Wittenbergi peregrinusok könyvei a Debreceni Református Kollégium Nagykönyvtárában
Books of Peregrinating Students to Wittenberg in the Central Library of the Reformed College of Debrecen

Summary/Abstract: The present research identified printed works preserved in the Great Library of the Reformed College of Debrecen that had been acquired by Hungarian peregrine students during their studies at the University of Wittenberg and subsequently brought back to the Carpathian Basin in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A total of seventy-eight works, predominantly theological in nature, were found in forty-four volumes. The recovered corpus represents an outstanding selection of theological writings by near-contemporary Protestant authors, primarily Lutheran theologians from the German territories and Reformed scholars from Switzerland. Most of the works were printed in Latin, while a smaller number were printed in Hebrew (five works), Greek (three works), or German (two works). The books provide evidence of remarkably rapid reception. More than half of the acquired works had left the press within five years of their publication; in several cases, volumes were already in the possession of Hungarian owners in the very year of publication, as exemplified by the Second Helvetic Confession. More than fourfifths of the books had entered the libraries of Hungarian students within fifteen years of their appearance in print. The first owners of these volumes were, during the second half of the sixteenth century and the opening decades of the seventeenth century, teachers at Reformed schools and colleges or, more frequently, ministers serving Reformed congregations. Some subsequently attained positions of ecclesiastical leadership, such as János Siderius, dean of the Reformed Diocese of Abaúj, or János S. Körtvélyesi, bishop of the Transdanubian (Dunántúli) Reformed Church District. Apart from the Debrecen minister Bálint Szikszai Hellopoeus, no books belonging to a bishop of the Transtibiscan (Tiszántúli) Reformed Church District or to a dean of the Reformed Diocese of Debrecen have been identified. Among the owners, one professor each could also be identified from the Reformed Colleges of Debrecen (Mihály Sziszeki Sartoris) and Sárospatak (Demeter Krakkai). Several volumes additionally illuminate the social and intellectual networks of their owners, having been presented as gifts to university friends or to patrons and supporters in the Carpathian Basin.

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