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

The Beginnings of Heraldry

rise to the idea that it was a ceremonial reliquary used in Hungarian coronations, ,393 and there is a hypothesis that it was made in Hungary around 1100.394

Accepting that the cross and the crystal ball belong together, we may consider another possibility: the piece may be interpreted as an item of regalia - the orb, as its form suggests. Charlemagne’s arm reliquary, made between 1166 and 1170 and held in the Louvre since 1794, has a relief showing Empress Beatrix holding in her hand a high double cross set on an orb as part of her regalia (fig. 89).395 Exploring further details of how the Salzburg cross fits into the history of die regalia would be a much more complicated matter, taking us deeply into the history of the Hungarian coronation insignia. Instead, let us return to the history of the insignia on royal seals.

The appearance of the double-cross orb in the representation of King Emeric, and its depiction on the great seal used from 1196 onwards, had a considerable influence on the development of the regal symbology of the later House of Árpád. We know of three further royal seals from the thirteenth century on which there is a double cross on the globe held by the king (the double seals of Stephen V, Ladislaus IV and Andrew III). There can hardly be any doubt that these examples reflect more than merely the adoption of forms and traditions of representation from Byzantium; they prove the use of the double-cross orb as a real object used as royal insignia in the representation of Hungarian kings (figs. 83-87). This argument may support József Deér’s hypothesis concerning the Salzburg cross.

The versions of the double cross set into the heraldic shield may also allude to a real - perhaps cultic - object, a relic or its container, set on a base, possibly the same one as mentioned above. In the course of time, this object may have become familiar as more than a heraldic device. Its form may have spread as the model for further objects as the relic was shared out. In coat of arms on Béla IV’s later seals, the cross has arms that slighdy flare at the ends, and on the bottom of the stem there is a pointed projection, a spike, a reference to the customary way of placing crosses on a stand (fig. 78). The court-centred relic cult may possibly also have involved a Byzantine double cross decorated with cloisonne enamel which may have passed to Bohemia (now Vyssi Brod, Cistercian Abbey) together with several items from the Hungarian treasury after the death of Béla IV. It is not only Hungarian

393 Quoting József Deer, “... sei das Schwurkreuz der ungarischen Könige gewesen.” Widrich 1967, pp. 11-12; Cf. Kovács 1974, pp. 18 19; Idem.: ILI. Bélit és Antiochiai Anna halotti jelvényei. In: Kovács 1998, p. 130, n. 79. No doubt relevant here is Éva Kovács’ sentence referring to a communication by József Deer that Béla III may have borrowed his double-cross orb from the Byzantine emperors. Kovács 1984, p. 422.

394 Fillitz - Pippal 1987, pp. 122.

395 p)eér 1961, p. 64, fig. 25; Cf. Zeit der Staufer, I, pp. 398-399.

art historians who consider this fine piece to have been made in the Hungarian court (fig. 97).396 The legacy of Mary of Hungary, Queen of Naples, included a double cross reliquary, and it could not have been by coincidence that she left it to her grandson Charles Robert, intended for the throne of her Árpád ancestors.397 An indication of how popular the form of the reliquary became as a popular symbol is die large number of double-cross signet rings dated to the thirteenth century. Zsuzsa Lovag has found that “the double cross was the most common image on thirteenth century signet rings” in the region.398 Initially belonging among the ruling dynasty’s regalia, the double cross gradually became a widespread pictorial tradition in its own right, as evidenced by its appearance on die seals of church bodies in the second half of die thirteenth century.399

Nonetheless, the double cross maintained its place in the heraldic representation of the court in the second half of the thirteenth century, and gained a new element, the crown of thorns. Introduced by Stephen V and retained by both of his Árpád dynasty successors, the new image consisted of a corona spinea wound on to (and manifesdy inseparable from) the lower intersection of the cross. It appeared solely on the monarch’s seals, and never on the ubiquitous double cross of the queen’s seals (figs. 79-82). Eva Kovács saw a connection between the extension to the Hungarian image of the Dominican relic and the forging of dynastic links between the king of Hungary and the Angevins of Naples in 1270, involving the king of Naples and his brother, the custodian of the crown of thorns relic, King Louis XI and his successors.400 But the Hungarian kings may have obtained a crown of thorns relic much earlier than that. Possibly from the piece that Latin Emperor Henry sent to his brother Philipp in Namur, and where the setting of the relic known today was made together with a splendid golden crown.401 A particle from this may have come to the Hungarian court via the Courtenay connection as early as the 1210s. The appearance of the crown of thorns in the cross-relic cult of the Hungarian kings belore the reign of Stephen V may be proved by the tiny depiction of a wreath wound on to the cross on the obverse of a Béla IV denar (CNH I, 253; fig. 98). The cultic and iconographic basis for the new seal made for Stephen V in 1270 may thus have already been in place in his father’s lifetime.

396proi0w 1961, no. 522; Wessel 1967, pp. 163-164, Nr. 50;

Kovács 1974, pp. 34-35; Wixom 1995, p. 661; Wixom 1997,

p. 442.

397 Deer 1961, pp. 293-294; Kovács 1984, p. 421.

398 Lovag 1980, p. 228, figs. 3-4.

399 E.g. on the place-of-authentication seal of the Lelesz convent, in use before 1271; Takács 1992, pp. 71-72, no. 30.

400 Kovács 1984, p. 421.

401 Hugo d’Oignies, pp. 350-353.

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