The Saints of the Arpadian Dynasty

Hungary, one of the youngest Christianized state of Europe produced a whole array of home-grown saints barely a century after its adoption of Christianity in the late 10th century. What makes the country's cultural history unique is the fact that a dozen of these saints became known within and without the borders of medieval Hungary as descendants of the selfsame royal dynasty, the House of Arpad. The ones who rose to fame and popularity were members of the royal family: king Saint Stephen, founder of the Christian monarchy and his son, prince Emeric, Saint Ladislas the Hungarian "knight-king", canonized in 1196, as well as the 13th century female saints of the dynasty: the saints Elizabeth and Margaret of Hungary, together with those  Arpadian princesses married abroad who became venerated as saints in their countries of adoption.
Although most Christian nations of Europe can boast royal saints, such prominence of  "a dynasty of holy kings" is largely unparalleled. Without an adequate knowledge of the cult of these saints and the cultural traditions entailed (touching on the history of religion, art history, folklore) a sizable portion of Hungarian cultural heritage would be difficult to grasp. The present work of Zoltán Magyar is a representative monograph  offering a panoramic view of such Hungarian national traditions while giving ample space to the Western cultural influences that helped in shaping them.
 
Zoltán Magyar is the senior research fellow of the Institute of Ethnology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the author of several books about the Hungarian and European cult of saints. His previous work published in the theme at Gabriele Schäfer Verlag is "Motif-Index of Legends of Early Hungarian Saints".
 Studien zur Kirchengeschichte und Theologie, Bd. 3

ISBN 9783933337948, kartoniert, 14,8x20,5 cm, 240 Seiten, 49 s/w, 4 farbige Abbildungen