Csányi Marietta et al. (szerk.): Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 25. (Szolnok, 2016)
Történeti tanulmányok - Kertész Róbert: Szolnok középkori templomai
KERTÉSZ RÓBERT: SZOLNOK KÖZÉPKORI TEMPLOMAI Róbert Kertész The medieval temples of Szolnok No traces of the medieval temples of Szolnok survived to today through the storms of history, their location and memory was forgotten. In the more than 130 years search for them several location emerged. The new research shows that the earliest temple was built from brick in the first decades of the 11th century, next to the Castle island on the left bank of the eastern Zagyva prong. This single-nave, Roman styled church was most likely titled to Saint Michael. The parish-church on the Zagyva bank was destroyed in the Mongol invasion in 1241, but it was rebuilt and served as a cemetery chapel until the fall of 1550. The first stone temple of Szolnok was built on the turn of the 13th and 14th century, still in Roman style, in the most frequented part of the newly, post Tatar invasion, moved city centre, found in today’s downtown, at the northern half of the market square cut in half by the Pest-Debrecen highway. The last, third, temple building can be connected to the landlord of the country town, Imre Pálóci, in the 1470s. The large (40 by 20 m) Gothic styled, most likely three-bayed hall church with walk-around sanctuary or pseudo- walk-around sanctuary was built after the demolition of the former Roman styled church, at its place with the secondary use if its stones. The foundation date of the Mathias Era hall church reinforces that Szolnok at the last third of the 15th century - despite former opinions - was not in a decline but lived its flourishing period. What can be reconstructed in Szolnok is concordant not just with the other Pálóci constructions of the time, but with the processes seen at other significant country cities of Hungary. The hall church closed with three sides of an octagon surely lived through the Ottoman conquest, but in the last third of the 16th century it was demolished and the stone material was used for the mosque of Bektas pasha. The disappearance of the most identifiable, symbolical building of the late medieval town, the gothic parish church, and the building of the Bektas pasha mosque represents the process, what results in Szolnok becoming mostly Turkish by the end of the 16th century, well. 383
