The Cult of Saint Katherine of Alexandria in Medieval Upper Hungarian Towns*

Dorottya Uhrin

Eötvös Loránd University, School for Historical Studies, Medieval Hungarian History Doctoral Program

 

The aim of this article is to survey the cult of St Katherine of Alexandria in towns of medieval Upper Hungary (today mostly in Slovakia). In the first part, I briefly summarize the origin of the veneration of St Katherine and the beginning of her cult in Hungary. The geographical scope of my own research is the Upper Hungarian region, mainly the towns. The veneration of St Katherine has left most traces in the towns settled by Germans. Some of her earliest churches were established by families of German origin in the thirteenth century. Interestingly, St Katherine’s cult became significant in several mining towns, presumably from the fourteenth century, and her popularity there suggests that she might have been venerated as a miners’ saint (together with St Barbara). The heyday of Katherine’s cult was the late Middle Ages, when her veneration spread to other towns: confraternities and altars were dedicated to her honor and her life was depicted on several altarpieces.

Keywords: St Katherine, urban history, virgin martyrs, mining towns, urban religiosity

Introduction

St Katherine of Alexandria was one of the celebrated female saints in the Middle Ages. She was a virgin martyr and a role model for women. St Katherine was regarded as a uniquely privileged saint and a powerful intercessor because of special privileges she received at the time of her death: a visitation from Christ, an emanation of oil from her bones, an effluence of milk of her body instead of blood, the miraculous preparation of sepulcher, and the hearing of petitions of those who would honor her memory.1 Therefore many were interested in promoting her cult. Although her ancestry and the way in which her cult spread are questionable, during the fourteenth and fifteenth century she became one of the most popular female saints in late medieval Europe, including Hungary.

Although several traces of St Katherine’s veneration has been researched in Western Europe,2 the only aspect of her cult in the medieval Hungarian Kingdom that has been a subject to research is the verse legend of St Katherine.3 In my paper I would like to trace the origin and the development of the cult of St Katherine in Upper Hungary. My research is concerned with the towns of Upper Hungary (today mostly in Slovakia). The analysis also extends to some rural places, however, so as to obtain a better understanding of the cult. I examine the different roles that she played as a patron saint in Upper Hungarian towns of different types. The most interesting aspect of St Katherine’s urban cult is her outstanding popularity in the Upper Hungarian mining towns. Since St Barbara is the most venerated miner-saint in Central Europe, Katherine’s role as the patrona of this towns is remarkable, and I will attempt to explain this phenomenon. In the late Middle Ages, when Katherine’s cult reached its peak all over Europe, her cult also spread to the other towns in Upper Hungary. Religious associations and altars were dedicated to her. I examine the donations to her altars which indicate her increasing popularity in Upper Hungary in the fifteenth century and beyond. Because of the complexity of St Katherine’s cult, my investigation is interdisciplinary: my sources are historical (charters, chronicles and testimonies), art historical (altarpieces, mural paintings and coats of arms) and literary (legends and masses).

The Cult of St Katherine

Origin of the Cult

According to her vitae, St Katherine lived and suffered martyrdom in late Antique Alexandria, a place considered rather exotic in the Middle Ages. Her shrine is supposed to be located at Sinai. The cult of Katherine – like that of other virgin martyrs – started to spread in the seventh and eighth centuries, when her name appeared in liturgical sources and the martyrologia of the Byzantine Empire. In Latin Christianity, the cult of Katherine spread in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, simultaneously with those of many other Eastern saints, including St George. Scholars generally explain the increasing interest in the virgin martyrs in terms of Mediterranean transcultural contacts during the crusades.4 Although the first Crusade seized the places where the virgin martyrs suffered martyrdom and their holiest shrines were supposed to be located, one can hardly find any references in the contemporary sources on the translation of the relics of Katherine from Sinai during the crusades. The discovery of the saint’s body on Sinai is a relatively late development of her cult,5 and the invention of her relics might have been the result of the popularity of her life in Greek.6 Her legend originally contained only her passio. The story of her miraculous birth began to circulate in the fourteenth century.7 The earliest vernacular versions of her legend in Western Europe can be dated to the twelfth or thirteenth century.8 What drove the veneration of virgin martyrs was a growing interest in exotic legends of the saints after the First Crusade and the general livening of religious life.9

Katherine as an Intercessor and Role Model

The function of saints was twofold in the Middle Ages: they were considered as heavenly intercessors and exemplars for proper Christian life. Although this concerned all saints, not all of them had equal influence as intercessors and – as Duffy argues – the strong emphasis on a saint’s intercessory power almost made their role as exemplars insignificant. The chastity of virgin martyrs was a source of celestial power, not an expectation on the laity.10

The role of St Katherine as an exemplar might have been limited to the clerical and highest circles of society in the High Middle Ages. The lives of virgin martyrs were models for an ideal female saint in this period.11 The writers of the legends of the sainted princesses of the Árpádian dynasty regarded Katherine as one of the princesses’ figurative and even literal models.12 The image of Katherine depicted the perfect Christian woman. Her royal or noble status became a significant element of her legend from the twelfth century which may shed light on the main audience of her legend. Moreover, the hagiography of Katherine in some ways portrayed her as the opposite of what a medieval woman should have been.13

Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea, the most popular collection of legends in the thirteenth century, describes her as an expert in liberal arts, which enabled her to defend Christianity. The legends emphasize how saints’ miracles set them apart from ordinary people.14 Only nuns are likely to have considered these legends as role models in the High Middle Ages.15 The role of the mendicant orders – mainly the Dominicans – was significant in the spread of the virgin martyrs’ cult. The mendicant orders supported female religious movements and promoted the cult of female saints. St Katherine, along with St Dominic and Mary Magdalene, was one of the main patrons of the Dominicans.16

From the end of the twelfth century the “lay saint” type became more and more popular and the legends of such saints were complemented with the story of their conversion. “The saints re-descended – so to say – from heaven to earth.”17 The late medieval tendency of secularization resulted in the humanization of saints, rendering them easier to follow as models.18 The saints were bestowed with other characteristics of contemporary laypeople.19 Central elements had changed in their legends, the emphasis on confrontation transformed into a focus on their steadfastness.20 After all, the increasingly human character of saints did not result in the renunciation of their intercessory power, but the new narratives of the saints’ legends encouraged the “consumers” to follow their roles.21 It seems that the significance of a saint’s intercession or auxiliary power started to increase in the fourteenth century.22

St Katherine was a member of a group of saints called the Fourteen Holy Helpers,23 whose common feature was an individual power of intercession believed to be particularly effective against several types of disease. These fourteen saints as a collective could protect against almost any type of medieval disease. The Holy Helpers consisted of sub-groups: bishop saints, knight-saints and virgin martyrs. The numerous visual representations24 and literary sources testify that from the fourteenth century onwards, St Katherine, St Margaret, St Barbara and St Dorothy of Caesarea were frequently venerated together as a distinct group called virgines capitales in Central Europe and Germany.25 Although the origin of their cult is obscure, the earliest traces concern the outbreak and spread of plague in early fourteenth-century South Germany. The catastrophe caused several changes in European society, including religious life. It seems that the first and main promoters of the Fourteen Holy Helpers’ cult were the Dominicans in the Nuremberg and Regensburg area.26 It was from this region that their collective cult came to Hungary.

Overview of St Katherine’s Cult in Medieval Hungary

Hungarian sources are reticent about the cults of saints, and so the introduction and the early development of St Katherine’s cult in Hungary remains obscure. The first evidence of Katherine’s veneration in Hungary can be traced to the end of the twelfth century. The Codex Pray (1192–1195) mentions her feast on 25 November,27 but this only refers to her appearance in liturgy. St Katherine’s cult started to spread further in the thirteenth century, and several monasteries were subsequently dedicated to her. The first known sermons and churches dedicated to Katherine in Hungary are connected to the Dominicans, which fits with her highly honored status in that order. Two Dominican codices from the thirteenth (or early fourteenth) century, the Codex of Leuven28 and the Sermons of the University of Pécs or Sermones compilati29 contain sermons to Katherine.

The spread of Katherine’s cult in Hungary, along with the cult of other virgin martyrs, coincides with Andrew II (1205–35) bringing and placing the skull of St Margaret of Antioch to the collegiate church of Szepeshely (Zipser Kapitel, now Spišská Kapitula, Slovakia).30 The rise of her cult in the fourteenth century (the era of the Angevin dynasty, 1308–82) is reflected in the increase in number of historical sources, and there were also more churches, chapels and altars dedicated to St Katherine at that time. However, many of these dedications might have had Árpádian (1000–1301) antecedents. The two Angevin kings, Charles I (1301/1308–42) and Louis the Great (1342–82), played an important role in the promotion of the virgin martyrs. It is possible that they had a personal devotion to Katherine. Both kings named one of their daughters after St Katherine.31 On the first initial picture of Chronicon Pictum, Louis and his wife pray to Katherine. Moreover, Louis’s royal funerary chapel was dedicated to her.32 European analogies suggests that one reason for kings’ preference for Katherine as a patron saint was that she had a royal background.33

Her legend is written in the Legenda Aurea, which was the most popular collection of lives of the saints in Hungary as in other parts of Europe. Only a few manuscripts have survived in Hungary, however, because of the large-scale devastation of Hungarian codices. The Legenda Aurea served as the basis for Hungarian legendaria. The sermons of the Sermones compilati were presumably written for novices, which would explain why the three sermons on Katherine emphasize erudition and chastity of the virgin martyr.34 The fifteenth-century Franciscan Observant preacher Pelbartus de Themeswar also based his sermons on the Legenda Aurea.35 In the four sermons Pelbartus wrote on Katherine, he followed the narrative of Jacobus de Voragine’s work but completed the life of Katherine with her marvelous birth and conversion to Christianity. He also emphasized Katherine’s role as an example.36 These sermons influenced other Hungarian authors. The other famous Hungarian Observant Franciscan preacher, Osvaldus de Lasko, based his work on Pelbartus’ sermons and37 dedicated two sermons to Katherine.38 Pelbartus’ St Katherine sermons were the source of the Codex Érdy and the Codex of Debrecen and the vernacular verse legend of 4047 lines 39 of the Codex of Érsekújvár, the most precious source of the Hungarian cult of Katherine.40 The sermons of Pelbartus circulated in the Hungarian kingdom after being printed at the end of the fifteenth century.

The upper classes developed a preference for the cult of St Katherine in the late fourteenth century. The popularity of the virgin martyrs reached its peak in Hungary – as elsewhere in Europe – in the later Middle Ages.

Initiation of Katherine’s Cult in the Upper Hungarian Region

The German hospites41 are presumed to have been the first to promote the cult of St Katherine in Upper Hungary, because she and other virgin martyrs (St Margaret and St Barbara) mainly appear in places inhabited by Germans. The first church to be dedicated to Katherine in Upper Hungary was in Kakaslomnic (Nagylomnic until 1899, Großlomnitz, now Veľká Lomnica, Slovakia) in Szepes County (Zips, now Spiš), a village owned by the Berzeviczy family. The Berzeviczys’ ancestors arrived in Hungary in the entourage of Gertrude of Andechs-Merania, wife of Andrew II. There can be no doubt that the family was German, from Istrian Merania or Andechs.42 Rutger, one of their ancestors, acquired the land of Kakaslomnic and the surrounding region in 1209,43 and his wife’s brother, Adolf, became the first known provost of the Collegiate Chapter of Szepes.44 The Szepes area was colonized by Germans (hospites Saxones de Scepus), who received privileges and territorial autonomy from King Stephen V in 1271.45

The church of Kakaslomnic was mentioned first in a charter from 1268. Interestingly, the murals of the church depict the cycle of St Nicolas and not that of the patron saint. Ján Endrödy suggests that the churches in the area had been dedicated to Katherine before the Berzeviczys settled there, and it was their preference for Nicolas over Katherine that caused the family to order the frescoes.46 This sounds improbable, however. The county was sparsely inhabited at that time and covered by forest, making it unlikely that several churches dedicated to Katherine existed before 1209. It was only after the Mongol invasion in the mid-thirteenth century that the Berzeviczys’ lands were colonized by new settlers.47 Furthermore, one can hardly find any mentions of Katherine in the sources from the twelfth century or earlier, and the patrocinia of Katherine spread from the second half of the thirteenth century.48 Besides the ancestors of the Berzeviczy family, the ancestors of the Görgey family founded churches49 in Kislomnic (Kleinlomnitz, now Lomnička, Slovakia)50 and in Krig (Krieg, now Vojňany, Slovakia)51 at the end of the thirteenth century or the beginning of the fourteenth.52

King Andrew II sent a relic of Margaret of Antioch53 to the newly founded Collegiate Chapter of Szepes to confer prestige on the church there. According to the Hungarian Chronicon Pictum, Andrew II acquired relics on his crusade to the Holy Land and distributed them to loyal prelates on his return in 1218 to express his gratitude for the flourishing kingdom.54 The relic of Margaret was presumably translated to the Collegiate Chapter under the provostship of Adolf, the brother-in-law of Rutger. Martin Homza and Peter Labanc assume that Adolf was the provost in the first third of the thirteenth century.55 Thus the virgin martyrs’ cult could have been connected to the German relatives, the ancestors of the Berzeviczy family.

Szepes and the surrounding region was a center of veneration for several virgin martyrs.56 Due to the emerging cult of St Margaret, the other virgin martyrs’ veneration also spread in that territory and in the kingdom.

Although it mainly involved churches in villages, the foregoing discussion of these early signs of the cult of St Katherine was necessary to understand how it spread. At this point, I turn to the early development of the urban cult of the saint. The earliest chapel of St Katherine in the Upper Hungarian region was in Pozsony (Pressburg, now Bratislava). It was connected with the Cistercians of Heiligenkreuz, who founded a convent in area of the town in the mid-thirteenth century, but occupied it only until 1297,57 when the buildings were transferred to the Poor Clares.58 The chapel was founded by Francis, a monk from Heiligenkreuz, in 1311,59 and it was consecrated in 1325.60 The choice of Katherine as the patron saint of the chapel was connected to the Cistercian responsibility for female religious movements.61 Virgin Mary enjoyed a pre-eminent role among the Cistercians, who devoted most of their monasteries to her patronage.62 Virgin Mary was held as an exemplar of perfect femininity, but the virgin martyrs were also portrayed as role models, particularly for proper behavior. St Katherine could have become the patron of the private chapel of the nunnery, because her virginity and her status as sponsa Christi certainly appealed to nuns.

St Katherine’s Cult in the Upper Hungarian Mining Towns

An interesting feature of St Katherine’s cult was her popularity in the Upper Hungarian mining towns. She thus seems to have been venerated as a patron saint of the miners63 together with St Barbara. St Barbara was the main patron saint of the miners in Central Europe,64 but the popularity of Katherine as her companion seems largely to have been peculiar to the Hungarian towns, although she was infrequently also venerated as a patron of miners elsewhere.65 Churches were dedicated to Katherine in several Upper Hungarian mining towns: Selmecbánya (Schemnitz, now Banská Štiavnica), Körmöcbánya (Kremnitz, now Kremnica), Nyitrabánya (Krickerhau, now Handlová),66 Telkibánya and Szomolnok (Schmölnitz, now Smolník). The coats of arms of Nyitrabánya and Körmöcbánya also prove that Katherine was the main patron saint of these towns, because both include Katherine’s attribute of the broken wheel with sharp knives.67 In contrast to the numerous Katherine patrocinia, only a few chapels were dedicated to Barbara in Upper Hungary,68 although her veneration appears through her representations on altarpieces.

The predominance of German miners in these mining towns from the twelfth century onwards certainly tells us that there was a strong German influence behind the veneration of Katherine there. Professional miners must have come from abroad.69 In addition, the cultural diversity of mining towns, including differences in their veneration of saints, derived from the international character of trade.70 Central European mining towns, particularly those in the Carpathian basin, were closely interlinked. The similarity of privileges granted to Hungarian mining towns prepared the ground for mutual alliances that started in the fourteenth century.71 The urban and economic policy of the Angevin kings of Hungary fostered development that forged the towns into a distinct group.72 The crown granted greater legal, ecclesiastical and economic privileges to residents of mining towns than to other settlers, including the right to practice their own customs.73

Two ecclesiastical institutions were dedicated to Katherine in or near Telkibánya74 in the mid-fourteenth century. The first, located between Göncruszka and Telkibánya, was the monastery of Göncruszka, donated to the Pauline monks by Domonkos of Ruszka and his brothers in 1338.75 They were the nobiles de Ruzka,76 the noble family of Göncruszka. There could have been several reasons for choosing St Katherine as patron of a monastery. In her legend, St Katherine lived in the same spatial and temporal dimension as the Desert Fathers, the early Christian hermits in late Antique Egypt. Thus, several representations of Katherine depict the virgin martyr with a hermit saint; in Italian Trecento paintings, this is usually St Anthony the Abbot.77

It seems from the charters78 that Pauline brothers ran a hospital dedicated to Katherine in Telkibánya – which was near their monastery dedicated to Virgin Mary in Gönc – starting in the second half of fifteenth century.79 The local judge of Telkibánya, Georg Kruper, and his brother, Konth, the rector of the mines, founded the hospital in 1367.80 According to the charter issued by Louis I, the leaders of the town founded a hospital rather than a wooden chapel at the request of the miners and the burghers.81 Georg Kruper left the hospital to his stepson, priest Matthias, in his will.82 Matthias in turn left the hospital to the Pauline brothers, with the condition that they offer masses for his and his parents’ salvation in the church of Katherine.83 Although it seems that these churches were connected to the Pauline order, the titulus reflected the will of the founders, the nobles of Ruszka and the burghers of Telkibánya. Despite the obvious appeal of Katherine’s cult to the hermits, the monastery of Ruszka was the only known Pauline foundation dedicated to her in the medieval Hungarian Kingdom.84 There were two other hospitals dedicated to Katherine in fifteenth-century Hungary,85 but the patrocinium of Telkibánya must have reflected the popularity of Katherine among the miners of Telkibánya.

The cult of St Katherine in Körmöcbánya raises interesting questions. The castle church there – also the parish church – is nowadays named after St Katherine. In the Middle Ages, it was another church which bore her name. According to the sources, St Katherine’s Church was located on the main square86 and was a filiale of the parish church of the Virgin Mary (castle church).87 The tituli must have been changed in the modern age, probably because of the Reformation. Körmöcbánya was Lutheran from ca. 1530 until 1674,88 after which the castle church was dedicated to St Katherine.89

The earliest reference to the medieval church of St Katherine in Körmöcbánya is dated to 1485, but the church must have been standing there since the first half of the fifteenth century at the latest.90 The medieval church on the main square was demolished in the nineteenth century because of subsidence.91 Moreover, an altar in the chapel of St Andrew was dedicated to St Andrew, St Peter and Paul, the Holy Trinity, St Martha, St Katherine and St Barbara in 1431.92 The cult of the Apostles had spread ever since the establishment of the church in Hungary, and the dedications to Martha, Barbara and Katherine show the local tradition of Körmöcbánya and symbolize the prominent role of these saints in the town.

Even though there is no evidence of the church’s existence before the fifteenth century, there are earlier sources that may refer to the cult of St Katherine. She is depicted on some of the town’s medieval seals. The earliest remnant seal of Körmöcbánya is dated to 1331.93 This seal – according to the prevailing view94 – depicts St Katherine with the Angevin coat of arms on one side and her attribute, the wheel, on the other. The circumscription reads “S[IGILLUM] · CIVITATIS · REGIS · KAROLI · DE · CREMNICA”. Nevertheless, Teodor Lamoš has identified the figure on the seal as that of the Hungarian king Charles I,95 who presumably granted the town its seal and its privileges at about the same time.96 The later seals, however, definitely depict St Katherine. Jozef Novák has found one such from 1405.97 A charter of 1407 refers to its seal as sigillum nostre civitatis magnum, which implies that the town had at least two seals.98 The second known seal depicts a standing figure with a sword and a wheel with sharp knives (St Katherine). Under the figure is the Angevin coat of arms, and the circumscription is “S[IGILLUM] · SECRETUM · CIVIUM · CREMPNYCZIE”.99 The third medieval seal depicts the broken wheel with sharp knives, the attribute of St Katherine.100

Considering that the town’s medieval seals contained Katherine’s figure and/or her attribute, and later a church was consecrated to her honor, she must have been the patron saint of the town in the Middle Ages.

The earliest seal of Szomolnok dates from the fourteenth century, and depicts St Katherine with a miner on her side.101 According to the literature, the titulus of the medieval parish church is not known, but there was a chapel dedicated to Virgin Mary.102 However, a document dated 1421 proves that the parish church was dedicated to St Katherine in the Middle Ages (ad ecclesiam in Smölnicz in honore Beate Katherine).103

The cult of St Katherine in Selmecbánya started in the second half of the fifteenth century. A chapel dedicated to her in 1444 was transformed into a church in the second half of the fifteenth century. On April 2, 1489, 100 days indulgence was given to those who helped in fitting out the church.104 The founder of the main altar, Andreas Hillebrand (notary and mine entrepreneur), and the priest Johannes Galler, were granted indulgences in 1496 and 1500 respectively.105 The church was consecrated in 1500, the main donators being the burghers of the town, such as Susana Ferczkin, who donated money and personal estates to St Katherine’s Church.106 Andreas Hillebrand bestowed to the church 10 florins and 1 florin each to its priests, and left 40 florins to the parish church of Virgin Mary in his will. His larger donation to Virgin Mary’s may have been prompted by his greater support of St Katherine’s during his lifetime.107 The high altar has not survived, but it must have been richly decorated and monumental, because three statues presumed to have belonged to it have survived the centuries, and they are each two meters high. They represent the Virgin Mary, St Katherine and St Barbara.108 There was also a confraternity dedicated to her honor in Selmecbánya.109

The main reason behind Barbara’s and Katherine’s role as protector of miners was their reputation as powerful intercessors. Barbara – according to her legend – promised her efficacious intercession at the hour of death, and thus became the patron saint of good death. The common perception was that if one were to die without the last sacrament and the Eucharist burdened by deadly sins, one would end up in Hell. Barbara’s role as protector against sudden death was strengthened in the fourteenth century due to the legend written by John of Wakkerzeel.110 Barbara became the patron saint of miners because of the unhealthy and dangerous working conditions that put them at high risk of sudden death and because she had taken shelter in the mountains when she was chased.111 Since Katherine, according to the Legenda Aurea, promised to listen to the appeals of those who would honor her memory, Louis Réau has suggested that Katherine could also be a protector at death.112

In this chapter I have tried to illustrate St Katherine’s role in some Upper Hungarian mining towns. In the following paragraphs I turn to the veneration of St Katherine in the free royal towns during the heyday of her cult. One cannot find churches dedicated to her in these towns, but her cult appears through confraternities, altars and visual representations.

The Heyday of the Cult in Upper Hungarian Towns

The cult of St Katherine appeared in several towns other than mining towns in Upper Hungary in the course of the fifteenth century. They were also mostly inhabited by Germans, which means that Katherine’s cult there was subject to intensive German influence. Developments in Pozsony stand as an illustration of how Katherine’s example transcended the clerical model and became available for imitation by the laity. Pozsony is particularly interesting because many more sources have survived the centuries there than in other parts of the kingdom, and the ecclesiastical history of the town has been thoroughly researched.113 I have mentioned earlier that the Cistercians founded a chapel dedicated to St Katherine. With the increasing veneration toward the virgin martyrs, their cult extended to a wider section of the population. Married women and widows were encouraged to follow Katherine’s example at the end of the Middle Ages as part of the late medieval transformation by which saints were presented as more real and familiar characters.114 In the fifteenth century, the private chapel of the monastic order became the public chapel of the burghers of Pozsony. The popularity of the chapel among the laity reached its peak in the sixteenth century, as attested by several donations recorded in surviving testaments. The chapel acquired an even greater importance in 1529, when the suburban parishes and the hospital were demolished.115 The cult of Katherine may have been fostered by intensive trade relations with Western Europe. The South German towns – mainly Augsburg and Nuremberg – started to exert significant commercial influence on the Hungarian Kingdom in the early decades of fifteenth century. Consequently, merchants living along the Danube were allied by matrimony as well as by commercial contacts. The popularity of Katherine and the other virgin martyrs was also manifested in the tradition of personal names. According to the late medieval testaments in Pozsony, the most frequent names were those of the virgines capitales.116

The testaments also record the increasing popularity of Katherine among women. The sources provide information about a guild dedicated to St Katherine in Eperjes (Preschau, now Prešov), but St Katherine’s patronage of craft guilds is recorded in only two cases in the whole country.117 Two confraternities were dedicated to St Katherine in Upper Hungary. One was in Kassa (Kaschau, now Košice), dated to the sixteenth century,118 and the other was the confraternity of Selmecbánya, mentioned above. Fortunately, several surviving charters concern donations to the St Katherine’s guild of Eperjes and throw some light upon the ethnic and gender composition of the testators. The guild was established by the furriers (fraternitas pellificium alias beatae Katherinae) in the mid-fifteenth century, but many of the donators were not furriers, which highlights the importance of the altar among the burghers.119 The altar was occasionally supported by the town, the council donating two florins for its consecration in 1500 and 1501.120 Most of the donators were women, like Ursula Harenbocken,121 Ursula, the widow of Jorg Cromer,122 and Katherine Mathien,123 whose names indicate German origins. The donators frequently left money for vestments and the celebration of mass, but clothes were also often bequeathed to the altar. An investigation of the wills of Eperjes shows that women preferred to donate items in their possession. Lucia left her best gold-embroidered cloak to the altar of the Virgin Mary and one green tunic to the altar of Katherine.124 Clara bequeathed dresses to the altars of the guild of furriers and guild of cobblers,125 (which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary).126 Christina donated to the guild of St Katherine a lilac cloak with silver pendulum.127 These women, by donating their own possessions, “were providing not only for their own households, but also for the household of God.”128

Late Medieval Altarpieces Depicting St Katherine in Upper Hungary

Visual representations of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and the virgines capitales appeared on altarpieces in Hungary in the late fifteenth century.129 The cults of these two groups spread simultaneously in the Upper Hungarian region. The veneration of the Holy Helpers flourished among Upper Hungarian citizens. An altar in Kassa is the first (in 1483) to be mentioned as being dedicated to them,130 and there is also a surviving fourteenth-century missal from Kassa into which the text of their mass has been inserted later.131 There are several surviving altarpieces that represent all fourteen of the saints,132 but separate sub-groups were more popular. More than sixty surviving altarpieces from the Upper Hungarian region depict saintly women classed among the four principal virgin martyrs, but Katherine, Dorothy, Margaret and Barbara as the group of virgines capitales are joined together only on thirteen of these.133 The virgin martyrs were frequently represented together with the iconographical theme of the Virgin and Child.134 The iconography of late medieval altarpieces depicting the virgines capitales have been analyzed from a gendered point of view in the work of Kristina Potuckova.135

Four individual altars dedicated to Katherine have survived in Szepes County: in Lőcse (Leutschau, now Levoča), Késmárk (Käsmark, now Kežmarok), Felsőrépás (Oberripsch, now Vyšné Repaše) and Csütörtökhely (Donnersmarkt, now Spišský Štvrtok). Lőcse was a royal free town and Késmárk a privileged town, while the other two were villages nearby. In the shrine of the altar of Késmárk (1493) Katherine was portrayed in the company of Barbara and Margaret.136

An altar was dedicated to Katherine in the church of St James in Lőcse in 1469.137 The images of the open wings depict four episodes from her life. The pictures illustrate her dispute with the philosophers, her beheading, her torture, and the wheel of her martyrdom. Katherine with her fellows virgin martyrs were represented on other altars of Lőcse: the altar of Vir dolorum (1476–90) and the altar of Our Lady of Snows (1494–1500). There was another altar dedicated to Katherine in Lőcse (1510–20), transported there from its original location, the church of St Katherine in Felsőrépás.138 In the shrine of an altar from Csütörökhely dating from 1440–50, and today located in Nagyturány (Turany), Katherine tramples down Maxentius and is accompanied by statues of Barbara, Margaret, Dorothy and Ursula. The open wings depict Katherine’s dispute, her tortures, her beheading and the saint with the wheel.139 Her legend appears also on other Upper Hungarian altars. The closed wings of the Vir dolorum altar in Bártfa (Bartfeld, now Bardejov) represent four episodes of her legend. In the first scene, Katherine disputes with the philosophers. This is followed by the converted scholars burning at the stake, and the last two panels depict scenes of her martyrdom: the wheel and her beheading.140 Two scenes of the altar of Virgin Mary in Pónik (Poniky) from 1512 depict the philosophers burning in the flames and the martyrdom of Katherine. Four scenes of Katherine’s life have survived on panel paintings (c. 1520) from the episcopal palace of Szepeshely, but the original location of the altar is unknown. These scenes represent Katherine in front of the ruler, her dispute with the philosophers, the stake of the philosophers and the martyrdom of Katherine.141

It is clearly visible that the iconographic program of the altars emphasized Katherine’s martyrdom and erudition. She was able to defeat her enemies, the enemies of Christianity.142 Her portrayal together with other virgin martyrs puts her own virginity into the focus of devotion. As Stanley E. Weed argues, “Virginity granted the four an especially prominent place in the heavenly realm, for they were not just martyr saints, but the brides of Christ. With this perceived closeness, they served as ideal intercessors to not only Christ, but also to the Virgin Mary, with whom they were frequently depicted.”143 Katherine’s primary role as an intercessor was highlighted by the epigraph on the panel painting of the altar of Késmárk which asks Katherine to pray for us.144

In addition to these altarpieces depicting Katharine’s martyrdom and erudition, there is a unique representation145 of her legend in the panel paintings of Bát (Frauenmarkt, now Bátovce), dating from 1420–1430. This illustrates the conversion of Katherine. In the first scene, she looks at herself in the mirror and seeks the perfect fiancé. In the second scene, a hermit gives her a picture of the Virgin and Child.146 Then comes a scene of her mystic marriage, which was especially popular in Late Middle Ages.147

Although intercession may have been St Katherine’s primary role in medieval religiosity, her status as a role model made her especially popular, because virginity was always an ideal of Christianity.

Conclusion

In this article I have demonstrated the cult of St Katherine in the towns of Upper Hungary during the Middle Ages. The cult of St Katherine arrived in Hungary in the second half of the thirteenth century and was fostered by German settlers. The first promoters of Katherine’s cult might have been the ancestors of the Berzeviczy and Görgey families in Upper Hungary.

The intercessory power of St Katherine was emphasized in her legend, and it was through this that she became the patron saint of several Upper Hungarian mining towns, something of a departure from her generic European cult. That she was venerated as a miner’s saint is clear from her popularity as a patron saint of mining towns. The only churches dedicated to her in Upper Hungary are in mining towns and rural areas (See Map 1). In some cases, the seals of these towns also depicted St Katherine. The saints to which the most churches in the principal mining towns were dedicated were the Virgin Mary, St Elizabeth of Thuringia and St Katherine (see Table 1). It seems that she was popular among miners together with St Barbara. The main reason behind St Katherine’s popularity might be that she and St Barbara helped at the hour of death. The heyday of St Katherine’s cult was in the late Middle Ages, just as the cult of the Fourteen Holy Helpers was also flourishing. In the late Middle Ages, she was venerated in the free royal towns, where confraternities and altars were dedicated to her. The donations to her altars indicate her increasing popularity in Upper Hungary. Being the bride of Christ, she mainly appealed to women. The altarpieces depicting St Katherine emphasize her martyrdom, her erudition and her virginity, conveying the message that her efficacious intercessory power derived from her chastity and martyrdom.

 

Bakabánya	St Nicholas, All Saints
Bélabánya/Banská Belá/Düllen	St John
Besztercebánya	Virgin Mary, St Anthony’s Chapel, St Elizabeth, St Nicholas, St Jerome and St Barbara’s Chapel
Breznóbánya/Brezno/Bries/Briesen	Virgin Mary
Gölnicbánya/Gelnica/Göllnitz	Virgin Mary
Körmöcbánya	Virgin Mary, St Katherine, St Andrew’s Chapel (originally St Michael’s Chapel), St Elizabeth’s Hospital, Chapel of St John the Baptist.
Libetbánya/Ľubietová/Libethen	Mary Magdalene, St Anne’s Chapel, St Elizabeth’s Hospital
Nyitrabánya	St Katherine
Selmecbánya	Virgin Mary, St Katherine, St Anne’s Chapel, St Elizabeth’s Hospital, Corpus Christi Chapel, St Michael’s Ossuary, St Nicholas’ Chapel
Szomolnok	St Katherine, Chapel of the Virgin Mary
Újbánya/Nová Baňa/Königsberg	Virgin Mary, St Elizabeth’s Hospital

 

Table 1

Dedications of churches and chapels in the principal mining towns of medieval Upper Hungary. Based on this article and Mező, Patrocíniumok, passim.

 

Archival Sources

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (Hungarian National Archives – MNL OL), Diplomatikai Levéltár (Medieval Charters – DL).

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (Hungarian National Archives – MNL OL), Diplomatikai Fényképgyűjtemény (Collection of Photocopies – DF).

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