The Girl Who Cried Pearl And Laughed Rose: Krakow, A New Bag And Family Roots

Soon I'm going to go on a five days holiday to Krakow!!!!! Wehee!! 😸

One of my friend lives there so it's a double happiness 😌

I made a new bag for the journey. The embroidery is no less then the coat of arm of my mom's family!!!

Everything I make has its own story... Or should I say history?

Apart from "some" really annoying family members - whom I could hit happily - I'm proud of my mom's family, but only from historical aspect...

My mom was born into an old noble family. That doesn't mean she ever lived like a queen… the opposite. To the 20th century all the families of the D.-line impoverished completely after the revolution and war of independence. My mom had a tough burdensome childhood…

I learned this whole family story only about three years ago, when I made a bigger turn-out in our cellar and I found my mom's old writings about her family. I asked her what was that about, then she told me that she learned once that her ancestor [the family founder] was a crusade knight somewhen in the 13th century, who got his title from the current king [Stephen II or Bela II perhaps].

Sadly I found only very few data about this knight. There are various genealogy and noble family searching sites, and I found some 19th century and modern day distant relatives in the USA, but one cannot find names from the 15th or earlier centuries of course. Then I searched on the electronic libraries and archives, where I found some things about the knight and some other family members from various historical eras. I know this doesn't mean that we are straight from that knight guy, no of course, the main branch of the family had broken into subfamilies along the history, ALTHOUGH according on phone registers and address pages there are only four subfamily groups in this country today and some outside the country. We are the Western-Hungary branch. There are two in South and South-Eastern Hungary [some of them are close relatives of mom] and around Budapest [only one distant relative among them] + one unknown branch in America, except my uncle who lives in California and three cousins live in England from now on as well. But my mom's family is a rare one anyway. 😚

Even one letter is matter… [this is crazy...]

My mom's family name ends with an 'i' but before [about 100 years ago and before] they wrote it with an 'y' [like the Görgey family or Zichy, etc.]. In Hungarian history 'y' at the end of the surname meant a noble descent. But by the law IV of 1947 - in the Hungarian Communist Era - every nobility title were forbidden to use and was something to be ashamed of, so you had to leave the 'y' and use an 'i' instead. Now you have a simple family name now… [Whaaaaat????!] The thruth is, the Directorate thought and feared that noble descented families had some sort of political power and were wealthy, well wealthier than Them, due to the poor or ordinary proletarian families were easier to manipulate and to dominate… They were wrong. My mom's family was extremely poor. Grandad – who had no any wealth at all apart from the buttons on his shirt… - died early so my grandma left alone with 9 children in an old small house! Actually the whole place was only a one bigger room with a bath tub in the corner as "bathroom" and an old stove as "kitchen"… they had no proper shoes at Winter and so on… So my mom never cared about the stupid Communist statement, why wouldn't we proud of what we are or where we are from… they were poor with or without an official noble title and the fucking 'y' anyway…

Most of the noble families lost all their lands and wealth decades before but nevermind.

The few things I just found about some family ancestors:

comes[1] Stephanus de D. or István D., the family founder! – He got his surname/title after the castle and provostry he attended, so I didn't know what was his real surname before.

He was the member of a hospitaller knight order; or the official and long version, the "Sovereign Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta", god, this was long indeed, I need a break…

He never fought in any battle [thank goodness] or went for a quest for the Holy Grail or even met with the killer rabbit of Caerbannog or had dinner with the knights of Camelot ["It's only a model"]… He was a crusade knight, but only by title. He owned a spital [puritan version of todays hospital, in Hungarian: ispotály] and took care of the people on his estate in D.; what now a village in Slovakia, but that territory was part of the historical Hungary. In historical records the name of the place was first mentioned in 1138.

[1] The latin word 'comes' means "count", but here the Medieval sort of count, the feudal landowner. Only the king could gave him title and land and he had military, juridical or prefectural roles. A Western/Middle/South-European comes had greater autonomy [independence]. In Hungary this was different. István was comes by his wealth, but by title, he was an ispán [Hungarian form of landowner]. He had no autonomy but had the same roles as a Western feudal landowner has, beside he was a spital knight as well so he had some other duties too. Busy man.

On the list of alispánok [sub-prefects] of the provostry of D. I found a "family member", János Horváth D. from 1486 and 1490.

This was the wear in the St. John order. I found a Hungarian webshop for historical costumes and found the full wear! Maybe I buy a cape for my next birthday… 😉

The Queen knows what's cool 🙌

The others:

Miklós D. – He got a land from king Matthias I in 1464. Another later descendant of István D.

Sebestyén D. – He was an influential and wealthy Catholic arch-priest, preceptor and abbot in the 16th century. He was the last knight/prior of the Fehérvár johanniter convent [the same long-named St. John hospitaller order]. He was married with a noble lady. In the Hungarian Reformation era [straight after the Council of Trent] married priests was accepted in some certain counties. Well, better a married priest than a sexually aberrant one I always tell… I never understood this forced celibacy thing. There are only a few priests who can live and deal with it, the rest is just suffer in silence or become the typical one who ends up chasing the kids, nuns or worse… One of my distant cousin is a priest. I hope he knows well what life he chose… because if not, better to leave the whole glorious priesthood in time. He can be religious without it and he is still young yet… and handsome by one of my friend, who has a keen interest in priests and monks in black robes since the Matrix movies... Well, until it's about Mr Magnetic-with-those-sad-doggy-eyes-even-at-the-age-of-fifty-two Reeves, I agree with her, otherwise not. Anyway. *cough* In 1543 was the occupation of Székesfehérvár by the Ottoman army. Half of the population fled wherever they just could, along with the allied armies and Italian mercenaries. Sebestyén, who was responsible for the Cartulary [the main cartulary of the country was in Fehérvár], packed what he could and fled to Győr, then Pozsony [today Bratislava, Slovakia] and finally, he arrived into Sopron, where he became arch-priest, abbot and a happily married man.

So he saved our precious cartulary matters.

I really couldn't sleep without knowing this!! Hahhaha

Győző D. – was a pretty famous poet [although I never heard his name before] and lawyer in the 19th century, they even named a school after him! He was the last D. one whom had wealth and lived by his lawful nobel title.

The End.

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Sadly my dad's surname is very common, so it was impossible to search his family line, the only thing I know that my grandad was the lieutenant of Miklós Horthy, admiral and statesman, who served as Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary between the WWI and II!!! Grandad died in 1944, in a bombing at Košice, where he was on the train with the wounded soldiers. His forced duty [because he was a reservist] was to "bring" those soldiers home... So he was a war martyr, although my dad never got over his death. He was only 9... I hate the fucking war...

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But it's good to know too that a part of my family line reach back into the Middle Ages. I'm highly proud! At least this explains why I'm this knight and Medieval mad, even if I know the disgusting truth behind the whole knighthood thing…

Maybe my ancestor reborn in me 😀

Just dreaming…

and as lucky as I'm I would born also a girl in those times too…

That's why I enjoyed this series 😙: