Cecily Hilsdale - The Social Life of The Byzantine Gift The Royal Crown of Hungary Re-Invented PDF

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE GIFT
1 Front of the Royal Crown of Hungary, eleventh century. Gold and cloisonné enamel,
diameter 20.9 cm. Budapest: Hungarian Parliament Building. Photo: Hungarian Pictures/Károly
Szelényi.
& ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE GIFT: THE
ROYAL CROWN OF HUNGARY RE-INVENTED
CECILY J. HILSDALE
In 1978, as a gesture towards improved Hungarian–American relations, the Carter

Administration returned Hungary’s royal crown and coronation treasure to
Budapest. Announcing the decision in 1977, State Department Councillor
Matthew Nimetz declared: ‘We believe that the American people will take pride in
the fact that we accepted the responsibility of safeguarding the Crown during the
dark days of 1945 [. . .] and that we are now returning this single most treasured
symbol of the Hungarian people to its proper and rightful home.’1 The object in
question, the medieval gold-and-enamel crown known as Holy, Royal and St
Stephen’s, and now on view in the Parliament Building in Budapest (plate 2), has
over the centuries become the absolute symbol of Hungarian sovereignty. Tradi-
tionally it was displayed only at appropriate ceremonial moments, such as
coronations, the last of which was that of Charles IV in 1916, and at special
exhibitions, such as the nine-hundredth anniversary of St Stephen’s death, cele-
brated in 1938.2 Towards the close of the 1939–45 war the crown came into
American custody and, for much of the second half of the twentieth century, it
was sealed in the vaults of Fort Knox, Kentucky.3
Like other cultural symbols with national (and nationalistic) significance, the
crown inspires passionate sentiment. The decision to return the crown provoked
congressional scrutiny, and a hearing was convened to give voice to the
Hungarian–American communities, who vehemently contested the crown’s
return. Of the many objections presented at the hearing, the following analogy
clarifies the perceived political stakes involved:
Imagine the imminent removal of the Declaration of Independence to a Moscow museum, or

the Statute [sic] of Liberty to a square in Peking, and you will have some idea of the outrage that
many Hungarian–Americans feel at the Carter Administration’s decision to hand over the Holy
Crown of St Stephen to the Communist regime of Hungary.4
Objections such as this underline the role of the medieval crown within modern
discourses of nationalism. Other statements, both presented at the hearing and
compiled shortly afterwards, attempt to explain the crown’s elevated status
through its history, and to demonstrate how the crown’s significance is intimately
tied to its status as a gift, and in particular, as a papal gift. According to a
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-8365.2008.00634.x
ART HISTORY . ISSN 0141–6790 . VOL 31 NO 5 . NOVEMBER 2008 pp 603-631
603
& Association of Art Historians 2008. Published by Blackwell Publishing,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
2 Royal Crown of Hungary processed to the Parliament Building, Budapest, 1 January 2000. Photo:
Reuters.
memorandum to President Carter by the World Federation of Hungarian Freedom
Fighters:
In 1000 A.D., in order to formalize his independent kingdom, Stephen, the first king of Hungary,
requested a crown from the spiritual head of the Western world, Pope Sylvester II. Stephen pur-
posely [sic] did not request a crown from the Holy Roman Emperor or from the Emperor of
Byzantium in order to avoid the national subservience which would be implied. Thus, he committed
Hungary to the ideals of Western civilization while retaining its political independence.5
By this logic, a gift from either the Holy Roman or Byzantine emperor would
suggest political subservience to those realms, but as a papal gift, the crown escapes
terrestrial obligation (and political dependence) while still positioning Hungary in
line with Western civilization and values. The crown’s value and authority, in other
words, derive from the belief that it was a papal gift legitimating Hungarian rule,
and the coronation of subsequent sovereigns with St Stephen’s crown, as it came to
be known, symbolically re-enacted such a legitimating event. As the central icon of
Hungarian identity – indeed it has featured prominently on modern Hungarian
stamps, bank notes and visas – its reputation as a gift from the Pope allows the
crown to escape more strictly secular associations with the Holy Roman or
Byzantine Empires, who fought bitterly over Magyar lands.
While the origin of the crown as a gift from Pope Sylvester to King Stephen is
an entrenched national tradition, a close inspection of the object itself serves to
604 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

complicate this story. It is, in truth, a composite entity formed by the joining of
two separate medieval objects of different origins, one Western, one Eastern, and
neither securely dated to the year 1000. The only securely datable part of the
crown, the lower diadem, was not a papal gift at all but rather an imperial
Byzantine gift. Moreover, in all probability this original lower diadem was not
designed to be worn by the Hungarian sovereign but by his bride, who was of
noble Byzantine descent. This article therefore re-evaluates the Royal Crown of
Hungary as a marriage of these two parts, geographically and chronologically
distinct, taking into consideration the original Byzantine intention as well as the
reception and transformation of the object over time.
Central to the diverse histories of the Royal Crown is its understanding as a
gift, replete with associations of power and subjugation that anthropologists of
gift-giving practices have long recognized. By incorporating anthropological
strategies, it is possible to unpack the power dynamics at play in the moment of
exchange, and to understand the art object as an active participant in a complex
process of negotiation.6 One of the dangers of such a methodological approach,
however, is the potential for a reductive reading that neglects the specificity of
each individual object. In other words, by privileging the exchange context, the
material objects of exchange – or gifts – themselves, risk being reduced to mere
illustrations of a particular theory. Responding to such a risk, this article exam-
ines context and process, or (to borrow the phrase from Arjun Appadurai) the
‘social life of things’7 , but it also attends to the object itself and its particular
individual form of signification. Such an approach responds to the tendency to
look through things, as Bill Brown writes, ‘to see what they disclose about history,
society, nature, or culture – above all, what they disclose about us’.8 By consid-
ering the particularities of the crown in and over time, I remain acutely aware of
the fine line between overdetermining the context or social history (looking
through things) and reductive essentialism.
A more thorough archaeology of the crown and its rich social life allows us to
evaluate distinctions among giving, receiving, and wearing images. Initially the
Royal Crown of Hungary triangulated a complex relationship between a Byzan-
tine emperor (the giver), a Byzantine bride (the given), and an Hungarian ruler
(the receiver). Over time, the crown was physically altered, converted into a
different kind of possession, and re-inscribed with a different history. Through
these changes, it came to initiate a new set of relations. Nonetheless, in both
medieval and modern contexts, its efficacy as prime embodiment of Hungarian
cultural identity is intimately tied to its status as a gift; only its givers, receivers
and wearers have changed.
GEOGRAPHY OF THE CROWN

As it exists today, the Royal Crown of Hungary is a composite object, consisting of
two hemispheres distinguished from each other by the language of their
inscriptions: the lower corona graeca and the upper corona latina (plates 1 and 3).9
Set within the lower ring-shaped band, hemmed by strands of pearls and
mounted with pendants and translucent crests, enamel images of holy figures
and rulers, each identified by name in Greek, alternate with large inset
gemstones. An arched enamel plaque at the front apex of the lower crown
represents Christ all-powerful, or pantokrator, enthroned, book in one hand, his
& ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008 605

3 Back of the Royal Crown of Hungary, eleventh century. Gold and cloisonné enamel, diameter
20.9 cm. Budapest: Hungarian Parliament Building. Photo: Hungarian Pictures/Károly Szelényi.
other raised in a gesture of blessing (plates 1 and 4). His celestial court is arranged
in mirroring pairs of square plaques set in the ring directly below: bust-length
portraits of archangels Michael and Gabriel in the centre and, radiating out, SS.
George and Demetrios, alluding to military might and victory, and physician
saints Cosmas and Damian. Mirroring this arrangement of divine hierarchy, the
back of the crown portrays the ideal earthly counterpart: Byzantine emperor
Michael VII Doukas (r. 1071–78) appears in an arched plaque above his son and co-
emperor Constantine, alongside king Géza of Hungary (r. 1074–77), in the square
enamels below (see plates 7, 17 and 18).
From the upper edge of the lower corona graeca, two intersecting bands of gold
inlaid with enamel plaques bearing Latin inscriptions extend upwards, forming
the upper hemisphere or corona latina (plate 5). This designation is misleading, as
the enamels of this upper half do not constitute a crown in their own right,
although it remains unclear what type of object they may have originally adorned
before being attached to the lower corona graeca.10 What is clear is that the
enamels of this upper hemisphere are not Byzantine but Western in origin. Such a
conclusion rests not only on the basis of the language of the inscriptions (Latin
rather than Greek) but also on style and technique.11
On the bands of the upper corona latina, eight apostles are portrayed as
standing frontal figures with haloes, books and attributes in cloisonné enamel
surrounded by gold filigree and inset pearls and gems. Unlike the austere flat
golden backgrounds of the Byzantine enamels below, the rectangular plaques of

the apostles are densely filled with

colourful geometric patterns as well
as foliate tendrils and elaborate birds
and beasts. The four arms of the corona
latina, each bearing two enamel apos-
tles, attach to a single image of
enthroned Christ at their intersection.
While all the enamels of the upper
half of the crown are united by tech-
nique and colour palette, the effects
produced differ dramatically between
the apostle images and that of Christ
at the top: the flat gold background of
the plaque depicting Christ fully
exploits the ‘Senkschmelz’ style more
typical of Byzantium, while the
4 Detail of the Pantokrator from the front of
apostle plaques are densely packed
the Royal Crown of Hungary, eleventh century.
with decorative patterns relating
Gold and cloisonné enamel, diameter 20.9 cm.
more to the early Western ‘Vollschmelz’
Budapest: Hungarian Parliament Building.
enamel.12 Similarities between the
Photo: Hungarian Pictures/Károly Szelényi.
Latin and Byzantine images of Christ
suggest that the lower crown’s Greek
enamels may have served as the model
for the later Latin enamels. Indeed, unlike the other enamels of the upper hemi-
sphere, the enthroned Christ is set against a flat austere gold background in the
manner of the Byzantine Christ on the front of the lower corona graeca. Both
enamel images of Christ are also framed by schematic cypress trees, although the
nominum sacrum of the Byzantine Christ is replaced by the sun and moon flanking
the Christ at the crossing of the upper bands of the corona latina.
While the enamel work of the two halves of the Royal Crown appears to be
related, the Byzantinizing style of the pantokrator image in particular, the upper
hemisphere betrays its Western origin, as evidenced by the inscriptions of the
plaques and the filigree of the bands in which they are set. On the other hand, the
imagery, iconography, style and technique of the lower corona graeca mark it as
the product of an imperial Constantinopolitan workshop. While presently an
integrated object, the composite nature of the crown is indisputable. Interior
views of the crown display the marks of assembly: large gold nails are hammered
through to the exterior of the lower crown, and two of the Latin-inscribed plaques
are significantly obscured by the projecting arches of the lower Greek crown
(plates 5 and 6).
While this understanding of the crown is now accepted by all scholars, it is a
relatively recent one. For most of its history, no accurate study or clear description
of the crown existed; it was uncritically believed to be a single integrated object
dating to the time of King Stephen, first Christian monarch of Hungary. Only in
the eighteenth century were all the inscriptions accurately translated and the
first viable hypotheses about the origins of the crown proposed. In 1792 István
Weszprémi concluded that ‘the Crown itself gives the most authentic evidence
about itself [. . .] it announces the real date of its origin.’13 Here he alludes to three

5 (left) Upper half of the Royal Crown of Hungary (corona latina), eleventh century. Gold and cloisonné
enamel, diameter 20.9 cm. Budapest: Hungarian Parliament Building. Photo: Hungarian
Pictures/Károly Szelényi.
6 (right) Interior view of the Royal Crown of Hungary, eleventh century. Gold and cloisonné enamel,
diameter 20.9 cm. Budapest: Hungarian Parliament Building. Photo: Hungarian
historic figures identified by inscription on the rear pinnacle of the lower corona
graeca that proclaim a late eleventh-century context. The combination of historic
figures does indeed secure the lower diadem’s chronology to the mid-1070 s and
also situates it politically within Hungarian–Byzantine diplomatic relations of
that period. To most, the presence of Byzantine and Hungarian rulers together
suggests that it was a gift from the former to the latter. This proposal merits
further consideration, for it rests on a number of ambiguous assumptions about
both portraits and gifts.
GENDER OF THE CROWN

Even after the inscriptions were first translated, historic circumstance prevented in-
depth scholarly analysis of the Royal Crown until the end of the twentieth century,
when it was displayed in the Hungarian National Museum between 1978 and 2000.
It was then observed that the plaque depicting Michael VII Doukas is larger than its
mount and attached by two rivets that obscure some of the letters of the inscrip-
tion, thus calling into question the origin of the corona graeca as a gift from the late
eleventh-century Byzantine emperor (plate 7). Based on style and technique,
however, the portrait of Michael VII undoubtedly belongs to the same suite of
enamels.14 Furthermore, considering that the entire duration of Géza’s rule as
king of Hungary coincides with the rule of Michael VII Doukas in Constantinople,
diplomatic engagement between the two stands as the prime motivation for the

7 Detail of Michael VII Doukas from the back

of the Royal Crown of Hungary, eleventh
century. Gold and cloisonné enamel,
diameter 20.9 cm. Budapest: Hungarian
Parliament Building. Photo: Hungarian
creation and donation of the crown. Even so, the overall arrangement and imagery
of the enamels depart significantly from what is expected of diplomatic arts of
Byzantium and this difference is heuristically instructive.
A second Byzantine crown in Budapest, known as the Monomachos crown
because of its depiction of Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (r.
1042–55), offers a crucial point of comparison, especially with regard to metho-
dological avenues of interpretation for objects of exchange (plates 8 and 9).15 Like
the Royal Crown, it is dated by the historic figures depicted: three arched enamel
plaques of Constantine IX, Empress Zoe and her sister and co-ruler Theodora,
suggest a date between 1042 and 1050. These imperial images, each set within
densely populated vines, are surrounded by plaques of similar shape but dimin-
ishing in size. Two slightly smaller images depict women dancing, each with a
halo and set within the same dense foliate setting but without identifying
inscriptions. Two even smaller plaques represent haloed female figures
silhouetted against a flat gold background, surrounded by schematic cypresses as
personifications of Truth and Humility, according to their inscriptions. Despite
evident clarity in terms of dating, ambiguity surrounds the original circumstance
and arrangement of this set of enamels. Despite formal irregularities as well as
their undocumented excavation and selective release onto the antiquities market,
most scholars assume the enamels were an imperial gift since they depict
Byzantine imperial figures and were found in Magyar lands.16
Robin Cormack suggests that the two images of dance that flank the imperial
portraits of the Monomachos crown correspond to a secular common language of
luxury seen more often in Islamic courtly arts. In this regard he argues that the
crown’s imagery relates to foreign diplomacy.17 In fact, long ago these images
were linked to a bowl, now in Innsbruck, whose origins have been variously

8 Monomachos Crown, mid-eleventh century. Gold and cloisonné enamel, diameter 10height
4.5 cm. Budapest: Hungarian National Museum. Reproduced courtesy of the Hungarian National
Museum. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, New York.
interpreted as Islamic, Byzantine and Georgian (plates 10 and 11).18 The visual
programme of the Innsbruck bowl combines motifs of exotic dance, seen also on
the Monomachos crown, with exotic games and beasts, as well as power embodied
by Alexander’s ascent in the centre. The same iconographic programme of Alex-
ander flanked by griffins also appears on another set of enamel plaques in Preslav,
Bulgaria, of indeterminate origin but of a shape similar to the Monomachos
enamels and thus probably once constituting a crown (plate 12).19 The elaborate
decorative programme of exotic beasts and foliage of the Preslav enamels (and the
Innsbruck bowl) evoke a common language of luxury appropriate for interna-
tional diplomacy, and yet their lack of historical figures precludes a definitive
diplomatic context. This visual ambiguity differs significantly from the imagery
of the Monomachos crown, where the emperor and empresses ensure its imperial
pedigree and origins in Constantinople; still, its presumed status as a diplomatic
gift remains questionable without any explicit reference to Hungary.
Considering the artistic dimension of Byzantine diplomacy, Cormack asserts
that both surviving crowns in Budapest, the Monomachos crown and the Royal
Crown, can ‘with some confidence’ be considered diplomatic gifts, based on
internal evidence.20 To this end, he follows the assumption that an enamel
portrait of King Andrew of Hungary (r. 1046–60) should originally have been part
of the Monomachos crown. The assumption that the receiver of the crown should
figure prominently on the crown itself is presumably based on comparison with

the Royal Crown that represents

Hungarian King Géza. However, as
proposed below, Géza, both despite,
and because of, his visual depiction,
was probably not the intended
wearer, for it would have been inap-
propriate for him to don his own
image. Likewise, if the Monomachos
crown were a gift to King Andrew of
Hungary, in all likelihood it too would
not have included his own portrait.21
By virtue of the image of Géza, on the
other hand, the Royal Crown clearly
conveys its status as a gift in ways not
easily explained by other means. This
is the essential difference among the
varied objects discussed here. While
no secure and specific diplomatic
function can be ascribed to the
Monomachos and Preslav crowns (nor 9 Detail of the Monomachos Crown, mid-
to the Innsbruck bowl for that eleventh century. Gold and cloisonné enamel,
matter), they employ a visual rhetoric diameter 10 height 4.5 cm. Budapest: Hungarian
appropriate for many foreign royal National Museum. Reproduced courtesy of the
contexts. Such cosmopolitan or Hungarian National Museum. Photo: Erich
courtly designs accord well with Lessing/Art Resource, New York.
objects of exchange and shared visual
styles, as described in textual sources
of the time.22 We know that common languages of luxury were strategically
employed in diplomatic exchanges. Cormack summarizes this position well:
Art could offer a special coded, common language between courts. In art, rulers could find the
evocation of the high life and ambitions which they mutually respected. Art provided links
between rulers which were denied to the people at large, who were more likely to perceive only
their differences from the foreigner. The favour of a gift of art, like diplomatic ritual, aimed to
flatter enemies into respect.23
Cosmopolitan exotic imagery could thus indicate mutuality between foreign

rulers. Such a conception of visual diplomacy does not, however, explain the
differences between the Royal Crown and other luxurious art objects associated
with exchange mentioned above. The imagery of the Royal Crown, most certainly
a Byzantine diplomatic gift by virtue of the plaques bearing the two contem-
porary rulers’ portraits, does not otherwise include secular imagery. It is a more
austere hierarchical object that emphasizes difference rather than commonality.
Beasts, dance, and foliage are absent, thereby eschewing any allusions to courtly
tastes. The language of Michael VII’s gift is entirely Byzantine, not international or
cosmopolitan, and its message addresses its particular wearer. This intended
wearer, all too often presumed to be Géza himself, may not have been the

10 Innsbruck Bowl, mid-twelfth century. Copper gilt with cloisonné

and champlevé, diameter 26.5 cm. Innsbruck: Tiroler Landesmuseum
Ferdinandeum. Reproduced courtesy of the Tiroler Landesmuseum
Ferdinandeum. Photo: Walter Denny.
11 Detail of Innsbruck Bowl, mid-twelfth century. Copper gilt with

cloisonné and champlevé, diameter 26.5 cm. Innsbruck: Tiroler
Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum. Reproduced courtesy of the Tiroler
Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum. Photo: Walter Denny.

Hungarian sovereign at all but rather

his Byzantine bride, of the aristocratic
Synadenos family.
A reading of the Royal Crown’s
lower diadem as a female crown is
supported by a variety of visual,
archaeological and textual evidence,
despite the fact that it runs contrary
to official tenth-century Byzantine
books of protocol. Both crowns and
brides are explicitly prohibited as
gifts in chapter thirteen of De admin-
istrando imperio.24 Ceremonial crowns
belonging to the class of ‘kamelaukia’
were supposedly not made by human
hands (‘acheiropoieta’), and were
protected by a curse of death to
whoever wore them without express
permission of the patriarch. In addi-
tion to crowns, the text continues, 12 Detail of the diadem with the Ascension of
marriage alliances with the northern Alexander the Great, tenth century. Gold and
foreign tribes should also be avoided enamel, 5.4 4.4 cm. Preslav: Veliki Preslav
(with the exception of the Franks).25 Museum. Photo: Courtesy of the Veliki Preslav
Despite these warnings, it is clear that Museum.
foreign marriages did occur and that
they increased over time in tandem with a shifting political climate, and it is also
evident that crowns were given to Byzantium’s ‘barbarian’ neighbours.
Extant Byzantine crowns with which to compare the Royal Crown are few and
generally survive only in fragmentary form.26 Despite lack of scholarly consensus
about original arrangement and historic circumstance, a number of surviving
enamel plaques, including the Preslav and Monomachos pieces, in all likelihood
once adorned crowns that were deployed in foreign diplomatic contexts. Again,
the imagery of these examples evokes cosmopolitan courtly tastes in contrast to
the austere visual programme of the Royal Crown. A much closer comparison may
be drawn with a group of Byzantine enamels mounted on the Khakhuli triptych
in Tblisi; one of these plaques even depicts Byzantine emperor Michael VII Doukas,
shown not with his heir but his Georgian-born wife Maria of Alania (plates 13 and
14).27 Despite profound differences in the quality of the enamelwork,28 both
groups of enamels – which include depictions of the same emperor – are asso-
ciated with diplomatic gifts sent to foreigners contra to imperial protocol
expressed in De administrando imperio.
In his ambitious excavation of the original ninety-five Byzantine figural
enamels re-mounted in the mid-twelfth century on the Khakhuli triptych, Titos
Papamastorakis singles out two related groups of plaques that may originally
have adorned crowns sent to Georgia in the eleventh century.29 In addition to the
plaque of Michael and Maria, the five extant enamels reconstructed as ‘group six’
provide a particularly strong parallel to the Royal Crown, despite the fact that
they do not literally depict contemporary figures (plate 15). According to

Papamastorakis’s proposed arrange-

ment, the arched enamel plaque
depicting Christ on a rainbow, hand
raised in a gesture of blessing, was
originally placed above a band
bearing mirroring square plaques of
the Virgin Mary and the Archangel
Michael each holding crowns and
turned towards the centre, followed
by the military saints George and
Demetrios.30 The two crown bearers –
Michael and Mary – are the name-
sakes of the royal couple with whom
the crown is associated, Michael VII
Doukas and Maria of Alania.
Beyond alluding subtly to the
Byzantine emperor and his Georgian-
13 Detail of Michael VII and Maria of Alania, from
born wife, the two holy figures
the Khakhuli Triptych, eleventh century. Gold
holding crowns on the Khakhuli trip-
and cloisonné enamel, 5.4 4.4 cm. Tbilisi:
tych’s ‘group six’ enamels attest to a
Georgian National Museum, Museum of Fine
gendered division in the appearance
Arts. Reproduced courtesy of the Georgian
of the imperial Byzantine crown. The
National Museum. Photo: Titos Papamastorakis.
archangel, on the left of Papamastor-
akis’s reconstructed original arrange-
ment, holds an open diadem with hanging pearls, or prependoulia, similar in
appearance to the crowns worn by both Michael VII Doukas and Constantine on
the Royal Crown. Conversely, sharp crests or pinnacles surmounted by pearls are
evident on the crown in the Virgin’s hands on the right. This difference is
consistent with other depictions of regalia in Byzantine art where consorts and
reigning empresses are exclusively represented in crowns of such design, as on
the Monomachos crown where the pointed projections of Zoe and Theodora’s
crowns differ significantly from that of Constantine IX. This gendered distinction
is evident also on the Khakhuli enamel of Michael and Maria. In this scene of
coronation, Christ touches the crowns of the standing couple, hers distinguished
from his by its pointed gables. Maria Parani, in her study of Byzantine realia, notes
that even after the shape of the emperor’s crown changes in the late eleventh to
early twelfth century, empresses continued to wear taller and more elaborate
crowns with projections along the top.31
These projecting pinnacles, which emerge as the main distinguishing feature
between male and female imperial crowns, are also found on the front of the
Royal Crown itself, rendered in brilliant translucent enamel according to the à
jour or Fenstermail technique.32 They provide concrete evidence for the origin of
the lower diadem of the Royal Crown of Hungary as a female crown, a position
long ago put forward by Bárány-Oberschall, followed by Déer and others, and
confirmed by more recent scientific analysis.33 Despite these prominent pinna-
cles, some scholars have maintained that the iconography of the enamels would
be more appropriate for a male wearer. Patrick Kelleher, for example, argued that
a woman would not have worn a crown with such images of sovereignty: ‘The

14 Khakhuli Triptych (open), eleventh century. Gold and cloisonné enamel, 1.47 2.02 m. Tbilisi:
Georgian National Museum, Museum of Fine Arts. Reproduced courtesy of the Georgian National
Museum. Photo: Shalva Amiranashvili, Medieval Georgian Enamels of Russia, New York, 1964, 95.
representation of the Pantocrator, the two emperors and the Hungarian king, each
as a distinctive authority in his own right, implies that such a crown would not
be worn by a female personage but rather by an independent ruler of state.’34
The opposite position, however, is proposed here. The very same notion of
sovereignty, delineated pictorially, implies an intended Byzantine bride because it
elaborates upon where her allegiances should lie: first and foremost to Christ
depicted on the front of the crown, then both to her fatherland, embodied by the
portraits of Michael VII Doukas and Constantine, and her new home and husband
Géza, depicted on the back.
Fundamentally, as an object to be worn — even if in theory only — the corona
graeca makes more sense as a consort’s crown because it would have been inap-
propriate for Géza to wear a crown bearing his own portrait alongside that of the
Eastern emperor, even in a subordinate position. Instances of such a practice are
unattested, while both texts and images from various periods depict courtiers,
officials and subjects wearing an image of the emperor as a symbol of allegiance.
In the early Byzantine period, for example, John Malalas recalls that the supposed
conversion of the Lazi to Christianity included the gift of a Byzantine bride, a
crown, and a tunic embroidered with a golden image of the emperor:
He had been crowned by Justin, the emperor of the Romans, and had put on a Roman imperial
crown and a white cloak of pure silk. Instead of the purple border it had the gold imperial

15 Khakhuli Triptych ‘Group Six’ enamels and reconstruction by Titos Papamastorakis. Photo: Titos
Papamastorakis.

border; in its middle was a true purple portrait medallion with a likeness of the emperor Justin.
He also wore a white tunic, a paragaudion, with gold imperial embroideries, equally including
the likeness of the emperor.35
An imperial image, the above passage

suggests, could be received and worn
as a sign of honour or esteem as early
as the sixth century. Surviving art
objects, such as two ivory plaques
depicting Empress Ariadne wearing a
tablion (a trapezoidal embroidered
panel) decorated with an imperial
bust, testify to the practice of wearing
an imperial image (plate 16).36 In the
later Byzantine period Pseudo-
Kodinos explicitly describes a head-
dress that bears an imperial portrait
as a ‘skaranikon’.37 Visual attestations
of such a costume motif are found
in manuscripts,38 icon frames of
both wood and silver,39 and also in
monumental fresco.40 In addition
to representations in other media,
surviving examples of imperial
images on items to be worn include
the aforementioned Monomachos
crown in Budapest, bearing portraits
of Constantine, Zoe and Theodora, as
well as the early fifteenth-century
Major Sakkos of Metropolitan Photius
in Moscow, which includes a portrait
of John VIII Palaiologos.41 These
examples suggest that an imperial
representation was worn as a symbol
of prestige or rank. To wear such an
image, in other words, is to claim
allegiance.
Returning to the Royal Crown, it
would be one thing for Géza to wear a 16 Empress Ariadne, c. 500. Ivory, height 30.5 cm.
crown with the emperor’s image and Florence: Museo Nazionale del Bargello. Repro-
quite another to wear his own image. duced courtesy of the Museo Nazionale del
On the other hand, it would be Bargello. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, New York.
entirely appropriate for his Byzantine
wife to wear such a suite of images to demonstrate her allegiances to both her
new husband and her homeland. Klaus Wessel, following Déer, explains this logic:
‘there would be no point in having that portrait on his own crown, but it would
certainly appear on that of the Queen. The fact that she was wearing a picture of
her husband would show that she was subject to him.’42 This observation might

be emended slightly. The imagery suggests she should be subject both to her new
husband and at the same time—perhaps even more so—to her Byzantine ‘father’,
the emperor.43 This conclusion helps to explain why the austere enamels of the
Royal Crown depart so significantly from other cosmopolitan designs appropriate
for exchange. As a crown for a Byzantine bride marrying into a foreign culture, it
employs an entirely different form of visual diplomacy. The imagery of the crown
does not blur cultural boundaries by employing common courtly motifs; instead
it inscribes hierarchy and allegiance appropriate to an intended original female
wearer from Constantinople.
The programme of the corona graeca delineates this original female wearer’s
role and position within an idealized cosmic and social order. On a fundamental
level, it maps heavenly and earthly hierarchies by visualizing the Byzantine
conception of taxis, or order, a concept that ranges in meaning from rank to class
to way of life. Such an harmonious hierarchy forms the lens through which
Byzantines arranged worlds of state, court and divinity, in contrast to ataxia,
chaos or disorder, which was associated with the barbaroi, those outside the ever-
shifting borders of Byzantium.44 Such a distinction between inside and outside
and the proper order or taxis of cultures pervades the books of protocol associated
with Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (r. 945–59),45 and also expressed visually
in the enamel plaques of the Royal Crown. On the front of the corona graeca, Christ
pantokrator presides over his saintly court. Each member of this heavenly cohort is
identified by inscription, and all the gazes are directed towards the centre indi-
cating their subservience to Christ. On the back of the crown the Byzantine
emperor is situated in a parallel position of authority over Constantine and Géza.
This hierarchical message is conveyed by arrangement: Michael’s portrait physi-
cally occupies the apex position paralleling Christ, above Géza who is positioned
on his left. Furthermore the emperor’s panel is larger and arched as the pantok-
rator on the front as opposed to the smaller square enamel plaques of the saints
and the emperor’s ‘sons’ set on the wide band of the lower diadem. Within the
images themselves distinctions of rank are also apparent. Michael and Constan-
tine are identified by name in deep red letters as ‘Michael Doukas, Faithful in
Christ, Emperor of the Romans’ (see plate 7) and ‘Constantine, Emperor of the
Romans, Born in the Purple’46 (plate 17), while Géza’s name is inscribed in dark
blue ‘Géza, Faithful King of Turkia’47 (plate 18). Although all three figures are
described as loyal or faithful (pistos), the Byzantine rulers are Roman emperors
(basileioi) in contrast to Géza, who is described merely as ruler (kral) of Hungary
(Turkia).48 Colour distinctions are as significant as linguistic ones, for red was
reserved for imperial signatures while blue was employed by the next rank of
courtiers to sign documents.49
Precedence is also made clear in purely visual terms through subtleties of
dress and attribute. The Byzantine emperor is represented in the imperial loros (a
long jewelled stole) and his son in an elaborate collared garment.50 Both wear
ornate crowns with prependoulia dangling from each side and hold a labrum
(standard). Michael clasps a sword in his other hand while Constantine holds a
scroll-like object.51 Conversely Géza, dressed in a much simpler chlamys (cloak)
with tablion, bears a crown without dangling pearls, and he holds a sword and
cruciform sceptre.52 The two Byzantine rulers are also distinguished by large
green nimbi outlined in red, just as the celestial courtiers along the front of the

17 (left) Detail of Constantine from the back of the Royal Crown of Hungary, eleventh century. Gold
and cloisonné enamel, diameter 20.9 cm. Budapest: Hungarian Parliament Building. Photo:
Hungarian Pictures/Károly Szelényi.
18 (right) Detail of Géza from the back of the Royal Crown of Hungary, eleventh century. Gold and
cloisonné enamel, diameter 20.9 cm. Budapest: Hungarian Parliament Building. Photo:
Hungarian Pictures/Károly Szelényi.
crown, while the Hungarian kral is the only figure on the crown lacking a halo.
These visual markers indicate an hierarchic relationship among the three
historical figures and suggest a Byzantine form of visual diplomacy based on the
concept of kinship. The crown’s composition symbolically includes the foreign
ruler in the imperial family of kings by positioning him alongside the porphyro-
gennetos (purple-born) as a key participant in the earthly court, but simulta-
neously defines his position within the family network as a clearly demarcated
inferior partner. All the visual markers allude to this. Such hierarchy, or taxis, in
many ways elucidates the very nature of a Byzantine gift, replete with ulterior
narratives of superiority. Implicit in this visual rhetoric is an understanding of
subjugation akin to the anthropological paradigm of gift-giving, in so far as Géza
is depicted in a position of indebtedness.
In terms of motivation, scholars have generally assumed that Michael VII sent
the lower crown to Géza in recognition of his assumption of power in 1074.53
While his predecessor had focused his attention westward towards Germany, Géza
appears to have been actively wooed into the Eastern Empire’s orbit of influence.54
Within this context, the gift of a crown to the new king, according to Kelleher,
expressed ‘the desire to acquire Hungary as an ally and to support the Magyar
kingdom against the Holy Roman Empire.’55 In this sense, the gift of the crown
may be read agonistically as a tool of diplomacy. Such a gesture was well situated
within the larger foreign policies of Michael VII Doukas. The Tourkoi were undeniably
important Byzantine allies in the late eleventh century, and yet the gendered

aspects of the crown complicate the connotations of loyalty and allegiance

involved.
Despite prohibitions expressed in Byzantine books of protocol, Michael VII
relied heavily on marital alliances with foreign nations. Beyond his own marriage
to the Georgian princess depicted alongside him on one of the Khakhuli triptych’s
enamels, he also arranged a number of other foreign marriage alliances. Géza of
Hungary benefited from this marital policy, marrying the daughter of a Byzantine
nobleman Synadenos, who was the niece of future emperor Nikephoros III Bota-
neiates (r. 1078–81).56 The Byzantino-Hungarian union is recorded with the
utmost brevity in John Skylitzes’s Continuation: ‘the emperor [Botaneiates] had
given his niece, the Synadene, daughter of Theodoulos Synadenos, to the kral of
Hungary as wife, upon whose death she returned immediately to Byzantium.’57
While surviving sources are silent about the circumstances or negotiations for
the particular wedding of Synadena and Géza, texts of various genres describe
other unions arranged by Michael VII and thus offer a glimpse into what is at stake
in the exchange of diplomatic brides at this time.
In addition to the marriage of Synadena to Géza, the emperor’s sister Theo-
dora was married to a Venetian, and his son was engaged to the daughter of
Norman leader Robert Guiscard.58 A chrysobull of 1074 outlines the stipulations
involved in the latter marriage of Guiscard’s daughter to Constantine (the same
Constantine depicted on the back of the Royal Crown alongside Géza). In exchange
for Guiscard’s pledge of hereditary peace with the Byzantine empire, he was to be
granted titles accompanied by a number of honours including an allowance.59 In
addition to this chrysobull, two letters associated with the negotiation of this
union survive.60 One of these emphasizes the shared qualities of the two fathers
involved in the potential marriage. In particular, Shepard and Kolia-Dermitzaki
call attention to the letter’s emphasis on their shared origins (‘single origin and
race’) and religion or spirituality (‘single form of piety’).61 These letters demon-
strate a textual rhetorical strategy similar to the visual rhetoric of the crown sent
to Hungary. Simultaneous with the articulation of commonality, both text and
crown enforce hierarchy. Just as the crown visually delineates Géza as inferior, in
the letters the emperor establishes Guiscard as subordinate within the idealized
family of kings: in return for the emperor’s provisions, the Norman leader should
contribute ‘the proper subordination and favour.’62
This combination of rhetorical inclusion and submission lies at the heart of
Byzantine diplomatic exchange. Foreign marriage arrangements in particular
engage issues of debt and allegiance as the bride was conceptualized as an honour
or a gift. Ruth Macrides notes that Byzantine marriage and all other kinship ties
are inherently political, inevitably involving some sort of subjugation: ‘whether
Byzantium gave the bride away or received her, the act was a favour which put the
other party in a subordinate position.’63 The acceptance of a foreign bride from
rival Guiscard and the extension of a native bride to a Hungarian ruler and
potential ally both participate in the same rhetoric of subjugation. Despite a
common ideology of subjugation, however, the practices of dispatching a
Byzantine bride and welcoming a foreign-born one into Byzantine society are
different and require different rhetorical strategy. The acceptance of a foreign
bride is predicated on a notion of total incorporation and transformation, hence
the giving of new names and identities.64 Byzantine brides sent to foreign lands,

conversely, are not intended so fully to alienate or loose their ties to their
homelands; ideally they are not so easily disentangled.
The design of the Royal Crown evokes this ideology, and a reading of the lower
crown’s imagery in light of its original intended wearer underscores the imbri-
cation of person and thing, woman and gift. Conceptualized as gifts, both crown
and bride are each governed, to differing extents and ends, by an overarching
ideology of debt and allegiance. But they relate to each other, the crown rein-
forcing the bride’s own inalienability. Ultimately, by wearing the corona graeca,
Synadena wears her own givenness. At the same time her ties are displayed to
those who would see her wearing the crown. Certainly the crown would have
looked Byzantine to Hungarian eyes, though the subtle rhetoric of the rear
pinnacle may not have been immediately apparent. Linguistic and titular
subtleties may have been lost on a mid-eleventh-century Hungarian audience,
while scale and placement on the back of the crown may have muted its message.
Conversely, for Synadena it would provide a concrete assertion of her role as a
gift, bound in some way to her giver and the giver of the crown she would wear.65
The power relations triggered by the gift of the crown involve reciprocal expec-
tation and future allegiances, solidified through structures of kinship. Such a
configuration operates on a real level through its wearer, but also on a more
symbolic, but no less significant, rhetorical level. The crown delineates the posi-
tion of Synadena’s Hungarian husband within the international family of kings,
linked to Byzantium both metaphorically and in terms of actual kinship through
her.
This interpretation recalls anthropologist Marcel Mauss’s theory of the ‘pure’
gift that never fully alienates, but rather always remains to a certain extent
inseparable from its sender:
What imposes obligation in the present received and exchanged, is the fact that the thing
received is not inactive. Even when it has been abandoned by the giver it still possesses
something of him. Through it the giver has a hold over the beneficiary just as, being its owner,
through it he has a hold over the thief.66
This metaphor of thief and true owner is an evocative description of an inalien-

able relationship between person and object and it highlights the self-interested,
even possessive, aspect of giving. As an active object, the crown represents its own
and its wearer’s origin and fidelity. The enamel imagery operates beyond mere
description; rather it embodies the desires of the giver, representing an idealized
set of intentions or a prescriptive element. A rhetoric of subjugation informs the
giving of both the bride and the crown on the part of the Byzantine emperor. Yet
the hierarchical message of the crown’s imagery, often misunderstood as
reflecting her husband’s subservience to the Eastern emperor, instead under-
scores the fact that a Byzantine bride, at least on some level, never fully alienates
from her familial (paternal) line and culture.
Textual sources support this point. Despite some ambiguity about whether or
not she bore her Hungarian husband children, the Skylitzes Continuation explicitly
reports that Synadena immediately returned home to Constantinople upon the
kral’s death. The corona graeca, however, stayed behind. At some point, most
probably a century later, it was transformed into a new object. The interlaced

arms of what is now designated the corona latina were attached to the open, ring-
shaped band that the Byzantine bride once wore. Such a physical alteration
constituted a re-gendering of the object.
RE-GENDERING THE CROWN: MONARCHY AND INDEPENDENCE

In contrast to the open diadem worn by eleventh-century Macedonian rulers,
Komnenian emperors in the twelfth century wore a closed crown. Both monu-
mental and ‘minor’ media testify to this shift. In the imperial mosaics of the
south gallery of Hagia Sophia, the two different crown types are depicted side by
side on emperors of each era: on the mosaic panel on the left, Constantine IX
Monomachos (r. 1042–55) and Empress Zoe flank Christ, and on the right John II
Komnenos (r. 1118–43) and Empress Irene frame the Virgin and child (plates 19
and 20). Despite later changes to the tesserae around the head of Constantine, the
smooth upper edge of his open diadem differs from the closed helmet-shaped
crown represented on John a century later.67 With the addition of the Western
enamel bands of the corona latina, the Royal Crown came into alignment with this
new twelfth-century imperial crown type. Although it cannot be ascertained
precisely when and how the Royal Crown assumed its present configuration, the
two halves may have been joined to each other at the time of Béla III of Hungary
(r. 1172–96) who was raised in Constantinople in the inner circle of Manuel I
Komnenos (r. 1143–80) whose mother Irene was Hungarian (her mosaic remains
visible in Hagia Sophia, alongside John II Komnenos).68 Béla was engaged to the
emperor’s daughter and heiress apparent, Maria Porphyrogennete, until Manuel’s
subsequent wife bore him a long-awaited male heir, Alexios II. The engagement
was thus broken, but Béla married Anne of Châtillon, the empress’s half-sister,
19 Emperor John II Komnenos and Empress Irene, mid-twlefth century. Mosaic. Constantinople:
Hagia Sophia (South Gallery). Photo: the author.

and remained allied with the Komnenoi.69 Béla would surely have been familiar
with current trends in imperial crowns.
It should also be noted that in the eleventh- and twelfth-century imperial
mosaics in Hagia Sophia, both empresses’ crowns (including that of Béla’s
mother) bear taller pointed pinnacles along their upper edge. As emphasized
above, these pinnacles, which distinguish female from male imperial crowns, still
remain on the Royal Crown. Thus, even after the crown was materially trans-
formed and re-gendered to assume its present closed – and male shape – it retains
tangible marks of its earlier configuration and history.
The composite crown is thus imprinted by its different owners and wearers
over time. Preserving traces of its history, the crown was physically altered to
become Hungary’s coronation crown, an object central to conceptions of national
identity ever since. While custom-made for one wearer to express her givenness, it
has been reshaped to enhance the authority of a new male wearer. Along with its
new social function as a king’s crown, the identity of the giver shifted as well.
Over time, the crown became understood not as a gift from a Byzantine emperor
but from Pope Sylvester II to King Stephen, first Christian monarch of the land
around the year 1000. This understanding does not appear in textual sources
until the twelfth century. The earliest reference to the crown, the eleventh-
century Chronicle of Thietmar, Bishop of Merseburg, mentions that Stephen
‘received a crown and benediction’, neglecting to mention the origin or donor of
20 Emperor Constantine IX and Empress Zoe, mid-eleventh century. Mosaic.

Constantinople: Hagia Sophia (South Gallery). Photo: the author.

the crown, and the late-eleventh century Major Life of Saint Stephen describes
Stephen’s coronation but likewise omits its origin.70 Bishop Hartwig’s account of
Saint Stephen, written between 1112 and 1116, expands upon the two previous
versions through explicit mention of the crown as a gift from the Roman Pope.71
Kelleher points out that the closing of the crown – the joining of the corona graeca
and corona latina – coincides with the elaboration of the legend of Saint Stephen
in Hartwig’s account.72
An open diadem that once articulated the inalienability of a Byzantine bride
was closed to become the crown for the king of an emerging power. This re-
conceptualization entailed not only a physical alteration but also a new narrative.
Thus, from the twelfth century onwards the crown came to be understood as a
papal gift celebrating Stephen’s recognition as the first Christian monarch of
Magyar lands. It was precisely this history of the crown that was evoked by those
opposing the crown’s return to Budapest in 1978. Recall the World Federation of
Hungarian Freedom Fighters’ words invoked at the beginning of this article: the
crown is associated with the ‘formalization’ of an independent Hungarian
kingdom that remains aligned with ‘the ideals of Western civilization while
retaining its political independence’. To accept the crown from the Pope escapes
terrestrial obligation, whereas to receive the same gift from Byzantium would
imply ‘national subservience’ as the memorandum states.
The position of the World Federation of Hungarian Freedom Fighters suggests
how deeply cultural symbols are imbricated in the construction of modern
narratives of nationalism. A similar inflection is found in congressional testi-
monies seeking to block the crown’s return to Hungary (also introduced earlier in
this article). A comparison is drawn between returning the crown to communist
Hungary and sending the Declaration of Independence to Moscow. The analogy
has an emotional appeal but a close inspection of its terms reveals its inadequacy.
The Declaration of Independence is, after all, the foundational document of the
American republic and was written for explicit national ends. To transfer it from
its national context to Moscow is fundamentally different from returning the
Royal Crown to its original national context but under a different — and
Communist — regime. The difference hinges upon the status of the object. The
crown, as a hybrid object composed of elements from different places and times,
was not created for national consolidation but rather later became part of a
narrative of the modern nation state. In this way it raises important questions
about the adaptation of pre-nationalist medieval objects and their later rede-
ployment for nationalistic ends.
Contemporary theories of nationalism, especially those following Benedict
Anderson, have tended to emphasize the construction of, and participation in,
imagined communities through fundamentally modern developments, such as
the spread of print technology and vernacular languages.73 The story of the
Hungarian Crown forces us to recognize that such imagined communities also
make use of hybrid objects from the past to which they then ascribe singular
narratives. Nationalism, in other words, is consolidated not only through devel-
opments that are associated with modernity but also through the redeployment
of icons from the past, re-invented for the present.
While the crown preserves traces of its varied social life in its physical form,
the imagining of the modern nation has less room for such diverse traditions. The

myriad histories imprinted in the crown’s form, especially histories involving to

brides and emperors of Byzantium, are silenced in favour of a single triumphant
narrative of the Pope and first Christian monarch of the land. This foundational
narrative may explain why Americans and Hungarians alike recognized the crown
as distinct from most cultural property relocated during the 1939–45 war. Unlike
other medieval treasures, such as portions of the Guelph Treasure that were also
in the central collecting point in Wiesbaden with the Hungarian regalia,74 the
Royal Crown was not sold at auction and did not enter a museum collection.
Instead it was stored in the vaults of Fort Knox alongside the American gold
reserves. This modern chapter of the crown’s social life distinguishes it from the
trajectories of other seemingly similar medieval objects and speaks to its elevated
status as what Annette Weiner might describe as an ‘inalienable possession’, an
object whose value is derived not through giving but through keeping. Such
possessions, according to Weiner, are ‘symbolic repositories of genealogies and
historical events, their unique, subjective identity gives them absolute value
placing them above the exchangeability of one thing for another.’75 The crown’s
composite form testifies to its status as a symbolic repository of its history and
genealogy, and the very fact that it was kept out of view and circulation for most
of its life further underscores this special – and singular – status.
Sándor Radnóti notes that until its return to Budapest in 1978 the crown
had never been on permanent display.76 This moment in its social life thus
marked a profound shift in its conceptualization. The return of the crown, one
might say its re-gifting, was accompanied by a new provision that it be put on
public display.77 The crown became, in other words, an aesthetic object of
appreciation rather than an attribute of monarchy. A minor physical modification
accompanied this conceptual aestheticization: an American Baroque pearl was
added to replace two that were missing.78 While such conversions are often seen
as antiquated practices in keeping with ideologically charged medieval practices
of spoliated re-use, the addition of the American pearl physically marks the crown
again as a new kind of gift and possession, and one which triangulates a new set
of relations.
Given its long and complicated history, it should not be surprising to learn
that the story of the crown does not end with its return to Budapest in 1978. The
modern history of the crown, its conceptual aestheticization, is further compli-
cated by the events of 1 January 2000. On this 1000th anniversary of the crowning
of St Stephen by Pope Sylvester II, the crown was processed from the National
Museum to the rotunda of the Hungarian Parliament Building, where it can be
seen today (plate 2). In conjunction with this new installation, the first parlia-
mentary act of the New Year was to appoint a crown guard.79 Initially it might
seem surprising that such a potent symbol of monarchy might be so readily
adopted by a democratic nation-state. My reading of the crown, however, suggests
that this is not the first of such unlikely reconceptualizations, and that it is surely
no less unusual than the crown’s earlier conversion from a female crown, a gift
for a Byzantine bride, to a male crown, to be worn by the king of an emerging
power. Despite the physical and ideological transformation of this enigmatic
object over time, a certain sense of continuity remains, a continuity provided by
our understanding of the crown’s status as a gift, but one with shifting givers,
receivers and wearers.

Notes
Much of the research for this article was supported by a Fulbright Scholarship to
Hungary and a Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellowship in Byzantine Studies. Thanks
are due to Maria Parani for sharing her expertise on myriad aspects of Byzantine
dress and to Paul Stephenson for his extensive knowledge of eleventh-century
Hungarian history. For help early on in my thinking about the crown and gift-
giving strategies, I would like to thank Linda Seidel, Robert Nelson, the late
Michael Camille, and Tom Cummins. I would also like to thank Titos Papamas-
torakis, Etele Kiss, and Kriszta Kotsis for their assistance in the final phase of the
publication process along with the editorial board and reviewers of Art History as
well as Jonathan Sachs.
1 The Holy Crown of St. Stephen and United States- 4 Holy Crown of St. Stephen and United States-
Hungarian Relations: Hearing Before the Subcom- Hungarian Relations, 144. The outrage was
mittee on Europe and the Middle East of the Committee expressed in more emotional terms by the
on International Relations House of Representatives Honorable Frank Horton who offered the
Ninety-Fifth Congress First Session, November 9, 1977, following analogy: it would be as if in 1941 ‘the
Washington DC, 1978, 59. See also Katalin Kadar Chief Rabbi of Warsaw had presented a sacred
Lynn, ‘The Return of the Crown of St. Stephen Torah to Adolph Hitler in recognition of his
and its Subsequent Impact on the Carter ‘‘fine’’ treatment of the Jewish people.’(15) Much
Administration’, East European Quarterly, 34, 2000, of the material from the hearing, as well other
181–202. statements relating to the crown’s return, have
been compiled by Attila Simontsits in The Last
2 Sándor Radnóti, ‘The Glass Cabinet: An Essay
Battle for Saint Stephen’s Crown: A Chronological
about the Place of the Hungarian Crown’, Acta
Documentation, Cleveland, 1983.
Historiae Artium, 43, 2002, 83–111, notes the
crown’s display for three days following the 5 Memorandum dated 28 November 1977 entitled
‘Surrender of the Holy Crown of Saint Stephen to
coronation in 1916. At the jubilee (1938) the
the Soviet Puppet Regime in Budapest Hungary;
crown and other regalia were placed on view in
An American Issue and A Vital Concern to Free
the Royal Palace under guard. Both Bárány-
People Everywhere’.
Oberschall, ‘Localization of the Enamels of the
6 The anthropology of gift-giving has become
Upper Hemisphere of the Holy Crown of
increasingly influential in historical and art-
Hungary’, Art Bulletin, 31:2, June 1949, 121, and
historical studies. See, for example, Esther Cohen
Patrick Kelleher, The Holy Crown of Hungary, Rome,
and Mayke de Jong, Medieval transformations: texts,
1951, 10–11, describe how, at this particular
power and gifts in context, Boston, 2001; Gadi
viewing, a special commission of experts,
Algazi, Valentin Groebner and Bernhard Jussen,
including Bárány-Oberschall, were allowed to eds, Negotiating the gift: pre-modern figurations of
study the crown (each scholar was allotted one exchange, Göttingen, 2003; Franz Alto Bauer,
hour and direct physical contact was prohibited). ‘Herrschergaben an Sankt Peter’, Mitteilungen zur
3 The details of the crown’s transfer from Buda- Sp.atantiken Arch.aologie und Byzantinischen Kunst-
pest to the American occupied zone of Austria in geschichte, 4, 2005, 65–92; and Florin Curta,
1944 are the stuff of legend. The present chron- ‘Merovingian and Carolingian Gift Giving’, Spec-
ology is drawn primarily from the ‘Unclassified ulum, 81, 2006, 671–99.
History of the U.S. Acquisition of the Custody of 7 Arjun Appadurai, ed., The social life of things:
the Hungarian Coronation’, prepared by the commodities in cultural perspective, Cambridge,
Department of State in June 1977, published as 1986.
Appendix 4 of Holy Crown of St. Stephen and United 8 Bill Brown, ‘Thing Theory’, Critical Inquiry, 28,
States-Hungarian Relations, 105–106. Tibor Glant, 2001, 4.
‘American-Hungarian Relations and the Return 9 The crown has received a vast amount of scho-
of the Holy Crown’, in Denis P. Hupchick and larly attention. The following sources have been
Richard William Weisberger, eds, Hungary’s most relevant for the present study: József Deér,
Historical Legacies: Studies in Honor of Professor Die Heilige Krone Ungarns, Vienna, 1966; Kelleher,
Steven Béla Várdy, Boulder, 2000, 173, describes the The Holy Crown; Klaus Wessel, Byzantine Enamels,
transport of the box with the regalia first to New from the 5th to the 13th Century, Greenwich, 1968;
York in ‘deepest secrecy’ in 1953, then to Fort Bárány-Oberschall, Die Sankt Stephans-Krone und
Knox, home of US Gold Reserve. He estimates des Königreiches Ungarn, Vienna and Munich, 1961.
that between May 1953 and December 1977, the Since the crown’s return to Budapest in 1978 a
cell door was opened only seventeen times. series of more recent studies with excellent

photographs have emerged, including Kovács Muqarnas, 7, 1990, 119–35; and Thomas Steppan,
and Lovag, The Hungarian Crown, and Tóth, Holy ‘The Artukid Bowl: Courtly Art in the Middle
Crown. The proceedings from the first major Byzantine Period and Its Relation to the Islamic
academic colloquium on the crown in 1981 have East’, in Perceptions of Byzantium, 84–101.
been published as Insignia regni Hungariae, Studien 19 Totju Totev, The Preslav Treasures, Shoumen, 1993,
zur Machtsymbolik des mittelalterlichen Ungarns, 20–31, and Valentino Pace, ed., Treasures of Chris-
Budapest, 1983, and the papers from the more tian Art in Bulgaria, Sofia, 2001, 164–5. Henry
recent colloquium at the Hungarian Institute of Maguire, in Glory of Byzantium, 210, points out
Paris in 2001 have been published in the 2002 that both this group of enamels, as well as those
volume of the Acta Historiae Artium. associated with Constantine Monomachos, may
10 Proposals include a book cover, portable altar, have originally constituted belts rather than
reliquary and even an ‘asterisk’ used to cover the crowns.
consecrated bread. Kovács, The Hungarian Crown, 20 Cormack, ‘But Is It Art?’, 230, claims that the two
54, and Lovag, ‘L’Integration,’ 69–70. ‘can with some confidence be accepted in the
11 Proposals for the corona latina’s centre of category of diplomatic gifts, even though this
production have ranged from Rome, Milan, conclusion is ultimately a deduction based on
Sicily, Naples and, north of the alps, Trier, Essen internal evidence.’
and Regensburg, and even Hungary. 21 Drawing on the work of André Grabar, Maria
12 Bárány-Oberschall, ‘Localization,’ 122–3, posi- Parani, ‘The Romanos Ivory and the New Tokali
tions the corona latina as a transitional monu- Kilise: Imperial Costume as a Tool for Dating
ment between these two traditions. David Byzantine Art’, Cahiers archéologiques, 49, 2001, 15,
Buckton, ‘The Holy Crown of Hungary in the and Reconstructing the Reality of Images: Byzantine
History of Enamelling’, Acta Historiae Artium, 43, Material Culture and Religious Iconography (11th–15th
2002, 14–21, provides a technical analysis of both Centuries), Leiden, 2003, 28, points out that the
the lower and upper parts of the crown and imperial portrait was perceived as a substitute
situates each within the eleventh- and twelfth- for the person and authority of the emperor and
century enamel histories respectively. so argues that neither the Monomachos crown
13 Cited in Károly Bradák, ‘The Problem of the Rear nor the Royal Crown would have been worn by
Pinnacle of the Hungarian Crown’, Sacra Corona the emperor.
Hungariae, Köszeg, 1994, 100. A colour engraving 22 Ghada al-Hijjawi al-Qaddumi, ed. and trans., Book
of the crown of 1792 from Samuel Decsy’s book is of Gifts and Rarities (Kitab al-Hadaya wa al-Tuhaf),
reproduced in Toth, Holy Crown, 62. Cambridge, 1996; Oleg Grabar, ‘The Shared
14 Many scholars have noted this anomaly. Most Culture of Objects’, in Maguire, ed., Byzantine
recently, Lovag, ‘L’integration’, 66, confirms that Court Culture from 829 to 1204, Cambridge, 1997,
the plaque is part of the same group of enamels 115–29, and Anthony Cutler, ‘Gifts and Gift
but admits that its placement cannot easily be Exchange as Aspects of the Byzantine, Arab, and
explained. Related Economies’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 55,
15 Helen Evans and William Wixom, eds, The Glory of 2001, 247–78.
Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine 23 Cormack, ‘But Is It Art?’, 236.
Era, A.D. 843–1261, New York, 1997, 210–12, and 24 Gyula Moravcsik, ed., De Administrando Imperio,
Etele Kiss, ‘The State of Research on the Mono- Washington, DC, 1967, 67.
machos Crown and Some Further Thoughts’, in 25 Moravcsik, ed., De Administrando, 71. On marriage
Olenka Pevny, ed., Perceptions of Byzantium and Its regulation and the Francophilism of the text, see
Neighbors (843–1261), New Haven, 2000, 77, 60–83, Adelbert Davids, ‘Marriage Negotiations between
which responds to charges of inauthenticity Byzantium and the West’, in The Empress Theo-
expressed by Nicolas Oikonomides, ‘La Couronne phano, Cambridge, 1995, 101–102. See also
dite de Constantin Monomaque’, Travaux et Macrides, ‘Dynastic Marriages and political
Mémoires, 12, 1994, 241–62. kinship’, in Byzantine Diplomacy, 266; Shepard,
16 See Kiss, ‘The State of Research’, 63–4 on their ‘Information, disinformation and delay in
excavation and sale. The authenticity debate is Byzantine diplomacy’, Byzantinische Forshungen,
still very much alive, see David Buckton, 10, 1985, 239–40; and ‘Aspects of Byzantine
‘Byzantine enamels in the twentieth century’, in Attitudes and Policy Towards the West in the
Jeffreys, ed., Byzantine Style, Religion and Civiliza- Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, Byzantinische
tion, Cambridge, 2006, 31–33. Forschungen, 13, 1988, 87–9.
17 Cormack, ‘But Is It Art?’, in Jonathan Shepard 26 For a succinct overview of the imperial crown,
and Simon Franklin, eds, Byzantine Diplomacy, see Parani, Reconstructing, 27–30, who singles out
Aldershot, 1992, 231–6. the Royal Crown and the Monomachos crown as
18 As early as 1937 Magda Bárány-Oberschall made the best-preserved examples (but again which
this connection and it has been echoed in most would not have been worn by the emperor).
subsequent scholarship. See Kiss, ‘The State of Another crown associated with Leo VI (r. 886–
Research’, 72. On the Innsbruck bowl, see Glory of 912) survives in the Treasury of San Marco in
Byzantium, 422–3; Scott Redford, ‘How Islamic is Venice, having been reused as the base for the so-
it? The Innsbruck Plate and its Setting’, called ‘Grotto of the Virgin’. It consists of a single

band inlaid with enamel medallions (of apostles, square plaques below and a full figure repre-
evangelists and the emperor Leo) hemmed by sentation of Christ in an arched projection
strands of pearls, but its small diameter (13 cm) above. Even the measurements of the square
suggests an original votive function. See The enamel plaques roughly correspond to each
Treasury of San Marco Venice, Milan, 1984, 120–3. It other: the Khakhuli plaques measure 3 3 cm,
should be noted that in the San Marco inventory only slightly smaller than the 3.5 cm square
of 1325 a series of eleven crowns are recorded, plaques on the Royal Crown’s corona graeca.
although it is unclear whether they were votive. 31 Parani, Reconstructing, 29.
27 They were married sometime between 1071 and 32 On the origin of this technique, see Buckton,
1073. Michael VII was dethroned in 1078 by ‘The Holy Crown of Hungary’, 19–20.
Nikephoros Botaneiates, who then married 33 Despite Bárány-Oberschall’s untenable recon-
Maria of Alania in a union surrounded by issues struction schema, her claim about the feminine
of trigamy and adultery. See Angeliki Laiou, formal features of the crown is sustained and
‘Imperial Marriages and Their Critics in the echoed in subsequent scholarship from Josef
Eleventh Century: The Case of Skylitzes’, Deér, ‘Mittelalterliche Frauenkronen in Ost und
Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 46, 1992, 173–5, Ioli West’, in Schramm, ed., Herrschaftszeichen Und
Kalavrezou, ‘Irregular Marriages in the Eleventh Staatssymbolik, and Deér, Die Heilige Krone Ungarns,
Century and the Zoe and Constantine Mosaic in to the recent catalogues of the crown by Kovács
Hagia Sophia’, in Law and Society in Byzantium: and Lovag, The Hungarian Crown, and Tóth, Holy
Ninth–Twelfth Centuries, Cambridge, 1994, 249–51, Crown. Lovag, ‘L’Integration’, 64–6, convincingly
and Lynda Garland and Stephen Rapp, ‘Maria ‘‘of demonstrates that the band of the lower corona
Alania’’: Women and Empress Between Two graeca and the frame of the triangular pinnacles
Worlds’, in Byzantine Women: Varieties of Experience are cut from the same piece of gold and thus the
800–1200, Aldershot, 2006, 91–122. pinnacles are integral to the lower band. The
28 The Khakhuli enamels are consistently described crown’s relatively large circumference also
as inferior to those of the corona graeca. Paul suggests that it was designed to be worn over a
Hetherington, ‘La couronne grecque de la Sainte veil or cap cloth as a woman would. For
Couronne de Hongrie: le contexte de ses émaux comparative images in other media of female
et ses bijoux’, Acta Historiae Artium, 43, 2002, 33– headdresses and diadems, see Melita Emmanuel,
8, focuses on the disjunction between the two. ‘Hairstyles and Headdresses of Empresses, Prin-
29 Titos Papamastorakis, ‘Re-Deconstructing the cesses, and Ladies of the Aristocracy in Byzan-
Khakhuli Triptych’, Deltion tes Christianikes Arch- tium’, Deltion tes Christianikes Archaiologikes
aiologikes Hetaireias, 23, 2002, 239–45. The Hetaireias, 17, 1993, 113–20, and Parani, Recon-
Khakhuli triptych’s amalgamation of medieval structing, 29–30.
enamel work and the Pala d’Oro in Venice are 34 Kelleher, The Holy Crown, 65. More recently,
the most extensive collections of assembled Jolivet-Lévy, ‘L’apport de l’iconographie à l’inter-
Byzantine enamels. Papamastorakis astutely prétation de la ‘‘corona graeca’’,’ Acta Historiae
points out that that nearly half of the Pala Artium 43, 2002, 28 argues that the iconography
d’Oro’s enamels were obtained through is more appropriate for a political pact than
conquest as booty and are arranged to emphasize marital union. She further points out that the
their exhibition value, while most of the argument for an original female crown rests
enamels of the Khakhuli triptych arrived largely on the contemporaneity of the figural
presumably through diplomacy and their enamels and the pinnacles.
arrangement adheres to a more symbolic logic 35 Roger Scott, ‘Diplomacy in the sixth century: the
(228). The plaque of Michael VII and Maria, for evidence of John Malalas’, in Byzantine Diplomacy,
example, holds a privileged position above the 159–65.
large icon of the Virgin so as to be visible when 36 Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Sp.atantike und des
the triptych wings are both open and closed fr.uhen Mittelalters, 1976, 49–50; Kurt Weitzmann,
because it most explicitly visualizes the connec- ed., Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early
tion of the royal house of Georgia to the imperial Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century, New York,
court of Constantinople. On the Pala d’Oro and 1979, 31–2; and more recently Diliana Angelova,
its changes over time within the context of the ‘The Ivories of Ariadne and Ideas about female
status of the Doge in Venice, see David Buckton imperial authority in Rome and Early Byzan-
and John Osborne, ‘The Enamel of Doge Orde- tium’, Gesta, 43, 2004, 1–15.
laffo Falier on the Pala d’Oro in Venice’, Gesta, 39: 37 Jean Verpeaux, ed. and trans., Pseudo-Kodinos,
1, 2000, 43–9. Buckton, ‘Stalin and Georgian Traité des offices, Paris, 1966, 152–3. See Parani,
enamels’, in Eastern Approaches to Byzantium, Reconstructing, 70 and 358.
Aldershot, 2001, 211–18, discusses the modern 38 Most notably in the Lincoln College Typikon (MS
circulation and fabrication of Byzantine gr. 35) on which see Spatharakis, The Portrait in
enamels, including some from the Khakhuli Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts, Leiden, 1976,
triptych. 190–206, and Cutler and Magdalino, ‘Some
30 This general layout closely resembles the Royal Precisions on the Lincoln College Typikon’,
Crown with its smaller bust-length figures in the Cahiers archéologiques, 27, 1978, 179–98. It is also

worn by the Grand Duke Apokaukos in his copy introduced by the Komnenoi, therefore post-
of the works of Hippocrates (Paris BN 2144): see dating the Greek inscriptions on the Royal
Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), Crown. Regardless of the correlation of colour to
New York, 2004, 26–7. exact station, however, blue was a privileged
39 The fourteenth-century icon of Christ Pantok- colour but below red in terms of precedence. See
rator in the Hermitage includes a figure wearing Rodolphe Guilland, Recherches sur les institutions
such a headdress; see Bank, Byzantine Art in the Byzantines, Amsterdam, 1967, vol. 1, 38.
Collections of Soviet Museums, 1985, 281–4, the 50 Michael’s loros crosses over his chest, unlike his
silver frame of Virgin Hodegitria icon in the portraits on coinage but similar to his portrait in
Tret’iakov Gallery depicts Constantine Akropo- Coislin 79. See Wessel, Byzantine Enamels, 112,
lites in the lower left corner in such a headdress: Parani, Reconstructing, 315–16, and Jolivet-Lévy,
Bank, Byzantine Art, 252–4, and Byzantium: Faith ‘l’Apport de l’iconographie’, 23–5.
and Power, 28–30.
51 It is described as a consul’s scroll by Kovács and
40 Gordana Babic, ‘L’iconographie Constantinopoli- Lovag, The Hungarian Crown, 24 and an akakia by
taine de l’Acathiste de la Vierge à Cozia (Vala- Jolivet-Lévy, ‘l’Apport de l’iconographie’, 26. On
chie)’, Recueil des travaux de l’Institut d’études
the akakia, see Parani, Reconstructing, 33. Both
Byzantines, 14–15, 1973, 173–89. I would like to
Michael VII on the Khakhuli triptych and
thank Warren Woodfin for this reference.
Constantine IX on the Monomachos crown hold
41 Natalia Mayasova, Medieval Pictorial Embroidery: the same object. That these enamels may have all
Byzantium, Balkans, Russia, Moscow, 1991, 44–50.
originally been gifts raises the possibility that
42 Wessel, Byzantine Enamels, 115. the object was not meant to suggest a badge of
43 The bride was not the daughter of the emperor office or authority (mappa or akakia) but rather a
but of Byzantine nobleman Theodoulos Syna- scroll or letter tied with red string since any gift
denos: see discussion below. would have originally been accompanied by a
44 Hélène Ahrweiler, L’idéologie politique de l’empire letter. Gifts and letters together appear in many
byzantin, Paris, 1975, 129–47, Shepard, ‘Aspects’, of the narratives of Byzantine–Arabic exchange
67–118, and Paul Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan included in the Book of Gifts and Rarities. On letters
Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, and gifts together, see Karapozelos, ‘Realia in
900–1204, Cambridge, 2000, 33–7, esp. 35. Byzantine Epistolography, X-XII Century’, Byzanti-
Maguire explores this notion with regard to nische Zeitschrift, 77, 1984, 20–37. On the letter itself
court imagery in Glory of Byzantium, 184–5. as a gift, see Margaret Mullet, ‘The Language of
45 The Book of Ceremonies makes specific reference to Diplomacy’, in Byzantine Diplomacy, 214.
the Magyars outlining the correct address for 52 The cruciform sceptre and stephanos, according
written correspondence: ‘letter of Constantine to Wessel, Byzantine Enamels, 115, correspond to
and Romanos, Christ-loving emperors of the
the highest official class of the Byzantine aris-
Romans to Magyar Princes’, using archon to
tocracy, Patriklos. While noting that it is the
describe the rank of ruler (prince) and Tourkon as
same sceptre as that held by Maria on the
the ethnic designation for the Magyars.
Khakhuli triptych, Kovács and Lovag, The
Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier, 38–9,
Hungarian Crown, 42, associate it with the legend
claims that these protocols, which he dates to
before c. 948, indicate that there was more than of Stephen receiving a relic of the True Cross
one ruler and that the Hungarians were not from Basil II.
considered a subject people. 53 Before his accession, Prince Géza had opposed
46 ruling King Salomon by protecting Greek pris-
oners of war and returning them safely to the
Byzantine emperor. According to a fourteenth-
century Hungarian source, the Byzantine
47 commander agreed to surrender to Prince Géza
48 In the eyes of the Byzantines, the Hungarian rather than King Salomon, thus causing a rivalry
king was an archon (ruler) and sometimes a kral between the two which led to open armed
(the Hungarian kingly title related to the conflict two years later at which point Géza
modern Hungarian király ‘king’) but not rex and defeated Salomon and became king. Moravcsik,
certainly never basileus. See Wessel, Byzantine Byzantium and the Magyars, 65, suggests that the
Enamels, 101, and Cormack, ‘But Is It Art?’, 230. Byzantines intentionally bypassed Solomon in
Only in the second half of the twelfth century favour of Géza in order to create tension between
was rex used and it was apparently introduced by the two. See also Urbansky, Byzantium and the
Manuel Komnenos to raise an Hungarian king to Danube Frontier, 23, Shepard, ‘Byzantium and the
a higher rank according to Moravcsik, Byzantium Steppe-Nomads: The Hungarian Dimension’, in
and the Magyars, Amsterdam, 1970, 68. See also .
Gunter Prinzing and Maciej Salamon, eds, Byzanz
Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier, 38–45. und Ostmitteleuropa, 950–1453, Wiesbaden, 1999,
49 Moravcsik, Byzantium and the Magyars, 68, points 55–82, and Jean-Claude Cheynet, ‘L’Empire
out that blue was reserved for the rank of sebas- byzantin et la Hongrie dans la seconde moitié du
tokrator, a title that, it should be noted, was XIe siècle’, Acta Historiae Artium, 43, 2002, 5–13.

54 Kosztolnyik, Five Eleventh Century Hungarian Kings: 63 Macrides, ‘Dynastic Marriages’, 264 and 275. On
Their Policies and Their Relations with Rome, New other types of kinship arrangements such as
York, 1981, 86 and The Dynastic Policy of the Árpáds, political adoption, see Macrides, ‘The Byzantine
Géza I to Emery (1074–1204), Boulder, 2006, 11–25. godfather’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 11,
55 Kelleher, The Holy Crown, 60. 1987, 139–62 and ‘Kinship by Arrangement’,
56 Botaneiates served as the emperor’s general Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 44, 1990, 109–118.
before taking the throne in the coup of 1078. 64 Foreign-born brides were renamed upon their
According to the Alexiad, when Botaniates took arrival, often Irene (‘peace’). Upon the death of
the throne, he appointed Synadenos, by then their Byzantine husband, many foreign-born
already Géza’s brother-in-law. On these family brides did not return to their homeland but
connections, see Kerbl, Byzantinische Prinzessinnen retired to a monastery often taking the name
in Ungarn zwischen 1050–1200, Vienna, 1979; Xene (‘foreigner’). This sense of incorporation is
Hannick and Schmalzbauer, ‘Die Synadenoi’, conveyed by the images of a Greek manuscript
Jahrbuch der österreichisschen Byzantinistik, 25, 1976, given to a French princess married into the
128–9; Alexander Kazhdan, ‘Some notes on the imperial, see Cecily Hilsdale, ‘Constructing a
Byzantine Prospography of the 9th through the Byzantine Augusta: A Greek Book for a French
12th centuries’, Byzantinische Forschungen, 12,
Bride’, Art Bulletin, 87: 3, 2005, 458–83.
1987, 72–3; Demetrios Polemis, The Doukai: A
Contribution to Byzantine Prospography, London, 65 The question of whether the crown was actually
1968, 178–9; and Cheynet, ‘L’Empire byzantin et ever worn by Synadena or anyone else must
la Hongrie’, 8–10. remain open. As ceremonial regalia and semi-
relic, the crown was only displayed on rare
57 Eudoxia Tsolakes, He synecheia tes chronographias
tou Ioannou Skylitse, Thessalonike, 1968, 185, 23–6: occasion which only heightened its mystery and
aura.
66 Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for
Exchange in Archaic Societies, New York, 1990 [Paris,
1925], 11–12.
: 67 Parani, Reconstructing, 28–9, assigns this change
The precise date of the wedding has been debated in shape of the male imperial crown to the end
extensively. See Shepard, ‘Byzantium and the of the eleventh century during the reign of
Steppe-Nomads’, 72–8, and Cheynet, ‘L’Empire Alexios Komnenos.
byzantin et la Hongrie’, 8–10. 68 The question of when the two crowns were
58 Macrides, ‘Dynastic marriages’, 270–1; Franz joined is highly disputed, and often tentatively
Tinnefeld, ‘Byzantinische ausw.artige Heir- associated with Béla III. Regardless of the exact
atspolitik von 9. zum 12. Jahrhundert. circumstances, the new composite crown
Kontinuit.at und Wandel der Prinzipien und der resembles the twelfth-century Byzantine
praktischen Ziele’, Byzantinoslavica 54, 1993, 21–8; imperial crown. See Tóth, The Holy Crown, 33;
von Falkenhausen, ‘Olympias, eine norman- Lovag, ‘L’Integration’; and Marosi, ‘La ‘‘couronne
nische Prinzessin in Konstantinopel’, in Bisanzio latine’’.’
e l’Italia, Milan, 1982, 56–72; and Cheynet, 69 Even after her death, Béla sought kinship ties to
‘L’Empire byzantin et la Hongrie’, 10. Byzantium. While engaged to Maria Porphyro-
59 George Dennis, ed., Michaelis Pselli Orationes gennete in Constantinople, Béla had been given
Forenses et Acta, Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1994, 176– the Byzantine name Alexios and the title despotes
81; Kolia-Dermitzaki, ‘Michael VII Doukas, to signify his status as heir apparent. Upon the
Robert Guiscard and the Byzantine–Norman dissolution of the engagement, however, he was
Marriage Negotiations,’ Byzantinoslavica 58, 1997, stripped of this title and given the more humble
251–68, Shepard, ‘Aspects’, 100–101. The bride rank of kaisar. See Charles M. Brand, Byzantium
arrived in Constantinople and was renamed
Confronts the West, 1180–1204, Cambridge, 1968,
Helena but before the marriage took place
88–96, Makk, ‘Relations Hungaro-Byzantines à
Michael VII was dethroned by Botaneiates. Etele
l’époque de Béla III’, Acta Historica Academiae
Kiss, ‘La ‘‘courone grecque’’ dans son context’,
Scientiarum Hungaricae 31, 1995, 3–32, and
Acta Historiae Artium, 43, 2002, 39–51, proposes
that the lower diadem of the Royal Crown was Moravcsik, Studia Byzantina, 305–313.
made on the occasion of this marriage as a 70 Kelleher, The Holy Crown, 42.
female crown for the daughter of Guiscard, and 71 Kelleher, The Holy Crown, 50. Despite charges of
was later adapted for Géza’s use. inauthenticity, Hartwig’s Life became the stan-
60 Sathas, ‘Deux lettres inédites de l’empereur dard source and even served as the basis for the
Michel Ducas Parapinace à Robert Guiscard’, Sylvester Bull, a seventeenth-century forged text
Annuaire de l’Association pour l’Encouragement des used to authenticate the crown as a papal gift.
Études Grèques en France, 8, 1874, 193–221. 72 Kelleher, The Holy Crown, 42–55.
61 Shepard, ‘Aspects’, 101; Kolia-Dermitzaki, 73 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflec-
‘Michael VII’, 260–1. tions on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised
62 Kolia-Dermitzaki, ‘Michael VII’, 264. Edition, Verso, 1991.

74 Patrick Kelleher, who was able to study the welcomed to view it’ (125). It was initially housed
crown when it was in Wiesebaden, points out in in the National Museum where in theory it could
his preface the presence of other objects be made available for scholarly study once a
awaiting transfer like the Hungarian crown week. Radnóti, ‘The Glass Cabinet’, 98, refers to
including pieces of the Guelph treasure. this period of its history as the ‘musealization of
75 Weiner, Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of the crown’.
Keeping-While-Giving, Berkeley, 1992, 33. See also 78 Paul Hofmann, ‘American Pearl Adorns Crown’,
Fred R. Myers, ed., The Empire of Things: Regimes of in Washington Post, 7 January 1978, A10.
Value and Material Culture, Oxford, 2001. 79 Such an action begs the question of relevance of
76 Radnóti, ‘The Glass Cabinet’, 98. provisions for a monarchic symbol in a demo-
77 Holy Crown of St. Stephen and United States-Hungarian cratic constitution. See Donald G. McNeil, Jr,
Relations, 105-108, addresses the unclassified ‘Hungary’s Millennium Fireworks: A Royal
history of the U.S. ‘acquisition of custody’ of the Puzzle’, New York Times, 3 January 2000, A3.
crown and regalia. Responding to the questions Despite significant political ramifications, this
of assurances that the crown would be on public most recent chapter in the crown’s social life is
display, the brief notes: ‘The Hungarian Govern- only beginning to receive its deserved attention
ment, at the highest level, has assured us that the by scholars, such as Radnóti, ‘The Glass Cabinet’,
Crown will promptly be displayed permanently 99–101, who reads this latest phase in the
in a manner appropriate to its historical and crown’s life as a ‘resacralization’.
national significance and that everyone will be

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THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE GIFT

& ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

In 1978, as a gesture towards improved Hungarian–American relations, the Carter

Imagine the imminent removal of the Declaration of Independence to a Moscow museum, or

604 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

GEOGRAPHY OF THE CROWN

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606 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

the apostles are densely filled with

& ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008 607

GENDER OF THE CROWN

608 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

7 Detail of Michael VII Doukas from the back

& ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008 609

610 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

the Royal Crown that represents

Cosmopolitan exotic imagery could thus indicate mutuality between foreign

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10 Innsbruck Bowl, mid-twelfth century. Copper gilt with cloisonné

11 Detail of Innsbruck Bowl, mid-twelfth century. Copper gilt with

612 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

Hungarian sovereign at all but rather

& ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008 613

Papamastorakis’s proposed arrange-

614 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

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616 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

An imperial image, the above passage

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618 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

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aspects of the crown complicate the connotations of loyalty and allegiance

620 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

This metaphor of thief and true owner is an evocative description of an inalien-

& ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008 621

RE-GENDERING THE CROWN: MONARCHY AND INDEPENDENCE

622 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

20 Emperor Constantine IX and Empress Zoe, mid-eleventh century. Mosaic.

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624 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

myriad histories imprinted in the crown’s form, especially histories involving to

& ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008 625

626 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

& ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008 627

628 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

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630 & ASSOCIATION OF ART HISTORIANS 2008

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