György Pray (also: ''George Pray'', 11 September 1723 - 23 September 1801) was a Hungarian

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Abbot, canon, librarian of the University library of

Buda Buda (; german: Ofen, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Budim, Будим, Czech and sk, Budín, tr, Budin) was the historic capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and since 1873 has been the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest, on the ...

and important historian.

Biography

He was born at Érsekújvár (

Nové Zámky Nové Zámky (; hu, Érsekújvár; german: Neuhäus ; la, Novum Castrum; tr, Uyvar) is a town in Nové Zámky District in the Nitra Region of southwestern Slovakia. Geography The town is located on the Danubian Lowland, on the Nitra River, ...

) on 11 September 1723 in a family which came from the

Puster Valley The Puster Valley ( it, Val Pusteria ; german: Pustertal, ) is one of the largest longitudinal valleys in the Alps that runs in an east-west direction between Lienz in East Tyrol, Austria, and Mühlbach near Brixen in South Tyrol, Italy. The Sou ...

in the

County of Tyrol The (Princely) County of Tyrol was an estate of the Holy Roman Empire established about 1140. After 1253, it was ruled by the House of Gorizia and from 1363 by the House of Habsburg. In 1804, the County of Tyrol, unified with the secularised pr ...

. He studied in Pressburg (present day

Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...

), entered the

Society of Jesus , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

in 1745, spent two years in the Jesuit college (St. Ann's) in the Austrian imperial capital

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and completed his higher studies at Nagyszombat (

Trnava Trnava (, german: Tyrnau; hu, Nagyszombat, also known by other alternative names) is a city in western Slovakia, to the northeast of Bratislava, on the Trnávka river. It is the capital of a ''kraj'' (Trnava Region) and of an '' okres'' (Trna ...

). He taught at Nagyvárad (

Oradea Oradea (, , ; german: Großwardein ; hu, Nagyvárad ) is a city in Romania, located in Crișana, a sub-region of Transylvania. The county seat, seat of Bihor County, Oradea is one of the most important economic, social and cultural centers in the ...

), Trencsén (

Trenčín Trenčín (, also known by other alternative names) is a city in western Slovakia of the central Váh River valley near the Czech border, around from Bratislava. It has a population of more than 55,000, which makes it the eighth largest municip ...

), Nagyszombat and Pressburg. In 1754 he was ordained priest and continued teaching, now in Rozsnyó (

Rožňava Rožňava ( hu, Rozsnyó, german: Rosenau, Latin: ''Rosnavia'') is a town in Slovakia, approximately by road from Košice in the Košice Region, and has a population of 19,182. The town is an economic and tourist centre of the Gemer. Rožňava ...

) and in the Theresianum at Vienna, where he was professor of political science, and at the same time

tutor TUTOR, also known as PLATO Author Language, is a programming language developed for use on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign beginning in roughly 1965. TUTOR was initially designed by Paul Tenczar for use in co ...

to the princesses of

Salm Salm may refer to People * Constance de Salm (1767–1845), poet and miscellaneous writer; through her second marriage, she became Princess of Salm-Dyck * Salm ibn Ziyad, an Umayyad governor of Khurasan and Sijistan * House of Salm, a European ...

. He was professor in

Győr Győr ( , ; german: Raab, links=no; names of European cities in different languages: E-H#G, names in other languages) is the main city of northwest Hungary, the capital of Győr-Moson-Sopron County and Western Transdanubia, Western Transdanubia ...

(1758), Nagyszombat (1759) and Buda (1760), where he lectured, among other subjects, on

moral theology Ethics involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior.''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''"Ethics"/ref> A central aspect of ethics is "the good life", the life worth living or life that is simply sati ...

. At the

suppression of the Jesuits The suppression of the Jesuits was the removal of all members of the Society of Jesus from most of the countries of Western Europe and their colonies beginning in 1759, and the abolishment of the order by the Holy See in 1773. The Jesuits were ...

in 1773, he went to the Archdiocese of Gran and

Empress Maria Theresa Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (german: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was ruler of the Habsburg dominions from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position ''suo jure'' (in her own right). ...

appointed him imperial historiographer, with a yearly income of 400 florins. When the University of Nagyszombat was transferred to Buda in 1777, Pray was given charge of the library; he resigned this position in 1780, but resumed it in 1784. During this year he surrendered his manuscripts and collection of documents to the university library for a life annuity of 400 florins. He became

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...

in Nagyvárad (Oradea) in 1790, and was sent by the chapter as its representative to the

Hungarian Diet The Diet of Hungary or originally: Parlamentum Publicum / Parlamentum Generale ( hu, Országgyűlés) became the supreme legislative institution in the medieval kingdom of Hungary from the 1290s, and in its successor states, Royal Hungary and ...

. Later he became Abbot of Tormowa. He died in Pest on 23 September 1801.

Works

His literary activity embraced the history of Hungary, especially the early centuries, the history of the Catholic Church in Hungary, and editing the sources of Hungarian history. He was the first to draw attention to the oldest coherent text in the Hungarian language,

Funeral Sermon and Prayer The Funeral Sermon and Prayer ( hu, Halotti beszéd és könyörgés) is the oldest known and surviving contiguous Hungarian text, written by one scribal hand in the Latin script and dating to 1192–1195. It is found on f.154a of the Pray Code ...

(Latin title "Oratio funebris", meaning 'funeral oration'), dating probably from 1199, in a manuscript which was called after him the

Pray Codex The Pray Codex, also called Codex Pray or The Hungarian Pray Manuscript, is a collection of medieval manuscripts, dated to the late 12th to early 13th centuries. In 1813 it was named after György Pray, who discovered it in 1770. It is the first kn ...

. Among his works may be mentioned * "Annales veteres Hunnorum Avarorum et Hungarorum, 210 ad 997" (Vienna, 1761) * "Annales regum Hungariæ, 997-1564" (5 volumes, Vienna, 1763–70) * "Vita S. Elizabethæ" (Vienna, 1770) * "Specimen Hierarchiæ Hungariæ" (2 volumes, Presburg, 1776-9).

Sources

External links

Juraj Pray
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pray, Gyorgy Hungarian abbots 18th-century Hungarian historians Hungarian librarians 18th-century Hungarian Jesuits 1723 births 1801 deaths People from Nové Zámky