The Book Covers’ Secrets: About Book Lending, Inscriptions, Prayer, and Incantations Cover Image

A könyvtáblák titka: könyvkölcsönzésről, bejegyzésekről, imáról és varázslásról
The Book Covers’ Secrets: About Book Lending, Inscriptions, Prayer, and Incantations

Author(s): Borbála Lovas
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Hungarian Literature
Published by: Erdélyi Unitárius Egyház
Keywords: 17th-century copying tradition; Explicationes…, folklore; Harris Manchester College; magic; prayers; practical notes; superstition; Enyedi György (1555–1597)

Summary/Abstract: The Harris Manchester College Library at Oxford contains four volumes of György Enyedi’s (1555–1597) Explicationes locorum Veteris et Novi Testamenti (Explanations of the Places of the Old and New Testaments) – two Latin editions and two Hungarian editions. One of the Hungarian editions contains some curious notes, old prayers (relating to superstition, magic and folklore traditions) and notes about exchanging manuscripts of sermons for copying. The main aim of this article is to introduce this handwritten heritage (prayers and practical notes), and the related body of sermons and contemporaneous sources, and to provide practical details about 17th-century copying traditions.

  • Issue Year: 128/2022
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 144-162
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Hungarian