St Margaret of the Árpád dynasty, Margaret legend, Lea Ráskay
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The daughter of Béla IV, born in Dalmatia in 1242, in the Clarrissan castle, to where her parents had escaped from the Tartars. The royal couple offered their child to God. Keeping to their promise, the parents sent their daughter to the Dominican nunnery in Veszprém when she was four. She then moved to the convent of Margaret Island (at the time the Island of Hares). In 1261 she took her vows. She died on the Island of Hares in 1271. She was canonised in 1943.
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Margaret (Margit) legend
The codex containing the life and miracles of St Margaret from the Árpád dynasty (1242-1271) was copied by Lea Ráskay in 1510 in the nunnery on the Island of Hares. The sources of the Hungarian legend were the biography of St Margaret's confessor, Marcellus, the minutes of the canonisation ceremony and monastic traditions. The codex was taken to Nagyszombat by the nuns who were escaping from the Turks. It then turned up in Pozsony, then in 1836 from the collection of Michael Jankovich it passed into the possession of the Hungarian National Museum. Today it is kept in the National Széchényi Library, Budapest. Edition: St Margaret's Life 1510. Introduction by John P. Balázs. Budapest, 1990. (Old Hungarian Codices 10.)
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Lea Ráskay
She was a noble, educated Dominican nun, who also spoke Latin. She lived in the Dominican nunnery of Margaret Island in the first half of the 16th century. She may have been the librarian of the nunnery between 1510-1527. Between 1510-1522 she copied 5 codices. These were: St Margaret's Life, Book of Proverbs, Cordines codex, Dominican codex and the Horvát codex. The language of her manuscripts is very similar to modern Hungarian.
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