HUNGARIAN STUDIES 1. No. 1. Nemzetközi Magyar Filológiai Társaság. Akadémiai Kiadó Budapest [1985]

Péter Váczy: The Angelic Crown

1* THE ANGELIC CROWN PÉTER VÁCZY Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, Budapest The initiation crown of the Hungarian kings—the "Holy Crown"—is mentioned under different names in the sources over the centuries. It is referred to, primarily in the early sources, as simply "the king's crown", or "the royal crown"; then increasingly as "the crown of the country", or "the crown of Hungary", but most frequently, up. to the present day, as "the holy crown". There are fewer Latin references to Saint Stephen's ownership like corona sancti regis or corona sancti regis Stephani It is in the Baroque age that the expression "apostolic crown" appears. Of all the names the most puzzling one, however, is "the angelic crown", in Latin texts corona angelica. This emerges, as it were, "from the depths of the nation" in the age of interregnum after the Árpád dynasty died out (1301) and later becomes essential in the independence movements. When King Andrew III died, the country could easily have become the battle-field of foreign powers and different dynasties. Everybody agreed that the new king must be elected from among the female descendants of the Árpád dynasty. However, there were other pretenders as well as other considerations to be taken into account. The Roman Holy See, saying that Saint Stephen, the first king of Hungary, had received his religion and royal crown from the Roman Holy See, laid a claim to filling in the empty throne. Nor did the German emperor remain idle: remembering the offer made by Béla ÍV at the time of the Mongol invasion, he considered the Hungarian Kingdom a vacant German feudal tenure. Hungary, in order to preserve its independence, conceded the claim of the female descendants, but retained the right to elect its own king and did not even want to hear about the claims of the pope or the emperor. In the disastrous battle of principles and assumed rights, the popular rendering of the Holy Crown as the symbol of sovereignty, namely, "angelic crown", became a political slogan in Hungary for the first time. We have to begin our story from the time when the son of the Czech King Wenceslas II, also called Wenceslas, was elected and crowned king of Hungary in Székesfehérvár (August 27th, 1301). Although he was the lawful king of Hungary, he could not defeat his enemies; therefore his father thought it best to take him back to Prague under the protection of his strong army (1304)-but not empty-handed! As a trick he had his son dressed up in the full regalia of the Hungarian king and then left the Hungarian Studies 1(1 (1985) Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest

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