NOTES ON CERTAIN HERALDICAL PROBLEMS Cover Image
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HERALDIKAI MEGJEGYZÉSEK II.
NOTES ON CERTAIN HERALDICAL PROBLEMS

Author(s): Imre Holl
Subject(s): History, Archaeology, Middle Ages, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
Published by: Akadémiai Kiadó
Keywords: archaeology; heraldic; notes; Hungary; Sicily; coat of arms; French codex;

Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses a complex question connected with a heraldical problem. The origin is one of the illustrations of a French codex, the “Armorial de la Toison d’Or”. The questionable identification of a person depicted there resulted in many erroneous conclusions in the literature, 6–8 which were cited further.15–16 “The king of Hungary” figure in the Armorial (Fig. 3.1) was erroneously identified with king Sigismundus.6 We prove that the crest with an ostrich was not taken over by Sigismundus – this can be connected only with the Angevins (Fig. 7), not with the kingdom of Hungary. We refute the notion that king Carl Robert was the first to grant crests, and that crested helmets were only used at tournaments (Fig. 6). The crest is an important part of the coat of arms, and were used in military campaigns, as it is documented in charters and in chronicles.37–39 The illustrations of the Armorial contain pictures of kings and princes of Europe. These are not pictures of existing persons, but generalized portraits, unlike the pictures of French knights. Their attire mirrors the luxurious customes usual in France during that period. It can be proved that such were not used in those countries which are represented by the picture – like the horse’s trapper with coats of arms. The illustrator of the codex wanted to represent these foreign kings dressed similarly than the French knights. “The King of Sicily” illustration (Fig. 3.3) shows the coats of arms of the Angevin king Renée, but the crested helmet is probably based on the idea of the illustrator. According to the data available to us, the crest of “le Bon Roi Renée” between 1435–1465 was rather the white eagle of Lotharingia, and later he used the Fleur-de-lis. Although he always used the red-white stripes of Hungary in his coats of arms, but that could be connected with his king of Naples title. We discuss the question of the coat of arms of the Hungarian state, and the crests belonging to this (Figs 5, 7.1, 11), which is not the same as the crests of the different royal families (in case of Sigismundus, coming from the Bohemian coat of arms; Fig. 10).

  • Issue Year: 133/2008
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 67-84
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Hungarian