A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 1987 (Debrecen, 1988)

Irodalomtörténet, művelődéstörténet - Fekete Csaba: Song, Famine, Disaster ... (Records, Marginal Notes and Unknown Verses in a 16th Century Hungarian Chronicle)

Csaba Fekete SONG, FAMINE, DISASTER... (RECORDS, MARGINAL NOTES AND UNKNOWN VERSES IN A XVI

TH CENTURY HUNGARIAN CHRONICLE) A Hungarian reformed pastor published in 1559 his world history. I. e. A Chronicle of Illustrious Events of the Present World.

.. by I. Székely (Bencédi). Nearly fifty defected and a few full copy survived of this favourite book of the age. In the volume, preserved in the Library of the Reformed College, Debrecen, several hands made short comments on the margine. These lines from the XVI

lh and XVII

th century commemorate at least five different reader with feelings of intense animosity against foolish sense and morals of the popist church of their age of counter-reformation. As the beginning of the volume became lost early, and partly in 1776, when it became necessary to rebound the overused book, the first known owner is registered in 1689. He was a student or young minister of a preacher's family, Johannes Sajó-Szentpéteri. At the end of the book, copied on blanque leaves, we read a Hungarian paraphrase of Psalm 22. This is only a fragment. It is missing in psalters and hymn books of the age. From the initials SERICAEUS we only guess that this poem belongs to versions of lost psalters published about the middle of the XVP

h century. Its author cannot be identified. A unic document concerning the historical past of town Debrecen also survived in a 36 lines long note from the year 1585. So far it was all we have known from this event, what is read in another book printed in 1666. Now from this contemporary record it is clear that corn prices soared unbelievably high, and than people in place of bread milled and baked roots. So printing and normal life became hindranced over a year, and many wondered if they will ever have any bread. In addition to local history the fate of the nation is also recorded in two notes. The first is connected with the capture of an important fortress, Eger, by the Turks. In 1596 Hungarian and German troops being defeated, most part of the eastern and northern countries suffered badly. A later hand in 1628 commemorated the name of a newly appointed captain to the same fortress. These glosses illustrate the mind of ordinary readers for whom the reformers published their works in the native tongue. 284