Ladislas the Bald was a member of the House of Árpád, a grandson of Taksony, Grand Prince of the Hungarians. He is the only known brother of Vazul, a rebellious duke who was blinded on the order of their cousin, King Saint Stephen I of Hungary in 1031 or 1032. Medieval chroniclers, in their effort to conceal that the Kings of Hungary were descended from a prince condemned by the saintly first king, wrote that instead of Vazul, Ladislas was the Hungarian monarchs' forefather. Ján Steinhübel and other modern Slovak historians write that he was Duke of Nyitra under Polish suzerainty, but this theory has not been universally accepted by historians.

Taksony was the Grand Prince of the Hungarians after their catastrophic defeat in the 955 Battle of Lechfeld. In his youth he had participated in plundering raids in Western Europe, but during his reign the Hungarians only targeted the Byzantine Empire. The Gesta Hungarorum recounts that significant Muslim and Pecheneg groups settled in Hungary under Taksony.