The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways.... Festschrift in Honor of János M. Bak by Balázs s> Nagy Marcell Sebők (review)

Abstract

344 SEER, 79, 2, 200 I National Chronicle', 'Dlugosz and the Buda Chronicle' (in French) and the 'FirstHungarian Historians'. He took a freshlook at the narrativetexts, re-examining their composition and sourcesin a detail that nobody else has, before or since. Veryprobablyhe was provokedby the older conservativephilology in Hungary, and indeed his excellent criticalabilityensured him a much better graspof textual problems than many of his Hungarian counterparts.Today, it is a communis opinio that it was a mistake to attribute the differentchronicle continuations 'to a single brain','alost gestatheory',as suggestedby ProfessorBalintH6man. In search of these alternative national traditionsMacartney analysed all the chronicle variants (Chronicon Budense, Posoniense, Zagrabiense, Varadiense, and so on) and the most influentiallegends (St Stephen, St Gerard).He purposefully concentratedhis researcheson the Hunnish-Hungariantradition,formulated by Simon of Keza in the second half of the thirteenthcentury. This is a story almost totally bound up in the western literary tradition (Nibelungenlied, Attila saga, and so on) and historicalsources (Jordanes, Martin of Troppau, and so on). Macartney's unmatched literary knowledge gave him a sound basisfor criticizingearlierHungarian research,but he was certainlytoo strict with two outstanding researchers,SAndorDomanovszky and Sandor Eckhardt , and he undoubtedly over-complicatedthe derivationof texts from each other. But Macartney's work is still the most complete compilation of a definitiveline of Central-Europeanhistoriography,and no Hungarianhasyet attempted to produce anythingsimilar.The book startsoffwith two excellent biographicaland life'sworkessays,writtenby the editors,Czigany and Peter, and by G. H. N. Seton-Watson (pp. ix-xxxv), followed by a selected bibliographyof Macartney'sworks(pp. xxxvii-xliii). However, readingof the book is hampered by the lack of the source texts, a list of abbreviationsof the quoted source texts, and a brief summaryof the main historiographicalwork since Macartney. The book will certainly cause many surprisesfor historians of medieval Central Europe. Since its component essayswere designed to form a bridge between the literature of small nations and history as written in world languages,thisbook now fulfilsMacartney'swishes:understandingtheMiddle Ages is the route to the understandingand acceptance of the roots of today's multiculturalrealityin CentralEurope. Department ofMedieval Studies L. M. VESZPREMY Central European University, Budapest Nagy, Balazs and Seb8k, Marcell (eds). ... TheMan of ManyDevices,WAho Wandered FullManyWays. . .. Festschrift inHonorofJdnos M.Bak.Central EuropeanUniversityPress,Budapest, I999. xvii + 708 pp. Notes. Tables. Figures.Illustrations.Bibliography.?44-95 SOMEFestschriftsare organized around a central theme, while the other, and more common type simplyconsistsof a varietyof articlesto honour a scholar, without trying to achieve any real unity. This book falls into the second category;althoughthe contributionsaredividedinto nine sections(Personalia, REVIEWS 345 Artes, Rebelliones, Majestas, Hagiographica, Quotidiana, VariaMedievalia, Hungarica, Historiographica), there is no attempt at either thematic or chronological unity in the volume as a whole. Indeed, as both the title, a quotation from Homer's Odyssey, and the section headings indicate, diversity was one of the aims of the editors.Through thisvariety,they emphasizeJanos Bak's own experiences (he has lived and worked in several countries), and reflecthis own interests. The book consists of sixty-six articles (all written in English, German, or French)on Western-and East-CentralEuropeantopics fromlate Antiquityto the twentieth century. It also contains the full bibliography of Bak's own works.The articlesin any one section are only very loosely connected to each other through a broadly defined main theme. For example, the section 'Rebelliones' includes a piece by John C. Parsonson the real and perceived power of twelfth-centuryFrenchqueens to endanger the social orderthrough revealing their body; a second by Piotr G6recki on social violence and its remedies (punishment rather than arbitration)in lower Silesia; a third by Hanna Zaremska on cases of litigation by fifteenth-centuryJews before the Christian authorities in Krak6w; a fourth by Gabor Klaniczay on the characterizationsof rebelliouspeasantsinlatemedievalHungary,highlighting the birth of various stereotypes; and a fifth on Central European ideas linkingsocial criticism,Utopian social models and Reformationby Ferdinand Seibt. Most of the articlesin the volume are specificcase studies.As the following examples show, they will be of interest to specialists. Maria Dobozy demonstrates that Gottfried von Strassburg'sidea of rulershipin Tristan did not focus on the individual's virtues and vices, but instead on the social dynamics of the court. Andras Kubinyi examines the political role...