Taksony of Hungary
Taksony ([ˈtɒkʃoɲ], also Taxis or Tocsun;[1] before or around 931 – early 970s) 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.
This article is about the 10th-century Hungarian ruler. For information about the town in Hungary, see Taksony.Taksony
Reign[edit]
A later source, Johannes Aventinus,[3] writes that Taksony fought in the Battle of Lechfeld on August 10, 955. There, future Holy Roman Emperor Otto I routed an 8,000-strong Hungarian army.[13] If this report is reliable, Taksony was one of the few Hungarian leaders to survive the battlefield.[3] Modern historians, including Zoltán Kordé[3] and Gyula Kristó,[6] suggest that Fajsz abdicated in favor of Taksony around that time. After that battle the Hungarians' plundering raids in Western Europe stopped, and they were forced to retreat from the lands between the Enns and Traisen rivers.[14] However, the Hungarians continued their incursions into the Byzantine Empire until the 970s.[15][14]
According to the Gesta Hungarorum, "a great host of Muslims" arrived in Hungary "from the land of Bular"[16][17] under Taksony.[18] The contemporaneous Ibrahim ibn Yaqub also recorded the presence of Muslim merchants from Hungary in Prague in 965.[19][20] Anonymus also writes of the arrival of Pechenegs during Taksony's reign; he granted them "a land to dwell in the region of Kemej as far as the Tisza".[16][21] The only sign of a Hungarian connection with Western Europe under Taksony is a report by Liudprand of Cremona.[19] He writes about Zacheus, whom Pope John XII consecrated bishop and "sent to the Hungarians in order to preach that they should attack"[22] the Germans in 963.[19][23] However, there is no evidence that Zacheus ever arrived in Hungary.[19] Taksony arranged the marriage of his elder son Géza to Sarolt, daughter of Gyula of Transylvania,[19] before his death during the early 970s.[19]