The Importance of Gerard of Csanád as the First Author in Hungary

Abstract

Early Hungarian history is so poor in sources of contemporary origin that any work written and any writer living in the early Árpádian age is bound to provide information on the period — the beginnings of the Hungarian Christian kingdom of the Middle Ages. The Venetian-born Benedictine monk, Gerard, who from 1030 to his death in 1046 occupied as its first bishop the see of Csanád, is one of these writers. Gerard is not an historian in the true sense of the term. He is no Gregory of Tours, no Venerable Bede. He was a learned, western-educated ecclesiastic who in his theological writings left many a side remark on his age and on the political and social background of his religious activities in Hungary from the mid-1020s through the mid-1040s. His major theological treatise on the Song of Daniel, hisAdmonitionesto the heir of King Stephen on the Hungarian throne, and his participation in compiling the legal statutes enacted by Stephen and his council make him, beside the king, the most important historical personage of Hungarian history of the time. His works together with thevita minorand the biography of King Stephen by Bishop Hartvic form a valuable source of historical information. His own life is covered by a short though trustworthyvitacomposed in the early 1080s.