page_title: Juraj Slovinac
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Juraj Slovinac / Biography
caption_attribution_description: Hrvatski: rukopis Jurja Slovinca
context_page_description: Juraj Slovinac was a medieval theological writer and professor at the University of Sorbonne in Paris. He was also a priest in the city of Tours. He is notable for his writings on Glagolitic alphabet and the Croatian lands.
context_section_description: Juraj Slovinac was born in Rayn in Aquileia, present-day Brežice, Slovenia. His name comes from Georgius de Rayn, Georgio de Rayn, d’Esclavonia, de Sorbonna, and some experts believe that it is not certain that Rayn refers to Brežice. Very little is known about his childhood.
  He was a Glagolitic and a Latin spiritual writer and a professor of theology at the famous Paris University of Sorbonne (from 1394 to 1403), and from 1404 in church service in the city of Tours. He was a theological writer and wrote a Croatian alphabet book and basic Christian prayers in Glagolitic script around 1400. He wrote a small Glagolitic beginner’s prayer book, written by memory, and contains the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, the Nicene Creed, the Apostles’ Creed and the psalm Miserere mei, Deus. Above every Glagolitic line is his transcription of it into Latin. His manuscripts are kept in the Public Library of Tours. With these texts he apparently wanted to show his French counterparts that in addition to a Hebrew and Greek native script, there exists a Croatian one also. He stated, ‘Iste alphabetum est Chrawaticum,’ which means ‘This alphabet is Croatian.’
  In 1401, he received his doctorate in theology, and in 1403, his name was included in the list of professors of the Paris-Sorbonne University. According to Dragica Malić, Juraj wrote the first known Glagolitic prayer book around the last decade of the 14th century, probably as a professor of the Paris-Sorbonne University, in order to teach French students about the Croatian Glagolitic script.
  From 1404, he was also a priest in Tours, in the Beaumont-lès-Tours Monastery for women. His book, Le chasteau de virginite (The Fortress of Virginity), written in 1411 in Latin and French, became a famous work of French and European literature. There are numerous copies of the book from the 15th century, as well as three printed French editions from 1505, 1506 and 1510, and one Latin from 1726. It shows its extraordinary popularity in Europe. The manuscripts, among them Glagolitic ones, are located in the Public Library of Tours. In the American Yale University Library, there is a copy of Juraj’s letter which precedes the one written by Juraj to Isabelle de Villeblanche on 31 December 1411. In the description of Juraj’s letter we can see the names of famous collectors that owned the original manuscript for several centuries. Among them is Sir Thomas Phillips, a famous English collector from the 19th century. He was also the owner of the so-called ‘New York Missal’, a Croatian-Glagolitic missal originally from the Lika and Zadar areas in the early 15th century, which is now located in the Morgan Library & Museum, the largest library in New York City (the largest collection of Julije Klović’s works are kept there).
  Juraj Slovinac was very proud of the region of Istria, which he proclaims as a part of his Croatian homeland: ‘Istria eadem patria Chrawati,’ which means ‘Istria is the homeland of the Croats.’
  In his works, Juraj also lists the eleven Glagolitic bishops in Croatia:
  Archbishop of Split
  Archbishop of Zadar
  Bishop of Krbava
  Bishop of Knin
  Bishop of Krk
  Bishop of Trogir
  Bishop of Šibenik
  Bishop of Nin
  Bishop of Rab
  Bishop of Osor
  Bishop of Senj
  In a note on the same page, he claims that Croatian bishops preached in both Latin and Croatian, ‘Primus episcopus Chrawacie qui scit utrumque ydioma, tam latinum quam chrawaticum, et celebrat missam in altero istorum ydiomatum quocumque sibi placet.’
caption: Glagolitic writing from Juraj Slovinac, with Latin notes
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