Hausner Gábor - Kincses Katalin Mária - Veszprémy László szerk.: A Hadtörténeti Múzeum Értesítője. Acta Musei Militaris in Hungaria. 4. „Kard és koszorú”. Ezer év magyar uralmi és katonai jelképei. (Budapest, 2001)

URALMI JELKÉPEK - SZABÓ PÉTER: A meztelen kard szerepe a vegyes házakbeli királyok hatalmi szimbolikájában

THE ROLE OF THE 'NAKED SWORD' AMONG THE SYMBOLS OF POWER OF HUNGARIAN KINGS FROM DIFFERENT DYNASTIES By the view of the 'Naked Sword', those taking part in the political power had wanted to demonstrate some well separable symbolical contents. The task of the study is to take these symbolical messages into account, and to survey how can Hungarian and foreign customs interlink. Owing to a diverse pace of social development in certain regions of the late Middle Ages, various court-servants could play the part of supreme command, practiced in the name of the king, in the West and its borderland. The connétable (equerry), with his drawn sword, became the symbol of the military power in the developing French absolutism. The Hungarian palatine's sword symbolised the flourishing Hungarian feudalism and the military power of the noble counties, as well. As for the representation of Holy Roman emperor and Hungarian king Sigismund, the 'Naked Sword' referred to the supreme jurisdiction, originating from the hands of the monarch. The jurisdictional symbolism of the drawn sword, even in its original form, in the representation of the Roman Empire, interwove with a warlike, military sense. On investigations of history of art it has been recently revealed that the political competition between emperor Frederick III and Hungarian king Matthias had also been reflected in art, and that they both had tried to make use of Constantine the Great's artistic heritage for their own political propaganda. Regarding the prestige of king Matthias, after having occupied Vienna, the author thinks that the sword, which was carried around at his funeral - beside other symbols of victory -, expressed the surplus that was accumulated by Matthias' rule, in order to obtain imperial power. After Matthias' death, with the decline of plans of conquest, all, which had been referred to as the activity of the Hungarian king as supreme commander, became simplified. The representation of Southern captain-general Pál Kinizsi, as the bearer of the 'Naked Sword' in the coronation procession of Ladislaus II, indicated a monarch determined to divert the Turkish menace. In the emergency that followed the battle of Mohács, the performance of the 'Naked Sword', which finished the coronation ceremony, obtained a new ritual formulation. Until then, kings had only been 'slashing' in the direction of the four cardinal points. János Szapolyai, however, was drawing the 'symbol of the crucifix' towards the frontiers. It would be a tempting explanation to integrate this symbol of the crucifix directly with the legend of Constantine, which connected the sword and the crucifix for the first time ever. For Werbőczy, who took part in the secular organization of the coronation ceremony, had idealised Roman culture, in which ideal the cult of Constantine could also be involved. Further research is required to trace how much the popularity of the sword, the military symbol that had a stressed role in the representation of Szapolyai, was kept alive by Werbőczy's opinion of nobility's origins, according to which nobility, as a social community, was born 'in the Scythian past', by the order of the drawn sword, calling to go to war.