User:Gibby01/Tas (Hungarian leader)

Tas is one of the wrongly canonized seven leaders of the Hungarians. He was the grandson of Grand Duke Árpád, the father of Lehel (Lél), who died as a result of the battle of Lechfeld.  

Origin
Anonymus' list of leaders mentions Lehel, son of Tas, among the leaders of the conquest, in addition to Árpád son of Álmos. According to this, Tas would have been a contemporary of Álmos, and Lél would have been a contemporary of Árpád. However, at the same time we know that Lehel was the leader of the Magyars at Lechfeld and died 60 years after the conquest as a result of battle, and the legend of Lehel also claims this. At the same time, sources and historians consider Tas to be Lehel's father, so Tas' leadership (before the conquest) is a mistake. Around 948, the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennitos gives the names of Grand Duke Árpád's four sons and four grandsons: Tarkacsu's son Teveli, Jeleg's son Ezeleg, Jutocsa's son Falicsi (called "the current prince"), and Zolta son of Taksony. He then says that Tarkacsu and Teveli are already dead, but Teveli's son Termacsu was present during an embassy. He also says that Árpád's other three sons are dead, but his grandchildren, Falicsi, Tas, and Taksony are still alive. Ezeleg disappeared from the lineup, but Tas, not mentioned before, appeared. Here the emperor does not even mention the name of the fifth, actually eldest son, Liüntika, whom he mentions in another chapter on the campaign against the Bulgarians. So he knows his name, but here he only lists sons who are important from the point of view of succession.

Historians have not yet come to an agreement regarding the solution to the problem. The majority agree that he was the grandson of Árpád, but there are alternative theories:

According to Bálint Hóman and Dezső Dümmerth, Tas was the younger brother of Falicsi, i.e. the son of Jutocsa. In support of this theory, Constantine VII Porphyrogennitos, when listing the Árpád's living grandchildren, emphasis that Taksony is the cousin of Falicsi and Tas.

According to György Györffy, he was the son of Jelek (Üllő) instead of Ezeleg. György Györffy bases his position on the examination of Hungarian settlement names, in the course of which he established the residences of Árpád and his descendants, and found that they were close to each other in the case of Üllő and Tas. In addition, certain entries in Hungarian sources may also refer to this: Anonymus calls Tas Lehel's father. According to other chronicles, Lehel was the ancestor of the Szovárd family. Anonymus, on the other hand, mentions Szovárd and Kadocsa as the sons of Hülek, who is mentioned as Árpád's uncle. If the names of Hülek and Jeleg (Üllő) can be identified, then these fragments of information may be traces of the descent of a Jeleg–Tas–Lehel–Szovárd family (provided they are based on reliable data).

Accommodation area
In the case of Hungarians, György Györffy assumed a so-called semi-nomadic, winter-summer grazing lifestyle, during which Árpád and his descendants wandered along a river between their winter and summer quarters - due to the animals' need for water. Based on the examination of Hungarian settlement names, he found that Tas's winter accommodation was in the vicinity of today's Tas village. We can indicate the location of tge summer accommodation in Tas, which is now part of Atkár. The accommodation area of Tas is thus adjacent to that of Üllő, who is nomadic on the Kalocsa-Üllő line, but is far from Jutocsá, who owned accommodation along the Sárvíz in Transdanubia.

Tas nevét őrzi Nyírtass is, ami a nyíri-bihari dukátus területére esett. A dukátus rendszerint a trónörökös jussa volt, ami mindenképpen jelzi Tas Árpád-házi voltát. 948-ban, amikor a bizánci császár szerint Falicsi volt a nagyfejedelem, öccse vagy unokatestvére, Tas lehetett a trónörökös. Végül azonban nem ő – vagy csak nem tudunk róla – hanem Taksony lett Falicsi után a nagyfejedelem, vagy Tas halála, vagy a 955-ös augsburgi csata következtében, ami után Jutocsa és Üllő ágai háttérbe szorultak Árpád utódai között. Nyírtass also preserves the name of Tas, which fell on the territory of the Nyír-Bihar duchy. The duchy was usually the property of the heir to the throne, which should indicate that Tas belonged to the house of Árpád.

In 948, when according to the Byzantine emperor Falicsi was the grand duke, his younger brother or cousin, Tas could be the heir to the throne. In the end, however, it was not him - or it was lost to history - but Taksony who became the grand duke after Falicsi, or as a result of the death of Tas or the Battle of Augsburg in 955, after which the branches of Jutocsa and Jeleg were pushed into the background among Árpád's descendants.

Anonymus about Tas
Anonymus writes the following in his Gesta Hungarorum: "Szabolcs and Tas - the latter the father of Lehel - set out with half of the army on the banks of the Tisza, and after subduing the people there, marched towards the Szamos river to the place that is now called Sárvár. There, under the marshes, Tas, Lél's father, gathered many people; with it, he dug a large ditch and had a very strong earthen castle built, which was first called Tas Castle, and now it is called Sárvár. ... Then Tas ordered a fair between the Nyír and the Tisza at the request of the people who surrendered to their master, leader Árpád. He gave his name to this marketplace, so it is still called Tas vásárának. ... From there they returned to the Bodrog parts and camped by the Vajas water. In those parts, the leader gave a large land together with its inhabitants to Tas, Lehel's father, and uncle, Kölpény, Botond's father."

Landmarks



 * The third, rearmost statue on the right of the monument column of the Millennium Monument, created by György Zala and erected in 1928, is a 4.7-meter bronze equestrian statue of leader Tas.


 * In 1900, the Hungarian Student Union, which includes the colleges of historical Hungary, had the Seven Leaders Memorial erected on the Árpád hill in Pusztaszer in 1900. Bronze relief effigies of Árpád and his conquering leaders were placed on the four sides of the monument.


 * Several Hungarian settlements believe that it was founded by the tribe of the Tas leader, or that it was named after him, etc Tass Sárvár - where Tas built a castle and Nyírtass - where he held a fair and where his equestrian statue now stands.
 * Tass
 * Sárvár - where Tas built a castle
 * Nyírtass - where he held a fair and where his equestrian statue now stands.


 * This is how Géza Gárdonyi writes about Tas in his poem The Seven Leaders:


 * "... Leader Tas also left a pearl of news behind:
 * He made King Marót a pagan,
 * He was the father of the glorious Lehel,
 * whose horn you raise in Jászberény! …”


 * In Gábor Koltay's film the Conquest, György Dörner played Tas, who, according to the film, was the leader of the Jenő tribe and together with Árpád's son, Levente or Liüntika, led the Lower Danube campaign against the Bulgarians.