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In the 1030s Rus′ was home to another group of exiled royalty, the Hungarian princes Andrew and Levente. [7] They had fled Hungary after King Stephen told them that their lives were in danger upon his death. [8] Their other brother, Béla, had originally fled with them, but stayed at their first stop in Poland where he had married the daughter of Mieszko II, the ruler of Poland. [9] Jaroslav and his court took in these exiles, as they had others, with their own interests in mind. Interestingly, Dimitri Obolensky states that Jaroslav even had Andrew baptized while he was in Kyiv, [10] though there is no primary source attesting to it. Levente is known in the Hungarian chronicles as lapsing back into paganism and leading a pagan revolt in Hungary. [11] However, it is difficult to imagine that their parents would not have raised them as Christian, as their mother was a Rusian princess, as noted above. [12] Regardless of whether or not Jaroslav had Andrew baptized, Jaroslav did marry one of his daughters to Andrew. [13] As with many of the dynastic marriages Jaroslav arranged in this period, the marriage of Andrew and Anastasia was a gamble. It was unsure whether or not Andrew would return to rule his country, thus the safer situation for Jaroslav would be to wait and arrange a marriage with a sitting ruler, rather than an exile. These were the kinds of chances that Jaroslav seemed to take with dynastic marriage, however, and there were many foreign policy gains to be made. The first and most basic was that it would benefit Rus´ to have a friendly ruler in a neighboring kingdom, especially in one that neighbored the steppe as well. Perhaps just as important was that Andrew’s next youngest brother was married to the daughter of the ruler of the Poles, and should he succeed to the throne the Poles would be in a stronger position than the Rusians visà- vis Hungary. Despite increasing ties with Poland, this was probably an unacceptable outcome for Jaroslav. Because of these factors it is possible to imagine that Rusian forces might have been used to assist Andrew in claiming the Hungarian throne for himself, though this is not recorded in the primary sources. [14]
Andrew returned to Hungary in 1046 with his wife Anastasia. Not much is recorded of their rule there, though it is known that Anastasia had an influential role in the kingdom. They had three children, Salomon, David, and Adelheid, and as is discussed elsewhere, [15] Anastasia was instrumental in naming these children. János Bak, in his work on Hungarian queens, has stated that foreign queens were vital for the cultural life of medieval Hungary, [16] and there are indeed multiple examples of the influence she had on her eldest son’s career as king and also as exile.
Salomon was betrothed to Judith, the daughter of the late German Emperor Henry III and sister to Emperor Henry IV, in 1058. [17] Like many dynastic marriages, it sealed a peace between the two countries after a period of war. Later that same year, Andrew took ill and had his five–year–old son, Salomon, crowned king alongside him. [18] This was clearly an attempt to create a lineal succession pattern, which, while becoming more common throughout Europe in the eleventh century, was not the norm in Hungary or in many other places (including Rus´). [19] The combination of Salomon's connection with the hated Germans and the crowning of a child when Andrew had a perfectly healthy brother alienated the Hungarian nobility, and after Andrew's death in 1060, Salomon and Anastasia were forced to flee to the court of German Emperor Henry IV. [20] As Henry IV was still a minor, his regency was managed by his and Judith's mother Agnes, who assisted Anastasia and her son–in–law Salomon. Agnes gave Anastasia one of her estates in Austria for herself and kept Salomon and Judith with her at the imperial court. [21] This did not stop Anastasia from maneuvering on behalf of her son. Lambert of Hersfeld records that in 1063 Anastasia gave a Hungarian royal relic, the Sword of Attila, to Otto of Nordheim, duke of Bavaria, with the express intention of convincing him to aid her son in the reconquest of the kingdom which she viewed as rightfully his. [22] Otto was at that time a member of Henry IV’s regency and thus had some power over imperial policy. Later that same year imperial troops accompanied by Salomon and some of his loyal Hungarian troops who had come with him and his mother to the German Empire returned to Hungary and took over. [23] Anastasia is irregularly mentioned as advising her son during his tumultuous reign in (and out of) Hungary, in which he battled with his cousin Géza. She usually counseled peace between the cousins and urged Salomon to be content with his role as king and accept his cousin as a duke. [24] This advice was disregarded, and Salomon preferred to attempt to drive his cousin out of the kingdom. It is recorded that she, as well as his wife Judith, [25] traveled with Salomon through Hungary, [26] presumably with the intention of advising him.
A short aside on the strength of the Rusian–Hungarian ties ensured by Anastasia’s marriage is the story of Ladislaus, brother of Géza and cousin to Salomon, who came to Rus′ for aid. In the early 1070s Géza needed assistance in his war against Salomon, and to that end he sent his brother Ladislaus to Rus′ to petition for aid. [27] Géza and Ladislaus were the grandchildren of N. N. Volodimerovna and the first Ladislaus, but that could not compete with the ties Salomon had through both the Volodimerovna and his mother Anastasia Jaroslavna, so Ladislaus was turned away. [28] As in many cases, we do not have the details from either the Hungarian or Rusian chronicles, but the evident marital ties make backing anyone against Salomon, nephew of the Rusian ruler, unlikely. [29] Anastasia died in 1074, the same year that her son Salomon was expelled for the last time from Hungary. [30] She was laid to rest at Admont Abbey in Austria where she had stayed at times while Salomon was warring. [31] Her life was, unfortunately, not very well documented by contemporary historians, but her actions still come through nevertheless. She was able to influence the selection of names for her children, something rare in the Middle Ages, and she was a counselor to her husband and to her son, helping the latter to regain and hold Hungary. This was quite a life for a woman whose name or very existence is not recorded by the chroniclers in the land of her birth. But the dynastic marriage did seem to ally Hungary with Rus′. Salomon was able to count on Rusian aid, or the lack thereof for a rival, at least twice in his lifetime that we know of from Hungarian accounts. This shows that the Rusians must also have been receiving something in return for them to continue to support the embattled Hungarian ruler.