Urgesta

[3] Literary historian Ferenc Toldy (1868) considered that historical records were made already in the last decades of the Principality of Hungary in the 10th century,[b] in addition to annals from the first Benedictine monasteries.

Győry considered that Andrew I ordered the Urgesta to be written to reinforce his own legitimacy after a turbulent period (civil wars, German incursions and the Vata pagan uprising).

[7] Classical philologist János Horváth, Jr. (1954) claimed that Nicholas, Bishop of Győr, who formulated the establishing charter of the abbey of Tihany, was the author of the Urgesta, due to stylistic similarities.

In contrast, literary historian Tibor Klaniczay (1964) accepted the arguments claiming that the first gesta author recorded the events from the last regnal years of Stephen I until the 1051 German–Hungarian war.

[19] British academic Carlile Aylmer Macartney (1953) argued the ancient gesta which was written in the court of Ladislaus I sometime between 1080 and 1090, was used as a primary source for the longer legend of Gerard of Csanád, the works of chroniclers Simon of Kéza, Thomas Ebendorfer and Jan Długosz regarding the history of the 11th century.

He argued in favor of a uniform style text – preserved in the so-called Acephalus Codex – from Koppány's revolt until the campaign of Géza II against the Principality of Halych, thus the Urgesta was compiled sometime between 1156 and 1162.

Erdélyi argued that the text contains several anachronistic elements when narrated events from the 11–12th centuries (for instance, castrums, royal servants, name variants of 11th-century historical persons).

Because of their large-scale interpolations, Rokay also questioned the authenticity of those 11th-century royal documents (e.g. the establishing charters of Tihany, Zselicszentjakab, Százd, Garamszentbenedek), whose data (names, dates) confirm the contemporaneity of the 11th century text of the chronicle.

[39] János Horváth, Jr. – accepting the argument of literary historian László Négyesy – considered the chapters, which narrate the events from the coronation of the child Solomon until the death of Ladislaus I, show a close stylistic unity.

[43][1][42] The 14th-century chronicle composition preserved an unfavorable image of Coloman, his son Stephen II and their rule (for the causes, see below), but a remnant of an earlier text can be found in some places where the two monarchs appear in a positive light.

Sebestyén claimed that several parts of the 11th-century events, in which Géza I and Ladislaus I are displayed in positive color (e.g. establishment of the Vác Cathedral, the Battle of Kemej or Vid Gutkeled's intrigues), were recorded by Béla II's chronicler, using the poetic devices of naive epic.

He argued this chronicler wrote a lot of negativity about Coloman and Stephen II, but he did not silence their merits either (thus Macartney did not count on a previous edit in the courts of the aforementioned kings).

In order to emphasize the legitimist ideology, this author re-draw the depictions of Solomon and his cousins, since Béla II was a legitimate ruler, but lacked the competence due to his blindness.

For instance, the chronicle text uses the same phrase when it explains the effect of Greek fire before the Siege of Belgrade during the 1071–1072 Byzantine–Hungarian War, then at the Battle of Haram during Stephen II's Byzantine campaign.

There is no sign of any attempt to record contemporary history, and the reigns of Béla III and his successors until the extinction of the Árpád dynasty (except somewhat Ladislaus IV) can be reconstructed via foreign sources and official charters.

Both Historia Roderici and Decretum Gratiani served as common sources for the Hungarian chronicle and Anonymus' Gesta Hungarorum (written around 1200), which fact strengthens the temporal proximity between the two works.

During the civil war, the incumbent abbot John of Pannohalma supported Andrew's effort and the chronicle provided an ideological background for the rebellious duke, who became king in 1205.

József Deér then László Veszprémy argued the legend of Charlemagne served as inspiration for the creation of the royal character of Ladislaus, who has the virtues of a Christian chivalrous monarch.

In 1972, Kristó claimed that Anonymus used a contemporary chronicle redaction as a primary source for his Gesta Hungarorum, listing joint expressions and terms as examples appeared in the two works.

[63] One Ricardus's report (1237) of a journey of a group of Dominican friars in the early 1230s refers to a chronicle, Gesta Ungarorum Christianorum ("The Deeds of the Christian Hungarians"), which contained information of an eastern Magna Hungaria.

During the life of Andrew II, the chronicler did not have the opportunity to write about the sins of Gertrude of Merania, who was assassinated in 1213; as a result, the author projected her perceived or real crimes onto Saint Stephen's wife Gisela, who was also of German origin.

[54][66] While the earlier historiography (e.g. Domanovszky, Bálint Hóman and initially Györffy) attributed the Hunnic story to him, later scholars (Imre Madzsar, Elemér Mályusz, János Horváth, Jr. and Jenő Szűcs) proved with philological and linguistic examinations that it can be considered as the own work of Simon of Kéza, who inserted the history of the Huns before the main chronicle text (the Sambucus Codex preserved most faithfully the state of the pre-Simon 13th century chronicle).

Some intellectuals – Endre K. Grandpierre or József Blaskovics – considered this manuscript was identical with the Urgesta, because the Tarih-i Üngürüs, in several cases, writes about some historical events differently compared to the 14th-century chronicle composition.

Balázs Sudár emphasized that Mahmud, in addition to translation, altered the original text of the Chronica Hungarorum as an example of old Ottoman historiographical traditions, in order to ideologize the conquest of Hungary, acquiring the past through rewriting it.

He cited German scholar Harry Bresslau, who emphasized that the historical continuity of rhythmic prose was gradually broken after the fall of the Western Roman Empire regarding narrative chroniclers and liturgical works (oratio) too.

However, Benei argued that stylistic analysis alone is not sufficient, the results of other researches (e.g. historical, philological, source criticism, social history) must also be taken into account, but this was also emphasized by Horváth in his work.

Dániel Bagi analyzed the story of Duke Béla's duel with a Pomeranian warrior: he found contemporary parallels – Galbert of Bruges' chronicle and Donizo's Vita Mathildis.

Consequently, descriptions of duels in medieval chronicles preceded the heyday of chivalric literature, but the epic representation allows to conclude that this part of the text was created after the beginning of the 12th century.

Bernadett Benei argued that there are stylistic elements that connect these parts, primarily the usage of such figures of speech (rhetoric) like anaphora, epistrophe, pleonasm, synezeugmenon and antonomasia.

[89] Beside the style element of Hebraisms (e.g. accintus est gladio or in saecula saeculorum), the 11–12th-century chronicle text contains 29 full quotations (one of them was also a part of the Ecgbert coronation ordo) and 57 paraphrases from the Bible.