The Arms of Košice City - St. Elizabeth

Although no exact answer can be given to questions as to the period of construction of the new parish church in Košice consecrated to St. Elizabeth, or the origin of the seal matrix with St. Elizabeth, there exists a written evidence that the church was consecrated to her as early as 1283.

Document from Pope Martin IV from the year 1283 concerning the legal dispute over the town hospice belonging to the parish of St.Elizabeth.

Honouring this saint, who came like Emericus from the Hungarian royal line, but who was also honoured in German lands, became a most suitable solution in the search for a patron saint who would be fully acceptable to both the local population and the German colonists settling here after the invasion of the Tartars. The choice of a new, more appropriate patron meant in consequence that the previous symbol ceased to express the identity of the community and became in time unusable. The town had a new patron saint of the parish church and the town.

The great seal of Košice with the patron saint of the city St.Elizabeth. Detail showing a tower representing the city's fortifications.

St. Elizabeth stands in the centre of a Gothic triptych altar, distributing alms. The wings on both sides show angels standing facing her and holding candles. Over the top of the wing-panels there is a representation of the towers in the town’s fortifications. This beautiful seal, unusually large by Hungarian standards, expresses pictorially an exceptional combination, not customary in the symbolism of seals, of town walls together with the dominant patron saint. The circular inscription on the seal lies between dotted (pearly) rings and reads: + S: ELIZABETH + S. IGILLUM. CIVIUM. DE. CASSA. Written in Gothic capitals, it expressly indicates next to the name of St. Elizabeth that this is the seal of the citizens of Košice. This so-called " great seal" of the town was still applied in this very function long after the introduction of the city’s armorial seal.

The new patron saint and new seal pushed the lily firmly into the background, but not definitely. Although not in direct continuity, use of the lily reappeared after the end of the ruling Árpád family line, with the ascendancy of the Anjou house, now transmuted into heraldic form and once more both appropriate and expedient. Further evidence of the town’s previous use of the lily prior to 1369 lies in the fact that, after the transfer of the chamber of coin-minting from Smolník to Košice (between 1347 and 1367), Košice alone, and for centuries afterwards, continued to use the lily as a hallmark on coins to identify the place of striking.

Despite their long tradition of using the lily up to that time, other towns were forced to give it up in Košice’s favour, but only after being presented with proof of the city’s prior rights to it, older rights of usage than they had themselves. Instances of this "new" lily as a symbol on coins indicate examples of city strikings, i.e. a coin struck in the city by the city. The lily as a symbol of the city was also used by minters and goldsmiths. The latter in fact mention it in their guild statutes literally as the arms of the city. Indeed, only the lily possessed the property of being able, as the simplest and most distinctive of signs, to symbolise both the city and the new Anjou dynasty at once in the most economical and shortest of possible abbrevations.

The very first ruler of this dynasty, Charles Robert himself, was helped actively by the city to strengthen his initially shaky position in the kingdom, after he aligned himself on the side of the city in its revolt against the oligarch palatine Omodeus of Abov in the year 1311.

1. King Charles Robert, with the Anjou coat of arms. 2. King Charles Robert at the battle of Košice, 15th June 1312.

This was the very first successful citizens’ uprising against a representative of the highest aristocracy, and the resulting bond between the dynasty and the city became the basis for the latter’s further development as expressed in the privileges which progressively raised the city in rank order until it was the second in importance in the kingdom.

/Text: Dr.JOZEF KIRST/
/Translation: A.Y.Billingham/
/© Photo: Marián Krlička /