Horváth Richárd: Itineraria regis Matthiae Corvini et reginae Beatricis de Aragonia, 1458-[1476]-1490 - Subsidia ad historiam medii aevi Hungariae inquirendam 2. (Budapest, 2011)
9. Summary
9. SUMMARY Number Name Latin (Czech) name Period of use 9. first Bohemian secret seal secretum sigillum, quo ut rex Bohemie utimur 17 July 1469 18 December 1484 10. second Bohemian secret seal petzet nassi kmlowsku 23 January 1486 11. Austrian ducal seal sigillum nostrum 5 September 1487 4 April 1490 12. first annular seal nostro annulari sigillo 28 February 1458 13 July 1461 13. second annular seal nostro annulari sigillo, annulari secreto sigillo nostro 18 October 1468 7 January 1490 14. third annular seal annulari secreto sigillo nostro 3 September 1480 17 May 1489 15. fourth annular seal-17 April 1487 7 August 1489 In view of this situation it is absolutely indispensable to examine not only the use of seals but also the relationship between the king and his various seals. The following remarks are therefore intended to orientate the reader with regard to the "effectiveness" with which the individual seals indicate the presence of the ruler. 1. The thousands of charters issued under the king's so-called judicial seal are practically of no utility from the point of view of royal itinerary. Very limited use can be made of them at times when the exact day of the king's arrival to Buda, where this seal was preserved, cannot be established. For, as research has shown, the number of charters issued always increased significantly after the king and his entourage had arrived to the capital. Consequently, the sensible increase in charter production after a longer period of stagnation can be regarded as an indirect proof of the ruler's arrival to Buda. Yet by far the most important result of the research carried out in connection with the royal itinerary is the conclusion that the chancellery department led by the personalis, which issued charters under the judicial seal, functioned independently of the ruler's personal supervision and free of his intervention. It can thus safely be stated that the overwhelming majority of the charters under the judicial seal was issued in the king's absence and certainly without his knowledge. 2. The secret seal. Or, more exactly, secret seals, for from the time of his election as king of Bohemia in 1469, several of them were in use. After 1464 they show a marked tendency for independence, but apparently without any observable spacial and temporal system. In certain years the relationship between the king and the Hungarian secret seal can be said to be fairly close, whereas in others this is not the case. Of course, the reasons of this oscillation are justifiably supposed to be looked for in the underlying political and governmental transformations, yet a detailed examination of these periods will only be made possible by the present itinerary of king Matthias. 171
