Csatár Bible, Pray codex, Ernst codex
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The codex was written in the first half of the 12th century in Austria; from here it was brought to the Benedictine monastery of Csatár in county Zala, founded by the Gut-Keled clan. Here the two charters of the foundation of the monastery in the 12th century were copied into it. In the second half of the 13th century the head of the monastery was in financial trouble, so he took the book to Vasvár and put it into the pawn of Farkas, the Jew, and he compensated the monastery for the loss. Presumably this two-volume, richly illustrated Bible never returned to Csatár.
SzK
Pray codex
A manuscript from the middle or end of the 12th century written on parchment paper. In 1813 it was named after the Jesuit historian, George Pray, who discovered it in 1770. It is very significant as the first continuous Hungarian textual relic; it is the codex that contains the Funaral Oration and Prayer, and the only early Hungarian annal record, the so-called Pozsony Annal, which describes the historical events from 997 to 1203. As to its genre the main part of the codex is a sacramentarium, that is a collection of liturgic texts used during the mass. It is completed by the text of the synod resolutions from the age of Coloman and Bernold of Konstanz's (1054-1100) liturgy explanation entitled "Micrologus". Smaller liturgic amplifications can also be found in this codex. The place, where it was copied, might have been one of the Benedictine monasteries named after St John (perhaps the Boldva one). After 1203 it got out of the monastery and through Somogyvár - perhaps - by 1228 it was brought to Deáki, to the prior of the Pannonhalma monastery. From here it was taken to Pozsony in 1241, where it survived in the chapter library. The prayers of the Hungarian saints carry its liturgic value, and from the point of view of literary history it is even more significant, as it contains one of the early Hungarian dramas, the Eastern miracle play, called the Quem quertis. From the point of view of the history of art its coloured pen-and-ink drawings are quite significant, and the musical signs (= notatio) are interesting for the history of music. Today it is kept in the National Széchényi Library in Budapest.
SzK
Ernst codex
It was written at the end of the 12th century, and contains Sulpicius Servus's St Martin biography, smaller texts about St Martin, and the oldest copy of St Stephen's smaller and larger legend. As St Martin is the patron saint of Pannonhalma, and the larger Stephen legend was undoubtedly written in Pannonhalma, it is possible that codex was compiled in the scriptorium of the Pannonhalma monastery. Today it is kept in the National Széchényi Library in Budapest.
SzK