Takács Imre: Az Árpád-házi királyok pecsétjei (Corpus sigillorum hungariae mediaevalis 1. Budapest, 2012)

Type History and Iconography

bullae, struck from metal, or seals, pressed in wax. In all of these kinds of seals, what is crucial is the verifiable identity and credibility of the original, unique casting mould, made by reproducing the die or press matrix. All of the royal seal bearers (pristnidus) had to have seals bearing the same image and having a legend of the same form and content when carrying out their duties at the same time. The seal of summons could not, therefore, be a “one-off piece”. The somewhat ingenious hypothesis put forward to explain this anomaly is that the seal was used only on “particularly important occasions”. No supporting evidence for this has been forthcoming from the sources, and such a function would be a barely-credible curio in the context of legal history.286

A deeper appraisal of the standard of craftsmanship serves to increase our doubts. Returning to the engraved legend, it is clear that the letters were made with a single line, as was common on eleventh- and twelfth-century seals. First drawn or scratched on to the metal surface, the letters were chiselled into grooves and then deepened with a punch. The rough traces of punching are visible nearly everywhere on the bottom of the letters. During the preliminary engraving, the tool slipped too far, such as at the second I and the M of the word sigillum, and most obviously on the H of the word regis. This is undoubtedly a fault in the workmanship, unusual carelessness and technical deficiency in a monarch’s seal, especially one for “particularly important occasions”. Even more revealing is the reduced size of the letters in the final word of the legend, which must be related to fit the damaged, worn state of the bronze disc (fig. 13). It is as if there was deliberate effort to lay out the letters around the lamb so that those on the damaged and thus narrowed stretch of the inscription field to the left of the suspension tag would still fit, causing them to be smaller than the rest. The disc must already have been worn, and its edge chipped in places, before the legend was engraved. It is formulated on the pattern of some eleventh and twelfth century royal seals (the lead bulla of Ladislaus I and Géza II, gold seal of Béla III), and the lettering most closely imitates Géza II’s lead seal,287 but to judge from the workmanship, the legend could hardly have been made to royal order. It is more likely that it an old (certainly medieval) object containing

286 Kubinyi 1999, p. 333.

287 It is perhaps also interesting that the lettering of the bronze disc is similar not only to the bulla of Géza II reproduced in an 1874 engraving in the Esztergom archive, but also to the forged Géza II seal matrix supposedly found in Berhida in 1810 and, via Palatine Joseph, taken to the National Museum. Its image was published by István Horvát in 1835, and fortunately impressions were made of it and came to light recently: Rainer 2000.

the image of Agnus Dei, of unknown purpose - a bronze pendant or the cover of a ccipsula or jar288 or something similar - but not in itself completely uninteresting was engraved later with the mysterious name of King Adalbert by someone with a limited knowledge of medieval history and epigraphies and even less ability as a goldsmith.289 In its final form, the inscribed bronze disc cannot be regarded as older than the nineteenth century. The recessing of the field around the lamb relief was also most likely to have been done at that time. We do not know why, but it may have been because of some local damage. There must have been a reason for choosing the name Adalbert, but it is certainly a strange idea.290 It is probably the work of an antiques enthusiast with some knowledge of tenth and eleventh century Hungarian or Italian history, his decision motivated by the well- known custom of collecting medieval seal matrices and seals in the nineteenth century.291 It was probably the demands of a similar modern-age collector that was behind the crude forgery of King Goloman’s seal matrix now held in Pannonhalma.292

The earliest known surviving Hungarian royal seal pressed into wax, or rather a tiny fragment of it, dates

288 Also to be considered relative to this bronze artefact are the round Agnus Dei ostensoria or capsules, known from many places, containing Easter candle wax or chrism, which were commonly hung on the walls of houses and worn by pregnant women. A fuller exploration of this is beyond the scope of this study. On medieval Agnus ampoules: Braun, J.: Agnus Dei. In: RDK I, cols. 212-216.

289 András Kubinyi found the extraordinary characteristics of the object as one of the arguments for its credibility: Kubinyi 1999, p. 315.

290 As an aside, we might mention the 1363 secret seal of Albert II, Duke of Braunschweig with a cantering horse of similar proportions and arrangement as our lead disc and the legend SECTERU(M) ALBERTI DUCIS IN BRUNESWIC, for an image see Heinrich der Löwe, II, p. 88.

291 On nineteenth century antique collecting where seals were regarded as personal historical relics: Ewald 1914, p. 116. I am grateful to Etele Kiss, who allowed me to make a direct study of the seal in the Hungarian National Museum.

292 The negative image of the figure seated on the throne engraved into soft metal is hardly reminiscent of King Coloman’s known seal. The royal insignia, for example, are swapped over, and only the legend framed by a line matches that of the royal seal. The other elements go back to various precursors: the throne-stool with curved lines presumably indicates a study of St Ladislaus’ seal, while the closest example of the lily- or crossshaped sceptre inserted between letters of the legend may be found on Andrew I’s seal of summons, which may also be the precursor of the pose in which the king is represented. We also know of medieval or modern-age forgeries related to Angevin royal seals. A fragment of a seal impression in unfired clay from the coat of arms side of Charles Robert’s first double seal was found during excavation of Sontogyvár Abbey. A forged typarium of the same seal turned up in the Staatsarchive in Munich; Komjáthy 1966, 207 ct seq.

59