Diaconescu, Marius (szerk.): Mediaevalia Transilvanica 1999 (3. évfolyam, 1-2. szám)
Mentalităţi
The Trial by Hot Iron Ceremony 11 history.43 44 Taking into consideration the content of the register, those 389 cases recorded over the period 1208 to 1235, one can establish three important sections of it. The first is a record containing the judicial cases (trades, testamentary dispositions, changes, acknowledgments, etc.) made in front of the Oradean chapter as a locus credibilis,45 The second and major part of the register is the record of the ordeals administered there.46 The third one is the appendix of the register, which source of the Hungarian written literature. Many linguistic studies have demonstrated with a careful analysis the Hungarian origin of many words from the register, and some grammatical traits of the early Hungarian language. The major part of the cases referred to the environs of Oradea, but sometimes cases from distant places were noted in the record. See some linguistic works dealing with the Oradean register: Ilona Fábián, A Váradi Regestrum helynevei (The place-names of the Oradean register) (Szeged, 1997); Lajos Marjalaki Kiss, “A Váradi Regestrum néhány kétes helynevének megfejtése” (The explanation of a few dubious place-names from the Oradean register), Magyar Nyelv 21(1925): 47-49; János Melich, “Ritus explorandae veritatis,” Magyar Nyelvőr 33(1904): 132- 33, 315-17, 322-26; Sándor Mikesy, “Váradi Regestrom-beli helyek meghatározásai” (The identification of places from the Oradean register), Magyar Nyelv 44(1948): 64-65. 43 Besides the linguists, the register of Oradea has been considered an interesting source for the cultural historians as well. Their work was concentrated upon resolving a controversial problem: the G. H. monogram which appeared at the end of the first publication of the register from 1550. The deciphering of these initials concerning the name of the typographer initiated a lengthy debate among scholars. After a dispute lasting between seven and eight decades, there now seems to be a solution for this problem: grammatical, linguistic, and typographical arguments have proved that the typographer of the Ritus explorandae veritatis was George Hoffgreff, and not Gáspár Heltai. Pál Gulyás, A könyvnyomtatás Magyarországon a XV. és XVI. században (The printing of books in Hungary during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) (Budapest, 1931); János Herepei, “Hozzászólás a Heltai-Hoffgreff-nyomda tulajdonosainak kérdéséhez” (Contribution concerning the owners of the Heltai-Hoffgreff typography), Magyar Könyvszemle 79(1963): 268; Zsigmond Jakó, “Újabb adatok a kolozsvári Heltai-nyomda kezdeteihez” (New information concerning the beginning of the Heltaitypography from Cluj), Magyar Könyvszemle 77(1961): 60-65; Idem, “Újabb adatok Hoffgreff György kolozsvári nyomdász életéhez” (New information concerning the life of George Hoffgreff, typographer in Cluj) Magyar Könyvszemle 81(1965): 159-63. 44 The legal historians’ contributions were also significant. Imre Hajnik and Ferenc Eckhardt threw light on the joining of the ecclesiastical and lay court, and the institution of the so-called pristaldus in the early medieval Hungarian judicial trial. Tivadar Botka succeeded in doing a very good analysis based on the Oradean records on the development of Hungarian counties. Hajnik, A magyar bírósági szervezet, 249-58; Eckhart, “Hiteles helyeink eredete,” 640-55; Tivadar Botka, “A vármegyék első alakulásáról és őskori szervezetéről” (About the emergence and ancient organization of the counties), Századok 6( 1872): 75-80. 45 I counted 35 such cases. For instance, in 1229 a testamentary disposition was inscribed in the register: “Cum ignoraret homo finem dierum suorum, Mauritius sacerdos se et omnia sua, Waradiensis ecclesiae protectioni, dum adhuc viveret, commisit...” Karácsonyi, and Borovszky, Regestrum Varadinense, no. 360, p. 292. 46 We have to notice that in Oradea Cathedral two types of ordeal were practiced: the trial by hot iron and by oath. I counted 345 cases related to the trial by hot iron and 19 cases to the trial by oath. The first case of trial by hot iron was registered in 1212 and the latest in 1234. Ibid., no. 3, pp. 156-66; no. 381, p. 304. The trial by oath implied that an oath took on a saint’s relics, tomb or altar, and denoted that God punished a false juror. Bunyitay, A váradi püspökség, vol.l, 70; Sándor Bálint, Ünnepi kalendárium. A Mária-ünnepek és jelesebb napok a hazai és közép-európai hagyományvilágból (Festive calendar. Marian-feasts and the more noted days from home and Central European tradition), vol. 2 (Szeged, 1998), 518-19. The first case of trial by oath was registered in 1213 and the latest in 1235. Karácsonyi, and Borovszky, Regestrum Varadinense, no. 19, pp. 161-62; no. 387, p. 306. Usually, the trial by oath had taken place in Oradea Cathedral at saint Ladislas' tomb: “Martinus igitur
