In the sixteenth century many printing presses existed in Hungary. The great circulation of the Bible in the vernacular tongue produced a great demand for books. In the cities of Bartfeld, Debretzen, Várad, Neusohl, Kassa, were printing establishments supported by the public, and the Magnates assisted those of Detrekö, Ujszigeth, Galgócz, Alsóhendra, Némethujvár, and Pápa. In the following century presses were erected in Trentsin, Silein, Senitz, Puchov, Leutschau, and Csessreg. No censorship existed in any shape during this period.
The names of Magyar authors begin now to thicken, and a list of chroniclers and poets occupy the pages of literary story. The works of this period are for the most part biographical and historical.[1] The poetry can hardly be said to be much elevated above dull and sober prose, the ars poetica of the age being little more than the art of making common-place sentences dance to the jingle of a rhyme. The best poet of the day was Tinódi, who wrote both foreign and domestic history, and who does not seem to have had patronage enough to exalt him even above bodily suffering; for in a single verse, which he
- ↑ See a Catalogue of these early productions in Sandor's Magyar Könyvesház, Raab, 1803, in 8vo.
