The history of libraries and reading in Hungary during the period 1710â1830 has been chronicled in important sourcebooks. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Lutheran minister Pál Wallaszky (1742â1824) wrote an overview of the history of Hungarian libraries, a work that remained a rare contribution on the topic until the end of World War II.1 Besides the history of publishing and the book trade, research prioritised themes like censorship and the use of books by various social strata, a focus that became particularly popular after the 1950s, with an approach mainly based in social history.2
Between 1979 and 2009, a series of studies conducted under my direction focused on listing and tracing books once held in private collections, which were reconstructed from surviving records, so as to better understand the intellectual arena in which writings of the Hungarian Kingdom and Transylvania were produced during the early modern period. Although our main interest was the study of the âliterary spaceâ and the development of literary genres, our need to understand the source material we were working with naturally directed us towards the history of the book, of book collecting and of reading cultures. The research initially covered the years 1500â1750, but the period was extended to 1850 in a second phase of the project.
For the period running up to 1750, I traced 3,100 book lists, of which four hundred remain to be published.3 For the period 1750â1830, 476 lists have turned up thus far, of which only seventy-three were printed.4 A mere nine were actual catalogues of private book collections, the other sixty-four constitute lists of recommended books drawn up by publishers, and were published as autonomous fascicules or included in journals. One should note that, for the latter period, the researcher is forced to have recourse to different sources requiring specific methodologies. Studies in church history and local history, domains that developed dynamically after 1989, while describing cities, administrative regions or the institutional organisation of the church, contain scattered information on the dissemination of texts and reading culture. Minutes taken on the occasion of the canonica visitatio or inventories drawn up at the occasion of property confiscation after the abolition of contemplative orders (abolitiones), or documents of state censorship may provide valuable information for our research.5
The history of the changing role of the Hungarian printing press, libraries, and reading culture clearly reflects the various changes the country went through.6 The Kingdom of Hungary and the Transylvanian Principality were occupied by the Ottoman Empire for a long period (1541â1699). The inhabitants then suffered the military campaigns that led to liberation and two subsequent wars of independence against Habsburg rule, led first by Imre Thököly and later by Ferenc II Rákóczi. Following the Peace Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, reconstruction of the country began from a defeated position within the Holy Roman Empire.7
The following pages contain an overview of the results of my research on early modern Hungarian and Transylvanian book collections. In the first part, I will present a typology of sources for the history of books, book collectors and reading, that indicates the characteristics (differencia specifica) of the different types of sources. The second part focuses on the contents of these sources and highlights what they tell us about the history of the book and the history of reading in early modern Hungary.
A Typology of Sources
The typology presented here has been developed in the course of the aforementioned long-term research project on Hungarian literary culture. It has been commented on in several publications that have seen the light in this context.8
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I. Book lists
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I.1. Catalogues9
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I.2. Book lists of private collections drawn up by officials
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I.2.1. Estate inventories
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I.2.2. Documents in probate proceedings for orphans
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I.2.3. Testaments
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I.2.4. Minutes for confiscation of property
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I.2.5. Litigation documents (legal disputes, debts)
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I.2.6. Minutes taken at the occasion of a canonica visitatio
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I.2.7. Inventories of mixed purpose
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I.3. Institutional library documentation regarding private collections and borrowed books
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I.3.1. Donation records
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I.3.2. Documents attesting to book loans
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I.3.3. Lists recording books that members of monastic orders took to their cells
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I.3.4. Inventories of books in private possession which were purchased by an institution
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I.4. Printed publishersâ catalogues
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I.4.1. Lists published in journals
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I.4.2. Separately printed book trade catalogues
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I.5. Personal documents
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I.5.1. Diary entries about books purchased, desired, or needing to be bound
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I.5.2. Lists in letters
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I.6. Other sources
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I.6.1. Personal book loan records
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I.6.2. Personal notes regarding book purchases
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I.6.3. Lists for binding books
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I.6.4. Invoices for book purchases
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I.6.5. Inventories as notes in a book
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I.6.6. Book lists as part of an estate inventory prepared by non-official persons
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I.6.7. Auto-bibliographies
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II. Other types of sources for the history of book collecting and reading
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II.1. Letters
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II.2. Literary texts
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II.3. References in scholarly works
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II.4. Traces in books
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II.4.1. Marks of ownership
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II.4.2. Marginalia and underlining
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II.4.3. Old shelf-marks
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II.5. Fragmentary data (book lists mentioning up to four books or vague references)
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Analysing the Source Material: Early Modern Book Lists and the Thematic Composition of Private Libraries
I will now use a thesis-like structure to discuss the results of my research on the form and contents of early modern booklists from the Kingdom of Hungary and the Transylvanian Principality. The focal point will be the differences between western and eastern Europe when it comes to the production, the distribution and the reception of books (and book lists) during the early modern era.
Key Periods in the History of the Reception of Western Intellectual Trends in the Carpathian Basin
The time frame 1665â1830, the historical scope of this volume, does not correspond to relevant dates in Hungarian and Transylvanian reading history. For the history of reception of Western intellectual trends in the Carpathian Basin, the following dates are more important: 1480â1620, 1620â1720, and 1720â1830. These time frames, with the caveat that there can be significant differences between them, can be justified in several ways.
The time that elapsed between the publication of a book or the emergence of an international intellectual trend and its appearance in the Hungarian Kingdom increased over time. Before 1620, the reception of new books and ideas was almost immediate. However, around 1720 the delay was approximately 30 years and by 1830 it was half a century (though of course, there were always exceptional aristocrats and learned individuals who were aware of contemporary intellectual developments). It is easy to track this tendency when we compare different groups of readers. Let us for example consider a few Lutheran ministers and professors teaching in colleges. István Miskolci Csulyak (1575â1646) documented his collection containing 360 books. He bought many of its volumes himself on his study tours and the rest were also recent publications.12 Miskolci Csulyak acquired the books he was interested in within one or two years after they were published. The library of Sámuel Kaposi Juhász (1660â1713) was also inventoried by its owner as part of a diarium apodemicum.13 This was a large collection containing 1,969 books, including some contemporary publications, most of which came from Kaposi Juhászâs acquisition of older books. He was aware when studying abroad that his opportunities to purchase books would be limited once he returned home, and he preferred to buy not recent editions, but large numbers of older editions, which were presumably cheaper. More typical in terms of its size, the library of István Hányoki Losontzi (1709â1780), a schoolteacher in NagykÅrös, contained 187 books which were inventoried around 1739.14 In this case there is an average thirty-year-delay between the date of publication and the date of the inventory. The 292-item book collection of János Fábián, a teacher from Békés, was recorded in 1800.15 Although the language constitution of the books in the small collection could be considered modern (besides the 207 books in Latin, 75 were in French, 5 in German and 3 in Hungarian), these had all been published almost a century earlier.16
The rate of literacy grew steadily. However, by the end of our period of study (1830), there were marked differences between the literate strata of society in terms of how fresh and up-to-date their reception of new scientific developments was. While in the first period (1480â1620) the typically Latin, German or Italian readings of a lawyer, minister or aristocrat were up-to-date to about the same degree, by the beginning of the eighteenth century there was a significant difference between how contemporary the intellectual orientation of an aristocrat was compared to that of a scholar. Latin and German orientations as well as archaic or outdated readings were characteristic of country or small-town intellectuals even in the first third of the nineteenth century, although it must be noted that a significant proportion of Hungarian books appeared in their readings from 1780 onwards, as well as, to a lesser extent, books in Slovakian and Romanian.17
Let us pick examples from these three periods to illustrate these phenomena. For the mid-sixteenth century, the following book lists from the middle of the sixteenth century lend themselves to comparison: the inventories of Baron Ferenc Zay (1553), György Perneszith, bailiff and member of the gentry (1560), Jakab Budai, clerk at the Royal Chamber (1561), Bishop János Kolozsvári (1562), and Ferenc Pesti Bornemissza, lawyer at the Chamber (1562).18 All of the above mentioned inventories indicate the presence of authors of the late medieval devotio moderna, a significant number of antique and especially Roman writers, as well as contemporary Humanists. Each of these book lists also contains the major publications of Protestant authors such as Philipp Melanchthon, Martin Luther, and Heinrich Bullinger.
When we look at catalogues of private collections whose owners belonged to different strata of society in the second half of the seventeenth century, we see that some of the most important aristocrats, such as Ferenc Nádasdyor and Pál Esterházy, could afford to collect the most recent publications, besides aiming to build a library that covered all aspects of intellectual enquiry.19 Contemporary well-read merchants, doctors or lawyers, however, owned recent publications only during the time they were on a study tour. Apparently, after returning home, they only received information from abroad with some delay. This is notably the case for Sigismund Zimmermann, merchant in Eperjes (Prešov), who owned 398 books in 1687, Nicolaus Georgius Kiechel, notary in Buda whose 84 volumes were listed in 1694, and Henrik Keppel, physician in Tokaj whose collection of 99 books were inventoried in 1703.20
If we were to compare the readings of an aristocrat and a village teacher at the end of the eighteenth or beginning of the nineteenth century, it would make no sense since they were incomparable. There were, of course, exceptions in each period, but these never formed an important group. Let us mention here Sámuel Gyarmathi (1751â1830), physician and linguist, or János Körmöczi (1762â1836), Unitarian Bishop.21 Some Hungarian aristocrats indeed became book collectors on the same level as their contemporary counterparts elsewhere in Europe. The Csáky family, for example, collected French Libertine rarities.22 Some of these collections were sold after the death of their owners at auctions that attracted a lot of interest. The library of Count Károly Imre Reviczky (1737â1793), polyglot diplomat and first translator of the Persian poet Hafiz, was such a collection. In 1784, the Count published a detailed catalogue in Berlin and a few years later, after ample negotiations, the collection was purchased by George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer.23
It is important to note that some of these private collections, that were sometimes specialised in specific themes, served as a basis for the constitution of public libraries that were universal in scope and played an important part in offering broad access to old and recent books. For example, the catalogue of the library of Ferenc Széchényi (1754â1820) was published in 1802 at the occasion of the donation of the books to the nation and marks the birth of the Hungarian National Library.24 In the same period a national library was founded in Transylvania. Both libraries contained more than 10,000 volumes each.
In the middle period (1620â1720) secular topics were less relevant and ever more books on theology appeared in Hungarian book collections.25 In the eighteenth century, history, geography, management and science became more dominant, although this characterised only the libraries of aristocrats and well-trained intellectuals. A good example of this is the library of the last Hungarian palatine, Lajos ErnÅ Batthyány (1697â1772). In 1743, 2,260 of his books were inventoried. His son, Tódor Batthyány (1729â1812) collected books on mining, shipping and technology in general.26 Another example of a specialised, technically-inclined, collection is that of Count György Festetich (1755â1819), a sympathizer with the Jacobin movement. When he became a persona non grata in Vienna, he endeavoured to create an environment for himself in Keszthely in which he could become one of the most well-educated patrons of culture.27 In 1797, he founded Georgikon, one of the first farm management schools in Europe and made sure to provide books for the school. His own collection held many books related to agriculture and management, but his aim was to build a universal library.28 Gergely Balla (c.1710âafter 1772), lawyer and historian of NagykÅrös who also served as a judge for some time, can also be presented as a man interested in reading about modern management. He was reported to have a library of some 2,000 volumes although the inventory prepared in 1763 mentioned only 200.29
From 1620 until 1830, readings were increasingly determined along confessional lines. While at the beginning of the seventeenth century, medieval, Humanist and contemporary piety formed an important part of private collections and readings, alongside the more secular interests of Humanism, by the middle of the eighteenth centuryâand still at the beginning of the nineteenth centuryâthere were significant differences between the readings of a Catholic, a Lutheran, a Calvinist and a Unitarian. This applies not only to ministers, from whom this could be expected, but also for nobles and intellectuals connected to a particular church.
In Transylvania, the central collections also acquired a religious characteristic due to awakening national identity and the growing number of publications in the vernacular. The Roman Catholics in Transylvania were Hungarian. In 1798, Ignác Batthyány (1741â1798) offered his private collections (his library, museum and observatory) in Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia) âfor the Roman Catholic community of Transylvaniaâ.30 In 1802 the Calvinist Count Sámuel Teleki (1739â1822), Chancellor of Transylvania, similarly offered his collections, kept in Marosvásárhely (Târgu MureÈ), to the Hungarian Principalityâs congregation of Helvetian faith.31 In 1803 Samuel von Brukenthal (1721â1803), Telekiâs successor as Transylvanian Saxon Chancellor, left his collections, kept in Nagyszeben (Sibiu), to the Transylvanian Lutheran Saxon community.32 As for the Romanians of Transylvania and their Uniate Church, their central collection was created at their seminary in Balázsfalva (Blaj).33 It was based on the private collections of two of their bishops, Ioan Giurgiu Patachi (1680â1727) and InocenÅ£iu Micu Klein (1692â1768).34 Finally, the Greek-Eastern Romanians of Transylvania founded their collections in Bolgárszeg (Åcheii BraÅovului), which today belong to Brassó (BraÈov) and are in Alba Iulia. The first inventories were prepared between 1685 and 1699.35
The Specificities of Hungarian Reading Culture
The specificity of Hungarian reading culture was due to the lack of books in the Carpathian Basin. Few books were published there, and an organised book trade was established only around 1830. The last statement is true even if the number of books published in Hungary grew steadily: 951 titles have been recorded for the sixteenth century, 7,000 for the seventeenth century, and in the eighteenth century the number of the titles increased to 35,000.36 In the sixteenth century a significant proportion (7â8%) of all European books featured in at least one copy on our contemporary book lists. The proportion of foreign European books available in Hungary would never again reach a comparable level, not even today.
The observation which has been made that Hungarian intellectuals of the early modern period had a broader horizon in terms of general knowledge than their western European counterparts, but that their knowledge concerning their expertise was not as deep, can also be explained by the lack of access to books.37 While there were specialised bookshops in university towns in Western Europe, the first shop to specifically offer books in the Hungarian Kingdom appeared only in the nineteenth century.38 Before this, only itinerant merchants, book binders and printers sold books there, and in the second half of the eighteenth century agents from the larger publishing houses in Venice, Augsburg, etc. also visited the country from time to time. As a result, intellectuals bought, received and read whatever books they could get hold of.39
Relatively few stock inventories of book merchants or book binders survive from before 1750, although we are not completely empty-handed. The stock of Dionysius Cramer, book merchant of Boroszló (WrocÅaw), was documented when he died in Körmöcbánya (Kremnica) in 1579, and the stock of Hans Gallen was inventoried in Kassa (KoÅ¡ice) in 1583.40 We also have records for the bookbinders who also acted as merchants, Elisabeth Oberland, who died in Besztercebánya (Banská Bystrica) in 1666, Georg Steinhübel of LÅcse (LevoÄa), who passed away in Kassa (KoÅ¡ice) in 1699, and Gaspar Wiszt, deceased in 1714.41 From the first half of the eighteenth century the inventory of assets of Thomas Claarwein, Bavarian art dealer and book merchant (1717), itinerant bookseller Johann Schwartz (1729), and bookbinders Joseph Matzenauer (1738) and Erzsébet Pécsi (Elisabetha Eberhardin) (1740) are known, as well as the list of publications of Johann Georg Nottenstein, printer in Buda (1732â1734).42 From the middle of the eighteenth century we have printed book lists of publishers and in the German and Hungarian periodicals that were launched at the end of the century recommended reading lists were published. Furthermore, we have documents from the nineteenth century which prove that printed books were copied by hand because there was no other way to acquire them. It was moreover a common phenomenon that the readings of nobles and wealthier burghers depended on the students whose study tours abroad they financed. Titles were not selected by the future owners, who only provided a general thematic description of what they were interested in, leaving the student or a bailiff to purchase books for them on the Western European book market.43
In considering the inventories of itinerant merchantsâ stock we gain a clear picture of the (presumed) needs of an average literate reader, typically a burgher and a town-dweller. Handlers could not carry with them folio-sized books on specialised subjects like science. Therefore, their stock consisted primarily of books for daily devotional practice as well as schoolbooks. It is very important to note that it included Hungarian as well as German literature. Hungarian poetry written by Bálint Balassi (1554â1594), János Rimay (1570â1631), Péter Beniczky (1603â1664), or István Gyöngyösi (1629â1704) published during this period usually came out in small formats.
Due to the lack of books available for purchase in the region, the role institutional libraries played in erudite education was more important than in Western Europe.44 What someone read during their secondary education defined their reading taste for the rest of their lives. From the point of view of source typology, the catalogues of institutional libraries should be set apart. However, when analysing reading culture, they should be studied along with the inventories of private book collections. Even more so because many private collections survived within institutional libraries as separate collections of books donated by a certain owner; they were listed as such in the catalogue and, quite often, the bookshelf itself (theca) was named after the donor. As an example, let us mention here the 1688 catalogue of the Reformed Church College of Nagyenyed (Aiud) where the terms Theca Csernátoni, and Theca Basirii indicate the books Lutheran minister Pál Csernátoni (1633â1679), and Isaac Basire (1607â1676), Prebend of Durham, donated to the College.45 The book catalogue of the Franciscan monastery in CsÃksomlyó (Èumuleu Ciuc) from 1727 listed the books that were kept in each friarâs cell.46 In this sense, these institutional collections can be considered to reflect private readings as well, since we can tell what Guardian László Ferenc Bögözi (1687â1756), Kristóf Istvánffy (1693â1756), and other paters who lived there read.
Due to the general lack of books, opening private libraries for shared use played an even more important role in the Hungarian Kingdom than in the West.47 The first such library we know of operated as early as the beginning of the fifteenth century, namely that of the vicarages in Szepes.48 From the sixteenth century, members of Humanist circles shared their books with one another, such as the collection of Hans Dernschwam (1494â1569) in Selmecbánya (Banská Å tiavnica).49
Smaller book-sharing household circles existed from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that could be identified due to the et amicorum notes in the books.50 We also know of bibliotheca publica collections in the Protestant towns of Besztercebánya (Banská Bystrica) (c.1600), KÅszeg (1614), and Kassa (KoÅ¡ice) (c.1670).51 Furthermore, several reading clubs existed in the eighteenth century.52 The first public library in the modern sense of the word was founded in Pécs in 1764 by Catholic Bishop György Klimó (1710â1777).53
The Influence of Changing Contexts
It is important to emphasize that the majority of the Hungarian Kingdom and Transylvania was under Ottoman rule for 150 years. By the beginning of the sixteenth century the Ottoman Turks had destroyed the institutional system which had previously been comparable to those in other European kingdoms. Buda and Pest could only reunite and once again become the capital of the Hungarian Kingdom in 1825, almost one and a half centuries after the Ottoman Turks were expelled from the country in 1686, through the act of moving the diet from Pozsony (Bratislava) to Pest in 1825. From the beginning of the eighteenth century, it took a century and a half to rebuild the towns and the villages, while both the Kingdoms of Hungary and Transylvania were integrated into the Habsburg Empire. This also resulted in the destruction of Protestant institutions.
From a book historical point of view, it is important to note that, during the latter period, Western partner institutions, such as religious orders, secular churches, and Protestant churches, helped their counterparts in Hungary with books, especially those written in Latin, since this was still the official language in Hungary. However, from the eighteenth century onwards, modern books were no longer published in Latin, therefore the continuing dominance of Latin as an official language and lingua franca among students and scholars contributed greatly to developing and reinforcing an archaic taste in reading in Hungary and Transylvania.
In conclusion, our longstanding and ongoing research on the surviving records of private book collections in the Kingdom of Hungary and the Transylvanian Principality has helped us to gain a deeper and broader insight into its reading culture and the way it was influenced by social, economic, religious and political factors. Studying, analysing and interpreting the source material has also allowed us to take a more specific book historical approach to our original research question. The material form and the particularities of the different book lists we encountered, as well as the fortune of the collections they describe resulted in a typology of sources and in challenging traditional distinctions between âpublicâ and âprivateâ libraries.
The authorâs research was supported by the grant NKFIHâOTKA 132770. University of Tokaj-Hegyalja (Sárospatak).
Paulus Wallaszky, De bibliothecis quibusdam veterum memorabilibus, oratio inauguralis Bibliothecae Senioratus Ev. Gömöriensis, dicata honori Illustrissimi Domini Leopoldi e Comitibus Andrássy de Szent-Király et Krasznahorka etc. dicta die 26. Junii 1816 in splendissima Panegyri Betlerini (Košice: typis Stephani Ellingeri, 1816).
Cf. George F. Cushing, âBooks and Readers in 18th-Century Hungaryâ, The Slavonic and East European Review, 47:108 (1969), pp. 57â88; Béla Holl, âLo sviluppo del pensiero teologico alla luce del patrimonio librario del clero cattolico ungherese del primo periodo dellâIlluminismoâ, in Béla Köpeczi and Péter Sárközy (eds.), Venezia, Italia, Ungheria fra Arcadia e Illuminismo: rapporti Italo-Ungheresi dalla presa di Buda alla Rivoluzione Francese (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1982), pp. 211â224; András Tóth, âUngarische Bibliotheksgeschichte vom Frieden von Szatmár (1711) bis zum Ãsterreich-Ungarischen Ausgleichâ, Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 61 (1986), pp. 361â376; Gabriella Somkuti, âUngarische Büchersammlerinnen im 18. Jahrhundertâ, Marginalien. Zeitschrift für Buchkunst und Bibliophilie, 107:3 (1987), pp. 22â35; István Görgy Tóth, Literacy and Written Culture in Early Modern Central Europe (Budapest-New York: CEU, 2000); Péter Sárközy, âIl âpre-illuminismo cattolicoâ e la crisi del riformismo illuminato in Ungheriaâ, in Gaetano Platania (ed.), Conflitti e compromessi nell Europa «â di centroâ » fra XVI e XX secolo (Viterbo: Sette Città , 2001), pp. 241â256; István Monok, âLa bibliophilie en Hongrie au XVIIIe siècleâ, Art et métiers du livre, 230 (2002), pp. 20â25; James P. Niessen, âMuseums, Nationality and Public Research Libraries in Nineteenth-Century Transylvaniaâ, Libraries & the Cultural Record, 41:3 (2006), pp. 298â336; István György Tóth, âBooks Read, Books Told. Written Culture and Oral Culture in Early Modern Hungaryâ, in Alfred Messerli and Roger Chartier (eds.), Scripta volant, verba manent. Schriftkulturen in Europa zwischen 1500 und 1900. Les cultures de lâécrit en Europe entre 1500 et 1900 (Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2007), pp. 215â225.
The term âbook listâ is used here in a broad sense: a list containing books. Only book lists comprising five or more items have been taken into account. Among those, the probate inventories of books of Saxon pastors and schoolteachers from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which were believed to have been lost, but were found in Nagyszeben, proved to be extensive and outstanding sources of information. The bibliographical descriptions of these book lists were published in the Könyvtártörténeti füzetek [Papers on the history of libraries] series, directed by István Monok (13 vols., Szeged: 1981â2019). Transcriptions of all the book lists came out in the Adattár XVIâXVIIII. századi szellemei mozgalmaink történetéhez [Documents on the history of intellectual movements, sixteenthâeighteenth centuries], an ongoing series directed by Mihály Balázs and Bálint Keserű (Szeged-Budapest: 1983â). An additional bibliographical volume and four more volumes of transcriptions are forthcoming. The forthcoming book in the Adattár series entitled Corpus catalogorum inventariorumque librorum ad regnum Hungariae et principatum Transylvaniae spectantium, 1500â1750, contains a statistical analysis of the sources of the period under consideration as well as of their contents.
A bibliographical overview of these published and unpublished catalogues and book lists that survive from the period between 1751 and 1850 will be published as an appendix to the series mentioned in footnote 3.
It is important to remember the claims made by the most prolific researcher of Hungarian library history, Béla Iványi, at the beginning of the 1940s that no one had ever methodically gone through the documents of the Helytartótanács [Royal Council of Governors] held at the Hungarian National Archives (Revisio Librorum, 1731â1779, Departamentum revisionis librorum, 1784â1848), the documents of the Archives of the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery (Conceptus expeditionum, Conceptus referadarum, Originales referadae, sources or items concerning impressio librorum, libri, typographiae), or the inventories that were made at the time of the abolition of religious orders ordered by Emperor Joseph II, when several tens of meters of book catalogues and book inventories were prepared. However, historians of religious orders and local historians have used some of these (cf. János Herner and István Monok (eds.), A magyar könyvkultúra múltjából, Iványi Béla cikkei és anyaggyűjtése (Szeged: JATE, 1983, Adattár XVIâXVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez, 11), pp. 145â148). It is important to highlight that countries in the Carpathian Basin or in the Carpathian Pannonian region cooperate more actively today than during the decades following World War II, and making access to sources (archives) difficult or impossible now occurs only with specific local leaders; research is no longer prohibited by law anywhere in these regions.
Apart from general history books, a number of important articles have been published on specific aspects. Cf. Andrea Seidler and Wolfram Seidler, Das Zeitschriftenwesen im Donauraum zwischen 1740 und 1809. Kommentierte Bibliographie der deutsch- und ungarischsprachigen Zeitschriften in Wien, PreÃburg und Pest-Buda (Vienna-Cologne-Graz: Böhlau, 1988).
Cf. István György Tóth (ed.), A Concise History of Hungary (Budapest: Corvina, 2005); Ignác Romsics, A Short History of Hungary (Budapest: Osiris, 2016); Gábor Almási and Lav Å ubariÄ (eds.), Latin in the Crossroads of Identity. The Evolution of Linguistic Nationalism in the Kingdom of Hungary (Leiden: Brill, 2015).
See for example, István Monok, Kônyvkatalôgusok és kônyvjegyzékek Magyarorszà gon, 1526â1720. Forrdstipolôgia,forrâskritika, forrà skiadâs [Book inventories and book catalogues in Hungary, 1526â1720; source typology, source criticism and source publication] (Szeged: Scriptum, 1993); István Monok, âLecteurs et lectures en Hongrie: quelques aspects dâune histoire originaleâ, Histoire et civilisation du livre, Revue internationale, 1 (2005), pp. 267â276; István Monok, âDie Buch- und Lesekultur in Ungarn der frühen Neuzeit, Teilbilanz der Ergebnisse einer langen Grundlagenforschung (1980â2007)â, Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Buchforschung in Ãsterreich, 10:1 (2008), pp. 7â31; István Monok, Les bibliothèques et la lecture dans le Bassin des Carpates, 1526â1750 (Paris: Champion, 2010), pp. 219â224.
Here meaning an ordered list of books contained in a specific physical collection. In general these catalogues contain shelfmarks, but we know of only one occurrence before 1800 from Hungary.
Only two of this kind are known from before 1830.
Only seven such inventories are known from this period.
András Varga and István Monok (eds.), Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak I. 1533â1657 (Budapest-Szeged: JATE, MTAK, 1986, Adattár XVIâXVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez, 13/1), pp. 61â78.
István Monok, Noémi Németh (Viskolcz) and András Varga (eds.), Erdélyi könyvesházak III. 1563â1757, A Bethlen-család és környezete, Az Apafi-család és környezete, A Teleki-család és környezete, Vegyes források (Szeged: Scriptum, 1994, Adattár XVIâXVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez, 16/3), pp. 223â265; Györgyi BÃró, István Monok and Attila Verók (eds.), Erdélyi könyvesházak V. 1541â1750, Vegyes források (Budapest-Szeged: MTAK, SZTE, 2018, Adattár XVIâXVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez, 16/5), pp. 40â49.
Rita Bajáki, Hajnalka Bujdosó, István Monok and Noémi Viskolcz (eds.), Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak IV. 1552â1740 (Budapest: OSZK, 2009, Adattár XVIâXVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez, 13/4), pp. 350â358.
Ãdám Hegyi, â⦠azt kÅzÅnséges helyen fel olvasni éppen nem tanátsos â¦â Az olvasás és a vallásellenesség kapcsolatai a Békési Református Egyházmegyében 1781 és 1821 között (Debrecen: TREGy, 2018), pp. 296â303.
János Fábián was accused of participating in the Jacobin movement, which may indicate modern thinking on the part of this collector. Cf. Hegyi, â⦠azt kÅzÅnséges helyen, pp. 262â269.
István Monok, âNationalsprachige Lesestoffe in Ungarn im 16. und 17. Jahrhundertâ, in Bodo Guthmüller (ed.), Latein und Nationalsprachen in der Renaissance (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), pp. 137â150; István Monok, âTransformations linguistiques et thématiques dans les bibliothèques aristocratiques de la Hongrie du 18e siècleâ, in Frédéric Barbier (ed.), Actes du symposium international Le livre, la Roumanie, lâEurope, 4ème édition, 20 à 23 septembre 2011, Sinaia, Tome I. Histoire et civilisation du livre (Bucharest: Editura Biblioteca BucureÅtilor, 2012), pp. 108â121.
Varga and Monok (eds.), Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak I. 1533â1657, pp. 9â16, and Herner and Monok (eds.), A magyar könyvkultúra múltjából, Iványi Béla cikkei és anyaggyűjtése, pp. 54â55.
Noémi Viskolcz, A mecenatúra szÃnterei a fÅúri udvarban, Nádasdy Ferenc könyvtára (Szeged-Budapest: SZTE, HEH, 2013), and István Monok and Edina Zvara, Esterházy Pál könyvtáraâDie Bibliothek von Paul Esterházy (Budapest: MTAK, 2019).
Gábor Farkas, Tünde Katona, Miklós Latzkovits and András Varga (eds.), Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak, II. 1580â1721 (Szeged: Scriptum, 1992, Adattár XVIâXVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez, 13/2), pp. 118â128; Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak II. 1580â1721, pp. 140â142; Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak II. 1580â1721, pp. 159â163.
The inventory of the books of the first is dated 1830. Ottó M. Nagy, âGyarmathi Sámuel könyvei (1830)â, Erdélyi Múzeum, 57:2 (1943), pp. 332â341. For Körmöczi, see the acts of the conference Körmöczi János és a kortárs eszmei áramlatok (Cluj-Napoca, 2013) in Keresztény MagvetÅ, 120 (2014).
Alexander Eckhardt, âLes livres français dâune bibliothèque privée en Hongrie au XVIIIe siècle (István Csáky et sa femme Júlia ErdÅdi)â, Revue des Ãtudes Hongroises et Finno-Ougriennes, 3â4 (1923), pp. 145â147; Olga Granasztói, âLecteurs hongrois de livres francais, Diffusion et réception de la littérature française en Hongrie vers la fin du XVIIIe siècleâ, in Frédéric Barbier and István Monok (eds.), Les bibliothèques centrales et la construction des identités collectives (Leipzig: Universitätsverlag, 2005), pp. 255â261.
Catalogue de mes livres, première partie contenant les auteurs classiques grecs et latins â¦âBibliotheca Graeca et Latina ⦠(Berlin: Johann Friedrich Unger, 1784). After the Countâs death, a second, augmented, edition was published: Catalogue de la bibliothèque du Comte de Rewiczky, Contenant les auteurs classiques grecs et latins â¦âBibliotheca Graeca et Latina ⦠(Berlin: Johann Friedrich Unger, 1794). See Ferenc Tóth, âCharles Ãmeric de Reviczky, diplomate, penseur militaire et bibliophile de lâépoque des LumieÌresâ, in Guy Saupin and Ãric Schnakenbourg (eds.), Expériences de la guerre et pratiques de la paix de lâAntiquité au XXe siècle (Rennes: PUR, 2013), pp. 169â180.
Catalogus Bibliothecae Hungaricae Francisci Comitis Széchényi ⦠(7 vols., 1799â1807); Catalogus manuscriptorum: bibliothecae nationalis hungaricae Széchenyiano-regnicolaris (3 vols., Sopron: typis haered. Siessianorum, 1813â1815; Catalogus numorum Hungariae ac Transilvaniae Instituti Nationalis Széchényiani. (2 vols. and appendix, Pest: typis Matthiae Trattner, 1807â1810); Gariella Somkuti and István Monok (eds.), Az Országos Széchényi Könyvtár és a Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum alapÃtó okirataâLitterae fundationis Musei Nationalis Hungariae et Bibliothecae Nationalis Széchényianae (Budapest: OSZK, 2002). István Monok, âLe projet de Ferenc Széchényi et la fondation de la Bibliothèque natio-nale hongroiseâ, in Barbier and Monok (eds.), Les bibliothèques centrales, pp. 87â100; Attila Verók, âLa coscienza culturale dei sassoni di Transilvania e la fondazione della Biblioteca Brukenthalâ, in Frédéric Barbier and Andrea De Pasquale (eds.), Unâistituzione dei Lumi: la biblioteca. Teoria, gestione e practiche biblioteconomiche nellâEuropa dei Lumi (Parma: Museo Bodoniano, 2013), pp. 229â241.
Katalin Péter, âGolden Age and Decay in Intellectuel Culture at the Turn of the Seventeenth Centuryâ, in Katalin Péter, Gabriella Erdély (ed.), Studies on the History of the Reformation in Hungary and Transylvania (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2018), pp. 149â178.
Ongoing doctoral research of Szabolcs Hursán (Eger: Eszterházy Károly University, 2019).
Cséby Géza, Gróf Festetics György helye a magyar művelÅdéstörténetben, különös tekintettel a Magyar Minerva könyvsorozatra és a Helikoni Ãnnepségekre (PhD thesis, University of Szeged, 2013).
Károly Klempa, A keszthelyi Festetich könyvtár (Keszthely: Mérei, 1938); Karl von Klempa, Die kulturpolitischen Bestrebungen des Grafen Georg Festetics (GyÅr: Baross, 1939).
Kolozsvár, Erdélyi Református Egyházkerület GyűjtÅlevéltára [Central Archive of the Reformed Church in Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca], Bequest of Géza Nagy, Nr. 150.
Zsigmond Jakó, âBatthyány Ignác a tudós és a tudományszervezÅâ, Magyar Könyvszemle, 107 (1991), pp. 353â375; Doina Hendre BÃró, âLa Bibliothèque Batthyanaeum fondée à Alba Iulia par lâévêque de Transylvanie, le comte Ignace Batthyányâ, in Barbier (ed.), Le livre, la Roumanie, lâEurope, pp. 122â139.
Bibliothecae Samuelis com. Teleki de Szék, Pars 1â2 (Vienna: per Sam. Falka ⦠in Typographeo Baumeisteri, 1796); Bibliothecae Samuelis com. Teleki de Szék, Pars 3â4 (Vienna: typis Antonii Pichler, 1796â1819); Anikó Deé Nagy (ed.), Bibliothecae Samuelis Com. Teleki de Szék pars quinta, libros inde ab anno MDCCCXIX post typis vulgatam catalogi partem quartam comparatos complexa (Budapest-Târgu MureÈ: Bibliotheca Nationalis Hungariae-Bibliotheca Teleki-Bolyai, 2002); Maria Turzai, âUn trésor de lâépoque des lumières en Transylvanie: la bibliothèque de Sámuel Teleki, à Tîrgu-MureÅâ, Revue Roumaine dâHistoire, V:2 (1966), pp. 341â354; Anikó Deé Nagy, A könyvtáralapÃtó Teleki Sámuel (Kolozsvár: EME, 1997).
Carl Göllner, Samuel von Brukenthal, Sein Leben und Wert im Wort und Bild (Bucharest: Kriterion, 1977); Attila Verók, Die Gründung der Bibliothek Brukenthal und ihr Einfluss auf das Geschichtsbewusststein der Siebenbürger Sachsen, in Barbier and Monok (eds.), Les bibliothèques centrales, pp. 125â132.
The Uniate Church accepted papal primacy while keeping Eastern Greek rituals at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. Cf. Ioan ChindriÈ, âBlajul iluminist, O analiža a structuliror cultulareâ, Anuarul Institutului de Istorie Åi Archeologia (Cluj Napoca), XXIII (1980), pp. 187â208; Johann Marte, Viorel IonitÄ, Iacob Mârza, Laura Stanciu and Ernst Christoph Suttner (eds.), Die union der Rumänen Siebenbürgens mit der Kirche von Rom.âUnirea românilor transilvÄneni cu Biserica Romei (2 vols., Bucharest: Editura EnciclopedicÄ, 2010â2011).
See Iacob Mârza, âDas Schulzentrum Blasendorf der Kern einre rumänischen Bibliothek in der Aufklärungâ, in Barbier and Monok (eds.), Les bibliothèques centrales, pp. 155â162; Magdalena Tampe, âDin inceputurile Bibliotecii de la Blaj, despre inventarul manuscris din 14 iunie 1747â, Biblioteca Åi cercetarea, III (1979), pp. 126â132; Ioan ChindriÈ, âUnirea cu Roma, Åi scuola ArdeleanÄâ, in Ioan ChindriÈ (ed.), Scoala Ardeleana, II. (Oradea: Editura Episcop Vasile Aftenie, 2007), pp. 9â60; Iacob Mârza, âBisericÄ, politicÄ, Åi culturÄ la episcopul Ioan Giurgiu Patachiâ, Annales Universitatis Apulensis, Series Historica, 11/II (2007), pp. 48â67.
On Klein, see.Ioan ChindriÈ, âBiblioteca lui Inochentie Micu-Kleinâ, in Ioan ChindriÈ, CulturÄ Èi societate în contextul Ècolii Ardelene (Cluj-Napoca: Cartimpex, 2001), pp. 45â76.
BÃró, Monok and Verók (eds.), Erdélyi könyvesházak V. 1541â1750, pp. 227â242; Eva Mârza, âDie Bibliothek der Metropolie von Alba Iuliaâ, in Barbier and Monok (eds.), Les bibliothèques centrales, pp. 133â154.
V. Ecsedy Judit, A könyvnyomtatás Magyarországon a kézisajtó korában 1473â1800 (Budapest: Balassi, 1999), p. 125.
István Monok, âCultural Ideals: Changes in the Pattern of Knowledge (from the Point of View of Reading History)â, Hungarian Studies, 31:2 (2017), pp. 251â270.
Cf. György Kókay, Geschichte des Buchhandels in Ungarn (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1990).
István Monok, âLeser oder Sammler? Die Veränderung der Buchsammel- und Lesegewohnheiten an der Wende des 17â18. Jahrhundertsâ, Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert und Ãsterreich, Jahrbuch der Ãsterreichischen Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, 12 (1997), pp. 127â142.
Viliam ÄiÄaj, István Monok and Noémi Viskolcz (eds.), Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak III, Besztercebánya, Körmöcbánya, Selmecbánya (Budapest-Szeged: OSZK, SZTE, 2003, Adattár XVIâXVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez, 13/3), pp. 223â227, and Varga and Monok (eds.), Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak I. 1533â1657, pp. 22â35.
ÄiÄaj, Monok and Viskolcz (eds.), Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak III, pp. 61â68; Farkas et al. (eds.), Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak II. 1580â1721, pp. 287â293; István Monok, âLesestoffe in Leutschau im Vergleich, XVIâXVII. Jahrhundertâ, in Wynfrid Kriegleder, Andrea Seidler and Jozef Tancer (eds.), Deutsche Sprache Kultur und Presse in der Zips (Bremen: Ãdition Lumière, 2007), pp. 157â169. On Wiszt, see Hedvig Gácsi et al. (eds.), Kassa város olvasmányai, 1562â1731 (Szeged: JATE, 1990, Adattár XVIâXVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez, 15), pp. 76â79; István Monok, âLesestoffe deutscher Bürger in Kaschau in der Frühen Neuzeitâ, Zeitschrift für Mitteleuropäische Germanistik, 4:2 (2014), pp. 127â144.
Bajáki et al., Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak IV. 1552â1740, pp. 254â255, 286â288, 320â324, 339â346, and László Czeglédi, Tamás Kruppa and István Monok (eds.), Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak V. 1643â1750 (Budapest: OSZK, 2010, Adattár XVIâXVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez, 13/5), pp. 13â18.
See also István Monok, âDie Rolle der bayerischen Buchdruckerkunst in der Rekatoli- sierung Ungarnsâ, Ungarn Jahrbuch, 28 (2005â2007), pp. 369â375; István Monok, âDeutsche Buchhändler in Ofen und Pest in der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhundertsâ, in Wynfrid Kriegleder, Andrea Seidler and Jozef Tanzler (eds.), Deutsche Sprache und Kultur im Raum Pest, Ofen und Budapest, Studien zur Geschichte, Presse, Literatur und Theater, sprachlichen Verhältnissen, Wissenschafts-, Kultur- und Buchgeschichte, Kulturkontakten und Identitäten (Bremen: Ãdition Lumière, 2012), pp. 153â158.
Monok, âLecteurs et lectures en Hongrieâ, pp. 268â269. This can also be seen in the chapter by Róbert Oláh in this volume.
Monok, âLecteurs et lectures en Hongrieâ, pp. 274â275.
István Monok, Noémi Németh (Viskolcz) and Sándor Tonk (eds.), Erdélyi könyvesházak II, Kolozsvár, Marosvásárhely, Nagyenyed, Szászváros, Székelyudvarhely (Szeged: Scriptum, 1991, Adattár XVIâXVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez, 16/2), pp. 177â190; István Monok and Noémi Németh (Viskolcz), âIsaac Basire könyvei a nagyenyedi református kollégium könyvtárában (1679â1680)â, Magyar Könyvszemle, 108 (1992), pp. 256â264.
Edina Zvara (ed.), Katolikus intézményi gyűjtemények Magyarországon, Ferences könyvtárak, 1668â1750 (Budapest: OSZK, 2008, Adattár XVIâXVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez, 19/3), pp. 63â70.
For an example in a western context, see the chapter by Laurence Brockliss in this volume.
Florian Holik, âDie erste gelehrte Gesellschaft in Ungarnâ, Ungarische Jahrbücher, 2 (1923), pp. 383â399; Eva Selecká Mârza, A Középkori LÅcsei Könyvtár (Szeged: Scriptum, 1997); András Vizkelety, âDie Fraternitas XXIV plebanorum civitatum regalium in Oberungarn und der Handschriftenbestand Zipser Pfarreibibliothekenâ, in Nathalie Kruppa (ed.), Pfarreien im Mittelalter, Deutschland, Polen, Tschechien und Ungarn im Vergleich (Göttingen: Vanderhoeck und Ruprecht, 2008), pp. 327â338.
JenŠBerlász, Katalin Keveházi and István Monok (eds.), Die Bibliothek Dernschwam, Bücherverzeichniss eines Fugger-Agenten in Ungarn (Szeged: JATE, 1984).
Geoffrey D. Hobson, âEt amicorumâ, The Library, fifth series, IV:2 (1949), pp. 87â99; István Monok, âLâuso pubblico dei libri nellâUngheria del Cinque e Seicentoâ, La BibliofilÃa, CXIV:2 (2012), pp. 215â229.
ÄiÄaj, Monok and Viskolcz, Magyarországi magánkönyvtárak III., pp. 13â16; Tibor Grüll, Katalin Keveházi, Károly Kokas, István Monok, Péter Ãtvös and Harald Prickler (eds.), Lesestoffe in Westungarn II, Forchtenstein (Fraknó), Eisenstadt (Kismarton), Güns (KÅszeg), Rust (Ruszt) (Szeged: Scriptum, 1996, Adattár XVIâXVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez,18/2), pp. 34â39; Gácsi et al., Kassa város olvasmányai, 1562â1731, pp. 115â187. See also István Monok, âDie Rolle der Fachbibliotheken im Kampf um die Meinungsfreiheit der wissenschaftlichen Forschungen. Eine europäische Geschichte mit ungarischen Beispielenâ, in Ãgnes Fischer-Dárdai, István Lengvári and Ãva Schmelczer-Pohánka (eds.), University and Universality. The Place and Role of the University of Pécs in Europe from the Middle Ages to Present Day (Pécs: PTE, 2017), pp. 217â227.
Heinz Stanescu, âDeutschsprachige wissenschaftliche und Lesegesellschaften der achtziger Jahre des 18. Jahrhunderts in Siebenbürgen und im Banatâ, in Erik Amburger, Michal CieÅla and László Sziklay (eds.), Wissenschaftspolitik in Mittel- und Osteuropa, Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaften, Akademien und Hochschulen im 18. und beginnenden 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Camen, 1976), pp. 187â195.
Gábor Csajághy, âKlimó György könyvtárárólâ, in Miklós Boda, Katalin Kalányos, Mikós Surján and Tibor Tüskés (eds.), A könyv- és könyvtárkultúra ezer éve Baranyában, Tanulmányok (Pécs: JPTE, 2000), pp. 91â94.