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

The Beginnings of Heraldry

among these coins is one whose reverse shows a Greek cross in a wreath, and on the obverse a winged crown hovers above a cross of similar shape, indicating the celestial origin of the symbol of worldly power, using a visual device well known in Byzantine art and also widespread in the West (GNH I, pp. 209-210; fig. 93). Other coins have a similar equal-armed cross in a wreath on one side and a triumphal double cross on the other; in two cases, one on each side of the portrait of the king (CNH I, p. 221; fig. 94). These twin symbols of victory around the royal image may allude to the dream of Constantine the Great, and must be related to Andrew II’s crusading plans or even certain events of the 1217 campaign. Also relevant is the seal of Jacques de Vitry (1216-1240), the Crusaders’ bishop, which bears a double cross supplemented with the sun and the moon, and the legend HOC SIGNUM ERIT IN CELO, leaving no doubt of Constantine’s triumphal (in hoc sijjno vinces) New Testament allusion (Matt. 21) or its update (fig. 95). The reception of the crusading rulers arriving in Acre was reported in a letter to Honorius III by Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre. The bishop arranged a spectacular pageant for King Andrew and his nephew, Duke Leopold of Austria, in the company of the Patriarch of Jerusalem on 3 November 1217, alluding to the aim of their journey with a ceremonial display of a piece of the Holy Cross.384 The linkage of the royal likeness to the Crusaders’ symbol set in a wreath (crown of thorns?) and the double cross is consistent with the standing figure of the king, identified by the legend ANDREAS REX, on another Andrew II denar. Here, he holds a drawn sword in one hand an a cross in the other (CNH I, p. 172). An even more accurate expression of the double cross with the Crusade appears on coins with a domed building decorated with a double cross on one side and a cross with bars at the end of each arm, an allusion to Jerusalem (CNH I, pp. 173- 174; fig. 92), and other Hungarian coins where it appears as a triumphal motif in itself, or hovering above the Byzantine Hetoimasia throne (CNH I, pp. 179-180). The throne of Christ depicted with a double cross, known since the tenth and eleventh centuries, originates from Byzantine ceremonies and clearly derives from die cult of holy cross reliquaries.385 The images of Hetoimasia on these coins suggests a representation of an actual relic.

The circumstances and motivations behind the choice of the double cross in the kingdom of the Árpáds is a question that demands further study. One possibility, the most likely, is that the Hungarian career of double crossshaped cultic objects, well known in the Byzantine court, started with Béla III and his contemporaries. In the thirteenth century, this symbol increasingly became a

384 Jacques de Vitry 1998, pp. 80-86; Of. Veszprémy 2006,

p. 102.

385 Cf. Alföldi 1950, pp. 537-566; LCI IV, pp. 306-314.

dynastic symbol and a heraldic device identified with the kingdom. Eva Kovács proposed that its model was an actual object, one of great importance, charged with emblematic and spiritual power, a reliquary containing a particle of the Holy Cross. The imperial court was where such an item might be most easily obtained, and Béla III was undoubtedly the king with the greatest chance of doing so.386 It is not possible to identify this key object, however, even though - or perhaps precisely because - several surviving Dominican reliquaries could stand as candidates. One possibly related piece, also in the Esztergom Treasury, is an enamel-decorated double- cross staurotheke containing a loculus, first documented in 1609 (fig. 96). The date of 1190 given at the first mention of the staurotheke cannot be verified by other sources, and may be related to when it came to Hungary.38' fhe ideas of K. Wessel,388 who has linked the staurotheke with the era and person of Béla III, have reappeared recently in the literature of Byzantine studies.389

Almost certainly of greater importance, and certainly better documented, is a slender, gold-covered double cross held in the Salzburg Treasury since the fifteenth century but undoubtedly originating from Esztergom (fig. 90).390 The place of manufacture of the relatively small crystal ball-which was undoubtedly part of the original - and the filigree decoration- covered reliquary cross that rises above it has still not been convincingly determined. The localisation of manufacture must take heed of the links, well established in the Hungarian literature, between the ornamentation of the Salzburg cross and the decoration of the Hungarian sceptre and a set of filigree finds in Székesfehérvár,391 and to the fact - pointed out most thoroughly by Eva Kovács in her treatment of the style several decades ago - that “this studio, with its elearly- delineated style, was responsible for the textile whose secondary use was as the collar of the coronation robe.”392 A speculation by József Deér concerning the original function of the reliquary double cross gave

386 Kovács 1984, pp. 407-423.

387 Esztergom, Cathedral Treasury. On the history of research into the object: Genthon 1949, pp. 219-220; Somogyi 1959, pp. 30-34. Marie-Madeleine Gauthier, who considers the early thirteenth century to be among the candidates for the dating of the Esztergom reliquary, does not exclude the possibility that it was made in Hungary under Byzantine influence. Gauthier 1983, p. 122.

388 Wessel 1967, p. 161.

389 See a description by Ulrich Henze: Ornamenta Ecclesiae, III, p. 116; and the determination by J.C. Anderson: Glory of Byzantium, p. 81.

390 On the double cross among the treasures plundered by Archbishop János Beckcnsloer in 1476: Dommuseum, 1981, p. 52.

391 Kovács 1998, fig. 184.

392 Kovács 1973, p" 16.

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