Esztergom
A town on the Danube in northern Hungary. The older Life of King Stephen says that he made its church the metropolis of the bishoprics he founded, with the consent of the Roman see.
Esztergom stands on the right bank of the Danube, north-west of Budapest. The older Life of Stephen I of Hungary says that he divided his lands into ten bishoprics and made the church of Esztergom, in Latin Strigonium, their metropolis and mistress, with the consent and subscription of the Roman see (Greater Legend of Saint Stephen 8, pp. 232–233).
Hartvic, rewriting that Life about a century later, has Stephen’s envoy ask the pope to confirm Esztergom as the metropolis, and names a monk Sebastian whom the king set over its archbishopric (Hartvic, Life of King Stephen additions to chapters 9 and 10, pp. 233–234). The timeline places Stephen’s coronation here by convention; the sources read for that entry do not say where he was crowned.
What happened here
- AD 1000 or 1001, estimated dateStephen I and the Christian Kingdom of Hungary
Stephen, ruler of the Hungarians, defeats pagan rebels, founds bishoprics with Esztergom at their head, and is crowned king. A writer of his own day credits the emperor Otto III; a Life written a century later says that the pope sent the crown.