Budapest Régiségei 37. (2003)

Benda Judit: Előzetes jelentés a budai középkori karmelita kolostor feltárásáról 137-149

ELŐZETES JELENTÉS A BUDAI KÖZÉPKORI KARMELITA KOLOSTOR EELTÁRÁSÁRÓL PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE EXCAVATIONS OF THE MEDIAEVALCARMELITE FRIARY IN BUDA In the summer of 2002 the foundation walls of the mediaeval Carmelite Friary of Buda came to light in the course of an excavation preceeding construction works at 6-12 Kapás Street. The estern part of the convent named after the Mother of Mercy, the graveyard around the church and a section of the cloister yard have been found. The plot was donated to the order with the purpose of founding a friary by King Louis I (1342-1382) and his mother, Queen Elisabeth. It was approved by Pope Gregory XI in 1372 and three years later he gave indulgence for the construction of the church. The friary belonged to the Upper German Province of the order. Apart from Buda the Carmelites settled in Pécs, Eperjes and Privigye (now Prievidza, Slovakia) in Hungary in the Middle Ages. The community, being mainly German-speaking, apart from the income of indulgences, lived on mass funds and other donations. The eastern cloister was found with the rooms joined to it. The most northern object was the south-western corner of a room that could have been identified as the sacristy. Next there was the chapterhouse with a pillar in the center that was later extended with a poligonal choir. Next to it there is another chapel with the foundation of an altar in its poligonal choir. The southern room of the eastern wing has never been built, it is possible that the chapel could have been approached right from the graveyard, too. There was the foundation of an oven on the brick floor of the eastern room of the southern tract. It was only the foundation walls that survived from the next room due to disturbance by cellars built in modern times. The collapsed vaulting of the cloister was also found, and further ribs were taken out from modern walls. The convent building was surrounded by a large graveyard where 250 graves have been excavated. The graveyard was bordered by a stone wall, its gate was decorated by a porch. A garden was joined to the southern side of the convent and the graveyard also protected by a stone wall. The graves were oriented west-east except for one skeleton that had been buried the opposite way There were few observable grave-cuts found because of the muddy character of the soil. The amount of the coffin-nails show that it was only the third of the corpses that had been buried in a coffin, whereas the rest had been put into the earth simply wrapped in a shroud. The only grave covered with stone plates hid a beheaded man, to the place of whose head a round stone had been laid. The graves surrounded most densely the supposed site of the church, where they had been dug one above the other quite often. There were graves in the garden too. Among the finds it is worth to mention a slate with details of inscription and the fragments of a group of terracotta sculptures. 145