Heavy Upon Their Shoulders

The year was 1030, and the Kingdom of Hungary had reached a momentous milestone. King Stephen I, the first Christian monarch in that kingdom, had been reigning for 30 years. It was quite the milestone for any monarch, but especially for Stephen, as those years had been often tumultuous ones. Yet the future was still a hopeful one, and something of magnitude needed to be done to commemorate this achievement. While there was undoubtedly many festivities, gifts, and other artistic works completed and given in this time, one of the most important works would be done by Stephen’s beloved wife, Queen Gisella.

Gisella, like many noble women of the time, was highly skilled in embroidery. In her lifetime she likely produced many works that are now lost, but her greatest creation was what became known as the Mantle of St. King Stephen, or the Hungarian Coronation Mantle.

Accounts vary, but it is generally accepted that in 1031, Queen Gisella and her sisters, or ladies-in-waiting, completed the mantle. There are some alternate accounts that she didn’t do the work herself, but in fact commissioned and oversaw it’s creation by nuns at the Veszprém convent. Either way, it was originally made to be a Bishop’s Chasuble, a masterpiece of gold embroidery in couching stitch on a Byzantine blue silk.

“For every centimetre of the Hungarian coronation mantle, about 60 metal threads were fitted and sewn together (couching technique). Thus, 1 cm2 of the embroidery was made with a metal thread about 60 cm long, consuming about triple the amount of wound metal strip. Embroidery of the mantle surface (about 3 m2) consumed a metal strip of over 50 km in length” (Járó 7).

This means that over 31 miles of gold thread was used in a mantle that is only 9.84 feet wide! Because of the immense amount of gold in the mantle, pictures of it often make it red or yellow, since the gold overshadows the blue background.

The design of the cloak is divided into several registers, or levels. God the Father, Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints are placed on the upper levels, with mere mortals such as King Stephen, Queen Gisella, and their ill-fated son Prince Emeric towards the bottom. These portraits of the royal family are the only surviving contemporary portraits of them, and more credence is given to their accuracy given that Queen Gisella is said to have had a hand in making them. One element that is notable about the portrait of Prince Emeric is the time frame when it was done. Depending on whether it was made in 1030 or in 1031, it was either made shortly before or after his death. The argument could be made that it was after, considering that his portrait is smaller than that of this parents, and has been reduced to a bust to fit in a roundel.

The Prince was killed during a boar hunt “accidentally” on 2 September 1031. This of course will never be known for sure, and without absolute proof is pure speculation, but the fact that Emeric’s portrait is different than that of his parents is very notable. His parents’ figures are shown in almost their entirety, from the top of the head to at least the knees, while he is just a small bust. It’s almost like his portrait was included as a memorial, for a king that could have been.

In 1031 it was donated to the Basilica of Our Lady in Székesfehérvár, the royal city. It is unclear how long it was used as a Chasuble, but it was highly cherished by the Hungarian people. The misbelief that King Stephen actually wore any of the royal regalia is common in Hungary, though he certainly would have come in contact with the mantle when it was ceremoniously donated. It was later altered in the 12th century to add a jeweled and beaded collar with additional gold embroidery, for the purpose of using it as a coronation mantle for all future Hungarian Kings.

What is Couching?

The first photo shows a diagram of background couching stitch.

Though it is now known as the crown of Saint Stephen, the crown of the Hungarian monarchy has had a long life as a secular object. Its origins are hotly contested, but it is popularly believed in Hungary that it was in fact worn and commissioned by King Stephen I, crowned the first king of Hungary on 25 Dec 1000 or 1 Jan 1001. Tying the secular together with the sacred, the story goes on to tell how King Stephen held up the crown during the coronation, to offer it to the Virgin Mary, and seal a divine contract between her and the Hungarian monarchy. However, tradition and science don’t always match up.

Though it is highly possible that parts of the crown did in fact belong to the crown worn by King Stephen, it is now generally believed that it dates between the late 11th to the late 12th century in its entirety. Done in a style popular in the Byzantine Empire at the time, the crown is a gold circlet inset with 19 Byzantine produced enamel plaques, illustrating Christ and some of the saints (de Bàràny-Oberschall 121). Large jewels and pearls are intermingled with these plaques, and dangling chains house garnets at their tip, clustered in groups of three. At the top of the arched central piece of the crown is a simple gold cross, bent to one side, knocked crooked in the 17th century when the crown was damaged, possibly by the top of the iron chest used to house the crown being hastily closed without the checking that it was fully inside. The cross has since been left in this crooked position, and is now always depicted as such.

The original cross is believed to have been a double armed one, containing pieces of the True Cross. In her book, Die Ungarischen Krönungsingien, Eva Kovács states that:

“Szabolcs Vajay, called to my attention a strange incident in the crown’s history which had completely escaped everybody’s attention. Before Queen Isabella handed over the regalia to Ferdinand in 1551, she broke the cross off the crown’s peak for her son, John Sigismund. According to a contemporary Polish chronicler, John Sigismund wore this cross on his chest till the end of his life, ‘...because he who possess this cross will again come into possession of the missing parts which, subjected to the power of the cross, had belonged to it’” (Kovács 61).

This would seem to indicate that the “holy” aspect of the crown came from the original cross, making it in fact a reliquary in itself. The removal of the cross reduced it to secular status, a symbol of a noble monarchy with saintly origins. After John Sigismund’s death at a young age, the cross passed into the hands of other nobility, and likely still exists to this day, though its whereabouts are unknown.

How was all of this worn? Our best resource for this comes from a far more recent source, King Charles IV of Austria-Hungary. King Charles was the last king to be crowned in Austria-Hungary, having his coronation on 30 December 1916, only a short while before the First World War would forever split that vast empire in two. Though it is not impossible that one of his royal descendants may one day be invited to be the monarch over Hungary, to date Charles was the last king to ever wear the royal regalia of the Kingdom of Hungary.

King Charles IV, taking his coronation oath at Holy Trinity Column outside Matthias Church -1916.

Blessed Charles of Austria, King of Austria-Hungary, clothed in the Hungarian Coronation Regalia, on the day of his coronation, 30 December 1916.