HUN-REN‒NSZL Fragmenta et Codices Research Group

Address: National Széchényi Library, Budavári Palota, F épület, H-1276 Budapest, Pf. 1205, Hungary Tel.: +36-1-487-8634

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Call for cooperation to colleagues working in public collections

Our research group welcomes notifications about any medieval codex fragment, be it parchment or paper, preserved in your collection. The communicated data will be entered into our database compiled in the National Széchényi Library. This may enhance the scholarly interest in the material and may be advantageous from the point of view of the document’s preservation. The services of the Group’s database being built in the National Széchényi Library will be available to everybody.
Thank you for your collaboration. Our contact address is: fragmenta@oszk.hu.

The Research Group’s history and objectives

The Fragmenta Codicum Research Group was founded by Professor László Mezey in the Eötvös College in 1974. Between 1984 and 2003, it was headed by András Vizkelety, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, between 2003 and 2017 by Edit Madas, while its current head is Gábor Sarbak. Since 2000, the Group is hosted by the National Széchényi Library. In 2007, it merged with the 19th-century Book and Media History Workshop and took the name of HAS‒NSZL Res Libraria Hungariae Research Group. Since 1st September 2019, the Research Group has operated within the framework of the Eötvös Loránd Research Network (ELKH). The Eötvös Loránd Research Network was renamed Hungarian Research Network (HUN-REN) on 1 September 2023.

The Fragmenta codicum workshop was created to explore a new area of sources, the medieval Latin codex fragments preserved in the libraries and archives of Hungary. Its primary objective is to discover and describe fragments and complete codices publishing the research results in catalogues and scholarly papers. This peculiar source type offers essential information on the literacy and book culture of medieval Hungary.

The members of the Group regularly participate in university education and PhD programs and are in close collaboration with other researchers of codices and codex fragments in Hungary and abroad.

Research topics and tasks

• the codex fragments of the National Széchényi Library
  
• to catalogue medieval codices preserved in church collections
  
• the tasks of the Research Group also include the individual areas of research of its members
  (history of medieval Hungarian literature, history of books, literary activity of the Pauline Order, liturgical uses in medieval Hungary, cultural history of medieval Esztergom, early Hungarian-language texts, Hungarian renaissance book culture, the Corvina Library, humanistic literature in Hungary, history of book illumination in Hungary, art historical analysis of codices preserved in Hungary)

Papers presenting the history of fragmentology in Hungary

• Mezey László: Fragmenta Codicum. Egy új forrásterület feltárása (1974. január-1975. július) [Fragmenta Codicum. Exploring a new body of sources]. MTA I OK 30, 1978, 65–90.
  
• Sarbak Gábor: A magyarországi kódextöredékek kutatása [The research of Hungarian codex fragments]. Iskolakultúra 7, 1997/5, 10–16.
  
• Madas Edit: Fragmenta codicum in bibliothecis Hungariae (Egy középkori forrásterület rendszeres feltárásáról) [Fragmenta codicum in bibliothecis Hungariae (The systematic exploration of a medieval body of sources)]. Aetas 23, 2008/1, 101–115.
  
• Madas Edit: Trente ans de recherches en Hongrie sur les fragments des manuscrits médiévaux. In: Cultura neolatina 65, 2005, 233-244.
  
• Korondi Ágnes: Codices and Codex Fragments. A Hungarian Workshop of Codicology and Medieval Literature. Museikon: a Journal of Religous Art and Culture 2017/1, 2017, 153-155.