Религиозна търпимост и несъвместимост в отношенията между гърци и българи, православни и католици в историята на България през XIII – средата на ХV в.

Author(s): Vasil Gyuzelev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/1999

The relations between the ethnic and religious-confessional Christian communities, indicated in the title, are examined with the aid of individual examples from sources of a great variety of languages and origin (Old Bulgarian, Byzantine, Latin, etc.). The advanced Bulgarian-Byzantine symbiosis in the sphere of church-religious relations and spiritual culture is recorded. Separate instances of intolerant relations between Bulgarians and Greeks are also noted. In the author’s opinion, during the period under review the relations of the Bulgarian Kingdom with the Church of Rome were of a contradictory and varying character. The expansiveness of the Catholic clergy towards the Bulgarian Orthodox population, often treated as “heretical and schismatic”, is emphasized. Special attention is paid to the attitude towards the Catholic Church in the Old Bulgarian anti-Latin literature. To the article is appended the translation made of excerpts from two works by the Franciscan monk Bartolomeo della Verna, written in 1367–1369 and 1379.

Брачне везе босанске властеле

Author(s): Srđan Rudić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 18/2018

The study of marital links of the Bosnian nobility is largely hampered by the lack of sources. The data preserved relate mainly to the marriages of the ruling family of Kotromanić, which is not explored in this paper, as well as of the families of Hrvatinić and Kosače – the two most powerful Bosnian noble medieval families. The lack of data on the remaining Bosnian nobility, including these three families, does not allow for making a comprehensive network of family links among Bosnian nobles. It is often emphasised in literature that marital links played a role in the rise of some Bosnian nobles, but that their personal traits and military and political abilities should not be disregarded either. On the other hand, there is also the claim that the emergence of local magnates was the result exclusively of their personal abilities and qualities, and that the role of marital links in this process was reflected only in confirming the already created alliances and obtained positions. Although the largest part of the Bosnian nobility belonged to the Bosnian Church, which regarded the marriage differently from the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, the reasons for establishing marital links among the nobility were not essentially different from those in the neighbouring lands. Marriages among the nobility in the medieval Bosnian state were concluded, based on the examples observed, just like in other European countries of the time – mainly for practical reasons, for the purpose of creating political, military and economic alliances aimed at contributing to the reputation, strength and wealth of families, their safety and stability, consolidation or improvement of their position in the society. The marriage was one of the main diplomatic means of internal and foreign policy. Based on the concluded marriages, it is possible to gain a partial insight into the position of some Bosnian families in the social structure in a particular moment, and to follow whether they were on an upward or downward path.

Încercare privind dimensiunea spirituală în personalitatea şi viaţa lui Mircea cel Mare

Author(s): Ioan Şt. Lazăr / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 04/2018

Mircea Voivode, took over and fulfilled the initiatives of his predecessors, but he also promoted new ones, adequate to his time and the country’s needs. During his reign, for more than thirty years, he succeeded in consolidating and developing the new state, Wallachia, as the most powerful one in the South Eastern Europe, while stoping the military and confessional expansion of the Hungarian (Catholic) Kingdom into these lands, as well as that of the Ottoman Empire (Muslim). The present study evokes the Great Mircea’s spiritual dimension, organically embedded in his being and biography. He was particularly noted as a fighter for Christianity.

Quarta filialis și familia nobiliară de Geoagiu – un proces pentru moștenirea feminină la începutul secolului al XV-lea

Author(s): Maria Frînc / Language(s): Romanian Issue: LVIII/Sup/2019

Quarta filialis represents the right of the girls to inherit a part of the patrimonial estate. The right to inheritance based on this institution contributes to their economic growth, but on the other hand, it is the cause of family quarrels outbreaks. At the beginning of 15th century, the nobles of Geoagiu were involved in the process legally of reclaiming a female inheritance. This trail represents a relevant subject to be analysed in respect to how the quarta filialis institution was applied by the Transylvanian nobility. Though this study, I intend to observe the legal nature of the patrimonial estate that the girl can acquire through succession.

Diplome regale de danie ca izvoare pentru biografia lui Iancu de Hunedoara

Author(s): Liviu Cîmpeanu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 26/2019

The military and politic merits of John Hunyadi were rewarded several times by the Hungarian kingship with grants of land (estates, villages, boroughs, towns and castles) and with confirmation charters for his already owned properties. These royal charters are containing not only information on the immobile goods of the famous warlord, but in their preamble, there are precious details about the early career of John Hunyadi and genuine chronicles of his anti-Ottoman campaigns. The issuers of this charters were Wladislas Jagiello (1440–1444) and Ladislaus of Habsburg, called the Posthumous (1453-1457). There is also an interesting fact that once with the dynasty changed also the political discourse in the preamble of the mentioned charters. Thus, the „repertoire” of Hunyadi’s rewarded deeds of arms was careful elected by the king and uncomfortable topics, like John Hunyadi’s implication in the civil war between the two dynasties, were simply omitted.

Der Siegelstempel und die Siegel des Kronstädter Pfarrers Johannes Reudel

Author(s): Alexandru Ştefan / Language(s): German Issue: _/2018

Am 30. November 1446 verfasste Petrus, Rektor der außerhalb der Stadtmauern von Kronstadt gelegenen Hl. Martinskapelle, eine Urkunde, in welcher er die Gewährung eines Darlehens von 42 Gulden durch den öffentlichen notarius Nicolaus Thoscha für die Erhaltung der Kapelle bestätigte. Auffällig und überraschend an der Urkunde ist weniger deren Inhalt, als mehr die Privilegialform, in der sie ausgefertigt wurde, da sie eine informationsreiche Korroborationsformel aufweist: „In cuius rei evidentiam et legittimi roboris cautelam presentibus signetum meum proprium in quo datur intelligi sculptura agnus dei est appensum uno cum altero sigillo venerabilis artium liberalium magistri Johannis Reudel, plebani ecclesiae parrochialis oppidi predicti.“

Absolutyzm i legitymizacja władzy w Mediolanie pod rządami Ludovica Sforzy „Il Moro”

Author(s): Piotr Tafiłowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2019

The paper seeks to present the forms of legitimacy, as well as the means and tools that have been used for this purpose by usurping authority over Milan Ludovico Sforza. The attempts to legitimate the illegally seized power, taken by the Renaissance and early modern rulers, not only by political meanse, but also through cultural and artistic patronage are very important and interesting issues. The first part of the paper discusses the Ludovico’s road to take over the principality; in the second part Ludovico’s efforts to legalize his illegal power are described.

Tájhasználat a kolozsmonostori bencés apátság Kajántó-völgyi birtokain

Author(s): Ünige Bencze,Oana Toda / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: X-XI/2016

The present paper discusses and reconstructs the land use of the most important royally founded Benedictine abbey of medieval Transylvania, Kolozsmonostor. Along its history the abbey owned and managed around 44 settlements and lands but here we shall concentrate only on a small part of the whole. Important part of our research aims also at mapping and analyzing the settlement and road structure of the investigated region. As a result of our research we managed to reconstruct the late medieval boundary of the monastic estate cluster in the Kajántó (Chinteni) Valley based on a high number of preserved perambulations of the monastic properties and of the neighboring settlements. The estate cluster comprised altogether five settlements or lands (Kajántó, Máriatelke, Bőnye, Tiburcztelke, and Szilvástelke) from which only Kajántó exists today; the others had disappeared along the ages. Most probably Kajántó was the central property, the other settlements and lands were located on its boundary. Their individual boundaries, separating them from Kajántó, were also mentioned, though rarely. Where available, litigious documents were used for boundary reconstruction and land use assessment. The best documented areas were those, where violent land occupations occurred and litigations prolonged for several decades, just as in the case of Tiburcztelke, where litigations lasted for several generations. Such areas were situated especially in the northeast and at the southern boundary line of the estate cluster. The communication network of the studied area shows various functions and a hierarchy of roads. Local or regional ones connected the monastic settlements to the surrounding villages and land plots, while an important long distance communication route, called the King’s road (via Regia), probably ensured the fastest connection to Kolozsmonostor. Generally, the spatial orientation of the roads complied with the inner structures of the properties and with the positioning of the town of Cluj, which represented a major economic force in the region. The monastic land use indicates a great variety for the region, which could support all kinds of uses, such as crop production, animal husbandry, forestry and fishing: arable lands, pastures, hay lands, forests, marshy areas, and fishponds. Yet, if one takes into consideration the intensity and variety of the land use along the border areas of Kajántó, it can be hypothesized that the situation inside the territory, about which the sources are silent, was probably similar.

Opt monede de la Iliaș

Author(s): Domnița Hordilă / Language(s): Romanian Issue: II/1969

Articolul prezintă opt monede descoperite la Roman.

Florentine Families in Hungary in the First Half of the Fifteenth Century

Author(s): Krisztina Arany / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

This essay, based on a prosopographic database backed by extensive archival research both in Florence and Hungary, offers an overview on the patterns of the presence of Florentine merchants in medieval Hungary. Among the research questions, the Florentine businessmen’s main fields of interest in the kingdom are of utmost importance, because their interests shaped the patterns of their presence in the kingdom. Also, their financial and economic background in Florence significantly influenced the opportunities they had in Hungary. Thus, the forms of cooperation within the closer local and extended international networks within which they moved prove to be revealing with regards to business as it was run in Hungary. The reconstruction of this network also allows us to identify clusters of Florentine business partners residing in Florence who were investing in Hungary by cooperating with their fellow countrymen actively present in the country. I also offer a detailed analysis of the Florentines’ use of credit in Hungary, focusing on both commercial and money credit transactions and the various forms of transactions used to run business ventures there. Finally, I examine Buda’s role as a royal seat and major trade hub from the point of view of the two major foreign trading diasporas hosted in the town, the Italian/Florentine and southern German ethnic groups. I offer a comparative analysis of their interaction and the different patterns of their social ambitions and economic activity in Buda.

Florentines’ Trade in the Kingdom of Hungary in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: Trade Routes, Networks, and Commodities

Author(s): Katalin Prajda / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

The article proposes to analyze some general characteristics of Florentine merchants’ trade in the Kingdom of Hungary in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on the basis of written sources housed predominantly by various Italian archives. It opens with a new evaluation of the importance of Florentine merchants in long-distance trade by examining examples of the organizational framework of their enterprises in the town of Buda during the reign of Sigismund of Luxembourg (1387–1437). It also looks at the well-known cases of the families that were engaged in trade in Hungary, beginning with the period of Louis I (1342–82) and ending with the reign of Matthias Corvinus (1458–90). The second subchapter concentrates on the commodities transported by Florentines between the two states by describing their nature and their quantitative and qualitative features mentioned in the documents. Among the commercial goods, the article considers the import and export of metals like gold, silver, and copper, as well as Florentine silk and wool. It also mentions exotic animals and spices transported from extra-European territories. The third part of the article offers a reconstruction of the outreach of the Florentine network operating in Hungary, with particular consideration of its most important markets for raw materials and luxury goods. The fourth subchapter discusses the commercial routes used by Florentines when transporting their goods between the towns of Buda and Florence, emphasizing the importance of Venice as a major trading hub along the route. The conclusion puts the Florentines’ trade in Hungary into a broader picture of international trade, and it draws connections between the development of the Florentine silk industry, for which the city became famous, and the marketing of its finished products in Hungary.

Austrian Salt in Pozsony in the Mid-Fifteenth Century

Author(s): István Draskóczy / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

In this essay, I explore how the city of Pozsony (Preßburg, today Bratislava, Slovakia), which lies in the valley of the Danube River on what was once the most important trade route connecting the Kingdom of Hungary with Western Europe, managed to acquire Austrian salt, an import that, in general, was forbidden by the rulers. The city facilitated this not only by obtaining a number of privileges, but also by farming the tax collected in the city on foreign trade, the so-called “thirtieth” (tricesima). In practice, however, this could only be done in varying ways. In the course of my research, it also became clear that Pozsony needed Austrian salt for a variety of reasons. The city was distant from the salt mines, so the Transylvanian salt that was brought to the borderlands in the west was already very expensive. In many cases, however, none of the salt that was produced in the country even made it to Pozsony because of the complications posed by transportation, the deficiencies of the fiscal system, and fluctuations in production. The Austrian salt mines, in contrast, were relatively nearby, the cooked salt that was produced at these mines was essentially consistent in its quality, and it was also less expensive. In this essay, I also examine how the quantities of salt that were imported from Austria changed in various periods and how the city marketed excess salt in other parts of the country. Naturally, the people of Pozsony were not able to sell the salt in the entire territory of Hungary. My analysis indicates that the market for this salt was limited to the County of Pozsony itself, part of Nyitra County, the part of Komárom County to the north of the Danube River, and parts of Győr and Moson Counties.

Colluding with the Infidel: The Alliance between Ladislaus of Naples and the Turks

Author(s): Emir O. Filipović / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

In October 1392, King Ladislaus of Naples (1386–1414) sent letters and an embassy to the court of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid (1389–1402) offering to establish a pact against their common enemy, King Sigismund of Luxembourg (1387–1437). According to the “indecent proposal,” this “unholy alliance” was supposed to be sealed and strengthened by a marriage between King Ladislaus and an unnamed daughter of the sultan. Though the wedding never took place, messengers were exchanged and a tactical pact did materialize. It was manifested through military cooperation between Ladislaus’ Balkan supporters and the Ottoman marcher lords, who undertook joint attacks against the subjects of King Sigismund and their territories. Although mentioned briefly in passing, this incredible episode and the resulting alliance have never before been analyzed in depth by historians. Attempting to shed some light on the topic in general, this article proposes to examine the available narrative and diplomatic sources, assess the marriage policy of the Ottoman sultans as a diplomatic tool in the achievement of their strategic goals, and the perceived outrage that news of the potential marriage caused among the adversaries of King Ladislaus. In addition to studying the language of the letters, which extended beyond subtle courtesy, the essay will also explore the practical effects and consequences of the collusion between Ladislaus and the Turks for the overall political situation in the Balkans during the last decade of the fourteenth century and first decade of the fifteenth.

Origin Narratives: Pier Paolo Vergerio and the Beginnings of Hungarian Humanism

Author(s): Farkas Gábor Kiss / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

Earlier studies have attributed a pivotal role to Pier Paolo Vergerio Sr in transmitting the fundamental ideas of humanism to the writer Johannes (Vitéz) of Zredna, the first acolyte of Renaissance humanism in Hungary. This paper investigates the possible contacts between Pier Paolo Vergerio Sr and Johannes of Zredna, mapping the channels through which Johannes of Zredna first encountered humanist rhetoric. Whereas many of these possible connections turned out to be historical fictions that proved to be untenable in the form they are described in later historiography, there seems to be a genuine core to the embellished stories. I argue that his direct use of Italian early humanist texts (Guarino’s translation of Plutarch, Gasparino Barzizza’s letters) and an avid reading of Livy’s historical work (witnessed by the ms. Cod. 3099 of the Austrian National Library) are the earliest testimonies of his humanistic interests.

Catullus on a Coat-of-Arms: A Pictorial Paraphrase of Catull. 11 from Late Medieval Hungary

Author(s): Attila Tuhári / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

The paper discusses the coat-of-arms of Mathias of Szente (or of Sáró) granted by Ladislaus V in 1456, the depiction of which includes–in my opinion–a pictorial paraphrase of a Catullian metaphor. This could offer a more satisfactory, but unusual answer to the emerging problems regarding the interpretation of the composition. The study attempts to reveal how Catullus’ poem could reach Mathias of Szente, as well as the possible connotations it might have awaken on a broader range of the society.

The Codices of György Handó

Author(s): Dániel Pócs / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

The Florentine bookseller and cartolaio Vespasiano da Bisticci included the life of three Hungarian prelates in his Vite, dedicated to the the lives of his most famous clients. Two of the Hungarians, the archbishop of Esztergom, János Vitéz of Zredna, and the bishop of Pécs, the poet Janus Pannonius, are well-known personalities of early humanism in Hungary and some of their codices prepared in Florence still exist. The third one, however, György Handó (c. 1430–1480), provost of Pécs cathedral chapter from 1465 until his death, is much less known. Scholars of early humanism in Hungary were unable to contextualize the information given by Bisticci on Handó’s library, because no other written source could confirm his accounts, and no manuscript could been identified as a Handó codex. The present study demonstrates that contrary to the common belief that his codices had been completely lost, there are, in fact, twenty manuscripts originating from this early humanistic library. This research result is based on the identification of his coat of arms.

“Many laughed at the thought of this illustrious young man reading books:” About Miklós Báthory’s Library and His Cicero-Codex

Author(s): Dávid Molnár / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

This paper pursues an anecdote of Galeotto Marzio about the erudite Miklós Báthory, bishop of Vác, who read Cicero’s Tusculan disputation while he was waiting with other noblemen for the royal diet in Rákosmező, and the mocking attitude of the Hungarian political elite toward any intellectual endeavor. The traces lead to the National Széchényi Library in Budapest which has in its holdings a manuscript of Cicero under Cod. lat. 150. This book might have been in the hands of Báthory at Rákosmező. The purpose of this paper is to confirm the scarcely known plans of Miklós Báthory, bishop of Vác, to found a Platonic school on the basis of what little remains of his library and, mainly, the notes of his Cicero codex. This information perfectly harmonizes with his well-known aspirations to found a Platonic school in Buda and later his gymnasium in Vác, which seems to have been permeated with a kind of Platonist spirituality. After a summary of the life of Miklós Báthory, the paper offers an outline of the remains of his once rich library and then finally an examination of the history of the Cicero codex and its marginalia.

Török várak – magyar várak. Status quo a hadszíntéren és a Jagelló-kori oszmán–magyar békeszerződésekben

Author(s): Éva Teiszler / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2018

A szótárírás ferrarai műhelyében

Author(s): Gábor Bolonyai / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2020

In this paper one of the 15th-century exemplars of Pseudo-Cyril, the only extant alphabetical Greek-Latin dictionary from antiquity is investigated, an unfinished manuscript which is kept in the University Library of Cambridge as Kk. v. 12. The author’s aim is, by producing a stemmatic analysis, to find the position of this particular apograph in the manuscript tradition and to explore the circumstances of how, when, and where it was prepared.

Franciaország és a franciák egy XV. századi bizánci történetíró szemszögéből

Author(s): Tamás Mészáros / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2020