Minorite Chronicle of Buda
In addition to historical records from the last third of the 13th century, the author(s) preserved the Hunnic story created by Simon of Kéza and magister Ákos' interpolations within the older texts containing old myths and legends from the Hungarian prehistory.
Among the later redactions, the text of the Minorite Chronicle of Buda (the last stage before the large-scale compilation) was most faithfully preserved in the 15th-century Sambucus Codex.
Ákos, the chronicler during the reign of Stephen V (r. 1270–1272) expanded significantly the chronicle text (its last redaction occurred during the reign of Andrew II (r. 1205–1235)) focusing on the Hungarian prehistory (called Gesta Stephani V), but he only added brief records in the style of annals regarding his contemporary history, listing short biographic elements of the Hungarian monarchs.
[4] Gyula Kristó established that the text of the Minorite Chronicle of Buda lasted until 1333 (211th chapter), when Charles I visited his uncle, Robert, in Naples.
The chronicler, declaring the archiepiscopal see as vacant, even refused to acknowledge Gregory Bicskei as the legitimate Archbishop of Esztergom, despite that he was one of the few pro-Angevin prelates after the extinction of the Árpád dynasty (1301).
[10] Mályusz argued the end of the text (the Wallachian campaign) is related to John's diplomatic mission to Avignon in 1331, where he intended to downplay the significance of the defeat.
[12] Alongside Mályusz, philologist János Horváth, Jr., who analyzed the rhyming and rhythmic prose text of the 14th-century chronicle composition in detail, also argued in favor of a single author.
[13] Austrian scholar Raimund Friedrich Kaindl was the first historian, who considered that the so-called Minorite Chronicle of Buda is a compilation of historical records whose first entries may have been made around 1300, and the last around 1342, and whose writing can be attributed to several authors.
Accordingly, the first monk closed his work at the year 1312, while another chronicler continued the text with the detailed stories of Charles' assassination attempt by Felician Záh and the king's campaign against Basarab I of Wallachia, which resulted a defeat at the Battle of Posada (both events occurred in 1330).
[15] Domanovszky considered the first author recorded the events with short summaries retroactively from the reign of Ladislaus IV (1272) until the Battle of Rozgony between Charles I and Matthew Csák (1312).
While several historians considered that the attitude against Ladislaus proves the author's pro-Angevin position, Kristó argued in favor of his anti-Angevin standpoint, because the Angevins emphasized Andrew's illegitimate origin.
[18] The author also claims that Pope Boniface VIII sent papal legates to Hungary in order to support the Angevin, already during the lifetime of Andrew III.
He mentions that John Hont-Pázmány, the Archbishop of Kalocsa crowned the Bohemian prince, because the archiepiscopal see of Esztergom was vacant, refusing the legitimacy of the pro-Angevin archbishop-elect Gregory Bicskei.
According to Kristó, when the Minorite friar refers to the Buda heresy, the author deliberately does not mention the reason for the pope's excommunication, despite the fact that he lived locally.
[22] The chronicler records the activity of papal legate Gentile Portino too; he was a Franciscan, and he "bound in a terrible decree the nobles of the country by the ties of anathema, and he also placed the poor as well as all the rich under a strict interdict" in order to ensure Charles' reign.
He describes the oligarchs as the "most stubborn enemies of peace" (including Demetrius Balassa to whom the preceding text refers as one of the "men of great eminence").
[23] The fourth author provides detailed narratives of Felician Záh's assassination attempt and Charles' failed campaign against Wallachia, both occurred in 1330.
[24] Domanovszky argued that his contribution "testify to a highly respected, independent writer who dares to openly express his opinion on the actions of the king".
Additionally, Horváth also emphasized that the alleged anti-Angevin chronicler refers to the Angevins' family connections with the Árpád dynasty (i.e. their legitimate claim to the Hungarian throne), which would thus be unthinkable if he had written his work against them.
[28] János Horváth also emphasized that the chronicler merely expressed uncertainty about an office not filled by the pope; tried to keep quiet that Charles' first coronation by an unconfirmed archbishop (1301) was also invalid in the sense of ecclesiastical law.
[30] According to Gyula Kristó, the text is far from reaching the standard that Simon of Kéza showed earlier with the Hungarian adaptation of the contemporary European system of ideas.
No support for a single domestic social group can be observed – foreign-origin aristocracy or the nobles' communitas, as in the case of Ákos or Simon, respectively.
Mályusz argued that "the principle of telling the events one after the other prevailed again, and a naïve transcendentalism replaced the incipient realism characteristic of early Italian historiography".
[33] Literary historian Tibor Klaniczay described the chronicler as a "conscious artist of style", who wrote in regular rhythmic prose and often used apt similes and figurative expressions.
In the next four chapters (192–196th), the author leaves the third-person narrative mode two times and presents his own point of view with moralizing evaluations (finding of the Holy Crown and result of the Battle of Rozgony).
The usage of figures of speech (rhetoric) like anaphora occurs throughout the text, but epistrophes appear less frequently (even the annalist avoids repetition of words).
The tools of antimetathesis (puns) are also used by the author(s) throughout the whole chronicle (for instance, "Felicianus infelix" and "confidens de fide perfidi"), in addition to polysyndetons and pleonasms.
The 208th chapter is a single allegory spanning an entire passage, which Somogyi apostrophizes as the stylistic climax of the Hungarian Latin texts of the first half of the 14th century: "Until the time this happened, King Charles had sailed with favorable winds; as he desired, so the ship of his fortune furrowed the rippled expanse of the sea.
But now mutable fortune averted her face and turned her back in farewell; for in the wars that arose on all sides his forces were defeated, and also his feet and hands became twisted and exceedingly painful".
The chronicle part does not address the reader directly on any single occasion, however, if the figure is interpreted more broadly, then the previously discussed chapter-ending snaps, the author's exits from the narrative, can all be considered apostrophes.
