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Papal Indulgences and the Conversion of Schismatics in Late Medieval Transylvania (c.1350–c.1450)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2025

Teodora Popovici Open the ORCID record for Teodora Popovici [Opens in a new window]
Teodora Popovici*
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University of Bucharest
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Abstract

This article explores the self-representations of marginality found in the indulgence petitions addressed by Transylvanian supplicants to the papal chancery during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As one of Hungary’s border provinces, Transylvania was located on the eastern frontier of late medieval Latin Christendom. Although Transylvanian Catholics often expressed a sense of marginality in their petitions to the pope, this sentiment was not primarily defined by the petitioners’ distance to the Apostolic see; rather, it was described in relation to the Greek Orthodox Christians in Transylvania and, later, to the approaching Ottoman Turks. To illustrate this point, the article presents three case studies of indulgence petitions submitted by Transylvanian supplicants between 1350 and 1450, highlighting how the petitioners’ discourse about marginality changed over the course of this period. In addition, this article emphasizes the role attributed by petitioners to papal indulgences in converting the ‘schismatics’ in Transylvania to the Latin faith.

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Research Article
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Studies in Church History , Volume 61: MARGINS AND PERIPHERIES IN CHRISTIAN HISTORY , June 2025 , pp. 208 - 229
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Ecclesiastical History Society

Introduction

As the easternmost province of the kingdom of Hungary, Transylvania was positioned at the edge of late medieval Latin Christendom. The official Transylvanian ecclesiastical hierarchy was part of the Catholic Church, but the region also encompassed many Greek Orthodox communities, referred to by Latin sources as the ‘schismatics’ (scismatici). They were subject to conversion attempts led by the papacy and the Hungarian royal authorities, particularly during the second half of the fourteenth century. This article explores the issue of self-perceived marginality among Transylvanian Catholics during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, based on their indulgence requests addressed to the papal chancery and on the indulgence letters issued by the papacy in response. These types of petitions were one of the most common forms of communication between centre and periphery within the late medieval Catholic Church; they thus provide interesting insights into the ways in which petitioners portrayed and perceived themselves in relation to the central authority of the church.Footnote 1

Although Transylvanian Catholics belonged to the official church of their realm, a sense of marginality was often expressed in their petitions to the pope. However, this sentiment was not primarily defined in spatial terms, emphasizing the petitioners’ distance from the Holy See; rather, it was linked to the presence of Greek Orthodox communities in Transylvania. Prior to the 1420s, Transylvanian supplicants almost always described their marginality as proximity to the ‘schismatics’, whom they depicted as stubborn and violent. Over the first half of the fifteenth century, a gradual shift in discourse can be noticed, as Transylvanian Catholics increasingly started to represent their marginality in relation to the Ottoman Turks. Their requests to the pope highlight the struggles faced by Transylvanian churches; the relationship between marginality, indulgences and devotion; and the perceived role of papal indulgences in the conversion of Greek Orthodox Christians to Catholicism.

The Mixed Confessional Landscape of Medieval Transylvania

Medieval Transylvania was organized as a voivodeship whose governor, the voivode, was directly appointed by the king of Hungary. The Catholic diocese of Transylvania was one of the largest in the kingdom and consisted of thirteen archdeaconries. The local episcopal see was in Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia), and its bishop was under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Kalocsa.Footnote 2 The political organization of the area did not fully coincide with the ecclesiastical one, and although the jurisdiction of the bishopric mostly overlapped with the territory of the voivodate, it also included several other territories in northern Hungary, such as the archdeaconries of Szatmár (Satu Mare) and Ugocsa.Footnote 3 Moreover, certain parts of southern Transylvania, which were inhabited by Saxon colonists, had a special ecclesiastical status and were exempt from the authority of the Transylvanian bishop. The provostship (chapter) of Hermannstadt (Sibiu) and the chapter of Burzenland (Țara Bârsei) were placed directly under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Esztergom, whose see was located north-west of Buda. Given the great distance to their bishop, the deans of these chapters were granted quasi-episcopal powers.Footnote 4 For the purposes of this article, I will take into consideration examples from both the diocese of Transylvania and from the exempt territories of the Transylvanian Saxons.

While the Latin church had a well-documented presence in Transylvania, the religious life of the Greek Orthodox communities is less understood. Several churches, monasteries and parochial networks are known, but the existence of a stable episcopal see in the area is uncertain for this period.Footnote 5 The confessional differences in the region were linked to its ethnic diversity: the Greek Orthodox Christians in Transylvania and eastern Hungary were mostly Vlachs (Romanians), Ruthenians and Serbs; while the Catholic population mainly comprised Hungarians, Saxons and Székelys. However, there are many notable examples of Greek Orthodox Christians converting to Catholicism, especially among the lay elites,Footnote 6 and some sources also allude to possible instances of Catholic conversions to Eastern Christianity, although these cases remain poorly documented.Footnote 7 Hungarian and Romanian historians have sometimes had divergent views about the proportion each confession represented in the overall population of medieval Transylvania, and the debate has been fuelled not only by the scarcity of statistical sources, but also by the different geographical definitions used by scholars who have made population estimates.Footnote 8

Nеvertheless, Greek Orthodox Christians remained the largest religious minority in late medieval Hungary, and converting them to Catholicism was an important challenge for both the papacy and the royal authorities.Footnote 9 This concern reached its peak during the reign of Louis I (1342–82). Some coercive measures were taken against the Greek Orthodox clergy in parts of Hungary,Footnote 10 while ordinary individuals were usually promised various concessions in exchange for converting, such as tithe exemptions and new church buildings.Footnote 11 In this effort, Louis employed the support of the Franciscans, who undertook missionary work from several of their monasteries established across eastern Hungary.Footnote 12 The conversion campaigns have drawn the attention of several historians and theologians, although their interpretations of them have varied. Some scholars have viewed these measures as the systematic persecution of the Greek Orthodox Christians in Hungary,Footnote 13 while others have adopted a more nuanced position, highlighting the limited and uncertain application of the coercive measures, the benefices enjoyed by the newly converted, or the religious tolerance of Catholic landowners towards their Greek Orthodox serfs, who were allowed to observe their faith provided they fulfilled their economic obligations.Footnote 14 Apart from a few cases of mass conversions,Footnote 15 the missionary campaigns overall were ineffective, and they were eventually abandoned during the reign of King Sigismund of Luxembourg (1387–1437), who was a supporter of the reconciliation between the Latin and Greek churches.Footnote 16 Individual conversions were more common among the lay elites, for whom the new faith brought the prospect of social ascent.Footnote 17 In some areas of Transylvania, the conversions gave birth to unique forms of devotion, which incorporated elements of both Latin and Slavonic rite.Footnote 18 While previous contributions have largely debated the political and religious marginality of the Greek Orthodox Christians in the kingdom, this article will examine the idea of marginality as experienced by the Catholic communities in Transylvania, analysing the language of indulgence petitions from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Papal Indulgences in Medieval Transylvania

An indulgence was a partial or total reduction of penance granted by a bishop for performing various pious acts. The remission might be expressed in days, years or quadragenes (units of forty days), or a combination of these. Papal indulgences were typically considered the most valuable, as they provided more days of pardon. Starting with the classic works of Henry Charles Lea and Nikolaus Paulus,Footnote 19 medieval indulgences have sparked the interest of church historians in relation to various research problems, such as devotional practices, the concept of crusade, and the causes of the Reformation. Although the local particularities of the phenomenon in Transylvania and eastern Hungary have not yet been fully clarified, a number of studies have made significant contributions in this direction. Katalin Erős has recently completed a valuable PhD dissertation analysing the various types of indulgence grants and their relation to piety in medieval Hungary.Footnote 20 Other notable contributions include Jan Hrdina’s studies discussing the papal indulgences received by Central European churches during the Great Western Schism (1378–1417), which also contain a review of Transylvanian examples.Footnote 21 Most recently, the indulgences of the Marian churches in Hungary have been analysed by Karen L. Stark, who notes their significance for practices of Marian devotion.Footnote 22

In a paper published at the turn of the twenty-first century, Viorel Achim identified an interesting problem regarding the relation between indulgence petitions and missionary work in eastern Hungary.Footnote 23 Achim examined an indulgence request addressed in 1421 to the papal chancery by petitioners from Belényes (Beiuș), a Hungarian town in the diocese of Várad (Oradea), which bordered the diocese of Transylvania to the west. Belényes formed the centre of a domain owned by the bishop of Várad, and the town’s inhabitants were mainly Hungarian, but the surrounding estate included eighty-three villages of Greek Orthodox Vlachs. In their petition, the townspeople of Belényes depicted themselves as a Catholic enclave surrounded by Vlachs, whom they labelled as ‘pagan’, an equivocal description which might have equally hinted at their rustic life and their lax ecclesiastical organization.Footnote 24 The supplicants pointed to their recent efforts at converting the Vlachs to Catholicism, which, in their view, made the local church worthy to receive an indulgence of eight years and eight quadragenes at the feast of Corpus Christi.Footnote 25 The indulgence was depicted as a means to support the Catholics in their missionary endeavour, so that the Vlachs would be converted more quickly.Footnote 26

Viorel Achim asked whether the supposed conversion accomplishments were real, or just a persuasive strategy used by the petitioners to gain indulgences from the pope. By surveying complementary sources, he concluded that systematic missionary work had not taken place in the area and that any alleged conversions were, at most, isolated cases.Footnote 27 Although the townspeople of Belényes only received two years and two quadragenes of pardon,Footnote 28 the example still raises interesting questions about the self-representations of marginality among Catholics in eastern Hungary. Viorel Achim focused on the petitioners’ exaggeration of their own merits, but their sense of being surrounded appears as an equally striking element of discourse. As illustrated below, this idea is also present in petitions from the diocese of Transylvania and from the exempt ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Transylvanian Saxons. The narrative devices used by petitioners to construct this image will be further explored in the next sections, by discussing similar examples.

Before moving forward, however, an additional question might be addressed: did Transylvania’s marginal position within the Catholic Church and its confessional particularities make any difference to the reception of indulgences by Transylvanian Catholics? I would argue that, in the mixed confessional landscape of late medieval Transylvania, papal indulgences had a twofold role. On the one hand, they supported churches in areas with large numbers of Greek Orthodox Christians by encouraging donations from parishioners and prompting collective forms of devotion. On the other hand, papal indulgences could be used to reward Greek Orthodox Christians who agreed to convert to Catholicism, while also stimulating church attendance among them. Since many rural settlements lacked parish churches,Footnote 29 rewarding attendance was important in areas where a clerical hierarchy had not been previously well-established. Although the effectiveness of indulgence grants as incentives for conversion and church participation is questionable, they were nevertheless seen as tools for accomplishing these goals, both by the central and the local actors involved in these missionary efforts.

Across the late medieval period, Transylvanians obtained various types of papal indulgences. Most commonly, these were indulgences for visiting and financially supporting those churches close to Greek Orthodox communities, whose violence Transylvanian petitioners sometimes complained about. As in other parts of Europe, alms collected from distributing papal indulgences helped fund the construction of and repairs to church buildings.Footnote 30 One might assign equal importance to the indulgences issued for the churches of the newly converted, which served as a sign of a thriving religious life. Catholics could also occasionally obtain individual remission of penance if they were involved in local conversion actions. Other indulgences, issued at the request of the king, encouraged particular forms of devotion in the area, such as public prayers for the king’s victory against the neighbouring Greek Orthodox states and for the successful conversion of the ‘schismatics’.Footnote 31

Signalling Marginality in Indulgence Petitions

Papal indulgences could be obtained by addressing a written request to the pontifical chancery and by paying a fee. Approved petitions were recorded in a series of registers known as Registra Supplicationum, the earliest of which is dated 1342.Footnote 32 The oldest Transylvanian indulgence petitions included in the Registra date from the middle of the fourteenth century. Most of them are known only by their register copies, with very few examples surviving in original form or as notarial confirmations. For the kingdom of Hungary, the earliest surviving originals date from the 1480s, and several notarial confirmations issued for Transylvanian petitioners are known from the beginning of the sixteenth century.Footnote 33 In most cases, the individuals petitioning the pope were prominent members of their community, such as the parish priest or the landowner who acted as the patron of the local church. The papal letters issued as a result would sometimes recycle narrative elements of the initial petitions, which can prove useful in reconstructing the text of the supplications in cases where the register copies have been lost.

Transylvanians would often invoke their marginal position within the church as an argument for obtaining indulgences from the pope, sometimes requesting more days and years of remission than normally granted. Nevertheless, the borders of Latin Christendom were not usually described by petitioners in direct relation to the papal Curia, in terms of their geographical distance to the Apostolic see. Instead, they appeared as a mixed religious space, a grey area where Catholicism was not fully prevalent, and Christians ‘lived among the schismatics’. Marginality was in that sense mainly linked to the idea of disunity. References to Transylvania’s geographical remoteness to the Apostolic see are more frequent in requests for confessionalia,Footnote 34 whenever the supplication was made by someone else on the beneficiary’s behalf, to justify why he or she could not come to the papal Curia personally.

The representations of marginality also had a social component. Greek Orthodox communities were often portrayed as violent, and petitions alluded to social tensions with the Catholics. This stereotypical portrayal often appeared in relation to the Vlachs and has been noted in other sources of the period as well.Footnote 35 As a result, missionary work served not only the salvation of souls, but was also a factor of social disciplining. During the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, whenever the ‘schismatics’ were mentioned in indulgence petitions, references to conversion efforts were generally made as well, although additional details were seldom given. It is worth stressing that the descriptions mostly addressed local realities, such as the Greek Orthodox Christians residing close to the petitioner’s town or village; references to the Orthodox states bordering Transylvania are less frequent.

The tone of the supplications started to change during the first half of the fifteenth century, as Transylvanian Catholics began to describe their marginality in relation to the growing presence of the Ottoman Turks.Footnote 36 In comparison to the cruelty of the Turks, the descriptions of Transylvanian Vlachs and other ‘schismatics’ began to soften. The focus of the petitions was placed on the foreigners’ intrusion into the Christian universe, and while the ‘schismatics’ did not completely disappear from view, they were no longer the main cause of complaint. This observation is consistent with the fact that religious proselytism towards the Greek Orthodox Christians in Hungary saw a decline in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century, during the reign of Sigismund of Luxembourg, when the stern conversion policy adopted by his predecessor, Louis I, was abandoned. Sigismund’s support for reuniting the Latin and Greek churches was also closely tied to his vision for strengthening defences against the Ottomans.Footnote 37 Moreover, the status of the Greek Orthodox clergy in Hungary improved following the settlement of many Serbs in the kingdom after the advances of the Ottomans in the Balkans.Footnote 38 Naturally, the decree of union between the two churches adopted by the Council of Florence in 1439 also played a role in changing the discourse noticeable in the petitions.

The image of Hungary as the gateway of Christendom in relation to the pagans,Footnote 39 and later as the bulwark of Christendom in relation to the Ottoman Turks, was also present in other Hungarian diplomatic sources of the Middle Ages,Footnote 40 so it is not surprising to find it in indulgence petitions as well. In comparison to this, however, the discourse on the Greek Orthodox Christians living within the borders of the kingdom was more nuanced. Transylvanian Catholics were forced to live together with the ‘schismatics’, while the Ottoman Turks were seen as an outside danger; therefore, the ‘schismatics’ had to be converted, while the Turks were hopefully to be defeated. To illustrate all this, the sections that follow will present three case studies of Transylvanian indulgence requests that communicate marginality in relation to the Greek Orthodox Christians. These were selected because more information is known about the petitioners, and because their language reflects how patterns of representing marginality changed between the 1350s and the 1450s.

The Case of Nicolaus Lackfi’s Transylvanian Churches

The first example features Nicolaus (Miklós) Lackfi, a Hungarian noble serving as count of Zemplén, who participated in several military campaigns during the reign of Louis I.Footnote 41 The Lackfis were one of the wealthiest and most influential noble families in Hungary during the Angevin period.Footnote 42 Although the family had Transylvanian origins and owned several properties in the area, they had settled outside the voivodate by the middle of the fourteenth century, as they ascended into the political hierarchy of the kingdom and obtained more central estates, either by royal donation or by purchase.Footnote 43 Nicolaus was the son of Lack (László) and had seven brothers.Footnote 44 His father had gained prominence at the royal court as count of the Székelys between 1328 and 1344, and his brothers occupied various military and administrative offices in the kingdom.Footnote 45 Most notably, Nicolaus Lackfi’s elder brothers, Stephanus (István) and Andreas (András), served as voivodes of Transylvania and held other high dignities throughout their careers.Footnote 46 One of Nicolaus’s younger brothers, Dionysus (Dénes), became a Franciscan friar and rose to the rank of archbishop of Kalocsa, which he held from 1350 to 1355.Footnote 47

Although Nicolaus’s career was not as outstanding as those of his brothers, he had gained the trust of Louis I as a military leader. He probably started his service as a knight at the royal court during the 1330s or 1340s, and became count of Zemplén around 1347.Footnote 48 He was present in the Hungarian campaigns in Naples (1350) and Lithuania (1351–2).Footnote 49 In 1356, Nicolaus was sent by the king to help Pope Innocent VI regain control over the Papal States, and he spent about two years leading the Hungarian troops in that campaign.Footnote 50 The proximity to the papal Curia provided Lackfi with an opportunity to make several requests to the pope, which the pontifical chancery in Avignon recorded in February 1358. Lackfi was mainly concerned with his family’s estates in eastern Hungary and the condition of their churches. One of their domains, largely inhabited by Vlach serfs, was located in the county of Arad, at the border between the dioceses of Transylvania and Csanád (Cenad), in a region that might be considered marginal, not only in relation to the Apostolic see, but also in connection to the local ecclesiastical geography.

Among other privileges, Lackfi requested two sets of indulgences from the pope: one set for the parochial churches he had recently built for his converted Vlach serfs,Footnote 51 and a second one for several other churches under his patronage across Hungary.Footnote 52 The first group consisted of four churches: All Saints’ Church in Szádvár, St Mary’s Church in Aruahigh, and St Michael’s and St Nicholas’s churches in Szentmiklós.Footnote 53 Lackfi had built and endowed them with his own resources, which, along with his successful conversion efforts, must have been regarded as a great act of piety at the papal court.Footnote 54 The need for a new foundation suggests that the villages had probably lacked their own devotional spaces previously. Although the churches had presumably been founded before Lackfi departed Hungary, they were yet to be assigned a bishop. Since they stood on the border between the dioceses of Transylvania and Csanád, Lackfi solicited permission to choose which diocese each church would belong to, but the pope passed the decision on to the archbishop of Kalocsa, whose final verdict is unknown.Footnote 55

In his petition, Lackfi described the four churches as ‘situated on his land, in the middle of the Vlachs, among violent people, some of whom have been recently converted to the Catholic faith’ [author’s translation].Footnote 56 The papal indulgences were meant to stimulate devotion among the new Catholics (ad plebis devocionem augmentandam), so that they would not return to their old ways. Accordingly, religious conversion was seen as an instrument of social disciplining, and the new faith created communal order where previously it had been absent. It is worth mentioning that Lackfi alluded to the idea of marginality only when referring to the churches of the converted Vlachs, while the other group of churches, for which he had formulated a separate indulgence request, did not enjoy any special description, although some of them were also situated in eastern Hungary.

For each church, Lackfi requested five years and five quadragenes of remission, which were meant to reward visits during the major Christian feasts of the year. However, his request was only partially fulfilled due to prevailing chancery practices, which limited the typical value of papal indulgences at that time.Footnote 57 The pope issued the two sets of indulgences, but their value was only one year and one quadragene for the churches of the converted Vlachs, and one hundred days for Lackfi’s other churches.Footnote 58 Lackfi did not, therefore, receive anything more than petitioners from other parts of Latin Christendom would normally have received. The difference in value between the two indulgences suggests the importance the papal chancery accorded to the recently converted communities. At the same time, it was usual for bishops to issue more days of remission at the consecration of a new church, compared to the number of days typically offered on other occasions.Footnote 59 The papal indulgences might have also been a way of instilling into the new Catholics basic teachings about sin and penance. Annually, there were fifteen feast days when the indulgence could be obtained, which made it a possible tool to encourage church attendance among villagers.

The Case of St Mary’s Church in Kronstadt

The second example involves the Saxon town of Kronstadt (Brașov), a key economic centre of Transylvania. Kronstadt was a free royal town on the south-eastern border of Transylvania, part of the chapter of Burzenland, which fell under the direct jurisdiction of the archbishop of Esztergom. The local church, today known as ‘The Black Church’ (Die Schwarze Kirche; Biserica Neagră), was devoted to St Mary and received several papal indulgences in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Most of these were obtained by the local parish priests. At that time, the main church building was still under construction, and alms collected from indulgences were one of the funding sources of the project. Construction started in the second half of the fourteenth century, possibly during the 1380s, and lasted for about a century.Footnote 60 The church is now considered the largest Gothic church in south-eastern Europe.Footnote 61

In December 1399, the urban community of Kronstadt obtained two indulgence letters from Boniface IX. Unfortunately, both the original petitions and the register copies are lost, as only one supplication register is known for the pontificate of Boniface IX, dated 1394. However, the overall tone of the petitions can be inferred from the text of the final papal letters, which contain references to the religious conversions happening in Transylvania. The first letter, issued on 15 December 1399, granted four years and four quadragenes of remission to individuals involved in converting the local Greek Orthodox Christians to Catholicism.Footnote 62 The beneficiaries of the indulgence were supposed to provide support to those wishing to convert, in the form of teachings, good words and their own pious example.Footnote 63 The second letter, dated 29 December 1399, rewarded visits and alms to the town’s parochial church, granting an indulgence ad instar whose value was equivalent to the indulgence received by visiting St Mary’s Church in Aachen.Footnote 64 It was one of the numerous indulgences of this type issued by Boniface IX, presumed to be plenary.Footnote 65 Since Aachen was a popular pilgrimage site among Catholics in Hungary, it is not surprising to see the community of Kronstadt choosing it as a reference point for their own indulgence. Hungarian royalty also favoured this pilgrimage destination, and King Louis I had even built a royal chapel there.Footnote 66

Both letters referred to the coexistence between the Catholics and the ‘schismatics’, describing the city of Kronstadt as being ‘situated at the borders of Christianity (in confinibus christianitatis), where large numbers of Greeks, Vlachs, Bulgarians, Armenians and other infidels, having a certain church for their use and cult, live together and coexist with the faithful who reside there’.Footnote 67 The wording is similar in both letters, with only slight differences.Footnote 68 The unnamed church mentioned in the pope’s letters was most likely a late fourteenth-century Greek Orthodox church on the site where St Nicholas’s Church now stands in Șcheii Brașovului.Footnote 69 It was a wooden church devoted to St Mary, and its existence has been documented archaeologically.Footnote 70 Although the letters suggest that the Greek Orthodox church was located within the perimeter of the town, it was in reality serving the inhabitants of ‘Bulgaria’ (Belgerei, Șchei), a nearby village located in the western suburbs of Kronstadt (now part of the town), which is thought to have had a mixed population of Romanians and Slavs.Footnote 71

The four groups acknowledged in Boniface’s letters – Greeks, Vlachs, Bulgarians and Armenians – were broadly defined as ‘infidels’, but not every term necessarily had an ethnic meaning attached to it. A ‘Greek’ could be any Orthodox Christian in Transylvania or in the neighbouring states, regardless of his or her ethnicity. The ‘Bulgarians’ probably referred to the South Slavic immigrants in Belgerei, who lived together with the Vlachs, but the term might also allude to the presence of Bogomilism among them. The Armenian communities in Transylvania were largely involved in trade, and local fourteenth-century sources even mention the existence of an Armenian bishop in southern Transylvania, placed under the authority of the archbishop of Esztergom, but little is known about the diocese, its parishes or its relation to the other ecclesiastical structures in Hungary.Footnote 72

Overall, Boniface’s letters evinced an optimistic tone about the alleged religious conversions taking place in the region, describing them as voluntary acts, in which the Catholics’ role was only supportive, as opposed to actively missionary. The indulgence issued on 15 December 1399 mentioned the infidels’ desire to convert to Catholicism and the necessity to prevent any changes of mind among them;Footnote 73 while the second letter appears to suggest that some conversions had already happened.Footnote 74 The letters pointed to rebaptizing the converted, an idea promoted by Franciscan missionaries in Hungary, who saw any baptism performed by the Greek Orthodox clergy as null.Footnote 75 It should be borne in mind, however, that a convent of Franciscan friars would only be founded in Brașov at the beginning of the sixteenth century.Footnote 76

This type of discourse started to change in the first half of the fifteenth century, as the town gained an increasingly significant strategic position in defending the southern border of the kingdom against the Ottoman Turks. In 1422, following the Turkish invasion of Burzenland in the previous year, the parish priest of Kronstadt complained in a petition to the pope about the destructions caused by the Turks in Burzenland, but still kept the reference to the ‘schismatics’.Footnote 77 At that time, the political and military context in south-eastern Europe had reached a difficult point, and the Turkish raid of 1421 caused long-lasting effects on the town’s population and its hinterland, as many individuals were either killed or captured, and their houses destroyed.Footnote 78 In the priest’s petition, Kronstadt was described as ‘barely a day away from the parts of the infidels’, a position which made it vulnerable to foreign attacks.Footnote 79 The term ‘infidels’ referred to the Turks that had just attacked in 1421, while the one-day distance hinted at the town’s position in relation to Wallachia, through which the Ottoman troops had invaded Transylvania. Once again, the large numbers of Vlachs, Armenians, Bulgarians and Greeks in the region were mentioned, but their presence appeared rather peripheral among the complaints of the priest.Footnote 80

By 1450, when the southern border of Transylvania had suffered even more as a result of the Turkish raids, their violence had become the central element of discourse in the petitions, and the ‘schismatics’ were no longer mentioned.Footnote 81 In that timeframe, Burzenland had experienced two more Turkish invasions (1432, 1438) and possibly other small-scale raids, although, in the meantime, the town’s fortifications had been visibly improved to better withstand the Ottoman pressure.Footnote 82 The ‘schismatics’ would make a reappearance in a papal indulgence letter received in 1474, but they were once again mentioned alongside the Turks, who were portrayed as the main enemy.Footnote 83 In comparison to them, the presence of the ‘schismatics’ appeared rather innocuous. The re-emergence of the Greek Orthodox Christians in the language of the petitions might, however, be linked to the revival of Catholic proselytism in Hungary during the reign of King Matthias Corvinus (1458–90).Footnote 84

The Case of Kleinenyed

The final example involves an indulgence petition addressed on behalf of the Catholic community in Kleinenyed (Sângătin),Footnote 85 a village in the chapter of Mühlbach (Sebeș), under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the bishop of Transylvania.Footnote 86 In one petition recorded on 13 July 1433, an indulgence letter was requested for those who would visit the local hospital and its nearby church, dedicated to the Holy Cross and to saints Cosmas and Damian, respectively.Footnote 87 The petitioner was only identified as ‘Johannes, son of Balthasar’, but a different register record from the same month revealed that he was serving King Sigismund of Luxembourg as secretary (notarius).Footnote 88

The supplicant was a Transylvanian Saxon from Kleinenyed, later ennobled by King Sigismund in 1435.Footnote 89 According to the royal charter he received on that occasion, Johannes was part of the king’s itinerant court and had served him over the years in Germany, Lombardy and Italy.Footnote 90 It was in this context that he reached the papal chancery with his indulgence request in 1433, as King Sigismund was present in Rome that year to be crowned emperor.Footnote 91 When Johannes became a noble, the king bestowed upon him and his family the estate of Szentjánoshegy (Nucet) in the county of Alba, and later sources identify him as ‘Johannes Zaaz of Szentjánoshegy’ or ‘Johannes Zaaz of Enyed’.Footnote 92 ‘Zaaz’ was a Hungarian sobriquet meaning ‘the Saxon’, hinting at the bearer’s ethnic background.Footnote 93 Later in his career, he became the royal judge of Mühlbach and Hermannstadt.Footnote 94 One of his younger brothers, Georgius, studied canon law at Bologna, and became parish priest in Mühlbach.Footnote 95

The wording of Johannes’s petition is interesting, as it differentiates between the two elements defining Transylvanian marginality. According to it, the inhabitants of Kleinenyed lived ‘amid the schismatics and close to the border of the Turks’.Footnote 96 The distinction is similar to the one found in the petition made by the parish priest of Kronstadt in 1422. Thus, while Transylvanian Catholics lived among the schismatics (in medio Scismaticorum), they were sharply separated from the Turks by a border (meta). Transylvania’s border with Wallachia was understood as a border with the Turks, because the political events in the neighbouring voivodate were influenced by the intrusions of the Ottomans, who would promote their favourable voivode to the throne and proceed to invade Transylvania through Wallachia.Footnote 97 At this point, there was no mention of religious conversions anymore, which likewise illustrates the shift in discourse taking place in the 1420s and 1430s, against the troubled political and military background of those years.

Conclusion

The cases outlined above suggest that Transylvanian supplicants viewed receiving papal indulgences as a form of devotion to the same extent that other Christians in the Latin church did. However, apart from their traditional devotional significance, the grants acquired additional meaning within the regional context marked by confessional differences. Some petitioners regarded papal indulgences as a way of rewarding Catholics engaged in conversion attempts directed at the local Greek Orthodox Christians, even though the extent and success of these initiatives were sometimes exaggerated. The indulgence grants were also described as a potential means to encourage church attendance among the new converts, or finance the reparation of churches that were struggling in the border regions affected by Ottoman raids. Requesting indulgences at the papal chancery was an occasion for interaction with the central authority of the church, and the supplications illustrate how marginality was articulated and used as an argumentative strategy in relation to the papacy. Most petitions were addressed by supplicants far from socially marginal in their own worlds, such as powerful barons and prosperous urban communities. In their accounts, the borders of Christianity were described as an area where Catholics were forced to coexist with the ‘schismatics’ or endure the cruelty of the Turks. The function of these descriptions as rhetorical devices does not, however, diminish their authenticity, as the representations of marginality were undoubtedly shaped by the various challenges faced by Transylvanian churches. Thus, they provide valuable insight into how Transylvanian petitioners represented and understood themselves as part of Latin Christendom.

Footnotes

I would like to thank Professors Radu Nedici and Marius Diaconescu from the University of Bucharest for their guidance and support. My gratitude also extends to Professor Robert Swanson for his kind comments and questions during the Society’s conference, which have greatly contributed to the development of my ideas. Finally, I am indebted to the editorial team of SCH, my anonymous reviewers and my colleague Mihail-George Hâncu from the Institute for South-East European Studies in Bucharest for suggesting revisions that have enhanced the presentation of this article.

References

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80 ‘[I]n quo quidem opido tam Walachorum, Armenorum, Bulgarorum et Grecorum, quam aliarum infidelium copia unacum Christianis in eo degentibus morari solebat’: Lukcsics 1: 134 (no. 532).

81 Lukcsics 2: 275 (no. 1097).

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84 Drăgan, Nobilimea românească, 102.

85 In Latin sources, the village was simply identified as ‘Enyed’; for this reason, it has sometimes been confounded with the present-day town of Aiud (Enyed, Grossenyed): see Entz, Géza Antal, ‘Erdélyi’, in Marosi, Ernő, ed., Magyarországi művészet, 1300–1470 körül, 2 vols (Budapest, 1987), 1: 683–93Google Scholar, at 692; Burnichioiu, Ileana, ‘Biserica mică a cetății Aiudului în surse din secolul al XIX-lea’, Annales Universitatis Apulensis, Series Historica 10/1 (2006), 7–23 Google Scholar, at 17–18.

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88 Lukcsics 2: 113 (no. 284).

89 For his diploma of nobility, see UB Siebenbürgen 4: 567–8 (no. 2227). For a brief biography of the petitioner, in the context of his church patronage in Mühlbach, see Gündisch, Gustav and Streitfeld, Theobald, ‘Der Umbau der Mühlbacher Marienkirche im 15. Jahrhundert und seine geschichtlichen Voraussetzungen’, in Gündisch, Gustav et al., eds, Studien zur Siebenbürgischen Kunstgeschichte (Bucharest, 1976), 60–80, at 75–8Google Scholar.

90 UB Siebenbürgen 4: 567 (no. 2227).

91 Gündisch and Streitfeld, ‘Umbau der Mühlbacher Marienkirche’, 75.

92 For example, see UB Siebenbürgen 5: 21–2, 44–6, 363 (nos 2329, 2358, 2359 and 2802).

93 Vizauer, Victor V., ‘Ethnic Nicknames (Sobriquets) in Transylvania during the 13th–14th Centuries’, Acta Musei Napocensis 54 (2017), 17–39 Google Scholar, at 25.

94 Gündisch and Streitfeld, ‘Umbau der Mühlbacher Marienkirche’, 76.

95 Ibid. 77.

96 ‘[I]n medio Scismaticorum et prope Turcorum metas’: Lukcsics 2: 87 (no. 203).

97 Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács, 77–8.