Századok – 2014
TANULMÁNYOK - Tusor Péter: Pázmány Péter esztergomi érseki kinevezése (A Habsburg-, a pápai udvar és Magyarország az 1610-es évek derekán) V/1081
1110 TUSOR PÉTER THE APPOINTMENT OF PÉTER PÁZMÁNY AS ARCHBISHOP OF ESZTERGOM. (THE HABSBURG COURT, THE HOLY SEE AND HUNGARY IN THE MID-1610S) by Péter Tusor (Summary) The present study aims to answer the question of why and how the 17th century, the „century of Pázmány”, could have heen so fully dominated in the course of Hungarian history by the renowned archbishop. What were the political and personal conditions, underlying motivations and circumstances of his appointment as archbishop? In the process of answering this question the reader will have a taste of the Hungarian features of Catholic confessionalization in the early modem period as well. On the basis of archival research undertaken in Rome and Vienna, the solution of the problem, applying the method of micropolitical analysis elaborated by Wolfgang Reinhard, can be summarised as follows. Péter Pázmány was not only a decisive support of Habsburg consolidation in Hungary that was to prevail for several centuries, as maintained by Gyula Szekfu, but also his appointment was already directly connected to and influenced by this on the eve of the Thirty Years War. More precisely, in relation to the settlement of Habsburg succession, which resulted in an exceptional interdependence of imperial and papal policies, thus creating the harmony needed for the bipolar appointment, and the shortcomings of which led directly to the eruption of the last great European religious war. It was as a client of Melchior Kiesi, chief minister of Matthias II and head of the Secret Council, that Pázmány entered the scene of high politics, and he managed to stay there even after the fall of his patron in 1618. Thus Ferdinand II, who turned out to be the main beneficiary of Pázmány’s archbishopric, could thank its conception to his greatest opponent, Melchior Kiesi. Practically all the turns of the eventful story which is aimed to be reconstructed in the present study bear the unmistakeable signs of the peculiar political style of the Cardinal. While Kiesi endorsed the Hungarian friar for his own political interests, and generally thought in all-European dimensions, possibly his most enduring achievement in the course of his whole career was the pushing to the foreground of history, with the cooperation of Pope Paul V of one of the most outstanding figures of Hungarian cultural, political and church history.
