The first known university in the medieval Central-European region was founded in 1348, in Prague. It was followed by the one in 1364 in Krakow and later in 1365 in Vienna. The first Hungarian university was founded by the Hungarian king Lewis the Great (Nagy Lajos), in 1367 in Pécs.
Budapest, the medieval Óbuda (or Buda) and Pest, has always played a significant role in the country’s economic activites and education for the past centuries. Beyond the denominational and non-denominational elementary and secondary schools, a higher education institution, adapted to the needs and standard of the age, was in operation in Óbuda since the 12th century. On 6 October 1395 Pope Boniface IX signed Óbuda University’s first deed of foundation on the Hungarian king’s, Sigismund of Luxemburg’s request, thus this university became the country’s second and the capital’s first university.
The deed of foundation of the Universitas Budensis with four faculties was not preserved. The papal bull appropriated the revenues of the Provosts of Buda for the university supplies. After its short function however, the institution - on account of internal conflicts of the era – was supposedly shut down in 1403.
After the internal conflicts had ceased and the relationship with the papacy had been arranged, time arrived for King Sigismund to re-establish a new university directly under his influence.
Upon the King’s request, on 1 August 1410 the Pope signed his bull concerning Óbuda University’s re-establishment. The university was allowed to function with four classic faculties – Theology, Canon and Civil Law, Medicine and Liberal Arts – enjoying the same priviliges as other great European universities in Paris, Bologna, Oxford and Cologne. The papal bull was preserved as a copy in the Vatican Secret Archives. The Hungarian translation of the papal bull - based on previous editions - was rewritten by Prof. Dr. Géza Érszegi.
Thanks to Ulrich von Richental, the historic coat of arms of Óbuda University, Studium Generale, is well known. Several old manuscripts and early printed editions of Richental’s chronicle saw daylight, the coat of arms appeared in print in the most widely known edition, the Augsburg edition of 1483: in the upper red field lies a silver patriarchal cross on a green triple mount, in the bottom blue part, a left stretching silver shirt arm is holding a closed a book with brown binging and golden-edged pages and also a clasp. According to tradition, the book was the sign of grammar, wisdom and fame but it was identified as the university’s birth certificate and its book of privileges and sometimes even as the Bible. In a figurative sense it repsresnts a textbook and is alos the symbol of gaining wisdom, learning and knowledge as well.
Following the shutdown of Óbuda University, there was no university in operation within the area of today’s Budapest for hundreds of years. Matthias Corvinus experimented to establish a university in Bratislava. The capital boasted a university only in 1777 again when Queen Maria Theresa relocated the institution established by Peter Pázmány, archbishop of Esztergom, in 1635 in Trnava to Buda.
In 2010, celebrating the 600th anniversary of the re-foundation of the Óbuda University – in cooperation with King Sigismund College and the Municipalitiy of Óbuda-Békásmegyer - Óbuda University erected the Statue of King Sigismund in park across the university’s central building. The sculpture is the work of Katalin Csányi.of the Moholy-Nagy University of Fine Arts.
Magyar
English