Anonymus Bele regis notarius[needs Latin IPA] ("Anonymous Notary of King Bela") or Master P. (
fl. late 12th century – early 13th century) was the notary and chronicler of a
Hungarian king, probably
Béla III. Little is known about him, but his
latinized name began with P, as he referred to himself as "P. dictus magister".
Anonymus is famous for his work Gesta Hungarorum ("The Deeds of the Hungarians"), written in
Medieval Latin around 1200. This work provides the most detailed history of the
Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin. Most of his attempts to explain the origin of several Hungarian place names are unsupported by modern etymology.
Identity
The identity of the author of the Gesta has always been subject to scholarly debate.[1][2] Although the first words of the opening sentence—an initial "P" followed with the words "dictus magister ac quondam bone memorie gloriosissimi Bele regis Hungarie notarius"—describe him, they cannot be interpreted unambiguously.[1] First of all, the interpretation of the "P dictus magister" text is unclear.[1] The text may refer to a man whose
monogram was P or it may be an abbreviation of the Latin word for "aforementioned" (praedictus) in reference to a name on the title page which is now missing.[1][3] Most scholars accept the former version, translating the text as "P who is called magister, and sometime notary of the most glorious Béla,
king of Hungary of fond memory".[4][5]
In his 1937 study, historian Loránd Szilágyi identified Anonymus with a certain Peter, a canon, alter provost of the cathedral chapter of
Esztergom. Several authors shared his view until 1966, when literary journal Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények published the papers of János Horváth, Jr. and Károly Sólyom, who claimed Anonymus was identical with
Peter, Bishop of Győr. The renowned historian
György Györffy refused their theory in 1970 and considered authorship of a Peter, who served as provost of Buda, despite the fact that there is no data on the existence of such a person.[5]
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;
ISBN978-963-9776-95-1. (Primary)
Berend, Nora; Urbańczyk, Przemysław; Wiszewski, Przemysław (2013). Central Europe in the High Middle Ages: Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, c. 900-c. 1300. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN978-0-521-78156-5.
Engel, Pál (2001). The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526. I.B. Tauris Publishers.
ISBN1-86064-061-3.
Györffy, György (1988). Anonymus: Rejtély vagy történeti forrás [Anonymous: An Enigma or a Source for History] (in Hungarian). Akadémiai Kiadó.
ISBN963-05-4868-2.
Madgearu, Alexandru (2005). The Romanians in the Anonymous Gesta Hungarorum: Truth and Fiction. Romanian Cultural Institute, Center for Transylvanian Studies.
ISBN973-7784-01-4.
Rady, Martyn; Veszprémy, László (2010). "Introduction". In Bak, János M.; Borkowska, Urszula; Constable, Giles; Jaritz, Gerhard; Klaniczay, Gábor (eds.). Anonymus and Master Roger. CEU Press. pp. xvii–xxxviii.
ISBN978-963-9776-95-1.
Thoroczkay, Gábor (2009). Írások az Árpád-korról: Történeti és historiográfiai tanulmányok, 7. fejezet: Anonymusról - röviden [On the Age of the Árpáds: Historical and Historiographic Studies, Chapter 7: On Anonymous in short] (in Hungarian). L'Harmattan.
ISBN978-963-236-165-9.