Gyula

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For the town in Hungary see Gyula, Hungary

• Gyula is a Hungarian male given name. It was adopted as a given name sometime after the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary. It was revived in the 19th century and is often associated with the Latin name Julius.
• Gyula is the Hungarian form of an originally Turkic word which entered the Hungarian language at some point before 950 CE. The word was mentioned as a Magyar title by Arabic chroniclers such as Ibn Rusta and by the Persian historian and geographer Gardizi.

[edit] History

The exact use of the word gyula by the Magyars is unclear but, based on contemporary sources, many Hungarian historians believe that under the system of dual kingship which the Magyars used in the 9th century, the two kings of the tribal confederation were the kende (or kündü) and the gyula. While the former was the nominal leader, the latter was the chief warlord or military commander. This kind of dual leadership was usual in the Khazar Empire of which the Magyar tribes were earlier subjects. At the time of the settlement in the Pannonian plain, the kende was Kurszán while the gyula was Álmos and then his son Árpád. Kurszán was killed during a raid in 904 and Árpád became the sole ruler of the nation. After having secured the succession for his son Zoltán, he conferred the office of gyula on another tribal chief.

According to Hungarian historians the word gyula might have been used as the title of the semi-indepedendent rulers of Transylvania during the 10th century. The gyula and the horka a held a rank in Hungarian society second only to the fejedelem (ruling prince), and slightly above the rank of úr which was used to refer to the other tribal chieftains, who each ruled as prince in their own domain. The title gyula is sometimes translated into English as duke, which is not entirely equivalent as Hungary at this time was still a tribal society based on kinship ties, rather than a feudal society. It is possible that during the 10th century some of the holders of the title of gyula also used Gyula as a personal name, but the issue has been confused because the chronicler of one of the most important primary sources (the Gesta Hungarorum) has been shown to have used titles or even names of places as personal names in some cases. The word gyula, like other ancient Magyar titles, was not used after the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary.

The following names of characters mentioned in the Hungarian Gestas and De Administrando Imperio are considered by Hungarian historians as an erroneous interpretation of the title gyula by the chroniclers. Romanian authors consider them to have been the names of persons with a possible proto-Romanian descent:

• Gylas - mentioned in De Administrando Imperio - a 'Tourk' (the name for Magyars used in the chronicle) chieftain who was baptised as an Orthodox Christian in Constantinople, probably in 953, and received the title of patricius. He was accompanied on his way back by an Greek Orthodox monk named Hierotheus who had been ordained Metropolitan of Tourkias (the name for Hungary employed by the Byzantines). According to De Administrando Imperio, Tourkias was bordered by the Cris river in the east, and laid a distance of four days from Patzinakia, which had its western limits on the Eastern Carpathian mountains. Gylas constructed a Basilica, and received missionaries in his domains along the river Tisza. The metropolis (diocese) of Tourkias was centered at Bács in today's Hungary. Gylas is identified by some historians with Geula the old from the Hungarian Gestas (see below).

• Geula, Gyyla, Jula the old - mentioned by the Hungarian Gestas - a ruler (dux magnus et potens) in Transylvania during the middle of the 10th century. According to Gesta Hungarorum, Geula was the grandson of Tuhutum, a captain of Árpád who defeated Gelou, the former ruler of Transylvania. According to the Chronicon Pictum, Geula discovered the city of Alba (now Alba Iulia) during a hunt, made it his residence, and enlarged his territory to the Tisza, proving himself an enemy of the Magyars from Pannonia. According to the Gesta Hungarorum, Geula was the father of Sarolt who married Geza, the ruling prince of the Magyars during the last three decades of the tenth century. Although born a pagan, Sarolt was brought up as an Orthodox Christian, writing with cyrilic letters. The name Sarolt is of Turkic origin (šar-oldu means "white weasel")

• Geula, Gyyla, Jula, Gyula the young - mentioned by the Hungarian Gestas - was a ruler in Transylvania during the late 10th century. According to the Gesta Hungarorum, he was the son of Zombor and nephew of Geula the old. Geula the young was an independent ruler, antagonising Stephen I of Hungary by giving refuge to the latter's political and religious opponents and maintaining control of the economically important Transylvanian salt mines. He was defeated and his domain taken by Stephen I of Hungary in 1003.

An Arabic source Ibn Hayyan's Kitab al-Muktabis mentions too a Gyula among the leaders of a Magyar army, which invaded Iberia in 942.