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 rather "bureaucratic" character, one result of which was that the practice of preor post-dating charters had become utterly rare. At least, both experience and common sense point in this direction. Simple errors and forgeries do turn up sometimes, but their proportion with regard to the overall number of extant charters is insignificant. Thus, whereas the phenomenon of datum et actum can indeed be observed among 15th-century Hungarian royal charters, in terms of proportion and influence it can safely be left out of consideration. The other methodological consideration regards the possibilities of enlarging the database of the itinerary. For, despite the fact that we do dispose of thousands of charters and some Hungarian and more numerous Czech, Moravian and Austrian narrative sources, the itinerary of Matthias is bound to remain incomplete. In this case the historian's attention necessarily turns towards those persons who are reasonably supposed to have accompanied the ruler for his numerous journeys. The most important person in this respect is of course his wife, Beatrice of Aragon, royal consort from the end of 1476. Fortunately, the royal couple travelled together a lot (Beatrice stayed with her husband even during the longer sieges), and so her itinerary really offers considerable help. Since, moreover, she did not use several seals simultaneously, no multiple datings occur in her charters, and their use is consequently fairly straightforward. Especially in case of the king's Austrian wars in the 1480s there are weeks during which the king's itinerary would be full of blank spaces if that of the queen did not come to our help. Almost equally important are the itineraries of those aristocrats who shared with the king the government of the kingdom. For those, however, who are unfamiliar with the details of historical research in Hungary, it should be known that the study of aristocratic itineraries, which only started recently, has even less results than that of royal ones. The complete or partial itinerary of some of the chief officeholders of the kingdom during the reign of Matthias (István Bátori, Imre Szapolyai, László Pálóci) has already been made, others are being prepared currently. Since they participated in several important military and political actions, in case they can be shown to have travelled with the king, the datings of their letters and charters offer indispensable help in the reconstruction of the king's movements. * * * After the methodology of research, some remarks about the form in which the itinerary is presented. The very nature of an itinerary does not offer to the historian the choice between several forms of presentation, of course. The movements of Matthias are ordered year by year, and in chronological order within each year. For each sojourn, only the first and last dates are listed, accompanied by the notes with the relevant sources. The critical remarks upon the usability of the charters have also been relegated to the notes, together with the justifications in case I opted for a date which is different from the one to be found in previous itineraries or in the basic historical literature. 173
