Rogerius of Apulia

Roger of Torre Maggiore or Master Roger (; 1205 in Torre Maggiore – April 14, 1266 in Split) was an Italian prelate active in the Kingdom of Hungary in the middle of the 13th century. He was archbishop of Split in Dalmatia from 1249 until his death. His Epistle to the Sorrowful Lament upon the Destruction of the Kingdom of Hungary by the Tatars is a unique and important source of the Mongol invasion of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1241 and 1242.

Early life

According to archdeacon Thomas of Split, Roger was "from a town called Turris Cepia in the region of Benevento", that has been identified with Torre Maggiore in Apulia in Italy. He arrived in the Kingdom of Hungary in the retinue of Cardinal Giacomo da Pecorara, a papal legate sent to King Andrew II of Hungary in 1232. of the Diocese of Várad (today Oradea, Romania) in the kingdom, he was in the company of Cardinal Giacomo in Italy between 1236 and 1239. he could.

He went to Rome, where he received the post of archdeacon of Sopron in the western part of the Kingdom of Hungary, Várad having been completely destroyed by the Mongols. When he accompanied his new master to the First Council of Lyon in 1245, he was already a canon in the diocese of Zagreb.

Archbishop of Split

Master Roger was appointed archbishop of Split by Pope Innocent IV after the death of Archbishop Ugrin, who had died on April 30, 1249.

During his more than fifteen years in the archbishopric, he was involved from time to time in conflicts both with his flock and with the monarch. In his last years, Archbishop Roger suffered from gout that also paralyzed him. He was buried in the Cathedral of Saint Domnius.

Comments and renditions of his work Carmen Miserabile super Destructione Regni Hungariae per Tartaros, ed., L. Juhasz, in I Szentpetery, ed., Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum, 2 vols. (Budapest 1937–1938) 11, 543–88; German translation by H. Gockenjan in Ungarns Geschichtsschreiber, 111: Der Mongolensturm. Russian translation by A. Dosaev in Магистр Рогерий. Горестная песнь о разорении Венгерского королевства татарами. СПб.: Дмитрий Буланин, 2012, 304 с.. C. de Bridia, Historia Tartarorum, ed., A. Onnerfors (Berlin 1967); an English translation in R.A. Skelton, T.E. Marston, and G.D. Painter, The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation (New Haven 1965) 54–101. William of Rubruck, Itineraarium, ed., A. Van den Wyngart, Sinica Franciscana 1, 147–332; an English translation in Dawson, op. cit. (At n. 6)87-220.

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