Document PDF - Asociatia Tinerilor Istorici din Moldova

time the strategy was to attract learned persons from elsewhere to fi ll various jobs in the town,
this policy eventually changed. Local potential was invested in supporting the studies of sons
of well positioned families. After the Reformation, towns began to apply a so-called combined
policy: attracting former students from other locations supplemented by investment into future
local intellectuals, the latter tendency gradually gaining in importance.
This article is meant to analyse the possibilities for fi nancial support students from Košice,
a middle-size town in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’ Hungary (present-day Eastern
Slovakia), had at their disposal to facilitate their attendance at universities abroad. The focus
will be set on the urban council’s activity meant to supporting education during the Reformation
period in the town. Aspects such as duration of the fi nancial support, categories of benefi -
ciaries, amount of money granted, and further possibilities of support for university studies of
the town inhabitants will be presented and commented upon. The text is based on the collection
of inedite documents of various character from the urban archives in Košice (Archív Mesta
Košic, abbreviated AMK).
Duration of fi nancial support
Košice, a middle sized town with about 3000 inhabitants by the end of the fi fteenth century,
was located along the important commercial route between Transylvania, northern Hungary,
and Poland, not far from Poland’s greatest commercial town, Cracow, a fact that allowed
its rapid economic growth and earned it an important role in the internal and external trade of
the region at the time. Reformation was accepted relatively early, so that by the 1550s, almost
the entire town’s population was adept of the Protestant faith. It was also the time when the
town council of Košice started to be actively involved in the education abroad of its citizens. It
is not easy to establish if the town had a rigid policy of granting fi nancial support for the studies
of its inhabitants. According to the letters and other types of documents preserved in the town
archives, several scenarios for getting fi nancial aid existed and several categories of benefi -
ciaries could be established. It is not possible to reconstruct the story in each case: it occurs
sometimes that only one letter from a certain person is present, usually a request for money,
and it is not clear if a response ever followed through or not. The entries in the town protocols
do not record anything in relation to many of the identifi ed cases either. However, there are a
number of persons for whom a sequence of events can be re-established to some extent using
a number of documents of various content, relating interesting details connected to support
received from the town council.
A number of cases could be determined where a student would be fi nanced over an
extended period of time beginning from his secondary studies at one of the urban schools in
Košice or in the region, to the completion of his studies at one of the Protestant universities.
A good example of such a student is Georgius Buntzler, who received fi nancial help from the
town council beginning from the time he attended the urban school in Jihlava, Moravia and
continuing throughout his academic stay at the University of Wittenberg. Buntzler was a member
of a well-to-do burgher’s family in Košice, a son of Michael Buntzler, member of the town
council from 1565 to 1584 8 and a relative of Caspar Schneider, member of the town council
from 1574 to 1593. 9 Nine letters are preserved in the Košice collection related to the academic
progress of this student, of which seven were written by Buntzler himself. The fi rst letter, dated
September 30, 1583 was sent from Jihlava where Buntzler was pursuing his secondary studies.
10 In this letter, the young man mentioned that he was writing to the town council as suggested
by his father, in order to express his gratitude for the fi nancial support provided up to
that time. From another letter it is evident that Georgius Buntzler was sent to Jihlava with much
8
NÉMETH 2006, see also AMK, H III/2, her.1, f. 100r, v, 101r.
9
NÉMETH 2006, see also the letter sent by Schneider to Buntzler, from Košice, in 1589: AMK H I, no. n/a.
10
AMK H I, no. 3772/115.
– 205 –