Gesta Hungarorum, or The Deeds of the Hungarians, is the earliest Hungarian chronicle which has survived for posterity. It was written in Latin by an unidentified author who has traditionally been called Anonymus in scholarly works. According to most historians, the work was completed between around 1200 and 1230. The Gesta exists in a sole manuscript from the second part of the 13th century, which was for centuries held in Vienna. It is part of the collection of Széchényi National Library in Budapest.
The principal subject of the Gesta is the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries, and it writes of the origin of the Hungarians, identifying the Hungarians' ancestors with the ancient Scythians and Huns. Many of its sources—including the Bible, Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae, the 7th-century Exordia Scythica, the late 9th-century Regino of Prüm's Chronicon, and early medieval romances of Alexander the Great—have been identified by scholars. Anonymus also used folk songs and ballads when writing his work. He knew a version of the late 11th-century "Hungarian Chronicle" the text of which has partially been preserved in his work and in later chronicles, but his narration of the Hungarian Conquest differs from the version provided by the other chronicles. Anonymus did not mention the opponents of the conquering Hungarians known from sources written around 900, but he wrote of the Hungarians' fight against rulers unknown from other sources. According to a scholarly theory, he used place names when naming the opponents of the Hungarians.
Background
Although the Hungarians, or Magyars, seem to have used their own alphabet before adopting Christianity in the 11th century, most information of their early history was recorded by Muslim, Byzantine and Western European authors. For instance, the Annals of Fulda, Regino of Prüm's Chronicon, and Emperor Constantine VII's De administrando imperio contain contemporaneous or nearly contemporaneous reports of their conquest of the Carpathian Basin at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. Among the Hungarians, oral tradition—songs and ballads—preserved the memory of the most important historical events. The Illuminated Chronicle explicitly stated that the "seven captains" who led the Hungarians during the Conquest "composed lays about themselves and sang them among themselves in order to win worldly renown and to publish their names abroad, so that their posterity might be able to boast and brag to neighbours and friends when these songs were heard".The Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle (ch. 36), p. 100.
The Gesta Hungarorum, or The Deeds of the Hungarians, is the first extant Hungarian chronicle. Its principal subject is the conquest of the Carpathian Basin and it narrates the background and the immediate aftermath of the conquest. Many historiansincluding Carlile Aylmer Macartney and András Róna-Tasagree that Simon of Kéza's chronicle (the Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum, named so to differentiate it from this work), the Illuminated Chronicle and other works composed in the 13th–15th centuries preserved texts which had been written before the completion of the Gesta. They say that the first "Hungarian Chronicle" was completed in the second half of the 11th century or in the early 12th century. The existence of this ancient chronicle is proven by later sources. One Ricardus's report of a journey of a group of Dominican friars in the early 1230s refers to a chronicle, The Deeds of the Christian Hungarians, which contained information of an eastern Magna Hungaria. The Illuminated Chronicle from 1358 refers to "the ancient books about the deeds of the Hungarians"The Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle (ch. 82), p. 111. in connection with the pagan uprisings of the 11th century. The earliest "Hungarian Chronicle" was expanded and rewritten several times in the 12th–14th centuries, but its content can only be reconstructed based on 14th-century works.
Manuscript
The work exists in a sole manuscript. The codex is in size and contains 24 folios, including two blank pages. The first page of the codex originally contained the beginning of the Gesta. It was blanked because the scribe had made mistakes when writing the text. The work was written in a Gothic minuscule. The style of the letters and decorations, including the elaborate initial on its first page, shows that the manuscript was completed in the middle or in the second part of the 13th century. Scribal errors suggest that the extant manuscript is a copy of the original work. For instance, the scribe wrote Cleopatram instead of Neopatram in the text narrating a Hungarian raid in the Byzantine Empire although the context clearly shows that the author of the Gesta referred to Neopatras (now Ypati in Greece).
The history of the manuscript up until the early 17th century is unknown. It became part of the collection of the Imperial Library in Vienna between 1601 and 1636. In this period, the court librarian Sebastian Tengnagel registered it under the title Historia Hungarica de VII primis ducibus Hungariae auctore Belae regis notario ("Hungarian History of the First Seven Princes of Hungary Written by King Béla's Notary"). Tengnagel added numbers to the folios and the chapters. The codex was bound with a leather book cover, impressed with a double-headed eagle, in the late 18th century. The manuscript, which was transferred to Hungary in 1933 or 1934, is held in the Széchényi National Library in Budapest.
The author
The author of the Gesta Hungarorum has been known as Anonymus ever since the publication of the first Hungarian translation of his work in 1790. The author described himself as "P who is called magister, and sometime notary of the most glorious Béla, king of Hungary of fond memory"Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians (Prologue), p. 3. in the opening sentence of the Gesta. The identification of this King Béla is subject to scholarly debate, because four Hungarian monarchs bore this name. Most historians identify the king with Béla III of Hungary who died in 1196.
Anonymus dedicated his work to "the most venerable man N" who had been his schoolmate in an unspecified school. Anonymus mentioned that they had found pleasure in reading the Trojan History, a work attributed to Dares Phrygius, which enjoyed popularity in the Middle Ages. He also referred to a work of the Trojan War that he had "brought most lovingly together into one volume" upon his masters' instructions. Anonymus stated that he had decided to write of "the genealogy of the kings of Hungary and of their noblemen" because he had no knowledge of any decent account of the Hungarian Conquest. According to scholars who identify Anonymus as King Béla III's notary, he wrote his Gesta around 1200 or in the first decades of the 13th century.
The study of place names mentioned in the Gesta suggests that Anonymus had a detailed knowledge both of the wider region of Óbuda and Csepel Island (in and to the south of present-day Budapest) and of the lands along the upper courses of the river Tisza. For instance, he mentioned a dozen places—settlements, ferries and streams—in the former region, including "a small river that flows through a stone culvert"Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians (ch. 53), p. 115. to Óbuda. He did not write of the southern and eastern parts of Transylvania.
Sources Minstrels and folk-singers reciting heroic songs were well-known figures of the age of Anonymus. He explicitly referred to "the gabbling rhymes of minstrels and the spurious tales of peasants who have not forgotten the brave deeds and wars of the Hungarians"Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians (ch. 42.), p. 91. even to his time. However, he did not conceal his scorn for oral tradition, stating that it "would be most unworthy and completely unfitting for the so most noble people of Hungary to hear as if in sleep of the beginning of their kind and of their bravery and deeds from the false stories of peasants and the gabbling song of minstrels".Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians (Prologue), p. 5. All the same, stylistic elements (including formulaic repetitions which can be found in his text) imply that he occasionally used heroic songs. According to Kristó, the legend of Emese's dream of the "falcon that seemed to come to her and impregnate her"Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians (ch. 3.), p. 13. was one of the motifs that Anonymus borrowed from oral tradition.
Anonymus, as Macartney says, claimed to "rely solely on written sources, as alone trustworthy" when writing his work. Among his sources, Anonymus explicitly mentioned the Bible and Dares Phrygius's Trojan History. He borrowed texts from the latter work and adopted its "overall structure of short but informative accounts naming important protagonists and main events", according to historians Martyn Rady and László Veszprémy. Anonymus also referred to "historians writing of the deeds of the Romans"Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians (ch. 1.), p. 9. when narrating the history of the Scythians. According to Kristó, Györffy and Thoroczkay, Anonymus obviously read the so-called Exordia Scythica ("Scythian Genesis"), a 7th-century abridgement of a work of the 2nd-century historian, Justin.
Anonymus used Regino of Prüm's Chronicon, that he mentioned as "the annals of chronicles"Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians (ch. 7.), p. 21. in his Gesta. He accepted Regino of Prüm's view when identifying the Scythians as the Hungarians' ancestors. Sometimes, he misinterpreted his sources. For instance, he wrote of "the boundaries of the Caranthians of the Mura" (Carinthinorum Moroanensium fines)Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians (ch. 50.), pp. 106-107. instead of the "lands of the Carinthians, Moravians" (Carantenorum, Marahensium ... fines)The Chronicle of Regino of Prüm (year 889), p. 205. of which he read in Regino of Prüm's Chronicon, which shows that Anonymus did not understand Regino of Prüm's reference to the Moravians.
Direct borrowings from Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae, Hugh of Bologna's Rationes dictandi prosaice, and medieval romances about Alexander the Great prove that Anonymus also used these works. According to Macartney, textual coincidences show that Anonymus adopted parts of late 12th-century chronicles narrating Frederick Barbarossa's crusade. For instance, Anonymus' descriptions of tournaments seem to have been taken from Arnold of Lübeck's Chronicle of the Slavs.
Anonymus also used the ancient "Hungarian Chronicle" or its sources. However, there are differences between Anonymus' narration of the Hungarian Conquest and other works preserving texts from the ancient chronicle. For instance, the Illuminated Chronicle wrote of the Hungarians' arrival in Transylvania across the Carpathian Mountains from the east at the beginning of the Conquest, but according to Anonymus the Hungarians invaded Transylvania across the valleys of the Meseş Mountains from the west at a later stage.