Takács Imre: Az Árpád-házi királyok pecsétjei (Corpus sigillorum hungariae mediaevalis 1. Budapest, 2012)

The Beginnings of Heraldry

which share the legend BELA R or BELA REX. Although there are versions both with and without a heraldic shield, there has always been some uncertainty in dating them.375 It was only through the writing of Bálint Hóman that the King Béla mentioned in die legend around the double cross in the shield (CNH I, 263-254 ; H, 69) was considered to be Béla III,376 and given the epigraphic characteristics of the Gothic majusculas around the shield - lettering which is hardly conceivable before the middle decades of the thirteenth century - this seems unlikely (fig. 74). A denar bearing the legend BELA R in very similar lettering around a double cross without a shield on the obverse, and a double cross in a round frame on the reverse (CNH I, 112 ; H, 67) is also more likely to have been issued by Béla IV.

There is no proof that the seasoned heraldic motif of a double cross set in a shield ever appeared in the coat of arms of Hungarian kings prior to Béla I V’s ascent to the throne in 1235. Even Béla IV issued a different kind of denar, one without a legend and bearing unusual images: a profile portrait of the ruling couple on the obverse and suspended heraldic shields with the double cross on each side of a tower on the reverse (CNH I, 309; H, 279; fig. 75). The first double-cross heraldic shield that can be definitely dated appears on the reverse of Béla IV’s first double seal, used before 1241, and the reverse of his gold seal, put into use at the same time (figs. 76-77). The shield from these royal coats of arms also appeared on Béla IV’s later seal (fig. 78), and the sign of the cross without the shield on Queen Mary’s seal, providing a model for the subsequent Hungarian queens of the thirteenth century, all of whom, except Andrew Ill’s third wife Agnes Habsburg, had seals featuring the royal coat of arms without a shield.

The double cross as part of the personal royal insignia had also arisen in the late twelfth century, although we can only make inferences about this for the era of Béla III. The great seal of Béla Ill’s son King Emeric shows the king holding in his right hand an unusually large orb on which there is an enormous double cross (fig. 83). Eva Kovács drew attention to the Byzantine precursors of the pearl-shaped decoration at the intersection of the tapering arms together with the St Andrew’s crossshaped binding of the arms (e.g. Abbott Wibald’s

375 One such is a denar containing a double cross without shield and the abbreviated legend BELA R (CNH I, 112; Huszár, p. 67), dated by both authors as from the reign of Béla III.

The other version of the denar type bearing Béla’s name is the coin decorated with a double cross placed on a pointed-base heraldic shield (CNH I, pp. 263-264 ; Huszár, 69). Réthy still considered this to be a Béla IV coin, but Lajos Huszár, followed by Kristó and others published it as Béla Ill’s. Cf. III. Béla emlékezete, 1981, fig. 14d.

376 Hóman 1918, pp. 3-11; Kumorovitz 1942, pp. 24, 25, 28; Kumorovitz 1942b, offprint, p. 18.

triptych, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library).377 Even if we cannot explain the decoration of the intersection of the arms as direct imitation of a model, for which there are good arguments in other cases of double-cross coats of arms on thirteenth century Hungarian royal seals,378 the artist must have been familiar with the Byzantine use of triumphal sovereign symbols, and this becomes all the more interesting when we find that the composition and style of the figure draws on French sources. The depiction of the double cross on the orb, however, cannot be traced to any Western precursors. There are two known depictions of the double cross on Byzantine coins from the ninth to the eleventh centuries: as a celestial motif with apocalyptic associations379 or as a symbol of power held in the emperor’s hand, the orb with cross, globus crucifer (fig. 88).380 These could be the dominant Byzantine strands in the history of Hungarian insignia, especially if József Deér is right in saying (cf. Percy Ernst Schram) that the orb was not just an imposing appurtenance of visual representation, but was used as part of the imperial insignia at the Byzantine court.381 Some coins traditionally dated to the late twelfth century underline that Byzantine influence dominated the appearance of the double cross in Hungary. These include coins without a legend (CNH I, 116) and others with a B monogram that might be identified as standing for Béla III (H 68). Their common feature is a double cross set on a base, the depiction of a real object which was no doubt a relic of particular significance to the kingdom (fig. 91).

In a later footnote, Eva Kovács mentioned thirteenth century Hungarian denars on which the Byzantine double cross had an expanded meaning, incorporating direct Jerusalem allusions.382 There is a large number of coins from the period decorated with a simple Greek cross, possibly rooted in the imagery of the Árpáds’ older coins, but the crosses with flared, incised ends - which reminded Eva Kovács of the Maltese Cross - can certainly not be included among the carriers of twelfth-century tradition. Especially not when we consider that the other side of most coins carrying this Crusaders’ sign bears the image of a domed building which almost certainly represents the Anastasis Church in Jerusalem and is thus a general symbol of Jerusalem (fig. 92).383 * An exception

377 Kovács 1984, p. 416, fig. 2.

378 Kovács 1984, p. 422.

379 See, for example, the gold coins of Basil I (867-886), Leo VI (886-912)and Basil II (976-1025); Welt von Byzanz,

pp. 56-57.

380 See, for example, the solidus of LcoVI (886-912), or the miliaresion of Romanos III (1035?); Glory of Byzantium, p. 213, Cat. 147C, 147 F.

381 Schramm 1958, pp. 13-27; Deér 1961, pp. 53-85, 291-318.

382 Kovács 1998, p. 341, n. 2.

383 On the Jerusalem church as symbolic form and precursor:

Bandmann 1951, pp. 47-49.; Naredi-Rainer 1994.

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