Research Catalog

Title

Gesta Hungarorum / Anonymi Bele Regis Notarii = The deeds of the Hungarians / Anonymus, notary of King Béla ; edited, translated and annotated by Martyn Rady and László Veszprémy. Epistola in miserabile carmen super destructione regni Hungarie per Tartaros facta / Magisteri Rogerii = Master Roger's Epistle to the sorrowful lament upon the destruction of the kingdom of Hungary by the Tartars / translated and annotated by János M. Bak and Martyn Rady.

Author

Anonymus Belae Regis Notarius

Publication

Budapest ; New York : Central European University Press, 2010.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Rady, Martyn C.
• Veszprémy, László.
• Bak, János M.
• Rogerius, Archbishop of Split, approximately 1201-1266.

Description

xxxvii, 268 p. : ill., maps; 24 cm.

Summary

• This volume contains two very different narratives: a work of literary imagination on early Hungarian history, and an eye-witness account of the Mongol invasion of 1241/42.
• An anonymous notary of King Bela of Hungary (probably Bela III, d. 1196), also Known as P dictus magister, wrote a Latin Gesta Hungarorum, (ca 1200/10), and enigmatic and much disputed work on the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in the late ninth century, including a mythical origo gentis, and a history of the Magyars prior to the foundation of the kingdom in 1000 A.D. Additionally, he wove into it stories of heroic ancestors of the great men of his time. Anonymus (as he is commonly referred to) tried to (re)contruct the events and protagonists--including ethnic groups--of several centuries before from the names of places, rivers, and mountains of his time, assuming that these retained the memory of times past. Based on these, he presented a narrative in the style of the popular romances of the siege of Troy and the exploits of Alexander the Great, also utilizing some oral traditions and earlier chronicles. One of his major "inventions" was the inclusion of Attila the Hun into the Hungarian royal genealogy, a feature later developed into the myth of Hun-Hungarian continuity (by Simon of Keza and other chroniclers). Already translated into most Central-European languages, it is here for the first time presented in an updated Latin text with an annotated English translation.
• The Italian Master Roger (born around the time the retired notary was writing his Gesta) was canon of the cathedral of Varad/Oradea when the Mongols attacked Hungary. He recorded in great detail and vivid prose his experiences, including his hiding from and falling into the hands of the "Tatars". This he prefaced by an astute observation of political conflicts in mid-thirteenth-century Hungary. His description of the events, together with those of Archdeacon Thomas of Split (CEMT 4), is the basic evidence for the horrible devastation of the country by Batu Khan's armies. The present translation is based on the editio princeps of 1488, as no manuscript has survived. --Book Jacket.

Series Statement

Central European medieval texts, 1419-7782 ; v. 5

Uniform Title

• Gesta Hungarorum. Hungarian. English & Latin
• Central European medieval texts ; v. 5.

Alternative Title

• Gesta Hungarorum.
• Deeds of the Hungarians
• Epistola in miserabile carmen super destructione regni Hungarie per Tartaros facta.
• Master Roger's Epistle to the sorrowful lament upon the destruction of the kingdom of Hungary by the Tartars.

Subject

• 1000-1699
• Hungary > History > 1000-1699 > Early works to 1800

Genre/Form

• Early works
• History

Note

• Maps on endpapers.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

ISBN

• 9789639776951 (hardbound)
• 9639776955 (hardbound)

LCCN

^^2010020696

OCLC

• 629700633
• SCSB-10673043

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library