Solomon of Hungary

ON BL. SOLOMON OF HUNGARY, CONFESSOR, FORMERLY KING, HERMIT,

AT POLA IN ISTRIA.

Eleventh or twelfth century.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Solomon, formerly king of Hungary, hermit, at Pola in Istria. (Bl.)

BY J. S.

§ I. His cult, the honorable preservation of his relics: elogia.

[ ] Although I do not find the name of Bl. Solomon in any Martyrologies, I nevertheless cannot doubt his cult at Pola in Istria, Bl. Solomon venerated at Pola, where his body was long preserved, where his body is preserved. In the year 1692 there came out from the academic press at Tyrnau in Hungary a little book on the Saints and Blesseds of Hungary, distinguished by this title: Indications of the Sanctity of Hungary. There, at page 19, an elogium of Bl. Solomon is given, and at the end he is said to have died at Pola in Istria, and it is added: Where his feast is celebrated every year with the divine Office under a double rite on the fourth of the Kalends of October, and the sacred remains of his body are honorably laid up and preserved. Concerning Bl. Solomon's body preserved at Pola, the tradition of the people of Pola was far more ancient, since it is asserted in the Italian Description of Istria, which we have printed at Venice in the year 1611, at page 43, where the writer speaks of the same chest in which we shall see the body afterwards found with others, but he suspects that all those bodies had been carried off by the Genoese. Ughelli believed the contrary before the finding: for in volume 5 of Italia Sacra, under the Bishops of Pola, at column 455, he writes this about the cathedral church: It is very rich in the relics of Saints, which are honorably preserved at a special altar: namely of the saints Florus, Demetrius, Hermagoras, Fortunatus, Theodore, George, Basil, and Solomon king of Hungary. Ughelli wrote this a few years before the finding: for the volume is read as printed in the year 1653, at the end of which Aloysius Marcellus was made bishop of Pola, and, while he held the see, the relics were found in the year 1657.

[2] The instrument of that finding, drawn up in Italian and printed at Venice in the year 1658, when doubt arose concerning it, at the bishop's command, was dictated by Francis Bartiroma, archdeacon and vicar general of the bishop of Pola, who by the bishop's order had seen to the opening of the chest in the presence of many witnesses, and had found in it the bodies of six Saints; it was written out by Jerome Querengo, episcopal chancellor and public notary, and was at last strengthened by the bishop's subscription on the sixth day of December of the year 1657. A written copy of that instrument was sent to our predecessors, from which I shall select the things that bear upon this matter and render them in the Latin tongue: for many things are mixed in about the city of Pola which are neither sufficiently certain nor pertinent to our purpose. In the preface it is said that God does not permit the bodies of his servants to remain long hidden, and that therefore six sacred bodies were at that time revealed, namely of three martyrs and three confessors. Then the reason for opening the chest is set forth, namely that it was uncertain what was preserved in it, since many said that in it was the body of St. Florus, bishop of Pola; some asserted that it had been carried off with others about the year 1380 by the Genoese, when they were infesting those seas with armed ships and destroyed as it were the whole province and Pola by name; while others finally affirmed that in it was preserved the body of the lord Blasius de Molino, bishop of Pola, drawing their conjecture from the verses carved on the chest. This doubt caused the bishop to order the chest to be opened in the presence of his vicar general already named.

[3] the chest was opened, and the body of Bl. Solomon was found with five others, The aforesaid vicar Francis Bartiroma therefore went to the cathedral church with several canons, namely with Jacob Bonarelli the scholastic, Benettus Bonuti, Maurus de Mori, Augustine Vio, Antony Gabbo, Antony de Marini, Damian Vio, Jacob Cipriotti, and Dominic Cipriotti, to whom was added one Franciscan priest, and several clerics expressly named, as also the physician of the city, and the necessary workmen. Then, at the vicar's order, the workmen opened the chest. As soon as it was opened, there came forth a most pleasing and most sweet odor, which refreshed all the bystanders. When the chest had been examined within, five cypress caskets were found, and when these were opened there were found the bodies of the saints Theodore, Demetrius, and George, martyrs, and of the saints Florus and Basil, bishops, and of Solomon king of Hungary, confessors. The bodies of St. Florus and St. Solomon were in one casket. And so, when order had at once been given that the bells should be rung and the Te Deum laudamus sung in thanksgiving, all the people came running to adore God and to venerate the Saints, etc. Afterwards the aforesaid most reverend lord vicar ordained that the chest should be closed again and duly locked with iron fastenings, and that it should remain there until something should be determined for the greater glory of God and the honor of the aforesaid Saints. Thus far the said instrument. But I do not find whether those sacred bodies afterwards remained in the same chest placed beneath the altar, or were translated elsewhere or separated. It is likely, however, that they afterwards remained in the same place.

[4] But in the said instrument of the finding these things follow: an altar consecrated under their title in the year 1487. In the casket of St. Theodore was found an instrument, which will be appended at the end. In this it is said that the most illustrious and most reverend lord Michael Ursini, in the year 1487 on the eighteenth day of November, consecrated the altar and placed those holy bodies in the chest. But from the verses carved on the same chest it is clear that they had been in the chest for a much longer time. Whence it must be believed that the most illustrious lord Ursini only consecrated the altar, and wished to bear witness concerning the relics that he had placed them in the chest with his own hand, in order to win for them a more authentic credit. The instrument in question, written in Latin, is this: In the name of Christ. Amen. In the year of his Nativity 1487, in the fifth Indiction, on the eighteenth day of the month of November, the most reverend father and lord in Christ, the Lord Michael Ursinus, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Pola, consecrated this altar to the praise and honor of the supreme and great God, under the title of the Saints written below, whose bodies he placed with his own hands in that altar in cypress caskets to the praise of God. The body of St. Theodore, martyr. The body of St. George, martyr. The body of St. Demetrius, martyr. The body of St. Florus, bishop and confessor. The body of St. Basil, bishop and confessor. The body of St. Solomon, king of Hungary

confessor. John de Tambacis of Pola, notary, wrote this. This instrument certainly proves that the altar was consecrated in the year 1487 under the title of the six aforesaid Saints, and that their bodies were then deposited in it. From the same it will be possible in some measure to complete the elogium of the bishop Michael, whose name is read almost bare among the bishops of Pola in Ughelli, and whose death is faultily noted in the first edition, perhaps by a typographical error.

[5] The little verses inscribed on the chest are exceedingly obscure. I subjoin them here, The little verses carved on the chest, which are exceedingly obscure, just as they were transcribed for us:

Thomas entreats, endowed * with lofty seats

Sweetly the bellows sing, made ready for the mystic rites

Pola, mirror of the choir, the new form of the temple close at hand

The gleaming altar blazes under Blasius of the stock of Molino

Within, the marble holds bones; thou beholdest * lo, the figures.

Take away the ways which a birth made pure unto the heavens

Twice has the first light of Janus, which sets them moving, borne summers.

Thrice ten lustra and eight joined to two hundred.

Whether the verses as given have been correctly transcribed I much doubt. In the fifth, at any rate, the law of meter requires that for conspicis one should read inspicis or aspicis. If for dotatas one reads dotatus, it refers to St. Thomas the patron of the church, who, endowed with a heavenly seat, prays for his own. Whether altis was written in the first line, and parati in the second, I doubt, because those words do not rhyme with one another, as all the rest do at the end. But leaving aside the exposition of the poem, whose obscurity is increased by the omission of the punctuation and by the doubt whether the words have been correctly transcribed, I shall set forth only the things bearing upon our matter.

[6] Blasius de Molino, under whom the church of Pola with its altar is commended, was according to Ughelli bishop of Pola from the year 1410 until 1420, in which he is said to have been translated to the archbishopric of Zara. With his time agrees the epoch given at the end, reckoned from the Virgin's childbearing: they prove that the body of Bl. Solomon was in it from the fifteenth century. for he counts two hundred lustra, ten times eight, that is, eighty, and three; and he adds two summers or years, so that, reckoning five years for each lustrum, there arises the year 1417, in which Blasius de Molino was governing the church of Pola. Now the fifth little verse hints that in the marble chest were the bones of those whose figures or images it has carved upon it. And so, if the images of the six aforesaid Saints are sculptured on the chest, it becomes clear that already in the year 1417 the bodies of the said Saints were in it, as the lord vicar observed above. But this is doubtful to me in the case of the image of Bl. Solomon, from a letter sent hither in the year 1684, in which it is said that his image is not carved on the chest but painted on the cypress casket. However that may be, from what has been said we have the ancient cult of Bl. Solomon sufficiently proved. Of St. Florus or Flor, as he is variously called, we shall have to treat on the twenty-seventh of October. Concerning the others also, whose bodies were found with the body of Bl. Solomon, namely SS. Theodore, George, Demetrius and Basil, we shall likewise treat in their proper places, provided we can learn whether they are believed to be distinct from others of the same names, and on what days they are venerated at Pola.

[7] The lessons of the Office, The lessons which the people of Pola recite about the Saint's deeds contain a compendium of his life. Whether they are printed and approved I have not learned. But I shall communicate them to the reader just as they were transcribed for us and sent hither in the year 1684. Lesson IV. St. Solomon, born in the purple, his father Andrew I, the fourth king of Hungary, his mother Agmunda, daughter of the duke of the Roxolani, who afterwards was illustrious for her ascetic life in the most celebrated monastery of Admont. From infancy piety grew up with him: while still quite a boy he was of such promise that in the fifth year of his age he was anointed king, and soon Sophia, daughter of Henry III, emperor of the Romans, was betrothed to him. He then sat at the helm with wonderful credit to himself. Not long afterwards he was treacherously driven from the throne by his cousin (so it stands in the written copy, but one should read uncle) Bela, and bereaved by the slaying of his parent (Andrew) in the conflict. The clemency of his virtues claimed the second place for itself: for when he could have repaid the parricides in kind, he granted them their lives; and he a second time remitted to the inhabitants of the kingdom themselves the mark of infidelity, being equally famous toward all for beneficence and liberality.

[8] a brief elogium of the Saint Lesson V. He waged wars most fiercely against the Barbarians, lest he should allow idolatry to be brought in along with their standards: and he was so zealous an exactor of penalty and avenger against them that under his scepter the last root of Scythian superstition put forth its final shoot. He made the consecration of churches and public devotion more solemn by his presence. He never drew arms against an enemy before he had been purified, and his men had been refreshed with the banquet of heaven. To the neighboring kingdom of Dalmatia he brought help without recompense, and established its throne. He subdued Belgrade not only to his crown but also to the Church, from which it had been driven by schism. Often routed by his cousins Geysa and Ladislaus, stripped of his kingdom, and imprisoned, he bore the violence of both with remarkable patience [*,) and by a divine miracle escaped safe. Finally he bore all adversities with wonderful constancy. For, when fortune grew insolent against him, he endured to be replaced on the throne three times, mindful then of nothing less than of revenge.

[9] setting these forth. Lesson VI. When he had seen that all things are vain, at last he himself also vanished from the eyes of his own people, meaning to seek for himself with greater confidence a kingdom outside his fatherland and outside the world. After he had piously venerated the thresholds of the Saints and the sanctuary of Palestine, he sought the desert again, until he should exhaust its austerity even to the consolation of the heavenly ones, which he was permitted to enjoy more than once. It was his custom in the desert to allay hunger with herbs and fruits growing of themselves, to mortify his body with a hair-shirt, and sometimes to protect it with the rough skins of wild beasts, to strew his bed with dry leaves, to overcome thirst with foul water, to snatch the necessary sleep amid watching and labor, to wear out his flesh with perpetual fasting, and to be engaged day and night in sacred hymns and divine prayer; until at length, famous for many miracles, he passed to the Lord. His sacred body lies at Pola in Istria, from the year of the Lord one thousand and seventy-seven, upon an altar, to be venerated even now, and he is there venerated on the twenty-sixth of September with a double rite. Thus far the elogium from the lessons, in which most things seem correctly set forth; some, however, can be corrected on account of excessive exaggeration or uncertain conjectures, and the year of his death is far enough from the truth. But before I come to the particulars, I subjoin another elogium from the Little Work on the Saints of Hungary praised above.

[10] Salamon, begotten of Andrew I, king of Hungary, by Agmunda, daughter of the duke of the Roxolani, Another elogium, betrothed when less than four years old to Sophia, daughter of Henry III, emperor of the Romans, and crowned king of Hungary in the fifth year of his age, experienced varying fortune in his government when he was grown. Glorious for several victories, he so vindicated Hungary from the ferocity of the Bessi and the Bulgarians that not even a messenger of the disaster went back to their own people. He restored to his kinsman Zolomir the kingdoms of Dalmatia and Croatia, which had been snatched away by the Norici. Less happy was his struggle with his cousins Geysa and St. Ladislaus: for being taken captive by the latter and kept under guard in the citadel of Visegrad, he was not without a miracle set free, when the stone could not be moved from the tomb of St. Stephen the king, whose body Ladislaus wished to raise and lay up more honorably, until Salamon should be restored to liberty.

[11] When the war with the same men broke out afresh and he was again conquered, in which his cult is likewise asserted. then, by the breathing of the divine Spirit, being taught the vanity of temporal things, he fled from the battle unknown to all, and laying aside his crown and helmet, sought out solitude, where he first learned that no one is happier than he whom the world hates. As he lay hidden in underground caverns, herbs and wild fruits furnished him food, dry leaves a bed, a marsh his drink, the skins of wild beasts his covering. Accustomed to wear out his limbs with continual fasting and mortification, and to give day and night to prayers, he visited as a pilgrim the more holy shrines throughout the world. At length at Pola in Istria, unknown to all, he found the end of his life in the year of the Lord 1077, where his feast is celebrated every year with the divine Office under a double rite on the fourth of the Kalends of October, and the sacred remains of his body are honorably laid up and preserved. There is added a certain likeness of the Saint, under which it is likewise noted that he died in the year 1077, on the twenty-eighth day of September. Of the year we shall see below; of the day I suspect that it is established from no other source than that he is venerated on that day. In our work, on the twenty-seventh of June, in the treatment of St. Ladislaus the king, at number 23, Solomon is said to be venerated on the twenty-sixth of September, and I find this in the written lessons sent hither in the year 1684, which Papebroch followed. I should prefer, however, to follow the little book printed afterwards, in which the twenty-eighth day is set down twice.

perhaps dotatus*

inspicis or aspicis*

* this word is lacking in the written copy

§ II. The deeds of the Saint examined in chronological order down to his obtaining the kingdom of Hungary.

[ ] Bl. Solomon, who was twice deprived of the kingdom, Although Bl. Solomon was called to the kingdom of Hungary by the right of his birth, being born of a king for his father, and although his father omitted nothing that human prudence could do to establish the kingdom for his Son, he was nevertheless deprived of it by his uncle before he came of age. Afterwards, having obtained the kingdom, and after a prosperous rule, by God's so disposing or permitting, he was again deprived of it; and, what is more to be wondered at, he at last was compelled to reign in Solomon's stead who is said both to have acknowledged Solomon's lawful rights and to have desired nothing more than to be able to restore the kingdom to him. We shall certainly see wonderful events, and I am altogether persuaded that Solomon fell from his earthly kingdom by other men's crimes rather than by his own, even though I am not unaware that a pretext was sought from his character. But the more I weigh all that has been written about Solomon, the more I am persuaded that nothing stood in the way of Solomon's retaining the kingdom except his immature age. For this at once gave room to ambition and to crime; and from the first usurpation the rest sprouted, either because those who had favored the opposite party and had wronged him feared the King's indignation and vengeance, or because ambition stirred up the son, so that he was unwilling to seem less than his father after his father's death. Meanwhile it was brought about by divine favor that Bl. Solomon learned from so many adversities to despise the earthly kingdom and to seek the heavenly one ambitiously and prudently, and so from the apparent misfortune of some years drew true and eternal happiness.

[13] he had for father Andrew king of Hungary, About Bl. Solomon's father no one doubts. He was Andrew I, king of Hungary, as all writers agree. Now he obtained the kingdom of Hungary either in the year 1047, as most Hungarian writers assert, or rather in the year 1046, as I have proved with Pagi on the twenty-fourth of September, in the treatment of St. Gerard, bishop and martyr. Having related Andrew's elevation to the kingdom, John de Thwrocz in the Chronicle of Hungary, chapter 42, adds this about his marriage: And he took to himself as wife the daughter of the duke of the Ruthenians, of whom he begot Solomon and David. Ranzanus agrees in the Epitome of Hungarian affairs, chapter 10, in these words: He took to wife the daughter of the great duke of the Ruthenians, who is also called of Muscovy:

of whom he received two sons, Solomon and David. Bonfini also agrees at page 199, and adds her name, asserting that she was called Agmunda. But Dlugosz, in the History of Poland, at the year 1050, names her Anastasia, agreeing otherwise that she was the daughter of the duke of Russia. Which of the two expressed the name more correctly, I do not find by any certain indication.

[14] born about the year 1048. But all the writers we have praised hint that the marriage was not contracted by Andrew immediately after he obtained the kingdom, but only after the kingdom had been pacified and rightly settled. Inchofer assigns to the year 1048 the diet of the kingdom held for this end, and says that in it the future marriage of Andrew was treated of. But since all that follows hints that Solomon was born earlier than would follow from that epoch, I should prefer to believe that the diet was held in the year 1046 itself or at the beginning of 1047, so that it becomes probable that Solomon was not born after the year 1048. Now Andrew had a surviving brother Bela, joined in marriage with the daughter of the king of Poland, who then had two sons, Geisa and Ladislaus, born some years at least before Solomon, and his cousins. And in order that Andrew might bind his brother Bela to himself by a closer friendship, he granted him, when he had been invited from Poland into Hungary, a third part of the kingdom with the title of duke, retaining the other two parts for himself; and so for some years they lived in concord.

[15] This union of the brothers was of service for defending Hungary prudently and bravely, and repeatedly, against the emperor Henry, As a boy he receives as his betrothed the emperor's daughter, who was making war on account of King Peter's expulsion by the Hungarians. For this cause Henry at last endeavored to make peace with Andrew, and it was established in the year 1052, so far as appears. For from Hermann Contractus, at the year 1051, Pressburg, which he calls Brezisburg (now commonly Presburg), was long besieged in vain by Henry in the year 1051, and in that year peace was treated of in vain. But in the following year, as the Hungarians write everywhere, Henry's army again attempted to invade Hungary, and after fruitless attempts peace was consolidated. Pagi rightly fixes the peace in the year 1052, but it does not seem to have been arranged through the intervention of St. Hugh of Cluny, as Pagi will have it. Now with this compact of peace another was joined, as all the Hungarian writers assert, and with them Dlugosz in the History of Poland at the year 1052, writing thus of the emperor Henry: He added peace for King Andrew and for the kingdom of Hungary, and in order that it might stand firmer and longer, … he also joins to himself the sought-for kinship with King Andrew, and betroths his own daughter Sophia as wife to that same King Andrew's son, though he was not yet of age. This betrothed of Solomon is everywhere called Sophia by all. There exists, however, a Letter of Gregory VII to Judith, queen of the Hungarians, who was the daughter of the emperor Henry III and of the empress Agnes, given in the year 1075; so that either she had a double name, or Sophia was only betrothed, and Judith married Solomon in place of her sister, who had perhaps died.

[16] Besides this kinship, which by human prudence seemed likely to profit Solomon for obtaining the kingdom, and afterwards, in his father's lifetime, he is crowned king. King Andrew wished to secure it for him by yet another precaution. For before his own death he saw to it that the Boy was crowned king of Hungary. This ceremony Thuroczy and Bonfini place in the twelfth year of Andrew's reign, that is, in the year 1057 or 1058. Dlugosz relates the event at the year 1060. Inchofer reports that Solomon was crowned in the year 1053, earlier than I should wish; whereas from his own chronology he can scarcely have been born before 1050. For my part I prefer to the rest what is said about the twelfth year of Andrew: for that is the more probable from the war that followed thereupon, which seems neither to be later by many years, nor to have arisen immediately in the very next year. Solomon was five years old when he was crowned, if we believe Thuroczy and Ranzanus; but both of them considered too little how improbable it is that Solomon was five years old in Andrew's twelfth year, when he had been betrothed since the year 1052. For this cause too I cannot admit what Dlugosz says at the year 1060, that he had not yet passed his seventh year. Bonfini more cautiously omits the age of the crowned Solomon, but calls him an infant. If Solomon was crowned in the twelfth year of his reigning father, as Bonfini, Thuroczy and Ranzanus assert, and as Dlugosz too does not depart far from them, I should rather believe that Solomon was nearly ten years old, and this will agree better with the marriage that afterwards followed and with his deeds in the kingdom. The age of the crowned Boy was probably diminished by those who disapproved of the deed, and the writers we have praised, who lived nearly four centuries later, will have narrated in good faith what they had read elsewhere about the Boy's age.

[17] Offended for this cause, his uncle Bela flees into Poland, But whatever be the case about the age of the crowned Solomon, the crown given untimely, which was thought likely to bring the kingdom too, rather took the kingdom away from Solomon. For by that ceremony there blazed up the ambition of his uncle Bela, who grieved that the Boy was set above him, as the writers agree. Most indeed write that Bela consented to Solomon's being crowned, but that afterwards he was changed either by ambition or by fear of King Andrew, and fled with his family into Poland. I pass over many uncertain things which are related about these matters in Thuroczy and Bonfini, since what Dlugosz hands down suffices for our purpose; he writes thus: But intending to carry out his purpose, (King Andrew) appointed a day, and invites his brother Bela, and the prelates and barons of the kingdom, to the coronation and anointing of his son Solomon, and ordered them to come. And while, according to King Andrew's ordinance, his son Solomon was receiving at Székesfehérvár the insignia of coronation and anointing, and the consecrator had come to that passage, "Be thou lord of thy brethren," Duke Bela, who was weighing rather scrupulously his Nephew's coronation, never before seen, in its several ceremonies, groaning heavily and grieving that his Nephew's coronation had been carried through so prematurely to his own affront and reproach, was unable to dissemble his sorrow either in countenance or in tongue; but to the barons standing by, repeating again and again his Nephew's coronation, he set it forth as not so much injurious as ignominious to himself. And fearing lest his brother King Andrew should take some heavier counsel against him, he suppressed and dissembled his grief, and departed with all the speed he could into Poland, with his three sons, his wife, his household, his fortunes and all his furniture, to Boleslaus, king of Poland, his kinsman; and he set forth before Boleslaus, king of Poland, and his prelates and counsellors, how great and of what sort was the injury and confusion he had received from his brother Andrew. Besides other uncertain things, Thuroczy and Bonfini add that Andrew and Bela held each other in suspicion through the suggestions of wicked men, and this is exceedingly probable.

[18] and prepares to make war upon Andrew, Having related Bela's flight into Poland, the writers of Hungarian affairs, namely Thuroczy, Ranzanus and Bonfini, at once subjoin the war waged by him against his brother Andrew, as if he had invaded Hungary in the following year. On the contrary Dlugosz the Pole defers that expedition to the sixth year, at the year 1065. But a middle way between them seems to be held, and two or three years must be interposed between the flight and the war. For, when the Chronicles of Lambert of Hersfeld and of Berthold, who continued the Chronicle of Contractus, are compared with one another, it seems altogether to be said that the chief preparation for war was made in the year 1060, and that the war was perhaps begun in that same year, but was chiefly waged and finished in the year 1061. For Lambert, relating everything at the year 1061, has this: Andrew, king of the Hungarians, seeing that a certain Bela, his kinsman (rather, his brother Bela), was aiming at the kingdom, and that the Hungarians were little by little falling away from him to that man, sent his wife and his son Solomon, to whom the emperor had betrothed his little daughter when he was a little boy, with great riches to King Henry (the son of the deceased emperor, and fourth of that name, then a boy), asking both that he would come to his aid by sending an army, and that he would keep his family safe until tranquillity should be restored to affairs. These things are placed by Berthold, who omitted the outcome of the war, in the year 1060, so that perhaps they were done, or at least begun, in that year. Sigismund Calles, in the Annals of Austria lately published, observes and proves, at the year 1060, that Solomon was sent with the crown and the royal treasure to Melk in Austria, where he remained under the guardianship of Ernest, margrave of Austria.

[19] But the fierce battle by which Bela obtained Hungary must certainly be fixed in the year 1061. and having received help from the duke of Poland, he conquers Andrew, More fully than the rest, and probably more correctly, Dlugosz narrates the several circumstances of that most obstinate battle in the History of Poland, saying that three columns of Poles were sent by Boleslaus, king of Poland, to Bela's aid, and that a fourth was added to them out of the Hungarians who followed Bela's side. Andrew, however, had Germans sent by Henry, and Bohemians sent by the duke of Bohemia, together with a numerous column of Hungarians. But after a sharp battle of the Germans, many Hungarians, if we believe Dlugosz, went over to Bela, and so the victory, begun in some measure by the valor of the Poles, he obtained most completely by their defection from Andrew, King Andrew himself being slain or dying in the flight, and the chief commanders who had not been cut down being taken prisoner. These things being observed, it will be enough for our purpose to transfer hither Lambert's account: The King (Henry, he says) sent thither William, margrave of the Thuringians, and Eppo, bishop of Zeitz, with the duke of the Bohemians and a Bavarian army. But the margrave and the bishop, having entered Hungary first, without waiting for the duke of the Bohemians, joined standards with Bela, and destroyed an infinite multitude of Hungarians (rather, of Poles too, against whom the fighting chiefly had to be done).

[20] Then, when from every side the Hungarians (and the Poles) had flocked together in numbers to bring help to their own men, and when he died in flight, he obtains the kingdom of Hungary. the King's (Henry's) envoys, seeing that they were unequal in numbers and in strength to so great a multitude, wished to withdraw from the enemy's territory. But the enemy had blocked up all the places by which there could be an exit. Then they had also taken care that no food or drink should be found upon the way. And when besides they harassed the departing men with frequent attacks, and these, always repelling the danger by their valor, made great slaughter of the enemy, at last, their strength exhausted by the long carnage, Andrew was by chance thrown from his horse and trampled under the feet of the combatants; the bishop was captured; the margrave, overcome by hunger rather than by the sword, surrendered himself. His valor was so much admired among the barbarians that Joas [*], son of Bela, a youth of no despicable character according to the manners of that nation at the time, of his own accord entreated his father, not only that he would leave him untouched by the law of war, but that he would also join him to himself by kinship, betrothing to him his own daughter, the sister of Joiada. Thus far Lambert, who makes no mention of the Poles, and hints that the Bohemians came later. Probably there was fighting more than once, and the Bohemians, if they were not present at the first battle, were certainly present at others during the return toward Germany. Thuroczy writes that the battle was joined beyond the river Tisza or Tibiscus, and Bonfini agrees. It is read as "at the river Cyssa"

in Dlugosz, but it will have been written "Tyssa," so far as I conjecture, and thus it will agree with the others. Hence it came about that the Germans and Bohemians, who were at a very great distance from their own borders, were at last all either cut down or captured, the Hungarians everywhere standing for Bela as victor.

[21] By that victory, therefore, the kingdom of Hungary was snatched from Solomon for the first time, When Bela was dead, Solomon obtains the kingdom of Hungary and Bela his uncle was crowned king. Henry, king of Germany, then made no move on Solomon's behalf, but probably entered into peace with Bela and the Hungarians, perhaps on this condition, that Solomon should succeed to the kingdom after Bela's death. Certainly the release of the margrave of Thuringia, and Bela's daughter betrothed to him — even though he did not marry her, being forestalled by death — scarcely permit doubt about a peace. It is likewise established that Solomon obtained the kingdom without great difficulty after Bela's death. Now Lambert fixed Bela's death in the year 1063, with whom Thuroczy does not altogether agree in chapter 46, when he says that he died when the third year of his reign was completed: for if he had completed three years, he would have died in the year 1064. Ranzanus in chapter 10 says: He presided over the kingdom for three years. Bonfini, however, at page 204, asserts that he died in the third year of his reign; and so the others are to be explained in such a way that his death is fixed in the year 1063, as Lambert has it, who is older than they by some centuries, and therefore far to be preferred in the rest as well.

[22] with the help of Henry, king of Germany, in the year 1063, Let us hear, therefore, in what way he sets forth Solomon's promotion at the year 1063: Bel, that is Bela, who had invaded the kingdom of the Hungarians, died. Joas (everywhere called Geisa), his son, thinking it better to enjoy moderate resources in peace than by grasping at immoderate ones to prepare calamity and destruction for his nation, sent word to King Henry that, if honor worthy of his birth and merits were accorded him in Solomon's presence, the son of King Andrew, he would be that man's subject and faithful to him, and would rather contend with him by benefits than by arms, by loyalty than by the battle-line. The same things all the Hungarians promised by continual embassy. So King Henry, entering Hungary with an army, restored Solomon to his father's throne, joined his own sister to him in marriage, and having removed everything that could cause the King scruple or shake the state of the kingdom, returned in peace to the Gauls. Not far from these things does Ranzanus depart in chapter 10, saying that Solomon, by the efforts of the emperor, or rather of Henry IV, king of Germany, was again elected and crowned by the vote of the Hungarian nobles. But Ranzanus without doubt erred where he stated beforehand of Solomon that he had been piously preserved, brought up and taught by Bela, whereas during Bela's reign he remained in Germany, as all the others acknowledge.

[23] while Geisa, Bela's son, fled into Poland. Thuroczy in chapter 47 differs from Lambert in this, that he says Geisa fled with his brothers into Poland for fear of Solomon and of the Germans; but that afterwards he entered into peace on this condition, that he should obtain the duchy. The same things Bonfini and Dlugosz set forth at greater length, and it is probable enough that Geisa did not of his own accord give up the kingdom which his father had administered, and which he himself afterwards snatched from Solomon. Yet the things related by Lambert may be true, and Geisa himself may at first, for fear of the Hungarians, have pretended that he would yield to Solomon, and afterwards have withdrawn into Poland. But whatever Geisa did at first, all agree that Solomon was restored by Henry, Bonfini adding at page 206: That this happened in the year one thousand and sixty-third from the Lord's Incarnation, the Annals of the Austrians have reported. Dlugosz or Longinus in the History of Poland, and Baronius after him, make Bela live until the year 1066, and Baronius besides makes him divide the kingdom of Hungary with Solomon. In this lapse of memory, however, Baronius attributes to Bela what was done by Solomon, who, as we shall presently see, gave a part of the kingdom, or a duchy, to Geisa.

* that is, Geisa

§ III. The deeds of Solomon while reigning, namely the peace entered into with his cousin Geisa, and the wars bravely waged with him against the enemy.

[ ] In the year 1064 Boleslaus, duke of Poland, Even though Bl. Solomon was easily restored by Henry to the kingdom of Hungary, and most of the Hungarians seem then to have wished for no other king, so that his very rival Geisa either pretended to consent or at least did not dare to oppose him, and withdrew with his family to his kinsman the duke of Poland; nevertheless he was not long without the fear of losing the kingdom, because Boleslaus, duke of Poland, was planning to claim the kingdom for Geisa, just as he had acquired it for his father Bela; and many of the Hungarians themselves were partial to Geisa. I do not think, however, that anything was attempted for Geisa by Boleslaus in that very year 1063 in which Solomon obtained the kingdom. Thuroczy indeed says in chapter 47: But as soon as the emperor (or rather Henry IV, king of Germany) departed, Geysa came into Hungary from the place to which he had cautiously betaken himself. But King Solomon, being as it were new and inexperienced, and not yet strengthened in the kingdom, fearing lest perhaps Geysa should rush upon him with a Polish army, drew back a little with his men, and settled in a safe station in the most strongly fortified castle of Moson. But perhaps Henry's army did not withdraw from Hungary before the year 1064: for Bonfini at page 206 speaks in almost the same way, yet relates many things done in other provinces after Solomon obtained the kingdom, before he comes to narrating Geisa's attempt. From Dlugosz too it is clear that at least not in the same year in which Solomon obtained the kingdom did the Poles wish to snatch it from him, since they were occupied with the Ruthenian war, and had taken Przemyśl, a city of Red Russia, the preceding summer, and duke Boleslaus was there in winter quarters when Geisa came to him. All things therefore considered, I judge that the movement of the Poles on Geisa's behalf took place in the year 1064.

[25] Dlugosz, at the year 1071 noted in the margin, invades Hungary with a Polish army on Geisa's behalf, after he had narrated Geisa's flight into Poland, where he was kindly received with his family, sets forth his further attempts thus: But duke Geisa, having lingered for some time at Cracow, when he had perceived that Boleslaus, king of Poland, would not easily return into Poland, betook himself to him, and finding him wintering at Przemyśl, prays and entreats him not to delay to bring help to himself and his brothers, driven out of Hungary by the arms and power of the emperor. The King, having bidden him be of good heart, kept him with him for some time, favorably honored and treated, deliberating whether he should press on with the Ruthenian war, or, deferring it, bring help to the dukes of Hungary. After many things about that deliberation, at the following year 1072, for which we believe 1064 must be substituted, he continues thus: Boleslaus, however, thinking it shameful to desert his brothers (or rather his cousins), the dukes of Hungary, in so perilous a crisis, gave up the Ruthenian expedition, placed a strong garrison in the citadel and city of Przemyśl, and announces that he will go, with the dukes Geisa, Wladislaus and Lampert and with his own soldiers, to make war upon Solomon, king of Hungary. And so, having chosen a band of light-armed soldiers, and having summoned new soldiers also from Poland to fill up the place of those whom he had left in the garrison of Przemyśl, he leads his brothers Geisa, Wladislaus, and Lampert back into Hungary, meaning to try any extremity for them, both with Solomon and with any other enemy of theirs whatsoever. Nor were there lacking nobles of the Hungarians who were already weary of Solomon's dominion: who, having left Solomon, had deserted to Geisa, Wladislaus and Lampert.

[26] and Solomon withdraws into a fortified castle, Solomon therefore, deprived of the foreign help of the Germans, since he well knew that the loyalty of the Hungarians was wavering this way and that, and fearing lest he should be intercepted and killed by the Polish column and by his cousins — especially since he perceived that they had already pitched a standing camp near Buda — fled from Buda and withdrew into the castle of Muszur, most strongly fortified by art and by nature. Long did King Boleslaus and the dukes debate what was to be done, since the assault on the castle in which King Solomon had hidden himself was dangerous and difficult, and a more than sorrowful devastation of the fields and country folk had left nothing behind. With these things Bonfini agrees, omitting however the mention of Boleslaus as king of Poland or as duke, according as his dignity was expressed at that time. After it was signified to Geysa and Ladislaus, he says, that Henry had departed from Hungary, thinking that the matter was by no means to be deferred, they seek the kingdom back with Polish troops. Solomon, not yet sufficiently experienced, on hearing of the arrival of his adversaries, in order to place himself in a safer position, made for the citadel of Moson, most strongly fortified for the place and the time.

[27] near the borders of Austria. King Solomon seems to have made for that citadel not only because it was fortified, but also because it was near Germany, from which he could hope for help. For the place which is called Moson by Thuroczy, Muszur by Dlugosz, and the citadel of Moson by Bonfini, is without doubt that castle which gave its name to the county of Moson on the borders of Austria, and which even now, situated among the marshes, is commonly called Muzon, Musson or Mosson. It was certainly dangerous for Boleslaus to besiege that castle, not only because it was fortified, but because the Danube had to be crossed, and he had to withdraw far from the frontier of Poland, so that, if any disaster had been suffered, he could with difficulty have withdrawn into his own Poland. Prudently, therefore, had Solomon withdrawn to that castle, since by a sudden onset of Boleslaus, who had had his army ready at Przemyśl in Red Russia and almost on the frontier of Hungary, he could easily have been overwhelmed: and by that prudence he both preserved the kingdom for himself and quickly obtained peace.

[28] Then, by the intervention of the bishops, concerning peace Concerning the peace that was brought about, Dlugosz subjoins this: Meanwhile the bishops of Hungary, to whom a civil war seemed dreadful and detestable, come to the camps of the King and the dukes to arrange peace between King Solomon and the dukes Geisa, Wladislaus and Lampert on fair conditions. And having been admitted to the council, they beseech Geisa and his brothers with many entreaties not to subject their common fatherland, in which their ancestors had reigned, and in which they themselves also were to reign, to many collisions, to desolation and ruin, and offer it to be seized by the barbarians. They beg Boleslaus too, king of Poland, to induce the dukes his brothers to take up fair conditions of peace. And when it had been answered by the King and the dukes that for the common peace they would refuse no honorable conditions, but would be in the bishops' power — (for the King of Poland, being greatly eager to return to the war of the Ruthenians, was burning either to suspend the Hungarian war by truces or to settle it by peace) — they went at once to Muszur, and peace was agreed on both sides under these conditions: that Solomon, although younger in birth, should enjoy the royal diadem, title and honor, and should have two parts of the Pannonian kingdom in his own dominion; that Geisa, Wladislaus and Lampert should possess ducal honor and the third part of the kingdom; and that Boleslaus, king of the Poles, and his army should depart rewarded from the common treasury of both parties.

[28] Peace having been arranged in this manner, in the arranging of which a whole summer was spent, [is treated between them, and when it was concluded the kingdom is secured to Solomon,] Boleslaus returned to Przemyśl with great glory and with the favor of both parties — for indeed, had he not consented, the peace could not have been arranged — and wintered there. Geisa, Ladislaus and Lampert set the diadem upon Solomon at Pécs in the presence of a great multitude of Hungarians. These last things belong to the following year, 1065, as is gathered from Thuroczy and Bonfini. The treaty itself between the cousins was solemnly arranged in the same year, on the twentieth day of January, at Győr, which city is even now very well known, and is situated not very far from the castle of Moson. I am pleased to transfer hither Bonfini's whole account of the peace, with which Thuroczy is in agreement: The bishops and priests, he says, that fraternal wars might no longer be seen, thrust themselves in as mediators between the two parties: and first of all Desiderius the bishop, a man no less powerful in uprightness than in eloquence, goes to Geysa with a great company of priests: he urges him to peace and concord with such abundance of speech and such vehemence of oratory that he inclined him to reconciliation. He persuaded him that a treaty should be entered upon between the cousins on this condition, that he should yield the kingdom to Solomon, although the younger, and obey him as the lawful King, but should himself gain possession of his paternal duchy. Overcome by his admonitions and prayers, Geysa, together with his brother Ladislaus, is reconciled to Solomon in the sight of all Hungary in the city of Győr. A solemn treaty was struck between them and fortified by a mutual oath, which they say was concluded while the anniversary of Fabian and Sebastian was being celebrated (that is, on the twentieth of January).

[30] Their minds being reconciled, mutual charity and constant intimacy passed between the King and duke Geysa and Ladislaus. and concord is established between him and his cousins. The Easter that followed was celebrated by them in the city of Pécs with the whole multitude of courtiers and nobles, where, in the basilica of the divine Peter, amid the solemnities, Solomon was again crowned by Geysa, the people acclaiming. (This was the third time.) This was celebrated with such great joy of all the Hungarians that they entered the day among the calendars as one of public rejoicing. To God Jesus, the best and greatest, the author of human peace, thanks were given at every altar and supplications made. But a great portent of future discord came between on the following night: for the whole basilica of Peter, and the adjoining buildings, were consumed by a certain sudden fire. Wherefore, when the tumult arose, the greatest fear came upon both men: each thought that the deed had been done by the other's treachery: yet both were free of blame. Different flights too are reported. At sunrise, when the matter had been investigated by trustworthy go-betweens, it was quite clear to all that no deceit or fraud had been attempted on either side, and they discover that it had happened by a sudden and unexpected fire. When both had learned this sufficiently, all suspicion being removed, they renew their peace and concord. From all that has been related thus far it is easily gathered that Bl. Solomon was by no means difficult about cherishing and preserving peace with his cousins. For although he knew that the kingdom had been snatched from him without any fault of his own by his uncle Bela, and that his cousin Geisa had attempted to do the same, he seems neither to have thought of vengeance nor to have done anything to prevent his living in perpetual concord with his cousins.

[31] But concerning their deeds Bonfini, after certain other things, records this at page 207: The King is said to have brought help to the king of Dalmatia: While Solomon and Geysa cherish one another in mutual concord, behold, a new expedition presents itself to them. Zolomirus, king of Dalmatia, who had joined to himself in marriage the sister of Geysa and Ladislaus, demands through envoys that help be given him by both; since he said that he was being harassed by a most grievous war by the Carinthians, who had long since seized a great part of Dalmatia. The cousins judged that their ally must be helped, and, having taken counsel, they undertake the expedition; having got troops together, they come into Dalmatia, which, when the Carinthians and Norici had been driven out in a very short time, they restored pacified to Zalomirus. He, already moved by so great a benefit, sent Solomon and Geysa back most amply endowed with gifts, together with all the commanders of the cavalry. While they are returning into Hungary, Atha, prefect of the guard, whom they call Palatine, invites the King with the duke by many prayers into the district of Zelyz, where he had built a monastery with a church for the divine James, that they might honor the dedication of the church with their auspicious presence: which he easily obtained from the princes. All these things Thuroczy likewise narrates in chapter 47. But against that expedition John Lucius sets himself in the History of the Kingdom of Dalmatia and Croatia, book 3, chapter 1, and brings forward reasons not to be despised, by which he contends that it does not fit the times, and must be held fictitious.

[32] which John Lucius believes to be a fabrication. His words, which he subjoins after giving Thuroczy's assertions, I transfer hither: These things related by Thuroczy about Zolomerus, or Suinimirus (as he is otherwise called), king of Dalmatia and Croatia, cannot agree with the times: for from the Privileges cited above it is established that king Crescimirus lived until 1073. Thuroczy and Bonfini assert that Solomon reigned until that same year. But an ancient Manuscript codex has not so much as a word about Zalomirus in its account of Solomon: therefore, if such things followed, they cannot have happened in the time of king Solomon. And what he hands down about the march of Dalmatia being seized by the Carinthians would have to be understood of Croatia, not of Dalmatia. On that account the things related are to be reckoned rather an invention of later men than historical truth. For the Manuscript codex, Thuroczy and Bonfini relate in the same words that St. Ladislaus joined Dalmatia and Croatia to the kingdom of Hungary. So reasons Lucius, whose arguments, even though they suggest the suspicion that the Hungarian writers erred about the king of Dalmatia to whom Bl. Solomon brought help, nevertheless by no means persuade me that that expedition is altogether a fabrication: for Lucius himself has brought forward from other writers, for another purpose, some things by which Solomon's expedition into Dalmatia is in some measure confirmed. Wherefore it is worth while to weigh the arguments one by one.

[33] At least in the name of the king of Dalmatia there seems to be an error; First Lucius hints that Suinimirus did not reign before the year 1073, until which year he judges from charters that Crescimirus survived; and that in that same year Solomon was deprived of his kingdom. If all this were true, king Solomon could not have come to the aid of king Suinimirus or Zolomirus; yet he could have aided Crescimirus, so that the error would only be in the name of the king of Dalmatia, just as Bonfini and Thuroczy have elsewhere not seldom erred in the names of the princes who had a part in Hungarian affairs. But if attention be paid to the order in which the writers we have praised report the Dalmatian expedition, it would have to be placed not only before the year 1073, but even before 1070, indeed in the earlier years after the concord was entered upon with his cousin Geisa. Wherefore, even though Lucius's chronological observations are not altogether accurate — since Solomon lost the greatest part of his kingdom in the year 1074, not in 1073, as he puts it — I should prefer to believe that help was brought to king Crescimirus rather than to his successor Zolomirus or Suinimirus. Perhaps too Solomon brought help rather against the Venetians than against the Carinthians, as will be gathered from what is to be said. The Carinthians, however, may have been allied with the Venetians. The remaining observations of Lucius have no force, such as is the silence of I know not what manuscript codex; such also is the later expedition of St. Ladislaus, who subdued Croatia. For the subjugation of Croatia by St. Ladislaus, and perhaps of that part of Dalmatia which his successor Coloman further subdued, takes away nothing of probability from Bl. Solomon's expedition. Nor do I know why Lucius should prefer that Croatia rather than Dalmatia was seized by the Carinthians. But it matters little, since both provinces obeyed the same king, whether the war was waged in Croatia or in Dalmatia, or in both. It is also certain that the boundaries of Dalmatia were then extended farther than they are today.

[34] Andrew Dandolo, doge of Venice, in his Chronicle, but since the Venetian writers too make mention of Solomon's war in Dalmatia, published in volume 12 of the Writers of Italian affairs, already makes mention in book 9, chapter 3, of the war waged in Dalmatia by Andrew, Solomon's father, in these words: Meanwhile Andrew, king of Hungary, continually harassing the Dalmatians, at last forced some of them to surrender. Then in chapter 7, treating of the dukedom of Dominic Contareno, he records this about Solomon, in part 9: At this time Solomon, king of Hungary, harassing the inland places of Dalmatia, led the men of Zara, who had hitherto kept the fidelity promised to the doge (of Venice), into rebellion. And so afterwards, when discord had arisen between king Solomon and his cousins Geysa [*] and Ladislaus, the kingdom is shaken with the greatest straits. Then this doge, in the second year of his dukedom, going out in hostile fashion, with certain of the inhabitants favoring him, recovered Zara. Likewise some of the Dalmatians, on learning of the doge's presence, came forward to render their accustomed subjection. Then in part 10: At last king Solomon is driven out by his cousins. And Geysa reigned. These very passages Lucius adduced in book 2, chapter 9, and he read "in the seventh year of his dukedom" for "in the second year," as the last edition has it. That one should read "in the seventh year" becomes probable from the Italian Little Work on the Lives of the Venetian doges, which Marino Sanuto the younger composed and Muratori first published in the Writers of Italy, volume 22, where at column 476, under Dominic Contareno, there are read in Italian the words which I render in Latin: In the year 1050 Solomon, king of Hungary, came with an army to invade Dalmatia, and stormed our city of Zara, although afterwards, through the discord which arose for him with his cousins Geisa and Ladislaus, the Venetians took pains to recover it. And in the seventh year of his dukedom the doge marched with an army to Zara and recovered it. The same author, as also Dandolo, states beforehand various things about the wars waged in Dalmatia between the doges of the Venetians and the princes of the Croats, and by name makes mention at column 472 of Crescimirus, prince of the Croats, striving to snatch Zara and the other maritime cities of Dalmatia from the Venetians; and at column 475 he asserts that Zara was for the first time made subject to the king of Croatia.

[35] And so there can be no doubt that between the princes of the Croats and of the Venetians there were long-lasting contentions, waged on behalf of the Croatian princes or kings of Dalmatia, and frequent wars in Dalmatia. It is clear from elsewhere that the kings of Hungary from time to time gave help to the Croatian princes, who also styled themselves kings of Dalmatia; so that Bl. Solomon's expedition both becomes probable in itself, and, being asserted by the Hungarian and the Venetian writers, is denied by Lucius without just reason. For besides the words given from Dandolo, that very man in book 2, chapter 9, again recites these from Sabellicus: The men of Zara had gone over to the petty king of the Croats, or, as others write, to Solomon, king of Pannonia. When this desertion was heard of — for it was clear that, unless the Venetian fleet advanced into Dalmatia at the earliest opportunity, it would come about that not long after the remaining peoples, who were already said to be looking toward defection, would be alienated from Venetian rule — the doge (Dominic Contareno) at once sent across into Dalmatia with a huge force of ships, encircles Zara with a siege, and, when it is encircled with works, storms it. The report of the storming of Zara was most opportune for keeping the other cities in their allegiance. These things again Lucius strives to hoot away as fictitious, because Dandolo and Sabellicus wandered from the correct chronology.

[36] But this reason does not suffice: for chronologers,

who record older matters, the expedition of Solomon itself does not seem to be denied, not seldom wander from the correct chronology by many years; nor do we on that account deny the facts which they report from ancient documents, but we correct the corrupted chronology. It is indeed certain that Dandolo, in reviewing the kings of Hungary and comparing them with the times of the Venetian doges, is many years away from the true chronology. But since all that is reported by the Hungarians and the Venetians about Bl. Solomon's expedition seems to have been drawn from ancient documents of the Hungarians and the Venetians, it seems also not to be doubted that Bl. Solomon brought help to the prince of the Croats, whether that was Crescimirus, as I have already noted to be the more probable, or Suinimirus or Zolomirus, which is not equally likely, unless he had been named as governor of Dalmatia on Crescimirus's behalf. But what is said about the Carinthians and the Norici, whom the Hungarians say were driven out of Dalmatia by Solomon's help, can easily be reconciled with a war waged chiefly against the Venetians. For the Carinthians may have joined themselves to the Venetians, or each of them separately may have invaded the dominions of the prince of Dalmatia and Croatia. It seems, however, more certain that Solomon brought help against the Venetians than against the Carinthians or Norici; although there occurs no just reason on which we should say that this deed was invented by the Hungarian writers.

[37] He pursues with war the Bohemians who provoked him; After the said expedition had been successfully accomplished, Bonfini subjoins other wars of Solomon, writing this at page 208: Peace and concord between Solomon and Geysa lasted about thirteen years (rather, ten). Whence it came about that they not only made the kingdom wealthy, but also carried through no wars without great praise. About that time the Bohemians, under duke Bratislaus, elated by boldness and rashness, burst into the district of Trencsén, drove off cattle and took many captives, and finally laid waste the district with sword and fire. Inflamed by these injuries, the Hungarian, under the leadership and auspices of Solomon and Geysa, invaded Bohemia so strongly that, since the enemy did not dare to come out into the battle-line, he despoiled and laid waste almost the whole of it. In this war indeed Opus Bathor, son of Martin, is reported to have performed a notable exploit. For he fought in single combat with a Bohemian of monstrous size, who was like a giant, and, when he was soon laid low, cut off his head on the ground. Having gained this victory, he became so famous among the Hungarians that he won a lasting name for himself and his family. After exacting most abundant penalties from the Bohemians, Solomon withdrew with his army into Hungary, laden with great booty. Exactly the same things Thuroczy narrates in chapter 38. Ranzanus in chapter 10 touches briefly on the same war in these words: He waged war also with the Bohemians, which nation is itself savage and monstrous, and which, bursting into Hungary and overrunning many places thickly settled with inhabitants, carried home an immense booty. Against this people Geissa also, and Ladislaus his brother, were a help to him, and by their arms and salutary counsel he gained the victory.

[38] Another war of Solomon's the aforesaid Ranzanus likewise sets before it, and the Cumans, or Chuni, laying Hungary waste, writing thus: He waged war against the Cumans, a fierce nation, and one abhorring the Christian religion, whom he subdued with the help of Geissa his uncle (rather, his cousin). More about this Bonfini subjoins after relating the Bohemian war: Then, he says, lest fortune should suffer Pannonia to grow sluggish in idleness, the war of the Chuni blazed up; who, laboring under a profane infidelity, inhabited that tract of the Getae which they now call Wallachia. For these, with an innumerable multitude of pagans, an approach having been opened from the upper region, invade Hungary through the gates and barriers which they call Meszes, and run over the whole province which they call Nyír as far as the town of Bihar: they drive off the cattle along with the men, and plunder everything, and, having crossed the rivers Lápos and Szamos more quickly than could be believed, they return with immense booty. When again, enticed by the success of their plundering, they were making for those places, Solomon with duke Geysa and hastily levied troops seizes the gates and delays them for seven days at the city of Doboka. Meanwhile a certain scout, born at Újvár, whose name was Fantisca, arrives: he warned them that the army of the Chuni was already for some time approaching, enriched with immense booty. Wherefore the King judges that the enemy must be met at once. On the following night he closed with their camp, and at daybreak, on the day that was dedicated to Venus, by edict all who were about to enter battle fortify their souls with the most holy Eucharist.

[39] When Osul, the commander of Giula, king of the Chuni, saw this not far off, after a sharp battle, trusting in excessive boldness, he sent forward some light-armed soldiers to meet them, who should test the strength of the Hungarians, thinking there were no peoples who would fight with the Chuni. But when the cohort sent forward saw the squared columns of the Hungarians and the mailed cavalry, by no means daring to join hands, it returned in great haste to Osul, and reports that the enemy's troops, drawn up and strong, could scarcely be overcome by the whole strength of the Chuni. Wherefore Osul, consulting his own safety, suddenly seizes the nearest mountain, and that a very lofty one, and places there a very strong garrison. The mountain the neighboring people call Cserhalom, because it seemed to be as it were a house of woods. After the Hungarian sees the mountain seized by the enemy, he at once encircles it with a wide array of legions, and, the signal for battle having been given, climbs the lower slopes step by step. The archers and slingers run down to meet them, so as to keep the approaching enemy from the slope of the mountain. The battle is joined with such violence that the air was darkened with showers of arrows. The Hungarians stand fast, and with their heavy armor easily endure the blows. Some most daring mounted crossbowmen among the Hungarians climb the steep slope of the mountain with their horses at full speed, cut down some of the archers, throw their line into confusion, and give courage to their own men coming up behind.

[40] Solomon, kindled with the fiercest spirit, avoids no difficulty of the slope: in which Solomon himself fights bravely, straight with his own cavalry, as though crawling, he makes for the enemy: under the greatest cloud of darts he gnashes with his teeth, and dreads neither toil nor danger, but pants only for the enemy. But Geysa, on the other hand, far more considerate, most prudently seeks out an easier slope: and when he finds it easy and kindly for his cavalry, he goes up by it and suddenly engages with the line of the archers: Ladislaus among the foremost thrusts himself in among the thickest of the enemy, and at the first charge kills four fighting in the front rank: while he then makes for a fifth, he is hurt by a serious wound from him, but not with impunity for that man, since he cuts him down. Soon, they say, this man most pleasing to God was healed by divine help. Dismayed by this charge, the spirits of the archers began to give way. These press on all the more, and rage furiously against the shaven heads of the Chuni: with drawn swords they simply split them open like gourds. But here I cannot pass over a certain notable exploit of Ladislaus: who, when he saw a certain horseman carrying off a ravished maiden on his horse, at once pursues the man, so that he might be seen to be a champion of holy virginity: the enemy flees: he presses hard behind him with all his strength: and when, hindered by his wound, he could not catch the ravisher, he calls out to the maiden, who was endowed with wonderful beauty, to throw herself headlong from the horse and drag the enemy with her. Quicker than the word the girl did what was commanded, whom he thought to be the daughter of the bishop of Várad, being deceived in his opinion. I pass over the rest about this particular deed, because it has already been given in the treatment of St. Ladislaus, and I go on with Bonfini to the end of the battle.

[41] he cuts them down with a slaughter to the last man When the middle of the slope had already been surmounted, he says, and the enemy saw themselves surrounded by the Hungarians, their courage failing, they did not know where to flee. While they are carried this way and that, the multitude of the captives, having raised a mutiny and lifted up a shout, exhorts their own people; let it itself seize the very ridge of the mountain. That no hope may remain for the enemy, having snatched up arms, it rages against the enemy's rear and hurls them upon the hostile weapons of the Hungarians. So great a slaughter of the Chuni was accomplished on the mountain that it is said not even a messenger survived. Solomon therefore and Geysa with Ladislaus, having gained the victory, and having freed an immense multitude of captives, and gladdened with glorious joy, returned into Hungary. That day was entered among the calendars as one of public rejoicing: thanks were given to the immortal Gods with sacred hymns, and supplications celebrated. Thus far Bonfini, whose expressions about calendar days, the immortal gods, and others of that kind, which he uses after the manner of the heathen, the prudent reader will understand in a sound sense. He used them, I think, lest he should seem too little a Latinist: I should prefer, however, that, since he was a Christian, he had spoken rather after the manner of Christians than of the heathen. Exactly the same things about this war Thuroczy narrates in chapter 49, except only the first incursion of the Chuni, from which Bonfini brings them back unharmed into their own province: for Thuroczy assigns that memorable slaughter to the very first incursion of the Chuni.

[42] in Transylvania, while they were returning laden with booty. I suspect that there was only one incursion, and that the disaster was inflicted on the Chuni during their return. For, so far as I can gather from the places named by Bonfini, the Chuni, otherwise the Cumans, burst out of Cumania or present-day Moldavia into Transylvania, and penetrated farther into Hungary as far as the county of Bihar, which is near Transylvania. But when they wished to withdraw, the road seems to have been blocked against them by the Hungarians in Transylvania, namely in the county of Doboka, since Solomon is said to have awaited them at the city of Doboka. That the Chuni returned Thuroczy clearly says, whom Bonfini has not correctly set forth, and the immense booty with which they were laden likewise hints at a return. And so it must be said that there was not a double expedition of the Chuni, but a single one; in which, while they were advancing incautiously too far, Solomon swiftly gathered an army out of Transylvania and the neighboring provinces of Hungary, and destroyed them utterly as they returned. That this victory was won by Solomon in the year 1070 or rather 1071 is gathered from the following war with the Bessi and Bulgarians, which we shall see was waged in the year 1073: for Thuroczy says that this began in the third year after the coming of the Cumans. And Bonfini says: They remained about three years in peace (Solomon and Geisa, after the victory they had won), and great concord flourished between the princes.

* Geyzam

§ IV. The war waged with the Bessi and the Bulgarians, the capture of Belgrade, and the discord that arose from that occasion between Solomon and Geisa.

[ ] When the Bessi had burst through the territory of the Bulgarians into Hungary Thuroczy in chapter 50 begins thus to narrate the war stirred up against Solomon, on occasion of which grievous discords blazed up between him and his cousins: Now it happened in the third year after the coming of the Cumans that the Pechenegs, coming by way of Belgrade of the Bulgarians, swam across the river Sava into the plain of Bazios: and, plundering no small number of captives and booty, carried them off into their own land. This cause of the war Bonfini sets forth thus at page 209: Scarcely had they passed the third year (the princes in peace) when behold, a grievous war arises from Moesia. For the Bessi and the Bulgarians, who dwell along lower Moesia and the mouths of the Danube, as we said above, having crossed the Sava at Taurunum, which they now call Belgrade (commonly Belgrad at this time), pour into Syrmia and lower Pannonia, plunder everything, drive off the cattle along with the men: and, having recrossed the river, withdraw into Bulgaria laden with plunder. The studious reader will easily notice that the writers we have praised do not agree: for the former makes the Pechenegs or Bessi the only plunderers, and extends Bulgaria, through which he says they came, as far as the Sava, and includes within it Belgrade itself or present-day Belgrad. Bonfini, on the contrary, makes the Bulgarians and the Bessi

burst in together, and pass through the dominion of the Greeks, to whom he attributes Belgrade. But the first account is to be preferred, from which Bonfini departed because he believed that Belgrade then belonged to the Greeks, whereas it appears to have belonged to the Bulgarians, as I have proved on the second of September in the treatment of St. Stephen, §30, where I also showed that the Bessi at that time dwelt in present-day Bosnia, and not at the mouths of the Danube, as Bonfini here says; indeed I there gave Bonfini's own words, asserting that the Bessi inhabited the region nearest the Sava, … which, with a letter dropped, they called Bosna from the Bessi.

[44] These things I wished to observe, lest anyone should imagine, from Bonfini's words, who wrongly mixes into this war not only the Greeks but also the Thracians and the Macedonians, [Solomon, having declared war on the Bulgarians, advances with his column to the Sava,] that the war was waged with the subjects of the Greek emperor. Greeks indeed may have been present who were subject to the Bulgarians and dwelling at Belgrade and in Servia; the war, however, was not with the Greeks, but with the Bessi, and with the Bulgarians on account of the passage granted to the plundering Bessi through Belgrade, formerly called Greek, but then commonly called Bulgarian, and perhaps on account of help given to them. These things being observed, let us hear Thuroczy: But the King (Solomon) and the duke (Geisa) laid the charge of betrayal upon Belgrade of the Bulgarians, on the ground that, having broken the peace, it had willingly permitted the freebooters of the Bessi to plunder Hungary. And so, having gathered their armies, they came together at Slankamen, where, deliberating in council, they decreed that the traitorous Belgrade must be besieged and stormed. These things Bonfini explains a little more fully in these words: The princes of Hungary say that the men of Belgrade were the authors of this evil, against whose will the Bulgarians and Bessi could never have crossed into Hungary: wherefore they are most sharply branded with the charge of treason. And this seemed the more grievous to the Hungarians, that from neighbors, and those friends, from whom it least became them, they should receive devastations, plunderings and burnings; they were charged with having broken the treaty and the peace. Accordingly war was declared upon the men of Belgrade by the King and duke Geysa through heralds. A levy was held in both Pannonias, and the first troops came together at the village of Slankamen, which is situated below Buda near the Danube at the seventieth milestone. There a camp was first made, and the army increased with legions and auxiliaries: and there was debate about avenging the treason of the men of Belgrade; at last it was first decreed to lay siege; and then, the camp having been moved, they came all the way to the Sava.

[45] and the Sava, the enemy resisting in vain both in their ships and on the bank, Thuroczy begins to narrate the King's expedition thus: Thence moving camp, they went down along the river Sava directly opposite Nándorfehérvár. And an edict went out from the King and the duke that the whole army of the Hungarians should cross the river Sava into Bulgaria as swiftly as possible. But the Greeks and Bulgarians, sailing in their cutters, by means of engines (that is, machines) blew sulphurous fires into the ships of the Hungarians, and set them on fire upon the very waters. But the fire-vomiting Greeks were overcome by the Hungarians on account of the multitude of ships with which they had covered the river. And when the Greeks and Bulgarians fled, the Hungarians crossed and seized the territories of the Bulgarians. And the King and the duke crossed the Sava on the second day of the week, and when morning came they arranged their battle-lines; and with their companies filled up and their shields everywhere linked together by squadrons, they besieged the city. Of these things Bonfini writes thus: After they had halted on the bank of the river, at the first hour of the day an edict was promulgated that all should cross the Sava and besiege Belgrade. The soldiers do what is commanded quicker than the word. The Bulgarians, Thracians, Macedonians and Greeks, who had come together there for the sake of defending the city, began to oppose them; and especially the Greeks, who had come up the Danube with a river fleet, strove by throwing in fire to burn the Pannonian fleet, which had floated down with the stream.

[46] after the Bulgarians are overcome he takes his army across, The Hungarians, on the contrary, carried against the enemy by an irresistible current, relying on the multitude and strength of their ships, at once put out the flames that were thrown in with haircloths, leapt into the enemy's cutters, and hurled one another into the waters; they attack these with javelins and those with swords, refusing no danger; but kindled by favorable fortune, they pant for nothing more than the enemy's blood. And when the enemy could not withstand those who were rushing upon their vessels, all were dragged and mingled together. At last, the Greek fleet being partly sunk and partly captured, those who survived were forced to turn their backs. While they carry on this naval battle, no less a battle is joined on the bank of the Sava. At last the Bulgarians with their auxiliary troops, being driven back thence by the Hungarians, were soon routed and put to flight; for, dismayed by the naval victory and disheartened by these unfavorable auspices, they had no confidence that they would fight successfully. The enemy therefore being driven back by land and water, the Pannonians invaded Bulgaria, which had usurped both Moesias for itself: and having laid the region waste far and wide, they returned on the third day and surround Belgrade. Thus far Bonfini, who has amplified the earlier account not a little, especially that battle on the river Sava. For he brings on, as it were, two fleets fighting it out, and seems to hint that the fleet of the Greeks had been brought thither from the Black Sea up the Danube against the stream.

[47] some things in Bonfini's account corrected. But since the Greek emperor was not mixed up in this war, Bonfini improbably brought on a fleet of the Greeks, as also the Thracians and Macedonians. The Greeks under the rule of the Bulgarians at Belgrade and in Servia — which Bonfini himself just now calls Bulgaria, because it was at that time subject to the Bulgarians — had gathered together some lighter vessels, which Thuroczy rightly calls cutters, and they used them not to engage in a naval battle, but to set fire to the ships of the Hungarians, and so to hinder the crossing of the Hungarians partly from their vessels, partly from the opposite bank. Now the hope of the Greeks seems to have been placed chiefly in the Greek fire, hardly yet known to other nations, which was fed rather than extinguished by water, and for that reason was especially fit for setting ships alight. That fire the Greeks, who were its first inventors, hurled at close quarters through bronze tubes, and at a distance by engines. They used cutters, therefore, in order to come nearer to the ships of the Hungarians, and, when these had been set on fire, to withdraw swiftly when it was necessary. Nor does it seem to be doubted that on the bank they attempted to throw the same fire into the approaching ships. But the valor and the multitude of the Hungarians brought it about that the Greeks could not by that attempt hinder the crossing, although they probably set fire to not a few ships. What I have here said briefly about Greek fire, I have proved a little more fully in the treatment of St. Louis, in volume V of August, page 701, where from Vitry I said that that fire could scarcely be extinguished except with vinegar, and men's urine, and sand.

[48] What the besieged men of Belgrade did, Thuroczy sets forth thus: The Hungarians cut down near Belgrade the Bessi The Greeks therefore and the Bulgarians, fearing that danger from the siege was hanging over them, asked the Pechenegs by secret messengers to come to their aid without fear, on the ground that neither the King nor the duke had besieged their city, but only count Vid with the soldiers of Bács had attacked them. The Bessi therefore, led astray by their fraudulent words, came in haste to their aid; and enticed by desire of the booty, of which they hoped to be sharers when count Vid had been defeated, they rushed upon the columns of the men of Sopron, whose commander was a count by the name of Ian. But he, together with the men of Sopron, overcame this assault of the Bessi manfully and bravely, very many of them being laid low by the edge of the sword, and the remainder of them carried off into captivity. The prince of the Pechenegs, by name Kazar, with a very few men barely escaped the hands of the Hungarians by flight. The King therefore and the duke bestowed upon that same soldier Ian many royal gifts and worthy thanks with royal liberality, because he had crushed many thousands of the Pechenegs, as a most clear stone crushes earthen vessels, before the King and the duke with their army had lifted their heads from their breakfast. And while the King and the dukes Geysa and Ladislaus were sitting upon a rock which is nearest to that city, the Hungarians began to present to them the captured Pechenegs and the heads of the slain, and the horses and the baggage, which on the fourth day of the week from morning until the decline of noon they could not fully accomplish. And this was done for this reason, that the Greeks and Bulgarians who were besieged, seeing the Pechenegs, in whom they had hoped, so cruelly cut down by the Hungarians, might be afraid and surrender themselves along with the city to the King and the dukes.

[49] These things Bonfini has expressed more faithfully than the preceding, in this manner: who came to the help of the Bulgarians; The Greeks and Bulgarians shut up in the city, dreading the danger hanging over them from the siege, secretly advise the Bessi by letters to come to their aid, since the siege would be of small importance, asserting that the city was besieged neither by the King nor by duke Geysa, but only by Vid, a royal count and commander of a legion, with the cohorts of Bács. Accordingly they beg them to bring timely help and to free Belgrade from the siege. The Bessi, led by a foolish credulity, having got together a hastily levied army, suddenly come to the rescue. And after they had approached the enemy's camp, since they had long believed that they would win an assured victory, roused by desire of plunder, they rushed upon the posts of the men of Sopron, whose commander was Janus, and attack them off their guard. But these, sustaining the charge of the Bessi with a brave spirit, in a very short time cut down those who stood in the front line and made the rest give way. When this had happened, they fought so ill that a great part of them was lost and the rest captured: scarcely was the prince of the Bessi, whose name was Cæsar, allowed to escape with a few. Janus, for the deed well done, is presented by Solomon and Geysa with many gifts, likewise with estates and honors: the booty was granted to the soldiers, and ten sesterces distributed to each man. When on a high place before the city the King was reclining with the princes on that day on which battle was joined with the enemy, whence they could easily be seen by the townsmen, behold, the soldiers brought the heads of the slain, likewise the horses and the spoils of the enemy, before the King's table, and there counted over the heads that had been brought, in order that by this savage and grim spectacle they might turn the minds of the townsmen away from obstinacy and bring them round to surrender: which lasted from about the hour of breakfast until sunset. In these things what chiefly displeases me is that he says the heads of the slain were brought before the King's table: for Thuroczy does not have this, but only says that they were brought to the rock or hill on which the King had his camp with the duke.

[50] Belgrade is encircled by a siege and long assaulted, About the assault on the city Thuroczy writes thus: Further, the King and the dukes, observing the places more suitable for storming the city, ordered the carpenters to build there eight wooden towers, twice exceeding the height of the walls: whence the soldiers might hurl stones and arrows into the midst of the city upon the men. And between the towers they set up as many engines for destroying the walls. They also made long mantlets for defending the entrances of the towers, and other instruments of war. And so in certain places they destroyed its walls down to the foundation, but they could not take the city itself, because most valiant warriors defended it from within. And so they besieged the city for two months, within which they often engaged with the Saracens coming out of the city; and of them they killed some and put others to flight. After this three most valiant and most daring Saracens leap forth from the city, and with javelins, lances and arrows made a hard

onslaught upon the Hungarians. But Solomon, the King's crossbowman, struck one of them down like a thunderbolt with a shot of his crossbow, whose corpse the Hungarians strove to carry off: but his comrades, fighting fiercely about the aforesaid body, defended it. And the King and the duke, seeing their struggle, say to the soldiers standing about: “Would that the blood and heart of the Maccabees would boil up in the soldiers, who might defend the Hungarians from these Saracens, fighting boldly for the defense of the citadel, so that the Hungarians might carry off the Saracen's corpse!” Hearing this, Opus, Gregory and Bors, warlike soldiers, with a swift onset rushed upon them like a lightning-flash. And Opus, pursuing them all too boldly, drove them in flight right up to the gates of the city. The fighters kept hurling stones and arrows from the ramparts of the city: Opus, however, returned unhurt. Meanwhile George [*] and Bors urged on the Hungarians, who carried off the body of the Saracen and cast it out in dishonor.

[51] it is bravely defended for two months, Bonfini narrates the same things in a slightly different way, thus: After this there was debate among the nobles about the assault on the city. At last it seemed good to the princes to erect eight towers round about in the fashion of forts, which should overtop the walls by far: whence not only might the townsmen be dislodged from the ramparts and the wall, but weapons and stones might also be hurled into the middle of the city; and to fortify these alongside with mantlets and other engines: likewise to set out engines of war between the towers, to bring up sheds and rams, to move forward mantlet-sheds, and to arrange the other things that would serve for demolishing the walls. When all the engines of war had been set out in order, they first shake the city, open the walls in many places, and then, with the line drawn up, advance under the walls. On the other side, the enemy begin to fend them off from the walls and to hurl some of them down into the ditch below. But when they perceive that the city, fortified by its garrison, its position and by art, cannot easily be taken, they bend their minds to demolishing the ramparts and walls to the very ground, and surround it with a palisade and ditch, so that nothing could be carried out or in: then they set about shaking the walls with ram, mantlet-shed, and the other engines to such a degree that they truly never ceased until they saw the walls levelled with the ground. And when they had attempted to storm it, they perceived that it was defended by so strong a garrison that they could not only not confine the enemy within the walls, but could not even endure them at times when they burst out unexpectedly. The sixtieth day is now spent in the siege, and yet they had made no progress. Often, when the townsmen came out of the city, a battle all too bloody was fought on both sides, but they were partly cut down, partly driven back inside.

[52] A little later three Bulgarians, endowed with no less strength than daring, the besieged from time to time bursting out of the city; leap out of the city. One rages with javelins, another with a lance, a third with arrows. Attacking some of them unawares, they deal grievously with them. A certain Solomon, a royal mounted crossbowman, pierces one of these with a mortal wound and lays him low on the ground. Him, as he lay dying, the Hungarians strove to carry off, and his comrades on the other side to drag him back. While he is thus pulled to and fro, and seems to be sufficiently held back by his own men, the King at once exclaims: Would that such valor were in these men as was in our ancestors, relying on which they would now defend the Hungarian cause! When the soldiers heard this, three of the Hungarians rushed upon them in turn: of whom they record that one was Opus, the second George, the third Bors. They attack with such force and fierceness that they were at once forced to turn their backs. Opus pursues them right up to the gates, but, driven back by the weapons and stones of the townsmen, he returned unhurt to the camp. The corpse, snatched from the enemy, was at George's and Bors's urging dragged off by the Hungarians with a hook and thrown into the places of excrement. These things are certainly more Latin than the preceding, but the others are perhaps truer. For the Saracens Bonfini substitutes Bulgarians, because he believed there were no Saracens at Belgrade: I do not see, however, why some mercenary Saracens could not have served among the Bulgarians.

[53] The occasion of the city's storming and the storming itself Thuroczy reports in these words: in the third month, a fire having arisen in the city, it But in the third month of the siege a certain Hungarian girl, formerly carried off thither in captivity, on the fourth day of the week set fire to the city. Now the east wind was blowing most violently, and the flames seized upon all the buildings. And so the army of the Hungarians rushed into the city on that side where its walls had already fallen down by the engines, and cruelly slaughtered the Greeks, Saracens and Bulgarians. And those who remained fled with Nicota their leader into the citadel. The Hungarians therefore, when the city had been taken, on the following day, after the fire had settled, seeing the pits of the Greeks, went down and carried away thence much gold and silver, precious stones and most brilliant gems; and a treasure well-nigh beyond estimation, in the division of which discord arose between the King and the duke; and there was no one among the Hungarians who was not enriched there.

[54] Let us hear Bonfini too about these things: They had scarcely entered upon almost the third month of the siege, is stormed by force by the Hungarians, who obtain much booty; when a Pannonian maiden, taken captive in the district of Syrmia and claimed into slavery at Belgrade, (whether this was done by chance or on purpose to avenge her captivity, I have not sufficiently ascertained) secretly stirred up a fire in the city, which, as the east wind blew, was increased so far that it soon seemed to rage far and wide. The Hungarians go up into the city on that side where the readier approach was offered by the demolished walls. They cut down the Bulgarians, Greeks and Bessi who first met them. The rest, turning to flight, withdraw with Nicota their leader into the citadel. The city being taken, and the fire settling on the following day, a great many treasures hidden under the earth lay revealed. In very many places they find pits, in which they had buried gold, gems, precious stones, silver, and costly cloaks. So great an abundance of riches was discovered that no soldier went away unenriched. Wherefore discord arose between Solomon and Geysa. Whether the Bessi were in the city, whom Bonfini adds to the Greek inhabitants and the Bulgarian masters, may be doubted, since Thuroczy, who is earlier, has made no mention of them.

[55] the citadel also, on agreed terms, There follows the surrender of the citadel, of which Thuroczy writes thus: Further, those shut up in the citadel asked the King and the dukes that they would grant them life and liberty, and claim the citadel and everything else for themselves. And so, when the hands of the King and the dukes had been stretched out as a pledge of good faith that they would harm them no further, all who were in the citadel came down. But duke Nicota, carrying a silver image of the most holy Mother of God, Mary ever Virgin, coming with a great multitude of the people, put himself into the power of duke Geysa. For they knew that duke Geysa was devoted to God, and that he cherished captives and the afflicted with a heart of mercy. But to the hands of king Solomon few came, because they knew that he was austere and gave ear in everything to the very worst counsels of count Vid. This Vid was detestable to God and to men. And when the King saw that more of them had fled to the duke, but few to himself, he was greatly indignant. And when they had returned with the inestimable treasure, they came to the village of Buzias, to Vid's estate: and they wished to divide the treasure and the captives, and also those who had come over to their good faith from the castle. But since the duke opposed the King in this, they could not divide it. This, then, was the cause of the evils and the seed-plot of discord between them. Besides, when they were dividing the treasure, the King, on the counsel of Vid and of bishop Franck and of Rodoan the son of Bugar and of Ilia the son-in-law of Vid, divided it into four parts, and gave the fourth part to the duke, so that of the remaining three he might keep one for himself with his soldiers, the second for Vid, and the third for Ilia: whence the duke was greatly aggrieved. These were the beginnings of the discords, which afterwards took increase from other causes.

[56] is surrendered to Solomon: Bonfini narrates the same things thus: But those who had fled into the citadel promise its surrender, if, leaving behind their baggage and giving back the citadel, they be granted at least their life and liberty. Their word being given, the King and Geysa order them to withdraw from the place and to depart freely. When this had been done, Nicota first, carrying before him the image of the divine Mother, with the garrison crowd following after, came down from the citadel: and entreating by the divinity of the gracious Virgin, he threw himself at the feet of Geysa, whom he knew to be most religious and most devout. Few fell at the King's knees, since they had heard that he was harsh and gave ear to the pernicious counsels of count Vid, who (he means Vid) was reported to be both a despiser of the gods and a plotter against men. When the King saw that more of the surrendered enemy came to Geysa than to himself for the sake of imploring their safety, he is most violently disturbed in mind, and is consumed alike by anger and by envy. Nor was it possible to find any sufficiently probable ground for the affront.

[57] Belgrade being taken and the camp broken up, while they retrace their journey into Hungary, discord arose between Solomon and Geisa. they turned aside into the village of Buzias and the estates of Vid. And when the King wished there to divide the booty, the spoils, and the captives who had surrendered from the citadel, nothing could be done because of Geysa's intervention, at which the King was the more inflamed. Hence the beginning of dissension and discord grows. It was agreed to divide there, with no one opposing, the treasure found at Belgrade. On the counsel of Vid, and of Rhodanus son of Busar, likewise of Ilia, Vid's son-in-law, and of bishop Franck, a fourfold division was made. To the King fell the first, to Vid the second, to Ilia the third, to Geysa the fourth. Whence he is seized with the utmost indignation. So Bonfini, who does not seem to set forth that division correctly, as if Geisa had had his part after the counts Vid and Ilia, which Thuroczy does not say. But, whatever be the case about that division, there does not yet appear in all these matters a cause of discord so great as afterwards arose. From everything, however, it is gathered that Geisa was scarcely willing to yield to Solomon in any matter, and that the King took this ill, and perhaps not undeservedly. But whether count Vid was such a man as he is reported to be by the writers we have praised, I should not venture to declare.

* presently Gregory

§ V. The discord between the King and Geisa increasing, war arises between them: Geisa at last prevails and claims the kingdom for himself.

[ ] The cause of the dissension between Solomon and Geisa is not sufficiently known: We have heard certain beginnings of the discords between king Solomon and duke Geisa, his cousin; but from them we can with difficulty understand which of the two was the chief author of the dissension. More destructive seeds of war followed, but it remains equally uncertain to me by whose fault they grew at last into open wars. The authors indeed whom we have in hand seem to transfer the blame to Solomon or to Solomon's counsellors; but from the sequence of the events it is not clear to me that Solomon was at fault, or gave any occasion on which Geisa might justly leap to arms, or hold the King suspect of treachery. On the contrary, from everything that is reported by the writers, it appears to me rather that Solomon always acted with moderation. For if he had indulged too much the suspicions which he might have entertained on account of the kingdom snatched from his father and from himself by Bela, and on account of the arms taken up by Geisa with the help of the Poles to claim the kingdom for himself in like manner — if, I say, he had given rein to these and other suspicions, and had always kept fresh the memory of the injuries formerly received, he would not have lived for almost ten years in the greatest

peace and concord with his cousins. Wherefore I altogether doubt whether the blame for that war was justly cast upon Solomon, or even upon his companions. That this was done, however, we ought not to wonder at, since the opposite party prevailed, and there was then no one to defend Solomon's cause.

[59] This observation being premised, let us hear Thuroczy, in chapter 51 pursuing the occasions of the dissensions: Meanwhile, he says, the emperor of the Greeks, having heard of the liberality of duke Geysa, sent envoys to him to establish peace and friendship. for they begin to narrate it in an improbable manner, And the duke sent back to him all the captives, and all who had come down from the citadel. But to king Solomon the king of the Greeks sent nothing at all. Whence also king Solomon blazed more and more against duke Geysa with the torches of envy. Bonfini, who had perhaps read nothing else about these matters, has this: The emperor of the Greeks, having heard of duke Geysa's liberality and clemency, enters into a treaty with him through go-betweens. Wherefore all who had made their surrender from the citadel were released by Geysa. On the contrary, all who had come as suppliants to Solomon were, in violation of the law of surrender, claimed into captivity by him. These seem to be fables. For Thuroczy as well as Bonfini assert that the surrender of the citadel of Belgrade was made on this compact, that liberty should be granted to the garrison. Geisa would have acted against this compact if he had kept them captive until the embassy from Constantinople came. But how foolish the fiction is, the studious reader will easily understand from what I have already observed before, that that war was not waged against the emperor of the Greeks, but against the prince of the Bulgarians. The garrison of the citadel could not therefore be sent back to the emperor of the Greeks, since he had had no garrison there. Nor do I doubt that that embassy to the duke is asserted through an error, because perhaps the Greek emperor sent envoys to Geisa when he was afterwards reigning. For anyone who knows the pride of the Greek emperors will not easily believe that envoys were sent by them to a prince subject to a King, such as Geisa was.

[60] and the Hungarian writers put forward various uncertain things. The second cause of the discord is less improbable, although it may also be doubted whether count Vid, who is said to have suggested pernicious counsels to the King, did not have just reasons for suspecting evil of Geisa. Count Vid too, says Thuroczy, persistently urged the King to expel duke Geysa and claim his duchy for himself; and he said that this could easily be done, on the ground that the King had many more soldiers than the duke: and he suggested that it must not be deferred but rather hastened: and he led the King astray with this proverb: “As two sharp swords cannot be held in the same scabbard, so neither can you two reign together in the same kingdom.” The King therefore, infected by the venomous words of count Vid, conceived hatred and rancor. And so from that time he was seeking an opportunity either of taking duke Geysa by treachery or of overcoming him in war. Yet the King dissembled, and with feigned friendship let the duke go away into his duchy. The same things against count Vid Bonfini brings forward in other words; nor can we doubt that such things were flung against Solomon and Vid after the one had fallen and the other had begun to seek only the more abiding kingdom in heaven — indeed even as soon as Geisa had prevailed. But I do not care to pass judgment on matters so uncertain, especially since the facts stand rather against Geisa, who seems to have been the first to look to foreign help, and who from the beginning after Bela's death had thought of invading the kingdom.

[61] But certainly Solomon and Geisa held each other suspect, Thuroczy proceeds in chapter 52 in this manner: After these things, therefore, the King sent to both dukes, that both together should come to the King and set out with an army against Nyr, a castle of the Greeks. For the King craftily intended to destroy them, so that, if he could take both of them unawares, he might for the rest be secure. But the dukes, perceiving the King's treachery (or perhaps suspecting it without just reason), took cautious counsel for themselves. Ladislaus with half the army remained in the parts of Nyr. Some error certainly lurks in the word Nyr, either here or before and after, since they are said to have set out against Nyr, and Ladislaus to have remained there. But let us go on with Thuroczy: Geysa, however, set out with the King, and they did not dare to inflict any trouble upon him, because they did not doubt that Ladislaus would be his brother's avenger with a strong hand.

[62] Meanwhile the men of Nyr abundantly offered much in gold and silver and precious cloaks to the King and the duke of Nyr. and having been reconciled for a time, Then, returning from the city of Kene, the King and the duke parted from one another. And Ladislaus, by his brother's counsel, went from the city of Bihar into Russia, to seek the help of his friends, so as to fortify himself beforehand against the King's machinations. For the wrong and the discord between the King and the dukes had already become known to all. After this, armies having been gathered and messengers frequently sent, at last the King and the duke came to Esztergom, and there, by agreement [*], each of them with only eight men among bishops and princes, they sailed to an island near the city to confer. And when they had long excused and accused one another there, at last, a treaty of peace having been ratified, Geysa returned into his duchy; but the King came to Székesfehérvár.

[63] After this the King sent to Geisa duke Vid, detestable to God, and the gentle Ernei: whom Geysa caused to be carefully guarded for fear of Vid's treachery. The duke also sent to the King the bishop of Várad and the worthless Vatha: whom the King likewise caused to be guarded. they sent hostages on both sides. These were without doubt sent as hostages on both sides. But if the writers deservedly declaim against Vid because he strongly opposed himself to Geisa's ambition, and of whom certainly no other crimes have become known, with far better right would they cry out against Vatha, who was certainly a most wicked man, and who had formerly brought idolatry back into Hungary, after killing the priests. And so Geisa's counsellors were perhaps far worse than Solomon's. Certainly that Solomon was unjustly driven from the kingdom Geisa himself acknowledged before his death; and everything abundantly hints that Geisa was the more cautious, and the more adroit in winning over to himself the minds of the Hungarians; but that Solomon, being a young man, was endowed with less prudence. I pass over the words of Bonfini, who narrates the same things in a somewhat different way, and return to Thuroczy, who pursues the occasion of the broken peace.

[64] But the King went from the village of Megyer toward the river Rábca to meet three German dukes, Then, the hostages having been sent back, Solomon is said whom he was expecting as a help to himself against duke Geysa. But because the duke had neither his brother present nor the help of his friends, he sent Vid and Ernei to the King, a truce having been granted from the feast of St. Martin (that is, the eleventh of November) until the feast of St. George (that is, the twenty-third of April). Hearing this, the King sent back Vatha and the bishop of Várad. How the truce here asserted hangs together with the peace just related, I do not sufficiently perceive. But that writer whom Bonfini everywhere follows leaves many other things obscure. Let us nevertheless go on with him: Further, at that time the King celebrated Christmas in the place which is called Twin-Castle: then he came to Zala, where Marcharth, duke of the Germans, and Vid urged the King to overcome the duke in war. For Vid suggested this and the like to the King: “Behold, now you can easily and without doubt overcome the duke, because he is destitute of all help; and if you put off attacking him until the truce that has been granted, there will be hope of his escaping.” And when king Solomon had come to Szekszárd and had pitched camp above the place Kestelci, he came to hear Vespers in the monastery of the Holy Savior.

[65] But after Vespers in the monastery Vid and the others gave counsel to the King, urged on by his own men to crush saying: “Lord, know that Ladislaus has gone into Russia, and Lampert into Poland, to hire an army for their brother duke Geysa. We have often given you counsel: and now let us come upon the duke, who is hunting at Igfon: in the silence of the night let us make an attack upon him: let us take him and pluck out his eyes, so that when Ladislaus and Lampert come, or bring an army with them, they may not be able to stand against us. And when they hear these things, they will not even dare to enter the kingdom. And you can do it, because all his counsellors are faithful to you, and you will give the duchy to me, and thus you will make your crown secure.” The King, hearing this, promised that he would think about it until Matins, and the counsel was pleasing in his eyes. But the abbot of that place, by name Villerinus the Latin, who was shut up in a hidden place in the monastery, as though praying to God, heard the counsel that was taken. He at once sent a messenger to the duke, and letters, that he should beware of the King. But when the messenger had come to the duke, there were there wicked counsellors and betrayers of the duke himself, namely Petrud, Zounuk, and Bykas, who said: “Lord duke, do not be afraid; for the abbot is a drunkard.” And they said this because they wished to betray the duke into Solomon's hands.

[66] Geisa off his guard; But the duke, trusting in them, went on hunting in that same place, namely at Igfon; but he sent his brother Ladislaus into Bohemia — for by then he had already returned from Russia without help — to ask Otto, duke of the Bohemians, to aid them in the necessity in which they were placed. On the same morning, when the King had appointed to think the matter over, when they had come to Matins, that same abbot hid himself in the monastery so as to hear the counsel, because he was faithful to the duke, since he had been the son of the founder of his church. Matins therefore having been sung, when all had gone out, the King and Vid remained there, and appointed just such a plan as Vid had recommended to the King to carry out. And the aforesaid abbot had heard this, and at once laying aside his monastic habit and putting on a layman's, and girding on a sword, he mounted a horse and came with all speed to the duke, whom he found sleeping in the morning, and roused him, saying: “Flee, duke, and if you do not flee, Solomon's soldiers are drawing near at once to take you.” But the duke, having gathered his army, wished to go with all speed into the parts of Bohemia for his brother Ladislaus, but the King was coming to meet him. And Vid ruled the King as a master rules a pupil: and he was subject to him by right without any right at all: which is to be guarded against by all men, but most of all by kings; and, coaxed by the counsel of the most wicked and treacherous Vid, he moved his army against the duke. All these things Bonfini adopted. But if anyone wishes to hear my judgment on the whole account, I shall declare it frankly: it seems a mere fable, ineptly patched together out of the slanders scattered against Solomon and Vid.

[67] [but the whole account, and much in the whole account, does not seem to be free of fictions.] Certainly so many things are found asserted in the whole account, and likewise in what follows, that are improbable and incredible, that one would have to throw away all critical judgment if one wished to admit every detail as true. It is incredible, first, that the King should have dealt about so grave a matter as is feigned to have been brought into council in such a way with counsellors

of his own that an abbot could have understood everything, and especially when the King is asserted to have declared his mind after the Matins prayers to Vid alone. It is incredible again that the abbot changed his habit and, girt with a sword and clothed in a soldier's cloak, set out to Geisa, or dared to go out of his monastery, since the King had his camp there. It is incredible, thirdly, that Geisa, a prudent man, when he had long since sent his brother into Russia to obtain help, should have been of so untroubled a mind in the neighborhood of the King's camp, even when he had been warned of the danger by letters, as to give his attention to hunting. It is incredible, fourthly, that count Vid was of such impudence as at the same time to propose Geisa's ruin to the King and to demand for himself Geisa's duchy, that is, a third part of the kingdom. If we only consider that Thuroczy is almost four centuries later than the events, and mixed many other fabulous things into his Chronicle, as I have frequently detected by comparing older and better documents with his Chronicle, both on the second of September in the treatment of St. Stephen the king and on the twenty-fourth of the same month in the treatment of St. Gerard, bishop and martyr — from all these things we shall scarcely be able to prove anything else than that war was brought upon Geisa by Solomon, and that this was done chiefly by the counsel of count Vid. Almost all the rest will suit some tragedy better than history.

[68] What follows about the first battle does not seem much more probable, Battle being joined, Geisa is conquered, as the studious reader will easily perceive: for at once Geisa, who is exhibited before as it were unarmed, comes forth well armed, and is represented as conquered almost by the treachery of his commanders alone. But the duke, he says, met the King with his army at Kemej. But the princes of the duke, or rather traitors, sent messengers secretly to the King, saying: “That if the King would keep them in their dignities and receive them into favor, they would in the battle leave the duke and flock over to the King.” And the King assured them of this by an oath he swore, and then in security crossed the frozen Tisza against the duke. And when they had drawn near to battle, the King armed himself at the church of the son of Nog, and gathered his columns for fighting, and made an assault upon the duke, and overcame the duke, who had been fraudulently deprived of the help of his own men. But Geysa's princes Petrud and Bykas in the very battle turned over to Solomon with three columns of the camp, as they had promised him. But duke Geysa, although he had been deprived of the greatest part of his army, yet did not shrink, attended by one column only, from joining a most savage battle against Solomon's thirty columns. And the traitors as they fled raised their shields as the sign which they had given to the King — like Judas the traitor, who had given a sign — so that the soldiers might not pursue them. But the King's army, unaware of the sign of the treachery, and seeing the duke's columns flee, pursued them to their destruction, so that scarcely a very few of those traitors escaped death: and would that none of them had escaped, who had most wickedly betrayed their lord and benefactor!

[69] But when all his soldiers were perishing, the duke withdrew from the battle; he flees to Ladislaus, who was approaching with the Bohemians. and he crossed the Tisza at Chotoyd. And he sent Black George, his chaplain, to his brother Ladislaus, that he should hasten to him as quickly as he could. And Ivanc, his lettered clerk, he sent to Lampert. So Thuroczy, from whose words it is abundantly clear either that he himself was altogether devoted to Geisa, or rather that he used documents whose authors were devoted to Geisa's party and opposed to Solomon, so that we cannot doubt that Geisa's deeds were exaggerated in them, and the slanders scattered against Solomon by his enemies were adopted. Bonfini again adopted everything and expressed it in his own style. Further, it is difficult to assign all the places that are mentioned. The battle is certainly placed at the Tibiscus, a very well-known river of Hungary. What Thuroczy says, that the armies met one another at Kemej, Bonfini expresses as "in the district of Csemej." And Geisa, fleeing, is said to have crossed the Tibiscus at Chotoyd, or, as Bonfini has it, to have fled into the district of Chotoyd. But presently both bring Geisa to Vác, and Ladislaus meeting him there with a Bohemian army. I confess that I cannot reconcile these things with correct geography, and much less understand in what way at last Ladislaus, having set out one or two days before the battle into Bohemia from the parts near the Tibiscus, as they will have it, to seek help, could have met Geisa near Vác with a Bohemian army so quickly as he is here asserted to have met him. Wherefore from all these things I should again venture to admit nothing as sufficiently ascertained, except that Geisa was conquered by Solomon before he received help from Bohemia. But if it is permitted to add a conjecture as well, it will not depart from probability if one conjectures that it was known to Solomon that a Bohemian column was being awaited by Geisa, and that he therefore hastened to battle in order to forestall the coming of the Bohemians.

[70] That battle, in which there was a great disaster for Geisa, I return to Thuroczy, who continues thus: And when Geysa had ridden as far as Vác, he met his brother Ladislaus and duke Otto, their sister's husband, coming with strong help. And when duke Geysa saw his brother Ladislaus, he wept for very great grief, because he had lost his good and faithful men, and he complained about the traitors. But Ladislaus, brave in spirit, comforted his brother, that he should not weep, but should rather entreat the clemency of Almighty God, that he might subject the Victor to the vanquished, as is the manner of wars. Now the King and the duke fought at Kemej before Lent, on the fourth day of the week after the Sunday on which Exsurge is sung. And in this battle Opus, son of Martin, of the family of Vecellinus, a glorious soldier, overcame in single combat a soldier of the duke, by name Peter, a most daring man upon a bay horse, going before the rest, conspicuous with gleaming corselet and gilded helmet, and challenging the soldiers to combat. For from Solomon's column Opus alone darted out against the aforesaid soldier upon a dun horse in a mail-covered corselet, and in the manner of a thunderbolt, the corselet being broken by the stroke of his lance, pierced Peter through the middle of the heart. And in the same battle Opus made so great a slaughter with the frequent strokes of his sword, that from the excessive to-and-fro of his blows his right hand had grown stiff and had stuck to the hilt of his sword.

[71] is fixed in the year 1074, on the twenty-sixth day of February. But king Solomon, and especially the Germans, marveled at the power and daring of Opus in the battle. The King therefore, having gained the victory, crossed the frozen Tisza at Thoroyd, and went down to the court of the son of Peter, and there he heard that Geysa had met the dukes Ladislaus and Otto, who were coming to him with a strong multitude of fighters. The epoch expressed above designates the twenty-sixth of February of the year 1074, as is gathered from Easter, which fell on the twentieth of April, and from the Dominical letter E. The author will have found that epoch in some ancient document. And from it it is further clear that the Bulgarian war, from which these dissensions arose, was waged in the year 1073. That the civil war of the Hungarians, and Solomon's disaster shortly to be related, fell in the year 1074 will be further confirmed from what is to be said below. For unless the year were established from elsewhere, the day could not be had from the fourth day of the week after Sexagesima Sunday alone, on which Exsurge is sung. Bonfini, following Thuroczy in the rest, only says that the battle happened at the beginning of spring, a little before the Lenten fast. He might have omitted the premature mention of spring, since he acknowledges that the Tibiscus was bound with ice.

[72] Thuroczy, about to proceed to the second battle, prefaces the counsels of the leaders, and after giving their words subjoins this: But the detestable Vid urged the King with these words: “We have lately destroyed his (Geisa's) army, we have killed the nobler men, we have struck fear into him. And now he has gathered slaves, he has assembled reapers, and has surrounded himself with a column of them. Solomon, having held a consultation, advances again against Geisa: We ought therefore in no way to doubt that we shall devour them in a moment. And as for the Bohemian column, all our comrades acquiescing in this, I with the men of Bács will visit them with the perils of an untimely death.” But Ernei, always a lover of peace, when he heard this, wept. And when Solomon saw him weeping, he said: “Count Ernei, it seems to me that you are faithful to the duke: only in pretense do you remain with me.” Ernei answered: “By no means, Lord: but I would not wish that you should fight with your cousins, and that soldiers should kill one another; son the father, or father the son.” Then Ernei said to count Vid: “You recommend the Lord to fight with his kinsmen, and you say that he has assembled scythemen and pitchfork-men. See that what a thousand scythemen cut, ten thousand pitchfork-men could not gather together, and without God they will not be able to number it. It befits us to die for the King; but it would be better that we should use a stronger counsel.” The King therefore, trusting in Vid's words, hastened with his army, and on the fourth day of the week went down to Rákos. Bonfini, agreeing almost with the rest, sets forth the last words thus: The King therefore, relying on Vid's counsel, having moved camp, on the fourth day went down into the plains spread out beside the Danube and Pest, where the royal assemblies are wont to be held, which from the name of crabs they call Rákos.

[73] Presently Thuroczy adds the following about the leaders of the opposing party: But Geisa waits near Vác with the Hungarians and Bohemians. But the dukes Geysa, Ladislaus and Otto too, and the whole army of the Hungarians which was with them, went down near Vác (on the same side of the Danube as Pest, toward Austria). Now there was there a great wood, and no one had dwelt in it except one hermit, by name Vacz, of holy life: and from his name duke Geysa gave the name to that city which was afterwards built there. When therefore the aforesaid army was awaiting Solomon in turn, the Dukes were one morning standing on horseback for the sake of taking counsel in the place where there is now the stone chapel of Bl. Peter the apostle, discussing how they were to fight. And while they were standing there, in broad daylight Bl. Ladislaus saw a vision from heaven, and said to Geysa the duke, his brother: Have you seen anything? He answered: Nothing. Then Bl. Ladislaus added: “While we were standing here in council, behold, an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, bearing a golden crown in his hand, and set it upon your head: whence I am certain that the victory will be given to us, and that Solomon, defeated, will flee an exile out of the kingdom. And the kingdom and the crown will be handed over to you by the Lord.” To whom Geisa said: “If the Lord God be with us, and keep us from our enemies, and this vision be fulfilled, I will build here in this place a church to the most holy Virgin Mary his Mother.” So he, and Bonfini after him things of the same sort. But of the truth of the vision related I can give no testimony, even though the sanctity of Ladislaus is abundantly established: for visions of this kind are frequently boasted of after the event, and therefore need an older testimony.

[74] Thuroczy proceeds: This being said, they moved camp and went down to the farmstead which is called Zingota. Both armies prepare themselves for battle, Now a certain mountain, by name Mogyoród,

lay between the armies. And when the fifth day of the week dawned they wished to fight; but the very dense darkness of a fog that came on hindered them. And on the following night, holding their war-horses by the reins in their hands, they awaited the sunrise. But at daybreak on the sixth day of the week the King, having arranged his columns, rode across the summit of mount Mogyoród; and he ordered the salt-carriers to remain on the side of that same mountain, so that the enemy, seeing their troops, might think that they were not baggage-trains but men stationed as a garrison. And Vid said: “As soon as they see our army, they will flee.” But the dukes too arranged their lines very early in the morning. And when Ladislaus was arming himself, he prostrated himself on the ground and besought the clemency of Almighty God, and made a vow to Bl. Martin, that if the Lord would grant him the victory, he would build in that same place a church in honor of Bl. Martin; which also was done.

[75] and Solomon, having begun the battle, Indeed they placed Ladislaus in the middle of the column of Bihar on the left side, and stationed Otto on the right; and Geysa they placed in the middle in the column of Nyitra. Besides, on each side they kept three times three columns, linking them together in fours. And when the King came down from the mountain, Geysa's army, which was on the lower ground, appeared more splendid than all the armies of Solomon. Seeing this, Ernei said to count Vid: “It is a wonder if those columns flee from before our face, since they would not have left the Danube behind their back: but I think that they have resolved either to conquer or to die.” And duke Ladislaus, sitting upon a tall horse before his army, turned his reins in a circle for the sake of exhorting and encouraging his men: and when he had touched a bramble with his lance, a certain most white ermine in a wonderful manner settled upon his lance, and running along it came right into his bosom.

[76] flees with an immense slaughter of his army; And when the battle had been joined, count Vid and the men of Bács were at the first stroke pitiably laid low by the Bohemians. But duke Ladislaus had exchanged his standards with the banner of duke Geysa, with this intention, that Solomon should the more boldly attack that column in which Geysa's standards were carried, thinking it to be Geysa's column, whom he had lately defeated. But duke Ladislaus was eager to guard his brother duke Geysa from Solomon's assault: and therefore he preferred to experience the first onsets of the battle upon himself. And so when the King had come to Ladislaus's column, and had recognized him, terrified with fear of him, he ordered the standard-bearers to turn the columns aside against the columns of duke Geysa. But Ladislaus, seeing that the King had turned aside from him through fear, himself first of all rushed upon the King's columns, and all his soldiers made an attack upon him from the rear. But on the other side duke Geysa with his men fiercely attacked the same men. And Ladislaus's soldiers shut up Solomon's columns — looking backward as though into curtains, and wounded by the terrible ringing of swords — in a cruel death. But on the other side Geysa's soldiers offered them the cups of a dreadful death. The Germans are cut down, the Latins flee and find no place for flight, and fall before the Hungarians like oxen in a slaughterhouse. But king Solomon, when almost all his men had been killed, fled away, and crossing the Danube at Zigetfen, came at last with Opus son of Martin to Moson, to his mother and his wife: and the army of the dukes pursued him and his men from morning until evening. For in the aforesaid battle not only the Germans and the Latins fell, but the greater part of the soldiery of the kingdom of Hungary also is said to have perished.

[77] the victory being left to Geisa: St. Ladislaus is said But the dukes Geysa and Ladislaus, exalted by divine gift with the triumph of victory, proclaimed praises thrice to God over the corpses of the slain. But duke Ladislaus, as he was always of surpassing piety, seeing so many thousands of the slain — although those who had been killed had been his enemies — nevertheless all his bowels were moved over them, and he wept for them bitterly, tearing his cheeks and his hair with great lamentation, like a mother at the funeral of her sons. Afterwards from their spoils the church of Mogyoród was built. And Marchart, duke of the Germans, and Semtepoling, duke of the Bohemians, were captured, their soldiers being killed and they themselves grievously wounded. And when Ladislaus was walking about, groaning among the corpses of the dead, seeing the corpse of count Ernei, he at once leapt down from his horse and embraced him, and weeping said to him: “Count Ernei, lover of peace, I grieve over you as over my own brother, because your heart and your counsel were full of peace.” And lifting him with his own hand, he kissed him, and ordered his soldiers to bury him honorably at Bács.

[78] And when the same Ladislaus was walking in another direction, he saw the corpse of Vid, to have taken care for the burial of Solomon's commanders. and said: “I grieve over your death, although you were always our enemy. Would that you had lived, and had been converted, and had established peace between us! But I wonder why, since you were not of the family of the dukes, you wanted a duchy; nor of the stock of kings, why you desired a crown. I see now that the heart which panted after a duchy lies pierced with a lance; and the head which desired a crown has been cleft with a sword.” And he ordered him too to be buried. All these things I judge to have been attributed to Ladislaus by the writers as being agreeable to the character of a most pious prince, and I see the same things wonderfully exaggerated by Bonfini. But whether they have any other foundation than the mere piety of Ladislaus, whom the writers we have praised set before themselves as one to be celebrated, I strongly doubt. I should, however, less disapprove of the praises lavished on Solomon's adversaries, if on their occasion Bonfini had not frequently censured Solomon, as if the whole blame for that war had been in him. But to me, considering only the facts and not the words with which Bonfini amplified Thuroczy, who is far more moderate, Geisa seems the more to be blamed than Solomon, who had already been cast down from the throne together with his own father by Bela, Geisa's father, and whom Geisa had likewise attempted from the beginning to cast down; so that we can the less wonder if Solomon held his ambition suspect, and attacked him in war when he was having recourse to the help of foreign princes.

[79] But the deed of Solomon's which follows, if it has not been invented by his rival slanderers, is truly disgraceful; What is asserted, that Solomon wished to strike his mother, but it is the only thing that I have thus far found certainly to be reprehended in his deeds. Thuroczy expresses it thus. And when Solomon had come to Moson, his mother, seeing him, wept over him as she ought over her only Son, who had been deprived by God of so many good things, and she rebuked him, saying: “Dearest son, you never listened to my counsel, nor to the counsel of Ernei, nor to the counsel of your other faithful men: but you always acquiesced in the counsel of Vid. And behold, you have destroyed yourself and your men. Did I not always recommend and say that the crown of Hungary was enough for you, and that you should give the duchy in peace to your cousins? But now Vid could not be duke: nor will you be crowned any more.” Hearing this, the King in anger wished to strike his mother in the face: but his wife held back his hand.

[80] This too Bonfini has; but I should not venture to admit as true a deed of itself so little probable, is uncertain and little probable. since it makes both the mother imprudent, who would have unseasonably added affliction to the afflicted, and the Son impious: for the crime would have been committed before the wife had thought of holding back his hand. There is added that improbable assertion which Thuroczy repeats everywhere, namely that Solomon wished to hand over Geisa's duchy to count Vid: for if Solomon had wished to reduce his rival Geisa to order so that he might reign more securely, he ought to have kept the whole kingdom for himself, and not to have created another rival duke. Finally, all hope of recovering the kingdom had not been so cut off from Solomon by that one disaster that the words alleged seem rightly attributed to his mother. He certainly still had the part of the kingdom near Austria, and in it two fortified castles, as is clear from the following words of Thuroczy. And on that same night he withdrew in haste to Moson and Pressburg, which castles he had long since fortified. His mother too and his wife, when he went into battle, he had left there. Perhaps other cities also were held by a garrison in Solomon's interest.

[81] Solomon was overcome in several battles in the year 1074: But now, if besides the writers of Hungarian affairs, who are too far removed from the time of the events to obtain certain credit, we should wish to consult others as well, we shall find that Solomon lost almost the whole of Hungary not by that single battle which has been related from them, but by several. Lambert of Hersfeld, who was living at that time, says at the year 1074 that Solomon asked help from Henry IV, king of Germany, when, having by then been beaten in three battles and having lost his army, he had barely escaped out of the kingdom. And that request for help is placed in the year 1074 between Easter and Pentecost. And so Solomon's disaster happened either in Lent, or at any rate not long after Easter of the year 1074; and Solomon seems not to have been so broken by the first battle that he did not renew the fight, his routed army being probably pursued by the dukes; unless perhaps smaller columns of Solomon's were cut down twice before the decisive battle. The year 1074, in which Lambert says these things were done, is confirmed by three Letters of Pope Gregory VII, given partly toward the end of the year 1074 and partly in the year 1075, namely to Solomon, to the queen his wife, and to Geisa. For all of these were given after Solomon lost the kingdom. Wherefore no doubt remains about the year of the event, and the same year is assigned by Baronius in his Annals and by Pagi in his Critica.

[82] but the origin of the war, though attributed by various writers to Solomon, But that Thuroczy does not deserve much credit in narrating the causes of that disastrous war, and that Bonfini is accustomed to amplify his assertions, I have already hinted on various occasions. Peter Ranzanus in chapter 10 touches briefly on everything in these words: Then, a few years having intervened, (Solomon) laid a plot against Geissa, by which he might be slain off his guard. For, led on by the depraved counsels of certain men whom he kept with him in his household, by whom he suffered himself to be ruled, he was leading a shameful and wicked life. But Geissa, being made more certain about the plot, altogether resolves not to suffer that injury to go unpunished. Having therefore got troops together, he strives to go with his brother Ladislaus against the King: and without delay, within a few days, without much danger to himself and his men, he overcomes him in battle: yet the King, being conquered, flees with a few of his men, and crossing the Danube makes first for Moson, then for Pressburg, in which town his mother and his wife were staying. When his mother saw him, she perceived that he was affected with immense grief, and accused him in rather harsh words, because he had listened too much, and more than was fitting — that is, to his own destruction and to the extreme perils of his own people — to the poison-bearing counsels of wicked men. This is a compendium of what others have narrated more fully. But I can scarcely doubt that

it all flowed from the things which Solomon's adversaries put about under the victors Geisa and Ladislaus and their descendants, and that therefore it appears at least uncertain, or too much exaggerated against Solomon.

[83] For of that treachery of Solomon's neither Lambert makes mention, remains uncertain from the older writers. nor Gregory VII, nor any contemporary or nearly contemporary writer whom I at any rate have been able to see. Dlugosz likewise does not assign that cause of the war, and his exposition appears to me far more probable from the facts which preceded and afterwards followed, when he writes thus at the year 1076: A great ill-will between Solomon, king of Hungary, on the one side, and the dukes Geisa and Wladislaus on the other, having first arisen from slight suspicions, was as time went on so nourished and so spread abroad that with standards joined they fought it out between themselves like the cruellest of men. And although in the first battle king Solomon was the superior, and duke Geisa and Wladislaus withdrew as beaten, yet afterwards Wladislaus, with Otto duke of Moravia bringing his brother Geisa comfort, conquered, and king Solomon, beaten in the war, withdrew to Poznań (rather, to Pressburg): and Geisa, in token of the victory, founds the cathedral church of Wacinum (he means Vác) — for there the battle was fought — which had been promised by vow before the battle, and by the favor of the Hungarians is crowned king of Hungary. The reasons alleged for the war please me the more in that they leave uncertain which party was the more at fault. That Geisa was crowned king the Hungarian writers also assert, nor does it seem to be doubted. But more doubtful is the foundation of the cathedral of Vác by Geisa, to whom Bonfini and Thuroczy attribute the foundation of the city itself as well. But Samuel Timon, in his Image of Ancient and Modern Hungary, chapter 8, judges that Vác is much older, and that its bishopric was erected by St. Stephen, and he alleges suitable reasons. He does not, however, deny that some church was built there by Geisa, and that it could afterwards have been the cathedral.

perhaps condicto*

§ VI. Solomon's various attempts to recover the kingdom, down to the death of Geisa.

[ ] Solomon, having taken his mother and his wife into Styria, Having lost almost the whole kingdom, Solomon did not at once lay aside the hope of reigning, but attempted various things to recover the kingdom. His first care, however, seems to have been about removing his mother and his wife to a safer place. Of the removal of the queens into Styria Thuroczy makes mention in chapter 54 thus: But afterwards king Solomon, fearing king Geysa and his brothers, entered Styria with his goods and household, and having left his mother and his wife in the cloister of Admont, returned to Moson, wishing to gather an army and invade his cousins. Bonfini at page 221 writes that the queens were taken by Solomon into Styria and left in a convent of nuns. From Styria, therefore, he will have sent envoys to Henry IV, king of Germany, who after Easter of the year 1074 learned of Solomon's renewed disaster and wished to come to his aid as soon as possible, while he was staying at Nuremberg.

[85] For Lambert says that Henry, having celebrated the paschal solemnity at Bamberg, he seeks help from Henry, king of Germany, went on to Nuremberg, in order to treat there with the legates of the supreme Pontiff Gregory VII; and having related what passed between him and the legates, he subjoins: The King, having dismissed the legates, was preparing to lead into Hungary an army not summoned in the solemn manner of an expedition, but gathered from suddenly and hastily levied soldiery, having learned that Solomon, king of the Hungarians, hindered [*] by war with Joias (that is, Geisa), son of Bela, and by then beaten in three battles, having lost his army, had barely escaped out of the kingdom. That he should come to the aid of his misery was to the advantage both of the kinship which he had contracted with him by giving him his sister in marriage, and of his own interests, because he had promised him a great part of his kingdom if by his kindness, the enemy being overcome, he were restored to the kingdom.

[86] [who wished at once to come to his aid: but deceived by a false report he withdrew.] These things clearly show that ample promises had been made to Henry, and that he wished at once to lead an army into Hungary: indeed that he was on the road, and had advanced from Nuremberg as far as Regensburg with a hastily collected army, which could be increased in its passage through Bavaria and Austria, is gathered from what follows. Help so sudden could raise Solomon's hope, and the season was most fit for warlike expeditions, since Henry had reached Regensburg some days before Pentecost, which he is afterwards said to have celebrated at Mainz. But a false report brought to Henry while he was at Regensburg broke off his expedition. It was said, namely, that the king of the English, induced by the archbishop of Cologne, was coming with an army, prepared to seize Aachen, the seat of the kingdom. The king, terrified by so dreadful a report, and thinking that care for his private affairs must be put before foreign business, gave up the expedition into Hungary and returned in haste to the Rhine. Thus by the fickleness of king Henry, who ought at least to have inquired first about the truth of the report brought to him, his expedition was put off for some months, which afterwards would be useless, but which then seemed likely to profit much.

[87] Ernest, margrave of Austria, bringing help, Meanwhile Ernest, margrave of Austria, who would without doubt have joined Henry, seems to have come to Solomon's assistance when Henry had deferred his expedition. For Thuroczy in chapter 53 narrates a certain victory of Solomon's thus: At that time the Pechenegs with one accord asked king Geysa that, if he would grant them liberty, they would altogether check the assaults of king Solomon, so that he would not dare to come out of Moson and Pressburg to make an attempt upon Hungary. And king Geysa promised that he would grant their request, if they fulfilled what they had promised. And so the Pechenegs with their prince, by name Zultan, rode against king Solomon. And king Solomon, money having been promised, called in the margrave of the Germans to his aid. And when the margrave was moving to meet the Pechenegs, seeing them horrible of aspect and terrible, he was afraid; especially because it came into his mind how pitiably the dukes Willerm and Poth and Marchard had perished at the hands of the Hungarians: and he said to the King in pretense that he would not join battle in the Lenten season. But if the King wished, he might fight: and if the Pechenegs prevailed, then he would without doubt help the King. And so he went up with his army onto mount Bachy, and thence they watched the struggle of the combatants.

[88] Solomon cuts down the enemy in a rather light battle: but between him But when it came to the struggle, the Pechenegs fled from before the face of Solomon, as wax melts before the face of fire, and, many of them being killed and others drowned in the pool of Fercen, a few escaped by flight with Zultan. And so, the Pechenegs being conquered, the margrave demanded money from Solomon. To whom he gave nothing. And the margrave threatened him that he would accuse him before the emperor, because through fear he had not dared to show himself to the most worthless Pechenegs. And so the aforesaid margrave, by name Hermich, in anger wished to come against Solomon: but fearing the emperor, he desisted, and returned sorrowful to his own country. All these things, which certainly do not lack certain fictitious circumstances, Bonfini also narrated; but he referred them all to Leopold, margrave of Austria, who succeeded Ernest in the year 1075. He adds, however: Very many will have it that it was not Leopold, but one Hermich, a prince of the Germans, as the Hungarian Annals report. But the reckoning of time teaches that that Hermich was Ernest, margrave of Austria, surnamed the Vigorous, of whose death in the Saxon battle Lambert writes thus at the year 1075: There Ernest, margrave of the Bavarians, a man most illustrious in the kingdom, and often distinguished by many victories against the Hungarians, was grievously wounded, and when he had been carried half-alive into the camp, he expired on the following day. Not yet, therefore, in the year 1074 was Leopold margrave of Austria; but Ernest was still alive at that time.

[89] But if those things happened in the Lenten season, as Thuroczy hints, and Ernest discord arises. they will have been done before the expedition planned by Henry, and a short time after Solomon's chief disaster. If anyone believes this sufficiently firm, he will be able consequently to say that the Pechenegs or Bessi were allied with Geisa already before Solomon's disaster, and that this disaster was inflicted on them not long afterwards, perhaps because they were pursuing him the more sharply and formed the leading column. Thus we shall also understand why Ernest abstained from the battle, namely that he might oppose himself to the remainder of Geisa's army if it should come up in the meantime, or lest he should expose his own Austria to too great a danger. It is certainly not probable that Ernest abstained from the battle out of fear of the Bessi alone, as Thuroczy contends, whom I find everywhere hostile to the Germans. For the rest, whether that battle was in Lent, or after Easter or even Pentecost, it profited Solomon little, because of the discord that arose between him and the margrave Ernest; and for that reason he sent a renewed embassy to king Henry, promising greater things, so that he might obtain more powerful help.

[90] Of this embassy of Solomon's, at the same year, Lambert has this: Another embassy having been sent to king Henry, In mid-July, envoys of the King of the Hungarians came again to the King (Henry), who had returned from Lorraine to Worms, praying earnestly that, mindful of their kinship and mindful of the age they had passed together from boyhood, he would come the more speedily to the aid of the exile. And because their prayers moved him too slowly, intent as he was upon private occupations, they gave twelve hostages and confirmed to him the pledge that, if by his kindness he were restored to the kingdom, he would thereafter be his tributary and obedient to his word, and would hand over to him six of the most strongly fortified cities of Hungary as proof of a fidelity that would never be broken. That these hardest conditions were accepted by Solomon we cannot deny, since for that cause Gregory VII reproved Solomon, whose Letter will be recited below. These things, however, Thuroczy has again not correctly set forth, writing thus in chapter 54: And when Solomon was failing from day to day, while their (Geisa's and his brothers') advance was receiving happy increase, in confusion he directed his steps to the emperor (by envoys), that he might grant him help for returning into Hungary. And although he had given money abundantly for paying soldiers, yet the Germans and the Latins (that is, the Italians, I think) did not come with him for fear of the Hungarians.

[91] And king Solomon complained to the emperor about the loss of his kingdom, saying that Hungary, which had before been free from that burden, was saying: “That he had been violently driven out of his kingdom; and that this injury had been inflicted not so much upon himself as rather upon the emperor's empire.” And he said: “Hungary is indeed yours, your kingdom, in which you established me as king: while I reigned, all the best things of that kingdom were gratefully offered to your majesty by an annual tribute, and according to your command you were served.” (All this is fictitious.) “But now all these things are denied you by those who plot damage to your empire. Wherefore come into Hungary, and avenge your own injury upon your enemies, and claim the kingdom for yourself.” Thus far Thuroczy, to whom Bonfini has clung after his custom. But I have already briefly warned that many things in the words given are fictitious and false, namely all those in which it is asserted that the kingdom of Hungary was tributary to the emperor and subject to the empire before Solomon's expulsion. The contrary is quite clear from Lambert of Hersfeld and from Gregory

VII, both contemporaries. Solomon indeed wished, pressed by the utmost necessity, in order to recover the lost kingdom, to subject it to the empire and to reign as a vassal and tributary of the emperor rather than to be without a kingdom.

[92] about to be subjected to him by tribute and vassalage. Yet Solomon had not offered such disgraceful conditions for the kingdom of Hungary when he sent his first embassy to Henry about Easter, as is gathered from Lambert's words given at number 85, but he had promised him a great part of his kingdom. But in the second embassy, besides the fortified cities, he offered that he would be his tributary and obedient to his word. He was not, therefore, tributary before, or subject to the empire; otherwise this offer would have been of no weight, nor could it have moved Henry. And indeed the conditions offered so stirred Henry that, even though the princes of Germany refused military service — as Lambert testifies, whose words I shall give below — Henry himself at once undertook an expedition into Hungary, lest so great an advantage to the commonwealth, offered by chance, should be spoiled by his own sloth. By a disgraceful condition, therefore, he drew to his own side king Henry, afterwards emperor; but he greatly offended the supreme Pontiff Gregory VII, because the crown of Hungary had been given to St. Stephen by the Apostolic See: nor is it to be doubted that the Hungarians themselves were exceedingly offended, and for that reason afterwards always resisted the restoration of the kingdom to Solomon. And indeed I find nothing in Solomon's deeds by which his cousins, and the Hungarians themselves, can be equally excused for not restoring the crown to Solomon, as by this compact, by which so much dignity would have been taken away from the kingdom of Hungary that it would have sunk into a far worse condition.

[93] Stirred by these promises, Henry leads an army into Hungary, Let us now hear how much Henry was able to accomplish for Solomon. Bought by this price, says Lambert, he at once sent messengers round about and summoned the princes to the expedition by a solemn proclamation. But some pleaded the shortness of the time, others want of household means: very many that their resources had been too much worn down by the Saxon war; others again alleging another kind of excuse, all alike refused service. He himself, however, lest so great an advantage to the commonwealth, offered by chance, should be spoiled by his own sloth, content with common and private soldiery only, entered Hungary with a hostile army and traversed some of its regions in hostile fashion. Further, Joas (that is, Geisa), who had seized Hungary, on learning of his coming, took pains with the utmost industry that in the places where an incursion of the enemy was feared men should find nothing of provisions, and animals nothing of fodder: and thus he himself with all his men betook himself into a certain island, inaccessible to all enemies by reason of the difficulty of the ground. The king's army, which had prepared no supplies for the conduct of so great a war, at once suffered from the most grievous starvation, so much so that within a short time pestilence and hunger consumed most of the men and almost all the animals. Compelled by this necessity, the king, having performed no notable deed, departed from Hungary, and after the feast of St. Michael (that is, the twenty-ninth of September) returned to Worms, etc.

[94] From these things it is clear that this expedition was quite hasty, but is quickly forced to withdraw for want of provisions, so that Henry's army was perhaps scarcely a whole month in Hungary. For if in mid-July Solomon's envoys treated with Henry at Worms, there must have been great haste for a proper column, even if it had been gathered chiefly from Bavaria and Austria, to penetrate into Hungary before the end of August, from which it had again to depart in the month of September, if Henry returned to Worms not long after the feast of St. Michael. So indeed did Henry lead his soldiers with youthful fickleness, and destroy them partly by excessive marches, partly by hunger. No other cause, therefore, seems to be sought for the fruitless expedition.

[95] Yet not altogether improbable is the cause which the Pole Dlugosz puts forward along with the Hungarian writers, others will have it that his counsellors too were corrupted with gold. writing thus at column 283: And although the emperor Henry had come to bring him (Solomon) help as to his son-in-law (rather, his brother-in-law), yet, no memorable thing being done, and his counsellors, corrupted by Geisa with very many gifts, persuading him to withdraw, he returned into Germany with his undertaking frustrated. Wherefore the full administration and government of the kingdom of Hungary came to Geisa. This corruption by money, if it is true, could also have had a place among the princes who were unwilling to accompany Henry on the expedition: yet other reasons too restrained many of them, and German affairs may have impelled Henry himself to return quickly, since he was planning the Saxon war, waged in the following year.

[96] The Hungarian writers bring forward altogether other reasons, Thuroczy's account of these matters, and narrate Henry's expedition in a scarcely probable manner. Let us hear Thuroczy, whom Bonfini everywhere follows with a changed style. Moved therefore by these words (or the promises of Solomon given before), the emperor entered Hungary with a great army, and provisions for the use of his army were abundantly carried by ship on the Danube. And when the emperor had come to the river Váh, Solomon, having taken three columns, rode from Sempte against Nyitra. And the young men, coming out, engaged with him, now these, now those fleeing, and fighting long without a wound. Opus, a soldier chosen out of the soldiers, sitting upon his war-horse, rushed upon the gate of the city and struck down one of the combatants like a thunderbolt. But the men of Nyitra, disturbed at the death of their comrade, groaned bitterly, and hurling lances at Opus, killed his war-horse. But he himself, bravely resisting them, escaped unhurt.

[97] Returning thence, therefore, the Germans told the emperor of the daring of Opus which does not seem to lack and of his incredible power in battle. And the emperor, having summoned him, commended him with great praises and gratified him with sweet words: and he asked Solomon whether there were many soldiers as good as this with Geysa and Ladislaus. And Solomon, intending to praise the Hungarians, answered without premeditation, saying, There are many, indeed many far better. To whom the emperor said, If it is so, with such soldiers fighting against you, you will not recover the kingdom. But king Geysa, hearing that the emperor had reached Vác, using prudent counsel, ordered that the patriarch of Aquileia, to whose counsels the emperor listened very much, should be approached and won over, and at the same time all the dukes of the Germans, promising them much money if they would make the emperor turn back. The patriarch therefore and the dukes, enticed by gifts and captivated by love of gold, busied themselves with various fictions to induce the emperor to turn back. The patriarch even pretended that he had seen a dream, by the interpretation of which it was most plainly foretold that the emperor's whole army would perish by divine vengeance, unless he turned back as quickly as possible.

[98] improbable fictions. But the dukes too pretended that they were likewise struck with awe from heaven, and complained that I know not what evil was hanging over the emperor if they did not quickly turn back. And on the following night the dukes of the Germans instructed certain crafty soldiers of theirs to feign, by shouting and by striking their shields one against another, that a mutiny had arisen in the army. And when the soldiers had done this, a great horror fell upon the emperor and the whole army, which knew nothing of the fraud and pretense contrived. And so throughout that whole night there was a great tumult in the camp. But when morning came the emperor called together the patriarch and the dukes into council, that they might deliberate what was to be done. The patriarch therefore and the dukes, corrupted by money, advised him by every means to turn back. And the emperor, deceived by their devices (that is, their tricks), pretending that he would help Solomon hereafter, destroyed his ships and returned into Germany. So he, and Bonfini the same things somewhat amplified. But I cannot doubt that they have much of poetic invention in them, and that the chief reason for returning was the want of supplies, which would have greatly increased as winter drew near.

[99] Solomon has recourse to Pope Gregory, by whom he is reproved, When Solomon had been disappointed of the hope he had conceived from Henry's help, he turned to Gregory VII, the Roman Pontiff. For from the beginning of Gregory's letter, compared with its end, we can conjecture that Solomon sent his letter to Gregory in the month of September or at least at the beginning of October. For Gregory answered on the fifth of the Kalends of November, or the twenty-eighth day of October, and observes at the beginning that Solomon's letter had arrived late owing to the delay of the messenger; so that perhaps it was a whole month or longer on the way. The superscription of Gregory's Letter is this: Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Solomon, king of the Hungarians, greeting and the Apostolic blessing. The Letter itself runs thus: Your letter was brought to us late on account of the delay of your messenger: which our hand would indeed have received much more kindly, if your incautious act had not so greatly offended blessed Peter. For, as you can learn from the elders of your own country, the kingdom of Hungary is the property of the holy Roman Church, offered and devoutly handed over of old by king Stephen to blessed Peter with all its right and power. Besides, the emperor Henry of pious memory, storming that kingdom to the honor of St. Peter, when the king had been conquered and the victory won, sent the lance and the crown to the body of Bl. Peter, and for the glory of his triumph directed the insignia of the kingdom to that place to which he knew the sovereignty of its dignity belonged.

[100] because he wished to subject the kingdom to the empire, Which things being so, you nevertheless, departing far in other matters also from royal virtue and character, have, so far as in you lay, diminished and alienated the right and honor of St. Peter, in that you have received his kingdom as a fief from the king of the Germans, as we have heard. And if this is true, you yourself, if you will attend to justice, are not ignorant how you ought to hope for the favor of Bl. Peter or our goodwill; namely, that you will not have it otherwise, nor reign long without Apostolic chastisement, unless, correcting your error, you acknowledge the scepter of the kingdom which you hold to be a benefice of the Apostolic, not of the royal, majesty. For neither through fear or love, nor through any respect of persons, will we, so far as with God's help we are able, leave unclaimed the honor due to him whose servants we are.

[101] But if you shall be willing to amend these things, and to order your life as befits a king, and, by God's mercy, to adorn it, and is admonished to correct it and amend his ways: you will without doubt be able to have fully the love of the holy Roman Church, as a beloved son of his Mother, and our friendship in Christ. Given at Rome, the fifth of the Kalends of November, in the thirteenth Indiction. From this Letter it is gathered in some measure that Solomon not only promised vassalage to Henry, to be rendered after the kingdom had been won back, but probably rendered it to Henry before he entered Hungary with an army, or after he had entered. Gregory therefore wished that this should be revoked and made void, before he should labor by his own authority for the restoration of the kingdom to Solomon. Whether Solomon did this I cannot declare with certainty. At any rate I do not find that king Henry afterwards made any move in his favor; but that Gregory labored to bring about peace between Solomon and Geisa, Baronius asserts from his own letters at the year 1074, where he had recited the letter of Gregory that has been given, and then subjoins a letter of the same Gregory to the queen, Solomon's wife, whom he piously consoles in her adversities and exhorts to patience and constancy, on the fourth of the Ides of January of the following year.

[102] Geisa likewise wished to plead his cause before Gregory, Gregory answered Geisa's letters too, but does not call him king, and that even before Solomon, and Gregory answered him much more kindly: yet he did not attribute to Geisa the title of king, but addressed all his Letters to the duke of Hungary. Three Letters of Gregory to duke Geisa are found in Labbe, volume 10 of the Councils. The first was given on the sixteenth of the Kalends of April, in the twelfth Indiction, that is, in the year 1074, before Geisa's victory over Solomon was known. The second was given on the tenth of the Kalends of April in the thirteenth Indiction, that is, in the year 1075, in which he praises Geisa and prays for him, with justice, whatever things are of honor and glory, and exhorts him meanwhile to have a care for the churches, etc. Geisa had already been crowned by the Hungarians in the preceding year when Gregory wrote these things, if Thuroczy and Bonfini have written the truth. But Gregory calls him duke, not king, and by the words "with justice" and "meanwhile" sufficiently hints that he does not hold Geisa for king. Gregory indeed says, both in this and in the following Letter, that it seems to have happened by divine judgment that the lordship or power of the kingdom was snatched from Solomon, because he had striven to obtain that kingdom from the king of Germany by vassalage; but he by no means says that the right of reigning had passed to Geisa, or that he had been lawfully crowned king.

[103] Indeed in the third Letter he openly hints that he desires Solomon's restoration to the kingdom, and exhorts him to enter into peace with king Solomon. when he begins it thus: If it is our office to defend for all men their own rights, and to compose peace among them and to establish concord, much more does reason demand, and the practice of usefulness require, that we should sow charity among the greater ones, whose peace or hatred redounds upon very many. Whence it is our care, and a pious solicitude clings to our heart, that we should make peace, if we can, between you and your kinsman king Solomon, so that, justice being preserved on both sides, what is his own may suffice for each, and he may not pass the boundary of justice nor exceed the limit of good custom; and that thus the most noble kingdom of Hungary, which hitherto has flourished chiefly by itself, may be at peace, so that there may be a king there, and not a petty king. These things plainly hint that Gregory was solicitous about bringing about peace, and about restoring Solomon by that peace; but the peace between them, although before Geisa's death it was almost arranged, as we shall see below, never came together; nor do I find that Geisa was acknowledged as king by Gregory.

[104] St. Ladislaus is said to have besieged Pressburg, Meanwhile, if we believe Thuroczy, certain acts of war intervened between Solomon and Ladislaus, who had been appointed duke by his brother Geisa. For in chapter 55 he writes this: But king Solomon, cheated of his hope (when Henry departed), groaning and sorrowful, withdrew to Pressburg: and the kingdom was strengthened in the hand of king Geysa, and from that time he was called the GREAT KING, and he gave the duchy to his brother Ladislaus. And duke Ladislaus besieged the castle of Pressburg for many days. And Solomon's soldiers used to come out of the castle and fight with Ladislaus's soldiers. And Solomon and Ladislaus sometimes came out, changing their insignia, and fought like ordinary soldiers. And it happened that Ladislaus came to the castle in the silence of noon. And Solomon saw him coming with changed arms, and went out to him unrecognized: but neither did Ladislaus know him. And Solomon's soldiers, sitting upon the castle, watched them. And Solomon thought that he was a servant, and had therefore begun to fight with him. And at once, when he had come to him and had looked upon his face, he saw two angels flying above the head of Ladislaus himself with a fiery sword and threatening his enemies: seeing which, Solomon fled into the castle.

[105] but improbable things are mixed into the account. To whom his soldiers said: “Lord, what is this that we have seen? We have never seen you flee from two or three men. What then now?” To whom he said: “Know that I would not have fled from men: but this man is not a man, because angels protect him with a fiery sword.” Hearing which, they marveled. Whence they began to fear him the more. How improbably these things about the single combat of the princes have been related, the studious reader will easily notice: yet Bonfini adopted them all, being accustomed to omit nothing but rather to amplify many things, even improbable ones. Further, it is likely that Pressburg was rather blockaded than assaulted; or that some force was set against it lest Solomon should be able to make incursions into Hungary, if the following words of Thuroczy are true: And the soldiers of that same Solomon, compelled by necessity, kept coming over to Ladislaus. And he cherished them with ducal liberality [*] and most kindly bounty, and freely permitted them to return to their Lord. This he certainly would not have done, if he had been striving to take Pressburg and to drive him out of the small portion which Solomon possessed in Hungary.

[106] [By the counsel of the bishops Geisa wished to enter into peace and give back the kingdom] That there was also a treating about peace, and about restoring the kingdom, Thuroczy asserts, subjoining this: And at that time the great king celebrated the Lord's Nativity at Szekszárd. At his request archbishop Desiderius celebrated a solemn Mass, and with a most lucid sermon soothed the king's mind and inclined it to the good of peace. And when the Mass had been celebrated and all things duly performed, the king ordered that all should go out except the bishops and abbots. Then the king, prostrate with tears, said to the archbishop and the other ecclesiastical persons or prelates [*] that he had sinned, because he had seized the kingdom of a lawfully crowned King: and he promised that he would give back the kingdom to Solomon with a firm peace in this manner, that he himself should hold the crown by right, together however with the third part of the kingdom which had been assigned to the duchy. Solomon too, when crowned, should hold the two parts of the kingdom which he had held before. The bishops therefore gave glad thanks to God, because they saw the king pricked in conscience and enlightened by the visitation of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Geisa wished to hold the duchy with a royal title, and consequently, as it certainly appears, not thereafter to be subject to Solomon, but nevertheless to restore all his dominion to him.

[107] Then the great king, having sent messengers to king Solomon, on agreed conditions: but the peace lacked effect. explained to him by letter the manner of peace set out above. And so, though messengers passed to and fro, and different men thought differently about this matter, the completion of the reconciliation could not obtain its effect. Meanwhile the great king fell into a grievous sickness, and on the seventh of the Kalends of May, adorned with virtues, entered upon the way of all flesh. He is then said to have reigned three years, so that he died in the year 1077: which will presently be confirmed. Bonfini agrees about the reconciliation attempted in vain. But by whose fault it came about that the peace was not established, Dlugosz sets forth most probably at the year 1076, writing thus: The bishops of Hungary, to whom the whole civil quarrel seemed too troublesome, although they had often treated of concord and had induced Geisa to give up the summit of the kingdom, could yet never bring its effect to a clear issue, because the zeal of those barons who followed Geisa's party hindered it. For very many of the magnates doubtless feared Solomon, who had been offended, and wished him removed forever, lest, mindful of his injuries, he should take vengeance.

perhaps impetitus*

liberalitate*

perhaps prælatis*

§ VII. St. Ladislaus is elected king: Bl. Solomon's varying fortune under his reign: conquered in battle, he secretly withdraws.

[ ] St. Ladislaus, on Geisa's death, elected king by the Hungarians, About the election of the new king of the Hungarians Thuroczy begins thus in chapter 56: And when the death of the great king was heard, the whole multitude of the nobles of Hungary came together to his brother Ladislaus: and by common consent, with equal desire and harmonious will, they with one accord chose him to take up the helm of the kingdom: nay rather, they almost compelled him with the most affectionate prayers. For all knew that he was clothed with the perfection of the virtues… And although the Hungarians elected him as king against his will, yet he never set the crown upon his head, for which reason he rather desired a heavenly crown than an earthly one: and he was unwilling to have the crown of a living King until he should be lawfully crowned, purposing in his mind that, if a firm peace could be between them, he would give back the kingdom to Solomon and himself have the duchy. St. Ladislaus's outstanding virtues Thuroczy pursues at greater length, and Bonfini likewise writes that he was chosen by the Hungarians chiefly on account of these, acknowledging otherwise that Solomon was the lawful king, whom, he says, they could safely have recalled; and he adds that they were solicited to do this daily with letters and prayers and sometimes with gifts.

[109] But I can scarcely believe that the nobles of Hungary were of that opinion, so as to think it safe for themselves to recall Solomon to royal power, according to some, he was unwilling to be crowned: or that Solomon's resources were at that time so great that he could induce them to favor him with great gifts. It is more probable that Ladislaus, being a holy man, was unwilling to usurp the crown of the living Solomon, as Bonfini also asserts, writing thus: Overcome at last by their prayers, he took the reins of the kingdom under favorable auspices, but did not permit himself to be crowned with the royal diadem, because he had learned that Solomon was still alive. For he reckoned it unjust to usurp the crown of the lawful King, and he hoped for a future concord with him, which he trusted would flow from this modesty. Nor did he ever take up that insignia, so long as he understood that he could not lawfully receive it.

[110] yet another writes that he was crowned, It may, however, be doubted in some measure whether St. Ladislaus always abstained from the crown so long as he believed Solomon to be alive: for Dlugosz at the year 1078 hints the contrary, writing this after relating Geisa's death: In his place Wladislaus, his own brother, was substituted, and crowned king of Hungary; although Geisa had children, and king Solomon had not yet departed from life. Yet the wonderful excellence of his virtues, already then shining forth [*] in duke Wladislaus, had so turned the minds of all the Hungarians toward him that all vied with one another in begging him, though he refused the kingdom, to take up the diadem, all others being passed over.

[111] [another that he was crowned not with the customary diadem, but with a different one. He was elected in the year 1077.] Wherefore perhaps he did indeed at first refuse the royal diadem, but afterwards wore it even while Solomon was living: which seems doubtful to me. Ranzanus, in Index XI, seems to have embraced an opinion midway between the two, hinting that Ladislaus was crowned, yet not with that crown with which Solomon and the other kings of Hungary had been crowned. For of Ladislaus he says: Him, unwilling and greatly resisting, they at last choose as their king: and he consented to the election when driven to it by many prayers and adjured by the name of Christ. He did not, however, suffer himself to be crowned with that diadem which had been accustomed to be placed upon the heads of the earlier kings; … because Solomon, son of Andrew, still survived, who not once only but a second time had been given the honor of that crown by the consent of the whole senate of Hungary. And on that account he was very often accustomed to say that he held the kingdom of Hungary not in his own name but in Solomon's. These things I should prefer to the rest, if it were sufficiently established that they were drawn from ancient records. The election of Ladislaus will have taken place in the month of May, since it was already known to Gregory

VII when, in the year 1077, on the fifth of the Ides of June, he was writing to Nehemiah, archbishop of Esztergom. This is Letter 25 of the fourth book, from which it is certainly confirmed that Geisa died in the year 1077, since Gregory makes mention of Ladislaus's election as a recent thing.

[112] In the year 1080 or 1081 peace was made between Solomon and Ladislaus: With what disposition Ladislaus was toward Solomon, the aforesaid Dlugosz sets forth in these words: Having received his anointing and coronation at Székesfehérvár, he bore himself most modestly toward his cousin king Solomon: and this was his first care, that nothing should be lacking to Solomon himself except the royal appellation. Not even the name was lacking to the King, I think, but only the power and authority. Nevertheless these things were not done so quickly as the words alleged suggest. For the Hungarian writers assert with common consent that in the fourth year of Ladislaus, that is, in the year 1080 or 1081, peace was brought about between Solomon and Ladislaus, and that Ladislaus then began to maintain Solomon. Thuroczy in chapter 56 has this, after relating Ladislaus's election: Further, Solomon was at Pressburg. And the most reverend bishops labored to reconcile them. And king Ladislaus, although he knew Solomon to be exceedingly fierce and implacable, yet overcome by piety, and above all compelled by justice (because Ladislaus had no lawful right against him, but did everything by fact, not by right), in the fourth year of his reign was reconciled with Solomon, granting him allowances sufficient for royal expenses. Bonfini and Ranzanus agree about these things.

[113] But what stood in the way of Ladislaus's restoring to Solomon the royal authority as well, the writers we have praised subjoin. The reason Thuroczy expresses thus: But the nobles of the kingdom, cautiously guarding against the future perils of a disastrous war, did not permit the kingdom to be divided with Solomon, yet the kingdom was not restored, the nobles resisting. lest the last things should become worse than the first. Ranzanus has: For not long after (the peace was entered upon) the holy king resolved either to hand over to him a part of the kingdom, or to abdicate the kingdom altogether, so as to restore to him what was his own; and himself, content with the name of duke alone, to live as a private man. But the nobles resisted this purpose of his, because it was not hidden from them how evil and how depraved Solomon's disposition was. Therefore they feared for the commonwealth, that its destruction might come about if he were either admitted to a share in the rule or raised a third time to the summit of royal dignity. The same reasons Bonfini records, but to the nobles who were unwilling that royal authority be given back to Solomon he adds the pontiffs or bishops — whether quite rightly I much doubt, since the bishops had wished to induce Geisa to give back the kingdom to Solomon, so that it becomes scarcely probable that they dissuaded Ladislaus from it.

[114] Meanwhile Solomon is said to have laid a plot to kill Ladislaus, and for that cause to have been cast into prison. But afterwards, on suspicion of a plot prepared against Ladislaus Thuroczy writes thus of these matters: But the bitterness of a preconceived wrath was tearing Solomon's seared conscience. And so, raging with a seething mind, he began to contrive deceits for the destruction of the innocent blood of Ladislaus: but he fell into the pit which he himself made… But king Ladislaus, when the crime had been detected, seized Solomon and shut him up in prison at Visegrád. And there was with Solomon in prison Bodus, son of Bokon. The author adds many things by which he tries to persuade us that Solomon was sent into prison by Ladislaus not out of hatred but rather out of love. The same things about the cause of the imprisonment, and about Ladislaus's good disposition toward him, Ranzanus has in other words, and Bonfini agrees about Solomon's plot, but adds more, writing the following at page 225: For the fierce spirit of Solomon, being reconciled to his kinsman, was quiet for a while, but soon, having gained from the concord an occasion for vengeance, he began to think about preparing a plot; whether he did this on account of the suspicion under which he lay and the counsels of wicked men, or on account of a wrath rising again, I have not sufficiently ascertained. Yet this ought to be plain to all, that a Man desirous of ruling and driven out of a kingdom thinks of nothing more earnestly than of recovering his dignity, and not only spurns the mark of inconstancy, but also, in order to gain his desire, counts right and wrong as nothing, and often confuses what is lawful and unlawful. These things are true, but from them Solomon's plot is not proved.

[115] Of him the author adds: Accordingly by letters he (Solomon) begs a conference with Ladislaus in the district of Moson, being held suspect, he is shut up in prison: in which they might the more strongly confirm a perpetual concord between themselves, hoping that under this pretext he would easily circumvent him by treachery. Ladislaus undertakes to be present on the appointed day. But he, being under divine protection, is a few days later warned by a secret go-between to beware of Solomon at the conference, and to know that deceits had been prepared by his Kinsman, by which, unless he took precautions, he would find that the peril of death was hanging over him. Being warned of these things, the king understood that he must contend with Solomon by equal art. Wherefore, after they had come to the conference, Ladislaus, relying on a stronger guard which he had concealed, circumvented and seized Solomon, caught in his fraud. And he, when he saw himself captured by his own art, could indeed accuse no one but himself, and, had he not been restrained by the guard set over him, would often have thought of taking his own life. His calamity the prodigies of heaven also signified. For in the same year they say that the Savior's cross which was venerated in the basilica of the divine Stephen at Székesfehérvár was struck from heaven. Solomon therefore, having been captured, is taken to Visegrád, which had of old been an ancient royal seat: likewise he was cast into prison, not to dishonor his dignity but to soften his fierceness. Indeed for the sake of comfort Bodus too was joined to him, formerly son of Boco, who by the gravity of his crimes was compelled to pay the same penalties. How certain these things are I do not sufficiently perceive: but they are at any rate harsher against Solomon than is just. Whence could Bonfini have known that Solomon would often have thought of taking his own life, save from an empty and rash suspicion, since no one has said it? How was Bodus joined to the captive for the sake of comfort, if by the gravity of his crimes he was compelled to pay the same penalties?

[116] but it is deservedly doubted whether Solomon really laid a plot; Whence had Bonfini, Thuroczy, Ranzanus and the other writers, writing almost four centuries after the event, known that Solomon had really prepared a plot to kill Ladislaus, which a contemporary author, to be praised below, does not affirm? I certainly do not perceive that that plot of Solomon's was ever proved; nor do I find whence Bonfini drew that conference, to which he says Ladislaus was invited by Solomon: for neither Thuroczy, Ranzanus nor Dlugosz make mention of it, even though they allege a plot in general terms. If we believe Bonfini himself, who brings these things forward from a contemporary writer, God himself disapproved of Solomon's imprisonment; so that I cannot understand by what judgment he could heap up so many uncertain things, and perhaps all of them false, in order to show that that severity was just — unless perhaps he believed that all St. Ladislaus's deeds were to be approved and all Solomon's to be disapproved. But we do not even sufficiently know whether St. Ladislaus himself saw to it that the King was shut up in prison, or rather the Hungarian nobles, who strove in every way to take precautions lest Solomon should be able to recover the kingdom, and who for that cause had always resisted both Geisa and Ladislaus, so that they should not give back the kingdom to Solomon.

[117] Wherefore the following words of Bonfini about Ladislaus perhaps rightly declare his disposition toward Solomon. Although, he says, Ladislaus seemed to rage against his Kinsman (his cousin Solomon) more than was fair, in order to quiet his untamed anger (and perhaps more truly, because he was yielding to the suspicions of the Hungarians and feared that he might contrive new things), yet he never ceased day and night from divine prayer, that he might behold the Man restored by heavenly help to the duty of brotherly piety (or preserved in it). He would often have yielded up the kingdom of his own accord, and would most gladly have reduced himself to a duchy, if he had understood that his Kinsman was at some time coming to his senses (or rather that the Hungarians agreed with him): whom, lest he should continually disturb the kingdom (as the Hungarians feared, and not without foundation), he was compelled, even against his will, for the sake of the public safety, to confine in prison. This last reason was probably the chief and the only one, namely that the nobles of Hungary feared that Solomon would stir up new wars, whether that fear arose because Solomon was trying to attach the neighboring princes to himself, or because they knew his rights and held his ambition suspect. Certainly the very reason for which Solomon is said to have been let out of prison can persuade us that Solomon was without any crime by which he had deserved imprisonment.

[118] since the body of St. Stephen could not be raised until Solomon was set free Bishop Carthuitius, who could have known Solomon and Ladislaus, in the Life of St. Stephen the king, given by us on the second of September, at number 34, narrating the elevation of St. Stephen's body, which took place in St. Ladislaus's presence, has this: But that the Lord might show how great was the mercy of the holy king (Stephen), … when for three days they labored with all their strength to raise his body, it could by no art be moved from its place. For at that time, our faults requiring it, a grievous sedition had arisen between the aforesaid king Ladislaus and his kinsman Solomon, on account of which Solomon had been seized and was being held in prison. When therefore they were striving in vain to raise the body, a certain recluse near the church of the Savior …, by name Charitas, whose life was at that time of celebrated repute, a revelation having been made to her from heaven, sent word to the king that they were striving in vain, and that they could not translate the holy king's relics until free pardon should be granted to Solomon, released from the custody of prison. And so, when he had been brought out of prison, and the three-day fast had been repeated, when on the third day they came to translate the sacred relics, the huge stone placed over the tomb was lifted with such ease as if it had had no weight before. This very event Bonfini narrates, who frequently had Carthuitius before his eyes, and without doubt read the passage alleged. But Thuroczy, Ranzanus and Dlugosz either did not know that miracle or concealed it, although all of them nevertheless assert that Solomon was freed from prison by Ladislaus. Thuroczy also writes that he was freed at the elevation of the body of St. Stephen the king (and) of blessed Emeric the confessor, but with no reason added; so that he probably did not fail to know the true reason, but suppressed it.

[119] and Carthuitius does not put forward that cause of the imprisonment. If we are now willing to consider the passage alleged, in which it is said that a grievous sedition arose between Ladislaus and Solomon, and that for that cause Solomon was seized, we shall at once perceive that the plots which the writers of the fifteenth century asserted against the life of Ladislaus and imputed to Solomon are not sufficiently probable, especially since God by a manifest miracle saw to it that Solomon was brought out of prison, and thus seems to have declared his innocence. For since Carthuitius wrote to Coloman, Ladislaus's successor and Geisa's son, he could have known very well for what cause or on what occasion Solomon had been seized and shut up in prison; and yet he brings forward no other than a sedition, that is, some discord that had arisen between them; nor does he attribute it to Solomon's malice, deceits or plots, but to the faults of men. Likewise he does not say that Solomon was seized for a just cause, or that he deserved imprisonment. And yet a most just

cause of the captivity would have existed, if he had plotted Ladislaus's death. Wherefore I strongly suspect that Solomon was rather attacked by the plots of others, and that by these he lost both his kingdom before and his liberty then — namely by the suggestions of depraved men against him. The same thing, I say, I suspect happened between Solomon and his cousins Geisa and Ladislaus, which Thuroczy in chapter 60 writes happened between king Coloman and his brother duke Álmos. For they said to the duke, he says: “Lord duke, the king is plotting against you, and wishes to seize you.” Then they said to the king: “The duke has laid a plot against you, and if you do not guard yourself, know without doubt that you will die.” But let these things suffice against the crime asserted of Solomon by the writers of the fifteenth century. How long Bl. Solomon was in prison no one says. But that he was set free in the year 1083, or at any rate about that year, I have proved on the second of September in the treatment of St. Stephen, §37.

[120] Even though I shall not easily admit as sufficiently ascertained the plots laid against Ladislaus, Solomon, freed from prison, invades Hungary, yet I shall not deny that Solomon's ambition was not yet extinguished, and that not long after recovering his liberty he did the very thing which, that he might not be able to do it, he had perhaps been committed to custody. For Thuroczy in chapter 56 has this: But afterwards king Solomon, released from prison at the elevation of the body of St. Stephen the king, … attended upon the king for a few days. And at last, fleeing, he went to the duke of the Cumans, who was called Kutesk: to whom he swore that he would hand over to him the province of Transylvania by right of property, and take his daughter to wife, if he would come to his aid against Ladislaus. And duke Kutesk, led astray by an empty hope, invading Hungary with a great multitude of Cumans, came as far as the province of the castles of Ung and Boræna. Hearing this, king Ladislaus rushed upon them, and they were crushed before his face, and many thousands of the Cumans fell by the edge of the sword. But king Solomon with Kutesk escaped, fleeing like ducks with their feathers plucked out from the talons of a hawk. And so king Ladislaus took their spoils, and in hymns and thanksgivings blessed God…

[121] and afterwards Bulgaria with the Chuni; but in both places But king Solomon with the freebooters of the Cumans invaded Bulgaria and the borders of Greece; where they were pitiably struck down by the army of the emperor of Greece: of whom very few escaped. For when the Cumans saw a great multitude of mailed men, they were greatly afraid and began to hasten to cross the Danube before they should be shut in by the enemy. Those therefore who had no corselets went before more swiftly by reason of their lightness. But Solomon and his men and the other mailed men, hindered by the weight of their arms, followed their comrades who went before more slowly. And it was winter, and it was snowing very thickly, and the snows had filled their eyes, and, the thickness of the snows hindering them, they could not see their comrades who had gone before: and wandering they were carried through empty places. But the enemy too pursued them at close quarters. And when they had come to a certain deserted and empty castle, they entered there, and remained in that place the whole day and night. But the enemy surrounded the castle on every side. And the besieged, seeing that they would perish by the peril of hunger, chose rather to die fighting than to be destroyed by hunger. And so at the first dawn they went out against the enemy, and perished together with their slayers; and a great many of those who were killing them were killed.

[122] he is overcome and barely escapes: But king Solomon, fleeing, barely escaped with a few men, and crossed the Danube with an easy course, because it was frozen. And when he had come to a certain great wood, he told his men to rest a little to refresh their horses. But he himself, laying down his shield, pretended that he would return at once, and went off into the shady parts of the woods, and, while his men suspected nothing of the kind, absented himself from them, and never afterwards appeared. Thus far Thuroczy, in whose footsteps Bonfini treads, adding from time to time his own conjectures. Some things in them, however, appear not sufficiently probable, and that above all, that Solomon is said to have promised that he would take the daughter of the duke of the Chuni to wife: for no one asserts that Sophia or Judith, Solomon's wife the queen, had then died. The other promise, about handing over Transylvania to the duke of the Chuni, is more probable, since Moldavia, in which the Cumans or Chuni were, borders upon it.

[123] the place and time of the earlier battle: That war of Solomon and the Chuni against Ladislaus seems to have been waged about the borders of Poland or Red Russia, which the Hungarian county of Ung touches, from which he may have advanced farther toward the county of Borsod or Borchod, as is gathered from the places named by Thuroczy. Wherefore the Chuni will have passed through Russia to invade Hungary from those parts: for it was for that cause that St. Ladislaus afterwards attacked the Russians, as Thuroczy reports in chapter 58. That Solomon was cut down by St. Ladislaus with an army of the Chuni and their duke, Ranzanus and Dlugosz also affirm, but more briefly; the first calls the duke of the Chuni Oitescus, the other Kustek. These things will have been done about the year 1084.

[124] Solomon's second expedition with the Chuni, which is distinct from the Hungarian one, the second expedition was not of great effort, was undertaken rather to obtain booty than to seize cities or provinces. In the winter, therefore, following the Hungarian disaster, when the Danube, bound with ice, offered plunderers an easy entrance into Bulgaria, Solomon will have taken a light-armed column of the Chuni to plunder in Bulgaria, and even in the dominion of the Greeks, if we believe Thuroczy. Bonfini goes still farther, and brings the Chuni all the way into Thrace, and says that Nicephorus, emperor of Constantinople, was offended by their depredations, and leads out a Macedonian phalanx against Solomon. But Nicephorus was not ruling the Greeks when these things were done, but Alexius Comnenus: nor did Solomon advance with a column of the Chuni so far beyond the Danube that he either reached Thrace or was near Macedonia.

[125] For from the flight related by Thuroczy and by Bonfini himself and undertaken only to plunder in enemy territory, it is abundantly clear that some Bulgarian column met the Chuni not far from the Danube and put them to flight, so that that unhappy expedition seems to have been one of a few days. Dlugosz at the year 1081 says that Solomon after the preceding disaster withdrew with his men to the Bulgarians, and there lived by plunder, until his column was cut down by the Bulgarians and Greeks. I should prefer to believe that he returned with the duke of the Chuni; and, since the Chuni were accustomed to harass their neighbors with depredations, that he was set over a column of his own men and of the Chuni to gain spoils in enemy territory, that is, in Bulgaria. Ranzanus narrates this wretched expedition of the most unhappy Solomon in a probable manner, writing thus: Solomon therefore, while he does not know what further to do, having obtained (from the duke of the Chuni) a huge band of brigands, becomes their comrade (rather, their leader), and having entered the borders of the Bulgarians, began to overrun the fields, to lay waste many places, and to drive off booty of every kind. But the Bulgarians rush to arms, and, an attack having been made, are borne against the brigands, so as to pursue them in their flight. And although they recover all the booty, yet they by no means cease to pursue, until those men reached a certain deserted little fort.

[126] When they had rushed into it and were defending themselves there, after which Solomon secretly withdraws, and is believed to be dead. they are indeed besieged by the Bulgarians, but they, being acquainted with the country, went out of the little fort by night, deceived the besiegers, and sought safety for themselves in flight. But Solomon, for whose sake these few things are recorded in this place, coming into a certain plain, near which was a huge wood, asks those with whom he had come thither to wait there a little: for he says that he wishes to go into the wood for a necessary purpose, but that he will return as soon as possible. So, while his companions were waiting, he enters the wood; but he neither entered (read: came out) nor was ever afterwards seen anywhere by them. That he entered the wood Bonfini and Dlugosz likewise affirm, and all agree that he was parted from his companions in the manner just related, and was not seen by them afterwards. Many without doubt believed that Solomon had died at that time, and St. Ladislaus with the Hungarians probably believed the same. The Saxon Annalist, who wrote in the following century, out of that persuasion recorded Solomon's death at the year 1087 in these words: Solomon, once king of Hungary, and Knut, king of the Danes, were killed by their own men.

read irradians*

§ VIII. Bl. Solomon, having embraced the solitary life, does penance and dies piously, leaving no children.

[ ] Solomon, taught the vanity of worldly things, Thus far we have seen Solomon exposed to the sports of inconstant fortune — or, if we prefer to speak rather in the manner of Christians, as is right, so exercised by prosperity and adversity by God, who leads his elect by various ways to eternal blessedness — that by long experience he could learn that all human things are too unstable and fleeting for a prudent man to be able to judge that he will enjoy them steadily without fear of losing them, or find in them true and solid happiness. Solomon could therefore, enlightened by divine grace, turn the eyes of his mind to the end set before all men by the most wise Founder of things, which anyone can also attain with God's help, and by which he attains true and abiding happiness: to the heavenly crown, I mean, which is to be obtained by pious and holy works, and can never be snatched away by any contrivings of men. That Solomon thought and did just such things, the authors everywhere praised by us testify.

[128] Ranzanus, when he had said that Solomon was no more seen by his companions or soldiers, casting away ambition, does penance, subjoins the following: They relate that he secretly departed thence, and, coming to his senses, was converted to God: and that he grieved vehemently over what he had committed against God and against men, and resolved that he would serve God alone in all his life: and that he therefore determined to traverse the world in the habit of a poor and abject man, doing penance worthy of his offenses [*] until death, in fastings and weeping and lamentation. Which also he did, and some years after piously ended his days at Pola, which town is in Istria. There are those who believe that this manner of doing penance for his sins was granted him by God at the prayers of Bl. Ladislaus. So he. More briefly Dlugosz in this way: For the rest he never appeared anywhere, but passed all the remaining time of his life in pilgrimage and in a religious life. Having then been carried in a pilgrim's habit to Pola, a city of Istria, he rests there dead.

[129] Thuroczy reasons thus about Solomon's last deeds: and spent the rest of his life in pious works Broken indeed by so many adversities, visited by the Spirit of salvation, he was not made harder by those very adversities; nor did he fight with free will against the most just truth of God; but feeling the hand of God most mercifully chastising him, he groaned in the remembrance of what he had committed: and, so far as it can be weighed by the judgment of just humanity, he repented of his sins with contrition of heart and with satisfaction. Truly happy is the necessity which compels to better things. For truly it must be that he whom the world hates is loved by God. Behold the noble body of Solomon

of a king, brought up amid royal delights, lies wearied in dust and ashes; and he who formerly fought for temporal things now attends only to heavenly ones. For he consumed the whole time of his life in pilgrimage and prayer, in fasts and vigils, in labors and supplications. He was even seen once in Hungary in the time of King Coloman; but he immediately withdrew from sight, nor did he ever again appear. He passed, however, from this world to the Lord, and was buried at Pola, a city of Istria. His wife, moreover, and his mother rest at Admont (in Styria).

[130] Bonfinius, as everywhere on other matters, adds still more concerning the changed Salomon in these words: he spent himself strenuously. When he had taken himself from the eyes of his companions, he was never seen again. They say that the man, driven by so many misfortunes, breathed upon by the divine Spirit and soon roused by a saving repentance, betook himself into the wilderness: that, when he had understood the hand of God chastising him, he turned it aside from himself not by struggling but by yielding; that he paid the fullest penalties in the desert; and that the fiercer he had shown himself toward men, the gentler he thereafter proved himself toward God; that he afterwards praised the fortune that raged against him, and reckoned most happy for himself whatever adversity he had once undergone, judging that whomever the world hates will be most dear to God. While he lay hidden in the solitude it was his custom to allay hunger with herbs and with fruits that grew of their own accord, to protect his body with a hair shirt and sometimes with the skins of wild beasts laid beneath him, to spread his bed with dry leaves, to conquer thirst with water, to snatch sleep by waking and labor, to wear out his body with perpetual fasting, and to be occupied day and night in sacred hymns and in divine prayer. O the unspeakable kindness of our Savior, who, when it has pleased Him, at once softens the hardest bodies, breathes in wisdom, and directs and draws them to salvation!

[131] Assuredly no one can sufficiently admire the return to sound mind of King Salomon: This change in the King is wonderful, that a man of the loftiest spirit, of untamed wrath (as this author has often said, but has nowhere proved from his deeds, nor could have proved, so far as I know), born of royal stock, set upon the royal summit, and always living amid delights, should suddenly, after the divine Spirit came upon him, have of his own accord laid aside his inborn pride; should have exchanged the robe of state for a hair shirt, the purple couch for dry leaves, royal banquets for berries and acorns, the wine of Sirmium for marsh water, and the thronging band of his guards for solitude, and should have found in that solitude a healthier repose than in his kingdom; that he pursued nothing more eagerly than to avoid the meeting and converse of men. They report that in the time of King Coloman he was seen only once in Hungary, and that he at once withdrew from sight, and never anywhere appeared again. They record that at the last, while living in the woods of Istria, he fell asleep in God, and was buried at Pola. His mother and his wife, they relate, departed this life in the monastery of Admont, which is situated in Styria, and were laid to rest there. So Bonfinius reasons concerning the wonderful change in Salomon; nor can it be denied that God's mercy toward the King was very great, in that He put such a mind into him that at length he chose rather to cast away every hope of reigning, and with all zeal to seek the everlasting kingdom in the other life, than, at the peril of falling from eternal salvation, to contrive fresh and uncertain schemes for recovering an earthly kingdom.

[132] That we may understand this to be true, there is no need to feign gratuitously even if perhaps Salomon's character that Salomon was of the loftiest spirit, or of untamed wrath, or too fierce or proud, or given over to soft delights. For these great vices of Salomon I nowhere find among contemporary or ancient writers; and all Salomon's deeds, which writers of the fifteenth century or earlier have narrated, suggest neither excessive fierceness in the King, nor pride, nor violent anger, nor an intemperate love of luxuries; but rather exhibit a prince moderate, easily appeased, brave, and by no means refusing the labors of war. Let us consider for a moment his chief deeds. Bela had stirred up war without just cause against Andrew, Salomon's father, and by that rising had torn away life from King Andrew and the kingdom from Salomon. Yet Salomon is not read to have attempted anything, so long as Bela lived, to avenge his father's death or to claim the kingdom for himself. When Bela was dead, Salomon obtained the kingdom without any shedding of blood. Soon Geisa contrives new schemes among the Poles to snatch the kingdom from him, and in fact in the following year invades Hungary with the Poles. What does that fierce Salomon do? He prudently avoids battle, and soon shows himself ready to enter upon peace, a third part of the kingdom being granted to Geisa to this end.

[133] was far better before, After this peace between Salomon and Geisa, if we believe Bonfinius, mutual charity and constant intercourse came between them. And this was so great for nearly ten years that they not only made the kingdom wealthy, but also carried through no wars without great praise, as Bonfinius again observes. All these things suggest a notable meekness and mildness rather than fierceness or pride — indeed a plainly royal spirit, by which he could pardon his father's death and the scepter to his cousin, who had done these things along with his father Bela, and who afterwards had plotted against Salomon himself. Salomon's fortitude and endurance of labors are abundantly declared by the military expeditions at which he was always present in person. These again point to his moderate disposition, since he is not read to have brought war upon anyone unless he had been provoked, or in order to bring help to those who had suffered injury. If only we are willing to consider the origin of the discord by which the gravest suspicions were sown between Salomon and Geisa, it seems to have arisen from Geisa rather than from Salomon: for Salomon had divided the spoil of Belgrade, but Geisa did not acquiesce in the division, and this was the first origin of the evil, out of which all the rest sprang.

[134] than some have wished; The Catholic religion also seems to have flourished under Salomon, or at least is nowhere read to have suffered any harm; and Vatha, that worst of apostates, who had almost overthrown religion before Andrew's reign was established, did not follow the party of Salomon but of Geisa; while the bishops of Hungary are always read to have labored for Salomon. Hungarian writers themselves commend Salomon's religion, if they speak the truth even in part, when they assert that before the battle of the Hungarians with the Cumans all the Hungarians were by edict fortified with the most holy Eucharist, and when they represent Salomon as present among the monks first at Vespers and then also at Matins or the Night Office. Everything therefore suggests that Salomon was an upright and brave king, so long as he held the kingdom at peace.

[135] and is read to have gone astray only after the kingdom was lost. But the things he contrived after the loss of the greatest part of the kingdom, and after enduring imprisonment — namely that he swore vassalage to Henry, king of Germany, or at any rate promised to swear it; that he extorted by lavish promises the help of the Cumans, who were infidels; that he attempted with the Cumans to plunder Bulgaria — these are not equally praiseworthy deeds, or rather are by no means to be approved. Yet neither is the King's character to be judged from them, since an excessive desire of recovering the kingdom gave them birth, and in that final despair, such as it was, of better fortune he seems to have fallen. We have therefore in Salomon, so far as can be gathered from the older documents, first a good prince, then one fallen into desperate counsels, and at last one greater than human ambition, and given over solely to penance and to pious works.

[136] He died after a long penance. How many years Bl. Salomon survived in the works of penance I nowhere find. But at least those have strayed far from the truth who have said that he died in the year 1077, as the lessons of the Office have it, and the other elogium given in §1. For in that year St. Ladislaus obtained the kingdom of Hungary. But Salomon lived several years along with him before he cast away every hope of recovering the kingdom, which he did not do before the year 1084 or 1085, as is clear from what has been said. Besides, if it is true, as Turoczy and Bonfinius assert, that Salomon was once seen in Hungary when Coloman was reigning, he survived at least a decade in that austere life. For Coloman did not obtain the kingdom before the year 1095 or 1096, and is said to have died in the year 1114. Wherefore that coming of Bl. Salomon into Hungary could have fallen in the later years of the eleventh century, or in the twelfth; and he could then have survived a long time still, since Salomon's age — he was born about the year 1048 — if it happened to be drawn out to old age, does not stand in the way of his having lived until the year 1120 or even 1130. From these things, therefore, the studious reader will gather that not even the century in which the Blessed died can be certainly assigned, much less the year. For this reason I have fixed the death of Bl. Salomon broadly in the eleventh or twelfth century. That he had no children born to him, Hungarian writers observe.

* deeds