Benedek Illyés, the graffiti vandal who damaged a historic monument (15th century?)

Fehér, Bence (2022) Benedek Illyés, the graffiti vandal who damaged a historic monument (15th century?). In: Our Ancient Writings. Publications of the Institute of Hungarian Research (5). Magyarságkutató Intézet, Budapest, pp. 25-37. ISBN 9786156117601

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Abstract

A significant portion of the Szekler runiform church inscriptions must be classified as hic fuit inscriptions, that is, graffiti by visitors. Such an example is the inscription on the lower edge of the outer wall fresco of the Unitarian church of Sepsikilyén, which was inscribed among several Latin hic fuit graffiti. This inscription can be divided into a Latin part in fraktur letters and a Hungarian part in runiform script: Scribsit (!) BNDK2 I[[L]]`Ly´ES. The Latin word and the orthographic emendation show that the author, named Benedek Illyés, was a man of higher education than the average: a fact which is also justified in several other inscriptions. This graffito probably erased the signo of the painters, but nevertheless belongs to a layer older than the later graffiti in capital letters and must therefore date to the 2nd part of the 15th century or to the beginning of the 16th century.

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