Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 22. 1982-1983 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1985)

Die Anjovinen in Mitteleuropa - Sándor Mária: Recent contributions concerning the site of medieval Pécs University. p. 7–9.

Tchelebi's work that the place of the university was in the inner castle, near the cathedral. He emphasizes the fact, too, that Tchelebi mentions the building not only as "medrese" (which is a general name for high schools) but also as "the house of scholarship". The explanation of this later expression may be that — perhaps knowing medieval tradition — he wished to give a greater emphasis to the importance of the building. In our opinion this indicates that the "scola maior", which was existing up to 1543, the Turkish occupation of Pécs, had been situated in the building of the former university. Now let us see the question in the reflection of the excavations going on in the Episcopal Castle of Pécs for several years. The excavation is being carried our in the eastern part of the former orchard situated to the north of the cathedral and between the inner northern castle wall. This place is marked by the 1687 map of Haiiy only as a blank area. Starting from this fact a general opinion has been formed, namely that in the middle ages there had been no buildings at all in this area. But the fact that Haiiy does not mark buildings here proves only that by the time his map was completed the possibly existing former buildings had all been ruined, nor were their remains visible. But that does not preclude the possiblity that there had been buildings there during the middle ages. The investigations started in 1978 and still going on systematically in the programme of the examination of Pécs castle and castle wall have explored the remains of some premises belonging to a building of greater size on the section between the cathedral and the inner castle wall. One of these premises forms an undivided space of 19,5 m length and about 6 m breadth. A section of the southern front is still standing to a remarkable height. Its main entrance was a great stone-framed Gothic gate which has been bricked up. The front wall of the big hall and that of another room to the east of it is broken through by a window aperture showing 14th century art forms. It is possible that there were similar window apertures in the ground-floor wall of the southern front on the section which is already ruined. A gothic stoneframed door aperture — which has been recarved later on — was leading to the eastern smaller room from the big hall. There was another large-sized door aperture breaking through the northern wall of the hall opposite to the southern entrance, which was leading to the long and narrow northern hall (it was an undivided space of 32 m i length and 4 m in breadth). The northern wall of this room and at the same time of the whole building was really the inner eastle wall. This wall is broken through by narrow Gothic stone — framed window apertures in a regular distance of each other — one of them still contains the closing iron bar. There was a flight above the ground-floor big hall which was separated by a flat ceiling according to the evidence of the discovered stone supports. That 14th century building has been built upon the remains of a ruined Romanesque building, but not using the remains as building material. According to the evidence of the finds — a coat-of-arms of King Matthias found here and Turkish finds with others of the Turkish period — the building was used even in the period of Turkish occupation, and its decay can be connected most probably with the siege during the winter campaign of Zrínyi in 1664. According to the observations of the excavation its ruin was due to the fact that the building was undermined and blown up. To give a detailed account on the excavations of this year on the territory between the northern side of the cathedral and the inner castle wall would be too early now, but a preliminary evaluation of the finds leads us to believe that after the decay of Romanesque buildings it was in the second half of the 14th century that building operations began on this territory. The results of investigation this year point to the fact that the building of the university was about 32 m in length and 10 m in breadth. It consisted of four ground-floor rooms and had one storeys. On the territory west of the university building there was a terraced inner court, then the excavation explored the fragment of a sanctuary with polygonal termination in line with the western steeple of the cathedral, and two brickset tombs which have already been robbed. In one of these tombs a Renaissance burial stone and several Gothic sculptures of high quality have been found. Earlier there were Romanesque buildings on this territory. According to our presumption the remains of the explored chapel and the rich find of Gothic sculptures can be identified with the ruins of the Golden Mary chapel mentioned by historical sources. That chapel was founded by the Bishop Nicholas in 1355. The chapel was a burial place for the builder Bishop Nicholas, the university founder Bishop William and the Bishop Sigismund Ernuszt. Recent investigation presumes that the body of Janus Pannonius was also buried there in the Golden Mary chapel when it had been carried back to Pécs. Exploration is still going on in that territory, so it would be too early to give a summarizing account on the finds — that needs further inwestigation. 8