Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 31/1. (2011)
Articles
Bronze Objects from the Excavation of the Tärgu Mures Franciscan Friary 319 this is a simple piece without any decoration. Based on the filling of the cellar the stilus was lost or thrown out sometimes in the early 15th century. The layer contained coins from King Louis the Great (1342-1382) and from King Sigismund of Luxemburg (1395-1437). Therefore, the second stilus is again a 14th century item and against the very small number of the preserved medieval stili we have to say that in a larger friary with scriptorium it is very likely that there were a larger number of stili made of bronze or bone in use but until the present day very few medieval friaries were thoroughly excavated in central Europe. We believe that the stilus was used in everyday life in teaching activities or even in daily recordings of the friary. Important friaries worked like charter houses, they copied documents, they wrote letters and they were involved in trials. We have identified two rings from the late medieval and early modern period. The first one is probably a private seal ring from the late 15th century having a small oval shaped top decorated with a symbol in the middle surrounded by small semicircles. The body of the ring has a simple decoration composed of lines carved on the surface. The ring was made from a single bronze piece (PL 1/5). The second ring is from the mid 16th century it is composed from two parts, the top of the ring and the body. The body is a simple bronze ring without any decoration, the top is larger and its centre part has a solar symbol decoration surrounded by semicircles placed along the edges (Pi. 1/6). The Medieval Seals The most important bronze finds from the excavation are two seals from the 14th and early 16th centuries. A first seal was identified in the filling of the L3 building’s cellar in cassette C30, D3/a at 1.40 m depth. It has a pointed oval (almond-like) shape representing Saint Elisabeth holding a fish in her right hand (Pi. 1/1).3 The figure of the saint has a large crown on her head that fills the upper part of the seal. The figure of the saint stands in contra post and she holds her mantle in the left hand. Usually the main accessories of Saint Elisabeth on medieval representation are the loaf of bread in one hand and a plate or jar in the other hand, also holding a fish in her hand, offering her gown or clothes to the poor referring to the miracle of the mantle, representation with roses in her lap referring to the miracle of the roses (Gecser 2007). Among these the representation with the loaf of bread and the miracle of the mantle are probably the most often used accessories while the representation with a fish it is used in a smaller number in medieval iconography.4 The central field is surrounded by two pearl like stripes that contain the inscription around the figure of the saint. The inscription made possible the exact identification of the origin of the seal. The first letter is an S followed by a dot and it is the abbreviation of Sigillum. After S(igillum) one can read the word GARDIANI that directly connects the seal to the mendicant orders because only they had guardians as leaders of a friary. On the other half of the seal the first letter is an abbreviated E that is the first letter of the guardians name followed by the inscription IAURINUM which offers the exact place of the friary in the town of Győr in western Hungary. The detailed analysis of the seal revealed a number of elements. Among these the most important are the letter types used on the seal that based on analogies are characteristic for the mid 14th century. They show similarities with the letters used on the seal of the chapter of Csázma 3 Saint Elisabeth belonged to the Franciscan tertiary order. They lived in convent-type houses under a rule - usually Supra montem with some added constitutions. The Franciscan tertiaries did not have a common distinctive habit before the formation of the unified Third Order Regular. 4 See the catalogue composed by O. Gecser (2007).
