Magyar Zoltán

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

2. Hungarian royal saints: the saints of the House of Árpád and other early Hungarian saints (biographical data)

The three centuries from the 11th to the end of the 13th, the period of the kings of the dynasty of Árpád issued forth a considerable number of saints. Twelve of these were either direct descendants of Árpád, the leader of the Magyar conquest (896) – St. Stephen, Ladislas, Piroska-Irene, Elizabeth, Kinga, Margaret, Elizabeth of Töss – or saintly persons who, although not related to the royal dynasty by kinship bounds, nevertheless lived in contemporary Hungary and biographies, Vitas were written on their lives, like on the lives of royal saints (Andrew-Zoerard, Benedict, Gerald, Helen).

There are several more saints or persons worshipped as saints whose figures are closely linked to the dynasty. The legendary queen of the Scots, St. Margaret of Scotland was, according to historical hypothesis and Scottish historical tradition, granddaughter of king St. Stephen, born of the union of Edward, exiled son of the Anglo-Saxon ruler Edmund Ironside who found refuge on Hungarian soil and Agatha [Ágota], daughter of the king (Herzog 1939, 1940; Baker 1978). The patron saint of Portugal, St. Elizabeth of Portugal was collateral descendant of the Hungarian king Andrew II (1205-1235) and she was baptised after her famous relative, St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Another female saint who resembles St. Elizabeth is princess Sophia, daughter of king Béla II (1131-1141) who, sent abroad to German soil, ‘lived on sorrow day and night’, according to the Vitas; she later entered the Benedictine convent in Admont ‘dedicating her life to God till the hour of her death’ and, like Elizabeth, she never returned to her homeland, although her royal family and parentage repeatedly invited her to.

Yolante, daughter of king Béla IV, was born in 1235 and became the wife of the Pomeranian (Poland) prince Boleslaw. Herself a devout and saintly person, she entered the Franciscan third (lay) order and, once widowed, she followed her sister Kinga to the monastery of Stary Sacz [Ószandec] where she died in 1298. The process of her beatification began under pope Urban VIII (1623-1644), but the solemn proclamation only ensued in 1827. Her worship is widely spread in Poland. Her younger sister, Constance, who died in the same monastery in 1301, was likewise venerated after her death. Finally, we may also include into the list of Hungarian saints the Cracovian (Polish) princess St. Salome who married the younger brother of king Béla IV, prince Coloman [Kálmán]. Salome was brought up in Hungary from the age of three and after her husband died of the wounds of the battle of Muhi during the Mongol invasion (1241), she returned to Poland and found her peace in the same Stary Sacz monastery. An altar was raised on her tomb and, although not formally canonized, she was venerated in medieval Hungary.

In the following I propose to enclose short biographies of the saints to be discussed in the volume for the sake of a better understanding of the historical context as well as of their legends and legend tradition, having in view a predominantly non-Hungarian readership.

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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