Géza, Grand Prince of the Hungarians
Géza (c. 940 – 997), also Gejza, was Grand Prince of the Hungarians from the early 970s. He was the son of Grand Prince Taksony and his Oriental—Khazar, Pecheneg or Volga Bulgarian—wife. He married Sarolt, a daughter of an Eastern Orthodox Hungarian chieftain. After ascending the throne, Géza made peace with the Holy Roman Empire. Within Hungary, he consolidated his authority with extreme cruelty, according to the unanimous narration of nearly contemporaneous sources. He was the first Hungarian monarch to support Christian missionaries from Western Europe. Although he was baptised (his baptismal name was Stephen), his Christian faith remained shallow and he continued to perform acts of pagan worship. He was succeeded by his son Stephen, who was crowned the first King of Hungary in 1000 or 1001.
For other people with the same name, see Géza of Hungary.Géza
Early life[edit]
Géza was the elder son of Taksony, Grand Prince of the Hungarians.[1] His mother was his father's wife "from the land of the Cumans",[2] according to the anonymous author of the Gesta Hungarorum.[3] This anachronistic reference to the Cumans suggests that she was of Khazar, Pecheneg or Volga Bulgarian origin.[4] The Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, who listed the descendants of Grand Prince Árpád around 950, did not mention Géza.[4] Even so, Gyula Kristó wrote that Géza was born around 940 and the emperor ignored him because of his youth.[4] The genuine form of his name was either "Gyeücsa" or "Gyeusa", which is possibly a diminutive form of the Turkic title yabgu.[4] Géza's father arranged his marriage with Sarolt—a daughter of a Hungarian chieftain called Gyula, [4][5] who ruled Transylvania independently of the grand prince[5] and had converted to Christianity in Constantinople.[6] Sarolt seems to have also adhered to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, according to Bruno of Querfurt's remark on her "languid and muddled Christianity".[6]