His bones were found during an archaeological excavation on the island in 1915. Béla was buried in the Dominican monastery of the nuns by the will of his sister and the royal court. A biological anthropologist examined the bones and while he didn't make any publications he made notes and gave some data to a journalist for an article. For a long time everyone thought the skeleton was lost during WWII but they were in the Hungarian Natural History Museum among many tens of thousands other skellies but someone stumbled upon it this year. There's a little fly in the ointment: the skull with the jaw were lost, only a gypsum copy of the skull (but not the jaw) left. Some vertebrae are also missing.

According to the anthropologist mentioned above the duke suffered 23 wounds from swords, some which hit the head were lethal in themselves. His nose was cut off, both arms were slashed several times just as the left thigh. He was attacked from all sides, there were no sign of a duel.
The recent examination confirmed his observations, added some more and determined a possible scenario how the murder went down. First Béla was stabbed in the back with a dagger, between the 11th and 12th vertebrae, effectively disabling his legs. He fell to the ground and was surrounded and chopped to death. First he held his arms as a defense but after several slashes he couldn't do that anymore and they started to attack his head cutting out pieces from the skull and slitting it several places. Postmortem they cut his nose off and pierced his eyes out.

The crime left without a punishment, just another chapter in the tragic history of the House of Árpád.

>>21547
I'm also interested in parallels and the origin.
As a parallel, I see one in the Merovings, supposedly the Carolings should be similar but I read little about them.
But the source I'm almost sure isn't the Franks. According to legend the progenitress of the dynasty was "visited" by the Turul in her dream like how Mary was visited by the Holy Spirit which is frequently depicted as a dove or Maya by the White Elephant so this is similar to the Ashina tribe you mentioned. They had a totemistic origin myth which can be the source of their respect but the establishment of it in practice with the strict rules of inheritance isn't necessarily going back to pagan times because there is one notable break which repeats the "exception under the rule" twice, or maybe three times in a way actually.

>wha are the reasons that Bela couldnt centralize the kingdom?
It's not a wise thing to piss against the wind.
By the reign of Béla IV's father, Andrew II, a stable nobility evolved. There were no oligarchs yet but as a societal stratum they were strong, influential enough to force him to issue a golden bull - called The Golden Bull - which had similar role to the English Magna Charta which preceded it only by 7 years, wow Hungary so progressive, truly we were First World back then. Andrew also excessively awarded lands to the clerics and nobles, lands which still were the most important source of income and soldiers. To the times of Béla the strength of royal power was noticeably weak enough for him to wish to change the trends. I should note here tho that still everyone had a healthy fear of him. For example he could order that the members of his privy council - the highest notability of the realm - mustn't sit in his presence and noone dared to say him fuck you. They hated him for such petty moves but noone said nothing. However traditionally this and reclaiming of the lands awarded by his father are considered as a reason leading to lose support against the Mongols and the disaster at Muhi. Frankly the time just past the point where the trend could have been turned around and centralize.
It wasn't just too late to centralize but it was also too early too.
With the economical progress, the growing international trade other income sources opened up but things just started to pick up, wasn't enough possibilities yet to exploit to the king's favor. Those times only came by the half of the 14th century. Maybe it could have been done little earlier but the weaker kings just couldn't do anything László IV was murdered by his own subjects, an unimaginable act in previous times.

For the map:
Darker green is the domains of the first Christian king, István I.
Lighter green is the areas where the estates were predominantly his.
The uncolored regions is a mixed bag frankly, some were almost empty due hydrographical reasons, but I think most were in the hands of the clergy (and not the nobility) as it seems these were organized around episcopal seats (little circles with crosses on top of them).
This map is little misleading as around the Carpathians were very sparsely populated and uninhabited regions.

>>22287
Hungarian, semi-Hungarian and foreign linguists saw two possible main origins for he Hungarian language (therefore Hungarian people) one was the Finnic road the other the Turkic. Sharp debate ensued, the so called Ugric-Turkic War, and those "won" who supported the Finno-Ugric side. It's all fine but these linguists decided they also have authority over the research of Hungarian history. And archaeology. Instead of supporting it they started commandeering. The decision came and Hungarian historians in relation of Hungarian prehistory had to ignore every source written just about every folk that was labeled as "Iranian" (like Scythians) or "Turkic" (like Huns) and the area of the search for the Hungarian ancient homeland was first restricted the aread bordered by the Carpathians, Baltics, West-Siberia, Khazakhstan, Ciscaucasia, Black Sea, then it was further limited to the region of Volga-Ural-Ob and Southern Russia. Those who wandered out of these limits - both in region and sources - were labled disparagingly as dreamers or harshly as pseudo-scientific - basically this is how the "guidelines" were took shape and were enforced - and were forced out of the scientific community and was silenced. The origin of the Hungarians (and not just the language) became dogmatically Finno-Ugric and only recent times (I think past 1995) started the "official" researchers open up and look into other sources and other relations.
Ofc there were many other ideas, hypotheses beside the Scytho-Hunnic origin (but usually linked to it), which had less foundation. There's almost no ethnicity on the Earth (except African ones, but I'm not entirely sure of this) which weren't named as a relative of ours, from the Jews to the Japanese but even further to Mayans. The ancient homeland was found everywhere, even on Mu and Atlantis. Also Sirius. Most of these ideas were come from people who didn't recieve historical (linguistical, archaeological) training, didn't have qualificaitons so it was very easy to push those among them who did have but had different ideas than the authoritive figures of science.

So here's the reposts of two legends I mentioned in he music thread.

The next story is not a Hungarian legend but a German one, nevertheless it's about the Hungarians, the invaders of the 10th century. The account was put on papers by the monks of Saint Gall - today in Switzerland - the same people who suffered the strikes of our glorius warriors, and it's a very real tale. The monks ran a library and an archive there. The three main source of the happenings are: the Annals Alemannia, the Casus Sancti Galli (by Ekkehart IV) and the two biography of Saint Wiborada - all were written by them.
After we crushed in 907 at Pressburg the puny army of the child king Louis of East Francia who attacked us with the intention of genocide in his typical German mind, we started our invasions into German territories too. The excursions was very successful and the Magyars raided closer and closer to Bodensee. In 925 a hermit nun called Wiborada prophesied that next year the Magyars will attack Saint Gall's abbey. The monks fled with most of the archives and treasures to Wasserburg with the exception of the one nutty Heribald. He said he won't go anywhere until he doesn't get the leather for his boots for that year.
When our warriors arrived on 1st May they found Heribald on the courtyard. Because they had a translator they soon know that our fine monk is a simpleton so they didn't harm him. They plundered the neighbouring houses, set those on fire and hoarded their findings to the courtyard where they had a large feast and invited Heribald too who participated with great joy. He saw how Hungarians carouse how they joke and brawl with each other. Two of them climbed the abbey and fall down from the roof to their death. They burned their bodies at the gates of the abbey.
They couldn't get inside and they climbed the roofs again, from there they managed to get into the cell of Wiborada who stayed there with another nun and kept praying. One fighter bashed Wiborada's head with a hatchet but left the other nun alive. I've no idea what Wiborada did to deserve this anyway she became later the first woman formally canonized by the Vatican.
Next day the Magyars left to continue their raids and lived happily until they died.

The Legend of Saint Ladislaus

Ladislaus I was a Hungarian king (1077-1095), several legends are connected to his name. He was the archetype of chivalrious king in Hungary and eventually he became the patron saint of the Hungarian soldiers. The legend I want to write you about is depicted on several churches of the Carpathian basin as fresco.
He fought several battles against the Pechenegs and Cumans in his life and the legend is about one of these fights. There are several versions of the story I base my description the one in the Chronicon Pictum (~1360).

During the reign of king Solomon (1063-1074) a great Cuman army attacked the country. Solomon with his two younger brother prince Géza and Ladislaus gathered their troops and went to intercept the Cumans.
These occupied a hill with steep slopes in strong defensive position, their vanguard guarded the lower parts of the hill and started to shoot arrows at the approaching Hungarians. The knights of the Hungarian van led by Ladislaus stormed the lightly armored horse archers who struggled to evade uphills but they were too slow and became minced meat. Ladislaus himself was hit by an arrow but his wound miraculously closed and healed. Then the king and his other brother attacked the hill from two sides. The Cumans probably trapped this way on the hill and the Hungarian warriors "clenched the thirst of their swords with the intoxicating blood of the enemy".
And here comes the actual legend:
Some Cumans fled tho. Ladislaus noticed one of them carrying away a beautiful maiden on his horse. He pursued the enemy warrior on his horse, called Szög (Nail) but their horses matched in speed he couldn't stab the Cuman with his lance. So the prince called out to the girl to grab the Cuman by his belt and yank him off the horse. They fell to the ground then Ladislaus got off his horse and he started to brawl with the warrior as the maiden asked not to hurt the man of the steppes. They brawled for a while without any result then the girl took the prince's battleaxe and cut the Cuman's Achilles tendon. Ladislaus beheaded him then led the horses to a tree where he rested in the arms of the girl.

>>23524
The origin of the story is twofold. Once there is the ideal of the western chivalric knight and the other root is in the eastern scytho-hunnic culture. And not just the motif of the bride kidnapping, there are some goldsmithing work of art which depicts similar themes.