Matthias Bel
| Matthias Bel (de) Bél Mátyás (hu) Matej Bel (sk) Matthias Belius (la) |
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Matthias Bel
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| Born |
March 22, 1684 Ocsova, Kingdom of Hungary (now Očová, Slovakia) |
| Died | August 29, 1749 (aged 65) Pressburg, Kingdom of Hungary (now Bratislava, Slovakia) |
| Citizenship | Hungarian |
| Occupation | lutheran priest, writer, historian, geographer, alchemist |
| Spouse(s) | Susanna Hermann |
Matthias Bel or Matthias Bél (German: Matthias Bel; Hungarian: Bél Mátyás; Slovak: Matej Bel; Latin: Matthias Belius; March 22, 1684 – August 29, 1749) was a Lutheran pastor and polymath from the Kingdom of Hungary. He is also known as the Great Ornament of Hungary (Magnum decus Hungariae). He described himself as "lingua Sla-vus, natione Hungarus, eruditione Germanus" ("by language a Slav, by nation a Hungarian, by erudition a German").
Matthias Bel was born in Ocsova, Kingdom of Hungary (now Očová, Slovakia) to Matej Bel Funtík or Bel-Funtík, a Slovak wealthy peasant and butcher, and Veszprém-born Erzsébet Cseszneky, who hails from the Hungarian noble family, Cseszneky.
According to some Slovak sources, he considered himself an ethnic Slovak. though Bel described himself as "by language a Slav, by nation a Hungarian, by erudition a German". His fathers double family-name is part Slovak (Funtík) and part Hungarian (Bél). In 1710, he got married to an ethnic German woman from Hungary, Susanna Hermann, and the couple had eight children together.
Bel attended schools in Lučenec (Losonc), Kalinovo (Kálnó), and Dolná Strehová (Alsósztregova), and then grammar schools in Banská Bystrica (Besztercebánya), Pressburg (today Bratislava), and briefly in Veszprém and in the Calvinist college of Pápa. Between 1704–1706, he studied theology, philosophy, and medicine at the University of Halle and he was appointed rector at the school of Klosterbergen near Magdeburg after that. Later, returning to the Kingdom of Hungary, became an assistant rector and became afterwards the rector at the Lutheran grammar school in Besztercebánya (Banská Bystrica), where he was also simultaneously a pastor. As a Rákóczi-sympathisant, he was almost executed by General Sigbert Heister. Between 1714 and 1719, he was the rector of the Lutheran grammar school and then also a pastor of the German Lutheran church in Pressburg.
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