Pope Sylvester II and Stephen I of Hungary

Author(s): Lewis L. Kropf

Source: The English Historical Review, Vol. 13, No. 50 (Apr., 1898), pp. 290-295
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/547228
Accessed: 10-05-2015 21:55 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The English Historical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 132.203.227.61 on Sun, 10 May 2015 21:55:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 290 PIOPE SYLVESTER II April

POPE SYLVESTER II AND STEPHEN I OF HUNGARY.

the bull said to have been issued by Sylvester II to the

ALTHOUGH
first king of Hungary is admitted by competent authorities to be a
forgery, presumably of the seventeenth century,' it may not be
without interest to give a short account of the present state of
the controversyamong Hungarian scholars relative to the question.
The orthodoxstory is that the son of the last duke of Hungary,
the latter having embracedChristianity,applied to the pope about
the year 1000 for a crown, which request was readily granted.
The crown was subsequently united with another sent by the
emperorof the East to Geza I (after 1074), and the two diadems
thus conjoined form the present 'holy crown' or ' St. Stephen's
crown,' used at the coronationof the kings of Hungary. Accom-
panying his gift Sylvester II is said to have issued a bull investing
Stephen and his successors with the full powersof a papal legate;
and in token of this office the Hungarian kings have ever since
borne the title of 'Apostolic King' and enjoyed the privilege of
having an apostolic double cross carried before them on solemn
occasions. The doublecross appears as the principal charge on
the sinister half of the Hungarian escutcheon.
In 1880 a committee was appointedby the Hungarian Academy
of Sciences to examine the coronationinsignia, and the results of
its inquirieswerepublishedby Dr. ArnoldIpolyi, bishopof Neusohl,
one of its members.2 The official position this prelate held in the
Roman church has probablybiassed him in favour of the old view,
but the facts contained in his book can lead only to the conclusion
that, even if the story related in the legend of the life of the king is
true, and Sylvester II did really send a crown to Stephen, not a
vestige of it can be seen in the present ' holy crown.' This con-
sists of a crown of Byzantine workmanship,3which was originally
open (i.e. a ' stephanos'), but was subsequentlytransformedinto a
closed crown (i.e. a 'stemma') by having two cross-bands sur-
mounted by a cross soldered to the open hoop. The bands are
embellishedwith the images of the Saviour and eight apostles in
enamel of apparentlywestern design, if not workmanship. It is
difficultto believe that the crown sent by Sylvester was brokenup
and that only a small portion of the material was embodiedin the
' Jaffe, Regesta Pontifictum, i. (ed. 2, 1885) 497; Wattenbach in Monln.. Germ.
Hist., Script. xi. (1854) 233, n. 35.
2 A
magyar szent korona "Esa korondzdsi jelvenyek leirdsa Os tortenete. Buda-
pest, 1886. The Hungarian coronation insignia have been described also by Canon
Bock, Ivanfi, Dr. Hampel, Charles Pulszky, and others.
3 The Byzantine crown is embellished with the
images (in enamel) of various
Greek saints in addition to those of the donor Michael Doukas, his son Constantine
Porphyrogennetos (the younger), and the king of Hungary, whose image bears the fol-
lowing inscription in Greek characters: rEfBITZ 'C nIICTOCKPALHC TOTPKIAC (of
Turkey, i.e. Hungary)

This content downloaded from 132.203.227.61 on Sun, 10 May 2015 21:55:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
1898 AND STEPHEN I OF HUNGARY 291

existing crown, as the hoop which formedthe base of the original

diadem, and probablyalso the images of four of the apostles, are
missing.4 Hence it is probablethat the bands in questionoriginally
did not formpart of a crown at all, but were merely utilised in
transformingthe open crown into a closed one, and that probably
the images of the other four apostles were on the extremitiesof the
existing bands, but were cut off.
Some Hungarian writers are beginning to doubt whether Syl-
vester ever did send a crown to Stephen. For when Gregory VII
claimed Hungary as a fief in 1074 he made no allusion to any
such gift. The only Hungarian crown mentioned in his corre-
spondenceis the one which together with a spear was forwardedto
Rome by the emperorHenry III, after his victory at Menf6 in 1044,
where he had the good fortune to capture the Hungarian king Aba
with his crown and spear. Nor did Gregoryrefer to any bull or
any other document.5
As regards the title of '-apostolic king' another Hungarian
bishop, Monsignor Fraknoi, has lately published a volume on the
wider subject of the history of the Hungarian king's powers as
patron of the state-church,a treatise based to a large extent on
hitherto unpublishedmaterial.6 The author shows that the title in
question was assumed only a few centuries ago, and that at the
outset it was a mere title, conferring no privilege whatever on the
bearer. The first attempt to obtain an officialgrant or acknowledg-
ment from Rome was made by Louis II when Pope Leo X granted
to Henry VIII of England the title of 'defender of the faith.'
Another attempt-again ineffectual-was made by Ferdinand III
in 1627. Some years later, in 1649, we findthe Hungarianprelates
4 Dr.
Ipolyi gives an illustration of the crown as he thinks it may have looked
when received from Sylvester. Another such imaginary sketch figures in Dr. Bock's
latest contribution to the literature of the subject (De corona S. Stephani, Aachen,
1896), in which he still maintains that the cross hoops forming the upper portion of
the crown were made in Rome at the end of the tenth century. On the other hand
N. P. Kondakov, basing his opinion on the style of the workmanship only, assigns
them to the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century (Byzantinische
Zellen-Emails, Frankfurt, 1892, p. 239). Julius Pauler, the author of the latest
standard book of history of Hungary during the reign of the Arpad dynasty, surmises
that it was the crown sent by Sylvester that was captured by the German emperor at
Menfb and returned by him to Rome. Not a vestige of it is known at present. Ac-
cording to Ciampini the spear was still in existence in his time (De sacris aedificiis,
Romae, 1693, p. 79).
5 In 1074 the pope writes to King Solomon of Hungary as follows: ' Sicut a
maioribus patriae tuae cognoscere potes, regnum Ungariae sanctae Romanae ecclesiae
proprium est, a rege Stephano olim beato Petro cum omni iure et potestate sua
oblatum et devote traditum.' In the next sentence he states that 'Henricus [III] piae
memoriae imperator, ad honorem sancti Petri regnum illud expugnatum victo rege
[Ovone] et facta victoria ad corpus beati Petri lanceam, coronamque transmisit; et
pro gloria triumphi sui illuc regni direxit insignia, quo principatum dignitatis eius
attinere cognovit.' See Jaff's MonumientaGregoriana p. 128 (Berlin, 1865).
" A magyar kirdlyi kegyiri jog szent Istvdnt6l Mdria Terzidig, by W. Frakn6i.
Budapest, 1895.
2

This content downloaded from 132.203.227.61 on Sun, 10 May 2015 21:55:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 292 POPE SYLVESTER II April
engaged in a controversywith the pope,defendingtheir king's right
to nominate candidatesto vacant sees or to translate bishops as he
pleased by virtue of his power as apostolicking. In reply,the pope
denies the existence of any such power or the validity of any such
title, and refers the Magyarprelates to the 'Annals' of Baronius
and to the 'Life of Saint Stephen, the king,' by Hartvicus, both of
which authorities make the investiture with the title of 'apostolic
and with legatine powersa purelypersonal distinction conferredon
Stephen, and not transmitted to his successors.7 Again no reference
was made by either party to any bull of Sylvester II, though the
text of that famous documenthad already, in 1644, been published
-and at Rome-by the Jesuit MIelchiorInchofer in his 'Annales
Ecclesiastici Regni Hungariae.'8 The right to the title of 'apostolic
king' was, in fact, not acknowledgedby the pope till 1758, when,
as almost the first act after his accession, Clement XIII granted it
to Maria Theresa and her successors on the throne of Hungary,
together with the privilege of having the apostolic double cross
borne beforeher and them by a bishop. In his letter the pope
refers to the practice and privilege as one the origin of which is
unknownto him. The doublecross among the coronationinsignia
is quite modern.
On the other hand, the apostolic double cross as an heraldic
charge first appeared on a seal of Bela IV in 1243. From that
date onwardfor about seventy years it formed the sole charge in
the royal arms until the first Angevin king, Charles Robert, dis-
continued its use, and resumed that of the more ancient shield
barry of eight, with which he impaled his own coat of lilies.
The regular use of the arms of Hungary as they are arrangedat
present dates only from the reign of 'king' Maria Theresa.
BishopFrakn6idoes not mentionthe fact that not even StephenI
himself made use of the title of ' apostolicking.' It is true that
in a documentattributedto him he is made to style himself ' Dei
miserationeet apostolicae Sedis gratia HungarorumRex,' but the
charter in question is a clumsy forgery. Apart from its glaring
anachronismsthe documentdisplays ignorancenot only of the for-
mulae used in Stephen's chancery, but also of the history of the
religious house in whose favour it was fabricated. There are about
half a score of undoubtedlygenuine charters by Stephen extant,
and in all of these he is simply styled 'Stephanus, Dei Gratia
7 The author of the life was a
Bishop Hartvicus, who dedicated his book to Coloman,
king of Hungary (1095-1116). For the latest phase of the controversy about the
authorship see the Acta Sanctorum, November, t. ii., p. 479, which gives a bibliography
of the literature down to 1894. Since then further contributions on the
subject
have appeared by Julius Pauer and Dr. Karacsonyi in vol. xxviii. of the
Szdzadok, by
R. F. Kaindl in vol. lxxxi. of the Archivfiir iisterr. Gesch., 1895, and
by Kentrzynski in
vol. xxxiv. of the Rozprcwy of the Cracow Academy, 1897.
s I have not been able to see the original edition. The book was reprinted in
1695-97 at Pressburg.

This content downloaded from 132.203.227.61 on Sun, 10 May 2015 21:55:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 1898 AND STEPHEN I OF HUNGARY 293

Ungariae Rex,' or by the grace of God 'Pannoniorum Rex' or

'Hungarorum Rex,' &c.9
As for the ' Bull of Sylvester II,' nobody seems to have heard
of it until Inchofer published its text in 1644. The editor admits
that he had not seen the original himself, but, as far as we can
understand him, had only a copy supplied to him by Raphael
Levakovics,a Franciscan friar of Croatian origin, living at Rome,
and taken froma transcriptmade in 1550 by the Hungarian bishop
Verancsics (NicolausVerantius) from the original, which was then
in the muniment room of the chapter of Trau in Dalmatia, but was
subsequently,it is said, transferred to Venice with the rest of the
more important documentsbelonging to the chapter. There is no
recordof any one else having seen the original, and moreover,if
Verancsicsdid see it, it must have been at. some other date, as he
spent the whole of the year 1550 in Hungary, only occasionally
visiting Vienna. He had a friend at Trau,AndronicusTranquillus,
but the extant correspondencewith him is silent aboutthe discovery
of such an important documentas the 'bull' of Sylvester. Other
suspicious features are that in the preamble the Hungariansare
describedby the pope as a people unknown to him (' ignota nobis
gens '), and Stephen's envoy is styled' bishop of Kalocsa' (episco-
pus Colocensis)-as though Gerbert had never heard anything
before about the Magyars and their inroads into Germanyand
various other parts of western Europe, and as though there could
have been a bishop of Kalocsa without any knowledge of him in
Rome. Finally Dr. Karacsonyihas shown '1 that in its structure
the bull totally differs from the formulae strictly observed in the
chancery of Sylvester II, and that the forger copied some of the
passages from letters of GregoryVII and others from the legend of
king Stephen, the latter not from any of the older texts, but from
one published with certain emendations of style by Lawrence
Surius in 1576. Dr. Karacsonyiprints the text of the 'bull' in
three differenttypes to distinguish the variouselements. The lines
(sometimes only isolated words) which supply the links by which
the passages taken from Gregory'sletters and the 'Life' by Hart-
vicus were connectedby the forger,are printed in ordinarytype and
form a very small portion of the whole document.
Dr. Karacsonyi did not go into the question who was the
forger, but Fraknoi supplies a clue to the authorship. He prints
an extract from a letter written by Levakovics from Vienna to
Cardinal Aldobrandini, in which the writer says that he has
'given' (i.e. sent) to the Hungarians the text of a letter of Pope
9 All his charters but one are in Latin. In the
only Greek charter extant he
styles himself ' yZd XT'efpavo Xptariavds . . X.pdx raaoi.sOyypLas.'
O1Szent-Istvdn kirdly oklevelei es a Szilveszter-bulla. Budapest, 1891.

This content downloaded from 132.203.227.61 on Sun, 10 May 2015 21:55:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
294 POPE SYLVESTER II April

Sylvester, which will convince them that their opinion about the
extent of the power and rights of their king in spiritual matters is
erroneous. He promises to take care to have the letter in question
published in some way or other. It was his original intention to
aver that the letter had been discovered in Rome, but on second
thoughts he dared not do so without the cardinal's consent."
Aldobrandini'sreply has not yet been discovered. The conclusion
at which Fraknoi arrives is that Levakovicswas not himself the
forger, because if a man is too scrupulousto spread a false report
about the place of discoverywithout the sanction of his superiors,
it is not likely that he will actually forge a document. It may,
however, be urged that the friar was not above telling a deliberate
falsehood,and was only afraid of the consequencesof fixing upon
Rome as the place of discoverywithout the previous knowledgeand
consent of his superiors. Fraknoi's other contention that Rome
had no hand in the perpetrationof the forgery,is no doubtcorrect.
The document,if genuine, wouldhave materially assisted the case
of the king of Hungary, who was just at that period, in 1644,
engaged in a controversywith Romeregardinghis claim of legatine
privileges. When GregoryVII intended to lay hands on Hungary
as a fief, he based his claim upon the fact-then well known,
according to him, at the Hungarian court-that Stephen I had
offered his kingdom to St. Peter. The forged bull also mentions
this donation, and a few lines lower down makes the pope return
the gift to Stephen and his legitimate successors, stipulating, how-
ever, that every lawfully elected king of Hungary should, at his
accession, either personallyor by envoys renew the declarationof
obedienceand reverence as subject of the Holy Roman Church.
In continuation Sylvester is made to concede to Stephen and his
heirs and legitimate successors the very power and privileges
which were refused in the seventeenth century. Had Rome
been anxious at that particulartime to produce false evidence in
support of the cause against the king of Hungary, the tenor of
such documentwould have been totally different from that of the
false bull of Sylvester.
With regard to the question as to whatwerethe rights conferred
upon Stephen by Pope'Sylvester in ecclesiastical matters, the king
in his charters constantly refers to some papal authority,'2but no
contemporary record exists defining the character and limits of
1 ' Gran persuasione hanno gli Ungheri che nessun diritto abbia il papa al
regno
loro, essendo convertiti dai suoi re. Per generare a loro opinione migliore ho dato
certe lettere del papa Silvestro e procurer6che vengano al publico in qualche maniera.
Pensava di promulgarle come trovate a Roma; ma senza la permissione e saputa di
vossignoria illustrissima non mi fidai, come Monsignor Ingoli, al quale indrizzo la
copia, tutto raguaglierA.' The date of the letter is not given.
12 Some of the expressions used in his charters are ' auctoritate Romanae Eccle-
siae;' or 'cum consensu Sanctissimi Apostolici et in presentia eius nuncii;' or
' consensu et confirmatione Auctoritatis Apostolicae.'

This content downloaded from 132.203.227.61 on Sun, 10 May 2015 21:55:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
1898 AND STEPHEN I OF HUNGARY 295
such authority. There is, however,ample evidence forthcomingto
prove that Stephen had powers conferredon him equal to those of
a papal legate a latere. Apart from the passage contained in his
life 3 we have, for instance, the testimony of Pope Urban II,14 of
King Bela IV of Hungary,15the latter not contestedby GregoryIX,
and above others that of Pope Paul II, who, in 1465, refers to some
canons wherein it had been placed on record that Stephen had
acted as the representative of the Roman See, and had held the
officeof a papal legate.'6 In Dr. Karicsonyi's opinion,such powers
were not conferredon Stephen until about the year 1031.
LEWISL. KNOPF.

OXFORDSHIRE TRACES OF THE NORTHERN INSURGENTS OF 10605.

No one who looks throughthe Domesdayvaluations in Oxfordshire

can fail to notice that, while in general they are about the same
T.R.E. and T.R.W., in many good-sizedmanors the valet is much
above the valuit. The low early values cannot be due to Norman
ravages, for they all presumably go back to T.R.E., and in many
cases we have full triple valuations, nor did William in his
march to London go west of a line drawn from Wallingford to
Buckingham. The distribution of these manors is worth noting,
and I will add after each the valuationsin pounds, beginning with
the earliest. They lie (a) down the Cherwell; Drayton (5-8),
Adderbury(12-20), Deddington (40-40-60), Somerton (9-12), Tew
(20-20-40), Sandford St. Martin (10-20), Aston (10-14), Barton
(12-20), Heyford(8-10-12), Middleton(18-18-30), Tackley(8-8-17),
Weston (8-12), Shipton (2-4), Islip (7-8-10), Beckley (5-8); with
a few further west, ChippingNorton (16-22), Chadlington(8-14),
Tainton (10-10-15), Norton Brise (9-13), Stanton Harcourt
(30-30-50); (b) from Oxford down the Thames; Baldon (4-4-7),
Brook Hampton (6-10), Ascott (5-8), Newington(11-15), Crow-
marsh (10-10-20), Newnham(12-17), Mongewell(10-14), Goring
(10-10-15), Whitchurch(15-20), Mapledurham(8-8-12), Rother-
13 The
pope is made to say: 'Ego sum apostolicus, ille [Stephanus] vero merito
Christi apostolus . . . quapropter dispositioni eiusdem . . . ecclesias Dei simul cum
populo utroque jure ordinandas relinquimus.' Endlicher, lMont1cnta, 172.
" The pope writes in 1096 as follows: ' Quicquid honoris, quicquid dignitatis pre-
decessor tuus Stephanus ab apostolica nostra ecclesia promeruisse dignoscitur.' Fejer,
Codex Diplomn.Hun1g. ii. 15.
15B61a IV
having been asked by the pope to occupy schismatic Bosnia, he begs, in
1238, for legatine powers in Bosnia, similar to those once enjoyed by Stephen (in
Hungary), and to be allowed to have a cross borne before him and his army when
proceeding through Hungary to the conquest of the new province. Theiner, Vet.
rMotnumeta Mlng. illustr. i. 171.
l6 'Legimus . . .
[Stephanum] vices apostolicac sedis . . ct ofliciumi legacionis
accepisse, quod etiam in canonibus memoriae proditum invenitur.' l1uoluml. Vaticanla
Hutg. ser. I. vol. vi. no. 54.

This content downloaded from 132.203.227.61 on Sun, 10 May 2015 21:55:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions