Petrőczi Éva: Holt költők társaságában. A Puritanizmuskutató Intézet és a Medgyesi Pál Puritán Kiskönyvtár emlékére - Nemzet, egyház, művelődés 9. (Sárospatak, 2014)

István Czeglédi, the Martyr-Preacher of Kassa and a Faithful Student of the Netherlands

and more well-known institution. These meetings, these discussions could be realized by the relatively good traffic and the not so great distance (circa 85 km) between the two towns. Innumerable contemporary Hungarian sources prove that during the “Comenian” era of Sárospatak Czeglédi quite often visited his former college.

And now — thanks to many publications, the latest one is the excellent co-operation of Réka Bozzay and Sándor Ladányi, we can follow the steps of István Czeglédi’s study-tour in the Netherlands. This scholarly effort of a Hungarian professor of Church history and a young Hungarian expert of Dutch studies proved to be a very fruitful one and helps the further work of the researchers on both sides. We can learn from this very accurate resource book that „Stephanus Czeglédi, Hungarus”, Calvinist, born in Perény (Perín, now Slovakia) matriculated first at Franeker (15th June 1644), then, for a very short interlude, at Utrecht, and from November of the same year at Leiden. He left Leiden in August 1645 and after a ten month-long stay there he spent almost two years at the athenaeum illustre of Deventer.285 The patron of his peregrination, besides the Calvinist Rome, the town of Debrecen, was a nobleman of the Highlands of Hungary, a certain Gábor Harthay.286

Czeglédi left his home on April 27 1644 and reached Franeker only in June, the date of his matriculation was the 14th of June. In the case of his short stay at concerning its mentality still “Amesian” university of Friesland, we can’t speak about the formative tutors and experiences, as he left the town after a few weeks and began his studies at the University of Leiden. There he became the disciple of Jacobus Triglandius and Fredrik (Friedrich) Span- heim.287 From these two, world-wide known representatives of theological thinking the latter one, Spanheim became his real „magister perpetuus”.288

We can learn from numerous sources that István Czeglédi’s polemical vein is undoubtedly due to Fredrik Spanheim who was a real and extraordinarily passionate master of polemic thinking and practice. The author of the German Biographical Lexicon’s chapter on him calls this professor of Ger285 Bozzay-Ladányi 2007,56,123,206,235.

286 About his family see: Nagy Iván 1859,61.

287 More fully about his tutors: Nagy István 1899,12.

288 Let me express here my garitude towards Réka Bozzay and Péter Eredics, two younger colleagues of mine, for sending me the full text of their dissertations and numerous links to the life and work of Czeglédi’s most important educators.

135