Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe (review)

Although the author of this book turns to his topic in a most original manner—the narrative is developed on a broad intellectual scale based on a thorough mastery of the material—his theme, the cult of women saints of royal families, reminds this reviewer of the ideas so densely laid down in the magisterial work by Alois Dempf, Sacrum imperium (Berlin, 1929; 4th ed., 1973), of the arguments by Friedrich Heer, Europäische Geistesgeschichte, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1965), and of the thoughts of Giles Constable formulated in his grandiose The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1996). These three scholars must have had quite an impact on him.

The author cleverly nourishes a trend of thought embedded in the western Latin circle of themes—be it the formation of the cult of male and female saints, including the descendants of Anglo-Saxon or Frankish royal families—so that upon the foundation he has thus established he may research the gradual development of the respect for devotion to and the evolving calendar of holidays of the saintly male and female scions of the Hungarian royal family, and he does it in a most carefully detailed manner.

The author carefully adheres to strict academic standards while pursuing his work on a solid scholarly base. It is evident from the approach he has taken that he has done his home work—he has for a longer period of time been working on and around his theme—in order to develop his thesis conscientiously. His published pre-studies in the recent past developed with meticulous detail, "Rex Iustus: Le saint fondateur de la royauté chrétienne," Les hongrois et l'Europe: conquête et intégration, ed. Sándor Csernus and Klára Korompay (Paris and Szeged, 1999), pp. 357ff., or his "The Cult of St. Ladislas in the 12-14 Centuries" (in Hungarian), in A középkor szeretete [Historical studies in the Middle Ages], ed. Gábor Klaniczay and Balázs Nagy (Budapest, 1999), pp. 357ff.; further, "The Cult of Miraculous Deeds of St. Ladislas in Our Chronicles" (in Hungarian), Magyar Könyvszemle, 117 (2001), 393ff., studies that led to a positive debate and constructive criticism from József Gerics, "Les problèmes de sources de la représentation de Saint-Ladislas dans la légende et dans la chronique (hongroise)," Magyar Könyvszemle, 118 (2002), 1ff. In his previous studies, Gerics had already dealt with the theme, as, for example, in his articles published in 1994 and 1974, which were reprinted in his Egyház, állam és gondolkodás Magyarországon a közepkorban [Church, realm, and thought in medieval Hungary] (Budapest, 1995), pp. 137ff., and 185ff., respectively.

In this book, Klaniczay divides his discussion into six chapters. In these chapters he analyzes in microscopic detail the material he has chosen to work with. After discussing the historical and ideological development of kingship and of the king's sublime office, of divine descent merging into anointed sacral Christian rulership, the author in the next chapter turns to discussing the theme of Christian royal martyrs and of (canonized and beatified) saintly queens, while bearing in mind the gradual evolution of the Christian concept of the king out of the pagan idea of rulership, so that, in the third chapter, entitled Rex iustus, he analyzes in depth the actualization of the idea of Christian kingship. Klaniczay takes this opportunity to report on the elevation (canonization) in 1083 of the first Hungarian saints, King Stephen I, his son and heir, Prince Emery, and the Venetian-born Gerard, the first bishop of Csanád, the tutor of Emery, and King Stephen's most trusted advisor. He also depicts the political-social background of their canonization, and, perhaps as an afterthought, in less...