Lea Ráskay, O.P. (; early 16th century, sometimes also spelled ''Ráskai'') was a Hungarian

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...

and scholar of the 16th century.

Life

Ráskay was likely a descendant of that old Hungarian

aristocratic Aristocracy (; ) is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense economic, political, and social influence. In Western Christian co ...

family which would have gotten its name after the village of Ráska, and until the end of the 16th century, held important positions in the

court A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and Administration of justice, administer justice in Civil law (common law), civil, Criminal law, criminal, an ...

s of the

Kings of Hungary The King of Hungary () was the Monarchy, ruling head of state of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 (or 1001) to 1918. The style of title "Apostolic King of Hungary" (''Magyarország apostoli királya'') was endorsed by Pope Clement XIII in 1758 ...

. Ráskay was a member of the Dominican

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

on Rabbit Island (today

Margaret Island Margaret Island ( ; ) is a long island, wide, ( in area) in the middle of the Danube in central Budapest, Hungary. The island is mostly covered by landscape parks, and is a popular recreational area. Its medieval ruins are reminders of its impo ...

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

), founded by King Bela IV of Hungary in 1252, to provide a closer home for their daughter, Margaret, later declared a saint, who had become a member of the Dominican Order. Ráskay was highly learned and well read, and is famous for copying and translating several Hungarian

codices The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

that without her work would not have survived. Among them the one for which she is best known: the

Legend of Saint Margaret The Legend of Saint Margaret () is an important piece of Mediaeval Hungarian literature. The only specimen of the text was preserved in the Margaret Codex, copied by Lea Ráskay in 1510. The legend tells the life and deeds of Saint Margaret of Hun ...

, about Saint Margaret of Hungary, who had lived in the same monastery nearly three hundred years before Ráskay. She was assigned by the prioress of the monastery to copying manuscripts in its

scriptorium A scriptorium () was a writing room in medieval European monasteries for the copying and illuminating of manuscripts by scribes. The term has perhaps been over-used—only some monasteries had special rooms set aside for scribes. Often they ...

, and was the librarian for the community, possibly between 1510 and 1527, according to her notes in specific

. Ráskay also worked as a secretary, as a manuscript written in the name of Ilona Bocskay is known from her. With her collaborators, Ráskay was working on more books simultaneously. In 1529, when the monastery was evacuated because of the danger of the Ottoman forces, she fled, but took the most important codices to a safe place. The place and date of her death are unknown.

Works

All the below works were written in Hungarian. *

(1510; copied from a lost codex of the 14th century) *parts of the Codex Cornides (1514–1519 * Codex Domokos (1517) *parts of the (1519) **parts of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

** The Gospels * Három körösztény leány (c. 1521–1530) * Codex Horvát (1522)

References

Haader Lea: A Nyulak szigeti scriptórium mint műhely

External links

* * All works of Lea Ráskay in their original orthographic form are available and searchable in th
Old Hungarian Corpus
{{DEFAULTSORT:Raskay, Lea 15th-century births 16th-century deaths Dominican nuns Dominican scholars Hungarian translators 16th-century Hungarian women writers 16th-century Christian nuns 16th-century Hungarian writers 15th-century Hungarian writers 16th-century Hungarian women 15th-century Hungarian women

Life

Works

See also

References

External links