STUDIENDARLEHEN FÜR SIEBENBÜRGISCHE STUDIERENDE IM REFORMATIONSZEITALTER. EINE KAUM BEKANNTE BISTRITZER QUELLE AUS DEN JAHREN 1565-1626
STUDY LOANS FOR TRANSYLVANIAN STUDENTS IN THE REFORMATION ERA. A LITTLE KNOWN SOURCE FROM BISTRITA, FROM 1565-1626

Summary/Abstract: The present paper deals with a very important written source regarding the history of higher education in northern Transylvania from 1565 to 1626, a register with loan contracts concerning money necessary for university education abroad. The agreements were made between the Lutheran Bistrița-Chapter, on the one side, and young men and their guarantors, on the other. Only selectively and superficially discussed by previous scholars in the 19th century, exclusively from the perspective of the development of local education in and around Bistrița, the source material bears a greater significance in terms of the efforts made by the local church and community to establish and perpetuate its own intelligentsia, regardless of the social and economic background of the gifted young men who intended to complete their education. The authors of the study address the following questions: who established the educational fund, who administered the money, who were the beneficiaries and their guarantors, and under which circumstances was money awarded. The information provided by the Bistrița-register is integrated into a larger prosopographical picture of the individuals mentioned, the majority related to the Church of the Bistrița region, and it is evaluated also from a cultural point of view, the notarial structuring of the contracts, the autograph writing and the use of the personal seals recording a highly developed literate and legal mentality with strong roots in the late medieval, pre-Reformation, tradition. The present investigation intends to contribute to a deeper understanding of the support given to students by Transylvanian communities in order to build an intellectual elite educated in Central and Western Europe.

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