Journey to Jerusalem

The Chronicle of the Order provides important information about Gábor Pécsváradi, the head of the observant Franciscans, in 1514: "Around the Feast of All Saints ... Father Gábor Pécsváradi, leaving the province with his written permission, he went to Jerusalem. " The royal chief chef János Bánffy and his brother, Jakab Bánffy, needed financial support to enable the two Franciscan monks to travel the land and water without difficulty and to stay in the Holy Land for thirty-three months. Gábor Pécsváradi's travel account and itinerary had ancient and medieval antecedents. The Hungarian travel tradition can be traced back to the time of King Stephen. We have data on pilgrimage routes through the country to Jerusalem. Among the medieval travel descriptions we do not find one that could serve as a model for Pécsváradi's work. Although we know these antecedents, the travelogue of Gábor Pécsváradi must be read as an extremely important and valuable document. One of the greatest values of his writing is that, inspired by the personal experience, he states that he can report on all the cities and places of pilgrimage he has visited, all the biblical landscapes with the emotional saturation of the traveler and the novelty of the experience. His description thus becomes a colorful and exciting reading in addition to recalling biblical stories, as in addition to reviving an event in the life of the saints, he can tell interestingly about the daily life of the pilgrims living there, the conditions of the trip are as important to him as the Turkish danger. The Latin description of Gábor Pécsváradi probably appeared in Vienna in 1519.