Doubly crowned: The Public and Private Image of Two Fourteenth-Century Hungarian Queens

Abstract

Art as propaganda is traditionally thought to be used as a tool of monarchs in cementing their role. In addition to coins with the king’s face and seals featuring the king in majesty, the king’s face could also appear on public art such as statues, stained glass, and even frescoes. This essay seeks to understand four pieces of stonework visible to the medieval public which would have featured two fourteenth-century queens of Hungary: Elizabeth of Poland (d. 1380), wife of Charles I Robert, and Elizabeth of Bosnia (d. 1387), wife of Louis I ‘the Great’ (r.