page_title: Győr (genus)
section_title: Theories of origin
hierarchical_section_title: Győr (genus) / Theories of origin
caption_attribution_description: Miniature of Pat
context_page_description: Győr was the name of a gens in the Kingdom of Hungary. The ancestor of the kindred was a German knight, who arrived to Hungary in the first half of the 11th century. His descendants settled down in Transdanubia. The last scion of the family died in the 17th century.
context_section_description: The next to come was Pot of Lébény, also known as Ernest. he entered Hungary with many warriors. Count Conrad of Altenburg traces his origins from him.
  — Simon of Kéza: Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum
  The clan of Poth is descended from the Emperor (sic!) Conrad of Altinburg, and he came to Pannonia in the time of King Salomon, son of King Andreas. At this time he was called Hernistus, but received the name of Poth because he acted as messenger between the Emperor Conrad and the Kings Andreas and Salomon. In the German language Poth has the same meaning as the Latin nuntius.
  — Illuminated Chronicle
  Medieval chronicles unanimously considered the Győr (also Geur or Jeur) kindred originated from Germany, who came to the Kingdom of Hungary in the first half of the 11th century. The fourteenth-century chronicle composition (Illuminated Chronicle) does not refer to the clan, when describes the circumstances of the foundation of the Zselicszentjakab Abbey by family member Otto in 1061. Majority of the historians – for instance, György Györffy, Gyula Kristó and Erik Fügedi accepted the theory of German origin. Györffy wrote the clan arrived to the kingdom at the beginning of the reign of Stephen I, the first king of Hungary. He considered the ancestor of the kindred was German knight Győr, who participated in the defeat of Koppány alongside other foreign warriors, and settled down in Western Hungary after receiving royal land donations. Consequently, the county and the diocese were named after him. Historian Erik Fügedi claimed the kindred came to the Kingdom of Hungary during the reign of Andrew I (r. 1046–1060) and also accepted the individual Győr as the founder of the clan. Gyula Kristó accepted the narration of the Illuminated Chronicle, which says Poth (also Pot or Pat) arrived to Hungary during Solomon's rule (1063–1074), but he does not connect him to the Győr kindred; he argues its first member was Otto.
  Other historians refused to accept the kindred's claimed German ancestry; late 19th-century genealogist János Karácsonyi did not consider Otto as a member of the clan. Instead, he argued, the first known member of the Óvár branch Stephen I (see below) was also the progenitor of the entire kinship. Karácsonyi also emphasized the members of the kindred bore forenames of Hungarian or Biblical origin (e.g. Csépán, Ders, Pousa, Saul or Pat). Elemér Mályusz considered the Győr clan's native ancestry too. However numerous maternal members of the Győr kindred became related with ancient Hungarian kindreds (for instance, Geregye, Csák, Monoszló and Bár-Kalán) through marriages in the 13th century, which influenced the naming habits within the kindred from the paternal side.
  It is plausible that Otto was the son of Győr. He founded the Zselicszentjakab Abbey in 1061, a Benedictine monastery at Kaposszentjakab in Somogy County. The deed of the foundation of the monastery is the first extant charter issued by a nobleman in Hungary. According to the document, Otto  excluded his kinship from inheritance of the monastery and entrusted the decision to the king. The terms "cognatus" and "nepos" reflects to distant relatives, but other line mentions a certain Alexius, who might be the (adopted) son of Otto. The document was interpolated by numerous occasions in the following centuries; a note from 1257 claimed that Otto was the son of Győr, which perhaps reflected the interests of the Győr kindred, who were patrons of the Zselicszentjakab Abbey by then. Nevertheless, the narration of the deed confirms that Otto's father (Győr?) had multiple siblings and/or children. Historian Norbert C. Tóth tried to bring the 1061 charter in line with the traditions preserved by the medieval chronicles: he argued Győr was the brother of Pat (or Pot), ancestor of the more illustrious Győr-Moson (or Óvár) branch, while Otto was a member of the so-called Somogy branch (Szenterzsébet, Szentadorján, Szerdahely and Csécsény sub-branches), which initially remained insignificant in the 13th century, but later the Szerdahely branch reached its peak. Tóth considers P
caption: German knight Pat (Poth), depicted in the Illuminated Chronicle
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