Velek

In 1225, ispán Bors, the son of Dominic Miskolc, requested King Andrew II to confirm the former donations to the Cistercian monastery in Klostermarienberg (today part of Mannersdorf an der Rabnitz, Austria), established by Dominic decades earlier. According to the royal charter, Bors married an unidentified daughter of dux Velek. Only the initial ("A") of her name are known. She compiled her last will and testament in 1231, which mentions her sister Margaret.[1]

The anonymous author of the Gesta Hungarorum wrote his work around the same time, most plausibly, in the first decades of the 13th century. In his chronicle, a certain Velek (Velec, Veluc, Velequius) appears as a prominent and valiant warrior, who actively took part in the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin (late 9th century) in the region Tiszántúl, alongside Ősbő. The author refers to "Velek, from whose progeny Bishop Torda is descended. These were most noble by birth, like the others that came from the Scythian land and who had followed Prince Álmos with a great host of peoples".[2]

Modern historiography attempted to connect the person of dux Velek, lived at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, with the Gesta Hungarorum's fictional character with the same name.

Historian Károly Sólyom considered that Velek plausibly married a wealthy Greek woman, who arrived to Hungary in 1172, as a lady-in-waiting of Anne of Antioch, the first wife of Béla III of Hungary. The historian compiled this theory based on the last will and testament of Velek's daughter, who bequeathed several Byzantine-origin assets which had belonged to her mother prior to that. Sólyom argued her name could have been Anne. Sólyom identified the author of the Gesta Hungarorum with Peter, Bishop of Győr, who, he claimed, was the son of Velek. Based on the Gesta Hungarorum, Sólyom argued that Velek was a prominent landowner in Zaránd County. According to Dezső Pais and Károly Sólyom, the settlement Elek, which was named after him, functioned as the centre of his estates.[3] His lands presumably laid along the Fehér-Körös (or Crișul Alb), where Anonymus depicted the campaigns led by captain Velek during the Hungarian conquest.[4] Sólyom even attempted to identify dux Velek with Alexius, a former Ban of Slavonia, but this is clearly a wrong theory for chronological reasons.[4]

According to Tamás Kádár, Velek, who lived around 1200, was possibly a descendant of the late 9th-century captain of the same name, or at least he knew and proclaimed himself as such, and it is possible that there was even a former clan bearing the name Velek – after his name or in honor of him – but it can certainly be ruled out that the ducal title of Velek would have had any connection with his supposed or real ancestry.[4]