Patrón dynastie a mesta? Sv. Ján Almužník a jeho kult pri formovaní dynastickej a mestskej identity

Abstract

After the battle of Mohács, the new king Ferdinand of Habsburg had the relics of the Saint John the Merciful (Almsgiver) placed in the St. Martin‘s Cathedral in Bratislava. The city became the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and, between 1563 and 1830, the place where members of the Habsburg dynasty were crowned Hungarian kings. The relics served not only for religious purposes but also for the specific needs of the dynasty or the ruler in the context of the time – political, power or propaganda. The paper will try to approach the fate of the relics and the cult of St. John the Merciful in Bratislava and related questions: what role did the saint‘s relics play in legitimizing the rule of the new Habsburg dynasty in the Kingdom of Hungary, or how did they contribute to the formation and establishment of its identity in the Central European space? Were they influential in shaping the identity of Bratislava as the capital of the Habsburg monarchy, with St. Martin‘s Cathedral as the main coronation church of the Habsburgs?