[[Béla I of Hungary]]
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Vazul | |
---|---|
![]() The blinding of Vazul, as depicted in the Illuminated Chronicle | |
Duke of Nyitra (debated) | |
Reign | before 1030 –1031 |
Predecessor | Ladislas the Bald (debated) |
Successor | Stephen (debated) |
Born | before 997 |
Died | 1031 or 1032 |
Spouse | unknown member of Tátony clan |
Issue | Andrew I of Hungary Béla I of Hungary Levente |
Dynasty | Árpád dynasty |
Father | Michael |
Vazul, or Vászoly, [1] (before 997–1031 or 1032) was a member of the House of Árpád, a grandson of Taksony, Grand Prince of the Hungarians. The only other certain information about his life is that he was kept in captivity and blinded in the fortress of Nyitra (Nitra, Slovakia) in the last years of the reign of his cousin, King Stephen I of Hungary. Modern historians, including György Györffy, do not exclude that he had earlier been Duke of Nyitra. He is the forefather of nearly all Kings of Hungary who reigned after 1046.
Vazul was a son [2] of Michael, who was the younger son of Grand Prince Taksony. [3] His mother's name is unknown. [3] According to György Györffy, it is "probable" that she was a Bulgarian princess, a relative of Samuel of Bulgaria. [4] Györffy also writes that Vazul was still a child around 997. [5] His name derived from the Greek Basileios which implies that he was baptized according to Byzantine rite. [6]
Györffy says that Vazul "apparently" held the "Nyitra ducate", because chronicles do not make mention of other settlements in connection with his life. [7] According to the Illuminated Chronicle, King Stephen imprisoned Vazul and held him in captivity in the fortress of Nyitra (Nitra, Slovakia) in order to urge him to "amend his youthful frivolity and folly". [8] [9] In contrast with Györffy, his Slovak colleague, Ján Steinhübel has no doubt that Vazul was a Duke of Nyitra, who succeeded his brother, Ladislas the Bald before 1030. [2] Steinhübel adds that Vazul, similarly to his brother, accepted the suzerainty of King Mieszko II of Poland; he was imprisoned at his former seat when King Stephen I of Hungary occupied his duchy in 1031. [10] The theory that the "Duchy of Nyitra" was under Polish suzerainty in the first decades of the 11th century, which is based on the Polish-Hungarian Chronicle , is flatly refused by Györffy. [11]
Emeric, the only son of King Stephen who survived infancy died in a hunting accident in 1031. [12] [13] Although Vazul who was Stephen's closest agnatic relative had the strongest claim to succeed him on the throne, the king disregarded him and nominated his own sister's son, Peter Orseolo as his heir. [14] According to the nearly contemporaneous Annals of Altaich , [15] Vazul bitterly resented his omission, but he was blinded on King Stephen's order. [12] According to the contrasting reports of later Hungarian chronicles, written under kings descending from Vazul's line, [16] Stephen initially was planning to nominate Vazul as his heir, but Vazul's enemies, including Stephen's queen, Gisela [6] hatched a plot to hinder the king's plans. [17] They sent an "evil man" to Nyitra who "put out Vazul's eyes and filled the cavities of his ears with lead" [8] before the king's envoys arrived. [17]
Feeling his powers slipping away, [King Stephen] sent messengers in haste to have his uncle's son Vazul brought from prison in Nitra, in order to make him king of the Hungarians after himself. However, as soon as Queen Gisela got wind of this she hatched a plot with a group of traitors, and sent the ispán Sebus ahead of the messenger. Sebus had Vazul's eyes put out and molten lead poured into his ears; he then fled to Bohemia. When Vazul was at length brought back by the King's messenger, the King wept bitterly at his fate.
Information on Vazul's family is contradictory. Later Hungarian chronicles tended to hide that the kings reigning after 1046 descended from a prince who was disinherited and sentenced by the holy first king of Hungary. [19] Accordingly, many of the chronicles write that Vazul's brother, Ladislas the Bald, was the Hungarian monarchs' forefather. [17] However, a report recorded in the Illuminated Chronicle has preserved the memory of Vazul's paternity of three sons named Andrew, Béla, and Levente. [19] Likewise the Illuminated Chronicle writes that Vazul's wife was a member of the Tátony clan, but his marriage lacked legitimacy. [6] [19] His three sons were expelled from Hungary after Vazul's death in 1031 or 1032. [20]
It is said that these three brothers [Andrew, Béla and Levente] were the sons of Duke Vazul by some girl from the clan of Tatun and were not born of a true marriage-bed, and that through this conjunction they derived their nobility from Tatun. Of a certainty this is a false and most evil tale. Not for this reason are they nobles, but because they are the sons of Ladislas the Bald, who is said to have taken a wife from Ruthenia to whom these three brothers were born.
Györffy and Gerics claimed that the name Tatun, wife of Vazul, is the misspelling of Khatun , which was a royal title among people of Turkish origins from Manchuria to Bulgaria. [22] [23] Its meaning was "the first wife of the khagan". According to Györffy, a girl from the kindred Tatun was the daughter of Tatun, the wife of Kean (mentioned in the Hungarian chronicles), i. e. the tsar of Bulgaria, whose family fled to Hungary when Basil II, Byzantine Emperor put an end to the existence of Bulgarian state (996-1004, 1014–1018). Gerics claimed that Vazul and Tatun were still pagan at the time of their marriage, and that is the reason that the Hungarian chronicles declared that Andrew, Béla, and Levente, the sons of Duke Vazul, were not born of a true marriage-bed. Gerics also claimed that Tatun might have participated in the riot of Koppány, and subsequently lost their noble status. For this reason the Hungarian chronicles declared that the sons of Vazul derived their nobility from their father, not their mother.[ citation needed ]
The following family tree presents Vazul's ancestry and his offspring. [24]
Árpád | Menumorut* | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Zoltán | daughter | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Taksony | a "Cuman" lady** | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Géza | Michael | a Bulgarian princess*** | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stephen I of Hungary | a lady of the Tátony clan | Vazul | Ladislas the Bald | Premislava**** | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Levente | Andrew I of Hungary | Anastasia of Kiev | Béla I of Hungary | Richeza of Poland | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Solomon of Hungary | Kings of Hungary (from 1074) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
*Whether Menumorut is an actual or an invented person is debated by modern scholars.
**A Khazar, Pecheneg or Volga Bulgarian lady.
***Györffy writes that she may have been a member of the Bulgarian Cometopuli dynasty.
****Kristó writes that she may have been a member of the Rurik dynasty from Kievan Rus'.
Stephen I, also known as King Saint Stephen, was the last Grand Prince of the Hungarians between 997 and 1000 or 1001, and the first King of Hungary from 1000 or 1001, until his death in 1038. The year of his birth is uncertain, but many details of his life suggest that he was born in, or after, 975, in Esztergom. He was given the pagan name Vajk at birth, but the date of his baptism is unknown. He was the only son of Grand Prince Géza and his wife, Sarolt, who was descended from a prominent family of gyulas. Although both of his parents were baptized, Stephen was the first member of his family to become a devout Christian. He married Gisela of Bavaria, a scion of the imperial Ottonian dynasty.
Géza I was King of Hungary from 1074 until his death. He was the eldest son of King Béla I. His baptismal name was Magnus. With German assistance, Géza's cousin Solomon acquired the crown when his father died in 1063, forcing Géza to leave Hungary. Géza returned with Polish reinforcements and signed a treaty with Solomon in early 1064. In the treaty, Géza and his brother Ladislaus acknowledged the rule of Solomon, who granted them their father's former duchy, which encompassed one-third of the Kingdom of Hungary.
Taksony was the Grand Prince of the Hungarians after their catastrophic defeat in the 955 Battle of Lechfeld. In his youth he had participated in plundering raids in Western Europe, but during his reign the Hungarians only targeted the Byzantine Empire. The Gesta Hungarorum recounts that significant Muslim and Pecheneg groups settled in Hungary under Taksony.
Peter Orseolo, or Peter the Venetian, was the King of Hungary twice. He first succeeded his uncle, King Stephen I, in 1038. His favoritism towards his foreign courtiers caused an uprising which ended with his 1041 deposition. Peter was restored in 1044 by Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor. He accepted the Emperor's suzerainty during his second reign, which ended in 1046 after a pagan uprising. Hungarian chronicles are unanimous that Peter was executed by order of his successor, Andrew I, but the chronicler Cosmas of Prague's reference to his alleged marriage around 1055 suggests that he may also have survived his second deposition.
Coloman the Learned, also the Book-Lover or the Bookish was King of Hungary from 1095 and King of Croatia from 1097 until his death. Because Coloman and his younger brother Álmos were underage when their father Géza I died, their uncle Ladislaus I ascended the throne in 1077. Ladislaus prepared Coloman—who was "half-blind and humpbacked", according to late medieval Hungarian chronicles—for a church career, and Coloman was eventually appointed bishop of Eger or Várad in the early 1090s. The dying King Ladislaus preferred Álmos to Coloman when nominating his heir in early 1095. Coloman fled from Hungary but returned around 19 July 1095 when his uncle died. He was crowned in early 1096; the circumstances of his accession to the throne are unknown. He granted the Hungarian Duchy—one-third of the Kingdom of Hungary—to Álmos.
Béla I the Boxer or the Wisent was King of Hungary from 1060 until his death. He descended from a younger branch of the Árpád dynasty. Béla's baptismal name was Adalbert. He left Hungary in 1031, together with his brothers, Levente and Andrew, after the execution of their father, Vazul. Béla settled in Poland and married Richeza, daughter of Polish king Mieszko II Lambert.
Gesta Hungarorum, or The Deeds of the Hungarians, is the earliest book about Hungarian history which has survived for posterity. Its genre is not chronicle, but gesta, meaning "deeds" or "acts", which is a medieval entertaining literature. It was written in Latin by an unidentified author who has traditionally been called Anonymus in scholarly works. According to most historians, the work was completed between around 1200 and 1230. The Gesta exists in a sole manuscript from the second part of the 13th century, which was for centuries held in Vienna. It is part of the collection of Széchényi National Library in Budapest.
Emeric, also known as Henry or Imre, was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1196 and 1204. In 1184, his father, Béla III of Hungary, ordered that he be crowned king, and appointed him as ruler of Croatia and Dalmatia around 1195. Emeric ascended the throne after the death of his father. During the first four years of his reign, he fought his rebellious brother, Andrew, who forced Emeric to make him ruler of Croatia and Dalmatia as appanage.
Andrew I the White or the Catholic was King of Hungary from 1046 to 1060. He descended from a younger branch of the Árpád dynasty. After spending fifteen years in exile, he ascended the throne during an extensive revolt from the pagan Hungarians. He strengthened the position of Catholicism in the Kingdom of Hungary and successfully defended its independence against the Holy Roman Empire.
Levente was a member of the House of Árpád, a great-grandson of Taksony, Grand Prince of the Hungarians. He was expelled from Hungary in 1031 or 1032, and spent many years in Bohemia, Poland and the Kievan Rus'. He returned to Hungary, where a pagan uprising was developing around that time, in 1046. Levente remained a devout pagan, but did not hinder the election of his Christian brother, Andrew I as king.
Solomon, also Salomon was King of Hungary from 1063. Being the elder son of Andrew I, he was crowned king in his father's lifetime in 1057 or 1058. However, he was forced to flee from Hungary after his uncle, Béla I, dethroned Andrew in 1060. Assisted by German troops, Solomon returned and was again crowned king in 1063. On this occasion he married Judith, sister of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor. In the following year he reached an agreement with his cousins, the three sons of Béla I. Géza, Ladislaus and Lampert acknowledged Solomon's rule, but in exchange received one-third of the kingdom as a separate duchy.
Ladislaus II or Ladislas II was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1162 and 1163, having usurped the crown from his nephew, Stephen III.
The Principality of Nitra, also known as the Duchy of Nitra, was a West Slavic polity encompassing a group of settlements that developed in the 9th century around Nitra, in present-day Slovakia. Its history remains uncertain because of a lack of contemporary sources. The territory's status is subject to scholarly debate: some modern historians describe it as an independent polity that was annexed either around 833 or 870 by the Principality of Moravia, while others say that it was under the influence of the neighbouring West Slavs from Moravia from its inception.
The Duchy or Ducatus is the denomination for territories occasionally governed separately by members (dukes) of the Árpád dynasty within the Kingdom of Hungary in the 11th-12th centuries. The symbol of the ducal power was a sword, while the royal power was represented by the crown.
Vecelin, also Vecellin and Vencellin, was a prominent military commander of Stephen I of Hungary at the end of the 10th and the beginning of the 11th century. He was of Bavarian origin and came from a city named as either Wasserburg or Weissenburg.
Michael was a member of the House of Árpád, a younger son of Taksony, Grand Prince of the Hungarians. Most details of his life are uncertain. Almost all kings of Hungary after 1046 descended from him.
Ladislas the Bald was a member of the House of Árpád, a grandson of Taksony, Grand Prince of the Hungarians. He is the only known brother of Vazul, a rebellious duke who was blinded on the order of their cousin, King Saint Stephen I of Hungary in 1031 or 1032. Medieval chroniclers, in their effort to conceal that the Kings of Hungary were descended from a prince condemned by the saintly first king, wrote that instead of Vazul, Ladislas was the Hungarian monarchs' forefather. Ján Steinhübel and other modern Slovak historians write that he was Duke of Nyitra under Polish suzerainty, but this theory has not been universally accepted by historians.
Álmos, also Almos or Almus, was—according to the uniform account of Hungarian chronicles—the first head of the "loose federation" of the Hungarian tribes from around 850. Whether he was the sacred ruler (kende) of the Hungarians or their military leader (gyula) is subject to scholarly debate. According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, he accepted the Khazar khagan's suzerainty in the first decade of his reign, but the Hungarians acted independently of the Khazars from around 860. The 14th-century Illuminated Chronicle narrates that he was murdered in Transylvania at the beginning of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin around 895.
The Dömös Chapter was a collegiate chapter, established around 1107, in the Kingdom of Hungary. It was dedicated to Saint Margaret of Antioch.
The Urgesta, also Gesta Ungarorum or ancient gesta are the historiographical names of the earliest Hungarian chronicle, which was completed in the second half of the 11th century or in the early 12th century. Its text was expanded and rewritten several times in the 12th–14th centuries, but the chronicle itself was lost since then and its content can only be reconstructed based on 14th-century works, most notably the Illuminated Chronicle.