CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Peto, Zsuzsa Eszter |
|---|---|
| Title | The Hermits of the King, the Hermits of the People: Pauline Monastic Space in the Carpathian Basin until the Mid-Fifteenth Century |
| Summary | The existence of The Order of St. Paul the First Hermit (the Paulines) is of high importance in Hungary, because it is the only Hungarian order which was founded in the Middle Ages and was officially approved by the Holy See; moreover, it still exists. The foundation of the order had been a long process; it started with early thirteenth-century eremitic movements and progressed until sometime in the fourteenth century (they received privileges in 1308 but were ratified only in 1368). Scholars in the past decades established different approaches, but usually the discussion was centered around the medieval history of the Paulines, closely related to specific sources (like the Vitae Fratrum or Inventarium by Prior Gyöngyösi), or focused on their architecture or, less frequently, some archaeological discoveries. Their spatial strategy or the development of their characteristics were only rarely summarized through multiple sources, however, the Pauline landscape holds many important historical features in the space. Some of these were aimed to be revealed in the present work from different types of sources (Chapter 3). Beside written documents (charters, inventories), cartographic evidence (seventeenth-present day surveys) and archaeological data (including finds and architectural remains) were in the center of the work, although new digital datasets were also included (LiDAR surveys, satellite pictures, GIS models). Since only the task of source collecting itself is grand, also there were numerous medieval Pauline monasteries operating in the territory of the Hungarian Kingdom (around 90), a certain geographical and chronological frame of the research was essential to be drawn. This was defined by the core research questions, which were related to the first two centuries of the Pauline order, strongly focusing on those features that shaped its medieval history and character; namely: what was behind the site-selection of the Pauline monks in different time periods and areas? What kind of spatial features appear around the hermitages and the monasteries? How the spatial features refer to the known written sources, significantly to economy and estate management? What was the dynamic of local spatial change and development from the thirteenth to the mid-fifteenth centuries? What regional varieties in strategy can be differentiated? Such space-related questions of the Paulines can be studied in specific, geographical clusters, which appear throughout the Carpathian Basin. In recent scholarship, the early eremitic communities and the related questions were studied in relation to the Balaton Uplands (Chapter 4) and the Pilis region (Chapter 5), which is why these areas were selected for the present work as well. However, such early hermitages, although also appeared in other areas, were less highlighted; this was the case at the in the Abaúj-Hegyalja region (Chapter 6) as well, which had already been studied at a certain level before. As a matter of fact, these regions were important for different reasons and were inhabited in different time periods; however, their evolution overlapped with each other, which means that it was possible to study and compare their several layers not only in regards to the thirteenth century, but the late Middle Ages as well. The Balaton Uplands is where eremitic communities appeared in the most number, as written sources state, from the beginning of the thirteenth-century. This area, compared to others, was the most densely inhabited by the hermits, but by the fourteenth century, the significance of the Balaton Uplands decreased. The Pauline network significantly changed in the first decades of the fourteenth century as well: only three of the hermitages (Salföld, Sáska, Tálod) could survive, but other monasteries also appeared (Uzsa, Vállus, Henye) in this period. However, regarding written sources, only the monastery of Sáska had a stable background thanks to the Rátóti-Gyulaffy family’s constant support. Although the hermitages appear only from the second half of the thirteenth century, the Pilis Royal Forest (Holy Cross monastery) is traditionally regarded as the founding place of the Pauline Order; this highlighted attention was the result of the king’s immediate attention here, which speeded-up the ratification process of the order. After the thirteenth century, the local monasteries managed a stable and decent daily life and economy. In the Angevin era, the Börzsöny Forest became significant part of the royal landscape (partially related to the Pilis), centered around Visegrád. Although the heart of the medieval Pauline Order was at Buda (St. Lawrence monastery), at a certain period, the monastery of Nosztra, founded by King Louis I, also attempted to a leading role; at least spiritually. Although it was most possibly unsuccessful, at Nosztra the monks ran a monastic-like estate management and had a leading role in a vicariate, the regional administrative unit of the medieval Pauline order. The third studied cluster is located in the Abaúj-Hegyalja region, in the Zemplén hills, where the hermits were present at least from the end of thirteenth century (Óhuta), but it was populated by further Pauline monasteries, which were flourishing in the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries. The monastery at Göncruszka had a developed estate management, while the monastery in the boundary of Gönc oppidum and Telkibánya civitas had a unique, broad role by managing the local hospital as well. All these Pauline sites, altogether 22 of them, were introduced separately in the chapters, where also several aspects of the regional medieval space were studied, including their relation with the Pauline hermitages and monasteries. On the levels of the immediate monastic landscape and its properties, some specific features appeared. In the vicinity of the monasteries usually fishponds, mills but in terms of properties, different lands (vineyards, arable lands, etc.) were identified not only in the close area but even outside of the monastic clusters; especially in the Pilis-Börzsöny and in the Abaúj-Hegyalja regions. The contextualization, analysis and visualization of data was based on GIS platform, while the written and cartographic sources, all data which were included in the analyses, were collected in the Appendices. Although the dynamics of development were different, each region had its own specific estate management strategy, with common (mills, vineyards) and also different focuses. Based on the results of the analysis, the two key factors of prospering hermitages and Pauline monasteries were: (1) adaptation to (usually gradually) changing, local environmental conditions in terms of geography, economy and social background and besides, (2) the volume, stability and frame of support from the secular world. In the studied regions, many of the medieval variables were revealed, but there are many more hidden aspects and episodes in the medieval history and daily life of the Pauline order. |
| Supervisor | Szende, Katalin; Laszlovszky, József |
| Department | Medieval Studies PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/peto_zsuzsa.pdf |
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