pp. 78–80. 20

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6. Varieties on monks’ cowls. [Ignaz von Born], Ioannis Physiophili Specimen Monachologiae methodo Linnaeana tabulis tribus aeneis illustratum ... (Augustae Vindelicorum: Sumtibus P. Aloysii Merz, 1783). [By permission of Research Library Olomouc, shelfmark: 25.256]

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respective ways of preaching. The positive right side depicts the Evangelical Church with Martin Luther in the pulpit, whereas the left side portrays a comprehensive catalogue of Catholic abuses. In contrast to its Evangelical counterpart it is populated almost exclusively by clergy performing different activities: from a pilgrimage and procession to the consecration of a new altar and a church bell. It is apparent that the crucial role is given to the Franciscans, to whom the worst abuses are attributed. In the background a dying man is being dressed by several friars in a habit of their order. A fat friar laden with copious alms is trying to make a deal with the pope who is selling indulgences, thus associating begging with one of the most despised abuses of the old Church. The key role is given to yet another fat and perfidious-looking friar who is preaching from the pulpit to his credulous audience. This jolly fellow, who seems to be in charge of all that is going on below, makes a visual counterpart to Luther on the Evangelical side of the print. Whereas the reformer is holding the Bible and the Holy Spirit is hovering above him, the friar is inspired by a devil that is using a bellows to inflame wicked thoughts in the friar’s head. No wonder that while the Evangelical religion is shown as pleasing to God, the deeds of the Old Church arouse God’s wrath. St Francis appears in the sky and tries to intercede on behalf of his friars—needless to say, in vain.22 Cranach’s print summarized the main targets of the antifraternal tradition: superstitious idolatry, begging under false pretences and false preaching. It used the traditional themes developed during the previous centuries. It plays with contradiction—not only between the Protestant and Catholic Churches, but also between mendicant ideals and practice. Much is made of the physical characteristics of the Franciscan friars, especially their fatness— implying indifference to the ascetic ideal of the mendicants. * The above-mentioned examples of attacks reflect the importance of appearance and clothing in social interaction. Dress had a great symbolic value, which closely corresponded to the profession and social status of its wearer.23 Worn fabric, patches, and bare feet were signs which identified a 22

R.W. Scribner, For the sake of simple folk: Popular propaganda for the German Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 165–6. 23 Robert Jütte, “Stigma-Symbole: Kleidung als identitätsstiftendes Merkmal bei spätmittelalterlichen Randgruppen (Juden, Dirnen, Aussätzige, Bettler),” Saeculum 44/1 (1993), pp. 65–89.

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person as someone living on the social and economical margins. In the case of the mendicants this stigma had, however, a strong sacred dimension. The Friars Minor were themselves fully aware of its potential and its danger. Their habit played an important role in their activities and its function had been shaped and cultivated for centuries. This tradition dated back to the origins of the Franciscan movement. The very moment of St Francis’ conversion was marked—most pointedly—by a change of clothes. This is how the story reads in the Legenda maior composed by Bonaventure: “There and then he took off his shoes and laid aside his staff. He conceived a horror of money or wealth of any kind and he wore only one tunic, changing his leather belt for a rope.”24 Thomas of Celano, when describing Francis’ conversion, claims that there was even more profound meaning to the clothes St Francis decided to wear: “He designed for himself a tunic that bore a likeness to the cross, that by means of it he might beat off all temptations of the devil; he designed a very rough tunic so that by it he might crucify the flesh with all its vices and sins; he designed a very poor and mean tunic, one that would not excite the covetousness of the world.”25 Here the habit is described as a sign of the cross which Francis took on himself and which presaged his later stigmatization.26 This set a standard which his followers were soon urged to imitate. They were to wear a habit which resembled the dress that had been worn for centuries by other religious: a long tunic belted at waist, broad sleeves and a hood. But it was clearly specified that it was to be a very poor dress: it was to be made of coarse cloth of an ordinary greyish or brownish color, and was to be old, worn, and patched. The patches seem to have been of particular importance. They were far from just unwelcome consequences of the long-term use of the habit—on the contrary, they were explicitly recommended by Francis directly in his Rule: “And let all the friars wear cheap clothing and let them be able to patch these with sacks and other pieces (of cloth) with the blessing of God.”27 Similar modification was 24

S. Bonaventura, Doctoris Seraphici S. Bonaventurae ... Opera omnia ..., 12 vols. (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1898), 8: p. 510; English translation in Marion A. Habig (ed.), St. Francis of Assisi,Writings and Early Biographies: English Omnibus of the Sources for the Life of St. Francis, 3rd edition (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1973), pp. 646–47. 25 Thomas of Celano, “The First Life of St. Francis,” in Idem, p. 247. 26 Chiara Frugoni, Francesco e l’invenzione delle stimmate: Una storia per parole e immagini fino a Bonaventura e Giotto (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1993), pp. 361–63. 27 Esser, Die Opuscula, p. 367. Translation by A. Bugnolo (see footnote 10).

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prescribed for the girdle: instead of a leather belt, friars were supposed to wear a simple hempen cord around their waist. And last but not least, they were supposed to walk barefoot, which meant without shoes that would cover the foot (sandals and clogs were tolerated). These three elements—a poor patched habit, cord girdle, and bare feet—became the most characteristic attributes which signified affiliation with the Franciscan family. The instruction about the appearance of the Friars Minor appears already in the first draft of the St Francis’ Rule and is retained in the final, approved version (Regula Bullata, chapter 2): “Afterwards let them grant the clothes of probation, that is, two tunics without a capuche, and a cord, and breeches, ... And let those who have already promised obedience have one tunic with a capuche, and those, who want to have it, another (tunic) without a capuche.”28 Crucially, this instruction is repeated in St Francis’ Testament, which was usually attached to the Rule as the founding father’s explanation and interpretation of the main tenets: “and they used to be content with one tunic, patched inside and out, with a cord and breeches.”29 The meticulous attention paid to dress was hardly fortuitous. Put briefly, it was not only important to be poor, it was necessary to look so as well. St Bonaventure even argued that Christ himself demanded the same from his disciples: “This is what the Lord wanted to impose on his disciples: not only to be poor, but indeed to appear truly poor.”30 The friars’ habit and appearance was an integral part of their mendicant mission.31 It reflected Francis’ endeavor to communicate the Gospel in a simple and clear way to the broader society. In order to convey his message Francis used a whole array of means, of which preaching was the first and the most important one. Itinerant preaching became a lively and powerful tool which allowed the friars to address people directly and effectively. It enabled them to instruct, but also to move people and to cause them to respond to the preacher’s challenge. In spite of its great potential, however, it had certain shortcomings. Preaching itself was circumscribed in time and 28

Ibid., p. 367. Ibid., pp. 439–40. 30 Virpi Mäkinen, Property rights in the late medieval discussion on Franciscan poverty (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), p. 61, note 13. For the original text see Doctoris Seraphici S. Bonaventurae... Opera omnia..., 12 vols. (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1882–1902), 7: p. 255a. 31 On the long debates about the character of the proper dress see Servus Gieben, “Per la storia dell’abito francescano,” Collectanea Franciscana 66 (1996), pp. 431–78, especially pp. 437–444. 29

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7. St Francis in Capuchin habit. Francisco de Zurbaran, Meditation of St Francis (1632), Shaw Collection, Buenos Aires [Web Gallery of Art, www.wga.hu/art/z/zurbaran/1/meditati.jpg]

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space. The preacher’s words were most powerful at the very moment they were uttered. Although subsequently some successful sermons were more or less faithfully repeated and interpreted by other preachers or even recorded by scribes, it was the performance that really mattered. It was at that moment that the sermon could arouse an emotional response and leave an impact on the audience. Similar restrictions were imposed by space. The sermon took place at one particular spot. People had to be present to enjoy it. They either were members of the community the preacher wanted to address or they might have had to travel to hear the sermon of a particularly renowned preacher. And even if a person was able to attend the sermon, there were still other obstacles. The preacher’s voice could carry only a limited distance, and the listener at the edge of the crowd could have serious problems understanding all the words. Moreover, we cannot expect that everybody was always perfectly familiar with the language or the particular dialect the sermon was delivered in. Hence preaching had to become a part of a broader context. It needed to be supported by other, mainly visual means which soon developed into a complex imagery involving pictorial symbols, gestures, facial expressions, mnemotechnic aids, and so forth.32 Most of this visual language was directly influenced by St Francis, who in turn became an image in himself. Il poverello d’Assisi was an iconic figure who conveyed the ideal of apostolic poverty. However, the image which St Francis represented was a rather dynamic one. It was reflected by not only his appearance, but also—and mainly—his deeds. His imitatio Christi was a re-enactment of the Gospel story and an attempt to visually project poverty and other Christian virtues. The legends of St Francis read as a chain of lively scenes that fire the reader’s (or listener’s) imagination: his dramatic conversion, his celebration of the Nativity at Greccio, his preaching to the birds, his reception of the stigmata, and even his death and burial. But even besides these famous episodes the everyday activities of Francis and his followers were endowed with strong visual potential.33 This was certainly one of the strengths of the Franciscan movement, and the friars were well aware of the necessity to keep this imagery alive. 32

See Lina Bolzoni, The web of images: Vernacular preaching from its origins to St Bernardino da Siena, trans. Carole Preston and Lisa Chien (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). On the role of memory, see pp. 3–4. 33 For the use of e.g. prayer gestures in early Franciscan tradition see Mosche Barasch, Giotto and the language of gestures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 63.

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8. St Francis in Franciscan habit. El Greco, St Francis Receiving the Stigmata (1585-90), Walters Art Museum, Baltimore [Web Gallery of Art, www.wga.hu/art/g/greco_el/08/0803grec.jpg]

Already during the lifetime of Francis of Assisi a fierce debate started among his adherents about the interpretation and preservation of his legacy. His deeds were recorded in official (Bonaventure) and unofficial (Celano et al.) legends or preserved in stories circulating in oral tradition (some of them to be recorded later). Friars collected his writings, pieces of habit said to have been worn by him, and other relics. His sepulcher and the places associated with crucial events of his life were provided with shrines which were often adorned with frescoes and other works of art (to the disgust of radical friars). These items of his legacy and their message

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were limited originally to particular regions or certain strata of society. In spite of that, Franciscan imagery spread quite quickly into other regions and addressed a broad audience. Credit for this success can be attributed to another “medium” which was capable of overcoming the restrictions— the friars themselves. For the friars, St Francis represented not only natural authority but also a personal model for the formation of their lives. With the growing institutionalization of the Franciscan movement the friars aspired repeatedly to recall Francis’ charisma and re-enact his deeds. The great reform figures like Bernardino of Siena, John of Capistrano, or the early Capuchins used moments from Francis’ life as a source of inspiration. Their activities (including their imitatio Christi) were often transformed into an imitatio Sancti Patris Francisci.34 Habit, with its proper form and color, was an important means of identification with the legacy of their Seraphic Father. * In spite of the antifraternal tradition, the spread of the Reformation and the perpetual tension within the Order, the Friars Minor experienced a successful renewal in the early modern period. All three of their branches flourished not only on the Apennine and Iberian peninsulas, but also regained some of their standing in the regions north of the Alps.35 The restoration was a painful process, however. Of course, not all people saw the Franciscans in the way they were depicted on Cranach’s print. There are even numerous cases of friars receiving support and alms from Protestants. Yet the stereotype of the fat, hypocritical friar living it up on copious alms wheedled from poor believers was a powerful image which could easily find response even among Catholics. This was an area where the mendicants were extremely vulnerable. Most of the friaries depended directly on material support from the town and the surrounding rural areas. Friars had to remain on good terms with the local people in order to sustain their friary for a longer period. And they had to prove constantly their usefulness and the authenticity of their religious vocation. That is why the Franciscan and Capuchin authorities were so deeply concerned with the public image of their orders and of individual friars. They regu34

See Stanko Andrić, The Miracles of St John Capistran (Budapest–New York: CEU Press, 2000), pp. 70–1. 35 For the basic data see Heribert Holzapfel, Manuale historiae Ordinis Fratrum Minorum, trans. G. Haselbeck (Friburgi Brisgoviae: Herder, 1909), pp. 340–379, 530–539, 548– 561.

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larly sought to eliminate those elements which could re-introduce a negative stereotype in the minds of people. They attempted to purify their image and project an alternative which would express the true values of the mendicant life. Internal reform and attempts to restore the original way of life were crucial for a successful renewal. In the same time, however, it was important to manifest these steps publicly and communicate them to believers. This issue was complicated by the fact that the existence of nonCatholic confessions was not the only challenge the Friars Minor had to cope with. While in the Middle Ages the mendicants had often occupied a privileged position among other religious institutions, now they had to compete with popular new orders, especially the Jesuits.36 This made it necessary for them to emphasize their importance and their exceptionality. Understandably, they focused on poverty as the fundamental principle of Franciscan spirituality—as confirmed also at the twenty-fifth session of the Council of Trent. The observance of strict poverty remained an important issue for the whole early modern period. This was true especially for the provinces in the frontier areas of Catholic Europe, which had to face up to the consequences of the Reformation, as can be demonstrated by the example of the Bohemian Franciscan Province. The Province was founded by John of Capistrano in mid-fifteenth century as a barrier against the Bohemian Hussites. The outbreak of the Reformation hit the Bohemian Observance seriously—the number of friars sharply decreased, most of the houses were dissolved and in 1570s the province was at the edge of extinction. It survived, nonetheless, and from the beginning of the seventeenth century it experienced a slow, but ultimately successful revival.37 Throughout that process return to the ideals of strict poverty was crucial, and indeed available sources suggest that most of the friaries were relatively poor compared to the houses of other religious orders. Yet the provincial authorities were concerned to ensure that the ideal was both preserved and manifested. They focused primarily on those areas which had been traditionally 36

37

See Martin Elbel, “On the side of the angels: Franciscan communication strategies in early modern Bohemia,” in Heinz Schilling–István G. Tóth (eds.), Religion and cultural exchange in Europe, 1400–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 338–59. Martin Elbel, Bohemia Franciscana: Františkánský řád a jeho působení v českých zemích 17. a 18. století [Bohemia Franciscana: The Franciscan Order and its activities in the Bohemian lands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries] (Olomouc: Verbum, 2001).

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associated with the worst abuses. Begging, for example, was gradually brought under control and to large extent institutionalized. The whole province was divided into districts and each friary was allotted a list of villages and an exact schedule for collecting. It was strictly prescribed where and when the friars were supposed to beg and what was to be collected at a given time—usually only one kind of foodstuff (corn, eggs, or butter)38 Superiors were urged to send only respectable friars who had been carefully instructed on how to behave. Those friars were admonished to avoid anything that would scandalize people. This applied particularly to any contact with money, which was anathematized by St Francis in the fourth chapter of his Rule. In the early modern period, however, the prevalence of the monetary economy meant that financial donations could not be entirely eliminated. It became necessary to search for ways to use the money without actually accepting pecuniary donations into legal ownership. In the event the lawyers and theologians of the Order reached a compromise. Friars could not take money from an alms-giver directly. But if the donor insisted on this form of alms, he could give it to an apostolic syndic of the friary. This official benefactor (usually a wealthy lay sympathizer) would subsequently use the finances on behalf of other benefactors to pay for the friars’ needs.39 In this way the friars were at least formally (and visibly!) excluded from the circulation of money. All the same, this practice was quite ambiguous and several authors took pains to explain its legal principles to friars and to provide them with arguments in case they were accused of hypocrisy.40 Besides this, provincial chapters regulated the use of material goods and aspects of communal life associated with poverty. In everyday life a friary was supposed to use only basic and simple goods. Both the exteriors and interiors of friaries and their churches were supposed to be plain, without superfluous decorations.41 Even greater attention was paid to the 38

Collection districts are documented in the chronicles of individual friaries deposited in the National Archive in Prague, Archives of the Bohemian Franciscan Province. 39 Elbel, Bohemia Franciscana, pp. 57–58. 40 Damascenus Charvath, Fractio Panis in Refectionem Fratrum Minorum. To jest: Krátký Výklad na Regulu Bratří Menších [Fractio Panis in Refectionem Fratrum Minorum: That is, a short explanation of the Rule of the Friars Minor] (V Uherské Skalici: U J.A. Skarnycla, 1765). 41 Services in the churches were supposed to be simple too. Figurative music was banned in 1653 and only plain chant allowed. However, these restrictions often clashed with the taste of benefactors and the demands of believers, so several concessions were made later in the seventeenth century: church interiors were furnished with valuable altar-

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friars’ appearance and behavior. Activities which were considered inappropriate for a religious were prohibited or (in most cases) permitted only within the walls of the friary, away from the sight of lay people. This applied, for example, to the use of tobacco and the playing of sports like skittles, billiards or shooting. Friars were not allowed to wear items of clothing which did not constitute part of the prescribed habit (e.g. caps and gloves). Crosses and rosaries used by friars were supposed to be simple, made of wood and without any decorations. In the case that a friar had a Caravaca cross or any other devotional object endowed with indulgences, he was allowed to keep it on condition that it was worn hidden in his sleeves and never displayed publicly. Otherwise, any objects suggestive of luxury (clocks, seals, private objects of art) were disallowed. Quite significant in this regard was the ban on wearing keys in public. Even though the key could belong to a sacristy or to other part of the friary and its use might be perfectly acceptable, the firm association of a key with property made it into a dangerous object for the friars’ reputation. Poverty—the basic value of mendicant life—had to be made visible and clearly declared as the main attribute of a proper Franciscan or Capuchin friar. The dress of the friars was also subject to the attention of their superiors. For example, friars were instructed on the correct way to sew patches—they were supposed to be neither too colorful (to avoid ridicule) nor too ostentatious (to avoid the temptation of pride and hypocrisy).42 The habit was a barometer of changes and the progress of reforms. When in 1660 the Bohemian Province completed its reform and joined the Reformed branch of the Order (taking leave of the Observants), the change was accompanied by a modification of the habit: the upper mantle was shortened and the clogs were replaced by sandals.43 This was a clear and visible gesture compared to the subtle and “esoteric” changes in the statutes. The preponderance of visual manifestation over other aspects of the reform was so strong that Severinus Wrbczansky—an eighteenth-century Franciscan historian writing in the defense of the reform—had to stress pieces, and the ban on figurative music was cancelled. See Statuta Praecipua in Capitulis Provincialibus et Diffinitoriis Provinciae facta ab Anno 1614, 1–4. National Archive in Prague, Archives of the Bohemian Franciscan Province, MS no. 68. 42 Charvath, Fractio Panis, p. 595. 43 The reform process lasted several decades and was marked by an alteration in the official name. Before 1660 the Bohemian friars were called Fratres Minori de Observantia, and afterwards Fratres Minores Reformati or Fratres Minores Strictioris Observantiae. See Elbel, Bohemia Franciscana, pp. 21–29.

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that it “did not consist—as some think—only of the shaving of the beard and the shortening of the mantle.”44 Besides the concern about the proper use of the habit within the order, attention was directed to its uses outside the order itself. Since the beginning the Franciscan habit had aroused interest and enjoyed a good reputation with lay society—the critique mentioned above was one response, but not the only one. The symbolic meaning which had been attributed to the habit soon generated the belief that the Franciscan habit in general—not only the pieces worn by St Francis himself—was bestowed with sacred power. And this power could not only offer protection from the demons but also, remarkably, facilitate one’s salvation. This was a very attractive vision not only for prospective friars but also for lay people who sought to imitate the habit or even get permission to be buried in full Franciscan (or other) habit.45 As was mentioned above, it was this custom that particularly scandalized adversaries of the mendicants. Yet in the early modern period this tempting practice had been re-approved by Church authorities and the Franciscans were eager to gratify popular demands. The possibility to assume religious habit became available not only to individuals, but even to whole groups of believers. In 1585 Pope Sixtus VI approved the Arch-Confraternity of the Girdle of St Francis. Its members became affiliated to Franciscan friaries and their affinity was declared by the hempen cord they were allowed to wear around their waist. There were books printed for their use which explained to them the spiritual meaning of their gesture: the girdle was designated as a kind of rescue rope which enabled St Francis to pull their souls out of the Purgatory. After 1700 the brotherhood was joined by communities of the Third Order whose members enjoyed even greater favors—among others, they were given, together with the girdle, a simpler version of a Franciscan habit, endowed with similar privileges as the regular one worn by friars.46 The possibility to possess a religious habit and participate in the Franciscan tradition was apparently very attractive for lay believers, while for the Franciscans it provided the opportunity to develop a firm network of followers and extend their mission outside the walls of their friaries. 44

Severinus Wrbczansky, Nucleus Minoriticus, Seu Vera, Et Sincera Relatio Originis, Et Progressus Provinciae Bohemicae ... (Vetero–Prague: Typis Joannis Caroli Hraba, 1746), p. 28. 45 Salvatore Abbruzzese, “Sociologia dell’abito religioso,” in Giancarlo Rocca (ed.), La Sostanza dell’Effimero: Gli abiti degli Ordini religiosi in Occidente (Rome: Edizioni Paoline, 2000), pp. 119–123, especially p. 120. 46 Holzapfel, Manuale historiae, pp. 594–605.

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Again, as in the case of the Protestant attacks in the sixteenth century, the critique from the Enlightenment elite provides evidence to a certain degree about the success of their endeavors. Among anti-religious pamphlets the prize for the most imaginative must surely go to Ignaz von Born‘s Monachologia.47 This book treated religious orders as insects and classified them into a system based upon the taxonomy invented by Carl von Linné. It was accompanied with scientific engravings depicting details of the individual “species,” including one dedicated to the issue of cowls. The secularization of monasteries and the reduction in their number diminished the role of friars and their influence. Yet the mendicant habit continued to inspire the imagination. The figure of a friar dressed in a brown habit with a bizarre hood, became—together with ornate cathedrals and the dark cells of the Inquisition—an appreciated ingredient of a proper Gothic novel. To a certain extent fascination with the religious habit survives to present days, at least in movies and advertisements— Franziscaner Bier being an eloquent example. In the history of the Friars Minor the habit played a crucial role. It expressed the specific mission of the friars: the apostolic life in poverty, penance, and itinerant preaching. Material poverty—represented by poor clothing, patches, and bare feet—was an image of the spiritual poverty of a man-beggar before the face of God.48 As the Order of the Friars Minor evolved the role of the habit transformed. In the beginning it served rather as a sign of the order’s unity and its obedience to the authority of the Church. It marked them as orthodox members of the Church and thus helped to distinguish them from heretical groups. This was particularly important in the case of such a dynamic and complicated group as the Friars Minor. Habit helped to strengthen corporate identity. In the vernacular the friars were often called after their appearance (greyfriars, fratti grigi). But as efforts to preserve unity began to fail the situation changed. The greyish habit came to take a variety of forms which became associated with individual reform groups. With the emergence of strong reform movements within the Friars Minor (Observants, Capuchins and many others) this question gained particular urgency. In the early sixteenth cen47

48

Ignaz von Born], Ioannis Physiophili Specimen Monachologiae methodo Linnaeana tabulis tribus aeneis illustratum ... (Augustae Vindelicorum: Sumtibus P. Aloysii Merz, 1783). The book appeared also in German, French and English translations. Lee Palmer Wandel, “The poverty of Christ,” in Thomas Max Safley (ed.), The Reformation of charity: The secular and religious in early modern poor relief, Studies in Central European Histories, 30 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), p. 19.

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tury, within a relatively short period, the Friars Minor were officially divided into three independent orders: Capuchins, Franciscans, and moderate Conventuals. Each of the three branches professed a different interpretation of the Franciscan tradition and each of them was keen to express their position. In the circumstances it was not possible to avoid the question of authenticity: Who were the true sons of St Francis? For many friars the answer to this question involved settling other, more particular questions: Which of the three orders of Friars Minor wore the true habit of the founding father? Did St Francis wear a pointed or round cowl? Was he bearded or shaven? And what did he wear on his feet? That is why the debates about the true habit were so important. It was a matter of legacy and legitimacy, especially for the Franciscans and Capuchins who claimed to observe the Rule of St Francis to the letter and without concessions. For them the saying the cowl does not make the monk was more than questionable.49 Although—given the strength of the antifraternal tradition—attention paid to the habit was a very risky business if taken to excess, it could not be disregarded. The very nature of their missionary activities compelled them to rely on visual language. The debates about the proper shape of a hood cannot be taken out of that context. The friars’ outward appearance was a visual message intertwined with other means of communication. It helped to establish their place in society, to strengthen ties between them and their sympathizers. This enduring affiliation of individuals or groups to certain orders can be observed notably in Spanish painting. Zurbarán and Murillo were close to the Capuchins and therefore St Francis in their paintings usually wears a pointed hood, whereas El Greco’s St Francis is usually dressed in the round cowl of the Franciscans.50 This network enabled the friars to pursue their mission more effectively and to convey their message to the broader society. Rather than a sign of decay and relapse, the controversy was a by-product, though awkward, of reform and successful renewal.

49

Cucullus non facit monachum. John Simpson (with the assistance of Jennifer Speak), The concise Oxford dictionary of proverbs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 52, which also quotes Chaucer’s For habit maketh no monk. See also Roger Lassalle, “L’habit fait le moine,” Razo: Cahiers du centre d'études médiévales de Nice 6 (1986), pp. 15–23. 50 Giancarlo Rocca, “Il guardaroba religioso,” in Idem (ed.), La Sostanza dell'Effimero: Gli abiti degli Ordini religiosi in Occidente (Rome: Edizioni Paoline, 2000), p. 36.

II.3. Strife and Accommodation

The Politics of Church Unification: Efforts to Reunify the Utraquists and Rome in the 1520s* ANTONÍN KALOUS

Faith and belief often connect with secular politics. We might note the politics of conversion in the Early Middle Ages—a phenomenon predominant in the “new Europe” during the tenth and eleventh centuries. Then, rulers in Central and Northern Europe understood that becoming Christian might provide worldly advantages in national as well as international affairs. Similarly, in regard to the later Middle Ages one might speak about the politics of church unification. In the case of the kingdom of Bohemia during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries politics and faith came together over the question of accepting the Utraquists, who emerged after the Hussite wars, into the general fold of the Catholic Church. This question occupied the minds of kings, nobles, and even common people as well as popes and papal diplomats who visited Central Europe. The last serious attempt at unification took place in the 1520s. The negotiations in the early sixteenth century are described (along with other events) in an anonymous text entitled De origine Bohemicę heresis. The original is preserved in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in a manuscript that contains a number of texts by Antonio Burgio, a papal nuncio sent to Central Europe in 1524–1526.1 Although the text explains the origins of the Hussite Reformation (“heresy”), its primary function was to provide a background for negotiating a reunification between the Czech dissidents and Rome. *

This study was supported by the grant of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic nr. 104/07/P275, and by the generosity of the Czech Historical Institute in Rome. 1 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (hereafter BAV), Cod. Vat. lat. 3924, fol. 335r–337ar; the anonymous text itself is published as an appendix to this essay (the last folio of the text numbered as 337a in the manuscript, meaning 337bis); no other manuscript version of the text is known to me. For Antonio Burgio see Gerhard Rill–Giuseppe Schichilone, “Burgio, Giovanni Antonio Buglio barone di,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani (Rome: Istituto della enciclopedia italiana, 1960), vol. 15, pp. 413–417.

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We shall start, as the text does, from the beginning. In the early fifteenth century the Czech lands were described as completely free of heresy. According to Jerome of Prague, a university master writing in 1409, a determining sign of a Czech or Bohemian (Bohemus) was his orthodoxy.2 Within a few decades, however, this definition had been turned upside down as the ideas of John Wycliffe were spread to and by Prague University—as the De origine does not fail to mention3—and the word Bohemus became a synonym for a heretic and an enemy of the pope. A Europe-wide aversion followed, supported by many rulers and even the common people, as was for example reported by Czech travelers. This led to violence, political isolation, and condemnation by the Holy Father. On both sides there were those who wished to avoid such a situation, and repeated attempts at reconciliation followed. The first, between the Hussites and the negotiators of the Council of Basle, was a partial success. However, it was never ratified by the Pope, and as a result the Czechs were still branded as heretical. Despite this setback, the Czechs were inclined to reconciliation or even re-unification with Rome more often than not. After continuous warfare during the early fifteenth century, the Hussites and the Council came to an agreement known as the compactata, which later on became a part of the land law of Bohemia and other lands of the Czech crown. In Bohemia, the compacts were believed to have been confirmed by Pope Eugene IV in his two bulls of March 11, 1436 and September 18, 1437, though “neither of these documents contained an express confirmation of the Council’s agreement with the Czechs.”4 This belief on the part of the Hussites is recorded by Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, in his Commentarii, where King George of Poděbrady says: …Concilium nobis Basiliense—maioris auctoritatis, quam ipse [Pius II] est—et antecessor eius, Eugenius Compactata dederunt…5 In fact, the text of the De origine explicitly mentions Eugene’s abolishing of the decrees of the council. It then goes on to explain the political situation in the Czech lands, and how it encouraged 2

František Šmahel, Die Hussitische Revolution, vol. 1, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Schriften, vol. 43 (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2002), pp. 324–325; Idem, Idea národa v husitských Čechách (The idea of nation in Hussite Bohemia), 2d ed. (Prague: Argo, 2000), pp. 44–48. 3 BAV, Cod. Vat. lat. 3924, fol. 335r. 4 Otakar Odložilík, The Hussite King: Bohemia in European Affairs, 1440–1471 (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1965), p. 139. 5 Pius II, Commentarii, ed. Ibolya Bellus–Iván Boronkai (Budapest: Balassi, 1993), p. 439.

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the spreading not only of the heresy of the Hussites, whose issue was almost exclusively circa usum Eucharistiae, but also of the “Taborites or Picards or Valdensians,” who were even more radical and much more reformed (and whose main errors are enumerated in the De origine).6 It was probably the papal strategy of reconciliation (and unification) connected with local developments that helped the Utraquist George of Poděbrady become King of Bohemia in 1458. He took a secret oath one day before his coronation, pledging obedience to the Roman Church and Pope Calixtus III. In addition George promised to protect and defend the true faith and to lead his subjects away from all errors, sects, and heresies back into obedience and unity with the Church.7 For a short period of time, many believed that the Utraquist king would achieve these aims; the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490) expressed his belief that this would be so in a letter to the pope,8 Cardinal Juan Carvajal congratulated King George eight days after his election,9 and even Pope Calixtus did not originally oppose the new monarch.10 A congratulatory letter was drawn up, but was never sent due to intervention by the count of 6

BAV, Cod. Vat. lat. 3924, fol. 336r–v. Archivio Segreto Vaticano (hereafter ASV), A.A., Arm. I–XVIII, no. 639 (a contemporary notarial instrument): …fidelis et obediens ero sacrosancte Romane et catholice ecclesie ac sanctissimo domino nostro Calisto divina providencia pape tercio eiusque successoribus canonice intrantibus et eis obedienciam et conformitatem more aliorum catholicorum et cristianorum regum in unitate orthodoxe fidei, quam ipsa sancta Romana catholica et apostolica ecclesia confitetur, predicat et tenet fideliter observabo ipsamque catholicam et orthodoxam fidem protegere, tueri et defendere volo toto posse populumque michi subiectum secundum prudenciam a deo datam ab omnibus erroribus sectis et heresibus et ab aliis articulis sancte Romane ecclesie et fidei catholice contrariis renovare et ad vere catholice et orthodoxe fidei observacionem ac obedienciam, confornitatem et unitatem ac ritum cultumque sancte Romane ecclesie reducere et restituere volo et laborabo… Also edited by Augustinus Theiner (ed.), Vetera Monumenta historica Hungariam Sacram illustrantia, 2 vols. (Roma: Typis Vaticanis, 1860), vol. 2, pp. 405–406, no. 580. See also the National Library, Prague, MS. sign. I E 30, fol. 148r–v. 8 Vilmos Fraknói (ed.), Mátyás király levelei, külügyi osztály (The letters of King Matthias concerning foreign affairs) (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), vol. 1, pp. 7–8, no. 5, 7 August 1458: Quamobrem nuper, ut delusam errore Bohemiam ad vere fidei cursum reducere possemus, duos ex episcopis regni nostri pro coronatione ducis ideo misimus, … qui omnibus negotiis non interfuerunt solum, sed etiam prefuerunt. 9 František Palacký (ed.), Urkundliche Beiträge zur Geschichte Böhmens und seiner Nachbarländer im Zeitalter Georg’s von Podiebrad (1450–1471), Fontes rerum Austriacarum II, 20 (Vienna: 1860), p. 140, no. 146. 10 BAV, Cod. Vat. lat. 3924, fol. 337r. 7

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Saxony.11 However, Calixtus’ successor, Pius II, on March 31, 1462 officially declared the compacts null and void; a statement, which was repeated by the papal nuncio Fantino della Valle in Prague in front of the king a few months later.12 Thus with the compacts expressly rejected by the pope, Rome and Prague were split completely. Pontifical policy had changed within a few years: the revived papacy increased its hostility against the “heretics” and the new “enemy of the pope,” i.e., George of Poděbrady, as he was now commonly described.13 George, however, is still praised by the Catholic author of the De origine for his antipathy towards the “Picards,” i.e., the Unity of Brethren, even though he was never officially given credit for this by the papacy.14 During the late 1460s it seemed that war would again validate correct belief. There was as yet no place for compromise: neutrality was rejected and severely punished, as demonstrated in several cases involving local aristocrats and royal towns. For example, the envoys from the south Bohemian city of České Budějovice visited the diet of the Catholic estates of the Czech lands in Wrocław in December 1467 to defend their city’s policy of neutrality. The papal legate Rudolf of Rüdesheim countered that they were trying to find a “middle way between God and the Devil,” and that was not possible, they had “to abide either by the devil or by God.”15 This meant once again war in the name of religion. The second round of the Hussite wars dragged on for several years, with neither side gaining a decisive advantage. Nevertheless in 1465 George of Poděbrady, who had been proclaimed a heretic by Pope Paul II, tried to secure assistance from Matthias Corvinus and his prelates for

11

ASV, Arm. XXXIX, vol. 7, fol. 171v–172v, a letter of Calixtus III to Cardinal Carvajal, 13 May 1458; see Vilmos Fraknói, Carvajal János bíbornok magyarországi követségei, 1448–1461 (The Hungarian legations of Cardinal Carvajal, 1448–1461) (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1889), p. 50. 12 For the Roman proclamation see Palacký (ed.), Urkundliche Beiträge, p. 269, no. 276 (pronouncement of Antonius de Eugubio, the papal procurator), see also pp. 270–271, no. 278. 13 BAV, Cod. Vat. lat. 3924, fol. 337r. 14 Ibid., fol. 336v; see Odložilík, The Hussite King, pp. 228–230. 15 Peter Eschenloer, Geschichte der Stadt Breslau, ed. Gunhild Roth (Münster: Waxmann, 2003), pp. 690–691: Doruff der legat sagte, kőnden sie czwischen got vnd dem tewfil ein mittil finden, so were wol, das sie in mittil der herren vnd des keczirs rweten, adir das mőchte nicht gesein, sunder műsten bey dem tewfil adir bey got bleiben. Similarly other Czech cities, Most and Cheb, were rejected in their attempts to remain neutral.

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renewed negotiations with the Papal Curia.16 Matthias, however, chose rather to become leader of a crusade against the “heretical” king and had himself elected king of Bohemia by the Catholic estates of the Czech lands. But Matthias was unable to secure a complete victory and so failed to crush the heresy. Moreover, the Czech Utraquist elites refused to consider his candidacy after the death of King George, but rather “…pursued [Matthias] with their hatred” and settled on another candidate, Wladislas (as Vladislav II, 1471–1516), the son of the Polish king Casimir.17 The estates, however, were always conscious of the compacts and the agreement with Rome: in the case of the Kutná Hora election in 1471, the Polish side, representing the Jagiellonian Wladislas, agreed (according to some reports) to proceed with negotiations in Rome for recognition of the compacts and a final peaceful settlement of the struggle between the Catholic and Utraquist sides.18 The confirmation was never obtained, however, and even though the Jagiellonian king of Bohemia was a Catholic he was associated with the Utraquists. The situation in Bohemia and Moravia subsequently led to compromises and a “necessity of tolerance” which was clearly articulated in the agreement and mutual recognition between the two kings of Bohemia, Matthias Corvinus and Wladislas, as well as in the religious peace of Kutná Hora in 1485.19 Concerning the papacy, recognition of the political compromise came within a short period of time. Wladislas was acknowledged by Innocent VIII in 1487, even if the recognition was prompted by the then conflict between the pope and King Matthias. But this political compromise was dissociated from the settlement within the Church: the pontiff was still not willing to make concessions in ecclesiastical matters. It was the election of Wladislas to the Hungarian throne (as Ulászló II, 1490–1516) that finally ended the international dimension of the conflict. Internal disputes on the basis of confession, however, continued. The compromise of 1485 was officially to last for thirty-one years (and in 1512 was renewed as of perpetual duration), but in spite of its perpetual validity, it was not able to eradicate the disputes between the Utraquists 16

Frederick G. Heymann, George of Bohemia: King of Heretics (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 420. 17 BAV, Cod. Vat. lat. 3924, fol. 337r–v. 18 See Roman Heck, “Elekcja kutnohorska 1471 roku” (The 1471 election of Kutná Hora), Śląski kwartalnik historiczny: Sobótka 27 (1972), pp. 193–235. 19 František Šmahel, Husitské Čechy: Struktury, procesy, ideje (Hussite Bohemia: Structures, processes, ideas) (Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2001), pp. 429–466.

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and the Catholics completely. Especially the Czech cities and towns were centers of frequent political and social struggles in the early sixteenth century which were tied to the parties of different confessions. Plzeň, Cheb, Olomouc, Brno, and Jihlava were all involved in internal social conflicts. Strongest, however, was the effect of the internal politics of Prague, where more often than not conflicts arose from differences between the radical and conservative Utraquists. The most crucial and decisive of the clashes was the Prague putsch of 1524.20 The putsch was led by Jan Pašek of Vrat, later termed the “dictator” or “tyrant” of the city of Prague and a representative of the conservative Utraquists. Just as in 1485 the negotiations and the final confessional peace had been the end result of the popular tumult in Prague in 1483, the seizure of power in Prague in 1524 led to new negotiations about the compacts and more importantly about the unification of the Utraquists with the Roman Catholics. Having taken over the government in Prague, the conservative Utraquists seized their opportunity and started talks with the Catholic side. Historians generally believe that the Prague putsch was in fact instigated by the Hungarian prelates with the support of papal diplomats in Central Europe.21 The papacy was always interested in negotiations with the Utraquists which might lead to the reincorporation of the latter into the Roman Church. In 1493–1494 it was the turn of Orso Orsini to try his luck in Bohemia and Moravia. The papal nuncio wrote to the Franciscan Jan Filipec, a former bishop of Nagyvárad (Oradea, Grosswardein) and administrator of Olomouc, suggesting that he make efforts to bring the Utraquists to the obedience of the Holy See.22 Orsini also sought to do so

20

Josef Macek, Jagellonský věk v českých zemích (The Jagiellonian age in the Czech Lands), 4 vols. (Prague: Academia, 1998), vol. 3, pp. 312–321; on the uprising see also Winfried Eberhard, Konfessionsbildung und Stände in Böhmen 1478–1530 (Munich and Vienna: Oldenbourg, 1981), pp. 150–181; for a more detailed account see Wácslaw Wladiwoj Tomek, Dějepis města Prahy (History of Prague), 12 vols. (Prague: František Řiwnáč, 1894), vol. 10, pp. 549–572. 21 Macek, Jagellonský věk 3, p. 316; Vilmos Fraknói, Magyarország egyházi és politikai összeköttetései a római szent-székkel a konstanczi zsinattól a mohácsi vészig (Hungarian ecclesiastical and political contacts with the Holy See of Rome from the Council of Constance to the battle of Mohács) (Budapest: A szent-István-társulat, 1902), p. 355. 22 Filipec mentioned this in a letter of 22 September 1493 to William of Pernštejn, see Archiv český (The Czech Archive), vol. 16 (Prague, 1897), p. 17, no. 30, and added prophetically: Než mněť se zdá, byť jeho mule, kterouž má, tři měla ocasy, žeť je prvé v Čechách ztratí, nežli skrze něj ta věc k konci bude moci přivedena býti (But it seems to

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himself, though quite without success. The author of the Staré letopisy české (Old Czech Annals) tells that Filipec was sent by King Wladislas to the Prague diet on St. Wenceslas’ Day 1494 to correct the nuncio’s words about the Czechs being heretics, and the estates for their part asked Filipec to negotiate in Rome with the pope and persuade him to confirm the compacts.23 A further attempt came in 1500,24 when a papal legate, Petrus Isvalies (Isualles), was sent to Central Europe. His main task was to assist in organizing a crusade against the Turks, but he was commissioned to parley with the “heretics” as well. In the event, he achieved nothing in either case, his activities reportedly being limited to taking bribes from the Thurzós in return for confirming their new benefices.25 It can be observed that the efforts at reconciliation originated exclusively with the estates (predominantly the nobility), who tried to exonerate the name of the Czechs in the eyes of the Catholic world, they themselves being usually on the conservative side of the Utraquist faction, or else Catholics. Yet another attempt was made in 1524–1525, when the papal legate Lorenzo Campeggi endeavored to restart negotiations.26 However, the situation in Central Europe had changed quite substantially. Now it was not only the Turkish threat that loomed large in the region, but also the spread of Lutheranism. The legate was commissioned to deal with both and also with the Czechs. The instigator of the church negotiations was the bishop of Eger, later archbishop of Esztergom, László Szalkai. In me that even if the mule had three tails, it would first lose all of them in Bohemia, before the matter could be brought to an end by him). 23 Palacký (ed.), Staří letopisové, p. 213. The papal legate reportedly said: Domini Bohemi etc. Apud Sanctissimum vos nominant omnes hereticos etc. See also Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), vol. 2, The Fifteenth Century (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1978, rpt. 1997), p. 445. 24 Erroneously, the author of the De origine states that both the legations took place within two years: BAV, Cod. Vat. lat. 3924, fol. 337v. 25 Josef Macek, Víra a zbožnost Jagellonského věku (Belief and piety in the Jagellonian age) (Prague: Argo, 2001), p. 251; see also ASV, Misc., Arm. II 7, fol. 620r–643r, partially edited by Edgár Artner (ed.), “Magyarország mint a nyugati keresztény művelődés védőbástyája” (“Hungary as the bulwark of western Christian civilization”) (Budapest and Rome: Research Institute of Church History at Péter Pázmány Catholic University, 2004), pp. 147–157 (Collectanea Vaticana Hungariae, vol. 1); Conrad Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica medii aevi (Munich: 1914), vol. 2, p. 55. Petrus Isvalies was designated as bishop of Veszprém in 1503; see ibid., p. 266. 26 Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), vol. 3, The Sixteenth Century to the Reign of Julius III (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1984), p. 223; Stephan Skalweit, “Campeggi, Lorenzo,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 17, pp. 456–457.

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1522–1523 he had visited Prague in the retinue of King Louis II and Queen Mary of Hungary and Bohemia, and it was probably when he was there that the idea was suggested to him to try and solve the problem of Utraquism once and for all. In the beginning of 1524 the pope was informed; in July 1524 a representative of the archbishop Szalkai, István Brodarics, went to Prague to take part in the Land Diet (zemský sněm).27 The circumstances were different from the previous attempts of reconciliation. The diet was held a few months after the Prague putsch in March 1524 and started with a fundamental rejection of the Lutherans and the Unity of Brethren (the Picards of the sources). The struggle against the radical reformation not only was in keeping with the ecclesiastical interests of the Catholics and the conservative Utraquists, but also conformed to their position on the political spectrum. The time of the reconciliation attempt and the Prague putsch do not coincide by chance. Jan Pašek of Vrat was a strong representative of the conservative party and his influence was forceful enough to bring over the then administrator of the lower (Utraquist) consistory, Havel Cahera, to the camp of the conservatives. Cahera had been elected to the office in 1523 as a pupil and follower of Luther; nevertheless, at this point he changed sides from the radical reformation to the more conformist one. His precursor in the office had fallen into disgrace with the Utraquist estates, who held him to be a traitor because of his negotiations with Szalkai. Yet Cahera ended up doing the same. In 1525 he wrote to Szalkai mentioning their common struggle against the “heresy of the disgraceful, who… flourish in the lands around.”28 This was the official standpoint: both sides, Catholics and Utraquists, saw the danger in the radical reformation—the Unity of Brethren, which started to grow under Wladislas II, since he neglected to pay attention to them,29 and the 27

István Balogh, Szalkay László: esztergomi érsek (†1526) (László Szalkay: bishop of Esztergom (†1526)) (Košice: Szent Erzsébet Nyomda, 1942), pp. 31, 47–49; Fraknói, Magyarország egyházi és politikai összeköttetései, pp. 355–356; Vilmos Fraknói (ed.), Relationes oratorum pontificiorum / Magyarországi pápai követek jelentései 1524– 1526, Monumenta Vaticana Hungariae, 2/1 (Budapest: 1884), pp. 3–5, no. 1 (hereafter MVH 2/1). 28 Josef V. Šimák (ed.), Fontes rerum Bohemicarum, vol. 6 (Prague, 1907), p. 322 (hereafter FRB 6). See Macek, Víra a zbožnost, pp. 112–118; Eberhard, Konfessionsbildung, pp. 136–149. 29 The De origine even draws attention to the antithesis between the heretical King George’s suppression of the Unity and Catholic King Vladislav’s idleness: BAV, Cod. Vat. lat. 3924, fol. 337v.

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Lutherans—and it was hoped that this common cause would lead them towards the longed-for agreement. The growing popularity of the Pychardi represented in the eyes of the author of the De origine one of the reasons for unification talks.30 It was the nobility, or more precisely, the estates formed by the aristocracy, the lower nobility, and the royal cities, who had the right to decide on the development of the church in the Czech lands. The nobility was one of three decisive elements in the political and confessional competition in the Czech lands: the towns and their internal politics (and predominantly Prague), the clergy (with a limited scope of power), and the upper and lower nobility. But at the time there was an internal power struggle in progress among the Czech nobility, especially between the two parties of Zdeněk Lev of Rožmitál and the Rožmberk family. One reason for the discord was the conflict over the Rožmberk patrimony, which was disputed between family branches. Another was the 1523 changes in the land government carried out by Louis II when he visited Prague. Zdeněk Lev of Rožmitál had held the office of highest Prague burgrave from 1508 until 1523, when Louis replaced him with Jan of Vartemberk, a member of the opposing faction. This, however, was temporary, and in February 1525 he gained the office again.31 It was in February that we first hear about a union between the Utraquists and the Catholics: the news came after the land diet that lasted from January to February. The papal legate Lorenzo Campeggi and the nuncio Antonio Burgio speak de Boemorum reditu et unione ad sinum matris Ecclesiae et Romanae Sedis or of la conclusione de la unione de Boemi alla Sede Apostolica.32 At that point, the union had not yet been confirmed by the king or the legate: a further round of negotiations was planned for May and June 1525 in Buda. A Czech legation composed of both Catholics and Utraquists came to the royal court at Buda and proclaimed in front of the king that both the sides had agreed to respect the other’s way of communion, which had been the crucial point of disagreement. The Czechs had come in hope of having the legate confirm the compacts. However, the legate declared himself incapable of 30

Ibid., fol. 337v. See Palacký, Geschichte, 5/2, pp. 478–497, 533–537; Anna Skýbová, “Česká šlechta a jednání o povolení kompaktát r. 1525” (The Czech nobility and the negotiations for the authorisation of the compacts in the year 1525), Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Philosophica et Historica 1 (1976), pp. 81–108. 32 MVH 2/1, p. 148, no. 40; p. 149, no. 41; see also Palacký, Geschichte, 5/2, pp. 537–539. 31

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confirming what even the pope and his college of cardinals had been unable to confirm. According to a Czech source, he talked of holding a future council.33 There was no positive result of the Buda conference, since the Czech side was by no means uniform and disturbed the negotiations, as Szalkai had noted in autumn 1524.34 Reportedly, the Czechs did not have a full mandate from all the estates (as is confirmed by the fact that letters—some with as many as 250 seals—were delivered to Buda affirming that the negotiators did not have the right to conclude such a union), and the representatives of the Utraquists, even though they were the most conservative ones, refused to reject all their teaching, as was required by the legate.35 The talks failed completely. Some historians have suggested that the personal interests of individual participants played an important role in the process of negotiations.36 The two most important political struggles on the Czech side have been described. Their main protagonists, Jan Pašek of Vrat and Zdeněk Lev of Rožmitál, who both took part in the Buda talks, were playing on the same side. By securing the union of the conservative Utraquists and the Catholics they were endeavoring to weaken the rival factions, which were more grounded in the radical reformation or even under the influence of the German reformation of Martin Luther. Even though the two main rival parties within the nobility, Zdeněk Lev and the Rožmberks, were all Catholics, the anti-Rožmitál faction included distinctly more radical Utraquists.37 Duke Charles of Münsterberg, the grandson of George of 33

FRB 6, pp. 154, 324; for the negotiations see FRB 6, pp. 152–157, 322–326; MVH 2/1, passim. For more detailed accounts see Fraknói, Magyarország egyházi és politikai összeköttetései, pp. 355–361; Balogh, Szalkay, pp. 47–52; Skýbová, “Česká šlechta,” pp. 93–107; Eberhard, Konfessionsbildung, pp. 182–193. 34 József Bessenyei (ed.), Lettere di principi / Litterae principum ad papam (1518–1578) / Fejedelmi levelek a pápának (1518–1578) (Rome and Budapest: Római Magyar Akadémia Fraknói Vilmos Történeti Intézete and Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, 2002), p. 33, no. V/1: …non pauci sunt, qui rem tam sanctam interturbare moliuntur… 35 FRB 6, pp. 153, 157. 36 Skýbová, “Česká šlechta,” passim. 37 About them Antonio Burgio wrote (MVH 2/1, p. 216, no. 56): Il Signor Leone [Zdeněk Lev of Rožmitál] che è lo direttore di questo negocio, bon christiano, have una lite cum un Signor di la Rosa [Jindřich of Rožmberk] anchor christiano sub una, di molta importantia; il quale, poichè si è fatta questa unione, dubitando di la potentia di Leone unita cum quella di li Calistini, si è acostato a la parte Picarda, non obstante che sia christiano, et have cercato di turbare lo negocio quanto have possuto, primo in Bohemia, poi quì cum certe lettere che ha fatto suscritte di tutti quelli che foro privati di li offitii, dicendo che non consentino a questa unione …

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Poděbrady, and more or less the titular leader of the Utraquist faction, was also involved in the negotiations. His role, however, was compromised by his inclination to venality: Campeggi himself referred to Charles in such terms, believing the duke would do anything for a good sum of money. Another part of his personal efforts was dedicated to his grandfather, whom he wanted to be pardoned and accepted as a good Christian.38 Thus not only had the Czechs brought their own personal ambitions to the discussions of church matters, but there were those who sought to improve their personal standing thereby, including most probably László Szalkai. At the start of the negotiations Szalkai, the originator of the unification attempts, was promised a cardinal’s hat if the result of the parleying was positive and the Czechs joined the Roman Church.39 In the event, even though Szalkai’s case was supported by King Louis himself the archbishop was never awarded the office he desired.40 The king always expressed a strong personal involvement in the matter, nevertheless when writing to Pope Clement VII he referred to the magna impedimenta and other problems which did not allow him to conclude the matter successfully.41 Szalkai strove to counter accusations that he did not work hard enough for the union, a charge which might have stemmed from the disagreements between him and Campeggi. This might imply that personal differences were a factor within the other, Roman and Hungarian parties of negotiators as well.42 Campeggi, even though he might have liked to bring the union to a successful realization, was skeptical right from the beginning of the negotiations. On May 25, 1525, i.e., at the beginning of the Buda conference, he was quite realistic about his chances for concluding the required agreements. In his words, he was not dealing with enthusiasm for the faith, nor with Christian charity, but with particular hatreds, passions, 38

MVH 2/1, 181, no. 49; pp. 336, no. 87, Lo Duca Carlo addomanda cum grande instantia, di poter far la sepultura ad Re Georgio suo avo, cum uno altare al loco ove altri Re di Boemia sono, et mostra uno instrumento per il quale appare lo ditto Re esser morto et vissuto como Christiano. See Josef Macek, Jagellonský věk (Prague: Academia, 1994), vol. 2, pp. 24–25; Fraknói, Magyarország egyházi és politikai összeköttetései, pp. 356–357. 39 MVH 2/1, p. 57, no. 18; Fraknói, Magyarország egyházi és politikai összeköttetései, pp. 357–358. 40 Balogh, Szalkay, pp. 50–52. 41 Bessenyei (ed.), Lettere, p. 33, no. V/1 (3 November 1524); p. 37, no. V/3 (7 March 1525). 42 See Fraknói, Magyarország egyházi és politikai összeköttetései, p. 360.

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and other interests.43 The De origine Bohemicę heresis takes a similar position. The text was probably commissioned by the papal diplomats in order to have a useful analysis of the political situation and its relation to ecclesiastical matters. The author was, no doubt, a Czech of Catholic denomination, as is shown by his opinion of Hus, but also by his view of other crucial moments in Utraquist history. He approaches the tricky question of the union between the two sides with circumspection and foresight. Even though he praises Henricus Schosehus—probably Jindřich Švihovský of Rýzmberk, a Catholic lord—he is quite skeptical about the possibility of concluding such a union, since it would have meant a renewal of the Prague archbishopric—and even though it would naturally be in Catholic hands, this would imply that all the property that had been alienated by both Utraquist as well as (and maybe even more) Catholic lords would have to be given back to the use of the archbishop. Such a deal was unacceptable to the Utraquists, but no less to the Catholics, whose family possessions consisted of former Church property.44 There is no doubt that the union of the two denominations or confessions was a far from easy task in a Europe entering the confessional age. It was definitely a decision based not only upon ecclesiastical and faith matters, but also on the political basis. The unification of the Utraquists was not only connected to international politics, now strongly influenced by the events in Germany and the interests of the papacy, but also (and more importantly) it was linked with domestic political struggles as well as personal interests of all members of the estates.

43

MVH 2/1, pp. 197–198, no. 52, Ma Monsignor mio, per le molte difficultà chio vedo in questo negocio, io dubito assai di buona conclusione, perchè vedo che non per zelo de la fede, nè per charità christiana, ma per particolari odii, passioni et interesse siano mossi, temendo che da la potentia de Pichardi non fusseno oppressi. Dio linspiri qualche più santa intentione, si che si possa fare bene. 44 Cod. Vat. lat. 3924, fol. 337a r.

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APPENDIX Cod. Vat. lat. 3924, fol. 335r-337ar a caption on fol. 337av: De origine Boemicę Heresis (fol. 335r) Annis abhinc circiter centum vel etiam supra fuit in Britania, quæ nunc Anglia dicitur Jωannes Viclephus homo sacriligus, et a veritate Christiana alienus, qui impios quosdam libellos adversus Ecclesiam Romanam et receptum cærimoniarum ritum conscripsit; quos quidam nobilis Bohemus ex Britania regrediens, quo ingenii excolendi gratia concesserat, Pragam attulit, et quibusdam in eo gymnasio disciplinarum professoribus communicavit, atque præcipue Jωanni (sic) ex pago Hus oriundo, unde Hussitis nomen est inditum, qui habitus est concionator vehemens et ad animos popularium alliciendos maxime idoneus. Hic nescio quibus furiis agitatus illud venenum, quod ex Viclephitanis libris hauserat, passim in vulgus inter sermocinandum diffundere cæpit, habuitque universam fere plebem (quæ alioquin semper est levis et inconstans, rerumque novarum cupida) his suscipiendis pronam et obsequentem nec solum plebis, sed quorundam eciam optimatium animos novis erroribus implificavit. Unde maximæ contentiones, et varii motus in Bohemia sunt excitati cum de religione aliquid in multitudinem attentare semper fuerit inconsultum, et periculosum. Regnum tenebat eo tempore Venceslauus Caroli Cæsaris filius homo ignavissimus et ventri tantummodo ac luxui deditus. Præerat quoque Ecclesiæ Pragensi Archiepiscopus nomine Albicus, qui medicam artem prius exercuerat, homo extremæ avaritiæ, animique sordidissimi. Qui contemptui habitus augendæ potius quam minuendæ hæresis materiam præbuit. Idcirco Bohemi, qui nondum ea labe fuerant coinquinati, animadvertentes nec in Rege nec in præsule aliquid esse præsidii a Sigismundo Hungariæ Rege et ipsius Regis Venceslaui45 fratre, qui postea Romanum Imperium est adeptus, opem adversus nascentem hæresim implorarunt, ostendentes si ea licentia receptas cærimonias improbandi prodierit in lucem brevi nullam futuram religionem, nullam pietatem, nullum Dei cultum. Dat Sigismundus fidem venturum se brevi ad fratrem, Catholicamque (fol. 335v) omnem rem ad pristinam incolumitatem restituturum. Verum dum aliis intentus curis diem de die duceret, Rex Venceslauus moritur nullo liberorum superstite, ex cuius 45

Verceslaui ms.

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obitu ad Sigismundum iure hæreditario regnum Bohemiæ devolvebatur. Sed Hussitæ, qui iam mirum in modum excreverant, se non alia lege eum in Regem suscepturos affirmarunt, quam si ille polliceretur se neque novam sectam impugnaturum nec in eius auctores animadversurum. Sigismundus cum ad tantum flagitium induci non posset, ab eisdem, quo minus regno potiretur, est repulsus. Quo quidem tempore Hæresis ex nova causa maius cœpit incrementum nam ea tempestate adversus Ladislaum Regem Neapolitanum Ecclesiam Romanam impie vexantem Jωannes (sic) Pontifex XXII (sic) publice bellum decrevit, vulgata etiam peccatorum remissione in illos, qui ad tutandam Ecclesiam arma sumpsissent. Quod decretum cum in Pragensi Ecclesia solemni more recitaretur, a novæ hæresis assertoribus acclamatum est, Jωannem (sic) Papam haud dubie Antichristum esse, qui in Christianos crucem decreverit. Quibus irritati etiam, qui prius in fide permanserant, a Romana Ecclesia defecerunt. Interim Concilium Ecclesiæ apud Constantiam Germaniæ totis ex nationibus congregatur. Ubi præcipue de re Bohemica est agitatum. Adfuit Sigismundus iam Imperator designatus, qui censuit tantorum malorum initia tolli posse, si Jωannes (sic) Hus et Hieronymus Pragensis, qui Duo Bohemorum omnium doctissimi habebantur, et hæresis principes ad Synodum evocarentur. Qui Imperatore suadente, Decreto patrum accersiti. Et frequenti concilio sæpe auditi, cum obstinatius in hæresi perseverarent, nec ullis remediis ad sanitatem revocari possent, igne exusti tantæ impietatis meritas pœnas dederunt. Postque mirum in modum aucta est hæreticorum rabies. Jωannes (sic) et Hieronymus pro martiribus habiti ac divinis honoribus consecrati, Templa celeberrima et operis antiqui prius dirupta postea incensa, et solo æquata, cædes innumeræ catholicorum æditæ. Interea Sigismundus ex (fol. 336r) Pannonia et Ungaria ingentibus copiis collectis, tum regni hæreditarii recuperandi, tum tantæ pestis repellende causa in Bohemos expeditionem suscepit, et per Duodecim annos continuos vario quidem eventu, sed tamen infelicissime pugnavit, innumeris detrimentis semper affectus, et a Bohemiæ finibus turpiter reiectus. Qui milite ac pecunia exhaustus, victoriaque desperata, Bohemos, quos armis debellare nequiverat, pollicitationibus delinivit. Recepit enim se apud Sedem Apostolicam effecturum, ut et præteritorum erratorum veniam consequerentur, et in suscepta sub utraque specie communicandi ratione perseverarent. Inita his conditionibus concordia tandem Regnum recuperavit. Quæ ut effici possent, maxime fuit auctor Concilii Basiliensis instituendi. In quo post varias disceptationes ultro et citro habitas diversaque dissidia, quibusdam conditionibus utcunque concordatum est. Sed ea conventa nec a Sede Apostolica unquam fuerunt observata, utpote quæ Concilio Basiliensi, cuius

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Decreto Eugenio Pontificatu privabatur, omnem fidem abrogarit. Et Bohemi eadem conventa potius contempserunt, quam non servaverint. Licet Sigismundus, quoad potuit, eis omne robur addiderit, ad reducendam stabiliendamque veram religionem totis viribus per omnem occasionem intentus. Qui non multo post ex hac vita migravit, Imperator ad omnia infelix. Et sub quo primo Turchæ ex Asia in Europam traiecerunt, cum quibus apud Nicopolim infauste pugnavit, magna strage affectus omnibusque pene copiis amissis. Ei in utroque Regno successit Albertus, Austriæ Dux, ipsius gener, nanque46 proximiore caruit hærede. Hic, qua erat religione et pietate rem Bohemicam brevi ad tranquillitatem videbatur reducturus, nisi immatura mors consilia cæpta interrupisset. Ex uxore, quam prægnantem moriens reliquerat, natus est posthumus nomine Ladislaus, ad quem utrunque47 regnum hæreditario iure est delatum, cuius tutelam Federicus Tertius, Maximiliani parens utpote sanguine proximus suscepit. Ladislao adhuc infante, Federico vero, ut fuit ad omnia præposterus res Bohemicas penitus negligente, longe deteriora sunt sequita, et ut ex malo malum nascitur, (fol. 336v) et scintilla in magnos flammarum vortices quandoque prorumpit, longe detestabiliores hæreses sunt suborte. Nam cum error Hussitarum circa usum Eucharistiæ fere versaretur, istorum, quos vel Taboritas vel Pychardos vel Valdenses appellant, non stulte modo sed pudendæ fuerunt insaniæ. Sexcenta numerari possunt, quibus a veritate48 prorsus aberrant. Sed hæc capita sunt vulgariora Sub Eucharistiæ nec corpus, nec sanguinem contineri, sed quandam duntaxat subesse imaginem et figuram Dei sanctorumque imagines ubique delendas Liberam cuique patere viam ad sacramenta conficienda et verbum Die promulgandum Baptismum ex fluviali aqua sumendum Confirmationem et inunctionem extremam inter sacramenta non contineri Purgatorium ignem nullibi inveniri Nullum in statu sacerdotali esse discrimen Romanum Præsulem cæteris Episcopis esse parem Et id genus pleraque. Interea temporis Ladislaus Rex, qui iam adoleverat, et sextum supra decimum annum agens, sibi desponderat 46

pro namque pro utrumque 48 verritate ms. 47

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Gallorum Regis filiam Margaritam tum regni sui invisendi, tum nuptiarum cœlebrandarum gratia in Bohemiam se contulit, Federico Imperatore id potius tollerante, quam suadente. Nec multo post Rex veneno, ut medici prodiderunt, absumptus interiit. Quod fraude Georgii Pogebracii, qui mox ei in regno successit, datum fuisse, creditum est. Georgius igitur suffragantibus Hussitis, quorum semper fuerat studiosissimus Rex Bohemiæ declaratur, vir domi militæque iuxta clarus sit obstinata perfidia, paratusque ad fallendum animus præclaræ naturæ bona non obscurasset. Hic, ut Hussitis impensissime favit, ita Valdenses, qui iam Pychardi vulgo appellantur, adeo abhorruit, et execratus est, ut quemcunque in ea hæresi deprehenderat, omnibus fortunis exutum aut exilio, aut morte mulctaverit. Hic cum per simula- (fol. 337r) tionem spem dedisset se in Romani Pontificatus potestæ futurum, insuper adversus Thurcas præsidia suppeditaturum, a Calisto Tertio Rex est appellatus. Et filius Charissimus de more nuncupatus nec multo post ab Imperatore Federico, regio diademate coronatus. Defuncto Calisto Pius Secundus, qui ei in Pontificatu successit, durius adversus Georgium agere visus est, quam temporis ratio postularet. Sive quod crediderit sic hominem ad rectam semitam facilius reduci posse, sive memor veterum inimicitiarum, quas sub Federico diuturnis contentionibus cum eodem exercuerat. Hic nunciis in Bohemiam missis palatii (sic) regi interminatus est, nisi tandem resipiscat, et ab hæresi avertatur, ei propediem Romæ periurii, ac hæresis infame iudicium subeundum, quo ab omni dignitate, et auctoritate Regia deturbetur. His auditis Georgius adeo irritatus exarsit, ut palam ac frequenti senatu responderit, natum se atque altum in panis ac calicis communione, scire illam divina lege mandatam, nec velle, aut posse tantum præceptum relinquere, præsertim cum id ex conventis Basiliensibus fuerit permissum, nec ea conventa abrogari a Romano Pontifice aut adimi posse. In hac pertinacia usque ad extremum vitæ diem Rex impius perseveravit. Unde Paulus Secundus in Pii locum suffectus cum animadverteret Regem non odio Pii, ut ferebatur sed desiderio Calicis pertinacem esse, coactus est adversus eum, ut de hæresi manifeste confessum et convictum sententiam ferre, atque illum Regno ab initio per scelus et veneficium parto privare. Hac sentencia Rex Mathias, qui felicibus auspitiis Pannoniæ imperitabat, titulo Regni Bohemiæ est donatus, eique auctoritate Apostolica belli adversus Regem infensum suscipiendi provincia demandata. Nec multo post Pontifex magnam vim nummorum ad usum futuri belli Mathiæ subministravit, qui nihil differendum ratus firmo, iusto exercitu comparato, fines Bohemiæ populabundus invasit. His cognitis nequaquam perterritus Georgius

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hostibus ingenti animo, nec minoribus (fol. 337v) viribus occurrit. Et licet inter utrunque49 nanquam50 collatis signis omnibus copiis fuerit dimicatum in preliis tamen tumultuariis, quæ per utriusque Duces modo hic modo illic commitebantur semper Mathias habitus est inferior. Qui diuturna dimicatione fatigatus, vidensque indies51 copias Georgii crescere, plusque firmitatis habere, hanc totam expeditionem abiecit. At sequenti anno moritur Georgius, quantum ad militiam attinet, semper Victor, et fortunam ne dubiam quidem unquam expertus. Bohemi nulla de rege Mathia, quem odio prosequebantur, ratione habita Vuladislaum primogenitum Poloniæ regis Casimiri nondum decimumseptimum ætatis annum agentem Regem sibi delegerunt. Qui etiam ab Hungaris rege Mathia aliquot postea annis defuncto Rex Pannoniæ est declaratus. Hic alioquin neque improbus, neque iniustus, tantæ fuit desidiæ ac corporis, ut sub eo nefandissima Pychardorum secta, quam hæreticus Rex contuderat et represserat, plurimum cœperit et virium et incrementi adeoque Pychardi invaluerint, ut et Hussitas pariter, et Catholicos52 tum numero, tum auctoritate antecederent. Quæ vel potissima fuit causa, ut Hussitæ, qui a Pychardis odio capitali dissidebant, de unione cum Sede Apostolica ineunda tractare cœperint, et ea in re Regis opem implorare, ut scilicet53 catholicorum quoque viribus adiuti, contrariam sectam facilius exterminarent. His flagitantibus ab Alexandro Sexto Episcopus quidam Ursinus,54 et biennio postea Petrus Cardinalis Rheginus55 ad Hungariam mittuntur, et utrique datur potestas cum Hussitis si resipiscere vellent æquis conditionibus concordandi, sed cum de omnibus iam conventum constitutumque esset, me id negotium nomine Regio agente,56 ratio bonorum Ecclesiasticorum tantam rem intercepit, omnesque nostri conatus irriti fuere. Hoc idem fuit Impedimento ne sub Leone X a Thoma Cardinali Strigoniensi,57 cum cætera omnia convenirent, extrema manus huic concordiæ imponeretur. 49

pro utrumque pro nam quam 51 pro in dies 52 Chatolicos ms. 53 S. ms. 54 Orso Orsini, bishop of Teano (1474–1495). 55 Petrus Isvalies, archbishop in Reggio di Calabria (1495), cardinal-priest (1500), bishop of Veszprém (1503), died in 1511. 56 The identity of the author is unclear. He was a Czech, by confession Catholic, and he must have been a person close to the royal court. 57 Tamás Bakócz, bishop of Győr (1487), transferred to Eger (1497) and promoted to archbishop of Esztergom (1497), cardinal (1500); he died in 1521. 50

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Sed cum iam Clementis VII prudentia et felicitate res Bohemica eo sit deducta, ut vel nunc (fol. 337ar) tantis malis finis sit futurus, vel nulla imposterum spes reliqua esse possit ne in cassum laboretur, tollenda est utrunque58 hæc difficultas, quæ sola his conatibus videtur obstare, cum nuper vir et opibus et potentia inter Bohemos præcipuus Henricus Schosehus,59 qui fere omnes arces et oppida ad Ecclesiam Pragensem spectantia possidet, ad me litteras in hanc sententiam dederit. Maiores suos semper fuisse religionis observantissimos, et in defendenda Ecclesiæ dignitate ab hæreticis plurima detrimenta etiam cum Vitæ discrimine suscepisse, magnamque vim pecuniarum Sigismundo Imperatori ad bellum adversus hæreticos continuandum credidisse, eoque nomine bona Ecclesiæ Pragensis titulo pignoratio60 per tot annos possidere, se quævis potius tentaturum, quam hæc sibi adimi patiatur eandemque esse aliorum omnium, qui Ecclesiastica bona pignori habent voluntatem. Quamobrem oportunum esse cense, ut Summus Pontifex demandet D. Legato Campeio,61 ne permittat in animis illorum, qui et potentissimi sunt, et plurimum momenti in utranque62 partem adferre possunt hunc scrupulum inhærere. Sed ut est vir non minori pręditus dexteritate, quam eruditione D. Schoseho, cæterisque eandem causam habentibus, per internuncios, vel quovis alio oportuniori modo fidem faciet etiam scriptis si opus fuerit, eos pecunia mutuo data non fraudandos esse nec bona, quæ possident, Ecclesiæ nomine nisi certis et honestis conditionibus ab eis ereptum iri. Nam licet Summus Pontifex huius rei componendæ dederit Domino Legato plenam facultatem hoc tamen eis non constat, nec si etiam constaret satis fidei ab illis adhiberetur, nisi prius cum unoquoque 58

pro utrumque Though the identity of this person is not totally clear, most probably he was Jindřich Švihovský of Rýzmburk (Schosehus = Švihov?) whose ancestors were active in the antiHussite campaign (being pawned large properties by Sigismund of Luxemburg) and who was involved in the unification talks, taking part in the Buda talks of 1525; before, 1522–1523, he held the office of supreme chancellor. Jindřich has been described by historians as a “lover of books,” since he composed a history of his own family, where he mentions the service of the family members under Sigismund; see August Sedláček, “Páně Jindřichovo z Ryžemberka pojednání o rodě pánův Švihovských” (A treatise of the family of the lords of Švihov by Jindřich of Rýzmberk), Věstník Královské české společnosti nauk 1886, pp. 76–83). His brother-in-law was Zdeněk Lev of Rožmitál, the leader of the Catholic party. 60 pignoratitio ms. 61 Lorenzo Campeggi, from 1509 holder of various curial offices, including cardinal-priest (1517) and later cardinal-bishop (1534); he died in 1539. 62 pro utramque 59

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particulatim transigatur. Quod si id maturæ, et diligenter non fiet, procul dubio ii, qui hanc unionem sibi damnosam fore verentur, rem vel omnino impedient, vel ad eas difficultates redigent, ut vix per longa temporis spatia quicquam præclare fieri posse videatur.

Some Reflections on Uniatism in the Confederation of Poland and Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century DANIEL TOLLET

For the Greek–Catholic (Uniate) Church, the eighteenth century was above all the period of Latinisation, a process that had begun at the end of the seventeenth century and had been codified by the Synod of Zamość in 1720. However, if the broad outlines of the institutional history of the Uniate Church of the Polish–Lithuanian Confederation have been the focus of publications of sources and of studies since the nineteenth century,1 the local ramifications of Latinisation have been much less studied.2 1

Beyond the publications of Augustin Theiner in the 19th century, beginning with the Acts of the Papal Nuncios, the institutional life of the Uniate Church is known thanks to the Monumenta ucrainae historica, ed. A. Septyckyj, (Rome: 1964–1977) and particularly the numerous works of Anastase-G. Welkyj (O.S.B.M.), written in Rome in the second half of the twentieth century on the basis of the Acts of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide. 2 One can consult, in the first place, the bibliography of Isidor Patrilo, Djerela i bibliografia istorii ukra’jnskoi tserkvi [Works and bibliography of the history of the Ukrainian Church], 3 vols. (Rome: 1975–1995), in which, among general works, the following authors and titles are included: Mikołaj Andrusiak, Józef Szumlański, pierwszy biskup unicki lwowski (1667–1708) [Józef Szumlański, first bishop of the Uniate Church of Lwów (1667–1708)] (Lwów: 1934); Al. Baran, “Metropolita Kioviensis et eparchia Mukacoviensis,” in Analecta Ordinis Sancti Basilii Magni II/1 (Rome: 1960); Dimitri-N. Bantys-Kamenskii, Istoricetkoe izviestie o Vozniksem v polci unii [New details about the leaders of Polish Uniatism] (Vilnius: 1866); Marian Bendza, “Z dziejów prawosławnej diecezji bialoruskiej (1700–1720)” [On the history of Orthodoxy in the diocese of Belarus (1700–1720)], Czasopismo teologiczne katedry Prawoslawnej uniwersytetu w Bialymstoku, R. I (XII), z. 1(4) (1999), pp. 127–146; Karol Chodynicki, Rzeczypospolita Polska a Kościół prawoslawny w Polsce [The Polish Republic and the Orthodox Church in Poland] (Warsaw: 1934); Aleksy Deruga, Piotr Wielki a unici i unia kościelna (1700– 1711)[Peter the Great, the Uniates and the Uniate Church (1700–1711)] (Vilnius: 1936); J. Fedoriv, Istorja Cerkvi v ukraini [The Ukranian Church] (Toronto: 1967); and in particular: “Zamojski synod 1720 r.” [The synod of Zamość in 1720], in Bohoslavia, t. XXXV (1971) (Rome: 1972), pp. 5–71; Dom. Alphonse Guepin, Un apôtre de l’Union des Églises au XVIIe siècle: saint Josaphat et l’Église gréco-slave en Pologne et en Russie, 2

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Historians are in agreement that from the “perpetual peace” of Grzymułtowski, concluded in 1686, the recognition of the Russians’ rights of guardianship and patronage over the Orthodox believers in the Confederation prompted the Confederation to hasten the conversion of its Orthodox inhabitants. It is a fact that at the beginning of the eighteenth century the eparchies of Przemyśl, administered by the eparch Innocenty Winnicki, and of Lwów, administered by Józef Szumlański,3 were already in Uniate hands and that of Łuck,4 under the eparch Dionizy Żabokrzycki, was being negotiated. After 1702, only one eparchy remained in the Confederation, that of Mohylew, which was under the jurisdiction of Kiev.5 In effect, this eparchy constituted the Achilles’ heel of Poland.

vols. (Paris: 1897); Heinrich Hoffman, De Benedicti XIV latinisationibus (Rome: 1955); Janusz Kania, Unickie seminarium diecezjalne w Chełmie w latach 1753–1833 [The Uniate diocesan seminary in Chelm in the years 1753–1833] (Lublin: 1993); W. Kolbuk, Kościoły wschodnie w Rzeczypospolitej ok. 1772 [The Eastern Church in the Polish Republic around 1772] (Lublin: 1998); Z. Komosinski, Prowincjonalny synod rusko-unicki w Zamościu 1720 [The Russian–Uniate provincial synod in Zamość in 1720] (Lublin: 1968); Kazimierz Lewicki, Sprawa unii kościoła wschodniego z Rzymskim w polityce dawnej Rzeczypospolitej [The question of the union of the Eastern and Roman Churches in Old Polish politics] (Warsaw: 1934); Edward Likowski, Dzieje kościoła unickiego na Litwie i Russi (XVIII–XIX w.) [History of the Uniate Church in Lithuania and Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries] (Warsaw: 1906); Antoni Mironowicz, Kościół prawoslawny w dziejach dawnej Rzeczypospolitej [The Orthodox Church in the history of the Old Republic] (Bialystok: 2001); Stanislaw Nabywaniec, Uniccy biskupi przemyscy (1690–1991) [The Uniate bishops of Przemyśl (1690–1991)] (Rzeszow: 1990); Edward Ozorowski, “Eklezjologia-unicka w Polsce w latach 1596–1720” [Uniate ecclesiology in Poland, 1596–1720], in Wiadomości archidiecezji w Białymstoku, no. 4 (1978), pp. 51–112, no. 5/1 (1979), pp. 47–106; Pierre Pierling, La Russie et le Saint-Siège (Paris: 1907); Serhii Plokhij, Papstvo i Ukraina i polityka rimskoj kurii na ukrainskich zelmiach w XVI–XVIII w. [The papacy, Ukraine and the policy of the Roman Curia in the Ukrainian lands in the 16th and 17th centuries] (Kiev: 1989); S. Ptaszycki, “Stosunek dawnych władz polskich do Cerkwi ruskiej” [The relations between the powers in Old Poland and the Russian Church], in Ksiega pamiątkowa ku czczi W. Abrahama (Warsaw: 1930); Augustin Theiner, Les vicissitudes de l’Eglise catholique des deux rites en Pologne et en Russie, 2 vols. (Paris: 1843). 3 Józef Szumlański abandoned the Orthodox Church and secretly joined the Uniates in 1677. However, he only declared himself Uniate in 1700 under the pressure of the Holy See and after having successfully negotiated to obtain various material advantages. See Andrusiak, Józef Szumlański, pp. 79–109. 4 Dionizy Żabokrzycki, a protegé of King Augustus II of Poland, was not recognised as an Orthodox bishop by Moscow. He passed to the Uniates in 1701, see Deruga, Piotr Wielki, p. 29. 5 See Bendza, “Z dziejów prawoslawnej,” pp. 128–129.

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However, when an eparch became a Uniate bishop by conversion, his bishopric, in accordance with canon law, also changed its allegiance. This meant that, without the consent of either the clergy or of the flock, the Orthodox churches and monasteries became possessions of the Uniate Church. In this manner, the Orthodox Church lost more than 3,000 parishes at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries.6 The Orthodox believers, who were not at all happy about this development, frequently expelled manu militari the new priests along with those persons who had accepted conversion, and then protested to the Russian representatives posted in Warsaw.7 It is the reality of local life—of the daily coexistence among the Orthodox, Greek–Catholics, and Catholics—that I would like to investigate here, as it is a subject that has not been adequately studied.8 From the beginning, however, problems of documentation must be acknowledged: in particular, when the Russians annexed Ukraine in 1772 they took possession of the Metropolitan of Kiev’s papers and deposited them in the archives of the Holy Synod in Saint Petersburg. Thereafter, these papers were effectively closed to the public, although a detailed inventory published in 1897 provides us with some knowledge of their contents.9 One can nevertheless tackle the problem of inter-confessional relations by referring to the records of the grodzkie tribunals, the municipal tribunals which carried out both notarial and judicial functions.10 Their records are supposedly preserved in the provincial archives of present-day Ukraine. Obtaining access to these records today is not easy. In contrast, towards 6

Mironowicz, Kościół prawoslawny, p. 236. In March 1700, the Russian Bureau of Polish Affairs (Posolski prikaz) drew up a list of wrongdoings of which the Orthodox Church had been the victim and of the forced unions. See Documents servant à éclaircir l’Histoire des provinces occidentales de la Russie ainsi que leurs rapports avec la Russie et la Pologne (Saint Petersburg: 1865), printed in both Russian and French by order of the Archeographic Commission, p. CXXXV. 8 For the seventeenth century, one can cite the article of Boris-N. Florja, “Les conflits religieux entre adversaires et partisans de l’Union dans la ‘conscience de masse’ du peuple en Ukraine et en Biélorussie,” XVIIe siècle, 220 (July–Sept. 2003), pp. 431–448, which was based on study of the Russian War Bureau’s documents in Moscow. 9 Opisanie dokumentov arkhiva zapadnorusskikh uniatskich mitropolitov, T.1 (1470– 1700), T. II (1700–1839), (Saint Petersburg: 1897). 10 According to Zygmunt Gloger, Encyklopedia staropolska (Warsaw: 1900–1903 ; reprint 1972), t. IV, p. 202, the grodzkie tribunals (judicia capitanealia) were competent in criminal affairs and in civil affairs; they depended on starosta, which is to say the representative of the king, or the owners of private (non-royal) cities. 7

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the end of the 19th century, the Russian authorities had portions of them published. The documents selected were primarily extracts of the grodzkie tribunal records of southern and western Ukraine dealing with relations among religious groups.11 Although the documentation published by the Archeographic Commission (i.e. A.J.Z.R) is certainly not exhaustive, it is upon this collection of documents that I base my study. Finally, a problem I have noticed in the published records is that although the faith—Greek or Latin—of the protagonists is the fact most frequently mentioned, it is at times difficult to distinguish between Orthodox and Uniate. This is easily understandable if one takes into consideration—as I noted above—that when a bishop converted, the congregation and the clergy were ipso facto converted as well. That said, for the period from the Perpetual Peace (1686) to the First Partition of Poland (1772), I have been able to identify a total of 184 texts dealing with relations between the Uniates and other faiths—an average of nearly 21 texts per decade. This figure leads me to think that the totality of the texts that exist in the manuscript records is not fully reproduced in volume IV, part 1 of the Arkhiv iugozapadnoi Rossii, something that cannot be determined without knowing the criteria that were employed in the selection process for publication. One can, however, note that the decennial totals are quite variable: 1686–1695 : 13 texts 1696–1705 : 61 texts 1706–1715 : 54 texts 1716–1725 : 18 texts 1726–1735 : 6 texts 1736–1745 : 6 texts 1746–1755 : 8 texts 1756–1765 : 8 texts 1766–1772 : 10 texts. One immediately notices that the output of records is greatest at the point when Orthodox prelates shifted to Uniatism (late seventeenth-early eighteenth centuries). This development overlapped with the Great Northern War (1701–1720), which opposed Poland, Saxony and Russia against Sweden and had complex religious implications, and thus is understandable. One must also take into consideration that this was when the highest 11

Archeographic Commission, Archiv Jugozapadnoj Rossii dlja razbora drevnih aktov (henceforth: A.J.Z.R), c. I, t. 1 - 12 (Kiev: 1859–1904); relevant here is c. IV, t.1 (Kiev: 1867), dedicated entirely to Uniatism.

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number of Uniate–Orthodox clashes took place (see the decennial averages above). We note next that the geographical breakdown of the courts to which appeals were made is also unequal over the region as a whole. In descending order we see: 49 texts referring to the grod of Łuck; 46 texts referring to the grod of Owrucz/Kiev; 37 texts referring to the grod of Krzemieniec; 22 texts referring to the grod of Kamieniec Podolski; 5 texts referring to the grod of Żytomierz; 4 texts referring to the grod of Włodzimierz; 3 texts referring to the grod of Latyczów; 2 texts referring to the grod of Lwów; 1 text referring to the grody of Lublin, Mohylew, Wyżwa, Słuck and Brześć Litewski. The 11 other texts did not come from grodzkie (municipal/city) and ziemskie nobiliar/county) tribunals. The geographical breakdown of lawsuits seems by and large to be linked to the area of investigation of the Archeographic Commission since a majority of cases noted were to the south of the jurisdiction of Prypeć,12 Łuck, Owrucz, Krzemieniec and Kamieniec Podolski. The fact that these towns had been episcopal seats does not appear to have played a role since other episcopal seats located north of the river are rarely mentioned. These geographical data indicate that the regions of sharp confrontations between the Orthodox and Greek–Catholics coincided with the area of Cossack revolts in the seventeenth century—in particular, the insurrection of Bogdan Chmielnicki (1648–1654). Since the grodzki tribunal had a notarial function, it is normal to find in its records registration of the confirmation of personal offices and the associated deeding of property and conversely of evictions from properties. I have counted a total of 25 acts of this sort (or 2.2 per decade). Twenty records are of registrations—sometimes repeated in several localities of an eparchate—of nominations of bishops to their postings and of confirmation of their territorial endowments. Four records relate to the dismissal of priests or monks from their positions. On December 29, 1700, for example, the nobleman Stefan Komar, representing Dionizy, archimandrite of Owrucz and bishop of Łuck and of Ostróg, came to the grod 12

At the same time that the commission working in the south-west of Russia was in operation, in the north a commission was operating in Vilnius, which published the Akty izadavaemye Vilenskoju Archeografičeskoju Kommissieju (Vilnius: 1865–1914).

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of Owrucz to register decrees of King Augustus II which had been issued in Warsaw. They concern Klement Domaradzki, a monk of the Order of Saint Basil, who claimed to be an archimandrite (named by the tsar) though he was not a noble. Klement was removed from office.13 Finally, a text of 1766 emanating from “not-Uniate” subjects and addressed to the ministers of the Republic made note of the rights of the Orthodox according to the terms of the treaty of 1686.14 It demanded in particular that “churches and monasteries taken from the Orthodox by force for the benefit of the Uniates in the dioceses of Przemyśl, Lwów, Łuck and Halicz and in Belorussia should be returned to them along with the lands that belonged to them, that no one should be forced to adopt the Uniate faith.” A certain number of documents, occasionally citing precedents, have to do with property and in particular with donations and bequests to the clergy. One notes the disparity between Uniate priests and monks, who were the beneficiaries of 13 such allocations of property, and the Orthodox, who only obtained two. The laity appears much less frequently on these lists, with the exception of religious brotherhoods that were the beneficiaries of legacies. One also finds in 1709 a case of forcible expropriation: Stanisław Kościubiński protested before the grod of Łuck on behalf of Father Andrzej Terpiłowski, a priest from Zabłock, against Pan Andrzej Ledóchowski who without any legal basis took pos-

13 14

AJ.Z.R., t. IV, cz. 1, doc. LXXI, p. 154. According to AJ.Z.R., t. IV, cz. 1, doc. CCXVIII of November 1766, p. 596 sq, these rights are: - That Orthodox processions and burials should be public and free (a right dating from 1340 and confirmed for the last time in 1735 by the privileges of King Augustus II in the Litovska metryka). - That missionaries and other priests are not to meddle in non-Uniate parishes and that they should not benefit from the aid of public agents of proprietors. That they cease to educate Orthodox children in their convent schools. - That the Orthodox can freely maintain and build their churches. - The same applies to seminaries, schools and the episcopal palace of Mohylew. - That, in accordance with the constitution of 1641, affairs between non-Uniates be dealt with by royal tribunals only. - That Orthodox monasteries be exempt from hiberna and from czynsz. - That proprietors or well-to-do farmers appoint competent chaplains in Orthodox parishes. - (p. 600) That the children of mixed marriages should not be forced to accept one religion, but rather that the religion can be chosen freely by agreement between the parents. - That the Orthodox nobility be admitted to all forms of employment.

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session of the church (cerkiev) of Saint Michel of Ostróg and profited from the use of the church lands without paying tithes.15 Changes in property ownership could be due to priests or lay proprietors switching allegiance from the Orthodox rite to the Greek–Catholic Church. In fact, these “conversions” played an essential role. In 1695 King John III Sobieski sent a letter of congratulation to Dionizy Żabokrzycki, bishop of Łuck, on the occasion of his conversion to the Latin rite, since this had the effect of making the entire diocese Uniate.16 The conversion of a senior cleric never occurred without resistance on the part of his subordinates. For example, when Daniel Korytyński, the episcopal supervisor of Włodzimierz, was on a visitation in August, 1700 to parishes in regions that had been under Turkish occupation, he uncovered a “scandalous” situation at the monastery of Poczajów. The monks had attempted to imprison the hegumen, Parfen Jankowski, for life but were forced to flee when the governor and the Father Superior of the Cistercians came to set him free. The reason for his sequestration had been his desire to rejoin the Uniate Church. A mass of reconciliation was imposed on the monastery of Stary Zbaraż. After the hegumen’s conversion an inventory of property was carried out.17 At a more modest level, disputes could centre on religious artefacts. In 1707, the hegumen of the monastery of Białystok was accused of having broken into the church of Hati in order to remove icons because the curate of the church had become a Uniate.18 Disputes could also have to do with the administration of the sacraments. For example, in 1732 Orthodox believers in Kopył were accused of having buried, in accordance with their own rites, a priest who had become a Uniate. They defended their actions by claiming that this priest had decided to return to the Orthodox fold and that his congregation had joined him.19 The phenomenon of imposed conversion was widespread in both ways, as evidenced by a list of 971 Orthodox priests in the dioceses of Lwów, Halicz and Kamieniec who switched to the Uniate rite between 1758 and 1765.20 Moreover, the conversion of the Orthodox to the Uniate rite was sometimes made complete by their adoption of the Latin ritual in place of the Greek. In the inventory of the 15

A.J.Z.R., doc. CXXXIV, 3 April 1709, p. 306. A.J.Z.R., doc. LII, 6 September 1695, p. 110. 17 A.J.Z.R., doc. LXIX, 29 August 1700, p. 145. 18 A.J.Z.R., doc. CXXI, 7 May 1707, p. 267. 19 A.J.Z.R., doc. CXCIV, 2 December 1732, p. 427 sq. 20 A.J.Z.R., doc. CCXII, pp. 521–560. 16

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archives of the Uniate metropolitans which were seized by the Russians in 1772,21 one finds reference to a polemical dossier on these forced conversions drawn up by Wacław Sierakowski (1699–1780). Sierakowski, the bishop of Lwów, stressed that this movement of conversion was in violation of the decree of Benedict XIV of 1743 and of the Encyclical of May 2, 1744, and that it constituted harassment of the Ruthenians who were forced to simulate allegiance to Rome.22 It is surprising, given the difficult conditions during the course of the Great Northern War, to note the modest number of accusations having to do with the morals of priests: I have found only six such accusations. Among these, on the part of the Uniates, is a 1703 charge of concubinage brought against a vicar and another against a hegumen.23 On the Orthodox side, one can cite a 1709 affidavit drawn up by the commissioners of the Metropolitan, which stated that Sylwester Czetwertyński, the bishop of Mohylew, attempted to get his hands on the property of the bishopric of Słuck, which was not under his jurisdiction.24 The overall phenomena of plundering and defrauding, which are hinted at in the A.J.Z.R, frequently spilled over into violent conflicts: Decade

Against religious persons or property Against Un. Between Un. or Lat. & Lat.

1686–1695 1696–1705 1706–1715 1716–1725 1726–1735 1736–1745 1746–1755 1756–1765 1766–1772

5 21 28

Total:

63

7

Against secular persons or property Against Orth.

4 7

1

5 128 1 1

1 1 2 7

141

1

War Damage

? 1 3 1 1 1 2 1 1 11

1

1

From the figures in the above chart it appears that it is on the whole Orthodox priests and monks who were the victims of inter-religious violence (141 cases, or on average 16 per decade) followed by Uniate priests 21

See above, n. 9. A.J.Z.R., doc. CCV, 1752, pp. 478–509. 23 A.J.Z.R., doc. XCVII, 10 May 1703, p. 213 and doc. CI, 5 September 1703, p. 221. 24 A.J.Z.R., doc. CXXXVI, 6 June 1709, p. 310. 22

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(63 cases, or slightly more than an average 7 per decade) with lay persons far behind (11 cases, or a little more than an average 1 per decade). Although the texts are not always very clear, it appears that Uniates were on seven occasions victims of violence at the hands of Catholics. One also notes that in 1694, a nobleman, Jan Trilocki, lodged a complaint before the grod of Kiev, to the effect that another nobleman had organised a raid by a squad of “pancer” led by Marcin Zankowski and pan Ciński against the “Greek Churches” in the village of Lasków.25 The text of the complaint does not specify whether the churches in question were Orthodox or Uniate. More surprising is the complaint lodged by Klemens Domorowski, the Uniate–Basilian archimandrite of Owrucz, against the violence perpetrated by the Dominican father Archanioł Żuliński, vicar of Owrucz, in seizing control of the church and the monastic lands.26 The number of acts of violence during the period is far from equal from one decade to another. For example, most of the violence suffered by Uniate priests occurred during the decades 1696–1705 (21 cases) and 1706– 1715 (28 cases), which is to say during the time of the Great Northern War. Prior to that time, as well as afterwards, the level of violence declined (ranging from two to five cases per decade). The violence was sometimes linked to the war. In 1700, envoys from Dionizy Żabokrzycki, the bishop of Łuck, lodged a complaint before the grod of Łuck against Krzysztof Maniecki, a soldier who had murdered Stefan Pietrzykowski, a priest of the Greek rite.27 In that same year, one also notes a complaint brought before the grod of Kameniec Podolski by Nicolai Wandiureyko, a priest of the Greek rite, of the Church of the Virgin in Górne Kudryńce, against Ivan Kozan and Jan Czekanowski, whom he accused of having seized grain belonging to the church.28 In numerous cases, it was simply hostility to “Latinism” that was being expressed in the complaint. Father Maxym Buftałowski, a priest from Warkowicze, appeared before the grod of Łuck in 1704, at the request of Dionizy Żabokrzycki, the Uniate bishop of Łuck and Ostróg, to bring charges against Kazimir Axahy and his wife Constance, who had uttered insults against the Roman Catholic Church. Moreover, they had confiscated the priest’s property, even though before the first Cossack revolt the church had already been affiliated with the Uniates.29 25

A.J.Z.R., doc. XLVI, 1 July 1694, p. 92. A.J.Z.R., doc. LVIII, 2 June 1699, p. 120. 27 A.J.Z.R., doc. LXVIII, 27 August 1700, p. 145. 28 A.J.Z.R., doc. LXX, 20 November 1700, p. 153. 29 A.J.Z.R., doc. CX, 19 May 1704, p. 238. 26

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In most cases, violence against Uniate priests and monks appears to have been a reaction against despoliation on the part of the latter. Very often, taking advantage of disorder, families that continued to adhere to Orthodoxy attempted to regain possession of property which had been seized from them, or of donations which had been embezzled from their original beneficiaries. Thus in 1702, one finds a complaint lodged by the hegumen of Czetwertnia before the grod of Włodzimierz against Bogusław and Krystyna Horainom, who, along with their serfs, had attacked the monastery. The assailants had captured and beaten Father Teodozjusz Stojanowski and had assaulted Sister Agafia Masalska of the Greek rite.30 By contrast, Orthodox priests rarely seem to have been the victims of violence, except during the decade from 1736–1745, during which time one finds 128 cases cited in a single text that covers the period from 1734–1743.31 This document states that the issue was the confiscations of churches and that each time the seizure was accompanied by acts of violence. For example, Father Aleksy Kondratowicz, formerly of the Orthodox ceperski monastery, who attempted to take the monastery from the hands of the Uniates, was initially a victim of violence. The Father had to request the assistance of the local nobility to protect it. At the monastery of Pustyń, the Basilicans used violence to take over the Orthodox church and its lands. In the Uniate parish of Dombrowna, ten Orthodox believers were forced to attend a Uniate mass. The proprietors forced the GrecoRussians to pay a marriage tax which was collected in advance by Jews. The Archbishop of Połock used all sorts of methods to evict the GrecoRussians. However, since this document dates from the time when the Russians were once more interested in the issue of dissenters—following a hiatus after the death of Peter the Great—one may infer that the documentation for the earlier periods is not complete. The documentary evidence that has been analyzed makes it possible to draw certain conclusions and at the same time opens new perspectives. The conversion of eparchs to Greco-Latin bishops did not engender a period of calm; indeed, the conquest of the territory by the Confederation took place in an atmosphere of coercion and plundering that led to violent forms of resistance. The decisions reached by the Synod which met in Zamość in 1720 with Uniate bishops and hegumens in attendance may have succeeded in giving the Uniate clergy a second wind, but they con30

A.J.Z.R., doc. LXXXVIII, 20 April 1702, p. 196. It treats the same matter as doc. LXXX. 31 A.J.Z.R., doc. CXVI, from 1743, p. 448.

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tributed nothing towards improving relations with the Orthodox or even with the Catholics. Some of the latter had already presented to the 1717 Diet a “proposal for the abolition of the Greco-Russian religion in the Russian provinces.”32 This proposal stated that “the unity of States rests upon unity of religion. We Poles seek the integrity and the security of our Fatherland and we must expend every effort to establish this. … However, it is compromised in the Russian lands because the people follow different rites. It is the duty of every Pole to take upon himself the task of abolishing the Greek rite [which is] contrary to the Latin rite, and to have recourse in this undertaking to scorn, to persecution, and to the oppression of those who profess it.”33 The 1717 Diet did not endorse this proposal, in part because of the intervention of the Russian ambassador, Dolgorouki. However, the idea of ridding the Confederation’s territory of the Greek rite had been given expression and it did not augur well for a peaceful resolution of what would become known as the “issue of the dissenters.” Translated by Sarah McArthur

32

Documents serving to clarify the History of the western provinces of Russia as well as their relationship with Russia and Poland. 33 Ibid., p. 343.

II.4. Religion, Empire and Ideology

The Political Theologies of Empires: Jesuit Missionaries between Counter-Reformation Europe and the Chinese Empire∗ RONNIE PO-CHIA HSIA

The Jesuits entertained a grand illusion about China. This dream had different variants. For Matteo Ricci, the founder of the Catholic Mission in China, the dream was to convert China via the ruling elites: his career consisted of a progressive journey from the Portuguese enclave of Macau in southern China to Nanjing, the second capital of the Ming, and eventually to Beijing, the Imperial Capital. For Ricci’s Jesuit successors, firmly ensconced in Beijing, the vision was to convey the message of Christianity to the emperor and, through his conversion, obtain the spiritual conquest of the Middle Kingdom. The turmoil of the mid-seventeenth century seemed to offer a chance for this Jesuit vision to become real. With the fall of Beijing to peasant rebels, the invasion of the Manchus, and the establishment of the new Qing dynasty, some of the pretenders of the southern Ming dynasty turned to the Jesuits and Portuguese for assistance. The empress of the southern Ming emperor Yongli converted to Christianity, taking the name of Anna; she had her son the heir apparent baptized Constantine. But Roman history was not to repeat itself in East Asia, and the hopes of a Chinese Constantine were dashed on the rocks of Manchu conquest. Meanwhile, under the new Qing regime in Beijing, the Jesuits consolidated their position at the Bureau of Astronomy; and in the person of the emperor Kangxi (1662–1723) they renewed their vision of a Chinese Constantine. This paper follows that story of disillusionment. Before doing so, I shall first offer a brief analysis of Christian political theology in the West to provide some background for understanding the motivations and perceptions of European Jesuit missionaries in the Chinese empire. Then, I ∗

This paper was first given at a conference on Theologies of Empire organized by Professor Aziz Al-Azmeh of the Central European University, Budapest. I would like to thank Professor Al-Azmeh for his comments.

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shall give a succinct description of the history, ritual, and central ideas of political theology of the Chinese imperial state, focusing especially on the ritual practices of state cults in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the relationship between imperial political theology and Confucianism. In the final and longest section, I shall present the changing Jesuit discourse of imperial political theology in China and analyze its development in the history of the Catholic mission. Counter-Reformation Political Theology All Jesuit projections of imperial conversion in China rested on a basic supposition in Christian theology formulated in a letter to the emperor Anastasius written by Pope Gelasius I in 494: “There are two things, august emperor, by which this world is chiefly ruled: the sacred authority of the priesthood and the royal power. Of these the responsibility of the priests is more weighty in so far as they will answer for the kings of men themselves at the divine judgment. You know, most clement son, that although you take precedence over all mankind in dignity, nevertheless you piously bow the neck to those who have charge of divine affairs and seek from them the means of your salvation, and hence you realize that, in the order of religion, in matters concerning the reception and right administration of the heavenly sacraments, you ought to submit yourself rather than rule, and that in these matters you should depend on their judgement rather than seek to bend them to your will.”1

Repeated in Gratian’s Decretum (c. 10, D. 96), scarcely any words in a papal decretal have exerted a more profound influence in the relationship between civil and ecclesiastical authority in the Latin West. This doctrine of the ‘Two Powers’ or ‘Two Swords’ underlay papal intervention in politics: from the switch of papal support for the Byzantine emperors to the Frankish kings, the giving of legitimacy to the Carolingian usurper Pepin who extinguished the Merovingian dynasty, the consecration of his successor Charlemagne, to the conflict with the Holy Roman Emperor in the eleventh century. The unity of all authority in the Christian God having been acknowledged, the logical consequence of this political theology of ‘Two Powers’ called for a Christian theocracy, in which the offices of king and priest 1

Cited in Brian Tierney (ed.), The Crisis of Church and State 1050–1300: With Selected Documents (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), pp. 13–14. See also Gerd Tellenbach, Church, State and Christian Society at the Time of the Investiture Contest (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970), p. 33.

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would be combined theoretically. For this reason, all French monarchs after Pepin insisted on anointment and consecration as indispensable rituals in the ceremony of coronation. Similarly, French kings acquired the reputation of the magical healing touch, so well analyzed by Marc Bloch in his study of les rois thaumaturges. As a persona mixta, who represented in his own body the Old Testament priest, the New Testament Christ, as well as a secular ruler, the medieval monarch assumed the aura of a Christocentric monarch, whose authority is ordained in heaven because he was the representative of Christ, the King of kings.2 The tensions between civil and ecclesiastical authorities in medieval Latin Christendom thus rested on this theoretical unity: both parties acknowledged the same divine source for their exercise of power. In the contest of authority, neither party could claim a superior argument. And while the papacy gained the upper hand in the Investiture Controversy against the Holy Roman Emperor in the mid-eleventh century, Boniface VIII was humiliated by Philip the Fair of France in the early fourteenth century. The weakening of papal authority continued in the Late Middle Ages with the Great Schism and culminated in the Protestant Reformation of the early sixteenth century. Even with the renewal of the papacy after the Council of Trent, the dual role of the pope as both prince and priest was only effective in the territories under his rule. Parallel to this development was another trend: the enhancement of royal authority ending in the theory of the divine right of kings. Invoking the office of the ‘Emergency Bishop,’ the usurpation of clerical authority by Protestant princes in the early Reformation is well known. But even in Catholic areas, the dependence of the Roman Church on secular protection also increased the authority of Catholic princes. Nominally obedient to the Roman pontiff, the Catholic dynasties of a Europe split in religious confrontation reaped the benefits of a new political theology. The Habsburg, the Bourbon, the Wittelsbach, and other smaller Catholic dynasties justified their centralization of power by claiming to defend orthodoxy against heretics. The legitimacy of the Austrian Habsburg was enhanced by the encomium and discourse of a pietas austriaca, while the ‘Most Christian King’ of France waged war against opponents internal and external, in the name of religion and throne. In this new field of political theology, the clergy held the weaker cards. Take the Jesuits, the ultramontane defenders of papal authority, for example. Whereas the Ba2

Ernest H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 42–86.

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varian Jesuit Adam Contzen’s political discourse on the absolutist power of the Catholic prince received the approbation of the Bavarian dukes, the discourse on tyrannicide by the Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suarez provoked only hostility from Catholic monarchs.3 Even Jesuit confessors to kings could not agree on a common strategy in the Thirty Years’ War, as the fathers in Paris, Vienna, and Munich often advocated opposing policies, much to the vexation of the Generals of the Society in Rome.4 Political Theology of the Chinese Empire The essential ideas and rituals of the imperial cult in China were articulated in antiquity. The name of an ‘Emperor on High’ (Shangdi), imperial sacrifices to heaven and earth, and to a host of other deities of natural forces, and subsequently, the idea of a moral heaven granting a mandate to virtuous rulers (tianming) can all be found in the Confucian classics (especially the Shu Jing, the Book of Documents, the Zhou Li, the Rituals of Zhou, the Liji, the Book of Rites, and the Chun Qiu, the Spring and Autumn Chronicles) composed and compiled in the Eastern Zhou dynasty (770–222 BCE). Briefly stated, the evolution of political theology in ancient China developed in three stages. The first stage corresponded to the Bronze Age Shang dynasty (1576–1046 BCE) in which the idea of an impersonal omnipotent heaven was represented by the words ‘Emperor on High’ (Shangdi). Communication between the human and celestial realms was the monopoly of the ruling class, who made divination by oracle bones the central component of a state cult. Scholars argue that Shang emperors functioned as priest-kings, or at least exercised theocratic authority.5 The overthrow of the Shang dynasty by the Zhou (1046–222 BCE) signaled the second stage in this process. As a justification for their revolt, the Zhou ruling class developed the idea of an ethical heaven that transfers the mandate of rule (tianming) from a tyrannical Shang emperor to a vir3

Robert Bireley, Maximilian von Bayern, Adam Contzen S.J. und die Gegenreformation in Deutschland 1624–1635 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975); Idem, The Counter-Reformation Prince: Anti-Machiavellianism or Catholic Statecraft in Early Modern Europe (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1990). 4 Idem, The Jesuits and the Thirty Years’ War: Kings, Courts, and Confessions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 5 See Pu Muzhou, Zhui xun yi ji zhi fu. Zhong Guo Gu dai di shi yan shi jia [Seeking one’s blessing: The world of belief in ancient China] (Taipei: Yunchen, 1995), chaps. 2 and 3, pp. 35–98.

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tuous prince of Zhou. Hence, the exercise of virtue for the benefit of the people conformed to the will of heaven and would in time become the centerpiece of Chinese imperial theology. The projection of an ethical volition to heaven (Tian) did not imply an anthropomorphic transformation. In Chinese political theology, Tian remained an abstraction of omnipotence and universality; and the emperor’s new title as ‘Son of Heaven’ (Tianzi) was understood only in a metaphoric and not a literal sense. The disintegration of Zhou imperial authority in the Spring and Autumn (722–481 BCE) and Warring States (403–222 BCE) periods corresponded to the golden age of Chinese thought. By collecting and editing ancient texts and advocating a restoration of traditional rites, Confucius and his disciples further emphasized the ethical dimension of imperial ideology.6 The development of a Confucian school and the consolidation of an intellectual class (ru or shi, meaning literati) between the end of the Zhou dynasty and the first unified empires under the Qin (221–206 BCE) and Han (206 BCE–220 CE) were major characteristics that influenced the development of an imperial political theology. Although Confucius and his followers refrained from theological speculation (discourse on the gods), they believed in the existence of gods and spirits and advocated a proper ritual respect (Confucius in the Analects: “Respect the gods and keep your distance”).7 The major contribution of Confucianism to imperial political theology was injecting moral philosophy into the discourse on statecraft. Rulers received their mandate of heaven from Tian because they governed with virtue, which meant: caring for the well-being of their subjects, respect for orthodox (Confucian) learning, and observance of the proper rituals. Statecraft and legitimacy, therefore, constituted the dialectic of an imperial political theology. In the words of Confucian discourse, legitimate dynastic succession (zi tung) should ideally be united with the lineage of the Way (dao tung), ‘the Way’ (dao) being the teachings, traditions, and transmission of the holy sage Confucius and succeeding generations of sagacious literati. In the practice of empire, the two manifestations of ‘the way of Heaven’ were respectively the proper exercise of an 6 7

Ibid. There is a large literature on this topic. See Peter Weber-Schäfer, Oikumene und Imperium. Studien zur Ziviltheologie des chinesischen Kaiserreichs (Munich: Paul List, 1968); Rodney L. Taylor, The Way of Heaven: An Introduction to the Confucian Religious Life (Leiden: Brill, 1986); Thomas A. Wilson (ed.), On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).

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elaborate state cult and the moral critique expressed by loyal officials and intellectuals dedicated to the heavenly way. The major liturgical duties of the emperors consisted in offering sacrifices at the winter and summer solstices to heaven and earth, symbols of the fatherly and motherly forces that constituted the natural world. Based on the archaic cosmology of the Shang and Zhou, this imperial liturgy extended to sacrifices made to a host of deities both celestial (stars, planets, and constellations) and terrestrial (mountains and rivers), as well as to imperial ancestors. Lesser deities received sacrifices from officials in the provinces and localities, who placated the city and local gods for the prosperity of the communities under their administration. To the core of this polytheistic pantheon of natural and anthropomorphized gods were added individuals whose virtues and achievements in history enshrined them in this vast state cult; the most prominent of these individuals was Confucius.8 Jesuit writers on Chinese political theology To understand Jesuit political theology at the Chinese imperial court, it would be useful to examine first four Jesuit missionaries in China and their observations of Chinese statecraft and political rituals. The Italian Ricci was the founder of the mission; the other three were all Portuguese Jesuits in the seventeenth century who wrote extensively about China. Matteo Ricci (1552–1610). He classified the Chinese beliefs into three sects: the followers (sectarii) of Confucius, Buddha, and Dao. For Ricci, Confucianism was not a real religion, in that its practitioners were free to follow other religious teachings; it was the religion of the state. In his writings, Ricci mentions the sacrifice to heaven and earth performed by the emperor, the Confucian temples, and the rituals honoring Confucius (which he called civic and political, not religious, rituals).9 8

For a short description of imperial cults, see Romeyn Taylor, “Spirits of the Penumbra: Deities Worshiped in More than One Chinese Pantheon,” in James D. Tracy–Marguerite Ragnow (eds.), Religion and the Early Modern State: Views from China, Russia, and the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 121–153, here 123–25. See also Idem, “Official Religion,” in Denis Twitchett–Frederick W. Mote (eds.), The Cambridge History of China, vol. 8, part 2, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)., pp. 840–92. 9 Ricci’s writings on the Chinese political order are found in Book One of his Storia dell’Introduzione del Cristianesimo in Cina, published in volume 1 of Pasquale d’Elia (ed.), Fonti Ricciane, 3 vols. (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1942–49).

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Álvaro Semedo (1586–1658). This seventeenth-century Portuguese Jesuit correctly identifies the components of Confucianism as a state cult. He discusses the Altars to Heaven and Earth in Beijing and Nanjing, the sacrifices performed personally by the emperors, the sacrifice to the earth and titular spirits in temples performed by the magistrates, and the temples for sages of the past. Semedo does not specify temples to Confucius, but states clearly that while Confucius’ writings are considered divine, his person is not. Only the emperor can sacrifice to heaven, earth, and the stars.10 Gabriel de Magalhães (1610–1677). In his New History of China, Magalhães writes: “The Chinese give their Emperor several lofty and magnificent titles. For example, they call him…Son of Heaven…Holy Son of Heaven, August and Great Emperor, Holy Emperor, August sovereign, Holy Prince, Holy sovereignty…Lord of the Kingdom…Palace Royal…Ten Thousand Years, with several other titles full of grandeur and majesty. …Yet notwithstanding all these idle flatteries, this prince is far from being so vain as the King of Monomotopa, who believes it to be in his power to command the sun, the moon and stars….For though the Chinese give these great titles to their king, and though he suffers them, yet neither he, nor they, at least the learned and more prudent sort, are so unprovided of reason, as to believe him to be the real Son of Heaven; but only that he is an adopted son, whom Heaven has made choice of to be lord of the empire, for the government and defence of the people.”11

Magalhães also has a clear-eyed view of dynastic succession: many emperors came from the ranks of rebels. The first emperor of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhuang, was a servant of Buddhist monks before establishing a dynasty that lasted until 1644. “All those that revolt pretend that it is by the decree of Heaven, that sent them to save the people oppressed by the tyranny of their governors: and this opinion, or rather vision finds so much credit in the priests of the Chinese, and is so deeply rooted in their minds as if it were one of the greatest truths in the world, in so much that there is hardly one among them that does not hope to become emperor at one time or another. 10

Semedo’s work is entitled Imperio de la China, y cultura evangelica en el, por los Religiosos de la Compañia de Jesus. Sacado de las noticias del Padre Alvaro Semmed … por Manoel de Faria y Sousa, cavallero de la Real Academia (Lisbon: 1731). 11 Gabriel de Magaillans (Magalhães), A New History of China (London: Thomas Newborough, 1688), pp. 254–55. The Portuguese original was lost and this work first appeared in a French translation in Paris in 1688. In 1997, the French text was retranslated into Portuguese for an edition published in Macau, Nova relação da China; this passage appears on pp. 230–31 of the Portuguese edition.

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And this is the reason of those frequent revolts which we find in this empire, today in one province, tomorrow in another, nay many times only in one city or in one town. Many times you shall see a miserable wretch advanced to be a king, sometimes by a troop of fifty bandits, sometimes by a hundred or two hundred peasants, but more frequently by a certain sect of idolaters, who make a profession of creating new kings, and establishing a new government in the empire. ‘Tis a wonderful thing to see the comedies, or rather tragedies, which are acted everyday upon the theatre of this empire. For he that but today was but an ignominious robber, and under that notion both dreaded and hated, let him but shift his habit, and take upon him the crown, the robes and ornaments of a king, and the same man tomorrow shall be beloved and respected by all the world, and though he is known to be of vile and abject birth, they shall presently call him the son of heaven, and the lord of the universe.”12

Antonio de Gouvea (1592–1677). In his manuscript, Asia Extrema (Chap. 17, The chief sects of China), Gouvea writes: “Of all the peoples known to Europe, the Chinese are the ones who had the least number of sects during the first two thousand years of their empire. In their ancient books, there are passages that state the obligation to adore a divinity called Shangdi (Emperor on High), which is The Emperor of Heaven…..It was their axiom and practice that all actions should correspond to the light of natural reason, which they call mingde, which light is said to be given by Heaven. And therefore, there had never been the case in the first centuries, nor is it now the case, that in heaven and earth, and among the spirits, one finds a multitude of monsters and gods, which became the unfortunate source of idolatry among the Romans, the Greeks, and especially the Egyptians. It is not unreasonable to think that many Chinese of the ancient centuries obeyed the natural law and that they were saved, aided by divine help, which God never fails to give to those who conform to reason. In this conformity, their ancient books are full of many excellent moral judgments, and many precepts to attain virtue, and many were considered by the Chinese to be saints, because their lives were honorable and conforming to reason. With the passing of the years, customs became corrupted, vices increased, resulting in the obscuration of reason and the blinding of understanding, ending in atheism, without faith nor belief in any divinity. And thus sects and doctrines, both domestic and foreign arose, which confused the people with lies and dreams.”13

Jesuit courtiers Apart from composing political and religious discourses on China, several Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century became trusted advisors and confidants of emperors. Their first successes were scored in the last years 12 13

Magalhães, A New History of China, pp. 253–4; Portuguese edition, pp. 229–30. Antonio de Gouvea, Asia Extrema. Primeira Parte. Livro I, ed. Horácio P. Araújo (Lisbon: Fundação Oriente, 1999), pp. 289–90. This published edition represents only a small part of Gouvea’s manuscript.

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of the Ming dynasty. The Portugese Jesuit Francesco Sambiasi (1582– 1649) befriended two imperial princes: the Prince of Fu, Zhu Changxun (1586–1641), and the Prince of Tang, Zhu Yujian. When the dynasty was toppled by peasant rebels in 1644 and Manchu armies invaded China proper, the son of Zhu Changxun, the new Prince of Fu (Zhu Yousong), succeeded as emperor Hongguang of the southern Ming. The Manchus of the new Qing dynasty continued their conquest. After the death of Hongguang, the Prince of Tang, having been proclaimed the Longwu Emperor, summoned Sambiasi to join his court. Through the Jesuits, the southern Ming tried to enlist Portuguese military support, an attempt continued by the new Yongli emperor (1623–1662), who succeeded after the defeat and death of Longwu at the hands of Qing troops. It was under Yongli that the Jesuits scored their greatest success: in 1648 the Austrian Jesuit Andreas Xavier Koffler baptized the Empress Dowager Wang as Helena, the Empress Ma (Yongli’s mother) as Maria, and Empress Wang (Yongli’s wife) as Anna. The heir apparent, the imperial prince Zhu Cixuan (1648–1662), also received baptism and received the name Constantine. Clearly, the Jesuits saw the mid-century crisis as a great opportunity. Koffler sought military aid for the southern Ming from the Portuguese in Macau. In November 1650, another Jesuit, Michael Boym, carried letters by Empress Helena to Pope Innocent X and the Jesuit General, asking for prayers for the restoration of the Ming. When Boym finally returned to Tonkin in 1659, he was denied access to China. The reply by Alexander VII expressed sympathy but no political commitment, which was in any event beyond papal capacity. In the meantime, the southern Ming cause was all but defeated on the battlefield. The Yongli court hid out in a remote corner of southwestern China; captured in 1662, both the last Ming emperor and Prince Constantine were executed by Qing troops. If the Jesuits at the southern Ming courts failed to deliver China to Catholicism in one swift swoop, their dreams of a Chinese Constantine remained alive. In the turmoil of the fall of the Ming, several Jesuits remained in Beijing, including the German Jesuit Adam Schall, Director of the Bureau of Astronomy. Like many former Ming officials, Schall turned his service to the new Manchu Qing dynasty and became, over the years, an intimate and revered advisor to the first Qing emperor, Shunzi. Although the emperor never converted, his friendship for Schall ensured political protection for the Jesuit mission, except for the tense period of transition after the death of Shunzi, when accusations against the Jesuits were raised by a hostile political faction at court. Thanks, however, to the astronomical acumen of Schall’s successor as Director of the Imperial

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Observatory, the Belgian Ferdinand Verbiest, the new emperor Kangxi confirmed imperial trust and favor for the foreign fathers. Like Schall’s friendship with Shunzi, Verbiest also developed a close relationship with the emperor, in the capacity as an old, learned, and revered foreigner. Due to their political neutrality and powerlessness (being aligned neither with any Manchu court faction nor with the Han Chinese civil bureaucracy), several Jesuits gained access to the young emperor Kangxi, who showed an immense curiosity about western science and learning. Mastering Manchu, the language of the Qing court and of power, the Jesuits Thomas Pereira, Joachim Bouvet, Jean-François Gerbillon, and Dominique Parennin became frequent presences in the imperial chamber. They were his private servants, erudite scholars from the West, with whom Kangxi could relax and learn, forgetting the political formalities due in the presence of his Manchu and Chinese officials. Hence, during the first forty years of the reign of Kangxi (1662–1723), optimism prevailed in Jesuit reports from the court. That optimism turned to euphoria in 1692 when Kangxi published an edict allowing his subjects to attend Christian services. The immediate cause for this so-called Edict of Toleration was harassment of Christians by a provincial governor. The Christians turned to the Jesuits at court, who beseeched their patrons among the imperial counselors to intervene with the emperor. Having just performed an important diplomatic task for the Qing Empire—two Jesuits served as interpreters in the Sino-Russian negotiations that led to the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1692)—the Jesuits stood in high favor. Over the objections of some of his Han Chinese officials, Kangxi issued a terse edict, stating that the religion of the westerners was not unorthodox and rebellious; and since the empire tolerated Daoist, Buddhist, and Lamaist worship, there was no reason that the people could not visit Christian churches. Understood by the emperor as a benevolent favor granted to his servants, the Jesuits celebrated this edict as a major act of state, a foreshadowing of the imminent conversion of the emperor. The vision of a Chinese Constantine, the emblem of the political theology of Roman Catholicism, fed into the excitement of the missionaries. It was in this historical juncture that we find the most effusive encomium of the Kangxi emperor, penned by two French Jesuits, Louis Le Comte and Joachim Bouvet. Dispatched by Louis XIV in 1685 to Siam and China, the French Jesuit mission to Asia carried a diplomatic, political, religious, and scientific charge to represent the glory of the French monarchy. Bitterly contested by the Portuguese crown, whose missionary patronage over Asia was ac-

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knowledged by the papacy, the French Jesuit mission met with a hostile reception by some Portuguese Jesuits in China, which led, after a series of disputes, to the formal separation of the two Jesuit missions.14 Conscious of their royal patronage and political mission, the French fathers played a crucial role in representing the Chinese empire to Europe as an ideal polity, surpassing in influence the writings of earlier Portuguese Jesuits on the Chinese realm, thanks to the shrewd publishing strategy of the Paris Jesuits and the central role the Society would play in the ecclesiastical and court politics of France until their expulsion in the 1760s. As royal confessors, the French Jesuits exercised considerable political clout, which they used to repress their Jansenist opponents within the Gallican Church. On the other hand, since the Society was perceived as an ultramontane and hence un-Gallican order, the Jesuits needed royal protection against their many detractors among the bishops, professors, and parlementaires of the kingdom. Their elevated, yet isolated, position in both the French and Chinese courts thus gave the French Jesuits a sharper insight into the workings of political friendship and patronage, and no doubt fanned their dream of a fusion of the political theologies of East and West. Louis Le Comte’s Memoirs and Observations made in a late Journey Through the Empire of China is written as a series of letters addressed to the Duchess of Nemours, the Cardinal of Furstenberg, the Marquis de Torsi (Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs), the Duchess of Bouillon, Cardinal de Bouillon, Father de la Chaize (the Jesuit confessor to Louis XIV), the Abbé Bignon (the royal librarian), and other members of the French court. Le Comte tells of his voyage to China and arrival at the imperial court in Beijing, and goes on to describe the character, customs, achievements, and politics of the Chinese, before reporting at length on the conditions of the Christian community in the Qing empire. Cast as a curious and edifying text, the fulcrum of Le Comte’s observations are, in fact, the person of the Qing emperor Kangxi. Lavishing attention on the manners of the Manchu court and the character of the emperor—things of natural interest to French court society—Le Comte’s narrative strives for a convergence of motifs: the natural wisdom and virtue of the pagan ruler Kangxi, manifest in his great benevolence toward the missionaries and Christian converts, mirrored the grandeur and piety of the ‘Most Christian King’, Louis XIV, defender of the faith against heretics (recall the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France that deprived Protestants of 14

See John W. Witek, Controversial Ideas in China and in Europe: A Biography of JeanFrançois Foucquet, S.J. (1665–1741) (Rome: 1982), Chapter II, pp. 13–72.

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legal and political rights) and patron of pious enterprises, namely, the work of the French Jesuits themselves, both at home and abroad. That motif, the praise of both princes, is manifest in the account of the arrival of the French Jesuits in Beijing, when a counselor conveyed the emperor’s curiosity regarding Louis XIV’s campaign against the Dutch. Replying through an interpreter, Le Comte could only lament the inadequacy of his speech: “…did we wish for a more perfect knowledge of his language, that we might represent to him the great soul, the good fortune, and the unshaken valor of Louis the Great, to whose soldiers nothing is impossible while they fight in his view, and are animated by his example.”15 Since Kangxi was in mourning for his beloved grandmother, the newly arrived Jesuits were received in a private audience in Kangxi’s study. Impressed by the emperor’s modesty and graciousness, Le Comte replied, after Kangxi had “enquired of us of the grandeur and perfect state of France,” that “he would permit us … to lift up each day of our lives our hands to heaven, to procure to his royal person, and to his empire, the blessing of the True God, who alone can make princes really happy.”16 For Le Comte, the benevolent disposition of the emperor represented not only a sign that “he was not far from the Kingdom of God,” as the Frenchman had remarked on one occasion about one of Kangxi’s counselors, but also a signal of the high status of the Jesuits: “It is true, God is sometimes well pleased to see Religion respected in the persons of his ministers: He often uses those methods to strengthen the faith of new converts, who need such natural supports to fortify them against trials and temptations; nay, it breeds even in the Gentiles a disposition to embrace Christianity. These thoughts made us take more delight in those tokens of the emperor’s favour or, to speak more properly, made us find them less disagreeable.”17

Lest the reader be surprised by the open respect for Christianity expressed by a gentile sovereign, Le Comte reminds the reader that “[Kangxi’s] kindness for such strangers as we, proceeds, doubtless, from the great esteem he has long since had for the missionaries at Beijing. Besides the commendation of their learning, he has always found them sincere, honest, very zealous and affectionate to him, ever ready to obey his will, where their faith did not forbid them, he never ceased admiring their con15

Louis Le Comte, Memoirs and Observations…made in a late Journey through the Empire of China, 3rd English edition (London: Benjamin Toole, 1699), pp. 34–35. 16 Ibid., p. 40. 17 Ibid., p. 41.

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stant desire to proclaim the True God. He is above all so well persuaded, that this is the sole end of all their enterprises, that he takes a secret delight in contributing to the propagation of the faith, thinking he can no other way better recompense these fathers’ earnestness in his service.”18 After all, it was the dying wish of the Belgian Jesuit Verbiest, whom Kangxi loved, “to gain in the greatest monarch of the East, a protector to the most holy religion of the world.”19 Le Comte was writing, in fact, to defend the Jesuits against their critics back in Europe, who accused the fathers of confusing missionary and mandarin, and of accepting high status and honor, while forgetting the humility of serving God. The crux of Le Comte’s defense lies in the calculus of political theology: what made all that silk, and honor, and office bearable to the missionary was the prospect of an imperial conversion and, with it, the adhesion of the most populous nation to Rome. In his laudation of Verbiest, Le Comte reports on the many conversations between the Belgian father and the Manchu emperor, which crystallize into this trope: the Jesuit would explain to the emperor Christianity’s “most stupendious mysteries, and made him observe its holiness, its truth and necessity, insomuch, that the emperor, struck with his powerful arguments, often owned, that he believed God….that all the religions of his empire seemed to him vain and superstitious, that the idols were nothing, and that he foresaw Christianity would one day be built on their ruins.”20 The death of Verbiest in 1688 seemed to have moved Kangxi. To continue with Le Comte’s observations: during the funeral and mourning for Verbiest, “The Prince never was more inquisitive about Religion, than at that time. He sent one of his gentlemen every minute to the fathers, to enquire about the condition of souls in the other world, about heaven, hell, purgatory, the existence of a God, his Providence, and the means necessary to salvation: so that God seemed to move his heart after an extraordinary manner, and to affect it with that anxiety which usually precedes our conversion. But that happy moment was not yet come. However, who knows but Father Verbiest’s prayers, and the care of several zealous missionaries who have succeeded him, may hasten the execution of those designs which Providence seems to have on that great Prince?”21

18

Ibid., pp. 41–42. Ibid., p. 42. 20 Ibid., p. 44. 21 Ibid., p. 52. 19

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Colored, no doubt, by an over-optimistic reading of Kangxi and an exaggerated view of their own significance, the Jesuit vision of Chinese conversion was guided nevertheless by the frame of Counter-Reformation political theology. The furtherance of true religion, namely Roman Catholicism, was the highest political aim, to be executed by the virtuous prince, God’s representative on earth. Whether Bourbon, Habsburg, or Wittelsbach, the Catholic princes of Europe were all cast in the mold of the anti-Machiavellian prince by Jesuit writers—virtue, not virtù; piety, not power, these are the qualities that defend the realm against heresies and rebellions, so often associated with the restless republican spirit. The Chinese Empire seemed a near-perfect mirror image of the CounterReformation polity as described by Adam Contzen, Jesuit confessor and advisor to the Bavarian duke during the Thirty Years’ War. In Le Comte’s words: “Amongst the several models and plans of government which the ancients framed, we shall perhaps meet with none so perfect and exact as is that of the Chinese monarchy.”22 Not only was the republic an unknown form of government to the Chinese; but when introduced to it by the first Dutch embassy, “nothing could make them understand how a state could regularly be governed without a king, they looked upon a republic to be a monster with many heads, formed by the ambitions, headiness, and corrupt inclination of men in times of public disorder and confusion.”23 Suffice to remember that “the Most Christian King” at that moment was making war on the Calvinist Dutch Republic; and that it was another Protestant republic, Cromwell’s England, that beheaded a king. Yet the divine right of kings does not sanction tyranny, for the Chinese harbor even a greater aversion to tyranny, as Le Comte observed. He ascribes this restraint to three points. First, the ancient lawgivers made it a maxim of statecraft that the emperors are the fathers of the people, and not masters over slaves; second, every mandarin may tell the emperor of his fault; and thirdly, the judgment of history rendered the rulers cautious, lest they should be remembered as tyrants in the dynastic histories.24 A virtuous absolutism, a moral monarchy: the ideal polity of the Counter-Reformation State; but Le Comte failed to mention that the three restraints on the exercise of imperial power in China all originated from a Confucian political ideology that spun a web of duties around the mighty son-of-heaven, bound by personal rectitude, Confucian 22

Ibid., p. 242. Ibid., pp. 242–43. 24 Ibid., pp. 252–54. 23

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learning, and a complex and time-honored set of politico-theological rituals that defined his role as mediator between heaven and earth, past and present, and the guardian of virtue and tradition. In spite of the excitement generated by the 1692 ‘Edict of Toleration,’ to which Le Comte devoted an extensive report,25 Kangxi was no nearer to conversion. Continuing to dream of a Chinese Constantine, the Jesuits redoubled their rhetoric for an European audience. In 1699, the French Jesuit Joachim Bouvet published an intimate portrait of Kangxi, which he dedicated to Louis XIV.26 Unlike Le Comte’s more voluminous account, in which personal memoirs and analysis of the Qing empire were interwoven, Bouvet focuses on one topic: the representation of Kangxi as the perfect Philosopher-King. Describing Kangxi in his 36th year of reign, the emperor, at 44, is majestic in physical appearance, but rarer still are the accomplishments of his mind. “His natural genius is such as can be paralleled but by few, being endowed with a quick and piercing wit, a vast memory, and great understanding.”27 Moreover, Kangxi possessed those qualities extolled in the writings of philosophers of seventeenth-century Europe like Justus Lipsius: constancy, reason, frugality, modesty, generosity, diligence, and absolute control of passions. Skilled in the military arts and music—the parallel with Louis XIV comes to mind—Kangxi’s solidity in judgment is aided by a prodigious memory. Well disposed toward Europeans thanks to the discourse of the Jesuits,28 the emperor shows an open mind for western science and religion. After praising his politics (the pacification of internal rebellions and the conquest of Taiwan), Bouvet stresses how Kangxi rises above his people. Even when the emperor prays for rain, as it is incumbent upon him in the political rituals of the Chinese empire, Kangxi is “much more enlightened in this point than most of the modern Chinese, who being in this fundamental point of religion, degenerated from their ancestors…do adore the material heavens in lieu of that supreme intelligence, which governs the universe with an infinite power, wisdom and goodness.”29 A master of all learning among the Chinese, Kangxi also applied himself avidly to the sciences of Europe.30 Describing at length 25

Ibid., pp. 433–72. Joachim Bouvet, The History of Cang-Hy, the present Emperor of China, presented to the Most Christian King (London: 1699). 27 Ibid., p.2. 28 Ibid., pp. 14–15. 29 Ibid., p. 28. 30 Ibid., pp. 45–47. 26

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Kangxi’s passion for all branches of western mathematics, Bouvet praises this “as the effects of a most refined policy of France’s monarch, who has an absolute insight into the true nature of the art of government.”31 Similarly to Plato’s Philosopher-King, Kangxi’s passion for mathematics, the closest reflection of Reality, led to his interest in European philosophy, which again naturally led to a curiosity about Christianity.32 Drawing his first knowledge from conversations with Verbiest, Kangxi was further impressed by reading Ricci’s treatise, Tianzhu Shiyi (The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven). The Jesuits report that Kangxi “has been often heard to say, that, to judge of the Christian religion according to its principles and progress it had made in China, he did not question, but that it would become the established religion there.”33 Bouvet has the sage emperor “[laying] aside already many of the most ancient superstitions of the Chinese,”34 and resisting the temptations of the flesh, as offered by his many wives and concubines at court.35 Kangxi, “as absolute a master as he is, both of his subjects and passions,” employs all his leisure time “either in the improvement of his mind, or useful exercise of his body.”36 Like the Sun King, Kangxi was a great patron of learning, and Bouvet hastens to praise the royal patronage of the arts and sciences in Paris under Louis.37 Bouvet recalls one conversation between the French Jesuit Visdelou and Kangxi, in which they discussed the conformity between the doctrine of Confucius and the ancient Chinese classics, and the Christian religion. Convinced that the emperor was already won over at heart—for why else would he have permitted the free exercise of Christianity—Bouvet claims: “… this prince has been convinced of this truth … that the fundamental maxims of the Christian religion, which flow from the Law of Nature and are its perfection” are the same as those of the ancient Chinese sages, whose principles were “altogether the same with the Law of Nature.”38 Similar to the Sun King in virtue, wisdom, and glory, Kangxi lacked only one quality. In Bouvet’s words to Louis XIV:

31

Ibid., pp.57– 61. Ibid., pp. 62–3, 69, 71. 33 Ibid., p. 71. 34 Ibid., p. 71–72 35 Ibid., pp. 75–76. 36 Ibid., pp. 81, 84. 37 Ibid., p. 83. 38 Ibid., pp. 94–95. 32

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“I will make bold to say, that in so many respects he resembles Your Majesty, that like you, he would be one of the most accomplished monarchs that ever wore a crown, if he could likewise attain to that happiness to resemble you in one point more, which makes your illustrious reign appear with greater luster in the Christian world, I mean in that point which relates to our religion. To attain to this happiness, the present emperor of China must embrace the Christian faith, and profess it with the same sincerity as you. It is next to an impossibility for us to dive into his thoughts, as to this point, or to guess at what he keeps concealed in his breast. But if it may be allowed us, to judge by these things we have been eye-witnesses of, by the knowledge he has of the fundamental parts of our religion, and the esteem he shows, or at least seems to show for it, by the public protection he affords to the missionaries, and the favourable sentiments he has concerning them and our religion…..we may, I think, without presumption conceive some hopes, that this great prince is not far from the Kingdom of Heaven.”39

By sponsoring the French Jesuit mission, Louis XIV has made possible, perhaps probable, the conversion of Kangxi; and with him, his numerous subjects—all abounding to the glory of God and the auspicious reign of the French monarch.40 * The Kangxi emperor of course failed to convert. All the hopes of the 1690s were based on a fundamental misinterpretation by the Jesuits of their own role at the Qing court. Verbiest, and Schall before him, so beloved of the emperors Shunzhi and Kangxi, were presidents of the Tribunal of Mathematics. Jesuit service to the Qing Empire was not limited to astronomy, although, of course, it represented their most significant contribution. Between 1644 and 1805, all thirteen presidents (including interim appointments) of the Tribunal of Mathematics were Jesuits or exJesuits.41 In addition to these thirteen mandarin-astronomers, eleven more Jesuits were appointed to the imperial bureaucracy; three received their appointments under the Southern Ming (Andreas Koffler, Michael Boym, and Francesco Sambiasi), all others under the Qing dynasty. The highest official grade awarded, second in the nine-grade imperial bureaucracy, 39

Ibid., pp. 98–99. Ibid., p. 107. 41 For their names see Joseph Dehergne, Répertoire des jésuites de Chine de 1552 à 1800 (Rome–Paris: 1973), pp. 307–8. They included 5 Portuguese, 4 Germans, 2 Belgians, 1 Italian, and 1 Austrian. See also Francisco Rodrigues, Jesuítas Portugueses astrónomos na China 1583–1805 (Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau, 1990); Noël Golvers–Ulrich Libbrecht, Astronoom van de Keizer. Ferdinand Verbiest en zijn Europese Sterrenkunde (Leuven: Davidsfonds, 1988). 40

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was bestowed on two presidents of the Tribunal: Schall and Verbiest.42 The accuracy of the Gregorian calendar and western astronomical instruments enabled the Chinese empire to adhere more faithfully to the many ritual sacrifices offered to heaven, earth, and the elements, essential aspects of the imperial and state cult. The Jesuits played an important role, in other words, in facilitating the ritual practices of the Chinese empire, whose political theology remained utterly different from that of the Christian West. Aside from their main charge at the imperial observatory, these Jesuit mandarins served as diplomats, interpreters, cartographers, court painters, and musicians. Their single most important service to the Qing state was the role played by Tomé Pereira and Jean-François Gerbillon in the negotiations leading to the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1692, that ended border hostilities between expanding Tsarist Russia and the Qing Empire.43 Pereira and Gerbillon owed their selection for this mission— during which they negotiated in Latin with the German diplomats in Tsarist service—to their friendship with the Grand Secretary and imperial clansman Songgotu and to their good knowledge of Manchu, the language of governance, for it was the native tongue of Kangxi and the small ruling circle of imperial princes and grand ministers, who kept the true reins of power out of the hands of the Chinese Confucian bureaucracy that served the needs of the Manchu rulers. The grand story of the so-called Edict of Toleration, told in a heroic key in Jesuit narrative, is altogether less dramatic in the context of Qing politics. In granting a Jesuit petition in 1692 to stop harassment of Christians in the provinces, Kangxi explicitly cited their service to him and to his father, the emperor Shunzhi, in emending the imperial calendar, casting cannons, and negotiating the Treaty of Nerchinsk. The rest of the Edict reads as follows:44 “The Europeans who are 42

For a list of the 23 Jesuit mandarins, see Dehergne, p. 313; the name of Anton Thomas, interim president of the Tribunal, should be added. They comprised 7 Portuguese, 5 Italians, 4 Germans, 3 Austrian/Bohemians, 2 Belgians, 2 French, and 1 Pole. 43 See Joseph S. Sebes, The Jesuits and the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689): The Diary of Thomas Pereira, S.J. (Rome: 1961). 44 French text in Charles le Gobien, S.J., Historie de l’edict de l’empereur de la Chine, en faveur de la Religion Chrestienne: avec un éclaircissement sur les honneurs que les chinois rendent à Confucius et aux Morts (Paris: 1698). The Chinese text of the edict has been reprinted many times, see Zhengjiao feng bao 113a–116b (Bibliothèque de France, Chinois 1331), Zhengjiao fengzhuan, 5a–b (Bibliothèque de France, Chinois 1342), Fang Hao, Zhongguo Tianzhujiao Renwu zhuan (Hong Kong: 1980), 2, p. 139. For an analysis of the events leading up to 1692, see my “Christianité et Tolérance dans l’Empire chinois,” in La Tolérance. Colloque international de Nantes. Mai 1998.

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in all the provinces of our Empire do not cause any trouble. Moreover, the religion they profess does not contain anything false, it does not contain any heresy or incite any quarrels. And since the people are permitted to go to the temples of the Lama, Hesheng, Daoists, and other idols, and yet the law of the Europeans that is neither contrary to good morals nor to the laws of the empire is not permitted—this does not seem to us reasonable. Therefore we will permit them to build churches as before, and cease harassing those who profess their religion and visit their churches.” The most noteworthy language in this short edict is not the equal treatment of all religions in the Chinese Empire, but the absence of a particular terminology to denote the Jesuits. It does not allude to their clerical status, referring to them simply as Europeans. Christianity, as such, is not mentioned by name; it is only coincidentally the religion of the Europeans, who have demonstrated their loyal service by means of their astronomical and military knowledge, and their diplomacy. Kangxi’s language reduced the Jesuits to their barest essence: Europeans of service to the Empire. Neither that service, nor the benevolence of the emperor were written in stone. Failing to see the inherent insecurity of their own position, for the next decade the Jesuits continued to dream of converting Kangxi, mistaking his interest in European science for an inclination to European religion. The disillusionment would come soon enough, in the Chinese Rites Controversy. The condemnation of certain rites concerning the honor of Confucius and ancestors as superstitious and incompatible with Christianity by Rome is an often-told, and yet incomplete story. The extant sources are simply too vast, the theological debates too intricate, and the rival personal networks too complicated for the Chinese Rites Controversy to receive the definitive treatment it deserves. Suffice to say for our purposes that the enemies of the Jesuits were, in the end, not the Buddhist monks of China, but rival missionary orders from Europe, in particular, the Dominicans and the Missions Étrangères of Paris. The essence of their dispute is this: the friars and the French fathers objected strenuously to the cultural permeability of the Jesuits and the imprecise frontier between culture and religion, China and Europe. They attacked, among other things, the persona of the Jesuit-mandarin as the anti-thesis of the true missionary. From that profound mistrust of an unstable Jesuit persona sprung the rest of the disputes: disagreement over the translations of Chinese terms, rejection of a Confucian–Christian synthesis, and the privileging of correct unbending Quatrième centenaire de l’édit de Nantes, ed. Guy Saupin et al. (Rennes: 1999), pp. 445–450.

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doctrines over variations in ritual practices. Between 1705 and 1720, between Jesuit self-defense and a chorus of attacks, the crisis spun out of control, culminating in 1720 when Clement XI published Ex illa die, forbidding Chinese converts to practice the condemned rites. After several audiences with the papal legate Mezzabarba, dispatched to salvage the China Mission from the ruins left by the earlier and disastrous papal legation led by Tournon in 1705/6, Kangxi was finally exasperated by the intrigue and discord between the religious orders. The concessions presented by Mezzabarba and the arguments of Matteo Ripa and other missionaries at court opposed to the Chinese rites struck the emperor as ignorant, ridiculous, and an irritating reminder of the intercession of Tournon fifteen years earlier. While declaring himself unlearned in European letters and hence unqualified to pronounce on western affairs, Kangxi criticized the outrageous judgments pronounced on Chinese rites by westerners ignorant of China’s language and culture. Of all the European missionaries present at the imperial court, Kangxi stated that only the French Jesuit Joachim Bouvet knew something superficial of Chinese letters. As for the papal bull, Ex illa die, Kangxi notated in vermillion ink: “After reviewing this proclamation, one can only speak of western ignoranti, and not of Chinese principles. Moreover, no European understands Chinese texts, and their arguments are often ludicrous. Now I see that this proclamation by the envoy is merely similar to the teachings of Buddhist monks, Daoist priests, and heterodox sectarians. Nothing can be more ridiculous and nonsensical than this. Hereafter westerners do not need to preach their teachings in China. It ought to be forbidden to prevent troubles.”45 * The Jesuit dream of conversion, nourished by the imperial theology of Christianity, was finally confronted with the reality of another ideology, which subordinated all religious cults under the authority of the imperial state. Paradoxically, thanks to the protection of the Qing emperors, the last remaining Jesuit missionaries in Beijing remained untouched by the storm that destroyed the old Society of Jesus in 1773, when the European Catholic monarchs and the papacy turned against these vocal proponents of Catholic theocracy. 45

See Chen Yuan (ed.), Kangxi yu Luoma shijie guanxi wenshu yingyin ben (1932) [Documents concerning the relations between the emperor Kangxi and Roman envoys], reprinted in Zhongguo shixue congshu xubian 23 (Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe, 974), pp. 1–96. The Chinese translation of Ex illa die is on pp. 87–95. Kangxi’s vermillion notation is on p. 96.

Conversion as an Instrument of Imperial Rule: The Case of the Russian Empire∗ ALFRED J. RIEBER

In the pre-nationalist era imperial elites of multicultural, bureaucratic empires of Eurasia were engaged in a search for a principle of authority that would serve to legitimize their rule and secure loyalty among the population. The problem was acute where the absence of a common language, ethnic identity, social organization or belief system left deep fissures in society, sources of weakness that potentially threatened internal stability and external security. Naked coercion was an inadequate instrument with which to maintain imperial rule. This truism was embodied in the ancient and modern wisdom of societies as far distant in space and time as the Tang dynasty in China and eighteenth century France. You may conquer an empire on horseback ran the Chinese adage, but you cannot rule it from horseback. Centuries later Talleyrand put it just as pithily: You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them. One attempt to transcend this problem was to provide an object of symbolic unity through the cult of the emperor, the human embodiment of a divine presence or else a divinity himself. Another was a mission variously defined but generally imbued with some kind of spiritual essence. In all cases the appeal of the authors and guardians of imperial rule was to a transcendental idea. The beauty of such a concept was its inherent flexibility. It could be used to promote internal unity and to justify external expansion. Clearly the most powerful transcendental idea would provide a link between the cult of the ruler, the mission, and the spiritual unity of the various cultural and social elements constituting the population of the empire. In other words, the highest form of integration could be most completely achieved by a theology of empire. ∗

This is a revised version of a paper presented to the Conference on Theologies of Empire held in Budapest September 2005. I wish to thank Aziz Al-Azmeh and Nadia Al-Bagdadi for their invitation to participate.

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The invention and maintenance of a theology of empire, as well as the necessary periodical tinkering with its dogmas for pragmatic reasons of state, required three things: a political theology, an institutional armature, and a means of promulgation. In such cases as the Russian, Habsburg, and Ottoman Empires, for example, the official state religion contributed to all three elements. Political theology is taken here to mean the symbolic transfer of ecclesiastical tropes and images to their monarchical equivalents.1 In the case of Russia the institutional armature was, after the abolition of the Patriarchate by Peter, the Department of the Holy Synod. Peter’s theology of empire, accepted and revised by his successors, was a process of imbrication. The sacralization of monarchy overlapped with the bureaucratization of the church. But rather than producing an orderly design the cultural fit was irregular and problematic. As a result the relationship between secular and ecclesiastical authority was laced with tension, creating serious problems for spreading the spiritual message of the Orthodox Church. Among the means of promulgation, missionary work or conversion to the official religion occupied the most prominent position. Properly employed, conversion was quite literally a transformation of the inner spiritual self going beyond the acceptance of external signs and ceremonies, probing deeply into the meaning of the symbolic world and reaching a point of no return. It was in theory at least the most lasting and binding force for creating a devoted and loyal subject. But conversion was more than just the sum of personal experiences. It was a complex political and socio-economic process that often took the society centuries to complete. It also involved semiotic transformation in so far as the rhetoric of the new experience involved a monopoly of “formalized speech”2 Yet there were two major dangers lurking in the center of the conversion process: 1

In Russian history the concept was first explored by Michael Cherniavsky, Tsar and People: Studies in Russian Myths (New Haven: Yale University Press 1961). A recent reevaluation is V.M. Zhivov, Razyskaniia v oblasti istorii i predystorii russkoi kul'tury [Exploring in the field of the history and the pre-history of Russia] (Moscow: 2002). See also the review of recent literature on the binary aspects of Peter’s reign by Ernest A. Zitser, “Post-Soviet Peter: New Histories of the Late Muscovite and Early Imperial Russian Court,” Kritika, 6/2 (2005), pp. 375–92. 2 Richard M. Easton, “Approaches to the Study of Conversion to Islam in India,” in Richard C. Martin (ed.), Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies (Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press,1985), pp. 106–23; Peter Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), pp. 30–33, 72. See also Marc Bloch, “Why Oratory?” in Political Language and Oratory in Traditional Society (London: Academic Press,1975).

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apostasy and syncretism. They were never far from the concerns of the missionaries and the secular authorities standing behind them. In the case of Russia the formulation of an imperial theology and the first instances of conversion to Orthodoxy occurred within a short time span from the end of the fifteen to the mid-sixteenth century. Between the fall of Constantinople in 1452 to the Ottoman Turks and the conquest of the Muslim khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan by Ivan IV ("the Terrible”) in the 1550s Orthodox clergymen and the so-called Moscow bookmen invented a complex theory of state that combined secular and theological arguments for accepting Moscow as the Third Rome and the Second Jerusalem. In their view Moscow had inherited the mantle of protector of the true Orthodox faith from the Byzantine Empire, the Second Rome, which had betrayed its calling by seeking to reunite with the Latin Church.3 The theory, however, was complex. In the first place, the Moscow princes hesitated to claim that translatio imperii from the Byzantine Empire to Muscovy had occurred, for this would have involved them in a moral obligation to conquer Constantinople and thus would have committed them to a crusade that they simply lacked the power to launch. By the time that Moscow had acquired sufficient military strength to conquer the neighboring khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan in the 1550s, the idea of a crusade ran counter to the idea of peacefully assimilating the large Muslim population of these khanates into the empire. A second complexity arose from the reluctance of the princes to base their legitimacy solely on the foundations of the Orthodox Church. To have done so would have meant subordinating their ambitions to the moral authority of the Church. At the same time the church had been a steady supporter of the power of the Moscow princes in their struggle to “gather the Russian land” and a valued partner in maintaining their drive to consolidate an absolutist rule. Thus, from the emergence of a unified Russian state there existed an ambivalence in church-state relations which was never completely resolved. This ambivalence profoundly affected the role that conversion was to play in the spread of imperial rule.

3

For recent reconsiderations of the Third Rome see especially Peter Nitsche, “Translatio imperii? Beobachtungen zum historischen Selbstverständnis im Moskauer Zartum um die Mitte des 16 Jahrhunderts,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 35 (1987), pp. 321– 38; Daniel Rowland, “Moscow - Third Rome or New Israel,” Russian Review 55 (1996), pp. 59–88; and Daniel Ostrowsky, Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304–1589 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), chapter ten.

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Promoting conversion to Orthodoxy was in the interests of both church and state. But their perception of its importance in the hierarchy of imperial aims did not always coincide. Contrary to many earlier accounts of church-state relations in Russia, the church was not simply an arm of the state.4 Their relations might be better expressed as a dialectical process. Conversion was never a systematic or consistent policy of either church or state. It took different forms ranging from coercive to voluntary. Its configuration, successes and failures depended on a number of factors: the targets and their social cohesion; the individual initiatives and perspectives of secular rulers and churchmen; and the international situation and bureaucratic politics. These are the themes that will shape the following analysis. At its peak the Russian Empire was unique among continental empires in encompassing representatives of all the major religions (except Hinduism): Orthodox, Latin, Uniate and Protestant Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists (Lamaists), shamanists, and animists, not to mention the many sectarians, schismatics, and heretics that seemed to flourish within its frontiers. When they were engaged in the process of conversion, the state and the church often adopted different approaches in its relations with these groups. Moreover, certain religious communities like the Jews and Muslims proved highly resistant to conversion due to their strong communal institutions. Contrary to the older historiographical tradition very few Jews converted to Christianity in the Russian Empire, and with the brief exception of a decade in the reign of Nicholas I the government did not make a great effort to force them to do so. This is not to deny discriminatory practices, but these did not include massive pressure to convert. The location of Muslims on the periphery of the empire—first along the Volga, then in the Caucasus and finally in Central Asia—created in the minds of Russian statesmen a serious security problem due mainly to the presence of large Muslim states like the Ottoman and Iranian Empires on the other side of the contested frontiers. Conversion was one method of securing the loyalty of these peoples. But caution had to be exercised for fear of antagonizing the neighboring states. Up to that point, no other European power had confronted the problem of converting and assimilating a large Muslim population into its body politic. To be sure, Russia shared with Spain the distinction of attempting to convert large numbers of Muslims as a result of a conquest or re-conquest of territories adjacent to its 4

Gregory Freeze, “Handmaiden of the State? The Church in Imperial Russia Reconsidered,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36/1 (1985), pp. 82–102.

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metropolitan centers. But the Spanish were more successful, due to the organized power and unrelenting pressure applied by a firm alliance of the Catholic Church and the monarchy, as well as the geographical advantage of operating within the contracted and enclosed area of the Iberian peninsula. The expulsion of the “Moors” took place in Spain at the very time when the incorporation of the first large number of Muslims took place in Russia. There were sporadic efforts to convert Muslims, often by force, but by the end of the nineteenth century the Russian government exercised great caution in treading that path for fear of international complications. A second problem posed by the extravagant multiculturalism of the Russian Empire was the great number of languages which would-be missionaries were obliged to master if they intended to conduct their activities along voluntary lines through instruction and preaching rather than by offering material rewards or resorting to naked coercion. This proved to be one of the greatest obstacles to implementing effective policies of conversion. Different targets notwithstanding, there were periods when conversion as a general policy was more actively pursued as opposed to periods when greater passivity or even tolerance of non-Orthodox religions prevailed. At this point it is useful to point out that religious tolerance (veroterpimost') in the Russian Empire did not carry the precise meaning that it had acquired in contemporary western societies. It was not based on ideas of civil or human rights. Freedom of conscience only received legal sanction in 1905, and even then the Orthodox Church stalled its implementation by opposing enabling legislation in the State Duma.5 Toleration in Russia was, like its putative opposite, conversion, an instrument of imperial rule. That is, the state assumed the role of protector of the orthodox, here meaning mainstream confessions with their well-established hierarchies, rules and dogmas. The aim was to prevent divisive and disruptive schisms and heresies from rending the social fabric of imperial society. Some would go so far as to call the Russian Empire “a confessional state” in much the way the Ottoman Empire could claim to be.6 But even here there were important exceptions and ambiguities in the policy of opposing deviant movements splitting away from established confessions. In certain cases where religious dissenters accepted their civic obligations, namely obedi5

Peter Waldron, “Religious Toleration in Late Imperial Russia,” in Olga Crisp–Linda Edmondson (eds.), Civil Rights in Imperial Russia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 103–19; Raymond Pearson, “Privileges, Rights and Russification,” in ibid., pp. 85–102. 6 Robert Crews, “Empire and the Confessional State: Islam and Religious Politics in Nineteenth Century Russia,” American Historical Review 108/1 (February 2003), pp. 50–83.

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ence to authority and devotion to the fatherland, the state exhibited willingness to tolerate their existence.7 A pragmatic attitude toward conversion and toleration was not the polestar of the theology of empire, but it often provided a restraining influence on zealotry. With this caveat in mind, we can begin to define the periodization of conversion. The first period of intensive, forced conversion was launched by Ivan IV after his conquest of Kazan and, significantly, it was accompanied by large deportations of Muslims and colonization by Russians.8 Employed in tandem, these two elements were powerful instruments of integration in the process of state building. Throughout much of the seventeenth century the missionary spirit shriveled under the dual impact of civil war during the Time of Troubles and the great schism that tore the church apart. Peter I (1682–1725) for all his reputation as an irreligious ruler launched a systematic and ruthless policy of conversion. He was motivated in part by strategic concerns, the “constant fear of the emergence of a hostile Islamic axis—a united front of various Muslim peoples under the Ottoman umbrella.”9 Peter’s arsenal of conversion extended from harsh discrimination and confiscation of landed property to training missionaries in native languages. But he was the first Russian tsar to recognize that coercion alone was not effective as a means of conversion and that submission to baptism was not an adequate guarantee of the acceptance of Christianity. The high tide of state involvement in conversion followed Peter’s death when it became evident that there were serious obstacles to implementing his proselytizing policies based on teaching and preaching. The temptations of bribery, the hardship of missionary work in remote areas, and the lack of training facilities for missionaries were foremost among these. His successors once again shifted to more coercive centralizing measures. In 1740 an Agency of Convert Affairs was created to operate 7

Paul W. Werth, “Schism Once Removed: Sects, State Authority, and Meanings of Religious Toleration in Imperial Russia,” in Alexei Miller–Alfred J. Rieber (eds.), Imperial Rule (Budapest–New York: Central European University Press, 2004), pp. 83–105. 8 A.N. Grigor'ev, “Khristianizatsiia nerusskikh narodnostei kak odin iz metodov natsional'noi kolonial'noi politiki tsarizma v Tatarii”[The Christianization of non-Russian nationalities as one of the methods of the national-colonial policy of Tsarism in Tatariia] in Materialy po istorii Tatarii [Material on the history of Tartariia] (Kazan: Akademiia nauk, Kazanskii filial, 1948), I, pp. 226–28. 9 Michael Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500–1800 (Bloomington, Ind.: University of Indiana Press, 2002), pp. 192–93; Idem, Where Two Worlds Meet: The Russian State and the Kalmyk Nomads, 1600–1771 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 98, 145–46.

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mainly in the internal provinces with Muslim populations. Throughout the rule of Peter’s daughter, Elizaveta Petrovna (1741–1762), a frontal assault was mounted against the spread of Islam. Hundreds of mosques were destroyed in Kazan and other Volga and Siberian provinces. The government used military recruitment and criminal law as blunt instruments to punish converts to Islam and reward converts to the Orthodox faith. In the 1740s clerics in the Volga-Kama Region reported mass conversions of tens of thousands of non-Russians over a short period. In all it is estimated that over 400,000 non-Christians were converted to Orthodoxy in the mideighteenth century.10 The statistics of the Agency for Convert Affairs point to greater success in winning over pagans (nomad tribes) than Tatars, but other evidence makes it clear that many of these conversions were not sincere and were subsequently repudiated.11 Under Catherine II (“the Great,” 1762–1796) the government adopted a new position toward conversion. The empress was inspired by western models of toleration but was equally cognizant of the failure of previous policies when she abolished the Agency for Convert Affairs and sought the collaboration of non-Christian religious leaders, especially among the Tatars, in order to grant them an administrative role in maintaining order and guaranteeing loyalty to the state. At the same time, Russian legislation restricted the right to proselytize to the Orthodox Church and forbade apostasy from Orthodoxy. The so-called Catherinian compromise recognized the principle of religious toleration as applied to established religious groups but denied freedom of conscience to the individual.12 Similar concerns for a well-governed state based on institutional uniformity guided Catherine’s policy of toleration toward the newly acquired Jewish population in the first partition of the former Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania. But pragmatism gained the upper hand as the number of Jews sharply increased as a result of the second partition. Her legislative decree of 1791 restricting the place of residence and commercial activity of the Jews in response to the complaints of Christian merchants laid the cornerstone for the establishment of the Pale of Settlement.13 Still there was no attempt to embark on a campaign of converting the Jews. 10

Paul Werth, At the Margins of Orthodoxy: Mission, Governance, and Confessional Politics in Russia’s Volga-Kama Region, 1827–1905 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 22. 11 Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier, pp. 194–96. 12 Werth, At the Margins of Orthodoxy, p. 27. 13 John Doyle Klier, Russia Gathers Her Jews: The Origins of the ‘Jewish Question’ in Russia 1772–1825 (DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1986), p. 75.

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Rather critical voices were raised by nobles against the mindless conversion policies of the church. Echoing Peter I, Prince Mikhail Shcherbatov delivered one of the most severe indictments when he stated that the church “neither attempted to teach converts first, nor sent preachers who knew their language, but instead brought them to baptism in the same way they would have been brought to a bath; gave them a cross, which, in their ignorance, they considered some kind of talisman, and an image of Christ which they regarded as an idol; and forbade them from eating meat on fast days, a prohibition that they did not follow, while priests took bribes from them for overlooking this. Likewise, no attempt was made to translate the Holy Scriptures into their languages nor to teach these to priests, so that their preaching could be understood.”14 The policies of Alexander I (1801–1825) continued to be influenced by enlightened attitudes toward toleration and conversion but at the same time they took new directions. Unlike his grandmother Catherine, Alexander I’s views on conversion were shaped in part by Pietism following his own spiritual conversion during the fire that consumed Moscow during Napoleon’s occupation of the city. More as a vehicle of personal redemption than raison d’etat—though with Alexander it is hard to separate the two—the tsar founded the Society of Israelite Christians. Its ostensible purpose was to support and sustain Jewish converts to Christianity. But it was characteristic of Alexander’s indifference to the Orthodox Church that recruits to the Society could be drawn from any Christian confession.15 Along similar lines the tsar promoted the translation of Christian writings into several languages of the Empire under the auspices of the Imperial Russian Bible Society. In a further deviation from the official position of the Orthodox Church the Society included in its steering committee a Lutheran pastor and a Roman Catholic bishop. Among its projects was the translation of the Bible from Church Slavonic, inaccessible to all but learned clergy, to vernacular Russian. In the circumstances it was hardly surprising that the Society came under withering criticism from leading churchmen for “degrading the word of God.”16 It survived 14

Cited in Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier, p. 198. John Doyle Klier, “State Policy and Conversion of the Jews in Imperial Russia,” in Robert Geraci–Michael Khodarkovsky (eds.), Of Religion and Empire: Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), pp. 95–96. 16 Stephen K. Bataldin, “Printing the Bible in the Reign of Alexander I: Towards a Reinterpretation of the Imperial Russian Bible Society,” in Geoffrey A. Hosking (ed.), Church, Nation and State in Russia and Ukraine (London: 1991), pp. 65–78; A. N. 15

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only until 1824 when the tsar closed it down. In effect this meant a delay of more than half a century in the publication of a Bible that could be read by laymen, whether Christians or potential converts, and the consequent disruption of progress toward the Petrine goal of a Russian “reformation” that would place the theology of empire on the same intellectual level as the competing religions of the book. Alexander’s conversion policy might be called one of benign neglect seasoned with contradictory elements of mysticism and rationality. Nicholas I (1825–1855) restored the primacy of Orthodoxy with a vengeance. By placing Orthodoxy at the head of an imperial ideological trinity along with Autocracy and Nationality, Nicholas signaled his intentions to solidify the links between religion and Russianness and to marshal the full resources of the state in promoting religious unity. Yet he adopted different means in dealing with different religious groups including the Muslims of the Volga-Kama Region and the Uniates and Jews in the Western provinces. Sergei Uvarov, Nicholas’ Minister of Education, has long been viewed as the architect of Official Nationality, although he himself did not use the term and recent literature has reinterpreted his views on Orthodoxy. Uvarov was by no means a religious fanatic. Rather his policies, including those of conversion, were motivated by practical concerns. His main concern was to defend the Church against the twin evils of rationalism on the left and mysticism on the right.17 Nicholas’ policy toward the non-Russians of the Volga-Kama region was triggered by petitions to the tsar by the newly baptized (novokreshchenye) asking to be allowed to revert to their earlier religious practices, whether Islam or animism. The petitions were for the government startling proof that the mass conversions of the eighteenth century had been at best a partial success. The government treated seriously the complaints of the parishioners regarding the forcible nature of their conversion and the excessive monetary demands of the local clergy. No repressive measures were taken and renewed missionary activity brought many of

17

Pypin, “Rossiiskoe bibliiskoe obshchestvo,” [The Russian Bible Society] Vestnik Evropy 8 (1868), pp. 262–64. The church also sought to ignore the instructions of the enlightened governor of Siberia, Mikhail Speranskii, not to interfere in the life of the native tribes and to convert by persuasion. See Yuri Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), pp. 83–88. Andrei Zorin, Kormia dvuglavogo orla. Literaturaia i gosudarstvennaia ideologiia v Rossii v poslednei treti XVIII-pervoi treti XIX veka [Feeding the two eagles: Literature and state ideology in Russia in the last third of the 18th–the first third of the nineteenth century] (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2001).

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the petitioners back into the Orthodox fold. The struggle to retain the novokreshchenye within the church was hampered by financial constraints and the lack of qualified clergy to serve the errant flock. In 1866 another movement of mass apostasy broke out.18 The government continued to be frustrated by its own inability to reconcile its concept of religious toleration and a theology of empire. In the Caucasus the process of converting the Muslim population was much more closely tied to security. Islam provided the staying power of the North Caucasus tribes’ resistance to Russian conquest, and it took twenty years for the Russian army to subdue the mountaineers. In 1860, a year after the end of the conflict, the Society for the Restoration of Orthodox Christianity was established under the patronage of the Empress Maria Alexandrovna. Its object was to counter Islamic propaganda and restore Christianity where it had existed from ancient times to the sixteenth century when the Ottomans and the Persians conquered the region. The Society’s proselytizing activities were a mixed success, but its main achievements in Abkhazia were due to conditions and circumstances that were almost precisely the opposite of those prevailing in the Volga-Kama area or other regions of the Caucasus. The Society was well organized and well funded, it had the backing of successive viceroys and their staffs, and many of the missionaries were Georgians with a knowledge of local conditions and languages. Moreover, the Abkhazians still retained some vestiges of Christian belief in their syncretic religious life. But the favorable outlook for conversion dimmed toward the end of the nineteenth century when the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Abdulhamid revived the older militant tradition and began to send mullahs educated in Istanbul into the Caucasus. Under the last rulers of both the Russian and Ottoman Empires, imperial authorities sought to fuse religious belief and loyalty to the nationalizing state in a new form of imperial theology. That the Russian Church steadily lost ground to Islam in the Caucasus was a testimony to the growing resistance of the local population to Russian rule as well as the traditional weaknesses of the Orthodox missionary enterprise.19 A different set of problems dogged the government’s coercive measures against Russian sectarians, such as the Dukhubors, in the Caucasus which included the use of legal inducements to convert. In 1830 a series 18 19

Werth, At the Margins of Orthodoxy, chapter 6. Manana Gnolidze-Swanson, “Activity of the Russian Orthodox Church Among the Muslim Natives of the Caucasus in Imperial Russia,” Caucasus and Central Asia Newsletter 4 (summer 2003), pp. 9–19.

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of laws set new conditions for the resettlement of sectarians from the Central Provinces to the South Caucasus (Transcaucasus). The only means of evading the law and the prospect of forcible relocation to a volatile frontier region was to convert to Orthodoxy. Many sectarians who remained true to their faith until they arrived at their destined place of settlement and encountered the harsh local conditions then also petitioned the government to convert in order to be free to return to their home villages. The rates of conversion were highest in the 1830s and 1840s when those who were resettled found they had to rebuild their lives virtually from the ground up. Once settlements had been established the number of conversions fell off. Another legal inducement was an amnesty for crimes against Orthodoxy, such as proselytizing other faiths. In either case, the conversions were often opportunistic and once they had achieved their practical aim the former sectarians reverted to their old faith. The psychological suffering resulting from conversion was often the decisive factor in their decision.20 The missionary activity of the Orthodox Church in the region aimed at non-Russians and Russian sectarians generally adopted peaceful methods, but even in the view of the clergy it was not very successful. There were the usual problems: the Orthodox priests were too few and inadequately trained for their tasks; the local civil administration, often in the hands of Armenians or Muslims, was indifferent to the missionary activity of the Orthodox Church; and most important, the sectarians were welded together in strong self-sufficient communities that resisted collectively the blandishments of the Orthodox Church.21 An even more difficult political problem for the state was the Uniates who had been left under the administration of the Catholic Church after the partitions of Poland. Following the Polish revolt of 1830 Nicholas I was determined to weaken the ties between the Polish nobility (szlachta) and their Ruthenian and Belorussian peasants. One method was to force a church union by absorbing the Uniates into the bosom of the Orthodox Church.22 His instrument was Iosif Semashko, a typical product of Russia’s western borderlands where the clash of Polish, Russian and Ruthenian (Ukrainian) cultures produced ambivalent loyalties and uncertain identities. Born in a Ukrainian village, the son of a Uniate priest, educated 20

Nicholas Breyfogle, “Heretics and Colonizers: Religious Dissent and Russian Colonization of Transcaucasia,” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1998), pp. 284–90, 307–10. 21 Ibid., pp. 335–41. 22 Theodore R. Weeks, “Between Rome and Tsargrad: The Uniate Church in Imperial Russia,” in Geraci–Khodarkovsky (eds.), Of Religion, pp. 70–91.

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by Polish professors at the University of Wilno (Vilnius), he served in the Uniate Department of the Roman Catholic College in St. Petersburg which was subordinated to the Main Administration for the Ecclesiastical Affairs of Foreign Confessions. His proposals in 1827 to reunite the Uniates with the Orthodox Church met with Nicholas’ approval but implementation required more than a decade. The reunion of 1839 was one of the most sweeping acts of conversion ever carried out in modern Russia. Resistance from a small number of recalcitrant monks and priests was quickly repressed. But once again the state and the Orthodox Church demonstrated their inability to match results with intentions, and a real transformation of the confessional life of the mass of Ukrainian and Belorussian peasants simply did not take place. The government lacked the financial resources to construct new churches and introduce religious schooling; the former Uniate priests lacked the education and zeal to serve as effective intermediaries between the bureaucrats in St. Petersburg and the local peasantry.23 But these shortcomings did not deter Nicholas from pursuing similar programs throughout the empire, especially toward schismatics (that is, Old Believers) and sectarians. Nicholas was the first tsar to undertake a policy of integrating the Jewish population, but in this case conversion was not the main vehicle or even the preferred one. Nicholas’ contempt for Jews is well established. But much as he may have wanted them to convert, he was always suspicious that this would simply result in their apostasy. So rather than apply direct pressure toward that end he sought to reduce their putative “fanaticism” and “particularism” by institutional means. This meant creating cantonist regiments for underage boys, intended primarily to serve as an instrument of conversion, a Jewish state school system to make Jews economically productive, and the dissolution of the kahal (the Jewish community organization). This was a policy of “equality in inequality” that saddled the Jews with all the liabilities and responsibilities of the corporate social classes (soslovie) to which they belonged but blocked them from enjoying the full benefits of those bodies.24 After Nicholas’ death the campaign was discontinued, never to be resumed. 23 24

Edward C. Thaden, Russia’s Western Borderlands, 1710–1870 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 130–33. John Doyle Klier, “The Concept of ‘Jewish Emancipation’ in a Russian Context,” in Crisp and Edmonson, pp. 121–44; Idem “State Policies,” pp. 98–102; Michael Stanislawski, Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1983), pp. 49–101.

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The era of the Great Reforms (1861–1881) under Alexander II marks a major shift in the place of conversion in the imperial project. The process of conversion becomes more complex. The evolution of ministerial government and the professionalization of the bureaucracy had created interest groups that competed with one another over policy matters including treatment of ethnic and religious groups. At the same time, Alexander allowed his proconsuls in the borderlands greater latitude in governing his non-Russian subjects. As a result, policy differences over conversion which had been confined to state-church relations multiplied within the central state administration and between the central and regional authorities. A few examples will illustrate how this further weakened the role of the church in the conversion process. The integration of the Baltic provinces, the Caucasus, and Central Asia into the Russian empire presented challenges of a different nature to the imperial authorities. But in all three cases the appointed representatives of the central government raised serious questions about the conversion process. In the Baltic provinces Governors General A.A. Suvorov and Wilhelm von Lieven were reluctant to promote the confessional zeal of Orthodox churchmen. Their main concern was to maintain close relations with the local Lutheran nobility who not surprisingly showed no interest in providing funds or administrative support for the Orthodox religious schools or for missionary activities aimed at converting the Estonian and Latvian peasants or preventing them after conversion from returning to the Lutheran faith. The Viceroy of the Caucasus, Fieldmarshal Prince A.I. Bariatinskii, developed his own strategy for conversion that annoyed the Orthodox hierarchy. He obtained Alexander II’s endorsement for the Society for the Restoration of Orthodox Christianity in the Caucasus. Reacting to the title and aims of the organization, Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow complained: “Why the restoration of Orthodoxy? Does this mean it is in decline?” While Bariatinskii lobbied St. Petersburg for funds to educate priests to compete with Muslim clerics, the Ministry of Finance withheld funds pleading financial stringency. Bariatinskii’s successors Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich and Prince Dondukov-Korsakov had their own views on the function of the Society. Their successive administrations shifted from an active proselytizing role to a defensive posture aimed at preserving Christianity in the western Caucasus while virtually abandoning efforts to penetrate the solid Muslim areas of the east.25 25

Firouzeh Mostashari, “Colonial Dilemmas: Russian Policies in the Muslim Caucasus,” in Geraci–Khodarkovsky (eds.), Of Religion, pp. 235–40.

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In the Central Asian province of Turkestan the first Governor-General, K.P. von Kaufman, drew on his earlier experience in the Caucasus to refute the alarmist views of General Kryzhanovskii, another proconsul on Russia’s southern frontiers. Kryzhanovskii, the governor general of Orenburg, had argued in the 1860s that a “holy war” by an “aroused Islam” was at the very edges of Russia’s frontiers and advocated stringent measures to weaken the influence of Islam. But von Kaufman, supported by his patron, War Minister D. M. Miliutin, opted for a policy of tolerance which he identified with Catherine II. His object was to strip Muslims of any role in public life but to avoid attacking their religious institutions. In the meantime, the Orthodox were permitted to construct a church in Tashkent, a predominantly Muslim city, but without a bishop or missionaries.26 Conversion had proven to be a dull instrument of imperial rule, and its failures clearly outweighed its successes. In the waning years of the tsarist monarchy two fresh crises drove home this conclusion. First, the rise of mystical, ascetic, and pietistic groups within the church challenged the rational foundations of missionary work based upon seminary training. The popularity of the charismatic preachers among the general public and even the social elites reached its climax with the appearance of Rasputin, who was only symptomatic of a wider phenomenon. Second, the mass exodus from Orthodoxy, including most of the former Uniates, following the decree on religious toleration in April 1905 demonstrated the superficial and coercive nature of the previous conversion process. The few genuine achievements of conversion had been the work of individual churchmen who were well-educated and committed to the ideals of spiritual instruction—men like Archbishop Afanasii of Kholmogory who, battled the Old Belief and paganism in the northwest from 1682–1702; Ioann Veniaminov, whose enlightened missionary work in Alaska in the second quarter of the nineteenth century earned him the post of Metropolitan of Moscow; and N.I. Il’minskii, who became in the 1860s the most famous and successful educator of non-Russian peoples along the Volga and in Siberia.27 But their successes were personal achievements. The shortcomings of the conversion process were due to more persistent structural factors. The 26

27

Daniel Brower, “Islam and Ethnicity: Russian Colonial Policy in Turkestan,” in Daniel Brower–Edward J. Lazzerini (eds.), Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), pp. 120–26. For Il’minskii’s attempt to spread Orthodoxy by translating church services and catechisms into native languages see Robert P. Geraci, Window to the East: National and Imperial Identities in Late Tsarist Russia (Ithaca: 2001), pp. 47–85.

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idea that Orthodoxy could serve as the foundation on which an imperial ideology could be constructed was never fully accepted by the secular leadership of the Russian Empire. The main problem was that the Empire was a multi-confessional as well as polyethnic state. The church could not serve as the unifying element unless it succeeded in carrying out a mass conversion of the imperial subjects. But it lacked the cultural resources to accomplish this formidable task. Above all the educational level of both black (monastic) and white (parish) clergy was inadequate, with few exceptions, to enable them to compete with their main competitors: the Catholic priests and teaching orders, the rabbis, and the ulema. The Orthodox clerics even found it difficult to match the learning of the Old Believer schismatics. Moreover, the state was reluctant to place its full resources at the disposal of the Church in order to promote conversion as its primary cultural task. Pragmatic considerations, especially the problem of maintaining order in the borderlands where Russians were heavily outnumbered by the conquered people, forced the representatives of the state to compromise, either by fostering toleration or by adopting a passive stance on religious matters. At the very least the proconsuls demanded the services of highly educated missionaries in order to avoid having to employ coercive means that might backfire and spark resistance. Whereas among Balkan Christians living under Ottoman rule the Orthodox Church was a powerful instrument for shaping national identity and inspiring national independence, in a multi-national empire like Russia these impulses could only lead to division and dissention.

III. Society and Culture III.1. Order, Hierarchy and Cultural Capital

The “Bishops of the Hungarian Crown”: A Case Study in the Ecclesiastical, Social and Constitutional History of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in South-Eastern Europe JOACHIM BAHLCKE I. Certain bishops of the Hungarian crown constitute a unique legal institution within the “hierarchia catholica,” information about which can be found in hardly any relevant handbook of ecclesiastical history: these were titular bishops, appointed solely by the king of Hungary, the majority of whom were not recognized by Rome and who had not been consecrated.1 In contrast to the residential or officiating diocesan bishops, titular bishops were appointed to the “titulus” of dioceses which had once been subject to the metropolitan power of Esztergom, but later declined, or fell under the rule of the Republic of Venice or the Ottoman Empire. These excluded the dioceses which were completely or partially in the Turkish territorial areas in Hungary and Croatia, which, when amalgamated in 1623, were declared as missionary areas and assigned to a vicar apostolic or administrator with the rank of (missionary) bishop with a see in Belgrade.2 These latter spiritual leaders were treated as regular local bishops and, although they did not reside in the territory captured by the Turks, 1 2

Péter Erdő, Egyházjog [Canon law] (Budapest: 1991), pp. 246–247. István György Tóth, “A szaggatott kapcsolat: A Propaganda és a magyarországi missziók 1622–1700” [An interrupted relationship: The Congregation of Propaganda and the mission in Hungary 1622–1700], Századok 138 (2004), pp. 843–892; Idem, “A Propaganda megalapítása és Magyarország (1622)” [The foundation of the Propaganda Fide and Hungary (1622)], Történelmi Szemle 42 (2000), pp. 19–68; Idem, “Koszovóból vagy Mezopotámiából? Misszióspüspökök a magyarországi török hódoltságban” [From Kosovo or from Mesopotamia? Missionary bishops during the Turkish occupation of Hungary], Történelmi Szemle 41 (1999), pp. 279–329; Idem, “Die Beziehungen der katholischen Kirche zum Staat in Türkisch-Ungarn im 17. Jahrhundert,” in Joachim Bahlcke–Arno Strohmeyer (eds.), Konfessionalisierung in Ostmitteleuropa. Wirkungen des religiösen Wandels im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert in Staat, Gesellschaft und Kultur (Stuttgart: 1999), pp. 211–217.

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they were nominated by the sovereign and confirmed by the pope, just like the bishops in Royal Hungary or the Ban of Croatia. The titular bishops on the other hand were appointed by the Hungarian king by virtue of his right of nomination (“authoritate iuris patronatus nostri regii”), no differently than the residential bishops.3 Seen canonically, the Hungarian titular bishops, who were generally not consecrated, are not to be confused with the “episcopi in partibus infidelium” (i.p.i.), who were promoted to the titles of declined bishoprics in the territory of the “infidels” in Asia Minor, the Mediterranean islands and Northern Africa and who were consecrated. These “episcopi consecrati” were referred to only as titular bishops by the Curia after the distinguishing “in partibus infidelium” was discontinued in 1882, as a result of a decree by Pope Leo XIII. The Vatican contributed to the confusion inasmuch as it included some of the Hungarian titular bishoprics in the official Index Sedium Titularium archiepiscopalium et episcopalium, published in 1933 by order of the Consistorial Congregation, and in the Annuario Pontificio, the official handbook of the Curia, published one year later.4 In the face of the non-uniform use of terms in sources it is often not easy to differentiate the titular bishops who were nominated by the king from those who were promoted and consecrated by the pope, particularly in the case of those clergymen who never attained a residential bishopric, since sev3

For the right of nomination and the practice of nominating bishops in 17th- and 18thcentury Hungary see Vilmos Fraknói, A magyar királyi kegyúri jog Szent Istvántól Mária Teréziáig. Történeti tanúlmány [The Hungarian kings’ right of patronage from Saint Stephen to Maria Theresa: A historical study] (Budapest: 1895); Ferenc Eckhart, A püspöki székek és a káptalani javadalmak betöltése Mária Terézia korától 1918-ig [The occupation of bishop’s sees and cathedral chapters from Maria Theresa’s time to 1918] (Budapest: 1935); Péter Erdő, “Il Giuspatronato in Ungheria,” Apollinaris. Commentarius Instituti Utriusque Juris 62 (1989), pp. 189–206; Andor Csizmadia, “Le développement des relations juridiques entre l’État et les Églises en Hongrie (1000– 1944),” in Zoltán Péteri (ed.), Droit hongrois, droit comparé (Budapest: 1970), pp. 235– 257; Idem, “Die Entwicklung des Patronatsrechtes in Ungarn,” Österreichisches Archiv für Kirchenrecht 25 (1974), pp. 308–327. 4 Index Sedium Titularium archiepiscopalium et episcopalium (Rome: 1933), pp. 1–67, contains the official register of 1,712 Roman titular bishops. A complete register of the Roman titular archbishops and bishops was published as: “Essai de liste générale de tous les archevêques et évêques titulaires nommés depuis le XIIIe siècle jusqu’à nos jours,” Annuaire pontifical catholique (1916), pp. 347–518. The specification “in partibus infidelium” is found throughout the sources, such as in the letter written by the imperial envoy in Rome, the bishop of Gurk, Josef Maria of Thun-Hohenstein, to Maria Theresa concerning the Hungarian titular bishop of Nin, Ferenc Zichy. Hungarian National Archive (hereafter HNA) Budapest, A 29, 75:1742 (Rome, 26.5.1742).

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eral sees were actually bestowed by both parties. Furthermore, the Holy See did this twofold, bestowing regular residential bishoprics as well as Roman titular bishoprics “in partibus infidelium.” There is a general lack of knowledge concerning not only the phenomenon of the bishops of the Hungarian crown, but also the number, location and occupancy of the individual titular bishoprics—from contemporary opinions in the 17th and 18th centuries up to modern ecclesiastical research.5 In 1626 István Sennyey, Bishop of Vác and Royal Chancellor, answered an inquiry from the Holy See with the information that the king of Hungary had over twenty such titular bishoprics at his disposal, but that they were only rarely bestowed, as the Hungarians did not throng to receive titles.6 There are indications in various sources that the king would have been perfectly able to nominate further titular bishops.7 When asked for his opinion on the appointment of a new titular bishop of Belgrade in 1754, the State Chancellor Wenzel Anton of Kaunitz-Rietberg was forced to admit that he was “not yet very well acquainted with the staff in the kingdom of Hungary.”8 At the beginning of the nineteenth century the well-read Márton Schwartner wrote in his large volume on the statistics of the kingdom of Hungary that the numerous forms of address were “even for the antiquarian” hardly “more useful than the names of the 72 ruined castles on the mountains at the periphery of the Lycan [sic] district.”9 Schwartner based his opinion on a catalogue of clerical ranks (“Episcopatus titulares”) published in 1802 by Michael Anton Paintner, an 5

For example: Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv Wien, Hungarica, Fasz. 199, Konv. B, fol. 25r– 36v. The Prussian envoys at the imperial court in Vienna also reported about the Hungarian titular bishops, the “Promotiones”: Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz Berlin, I. HA, Rep. 1: Beziehungen zum Kaiser, Abt. I, Nr. 96/1, fol. 226r–228v (Vienna, 4.8.1751); Magyar Katolikus Lexikon [Hungarian Catholic Lexicon], 12 vols. to date [A-Szentl] (Budapest: 1993–2007), here vol. 2, pp. 237–238 (s. v. “címzetes püspök”). 6 Fraknói, A magyar királyi kegyúri jog, pp. 322–323. 7 “altri vescovati in partibus nelle provincie già per qualche tempo posseduti dalla corona d’Ungaria”. Testimony of Rafael Levaković, 1645. Ibid., p. 207. 8 Quoted in Franz A. J. Szabo, “Fürst Kaunitz und die Anfänge des Josephinismus,” in Richard G. Plaschka et al. (eds.), Österreich im Europa der Aufklärung. Kontinuität und Zäsur in Europa zur Zeit Maria Theresias und Josephs II., 2 vols. (Vienna: 1985), vol. 1, pp. 525–545, here p. 529. 9 Martin von Schwartner, Statistik des Königreichs Ungern. Ein Versuch, 2 vols. (Ofen: 2 1809–1811 [Pest 11798]), here vol. 1, p. 175. The author assumes that approximately three dozen bishoprics (“ungefähr drey Dutzend Bisthümer”) were bestowed by the Hungarian king alone without any competition with the pope (“ohne alle Concurrenz des Papstes”). Ibid., vol. 2, p. 99, note b.

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untiring collector of sources of ecclesiastical history. This Jesuit from Sopron, after the order was dissolved, had become canon, archdeacon and great provost of Győr, counsellor at court and headmaster, and was from 1816 to 1826 himself a Hungarian titular bishop (“ep. Novien.”). He listed 34 further dignities (“Electi”)10 alongside the consecrated titular bishops of Belgrade-Semendria and Knin (“Consecrabiles”), among them the dioceses of Pullti (“Poletensis”) in northern Albania and Svač (“Suacinensis”) to the north of Ulcinj, which to this day have not been verified as Hungarian titular bishoprics.11 It was only after the reform of the Hungarian Upper House according to Article 7:1885, abolishing the right of the titular bishops—with the exception of the bishops of Belgrade-Semendria and Knin—to a seat and a vote at the Table of Magnates, that the legal institution, until then largely unheeded, received a certain amount of attention from experts.12 The Jesuit father, Nikolaus Nilles, Professor of Canon Law at the university of Innsbruck, correctly pointed out the “lack of clarity and the 10

“Horum Titulorum aliquorum Dioeceses reapse actu tenent consecrati Episcopi in Dalmatia, antehac Venetorum, sub Archiepiscopis Spalatensi, Jadrensi, & Ragusino: & dum nunc sub potestam Regum Hungariae jure postliminii venerunt, facies titulorum horum in multis tota mutatur.” Mich[ael Anton] Paintner, “Verzeichniß der im Königreiche Ungern, und den damit verbundenen Ländern bestehenden geistlichen Würden, deren Benefizien oder Titel, die apostol. Könige dieses Reiches zu ertheilen pflegen,” Zeitschrift von und für Ungern, zur Beförderung der vaterländischen Geschichte, Erdkunde und Literatur 1 (1802), pp. 68–86, here pp. 69–70. On Paintner as a bishop of the Hungarian crown see Wilhelm Kratz, “Exjesuiten als Bischöfe (1773–1822),” Archivum historicum Societatis Iesu 6 (1937), pp. 185–215, here p. 207. 11 For the identification of these bishoprics see Fulvio Cordignano, Geografia ecclesiastica dell’Albania dagli ultimi decenni del secolo XVIo alla metá del secolo XVIIo (Rome: 1934); Peter Bartl (ed.), Quellen und Materialien zur albanischen Geschichte im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden–Munich: 1975–1979). 12 Kálmán Dániel Keményfy, Ötven év alkotmányos egyházpolitikája. (1848–1898.) [Fifty years of constitutional Church policy (1848–1898)] (Esztergom: 1898), pp. 241–242; Vilmos Fraknói, Magyarország egyházi és politikai összeköttetései a római Szent-Székkel [The ecclesiastical and political relations between Hungary and the Holy See], 3 vols. (Budapest: 1901–1903), here vol. 3, pp. 343–346, 541–542; Idem, A magyar királyi kegyúri jog, pp. 258–274, 357–358. Vilmos Fraknói, a canon in Nagyvárad, was himself a Hungarian titular bishop (“ep. Arben.”). See Albert de Berzeviczy, “Guillaume Fraknói. Historien hongrois (1843–1924),” Revue des études hongroises 6 (1928), pp. 139–165, here p. 140; Zoltán Kérészy, Rendi országgyűléseink tanácskozási módja. Jogtörténeti tanulmány [The manner of deliberation of our estate Diets. A study in legal history] (Kassa: 1906), pp. 54–55; Pavel Macháček, Hlavnopatronátne právo v dejinách uhorských (historicko-právna úvaha) [The supreme right of patronage in the history of Hungary (a historical-legal essay)] (Bratislava: 1930), pp. 100, 110–111, 123–125.

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confusion”13 that could be observed in the classification of the bishops of the Hungarian crown in relevant textbooks on canon law. However, it was not until 1971 that the topic was first dealt with systematically. The findings—that numerous bishops who were candidates nominated by the Caesarea Maiestas for the residential bishoprics of the Austrian monarchy also appeared as bishops of certain other episcopal sees—caused Remigius Ritzler to make the first examination of the legal institution of the Hungarian titular bishops, in connection with the preparatory work for volumes 5–8 of the Hierarchia catholica (1668–1878). The “importance of research on this state-canonical institution with regard to the politics of the Habsburgs in Hungary and to the ecclesiastical history of this country”14 appeared to the Franciscan ecclesiastical historian, who had been working in Rome since 1936, to be an urgent research assignment, along with the compilation of a reliable survey of all the bishops of the Hungarian crown. However, Ritzler based his commendable study, made close to the sources, entirely on Roman material and left even the available Hungarian and Croatian specialist literature out of consideration. Probably the most comprehensive complete register of the sees of the Hungarian titular bishops and their incumbents from the Middle Ages until the end of the nineteenth century (with exact details of the times of the royal appointments) is to be found in the Hungarian National Archive in Budapest in the Libri dignitariorum.15 This compilation, completed circa 1857 and previously unknown to research, supplies not only evidence of titular bishoprics whose existence until now was only assumed, but also allows reliable conclusions as to the careers of spiritual dignitaries in Hungary and to the church policy of the Viennese court towards the end of the Confessional Age. In the following I will first give a short sketch of the historical development of the Hungarian titular bishops, seeking the motives for the establishment of this extraordinary institution. Looking at the origins and career of the incumbents, I will

13

Nikolaus Nilles, “Ueber die ungarischen Titularbischöfe,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 15 (1891), pp. 159–164, 18 (1894), pp. 751–756, here p. 160; further Alexander Hoffer, “Das Verzeichnis der ungarischen Titularbischöfe,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 19 (1895), pp. 355–364. 14 Remigius Ritzler, “Die Bischöfe der ungarischen Krone,” Römische Historische Mitteilungen 13 (1971), pp. 137–164, here p. 153. 15 HNA Budapest, Hungarian Treasury Archives, E 683: Libri dignitariorum (1000–1876), Tom. 2: Dignitariorum Regni Hungariae Ecclesiasticorum Liber Ius, fol. 284–363.

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then examine the political and ecclesiastical functions of this group in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.16 II. In connection with the conflict that had broken out in 1635 between the Congregation of the Propaganda, Pope Urban VIII and King Ferdinand II concerning the princes’ rights of nomination in Turkish Hungary, the primate, Péter Pázmány, wrote a treatise on the legal history of the Hungarian titular bishops, on the orders of the Habsburg king. In his Discursus brevis circa motam in Curia Romana difficultatem de Titularibus Episcopatibus Hungariae, Pázmány gave six reasons why the pope was unable to enforce any legal reservations against the appointment of titular bishops. A seventh reason dealt with the particular situation in Transylvania.17 For the most part he referred to the centuries-old practice of “nominatio regia” in Hungary as such. Although the largest part of the area in which the titular bishoprics were located was at the time in the hands of the infidels (“magna pars haeretica est”), he claimed that when the kings of Hungary first gained the right of nomination for those bishoprics—in the Middle Ages—the whole territory had been Catholic (“Catholica erat tota Hungaria, & tamen Sedes Apostolica, nullam hac de re litem movit”). He stressed that the bishops of the Hungarian crown were not simply titular bishops appointed by the pope for the territory taken by the infidels, with no power whatsoever in their fictive dioceses, but that they were dignitaries who were vested with genuine power, firmly anchored in the political system and who each had a seat and a vote at the assembly of the estates and in the law-court. For this reason, he argued, they needed no papal bulls, unlike the titular bishops promoted by Rome.18 Pázmány’s argu16 17

18

For details see Joachim Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat und österreichische Monarchie. Von einer Partnerschaft zur Konfrontation (1686–1790) (Stuttgart: 2005). Carolus Péterfy, Sacra Concilia Ecclesiae Romano-Catholicae in regno Hungariae celebrata. Ab Anno Christi MXVI. usque ad Annum MDCCXV. Accedunt Regum Hungariae et Sedis Apostolicae legatorum constitutiones ecclesiasticae, 2 vols. (Posonii: 1741–1742), here vol. 1, pp. 78–79; János Török, Magyarország primása. Közjogi és történeti vázolat [The primate of Hungary: A constitutional and historical sketch], 2 vols. (Pest: 1859), here vol. 2, No. CXXXI, pp. 142–143; Lajos Tomcsányi, A főkegyúr szerepe a püspökök kinevezésénél [The role of patronage concerning the appointments of bishops] (Budapest: 1922), pp. 57–58. “Titulares Episcopi Hungariae, non sunt sicut titulares, quos Sedes Apostolica in partibus infidelium nominat: ut Patriarcha Constantinopolitanus, Antiochenus, Episcopi Ephesiorum & c. hi enim nomen gerunt, nullum realem actum Ecclesiasticum, vel

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ments were borrowed—sometimes word for word—for later testimonials.19 As the Hungarian kings presented themselves at that time propagandistically as the last hope for a threatened Christianity, the Holy See was hardly able to put an effective stop to the wilful nomination of the titular bishops. In the Discursus brevis, the primate had argued in a similar way to that of his statement on nomination rights—that the right to appoint titular bishops had been exercised continuously by the Hungarian kings (“in continuato usu”). This was, however, only partly correct. There were indeed some dioceses in Dalmatia which had declined or were under foreign rule—Nin, Skradin, Knin, Hvar and Makarska—and which had been occupied as Hungarian titular bishoprics uninterruptedly from that time onwards. The motive of the Hungarian kings in this case, analogous with that of the pope in appointing the “episcopi in partibus infidelium,” was in the first place a political one. The nomination of the titular bishops—in other words the conscious holding-on to the ecclesiastical organisation of regions as they were in the Middle Ages, which was preserved in the collective memory in spite of the changed regional political structures—was intended to strengthen the legal claim, against Venice and the Ottoman Empire, of the Corona regni Hungariae to the regions in the south that had been lost militarily. Although these regions may have no longer belonged to the closer sanctioned area of Hungarian rule, in this way they were still present in people’s consciousness and thus a part of the extended area of authorisation. Thus the ecclesiastical boundaries of the past practically marked the lines of sight for the secular attempts to expand and for the claims of the heads of the church. It was not until the 17th and 18th centuries, however, that the great majority of the Hungarian titular bishoprics were occupied for the first time or re-occupied after being vacant for centuries. Most of them were under the jurisdiction of Kalocsa, the second

19

politicum retinent, quem antea, dum in sedibus erant, retinebant. Ideoque sunt meri titulares. In Ungaria nullus est talis titulatus: nam hi Episcopi, locum, sessionem, jus suffragii in comitiis, ac judiciis aeque retinent, atque tum residebant; nec ullus illorum est, qui non ovibus aliquibus sui Episcopatus e vicino advigilet. Itaque Bullae, quae de nudis titularibus Episcopis editae sunt, ad hos Episcopos Ungariae in odiosis extendi nullo modo possunt, cum non sint nude titulares.” Péterffy, Sacra Concilia Ecclesiae Romano-Catholicae, vol. 1, p. 79. “Informatio de episcopatibus regni Hungariae ad curiam Romanam” (1661). Vilmos Fraknói (ed.), Oklevéltár a magyar király kegyúri jog történetéhez [Archive of documents on the history of the Hungarian royal right of patronage] (Budapest: 1899), No. CLXVIII, pp. 237–241, here p. 239.

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Hungarian ecclesiastical province, and situated in the southern and eastern border areas which had been founded or restored by the end of the Middle Ages in the vassal principalities in the Balkans that were dependent on Hungary.20 Any legal or regional claims to do with the reviving of these sometimes long-forgotten sees or the constructing of their past history in accordance with the court’s intentions were purely fictitious. On the contrary—in reality the venture was connected with the Habsburgs’ absolutist and counter-reformational attack that reached its climax in the 1670s. From Vienna’s point of view the titular bishops had a dual function here: on the one hand they were to strengthen the political basis of the old church and increase the constitutional weight of the estate of the prelates, and on the other they were to fight against the latent (Protestant) opposition of the estates in the country and consolidate the alliance between the dynasty and the bearers of secular and ecclesiastical power in Hungary. The number of Hungarian titular bishoprics occupied by Vienna, which had increased tremendously since Pázmány’s episcopate, reached its climax in the eighteenth century with 30 sees, with Bosnia and Krbava remaining independent only until the beginning of the eighteenth century, however. The last time a bishop’s see that had been vacant for centuries was occupied for political reasons was in 1774: this was the bishopric of Drisht in Albania, which was founded in the sixth century, restored after 20

Rafael Levaković, historian of the bishopric of Zagreb, gives an overview in a testimonial written in 1645, in which—quite in the spirit of Pázmány—he provides evidence that the royal right of nomination also includes the nomination of the Hungarian titular bishops: “Archiepiscopatus cum suffraganeis ad coronam regni Hungariae mediate vel immediate spectantes, quorum nominatio ab antiquo est de jure patronatus Hungariae regis: In Hungaria. Archiepiscopatus Strigoniensis, cujus suffraganei sunt: 1. Agriensis. 2. Quinqueecclesiensis, sive Pecchivyensis. 3. Vesprimiensis. 4. Jauriensis. 5. Vaciensis. 6. Nitriensis. Archiepiscopatus Colocensis et Bachiensis, cujus suffraganei sunt: 1. Zagrabiensis. 2. Transylvaniensis. 3. Varadiensis. 4. Chanadiensis. 5. Bosnensis alia Diacoviensis. 6. Sirmiensis. In Croatia et Dalmatia. Archiepiscopatus Jadrensis, cujus suffraganei sunt: 1. Ansarensis sive Ausarensis. 2. Veglensis. 3. Arbensis. Archiepiscopatus Spalatensis, cujus suffraganei sunt: 1. Traguriensis. 2. Scardonensis. 3. Tininniensis. 4. Novensis. 5. Sibinicensis. 6. Temnensis. 7. Segniensis. 8. Almiensis. 9. Modrusiensis. 10. Macariensis. 11. Pharensis. Archiepiscopatus Ragusiensis, cujus suffraganei: 1. Stagnensis. 2. Rosonensis. 3. Tribunicensis vel Tribuniensis. 4. Cathariensis. 5. Bacensis. 6. Biduanensis sive Buduanensis.” Fraknói (ed.), Oklevéltár a magyar király kegyúri jog történetéhez, No. CLVII, pp. 205–208, here pp. 205–206; in 1647 Levaković was appointed titular bishop “Ocridae seu Achridae” by the Holy See: Eusebius Fermendžin (ed.), Acta Bosnae potissimum ecclesiastica cum insertis editorum documentorum regestis ab anno 925 usque ad annum 1725 (Zagreb: 1892), No. MCCCXCVII, p. 462.

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1200 and bestowed as a (Roman) titular bishopric by the Holy See since it had come under Ottoman rule in 1470.21 The titular bishop nominated by Maria Theresa, the Veszprém canon, Ignác Nagy, was translated only a few years later to the newly founded bishopric of Székesfehérvár, a suffragan to the archdiocese of Esztergom.22 The turning point in terms of religious policy at the end of the eighteenth century can also be seen from the occupancy of the Hungarian titular bishoprics, which remained vacant more and more frequently after 1820 and only played a minor role politically after the failed experiment of the Josephinist absolutist reform. In connection with the Hungarian titular sees the name of an “episcopus Svidnicensis” appears again and again in contemporary sources as well as in later research papers (with details which differ widely), the occupancy of which has not yet been able to be proved, according to Remigius Ritzler in 1971, the last to deal with it.23 The case history of this bishopric—it has not been unambiguously determined which town the title refers to—is closely connected to the Uniate church in Croatia.24 In 1611 the Serbian bishop Simeon Vratanja, who resided in the monastery at Marča, made a profession of the Catholic faith. After his death in 1632, however, the Uniate bishops proceeded to the Serbian patriarch at Peć again in order to request consecration from him. For this reason the Uniate church remained doubtful to the Congregation of the Propaganda. When in 1644 Ferdinand III in his capacity as King of Hungary granted the Uni21

22

23

24

Index Sedium Titularium, p. 12, No. 143; in the second half of the 19th century, however, Zakulmia (Zahumlje, Hum; “ep. Zaculonen.”)—in what is now Herzegovina— which, like Serbia and Bosnia, was named after the country, was newly occupied as a titular bishopric. It had no longer been mentioned in sources since the 13th century. See Hoffer, “Verzeichnis,” pp. 358, 364. János Pfeiffer, A veszprémi egyházmegye történeti névtára (1630–1950) püspökei, kanonokjai, papjai [Historical index of names of the Veszprém diocese: Bishops, canons, priests (1630–1950)] (Munich: 1987), pp. 162–163. Ritzler, “Bischöfe,” pp. 147, 150; indifferent in this question is Magyar Katolikus Lexikon, vol. 2, pp. 237–238. The overview of the Hungarian titular bishops in HNA Budapest, Hungarian Treasury Archives, E 683: Dignitariorum Regni Hungariae Ecclesiasticorum Liber Ius, fol. 346, names the Basilian monk, Gavrilo Predojević, as the first dignitary; cf. Ivan Golub, “Križanić kontroverzist” [Križanić as a controversialist], in Zagrebačka biskupija i Zagreb 1094–1994. Zbornik u čast kardinala Franje Kuharića (Zagreb: 1995), pp. 203–225, here pp. 205–208. Nicolaus Nilles, Symbolae ad illustrandam historiam Ecclesiae Orientalis in terris Coronae S. Stephani [...], 2 vols. (Oeniponte: 1885), here vol. 2, pp. 704-729; Josip Buturac–Antun Ivandija, Povijest katoličke Crkve među Hrvatima [History of the Croatian Catholic Church] (Zagreb: 1973), pp. 184–187.

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ate bishop Vasilije Predojević the title of “episcopus Svidnicensis,” which was completely unknown to the Curia, Rome was indignant and flatly refused to grant recognition, as “episcopus graecus non est capax tituli latini.”25 Emperor and Curia finally agreed on the title for the Uniate bishop in Croatia of “episcopus Plateensis in Beotia,” named after Pleterje, in the Croatian–Carniolan border area of Žumberak. However, the controversial title of “episcopus Svidnicensis” was conferred again despite regular protests from the Propaganda Fide.26 In the case of the Dalmatian bishoprics and the islands belonging to them on the Adriatic coast, which had fallen to Venice, the localization of the sees of the titular bishoprics is unproblematic. It is considerably more difficult, however, to identify exactly the dioceses (and their political– canonical development in pre-Turkish Albania with its complicated church structure and frequent moving of the bishops’ residences). The Croatian historian Milan Šufflay divides the time of the foundation of the numerous bishoprics, some of which were later bestowed as Hungarian titular bishoprics, into three periods:27 a primary period (until 602), some of the foundations of which disappeared again quickly due to the migra25

26

27

Ioannes Šimrak (ed.), De relationibus Slavorum Meridionalium cum Sancta Romana Sede Apostolica saeculis XVII. et XVIII., vol. 1: De rebus gestis unionis in confiniis Croatiae ab episcopo Simeone Vratanja usque ad Sabbam Stanislavić (1611–1661) (Zagreb: 1926), p. 19. In the previous decades there had already been several enquiries by the Congregation of the Propaganda concerning the legitimacy of the title “Svidnicensis”. The Bishop of Vác and Royal Chancellor, István Sennyey, thus reported to Rome on 10th June 1626: “Episcopatum Suidnicensem esse sub Archiepiscopatu Colocensi, immediate Coronae Hungariae subiecto et inter Archiepiscopatus Colocensis septem suffraganeos quintum locum tenere. Quia tamen Episcopatus ille fere sub initio ruinae hungaricae ad manus infidelium deuenit a nemine pro titulo sibi conferendo inscitum est, unde credibile est a centum et quinquaginta uel etiam ultra annis nemini collatum fuisse. Cum praeter hunc etiam alii circiter viginti Episcopatus sint, quorum usus ualde rarus est, etiam Hungarica natione parum huiusmodi titulos curante.” Ibid., p. 53. In 1775 the Zagreb canon and historian, Baltazar Adam Krčelić, wrote an essay De episcopatu Svidnicensi (Ibid., p. 78, note 5). HNA Budapest, A 32, 95:1727 (Zagreb, 4.2.1727); Marko Jačov (ed.), Spisi tajnog vatikanskog arhiva XVI–XVIII veka [Documents of the secret archives of the Vatican from the 16th to the 18th century] (Beograd: 1983), p. 188, No. 167. Milan von Šufflay, “Die Kirchenzustände im vortürkischen Albanien. Die orthodoxe Durchbruchszone im katholischen Damme,” [1915], now in Ludwig von Thallóczy (ed.), Illyrisch-albanische Forschungen (Munich–Leipzig: 1916), vol. 1, pp. 188–281, particularly pp. 188–231; Ludovicus de Thallóczy–Constantinus Jireček–Emilianus de Sufflay (eds.), Acta et diplomata res Albaniae mediae aetatis illustrantia (Vienna: 1913–1918), vol. 1: pp. 344–1343, vol. 2: pp. 1344–1406 s. v. “Prizren” (“Prisdiana, Presari, Prisarin”).

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tion of the peoples (Shkodra); a secondary period (until 1250) which produced new bishop’s sees or restored older ones which had been founded in Roman times (Drisht); and finally a tertiary period, a phase beginning after the collapse of the Byzantine Empire at the beginning of the thirteenth century (lasting until approximately 1370), in which, alongside the newly founded bishoprics, all Orthodox bishop’s sees were converted to Catholic ones. One example of this third phase is Prizren on the eastern edge of the Albanian bishopric belt in the north, an originally Orthodox diocese with some Catholic parishes, which first belonged to the archbishopric of Ochrid, later for a short period to the Serbian patriarch of Peć and was then bestowed on a Latin bishop in the 14th century. From 1717 Prizren was endowed as a Hungarian titular bishopric.28 The following general survey—in alphabetical order—does not include all the (Latin) Hungarian titular bishoprics that are named in sources, but only those which were verifiably endowed in the seventeenth and/or eighteenth centuries:29 Batsch (“ep. Bacen.”); Belgrade (“ep. Belgradien.”); Bosnia (“ep. Bosonen.”); Budva (“ep. Biduanen.”); Drisht (“ep. Drivestien.”); Dulma (“ep. Dulmen.”); Hvar (“ep. Pharen.”); Knin (“ep. Tinien.,” “ep. Tinninien.”); Korčula (“ep. Corczolen.”); Kotor (“ep. Cattaren.”); Krbava (“ep. Corbavien.”); Krk (“ep. Veglien.”); Makarska (“ep. Macarien.”); Nin (“ep. Novien.,” “ep. Nonen.”); Omiš (“ep. Almisien.”); Osor (“ep. Ansarien.”); Prizren (“ep. Pristinen.”); Rab (“ep. Arben.”); 28 29

HNA Budapest, Hungarian Treasury Archives, E 683, Dignitariorum Regni Hungariae Ecclesiasticorum Liber Ius, fol. 333. The complete overview is based upon the compilation in HNA Budapest, Hungarian Treasury Archives, E 683, Dignitariorum Regni Hungariae Ecclesiasticorum Liber Ius, fol. 284–363, and further on the analysis of the resolutions of the Hungarian diets and diocese handbooks, information in the Hierarchia Catholica, preliminary work by Ritzler, “Bischöfe,” pp. 147–151; Ibid. the list of Hungarian titular bishoprics (ca. 1815) published in the reference agenda (158–163), from the Archivio della Nunziatura di Vienna in the secret archives of the Vatican, and Ferenc Galla, “A püspökjelöltek kánoni kivizsgálásának jegyzőkönyvei a Vatikáni Levéltárban. (A magyar katolikus megújhodás korának püspökei.)” [Transcripts of canonical examinations of episcopal candidates in the Vatican Archives (the bishops during the period of the Hungarian Catholic renewal)], Levéltári Közlemények 20–23 (1942–45), pp. 141–186, here pp. 162–186 the named lists of informants at the informative processes and basic works of ecclesiastical history—especially Danielis Farlati, Illyricum Sacrum, 8 vols. (Venice: 1751–1819); vol. 9 with the title: Fr[ane] Bulić, Accessiones et correctiones all’Illyricum Sacrum del P. D. Farlati di P. G. Coleti [Supplemento al “Bulletino di Archeologia e Storia Dalmata” a. 1902–1910] (Spalato: 1910); Gianantonio Bomman, Storia civile ed ecclesiastica della Dalmazia, Croazia e Bosna, 2 vols. (Venice: 1775)— and the author’s biographical studies of the ecclesiastical leaders in Hungary.

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Risan (“ep. Rosonen.”); Sardika (“ep. Sardicen.,” “ep. Varnen.”); Serbia (“ep. Serbien.”); Shkodra (“ep. Scutarien.”); Šibenik (“ep. Sibenicen.”); Skopje (“ep. Scopien.”); Skradin (“ep. Scardonen.”); Ston (“ep. Stagnen.”); “ep. Temnen.” (?); Trebinje (“ep. Tribunicen.”); Trogir (“ep. Tragurien.”); Ulcinj (“ep. Dulcinen.”). Particularly for the bishop’s sees in Dalmatia30 which were in the early modern period under Venetian rule and which the Holy See occupied with genuine spiritual heads it was usual for two bishops to have the same see: an ordinary, promoted and consecrated by the pope, whose name was written in the official apostolic register (“canonical series”) and included in the Hierarchia Catholica, and a Hungarian titular bishop, appointed by the king, who was usually not consecrated. During the eighteenth century this was the case, for example, with the (titular) bishoprics of Hvar, Korčula, Kotor, Makarska, Osor, Rab, Šibenik, Trebinje and Trogir.31 Other bishop’s sees again, such as Dulma in Bosnia, for which the king of Hungary appointed an “episcopus electus,” were also endowed by Rome as titular bishoprics i.p.i.32 In such cases there is evidence of them— alongside bishop’s sees endowed exclusively by the king of Hungary as titular bishoprics—in the official Roman registers. Staff overlap, such as in the double bestowal of the same bishopric to a single titular bishop, only occurred during certain phases: in the first half of the seventeenth century, when the institution of the bishops of the Hun30

“Ma poi essendo venuta la Dalmatia sotto i Veneziani e Turchi e cosi ancora essendo stati occopate altre provincie dalli inimici, bona parte di esse chiese a poco a poco sono venuti alla sede apostolica, e particolarmente in Dalmatia quelle, che sono sotto il dominio di cristiani. Cosi al tempo nostro la sede apostolica et li sommi pontefici di essa proveggono e conferiscono l’arcivescovato di Zara con li suoi suffraganei di Osoro, Vegla et Arbe. L’arcivescovato di Spalato e li suffraganei di quello cioè Trau ovvero Traguriense, Sebencio e Lesina che è Pharense. L’arcivescovato di Ragusa e suoi suffraganei di Stagno, Tribunio e Catharo.” Testimonial by Rafael Levaković 1645. Fraknói (ed.), Oklevéltár a magyar királyi kegyúri jog történetéhez, p. 206. 31 Fundamentally the collection of works by Jačov (ed.), Spisi tajnog vatikanskog arhiva XVI–XVIII veka; exemplarily for Makarska the essay by Bazilije Stjepan Pandžić, “Izvještaji makarske biskupije sačuvani u Tajnom vatikanskom arhivu” [Reports of the bishopric of Markarska, preserved in the secret archives of the Vatican] [1980], now in Idem, Bosna Argentina. Studien zur Geschichte des Franziskanerordens in Bosnien und der Herzegowina (Cologne–Weimar–Vienna: 1995), pp. 267–320; for Trebinje Idem, De dioecesi Tribuniensi et Mercanensi (Rome: 1959), pp. 83–101. Most of the bishoprics are listed in Pius Bonifatius Gams, Series episcoporum ecclesiae catholicae, quotquot innotuerunt a beato Petro Apostolo (Ratisbonae: 1873–1886) [reprint Graz: 1957], pp. 391–426. 32 “Essai de liste générale de tous les archevêques et évêques titulaires,” pp. 408–409.

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garian crown used by the sovereign for political aims led to conflicts between the imperial court and the Curia, and again after the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15 when Lombardy, whose territory had increased, and Venice were directly attached to Austria as the united Lombardo–Venetian kingdom. At this time, in the case of the diocese of Sebenico (Šibenik), for example, the Emperor of Austria placed two different clergymen on the same bishop’s see. Numerous bishops of the Hungarian crown were simultaneously Roman titular bishops. Gábor Erdődy was appointed by Charles VI in March 1713 as coadjutor with the right of succession to the incumbent ordinary of Eger, István Telekesy, and, at the same time, as Hungarian titular bishop of Rab. He was also consecrated with the title of a Roman titular bishopric (“ep. tit. Fesseitan.”) by the conveyance of the papal bull of appointment at the end of the following year.33 The situations were similar in the cases of Imre Esterházy, bishop of Nyitra (1740–1763, previously titular bishop of Šibenik and “ep. tit. Doren.”), Ferenc Zichy, bishop of Győr (1744–1783, previously titular bishop of Nin and “ep. tit. Botryen.”) and Antal de Révay, bishop of Rozsnyó and Nyitra (1776–1780, 1780–1783, previously titular bishop of Korčula and “ep. tit. Milenen.”).34 Whereas every (Roman) titular bishop was generally also the suffragan or coadjutor “cum iure successionis” (c.i.s.) of a diocesan bishop, in the case of the Hungarian “episcopi electi” this was the exception. The clergymen retained their previous titles as non-consecrated bishops of the Hungarian crown, which derived solely from royal nomination, even in the event of their papal promotion to suffragans, as these accounted for their rights relating to the estates of the realm. The procedure of appointing the Hungarian titular bishops was only slightly different from that of the diocesan bishops. In general it can be ascertained that fewer individuals and institutions had an influence on the decisions the king made in the case of the former. As a rule testimonials were written only by the Hungarian Chancellery.35 Apart from a few spe33

István Sugár, Az egri püspökök története [History of the bishops of Eger] (Budapest: 1984), pp. 394–395; “Mgr Evelroy (Gabriel),” according to “Essai de liste générale de tous les archevêques et évêques titulaires,” p. 415. 34 “Mgr Eszterhazy de Galantha (Eméric)”. “Essai de liste générale de tous les archevêques et évêques titulaires,” p. 407; records concerning the Roman bishopric of Botrys (Botra) do not begin until 1724 (Ibid., p. 375), “Mgr Revay de Réva (Jean-Antoine),” Ibid., p. 448. 35 HNA Budapest, A 1, 24:1758 (Vienna, 16.12.1757), concerning Mathias Hubert for the titular bishopric of Krk; Ibid., A 1, 166:1758 (Vienna: 30.8.1758), concerning Gábor Ordódy for Dulma; Ibid., A 1, 81:1764 (Vienna: 11.4.1764), concerning Ferenc Berchtold for Nin, Zsigmond Keglević for Makarska and János Ferlanday for Risan;

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cial cases in the first half of the seventeenth century, an informative process was only initiated by the Viennese nuncio for those bishops of the Hungarian crown whom the king had nominated for the titular bishoprics of Belgrade-Semendria and Knin.36 These were the only offices to be consecrated by the Holy See after receiving the certificate of provision and were (traditionally) suffragans to the Kalocsa metropolitan and the bishop of Zagreb respectively.37 This occasionally led to unusual constellations. In 1755, for example, the informative process was carried out for the provost and vicar–general of the Zips chapter, József Károly Zbiskó, whom Maria Theresa had appointed as titular bishop of Knin.38 He had, however, already been titular bishop of Krk for almost a decade; that is to say, he was already the incumbent of a bishop’s see that the Holy See had always refused to acknowledge in the past. The fact that even non-consecrated titular bishops (Budva, Shkroda, Skopje and Skradin) were summoned as witnesses at informative processes39 indicates, however, that the Curia was flexible in the question of the bishops of the Hungarian crown. This was also evident in the case of Knin, which, when it fell to Venice in 1688, was united with Šibenik, which was occupied by the Curia as a residential bishopric. In spite of this, in the case of papal preconisation and the consecration of the titular bishop appointed by the king of Hungary, Knin was considered to be independent: in the words of Nikolaus Nilles, a “first-class canonistic curio.”40

Ibid., A 1, 103:1765 (Vienna: 23.3.1765), concerning Mihály Besznyák for Hvar; Ibid., A 1, 203:1765 (Vienna: 22.6.1765), concerning János Mapy for Ulcinj. 36 Galla, “A püspökjelöltek kánoni kivizsgálásának,” pp. 164–182. 37 O[scar] Werner, Orbis terrarum catholicus sive totius Ecclesiae catholicae et occidentis et orientis conspectus geographicus et statisticus (Friburgi Brisgoviae: 1890), pp. 87–99 (Ch. 10: Austria et Hungaria), included neither the “tituli consecrabiles” of BelgradeSemendria and Knin in his statistics nor the other Hungarian titular bishop’s sees. 38 Ferenc Kollányi, Esztergomi kanonokok 1100–1900 [Canons of Esztergom 1100–1900] (Esztergom: 1900), p. 353; Slovenský biografický slovník [Slovakian Biographical Lexicon], 6 vols. (Martin: 1986–1994), here vol. 6 (1994), p. 422. 39 Galla, “A püspökjelöltek kánoni kivizsgálásának,” pp. 165–166, 169, 177, 179, 182. 40 Nikolaus Nilles, “Asterisken zur Geschichte der Ordination des heiligen Ignatius von Loyola und seiner Gefährten,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 15 (1891), pp. 146– 159, here p. 154, note 3.

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III. Of the 154 bishops of the Hungarian crown of whom there is evidence in 31 Roman-Catholic titular bishoprics between 1685 and 1790, 41 (26.6 percent) were later nominated for a residential bishopric, three of these for a bishopric in the Austrian dominions. These three were: Cristobal de Rojas y Spinola, who came from an old Castilian family and who was first titular bishop of Knin from 1666–1685, becoming bishop of Wiener Neustadt from July 1685; Franz Ferdinand of Rummel, born in the Upper Palatinate, who was also titular bishop of Knin from 1695–1707, taking the bishopric of Vienna in April 1706; and the theologian Ignaz of Lovina from Valais, who was titular bishop of Šibenik from 1711–1718 and took the bishopric of Wiener Neustadt in November 1718.41 For each of the three clergymen their particular diocese represented the peak of their ecclesiastical career. It was the opposite way round from the point of view of the Hungarian episcopate: for 38—and thus over a third (35.2 percent)—of the 108 ordinaries in Hungary, Croatia and Transylvania in the period between 1685 and 1790 a Hungarian titular bishopric represented the most important preliminary stage for the ascent into the “hierarchia catholica.” This figure would be even higher if the entire second half of the seventeenth century were taken into consideration, in which there were more frequent translations due to the politically unstable circumstances and the lack of attraction of the majority of bishop’s sees to the higher nobility, and the episcopate was inevitably less exclusive than it was in the eighteenth century.42 When a clergyman or his family had a higher social position, the ascent to the episcopate via a Hungarian titular bishopric was rather the exception. The most frequent translations to residential bishoprics may be observed from the titular bishoprics of Nin (8), Knin (6), Kotor (3) and Šibenik (3). Nin, in particular, which was comparable in the eighteenth century to a reservation for higher nobility who were loyal to the state,43 offered a safe guarantee for further social advancement. From here a translation was possible not only to Nagyvárad or Csanád—so most fre41

HNA Budapest, Hungarian Treasury Archives, E 683: Dignitariorum Regni Hungariae Ecclesiasticorum Liber Ius, fol. 342, 356–357. 42 Robert J. W. Evans, Das Werden der Habsburgermonarchie 1550–1700. Gesellschaft, Kultur, Institutionen (Vienna–Cologne: 1986), pp. 185–186, 368–369. 43 The titular bishopric of Nin was conferred to Imre Csáky, Miklós Csáky, Ferenc Zichy, Adam Aleksandar Patačić and Ferenc Berchtold, among others.

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quently—but also to Győr, Peć, Besztercebánya or (from 1804) Kassa.44 The time when a residential bishopric could be taken over naturally could not be calculated in advance. Certain tendencies, however, can be clearly recognized, which indicate an order of rank among the titular bishoprics and their function for the royal staffing policy.45 Whilst the majority of the above-mentioned “episcopi electi” of Nin, Knin, Kotor and Šibenik only had to wait for a few years before being appointed as ordinaries, the process could last for decades in other bishoprics. Ferenc Miklósy, Antal Révay and János Galgóczy, titular bishops of Budva, Korčula and Risan, were only entrusted with real dioceses after more than two decades. The titular bishop of Risan, Pál Forgách, whose family had a distinctly strong spiritual character—for Hungary before 1700—was only nominated for a full bishopric (Nagyvárad) after 35 years.46 In the case of further titular bishoprics such as Hvar, Makarska, Omiš or Trebinje, whose incumbents were often already of an advanced age when the bishoprics were bestowed, any further advancement was practically out of the question. With the exception of the two archbishop’s sees in Esztergom and Kalocsa, which were not the first step in the Hungarian hierarchy for any clergymen, titular bishops could be nominated to any of the regular bishoprics if they were admitted to the episcopate. In practice, however, a nomination to one of the traditional “first” bishoprics was usual, and these consequently show the highest translation figures: Nagyvárad (6) and Csanád (5). Only in a few instances did bishops of the Hungarian crown reach the amply remunerated dioceses of Vác or Győr, which were wellknown and well-used as the starting point for a brilliant career in the church, and which were reserved for a small group of carefully selected court aristocrats. In all three of the cases that did occur—Sigismund Kollonich (Shkodra), Károly Esterházy (Kotor) and Ferenc Zichy (Nin)—the successful bishops were members of the higher nobility who had already proved their loyalty to the House of Habsburg many times.47 44

HNA Budapest, Hungarian Treasury Archives, E 683: Dignitariorum Regni Hungariae Ecclesiasticorum Liber Ius, fol. 328–330. 45 The attraction of the bishops’ sees is indicated in the translations (“traductiones” in sources) from one titular bishopric to another. In seven of the altogether nine translations between 1685 and 1790 one was to the titular bishopric of Knin, whose incumbent was consecrated and traditionally placed as a suffragan at the side of the metropolitan of Kalocsa. 46 HNA Budapest, Hungarian Treasury Archives, E 683: Dignitariorum Regni Hungariae Ecclesiasticorum Liber Ius, fol. 335. 47 Ibid., fol. 323, 329, 345.

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IV. To which extent the bishops of the Hungarian crown had a political effect in the eighteenth century is difficult to judge as a whole. As far as publications are concerned, only a few individual dignitaries emerged, such as the canon of Nyitra and titular bishop of Ulcinj, László Szörényi, who had been educated at the Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum in Rome and was appointed as a member of the first commission of ecclesiastical experts (“piae fundationes”) within the governing council in 1724. His collection of ecclesiastical rights and privileges, published in Pozsony five years later, received much attention at the time.48 The “episcopi electi,” who outnumbered the residential bishops, were able to have a lasting influence on majorities and the results of votes in the Upper House, since they each had a seat and a vote in the Imperial Diet. The inevitable disputes arising during parliamentary sessions—some of which lasted for years—are not to be underestimated. The primate and the palatine, Imre Esterházy and János Pálffy, described such a conflict about status to the queen in July 1744. Shortly before his appointment as official adviser to the Hungarian Chancellery, György Klimó had received the Hungarian titular bishopric of Nin, which secured him a seat in the Upper House. However, it was considered unacceptable for Klimó, the son of a Slovakian craftsman, to take his seat in the Upper House in a higher position than that of Count János Csáky, whose family was one of the oldest in the kingdom and had been vested with a great number of the highest dignities in the realm.49 To give another example, as the titular bishop of Knin, the Spaniard Cristobal de Rojas y Spinola, who had used his influence in the Holy Roman Empire a decade previously to help Protestant refugees from Hungary, took part in the Diet of Sopron in 1681 and tried to promote his reform project of a reconciliation of the Christian confessions of faith. The loyalty of this group, whose nominations were due exclusively to the goodwill of their sovereign, was undisputed. The Holy See saw in the “spiritual leaders without followers” none other than secular magnates, although they wore episcopal robes and carried bishops’ insignia. In a report to the papal undersecretary in August 1775 the internuncio at the imperial court in Vienna, Giuseppe Antonio Taruffi, emphasized the 48 49

Ladislaus Szörény, Praerogativae, libertates, & Privilegia Ecclesijs, & Clero Regni Hungariae Non modò Jure Canonicô, verùm & municipali competentia [...] (Posonij: 1729). HNA Budapest, A 30, 539:1744 (Bratislava: 16.7.1744); Ibid., A 1, 10:1749 (Vienna: 3.10.1749).

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purely secular function of the Hungarian “episcopi electi,” who, he said, may have worn a cross upon their breast, but were allowed neither to pontificate nor to execute ecclesiastical jurisdiction.50 As they received no income from their titular bishoprics, like the suffragan bishops appointed by the pope, the titular bishops—mainly highranking provosts and abbots, members of important cathedral chapters or generally distinguished members of the Hungarian clergy—kept their previous canonries and benefices. They stayed in various places: at their abbey or chapter seat as far as this was possible, at the seat of the Esztergom primate, at the court in Vienna or on their own land. Adam Aleksandar Patačić, for example, like other bishops of the Hungarian crown before and after him worked in the Hungarian Chancellery after his appointment as titular bishop of Nin in 1751, before Maria Theresa nominated him for the bishopric of Nagyvárad eight years later. Franz Ferdinand von Rummel, on whom Leopold I bestowed the Hungarian titular bishopric of Knin in 1695 and a short time later two prebends in Stará Boleslav and Wrocław, lived on his family estates in Waldau and Weiden in the Upper Palatinate after receiving the prebends. Rummel, who fell from favor at court, had had no illusions about the significance of the titular bishopric right from the start. “Episcopatus Tinniensis,” he wrote in a letter to his brother “est in Possnia, Croatiam versus, quae ego non videbo”51—an area, that is, that he would surely never set his eyes on. Apart from this, the ecclesiastical titular honor always meant an increase in prestige. As the canonical status of the bishops of the Hungarian crown was known only to very few, there was hardly any threat of danger when such bishops acted like genuinely officiating diocesan bishops. Rojas y Spinola, titular bishop of Knin from 1666–1685, always called himself “Episcopus Tiniensis” or “the Bishop of Tina.”52 Even Maria 50

“I Vescovi Titolari, che si nominano da S. Maestà Ap.lica, non ricevono Bolle da Roma, nè vengono consagrati ne godono verun privilegio, o autorità nello Spir.tle, solamente si considerano come Magnati d’Ungheria, e appunto in qualità de’ Magnati hanno sessione e voto nelle Diete; portano la Croce in petto, ma non fanno Pontificali, se non ne abbiano altronde la facoltà.” Quoted in Josef Tomko, Die Errichtung der Diözesen Zips, Neusohl und Rosenau (1776) und das königliche Patronatsrecht in Ungarn (Vienna: 1968), pp. 26, 28–29, 121–122 (Quotation p. 122). 51 Quoted in Friedrich von Rummel, Franz Ferdinand von Rummel. Lehrer Kaiser Josephs I. und Fürstbischof von Wien (1644–1716) (Munich: 1980), p. 81. 52 Samuel J. T. Miller–John P. Spielman Jr., Cristobal Rojas y Spinola, Cameralist and Irenicist, 1626–1695 (Philadelphia: 1962), pp. 3, 28, 101. Not only his contemporaries such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz or Landgrave Ernst of Hessen-Rheinfels call him “Evesque de Thina” or “Bischoff von Dina,” but also modern ecclesiastical historians.

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Theresa always called the director of the Viennese Faculty of Theology and Hungarian titular bishop of Risan, Simon Ambros of Stock, “l’évêque Stock.”53 In this context the case of Henri-Jean Kerens, a Jesuit born in Maastricht and one of the most important supporters of the Curia’s policy in Vienna, is revealing. The spokesman of the Viennese Jansenist circle, Markus Anton Wittola, reported that in 1768 Maria Theresa, who thought highly of Kerens as a professor and as headmaster of the Theresianum, demanded that he should leave the order, promising him that the Archbishop of Vienna and administrator of the bishopric of Vác, Migazzi, had a canonry reserved for him in his Hungarian diocese if he did so. Kerens, however, demanded a pension, a Hungarian titular bishopric “in partibus” and the Order of St. Stephen. His demand, which certainly did not show a lack of self-confidence, became void, however, as Maria Theresa already appointed her protégé as bishop of Roermond in the Austrian Low Countries in 1769, without the usual consultation with the local courts, and six years later as the successor to Hallweil in Wiener Neustadt.54 In the registers of members of the Hungarian Diets and later also in the handbook of the archdiocese of Esztergom, the titular bishops together with the diocesan bishops were listed by name under “Status praelatorum.” After the king first established a seating order of the prelates at the Upper Table in 1723 the first to follow the ruling ordinaries was the titular bishop of Knin as the suffragan of the Kalocsa metropolitan. The other bishops of the Hungarian crown took their places behind him, in chronological order of their appointment.55 The number of titular bishops taking part in the Diets in person or by a substitute at first increased continually from the late seventeenth century. Whereas in 1681 only five titular bishops were present in Sopron,56 19, 24 and 21 “episcopi electi” took part in See Heribert Raab, “‘De Negotio Hannoveriano Religionis’. Die Reunionsbemühungen des Bischofs Christoph de Rojas y Spinola im Urteil des Landgrafen Ernst von HessenRheinfels,” in Remigius Bäumer–Heimo Dolch (eds.), Volk Gottes. Zum Kirchenverständnis der katholischen, evangelischen und anglikanischen Theologie. Festgabe für Josef Höfer (Freiburg–Basel–Vienna: 1967), pp. 395–417, here pp. 405, 408–409, 415. 53 Alfred von Arneth (ed.), Briefe der Kaiserin Maria Theresia an ihre Kinder und Freunde, 4 vols. (Vienna: 1881) [reprint Osnabrück: 1978], here vol. 1, p. 172 (23.12.1772). 54 Peter Hersche, Der Spätjansenismus in Österreich (Vienna: 1977), pp. 347–349. 55 Ferenc Eckhart, “A praecedentia kérdése a magyar rendi országgyűlésen” [The question of precedence in the Hungarian Assembly of Estates], in Pál Angyal–Jusztin Baranyay– Mihály Móra (eds.), Notter Antal Emlékkönyv. Dolgozatok az egyházi jogból és a vele kapcsolatos jogterületekről (Budapest: 1941), pp. 172–179, here p. 179. 56 Articuli dominorum praelatorum, baronum, magnatum, et nobilium, coeterorumque statuum et ordinum regni Hungariae, & c. in generali eorum conventu, anno

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the Diets of Bratislava in 1715, 1723 and 1729 respectively. They thus formed a considerably larger group than that of the diocesan bishops present.57 By the end of the eighteenth century the number of titular bishops taking part in the Diets had stabilized to a good dozen (1741: 14, 1751: 14, 1765: 14, and 1792: 15)58 only to decrease constantly up to the reform of the Hungarian Upper House in 1885.59 Conflicts may be observed between the imperial court and the Curia regarding the appointment of titular bishops, similar to those occurring about the nominations of residential bishops. These occurred mainly in the seventeenth century and only rarely in the eighteenth. In the case of Hiacynth Macripodari, canon of Esztergom, for example, whom Ferdinand III appointed as titular bishop of Skopje in July 1645,60 unexpected difficulties arose in Rome,61 delaying confirmation. In January 1647 and April 1649 the king renewed the nomination after long entreaties from the Greek Dominican, who then finally went to Rome himself in September to obtain it from Pope Innocent X. Only afterwards did Cardinal Girolamo Colonna instigate the informative process for Macripodari, who a short

M.DC.LXXXI. Sopronii celebrato, conclusi (Sopronii: 1681), p. 57 (two of the four sees also named were vacant in this year). 57 Articuli diaetales Posonienses anni M.DCC.XV (Posonii: 1715), pp. 180–182; Articuli diaetales Posonienses anni M.DCC.XXIII (Posonii: 1723), pp. 136–137; Articuli diaetales Posonienses anni M.DCC.XXIX (Posonii: 1729), pp. 73–74. 58 Articuli diaetales Posonienses anni M.DCC.XLI (Posonii: 1741), pp. 86–88—but Gabrielis Kolinovics Nova Ungariae Periodus [...], sive comitiorum generalium, quibus [...] Maria Theresia, in reginam Ungariae Posonii anno 1741 inaugurabatur [...] libris novem recensens absolutissima Narratio, ed. Martinus Georgius Kovachich (Budae: 1790), pp. 652–654, only lists eleven titular bishops (five of these had “ablegati” standing in for them); Articuli diaetales Posonienses anni M.DCC.LI (Posonii: 1751), pp. 47–48; Articuli diaetales Posonienses anni M.DCC.LXV (Posonii: 1765), pp. 46–47; Articuli diaetales Budenses anni M.DCC.XCII (Pestini–Posonii: 1792), pp. 54–55. 59 In 1807 there were 17 titular bishops present at the Diet of Buda; the majority of them had already been nominated in the 18th century, however. In 1808 ten titular bishops took part in the Diet and in 1830 only three. 60 Augustinus Theiner (ed.), Vetera monumenta Slavorum meridionalium historiam illustrantia, vol. 1: ab Innocentio PP. III. usque ad Paulum PP. III. 1198–1549, vol. 2: a Clemente VII. usque ad Pium VII. (1524–1800) cum additamentis saec. XIII. et XIV (Rome–Zagreb: 1863–1875) [reprint Osnabrück: 1968], here vol. 2, No. CLXIV, pp. 129–130; Kollányi, Esztergomi kanonokok, pp. 266–267. 61 “difficultas apud sanctam sedem apostolicam”. Ferdinand III to Innocent X, Bratislava 30. 4. 1649. Fraknói (ed.), Oklevéltár a magyar királyi kegyúri jog történetéhez, No. CLX, pp. 217–218.

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time later was confirmed and consecrated by the Holy See as titular bishop of Skopje.62 The case of the Italian Giovanni Battista Barsotti, who acted as agent in the Vatican to various (non-Hungarian) bishops between 1638 and 1655, is particularly revealing.63 Despite highest patronage he had not been successful in achieving a titular bishopric or a benefice in Rome. In 1652 Barsotti was nominated for the Hungarian titular bishopric of Trebinje thanks to numerous letters of recommendation particularly from the archbishop of Prague, Cardinal Ernst Adalbert of Harrach, but he did not receive papal confirmation. For these two particular titular bishoprics, Skopje and Trebinje, the Propaganda Fide still claimed sole right of appointment in 1701.64 Even the attempt, with the aid of Harrach’s agent at the imperial court, to attain one of the other Hungarian titular bishoprics that became vacant in those years was unsuccessful. Barsotti had new hope of success in 1654 when the previous titular bishop of Risan, the moral theologian and philosopher Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz, was the first one to be nominated for the bishopric of Hradec Králové that was to be established in Bohemia. However, Lobkowitz was not appointed, due to the disapproval that his theological papers had aroused in Rome. In fact Barsotti himself, who had influential advocates at the Hofburg, was proposed for the position in Risan in July 1657 by Leopold I. Yet the pope delayed confirmation again. In the following year, when the king renewed the nomination, he even refused confirmation outright, giving the following reasons: 1. Roman titular bishoprics were endowed on Italians and then only on clergymen in special positions or who were otherwise in the service of the Curia, and 2. Hungarian titular bishoprics could only be endowed on those who were Hungarian by birth and who had the legal right to a seat and vote in the Diet.65 62

Galla, “A püspökjelöltek kánoni kivizsgálásának,” pp. 168–169; Coloman Juhász, Das Tschanad-Temesvarer Bistum während der Türkenherrschaft 1552–1699. Untergang der abendländisch-christlichen Kultur im Banat (Dülmen/Westf.: 1938), pp. 176–183. 63 Hubert Jedin, “Propst G. B. Barsotti, seine Tätigkeit als römischer Agent deutscher Bischöfe (1638–1655) und seine Sendung nach Deutschland (1643–1644),” Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 39 (1931), pp. 377–425, here pp. 381–384 (based on Barsotti’s hand-written will, kept in the Vatican Library); Macháček, Hlavnopatronátne právo, p. 125. 64 “Episcopatus regni Hungariae cum annexis, qui ad nominationem caesareae majestatis, seu liberae collationis sunt.” (1701). Fraknói (ed.), Oklevéltár a magyar királyi kegyúri jog történetéhez, No. CXCVIII, pp. 305–306. 65 Jedin, “Barsotti,” pp. 282–283.

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Leopold I pointed out in vain that the pope’s argument that nominees for Hungarian titular bishoprics had to have Hungarian citizenship was not in accordance with the usual practice and that one of the last incumbents of the titular bishopric of Risan, who had been confirmed by the pope without any contradiction, was Vincenzo Zucconi, from Mantua.66 In 1658 Cardinal Harrach also objected strongly in a detailed testimonial to arguments put forward by the Curia.67 He first emphasized the uniqueness of the royal right of nomination in Hungary which recognized no restrictions (“senz’ alcuna limitatione”) and then dealt concretely with both of the Holy See’s arguments. As far as the Hungarian titular bishops were concerned, he said that their nominations were restricted by no selective criteria whatsoever (“non ristretto à certa spetie, natione ò conditione di persona”) and that there was no evidence at all of any such restriction in any of the papal briefs concerning the “ius patronatus” in Hungary. He also states that the argument that a titular bishop had to have Hungarian citizenship in order to fulfill the particular estate duties required by the office had no foundation. For one thing it was quite enough to have a command of Latin in order to follow the meetings of the “dieta” and the counties, the cardinal reasoned, and for another, Barsotti had already been in the Habsburg hereditary lands for so long that he could no longer be seen as a foreigner.68 This protest was unsuccessful, however. On 5th October 1661 Cardinal Harrach received a message from the Hungarian Chancellery telling him that Barsotti’s confirmation, which had been sought for years, had come to nothing and that the only opportunity left would be for Barsotti himself to turn to the pope. The long-standing obstruction by the Curia had not been aimed primarily at the institution of the Hungarian titular bishoprics, whose existence those in Rome had been 66

The royal nomination and the papal confirmation of Zucconi in Fraknói (ed.), Oklevéltár a magyar királyi kegyúri jog történetéhez, No. CXXIV, pp. 168–169, No. CXXVIII, p. 172, No. CXXXII, pp. 175–176; Idem, Magyarország egyházi és politikai összeköttetései a római Szent-Székkel, vol. 3, pp. 344–346, 541–542. 67 Relazione del S. Card. Harrach data nel Consiglio di Stato di S. Maestà Caesarea in favore del preposto G. B. Barsotti, nominato Vescovo Rosanense. 68 “In secondo luogo si rappresenta che nelle diete e ne i comitii del regno d’Ungheria hanno luogo tutti i vescovi, ancorche forastieri, purche possedino la lingua latina, onde molto meno ne restarebbe escluso il signor Barsotti che si può dir nato et allevato in Germania. In terzo luogo si toglie ogni difficoltà à questo punto, perchè il Barsotti deve considerarsi come naturale e non come forastiere, atteso che è stato dichiarato (già sono molti anni) naturale di quei paesi e gode come nationale la prepositura d’una chiesa et il titolo di consigliere cesareo, et ha la lingua Alemanna”. Fraknói (ed.), Oklevéltár a magyar királyi kegyúri jog történetéhez, No. CLXV, pp. 223–227, here pp. 225–226.

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forced to accept, but at Barsotti himself. This case demonstrates nevertheless the various strategies used to obtain a titular bishopric in Hungary and shows how the institution was perceived, assessed and utilized by clergy, imperial court and Curia for their own ends. In the Hungarian political system certain dignities had traditionally been reserved for Roman-Catholic clergymen since the Middle Ages. One such position was the office of the Royal Chancellor, which was permanently occupied by secular nobles only from 1733.69 During the transitional period between 1680 and 1730 one could already see that it was hardly possible to reconcile the growing bureaucratic demands and administrative work and the permanent presence at the imperial court with the spiritual duties of a diocesan bishop. Because of this, two titular bishops, Blasius Jáklin de Elefánth (“ep. Tinien.”) and László Matyasovszky (“ep. Temnen.”) were appointed royal chancellors in 1690 and 1696.70 When considering the “episcopi electi” for political functions, the royal court was influenced not only by deliberations in the fields of administration and ecclesiastical policy, but also by financial aspects.71 The composition of staff in the governing council, which had been established by Article 97:1723 of the Hungarian Diet, had been disputed for a long time. At the end of January 1723 Johann Georg of Mannagetta, one of the three royal commissaries in Bratislava, had his own proposals for staffing sent to Charles VI. Mannagetta particularly criticized the “propositio” of the Hungarian chancellery, which, he claimed, had completely excluded the episcopate. In his opinion the planned governing council had to be constituted “conformiter legibus Regni” and therefore consist of representatives of all four estates. He further argued that, as doubtlessly only those individuals came into consideration who had the “velle et posse” for the ad69

The representative office of Grand Chancellor, however, was still reserved for the Primas Hungariae or, in the event of vacancy, the archbishop of Kalocsa as his representative. 70 Zoltán Fallenbüchl, Magyarország főméltóságai 1526–1848 [The highest-ranking dignitaries of Hungary 1526–1848] (Budapest: 1988), pp. 60–61, 99. Fallenbüchl’s interpretation, which gives incorrect information about some bishops of the Hungarian crown, is admittedly problematic. For one thing, the predecessors in the office of the royal chancellor, János Gubasócsy and Péter Korompay, were titular bishops (“ep. Scopien.” and “ep. Corbavien.” respectively), for another, both Jáklin de Elefánth and Matyasovszky were later nominated as bishops of Neutra. The decisive fact, however, is the novelty that both were titular bishops when they were appointed to the office of royal chancellor. 71 On the income from the individual titular bishoprics: HNA Budapest, A 1, 80:1758.

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vancement of the authority of the sovereign and the well-being of the state, it would not be possible to ignore the prelates in any case. In order to ease the diocesan bishops’ financial burden and to reduce pressure on their time, Mannagetta suggested taking on—in addition to the primate, the metropolitan of Kalocsa and the bishops of Zagreb and Eger—two “Episcopi titulares or so-called Episcopi in partibus,” as these would cost the country “nothing more than the same daily payment taken from the Salario Archi- vel Episcoporum absentium.”72 It appears that the expenses of these clergymen were to be paid from the “absence monies” introduced by Article 47:1715, from which the government had hoped to achieve greater attendance at the Diet.73 Mannagetta’s choice fell on the titular bishop of Rab, Pál Spáczay, canon and vicar–general of Esztergom, and the titular bishop of Osor, János Kiss senior, great provost of Eger. The royal commissary said that, in this case, the bishop of Nyitra, László Ádám Erdődy, should be given to understand that promotion would be found for him elsewhere. The minutes of the meetings of the Consilium locumtenentiale and the relevant testimonials written by the Hungarian Chancellery indicate that particularly the titular bishops in the religious commission of the governing council, chaired by the Archbishop of Esztergom, carried out a politically significant function.74 Using the services of the titular bishops in the interests of the RomanCatholic Church and the (Catholic) state rulers met with displeasure among the Hungarian nobility right from the start. In the years following the Bocskai uprising in eastern Hungary in 1604, more and more calls were heard to permanently curtail “popery,” to drastically reduce the number of Catholic dioceses and ordinaries, to exclude the prelates from the royal council and the law courts and to put an end to the appointing of titular bishops.75 As a return for the election of Archduke Matthias as 72

Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv Wien, Hungarica, Fasz. 209, fol. 39r–45v, 50r–50v (a copy of the paper on the Hungarian chancellery in fol. 46r–49v); Győző Ember, A m. kir. helytartótanács ügyintézésének története 1724–1848 [History of the executive of the Royal Hungarian Governing Council 1724–1848] (Budapest: 1940), pp. 197–267. 73 Articuli diaetales Posonienses anni M.DCC.XV (Posonii: 1715), p. 72. 74 HNA Budapest, A 1, 188:1755 (26.6.1755); Ibid., A 23, 278:1764, 313:1764 (5.5., 25.5.1764). 75 Mihály Zsilinszky, A magyar országgyűlések vallásügyi tárgyalásai a reformátiótól kezdve [The negotiations of the Hungarian Diets on matters of religion during the Reformation], 4 vols. [1523–1712] (Budapest: 1880–1897), here vol. 1, pp. 345–360; see also the report of 3rd May 1606 by the Bishop of Csanád, Faustus Verancsics, to Pope Paul V: László Tóth, “Verancsics Faustus csanádi püspök és emlékiratai V. Pál pápához a magyar katholikus egyház állapotáról” [The Csanád bishop Faustus Verancsics and

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king, the Protestant estate opposition, led by György Thurzós, was able to gain acceptance in January 1608 for their demand that in the first ever legally codified composition of the Diet (Article 1:1608, “Quinam status, et ordines dicantur? Et qui locum, et vota in publicis diaetis habere debeant”) only the residential and not the titular bishops were taken into consideration for the Table of Magnates.76 In practice, however, debates in the Diets were a completely different matter. Within only a few years the bishops of the Hungarian crown were already present at the “dieta” again. Until the end of the eighteenth century compliance with Article 1:1608 was the main argument of those members of the estate who were ostensibly protesting about its utilization, but who were actually out to weaken the authority of the king and prove that he had violated the constitution.77 It was, however, not only the (Protestant) nobility who assumed a reserved attitude towards the titular bishops. In the Catholic Church too, particularly among the Croatian episcopate, the appearance of these clergymen, who were authorized solely by secular functions, was viewed with mistrust. For the residential bishops the “episcopi electi,” so close to the court and in ever-increasing numbers, inevitably proved to be additional competitors in the fight for social standing and political influence until the end of the 18th century. Martin Brajković, bishop of Senj-Modruš from 1698, was the first to take up residence in Senj again after the liberation from the Turks. After Krbava was recaptured by imperial troops a short time later, its titular bishop, the Zagreb canon Stjepan Dojčić, also claimed his right of residence. Brajković, whose ambition was widely known, was by no means willing to comply to the demands of a simple titular bishop. In several letters to Pope Clement XI and Emperor Leopold I and in a legal-historical treatise of his own, the Historia Episcopatus his memoranda to Pope Paul V on the state of the Hungarian Catholic Church], A Gróf Klebelsberg Kuno Magyar Történetkutató Intézet Évkönyve 3 (1933), pp. 155–211. 76 “§. 4. Praelatorum autem statum hunc esse volunt: ut quicunque episcoporum, capitulum suum, cum praeposito suo, sub sua jurisdictione episcopali, aut loca residentiae sua habuerit; ex tunc idem episcopus in conventu dominorum praelatorum et baronum, pro sua persona propria, locum et vocem habeat: nomine autem capituli; praepositus una cum capitulo inter regnicolas, pari ratione unam, et conjunctam vocem habeat [...] §. 12. Praeter hos itaque status et ordines, ne sua majestas regia (demptis illis, qui publicis regni officiis funguntur; utpote consiliarii nobiles, judices regni ordinarii, eorum vicesgerentes, proto-notarii, et jurati assessores tabulae suae majestatis regiae) ad comitia generalia adhibeat; eorumque vota, juxta antiquum usum et sessionem, admittantur.” Dezső Márkus (ed.), 1608–1657. évi törvényczikkek [The Acts of the Years 1608–1657] (Budapest: 1900), p. 24. 77 Schwartner, Statistik des Königreichs Ungern, vol. 2, p. 99, note b, pp. 137–139, note k.

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Corbaviensis Modrussam translati, he attempted to prove two facts: that Krbava and Modruš were simply two names for one and the same bishopric and that the diocese of Krbava/Modruš had already been united canonically with that of Senj in the fifteenth century—and that this should therefore be assigned to him as diocesan bishop of Senj-Modruš.78 Indeed in 1702 Leopold I did resolve the argument in favor of Brajković, who from then onwards, as did his successor, called himself “episcopus Segniensis & Modrussiensis, seu Corbavienis.”79 The titular bishopric of Krbava, which had been occupied since 1624, was never occupied again—Dojčić died that same year. The situation was similar in the bishopric of Bosnia, whose see had been in Đakovo in Slavonia since the fourteenth century. Independent of the residential bishopric of Đakovo, it was bestowed as a Hungarian titular bishopric up to the death of Nicolò Piombese in 1701, just as Bács had been revived as a titular bishopric alongside Kalocsa at around the middle of the seventeenth century.80 The question of which status was fitting for Hungarian titular bishops in the political system of Hungary, which had been disputed for almost two centuries, was again heatedly discussed during the Diet of Buda from 1790–91, which was completely dominated by the regulating of confessional conflicts. In the face of a multitude of items on the agenda Article 67:1791 decided to establish various deputations “for the improvement of shortcomings in the country.” One of the nine committees, the Deputatio in Publico-Politicis, was responsible for the “regulating of the public imperial constitution and administration.” The Catholic Church was represented among the seventeen committee members by the cardinal primate, József Batthyányi, and the titular bishop of Krk, József Zábráczky.81 The main task was the reform of the Upper House, whose composition and 78

Farlati, Illyricum Sacrum, vol. 4 (1769), pp. 150–157; Mile Bogović, “Veze zagrebačke i senjsko-modruške biskupije” [Relations between the bishoprics of Zagreb and SenjModruš], in Zagrebačka biskupija i Zagreb, pp. 283–293, here p. 286; on the historical background see Idem (ed.), Krbavska biskupija u srednjem vijeku [The bishopric of Krbava in the Middle Ages] (Rijeka–Zagreb: 1988); Manoilo Sladović, Pověsti biskupijah senjske i modruške ili krbavske [History of the bishoprics of Senj and Modruš or Krbava] (Trst: 1856), pp. 42–52, 114–115, 394–405. 79 Articuli diaetales Posonienses anni M.DCC.XV (Posonii: 1715), p. 181. 80 Miroslav Premrou, “Serie documentata dei Vicarii Apostolicii di Bosna ed Erzegovina 1735–1881,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 21 (1928), pp. 346–361, 580–590, 22 (1929), pp. 163–180, here p. 354; Galla, “A püspökjelöltek kánoni kivizsgálásának,” p. 170. 81 Henrik Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés [The Diet of 1790/91], 2 vols. (Budapest: 1907), here vol. 2, pp. 8, 45.

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competence had been severely criticised, particularly by the lower nobility and the bourgeoisie. To the bourgeois Protestant author of an anonymously published contemporary report of the committee’s discussions, the Upper House appeared to be “real misuse” and a “patched-up cloth in the Hungarian constitution,” a forum of a “newly created privileged group” serving “only for the benefit and reproduction of hierarchical aristocratic arrogance.”82 After this, among other things, a proposal by the head of the upper district of the Torontál county, Péter Balogh, was discussed, that in future “the legion of titular bishops, that is Episcoporum in partibus Hungariae per Turcas occupatos” was to “stay away from the Diets, as is just according to Article 1:1608 because they have no cathedral chapter and no lands.”83 Balogh, who had been a general inspector of the Lutheran parishes in Hungary since 1789, was one of the politicians at the Diet who made a most decisive effort for equal status of the non-Catholic confessions. However, the deputation in 1791 did not accomplish a reform of the Hungarian Upper House, which would nominally have taken their seat and vote at the Diet from the titular bishops. No more so did the parliamentary committee that was set up a few decades later with the same aim with Article 8:1827. In 1848 and 1867, too, when the Hungarian constitution was changed thoroughly, the composition of the Upper House remained unaffected. In this way the Croatian bishops had also kept their seats and votes in the Upper House as dignitaries of the Hungarian crown, although their bishoprics had formed an independent “Provincia croaticoslavonica” since December 1852 when Pius IX raised Zagreb to an archbishopric with the bull Auctorem omnium and they were independent of Hungary as far as their church was concerned. In preparation for this new organization of the church, the question of which Hungarian titular bishoprics were to be subordinate to the new metropolitan in future was hotly debated by Vienna, the papal Curia and the ecclesiastical provinces of Esztergom and Kalocsa.84 Political representation of the Hungarian titular bishops was not seriously questioned until Prime Minister Kálmán Tisza introduced a bill 82

H[einrich] M[oritz] G[ottlieb] Grellmann, Ungrische Reichsdeputationen zu Verbesserung der LandesMängel, in Idem (ed.): Statistische Aufklärungen über wichtige Theile und Gegenstände der österreichischen [vol. 3: Oesterreichischen] Monarchie, 3 vols. (Göttingen: 1795–1802), here vol. 2, pp. 195–196. 83 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 196. 84 Ferdo Šišić, “Kako je postala zagrebačka nadbiskupija (11 dec. 1852)” [How the archbishopric of Zagreb emerged (December 11th 1852)], Starine Jugoslavenske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti 40 (1939), pp. 1–74, here pp. 26–57.

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entitled “The organization of the Table of Magnates as an Upper House” in the house of assembly on 20th October 1884. The immediate reason for this was a bill concerning marriage between Christians and Jews, introduced by the government one year previously, which had been accepted by the Lower, but rejected by the Upper House. The new reform project found an unusually broad resonance in print. The Transylvanian political economist and supporter of reform, Oskar von Meltzl, who in 1880 had already presented a study on the composition of the Hungarian Diet relating to constitutional law, said that it was “an outrageous anomaly in our times for the entire Roman-Catholic episcopate to sit in the Upper House—even the titular bishops, who do not even have a diocese—while those of the Protestant confession, in spite of completely equal legal rights, do not have a single representative in the Upper House.”85 A bill proposed by the Minister of Culture and Education, Ágoston Trefort, in which the parity of the confessions was considered of secondary importance, also planned the complete exclusion of the titular bishops.86 The titular bishops no longer played a role even in what was possibly the most conservative proposal for reform, presented by the president of the Upper House, László Szőgyény-Marich.87 Only a few individual voices from ecclesiastical circles spoke out in favour of keeping to the previous practice. These were nevertheless successful in enforcing that Article 7:1885 allowed two titular bishops at least, i. e. the bishops of Belgrade-Semendria and Knin, to retain their right of participation in the Diets. Whereas the Roman-Catholic Church was previously represented by approximately 44 dignitaries, now their number—comprising of the residential bishops, two titular bishops, the 85

Oskar von Meltzl, Zur Reform des ungarischen Oberhauses (Hermannstadt: 1884), p. 4. The Hungarian Upper House in 1880 is, according to Meltzl, “the institution of the Hungarian constitution whose need for reform was felt and pronounced first” (“dasjenige Institut der ungarischen Verfassung, dessen Reformbedürftigkeit am frühesten empfunden und ausgesprochen worden”) but which “despite all attempts at reform has remained with remarkable tenacity in unchanged form from its origins to the present day” (“trotz aller Reformbestrebungen mit merkwürdiger Zähigkeit seit seinem Ursprung bis zum heutigen Tag in nahezu völlig unveränderter Gestalt erhalten hat”). See idem, Die Zusammensetzung des ungarischen Reichstages. Eine staatsrechtliche Studie (Hermannstadt: 1880), p. 42. 86 Ágoston Trefort, “A felsőház reformja” [The reform of the Upper House], Budapesti Szemle 30 (1882), pp. 116–126. 87 L[ászló] Sz[őgyény-Marich], Igénytelen nézetek a magyar főrendi ház szervezéséről [Humble opinions on the organization of the Hungarian Upper House] (Székes-Fehérvár: 1882), pp. 21, 25.

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archabbot of Pannonhalma, the provost of Jászó and the prior of Aurania (Vrana in Dalmatia), whose title was combined with the cathedral deanery of Zagreb—was almost half its original size due to the almost complete exclusion of the “episcopi electi.” The reform of the Upper House, considered by a broad majority to be overdue, did not only change the confessional composition of the House, in which now the representatives of the Latin church had seats and votes alongside those of the Uniate and Greek– Byzantine churches as well as those of the non-Catholic denominations. The reform also created the conditions necessary for Tisza to continue his reforms under new portents.88 Tisza was from the Protestant, east Hungarian middle nobility and in the past his plans had often been blocked by the episcopate. After the First World War the title of royal Hungarian titular bishop was no longer conferred.

88

1884–1886. évi törvényczikkek [The acts of the years 1884–1886] (Budapest: 1897), pp. 187–195; Gábor Salacz, Egyház és állam Magyarországon a dualizmus korában 1867– 1918 [Church and state in Hungary during the period of Dualism 1867–1918] (Munich: 1974), pp. 72–74; Andor Csizmadia, A magyar állam és az egyházak jogi kapcsolatainak kialakulása és gyakorlata a Horthy-korszakban [The organisation of the legal relations between the Hungarian state and the churches and their practical application during the Horthy era] (Budapest: 1966), pp. 82–97. In Article 22:1926, with which the national assembly renewed the two-chamber system of the Diet, annulled in 1920, no titular bishops were mentioned as members of the Upper House. See Ungarische Reichsgesetzsammlung für das Jahr 1926 (Budapest: 1926), pp. 496–522.

Levels of Group Loyalty at the Turn of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Kolozsvár in the Rákóczi War of Independence* EMESE BÁLINT

“Our impeccable loyalty has not received due appreciation” pleaded Kolozsvár’s town council in an official document sent to the imperial court in Vienna in 1697.1 This was a petition that listed the huge losses of the community, and led to their formal request: the restoration of lost liberties as a reward for their allegiance. “Despite the three seals” the petition continued, “our privileges have been decreased and abolished by the contradicting decrees of the country, our laws have been superseded by a different law, and we have lost our rights to free election. The Council commands no respect in the eyes of the burghers, and the rules of our judicial procedure are no longer valid. Our burghers and tower guards have been sentenced to death by the jurisdiction of the court in Szombat; we have been kept from our fields, our oxen and horses taken away for as long and as far as they were needed etc.”2 Despite the obvious signs of general deterioration, the authorities of Kolozsvár strongly promoted the free election of the urban officials, and *

I use the Hungarian names when referring to places in the Hungarian Kingdom. “We cry from the depths of our misery and ask for kind mercy, Your Highness! If we gain nothing we must despair, the long expectation will waste away our hearts. (…) It is rightfully argued that our constancy has not brought its fruits, and our impeccable loyalty has not received due appreciation.” Quoted by Elek Jakab, Kolozsvár története [History of Kolozsvár] (Budapest: Magyar Kir. Egyetemi Nyomda, 1888), III, 23. 2 The Habsburgs gained possession of Transylvania by right of the Hungarian crown, and with the issuance of the Diploma Leopoldinum (1690–91) Transylvania functioned in accordance with the Habsburgs’ principles and practices of rule. Military and financial affairs remained outside the purview of the Transylvanian estates. There was to be no Transylvanian general, and the country’s finances were administered by experts under the supervision of the court chamber (Hofkammer). The Gubernium was responsible for Transylvania’s judiciary and local administration, and was also subordinated to central authority. The head of the court chancellery carried the rank of vice-chancellor, but he did not play a major role in policy-making. 1

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paying the rightful tax was enforced on every burgher. However, the main wish of the council, expressed in official documents and contemporaries’ private comments alike, was the restoration of the traditional privileges of a royal free town: political independence and freedom from external domination. The town chose to use the argument of loyalty on several occasions and in seemingly contradictory situations. In 1692, just five years before the petition of 1697, the town had already sworn loyalty to Emperor Leopold I,3 yet in 1705, still hoping for the restoration of liberties, it would build a triumphal arch to celebrate the visit of Prince Francis Rákóczi II, the enemy of the Habsburgs. Loyalty and expected rewards are at the heart of this article that will look at the various forms in which loyalty was manifest in Kolozsvár between 1691 and 1711, the dates marking the consolidation of Habsburg rule in Transylvania and the end of the War of Independence led by Rákóczi. What is the meaning of loyalty, and what are its implications? In the scholarly literature one commonly finds two contrasting understandings. One centres on the idea of common good, and holds that civic humanism is a model in which loyalty is closely bound to general public liberties and to common values or rights. The other argument stands for a more cynical point of view: it argues that loyalty does not represent the idea of communitas or of universal liberty but aims at any attainable subservience. In this latter meaning loyalty is nothing more than a means for clever representation.4 At a first glimpse these two interpretations completely contradict and exclude each other, but loyalty, as it will be argued, was a shifting notion both on the individual and the group level, and was expressed in seemingly incompatible forms. For this study of different forms of loyalty, the analysis will focus on the understandings of group loyalty, and will be confined to the first town of the Principality of Transylvania, Kolozsvár.5

3

Homagialis Regestratio Civium Claudiopolit. See: Jakab, Kolozsvár története III, 29. The word “representation” has a double meaning. It means both a symbol for an abstract concept (like liberty), and also a play or a show in which actors “represent” or play the role of characters. See Alison Brown, “De-masking Renaissance republicanism,” in James Hankins (ed.), Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 179–99. 5 Sources include official documents written in Hungarian as well as minutes of the council meetings (D.J.A.N. Cluj [Romanian National Archives, Cluj County], Fond Primăria Oraşului Cluj-Napoca, Protocoale de judecată, hereinafter: KvTJk), inventories of the town (D.J.A.N. Cluj, Fond Primăria Oraşului Cluj-Napoca, Socoteli, hereinafter: Kv; Szám) and fragments of private notes and diaries written by the burghers. 4

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Loyalty: uses of the term The language of classical republicanism uses this term in two different ways: either it can be connected to civic virtues like the principle of group liberties or individual freedom, or can be associated with a more cynical attitude aiming at concrete and immediate advantages. The first interpretation to discuss the republican liberty and an ethic of civic participation was advanced by Hans Baron, and has been debated by scholars dealing with the early Italian Renaissance. The basic idea of group loyalty is to be found in works on the history of Renaissance political thought as represented by Jacob Burckhardt and later criticized by Hans Baron. Recent debates on the idea of civic humanism can lead us closer to understanding the different aspects of loyalty expressed on two levels: that of the individual and that of the community.6 Burckhardt argued that the Renaissance was a period when the previous hierarchical perception of individual and group identity were replaced by an independent perception of the self, freed from constraints of loyalty to the larger community. This also meant the weakening of family bonds and the loosening of ties that attached the individual to institutions like guilds and the church, and could even undermine positive attitudes towards the state. The result of this individualism, it is argued, is a morally corrupt person who is indifferent towards the common good. Against this interpretation Baron has argued that the humanism of Renaissance culture and political allegiance together formed a particular civic humanism (Bürgerhumanismus) that involved a radical break with the earlier more narrowly classical and essentially apolitical humanism. In this humanist representation of the republican spirit the political act cannot be equated with Burckhardt’s idea of individualism. The civic humanism of quattrocento Florence, Baron further argues, was not the continuation or the consequence of the humanism of the fourteenth century; it was rather a new beginning demarcated by the political events of a new era. Florence’s long wars with Milan threatened it with crisis and the collapse of its independence; but this also produced a hybrid culture which advanced classical learning and political and civic participation but in which all these were controlled by the overarching ideal and interests of a bonum commune. This pursuit of the common good advanced freedom of speech, access to political institutions, equality in legal matters, and autonomy. 6

James Hankins, “The ‘Baron Thesis’ after Forty Years and Some Recent Studies of Leonardo Bruni,” Journal of the History of Ideas 56/2 (April 1995), 309–38.

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Likewise, it stressed the importance of republican liberty as opposed to despotism. It should not be overlooked, however, that in the very period conceived as the “paradise of citizen equality and participatory liberty,” Florence was in fact governed by its most powerful oligarch family, the Medicis; and these (self-) proclaimed defenders of republican liberty could be quite merciless in putting down their enemies.7 Recent interpretations of the Baron thesis have used this contradiction to revitalize the idea of the common good, and the criticism has led to multiple ways of interpreting civic humanism and civic liberty. Still being an empowering word in the vocabulary of republican political thought, political loyalty can be regarded either, on one level, as the representation of the elite, or on the other, as the means of understanding of the actual individual liberty.8 Displays of loyalty in Kolozsvár Elite representation and the articulation of allegiance are to be found in two different political acts which took place at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first was registered in 1692 when the officials and burghers of the town signed a document of homage9 following the Transylvanian estates’ swearing of an oath of loyalty to Leopold I at the Diet of Fogaras, which was supposed to be followed by the entire population of Transylvania. In Kolozsvár this act was a formal and public acknowledgement of loyalty to the Habsburg rule. The second act expressing devotion and urban unity took place in 1705 when a triumphal arch was erected to honor Prince Francis Rákóczi II. Like most Hungarian and Transylvanian towns by the time of the War of Independence (1703–1711), Kolozsvár had lost its previous political importance and as well bore the signs of a weakening economy; on top of this, it had been struck by natural disasters such as fire and plague. Once the golden age of the town was over, the major cause of its continuing decline was the change in its status from free royal town into a military 7

John M. Najemy, “Civic humanism and Florentine politics,” in Hankins (ed.), Renaissance Civic Humanism, 75–104. 8 Alison Brown, De-masking Renaissance republicanism. 9 The document contains the names of the burghers and their oath is supported by seals. The listing starts with the name of the captain, Márton Rayner, followed by ten officers, the notary, and eight members of the high council, then the names of the burgers listed by streets. A more detailed description is given by Jakab, Kolozsvár története, III, 29.

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town. Its privileges had originally been awarded by King Charles Robert in 1316 when he granted the town the rank of royal free town. This conferred rights in several matters: free election of public officials, property rights, and exemption from taxation on trade. In later times to these civil liberties were added a few new ones, most importantly those concerning judicial authority and the burghers’ equality in justice. After 1660 when Nagyvárad fell to a Turkish siege and the military frontier moved eastwards, the status of Kolozsvár changed to a military noble town. This involved a radical change in previous organizing structures, in the administration, in the traditional institutions, and in lifestyle as the noble status carried the obligation of military service.10 Against their will, Kolozsvár’s burghers were forced to host some two thousand soldiers of the Habsburg army as well as the nobles who had moved within the walls of the town.11 In the period of the War of Independence the town had about 5000 inhabitants, a serious regression compared to 1593 when the population is estimated to have numbered 7500.12 Finally the town was re-awarded its status as a royal free town in 1709, but would not regain the importance it had had during the golden age of the principality as various epidemics and a massive military presence hindered growth and economic well-being. By 1714, the population was one third less compared to the kuruc period,13 and a considerable part of the town was in ruins. “Poor Kolozsvár” became a catch-phrase in contemporary documents to contrast with the its traditionally description as “wealthy Kolozsvár” (kincses Kolozsvár). One thing was constant: Kolozsvár’s geopolitical importance, as it remained the first town of Transylvania (Transylvaniae civitas primaria) even dur10

11

12

13

This also affected traditional modes of local government as the town lost the rights of electing officials; instead judges were replaced by lieutenants appointed by the central government. Nobles had been the most feared threat to common order within the town. Civitas, the basic concept of governance, set down the basic idea of the equality of citizens. Equality consisted of the shared set of rights and obligations, while citizenship was strictly coupled with the status of ‘house-owner’ and ‘taxpayer’. This relatively simple definition of citizenship meant that anyone owning a house in the town would count as an equal to the burghers—with regards to privileges but not necessarily with regards to obligations like taxation. Elek Csetri ‘Kolozsvár népessége a középkortól a jelenkorig’ [The population of Kolozsvár from the Middle Ages to the present], in Tibor Kálmán Dáné et al. (eds.) Kolozsvár 1000 éve [A thousand years of Kolozsvár] (Kolozsvár: Erdélyi MúzeumEgyesület, 2001), 5–22. This notion refers to the freedom-fighter kuruc armies in the War of Independence and the widespread anti-Habsburg insurgency.

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ing the long struggles between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs, as well as during the battles with Rákóczi’s army. In the early stage of the kuruc movement an order issued by the government (Gubernium) of Transylvania in November 1703 warned the burghers of Kolozsvár against any signs of rebellion or of making alliance with the kuruc troops of Rákóczi. It advised every social stratum to show loyalty and made it clear that the document of homage of 1692 obliged every burgher, nobleman, and peasant to remain faithful to the court of Vienna. The order states that the duty of the peasant is to plough the land and, upon hearing of the movements of kuruc troops, to take the news to the nearest fortress or military camp; failure to do so would be punished by death. Further, the duty of every nobleman is to remain faithful to the emperor, to the Gubernium, and to the supreme commander of Transylvania.14 Disloyalty on the part of the town could be expressed in not sending representatives to the Diet, or, in the worst case, playing a “double game.” Women, too, could play a disloyal role. While their husbands, sons, and brothers were fighting against the emperor’s army, they might support them from within the town by sending them food or other supplies, or cause harm to the armed forces of the Emperor by providing the rebels with important pieces of news. The emperor promised pardon to those women of Kolozsvár who would show signs of faithfulness towards the crown by convincing their male relatives to change sides. The houses of the kuruc rebels were not to be demolished so that they could later be offered as gifts or rewards for those who remained faithful to the court during the time of troubles. As argued before, by the terms of contemporary concept and practice, being faithful to the Emperor did not mean exclusive loyalty. When the town was involved in the battles between the Habsburg army and Rákóczi’s kuruc troops, both sides had their supporters among the burghers, and changing sides was viewed as unproblematic whenever the troops of Rákóczi took over the town—even if for short periods. The privileges of the town were at stake, and the officials were always aiming at the restoration of lost liberties.15 Restoration of the burgher’s political importance did not seem simple and important to Rákóczi: the once wealthy 14

Elek Jakab, Kolozsvár története. Oklevéltár a 2. és 3. kötethez (Budapest: Magyar Kir. Egyetemi Nyomda, 1888). Jakab’s collection contains documents in the original language or in Hungarian translation. Some of the originals have been lost and are not to be found in the Archives. 15 KvTJk I/10 562.

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royal free towns had borne clear signs of deterioration, and had been temporarily drained of their economic and spiritual lifeblood by decades of war, plunder, tribute, infrastructural neglect, and internal strife.16 Still, Kolozsvár was under siege by the kuruc for more than a year (October 1704 until November 1705). This long resistance of the town was later referred to in the documents sent to the court in Vienna. Leopold I died in the spring of 1705, but before that, on July 8, 1704, the Estates of Transylvania assembled at the Gyulafehérvár Diet had elected Francis Rákóczi II prince of Transylvania, and had decreed that he was to be conferred the title at a subsequent Diet in November 1705. Rákóczi set out for Transylvania and on his way to the meeting planned to break his journey in Kolozsvár, a preferred place for official stopovers.17 New aspects of loyalty on the part of the town will surface when the events around the welcome ceremony are analyzed. After several attempts to reclaim liberties from the Habsburgs, the town turned to Prince Rákóczi. He was expected to visit Kolozsvár in 1705, right after the Diet in Szécsény ruled that the two Hungarian “homelands,” the Kingdom of Hungary and the Principality of Transylvania, were to be united in a confederation. The preparations for his visit proved to be an excellent and twofold momentum for proving loyalty: it was an opportunity for the town, on the one hand, to prove its commitment to the national and collective cause, and for the burghers, on the other hand, to express their individual allegiance towards their home town. Throughout Europe such expressions of loyalty were regarded as valuable investments, despite the stress of the arrangements and the burden of the expenditure. As the town officials wanted to restore selfgovernment, Kolozsvár depended upon the Crown for these liberties, and it was vitally important for the citizens to maintain good relations with the sources of their privileges. A warm welcome, an entertaining pageant, and display and spectacle that praised the monarch and his dynasty were cal16

Quoted by Miklós Asztalos, II. Rákóczi Ferenc és kora [Francis Rákóczi II and his age] (Budapest: Pallas Stúdió/Attraktor Kft, 2000), 259–60. 17 The life of the urban population continued to center around the beautiful and comfortable houses built during the so-called golden age of the Principality. They now had “bath-closets,” glazed windows, and libraries. The Danish ambassador on his way from Vienna to St. Petersburg stopped over in Kolozsvár in the home of Ferenc Szakál, master carpenter and town official, and spoke with the highest approval of the comforts available and the fine taste in which it was furnished. On the social and economic conditions of contemporary Transylvanian towns, see Béla Köpeczi (ed.), History of Transylvania (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1994), 396–434.

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culated to persuade him and his followers to act sympathetically toward urban officials’ complaints and requests.18 As for Kolozsvár’s burghers, such occasions and visual displays of loyalty gave participants not only a sense of identification with the town’s community and its political moves, but also served as an expression of who did and who did not belong.19 In this sense, this occasion was different from festivals and other civic ceremonies that integrated rival groups into a single community. In the event in question a large variety of interests and identities clashed in this single act of demonstration: the burghers’ identity and sense of belonging clashed with that of the Jesuits who were foreigners in the town. Although they formed a small group within the town, the Jesuits competed with the burghers and chose to display a porta triumphalis on the occasion of Rákóczi’s visit to Kolozsvár. This was a risky enterprise as they were commonly considered to be the promoters of the Habsburg Counter Reformation policy in the predominantly Protestant town. What is important is to see how a display of loyalty in the town could turn into a “contested terrain” in a series of events. The preparations for Rákóczi’s visit are recorded in the minutes of the council meetings: the town council decreed that the preparations be led by György Czegei Vas, the town’s vice-captain and a former Habsburg sympathizer. His surviving diary does not contain details of the arrangements but the official documents reveal that the town started all preparations six months before the visit by holding extraordinary elections for the free places in the council (noting that this was an extraordinary measure that could not be seen as a precedent for circumventing the traditional election of officials), and collecting a general tax—“applied to the Saxon nation [that is: Germans] as well”—to pay for the gifts presented to the prince (discretio). Cleaning up the town also involved the killing of barking dogs, and the preparation of lodgings for the guests was followed by the inspection of the wine supplies in and around the town. Further, wine and canons were sent from Kolozsvár to Gyulafehérvár, the scene of the Diet. The due procedure of the welcoming ceremony prescribed that two town officials would meet the prince at Zilah and present him with the gifts of 18

19

Compare Lorraine Attreed, “The Politics of Welcome: Ceremonies and Constitutional Development in Later Medieval English Towns,” in Barbara A. Hanawalt–Kathryn L. Reyerson (eds.), City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: 1994), 208–34. Victor Morgan, “A Ceremonious Society: An Aspect of Institutional Power in Early Modern Norwich,” in Anne Goldgar and Robert I. Frost (eds.), Institutional Culture in Early Modern Society (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004), 133–163.

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the town (worth at least 2000 florins), while forty horsemen were to meet the princely procession at least a mile before its entrance into the town.20 Besides the official ceremony, special welcomes were prepared by the town’s Jesuit Order, including the erection of a triumphal arch in the main square of the town where the lodgings of the prince were to be. Mihály Cserei, a prominent Habsburg sympathizer, recorded the proceedings in his diary: “Rákóczi has arrived in Magyaregregy, pro [sic!] 11 Novembris being the date of the Diet in [Gyula]Fehérvár for his investiture. The Jesuits of Kolozsvár, being familiar with all kinds of double-dealing, and instructed by Pater Kapi, have erected a porta triumphalis in front of the house of László Székely, featuring different pictures and emblems nefariously flattering the deeds of Francis Rákóczi and thus humiliating the Emperor. I have seen that arch myself,” Cserei continued, “and laughed when reading the false inventions of the fathers.”21 The Jesuit priest, János Gyalogi, gave a detailed description of the triumphal arch which included textual depictions which could indeed have caused offence to adherents of Habsburg rule.22 Nevertheless, the much-expected visit did not take place because Rákóczi lost the battle at the Zsibó Pass, and it was not until the spring of 1706 that the Transylvanian Estates could confirm the two countries’ confederation in the presence of the prince. After Rákóczi’s defeat at Zsibó, Kolozsvár was occupied again by the army of the Emperor. “There was enormous dismay in the town, and the Jesuits are working hurriedly day and night to destroy the arch,” writes György Vizaknai Bereck; “many people have fled from the town, and those who have remained are kept in awful fear.” Mihály Cserei’s account tells that by the time the Habsburg troops arrived to the town, the arch had been already destroyed and the head of the Jesuits, Pater Kapi, had fled from Kolozsvár. The generals took the wood of the arch and burned it,23 and as a penalty the houses of 20

KvTJk I/10 554–586. Mihály Cserei, Erdély históriája (1661–1711) [History of Transylvania (1661–1711)] (Budapest: Európa Kiadó, 1983), 361. 22 Porta patet posita a Dacis tibi Magne Rákóczi. Based on contemporary descritions, a reconstruction of the triumphal arch has been made by Géza Galavics, “A Rákóczi-szabadságharc és az egykori képzőművészet,” [Rákóczi’s War of Independence and contemporary arts], in B. Köpeczi–Á. Várkonyi–L. Hopp (eds.), Rákóczi-tanulmányok [Studies on Rákóczi] (Budapest: 1980). The original description appears in P. Joannes Gyalogi De rebus memorabilibus Tran[ssylva]niae anni 1705, manuscript in the collection of Count János Kemény, property of the Erdélyi Múzeum-Egyesület , Adversaria. Tom. III. 1610. A. 1707. 23 The field diary of the imperial army registered in detail the inscriptions of the arch (Descriptio portae Claudiopolis in honorem Ragoczy et Forgatsch erectae). Complete citation in Galavics, A Rákóczi-szabadságharc, 483. 21

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the Jesuits were crowded with Danish soldiers, Lutherans who arrived with the imperial army, and the poor burghers were further affronted by the material demands of the military presence in the town.24 According to the contemporary accounts, the Jesuit preparations in the honor of the prince were not well regarded in Vienna, and Pater Kapi had to leave Transylvania. To be able to fully understand the importance of organizing a welcome celebration and, in our case, building a triumphal arch, one needs to understand the quality of early modern urban life and urban relationships, which were hierarchical and filled with Kolozsvár’s factional struggles, apparently without any intention to promote urban cohesion. The Jesuit’s choice of representing their loyalty through allegorical figures and inscriptions on the triumphal arch created a discursive field that was also a contestation of their exclusion from the community. In European practice, performances and ceremonies attached to coronations and royal entries reinforced the power and legitimacy of the monarch while at the same time reassuring the townspeople of their privileges. A well-organized ceremonial could represent considerable political capital, therefore elements of architecture, allegorical representations, and theatrical and musical performances were often combined in the pageant. Whereas the archetypical Roman triumphal arch had displayed the rulers’ victorious deeds, baroque arches preferred to depict an ideal of the ruler together with allegories of virtues. The latter acted, in fact, as a sort of charm as they evoked forces that were supposed to influence the monarch. At the same time, the personal presence of the sovereign was needed in order to realize the optimum impact and message of the construction.25 The triumphal arch constructed on the main square of Kolozsvár was decorated on both sides with portraits, allegorical figures, Biblical scenes, and matching Latin inscriptions. In order to prove the legitimacy of Francis Rákóczi II, one side of the arch contained the painted pictures of the previous Transylvanian princes of the Báthory and Rákóczi families including their names, titles, and coats of arms. Stephen Báthory, prince of Transylvania and king of Poland, was the first of the ancestors, and he was followed by Kristóf Báthory, Sigismund Báthory, and An24

Vizaknai Bereczk (Briccius) György naplófeljegyzései (1693–1717) [The Diary of György Vizaknai Briccius], in Bálint József (ed.), Kolozsvári emlékírók 1603–1720 (Bucharest: Kriterion Könyvkiadó, 1990), 245; Cserei, Erdély históriája, 366. 25 Compare Graham Parry, The Golden Age Restor’d: The Culture of the Stuart Court, 1603–42 (Manchester: Manchester University Press: 1981).

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drew Báthory, then by Sigismund Rákóczi, George Rákóczi I, and George Rákóczi II, and finally by Francis Rákóczi I. In central place stood Francis Rákóczi II in his princely regalia/attire with an inscription announcing that he was the elected leader of the united Hungarian Estates, the fifth Transylvanian prince from the Rákóczis, and the tenth of that lineage.26 The images further acknowledged his general Simon Forgách as he stood in the act of handing over the scepter, the symbol of rule over Transylvania27. Next to them stood the allegorical figures of Prudentia and Pietas, to protect from all perils and lead the way to glory and veneration. The presence of Piety could also be interpreted as the expression of a wish for changed relations with Rákóczi on the part of the Jesuits of Kolozsvár. The Jesuits clearly represented the Habsburg aspirations in the predominantly Protestant Transylvania, and by greeting the Catholic prince (educated by Jesuits) they could hope for the restoration of their lost position. Rákóczi’s predecessors, and Stephen Báthory first and foremost, had done what they could to save Catholicism from extinction in Transylvania, and for this purpose used the Jesuit Order. Báthory forced the 1579 Transylvanian Diet to allow the Jesuits into Transylvania, and two years later he founded for the Jesuits a school of university rank in Kolozsvár, while also permitting them to run smaller elementary schools in various places. But the Protestant population were openly hostile towards the Italian and Polish (and later also Hungarian and German) Jesuits. In the face of this mounting opposition towards the Order the Diet of Medgyes issued a decree banning the Jesuits from the principality. A new era started when Sigismund Báthory, a staunch Catholic, restored the Order to its previous rights. Kolozsvár, considered the center of Unitarianism, was not a welcoming place for them. For Rákóczi, religious separation was not an issue; his political aim was to create an integrated army that would be organized on principles other than religion, therefore the influence of the Jesuits had to be cur26 27

Quoted by Galavics, A Rákóczi-szabadságharc, 484. In the political symbolism of the investment, the legitimate insignia would have been those sent by the Ottoman Porte. More information about the use of symbolic functions and political changes in the ceremonies of investment of the princes in Transylvania are to be found in János B. Szabó–Péter Erdősi, “Két világ határán. A hatalomátadás szertartásai az erdélyi fejedelemségben” [On the borderland of two worlds. Ceremonies marking the transfer of power in the Principality of Transylvania], in G. Hausner–K. M. Kincses–L.Veszprémy (eds.), Kard és Koszorú. Ezer év magyar uralmi és katonai jelképei, A Hadtörténeti Múzeum Értesítője 4 (2001), 91–105.

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tailed.28 In the spring of 1704 he ordered that the German Jesuits should leave Hungary and in 1705 at the Diet of Szécsény the Estates called on the Hungarian Jesuits to break away from the province of the Austrian Jesuit Order and swear an oath to the confederation. However, the Jesuits and their patrons chose to disregard this regulation and in the following year they neither broke away from the Austrian province nor swore allegiance to the confederation. The tactics they chose to convince the leaders of the War of Independence took various forms. During Rákóczi’s campaign they performed a theater play in Nagyszombat which was regarded by Rákóczi, along with the building of the triumphal arch in Kolozsvár, as a convincing display of their loyalty. They also assured the court in Vienna of their faithfulness and claimed that their persecution in Transylvania was the result of their constancy.29 For that reason the triumphal arch perfectly fits their representational agenda which aimed at the possibility of keeping their properties, churches, schools, and most importantly, their influence in Transylvania. If we stop here in the analysis, the erection of the arch can be regarded as the usual pageant expressing loyalty and delight upon the visit of the prince and expecting privileges in return. In this setting we can see a strong rivalry between the town and the Jesuits in setting out discursive and representational spaces in the town, and it could be said that the Jesuits chose any means available in order to assure for themselves certain rights and privileges. Nevertheless, further analysis of this episode takes us to a more general framework which includes the organizing of other representational events in the town. Public events like the visits of envoys were as carefully organized as the rarer princely visits. 30 On these occasions town officials and the Jesuits acted together in order to organize the representative spaces. A few months before Rákóczi’s 28

Nevertheless, he supported their educational program, and in 1704 they were able to start building their third academy (after Nagyszombat and Kassa). Rákóczi himself was a practicing Catholic, and in his memories he dwells extensively upon the fact that he had to make concessions to the Protestants. His recollections bear witness that his discontent was not directed at the Order as such but the intellectual influence “coming from Vienna.” For details see Asztalos, II. Rákóczi Ferenc és kora, 225. 29 Galavics, A Rákóczi-szabadságharc, 488–89. 30 Urban ceremonials took various forms—private, collegial, political, and religious—and included celebrations of births, marriages, and deaths as well as welcoming ceremonies of different types. Emese Egyed, “Színházi jellegű kultúra a XVIII. századi városban” [Theatre and urban culture in the eighteenth century], in Dáné et al. (eds.) Kolozsvár 1000 éve, 157–71; Hanawalt–Reyerson (eds.), City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe.

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planned visit, the French diplomat Des Alleurs was the guest of Rákóczi’s general Simon Forgách and the town prepared lodgings and feasts in their honor. Marquis Des Alleurs was greeted at the gates of the town by the kuruc sympathizer and town judge, György Vizaknai Bereck, and the Jesuits performed theater plays.31 Their visual resources were the same type of representations that were used for the purposes of their Counter-Reformation activity and included visual arts and theater. The same strategy was followed later when the prince was expected. No matter how hazardous it was for the Jesuits to act in an environment that was, if not actually hostile, at least fraught with many difficulties,32 there is no evidence of criticism coming from the representatives of the town. Judge Bereck wrote in his memoirs that the triumphal arch stood gloriously to welcome the prince. Such co-organized ceremonies and the contested expression of loyalty were not at all predictable in the light of the tensions caused by the Jesuits and religious hostilities within the town. Some instances of the Jesuits’ actions were understood as violations of burghers’ rights (as they were clearly considered foreigners to the town) and equaled with the loss of political independence. One of these was the lost privilege of importing wine. Because of the foreign wine purchased and brought in from outside the town the burghers of Kolozsvár had conflicts with the nobles, the army officials, the governor, and the Jesuits. The burghers’ old privileges in respect of the wine trade (pertaining to the status of the town) were ignored first by the officers of the garrison, then by the general staff of the Habsburg army, by the nobles of the neighboring villages settled in the town, and even by the captain of the town, Count György Bánffy, the governor of Transylvania. The Jesuit parish priest, Zsigmond Vizkeleti, simply followed their example. Evidence of this goes back to the petition of 1697 when the town officials lamented on the situation in the letter they sent to the Court in Vienna. Pater Vizkeleti, they wrote, was “selling wine and interfering with our privileges, and he bribes both the secular and the people of his parish. (…) His students are more preoccupied with fighting than with saving souls, and 31

Ágnes R. Várkonyi, “Kolozsvár az erdélyi fejedelemség utolsó évtizedeiben,” in Dáné et al. (eds.), Kolozsvár 1000 éve, 121–39; Vizaknai Bereczk (Briccius) György naplófeljegyzései (1693–1717), 244. 32 Paul Shore, “Social Control and the Jesuits of Kolozsvár, 1693–1773,” lecture given at the Central European University. The text is available online: http://www. parbeszed.com/main.php?folderID=859&articleID=4137&ctag=articlelist&iid=1#ftnref72 (accessed: May 9, 2009).

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they are indeed meddling and violent. The officials of the town have had enough of their scandalous deeds.”33 Further religious controversies followed when Kolozsvár lost the traditional right of electing the town officials as well as the right of nominating the lieutenants in the town. After the troops of Rákóczi conquered the town, László Csáki, a Catholic, was nominated captain of Kolozsvár. While some in the town welcomed this, the second captain, György Czegei Vass, thought this set a bad precedent because the town had never had a Catholic among the officials. Beside the overtly religious aspects of the conflict, the disappointment clearly arose from the fact that the officials wanted their old liberties. In his attempt to create unity, Rákóczi ignored the repugnance of the council, and that again translated into further internal tension with a religious overtone. Unity and loyalty, however, were to be demonstrated on later occasions: in 1707 the prince did, indeed, spend several days in Kolozsvár. Thus far I have analyzed different levels of demonstrating loyalty and showed how various forms of representation were applied for expressing it within the community. There is, however, a less visible implication of allegiance which can be studied at the level of individuals. One example taken from the everyday life in Kolozsvár during the War of Independence will add a different viewpoint in order to offer a more differentiated understanding of loyalty. When the Diet of Marosvásárhely ruled that the towns were to collect extra taxes for covering the expenses of Rákóczi’s kuruc army, the tax collectors of the town were instructed to bring together in all 2000 florins, the sum to be paid in silver coins.34 But in fact, a prohibition was in force on the use of silver florins for commercial purposes. In the first years of the War of Independence, Rákóczi tried to make up for the lack of currency and to stimulate the economy by issuing the copper coins called “libertas.” The burghers were instructed to pay half of their regular tax in silver, and on this matter we can trace two basic attitudes. Some who could not pay in silver florins showed their sense of civic duty by simply depositing certain objects such as silver spoons or silver buttons.35 According to the decree of the Diet and that of the town, nobody in the town was exempt from the payment of this special tax, not even the kuruc who had properties in the town. Still, there are 69 people in the tax assessment 33

Jakab, Kolozsvár története, III, 30. Kv; Szám. 43/XX–XXI. 542. 35 Kv; Szám. 43/XX–XXI. 550. 34

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who simply refused to pay and threatened both the town council and the tax collectors with bodily violence. The note, “refuses to pay,” was one of the most frequent besides “destitute” and “has left.” The “kuruc obligation” (as it was called in the documents of the town) was estimated altogether at 1620 florins and could not be collected in full. The tax collectors of Kolozsvár kept evidence of the debt as late as 1716. Much later, in 1751, the town wrote an official letter to the court in Vienna seeking compensation for the expenses they had incurred during the “Rákóczi turbulence” between 1703 and 1707, and they estimated their deficit at 34,712 florins. This implicit definition of who was a worthy citizen was not only a form of “othering” but also a means of defining the structure of local society. The poor, who expressed loyalty by giving away their silver valuables, were inculcated with particular values and, at the same time, integrated into local society. The tradition of testing loyalty on the one hand and demonstrating allegiance on the other is a political phenomenon with a well-established practice.36 In extraordinary times or in the case of imminent danger this is the most fundamental and immediate means for any community to use as a warranty for security. Another important function of expressing group loyalty is to confirm the interaction and the ties between members belonging to the same social group. The burghers of Kolozsvár, proud of their privileges and independence, acted firmly as a group in order to reclaim their autonomy but nevertheless did not sanction in any way those members of the community who invoked their personal liberties and refused to pay their taxes. But why would burghers refuse when they were devoted both to the cause of the War of Independence and to the town? Did their refusal reflect personal corruption, or criticism directed towards the functioning of the town’s institutions? It is not easy to give a definite explanation of the disloyal deeds of the burghers if we only take into account the classical rhetoric of philosophical and political thought. In the traditional concept, society and the societal system is sustained by fidelity towards different social groups, towards ideas and institutions, whereas the expression of loyalty is a response to the award of privileges. This is a complex issue as different levels of loyalty can be incompatible with each other. Devotion to the cause of the nation, for example, was antagonistic to in36

Lewis D. Asper, “The Long and Unhappy History of Loyalty Testing in Maryland,” The American Journal of Legal History 13/2 (1969), 97–109; Daniel Druckman, “Nationalism, Patriotism, and Group Loyalty: A Social Psychological Perspective,” Mershon International Studies Review 38 (1994), 43–68.

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ternal coherence and the functioning of different social groups or even individual interests. In certain cases disloyal behavior in front of a particular situation and loyalty towards another cause are two different readings of the same phenomenon.

Comparing the Enlightenment: Men of Letters and Intellectual Work in Eighteenth-Century Naples ANNA MARIA RAO

In a recently presented comparison of the intellectual milieus of the cities of Naples, Rome, and Florence in the modern era, a research group coordinated by the French School of Rome chose to focus on a series of variables which included academic sociability, princely and aristocratic patronage, university life, book production and circulation, libraries, the press, literary and scientific journals, and so on.1 In the present essay I propose a different approach: namely, to consider the Enlightenment movement in Naples from the perspective of reflections and comparisons on the part of the contemporaries themselves. And indeed, in literary and scientific journals, correspondence, and print, a comparative discourse of men of letters can be discerned which illustrates well their perception of the intellectual movement and its relationship with society and the state in the different European countries. In this comparative discourse, two aspects can be immediately identified. In the first place, their consciousness of participating in a panEuropean movement, which was reinforced by the success and circulation of the works of Ferdinando Galiani, Antonio Genovesi, Gaetano Filangieri, Giuseppe Maria Galanti and others.2 Secondly, the feeling of participating in a Republic of Letters that transcended all borders, yet a profound sense of their own inferiority regarding the structures of intellectual work and the social and public recognition of the role of letters and of the diffusion of knowledge. Hence, they experienced an acute sense of isolation and frustration in relationship to their homologues in 1

Jean Boutier–Brigitte Marin–Antonella Romano (eds.), Naples, Rome, Florence. Une histoire comparée des milieux intellectuels italiens (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 2005). 2 Franco Venturi (ed.), Riformatori napoletani (Milan–Naples: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1962) (La letteratura italiana, Storia e testi, vol. 46, Illuministi italiani, tome V).

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other European capitals, such as Paris or Berlin, where, according to Italian observers, the state played a fundamental role in the development of letters and science and in the careers of the men who cultivated them. Cosmopolitanism and patriotism were among the defining traits of the intellectual identity of Naples’ men of letters, as it can be constructed by examining their autobiographies.3 They considered themselves to be part of a wider community that worked for the public good; at the same time they felt they belonged to a specific intellectual tradition, rooted in the struggle against the pull exerted by the church, feudalism, and the clergy in the social, political and cultural life of the Kingdom of Naples. During the 1760s, the teaching of Antonio Genovesi, to whom the university chair of Political Economics, the first such chair in Europe, had been entrusted in 1754, and the publication of Cesare Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments gave rise to a whole series of works that were inspired by the principles of social utility and natural rights, against noble privilege and the degeneration of the judicial system. These works attracted the attention of French publishers. Thus in 1766 the jurist Giacinto Dragonetti published a Treatise on Virtues and Rewards which was considered a response to, or continuation of, Beccaria’s treatise. In reality, however, it was a sort of political manifesto, to be submitted to the young king Ferdinand IV, who would come of age in 1767, outlining a general plan of reforms for the development of science, agriculture, the arts, commerce, the army, and the navy. Translated into French in 1768 by Jean-Claude Pingeron, a French officer “in the service of the King and of the Commonwealth of Poland,” young Dragonetti’s treatise enjoyed a large European circulation.4 Pingeron also translated, in 1769, the Treatise on Public and Private Violence by another Neapolitan jurist, 3

Melissa Calaresu, “Constructing an Intellectual Identity: Autobiography and biography in eighteenth-century Naples,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 6 (2001), pp. 157–177. 4 Trattato delle virtù e de’ premj. Per seguire il Trattato dei Delitti e delle Pene. Tradotto nella favella francese, dal signor Pingeron, Capitano d’Artiglieria al servicio di Polonia (Parigi, presso Pancoucke, 1768). Traité des vertus et des récompenses. Pour servir de suite au Traité des Delits et des Peines. Traduit de l’Italien, par M. Pingeron, Capitaine d’Artillerie au service du Roi & de la République de Pologne (Paris : chez Panckoucke, de l’imprimerie de Didot, 1768). See Anna Maria Rao, “‘Delle virtù e de’ premi’”: la fortuna di Beccaria nel Regno di Napoli,” in Cesare Beccaria tra Milano e l’Europa, Convegno di studi per il 250° della nascita (Milan–Rome–Bari: Cariplo–Laterza, 1990), pp. 534–586; Idem, “Récompenser et punir: la circulation du Traité des vertus et des récompenses de Giacinto Dragonetti dans l’Europe des Lumières,” in Transactions of the Ninth International Congress on the Enlightenment, (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1996), vol. III, pp. 1180–1183.

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Massimiliano Murena. Highlighting the importance of this work, and more generally, of the Italian Enlightenment, the translator comments: “As much as civil and canon law have been popular in Italy, public law appears to have been neglected. It has only been in the past few years that this subject has begun to command attention. One sees, from time to time, the appearance in Milan and Naples of interesting works of this genre.”5

Almost twenty years later, in 1786, Jean-Antoine Gauvin-Gallois, the translator of Gaetano Filangieri’s The Science of Legislation, presenting the first volume to the French public, observed that: “The work which we offer in translation to the public, first appeared in Italy in 1780. Five editions, published one after the other in Naples, Florence, and Milan, attest to the fame it enjoys in the one country on Earth where the study of the rights and responsibilities of man is cultivated with the greatest passion and perhaps even the greatest success.”6

These respectful testimonies on the part of the Republic of Letters—which were clearly also inflated for the purposes of editorial publicity—were not ignored in Naples. However, they could not erase the sense of inadequacy regarding the general context in which the men of letters were supposed to work, and perhaps even enhanced it. Among the reasons that were cited for frustration on the one hand and admiration for the foreign on the other, was the state of the structures of academic life. Naples was not lacking in a rich and solid academic tradition, despite an earlier closure of institutions ordered by the Spanish government in the sixteenth century in order to impede the diffusion of all efforts at religious reform. At the end of the seventeenth century the humanist and scholarly academies, composed of nobles and lawyers, were joined by scientific academies which the ecclesiastical authorities soon began to suspect as being havens for forbidden ideas and books.7 Early 5

Traité des violences publiques et particulières, par M. Maximilien Murena, auquel on a joint une dissertation du même auteur sur les devoirs des juges. Traduction de l’italien par M. Pingeron, with a preface by the translator (Paris: Delalain, 1769). Original edition: Delle pubbliche e private violenze. Dissertazione di Massimiliano Murena (Naples: presso i fratelli Simoni, 1766). 6 Cited by Vincenzo Ferrone, La società giusta ed equa. Repubblicanesimo e diritti dell’uomo in Gaetano Filangieri (Rome–Bari: Laterza, 2003), p. VII. 7 Girolamo de Miranda, Una quiete operosa. Forma e pratiche dell’Accademia napoletana degli Oziosi 1611–1645 (Naples: Fridericiana, 2000); Elvira Chiosi, “Le istituzioni accademiche a Napoli nel ’700: continuità e mutamenti,” in Boutier–Marin–Romano (eds.), Naples, Rome, Florence, pp. 105–122; Vincenzo Ferrone, Scienza natura religione. Mondo newtoniano e cultura italiana nel primo Settecento (Naples: Jovene, 1982), pp. 83 and 502.

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eighteenth-century foreign travellers, who described the kingdom as being debased by extreme poverty and the Church, showed at the same time their admiration for the contradiction between the weight of the Inquisition, the superstition of the clergy, and censorship on the one hand and the existence of numerous societies of free thought on the other.8 Naples could thus boast of a long tradition of academic discourse, as recalled in 1750 by Raimondo Di Sangro, prince of Sansevero and one of the most interesting and enlightened characters of the cultural life of the era. A military man, a man of science, Grand Master of the Neapolitan Masons, and closely tied to the circle of Antonio Genovesi, he published in 1750 a work in which he tackled the question of the origins of languages and writing by attacking all established truths.9 Condemned by the Church, he enjoyed a certain success in Italy and France. In this work, he proposed to Charles de Bourbon, King of Naples, the political and military model of Frederick II of Prussia, who had made the army the means of upward mobility for the educated nobility. He offered himself up as an example of the obvious proof of the culture of the Neapolitan nobility, in opposition to the assertions of the Marquis d’Argens who in his Jewish Letters had written that the people of Naples were the “worst and the most heinous of Europe,” ignorant, and servitors of the Holy Office. He recalled that Giovanni Pontano had founded, in the time of Alphonse of Aragon, the first of the European Academies, which had served as a model for those founded subsequently in Italy and Europe.10 Later, in 1786, Giuseppe Maria Galanti, author of a pre-statistical description of the Kingdom of Naples which enjoyed a certain degree of circulation in Europe, also recalled that the Academy of Giovanni Pontano had been among the first in Italy. However, he considered the history of Naples to be a lengthy history of decadence, due to Spanish domination: hence the necessity for a “public direction” for the development of letters 8

Franco Venturi, “L’Italia fuori d’Italia,” in Storia d’Italia, III, Dal primo Settecento all’Unità (Torino: Einaudi, 1973), pp. 987–1120; Raffaele Ajello, “Cartesianesimo e cultura oltremontana al tempo dell’‘Istoria civile,’” in Raffaele Ajello (ed.), Pietro Giannone e il suo tempo, Atti del Convegno di studi nel tricentenario della nascita (Naples: Jovene, 1980), I, pp. 101–102. 9 Raimondo De Sangro, Lettera apologetica dell’Esercitato Accademico della Crusca contenente la Difesa del libro intitolato Lettere d’una peruana per rispetto alla supposizione de’ Quipu scritta dalla duchessa di S°°° e dalla medesima fatta pubblicare (Naples: MDCCL); modern edition by Leen Spruit (Naples: Alóς, 2002). 10 Raimondo De Sangro, Lettera apologetica, pp. 77–78.

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and science. In Italy, Tuscany especially seemed to him to represent proof of a great academic vitality.11 From the 1760s onwards, the theme of academic discourse stood in Naples at the centre of comparative reflections on the European Enlightenment and on the relationship between culture and power. In his Treatise on Virtue and Rewards, Dragonetti supported encouraging men of letters into public employment and solicited the protection of the state, citing the example of Catherine the Great of Russia: “Let scholars have honourable sanctuary in the Palaces of Kings, one shall then see what degree of happiness mortals will be able to achieve. The invitation that the Tsarina issued to M. d’Alembert, the Archimedes of France, to come to her court, will be regarded throughout the centuries as the most brilliant point in the history of Russia.”

For the “utility of the nation” the prince had to reward “scholars [….] in distinguishing them from those who had usurped the title. Those who proposed useless questions deserved to be punished rather than rewarded. […]The Republic of Letters must have Censors even more severe than those of the Roman Empire in times past.”12 Merit and virtue must prevail over all privilege of birth, and the state must reward men of letters and science who put their knowledge to the service of the public good. If Dragonetti considered Russia a model of royal protection of the sciences, another student of Genovesi, Michele Torcia, advocated the republican model of the United Provinces. Secretary of the plenipotentiary minister of Naples to the Hague from 1762 to 1766, Torcia in his letters to Genovesi expressed his admiration for the freedom of thought and expression that flourished in Holland, and for the existence of societies whose members did not fritter away their time in useless erudite conversations. Later, in a work on England published in Naples in 1775, he recalled with enthusiasm his experience of Dutch discourse and his frequenting of Friday-Clubs, in particular the club of Petrus Burman, whose house was “a sanctuary of hospitality and good taste:” “The point of these conversations in Amsterdam, he explained, is not to exercise the diaphragm, the larynx and the lungs in shouting, to argue for the sake of arguing, or to 11

Giuseppe Maria Galanti, Della Descrizione geografica e politica delle Sicilie, ed. Franca Assante e Domenico Demarco (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1969), I, pp. 254, 258 (orig. ed. in five vols., 1786–1794); Idem, Descrizione di Napoli, ed Maria Rosaria Pelizzari (Cava de’ Tirreni: Emilio Di Mauro, 2000), p. 220 (orig. ed. 1792). 12 Traité des vertus et des récompenses, pp. 206–207, 209, 213.

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discourse in order to remain more ignorant and more insane than before; to make people die from palpitations on the game table, or to put them to sleep with boredom on the couch […] but to teach them reciprocally and to maintain in use the Enlightenment already acquired on physical, moral and political man, on the character of princes and their ministers, on the biographies of famous men, on the geography and universal history of all manner of nature and art. One discusses them without pride, without acrimony, without noise; only in order to discover the truth, not to support theses or opinions […] one learns more in a month of such conversations than in ten years in the schools of our so-called Platos.”13

Such examples comparing academic discourse between Naples and Europe led to unflattering conclusions on the condition of men of letters in Southern Italy. The Academy of Arts and Science, created by the king in 1778, appeared finally to realise their hope of seeing their intellectual work encouraged and its social utility recognized. As Antonio Di Gennaro, Duke de Belforte, one of the protagonists of private Neapolitan academic life of the 1770s, wrote to Giovanni Cristoforo Amaduzzi in August 1778: “These ingenious minds (and there are many of them here) remain almost hidden for the lack of someone who would support them. The literary academy that one would like to institute (God knows if it would have any effect) could bring them to light.”

However, already on July 6, he had noted that there was “a multitude of pretenders,” while the funding was quite inadequate. Six years after its creation, he viewed the experience of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences as a failure. Writing to Amaduzzi on November 30, 1784 he exclaimed: “Could one believe it an honour to be admitted to this mob? […] in Naples, a ceto di letterati does not exist, we have jurists who are Men of Letters, and doctors who are Men of Letters, but they devote their thoughts to their assiduous and fruitful activities, and they don’t have the time to write for the academy. In Paris, the academies can subsist because there there are men of letters by profession; and the existence of such

13

Stato presente della Nazione inglese sopratutto concernente il suo commercio e le sue finanze diretto al Re ed alle due Camere del Parlamento. Opera tradotta dall’inglese in italiano e publicata per la prima volta in Londra in questa ultima lingua presso il Libraro Johnston nella strada detta di Ludgate-hill nel 1769. Seconda edizione più arricchita della prima, secondo la quarta edizione dell’originale da Michele Torcia Archivario dell’Azienda di educazione sotto la Suprema Real Giunta degli Abusi e Bibliotecario di S. M. nella Real Casa del Salvatore (Naples: Vincenzo Flauto, 1775), I, pp. 132–135.

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men of letters by profession is possible because in that country literature provides an adequate income and constitutes a branch of commerce.”14

In 1780, Saverio Mattei, a scholar and poet, published a Dissertation on the Usefulness or Uselessness of the Academies, which returned to the questions raised in 1777 by Giovanni Cristofano Amaduzzi’s Philosophical Discourse on the academies. Mattei contrasted the local situation with the “flourishing state of the Academies in Paris and in so many other cities no less cultivated than Naples,” where the academies were useful “not only to the Republic of Letters, but also to the particular individuals who were part of it, by giving prizes, pensions, and honours, and by often constituting a breeding-ground from which the government extracts already well-known people and promotes them to positions of responsibility.”15 In 1786, Giuseppe Maria Galanti was completely pessimistic: the Academy of Science and Literature remained inactive, with no effect on the scientific development on the country; and regarding the arts and archaeology, the Academy of Ercolano of 1753 had been merely a “flash in the pan.”16 These remarks reflect the sense of frustration that affected all of Naples’s men of letters when comparing their condition to that of their homologues in Paris. The studies of Daniel Roche, Robert Darnton, and Roger Chartier have drawn attention to the precarious status of the writer in contemporary France as well as to the existence of a plethora of “men of the quill” seeking jobs in the press, in publishing, in the academies, and aspiring to prestigious places in the Republic of Letters.17 However, from an external view, France offered an example of success: that of intellectual work as a profession. In Naples, the men of letters had been deceived in their hopes to live by the quill, and those without family 14

Biblioteca dell’Accademia dei Filopatridi di Savignano sul Rubicone, Correspondance Amaduzzi. 15 Saverio Mattei, “Dissertazione dell’utilità o inutilità delle accademie,” in Saggio di poesie latine e italiane (Naples: 1789), III, pp. 184–185, cited by Chiosi, Le istituzioni accademiche a Napoli, pp. 105–107. 16 Galanti, Della descrizione geografica e politica, I, p. 259, II, pp. 83–84. 17 Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982); Idem, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York: Basic Books, 1984); Roger Chartier, Au bord de la falaise. L’histoire entre certitudes et inquiétude (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998); Daniel Roche, Le siècle des Lumières en province. Académies et académiciens provinciaux 1680–1789, 2 vols. (Paris–La Haye: Mouton, 1978); Idem, Les Républicains des lettres. Gens de culture et Lumières au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1988).

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means were compelled to seek employment in the traditional fields of the legal profession, the church or the army. This explains their sharp polemics against the stuffy presence of the legal profession which engulfed everything, which conditioned social relationships, which perpetuated indefinitely the feudal system, and which hindered the development of the sciences.18 The situation was not very different in Milan, where Pietro Verri fought against his father’s desire that he become jurist, while knowing perfectly well that there were no jobs “in our country for men outside the legal profession.”19 The condition of men of letters in Naples was thus a difficult one; they were deprived of the means to work or to meet together that their homologues enjoyed in other countries. An analogous situation existed as well with regard to libraries and books. In this respect, the capital of the Kingdom certainly did not want for private collections, both those of nobles as well as ecclesiastical, many of which were open to foreign visitors and local scholars: there were around 50 ecclesiastical libraries and 80 private libraries in Naples.20 Among the nobles’ collections, those of the Prince of Tarsia, Vincenzo Spinelli, and the Marquises of Salza, Domenico and Francesco Maria Berio, were very well-known and respected. The Prince of Sansevero, Raimondo di Sangro, had his own important “library/bookshop,” containing around 1600 titles.21 However, according to the ex-Jesuit Abbot Juan Andrés, Naples’s libraries were neither “numerous nor particularly rich and full of rarities, such as those of Florence or Rome,” even if the city was not lacking in “things of interest in this respect.”22 After the arrival of Charles de Bourbon in 1734, and the transfer of the Farnese Library, which he had inherited from his mother, something resembling a great royal library 18

Anna Maria Rao, “Intellettuali e professioni a Napoli nel Settecento,” in Maria Luisa Betri–Alessandro Pastore (eds.), Avvocati, medici, ingegneri. Alle origini delle professioni moderne (secoli XVI–XIX) (Bologna: Clueb, 1997), pp. 41–60; Idem, “Fra amministrazione e politica: gli ambienti intellettuali napoletani,” in Boutier–Marin–Romano (eds.), Naples, Rome, Florence, pp. 35–88. 19 Letter to Luigi Giusti, 15 June 1763, cited by Carlo Capra, I progressi della ragione. Vita di Pietro Verri (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002), p. 137. 20 Vincenzo Trombetta, Storia e cultura delle biblioteche napoletane. Librerie private, istituzioni francesi e borboniche, strutture postunitarie (Naples: Vivarium, 2002). 21 Rosanna Cioffi, La Cappella Sansevero. Arte barocca e ideologia massonica (Salerno: Edizioni 10/17, 1987), p. 77. 22 Juan Andrés, Gl’incanti di Partenope, ed. Vincenzo Trombetta (Naples: Alfredo Guida, 1997), pp. 56–57.

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began to emerge, although it only opened to the public in 1804.23 In his description of Italy, published in two volumes in 1782 and 1791, Galanti observed that the University Library of Turin was open both morning and evening, and that the Medici Library in Florence had been open to the public since the end of the sixteenth century,24 whereas in Naples the state had not played such a role in opening major libraries to the public. All initiative was private and connected to the professional needs of judges and lawyers or for the benefit of the cultural aspirations and the prestige of the higher aristocracy. Examples include the library of the famous lawyer Giuseppe Valletta (1636–1714), who had collected around 18,000 volumes, and the Marquis Francesco Vargas Macciucca, a member of the crown’s supreme court, who locked up his books in cupboards to prevent visitors from taking them.25 Moreover, several members of the nobility saw the buying of books as an economic investment, as they could be easily sold if need be, as was seen in numerous cases in the 18th century when whole collections were put up for sale.26 In 1794, the King himself, faced with the need to finance a counter-revolutionary war, put up for sale the 1,200 volumes of the ancient collections of Gian Battista Marino and Gian Battista Manso, which had been bequeathed to the College of Nobles.27 The situation was perceived as being even worse in the Kingdom’s provinces, where, despite a quite well-developed urban milieu, the cities were lacking in significant cultural institutions. According to Tommaso Briganti, a lawyer of Gallipoli in Apulia, it was very difficult in the provinces to find even the juridical collections necessary for the practice of his profession, given the lack of “large public libraries.”28 Once again, it was private initiative that prevailed. Among the most renowned libraries was that of the Marquis of Cermignano, Romualdo De Sterlich, a gentleman from Chieti in the Abruzzi and a member of several academies, who 23

Vincenzo Trombetta, Storia della Biblioteca Universitaria di Napoli dal viceregno spagnolo all’Unità d’Italia (Naples: Vivarium, 1995). 24 Giuseppe Maria Galanti, Descrizione storica e geografica dell’Italia, in Idem, Scritti sull’Italia moderna, ed. Mirella Mafrici Cava de’ Tirreni /SA/: Emilio Di Mauro, 2003), pp. 217, 441. 25 Trombetta, Storia della Biblioteca universitaria, pp. 34, 61. 26 Flavia Luise, Librai editori a Napoli nel XVIII secolo. Michele e Gabriele Stasi e il circolo filangieriano (Naples: Liguori, 2001), pp. 174–191. 27 Giorgio Fulco, La ‘meravigliosa passione’. Studi sul barocco tra letteratura ed arte (Rome: Salerno, 2001), p. 87. 28 Tommaso Briganti, Pratica criminale delle corti regie, e baronali del Regno di Napoli (Naples: Vincenzo Mazzola, 1755), p. 27.

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was in correspondence with Genovesi and several other Italian men of letters. His private collection contained between 9,000 and 12,000 volumes in the 1770s.29 It was especially in the convents and ecclesiastical seminaries in the provinces that one could find books. However, we do not possess an inventory of the libraries in the countryside of the Kingdom of Naples such as the one that István György Tóth drew up for the Hungarian countryside.30 The reflections of Naples’s men of letters were even more pessimistic with regard to the production and marketing of books. According to Giuseppe Maria Galanti and Lorenzo Giustiniani, author of a history of Neapolitan typography, very few books were being produced, and even those that were were poorly produced, due to the poor training of typographers and editors, the inflated price of paper, imports, censorship, and, finally, the weight of the Bar, which monopolised the printing presses and favored the production of juridical works.31 In reality, as many recent studies have shown, the situation was not as dire as many thought it to be.32 It is sufficient to consider some figures: around 30 printing presses existed at the beginning of the century and, more generally, around 400 people were employed in the production and distribution of books and printed materials, and almost 50 printers and booksellers between 1760–1770, judging by information published in the newspapers; in the 1780s, according to official witnesses, the number of printing presses hovered between 40 and 45 and the number of people employed by them between 500 and 600.33 These figures are well above 29

Umberto Russo, “Introduzione,” in Romualdo De Sterlich, Lettere a G. Lami (1750– 1768), ed. Umberto Russo and Luigi Cepparrone (Naples: Jovene, 1994), p. XVII. 30 István György Tóth, Les bibliothèques des gentilshommes campagnards en Hongrie au XVIIIe siècle (Lisboa: Centro de Historia da Cultura, 1997). 31 Galanti, Della descrizione geografica e politica, I, p. 270; Lorenzo Giustiniani, Saggio storico-critico sulla tipografia del Regno di Napoli (Naples: nella stamperia di Vincenzo Orsini, 1793), p. 212. 32 Anna Maria Rao (ed.), Editoria e cultura a Napoli nel XVIII secolo, Acts of a Conference organised by the Oriental University Institute, the Italian Society for the study of the 18th century and the Italian Institute for Philosophical Study, Naples 5–7 December 1996 (Naples: Liguori, 1998). 33 Anna Maria Rao, “Le livre à Naples au XVIIIe siècle”, in Roland Andréani–Henri Michel– Élie Pélaquier (eds.), Des moulins à papier aux bibliothèques. Le livre dans la France méridionale et l’Europe méditerranéenne (XVIe–XXe siècles), Forward by Henri-Jean Martin, Conclusions by Frédéric Barbier, Conference held the 26–27 March 1999 at the Université of Montpellier III, 2 vols. (Montpellier: Centre d’Histoire moderne et contemporaine de l’Europe méditerranéenne et de ses périphéries, 2003), I, pp. 191–203.

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those for other Italian cities: there were about 15 printers/ booksellers in Milan, 14 in Bologna, 15 in Genoa, and 18 in Florence. In Turin there were 35 booksellers in 1759, but this figure fell to 19 in 1774, and 11 printers in 1769, and in Venice, the capital of Italian bookselling, there were around 38–39 printers in 1759–1780, which declined to 26–28 in 1783–1784.34 Book production also experienced growth in Naples in the eighteenth century: taking into account only the inventorying of printed matter held by the National Library, there were 6,349 titles as opposed to 2,756 counted in the seventeenth-century census. The growth is particularly evident in the second half of the century: 823 titles were acquired between 1770–1779, and 1178 between 1780–1789, as opposed to 374 titles in the first half of the century.35 However, to appreciate these figures in comparison to other Italian cities, it is necessary to keep in mind that the capital had 300,000 inhabitants, rising to 450,000 by the end of the century, and that the Kingdom, with over 5 million inhabitants, was the largest state in Italy. Naples was characterised by a heavy concentration of all cultural and bureaucratic activities, which limited the opportunities for book production to have a market in the provinces. All the same, the Neapolitan publishing industry proved incapable even of placing its products on the foreign market, except in the case of pirated editions, which caused complaints particularly among Venetian printers. Although books printed in Naples were more and more present in the catalogues of book sellers elsewhere in Italy, this presence was far below that of Venice, where, between 1750 and 1755, 60–80 percent of the total number of works produced were exported. The works of devotion of Alphonse de’ Liguori 34

Anna Giulia Cavagna, “‘Il produrre testo proprio stampato è impegnarsi con tutto il mondo’: produzione libraria, editoria e letture nel secondo Settecento pavese”, in Pavia e i suoi territori storici in età francese, Atti del Convegno di Studi, Parte II, Pavia, 12– 13–14 October 1789, Annali di storia pavese 21 (1992), pp. 309–327; Maria Gioia Tavoni, “Tipografie e produzione libraria”, in Produzione e circolazione libraria a Bologna nel Settecento. Avvio di un’indagine (Bologna: Istituto per la storia di Bologna, 1987); Alberto Petrucciani, “Il libro a Genova nel Settecento, I. L’Arte dei Librai dai nuovi Capitoli (1685) alla caduta della Repubblica aristocratica (1797)” and “IILa “libreria” genovese: composizione, andamento, caratteristiche”, in La Bibliofilia XCII (1990), pp. 41–89, XCVI (1994), pp. 151–199; Renato Pasta, Editoria e cultura nel Settecento (Florence: Olschki, 1997), p. 9; Lodovica Braida, Il commercio delle idee. Editoria e circolazione del libro nella Torino del Settecento (Florence: Olschki, 1995), pp. 221–224; Mario Infelise, L’editoria veneziana nel ’700 (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1989), pp. 276–279, 329–337. 35 Anna Maria Rao, “Introduzione”, in Rao (ed.), Editoria e cultura, pp. 27–28.

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went through 89 editions between 1750 and 1779, but it was the Remondini de Bassano who distributed them.36 The case of Giacinto Dragonetti’s Treatise mentioned above is significant. It was published anonymously in Naples in 1766 by Jean Gravier, then again anonymously in Venice’s Corrier letterario in 1767. A new edition was then issued, again by Gravier, in Naples in 1767 (along with a French translation), then again in Venice in 1768. It was finally published abroad: in Paris in 1768 by Panckoucke, under the name of the translator, then in 1769 a Russian translation appeared in St Petersburg and German ones in Prague and Riga. In 1771, a Swedish translation was published in Stockholm, and a Polish one appeared in Warsaw in 1773, published by Theodore Wage, who had also translated Beccaria in 1772. The fate of this text was thus linked to the interest in Beccaria as well as to the intervention of Pingeron and, above all, the famous publisher and bookseller Pancoucke. As for the trade in foreign books, this was dominated, as in Florence and Turin, by merchant–booksellers of foreign, in particular French, origin. However, correspondence reveals an entire network of connections maintained by Neapolitan publishers with the main European merchant– booksellers and publishers. The Literary and Typographic Society, founded in 1777–1778 by Giuseppe Maria Galanti—an important example of a man of letters and law who also involved himself directly in publishing—corresponded with the typographic societies of Neuchâtel, Lausanne, and Berne, as well as with François Grasset of Lausanne, De Felice in Yverdon, and the Gosse in Geneva.37 Between 1770 and 1780, the Luchtmans of Leyden corresponded with the main Neapolitan booksellers: the Porcelli brothers, the Terres, Gennaro and Giuseppe Elia, and Giuseppe Di Lieto.38 From Paris, Pierre-Michel Hennin, the Secretary of the Council of State and a bibliophile, addressed himself to the Terres 36

37 38

Mario Infelise, “La librairie italienne (XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles)”, in Frédéric Barbier– Sabine Juratic–Dominique Varry (eds.), L’Europe et le livre. Réseaux et pratiques du négoce de librairie XVIe–XVIIIe siècles, postface de Roger Chartier (Paris: Kliencksieck, 1996), pp. 81–97; Idem, “Gli scambi librari veneto-napoletani. Fonti e tendenze”, in Rao (ed.), Editoria e cultura, pp. 237–250. Maria Luisa Perna, “Giuseppe Maria Galanti editore”, in Miscellanea Walter Maturi (Torino: Giappichelli, 1966), pp. 221–258. Amsterdam, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Luchtmans Archief, Brieven, fiches 241–246. Anna Maria Rao, “‘Progetti senza sostanze’. Commercio librario, editoria e condizione dell’autore nell’esperienza di Giuseppe Maria Galanti,” in Piero Bevilacqua–Pietro Tino (eds.), Natura e società. Studi in memoria di Augusto Placanica (Rome: Donzelli, 2005), pp. 191–208.

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brothers for his purchases. These exchanges were continually impeded by transport difficulties, delays in payment, censorship, and by the competition of other countries. On 28 October, 1786, Hennin wrote to François Cacault, the French Embassy’s agent in Naples, of the difficulties of acquiring works printed in Naples: “the books of this country are quite rare in France.”39 Thanks to Cacault, he came into contact with the Terres brothers, “Naples’s best booksellers, distinguished men of their profession.”40 However, on 8 January 1788, Hennin wrote: “At this moment I am acquiring books in Germany where books are still on better offer than in Italy.”41 These exchanges confirm the difficulties encountered by Neapolitan books abroad, but they simultaneously show the liveliness of the exchanges maintained with the European book trade by the publishers and booksellers who were increasingly active, productive and attentive to the demands of the market and of culture. Why, then, did men of letters of the era have such a negative perception of the Neapolitan publishing industry? In their accounts, one finds above all a suspicion on the part of the letterati (as well as of lawyers) that the rise in quantity of production was not accompanied by any commensurate rise in the quality of the works published: the conflict between cultural and pedagogical purposes on the one hand and the reasons of the market on the other, even in the limited sense of this term under the Ancien Regime.42 As the lawyer Tommaso Briganti wrote, “the scholars” were right “to complain about the flood of so many juridical books which has inundated us, since the immensity of so many works pushes men to be accustomed more to reading than to thinking.”43 In 1782, another lawyer and man of letters from Apulia, Francesco Antonio Astore, observed, “literature has been reduced to an obsession with book-collecting.”44 What was being produced, and for 39

Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France ms. 1256, Correspondance of Pierre-Michel Hennin, 1728–1807. 40 Ibidem, Cacault to Hennin, Naples, 22 October 1786, and 18 August 1787 (where he again recommended Terres to him as a “un libraire entendu et honnête”). 41 Ibid. 42 Roger Chartier, “Postface. La librairie d’Ancien Régime,” in Barbier–Juratic–Varry (eds.), L’Europe et le livre, pp. 587–609 ; Idem, Inscrire et effacer. Culture écrite et littérature (XIe–XVIIIe siècle) (Paris : Seuil/Gallimard, 2005), p. 7: “L’excès d’écrit, qui multiplie les textes inutiles et étouffe la pensée sous les discours accumulés, fut perçu comme un péril aussi grand que son contraire.” 43 Briganti, Pratica criminale delle corti regie, p. 41. 44 Letter of 2 August 1782, in Aldo Vallone (ed.), Illuministi e riformatori salentini, II, Giuseppe Palmieri Astore Milizia e altri minori (Lecce: Milella, 1984), p. 351.

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what public? Can one speak of a cultural policy of printers–booksellers in Naples, or was the book only a product? Of course, religious and legal books continued to occupy the front stage. However, beginning in the 1760s, and certainly during the decades of the 1770s and 80s, a period during which the crisis of religious books provoked a more general crisis in the local publishing industry in Venice, in Naples, as in Florence, this very process of secularization galvanized a veritable explosion in the production of scientific texts and novels. The growth of the reading public and the changes in its taste can be seen by the growing number of announcements in newspapers, addressed increasingly towards women, advertising the sale of novels, play scripts sold independently of their staging, opera booklets and music texts. In certain cases, one sees the coinciding of economic and cultural interests. The activities of the Simone brothers in the 1760s was closely linked to the public opinion formation strategy put in place by Antonio Genovesi. During the same years Jean Gravier published the works of Pietro Giannone, thereby supporting the struggle of the state and intellectual circles against the church. Gaetano Filangieri’s Science of Legislation owed its publication to the publisher– bookseller Michele Stasi, who was as comfortable with the local production of religious and juridical works as with international commerce. Domenico Terres, the publisher and bookseller of the Italian translation of Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws and of the works of Genovesi, was also responsible for providing in his bookshop one of the city’s rare reading rooms.45 In Naples, as in France and in contrast to Germany, the booksellers were above all shopkeepers, but this did not prevent them from being at times also letterati.46 Finally, Naples also had no shortage of “bad books.” However, the Neapolitan men of letters’ feelings of frustration also referred to the overall political and economic conditions in the Kingdom of Naples and to the limited size of its reading public. Incapable of imposing 45

46

Maria Luisa Perna, “L’universo comunicativo di Antonio Genovesi”, in Rao (ed.), Editoria e cultura, pp. 391–404; Anna De Falco, “Giovanni e Francesco Gravier”, in Ibid., pp. 567–577; Patrizia Capuano, “Domenico Terres editore e libraio nella Napoli del Settecento”, in Ibid., pp. 579–594; Luise, Librai editori a Napoli, pp. 232–233. Chartier, Inscrire et effacer, p. 56 ; Jean-Yves Mollier, “Introduction”, in Jean-Yves Mollier (dir), Le commerce de la librairie en France au XIXe siècle 1789–1914 (Paris: IMEC/Maison des sciences de l’Homme, 1997), p. 17: “Les libraires n’ont jamais appartenu à la catégorie des lettrés, encore moins des savants, mais à la petite bourgeoisie boutiquière, ce qui les replace dans leur environnement habituel et les distingue de leurs collègues allemands.”

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its presence abroad, Naples also lacked an internal market, due to the weakness in the economic and cultural development of its provincial cities. The very poor level of instruction and literacy in the countryside, and even in the Kingdom’s cities, was seen as one of the most serious limitations on the circulation of printed material, as noted by Galanti: “Perhaps the highest degree of perfection of the civil state will be found when the ability to read is widespread. One sees the prodigious difference this point makes in the contrast within England and the nations of Europe. In England, everyone reads, even the peasants. The quantity of books that are sold there is beyond all stretch of the imagination.”

Comparison could only be humiliating for the Kingdom of Naples: “In our intellectual culture, we are still inferior to the rest of Italy. This can be seen by considering that in no city of the kingdom is it possible to make a living based on the publishing trade, as we can see in Leghorn, Siena, Vincenza, Padua, and Verona etc. […] Today, typography is restricted to the capital only, and even there it is debased.”47

In Naples, the kingdom’s high ratio of illiteracy48 gave rise to a myth of the supposed literacy of the rest of Europe. In 1790 from as far away as Hungary, a young mineralogist dispatched to Schemnitz by the King of Naples to learn his art sent home to the newspapers enthusiastic letters attesting to the ability of everyone, even the women in the countryside, to read and write.49 Commenting on such testimony, István György Tóth pointed out that the city of Selmecbánya was simply an exception, in a society that had to wait until the twentieth century to become literate.50 Tóth also warned us against the automatic assumption of a link between literacy and book circulation in a peasant world: “a largely illiterate society co-existed with the strong presence of writing, and it is exactly due to this concurrence that the latter attracted the immense authority it enjoyed.”51 47

Galanti, Della Descrizione geografica e politica (1786), I, pp. 269–270. Maria Rosaria Pelizzari (ed.), Sulle vie della scrittura. Alfabetizzazione, cultura scritta e istituzioni in età moderna, Atti del Convegno di studi, Salerno, 10–12 March 1987 (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1989); Idem, La penna e la zappa. Alfabetizzazione culture e generi di vita nel Mezzogiorno moderno (Salerno: Laveglia, 2000). 49 Anna Maria Rao, “Esercito e società a Napoli nelle riforme del secondo Settecento”, Rivista italiana di studi napoleonici XXV (1988), pp. 136–138. 50 István György Tóth, Literacy and Written Culture in Early Modern Central Europe (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2000), p. 211. 51 István György Tóth, “Une société aux lisières de l’alphabet. La paysannerie hongroise aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 56 (2001), pp. 863– 880. 48

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However, it is evident that the late eighteenth century Neapolitan men of letters here touched on one of the most serious problems affecting the circulation of printed matter, in particular journals, which did not even enjoy the same level of development as in the other Italian cities, due to, among other reasons, the limited number of readers.52 Clearly, what they perhaps did not sufficiently understand was that peasant societies were almost everywhere affected by illiteracy and that in Naples and in the kingdom’s provinces what was rather lacking was a middle stratum of readers and mediators of reading. They also seemed to be unaware of the magic powers of writing and of its symbolism,53 as well as of the power of the oral in the circulation of knowledge,54 of which the church, for its part, was certainly cognizant. Once again, as we have seen with their complaints about the state of academic circles, what explains the bitterness of Neapolitan men of letters in regard to the book market is their status in society and their lack of access to professional outlets appropriate to their level of knowledge. Raimondo Di Sangro had already written in his Lettera apologetica: “If fewer books are published annually here in Naples than is elsewhere the case, it is because here a writer must pay to have his works published, rather than being paid. Moreover it is perfectly clear that even if one is writing less, one is thinking more and on a higher level than is elsewhere the case. Elsewhere, we can see so many books appearing every day of which one could say, as an old Tuscan woman once did about shearing a pig: Much sound but little wool.”55

In 1786 Galanti virtually echoed him: “In Naples little is published and the execution is poor. The booksellers and the publishers do not form a professional group and they are not very well educated. They do not pay for manuscripts, and when the authors have them published at their own expense their friends all want to get them as gifts and consequently there is nothing more harmful for a poor man of letters than to have many friends.”56 52

Anna Maria Rao, Mercato e privilegi: la stampa periodica, in Rao (ed.), Editoria e cultura, pp. 173–199. 53 These were noted by Tóth, “Une société aux lisières de l’alphabet”, pp. 862, 877–879. For Italy, see Federico Barbierato, Nella stanza dei circoli. Clavicula Salomonis e libri di magia a Venezia nei secoli XVII e XVIII (Milan: Sylvestre Bonnard, 2002). 54 Françoise Waquet, Parler comme un livre. L’oralité et le savoir (XVIe–XXe siècle) (Paris: Albin Michel, 2003); Marina Roggero, Le carte piene di sogni. Testi e lettori in età moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006). 55 Lettera apologetica, pp. 78–79. 56 Galanti, Della Descrizione geografica e politica I (1786), p. 270.

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In Naples, a man of letters could not make a fortune from their works, whereas in England Pope made 100,000 crowns from his translation of Homer and, according to Galanti, “Robertson earned £4,000 for his History of Charles V.”57 Thus it was also and especially the status of the author that gave rise to such a pessimistic appraisal of the status of the book trade in Naples in comparison with France and England. There were also the issues of restraints imposed by censorship, customs dues and economic difficulties. Moreover, with a few exceptions conditions were no better in the rest of Italy.58 Certainly, as Galanti observed, the eighteenth century was the century of enlightenment, of science, of the spirit of reason, of cosmopolitanism: “If our century is frivolous, it is also true that the spread of the sciences across Europe has led to the acquisition of knowledge of all faculties and all aspects of civil life. A spirit of reason appears to be the characteristic feature of the century: it has brought all the peoples of Europe together on the basis of commerce, of letters and of philosophy. This represents a situation that is new, that the nations have not previously experienced, but a situation that is very much better despite its imperfections.”59

However, in Naples as elsewhere, what constituted the “characteristic feature of the century” was not simply the emergence of “rational” ideas but in particular the means of spreading them, the existence of social outlets and the development of public opinion. Finally, and no less important, was the potential for men of letters and men of science to make a living from their intellectual activities. Thus the comparative observations of contemporaries present a picture of the Enlightenment that is both very lively and nuanced, consisting not only of ideas, but especially of their dissemination, of interaction, of “consumption.”60 Books, printing presses, libraries and academies were among the major elements for them to make a comparison between the Kingdom of Naples and the rest of Europe. One must also examine their sources of information and the degree to which their observations were shaped by the tales of foreign travellers in Naples. We also know, at least 57

Ibid. Lodovica Braida, “L’autore assente. Mercato del libro e proprietà letteraria nel Settecento italiano”, La Fabbrica del Libro. Bollettino di storia dell’editoria italiana IX (2003), pp. 2–5; Marco Paoli, L’appannato specchio. L’autore e l’editoria italiana nel Settecento (Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi, 2004). 59 Galanti, Descrizione di Napoli, p. 235. 60 Vincenzo Ferrone–Daniel Roche (eds.), L’Illuminismo. Dizionario storico (Rome–Bari: Laterza, 1997), fr. trans. Le monde des Lumières (Paris: La Flèche, 1999). 58

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in part, not only about the role played by these tales, by books and by correspondence, but also about the role played by diplomatic circles and by the first hand accounts of observers such as Ferdinando Galiani, Domenico Caracciolo, Michele Torcia and others, who were full of admiration for Paris, London and the Hague. In turn their observations must have influenced foreigners’ views of Italy, in an ongoing game of fleeting glances. For example, Gabriel Mingard, the translator of Pietro Verri’s Thoughts on Political Economy, which was published in Lausanne in 1773, presents in his preface once again an image of Italy as a backward country, yet rich in talent and men of genius. Regarding Naples, he recalled that Fortunato de Felice, the Swiss editor of the Encyclopédie, came from that very town, and he characterized de Felice as a man who, “beset by a thousand obstacles in his homeland, made free by a stay in our country, revealed his true character as a man of the enlightenment, a philosophe, endowed with the most profound insights and worthy of having been the friend of Genovesi.”61 A very pessimistic view of the status of men of letters was evident in Naples and the rest of the Kingdom: they felt that they belonged to a European-wide movement, while at the same time they lacked the structures and outlets that they saw or imagined elsewhere. Even if their self-image led them at times to exaggerate the very real difficulties of the context in which they lived, as for example in the output of books, several studies have confirmed the general weakness of cultural and scientific institutions in Naples, despite reformist measures which certainly existed.62 The reasons for this dichotomy between intellectual movements and the corresponding structures have at times been attributed to the weakness of the state, and at other times to the weakness of the social fabric. The question is poorly formulated because it seems to ignore the ties of interaction and, frequently, the social identity between men of letters and academicians on the one hand, and administrators and functionaries on the other. Their complaints about the lack of structures and outlets for intellectual activity testify to the growth of their social aspirations in this area. Most of all, it is important to underline that the intellectual movement was itself part of society and of the state and that in the perception of contemporaries Naples suffered simultaneously from the weakness of its institutions and the inadequate articulation of a society 61

Franco Venturi, Europe des Lumières. Recherches sur le 18e siècle (Paris–La Haye : Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes-Sorbonne, 1971), p. 256. 62 For a summary, see Rao, “Fra amministrazione e politica.”

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that was polarised between a cultured elite and the illiterate masses, and where the middle class was poorly developed. In this situation, men of letters do not seem to have envisioned any solutions available to them other than strengthening the state on the French or Prussian model, in the hope that this could bring about the economic and cultural growth of the country. That is, until the American and even more the French Revolution opened up new horizons. Translated by Sarah McArthur

III.2. Disorder, Discipline and Denunciation

Burning Germany: Cities on Fire, Fire Fighting and Fire Insurance in Early Modern Germany CORNEL ZWIERLEIN

In his outstanding work on literacy in early modern Hungary, the late István György Tóth combined a sensitive quantitative analysis of serial sources with qualitative cultural history, comparing different European regions with an eye for detail as well as for the “big picture” and always searching for insight into the plurality of Europe’s history in the wake of the beginning of the end of the clear-cut dichotomy between East and West that 1989/1990 ushered in.1 The present essay addresses the issue of the destruction of German towns (or parts of towns) by fire in the early modern period and the ways the inhabitants sought to cope with this major risk. To my knowledge this is a subject that Tóth never expanded on. However, in its combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, comparative methodology, and concern with the phenomenon of “modernization,” as reflecting the difference between modernity and early modern states, this article follows the approach which Tóth pioneered. This essay uses historical statistics in discussing the difficulties of presenting a survey of the frequency of big fires in German towns (part I). In addition, I will comment upon the precautions taken by city magistrates and territorial governments to prevent and to fight fires and how the problem of fire destruction was seen on different levels of early modern city culture (part II). Finally, the essay will discuss some proto-modern inventions in the realm of compensation for damages after destructions, in other words, fire insurance (part III). 1

István György Tóth, Literacy and Written Culture in Early Modern Central Europe (Budapest–New York: Central European University Press, 2000).

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I. The problems involved in a survey of major fires in the German-speaking lands Major, extensive city conflagrations were the events with the most destructive impact on towns before the advent of planned city architecture in the nineteenth century, and—in Germany’s case—before the massive destruction by bombs in the Second World War. Even today, tourist guides, official printed descriptions and electronic presentations of nearly every city preserve the memory of the great fires in its history. Such events seem to be a pre-modern phenomenon: after the 1850’s, mass destruction by fires ceased in Western and Central Europe, and in other parts of the world when large fires did break out they were usually in quicklygrowing and therefore unstable cities, or they happened at moments when the “constellation of modernity” was interrupted by major forces (as in Chicago in 1871 and in San Francisco in 1906).2 To this day, no statistical overview of major fires in Germany exists, though some attempts have been made in urban histories in other countries. For Germany, such a survey could be compiled quite easily by combining the data presented in Erich Keyser’s Städtebuch—the result of a large urban historical project started in 1933—with the results of certain later studies for particular regions and with “official” local histories to be found on the cities’ homepages (though the latter need to be approached with caution).3 As a first 2

While the transformation of medieval and early modern into modern towns is often taken to be symbolized by the phenomenon of demolishing the town walls—see for example Mack Walker, German Home Towns: Community, State, and General Estate, 1648–1871 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971), pp. 108–144, 283–307—the end of extensive fires and the issue of fire risk in cities has not been systematically investigated in urban history syntheses. See Klaus Gerteis, Die deutschen Städte in der frühen Neuzeit: zur Vorgeschichte der “bürgerlichen Welt” (Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft, 1986); Lothar Gall (ed.), Vom alten zum neuen Bürgertum. Die mitteleuropäische Stadt im Umbruch 1780–1820 (Munich: C.H.Beck, 1991); Alexander Cowan, Urban Europe 1500– 1700 (London: Arnold, 1998); and the short section under ‛fire, fire-fighting’ in Christopher R. Friedrichs, The Early Modern City 1450–1750 (London: Longman, 1995), pp. 276–281. 3 Erich Keyser (ed.), Deutsches Städtebuch. Handbuch städtischer Geschichte, 5 parts in 11 vols. (Stuttgart et al.: Kohlhammer, 1939–1974). Keyser was one of the German historians involved in the “Ostforschung” project under the Nazi regime; only a detailed analysis of the many hundreds of separate articles would perhaps be able to show some links between the aims and heuristics of the Handbuch project with the “Ostforschung” and with “Volksgeschichte”: the sections on catastrophes in the Handbuch may reflect in a somewhat hidden way an apocalyptic vision of the threatened ‘Volk’—so increasingly during World War II—and have to be handled, as such, with prudence. See Jörg Hack-

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attempt I have thus gathered the data for Saxony (the administrative region called in German “Land Sachsen,” in its 1939 borders).4 Here for the period between 1375 and 1910 we find 422 fires in 105 mostly small cities, the most significant period quantitatively being between about the years 1380 and 1870. 16

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For many of those fires we do not know the exact number of buildings damaged; if we have any information, the sources which Keyser drew on or which are cited in local histories often state simply that the city was “completely,” “nearly totally,” “three quarters” or “half” destroyed (33 mann, “Deutsche Ostforschung und Geschichtswissenschaft,” in Jan M. Piskorski (ed.), Deutsche Ostforschung und polnische Westforschung im Spannungsfeld von Wissenschaft und Politik: Disziplinen im Vergleich (Osnabrück–Poznań: Fibre-Verlag, 2002), pp. 25–45;. A revision of the Handbuch by the Institute for Comparative Urban History (University of Münster) under the supervision of Heinz Stoob and Peter Johanek is in progress—vol. 1: Schlesisches Städtebuch, ed. Waldemar Grosch (Stuttgart et al.: Kohlhammer, 1995); vol. 2: Städtebuch Brandenburg und Berlin, ed. Evamaria Engel, Lieselott Enders, Gerd Heinrich and Winfried Schich (2000); vol. 3, 2: Städtebuch Hinterpommern, ed. Peter Johanek, Franz-Joseph Post, Thomas Tippach and Roland Lesniak (2003). 4 Based on Erich Keyser (ed.), Deutsches Städtebuch. Handbuch städtischer Geschichte, vol. 2: Mitteldeutschland (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1942), pp. 6–250; for some of the cities the number of inhabitants in 1699 can be calculated more precisely by referring to the figures published in Katrin Keller, Kleinstädte in Kursachsen. Wandlungen einer Städtelandschaft zwischen Dreißigjährigem Krieg und Industrialisierung (Cologne: Böhlau, 2001), pp. 396–405.

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fires). In the case of the 67 fires where we do know the number of buildings destroyed, the average (127) is very high, even if we exclude the outstanding case of the great fire in Altendresden when 1900 buildings burned down completely.5 It is probable that this average would be much lower if we knew the number of buildings destroyed in all fires. The most critical years for fires in the history of urban Saxony are easy to identify: these were the period of the Hussite Wars (1429–1430) and a certain time span (1632–1639) during the Thirty Years War. In other German regions, the major impacts of war would be felt at other periods. For example in the South-West, the wars of expansion waged by Louis XIV led to many large-scale city fires in the years 1689–1693—a period when in Saxony there are no outstanding incidents. Notable are the great fires of 1689 in Gengenbach, Mühlhausen, Offenburg, Speyer, Worms and Baden-Baden, and of 1693 in Backnang and Heidelberg (the famous “romantic city of Heidelberg” is the result of the medieval and Renaissance city’s complete destruction by fire).6 If we compare the numbers from Saxony with those of England, Sweden and Finland, the differences are so striking as to cause us to doubt the comparability of the data (“Comparing […] various regions is never easy” wrote Tóth7). Lilja counted 238 major fires in 122 cities between the thirteenth and the eighteenth century in Sweden,8 Jutikkala found 76 fires in 22 Finnish cities between the sixteenth century and 1860,9 though neither of them provides an exact indication of the size of the fires. For the period between 1500 and 1900 in England, Jones, Porter and Turner report 518 fires with more than 10 buildings burned and another 100 where the number of buildings destroyed is not known.10 Cathy Frierson provides impressive data from the records of the Russian Imperial Administration: a huge amount of fires are documented in European 5

See Karlheinz Blaschke, “Der Brand von Altendresden 1685 und der Wiederaufbau als ‘Neue Königsstadt’,” in Martin Körner (ed.), Destruction and Reconstruction of Towns. Destruction by the Lord’s Power: Internal Troubles and Wars (Bern: Paul Haupt, 1999), vol. 1, pp. 157–171. 6 Roland Vetter, Heidelberga deleta: Heidelbergs zweite Zerstörung im Orléansschen Krieg und die französische Kampagne von 1693 (Heidelberg: Guderjahn, 1990). 7 Tóth, Literacy and Written Culture, p. 43. 8 Sven Lilja, “Wooden Towns on Fire: Fire Destruction and Human Reconstruction of Swedish Towns Prior to 1800,” in Körner (ed.), Destruction and Reconstruction of Towns, vol. 1, pp. 255–275. 9 Eino Jutikkala, “Great Fires of Finnish Cities,” in Ibid.., pp. 239–254 10 E. L. Jones–S. Porter–M. Turner, A Gazetteer of English Urban Fire Disasters, 1500– 1900 (Norwich: Geobooks, 1984) (= Historical Geography Research Series 13, August 1984).

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Russia, from 58,817 (with 284,507 buildings destroyed) in the five years 1860–1864 to 315,227 (with 851,181 buildings destroyed) in 1900–1904. Only 8% of those fires affected cities, the others are fires in and of villages; but this would still mean that there were some 4,700 city fires with 22,760 buildings destroyed in the first 5-year-period alone.11 Taken at face value these numbers seem to imply that the small area of Saxony (“Land Sachsen”) alone experienced more fires than Sweden and Finland together and a little fewer than the whole of England, but that in Russia, in only five years, many more city fires took place than in Saxony in 535 years.12 Given their relative sizes, one tends to suspect that the huge statistical difference between these countries must have its origin (at least partly) in the counting and registration procedures themselves. The Russian data is based on the official fire statistics gathered by the Empire’s administration, whereas the data for the other regions is based on scattered evidence collected by urban historians. Yet this does not indicate that the Russian data is necessarily more reliable than the urban historians’: if we bear in mind—as Frierson has shown—the degree to which fire reports and the gathering of fire data were part of a “national fire narrative” with apocalyptic as well as nationalist and modernist aspects, one might even be forced to conclude that to a point the Russian figures were invented.13 Elsewhere, too, fire fighters and other officials charged with fire prevention could under certain conditions have had an interest in increasing the record of the numbers of fires because they were paid for the number of jobs done. This was the case in Cologne in 1762, when a principled and angry clerk addressed a note to the town’s magistrate demonstrating that the fire-fighters (the Brandherren) had declared 80 fire-fighting missions in the four years from 1758 to 1761 and had collected as reward 1600 Ratszeichen (a special currency valid only inside the town administration but which was nonetheless money), but that at the most only a quarter of those fires had actually taken place.14 So, fire statistics are not always 11

Cathy A. Frierson, All Russia is burning! A Cultural History of Fire and Arson in Late Imperial Russia (Seattle–London: University of Washington Press, 2002), pp. 68–71. 12 Even if we concede that we have to exclude a good number of the 4,700 city fires which were not “major fires” (with more than ten buildings destroyed). 13 Frierson, All Russia is burning. The study does not describe in detail the administrative procedures of data gathering that must have been behind the huge numbers. 14 Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln (HAStKö), Verfassung u. Verwaltung, N862, fol. 22R–24V, 23V (the same text also in N 12, fol. 41–46). For the “Ratszeichen” (“tokens of the Council”) see Clemens Graf von Looz-Corswarem, Das Finanzwesen der Stadt Köln im 18. Jahrhundert (Cologne: Wamper, 1978), pp. 34–38. My research in the

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reliable, and scrupulous contemporaries were well aware of it. When Johann Ehlert Bieber, one of Hamburg’s two chief fire-hose masters (Obersprützenmeister), attempted to compile a list of all major fires that had ever happened in his town, he noted carefully that only the data from after 1772 was reliable.15 He recorded all fire alarms involving the deployment of fire hoses for each year from 1772 to 1841 and the number of houses destroyed: 140

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His records document a striking increase over time in the fire risk in Hamburg, a trend which correlates closely with the progress of early industrialization; indeed, one could take fire risk data as a sensitive indicator of the process of industrialization. Especially from the 1780s onwards, many of the fire alarms and the damage to buildings concerned sugar refineries, cotton, wallpaper, paper, stearin candles and tobacco manufacturies, bakeries, distilleries and breweries. In 1839, a fire broke out for the first time in a steam mill. Even if the fires were not always big ones, we HAStKö was done before its destruction on 3rd March 2009. Unfortunately, the source seems to be no longer accessible. 15 Johann Ehlert Bieber, Verzeichniss aller Feuersbrünste in Hamburg und der Umgegend, von 1281 bis 1830 (Hamburg: Appel, 1830), p. 3. The author continued his register in manuscript until 1841, the year before the Great Fire in Hamburg. See Staatsarchiv der Hansestadt Hamburg (StHH), Bibliothek, A 456/18.

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can see from this very detailed data that from 1799 to 1811, from 1817 to 1822 and from 1828 onwards the potential for destruction by fire rose noticeably every year. The average number of major fire-fighting missions involving the use of fire hoses rose from some 30 yearly in the 1770s up to 120 yearly in the 1830s. The example of Hamburg shows through this rare documentation that the figures only for “major fires” involving largescale destructions counted in the cases of Saxony, England and Sweden do not always reflect the crucial tendencies to increased fire risk which may take place rather on the level of one-building-fires. Viewed retrospectively, Bieber’s list gives impressive evidence for the growing probability of a major fire catastrophe in Hamburg—which ultimately took place in May 1842, when the whole inner city burned down, destroying 4,200 buildings and leaving 20,000 women and men homeless. The Hamburg fire of 1842 belongs to the special category of “great fires” in the pre-modern world. Worldwide, the greatest ever town fires were probably Edo (Tokyo) in 1657 (three quarters of the city destroyed, 108,000 dead out of 600,000 inhabitants),16 Istanbul in 1660 (280,000 households destroyed, 40,000 casualties),17 Chicago in 1871 (18,000 buildings destroyed, 100,000 out of 300,000 inhabitants rendered homeless),18 San Francisco in 1906 (28,000 buildings destroyed, 250,000– 450,000 inhabitants homeless),19 and London in 1666 (13,200 buildings destroyed, 65–80,000 inhabitants homeless).20 The biggest fires in Ger16

Noel Nouet, The Shogun’s City: A History of Tokyo (Sandgate: Norbury, 1990), pp. 47, 105f.; Lionel Frost, “Coping in their own way: Asian cities and the problem of fires,” Urban History 24 (1997), pp. 5–16; Kaoru Ugawa, “The Great Fire of Edo (Tokyo) in 1657,” in Körner (ed.), Destruction and Reconstruction of Towns, vol. 1, pp. 213–238. 17 Marc David Baer, “The Great Fire of 1660 and the Islamization of Christian and Jewish Space in Istanbul,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 36 (2004), pp. 159– 181. 18 Karen Sawislak, Smoldering City: Chicagoans and the Great Fire, 1871–1874 (Chicago–London: Chicago UP, 1995), p. 2. 19 H. Paul Jeffers, Disaster by the Bay: The Great San Francisco Earth-Quake and Fire of 1906 (Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2003), pp. xi, 75, 163; Christoph Strupp, “‘Nothing destroyed that cannot speedily be rebuilt’. San Francisco und das Erdbeben von 1906,” in Andreas Ranft–Stephan Selzer (eds.), Städte aus Trümmern. Katastrophenbewältigung zwischen Antike und Moderne (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2004), pp. 132–171. It was not the earthquake itself which was the major destructive force—it only destroyed 100 buildings directly—but the Great Fire that broke out at the same time and which could not be controlled because of the destruction through the earthquake of the city’s whole water and hydrant system. 20 Frances E. Dolan, “Ashes and ‘the Archive’: The London Fire of 1666, Partisanship and Proof,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 31 (2001), pp. 379–408; Derek

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man cities—Aachen in 1656 (4,664 buildings destroyed), Hamburg in 1842, Dresden in 1685, Altona 1713, Rostock in 1677, Stralsund in 1680, the 1689–93 fires in the South-West—are a little less striking simply because in Germany there was never an early mega-city of the size of Istanbul, London or Paris. The population of Cologne, the biggest German city throughout the Middle Ages and in the first half of the early modern period, was only between 30,000 and 45,000. Only in the eighteenth century did some port cities and capitals overtake the old Imperial cities (Berlin reaching 100,000, Hamburg 80–100,000, Breslau, Dresden and Königsberg 50,000, Danzig 40,000, Bremen and Munich 30,000 and Mannheim, Potsdam, Stettin and Stuttgart 20,000 inhabitants). At the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 there were some 60 ‘big cities’ with more than 10,000 inhabitants.21 So the typical early modern German town, as in many other parts of Europe, was a small city.22 But small cities not infrequently did burn down completely. So, much work has still to be done before we can draw up a more or less complete topography and statistical overview of the frequency of major urban fires in Germany and in Europe. A typology of fires and fire causes would be helpful; the examples given have shown how significant has been the correlation of fire risk with war periods and how marked the relation between fire risk and early industrialization processes. But one would also need to consider the correlation between climate history and fire frequency.23 As well, the link between fire risk and the overall urbaniKeene, “Fire in London: Destruction and Reconstruction, A.D. 982–1676,” in Körner (ed.), Destruction and Reconstruction of Towns, vol. 1, pp. 187–211; John E. N. Hearsay, London and the Great Fire, 2nd ed. (London: Murray, 1969), p. 149; Stephen Porter, The Great Fire of London (Phoenix Mill: Sutton, 1996), p. 70f.; Adrian Tinniswood, By Permission of Heaven: The True Story of the Great Fire of London (New York: Riverhead Books, 2004), p. 127. See also a historical novel of the Great Fire based upon primary sources by Neil Hanson, The Dreadful Judgement: The True Story of the Great Fire of London 1666 (London: Doubleday, 2001). 21 Heinz Schilling, Die Stadt in der Frühen Neuzeit (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1993), p. 11. 22 See Peter Clark, Small Towns in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995); T. Holger Gräf (ed.), Kleine Städte im neuzeitlichen Europa (Berlin: BerlinVerlag Spitz, 1997); Helmut Flachenecker–Rolf Kiessling (eds.), Städtelandschaften in Altbayern, Franken und Schwaben. Studien zum Phänomen der Kleinstädte während des Spätmittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit (Munich: C.H.Beck, 1999). 23 Christian Pfister, Klimageschichte der Schweiz 1525–1860. Das Klima der Schweiz von 1525–1860 und seine Bedeutung in der Geschichte von Bevölkerung und Landwirtschaft, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Bern: Haupt, 1988); Rudolf Brázdil–Oldřich Kotyza, History of Weather and Climate in the Czech Lands, 4 vols. (Zürich: Geograph. Institut

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zation process, and especially between developments in architecture, building materials and urban house construction, is another aspect which should be considered in such a future survey. Finally, in any study the task of comparison between the different European regions will not be easy, as we have seen from the examples of the Russian, English, Swedish, Finnish and Saxon data.

II. Early modern fire policy and the fire from heaven Early modern burghers and cities sought to protect their home towns from fire catastrophes in many ways. Generally, these efforts may be summed up under the heading of “fire policy” (Feuerpolicey).24 The division of a city into distinct areas (mostly the parishes) with militia-like fire-fighting companies of burghers under the guidance of a few captains, and the prescription of fire-fighting procedures, were the normal contents of the city’s “fire regulations” (Feuerordnungen).25 Often it was stipulated that a new burgher or a new member of a guild had to contribute a certain number of buckets or fire hooks or a ladder. Besides supervision to prevent dangerous ways of building, fire protection consisted mostly in the periodical checking of the condition of buckets, hooks and ladders. In some cities, the city magistrate obliged every house owner during hot summers to put a water barrel in front of the building as a necessary provision in case of fire. These precautions and organizational forms often did not change decisively from the Late Middle Ages to the end of the ancien

ETH, 1995–2000); Rüdiger Glaser, Klimageschichte Mitteleuropas. 1000 Jahre Wetter, Klima, Katastrophen (Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft, 2001). For a discussion of the Little Ice Age, see Wolfgang Behringer–Harmut Lehmann–Christian Pfister (eds.), Kulturelle Konsequenzen der ‘Kleinen Eiszeit’–Cultural Consequences of the ‘Little Ice Age’ (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006). 24 There is not much literature on Feuerpolicey. See André Holenstein, “‘Gute Policey’ und lokale Gesellschaft. Erfahrung als Kategorie im Verwaltungshandeln des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Paul Münch (ed.), “Erfahrung” als Kategorie der Frühneuzeitgeschichte (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001), pp. 433–450, esp. 437–443; Idem, ‘Gute Policey’ und lokale Gesellschaft im Staat des Ancien Régime. Das Fallbeispiel der Markgrafschaft Baden(-Durlach) 2 vols. (Tübingen: Bibliotheca Academica, 2003), pp. 727–749. 25 Nearly every city had its Feuerordnung, which was usually revised several times during the Early Modern period. See the inventory: Karl Härter–Michael Stolleis (eds.), Repertorium der Policeyordnungen der Frühen Neuzeit, 9 vols. to date (Frankfurt/M: Klostermann, 1996–2008).

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régime.26 The most, and nearly only, important development in the realm of early modern fire fighting was the invention of the fire hose, consisting of a long, flexible leather water hose. Whether this was originally the invention of Jan and Samuel van der Heyden is debated, but in any case the two brothers were the first (starting in the 1670’s) to manufacture such fire hoses for large-scale international export, and they demonstrated in Amsterdam how a big city’s fire protection system could be restructured using a network of fire hoses precisely distributed over the whole metropolitan area.27 The first German city to import the Amsterdam fire hoses seems to have been Hamburg (in 1676).28 In comparison with the structural and organizational effect that the distribution of fire hoses had on everyday fire protection procedures, the impact of the invention and improvement of the lightning conductor by Franklin and others in 1749– 1762 was quite small, at least in the eighteenth century. But blazes caused 26

For example, in Cologne the Brandordnung from 1452/53 remained more or less unchanged throughout the ancien régime. See Walther Stein (ed.), Akten zur Geschichte der Verfassung und Verwaltung der Stadt Köln im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert (Bonn: Behrendt, 1893–1895), vol. 2, pp. 365–369. It was regularly copied into the so-called “brand rolls,” where some changes (in the years 1524, 1573, 1578, then in the 18th century) were added (HStA Köln, Verfassung u. Verwaltung, N23, fol. 11r; N 17, fol. 11v– 12v; N 21, fol. 12v–13r). A real break only came with the Réglement pour les incendies de la ville de Cologne – Feuer-Ordnung der Stadt Kölln, imposed by the French government of the city on 1er Fructidor (August 19) 1801. But this, despite its French legislative form, still retained much of the late medieval regulations for fire protection of the old imperial city. See, for instance, the regulation of 1833 from the Prussian period— still with many echoes of medieval times—in HAStKö, Edikte 6, nr. 170; Bibliothek Ec 127. 27 See the three copperplate engravings: INSTRUCTIE, rakende’t Onderhoud en Conservatie der Slang-brand-spuiten; Berigt, rakende’t gebruik der slang-brand-spuiten; and Instructie van ’t gebruik in ongeval van brand. These advertisements, which give the price of a fire hose as 400 or 450 florins, were sent by the van der Heydens to city magistrates such as those of Cologne in the 1680s (HAStKö, Verfassung u. Verwaltung, N 864). In 1729, there were 7 fire hoses in Cologne, in 1800 19 or 20 (HAStKö, Verfassung u. Verwaltung, N 862, fol. 13r–14v; N 860, fol. 19). In Hamburg, one reads as early as 1720 of 24 fire hoses (STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 3, vol. 3, fol. 2–6), a figure which remained constant until 1834 (Ibid., Nr. 2, vol. 7, fol. 6–21; Nr. 3, vol. 20, nr. 5). In the first half of the 18th century, 6 ship fire hoses were added (Ibid.., Nr. 2, vol. 7, fol. 68v). 28 In 1685, after the great fire of the year before, descriptions of the Amsterdam fire hose regulations circulated in Hamburg (STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 2, vol. 1b, nr. 4); as late as 1719, the chief fire hose master (Obersprützenmeister), Thomas Simon Ammon, travelled to Amsterdam to learn from the fire protection system on-site: Ibid.., Nr. 2, vol. 2, fol. 7s.

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by lightning had their own importance, if more on a cultural level.29 Lightning conductors were an invention of Enlightenment science par excellence: they found a wide resonance in the public sphere of the European Enlightenment because they reaffirmed the idea of perfectibility and of the possibility of a progressive subjugation of nature.30 Only one year before the publication of Franklin’s results and five years before the great Lisbon earthquake and fire,31 an incident of apparently little importance in comparison with these world sensations took place in Hamburg: on March 10, 1750 a flash of lightning struck the tower of the city’s newest and biggest church, the St. Michaelis Kirche (built between 1649–1661; the tower was finished in 1669), which burned down completely. There were reactions in the city on two levels: a religious level and an administrative/scientific level. First, the city magistrate ordered a special day of repentance and prayer to be held on Thursday, March 19. Every citizen was obliged to attend a service in one of the remaining churches, where all the pastors of the city were asked to deliver a special sermon on one of three Bible texts. The early morning sermon was to be based on Nahum 1: 2ff. (“The LORD is a jealous God and avenges. The LORD avenges and is full of wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he maintains wrath against his enemies. The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. The LORD has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.”), the main sermon on Amos 4: 11ff. (“I 29

For an outline of many important aspects of the cultural dimension of the perception of fires and fire risk see Michael Frank, “Der rote Hahn. Wahrnehmung und Verarbeitung von Feuersbrünsten in der Frühen Neuzeit,” in Münch (ed.), “Erfahrung” als Kategorie der Frühneuzeitgeschichte, pp. 229–247. 30 See E. Philip Krider, “Benjamin Franklin and the First Lightning Conductors,” Proceedings of the International Commission on History of Meteorology 1 (2004), pp. 1–13. From the 1770s onwards the lightning conductor spread across Germany, but usually it was only installed on church or castle towers. See Oliver Hochadel, “‘Hier haben Wetterableiter unter den Augsburger Gelehrten eine kleine Revolution gemacht’: Die Debatte um die Einführung der Blitzableiter in Augsburg, 1783–1791,” Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereins für Schwaben 92 (1999/2000), pp. 139–164; Idem, Öffentliche Wissenschaft. Elektrizität in der deutschen Aufklärung (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), pp. 140–171; Fritz Dross, “Gottes elektrischer Wille? – Zum Düsseldorfer ‛BlitzableiterAufruhr’ 1782/83,” in Jörg Engelbrecht, Landes- und Reichsgeschichte. Festschrift für Hansgeorg Molitor zum 65. Geburtstag (Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 2004), pp. 281–302. 31 For the latest research on the Lisbon earthquake see the contributions in European Review 14/2 (2006), pp. 167–231 and 14/3 (2006), pp. 313–367.

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have overthrown some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick plucked out of the fire; yet you have not returned to me,” says Yahweh. “Therefore thus will I do to you, Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel.”) and the afternoon sermon on Jeremiah’s Lamentations 3:39–42 (“Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us

Figure 3: The Destruction of St. Michael’s in Hamburg by Lightning, 175032

search and try our ways, and turn again to Yahweh. Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens. We have transgressed and have rebelled; you have not pardoned.”).33 Perhaps the main if unstated aim of gathering together the whole citizenry was to collect money for the 32

33

Source: Samlung der Obrigkeitlichen Verordnungen, Predigten, Gedichte und Kupfer welche bey Gelegenheit der durch einen Wetterstrahl eingeäscherten herrlichen HauptKirche St. Michaelis in Hamburg zum Vorschein gekommen sind [...] ([Hamburg], 1750) (=STHH, Bibliothek, A 640–77). Verordnung, wegen des, bey Gelegenheit der, am 10ten Märtz, des 1750sten Jahres, durch einen Wetter-Strahl, geschehenen Entzündung des Thurmes zu St. Michaelis [...] auf den 19ten dieses Monats, besonders angesetzten Buß-Fast- und Bet-Tages (Hamburg: C. König, 1750).

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rebuilding of the church, which was to begin with these services.34 Nonetheless, from this collective penitential action, 13 sermons have been preserved, which were delivered in 9 Hamburg churches, then collected and subsequently printed together with some poems by the local printers to commemorate the accident. In the main sermon the Amos passage selected led automatically to repeated comparison between Hamburg and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.35 The pastors supposed that these ancient cities, too, had also been destroyed by “fire from heaven” (lightning). God himself is associated with “fire” and the “zeal of fire” in the Bible, as the pastor of St. Michaelis, Friedrich Wagner, recalled: “There can be no doubt that the LORD himself has done this, the LORD, who creates and controls the lightning as he wants.” For many years, he noted, God had struck only a few private houses with fire and “usually he allowed the Hamburg citizens to benefit from their excellent fire protection institutions”; but this time he struck the main church, “and all of our great institutions were powerless to help.” Trembling, Wagner insists that this destructive lightning was even worse than the great fire of 1684, because at that time no church was damaged; symbolically the 1750 lightning was more terrible than any other fire until that point in the town’s history. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah had been punished for their fornications and sins, it must necessarily be concluded that the Lord wanted to punish Hamburg—or at least to warn it, since he did not kill any people, but only destroyed the main church. He even showed his mercy and grace when he himself extinguished the fire later through rain. What was required was penitence, inner conversion and contrition.36 Another preacher noted that the Lord used such judgments of fire as a reminder for his people. If not caused by lightning, “conflagrations usually arise from human negligence and carelessness. And in times of war, towns 34

From handwritten notes by a pastor added at the end of the Samlung… (STHH, Bibliothek, A 640–77), we learn that the donations rose quickly between 1750 and 1752 to reach the significant sum of 293,733 Banco-Mark. 35 A parallel which is especially poignant for today’s readers if we remember that “Operation Gomorrah” was the code-name of a huge Allied bombing attack on Hamburg at the end of July 1943. This led to a fire storm which destroyed the entire city and killed between 35,000 and 45,000 people. 36 Friedrich Wagner, Der gerechte Feuer-Eifer GOttes über Hamburg [...] (Hamburg: Philipp Ludwig Stromer, 1750), pp. 9–11, 13, 16, 20, 28 (“Ach Hamburg! Hamburg! was ist denn nun die Ursach, warum der Feuer-Eifer des HErrn über dich dergestalt entbrannt, daß er dich so empfindlich mit Feuer vom Himmel heimgesuchet hat? Deine Sünden, deine Laster und deine Gräuel sind es [...]”).

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and villages with their most beautiful buildings are set on fire by men; today, this also happens through canon fire. But who dares to say that all of this happens without the Lord? He has his hand in these acts, to punish mankind.”37 In this chorus of admonishment by the Hamburg pastors it is notable that we hear nothing about the devil or about witches as the origins of lightning, as was often the case in sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury sermons on thunderstorms and lightning; with their specific deistic and physico-theological interpretation, the Hamburg pastors were in agreement that God was the only source of natural phenomena and punishment. Nor do we hear a Voltairian voice: no one raised the question of theodicy, which had been intensively discussed since Bayle and Leibniz. The theological–moral discourse remained unbroken. However, Hamburg did not therefore become the most theocratic city in Germany after this preaching in the way that, as David Underdown has argued, Dorchester became England’s most Puritan city after a great fire in 1613.38 In that same year, 1750, the pastor of the Holy Trinity church, Hoeck, expressed the belief that no human being could really understand why and when lightning appears in heaven. He notes that after the invention of gunpowder, people had thought one could explain thunder and lightning as similar phenomena (sulphur gases in the air). “Now,” he said, “people have made new discoveries about lightning and thunder through electrical experiments and have reinterpreted thunder storms in a totally differently way. But perhaps neither one nor the other theory can explain the phenomenon completely. […] Quantum est, quod nescimus, John III, 8.”39 And so as natural phenomena, thunderstorms and lightning should not only lead to deep contrition and penitence, but also stimulate intellectual humility: they still belonged to the school of the devout conscience.40 Lightning in Hamburg was, however, not only the subject of sermons, but also the concern of the fire police who were increasingly guided by Enlightenment science. When, on August 6, 1767, another lightning bolt struck the tower of the church of St. Nicholas, the town’s syndic, Faber, 37

Henrich Hoeck, Die heilsame Absicht Gottes in den Feuergerichten [...] (Hamburg: C. S. Geißler, 1750), p. 7. 38 David Underdown, Fire from Heaven: Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). 39 Hoeck, Die heilsame Absicht, p. 4. 40 For the development of a theological response to the natural phenomena of thunder storms and its impact upon the formation of the modern conscience see Heinz D. Kittsteiner, Die Entstehung des modernen Gewissens, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt/M: Insel, 1992), pp. 31–100.

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wrote to Lüneburg and Halle to seek advice about more effective fireextinguishing liquids: he had heard that brine from salt mines would put fire out much faster than normal water, and he was thinking of importing some barrels of it to Hamburg. Indeed, answered Magistrate Kraut of the salt comptoir at Lüneburg, brine was more effective than normal water; but fire fighters nevertheless did not use it, because the liquid was very aggressive and corroded the leather and even the metal of the fire hoses.41 In contrast, the salt lord (Salzgraf) of Halle, the Prussian privy councilor Johann Christoph von Dreihaupt, sent a long letter with the following counsel: Experiments had shown that 1 bucket of brine was more effective in fire extinguishing than 3 or 4 buckets of normal water; sea water was not as good as the brine of the Halle salt mine because the salt content of the latter was five times as great and in consequence the brine extinguished not only through its liquid form but also through its heaviness— after the water on the burning material had vaporized, the salt still remained and suffocated any renewal of the fire; the brine would not damage the fire hoses if the hoses were washed out with normal water after the fire-fighting. He also advertised for some of his own innovations in fire hose construction, published in 1753, and commented caustically on an old superstition that the fire of lightning could only be extinguished with milk. This was not true, he insisted: “It is correct that the fire of lightning is very a special and subtle fire, but once material has been set alight by it, its fire is like any other.”42 Controversy about whether brine or other chemical mixtures (especially those based on alum) were more effective was a perpetually recurring theme in eighteenth-century discussions of fire policy improvements. In the case of fire through lightning, the end of the debate came when Johann Andreas Reimarus, assisted by the enlightened society of Hamburg, the Patriotische Gesellschaft, succeeded in introducing the new theories of electricity and the tower of St. Nicolas was the first in Germany to be crowned with a lightning conductor.43 While the theological–moral discourse did not simply cease in the Age of Enlightenment and people continued to interpret fires—and specially lightning—as punishments from heaven, the pragmatic and technically 41

Kraut to Faber, Sept. 25, 1767, STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 2, vol. 14. Ibid. Johann Christoph von Dreyhaupt to D. Nosfelt, Halle, Nov. 17, 1767, letter passed on to Magistrate Faber. 43 Johann Albert Heinrich Reimarus, Die Ursache des Einschlagens vom Blitze (Langensalza: s.n., 1769); Gustaw Kowalewski, Geschichte der Hamburgischen Gesellschaft zur Beförderung der Künste und Nützlichen Gewerbe (Patriotische Gesellschaft):gestiftet im Jahre 1765 (Hamburg: Boysen & Maasch, 1897), I, p. 30. 42

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interested civil servants, supported by the general mood and belief in the possibility of progress and the perfectibility of humans and governments, continually promoted the discussion of, and search for, new ways of fire protection and fire fighting. And even earlier, a new mode of recompensing fire damages had started to spread in Northwestern and Central Europe: fire insurance. III. Fire insurance and the beginnings of the economization of the state Despite the painful catastrophe of 1842, Hamburg was perhaps the city with the best organized fire protection and the best fire damage recovery system in early modern Germany. Magistrates of other city and territorial governments regularly sent their servants to Hamburg to learn from its institutions and experts.44 The most famous fire institution of early modern Hamburg was the town’s fire insurance fund (General Feur=Cassa), inaugurated in 1676. From the end of the sixteenth century onwards, it became the practice for groups of house owners to form associations, socalled “fire contracts,” each involving around 100 buildings, in one quarter of the city as mutual insurance associations. If a member of such a contract was struck by a fire, the damage was divided among all members in proportion to the value of the property they had registered in the association.45 In 1676, by resolution of the city council (September 21, probably in reaction to a considerable increase in the number of fires in the growing city between 1654 and 1676,46 the city abolished all private fire contracts and founded a public “fire chest” which was supervised by a deputation of the city council and functioned as insurance. The damages 44

For example, in 1733, the chief master of the fire hoses (Obersprützenmeister) Ammon was sent to Celle and Hannover to instruct them in the construction and handling of fire hoses (STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 2, vol. 10); see also the letter exchanges regarding similar training visits with Hamburg and Bamberg in the years 1736–1738 (Ibid.., Nr. 15, vol. 8, fasc. 2). 45 See the fire contracts of 1591, 1608, 1609, 1664, 1665 in STHH Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 9a, vol. 1. Cf. Wilhelm Ebel, Die Hamburger Feuerkontrakte und die Anfänge des deutschen Feuerversicherungsrechts (Weimar: Böhlau, 1936). This is not the place to discuss the old nationalist–associationalist (genossenschaftsrechtliche) interpretation of these contracts as examples of original “Germanic law.” 46 According to Bieber’s list, between 1654 and 1676 both the frequency of fires and the number of buildings damaged increased considerably: while he notes 21 fires with about 92 buildings destroyed in the 78 years between 1576 and 1653, he notes 20 fires with 267 buildings burned from 1654 to 1676 (see note 15).

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were no longer divided; instead, every member paid a contribution each year of ¼ ‰ of the insured building’s value; in the case of fire damage, the owner received 75% of the value—the remaining 25% being uncovered at his own risk to stimulate the vigilance of the burghers and to discourage arson.47 Until that date, the mechanism of insurance, unknown in antiquity (if we exclude ship credit, fenus nauticum) and first introduced in fourteenth-century Italy, had never been applied to objects other than ships, commercial goods and merchants’ lives and freedom.48 The insurance business in these areas spread from Italy to the port cities of France, Spain, the Netherlands and England and finally to Germany’s biggest port, Hamburg.49 The question of why the insurance mechanism was only now transferred from ships and ship-borne commerce to real estate still remains unanswered.50 The system of fire insurance devised in Hamburg was innovative and at the same time restricted: it was a state solution

47

STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 1, vol. 4, fol. 1–4: printed constitutions of the General Feur=Cassa, esp. Art. II and Art. III. 48 In the birthplace of insurance, Italy, no form of insurance beside maritime insurance was known until the 19th century. In Germany around 1600, Georg Obrecht formulated an interesting project similar to a territorial fire insurance, but it was still conceived rather as a mutual association to distribute compensation for damage after a fire (like the fire contracts in Hamburg, n. 45), as against a system where contributors paid a regular sum independently of whether damages occurred. Georg Obrecht, “Ordinatio Von einer nothwendigen / vnd hochnutzlichen Fewr-Ordnung,” in Idem, Constitutio Von nothwendiger vnd nützlicher Anstellung eines Aerarij Sancti [...] (s.l.: s.n., 1617), pp. 158s. 49 For the development and dissemination of the insurance business see Federigo Melis, Origini e sviluppi delle assicurazioni in Italia (secoli XIV–XVI), vol. 1: Le fonti (Roma: Istituto nazionale delle assicurazioni, 1975); Karin Nehlsen–Van Stryk, Die venezianische Seeversicherung im 15. Jahrhundert (Ebelsbach: Verlag Rolf Germer, 1986); Antonio La Torre, L’assicurazione nella storie delle idee. La risposta giuridica al bisogno di sicurezza economica: ieri e oggi, 2nd ed. (Milano: Giuffre, 2000); L. A. Boiteux, La fortune de mer. Le besoin de sécurité et les débuts de l’assurance maritime (Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1968); Hugh A. Cockerell–Edwin Grell, The British insurance business 1547–1970: An Introduction and Guide to Historical Records in the United Kingdom (London: Heinemann, 1976); G. Arnold Kießelbach, Die wirtschafts- und rechtsgeschichtliche Entwicklung der Seeversicherung in Hamburg (Hamburg: L.Gräfe&Sillem, 1901). 50 Until Gottfried Daniel Hoffmann, Dissertatio politico iuridica de assecuratione aedium, resp. Ferdinandus Christophorus Harpprecht Tubingensis (Tübingen: Erhardt, 1761) there was no judicial literature which dealt with property insurance. See the survey of the maritime insurance contract theory by Pene Vidari–Gian Savino, “Sulla classificazione del contratto d’assicurazione nell’età del diritto comune,” Rivista di storia del diritto italiano 71 (1998), pp. 113–137.

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which was soon imitated and territorialized in other German countries.51 Fire insurance became a cameralistic project that spread as the enlightened civil servants of the territorial governments introduced it into every little territory of the Holy Roman Empire according to a top-down logic. In contrast, in London early insurance schemes developed from 1681 onwards as joint stock companies.52 The British insurance business expanded quickly and spread from London to other English cities and towns, and from the 1780s onwards also to the continent, competing with the immobile and less adaptable state institutions in Germany which were fixed to their respective territory.53 But in the beginning, the Hamburg city insurance was an impressive institution.54 It started with 4,226 buildings valued in all at 24,981,400 Mark lübisch (ML).55 The yearly contributions fluctuated between 6,300 and 6,400 ML. The number of insured buildings increased quite slowly until 1753, because the insurance applied exclusively to the city centre and the sum for which each building was insured was limited to a maxi51

The best overview remains Peter Borscheid, “Feuerversicherung und Kameralismus,” Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 30 (1985), pp. 96–117; Wilhelm Schäfer, Urkundliche Beiträge und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Feuerversicherung in Deutschland, 2 vols. (Hannover: Brandes, 1911). 52 The best study of this phenomenon is Robert Pearson, Insuring the Industrial Revolution: Fire Insurance in Great Britain, 1700–1850 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). 53 Phoenix Assurance established an agency in July 1786 in Hamburg. The British consul William Hanbury served as agent. See Clive Trebilcock, Phoenix Assurance and the development of British Insurance, 1782–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985), pp. 187–196. The Senate in Hamburg quickly realised the danger of competition to its own state institution. They discussed expanding the cover to 100% instead of the traditional 75% because Phoenix Assurance insured the whole value of the property. See the conclusion and debate of the Senate, December 15, 1786, STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 3, vol. 7, fol. 7r; see fol. 9–13 for advertising posters and English model policies which were distributed in Hamburg. Perhaps the first lawsuit between a German client and the English assurance took place after 1793 when the paper mill of Johann August Level in a little Danish village near Hamburg burned down and the assurance company refused to pay because they suspected Level of arson. The suit went through all the instances right up to the Reichskammergericht. See STHH, Reichskammergericht, L 35. 54 See Büchner, Franz, 275 Jahre Hamburger Feuerkasse: 1676–1951 (Hamburg: Carstens und Hommovc, 1951); Idem, Dreihundert Jahre Hamburger Feuerkasse (Karlsruhe: Verl. Versicherungswirtschaft, 1976); Harald Scholz, Es begann 1676 – Hamburg, Geschichte, Katastrophen, Feuersbrünste, Hamburger Feuerkasse (Hamburg, L&H Verlag, 2001). Peter Borscheid–Anette Drees, Versicherungsstatistik Deutschlands 1750–1985 (St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturia, 1988), pp. 195–201 gives retrospective statistics for the values insured and the damages paid by the Feuerkasse. 55 STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 1, vol. 4, fol. 51r, 52r, 53r.

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mum of 15,000 ML.56 Only eight years after its foundation, it was put to the test by a large fire on June 23, 1684: 212 buildings (Erben) or nearly 5% of the insured part of the town,57 were destroyed. The damage—75% of the buildings’ value—was estimated at 1,308,150 ML.58 In the end, 1,252,422 ML were paid to the proprietors between 1684 and 1689.59 This was a huge sum—a fire of that magnitude would not happen again in Hamburg until 1842—for which as it turned out the Feuer Cassa could not pay without charging the members an additional levy after the event (there were only 229,150 ML in the fund):60 instead of ¼ ‰ they had to pay 200 times more, 5% of the value of their insured property.61 After the fire of 1684, it was only in 1691, 1704 and 1768 that large fires resulted in such extraordinary costs. Then, after 1799/1800, the yearly average compensation figures rose significantly:

56

The total insured value in 1736 was 29,696,000 ML (STHH, 333–1/1 Hamburger Feuerkasse, I 1 Bd. 1). In 1752 there were 4,541 buildings insured worth 31,066,000 and in 1787, 4,656 buildings worth about 40,000,000 (STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Nr. 3, vol. 7, fol. 16r–v: the big increase in the total value of the insured property is the result of a change in 1753 when the new fire insurance rules allowed insurance cover beyond 15,000 MC: Neue General-Feuer=Cassa-Ordnung. Auf Befehl E. Hochedlen Raths der Stadt Hamburg publicirt den 28. Sept. 1753 (Hamburg: C. König, 1753) – STHH, Senat, Cl. VII Lit. Fe, Nr. 1, vol. 4, fol. 13–19). Particularly during the dynamic growth of the city from the 1790’s onwards, there was a strong rise in the number of polices— from 4,656 (1787) to 5,532 (1828)—and the total insurance cover rose from 40,000,000 (1787) to 159,560,000 (1828) and beyond. See Borscheid – Drees, Versicherungsstatistik, p. 196s.). 57 In 1787, Senator Ankelmann estimated that the 4,656 Erben insured at that time represented 60% of the whole town, which would imply that the insured part of the town consisted of 7,760 buildings (STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 3, vol. 9, nr. 9). 58 STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 1, vol. 4, fol. 51r. 59 STHH, Best. 333-1/1 Hamburger Feuerkasse, II 4 Bd. 1, f. 1v-57r. 60 Art. VII of the Feuer-Cassa-Ordnung (see note 47) provided for such a case. 61 STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 1, vol. 4, fol. 51r.

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600000 500000 400000 300000

400000

according to senator Ankelmann 1787

300000 200000 100000 0

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17661776-

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1691170117111721173117411751-

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1684 1689 1694 1699 1704 1709 1714 1719 1724 1729 1734 1739 1744 1749 1754 1759 1764 1769 1774 1779 1784 1789 1794 1799 1804 1809 1814 1819 1824 1829 1834 1839 1844 1849

0

Figure 4: Damages Paid by the Hamburg Fire Insurance in Mark Banco (according to Borscheid–Drees62)

To a large extent, this corresponds with the increase in fire missions (see above, fig. 2). This increase in damage through fire (as previously noted) reflects the start of the early industrialization process in the port city. Other reasons lie in the development of the insurance itself: after 1753, the proprietors were allowed to insure their buildings beyond the old value limit of 15,000 MC stipulated in 1676; in 1794, responding to the competition of the English Phoenix Assurance, the magistrate allowed the insurance of the whole value (not just of 75%) of the property, while also augmenting the contribution, and in consequence increased the potential claims for damages as well.63 Hamburg did not remain for long the only city and territory interested in a governmental fire insurance scheme. This can be seen from the writings of Enlightenment thinkers such as Leibniz and Johann Jakob Moser, 62

The data in Borscheid – Drees, Versicherungsstatistik, pp. 195–198 are to be compared with the statistics which the magistrates calculated for their own purposes, particularly the calculation of Senator Ankelmann in 1787 (STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 3, vol. 9, nr. 9). Ankelmann noted that between 1766 and 1786 the Feuer-Cassa had paid a yearly average of 15,981 MC, in contrast to an average of 13,607 MC between 1691 and 1750; the increase of damages was very noticeable to contemporaries, even before 1800. 63 STHH, Senat, Cl. VII, Lit. Fe, Nr. 3, vol. 7 and vol. 9.

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who reflected on the character of insurances and on the possibility of territorializing and generalizing what had been started in one city.64 What was the effect on cities and territories of the foundation of these fire insurance schemes? It is possible to speak of an “economization” of the city and the state. While in England the modes of insurance remained a private business, on the continent it was city magistrates and governments themselves who were the first to conceive of this aspect of government, the Feuer-Policey, as a realm which could be best organized in business-like forms: the property and the property owners were linked together in an institution based on the principle of the accumulation of self-interest. Fire damage was no longer primarily a matter of fate but a problem divided among the “Interessenten” and subject to calculation. Michel Foucault has pointed to the important shift in governing styles from state and territorial orientation to population orientation.65 As sociologists adapt these theories and insights today to critical studies of the neoliberal modes of power and even of the “biopolitics” inscribed in the modern state health care and accident insurance business,66 historians too 64

65 66

Most famous are the advisory texts that Leibniz wrote to Duke Johann Friedrich of Braunschweig-Lüneburg and to the emperor Leopold I between 1678 and 1688. The most important of these is the essay “Öffentliche Assekuranzen” (July 1680), in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, ser. IV: Politische Schriften, vol. 3: 1677–1689, ed. Lotte Knabe and Margot Faak (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1986), pp. 421–432, with an explicit transferral of the concept of insurance from the realm of ship commerce to territorial politics, alluding to the “Republick gleichsam [als] ein schiff” (p. 424) and with direct reference to the insurance institutions in the Netherlands and Hamburg (p. 428). One step further is, for example, [Johann Jacob Moser], Nachricht von einer freywilligen Feuer=Cassa, Welche zum Besten der Einwohnere [sic] des Herzogthums Würtemberg angeordnet und von Hoch=Fürstlicher Landes=Herrschafft gnädigst bestättiget worden ist. (s.l.: s.n., 1754), with reference to the prior foundations of territorial insurance banks in Prussia, Saxony, Kurbraunschweig and Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and with the important new contribution that insurances lead to a growth of the territory’s total value and the stimulation of money circulation, since every house that is insured can be mortgaged (p. 3). See Paul Sauer, 200 Jahre Württembergische Gebäudebrandversicherungsanstalt 1773–1973 (Stuttgart: Württ. Gebäudebrandvers., 1973). Michel Foucault, Geschichte der Gouvernementalität, vol. 1: Sicherheit, Territorium, Bevölkerung, ed. by Michel Senellart (Frankfurt/M: suhrkamp, 2004). See François Evald, “Insurance and Risk,” in Graham Burchell–Colin Gordon–Peter Miller (eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), pp. 197–210; Henning Schmidt-Semisch, “Selber schuld. Skizzen versicherungsmathematischer Gerechtigkeit,” in Ulrich Bröckling– Susanne Krasmann– Thomas Lemke (eds.), Gouvernementalität der Gegenwart. Studien zur Ökonomisierung des Sozialen (Frankfurt/M: 2000), pp. 168–193.

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could use these ideas as an aid to recognize the important shift in the mode of government that takes place when one starts to conceive of a city or a territorial state as a flexible, mobile and malleable ensemble of values and property owners guided by self-interest rather than as a stable, undifferentiated community under the reign of God and the common good. IV. Conclusion Modern societies are mainly literate. Modern cities do not burn down completely; fires can be localized. While István György Tóth studied the levels of “modernity” of European regions by analyzing their developments in literacy, this little essay has sought to outline, in a fairly fragmentary way, how the study of historical city fires, fire protection, fire fighting and fire insurance, with its statistical, cultural and comparative aspects—a realm of research which has hitherto been dealt with only unsystematically, at least in German urban history—can provide a focal point for the general discussion of the differences between modern and nonmodern constellations. The relationship between populations and fire in non-modern societies has often been neglected or left to amateurs and local historians. Cathleen Frierson, Robin Pearson and others have stimulated research recently. But there is still much work to be done.

Orthodox Demonology and the Perception of Witchcraft in Early Modern Ukraine KATERYNA DYSA

As it is impossible to grasp the logic of witchcraft trials without a proper understanding of demonological discourses of the time, the study of demonology has long been established as a part of witchcraft research in Western Europe. From the late Middle Ages and through the early modern period Western theologians, lawyers and even politicians were involved in debates about the nature of the demonic. Drawing on both learned and popular tradition this demonological discourse gave birth to such concepts as the diabolical pact and the witches’ sabbath, which led to the idea of the diabolical witch, a member of a secret conspiracy which denied God’s supremacy and accepted the Devil as its master—notions which spread not only among the educated elite but the wider public as well. These concepts shaped the basic framework for the interrogations of witches who from now on were asked not only about alleged harm (maleficium) they had done through witchcraft but also about the names of other members of the secret sect of Devil-worshippers and could as well be asked about their specific relations with the Devil and their participation in night flights and sabbaths.1 There was a close connection between demonology and legal practices, so that not only did lawyers refer to demonological treatises but demonologists also often drew examples from legal practices in their works. Paradoxically, Ukrainian scholars associate Ukrainian demonology not with a learned tradition but rather with popular beliefs. Beginning in the nineteenth century, Ukrainian ethnographers collected data on popular beliefs about witches, imps, mermaids and other fantastic creatures. These folklore collectors contributed to what is considered to be Ukrainian demonology among a wider audience: popular stories about devils, mer1

English trials were the exception in that the idea of the witches’ sabbath and the diabolical compact was not generally accepted.

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maids, werewolves, and witches.2 At the same time demonology proper, learned demonology, was left aside and remained almost untouched. In this analysis I will refer both to visual sources and to written sources such as treatises, books of sermons, books of miracles and town chronicles. These include the writings of Ukrainian Orthodox preachers and theologians of the early modern period, in particular the seventeenth century, a period when Ukrainian Orthodox sermon-writing reached its fullest flower. Only by taking into account these writings— most of which were reprinted several times during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and were widely disseminated—are we able to gain a proper understanding of the influence, popularity and relevance of demonology in the contemporary context

Iconography of the Devil, Demons and Witches It seems that in many cultures, the notion of evil, to be more fully understandable and more broadly approachable, cannot exist merely as an abstract concept, but has had to be personalized and portrayed. In the Christian world evil was embodied in the image of the Devil and his many servants. Though this image was never standardized in artistic tradition, there were certain features assigned to the Devil and his servants that were easily recognized. In the early Middle Ages, the image of the Devil absorbed features of certain pagan gods (the satyrs and Pan): the cloven feet, the horns, the claws and the goatee. However, other features, such as wings, came from the Christian tradition and emphasized the primordial angelic nature of demons. In Ukrainian Orthodox tradition, too, the iconography of the Devil and his servants was among the main sources of transmission of the Christian perception of evil to the masses of the Orthodox population. In this respect, the Ukrainian lands were not an exception to the wider European context. But there was a major difference. Many scholars have drawn attention to the so-called “demonic invasion” of Western Europe that began in the fifteenth century and continued well into the sixteenth. The terror of the Devil was transmitted through many sources: “Little new was invented, but theologians, preachers, printers, miniaturists and sculptors 2

A classic example of this position is found in a collection of studies written by nineteenth-century ethnographers, Ukrajinci: narodni viruvannya, povir'ya, demonolohiya [Ukrainians: Popular beliefs, superstitions, demonology] (Kiev: Lybid’, 1991).

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drew on an eclectic farrago of ancient and mediaeval fantasies which they intensified through sculpture in churches, mass-produced books, emotional preaching, and the various manifestations of an intimate and macabre religious art.”3 By contrast one cannot find any signs of extreme “demonization” in Orthodox iconography. The Devil and his servants almost never constituted a separate subject either of icons or of woodcuts. As a rule they were shown in hagiographic depictions as a fearsome but at the same time miserable addition. The Devil appears as a character in only a very few iconographic subjects, for example the Fight of the Archangel Michael with the Devil and the Harrowing of Hell. On most of the former icons, the Devil is portrayed as a man with wings whose appearance does not differ much from that of the Archangel.4 In the rare cases when the Devil appears on an icon picturing Christ descending into Hell, he is portrayed as a horrible dark beast with horns whose contours are only roughly outlined in the darkness of the threshold beneath Christ’s feet (which, as a rule, is dark and empty).5 One notable image of the Devil appears on the woodcut enriching the cover of the book Spiritual Sword by the celebrated preacher and bishop of Chernihiv, Lazar Baranovich, published in Kiev in 1660. Here the Devil, who is depicted as the leader of a ship of heretics and enemies of Christianity, has a human body and dress but the head of a beast, with big ears, a goatee and horns. The Devil’s servants—smaller demons or bisy—are, unlike their master, represented prolifically on many Ukrainian icons. They can be found in depictions of episodes from the lives of such saints as St Nicholas, St Mykyta, SS Cosmas and Damian, and St Anthony and on paintings of the Last Judgment and the ladder of the saints. As a rule, the demons are shown acting in pairs or larger groups. In appearance, however, they are not very diverse. They are portrayed as black or sometimes green anthro3

D. Nicholls, “The Devil in Renaissance France,” in Darren Oldridge (ed.), The Witchcraft Reader (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 234. 4 For example, The Deeds of Archangel Michael (end of the 14th century), preserved in the Museum of Ukrainian Art, Lviv. Reproduced in V. Svientsits’ka–V. Otkovych (eds.), Ukrajins’ke narodne maliarstvo XVIII–XX st. [Ukrainian popular art of the 18th –20th centuries] (Kiev: Mystetstvo, 1991), plate no. 2. 5 See, for instance, the image of the Devil under Christ’s feet in The Harrowing of Hell, the second part of the icon Passions of Christ (16th or 17th century), preserved in the Museum of Ukrainian Art, Lviv. Reproduced in Svientsits’ka–Otkovych (eds.), Ukrajins’ke narodne maliarstvo, plate no. 50.

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pomorphic creatures half adult size, typically with little wings and short tails. Often they do not have horns but rather long shaggy hair. They are always naked and their features are unclear. When depicted in large groups they resemble a mass of huge insects. One of the most popular subjects of these icons is the healing of the possessed, where demons are expelled from humans through the mouth.6 On icons with episodes from the life of St Nicolas, the demons are shown in the process of causing a storm at sea; several of them are sitting under the boat and shaking it. Distinct from other icons are those of St Mykyta the Demon-Fighter. On these there is only one demon of quite large size, with very distinct features: he has a goatee, cloven feet and a long comic nose. The saint is holding him fast with his hands and is about to flog him with a lash.7 On some engravings, for example, in an illustration to the popular anonymous work entitled A Wonderful Story About the Devil, published in Kiev in 1627, the demons are depicted as satyrs, with hairy legs, cloven feet and goatees.8 On most of these images the demons look comic rather than terrifying to the modern spectator. To be sure, one cannot dismiss the possibility that these quite schematic images might have been differently perceived by those living in the early modern period, and that what seems comic today may have been fearful in the seventeenth century. On the other hand, the comicality of demons might well be part of the artist’s plan, the demon placed by the side of the saint being intended to offer a miserable and comic contrast. This was a major difference from Western tradition, in which by the middle of the sixteenth century the Devil and demons had lost all of their comical features.9 Despite casual borrowings from Western art, the Ukrainian Orthodox tradition of demonic depiction remained unchanged for many centuries. While images of the Devil and demons were abundant and quite diverse in Reformation Europe—where they were presented as dragons, beasts of many forms and even humans—the demons in Ukrainian Orthodox iconography from the eleventh century on never became diverse in the man6

See further C. D. Worobec, Possessed: Women, Witches, and Demons in Imperial Russia (DeKalb, Ill: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001), p. 44. 7 An example of an icon depicting St. Damian can be found in the Museum of Ukrainian Art in Lviv. 8 Poviest udivitielna, o diavolie, iako pridie k Vielikomu Antoniiu, v obrazie chloviechestie, khotia kaiatisia [A wonderful story about the Devil, as he came disguised as a man to Anthony the Great, asking for penitence] (Kiev: 1627). 9 Compare D. Oldridge, The Devil in Early Modern England (Stroud: Sutton, 2000), p. 31.

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ner of their depiction. Nor did the Devil and the demons ever develop as a separate subject of paintings and woodcuts. They were portrayed in such way that they were recognizable but not significant, and the forms and appearance of the demons did not change through time. Their deeds were not brought to the foreground and were not especially terrible and fearful. Here art most likely reflected the attitude of the Orthodox Church itself: the existence of such infernal creatures was accepted, but attributed only marginal meaning. Hence minimum attention was paid to them in art. Given this fact, it is surprising that witches also became a subject of Orthodox iconography. Yet one can find witch figures on images, notably those depicting the Last Judgment. Commonly in the lower left corner the torture of the sinners in Hell is shown, where several mutilated figures (their number may vary) represent punishments for different sins. As a rule, one can find among them a drunkard, tavern frequenter, murderer, envious person, robber and witch. The latter is depicted as a woman stretched on the rack and enlaced by two snakes that bite her breasts.10 On occasion, for example in the painting by Master Dymytrij from the town of Dolyna, dated 1560, these motifs include a bucket attached to the neck of the witch.11 The witch figure on these paintings may be intended to underline that in the Orthodox tradition witchcraft was considered to be a sin no less serious than murder or envy. The Demonic in Ukrainian Orthodox Texts In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Devil and his assistants became significant narrative characters in the literature of various countries of Western Europe. Among the results of this process were the socalled “demonization of literature” and the tradition of the “preaching of fear.” Demons were ubiquitous in literature at all levels, from broadsheets and wonder books to sermons and treatises. In the German lands books about demons even formed a separate genre—the Teufelbücher12 The demonization of literature in German lands coincided with another noteworthy process, the transformation of the image of the Devil, who now became a character less comic and more powerful and dangerous. 10

See e.g. The Last Judgement (15th or 16th century), Museum of Ukrainian Art, Lviv. Reproduced in Svientsits’ka–Otkovych (eds.), Ukrajins’ke narodne maliarstvo, plate no. 10. 11 This painting is exhibited in the Museum of Ukrainian Art in Lviv. 12 E. H. C. Midelfort, “The Devil and the German People,” in Oldridge (ed.), The Witchcraft Reader, p. 242.

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Unfortunately the range of sources for the study of Ukrainian Orthodox demonology of the early modern period is not as rich as, for example, the German or French. Consequently, in order to analyze the image of the Devil and his servants one must turn to that section of the literature which has the most references to them: the texts of sermons, books of miracles and those short treatises written by popular Orthodox preachers of the seventeenth century such as Ivan Vyshens’kyj,13 Metropolitan Petro Mohyla,14 Ioanykij Haliatovs’kyj,15 Antonij Radyvilovskyj16 and Dmitrij Rostovskij.17 One source, the already mentioned A Wonderful Story About the Devil,18 is particularly important for the study of Orthodox demonology because, along with Ioanykij Haliatovs’kyj’s Pagan Gods, it can be considered an exclusively demonological work. 13

Ivan Vyshens’kyj, “Oblichenie diiavola miroderzhtsa” [Denouncement of the Devil, the owner of this world], in V. B. Antonovych, ed., Arkhiv Iugo-Zapadnoj Rossii [The Archive of South-Western Russia], Part 1, vol. 7 (Kiev: 1887), pp. 19–24. 14 “Skazaniia Petra Mogily o chudesnykh i zamechatel’nykh iavlieniiakh v tserkvi pravoslavnoj (iuzhno-russkoj, moldo-vlakhskoj i grecheskoj)” [The sermons of Petro Mohyla about the wonderful and remarkable events that happened in the Orthodox Church (South-Ruthenian, Moldovan–Valachian and Greek)], in Antonovych, ed., Arkhiv IugoZapadnoj Rossii, Part 1, vol. 7, pp. 49–132. 15 Ioanykij Haliatovs’kyj, “Bogi poganskii” [The pagan gods], in I.P. Chepiha, ed., Kliuch Rozuminnia [The key to understanding] (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1985). Ioanykij Haliatovs’kyj, “Hrikhy rozmaityij” [Different sins], in Ibid, pp. 388–410. Ioanykij Haliatovs’kyj (ca. 1620–ca. 1688) graduated from Kiev Mohyla Collegium and in 1659 was appointed its rector. In the late 1660s he became father-superior of the Ielets monastery in Chernihiv. 16 Antonij Radyvilovskyj, Vieniets Khristov z propoviedij nedelnykh aki z tsvietov rozhanykh na uktrashenie Pravoslavno-katolicheskoj S-toj Vostochnoj Tserkvi spletenyj. [The crown of Christ made of Sunday sermons as if of different flowers to enrich the Holy Eastern Orthodox-Catholic Church] (Kiev: 1688); Antonij Radyvilovskyj, “Lehendy, anekdoty, fatsetsiji, mify, kazky, bajky, dysputy, paraboly” [Legends, anecdotes, myths, fairytales, fables, disputes, parables], in V. I. Krekoten’, Opovidannia Antonia Radyvilovs’koho. Z istoriji ukrajins’koji novelistyky XVII st. [Sermons of Antonij Radyvilovs’kyj: To the history of Ukrainian story-writing of the 17th century] (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1983). 17 Runo oroshennoie, prechistia i preblagosloviennaia Dieva Mariia; ili Chudesa obraza Presviataia Bogoroditsy, byvshiia v Monastyrie Iljinskom Chernigovskom s biesisdami i nravoucheniiami bogovdokhnovennymi, sochinienia Dimitriia Mitropolita Rostovskago [The dewed fleece, the most chaste and blessed Virgin Mary, or The wonders of the icon of Our Lady that happened in the Chernigov Monastery of St Ilia, along with the conversations and moral admonitions inspired by God, written by Dmitrij, the Metropolitan of Rostov] (Chernigov: 1683). 18 See footnote 8.

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In Ukrainian lands, as in many other places in Europe, the seventeenth century was in many respects seen as an ominous time, partly due to the numerous long-lasting wars, uprisings and epidemics. Every unusual event was therefore noted: monstrous births, eclipses, comets, invasions of insects and natural disasters, all of these worrying signs being duly interpreted as adumbrating wars, epidemics and hard times in general. Antonij Radyvilovskyj,19 a celebrated preacher from Chernihiv, used to say that the current (seventeenth) century was overflowing with many evil things, including the invasions of pagans (Tartars), fires, plagues and other horrible illnesses and epidemics. The explanation, namely God’s wrath, was clear to him, for “people had never before committed as many sins as nowadays.”20 Some theologians went further, pointing to the general corruption of the age. Ivan Vyshens’kyj21 wrote a dialogue in which the Devil answered the question why he was called the owner of the Earth. Among other things the Devil said that contemporary Christians were much worse than those who lived in the times of Christ. Contemporary Christians were not even better than pagans since they treasured bodily pleasures and an unchaste life more than pagans did. That is why it was easy for the Devil to attract them into his net by circumvention, dreams and the promise of the pleasures and beauties of this world. Those who loved the beauty, brightness and pleasures of his earthly kingdom include people of all origins, from the most powerful to miserable slaves. The Devil said that they were so much attached to their earthly life and so much in love with it that only death could separate them from this love. The power of the Devil, as he himself boasts, was in his ability to fulfill all wishes: whatever people asked of him, he, the owner of the Earth, could give to them. The Devil lists all the possible wishes he could fulfill: all secular and spiritual offices, all earthly treasures and all kinds of love. What people had to do in return was to fall down beneath his feet and accept him as their master.22 19

Antonij Radyvilovskij (died 1688), archdeacon of Chernihiv, later father-superior of one of Kiev’s convents (Nikolo-Pustynnyj) and finally the deputy of Kievo-Pecherskaia Lavra. 20 Antonij Radyvilovskyj, Vieniets Khristov, p. 56. 21 Ivan Vyshens’kyj (born ca. 1550, died between 1621–1633) was one of the representatives of religious polemics at the turn of the century. He stands apart from the rest of authors mentioned because he belonged to a very conservative and mystical branch of Orthodox polemicists. 22 Vyshens’kyj, “Oblichenie diiavola miroderzhtsa,” pp. 19–21.

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The contemporary situation thus seems to have been perceived by seventeenth-century churchmen as gruesome and dark. In order to determine if this was reflected in an increasing role attributed to the Devil and a general process of demonization, one must study how the Devil was depicted in the writings of the period. Generally, Ukrainian Orthodox theologians of the seventeenth century based their stories about the Devil and demons on early Christian and Byzantine tradition, though some features were adopted from the Western tradition. The quintessence of the history of the Devil and the demons is expressed by Ioanykij Haliatovs’kyj, who explains that when the Devil and demons were expelled from heavens, they appeared on earth and decided to become the gods of the earth. In this way, they became pagan gods. They were indeed evil, but they were also wise since they were once angels and had learned many things while in heaven, but now they used this knowledge to harm.23 So the Devil strives to become a god on earth and to imitate God. For example, the Devil has his own trinity that includes such things as “the lust of the body, the lust of eyes and pride.”24 Ukrainian preachers taught that God and the Devil are the two masters whom people may choose to serve. However, since they are so different, one cannot serve these two masters simultaneously. How exactly are they different? Radyvilovskyj suggests that God is loving and thus acts in a loving way, while the Devil is evil and, when God allows, brings all evil things to people. People serve God by penitence and the Devil by immoral behavior. They serve God by being awake and alert for the Devil’s attack, whereas they serve the Devil by sleeping and being indifferent to God.25 So the Devil is not a master who is equal to God in might and power. For he can do only those things which God allows him to do, on God’s sufferance. However, the Devil is not as weak and helpless as he may seem because he has many helpers and servants. According to Radyvilovskyj, his most powerful helpers are death, sin and hell.26 His other obvious servants are minor demons, but he also has many servants among people. Like master, like servants—since the Devil is evil, his servants are evil as well.27 Radyvilovskyj asks the question: what draws people away from serving God and attracts them to the Devil? His answer is: sin. The Devil’s 23

Haliatovs’kyj, “Bogi poganskii,” p. 393. Radyvilovskyj, Vieniets Khristov, p. 93. 25 Radyvilovskyj, Vieniets Khristov, p. 120 reverso. 26 Ibid., p. 15. 27 Ibid., p. 121. 24

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true servants are sinners and can be recognized by their sinfulness.28 Those who commit sins are no longer God’s children, they automatically become the Devil’s children.29 The Devil turns a person into a sinner by first making the person blind, then making him commit sins, and through these he becomes his servant.30 Haliatovs’kyj views this process slightly differently. He concurs that sin is indeed the Devil’s strongest weapon. The demons’ assigned task is to attract more new servants to the side of their master, and to do this they attempt to persuade people to sin as much as they can. Nevertheless, they are not able to make people sin unless people want to do so themselves.31 People choose to sin, and by this they willfully serve the Devil. In all this the emphasis on sin was neither original nor new. What is significant is the nearly exclusive association of the Devil with sins. Most of the times when the Devil is mentioned in a sermon, he is mentioned in connection with sins and sinners. Besides encouraging sin the Devil and the demons had other functions as well. One of their main roles was to torment people. According to the preachers, the demons cause plagues, invasions, fears and all sorts of failures, illnesses and epidemics.32 Ailments were considered one of the main tools used by demons for tormenting people. The belief in the demonic origin of illnesses is ancient and was already current in the first centuries of Christianity.33 Ukrainian preachers too shared this belief. However, they stressed that even when people are tormented with various illnesses, their souls are left untouched by the Devil.34 Moreover, preachers emphasized over and over again that demons could torment people only on God’s sufferance.35 Stories about the Devil as a seducer of hermits began in the sixth century along with the appearance of the first monks.36 In such stories, the Devil usually comes to visit hermits in the desert, this being considered his territory. Every hermit should be prepared to meet the Devil and his 28

Ibid., p. 122 reverso. Ibid., p. 20. 30 Ibid., p. 48 reverso . 31 Haliatovs’kyj, “Bogi poganskii,” p. 392. 32 Haliatovs’kyj, “Skarbnitsa potriebnaia,” p. 369. 33 F. A. Riazanovskii, Demonologiia v drevne-russkoi literaturie [Demonology in the literature of ancient Rus] (Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1974), p. 61. 34 Radyvilovskyj, Vieniets Khristov, p. 35 reverso. 35 Ibid., p. 335, and also Haliatovs’kyj, “Bogi poganskii,” p. 389. 36 Riazanovskii, Demonologiia v drevne-russkoi literaturie, p. 11. 29

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seduction face-to-face. Hermits, however, were not the exclusive target of the Devil-as-seducer. He also readily came to monks and other pious people to lure them away from God. This image of the Devil was frequently used by Ukrainian preachers.37 The third role played by the Devil and demons is as the agents of punishment of sinners after their death. The most popular stories in sermons were those of the punishments of persons guilty of sacrilege. In one story, a man threw a stone at the statue of God’s Mother. As this man died, “his soul was given to demons for eternal tortures.”38 A similar fate befell another man who was accustomed to say that his life was so good that he did not need heaven.39 Metropolitan Petro Mohyla40 told another story about a certain Uniate bishop, Afanasij, who led a vicious and evil life and after death was “terribly and unmercifully” tortured by the demons who tore his head from his neck.41 Stories where the life of the Devil and demons is described in greater detail are very rare. But from such stories we learn that demons were believed to have a social and sometimes even a political life. Demons would gather for councils and entertain feelings of brotherhood and friendship toward each other, as is depicted in A Wonderful Story About the Devil.42 Radyvilovskyj’s book of sermons contains a story of how the demons gather from all over the world in front of the Devil, “their highest master,” to tell him of their evil deeds. One demon boasts that he managed to seduce a very pious man who is now ready to commit all manner of sins. “The highest master” immediately orders the other demons to flog this demon because in his opinion he just wasted his time seducing that pious man, since he will anyway find his way back to God.43 In this story the demons are shown as having an organized society with a hierarchy and special laws and rules, and those guilty of breaking these rules are punished. 37

For example, Radyvilovskyj, Vieniets Khristov, pp. 243, 437 reverso; Haliatovs’kyj, “Bogi poganskii,” p. 391; Poviest udivitielna, o diavolie; “Skazaniia Petra Mogily,” p. 87. 38 Antonij Radyvilovskyj, Vieniets Khristov, p. 437 reverso. 39 Radyvilovskyj, “Lehendy, anekdoty, fatsetsiji,” pp. 242–243. 40 Petro Mohyla (1596–1647) was educated in France and Netherlands. In 1632 he became the Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and Ruthenia. In the same year he founded the Mohyla Collegium in Kiev. 41 “Skazaniia Petra Mogily,” p. 116. 42 Poviest udivitielna, o diavolie, p. 2. 43 Radyvilovskyj, Vieniets Khristov, p. 274.

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In some stories, the Devil and the demons are represented in ways comparable to earthly rulers. For example, one magician, a subordinate of the Devil, wanted to seduce another man to become the Devil’s servant. He took this man to a palace with iron gates and when they entered it they saw a golden lantern, many candles and many servants. Then comes a description of the evil master: “The Devil disguised as a king was sitting on a high place. Evil demons were sitting by his right and left sides as if they were senators.”44 In a similar story, a man was taken by a magician to meet the Devil who promised to fulfill his desires. The man and magician were greeted by lesser demons who accompanied them “to their king.”45 As one can see from these stories, Ukrainian preachers were not prone to present the Devil or even lesser demons as comic figures. They approached demons quite seriously, recognizing them as rather dangerous creatures. This is reinforced by the ascription of royal attributes to the Devil, depicting him as a king with many demons at his service—a motif which I would suggest was borrowed from Western Christianity.

The Demonisation of the Other Before turning to the depiction of witches in Orthodox writings, I would like to briefly dwell on the process of the demonization of outsiders. The tendency to ascribe demonic features to an enemy is inherent in almost every Christian culture. In one sense this is not surprising, for the demons and demonic creatures are dangerous and their main aim is to lead humankind to perdition. The reasons for the demonization of others are less obvious, but nevertheless the connection between the other and the demonic is quite common. Demonization of the other is reflected in a representation of the Devil and demons as foreigners. It can happen that such images are adopted from other cultures. For example, the image of the Devil as a Moor came to the Ukrainian lands from Byzantine. In this case, however, it was not the most popular representation, as the Moor was, for obvious reasons, not a particularly relevant character either in Ukrainian or in many other East and Northern European cultures. In many countries of Eastern and Central Europe, the Devil was frequently depicted as a German. For example, in Poland, Belarus and Esto44 45

Haliatovs’kyj, “Bogi poganskii,” p. 409. Radyvilovskyj, “Lehendy, anekdoty, fatsetsiji,” pp. 226–227.

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nia one of the disguises taken by the Devil was that of a German nobleman.46 In the book of miracles of Zhyrovychy (beginning of the seventeenth century), there is a record about a man who met two demons in the forest where he had been wandering lost for several days. These demons came from the marshes, one dressed in green and one in grey, and the man immediately understood that these demons were Germans.47 On the other hand, the demons in Muscovy in the early modern period were sometimes described as liachs (Poles) or Lithuanians.48 In the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (part of which consisted of Ukrainian lands), the other who could acquire demonic characteristics could also be a neighbor. Neighbors were often perceived as friends and brothers but they remained different, distant and thus to some extent dangerous. The attitude towards neighbors in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth became even more cautious in the times of religious controversy at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Stories about dangerous “Ruthenian witchcraft” became more common around this time and there are cases where unusual events were explained by witchcraft. For example, the chronicle of the city of Ostrog in 1633 tells how one night three huge candles appeared on the dome of the castle church and were seen by many people for three hours. The Poles who saw them decided that this phenomenon was caused by nothing else but Ruthenian witchcraft.49 In the same year, another strange event happened. This time evil forces were attracted to the house of the Catholic Princess Anna Aloisa of Ostrog. Her house in Zviahel was thought bewitched and demons were held to be in pursuit of the princess. This was proven when dry frog legs were found hidden in the princess’s pillow.50 Religious opponents, too, were not only demonized but also accused of extensive trust in witchcraft. For example, 46

For example, U. Valk, The Black Gentleman: Manifestations of the Devil in Estonian Folk Religion (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 2001), pp. 28–33; B. Baranowski, Procesy czarownic w Polsce w XVII i XVIII wieku [Witchcraft trials in Poland in the 17th and 18th centuries] (Lódz: 1952), p. 156. 47 L’vivs’ka Biblioteka Natsional’noi Akademii Nauk Ukrainy Viddil Rukopysu.[Lviv Library of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences Manuscript Section ], Library of the Order of St. Vasylij in Lviv., MB–393, Zhyrovyts’ka knyha chud. 48 Riazanovskii, Demonologiia v drevne-russkoi literaturie, p. 51. 49 “S krojniki bel’s’kogo rechi potrebniji vybrani (Ostroz’kyj litopysets’)” [Some useful things selected from the chronicle of Belzky (The Chronicler of Ostrog)], in O. A. Bevzo, L’vivs’kyj litopys i Ostroz’kyj litopysets’ [The Chronicle of Lviv and the Chronicler of Ostrog] (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1971), p. 139. 50 Ibid.

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the Uniate Bishop Afanasij was accused of using the help of magicians on every occasion and mostly for evil ends.51 As suggested, people were prone to attribute to their neighbors certain demonic features irrespective of their status—be they peaceful neighbors, religious opponents or military enemies. Their status changed only the intensity of demonization: the neighbor remained the other, and the other was always dangerous to a certain extent. Attitudes Towards Witches Now that the role of the Devil and demons has been clarified we can turn to look at how preachers dealt with those most devoted—at least in the opinion of Western theologians—of Satan’s servants, namely witches. In Orthodox sermons and treatises witches were most frequently mentioned among the most grievous sinners (this, it may be recalled, was also the case with the representation of witches in Orthodox art). Preachers included witchcraft in their lists of grievous sins. These might comprise of drinking, adultery, murder, robbery, perjury and witchcraft,52 or in another version, adultery, murder, witchcraft and paganism.53 In one sermon it is stated that a woman deserved hell because she was “a drunkard, adulteress and a skilful witch.”54 Ioanykij Haliatovs’kyj also included witchcraft in his list of grievous sins and stated that witches along with fortune-tellers worshipped the Devil as their God.55 Dmitrij Rostovskij56 similarly named witches among those sinners who were the Devil’s subordinates.57 However, in most cases preachers did not set witchcraft off from other sins. In order to become a subordinate of the Devil there was no need to sign a special contract or perform any rituals, since all sinners were automatically considered to be his servants. However, whereas witches appear in art exclusively as examples of persons guilty of grievous sins, written texts provide us with richer mate51

“Skazaniia Petra Mogily,” p. 115. Ibid., p. 355. 53 Runo oroshennoie, p. 65. 54 Radyvilovskyj, “Lehendy, anekdoty, fatsetsiji,” pp. 261–262. 55 Haliatovs’kyj, “Hrikhy rozmaityij,” p. 387. 56 Dmitrij (Dimitrij) Rostovskij (1651–1709) graduated from the Mohyla Collegium in Kiev. In 1670s he became the preacher of the monastery of St Ilia in Chernihiv. In 1688 he was appointed preacher of Kievo-Pecherskaia Lavra. In 1702 he moved to Russia and became the Metropolitan of Rostov and Iaroslavl’. He was canonized in 1757. 57 Runo oroshennoie, p. 65. 52

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rials about them. Magicians and witches were in fact among the favorite characters of sermons. In these there are many statements outlining specific beliefs about witches and also revealing preachers’ attitudes towards witchcraft. In some sermons, preachers complained about the growth of popular interest in witches. Antonij Radyvilovskyj wrote that more and more people were seeking to learn how to harm other people, and when they were not able to do this directly they found other ways, that is, “they harmed their property, cattle and fields by using witchcraft.”58 Haliatovs’kyj complained that many people when they had health problems sought help from magical healers and witches. He warned those who asked Our Lady of Ielets monastery for assistance and still went to witches that they would not get from Mary what they asked.59 Preachers told many stories illustrating the harmful activities of magicians and witches, including how they created illusions to cheat people,60 how they could bewitch other people,61 or how love magic could be used for seduction.62 Meanwhile, demons used witches and magicians for their own purposes, because with their help it was easier to deceive people. This communion with demons explains why witches can predict the future.63 Otherwise, magicians are frequently depicted as mediators between people and the Devil: the magician seduces people promising them the realization of their dreams, then takes them to meet the Devil and make these people submit to the Devil.64 But the Devil helps witches and magicians in return. This he can do in many ways. He and his demons have contact with witches, and when witches need to know something they can ask the demons and they will answer. The witches can use fire, water, rings, dead people and mirrors for their ends. This way they uncover forbidden things. Not only do demons answer witches’ questions, they also assist them in their evil deeds. For example, they can create illusions by turning people into other creatures and bewitching different objects.65 58

Radyvilovskyj, Vieniets Khristov, p. 135. Haliatovs’kyj, “Skarbnitsa potriebnaia,” p. 362. 60 Radyvilovskyj, Vieniets Khristov, p. 410rev; Haliatovs’kyj, “Bogi poganskii,” p. 405. 61 Haliatovs’kyj, “Niebo novoie,” p. 295. 62 Ibid., p. 281; Radyvilovskyj, Vieniets Khristov, p. 28 rev. 63 Haliatovs’kyj, “Bogi poganskii,” p. 399. 64 Radyvilovskyj, “Lehendy, anekdoty, fatsetsiji,” pp. 226–227; Haliatovs’kyj, “Bogi poganskii,” p. 409. 65 Ibid., p. 405. 59

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Many of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla’s stories mention witchcraft. The aim of these stories is to show that extreme belief in witchcraft was nothing but superstition and could be as sinful as witchcraft itself. Excessive trust in witchcraft was attributed in particular to religious opponents who were deemed superstitious and at the same time as prone to refer to real miracles—meaning those that happened in Orthodox shrines—as witchcraft. Mohyla tells another story about the Uniate Bishop Afanasij, who used to consult magicians on many questions and practiced witchcraft.66 The bishop once came to an Orthodox church in order to occupy it but some force prevented him. He was thrown away from the gates of the church which God was protecting. However, the bishop interpreted this accident in his own way, saying that this was witchcraft. At the end of this story, Mohyla wrote, “In such ways distrustful people with hearts made of stone, assign God’s miracles, by which He uncovers their infidelity and cruelty, to witchcraft.”67 In some stories Muslims were accused of a similar lack of belief. For example, a Muslim who converted into Orthodoxy was tortured by other Muslims. Then when he was to be executed, an earthquake started. People said that this was due to witchcraft, whereas Mohyla insisted that they erroneously mistook God’s miracle for witchcraft.68 Another curious story told by Mohyla demonstrates how demons and witches could be used in religious polemics. This story is about a Polish nobleman whose wife, Anna, died. After her death, he started to hear a voice from behind the stove. This voice, which claimed to be his wife’s soul, told him that it was suffering in purgatory. The voice—in fact, the voice of a demon, as the preacher explains—asked the nobleman to call the Jesuits to the house to pray for Anna. The Jesuits came and prayed and the voice thanked them and asked them to pour holy water all over the house (as it may seem to a modern reader, a very strange request on the part of a demon). Then pilgrims started to visit this house. But the soul always asked that Ruthenians or Orthodox persons not be let in. Then one time an assistant to the prince of Ostrog, Martyn Hrabkovych, came to the house, and he immediately understood that this was a trick and announced that it was a demon deceiving everybody. The voice became silent, though the Jesuits said that this was because it did not want to talk to an Orthodox person who did not believe in purgatory. Martyn started praying and fi66

“Skazaniia Petra Mogily,” p. 115. Ibid. 68 Ibid., p. 130. 67

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nally the voice admitted that it was a demon. Martyn then asked the master of the house if someone in his household was practicing witchcraft; for he understood that this demon was a personal demon of some witch. It finally came to light that the house-cook was a witch. She confessed under torture that she was a witch and that she had brought this demon from Poland.69

The Pact with the Devil The diabolical pact was an essential component of the European mythology of witchcraft. This was a pact with the Devil that enabled people to become witches and do harm to others. Along with this, it made witchcraft a capital offence deserving the death sentence. A pact with the Devil was treason against God by which alleged witches changed allegiance from God to the Devil. Without this, their crime would not have been as grievous and they would not have been judged heretics or apostates. English witchcraft cases are the noteworthy exception. The witch was in the first instance guilty of doing harm to others. The witch did not need to establish personal contact with the Devil. Nevertheless, some motifs paralleling the continental witches’ relationships with the Devil can be found in English stories about witches’ familiars and personal imps who could assist them and who asked to be looked after in return. The Ukrainian situation was closer to that of England. According to Orthodox theologians, there was no need to sign a compact with the Devil to become his servant. As mentioned previously, all sinners were automatically held to be the Devil’s subordinates. Since witchcraft was considered a grievous sin, this in itself was enough for witches to be regarded as the Devil’s servants. Thus, from an official, religious point of view witches were no better and no worse than other sinners. It would not have changed their allegiance to the Devil if they established a personal relationship with him. Their only crime against God was their sinfulness, not some personal treason or heresy. However, the idea of a pact with the Devil was not unknown even in Ukrainian lands. Most probably it was adopted from the Western tradition by the agency of texts. The most popular story in many interpretations was that of a Faustian type of intellectual contract with the Devil signed in a person’s own blood. Some of these stories were popularized by preach69

Ibid., pp. 105–109.

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ers in their sermons. Nevertheless, these stories have happy endings and come closer to folk stories. Their aim was to ensure people of God’s mercifulness rather than threaten them with the Devil’s malice and tricks. One such story tells of a senator’s secretary who turned to a magician for assistance. The magician wrote a letter to his master the Devil asking him to give them an audience. On arrival the Devil addressed the young man with the words, “Do you believe in me?” “Yes, I do” was the answer. His second question was, “Do you renounce Christ?” And the answer was the same. The Devil went on, reflecting, “You turn to me whenever you need something. But when you get what you wanted, you run away back to Christ.” Because of this the Devil wanted to secure his interest and made the young man sign a contract with him: “Write down with your own hand that you renounce Christ and baptism and give yourself to me for eternal service.”70 But this story had a happy end, for the young man came repenting to St Vasilij who prayed for him. And when the Devil came to take the young man, saying that “it was he who came to me not me who came for him, and here is a paper confirming it,” the contract disappeared.71 A story told by Rostovskij has a more moralistic ending. The man signed a contract with the Devil according to which the latter promised to give him riches in return for his and his pious wife’s souls. At the end of the story, the man was punished and taken to Hell, but his wife was saved by God’s Mother. And so the Devil did not get all that he wanted according to the pact.72 The idea of a pact with the Devil is only marginally reflected in trial records, and very few cases centre on it (none of which are directly connected to witchcraft). One example occurred in September 1757, when a sixteen-year old novice from Kiev, Hrytsko Serdiukovskij, who was in a desperate situation, got drunk and decided to write a letter to Lucifer asking him for assistance. He cut his little finger with a razor and wrote a letter with his blood. In the letter he promised Lucifer his soul in return for 50 rubles. When he woke up sober the next morning he became frightened about what he has done, so he did not send the letter but kept it safe, not showing it to anyone. Finally, however, he decided to show it to his superior, Father Alimpij. His case was studied by a special committee which reached the verdict that, if he had caused harm or bewitched someone, he would have been burned; but since none of this happened, he was 70

Radyvilovskyj, “Lehendy, anekdoty, fatsetsiji,” p. 227. Ibid., p. 227. 72 Runo oroshennoie, pp. 27–28. 71

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to be punished for his superstitious deed according to monastery rules with public penitence.73 A similar story happened in 1749 in Hluhiv to another young man in straitened circumstances.74 Ivan Robota, twenty-two years old, worked as a secretary in the General Military Chancellery in Hluhiv. He was well educated and had graduated from the Kiev Academy specializing in rhetoric and Latin. But his salary was insufficient and his life was full of hardships. One day, Ivan decided to ask the Devil for assistance. He wrote a contract with the Devil according to which he gave up his body and soul “to the dark master of hellish plagues and to his demons,” in return asking them to provide him with “help,” namely a supplement to his low salary.75 Then he cut his little finger and signed the contract with his blood. He took this contract to a field and left it there. Some time later this paper was found, and since his signature was on it he was arrested. After Ivan was questioned in Hluhiv, he was sent to Kiev, to the Spiritual Consistory. There he complained that the confession he made in Hluhiv was not true but had been forced from him by beating. He claimed that despite the fact that his name was written on the contract it was not he who wrote it because it was not his handwriting. A special commission was gathered to identify if it was his handwriting or not. After they confirmed that it was indeed Ivan’s handwriting, he was sent back to Hluhiv. It was decided to send him to a distant monastery for one year to live there under the supervision of monks. After one year he was sent back to his parents.76 As one can see there are many common features in these cases. The main characters were young persons who were educated enough to be able to read and thus become acquainted with stories about the diabolical pact, and at the same time they preserved a certain level of ignorance and superstition which led them to try to put what they had read in those books into practice. These young men were in a state of despair—whether because of financial problems or life-threatening danger—when they decided to ask for demonic assistance. It is noteworthy that these cases involving a compact with the Devil ended relatively happily for the people concerned. 73

TDIA (Kiev), fond 59, op.1, no. 3088 (1757), pp. 1–8. This case was cited in A. F. Kistiakovskij, “K istorii verovaniia o prodazhe dushi chertu” [To the history of the belief in the selling of one’s soul to the Devil], Kievskaia starina 3/7 (1882), pp. 180–186. 75 TDIA (Kiev), fond 51, op.3, no. 9500 (1749), p. 6. 76 Ibid., pp. 12–17. 74

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To summarize, one can say that unlike the demonology of Western Christianity, Ukrainian Orthodox demonology was of rather marginal importance. The Devil and his servants in Ukrainian Orthodox art and early modern religious literature never achieved the status of a subject worth serious attention. Hence demonic creatures did not receive distinct features in art; their image was standardized and did not have many variations. As a rule, they were only an addendum to the depiction of some saint in comparison to whom the demons looked quite pitiful. In sermons and other religious literature, the Devil and his servants are mentioned rather frequently. However, there are few works in which demonic creatures became the self-contained subject of a whole book. Some preachers claimed that the presence of the Devil was especially noticeable in the contemporary century; in wars, epidemics and the dissolution of morals in general. Stories about the Devil, demons and witches were often used by Ukrainian preachers as a rhetorical tool, for example, in dealing with religious opponents who were accused of the use of demonic practices and excessive trust in magic. The main target of Ukrainian Orthodox preachers was sin and sinners. The Devil was associated with sin. In denouncing the Devil preachers were denouncing sin, calling all sinners the Devil’s servants. Though witches and sorcerers were included among the latter, their status did not differ essentially from that of other grave sinners. Witches became the Devil’s subordinates automatically by the mere fact of performing acts of witchcraft. That is why there was no need for the elaborate concept of a diabolical pact. Witches, like other sinners, worshipped their master by their sinful actions. That is why the concept of secret night meetings, or sabbaths, never appears. In a very few texts we find hints indicating that the relationships between the Devil and witches and sorcerers were more specific. For example, they possessed special powers given to them by demons, such as to create illusions and predict the future. In some stories, they played the role of the mediators between the Devil and novice sinners. Despite the general absence of elaborate demonological notions such as the witches’ sabbath or a diabolical pact which developed in the West, some sources indicate that these ideas were known, presumably from European texts, at least to the educated public of Ukrainian lands, who on occasion would even try to make practical use of them. Finally, in trial materials one often finds witchcraft branded as a practice “repugnant to God” or “forbidden by God.” However, it is doubtful that such phrases point at the judges’ deeper understanding of religious concepts. Most probably, the perception of witchcraft as a sinful practice

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was received knowledge. Moreover, it was a formula used in legal manuals, the use of which by Ukrainian town-court members indicates their familiarity with the law rather than with religious discourse. On the other hand, I have found no reference in the works of Ukrainian Orthodox preachers to legal actions taken against witches (except for the one case described by Mohyla). This suggests an indifference on the part of Orthodox Church representatives to the problem of dealing with the crime of witchcraft in judicial terms. Though preachers held certain opinions about witchcraft, at the same time they stood aside, not interfering in such matters and not encouraging any actions against alleged witchcraft. This position might partly explain the lenient attitude of the magisterial courts towards witchcraft accusations, resulting in less harsh punishments for the practicing of witchcraft or even in the refusal to investigate such cases— which makes Ukrainian witchcraft trials quite different even in comparison to witchcraft trials of the neighboring Polish lands where traditions of Catholic demonology dominated.

Punishment in Sixteenth-Century Hungarian Towns* BLANKA SZEGHYOVÁ

While the issues of social control and disciplining in the early modern period have been intensively explored in post-war Western scholarship, in the countries of the former Soviet bloc they remained, until quite recently, on the periphery of historical research. This essay seeks to investigate municipal penal practice in Hungary in the second half of the sixteenth century by analyzing the various forms of penalties, punishments and punitive patterns.1 The analysis is based on data in the archival sources from several Hungarian urban centers mostly belonging to the category of royal free towns. These cities were exempt from the jurisdiction of the county courts and were granted the privilege of nominating their own selfgoverning body that thus represented a highly autonomous legal and territorial entity. Their judicial privileges included the ius gladii, the right to impose the death penalty. All offences committed in free royal towns, regardless whether these involved a serious crime or some minor offence, were tried in the municipal courts. These courts were presided over by a judge who was also the mayor of the town and composed of twelve sworn aldermen usually elected from among the wealthiest or most honorable burghers. They listened to complaints and accusations and took the depositions of witnesses; they weighed evidence, passed judgment and handed *

The study is a part of the grant VEGA no. 2/7174/27 Archontology of Slovak/Hungarian History at the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. 1 The judicial sources comprise the municipal archives of four upper Hungarian towns, Košice, Levoča, Bardejov and Prešov. Examples quoted come primarily from the surviving judicial books of these towns (which record minutes from courts, accusations, depositions, judgements and sentences): the Regional Archive Prešov, Archive of Prešov Magistracy, Kniha mestského súdu 1555–1560, no. 2685; Municipal Archive Košice, Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608; Regional Archive Levoča, Archive of Levoča Magistracy, Malefitz Buch 1550–1643, no. XXI. 1; District Archive Bardejov, Archive of Bardejov Magistracy, Súdne zápisy a účty mesta 1559–1649, without shelfmark. In transcribing geographical names the modern forms are used; proper names, however, are left in their original form as they appear in the sources.

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down punishment. Towns with sizeable suburbs outside the town fortifications would customarily appoint a special judge for dealing with minor cases that arose there. These judges could decide lesser property offences up to a certain value and could also arrest recalcitrant troublemakers.2 Punishment was viewed as revenge for a crime committed and was intended to cause the condemned distress to the same extent as he or she had caused the victim. It was also believed to have deterrent effects, hence its public and ritual character. Pillories, scaffolds and other places of execution were usually situated in heavily frequented places such as main squares and crossroads near the town walls or in highly visible places, generally hills, where the bodies were noticeable from far away. In many cases, the staging of the executions was timed to coincide with weekly markets, fairs or other events that attracted large numbers of people, the better to fulfil their publicity function. Minor penalties, fines and damages The mildest forms of penalties were admonishments, reprimands, warrants for fines and damages or the offender’s public promise of reform in front of the town council. They were imposed for minor misdemeanors, such as negligence at work or on duty; causing damage either to the public property of the town or to the private property of its inhabitants, in particular their fields and gardens; prohibited economic activities; failure to comply with the town statutes and instructions; and offences against good behavior such as swearing, obscene language, inciting quarrels or brawls, minor violence or immoral life. Court orders could be very particular or case specific. For example, unmarried couples who had committed fornication were often ordered to marry and were sometimes forced to do so before they were allowed out of prison. In 1571 the town council in Košice admonished Lucas Kopaz to change his disreputable life full of conflicts, scolding, violence and the company of loose women and ordered him to remarry, on pain of being deprived of his burgher’s rights.3 In another case, a furrier journeyman 2

Other aspects of municipal judiciary and judicial practice are discussed in more detail in my unpublished Phd dissertation. See Blanka Szeghyová, Súdnictvo a súdna prax v mestách Pentapolitany v 16. storočí (Judiciary and judicial practice in the towns of Pentapolitana in the 16th Century), (Bratislava: Historický ústav SAV, 2003). 3 Municipal Archive Košice (hereafter MAK), Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608.

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caught in bed with the wife of his master, Erasmus Brechtelts, was sentenced to a fine of 40 guldens and on top of this was forbidden to practice his craft on the town’s territory. If a fine was involved, the amount was decided in individual cases, depending not only on the nature and circumstances of the offence and the degree of guilt but also on the financial resources of the accused. For example, in Košice two women in 1569 were fined for quarrelling and scolding, the one twenty guldens, the other who started the quarrel, thirtytwo guldens.4 For immoral lifestyle, fornication or adultery the fines ranged from ten to one hundred guldens. The highest fine recorded in the sources was imposed on Georgios Dobos, a married man who had an affair with his maidservant and tried to avoid punishment by fleeing the city. Upon his return in 1568, he was sentenced to pay one hundred guldens, half the fine to be used for re-cobbling the city streets where necessary, the rest going to the city council.5 Fines for slander, violent behavior, bodily harm and unintentional homicide could reach similar levels. However, the fine paid to the town council (birsagium) in such cases has to be distinguished from the compensation money or damages (homagium, compositio) awarded to the injured or affected person or to the bereaved family—the law differentiating between homagium mortuum for serious violent offences and homagium vivum for minor ones.6 For example in Košice in 1565 Gaspar Rattmacher beat and injured Simon Lebet so that Simon’s vision was impaired in one eye. Apart from a fine of ten guldens for violent behavior, Gaspar had to pay thirty-two guldens compensation to Simon.7 In another case from 1564 the confessor Franciscus Literatus Tapolczay called a young barber from Vienna, Joannes, a thief, murderer and insidiator and had him imprisoned; but because he could prove none of these accusations he had to pay Joannes a vivum homagium of twenty guldens.8 The name of a special fine for slander, emendæ linguæ, originated from an old custom according to which slanderers were punished by having their tongues cut off.9 For slandering the town council and the mayor of Košice, 4

Ibid. Ibid. 6 Štefan Luby, Dejiny súkromného práva na Slovensku (History of privatel law in Slovakia) (Bratislava: Iura edition, 2002), p. 229. 7 MAK, Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608. 8 MAK, shelfmark H III/2 pur 5 Protocollum judiciarum et neocivium ab anno 1529 usque 1580. 9 Luby, Dejiny, p. 223. 5

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in 1568 the widow of Lörincz Kisch was originally sentenced to pay twenty guldens to every council member and forty guldens to the mayor, though the sentence was later moderated.10 Town courts were rather pragmatic in their judgments. Often the fines collected were applied directly to financing the construction, restoration or improvement of the town fortifications, the town gates and bastions, the town prison or other public buildings. In Prešov in 1555 Joannes Gotsman for violent attack against his father was ordered either to pay a fine of 200 guldens or to build a stone prison for the town.11 Monetary fines were quite suited to the rich, but because the lower classes could not afford to pay fines, other types of punishment had to be developed in order to retain the appropriateness of the criminal justice system for all groups of society. If a convicted person could not afford to pay a fine, he was allowed the option of working it off. This practice was commonly followed in Košice in the 1560s. For example, in 1567 Gregorius Agiagasy was shown mercy for homicide, but given the lifelong duty to take care of two of the town’s horses. Similarly, in March 1567 Jacobus, son of a former trumpeter Valentinus, was condemned for homicide to lifelong service for the city, to work first in the mayor’s vineyards and later as a swineherd.12 In 1568 Joannes Sarctor had to dig out fifty fathoms of earth because he had dishonored his maidservant. Sometimes such labour for the public benefit had a humiliating aspect, such as wearing fetters while working. Therefore such cases can be equally included among shaming punishments. In 1566 a married couple was for their immoral life and pimping condemned to digging earth at the town fortification while wearing fetters. A shaming element is undoubtedly present also in punishments where a condemned person had to deal with dirt or excrement. Valten from Prešov, the watchman of a vineyard in Košice, was sentenced, for swearing and cursing, to wear fetters and to clean the town and its suburbs of dung for a period of four weeks. Similarly, nine years later two other guards at a vineyard, Peter Kykedi and Micklos Zekeres, were condemned, for blackmailing an old woman, to clearing away dung and excrement from the town.13

10

MAK, Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608. Regional Archive Prešov (hereafter RAP), Kniha mestského súdu 1555–1560, no. 2685, f. 15b. 12 MAK, Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608. 13 Ibid. 11

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Imprisonment Imprisonment, the commonest form of punishment for criminal offences nowadays, was not in fact particularly common in sixteenth-century Hungarian towns. Detention was used mainly for people on remand or for those awaiting the execution of punishment. It was also used for debtors who refused to pay their debts or for those involved in violent or aggressive behavior in either a physical or a verbal sense, for example rows, affrays, brawls, offensive language, defamation or slander. In the case of recalcitrant offenders imprisonment was a means used by the authorities to force them to confess or to make them pay fines or damages. It was believed that confinement in a dark and grim place would give the offenders time to reflect on their crime and might lead to their repentance and compliance. Imprisonment usually lasted from a couple of days to a couple of weeks, and longer periods were rare. Sometimes the mere threat of detention was enough, as in the case of Martin Paczir and Jesman Gerber in Prešov in 1557. After they had picked a fight with each other the court ordered them to reconcile, otherwise they would both end in prison.14 The case of a butcher, Hannes Josser, jailed for debt in Košice in 1572 reveals incidentally the downside of the judge’s position and responsibility. When the butcher was let out of prison, even though he had not yet paid his debt, and subsequently fled the city, the judge was left with the onus to pay the debt.15 Though the usual place of detention was the town jail, even so it likely contained several rooms that might have differed considerably in their standard and level of comfort, or rather their lack of it. Otherwise, the tolerability of detention was to a large extent determined also by whether one was chained or not, though fetters and irons for neck and hands were usually reserved only for prisoners considered dangerous or condemned for serious crimes. Not only the seriousness of the offence, but also the social standing of the accused decided the conditions under which they were held. If an imprisoned person was of higher standing or noble, he was to be detained in the town hall in a heated room or in the house of a burgher. It seems that security measures in town jails were not particularly effective, and breakouts from prison were not unusual. In Bardejov two prisoners escaped from jail in 1566, and in 1574 another one who on his 14 15

RAP, Kniha mestského súdu 1555–1560, no. 2685, f. 111b. MAK, Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608.

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way out killed the town servant and the executioner who were sleeping in the building.16 In Košice in 1562 Lucatsch Nowostawski freed himself from his fetters and escaped in the night when everybody was asleep, in the process fatally injuring the town servant and his wife with an axe.17

Banishment Banishment or a ban against staying on the territory of and near the town was a typical urban punishment of the early modern period. In this way town authorities would dispose of inconvenient or troublesome people who in one way or another represented a threat to the order, peace or moral life of the city. Hungarian towns were small enough to make banishment from a town an effective punishment, and indeed this penalty was frequently employed. Banishment was either permanent, when the condemned was forbidden to reenter the territory of the city forever, or else for a fixed period of time. In either case a sentence of exile was a severe penalty, because it meant that the individual had to find a place elsewhere as a stranger in a society that placed a high importance upon familiarity, let alone that the banished were not necessarily given the opportunity to sell their property before their expulsion. The sources only occasionally mention whether the condemned was allowed to sell or take with them their belongings, and therefore it is not clear whether this practice was usual or exceptional. For example in 1567 Emericus Chanadinus was given three days to sort out his affairs before being banished from Košice. Similarly, in 1580 Sophia, the widow of Simonne Falabu, who had an extramarital relationship with Urban Waraliensi, was given time to sell her house in a village belonging to the town before being banished for ten years.18 In Levoča the banished would sometimes be given a coin in token compensation for what they had left behind. The wording of verdicts often defined the limits of banishment both in time and space. Apart from permanent banishment, the usual time limits were one, three, six, ten or in one case 16 years. As for space limits, apart from general phrases such as banishment from the territory of the town 16

District Archive Bardejov (hereafter DAB), Proventus 1559–1567, no. 563 (record from 1566) and Súdne zápisy a účty mesta 1559–1649 (record from 1574). 17 MAK, Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608. 18 Ibid.

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and the areas pertaining or belonging to the town, sometimes also a distance from the town was specified, that the banished person was “to stay away 10” “12,” “20” or “100 miles.” On occasion, however, these formulations may have had only symbolic meaning, as apparently in the use of the phrase “banished for 100 miles and 100 years.” Even when banishment was limited, this did not necessarily mean that the condemned could automatically return after the prescribed period. Their return was often conditioned by their good behavior during their exile, which they were required to prove by a letter or testimony of honest life from the place of their exile. Only after the town council weighed this evidence and consented could the banished person return. On the other hand, the period of exile could be after some time shortened, and even permanent banishment might be revoked. In 1562 Santa Pall, banished forever for inappropriate talk, was allowed to return after only one month on the intercession of a vice-captain from Košice. Similarly, the widow of Micklosch Diack asked for permission to return after she had been banished forever in 1561 for giving birth to two illegitimate children after her husband’s death; after she remarried in 1562 and thanks to several intercessions on her behalf she was finally allowed to come back. Less successful was Andras Czirkler, banished forever in 1571 for inciting unrest, who was refused when he asked for permission to return three years later.19 Even if the banished succeeded in finding a new place to live, there was always the danger that their infamous past would be revealed and lead to further banishment. In 1571 Marina, daughter of Hannes Fidlers, settled in Košice after she had been banished from Levoča for stealing. However, when her past came out, she was banished once more together with her father. A Polish woman, Catherina Haydukowa, was banished from Prešov for theft and later settled in Košice with her husband and child. However, after some time her past was revealed and she was ordered to stay away not only from Košice but from other towns as well. In 1573 Lenart Schwarz was banished from Košice because it turned out that he had been previously banished from Polish Wroclaw for adultery.20The punishment of banishment entailed varying degrees of infamy. Quite often it was combined with flogging at a pillory, after which the banished were led out of the town either by the city servant or the executioner, the later case entailing a higher degree of infamy. It was not a punishment limited 19 20

Ibid. Ibid.

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to one specific offence. Typically, the courts would apply the sentence of banishment to those guilty of immoral life or fornication, but in practice quite a wide range of transgressions and crimes could be punished by banishment, whether permanent or temporary. Often banishment was pronounced as a result of intercessions or some mitigating circumstances for crimes that would normally deserve stricter punishment and in particular as a milder alternative to the death penalty in cases of theft and adultery. It was mainly in such cases that banishment was connected with conditional capital punishment. In Košice in 1577 the court sentenced to permanent banishment a woman named Dorko who lived a vagrant existence and was indifferent to her husband’s whereabouts, threatening her with punishment by drowning if she was ever to return.21 Physical, mutilating and shaming punishments Physical, mutilating and shaming punishments are placed into one category here, because these were quite often interconnected and sometimes it is difficult to delimit strict borders between them. All of them conferred shame and infamy on the condemned who thereby lost their honor and could no longer hold offices, testify in courts or be members of a guild. Even when shaming punishments did not lead to permanent physical damage or were not primarily meant to be painful, they could entail some physical discomfort. Most of these shaming and exhibitory punishments were exacted at a pillory that was situated in a much frequented place such as the main square or in front of the town hall. The pillory was a symbol of infamy and honest men would avoid even touching it. In form it could be a wooden pole, a stone column, or simply iron shackles attached to a wall of the town hall or church, while in other cases it might be a cage.22 It was often at the pillory that those convicted of slander had to retract publicly what they had previously claimed or said and apologize to the person slandered. For example in 1563 Sophia, wife of Janos Zymmerman 21 22

Ibid. In the sources the pillory is usually called publica statua, palus, mediastinum, mediastrum, schlechten schtaup, schtaupen or pranger. Pillories in the main squares are mentioned in Bardejov, Košice and Levoča. From the sixteenth century there was also a shaming cage in Levoča on the main square, which remained there until the nineteenth century when it was moved into a private courtyard. Today, as the historical memento it is back on the main square. See Kálmán Demkó, A Felső-magyarországi városok élétéről a 15–17. században (Life in Upper Hungarian cities in the 15th to 17th centuries) (Budapest: 1890), p. 120.

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from Polish Krosno, having been convicted of spreading improper gossip about the mayor, had to publicly take back everything she had said at the pillory.23 In fact, all forms of punishment involving public display were intended to ridicule, shame and humiliate the wrongdoer. Of such exhibitory punishments the lightest was standing at a pillory. A servant of the town would shout out and inform the public of the offence of the condemned and perhaps remain behind to keep watch. Such punishment alone was, however, rare and it was often accompanied by flogging and/or subsequent banishment of the convicted. A gender-specific example of a shaming punishment was the wearing of a wreath of straw, imposed on single women guilty of fornication. A young woman, Sophia, was punished in this way in 1588 in Bardejov because of her relationship with Marcin Mybus, by whom she was pregnant. She was taken round the city streets by the city servant with a shaming wreath of straw on her head and then banished.24 In 1572 a girl named Regina and a miller’s apprentice, Ludwig, were pilloried and banished for fornication after a straw wreath had been put on the girl’s head.25 Flogging was a typical physical punishment without mutilation and often inflicted by town courts. Normally flogging would take place at the pillory, though occasionally the sources mention that it was carried out in prison; in such a case it was intended to save the condemned person public humiliation. The flogging or whipping was carried out either by the executioner or a city servant, who used mostly wooden sticks or in some cases a cane or a whip. If theft was involved, the thief was sometimes exhibited at the pillory together with the objects stolen when possible. For example in Košice in 1560 Margaretha, wife of Chapo Gergel, stood at the pillory with the piece of meat that she had stolen. In 1572 a Pole, Andreas, who had been caught stealing in a vineyard was led to prison wearing about his neck a pouch with the stolen grapes. After sentence was passed, he was flogged and his right ear was cut off. Thereupon the pouch with the grapes was again put on his neck and in this way the executioner flogged him out of the city.26 Sentences of flogging alone were rarely passed and commonly they were combined with subsequent banishment. Generally, town courts in 23

MAK, Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608. DAB, Súdne zápisy a účty mesta 1559–1649. 25 Regional Archive Levoča (hereafter RAL), Malefitz Buch 1550–1643, no. XXI. 1. 26 MAK, Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608. 24

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Hungary used flogging and banishment for offences against morality and as a milder alternative punishment for theft. The difference between the punishments of flogging plus banishment and banishment without flogging was that the former entailed greater shame and therefore was used in cases considered more serious or for offenders of lower social standing and bad reputation. Mutilating punishments included blinding or the cutting off of a hand, nose, ear or tongue. In fact, threats of such punishments are more frequent in the court records than the cases where they were actually carried out, so that the condemned would often end up being punished in a milder way. For example in 1571 Dionisius Lakatgiartho from Rimavská Sobota was threatened with blinding for opening and failing to deliver a letter, but eventually was granted mercy. In some cases of defamation and slander, the court pondered to punish the culprits by cutting off their tongues. For example in 1568 a woman who defamed a Hungarian preacher Benedictus in Košice was to be condemned to this punishment. In 1570 Gregorius, son of Adam Zabo, was threatened with the cutting off of both his hand and his tongue for answering back and defying his father, with whom he almost ended in a brawl; only on the intercessions of many people was he instead banished for a term of six years.27 Thieves were often threatened with mutilating punishments. Elizabeth, wife of Kathona Mihal, in 1560 was originally to be condemned to have her nose cut off for stealing and in Levoča in 1583 Thomas Breszku was to lose his hand for the same crime, though in the end the courts imposed milder punishments.28 As mentioned before, in the rare instances when sentences of mutilation were carried out they most frequently involved the loss of an ear or hand. Loss of an ear was a milder punishment for stealing instead of the usual hanging. Similarly, loss of a hand was sometimes inflicted instead of the death penalty in cases of violence. In Prešov in 1559 two servants of Peter Faigell, Andreas and Johannes, were condemned for armed violence at the city gate to the loss of their hands.29 In Košice in 1574 the executioner Petrus had his hand cut off for violence against a tailor.30 Quite rare was loss of a nose. The sources record one such case from 1572. Garai Anglet, who not only returned to Košice, from where she had been previously banished for immoral life, but also committed theft, was 27

Ibid. Ibid.; RAL, Malefitz Buch 1550–1643, no. XXI. 1. 29 RAP, Kniha mestského súdu 1555–1560, no. 2685, f. 108, 146. 30 MAK, Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608. 28

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to be punished by drowning. In the end the court showed her mercy, but still, as an example to others, she was sentenced to flogging, the cutting off of her nose and banishment.31 Whereas these mutilating punishments were used from time to time in Košice, Levoča and Prešov, in Bardejov there is no mention of such punishments in the sources I have examined. It is therefore possible that mutilating punishments were subject to local custom.32 Lastly, in connection with physical punishments the exceptional punishment of crucifixion should be mentioned. The judicial book of Bardejov contains a record dated 1596 concerning a young man of seventeen years, son of a widow, who was crucified for stealing from the school and the house of a village mayor. The wording is unambiguous (cruci est affixus), and without further details it might at first seem to refer to a death penalty. However, as a form of execution crucifixion was used only in the ancient times and in the later periods in Europe it was considered a blasphemy.33 A more probable interpretation is suggested by the statute of 1574 from the city of Trnava where the punishment of crucifixion is described in the following way: “the condemned should spend four hours fastened on the cross” (cruci affigatur et ibi stet per 4 horas).34 This makes it clear that what is here being referred to was not a death penalty but another class of physical punishment.35

Capital punishment The ultimate punishment, and the most diverse in its forms, was the death penalty. Theoretically, all felonies might result in capital punishment: treason, theft, burglary, highway robbery, rape, adultery, arson and murder. As previously mentioned, town courts quite often resorted to capital punishment, though at the same time they often commuted the sentence 31

Ibid. DAB, Súdne zápisy a účty mesta 1559–1649. 33 Martin Monestier, Historie trestu smrti, translation of Peines de mort (Prague: 1999), pp. 59–60. 34 Sándor Kolosvári–Kelemen Óvári, Corpus Statutorum Hungariae municipalium (Budapest: MTA, 1897), Tomus IV, pars II, p. 159. 35 Earlier I misinterpreted this case of punishment as a death penalty. See Blanka Szeghyová, “Súdna kniha mesta Bardejova 1559–1649. Príspevok k dejinám mestského súdnictva” (The Judicial Book of the city of Bardejov 1559–1649: A contribution to the history of municipal justice), Slovenská Archivistika XXXVIII/1 (2003), pp. 52, 58–60. 32

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due to mitigating circumstances or pleas of intercession. In accordance with the kind of crime and the concomitant circumstances the courts would specify capital punishment by hanging, beheading, burning, drowning, breaking by the wheel, quartering, burying alive or impalement. Usually towns had different places of execution. Executions by the sword would normally take place outside the city walls, in the town suburbs, close to the main gates, at crossroads or at cemeteries, and only occasionally in the main square or in front of the town hall. Gallows were set up on hills near towns and were used not only for hanging, but also as places for other executions, such as quartering or breaking on the wheel.36 Hanging was the most frequently inflicted death penalty. In the majority of cases the word ‘gallows’ (patibulum, galgen) appears in the sources, though ‘trees’ are mentioned a few times. The case of Jacob Schneider from Vienna includes some curious logic: having stolen town money and other things in Košice and having fled to the town of Kežmarok, he was hanged in 1568 on a dry branch because “he wasn’t worth a green one.”37 In the sources examined, town courts in Hungary sentenced only male offenders to hanging. By contrast, execution by drowning on the banks of local rivers was reserved for women and can thus be assumed to be a female punishment equivalent to hanging. The condemned women was usually sewn into a sack and then thrown into the river.38 This punishment was inflicted for several kinds of crimes and again it seems it was subject to local customs. For example, in Košice it was used mainly for adulteresses, in Bardejov for infanticide and in Prešov occasionally for stealing, while in Levoča our sources do not mention it at all. Decapitation was the second most frequent mode of execution. The crucial difference between beheading and other forms of death penalty was (as elsewhere in Europe) that the former punishment was the only one considered respectable. All other modes of execution that involved direct touch and handling by the executioner counted as shameful and humiliating. The relative absence of infamy involved in execution with the sword can also be inferred from the fact that the body was usually not displayed after death but removed by the family and given a Christian burial. In this light it becomes understandable why relatives and friends so frequently 36

In Bardejov, Prešov and Levoča the gallows stood on nearby hills whose present names are reminders of their use in the past. 37 “...an eynen dürren ast anknipsten sol, den ehr eynes grünen bawmes nicht werdt ist.” MAK, Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608. 38 Ibid.

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interceded on behalf of the condemned that the court might modify its verdict and instead of hanging or other form of death penalty pass the sentence of decapitation. Therefore, beheading was used as a milder alternative for a variety of stricter forms of capital punishment, though according to the law codes it was primarily meant for murderers. For other more serious and specific crimes committed with extreme cruelty or for especially hardened criminals there were harsher penalties than beheading or hanging. Breaking by the wheel, a typical punishment for highwaymen, could be carried out in two ways. In the milder version the executioner would break the upper part of the condemned’s body first and thus speed his death, whereas in the other he would start with the legs, which might considerably prolong the condemned man’s agony. The broken corpses or even the still living bodies would be then put on a wheel and exhibited on an erected pole to serve as a deterrence. There are only a few recorded instances of the convicted being burned alive, and this punishment was reserved for the crimes of arson, incest, theft and murder. Another rare and gender-specific death penalty was impalement in the grave and it was inflicted on women convicted of infanticide or other kinds of murder. For example, in 1576 Anna, who killed her newborn baby in Košice was first pinched with a hot iron in the town, then carried to the gallows, under which she was put in a grave, covered with earth and impaled alive with a stake.39 Other harsh death penalties were quite exceptional. Quartering, for example, is only twice mentioned, once in Bardejov in 1586 for a man convicted of killing a noble in his house, and once in Levoča in 1597 for a highwayman.40 Only one record refers to the particularly cruel execution by impalement. It was inflicted in Košice (1574) upon a certain Matthias who, after his conversion to the Muslim faith, spied for Hamsa Beg against Joannes Soos and stole his best horse.41 Death penalties were sometimes accompanied by supplementary punishments that were often performed in a ritual manner. Crime, it was felt, merited punishment, and terrible crime merited terrible punishment. 39

Ibid. Bardejov, Súdne zápisy a účty mesta 1559–1649; RAL, Malefitz Buch 1550–1643, no. XXI. 1. 41 MAK, Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608. In the Czech Lands, where this punishment was sometimes applied, they called it “the Hungarian execution.” Jindřich Francek, Dějiny loupežnictva. Zloději, loupežníci, lupiči, pytláci a žháři v českých dějinách (History of highwaymen: Thieves, highwaymen, robbers, poachers and arsonists in Czech history) (Prague: Rybka Publishers, 2002), 30. 40

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Therefore even a harsh and cruel form of death penalty was sometimes deemed insufficient alone and had to be accompanied by supplementary punishments aimed at increasing and prolonging either the condemned’s agony or their humiliation. The more heinous a crime was in the eyes of the judges, the more severe the forms of supplementary punishments it was deemed to merit. For example, normally the condemned would walk or be driven on a cart to the place of execution, but when a need for a harsher punishment was felt, he would be tied to a horse’s tail and dragged. Thus in 1563 Peter Klagk from Košice who had attacked and lethally injured his wife with his saber was dragged in this way to the place of execution, where he was subsequently beheaded.42 Another ritual supplementary punishment was the pinching and tearing out of flesh with hot irons on the way to the gallows. In Košice in 1563 Petrus Kighios, who had been condemned to beheading for tormenting and killing his wife, was driven on a cart around the city from the Upper to the Lower Gate and was pinched by hot irons three times, and then for the fourth time outside the city walls, till finally for the last time the pinching ritual was repeated in front of his house where he had committed the crime. Only then was he driven to the place of execution. Similarly, in 1600 the highwayman Gregorius Baba was pinched four times on his chest at the four corners of the city in front of town houses before he was broken by the wheel.43 Often, the supplementary punishments had a symbolic character and can be viewed as mirror punishments. For example a free heyduck, Blasius Keoreoskewczy, who killed Chirkel Simon with his saber in front of a town wine house in the suburbs was condemned to the cutting off of his right hand as punishment for violence at the public house, while for homicide he was subsequently beheaded.44 Also, the way that the corpse was treated after execution testifies to the scaling of punishments. The most merciful for the honor of the family of the executed person was if he was given a Christian burial. However, in many cases the corpse would be buried by the executioner nearby the execution place or at some other undignified location or in the worst case the executed would be denied any burial and the corpse would be left displayed on the gallows or on a wheel.

42

MAK, Pur Iudicia pene malefactorum et sceleratorum 1556–1608. Ibid. 44 Ibid. A record dated 10th April, 1571. 43

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Conclusions Penal practice in the kingdom of Hungary in the early modern period represented a mixture of a rational system of fines, compensations and damages on the one hand, and retributive and often extremely cruel and ritual punishments with symbolic meaning on the other. The retributive character is evident especially in the mirror punishments for crimes considered the most serious—breach of loyalty, treason, murder (and especially infanticide and other murders within the family), murder with robbery, banditry and sacrilege. Mirror punishments imitated the nature of the crime and the way it was committed. For example, for drowning a newborn the mother would be drowned herself, for murder by a sword the murderer was beheaded, for arson the offender was burned, and so on. In similar fashion, the punishment might be used to physically prevent the transgressor from repeating his crime. For false evidence, they would cut off the offender’s right hand (used in swearing the oath), and the same punishment awaited those who had used armed violence; defamation led to the cutting off of the tongue; for the unauthorized opening of a letter the transgressor was blinded; and so on. It is notable that the use of mirror punishments that had been common in the Middle Ages gradually decreased in the early modern era. In sixteenth-century Hungary the municipal judicial records contain perhaps more mere threats of such punishments than their actual execution. Moreover, the use of mutilating punishments was subject to local custom. In the town of Prešov such penalties were inflicted on three people in the space of just five years, whereas in the nearby town of Bardejov the penalty, according to the records of a judicial book covering ninety years, was not used once.45 Generally, local customs influenced penal practice of a particular town to a great extent. While women were beheaded for some crimes in Bardejov and Levoča, in Košice and Prešov there are no such cases during the period in question, and when women were condemned to death they were usually executed by drowning. Some punishments were gender specific: women in Hungary were never hanged or broken by the wheel, and where a man would have been hanged for a particular crime (usually theft) a woman for the same crime would be drowned instead. Drowning was a typical form of capital punishment for female offenders and reserved for them alone. 45

RAP, Kniha mestského súdu 1555–1560, no. 2685; DAB, Súdne zápisy a účty mesta 1559–1649.

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Often the judicial books record not only the punishments carried out, but also the sentences originally handed down and thought to be more appropriate for the crime committed but which, due to the commonplace practice of admitting intercessions or other mitigating circumstances, were never in fact applied. The law codes specified appropriate punishments to fit particular crimes, such as hanging for theft, beheading for murder and adultery, burning for arson and incest, breaking by the wheel for robbers and highwaymen, impalement in the grave for infanticide and whipping and banishment for fornication and immoral life. In fact, these standard punishments were frequently modified due to some mitigating circumstances and intercessions and a milder form of punishment was imposed. Repeatedly a sentence of hanging was changed to one of beheading. This exemplifies the attempt to commute the sentence from one that would degrade the offender and his family to one that would not. The range of penalties, from milder and least dishonoring to extremely cruel and maximally degrading ones, was wide, and there were many variations even within one punishment which played a crucial difference in determining the degree of shame. For example, the fact that a person condemned to flogging and banishment was handled by a town servant and not by the executioner considerably lowered the dishonoring element of the punishment. Hungarian towns showed a high degree of flexibility in the application of the criminal law and its adjustment to the particular circumstances of individual crimes and criminals. Cruel as punishments were, they reflect the values and moral attitudes of early modern urban society that put a high emphasis on notions such as honor, reputation, Christianity, familial ties and attitudes to strangers, to say nothing of class or gender distinctions.

III.3. Word and Print, Education and Literacy

Reading Aloud: Between Oral and Literate Communication ZORAN VELAGIĆ

This essay investigates the early modern practice of reading aloud as it applies to popular religious books published in eighteenth-century Croatia. The writers of these books aimed to use all possible channels of interaction to convey Christian teachings, irrespective of whether they rested on oral or literary communication. In the prefaces of their books, particularly in books of sermons, it was even stated explicitly that the way the lesson is learned may be irrelevant; what matters is that every single believer comprehends its substance and importance. Consequently, it was not required that all members of some community should know how to read; the majority could be exposed to the teachings by listening to a person reading aloud. Literacy sufficient for appropriating the contents of a book was usually restricted to a single member of a family or other small community. The literate commoner, originally the intended consumer of a book, thus became the mediator, by virtue of his ability to read. I will concentrate on the practice of reading aloud in relatively small, closed, and overwhelmingly illiterate communities. The early modern society of northern Croatia (the territory north of the rivers Kupa and Sava, within the borders of the Habsburg Monarchy), although comparatively well educated, consisted at the same time of an illiterate majority, thus providing a good model for investigating how the two modes of communication, the oral and the written, were utilized within the same society. During the eighteenth century, writers of Croatian vernacular religious books often instructed literate members of community to read the books aloud to the others. By this practice of reading aloud, they sought to bypass the problem of illiteracy and make books useful to a wide range of commoners. The practice of reading aloud calls into question the notion of literate and oral modes of communication as two opposed techniques. In recent times, both historians of communication and historians of books have

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vigorously challenged such exclusive concepts which view societies as either literate or pre-literate, logical or pre-logical, modern or primitive, and so on. Brian V. Street argues that all such bipolar divisions, particularly those developed by Jack Goody, fail to explain the complex tissue of any society. “Every society represents some ‘mix’ of oral and literate modes of communication. Even in the so-called ‘developed’ societies, which claim ‘high’ literacy rates according to various measures, people experience a variety of different forms and meanings of literate and oral communications (…).”1 The concept of ‘literacy revolution’ has also come under the magnifying glass. “Scholars who have written about the literacy revolution are accused of exaggerating the distance between oral and literate cultures; of underestimating the achievements and resources of societies without literacy (…).”2 It is also recognized that literate communication does not simply replace oral communication. “In many cases (…) spoken words would be conveyed by printed messages without being replaced by them. While often transposed into print, sermons and public orations thus continued to be delivered orally.”3 In an overview of recent research Tessa Watt comes to similar conclusions. “Recent studies on the impact of the printing press have viewed the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a period in which oral and literate modes of communication were closely intertwined. Printed works were disseminated by word of mouth, transforming the culture of the ‘illiterate’, and oral modes of communication shaped the structure of printed works.”4 Precisely this conclusion applies to the entire early modern period in northern Croatia. The same Catholic teaching was disseminated both through the printed word and by word of mouth by either preachers and missionaries or by a lay person who read the teaching aloud to his unlettered peers from a printed book. Books of sermons are a genre that shed much light on the interaction between oral and literate modes of communication, including the practice of oralized reading. The writers themselves presented three reasons why they composed books of sermons: they wished to help their fellow preachers; 1

Brian V. Street, Literacy in Theory and Practice (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1984), p. 46. 2 Peter Burke–Roy Porter (eds.), The Social History of Language (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1987), p. 6. 3 Elisabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1993), p. 129. 4 Tessa Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety 1550–1640 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1991), p. 8.

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they were asked to do this by some members of their flock; and they wished to create a book for those people who cannot regularly attend sermons. Out of some 50 books of sermons published in northern Croatia between 1651 and 1800, ten give a specific definition of the reading public. One book states that it was published to help all overseers of souls and other preachers, two to help preachers, but also for the listeners’ benefit and seven for the spiritual benefit of all Christians. Clearly not all the compilers were writing exclusively for their peers. They were hoping that ordinary people would read their books as well. Significantly, the writers state that they have put in print the very same teaching that could be learned from the pulpit. Štefan Fuček, who spent his entire life as parish priest in Krapina near Zagreb, was the first among Croatian writers to state that he was publishing the very same sermons that he preached to his flock. “As I have many times read them [manuscript sermons] to other people, they have asked me to put them in print.”5 Many remarks in Fuček’s book reveal that he did not in fact make a distinction between oral and written modes of communication: for example, “…when a preacher speaks, or a book presents (…),” or, “what you read in a book, or hear from a preacher (…).”6 It was considered of the greatest importance to write the sermons—and indeed other Croatian religious books in the vernacular—in as simple a style as possible. This was emphasized in the Short Sermons of Ivan Mulih. “Preaching means speaking to the people, so I wrote these sermons in the same way as I delivered them, avoiding complicated words, using secular rather than spiritual conversation. This I learned from St. Prosper, who said: nec plausum a populo studeat expectare, sed gemitum—do not look for people’s praises, but for their weeping.”7 Like many other Croatian books of sermons the books of Fuček and Mulih were designed for both preaching and reading. On the title page Fuček simply states that his book was made as an aid to spiritual progress, without pointing to any particular group as his intended audience—he made a book for the benefit of all Christians, just as people had asked him to. In contrast, the Franciscan Bernardin Leaković, who was active in the province of Slavonia, states that his book of sermons was composed to serve preachers and to benefit listeners. The sermons in his book are short and designed for preaching. “People like a short and effective speech, particularly in a church, better than a long one. Moreover, many parish 5

Štefan Fuček, Historie [Histories] (Zagreb: 1735), preface. Ibid., pp. 135, 407. 7 Ivan Mulih, Prodestva Kratka [Short sermons] (Zagreb: 1782), introduction. 6

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priests have a large flock whom they serve often and hard, and do not have enough time to read long sermons, and shorten them for the benefit of the people (…). This is why I wrote these short sermons from the holy Gospel, for all weeks in the year.”8 While Fuček published what he taught orally, Leaković published sermons intended to be taught orally. These instances demonstrate that writers used both modes of communication to spread their teachings. As Watt notes, “hearing and reading were both means of access to words; an oral sermon or a printed tract could bring an audience to the Word; and the Bible was the medium of revelation whether in printed form or read aloud.”9 Croatian writers did not really pay much attention to the process of communication itself— what they were concerned with was the results. Knowledge had to find a way to the commoners. For Josip Ernest Matijević, a priest from Zagreb, it was irrelevant whether “many people read, or hear the reading of the holy Gospels.”10 The only important consideration was that they should come to know them. Frequently, writers recommend a combination of both oral and literate modes of communication. “When readers (…) read the words of this book, and hear the same words from preachers and other parish priests, they will more easily and more profoundly understand the basic things of the law of Jesus, and they will better understand their Christian duties (…).”11 Such a combination of communication methods was particularly important, for it could not be taken for granted that simple, ill-educated commoners would understand the teaching from a book. It was helpful if the reading was accompanied by oral explanations by “licensed interpreters”—the preachers. “If something appears difficult to you, and you think that you cannot understand it without an interpreter, bear in mind that your reason is weak, and recommend yourself to the Lord, so that he in his mercy may help you to understand as much as will suffice for your salvation. And you will easily understand, if you regularly come to the holy sermons, where the Lord’s word is interpreted.”12 8

Bernardin Leaković, Govorenja za sve Nedilje Godishnje [Sermons for all weeks in a year] (Osijek: 1795), introduction. 9 Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, p. 331. 10 Josip Ernest Matijević, Raztolnachenye Evangeliumov Nedelyneh [Explanation of holy Gospel] (Zagreb: 1796), preface. 11 Bernardin Leaković, Nauk od Poglavitih Stvarih Kerstjansko-Katolicsanskih [Essential Christian–Catholic teaching] (Buda: 1798), introduction. 12 Nikola Kesić, Epistole i Evangjelia priko sviju Nedilja, i Blagi Dneva Svetih Godissnji [Epistles and Gospels for all Sundays and holidays in a year] (Buda: 1740), preface.

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One more factor stimulated the publishing of books of sermons. If people could not attend sermons because of distance or their daily occupations, they could read the same teaching in books. Ivan Mulih strongly recommended books of sermons for this reason. “Take this book in your hands with love and read it with pleasure, particularly you who live in villages and cannot attend the holy sermons (…).”13 Was it not a hopeless waste of time to compose a book if the majority of the early modern Croatian commoners were illiterate? Roger Chartier points out that the reading practices of earlier centuries cannot be compared to those of the present day, and that “(…) special attention should be paid to ways of reading that have disappeared in our contemporary world. One of these is reading aloud in its dual function of communicating the written word to those who are unable to decipher it themselves but also of cementing the interlocking forms of sociability (…).”14 When speaking of the goals of writers in early modern Croatia, it may be argued that smaller social groups (families, village communities, etc.) can be considered as literate if one of their members possessed the ability to read and was willing to read aloud to his peers. Literacy needs to be viewed and understood within a given social context, and for this reason “it is best to think not of literacy but of literacies, of a variety of ways in which the products of a culture can be acquired and transmitted.”15 The first known Croatian reference to the value of reading aloud comes from the introduction of an anonymous work published in 1710, The Way of Double Piousness, in which the author writes that people who admire Saint Francis Xavier “(…) should read the life of the Saint, or if they do not know how to read, they should listen to the reading of others (…).”16 Similar instructions are repeated in books throughout the eighteenth century. “This book can be read in the afternoons or on holidays, in the evenings of working days, by a little girl, or boy, who knows how to read. Unskilled and unlettered people in the house, who are perhaps sitting there, spinning, sewing, or removing maize from corn-cobs, can listen to the reading (…).”17 “(…) it is obvious how useful it would be if the liter13

Matijević, Raztolnachenye Evangeliumov, preface. Roger Chartier, The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Polity Press: 1994), p. 8. 15 Robert Allan Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe: Culture and Education 1500– 1800 (London–New York: Longman, 1988), p. 3. 16 Anonymous, Nachin Duoie Pobosnoszti [The way of double piousness] (Vienna: 1710), introduction. 17 Hilarion Gašparoti, Czvét Szvetéh [The flower of saints] (Graz: 1752), introduction. 14

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ate person would read a few lectures from this book every day, and teach the others.”18 The Jesuit Juraj Mulih, who was mostly stationed in the city of Zagreb and its surroundings, hints at reading aloud in the extended title of one of his works: “The mirror of confession, which people regardless of gender or position should follow; that not just men of letters can learn how to prepare for confession and honestly take communion, but that they can also teach others (who do not know either how to read or how to confess their sins) how to do so, and in this way help the salvation of a dear soul (...).”19 Taken at face value, his comments imply that there were people willing to read aloud and teach their fellows: “I have heard many pious sighs from people who asserted that they would be very happy to read, and teach others, if they had books.”20 Writers sometimes emphasized the responsibility of parents to urge their children to read aloud to other members of the family. It is possible that Croatian writers encountered such ideas in the writings of authors whose books they adapted for their lay readers. For example, one of the leading authorities, the Archbishop of Milan Carlo Borromeo, “in the late sixteenth century (…) recommends to fathers of families to read aloud after dinner from a devotional book or from the life of a saint (if you can read).”21 However, as Croatian fathers of families were generally illiterate, the reading would have had to be done by the children, who had perhaps attended elementary schools and were literate. As one anonymous author advises, “When children grow up they must not leave this book on the shelf, thinking that its teaching is not useful to them any more (…). The elderly must keenly remind the children, when they grow up, to take this book on Sunday or holiday, to read it in front of the members of the household, and to teach others.”22 Another author gives the following advice: “(…) put this book in the hands of your children, if you are so lucky to send them to school. If you do not know how to read yourselves, instruct them to read in front of you, both to their and to your advan-

18

Juraj Mulih, Skola Kristusseva [The school of Christ] (Zagreb: 1744), introduction. Juraj Mulih, Zerczalo Szpovedno [The mirror of confession] (Zagreb: 1742). 20 Juraj Mulih, Poszel Apostolszki [Apostolic emissary] (Zagreb: 1742), introduction. 21 Peter Burke, “The Uses of Literacy in Early Modern Italy,” in Peter Burke–Roy Porter (eds.) The Social History of Language (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1987), p. 33. 22 Anonymus, Obchinszke Miszie Pitanya Knisicze [Question-book for missions] (Sopron: 1759), preface. 19

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tage.”23 Again: “It is of great benefit to send children to school until they learn to read; if they are not for higher schools, or if there is no such opportunity, they should become apprentices, or learn some honest profession.”24 “Until they learn to read” is the significant part of this quotation: this skill would suffice for the acquisition of adequate Catholic teaching. These examples show that, as in the case of preaching or reading, writers did not care how lay people were to learn the Catholic teachings. The important thing was that they should become acquainted with it, for “(…) nothing could warm the hearts of the faithful (…) as thoughtful reading, or listening to the deeds of the holy martyrs.”25 Hilarion Gašparoti, a Pauline from the city of Lepoglava, described the ambience in which people could listen to reading aloud: “(…) unskilled and unlettered people in the house, who are perhaps sitting there, spinning, sewing, or removing maize from corn-cobs, can listen to the reading.”26 This description reminds one of the so-called veillée or Spinnstube which many historians have recognized as one of the most important forms of sociability in the countries of Western Europe and which was also used as a special occasion for the practice of reading aloud. In the words of Robert Darnton, “The most important institution of popular reading under the Old Regime was a fireside gathering known as the veillée in France and the Spinnstube in Germany. While children played, women sewed, and men repaired tools, one of the company who could decipher a text would regale them with the adventures of Les quatre fils Aymon, Till Eulenspiegel, or some other favourite (…).”27 Natalie Zemon Davis describes it thus: “The important social institution for this was the veillée, an evening gathering within the village community (…). Then, if one of the men were literate and owned books, he might read aloud.”28 Roger Chartier underlines that the veillée, as any evening gathering of family members or village community, was not mere socializing. “In this minor, mar23

Boltižar Mataković, Naruchna Knisicza Navuka Kerschanszkoga [Handbook of Christian teaching] (Zagreb: 1770), preface. 24 Anonymous, Horvatszki Katekhizmus [Croatian catechism] (Eisenstadt: 1747), preface. 25 Ivan Marević, Dilla svetih mucsenikah [Acts of holy martyrs] (Osijek: 1800), introduction. 26 Gašparoti, Czvét Szvetéh, introduction. 27 Quoted from Robert Darnton, “History of Reading,” in Peter Burke (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing, (Cambridge, Polity Press: 1991), p. 150. 28 Natalie Zemon Davis, “Printing and the People,” in Chandra Mukerji–Michael Schudson (eds.), Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies (Berkeley, University of California Press: 1991), p. 70.

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ginal, and dispersed community that was the mystical milieu, reading was regulated by norms and habits that invested the book with original functions: it replaced the institution of the church, held to be insufficient; it made discourse possible (…).”29 Reading aloud was a public act and the reactions of the community members stimulated discourse. The public nature of the veillée and the fixed relations among community members were guards against any possible transgression that might arise during the act of spreading the teaching that was not under the direct supervision of the representatives of the Catholic Church. However, even if such danger did exist, it was still considered better to acquaint the commoners with the teaching, rather than to leave them in ignorance. One thing that cannot be found in the Croatian sources is any reference to the editing of a text such as, according to some interpretations, was the case in certain other countries: “Reading aloud? We had better say ‘translating,’ since the reader was inevitably turning the French of his printed text into a dialect his listeners could understand. And we might well add ‘editing’ (…).”30 Although early modern Croatia was divided by different dialects, no author would dare instruct the readers to change anything written in a book. Throughout the early modern period this problem was solved by publishing books in different dialects. As the writers wished the commoners to learn and understand, they did their best to make the Catholic teaching accessible. Lay persons’ ignorance and poor reading abilities were the greatest problem of the early modern Croatian writers, something which they, as members of the popular environment, were very much aware of. This is why in early modern Croatia not just reading aloud, but reading in general and simplicity of style cannot be viewed separately. Difficult passages that would hamper reading and confuse the listeners had to be avoided. For this reason it needs to be said that historians have sometimes overstated the potential advantages of reading. “A person reading print can set his own pace, pause to think over a point, repeat a passage, or reread the whole book or article if he thinks it necessary or desirable to do so.”31 This is generally true, but were early modern readers, specifically children who had just completed their basic ABCs, capable of such editing? Clearly not. However, they could pronounce the words letter 29

Chartier, The Order of Books, p. 5. Davis, “Printing and the People,” p. 71. 31 Wilbour Schramm, “Channels and Audiences,” in Ithiel de Sola Pool (ed.), Handbook of Communication (Chicago, Rand McNally: 1978), p. 118. 30

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by letter and simply vocalize the lines and thus share the books with people who did not posses even such basic reading skills. It would also be mistaken to completely rule out the phenomenon of silent reading from the early modern world. According to Michel de Certeau, reading aloud was widely practiced in the early modern period, and “to read without uttering the words aloud or at least mumbling them is a ‘modern’ experience, unknown for millennia. In earlier times, the reader interiorized the text; he made his voice the body of the other; he was its actor.”32 Research by Paul Saenger demonstrates that people read silently from the early Middle Ages on, but such reading was limited to libraries and monasteries, and was performed by proficient men of letters.33 Two reading modes, the silent and the loud, existed simultaneously in the early modern period but, as reading aloud could be utilized in illiterate village communities, religious writers recognized and promoted it. In this way, illiterate community members acquired access to an additional channel through which Catholic teaching might be disseminated. In addition to listening to a preacher or a missionary, the people had someone inside their own community. It was the human voice that helped to suppress the problem of illiteracy. “Thanks to speech, which deciphered writing, (…) written matter was made accessible even to those who were incapable of reading it or who, left to their own devices, would have had only a rudimentary comprehension of it. Literacy rates do not give an accurate measure of familiarity with the written word (…).”34 The question of literacy cannot be understood separately from its social context. In the village communities of early modern northern Croatia it was irrelevant whether all or the majority of community members could or could not read, and the authors of these books obviously understood this. What was important was that at least one among them should possess the skill of reading. The practice of oralized reading warns us that efforts at explaining the techniques of passing on certain contents is not the full answer to the problem of communication—it is necessary to investigate the entire body of communicated values. For if the material to be communicated, Catholic teaching, remains the same, and if it is an unconditional obligation to con32

Michel Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley, University of California Press: 1988), pp. 175–76. 33 Paul Saenger, Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading (Stanford, Stanford University Press: 1997). 34 Chartier, The Order of Books, p. 19.

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vey this material from authorized interpreters to believers, then no possible technique will be ignored to achieve the final goal. For the purposes of Croatian authors of popular religious works it was sufficient that a few members of a community, or at least one member of a family could read—the others could acquire the teaching by listening. Such “functional society literacy” could arise only from a specific social environment, where literacy was not necessary for the mere survival of any community member, but the ability of deciphering letters by some members was desired for achieving the task required of the community—and that was to impart the knowledge of the Catholic teaching. That was, in a given context, satisfactory for accomplishing the writer’s main task, that of providing the simple commoners with the means necessary for salvation.

A Virgin Deserving Paradise or a Whore Deserving Poison: Manuscript Tradition and Printed Books in Ottoman Turkish Society ORLIN SABEV (ORHAN SALIH)1

Over a century after the introduction of typography into Ottoman Turkish society in the 1720s by Ibrahim Müteferrika, a Hungarian-born convert to Islam, it seems that printing was still considered an instrument of the devil. During his visit to Istanbul in 1844 Charles White observed that the Istanbul booksellers considered that manuscript copyists deserved to go to paradise after their demise, while the printing press was made of the poisonous plant oleander.2 In fact, this attitude strikingly resembles early western suspicions toward printing. A late fifteenth-century Dominican friar, Filippo De Strata, for example, voiced the opinion that “the pen is a virgin; the printing press is a whore.”3 Apparently not everybody welcomed the coming of the printing press, and it is unquestionable that printing did not replace the manuscript tradition immediately and without any resistance. The shift from script to print was not simply a physical shift from pen to type, but equally a mental shift from an old to a new view of the nature of the book. Elizabeth Eisenstein, a prominent researcher in the field of book history, put forth the idea that the printing press was an “agent of change” 1

Orhan Salih is Orlin Sabev’s original Turkish name. Charles White, Three Years in Constantinople or Domestic Manners of the Turks in 1844 (London: Henry Colburn, 1845). Quoted after Yahya Erdem, “Sahhaflar ve Seyyahlar: Osmanlı’da Kitapçılık,”[Booksellers and travellers: the Ottoman book trade] in Gülen Eren (ed.), Osmanlı (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 1999), 11, pp. 720–738. 3 Filippo De Strata, Polemic against Printing, trans. Shelagh Grier, ed. Martin Lowry (Birmingham: Hayloft, 1986). Quoted after S. A. Baron, “The Guises of Dissemination of Early Seventeenth-century England: News in Manuscript and Print,” in B. Dooley–S. S. Baron (eds.), The Politics of Information in Early Modern Europe (London–New York: Routledge, 2001), p. 41. 2

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that sparked a “communications revolution.”4 She went on to explain that her particular notion of “revolution” is inspired by Raymond Williams’s oxymoronic expression “long revolution,”5 in the sense that it is not about a fast change as a result of a single act but rather a continuous but irreversible process, whose effects become visible in the course of its development.6 Later scholarship in the field of book history, however, has not fully endorsed Eisenstein’s “revolution” theory, criticizing her non-contextualized approach according to which the advent of printing with movable type in itself created a print culture, and insisting that when the issue of printing is studied within a given socio-cultural context it becomes apparent that manuscript copying and printing continued to exist side by side or as competing technologies until well into the eighteenth century.7 However, when discussing the introduction of printing into the world of Islam and into Ottoman Turkish society in particular,8 most scholars have remained bound to the “print revolution” paradigm, with a few ex4

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 44. See also Idem, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 5 Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (London: Hogarth, 1992). 6 Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, “The Fifteenth Century Book Revolution, Some Causes and Consequences of the Advent of Printing in Western Europe,” in Le Livre dans les sociétés pré-industrielles (Athens: Kentron Neoelleon Ereunon, 1982), pp. 57–76; Idem, “From Scriptoria to Printing Shops: Evolution and Revolution in the Early Printing Book Trade,” in K. E. Carpenter (ed.), Books and Society in History, Papers of the Association of College and Research Libraries Rare Books and Manuscripts Preconference, 24–28 June, 1980, Boston, Massachusetts (New York–London: Bowker, 1983), pp. 29–42. 7 Jacques le Goff, Les intellectuels au Moyen Âge (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1985), p. 187; Robert A. Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe: Culture and Education 1500–1800 (London–New York: Longman, 1988), pp. 160–163; Brian Richardson, Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 9; Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago– London: The University of Chicago Press, 1998); Diederick Raven, “Elizabeth Eisenstein and the Impact of Printing,” European Review of History/Revue européene d’Histoire 6/2 (1999), pp. 223–234; Nicholas Hudson, “Challenging Eisenstein: Recent Studies in Print Culture,” Eighteenth-Century Life 26/2 (2002), pp. 83–95; Asa Briggs and Peter Burke, A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003), pp. 15–73; David McKitterick, Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450– 1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 8 See Eva Hagebutt-Benz–Dagmar Glass–Geoffrey Roper (eds.), Sprachen des Nahen Ostens und die Druckrevolution: eine interculturelle Begegnung/Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution: a Cross-cultural Encounter. A Catalogue and Companion to the Exhibition (Mainz: Johann Gutenberg Museum, 2002).

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ceptions in which that introduction is interpreted within the framework of a cultural “evolution.”9 In the context of this controversy the question whether or not Ibrahim Müteferrika’s printing enterprise was an “agent of change” in the world of Islam has received conflicting replies. Previous scholarship has tended to give a negative answer to this question since Ibrahim did not sell the total number of copies he printed, and since his enterprise was suspended after his death. However, the present article seeks to show that Ibrahim Müteferrika’s printing press was indeed an agent of change—though not an agent of immediate change. To be sure, the transition from scribal to print culture was a slow, gradual and arduous process. In this regard, as Brian Richardson notes, old habits die hard.10 What is important here is to find a plausible answer to the question when exactly one could claim that a certain print culture already exists. For this we first need a definition of the term “print culture” which would then allow us to fix unambiguously the time of its real domination over scribal culture. Traditionally the so-called “print-culture scholarship” has satisfied itself in pointing out that once printing technology with movable type was introduced the spread of printed books caused profound transformations in all social spheres. But is the establishment of a printing press enough in itself to enable us to speak about a print culture? A more significant sign of a developed and dominant print culture is probably the existence of a social conviction of the necessity of printed modes of transmission of knowledge and information. Thus the establishment of a printing house is certainly a starting point in the formation of print culture, but within different social contexts the process of overcoming the strongly entrenched manuscript tradition took place in the shorter or longer term. However, in this discussion of the agents and the opponents of printing—that is, the printers on the one hand, and the copyists or other traditionalists on the other—what has rather tended to be ignored is the role of a “third party”: the reading public. The coexistence and interaction between manuscript culture and print culture depended not only on the spread and development of printing presses across Europe, or in this case 9

See André Demeerseman, “Un mémoire célèbre qui préfigure l’évolution moderne en Islam,” Revue de l’Institut des belles lettres arabes (IBLA) XVIII (1955), pp. 5–32; Wahid Gdoura, Le début de l’imprimerie arabe à Istanbul et en Syrie. Évolution de l’environnement culturel (1706–1787) (Tunis: Institut Superieur de Documentation, 1985). 10 Richardson, Printing, Writers and Readers, p. 77.

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the Ottoman Empire, but on the reception of printed books by the traditional or newly emerging reading public. Little has been discovered so far about how the various segments of that public considered printed books, or about how far and how fast printed materials penetrated public and private spheres respectively. The answers of these questions, however, could reveal a trend in the reception of printing by readers which proves to be at variance more or less to the speed of the spread of printing as a technology per se. As a matter of fact, the starting point in the formation of the Ottoman Turkish attitude towards printing does not coincide with the introduction of Ottoman Turkish printing, but with the dawn of European printing with movable type in the second half of the fifteenth century. In fact, this attitude was sometimes ambivalent, revealing a variation between the official and non-official attitudes, as both non-Ottoman and Ottoman sources reveal. At least two western travelers, André Thevet, who journeyed to the Orient in 1549, and Paul Ricaut, who was in Istanbul in the 1660s, claimed that printing was forbidden by the Ottoman rulers. Thevet claims that Sultan Bayezid II (1481-1512) issued a decree in 1483 stipulating the death penalty for those who dared to print books, and that the succeeding sultan, Selim I (1512-1520), confirmed the previous decree in 1515.11 As a matter of fact, scholars have been reluctant to consider these claims historically correct because no documentary confirmation has so far been found.12 Such claims have probably something to do with the known restrictions set on non-Muslim printing houses that were operating on Ottoman soil regarding the printing of books in Arabic script.13 Ricaut, however, claims that the Ottoman sultans banned printing because it would bring in-depth knowledge that could threaten their tyrannical rule. Moreover, he gave still another reason, namely concern for the livelihood of 11

André Thevet, Histoire des plus illustres et scavans hommes de leurs siècles (Paris: Manger, 1671), 2, p. 111. Quoted after Gdoura, Le début de l’imprimerie arabe, p. 86. 12 See Efdaleddin, “Memalik-i Osmaniye’de Tıbaatın Kadimi” [History of printing in the Ottoman state], Tarih-i Osmanî Encümeni Mecmuası 40 (1332 [1916]), pp. 242–249; A. D. Jeltyakov, Türkiye’nin Sosyo-Politik ve Kültürel Hayatında Basın (1729–1908 Yılları) [Printing in the socio-political and and cultural life of Turkey (1729–1908)] (Ankara: Basın Yayın Genel Müdürülüğü, 1979), p. 20; Gdoura, Le début de l’imprimerie arabe, p. 88. 13 John-Paul Ghobrial, “Diglossia and the ‘Methodology’ of Arabic Print,” paper presented at the 2nd International Symposium History of Printing and Publishing in the Languages and Countries of the Middle East, 2–4 November 2005, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

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manuscript copyists and the eventual decline of calligraphy, an art in which the Turks are, according to him, superior over other nations.14 Ricaut’s claims are supported by Giovanni Donado, whose account of the literature of the Turks was published in 1688, where he states that the Ottoman sultans have banned printing in Oriental languages in order to secure the copyists’ livelihood. Donado adds, however, that the Turks regard the printing press as a Christian invention and printed books as “blasphemy,” although the latter attitude was not loudly voiced.15 But the claims of Ricaut and Donado are only partly supported by the Conte di Marsigli, an Italian nobleman who visited Istanbul in the late 1670s and early 1690s. In his book on the military state of the Ottoman Empire published in 1732, Marsigli claims that if the Turks do not print their books this is not because of any specific prohibition but because of their concern for the livelihood of the numerous copyists.16 In other words, where Ricaut and Donado speak of the official prohibition of printing, Marsigli implies rather a non-official abstention from printing. In the 1780s Mouradgea D’Ohsson, an Istanbul Armenian, also holds the copyists responsible for the delay in the introduction of Ottoman printing.17 Manuscript copyists were certainly unhappy at the prospect of competition from printing, and according to the accounts of a contemporary of Ibrahim Müteferrika, the Swiss nobleman César de Saussure, Ibrahim’s intention to launch a printing venture met with a severe reaction from the religious and as well from the copyists, who appealed to the Grand Vizier to put a stop to such an undertaking which threatened their livelihood.18 14

Paul Ricaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (London: 1668), p. 32. Franz Babinger, “18. Yüzyılda İstanbul’da Kitabiyat” [Printing in eighteenth-century Istanbul], in N. Kuran-Burçoğlu (trans. and ed.), Müteferrika ve Osmanlı Matbaası [Müteferrika and the Ottoman printing press] (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2004), p. 9. 16 Signore conte di Marsigli/Mr. Le Compte de Marsigli, Stato militare dell’Impero Ottomanno incremento e decremento del medesimo/L’Etat militaire de l’Empire ottoman, ses progrès et sa décadence (The Hague–Amsterdam: 1732), p. 40; Gyula Káldy-Nagy, “Beginnings of the Arabic-Letter Printing in the Muslim World,” in Gyula Káldy-Nagy (ed.), The Muslim East, Studies in Honour of Julius Germann, Loránd Eötvös (Budapest: Loránd Eötvös University, 1974), pp. 204–205; İsmet Binark, “Türkiye’ye Matbaanın Geç Girişinin Sebepleri Üzerine” [On the reasons for the late introduction of printing to Turkey], Türk Kültürü 65 (1968), pp. 295–304. 17 Ignace Mouradgea D’Ohsson, Tableau général de l’Empire Othoman (Paris: 1787), 1, p. 298. 18 Coloman de Thály (trans. and ed.), Lettres de Turquie (1730–1739) et Notices (1740) de César de Saussure (Budapest: Academie hongroise des sciences, 1909), p. 94. 15

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Donado is not the only western traveler to put emphasis on the religious aspect of the printing issue. The Austrian envoy to Istanbul, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522–1592), who shared in a number of letters the impressions from his stay there in the period of 1555–1562, wrote that the Ottomans had not adopted the technology of printing from the Europeans for fear of committing disrespect to their holy books.19 In his history of printing Thomas Francis Carter is inclined to put the Muslim bias against printing down to conservativeness, suggesting that since the Koran was preserved in manuscript form not only its text but also its form was considered unchangeable.20 Such an explanation might seem plausible, but late nineteenth-century findings in the Fayyum oasis in Egypt of fragments of block-printed texts with Arabic script, among them verses from the Koran dating from the tenth to the thirteenth century,21 may indicate that such conservatism was not always a force. Certainly, one should distinguish between the printing of sacred texts and the printing of secular matters. If in regard to the former there were religious obstacles, the latter seems much more acceptable, as seems to have been the case during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Abd ar-Rahman an-Nasir (912-961), who reportedly sent his orders to the provincial governors of Andalusia in printed form.22 It is interesting, further, to take a look at what Ottoman Turkish sources reveal about official and non-official attitudes towards printing. An edition of the Arabic commentary on Euclid’s Elements of Geometry by Nasireddin al-Tusi (d. 1274), printed in 1594 at the Tipographia Medicea in Rome, includes the text of a decree issued by Sultan Murad III (1574–1595) in 1588. The decree reveals that two European traders had imported into the Ottoman state among other goods books printed in Arabic and Persian,23 on the basis of a decree allowing them to do so. However, the two traders complained that their stock had been plundered at the dock by the locals who had been seriously offended by the fact that the two foreign traders had such books. The decree of 1588 ordained that all 19

See Gdoura, Le début de l’imprimerie arabe, p. 103. Thomas Francis Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), p. 112. 21 See Robert W. Bulliet, “Medieval Arabic Тarsh: A Forgotten Chapter in the History of Printing,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 107/3 (1987), pp. 427–438. 22 Ibid.; Káldy-Nagy, “Beginnings of the Arabic-Letter Printing in the Muslim World,” p. 201. 23 For western prints in Arabic script see Josée Balagna, L’imprimerie arabe en Occident: XVIe, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Editions Maisonneuve & Larose, 1984). 20

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responsible Ottoman authorities should in future take steps to prevent such plundering, which was contradictory to Muslim sacred law and to the capitulations that were in force.24 The decree is a good illustration of the two sides of the coin. Officially, the Ottoman authorities allowed the trade in Arabic books printed abroad; but the wider public was, to a certain extent at least, hostile towards such prints. This hostility must have been especially true for European prints of the Koran. During the seventeenth century it is reported that a large shipment of Koran prints imported to Ottoman shores by an Englishman were thrown into the Sea of Marmara by the locals.25 But if for the common people such prints might have been offensive to a greater or lesser extent, those who were in need of such texts were much more open-minded and secured copies. As evidence for this I am able to refer to another print, a copy of Avicenna’s Canon in Medicine printed in 1593 at the Tipographia Medicea and preserved at the Oriental Department of the Bulgarian National Library in Sofia. Its title page contains three ownership inscriptions: one of them is dated 1639-1640 and pertains to a certain Zeynulabidin son of Halil, who was Muslim judge in Galata (today, part of Istanbul), while the other two are of a certain El-Hajj Mehmed al-Garbi saying that he purchased the copy in 1695-1696 from the estate of the late El- Hajj Mahmud, mufti of Trabzon.26 In this case one can identify at least two representatives of the Ottoman religious class of relatively high rank who were not prejudiced towards printed books in Arabic, even though these were the products of a western printing house. However, such western prints in Arabic script had not proved generally successful as items of trade in the Orient, as Antoine Galland admitted in his preface to Herbelo de Mollenville’s Oriental Library, printed in Paris in 1697. Galland, who was for a while in Istanbul in 1672–1673, refers to western prints of Avicenna, Euclid and “a geographical work” (in fact, the famous geographical work of al-Idrisi) which he says were targeted not at 24

See the English translation of the text in George N. Atiyeh (ed.), The Book in the Islamic World: The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 283. 25 Franz Babinger, Stambuler Buchwesen im 18. Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Haertel, 1919), p. 8. 26 Sofia, National Library, Oriental Department: Rare Books Collection, O II 160, Kitâbü’l-Kânûn fî’t-tıbb li-Abu ‘Ali eş-Şeyh er-Reis İbn-i Sînâ (Romae: Tipographia Medicea, 1593). See the facsimile of the page in question in Stoyanka Kenderova–Zorka Ivanova, From the Collections of Ottoman Libraries in Bulgaria during the 18th–19th Centuries (Sofia: National Library Printing Press, 1999), p. 95.

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westerners familiar with Arabic but the reading public in the Orient. However, trade in them proved unsuccessful because Muslims still preferred manuscripts, even at a higher price, to printed books.27 One may trust both of Galland’s claims. As shown above, such prints were indeed traded in the Ottoman book market. On the other hand, they had seemingly drawn less attention than initially expected. This lack of interest in what printing had to offer is clearly detectable when we read between the lines of a pair of texts written by two prominent seventeenth-century Ottoman intellectuals, Ibrahim Peçevi (1574-1650) and Katib Çelebi (1609-1657). In his History, Peçevi deals in brief with the development of European printing and describes it as a strange but efficient art.28 Katib Çelebi, on the other hand, refers to ancient Chinese printing in his famous geographical work, Mirror of the World.29 Yet Çelebi complains of being restricted from including in his book all the maps he wished, since the art of printing was not in use in his country and therefore it was a problem to reproduce even a single page of illustration.30 For all that, Katib Çelebi does not (as Orhan Koloğlu has pointed out) recommend his compatriots adopt the technology of printing.31 Nor did Ibrahim Peçevi. These two narratives leave the impression that well into the early eighteenth century even Ottoman intellectuals did not so much as address the question of whether to print or not to print. And the lack of such concern is indicative enough of a corresponding lack of a need. Or to be precise, with regard to Katib Çelebi’s complaints one may assume that some mid-seventeenth century Ottoman Turkish intellectuals felt that there was a use for printing not in general but in particular and specific cases, for example, for map-making in this instance. 27

Quoted after Selim Nüzhet Gerçek, Türk Matbaacılığı [Turkish printing], vol. I, Müteferrika Matbaası [Müteferrika’s press] (Istanbul: MfV, 1939), pp. 18–19. 28 Peçevi İbrahim Efendi, Peçevi Tarihi [Peçevi’s history], ed. B. S. Baykal (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı, 1981), 1, pp. 82–83. 29 Orhan Şaik Gökyay, Katip Çelebi’den Seçmeler [Selections from Katip Çelebi] (İstanbul: MEB, 1968), p. 124. 30 Hamit S. Selen, “Cihannümā,” in Kâtip Çelebi Hayatı ve Eserleri Hakkında İncelemeler [Studies on Katip Çelebi’s life and writings] (Ankara: TTK, 1991), p. 131; Osman Ersoy, Türkiye’ye Matbaanın Girişi ve İlk Basılan Eserler [The introduction of printing to Turkey and the first printed books] (Ankara: A. Ü. Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi, 1959), p. 30 (the author quotes Selen’s publication but misrepresents Katib Çelebi’s words in claiming that printing has been forbidden). 31 Orhan Koloğlu, Basımevi ve Basının Gecikme Sebepleri ve Sonuçları [The reasons for the late introduction of printing and the printing press and their consequences] (İstanbul: İstanbul Gazeteciler Cemiyeti, 1987), p. 30.

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To summarize, the tradition of hand copying seems to have been quite adequate to satisfy the need for written materials in the Ottoman Empire and in the wider world of Islam. If there were psychological, cultural, religious, and social concerns that made the Ottomans refrain from adopting printing, equally it seems that they felt no great or vital need of printing, at least to such a degree that might make them overcome the alleged concerns. Scholars dealing with Ottoman history point out that there was never an “iron curtain” between the Ottoman elite and their European counterparts to prevent the exchange of new ideas, but make it clear that the Ottomans adopted foreign cultural patterns only if they were really needed.32 The eventual adoption of printing technology by the Ottomans was closely connected with the socio-cultural developments during the socalled Tulip Period (1718-1730), when some trend of Westernization was sparked by the first long-term Ottoman embassy to any country, namely France. The almost one-year long embassy (1720-1721) provoked among the Ottoman elite a remarkable interest in western culture, luxurious lifestyle, architectural styles (such as rococo and baroque) and discoveries in the fields of geography, astronomy, biology and medicine.33 The western influence, however, did not replace immediately and completely the traditional Ottoman culture. It was adapted rather than merely adopted, thus creating, in Fatma Müge Göçek’s words, a “cultural dichotomy”34 or, in Rifaat Ali Abou-el-Haj’s expression, a “cultural symbiosis.”35 In such a cultural atmosphere, the Ottoman elite (or at least a part of it), now much more open to western culture as compared with previous times and inclined to make use of selected western achievements, supported the introduction of typography to print books for the Turkish-speaking Muslim reading public. 32

Rifaat Ali Abou-el-Haj, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), p. 68; Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, “Ottoman Science in the Classical Period and Early Contacts with European Science and Technology,” in Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu (ed.), Transfer of Modern Science & Technology to the Muslim World: Proceedings of the International Symposium on “Modern Sciences and the Muslim World. Science and Technology Transfer from the West to the Muslim World from the Renaissance to the Beginning of the XIXth Century” (Istanbul 2–4 September 1987) (İstanbul: IRCICA, 1992), pp. 25, 29. 33 For the Tulip Period see Fatma Müge Göçek, East Encounters West: France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century (New York–Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). 34 Ibid., p. 81. 35 Abou-el-Haj, Formation of the Modern State, p. 67.

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Indeed, the Ottoman authorities did not initiate, but supported, the establishment of a printing press, which was completely the private and personal undertaking of Ibrahim Müteferrika, who enjoyed in the beginning the moral and financial support of Said Efendi, one of the officials who took part in the embassy to France. Ibrahim Müteferrika was a Transylvanian-born Hungarian Unitarian who graduated from a college in Kolozsvár. During the revolt of Imre Thököly against the Austrian occupation of Transylvania in the early 1690s he become an Ottoman subject and later converted to Islam, taking the name Ibrahim.36 He acquired his byname after he was elevated in 1716 to the position of permanent müteferrika, a term deriving from the name of a corps at the Ottoman court whose members were especially closely attached to the person of the sultan and who were used for more or less important public or political missions. Ibrahim Müteferrika, in particular, was employed on diplomatic missions and had certain bureaucratic responsibilities. His last office seems to be the direction of the presumably first Ottoman papermill at Yalova, near Istanbul, in the years 1744– 1747.37 Ibrahim passed away at the end of January 1747,38 and an inventory of all his possessions, including the unsold copies of the books printed by him, were listed in a probate record dated April 1, 1747. That record, however, became known only recently.39 36

37

38

39

Thály, Lettres de Turquie (1730–1739), pp. 93–94; Gérald Duverdier, “Savary de Brèves et Ibrahim Müteferrika: deux drogmans culturels à l’origine de l’imprimerie turque,” Bulletin du Bibliophile 3 (1987), pp. 322–359. Details on the biography of Ibrahim Müteferrika are provided in T. Halasi Kun, “İbrâhim Müteferrika,” İslâm Ansiklopedisi (İstanbul: MEB, 1950), 5/2, pp. 896–900; Niyazi Berkes, “Ibrahim Müteferrika,” in B. Lewis et al. (eds.), The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971), 3, pp. 996–998; Erhan Afyoncu, “İlk Türk Matbaasının Kurucusu Hakkında Yeni Bilgiler,” [New data about the founder of the first Turkish printing press] Belleten 243 (2001), pp. 607–622. According to different views Müteferrika died in 1745, 1746 or 1747. See the latest articles on this issue: Kemal Beydilli, “Müteferrika ve Osmanlı Matbaası. 18. Yüzyılda İstanbul’da Kitabiyat” [Müteferrika and Ottoman printing: Printing in eighteenthcentury Istanbul], Toplumsal Tarih 128 (2004), pp. 44–52; Erhan Afyoncu, “İbrahim Müteferrika’nın Yeni Yayınlanan Terekesi ve Ölüm Tarihi Üzerine” [The newly published probate inventory of Ibrahim Müteferrika], Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi 15 (2004), pp. 349–362. This record is preserved in the archive of the Mufti of Istanbul: İstanbul Müftülüğü Şeriye Sicilleri, Kısmet-i Askeriye Mahkemesi, Defter 98, fol. 39a–40b. A transcription in modern Turkish is given in my monograph on the first Ottoman Turkish printing press. See Orlin Sabev, First Ottoman Journey in the World of Printed Books (1726– 1746): A Reassessment (Sofia: Avangard Prima, 2004), pp. 340–348.

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It was not as a müteferrika that Ibrahim Müteferrika became famous both among his contemporaries and in history but as the first Ottoman printer. His boundless enthusiasm for printing helped him to overcome the obstacles set in his path by those who had reason to oppose it, like scribes, manuscript copyists and religious men. In order to convince the authorities to support his undertaking, Ibrahim wrote a treatise in 1726 entitled The Utility of Printing. In it Ibrahim pleaded his case, setting forth the likely benefits of printing for Muslims and for the future of the Ottoman state. He undertook, however, that he would not print religious texts, but rather dictionaries and books on history, medicine, physics, astronomy and geography.40 Besides this treatise, Ibrahim submitted to the Grand Vizier an application for an official permit to run his printing house. The Grand Vizier approved the application, then the Grand Mufti issued an official religious opinion (fetvā) allowing printing as a useful way of enabling the duplication of books, and finally, in the beginning of July 1727, Sultan Ahmed III (1703–1730) signed a special decree, giving to Ibrahim and Said Efendi an official permit to run the printing house.41 Said Efendi, however, effectively withdrew in the early 1730s, leaving Müteferrika to run the enterprise on his own. Between the years 1727 and 1742 Müteferrika printed all in all sixteen editions in twenty two volumes. One of them, a manual of the Turkish language, was intended not for the Ottoman–Muslim but the Francophone reading public. Two of the remaining editions are dictionaries, ten deal with history, another two combine historical and geographical themes, one title is completely geographical, one deals with physics, and one is on political and military issues. Some of the works were written and others translated (from Latin) by the printer himself.42 Since the total print of most of Müteferrika’s books was clearly indicated in one of his last books, one can presume that the total number of all 40

See the English translation of the text in Atiyeh, The Book in the Islamic World, pp. 286–292. 41 Ibid., pp. 284–285. 42 Ibrahim Müteferrika’s good command of Latin was because of his Hungarian origin and college level educational background. Latin was either an official or unofficial spoken language in Europe, and Hungary in particular, well into the first half of the nineteenth century. See István Gy. Tóth, “Latin as a Spoken Language in Hungary during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” CEU History Department Yearbook 1997–1998 (Budapest, 1999), pp. 93–111; Idem, Literacy and Written Culture in Early Modern Central Europe (Budapest–New York: Central European University Press, 2000), p. 131; Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe, p. 24.

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the printed copies was in the range of 10,000–11,000. If we compare this figure to the number of unsold copies that Müteferrika left upon his death, which the probate record gives as 2981, we could infer that 69.3 percent of the output of his press was sold. On the basis of these figures one could argue that Ibrahim Müteferrika’s printing enterprise was either a qualified success or a qualified failure. But however we interpret them, it can be inferred that what Müteferrika was offering to the public (actually, a rather limited segment of that public) was books the demand for which was created because of their rareness and unavailability or because of the scarcity of relatively current information, but which were aside from the traditional reading taste. Some insight into what the Ottoman Muslim reading public’s taste was can be gained by examining probate records that mention titles of books. Such an approach is by no means without its problems. The surviving documentation is incomplete, and yet even what has survived is so bulky that it is impossible for a single researcher to undertake the huge project of consulting all the available materials.43 In any case, the probate records reflect the situation at the time of death, so it is difficult to ascertain whether the deceased had not owned more books than he/she left at the time of his/her death: some book owners may have previously sold, given away, or donated some or all of their books. In any case, the number of book owners found in such records does not fully account for the number of actual readers, since many who might have been readers may not themselves have owned books. Given the many problems related to the sources, the best that a researcher can do is to limit the scope of such a study in terms of chronology, geographical focus, and items studied. There are already several case-studies exploring reading tastes in particular places and times: in the capital Istanbul (seventeenth44 and first half of the eighteenth century45), the neighborhood of Eyüp (eighteenth century),46 as well as in 43

The Kısmet-i Askeriye Mahkemesi collection, for example, includes 2144 registers of the period 1000/1591–92–1342/1924. See Ahmet Akgündüz, ed., Şer‘iye Sicilleri: Mahiyeti, Toplu Kataloğu ve Seçme Hükümler [The Sharia Records: Specifics, overall catalogue and selections] (İstanbul: Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları Vakfı, 1988), pp. 100–116. 44 Said Öztürk, Askeri Kassama Ait Onyedinci Asır İstanbul Tereke Defterleri (SosyoEkonomik Tahlil) [Seventeenth-century probate inventories from the office of the military distributor of inheritance shares in Istanbul ] (Istanbul: OSAV, 1995), pp. 174–184. 45 Sabev, First Ottoman Journey, pp. 243–251. 46 Tülay Artan, “Terekeler Işığında 18. Yüzyıl Ortasında Eyüp’te Yaşam Tarzı ve Standartlarına Bir Bakış: Orta Halliliğin Aynası” [A glance at the lifestyle and standard

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some important Balkan, Anatolian and Arab provincial centers such as Sofia (1671–1833),47 Rusçuk (1695–1786),48 and Salonika (nineteenth century)49; Bursa (fifteenth–sixteenth century)50; Sinop, Samsun, Trabzon, Giresun, and Çorum (eighteenth–nineteenth centuries)51; Damascus (1686–1717)52; and Cairo (sixteenth to the eighteenth century).53 These all reveal that the majority of identified book owners possessed predominantly religious literature, mainly in Arabic, and selections of poetry in Persian, Arabic and Turkish. Among religious books the most popular were, naturally, the Koran; then, a small collection of the most popular Koran chapters (sura) entitled Enсām-i Şerīf after the sura Enсām (The Camel); the Muhammediye, a verse biography of the prophet Muhammad written by Yazıcıoğlu Mehmed in 1444; and the Vasiyetnāme (Book of Wills) of Mehmed Birgivi (sixteenth century), a book on religious dogma and practice. The latter two writings were by Ottoman Turkish authors whose popularity was to a great extent due to the accessibility of the language in which they wrote. As for books on history and geography, the most popular were again those related to Islamic history, such as the History of al-Tabari which relates the life of Muhammad and

of living in mid-eighteenth-century Eyüp in the light of probate inventories: A mirror of the middle class], in Tülay Artan (ed.), 18. Yüzyıl Kadı Sicilleri Işığında Eyüp’te Sosyal Yaşam [Social life in Eyüp in the light of eighteenth-century Sharia records] (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 1998), pp. 49–64. 47 Orlin Sabev, “Private Book Collections in Ottoman Sofia, 1671–1833 (Preliminary notes),” Études balkaniques 1 (2003), pp. 34–82. 48 Orlin Sabev, “Knigata v ejednevieto na müsülmanite v Ruse (1695–1786) [The book in the daily life of the Rusçuk Muslims (1695–1786)],” Almanah za istoriyata na Ruse 4 (2002), pp. 380–394. 49 Meropi Anastassiadou, “Livres et ‘bibliothèques’ dans les inventaires après décès de Salonique au XIXe siècle,” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 87–88 (1999), pp. 111–141; Meropi Anastassiadou, “Des défunts hors du commun: les possesseurs dе livres dans les inventaires après décès musulmans de Salonique,” Turcica 32 (2000), pp. 197–252. 50 Ali İhsan Karataş, “Osmanlı Toplumunda Kitap (XIV–XVI. Yüzyıllar)” [The book in Ottoman society (14th–16th centuries)], in C. Güzel–K. Çiçek–S. Koca (eds.), Türkler (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 2002), 11: pp. 896–909. 51 Fahri Sakal, “Osmanlı Ailesinde Kitap” [The book in the Ottoman family], in Gülen Eren (ed.), Osmanlı (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 1999), 11, pp. 732–738. 52 Colette Establet and Jean-Paul Pascual, “Les livres des gens à Damas vers 1700,” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 87–88 (1999), pp. 143–175. 53 Nelly Hanna, In Praise of Books: A Cultural History of Cairo’s Middle Class, Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2004).

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the emergence and development of the early Islamic state,54 and travelogues written by pilgrims to Mecca.55 Old Persian epics such as Şāhnāme and Hamzanāme were also among the favorites. Dictionaries, on the other hand, are very seldom listed in these records. As for the reading public itself, it was composed mainly of men of religion (сulema), both scholars and students, as well as administrative and military officials, and sometimes traders and craftsmen. In terms of gender, men considerably prevailed over women as readers. Given such a reading public and taste in books, Ibrahim Müteferrika definitely filled a gap when he began by printing dictionaries. His first print, Vankulu’s Arabic–Turkish redaction of Cevheri’s Dictionary known as Sihāh, clearly became a bestseller since only one copy out of 500 copies printed is mentioned in his probate record. However, in his overall editing policy Müteferrika was much more inclined to print historical and geographical books (as outlined above). Yet in chosing texts on such subjects he ignored the traditional religious or the epic literature popular at the time. By printing works on Ottoman maritime history or the political history of Persia, the Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire, as well as books on geography, Müteferrika seems to have attempted to provide historical and geographical works of didactic value that would be useful to those involved in government. Indeed, as William Watson notes, Ibrahim’s printing philosophy seems to be completely utilitarian.56 Hence special attention should be paid to the social and professional profile of the persons who bought Müteferrika’s printed books. One can immediately observe that the first printed Ottoman books appeared in probate records very soon after they were printed. It is noteworthy that those who possessed such printed, and in the beginning relatively expensive books were not only Ottoman military and bureaucratic officials, as might be expected, but also religious functionaries.57 The latter fact is

54

The History of al-Tabari: Biographies of the Prophet’s Companions and Their Successors, trans. E. Landau-Tasseron (New York: The State University of New York Press, 1998). 55 See Menderes Coşkun, “Osmanlı Hac Seyahatnamelerinde Hac Yolculuğu” [Pilgrimage in Ottoman pilgrims’ accounts], in G. Eren (ed.), Osmanlı (Ankara: Yeni Yürkiye, 1999), 4, pp. 506–511; Menderes Coşkun, ”The Most Literary Ottoman Pilgrimage Narrative: Nabi’s Tuhfetü’l-Haremeyn,” Turcica 32 (2000), pp. 363–388. 56 William J. Watson, “İbrāhīm Müteferrika and Turkish Incunabula,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 88 (1968), pp. 436. 57 More details are provided in Sabev, First Ottoman Journey, pp. 255–260.

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significant, since it has been alleged that it was precisely religious functionaries who were the traditional opponents to the printing press. The Ottoman Turkish experiment in printing ceased immediately after Müteferrika’s death in 1747, though it enjoyed a brief afterlife with the reprint of Vankulu’s dictionary in the mid-1750s (the initiative, in fact, of two Ottoman Muslim judges). Except for several books that sold well, Müteferrika’s efforts in printing could seem the expression of a personal enthusiasm rather than a response to a real demand in Ottoman Turkish society for increased numbers of identical copies of books on particular topics; yet when his prints became artifacts in a world dominated by the manuscript tradition they showed people that there was an alternative way of multiplication of texts, shortening the time of the diffusion of information and widening the horizon of knowledge. Thus they set a precedent that convinced more people than ever before of the advantages of printing. In the second half of the eighteenth century the idea of printing found new promoters. For instance, Süleyman Penah Efendi in a memorandum entitled Mecmua addressed to Sultan Abdulhamid I (1774–1789) recommended the revival of Ottoman Turkish printing for administrative and educational purposes. By this he intended only the printing of secular texts, excluding religious texts such as the Koran and the Hadiths.58 Süleyman Penah Efendi’s proposal is remarkable evidence of the increasing need for the faster multiplication and wider dissemination of certain sorts of texts by means of printing toward the last quarter of the Ottoman eighteenth century. It is not just a co-incidence that a treatise of Müteferrika’s printed in 1732 and proposing European-style military reforms was—presumably widely—copied by hand on the eve of Sultan Selim III’s (1789–1807) reforms of the Ottoman army. Two surviving copies, dating from the second half of the eighteenth century and preserved in Firestone Library in Princeton59 and in the Oriental Department in Sofia,60 are good evidence that certain current issues such as, for example, the 58

Cahit Telci, “Bir Osmanlı Aydının XVIII. Devlet Düzeni Hakkındaki Görüşleri: Penah Süleyman Efendi” [The views of an Ottoman intellectual about the eighteenth-century state order: Penah Süleyman Efendi] in Gülen Eren (ed.), Osmanlı (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 1999), 7, pp. 178–188. 59 Princeton University Library: Rare Books and Special Collections, Manuscripts Division, Garrett Collection, Yahuda 5011, fol. 19b–75b. I would like to express my gratitude to the Friends of the Princeton University Library Grants Committee for providing me with a grant to carry out research on the first Ottoman Turkish printed books preserved in Firestone Library during the period June 5–23, 2006. 60 Sofia, National Library, Oriental Department: Manuscripts Collection, OR 2296.

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clear and vital need for military reforms created a demand for more available copies of texts dealing with such issues. Although in this particular case the need for further copies was met through copying by hand, some Ottoman intellectuals like Süleyman Penah Efendi were convinced that printing was a better alternative. Süleyman Penah Efendi’s proposal was thus in keeping with something that was in the air at the time. For instance, in 1779 James Mario Matra (1746–1808), then secretary to the British Embassy in Istanbul, made an unsuccessful effort to reestablish an Ottoman press to print in particular the Kamus Dictionary, and then translations of western treatises on astronomy and mathematics.61 It is uncertain whether Süleyman Penah Efendi’s proposal had any direct effect on Sultan Abdulhamid, but the latter himself initiated the revival of Ottoman Turkish printing in 1784 using Müteferrika’s old presses. The newly opened printing house was commissioned to two state officials, Raşid Mehmed Efendi and Vasıf Efendi, and operated until 1794, during which time it published eleven books, six of which served Selim III’s military reforms, and the rest also being on secular subjects.62 At the turn of the nineteenth century (1217/1802–3) another Ottoman intellectual, Mehmed Emin Behic Efendi, wrote his Sevānihü’l-levāyih (Inspired Memorandums), in which—in contrast to Süleyman Penah Efendi—he urged the immediate printing of instructive books on Muslim religion as well as Arabic textbooks in 3,000–4,000 copy editions in order to improve mass education in religion matters by providing the pupils with cheaper textbooks. Behic Efendi also recommended the printing of regulations (nizāmnāme) for Muslim religious functionaries in the provinces, as well as textbooks for a school which he proposed should be opened for the special purpose of training scribes for the imperial bureaucracy. In addition, he urged the printing and disseminating of a penal code in accordance with the Sharia.63 What is significant in Behic Efendi’s proposal is the fact that he appreciates the vital role printing could play as a tool for making education accessible to a wider social layer and for improving the working of the bureaucracy and the implementation of the law. 61

62

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Richard Clogg, “An Attempt to Revive Turkish Printing in Istanbul in 1779,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10 (1979), pp. 67–70. Jale Baysal, Müteferrika’dan Birinci Meşrutiyete Kadar Osmanlı Türklerinin Bastıkları Kitaplar [Books printed by the Ottoman Turks from Müteferrika’s time to the first constitutional period] (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi, 1968), pp. 59–60. Kemal Beydilli, “Küçük Kaynarca’dan Tanzimat’a Islahat Düşünceleri” [Reformation ideas from Küçük Kaynarca to the Tanzimat], İlmi Araştırmalar 8 (1999), pp. 25–64.

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It seems clear that towards the turn of the nineteenth century it had become much easier than ever before to persuade Ottoman society of the public utility of printing, and the reason for this was not only the more visible need of printing but equally the precedent set earlier by Müteferrika. In other words, due to Müteferrika’s printing enterprise a major shift in the public attitude toward printing occurred between the mid-seventeenth century, when it did not even enter the thoughts of intellectuals like Ibrahim Peçevi and Katib Çelebi that this technology could be introduced to the Ottomans—although their accounts outline the advantages of European or Chinese printing—and the turn of the nineteenth century when intellectuals like Süleyman Penah Efendi and Mehmed Emin Behic Efendi were deeply convinced of the necessity of printing. After the 1784 revival Ottoman printing enjoyed a boom in the nineteenth century, serving faithfully to promote reforms in Ottoman civil, religious and military education; the improvement of Ottoman central and provincial administration; the launching of propaganda for the promotion of state reformative initiatives; and the Ottoman booksellers who had permission to print books at the state printing press. As a matter of fact, prints on religious matters began gradually prevailing over those on secular matters. This was partly due to the printing of textbooks for the reformed school system that required greater numbers of books than ever before for the sake of mass education. The remarkable expansion of Ottoman printing in the nineteenth century did not, however, put an end to the strong manuscript tradition. It simply confirmed printing as an alternative technology, which in the course of time expanded more and more at the expense of manuscript copying. Probably nostalgia was responsible for the negative attitude of some Istanbul booksellers toward printing which Charles White observed in 1844. It is noteworthy that the probate records dating from the second half of the nineteenth century, and even the official printed catalogues of Ottoman libraries prepared during the reign of Abdulhamid II (1876– 1909) still make a distinction between manuscripts and printed books by explicitly designating the latter with the term matbuc. Official administrative correspondence either on central or local level dating from the 1850s likewise refers to printed regulative or legislative materials as a “printed general instruction sheet” (matbuc tacrife-i umumiye)64 or “printed regula-

64

National Library, Oriental Department (Sofia): Fund 96, a. u. 92 (mazbata from 1852).

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tion” (matbuc nizāmnāme),65 thus explicitly underlining their being printed. In other words, in the nineteenth century the printed word was still considered in a way an extraordinary rather than ordinary phenomenon among the Ottomans. In the course of time, however, even as the Ottomans became quite accustomed to the printed word, intellectuals like Münif Pasha (1830–1910) and Celal Nuri became concerned that printing with movable type was not really compatible with the peculiar nature of the Arabic script.66 The problem is that printing with Arabic letters creates special difficulties which are not to be found in printing with the Latin, Greek, Armenian, Hebrew, and Cyrillic alphabets or even with Chinese hieroglyphs. The Arabic script, along with its Persian and Ottoman Turkish versions, is cursive, that is, most letters are required to be linked to the preceding and following ones, in consequence of which they have four different forms, one main one and three others, depending on the position of the letter in the word. Thus, printing in Arabic is much more difficult than other scripts, and in a sense impractical, first because it requires many more forms, and second because these forms have to be perfectly linked to each other.67 Because of this, the typesetting process takes a much longer time, and the result is not always satisfactory, thus leaving less room for the claim that printing is a better way of duplicating texts than copying by hand. Yet printing technology had to compete with calligraphy as a supreme Islamic art.68 By contrast, when lithography was invented in the late eighteenth century and later introduced to the world of Islam it proved to be much more satisfying to the Muslim reading public on esthetic grounds.69 But all this did not mean that the Ottomans were to desist from printing with movable type. Quite the contrary, from the reign of Mahmud II (1808– 1839) and until the end the nineteenth century at least 77 printing houses, publishing in Ottoman Turkish, were in operation in Istanbul. Of them 50 65

66

67

68

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National Library, Oriental Department (Sofia): Fund 96A, a. u. 172 (mazbata from 1857–58). Hüseyin Gazi Topdemir, İbrahim Müteferrika ve Türk Matbaacılığı [Ibrahim Müteferrika and Turkish printing] (Ankara: T.C. Kültür Bakanlığı, 2002), pp. 30–32. Huda S. Abifares, Arabic Typography: A Comprehensive Sourcebook (London: Saqi Books, 2001), pp. 94–95; Warren Chappell, A Short History of the Printed Word (London: André Deutsch Ltd, 1972), p. 38. See Uğur Derman–N. Çetin, The Art of Calligraphy in the Islamic Heritage, ed. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu (Istanbul: IRCICA, 1998). Francis Robinson, “Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print,” Modern Asian Studies 27/I (1993), pp. 229–251.

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combined type-setting and lithographical printing technologies, 21 were purely type-setting, and 6 lithographical.70 In contrast to the eastern parts of Muslim world, where lithography became the preferred mode of printing, the Ottomans persevered with movable type, lithography remaining of secondary significance. Indeed, so keen were they on printing with movable type that (oddly enough) they even went so far as making efforts to reform the very nature of the Arabic script. In 1879 the Council of Public Education (Meclis-i Macārif-i Umūmiye) appointed a special committee to remodel the standard Arabic script to make it non-cursive in order to facilitate the process of printing. The committee’s efforts, however, proved unsuccessful.71 Later, in 1914, the so-called “Enver Pasha spelling” (Enver Pāşā imlāsı), which separated the Arabic characters from each other, was tested in printing for a while.72 Finally, the introduction of a Turkish version of the Latin script in 1928 solved the whole problem. Another major step in Ottoman Turkish print culture was taken in the 1870s, when the Koran was at last printed.73 Ahmed Cevdet Pasha (1822– 1895), a prominent nineteenth-century Ottoman intellectual, explains in his History how the Ottoman attitude toward printing of religious matters changed. He relates that after Müteferrika and Said Efendi were permitted to print secular books the Ottomans were reluctant to print religious texts because they were concerned that this would harm the sacredness of the “Sharia books” (which is a striking reminder of Busbecq’s observation from the sixteenth century!). But the Ottomans applied the principle of 70

See the list of these presses in Ahmed Negih Galitekin (ed.), Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre İstanbul. Cami, Tekke, Medrese, Mekteb, Türbe, Hamam, Kütüphane, Matbaa, Mahalle ve Selâtin İmaretleri [Mosques, dervish lodges, theological and elementary schools, tombs, public baths, printing houses, neighborhoods, and sultanic kitchens in Istanbul in the light of Ottoman sources] (İstanbul: İşaret Yayınları, 2003), pp. 974– 983. 71 Server İskit, Türkiye’de Neşriyat Hareketleri Tarihine Bir Bakış [A glance at the history of publishing activities in Turkey] (Istanbul: MfV, 1939), p. 90. 72 Ibid., pp. 145–146. 73 See Osman Keskioğlu, “Türkiye’de Matbaa Te’sisi ve Mushaf Basımı,” [The establishment of the printing press in Turkey and the printing of the Koran], Ankara Üniversitesi İlâhiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 15 (1967), pp. 121–139; Мahmud Gündüz, “Matbaanın Tarihçesi ve İlk Kur’anı Kerim Basmaları,” [A short history of printing and the first prints of Koran ], Vakıflar Dergisi 12 (1978), pp. 335–350; Nedret KuranBurcuoğlu, “Matbaacı Osman Bey: Saray’dan İlk Defa Kur’an-ı Kerim Basma İznini Alan Osmanlı Hattatı,” [Osman bey the printer: The first Ottoman calligrapher who received state permission to print the Koran], Türklük Bilgisi Araştırmaları/Journal of Turkish Studies 26/II (2002), pp. 97–112.

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analogy, observed by the Hanafi school of law, and accepted that the printing of the Koran is not a blasphemy since the binding of the Koran, which also requires pressing, is considered allowable. Therefore, for the sake of the diffusion of knowledge among students religious texts were printed in great numbers.74 Duplication of the Koran especially is expected to be faithful in terms of wording and orthography not only because it is considered divine revelation, but also because since the very dawn of Islam the Holy Book has been required to be read and learned by heart by every Muslim man and woman.75 This meant that copying the Koran correctly was of vital importance for its spread among the whole Muslim community. By contrast, in Christendom the Church was in principle against the direct, unlimited or widespread access to the Bible by the common people, the message of the Scripture being disseminated to them only by the learned ecclesiastical hierarchy. That was why the Church was much concerned about the spread of vernacular Bibles even before the invention of printing in Europe, not to speak about printed versions of the Bible whose text was corrupted by errors of the printing technology itself.76 Because of this aspect of printing duplication of the Koran requires strict faithfulness to the norm, since it would be read and learned not only by educated Muslim religious functionaries, but also by the whole community. Moreover, according to the traditional Islamic concept the very starting-point of a child’s education is the reading and learning by heart of the Koran.77 Accordingly, the main point of emphasis here was the correctness of the text itself, and the mode of duplication was expected to implement this indispensable requirement. It seems that in the beginning Muslim societies considered printing as a technology that discredited itself through the cor74

Târîh-i Cevdet [Cevdet’s history] (Der sa‘âdet: Matba‘a-i ‘Osmâniyye, 1309 [1891]), 1, p. 76. 75 A. L. Tibawi, Islamic Education: Its Tradition and Modernization into the Arab National Systems (London: Luzac, 1972), p. 24. 76 See Raven, “Elizabeth Eisenstein and the Impact of Printing.” 77 Tibawi, Islamic Education, p. 26; Cevat İzgi, Osmanlı Medreselerinde İlim [Science in Ottoman theological schools] (Istanbul: İz Yayıncılık, 1997), 1, pp. 61–108; Ömer Özyılmaz, Manzume-i Tertib-i Ulûm, Tertibu’l-Ulûm, Kaside Fi’l-Kütübi’l Meşhure Fi’l Ulûm, Kevakib-i Seb‘a ve Erzurumlu İbrahim Hakkı’nın Tertib-i Ulûm İsimli Eserine Göre, XVII. ve XVIII. Yüzyıllarda Osmanlı Medreselerinin Eğitim Programları [The curriculum of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ottoman theological schools according to Manzume-i Tertib-i Ulûm, Tertibu’l-Ulûm, Kaside Fi’l-Kütübi’l Meşhure Fi’l Ulûm, Kevakib-i Seb‘a and Erzurumlu İbrahim Hakkı’s work Tertib-i Ulûm] (Ankara: T.C. Kültür Bakanlığı, 2002).

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rupt western prints of the Koran, and manuscript copying as still reliable and much more deserving of trust. What Muslim societies were actually waiting for was probably not printing itself but the improvement of printing so as to satisfy the specific requirements of the duplicating of the holy texts. That was probably why, in contrast to western societies, they preferred to print first secular books, then popular but non-standard religious books (e.g. Birgivi’s Vasiyetnāme), then standard treatises related to Muslim law and dogmatics which were used in theological education, and only at the last the Koran. In other words, printing penetrated the Muslim circle of knowledge from its periphery and finally approached its very core. This was just cautious behavior in the gradual adoption of printing, allowing it to penetrate further into the world of Islamic knowledge just step by step. It was a mutual process: printing overcame its shortcomings and proved that it could be more effective and correct; Muslims overcame their initial reluctance and suspicions. In other words, the “lewd” body of the printing press was covered with the veil of “virginity.”

Education and Denominations in Transdanubia (1910)1 VICTOR KARADY

One of István György Tóth’s major contributions to Central European social history is his numerous studies full of painstakingly collected local references on matters related to the level of education, intellectual competences and civilizational technologies identified in a number of regional populations, both in the bonded peasantry and in various circles of the nobility in Western Hungary during the modern era (the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries).2 Particularly important appear to be his findings— based on indices of owning and reading books, knowledge of Latin, frequencies of signatures and other measures of literacy—about educational levels in various village circles and social strata, including confessionally different groups. This last point had a special significance in Hungary, the only feudal state in Europe with medieval foundations which remained confessionally mixed even after the turmoils of the Reformation and the CounterReformation—all the more so because the denominational set-up was overlaid by an ethnic multiplicity which embraced several “ethnic religions” proper (the Serbians and most Romanians being members of the Greek Orthodox, the Ukrainians members of the Uniate—or Greek Catholic—Church). But even the basic ethnic constituencies of the later-to-be nation state—those of Magyar and old-established German stock endowed with corporate political privileges due to noble status or as a free city patriciate—remained confessionally divided. There was to be sure among the latter since the seventeenth century a strong Roman Catholic compo1

This study has benefited from the support of the Hungarian national agency to fund scholarly research (NKFP). 2 See his important book: István György Tóth, Literacy and Written Culture in Early Modern Central Europe (Budapest–New York: CEU Press, 2000), pp. 54–56, and also his chapter in László Kósa (ed.), A Cultural History of Hungary, from the Beginnings to the Eighteenth Century (Budapest: Corvina–Osiris, 1998), pp. 154–225, especially 209 sq.

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nent (representing a majority among Magyars and Germans but not in the whole population of the country3), the rest of the inhabitants being distributed among Calvinists, Lutherans and a number of smaller confessional clusters (Unitarians, Jews, Greek Catholics and some Greek Orthodox). By the end of the Dual Monarchy in 1910 Transdanubia as a whole—the region which was preferentially targeted in István’s work—had a Roman Catholic majority of 78 %, with significant Calvinist (11 %) and Lutheran (8.2 %) minorities and a small Jewish (2.9 %) presence, besides other statistically insignificant clusters.4 Now István’s seminal findings based on a systematic collection of micro-historical case references to various indices of literacy (signatures in public and private documents—like wills, contracts, and public records— verbal reports on reading knowledge, information about the use of eyeglasses, watches and above all books, the existence of schools, the number and educational level of schoolteachers, etc.) helped him to conclude that a relative equality of sorts existed among the main confessional groups as far as levels of literacy and basic education were concerned.5 Though his focus was not primarily on confessional differences—whether because his data were not abundant enough for systematic comparisons, or possibly because this was not as yet an essential issue in the pre-industrial period he studied—it is worth considering whether a similar conclusion would still apply in the period of early industrialization in late Dualist Hungary, more than half a century following the abolition of feudalism. István himself delved into this question (on the basis of the 1870 census) in the outgoing chapter and the appendix of his book. But his conclusions about the existence of denominational inequalities remained cautiously negative or rather skeptical due to discrepancies in the data, which did not appear to be manifestly governed by factors of ethnicity or religion.6 If the basic statistical indications produced later, that is, since the late nineteenth century, regarding the capital city on the one hand and the whole country on the other hand, strongly support the contrary conclusion, it is clearly time 3

Even more so if Transylvania—administratively not part of the Hungarian state—is included. 4 Computed from Magyar statisztikai közlemények (Hungarian Statistical Reports), nr. 61, pp. 162–163. 5 See particulary his subchapter on “The role of differences in nationality and denomination,” in Literacy and Written Culture, pp. 54–56. 6 See his chapter, “An outlook in time: nationalities and the spread of literacy after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise,” in Literacy and Written Culture, pp. 193–211, 213– 219, especially pp. 199–202.

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to go beyond these broad observations and try to look at the regional details of the problem raised in István’s work for the early modern era. This is the objective pursued in the present study which has, apparently, very few precedents indeed. For my demonstration I had the opportunity and the privilege to use an exceptionally rich and precise data bank which, thanks to the tireless efforts of my eminent colleague and friend Péter Tibor Nagy, could be compiled and published jointly from the archives of the Central Statistical Office in Budapest.7 This data collection presents the hitherto unpublished results of the 1910 census with detailed evidence on levels of education achieved by the population broken down simultaneously (in individual tables) by not less than four variables: religion (8 clusters), territorial units (all counties and cities with administrative autonomy in Transdanubia), age groups and gender. The main findings on the whole region (for one selected age sample) are gathered in the following table. Proportions (%) of those aged 25–29 years with selected levels of education by denomination in Transdanubia, 19108 W O M E N9

M E N

Roman Catholics Lutherans Calvinists Jews All

12 classes10

other secondary11

3,3 % 3,1 % 3,7 % 19,8 %

1,5 % 2,9 % 1,4 % 13,3 %

illiterates 12 classes

8,3 % 2,9 % 3,9 % 0,6 %

0,6 % 0,5 % 0,5 % 2,5 %

N

%

169 041 18 182 23 841 6 456

77,7 8,4 11,0 3,0

other illiterates secondary

2,1 % 2,3 % 2,1 % 24,2 %

12,7 % 3,4 % 5,2 % 1,5 %

217 52012 100,0

The table carries a number of important messages. There was a significant but not very strong discrepancy among levels of education of the Christian clusters, especially at the bottom of the educational ladder. The 7

See Victor Karady–Péter Tibor Nagy, Educational Inequalities and Denominations— Database for Transdanubia, 1910 (Budapest: Hungarian Institute for Educational Research, 2003), (Research Papers no. 253). 8 Computed from Educational Inequalities, vol. 2, pp. 208–231. 9 Same notes as for men below. 10 4 primary and 8 secondary school classes or more. 11 Those with at least 4 or 6 secondary school classes. 12 Excluding smaller confessional clusters not listed here—a mere 0,7 % of the grand total.

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general educational pyramid of Christians was indeed large in the sense that, compared to the categories with secondary or higher education, there were more (or as many) illiterates, though the overwhelming majority— over 90 % for Protestants, 87 % for Catholics—must have been simply endowed with basic literacy (since they do not appear either among illiterates or among those with secondary education and above). Very few of them—less than 4 % of men and a mere 0,5 % of women—had completed the full secondary curriculum or gone on to do higher studies (these two categories being lumped together in the evidence pertaining to preTrianon Hungary13). Comparably few—2–3 %—had even started studies in secondary schools and finished at least four classes.14 Here we cannot find any strong divergences in this respect, even if Lutherans showed on the whole a somewhat more marked degree of involvement in secondary education (6 %) as compared to other Christians (4,8 % of Catholic and 5,1 % of Calvinist men). But levels of illiteracy were by that time generally quite low across the board. Differences appear though to be much less negligible here, with rates higher among Roman Catholics and lower among Protestants. The proportion of illiterates remained indeed two to three times higher among the majority Catholics compared to Protestants, and higher among women than men—as it was usual at that time. Thus, István’s finding of an apparent educational equality among Christians for an earlier period seems to apply in the early twentieth century largely—if not completely— at the advanced level of education, but no longer at the lowest levels exemplified by somewhat diverging rates of illiteracy. Another important result of István’s investigations concerned the ethnic divide in matters educational, especially as far as literacy was concerned. He stressed several times that German and Hungarian villages 13

14

For 1920 and 1930 published confession-specific regional educational data include a category of 8 secondary classes as well as a separate one for those with higher education, though the level of the latter is not specified (whether it referred to completed studies or just studies begun, and whether it concerned studies in universities, academies, theological seminaries or other institutions of post secondary education). See Magyar statisztikai közlemények, nr. 73, pp. 202–217 and ibid., nr. 96, pp. 314–327. This was the officially recognised lower limit for middle class professions, since the 1883 “Law on qualifications” defined a number of public functions (like postmaster, railway station manager, etc.) to which it could give access, besides other forms of nonmanual employment in the private economy. 4 secondary classes—whatever was the institution in which it was completed—represented the minimal degree of education to qualify for “gentlemanly” social standing above the “masses,” the “common people,” or those in “manual” occupations.

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more or less systematically showed higher rates of ability in reading and sometimes even in writing (measured for example by the occurrence of signatures instead of crosses under contracts, wills and other documents) than Croatian or Slovenian villages, the main ethnic constituencies in early modern Transdanubia, especially in Vas county, the focal point of his work. “In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many more literate people were found in the Hungarian and German villages of Vas county than in the Croatian and Slovenian settlements.”15 For Dualist Hungary it is in theory quite possible to resort for comparison to educational data broken down by ethnic groups, but this evidence, apparently reliable, is exposed to a number of socio-historical fallacies. Information on ethnicity was based at that time on declared mother tongue or first language, but this is liable to be a false evidence reflecting the temptations of “linguistic loyalism” to the nation state: bilingual persons might have preferred to state their linguistic status as Magyar under the pressure of the prevailing “Magyarism” in the exuberantly nationalist atmosphere following the Millennium celebrations. And bilingualism was far from being exceptional in Dualist Transdanubia. Some 11 % of official Magyar speakers reported in the 1910 census that they spoke German as well16 and as many as 39,5 % German speakers spoke Hungarian as well17. But German speakers themselves were in Transdanubia decisively divided between Roman Catholics, Lutherans and Jews, that is groups with extremely different schooling attainments. Thus the meaning of the opposition between Germans and Magyars—the main ethnic groups in Transdanubia—would in fact contrast very mixed categories in terms of educational achievement. There was, moreover, a structural bias of sorts in the schooling data of ethnic minorities at that time. Since in a region like Transdanubia, elite schooling, including its lowest levels, was provided only in Hungarian, students of advanced education (beyond 4 secondary classes) tended to declare Magyar as their first language—and understandably so, given their proficiency in what was the language of their studies—even if their home language or mother tongue proper was German or some other idiom. Such ambiguities are embedded in the 1910 census data on education broken down by ethnic groups. Among Transdanubian men 4,1 % of the Magyars had completed at least 4 secondary classes as against only 1,2 % 15

See Tóth, Literacy and Written Culture, p. 54. Computed from Magyar statisztikai közlemények, nr. 61, p. 120. 17 Ibid., pp. 112, 124. 16

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of Germans, while the former had a slightly higher proportion of illiterates (26,7 %) than the latter (25,1 %). Among women the relative numbers appear to be quite similar: 2,9 % of Magyar women attained a 4 secondary class level as against a mere 0,9 % of Germans, but Magyars had here again a higher proportion of illiterates (33 %) than Germans (29,6 %).18 Now the significantly higher level of advanced studies among selfdeclared Hungarians must certainly be, in part, attributed to the national conformism of the better educated who were seeking admission into Magyar gentry circles or, more broadly, into the Magyar dominated gentlemanly class. By contrast, the better scores of basic literacy among Germans may be due to the persistently heavier stress on primary education in German communities, whether Catholic or Lutheran. This can be attested even empirically with reference to evidence of school attendance. In 1896/7 among those of the age of obligatory schooling (boys and girls together) 96,8 % of self-declared German speakers, but only 89,2 % of Magyars in Transdanubia attended a primary school, attesting to a limited but not insignificant “German superiority” in primary educational investment.19 The other small ethnic clusters in Transdanubia (like Croatians, Slovenians and Serbians) fared much worse in educational terms. Now, quasi all of these “Germans” identified in the census must have been Christians, the descendants of those in István’s study: among the minority Jewish population the few Jews still professing a German ethnic identity—just 10 % of all Jews in Transdanubia—can be in this respect left out of the picture. Their long term efforts at a kind of voluntary assimilation had by that time almost fully Magyarized their primary school network, which was not yet true, apparently, of German Catholics or Lutherans. In 1896/7 still some 14,4 % of Transdanubian primary schools were teaching in German (often combined with Hungarian, to be sure),20 and all but a very few of them must have been Christian schools: even some years later—there are no comparable data earlier—in 1899/1900 German was used country-wide in 32 % of Lutheran, 9 % of Roman Catholic and a mere 4 % of Jewish primary schools.21 Transdanubia proved to be by the way the only region in Hungary outside Transylvania 18

Computed from Magyar statisztikai közlemények, nr. 61, pp. 278–283. Computed from A Vallás és Közoktatási Miniszter jelentése az 1896/97 évre (Annual report of the Minister of Cults and Education for 1896/97), (Budapest: 1897), pp. 212– 213 and pp. 236–237. 20 Computed from Magyar statisztikai évkönyv, 1897 (Hungarian statistical yearbook 1897), pp. 342–343. 21 Computed from Magyar statisztikai évkönyv, 1900, p. 334. 19

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(with its strong Lutheran–German primary school network maintained by the Universitas Saxonum) where German schooling still had strongholds in Dualist Hungary, since 48 % of primary schools with fully or partly German tuition outside Transylvania were operating there in 1896/722 while the province was home to only 33 % of all German speakers outside Transylvania at the time of the previous census (1890).23 Thus our data on ethnic discrepancies of literacy in 1910 still clearly replicate and confirm István’s conclusions for the early modern era about the relative educational advantage of Germans together with Hungarians on at least the primary level. Here we must return to the most spectacular differences displayed in our statistical table, opposing Jews and non-Jews. This was not an issue in István’s period, unlike in Dualist Hungary—though even then the Jewish presence was much weaker in Transdanubia than in the rest of the country, especially in the central and eastern regions (with close to 6 % of Jews within the global population in 1910). In Transdanubia one third of Jewish men and over one quarter of Jewish women had completed at least 4 secondary classes as against less than 6 % of Christian men and not more than 3 % of Christian women in any denominational category. On the whole the proportion among Jews of those with a minimal elite education exceeded more than six times the average among Christian groups. In this striking discrepancy between Jewish and Gentile educational achievements we cannot but identify a dual pattern of levels of modernization and “embourgeoisement” (an improper equivalent of the Hungarian term polgárosodás, and closer to Verbürgerlichung). Manifestly, in Jewish circles secondary education in gymnasiums, Realschulen, Bürgerschulen and commercial high schools24 started to become a general practice in the 22

Computed from Magyar statisztikai évkönyv, 1897, pp. 342–343. Ibid., pp. 40–43. 24 Secondary education with Matura (formal graduation with different entitlements to do higher studies) was organised in Dualist Hungary in three types of institutions following the Austrian (and the Prussian) model : Gymnasium with Latin (8 classes) giving access to all higher studies, Realschule without Latin (8 classes) giving access to technical and commercial studies, and commercial high school (3 classes after four secondary school classes) allowing only commercial higher studies. Besides these, the so called Bürgerschule (no Matura) with 4 to 6 classes represented lower middle class standards, giving access to teacher training Normal schools and to commercial high schools. Matura (érettségi in Hungarian) was anyhow the officially recognised entry ticket into the gentlemanly class, entailing special social and military entitlements (like duelling, special quasi gentry titles when addressed, admission to gentlemanly salons, shorter “voluntary” military service, access to the rank of “reserve officer,” etc.). 23

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FRIARS, NOBLES AND BURGHERS—SERMONS, IMAGES AND PRINTS

young generations of early twentieth century Transdanubia, meanwhile this was still rather exceptional, and reserved for a happy few among young Christians. The Jewish–Gentile disparity appears to be similarly drastic if we compare proportions of illiterates. Among Jews illiteracy tended to disappear completely among men, exceeding 1 % only in the generations above 45 years of age in towns and above 35 years in the counties, while never attaining 10 % in any age category. Though it remained somewhat higher among Jewish women (as in our table), it did not reach as high as the very lowest figures among Christian clusters and this remained so historically in the elderly generations too. This is in sharp contrast with Christian indices of illiteracy. Among the majority Catholics, for example, close to one third (32 %) of men above 60 were still illiterate in 1910 in Transdanubian counties as well as close to one quarter (23 %) in Transdanubian towns.25 This is not the place to muster all the necessary socio-historical evidence to interpret these differences. (I have tried to do this elsewhere for the whole country.26) 25 26

Computed from data in our Educational Inequalities, vol. 2, pp. 208–215, 220–225. See especially my numerous studies in Hungarian on this matter, mostly referred to in the following ones published in Western languages: Viktor Karady–István Kemény, “Antisémitisme universitaire et concurrence de classe : la loi de numerus clausus en Hongrie entre les deux guerres,” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 34 (sept. 1978), pp. 67–96; Viktor Karady, “Jewish Enrollment Patterns in Classical Secondary Education in Old Regime and Inter-War Hungary,” Studies in Contemporary Jewry 1 (1984), pp. 225–252; Idem, “Juifs et Luthériens dans le système scolaire hongrois,” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 69 (sept. 1987), pp. 67–85 ; Idem– Stephane Vari, “Facteurs socio-culturels de la réussite au baccalauréat en Hongrie,” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 70 (1987), pp. 79–82 ; Viktor Karady, “Assimilation and Schooling: National and Denominational Minorities in the Universities of Budapest around 1900,” in György Ránki (ed.), Hungary and European Civilisation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), pp. 285–319; Idem–Wolfgang Mitter (eds.), Sozialstruktur und Bildungswesen in Mitteleuropa / Social Structure and Education in Central Europe (Cologne–Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1990); Viktor Karady, “Jewish OverSchooling in Hungary: Its Sociological Dimensions, in Idem–W. Mitter (eds.), Sozialstruktur und Bildungswesen, pp. 209–246; Idem, “Funktionswandel der österreichischen Hochschulen in der Ausbildung der ungarischen Fachintelligenz vor und nach dem I. Weltkrieg,” in Viktor Karady–Wolfgang Mitter (eds.), Sozialstruktur und Bildungswesen, pp. 177–207; Idem, “A l’ombre du ‘numerus clausus’. La restratification du système universitaire hongrois dans l’entre-deux-guerres,” in A la recherche de l'espace universitaire européen, sous la direction de C. Charle, E. Keiner, J. Schriewer (Paris–Francfort: Peter Lang, 1993), pp. 345–372; Idem, “Schulbildung

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Among the main explicative factors to be resorted to, a special place should be reserved for interconnected disparities of social stratification (with a large sector of “independent” traders, craftsmen, bankers, industrialists and those in the liberal professions among Jews), demographic modernization (with low death rates and the early spread of the small family pattern among Jews), the recourse to Hungarian schooling in their strategies of “national” assimilation (important for many Jews and Lutherans alike, due to their ethnic alienness in terms for example of mother tongue) and advanced urbanization. A reminder of a few pieces of evidence to this effect might be in order. Jews and some Protestants (especially Lutherans) showed already by the early 20th century a much more middle class pattern in most of these matters—something which we cannot deal with here in detail. Let us simply content ourselves to cite elementary data on the relative proportions of those in the intellectual professions at large. “Intellectuals” considered here are those defined in contemporary statistical publications as executives and employees in the private economy (agriculture, mines, industry, trade and transportation) as well as members of the civil service and the liberal professions. Now, lumped together and compared to male coreligionists of 20 years of age and above27, such “intellectuals” represented in contemporary Transdanubia 3,7 % among Catholics, 3,8 % among Calvin-

27

und Religion. Zu den ethnisch-konfessionellen Strukturmerkmalen der ungarischen Intelligenz in der Zwischenkriegszeit,” in Christoph Kodron et al. (eds.), Vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft, Herausforderung, Vermittlung, Praxis. Festschrift für Wolfgang Mitter zum 70. Geburtstag, vol. 2, (Cologne–Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1997), pp. 621–641; Idem, “Das Judentum als Bildungsmacht in der Moderne. Forschungsansätze zur relativen Überschulung in Mitteleuropa,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften (1997), pp. 347–361; Idem–Mariusz Kulczykowski, L’enseignement des élites en Europe Centrale (19–20e siècles) (Kraków: Ksiegarnia akademicka, 1999); Viktor Karady “Jewish Over-Schooling Revisited : The Case of Hungarian Secondary Education in the Old Regime (1900–1941),” Yearbook of the Jewish Studies Programme, 1998/1999 (Budapest: Central European University, 2000), pp. 75–91; Idem, “‘The People of the Book’ and Denominational Access Differentials to Hungarian Primary School Libraries in the early 20. Century,” Jewish Studies Yearbook, 2000/2001 (Budapest: Central European University, 2002), pp. 193–201; Idem, “Les migrations internationales d’étudiants avant et après la Grande Guerre,” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 145 (2002), pp. 47–60; Idem–Lucian Nastasa, The University of Kolozsvár/Cluj and the Students of the Medical Faculty (1872–1918) (Cluj: Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center, 2004). See the data for the computation of the size of relevant age groups in our Educational Inequalities, vol. 2, pp. 208–213 and 220–225.

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ists, 4,2 % among Lutherans, but as much as 21,7 % of Jews.28 This is a clear indication that the different proportions of those whose professional activities were in one way or another conditioned by their endowment with intellectual assets—in terms of their social class set-up—followed closely the rank order of global educational achievements in the various denominational brackets. The same can be easily demonstrated as to differentials in urbanization. Living in cities was directly connected to enhanced educational chances due to the fact that advanced education (from post-primary schooling upwards) was offered in cities and larger townships alone. Now even in Transdanubia, a part of the country with medium-level urbanization (as compared to Central Hungary which included the capital), 22 % of Jewish men lived in the four cities with autonomous administration at that time (Győr, Komárom, Pécs, Sopron) as against 7,1 % of Lutherans, 6,4 % of Catholics and a mere 4,6 % of Calvinists. Thus, differential degrees of urbanization must also have been an important variable in educational inequalities, but certainly not the only one that needs to be distinguished in any in-depth analysis of causal factors (which we cannot pursue further here). Rather, let us focus on a number of important educational differentials proper between Jews and non-Jews and—to some extent—also among Christian clusters in the region. One striking difference appears precisely between educational patterns of urban Jews and Gentiles as against their respective coreligionists in the counties. Indeed Jewish educational attainments remained not only generally much higher than those of Gentiles but much more balanced between urban and rural settings. The country-town difference—though significant enough—did not reach such dramatic proportions among Jews as among non-Jews. Among Jewish men of all age groups (including infants) we find some 19 % in the counties and 29 % in towns to have completed at least 4 secondary school classes. In some regions there is not even any significant difference between Jewish educational achievements in urban and rural settings. In Fejér county, to take one example, Jews outside the central town of Székesfehérvár displayed somewhat higher schooling scores (with 44.8 of men having accomplished at least 4 secondary classes) than those in the city (44.4 % with at least 4 classes)29. Similar 28

Computed from relevant data dispersed in Magyar statisztikai közlemények, nr. 56, pp. 332–603. 29 Computed from Educational Inequalities, vol. 1, pp. 44–45, 56–57.

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proportions show a much wider range among Christian men, that is 2.2 % in counties as against 10.8 % in towns among Catholics, 2.4 % as against 12.2 % among Calvinists and 2.7 % as against 13.1 % among Lutherans.30 These contrasts would be probably even more apparent if our data could distinguish between all town dwellers—that is those in small towns too with basic elite educational facilities (secondary schools included)—in contrast to all other rural areas. Anyhow, manifestly enough, education was much more equally—if there again not quite equally—distributed among Jews independently of residence, while educated Christians were much more often concentrated in cities. 5.7 % of all Christian men lived in cities in Transdanubia, but 21 % of those with at least 8 secondary classes and 25 % of those with lower levels of secondary education (4–6 classes). Comparable proportions for Jews were 22 % and 27 % only.31 This could mean that the fundamental reasons for Jews to accumulate educational assets, especially those preparing for elite functions, were not necessarily linked in a privileged manner to urban activities proper. That is, they were far from identical to those among Gentiles. Among the latter, the educated gathering more often in cities, education could have been a much more functional means to achieve positions worthy of the gentlemanly middle class. Hence, this could be interpreted, essentially, as a scheme for the reproduction of the gentlemanly strata in charge specially of economic, administrative, political and cultural leadership functions located in cities. This difference can be clearly demonstrated if we compare the number of those with a minimum degree of secondary education (at least 4 secondary classes) to the size of respective confessional groups engaged in intellectual professions, defined as above.32 In all denominational clusters dealt with here there were more, to be sure, with this basic “gentlemanly” or middle class education than those in intellectual professions proper, but the excess of the educated varied very significantly along confessional lines. If the number of “intellectuals” is taken for 100, Catholics would have 134 with basic middle class education, Calvinists only 122, Lutherans 144 but Jews as many as 166. Such manifest relative “excess” of the educated among Lutherans and especially among Jews shows that these clusters preceded the others on the road towards the generalization of the demand for education independently from professional needs. This is the very “bourgeois” or middle class pattern of education, when sons of inde30

Computed from Educational Inequalities, vol. 2, pp. 208–213, 220–225. Computed from Educational Inequalities, passim. 32 Computed as in footnote 17. 31

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pendent farmers, craftsmen, traders and so on would send their sons to a gymnasium, a Bürgerschule, a Realschule or else into a commercial high school even when the sons would ultimately take over the small or largescale business of their father, an economic option not necessitating elite schooling at that time. Jewish and Gentile educational patterns diverged also, as suggested already above, by their historical development as it is disclosed in generation-specific levels of schooling. Comparing the youngest adult and the elderly generations (with some reservations as to education specific differentials of mortality, referred to in the introduction to our data bank33), generational data can be identified to time-bound chronological patterns of education. Now, comparing both for men and women the youngest adult category (20–24 years of age) with the 60 years old and above, the discrepancy found among the percentage of those with at least 4 secondary classes is far bigger for Jews (a multiple of 3 for men and 6 for women) as for Christians (a multiple of 2 for men and 5 for women). For example, in the Transdanubian counties, 19.4 % of Jewish men of 20–24 years had reached the level of 8 secondary classes or more as against 6 % of those of 60 years and above, and the progression in size of the educated category was uninterrupted for successive generational clusters. For Catholic men the figures of the two comparable extreme generational levels were 1.4 % for those 60 years and above and 3.2 % for the 20–24 year olds, but the progression was not at all regular from the older generational clusters to the younger ones. For Catholic men of 40–45 years the levels were 2.5 %, but for those of 35–39 years 2.2 % only and for those of 30–34 years 2.4 %.34 For women, the 4 secondary classes level is the most significant one and we find very similar disparities between Jews and Christians in this respect. While Jewish women showed a constant progression, Catholic ones remained on the same level (2,4 %) from the 35–39 years generation to the 25–29 years one, with a jump ahead for the 20–24 years group (3.5 %).35 Thus, here one can identify traces of the country-wide stagnation of educational investments of Christian elites during the quarter century after the 1867 political Compromise, a period

33

See Educational Inequalities, vol. 1, pp. 8–10. Computed from data in Denominational Inequalities, vol. 2, pp. 208–213. 35 Computed from data in Denominational Inequalities, vol. 2, pp. 214–219. 34

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when Jewish schooling investments became a major factor in their strategies of social mobility, integration and cultural assimilation.36 There is another strikingly singular feature of the discrepancy between Jewish and Christian educational performances. This is the relative prevalence of male graduates with 8 years of secondary school training over male coreligionists with lower secondary levels among Christians and, conversely, the larger proportions of those men with lower secondary school degree completion rates as opposed to those with 8 classes among Jews. Thus the difference between the relative proportion of Jewish and Christian male graduates at the top of the educational hierarchy proved to be much smaller than at the base. This base was large among Jewish men and very narrow among their Christian counterparts. Thus in Trandanubian counties 1.2 % of Catholic men had attained the 8 secondary classes level as against 1 % with lower secondary qualifications. For Calvinist men the comparable proportions were 1% as against 0.9 %, for Lutheran men 1.6 % as against 1.1 %, while the proportions were inverted for Jewish men : 8.1 % with 8 classes as against 11.2 % with lower levels.37 In Transdanubian towns the above disparities happened to be even more pronounced. The same applied to women with qualifications. There basic secondary (rather than higher) schooling was much more frequent for all denominational clusters, but the disproportion between those with 8 secondary classes and others with lower secondary attainments was a multiple of less than 7 among Christian women, while it reached a multiple of 14 in towns and 10 in counties for Jewish women.38 This observation raises an intriguing question about the reasons for such strongly patterned statistical differences in educational attainments, all the more so, that the same can be identified in exactly the same re-

36

For details of the historical circumstances of this fairly long term stagnation or even regression of Christian educational investment in a period of the state organised expansion of the schooling provision, see my study in Hungarian : Viktor Karady, “A középiskolai elitképzés első történelmi funkcióváltása (1867–1910)” (The first functional transformation of elite training in Hungarian secondary schools, 1867–1910), in Iskolarendszer és felekezeti egyenlőtlenségek Magyarországon, 1867–1945, (School system and denominational inequalities in Hungary, 1867–1945), (Budapest: Replika-könyvek, 1997), pp. 169–194. 37 Computed from data in Denominational Inequalities, vol. 2, pp. 208–213. 38 Computed from data in our Educational Inequalities, vol 2, pp. 214–219, 226–231.

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spects both in towns and outside them in other regions of Dualist Hungary.39 There are a number of factors which can account concomitantly for these discrepancies. Some have to do with the objective conditions of the educational mobility of the two big clusters, others are the outcome of schooling strategies proper. Among objective factors, one has to remember that the 8 secondary classes level may cover a number of different educational achievements, like graduation from a Gymnasium, a Realschule, completion of a primary school teacher training college (Normal School), or else just the formal completion of 8 or less secondary classes giving access to some theological seminaries, an agricultural academy or a training track for army officers. Up to the end of the nineteenth century even the Ludovika Academy, the main officer training college, contented itself with demanding only 8 secondary classes without graduation. Male graduates of the three years of commercial high schools (by which stage they would have completed in all 4 primary, 4 Bürgerschule and 3 commercial high school classes) were entitled to the one year “voluntary” military service and the subsequent advanced training to become a reserve officer. All the latter could thus equally claim to have completed 8 secondary classes. Now most of the categories outside secondary school graduation proper in a gymnasium or a Realschule (except for the commercial high school track) were filled by Christians. If we just single out primary school and Bürgerschule teachers, they represent in 1910, among those who could show they had reached the 8 classes level, some 19.2 % of Christian men and as much as 37.3 % of Christian women as against only 4.9 % of Jewish men and 12.3 % of Jewish women.40 This means that Jews must have had more “real graduates” than Christians from classical (Gymnasium) or non-classical (Realschule, commercial high school) secondary schools among those claiming to have the 8 secondary classes level. But the large educational base of Jews and the narrow one of Christians must have been dependent also on different educational strategies of 39

See for example my introduction in Victor Karady–Péter Tibor Nagy, Educational Inequalities and Denominations 1910, Database for Eastern Slovakia and North-Eastern Hungary, (Budapest: John Wesley Theological College, 2006), pp. 32–33; Victor Karady–Péter Tibor Nagy, Educational Inequalities and Denominations, Database for Transylvania (Budapest: John Wesley Theological College, 2009), pp. 41–49. 40 Computed from Magyar statisztikai közlemények, nr. 56, pp. 750–757 (for the teachers) and our Educational Inequalities, vol. 2, pp. 208–231 (for those with 8 secondary classes).

VICTOR KARADY: Education and Denominations in Transdanubia (1910)

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the two clusters which can be broadly described with reference to divergent patterns of social reproduction and mobility. For most Christians, secondary schooling was above all destined to the reproduction of the gentlemanly middle class. It was essentially a scheme for the status maintenance of offspring of the gentry, the urban patriciate and the educated honoratiors of non-noble background. Given the long term stagnation or even the decline of age specific proportions of Christians in elite education (as reported above), this could not be otherwise. In the decades following 1867 till the 1890s the elite training of Christians in secondary schools, universities and academies could only perform the simple functions of the reproduction of the said middle classes, but hardly an enlarged reproduction. For this though, the education of most Christians had to target preferentially at least 8 secondary classes, since this was the officially and socially recognized lower educational boundary of the gentlemanly circles (via for example the access to reserve officer’s standing). For Jews, starting their long (and never fully accomplished) march towards integration in the “national middle class” after the 1867 emancipation, elite education became immediately a major avenue for assimilation via instruction in Hungarian. This helped them to acquire the cultural assets of the gentlemanly class and also secured some social contacts with members of the ruling elite on the school benches (since up to the end of the nineteenth century there was hardly any anti-Jewish social segregation in gymnasiums or Realschulen, let alone in Bürgerschulen or commercial high schools). Advanced schooling—obviously enough—also provided for their mobility towards the liberal professions or even civil service positions, some of which were opening up for Jews at that time. This entailed a fast and generalized educational mobilization of Jewish youth from all social strata, except—at least not immediately—from Orthodox circles, bound to their elaborate schooling traditions in cheders and yeshivot. Now most of this mobilization could not end up with Matura or 8 years of secondary school or even a Normal School graduation for a number of reasons. As to teacher training colleges, Jews could not have been much interested in graduating from them, since the provision of primary schooling was in the hands of the churches and confessional segregation was the rule for pupils and teachers alike, so that Jews could scarcely hope to find jobs outside Jewish primary schools. For other Jews brought up originally in a religious culture, with a language and specific linguistic competences (not excluding to be sure a level of bilingualism) of their own, studying in a Christian gymnasium or even in a Realschule repre-

426

FRIARS, NOBLES AND BURGHERS—SERMONS, IMAGES AND PRINTS

sented a major form of cultural alienation and, hence, particular hardships to overcome before reaching graduation, which many of them could thus not manage. But the very function of secondary graduation, when it was achieved, could not be the same for Jews as for Christians. Clearly enough, disproportionately large cohorts of young Jewish men— compared to the tiny relative numbers of Christians—strove for a status in the intellectual professions via studies in universities. But besides this highly mobile Jewish cluster, for an even larger number of Jews of mostly quite poor, lower middle class extraction (sons of petty traders, commissioners, craftsmen) a lower secondary school qualification would suffice for a limited but still significant degree of upward mobility outside of (or following in) their fathers professional footsteps as employees in the private sector, or business managers in trade or industry—all of which did not demand 8 years of secondary schooling. One can conclude this essay with the reminder that though, by 1910, the educational market had undergone fundamental transformations in Western Hungary from the seventeenth and eighteenth century (István’s historical target), some of his question marks about educational differences between Catholics and Protestants retained their relevance up to the early twentieth century, while new ones were put on the social and scholarly agenda—essentially around specific disparities and inequalities observable between Jews and Christians.

Register of Geographical Names

Historical place names in Central and Eastern Europe exist in several vernaculars. Authors of this volume were free to choose among them, as long as their usage retained internal consistency. This register is intended to help resolve this diversity of usage, and to identify the places in different maps. Kingdom of Hungary, Transylvania Hungarian Abauj Almakerék Bajmóc Barcaszentpéter Bártfa Bázna Bereg Berethalom Berzevice Besztercebánya Borsod Brassó Brulya Csanád Eperjes Érsekújvár Farkasfalva Felsőtatárlaka Fogaras Gáboltó Gölnicbánya Gömör Gyulafehérvár Heves Homoród Homoródbene Höltöveny

Romanian

Slovak

German

Abov

Abaujwar Malmkrog Weinitz Petersberg Bartfeld Baassen Berg Birthälm Berzewitz Neusohl Borschod Kronstadt Braller Tschanad Preschau Neuhäus Farksdorf Taterloch Fogarasch Gaboltow Göllnitz Gemer Weissenburg Hewesch Hamruden Meeburg Heldsdorf

Mălâncrav Bojnice Sînpetru Bardejov Bazna Berežská župa Biertan Brezovica Banská Bystrica Braşov Bruiu Cenad Prešov Nové Zámky Vlková Tătârlaua Făgăraş Gaboltov Gelnica Gemer Alba Iulia Homorod Beia Hălchiu

428 Hunfalva Illésfalva Jernye Kakaslomnic Káposztafalva Kassa Késmárk Kisszeben Kluknó Kolozsvár Korompa Kund Lándok Libice Lőcse Lubló∗ Lublókorompa Magyaregregy Marosvásárhely Medgyes Modor Munkács Muzsna Nagybaromlak Nagysáros Nagysink Nagyszeben Nagyszombat Nagyvárad Nyársadó Nyitra Osztrópatak Palocsa Palonca Pécsyújfalu Poprád Pozsony Prázsmár Raszlavica Rádos Rihnó Rimaszombat Riomfalva Rozsnyó ∗

Register of Geographical Names Huncovce Iliašovce Jarovnice Vel’ka Lomnica Hrabušice Košice Kežmarok Sabinov Kluknava Cluj Krompachy Cund Lendak L’ubica Levoča Ľubovňa Kremná Târgu Mureş Mediaş Modra Muncaci Moşna Valea Viilor

Mukačevo

Vel’ký Šariš Cincu Sibiu Oradea

Trnava Vel'ký Varadín Ražňany Nitra Ostrovany Plaveč Plavnica Pečovská Nová Ves Poprad Bratislava

Prejmer Raslavice Roadeş Richnava Rimavská Sobota Richiş Rožňava

Hunsdorf Sperndorf/Selgersdorf Jarownitz Großlomnitz Kabsdorf Kaschau Kesmark/Käsmark Zeben Kluckenau Klausenburg Krompach Reussdorf Landeck Leibitz Leutschau Lublau Krempach Ungarisch-Eggrad Neumarkt Mediasch Modern Munkatsch Meschen Wurmloch Großscharosch Grossschenk Hermannstadt Tyrnau Grosswardein Herdegen, Naarsch Neutra Ostrovany Plautsch Plausch Frauendorf Deutschendorf Preßburg Tartlau Rasslawitz Radeln Richenau Gross-Steffelsdorf Reichesdorf Rosenau

Or Ólubló, administrative centre of Spiš / Zips, mortgaged to Poland until 1772, under its Polish name Stara Lubowla.

429

Register of Geographical Names Sáros Segesd Segesvár Selmecbánya Sorosthely Sörkút Sövénység Szászbogács Szásztyukos Szászivánfalva Szászsebes Szentgotthárd Szent-György Szepes Szepeshely Szepesolaszi Szepesváralja Szombathely Táblás Toporc Torna Torontál Ugocsa Ugra Ung Vág Vessződ Zemplén Zilah Zsibó Zsidve

Šariš Şaeş Sighişoara Banská Štiavnica Şoroştin Výborná Fişer Băgaciu Ticuşul Vechi Ighişul Nou Sebeş Monoster Hubošovce Spiš Spišská Kapitula Spišské Vlachy Spišské Podhradie Spišská Sobota Dupuş Toporec Turňa Torontal Ugocea Ungra Užská Veseud

Scharosch Schaas Schässburg Schemnitz Schorsten Bierbrunn Schweischer Bogeschdorf Tekes Eibesdorf Mühlbach Sankt Gotthard Sankt Georg Zips Zipser Kapitel Wallendorf Kirchdrauf Georgenberg Tobsdorf Toportz Tornau Torontal Ugotsch Galt Ung Zied Semplin Waltenberg Siben Seiden

Zemplín Zalău Jibou Jidvei

Poland-Lithuania Pol.

Lith.

Ger.

Brześć Litewski Białystok Czetwertnia Halicz Kamieniec Podolski Kijów (Eng. Kiev) Kopył Krosno Krzemieniec Kudryńce Latyczów

Brestas Balstogė

Brest-Litowsk Bialystok Czetwertnia Halytsch Kamenez-Podolsk Kiew Kopyl Krossen Kremenez

Ukr.

Belarus. Brest Belastok

Chetvertnya Galich Kamyanets-Podilskyi Kyiv Kapil Krosno Kremyenyets Kudrynci Letychiv

430 Lublin Łuck Lwów Mohylew Ostróg Owrucz Poczajów Połock Prypeć Przemyśl Słuck Warsawa (Eng. Warsaw) Zamość Żytomierz

Register of Geographical Names Lublin Luck Lemberg Mogiliovas Mohylew Ostrogas Ostroh Owrutsch Potschajiw Polockas Polock Pripetė Pripjet Premslau Sluckas Sluck Warschau Zamoscė Zamosch Schytomyr

Lyublin

Luzk

Lviv Mahilou Ovruch Pochayiv Prypyat Peremyšl

Zhytomyr

Bohemian lands Czech

German

Polish

Brno České Budějovice Cheb Jihlava Kutná Hora Olomouc Plzeň Vroclav

Brünn (Böhmisch) Budweis Eger Iglau Kuttenberg Olmütz Pilsen Breslau

Wrocław

Polatsk Pripyats

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List of Contributors

Joachim Bahlcke, Professor of History, Universität Stuttgart Emese Bálint, Visiting Fellow, European University Institute, Florence Maria Crăciun, Associate Professor of History, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj Kateryna Dysa, Assistant Professor of History, Mohyla Academy, Kyiv Maria Martin Elbel, Assistant Professor of History, Palacký University, Olomouc Márta Fata, Research Fellow, Institut für Donauschwäbische Geschichte und Landeskunde, Tübingen Ronnie Hsia, Po-chia, Erwin Erle Sparks Professor of History, Pennsylvania State University, University Park PA Antonín Kalous, Assistant Professor of History, Palacký University, Olomouc Victor Karady, Professor of History, Central European University, Budapest Kecskeméti, Charles, Professor Emeritus, Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne; Former General Secretary of the International Council on Archives Kontler, László, Professor of History, Central European University, Budapest Kowalská, Eva, Senior Research Fellow, Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava Lovrenović, Dubravko, Associate Professor of Medieval History, University of Sarajevo. Michels, Georg, Professor of History, University of California, Riverside Miller, Jaroslav, Associate Professor of History, Palacký University, Olomouc Pavlíčková, Radmila, Assistant Professor of History, Palacký University, Olomouc

448

List of Contributors

Rao, Anna Maria, Professor of History, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II Rieber, Alfred, Professor of History, Central European University, Budapest Sabev, Orlin, Research Fellow, Institute of Balkan Studies, The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia Schilling, Heinz, Professor of History, Humboldt Universität, Berlin Szeghyová, Blanka, Junior Research Fellow, Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava Tollet, Daniel, Secretary General, Institut de recherches pour l’étude des religions, Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne Velagić, Zoran, Assistant Professor of History, University of Osijek Zwierlein, Cornel, Junior Professor for Environmental History, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Index of Personal Names

A Aaron, Old Testament hero, 143 Abdulhamid I, Sultan, 242, 403, 405 Abou-el-Haj, Rifaat, 397 Adler, Jakob Friedrich, 87 Afanasii, Archbishop of Kholmogory, 246 Afanasij, Uniate Bishop, 350, 353, 355 Agiagasy, Gregorius, 364 Agricola, Johann, 74 Ahmed III, Sultan, 82n33, 399 Albeck, Johann Philipp, 83 Alberty, Ferdinand, 126 Albrecht of Brussels, Archduke, 138n33 Alexander-Leopold, Archduke, Palatine of Hungary, 24 Alexander I, Russian Tsar, 240, 241 Alexander II, Russian Tsar, 245 Alexander VII, Pope, 221 Alexandra Pavlovna, Grand Duchess, 24 al-Garbi, El-Hajj Mehmed, 395 Alimpij, Father, 357 Alphonse I, King of Aragon and Naples, 300 al-Tusi, Nasireddin, 394 Amaduzzi, Giovanni Cristoforo, 302, 303 Amalek, Old Testament hero, 143 Aman, Theobald, 74 Ammon, Andreas, 75 Anastasius, Byzantine Emperor, 214 Anđelić, Pavo, 33, 45 Andreas, Georg (von Hofkirchen), 78, 84, 85 Andreas, servant of Peter Faigell, 370 Andrés, Juan, 304 Andrew, St., 54, 65

Anna Aloisa of Ostrog, Princess, 352 Anna, Mother of Virgin Mary, 355 Anna, woman in Košice, 373 Anthony, St., 343 Archimedes, 153, 301 Astore, Francesco Antonio, 309 Augustus II, King of Poland, 200n4, 204 Aurelia, St., 50 Avicenna, 395 Axahy, Kazimir, 207 B Ba’al, 141 Bakócz, Tamás, Archbishop of Esztergom, 195, 195n57 Balogh, Péter, 277 Bánffy, György, 293 Baranovich, Lazar, Bishop of Chernihiv, 343 Baranyay, Ferenc, 113, 114, 114n30, 123 Barberio, Cardinal, 153 Bariatinskii, Prince A. I., Fieldmarshal, 245 Baron, Hans, 283, 284 Bársony, György, Bishop, 93n6, 110, 116, 116n39, 117, 126 Barsotti, Giovanni Battista, 271, 272, 273 Bartanyi, György, 113, 113n23, 114n27, 114n31, 121, 121n64 Bascio, Matteo da, 149, 151 Basil, St., 204 Bassano, Remondini, 308 Báthory, Andrew, Prince of Transylvania, 290–291 Báthory, Kristóf, Voevode of Transylvania, 290

450

Index of Personal Names

Báthory, Sigismund, Prince of Transylvania, 290, 291 Báthory, Stephen, Prince of Transylvania and King of Poland, 290, 291 Batthyányi, József, 276 Bayezid II, Sultan, 392 Bayle, Pierre, 332 Beccaria, Cesare, 298, 308 Behic Mehmed, Efendi, 404 Benczédi, László, 108, 108n3, 109, 112, 123, 125 Benedictus, a Hungarian preacher, 370 Béhar, Pierre, 29 Belforte, Duke de, 302 Berchtold, Ferenc, 265n43 Bereck, György Vizaknai, 289, 293 Berio, Domenico, 304 Berio, Francesco Maria, 304 Bernardino of Siena, 169 Bertóthy, Ádám, 114n32 Berzeviczy, Gergely, 17 Bessenyey, István, 114 118 123 Bessler, Johann Peter, 81 Bicken, Johann Adam, von, 133n17– 134n17, 145n68 Bieber, Johann Ehlert, 324, 325, 334n46 Bignon, Abbé, 223 Birgivi, Mehmed, 401, 409 Bloch, Marc, 215 Bocatius, Joannes, 26n47 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 16, 18, 19, 24, 25, 30 Bonaventure, St., 164, 165, 168 Boniface VIII, Pope, 215 Born, Ignaz von,174 Borromeo, Carlo, 384 Bouillon, Cardinal de, 223 Bourbon, Charles de, 300, 304 Bourbon, family, 215, 226 Bouvet, Joachim, 222, 227, 228, 232 Boym, Michael, 221, 229 Boverio, Zaccaria, 151, 153, 154 Brajković, Martin, 275, 276 Brandenburg-Kulmbach, Alcibiades Albrecht von, 142n54 Braudel, Fernand, xiv Braun, Erasmus, Colonel, 75 Brecht, Clement, 101

Brechtelts, Erasmus, 363 Brederode, Cornelisz, 6 Brenz, Johannes, 84 Breszku, Thomas, 370 Briganti, Tommaso, 305, 309 Brodarics, István, 186 Brosseaud, battalion chief of Napoleon, 18 Bucer, Martin, 50 Buddha, 218 Buftałowski, Maxym, 207 Burckhardt, Jakob, xiv, 283 Burgio, Antonio, 179, 179n1, 187 Burius, Johann, 99n31, 102n42 Burke, Peter, xiii, xiv Burman, Petrus, 301 Busbecq, Ghiselin de, 394, 407 C Cacault, François, 309 Cahera, Havel, 186 Calisius, Johann Heinrich, 83, 84 Calixtus III, Pope (see also Calisto), 181, 182, 194 Campeggi, Lorenzo, 185, 187, 189, 196, 196n61 Canisius, Petrus, 5 Caracciolo, Domenico, 314 Caramuel y Lobkowitz, Juan, 271 Cardinal of Furstenberg, 223 Carter, Thomas Francis, 394 Carvajal, Juan, Cardinal, 181 Casimir IV, King of Poland, 183 Catherine II (the Great), Russian Tsarina, 25, 239, 240, 246, 301 Catherine, St., 55 Celano, Thomas of, 164, 168 Çelebi, Katib, 396, 405 Cevdet Pasha, Ahmed, 407 Chanadinus, Emericus, 366 Chapo, Gergel, 369 Charlemagne, Frankish Emperor, 20, 135, 214 Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, 139 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 313 Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, 263, 273

Index of Personal Names Charles VII/III, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, 137n30 Charles XII, Swedish King, 105, 106n58 Charles of Habsburg, Archduke, brother of Emperor Francis II, 25 Charles of Habsburg, Archduke, brother of Emperor Ferdinand II, 139 Charles of Münsterberg, Duke, 188, 189 Charles the Bald of West Francia, 135 Charles Robert, King of Hungary, 285 Chartier, Roger, 8, 303, 383, 385 Chirkel, Simon, 374 Chladni, Martinus, 96n19 Chmelarka, Elizabeth, 119n57 Chmielnicki, Bogdan, Ukrainian hetman, 203 Christ (see also Jesus), 50–52, 58, 60, 62–65, 66n42, 67–70, 96, 98, 99, 101, 102, 105, 133, 165, 215, 343, 347, 357 Christian II, Elector of Saxony, 138n37 Christian IV, King of Denmark, 144, 144n61 Ciński, 207 Ćirković, Sima M., 34 Clement VII, Pope, 149, 151, 189, 196 Clement VIII, Pope, 133 Clement XI, Pope, 232, 275 Colonna, Cardinal Girolamo, 270 Confucius, 217–219, 231 Conrad, 157 Constantine, the Great, 20 Contzen, Adam, 226 Cosma, St., 343 Cračiun, Maria, xv Cranach, Lucas, the Younger, 158, 161, 163, 169 Creuser, Christoph, 78 Cromwell, Oliver, 226 Csáki, László, 294 Csáky, Imre, 265n43 Csáky, István, 117 Csáky, Count János, 267 Csáky, Miklós, 265n43 Cserei, Mihály, 289 Cuspinianus, 26 Czekanowski, Jan, 207

451

Czetwertyński, Sylwester, 206 Cziprianus, Szaladinus, 113, 113n26, 117, 121, 121n64, 122, 122n68 Czirkler, Andras, 367 D Dahlberg, Wolfgang von, Archbishop of Mainz, 133n17, 145n68 Dannhauer, Conrad, 100n34 Dao, 218 D’Alembert, Jean le Rond, 301 Damian, St., 343 Darnton, Robert, xiv, 303, 385 David, Prophet and King, 141, 143 Davis, Natalie Zemon, 385 De Certeau, Michel, 387 De Custine, Marquis, 30 De La Chaize, Father, 223 De l’Hopital, Marqius, 14, 26 Della Valle, Fantino, 182 De Mollenville, Herbelo, 395 Denis, Ernest, 29 De Riddere, Jacobus, 153, 154 Des Alleurs, Marquis, 293 De Saussure, César, 393 De Torsi, Marquis, 223 Diack, Micklosch, 367 Dieterici, 86 Di Lieto, Giuseppe, 308 Dionizy, archimandrite of Orwucz, 203 Dobos, Georgios, 363 Dobay, Gábor, 113, 114, 118 Dojčić, Stjepan, 275, 276 d’Ohsson, Ignace Mouradgean, 30, 393 Dolgorouki, 209 Domaradzki, Klement, 204 Domorowski, Klemens, 207 Donado, Giovanni, 393 Dondukov-Korsakov, Prince, 245 Dorko, 368 Dragonetti, Giacinto, 298, 301, 308 Dreihaupt, Johann Christoph, 333 Duntes, Ludwig, 86 Dymytrij, Master, 345

452

Index of Personal Names

E Eberhard III, Duke of Württemberg and Theck, 79, 103n48 Eberhard, Melchior, 86 Eisenstein, Elizabeth, 389, 390 Elefánth, Blasius Jáklin de, 273, 273n70 Elijah, Prophet, 141, 143 Elizabeth, wife of Kathona Mihal, 370 Elizaveta Petrovna, Russian Tsarina, 239 Engel, Pál, 37, 38 Erasmus of Rotterdam,, 155–157, 161 Erdődy, Gábor, 263 Erdődy, László Ádám, 274 Ernest, Landgrave of Hessen-Rheinfeld, 268 Ernest Christian, Rhine Palatine, 80 Esterházy, Imre, Bishop, 267 Esterházy, Károly, Bishop, 266 Esterházy, Pál, Prince, 15 Euclid, 394, 395 Eugene IV, Pope, 180 Eulenspiegel, Till, 385 F Faber, 332 Fabini, Leonard, 113n23, 121n63 Faigell, Peter, 370 Falabu, Simonne, 366 Felice, Fortunato de, 314 Ferdinand II, Hholy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, 132, 138, 139, 146, 147, 256 Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, 259, 270 Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, 298 Ferdinandy, Gejza von, 34, 35 Ferenz, Mihály, 55n17 Fidlers, Hannes, 367 Fidlers, Marina, 367 Filangieri, Gaetano, 297, 299, 310 Filipec, Jan, 184, 185 Firea, Ciprian, 53n13 Fivecsky, Father Johannes, 121, 121n64 Fontenay, Vicomte de, 28 Forgách, Pál, 266

Forgách, Simon, 291, 293 Foucault, Michel, 339 Fougières, Marquis de, 14, 15 Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, 19, 25 Francis, of Assisi, St., 149, 151, 153, 154, 157, 163–165, 167169, 171, 173, 175 Francis, of Xavier, St., 383 Franklin, Benjamin, 328, 329 Frederick, Duke of Württemberg, 77, 78, 84 Frederick II, King of Prussia, 300 Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, 193, 194 Frederick V, Elector Palatine, 136n27, 139, 142n54, 143, 146, 147 Frierson, Cathleen, 322, 340 Fuček, Štefan, 381, 382 G Galanti, Giuseppe Maria, 297, 300, 303, 305, 306, 308, 311–313 Galgóczy, János, 266 Galiani, Ferdinando, 297, 314 Galland, Antoine, 395, 396 Galli, Andreas, 113n25, 122, 123, 123n74 Garai, Anglet, 370 Gašparoti, Hilarion, 385 Gauvin-Gallois, Jean-Antoine, 299 Gelasius I, Pope, 214 Gennaro, Antonio Di, Duke de Belforte, 302 Genovesi, Antonio, 297, 298, 300, 301, 306, 310 George Frederick, Duke of Württemberg, 87 George of Poděbrady, King (see also Georgii Pogebracii), 180–183, 186n29, 188– 189, 194, 195 Gerber, Jesman, 365 Gerbillon, Jean-François, 222, 230 Goliath, 141 Goody, Jack, 380 Gotsman, Joannes, 364 Giannone, Pietro, 310 Giustiniani, Lorenzo, 306

Index of Personal Names Göçek, Fatma Müge, 397 Gouvea, Antonio de, 220 Grasset, François, 308 Grätzer, Philipp Christoph, 80, 86 Gratian, 214 Gravier, Jean, 308 310 Greco, El, 175 Greenblatt, Stephen, xv Gregorius, Baba, 374 Gregory XIII, Pope, 5 Grzymułtowski, Krzysztof, 200 Gubasócsy, János, 273n70 Günther, Andreas, 96n18, 97n20, 98n28, 100n32, 102n43, 103n45, 103n49, 104 Gyalogi, János, 289 H Habsburg family, 6, 112, 255, 258, 281, 282, 286, 287 Hadik, András, 17 Hadik, János, 17 Hafner, Johann Bernard, 83 84 Haill, Andreas, 145n68 Haliatovskyj, Ioanykij, 346, 346n15, 348, 353, 354 Hamsa, Beg, 373 Hanbury, William, 336n53 Hanacius, Ferenc, 119 Hanák, Péter, x Hajnóczy, József, 16 Harrach, Cardinal Ernst Adalbert of, 271, 272 Hausch, Georg David, 83 Haydukowa, Catherina, 367 Hedri, family, 114n32 Hegelmayer, Johann Jakob, 87 Heinemann, Michael, 86 Heinrich Julius, Duke of BraunschweigWolfenbüttel, 138n37 Hennin, Pierre-Michel, 308, 309 Hoffwart, Franz Conrad, 77, 85 Homburg, Daniel Brendel von, Archbishop of Mainz, 133n16, 140n49, 141n50 Hongguang, Chinese Emperor, 221 Horainom, Bogusław, 208

453

Horainom, Krystyna, 208 Horváth, Christoph, 119n53 Horváth, Márk, 114n32 Hrabkovych, Martyn, 355, 356 Hubert, Matthias, 263n35 Huizinga, Johan, xiv Hunter, William, 17, 21 Hur, 143 I Ilia, St., 353n56 Il’minskii, N. I., 246 Innocent VIII, Pope, 183 Innocent X, Pope, 221, 270 Isaiah, Prophet, 63 Isvalies, Petrus, 195n55 Ivan IV, the Terrible, Russian Tsar, 235, 238 J Jacobus, 364 Jankowski, Parfen, 205 Jaray, Michael, 121n63 Jeremias (see also Jeremiah), Prophet, 132, 330 Jerome of Prague, 180 Jesus (see also Christ), 58, 232, 382 Joachim II of Brandenburg, 73 Job, 132 Johannes, servant of Peter Faigell, 370 Johann Franz, Count von Bronckhorst zu Gronsfeld, 82 Johann Friedrich, Duke of BraunschweigLüneburg, 339n64 Johann Ludwig, Rheingraf, 80 John III Sobieski, King of Poland, 205 John of Capistrano, 169, 170 John, St. the Baptist, 55 John, St. the Evangelist, 55, 63, 64, 145 Jones, E.L., 322 Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, 14, 15, 18, 19 Joseph, Archduke, Palatine of Hungary, 24, 25 Joshua, Prophet, 143, 144, 146

454

Index of Personal Names

Josser, Hannes, 365 Jutikkala, Eino, 322 K Kangxi, Chinese Emperor, 213, 222–232 Kapi, Judit, 119n53 Kapi, Pater, 289, 290 Kapossy, Joannis, 115n33 Kathona, Mihal, 370 Kaufman, K. P. von, 246 Kaunitz-Rietberg, State Chancellor Wenzel Anton, 253 Kecskeméti, Charles, xiv Keil, Lorenz, 119 Kemmel, Johann, 103n46 Keoreoskewczy, Blasius, 374 Kerens, Henri-Jean, 269 Keyser, Erich, 320, 320n3, 321 Kighios, Petrus, 374 Királyi, István, 115 Kircher, Athanasius, 134n19 Kisch, Lőrincz, 364 Kiss, János, 274 Klagk, Peter, 374 Klaić, Nada 34 Klaić, Vjekoslav, 33 Klesch, Daniel, 95n14, 96n18, 98n28, 99n31, 100n35, 103n47, 104n52, 120, 1 22 Klimó, György, 267 Koch, Georg Friedrich, 87 Koffler, Andreas Xavier, 221, 229 Kőkemezey, Ferenc, 114n30 Koloğlu, Orhan, 396 Kolonich, Sigismund, 266 Komar, Stefan, 203 Kondratowicz, Aleksy, 208 Kopaz, Lucas, 362 Korompay, Péter, 273n70 Korytyński, Daniel, 205 Kościubiński, Stanisław, 204 Kosz, Dominik, 116, 116n40, 116n41, 117 Kőszegy, Caspar, 112n22 Kozan, Ivan, 207 Krman, Daniel Superintendent, 106n58 Kronberg, family, 135n23

Kronberg, Johann Schweikard von, Archbishop, 129, 129n2, 132– 134, 133n16, 134n19, 135, 135n19, 136– 139, 138n33, 138n36, 139n39–41, 141– 145, 141n51 Kronberg, Clara Anna von, 136n24, 136n25 Kronberg, Frantz von, 136n24, 141 Kronberg, Hartmut von, 136n24, 141 Kronberg, Hartmut von (grandfather of the former), 141n51 Kronberg, Hartmut XIII von, 136n24, 136n25 Kronberg, Johann Georg von, 136n24, 136n25, 141n51 Kronberg, Margarette von, 136n24 Kronberg, Rudolf von, 135, 136n23 Kryzhanovskii, General, 246 Kubinyi, Andras, 39 Kubinyi, László, 115n33 Kykedi, Peter, 364 L Labsanszky, Johann, 95n13 97 Lacuée, Gérard, 19, 20, 24, 27 Ladislaus, King of Naples, 38, 192, 193 Lakatgiartho, Dionisius, 370 Lama, 231 Lani, Georg, 101, 102, 102n42, 104 Lassius, Basil Pastor, 122 Leaković, Bernardin, 381, 382 Lebet, Simon, 363 Le Comte, Louis, 222–227 Ledóchowski, Andrzej, 204 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 268, 332, 338, 339n64 Leo XIII, Pope, 252 Leo X, Pope, 195 Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, 111, 112, 268, 271, 272, 275, 276, 282, 284, 287, 339n64 Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, 18 Leopold, Archduke, brother of Emperor Francis II, 24, 138n33 Leopold of Passau, Archduke, 138n37

Index of Personal Names Level, Johann August, 336n53 Levinus, 156 Lev of Rožmitál, Zdeněk, 187, 188, 196n59 Lezay-Marnesia, Adrien, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 24 Lieven, Wilhelm von, 245 Liguori, Alphonse de’, 307 Lilja, Sven, 322 Linné, Carl von, 174 Lipsius, Justus, 227 Liptak, Thomas, 119 Longworth, Philip, 20, 23 Longwu, Chinese Emperor, 221 Louis the German, 135 Louis II, King of Hungary and Bohemia, 186, 187, 189 Louis XIV, 222-224, 227–229, 322 Lovina, Ignaz of, 265 Lubomorski, Stanislaus Heraclius, 94n10 Lucifer, 357 Ludwig, a miller’s apprentice, 369 Ludwig, Count of Württemberg, 83 Lukaris, Kyrillos, 7 Luther, Martin, 51, 51n10, 63, 64, 66n42, 67, 73, 97, 161, 163, 186, 188 Lutz, Wilhelm Friedrich, 78 M Ma, Chinese Empress, 221 Macsinszky, Adalbert, 115–116 Macripodari, Hiacynth, 270 Mahmud II, Sultan, 406 Mahmud, El-Hajj, 395 Magalhães, Gabriel de, 219 Magdeburg, Joachim, 74, 75 Mályusz, Elemér, 38 Mandić, Dominik, 33 Maniecki, Krzysztof, 207 Mannagetta, Johann Georg of, 273, 274 Manso, Gian Battista, 305 Margaretha, wife of Chapo Gergel, 369 Maria Alexandrovna, Russian Empress, 242 Maria Dorothea Sofia, Duchess of Württemberg, 87

455

Maria Theresa, Empress and Queen of Hungary, 15, 18, 259, 264, 268–269 Marie-Louise, Empress (Napoleon’s wife), 25 Marikowszki, brothers, 115 Marikowski, Péter, 115n37 Marino, Gian Battista, 305 Marsigli, Conte di, 393 Martin, St., 55 Mary Magdalene, 55 Mary, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, 186 Masalska, Agafia, 208 Masnicius,Thobias, 102n42, 103n47 Matijević, Josip Ernest, 382 Matra, James Mario, 404 Mattei, Saverio, 303 Matthias, Archduke, 78, 138n33, 138n37, 274 Matthew, Evangelist, 63 Matthias I/II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, 138, 139n39 Matthias I (Corvinus), King of Hungary, 39, 44, 181–183, 194, 195 Matthias, spy in Košice, 373 Matyasovszky, László, 273, 273n70 Maurice, Duke of Saxony, 142n54 Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria, 138n36, 139, 139n40, 144, 193 Medici family, 284 Mehmed Raşid, Efendi, 404 Mehmed, Yazıcıoğlu, 401 Melanchthon, Philip, 67, 73 Melchisedech, 145 Melczer, Lajos, 113, 122n68 Meltzl, Oskar von, 278 Metternich-Winneburg, Prince Klemens Lothar von, Austrian Chancellor 23 Mezzabarba, 232 Michael, Archangel, 343 Michael, King of Poland, 110 Michaelis, St., 329, 331 Michel, St., 205 Michels, Georg B., xv Migazzi, Archbishop of Vienna, 269 Mihallyko, Caspar, 114n30 Mihallyko, Georg Henrich, 121n63

456

Index of Personal Names

Mikhail Nikolaevich, Russian Grand Duke, 245 Miklósy, Ferenc, 266 Miliutin, D.M., 246 Mingard, Gabriel, 314 Mohyla, Petro, 6, 346, 346n15, 350n40, 353n56, 355, 360 Moller, Daniel Wilhelm, 98n26 Molnár, Antal, 75n8 Molnar, János, 119n53 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis Secondat, 310 Morone, Cardinal, 5 Mortier, Roland, ix Moser, Johann Jakob, 338 Moses, 129, 141–144 Mrasz, Peter, 118, 118n48 Muhammad, Prophet, 401 Mulich, Ivan, 381, 383 Mulih, Jurij, 384 Murad III, Sultan, 394 Murena, Massimiliano, 299 Murillo, 175 Münif, Pasha, 406 Müteferrika, Ibrahim, 389, 391, 393, 398– 400, 402–405, 407 Mybus, Marcin, 369 Mykyta, St., 343, 344 N Nagy, Péter Tibor, 413 Napoleon (see also Bonaparte), 16, 18, 19, 24, 25, 30 Natus, Fabianus, 97n23 Nellim, Michael, 78 Neuß, Heinrich Georg, 104n54 Nicholas I, Russian Tsar, 241, 244 Nicholas, St., 54, 332, 343, 344 Nilles, Nikolaus, 254, 264 Noah, 9 Nockher, Johann Georg, 78, 85 Noscovius, Johann, 104n54 Notger Wilhelm, Count of ÖttingenKatzenstein, 83 Nowostawski, Lucatsch, 366 Nuri, Celal, 406

O Oecolampadius, 65, 69 Ondreikovics, Andreas, 122n73 Orsini, Orso, Bishop of Teano, 184 Ostendorfer, Michael, 59n22 Ostoja, Stjepan, 37 Otto I, von Kronberg, 136n23 P Paczir, Martin, 365 Paget, John, 16n14, 19n28, 23, 27 Paintner, Michael Anton, 253 Pálffy, János, 267 Pálffy, Thomas (Bishop and Hungarian Chancellor), 111 Palocsay, István Horváth, 117, 118, 118n47 Panofsky, Erwin, 56n18 Pardoe, Julia, 23, 27 Parennin, Dominique, 222 Pašek of Vrat, Jan, 184, 186, 188 Patačić, Adam Aleksandar, 265n43 Paul II, Pope, 182, 194 Paul III, Pope, 151 Paul, Apostle, 98, 132 Pauler, Gyula, 109 Pauler, Julius von, 33, 35 Pázmány, Péter, 256, 258 Pearson, Robin, 340 Peçevi, Ibrahim, 396, 405 Pécsy, Ádám, 114, 114n27, 115 Pécsy, Caspar, 115 Pécsy, János, 115 Pepin, 214, 215 Pereira, Tomé, 230 Pernštein, William of, 184 Peter I, the Great, Russian Tsar, 208, 234, 238–240 Peter, St., 58, 156 Petrőczy, István, 108, 112 Petrović, Leon, 33 Petrus, an executioner in Košice, 370 Peyreira, Thomas, 222 Philip IV, the Fair, King of France, 215 Piccolomini, Aeneas Silvius, 180 Pingeron, Jean-Claude, 298, 308

Index of Personal Names Piombese, Nicoló, 276 Pius II, Pope (see also Pius Secundus), 12, 180, 182, 194 Pius IX, Pope, 277 Plato, 228 Pollyak, Martin, 119n55 Pomert, Matthias, 121n63 Pontano, Giovanni, 300 Porcelli brothers, 308 Porter, S., 322 Prosper, St., 381 Pus, Leonard, 120 R Rački, Franjo, 33 Radyvilovskyj, Antonij, 346–348, 350, 354 Rákóczi, Francis I, Prince of Transylvania, 110, 291 Rákóczi, George I, Prince of Transylvania, 291 Rákóczi, Prince Francis II, Commanding Prince of Hungary, xvii, 107, 282, 284, 286–295, 292n28 Rákóczi, Sigismund, Prince of Transylvania, 291 Rasputin, Grigori, 246 Rattmacher, Gaspar, 363 Rayner, Márton, 284n9 Regius, Paul, 115n33, 123, 123n75, 115n34 Reimarus, Johann Andreas, 333 Reinhard, Wolfgang, xvi Reiser, Anton, 95n14, 98, 99 Repkovics, Michael, 115, 115n36 Reusch, Daniel, 82 Reuter, Lenard, 75 Révay, Antal, Bishop, 263, 266 Ricaut, Paul, 392, 393 Ricci, Matteo, 213, 218 Richardson, Brian, 391 Ripa, Matteo, 232 Ritthaler, Michael, 95n14, 96n17, 96n18, 103n50 Ritzler, Remigius, 255, 259 Robertson, 313 Robota, Ivan, 358 Roche, Daniel, 303

457

Rojas y Spinola, Cristobal de, 265, 267, 268 Roskoványi, István, 119, 119n52, 119n53, 119n56 Rostovskij, Dmitrij, 346, 353, 353n56, 357 Roxer, Benedikt, 120 Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, 133, 138, 138n33, 138n37 Rudolf of Rüdesheim, 182 Rueber, Hans, 74, 74n3 75 Rummel, Franz Ferdinand of, 265, 268 Ruoff, Stephan, 77 S Saenger, Paul, 387 Said, Efendi, 398, 399, 407 Sambiasi, Franceso, 221, 229 Samson, 141, 142 Sangro, Raimondo Di, 300, 304, 312 Santa, Pall, 367 Sarctor, Joannes, 364 Schad, Johannes, 78 Schall, Adam, 221, 222, 229, 230 Schneider, Jacob, 372 Schönborn, Johann Philipp von, Archbishop of Mainz, 136n26 Schramm, Gottfried, 3 Schubart, Johann, 75 Schwartner, Márton, 253 Schwarz, Lenart, 367 Selim I, Sultan, 392 Selim III, Sultan, 403, 404 Semashko, Iosif, 243 Semedo, Álvaro, 219 Sennyey, István, Bishop, 253, 260n25 Serdiukovskij, Hrytso, 357 Sesztak, Adrian, 116 Sextius, Johann, 102n42, 103n46 Sextius, Peter, 103n46 Shcherbatov, Prince Mikhail, 240 Shunzi, Chinese Emperor, 221, 222, 229, 230 Sickingen, Barbara von, 136n24 Sierakowski, Wacław, 206

458

Index of Personal Names

Sigismund of Luxemburg, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, 38, 42–44, 191–193, 196, 196n59 Simone brothers, 310 Simonides, J., 103n47 Šišić, Ferdo, 33 Sixtus VI, Pope, 173 Skinner, Quentin, xiv Soos, Joannes, 373 Spáczay, Pál, 274 Spener, Philip Jacob, 98, 98n26, 100 Speranskii, Mikhail, 240–241n16 Spiesshammer, Johannes, 26 Spinelli, Vincenzo, 304 Spinola, Ambrosius, 136n27, 143n59, 144 Stählin, Eberhard Christoph, 87 Stansics, family, 114n32 Stasi, Michele, 310 Steinbach, Kaspar, 74 Steller, Thomas, 96n17, 101 Stephen, Archduke, son of Palatine Joseph, 25 Stephen, St., 269 Sterlich, Romualdo De, 305 Stjepan Tomaš, King of Bosnia, 37, 44 Stjepan Tomašević, King of Bosnia, 40 Stock, Simon Ambros of, 269 Stoeckel, Peter, 120n59, 122n72 Stojanowski, Teodozjusz, 208 Strata, Filippo De, 389 Street, Brian V., 380 Šufflay, Milan, 260 Suicardi, Ioannis, 142n52 Süleyman Penah, Efendi, 403, 404 Suvorov, A. A., 245 Švihovský of Rýzmberk, Jindřich (Henricus Schosehus), 190, 196 Szakál, Ferenc, 287n17 Szalad, György, 121n63 Szalkai, László, 185, 186, 188, 189 Széchényi, Ferenc, 22 Széchenyi, István, 20 Szegedi, János, 116n41, 119, 119n51, 119n53, 125 Székely, László, 289 Szimonis, Michael, 115n35

Sziney, Ferenc, 115 Szőgyény-Marich, László, 278 Szörényi, László, 267 Szűgyi, Pál, 119n52, 119n56, 120n58 Szumlański, Józef, 200, 200n3 T Tafel, Johann Friedrich, 83 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de, 233 Tapolczay, Franciscus Literatus, 363 Tarnóczi, Martinus, 103n46 Taruffi, Giuseppe Antonio, 267 Telekesy, István, 263 Terpiłowski, Andrzej, 204 Terres, Domenico, 310 Terres, Gennaro, 308–309 Terres, Giuseppe Elia, 308–309 Teuffel, Andreas, 75 Thevet, André, 392 Thököly family, 17, 122 Thököly, Imre, 122 398 Thököly, Zsigmond, 118 Thomas, St., 62 Thurzó, György, 275 Tilly, Count, 144, 144n61, 146 Tisza, Kálmán, Prime Minister 277, 279 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 29, 30 Todorova, Maria, xiv Tomkovics, Blasius, 117, 118n47, 121, 121n67 Torcia, Michele, 301, 314 Tóth, István György, ix, x, xiii–xv, xviii, 3, 7, 8, 10, 12, 31, 107, 149n1, 306, 311, 319, 340, 399n42, 411, 412, 414, 417, 426 Tóth, Olivér, xi Tóth Sahin, Péter, x Tóth, Sándor, 109n6 Townson, Robert, 15, 16, 21, 22, 26 Trefort, Ágoston, 278 Trilocki, Jan, 207 Turner, M., 322 Tvrtko I, King of Bosnia, 38 Tvrtko II, Tvrtković, King of Bosnia, 44 Tylli, Josue, 129

Index of Personal Names U Umayyad, Caliph Abd ar-Rahman anNasir, 394 Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg, 76, 86 Underdown, David, 332 Urban VIII, Pope, 256 Ürményi, József, 18 Ursula, St., 55 Usz, Ferenc, 119n53 Uvarov, Sergei, 241 V Van der Heyden, Jan, 328, 328n27 Van der Heyden, Samuel, 328, 328n27 Valleta, Giuseppe, 305 Vargas Macciucca, Marquis Francesco, 305 Vartemberk, Jan of 187 Vás, Ezekiel, 119n53 Vas Czegei, György, 288, 294 Vasıf, Efendi, 404 Verri, Pietro, 304, 314 Vniaminov, Ioann, 246 Verbiest, Ferdinand, 222, 225, 228–230 Viclephus, Jωannes, 191, 192 Virgin Mary, 54, 55, 113, 140, 354 Vischer, Philipp Christoph, 80, 86 Vizkeleti, Zsigmond, 293 Vladislav (Wladislas, Ulászló) II, King of Hungary and Bohemia, 183, 185, 186, 186n29 Vohenstein, Otto von, 78, 84, 85 Volusius, Adolf Gottfried, 136n26 Vratanja, Simeon, 259 Vukčić, Stjepan, 42 Vyshens’kyj, Ivan, 346, 347, 347n21 W Wage, Theodore, 308 Wagner, Friedrich, 331 Wallerstein, Immanuel, xiv Walter, N., 120 Wandiureyko, Nicolai, 207 Wang, Chinese Empress, 221 Waraliensis, Urban, 366

459

Warburg, Aby, xiv Watt, Tessa, 380, 382 Wattson, William, 402 Wenceslas, St., 38 185 Wendel, Wolfgang Dietrich, 83 White, Charles, 389, 405 William of St. Amour, 159 Williams, Raymond, 390 Winnicki, Innocenty, 200 Winter, Georg, 121n63 Wittola, Markus Anton, 269 Wolff, Larry, xiv Wolfgang, St., 59n22 Wrbczansky, Severinus, 172 Wycliffe, John, 65, 161, 180 Y Yahweh, 330 Yongli, Chinese Emperor, 213, 221 Young, Arthur, 13 Yuangzhuan, Zhu, 219 Z Zabo, Adam, 370 Zabo, Gregorius, 370 Żabokrzycki, Dionizy, 200, 205, 207 Zábráczky, József, 276 Zankowski, Marcin, 207 Zbiskó, József Károly, 264 Zekeres, Micklos, 364 Zeynulabidin, 395 Zhu Changxun, 221 Zhu Cixuan, Chinese Imperial Prince, 221 Zhu Yousong, Prince of Fu (later Chinese Emperor Hongguang), 221 Zhu Yujian, Prince of Tang, 221 Zichy, Ferenc, 263, 265n43, 266 Ziegler, Johann Reinhard, 130, 130n3, 134n19, 135, 136, 138, 140, 142n54, 143, 146 Zucconi, Vincenzo, 272 Żuliński, Archaniol, 207 Zurbarán, Francisco, 175 Zymmerman, Janos, 368 Zwingli, Ulrich, 65, 69

Index of Geographical Names

A Aachen, 137, 326 Abaúj, county, 108n2 Abkhazia, 242 Abruzzi, 305 Adriatic Coast (Littoral), 14, 260 Adriatic Sea, 74 Africa, 252 Agnetheln (see also Agnita, Szentágota), 59n23 Agnita (see also Agnetheln, Szentágota), 59n23 Alaska, 246 Albania, 254, 258, 260 Almakerék (see also Mălâncrav, Malmkrog), 57, 58 Alps, 150, 169 Alsóbajom (see also Boian, Bonnesdorf), 59n23 Alsópián (see also Deutschen Pien, Pianul de Jos), 59n23 Altendresden, 322 Altona, 326 Amsterdam, 328, 328n28 Andalusia, 394 Apennine, 169 Apulia, 305, 309 Archita (see also Arkeden, Erked), 59n23 Arkeden (see also Archita, Erked), 59n23 Arva, county, 126n84 Aschaffenburg, 129n2, 134n19, 140n49, 142n54 Asia, 193, 213, 222, 236, 245, 246, 252 Asia Minor, 252 Astrakhan, 235

Asszonyfalva (see also Axente Sever, Frauendorf), 59n23 Aţel (see also Ecel, Hetzeldorf), 59n23 Augsburg, 83, 98, 100n34, 137 Aurania (see also Vrana), 279 Australia, 15 Austria, 12, 14, 19, 23–27, 76, 193, 263 Austrian Empire, 24 Avrig (see also Felek, Freck), 59n23 Axente Sever (see also Asszonyfalva, Frauendorf), 59n23 B Baassen (see also Bazna, Bázna), 58 Backnang, 322 Bács, 276 Baden-Baden, 322 Baden-Durlach, 87 Băgaciu (see also Bogeschdorf, Szászbogács), 55, 57, 58 Balkans, 258 Báránykút (see also Bărcut, Bekokten), 59n23 Barcaszentpéter (see also Petersberg, Sînpetru), 58 Bărcut (see also Báránykút, Bekokten), 59n23 Bardejov (see also Bártfa) 14, 111, 115, 116n41, 118–122, 120n62, 122n68, 124, 125, 361n1, 365, 368n22, 369, 371–373, 375 Bártfa (see also Bardejov) 14, 111, 115, 116n41, 118–122, 120n62, 122n68, 124, 125, 361n1, 365, 368n22, 369, 371–373, 375 Bartholomii (see also Bartolomeu), 59n23

462

Index of Geographical Names

Bartolomeu (see also Bartholomii), 59n23 Basel (see also Basle), 50, 180, 192, 194 Basle (see also Basel), 50, 180, 192, 194 Batsch, 261 Bavaria, 138n36, 139n40 Bazna (see also Baassen, Bázna), 58 Bázna (see also Baassen, Bázna), 58 Beia (see also Meeburg, Homoródbene), 54, 55 Beijing, ix, 213, 219, 221, 223, 224, 232 Bekokten (see also Bărcut, Báránykút), 59n23 Belarus, 204, 351 Belgrade, 13, 81, 251, 253, 261 Belgrade-Semendria, 254, 264, 278 Bell (see also Buia, Bólya), 59n23 Belorussia, 204 Bereg, county, 108n2 Berethalom (see also Biertan, Birthälm), 54, 55n17 Berghin (see also Berve, Blutroth), 59n23 Bergstrasse, 136n27, 141n50 Berlin, ix, 9, 11, 298 Berne, 308 Berve (see also Berghin, Blutroth), 59n23 Berzevice (see also Brezovica), 111 Besztercebánya, 96n17, 266 Białystok, 205 Biduanensis sive Buduanensis, 258n20 Biertan (see also Birthälm, Berethalom), 54 55n17 Birthälm (see also Biertan, Berethalom), 54 55n17 Blutroth (see also Berghin, Berve), 59n23 Bogeschdorf (see also Băgaciu, Szászbogács), 55, 57, 58 Bohemia, 23, 27, 42, 45, 92, 98, 143, 147, 151n3, 172, 179, 180, 183, 184, 186, 191, 192, 194, 271 Boian (see also Alsóbajom, Bonnesdorf), 59n23 Bologna, 133n16, 307 Bólya (see also Bell, Buia), 59n23 Bonnesdorf (see also Boian, Alsóbajom), 59n23 Borsod, county, 108n2 Bosnia, xv, 33–46, 258, 261, 262, 268, 276

Bosnia and Herzegovina, 34, 46 Bosnian Kingdom, 44 Bosnensis, 258n20 Botryen, 263 Braller (see also Bruiu, Brulya), 54 Brandenburg, 73 Brandenburg-Kulmbach, 142n54 Braşov (see also Kronstadt, Brassó), 49, 51 Brassó (see also Braşov, Kronstadt), 49, 51 Bratislava (see also Pozsony, Pressburg), ix, 14, 23, 270, 273 Braunschweig-Lüneburg, 26n47, 339n64 Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, 138n37 Bremen, 326 Breslau, 326 Brezovica (see also Berzevice), 111 Bristol, x Britain, 11, 191 Brno, 184 Bronckhorst zu Gronsfeld, 82 Bruiu (see also Braller, Brulya), 54 Brulya (see also Braller, Bruiu), 54 Brussels, 130n3, 138n33 Brześć Litewski, 203 Buda, 12, 14, 17, 73, 81, 87, 187, 188, 189, 276 Budapest, ix, 3, 4, 8, 10, 28, 213n0, 233n0, 255, 413 Budva, 261, 264, 266 Buia (see also Bell, Bólya), 59n23 Bursa, 401 Burzenland, 67 Bussd (see also Buzd, Szászbuzd), 59n23 Buzd (see also Bussd, Szászbuzd), 59n23 Byzantine Empire, 235, 261 C Cairo, 401 Capitulum Scepusiense (see also Spišská Kapitula, Szepeshely), 110, 111, 116 Carpathian Basin, 29 Caucasus, 236, 242, 243, 245, 246 Celje, 44 Central Asia, 236, 245, 246 Central Europe, xviii, 4, 24, 26, 29, 179, 184, 185, 320, 334, 351 Central Hungary, 13, 420

Index of Geographical Names Cermignano, 305 České Budějovice, 182 Cheb, 184 Chernihiv, 343, 346n15, 347, 353n56 Chicago, ix, 320, 325 Chieti, 305 China, xvi, 213, 214, 216, 220–223, 226, 229, 231, 232, 233 Chinese Empire, 226, 227, 230, 231 Cincu (see also Grossschenk, Nagysink), 53, 57, 58, 62 Cisnadie (see also Heltau, Nagydisznód), 59n23 Cluj (see also Cluj-Napoca, Klausenburg, Kolozsvár), xvii, 65, 281, 282, 284– 294, 295, 398 Cluj-Napoca, 149, 282n5 Coimbra, 3 Colocensis, 258n20 Cologne, 137, 137n30, 138n37, 323, 326, 328n27 Como, Lake 3 Constance, 44, 79 Constantinople, 7, 235 Çorum, 401 Cristian (see also Grossau, Kereszténysziget), 59n23 Croatia, xviii, 37, 38, 42, 251, 252, 258n20, 259, 260, 265, 268, 379–381, 383, 386 Csanád, 265, 266 Cund (see also Reussdorf, Kund), 54 Cuulmbach, 100n35 Czechoslovakia, 29 Czech Republic, 129 Czetwertnia, 208 D Đakovo, 276 Dalmatia, 37, 38, 42, 257, 258n20, 262, 279 Damascus, 401 Danube, 14 Danzig, 326 Denmark, 6, 144 Deutschen Pien (see also Pianul de Jos, Alsópián), 59n23

463

Deutsch Tekles (see also Ticuşul Vechi, Szásztyukos), 59n23 Dina (see also Thina, Tina), 268n52 Dôle, 133n16 Dolyna, 345 Dombrovna, 208 Doren, 263 Draas (see also Drauşeni, Homoróddaróc), 59n23 Drauşeni (see also Draas, Homoróddaróc), 59n23 Drava, 14 Dresden, 326 Drisht, 258, 261 Dubrovnik, 36 37, 42, 43 Dulma, 261, 262 Dunajec, 117 Dupuş (see also Tobsdorf, Táblás), 53, 54, 58, 63 Dutch Republic, 6, 226 E East Asia, 213 East-Central Europe, 39, 149 Eastern Europe, ix, x, xv, 4, 20, 23, 351 Ecel (see also Aţel, Hetzeldorf), 59n23 Edo, 325 Eger, 14, 110, 111, 112, 185, 195n57, 263, 274 Egypt, 394 Eibesdorf (see also Ighişul Nou, Szászivánfalva), 58 Eichsfeld, 141n50 England, 6, 27, 42, 311, 313, 322, 323, 325, 335, 339, 356 Eperjes (see also Prešov), 111n13, 126n84, 361n1, 364, 365, 367, 370–372, 375 Erben, 337 Ercolano, 303 Erdővágás (see also Richvald), 121n65 Erked (see also Arkeden, Archita), 59n23 Érsekújvár, 81 Eschborn, 136n23 Estonia, 351 Esztergom, 125, 185, 195n57, 251, 259, 266, 270, 274, 277 Eurasia, 233

464

Index of Geographical Names

Europe, ix, x, xiv, xv, xvi, xviii, 4, 8, 9, 20, 21, 21n34, 23, 24, 26, 29, 38, 39, 41, 43, 50, 91, 102, 146, 149, 161, 170, 179, 184, 185, 220, 226, 227, 231, 298, 300, 302, 311, 313, 319, 320, 326, 334, 341, 342, 344, 345, 351, 371, 372, 399n42, 408 Eyüp, 400 F Farkasfalva (see also Vlková), 117 Fayyum Oasis, 394 Fejér, county, 420 Felek (see also Avrig, Freck), 59n23 Felsőtatárlaka (see also Tătârlaua, Taterloch), 53, 54, 57 Finland, 322, 323 Fişer (see also Schweischer, Sövénység), 54, 58 Fogaras, 284 Florence, 283, 284, 297, 299, 304, 305, 307, 308, 310 France, 13, 17, 26, 31, 42, 78, 86, 142n53, 142n54, 215, 223, 228, 233, 300, 301, 303, 309, 310, 313, 335, 350n40, 385, 398 Franconia, 75 Frankfurt, 137, 138n33 Frauendorf (see also Axente Sever, Asszonyfalva), 59n23 Freck (see also Avrig, Felek), 59n23 Freiburg (Freiburg im Breisgau), ix, 3 Fritzlar, 141n50 Fu, 221 G Gáboltó (see also Gaboltov), 122n68 Gaboltov (see also Gáboltó), 122n68 Galata, 395 Galicia, 350n40 Gallipoli, 305 Galt (see also Ugra, Ungra), 59 Gelnica (see also Gölnicbánya), 111, 117, 118, 119, 119n53, 119n55, 126 Gengenbach, 322 Geneva, 84, 308 Genoa, 307

Gerdály (see also Gherdeal, Gürteln), 59n23 Gergelyfája (Ungurei, Gergeschdorf), 59n23 Gergeschdorf (Ungurei, Gergelyfája), 59n23 German Empire, 122 Germania, 192 Germany, xv, 5, 6, 96, 98, 101, 103, 105, 190, 309, 310, 320, 326, 329n30, 332, 333, 335, 335n48, 336, 385 Gherdeal (see also Gerdály, Gürteln), 59n23 Gömör, county, 108n2 Gomorrah, 330, 331, 331n35 Gölnicbánya (see also Gelnica), 111, 117– 119, 119n53, 119n55, 126 Görlitz, 96n19, 103 Górne Kudryńce, 207 Göttingen, 144n61 Grafenwerth, 74n3 Great Britain (see also Britain), 21 Greccio, 167 Grossalisch (see also Seleuş, Nagyszőllős), 59n23 Grossau (see also Cristian, Kereszténysziget), 59n23 Grossschenk (see also Cincu, Nagysink), 53, 57, 58, 62 Guntersdorf, 75 Gürteln (see also Gherdeal, Gerdály), 59n23 Győr, 74, 74n3, 75, 195n57, 254, 263, 266, 420 Gyulafehérvár, 287, 288, 289 H Habsburg Empire (Habsburg Monarchy), 12, 234, 379 Hague, 301, 314 Hălchiu (see also Heldsdorf, Höltövény), 54 Halicz, 204, 205 Halle, 333 Hamburg, 82, 98, 324, 325, 326, 328n28, 329, 331–338, 331n35, 335n48, 336n53

Index of Geographical Names Hamruden (see also Homorod, Homoród), 59n23 Hărman (see also Honigberg, Szászhermány), 59n23 Harz, 144n61 Hati, 205 Heidelberg, 139, 322 Heidendorf (see also Viişoara, Besenyő), 59n23 Heiligenstadt, 134n19 Heldsdorf (see also Hălchiu, Höltövény), 54 Heltau (see also Cisnadie, Nagydisznód), 59n23 Hermannstadt (see also Nagyszeben, Sibiu), 51, 57–59, 63, 67 Hesse, 141n50 Hesse-Darmstadt, 138n37 Hesse-Nassau, 25 Hessen-Rheinfeld, 268n52 Hetzeldorf (see also Aţel, Ecel), 59n23 Heves, county, 108n2 Hluhiv, 358 Hofkirchen, 78 Holland, 301 Höltövény (see also Hălchiu, Heldsdorf), 54 Holy Roman Empire 11, 76, 137, 141, 267, 326, 336 Holzelfingen, 83 Homburg, 133n16, 140n49 Homorod (see also Hamruden, Homoród), 58 59n23 Homoród (see also Hamruden, Homoród), 58 59n23 Homoródbene (see also Beia, Meeburg), 54, 55 Homoróddaróc (see also Draas, Drauşeni), 59n23 Honigberg (see also Hărman, Szászhermány), 59n23 Hrabušice (see also Káposztafalva), 117 Hubošovce (see also Szent-György), 115 Huncovce (see also Hunfalva), 116 Hunfalva (see also Huncovce), 116 Hungarian Kingdom, 12, 23, 74, 112

465

Hungary (see also Hungarian Kingdom, Kingdom of Hungary), xv, xvii, xviii, 8, 12–16, 16n14, 17–21, 21n34, 23–28, 30, 33, 35, 37–43, 45, 73–78, 81–83, 87, 89, 92–94, 93n6, 94n10, 95n14, 96, 96n19, 97n23, 98, 100, 102–104, 106– 110, 116, 118, 126, 186, 192, 195, 251– 253, 255, 256, 258, 265–267, 272–274, 277, 287, 292, 311, 319, 361, 370, 372, 375, 399n42, 411, 412, 414–417, 420, 424, 426 Hvar, 257, 261, 262, 266 I Iacobeni (see also Jacobsdorf, Jakabfalva), 59n23 Iaroslavl’, 353n56 Ielets, 346n15 354 Ighişul Nou (see also Eibesdorf, Szászivánfalva), 58 Iliašovce (see also Illésfalva), 117 Illésfalva (see also Iliašovce), 117 Iranian Empire, 236 Irmesch (see also Ormeniş, Ürmös), 59n23 Israel, 141, 143, 330 Istanbul, 12, 242, 325, 326, 389, 392, 393, 395, 400, 404–406 Italy, 6, 11, 300–302 305, 307, 313, 314, 335 J Jacobsdorf (see also Iacobeni, Jakabfalva), 59n23 Jakabfalva (see also Iacobeni, Jacobsdorf), 59n23 Jaklovce (see also Jékelfalva), 121n65 Jarovnice (see also Jernye), 113, 121 Jékelfalva (see also Jaklovce), 121n65 Jernye (see also Jarovnice), 113, 121 Jerusalem, 235 Jidvei (see also Seiden, Zsidve), 53, 54, 57 Jihlava, 184 K Kahlenberg, 12 Kakaslomnic (see also Vel’ka Lomnica), 117

466

Index of Geographical Names

Kalocsa, 257, 264, 266, 266n45, 269, 274, 277 Kamieniec Podolski, 203, 205, 207 Káposztafalva (see also Hrabušice), 117 Kassa (see also Košice), 14, 74n3, 110, 111, 266, 292n28, 361n1, 362–375, 368n22 Kazan, 235, 238, 239 Kereszténysziget (see also Cristian, Grossau), 59n23 Késmárk (see also Kežmarok), 111, 115, 116, 118, 119, 119n53, 122, 122n68, 122n69, 372 Kežmarok (see also Késmárk), 111, 115, 116, 118, 119, 119n53, 122, 122n68, 122n69, 372 Kholmogory, 246 Kiev, 6, 200, 201, 203, 207, 343, 344, 350n40, 353n56, 357, 358 Kievo-Pecherskaia Lavra, 353n56 Kingdom of Bohemia, 92, 147, 179 Kingdom of Hungary, 92, 93, 109, 253, 287, 375 Kingdom of Naples, 298, 300, 306, 310, 311 313 Kirchheim unter Teck, 78 Kisszeben (see also Sabinov), 111, 113– 115, 113n23, 114n30, 115n35, 118, 119n53, 120–125, 123n77 Klausenburg (see also Cluj, Kolozsvár), xvii, 65, 281, 282, 284–295, 398 Kluknó (see also Kluknava), 117 Kluknava (see also Kluknó), 117 Knin, 254, 257, 261, 264, 265, 266, 266n45, 268, 269, 278 Knittlingen, 83 Komárom, 420 Kolozsvár (see also Cluj, Klausenburg), xvii, 65, 281, 282, 284–295, 398 Königsberg, 100, 326 Königstein, 141n50 Kopył, 205 Korčula, 261–263, 266 Korompa (see also Korompachy), 111, 118, 119, 119n53 Korompachy (see also Korompa), 111, 118, 119, 119n53

Košice (see also Kassa), 14, 74n3, 110, 111, 266, 292n28, 361n1, 362–375, 368n22 Kotor, 261, 262, 265, 266 Krapina, 381 Krbava, 258, 261, 275, 276 Kremná (see also Lublókorompa), 117 Krk, 261, 264, 276 Kronstadt (see also Braşov, Brassó), 49, 51 Krosno, 369 Krzemieniec, 203 Kund (see also Cund, Reussdorf), 54 Kupa, River, 379 Kurpfalz, 142n54 Kutná Hora, 183 L Lándok (see also Lendak), 115 Lasków, 207 Latyczów, 203 Lausanne, 308, 314 Laxenburg, 24 Leghorn, 311 Leiden, 35n13 Leipzig, 99n30, 103, 103n45, 103n46, 103n47, 104 Lendak (see also Lándok), 115 Lepoglava, 385 Leuven, 133, 133n16 Leyden, 308 Levoča (see also Lőcse), 111, 111n13, 361n1, 366, 367, 368n22, 370–373, 375 Libice (see also L’ubica), 118 Lisbon, 3, 10, 329, 329n31 Lithuania, xvi, 239 Lőcse (see also Levoča), 111, 111n13, 361n1, 366, 367, 368n22, 370–373, 375 Lófalu (see also Kobyly), 121n65 Lohr, 141n50 Lombardy, 263 Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, 263 Lomersheim, 86 London, 314, 325, 326, 336 Los Angeles, ix Lower Austria, 78 L’ubica (see also Libice), 118 Lublin, 203

Index of Geographical Names Lubló (see also Lubowenský-Zamek), 110 Lublókorompa (see also see also Kremná), 117 Lubowenský-Zamek (see also Lubló), 110 Łuck, 200, 203–205, 207 Lüneburg, 333 Lutter am Barenberg, 144 Lwów, 200, 203–206 M Maastricht, 269 Macao, 221 Magyaregregy, 289 Mainz, 129, 129n2, 133, 133n16, 133n17, 134, 135n19, 136n26, 136n27, 137, 137n28, 137n30, 138, 138n37, 140n49, 141n50, 142–144, 142n54, 145n68, 146 Makarska, 257, 261, 262, 266 Mălâncrav (see also Malmkrog, Almakerék), 57, 58 Malmkrog (see also Almakerék, Mălâncrav), 57, 58 Mannheim, 326 Mantua, 272 Marča, 259 Margitfalva (see also Margecany), 121n65 Marmara, Sea of ,395 Marosvásárhely (see also Târgu Mureş, Neumarkt), 65, 69, 294 Mecca, 402 Mediaş (see also Mediasch, Medgyes), 54, 65, 66, 291 Medgyes (see also Mediaş, Mediasch), 54, 65, 66, 291 Mediasch (see also Medgyes, Mediaş), 54, 65, 66, 291 Middle Kingdom (Chinese), 213 Meeburg (see also Beia, Homoródbene), 54, 55 Milan, 283, 299, 307, 384 Miskolc, x Modra, 96n17 Modrus, 276 Modrusiensis, 258n20 Mohács, 34 Mohylew, 200, 203, 206

467

Monarchy, 28, 46 Moldavia, 42 Moravia, 184 Morea, 82, 82n33 Moscow, ix, 200n4, 235, 246, 352 Moşna (see also Meschen, Muzsna), 58, 62 Mühlbach (see also Sebeş, Szászsebes), 54 Mülhausen, 139, 322 Munich, 7, 8, 216, 326 Munkatsch, 24 N Nagybaromlak (see also Valea Viilor, Wurmloch), 58 Nagydisznód (see also Cisnadie, Heltau), 59n23 Nagyharsány, 81 Nagysáros (see also Vel’ký Šariš), 114 Nagysink (see also Cincu, Grossschenk), 53, 57, 58, 62 Nagyszeben (see also Sibiu, Hermannstadt), 51, 57, 58, 59, 63, 67 Nagyszőllős (see also Grossalisch, Seleuş), 59n23 Nagyszombat, 95, 292, 292n28 Nagyvárad, 184, 265, 266, 268, 285 Nancy, ix Nanjing, 213, 219 Nantes, 223 Naples, vii, ix, xvii, 3, 10, 38, 94–95n11, 102, 297–314 Naumburg, 98n28, 104 Nerchinsk, 222, 230 Netherlands, 149, 335, 350n40 Neuchâtel, 308 Neumarkt (see also Marosvásárhely, Târgu Mureş), 65, 69, 294 Neutra, 273n70 Nin, 257, 261, 263, 265–268 North Caucasus, 242 Northeim, 26n47 Northern Africa, 252 Northern Albania, 254 Northern Croatia, 379 Northern Europe, 179 Northwestern Europe, 334 Nuremberg, 98n27, 100n34, 138, 138n38

468

Index of Geographical Names

Nyársadó (see also Ražňany), 122 Nyitra, 263, 267, 274 O Ochrid, 261 Oehringen, 98 Offenburg, 322 Olomouc, 184 Omiš, 261, 266 Ónod, 14 Orenburg, 246 Orkuta, 121n65 Orleans, 133n16 Ormeniş (see also Irmesch, Ürmös), 59n23 Öschingen, 78 Osikov (see also Oszikó), 115 Osor, 261, 262, 274 Ostróg, 203, 205, 207, 352 Ostrovany (see also Osztrópatak), 122 Oszikó (see also Osikov), 115 Osztrópatak (see also Ostrovany), 122 Öttingen, 83, 87 Öttingen-Katzenstein, 83 Ottoman Empire, 30, 38, 76, 234, 236, 242, 251, 257, 392, 393, 397, 402 Oxford, 3 Owrucz, 203, 204, 207 P Padua, 311 Palocsa (see also Plavec), 111, 117 Palonca (see also Plavnica), 121 Pannonhalma, 279 Pannonia, 192, 195 Paris, ix, 24, 30, 133, 133n16, 159, 216, 223, 228, 231, 298, 302, 303, 308, 314, 326, 395, Passau, 138n33, 142n54 Peć, 261, 266 Pecchivyensis, 258n20 Pečovská Nová Ves (see also Pécsyújfalu), 115 Pécs, 420 Pécsújfalu (see also Pečovská Nová Ves), 115, 122 Peloponnese, 82n33 Pernštein, 184

Persia, 402 Pest, 14, 16 Petersberg (see also Barcaszentpéter, Sînpetru), 58 Pfalz, 136n27, 139, 142n54, 143n59, 146, 147 Pianul de Jos (see also Alsópián, Deutschen Pien), 59n23 Plavec (see also Palocsa), 111, 117 Plavnica (see also Palonca), 121 Pleterje, 260 Plzeň, 184 Poczajów, 205 Poland (see also Polonia), xvi, 6, 11, 14, 21, 23, 76, 115, 116n39, 119, 195, 200, 200n4, 202, 239, 243, 290, 296, 351, 356 Poletensis (see also Pullti), 254 Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 11, 352 Połock, 208 Poland (see also Polonia), xvi, 6, 11, 14, 21, 23, 76, 115, 116n39, 119, 195, 200, 200n4, 202, 239, 243, 290, 351, 356 Poprad (see also Poprád), 118 Poprád (see also Poprad), 118 Portugal, 11 Potsdam, 326 Pozsony (see also Bratislava, Pressburg), 94, 95, 95n13, 98, 98n26, 100n34, 105, 109, 111, 123, 267 Prague, 97n23, 138, 138n37, 143, 180, 182, 184–187, 190–192, 271, 308 Prázsmár (see also Prejmer, Tartlau), 59 Prejmer (see also Tartlau, Prázsmár), 59 Prešov (see also Eperjes), 111n13, 126n84, 361n1, 364, 365, 367, 370–372, 375 Pressburg (see also Bratislava, Pozsony), 22, 19n28 Princeton, 403, 403n59 Prizren, 261 Prussia, 25, 300 Przemyśl, 200, 204 Püchsendorf, 74n3 Pullti (see also Poletensis), 254 Pustyń, 208

Index of Geographical Names Q Qing Empire, 223, 229, 230 R Rab, 261–263, 274 Radeln (see also Rádos, Roadeş), 55 Rádos (see also Radeln, Roadeş), 55 Raslavice (see also Raszlavica), 121n66 Raszlavica (see also Raslavice), 121n66 Ražňany (see also Nyársadó), 122 Regensburg, 59n22, 85, 100n34, 137–139, 138n36, 139n39 Reggio de Calabria, 195n55 Reichesdorf (see also Riomfalva, Richiş), 58 Richiş (see also Reichesdorf, Riomfalva), 58 Richvald (see also Erdővágás), 121n65 Rieneck, 141n50 Riga, 308 Rihnó (see also Richnava), 117 Rimaszombat (see also Rimavská Sobota), 370 Rimavská Sobota (see also Rimaszombat), 370 Riomfalva (see also Reichesdorf, Richiş), 58 Risan, 262, 266, 269, 271, 272 Roadeş (see also Radeln, Rádos), 55 Roermond, 269 Roma (see also Rome), ix, 19, 39, 41, 45, 126, 130n3, 133, 133n16, 149, 151, 179, 182, 183, 194, 206, 216, 225, 231, 251, 256, 260, 260n25, 262, 267, 270–272, 297, 304, 394 Roman Empire, 301 Roma (see also Rome), ix, 19, 39, 41, 45, 126, 130n3, 133, 133n16, 149, 151, 179, 182, 183, 194, 206, 216, 225, 231, 251, 256, 260, 260n25, 262, 267, 270–272, 297, 304, 394 Rostock, 75, 326 Rostov, 353n56 Royal Hungary, 110 Rožmitál, 187, 188 Rozsnyó, 263

469

Rüdesheim, 182 Rusçuk, 401 Russia, 23, 25, 26, 202, 230, 235–237, 244, 246, 301, 323, 353n56 Russian Empire, 234, 236, 237, 242, 247, 323 Ruthenia, 350n40 S Sabinov (see also Kisszeben), 111, 113– 115, 113n23, 114n30, 115n35, 118, 119n53, 120–125, 123n77 Šaeš (see also Schaas, Segesd), 53 Sajó River, 14 Salonika, 401 Salza, 304 Samsun, 401 San Francisco, 320, 325 Sansevero, 300, 304 Sarajevo, ix Sardika, 262 Sáros, county, 108n2, 110, 112–114, 114n32, 117, 123, 125, 126, 126n84 Sava, River, 14, 379 Saxony, 96, 96n19, 98n28, 99, 100, 138n37, 139, 142n54, 182, 202, 321– 323, 325 Scandinavia, 76 Schaas (see also Šaeš, Segesd), 53 Schässburg (see also Segesvár, Sighişoara), 58 Schauenberg, 136n27 Schleusingen, 139 Schneeberg, 59n22 Schweischer (see also Fişer, Sövénység), 54, 58 Scopien, 273n70 Sebenico (see also Šibenik), 262–266 Sebeş (see also Mühlbach, Szászsebes), 54 Segesd (see also Šaeš, Schaas), 53 Segesvár (see also Schässburg, Sighişoara), 58 Seiden (see also Jidvei, Zsidve), 53, 54, 57 Seleuş (see also Grossalisch, Nagyszőllős), 59n23 Selmecbánya, 311 Senj, 276

470

Index of Geographical Names

Senj-Modrus, 275, 276 Serbia, 262 Shkodra, 262, 264, 266 Siam, 222 Šiba (see also Szekcsőalja), 121n65 Šibenik (see also Sebenico), 262–266 Siberia, 240–241n16, 246 Sibiu (see also Hermannstadt, Nagyszeben), 51, 57–59, 63, 67 Siena, 169, 311 Sighişoara (see also Schässburg, Segesvár), 58 Silesia, 96, 96n17, 96n19, 98 Sinop, 401 Sînpetru (see also Petersberg, Barcaszentpéter), 58 Sirmiensis, 258n20 Skopje, 264, 270, 271 Skradin, 257, 262, 264 Slavonia, 37, 42, 276, 381 Słuck, 203 Sofia, 395, 401, 403 Sodom, 330, 331 Sopron, 254, 267, 269, 420 Sörkút, 122n68 Şoroştin (see also Schorsten, Sorosthely), 54 South Caucasus (see also Transcaucasus), 243 South-Eastern Europe, x, xv, 8, 38, 39 Southern Italy, 302 Sövénység (see also Fişer, Schweischer), 54, 58 Spain, 6, 236, 237, 335 Speyer, 74n2, 322 Spišská Kapitula (see also Capitulum Scepusiense, Szepeshely), 110, 111, 116 Spišská Sobota (see also Szombathely), 118 Spišske Podhradie (see also Szepesváralja), 111, 116n39, 118 Spišské Vlachy (see also Szepesolaszi), 111, 118–120, 122 Split, 38, 258n20, 262 Staffelstein, 75 Stará Boleslav, 268 Stary Zbaraż, 205

Stettin, 326 Stockholm, 10, 308 Ston, 262 St. Petersburg, 11, 14, 25, 201, 244, 287n17, 308 Stralsund, 326 Strasbourg (see also Strassburg), 50, 100, 100n34, 133n16 Strassburg (see also Strasbourg), 50, 100, 100n34, 133n16 Stuttgart, 78, 82, 326 Sydney, ix, 8 Svač (see also Suacinensis), 254 Sweden, 202, 322, 323, 325 Switzerland, 6 Szabolcs, county, 108n2 Szászbogács (see also Băgaciu, Bogeschdorf), 55, 57, 58 Szászbuzd (see also Bussd, Buzd), 59n23 Szászhermány (see also Hărman, Honigberg), 59n23 Szászivánfalva (see also Eibesdorf, Ighişul Nou), 58 Szászsebes (see also Mühlbach, Sebeş), 54 Szásztyukos (see also Deutsch Tekles, Ticuşul Vechi), 59n23 Szatmár, county, 108n2 Szécsény, 287, 292 Szekcsőalja (see also Šiba), 121n65 Székesfehérvár, 259, 420 Szentágota (see also Agnetheln, Agnita), 59n23 Szentgotthárd, 79 Szent-György (see also Hubošovce), 115 Szepes, county (see also Zips), 94n10, 107, 108n2, 110, 114, 114n32, 118, 122n73, 123, 125, 126, 126n84 Szepeshely (see also Capitulum Scepusiense, Spišská Kapitula), 110, 111, 116 Szepesolaszi (see also Spišské Vlachy), 111, 118–120, 122 Szepesváralja (see also Spišske Podhradie), 111, 116n39, 118 Szombat, 281 Szombathely (see also Spišská Sobota), 118

Index of Geographical Names

471

T

U

Táblás (see also Dupuş, Tobsdorf), 53, 54, 58, 63 Taiwan, 227 Târgu Mureş (see also Neumarkt, Marosvásárhely), 65, 69, 294 Tarsia, 304 Tartlau (see also Prázsmár, Prejmer), 59 Tătârlaua (see also Taterloch, Felsőtatárlaka), 53, 54, 57 Taterloch (see also Felsőtatárlaka, Tătârlaua), 53, 54, 57 Tatra, 17 Temnen, 262, 273 Theck, 103n48 Thina (see also Dina, Tina), 268n52, 273 Ticuşul Vechi (see also Tekes, Szásztyukos), 65 Tina (see also Dina, Thina), 268 Tisza, 14 Tobsdorf (see also Dupuş, Táblás), 53, 54, 58, 63 Tokyo, 325 Tonkin, 221 Toporc (see also Toporec), 117 Toporec (see also Toporc), 117 Torna, county, 108n2 Torontál, 277 Trabzon, 395, 401 Transcaucasus (see also South Caucasus), 243 Transdanubia, 413, 415–420 Transylvania, xv, 8, 13, 37, 49, 51–53, 59, 65–68, 71, 108, 122, 256, 265, 281n2, 282, 284–287, 290–293, 291n27, 398, 416 Trebinje, 262 266 271 Trent, 140n48 Trier, 133n16 Trieste, 14 Trogir, 262 Tübingen, 76–78, 81, 84, 85, 88, 103n48 Turin, 305, 307, 308 Turkey, 23, 108 Tuscany, 301

Ugocsa, county, 108, 108n2 Ugra (see also Galt, Ungra), 59 Ukraine, xviii, 201 Ulcinj, 254, 262, 267 Ulm, 100n34 Ung, county, 108n2 Ungra (see also Galt, Ugra), 59 Ungurei (see also Gergelyfája, Gergeschdorf), 59n23 Upper Hungary, 107, 108, 116, 118, 126 Upper Palatinate, 265, 268 Ürmös (see also Irmesch, Ormeniş), 59n23 Y Yalova, 398 Yverdon, 308 V Vác, 253, 260n25, 266, 269 Vág, 84 Valais, 265 Valea Viilor (see also Wurmloch, Nagybaromlak), 58 Valence, 133n16 Vas, county, 415 Vatican, 252, 271 Vel’ka Lomnica (see also Kakaslomnic), 117 Vel’ký Šariš (see also Nagysáros Vel’ký Šariš), 114 Venice, 36, 251, 257, 260, 263, 264, 307, 308, 310 Verona, 311 Veseud (see also Zied, Vessződ), 51 Veszprém, 195n55 259 Vessződ (see also Veseud, Zied), 51 Vienna, 11, 12, 16, 19, 25–27, 81, 103, 108, 125, 130n3, 216, 258, 263, 265, 267–269, 277, 281, 287, 287n17, 290, 292n28, 293, 295, 363, 372 Villa Vigoni, 3 Vilnius (see also Wilno), ix, 244 Vincenza, 311 Vlková (see also Farkasfalva), 117

472

Index of Geographical Names

Volga, 236, 239, 246 Volga-Kama Region, 239, 241, 242 Vrana (see also Aurania), 279 Vrat, 184, 188 W Waldau, 268 Wallachia, 42 Warkowicze, 207 Warsaw, 11, 201, 204, 308 Wassenaar, 149 Weiden, 268 Western Europe, xviii, 41, 320, 341, 342, 345 Western Germany, 6 Western Hungary, 14, 411, 426 Westphalia, 9, 79 Wiener Neustadt, 265, 269 Wilno (see also Vilnius), ix, 244 Wittenberg, 67, 68, 75, 103, 103n47 Wolfenbüttel, 95n14, 96n17, 103n50, 129, 144n61 Worms, 322 Włodzimierz, 203, 205, 208 Wrocław, 96n19, 103, 182, 268, 367

Wurmloch (see also Valea Viilor, Nagybaromlak), 58 Württemberg, 76–79, 81–85, 87, 88, 103n48 Wyżwa, 203 Z Zabłock, 204 Zadar, 38 Zagreb, 258n20, 264, 274, 275, 277, 279, 381, 382, 384 Zamość, 199, 208 Zemplén, county, 108, 108n2, 112, 114 Zhyrovychy, 352 Zied (see also Veseud, Vessződ), 51 Zilah, 288 Zipeser, 111 Zips (see also Szepes county), 264 Zittau, 103 Zsibó, 289 Zsidve (see also Jidvei, Seiden), 53, 54, 57 Žumberak, 260 Zurich, 50, 84 Żytomierz, 203 Zviahel, 352