Takács Imre: Az Árpád-házi királyok pecsétjei (Corpus sigillorum hungariae mediaevalis 1. Budapest, 2012)
Type History and Iconography
influences on the author of Stephen and Gisella’s unusual representative programme may be divined from Otto-era cases such as the depiction of the emperor in the Liuthar Evangeliarium in Aachen, an extreme example of the employment Christological attributes,267 or the relief series on the Aachen ivory situla showing St Peter, the pope and the emperor, made around 1000 (fig. 8). In the case of the robe, we must also take note of the image hierarchy embodied in the iconographie formulae: the images of the saints, and the donors set among them, represent a transitional position and size between tire great figures shown in full figure standing or seated on a throne - Christ, Mary, the prophets and the apostles - and the half- length-figure medallions of angels and persons not identified by inscriptions. This intermediate formula stems from the same Roman image convention as the half-length tondo, but involves the use of a larger, three-quarter figure. The three-quarter figure is also found on tenth- and eleventh-century German royal seals. These contemporary portraits of rulers, above all the figure on one of Henry ITs royal seals, can be identified as the source for the robe’s depiction of the king and the saints assimilating to him.268 The connection first of all concerns the image format and the way the figure holds the orb, but the other insignia, attributable to a different - if not unrelated - precursor is the “angel’s” lance held in place of the sceptre, and the band crown shown in distinctive perspective stylisation.269 We do not know whether the three-quarter figures on the Székesfehérvár chasuble are related to the image of Icing Stephen engraved on the royal seal. (The Coloman seal suspended from the interpolated Pannonhalma charter does not seem to bear this out.) It is certainly true, however, that there are bullae from the first half of the eleventh century bearing half- and three-quarter figures of Hungarian monarchs of a kind well known in the eleventh century imperial 2i’7 Deshman 1971, pp. 1 -20; Schramm - Miitherich 1983, p. 78, pp. 204-205. The image of the emperor on the miniature is furnished with symbols of the universe and the gestures and attributes of Christ. Crowned, flag-holding figures placed on each side of the throne as if accompanying a transfiguration. According to a new interpretation of these two king-figures, the represent the monarchs of the empires eastern neighbours, Poland and Hungary: Boleslav Chrobry and Stephen. Fried 1989. 2,>ft Posse 1, 11.1; Schramm - Miitherich 1983, pp. 210 21 1, Nr. 114. 269 por representations of the broken -band crown form from the time of Otto III, Henry II and Conrad II: Schramm - Miitherich 1983, p. 142. On the connection of the lance motif with representations of Henry II and the symbolic interpretation of the form, see Kovács 1988, p. 138, n. 42. chancellery.270 The only example of a lead seal belonging to Peter Orseolo, Stephen’s immediate successor, was used between 1038 and 1046 and cannot dated more precisely. Its image format falls closer to the provisional royal seal and bullae of Henry II (fig 4). The holding of the royal insignia with upheld arms corresponds to the earliest of the examples. The link which would complete the chain between the imperial seal made shortly after the turn of the millennium and the Hungarian royal lead seal from more than thirty years later may be the lost metal seal used by King Stephen. An indication of the more extensive use of the royal bulla in eleventh century Hungary, in addition to Peter’s is the lead seal of King Solomon found in Belgrade. Its image type, not surprisingly, also returns on Solomon’s denars (fig. 5)271 The seals of the early monarchs of the House of Árpád are intertwined at so many levels with those of the empire that Imre Szentpétery’s description of the period between 1001 and 1067 as the “age of German imperial charter imitations” may also apply to royal seals.272 The earliest definitely-identifiable Hungarian seal bearing a throne image dates from 1046, during the reign of Andrew I, only a few years after the death of Stephen. By great good fortune, there are two surviving copies of this bronze-caste seal of summons, of a type known in the Hungarian language of the time as billog, a Turkish or Slavic loan-word. The form of image it bears, however, does not greatly differ from wax seals of the same time. On the contrary, Andrew I’s metal seal of summons offers the only direct foothold for a visual reconstruction of contemporary royal seals, and presumably harks back to the seals from the time of St Stephen (fig 9).273 The seal of summons was an instrument of “legal enforcement by the living word”, belonging to a society where symbols were of great significance.274 Another, similar Solomon billog has been lost or hidden since 1881, and cannot be assessed from the imprecise and unlearned description made of it then.275 270 First of all the provisional royal seal of Henry II mentioned above; Schramm - Miitherich 1983, p. 210, Nr. 1 14.; also included here are a royal bulla of between 1003 and 1007 and two later imperial bullae; ibid. p. 211, Nr. 117-119. 271 C. 1. 19; C. I. 20; C. I. 22; Europas Mitte, Katalog, p. 374, Nr. 17.01.03. 272 Szcntpétcrv 1930, p. 36 et seq. 273 On the connection between the seals of Andrew I and Stephen I: Jakubovich 1933, p. 72; Kumorovitz 1944, p. 22; Györtfv 1977, p. 258. 274 Kumorovitz 1993, p. 17. 27> Most recent discussion of the nineteenth century description: Kubinyi 1999, pp. 318-319. 57
