György Pray

He was born at Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky) on 11 September 1723 in a family which came from the Puster Valley in the County of Tyrol.

In 1754 he was ordained priest and continued teaching, now in Rozsnyó (Rožňava) and in the Theresianum at Vienna, where he was professor of political science, and at the same time tutor to the princesses of Salm.

At the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, he went to the Archdiocese of Gran and Empress Maria Theresa appointed him imperial historiographer, with a yearly income of 400 florins.

When the University of Nagyszombat was transferred to Buda in 1777, Pray was given charge of the library; he resigned this position in 1780, but resumed it in 1784.

He was the first to draw attention to the oldest coherent text in the Hungarian language, Funeral Sermon and Prayer (Latin title "Oratio funebris", meaning 'funeral oration'), dating probably from 1199, in a manuscript which was called after him the Pray Codex.