Takács Imre: Az Árpád-házi királyok pecsétjei (Corpus sigillorum hungariae mediaevalis 1. Budapest, 2012)
Type History and Iconography
TYPE HISTORY AND ICONOGRAPHY Far-reaching changes in the depiction of European rulers took place in the decades leading up to the year 1000, just when the Árpád dynasty was coming to royal power in Hungary. The process is strongly manifested in seals, because the second half of the tenth century was a significant period in the evolution of the Western medieval royal seal. The seals used by Conrad I and Henry I, and Otto’s royal seals of between 936 and 961, bear a profile depiction of the monarch adapted to the gem and coin portraits of antiquity while preserving the practices of their Carolingian predecessors.248 The middle of the century was to bring a new departure. The imperial wax seal of Otto I introduced in 962 was the first to break from the old pictorial tradition by representing the ruler in the form of a frontal bust. It was followed by replicas of images taken from the seals of contemporary rulers,249 and the seals of his son, Otto II also took up this new representational model (fig. I).250 Seals carrying this frontal depiction were not, however, without precedent. The choice of Otto I’s image type was clearly a return to the imperial image on Byzantine coins and the imago clipeata of Carolingian imperial bullae. The sceptre and the orb, insignia drawn from the late Roman era, appeared as attributes of imperial power on Otto I’s imperial seal, displacing the lance and the shield, which - together with the diadem - had served this function on the bullae of Charlemagne and his successors.251 Otto III followed his father’s example in using a bust image on his seal when he was king,252 253 but after his coronation as emperor in he introduced - in 996/997-two completely new forms of depiction. His first imperial seal depicts a cloaked figure wearing a crown, arms raised, with a long rod in his right hand and a large orb in his left (fig. 2).255 After only a few months of using this new seal, he replaced it with a maiestas-type throne seal, the first in medieval history. This features a frontal image of the emperor seated on the throne, his arms raised, in his right hand a sceptre, and in his symmetrically-held left hand an orb marked with the cross, known from Christ iconography as a 248 Schramm - Müthcrich 1983, pp. 184-187, Nr. 76-79, 81. 249 Schramm - Müthcrich 1983, p,187, Nr. 82, 83. 250 Schramm - Müthcrich 1983, p. 193, Nr. 87-89. 2:>1 For an overview of this process: Keller 2000, pp. 767-773. 252 Schramm - Müthcrich 1983, p. 199, Nr. 96, 97. 253 Schramm - Müthcrich 1983, p. 199, Nr. 98, 99; Europas Mitte, p. 769, Abb. 488. symbol of the universe (fig. 6).254 The maiestas composition of the seal, which may be linked with the monarch-portraits of the codex illustrations of the time, served not only as a mandatory model for Emperor Otto’s eleventh-century successors, but also as the prototype for the distinctive medieval European royal seal. Variants of the enthroned ruler in the aura of full power soon appeared all over the continent. Thus St Stephen’s newly-founded Kingdom of Hungary, given its historical, cultural and artistic links with the West, must also have felt the effects of the changes in visual representation going on in the Holy Roman Empire. No seals have survived from the period around 1000 AD, when the state of Hungary was founded, and the only clues to the use of seals during the Stephen I’s reign are a few charters with terse seal clauses. One of these texts is the corroboratio in the deed of foundation of the Veszprém Bishopric issued in 1009, which mentions the royal signet ring.255 The text of the charter implies that the royal chancellery, an institution dating from around the turn of the millennium, attempted to transcend simplest forms of operation and to approach the differentiation employed in the diplomatic practices of the imperial court. It is striking that the deed of foundation of Pannonhalma Abbey, issued right at the start of Stephen’s reign (in 1001 or 1002) contains a seal clause - presumably part of the basic text - which makes a general reference to the application of a seal (sigillan iussimus), but not specifically the signet ring mentioned in the Veszprém charter.256 This implies that it was a larger, royal seal.2'’1' We have already mentioned that the throne seal type was probably present in Hungary around 1000, a proposition supported indirectly by the Coloman seal suspended from the Pannonhalma deed of foundation, of which only an interpolated transcript survives (fig. 10). The image of the monarch seated on the throne in the manner of Otto Ill’s imperial seal prompts the question of whether the interpolator (or 254 Schramm - Müthcrich 1983, p. 199, Nr. 100.; Kuropas Mitte, p. 770, Abb. 490. 255 Quod ut verius crcdatur diligetiusque ab omnibus observetur, paginam haue manu propria coroborantes anuli nostri impres- sione subter insigniri euravimus. DHA, I, p. 53. 256 Quod ut verius crcdatur hanc paginam manu propria roborantes sigillari iussimus. E)HA, I, p. 40. 257 The latest review of philological and historical criticism issues of the Pannonhalma charter is Érszegi 1996, pp. 47-89. 55
