ABSTRACT
In the middle of May 1518, a prelate with his retinue, distinguished officials of the Church, arrived in the small town of Körmend in western Hungary. They came to conduct an investigation by questioning local people as to whether the Augustinian friars had in fact caused scandals by living immorally and whether, because of this, had been deprived of their old cloister legitimately. The members of the small group—the auxiliary bishop arriving from the capital, Buda 1 , and a public notary coming from Esztergom, the headquarters of the national church, all with their attending servants—must have been rather fatigued, the rich cloak of the bishop faded with a thin layer of the dust from the road after spending five or so days on horseback riding over the Bakony hills, across a panoramic (but on horseback rather tiring) region of Transdanubia. 2 They must have been followed by the curious gazes of the townspeople. Entering the town from the northwest, they came riding southbound through the town on the main road—on the ancient Roman “Ivy Road”, in fact—where cattle was driven day by day toward Zagreb and Venice. Upon reaching the market square, they found themselves suddenly in front of the cloister, which was closely integrated into the daily life of the town and the constant witness of transit trade. This group however did not pass through, like many other people who crossed this town that lay at the junction of trade routes, but instead intended to stay for several days. At the cloister they may have turned left and crossed the market square, followed by a growing number of watchful folk, then reached the parish church and the parsonage in the southeast. They were probably warmly received by the priest, István, the incumbent, and other members of his household. As the parsonage lay beside the recently embellished four-corner renaissance castle, the most comfortable brick building in the town, they probably took their lodgings there, listening by night to the murmur of the River Rába running nearby. 3
