Bánk Bár-Kalán
When Emeric captured Andrew near Varaždin in October 1203,[10] Bánk was appointed ispán of Zala County, which then belonged to the duke's realm.
[15] In this capacity, Bánk ("Banko") participated in the Hungarian military campaign against the Principality of Galicia in the summer of 1211, when Andrew II intended to restore the child Danylo Romanovich to the Galician throne upon the request of a group of boyars.
[22] Together with his deputy Benedict, Bánk presided over local judicial summits for the royal servants of Újvár, Szabolcs and Borsod counties in Northeast Hungary at the turn of 1221 and 1222, as notes of the Regestrum Varadinense shows, which can be consider as precursors of the later regular palatinal assemblies (Latin: generalis congregatio), according to historians Ilona Bolla, István Tringli and Attila Zsoldos.
But alas, this lady, without doubt yielding to the persuasions of the enemy of the human race, by force handed over the wife of that great man Ban Bánk to a guest, one of her brothers, who violated her.
Therefore Ban Bánk, of the Bor [Bár-Kalán] kindred, cruelly stainded his sword with the blood of the queen, and she died of her grievous wounds in the year of our Lord 1212 [sic!].
At her killing there was the sound of lamentation throughout all Pannonia [Hungary] and there followed dreadful and terrible shedding of the blood of all the kinsmen of Ban Bánk.When Andrew II left Hungary for a new campaign against Galicia, a group of Hungarian lords – led by Peter, son of Töre – taking advantage of the king's absence, attacked and assassinated Queen Gertrude and many of her courtiers in the Pilis Hills on 28 September 1213.
[7] The Austrian Rhyming Chronicle ("Chronicon rhythmicum Austriacum") is the earliest known work, which preserved the alleged story of that Archbishop Berthold of Kalocsa, Gertrude's brother, raped Bánk's wife, which was the immediate cause of the assassination of the queen, who acted as a procuress in the adultery.
In addition, the annals used other source too, since, unlike the Austrian Rhyming Chronicle, it mentions Bánk's alleged German name ("Prenger") and the exact date of the assassination.
[5] Historian Gyula Pauler considered Bánk managed to survive the subsequent retaliation, because Andrew II was not strong enough to punish one of the most powerful barons, while the main assassin Peter, son of Töre was executed.
[31] Historian Erik Fügedi argued Bánk was the most prestigious member of the conspiracy, which in the following decades magnified his role and thus became the executor and chief of the assassination in the later narratives.
[32] Historian Pál Engel considered Andrew II had no choice but to be forgiving because he was supported by no more than a handful of barons, therefore only the actual killer Peter was impaled.
[25] Pauler argued Duke Béla persuaded his father to punish the assassins of his late mother – including Bánk –, after Andrew was forced to authorize his son to revise his previous land grants in 1228.
[33] In that year, Duke Béla confiscated the estates of two noblemen, brothers Simon and Michael Kacsics, who were also accused of plotting against Queen Gertrude.
Antonio Bonfini, the court historian of King Matthias Corvinus expanded the story in his chronicle Rerum Ungaricarum decades ("Ten Volumes of Hungarian Matters") in the 1490s.
Based on Bonfini's work, the 16th-century Transylvanian chronicler András Valkai wrote the first Hungarian-language epic poem under the title Az Nagysagos Bank Bannak Historia in 1567.
Poet Hans Sachs wrote a tragedy on Ban Bánk under the title Andreas der ungarisch König mit Bankbano seinem getreutem Statthalter in 1561, updating the story to his own age at a few points (for instance, the appearance of the Ottoman Empire as enemy and the theses of the Reformation).
The English playwright George Lillo also processed the story, but modified the plot at several points in his play Elmerick, or Justice Triumphant in 1739.
The German poet Ludwig Heinrich von Nicolay wrote a ballad in the subject around 1795, while Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht created a dramatic poem (Der gerechte Andreas) in 1797.
Independently from Katona's play and its derivative works, Austrian dramatist Franz Grillparzer wrote his historical tragedy in the subject (Ein treuer Diener seines Herrn) in 1826.
[36] In the play and the opera, the character of Bánk appears as a tragic hero and "defender" of the Hungarian national interests against the "oppressive" Queen Gertrude and her foreign courtiers.
