Béla III of Hungary

Béla III (Template:Langx, Template:Langx, Template:Langx; Template:Circa 1148Template:Spaced ndash23 April 1196) was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1172 and 1196. He was the second son of King Géza II and Géza's wife, Euphrosyne of Kiev. Around 1161, Géza granted Béla a duchy, which included Croatia, central Dalmatia and possibly Sirmium. In accordance with a peace treaty between his elder brother, Stephen III, who succeeded their father in 1162, and the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, Béla moved to Constantinople in 1163. He was renamed to Alexios, and the emperor granted him the newly created senior court title of despotes. He was betrothed to the Emperor's daughter, Maria. Béla's patrimony caused armed conflicts between the Byzantine Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary between 1164 and 1167, because Stephen III attempted to hinder the Byzantines from taking control of Croatia, Dalmatia and Sirmium. Béla-Alexios, who was designated as Emperor Manuel's heir in 1165, took part in three Byzantine campaigns against Hungary. His betrothal to the emperor's daughter was dissolved after her brother, Alexios, was born in 1169. The emperor deprived Béla of his high title, granting him the inferior rank of kaisar.

Stephen III died on 4 March 1172, and Béla decided to return to Hungary. Before his departure, he pledged that he would never make war against the Byzantine Empire. Although the Hungarian prelates and lords unanimously proclaimed Béla king, Lucas, Archbishop of Esztergom opposed his coronation because of Béla's alleged simony. Finally, the Archbishop of Kalocsa crowned him king on 18 January 1173, with Pope Alexander III's approval. Béla fought with his younger brother, Géza, whom he held in captivity for more than a decade. Taking advantage of the internal conflicts in the Byzantine Empire after Emperor Manuel's death, Béla reoccupied Croatia, Dalmatia and Sirmium between 1180 and 1181. He occupied the Principality of Halych in 1188, but it was lost within two years.

Béla promoted the use of written records during his reign. Hungarian chronicles from the 14th century even state that he was responsible for the establishment of the Royal Chancery. The royal palace built in Esztergom during his reign was the first example of Gothic architecture in Central Europe. He was the wealthiest European monarch of his time, according to a list of his revenues, but the reliability of the list is questioned.

Early life

Childhood (Template:Circa 1148–1163)

The seal of Béla's father, Géza II of Hungary

Béla was the second son of Géza II of Hungary and Géza's wife, Euphrosyne of Kiev.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The date of his birth was not recorded.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Studies of his bones show that Béla died in 1196 at around 49 years old, so he must have been born around 1148.Template:Sfn

The contemporaneous John Kinnamos's reference to "the territory which his father, while still alive, had apportioned"<ref>Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos (5.5), p. 163.</ref> to Béla shows that Géza II granted a distinct territory as an appanage to his younger son.Template:Sfn Béla's patrimony certainly included the central parts of Dalmatia, (which included Šibenik, Split, and Trogir, which had accepted the suzerainty of the Kings of Hungary for decades), because Kinnamos mentioned the province "as Béla's heritage".<ref>Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos (5.17), p. 187.</ref>Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Historians Ferenc Makk and Gyula Moravcsik agree that Béla also received Croatia from his father.Template:Sfn Whether Syrmium was also part of Béla's patrimony, or if he only acquired it after his father's death is subject to scholarly debates.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to historian Warren Treadgold, Béla's patrimony also included Bosnia.Template:Sfn The exact date of Géza II's grant cannot be determined, but according to Makk, Béla seems to have received his duchy around 1161.Template:Sfn

Géza II, who died on 31 May 1162, was succeeded by his first-born son, Stephen III.Template:Sfn Stephen III seems to have confirmed Béla's possession of the duchy, because Kinnamos referred to the land which was "long before granted"<ref>Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos (5.6), p. 165.</ref> to Béla by Géza and Stephen.Template:Sfn Shortly after his ascension to the throne, Stephen III was expelled by his uncles, Ladislaus II and Stephen IV.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The Byzantine Emperor, Manuel I Komnenos, supported the uncles' takeover, but Stephen III returned to Hungary and regained his crown by force in the middle of 1163.Template:Sfn Béla probably remained neutral during his brother's conflict with their uncles, because there is no report of Béla's activities in 1162 and 1163.Template:Sfn

In 1163, Emperor Manuel signed a peace treaty with Stephen III, in which he renounced his support of Stephen's opponents.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In exchange, Stephen III agreed to send Béla to Constantinople, and to allow the Byzantines to take possession of Béla's duchy.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The Emperor also promised that he would betroth his daughter, Maria, to Béla.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Despotes Alexios (1163–1169)

Byzantine Emperor Manuel I KomnenosTemplate:MdashBéla-Alexios was the Emperor's designated heir between 1165 and 1169

Emperor Manuel dispatched sebastos George Palaiologos to escort Béla to the Byzantine Empire.Template:Sfn Béla arrived in Constantinople around the end of 1163.Template:Sfn He was renamed to Alexios, and received the title of despotes ("lord"), which only emperors had used before that time.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Béla's betrothal to the emperor's daughter was also officially announced.Template:Sfn

Stephen III invaded Syrmium in the summer of 1164.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Emperor Manuel led his armies against Stephen, stating that he arrived "not to wage war on the Hungarians but to recover his land for Béla",<ref>Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos (5.6), p. 165.</ref> according to Kinnamos.Template:Sfn Béla-AlexiosTemplate:Mdashalong with his uncle, Stephen IV, and their distant relative, Stephanos KalamanosTemplate:Mdashaccompanied the emperor during the campaign.Template:Sfn Before long, a new peace treaty was signed, once again forcing Stephen III to renounce Béla's duchy.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn A Byzantine army occupied Syrmium, which was organized into a Byzantine theme, or district.Template:Sfn

Stephen III launched a new invasion against Syrmium in the spring of 1165.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Emperor Manuel directed the counter-attack, and Béla accompanied him again.Template:Sfn After the imperial army recaptured Zimony (now Zemun in Serbia), Béla persuaded the emperor to prohibit the execution of the Hungarian soldiers who were captured in the fortress.Template:Sfn A Byzantine army also occupied Dalmatia.Template:Sfn A new peace treaty between Stephen III and Emperor Manuel followed, which confirmed the emperor's suzerainty in Béla's former duchy.Template:Sfn Dalmatia and Bosnia were soon converted into Byzantine themes.Template:Sfn

Emperor Manuel ceremoniously made his daughter and Béla-Alexios his heirs, and forced the Byzantine notables to swear an oath of fidelity to them in the autumn of 1165.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Only the emperor's cousin, Andronikos Komnenos, dared to condemn this act, asking, "What madness is this of the emperor to deem every Roman male unworthy of his daughter's nuptial bed, to choose before all others this foreigner and interloper to be an emperor of the Romans and to sit above all as master?",<ref>O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates (4.137), p. 78.</ref> according to the nearly contemporaneous Niketas Choniates.Template:Sfn Béla-Alexios participated in the 1166 Council of Blachernae, together with Emperor Manuel and the Ecumenical Patriarch Luke Chrysoberges.Template:Sfn In the spring of 1166, Béla-Alexios accompanied protostrator Alexios Axouch, who led a Byzantine army against Hungary in retaliation for a new Hungarian invasion of Syrmium.Template:Sfn On 11 April 1166, although Béla-Alexios and his bride were related to each other, Emperor Manuel confirmed a decision of the Ecumenical Patriarch, which stated that marriages between kin to the seventh degree were void.Template:Sfn Manuel even proposed a marriage between his daughter (Béla-Alexios's fiancée) and the new King of Sicily, William II, in the autumn of 1166.Template:Sfn

A new war broke out between Hungary and the Byzantine Empire in 1167, because Béla-Alexios "claimed the kingdom"<ref>The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa (Appendix) p. 337.</ref> of his brother, according to the contemporaneous Rahewin.Template:Sfn Henry of Mügeln also wrote that many Hungarians joined and served the army of Béla-Alexios, stating that "the Kingdom of Hungary belonged to him [Béla-Alexios] by right".Template:Sfn On 8 July 1167, the Byzantine army annihilated the Hungarian troops in the Battle of Sirmium.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn A peace treaty was signed, which put an end to the period of wars between Hungary and the Byzantine Empire, and confirmed the dominion of the Byzantine Empire over central Dalmatia, Bosnia and Syrmium.Template:Sfn

Kaisar Alexios (1169–1172)

Emperor Manuel's wife, Maria of Antioch, gave birth to a son named Alexios on 14 September 1169.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The emperor dissolved his daughter's betrothal to Béla-Alexios.Template:Sfn The emperor also removed Béla-Alexios's title of despotes, but granted him the inferior rank of kaisar.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the spring of 1170, Béla-Alexios married the emperor's sister-in-law, Agnes of Antioch.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The couple went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.Template:Sfn In Jerusalem, they donated 10,000 bezants to the Knights Hospitaller in compensation for their hospitality.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the charter of grant, Béla-Alexios styled himself "Lord A., Duke of Hungary, Dalmatia and Croatia", ignoring the title that the emperor had recently bestowed upon him.Template:Sfn

Reign

Facial reconstruction of King Béla III of Hungary at an exhibition of the Institute of Hungarian Research (Emese Gábor, 2023)

Coronation (1172–1173)

Béla's brother, Stephen III, died on 4 March 1172.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Arnold of Lübeck, who was staying in Esztergom, recorded a rumor suggesting that Stephen had been poisoned by Béla's supporters, but no other source verifies this hearsay.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Stephen III's widow, Agnes, left Hungary, although she was pregnant when her husband died.Template:Sfn A Hungarian delegation visited Emperor Manuel and Béla in Sardica (now Sophia in Bulgaria).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn They demanded that "Béla be dispatched to them as king", because "the principle of justice looked toward him" after his brother's death,<ref>Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos (6.11), p. 214.</ref> according to Kinnamos.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Kinnamos also said that Emperor Manuel made Béla king after Béla "promised an oath to observe for the whole course of his life whatever would be beneficial"<ref>Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos (6.11), pp. 214–215.</ref> to the emperor and the Byzantines.Template:Sfn A letter written by the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos in 1196 says that on the same occasion, Béla pledged that he would never support the Serbians if they fought against the Byzantine Empire.Template:Sfn

Béla and his wife arrived in Székesfehérvár in late April or early May.Template:Sfn Béla was unanimously elected king by the "dignitaries of the Hungarian kingdom", according to a letter written by Pope Alexander III in 1179.Template:Sfn However, Béla's coronation was delayed, because Lucas, Archbishop of Esztergom, refused to perform it.Template:Sfn The archbishop accused the king of simony, because Béla had given a precious cloak to his delegate.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to a scholarly theory, Archbishop Lucas also feared that the influence of "schismatics" would increase under Béla's rule.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Nevertheless, the majority of the barons and prelates remained loyal to Béla.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Béla sought the assistance of the Holy See against the Archbishop Lucas.Template:Sfn Upon Béla's request, Pope Alexander III authorized the Archbishop of Kalocsa to anoint Béla king and "place the crown on his head".Template:Sfn Béla's coronation took place on 18 January 1173.Template:Sfn He issued a charter confirming the right of the archbishops of Esztergom to crown the Hungarian monarchs.Template:Sfn The unification of the so-called "Greek" and "Latin" crowns into the Holy Crown of Hungary seems to have occurred during his reign.Template:Sfn

Conflicts (1173–1178)

Archbishop Lucas fell out of favor with Béla, and was ignored by him in the first years of his reign.Template:Sfn Instead of Lucas, the Archbishop of Kalocsa baptized Béla's first-born son, Emeric, in 1174. However, administering sacraments to members of the royal family had always been the archbishops of Esztergom's job.Template:Sfn According to a Bohemian chronicle (Continuatio Gerlaci abbatis Milovicensis), Béla imprisoned his younger brother, Géza, but Géza escaped from prison and fled to Austria in 1174 or 1175.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Stephen III's judge royal, Lawrence, accompanied Géza.Template:Sfn When Henry Jasomirgott, Duke of Austria, refused to extradite Géza, Béla launched plundering raids into Austria, together with Soběslav II, Duke of Bohemia.Template:Sfn Meanwhile, Béla sent reinforcements to Emperor Manuel to help him fight against the Seljuks, but their united forces suffered defeat in the Battle of Myriokephalon on 17 September 1176.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Géza tried to persuade Soběslav II of Bohemia to help him meet Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, but Soběslav seized Géza and handed him over to Béla in 1177.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Béla once again imprisoned his brother, and he also put their mother, Euphrosyne, in confinement.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In retaliation for Soběslav's role in Géza's capture, Emperor Frederick dethroned Soběslav and appointed another member of the Přemyslid dynasty, Frederick, to the position of duke.Template:Sfn The Holy Roman Emperor ordered the new Duke of Austria, Leopold V, to storm Bohemia.Template:Sfn Béla soon intervened, threatening Leopold V with an invasion, which forced Leopold to leave Bohemia.Template:Sfn

Expansion and reforms (1178–1194)

Béla's long-time favorite, Andrew, Archbishop of Kalocsa, insulted him around 1178.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Béla soon deprived him and his supporter, the Provost of Székesfehérvár Chapter, of their offices and seized the Archbishop's revenues.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Pope Alexander III punished Béla with ecclesiastic sanctions, but Béla reconciled with Archbishop Lucas of Esztergom, who absolved him and excommunicated Andrew of Kalocsa.Template:Sfn The conflict ended with a compromise mediated by the Holy See: Andrew asked Béla to pardon him, and Béla restored him to his position of archbishop.Template:Sfn

Upon Béla's invitation, Cistercian monks came from France and set up new Cistercian abbeys at Egres, Zirc, Szentgotthárd and Pilis between 1179 and 1184.Template:Sfn In the 1180s, Béla initiated the building of a lofty royal castle and a new cathedral in Esztergom.Template:Sfn Nevertheless, he was almost always wandering around the country.Template:Sfn According to an inscription on a brick found in Bulkeszi (now Maglić in Serbia), Béla sponsored the baptism of a German "guest settler" in that village.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Béla III's seal

In the imperial court of Constantinople, Béla learnt the importance of a well-organized administration.Template:Sfn According to the Illuminated Chronicle, Béla "introduced the same form of addressing petitions as was customary in the Roman and imperial court",<ref>The Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle (ch. 171.122), p. 139.</ref> which suggests that the Royal Chancery began functioning as a separate office during his reign.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn He emphasized the importance of written records, ordering in 1181 that a charter was to be issued for all transactions proceeding in his presence.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Emperor Manuel I died on 24 September 1180.Template:Sfn Within six months, Béla had restored his suzerainty in Dalmatia, but no detailed contemporaneous accounts of the events exist.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn The citizens of Split "returned to Hungarian lordship"<ref>Archdeacon Thomas of Split: History of the Bishops of Salona and Split (ch. 22.), p. 131.</ref> soon after Manuel's death, according to the 13th-century Thomas the Archdeacon.Template:Sfn Zadar also accepted Béla's suzerainty in early 1181.Template:Sfn Historian John V. A. Fine writes that Béla retook suzerainty of Dalmatia "seemingly without bloodshed and with imperial consent", because the Byzantine authorities preferred that Béla rule the province rather than the Republic of Venice.Template:Sfn

The details of the reconquest of Syrmium are also obscure.Template:Sfn Andronikos Komnenos accused the mother of the young Byzantine Emperor, Alexios II, of inciting BélaTemplate:Mdashher brother-in-lawTemplate:Mdashto ravage the region of Belgrade and Barancs (now Braničevo in Serbia) in May 1182, implying that Béla had by that time occupied Syrmium.Template:Sfn In the same month, Andronikos Komnenos captured the Dowager Empress and had her murdered by the end of the year.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Taking advantage of the emerging anarchy in the Byzantine Empire, Béla advanced as far as Niš and Serdica in the first half of 1183.Template:Sfn In Sardica, he seized the casket containing the relics of Saint Ivan of Rila, and ordered it "to be transported with great honors to his land and to be laid down with honor in the church"<ref>Life of John of Rila from the Stishen (Sofia) Prologue, p. 266.</ref> of Esztergom, according to the saint's Life from the Sofia Prologue.Template:Sfn Makk writes that Béla withdrew from the regions south of the Danube, but historian Paul Stephenson says that Béla preserved these lands.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Andronikos Komnenos murdered Emperor Alexios II in late 1183.Template:Sfn The contemporaneous Eustathius of Thessalonica writes that Andronikos's opponents sent letters to many monarchs, including Béla III, urging them to attack Andronikos.Template:Sfn According to Ansbert and other Western European chroniclers, Béla invaded the Byzantine Empire in early 1185.Template:Sfn After Andronikos I fell in September, Béla signed a peace treaty with the new emperor, Isaac II Angelos.Template:Sfn Isaac married Béla's daughter, Margaret, and Béla granted the region of Niš and Barancs to Isaac as his daughter's dowry.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The relics of Saint Ivan of Rila were also returned to Sardica on this occasion.Template:Sfn Béla married Margaret of France, a sister of Philip II of France, in the summer of 1186.Template:Sfn

Foundation of the Szentgotthárd Abbey. Painting by Stephan Dorfmeister (Template:Circa 1795)

Orio Mastropiero, Doge of Venice, laid siege to Zadar in 1187, but the Venetian fleet could not seize the well-fortified town.Template:Sfn Vladimir Yaroslavich, Prince of Halych, fled to Hungary at the end of 1188, because his boyars had rebelled.Template:Sfn Roman Mstyslavych, Prince of Vladimir-in-Volhynia, soon occupied Halych, but Béla invaded the principality and expelled him.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Instead of restoring Vladimir Yaroslavich to his former position, Béla imprisoned him and granted control of Halych to Andrew, who was Béla's younger son.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn As a token of his conquest, Béla styled himself as King of Galicia. .Template:Sfn

In the summer of 1189, German crusaders marched through Hungary under the command of Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor.Template:Sfn Béla welcomed Frederick, and dispatched a troop to escort the crusaders across the Balkan Peninsula.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn At Frederick's request, Béla released his imprisoned brother, Géza, who joined the crusaders and left Hungary.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Béla mediated a peace treaty between Frederick I and Isaac II, whose mutual distrust had almost caused war between the German crusaders and the Byzantines.Template:Sfn

Vladimir Yaroslavich escaped from captivity in early 1189 or 1190.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn With the assistance of Casimir II of Poland, he expelled Andrew from Halych, and regained control of the principality.Template:Sfn In 1191, Béla met his son-in-law, Isaac II, in Philippopolis (now Plovdiv in Bulgaria) and Syrmium, but the results of their negotiations remained unknown.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Upon Béla's request, the Holy See approved the canonization of Ladislaus I of Hungary in 1192.Template:Sfn Béla invaded Serbia at the beginning of 1193.Template:Sfn Isaac II demanded the withdrawal of his troops, and threatened Béla with war.Template:Sfn At the same time, Doge Enrico Dandolo attempted to occupy Zadar, but failed.Template:Sfn In 1193, Béla granted Modruš County in Croatia to Bartholomew of Krk, a member of the Frankopan family.Template:Sfn This is the earliest certain example of an office being granted as a hereditary dignity in the Kingdom of Hungary.Template:Sfn

Last years (1194–1196)

In 1194, Béla appointed his eldest son, Emeric, who had already been crowned as the future king, to administer Croatia and Dalmatia.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn After a united Bulgarian, Cumanian and Vlach army defeated the Byzantines in the Battle of Arcadiopolis in 1194, Béla was willing to assist the Byzantine Empire.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn However, his campaign was cancelled, because Béla's son-in-law, Emperor Isaac II, was dethroned by Alexios III Angelos in April 1195.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, was planning to launch a campaign against the Byzantine Empire on behalf of the dethroned emperor, but Béla prohibited his subjects from joining Henry.Template:Sfn

Béla took the cross as a token of his desire to lead a crusade to the Holy Land.Template:Sfn However, he could not fulfill his oath, because he fell ill and died on 23 April 1196.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn He was buried in the Székesfehérvár Cathedral.Template:Sfn His remains were confidently identified by archeologists during 19th-century excavations, because a contemporaneous sourceTemplate:MdashRichard of LondonTemplate:Mdashwrote of Béla's exceptional height.Template:Sfn Béla's skeleton shows that he was Template:Convert tall.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Béla's remains were reinterred at the Matthias Church in Budapest.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The DNA from skeletal remains of Béla and of another presumed member of the Árpád dynasty, scholars propose that the dynasty belonged to Y-haplogroup R1a subclade R-SUR51 > R-ARP.<ref>Template:Citation</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref>

Family

King Béla's III tomb

Béla's first wife, Agnes, was the daughter of Raynald of Châtillon, Prince of Antioch, and Raynald's wife, Constance of Antioch.Template:Sfn Agnes was born around 1149 and died around 1184.Template:Sfn At the time of her marriage in 1170, she was renamed Anna in Constantinople.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Béla's and Agnes-Anna's first child, Emeric, was born in 1174.Template:Sfn Emeric's sister, Margaret, who was renamed Maria in Constantinople, was born in 1175.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn At the age of nine or ten, she was given in marriage to the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos, who was about 30 at the time.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Maria's husband died in 1204, before the Sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.Template:Sfn Margaret–Maria married one of the leaders of the Crusade, Boniface of Montferrat, who seized Thessaloniki after the fall of the Byzantine Empire.Template:Sfn Historian Makk writes that in about 1210, Maria married Nicholas I of Saint Omer after the death of Boniface, but scholar Peter Lock says that Saint Omer's wife and Margaret–Maria were not identical.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The second son of Béla and Agnes-Anna, Andrew, was born around 1177.Template:Sfn His two younger brothers, Solomon and Stephen, did not survive infancy.Template:Sfn Their younger sister, Constance, married King Ottokar I of Bohemia in about 1198.Template:Sfn A third daughter of Béla and Agnes-Anna, whose name is unknown, died in infancy.Template:Sfn

After the death of Agnes-Anna, Béla proposed to Theodora, a granddaughter of Emperor Manuel I's sister, Theodora Komnene.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn However, a synod of the Byzantine Church forbade the marriage in 1185, because Theodora had entered a nunnery.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In late 1185 or at the beginning of 1186, Béla asked for the hand of Matilda of Saxony, a daughter of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, but Henry II of England, Matilda's grandfather, hindered this marriage.Template:Sfn Finally, Béla married Henry II's widowed daughter-in-law, Margaret of France, in the summer of 1186.Template:Sfn She was the daughter of Louis VII of France.Template:Sfn Queen Margaret outlived Béla, and moved to the Holy Land after his death.Template:Sfn

Legacy

Béla was one of the most eminent medieval monarchs of Hungary.Template:Sfn His "rule not only represented the apogee of the kingdom of the Árpádians, but also marked the end of an epoch", according to historian Pál Engel.Template:Sfn His establishment of the Royal Chancery contributed to the "expansion of written records" in Hungary; the first charters issued by barons appeared in the 1190s.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to a contemporaneous list of Béla's revenues, his yearly income amounted to almost 170,000 marks (about 23 tonnes of pure silver).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn If the list is reliable, his income surpassed the revenues of the contemporaneous Kings of France and England, but the reliability of the list has been questioned by many historians, including Pál Engel.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

In about 1190, after a fire destroyed Esztergom, Béla invited French masons to rebuild the royal palace and the cathedral.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The masons introduced new architectural forms; the new royal palace and cathedral were the earliest examples of Gothic architecture in Central Europe.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Coins depicting a two-barred cross, which was primarily used in the Church of the Byzantine Empire, were minted from around 1190, suggesting that the so-called "double cross" became part of the Hungarian royal heraldry under Béla III.Template:Sfn

Sources

Primary sources

• Archdeacon Thomas of Split: History of the Bishops of Salona and Split (Latin text by Olga Perić, edited, translated and annotated by Damir Karbić, Mirjana Matijević Sokol and James Ross Sweeney) (2006). CEU Press. Template:ISBN.
• Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos (Translated by Charles M. Brand) (1976). Columbia University Press. Template:ISBN.
• "Life of John of Rila from the Stishen (Sofia) Prologue". In Petkov, Kiril (2008). The Voices of Medieval Bulgaria, Seventh-Fifteenth Century: The Records of a Bygone Culture. Brill. pp. 265–268. Template:ISBN.
• O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniatēs (Translated by Harry J. Magoulias) (1984). Wayne State University Press. Template:ISBN.
• The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa by Otto of Freising and his Continuator, Rahewin (Translated and annotated with an introduction by Charles Christopher Mierow with the collaboration of Richard Emery) (2004). Columbia University Press. Template:ISBN.
• The Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle: Chronica de Gestis Hungarorum (Edited by Dezső Dercsényi) (1970). Corvina, Taplinger Publishing. Template:ISBN.

Secondary sources

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• Template:The Early Medieval Balkans
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• Template:Runciman-A History of the Crusades
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• Template:A History of the Byzantine State and Society

Further reading

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