A Brave New World: Crisis and Transition in the Late Medieval Great Hungarian Plain as Witnessed by the Friary of Bátmonostora and Its Patron Family

The purpose of this study is to examine the historical development of the friary of Bátmonostora and the history of the family who possessed it. The rise and fall of this rural centre in the long fifteenth century illustrates the changes in this period in the society of the Great Hungarian Plain. The main subject of examination is the lay religious life at the friary and its eventual demise. While discussing this lay religiosity, we present the history of the previously unexamined monastic treasury of Bátmonostora, which was quite outstanding due to some of its special reliquaries. The fate of the family and their eventual alienation from the sacred objects show how the political and cultural changes completely transformed lay piety at the end of the period and led to the unfortunate fragmentation of the collection and the decline of the family.