Magyar Zoltán

Legends of Early Hungarian Saints: type- and motif-index

HUMILITY

Secrecy

Andrew: An angel comes to aid saint. Saint makes his fellow-hermit promise to keep this secret: AN:4.

Stephen: Saint secretly observes his son Emeric’s nightly devotions through a crevice in the wall, but keeps it secret: EM:1; AnjouLeg-EM: plate 1. Saint forbids a witness to tell anybody about having seen him levitate during prayer: ST III:37; Bonfini: 2.1.310; Temesvari: 52.36.

Emeric: His father secretly observes saint’s nightly devotions during a crevice in the wall, but keeps it secret: EM:1.

Saint orders his servant who overheard his oath of chastity to keep it secret: EM:8, 12.

Elizabeth: Saint keeps miraculous apparitions secret and asks her servants to do the same: EL IV:III.2; EL V:16. Saint keeps her zealous nightly devotions secret: EL IV:III.3. Saint keeps angelic visitation secret: EL VII:7.IX.

Helen: Saint pleads with angels that they bring her no more gifts and keep their visits secret: HE:13. Saint prays that her stigmata are not revealed before the convent: HE:19. Saint keeps her stigmata secret: HE:3. Saint pulls out the dry twig that she has stuck into the earth and has come into leaf: HE:17. Saint rips off the white lilies grown on her hands, stomach and chest: HE:1, 19.

Kinga: Saint keeps her devotions secret: KI I:33. Saint keeps preservation of her chastity secret: KI I:45, 45, 55, 56. Although saint lived in chastity, she enters nunnery as a widow: KI I:45, 56.

Margaret: Saint keeps her illness secret: MA I:I.86.; MA II:I.17. Saint keeps her wearing of cilicium secret: MA II:VI.6, 14. Saint keeps her flagellations secret: MA I:I.118; MA II:I.19. Saint asks the witness not to tell that a halo of light appeared above her head during her nightly flagellation: MA II:I.14.; Saint asks the witness not to tell that a flame was seen above her head during her nightly prayer: MA I:I.113; MA II:I.39. Saint keeps her stigmata secret: MA III:26.

Saint refuses appointment to prominent position

Gerald: Reluctance to accept nomination as abbot of a monastery; appointed against his will: GE II:7.

Ladislas: Saint wouldn’t have himself crowned: LA:4; Temesvari:14.2.3. Saint is to be named emperor of the Holy Roman Empire but modestly refuses to accept the crown: CP:139; Bonfini:2.4.250.

Elizabeth: Saint can’t abide being called a lady: EL IV:IV.23.

Persecution

Elizabeth: The relatives of saint’s husband drive her and her children out of the castle; saint finds refuge for herself and her children in a pigsty, in a ramshackle hut: EL IV:III.1, 8; EL V:14; EL VI:6; EL VII:4.VII; EL VIII:22; Bonfini: 2.7.315; EC:644; Radocsay: 266, 343, 452 (Bártfa/?, SK: St. Elizabeth altarpiece; Kassa/Kosice, SK: high altar of St. Elizabeth; Szmrecsány/?, SK: Christ’s Parentage altarpiece).

Life of self-willed poverty

Elizabeth: Leads a life of self-willed poverty: EL VII:5.IX_X, 6.II, VI, VII.

Wearing of shabby clothes

Gerald: As a hermit, saint wears only a sheepskin: GE I:7; GE II:38.

Elizabeth: Saint wears simple, worn, shabby clothes: EL IV:II.11-14, 24, IV.15, 25; EL V:10, 23; EL VI:8; EL VII:2.V, VIII, XII, 6.IV, VII; EL VIII:13.

Margaret: Saint wears filthy, torn, shabby clothes: MA I:I.22, 64, 65, 79, 82; MA II:I.11. If forced to wear new clothes, saint soon soils them in menial work: MA I:I.12.

St. Elizabeth of Töss: Saint wears poor, patched, shabby clothes: TE:4.

Saint travels like the poor

Gerald: When travelling, saint uses a simple cart only: GE I:7; GE II:38.

Saint does menial work (the task of servants)

Elizabeth: Saint earns her daily bread by sewing and wool spinning: EL IV:IV.11, 12, 13, 17; EL V:23; EL VII:6.VIII. Saint performs menial tasks: EL VII:6.X; Bonfini: 2.7.330. Saint works in place of her servants: EL IV:IV.24-25; EL V:28; EL VIII:29; Temesvari: 98.21.

Margaret: Saint often does menial work, the task of servants (the cleaning of fish, feeding kitchen waste to the pigs, cleaning the latrine etc.): MA I:I.24, 228, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49; MA II:I.20, 22, 24; Ransanus: XVI.9, 10.

Saint seeks the company of the poor

Ladislas: Saint often spends the night int he atrium of churches: LA:6; Madas:3.3.3.; 7.1.1.; 10.1.2.; Temesvari:14.2.3.; 15.1.3.; Laskai:48.2.1.; 49.2.1.; 50.2.2.

Elizabeth: Saint seeks the company of the poor even during mass: EC:642.

Margaret: Saint prefers to eat at the servants’ table: MA I:I.45.

Saint washes the feet of the poor, of servants and of pilgrims

Stephen: Washes the feet of the poor: Temesvari: 52.32. Washes the feet of pilgrims: ST I:20; ST III:32.

Elizabeth: Saint washes the feet of the poor and sick: EL I:3; EL IV:II.22, IV.4; EL V:13, 22; EL VII:2.XII.

Margaret: Saint washes the servants’ feet: MA I:I.27; MA II:I.20.

Kinga: Saint washes the feet of a poor boy with her tears, dries them with her hair: KI I:9.

Humble obedience

Elizabeth: Saint humbly obeys her confessor (restricts her almsgiving): EL IV:IV.27; EL VIII:7.IV. Saint humbly endures that her confessor sends her beloved away (her dear servants, her one-and-a-half-year-old son) and orders that she have hostile servants: EL IV:III.12, IV.28; EL V:19, 29; EL VII:6.V, 7.IV; EL VIII:28.

Saint humbly endures insults, abuse

Emeric – bishop Maurus: [Bishop Maurus] suffers calumny in humble resignation: EM:6.

Elizabeth: Saint humbly endures the insults of her husband’s relatives: EL IV:III.9; EL V:18. Saint humbly endures that her confessor slaps her in the face: EL IV:III.14, 16; EL VII:7.IV.

Margaret: Saint humbly endures the scolding of the Mother Superior: MA I:I.111, VI.29. Saint humbly endures the abuse, insults of the nuns: MA I:I.47, 110, VI.24; MA II:I.24.

Saint humbly suffers ingratitude

Stephen: Saint humbly suffers that the poor thronging to receive his alms tear at his beard: ST I:21, ST III:33; Hymn I:3.4; Temesvari: 52.32; EC:497.

Elizabeth: Saint humbly endures that a woman whom she once helped shoves her into the mire: EL IV:III.1; EL V:15; EL VII:4.VIII; EL VIII:22; Laskai:2; EC:644; Radocsay: 266, 343 (Bártfa/?, SK: St. Elizabeth altarpiece, Kassa/Kosice, SK: high altar of St. Elizabeth).

Saint asks forgiveness for sins not committed

Gerald: Seeing the suffering of sinners punished by him, saint asks for their forgiveness: GE I:8; GE II:39.

Margaret: Saint, going before the sisters, begs pardon of those who insulted her: MA I:I.110, VI.24; MA II:I.24. Saint confesses even to sins not committed and asks for the sisters’ forgiveness: MA I:I.109, 111, 112.

Saint draws attention to a person worthier than himself

Stephen: Saint directs a penitent sinner to the tomb of his son Emeric, deeming him worthier than himself: EM:17-18; Temesvari: 92.34; AnjouLeg-EM: plate 7.

Self-mortifying humility

Elizabeth: Saint washes the sheets soiled by the sick: EL VIII:35. Saint kisses the wounds of lepers: EL IV:II.22; EL V:13; EL VII:2.XII. Saint drinks of the lepers’ bath water: Laskai: 108.

Helen: Saint prays that no more miracles occur to her: HE:6.

Legends of Early Hungarian Saints: type- and motif-index

Tartalomjegyzék

Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2026

ISBN: 978 963 664 185 6

Művelődéstörténet Idegen nyelvű

The work of folklorist Zoltán Magyar throws light on a relatively little-known segment of the dynastyc cult of saints in Central European cultural history. The hagiographies and legends written on different members of the Árpadian dynasty, ruling in Hungary between the 11th and 13th centuries, and their contemporaries endowed with the aura of sanctity, occur not only in their medieval Hungarian legendry but have also become part of the liturgical tradition and the cult of saints on German, Polish and Byzantine soil. The thematic and generic variety of this legendry and its many folkloric implications show close parallels with another major work of medieval European hagiography: the legends of early Irish saints. The type- and motif-index and generatic catalogue compiled by Zoltán Magyar orders the epic tradition, based on 11rh-16th century written sources, of twelve Hungarian royal saints who have become the subject of legends shortly after their death. Beside classification according to the type of legendd heroes and themes, the book also contains an analysis of the biographical data, of the historical sources and of the primary types and motifs of hagiographies.

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/magyar-early-hungarian-saints-type-and-motif-index//

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