page_title: Holy Crown of Hungary
hierarchical_section_title: Holy Crown of Hungary
caption_attribution_description: Русский: 13 Корона св. Стефана, со вставками: Михаил VII Дука(центр), его сына Константин (слева) и король Венгрии Геза(справа) 1074-1077. Будапешт.
context_page_description: The Holy Crown of Hungary, also known as the Crown of Saint Stephen, was the coronation crown used by the Kingdom of Hungary for most of its existence; kings have been crowned with it since the twelfth century.
  The Crown was bound to the Lands of the Hungarian Crown. No king of Hungary was regarded as having been truly legitimate without being crowned with it. In the history of Hungary, more than fifty kings were crowned with it, up to the last, Charles IV, in 1916. The only kings who were not so crowned were Wladyslaw I, John Zápolya, John Sigismund Zápolya and Joseph II.
  The enamels on the crown are mainly or entirely Byzantine work, presumed to have been made in Constantinople in the 1070s. The crown was presented by the Byzantine Emperor Michael VII Doukas to King Géza I of Hungary; both are depicted and named in Greek on enamel plaques in the lower crown. It is one of the two known Byzantine crowns to survive, the other being the slightly earlier Monomachus Crown, which is also in Budapest, in the Hungarian National Museum. However, the Monomachus Crown may have had another function, and the Holy Crown has probably been remodelled, and uses elements of different origins.
context_section_description: The Holy Crown of Hungary (Hungarian: Szent Korona), also known as the Crown of Saint Stephen, was the coronation crown used by the Kingdom of Hungary for most of its existence; kings have been crowned with it since the twelfth century.
  The Crown was bound to the Lands of the Hungarian Crown (sometimes the Sacra Corona meant the Land, the Carpathian Basin, but it also meant the coronation body, too). No king of Hungary was regarded as having been truly legitimate without being crowned with it. In the history of Hungary, more than fifty kings were crowned with it, up to the last, Charles IV, in 1916. The only kings who were not so crowned were Wladyslaw I, John Zápolya, John Sigismund Zápolya and Joseph II. 
  The enamels on the crown are mainly or entirely Byzantine work, presumed to have been made in Constantinople in the 1070s. The crown was presented by the Byzantine Emperor Michael VII Doukas to King Géza I of Hungary; both are depicted and named in Greek on enamel plaques in the lower crown. It is one of the two known Byzantine crowns to survive, the other being the slightly earlier Monomachus Crown, which is also in Budapest, in the Hungarian National Museum. However, the Monomachus Crown may have had another function, and the Holy Crown has probably been remodelled, and uses elements of different origins.  The date assigned to the present configuration of the Holy Crown varies, but is most commonly put around the late 12th century.  The Hungarian coronation insignia consists of the Holy Crown, the sceptre, the orb, and the mantle. The orb has the coat-of-arms of Charles I of Hungary (1310–1342).  In popular tradition the Holy Crown was thought to be older, dating to the time of the first King Stephen I of Hungary, crowned in 1000/1001.
  It was first called the Holy Crown in 1256. During the 14th century, royal power came to be represented not simply by a crown, but by just one specific object: the Holy Crown. This also meant that the Kingdom of Hungary was a special state: they were not looking for a crown to inaugurate a king, but rather, they were looking for a king for the crown; as written by Crown Guard Péter Révay. He also depicts that "the Holy Crown is for the Hungarians what the Lost Ark is for the Jewish people".
  Since 2000, the Holy Crown has been on display in the central Domed Hall of the Hungarian Parliament Building.
caption: Back of the Holy Crown
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