for the town in Mali see Kende, Mali

Kende, Mali

Kende is a small town and commune in the Cercle of Bandiagara in the Mopti Region of Mali. As of 1998 the commune had a population of 3,487....

The kende (or kündü) was one of the kings of the dual-monarchy of the early Magyars, along with the gyula or war-chief. The function of the kende is believed to have been a religious one. At the time of the Magyar migration to Pannonia

Pannonia

Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....

, the Kende was named Kurszán

Kurszán

Kurszán , the Magyar sacral prince, was a partner ruler besides Árpád till his death. He had a crucial role in the Hungarian Conquest . In 892/893 together with Arnulf of Carinthia he attacked Great Moravia to secure the eastern borders of the Frankish Empire. Arnulf gave him all the captured...

. Upon Kurszán's death in a raid in approximately 907 CE, the office was taken up by the gyula Árpád

Árpád

Árpád was the second Grand Prince of the Hungarians . Under his rule the Hungarian people settled in the Carpathian basin. The dynasty descending from him ruled the Hungarian tribes and later the Kingdom of Hungary until 1301...

, creating a single-head monarchy for Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

. Though there are some scholars (for example Gyula Kristó) who believe that Árpád was the kende, who later took up the functions of the gyula.

Some scholars have speculated that the early Magyar dual kingship derived from their time as vassals of the Khazars

Khazars

The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people who established one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, with the capital of Atil and territory comprising much of modern-day European Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the northern Caucasus , parts of...

. Indeed, the Khazars were described by ibn Fadlan as having an officer titled Kündür

Kündür

According to ibn Fadlan, the Kündür was an official in the Khazar government under the command of the Khagan Bek. Ibn Fadlan did not describe the duties of this officer, nor does any extant source...

which may have been either identical to, model for or the forerunner of the office of kende.