Miklós Kásler - Zoltán Szentirmay (szerk.): Identifying the Árpád Dynasty Skeletons Interred in the Matthias Church. Applying data from historical, archaeological, anthropological, radiological, morphological, radiocarbon dating and genetic research (Budapest, 2021)

CHAPTER TWO – Historical background

I (1074-1077), so both descended from Géza

and

László

’s father,

King Béla

I

(1060-1063). In 1165, Béla

(known

as Alexios

in

the Byzantine Empire) was officially designated as the next Emperor. In the fall of 1169, however, the Emperor was gifted a male child by his second wife. As a result, Béla was

stripped of his princely status and his betrothal to Maria was undone, for which he was compensated with the Empress’s half-sister: Ágnes

(Anne)

of Châtillon,

Princess

of Antioch, the daughter of crusader knight Raynald of Châtillon,

became Bêlas

wife

in the spring of 1170.

István III

died on March 4, 1172, at the age of 25. When his brother, Béla,

who

had a mixed upbringing, returned to Hungary, he was able to start his reign with the proper preparation, but he faced formidable opposition, as the Queen Mother Euphrosyne

and

Lukács, Archbishop

of Esztergom, wanted Prince Géza

to

be king: Béla, who

had been away for a long time, seemed to “alien” and too “Greek” to them. They were wrong: Béla

III

remained firmly Catholic and acted as an independent Hungarian King. Opportunities in foreign policy were favourable for Hungary’s domestic security. After the death of Manuel, internal struggles - such as the Serbian and Bulgarian separatist uprisings - weakened the eastern empire, providing a prime opportunity for Hungarian conquest. This began with the quick recapture of the Adriatic coastal region, Bêlas

erstwhile

“dowry”. By 1181, the Hungarian Kingdom’s territorial unity had been restored. After this, the King continued to expand at the expense of the Byzantine Empire. His new gains were returned only when his daughter, Margit (Maria) and Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos (1185-1195 and 1203-1204) had married, as a “wedding present” at the end of 1185 (Makk

1989,1996).

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