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The first extant Hungarian book about history

the early 13th century history

Gesta Hungarorum, or The Deeds of the Hungarians, is the earliest book about Hungarian history which has survived for posterity. Its genre is not chronicle, but gesta, meaning "deeds" or "acts", which is a medieval entertaining literature. It was written in Latin by an unidentified author who has traditionally been called Anonymus in scholarly works. According to most historians, the work was completed between around 1200 and 1230. The Gesta exists in a sole manuscript from the second part of the 13th century, which was for centuries held in Vienna. It is part of the collection of Széchényi National Library in Budapest. The principal subject of the Gesta is the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries, and it writes of the origin of the Hungarians, identifying the Hungarians' ancestors with the ancient Scythians and Huns. Many of its sources—including the Bible, Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae, the 7th century Exordia Scythica, the late 9th century Regino of Prüm's Chronicon, and early medieval romances of Alexander the Great—have been identified by scholars. Anonymus also used folk songs and ballads when writing his work. He knew a version of the late 11th century "Hungarian Chronicle" the text of which has partially been preserved in his work and in later chronicles, but his narration of the Hungarian Conquest differs from the version provided by the other chronicles. Anonymus did not mention the opponents of the conquering Hungarians known from sources written around 900, but he wrote of the Hungarians' fight against rulers unknown from other sources. According to a scholarly theory, he used place names when naming the opponents of the Hungarians.

Although the Hungarians, or Magyars, seem to have used their own alphabet before adopting Christianity in the 11th century, most information of their early history was recorded by Muslim, Byzantine and Western European authors. For instance, the Annals of Fulda, Regino of Prüm's Chronicon, and Emperor Constantine VII's De administrando imperio contain contemporaneous or nearly contemporaneous reports of their conquest of the Carpathian Basin at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. Among the Hungarians, oral tradition—songs and ballads—preserved the memory of the most important historical events. The Illuminated Chronicle explicitly stated that the "seven captains" who led the Hungarians during the Conquest "composed lays about themselves and sang them among themselves in order to win worldly renown and to publish their names abroad, so that their posterity might be able to boast and brag to neighbours and friends when these songs were heard". The Gesta Hungarorum, or The Deeds of the Hungarians, is the first extant Hungarian chronicle. Its principal subject is the conquest of the Carpathian Basin and it narrates the background and the immediate aftermath of the conquest. Many historiansincluding Carlile Aylmer Macartney and András Róna Tasagree that Simon of Kéza's chronicle, the Illuminated Chronicle and other works composed in the 13th–15th centuries preserved texts which had been written before the completion of the Gesta. They say that the first "Hungarian Chronicle" was completed in the second half of the 11th century or in the early 12th century. The existence of this ancient chronicle is proven by later sources. One Ricardus's report of a journey of a group of Dominican friars in the early 1230s refers to a chronicle, The Deeds of the Christian Hungarians, which contained information of an eastern Magna Hungaria. The Illuminated Chronicle from 1358 refers to "the ancient books about the deeds of the Hungarians" in connection with the pagan uprisings of the 11th century. The earliest "Hungarian Chronicle" was expanded and rewritten several times in the 12th–14th centuries, but its content can only be reconstructed based on 14th century works.

The work exists in a sole manuscript. The codex is in size and contains 24 folios, including two blank pages. The first page of the codex originally contained the beginning of the Gesta. It was blanked because the scribe had made mistakes when writing the text. The work was written in a Gothic minuscule. The style of the letters and decorations, including the elaborate initial on its first page, shows that the manuscript was completed in the middle or in the second part of the 13th century. Scribal errors suggest that the extant manuscript is a copy of the original work. For instance, the scribe wrote Cleopatram instead of Neopatram in the text narrating a Hungarian raid in the Byzantine Empire although the context clearly shows that the author of the Gesta referred to Neopatras (now Ypati in Greece). The history of the manuscript up until the early 17th century is unknown. It became part of the collection of the Imperial Library in Vienna between 1601 and 1636. In this period, the court librarian Sebastian Tengnagel registered it under the title Historia Hungarica de VII primis ducibus Hungariae auctore Belae regis notario ("Hungarian History of the First Seven Princes of Hungary Written by King Béla's Notary"). Tengnagel added numbers to the folios and the chapters. The codex was bound with a leather book cover, impressed with a double headed eagle, in the late 18th century. The manuscript, which was transferred to Hungary in 1933 or 1934, is held in the Széchényi National Library in Budapest.

The author of the Gesta Hungarorum has been known as Anonymus ever since the publication of the first Hungarian translation of his work in 1790. The author described himself as "P who is called magister, and sometime notary of the most glorious Béla, king of Hungary of fond memory" in the opening sentence of the Gesta. The identification of this King Béla is subject to scholarly debate, because four Hungarian monarchs bore this name. Most historians identify the king with Béla III of Hungary who died in 1196. Anonymus dedicated his work to "the most venerable man N" to Óbuda. He did not write of the southern and eastern parts of Transylvania.

The Gesta contains a prologue and 57 chapters. In the prologue, Anonymus introduced himself and declared that he decided to write his work to put in writing the early history of the Hungarians and their conquest of the Carpathian Basin. In addition, he stated that he wanted to write of the genealogy of the royal Árpád dynasty and of the noble families of the Kingdom of Hungary. The first seven chapters describe the Hungarians' legendary homelandmentioned as Scythia or Dentumogerand their departure from there. According to Macartney, the first chapter was based on the late 11th century "Hungarian Chronicle", and it contains interpolations from the Exordia Scythica and Regino of Prüm's chronicle. The second chapter explains that the Hungarians were named after "Hunguar" (present day Uzhhorod in Ukraine). The third chapter preserved the totemistic pre Christian tradition of the origin of the Árpád dynasty, narrating Emese's dream of the falcon impregnating her before the birth of her son, Álmos. The next section describes Álmos, mentioning that he was "more powerful and wiser than all the princes of Scythia", which may have derived from oral tradition or from the common wording of contemporaneous legal documents. The fifth chapter writes of the election of Álmos as "the leader and master" of the Hungarians, mentioning a blood mingling ceremony. In this section, Anonymus states that the Hungarians "chose to seek for themselves the land of Pannonia that they had heard from rumor had been the land of King Attila" Martyn Rady, the translator of the first English version of the Gesta, states that "It is at best to project contemporary conditions backwards."

Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians (Edited, Translated and Annotated by Martyn Rady and László Veszprémy) (2010). In: Rady, Martyn; Veszprémy, László; Bak, János M. (2010); Anonymus and Master Roger; CEU Press; The Chronicle of Regino of Prüm (2009). In: History and Politics in Late Carolingian and Ottonian Europe: The Chronicle of Regino of Prüm and Adalbert of Magdeburg (Translated and annotated by Simon MacLean); Manchester University Press; The Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle: Chronica de Gestis Hungarorum (Edited by Dezső Dercsényi) (1970). Corvina, Taplinger Publishing. .