Magyar Zoltán

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

ASCETICISM, PENITENCE

Fasting

Andrew: Excessive fasting. Saint eats nothing for three days: AN:3. Excessive fasting. Saint eats 40 nuts only in 40 days: AN:3. Saint works hard (cuts wood) while fasting: AN:4.

Gerald: Excessive fasting: EC:544.

Ladislas: Saint frequently fasts: LA:6; Madas:3.1.1.; Laskai:48.2.1.; 49.2.1.; 50.2.2.

Irene: Saint frequently fasts, eats food of base quality: PE I:2; PE II:3.

Elizabeth: At the princely banquet saint eats nothing but bread: EL IV:IV.1; EL VII:2.III; EL VIII:12, 13. Frequent fasting: EL IV:II.5; EL V:7; EL VI:6; EL VII:2.II, XI; EL VIII:11; Temesvari: 98.21; EC:642.

Kinga: Frequent fasting: KI I:4, 6, 43.

Margaret: Frequent fasting: MA I:I.17, 118, 23, 29, 32, 108, 117; MA II:I.17.

Elizabeth of Töss: Frequent, excessive fasting: TE:7.

Chastity, preservation of chastity in marriage

Emeric: A voice from heaven demands saint’s chastity: EM:8; Hymn IV:2-3. Saint takes a vow of chastity: EM:8, 12; Hymn IV:3; AnjouLeg-EM: plate 3. Radocsay: 389 (the Mateóc altarpiece dedicated to Sts. Stephen and Emeric). Saint and his wife preserve their chastity in marriage: EM:9-12; MA I:I.73; Bonfini: 2.1.195-205; Temesvari: 92.26; Dlugosz I:I.148-149.

Kinga: Saint lives in chastity even in marriage: KI I:6, 45, 55, 56, 57. Saint preserves her chastity even against her husband’s will: KI I:8.

Refusal of (second) marriage

Elizabeth: Saint rejects second marriage, is ready to mutilate herself to impede it: EL IV:III.5, 6; EL V:17, 18; EL VI:6; EL VII:5.I, EL VIII:23; Bonfini: 2.7.320.

Margaret: Saint resists her father’s will to marry her off; she is ready to mutilate herself to prevent this: MA I:I.51-58, 120-124; MA II:I.25; Ransanus: XVI.14.

St. Elizabeth of Töss: Saint resists offer to marriage: TE:4.

Abstinence from married life

Elizabeth: Saint usually abstains from married life (sex): EL VII:2.III.

Self-chosen exile

Elizabeth: When her father (the Hungarian king Andrew II.) sends envoys to call her back to Hungary, saint refuses, preferring instead poverty and exile: EL IV:IV.14; EL V:23; EL VII:6.VIII; EL VIII:26; EC:644.

Penitence

Ascetic practice

Benedict: Following the example of his master, saint lives for three years on the place of Andrew’s hermitage: AN:7.

Gerald: Saint spends seven years as a hermit in the wilderness, fasting and praying: GE I:2; GE II:18; AnjouLeg-GE: plate 2.

Penitence for the country’s good

Ladislas: Penitence for the sins of others: LA:6; Madas:3.1.1.; 4.1.1.; 7.1.1.; 10.1.2.; Temesvari:14.2.3.; 15.1.3.; Laskai:48.2.1.; 49.2.1.; 50.2.2. Saint mourns for the sins of his people every day: LA:6; Madas:4.1.1.; Temesvari:14.2.3.; Laskai:48.2.1.; 49.2.1.; 50.2.2. Saint fasts for more days on top of a pillar: Hodinka: 462-463, 474-476, 474-476.

Margaret: Saint’s church service is in penitence for the country’s and its people’s good: MA I:I.117.

Penitence due to a sense of guilt

Elizabeth: During mass saint’s gaze strays to her beloved husband. She sees blood-drops fall from the Host onto the priest’s hands during the elevation of the Host; she does penance for having forgotten her betrothed in heaven: EL VII:3.III.

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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