Kisfaludy László: A kisfaludy Kisfaludy család története (Régi magyar családok 2. Debrecen, 2004)

Abstract

Abstract László Kisfaludy, The History of the Kisfaludy-family from Kisfalud For the past 800 years or so, the name Kisfaludy has kept recurring from time to time in sundry events of Hungarian history. It has been the name of many a noted poet and soldier, who have made it widely known across the whole country. The members of the family trace their origins back to the Csák clan around the time of the Magyar conquest of Hungary. According to a number of assumptions, they were even related to prince Árpád. The direct ancestor of the Kisfaludy-s, Csák-nembeli Miklós [Miklós of the Csák clan], held the contemporary position that would correspond to lord-lieutenancy today in several counties during the 1220s, while most of his landed property was located in the area around the Vértes mountains. It was from his cousin, Ugrin, the bishop of Esztergom, that he inherited the ownership of the settlement called Kisfalud [verbatim: 'your little village] in the Északnyugat-Dunántúl [Northeastern Transdanubia] region, which then provided the name for his descendants. As far as we know, the first person ever called Kisfaludy in the course of history was Lőrinc, Miklós's second child, in the 1250s. There are several dozens of charters and deeds extant to us from the time of the House of Árpád-s that are related to the family, which is a rather unique case, even among Hungarian noble families of similarly venerable lineage. Among the material remains associated with the Kisfaludy-s, the most noteworthy would be the family temple of the Csák clan located at Vértesszentkereszt, the reconstructed ruins of which are on display near the city of Oroszlány. As of the 14th century, the members of the family became less and less dominant in the public life of the country, while they got more intent on carrying on lawsuits against one another or against their more distant relatives. They lost a significant portion of the estates around the Vértes mountains but, instead, they acquired new demesnes in the northwestern part of the country, in Vas, Győr, and Sopron counties. Thus, they turned into a truely parochial family, whose connections and offices equally bound them to the above region. It was not until the beginning of the