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Birth:          Nov 1206 of Esztergom, Komarom, Hungary
Death:          3 May 1270 
Burial:          Esztergom, Komarom, Hungary

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9la_IV_of_Hungary
Béla IV (1206 – 3 May 1270) was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1235 and 
1270, and Duke of Styria from 1254 to 1258. Being the oldest son of King Andrew II, 
he was crowned upon the initiative of a group of influential noblemen in his father's 
lifetime in 1214. His father, who strongly opposed Béla's coronation, refused to give 
him a province to rule until 1220. In this year, Béla was appointed Duke of Slavonia, 
also with jurisdiction in Croatia and Dalmatia. Around the same time, Béla married 
Maria, a daughter of Theodore I Laskaris, Emperor of Nicaea. From 1226, he governed 
Transylvania with the title Duke. He supported Christian missions among the pagan 
Cumans who dwelled in the plains to the east of his province. Some Cuman chieftains 
acknowledged his suzerainty and he adopted the title of King of Cumania in 1233. 
King Andrew died on 21 September 1235 and Béla succeeded him. He attempted to 
restore royal authority, which had diminished under his father. For this purpose, he 
revised his predecessors' land grants and reclaimed former royal estates, causing 
discontent among the noblemen and the prelates.

The Mongols invaded Hungary and annihilated Béla's army in the Battle of Mohi on 11 
April 1241. He escaped from the battlefield, but a Mongol detachment chased him from 
town to town as far as Trogir on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Although he survived 
the invasion, the Mongols devastated the country before their unexpected withdrawal 
in March 1242. Béla introduced radical reforms in order to prepare his kingdom for a 
second Mongol invasion. He allowed the barons and the prelates to erect stone 
fortresses and to set up their private armed forces. He promoted the development of 
fortified towns. During his reign, thousands of colonists arrived from the Holy Roman 
Empire, Poland and other neighboring regions to settle in the depopulated lands. 
Béla's efforts to rebuild his devastated country won him the epithet of "second 
founder of the state" (Hungarian: második honalapító).

He set up a defensive alliance against the Mongols, which included Daniil 
Romanovich, Prince of Halych, Boleslaw the Chaste, Duke of Cracow and other 
Ruthenian and Polish princes. His allies supported him in occupying the Duchy of 
Styria in 1254, but it was lost to King Ottokar II of Bohemia six years later. During 
Béla's reign, a wide buffer zone—which included Bosnia, Barancs (Branicevo, Serbia) 
and other newly conquered regions—was established along the southern frontier of 
Hungary in the 1250s.

Béla's relationship with his oldest son and heir, Stephen, became tense in the early 
1260s, because the elderly king favored his daughter, Anna and his youngest child, 
Béla, Duke of Slavonia. He was forced to cede the territories of the Kingdom of 
Hungary east of the river Danube to Stephen, which caused a civil war lasting until 
1266. Nevertheless, Béla's family was famed for his piety: he died as a Franciscan 
tertiary, and the veneration of his three saintly daughters—Kunigunda, Yolanda, and 
Margaret—was confirmed by the Holy See.
Childhood (1206–20)[edit]

Béla was the oldest son of King Andrew II of Hungary by his first wife, Gertrude of 
Merania.[1][2] He was born in the second half of 1206.[1][3] Upon King Andrew's 
initiative, Pope Innocent III had already appealed to the Hungarian prelates and 
barons on 7 June to swear an oath of loyalty to the King's future son.[3][4]

Queen Gertrude showed blatant favoritism towards her German relatives and courtiers, 
causing widespread discontent among the native lords.[5][6] Taking advantage of her 
husband's campaign in the distant Principality of Halych, a group of aggrieved 
noblemen seized and murdered her in the forests of the Pilis Hills on 28 September 
1213.[5][7] King Andrew only punished one of the conspirators, a certain Count Peter, 
after his return from Halych.[8] Although Béla was a child when his mother was 
assassinated, he never forgot her and declared his deep respect for her in many of his 
royal charters.[3] In his correspondence with his sister, the noted Franciscan saint, 
Elizabeth of Hungary, he was often counseled to restrain his anger at the nobles for 
the death of their mother.[citation needed]

Andrew II betrothed Béla to an unnamed daughter of Tzar Boril of Bulgaria in 1213 or 
1214, but their engagement was broken.[9][10] In 1214, the King requested the Pope 
to excommunicate some unnamed lords who were planning to crown Béla king.[3][11] 
Even so, the eight-year-old Béla was crowned in the same year, but his father did not 
grant him a province to rule.[12] Furthermore, when leaving for a Crusade to the Holy 
Land in August 1217, King Andrew appointed John, Archbishop of Esztergom, to 
represent him during his absence.[13][14] During this period, Béla stayed with his 
maternal uncle Berthold of Merania in Steyr in the Holy Roman Empire.[13] Andrew II 
returned from the Holy Land in late 1218.[15] He had arranged the engagement of 
Béla and Maria, a daughter of Theodore I Laskaris, Emperor of Nicaea.[13] She 
accompanied King Andrew to Hungary and Béla married her in 1220.[1]
Béla's wife, Maria Laskarina was born in 1207 or 1208, according to historian Gyula 
Kristó.[146] She died in July or August 1270.[142] Their first child, Kunigunda, was 
born in 1224, four years after her parents' marriage.[146][147] She married to Boleslaw 
the Chaste, Duke of Cracow in 1246.[148]

A second daughter, Margaret followed Kunigunda in about 1225; she died unmarried 
before 1242.[147][149] The third daughter of Béla, Anna was born around 1226.[147]
[149] She and her husband, Rostislav Mikhailovich were especially favored by Béla.
[147][150] Her great-grandson, Wenceslaus—a grandson of her daughter, Kunigunda by 
King Ottokar II of Bohemia—was King of Hungary from 1301 to 1305.[151]

Béla's fourth child, Catherina died unmarried before 1242.[151] Next, Elisabeth was 
born; she was given in marriage to Henry XIII, Duke of Bavaria in about 1245.[147] 
Her son, Otto was crowned King of Hungary in 1305, but was forced to leave the 
country by the end of 1307.[152] Elisabeth's sister, Constance married, around 1251, 
Lev Danylovich, second son of Prince Daniil Romanovich of Halych.[153][72] Béla's 
seventh daughter, Yolanda became the wife of Boleslaw the Pious, Duke of Greater 
Poland.[147]

Béla's first son, Stephen was born in 1239.[154] He succeeded his father.[155] Béla's 
youngest daughter, Margaret was born during the Mongol invasion in 1242.[122] 
Dedicated to God by her parents at birth, she spent her life in humility in the 
Monastery of the Blessed Virgin on Rabbits' Island and died as a Dominican nun.[122] 
The King's youngest (namesake) son, Béla was born between around 1243 and 1250.
[156]

The Greater Legend of Saint Elisabeth of Hungary (Béla's sister) described Béla's 
family as a company of saints.[157] It wrote that the "blessed royal family of the 
Hungarians is adorned with resplendent pearls that irradiate all the earth".[157] In 
fact, the Holy See sanctioned the veneration of three daughters of Béla and his wife: 
Kunigunda was beatified in 1690,[158] Yolanda in 1827;[159] and Margaret was 
canonized in 1943.[160] A fourth daughter, Constance also became subject to a local 
cult in Lemberg (Lviv, Ukraine), according to the Legend of her sister, Kunigunda.
[123]

The following family tree presents Béla's offspring, and some of his relatives 
mentioned in the article.[161]

Parents
____ Andrew (Andras) II "Masodik Endre" (1176 - 21 Sep 1235)
VON MERAN Gertrude (1185 - 22 Sep 1213)

Siblings
____ Bela IV (Nov 1206 - 3 May 1270)

Marriage To LASKARINA Maria (ABT 1206 - 1270)
    m. 1218 

Notes
contract marriage date. Note date of child's birth

Parents
KOMNENOS LASCARIS Theodoros I (1173 - ABT Aug 1222)
ANGELINA Anna Komnene (ABT 1176 - 1212)

Children by LASKARINA Maria ABT 1206 - 1270
____ Stephen (Istvan) V (Dec 1239 - 6 Aug 1272)

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