Pápa (German: Poppa) is the second largest city in Veszprém county, the center of the Pápa district. The settlement is famous for its numerous churches, the Esterházy Castle and the Reformed College.
Location
It is located in the valley of the once abundant
Tapolca stream, in the center of the Pápai plain, at the confluence
of the Bakony Mountains and the Kisalföld.
Approach
On the
road
The most important road access route of the city is the main
road 83, which can be reached from the south, the Veszprém area, and
from the north, from the direction of Győr. The main road used to
pass through the center of Pope, but has been avoiding it from the
west for some time.
From the main road 83, the main roads 832
and 834 branch out to the east and west, respectively: the former
provides a road connection for Pápa to Veszprémvarsány (and through
it Kisbér-Tatabánya), the latter to Celldömölk.
From the
surrounding settlements, it is connected to its neighbors in the
east-southeast direction (Adásztevel, Nagytevel, Homokbödöge) by
road 8303, and to its northern neighbors (Vaszar, Gecse) by road
8305. From the south, from Devecser and the main road 8, the road
8402 stretches so far. Roads 8403 lead to the south-western
agglomeration of Pápa (Dáka-Nagyalásony-Iszkáz-Kerta) and roads 8406
and 8408 lead to the villages in the north-western agglomeration
(Nagyacsád-Egyházaskesző and Marcaltő-Szany).
The origin of
his name
Most local historians agree that the city is of personal
origin: it was named after the Bavarian knight Popo, who may have
been the foreman of the manor house on the site of today's city
during the founding of the state. According to the most accepted
assumption, Queen Gizella arrived in Hungary accompanied by Queen
Gizella, but there is a view that she lived here before the
conquest, even in the time of Frank the Earl. It is probably from
him that the Pope clan originated, which in later centuries had
estates around the city. It is in favor of German origin that the
city is marked as Poppo or Poppa in medieval German engravings.
In recent centuries, local historians have recorded several
folklore legends about the name of the city, which, because of the
similar sound, usually associate the naming with the Catholic
archbishop and go back to the age of state formation:
According to the best-known story, which was already recorded by
Matthias Bél in 1735, King Stephen I met at this place with Bishop
Astrik, returning from Rome, who handed him the II. He brought a
crown from Pope on New Year's Eve. Then the king exclaimed, “Ecce
papa misit mihi coronam,” that is, “Behold, the pope sent me a
crown,” and the people named the newly founded city Pope out of
respect and gratitude to the archbishop. The parish priest Gáspár
Pongrátz recorded the same sentence in a different form in 1733:
according to him, the city got its name from the legate of the Pope
of Rome, who came to the king and rested here.
According to
another legend, the naming was Prince Géza. His son, the later King
Stephen, said as a baby in this place for the first time that Dad
and Géza's paternal heart would have given the name the city with
joy.
In his work published in 1799, György Enessey derived
the name Pope from the word hump, as the city was built on a hill.
History
It has been inhabited since the Neolithic
(Neolithic); Celtic archaeological finds have also been excavated in
the area.
Although in Roman times the road between
Szombathely (Savaria) and Győr (Arrabona) went to this, no
settlement was established. The settlement was first mentioned in a
charter in 1214 (MNL OL DL 91934). Then II. András Nóráp donated a
part to János's son Hektor. In describing the boundaries of the
estate, the “path that comes from the Pope” (“viam, quae venit de
Papa”) is mentioned. The settlement was already the center of the
courtyard and the seat of the archbishop, which set it apart from
the other settlements in the area. A XIII. through the hospes
introduced at the end of the 19th century, it was able to embark on
a path of urban development. It is archaeologically proven that the
XIV. At the beginning of the 19th century, it was given an urban
look (the Main Square was formed, essentially in its present
extent). A XIV. From the end of the 19th century, the diplomas
referred to it as “oppidum”, ie as a market town, and even
occasionally used the term “civitas” in connection with Pope. Pope
built a representative cathedral on the site of the early church in
the Main Square, a craftsman-circulating city developed in the late
Middle Ages. It had its own seal, there were guilds in the town.
Highly the most populous settlement of Veszprém county at that time.
Of great importance for the development of the city was the
Tapolca stream, which once drove more than a dozen mills in the
present-day area of the city. A XX. At the end of the 19th
century, due to bauxite production, the stream subsided, although
the water came back later, but the mills are now more of an
attraction than a real one in the city.
The role of the city began to expand from the middle of the 18th
century (with minor interruptions), and schools have been operating
ever since. It was already a reputable school town in the middle of
the 19th century. Its nationally renowned school is the Reformed
College, originally founded in 1531, to which Sándor Petőfi and Mór
Jókai also attended. The other school with a similar reputation is
the Türr István High School, founded by the Paulines in 1638 and now
state-owned, to which the conciliator Ferenc Deák also attended.
An important element of its history is the blue painting
workshop of the Kluge family currently living in Canada. It was
established in 1786 in Pápa. The workshop was fed by the water of
the Tapolca stream. Until the 19th century, blue painting was done
by hand, but later by steam engines, which was one of the best in
Hungary at the turn of the century. The workshop, along with the
craft, passed from father to son in the Kluge family until their
private enterprise was closed in 1945 during nationalization. The
site has had a museum since 1962 that showcases a craft with a long
history.
The main square was renovated between June 14, 2011
and 2013. The main building of the renovated Esterházy Castle was
handed over on April 17, 2015. The new, ornate wrought iron gate of
Esterházy Castle was handed over on September 28, 2019: A papal
symbol was reborn.