Between sermon and meditation: A late medieval Hungarian Passion text

Korondi, Ágnes (2025) Between sermon and meditation: A late medieval Hungarian Passion text. HUNGARIAN STUDIES: A JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR HUNGARIAN STUDIES AND BALASSI INSTITUTE, 39 (S). pp. 1-12. ISSN 0236-6568

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Abstract

Texts discussing the passion of Christ were a significant segment of late medieval Hungarian-language literature prepared for the edification of nuns and a few devout laypersons. These devotional texts were compiled partly from Latin meditations and treatises, partly from the sermons of popular Observant preachers of the age. The combination of the different genres resulted in vernacular texts ideally suited for the spiritual needs of a not quite thoroughly educated audience. The paper will illustrate how such texts functioned by analyzing a passion text preserved in a manuscript copied in 1508 by Bertalan of Halábor and preserved in the Batthyaneum Library in Alba Iulia (Ms III 76, fol. 1r–7r). Although it might have been used as a meditation aid later, originally it must have been intended to serve as a sermon. Following a close reading of this passion text, the article argues that the sermon is closer to the world of live preaching than to scholastic model sermons that often served as sources to other Hungarian passion texts. The origin of the passion sermon copied by Bertalan of Halábor, as that of the entire codex, seems to be related to pastoral duties among laypersons.

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