The periods of medieval inscriptions in Hungary
The periods of medieval inscriptions in Hungary

Summary/Abstract: Although the fonts on the earliest seals are quite various due to technicalimperfections, they still bear the features of the antiqua tractation writing, whichmarks the Romanesque age.Saint László's seal was the first to apply semi-circle shaped uncials next to theclassic forms, while King Imre's great seal from 1202 included a closed maiuscula Eletter.The lettering style of the Romanesque era can be dated from 11th century in thecase of stone monuments. The last creation of this age is dated to the middle of the13th century.There is a group of Early Gothic stone relics containing also more uncial shapes,wich appears around 1165-1172. The last remnant of this group comes from 1262.The coexistance of Romanesque and Early Gothic style is not common on rulers'seals, the differences of each era are more obvious. In this case the end of theRomanesque era, which can be dated back to the beginning of the 13th century(around 1205) and so the reign change of Imre I. and András II., is easy todetermine. The end of the Early Gothic era in the case of rulers' seals can be set to1270, the end of Béla IV's rule.The advancement of gothic maiuscula can be well observed on the lettering ofIstván V's dual seal.The stone inscriptions in Transdanubia are created in gothic maiuscula style onlyafter the first third of the 14th century, but several relics in medieval Hungary arefrom the end of 13th century. The upper endmark of the maiuscula-era is around 1400on stones.Despite the end of the maiuscula era, the third dual seal of Zsigmond from 1435still has maiuscula letters, just like the majesty seal of King Albert from 1438 and thenew seal of Ulászló I. from 1444.The gothic maiuscula was replaced on ruler's seals when the first minuscula styleletters appeared during the reign of Zsigmond. 12 different types of seals used byMátyás contained inscriptions formed from gothic minuscula letters. This indicatesthat this style was used until the end of his reign. The gothic minuscula style came into fashion on stone-inscriptions around 1365-1370. The font style was also widely popular in the next century, moreover, twoprovincial variations from the beginning of the 16th century were found.The italian style humanist capitalis lettering appeared very early on the goldenseal of Mátyás (1464). From this time, the humanist capitalis is dominant letter typeon seals. The appearance of capitalis on stone monuments can be dated from 1467.After 1500, the use of excessive ligatures and enclaves occurs while the provincialvariation of the font also appears.The capitalis fonts, called „early humanist” by the special literature, appeared in1472 on the smaller secret hungarian-czech ruler's seal of Mátyás, and from 1483 onthe stone-inscriptions.

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