Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
THE SCHOOL IN ITS “OLD NEST” AGAIN HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE BETWEEN1703 AND 1777 - Laying the foundations for growth
71 The circumstances for studying were not ideal. There were not enough classrooms and they were small so the students often had to stand during the lectures. The school tried to improve the conditions through constant building but could not keep pace with the large number of students and this resulted in seemingly ever-present overcrowdedness. It became increasingly difficult to manage a school with such a large number of students without solid financial foundations. A certain portion of the school’s income was generated by the College’s own vineyards and fields. The establishment of a capital fund was a significant step, it having a value of close to thirty-five thousand forints in the 1770s, a most significant amount at that time. In addition to this, the school received regular donations in money and in food. The people of Reformed faith in Upper-Hungary - lower classes of nobles, citizens of market towns and village farmers - began to assume a type of ownership of the College. This relationship was well-illustrated during the great plague of 1739-1740 when all the congregations of the church district surged into action and sent hundreds of sheep and wagonloads of grain in way of foodstuffs to the school which had become isolated because of the epidemic. The students’ collecting of donations during the harvests of grain and grapes was a tradition (supplicatio in Latin) with a history of close to a century. At this occasion a written communique from the school was sent out similar to the one here from 1775, its wording formulated in Sárospatak: “if only these days we could find graceful nurses, sons and daughters who would nourish our mother school without detriment in their eagerness to do public benefit”. A certain portion of the donations thus received were given to the students, this being of significant assistance to them in continuing with their studies. In 1724, however, the administrative council of the governing authority issued a decree which had the intention of curbing mendication. Authorities interpreted supplicatio as mendication and, consequently, often apprehended the students who were collecting donations. From the records of the arrests by the county authorities, there is copious data showing how the supplicatio activities of the Patak students had spread to include the entirety of the country, visits being made to benefactors from Máramaros county to Tolna county and from west of the Danube River to east of the Tisza River. The continuously annoying measures of the authorities in this matter at times led the students into variously disconcerting predicaments in adventurous circumstances. Once the College returned to Patak, it became necessary to rebuild the library from the ground up. Fortunately for the school, it was able to attract donors at this level, also, these people donating their own books to the school. By the end of the 18th century, the school counted some sixty such donors. Some gave only a few volumes while others donated up to several hundred books at a time. Zsófia Csudó, István Eörös’s wife from Tokaj, donated Calvin’s Institutes (translated by Albert Szenei Molnár, published in 1624) and a Bible; “I leave this book and the Bible, after my death, to the students of Patak, Sophia Csudó.” Former students, such as István Eszéki, a pastor in Transylvania, also donated books, in his case, leaving two thirds of his entire library to the school. Mention was already made of the teacher István Simándi leaving all his books to the College. The book collections of other teachers, such as István Bányai and Pál Szathmári Paksi, were purchased by the school. Ferenc Kazinczy György Bessenyei Aaeímóry . Imiin tyirn/i/ mn fair. It! f/. fe« zf* vmsi _ _____' 'C ft n w _ G yörgy Szathmáry Király, chief lay officer, scholar and College developer
