Takács Imre: Az Árpád-házi királyok pecsétjei (Corpus sigillorum hungariae mediaevalis 1. Budapest, 2012)
Introduction
Matrices cut from silver, bronze or copper, easily pressed by hand into soft wax, had a very different form from those used to make metal seals (lead or gold bullae). These matrices had to be pressed on to the cast surface of the blank with much greater force, using either an apparatus similar to the coin press of antiquity225 or a hammer. Specialisation in making metal seal matrices may also be inferred from a comment by VVibald von Stablo {ferramenta ad bullandum de auro).226 The Hungarian royal chancellery started to use lead bullae in the first half of the eleventh century. The first is from the reign of King Peter (Cat. 3). The last surviving Hungarian royal lead seal graces Géza IPs deed of gift issued to the Esztergom chapter in 1158 (Cat. 13). We know of two ways that gold seals were made. One surviving gold bulla, published as a seal of Béla III, although detached from its charter, was made from two cast metal discs pressed together by hammering the matrices (Cat. 19). Clear evidence that Béla III did use gold bullae comes from the seal clause of an 1193 royal charter (imaginis nostris in aurea bulla impressione).227 228 229 We should think of Géza II’s gold seal in similar terms, even though it has not survived, because the wording of an 1156 Esztergom charter verifies it was being used at the same time as the royal great seal {regii impressione sigilli, tam aurei quant cerei).22H No gold bulla made of solid metal was used in the Hungarian royal court after the reign of Béla III. The gold bullae of Enteric, Andrew II and Béla IV (Cat. 21 , 26 , 31) are capsules made by soldering together thin plates embossed on the matrix, with interior stiffening, and usually filled with wax, resin or plaster, as may be seen in the imperial gold seals starting from the era of Henry IV.220 Until the final decades of the twentieth century, the treatment of Hungarian medieval seals by art historians was somewhat random and ad hoc, even though the historical study of seals has a long past in this country. The noted twentieth century Hungarian sigillographer Lajos Bernát Kumorovitz pointed out that the “scholarly” criticism of medieval seals started at the same time these singular objects were being made and used for their original purpose. “The study of seals, sigillography, is in fact as old as its substrate, the seal.”230 In recent years, medieval seals have proved indispensable in traditional branches of history and as 22:1 This is mode mentioned, citing ). Friedländer, by Posse V, p. 140. 226 Posse V, p. 140. 227 CAH, p. 88. 228 CAH, p. 61. 229 Posse V, p. 141. 230 Kumorovitz 1938, p. 251. objects in exhibitions on history of art and culture, opening the area up to new opportunities for research and publication.231 The catalogue of an exhibition of seals in Esztergom232 devoted more space to art history considerations than a recent book by Géza Érszegi whose title promised publication of Hungarian royal seals, but in fact presented a collection of plaster casts.233 One of the reasons for the relative lag is that the sporadic studies of seals made since the 1930s usually treat them as accessories to documents; it is only in the last few decades that issues of iconography and style history have been addressed in detail. In many cases, the approach to medieval seals is still restricted to the sigillographic, heraldic and epigraphic questions in circulation since the nineteenth century. It treats seals solely as the subject of auxiliary historical study, or at most - involving a method that goes back to the nineteenth century - as illustrative visual documents.234 The latest paper on royal seals of the House of Árpád, written as a comprehensive study, did not attempt much more than a general typological description on the basis of copies in the Institute of Art History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.235 Obstacles to a systematic art-history treatment have undoubtedly arisen from the unusually large quantity of the seals, the difficulties of autopsy, the circumstances of storage and the strict rules of security and physical protection in the archive. The “original” seals suspended from the documents are understandably held under tight and careful guard in stores where access is difficult even for researchers, and the handlers 231 Copies of Árpád era seals have been exhibited: in the exhibition of Árpád era stone carvings in Székesfehérvár in 1978; in the “Art in the era of Louis 1” exhibition in the same place in 1983: Marosi 1982b, pp. 139-152; in the exhibition “Art in the Age of King Sigismund” in the Budapest History Museum in 1987: Bodor 1987. The display of original seal impressions was considered important by the curators of the exhibition “Pannónia regia” held in the Hungarian National Gallery in 1994 and in the exhibition of the history of the Benedictine Order, “Paradisum plantavit”, held in Pannonhalma in 2001. The largest number of original medieval seals to be presented to the public was the exhibition Mcgpecsélt történelem (“Sealed History”) held in Esztergom in 2000, selected with a fine sense of quality and proportion from the collection of the Esztergom Primate and Chapter Archive by András Hegedűs, also responsible for the catalogue. The most recent Hungarian exhibition with a substantial section devoted to seals was the Sigismund of Luxemburg exhibition of 2006: Sigismundus rex et imperator. Art and Culture in the Age of Sigismund of Luxemburg 1387-1437. Ed.: 1. Takács, cxhib. cat. Budapest- Luxembourg. Mainz 2006, pp. 180-190. 232 Megpecsételt történelem 233 Érszegi 2001. 234 On medieval seals as a collection of costume-history illustrations: Demay 1880. 235 Bodor 2001, pp. 1-20. 53
