CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Uhrin, Dorottya |
|---|---|
| Title | The Cult of Saint Dorothy in Medieval Hungary |
| Summary | The present thesis discusses Saint Dorothy’s cult in medieval Hungary. How did the cult arrive? Who were the promoters? What were the main features of the cult? The first two chapters provide the historical circumstances of the formation of virgin martyrs’ cult and the emergence of Saint Dorothy’s cult in Europe. Saint Dorothy was a young virgin, who during the reign of Emperor Diocletian suffered martyrdom in Cappadocia in the Late Antiquity. Legends were produced about her life from the early Middle Ages, however, only from the mid-fourteenth century did she become popular in various European regions, including Italy and Germany. She was particularly popular in German-speaking territories. The third chapter presents the arrival of Saint Dorothy’s cult in Hungary and shows that she was unknown in the Árpádian period. It seems that the cult emerged during the Angevin era. Her veneration became widespread only from the 1360s. Probably Dorothy’s cult connected to clerics from Poland, who arrived in the entourage of Queen Elizabeth Piast, wife of Charles I. Other traces suggest German origin, since her cult was mostly popular in the German-speaking territories of Hungary. The two origins do not exclude each other, because the Polish towns were also frequently populated by Germans. Dorothy’s veneration centered in Szepesség in Hungary, where an extensive fresco cycle commemorates her suffering. The fifteenth and sixteenth-century textual and pictorial representations emphasize the importance of Dorothy’s intercessory power. Besides her imago, the most frequent depiction was her rose miracle. On late medieval altarpieces she accompanied Virgin Mary with other virgins, which refers to her status as sponsa Christi and to her intimate relationship with the mother of Christ. Interestingly, hospitals were also dedicated to Saint Dorothy (usually she was a co-patron), which might have derived from the fact that she promised that she would help to rescue people from poverty. |
| Supervisor | Klaniczay, Gábor |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/uhrin_dorottya.pdf |
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