Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary

The best way to begin the story of Saint László is to start with the story of his father King Béla.

Béla was one of the three sons of Vazul, whose cruel fate is described in the preceding chapter. Saint István had sent Endre, Levente, and Béla to Poland, lest they also become victims of a conspiracy instigated by Peter Orseoli. Once in Poland, the three princes vanished from public view and led their lives incognito for a time. Later Endre and Levente went to Kiev, while Béla stayed in Cracow and joined the Polish army of King Miesco, where his identity was revealed in a dramatic episode.

When the Pomeranians attacked Poland, Miesco set out to fight them with a large army. As the two armies were waiting for the bugle calls to signal the beginning of battle, the leader of the Pomeranians rode up to the Polish ranks and offered to settle the issue by single combat. He proposed that the armies' leaders, or a swordsman from either side, fight a duel to be witnessed by the two sides. The result of the duel would decide the day.

Miesco agreed, but as he was of advanced age, he called for a volunteer to represent him - and Poland - in the duel. At first, his appeal was greeted by silence, but then an unknown knight, sword in hand, came forward to take up the challenge.

In fairy tale fashion, the unknown knight, who was none other than Prince Béla, defeated his Pomeranian opponent, and thus secured victory for the Polish army. When Miesco learned his identity, he invited Prince Béla to his court and gave him his daughter Richesa in marriage. She eventually gave birth to four daughters and three sons: Géza, László, and Lambert.

The First Pagan Uprising

Meanwhile, the situation in Hungary took a turn for the worse. After Saint István's death, Peter Orseoli was helped to the throne by the German-Roman Emperor who was eager to make Hungary his vassal state. Peter himself disliked the Hungarians, and his feelings were reciprocated. The Magyars were enraged and humiliated when they saw Peter take an oath of allegiance and kneel before the German ruler to receive his crown. After the coronation, Peter was able to rule only with German support, but not for long.

Soon, the rumbling among the Hungarian people exploded into an open revolt, triggering a pagan uprising as well. The rebels sent urgent messages to Vazul's three sons in Poland to come home and take over the leadership of the country.

In Hungary, a chief named Vata led the rebels, pagan and Christian alike. The pagan groups proclaimed that the country's downfall was caused by the introduction of a foreign tongue and foreign customs, and the rejection of the ancient faith. A violent hatred of foreigners arose, and in their fury the masses turned against all strangers and Christian priests.

Among the victims of their rage was the respected and saintly Bishop Gerard (Saint Gellért), who suffered his martyrdom in a peculiar way. He was captured by pagan rebels in Buda, and dragged to the top of a steep, rocky hill beside the Danube called Kelenhegy. There the rebels put him in a barrel hammered through with spikes, nailed the lid shut, and set the barrel plunging from the steep hill. Bishop Gerard was later canonized and Kelenhegy was renamed Saint Gellért Hill. A statue erected near the bottom of the hill near the Danube reminds visitors to Budapest of his martyrdom

The pagan faction of the rebels would have liked to see Levente on the throne, because he sympathized with the old faith. However, Levente died shortly after his return, and with him went their last hope. (See the relevant excerpts from the famous historical novel Pogányok by Ferenc Herczeg at the end of this chapter)

As the eldest of the brothers, Endre was the most eligible for the throne. By this time married to the daughter of the Grand Prince of Kiev, Endre brought in troops from Kiev to join Vata's rebels. Their combined forces defeated King Peter's German army at Székesfehérvár in 1041. Peter Orseoli himself was

captured, and in a biblical retribution for Vazul's fate, ("an eye for an eye...") he was first blinded, and then executed.

The new King, Endre found himself in a precarious position. He owed his throne to Vata's pagan forces, yet he considered himself a Christian and wanted to continue Saint István's policy of forcing the country to adopt the Christian faith. He did not persecute those who professed to be pagan. He greeted Vata with all the honors due a victorious hero before discharging him from duty. King Endre knew that the best policy toward paganism was to let it fade away. And fade away it did, because Vata's rebellion was the last serious flare-up of pagan sentiments in Hungary.

"The Crown or the Sword?"

Despite Peter Orseoli's death, Germany's desire to subdue Hungary remained very much alive. To reassert German supremacy, Henry the Black sent a large army against Hungary early in Endre's reign.

It was at this point that the third brother, Béla, returned to Hungary from Poland where he had earned victory and glory in many battles. Endre promptly appointed him chief of the Hungarian army, and with this title Béla gained authority over a third of the country. The new chief set out with his troops to meet the Germans who, led by Henry the Black himself, with his fleet positioned at Pozsony (now called Bratislava) on the Danube, had penetrated Hungary both on land and water. Béla had no ships, but compensated for this lack with ingenuity. He introduced underwater warfare by sending divers into the river under cover of night to scuttle the German ships. To Henry's consternation, sunrise found his once proud German fleet resting on the bottom of the river. The celebrated hero of this undertaking was a man named Kund (Zotmund), whose exploit is narrated in a poem titled Búvár Kund (Kund, the Diver) by Mihály Vörösmarty.

Although Béla had destroyed the German fleet, Henry still had an overwhelming force on land and was eager to engage Béla's army. But Prince Béla managed to surprise the enemy on land, too. Instead of meeting the Germans head-on, he hid his well camouflaged troops in the surrounding woods. When Henry's troops had penetrated the forested hills deeply enough, Prince Béla's invisible army struck. From treetops and from behind trees and bushes a rain of arrows poured upon the invaders, killing thousands and causing others to flee with such haste that they would find many of those shields (vért) for centuries to come, and the hilly region of this "battle" later earned the name Vértes hegység (Mountain of Shields).

By this time, Béla had fathered three sons, Géza, László, and Lambert, while King Endre had only a five-year-old boy, Salamon. Nevertheless, Endre wanted his young Salamon to be his heir rather than the oldest able-bodied man in the House of Árpád, in this case Béla. The flaw in the Covenant of Blood had come back to haunt Árpád's successors again. A potentially fatal meeting between Endre and Béla dramatized the situation.

As narrated by contemporary chronicles, King Endre invited Béla to his new castle, Várkony, where he kept Saint István's crown as well as the other coronation regalia. When Béla arrived, he was received with great honor, then led into a room where, on a table draped in red velvet, lay the crown - and a sword.

King Endre, calling his brother to the table, asked: "Which one do you want? The crown or the sword?"

To everyone's surprise, Prince Béla, the rightful successor to the throne according to ancient tradition, pointed to the sword and said:

^"It was with the sword that I won my wife, my family and my glory. If necessary, I could obtain the crown and country by the sword. But your fatherly heart should stop worrying: the crown shall belong to your son."

Choosing the sword at that dramatic encounter may well have saved Béla's life. Had he chosen the crown, he would have been killed on the spot by the King's henchmen who were hiding behind the curtains. The chronicles suggest that Béla had been alerted to the danger before he entered the room, by a friend who whispered into his ear: "Choose the sword, if your life is dear to you!"

After this encounter, the relationship between the two brothers deteriorated, each fearing for his life. Mistrust fed by intrigue burst into open warfare, after which King Endre died of his wounds. Béla gave him a royal burial, and then assumed the crown which was rightfully his. How many years he had waited, how many battles he had fought, how many laurels he had earned on the long road which finally led him to the Hungarian throne! The nation welcomed his rule with expectations of a glorious era.

But fate willed otherwise, for in the third year of his rule he met with a fatal "accident." While presiding on his throne, which was set on an elevated platform at a meeting of the nobles, the scaffolding collapsed. The King was found fatally injured under the rubble. Contemporary gossips attributed this accident to sabotage by conspirators aiming to clear the way to the throne for Endre's young son, Salamon. Whether by "accident" or not, Salamon did ascend to the throne.

László, the Regal Knight

With their father buried, Géza, László, and Lambert retired to their domains on the frontiers. László built a fortress for himself called Várad, where he conveyed the Hungarian ideal of knighthood to perfection. Almost seven feet tall, and excelling in personal valor and as a leader in battle, it is no wonder that more legends sprang up about him than about any other Hungarian King except Matthias. In fact, he became legendary even before he was an adult, as this story from his adolescence attests:

At a festival in Székesfehérvár held in honor of Béla and his sons, a tournament was about to begin when a runaway stallion suddenly charged into the ranks of the competitors, who scattered in panic. They watched with horror as the maddened beast charged straight at Prince László who calmly stood his ground. When the stallion came within reach, he seized the animal with his grip of steel, swung on his back, and soon had him completely under control. This horse, which László named Szög, became his favorite charger

In the first years of Salamon's reign, internal peace and harmony prevailed. The princes helped the king beat back the attacks of the Cumanians (Kuns) and Petchenegs who, based in Transylvania, began to systematically harass Hungary. King Salamon joined the princes in a decisive battle at Cserhalom in 1070, where the Hungarians annihilated the enemy in a fierce hand-to-hand fight, rescued their prisoners, and recaptured the booty. True events from this battle gave rise to this most famous of legends, Saint László and the Kun Warrior:

The marauders were about to retreat with their spoils across the Carpathian Mountains when the King and his army attacked them at Kerles. The Kuns fled in every direction. During the heat of the fighting Prince László noticed a Kun warrior fleeing with a beautiful Hungarian girl on his saddle, screaming in distress. László shouted to the girl: "My beautiful sister! Death is a hundred times better than being enslaved. Pull the pagan down with you. and leave all else to God!"

The young girl did not hesitate. She grabbed the Kun warrior with all her might, threw herself from the galloping horse onto the ground, pulling the Kun warrior with her. Just then, László arrived and killed the abductor, saving the heroic girl unharmed.

Three years after the battle of Cserhalom, the forces of Byzantium occupied the key Hungarian fortress of Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade). A Magyar army led by Prince Géza, the eldest of Béla's sons, soon liberated the city and took many Greek prisoners. Among them was Niceties, the leader of the Byzantine army. All expected to die.

In a courtly gesture, Géza released the prisoners unharmed and sent them home with the message:

"Tell your Emperor that the army of the Hungarian King is strong enough: we do not need prisoners!"

The Byzantine Emperor Michael Dukes sent Géza a crown in appreciation of his magnanimous gesture. This gold crown was attached to Saint István's crown during the reign of Béla III.

But for now, it was Géza's turn to become King due to a change of fortune. This event was accelerated because Géza and his brothers had served King Salamon too well. He became jealous of the princes' fame, and a bloody rivalry broke out in which the king's forces were defeated. Salamon fled to Germany and Géza ascended the throne. However, Géza's reign was as short as his father's had been, because he died three years later.

Now it was László's turn to be crowned King of Hungary.

Trouble with Salamon

When King László assumed the throne, legends reaching far and wide had already established him as an intrepid knight and hero, the anointed of the Lord, the champion of justice, and a helper of the poor, of widows, and of orphans.

Unlike the short-lived reigns of his father and brother, László ruled Hungary for 18 years, a time

sufficient to leave his imprint on Hungarian society.

László considered it his primary task to come to terms with the deposed King Salamon. He recalled him from Germany and gave him a prominent position in public life, but it was not long before Salamon started a conspiracy against László. As a result, László imprisoned him in a tower at Visegrád overlooking the famous Bend in the Danube River. Salamon's Tower still stands, but few of the sightseers who visit it realize that Salamon's prison actually was in an older fort located on an adjoining hill. His captivity did not last long. In 1083, when King István and his son Imre were canonized, László granted him amnesty.

Salamon went to Germany again, re-emerging here and there afterward. At one point he allied himself with the Cumanians to recapture his throne, but finally he disappeared into the Balkans, never to be seen again.

Trouble arose next from an unexpected quarter In Rome, Pope Gregory VI was involved in a power struggle with the German Emperor, and asked László to lend him support. How great must have been the Pope's consternation when László categorically declined!

He declared that while he did submit to the Pope's religious authority, he considered himself independent in political matters. László held this stand throughout his reign. At times he sided with the Pope, and at other times with the Emperor, in a political balancing act gauged to secure Hungary's independence.

Law and Order Restored

The same spirit which had prompted Géza to release the captive Greeks now influenced László's handling of the heathen Cumanians (Kuns). According to one account in the Illustrated Chronicle:

King László said to his knights: "I will die with you rather than see these heathens carry off your wives and children into slavery." Thereupon he led a victorious attack against the Cumanians. Then the King called to his warriors: "Let us not kill these people, but rather take them prisoner, and if they can he converted to Christianity, let them live in peace with us."

Putting this principle into practice, King László resettled many prisoners on the Great Hungarian Plain (Alföld) as he later did those longtime enemies of the Magyars, the Petchenegs (bessenyök), though the assimilation of these pagan, foreign elements took centuries.

On the domestic scene, King László re-established the law and order that had been lost during the half-century of internal strife. He enacted a new code of laws strictly punishing crimes against property and life.

Among other reforms, Saint László codified the protection of the female sex and defined the responsibilities of high dignitaries.

Consolidation at home was paralleled by the King's external ventures to secure Hungary's inter-national position. Militarily, he undertook expeditions against the Petchenegs, Cumanians and the Russians without losing a single battle, and the fame of Hungarian arms spread throughout Europe. Meanwhile, he conducted a skillful family policy which contributed to the strengthening of Hungary. By giving his sister in marriage to the Croatian King Zvoinimir, László inherited Croatia after Zvoinimir's death. From then on Croatia existed in a special, almost symbiotic relationship with Hungary until 800 years later when, in 1920, the Trianon Treaty severed Croatia from the Kingdom of Hungary.

Greece was also interested in gaining a "Hungarian connection." A Greek delegation knocked on the doors of the King's palace in Nagyvárad to present him with a life-size portrait of Emperor John Komnenos, along with the Greek Emperor's proposal of marriage to László's daughter, Piroska. The delegation included a painter who received permission to create a life-sized portrait of Piroska, so that the Emperor "could enjoy the exquisite beauty" of the Princess, while awaiting the nuptials. The Greek delegation did not leave the Court empty-handed, and soon Piroska became Empress Irene, of Byzantium.

The marriage was promising, but its fruit, the child Manuel, would later cause trouble for Hungary as the Emperor of Byzantium. (See the chapter on Béla III.)

Under László's reign Hungary's stature grew among the Christian nations of Europe. When a leader was sought for the Crusade to liberate the Holy Land, King László's valor, strategic skill, and dedication to Christianity made him a pre-eminent candidate. Had he not died suddenly on July 19, 1905, the First Crusade would have left Europe under Hungarian colors, and history might have taken a different turn.

King László was buried in the cathedral of his favorite city, Nagyvárad, in Transylvania, where a statue was erected in his honor. But anyone who seeks to view this statue in Nagyvárad today would find neither the statue nor Nagyvárad, for when Rumania became the new owner of Transylvania in 1920, the statue was removed and the town's name changed to Oradea.

Nevertheless, the memory of Saint László remains indelible in Hungarian hearts, no matter who rules Transylvania.

"How long will it be now, Milord?" asked Alpár again.

Vata haughtily threw up his head.

"They want a war? All right. they'll have a war! There are plenty of sound colts on the puszta (prairie)... We'll turn our dragon of Csepel loose on the snake of Fehérvár, the fire-breathing Levente on the crafty András... Levente has the true blood of the Árpáds flowing in his veins; he's hard, sharp, and clean, like a steel blade... You know what we'll do tonight? We'll raise Levente on our shield: he'll be Prince of Hungary!"

Vata said this in a ringing voice., and the nobles riding with him murmured approvingly.

Meanwhile they had reached the land of Taksony. The coast there had begun to put forth leaves. The horsemen soon reached a swampy forest. The path meandered among enormous, tuberous, bent tree trunks.

The hearts of Alpár and the other nobles were filled with rapture at the thought of meeting Levente face to face. Levente was perhaps the toughest offspring of the world-famous family. Not only the Hungarians but every Eastern nation of horsemen had a great, almost superstitious respect for Álmos' family of almost legendary origin. Everyone, from the Volga to the waters of the Lajta, knew that this race, born to rule, was as different in body and soul from every other mother's son as the solitary noble beast of prey differed from the grazing herd. Their men were all grave, cunning. and as strong as lions. All of them inherited their ancestors' terrible willpower, which was capable of accomplishing miracles for good or bad. It was said of them that they were incapable of laughing or crying. As for their women, the bards sang that they were hawks among jackdaws. more daring. colorful. and fiery than other women.

Alpár suddenly stopped his charger and seized Vata by the arm.

"Do you see. Milord? Do you see?"

Inside the bowels of the forest, in the seemingly endless distance, a star glowed with a strong red light.

"Do you hear it, Milord? Can you hear it?"

They could hear singing in the night...the singing of a thousand people... It wasn't even singing, but some dreadfully mournful howling. A funeral song of black despair, of mad. delirious pain. It was as if a thousand she-wolves were howling over the bloody bodies of their cubs.

"They are holding a funeral feast." whispered Vata.

"1 wonder whom they are burying in this way?" asked Alpár shuddering.

"I don't know. But if the old god himself had died, the forest dwellers could not be mourning Him more intensely...

This sent shivers down the spines of the two pagan leaders, who otherwise had only heard of fear. Neither of them dared spur their horses. The horses proceeded on leaden feet, but even so. they arrived at the site of the terrible bereavement in fairly good time.

They came across a large clearing in the middle of the forest. In the clearing burnt a funeral pyre, a tremendous wooden structure, the likes of which had not been built since the burial of King Attila. The mourning clan - thousands of people - planted themselves around the pyre. They were young and old, nobles in splendid dress and poor people in rags, but warriors all. They sat and stood around the blazing pyre, in haphazard groups. Many embraced each other, like brothers at their father's funeral. In their great pain, some people leaned their heads on their neighbors' shoulders, while others groveled on the grass. The entire forest reverberated. sobbed, groaned, and struggled.

Vata dismounted from his horse and addressed an old man: "Who are they burying here?"

The old man turned his glassy eye towards him, but did not answer, only nodded his white head.

Vata then forced his way through the crowd and stepped up to the pyre.

A tall youth in shining armor was lying in the fire next to his charger that had been stabbed to death. The darting flames did not touch the body as yet. but surrounded it and formed a fiery ball above it.

When Vata saw the dead youth's face. he uttered a hoarse cry, like a dog mourning its master, then pulled a knife out of his belt, cut off a lock of hair from his left temple, and threw it onto the fire.

AIpár also stepped up to the pyre.

He had never seen the warrior before. Nevertheless, he recognized him instantly. His features were as strong as if they had been forged of iron. His nose was strongly hooked. A splendid calm, an expression of divine arrogance, lay on his mouth and brow. The skull was round and powerful, like that of a tiger. His limbs were long, as those of all of Árpád's offspring. His sinewy brown hands and stiff fingers grasped the chieftain's mace. The nails on his hands were curved and sharp, like the claws of an eagle... Even lying in the pyre, he still dominated the crowd surrounding him.

Alpár pulled a knife out of its sheath set with pearls to cut off a lock of his hair.

It was over, all over! Hungarian plains, Hungarian puszta, weep and mourn - the old god of the Hungarians had died - with Levente. Levente was the last Árpád who had sacrificed to him in the hills. From now on, no one would make sacrifices to him anymore. There would be no

more god of free lords - only that of vagabonds, who would whisper his name in the moist gloom of forests... And the ancient Hungarians had died, too. The Hungarians would be free no longer because they would never again be masters of their destiny: they would kneel before altars, and obtain what they wanted by means of entreaties and cunning, at the council of nations. The unique Hungarian God, the splendid dream of a distinct Hungarian world, had ended. The Hungarians would graze and scuffle in the common pasture with the herds of nations. This was the end, the end of everything! In vain, had they made mountains of corpses, laid siege to the heavens, and stopped the sun in its tracks; the omnipotent breath of Time had thrown them back into the dust whence they came. The resolute assault of the pagans had been in vain; the times stood in their way like an iron bastion that reached the sky. It was all over!

As Alpár, rapt in thought, stared at the fire, suddenly his soul was possessed of a peculiar clarity. He suddenly understood that their war had been hopeless from the start. The pagans had already lost the battle when they still were bridling their horses. They were arming themselves to kill bodies; the powerful enemy resided not in bodies, but in souls. A strong faith could not be defeated by the sword. And they didn't have that kind of faith. Alpár himself, but most probably even Vata, had not believed in the simple-minded superstitions of the shamans and the medicine-men for a long time. They pretended to believe, they had tried hard to believe, but they didn't have faith. Oh, the black priests had done a good job! Even if they couldn't inspire a new faith in every heart. they could kill the old one in everyone.

Alpár felt a kind of painful dizziness, the dizziness the first man to have stumbled out of happy unconsciousness must have felt when he realized the limits of his life. There was no escaping this dizziness; it would follow the last man to his grave.

"Vata, Milord, what shall we do now?" asked a Pecheneg softly.

The leader caressed the mane of his horse.

"Nothing will happen. I shall go back to my puszta, I shall plant oats and raise horses. And you will go back to the church in Marosvásár and continue singing your hymns."

Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary