Tari Edit: Pest megye középkori templomai (Studia Comitatensia 27. Szentendre, 2000.)

In Pest county we succeeded in collecting the orientation data of 83 churches.

431 Out of 83 churches 52 ones (62.65 %) had a NE-SW orientation, 17 ones (20.48 %) had a E-W orientation and 14 ones (16.86 %) had a SE-NW direction. An exact E-W direction was observed only in the case of 13 churches. Among the 52 NW-SW oriented churches 38 ones can be certainly dated to the Árpádian Age. So, we can see that a significant number of excavated church foundations, more than 60% of them had an orientation deviating to north from east-west. It needs a special study - which would not fit into the frames of the present work - to make calculations for the orientations considering the holidays of the patron saints and equinoxes and solstices. What was the way of choosing an orientation method among different possibilities? It needs further investigations, but even on the basis of our present knowledge it can be suggested that there had been some connection between orientation practices and ecclesiastical legal status, possessions. Unfortunately, we can not support it by written documents. However, it is noticeable that, for example, in the vicinity of Cegléd all the churches consequently deviate from the eastern axis and were oriented NE-SW. The same phenomenon can be observed in the case of rural churches in the surroundings of Nagykőrös situated south of Cegléd.

432 We did not find medieval burials inside the churches, which is frequently observable in the case of private churches - this circumstance again supports the suggestion that these churches did not belong to private owners. The right of burial in the church belonged to the patron of living. Of course, this is not a serious argument. It may be suggested that the surroundings of Cegléd in the 12

th13

th century belonged to royal estates. This suggestion is based on a letter of donation of 1358 in which land "being a royal estate for a long period of time" is mentioned. On this basis we can suggest that this was the reason for the uniform orientation of the churches and semicircular shape of the chancel in the estate. This hypothesis corresponds to György Györffy's opinion according to which the significant part of comitat Pest was a royal estate in the Árpádian Age.

433 It could explain the phenomenon of numerous churches around Cegléd with the same orientation and shape of chancel in the Árpádian Age. Our suggestion rises further questions. Do we observe similar orientation in the case of other, certainly royal estate churches? This analysis has been just started, but in the case of the cathedrals of the most important royal centres we mostly find NESW orientation!

434 If the ecclesiastical legal status can be considered to be the basis of certain similarities of the churches, than we can also suggest the same customer. That is to say, the principle - e.g. the marking out of the church, its orientation, the shape of the chancel - could be connected to the land owner or the ecclesiastical authority*. In the viNo orientation was published for 17 ground plans (out of 96 ones). In the table these cases are marked by italics. 432 Tari 1995. 142., 146. 433 Györffy 1998. 502. For example the eastern axis of the royal basilica of Székesfehérvár deviates from the eastern axis by 24° (Guzsik 1975. 100.), that of the St. George Chapel in Veszprém by 38° (ibid) or 36° (Kovács 1964. 216.), the cathedrals in Esztergom and Győr by 23°, the cathedral of Kalocsa by 22°30'(Guzsik 1975. 97.), the church of protomartyr St. Stephen by 40° (MRT volume 5. 1979. 93.). 245