[...]
Housed in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, the codex containing the Sermones Quinqueecclesienses 1 was identified as having a bearing on Hungary - or more specifically, Pécs - by János Csontosi in 1882. 2 A manuscript copied in Germany around the turn of the fourteenth century, the first half of the codex contains postils on the Sunday Gospels by Nicholas of Lyra (c. 1270-1349). The second part contains 199 scholastic sermons for the Proper of the Saints, one sermon or more a feast day. That this sanctorale originated in Hungary is obvious from its pronounced focus on Hungarian saints. A much more concrete indication of these sermons' place of origin is the inscription, added at some later time, at the beginning of the chapter: Sermones compilati (sic) in studio generali Quinqueecclesiensi in regno Ungarie (Sermons Compiled at the University of Pécs, in the Kingdom of Hungary). As we shall see below, however, analyses of the contents of the sanctorale have conclusively dated the original collection to the second half of the thirteenth century, much before the founding, in 1367, of the University of Pécs. Typically Dominican in tone and of a high caliber, it is likely that the sermons were compiled at the studium generale of the Dominicans located in Buda. 3 For all that, it is the reference to the University of Pécs which has inspired most of the interest there has been in the codex. The University's presumed connection to the sanctorale has been the occasion of a number of significant studies, and is responsible for the thought of this critical edition ever coming up at all. Pécs University Sermons is how this part of the Munich codex is cited in the Hungarian literature, and so it seems both practical and fitting that Hungarian scholars should continue to refer to it by that name. Foreign scholars might be mislead by the Latin title of the volume, and will find the Introduction particularly enlightening.
[...]
Pál Timkovics was an excellent philologist, and undertook the arduous task of identifying the citations in the codex with unflagging self-discipline. He did not live long enough to complete the task. But it is unlikely that any future research will substantially alter the picture that emerged from his findings; at most, it will bring things into sharper focus. The task itself has become easier and more mechanical than it was even a decade or so ago, for the most important Latin sources are now available on CD-Rom. 9 Further scholarly research, however, is needed on the exact sources of the Aristotle quotations used, and on the direct sources in general.
Timkovics's brief Introduction to the critical edition gives a factual summary of the findings to date, which we can recapitulate as follows:
1. The codex is a copy made at the turn of the fourteenth century. Its first part consists of Nicholas of Lyra's de tempore postils, i.e., commentaries on the Gospels of the Proper of the Seasons; the second part is a complete sanctorale. Nicholas of Lyra's postils in this extant copy take the place of the part lost from the original sermonarium, i.e., the sermons written for the Sundays and Feasts of the Liturgical Year.
2. Though the sermons differ from one another in respect of quality and length, the way they are structured, their theological content and the authorities they cite indicate that the entire sanctorale is a unit. The sermons on the Hungarian saints are contemporaneous with the other sermons.
3. The sermons on the Hungarian saints and the Dominican saints suggest that the author was a Hungarian Dominican, who was writing with a Hungarian audience in mind.
4. The sermons were written considerably before the founding of the University of Pécs. Based on the facts that the Dominican St. Peter of Verona, canonized in 1253, is the latest saint whose feast is included, that absolutely no reference is made to Thomas Aquinas, and that Aristotle translations prior to Moerbeke's are used, the sermons must be dated to somewhere between 1255 and 1275.
5. The thinking of the anonymous author reflects the influence of the Chartres school of the end of the twelfth century. After, presumably, studying in France - a circumstance suggested by his abundant references to classical sources, and to authorities in philosophy and the natural sciences - the Dominican friar must have been affiliated with the studium generale run by the Dominicans in Buda, and probably compiled the sermonarium by way of a teaching tool. Generations later, one of its users must have taken it, or a copy thereof, to the University of Pécs. It was, presumably, after the university was closed that the sermonarium found its way to Germany, where it was copied, and the new codex inscribed with the heading Sermones compilati in studio generali Quinqueecclesiensi in regno Ungarie.
[...]
Editors: Antal Pirnát (to 1992), László Szörényi (since 1985), Klára Pajorin (since 1988).
Antonius de Bonfinis:
Rerum Ungaricarum decades
Tom. IV.- Pars II. Appendix, fontes, index.
Ed. Margarita Kulcsár et Petrus Kulcsár. 1976. 285 old.
Petrus Ransanus:
Epithoma rerum Hungararum
Id est Annalium omnium temporum liber primus et sexagesimus. Ed. Petrus Kulcsár. 1977. 232 old.
Iohannes Vitéz de Zredna:
Opera quae supersunt
Ed. Iván Boronkai. 1980. 290 old.
Christianus Schesaeus:
Opera quae supersunt omnia
Ed. Franciscus Csonka. 1979. 547 old.
Simon Proxenus a Sudetis:
Commentarii de itinere
Francogallico
Ed. Dana Martínková. 1979.
127 old.
Stephanus Brodericus:
De conflictu Hungarorum cum Solymano Turcorum
imperatore ad Mohach historia verissima - Oratio ad Adrianum pontificem
maximum
Ed. Petrus Kulcsár et Csaba Csapodi.
1985. 91 old.
Johannes de Thurocz:
Chronica Hungarorum. I. Textus
Ed. Elisabeth Galántai et Julius
Kristó. 1985. 331 old.; II. Commentarii. 1. Ab initiis usque ad
annum 1301.; 2. Ab anno 1301 usque ad annum 1487. Comp. Elemér Mályusz,
adjuv. Julius Kristó. 1988. 603, 500 old.
Georgius Purkircher:
Opera quae supersunt omnia
Ed. Miloslaus Okál. 1988. 254 old.
Gregorius Gyöngyösi:
Vitae Fratrum Eremitarum
Ed. Franciscus L. Hervay. 1988. 251 old.
Ioannes Bocatius:
Opera quae extant omnia poetica
Ed. Franciscus Csonka. 1990. 1116 old.
Ioannes Bocatius:
Opera quae extant omnia prosaica Ed. Franciscus
Csonka. 1992. 583 old.
Andreas Dudithius:
Epistulae
Ed. Lechus Szczucki et Tiburtius Szepessy.
Pars I. 1554-1567.
Ed. Tiburtius Szepessy et Susanna Kovács.
Comment. Clara Pajorin et Halina Kowalska. 1992. 501 old.;
Pars II. 1568-1573.
Ed. Margarita Borowska etc., mod. Georgius
Axer. Comment. Halina Kowalska et Lechus Szczucki. 1995. 652 old.
Sermones compilati in studio
generali Quinqueecclesiensi in regno Ungarie
Ed. Eduardus Petrovich et Paulus Ladislaus
Timkovics. 1993. 484 old.
1 * Cod. lat. 22363b. It was in 1803, after the dissolution of the Windberg monastery of the Premonstratensian Canons in the Diocese of Regensburg, that the codex was transferred to the library; we have no way of knowing when the Premonstratensians acquired it.
2 * János Csontosi, "A müncheni könyvtár hazai vonatkozású kéziratai" ("Manuscripts in the Munich Library of Relevance to Hungary"); and Idem, "Nagyfontosságú XIV. századi kézirat a pécsi egyetemrôl Münchenben" (A 14th Century Manuscript of Great Importance in Munich Originating from the University of Pécs"), Magyar Könyvszemle, 1882, p. 229, p. 253.
3 * The capitulum generale of 1254 was held in Buda.The first concrete data available about a studium generale are of 1305. Cf. András Harsányi, A domonkos rend Magyarországon a reformáció elôtt (The Dominicans in Hungary before the Reformation), Debrecen: 1938, p. 26, p. 146.
[...]
9 * Patrologia Latina Database. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey--CETEDOC Library of Christian Latin Texts, Louvain-la-Neuve.
[...]