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Rebels and Turcophiles? The Hungarian Protestant Clergy's Resistance against the Habsburg Counter Reformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2024

Georg B. Michels*
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside, USA
*
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Abstract

In March 1674, Hungary's Lutheran and Calvinist clergy stood collectively accused of fomenting rebellion against the Habsburgs and seeking protection from the Ottomans. A widely publicized tribunal in Pozsony (Bratislava, Pressburg) resulted in systematic expulsions, incarcerations, and the sale of forty-two pastors as galley slaves. A voluminous body of historiography has been dedicated to the victims of the tribunal and their tribulations. It is commonly assumed that the accusations against the Protestant clergy were fabricated. This article shifts the focus from martyrologies, sermons, and narratives written after the year 1674 to eyewitness accounts in inquisitorial records, letters, petitions, official reports, and military dispatches from the years leading up to the Pozsony Tribunal. These unstudied testimonies in the Hungarian and Austrian archives reveal that a significant number of pastors participated in popular resistance and revolt against a brutal Habsburg Counter Reformation. Many put their hopes in the Ottomans whom they considered protectors against the destruction of their religion. These little-known developments shed light on important larger historical realities that have been eclipsed by Habsburg and Central European historians, namely, Hungarian popular hopes for liberation from the Habsburgs by the Ottomans which culminated in two major revolts in 1670 and 1672.

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Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Regents of the University of Minnesota

This article revisits a topic that has been given significant attention by Hungarian, Slovak, Austrian, and other scholars for more than 200 years: the mass expulsion of the Protestant clergy from Habsburg Hungary after the infamous Pozsony (Bratislava, Pressburg)Footnote 1 Tribunal in March 1674. Previously, the focus has been almost completely on the tragic stories of the expelled pastors, particularly those who were sold as galley slaves in the Mediterranean.Footnote 2 Departing from this voluminous body of work I examine the veracity of the Tribunal's two key accusations that the pastors “were the primary authors and mobilizers of rebellion, . . . [and] happier to subjugate themselves to Turkish authority than to remain under the authority of His Majesty.”Footnote 3 Were these accusations indeed entirely fabricated as traditional studies have uniformly insisted? Or were they based on pastors' actual behavior? To explore these questions, I reconstruct the pastors' roles in popular resistance against the violent Habsburg Counter Reformation during the years preceding the 1674 trial. This resistance culminated in major revolts that took place against the backdrop of growing Habsburg fears that an Ottoman invasion was imminent. The combination of Habsburg Turcophobia and Hungarian revolt gave rise to the Vienna court's conviction that Protestant preachers were advocating the secession of Habsburg Hungary to the Ottoman Empire. Was this actually true or was it the figment of a paranoic Habsburg imagination?

The 1674 Pozsony Tribunal represented the high point of the violent Counter Reformation in Hungary. Since the early 1600s Hungarian Catholic bishops and magnates had attempted to restore the Catholic faith. They faced a realm in which the Protestant Reformation had been overwhelmingly successful; most German and Slovak speakers had embraced the Lutheran faith while a large majority of ethnic HungariansFootnote 4 had become Calvinists. Violence was a distinctive feature of recatholicization from the very beginning. Powerful lords such as the Erdődys, Batthyánys, Esterházys, and Nádasdys expelled pastors from their estates and forced peasants to convert. Successes were largely limited to the western parts of the Hungarian kingdom but even here popular resistance was seething. Priests were beaten, processions attacked, holy images defaced, and Catholic holidays ignored. Peasants went to confession only when threatened with brute force.Footnote 5 The pressure on local Protestant communities intensified in the 1660s when the Habsburg court got involved and ordered troops to assist the Catholic clergy in the confiscation of churches and the expulsion of Protestant clergy. During the week of Pentecost 1669, for example, 300 Habsburg soldiers occupied the main Lutheran church of the important mining town of Selmecbánya (Schemnitz, Banská Štiavnica). More than 2,000 miners and artisans armed themselves to defend their church, but they could achieve very little against the Habsburg army.Footnote 6

The Habsburg court's readiness to provide military support to the Hungarian Counter Reformation was largely inspired by the unprecedented expansion of the Ottoman Empire in Hungary. The conquest of Várad (Varat, Wardein, Oradea) (1660) and Újvár (Uyvar, Neuhäusel, Nové Zámky) (1663), two linchpins of Hungarian border defense, allowed Ottoman pashas to impose their authority on countless villages and towns in what until then had been the heartlands of Habsburg Hungary. By the early 1670s the pasha of Uyvar collected tribute from villages near the Moravian and Austrian borders.Footnote 7 Emperor Leopold I and top Viennese courtiers began to echo the fears of Hungarian bishops that Hungary's still largely Protestant population could not be trusted. In 1671, for example, the Secret Council (Geheimer Rat), the Habsburg emperor's exclusive advisory body, discussed a memorandum that collectively denounced Hungarian Protestants as dangerous fifth columnists: “Hungary will never be quiet, as long as the heresy will be tolerated . . . . If the Turk invades and overtakes (irruat et superveniat) [Hungary] it is likely that all the heretics will join him.” According to the Swedish Ambassador Esaias Pufendorf the Vienna court became convinced that “the emperor would never be the real master of the Kingdom [of Hungary]” unless Protestantism was suppressed.Footnote 8 Clearly, fears of the Ottoman Turks and Hungarian Protestants were running high in the minds of the Hungarian and Viennese powerbrokers who endorsed and organized the Pozsony Tribunal. It is against this backdrop that the unprecedented attempt to expel the entire Protestant clergy from Hungary must be seen.

The historiography on the Protestant clergy's tragic fate is voluminous. Lutheran and Calvinist historians have presented the expulsion as an arbitrary act of violence by the Habsburg authorities. The charges raised at the trials are seen without exception as fabrications and political devices to eliminate Protestantism from Hungary. The martyrdom of the galley slaves has assumed outsized proportions in this confessional scholarship.Footnote 9 In addition to this dominant approach scholars have focused on the expelled Hungarian clergy's lives in the European diaspora: Eva Kowalská, for example, has reconstructed the fate of the exiled pastors in the Lutheran territories of Germany. Similarly, László Bujtás has focused on Dutch sources to reconstruct the liberation of the galley slaves and their subsequent lives in the Netherlands.Footnote 10 These studies continue a long-standing tradition of scholarship that focused on the writings of the exiles (Exulantenliteratur).Footnote 11 These writings created a powerful narrative about the hardships the clergy faced during trial, incarceration, galley slavery, and foreign exile. The plight of the Hungarian pastors also attracted much attention in the international Protestant community and left substantial traces in pamphlets and booklets that echoed the sentiments of the trials' principal victims.Footnote 12 It is important to note that these literary canons originated during the years following the 1674 trial. They were typically polemical manifestoes against the Habsburg court and the Catholic Church lamenting the catastrophe of Hungarian Protestantism.

A few historians have looked at the trial itself. László Benczédi and Joseph Maurer, for example, explored the political decisions that led to the summons, arrest, and incarceration of the Protestant clergy. In particular, they explored the agendas of the Vienna court and the Hungarian Catholic hierarchy, concluding that the eradication of Protestantism was their top priority. What happened in Bohemia after White Mountain (1620) was to be repeated in Hungary.Footnote 13 In a similar vein, Katalin Péter elucidated the manipulative and propagandistic aspects of the trial. Following in Péter's footsteps Katalin S. Varga established that the text of the proceedings was permeated by anti-Protestant literary cliches and stereotypes. Varga's analysis is pioneering in the sense that it forces us to look very carefully at the evidence presented at the trial.Footnote 14 But was this evidence in fact entirely fabricated, as she suggests, or did it relate to actual incidents that can be verified with reliable historical evidence?

Unfortunately, writings by Protestant clergy from the pivotal years before the 1674 trial are extremely scarce. I have found only two autobiographical accounts by Lutheran pastors who lived through the popular revolts of the early 1670s. While the authors hide their own participation in the revolts, they reveal a lot about the traumatization of their communities by the violent Counter Reformation.Footnote 15 But sermons, letters, pamphlets, and diaries by pastors who participated in the revolts have apparently not survived. That such texts were written can be inferred from the proceedings of the Pozsony Tribunal.Footnote 16 For example, the prosecutors emphasized the importance of a miscellany entitled Triumphant Weapon (Győzedelmeskedő fegyver) which survived in one single manuscript copy until 1906 but has since disappeared. Tibor Fabiny, who searched Hungarian manuscript collections, assumed that it was destroyed. Triumphant Weapon contained a collection of prayers and sermons by pastors who joined a rebel army that fought and defeated Habsburg troops during the 1672 revolt. These prayers and sermons praised the armed fight against the Habsburgs and likely endorsed rebel efforts to enlist Ottoman assistance. No historian has ever studied it.Footnote 17

To gain first-hand insights into the actions of the Protestant clergy one must turn to the Hungarian and Austrian archives. Particularly valuable are the in-depth investigations conducted by the Habsburg authorities during the years preceding the 1674 trial. These investigations, which have been ignored by scholarship, commenced after a first major anti-Habsburg revolt in April 1670. They reached a culmination point after a second even larger revolt that began in September 1672 and led to the temporary collapse of Habsburg power in the eastern parts of Royal Hungary. Only the dispatch of fresh troops from Bohemia, Silesia, and the German principalities allowed the Habsburg court to restore order in January 1673.Footnote 18 During the next two years Habsburg investigators interrogated thousands of witnesses. Their testimonies reveal that popular outrage about the persecution of the Protestant clergy was the principal trigger of revolt. There is also substantial evidence that Lutheran and Calvinist pastors participated.Footnote 19

The veracity of these inquisitorial records is corroborated by local reports, petitions, and letters in the archives of the Zipser Kammer and the Aulic War Council.Footnote 20 It is further suggested by the ways in which testimonies were gathered. Most importantly, the investigators made no efforts to coerce witnesses or use torture, and selected witnesses randomly. Witnesses included participants, bystanders, as well as victims of the revolt. It is interesting that participants typically spoke their minds openly without any apparent fear. The investigators' letters to the Zipser Kammer provide an explanation: they worked under difficult circumstances as they faced popular animosity and even violence. In Bártfa (Bartfeld, Bardejov), for example, Lutheran students attacked the investigators' coachman with stones and broke his skull. Even though the officials were under the protection of the occupying Habsburg army, they did not feel safe and were eager to leave the inhospitable places they visited as soon as possible. This means that testimonies were gathered quickly under the immediate impression of events; there was no time for significant editing.Footnote 21

Prehistory: Growing Fears About the Loyalty of the Protestant Clergy

Official fears of Protestant pastors as potential rabble rousers preceded the Pozsony trials by several decades. During the 1630s Jesuits, who had ventured into entirely Protestant regions beyond the Tisza River and along the border with the Ottoman Empire, reported that they were in constant battle with Calvinist village ministers.Footnote 22 Concern was also raised by the emigration of Bohemian refugees that started after the Battle of White Mountain (1620) and turned into a steady stream during the late 1640s. These fugitives were suspected of having ties with Bohemian rebels and some had probably participated in Czech peasant uprisings against the Counter Reformation. Most settled in villages and towns that had long been centers of resistance against Habsburg power. Among these was the wealthy town of Eperjes (Eperies, Prešov), a hotbed of opposition, whose Lutheran pastors attracted the anger of Catholic Church leaders for having ordered the arrest of a man who had converted to the Catholic faith and joined the Franciscans.Footnote 23

As the Hungarian Counter Reformation intensified, Catholic clergy, Catholic magnates, and the Habsburg court increasingly resorted to denouncing the Protestant clergy as dangerous subversives. In the early 1660s, the Lutheran clergy of Rozsnyó (Rosenau, Rožňava) came under suspicion of having supported—if not encouraged—the Lutheran magistrate's call for Ottoman protection against the Jesuits who had begun to make inroads into the town's almost completely Lutheran population. And in 1667 when two Lutheran pastors assumed positions in the already heavily Catholicized town of Nyitra (Neutra, Nitra) in the western parts of Royal Hungary Emperor Leopold I “gave strictest orders” that the matter should be resolved by means of violence. The preachers should either be expelled or, if necessary, put to death (li faccia morire) because their presence was undermining the Catholic Church's success. The emperor's decision was reported to Rome with enthusiasm by the papal representative in Vienna.Footnote 24 In analogous fashion, Zsófia Báthori, a powerful magnate who converted to the Catholic faith in 1661, targeted Calvinist ministers after unsuccessfully ordering her serfs to adopt her new faith. Convinced that the Calvinist clergy was responsible for her serfs' resistance she unleashed a military campaign to dislodge them. This brutal campaign affected all Calvinist counties of Upper Hungary (Hungaria Superior)—Vienna's easternmost Hungarian military provinceFootnote 25—but it seems to have backfired and driven the Calvinist clergy into the arms of the Hungarian estates who prepared an uprising against the Habsburg Empire.Footnote 26

A new tone of genuine alarm about the Protestant clergy emerged when Vienna began to uncover the so-called Ferenc Wesselényi Conspiracy, a yet poorly understood attempt by Hungarian magnates and nobles to secede from the Habsburg Empire and turn Hungary into an Ottoman vassal kingdom.Footnote 27 The conspiracy culminated in revolt in April 1670. In a letter to Emperor Leopold, Bishop György Bársony, the most powerful churchman of Upper Hungary, conjured up the imminent danger of an Ottoman invasion that would result in catastrophic consequences for both the Habsburg Empire and the Catholic Church. After seizing Upper Hungary, the Ottomans would “expand their power” into the empire's hereditary provinces and “penetrate into the entrails (viscera) of the Holy Roman Empire within a very short time.” The letter painted a nightmarish scenario: Hungarian rebels accompanied by Ottoman troops would slaughter (extirpare) the Catholic clergy, seize “as booty” (in praedam) all Catholic lands, and occupy missionary residences. The destruction of Catholicism would be accompanied by the installation of Protestant pastors in abandoned Catholic parishes. In Bársony's horror vision, the threat of an Ottoman invasion with its “imminent danger to all of Christianity” merged with the extermination of Catholicism and the triumphant takeover of Catholic institutions by the Protestant clergy.Footnote 28

There is good evidence that Emperor Leopold shared Bársony's opinion. In fact, the Aulic War Council and the Hungarian Chancellery began to issue orders to Habsburg military commanders in Upper Hungary to investigate Protestant pastors who came under suspicion of being secret supporters of the presumed Ottoman invasion plan. The first such investigation began in January 1670, coinciding with an earlier—unfortunately lost—letter by Bársony to Leopold and a decree issued directly by the emperor.Footnote 29 The target was none less than István Czeglédi, the prominent leader of the Calvinist community of Kassa (Kaschau, Košice), the citadel of Habsburg power in Upper Hungary. Habsburg military commanders accused Czeglédi of having given a public sermon celebrating a major Ottoman victory over the Venetians in Candia (Crete). He supposedly had thanked God for granting the Ottomans this glorious conquest. The Venetian ambassador in Vienna, who commanded an elaborate spy network in Hungary, provided more detail.Footnote 30 Czeglédi allegedly had prophesied that “the happy hour of liberation has come for . . . [our] miserable country.” In the spring, the Ottoman army would come “to break the chains of [our] servitude and restore [us] to freedom.” A large crowd of listeners had enthusiastically welcomed the news of the Ottoman victory with “singular [rounds] of applause and infinite blessings.” According to the ambassador Czeglédi's well-known rhetorical skills had left the crowd spellbound as if they were listening to “celestial inspirations and an angelic oracle (angelico orracolo).”Footnote 31

It is hard to establish what exactly Czeglédi said without access to the actual sermon which has not survived. Suffice it to say that the case attracted considerable attention at the imperial court and was closely followed by Emperor Leopold himself who issued repeated instructions to interrogate and arrest the pastor.Footnote 32 Czeglédi continued his preaching campaign in prison where he was viciously beaten by guards and thrown into solitary confinement to “separate him from the other rebels.” His subsequent release, which was authorized by an official concerned that Czeglédi might die, immediately attracted the wrath of Emperor Leopold who expressed his disbelief that “the author and fomenter of rebellion and sedition” had been set free.Footnote 33 In May 1671, Czeglédi was summoned to appear in front of an extraordinary commission in Pozsony to give testimony about his alleged involvement in the April 1670 revolt. Czeglédi died on his way, yet even this did not diminish the fear he generated at the Viennese court.Footnote 34

The Czeglédi case set a precedent which soon led to the indictment of other Protestant ministers for supporting Ottoman authority. Calvinist preachers in villages and small towns along the Tisza River were denounced for having placed their hopes in Ottoman arms as Habsburg troops advanced into Upper Hungary in the aftermath of the April 1670 revolt. One of them was Sándor Bagossy, the minister of Mándok in Szabolcs County and a close associate of Czeglédi. According to several witnesses Bagossy had told his flock that “the Turk had sworn on his beard, the sun, the moon, and the stars that he would take the Reformed under his protection.” And when the Ottomans would finally come to their rescue it would be a day of reckoning for the papists and “all those who held with the Germans.”Footnote 35 Another Calvinist pastor, István Szőlősy of Nagymihály in Zemplén County, prophesied that the Ottomans' capture of Candia had prepared “the way to the ruin of the German Empire and the extermination of idolatry, that is, the Catholic faith.”Footnote 36 Similar observations can be made about Calvinist pastors in the western parts of Hungary. One of them was Péter Kajáry who “terribly blasphemed against God, the Virgin Mary, and Catholic religion.” According to several witnesses he voiced the hope that “the Upper Hungarians come down with the Turks and Tatars to slaughter the Catholics.”Footnote 37

The Turcophile Bagossy's statement was not based on a utopian dream but rather on actual experience: Habsburg officials and military officers in Szabolcs County and other Hungarian counties adjacent to the Ottoman border had no power to prevent Ottoman intervention in local affairs. For example, the proximity of Szatmár Fortress—the most significant Habsburg garrison in eastern Hungary—could not prevent a cross-border raid by Ottoman troops that targeted estates and villages belonging to the Habsburg emperor in July 1672. The administrator of these fiscal properties could do nothing but flee to the fortress and pen a letter to Kassa complaining about the abduction and killing of royal peasants.Footnote 38 While depopulating fiscal villages under the nose of a major Habsburg garrison, Ottoman troops left alone close-by Protestant communities. Letters by other frustrated officials show that these communities continued to thrive and that it was simply impossible to dislodge their ministers (“not one of them wants to move out”).Footnote 39 In fact, local Ottoman commanders had apparently promised these communities protection: when Habsburg emissaries came to the town of Jolsva (Jelschau, Jelšava) (Gömör County) to expel the Lutheran ministers and confiscate the parish church they learned that the Pasha of Eger had ordered the town's magistrate not to cooperate. When the emissaries nevertheless proceeded to confiscate the church a general uprising ensued that forced Habsburg troops to barricade themselves in the town's castle.Footnote 40

The Habsburg court's fear of an Ottoman invasion became almost an obsession in August 1672. Rumors were spreading that an army of 5,000 Ottoman soldiers would join Hungarian rebels who stood poised to invade from Ottoman territory. And a report from the Ottoman controlled town of Rimaszombat (Gross-Steffelsdorf, Rimavská Sobota) (Gömör County) indicated that the entire nobility of Heves County was about to secede to the Ottoman Empire.Footnote 41 In Zemplén County, Habsburg tax collectors were threatened with death; nobles refused to pay the dézsma tax stating “they would rather give it to the pagan Turk.” In Upper Hungary, garrisons no longer dared to leave their fortresses and Hungarian soldiers openly declared that they would not fight the Ottomans. The top Hungarian military commander in Upper Hungary, Vice General Zsigmond Pethő, resigned his position in despair. He claimed to be a broken man who neither had the strength nor the nerves to carry on.Footnote 42 Even the sober assessment of a well-informed undercover agent—who had won the trust of Hungarian rebel leaders—that an Ottoman invasion was not likely did not dispel the climate of fear that engulfed the imperial court.Footnote 43

Efforts to Contain Protestant Clergy in Border Fortresses, Towns, and Villages

The fear that Protestant clerics, both Lutheran and Calvinist, were placing their hopes in an Ottoman invasion was closely associated with a related anxiety: that ministers were responsible for undermining Habsburg military strength. For example, in February 1670 Habsburg soldiers of the Tokaj garrison (Zemplén County) refused to help Zsófia Báthori evict Calvinist ministers from villages and market towns on her estates. Stating that they did not want “to fight against their faith comrades (wider Ihre Glaubensgenossen nit fechten)” they stubbornly resisted explicit orders by Emperor Leopold I and no threats by their commanders could move them. None of the targeted Calvinist ministers appears to have been held responsible for this mutiny.Footnote 44 However, the episode—and an almost identical incident involving Calvinist soldiers from Kálló Fortress (Szabolcs County)—caused considerable shock in Vienna and soon generated an almost paranoic obsession with the loyalty of Protestant soldiers.Footnote 45

Protestant preachers in Hungary's border fortresses confronting the Ottoman Empire came under close scrutiny. The Calvinist preacher of Ecsed Fortress, for example, stood accused of having encouraged desertion: he supposedly had convinced (überreden) a soldier from Baden in Upper Germany—apparently a fellow Calvinist—to run away but the soldier had been captured during his escape attempt and told the story. General Paris von Spankau, commander-in-chief in Upper Hungary, reported the incident to the Aulic War Council in Vienna which promptly issued strict orders to prevent “persuasions of this kind” in the future. The Hungarian Chancellery also got involved in this matter, which clearly was of great interest to the highest authorities. It is interesting to note, however, that while the deserter was severely punished the unnamed minister was not touched.Footnote 46

There were growing demands for the removal of Protestant clergy from border fortresses, but they were not easily implemented. For example, the Catholic parish priest of Korpona (Karpfen, Krupina) wrote to Vienna that all Protestant clergy should be removed from the border and their offices (Ambter) should be given to loyal Catholic clergy. No response to this request has been recorded.Footnote 47 However, a similar proposition by Baron Zeiss, commander of Légrád Fortress, left a significant paper trail. In August 1670, Zeiss asked whether he “should get rid of (wegschaffen solle)” the garrison's Lutheran pastor, János Rakicsányi, who had been involved in a “troubling undertaking (besorgende Impresa)” in a nearby town.Footnote 48 Vienna gave permission for the preacher's arrest but immediately Lutheran soldiers—who together with Calvinist soldiers made up the entire garrison—sent a series of protests to the Aulic War Council. When Vienna failed to respond they issued an ultimatum demanding “not to molest them any further and leave things in status quo.”Footnote 49 The approximately 1,000 Lutheran and Calvinist soldiers in Légrád and smaller nearby fortresses were ready to mutiny. In the end, the soldiers won, at least temporarily. Their pastor was released from prison and reinstalled in office. Baron Zeiss received instructions from both the Aulic War Council and Hungarian Chancellery “not to interfere [anymore] in religious matters and thereby bring significant harm to the royal fiscus.”Footnote 50

Efforts to discipline and expel the Protestant clergy in border fortresses appear to have been called off after this incident.Footnote 51 Instead attention shifted to towns and villages. The first attacks occurred in the vicinity of Kassa, the citadel of Habsburg power in Upper Hungary. In March 1671, for example, German troops led by Ferenc Szegedi, the Archbishop of Eger,Footnote 52 invaded the market town of Mecenzéf (Metzenseifen, Medzev) fifteen miles west of Kassa. The archbishop accused Pastor Martin Novack, a Lutheran, of having made derogatory remarks about His Majesty and expelled him from his church. Novak soon returned to his community but was eventually forced to escape to Ottoman territory and then to Silesia.Footnote 53 At about the same time the Franciscan Ferenc Hamar led an armed detachment into the nearby town of Torna (Tornau, Turňa) and surrounded the home of Calvinist minister István Szőnyi Nagy. When Szőnyi Nagy stepped out of the door to reason with Hamar the latter threatened him with an axe and forced him to hand over the keys to the church. Despite a heroic speech in which Szőnyi Nagy invoked God, the Habsburg emperor, and the law of the Hungarian Kingdom, there was little he and his faithful supporters could do in the face of naked violence. After the pillaging and destruction of his residence, Szőnyi Nagy and his family fled across the Ottoman border to Debrecen (Varat vilayet).Footnote 54

In April 1671, the Aulic War Council, after consulting with Emperor Leopold, got directly involved in the persecution of the Protestant clergy and issued an arrest warrant for the 83-year-old pastor of Lednic (Lednice, Lednica) (Trencsén County), Mikuláš (Miklós) Drábik, a Czech exile who had fled the Habsburg occupation of Bohemia in the late 1620s.Footnote 55 Drábik, who in the past had belonged to the Bohemian Brethren, attracted considerable attention for his apocalyptic sermons about the imminent collapse of the Habsburg Empire and the destruction of the Catholic Church. In a widely disseminated treatise which circulated in Hungarian Protestant communities—and was read by Lutheran and Calvinist clergy alikeFootnote 56—he praised the Ottomans as the instruments of divine punishment. An Ottoman invasion would annihilate the Austrian Beast, end the reign of the Roman Antichrist, and give Hungarian nobles the opportunity to exterminate all Catholics on their estates. After this cathartic event, he prophesied, a Divine Light (Lux) would enter the darkness of the world and the Ottoman would convert to Christianity and become Protestants.Footnote 57 In fact, it appeared that Vienna was more afraid of his writings than the man himself. Nevertheless, Drábik was arrested, put on trial, and executed—a brutal episode that shocked Hungarian and European Protestant communities.Footnote 58

While Vienna resorted to trials to eliminate or intimidate its opponents, the Hungarian Catholic clergy relied increasingly on military force. The outspoken Turcophobe György Bársony was at the forefront of this little-studied development.Footnote 59 In Szepes County alone, he personally participated in the confiscation of at least thirty churches. For example, in April 1671 he intruded into the territory of the Protestant lord János Görgei, who was absent at that time, and chased away the Lutheran pastor Vencel Ritzman from the market town of Toporc. In the village of Illésfalva, not far from Bársony's residence, Habsburg soldiers under the bishop's command cruelly abused the pastor and dragged him by his hair from the parish.Footnote 60 Such brutal attacks could easily backfire. In July 1672, the pistol-wielding Bársony and Croat mercenaries tried to break through a large crowd of Lutheran peasants in Nyitra County to confiscate their church; they were viciously attacked with clubs, pitchforks, and axes. Bársony was severely injured; his brother, an imperial judge, was butchered; and several Croat soldiers were beaten to death. Interestingly, Bársony only survived because the Lutheran pastor, Štefan Pilárik, saved his life.Footnote 61

Again and again, we see Catholic clergy as initiators and perpetrators of violence against the Protestant clergy, and not vice versa as suggested by the proceedings of the 1674 trial. Bishop György Széchényi of Győr (Raab, Ráb), for example, called repeatedly for military assistance to expel Lutheran pastors from his diocese.Footnote 62 The primate of the Hungarian Church, György Szelepcsényi, appealed to the War Council to evict the Calvinist pastors of Komárom (Komorn, Komárno) and Pápa.Footnote 63 The archabbot of the ancient Benedictine Monastery of Pannonhalma, a former soldier himself, rode over his estates with an armed militia to chase away all Calvinist ministers. And the Jesuits in Szatmár relied on the Habsburg fortress commander to expel the Calvinist pastor and occupy their new residence.Footnote 64 Similarly, Canon Imre Kolozsváry and Provost (prépost) István Szegedi rode with troops through the villages and towns of Sáros County in May 1672 and mercilessly expelled all Lutheran and Calvinist clergy. They also threatened the clergy's local supporters with pillage and extracted bribes or valuable merchandise—such as clothing and furniture—in exchange for leaving people alone.Footnote 65 The violence employed by the Hungarian Catholic Church and its agents was so excessive that General Spankau appealed to the Aulic War Council to stop such abuses.Footnote 66 He feared the outbreak of a major popular revolt and his superiors in Vienna appear to have been receptive. In February 1672, the Aulic War Council instructed a military convoy accompanying Bishop György Széchényi of Győr to use utter restraint. They were “to watch out diligently (fleissig invigilieren) that no revolt would happen.”Footnote 67

Popular Resistance and the Protestant Clergy

The armed intrusions spearheaded by the Catholic clergy did not remain unopposed and it is in this context that Protestant preachers got involved in violent altercations with their Catholic counterparts and the military detachments they commanded. In most cases it is impossible to say to what extent Protestant clergy participated in these attacks or if they instigated them. All we know is that a significant number of communities—both rural and urban—rose up in revolt to prevent the expulsion of their pastors.Footnote 68 For example, in September 1671 the women of Káposztafalva rang the church bells when Bishop Bársony arrived in their village and welcomed him with a hail of mud and stones. Only when Bársony returned with a larger military detachment a month later did resistance subside. In January 1672, the women of the village of Hunfalva (Szepes County) bombarded Bársony with stones, garbage, and rotten eggs when he arrived to drag away their pastor. In both cases, the Lutheran pastors could only be blamed for encouraging the populace to protect their churches: Pastor Simon Bielek of Hunfalva, for example, had not objected when the village women started camping out in his church day and night for weeks on end. He also had not protested when on an earlier occasion the same women had prevented an attempt by Pauline monks to seize their church.Footnote 69 The Lutheran pastors of Körmöcbánya (Kremnitz, Kremnica), however, went much further. Daniel Neckel, the German pastor, gave rousing sermons “against His Majesty . . . maliciously accus[ing] him in the most impudent way.” And his Slovak colleague, L'udovít Lucius, apparently did the same as suggested by a now lost apocalyptical treatise denouncing the “furious persecution by the Antichrist of the Occident (Antichristi Occidentalis).” Lucius stood accused of breaking into Catholic homes and throwing crucifixes into the fire. Other similar cases could be cited.Footnote 70

Did the pastors condone popular riots? Did they participate in them? The evidence is inconclusive. In late January 1672, Bishop György Széchényi occupied the town of Komárom with Croat troops and expelled the town's two popular Calvinist ministers—a brutal action to which no immediate popular response has been recorded.Footnote 71 Several months later, in June 1672, arson destroyed the confiscated Calvinist church; the fire spread and incinerated parts of the town. The bishop immediately launched an investigation and identified János Száki, the minister of a nearby village, as the main culprit: he had supposedly hired a young man and an old woman to place combustible materials against the church walls. A soldier from the local garrison had provided tinder and gunpowder. Was Száki really involved? It is impossible to say because he claimed innocence and only one witness, the young man, directly indicted him. But we know that the new Catholic leaders of Komárom had become apprehensive, if not panicky, about secret visits by Calvinist ministers from nearby towns and villages under Ottoman protection. A minister named Pál Ónodi had been present when a Calvinist mob rioted against the confiscation of their church. And two more ministers from nearby villages had been tracked down shortly afterward. And General Karl Ludwig von Hofkirchen, the local military commander, certainly did not reassure Bishop Széchényi when he reported that ministers continued to go in and out of Komárom secretly. In any case, when the fire broke out in June 1672 during the height of this panic, Széchényi quickly pinpointed one of these secret visitors, János Száki, as being responsible.Footnote 72

Száki's brutal execution resulted from Széchényi's conviction—which was shared by Hofkirchen—that Calvinist pastors were dangerous rabble rousers. The fact that they had infiltrated from Ottoman territory surely contributed to Széchényi's strong reaction: he was an outspoken Turcophobe whose father, a Habsburg officer, had been killed in battle with Ottoman troops.Footnote 73 It is noteworthy that Száki was executed together with the widow of a former minister, a woman who enjoyed much local prestige. By killing Száki and the widow, Széchényi believed that he had stopped a secret conspiracy of the Calvinist clergy. Yet, the executions did not solve the general apprehension of the authorities. Shortly afterward, Hofkirchen confiscated correspondence between local residents and the Calvinist preacher of Ottoman Buda. An investigation revealed other contacts with Calvinists in Buda and the Aulic War Council gave strict orders to “search for suspicious persons and seize their letters.” The information cited here helps to explain why the Calvinist clergy of Komárom was singled out by the Pozsony Tribunal, but it does not provide much proof of their responsibility for the town's resistance.Footnote 74

It is much more likely that the Komárom ministers—including the executed Száki—fell victim to episcopal wrath because they were closely associated with resisting secular elites. Calvinist nobles and townsmen had long resisted Catholic intrusions into their town. They were in close contact with the Calvinist soldiers of the local garrison and sent joint protests to the War Council. And they were largely responsible for the miserable living conditions of the Catholic clergy who had replaced their ministers.Footnote 75 Did Bishop Széchényi believe that he could punish these powerful opponents by singling out the Calvinist clergymen who visited them in secret? In any case, a similar process of scapegoating—that is, holding the clergy responsible for the resistance of local Protestant elites—seems to have played out in several other cases.Footnote 76

Yet, there is good evidence that some Protestant pastors resorted to violence or participated openly in armed uprisings. One of the most spectacular episodes was a popular uprising in Árva County that began after the county's Lutheran majority population lost their protector, the magnate István Thököly, who had died in December 1670 when his castle came under siege by Habsburg troops.Footnote 77 In May 1671, news reached Vienna that István Bocskó, the son of a prominent Árva pastor, had assembled Lutheran parish clergy, peasants, and demobilized soldiers to launch an uprising. Everywhere he went he administered an oath of allegiance to Imre Thököly, the deceased magnate's 14-year-old son who had escaped to Transylvania. Bocskó told his audiences that it was time to start “killing all the Germans (Germanos omnes interimendos esse)”; Imre Thököly would soon come to help them with Ottoman and Transylvanian troops. Bocskó was admired by the local Lutheran clergy; they hosted him at their homes and had drinks with him. Things became very ugly very quickly for Catholic clergy and Habsburg officials alike. The panicked Bishop György Bársony claimed that Bocskó and his supporters were leading a religious war against both the Catholic Church and Habsburg Empire. He conjured up images of the Hussite wars and a 1631–32 peasant revolt which had left the Catholic Church of Upper Hungary in shambles.Footnote 78

The Lutheran serfs of István Thököly were the driving force behind the uprising. They were seething with rage about the unbearable costs of billeting, the occupying soldiers' random violence—particularly the rape of their women—and the drastic imposition of new taxes.Footnote 79 The spark that likely set off the volatile powder keg was the murder of a popular Lutheran school master by a band of Catholic thugs. In late May 1671, armed peasant detachments led by Lutheran clergy and their sons invaded Árva County's mountainous north with its largely Catholic population. A vicious civil war, which unfortunately has left few traces in the archives, led to atrocities on both sides. Catholic missionaries, mostly Paulines and Piarists from neighboring Poland, were the principal targets of the Lutheran rebels and the Polish authorities called for the immediate deployment of the Habsburg army. This military intervention came in June and July 1671, but it was a miserable failure: none of the revolt's leaders were captured and many battle-hardened Lutheran clerics and their sons remained at large and prepared for the next uprising, which was only a matter of time.Footnote 80

The frustrated War Council and the furious Bishop György Bársony, who prodded Vienna to take drastic action, had to be content with the arrest of Pastor János Andreas who had been István Thököly's court preacher and confessor. Andreas stood accused of having conspired with a Habsburg officer in Árva Castle, the headquarters of Habsburg military power, in an apparent attempt to allow rebel detachments secret entry into the castle. However, no proof was found against Andreas and the War Council finally—in January 1672—gave instructions to release him with full restoration of his confiscated properties. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that the War Council's fear of losing Árva Castle came true only a few months later: rebels bribed a high-ranking Habsburg officer (possibly the same man with whom Andreas had allegedly been in touch) and seized the castle only to establish a vicious regime of persecution against Árva's Catholics.Footnote 81

A similar drama unfolded in Zemplén County, where Calvinist pastors operated in a social environment that was fervently hostile to Habsburg power and the Catholic Church. The Calvinist nobles of Zemplén County routinely used brute force to keep Catholic priests from their villages and had the reputation of “hanging bailiffs.”Footnote 82 During the April 1670 revolt these nobles had appealed to the Ottomans for military support and, unlike the magnate Ferenc I. Rákóczi and other Catholic supporters, did not surrender to Vienna when the Ottomans failed to intervene. At a turbulent meeting of the rebellious nobility in Tállya on 1 May 1670 Rákóczi was angrily denounced as “a son-of-a-bitch with a lawyer's soul (procator lelkű kurvafia)”; he and other Catholic nobles were threatened with murder. Using guerilla-style tactics against advancing Habsburg troops, Calvinist nobles of Zemplén County continued their resistance for two more months; they had significant support among the peasantry. In fact, these peasants never capitulated even after the nobles finally fled to Ottoman territory or Transylvania.Footnote 83 Violent clashes between armed peasants and German garrison soldiers continued and—as billeting and foraging grew harsher—Zemplén peasants began to express pro-Ottoman sentiments quite openly. Many of them voted with their feet for the Ottoman Empire in order to escape Habsburg repression.Footnote 84

The military occupation of Zemplén County led to a systematic attack on the Calvinist clergy. But it backfired. In December 1671, for example, the townsmen of Tállya, an epicentre of the April 1670 revolt, fought to the death against a military detachment that attempted to expel their pastor. They were assisted by armed students who had been expelled from a nearby Calvinist academy. The Habsburg field commander attributed the rebels' stubborn resistance to the active participation and leadership of the town's popular pastor, István Budai.Footnote 85 The townsmen of Gálszécs, who had a reputation for rebelliousness since they had enthusiastically embraced the István Bocskai Uprising (1604–06), listened to the apocalyptic sermons of Pastor János Técsy, who compared the Catholic Church to the Whore of Babylon and made jokes about the Virgin Mary. In July 1672, the town was occupied by a military detachment and Técsy fled across the Ottoman border to make contact with fugitive nobles from Zemplén County; he returned with the rebel army that invaded from Ottoman territory in September 1672.Footnote 86 And the residents of the market town of Nagymihály closed ranks around their pastor Mihály Zadany, who attributed Catholic cult worship to the Devil. A priest who tried in vain to take Zadany's place wrote that all his efforts and those of other priests in the region were in vain (in vanum laboraverunt). Nagymihály exploded in anti-Catholic violence a few weeks later.Footnote 87

In Sárospatak, not far from Tállya, Calvinist pastors found themselves at the center of a brewing conflict with the Habsburg military. Anti-Habsburg sentiments had been running high ever since Jesuits sponsored by the magnate Zsófia Báthori had launched an aggressive conversion campaign in the mid-1660s. In fact, the Jesuits feared for their lives “because school masters and judges had sworn to kill every [Jesuit] who would fall into their hands.”Footnote 88 Only the presence of a strong Habsburg garrison guaranteed their safety. After the April 1670 revolt the destruction of local Calvinism was immediately put on the agenda: all churches were to be confiscated and the Sárospatak Academy, the principal seminary of Calvinist ministers in Royal Hungary, was to be closed.Footnote 89 The town's Calvinist ministers, among them most vocally Mihály Szántay and András Szepsi, refused to cooperate. They enjoyed significant support from the town magistrate, local nobles, and the students of the Sárospatak Academy who armed themselves to the teeth to resist the seizure of their school.Footnote 90 The town's stubborn resistance probably explains the vicious retaliation that followed: Habsburg troops systematically plundered and demolished (demolierten) the town's Calvinist churches. The town's pastors, several professors, and many students of the Sárospatak Academy fled onto Ottoman territory where they joined a rebel army that invaded Upper Hungary in September 1672.Footnote 91

In other Calvinist counties one also finds pastors who openly encouraged or participated in popular resistance against Habsburg authority.Footnote 92 A good example is András Porcsalmi, a prominent Calvinist minister who was a protégé of István Bocskai, the high sheriff (főispán) of Zemplén County. In the aftermath of the April 1670 revolt, Porcsalmi sought refuge in his native hamlet of Porcsalma in Szatmár Country. Here he enjoyed the protection of Calvinist peasants and nobles who had been fervent supporters of the revolt.Footnote 93 When some nobles considered capitulating to the Habsburg army, Porcsalmi loudly protested. He mobilized his supporters with a rousing speech in which he called for the continuation of the armed struggle: “Don't trust the emperor. The dog has no faith (nincs hite az ebnek)! Just lay down your arms and you will see what will happen.”Footnote 94 When the Habsburg authorities heard about this speech, they issued an arrest warrant and finally threw Porcsalmi in jail. However, a curious story followed: leading nobles of Szatmár County claimed that the authorities had captured the wrong man. The prisoner, they contested, was in reality a harmless vagabond who had had the misfortune of sharing the same first and last name with Porcsalmi. Yes, the vagabond was also a Calvinist minister, but the real Porcsalmi had long absconded with Bocskai to Transylvania. Thrown into confusion, the War Council gave orders to establish the identity of the arrested man. Unable to come to a resolution and under increasing pressure from Porcsalmi's outraged Calvinist patrons, Vienna finally gave orders to release the man. It appears that the authorities feared the outbreak of another uprising; there can be little doubt that they had captured the right person.Footnote 95 The released Porcsalmi immediately joined Bocskai who was busy assembling an army of escaped Hungarian rebels on Ottoman lands.

Lutheran and Calvinist Pastors During the 1672 Revolt

On 10 August 1672 a well-informed Habsburg agent reported from Upper Hungary that Protestant pastors were calling out (kihiviak) the population to get ready for a major revolt. The signal to rise would be the imminent invasion of Hungarian exiles from Ottoman territory. And this is, in fact, what happened.Footnote 96 In the last days of August 1672, a rebel army composed of survivors of the 1670 revolt and other Hungarian refugees marched into Habsburg Hungary. The rebels were accompanied by several hundred Ottoman troops under the leadership of Hussein Aga, the commander-in-chief of the Varat vilayet. A massive popular revolt exploded into the open; within less than two weeks the Habsburgs lost control over the thirteen Calvinist and Lutheran counties of Upper Hungary. Every town and village the armed rebels entered gave them a rousing welcome; the regime's supporters fled to a handful of large fortresses. On 14 September the rebel army defeated General Spankau near Kassa, the Habsburg capital of Upper Hungary. For the next six weeks all hell broke loose. An orgy of popular violence spread like wildfire. The targets included Catholic clergy, Catholic laymen, Habsburg officials, and Habsburg soldiers. The Catholic infrastructure that had been put into place only recently collapsed like a house of cards.Footnote 97

The 1674 Tribunal accused the Protestant clergy of being responsible for the rebels' violence against Catholic clergy and laymen. Yet, the archival record tells a more complicated story. The beatings, torture, and murders of monks and priests were carried out by lynch mobs composed of impoverished peasants, artisans, and soldiers. These furious crowds, which included women and children, were supported by Protestant nobles and town magistrates. The horrors that descended upon the largely Lutheran town of Kisszeben (Zeben, Sabinov) (Sáros County) are a good example. Catholic houses were marked and plundered; Catholics were beaten and deprived of their livelihoods. Popular wrath focused on the town's Catholic priest, the Franciscan monk Ciprianus (Saladinus) from Italy. After ransacking the Catholic church, angry townsmen stripped Ciprianus naked, sheared off his hair, fed him horse manure, and dragged him through the streets for public pillorying. The intention was to decapitate him, but a prominent Catholic noblewoman successfully appealed to her Lutheran brothers to spare the priest's life.Footnote 98 The trigger that unleashed this mob violence was not provided by sermons of the Protestant clergy but by the news that a Hungarian rebel army supported by Ottoman troops had invaded. Even in faraway places such as the foothills of the High Tatras (which were not reached by the rebel army before October) Catholic priests fled for their lives to escape the pent-up popular wrath against them.Footnote 99

What then was the role of the Protestant clergy in anti-Catholic excesses? It is clear that some used their authority to save the lives of Catholic clergy and laity.Footnote 100 But other pastors actively participated in the violence. The three Lutheran pastors of Kisszeben, for example, are repeatedly mentioned as perpetrators by eyewitnesses. The German Pastor Peter Regius “grabbed the monstrance, took out the hosts, dispersed them all over the pavement of the church, and then stamped on them with his feet.” And the Slavic Pastor Andreas Galli, a refugee from Bohemia, prepared the friar for execution; he “heard his confession and gave him communion according to [the Lutheran] rite.” He also performed church services and public prayers celebrating the successes of the rebel army.Footnote 101 One of the more shocking episodes was reported by Franciscans who lived in the entirely Calvinist town of Nagyszőlős (Ugocsa County). A crowd made up of armed peasants, townsmen, and Hungarian soldiers had invaded their monastery. Among them was the Calvinist pastor of nearby Feketeardó who actively participated in an orgy of destruction that left the monastery and “all objects pertaining to the Divine Cult” in shambles. Anything of value such as chalices, silver vases, liturgical vestments, and procession banners was plundered. The friars themselves were mocked, humiliated, and told that “the dogs would soon lick their blood.” They escaped death but at least two of them were castrated. Neither the Feketeardó nor Kisszeben pastors initiated the crowds' excesses, but they certainly participated.Footnote 102

There were pastors, most of them Calvinist, who instigated violent attacks on Catholics and the symbols of Catholic religion. In Varannó (Vranov) (Zemplén County), the unnamed Calvinist minister mobilized the population to go on a rampage against a Franciscan monastery that had long been a thorn in his eyes. The crowds went wild and called for the killing and skinning alive of all missionaries and priests.Footnote 103 In Torna County, the site of a major peasant revolt only a year earlier, pastors seem to have stirred people into a frenzy. For example, István Telkibányai of Almás returned from his refuge on Ottoman territory and led a peasant mob to seize his confiscated church. The Catholic priest was badly beaten and chased away; his home and possessions were pillaged. Telkibányai then “entered the church with the peasants . . . and saw to it that the altar was completely smashed to pieces.”Footnote 104 Elsewhere in Torna County altars were demolished, saint statues decapitated, and images of the Virgin Mary used for target practice. The atmosphere was carnivalesque. In the village of Zsarnó, for example, people danced around fires with crucifixes and Marian images, laughing, singing, and drinking. Led by their pastor they then threw these symbols of the Catholic faith into the flames. In Torna and other Calvinist counties, unknown numbers of Catholic priests were killed or dragged away to an unknown fate; their parish houses were torched.Footnote 105

There can be little doubt that the persecuted Calvinist and Lutheran clergy welcomed the rebel army's arrival. Many celebrated this army's stunning victories in sermons, public prayers, and church services.Footnote 106 And all of them used the opportunity to take back their churches and, if necessary, reverse any inroads that the Counter Reformation had made among their flock. General Spankau reported to Vienna that Calvinist ministers in Szatmár, Szabolcs, and Zemplén counties armed themselves with sabres to take back their churches. They were supported by rebel leaders who claimed that they were “promoting God's glory.”Footnote 107 In Sáros County, Pastor Samuel Stephanovich of Raszlavica was returned to his church by his patrons János and Péter Raszlavice. When he discovered that a number of peasants had converted to the Catholic faith Stephanovich resorted to coercion to “force them to revert back to the Lutheran faith.” The brothers Raszlavice assisted him.Footnote 108 The unnamed pastors of six villages belonging to the Lutheran merchant town of Bártfa resorted to similar measures. They acted under orders of town notary Elias Splenius to “lead those who had already converted . . . back to the Lutheran faith and threaten those ready to convert.” Splenius helped the pastors by personally beating up and chasing away Catholic priests. The same happened in Bártfa itself: Splenius brutally reestablished Lutheran church services; the principal beneficiary was his son-in-law, Pastor Jakob Zabler. Similar developments can be documented for many other locations.Footnote 109

Quite a number of pastors participated in military confrontations with the Habsburg army. For example, the mentioned Pastors Paul Regius and Andreas Galli played vital roles in the defense of Kisszeben when the town came under siege by the Habsburg army in October 1672. Regius led a large crowd (multitudo) of armed townsmen to the town walls. And Galli gave sermons that “inspired the entire town community to fight bravely (se fortiter gererent) against the German army.” Among those who followed him into battle were expelled pastors from nearby villages as well as unarmed men and women “who were carrying stones to hurl on the Germans.”Footnote 110 Similarly, György Petenada, the Lutheran pastor of Eperjes, led artisans and students in guerrilla-style attacks on Habsburg troops. His militant sermons and prayer services for victory help to explain why the town continued a hopeless battle for months after being surrounded by the Habsburg army in late October 1672.Footnote 111 Mihály Rudini, another Lutheran pastor, joined nobles and soldiers who incinerated crown and magnate estates in Szepes County. In Szatmár County, Calvinist pastors died in combat with Habsburg troops in an attempt to seize Szatmár Fortress.Footnote 112 In Ung, Bereg, and Ugocsa counties, at least thirty Calvinist pastors joined peasants, townsmen, and nobles devastating the estates of the Catholic magnate Zsófia Báthori. The most prominent among them were Alexander Barkoczky of Ungvár (Ungwar, Uzhhorod) and Pál Görgei of Nagykapos. In November 1672, Görgei and his supporters fought to the death against superior armed forces; hundreds died on the barricades of Nagykapos or were summarily executed after the town's fall. Görgei miraculously escaped but later died of his wounds in Transylvania.Footnote 113

General Spankau, Hungarian Catholic bishops, and the Aulic War Council in Vienna repeatedly accused militant pastors of stirring up the population with pro-Ottoman sermons. Several pastors in Upper Hungary were indicted for “arranging public prayers for the Turks (für die Türckhen öffentliche Gebete anstelten),” presumably for a quick victory of the Ottoman army in Poland.Footnote 114 Unfortunately, the names of the indicted pastors have not been preserved in the archival record. The evidence I have found strongly suggests that Calvinist and Lutheran nobles, not pastors, mobilized popular audiences with promises that tens of thousands of Ottoman troops would soon invade to destroy Habsburg power once and for all. This would happen after the sultan's victory over Poland.Footnote 115 It is true that the pro-Ottoman sermons of the mentioned Pastor Mikuláš Drábik circulated among the Hungarian soldiers who made up the core of the rebel army. They almost certainly were known to the armed students expelled from Protestant colleges. But Drábik had already been executed more than a year earlier. Echoes of his teachings can be found in sermons of Drábik's fellow Bohemian Andreas Galli who preached that a Divine Light had arisen to illuminate “[our] truth and suppress the falsity of [our] enemies.” But Galli did not make any references to the Ottomans. The archives yield only a few specific examples of pro-Ottoman sermons. In Zemplén County, the Calvinist preacher Péter Azari, predicted that “the Turk [was] ready, and must only start moving.” It was only a matter of days. His assertion that “the Turk or Tatar is better than the idol-worshiping Papist” resonated with peasants, townsmen, and nobles. In Veszprém County, Mihály Sályi, a rural Calvinist minister, prayed publicly that “God should bring the Turk together with the Tatar.” Neither Azari nor Sályi were ever arrested and we know nothing else about them. Other pastors were investigated inconclusively.Footnote 116

Hopes that the victorious Ottoman army stood poised to help the Hungarian rebels may explain why several Calvinist ministers and a small number of Lutheran pastors went into battle dressed “in Turkish fashion” (more Turcico), that is, wearing turbans and dressing up like Janissaries.Footnote 117 Such militant pastors were among the rebels who attacked the strategic Habsburg border fortress of Ónod “with Turkish invocations of Allah” (Turcice Allam clamantes) before massacring the entire garrison and local Catholics.Footnote 118 Most of these “Turkish” pastors had previously sought refuge from the Counter Reformation on Ottoman territory and almost certainly mingled with Ottoman soldiers. Such mingling is well-documented for officers and rank-and-file soldiers of the rebel army. Some Hungarian nobles, peasants, and students (companones) from closed Protestant colleges also dressed up as Janissaries. The pasha of Varat later claimed that “dressing like a Turk” was a widespread phenomenon in the 1672 revolt. Since many pastors joined the ranks of the rebel army their donning of Ottoman garb was not out of the question.Footnote 119

Most of the pastors who “dressed up as Turks” apparently came from Calvinist communities in Zemplén County, the epicentre of the April 1670 pro-Ottoman revolt. They included Mihály Szántay (Monok), and István Budai (Tállya) who—as mentioned—had been expelled by Habsburg troops for resisting the Counter Reformation. The other known “Turkish” pastors were István Tasnády (Tarcal), István Miskolczy (Bodrogkeresztúr), András Gyöngyösi (Tarcal), and István Somogyi (Szerencs). They all participated in some of the revolt's most vicious fighting together with thousands of peasants, students, and an unknown number of Janissaries. We know that these pastors gave inspired sermons denouncing Habsburg tyranny and the Antichrist-Emperor in Vienna.Footnote 120 They were influenced by István Czeglédi who had launched his career in Zemplén County; Czeglédi's pro-Ottoman sermons and efforts to enlist the Ottomans must have been known to these pastors. They had read his tract Sion vára (“Zion Fortress”) which called for militant resistance against the evil forces threatening “the True Reformed Church.” Representing “Christ who was [manifest] in the Hungarian nation” the church under siege had to “defend itself . . . with all kinds of ammunition” until the expulsion of the enemy.Footnote 121 The Ottoman Turks provided such ammunition—both literally and metaphorically.

Conclusion

It is noteworthy that none of the thirty-eight pastors mentioned by name in this article ever appeared at the Pozsony Tribunal. Only the names of eight are found on the lists of the approximately 730 pastors summoned, but officials failed to track them down.Footnote 122 None of the other thirty pastors even made it onto the Tribunal's long proscription lists. Why? One explanation is certainly that quite a number of pastors had died during battles with the Habsburg army. But I think the more relevant answer is that the majority of the roughly 4,000 Lutheran and Calvinist pastors then in Hungary remained beyond the reach of Habsburg power.Footnote 123 Some pastors were protected by their communities; others moved temporarily into the manor houses of noble patrons.Footnote 124 Some fled into neighboring Transylvania or Silesia. Yet the most effective way to elude detection was to flee to neighboring Ottoman territory or settlements paying tribute to the sultan. We know that the Ottomans actively offered pastors protection. Vizier Ibrahim Pasha of Buda (1671–75) and Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (1661–76) strongly opposed any attempt to expel pastors under the sultan's protection.Footnote 125 The most astute observer of this reality was Hamel Bruyninx, the Dutch Calvinist resident in Vienna, who corresponded with Hungarian Protestant communities. He informed The Hague that “the Turks are extending their hands to [the persecuted Protestants] . . . and letting them know that their ‘men of God’ (Godtsmannen)—this is how [the Turks] call their pastors—should come over to them. They will host, supply, and shield them.” According to Bruyninx “[the Hungarians] are hanging their heads towards the Turk. This is where most of the expelled pastors . . . are directing their paths. They cannot do anything else and are well received.”Footnote 126

The Tribunal's key accusation that Protestant pastors preferred Ottoman to Habsburg authority is therefore entirely plausible. We know that pastors visited the court of the vizier of Buda and the courts of Hungarian pashas to beg for protection. And such protection was actually granted; for example, villages paying tribute to the sultan received guarantees of “security and happiness” against any violent intruders.Footnote 127 Less archival evidence survives about pro-Ottoman sermons. Decrees by the Habsburg commander-in-chief and orders issued by the Aulic War Council strongly suggest that such sermons were quite frequent. Given the regular promises of Ottoman help made by noble leaders of the 1670 and 1672 revolts it is likely that these were echoed in sermons. Undoubtedly, there were more than a few pastors who prophesied that Sultan Mehmed IV “will protect us and God should arrange it that he comes himself together with the Tatars.”Footnote 128

It is impossible to say how many pastors expressed pro-Ottoman sentiments or sought out Ottoman protection. And it is possible that very few, if any, of those actually arrested and tried by the Pozsony Tribunal had anything to do with the Ottomans. Almost all of them came from western counties where Habsburg authority was still halfway intact. By contrast, very few pastors came from eastern counties where many villages and towns had participated in the 1670 and 1672 revolts; some pastors lived in “patrimonies of the sultan” which provided safe areas for persecuted pastors.Footnote 129 For example, not a single pastor appeared from Bereg, Borsod, Torna, Szabolcs, Szatmár, Ung, and Ugocsa counties despite threatening summons. And only two pastors appeared from Abaúj and Zemplén counties respectively. In all of these Calvinist counties pro-Ottoman sentiments were widespread; it was here that the pro-Ottoman sermons mentioned above were recorded.Footnote 130

The basic failure of the Pozsony Tribunal was its insistence on generalizing: the judges collectively accused the entire Lutheran and Calvinist clergy of Habsburg Hungary of being both pro-Ottoman traitors and rebels against the Habsburg Empire. Evidence for pastors' resistance and revolt against the Counter Reformation is easy to come by but this does not mean that all pastors, or even a majority of them, resisted or rebelled. We only know that a sizeable number of pastors supported and actively encouraged the armed struggle against the Habsburg military during the 1670 revolt and its aftermath. Two years later an unknown number of pastors actually armed themselves and joined combat operations. But other pastors just used the opportunity of the 1672 revolt to return to their communities; some employed violence against Catholic priests and others engaged in iconoclasm. Yet, the horrific anti-Catholic violence that engulfed large parts of eastern Hungary in 1672 was not due to the pastors’ leadership or their sermons. It resulted from a powerful upsurge of popular revenge after years of brutal Counter Reformation and military occupation. Yes, unknown numbers of pastors willingly or unwillingly participated, but there are also examples of pastors using their authority to save the lives of Catholic clergy and laity.

Protestant pastors’ participation in popular resistance and revolt against the Habsburg Counter Reformation deserves more attention not only in the case of Hungary. In Bohemia, for example, the 1618–20 revolt and its brutal suppression generated significant popular resistance against the Catholic Church. However, the revolt and its aftermath continue to be studied with focus on the nobility, Catholic Church hierarchy, political institutions, and Vienna's administrative strategies.Footnote 131 Marxist historians emphasised the role of the peasant masses without any attention to religion and the Protestant clergy. And confessional historians a priori rejected the blanket accusation of Habsburg propaganda (“all clerics were rebels”); they focused on the suffering of the clerics whom the Habsburg authorities expelled in droves starting in 1621.Footnote 132 Official Habsburg sources, however, claimed that pastors “mobilized both the common folk and the elite against the emperor with their quarrelsome and unjust speeches and writings.” They suggest a vigorous subculture of religious resistance that was not easily eradicated. Expelled pastors remained in touch with their communities, gave sermons, and participated in secret ceremonies of “baptism and marriage in private homes.”Footnote 133

The evidence produced in this article suggests that the Hungarian lands of the Habsburg monarchy were no exception to a pan-European model of clerical resistance against the violent Counter Reformation and other forms of official church brutality. We know, for example, that Huguenot pastors fought in the frontlines of the French religious wars; the same holds true for Puritan ministers in the English Civil War. In the Dutch Revolt, Calvinist pastors led troops into battle against the forces of Antichrist, that is, the invading Spanish troops and the tyrannical regime established by the Spanish Habsburgs.Footnote 134 Similar developments can be observed in the Orthodox lands of Eastern Europe: in Ukraine, for example, there existed a close alliance of priests, monks, Cossacks, and peasants during the Bohdan Khmel'nyckyi revolt (1648–49) against Catholic Poland. A leading scholar on the subject concluded that “we can give credence to the Polish charges that the clergy incited and led the masses.”Footnote 135 The same holds true for the priests and monks who declared war against the Russian Orthodox Church during the late seventeenth century and thereby caused a schism that continues to this day.Footnote 136

Hungarian Protestantism's dramatic struggle for survival has been largely eclipsed by historians’ traditional focus on the Pozsony Tribunal victims’ martyrologies, memoirs, and polemics. The gripping stories of incarceration, torture, and galley slavery by the Tribunal's survivors tell only one side of the story. The archival data I have pieced together shed light on the Hungarian clergy's astounding endurance and resilience. Despite the brutal persecutions of the early 1670s and the horrors inflicted by the Tribunal, this clergy did not succumb to Habsburg oppression. The resistance of this clergy continued well into the eighteenth century; without it we cannot understand the long-term survival of Hungarian Protestantism despite the persistent attempts of the Habsburg court to turn Hungary into a Catholic Kingdom.

References

1 Most of the placenames mentioned in this article existed in Hungarian, German, and Slavic (Slovak, Ruthenian) variants. I have listed them in this order for significant towns and fortresses, but not for villages and small market towns. Almost all larger places also had Latin and Ottoman Turkish designations (e.g., Cassovia and Kaşa for Kassa), but I have omitted them here (except for the important Ottoman vilayets of Varat and Uyvar).

2 For good introductions, see Kowalská, Eva, Na đalekých cestách, v cudzích krajinách, sociálny, kultúrny a politický rozmer konfesionálneho exilu Uhorska v 17. storočí (Bratislava, 2014), esp. 11–28, 216–31Google Scholar; Varga, Katalin S., Az 1674-es gályarabper jegyzőkönyve. Textus és értelmezés (Budapest, 2008), 716Google Scholar (hereafter S. Varga); Barton, Peter F. and Makkai, László, eds., Rebellion oder Religion? Die Vorträge des internationalen kirchenhistorischen Kolloquiums in Debrecen (Budapest, 1977), 1559Google Scholar. Notable works include Borbis, Johannes, Die Märtyrerkirche der evangelisch-lutherischen Slovaken im Jahre des 1000jährigen Jubiläums ihrer Gründung (Erlangen, 1863)Google Scholar; Oberuc, Jean, Les Persécutions des Luthériens en Slovaquie au XVIIe Siècle (Strasbourg, 1927)Google Scholar. For reference, see Drobný, Ján P., Evanjelickí slovenskí martyri (mučeníci) (Liptovský Svätý Mikuláš, 1929)Google Scholar (hereafter Drobný); Jenő Zoványi, comp., Magyarországi protestáns egyháztörténeti lexikon, ed. Sándor Ladányi, 3rd ed. (Budapest, 1977) (hereafter Zoványi).

3 Varga, 79, 83. The term “Turkish authority” is a loose translation of tributum Turcicum. The payment of tribute was a symbol of recognizing the sultan's authority. The journal's reviewers quite rightly urged me to avoid the ethnic terms “Turk” and “Turkish,” which are found consistently in my sources. In fact, the “Turkish” army in Hungary was ethnically mixed, drawing on soldiers from all over the empire (with a preponderance of South Slavs). I therefore use “Ottoman” in the main body of the text while leaving “Turk” and “Turkish” only in quotations.

4 In this paper I use the term “Hungarian” (Hungarus, Ungar/Hungar, Magyar) as it appeared in seventeenth-century sources. “Hungarian” then functioned primarily as an omnibus category that comprised all residents of Habsburg Hungary irrespective of language and ethnicity.

5 István Fazekas, “Dorfgemeinde und Glaubenswechsel in Ungarn im späten 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,” in Konfessionalisierung in Ostmitteleuropa: Wirkungen des religiösen Wandels in Staat, Gesellschaft und Kultur, ed. Joachim Bahlcke (Stuttgart, 1999), 339–50, esp. 344, 346–48; András Fabó, ed., Az 1662-diki országgyűlés (Budapest,1873), 33–34, 37–43, 46–47, 50–54. On the failure of Catholicization efforts in the eastern parts of Hungary, see Antal Molnár, Lehetetlen küldetés? Jezsuiták Erdélyben és Felső-Magyarországon a 16–17. században (Budapest, 2009), 96, 114–15, 142–46; Krones, Franz von, “Der Jesuitenorden und seine Rolle im Geschichtsleben Ungarns,” Österreichisch-Ungarische Revue 12 (1892): 193224Google Scholar, 289–322, esp. 209–11, 222–23, 291, 307–8, 313–14.

6 Victor Hornyánszky, comp., Zur Geschichte evangelischer Gemeinden in Ungarn (Pest, 1867), 243–49, esp. 245. The incident is vividly described in the memoirs of Pastor Georg Buchholtz, in Rudolf Weber, ed., Historischer Geschlechtsbericht (Familienchronik) von Georg Buchholtz, den Älteren (Budapest, 1904), 96–103. The confiscation was carried out by imperial officials (“Nach den Pfingst = Feyer = Tagen kamen die Keyserlichen Commissarien mit Keyserlichen Mandaten . . . benahmen denen Evangelischen die Kirche u. übergaben sie denen Jesuwiedern,” ibid., 102–3).

7 On the aggressive expansion of tributary lands by both pashas, see Michels, Georg B., Habsburg Empire under Siege. Ottoman Expansion and Hungarian Revolt in the Age of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (1661–76) (Montreal, 2021), 4247Google Scholar, 50, 53–54, 85, 96, 178, 292, 303–4, 330.

8 Obál, Béla, Die Religionspolitik in Ungarn nach dem Westfälischen Frieden während der Regierung Leopolds I. (Halle, 1910), 218Google Scholar; Oswald Redlich, ed., “Das Tagebuch Esaias Pufendorfs, schwedischen Residenten am Kaiserhofe von 1671 bis 1674,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 37 (1917): 541–97, esp. 568, 588. One of the few courtiers opposed to the turn to religious persecution was Wenzel Lobkowitz (ibid., 574, 590).

9 For an overview, see Mihály Bucsay, Der Protestantismus in Ungarn 1521–1978. Ungarns Reformkirchen in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 1 (Vienna-Cologne-Graz, 1977), 178–89; Gál, Lajos, A magyarországi protestáns gályarab lelkészek utóélete, emlékük ápolása, a pozsonyi törvényszék főszereplői (Budapest, 1982)Google Scholar. On the galley slaves in Hungarian Protestant collective memory, see Murdock, Graeme, “Responses to Habsburg Persecution of Protestants in Seventeenth-Century Hungary,” Austrian History Yearbook 40 (2009): 3752CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Kowalská, Eva, “Z vlasti do exilu: skúsenosti evanjelických farárov z prenasledovaniia a exilu v 17. storocí (faktory uchovania a posilnovania luteranskej identity),” Slovenský národopis 52, no. 3 (2004): 249–69Google Scholar; Eva Kowalská, Na đalekých cestách, 71–90, 100–14; Bujtás, László, “A pozsonyi vésztörvényszékről és a gályarabságról szóló, magyar szerzőktől származó szövegek sorsa 17–18. századi holland kiadványokban,” Könyv és Könyvtár 25 (2003): 115–57Google Scholar.

11 On this voluminous Exulantenliteratur, see Hubay, Ilona, Magyar és magyar vonatkozásu röplapok, ujságlapok, röpiratok az Országos Széchényi könyvtárban 1480–1718 (Budapest, 1948), no. 733Google Scholar (“Literae lamentationis … ministrorum olim in Hungaria captivorum … ”), 737 (“Verteidigtes Guttes Gerüchte Derer … unschuldig ins Elend getriebenen DIENER CHRISTI [sic]”), 748 (“Weh- und demühtige Elend-Klage”); Alexander Apponyi, ed., Hungarica: Ungarn Betreffende im Auslande gedruckte Bücher und Flugschriften, 3 vols. (Munich, 1903–27), no. 978–80, 1003, 2112 (apparently the earliest example of a petition by imprisoned pastors); no. 2121 (“Misshandlungen und Mordanschläge”); Károly Szabó, comp., Régi magyar könyvtár. Az 1531–1711 megjelent magyar nyomtatványok könyvészeti kézikönyve, 3 vols. (Budapest, 1879–98) (hereafter RMK), 3, pt. 2, no. 2696, 2728; Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, Kézirattár (Széchenyi National Library, Manuscript Repository) (hereafter OSzK), RMK III. 2732 (App H. 979), Hungarische Praedikanten Unschuld wider die dreißigfach unwahre Beschuldigung … zur Rettung der Wahrheit und Bezeugung guten Gewissens (n.p., 1675); RMK III. 2745, Guenther, Andreas, Des Hocherleuchteten Apostels Pauli Christianus persecutionem patiens. Wie und warum ein Christ in der Welt Verfolgung leiden müsse? (Halle, 1676)Google Scholar; RMK III. 2902, Christoph Klesch, Die bestürmte und beschirmte Geistliche Dornburg (Jena, 1678).

12 For Dutch, German, and Swedish responses, see Apponyi, Hungarica, 981–82, 988, 991, 2110; Ödön, Miklós, Holland intervenció a magyar protestantizmus érdekében (1674–1680) (Pápa, 1918)Google Scholar.

13 Benczédi, László, “Historischer Hintergrund der Predigerprozesse in Ungarn in den Jahren 1673–74,” Acta Historica Academiae Scientarum Hungaricae 22 (1976): 258–89Google Scholar; Maurer, Joseph, Cardinal Leopold Graf Kollonitsch Primas von Ungarn. Sein Leben und Wirken (Innsbruck, 1887), 6887Google Scholar.

14 Katalin Péter, “A magyarországi protestáns prédikátorok és tanítók ellen indított per 1674-ben,” in Katalin Péter, Papok és nemesek. Magyar művelődéstörténeti tanulmányok a reformációval kezdődő másfél évszázadból, ed. Ágnes Berecz (Budapest, 1995), 200–10, esp. 200–1; S. Varga, 43–51, 61–71.

15 OSzK, RMK III. 3030, Martin Novack, Ungarische Gewisse und Warhafftige Avisen, oder Auszführlicher und warhafftiger Bericht, derer Geschichten, so sich von Anno 1658. bisz Anno 1674. mit Martino Novacken … in Ungarn zugetragen (n.p., 1679); Weber, Historischer Geschlechtsbericht (Familienchronik) von Georg Buchholtz (see note 6).

16 Some of these texts may have survived in foreign archives. Cf. Sándor Ladányi, “A ‘gyászévtized’ történetének forrásai és szakirodalma,” Teológiai Szemle 18, no. 1–2 (1975): 15–23, esp. 20. Later sermons, pamphlets, and treatises from the pen of Hungarian exiles are abundantly available, but they focus on the bitter experience of exile. Cf. Apponyi, Hungarica, passim; RMK 3, no. 2885, 2981–83, 3029–30, 3228, 3271, 3283; Barton and Makkai, Rebellion oder Religion, 89–110.

17 On the Triumphant Weapon or Supplications Written for the Necessary Expediences of the Truly Hungarian Camp (Győzedelmeskedő fegyver vagy az igaz magyaros tábornak szükséges alkamatosságaira iratott könyörgések), see Fabiny, Tibor, “Religio és rebellió. Szempontok a gályarabság okainak teljesebb megértéséhez,” Teológiai Szemle 18, no. 5–6 (1975): 148–53Google Scholar, esp. 152–53 45n; S. Varga, 139, 179. My statement about the likely pro-Ottoman gist of Triumphant Weapon derives from the analysis presented in this article. Only the rediscovery of the manuscript or the discovery of similar manuscripts can provide conclusive evidence.

18 On the 1670 and 1672 revolts, in László Benczédi, Rendiség, abszolutizmus és centralizáció a XVII század végi Magyarországon (1664–1685) (Budapest, 1980), 24–31, 57–65; Michels, Habsburg Empire under Siege, 122–37, 251–96.

19 I rely here on interrogation protocols in the Eger Bishopric Archive and the Neoregestrata Acta (E148) of the Hungarian Chamber Archive. Similar protocols survive in the archives of the Esztergom, Veszprém, Győr, and Várad bishoprics. Cf. Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (Hungarian National Archives, State Archives) (hereafter MNL OL), E148, Neoregestrata Acta; Filmtár, Egri Káptalan Hiteleshelyi Levéltára (Eger Chapter Archive), X493, Protocolla serialia (hereafter EKPS); X494, Protocolla extraserialia (hereafter EKPES).

20 The Zipser Kammer (Szepesi Kamara) was the nerve center of Habsburg administrative power in eastern Hungary. Located in Kassa, it oversaw the province of Upper Hungary (Hungaria Superior). For a description of the Zipser Kammer's voluminous collections, see Erzsébet Fábiánné Kiss, comp., Szepesi kamarai levéltár és kincstári szervek levéltárakba nem sorolt fondjai, vol. 64 of Levéltári leltárak (Budapest, 1975). The relevant holdings of the Aulic War Council are widely dispersed over the Hungarica (Ungarische Akten) and Turcica (Türkei) collections of the House, Court, and State Archive (Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv) (hereafter HHStA) as well as the imperial War Archive (Kriegsarchiv) [hereafter KA] of the Austrian State Archive, Vienna.

21 MNL OL, Zipser Kammer, E254 (Repraesentationes, informationes, instantiae), February 1673, no. 10, 22 (5, 9 March) and 36, 46 (21, 24 February).

22 Galla, Ferenc, A magyar katolikus restauráció misszionariusa (Budapest, 1946), 8Google Scholar.

23 Ibid., 20. On Czech exiles, see Történelmi Tár, 1885, 174ff; Kónya, Péter, “A felső-magyarországi városok társadalma a 17. században,” Történelmi Szemle 46, no. 1–2 (2004): 31–51Google Scholar, esp. 39–40 (Jakob Jakobeus in Eperjes); Drobný, 112–13; Johann Samuel Klein, Nachrichten von den Lebensumständen und Schriften Evangelischer Prediger in allen Gemeinden des Königreichs Ungarn, vols. 1–2 (Leipzig-Ofen, 1789); vol. 3 (Pest, 1873), 3: 356 (hereafter Klein). During the years 1638–49 the persecution of Protestant clergy reached a first high point, in Klein, 3: 122–23. In 1648–49 alone eighty pastors were “proscribed” (proscripti) and expelled from Hungary; at least one pastor was executed for his alleged involvement in the murder of four priests; and fifty pastors were forced to convert to the Catholic faith under duress, in MNL OL, Filmtár, X721, Esztergomi Prímási Levéltár, Archivum Ecclesiasticum Vetus, Sect. 1/7, Acta Religionaria, fasc. 148, no. 423 (B6), fols. 241r-v, Observatio … quid intra duos annos … contra Acatholicos effectum sit (1649, n.d).

24 Mikulik, József, Magyar kisvárosi élet 1526–1715 (Rozsnyó, 1885), 187Google Scholar, 194–95; Tihamér A. Vanyó, ed., A bécsi nunciusok jelentései Magyarországról 1666–1683/Relationes Nuntiorum Apostolicorum Vindobonensium de Regno Hungariae 1666–1683 (Pannonhalma, 1935), no. 59, Auditor Propertio Aloisii to Vatican (8 October 1667).

25 The province comprised the thirteen easternmost counties of Habsburg Hungary and bordered on Transylvania and the Ottoman vilayets of Varat and Eger. Three counties (Gömör, Sáros, and Szepes) were primarily Lutheran, the others Calvinist. For a map, see Michels, Habsburg Empire under Siege, xxii–iii.

26 Lőcsey, Maria, Báthori Zsófia 1628–1680. Életrajzi vázlat (Budapest, 1914), 2431Google Scholar. Catholic missionaries attempting to carry out Báthori's conversion project called for military support when Calvinist ministers resisted them (ibid., 28 138n). One of the manuscript reviewers reminded me that Báthori actually re-converted to the Catholic faith. She had been raised Catholic but became a Calvinist when she married Transylvanian Prince György Rákóczi II in 1643.

27 Hungary would have become an Ottoman tributary following the example of Transylvania. Cf. Sándor Papp, “Petition by Rebel Hungarian Nobles for Complete Submission to the Ottoman Porte (1672),” in Şerefe. Studies in Honor of Prof. Géza Dávid on his Seventieth Birthday, eds. Pál Fodor, Nándor E. Kovács, and Benedek Péri (Budapest, 2019), 437–57. I thank the first reviewer for calling my attention to this article.

28 HHStA, Hungarica, fasc. 288, Konv. A, Oberungarische Unruhen (1670–73), fols. 1–6, György Bársony to Leopold I (9 April 1670). The correspondence continued at least for three more years, see ibid., 12v, 14–15, 38, 41–45, 48–52. Bársony's widely circulated tract Veritas toti mundo declarata (1671) called for the eradication of “the Lutheran and Calvinist sects.” Cf. the thoughtful discussion of the bishop's “total Counter-Reformation” project, in Esze, Tamás, “Bársony György ‘Veritas’-a,” Irodalomtörténeti közlemények 75, no. 6 (1971): 667–93Google Scholar, esp. 675.

29 HHStA, Hungarica, fasc. 288, Konv. A, fol. 1v (January 1670, n.d.); Sándor Szilágyi, ed., Catalogus manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Regiae Scientiarum Universitatis Budapestinensis, 4 vols. (Budapest, 1889–1910), 2: 665, Litterae Leopoldi ad nuncios, ad imperium missos, auxilium contra Turcam petentes (6 April 1670). Leopold's Spanish wife Margarita (died 11 March 1673) extracted a vow from her husband to expel all Protestant clergy from Hungary. A Venetian treatise about a medieval missionary martyred in Hungary was personally dedicated to the empress (Apponyi, Hungarica, no. 2105, 2120; ibid., 3: 144). On the influence of prominent courtiers who shared Bársony's ideas, see Redlich, “Das Tagebuch Esaias Pufendorfs,” 568, 570, 588–90.

30 The Venetian ambassadors received regular information from various sources in Upper Hungary. They appear to have relied particularly on Italian officers in Hungarian border castles. Cf. Franjo Rački, comp., Acta coniurationem Bani Petri a Zrinio et Comitis Francisci Frangepani illustrantia (Zagreb, 1873), no. 91 (1 February 1670), 56 (“Anco la presente settimana sono capitati diversi avisi dall’ Ungaria superiore”); no. 102 (3 March 1670), 66 (three brothers of the Strassoldo clan were important informants; Carolo Strassoldo was commander of Szatmár Fortress). Cf. Joseph Fiedler, ed., Die Relationen der Botschafter Venedigs über Deutschland und Österreich im siebzehnten Jahrhundert, vol. 2. vol. 27 of Fontes Rerum Austriacarum. Österreichische Geschichtsquellen. Sectio 2, Diplomataria et Acta (Vienna, 1867), 123–25, 134–35, 154–57, 191–94.

31 István Szabó, “Protestáns egyháztörténeti adatok az 1670–1681 évekből a bécsi hadilevéltárból” [Data on Protestant Church History (1670–1681) from the Vienna War Archive], Egyháztörténet, n.s., 1 (1958), pts. 2–3: 203–30, no. 1–125; 2 (1959), pts. 1–2: 132–74, no. 126–284; pts. 3–4: 301–70, no. 285–561 (hereafter Szabó), no. 1 (10 January 1670); Rački, Acta, no. 85 (18 January 1670), 51 (“Essere giunt’ il termine felice per liberazione … del miserabile paese … a spezzare le catene delle loro servitù, a rimetterli in libertà”); István Katona, Historia critica regum Hungariae, 42 vols. (Pest, 1779–1817), 38: 770. The targeting of Czeglédi was also due to fears of losing Kassa, the epicenter of Habsburg power, to the Ottomans. A 1677 pamphlet described an alleged plot by burghers to cede the town to the Ottoman Empire. Cf. Relation von Entdeckung der Ungarischen Rebellerey (n. p., 1677), in Apponyi, Hungarica, 137 no. 2115. On Senator Alexander Püschel's alleged correspondence with Hungarian rebels on Ottoman lands, see MNL OL, E254, July 1672, no. 13, Kassa Magistrate to Zipser Kammer (4 July).

32 MNL OL, Filmtár, X7027 (E21), Benignae resolutiones, 1 March 1670, 20 March 1670, and 28 April 1671 (cited in Szabó, 204–5); Szabó, no. 2, 22–23 (11, 14 January; 1 September 1670); S. Varga, 67–68, 97.

33 Rácz, Károly, A pozsonyi vésztörvényszék áldozatai (Sárospatak, 1874), 4346Google Scholar, esp. 44; Szabó, no. 26–27, 29–30 (17 September–16 October 1670). The authorities released Czeglédi after Hungarian nobles and Kassa merchants posted bail of 10.000 forint (Rácz, ibid.).

34 MNL OL, Filmtár, X7027 (E21), Benignae resolutiones, 20 April 1671 (quoted in S. Varga, 67–68); Rácz, A pozsonyi vésztörvényszék áldozatai, 44; Gyula Pauler, Wesselényi Ferencz nádor és társainak összeeskűvése, 2 vols. (Budapest, 1876), 2: 270–71 (hereafter Pauler). Even after his death Czeglédi remained a prime target for Habsburg investigators, in MNL OL, E148, fasc. 517, Inquisitiones … contra tumultantes rebelles, no. 14 (11 June 1671), fol. 7 (“Did he also preach that God should give more victories to the Turkish nation?”); fasc. 518, no. 1, Nomina rebellium Partium Regni Hungariae Superiorum in inquisitione transmissorum (late 1671, n.d.), fols. 7, 32, 72, 80, 101, 105, 136, 156; fasc. 690, no. 47, fol. 64, Extractus Meriti Decreti Caesarei (24 September 1671); fasc. 1737, no. 2, Relatio inquisitionis pro Fisco Regio in comitatibus Abaúj, Borsod, Gömör, et Torna (1671, n.d.), fols. 8–57, esp. 15, 25; no. 6, Inquisitio Capituli Agriensis (1673, n.d.), fols. 17, 19 (“Czeglédi in vivis existens aliquoties dixerit Catholicos ex Cathedra profugos et idolatras”).

35 Cited after Pauler, 2: 72 who relied on archival records not available to me. See also MNL OL, E148, Acta Neoregestrata, fasc. 691, no. 4, Acta delegationis Caesareae Posoniensis (8 August 1671), fol. 199.

36 MNL OL, E148, Acta Neoregestrata, fasc. 518, no. 1, fols. 18–24, Extractus inquisitionis (1671, n.d.), esp. 24; fasc. 691, fol. 561 (“Deus . . . demonstraverit, a quo Candia esset capta”). In other sermons he denounced the Virgin Mary as the Devil, see ibid., fasc. 517, no. 14, fols. 20r-v.

37 MNL OL, E148, fasc. 518, no. 1, fols. 91–97, esp. 96–97; fasc. 690, no. 47, fols. 71–80, Extractus seditiosorum in inquisitione in partibus ultra Danubianis collectae (September 1671, n.d.); fasc. 691, no. 4, fols. 200, 566.

38 The letter focuses on brutalities inflicted upon “His Majesty's village of Meddes” but the official points out that “the entire estate of His Majesty” had fallen into a state of panic and other villages stood empty as well. He implored his superiors to give the fugitive population “some forms of encouragement” (valami bátorítások). But he added pessimistically: “I believe also that . . . if they dared to commit this [deed] it is to be feared that they will do more shortly” (MNL OL, E254, July 1672, no. 47, László Székely to Zipser Kammer [11 July], fol. 96).

39 MNL OL, E254, July 1672, no. 70, Mihály Streczeny to Zipser Kammer (16 July), fol. 139 (“Egyik sem akar kiköltözni”). Streczeny called for drastic military intervention otherwise “[your] authority will be very [much] diminished” (ibid). Cf. similar reports, in MNL OL, E254, July 1672, no. 10, 55, 66–74. The kindness of Ottoman troops toward Protestant communities was also observed by Andreas Neumann, the Brandenburg ambassador at the Vienna court, during the 1663–64 Habsburg-Ottoman War. Cf. Henrik Marczali, comp., “Regesták a külföldi levéltárakból a török magyar viszonyok történetéhez 1660–1664 közt,” Történelmi Tár, 1881, 114–38, esp. 130–31. For similar evidence, see Michels, Habsburg Empire under Siege, 86–88, 118.

40 On the resistance of the Jolsva populace, see E254, August 1672, no. 36, 49, 71, 79 (9–24 August), esp. no. 36, fol. 72 (“Nékiek parancsolta a Török”); September 1672, no. 5, Jolsva Magistrate to Zipser Kammer (4 September).

41 E254, August 1672, no. 63, László Székely to Zipser Kammer (27 August), fol. 135; no. 75, Ferenc Török to Zipser Kammer (22 August), fol. 160.

42 MNL OL, E254, August 1672, no. 41, István Csáky to Zipser Kammer (11 August); no. 42, István Daika to Zipser Kammer (11 August), fol. 86 (“Inkabb adni az Pagany Töröknek”); no. 51, János Geltovics to Zipser Kammer (13 August), fol. 107; no. 59, Zsófia Báthori to Zipser Kammer (30 August 1672); no. 61, Zsigmond Pethő to Zipser Kammer (28 August 1672), fols. 131r-v (“Fractae et enervatae vires meae . . . consideratis tot et tantis annorum revolutionibus”).

43 MNL OL, P 507, Nadasdy Archive, no. 667, fols. 14r-v, István Kálmánczay to Count Rottal (Szatmár, 20 August 1672). Kálmánczay's report was contradicted by other intelligence. Cf. E254, August 1672, no. 72, István Jeney (24 August) warned that the pashas of Uyvar and Varat as well as the vizier of Buda had secret orders to invade. After victory over Poland the Ottoman army would seize all of the Hungary and march on Vienna (“Azon uttal Becse fele ki mennek s Magiar Orszagh is ezen uttal magoké lessen,” fol. 153v).

44 Szabó, no. 3–4, Hungarian Chancellery and Aulic War Council to the commanders of Szatmár and Tokaj fortresses (18–19 January 1670); no. 6, Commander of Tokaj to Aulic War Council (20 February 1670).

45 For the Kálló incident, see László Benczédi, “Az 1670. évi tiszavidéki felkelés és társadalmi háttere,” Századok 109, no. 3–4 (1975): 509–50, esp. 511; Michels, Habsburg Empire under Siege, 90–91. Efforts to demobilize Calvinist soldiers could lead to revolts or the soldiers' flight to Ottoman territory. Cf. the dramatic events in Ónod Fortress in summer 1672, in Szabó, no. 193–94, 198, Aulic War Council and General Spankau (9–20 July 1672).

46 Szabó, no. 31–33 (20–24 January 1670). The Calvinist clergy of Ecsed Fortress had been targeted by the Counter Reformation since the 1660s, in Berey, József, “A reformátusok üldöztetése Szatmár megyében 1660–1680-ig,” Protestáns Szemle 9, no. 8–9 (1897): 460–69Google Scholar, 512–24, esp. 468, 514. On other fortresses, see István Szabó, “Ellenreformáció a végvárakban 1670–1681,” in Emlékkönyv Károlyi Árpád születése nyolcvanadik fordulójának ünnepére, eds. Gyula Szekfű and Sándor Domanovszky (Budapest, 1933), 457–70, esp. 460–65.

47 Szabó, no. 45, Priest (unnamed) to Aulic War Council (March 1671, n.d.)

48 Ibid., no. 14, 19, Zeiss's Correspondence with Aulic War Council (3, 20 August 1670); no. 15, Légrád's Lutheran garrison to Hungarian Chancellery (August 1670, n.d.); no. 2, Hungarian Chancellery to Aulic War Council (22 August 1670); Szabó, “Ellenreformáció,” 460.

49 Szabó, no. 20, Aulic War Council to Hungarian Chancellery (20 August 1670) (“Umb Sie nit ferner zu molestiren und die Sachen in Statusquo [sic] zu lassen”). Cf. ibid., no. 21 (22 August 1670).

50 Ibid., no. 25, Aulic War Council to Zeiss (3 September 1670) (“[Sich] in die . . . Religions Sachen nit einzumischen, auch dem königlichen Fisco einigen Eintrag zu thuen”). Cf. ibid., no. 29 (September 1670, n.d.); Szabó, “Ellenreformáció,” 461.

51 In July 1672, for example, the Calvinist minister of Szendrő Fortress was still in office. As a frustrated Habsburg official, who had expelled ministers from Szendrő's hinterlands, put it, “[the minister] did not leave because no one made arrangements to send him away.” He demanded reliable German soldiers and cavalrymen to dislodge the pastor (MNL OL, E254, July 1672, István Pethő to Zipser Kammer [3 July 1672], fols. 21–2v. The attack on the pastor helps to explain why Szendrő's Hungarian soldiers joined the 1672 revolt.

52 In a letter to Habsburg plenipotentiary Johannes von Rottal, Szegedi claimed that he was carrying out the emperor's will, in MNL OL, P507, fasc. 660, fol. 415, Szegedi to Rottal (25 November 1671) (“Ha nem tudtam volna kegyelmet uram őfelsége akarattyát, nem mertem volna megpróbálni”). On Szegedi's brutal expulsion campaign, see Benczédi, Rendiség, abszolutizmus és centralizáció, 54–55, 152 19n.

53 OSzK, RMK III. 3030, Martin Novack, Ungarische Gewisse und Warhafftige Avisen, H II 2-J, JIII 3-K III, M-M III; Pauler. 2: 238; Klein, 1: 233–37. During more than fifteen years of conflict with the Catholic Church Novack suffered multiple indignities, maltreatments, and threats to his life. Cf. Novack, ibid., pag. EII1 (“Was ich für . . . Schmach und Unehre von etlichen hochschwülstigen, neidischen und missgünstigen Brüdern und Praelaten habe erdulden müssen, das ist Gott und mir am besten bekannt”).

54 MNL OL, P507, fasc. 667, fol. 1, István Kálmánczay to Rottal (16 March 1671); Pauler, 2: 238–40; Kemény, J., Történelmi és irodalmi kalászatok (Pest, 1861), 226–32Google Scholar.

55 Szabó, no. 48, 51, 53, 57, 67 (April–May 1671). On Emperor Leopold's direct involvement in the Drábik Affair, see Péter, “A magyarországi protestáns prédikátorok,” 203.

56 Jan Kvačala cites the testimony of Johann Jakob Redinger, a follower of Drábik from the Palatinate, who visited Protestant ministers in Upper Hungary (specifically in Eperjes, Pucho, Szatmár, and Tokaj) during the 1660s. Cf. Jan Kvačala, Dejiny reformacie na Slovensku (Liptovský Mikuláš, 1935), 226–27. See also the following accusation against the Lutheran Superintendent Joachim Kalinka (“Illum librum Drabiczianum acceptasse, legisse, glossasse ac multa per loca sparsisse et promovisse”), in MNL OL, Filmtár, X7027 (E21), Benignae Resolutiones, April–August 1672 (doboz 15897), fol. 216 (24 July 1672). During his march towards Vienna in 1683 Polish King Jan Sobieski confiscated between 200–300 copies of the treatise from Protestant communities. He had them promptly destroyed deeming them too dangerous under the present circumstances. Cf. Apponyi, Hungarica, 3: 109.

57 Kvačala, Jan, “Egy álpróféta a XVII-ik században,” Századok 23 (1889): 745–66Google Scholar, esp. 748, 750–51. Drábik's views became known to European audiences in 1657 when Jan Comenius published a compendium of Polish, Bohemian, and Hungarian eschatologists. Cf. Lux in Tenebris Hoc est Prophetia Donum quo Deus Ecclesiam Evangelicam … sub tempus horrendaei eius pro Evangelio perseqvutionis [sic], extremae dissipationis, ornare, ac paterne solari, dignatus est (n.p.,1656), 3rd pagination, 1–204; 4th pagination, 1–126 (“Revelationes des Drabicius”); Historia Revelationvm Christophori Kotteri, Christinae Poniatoviae, Nicolai Drabicij (n.p., 1657); reprint 1665. For descriptions, see Apponyi, Hungarica, no. 2050, 2056. The treatise existed in Latin, West Slavic, Hungarian, and Turkish (!) manuscript versions. Unfortunately, no manuscript copy seems to have survived and it is impossible to tell whether the texts circulating in Hungary during the 1670s were identical to the original Latin print editions published by Comenius in Amsterdam. For more information, see Szimonidesz, Lajos, “Drábik Miklós próféciái és magyar-latin kiadási részletük,” Magyar Könyvszemle 66, no. 2 (1942): 176–81Google Scholar, esp. 180; Michels, Habsburg Empire under Siege, 476, 162n.

58 MNL OL, E148, fasc. 690, no. 21, Actio Fisci Regii contra Nicolaum Drabitium praedicantem (1671, n.d.), fols. 1–5; Szabó, no. 48, 51, 53, 56–57, 67.

59 Cf. the Habsburg court's focus on the Lutheran Superintendent Joachim Kalinka, in Kvačala, Jan, “Kalinka Ioachim superintendens első vizsgálati fogsága Pozsonyban,” Protestáns Szemle 2, no. 4 (1890): 721–43Google Scholar. On the “Bohemian” (Slovak) Kalinka, pastor of Ilava (Trencsén County), see Klein, 2: 271–80. Bársony believed that eradicating (kiirtani) heresy was the only way to secure Habsburg rule over Hungary, see Mihály Zsilinszky, A magyar országgyűlések vallásügyi tárgyalásai a Reformátiótól kezdve, vol. 3 (1647–87) (Budapest, 1893), 397–99.

60 Bruckner, Győző, A reformáció és ellenreformáció története a Szepességen (Budapest, 1922), 268–70Google Scholar, 297–98, 302.

61 Pauliny, Ladislav, Dejepis superintendencie nitranskej. Dl'a starych i novšich prameńov (Senica, 1891), 8586Google Scholar; Szabó, no. 193 (9 July 1672).

62 Szabó, no. 43, 50, 80, 84, 175, 186 (31 March 1671 to 15 June 1672).

63 Ibid., no. 141 (30 January 1672).

64 Tamás Füssy, A zalavári apátság története a legrégibb időkből fogva napjainkig (Budapest, 1902), 206–8; Szabó, no. 95, 119, 135. Similarly, the bishops of Nyitra (Tamás Pálffy) and Veszprém (Sennyey István) used military force to protect processions and to confiscate bells (Szabó, no. 156, 177).

65 József Hörk, A sáros-zempléni ev. esperesség története (monographia) (Kassa, 1885), 82.

66 Szabó, no. 8, 118. Calls for moderation were also issued to the magnate zealot Zsófia Báthori (ibid., no. 103, 106–7, 109, 113). A meeting of the Secret Conference at the Hofburg (9 May 1670) asked Catholic clergy and nobles for “the moderation of [their] zealotry” (Moderirung des Eyffers) (ibid., no. 7).

67 Szabó, no. 146 (5 February 1672). Cf. a similar order, in Szabó, “Ellenreformáció,” 465 18n (“Könne man nicht zulassen, daß sich die militia in Religionssachen einmische”).

68 Among larger towns that rose in revolt against Catholic intrusions were Bártfa, Eperjes, Igló (Zipser Neudorf, Spišská Nová Ves), Komárom, and Szepesolaszi (Wallendorf, Spišské Vlachy). Cf. Szabó, no. 183, 188, 191–92; Bruckner, A reformáció és ellenreformáció története, 306–13.

69 Ibid., 267, 269–70.

70 Local Catholics accused these pastors of “intolerable abuses against Christians,” in MNL OL, Filmtár, X7027 (E21), Benignae Resolutiones, April–August 1672 (doboz 15897), fol. 235 (28 July 1672). Cf. Klein, 3: 40, 150 (Lucius’s treatise), 409; Drobný, 116–18. Cf. Slovak 1672 peasant revolts in defense of their Lutheran pastors, in MNL OL, G10, Imre Thököly Archive, Perek és tanuvallamások, fols. 28–33 (Trencsén County, 6 April 1673); E41, Litterae ad Cameram Hungaricam exaratae, Annus 1672, no. 210, 217, 236, 242 (August–September 1672). Note denunciations of “the furor of Antichrist” and “the furor of the Antichristian [Habsburg] army” in a rare Calvinist synod protocol that survived from this period, in MNL OL, Filmtár, X832, Tiszántúli Református Egyházkerület Levéltára, Egyházkerületi jegyzőkönyv (1567–1675) (doboz 1883), fols. 121–23 (1672–74).

71 Szabó, no. 141 (30 January 1672); Zoványi, 331. The ministers Mihály Vörösmarti and Jakab Csúzi (Rácz, A pozsonyi vésztörvényszék áldozatai, 49–50, 199) had come under investigation already in February 1671. They were accused of encouraging rebellion but insisted that “they gave only advice in spiritual matters and made no decisions against his Majesty” (S. Varga, 75).

72 László Földváry, “Száki János Ekeli Praedikátor háromszoros megkínzatása és megégettetése Komáromban,” Protestáns Szemle 15, no. 7 (1903): 442–53, esp. 447–50; Szabó, no. 139, 141, 151, 157, 195. Many of these villages were paying tribute to the sultan, S. Varga, 52–56, 112.

73 Széchényi's father died during the defense of Nógrád Fortress (which the Ottomans seized in late 1663). Bishop Széchényi used his good relations with Emperor Leopold I to lay the foundations for the rise of his family to prominence in Hungary, in Iván Nagy, comp., Magyarország családai czimerekkel és nemzékrendi táblákkal, vols. 1–8 (Pest, 1857–68), 6: 518–20, For more information, see Fazekas, István, “Kivételes karrier? Szempontok Széchényi György esztergomi érsek pályafutásához,” Soproni Szemle 65 (2011): 123–37Google Scholar; András Koltai, “Széchényi György,” in Esztergomi érsekek 1001–2003, ed. Margit Beke (Budapest, 2003), 310–18. I thank the first reviewer for these two references.

74 Szabó, no. 228, 230–31, 253, 256; S. Varga, 165–66, 175 (“Praedicantes Comaromienses . . . ad vezirium Budensem recurrisse”), 176, 185, 188–89, 227. Cf. Széchényi warned the President of the Aulic War Council that the Ottomans were supporting local rebels, in KA, Alte Feldakten 1673, fasc. 1, no. 1, Széchényi to Raimondo Montecuccoli (2 January).

75 Szabó, no. 87, 92–93. Cf. S. Varga, 93 (garrison soldier's testimony in 1674). Franciscans and Jesuits complained about hostility and violence, in Szabó, no. 228 (5 October 1672) (“Daß Sie unter den Uncatholischen alda schlecht zu leben hetten”); Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Handschriftensammlung (Austrian National Library, Manuscript Collection), Codex N. 12068, Literae Annuae Provinciae Austriae S. J. (1671), fol. 126 (“Miraculo adscribit non fuisse occissum”).

76 For example, in May 1672, Primate Szelepcsényi personally led the suppression of a popular uprising in Pozsony. He knew that the Protestant town elite was responsible but immediately issued summons to the Lutheran clergy (Rácz, A pozsonyi vésztörvényszék, 183).

77 Kubinyi, Miklos, Árva vára (Pest, 1872), 118–25Google Scholar.

78 HHStA, Hungarica, fasc. 324 A, fols. 26–27v, Bársony to Johannes von Rottal (17 May 1671); MNO OL, E254, May 1671, no. 48, 60; June 1671, no. 21, 30, 65; July 1671, no. 27; Alžbeta Gácsová, ed., Dokumenty k protifeudálnym bojom slovenského l'udu (1113–1848) (Bratislava, 1955), 140–41; Weber, Historischer Geschlechtsbericht, 131 (Lutheran pastor Buchholtz praised István Bocskó as “a brave warrior” [einen tapferen Kriegsmann]).

79 Pavel Horváth, ed., Listy poddaných z rokov 1538–1848 (Bratislava, 1955), 58–61; MNL OL, E211, Lymbus III, fasc. 17–19, pag. 389–90; fasc. 20–21, pag. 279.

80 Andrei Kavulják, Historický miestopis Oravy (Bratislava, 1955), 16–17, 21–22, 34, 62–64. In 1665 Hungarian Primate György Lippay compared the militant Árva pastors to “wolves and lions” after they had seized Catholic churches and expelled missionaries, in Galla, Ferenc, Ferences misszionáriusok Magyarországon, a Királyságban és Erdélyben a 17.–18. században (Budapest-Rome, 2005), 216Google Scholar. In October 1672 the pastors organized another massive revolt: “After gathering the greater number of the people under the command of their sons . . . [they] again instigated the populace to openly rebel against his Most Sacred Majesty” (Gacsova, Dokumenty, 141).

81 Szabó, no. 61–62, 65, 70–71, 83, 90–91, 94, 100–1, 137; Kubinyi, Árva vára, 127–31. The October 1672 uprising provoked a brutal military response that a later interpreter compared with the Spanish invasion of Peru. Cf. József Hajnóczy, Intoleranz des katholischen Klerus gegen die ungarischen Protestanten nach zuverlässigen Aktenstücken (Im Protestantischen Deutschland, 1792), 46–47, 216. Hajnóczy used materials from Protestant church archives that are no longer available. A Jesuit reported with relish that viciously tortured rebel leaders “renounced Luther and took the Sacrament of the Eucharist in penance” before their execution [Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Handschriftensammlung, Codex No. 12069, Literae Annuae Provinciae Austriae S. J. (1672), fols. 17–18].

82 Hézser, Emil, A tállyai ev. református egyház története (Budapest, 1900), 2526Google Scholar.

83 Pauler, 2: 43–44, 50, 72, 78–82.

84 Hézser, A tállyai ev. református egyház története, 27, 37. About the killing of German soldiers by Zemplén peasants, see Benczédi, “Az 1670. évi tiszavidéki felkelés,” 545; Michels, Habsburg Empire under Siege, 85. On mass flight to Ottoman territory, see HHStA, Turcica I, fasc. 142, Konv. 3, Resident Giovanni Casanova to Aulic War Council (Edirne, 27 January 1671), fols. 37r-v (“Daß die Ungarn von Teutschen dergestalt geplagt warden, daß wann solches khein end nehme, alle in die Türkhey lauffen würden”).

85 Szabó, no. 121–22, 126, 129–30 (26 December 1671 to 27 January 1672). On Budai, see Zoványi, 99.

86 MNL OL, E148, fasc. 691, no. 4, fols. 198, 558; fasc. 1462, fol. 25; EKPES, Series AH, no. 6, fol. 36v; no. 44, fol. 113; Hézser, A tállyai ev. református egyház története, 24.

87 MNL OL, fasc. 691, no. 4, fols. 199, 560 (with emphasis on Marian cults); E254, August 1672, no. 98, Georgius Jelenicsek to Zipser Kammer (15 August), fol. 209; November 1672, no. 14, Gáspár Köröskeny to Zipser Kammer (4 November), fol. 27v.

88 Franz von Krones, “Zur Geschichte des Jesuitenordens in Ungarn seit dem Linzer Frieden bis zum Ergebnisse der Ungarischen Magnatenverschwörung (1645–1671),” Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte 79 (1893): 278–354, esp. 335–39. In March 1666 the Jesuits appealed to Rákóczi to “exterminate the [Calvinist] heresy with the sword” (338n1). The position of the Jesuits became precarious when Calvinist nobles forced Prince Rákóczi to return financial and economic assets seized from the Calvinist clergy (ibid., 338–39).

89 Szabó, no. 12–13 (2 July, 2 August 1670).

90 Ibid., no. 42 (“Die Studenten zu Batak zu disarmieren”), 47–49, 59, 82, 88–89 (April–July 1671); Szinnyei, Gerzson, A sárospataki ev. ref. egyház templomairól (Sárospatak, 1896), 1114Google Scholar.

91 Szabó, no. 103, 105–11 (September–November 1671); Szinnyei, A sárospataki ev. ref. egyház templomairól, 12.

On Szepsi's correspondence with Hungarian exiles and the flight of pastors, teachers, and students to Debrecen (Varat vilayet), see EKPS, Series Q, no. 186, fols. 682, 714.

92 Szabó, nos. 139–40, 169 (pastors protesting the disarmament of seminary students), 170. On other radical Calvinist pastors in Abaúj, Torna, and Zemplén counties, see MNL OL, E148, fasc. 518, no. 1, fols. 42, 92 (mobilizing armed students), 184, 195, 202 (István Telkibányai, István Fogarassy, unnamed pastor of Tokaj).

93 When Bocskai died in December 1672 Porcsalmi gave the funeral oration praising his patron for having suffered on behalf of “the sweet Hungarian fatherland” (RMK, 1: 482, no. 1164). Porcsalma had once belonged to Transylvanian Prince Gábor Bethlen who was then still admired for routing the Habsburg army during the Thirty Years’ War. Cf. Samu Borovszky, Magyarország vármegyéi és városai, 22 vols. (Budapest, 1896–1914), 17: 140.

94 Kiss, Kálmán, A szatmári református egyházmegye története (Kecskemét, 1878), 679Google Scholar; Pauler, 2: 50.

95 Szabó, no. 114, 165, 174; Berey, “A reformátusok üldöztetése,” 466; Kiss, A szatmári református egyházmegye története, 124–25, 679, 681. On the tense relations between Szatmár County nobles and Habsburg troops stationed in Szatmár Fortress, see Borovszky, Magyarország vármegyéi és városai, 17: 476–77.

96 MNL OL, P 507, Nadasdy Archive, no. 667, fols. 10–11, István Kálmánczay to Count Rottal (Szatmár, 10 August 1672).

97 On this revolt, see Michels, Habsburg Empire under Siege, 251–96.

98 EKPS, Series Q, no 148, fols. 386–439, Questationes pro Fisco Suae Majestatis Regio (15–20 February 1673).

99 MNL OL, E254, September 1672, no. 3, Késmárk Magistrate to Zipser Kammer (3 September); no. 11, Kristóf Horváth to Zipser Kammer (7 September) (Szepesolaszi). The troubles in Lutheran Késmárk (Käsmarkt, Kežmarok) (Szepes County) were started by members of the Chernel noble clan who stood in contact with leaders of the invading rebel army (Pauler, 2: 43, 161, 318–19; EKPS, Series Q, no. 186, fols. 695, 706, 714).

100 The best documented cases include the Lutheran pastors Štefan Pilárik (see above), Daniel Klesch (EKPS, Series Q, no. 148, fols. 480, 483, 487; Bruckner, A reformáció és ellenreformáció története, 310–13), and Andreas Windisch who fell on his knees begging “the embittered people . . . not to cause a bloodbath” (Weber, Historischer Geschlechtsbericht, 98, 100–1).

101 EKPS, Series Q, no. 148, fols. 390, 410, 431–32.

102 MNL OL, Filmtár, X7027 (E21), Benignae Resolutiones, September–October 1672 (doboz 15898), fols. 103–8, Copia memorialis religiosorum patrum Nagyszőlősiensium (10 September).

103 EKPES, Series AH, no. 44, fol. 113 (“Cuncti sacerdotes, religiosi catholici non modo persequi debeant, sed capi et vivi excoriari, ac ex pellibus ipsorum timpana cooperire”). Catholic clergy fled from Varannó and tried in vain to return for several years, in István György Tóth, ed., Relationes missionariorum de Hungaria et Transylvania (1627–1707) (Rome-Budapest, 1994), 189, 195; Borovszky, Magyarország vármegyéi és városai, 22: 133. Varannó also had a Lutheran pastor who was known as a great troublemaker (Hörk, A sáros-zempléni ev. esperesség története, 145). On confessional conflicts in Varannó, see Borbély, Zoltán, “A kegyúri jog és a térítő földesúri ellenreformáció lehetőségei. Felekezeti alapú konfliktusok Varannón és Ungváron a 17. században,” Egyháztörténeti Szemle 22, no. 4 (2021): 43–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I thank one of the reviewers for calling my attention to this article.

104 EKPS, Series Q, no. 186, fol. 700; Gyula Pauler, “A bujdosók támadása 1672-ben,” Századok 3, no. 1–3 (1869): 1–16, 85–97, 166–78, here 91; Pauler, 2: 313; EKPES, Series AH, no. 5, Relatio attestationis pro parte Egr. Dom. Mathiae Istfanffi (4 April 1673), fols. 7, 19 (on peasants rallying to Telkibányai's defense). Telkibányai was also supported by local nobles and the sister of his predecessor Valentinus Veres (EKPES, Series AH, no. 44, fol. 109v).

105 EKPS, Series Q, no. 186, fol. 699; Pauler, “A bujdosók támadása,” 91–92. On the events in Torna County, see also E254, November 1672, no. 47, County Nobility to Zipser Kammer (11 November); EKPS, Series Q, no. 189, fol. 755 (widow of Calvinist noble Ferenc Kátai); HHStA, Hungarica, fasc. 432, Konv. A, fols. 88–89, Kassa magistrate to Emperor Leopold (late 1672/early 1673, n.d.), esp. fol. 88r (“In omnibus civitatibus, oppidis, villis, arcibus, castellis, et curiis nobilitaribus per Acatholicos praedicantes adhortabantur incolae”).

106 EKPS, Series Q, no. 148, fols. 384 (“Dominus Deus in potenti manu sua ad ulciscendum sibi illatam iniuriam vos pro nunc delegat”), 397 (Berzevice), 500 (“Cum rebellibus . . . propinantes pro felici successu Hungarorum”), 507, 518–19 (Viborna); E148, fasc. 1462, fols. 26 (“Orasse praedicantem, ut . . . Deus disperdat exercitum Suae Majestatis et rebelles adjuvet et protegat”), 29, 31; EKPES, Series AH, no. 6, fol. 32 (sermons for victory); HHStA, Hungarica, fasc. 432, Konv. A, 88v (“Quia praedicantes eis demandabant et persuadebant, ut pro gloria Dei pugnent”).

107 Szabó, no. 216, Spankau to Aulic War Council (4–5 September 1672); HHStA, Turcica I, fasc. 144, Konv. 1, Spankau to Aulic War Council (4 September 1672), fol. 130 (“Die Calvinische Praedicanten thetten die Kirchen disseits der Theyss mit blosen Sabeln wider einnehmen”). Returning pastors into their churches was a priority for rebel leaders. Cf. OSzK, Fol. Lat., no. 2309, Libraria diplomatum, litterarum et actorum, vol. 3 (1662–99), fol. 108, Copia litterarum rebellantium ad civitatem Leuchoviensem (2 October 1672) (“Hodie magno cordis gaudio, Deo laudes persolvunter omnibus in locis, in quibus . . . templa Deo dicata . . . sincere et gloriam Dei promovere desiderent”); Quart. Germ., no. 94, Chronicon Eperiesiense ab Anno 1665–1709, fol. 2 (“Als sie nun die Stadt innehatten, wurden gleich den anderen Tag, denen Ewangelischen die Kirchen und Schulen wieder eingenemet worden”).

108 EKPS, Series Q, no. 148, fols. 444, 459–62; S. Varga, 158. It remains unclear whether the pastor participated in the Raszlavice brothers’ attacks on the Catholic parish priest.

109 EKPS, Q Series, no. 148, fols. 454–57. Splenius stirred up town mobs that beat up Catholic laity and clergy; at least one priest was killed, ibid., fols. 444b, 445–47, 451 (“Seviverit in cunctos Catholicos”), 467, 529–33; Pauler 2: 240. On Zabler, see András Fabó, Monumenta Evangelicorum Aug. Conf. in Hungaria historica, vol. 1 (Pest, 1861), 76–81, esp. 77; EKPES, Series AH, no. 56, Relatio attestationis pro parte Fisci Regii (31 August 1674), esp. fols. 139r-v, 142v. On similar developments elsewhere, see EKPS, Series Q, no. 148, fols. 390 (Enyicke), 406 (Jernye), 411 (Orkuta), 418 (Szentgyörgy, Sáros County), 419 (Berzevice), 430 (villages around Kisszeben), 454–55, 468 (Palocsa), 472, 487–88 (Szepes County), 490 (Krompach); EKPES, Series AH, no. 44, fols. 117v–118v (Terebes); E254, November 1672, no. 46, Priest Peter Casparovich to Zipser Kammer (Peklyn, 11 November 1672).

110 EKPS, Series Q, no. 148, fols. 400 (village pastors), 423–25. Even after the town's surrender it was impossible to arrest the pastors. Cf. MNL OL, E148, fasc. 1731, no. 14, Relatio Commissariorum super … praedicantium expulsionem (30 July 1673), fol. 12 (“Tota civitas sese nobis in portis civitatis opposuit . . . armis et fustibus sumptis una cum praedicantibus”).

111 MNL OL, E148, fasc. 1462, fols. 26, 29, 31; fasc. 1744, no. 52, fols. 24, 29, 48, 60 (“Preces . . . in omnia tria templa, ut Armadam Suae Majestatis Deus confundat et rebellium adjuvet, vidit populum concurrentem ad orationes”); no. 54, fols. 16, 23–24; Pauler, “A bujdosók támadása,” 94, 96–97.

112 MNL OL, E148, fasc. 1737, no. 8, fol. 131; EKPS, Series Q, no. 148, fol. 467 (Rudini); Mihály Szőlősi, Calvinist minister of Beregszász, survived the slaughter of hundreds of rebels (including pastors, peasants, and students) after a failed attempt to seize Szatmár Fortress, in MNL OL, E148, fasc. 1744, no. 55, fols. 1–25, Investigation by Lelesz Chapter (9 February 1674), esp. fol. 22.

113 EKPS, Series Q, no. 186, fols. 683, 707, 714; no. 189, fol. 761; MNL OL, E148, fasc. 1431, fol. 12; E254, November 1672, no. 48, Zsófia Báthori to Zipser Kammer (12 November); on Pál Görgei, see Zoványi, 222. Cf. Pastor István Bakta of Bereg County, in Szabó, no. 254, 264.

114 MNL OL, E190, Rákóczi Archive, no. 8091, fols. 583r-v, Decree by General Spankau (Kassa, 12 May 1672), esp. 583r (“Aliqui praedicantes, zelo minime Christiano ducti, publicas pro hostilium, ac nomini Christiano infestissimorum armorum successu preces facere”); Szabó, no. 167–69, 176. In August 1672 the Ottoman army invaded the Podolian and Galician provinces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish army was no match for the Ottomans who raced from victory to victory. The leaders of the 1672 Upper Hungarian revolt—which overlapped with Ottoman military successes in Poland—hoped that the triumphant Ottoman army would now turn against Hungary. Habsburg spy reports confirm that the Ottomans indeed had such plans. I think it was the deployment of a large Russian army in Ukraine that prevented the attack on Hungary. The Russian involvement prolonged the Polish-Ottoman war until October 1676. For more detail, see Michels, Habsburg Empire under Siege, 156, 171–72, 235, 248, 275, 277–79, 299–302, 305.

115 Ibid., 272–74, 280–83.

116 EKPS, Series Q, no. 148, fols. 398, 415 (Galli); MNL OL, E148, fasc. 1744, no. 57, Lelesz Chapter Investigation (9–13 May 1672), fols. 11–13, 17, 19. On Veszprém County, see MNL OL, G10, fols. 124–5v, Attestatoriarum Venerabilis Capituli Veszpremiensis ad instantiam Fisci Regi … collectarum … genuinae continentiae (1673, n.d.), esp. fol. 125, no. 72. The archive of the Veszprém Bishopric contains a series of investigations of pastors’ relations with rebels and Ottomans, in MNL OL Filmtar, X667, Veszprémi Káptalan Hiteleshelyi Levéltára, Jegyzőkönyv, vol. 3 (1673–76), no. 13, 22–23, 31–32 (February 1673–74, n.d.; 1676, n.d.).

117 Pauler, “A bujdosók támadása,” 13–14; EKPS, Series Q, no. 148, fol. 392 (“Plurimos praedicantes . . . utriusque professionis Calvinisticae et Lutheranae plusminus inter illos Turcice vestitos”); no. 186, fol. 708 (“More Turcico sindones pileos obduxerunt et in capite portarunt”).

118 HHStA, Hungarica, fasc. 180, Konv. D, no. 4, fols. 11–14, István Barkóczy to Szelepcsényi (Tállya, 28 November 1672), esp. 11–12. Barkóczy reported that armed pastors, students, and Ottoman soldiers joined the attack on Ónod.

119 Michels, Habsburg Empire under Siege, 253, 285, 287, 291, 303, 310, 342. Unfortunately, we know too little about the many pastors in the ranks of the rebel army, in EKPS, Series Q, no. 148, fols. 384–85, 390 (“Multos praedicantes . . . ipsis rebellibus adhaesisse assumptis vestimentis militaribus quot numero non scit”), 392, 394, 402, 414, 416, 434 (“Illosque [esse] indutos vestibus talpasonum”), 437, 450, 471, 484; no. 189, fols. 755, 757. Cf. similarly, in MNL OL, E148, fasc. 1431, fol. 11–12; fasc. 1462, fols. 22 (“Orabant cum talpasonibus tamquam praedicantes”), 23, 29; EKPES, Series AH, no. 6, fol. 28v.

120 Pauler, “A bujdosók támadása,” 13–14; EKPS, Series Q, no. 186, fols. 704, 713, 755; no. 189, fol. 753; MNL OL, E148, no. 1737, no. 6, fols. 17, 19 [describing Budai and Gyöngyösi as “military camp pastors” (castrenses praedicatores)]. A prominent Calvinist noble from Tarcal met with Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü in October 1671, in HHStA, Hungarica, fasc. 324, Konv. D, Casanova to Aulic War Council (10 October 1671), fol. 21v (“Mit einem Brief an Groß Vezir angelangt, in welchem die unterschriebenen Rebellen abermahls inständig anhalten umb Hilff der Türkhen”).

121 RMK, 1: 491–92 (no. 1187); Hézser, A tállyai ev. református egyház története, 34–36.

122 Of these only 336 pastors (282 Lutheran, 52 Calvinist) actually appeared at the trial. Cf. Fabiny, “Religio és rebellió,” 152; Benczédi, “Historischer Hintergrund der Predigerprozesse,” 258. Only two of the thirty-eight pastors mentioned by name can be positively identified as no longer alive (István Czeglédi and János Száki).

123 On pastors dying in battle, see a letter by Habsburg commander-in-chief Carolo Strassoldo, in “Strasoldo levele (17 February 1676),” Magyar Sion 6 (1868): 449–52, esp. 451; Katona, Historia critica regum Hungariae, 34: 242. Cf. testimonies of survivors, EKPS, Series Q, no. 186, fol. 11 (“Multos praedicantes et companones inter rebelles fuisse et in conflictu battisse, ad 50 illorum periisse”); Pauler, “A bujdosók támadása,” 87. On the total number of Protestant clergy in Hungary, see Péter, “A magyarországi protestáns prédikátorok,” 204–5.

124 Several examples are documented in Lutheran Sáros Country alone, in Hörk, A sáros-zempléni ev. esperesség története, 262 (Johannes Fabiányi), 318, 324, 330, 334 (Samuel Stephanovich), 340, 346, 365, 368, 382. Except the two whose names I have listed, none of these pastors was ever summoned by the tribunal; all of them stayed put and quickly returned to their confiscated churches.

125 Cf. a letter by Köprülü's secretary who was a Habsburg spy, in HHStA, Nikousios Panagiotis to Aulic War Council (24 June 1671), in HHStA, Turcica I, fasc. 143, Konv. 1, fols. 103r-v (“Alcune lettere del archivescovo Georgio Selepsini [Primate György Szelepcsényi – G.M.] . . . che faccia cacciare li predicanti . . . hanno dato gran sospetto”). Vizier Ibrahim Pasha actively prevented the arrest of pastors in villages and towns paying tribute to the sultan, in Szabó, no. 339–41, 343 (2 April to 3 May 1674). Cf. ibid., no. 43, Bishop György Széchényi of Győr to Aulic War Council (31 March 1671) complaining about Vizier Mahmud Pasha of Buda (1668–71).

126 Nationaal Archief (National Archive of the Netherlands, The Hague), Archief Gerard Hamel Bruyninx, Bestanddeel 5, Register van uitgaande Brieven (1670–72), Sect. R, fols. 6r-v; Sect. T, fol. 1v.

127 Szabó, no. 79 (18 June 1671), 159 (March 1672, n.d.), 208 (August 1672, n.d.), 235 (12 October 1672), 282 (15 May 1673), 319 (9 December 1673); S. Varga, 175–76; Michels, Habsburg Empire under Siege, 95–96, 246, 288.

128 S. Varga, 86, 201.

129 For example, Lutheran pastor Georg Buchholtz together with other fugitive pastors enjoyed the protection of “four Turkish masters” (Türkische Herren), in Weber, Historischer Geschlechtsbericht, 165–67, 186–90. Habsburg power in eastern Hungary had been continuously eroded by the Ottomans since the conquest of Várad (Varat) (1660). The pasha of Varat claimed all of the Szabolcs and Szatmár counties, the southern parts of Zemplén County, and projected his power elsewhere demanding tribute from any village or town that appeared in his tax registers ([luoghi] che siino nel registro de Turchi). In summer 1670, he warned the Habsburg army not to cross the Tisza River. The pasha of Eger made similar claims and issued similar warnings. Cf. HHStA, Turcica, fasc. 142, Konv., fols. 55–56v, Remonstranz an den Groß Vesier (August 1670, n.d.). On the fragmentation and paralysis of Habsburg power in Upper Hungary after the 1672 revolt, see Michels, Habsburg Empire under Siege, 297–339.

130 The Habsburg authorities must have realized the futility of their undertaking as suggested by the small number of pastors actually summoned from eastern counties: Abaúj (9), Borsod (3), Torna (1), Szabolcs (1), Szatmár (3), Ung (2), Zemplén (13), Ugocsa (0), and Bereg (0). Western counties received a much larger number of summonses: Veszprém (45) and Komárom (57). Cf. S. Varga, 249–88 (indices of pastors' names and home parishes).

131 On traditional scholarship, see Eberhard, Winfried, “Entwicklungsphasen und Probleme der Gegenreformation und katholischen Erneuerung in Böhmen,” Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 84 (1989): 235–57Google Scholar, esp. 243–48. Cf. Catalano, Alessandro, La Boemia e la conquista delle coscienze. Ernst Adalbert von Harrach e la Controriforma in Europa centrale (1620–1667) (Rome, 2005)Google Scholar.

132 Cf. Kavka, František, Bilá hora a české dějiny (Prague, 1962), 193–95Google Scholar, 256–59; Válka, Josef, Česká společnost v 15.-18. století (Prague, 1983), 2: 44–45Google Scholar. For the confessional historiography, see Wäntig, Wulf, Grenzerfahrungen. Böhmische Exulanten im 17. Jahrhundert (Konstanz, 2007), 1819Google Scholar.

133 Czech historian Jiři Mikulec called for studying the Bohemian Counter Reformation's local impact, “an until now incompletely illuminated process.” He observed that that “evangelical preachers … were secretly active (tajnĕ působili) in the country” and played leadership roles in popular revolts, in Mikulec, Jiři, Pobělohorská rekatolizace v českých zemích (Prague, 1992), 3Google Scholar, 11, 13–14, 26–27. Cf. also Wäntig, Grenzerfahrungen, 147–50, 250–56, 259–60, 590.

134 Hunt, William, The Puritan Movement. The Coming of Revolution in an English County (Cambridge, MA, 1983), 8893Google Scholar, 110–12, 196–201; J. H. M. Salmon, ed., The French Wars of Religion. How Important Were Religious Factors? (Boston, 1967), 6–11; Woltjer, J. J., Tussen vrijheidsstrijd en burgeroorlog over de nederlandse obstand (1555–1580) (Amsterdam, 1994), 3334Google Scholar, 37–38, 44, 55.

135 As Frank E. Sysyn put it, “the lower clergy seethed with hatred against the haughty Latins,” in “Orthodoxy and Revolt: The Role of Religion in the Seventeenth-Century Ukrainian Uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,” in Religion and the Early Modern State. Views from China, Russia, and the West, eds. James D. Tracy and Marguerite Ragnow (Cambridge, 2010), 154–84, here 170.

136 Michels, Georg B., At War with the Church. Religious Dissent in Seventeenth-Century Russia (Stanford, 1999), 148–87Google Scholar.