Cathedral Libraries in Medieval Hungary

Abstract In spite of the limited evidence, some characteristic features of the cathedral libraries of medieval Hungary can be established. The case of the cathedral library of Esztergom illustrates the methodological problems and the limits of reconstructing the lost holdings of a medieval library. Library catalogues, the most important sources for the study of cathedral libraries in medieval Hungary, survive from the cathedrals of Veszprem (I435) and Zagreb (I394, I426). On the basis of these book registers that were incorporated into the general inventories of the cathedrals, it is possible to define what kinds of codices they possessed and to explore the structure of their libraries as well as the system of book provision. The way the inventories were compiled reveals the methods of manuscript cataloguing and the records of book loans provide an insight into the interest of the readers.