PÉTER TUSOR, Libro delle ordinazioni del Pontificio Collegio Germanico-Ungarico. Ordinazioni degli Alunni dai Paesi della Sacra Corona d’Ungheria (1599–1713) (CVH II/11), Budapest–Róma 2024. 275 p.
The volume's title in English: The Registry of Ordinations of the German-Hungarian College in Rome. Registry entries of Hungarian students (1599–1713). At the center is the consecration register of the German-Hungarian College („Liber, in quo scribuntur Alumni Collegÿ Germanici et Vngarici, qui praemisso examine et approbatione aliquo initiantur Ordine”).
The old prestigious institution, founded as Collegium Germanicum in 1552, but functioning as Collegium Germano-Hungaricum since 1580, has been well studied both by positivistic and current historiography. It is primarily thanks to the work of Andreas Steinhuber, Endre Veress, Peter Schmidt, and István Bitskey, that we have extensive familiarity with the students’ prosopography, the institution’s operation, and its influence on German and Hungarian cultural and ecclesiastical history. The Collegium can be regarded as a missionaries’ seminary of the “Old Continent”, making a significant contribution to the formation of the image of the European church and clergy as envisaged by the Council of Trent, due to its internal multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and inherently supranational character.
The present volume focusses on the Registry of Ordinations of the Collegium Germano-Hungaricum (“Liber, in quo scribuntur Alumni Collegÿ Germanici et Vngarici, qui praemisso examine et approbatione aliquo initiantur Ordine”). Chapter I of the Introduction provides an overview of the Collegium’s history. Chapter II gives an analysis of the Registry of Ordinations. Chapter III informs the reader on how sources (data) have been managed. The corpus used for the volume contains the ordination entries relating to pupils from the Lands of the Hungarian Holy Crown in the form of an extract. The name of each pupil and his degree by ordination (prima tonsura, ordines minores, [sub]diaconatus, sacerdotium) is supplemented with the date and place of ordination, the venue being in greater part the Lateran Cathedral or the Collegium’s church and chapel, with additional regular or occasional venues. Furthermore, the name of the consecrating bishop is mentioned, who was (as a rule) the vicegerente, i.e. the regular vice vicar of the (Roman) Cardinal Vicar. If the vicegerente, exceptionally, was not a consecrated bishop, an Auxiliary Bishop of the Cardinal Vicar could be required to act for him. Indeed, the Liber Ordinationum lists a number of such “occasional” ordaining members of the high clergy.
It is the prosopographical and biographical records in the Registry of Ordinations that can be considered most significant: such records, scarcely available from other sources, can be the par excellence sources of data, providing invaluable information on any individual’s career. Also, they contribute to an appreciation (and acknowledgment) of the parts they played, both in terms of erudition and culture, either as far as the character of each such role-player is concerned with regard to his “confessional” adherence during the period of the formation of denominations, whether the students be German or Hungarian. The latter include data on the successors of Péter Pázmány, Cardinal and Archbishop of Esztergom, viz. Imre Lósy (1637–1642), György Lippay (1642–1666), and György Szelepchény (1666–1685), as well as other members of the high clergy, such as István Bosnyák, Ferenc Szegedy, Tamás Pálffy, János Gubasóczy, and Balázs Jaklin, Hungarian chancellors at the Viennese Court. A person of unique importance in Hungarian national-historical consciousness and identity whom one should explicitly mention is István Telekessy, who – as Bishop of Eger – was the only member of the High Clergy to stand by Prince Francis II Rákóczi in the latter’s fight (1703–1711) representing the Estates against the Habsburg Monarchy during the War of Spanish Succession. There is another person, highly (and officially) respected by the Roman Catholic Church, viz. Márk Kőrösi, one of the Martyrs of Kassa (in Slovak Košice), beatified in 1905, subsequently canonized in 1995; the volume presents every degree of his ordination starting with his prima tonsura in 1612 up to his consecration as a priest in April, 1615.