Considerations Regarding the Intellectual Background of the Bishops of Cenad in the Middle Ages up to the Year 1526
Considerations Regarding the Intellectual Background of the Bishops of Cenad in the Middle Ages up to the Year 1526

Summary/Abstract: The present study aims to prove that the bishops of the dioceses in Eastern Medieval Hungary were men of notable culture acquired in the great European universities of the time. The knowledge they acquired was of scholastic and eventually humanist nature, two specific trends of that epoch. The fact that some of the prelates had undertaken academic studies was to be a catalyst to their social and ecclesiastic ascension, which culminated with the ownership of the bishopric. Up to 1526, seven bishops of Cenad had academic studies. The most attended universities were those on the Italian Peninsula, especially Bologna and Padua. This situation accounts to the relative closeness to Rome, the religious centre of the Catholic world, as well as to the specialization in canon law of the Italian universities, to their fame, and to the strong bounds between Italy and Hungary, especially during the times of Matthias Corvinus. It is important to consider that these academic studies were a major factor which contributed to the religious and secular ascension of ecclesiastical personalities. Some of the bishops were notable humanists, decisively contributing to the outspread of the Renaissance ideas and spirit throughout Hungary. The activity of these academic bishops placed the ecclesiastic life of Hungary in the European pattern of the epoch.

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