György Bónis

Who is György Bónis?

György Bónis was a Hungarian jurist, researcher of Hungarian and European legal history.

György Bónis was born in Budapest, Hungary. His family name is probably of Italian or French origin. He completed his secondary education in Budapest, where he distinguished himself by winning 2 school award. He received his doctorate in jurisprudence in 1935 at the Pázmány Péter University. After receiving his doctoral degree, he spent a year in Great Britain, attending the lectures of Prof. Holdsworth and Plucknett. In the fall of 1940 he was appointed as a professor in the field of "the history of Hungarian law" at the University of Kolozsvár. From the beginning of 1940 through 1947 he regularly held lectures in this field of specialization as well as in other program areas. In 1947 all his goods have been confiscated, and he was constrained to leave Romania by the Romanian communist authorities. In 1947 became ordinary professor of Hungarian and European legal history at the University of Szeged. His scholarly activities in Hungary resulted in the publication of nearly 300 studies and articles, including many of his own books and textbooks, scholarly studies and essays, and hundreds of periodical articles. In Hungary, his early works focused on penal law, and later his research activity led him to deal with the history of European ius commune in Hungary. In 1964 he published his comprehensive volume entitled Einflüsse des römischen Rechts in Ungarn. He was visiting professor at the University of Cambridge, and member of the European Academy of History.