Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T14:11:23.901Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Responses to Habsburg Persecution of Protestants in Seventeenth-Century Hungary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2009

Graeme Murdock
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This article considers responses to Habsburg persecution of Protestants in Hungary during the 1670s. Focusing on the Reformed church, it will first assess how long-established contacts with Reformed co-religionists in northwestern Europe came to provide support for Hungarians in the face of violent state repression. This will concentrate in particular on the trial and imprisonment of Protestant clergy after 1674 and on the liberation of one group of ministers in 1676, thanks to Dutch intervention. It will then consider the diverse ways in which Habsburg persecution of Hungarian Protestants was represented in the Dutch Republic, England, France, and in Hungary, and what this reveals about the international Reformed community toward the end of the confessional age. It will then assess the role of persistent but shifting memories of this era of martyrs and liberators in the later development of Hungarian Reformed identity.

Type
Forum in Honor of R.J.W. Evans
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 40 , April 2009 , pp. 37 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, for example, Barnard, T., “The Uses of 23 October 1641 and Irish Protestant Celebrations,” English Historical Review 106 (1991): 889–920CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Oberman, H. A., “Europa afflicta: The Reformation of the Refugees,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 83 (1992): 91–111Google Scholar; Kingdon, R. M., Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555–1563 (Geneva, 1956)Google Scholar; Pettegree, A., Foreign Protestant Communities in Sixteenth-Century London (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar; Pettegree, A., Emden and the Dutch Revolt: Exile and the Development of Reformed Protestantism (Oxford, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benedict, P., Christ's Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (New Haven, 2002)Google Scholar; Murdock, G., Beyond Calvin: The Intellectual, Political and Cultural World of Europe's Reformed Churches (Basingstoke, UK, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Evans, R. J. W., “Calvinism in East Central Europe: Hungary and Her Neighbours,” in Prestwich, M., ed., International Calvinism, 1541–1715 (Oxford, 1985), 167–97Google Scholar; Daniel, D., “Calvinism in Hungary: The Theological and Ecclesiastical Transition to the Reformed Faith,” in Duke, A., Lewis, G., and Pettegree, A., eds., Calvinism in Europe, 1540–1620 (Cambridge, 1994), 201–30Google Scholar; Schwarz, K. and Svorc, P., eds., Die Reformation und ihre Wirkungsgeschichte in der Slowakei (Vienna, 1996)Google Scholar; Makkai, L., A magyar puritánusok harca a feudálizmus ellen (Budapest, 1952)Google Scholar; Murdock, G., Calvinism on the Frontier, 1600–1660: International Calvinism and the Reformed Church in Hungary and Transylvania (Oxford, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Péter, K., “Az 1608 évi vallásügyi törvény és a jobbágyok vallásszabadsága,” Századok 111 (1977): 93–113Google Scholar; Péter, K., “The Struggle for Protestant Religious Liberty at the 1646–7 Diet in Hungary,” in Evans, R. J. W. and Thomas, T. V., eds., Crown, Church and Estates: Central European Politics in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1991), 261–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Details from the manuscript by Csergő, Bálint Kocsi, “Brevis delineatio ecclesiarum reformatorum in Hungaria et Transylvania” [1677], are reproduced in Miklós, D., ed., Az első rendszeres magyar református egyháztörténet (Budapest, 1994)Google Scholar.

6 Segesváry, L., Magyar református ifjak az utrechti egyetem, 1636–1686 (Debrecen, 1935)Google Scholar. “A franekeri egyetemén tanúlt magyarok,” ed. Hellebrant, Á., Történelmi Tár (1886), 599–608, 792–800Google Scholar.

7 Evans, Robert described this Wesselényi conspiracy as “a very bizarre episode and an odd misnomer, a kind of Fronde nobiliare with large dashes of slapstick,” in The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1700 (Oxford, 1979), 261Google Scholar; Spielman, J., Leopold I of Austria (London, 1977)Google Scholar. Ingrao, C., The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815 (Cambridge, 1994), 61–74Google Scholar.

8 Bársony, György, Veritas toti mundo declarata; argumento triplici ostendens, sacram caesaream regiamque majestatem non obligari tolerare in Ungaria sectas Lutheranam et Calvinianam (Kassa, 1671)Google Scholar; Szatmárnémeti, Mihály, Falsitas Veritatis toti mundo declaratae (Kolozsvár, 1672)Google Scholar; Csipkés, György Komáromi, Molimen Sisyphium (Kolozsvár, 1672)Google Scholar.

9 Csergő, Bálint Kocsi, “Narratio brevis de oppressa libertate ecclesiarum Hungaricarum,” translated by Bod, Péter in 1738 as “Kősziklán épült ház ostroma,” is published in A magyarországi gályarab prédikátorok emlékezete. Galeria Omnium Sanctorum, ed. Makkai, L. (Budapest, 1976), 29–110, 32Google Scholar.

10 Kocsi, “Kősziklán épült ház ostroma” (1976), 59–88, 46; Péter, K., “A magyarországi protestáns prédikátorok és tanítók ellen indított per 1674-ben,” in Papok és nemesek. Magyar művelődéstörténeti tanulmányok a reformációval kezdődő másfél évszázadból (Budapest, 1995), 200–10Google Scholar.

11 Kocsi, “Kősziklán épült ház ostroma” (1976), 88.

12 Ibid., 99–103; Dezső, M., “L'histoire des galériens Hongrois,” Bulletin de la Société du Protestantisme Français 122 (1976): 54–65Google Scholar.

13 Bengt Gabrielsson Oxenstierna, “Memorial … wegen der bedrangten Evangelischen … in Ungarn” (1674), translated and published in 1675 in Dutch and in English as The Case of the Persecuted and Oppressed Protestants in some parts of Germany and Hungary, suggested that only the “cunning of some zealots” had previously prevented “Protestant groans” from reaching the emperor's ears. See also the defence of the court's action by the Jesuit Labsánszky, János, Extractus brevis et verus, quo candide demonstratur acatholicorum praedicantium e regno Hungariae proscriptio, et degradatio facta esse respectu rebellionis, non autem religionis (Trnava, 1675)Google Scholar.

14 Kocsi, “Kősziklán épült ház ostroma” (1976), 96.

15 Ibid., 97; E. Thury, “Gályarabok megszabaditás,” Protestáns Szemle (1909): 594–95; Otrokócsi's letter in Történelmi Tár (1909): 555–56; L. Nagy, “Prisonniers protestants hongrois sur les galères de Naples et leur rédemption (1675–1676),” Cahiers de la Méditerranée 65 (2002).

16 du Maurier, Louis Aubery, The Lives of all the Princes of Orange; from William the Great, founder of the common-wealth of the United Provinces (London, 1693)Google Scholar, preface.

17 Reproduced in A magyarországi gályarab prédikátorok emlékezete, ed. Makkai (1976), 57.

18 Csergő, Bálint Kocsi, “Narratio brevis de oppressa libertate ecclesiarum Hungaricarum,” [1676], reproduced in 1738 translation in A magyarországi gályarab prédikátorok emlékezete, ed. Makkai, (1976), 29–110Google Scholar; A Short Memorial of the most grievous sufferings of the ministers of the Protestant churches in Hungary by the instigation of the Popish clergy there (London, 1676); and a shorter summary of events was printed as A Brief Narrative of the State of the Protestants in Hungary (1677); Kort en waaragtig verhaal van de laetste vervolginge der Evangelische leeraaren in Hungarien (Amsterdam, 1677), and translated into German as Kurzer und warhafftiger Bericht von der letzten Verfolgung der Evangelischen Prediger in Ungarn (1676/1683). For a list of texts related to these events, see Makkai, L., Barcza, J., and Csohány, J., eds., In Memoriam. Eliberationis verbi divini ministrorum Hungaricorum ad triremes condemnatorum 1676. Studia et Acta Ecclesiastica Nove Series. Acta Ecclesiastica 1 (Debrecen, 1976)Google Scholar.

19 Ferenc Fóris Otrokócsi, “Furor bestiae contra testes Jesu Christi in Hungaria,” which was the basis for Abraham van Poot, Naauwkeurig Verhaal van der Vervolginge aangerecht tegens de Evangelise Leeraren in Hungarien (1684).

20 Lani, Georgius, Funda Davidis contra Goliath (Leipzig, 1676)Google Scholar and Kurtzer und doch warhaftiger historische Extract der grausamen und fast unerhörten Papistischen Gefängnis (Leipzig, 1675/6). The texts of Masznyik, Tobias, Unerhörter Gefängnis-Process (Halle, 1676)Google Scholar and Simonides, Johannes, “Minden szentek galériája” (1675), are reproduced in A magyarországi gályarab prédikátorok emlékezete, ed. Makkai, (1976), 127–65, 164Google Scholar.

21 D. Watson, “Jean Crespin and the Writing of History in the French Reformation,” and Pettegree, A., “Adriaan van Haemstede: The Heretic as Historian,” in Gordon, B., ed., Protestant History and Identity in Sixteenth-Century Europe. Volume 2. The Later Reformation (Aldershot, 1996), 39–76Google Scholar.

22 Kort en waaragtig verhaal van de laetste vervolginge der Evangelische leeraaren in Hungarien (1676) is reproduced in Hungarian translation together with illustrations from van Poot, , Hungarise Vervolginge (1684) in A magyarországi gályarab prédikátorok emlékezete, ed. Makkai, (1976), 111–26Google Scholar.

23 A Short Memorial (1676), 1–2. Shagan, E., “Constructing Discord: Ideology, Propaganda and English Responses to the Irish Rebellion of 1641,” Journal of British Studies 36 (1997): 4–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 A Short Memorial (1676), 5, 8.

25 Israel, J., The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford, 1995), 713–26, 776–76, 796–813Google Scholar; Miller, J., Popery and Politics in England, 1660–1688 (Cambridge, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 A Short Memorial (1676), 9.

27 Ibid., 10–17, 11.

28 Ibid., 2, 9.

29 Smith, William, Two Sermons Preached at the Cathedral Church of Norwich (London, 1677), 17Google Scholar.

30 Baxter, Richard, The Nonconformists Plea for Peace: Or an account of their judgment in certain things in which they are misunderstood: written to reconcile and pacifie such as by mistaking them hinder love and concord (London, 1679), 244Google Scholar.

31 Ferguson, Robert, A Representation of threatening dangers, impending over Protestants in Great Britain (London, 1687), 2–3Google Scholar.

32 Defoe, Daniel, An Enquiry into the most proper ways to prevent the persecution of the Protestants in France (London, 1698), 19Google Scholar.

33 Jurieu, Pierre, Lettres pastorales addressées aux fidèles qui gémissent sous la captivité de Babylone (1686) and translated as Prejudices against Popery: The Pastoral Letters of the incomparable Jurieu directed to the Protestants in France groaning under the Babylonish tyranny (London, 1689)Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., 648; Bod, Péter, Magyar Athenas, avagy az Erdélyben és Magyarországban élt tudós embereknek… historiájok (1766), ed. Torda, I. (Budapest, 1982), 323Google Scholar.

35 Jurieu, Prejudices against Popery (1689), 637–38, has a clear basis in Kocsi's 1676 text; see here, for example, “Kősziklán épült ház ostroma” (1976), 74–75.

36 Jurieu, Prejudices against Popery (1689), 640, 643.

37 Ibid., 643–44.

38 Ibid., 645–46.

39 Ibid., 648.

40 A magyarországi gályarab prédikátorok emlékezete, ed. Makkai (1976), 23–24.

41 Ember, Pál Debreceni, Historia ecclesiae reformatae in Hungaria et Transylvania (Utrecht, 1728)Google Scholar; Péter Bod, “Kősziklán épült ház ostroma” [1738].

42 Nagy, István Szőnyi, Martyrok Coronaja (Kolozsvár, 1675)Google Scholar; Nagy, R., “Protestáns mártirológia és élettörténeti narráció-Szőnyi Nagy István 17. századi református lelkész példája,” in Balázs, M. and Gábor, Cs., eds., Emlékezet és devóció a régi magyar irodalomban (Kolozsvár, 2007), 333–54Google Scholar.

43 Bethlen, Miklós, Apologia ministrorum evangelicorum Hungariae, ad innocentiam suam orbi Christiano declarandam opposito judicio tribunalis Posoniensis (Kolozsvár, 1677; Utrecht, 1678)Google Scholar.

44 This was translated by 1682 as The Declaration of the Hungarians war newly published by the most illustrious Michael Apafi prince of Transylvania, against his Imperial Majesty (London, 1682).

45 Kősziklán épült ház ostroma” (1976), 45. Also see Gyulai, Mihály, Fertelmeskedő, s'bujálkodó tancz jutalma (Debrecen, 1681)Google Scholar; Szenci, Pál, Reszegesek jajos pohara (Debrecen, 1681)Google Scholar; also, Bethlen, Miklós, Önéletírása and Imádságoskönyve, ed. Windisch, É. (Budapest, 1955), 400–981, 985–1080Google Scholar.

46 Otrokócsi, Ferenc Fóris, Róma, Istennek sz. városa (Nagyszombat, 1698)Google Scholar; Bod, , Magyar Athenas (1766), 388–90Google Scholar.

47 Evans, R. J. W., “Hungary: Limited Rejection,” in The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1700 (Oxford, 1979), 235–75Google Scholar. See also Fata, M., Ungarn, das Reich der Stephanskrone, im Zeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisierung. Multiethnizität, Land und Konfession 1500 bis 1700 (Münster, 2000)Google Scholar. For the situation of the Catholic church in Transylvania, see Bahlcke, J., “Catholic Identity and Ecclesiastical Politics in Early Modern Transylvania,” in Crăciun, M., Ghitta, O., and Murdock, G., eds., Confessional Identity in East-Central Europe (Aldershot, 2002), 134–52Google Scholar.

48 http://www.deruyter.org/jpg/fotos/debr.zuil.tot.jpg (all Web pages consulted 1 September 2008). The square now also features a statue of István Bocskai, the Reformed leader of a 1604 anti-Habsburg revolt. Other memorial sites in Hungary to the release of the ministers in 1676 include a relief on the wall of Sárospatak Reformed college bearing an image of the galley-slaves and the legend “Dixit Jehova: Captivos meos liberabo.”

49 Evans, Robert has argued that the forms of “engagement which religious-based communities bequeathed to the modern world became filled with ever more overtly national content, but a content which still bore a deep imprint of pre-modern confessional commitment,” in “Religion and Nation in Hungary, 1790–1848” in Evans, R. J. W., ed., Austria, Hungary and the Habsburgs: Essays on Central Europe, c. 1683–1867 (Oxford, 2006), 153Google Scholar.

50 For discussion of religion and memory, see Hervieu-Léger, D., La Religion pour Mémoire (Paris, 1993; translation London, 2000)Google Scholar.

51 Makkai wrote that although it might be better in some ways to forget the suffering of the 1670s, it was helpful in order to understand religious mentalities during the early modern period, the development of Hungarian resistance to the Habsburgs, and to consider how the ruling class had responded to a crisis in authority by imposing religious persecution in A magyarországi gályarab prédikátorok emlékezete, ed. Makkai (1976), 8; A magyar református egyház története, ed. I. Révész et al. (Budapest, 1949), 110–19.

52 http://www.deruyter.org/Bezoek_Debreczen_2001.html.

53 http://www.federatio.org/ruyter.html and http://www.deruyter.org/chronologie_link_hong.pred.html.

54 http://www.deruyter.org/Bezoek_Roumenie_2005.html.