Hunt family
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hunt (or wrongly Hont) was a Slovak noble house in the Kingdom of Hungary. By marriage with the Poznan family in the late 12th century, they created the house of Hunt-Poznan.
According some sources, the Poznans came from Germany, but according to other historical and genealogy research it is also possible the ancestors of this family were already nobles at the time of Great Moravia and preserved their possessions after the incorporation of their territories into the arising Hungarian state.
In the 10th century, the Hunts were one of the many Slovak local noble families. Their seat was the Hont castle. They ruled in the Central Ipeľ region in today's southern Slovakia. When Michael of the house of Árpád ruled the neighboring Principality of Nitra (soutwestern Slovakia; 970 - 995), the Hunts acknowledged his sovereignty over parts of their possessions and became nobles at the court of Michael in Nitra. Over the 10th century, the Poznans kept their Christian faith (the territory was christianized around 800 and then again by Cyril and Methodius after 864). The foundation deed of the Benedictine monastery of Bzovík proves that hereditary estates from the time before the arrival of the Magyars prevailed in their property.
The new prince of Nitra after Michael's death was Vajk (Stephen I) (995-997). The young Stephen and the local nobles represented by Poznan and Hunt developed very close personal relationships. When fighting against the rebellious Koppány in 997, Stephen took shelter with "his magnates" Poznan and Hunt ("Poznano" and "Cuntio"), who made him a knight, added their troops to the retinue of his Bavarian wife Giselle consisting largely of German knights. The united forces then defeated Koppány, so that Stephen became the only ruler of the arising Hungarian state. As a reward, Stephen granted Poznan and Hunt estates in the Nitrian principality and former Koppány's possessions in Somogy, he appointed them as his body guards and throughout his rule they were constantly escorting him and influencing all his decisions.
In the 11th and 12th century the Hunts owned estates mainly in the county of Hont and along the Ipeľ river.
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
- Ján Lukačka: Beginnings of the formation of Aristocracy on the territory of Slovakia (available online)
- Ján Steinhübel: Nitrianske kniežatstvo [Nitrian principality], Veda, vydavateľstvo Slovenskej akadémie vied + Vydavateľstvo Rak, 2004, Bratislava [with several further Slovak and Hungarian genealogy and orher references listed in the book]
- Hunt-Poznan in: Slovakia and the Slovaks - A concise encyclopaedia, Encyklopedical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, 1994
