Ernô Marosi
Between East and West
Medieval Representations of Saint Ladislas, King of Hungary
Head Reliquary of Saint Ladislas from Várad (Oradea, Romania). Silver gilt and enamelled, first quarter of 15th century, Cathedral Treasury, Gyôr.
This year marks the nine hundredth anniversary of the death of King Ladislas I (1077-1095) of the House of Árpád, who was canonized in 1192.
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Saint Ladislas has been an important subject in Hungarian art. Up to the present day, his representation has been prominent as an iconographic element, both in Hungarian and Croatian art. In Croatia too, he is honoured as a national saint, being the founder of Zagreb cathedral. Ladislas is clearly one of the knightly national patrons, similar to Saint Maurice in Germany, Saint Wenceslas in Bohemia, or Saint Oswald and later Saint Leopold in Austria.
We do not know how much of the historical figure has been taken into the tradition of his representation. A member of a branch of the House of Árpád he had to flee to neighbouring Slav territories and take the throne by force during the life of his rival Salomon, the crowned king. He had to fight for the ecclesiastical recognition of the legitimacy of his accession. When the Catholic dynasty of Croatia died out, he occupied that country by force and annexed it, in the face of papal objections. Even though his wife was the daughter of the German king, Rudolf of Swabia, a rival of Henry IV's, he sided with the Emperor against the Pope in their dispute over investiture.
All these are features that make it mysterious how, less than a hundred years after his death, he could be canonized. It seems that by then many concrete details concerning his life had sunk into oblivion, and his person had been thoroughly reshaped in the liturgical texts in his honour taking form around that time—hymns, antiphons, legends and sermons. These texts constitute the basis for his representation in the later Middle Ages and they draw the image of a knightly patron saint. [...] One of the triumvirate of the "three Hungarian royal saints" (the kings Saint Stephen and Saint Ladislas and Prince Emericus, Stephen's canonized son).
is Head of the Art History Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Professor at the Art History Department of Eötvös University, Budapest. He has published numerous books and studies on Romanesque and Gothic architecture and sculpture and medieval art in general.
