Andrew I of Hungary
King of Hungary
1015 CE to 1060 CE
Andrew I the White or the Catholic (Hungarian: I. Fehér or Katolikus András or Endre; c. 1015 – Zirc, before 6 December 1060) is King of Hungary from 1046 to 1060.
He descends from a younger branch of the Árpád dynasty.
After spending fifteen years in exile, he ascends the throne during an extensive revolt of the pagan Hungarians.
He strengthens the position of Christianity in the Kingdom of Hungary and successfully defends its independence against the Holy Roman Empire.
His efforts to ensure the succession of his son, Solomon, results in the open revolt of his brother, Béla.
Béla dethrones Andrew by force in 1060.
Andrew suffers severe injuries during the fighting and dies before his brother is crowned king.
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King Stephen of Hungary has established church institutions, replaced tribal land systems with individual proprietorship, and extended Hungarian political influence to the foothills of the Carpathians.
As his only son, Emeric, had died in a hunting accident in 1031 and he has exiled his closer Árpád relatives for their unwillingness to renounce their pagan faith, he designates as his successor his distant relative Pietro Orseolo, who was born on in Venice as the only son of Doge Otto Orseolo; his mother is a sister of Stephen.
After the Venetians rose up and deposed Otto in 1026, Peter had not followed his father in flight to Constantinople.
He instead went to Hungary, where his uncle had appointed him commander of the royal army.
Stephen's cousin Vazul had had the strongest claim to the throne, but the king had overlooked him and named Peter as his heir.
Vazul had been blinded shortly thereafter and his three sons—Levente, Andrew and Béla—exiled, which has strengthened Peter's right of succession.
The king has asked Peter to take an oath respecting the property of his wife, Queen Giselle, suggesting that Peter's relationship with his aunt was tense.
Stephen dies on August 15, 1038.
Peter succeeds him and adopts an active foreign policy.
Vazul, a grandson of Taksony, Grand Prince of the Hungarians in the 960, was blinded during the reign of his cousin, King Stephen I, according to medieval chronicles, after the death, in 1031, of Emeric, the king's only son surviving infancy.
A report, preserved in Stephen's legends, of an unsuccessful attempt upon the elderly king's life by members of his court indicate that Vazul was mutilated for his participation in the plot.
The nearly contemporaneous Annals of Altaich writes that the king himself ordered the mutilation of one of his kinsmen, who as Stephen's closest agnatic relative had a strong claim to the throne, in an attempt to ensure a peaceful succession to his own sister's son, Peter Orseolo.
The same source adds that the king expelled his blinded cousin's three sons from Hungary.
The brothers had settled first in the court of Duke Oldrich of Bohemia, where they encountered King Mieszko II of Poland, who in 1031 had likewise taken refuge in Bohemia after his opponents had expelled him from his kingdom.
When Mieszko II regained his crown and returned to Poland in 1032, Andrew, Béla and Levente followed the Polish monarch.
After the youngest among them, Béla, married a daughter of Mieszko II, Andrew and Levente decided to depart from Poland.
Having faced many hardships, Andrew and Levente had in the late 1030 established themselves in the court of Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev, who in 1039 gives his daughter, Anastasia, in marriage to Andrew.
Hungarian forces had invaded Bohemia in 1040 to assist Duke Bretislav I against Holy Roman Emperor Henry III.
Hungarian chronicles recount that Peter preferred the company of Germans and Italians, which had made him unpopular among his subjects.
He has introduced new taxes, seized Church revenue and deposed two bishops.
Hungarian troops have plundered Bavaria in 1039 and 1040.
Peter of Hungary, overthrown in 1040, by Samuel Aba, flees to Germany, where Henry receives him well despite the enmity formerly between them.
Bretislaus is thus deprived of an ally, and Henry renews preparations for a campaign in Bohemia.
He and Eckard set out once more on August 15, almost exactly a year after his last expedition.
This time he is victorious, and Bretislaus signs a peace treaty at Regensburg.
The audacious King Peter Urseolo of Hungary confiscates Queen Giselle's property and takes her into custody.
She seeks help from Hungarian lords, who blame one of Peter's favorites (Budo) for the monarch's misdeeds and demand that Budo be put on trial.
When the king refuses, the lords seize and murder his unpopular advisor and depose the monarch in 1041.
They elect a new king, Samuel Aba, who is a brother-in-law or another nephew of King Stephen I. Samuel had held important offices during the reign of King Stephen; he was a member of the royal council and became the first palatine of Hungary.
Samuel's family, according to the anonymous author of the Gesta Hungarorum, descends from two "Cuman" chieftains, Ed and Edemen, who had received "a great land in the forest of Mátra" from Árpád, Grand Prince of the Hungarians.
In contrast, the fourteenth-century Hungarian chronicles describe Ed and Edemen as the sons of Csaba —himself a son of Attila the Hun—by a lady from Khwarezm.
Since all Hungarian chronicles emphasize the Oriental—either "Cuman" or "Khwarezmian"—origin of Ed and Edemen, the historians Gyula Kristó, László Szegfű and others propose that the Aba clan descending from them ruled the Kabars, a people of Khazar origin who had joined the Hungarians before their arrival in the Carpathian Basin.
Kristó argues that both Samuel's Khazar origin and his first name suggest that he was born to a family that adhered to Judaism.
Despite the uncertainty over the clan's origins, Samuel undoubtedly descends from a distinguished family, since an unnamed sister of Stephen I, the first King of Hungary, had been given in marriage to a member of the Aba clan around 1009.
However, historians still debate whether Samuel himself or Samuel's father married the royal princess.
If Samuel was her husband, he must have been born before 990 and converted—either from Judaism or paganism—to Christianity when he married Stephen I's sister.
This is further evidenced by Samuel's establishment of an abbey at Abasár, which was recorded by Hungarian chronicles.
According to Gyula Kristó and other historians, Samuel's conversion coincided with the creation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Eger, encompassing the Mátra region.
As king, Samuel abolishes all laws introduced by Peter the Venetian and has many of his predecessor's supporters killed or tortured.
Hungarian chronicles sharply criticize him for socializing with the peasants instead of the nobles.
Samuel even abolishes some levies payable by the commoners.
The deposed Peter Orseolo had first fled to Austria, whose ruler (Margrave Adalbert) had married his sister Frowila, and approaches Emperor Henry III for help against Samuel Aba.
The new Hungarian monarch invades Austria in February 1042, but Adalbert routs Aba's troops.
Henry III launches his first expedition against Hungary in early 1042.
His forces advance north of the Danube to the river Garam (Hron, Slovakia).
The emperor plans to restore Peter, but the locals are strongly opposed.
Accordingly, the emperor appoints another (unnamed) member of the Hungarian royal family, living in exile in Bohemia, to administer the territories.
Samuel is forced by Emperor Henry to renounce all Hungarian territories to the west of the rivers Leitha and Morava as well as agree to the payment of a tribute.
Henry forces Aba to recognize the Danubian territory donated to Germany by Stephen I of Hungary pro causa amicitiae (for friendship's sake); these territories had been ceded to Hungary after the defeat of Conrad II in 1030.
This border will remain the border between Hungary and Austria until 1920.
The funding of the tribute payment is through new taxes on the prelates and seizure of Church estates.
This policy causes discontent even among the members of his own council, resulting in the murder of a number of them during Lent.
In order to punish the king, Bishop Gerard of Csanád refuses to perform his coronation at Easter.
The emperor returns to Hungary in the early summer of 1044, and is joined in his advance by many Hungarian lords.
The decisive battle is fought on June 5 at Ménfő (near Győr), where Samuel Aba's forces are defeated.
Peter is reinstalled as king at Székesfehérvár, a vassal of the Empire, and Henry can return home triumphant, the Hungarian people having readily submitted to his rule.
Tribute is to be paid, and Aba, who had escaped from the battlefield, is soon captured and killed by Peter's supporters.
Hungary appears to have entered the German fold fully and with ease.
Emperor Henry enters Székesfehérvár following Samuel Aba's death.
He restores Peter, who introduces Bavarian law in his realm, which suggests that Hungary became an imperial fief.
He accepts the emperor's suzerainty on Whitsun 1045, giving his royal lance to his overlord (who returns to Hungary).
A number of plots to overthrow Peter indicate that he remains unpopular.
Two of King Stephen I's maternal cousins (Bolya and Bonyha) conspire against Peter in 1045, but the king has them arrested, tortured and executed; Bishop Gerard of Csanád invites the late Vazul's exiled sons to the country.