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The present volume of studies—a joint publication with the National Széchényi Library, Budapest—is the first Subsidium of the Central European Medieval Text series, accompanying CEMT vol. IX on the Illuminated Chronicle, composed in the fourteenth century at the royal court of Louis I of Hungary. The large size of the volume, with the text and its annotations, did not permit the inclusion of a detailed scholarly introduction, unlike other CEMT items, so it is here printed separately.

The first essays analyze the text and the illuminations of the Illuminated Chronicle (formerly called the Vienna Chronicle) from literary-historical, art historical and heraldic perspectives. They also summarize the literature on the chronicle for the past two hundred years. Additional studies address the narrative. Since the chronicle starts with the history of the Huns, the imaginary ancestors of the Hungarians, one essay addresses the Attila tradition in Hungarian historiography. Others devote attention to the dynastic struggles of the eleventh century, placing them in the context of amicitia and deditio, and to the image of St. Ladislas I as the “ideal king”. The final essays examine the fate of the fourteenth-century chronicle texts over the subsequent centuries, their appearance in legal texts, and their reception abroad.

The Illuminated Chronicle was composed in 1358 in the international artistic style at the royal court of Louis I of Hungary. Its text, presented here in a new edition and translation, is the most complete record of Hungary's medieval historical tradition, going back to the eleventh century and including the mythical past of its people. The pictures in this manuscript—formerly known as the Vienna Chronicle—are not merely occasional illustrations added to some exemplars, but text and image are closely connected and mutually related to each other, to qualify it as a proper “illuminated chronicle”. The artistic value of the miniatures is quite high, and the characters are drawn with detail and with a knowledge of anatomy. Forty-two of the miniatures are included in the present volume. A full color facsimile will be accessible online.  

The 147 pictures are an invaluable source of information on late medieval cultural history, costume, and court life. In a historiographical context, The Illuminated Chronicle is an attempt at the popularization of the national history and a systematic appeal to circles beyond the old monastic-clerical audience.

The Illuminated Chronicle (Chronica de gestis Hungarorum e codice picto saec. xiv.) is the ninth volume in the Central European Medieval Texts, a Latin–English bilingual series.