CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Machalski, Michal Jakub |
|---|---|
| Title | Concepts of loyalty in the earliest Central European chronicles |
| Summary | The thesis focuses on the concepts of loyalty presented in the earliest Central Eropean chronicles, written at the beginning of the twelfth century: Gesta principum Polonorum by Gallus Anonymous, Chronica Boemorum by Cosmas of Prague, and Hungarian Primeval Chronicle which survived as a part of the fourteenth-century century compilation. The analysis of those works, closely connected to the ruling elites of recently Christianized Central European polities, attempts to address the question of how their authors understood and used the concept of loyalty, one of the fundamental ideas underlying medieval society. The following comparative analysis of the way in which authors of earliest Central European chronicles characterized the content of loyalty as the norm present at the center of multiple societal bonds. As such it finds its methodological underpinnings in the concept of Spielregeln, unwritten but widely known rules governing society, developed by Gerd Althoff. The analysis is divided into parts corresponding to the different social bonds in which loyalty plays an important role and which are depicted in the earliest Central European chronicles: the relationship between God and the faithful, kinsmen, and allies, and between the ruler and his subjects. This approach results in the analysis that shows common ideological underpinnings of the concepts of loyalty used in Central European sources. Despite differences in the overall structures and messages of all three works, they present a vision of loyalty as primarily a reciprocal bond, even in the asymmetrical relationships between believers and the divine or subjects and rulers. This highlights the ideological message of consensual lordship, which coexists in those narratives next to the strong ideas about the divine origins of dynastic authority. This presents another set of similarities in the political and cultural development of Central Europe as a historical region. |
| Supervisor | Nagy, Balazs; Szende, Katalin |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/machalski_michal.pdf |
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