III.

HISTORY

A Le,,~endfrom the 1/ Chronicon Pictum Vindob..tnense"

about the Coming of the Hungarians in Transylvania by AlexandruMadgearu

.la

The study of the narrative sources referring~ to the Hungari<:m conquest of Transylvania must rely on a real criticism, because various historians used these sources in a wrong way, which has had as a result the creation of a halflegendary history (or, of a "my tho-history", if we are following the expression of Dennis Deletant1). This is the case of some Romanian writings, like $tefan Pascu's Voievodatul Transilvaniei, orlike the first volume of the Military History of the Romanian People (published in 1984)2.But, there are also some Hungarian studies marked by the same lack of criticism that is proper to the tendentious historiography of both countries. This lack of criticism led to the evolvement of a theory that dates in 896 the first coming of the Hungarians in Transylvania. This point of view, maintained by Gy6rgy Gyorffy3 and Istvan Bona4, is based on a passage from the Chronicon Pictum Vindobonense, which was resumed also by Chronicon Posoniense, Chronic on Monacense, Chronic on Henrici deMiigeln. J. Bona is thinking that these XIVth Century chronicles are keeping the tradition written down in the lost primary Gesta of the XIth Century. This fradition says that the Hungarian duke Almas entered with his people in Transylvania, befst the conquest of Pannonia and that Almas was killed here, in Erdelw, in the same country where Hungarians built up seven earth fortresses for their families:

,J J..e

Exinde montesdescenderunt per tresmenseset deveniuntin cinfiniumregniHungarie, scilicet in Erdelw invitis gentibus memoratis. Ibique terreis castris septem preparatis pro uxoribus

et rebus suis conservandis aliquamdiu permanserunt. Quapropter Teutonici partem illam ab illo die Simburg, id est septem castravocaverunt. (...) Almus in patria Erdelw occisus est, non enim potuit in Pannoniam introire. In Erdelw igitur quieverunt et pecorasua recreaverunt5. We agree with 1. Bona6, when he observes that the explanation of the name Siebenbiirgen~is a later addition in the text. Gy. Gyorffy is instead very confident in the trustworthyness of the tradition about the seven fortresses; he supposes that the Hungarians reused the ruins of the Roman cities7. This theory is not a recent one. It was sustained also by Henrik Marczali, Balint Homan and Alfred Domanovszky8. It is however surprising that this legend was used without any criticism by historians like Gy. Gyorffy and 1.Bona. In other circumstances, they were very exigent as concerns the traditions written down in the Anonymus
Gesta Hungarorum9. }

We think that the legend transmitted by the Chronic on Pictum Vindobon.~nse could be considered a doubtful one, because it was not written down also in the elder sources, like the Anonymus Gesta or the Simon of Keza's Gesta. The legend presented above could be only a later and confused version of another tradition. The elder gesta written in XIIIth Century are giving detailed relations about the duke Almas and about the way followed by his people, from Scythia to Pannonia. The way crossed by north of Carpathians and not by Transylvania. This version l!-.-L mentioned also in the Chronicon Pictum Vindobonense, in contradiction1!) with tfiat one contained in the legend of Almas.

:> 63

According to the Anonymous Gesta, Almos conceded to Arpad his leadership after the conquest of the fortress Ungl1. The trustworthyness of this'informatibn'is out of ()yr subject. We shouldnote only that this tradition explains why the an9ther legend says that Almos was killea. in Transylvania: it was made a misunderstanding between Erdeuelu (Transylvania) and"1'fjif- the name of,the ;woody region of Ung12. . This explanation is convincing but not sufficient. Weshall,se"e that tJ;lereIS another passage that could clarify how evolved the legend about the killing o,'Almos in Transylvania. The work of Simon of Keza was composed after the Anonymous Gesta and before the XIVth Century's chronicles. The latter used it as a source. The moment of the conquest of the fortress Ung was related by Simon of Keza in a different way. He says that Hungarians founded a fortress near the river Hung: ... et deinde in fluvio Hung vocato/ubi castrum fundavere resederunt. A quo, quidamfluvio Hungari a gentibus occidentis, sunt vocati13. The etimology of the name Hungari is wrong. The real origin of the name is from QnogurF4. On fhe'other hand, the building of a fortress in that~momeI1t is an anachronism thatcouhf be lipderstopd if we think that the author wrote into an .age of very intensive
n

."~

I'~

building

activity.

,",.

'.. We see theref()re how t~e original ,tradition written down by the Anonymous Magister was distorted evel}J5y $imop. of Ke~a. ., The passage from=the 6esta,of Sin)on of Ke~a quoted above [ollows with thes~
words: Cumque et alia sexcastra
post

huncfunda~senfaliquamdiu;

inJllis partibus permansere.

fz H ung... J'UVlO

Therefore, according to Simon of Kep, Hungarians built up seven fortresses in the region of river Hung (these six and the first one mentioned above). ~" Our opinion is ,that later chroniclers understood this r~f~rence to the seven fortresses as an allusion at tIle geographical name Septem Castra. The Ge~P1an name of Transylvania, Siebenburgen, became usual in XIVth Century and it was translated in Lafin sources as Septem Castra or Septem Urbium1s. Tttis confusion betvyeen the building of seven fortresses and the name Septem Cas!r,a"ledto th~creaticmof the legend a]:1outthe coming of AlJ1losin Transylvania.This legend ,evolved in the bookish 111ilieu.It had no~propagandisti<; or symbolic purposej. because meqieval political idea"s about Jhe possesion of"aJerriforij were baseq, on the right given by the conquest anc:ino~ton~historical arguIJJents.~ :~., .. Anpthei pas~age fl9illthe work~QfSiinon~ofKeza shows agaifl how,later chroniclers distorted elc:!ersources. SimoD,>;of~Keza wrote about the victory against Z,-:atoplug that: .~.Huncquidem H/{ngaridefluvio IJung variis,mlmeribus allectum... The same passage was . resuJ11ed by Chronic on Pictum, but with an addition: .;.Hungari de Erdelw et de 16' .

."

~.

..

~ e

-~

Our poinf of view about the origin and the significance o~~thelegend discussed above is not a neJ'VoDe. It was expressed in.another way also by c.A.Macartney17. In his study about the supposed Almos' grJ1ve,Nandor Fettich showed tqo that the item patria E!:<;lelw from Chlonicln Rictumcould not ~ejdentified with Iral1sylvania and that the legend about the Klitng of Alll1os in Transy:lvania ismistaken1s. ~
"

We can conclude th~t the theorythat."dates"arognd", 896 the .first arrival of

e.

Hungarians in Transylvarii?: cpilld not be ~fottnded on~fhe legend written down in Chronicon Pidum. On the o'ther hand, this theory is contradicted by the res.ults of the arch\>olog~cal re~earches, which are proving, that Hungarians did.not come in Tra~~lvailiasrosslng by the Eas!ern Carpathians..The oldest Hungarianograves and objests were dJscpyered ~nly in Western Transylvania, at Cluj-N~apoca, Alba Iulia and Deva, and are mis.~iri.g,inEastern and South-E'ls.tern Transylvania19. ~ " Despite all evidence"Istvan Fodor and .Gy6rgy.Gy/5rffy,daimesl that Hungarians conquered the whole Transyly;ania in &94-895(and ui1til900.the whole Carpathian Basin);o. This pomt of view, which is not only tendentious ,buFalsoqo,-:ersimple, is contradicted,by:tpe well grounded researches thatme";f,ounded ort the study of all the earliest Hungariiom archaeological materials. The extensive study published in 1985by

Attila KiSS21 proves that Hungarians conquered primarily only the Hungarian Puszta. We did not wish to discuss here the study of Attila Kiss, butwe want to point out its importance for the archaeology of medieval Transylvania. The real significance of the legend written down in Chronicon Pictum shows that Hungarian medieval chronicles must be interpreted with great carefulness.
NOTES 1. D. Deletant, Ethno-History or My tho-History? The Case of the Chrc:pejler Anonymus, in Idemj Studies in Romanian History, Bucharest, 1991, p. 332-335. 2. See the critical point of view about these books expressed by Radu Papa. Remarques et complements concernant I'histoire de la Roumanie autour de l' An Mil, im RRH,33, 1994, 1-2, p. 123-157 (Romanian version in SCIV A, 1991, 3-4, p. 154-188) and the reply of ~t. Olteanu, Din nou despre istoria Romaniei din jurul anului 0 Mie, in SCIV A, 44, 1993, 4, p. 375-385. 3. Gy. Gy6rffy, Landnahme, Ansiedlung und Streifziige der Ungarn, in "Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae", 31, 1985, 3-4, p. 239-240,244. 4. I. Bona, in Histoire de la Transylvanie, sous la direction de B. Kopeczi, Budapest, 1992, p.1l8,120. 5. Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum(SRH), ed. E. Szentpetery, Budapest, 1937, I,p. 286. The passages were resumed by the later chronicles: Chronicon Pasoniense (SRH, II, p. 32); Chronic on Monacense (SRH, II,p. 61); Chronicon Henrici de Miigeln (SRH,II,p. 128). 6,1. Bona, op.cit., p. 120. 7. Gy. Gy6rffy, op.cit, p. 240. 8. See the quotations in Aurel Decei, Relap.i romano-orientale, Bucuresti, 1978, p. 60 and in C. A. Macartney, Studies on the Earliest Hungarial} Sources,~III, Budapest, 1940, p. 39. 9. See, for instance, Gy.Gy6rffy, J:;ormation d'Etats au IXe siecle suivant les "Gesta Hungarorum" des Notaire Anonyme, in Nouvelles etudes historiques, 1, Budapest, 1965, p. 27-53 and 1.Bona, op.cit., p. 114-116" '" 10. See V. Spinei, Migratia ungurilor in spatiul carpato-dunarean si eontaetele lor eu ungurll in seeblele IX-X, in "Arheologia Moldovei", 13, 1990, p. 120. 11. Chapter XIII (SRH, I, p. 52) 12. This is the opinion of: Gh. Popa-Lisseanu, Introducere in Izvoarele Istoriei Romanilor, XI. Croniea pictata de la Viena, Bucure~ti, 1937, p. XXXI-XXXII;V. Spinei, op. cit., p. 121; M. , Dogaru,1e role de lamontagne dans la perpeh!ation du peuple roumain, dans la formation de sa pensee et de son art militaire au Moyen Age, in the volume La guerre et la montagne dans I'hi~toire des Roumains, Bucarest, 1991, p. 86-87; Idem, De la Esculeu la Alba Iulia. Un mileriiu de istorie romaneasdi in cronistica si istoriografia ungaro-germana, Bucure;;ti, 1993, p. 25,33. 13. SRH, I,p. 165. 14.H. Gregoire, Le nom et l' origine des Hongrois, Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenHindischen Gesellschaft": 91,1937,3, p. 630:'642;I. Boba,Nomads, Northmen and Slavs. Eastern Europe in Ninth Century, The Hague-Wiesbaden, 1967, p. 74-75. 15. About the etimology of Siebenburgen, see Th.Nagler, A;;ezarea sa;;ilor in Transilvaniaz, Bucure$ti, 1992, p. 197-203. 16. Simon of Keza: SRH, I,p. 163;Chr. Pictum: SRH,l, p. 281. See also Chr. Posoniense (SRH, II, p. 30) and Chr. Henrici de Mugeln (SRH,II, p. 127). 17. C. A. Macartney, op.cit., p. 39-41. 18. V. Budinsky-Kricka, N. Fettich, Das altungarische Fiirstengrab von Zemplin, Bratislava, 1973, p. 126, 128, 130. 19. See especially: A. Kiss, Studien zur Archaologie der Ungarn im 10. upd 11. Jh., in Die Bayern und ihre Nachbarn, II ("Denkschriften der osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-HistorischeKlasse", 180), Wien, 1985, p. 217-379; K. Horedt, Siebenbiirgen im Friihmittelalter, Bonn, 1986, p. 84-105; M. Schulze-Dorrlamm,
II

Karpatenbecken, des Romisch-Germanisches Zentralmusellms", Mainz, 35, 1988,2, p. 373-477. 20. 1. Fodor, Zur Problematik der Ankunft der Ungarnim Karpatenbeeken und ihrer fortlaufenden Besiedlung, in the volume Interaktionen des mitteleuropaischen Slawen und andere Ethnika im 6.-10. Jh., Nitra, 1984, p. 97; Gy. Gy6rffy,Landnahme..., p. 244. 21. A. Kiss, op.cit., especially p. 234-235, 239-240.
. ..

Untersuchungen

4 Herkunft in Jahrbueh

der Ungarn

und

zum

Beginn

ihrer

Landnahme

im

(..,(1\.-

65