Fajsz (), also Falicsi (), was
Grand Prince of the Hungarians from about 950 to around 955. All information on him comes from ''
De administrando imperio
(; ) is a Greek-language work written by the 10th-century Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII. It is a domestic and foreign policy manual for the use of Constantine's son and successor, the Emperor Romanos II. It is a prominent example of Byz ...
'', a book written by the
Byzantine Emperor
The foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, which Fall of Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as legitimate rulers and exercised s ...
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (; 17 May 905 – 9 November 959) was the fourth Byzantine emperor of the Macedonian dynasty, reigning from 6 June 913 to 9 November 959. He was the son of Emperor Leo VI and his fourth wife, Zoe Karbonopsina, a ...
. 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 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 c ...
seems to have remained unshaken." For instance, Hungarian visitors to
Constantinople
Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...
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 Byzantine emperor of the Macedonian dynasty, reigning from 6 June 913 to 9 November 959. He was the son of Emperor Leo VI and his fourth wife, Zoe Karbonopsina, an ...
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
Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...
in the
battle of Lechfeld
The Battle of Lechfeld also known as the Second 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 Hungaria ...
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, with the term Carpathian Basin being sometimes preferred in Hungarian literature, is a large sedimentary basin situated in southeastern Central Europe. After the Treaty of Trianon following World War I, the geomorphologic ...
for instance,
the one in
Bács-Kiskun County
Bács-Kiskun (, ) is a county (''vármegye'' in Hungarian) located in southern Hungary. It was created by the merger of the pre-World War II Bács-Bodrog and the southern parts of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun counties. With an area of 8,445 km2, ...
(
Hungary
Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
)were named after him. Based on the recorded Phalitzi form of Fajsz's name, Gyula Kristó rejects this hypothesis.
See also
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Battle of Lechfeld
The Battle of Lechfeld also known as the Second 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 Hungaria ...
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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 ...
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Horka (title)
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Principality of Hungary
The Grand Principality of Hungary or Duchy of Hungary (: "Hungarian Grand Principality", ) was the earliest documented Hungarian state in the Carpathian Basin, established in 895 or 896, following the 9th century Magyar invasion of the Carpath ...
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
10th-century Hungarian monarchs
House of Árpád