Takács Imre: Az Árpád-házi királyok pecsétjei (Corpus sigillorum hungariae mediaevalis 1. Budapest, 2012)
The Chronology of the Seals of Ladislaus IV
of a “microperiodisation” model of the changes in artistic tastes, as in the era of Andrew III.408 The motivation for these frequent changes is revealed by the text of a 1288 charter in which the King declares, hinting at dramatic circumstances: “For the future and constancy of our kingdom, at the advice of our prelates and barons, we have by our own hands broken up our previous legitimate seal because of the various troubles {varia discrimina ), dissents and turbulence in our kingdom.”409 This was the last seal renovation effected by the king, and the various troubles mentioned as the cause could not have been any great novelty in the circumstances in the kingdom at that time. The first datable impression of the new typarium, according to Imre Szentpétery, who first investigated the complicated chronology of Ladislaus IV-era seals, was made on 10 April 1288, but the charters documenting the renovation of the seal were probably issued in March.410 Ladislaus’ first royal seal (Cat. 40) was in use between 1272 and 1276, a relatively long period. The maiestas image on the obverse corresponds to a compositional form that was quite common in Hungary after Emeric’s gold bulla: he holds both arms bent inwards, with the sceptre in his right and the orb in his left. This type repeats in all of Andrew II’s seals, Béla IV’s second, post-Mongol Invasion seal, the seal of Ladislaus’ grandmother Queen Mary and the first seal ofhis mother Elizabeth the Cuman (Cat. 34, 37). The modelling of the figure is similar to that of Elizabeth the Cuman’s seal, the closest to it in time. The frontality of the figure, depicted with a high upper body, is reinforced by the symmetric position of the hands. There is a double-row legend on the obverse, an arrangement that also appeared on his mother’s seal and had been used regularly since Andrew II. The title King of Cumania (rex Cumanie) in the list of Hungarian royal titles in long text of the legend had already been in use for several decades. Béla, ruling as junior king to his father Andrew II, governed Transylvania and Cumania beyond the Carpathians with the title “Firstborn son of the King of Hungary and Kang of Cumania” (primqgenitus reg is Hungáriáé... Commanieque rex) starting in 1233.411 As such, his first royal seal, made in 1235 after the death ofhis father, already contained the title “King of Cumania” in its legend (Cat. 32). The retention of the 408 Sec the commentaries to the exhibition items. 409 ... duplicis sigilli nostri novi, quod pro bono et perpetuo statu regni nostri de baronum nostrorum consilio fecimus innovari, rio- ra et authentica sigilla nostra propter varia regni nostri discrimina, dissensiones et turbationes, quas ipsum regnum nostrum et nos usquemodo perpessi sumus, propria in persona confringendo... Fejér V/3, 397; quoted in: Szentpétery 1923, 316. 410 Szentpéterv 1923, p. 316. 411 The latest on the Cumania issue: Pálóczi Horváth 1989; Györffy 1990. title in Ladislaus’ case may also have been affected by his close personal relations with the Cumans and his Cuman-born mother. He was only ten years old when he was crowned in 1272. In the legend of her first seal, the dowager queen called herself - in words that are difficult to interpret in medieval regal terminology must have been surprising to contemporaries - as daughter of the emperor of the Cumans {filia imperatoris cumanorum).412 In Hungary at that time, the term “emperor’s daughter” meant Béla IV’s recently-deceased wife Mary, daughter of Theodore Laskaris. Queen Elizabeth’s seal had been composed, together with its legend, during the lifetime of Stephen V, but only a short time passed between the invention of the ambitious title and Ladislaus’ ascent to the throne. The filia imperatoris cumanorum was an attempt, in its own way, to legitimise the “ruling dynasty” past and future. The story of die House of Árpád did not come to a close with Ladislaus’ unfortunate end, although a new dynasty was preparing its entrance. During the more than ten-year reign of his successor Andrew III, whose legitimacy was disputed, only one royal great seal was in use, and there were no further innovations in royal representation (Cat. 47). Neither was there any novelty in Andrew being obliged to refer to his descent from Andrew II in the legend ofhis seal. It had been a custom since Stephen III for the legend of royal seals to refer to the father, although the case was slighdy different for Andrew III in his being obliged to use the name of his grandfather, Andrew II, rather dian his father. The version of the coat of arms with a wreath on the double cross was the last revival of die heraldic invention of the era of Stephen V. Overshadowing his rule, however, was a claim to the throne by the Neapolitan descendents of die predecessor declared in the language of insignia, Stephen V. His deadi in 1301, which finally brought to an end die three-centuries of rule by the male line of the Árpád dynasty, brought the first great upheaval in the history of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. The ascent to the throne of Stephen V’s great-grandson Charles Robert, of the Neapolitan branch, set off a new era of political affairs in Hungary, as it did in culture and the arts. There was a new motivation for references to the Árpáds, not just to repeatedly demonstrate the bloodline descent, but to prove the intellectual heredity of the venerable royal house, the family of the sainted kings. 412 The use of the father’s title was not new on the seal of a Hungarian queen. The wife of Béla IV, Mária Laskaris, the first Hungarian queen known to use a seal, referred to her origins as daughter of the Greek emperor, and the daughter-in-law of Elizabeth the Cuman, Isabella of Naples, did the same thing when she appended to her title of queen of Hungary the title filia Caruli illustris regis Cicilie. 74
