Primary Contributors:

Cultures of Knowledge and Cristina Neagu

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Nicolaus Olahus (1493–1568)

As with so many wandering scholars of the Renaissance, there is surprisingly little in-depth material evidence of Nicolaus Olahus’s career and literary achievements. We are, however, fortunate, as one of the main sources in this particular case is Olahus’s own chronicle of events, the Compendiarium Aetatis Suae Chronicon, published by the humanist himself in 1558 as a preface to his Breuiarium secundum usum almae, et Metropolitanae Ecclesiae Strigoniensis. Covering the period between 29 March 1464 and 14 March 1558, the Chronicle opens with Matthias Corvinus’s coronation as King of Hungary and ends with Ferdinand’s nomination as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Between these celebratory moments of triumph lie almost one hundred years of tragic history, related in brief, unemotional sentences. And parallel with this mapping of large-scale events, Olahus describes the rise of his own career.

Nicolaus Olahus (known also as Oláh Miklós) was born in Sibiu (present day Romania — this important Transylvanian city was acknowledged at the time as Cibinium, Hermannstadt, and Nagyszeben) on 10 January 1493. His family was of noble descent, and his grandmother, Marina, was the sister of Joannes Hunyad, Prince of Transylvania, and aunt of Matthias, King of Hungary. Marina married Manzilla, a brother of Vlad Ţepeş (Dracula). Among the couple’s children was Stoian, who, instead of fighting for the throne of Wallachia (which he could have done due to his family connection to Vlad Țepeș), chose to move to Transylvania, where he was appointed Judex Regius and where, with his wife Varvara Hunzar, he raised four children: Matthaeus, Nicolaus, Ursula, and Elena. From 1505 to 1512, young Nicolaus studied at the Capitulary School in Oradea. Oradea (then known as Nagyvárad and Großwardein) had been an important Catholic ecclesiastical centre from the eleventh century.

In 1526, Olahus was appointed Secretary and Counsellor to King Louis (Lajos) II of Hungary and Queen Mary (sister of Emperor Charles V and of Ferdinand I). On 20 August of that year, the Turkish army led by Solyman approached Buda. The king left the court in an attempt to stop an imminent invasion. He died on the battlefield; immediately prior to this, however, he had asked Olahus to advise the queen to leave for Vienna. Disguised as a hunting party, Mary and her court, led by Olahus, fled the Kingdom of Hungary and many years of peregrination ensued.

Following the death of the Archduchess Margaret in 1531, King Charles V appointed his sister, Queen Mary of Hungary, as Regent of the Low Countries. Olahus accompanied her and his position assumed increasing importance. During the 1530s, he was in correspondence with the most eminent humanists of his time, including Erasmus, Petrus Nannius, Joannes Dantiscus, and Cornelius Scepperus.

Olahus’s historical and ethnographical treatise, the Hungaria, is thought to have been written in 1536. Despite its ardent receiption and circulation in manuscript, this work was not published until 1735 when it appeared in Matthias Bel’s Adparatus ad historiam Hungariae. Seven of Olahus’s poems were published in the collective volume D. Erasmi Roterodami epitaphia per clarissimos aliquot viros conscripta, published by Rutgerus Rescius in 1537 and, in the same year, Olahus’s second treatise, the Athila, was written, although publication was delayed until 1568 when Sambucus included it in Antonius Bonfinus’s Rerum Ungaricarum decades quatuor. In 1542, Olahus moved from the service of Queen Mary to that of King Ferdinand I, and returned to Hungary, initially serving as Chancellor, then Bishop of Zagreb from 1543, Bishop of Eger from 1548, and finally as Archbishop of Esztergom and Primate of Hungary from 1553.

On 20 January 1558, Olahus founded the Jesuit Seminary in Trnava, the city to which the archbishopric had been moved after the Turks overran Esztergom in 1543. Here his educational programme was a success and the institution became so popular that it was removed from municipal jurisdiction. Later the same year, Olahus published the Breuiarium secundum usum almae, et Metropolitanae Ecclesiae Strigoniensis. Two years later, Olahus published the religious treatises, the Ordo et Ritus Sanctae Metropolitane Ecclesie Strigoniensis and the Catholicae ac Christianae Religionis Praecipua. After King Ferdinand’s death in 1562, Olahus was appointed briefly Regent of Hungary, and in 1563, he crowned Maximilian II as King of Hungary.

Olahus died on 17 January 1568 in Trnava and was buried in St Nicholas’s Cathedral. Although his popularity with his contemporaries was evident and undeniable, his name became increasingly less known following his death, and his works were not studied. Despite this decline in his reputation, a small but continuous stream of scholars has kept the study of his life and work alive.

Partners and Additional Contributors

The information provided for this page was supplied to Cultures of Knowledge by Dr Cristina Neagu (University of Oxford) and was collated in the course of her research for her book, Servant of the Renaissance: The Poetry and Prose of Nicolaus Olahus (Bern: Peter Lang, 2003). The metadata for the letters in the inventory as they appear thus far in the correspondence catalogue have been contributed by Anna Skolimowska (see ‘The Correspondence of Ioannes Dantiscus’ and the ‘Corpus of Ioannes Dantiscus’ Texts & Correspondence‘) and by Christoph Kudella (see the full listing of Erasmus’s correspondence).

Special thanks are due to the editorial and technical team at Early Modern Letters Online [EMLO], for their encouragement, continuous support, and assistance.

Key Bibliographic Source(s)

Miklós Oláh, Levelezése [The correspondence of Nicolaus Olahus], ed. Arnold Ipolyi (Monumenta Hungariae Historica, Diplomataria, XXV) (Budapest, 1875).

Monumenta Antiquae Hungariae: I 1550–1579, ed. Ladislaus Lukács, Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu, 101 (Rome: Institutum Historicum S.I., 1969).

Nicolaus Olahus, Epistulae Pars I 1523–1533, ed. Emőke Rita Szilágyi, (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Medii Recentisque Aevorum, Series Nova, XIX/I) (Budapest, 2018).

Nicolaus Olahus, Epistulae Pars II 1534–1553, ed. Emőke Rita Szilágyi, (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Medii Recentisque Aevorum, Series Nova, XIX/II) (Budapest, 2022).

The online edition of Nicolaus Olahus’s Epistulae, ed. Emőke Rita Szilágyi, is also available.
Epistulae. Pars I.
Epistulae. Pars II.

Emőke Rita Szilágyi, ‘Editorial Procedures and Types of Censorship: On the Upcoming Critical Edition of Nicolaus Olahus’ Correspondence’, in: Nicolaus Olahus 450: Proceedings of the International Conference on the 450th Anniversary of Nicolaus Olahus’ Death (Vienna: Institut für Ungarische Geschichtsforschung, 2019), pp. 193–203.

Metadata for the epistolary exchange between Olahus and Erasmus was contributed to EMLO by Chris Kudella. He has included links in the Erasmus catalogue records to the texts in P. S. Allen’s Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami that are mounted on Oxford Scholarly Editions Online, and to the 2020 edition hosted on De Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren [DBNL]. Letters as part of the exchange between Olahus and Dantiscus were contributed by Anna Skolimowska, the descriptions taken from from the digital edition pubished as the Corpus of Ioannes Dantiscus’ Texts & Correspondence.

Cristina Neagu, Servant of the Renaissance: The Poetry and Prose of Nicolaus Olahus (Bern: Peter Lang, 2003).

Gilbert Tournoy, ‘Petrus Nannius and Nicolaus Olahus’, in: Humanistica Lovaniensia. Journal of Neo-Latin Studies, 55 (2006) pp. 129–60.

Contents

As Secretary and Counsellor to Queen Mary of Hungary, and later as a high-ranking officer in King Ferdinand’s Chancery, followed by his appointment as Archbishop of Esztergom, Olahus was required to write a significant number of letters. Many of these are of an official nature, but an unexpected amount of personal correspondence has also been preserved. This correspondence can be found in the following collections:

The Codex epistolaris
The collection containing the richest material is, without doubt, that discovered and published by Arnold Ipolyi in 1875. Generally referred to as the Codex epistolaris, this is a manuscript binding together 609 letters, three rhetorical speeches and nineteen appendices of poems under the unifying title Epistolae Familiares N. Olahi ad Amicos. The codex appears as an example of material in the first stages of preparation for publication. It contains letters sent or received by the humanist between 1526 and 1538. There are eleven fascicles, written on paper bearing the same watermarks as many of the documents issued by the Primate’s Chancery. The work was copied by three scribes, most likely Olahus’s secretaries, with the humanist adding corrections in his own hand. By choosing this title for the volume he put together, Olahus signalled his intention to integrate the manuscript into a newly rediscovered tradition, placing it in the context of masters of the genre such as Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, and Marsilio Ficino. Such epistolaries were particularly fashionable at the time and were regarded as literary works in their own right.

Olahus’s Codex epistolaris covers a period of high drama in European history and its list of contributors includes important names. Among those to whom Olahus sent and from whom he received letters were heads of state and church (Emperor Charles V, King Ferdinand, and Pope Clement VII) and renowned humanists (Erasmus, Joannes Dantiscus, Johannes Campensis, Franciscus Craneveldius, Conradus Goclenius, Cornelius Grapheus, and Petrus Nannius). There were also several high-ranking diplomats, such as Cornelius Scepperus (Charles V’s counsellor and ambassador), Joannes Antonius de Burgis (the Pope’s Ambassador to Hungary and England), Camilius Gilinus (Francesco Sforza’s Secretary), and Alexis Thurzó (the Chancellor of Hungary). Numerous correspondents were ecclesiastical authorities, the most assiduous letter-writers being Paulus Gerebius, Thomas Szalaházy (both Archbishops of Hungary), Franciscus, Bishop of Györ and Eger, and Nicolaus Gerendi, Bishop of Transylvania.

The Budapest and Esztergom Manuscripts
Of the original manuscripts from Olahus’s correspondence now kept in Budapest, the Codex epistolaris is just one. Many more letters can be found in the Esterházy collection. They are among various other family documents, all of them unbound and organized by shelfmark. Among Olahus’s correspondents are Franciscus Batthányi, Franciscus of Burgundy, Joannes Choron, Thomas Nadasdius, Antonius Verantius, Nicola Zrinski, Olahus’s sister Ursula, and Nicolaus Oláh-Császár, his nephew. This material is of a composite nature, and, in most cases, deals with administrative and financial problems. A number of documents from this collection have been digitized and can be found on the homepage of the National Archives. From among the funds digitized so far, ‘P 184’ contains the letters of the Olahus family.

A thorough analysis of the Esterházy collection of Olahus’s correspondence could provide important information about a complex and little-documented period in the history of Hungary. It certainly reveals an almost unknown Olahus, a man profoundly committed to honouring and helping his kinsfolk. Deep down, he appears little concerned with self, but careful to bestow his achievements and success upon his family.

Apart from the Hungarian State Archives, the Primate’s Library in Esztergom is the most rewarding place to search for original manuscripts by Olahus. The quantity of material preserved in this deposit is impressive and a good number of records are autograph. They cover the period between 1553 and 1568, while Olahus was Primate of Hungary. However, with a few exceptions, the Esztergom documents are not of an epistolary nature. Most of them are reports, speeches, minutes, and marginalia on ecclesiastical topics and church administration, particularly related to the series of Synods held by Olahus at Trnava.

The Jesuit manuscripts
An important series of letters between Olahus and Jacopo Lainez, the second General of the Jesuit Order, is preserved in the Archives of the Society at Rome. The focus of these documents is on Olahus’s project to found a College at Trnava. The first manuscript on this topic dates from 1558. It is a letter written by Joannes A. de Vitoria, the Rector of the Viennese College, in which he informs Lainez of his visit to Olahus and their discussion.

The Primate’s commitment to reorganize education in Hungary found an interested party in the Jesuits. They were already powerful, highly supportive of education, and certain to gain from this joint enterprise which would help them establish a presence in the Kingdom of Hungary sooner than otherwise expected.

J. A. de Vitoria was deeply involved in the project. He was the main link between Olahus and the active and well-organized Society of Jesus. As a consequence, he wrote several letters to Olahus, asking for details about financing, staffing, the buildings to house the institute and its adjacent chapel. He dispatched lengthy and favourable reports on the progress of the enterprise to Lainez. There is so much correspondence about Olahus in the Jesuit Archives that the humanist’s own voice is often forgotten, buried in flattery and biased appraisals. In contrast to this, Olahus’s own balanced, dignified, and well-argued pleas for support addressed to the General are models of rhetoric. Different in tone and idiom from letters by other authors dwelling on the topic (mostly in Italian), his correspondence regarding the College impresses through control of expression, a somewhat dry determination to convince, and a conscious appeal to reason.

Provenance

The bulk of Nicolaus Olahus’s surviving correspondence (whether original manuscripts or early copies) is located in Budapest. However, important further material can also be located in Rome, Vienna, and Esztergom, or in Transylvanian cities such as Sibiu and Brașov.

The list of known manuscript sources for Olahus’s correspondence includes:

Besançon, Archives municipales, MS 599, pp. 285–286. Contemporary copy, Book of letters by Lieven van den Zande, 1556.

Brasov, Archiv und Bibliothek der Honterusgemeinde, 1. A. 37, fol. 2. Autograph, original missive, 9 February 1523.

Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára,
MS P.108 Rep.71. 472 k, fasc.23 : Epistolae Familiares N. Olahi ad Amicos (Letters and poems, 1526–1538). The work of three scribes, supplemented with a few letters and corrections in Olahus’s own hand; the manuscript is likely to have been compiled around 1539.
MS P.184, rhsz. 2430: Eszterházy cs. hercegi aga lt. Oláh család I/1.101(Letters, 1545–1565)
I/3.17 (Letters, 1562–1564) II/1.118 (Letters, 1554–1567)
II/3.36 (Letters, 1555–1566)
IV/1.25 (Fragments of letters and loose papers, 1567–1577).

Esztergom, Primási Levéltár
MS AEV: Sub primate Nicolao Olaho (autograph manuscripts)
96 (Letter to Melchior Bilia)
116/3–45 (Fragmentary letters and drafts)
117–126 (Fragmentary letters and documents).

Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek
Cod. MS 0331, XI, 7. This manuscript was destroyed during World War II. It is, however, mentioned in P. S. Allen, Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami. 1530–1532, vol. IX (Oxford: 1938), p. 57.

Rome, Archiva Societatis Jesu
MS Germ. 187, Epistolae Germaniae, 1559 (Doc.7.9.12); fols 176r–v (Autograph letter by Olahus to Jacobo Lainez)
MS Epp.Ext.10, Epistolae Episcoporum, 1555–1666 (Doc.17.25); fols 36r–v and 47r–v (Autograph letter by Olahus to Jacobo Lainez)
Camera, MS Acta Iesuitica Tyrnaviensia, fasc. 3, n. 6
Cancellaria, MS Lib.Reg. 1552–1575 III, 718–20
Camera, MS Collationes Eccles. 1527–1652 I 62–3
Collectio Hevenesiana LXXX, 259–99 (Diploma Fundationis Collegii Tyrnaviensis).

Sibiu, Arhivele Statului
MS Col.doc.mediev. XVI 617 (Letter to the citizens of Sibiu, 1541)
MS Col.doc.mediev. XVI 431 (Letter to Joannes Frank of Sibiu, 1544)
MS 38.54 (Letter to the citizens of Sibiu, 1552) (autograph text)
MS 39.43 (Letter to the ecclesiastical authorities of Sibiu, Feb. 1554)
MS Doc.Sibiu 138 / 41.39 (Invitation to the Trnava Synod, May 1554)
MS 40.35 (Letter of invitation to the Trnava Synod, May 1554)
MS 42.39 (Letter against the heretics, December 1554).

Vienna, Haus, Hof und Staatsarchiv
MS Belgien P.A. Fasc.72 (Autograph letter to Olahus to Queen Mary of Hungary, 1547)
MS UAAA Fasc. 12. Konv. C, fol. 2rv (Autograph letter, 1 September 1529).

Scope of Catalogue

Attentive examination of an extensive and (with new discoveries) still growing corpus reveals that, for Olahus, the fondness for letter writing was a symbol of connectivity with a particularly large circle of both friends and official figures, family, and fellow intellectuals. Making this corpus accessible on the EMLO platform will shed light on the literary and political career of a gifted and highly influential character. It will also highlight his system of patronage, as he supported numerous writers, politicians, and religious personalities by encouraging and often financing their studies. Significant work editing his correspondence has been recently published. Creating links to it will dramatically improve our understanding of a complex figure whose presence had a profound impact on his contemporaries.

Joined together and part of a spectacularly large conversation with his fellow men, Olahus’s correspondence makes up a narratio, the main feature of which is paradox. The letter’s mediatory properties reveal the genre, as it appears in the exchanges around Olahus, emphasizing both connection and separation. And a closer look at many of the individual missives dispatched by the humanist shows them to be more rewarding as literature than has been generally assumed.

Further resources

Albu, Corneliu, ed., Nicolaus Olahus: Corespondenţă cu umanişti batavi şi flamanzi, trans. by Maria Capoianu (Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1974).

Allen, P. S, Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, 12 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906-1958).

Bietenholz, Peter G., and Thomas B. Deutscher, eds, Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation, 3 vols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985–1987).

Birnbaum, Marianna, Humanists in a Shattered World: Croatian and Hungarian Latinity in the Sixteenth Century, UCLA Slavic Studies, 15 (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 1986).

Capoianu, Maria, Nicolaus Olahus europeanul (Bucharest: Editura Libra, 2000).

Olahus, Nicolaus, Opere, 2 vols (Bucharest: Academia Română, 2023).

Tournoy, Gilbert, ‘Nicolaus Olahus and His Humanist Network in the Low Countries’, in: Nicolaus Olahus 450 Proceedings of the International Conference on the 450th Anniversary of Nicolaus Olahus’ Death, ed. Emőke Rita Szilágyi (Vienna: Institut für Ungarische Geschichtsforschung, 2019) pp. 163–77.

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