Blessed Buzád Hahót

Buzád II Hahót, O.P., also Buzád the Great or Buzád the Elder (Hungarian: Hahót nembeli (II.) Buzád, Latin: Magnus Buzad; c. 1180 – April 1241), was a Hungarian nobleman and soldier, who was the first known Ban of Severin. He later gave up his position in society and entered the Dominican Order. Buzád was killed during a Mongol invasion of his homeland, and is now honored as a martyr by the Catholic Church, for which he has been beatified and is also known as "Blessed Buzád" (Hungarian: Boldog Buzád). Buzád was born into the Buzád branch of the Hahót clan, the son of Buzád I (died 1192). According to magister Ákos, the founder of the Hahót kindred was Buzád's grandfather, a certain German knight Hahold I, who himself was a descendant of the Counts of Weimar-Orlamünde and settled down in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1163 upon the invitation of Stephen III of Hungary to fight against his usurper uncle Stephen IV of Hungary and his allies, the Csáks. Buzád's brother was Arnold I (died c. 1234), who erected the family monastery at Hahót. Buzád had four sons from his unidentified wife: Buzád III (his presumptive heir, who, however, predeceased his father around November 1239), Csák I, Voivode of Transylvania, Tristan and Lancelot. The two latter names represent the spread of chivalric culture in the Hungarian elite, specifically the Hahót kindred. According to a non-authentic charter, Buzád served as the Ispán (comes) of Győr County in 1209. There is no record of him receiving any official positions for the coming two decades. In authentic contemporary records, Buzád and his (unidentified) descendants were first mentioned in 1215, when a certain knight of the queen's court, Wilermus, sold his lands between the Mura and Drava rivers for 200 marks to them. In 1217, King Andrew II of Hungary commissioned Buzád to determine the borders of those lands which he had donated to the cathedral chapter of Zagreb in that donation letter.