1.
Epaminondas
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Epaminondas reshaped the political map of Greece, fragmented old alliances, created new ones, and supervised the construction of entire cities. He was also influential and invented and implemented several major battlefield tactics. The changes Epaminondas wrought on the Greek political order did not long outlive him, a mere twenty-seven years after his death, a recalcitrant Thebes was obliterated by Alexander the Great. The life of Epaminondas is very poorly attested in the ancient sources, one principal reason for this is the loss of Plutarchs biography of him. Some details of Epaminondass life can be found in Plutarchs Lives of Pelopidas and Agesilaus II, there is also a surviving biography of Epaminondas by the Roman author Cornelius Nepos from the first century BC, in the absence of Plutarchs, that becomes a major source for Epaminondass life. The period of Greek history from 411–362 BC is primarily attested by the historian Xenophon, Xenophon, who idolized Sparta and its king, Agesilaus, avoids mentioning Epaminondas wherever possible and does not even note his presence at the Battle of Leuctra. Epaminondass role in the conflicts of the 4th century is described by Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus was writing in the 1st century BC, and is very much a secondary source. Epaminondas was born into the Theban aristocracy in the late 5th century BC, Cornelius Nepos claims that his father, Polymnis, had been left impoverished by his ancestors. He was educated in his childhood by Lysis of Tarentum, one of the last major Pythagorean philosophers, Epaminondas evidently excelled as a student, and was devoted to Lysis. He also trained in running and wrestling, but most of all, Epaminondas evidently began serving as a soldier after adolescence, Plutarch refers to an incident involving Epaminondas that occurred during a battle at Mantinea. Epaminondas was certainly not old enough to have served at the First Battle of Mantinea which was in 418 BC and it was at this battle, regardless of exactly when and where this occurred, that a defining moment of Epaminondass early life would happen. Plutarch says that this incident firmly cemented their friendship, and Pelopidas would be Epaminondass partner in politics for the twenty years. Epaminondas was considered the greatest warrior-statesmen of ancient Thebes by many, Diodorus does not have anything to say about the sexual orientation of Epaminondas or the Sacred Band, nor does he say anything about the following account, again from Plutarch. According to Plutarchs dramatic dialogue, Epaminondas had two lovers, Asopichus and Caphisodorus, the latter died with him at Mantineia in battle. They were buried together, something reserved for a husband. Epaminondas lived at a turbulent point in Greek history. Following the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC, Sparta had embarked upon an aggressively unilateralist policy towards the rest of Greece, Thebes, meanwhile, had greatly increased its own power during the war and sought to gain control of the other cities of Boeotia
2.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
3.
Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor
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Henry III, called the Black or the Pious, was a member of the Salian Dynasty of Holy Roman Emperors. He was the eldest son of Conrad II of Germany and Gisela of Swabia and his father made him Duke of Bavaria in 1026, after the death of Duke Henry V. On Easter Day 1028, after his father was crowned Holy Roman Emperor, Henry was elected and crowned King of Germany in the cathedral of Aachen by Pilgrim, Archbishop of Cologne. After the death of Herman IV, Duke of Swabia in 1038, his father gave him that duchy, as well as the kingdom of Burgundy, which Conrad had inherited in 1033. Upon the death of his father on 4 June 1039, he became ruler of the kingdom and was crowned emperor by Pope Clement II in Rome. Henrys first tutor was Bruno, Bishop of Augsburg, on Brunos death in 1029, Egilbert, Bishop of Freising, was appointed to take his place. In 1033, at the age of sixteen, Henry came of age, Henry, in accordance with his promise to Egilbert, did not consent to his fathers act and Conrad, stupefied, fell unconscious after many attempts to turn Henry. Upon recovering, Conrad knelt before his son and exacted the desired consent, Egilbert was penalised dearly by the emperor. In 1036, Henry was married to Gunhilda of Denmark, a daughter of Canute the Great, King of Denmark, England, early on, Henrys father had arranged with Canute to have him rule over some parts of northern Germany and in turn to have their children married. The marriage took place in Nijmegen at the earliest legal age, in 1038, Henry was called to aid his father in Italy, and Gunhilda died on the Adriatic Coast during the return trip. In 1039, his father died, and Henry became sole ruler. Henry spent his first year in power on a tour of his domains and he visited the Low Countries to receive the homage of Gothelo I, Duke of Upper and Lower Lorraine. In Cologne, he was joined by Herman II, Archbishop of Cologne, who accompanied him and his mother to Saxony, where he was to build the town of Goslar up from obscurity to stately imperial grandeur. He had a force when he entered Thuringia to meet with Eckard II, Margrave of Meissen, whose advice. Only a Bohemian embassy bearing hostages appeased Henry and he disbanded his army and he passed through Bavaria, where, upon his departure, King Peter Urseolo of Hungary sent raiding parties into Swabia. There, at Ulm, he convened a Council of Princes at which he received his first recognition from Italy and he returned to Ingelheim and was recognised by a Burgundian embassy and Aribert, Archbishop of Milan, whom he had supported against his father. This peace with Aribert healed the only open wound in the Empire, meanwhile, in 1039, while he was touring his dominions, Conrad, Adalberos successor in Carinthia and Henrys cousin, died childless. Henry being his nearest kin automatically inherited that duchy as well and he was now a triple-duke and triple-king
4.
Hungarians
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Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are a nation and ethnic group who speak Hungarian and are primarily associated with Hungary. There are around 13. 1–14.7 million Hungarians, of whom 8. 5–9.8 million live in todays Hungary, the Hungarians own ethnonym to denote themselves in the Early Middle Ages is uncertain. The Magyars/Hungarians probably belonged to the Onogur tribal alliance, and it is possible that they became its ethnic majority, in the Early Middle Ages the Hungarians had many names, including Ungherese, Ungar, and Hungarus. The H- prefix is an addition of Medieval Latin, another possible explanation comes from the Old Russian Yugra. It may refer to the Hungarians during a time when they dwelt east of the Ural Mountains along the borders of Europe. The Hungarian people refer to themselves by the demonym Magyar rather than Hungarian, Magyar is Finno-Ugric from the Old Hungarian mogyër. Magyar possibly derived from the name of the most prominent Hungarian tribe, the tribal name Megyer became Magyar in reference to the Hungarian people as a whole. Magyar may also derive from the Hunnic Muageris or Mugel, the Greek cognate of Tourkia was used by the scholar and Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in his De Administrando Imperio of c. AD950, though in his use, Turks always referred to Magyars, the historical Latin phrase Natio Hungarica had a wider meaning because it once referred to all nobles of the Kingdom of Hungary, regardless of their ethnicity. During the 4th millennium BC, the Uralic-speaking peoples who were living in the central, some dispersed towards the west and northwest and came into contact with Iranian speakers who were spreading northwards. From at least 2000 BC onwards, the Ugrian speakers became distinguished from the rest of the Uralic community, judging by evidence from burial mounds and settlement sites, they interacted with the Indo-Iranian Andronovo culture. In the 4th and 5th centuries AD, the Hungarians moved from the west of the Ural Mountains to the area between the southern Ural Mountains and the Volga River known as Bashkiria and Perm Krai. In the early 8th century, some of the Hungarians moved to the Don River to an area between the Volga, Don and the Seversky Donets rivers, meanwhile, the descendants of those Hungarians who stayed in Bashkiria remained there as late as 1241. The Hungarians around the Don River were subordinates of the Khazar khaganate and their neighbours were the archaeological Saltov Culture, i. e. Bulgars and the Alans, from whom they learned gardening, elements of cattle breeding and of agriculture. Tradition holds that the Hungarians were organized in a confederacy of seven tribes, the names of the seven tribes were, Jenő, Kér, Keszi, Kürt-Gyarmat, Megyer, Nyék, and Tarján. Around 830, a rebellion broke out in the Khazar khaganate, as a result, three Kabar tribes of the Khazars joined the Hungarians and moved to what the Hungarians call the Etelköz, the territory between the Carpathians and the Dnieper River. The Hungarians faced their first attack by the Pechenegs around 854, the new neighbours of the Hungarians were the Varangians and the eastern Slavs. In 895/896, under the leadership of Árpád, some Hungarians crossed the Carpathians, the tribe called Magyar was the leading tribe of the Hungarian alliance that conquered the centre of the basin
5.
Richard I of England
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Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes and he was the third of five sons of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was known as Richard Cœur de Lion or Richard the Lionheart because of his reputation as a military leader. He was also known in Occitan as Oc e No, because of his reputation for terseness, by the age of 16, Richard had taken command of his own army, putting down rebellions in Poitou against his father. Richard spoke both French and Occitan and he was born in England, where he spent his childhood, before becoming king, however, he lived most of his adult life in the Duchy of Aquitaine, in the southwest of France. Following his accession, he spent very little time, perhaps as little as six months, most of his life as king was spent on Crusade, in captivity, or actively defending his lands in France. Rather than regarding his kingdom as a responsibility requiring his presence as ruler, nevertheless, he was seen as a pious hero by his subjects. He remains one of the few kings of England remembered by his epithet, rather than regnal number, Richard was born on 8 September 1157, probably at Beaumont Palace, in Oxford, England, son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was a brother of Count William IX of Poitiers, Henry the Young King. As the third son of King Henry II, he was not expected to ascend the throne. He was also a brother of Duke Geoffrey II of Brittany, Queen Eleanor of Castile, Queen Joan of Sicily, and Count John of Mortain. Richard was the younger maternal half-brother of Countess Marie of Champagne, the eldest son of Henry II and Eleanor, William, died in 1156, before Richards birth. Richard is often depicted as having been the son of his mother. His father was Angevin-Norman and great-grandson of William the Conqueror, contemporary historian Ralph of Diceto traced his familys lineage through Matilda of Scotland to the Anglo-Saxon kings of England and Alfred the Great, and from there linked them to Noah and Woden. According to Angevin legend, there was even infernal blood in the family, while his father visited his lands from Scotland to France, Richard probably spent his childhood in England. His first recorded visit to the European continent was in May 1165 and his wet nurse was Hodierna of St Albans, whom he gave a generous pension after he became king. Little is known about Richards education, during his captivity, English prejudice against foreigners was used in a calculated way by his brother John to help destroy the authority of Richards chancellor, William Longchamp, who was a Norman. One of the charges laid against Longchamp, by Johns supporter Hugh
6.
Mindaugas
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Mindaugas was the first known Grand Duke of Lithuania and the only King of Lithuania. Little is known of his origins, early life, or rise to power, he is mentioned in a 1219 treaty as an elder duke, the contemporary and modern sources discussing his ascent mention strategic marriages along with banishment or murder of his rivals. He extended his domain into regions southeast of Lithuania proper during the 1230s and 1240s, during the summer of 1253 he was crowned King of Lithuania, ruling between 300,000 and 400,000 subjects. While his ten-year reign was marked by various state-building accomplishments, Mindaugass conflicts with relatives and other dukes continued and his gains in the southeast were challenged by the Tatars. He broke peace with the Livonian Order in 1261, possibly renouncing Christianity and his three immediate successors were assassinated as well. The disorder was not resolved until Traidenis gained the title of Grand Duke c, although his reputation was unsettled during the following centuries and his descendants were not notable, he gained standing during the 19th and 20th centuries. Mindaugas was the only King of Lithuania, while most of the Lithuanian Grand Dukes from Jogaila onward also reigned as Kings of Poland, in the 1990s the historian Edvardas Gudavičius published research supporting an exact coronation date –6 July 1253. This day is now a national holiday, Statehood Day. Contemporary written sources about Mindaugas are very scarce, much what is known about his reign is obtained from the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle and the Hypatian Codex. Both of these chronicles were produced by enemies of Lithuania and thus have anti-Lithuanian bias and they are also incomplete, both of them lack dates and locations even for the most important events. For example, the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle devoted 125 poetry lines to Mindaugas coronation, other important sources are the papal bulls regarding baptism and coronation of Mindaugas. The Lithuanians did not produce any surviving records themselves, except for a series of acts granting lands to the Livonian Order, due to lack of sources, some important questions regarding Mindaugas and his reign cannot be answered. Because written sources covering the era are scarce, Mindaugas origins and his year of birth, sometimes given as c. 1200, is at times left as a question mark. His father is mentioned in the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle as a powerful duke, Dausprungas, mentioned in the text of a 1219 treaty, is presumed to have been his brother, and Dausprungas sons Tautvilas and Gedvydas his nephews. He is thought to have had two sisters, one married to Vykintas and another to Daniel of Halych, Vykintas and his son Treniota played major roles in later power struggles. In addition to Vaišvilkas and his sister, two sons, Ruklys and Rupeikis, are mentioned in written sources, the latter two were assassinated along with Mindaugas. Information on his sons is limited and historians continue to discuss their number and he may have had two other sons whose names were later conflated by scribes into Ruklys and Rupeikis
7.
Lithuania
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Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in Northern Europe. One of the three Baltic states, it is situated along the shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Sweden. It is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.9 million people as of 2015, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The official language, Lithuanian, along with Latvian, is one of two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. For centuries, the shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, the King of Lithuania, and the first unified Lithuanian state, with the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772–95, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuanias territory. As World War I neared its end, Lithuanias Act of Independence was signed on 16 February 1918, in the midst of the Second World War, Lithuania was first occupied by the Soviet Union and then by Nazi Germany. As World War II neared its end and the Germans retreated, Lithuania is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe, a full member of the Eurozone, Schengen Agreement and NATO. It is also a member of the Nordic Investment Bank, the United Nations Human Development Index lists Lithuania as a very high human development country. Lithuania has been among the fastest growing economies in the European Union and is ranked 21st in the world in the Ease of Doing Business Index, the first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC. Over a millennium, the Indo-Europeans, who arrived in the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC, mixed with the local population, the first written mention of Lithuania is found in a medieval German manuscript, the Annals of Quedlinburg, in an entry dated 9 March 1009. Initially inhabited by fragmented Baltic tribes, in the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, after his assassination in 1263, pagan Lithuania was a target of the Christian crusades of the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order. Despite the devastating century-long struggle with the Orders, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania expanded rapidly, by the end of the 14th century, Lithuania was one of the largest countries in Europe and included present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia. The geopolitical situation between the west and the east determined the multicultural and multi-confessional character of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the ruling elite practised religious tolerance and Chancery Slavonic language was used as an auxiliary language to the Latin for official documents. In 1385, the Grand Duke Jogaila accepted Polands offer to become its king, Jogaila embarked on gradual Christianization of Lithuania and established a personal union between Poland and Lithuania. It implied that Lithuania, the fiercely independent land, was one of the last pagan areas of Europe to adopt Christianity, after two civil wars, Vytautas the Great became the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1392. During his reign, Lithuania reached the peak of its expansion, centralization of the state began
8.
Pope Clement VI
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Clement VI, born Pierre Roger, was pope from 7 May 1342 to his death in 1352. He was the fourth Avignon pope, Clement is the pope who reigned during the first visitation of the Black Death, during which he granted remission of sins to all who died of the plague. Pierre Roger was born in the château of Maumont, today part of the commune of Rosiers-dÉgletons, Corrèze, in Limousin, Pierre also had two sisters, Delphine, who married Jacques de Besse, and Alienor, who married Jacques de la Jugie. His brother Guillaume became Seigneur de Chambon, thanks to his wifes dowry, Roger entered the Benedictine order as a boy in 1301, at the Abbey of La Chaise-Dieu in the diocese of Clermont in the Auvergne. After six years there, he was directed to higher studies by the Bishop of Le Puy, Jean de Cumenis, in 1307 he took up studies in Paris at the College de Sorbonne, where he entered the Collège de Narbonne. To support him, beyond what was supplied by his bishop and his abbot, Pierre was in his thirty-first year. He lectured publicly on the Sententiae of Peter Lombard, and defended and promoted the works of Thomas Aquinas and he was appalled by the Defensor Pacis of Marsilius of Padua, and wrote a treatise in 1325 condemning its principles and defending Pope John XXII. He was granted the priory of St and he held the position until 1329. Pierre Roger was called to Avignon through the influence of his friend and protector, Cardinal Pierre de Mortemart, unfortunately, King Charles IV died on 1 February 1328, the last Capetian king of France in the direct line. He received no reply, however, from King Edward, and was forced to return to France, on 3 December 1328 Peter Roger was named Bishop of Arras, in which capacity he became a royal councilor of King Philip VI. He held the diocese of Arras only until 24 November 1329, less than a year and he held the Archbishopric of Sens for one year and one month, until his promotion to the See of Rouen on 14 December 1330. Obviously he was a man in the very highest favor with Pope John XXII, many propositions were put forward against ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which were ably argued by Pierre de Cugnières. Pierre Roger made the rejoinders on 22 December 1329, on behalf of the ecclesiastical authority, when Pierre Roger became Archbishop of Rouen in December 1330, he was expected to swear allegiance to his feudal overlord. He therefore asked the King for time to consider his position, later in the year, in Paris in the Prés des Clercs, the King received the cross personally from the hands of Archbishop Roger. It is said that he was promoted to the office of Chancellor of France, the earliest claim that he was Chancellor is made by Alfonso Chacon. In 1333, the issue of the Beatific Vision, which had been discussion since a sermon of Pope John XXII in 1329. The French Royal Court had been hearing complaints from various quarters, the King privately informed the Pope of their opinions, but the Pope harshly responded to the King that he should stop favoring an opinion which the Pope had not yet definitively settled. The Pope ordered the Archbishop of Rouen, Pierre Roger, to set the Popes view down in writing, ironically, Pierre Roger was not on the Popes side of the argument
9.
Heliopolis (ancient Egypt)
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Heliopolis was a major city of ancient Egypt. It was the capital of the 13th or Heliopolite Nome of Lower Egypt and it is now located in Ayn Shams, a northeastern suburb of Cairo. Heliopolis was one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt, occupied since the Predynastic Period and it greatly expanded under the Old and Middle Kingdoms but is today mostly destroyed, its temples and other buildings having been scavenged for the construction of medieval Cairo. Most information about the ancient city comes from surviving records, the major surviving remnant of Heliopolis is the obelisk of the Temple of Ra-Atum erected by Senusret I of Dynasty XII. It still stands in its position, now within Al-Masalla in Al-Matariyyah. The 21 m high red granite obelisk weighs 120 tons, Heliopolis is the latinized form of the Ptolemaic Greek name Hēlioúpolis, meaning City of the Sun. Helios, the personified and deified form of the sun, was identified by the Greeks with the native Egyptian gods Ra and Atum and its native name was I͗wnw, whose exact pronunciation is uncertain because ancient Egyptian recorded only consonantal values. Its traditional Egyptological transcription is Iunu but it appears in biblical Hebrew as Ôn and Āwen, variant transcriptions include Awnu and Annu. The city also appears in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts as the House of Ra, in ancient Egypt, Heliopolis was a regional center from predynastic times. It was principally notable as the center of the sun god Atum. The primary temple of the city was known as the Great House or House of Atum and its priests maintained that Atum or Ra was the first being, rising self-created from the primeval waters. A decline in the importance of Ras cult during Dynasty V led to the development of the Ennead, the high priests of Ra are not as well documented as those of other deities, although the high priests of Dynasty VI have been discovered and excavated. During the Amarna Period of Dynasty XVIII, Pharaoh Akhenaten introduced a kind of worship of Aten. As part of his projects, he built a Heliopolitan temple named Elevating Aten. The cult of the Mnevis bull, another embodiment of the Sun, had its altar here as well and their personal formal burial ground was situated north of the city. The store-city Pithom is mentioned once in the Hebrew Bible, and according to one theory, ptolemy II had Manetho, the chief priest of Heliopolis, collect his history of the ancient kings of Egypt from its archives. By the 1st century BC, in fact, Strabo found the deserted. In Roman Egypt, Heliopolis belonged to the province Augustamnica, causing it to appear as Heliopolis in Augustamnica when it needed to be distinguished from Baalbek and its population probably contained a considerable Arabian element
10.
Samuel Aba
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Samuel Aba was the third King of Hungary between 1041 and 1044. He was born to a prominent family with extensive domains in the region of the Mátra Hills, around 1009, Samuel or his father married a sister of Stephen I, the first King of Hungary. Thereafter the originally pagan or Jewish Aba family converted to Christianity, King Stephen appointed Samuel to head the royal court as his palatine. However, the king died in 1038, and the new monarch, Peter the Venetian, the Hungarian lords dethroned Peter in 1041 and elected Samuel king. According to the narration of the Hungarian chronicles, Samuel preferred commoners to noblemen. His execution of many opponents brought him conflict with Bishop Gerard of Csanád. In 1044, Peter the Venetian returned with the assistance of the German monarch, Henry III, Samuel fled from the battlefield but was captured and killed. In contrast, the Illuminated Chronicle and other 14th-century Hungarian chronicles describe Ed, Kristó argues that both Samuels Khazar origin and his first name suggest that he was born to a family that adhered to Judaism. However, historians debate whether Samuel himself or Samuels father married the royal princess. If Samuel was her husband, he must have been born before 990 and his Christian credentials are further evidenced by Samuels establishment of an abbey at Abasár which was recorded by Hungarian chronicles. According to Gyula Kristó and other historians, Samuels conversion coincided with the creation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Eger encompassing his domains, Samuel held important offices during the reign of King Stephen. Pál Engel proposes that Abaújvár was named after him, implying that he was also the first ispán, or head, of that fortress, Samuel was a member of the royal council and became the first palatine of Hungary. The death of King Stephen on 15 August 1038 led to his nephew, Peter Orseolo of Venice, the new monarch preferred his German and Italian courtiers and set aside the native lords, including Samuel. In 1041, discontented Hungarian noblemen expelled King Peter in a coup détat, King Aba became insolent and began to rage cruelly against the Hungarians. For he held that all things should be in common between lords and servants, but to have violated his oath he considered a mere trifle, despising the nobles of the kingdom, he consorted with peasants and commoners. The Hungarian nobles were unwilling to endure this from him, Samuel abolished all laws introduced by Peter the Venetian and had many of his predecessors supporters killed or tortured. The contemporaneous Hermann of Reichenau even called him the tyrant of Hungary in his Chronicon, Hungarian chronicles sharply criticized Samuel for socializing with the peasants instead of the nobles. Samuel even abolished some levies payable by the commoners, following his ousting, Peter the Venetian took refuge in Germany
