About the Unknown Poems of Tinódi

Abstract

Tinódi’s oeuvre has been studied for so long, so profoundly and by so many people, that the very idea of saying something new about him or his works could seem almost blasphemous. However, his atypical, definitive and extremely productive oeuvre in the 16th century makes it impossible not to be the target of constant hypothesis-building and guesswork. Especially in cases when it is impossible to apply the principle of ultima manus and the currently known sources contain almost contradictory versions. This is the case, for example, with Tinódi’s poem(s) about King Sigismund.
The current literature lists two Tinódi poems that deal with the life of Sigismund, even though in one source they were combined. The longer text (Chronicles of the king and emperor Sigismund) is known from three sources, the Cancionale published by Heltai, from another print published in 1574 in Cluj-Napoca and the Petrovay songbook. The shorter text (About the captivity of king  Sigismund) is known from the Petrovay songbook only and it does not show up in either of the prints. The manuscript, which was compiled about 100 years after the presumed creation of the texts, contains them merged. Miklós Petrovay, the assembler of the
manuscript is usually accounted for the amalgamation of the two poems. Despite this opinion of the literature, I think Petrovay’s source could have contained the two songs merged already. During the close reading of the said poems, I have developed a theory that considers the original version of the poem a single poem or rather a stream of poems, like two other works of Tinódi (the Song of Transylvania and the Song of Eger). Hence, in this paper, I would like to argue that Tinódi wrote either one poem or five separate songs about King Sigismund, but not two.