Coat of arms of Hungary
The coat of arms of Hungary was adopted on 11 July 1990, after the end of communist rule. The arms have been used before, both with and without the Holy Crown of Hungary, sometimes as part of a larger, more complex coat of arms, and its elements date back to the Middle Ages.
The shield is split into two parts:
- The dexter features the so-called Árpád stripes, four Gules and four Argent stripes. Traditionally, the silver stripes represent four rivers: Duna, Tisza, Dráva, and Száva.
- The sinister consists of an Argent double cross on Gules base, situated inside a small Or crown, the crown is placed on the middle heap of three Vert hills, representing the mountain ranges Tátra, Mátra, and Fátra.
History
Grand Principality of Hungary (895–1000)
According to medieval Hungarian chronicles, King Attila had the Turul bird on his shield and it was the military badge of the Hungarians until the time of Prince Géza. Under the rule of his son, King Saint Stephen, the Christian Kingdom of Hungary was established in 1000.The griffin, wolf, and deer, these common motifs of the 9th and early 10th centuries, rarely appear in later Hungarian iconography and heraldic symbolism. However the hawk or Turul, a symbol in shamanistic lore that rested upon the tree of life, connecting the earth, the netherworld, and the skies, endured for a longer period as an emblem of the Hungarian ruling house. The ruling Árpád dynasty is also referred to as the Turul dynasty.
Kingdom of Hungary (1000–1946)
The double cross, a symbol of royal power, appeared during the reign of King Béla III of Hungary. Daughter of King Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary, Saint Irene was a Byzantine empress, she was the mother of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. The second son of King Géza II of Hungary, Béla arrived in Constantinople in 1163. Béla was raised in the imperial court of Manuel due to the close Byzantine-Hungarian relations of the mid-12th century, and he was even the heir to the throne. He had ambitions to create a Hungarian–Byzantine personal union. In 1169, Manuel's young wife gave birth to a son, thus depriving Béla of his status as heir of the Byzantine throne. The most intensive contacts between the Hungarian royal court and the Constantinople imperial court was under Béla III. It was during this time that he brought with him the double cross as a royal emblem, which appeared for the first time on his coat of arms and minted coins.King Emeric issued a Golden Bull. The Árpád dynasty's striped coat of arms, the Árpád stripes appeared for the first time on the ornate seal of the king, issued in 1202. The royal charters issued by monarchs were authenticated by seals and bulls, making them the most important sources for the medieval history of Hungarian coats of arms. The first colored depiction of the striped Árpád coat of arms can be seen in the Zurich armorial scroll from the 1320s. The Árpád coat of arms was only in use for a short period during the 13th century. On the coins and seals of King Béla IV of Hungary, the double-cross shield reappears.
After the extinction of the male branch of the Árpád dynasty in 1301, the Hungarian Anjou kings, King Louis I of Hungary ) combined the Árpád dynasty's striped shield with their own lily coat of arms. At this time, the placement of the stripes was not yet fixed and could appear on either side of the coat of arms. By using the striped shield, the Anjous indicated their connection to the Árpád dynasty through a female line. On the reverse side of their seal, they engraved the double cross, which symbolized the country.
The double cross symbol found its way to Western Europe through Hungary, because René the Good, who was related to the House Anjou of Hungary, laid claim to four kingdoms, including Hungary. He placed the symbol on his flags before the Battle of Nancy, Lorraine in 1477. He won the battle and regained his lost Duchy of Lorraine. Thus the symbol became known in Western Europe as the Cross of Lorraine.
List of Hungarian coat of arms
The double cross, a symbol of royal power, appeared during the reign of King Béla III of Hungary. | |
The red and white stripes were the heraldic symbol of the House of Árpád, first appeared in 1202, in the coat of arms of King Emeric's seal. This was the coat of arms of Emeric used on his 1202 golden bull. It shows nine lions. | |
On the Golden Bull of 1222, issued by Andrew II, the stripes contain seven lions. The lion is a widespread symbol of royal power. | |
| The coat of arms of Stephen V was a red triangle curved on all sides bordered by silver and black lines. At the bottom there's a green trimount on a red field, from which a silver double-cross erects. On the lower part of it, there is a green wreath. | |
| Coat of arms of King Ladislaus IV of Hungary | |
| Andrew III used a red triangle-shaped shield with a curved side and a silver and black frame as his coat of arms. In the middle it contained the usual double-cross in silver color, but with a green wreath around the lower part and a pointed bottom. At the top on the left side it features a silver crescent, while on the left side, a silver six-pointed star. | |
| The seal of Wenceslaus III shows the simple double cross with green trimount. After the extinction of the male branch of the Árpád dynasty in 1301, the claimants to the throne from the female branch of the dynasty used the double cross to signify their claim to the Hungarian royal title. | |
When the House of Árpád became extinct and the Angevins came into power, they wanted to emphasize their legitimacy and their matrilineal relation to the previous royal house by using the Árpáds' coat of arms, the red and white stripes. Charles I combined this coat of arms per pale with the Angevins' fleur-de-lis. | |
| King Louis I | |
| Great coat of arms of King Matthias. In the middle are personal coat of arms of Matthias Corvinus and that of his wife Beatrice of Naples, above them a royal crown. On the outer edge there are coat of arms of various lands, beginning from the top clockwise they are: Bohemia, Luxemburg, Lower Lusatia, Moravia, Austria, Galicia–Volhynia, Silesia, Dalmatia-Croatia, Beszterce county. | |
| Louis I of Hungary quartered the red and white stripes of the Árpáds with the double cross on the trimount. This design was also used by John Zápolya, with his family arms in an inescutcheon. | |
| The two coats of arms are often shown side by side in the 15th century. Their combination per pale, with the stripes on the dexter side and the cross with trimount on the sinister first appeared on coins during the reign of Vladislaus I, and later on coins of Matthias Corvinus. The crown above the coat of arms also appeared during the reign of Vladislaus I. At first it was only a non-specific diadem but on the 1464 seal of Matthias Corvinus it resembled more the Holy Crown of Hungary. The modern version of the coat of arms developed during the reign of Matthias II in the beginning of the 17th century. Its usage became regular during the reign of Maria Theresa. | |
During the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, following the dethroning of the Habsburg dynasty on 14 April 1849, the Holy Crown was removed from the coat of arms. The remaining small coat of arms is usually referred to as the "Kossuth Coat of Arms" after Lajos Kossuth, Regent-President of Hungary. In the large coat of arms, however, a laurel wreath replaced the crown both in the central piece and above the shield, as shown on the adjacent image. | |
In the following centuries, the coat of arms of Hungary became more and more complex. It included the coats of arms of the territories which were part of the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen: Croatia, Dalmatia, Slavonia, and Bosnia, but the so-called "small coat of arms" always remained the central piece. The adjacent image shows the medium coat of arms, in official use from the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 till the end of World War I. The outer pieces are the coats of arms of Dalmatia, Slavonia, Bosnia, Fiume, Transylvania, and Croatia. When Hungary became part of the Habsburg monarchy, the coat of arms became a part of that of the Monarchy, but later it became of marginal importance and during the reign of Joseph II – who did not even have himself crowned with the Holy Crown – it was omitted from the coins. | |
| Used from 1915 to 1918. After the revolution was repressed, the Hungarian coat of arms was not used again until the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, when the small coat of arms with the crown once more became a part of a more complex coat of arms, similar to the medium coat of arms shown above. The Hungarian arms also became part of the combined coat of arms of Austria-Hungary. |
Honours
- In May and June 1946 a set of eight stamps of Coat of arms of Hungary was issued. These are the issues of inflation.
- Further, a fourteen-stamp set of Arms and Post-horn were issued May and June 1946; these are also the issues of inflation.
- Four commemorative stamps were issued on 15 March 1948 as part of the series: Centenary of the beginning of Hungary's war for Independence.
- On 20 August 1949 three stamps of Arms of Hungary were issued on the occasion of the Adoption of the Hungarian Peoples' Republic's Constitution.
- On 23 May 1958 three stamps were issued to commemorate the first anniversary of the law amending the constitution.
- Between 1941 and 45 as many as 44 Postage-Due stamps of various denominations, watermarks and paper were issued.