Fajsz (), also Falicsi (), was
Grand Prince of the Hungarians
Grand Prince ( hu, Nagyfejedelem) was the title used by contemporary sources to name the leader of the federation of the Hungarian tribes in the tenth century.Constantine VII mentioned Árpád in his book De Administrando Imperio as ', while Brun ...
from about 950 to around 955. All information on him comes from ''
De administrando imperio'', a book written by the
Byzantine Emperor
This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as l ...
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (; 17 May 905 – 9 November 959) was the fourth Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, reigning from 6 June 913 to 9 November 959. He was the son of Emperor Leo VI and his fourth wife, Z ...
. No other contemporary source or later Hungarian chronicle preserved his name, suggesting that he did not take an active role in the politics of the
Hungarian tribes' confederation.
Life
Fajsz was the only known son of Jutotzas, the third son of
Árpád
Árpád (; 845 – 907) was the head of the confederation of the Magyar tribes at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. He might have been either the sacred ruler or '' kende'' of the Hungarians, or their military leader or '' g ...
who led the
Hungarian tribes' confederation at the time of
their conquest of the Carpathian Basin between around 895 and 907. After Árpád's death, fundamental changes happened in the government of the tribal confederation. Although the various tribes could even thereafter act in concert for raids, they did not obey a strong central authority any more.
Even so, as the historian Miklós Molnár emphasizes, "the supremacy of the
House of Árpád
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condit ...
seems to have remained unshaken." For instance, Hungarian visitors to
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth ( Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...
including Termatzus, a great-grandson of Árpád informed Emperor Constantine VII around 948 that the "first chief" of the Hungarians "comes by succession of Árpád's family".
[''Constantine Porphyrogenitus: De Administrando Imperio'' (ch. 40), p. 179.] Constantine VII
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (; 17 May 905 – 9 November 959) was the fourth Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, reigning from 6 June 913 to 9 November 959. He was the son of Emperor Leo VI and his fourth wife, Zo ...
also mentions that Fajsz was the head of the confederation of the Hungarian tribes around 950. The historian Gyula Kristó proposes that Fajsz abdicated after the Hungarians' catastrophic defeat by the
Germans
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, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
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in the
battle of Lechfeld
The Battle of Lechfeld was a series of military engagements over the course of three days from 10–12 August 955 in which the Kingdom of Germany, led by King Otto I the Great, annihilated the Hungarian army led by '' Harka '' Bulcsú and the c ...
in 955.
Name and legacy
Fajsz's name, which was preserved in two forms"Phalitzi" and "Phalis" may be connected either to the Hungarian word for "half" ''(fél)'' or to the verb ''fal'' ("to gobble up"). Historian
György Györffy proposes that the villages named Fajsz in the
Carpathian Basin
The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large Sedimentary basin, basin situated in south-east Central Europe. The Geomorphology, geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewh ...
for instance,
the one in
Bács-Kiskun County
Bács-Kiskun ( hu, Bács-Kiskun megye, ) is a county (''megye'' in Hungarian) located in southern Hungary. It was created as a result of World War II, merging the prewar Bács-Bodrog and the southern parts of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun counties. Wi ...
(
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croa ...
)were named after him. Based on the recorded Phalitzi form of Fajsz's name, Gyula Kristó rejects this hypothesis.
See also
*
Battle of Lechfeld
The Battle of Lechfeld was a series of military engagements over the course of three days from 10–12 August 955 in which the Kingdom of Germany, led by King Otto I the Great, annihilated the Hungarian army led by '' Harka '' Bulcsú and the c ...
*
Gyula (title)
''Gyula'' (Yula, Gula, Gila) was, according to Muslim and Byzantine sources, the title of one of the leaders, the second in rank, of the Magyar tribes, Hungarian tribal federation in the 9th–10th centuries. In the earliest Hungarian sources, the ...
*
Horka (title) Horka,Tamás Hölbling, A honfoglalás forráskritikája I. – A külföldi kútfők, Ad Librum Kiadó, 2010, p. 263 or harka, was a title used by the Magyar tribes in the 9th and 10th centuries. According to Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphy ...
*
Principality of Hungary
The (Grand) Principality of HungaryS. Wise BauerThe history of the medieval world: from the conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade W. W. Norton & Company, 2010, p. 586George H. HodosThe East-Central European region: an historical outline ...
References
Sources
*''Constantine Porphyrogenitus: De Administrando Imperio'' (Greek text edited by Gyula Moravcsik, English translation by Romillyi J. H. Jenkins) (1967). Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies. .
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Further reading
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{{authority control
House of Árpád
Hungarian monarchs
10th-century rulers in Europe
10th-century Hungarian people