Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 22. 1982-1983 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1985)

Die Anjovinen in Mitteleuropa - Śnieżińska-Stolot, E.: Artistic patronage of the Hungarian Angevins in Poland. p. 21–28. t. I–V.

Robert and Louis the Great, and their wives Elizabeth Lokietek and Elizabeth of Bosnia. Louis protected the Paulite order both in Hungary and Poland. Hedwig, like her ancestors, who had made donations to famous pilgrimage places, endowed the church at Wilsnack, to where her Hungarian countrywoman undertook a pilgrimage, stopping on her way at the Cracow court in 1394 (Przezdziecki 1854, 45; Piekosifisky 1869, 186). Donations of Elizabeth Lokietek and Louis for Rome, Bari and Prague usually consisted of a full equipment of an alter (vessels and canonicals), which was imitated by Hedwig in her donations to the cathedrals in Cracow and Vilnius, and for the Wilsnack church. A characteristic feature were also church donations made by the Hungarian and Polish Angevins of paintings adorned by goldsmiths with multiply repeated coats of arms, whose aim was the dynastic propaganda. The Angevins' artistic patronage was not an isolated phenomenon in Central Europe in the 14th с Such an activity was a part of the model of an ideal ruler, which they put to practice. This model had been formed in the moralizing literature since St. Augustine's treatise (Born 1928, 471—493, 502; Berges 1938, 62—64, 108—120; Bradly 1954, 100—110). In a number of similar treatises, apart from political and economic prescriptions, could be found passages important for development of arts. And thus, on the turn of the 12th and 13th c, Giraldus Cambrensis claimed that a king should support architecture, and an anonymous author of Liber de informatione principum (beginning of the 14th c.) quoted as an example St. Louis, who had erected a lot of monasteries, churches, chapels, and hospitals (Borns 1928, 475—477; L. D. 1893, 37). Also Durand de Champagne, to whom we ascribe Speculum dominarum — a handbook of Christian morality for princesses and queens, wrote about the necessity of founding and embellishing churches (L. D. 1888, 34; Born 1928, 493). The above-mentioned treatises, most often dedicated to definite rulers, were also known at the Hungarian court. The pseudoaristotelian text Secretum secretorum, created in Syria in the 7th or 8th c, translated to Latin by John of Sewilla, and quoted in all treatises about a model ruler, must have been known to Louis the Great, since one copy of this work, adorned with the king's portrait and his coats of arms belonged to his library (Berges 1938, 63, 108; HÓMAN 1938, 292; DERCSÉNYI 1942, 19). A continuation of this type of literature was the treatise by Henry Bitterfeld of Prague, dedicated to Hedwig, and based on works by Aegidius Romanus and Guillelmus Peraldus (GEBAROWICZ 1965, 85—98; Wolny 1974, 65—59). This treatise, however, differed from the afore-said ones, which pointed to such personal models of good monarchs as Alexander the Great, Philip of Mecadonia, king David, Solomon, Holofernes, or Charles the Great, as it introduced some elements drawn from German mysticism of the 14th c. (Wolny 1974, 65). Bitterfeld advised the queen to unite vita activa and vita contemplativa, symbolized by the evangelical persons of Mary and Martha. This has led some researchers to believe that this could solve the mystery of Hedwig's sign composed of two letters mm (GEBAROWICZ 1965, 13). The foundations of the Hungarian Angevins, supplied with their coats of arms and diffused among famous pilgrimage places, served mainly the family propaganda and dynastic policy, similarly to foundations of the majority of Central European rulers in the 14th с Introduction of the sign mm, besides her family coats of arms, on objects related to Hedwig is a novelty. It seems that under the influence of misticism the queen her foundations went beyond the circle of practical purposes, wishing to enclose in them some spiritual values, so personal that not quite fully understood up till now. In this respect she resembled Vaclav IV, and approached the culture reigning in Prague at the close of the 14th c, which penetrated to Cracow due to close contacts with the Prague university, owing to Mateusz of Cracow, Jan Szczekna — a Czech and the queen's confessor, and Henry Bitterfeld himself. 26