Takács Imre: Az Árpád-házi királyok pecsétjei (Corpus sigillorum hungariae mediaevalis 1. Budapest, 2012)
Catalogue
43. Fourth double seal early 1287 -early 1288 Ladislaus IV (1272-1290) diám: 111) mm No intact specimen is known. A restored impression assembled from fragments in the Pál tty archives is held in Bratislava (25 January 1287, Bratislava, Slovensky Národny Archív, Arm. IV. Lad. 10. Fase. 1. Nr. 1). The seal was put into service in early 1287. Imre Szentpétery published a photograph of the largest known fragment from the Battyányi family archives when it was more intact than it is now (cf. Szentpétery 1930, fig.l 1: MOL DL 959). The chronological position of the document from which this seal is suspended, however, is problematic. In the charter, the Iking grants to his elder sister Lady Elizabeth and the nuns of “Rabbit Island” in the Danube, subsequent! v known as the Island of the Blessed Virgin, the t illages, land and other benefits of the island, except the Franciscan and Premonstratensian monasteries and their lands, the Crusaders’ castle and the castle, tower and houses of the Archbishop of Esztergom. Since only the word Datum and the number of the year of the King’s reign (VI") remain from the date of the charter, Gusztáv Wenzel quite reasonably dated it to 1278, not reconciling this with the chronology of the royal seals (Wenzel XII, p. 231). Imre Szentpétery attempted a solution by proposing that there was an “X” missing from the year of the reign, arriving at decimo sexto, or 1287, consistent with the seal chronology (Szentpétery 1923, p. 318). The last to consider the matter was Iván Borsa, who accepted that the document was written in 1278, but proposed that it was not issued - and so the seal was not applied - until some time in 1287. The deteriorated state of the seal cord supports his view (RejjArp II, pp. 207-208). Ladislaus Vi’s charters of 1288 which state that the Iking broke the royal seal matrix by his own hand certainly refer to this seal (cf. FejérV/3, p. 397; Fejér\ II/5, p. 474). This must have taken place after his excommunication was lifted in early 1288. The coat of arms on the reverse is in part a direct derivation from the previous seal, but also follows from the coat of arms with a wreath adorned double cross standing on a base that appears on Stephen V’s double seal. The similarity includes both the base of the cross and the wreath hanging on it. The similarity may derive from copying a precursor, but it might also be evidence of representation of a real object. Fragment of outer circle of two-line unpunctuated legend, with the ligatures AL, VA and AM (from the specimen in the Pálffy archives): [S I.jADIZLAI DEI GRACIA VNGARIE DALMACIE CROVACIE RAME SERVIL inner circle, with the ligature AL: GALICIE LODOME/RIE CVMANIE REGIS Fragment of the legend on the reverse: [,..TE]RCII QVINTI STEPHANI REGIS FIL[II] Originals: Budapest, Hungarian National Archives, DL 959 (applied later to a charter dated to 1278), 1213. Bratislava, Slovensky Národny Archív, Arm. IV. Lad. 10. Fase. 1. Nr. 1.(1287) Szentpétery 1923, pp. 315-316; Szentpétery 1930, fig. 11; RejjArp 11/2-3, pp. 207-208; Bodor 2001, p. 9; Takács2011, p. 91, fig. 7c. 181
