Századok – 1993

Tanulmányok - Györffy György: Az Árpád-kori magyar krónikák III–IV/391

410 GYÖRFFY GYÖRGY HUNGARIAN CHRONICLES OF THE ARP AD IAN AGE by György Györffy Summary The main questions of the early Hungarian chronicles are following: 1. When was written the oldest, lost chronicle, the so-called Gesta Ungarorum; about 1060 or at the and of the 11th century? 2. When and how did come into being the more detailed, up to about 1167 continued Gesta Ungarorum of the 12th century, the text of which survived in the Illustrated Chronicle led up to 1330 and which was copied end illuminated in 1358? 3. The continuation of the Hungarian chronicles led up to the age of the king Stephen Vth (1270-72), — writer of which the author of this article had identified yet in 1948 with the person of magister Akus praepositus Budensis, cancellarius reginae — and which chapter did he write in addition to the history between 1170-1270? 4. Whether Simon de Keza, nótárius Ladislai IV. regis (1272-90), who had continued the previous chronicle, was the author of the Hun history written to the Hungarian chronicle, in which was proclaimed the identity of Huns and Hungarians and which in its more detailed text was included in the work of Kezai, written under the title Gesta Ungarorum about 1283 (codex of it was lost after its publication in 1782) but its Hun history came in the text of the another chronicles too? 5. The chapter of the chronicle led from the death of the last king of the House of Árpád, Andrew III (1290-1301) up to 1330 was written to an accepted view by a Franciscan monk but it's not clear how it was mixed with the other chronicles. The author of this article partly accepts, partly modifies the result of the historians of the first half of the 20th century, which were worked out by such scientists as Sándor Domanovszky, Bálint Hóman and following them by C. A. Macartney, as well as the author himself in 1948. In his this article he obtained the following results in the discussed questions on the basis of ideas of János Horváth, Elemér Mályusz and Jenő Szűcs working after 1950: 1.) The oldest Gesta Ungarorum was written in the age of reign of Coloman (1095-1116), before 1100; its author can be identified with the person of a royal chaplain, perhaps with the notar, further bishop (1090-1099), named Cupan, who had made in the Gesta his ancestor, the Alemanne Vecellin a victorious commander of the battle in 997. 2.) The old Gesta Ungarorum was continued in the royal court first in the 12th century, in the age of king Stephen II, the son of Coloman (1116-1131), further during the reign of Stephen III up to about 1167. Its more detailed text, with some interpolations, remained in the Illustrated Chronicle of the middle of the 14th century and in a Hungarian chronicle of Heinrich Mügeln written in German language. To a wide-spread view this Gesta Ungarorum of the 12th century, telling a history from the Scythian ancient times up to 1167, contains many such comprehensive complements, which are missing both from the chronicles of the time of Stephen V. and from the chronicles of the age of Ladisias IV. and their continuations; this Gesta is a subsequent interpolation inserted in the basic text of a gesta of Stephen's V. age in the 14th century from a lost old Gesta with a complete text. And because there can be found in the text of complements a lot of expressions and nominations of the 13th century, among them phrases about magister Akos and the aristocratic families of his contemporaries, these can not be hold interpolations but a gesta with voluminous text of the 12th century, which came to the hand of magister Akos and he made on it some few, unmodern and wrong interpolations. Magister Akos as the custos or thesaurarius of the capella regia in Székesfehérvár, later as provost of the chapter in öbuda, praised untruthfully highly the past and rights of these two churches and tried to make his own family, the generatio Akus equal in rank with the seven conquering Hungarian leaders; he described in this spirit the history of the Hungarian kings between 1167 and 1270, at the same time he made considerable abstracts of the chapters to the old gesta up to 1167 ascording to the text known from the Illustrated Chronicle. The magister Akos who had hold earlier the chancellorship of the queen, was until his death the procurator and patrónus of the Dominician monastery in the Margaret-Island, where the royal princess Margaret had been living as a nun. And because magister Akos had left out first of all such chapters in the short gesta, in wnich were told about the human frailness and fratricidal wars of the kings of the Árpád dynasty in the 11—12th centuries and he made always notices in case of holy kings, in which Vita could have been found a longer story about the lives of the saints, his abridged work could have written mainly for the holy princess Margaret, the Dominician nun, committed to his care. This can be proved that the interpolations made by magister Akos totally correspond with that fact, what about was written by her Dominician superior in the legende named Vita Beatae Margarethae de Ungaria two-three years after her death, namely how greatly the holy virgin was interested for the stories of the