Stephen I of Hungary
Stephen I took a crown from the pope rather than the emperor, made the Magyars a Christian kingdom in a single reign by force and by law, and left a crown, a right hand and a set of counties that Hungary still governs itself through. He was born about 975 as Vajk, the son of the grand prince Géza, who had let missionaries in for political reasons and been baptised with his household while, the chronicle says, still sacrificing to the old gods; the boy was baptised Stephen and married in 996 to Gisela of Bavaria, which brought German knights. Géza died in 997 and Stephen's kinsman Koppány claimed the succession by the old rule of seniority and the widow with it. Stephen beat him with the Bavarian heavy cavalry near Veszprém and had the body quartered and nailed to the gates of four towns. The crown came at Christmas 1000 or the New Year after, sent by Sylvester II with Otto III's approval, and the coronation at Esztergom made Hungary a kingdom answerable to no emperor, which is the distinction every Hungarian constitution since has cited. He then built the thing. Two archbishoprics and eight bishoprics, the abbey of Pannonhalma, a church for every ten villages, tithes; some forty-five counties each under a royal ispán with a castle, which took the land out of the clans. He issued two law codes in Latin that punished paganism, protected property and fixed Sunday, and led campaigns against the last independent chiefs, his uncle Gyula in Transylvania in 1003 and Ajtony on the Maros. He fought off Conrad II's invasion in 1030. His son Emeric, for whom the Admonitions on kingship were written, was killed by a boar in 1031, and the succession fell to a nephew he had blinded and the Venetian son of his sister, who ruined it. He died on 15 August 1038 and was canonised in 1083 with his son, when his right hand was found incorrupt; it is carried through Budapest on his feast, and the crown named for him, which is younger than he is, sits in the parliament.
- Lived: 975 CE – 1038 CE
- Nationality: Hungarian
- Roles: king, monarch, saint
