Ispánság of Zala

Who he is

Name

Benedict, son of Korlát (presumed)

Title

Ispán (comes) of Zala

Since

1199-1200 (month not pinned)

Born

Not known

Family

Son of Korlát; of the Bár-Kalán kindred according to Márta Font. About 1201-1202 he married Tota, Queen Constance's lady-in-waiting. Later voivode of Transylvania (1202-1206, 1208-1209), styled dux; exiled under Andrew.

Confidence

low

English Wikipedia, Benedict, son of Korlát: Tamás Kádár (2018) identifies him with the ban Benedict and makes him 'Ban of Slavonia and ispán of Zala County (1199-1200)'. Zsoldos (2011) keeps the Benedicts apart. Not certain.

Overlord

King Emeric

What it holds

• Zalavár castle and the castle folk of Zala
• The Zala valley, the north shore of the Balaton with Tihany, the Mur and the southern Prekmurje (Alsólendva)
• The Muraköz between the Mur and the Drava (Zala's by later evidence; not pinned for 1200)
• The border guards on the Mur

How it was acquired

Royal appointment.

Allies and rivals

Emeric's party, if the ispán is Benedict son of Korlát. Across the Mur: the Styrian lords of Radkersburg and Salzburg's lords of Pettau.

How things stand that morning

Held for Emeric. No raid across the Mur is recorded for the winter of 1199-1200; the Pettau strip lost at Easter 1199 has not been won back (drawn by the Eastern Germany map). The Muraköz between the Mur and the Drava is Hungarian ground (cro anchors it so); that it lay under Zala rather than Varaždin in 1200 is not pinned, and it is drawn as a separate part.

Wealth

Wine of the Balaton uplands, fisheries of the marshes and the lake, the road from Fehérvár and Veszprém towards Pettau and the Venetian road.

Military

Zalavár's earthwork castle in the marsh; the border guards on the Mur. Beaten on the Drava at Easter 1199 by the men of Pettau (tradition).

Threats

• Styrian and Salzburg pressure on the Mur and the Drava after Easter 1199
• Andrew's return through Slavonia

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. Summer 1200 (not pinned)If the ispán is the ban Benedict, he gives up the banate when Andrew is restored to Croatia and Dalmatia; whether he keeps Zala is not pinned.Depends on: The brothers' peace and Kádár's identification. Stopped by: The peace failing.

Places of note

• Zalavár: County castle and St Adrian's abbey (1019) on a marsh island.
• Tihany abbey (1055): Royal Benedictine abbey on the Balaton (Church matter).
• Kapornak abbey: Abbey under the Héder kindred's patronage.
• Hahót: Name-place of the Buzád-Hahót kindred (estates in 1200 not pinned).

Where the sources disagree

• Kádár (2018) makes Benedict son of Korlát ban of Slavonia and ispán of Zala in 1199-1200; the English Wikipedia ban list names the ban 'Benedict Osl'; Zsoldos (2011) identifies the ban with the palatine Benedict of 1202-1204. The cro researcher (Ban Benedict) records the same dispute.

Evidence: The castle and abbeys are well known; the ispán rests on one historian's identification.

On the map: Drawn on the later county bounds; the Mur frontier as in the Eastern Germany map.

Primary sources for Hungary

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Chronicle of Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines (about 1227 to 1241, at the Cistercian abbey of Trois-Fontaines in Champagne). The widest net of any Latin chronicle for 1200, compiled from dozens of sources, many now lost. Read online
• The Austrian and Salzburg annals (kept in the 12th and 13th centuries, with continuations to the late 13th century). A family of monastic annals from Austria, Styria and Salzburg, printed together. Read online
• The Hypatian Chronicle (the Kievan Chronicle compiled about 1200 at the Vydubichi monastery; the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle in the 13th century). The southern record. Read online
• History of the bishops of Salona and Split, by Thomas the Archdeacon, Thomas of Split (about 1266). Written two generations later by a Split churchman born about 1200. Read online
• History of the doges of Venice (about 1229, with a continuation). The earliest surviving Venetian narrative close to the events. Read online
• The Deeds of the Hungarians, by the Anonymous Notary of King Béla, Anonymus (P. magister) (about 1200 to 1210, the date disputed). Not a record of events but a picture of the kingdom's nobility and geography as a courtier of about 1200 wished to see it: the clans and their lands, the castles and counties, the Vlachs, Cumans and other peoples of the Carpathian basin, all projected back onto the conquest. Read online
• The Book of Census of the Roman Church, Cencius Camerarius (Cencio Savelli, later Pope Honorius III) (1192, with later additions). The papal rent roll: every church, monastery, town and kingdom that owed a census to Rome in 1192, diocese by diocese, with the sums, followed by lists of papal lands and castles, the ceremonial Ordo and copies of charters. Read online
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III for 1199 to 1201, Innocent III and the papal chancery (22 February 1199 to 21 February 1201). The pope's outgoing letters for the year, in his chancery's own copy, touching nearly every realm in the atlas. Read online

4 more in the sources library for Poland, Hungary and the Adriatic.