St Ladislaus of Hungary

Ladislaus is one of the great kingly saints, but the life is not written as a royal success story alone. Hungary had already received its monarchy and church organization from St Stephen, yet it owed almost as much to Ladislaus for its strengthening and expansion. After a youth overshadowed by dynastic violence and political confusion, he comes to the throne in 1077 with his rights still disputed by Solomon. This life preserves the old portrait of him as the ideal Christian knight: physically imposing, fearless, courteous, deeply pious, and without personal ambition. Power is accepted as duty rather than as a prize. His holiness is shown not only in private morals and disciplined religion, but also in the way he tries to govern a difficult kingdom. It keeps enemies at bay, beats back repeated invasions, works to civilize rougher tribes, and still leaves room in the realm for Jews and Mohammedans to live with legal and religious liberty.

It also stresses Ladislaus’s close alliance with the reforming papal cause against Emperor Henry IV, his support for Rupert of Swabia, and his marriage into that political camp. Within Hungary he governs firmly in civil and ecclesiastical affairs, and it is at his solicitation that St Stephen, St Emeric, and St Gerard are recognized by Rome as saints worthy of veneration. The later part of the life widens into Croatia and Dalmatia, where he intervenes after the murder of his sister’s husband, restores order as he can, and establishes the see of Zagreb. This life notes that other powers protested, yet even Urban II looked to Ladislaus as the kind of ruler whose help would matter greatly in the First Crusade. He dies in 1095 before that expedition begins. The result is a portrait of a ruler who fought, negotiated, legislated, and prayed, but whose sanctity rested above all on the disciplined and Christian use of authority.