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(from fever to impotence), they prayed against storms and for rain, they applied ceremonies to halt the plague, fire, flood or whatever else might be threatening the people. Although this clerical activity extended to all strata of society ‘from the king to the pauper’, to the everyday life of village and to urban and court communities alike, if we judge from the surviving texts, the general character of mediaeval benedictions was agrarian. This clerical practice emerged not according to a pre-meditated system but along a more or less clearly discernible line of historical development, in harmony with religious needs. The repertoire of benedictions in question became transformed in the West as part of the process which is usually referred to in the literature of historical anthropology and mentality history as the decline of magic’. Alongside the anti-sacramental gestures of Protestantism, we also have to bear in mind a serious change in the mentality of the clerical elite. The publication of Rituale Romanum (1614), as well as the related attempts at purification and unification of ritual are usually seen as crucial components in the fundamental changes within the church. It is no accident that the investigations in Franz’s also extend to the time of the publication of the Roman book of rituals. The strivings of the higher clerical leadership did not lead to instant and radical changes. In Southern Europe, the South German and Austrian provinces, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary and Croatia (and probably a number of other places), the above mentioned processes appeared only later. Besides this delay, there are also signs of typically subterranean, ‘semi-official’ preservation. Since this particular region is in a border position, in Hungary’s case it is particularly exciting to see how far the influence of orthodoxy, unaffected by reforms of this kind, could survive. Other crucial questions are who were the mediators and what were the means by which the Latin blessings and curses of the church were mediated to popular culture, what were the channels through which they were translated to the vernacular, which was the clerical stratum that championed the transmission, dissemination and, primarily, the use of these texts. The Hungarian practice of benedictions in the Middle Ages also has its relevant sources. Besides early books of rituals (sacramentarium, agenda, manuale, obsequiale etc.) other liturgical codices (pontificale, missale, breviarium etc.) must also be considered from this point of view. Practically all historical facts and data that characterise this Hungarian practice are available to us owing to these sources. For want of preliminary research, the mediaeval chapter of the present work does not venture to present the types of sources or the data regarding individual benedictions. Accordingly, we cannot at this stage offer a general characterisation of the mediaeval Hungarian practice of benedictions. Although in the case of some benedictions included in the reader we do refer to antecedents in this country, we can in no way offer to clarify questions of origin or provide a wide ranging comparative exploration. 441
