Holy Crown of Hungary

The Holy Crown of Hungary (Hungarian: Szent Korona, also known as the Crown of Saint Stephen) was the coronation crown used by the Kingdom of Hungary for most of its existence; kings have been crowned with it since the twelfth century. The Crown was bound to the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen, (sometimes the Sacra Corona meant the Land, the Carpathian Basin, but it also meant the coronation body, too). No king of Hungary was regarded as having been truly legitimate without being crowned with it. In the history of Hungary, more than fifty kings were crowned with it, up to the last, Charles IV, in 1916 (the two kings who were not so crowned were John II Sigismund and Joseph II).

The enamels on the crown are at least mainly Byzantine work, presumed to have been made in Constantinople in the 1070s, and presented by the Byzantine Emperor Michael VII Doukas to King Géza I of Hungary; both are depicted and named in Greek on enamel plaques in the lower crown. It is one of at most two Byzantine crowns to survive, the other being the slightly earlier Monomachus Crown, which is also in Budapest, in the Hungarian National Museum. However, the Monomachus Crown may have had another function, and the Holy Crown has probably been remodelled, and uses elements of different origins. The date assigned to the present configuration of the Holy Crown varies, but is most commonly put around the late 12th century. The Hungarian coronation insignia consists of the Holy Crown, the sceptre, the orb, and the mantle. The orb has the coat-of-arms of Charles I of Hungary (1310–1342). In popular tradition the Holy Crown was thought to be older, dating to the time of the first King Stephen I of Hungary, crowned in 1000/1001, which the mantle probably does.

Hungarian Crown

The Hungarian Crown was a part of the Polish Crown Jewels. It was made in the 16th century, resembling the Crown of Saint Stephen, as a private crown of John II Sigismund Zápolya.

History

The original Hungarian Regalia were handed over by Queen Isabella Jagiellon to Ferdinand of Austria in 1551, when she was forced to leave Transylvania, which fell into Ferdinand's hands in accordance with the treaty of Nyírbátor. According to a contemporary Polish chronicler, she broke the cross off the Crown of Saint Stephen’s peak for her son, John Sigismund Zápolya. The copy of the main Hungarian insignium was probably made at that time.

After John Sigismund's death the crown was inherited in 1571 by King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland, Isabella's brother. The Polish king treated the crown of Hungary as a family keepsake, and kept it in a private vault in the Tykocin Castle. In 1572, when the last of the Jagiellons died the insignium was used as an exequial crown during the funeral ceremonies to Sigismund Augustus in Knyszyn and eventually passed to his sister Anna Jagiellon. After the king's death the opposition led by the primate, made the guardian of the Wawel Royal Treasury, refused to bestow the Polish royal insignia on the newly elected Anna Jagiellon and her husband Stephen Báthory. Unable to use the Crown of Bolesław I the Brave, Báthory used the Hungarian Crown as an alternative.