The aim of this paper is to examine the role of the Christian lower priesthood in
local communities in eighteenth–twentieth century Hungary and Transylvania in cultural
transmission. The author intends to map out the complex and changing conditions of
the social function, everyday life, and mentality of the priests on the bottom rung
of the clerical hierarchy. Particular emphasis is placed on the activity of priests
active at the focus points of interaction between elite and popular culture who, starting
from the second half of the eighteenth century, often reflected both directly and
in a written form on the cultural practices of the population of villages and market
towns. The theoretical questions and possible approaches are centered around the complex
relations of the priest and the community, their harmonious or conflict-ridden co-existence,
questions of sacral economy, stereotypes of the “good priest” and the “bad priest”
as shaped from above and from below, the subtleties of “priest-keeping”, the intentions
related to preserving traditions and creating new customs, and the different temperaments
of priests in relation to these issues.
