G%C3%A9za II of Hungary


Gza II was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1141 to 1162. He was the oldest son of Bla the Blind and his wife, Helena of Rascia. When his father died, Gza was still a child and he started ruling under the guardianship of his mother and her brother, Belo. A pretender to the throne, Boris Kalamanos, who had already claimed Hungary during Bla the Blinds reign, temporarily captured Pressburg with the assistance of German mercenaries in early 1146. In retaliation, Gza, who came of age in the same year, invaded Austria and routed Henry Jasomirgott, Margrave of Austria, in the Battle of the Fischa.

Gza was born the eldest son of Bla the Blind, a cousin of King Stephen II of Hungary, and Helena of Raka in 1130. Gzas father had been blinded, together with his rebellious father, lmos, in the 1110s on the order of Stephen IIs father, Coloman, King of Hungary, who wanted to ensure Stephens succession. When Gza was born, his parents lived on an estate that King Stephen had granted them in Tolna. Gzas father succeeded King Stephen in the spring of 1131. In the same year, Queen Helena took Gza and his younger brother, Ladislaus, to an assembly held at Arad, where she ordered the massacre of sixtyeight noblemen by whose counsel the King had been blinded, according to the Illuminated Chronicle.

Source: Wikipedia