Stephen I the Great, ruler of Hungary, was proclaimed a saint in 1083. Alongside Ladislaus I the Holy, he is the patron saint of the Hungarian state, which he ruled from 997 to 1038. In fact, from the moment his reign began, the country experienced decisive development, also in terms of Christianization. This king cannot be denied courage and the successes he achieved during his lifetime, which also did not spare him painful moments.
Young Vajk-Stephen
Vajk’s (the future Stephen I) parents were his father Géza and mother Sarolt. Géza ruled Hungary from 970/972 to 997, and to this day it is not known whether he was baptized. However, he could receive German missionaries within his country’s borders.
Legend says that little Vajk was baptized by the Bishop of Prague, Adalbert, a later popular saint. However, this was not where the process of Christianization of Hungary began.
Through his actions, Géza ensured that the relationship between Germany and Hungary was strengthened. In 996 (probable date), Stephen married the Bavarian princess, Gisela.
On the Wave of Christianization of Hungary and the Royal Crown
Stephen’s father died in 997, and from then on his son assumed power. As historians indicate, he first had to face his uncle, Koppány, residing in Somogy, who was a supporter of pagan tradition. Bavarian troops helped the young prince defeat his uncle.
A breakthrough moment in Stephen I’s reign occurred in 1000 (or early 1001), when Pope Sylvester II, probably at the initiative of Emperor Otto III, gave the Hungarian prince a crown. From that moment on, no one dared to question the royal title of the ruler of the Magyars.
Shortly after his coronation, Stephen established an archbishopric in Esztergom, which was subordinate to five bishoprics: in Veszprém, Győr, Vác, Kalocsa, and Bihar. In this way, he became independent from the Germans, who were always eager to extend their influence over their neighbors. It is sometimes believed that Stephen also founded a metropolis in Kalocsa.
The future saint of the Catholic Church divided the entire country into counties, a kind of province. At the head of such an administrative unit stood a župan. He assisted the ruler in managing royal estates and performed judicial and military functions.
The Growth of Magyar Power in the Region
Around 1003, Géza’s son subjugated part of Transylvania, defeating its prince Gyula. Two years later, the armies of Stephen the Great crushed Prince Ahtum, seizing his territory in what is now Banat.
At the beginning of the 11th century, Stephen the Great had to recognize the superiority of the Polish prince Bolesław the Brave, who conquered Slovakia at his expense. In a later period, Polish-Hungarian relations improved, and the southern neighbor of the Piast even supported him in his expedition to Kyiv in 1018.
By 1031 at the latest, Hungary regained Slovakia. The circumstances of the Hungarian-Polish war are not known in detail, as a result of which Stephen recaptured Slovakia from the Piasts. Perhaps the warlike Árpád took advantage of the weakness of Mieszko II Lambert’s state and struck north at the least expected moment for him, regaining what he had previously lost.
As late as 1030, Stephen managed to repel the German invasion of Emperor Conrad II. In the course of fighting against the overwhelming army of attackers, the ruler of Hungary avoided frontal confrontation, which discouraged the emperor from continuing the campaign. In 1031, Germany made peace with the Magyars, under which the western border of Hungary was to run along the Leitha River.
Death and Legacy
Stephen I died in 1038. He left no male heir. His only known son, Emeric, died in 1031 from a wound sustained during a hunt. This event had a strong impact on the king’s psyche, who took quite a long time to recover from the loss of his child.
After long deliberation, the king designated his brother-in-law Peter Orseolo, son of the Venetian doge Otto, as successor to the throne. Stephen’s designation enraged the surviving members of the collateral line of the Árpáds. A conspiracy was formed. At its head stood Vazul, the king’s second cousin. However, Vazul’s actions ultimately ended in fiasco.
Departing from this world, Stephen could feel that he was leaving his state in good hands. Contemporary historians evaluate his reign very positively, recognizing him as one of the most outstanding Hungarian rulers. He was the first of them to taste the royal crown. His great achievement was the unification of nomadic Hungarian tribes into one state organism. It was not for nothing that the epithet „the Great” eventually came to be attached to this ruler.
