Pocsainé Eperjesi Eszter: Református egyházlátogatási jegyzőkönyvek néprajzi vonatkozásai - 16-17. század Tiszán inneni egyházvidék (Sárospatak, 2007)

Idegen szavak, kifejezések jegyzéke

Ethnographic Aspects of the Records of Canonical Visitations (Canonica Visitatio)

of Hungarian Reformed Churches in the 16th — 17,h Centuries

Summary

The canonical visit — canonica visitatio in Latin — is more than merely a visit to the congregation since the delegation examines the congregational life in order to see how much it is in accordance with, or how much and in what sense it deviates from, the standards established in the Scriptures. This kind of visitation dates back to the Apostolic epoch of Christianity in the sense that the aposdes were the guardians of the organized congregations.

Canonical visitation in Hungarian Reformed churches is the means of church-governance and supervision. It was important to ascertain and oversee that life in the congregations was going on according to the ecclesiastical laws. Visitation records contain a wealth of information about events of great interest, especially to religious ethnography. They provide information about events in and customs of congregational life, church buildings and their ecclesiastical objects, the clenodium — communion and Christening vessels and Lord’s Table’s cloths - , legal cases, school life, incomes of the minister, schoolmaster, bellringer, the ordination oath of the minister, and a number of other aspects of life. These records are rich repositories of the customs, traditions of the 16th — 17th century everyday life of Reformed congregations.

The records centre on problems describing the difficulties of the congregations, listing the cases of trespassing, paying great attention to the property, enumerating the buildings and farmlands of the congregation. This is perfectly understandable in the turbulent, war-ridden years of the 16th-17th centuries.

The material I have researched, is to be found in the Archives of the Scholarly Collection of the Sárospatak Reformed College. These are the earlierst documents of such visitations. They were written at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries and later were completed by 17th-century data. They originate from North-East Hungary' and were written mostly in Hungarian, with a smaller number in Latin or interspersed with Latin.

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