Settlers from the Low Countries in the Árpád Age in Hungary
In Hungarian documents from the 11th and 13th century we can frequently find the name “flandrenses”, which refers to the settlers coming from the Low Countries and from territories where the Low-Frankish dialect was spoken. They moved in a larger number to South-Transylvania in the middle of the 12th century, during the reign of King Géza II. In the 12th century a huge number of these settlers settled down along the southern borders, in Syrmia. The Byzantine chronicler, Nicetas Choniates, called this territory Frangokhorion: the Land of the Franks. Beside the Flemish-Low-Frankish speaking people, settlers from the neo-Latin territories came to Hungary in the Árpád Age, too. These people were called in the documents “latinus” or “gallicus”, just like the people coming from Italy or France. Above all, “latini” from Wallonia and Low-Lothringia came to Hungary. It is interesting that the neo-Latin speaking settlers settled down dispersed almost everywhere in the country, but the Flemish (German) people took root in bigger ethnical homogenic blocks in their new home. The main reason why people from the far Low Countries and their wider area came to Hungary in the Middle Ages was the existential crisis caused by extreme weather conditions in their old homeland, but the news about fertility of the ground and the wealth of natural resources also attracted them to Hungary.

The 1378 Great Western Schism gave a new direction to the Luxemburgs’ traditional pro-Valois politics. The House of Luxemburg took an abrupt turn away from the French orientation, who adhered to the obedience to the Avignon pope and were seeking for new partners. At the beginning of the 15th century, even amidst the Orléans-Armagnac vs. Burgundy antagonism, Sigismund had quite good contacts with the duke of Burgundy, probably stemming from their co-operation of the crusade of Nicopolis in 1396, the Flemish participation of which the article also investigates. Sigismund came closer to Burgundy at the Council of Constance, even though they had taken an opposite stand in important issues such as the inheritance of Brabant and Luxemburg. The Luxemburgs themselves also had possessions in the Low Countries, because in the 14th century the dynasty, besides Luxemburg, also owned the Duchy of Brabant and Limburg. In the 15th century, partly because of the Burgundians gaining substantial territories, they partially opposed their rights, thereby bringing forth conflicts within the Low Countries. The article explores the relations of the House of Burgundy with the provinces of the Netherlands, especially the county of Flanders and the Flemish cities. When it comes to ‘Burgundian’ contacts, it is fundamentally taken as relations with the Low Countries, particularly Flanders. The study examines the relationships that Sigismund maintained with the political figures of the Low Countries, especially the counts of Holland and Zeeland from the House of Wittelsbach, the duke of Gelderland and Juliers/Jülich asd well as the bishops of Utrecht and Lüttich/Luik. I also wish to shed light upon contacts beyond the scene of ‘high politics’. Although we can not speak of daily relations between Hungary and the provinces of the Low Countries, there were complex contacts. Hundreds of Flemish knights took up the Cross against the Ottomans and fought at Nicopolis, the campaign of which was also funded by 24 Attila Bárány the citizens of Flanders. A range of cities embraced a rather independent political track when supplied the Emperor with ships. Flemish or Dutch craftsmen built a river flotilla for Sigismund. Relations can be come across in the clergy: Dutch masters of theology and medicine were active in Hungary, most peculiarly contributing to the development of the university in Óbuda.

The large-scale similarity of two historical buildings or their ornamental elements tends to raise the question of the relation and transfer of their master builders. Besides the decoration, if the designing and constructing principles of the structural elements represent analogies, this question is of even higher relevance. Regarding the medieval history of architecture of Hungary, the cooperation of foreign masters, the import of Western European knowledge and practice can be considered as frequently general. Royal or noble residential buildings of political partners are likely to show the architectural effects of cultural relations as well. Several structural points of the 15thcentury governor palace of János Hunyadi in Hunedoara are parallel to those of the palace and tower of Philippe the Good, Duke of Burgundy in Dijon. Among these structural elements, the question of the shoulder of the vaulting (tas-de-charge) is of high importance. The personal touch of the two contemporaneous personalities cannot be proved by historical sources, that could confirm their artistic relation suggested by their residential buildings, it is quite sure, however, that the mutual direction of their political intentions could have established their sympathy.

From already published letters of Hungarian Protestant ministers damned to the Neapolitan galleys by a special law court at Pozsony (Bratislava) in 1675 to prominent Dutch persons, from almost the galleys turns out that they called them, consequently the Netherlands as defenders of the truth belief (fides orthodoxa) who felt solidarity with fellow-Protestants (especially the Reformed ones) abroad, were ready to support them in their struggle to preserve their religious freedom and to assist to build the Church of God everywhere. The article also analyses unpublished works of the Protestant ministers and their supporter at Venice during their slavery and after their liberation by admiral Michiel de Ruyter in 1676. In these documents the same image of the Netherlands can be found but also two more epitatheta ornantia can be observed: they called the members of the States General, respectively the country as the nourishers of the Church and the greatest defenders of the truth of the Gospel.

In my paper I analysed what kind of images of Holland might have occurred in the heads of the Hungarian Calvinist visitors in 17th century. I established seven types of visitors to demonstrate the choices of Hungarian Calvinists as for what objects i.e. relics they brought home or what objects they recalled in their memoirs when they called back their experiences in Holland. It contains 8 types of “netherlandicas”, 8 several images of Holland which can also be demonstrated the image the Hungarian travellers had of Holland when they started out. In their memoirs also figured an experience of Holland, and these objects (i. e. a statue, a book) recalled how Holland had been seen by these Hungarian Students, Pastors and Diplomats. At the beginning of the examined period the Hungarian students usually stayed one or two weeks or months in Holland in the course of their journey through Europe. Later on they spent some terms there and in the second third of the century some students spent long years in Holland. And in that period many evidences were left behind (travel diaries, album amicorum, editions, possessor-entries, letters, memoirs on the life and sights in Holland).

“Do not lose heart: Look at The Netherlands. / Look at its queen! You are no longer
orphaned.”: The Hungarian window in the Dutch royal palace During a festive gathering on 21 December 1923 in the Dutch Royal Palace of Noordeinde in The Hague, a small group of delegates from the Hungarian-Dutch Society from Hungary presented a stained-glass window as a gift to Queen Wilhelmina for the 25th anniversary of her ascension to the Dutch throne. The magnificent stained-glass window in Art Nouveaustyle (202 x137 cm) made by Miksa Róth and Sándor Nagy, with an unconventional representation of the queen was given to her as a token of gratitude for the relief project arranged for children after the First World War. According to the information of the National League of Child Protection, between 1920 and 1930 28,563 Hungarian children from impoverished families were taken to the Netherlands for a holiday with Dutch foster parents. The window is kept today on the first floor of the west wing of the Palace, but the event and its significance is largely forgotten in the historiography of Hungarian ‒ Dutch relations. In this article, the pieces of the puzzle concerning the artistic object itself, the historical circumstances of the gift-giving, the intermediaries and the symbolic message are assembled, to reveal the working and complexity of cultural transfer. It is argued that the metaphor of Queen Wilhelmina, as the mother of the Hungarians, articulated on different levels of symbolic representation and communication can be seen not only as a sign of gratitude. This image should also be understood as an unspoken wish that the apolitical objectives of the relief actions would also indirectly support a political agenda, and that the personal and institutional contacts would lead to greater understanding of the Hungarian efforts to moderate the excessive punishment under which the country was suffering as result of the Treaty of Trianon.

The University of Debrecen, which was established 1912, considers itself as an heir of the Reformed College of Debrecen. This can be seen in the visual concepts (architecture, clothing, using of objects of the College etc.), which date back to the old traditions of the Reformed College. In 1938, the University Council took the decision to build lead-glass windows in the Aula of the Main Building, remembering the old university-connections of the Reformed College with Geneva, Zurich, Utrecht, and Wittenberg. This article aims to analyse the motives of the University Council for choosing these universities as the most important old connections of its predecessor and to find out if windows were thought to be as “loci memoriae” or rather as a gesture to the important living connections.

Michiel de Ruyter is a Dutch national hero. He is respected in Hungary as the liberator of the Protestant galley slaves. Since 1895, his name can also be read on the statue behind the Great Church of Debrecen. De Ruyter has appeared in various forms in Hungarian memory during the centuries: either as a fearless soldier, a faithful Christian or as a symbol of reconciliation. His memory keeps changing but his spirit keeps living on in Hungarian memory.

Ernő Zboray brought a set of wayang golek puppets along with other objects to Hungary from West Java in 1931. The collection was exhibited in the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts in the same year and received wide coverage in the contemporary press. Although there are some unanswered questions concerning the exact origin of these objects, the collection is relatively well-documented. The records of the 1931 exhibition survived in the Archives of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts, provide a context which enables to view these pieces of art not as mere items from a strange world but as a set of objects that gave an insight into the traditional thinking of the people of Java.