We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
The paper aims to offer a conceptual basis, focussed on the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the period of the Long Turkish War, to serve as a preliminary to the studies analysing army provision and financing in the eighteenth century. Accordingly, the author deals with each of the relevant sub-topics by picking and summarising the examples and results of his previous research.
More...
The institution of lieutenancy, temporarily being in charge of the government alongside or instead of the prince, is a well known feature of the one-and-a-halfcentury long history of the Principality of Transylvania. Yet the Apafi period attracted much less attention from this perspective than the more successful periods of the Principality, despite the fact that the institution of the lieutenancy did not disappear in the last years of the independent Principality. The paper accordingly explores the governmental activities of the lieutenancy committee of 1663, as well as of Princess Anna Bornemissza and the princely council, in the absence of Prince Mihály Apafi I.
More...
With his Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne really wanted to unfetter the New English Puritan scions, or at least make them think what has morally degraded the “Iron Men” and destroyed a steadfast faith of the primogenitors. Hawthorne’s answer is that they have forgotten to express emotions. The Scarlet Letter thus responds to the hypothetical questions raised by the Puritan Community of the seventeenth-century New England; however, the novel is not directed against the positive traits of the Puritan New Englandism, e.g., discipline, home life, education, etc. Moreover, Hawthorne’s opus has a universal philosophical and moral sense, although its tone is usually mildened by his humanity and subtle humor. All of that enabled Hawthorne’s voice to be keenly heard in the twenty-first century as well.
More...
The study presents the historical process of rural depopulation with particular regard to the stretch of land in Southern Hungary (Dél-Dunántúl, Szerémség, Bácska, Temesköz), where the depopulation and desolation at the time of Ottoman occupation was the greatest. First it clarifies what the word puszta denotes, and presents its various meanings. He then presents the historical periods of depopulation. The article argues that the puszta was not simply a depopulated area, but a region where the changed political conditions and socioeconomic structures have resulted in a substantially different landscape. The puszta did not lack the presence of men. Hungarian, Serb, Bunyevac peasants, and Serb and Vlach peasant soldiers lived (in ever-decreasing numbers) in the area, who had an impact on the landscape with their farming. In the Turkish towns there was a Muslim population, and outside the city wall there were communities of various Christian denominations and occupations. The Hungarian population in the towns of the Great Hungarian Plain enjoyed a degree of economic autonomy, and controlled the livestock farming in the puszta of the devastated regions of central and south Hungary. The study places special emphasis on the presentation of the „close-ups” and traumatic sides of the desolation in addition to the characteristics of the frontier existence. It also outlines the process of the post-liberation landscape changes, as well as touches on the surviving phenomena that persisted in the following centuries, and even today bring to the mind the devastation and depopulation brought about the Turkish occupation of Hungary.
More...
The paper examines the first graduates of Jesuit grammar schools and in particular of the University of Trnava, who began to settle in the Hungarian capital, Pressburg, after 1635. The author identifies eight types of career possibilities, which he describes in detail in separate subchapters, as ways of employment in the following areas: 1. royal offices; 2. the offices of the highest state dignitaries and judges; 3. the administration of the royal courts; 4. the chapter of Pressburg as a place of authentication (locus credibilis); 5. in the service of the Catholic Church in Pressburg; 6. in the service of the Pálffy Lord Lieutenants and in the administration of the county of Pressburg; 7. in the service of the city of Pressburg and in its administrative offices; 8.the liberal professions (lawyers or doctors, for instance). The paper explores each of these career options through several examples of Pressburg men of education – graduates of Jesuit schools.
More...
Kovacsóczy István pályájának első szakasza
The present study sets out to correct previous historiographic mistakes concerning the early career of István Kovacsóczy, who served as the Chancellor of Transylvania from 1622 until his death in 1634. The author’s goal is to outline the history and relations of the family, ranging from 1594 – the execution of Farkas Kovacsóczy (father of István, also Chancellor of Transylvania) –, giving an account of the benefactors of the four orphans: three sons (Kristóf, Zsigmond and István, all converted to Catholicism) and one daughter (Zsuzsanna). The most prominent of these benefactors was Pongrác Sennyey, a politician loyal to the Habsburgs, who, by the end of the Long Turkish War, became one of the most significant figures of Transylvania. In 1608, after the jus ligatum afflicting the descendants of those executed in 1594 had been lifted, István (who, by 1603, was the only living son of Farkas) appeared in the political sphere as a member of a Habsburg-oriented group, thus adopting a political stance in stark contrast with his father’s. The leadership of the group included the aforementioned Sennyey, as well as István Kendy, catholicised son of Counsellor Sándor Kendy, also executed in 1594. Thanks to this circle – but also to political games that surrounded the succession of Gábor Báthory as the Prince of Transylvania –, István was appointed as supremus comes (főispán) of Fehér County, the most prestigious administrative region of Transylvania. Miklós Lázár, a 19th-century historian, has already referred to this fact (although with no sources cited), but Zsolt Trócsányi – an expert of the history of the Principality – deemed it improbable, based on István Kovacsóczy’s earliest known title (secretarius of the Chancellery), only mentioning it in the notes of his fundamental work. Kovacsóczy’s lowly outset as secretary, however, is perfectly explained by one of Lázár’s facts: István Kovacsóczy became involved in a plot organised by his “party” – known as the conspiracy of Szék –, a fact doubtlessly proven by his recently found pardon letter. Thus, in 1610, Kovacsóczy’s promising career was broken, resulting in the loss of all but one of his estates. He was forced to start anew after the election of Prince Gábor Bethlen, to build a life and career (whose post-1614 stages are largely known today) culminating in winning the title his late father had possessed before him.
More...
During the last few years, it has become usual to turn to some seventeenth century readings of the traditional idea of an original common possession of the earth for philosophical aid to explain and support the rights of persons in situations of extreme need, including refugees. Hugo Grotius’s conception of this idea is one of the most cited ones. In this paper, I hold that a Grotian reading of the idea of an original common possession of the earth is not a fruitful principle if we want to elaborate a solid defence of the rights of the ones in need. I reconstruct and analyse the role this idea has in Grotius’s theory of private property and present objections to it from a Kantian perspective.
More...
The study aims to explore the network of ecclesiatical institutions in the city of Pressburg, the new capital of the Hungarian Kingdom, in the middle third of the seventeenth century. Although the majority of the city’s population had adopted the Protestant faith, the medieval ecclesiastical infrastructure survived the changes basically unharmed. There continued to function the collegiate chapter with its provost and fourteen canons, as well as the cloisters of the Marian Franciscan friars and Poor Clares. The main reason for that was the emergence of Pressburg as the capital of the Hungarian Kingdom, the life of which was consequently influenced not only by the local community and its elite, but also by the government institutions settled there, and the members of the national political elite who acquired lands in its neighbourhood. The network of Catholic institutions in the city provided a strong support for the early activities of the Society of Jesus.
More...
One of the fundamental pillars of the guild system formed in Kézdivásárhely from the 16th century was the wide spread of literacy. Later this process was significantly helped by the development and institutionalization of the educational life. The educational system in Kézdivásárhely developed due the start of confessional education. The Protestant particula and the Roman Catholic school from Kanta established in the 17th century initially had an important role in the acquisition of basic literacy, but later they contributed to the creation of schools that provided professional training and a higher level of theoretical knowledge. The educational institutions created by the Szekler Border Guard Regiment also had a positive effect on the intellectual growth of the city and the surrounding villages, even if for a short time. As a result of the civil transformations in the second half of the 19th century, the urban middle class demand created the civil boys and girls schools, where students received theoretical knowledge and practical training, in order to be able to stand in their place in life without a higher education qualification. Some talented students of the city’s educational institutions continued their studies in various upper secondary schools, which facilitated the awareness and dissemination of bourgeois ideas and cultural patterns of the new era.
More...
Starting with the Middle Ages institutionalized care for the poor and the appearance of hospitals became a clear sign of urban development. This was the case in medieval and early modern Kolozsvár also. When the city had lost its status as a free royal city in 1665 all the institutions administered by the local counsel underwent a series of changes. These changes did not leave unaffected the hospitals either. By the time Kolozsvár regained her lost privileges in 1712 out of the three medieval hospitals, only one was still operating, the Saint Elisabeth. Right around this time Catholicism started to regain some of its former status in Kolozsvár shattered by the reformation and it became once more the crown’s favored religion. This change in status led to the repossession and reorganization of formerly catholic institutions and properties in the city, chief among them the hospital of Saint Elisabeth.
More...
Stosunki dawnej Rzeczypospolitej z Persją Safawidów i katolikosatem w Eczmiadzynie w świetle dokumentów archiwalnych. The Relations of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth with Safavid Iran and the Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin in the Light of Archival Documents. Red./Eds.: Jaśkowski, Stanisław – Kołodziejczyk, Dariusz – Mnatsakanyan, Piruz. Warszawa, Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych – Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwów Państwowych, 2017. 398 p.
More...
After the Battle of White Mountain (1620), Czech and Moravian refugees settled down in Lower and Upper Hungary and found their way mostly to the Hungarian Lutheran Church. The intellectual élite of the Protestant immigrants introduced a lot of cultural traditions in Hungary. One of these is the very printing of funeral sermons in the so-called Biblical Czech language, that is, the language of Kralice Bible. Twenty-one titles, containing forty-one funeral sermons, were printed in Hungary in Biblical Czech in the period of 1637–1711. Quoting of and telling stories about the emblematic-iconic founders of the Lutheran Church play an important role in shaping the Lutheran identity as fashioned in the sermons of these prints. The present paper’s aim is to discuss the usage of citations from and exempla about the protagonists of the German Lutheranism in this corpus of funeral sermons, and to examine the common and personal features of denominational identity tightly related to these elements.
More...
This paper attempts to evaluate the historical anthropological process of self-fashioning performed by count Miklós Bethlen. In doing so, the aim of my interpretation is to delineate those cultural and historical contexts that influenced Bethlen’s habit of constituting and fashioning a self in his ego-documents. Taking as a point of departure Bethlen’s twofold liminality, I argue that he identified himself with the prototype of the early modern Calvinist martyr, so that he could provide an account of his life imitating the so called récit martyrologique as a narrative genre. Bethlen’s self-fashioning displayed in his memoirs, letters and political projects, reveals his special commitment to Puritan theology and devotional culture as well.
More...
This paper introduces the existence of a sophisticated automaton clock that was set up in the square (maidan) in Kashan in the reign of Shah ‘Abbas (1587–1629). Operated by a series of levers and weights, the clock struck the hours of day and night, accompanied by the movement of various figures constructed out of cardboard. The clock was shown as a curiosity to the refugee Uzbek Khan, Vali Muhammad, on his way to the court in Isfahan in 1611 to seek Shah ‘Abbas’s support against his rebellious nephews in Transoxiana. The clock was constructed by a certain illiterate, Maulana ‘Inayat, and was still in operation in the reign of ‘Abbas II (d. 1666). The discussion locates the invention of the clock within the context of the history of clock-making in Iran up to and during the Safavid period.
More...
The peace treaty concluded between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires at Zsitvatorok in 1606 was renewed by the pact made in Vienna on July 1, 1615. The 9th and 10th articles of the agreement laid down general guidelines for direct trade between the two empires. The Court Chamber in Prague required the Viennese and the German merchants living in Vienna to set forth their views about the possibilities of implementing the pact’s provisions. Headed by Lazarus Henckel, a most renown Viennese merchant, altogether 78 merchants from Nürnberg, Augsburg, Frankfurt, Sankt-Gallen, Prague, Breslau (Wrocław) defined their position. In their memorials, they laid special emphasis on the necessity of re-establishing the export-import trade between Vienna and the Ottoman territories by relying on the mediating activity of Hungarian traders. They did not deem it necessary to set up direct contacts with territories under Ottoman rule and they took a stand against Turkish merchants to be allowed to establish a market in Hainburg (Lower Austria).
More...
Bubryák Orsolya: Fantomkép egy 17. századi bécsi műgyűjtőről. MTA Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont Művészettörténeti Intézet, Budapest, 2017. 343 oldal
More...
The aim of the study is to present the structure of the local government of Baia Mare. During the 16th–18th centuries the free royal mining town of Baia Mare was led by an inner and an outer council. The outer council was made up of sixty members. They elected the judge and the twelve jurors of the inner council. The first and the second juror were called consul jurors, they acted as the judge’s substitutes. From the end of the 17th century the central power was trying to narrow the self-government of the town.
More...
The linguist's recent paper examines a merchant guild in Nagyszombat (Trnava), specifically its 16th-century statutes. He mentions by name the merchants of the town and the guild master in charge of the guild. It explains the order of the daily operation of the guild.
More...