page_title: Solomon, King of Hungary
section_title: Abdication
hierarchical_section_title: Solomon, King of Hungary / Abdication
context_page_description: Solomon, also Salomon was King of Hungary from 1063. Being the elder son of Andrew I, he was crowned king in his father's lifetime in 1057 or 1058. However, he was forced to flee from Hungary after his uncle, Béla I, dethroned Andrew in 1060. Assisted by German troops, Solomon returned and was again crowned king in 1063. On this occasion he married Judith, sister of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor. In the following year he reached an agreement with his cousins, the three sons of Béla I. Géza, Ladislaus and Lampert acknowledged Solomon's rule, but in exchange received one-third of the kingdom as a separate duchy.
  In the following years, Solomon and his cousins jointly fought against the Czechs, the Cumans and other enemies of the kingdom. Their relationship deteriorated in the early 1070s and Géza rebelled against him. Solomon could only maintain his rule in a small zone along the western frontiers of Hungary after his defeat in the Battle of Mogyoród on 14 March 1074. He officially abdicated in 1081, but was arrested for conspiring against Géza's brother and successor, Ladislaus.
  Solomon was set free during the canonization process of the first king of Hungary, Stephen I, in 1083.
context_section_description: After the battle of Mogyoród, Duke Géza's soldiers pursued Solomon and his men "from dawn to dusk", but they managed to take refugee in Moson, where his mother and wife had been staying. According to the Illuminated Chronicle, the queen mother blamed her son for the defeat, which filled Solomon with so much anger that he wanted to "strike his mother in the face". His wife held him back by catching his hand.
  Thereafter, Solomon preserved only Moson and the nearby Pressburg (Bratislava, Slovakia). Other parts of the kingdom accepted the rule of Géza, who had been proclaimed king after his victory.
  Solomon sent his envoys to Henry IV and promised "six of the strongest fortified cities in Hungary" if his brother-in-law would help him to depose Géza. He was even ready to accept the German monarch's suzerainty.
  Henry IV invaded Hungary in August. He marched as far as Vác, but soon withdrew from Hungary without defeating Géza. Nevertheless, the German invasion strengthened Solomon's rule in the region of his two fortresses, where he continued to exercise all royal prerogatives, including coinage. His mother and wife left him and followed Henry IV to Germany. According to Berthold of Reichenau's Chronicle:
  That summer [Henry IV] undertook an expedition into Hungary to help King Salomon, who also because of his insolent and shameful crimes had been deposed from his office by his father's brother (sic) and the other magnates of the kingdom, for whose counsels he cared little. [Henry IV], however, was able to achieve nothing of what he wished there, namely to restore Salomon. Finally, bringing back his sister, Queen Judith, the wife of Salomon, he returned home to Worms
  Solomon attempted to convince Pope Gregory VII to support him against Géza. However, the pope condemned him for having accepted his kingdom "as a fief from the king of the Germans" and claimed suzerainty over Hungary. Thereafter it was Henry IV's support which enabled Solomon to resist Géza's all attempts at taking Moson and Pressburg. The German monarch even sent one of his main opponents, Bishop Burchard II of Halberstadt, into exile to Solomon in June 1076. Solomon's wife, Queen Judith, who was about to return to her husband, undertook to take the imprisoned bishop to Hungary, but the prelate managed to escape.
  Géza decided to start new negotiations with Solomon. However, he died on 25 April 1077 and his partisans proclaimed his brother, Ladislaus, king. The new king occupied Moson in 1079, thus Solomon could preserve only Pressburg. In 1080 or 1081, the two cousins concluded a treaty, according to which Solomon acknowledged Ladislaus as king in exchange for "revenues sufficient to bear the expenses of a king".
caption: King Solomon is cursed by his mother, a picture by Soma Orlai Petrich
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