CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2007
| Author | Weisz, Szidonia Anna |
|---|---|
| Title | The Price of Fidelity. Donations of Coats of Arms for Nobles From Transylvania during the Reign of Sigismund of Luxemburg |
| Summary | The Price of Fidelity. Donations of Coats of Arms for Nobles from Transylvania during the Reign of Sigismund of Luxemburg During his long reign, King Sigismund of Luxemburg (1387-1437) awarded the loyality of his followers with different types of privileges; coats of arms were one of the most popular. Even though this phenomenon has already been researched from several aspects (mostly art historical and heraldic point of view), no approach from social history has been applied for this source category. The aim of my research is to analyze the ten coats of arms given to nobles from Transylvania. On the basis of the available source material (grants of arms and coats of arms) and secondary literature, I tried to answer questions like why was this type of reward so popular, who could receive it and why, which were the characteristics of the coats of arms, and whether it can be stated or not that this award could assure good relations between royalty and nobility. The thesis is structured in three parts. The first chapter gives an overview of the grants of arms as source types, and examines the different parts of the text, searching for elements of royal propaganda and for what kind of information did the public receive from these documents. The next unit is dedicated to the Transylvanians who were awarded with grants of arms. Within the frame of this chapter, a biographical gazeteer is being reconstructed using the available data about these ten nobles. The last chapter gives a heraldic description of the coats of arms studied here, and a brief introduction in the characteristics of the Hungarian heraldry. As regarding for the conclusions, I tried to demonstrate that the donation of grants of arms was consciously used by King Sigismund in order to assure good relationship with his nobles. The whole phenomenon was a double-sided one, as having a coat of arms raised not only the rank of the nobles, but also the prestige of King Sigismund, in whose entourage these nobles were. |
| Supervisor | Katalin Szende |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2007/weisz_szidonia.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University