A team of historians, led by Professor Beatrix F. Romhányi of the Institute of History at our university has won a grant of HUF 14.2 million (worth of EUR 43,000) from the grant scheme of the National Research, Development and Innovation Office for a research project related to 16th century Franciscan sermon literature.
Pelbartus Temesvári and Osvaldus Laskai are outstanding representants of Franciscan sermon literature both in medieval Hungary and Latin Christianity. Laskai contributed significantly also to the development of the Observant vicariate of the Franciscans, his activity prepared the later formation of the Salvatorian Province (1517). The works of the two Franciscan authors were published several times in the Middle Ages and in the Early Modern times, but their modern critical publication is still not complete. To fill this lack, a project lead by Ildikó Bárczi started the publication of Temesvári's works, while another project supported by OTKA has been initiated in 2009, with the participation of researchers of Károli Gáspár University and the Széchényi National Library (K 77915, K104716) for to publish Laskai’s Sermones de sanctis. The present research project is the continuation of the above ones. Beside the completion of Sermones de sanctis we also would like to complete the publication of Temesvári's Quadragesimale which has been interrupted because of Ildikó Bárczi’s early death. Both the publication and the collection of exempla and of liturgical quotations are of international interest, the research group has already established contacts to the Groupe d'Anthropologie Historique de l'Occident Médiéval (GAHOM) founded by Jacques LeGoff in 1978 in Paris. The results of our research will be integrated into the Thesaurus Exemplorum Medii Aevi (ThEMA) run by GAHOM.
