Thuróczy Chronicle Facsimile Edition

The Chronica Hungarorum, commonly known as the Thuróczy Chronicle, is a Latin chronicle of Hungarian history composed by Johannes de Thurocz and first printed in 1488. It occupies a special place in the cultural history of medieval Central Europe as the first extensive national chronicle written not by a cleric but by a layman of noble birth. Thurocz, who served as a notary and held various legal functions, brought together a wide range of materials to construct a sweeping narrative of Hungary’s past, stretching from the legendary origins of the Huns and Magyars to the events of his own lifetime under King Matthias Corvinus. In doing so, he created a synthesis that not only reflected contemporary historical knowledge but also projected the ideological and cultural aspirations of late medieval Hungary.

Authorship, Sources, and Purpose

Johannes de Thurocz, born around 1435, was deeply embedded in the world of royal administration and law, which gave him both access to official records and a perspective that differed from that of monastic chroniclers. His chronicle drew heavily on earlier works, particularly the Chronicon Pictum and the Buda Chronicle of 1473, but it also incorporated documentary material, oral tradition, and his own commentary.

The work was not conceived as a neutral account of the past but as a contribution to the glorification of the Hungarian kingdom and its rulers. Attila the Hun is presented as a heroic ancestor, while King Matthias emerges as the culmination of Hungary’s illustrious history. In this sense, the chronicle was not only a historiographic project but also a political one, crafted to bolster national identity and to legitimize the reigning monarch.

Printing, Editions, and Illustrations

The text of the Thuróczy Chronicle was first published in two separate editions in 1488, an indication of the work’s immediate importance.

The Brno edition appeared on 20 March 1488, printed by Konrad Stahel and Matthias Preinlein, while the Augsburg edition was completed on 3 June of the same year by Erhard Ratdolt at the expense of Theobald Feger, a publisher based in Buda.

The Augsburg printing was particularly ambitious, and two distinct versions were produced, one of which omitted the account of King Matthias’s Austrian campaigns in order to appeal to a German audience. The Augsburg edition is also notable for its series of woodcut illustrations—forty-one portraits and scenes that represent Hungarian rulers and heroes, many of them hand-coloured in deluxe copies prepared for the king himself. Some of these were printed on parchment with gilded initials and decorated prefaces, turning the chronicle into both a monument of print culture and an object of courtly display.

Structure and Historical Value

The Chronica Hungarorum is divided into several sections that mirror the long arc of Hungarian history. It begins with mythic and legendary narratives concerning the Scythians, the Huns, and the arrival of the Magyars in the Carpathian Basin. It then proceeds to recount the reigns of successive kings, devoting particular attention to the Angevin dynasty and, later, to the campaigns and policies of Matthias Corvinus.

The narrative blends myth with documented fact, often moralizing or idealizing the figures it portrays. While it cannot always be relied upon for strict historical accuracy, it preserves oral traditions and stories absent from other sources and provides a crucial window onto the ways in which Hungarians of the late Middle Ages understood their own past. Scholars therefore read the work not only for the information it conveys but also as an artefact of historical consciousness, shaped by the cultural and political contexts of the fifteenth century.

Surviving Copies and Their Repositories

Although the Thuróczy Chronicle was printed in multiple copies, relatively few have survived. Among the most important are the two copies now preserved in the National Széchényi Library in Budapest, catalogued as Inc. 1143 and Inc. 1143b, one on paper and the other a luxurious parchment copy with gilded decoration.

Another significant copy is held by the Slovak National Library in Martin, under the shelf-mark Inc C 75 with accession number F 1450/76.

Manuscript versions derived from the printed editions also exist, most notably the illuminated German translation preserved in the Heidelberg University Library under Cod. Pal. germ. 156 and another copy in the Houghton Library at Harvard University, registered as MS Ger. 43.

Additional exemplars of the Brno edition are found in Graz University Library, in the library of the Brâncoveanu Monastery in Romania, and in Braşov at the Evangelical Parish Church of the Black Church, where it bears the inventory number 1251/2.

Together, these surviving volumes attest both to the wide circulation of the Chronica Hungarorum in the late fifteenth century and to its enduring importance as a monument of Hungarian historiography and early European printing.