De damnabili ritu Graecorum : Osualdus de Lasko’s Sermons Regarding Orthodox Christians in Late Medieval Hungary

ABSTRACTAmong the various inhabitants of the Hungarian Kingdom during the Middle Ages, there were also Orthodox Christians, frequently designated as schismatici. Secular and ecclesiastic authorities often sought their conversion and the mission of the Order of Friars Minor in this area targeted them as well. A change of attitude was imposed, at least for a time, in 1439 by the decree of union agreed at the Council of Florence (1438–39). A half a century later, Osualdus de Lasko (c. 1450–1511), a Hungarian Observant Franciscan, wrote a Lenten homiletic cycle exhorting a profound commitment to the true faith by addressing the question of the Byzantine rite in three of his sermons. This article offers an analysis of the sermon collection entitled Quadragesimale Gemma fidei, focusing mainly on the three sermons de damnabili ritu Graecorum. I will argue that, on a spiritual level, Osualdus intended to strengthen the faith of the Catholic inhabitants of Hungary, to resist and correct deviances, in order to regain God’s mercy. On a temporal level, he promoted the return of the ‘Greeks’ to communion with the Roman Church, through conversion, probably in the interest of a stronger front against the Ottomans.KEYWORDS: Orthodox ChristiansByzantine riteconversionChurch unionCouncil of FlorenceObservant FranciscansHungarian Kingdomanti-Ottoman crusadesLenten sermonsOsualdus de Lasko Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Osualdus de Lasko, Quadragesimale Gemma fidei intitulatum (Hagenau: Henricus Gran, 1507), VD16 O 1421; USTC 693629; RMK III, 141.2 Pelbartus de Themeswar and Osualdus de Lasko are the only medieval Hungarian authors of sermon collections. Their works, compiled at the end of the fifteenth century and published directly in print, seem to have enjoyed great popularity, as proved by their multiple editions. For a repertoire of all medieval editions of their works see Gedeon Borsa, ‘Laskai Osvát és Temesvári Pelbárt műveinek megjelentetői’, Magyar Könyvszemle, 121 (2005), 1–24.3 Osualdus de Lasko, Quadragesimale bige salutis (Hagenau: Heinrich Gran, 1506), VD16 O 1419; USTC 688968; RMK III 137.4 Jussi Hanska, ‘Sermones quadragesimales: Birth and Development of a Genre’, Il Santo: Rivista francescana di storia, dottrina e arte, 52 (2012), 107–27 (pp. 111–19). Silvana Vecchio, ‘Le prediche e l’istruzione religiosa’, in La predicazione dei frati dalla meta` del ’200 alla fine del ’300, Atti dei Convegni della Societa` internazionale di studi francescani e del Centro interuniversitario di studi francescani, Nuova serie, 5 (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 1995), pp. 301–35 (p. 304).5 An edition of the prologue was provided by Edit Madas, ‘A prédikáció magvetésével a magyar nemzet védelmében (Laskai Osvát Gemma fidei című prédikációskötetének előszava)’, in Religió, retorika, nemzettudat régi irodalmunkban, ed. by István Bitskey and András Görömbei (Debrecen: Kossuth Egyetemi Kiadó, 2004), pp. 55–58.6 This is the generic purpose of Lenten preaching, as has been emphasized by the editors of the first collection of studies specifically dedicated to the thorough investigation of the genre: ‘to prepare the faithful, through careful reflection on their own earthly existence, to celebrate Easter through the confession of sins and the Eucharistic banquet’. See Pietro Delcorno, Eleonora Lombardo, and Lorenza Tromboni, ‘Introduzione: I sermoni quaresimali. Digiuno del corpo, banchetto dell’anima’, in I sermoni quaresimali: digiuno del corpo, banchetto dell’anima, ed. by Pietro Delcorno, Eleonora Lombardo, and Lorenza Tromboni, Memorie domenicane, NS 48 (Firenze: Nerbini, 2017), p. 10.7 A preliminary discussion of these texts in: Paula Cotoi, 'Între schismă şi unire religioasă. Predicile lui Osvaldus de Lasko despre ritul răsăritean, la începutul secolului al XVI-lea', in Pasiune și rigoare: Noi tentații istoriografice: Omagiu profesorului Ovidiu Ghitta, ed. by Ionuț Costea, Radu Mârza, Valentin Orga (Cluj-Napoca: Mega – Argonaut, 2022), pp. 207–219.8 Kálmán Timár, ‘Laskai Ozsvát és a bibliográfia’, Magyar Könyvszemle, 18 (1910), 122–53.9 Die Matrikel der Universität Wien: im Auftrag des Akademischen Senats herausgegeben vom Archiv der Universität Wien, ii: 1451–1518/I, ed. by Franz Gall and Willy Szaivert (Graz: Böhlau, 1967), p. 146.10 For a recent and comprehensive analysis of this work of Pelbartus de Themeswar, see Alexandra Baneu, ‘Structuri conceptuale în opera lui Pelbartus de Themeswar: Elemente de gândire scotistă în Rosarium’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, 2016).11 Balázs Kertész, ‘Two Hungarian Friars Minor (Franciscan Observants) in the Late Middle Ages: Pelbart de Temesvár and Oswald de Lasko’, in Infima aetas Pannonica: Studies in Late Medieval Hungarian History, ed. by Péter E. Kovács and Kornél Szovák (Budapest: Corvina, 2009), pp. 60–78 (pp. 67–68).12 Balázs Kertész, ‘The 1499 Constitutions of the Hungarian Observant Franciscan Vicariate’, Chronica, 15 (2017), 173–86 (pp. 175, 177–80).13 Kertész, ‘The 1499 Constitutions’, 177–78; Andor Tarnai, ‘A magyarországi obszervánsok rendi krónikájának szerzői és forrásai’, Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények, 77 (1973), 135–47 (p. 140); Balázs Kertész, ‘A magyarországi obszerváns ferencesek krónikájának szerzőségéhez’, in Nyolcszáz esztendős a ferences rend: Tanulmányok a rend lelkiségéről, történeti hivatásáról és kulturális — művészeti szerepéről, ed. by Medgyesy S. Norbert, Ötvös István, and Őze Sándor (Budapest: Írott Szó Alapítvány, 2013), pp. 164–86.14 Richárd Horváth, Laskai Ozsvát (Budapest: Sárkány, 1932), p. 43.15 Pietro Delcorno, ‘Strategie “identitarie” divergenti? I quaresimali di Johannes Meder e Osvát Laskai’, in L’Observance entre normalisation et répression (xve–xvie sec.), ed. by Sylvie Duval and others (Roma: École française de Rome, forthcoming). I am grateful to Pietro Delcorno for providing me with the manuscript of this study.16 For the construction and use of this topos in Hungary, see Orsolya Száraz, ‘The Bastion of Christendom’, Philobiblon: Transylvanian Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Humanities, 25 (2020), 281–303.17 For this reason, Marie-Madelaine de Cevins defines Osualdus’ work as a theological treatise. Marie-Madelaine de Cevins, Les Franciscains observants hongrois de l’expansion á la débâcle (vers 1450–vers 1540) (Roma: Istituto storico dei Cappuccini, 2008), p. 249. The author himself is aware that his approach and such a dense content might not meet the expectations of his readers, so he advises them to carefully examine the volume little by little, ruminating over every idea, in order to uncover its ‘utilitas et suavitas’ [‘usefulness and grace’]. However, the text was clearly intended to inspire and support preaching, as Osualdus addresses his fellow preachers, advising them how to deliver the message in front of an audience and insisting upon including the miracles and exempla he provided.18 Hungarian researchers, such as Jenő Szűcs and Andor Tornai, analyzed the prologue and suggested it reflected the rise of a national ethos. Edit Madas, in a more nuanced approach, highlighted the religious reasons of the building of such a ‘national responsibility’. Jenő Szűcs, ‘Nép és nemzet a középkor végén’, in Nemzet és történelem: tanulmányok, ed. by Jenő Szűcs (Budapest: Gondolat, 1974), pp. 569–81; Andor Tornai, ‘A magyar nyelvet írni kezdik’: irodalmi gondolkodás a középkori Magyarországon (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1984), p. 98; Madas, ‘A prédikáció magvetésével a magyar nemzet védelmében’, pp. 50–54.19 Lasko, Gemma fidei, fol. k7r.20 Lasko, Gemma fidei, fol. k7v.21 Antoninus Florentinus, a Dominican friar, participated as a theologian in the Council of Florence. Sally J. Cornelison, Art and the Relic Cult of St. Antoninus in Renaissance Florence (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 11–28. – Title xxii of the third part of the chronicle recounts events contemporary to the author. Chapter xi refers to the Council of Florence, while chapter xiii provides an excursus regarding the errors and ‘schisms’ of the Byzantine Church as a preamble to the short description of the fall of Constantinople. See Chroniques de Saint Antonin: fragments originaux du titre xxii (1378–1459), ed. by Raoul Morçay (Paris: Librairie Gabalda, 1913), pp. iii–xxxiii.22 Canon iv is entitled ‘De superbia Graecorum contra Latinos’. See Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta, ed. by Hubert Jedin and others (Bologna: Istituto Per le Scienze, 1973), pp. 235–36.23 Lasko, Gemma fidei, fol. o8r.24 This was also the position of the Catholic Church within the debates conducted in Ferrara and Florence. However, in that context the topic received far more attention, being the most disputed matter. Joseph Gill, The Council of Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), pp. 145–79, 189–266; A. Edward Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 15–172.25 Lasko, Gemma fidei, fol. p5v: ‘[…] greci, qui non solum sunt scismatici sed etiam heretici exquo non recognoscunt Sanctam Rhomanam Ecclesiam caput omnium ecclesiarum’ [‘the Greeks, who are not only schismatic, but also heretics, for they do not recognize the Holy Roman Church as head of all Churches’].26 In fact, even during the Council of Florence, the use of leavened or unleavened bread did not arouse heated debates. Regarding the liturgical formula by which the sacrament is fulfilled, during the negotiations, Cardinal Cesarini (1398–1444) noted that the subject did not appear in the usual list of differences between the two Christian traditions, and although that matter was disputed more intensely, the decree of union still did not include any reference to this aspect. See Gill, The Council of Florence, pp. 280–86; A. Edward Siecienski, Beards, Azymes, and Purgatory: The Other Issues that Divided East and West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), pp. 175–80. Particularly relevant is the observation formulated by Chris Schabel, who points out that Catholic theologians always accepted as valid the use of leavened bread. See Chris Schabel, ‘The Quarrel over Unleavened Bread in Western Theology, 1234–1439’, in Greeks, Latins, and Intellectual History, 1204–1500, ed. by Martin Hinterberger and Chris Schabel (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), pp. 85–127.27 Lasko, Gemma fidei, fol. p5r–v.28 Pope Martin V (1417–31) recognized its validity in 1418, when establishing the conditions for mixed marriages. See Iulian Mihai Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie (Cluj-Napoca: Centrul de Studii Transilvane, 2011), p. 158. Concerning the topic of the rebaptism of the ‘Greeks’ by the ‘Latins’ and the previous position of the Papacy with regard to baptismal formulas see Yury P. Avvakumov, ‘The Controversy over the Baptismal Formula under Pope Gregory IX’, in Greeks, Latins, and Intellectual History, 1204-1500, Greeks, Latins, and Intellectual History, 1204–1500, ed. by Martin Hinterberger and Chris Schabel (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), pp. 69–84.29 Iulian Damian mentions that the rebaptism of the Romanian and Slav converts was being performed in Hungary already in the fourteenth century. Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, p. 162.30 The canonical fundament for the conditional baptism of the neophytes by the Friars Minor is the bull issued by Pope Gregory XI (1370–78) on 12 March 1370, at the express request of the Franciscan missionaries who were operating precisely in territories inhabited by ‘schismatics’. See Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, pp. 161–62.31 Published in the thirteenth century, the Sentences’ commentaries of Richardus of Mediavilla were already printed, in several editions, by the time Osualdus compiled his sermon collection. The first printed edition: Richardus of Mediavilla, Commentum super quarto libro Sententiarum Petri Lombardi (Venice: Christophorus Arnoldus, [about 1474]), GW M22505; ISTC im00422800.32 Mediavilla, Commentum super quarto libro Sententiarum, Liber iv, Distinctio xiii, questio i, fols [81]r–[82]v.33 ‘Initium omnis peccati est superbia. Qui tenuerit illam adimplebitur maledictis, et subvertet eum in finem. Propterea exhonoravit Dominus conventus malorum, et destruxit eos usque in finem’ [‘For pride is the beginning of all sin: he that holdeth it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end. Therefore hath the Lord disgraced the assemblies of the wicked, and hath utterly destroyed them’] (Ecclesiastes 10. 15–16).34 The eschatological tone is also present in the sermons about the Muslims, clearly directed against the Ottomans, just as it will be later found in the crusade preaching of the Hungarian Friars Minor, in 1514. See Delcorno, ‘Strategie “identitarie” divergenti?’; De Cevins, Les franciscains observants hongrois, pp. 282–83, 323–29, and 340–43.35 Nora Berend, Przemysław Urbańczyk, and Przemysław Wiszewski, Central Europe in the High Middle Ages: Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, c. 900–1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 252–57; Ioan-Aurel Pop, ‘Between Rome and Constantinople: The Religious Structure of Medieval Hungary (13th–14th centuries)’, in Church and Society in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. by Maria Crăciun and Ovidiu Ghitta (Cluj-Napoca: European Studies Foundation Publishing House, 1998), pp. 115–22.36 Berend, Urbańczyk, and Wiszewski, Central Europe in the High Middle Ages, pp. 227–32; István Baán, ‘The Metropolitanate of Tourkia: The Organization of the Byzantine Church in Hungary in the Middle Ages’, in Byzanz und Ostmitteleuropa 950–1453: Beiträge zu einer table-ronde des xix International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Copenhagen 1996, ed. by Günter Prinzing and Maciej Salamon (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999), pp. 45–53; Gyula Moravcsik, Byzantium and the Magyars (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1970); Gyula Moravcsik, ‘The Role of the Byzantine Church in Medieval Hungary’, The American Slavic and East European Review, 6 (1947), 134–51.37 Pop, ‘Between Rome and Constantinople’, pp. 116–18; Ioan-Aurel Pop, ‘De manibus Vallacorum scismaticorum … ’: Romanians and Power in the Mediaeval Kingdom of Hungary: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2013), pp. 103–17.38 Pop, ‘Between Rome and Constantinople’, pp. 119–20; Ioan-Aurel Pop, ‘Church and State in Eastern Europe during the Fourteenth Century: Why the Romanians Remained in the Orthodox Area’, East European Quarterly, 29 (1995), 278–82; Ioan-Aurel Pop, Naţiunea română medievală: Solidarităţi etnice româneşti în secolele xiii–xvi (Bucureşti: Editura Enciclopedică, 1998), pp. 87–91; Norman Housley, ‘King Louis the Great of Hungary and the Crusades, 1342–1382’, The Slavonic and East European Review, 62 (1984), 192–208.39 Regarding the presence of Hussites in medieval Hungary, see Pál Tóth-Szabó, Cseh-huszita mozgalmak Magyarországon (Budapest: Hornyánszky, 1917); György Székely, ‘A huszitismus és a magyar nép’, Századok, 90 (1956), 331–67, 556–90. A more recent contribution, also highlighting the role of the Observant Franciscans in fighting the heresy: György Galamb, ‘San Giacomo della Marca e gli eretici di Ungheria’, in San Giacomo della Marca nell'Europa del '400: Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi. Monteprandone 7–10 settembre 1994, ed. by Silvano Bracci (Padova: Centro studi antoniani, 1997), pp. 211–20.40 Concerning the consequences of the Florentine Union in Hungary, see Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, pp. 86–95; Marius Diaconescu, ‘Les implications confessionnelles du Concile de Florence en Hongrie’, Mediaevalia Transilvanica, 1 (1997), 29–62; Adrian Andrei Rusu, ‘Sinodul de la Florenţa şi urmările lui în Regatul Ungariei şi în Transilvania’, in Adrian Andrei Rusu, Ioan de Hunedoara şi românii din vremea lui: studii (Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitară Clujeană, 1999), pp. 77–127.41 Victor Spinei, ‘The Cuman Bishopric — Genesis and Evolution’, in The Other Europe in the Middle Ages: Avars, Bulgars, Khazars and Cumans, ed. by Florin Curta, East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 2008), ii, 413–56. Besides the example of the Cuman Bishopric, in 1374, Pope Gregory XI (1370–78) was writing to the king and to the two archbishops of Hungary about the conversion of some Romanians living on the eastern border of the Hungarian Kingdom, thanks to the efforts of king Louis the Great, emphasizing that there were still plenty of them who would not renounce the schism because they were not satisfied with the Hungarian clergy and are asking for priests who speak their own language. Therefore, the pope demanded the appointment of a bishop for the better integration of these converts. See Documenta Romaniae Historica, C. Transilvania, vol. xiv: 1371–1375, ed. by Aurel Răduţiu, Viorica Pervain, Susana Andea, and Lidia Gross (Bucureşti: Editura Academiei Române, 2002), nos 354, 355, 356 on pp. 492–96. See Pop, ‘Church and State in Eastern Europe’, p. 281.42 Pop, Naţiunea română medievală, pp. 87–96.43 For instance, a charter issued by King Sigismund of Luxemburg in 1428 mentions that there were noblemen who secretly kept schismatic priests on their domains, although King Louis the Great had forbidden the possession of any noble estates for non-Catholics. See Pop, Naţiunea română medievală, p. 92.44 A papal bull issued in 1234 regarding the Romanians from episcopatu cumanorum, attests that they refused to submit to the Catholic bishop and were converting Hungarians, Saxons, and other Catholics. Documenta Romaniae Historica, D. Relaţii între Ţările Române, vol. I: 1222–1456, ed. by Ștefan Pascu and others (București: Editura Academiei R.S.R., 1977), no. 9, pp. 20–21; See Pop, Naţiunea română medievală, pp. 83–85. As late as 1515, the Catholic priest from Șibot, a Transylvanian village, was complaining that the Romanians from a nearby town were harassing his few parishioners and was asking the bishop to intervene in order to avoid the diminishing of the Catholic faith because of the schismatics. See Ioan-Aurel Pop, ‘Confesiune şi naţiune medievală: solidarităţi româneşti în secolele xiv–xvi’, Anuarul Institutului de Istorie ‘George Bariţiu’ din Cluj-Napoca. Seria Historia, 28 (1987/88), 177–87 (p. 183).45 Nora Berend, ‘The Mendicant Orders and the Conversion of Pagans in Hungary’, Alle frontiere della cristianità: i frati mendicanti e l'evangelizzazione tra '200 e '300. Atti del xxviii convegno internazionale, Assisi, 12–14 ottobre 2000 (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2001), pp. 253–79; Șerban Papacostea, ‘Întemeierea Țării Românești și a Moldovei și românii din Transilvania: un nou izvor’, in Șerban Papacostea, Geneza statului în Evul Mediu românesc: Studii critice (București: Corint, 1999), pp. 81–103 (pp. 95–102).46 Papacostea, ‘Întemeierea Țării Românești și a Moldovei’, pp. 81–103; Dionysius Lasić, ‘Fr. Bartholomaei de Alverna, Vicarii Bosnae, 1367–1407, quaedam scripta hucusque inedita’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 55 (1962), 59–81.47 De Cevins, Les franciscains observants hongrois, pp. 32–35; Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, pp. 142–52.48 John Hofer, St. John Capistran: A Reformer in Battle, trans. by Patrick Cummis (Post Falls: Mediatrix, 2018), pp. 364–73.49 Iulian Mihai Damian, ‘The Greek Rite Transylvanian Church in the 1450’: Archbishop John of Caffa and the Crusade in East-Central Europe’, in Extincta est lucerna orbis: John Hunyadi and his Time, ed. by Ana Dumitran, Loránd Mádly, and Alexandru Simon, Mélanges d’Histoire Générale, NS, I/2 (Cluj-Napoca: Centrul de Studii Transilvane — IDC Press, 2009), pp. 149–60; Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, pp. 96–140; Diaconescu, ‘Les implications confessionnelles’, 38–46.50 The Observant Franciscans managed to ensure key positions within the Kingdom, entering the ecclesiastic hierarchy and cultivating their relation with the royalty. In 1502 they succeeded to return under the jurisdiction of the cismontane vicar, reaffirming their individuality in relation to the Conventual branch. De Cevins, Les franciscains observants hongrois, pp. 231–38.51 In the Catholic Church Jubilees are celebrated every twenty-five or fifty years, with extraordinary Jubilees occurring on special occasions. In this tradition, dating back to 1300, the pope proclaimed a Jubilee through a bull, granting indulgences for remission of sins for the pilgrims visiting Rome during that year, but sometimes they were extended for other territories as well, as it was the case in 1500. Concerning the Jubilees of Late Middle Ages, see Nikolaus Paulus, Geschichte des Ablasses im Mittelalter vom Ursprunge bis zur Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts, 3 vols (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1922–23), 3 (1923), 181–94.52 De Cevins, Les franciscains observants hongrois, pp. 238–39.53 Since the description of the fall of Constantinople uses the rhetoric of Apocalypse, Marie-Madeleine de Cevins considers it a sign of the reception of the eschatological movements expressed in fifteenth-century Europe.54 Lasko, Gemma fidei, fol. p5v.55 ‘Ergo etiam modernam vestram separationem vestris culpis deputetis et flentes redite ad veram viam salutis eterne’ [‘Therefore, you have to blame yourselves even for your recent separation and, crying, you should return to the righteous pathway to eternal salvation’]. See Osualdus de Lasko, Gemma fidei, fol. p3v.56 Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, pp. 190–94.57 ‘Et auctoritas Pape non dependet a concilio, sed auctoritas concilii a Papa, qui est super concilia’ [‘And the authority of the Pope does not depend on the council, but the authority of the council depends on the Pope, who is above the council’]. See Osualdus de Lasko, Gemma fidei, fol. p8r.58 Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, p. 89.Additional informationNotes on contributorsPaula CotoiPaula Cotoi (paula.cotoi@bcucluj.ro) is a Special Collections librarian at ‘Lucian Blaga’ Central University Library in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and a member of TRANS.SCRIPT. The Centre for Diplomatic and Medieval Documentary Palaeography of the Babeș-Bolyai University.