Holy Crown Of Hungary - When Was The Cross Knocked Crooked?

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Author	Replies: 5 / Views: 12,833
wonghinghi Pillar of the Community Hong Kong 1270 Posts	Posted 09/25/2012 07:30 am Hello guys, I am interested in the question of when the cross of the Holy Crown of Hungary (St. Stephen Crown) had been knocked crooked for the reason that one day my younger sister travelled in Budapest, her guide told her that the cross of the Holy Crown was made sloping delibrately! Why? It was said this is the angle of inclination to the vertical axis of the earth revolving. Of course, I didn't believe that. But, who knows when the cross had been knocked to the present shape? The Wikipedia said "The crown which was attached to the crown during the XVI century was knocked crooked in the 17th Century." I don't think so because please see the following coin: the cross of the Holy Crown was in a decent position. From this coin, I am sure the Crown was still in good condition in the year of 1782. That is, Wikipedia is not right about this fact. There is another coin that proves the cross of the crown was still in decent position - the 1848 or 1849 6 Krajczar coin. Or it was damaged for some reasons in this year (1848 Revolution of Hungary) but the engraver or mint master didn't see the real crown during minting and of course, they couldn't suppose the crown was spoilt. Therefore, this explains why the cross was still in decent position on the coins of 1848 or 1849. Wikipedia tells us another useful hint: "Lajos Kossuth took the crown and coronation jewels with him after the collapse of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and buried them in a wooden box in a willow forest, near Orsova in Transylvania. They were subsequently dug up and returned to the royal castle in Buda in 1853." So I can assume the cross was knocked crooked during the period of 1848 to 1853. It could not be damaged later than 1868 or 1869 (2nd yr of minting) for the following coin proves that. Do you agree with my deductions? Please leave a comment to tell what you think about the time of knocking crooked of the cross on the Holy Crown of Hungary. Report this Post to the Staff

TJB17 Valued Member United States 492 Posts	Posted 09/25/2012 07:49 am I know absolutely nothing about this crown, but I was just wondering how the image on a coin proves that the crown was not damaged at the time the coin was minted? Maybe the engraver made the coin the way the crown was supposed to look like, not like the way it actually way. Could it be that when it first happened they were embarrassed/disappointed/etc. that the crown was bent and made an idealized image instead of the real thing? I'm just asking. Report this Post to the Staff
wonghinghi Pillar of the Community Hong Kong 1270 Posts	Posted 09/25/2012 08:34 am Hello TJB17, it is impossible to prove which one you say is correct : 1)...the engraver made the coin the way the crown was supposed to look like or 2)...made an idealized image instead of the real thing. I do believe a coin would always reflect the reality at the time of minting. After the 1848 Hungarian Revolution, the strenth of Habsburg Austria seemed to be weakened and I tend to believe the monarch would accept the reality, that is, a damaged crown emblem on their coins. This is also my guesswork. I hope anyone who have come across with the story or any materials with this crown can leave some clues here. Report this Post to the Staff
Sap Moderator Australia 16209 Posts	Posted 09/25/2012 10:27 am The simple answer seems to be "nobody knows", because the person who actually caused it to be bent never told anyone that they'd done it. There are all sorts of theories and dates: - The cross was intended to be bent, right from the beginning. - St Stephen himself bent it when being chased by Tartars, or some such. This is of course an apocryphal "old wives tale", since the crown St Stephen actually would have worn is not the current Hungarian crown, the earliest parts of which date from a century or two after Stephen's death.The cross is also a recent attachment (mid-1500s), replacing an earlier reliquary-cross that allegedly held pieces of the True Cross. - Sometime in the 1600s, someone tried to put the crown into a strongbox that was too small for it, or forced the lid shut on the strongbox when the crown hadn't been put into it properly. - Sometime in the 1700s, someone lost the key to the strongbox and they had to force it open in a hurry; the cross was bent in the process. -In 1848, Kossuth's revolutionaries bent it as they tried to hide it from the Austrians, or the Austrians bent it when they carelessly handled it after finding where Kossuth had hidden it. The coins certainly lend credence to this theory, with Kossuth's coins showing the cross upright and subsequent coins showing it bent. There are references on the internet to a picture from 1790 that shows it to already be bent in that year, but I couldn't find an example of the picture in question to verify this. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis Report this Post to the Staff
wonghinghi Pillar of the Community Hong Kong 1270 Posts	Posted 09/25/2012 10:50 am Sap, you said the last point is worthy to me, I am waiting for a picture of 1790 showing the appearance of the crown. Kossuth's 5 Forint (1946 and 1947) shows the Hungarian emblem without crown on the reserve side. Why don't believe the 1782 thaler, it shows an intact crown. Austria was very strong under the reign of M. Theresa and I don't think the crown would not be repaired if it was briefly damaged at that time. No one was easily accessed to the crown, saw it or touched it except during the 1848 Hungarian Revolution. My three coins shown are proof to my deductions. Report this Post to the Staff
Sap Moderator Australia 16209 Posts	Posted 09/25/2012 6:22 pm Part of the problem for me is that none of the depictions of the crown pre-1850 that I've seen actually look like the crown looks today, in any fashion. Both the 1782 coin and 1848 coin in the first post show the protrusions around the base of the crown splayed out, in typical Western mediaeval crown fashion; on the actual crown, these protrusions are actually bent inwards slightly, in the Byzantine style. Kossuth's coin is even worse; the protrusions are all dome-shaped instead of alternating domes-and-triangles, the icons around the base are omitted and the Byzantine dangly-bits are also missing. So I'm not sure how reliable either of those depictions are at portraying the crown as it actually appeared. I'm betting the artists that made the dies were using old paintings or sculptures of the crown and didn't get to see the crown itself; whoever made the old paintings used to model it may not have seen the actual crown either. In which case the crown depicted on the coins is a copy of a copy of a copy, showing (if anything) how the crown may have looked a hundred or more years before the coin was actually made. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis Report this Post to the Staff
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