Introduction

Mielke, Christopher

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-66511-1_1

Christopher Mielke⁴

Part of the book series: Queenship and Power ((QAP))

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Abstract

Over 150 objects, images, and spaces are analyzed to answer the central question: what can they tell us about the agency and power of 30 medieval queens in the Árpádian and Angevin dynasties? Seals, coins, crowns, heraldry, clothing, books, palaces, monasteries, illuminated manuscripts, and tombs connected with these queens will all be consulted to tell what has been lost in the fragmentary written record. By using agency theory and object biography in tandem, these items of material culture, images, and spaces will rewrite 400 years of medieval Hungary’s history, one which gives the queens a central role and voice.

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Notes

1.
Judith Bennett, History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 24–25.
2.
Janna Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand: Power and Authority in the Reign of Berenguela of Castile (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 3.
3.
Attila Zsoldos, The Az Árpáds and Their Wives: Queenship in Early Medieval Hungary, 1000–1301 (Rome: Viella, 2019), 180–182; Béla Zsolt Szakács, “A királynék művészete – a művészettörténészek királynéi” [The Art of the Queens—The Queens of the Art Historians], in Judit Majorossy, ed. Egy történelmi gyilkosság margójára: Merániai Gertrúd emlékezete, 1213–2013 [To the Margin of a Historical Murder: Commemorate Gertrude of Andechs-Meran, 1213–2013] (Szentendre, 2014), 217–226, 317–318.
4.
Zsoldos, The Árpáds and Their Wives, 182–185.
5.
Amalie Fößel, “The Queen’s Wealth in the Middle Ages,” Majestas 13 (2005): 31–34.
6.
Alistair Campbell, ed., Encomium Emmae Reginae (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
7.
Ferenc Makk, The Árpáds and the Comneni: Political Relations Between Hungary and Byzantium in the 12th Century (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1989), 89.
8.
Lois L. Huneycutt, “Intercession and the High Medieval Queen: The Esther Topos,” in Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women, ed. Jennifer Carpenter and Sally-Beth MacLean, et al. (Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 138.
9.
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10.
John Carmi Parsons, “‘Never Was a Body Buried in England with Such Solemnity and Honour’: The Burials and Posthumous Commemorations of English Queens to 1500,” in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne Duggan (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997), 319–320.
11.
Kathleen Nolan, Queens in Stone and Silver: The Creation of a Visual Imagery of Queenship in Capetian France (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 1–15.
12.
John Steane, The Archaeology of the Medieval English Monarchy (London & New York: Routledge, 1999); John Steane, The Archaeology of Power: England and Northern Europe, A.D. 800–1600 (Stroud: Tempus, 2001).
13.
Therese Martin, “Exceptions and Assumptions: Women in Medieval Art history,” in Reassessing the Roles of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture, ed. Therese Martin (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2012), 30–31.
14.
Theresa Earenfight, Queenship in Medieval Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
15.
Amanda Richardson, “Gender and Space in English Royal Palaces c. 1160–c.1547: A Study in Access Analysis and Imagery,” Medieval Archaeology 47 (2003): 131–165.
16.
Paul Crossley, “The Architecture of Queenship: Royal Saints, Female Dynasties and the Spread of Gothic Architecture in Central Europe,” in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2002), 263–289.
17.
Mariah Proctor-Tiffany, “Portrait of a Medieval Patron: The Inventory and Gift Giving of Clémence of Hungary” (Ph.D. diss.: Brown University, 2007); Annamária Bartha, “Magyarországi Klemencia kapcsolatai Magyarországgal” [Clémence of Hungary’s Relationship with Hungary], in Francia-magyar kapcsolatok a középkorban [French and Hungarian Contacts in the Middle Ages], ed. Attila Györkös and Gergely Kiss (Debrecen: University of Debrecen Press, 2013), 181–193; Annamária Bartha, “Magyarországi Klemencia kegytárgyai” [Clémence of Hungary’s Objects of Devotion,” Fiatal Középkoros Régészek VI. Konferenciájának Tanulmánykötete [Study Volume of the 6th Conference of Young Medieval Archaeologists] VI (2015): 169–179.
18.
John Carmi Parsons, “Introduction: Family, Sex, and Power: The Rhythms of Medieval Queenship,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (Stroud: Sutton Publishing Limited, 1993), 2.
19.
Anne Duggan, ed. Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2002).
20.
János M. Bak, “Roles and Functions of Queens in Árpádian and Angevin Hungary (1000–1386 A.D.),” in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (Stroud: Sutton Publishing Limited, 1993), 13–24; Bak, “Queens as Scapegoats in Medieval Hungary,” 223–233.
21.
Bak, “Roles and Functions of Queens in Árpádian and Angevin Hungary,” 14, 20.
22.
Xystus Schier, Reginae Hungariae primae stirpis (Vienna, 1776).
23.
Mór Wertner, Az Árpádok családi történeti [A Family History of the Árpáds] (Nagybecskerek: Pleitz, 1892).
24.
To name only a few: Szabolcs de Vajay, “Großfürst Geysa von Ungarn. Familie und Verwandtschaft,” Südostforschungen XXI (1962): 88–101; “Agatha, Mother of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland,” Duquesne Review 7/2 (1962): 71–80; “Még egy királynénk…? I. Endre első felesége” [Another of Our Queens…? The First Wife of Andrew I]. Turul 72 (1999): 17–23.
25.
Raimund Kerbl, “Byzantinische Prinzessinnen in Ungarn zwischen 1050–1200 und ihr Einfluß auf das Arpadenkönigreich (Ph.D. dissertation: University of Vienna, 1979); Szabolcs de Vajay, “Byzantinische Prinzessinnen in Ungarn,” Ungarn Jahrbuch 10 (1979): 15–28.
26.
Zsuzsa V. Fodor, ed. Gizella és kora: felolvasóülések az Árpád-korból [Gisela and Her Era: A Session of Readings from the Age of the Árpáds] (Veszprém, 1993); János Gécsi, ed. Gizella királyné 985-k. 1060 [Queen Gisella, ca. 985–1060] (Veszprém, 2000).
27.
József Laszlovszky, “Angol-Magyar kapcsolatok a 12 század második felében” [English-Hungarian Relations in the Second Half of the Twelfth Century]. Angol-Magyar kapcsolatok a középkorban [English-Hungarian Contacts in the Middle Ages] I, ed. Attila Bárány, József Laszlovszky, and Zsuzsanna Papp (Máriabesnyő: Attraktor, 2008), 153–165.
28.
Judit Majorossy, ed. Egy történelmi gyilkosság margójára: Merániai Gertrúd emlékezete, 1213–2013 [To the Margin of a Historical Murder: Commemorate Gertrude of Andechs-Meran, 1213–2013] (Szentendre, 2014).
29.
Ramon Sarobe and Csaba Tóth, eds. Királylányok messzi földről: Magyarország és Katalónia a középkorban [Princesses from Afar: Hungary and Catalonia in the Middle Ages] (Budapest and Barcelona: Hungarian National Museum & History Museum of Catalonia, 2009).
30.
Volker Honemann, “A Medieval Queen and Her Stepdaughter: Agnes and Elizabeth of Hungary,” in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2002), 109–119.
31.
Eva Sniezynska-Stolot, “Queen Elizabeth as Patron of Architecture,” Acta Historiae Artium 20 (1974): 13–36; Eva Sniezynska-Stolot, “Tanulmányok Łokietek Erzsébet királyné műpártolása köréből (Ötvöstárgyak)” [Studies on the Scope of the Art Patronage of Queen Elizabeth Łokietek (Goldsmith Work)], Művészettörténeti Értesítő 30 (1981/4): 233–254; Eva Sniezynska-Stolot, “The Artistic Patronage of the Hungarian Angevins in Poland,” Alba Regia 22 (1985): 21–27; Marianne Sághy, “Dévotions diplomatiques: Le pèlerinage de la reine-mère Élisabeth Piast à Rome,” in La Diplomatie des États Angevins aux XIIIe et XIVe siècle, ed. Zoltán Kordé and István Petrovics (Rome and Szeged: 2010), 219–224; Brian McEntee, “The Burial Site Selection of a Hungarian Queen: Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary (1320–1380), and the Óbuda Clares’ Church,” Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU 12 (2006): 69–82; László Szende, Piast Erzsébet és udvara (1320–1380) [Elizabeth Piast and Her Court, 1320–1380] (Ph.D. diss.: ELTE, 2007).
32.
Dženan Dautović, “Bosansko-ugarski odnosi kroz prizmu braka Ludovika I Velikog i Elizabete kćerke Stjepana II Kotromanića” [Relations Between Bosnia and Hungary Through the Prism of the Marriage Between Louis the Great and Elizabeth, the Daughter of Stjepan II Kotromanić], Radovi XVII/3 (2014): 141–157.
33.
Maya Bijvoet Williamson, trans. & ed., The Memoirs of Helene Kottaner (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1998).
34.
Orsolya Réthelyi, et al. Mary of Hungary: The Queen and Her Court, 1521–1531 (Budapest: Budapest History Museum, 2005); Orsolya Réthelyi, “Mary of Hungary in Court Context (1521–1531)” (Ph.D. diss.: Central European University, 2010).
35.
Imre Szentpétery and Attila Zsoldos, Az Árpád-házi hercegek, hercegnők és a királynék okleveleinek kritikai jegyzéke [The Charters of the Princes, Princesses and Queens of the Árpád House, a Critical Edition] (Budapest: Hungarian National Archive, 2008), 183–188; Attila Zsoldos, “The Problem of Dating Queens’ Charters of the Árpádian Age Eleventh-Thirteenth Century,” in Dating Undated Medieval Charters, ed. Michael Gervers (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2002), 151–160.
36.
Zsoldos, The Árpád and Their Wives, 180–186; Attila Zsoldos, “Gertrúd és a királynéi intézmény az Árpád-kori Magyar Királyságban” [Queen Gertrude and Queenship in the Kingdom of Hungary During the Arpadian Period]. Judit Majorossy, ed. Egy történelmi gyilkosság margójára: Merániai Gertrúd emlékezete, 1213–2013 [To the Margin of a Historical Murder: Commemorate Gertrude of Andechs-Meran, 1213–2013] (Szentendre, 2014), 17–24.
37.
Szakács, “A királynék művészete – a művészettörténészek királynéi,” 217–226, 317–318.
38.
Joan Scott, Gender of Politics and History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 27; Bennett, History Matters, 25.
39.
Matthew Johnson, “Conceptions of Agency in Archaeological Interpretation,” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 8 (1989): 189–211; Marcia-Anne Dobres and John Robb, eds. Agency in Archaeology (London & New York: Routledge, 2000); John C. Barrett, “Agency, the Duality of Structure, and the Problem of the Archaeological Record,” in Archaeological Theory Today, ed. Ian Hodder (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), 141–164; Leo Klejn, “Neither Archaeology Nor Theory: A Critique of Johnson,” Antiquity 80 (2006): 435–441; Matthew Johnson, Archaeological Theory: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2010).
40.
Johnson, Archaeological Theory, 237.
41.
Barrett, “Agency, the Duality of Structure, and the Problem of the Archaeological Record,” 155.
42.
Joan M. Gero, “Troubled Travels in Agency and Feminism,” in Agency in Archaeology, ed. Marcia-Anne Dobres and John Robb (London & New York: Routledge, 2000), 37.
43.
Jennifer L. Dornan, “Agency and Archaeology: Past, Present, and Future Directions,” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 9/4 (2002): 325.
44.
Igor Kopytoff, “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process,” in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 66–67.
45.
Chris Gosden and Yvonne Marshal, “The Cultural Biography of Objects,” World Archaeology 31/2 (1999): 170.
46.
One such example is Janet Hoskins, Biographical Objects: How Things Tell the Stories of People’s Lives (New York: Routledge, 1998), 7–10.
47.
Roberta Gilchrist, Medieval Life: Archaeology and the Life Course (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2012), 12.
48.
Erin L. Jordan, Women, Power, and Religious Patronage in the Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 117.
49.
Gilchrist, Medieval Life: Archaeology and the Life Course, 1.
50.
Barbara Hill, Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025–1204 (New York: Longman, 1999), 179.
51.
The most helpful studies linking people with objects have been Nolan, Queens in Stone and Silver (2009); Steane, The Archaeology of the Medieval English Monarchy (1993); Therese Martin, ed., Reassessing the Roles of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture, Vol. I & II (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2012); Richardson, “Gender and Space in English Royal Palaces c. 1160–c.1547”: 131–165.
52.
Nolan, Queens in Stone and Silver, 15.
53.
Steane, The Archaeology of the Medieval English Monarchy, 13ff.
54.
François Garnier, Le langage de l’image au Moyen Âge (Paris: Léopard d’Or, 1982–1989), Vol. I and II.
55.
László Réthy, Corpus Nummorum Hungariae: Magyar Egyetemes Éremtár, Vol I–II (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Kiadása, 1899–1907); Lajos Huszár, Münzkatalog Ungarn von 1000 bis heute (Budapest: Corvina, 1979).
56.
Leslie Brubaker and Helen Tobler, “The Gender of Money: Byzantine Empresses on Coins (342–802),” in Gendering the Middle Ages, ed. Pauline Stafford and Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 43–44.
57.
János Bak, “Der Reichsapfel,” in Insignia Regni Hungariae, ed. Zsuzsa Lovag, 185–194 (Budapest: Hungarian National Museum, 1986); Éva Kovács and Zsuzsa Lovag, The Hungarian Crown and Other Regalia (Budapest: Hungarian National Museum, 1986), 82–94.
58.
Eric J. Goldberg, “Regina nitens sanctissima Hemma: Queen Emma (827–876), Bishop Witgar of Ausgburg, and the Witgar-Belt,” in Representations of Power in Medieval Germany: 800–1500, ed. Björn Weiler and Simon Maclean (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 71.
59.
Elizabeth Van Houts, Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe, 900–1200 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 114–118.
60.
John Steane, The Archaeology of the Medieval English Monarchy, 143–145.
61.
This was the case for some of the jewels of Mary, widow of Louis II (r. 1516–1526) who stipulated in her will that a certain locket given to her by her husband be melted down and the gold given to the poor. Orsolya Réthelyi, “‘…Maria regina… nuda venerat ad Hungariam’: The Queen’s Treasures,” in Mary of Hungary: The Queen and Her Court 1521–1531, ed. Orsolya Réthelyi (Budapest: Budapest History Museum, 2005), 121.
62.
Gergely Buzás, “Visegrád,” in Medium Regni: Medieval Hungarian Royal Seats, ed. Julianna Altmann, et al. (Budapest: Nap Kiadó, 1999), 118–119.
63.
László Szende, “Mitherrscherin oder einfache Königinmutter Elisabeth von Łokietek in Ungarn (1320–1380),” Majestas 13 (2005): 47–63.
64.
Nolan, Queens in stone and silver, 129.
65.
Ilona Berkovits, Illuminated Manuscripts from the Library of Matthias Corvinus (Budapest: Corvina Press, 1963); Csaba Csapodi, Klára Csapodiné Gárdonyi, and Tibor Szántó, Bibliotheca Corviniana: The Library of King Matthias Corvinus (New York: Praeger, 1969), or Marcus Tanner, The Raven King: Matthias Corvinus and the Fate of His Lost Library (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2008). For Beatrice see Csaba Csapodi, Beatrix királyné konyvtára [The Library of Queen Beatrix] (Budapest, 1964).
66.
This would be Anastasia, wife of Andrew I (r. 1046–1060). Oleska Povstenko, The Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev (New York: Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States, 1954), 132.
67.
Nolan, Queens in Stone and Silver, 72–75.
68.
François Garnier, Le langage de l’image au Moyen Âge (Paris: Le Léopard d’Or, 1982–1989).
69.
Graham D. Keevill, Medieval Palaces: An Archaeology (Stroud: Tempus, 2000), 40.
70.
Annie Renoux, “Elite Women, Palaces, and Castles in Northern France (ca. 850–1100),” in Reassessing the Roles of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture, Therese Martin, ed. Vol. II (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2012), 741.
71.
Károly Ráth, A Magyar Királyok és erdély fejedelmek hadjárati, utazási és tarózkodási helyei (Győr: Sauervein, 1866).
72.
Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture, 51.
73.
Ibid., 51–52; there is also the example of monastic lands donated to the Dominican convent of Margaret Island from the estate of Queen Maria Laskarina and Gábor Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blesses Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 261.
74.
Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture, 56–61.
75.
See, for example, the comparison of Bertrade de Montfort’s tomb with that of Matilda of Flanders at Caen, or the comparison between Adelaide of Maurienne and Fredegonde. Nolan, Queens in Stone and Silver, 34–44, 54–64.
76.
Ernő Marosi, “A 14. századi Magyarország udvari művészettörténetírásban” [The Fourteenth Century Hungarian Court in the Art Historical Literature], in Művészet I: Lajos király korában 1342–1382, ed. Ernő Marosi, Melinda Tóth, and Lívia Varga (Budapest: MTA Művészettörténeti Kutató Csoport, 1982), 73, n. 32.
77.
Kinga Éry, ed. A Székesfehérvári királyi bazilika embertani leletei 1848–2002 (Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2008), 574.
78.
Hill, Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025–1204, 89–91.
79.
Gergely Buzás, Edit Kocsis, and József Laszlovszky, “Catalogue of Objects and Finds,” in The Medieval Royal Palace at Visegrád, ed. Gergely Buzás and József Laszlovszky (Budapest: Archaeolingua, 2013), 366–367.
80.
Krisztina Orosz, “Mozgó udvar – mozgó háztartás. Állandó vagy ideiglenes berendezés a késő középkori király és nemesi otthonokban?” [Itinerant Courts—Itinerant Households: Permanent or Temporary Furnishings in Royal and Noble Homes in the Late Middle Ages?], in In medio regni Hungariae. Régészeti, Művészettörténeti és történeti kutatások ‘az ország közepén’: Archaeological, Art Historical, and Historical Researches ‘in the Middle of the Kingdom’, ed. Elek Benkő and Krisztina Orosz (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 2015), 121–128.
81.
Wertner, Az Árpádok családi Története, 142–144; Jenő Horváth, Szent László anyja [The Mother of St. Ladislas] (Budapest: Stephaneum Nyomda, 1943); Zsoldos, The Árpáds and Their Wives, 191.
82.
At one point she had been courted by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, but she married Stephen around 1156–1157. She probably died in Constantinople. Wertner, Az Árpádok családi Története, 337–339; John Kinnamos, trans Charles M. Brand, Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), Book IV, 106; Kerbl, “Byzantinische Prinzessinnen in Ungarn,” 110–112; Vajay, “Byzantinische Prinzessinnen in Ungarn,” 22; Makk, The Árpáds and the Comneni, 64; Konstantinos Varzos, E genealogia ton Komnenon (Thessaloniki: Kentron Vyzantinōn Ereunōn, 1984), Vol. 2, 314–326; Hankó, A magyar királysírok sorsa, 134; Paul Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143–1180 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 58, 62, 79.
83.
Wertner, Az Árpádok családi történeti, 424–435; Zsoldos, The Árpáds and Their Wives, 197; Kosztolnyik, Hungary in the Thirteenth Century, 113–114, 122, 342.
84.
Her primary act as queen was a renewal of privileges to the Dominican nunnery on Margaret Island. Hungarian National Archives (Henceforth MNL), OL DF 1955; Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses, 326; Jolán Balogh, Varadinum: Várad Vára (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1982), Vol. II, 276–278, 283.
85.
Stanislaw Dunin-Borkowski, Psałterz Królowéj Małgorzaty pierwszej małżonki Ludwika I. Króla Polskiego I wegierskiego corki Króla czeskiego I Cesarza Karola IV [Psalter of Queen Margaret, First Wife of Louis I King of Poland and Hungary, Daughter of Emperor Charles IV] (Vienna: Strauss, 1834), vi–viii.

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Mielke, C. (2021). Introduction. In: The Archaeology and Material Culture of Queenship in Medieval Hungary, 1000–1395. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66511-1_1

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66511-1_1
Published: 22 April 2021
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