Document PDF - Asociatia Tinerilor Istorici din Moldova

she, according to the request of Your Excellency in your wiseness and because of the boy’s pious
conduct would wish to offer him meals and to rent him a room. Since I also have my meals
at her home I can then take better care of the boy so that he would not be forsaken here. Until
now I have not noticed any kind of laziness or that he would want to go in other directions, and
I hope that also for the rest of the time he would be able to progress for the well-being of the
entire community. The teacher who gives him private tutoring hours is working assiduously
with him and praises the boy that he is interested in all liberal arts. As far as my remuneration
is concerned, it is 2 fl orins per year for every foreign boy, but I am much happier for this remuneration
when I notice that the boys are making progress in learning.
Students themselves took the initiative to search for other sources of funding. The most
common sources of fi nancing university studies, namely help from rich relatives or acquaintances,
borrowing money from friends, fellow students, etc., and taking a variety of jobs at the
study place were not unknown paths taken by Košice students.
After the town council and rich relatives, students would also try to borrow money from
other acquaintances in Košice or elsewhere. Two letters preserved in the town archives in
Košice illustrate a few situations of this type and provide additional interesting details concerning
the fi nancial affairs of students. 62 The fi rst letter, dated November 4, 1570 is signed by
Johannes Scholius, an employee at St. Elisabeth church in Wrocław, who complained to the
town council about Johannes Stockelius, a student in Wittenberg, who had been in debt to him
since 1563 and had never returned the money he owed. The story begins with the arrival of a
messenger from Wittenberg who delivered a letter from Stockelius. In this letter, the student
implored Scholius to lend him thirty-fi ve tallers and promised to return them during the same
year, a promise he never kept. Even worse, in the subsequent year came another quest for
money, this time for twenty-fi ve tallers: but at the named day, not only did he not return anything,
but in the following year, on the twenty fi fth day of March, he came to me almost crying
and imploring me to add to the previous thirty-fi ve talers now twenty-fi ve talers in loan, which
he promissed to return with certainty, together with the previous thirty-fi ve talers, at the following
market in Cracow in the same year. 63 This debt was not returned either - but at that market
in Cracow not only did he not return to me a single penny, but he did not even write to me for
several years 64 – and only at the insistence of Tomas Hilarius, pastor in Košice, did Scholius
receive an insignifi cant part of his money: the previous year he did write to me, though not
voluntarily but instigated by the venerable man Thomas Hilarius, pastor at your church. The
latter sent me in the past summer, through Johannes Debretzinus, ten talers in the name of
Johannes Stoeckelius, which were fi nally given to me this week, more precisely on the 29th of
October. 65 Hilarius left his post in Košice without being able to bring this case to a happy end,
therefore in 1570 Scholius saw no other solution except to address the town council: for which
reasons, I come to you, wise and distinguished gentlemen, and ask you vehemently again
and again, so that you consider and take a decision so that Johannes Stoeckelius returns to
me, on the fi rst occasion, the remaining fi fty talers and that he would have them brought to
62
AMK H I, no. 3036/26 and no. 4226/100.
63
caeterum ad constitutum diem, non modo plane nihil reddidit, sed etiam sequenti anno, vigessimo quinto die
martii, fere plorans ad me venit, orans, ut sibi ad priores triginta quinque taleros, adhuc viginti quinque taleros
darem mutuos, quos mihi ad proxime sequentem mercatum Cracoviensem eiusdem anni, cum prioribus
triginta quinque taleris certo remittere vellet.
64
caeterum ad mercatum illum Cracoviensem, non modo plane nullum nummum mihi remisit, verum etiam
aliquot annos ne literam mihi scripsit.
65
superiore quidem anno ad me scripsit, verum non sua sponte, sed instigante eum reverendo viro domino
Thoma Hilario, pastore ecclesiae vestrae. Hic per Johannem Debretzinum, decem taleros mihi nomine Johannis
Stoeckelij, praeterita aestate misit, qui mihi demum hac septimana, nempe vigesimo nono Octobris sunt
redditi.
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