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 Concerning Berthold’s legal activity in the Hungary, the author concluded that it was not strikingly special or outstanding, only a few charters issued by him survived all of which relating to common secular land property matters and quarrels. With regard to church government, however, the image is more complex. Along the steps of the debate between the two archbishops, it can be clearly detected that - in spite of the fact that it burst out with new strength exactly in Berthold’s time - the situation again became rather tense not only due to Berthold’s attempts to equalize the roles of the two main ecclesiastical seats.The whole issue had been present for several preceding decades in the church political discourse. Nevertheless, in Berthold’s time not only the two archbishops but also the other prelates started playing a more active role and made their voices heard. At the same time, Berthold was not a passive participant of the events: the attempts of the Germans in Transylvania for their independent ecclesiastical institutions (the plans for a provostry and a bishopric in Szeben - today Sibiu -, the beginnings of the ecclesiastical self-administration of the churches in Burzenland, in the South-Eastern area of Transylvania) provided a good opportunity for Berthold to try to limit the legal authority of his rival in Esztergom outside his own domain, and to strenghten his own. However, his efforts — although this issue concluded after Berthold left Hungary for Aquileia — were ultimately not successful. The archbishop of Esztergom was able to assure his right to the royal coronations and also could keep the authority over the privileged churches outside his domain. Tamás Körmendi The Circumstances of the Murder of Queen Gertrude The paper aims to review our knowledge on the details of the assassination of Queen Gertrude of Andechs-Meran (T1213), the first wife of King Andrew II of Hungary (1205-1235). After having carried out in earlier studies (Körmendi 2009a, Körmendi 2009b) a comprehensive analysis of all known medieval narrative sources that contain any valuable information about the murderous attack, the author in the present paper tries to draw some historical conclusions and to determine the most important circumtances of Queen Gertrude’s death: the time, the place, the murderers, the witnesses, and the possible motives. In order to do so, the author has examined all the narrative sources, royal charters and papal letters that can be related to the assault on Queen Gertrude. The critical analysis of the sources confirmed the view of the earlier literature which stated that the queen was murdered on 28 September, 1213. As for the exact place, unfortunately none of our sources mention it; but after having gathered all their dim allusions, it seems quite logical for the author to think that the attack rather took place in the royal forests of Zemplén, not far from the Premonstratensian monastery of Lelesz, where certain unspecified parts of the queen’s body were buried (although the main funerary monument of Gertrude was erected in the Cistercian monastery of Pilis - today Pilisszentkereszt), and not in the royal forests of the Pilis mountain in the very heart of the medieval Hungarian Kingdom as most historians had earlier suggested. It is quite clear that Archbishop Berthold of Kalocsa (the queen’s brother) was among the witnesses of the murder, and it is also quite probable that Duke Leopold VI of Styria and Austria was near the queen at the time of her death as well. The analysed sources tell that the archbishop and the duke were both heavily insulted by the murderers, but their lives were finally spared. King Andrew II might prepared for a military expedition against the Russian pricipality of Halych (or Galich in Russian) at the same time. Thus, he may have been far away from his wife when she was killed. The most interesting questions of the history of the murderous attack concern the identity of the murderers, their supporters or accomplices and, of course, their motives. The author’s investigations show that there is only one convict whose guiltiness can really be regarded as proven: Peter, son of Tore (Turoy), who had formerly been the comes curiae of the queen for three years (1207-1210). Peter is named as the murderer of Queen Gertrude by some of the narrative sources and a royal charter as well. In addition, it is known that he was himself impaled and his possessions were confiscated before 1216.There are no less than four other people - Bánk from the Bárkalán kindred, his son-in-law Simon, and another Simon and his brother Michael from the Kacsics (Katyz) kindred - who are mentioned as accomplices of the conspiracy against the queen in different royal charters between 1228 and 1277. None of them can be regarded as guilty with complete certainity. In fact, Palatine Bánk was almost surely totally innocent of the murder; it is not impossible that these four named noblemen were, at least ten years after the assassination of Gertrude, accused of conspiracy purely out of political reasons. Some of the narrative sources tell us that Archbishop John of Esztergom might have sent the murderers an ambiguous message which said „the queen to kill you must not fear will be good and if everyone 312
