Majorossy Judit: Egy történelmi gyilkosság margójára. Merániai Gertrúd emlékezete, 1213 - 2013. Tanulmánykötet - A Ferenczy Múzeum kiadványai, A. sorozat: Monográfiák 2. (Szentendre, 2014)
VI. English Summaries
To the Margin of a Historical Murder - English Summaries for example, in Halych where he intervened in domestic matters following his father’s example, even though his almost annually conducted campaigns did not bring any smashing success. The complexity of the situation in the Balkans, on the other hand, made Andrew II cautious, since the Siege of Constantinople and the fall of Byzantium (1204) had the serious consequence that those groups of people previously subjected to the basileus started their freedom fights. It is not unconceivable that the Hungarian ruler might have played with the idea to grasp the Latin Empire of Constantinople, but being a realistic and good politician he might have also realized that such an act would have totally rearranged the existing political power balance in Europe. The obligation of leading a Crusade was also a fatherly heritage that, due to several inner political reasons, he could fulfill only in 1217-1218.The details of this military action was thoroughly analyzed by the recent scholarship together with its fiascos, but it is true that with his campaign to the Holy Land the king definitely joined one of the most significant political movements of his times. Through his family ties King Andrew II had several contacts to the influential European dynasties. He took as his first wife Gertrude of Andechs-Meran, a member of an ambitious German princely family, before 1203 and through this marriage he was engaged to the rivalry for the Holy Roman Empire. His second marriage with Yolanda de Courtenay of the French Capet dynasty, the niece of Emperor Henry I of Constantinople served to increase his influence towards the Mediterraneum, while in his third marriage with Beatrice D’Este most probably the emotions dominated. His children born from Gertrude and Yolanda were endowed in accordance with his foreign political ambitions and goals; nevertheless, European rulers felt privileged to have their sons and daughters be married to the holy Hungarian dynasty. During his foreign campaigns King Andrew II could also count on his sons, they took part in his military expeditions. However, the Eastern politics of the young princely king, Béla (the later King Béla IV, 1235-1270) proves that in certain matters they were able to make their own decisions. Márton Gyöngyössy The Financial Policy of King Andrew II and Its Inner Political Consequences The different attempts of the twelfth century Hungarian kings for stabilizing the financial governance and minting were unsuccessful. Consequently, in the first half of the thirteenth century the royal coins issued were of changing quality. The numismatists call this latter period as the age of the Friesach denars due to the important role the foreign coins played in the financial life of the kingdom. In the contemporary charters these coins were univocally named as frisatici, but originally they referred to the pfennings first minted in Friesach, in the Carinthian town under the authority of the archbishop of Salzburg. Later, other Carinthian princes and South-Austrian secular and ecclesiastical lords used this as a pattern for minting. These good quality coins soon invaded a wider geographical region, but their spread in the Hungarian Kingdom is usually connected to a political event, to the marriage of King Andrew II and Gertrude of Andechs-Meran. Even the naming (frisatici) is of Meranian origin, since the Salzburg sources referred to these coins as frisacenses. The author analyses the influences of this type of medieval coins to Hungarian minting from metrological and typological point of view. Beside royal minting, the possible coin production of certain prelates (for example, the bishop of Vác, or the bishop of Csanád) is also touched upon. From the time of King Andrew II the control of royal financial matters belonged to the magister tavernicorum whose office, after 1291, was the second most important rank next to the palatine in the kingdom. The royal mint - later the main mint house - functioned in Esztergom having local burghers as the leaders (comes camere). Beside an important change in the minting technology (from the earlier punching with a needle to the carving), there was also a significant shift concerning leaseholding the activity itself. During the reign of King Andrew II the influence of the Jews and Ismaelites as comes camere was still strong, and the ruler often commissioned them with leasehold contracts. With this system the comes camere was not any more a royal officer, but a private person, a businessman staying in contract with the king. 309
