The Hungarian Political Community in Illustrated Books (ca. 1350 – 1700)

The main objective of this paper is to examine the understanding of the natio Hungarica , as it emerges from the texts and images of a number of richly illustrated Hungarian books. The Chronicon pictum (ca. 1358), János Thuróczy’s Chronica Hungarorum (Brno, Mausoleum 1664), domus and Clarissimorum Hungariae heroum icones (Vienna, 1652) served as points of reference for the discussion on the ways in which the Hungarian political community wanted to be and was perceived prior to its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century transformation into a modern nation. The study encompasses the formative period of Hungarian illustrated books that contributed to the formulation of the national imagery in Hungary, based on the ethno-genetic myths, memories of shared ancestry and collective past, cultural values, legal code, customs and models of conduct, modes of self-display, and, last but not least, on the imagery of the homeland. The three-and-a-half-century chronological scope of the study has made it possible to trace the major changes which the concept of natio Hungarica underwent between mid-fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.

T he nation is a symbolic and imagined entity.It takes a definite and real form through various political performances and rituals -elections, assemblies, royal funerals -numerous visual and verbal accounts, and, last but not least, in the imagination of its members.In public meetings and ceremonies the nation becomes real and visible, its members able to witness large numbers of their compatriots.In everyday reality, however, it is generally otherwise -a nation needs an image to become visible.In today's political life this image is fostered by the mass--media, often influenced by the main power holders, broadcasting a visual and verbal message directed to thousands.In the Middle Ages and Early Modernity, the image of the political community, produced by the royal entourage and/or by the members of the highest social strata, also used all communication technologies at hand.Among them were illustrated books, including both exclusive, and expensive, illuminated codices and printed books with series of woodcut or copperplate illustrations.The multipliable text-cum-image apparatus of the latter was an especially efficient means of communication.Nonetheless, the illustrations and layout of printed books were frequently modelled after book illuminations, particularly in the incunabula period.Therefore, despite having a dissimilar range and fields of impact, both handwritten and printed books contributed to the emergence of a normative and collective imaginary.
For today's researchers, illustrated books have yet another advantagethey preserved written and visual accounts of political communities that no longer exist.The principal aim of the paper is to examine the understanding of the natio Hungarica, as it was reflected in the illustrated books circulating among the upper circles of Hungarian society.The richly illustrated books will serve as a point of reference for the discussion on the ways in which the Hungarian political community wanted to be and was perceived prior to its eighteenth-and nineteenth-century transformation into a modern nation.The study encompasses the formative period of Hungarian illustrated books that contributed to the formulation of the national imagery in Hungary and traces the changes which the concept of natio Hungarica underwent over a span of three and a half centuries.
The first of the books discussed, the so-called Chronicon pictum (ca.1358), established the visual narrative about the history of the Hungarian political community. 1 Its iconographic programme left a stamp on the earliest Hungarian illustrated chronicle released in print, i.e.János Thuróczy's Chronica Hungarorum (Thuróczy, 1488a(Thuróczy, , 1488b). 2 Familiarity with the series of woodcuts from the Chronica Hungarorum is in turn traceable in a catalogue of Hungarian rulers commissioned by Ferenc Nádasdy, entitled Mausoleum regum et Ungariae ducum (Mausoleum, 1664). 3The often reprinted book is popular to the present day, and tells the story of the Hungarians through the images and eulogies of their chieftains and kings from Keve to Ferdinand IV.The visual and literary content of Mausoleum was transformed to facilitate inscribing a newly elevated family into the long history of the natio Hungarica in Trophaeum domus Estorasianae (Trophaeum, 1700).The mutual interdependence between these books on the one hand, and the time difference between their production on the other, offers the chance to trace semantic shifts in the understanding of the natio Hungarica between the mid-fourteenth and late seventeenth centuries.In turn, Elias Widemann's Clarissimorum Hungariae heroum icones (Widemann, 1652) is a unique gallery of portraits of members of the Hungarian political elite, captured on copperplates by a Viennese master with a good knowledge of the main players on the Hungarian political scene.
The major focus will therefore be placed on the Latin-language books that offer a valuable insight into the idiosyncrasies of Hungarian political and cultural traditions.A postulate for research on the pre-modern nation raised by Jerzy Axer is that the heart of the matter often lies in Latin sources (Axer, 2004, p. 22).This seems especially true for the multi-ethnical and multilingual St. Stephen's Kingdom, where Latin was a prime language of political and cultural communication between members of the natio until the mid-nineteenth century.The natio Hungarica's most important foundational texts -with Bulla aurea (1222), medieval chronicles, such as the Gesta Hungarorum (ca.1280) by Simon of Kéza, and the collection of customary laws entitled the Tripartitum (1517) and compiled by István Werbőczy, among the most authoritative ones -were all written in Latin.
As a supra-regional language, Latin was well-equipped to convey the idiosyncrasies of a particular group.Similarly, in the iconography of 1 The manuscript is kept in the Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, Budapest, shelf mark Clmae 404.For a facsimile edition of the Chronicon pictum and translation of its text see: Dercsényi (1969).A critical edition of the text was included in: Domanovszky (1937, pp. 239-505).

2
A facsimile edition of the book was published in Thuróczy (1991a).A critical edition of the text with a comprehensive commentary -see: Thuróczy (1985Thuróczy ( -1988a)).Translation of the final parts of the chronicle was published in: Thuróczy (1991b).
the Middle Ages and Early Modernity, the individual pictorial code of a political community could be characterized through a selection of motifs from a large repertoire, and through predilections to particular themes.The original meaning and iconography of the personifications of Polonia in Polish sources (Górska, 2005) or of depictions of the Holy Crown and Hunnish chieftains in the Hungarian art (Mroziewicz, 2015) may serve as two examples.Likewise, the ways in which members of the political community were depicted constituted a distinctive iconographic field within which the natio was made visible.
The process of transformation of the "high-level" abstract concept of nation through the visual arts into more easily accessed "reality" (Smith, 2013, p. 6) was recently analyzed by Anthony Smith in his book The Nation Made Real (Smith, 2013).In his study, Smith names the main topics and symbols which facilitated the coalescence of the national identity.The most influential of them were concerned with ethno-genetic myths, memories of shared ancestry and collective past, cultural values and models of conduct, the imagery of homeland, as well as the legal code, and customs.To this list of topics one can also add the modes of self-display characteristic of a particular community, such as hairstyles, costumes, attributes and interior design.All these will be traced below in the most influential and richly illustrated Hungarian books.
The career of the term natio in Hungary dates back to Master Simon of Kéza's Gesta Hungarorum.In his Deeds of the Hungarians, Master Simon was the first author in Hungarian written sources to refer to his own people as natio.Before him the word was often used to denote unorganized or pagan tribes and had negative connotations (Szűcs, 1999, p. LXV).This understanding resulted from the word's meaning in classical sources, referring to "those born elsewhere," "people living outside the Roman Empire" (cf.Evans, 2013) and echoed the etymological origin of the word natio, stemming from nascor and connected closely to the notion of natura (Szűcs, 1981, pp. 186-187).
Simon of Kéza in his Gesta Hungarorum established a broadly accepted genealogical fiction which bestowed Hungarians with a Hunnish origin and constructed an authoritative narrative of the glorious past of the Hun-Hungarians.These, along with extensive fragments of the Gesta Hungarorum, were incorporated in the Chronicon pictum, which provided the previous account with a visual costume of 43 miniatures as well as 98 figural and 5 ornamental initials executed by unknown masters. 4he iconographic programme of the chronicle concentrated on the ethnodynastic symbolism revolving around the Hun-Hungarian genealogical fiction, the conquest of Pannonia and the reign of the holy kings.It included depictions of episodes from the mythical past of the Hun-Hungarians, starting from Magor' and Hunor's pursuit of a hind which led them to the fertile land of Scythia, through the first entry of the Hun-Hungarians into Pannonia (fig. 1) and their military achievements, i.e. the battle of Attila against the Romans at Zeiselmauer and the besieging of Aquileia, up to the depictions of Attila and Hunnish chieftains.In all these images, the Hun-Hungarians are shown as brave warriors waging successful campaigns.The text also paints an image of a self-governing community of free men, who elected their leader by "common consent."Each of the male members of the group had a military duty, and when a host was needed, it was summoned, as Master Simon narrates, with the following words: "Vox Dei et communitatis universe, quod unusquisque in tali loco armatus vel sicuti est, debeat precise comparere communitatis praeceptum ac consilium auditurus."Quicumque ergo edictum contempsisset non valens pretendere rationem, cultu divino per medium Lex Scitica sanctiebat, aut ire in desperatas causas, vel in communium servitium immisericorditer tradebatur.Vitia itaque et huiusmodi excessus unum Hunum ab aliis facerunt separari.Alias autem, cum unus Pater, et una mater Hunos omnes generans procreavit, quomodo unus nobilis et alter ignobilis esse diceretur, nisi victus per hos causus criminis haberetur?(Domanovszky, 1937, pp.256-257). 5  provided by Wehli (2000a).Cf.Marosi (1995, pp. 31-66); Veszprémy and Wehli (2009).5 " 'God and the whole community command that at such and such a place each and every man shall punctually appear, with his arms or as he is, to hear the resolve and the decision of the community.' On any man who should disregard the order without sufficient ground, the Scythian law (Lex Scythica) imposed the penalty that he should be quartered with a ploughshare or banished or given over without mercy into common slavery.By such evil deeds and offences a Hun became separated from his fellows.For how else, since one father and one mother had propagated all the Huns, could one of them be called noble and another not, unless he were held to be guilty of such a crime" (Dercsényi, 1969, p. 92).This passage from the Chronicon pictum is worth noting as it roots the obligation of defending the community, recorded in the seventh paragraph of the Bulla aurea, in the tribal past.More importantly, it locates the origin of the nobility in the distant time of the first conquest of Pannonia (visualized on the recto of the folio with the description).The author, following the Gesta Hungarorum, presents a theory on the cause of the division between the noblemen and ignoble people.He holds that at the beginning the Hun--Hungarians were a community of equals.Being deprived of the participation in the community of free men was a punishment, codified by a certain Lex Scythica, for refusal to participate in military service, a crime against the shared customs and law.As Jenő Szűcs observes: The origin of human inequality was thus given not only a "historical" and "legal" underpinning but also received a boost in "moral" status.For the refusal to answer the call to arms had been a repudiation not only of martial virtus but also of the major political virtue, loyalty; those, therefore, who had preserved this virtue, the nobility, rose above the peasantry even in "moral" stature (Szűcs, 1999, pp.LXXXIV-LXXXV).
The Chronicon pictum, after the account by Master Simon, legitimizes the superior status of the nobility and provides it with a foundational story.Moreover, it explains the social and political customs of the natio Hungarica, which, according to the chronicle, constitutes a community of warriors who are the sole defenders of the polity (Cf.Szűcs, 1999, p. LXXXIII).The military duty and virtues of the members of the Hungarian political community are also highlighted in the series of illuminations, among which battle scenes and depictions of knights prevail.Already the miniature showing the first advent of the Hun-Hungarians to Pannonia (fig. 1) depicts mainly mounted or marching men-at-arms.A group of commoners, men and women afoot carrying their babies, is merely an epic staffage.
This event is presented as a justification of the second conquest of Pannonia in the time of Árpád.The miniature shows the episode of the Hun-Hungarian past in the fourteenth-century framework not only by making the objects and attires of depicted figures contemporary to the reality of its illuminator, but also through the heraldic programme.The standard with the emblem of the Hunnish warriors, carried by one of the knights, reaches out of the frame of the illumination to the border decoration of the pages, which includes the coats of arms of the Hungarian Kingdom (top of the page) and the Angevins' crest (bottom of the page).Thus, the episode from the Hunnish past is presented as relevant to the history of the kingdom in the times of the Angevin rulers.
The ethno-dynastic iconography, created in the Chronicon pictum, was further developed and modified in the series of woodcuts in János Thuróczy's Chronica Hungarorum.The Brno and Augsburg editions of Thuróczy's chronicle narrate the history of the Hungarians (whom he calls Hunni seu Hungari; natio, gens, plebs Hungarica) and their rulers through a series of woodcuts showing Hunnish chieftains and kings of Hungary from Attila to Matthias Corvinus.The Augsburg edition of the book additionally contains woodcuts depicting the history of St. Ladislas (the chivalric patron of the kingdom) along with a circular heraldic composition with the blazons of all the domains of the Hungarian Kingdom during the reign of Matthias Corvinus, as well as a sequence of formulaic battle scenes and a full-page depiction of the advent of the Mongols to Hungary. 6The text of Thuróczy's chronicle and the accompanying illustrations expand the account about the Hunnish-Scythian origin and contemporize the image of Attila in a way that fits into a narrative about the Hungarians as the sole defenders of Christendom, fulfilling the pope's crusade plans (cf.Szörényi, 2012).
The miniatures of the Chronicon pictum served as a (rather indirect) point of reference for the masters working on the illustrations for the Brno and Augsburg editions of Thuróczy's chronicle.The images of the mythology of the Hungarian natio, concentrated on the depictions of the Hunnish chieftains, with Attila occupying a prominent place among them, gained 6 For the most recent studies on the iconographical programme of the Chronica Hungarorum see: Rózsa (1998); Salgó (2000Salgó ( , 2002)); Salgó and Wehli (2000); Soltész (1993) [with references to the earlier scholarship]; Tóvizi (2006); Wehli (1999).Along with emphasizing the myth of common origins and the Hunnish past, Thuróczy draws a more explicit image of a self-governing political community, which acts unanimously in taking important decisions, such as the election of a Hunnish captain or, later, of a king. 7As was the case in the Chronicon pictum, Thuróczy presents the Hungarian political community as an undivided and harmonious one.In doing so, he follows the standpoint of the nobility of the time, which finds its full realization in the cornerstone of Hungarian legal tradition, namely the Tripartitum, which speaks of the unity of the whole natio Hungarica based on the same privileges (una eademque nobilitas). 8However, this new understanding of the community of noblemen does not find its reflection in the visual layer of the chronicle.
The series of woodcuts concentrate on the shared history of kingship.The visual programme of the Augsburg edition of the chronicle, containing twenty battle scenes, additionally shows that while the monarchs change 7 On the importance of this concept for the election in medieval Hungary: Rady (2008, p. 388).8 Werbőczy (1517).The original text with the English translation was reprinted in: Werbőczy (2006).On the legal circumscription of the nobility in the Tripartium, see: Rady (2015, pp. 65-108).on the Hungarian throne, the valiant Hungarians constantly battle enemies of their polity, mainly the Ottomans.These scenes were impressed from just four different woodblocks. 9The use of a limited number of matrices stressed the recurring character of the military narrative.The same image was used for illustrating a battle in the times of the Huns and of János Hunyadi.Thus, the story of a militant nation takes a circular form, repeating itself from the Hunnish past to the late-fifteenth century.
The bellicose nature of the Hungarians, justified by the myth of a Hunnish-Scythian origin, became a commonplace of both the Hungarian and foreign imagination.Self-delimited so as not to include those engaged in commercial or rural matters, only rarely devoted to intellectual or literary pursuits, the natio Hungarica was defined primarily through fighting, as István Werbőczy famously says in the introduction to the Tripartitum: Nec gens aliqua postmodum aut natio (absit invidia verbo) pro reipublicae Christianae tutela et propagatione acrius aut constantius ipsis Hungaris excubuit.Qui cum omni Machometicae foeditatis barbariae in variis ancipitibusque preliis diu ac multum cum ingenti sua laude versati et (ut vetustiora praeteream) annos circiter centum supra quadraginta nunc oppugnantes, nunc repugnantes cum immanibus Thurcis cruentissima bella gessere.Et per eorum sanguinem, caedes ac vulnera reliquam Christianitatem (ne hostilis rabies velut fractis obicibus remotius sese effunderet) tutam incolumnemque reddiderunt, ea fortitudine roboraque naturae ut plerumque in armis vitam degerent.Nullis questuariis aut vulgaribus artibus dediti sola militia nobilitatem definierunt (Werbőczy, 2006, p. 12). 10   The unceasing military campaigns transformed the imagery of the homeland.In the paragraph devoted to the first entrance of the Hun--Hungarians into Pannonia, Thuróczy describes the affluent and fecund land: Hec regio olim panis ab ubertate Pannonia denominata esse traditur, que nunc ab Hungaris ipsam incolentibus mutato nomine Hungaria vocitatur, regionum nobilissima, famosissimorum amnium decursu irrigua, campis pariter et montibus 9 The notable exception is the representation of the siege of Belgrade (fol.s6v), impressed from two blocks, which were not re-used in the book. 10"Thereafter no country or people (I say ungrudgingly) guarded more determinedly or more constantly the protection and expansion of the Christian commonwealth than the Hungarians.Being well trained through many hard-fought battles against the barbarous Mohammedan pest, they have for more than a hundred and forty years (not counting earlier times) time and time again in attack and counterattack waged to their enormous credit the most bloody wars against the savage Turks.They kept the rest of Christendom safe and unharmed at the cost of their blood, life and wounds (lest the enemy's rage flood further as across broken levees), with such courage and natural vigour that they virtually lived under arms.Not engaged in commercial or vulgar matters, nobility was defined by fighting" (Werbőczy, 2006, p. 13).
mixtim decora, auri et argenti necnon ceterorum metallorum ac salis peroptimi genitrix fecundissima, terrarum fertilissima, vino habundantissima silvarumque et pascuorum frequentissima […]  (Thuróczy, 1985-1988b, pp.34-35). 11  The wealthy place which the ancestors of the Hungarians chose to be their homeland soon became a theatre of war.The Ottoman aggression in particular severely devastated the kingdom.Thuróczy draws a dramatic image of the land during this time: [P]artes regni Hungarie inferiores usque ad flumen Thitie totaque Sclauonia ac cunctus ager inter Saue et Draue flumina medius dira Thurcorum rabie vastarentur, civitates et ville ac opida vehementes per flammas comburrerentur, res diriperentur, homines sine discretione sexus et etatis aut interficerentur, aut perpetue servitutis iugo mancipandi abducerentur, omnibus regnicolis intrinsecis fluctuantibus odiis ac partibus regni prescriptis manifesto discrimine relictis (Thuróczy, 1985-1988b, p. 243). 12  The engravings of the Mausoleum regum et Ungariae ducum (Nuremberg, 1664), which dress the ethno-dynastic imagery according to the seventeenth-century visual and literary fashions, exemplifies this shift in the image of the homeland.Depictions of the wealthy and peaceful land accompany the representations of the first Hunnish leaders.Harmonious rural sceneries serve as backgrounds for the likenesses of Keve (fig.6), Kadicha, Keme and Béla.In contrast, the backgrounds of the representations of the chieftains and rulers of Hungary from the militant Attila onwards are mainly formed by scenes of military campaigns and combats, as in the backgrounds of the likeness of Louis I (fig.7).
11 "It is recorded that this land, which is now called Hungary by the Hungarians inhabiting it, was once named Pannonia from panis [bread] because of its fertility.The land is the most renowned of all the regions, watered by the most famous rivers, embellished equally by both plains and mountains, rich in gold, silver as well as other metals and the best salts, of fertile soils, abundant in wine, full of forests and pastures […]" (translation mine -K.M.). 12"The southern regions of the kingdom of Hungary as far as the Tisza river, and the whole of Slavonia and all the territory situated between the rivers Sava and Drava were being savagely plundered by the Turks; cities and villages and towns were being consumed by fierce fires, and possessions were being looted; people without distinction of sex and age were either being killed or led away to be sold forever into slavery; and so great was the disaster that all the inhabitants of the kingdom were overwhelmed with deep hatred, and those regions of the kingdom of which we have spoken were deserted" (Thuróczy, 1991b, pp. 124-125).highlights his Marian piety.It suggests that Marian providence favoured him from the day he was born, which fell on the festival of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary.Numerous religious donations and foundations along with his pieces of religious poetry further testified to Pál's deep Marian devotion.
The Trophaeum also includes likenesses of noblewomen, which are sparse elsewhere.It contains eighty-eight depictions of the Esterházys' female relatives, which are placed after the portraits of their husbands or fathers.Eulogies praising them are generally typified, concentrated on stressing their virtues as wives, mothers, or devoted Christians.This lack of subjectivity of the female gender is indicative of the sociopolitical position of noblewomen, who were excluded from the natio Hungarica.
Needless to say, no woman's portrait was included in Elias Widemann's Clarissimorum Hungariae heroum icones. 14One hundred likenesses of members of the natio Hungarica were preceded by a frontispiece alluding to the Republican model of the political community and a whole-page engraving showing the Holy Crown, with the inscription Sacra, angelica et apostolica Regni Hungariae corona (fig.9).Both images hint at the political subjectivity of the natio Hungarica, the latter however additionally stresses its distinctive political and cultural traditions.
On each of the engravings personal mottos highlight political loyalty, shared values and personal qualities of the members of the Hungarian political elite, among which "state patriotism" played an especially important role.Apart from the devices, inscriptions on each of the engravings contain information about the social, political and/or church distinctions of the person depicted.Regardless of a person's ethnicity, most of the figures wear the Hungarian noble costume, i.e. a dolman cape and a mente coat, 14 On Widemann's series of Hungarian likenesses see: Cenner-Wilhelmb (1956, 1957, 1988).and the same characteristic hair, mustache and beard style, even though some of them, e.g.János Draskovics (Croatian Nikola Drašković, fig.10), have Croatian origins.The use of the Latin variants of names in the case of Hungarian-and Croatian-born noblemen further unifies the image of the natio Hungarica.Physiognomic similarities often characterize members of the same family, but a certain resemblance can also be noticed between representatives of different families (Mroziewicz, 2015, p. 213).This suggests the existence of a particular type of self-display that characterized a Hungarian The visual and literary content of the discussed Hungarian illustrated books gives an account of the natio Hungarica as a unified community of equal men who share the same Hunnish-Scythian origin and the same set of privileges, gradually expanding from the pre-Christian period, guaranteeing a representative of the nobility active participation in political life.The illustrations visualized the myths about the tribal times, memories of shared Hunnish ancestry and collective past in a way that corresponded with the particular cultural and political needs of a given time.The shifts in the iconographic programmes of the books suggest that the images were used to augment the textual message.The ethno-dynastic symbolism, established by the Chronicon pictum, was constantly updated in order to make it harmonize better with the worldview of the Hungarian nobility.The visual-cum-verbal apparatus of the seventeenth-century illustrations additionally expanded the message of the texts, using inscriptions and eulogies to propagate cultural values and models of conduct based on bravery, loyalty, love of the kingdom and of God.It also promoted the Catholic viewpoint, based mainly on the cult of Mary as the patrona Hungariae, supported by the propaganda of the Habsburgs and the Jesuits.This major shift in the discourse concerning the natio Hungarica was a consequence of the catholicization of the upper layers of the Hungarian society in the seventeenth-century.