Excursus: St Dominic’s finger relic in Székesfehérvár?

The miracle accounts from Somlyó from the first wave do not say what kind of relic of St.

Dominic was preserved there. That his finger relic was kept in Somlyó was mentioned for the first time about 70 years later in the two new miracles (#13; #14) collected from the priory that

318 According to János Szarka, the followers of Eastern Christianity had been present in Patak since the eleventh century and he supposes that the Dominicans received the by that time abandoned rotunda that had been formerly used by the followers of the ―Greek rite‖. Szarka argued that the reason of settling of the Dominicans and the Franciscans, the two orders that pursued inquisitorial activity, was the presence of the Cumans and the followers of the Eastern Church in the region. A rotunda öröksége 2.: a görög rítus nyomai a középkorban Sárospatakon és vonzáskörzetében Borsod–Abaúj–Zemplén vármegyében. [The heritage of the rotunda 2.: the traces of the Greek rite in Sárospatak and its surroundings in the Middle Ages] (Miskolc: [Szarka János], 2010), 229.

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figure in the Berengarian miracle collections of 1315.³¹⁹ In the miracle narrated by Nicolaus de Castro Ferreo we here of the resurrection of the provost of Székesfehérvár at an unspecified place that must have been somewhere in the proximity of Somlyó since the friars could go there immediately with the finger relic. The same miracle, in a slightly different version, can be found in the Hungarian Domonkos Codex as well. It begins with the following: ―And in Hungary at Alba Regalis [i.e. Székesfehérvár] the son (!) of some provost at the time of vespers was tortured by great pains and finally died.‖³²⁰ It was clear both for Rössler and Györkös, the two scholars who have dealt with the miracles that took place in Hungary, that the finger relic of Dominic, with the help of which according to the Domonkos Codex the son of the provost was raised from the dead in Fehérvár could not be else but the one preserved in Somlyó. This has led Rössler to hypothesize that Similu might be identical with Székesfehérvár. Györkös, by pointing out that it would have been unlikely that two relics of St. Dominic would have been preserved in Hungary, proposed in 2007 that maybe the friar preachers of Somlyó, escaping from the Mongolian invasion took it from their convent in Krassó county –which suffered great damages in 1241- and placed it to the safer Dominican convent of Székesfehérvár.³²¹ In his more recent article, however, Györkös no longer maintained this hypothesis and argued that it had been lost since no early sixteenth-century sources mention of the relics allegedly kept in Székesfehérvár, and he regarded the reference of the Domonkos Codex as a mistake of the translation on the basis of which the nun scribe Lea Ráskai worked or an error on her own part.³²² Since Györkös did not explain the reasons he changed some of his earlier views, I would like to present the reasons why the finger relic was not taken to Székesfehérvár to save from the Mongolians and that Székesfehérvár became the new place of preservation of Dominic‘s relic in the Domonkos Codex due to a mistranslation of the mistranslation of a much later and abbreviated Latin version of a text reporting the miracles that the Hungarian translator of the Domonkos Codex had at his disposal. In order to show this, I juxtapose the first sentences of the miracle in five sources: the Berengarian collection of miracles (1315), Peter Calò‘s legend

319 #13 is reported in Tugwell, ed., Miracula sancti Dominici, 121-122; #14, 122-123: [...] se prius uelle personaliter ire in Sumlu ad digitum beati Domini et aquam lotionis eius deferre.‖

320 Domonkos-kódex 1517, 72: ―Esmeeg magÿer orzagban feÿer varat nemely prepostnak fÿa nemelÿ napon vechernyenek jdeÿen nagy faydalmal gevtreteek vegezetre az faydalmakban meg hala.‖

321 Györkös, ―Magyar vonatkozású domonkos rendi történetek a XIII. században,‖ 57.

322 Györkös, ―The Saint and His Finger,‖ 548.

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(1324-1329), that of Bernard Gui (sometime in the 1320s), the Dominican Breviary of 1487 and the Domonkos Codex (1517).

BMD (13)

(Tugwell, ed.

Miracula sancti Dominici, 121-122)

Peter Calò: De Sancto

Dominico (46) (Tugwell, ed.

Miracula sancti Dominici, 283-284)

Bernard Gui:

Legenda sancti Dominici (106), ed. Tugwell (290-291)

1487 breviary f. 261v

(Tugwell, ed., Miracula sancti

Dominici, 318)

Domonkos Codex

172/22 – 173/21

De quodam preposito Ungaro per beati Dominici merita suscitato.

Narrauit frater Nicholas de Castro Ferreo de

prouincia Ungarie, diffinitor capituli generalis apud Bononiam celebrati anno domini m^occc^oxv^o tempore Berengarii magistri ordinis, quod dum ipse frater Nicholas esset prior in Sumlu, in loco ubi est digitus beati Dominici, quidam prepositus de Alba Regali Stephanus nomine die

quadam uespertina hora uehementi dolore uexatus tandem in doloribus expirauit. Dum autem funeralia pararentur et sequenti die esset sepulture

Narrauit frater Nicholaus de Castro Ferreo de Ungaria multis et michi anno domini

m^occc^oxv^o post capitulum generale Bononie

celebratum, ubi fuerat diffinitor, quod dum ipse esset in Ungaria prior in Sumlu, ubi est digitus beati Dominici, quidam

prepositus de Alba Regali, Stephanus nomine die quadam hora uespertina uehementi dolore uexatus tandem in doloribus expirauit. Dum autem funeralia pararentur et

In eadem prouincia Ungarie quidam prepositus de Alba Regali Stephanus nomine die quadam hora uespertina uehementi dolore uexatus in uisceribus tandem

expirauit. Dum autem pro eo funeralia pararentur et sequenti die esset sepulture tradendus, quidam de astantibus dixit, Spero quod si digitus beati Dominici qui habetur in domo fratrum

predicatorum in Somplu

apportaretur huc ad

Cuiusdam preposti in Alba Regali Vngarie filius die quadam hora vespertina vehementi dolore vexatus tandem in doloribus expirauit. Tunc deuotione beati Dominici commoti astantes miserunt ad conventum in Similu vbi est digitus beati

Esmeeg magÿer orzagban feÿer varat nemely prepostnak fÿa nemelÿ napon vechernyenek jdeÿen nagy faydalmal gevtreteek vegezetre az

faydalmakban meg hala: Tahat zent damancos (173=87r) atÿankban valo aÿtatossagban meg jndulanak az kevrnÿevl

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de astantibus dixit, Si portaretur huc digitus beati Dominici, spero quod per ipsius merita dominus ei uitam donaret.

Tunc miserunt ad priorem prefatum predictam gratiam instantibus

precibus postulantes.

sequenti die esset sepulture tradendus, quidam de astantibus dixit, Si portaretur huc digitus beati Dominici, spero quod per ipsius merita dominus ei uitam donaret.

Tunc miserunt ad priorem prefatum dictam gratiam

instantibus precibus postulantes.

defunctum, quod per ipsius sancti merita dominus redderet ei uitam. Tunc miserunt ad priorem fratrum nomine

Nicholaum talem sibi gratiam fieri instantibus precibus postulantes.

Dominici instantissime petentes vt prior dictum beati viri digitum opportaret ad defunctum.

allok : kevldenek az conuentben hol vala zent damancos atyanknak vÿa : kerueen nagÿ kevnÿergessel : hog az prior zent damancos atÿanknak vÿat hoznaÿa az megholtnak testehez:

From among the Latin sources only the printed breviary speaks about the son of some provost whose presence, as Tugwell pointed out, is absolutely unexplained and not supported by another variant of the miracle reported in another popular contemporary work, Flaminio‘s Vitae Patrum Inclyti Ordinis Praedicatorum,³²³yet it is present in the Domonkos Codex (―fÿa‖).

Second, while the Bérengarian collection, Peter Calò and Bernard Gui give precise information that it happened while Nicholas de Castro Ferreo was the prior of Somlyó where the relic of Dominic was preserved, the name of the prior is omitted both in the breviary and the Domonkos Codex. The location is indicated in the breviary (conventum in Similu vbi est digitus beati Dominici) but the Domonkos Codex says only that ―in the convent where the finger of our father St. Dominic was kept‖ (az conuentben hol vala zent damancos atyanknak vÿa). The reason for the omission of the location of the convent in the Domonkos Codex is unclear since it is not known whether it was reported (or was legible) in the Latin source the Hungarian translator used. If it was not, the substitution of the preposition ―de‖ with ―in‖ relating the provost in the two late versions may have led the translator to ―relocate‖ the relic to Fehérvár. The Berengarian collection and Calò tell about some provost from Fehérvár called Stephen (quidam prepositus de Alba Regali Stephanus nomine), in the breviary one finds that the miracle

323 Tugwell, Miracula sancti Dominici, 319.

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happened to some provost in Fehérvár in Hungary (cuiusdam preposti in Alba Regali Vngarie).

Since in late Medieval Latin the preposition ―in‖ could both mean ―in‖ and ―from‖, it does not seem to be a significant difference until it is not translated. Only the supposition that the translator‘s Latin source did not report the location can explain why he rendered it closer to the version reported in the breviary in the sense of ―in‖ (magÿer orzagban feÿer varat). So while there is an argument in favour of considering the breviary the direct source of the miracle (the presence of the son of the provost not attested in any other variants) and there is one against (the omission of location of ―Similu‖ present in the breviary), it is doubtless that placing the miracle to Fehérvár is a translation error in the Domonkos Codex, especially since all the Latin versions of the miracle locate the relic to Somlyó.

II.3. Other traces of veneration