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 to one of its own monasteries. Nevertheless, since the Pilis monastery was unacceptable for the new ruler, the issue was settled by choosing the Egres monastery where - according to Albericus de Troisfontaine - the second wife of the deceased king, Yolande de Courtenay, rested. The Cistercian order, on the other hand, could not keep its influence in the Hungarian Kingdom long, as already in the second half of the thirteenth century the Mendicant Orders received privileges for burying dynasts in their friaries. On the basis of the above, the burial of Gertrude in the Cistercian monastery of Pilis is not an exception that might be only connected to the supposedly close scene of the assassination, but rather it is an element of a long-lasting and complex European process. The burial of King Andrew II in Egres, on the other hand, indicates the complexity of the whole issue of royal burials. Since in that case, first of all, the ruler’s wish confronted the intent of his own successor and, in addition, the pre-existing graves of two queen consorts must have been taken into consideration, just like the influence of the Cistercian Order. Gábor Klaniczay The Queen as Scapegoat, Martyr and Saint in Medieval Europe This study departs from a reflection of Caesarius of Heisterbach who in his legend on Saint Elizabeth of Hungary calles her mother, Gertrude of Andechs-Meran, an innocent victim of murder in 1213, a pious saintly woman, a martyr. The author suggests to see this surprisingly positive evaluation of Queen Gertrude, who was for the Hungarian chronicle writers a real scapegoat for the troubles during the reign of King Andrew II, in the context of century long, diametrically opposed views on the character of queens in Hungary and medieval Europe. Starting with Hungary, the author relied on the insightful studies by János M. Bak, who pointed out that queens have often been labelled as scapegoats in Hungarian history, from Sarolt, the wife of Duke Géza in the tenth century to Beatrice of Naples, the wife of King Matthias Corvinus in the fifteenth century. This attitude is not particular to Hungary, it has been quite general in medieval Europe, relying on the general negative judgment on the nature of women — since Eve, the cause of Original Sin. A brief overview of harsh chronicle passages on vicious Merovingian queens (Brunhilde and Fredegund) or Byzantine Empresses (Theodora) illustrate this. There was, for the age also a positive antipode, the saintly queen: Radegund, Bathild in the West and Helen, Eirene in the East. Nevertheless, the judgment could oscillate even in the case of these saintly persons, some churchmen resented the authority they acquired with their holiness, and labelled them still Jezebels. The author then followed the evolution and the contradictions of the cult of saintly queens till the thirteenth century, describing the slight modifications of this ideal in the Holy Roman Empire around the turn of the first millennium (Richardis, Mathilde, Adelheid, Ludmila, Cunegond), and the novelty brought about by Saint Margaret of Scotland. After this overview, the author turned back to Queen Gertrude with the conclusion that the flattering remarks by Caesarius, fashioning her as a saint queen and a martyr, seem to be without any foundation: there is no trace in her behavior of the many distinctive features of the model of holy queenship, a model well absorbed and renewed by her sister Hedwig of Silesia and her daughter Elizabeth of Hungary. Gertrude may have been a victim of xenophobia and misoginy, she was surely judged as a scapegoat, but she was certainly no saint and no martyr. József Laszlovszky-József Szentpéteri “...Scripta manent”. Memories of Excavating the So-called Gertrude Grave of Pilis The presented memoir is a kind of oral history, the recollection of the events that happened a generation ago and led to the discovery of the presumed burial place of the Hungarian Queen, Gertrude of Andechs-Meran (f28 September 1213). The archaeologist leading the excavation, László Gerevich (1911-1997), wrote scholarly reports about the uncovered grave with several archaeological observations and drawings, but actually his publications did not analyze in details the circumstances of the discovery itself. Gerevich conducted the whole excavation in an architectural approach. In the given year of the discovery, he actually wanted evidence on the question whether between the pillars of the nave 314
