Pozsonyi József: A semsei Semsey család története (Régi magyar családok 1. Debrecen, 2002.)

Summary

Summary József Pozsonyi: The History of the Semsey Family of Semse With an impressive history of more than seven and a half centuries, the Semsey family of Semse has one of the oldest noble historical lineages in Hungary. The first known ancestor, Richter Frank von Meissen, moved from Saxony to settle in Hungary after the Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241-1242. Upon the call issued by King Béla IV, the second founder of the state, groups of artisans and men-at-arms arrived from Germany to repopulate and rebuild the country that had been devastated by the Mongols (earlier thought to be Tartars). Among them, the first known Semsey forefather, Knight Frank, received landed property for his meritorious deeds as a soldier as early as the end of the 1200s, during the reign of King (Cumanian) László IV. Frank's son, Tamás, was the sword-bearer of King Károly Róbert, the subprefect of Szepes County, and the commander of the castle of Szepes. It was he who obtained the title to the village called Semse at the end of the 1310s, which provided the Hungarian name for the family. This small settlement, located 15 km-s from Kosice (present-day Slovakia), remained in the property of the family for several centuries, up until the end of the 2

nd World War. László, the grandson of Tamás (Frank Semsey's son), who was the Grand Cupbearer of King Sigismund of Luxembourg, the later Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, died in 1396 at Nikápoly [present-day Nicopol, Bulgaria] in the first great battle against the Turks. László'

s brother, János, also participated in the same battle and he was granted the distinction of the power of life and death on all his landed properties for their services in 1397. Four years later, in 1401, he was awarded a letter patent of nobility. In the family's coat-of-arms, a leaping stag, with a cross between its antlers, symbolizes Christ, the Resurrection and rebirth, as a reference to the