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Glad (duke)
Encyclopedia
Gesta Hungarorum
Gesta Hungarorum is a record of early Hungarian history by an unknown author who describes himself as Anonymi Bele Regis Notarii , but is generally cited as Anonymus...
"(The Deeds of the Hungarians)", ruled in the territory of modern Banat
Banat
The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania , the western part in northeastern Serbia , and a small...
(today mostly in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
and Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
) at the time of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin around 896. His story was recorded exclusively by the Gesta Ungarorum, other primary source
Primary source
Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied....
s make no mention of him.
The Gesta presents Ahtum
Ahtum
Ahtum, also Achtum or Ajtony , was a local ruler in the region of Banat in the first decades of the 11th century. King Saint Stephen I of Hungary sent Csanád - one of Ahtum’s former retainers - to fight against him...
– who, according to the so-called Long Life of St Gerard
Gerard Sagredo
Saint Gerard Sagredo , also called Gerhard or Gellert, was an Italian bishop from Venice who operated in the Kingdom of Hungary , and educated Saint Emeric of Hungary, the son of Saint Stephen of Hungary). He played a major role in converting Hungary to Christianity...
, ruled the Banat at the beginning of the 11th century – as a descendant from Glad’s lineage.
Glad in the Gesta Ungarorum
The author of the Gesta narrates that Glad arrived from VidinVidin
Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Serbia and Romania, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as of the Metropolitan of Vidin...
(Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
) to the Carpathian Basin, and occupied his domain with Cuman
Cumans
The Cumans were Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After Mongol invasion , they decided to seek asylum in Hungary, and subsequently to Bulgaria...
assistance. Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
historians (e.g., Vlad Georgescu
Vlad Georgescu
Vlad Georgescu , Romanian historian, was the director of the Romanian-language department of Radio Free Europe between 1983 and 1988.-Biography:...
, Ioan Aurel Pop, Victor Spinei) suggest that the Cumani is a name which the chronicler probably used in lieu of Pechenegs because the Cumans only reached the Dnieper River
Dnieper River
The Dnieper River is one of the major rivers of Europe that flows from Russia, through Belarus and Ukraine, to the Black Sea.The total length is and has a drainage basin of .The river is noted for its dams and hydroelectric stations...
in the middle of the 11th century, and approached the Danube Delta
Danube Delta
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania , while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine . The approximate surface is...
at some point between 1065 and 1078. On the other hand, in another episode of the GestaThe Chapter 25 of the Gesta Ungarorum narrates that “Gelou
Gelou
Gelou or Gelu was a Romanian duke mentioned in Gesta Hungarorum as having opposed the conquest of Transylvania by Tuhutum, one of the “seven dukes” of the Magyars. His story was recorded only by the anonymous writer of the 13th century Gesta...
was inconstant and did not have around him good warriors who would dare stand against the courage of the Hungarians, because they suffered many injuries from the Cumans and Pechenegs.”, the Cumans are clearly distinguished from the Pechenegs.
The Gesta narrates that Glad’s army included Cumans, besides Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
and Romanians, when the Hungarians attacked him. According to the Romanian historian, Victor Spinei, the episode suggests that Glad asked the Pechenegs for help, in order to face the Hungarian attacks. Based on the episode, Vlad Georgescu and Ioan Aurel Pop suggest that Glad’s army comprised Romanians, Pechenegs and Bulgarians.
Controversy around his story
One view is that the elaborate studies of the last decades on the text Gesta Ungarorum have revealed that most of the reports are not inventions, but they have a real support, even if here and there some anachronisms occurred.Other view is that very few of the episodes of the Gesta can be substantiated from other sources. Some argue the anonymous author of the Gesta projected the ethnic situation of his own age (the turn of the 12th-13th centuries) back to the past (to the turn of the 9th-10th centuries) (e.g., one interpretation of the appearance in conjunction of Bulgarians, Romanians and Cumans, three nations only mentioned together during the first years of the Second Bulgarian Empire
Second Bulgarian Empire
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...
). The term "Cuman" however is very ambiguous in the chronicle and could easily designate the Pechenegs, reflecting the ethnic realities of the 10th century. When narrating Glad’s story, the author of the Gesta borrowed heavily from the Ahtum episode recorded in the Long Life of St Gerard. Those phrases which refer to Glad seem to belong genuinely to the Ahtum episode; thus all that is wrong with Glad is that he is usurping his descendant’s story.
See also
- BanatBanatThe Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania , the western part in northeastern Serbia , and a small...
- Gesta HungarorumGesta HungarorumGesta Hungarorum is a record of early Hungarian history by an unknown author who describes himself as Anonymi Bele Regis Notarii , but is generally cited as Anonymus...
- AhtumAhtumAhtum, also Achtum or Ajtony , was a local ruler in the region of Banat in the first decades of the 11th century. King Saint Stephen I of Hungary sent Csanád - one of Ahtum’s former retainers - to fight against him...
- GelouGelouGelou or Gelu was a Romanian duke mentioned in Gesta Hungarorum as having opposed the conquest of Transylvania by Tuhutum, one of the “seven dukes” of the Magyars. His story was recorded only by the anonymous writer of the 13th century Gesta...
- MenumorutMenumorutFor the residential district named after him, see Menumorut, Satu MareMenumorut or Menumorout ruled, according to the 13th century Gesta Ungarorum , the land between the rivers Tisa, Mureş and Someş when the Magyars invaded the Carpathian Basin around 895...
- SalanSalan]Salan, Dux Salanus or Zalan was, according to the Gesta Hungarorum, a Bulgarian voivod who ruled in the 9th century between Danube and Tisa rivers, mainly in the territory of present-day Bačka region of Serbia and Hungary. The capital city of his voivodship was Titel...
- Rulers of VojvodinaRulers of VojvodinaThis is a list of local rulers of Vojvodina. The list also include local rulers of Banat, Bačka and Srem, including parts of mentioned regions, which are not part of present-day Vojvodina, as well as other rulers of larger political units that had specific local ties to territory of present-day...
- Bulgarian-Hungarian WarsBulgarian-Hungarian WarsThe Bulgarian–Hungarian wars were a series of conflicts which took place between the Bulgarian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary between the 9th and 14th centuries...
Sources
- Curta, Florin: Transylvania around A.D. 1000; in: Urbańczyk, Przemysław (Editor): Europe around the year 1000; Wydawn. DiG, 2001; ISBN 978-837-1-8121-18.
- Đuvara, Njagu – Ursulesku, Florin – Bešlin, Branko: Kratka istorija Rumuna za mlade; Platoneum, 2004, Novi Sad; ISBN 978-8-68363-923-6
- Georgescu, Vlad (Author) – Calinescu, Matei (Editor) – Bley-Vroman, Alexandra (Translator): The Romanians – A History; Ohio State University Press, 1991, Columbus; ISBN 0-8142-0511-9
- Kristó, Gyula (General Editor) - Engel, Pál - Makk, Ferenc (Editors): Korai Magyar történeti lexikon (9-14. század) /Encyclopedia of the Early Hungarian History (9th-14th centuries)/; Akadémiai Kiadó, 1994, Budapest; ISBN 963-05-6722-9 (the entries “Anonymus” and “Galád” were written by Zoltán Kordé).
- Macartney, C. A.: The Medieval Hungarian Historians: A Critical and Analytical Guide; Cambridge University Press, 2008, Cambridge and New York; ISBN 978-0-521-08051-4
- Pejin, Jovan M.: Iz prošlosti Kikinde; Komuna, 2000, Kikinda
- Petrović, Radmilo: Vojvodina: petnaest milenijuma kulturne istorije; Centar za mitološke studije Srbije, 2003, Beograd; ISBN 978-8-68322-909-5
- Pop, Ioan Aurel: Romanians and Romania: A Brief History; Columbia University Press, 1999, New York; ISBN 0-88033-440-1
- Spinei, Victor: The Romanians and the Turkic Nomads North of the Danube Delta from the Tenth to the Mid-Thirteenth Century; Brill, 2009, Leiden and Boston; ISBN 978-90-04-17536 5
- Veszprémy, László (Translator): A magyarok cselekedetei /The Deeds of the Hungarians/; in: Anonymus (Author) - Veszprémy, László (Translator): A magyarok cselekedetei – Kézai, Simon (Author) - Bollók, János (Translator): A magyarok cselekedetei; Osiris Kiadó, 1999, Budapest; ISBN 963-389-606-1.
