Magyarországi mester a francia eretnekek élén? Néhány megjegyzés az 1251. évi pásztorkeresztes mozgalom történetének elbeszélő forrásaihoz
A Hungarian Master at the Head of the French Heretics? Some Remarks on the Narrative Sources of the Movement of the Pastoureaux in 1251

Summary/Abstract: The present paper deals with an event which happened in France but is related to Hungary as well: according to some of the narratives about the movement of the Pastoureaux of 1251, the leader of the crusaders was a master from Hungary (magister de Hungaria, mestre de Hongrie). The events of this popular enterprise, which in the time of (Saint) Louis IX (1226–1270) emerged in Northern France, aroused considerable attention among its contemporaries: almost fifty chronicle passages and annalistic records survive which refer to the Pastoureaux, and this number can by no means regarded as definitive. In the present paper I turned to the narrative sources of the topic in order to gather information about the leader of the movement. I have surveyed the narratives contained in the Saint-Denis chronicles – Primatus, Guillaume de Nangis and the Grandes Chroniques de France – but also paid attention to the very detailed description provided by Matthew Paris in his Chronica maiora and the account included in the Actus pontificum Cenomannis. About the magister our sources reveal very little, and even the statements which appear as grounded in reality are made fairly dubious by the fact that the events of 1251 are frequently dressed in a mythical attire. Nevertheless, after a philological analysis of the surviving texts, it appears to me that the tradition according to which the master of the Pastoureux, called James – if at all it was his real name – came from the Hungarian Kingdom, cannot be rejected as a simple fable.

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